Coach Elliott

It may be true that for some men looks are everything.  It seems we have bought into the notion that a woman has to be a size 6, have blond hair and be sexy.  Then there are the girls in the Prada ads that look as though they may be anorexic.  They are so thin that some of us would like nothing more than to feed them, some looking more androgynous than the season before.  In some parts of the world men are selected for women based on their riches, social status or both.  Although we would like things to be different we still live in a world where women who are too assertive are labeled aggressive and women who are liberated must be lesbians.  In the end there is a fine balance between being perceived as too bold and knowing how men often operate.  What men like in a woman is not as limited as one may believe while at the same time more simple than what women think. What are the 5 things men are looking for?: 1. An Empowered Goddess:  More than what women think men respect empowere

I love my clients because they often times remind me of subjects that matter and the things that many of us struggle with.  One of the reminders today was the concept of boundaries and how difficult it can be to set and maintain healthy boundaries with others, especially those who are close to us and who make the mistake of routinely crossing our boundaries.  No matter what we think there will be a repeated need to set new boundaries and to review and reset the old ones. MaryAnne complained a lot about how her husband would constantly share her personal experiences with others in causual conversation often with the goal to get others to agree that she was wrong.  I call it making someone wrong and this man seemed to be the expert on it.  He would bring up something that was obviously personal about MaryAnne even after repeated requests from her to "tell his own story, not hers".  Not only did her husband continue to ignore her boundaries it had gotten to the point where oth

In the movie "Beaches" Bettter Midler and Barbara Hershey become the most unlikely friends.  Bette is a poor kid from the Broncs who smokes at age 10 and Barbara who is also about 10 years old is a princess who comes from a wealthy family.  What makes the story riveting is that they somehow end up in each other's lives as adult women while Bette is working as a singer in a sleazy club and Barbara has become a lawyer like her dad.  What. I loved about the moive, as well as my daughters, is that dichotomy in their lives and the love they shared as friends.  It seemed that nothing would stop them unlike the division of children in our real world.  Bette who went around auditioning with her mom whom she called by her first name, Leona was so frustrated at her antics to get her a job that she shouted out to her mom: "You are ruining my life Leona" and ended by stating: "I hate my life".  It is a film worth seeing and it is touching and real.  Like real life

My initial inclination is to say that when we are an open vessel we invite and attract happiness.  I still think that is true but I also think we can help it along with our intention,  Intention is powerful and as many know it drives us in the direction where we would most likely want to be.  Here are my shares in the area of finding and keeping happiness: Look Inside:  Do not, I repeat, do not look for happiness in other people, you will be disappointed over and over again.  Look inside yourself for the happiness that is either there or not there,  Seek to find out why you are not as happy as you would like to be and ask yourself sone honest questions about the way you are living your life, the things you choose to participate in and what you surround yourself with,  In AA it is equivalent to taking your inventory.  Sit down and make a list of the things you often do and the things you are not doing to decide if you are living in the actions of happiness versus the illusion of happ

As a spiritual mentor I have had the honor to help others heal from their emotional pain through their spiritual aspect.  I know now more than ever that healing comes from our spiritual heart center and not our ego minds.  I cannot say how many people I have met that have been seeing a therapist for years, sometimes ten years who have come to me in desperation and in kind of a last ditch effort to heal their emotional self.  I would not ever knock therapists and their important role in some people's lives and there are may who understand the importance of the spiritual being, often times incorporating basic principles with spiritual principles.  The thing about emotional healing is that it needs to include the whole person and I believe we cannot ignore that very important part of who we are: "spiritual beings having an emotional experience". Emotionally healing from whatever ails us requires that we look deeper but more over it requires that we get the heart center.  I

I am a genius I know.  I may not have all the answers but it does not stop me from hitting the keys on my cordless keyboard and typing every fucking thing I can think of.  It's like when I said to this Black girl how I loved and admired Iyanla and she said to me, "she is really not qualified to do what she does.  I found myself ready to chop her head off.  Here was a young black girl putting an elder black woman with lots of experience, education, training and degrees dissing another black woman.  This to say that some would call me unqualified with my MA in Spiritual Psychology, My BA in Education and my MA in administration, but again, I don't give a fuck.  Did I say that out loud?  Yeah I did and with that I will write yet another blog on how we make ourselves sick.  BTW I am overqualified.  LOL. We make ourselves sick when we:  Stay in neutral or bad relationships:  I like to remind everyone who will listen that I have the t-shirt and I have been there and done i

There are so many of us who are in a constant questioning state around what our mission and what our vision is and becoming clear in both of these areas will effect our life in a positive way.  Becoming clear on what our mission and vision is will help us to live a life of purpose and intention.  Let me explain: Our vision is what we believe we are here to do, what we yearn to do and what we dream of.  Our vision lives in our heart and in our mind but the most meaningful place where it will rise up in glory is that place we hold in our hearts.  A silent, reverent and sacred search of your heart will determine our vision and bring it forward.  Our vision is mainly our dream, the dream of what we see ourselves doing that lifts us to the highest vibration. Some of your visions could sound like this:  My vision is to serve others by writing love poems and publishing them. My vision is to serve mankind by mentoring others using my skills as a spiritual leader and life coach. My visi

I believe that of the many thngs I have struggled with the one thing that has been challenging is not taking things personal.  People will say things, they will share their opinions and at times say negative things to us.  What we must know is not to personalize what others think of us or say to us because in reality we know who we are.  Every time we take something personal we end up feeling badly about what does not belong to us, but how do we overcome that?  Here's what I think: 1. Know who you are.   When we are clear and confident about who we are it is much less likely that someone else will make you feel badly or feel anything that is not true.  We know who we are when we work on ourselves and do the things that help us stay positive and clear of negative energy.  Doing what you need to do is the best defense against the words or deeds of others.  Think of yourself as a gift and know that you are more than how someone thinks of you.  Know who you are and nothing will pen

For some people inner peace comes in the form of religion while for others yoga is their way of finding peace and serenity.  There are so may ways to creating a peaceful and centered life and for those of us who have worked on finding that center of peace there are various ways to achieve this: 1. Daily Meditation 2. Daily Prayer 3. Daily Journals 4. Daily Reading/Daily Word Daily Meditation: Taking the time every day to meditate helps many people to get centered and find their inner peace.  It is a proven method of finding serenity, healing and quieting the thoughts that cause us so much stress.  Meditating every day for a minimum of 20 minutes provide us with the time to regroup and to reboot our spirit.  Some people believe that meditation is religious in nature yet it does not need to be and in most cases is not.  The objective of meditation is to clear your mind and body by focusing on the heart and healing.  It is a time to let go of the rapid thoughts and fears that some

I am sure that you have all heard this one: "He's Not That Into You". The thing is that it is very true and many women miss that memo.  I think that for some it is about this hope that one day he will be that into you.  Yet when a guy demonstrates little interest in a relationship with you, it is best to go with the vibe and understand and accept what is.  Ignoring the five signs that a guy is not the one will likely end up in heart break or something that looks and feels bad. Here are the five signs:  1. He calls you late night to "get together". 2. He does not bring you flowers or any such gesture.  3. He tells you kissing is too intimate.  4. He's not attentive.  5. Everything and everyone comes before you.   1.  He calls you late at night for a "date" or "get together" or "hook up".   We all know that getting late night calls that pose as a date are really a "booty call".  It is simple and straight forwa

We have all asked ourselves this question about our purpose and it is actually a very good question.  We can wander aimlessly through life yet for most of us this does not feel quite right.  We spend a lot of our life trying to figure out what our purpose is and what the meaning of our life is.  We believe this to be a difficult task and hard to figure out yet in reality it is easy once we understand purpose and we understand that each of us has a purpose. Purpose is the reason that we live our life and the way we live it.  When we figure out our purpose we figure out what the actions are that support our purpose.  Some of us figure out that our purpose is to heal while others understand that our purpose is to serve God.  Whatever our purpose is we understand that we are here for a reason and we turn that into an action. I understand that I am here to serve and to help others.  I do this by coaching others in life matters and by making it affordable to people who might not otherwis

I like to think that in my day I was "living la vida loca" as Ricky Martin would say.  I did all kinds of fun, smart and some dumb stuff and admittedly "I did it my way" (sorry songs keep coming up).  When we are single and young we are also naive about life and we may do something like drink five beers and drive home drunk, wondering the next day how the hell we got home.  Not good.  Yet each of us has had his or her youthful journey playing the field and doing as we wished.  Once we were past that young and crazy state we then proceeded to find a partner and many you us married and now today we are all divorced.  It certainly says a lot about the institution of marriage and the fact that it is not for all of us, in fact fifty percent of these marriages end in divorce.  This is the stage at which some of us are learning to live beautiful, productive, free, single lives and more of us are enjoying it greatly. The beauty of being single cannot and should not be und

I must begin this by stating that I love, love, love, being single.  It is the best thing ever.  Yet it was not always like this.  In fact, being single is hard at first for those of us who have only known long term relationships between short stints of being single.  Now that I have the hang of it and now that I have embraced and enjoyed it I find there is nothing better, at least for me.  Still I wish there would have been a good handbook on how to evolve as a single person.  That being said here is my little handbook on "How To Be Single" and here are some of the things that helped me evolve into a happily single man: Read and read some more:  One of those times that I was single, before I made the bad decision to to "internet dating" I decided that I would begin a quest to learning all that I could about the human condition.  I was led to a small book called the "Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz and from that point on I have been reading "s

Am I worth it?  This is a question that so often we ask ourselves.  It comes from a place of unknowing and it comes from the feeling that everyone else should be chosen before we do what we should do for ourselves.  We are without a doubt "domesticated" into believing that self-worth is tied into how educated we are, how much we have and what we accomplished.  Yet for many successful people there seems to be a void no matter how many cars they have and no matter how expensive their home is.  In fact, there have been many of us who have sold everything to live a simple life in the mountains of Ireland or Colorado because we finally understand that owning all these material things has an emotional price not to mention the other work involved.  The question is not really if we are worth it but rather what makes us feel worthwhile and how can we live a life that feels as though it has a purpose, we have a purpose. We try so very hard to find our purpose by accumulating material

When I was speaking to a beloved phone client of mine this evening she led me to understand her struggle with worthiness and reminded me that it is a battle we have likely all fought.  At one time or another each of us has felt unworthy and even have an issue with accepting a gift from someone.  Where does this come from?  Where did this notion that we are not worthwhile come from?  Those are the types of questions we ask ourselves when we attempt to understand this idea that we need to earn love or prove we are worthy, when in fact we cannot ever nor do we ever need to earn being counted in and being worth the effort or worthy of love.   Worthiness is not measurable:  The very first thing about worthiness is that it cannot and should not be measured.  We don't earn worthiness nor can we gain points in life to make us feel or be worthy.  The idea that we can become worthy is ridiculous and irrational.  We are born worthy as is evidenced by the fact that we are here.  We come t

As some of you know I recently got out of a casual relationship that just seemed to be a bit one sided in that I felt like I gave a lot more than I received.  Unfortunately, this happens a lot when we are coupled with someone no matter the degree of commitment, whereby one person does more of the work and makes more of the effort.  Yet for me my decision was based on a few things that I deemed yellow flags that turned into red ones and I am simply content that I can see clearly and exit when it was my time, making myself first rather than second or third on the list of priorities and happiness.  Even with friends I have had to decide if those connections were for my highest good or met my authentic criteria to refer to them as friends.  Overall being single most of the time in the last 5 years has been a blessing.  I have found that my single status is my favorite status of all and that being alone does not mean I am lonely.  In fact, for me there were many times when I was married whe

Relationships can become stagnant when they are lacking attention, agreements, clarity and effort.  Many long term relationships become like a routine and as time passes they lose their appeal.  We are good at having a relationship and not being IN relationship.  We settle for what we can get even though we know we are unhappy.  Many of us opt not to do the work involved in maintaining a great relationship like keeping the lines of communication open or just being honest about what we need and what we are concerned about.  It seems easier to ignore the signs that tell us we are in trouble, yet there are solid ways to enhance and improve our love relationships with our spouses, partners and other family members.  Here's how: Agreements : In every relationship there are unwritten agreements yet in most relationships these agreements are not ones agreed upon or talked about.  We assume that when we marry someone that they know to be monogamous or that when the other person becomes

Many of you may be familiar with Don Miguel Ruiz who wrote "The Four Agreements".  I was lucky enough to be directed to this book many years ago and it began my journey to emotional healing.  In this book he maps out the four agreements: 1. Be Impeccable with Your Word 2. Don't Take Anything Personally 3. Always Do Your Best 4. Don't Make Assumptions When I think about being honest and forthright with my words, not taking what others think of me or say to me personally, doing my very best at all times and not assuming but rather asking for what I want and asking that others what they mean, it has transformed my life.  It is these 4 agreements that seem so insignificant that altered my entire life and that I go back to every time something unfolds in my life that at first I battle with.  When I think about each agreement what comes up for me is living in integrity, doing the self-work I need to do and understanding along the way that everyone has some opinion abo

The reason that we feel so uncomfortable is often due to the fact that we are attempting to live a life as a human being when we are really a spiritual being.  On that quest we stay out of touch with our feelings and we try to avoid becoming hurt, falling in love or being wronged.  Our human notion asks us to control everything possible and even try to control some things that are impossible to control.  Still we try and still we live as if our human actions can change the outcomes when in fact life is much more than the ability to remain cool.  No matter how many times we fail our human thinking makes us believe we can avoid what we like and only do that which we want to do.  Although there seems to be nothing wrong with that and many of us get away with doing just that, most of us will understand that living on the surface is not enough.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience yet what we want to think is that we are human beings having an occasional spiritual experience.