Last week New York City was buzzing with world leaders and dignitaries clogging up traffic and attending the UN General Assembly, where they came together to solve issues relating to peace and poverty.

When Lenny Kravitz came out with his anthem in 1989 the world was at once very different and exactly the same as it is now. The Cold War has been replaced by the War on Terror, the Middle East remains a mess, and there are still far too many people on the planet who live in the midst of hunger, disease and injustice.  Racism and religious bigotry are alive and well, and economies and the environment are in the tank.  Heavy sigh…when will we ever learn?

So what is little ole’ you to do? Well if as the saying goes, ‘peace begins with me’, then the question is, are you at war with yourself or with the people closest to you?

A loving relationship with yourself must come before you can be in one with another, or to even just get along with your family, neighbors or strangers on the subway.  We have to take the time and energy to forgive and love ourselves and others. It’s our responsibility to dig deep to see what is going on inside us, understand it and then have the courage to communicate honestly and lovingly first to ourselves, and then to those around us when appropriate.

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe when used intelligently and intentionally; it can move mountains, heal, connect and transform.

What are you waiting for?  There is no more important time than now to let love start ruling your world. Love of yourself, love of each other, love of your work, and love of life itself – the very breath and heartbeat that is allowing you to read this email.

So if you need a little mediation between your head and your heart, what you earn and what you’re worth, your desires and your reality, or you and your significant other, just give me a buzz and I’ll be the peacekeeping force that helps you reconcile all the conflict zones in your life and make love the law of the land!

At a recent and much overdue reflexology session with my friend Noga Kreiman, I tried to sum up the tumultuous happenings within and around me these past couple weeks that culminated in my visit to her.  As we looked out the window at the fallen trees in her Park Slope backyard she very aptly said,  “Sounds like you had your own personal tornado!”

Last week violent weather unleashed its power on much of the Northeast, with the NYC area hit pretty hard.  If you weren’t addressing the external collateral damage or power outages it caused, there’s a good chance you might have been dealing with some other sort of inner or outer turmoil in your life.

In times like these, it’s important to embrace the destruction and changes taking place, recognizing that often old structures and behaviors need to be demolished and uprooted in order for new ones to be rebuilt stronger and better. Don’t neglect whatever the eye of the storm, and its aftermath, are telling you to pay attention to.

We also need to ask for help when we need it, as difficult as it may be to admit and take that step to reach out. Staying isolated is a fast track into a downward spiral, just like a twister that touches down and in seconds wreaks arbitrary and unnecessary havoc.

So if you are a bit distressed, or feeling like Sting circa1979, don’t wait for a hundred billion bottles to wash ashore; simply give me a buzz, or send me an email message, and I’ll be that lifeline to bring you safely back to drier land and calmer skies.

There is a Yiddish saying a good friend used to quote to me often: Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht. Man plans, God laughs.

On my collage from our Visioning Workshop this past weekend, the renowned Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh more eloquently elaborates on this as: “People sacrifice the present for the future. But life is possible only in the present.”

Especially in this era of instant everything and a world of answers literally at our fingertips, one of the hardest things for us to do is live in that space where we don’t know what will happen next. With the unemployment rate at record highs, more and more people are learning the hard way how to experience life in this manner.

People in career transition, artists and freelancers have to operate without knowing where their next paycheck will be coming from.  People in new relationships are at often at sea in uncharted emotional waters.  Whenever we put ourselves in unfamiliar social territory or a take a trip to a place we’ve never been before we journey into the unknown – which is why it’s so important to travel, as it is one of the most natural ways to be in the present.

An easy way to add anxiety and stress in your life is to allow yourself to be overwhelmed with all the things you think you need to accomplish in the near or not so near future. The reality is that we can’t possibly know what tomorrow will bring so we might as well trust that the right decision or action today will lead you to where you need to go, even if you don’t know where you are ultimately going.

So when life is a big question mark, a blank slate, or if you find yourself in terra incognita, I can help you fill in the blanks and navigate your way through, or simply show you how to be where you are.  Give me a buzz and I will be the lighthouse in the fog, the compass in your pocket, to help guide you to your most authentic destination, in time and on time.

Earlier this summer after having dinner a friend’s house, I looked at her husband and told him he was pregnant.   Not in the transgendered real-life man-mother way or the fictitious Arnold Schwartzenegger way, or even that joking ate too much way,  but in that ‘there is something in you that is just waiting to be born,’ itching to see the light of day way.  In fact, in many Latin languages ‘to give birth’ is literally translated as ‘to give light.’

Besides being a bookend for the season, Labor Day is the beginning of harvest time, of reaping what you have sown earlier in the year. Whatever it is you are trying to manifest, you need to be sure it is a labor of love and dedicate yourself to the work necessary for it to come to fruition. And if you haven’t already started, don’t be sitting around waiting for an immaculate conception.

These things only happen with commitment, focus, time, energy and a bit of elbow grease. After the appropriate gestation period, persistence and deep breaths take you into the home stretch. No pain, no gain, as they say, and everywhere in Nature we see that the moment of birth requires that extra push to get on through to the other side.

As for my friend, he needed to start doing more creative writing which perhaps might yield a novel.  At the very least it would activate a part of himself that was simply not being used in his day job or role as a husband and dad.

What are you trying to give birth to? A special project, healthy lifestyle, your own business, solid relationships, bustling career, creative endeavors, expanding your family, or simply a new and improved version of yourself? No matter what you desire to bring into being, (yes, even an actual baby), give me a buzz so I can be a metaphorical midwife that helps welcome your bundle of joy into the world as easily and effortlessly as possible!

P.S. A favorite quote of mine comes from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet: “….to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s most inmost secret: WORK IS LOVE MADE VISIBLE” Not sure what your ‘work’ is?  Give me a buzz and we’ll figure it out without a doubt.