Latest Thoughts
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March 11th - The Alana version of Captain Marvel and why we should all do a similar timeline
Not to be a spoiler, but if you haven’t seen the movie Captain Marvel yet there is one scene that is kicking off this blog. Carol stands up and says “Yes, just human” and then remembers the times when as a girl she was shot down and told she couldn’t do it but got up and went on to figure it out and succeed. I woke this morning asking what my timeline would be? What are the instances when a decision was made that formed my core strenghts And what would they look like all together in 30 seconds of mp3? I believe this is an exercise everyone should do because it turns out to be very affirming of our true selves. Here’s mine Zappa quilt. 19?? I’m ?? And back stage in a concert hall in Fort Collins Colorado. I’m saying to rock star Frank Zappa “I can make your quilt. “ Starting the New York showroom, 19??, I’m ?? In a suburban living room convincing my father to loan me money to start my own business in NYC. Moving to Ireland, 199? Margie and I are in a car and she has just told me she will come if I orchestrat the move. I begin to plan. DoctoralNet. 199? I have put up a video and students are watching. I ask myself why technology can’t help with more student confusion problems? A key thread here is that someone else had always done something similar that I knew about. I am driven by “if they can do it why can’t I? What is your movie? What will it teach you? As Deepak’s said in or meditation this am “ No one has everMarch 11th - The Alana version of Captain Marvel and why we should all do a similar timeline
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Feb 25th-The warmth of the heart chakra
February 25th Luz, Portugal Today's meditation was an ah-ha moment for me. We're doing the flow cycle (Finding your flow) from Deepak and Oprah at the moment and today - Day 11 - was connecting with the heart chakra. The moments that opened my heart were twofold ideas: 1) that the energy of the chakras do no need effort - that they are like warmth to cold, the melt what is in their way, and 2) that to continually focus on the bits and pieces of love and to share those is to open it up in our lives. I viscerally understand warmth as it is very important to me - reminding me of my mom in the hospital when a friend of mine worked there and gave her a blanket right out of the drier - you should have seen her face! I'm like that when handed something warm and now I can imagine opening my heart and it having the same results to any frozen places that have accumulated over the years. And how to share the bits of love I find everywhere? Facebook would be an obvious choice but it has such a sucking motion with it that I find it dangerous. For now, I will put some pictures here in a slideshow, and then maybe build an album for FB and maybe open up only the alanajames@earthlink. . FB and cut out those who aren't really friends. Not sure but seeing clearly that there is a need to share love more widely - and that I have more love and more people that I love than I commonly work. Blessings to Deepak and Oprah - for exciting in me a new way. -
Feb 6th - Here is me experiencing... joy, wonder, love and growth
A bit of a story here... It starts with Deepak and Oprah's 21-day meditation on "Losing the weight" - not just physical weight but the weighty responses to life. As I wrote in the last post, control issues are part of that weight for me. Then, a few days ago, Deepak suggested that we all think about the main goals/energies/focus for our lives as we imagine them to be in our dreams - his focused on transcendence. Mine are JOY - WONDER - LOVE - GROWTH Today he continued the journey with a story about two men who show up for their flight at the airport - the flight is cancelled. One throws a fit and the other goes to the bookstore and gets engrossed in a new book. What struck out to me was his comment that at any given moment we can say - here is me .... (throwing a fit) and I have a choice to (read a book). I have taken it a step forward today and have been having great fun with - Here is me enjoying wonder in the yellows of the daffodils. Here is me experiencing the wind on my cheek. Here is me experiencing a loving conversation with Tracesea. So I send this energy out - what are you experiencing? Can I keep these for words and my experience of them as upper most in my mind? Yes of course - we all can.Feb 6th - Here is me experiencing... joy, wonder, love and growth
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Feb 2nd - Moving from darkness to .... playful? wonder?
Loss of control has had me in a grip and I fully realise how much I need to get out of the patterns of thought that are controlling me. Margie comes back today but I don't want to lose the reflective and reflexive lessons I have learned because she was gone. I have seen my dark side and its name is control. My ego loves my alpha self, I love the getting things done and the admiration of others. It can't be at a cost for those I love though and the tension between these two types or ways of being does not sit in one life. Most of the time the daily effort of life distracts us. these two weeks have shown me the cracks in the mirror I was holding up. It leaves me afraid, and of course, the irony in that is that control is an effort of the ego to hide fear. So now I need to guide my ship - away from the rocks and back out onto the sea of more happiness, joy and playfulness where I want to live. Follows is my first attempt and steering - looking up from others their ideas on letting go of control and them moving on to what life is like after the work is done. The work - to be covered and worked through in future posts using imagery - rather than toughing it out to climb a mountain with a 100-pound pack on my back (keeping control) I can imagine soaring like an eagle over the challenges inherent in whatever has me uptight. write down a fear list - control is rooted in fear and false fears at that. what are they? let's expose them to the light (seems ripe for another post) focus on grace and mindfulness - another post is in order, what does it mean to me? How do I see it and identify when I am there? move into the present - control fears are the future- remember that every moment can be a release focus on what I trust - keep moving forward into deeper and deeper faith perform "esteemable acts" - I stole this one from a list that had made the rounds on the internet bt I like it - we all know when we have acted out of our true self - do more of that. Say mantras, prayers, affirmations - each in their own time to release the tension that has me caught in the pattern that results in control. (another path to staying mindful - a first step to mindful maybe? another post) Get support - I don't have to do this alone???? (always a hard notion for me isn't it) OMG another post! LOL Keep refining what it means to be free - where am I going? (posts galore in the making) -
Jan 25th - The Dark and the Light
During the Oprah Deepak meditation of yesterday, Oprah was talking about the now moment. Earlier in the series, Deepak had discussed meditation bringing up our sleeping dragons. I would term those moments "the dark" The dark we learn to run away from in childhood - whatever it is, hard feelings, moments of indecisions or self-doubt, times when our Soul does not quite connect with us and we grow afraid. I think also that people tend to have dark times of day - or rather a time of day when their dark thoughts are more likely to appear. For many it is 5 am - and for me, it is often late afternoon and evening or any time I face a task I really feel anxious about doing. Then I become restless and moody and have learned for decades to salve those feelings with sweets or carbohydrates - in enough quantity to dull the pressures of it so I can move on. and be productive. Productivity is a great balm for me to darkness - the focus and accomplishment of it and the boost in energy brought on by the sweet or carb allows me to climb over the hump. So what would I find if I didn't use that ladder and chose to remain in the pit and explore it? Scary thoughts indeed. Deepak would guide us that our True Selves are easy and gentle healers - so maybe staying in the pit would be like lighting a candle and the darkness would simply proceed. But where would I find that candle? Likely meditation will give me ideas about that. My commitment then is to say "bring it on" and to spend today fully feeling those dark thoughts when they arise and to meditate when they grow uncomfortable and I feel antsy. Giving it a few moments today, fully anticipating release and freedom, but unable to not act out of the patterns from before I realize that when we need to heal, it is difficult to think about health but rather we think about the illness. How am I to move on when my body continues to send the signals that for decades have caused a response? Hard stuff - dragons indeed. Stay tuned and we'll see where this leads - can it really be as easy as the meditations suggest? Am I ready for it to be that easy and to evolve in this new way? Are my dragons ready to crumble so I can be free of them? -
Jan 20th - fulfillment and emptiness
WOW! what a topic! First, how did I come today to want to write about issues that the philosophers have wrangled over for centuries? Margie is visiting family and therefore the house is "empty" - or so my friend Patrick Ryan named it last night when we were discussing what it is like for one of a couple when the other ones (and possibly the children too) are away. Why our home is never empty because we have the dogs and the cat, there is definitely a huge hole when Margie leaves. Nature abhors a vacuum - and within our souls, our partners fulfill some aspect of life for us - so when they are not around I contend that our tendency is to fill that hole with something. Confession: most of my life I have used food to fill or seem to fill some of those holes and while that works for me better than drugs did, as I grow older the side effects bring on challenges like joint wear and tear. This, coupled with my current state of being to uncover my True Sefl and to Heal leave me feeling exposed as I confront the emptiness that Margie leaves behind. However, committed as I am to NOT FILLING THE GAPS WITH KNEE JERK REACTIONS AND FEEL GOOD MEASURES, what do I do? Yesterdays' focus on a liquid diet, therefore minimizing the effects of food, was a start. First I'll muse on fulfillment and what it means to me, then I'll move on to motivation. Fulfillment - What is it? I confess when I asked this question I drew a complete blank. At that moment fulfillment seemed an impossible dream - I felt empty and scared. Now I realize that is bullshit and it doesn't serve to play small. I am fulfilled when I help others reach their dreams. A bold statement and a thousand percent true. So that directs me to do as much of that as I can. To teach, to facilitate, to help things move ahead - whether through nurturing OR through pruning as my spirit raises up at the injustice as much as it jumps in to support. Right now that support is DoctoralNet - both to help students and propel what I think is best for educators to consider about students. I realise it has both the energy of pruning AND support - raises my hackles that students don't find the support they need and fulfills me to be able to offer new options. What other parts of my life are driven by fulfillment? Water aerobics is another way I support - myself and others. Probably my body as much as anything so not exactly altruistic. Blogging like this also fulfills that need, whether or not anyone reads it I am supporting both myself, lecturing to myself really, and, hopefully, someday others. Art???? I don't know, something there satisfies my Soul deeply - beauty? philosophy? sharing "how the world seems to me" using the language of symbology. Motivation My friend Julie Silvferberg reminds me that 50% of the people are motivated by the positive and 50% by the negative. I wish I could say that the positive (fulfillment) motivated me but looking at my life it has been a few moments where that was true. Now those were life-changing moments like when I told Margie I could live in Ireland and she responded that if I orchestrated it she would follow - still I can count those moments on one hand. No, the truth is that so far, day to day I have moved ahead motivated by fear of a known obstacle I was trying to avoid. This makes life a bit like a pinball machine where I'm careening from one bumper into another one, hoping to come out in the high scoring position at the end. Looking at myself in the mirror yesterday I see that weight has become one of those bumpers again. I wonder if we all have one or two that loom large from time to time, much like a tide that ebbs and flows? Worth considering what they are and what life might be like if they were never an issue again? That seems a perfect place to leave this for today. Hopefully, I'll figure out the backend and get the blog to show up properly later today and then I'll begin to share. I hesitate to open the site to comments because with comments come hackers and spam, maybe for now I'll just ask anyone who reads this and wants to comment or share to come back to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.? -
Jan 19th - fasting and bright colors
Margie is gone to the states to celebrate her sister Sally's birthday - good for them! Good for me too as it allows two weeks at home to consider... so many things, Today focused on health and joyousness. To enlighten my body and my mind - that would be the goal for today and so I'm on the first of a three day liquid fast - mostly juices that I juice myself but to include a soup or two and later with friends a glass of wine. Since the goal of increased health also includes less hip and knee pain to increase both my lightness on my feet and my endurance, I am also heavy dosing on vibrational healing with my PCM-6. Bright colors and happy music compliment this move to more vibrancy. I'm reading JOYFUL - all about a joyful aesthetic in life - hence the idea of vivid color. I would love to instantly paint a few walls - but since that isn't practical I have searched out and found bight side objects and will be seeking out more through the next few weeks. Maybe Margie can come home with some bright yellow pillows. Watch this space to see how positive feelings grow with time. The PCM6 is having a daily positive effect on my ability to move - I am optimistic to see what the fasting and colors do to the mix. -
Jan 11 & 12 - Shedding the Weight Meditations
Hi to my Self and Future Readers! Today is day eight of the Shedding Your Weight set of meditations from Deepak and Oprah. Today's mantra: Siddho Hum (my True Self is perfect) with a centering thought "I find joy in healing and recovery." Joy - happy for no reason. Deepak's message pointed out that healing and recovery are merely having more good inputs than we have negative inputs - day after day more joy than other emotions - more fulfillment than not fulfillment. Then, day after day we get a little better, heal or recover a little more until we are out of the slump/ill health etc that we were in. And to kick it off and then continue it we measure or notice or keep track of what leaves us fulfilled. What Leaves Me Fulfilled? Appreciating beauty Meditation Time with friends Contributing to my world Connecting with students Travel I'm ready to see the list grow throughout the year. -
Jan 8th - Planning the next painting
Today was the first Tuesday of the New Year - and my first day as a full member (having paid) of the Kinsale Atlantic Artists group. To use the words of my friend Gillian - I have found my tribe!!! They are wonderful and it is beyond marvelous to be doing “real” art again. “What makes art real -as opposed to not real,” you ask? Well scrapbooking, although it answered much of my need to be creative was never “real” art to me. Real means I am using my brain and my skill to build something of general potential interest (as opposed to a family interest) and that I am committed to these ideas developing over time (in a series of work). AS the reader will be able to see in the picture - this series will be mandalas - searching for the ultimate truths of our lived experience as humans in both our outer and inner worlds. WOW - that is a BIG philosophical journey and yet I think I can do it. I was pleased with the first result, which taught me I can still paint. We’ll see where this one goes. So far the colors for each season are chosen - each with a range that will play off of beads that are the chakra colors that run from the center (earth) to either the cities or the edge. Aurora Borealis like clouds will run up and around the cities. That is as much as I know for certain now. Likely this one will be more painterly than the last - possibly along the lines of the style of Peploe. -
Jan 6th & 7th, The prisons in our minds
For those who don't know, Margie and I listen as we go to sleep and first thing in the morning to one of the Deepak/Oprah 21 day meditation series - we have done so for going on four years. We both will tell you that nothing in our lives has ever made such a long-lasting positive change in our life experience. We own them all and have listened to them over and over as the mood strikes - frequently relistening to a series or part of a series immediately again when the lessons were particularly apt. I can say that my ability to cruise into old age happy and satisfied is because of this work, and for that, I am truly grateful. The series we are on is Shedding the weight which they did a few years ago - weight not just physical weight but emotional, mental, and spiritual as well. The am Deepak said that all weight is caused by the prisons in our minds - where we trapped part of ourselves at an early age - step 1 realize those prisons, step 2 realize that we are not that person anymore, step 3 free them - let it go. However, we accomplish those steps will change for all of us but for me, this writing is that process. Physical weight has always been the prison in which I put myself, -not that I suffer from a poor self-image or have held myself back because of it - but as I grow older my bones would like it if I hauled around a few less pounds. So what's the prison? Family jumps to mind. Not feeling loved, being criticized over and over with few accolades to balance the negative inputs. I'm sure many can relate, and perhaps even more so for those of us driven to be more than, a brighter star, someone who pushes limits because then the family would push back harder to keep us in line. When I look at my birth family and compare our relations to those values I hold dear, namely love, close relationship, supportive community, etc. I think that over half of my siblings have failed pretty miserably - and for one brother and myself who are blessed to be living with tender families around us have both had the good fortune to marry the right person, who taught us to become the loving people we are. For my dearest oldest sister her work was social work with cancer patients and so that was likely her path. It is one of the treasures of my life that as she grows old she has finally found the support that works for her and who treasures her as she deserves. Step one -realize the prison - family comments that I internalized and protected myself from with weight and the physical medication of carbs to endorphins Step two - acknowledge that I am not that person any longer and NOWHERE in my life do I get the message to be less than I am or that I am too much. That's really old news. So I think its time fore Step three - let that childhood memory go - it served and now it doesn't - my birth relationships are what they are - they feed my soul or they don't. My task is to build the good inputs that will protect my body and my health for as long as I am blessed to be in this world. Love does that - so next up will be how to give me more love. I suspect that little girl has been in that prison so long she isn't just going to go skipping down the lane. Here's to anyone who ever reads this who can relate - may your prison sentence be over as well. Alana -
Jan 4th and 5th, 2019 Christmas, Little Christmas and starting the new year
Christmas is down and put away - still its a great time to remember just how good it was this year.... I put up a lite version of decorations before I left for Washington and CGS - this was great as we had it all month and, with only three days when I got back before Berlin we would not have had decorations any other way. Next year though I want the more formal tree - not just the popup - but it did well this year. Berlin was MARvelous - pictures attached. It is impressive how Berliners have embraced their very dark heritage as a learning experience - and the Christmas markets were grand We spent several days during Christmas week with the Ryans and the Barretts - truly our family of choice here in Ireland - how wonderful to see the kids grow up year after year. It's down now and we move on - but many happy returns of the day(s) remain with us as we appreciate each other and all the love we have in our lives .Jan 4th and 5th, 2019 Christmas, Little Christmas and starting the new year
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January 2nd - things are happening at DoctoralNet
January 2nd - things are progressing! Today the staff met for the first time in 2019 - the uni websites are getting a facelift and soon a reorg more to the ways students are using content - highlighting video content and responding to the ways students search. New customers are getting back to me with questions before I call on them to see how things are going! Yea Capella and University of Minnesota! The customer advisory council is progressing as well - in addition to Ali who signed on in December we now have Joanne as facilitator and Cari from UNH and Curtis from Capella. It makes me think this will be easier than I suspected. On the human side - I'm reading a good book - the Oracle that offsets slow internet speeds Life is good in Castlepark! -
Letter to my future self - to be read Jan 1, 2020
Fast Company today suggested that the best way to (or one way) to set new years resolutions was in the form of a letter to ourselves to be read next year - predicting, if you will the year we have just experienced and recalling where we are now that was a stepping stone to those experiences. Sounds good to me... Dear Alana - Wow - what a year! It went by in a flash, didn't it? And while some things were unexpected, many were driven by your expanding @in touch@ awareness of your true self and so, therefore, were very gentle and easy. Art- From not having done one finished peice of art for 20 years to completing 4 this year was both easy, fun and also in its own way amazing. Who could have predicted the painterly growth as well as the conceptual growth your work exhibited this year? Funny, you thought maturity came with years of work and many pieces but maybe your accomplishments this year demonstrate that it comes from personal awareness and maturity as well - LOL - much like maturity in doctoral studies from your students. Business growth - YOU did it! doubled your income + for the second year in a row. Looking back it seems like now the wind is well and truly under your wings. Some expected and many not - wonderful and a few hard lessons but year after year growth. Thank heavens the financial challenges have diminished and the way is clear for more help. Your team is really behind you - be sure they all feel appreciated. Health - remember that you started 2019 debating on whether and to what extent you could get by without surgery? Your goal has been me in that you now travel with greatly reduced pain. While not perfect, losing weight and the DENAS were helpful as well as Pat Tiedt. Be proud of the way you maneuvered with the Irish medical system - you did it your way and your increased health and vitality really show. Travel-- Haven't you become the jet setter? Such wonderful warm memories of: a) making friends at every regional conference, 2) Craig and Brian in Prague 3) Louise, Jenny and Shelley in May etc. Good for you! You started this blog - great to see you take the time to feel your life as you live it - and no reason to imagine this ease and grace will go anywhere but up- keep following Viniyoga and the breath work - keep meditating with Deepak and take the time you need to share with friends, so you experience all the love that so easily comes your way now. I love you - so glad its been a remarkable year. MEK -
May 14, 2017: Cerbere' France
We all get to live this life the way we want - that is, the way we want within the constraints of life as we see and experience them. What travel does is open us up to a different understanding of those constraints because we immerse ourselves in someone else's, often very different world - and then we learn things. Cerbere' is a small (2K? population) French town on the Mediterranean just 6K from the border with Spain. -
May 7th: Three Ways a JigSaw Puzzle is a Metaphor for Life
How do you break from work, from life, from stress? One of my favourite ways is by working on jigsaw puzzles. They allow the mind to wander, and maybe I watch an episode of Doctor Who as well. It has been during these sessions that this week I have been building the metaphor that our lives are like a jigsaw in three main ways - see what you think... -
April 30th: The Labyrinth as a Metaphor for Entrepreneurship (& Life)
I walked the labyrinth in the middle of the mall that runs down the centre of the Glasnevin campus this week when I was visiting there. DCU is the flagship university for our fledgling business, pSuddortals sold to universities that bring professional development online for their students. It had been a decade or more since I had walked a labyrinth, although we used to have a much simpler version in our backyard in Colorado. I had forgotten what a great metaphor they are for life, especially the life and progress of an entrepreneur.April 30th: The Labyrinth as a Metaphor for Entrepreneurship (& Life)
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April 23rd, Going Alkaline
When this site went live the articles from previous times were all jumbled together and I was struck by my enthusiasm of how much the alkalinity work we had done had changed my health. Lost 4o Pounds? All back now. Felt stronger? Those were the days. That was it - those were the days and I wanted them back. First steps then were to drag out what I knew about alkaline and dig in. You know how it is with "new" or maybe reborn habits: first push is glorious =filled with the vision / second week the difficulties of change set in. That is where I am as I start to write. Read on if either merging alkaline with a typical Western diet OR habit change is of interest... -
Re-Energizing: Spring 2017 – Thoughts on life filled with HOPE
Whether or not a person celebrates Easter, it is true for most, that spring is a time to reconnect with our bodies and to push back on the sluggish aspects of our lives. Two ways in which this plays out for me are the focus of these next two blogs: 1) living with HOPE (and understanding in a new way what it means) and 2) alkaline foods. They both connect in my life as I embrace this spring and move into maximum energy and liveliness for the rest of the year. I’l start with HOPE… I confess that hope has seemed a weak word to me before now – to say “I hope this happens” seemed like fobbing it off on some other aspect of the universe without taking responsibility for doing our part. Or maybe, rather, just being passive on a situation that was bigger than we were. I had it completely wrong!.Re-Energizing: Spring 2017 – Thoughts on life filled with HOPE
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Happy Birthday to Me! April 11, 2017
Good morning world! Isn;t it GREAT to be alive? So much to be grateful for, so many games to play in this life - but which are those that are capturing my mind and heart this morning?
About Alana
What a title to live up to!
About Alana - what are the key elements you should know in order to move our relationship to a higher level?
I am driven - always have been, by whatever seems to be the next good thing I can do, something that is within my sphere but would look like a big stretch to others. Sometimes these tasks take a few years - like the Zappa Quilt or MastersNet and Doctoral Net which I now have six years in and no end in site.
Civil Partnership Photos
80 people joined the weeklong event from three continents - what a party it was! Our families flew into Dublin and Margie and I treated them to some splendid Irish sightseeing on the way down to Kinsale - then all hands on deck to help decorate the tables etc. The "real" service was held in Cork at the chapel like room used by the civil service, followed that night by the Irish meeting the Americans taking over a restaurant for dinner.
