A Life That’s You

There’s a good chance you’ve planned for months to make sure your kids have a great summer.

A summer to grow and change. A summer of adventures that leaves them seeing themselves in new and larger ways.

A transformative summer.

You can have that, too – and you should. It’s as close as Élan!. Schedule a LEMONADE HOUR (mini-class or individual session) into your calendar right now – before the summer slips away.

Learn more…

Give yourself an adventure this spring with a class that gets right to the heart of your personal journey.

Upcoming classes include:

• WHAT’S STOPPING YOU???
• Bouncing Back: how to help yourself or someone you love beat the blues
• New from A Space That’s You: creating a virtual Comfort Cabinet

Workshop details and registration links…

No need to miss a thing!

Here’s a great invention — and maybe the exact right opportunity for you!

With an Élan!PASS you can attend all the classes you want — all year long — for one very reasonable price! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a New Year at Élan!

2008. A new year, a new page.

It’s your true intention, not a list of resolutions, that will drive your choices as you move through a sea of situations in the upcoming year. What you choose to say and do, where you choose to place your energy — all depend on your deepest goals.

Join a class at Élan! to give yourself the breathing space you need to get clear about your true intentions for 2008. And make some powerful connections with other people in the process.

A SPECIAL GIFT JUST FOR YOU (or someone special)! — Register for two single-session workshops or for the Sea Change series and receive a complimentary gift card for a future single-session workshop! (Offer ends 1/7/2008)

Upcoming classes include:

• Intentionally You: create a vision for “living out loud” in 2008!
• Bouncing Back: how to help yourself or someone you love beat the blues
• Shaping a Space That’s You: transform a space in your home to make it truly yours
• Creating Sea Change in Your Life

Workshop details and registration links…

contemplating incipient sea change

Last New Year’s Eve, I found myself at the piano after a 20-year absence. As a direct result, I am now faced with the largely self-inflicted terror of playing a Bach prelude at a recital.

The recital takes place in the beautiful chapel of a stately old mansion, one of the “seven castles” of Clifton — now a nursing home. Fortunately this means that much of the audience cannot hear. However, I cannot help but recall the debut of my younger daughter Marla’s choir at an Alzheimer’s unit when one of the residents yelled out angrily,

I believe he also threw something, but that could just be me embellishing.

And while even I can see the humor of being dangled out as unwilling bait to an audience that may lack the inhibition Read the rest of this entry »

It’s exciting, not only for kids, to move into fall and new endeavors. Build a few special moments into these crisp months just for you — and allow the new thoughts you take with you lead you to small changes that will reap big benefits in your life.

Upcoming classes include: Bouncing Back: how to help yourself or someone you love beat the blues and Creating Sea Change in Your Life. Bring a friend or buy the package for special savings.

Workshop details and registration links…

The message of Sea Change is simple – as important truths tend to be.

Each day, we’re pulled in a hundred different directions. The din of the demands coming from the outside makes it hard to hear the guide on the inside. Call it energy, call it intuition – when that spark of knowing surfaces and you have the courage to act on it, sea change occurs.

How do you know when to pay attention?

Sometimes you just know – if you allow for it. When a thought or idea or feeling bubbles up out of nowhere and makes you draw a breath, stop and take notice. When it’s recurrent, feels urgent, exciting; when it captures your imagination and won’t let go. A thought that tickles you or puts a grin on your face, that feels like a bright little light that keeps softly flashing. Read the rest of this entry »

Summer’s a great time to take a few moments out in the cool of The Élan! Connection’s comfy surroundings to exchange ideas and recharge. Check out Élan’s summer workshops.

It started when my friend Cathy handed me a sack of paperback books-on-loan. Swapping books is a practice we’d established over time. Some were meant to be returned, others were to be passed along to another; a sort of pay-it-forward.

This was an unusually big stack, and the bag sat on the dining table in the morning room for a couple of weeks. Finally, anxious to clear off the table, I emptied the bag and tossed the books on the end table by the sofa. Comprised of a sofa and two chairs, this space had felt somehow unfinished, lacking character or a central message. With the addition of the books, suddenly it was cozier, more inviting. That the books were much-read and dog-eared only served to add to the warmth of the effect.

One of the themes of the new house is to live life as if it were an ongoing vacation. Its décor and location both make it the “vacation home” in our eyes. And the summer homes we’ve rented at the ocean Read the rest of this entry »

Seeking Your Passion? Inquire Within…

We hear a lot these days about “passion.” Everywhere we look, it seems like someone is telling us to “find our passion,” to “follow our passion,” to “live passionately.” In the abstract, it sounds like wonderful advice, but certainly there are not few among us who are thinking, “Where am I even supposed to look?” or even: “I don’t think I have a great passion!”

But what if it isn’t so hard! What if deep down we already know where to find it – because it’s a part of us?

What if there is a way to go about this that makes sense, one that you can do? Read the rest of this entry »