I would like to share some exciting news with you all.  I recently received a promotion at work!   For those of you who may not know, I work for a Brooklyn court that decides civil and criminal cases on appeal.  For the past five years, I worked as a court attorney, preparing confidential reports for the Judges of the court.  Last week, I was promoted to the position of Principal Law Clerk to one of the judges, which means I am now working directly for her, discussing cases and helping her prepare for arguments. (more…)

Hi there to Transformational Community!

More magic in my life thanks to Ariel and Shya.

I have been resisting a lot this summer so I have been feeling off balance for much of it. So last week, as usual, I caught as much of the Being Here radio show as I could while I was at work – not much, but as always I appreciated it and looked forward to downloading the podcast as soon as possible.  That evening on the drive home and again on the drive to work on Thursday morning, I listened to the Art of Flirting.
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Right now I’m in the Bavarian Forest and it’s a cold but crystal clear day outside (autumn is already in the air). I’m here in Lower Bavaria working as 1st Assistant Director for a new German movie. My job includes setting the shooting schedule, tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging all logistics on the set, while maintaining a working environment in which the director, the cameraman, the actors and crew can be focused on their work &  have fun doing it.
Right now I’m in the last preparation stages for this movie – we are starting to shoot in 6 days – and everything is amazingly different than it used to be at the movies during the last years. Though I still have lots of things to do, plan &  organize till next Wednesday, I’m really calm, very structured and get things done in nearly no time. Even the things that are still unclear don’t make me nervous and it really feels like this relaxedness of mine is like a spark jumping over to all my collegues and my director. Though huge obstacles for our movie appear every day out of nothing, we deal with them calmly and without fear and in a couple of hours we have a solution for these new challenges.

Love and thanks again,
Benedict

Just the other day, commuting from the place I live outside of Hamburg to my office in the city, I was so caught up in my thoughts that I left my everyday survival bag on the bench where I had been sitting. Whilst I had gotten onto another line to get to where I was heading, my bag surely had already caught somebody’s attention and brought that person what he or she might have considered their lucky day: amongst other things, my bag hosted an iPodTouch and 160 Euros in cash. I was pulled back into the moment abruptly and felt a hot rush going all through me when I realized what I had left behind a few minutes ago.

Now I was onto getting the most important things done (blocking all my cards, temporary I.D.) so I could still go on my vacation as planned, two days later.

After returning from a lovely week in the mountains of a region called “Montafon” in Austria, I had already been busy compensating for other things that were lost two weeks earlier. When I suddenly realized that I had missed something.

Valerie, whose company created Ariel and Shya’s  website, contacted me because they couldn’t bill me for the Premium Excellence Club on my credit card information. Oops, you don’t just block the cards, you let people who charge you on them know And that reminded me of a brief encounter with Valerie a few months earlier.

While looking at the Transformational Moments blog I noticed that entries from people had category tags but that there where no categories to click on and see all the entries that shared that same tag. So I let the webmaster know and Valerie answered me and she indeed created those categories to click on, immediately. I was happy I could help and I was impressed she got it done right away.

In this new situation she was giving me the chance to come full circle. For once with completing to compensate for my lost everyday survival bag by giving her the new information. And then with Valerie herself by doing so promptly. The way we exchanged was neat, too. She had suggested that we could Skype. I used Skype a few times some years ago but it wasn’t on my computer anymore. Great – I also had the chance to reinstall it and get my account running again and we had a great little video chat the next day.

No, not happy about loosing my bag. But happy about what came after it. With this little story I finally stopped dragging my feet about participating in the blog. Thanks for all the other posts and also to everybody who speaks on the workshops or the video mini sessions or the conference calls or the Q&A’s or the radio shows.

Dear Friends,

I want to share a story with you that happened yesterday. For 8 weeks I work for company that does IT and logistics consulting. On Monday I got a proposal for a project in the German army and yesterday I got all the attachments for the proposal that said what to do in this project. I was really overwhelmed when reading all the 30 attachments and noticed that it is a project that is worth about 7 million Euro (9 million $). I was so impressed that I did not know how to start and I couldn’t do anything to bring the project forward. When I came home I felt sad and I talked with Dorina, my girlfriend, about what happened at work. I told her about my fear, that I cannot handle the work and that the project is too big for me. What Dorina told me was just brilliant. She said, I should just start working and structure all the work, because than I can see where I need help and can ask colleagues to support me. That was what I did this morning. I just took the biggest attachment with the most requirements, read through it and made a mind map on my computer to see what the work is all about. After having done this, I’m very clear about what to do next and made some appointments with colleagues that will support my work. It just took a bit more than one hour to have all the work structured and it was so easy. Now I know what the next steps are and it seems that the “problem” of really complex work isn’t a problem anymore.
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Dear friends,

I had noooooo idea…..about the degree to which my upsets where running my life. Not the least idea. I came back from this wonderful workshop in Cambridge with Ariel and Shya and of course I had realized that “something” had happened. I hoped for “something” to be different after my return, but I would never ever have expected such a profound difference.

I came home on Sunday night and the first thing I realized on Monday morning was the trigger of an upset. It was like a little “beep” inside me, something jumping, but then….nothing. A few moments later the next little “beep”. And the day went on like this. I was flabbergasted by the sheer quantity of little triggers throughout the day. I didn’t count but there were MANY of them. And for the first time I understood what Ariel and Shya mean by “mechanic behavior”!!!! Because it just happens at a trigger, but the trigger is no real reason. I used to get upset about a thousand things that are no “real reasons” or justifications to get upset. It hurt a little to see that I have also “considered” my children to be a cause of upset. This week I’ve actually been able to be with my kids and weather through difficult situations without getting upset. It is actually almost a strange feeling. It feels as if I had been drugged or doped. Tranquilizers or something. It’s so funny because there is even a kind of a little man inside myself (I picture it that way) really furious about me not getting upset. And it’s also sometimes even leaving me a little uncertain. I am in a traffic jam. I don’t get upset. What am I going to do??? . (more…)

Hi everybody!

Dear Friends,

10 days  ago, I thought it would be a nice idea to send my mother some flowers at Mother’s Day, May 9th.  So I went in the Internet to my online flower shop and checked Mother’s Days flower bouquets. They were beautiful, but nothing really touched my heart. So I checked the other offers, and suddenly a stunning bouquet of a dozen large red roses popped up. A beautiful heart shaped tin box with filled chocolate was attached.  It looked just gorgeous! Then my little voice in my head started: “No, this is something for lovers, not for moms.” And then I saw, they are only available tll April 30th. Ok, enough resonable reasons to forget about it. I looked for something else, and one minute later I jumped back to the roses.  They looked so incredible precious and beautiful. (more…)

Every time I see that an email comes in from one of you I stop whatever I am doing and read, read, read! It is so amazing how just doing that changes my day in some way.  It’s been so long since I have been with all of you and I miss you so so much!

Since the last course and upon signing up for the next one (Step into Your Brilliance) for which I paid in full (and guess what, it was true what you said…the course started to happen then) things have shifted. I got home to California and my life as I knew it before was different. I was able to complete any task in the time needed. I was happier. I was lighter somehow, and the people around me became interesting and interested. My husband, Tony, turned to me at dinner one night and said, “I don’t know what your doing but don’t stop…I can’t get enough of you and love being around you, you look beautiful.”  So, of course I tried as best I could to explain to him what Ariel and Shya do… It was murky I am sure, but he smiled…this big smile and grabbed my hands tight. (more…)

Dear Ariel, Dear Shya!

It was on a Friday, December 11th 2009 when I missed my train to go home.  Right at the train station there is a bookstore called “Rest seller” and as I had nothing better to do while waiting for my next train to leave I took a stroll through the store and looked through the books in the display.  A small, white book with a few butterflies on the cover caught my attention.  I love everything that has wings…such as fairies, angels etc. and there was something playful and light about this book. But being a person that had lost the interest in getting more spiritual books, I didn’t really wanna buy another book.  Besides that, I didn’t expect this book to tell me something new.  At the same time I liked the idea of getting really cozy on my sofa on a cold winter evening and reading short stories, after all it was not an expensive book, so what did I have to lose?  It was just a book with sweet butterflies.  I decided to get it – having NO idea that this book would be the starting point of true transformation and many blessings to come into my life!
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