A Group Check-in that Matters
By Michael Kline

Let’s talk about the importance of starting your event with a check-in and ideas for deepening the experience.

The two big variables for check-ins are the size of the group and the length of the event. A smaller group or longer event both allow for longer check-in time. Conversely, a larger group or shorter event, means a shorter check-in. Regardless, always have a check-in. Always. Participants need to get their voice into the room to feel connected, otherwise, they might think they could listen to a recording and have a similar experience.

If you have a larger group for a one-day event, maybe it’s shouting out where they’re from, or maybe a milling exercise where everyone stands and introduces themselves to two new people around them. Or better yet, have them share with two people, something they’re grateful for today. This gets energy going in the room and makes everyone feel a little more connected and emotionally a little safer and will improve participation later. If people start the event by speaking anything to anyone, they are more likely to speak up later when you ask for input of any kind. We’ll do a separate article on gradients of safety, but if you ask questions, and no one answers, it’s probably because a lack of connection or emotional safety. The check-in is the place to start building your gradients of safety.

My happy place is in-person, transformational events, usually with 12-24 people spending 5-7 days together. In this setting, I want the deepest possible emotional sharing and processing for the magic to take place. Personally, I’m very comfortable with anything that shows up and handling it in front of a group. If this is not your jam, you can learn deeper processing skills, partner with someone who has this expertise, or perhaps have a supporting assistant in the back of the room who can handle everything that pops up. I’ve been providing back of the room support at Jack Canfield retreats since 2015 and I’ve witness miraculous transformations.

With this group size (12-24), an opening circle is ideal. In fact, I prefer an opening circle check-in every morning. Remember, this is a blend of right and left-brain work. We want emotions and spontaneity, and to do it well, requires a little strategy. If you provide a typical ice-breaker opening question, or leave it to each person to introduce themselves, it will probably stay pretty surface level and frankly boring for everyone except the person speaking. We want to open with a bang. Everyone should know from the start they are in for something different, and they are getting their money’s worth, so it’s time to buckle up! Start creating safe and sacred space from the first moment.

For deeper work, I like to use a sentence lead instead of a question. The responses tend to come from the heart, compared to answering a question, which tends to come from the head. Start by modeling it by going first. For example: “My name is Mike and I’m from Florida and I’m here to make some new connections and explore my next steps”. A snoozer in my opinion. Still, it’s way better than talking about my job selling insurance. We can increase the safety level, by normalizing what often scares people – vulnerability. Let’s turn up the emotional temperature by modelling a deeper share: “My name is Mike and I’m here because I’m tired of putting myself last and I want to learn to love myself and find something to be excited about in my life. I claim my seat at the table”.  Feel the difference?  Your sample share can be something true for you today, or an example – perhaps sharing how you might have answered this back when you started your own transformational journey.

The point is to model what you’re looking for. If you do an example, be sure to point out that this is how you might have answered this a few years ago, or that its an example of things we hear a lot. Then, be sure to do your current, true, vulnerable share – for example: “I’m Mike, and I’m here to share my highest gifts in the most authentic way possible, to inspire your transformation and expansion into whatever your next step is. I claim my seat by the fire”.  I find asking them to claim their seat is very powerful because most people never really felt like they belonged at the preverbal table, or fire, or wherever you are doing your circle.

I learned an even deeper opening check-in as part of The Circle Way ®, as taught by Peerspirit. We invite participants to bring a personal object with them that represents (something you choose), perhaps where they are in their recovery journey, or their connection to creative writing – or whatever it is you’re working on at the retreat. You model your check-in, sharing your object, and what it means to you and why you chose it. When done well, I guarantee that by the third person sharing, the whole group will be in tears, because people have powerful and personal meaning to be there. This is setting the dial at a much higher emotional temperature.
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For the highest setting, what we do at RIM training retreats, is we start with a deep immersive RIM activity. It’s a closed-eye experience that feels a little like guided imagery, but it gets its power in the nuanced way it’s co-created. When participants open their eyes usually in tears, we give them time to journal first, then share. When complete, everyone feels a deep connection and knows they are in a safe place with kindred spirits on a similar journey. No one shares about their work, or boring life situations, because no one’s bio is an interesting as their soul. I have spent 7 days with people, bonding with them deeply, learning all their values, fears, dreams and passions. I have no idea where they live or what they do for a living. People are not starving for networking. People are starving for real connection, to be seen and heard and loved.

If you’d like to talk more about safe and sacred spaces, I’d love to hear from you!

Michael J. Kline is a Teacher, Healer and Firekeeper. His credentials include Master Certified RIM Facilitator and Licensed Trainer, Certified Canfield Success Trainer, Certified Barrett Consultant, and Owner/Partner at Con Smania Costa Rica. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail mike@intus.life

By Michael J. Kline

​The best education for me is experience, and with over fifty years of experience being not enough, I think I’ve had enough of not enough-ness. What astonishes me now, is the glorious humility of being the amazing, powerful, beautiful, magnificent, and perfectly human man that I am. Yes, I said humility.

Contrary to my previous belief, I think being “not enough” is a very egoic position. Wait wait… hear me out… to be less-than, or not enough is to create separation from the magnificence we were born to be. We know we were each born as a perfect baby. At some point we separated from that perfection. We know that in the quantum field, we are all connected, so it’s not just a spiritual concept that we are all one. To be not-enough, would mean that we are having the experience of being separate – from all that is, from our own perfection and from God. The thing is, we are not separate. That is impossible. No wonder I suffered so much!

I don’t want to lose anyone on the choice or words or religious arguments, that’s not what this is about. So, feel free to choose the God/Universe/Spirit word of your choice. For me, growing up Catholic in Ohio, I thought God was a jealous, demanding, needy old guy, judging me from his magical place above the clouds, somewhere over Cleveland. I was taught to kneel before such power. To be less than. To accept my low place as a sinner. My default destiny was eternity in hell until I earn my way to heaven, which is impossible by the way, for a gay boy. I was taught that humiliation was synonymous with humility. I was taught to think of myself as separate. I don’t blame my teachers, maybe I was a poor student, but that is what I learned. It's been forty years since I left the church, and I've since come to love and appreciate many things about it, and I also continue to grow and learn differently.
 
What I know now, as best as I can know anything, is that humility is giving up the concept of being separate, trusting Spirit enough to know that I can safely surrender my need to be enough.

When we look at the basic model of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and later the Barrett Values Model, we see that our first and foundational level of needs is to feel we have enough safety, money, health, etc. Next, we need to feel loved enough, and only then can we give attention to being enough in our third level of needs. Our continuing evolution through transformation into alignment, collaboration and contribution requires us to have enough of the basics to trust we are okay. When we don’t have enough to survive, it’s hard to believe we are enough in any way, shape, or form.

So, only when we know we are enough, do we feel safe enough to surrender into not having to be enough. We are actually everything. Don’t say that out loud in front of the Sister Veronica of my childhood – it won’t end well for you. It takes humility to let go of being a separate special entity who is capable of not being enough. Only with the strength of this humility, can we be one with everything, incapable of being anything less.

The ultimate ego trip is to think you are so special that you are not enough. You are. What would it be like to accept that? You are enough whether you like it or not, if it's comfortable, or scary, or exhilarating, or freeing, or something else, doesn’t matter. We are all enough. And yes, I understand we have life experiences that convinced us to think this way. Maybe it’s time to change the past (yes, we can) and adapt new thoughts of our true enough-ness. And, it is humility, not ego.
 
Imagine taking a drop of water from the ocean and holding it in the palm of your hand. It would be correct to say this is ocean, right? If the drop could speak, it could accurately say I am ocean. It is not the entire ocean. It is no less than any other drop of ocean, and does not answer to more powerful drops deep in the sea. It does not compare itself to prettier, smarter, or stronger drops. It just is.

My preferred metaphor, which showed up for me consistently for about six years before I set aside the fear and embraced it, is Fire. I am Fire. I am not all Fire, and yet I am one with the essence of Fire. I need tending and fuel, and I will eventually die. I can be extinguished. I am powerful. I can be destructive. I can provide safety and protection and warmth. I can be the neutral witness to what wants to be shared, without judgment or reaction. I can receive and turn into ash whatever wants to be given to me in the spirit of surrendering to the energy of the Fire. I am all that. I need not compare myself to the smoldering cigarette butt on the side of the road, or the sun. I just am, and I am all I need to be.

If you were to choose a metaphor, what beautiful, powerful and glorious and scary metaphor would you choose to represent you? Or who you are becoming? I’d love to hear!  If you'd love to hear more about changing the past, let's talk about Regenerating Images in Memory.

Michael J. Kline. Teacher, Healer, Firekeeper. When not leading retreats in Costa Rica, or training coaches and facilitators to up-level their emotional processing skills, he lives in Sarasota with his husband of 33 years and their Labradoodle Luke. Mike is a Master Certified RIM Facilitator and Senior Trainer at the RIM Institute, Senior Canfield Methodology Trainer, Certified Barrett Consultant, and Owner/Retreat Leader at Con Smania Costa Rica. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail mike@intus.life.

Choosing Patience, another Puppy Lesson
By Michael Kline

​I’m working at the window in my office (Panera), and I’m so distracted by these people having a business meeting. They are just two people having a conversation, until they put a third person on their speaker phone and it becomes a very loud conversation. On my journey toward being a more patient and kinder person, I decide I to stop complaining in my head and put on my headset and get back to work. My plan backfired. Now it’s far more annoying to be able to hear their conversation through my over-the-ear, noise-cancelling headphones blasting relaxation music into my head!  Surely, after making a concerted effort to abate the noise problem, I have honestly earned the right to be annoyed, or to even complain. A voice in my head reminds me, this is a public café, not my office. I come here because I like the energy of being around people. That was worth a chuckle. It’s clear I like the energy of being around quiet people, or even people talking loudly about things I’m curious to eves drop on, but not the people I was given this morning. Then a miracle occurs!
I look up to see a woman walking her puppy outside my window. OMG, it’s so stinking cute! Who wants to work anyway?! She sees me smiling at the puppy and smiles back, I wave, the puppy sits and looks up at me through the glass – I’m sure I know those eyes – in one of my past lives as a dog, we were best friends, I’m certain of it. And the puppy recognizes my souls as well, as she stares directly into my eyes and time stood still for a few moments of deep connection. I’m glad she has her new life, obviously well loved and cared for, filled with joy and wonder. At this moment, I am connected once again with who I really am and all is right with the world.
Puppy energy what it is, my soul’s old friend is off to her next adventure in the grassy islands of parking lot bathroom breaks and giant plastic Christmas mall decorations. I’m back to my first-world problems brought about by being able to work at my laptop wherever I want and being surrounded by everyone having similar technology allowing them to share with people on a cell phone at a café producing their own work accomplishments over coffee and orange scones. Dam, I miss those orange scones on my new healthy eating plan.
The lady with the puppy passes by on the way back to her car, so I run out to ask for a picture and tell her what a gift it was to have her puppy interrupt my crankiness and replace it with the power of choice. The puppy made me forget all about the noisy conversation that was previously impossible to ignore. It turns out, once I was aware of my attention being able to shift, I realized I was actually in choice all along. I just forgot. It seems I forget a lot.
The truth is, that when we feel we are not in choice, it just means there is something that is not in our conscious awareness. Once something comes into conscious awareness, we can then be in choice – no judgment on what we choose, just that we can choose from awareness instead of giving that power to whatever pre-programmed habits of reaction are occurring beneath the surface.
Now that I’ve brought to your awareness, that there is always something not in your awareness, you can choose to explore more of what is beneath the surface of your operating system. Or not. That is the power of being in choice. I choose to continue being a perfectly flawed human and exploring whenever I remember to do so. What do you choose? 

Everything Feels Different
By Michael Kline

​​Confession: For much of the last year, I was feeling sad, drained, and sometimes even depressed. Silly me, I thought I was beyond that. Turns out, I’m still really, really, human. I would frequently drop back into that old habit of over-thinking everything, getting frustrated, confused, and angry and then feel guilty for not just being as happy as I should be. After beating myself up for beating myself up, I would remind myself that I know better, then I’d regurgitate the same crap over again.
Then a friend invited me to spend a week in Costa Rica at Rythmia Life Advancement Center. Primarily to do a week of Ayahuasca journeys for self-healing, reflection, growing, purging, connecting and whatever else was meant to happen. I said yes - partly because I love and trust this group of friends, and partly because I learned that when something scares me, I should lean into it. I’m so glad I did.
Now that I’m home, I feel overwhelmed, but instead of overwhelmed with bad news, uncertainty, and frustration, I am overwhelmed with gratitude, love, peace, excitement, calm, confidence, and joy. My entire body is giggling with child-like wonder and excitement. My mind feels clear for the first time in many months. I feel eager to step into life, like I just met someone new and fell head-over-heals in love. I did. I met myself and I love me, like never before.
I discovered that somewhere in my human evolution, I had become a person who lived in constant fear and who felt he didn’t deserve love. I have done many brave things and many lovely things to convince my ego that I was brave, courageous, loving, and lovable. However, nothing less than the total truth is acceptable when you sit with Mother Ayahuasca. And the truth is, I was living in fear and feeling unlovable for my entire life. This week, Mother Aya merged me back to my true soul and healed my heart. I got my miracle!
If you’re thinking you want this, I’ll warn you, Club Med, this ain’t! This was not an ordinary transformational vacation; it was a rebirth. It was all-inclusive, which means it includes both beautiful heaven and hell experiences. It was a physical and energetic cleanse so deep I could feel my entire body - heart beat and breath in sync with all of nature, like I am an instrument playing in the Pachamama orchestra. I feel a love so deep, when it first came over me, all I could do was shake and cry until I laughed and cried some more.
Now that I’m home, I looked at the grass and the sky and the trees this morning on my walk and greeted them all like the old friends they are. We know each other. We have played together and cried together and worked together and love each other. Yes, I sound like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, and I have. I can tell you, the Kool-Aid tastes like shit in one cup and like a dream mocha latte the next. Like everything on this journey, maybe it’s another metaphor for life.
If you read this far, and you want a little of what I’m having, feel free to reach out, I’m happy to share what I can if it is helpful to you. For me, I just feel a need to share some bits of my journey of healing and growing. 

When Positivity Isn’t Positive
By Michael Kline

Mindset is crucial to success and happiness. It’s no wonder so many coaches, trainers and helping professionals rush to help clients find a positive mindset. Certainly, there is a time and place for finding the hidden gift in negative events, for finding the silver lining or even gratitude for events that initially feel painful. I totally get it and I have over-used positivity training myself. It is helpful to remember that emotions are our natural feedback system. Avoiding negative emotions is like ignoring the check-engine light in your car. Missing negative emotions allows them to fester, grow and show up in seemingly unrelated ways making our lives more difficult.

According to Vipassana Meditation training, 2500 years ago, the Buddha taught that if we resist negative feelings, they expand. If we pursue the positive sensations, they dissipate. The desire to control our emotions gets us exactly the opposite of what we want. Carl Jung taught that what we resist not only persists but expands. Dr Deb Sandella, founder of the RIM Institute, teaches that emotions flow through the body like water flowing through a river. Our resistance to negative feelings is like throwing a boulder into the river – building a dam that blocks our natural emotional flow.

So, it is critical that we allow the negative feelings to be fully felt, give us the necessary feedback, express what needs to be expressed, and only then, we can simply allow them to dissipate organically and naturally. What won’t work with negative feelings, is what I call the three W’s that people tend to prefer – White-Washing, Walking Away or Wishing.

1. Let’s start with White-Washing. This could also be called “looking on the bright side”.  Do any of these phrases sound familiar? They don’t deserve you anyway! You’ll land on your feet.  I’m sorry he/she/they dumped you, I’m sorry about your diagnosis – you must stay positive! I’m sorry for your loss – they’re in a better place now. I’m so sorry you lost your job, that must feel awful. Maybe this is a chance to look at your passions and find something you like better! You get the idea – think of any bad news you’ve ever experienced, and the corresponding cliché’s you heard from friends and family. It’s all well-intended, but usually not helpful from a coach or therapist. Indeed, there may be a silver lining, and there may eventually be gratitude, but only after the pain has had a chance to be felt, experienced, and processed. Our job is to provide the space and safety for the feelings, the expression and natural dissipation.
2. Next, let’s look at Walking Away – moving away from what is painful is perfectly natural, and it is natural for us to want to help our clients move toward the positive. Remember, what we resist not only persists, but expands. Waking away, also called “leading the horse to happiness”, is having a happy destination for our client – and asking leading questions that will help them discover the path to happiness. This seems better than telling them how to feel, because it creates the illusion that the client is in charge of their experience and self-healing. How do we know that our questions aren’t just manipulating them toward the destination we assumed was desired? Is it possible, we are helping their resistance? Are we accidentally helping them hold on to even more long-term pain?
3. Finally, we know that Wishing them Away won’t dissolve negative emotions. Yet, if we attempt positivity tools prematurely, that’s all we’re really doing - wishing and hoping. Affirmations, visualizations, spending time with positive people, avoiding the news, mirror exercises, gratitude work, etc. are all excellent ideas. Done prematurely, these are ineffective on larger emotional issues and rarely touch on root causes. Remember the analogy of building a dam in the river of emotions? If the dam is blocking flow, all this other work is like trying to send the negative emotions back up stream. Let’s remove the dam and allow the negative emotions to flow, and the positive emotions will flow and expand on their own. So, when you hear or speak expressions like “trusting the Universe, giving it up to your higher power, everything happens for a reason, somethings are just fate, etc.” check to make sure you aren’t helping your client wish away the negative feelings that just want to flow downstream.

When we help our clients move too quickly toward positivity it’s like putting a fresh coat of paint over old rusty metal or rotten wood. It feels so much better at the end of their session but miserable by the weekend. We need to make it safe and easy to invite the client into what we’ve previously thought of as the scary, shadowy underworld of negative feelings. As those feelings dissolve, the client doesn’t have to carry them around forever. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball under water or trying to run a marathon with weighted shoulder pads. All that suffering is optional.
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Mindfulness training, or a ten-day silent Vipassana retreat will help you start to experience more of this for yourself. RIM training provides the experience as well as the skills to work this way with clients. If this appeals to you, learn more about RIM at www.intus.life/rim or how to learn the skills yourself at www.intus.life/learn-rim. Also, you can join our free live Zoom webinar and experience RIM for yourself. I generally do them a couple times per week. If the dates don’t align, sign up anyway and we will invite you to a future event. Sign up here.

Coaching the Subconscious
By Michael J. Kline – Master Certified RIM Practitioner & Trainer
 
Coaching the subconscious is not complicated as it may sound. Since 95% of our brain activity lives beneath the surface of awareness, it would make sense to go right to the source of all blocks, pain, and suffering.
 
Whether we are talking about coaching or therapy, the model has always been helping people shift their perspective, reframe a situation, shine a new light, and ask the right questions. All this activity is working with conscious awareness. We tend to work in the so-called thinking brain, while emotions live elsewhere in the subconscious mind and body. Therefore, we cannot think our way out of blocks. fear, anxiety, trauma, and so on.
 
The neuroscience is here. We now know that decisions and behavior are directed by a lifetime of past experiences and live beneath the surface of conscious awareness, out of reach of the 5% of the brain where we have easy access. We can ask all the perfect and powerful questions and let the client talk about an issue endlessly and help give rise to see things differently which is certainly helpful, but it doesn’t resolve the issue at a visceral level, or even tell us whether or not we’re working on the most important issue/s.
 
For example, you have a client who tells you they can’t seem to follow through on business projects that would certainly propel their sales effort. The question is, what’s really and truly blocking them? Most likely the client has exhausted all the thinking, analyzing, and strategizing and still can’t find a solution. That’s why they seek your help.
 
What if the answer lies in the client’s past and is stuck in their subconscious? What if their father, family, friends, or teachers told them repeatedly that they will never become anything, never succeed, and a host of other negative possibilities? The client may even be aware of some of these experiences repeating silently in their head. Even if the client tries to convince themselves and says, “I’ll show them all.” Regardless, the mind is a funny thing. The client may also think, “what if they’re right, I’m such a loser, I’ll never make it on my own.”
 
I worked with a client who thought this was his story, only to find out that beneath the surface, was a resistance to out-shining Dad. This client had just broken the threshold in his career to make more money than his father ever did, and while doing work his father didn’t understand or respect. That was a subconscious block that had never been revealed. No matter how much we explored, we may have never gotten to the real sabotaging issue.  By following what showed up in the client’s body-sensing and dipping beneath the surface, it revealed itself and was completely resolved in a single session. This method or tool I’m referring to is called RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory).
 
The possibilities are endless, and could take a lifetime of talking about it, to find the root issue, let alone heal it. We need to create a safe space where the client can sense what’s beneath the surface – in RIM we call it the dip/see/do method – we dip beneath the surface to see what’s there, then we can act and do something to resolve it. This is not hypnosis or guided imagery, because it only works when it’s generated by the client’s own imagination that spontaneously comes forth while sensing their experiences in their body, not the limited thinking brain. RIM always trusts the subconscious for the real answers.
 
RIM is the best combination of skills I’ve found, that allows all this to happen. RIM does have some skills in common with Interactive Guided Imagery, and Somatic work, along with numerous unique skills discovered by Dr Deborah Sandella.
 
Dr Deb (as we call her) has a Doctorate in Human Communication and a Masters in Psychiatric Nursing. During the first 25 years of her career, she worked in a myriad of mental health settings from intensive services to private practice, and in two innovative cutting-edge inpatient community-based programs. As an award-winning therapist, University Professor, and a Best-selling author, she’s the whole package.  Dr. Deb initially synthesized aspects of Interactive Guided Imagery, Somatic techniques, and other skills she found effective. RIM has evolved “through” her rather than “from” her as she humbly describes, it has developed a life of its own as a revolutionary whole-brain way of naturally processing stuck emotions.  And neuroscience now confirms what she’s been teaching for decades.
 
I think the real genius of her discovery, is the use of imagination to connect the thinking brain with the body. We can use the body as a portal to that which is hidden (not in conscious awareness), then allow imagination to make it tangible for the thinking brain to work with it. The result is nothing less than miraculous. By coaching directly where the issues live, my clients report that they don’t just feel better, or have new insights – they feel completely different and fully empowered to move their life forward.

Three big Money Blocks for Coaches
By Michael Kline

From a recent client: “After our call, I brought in more enrollments than my entire month! It was playful and fun!”

This is the text I received the day after a session with Don (not his real name). Don is very accomplished at enrolling prospects in a two-month coaching program requiring a $5,000 investment. Whether we are brand new to enrolling clients or hate anything that resembles the idea of “selling”, or if we are an old pro, everyone bumps into blocks from time to time. Sometimes it’s about your offer, sometimes it’s your marketplace, skills, prices, etc. Often, it’s mindset, and sometimes it’s a hidden subconscious belief or energy that gets in the way.

After spending a few minutes sharing the pressure of the recent dry month, I had Don close his eyes and find the feeling of that pressure in his body – it was in his chest – as he allowed spontaneous imagination to give it form, color, size, texture and more, I had him imagine being inside the form. As we went deeper and deeper beneath the surface, using the body as the portal to what was hidden beneath conscious awareness, he eventually was surprised to find himself in a memory of being 7 years old in the apartment where he grew up.

Imagining being his young self again, he had a dialogue with his mother that didn’t (or couldn’t) happen when he was only seven. Finding his feelings in his young body and giving them voice released old beliefs about playfulness, safety, masculinity, fun, expressiveness, and creativity. Fully sensing his mother hearing him and receiving all he shared with her, Mom spoke back (in his imagination) and shared everything he never knew to be true in his early childhood. Anchoring his mother’s words and his new feelings in his young body, we then created a long series of new emotional experiences (emotional memories) of his “new” past. The new emotional memories anchored a felt sense of permission to be himself, to play, express, create, take risks, have fun, and not take on Mom’s concerns and worries. Feeling much freer and lighter at the end of the session, Don when on to start his day. His text tells you how it went.

Another client, a coach in her fifties, was certain her money blocks were related to her alcoholic parents. She had done a lot of work with her al-anon group, therapist, and her coach to understand her long-held beliefs. When a client has already done a lot of work with an issue from a conscious intellectual perspective, it may be time to work directly with what is not in conscious awareness. I had her close her eyes and settle into her body and she followed her old belief back to the same age she always goes to – her 9-year-old self. Only this time something felt different – as we continued to body-sense and safely explore beneath the surface, she found herself on the playground. The girl she thought was her friend was bullying her and none of the girls would play with her. After giving voice through a lengthy dialogue with her friend, her friend shared that she was jealous of her, that everyone liked her better. She then created a new memory as she imagined playing with her friend and all the other girls joined in. Mind you, all of this came about organically – if we tried to suggest new images, as could happen with guided imagery, it would not be as powerful as when it comes from the client’s own spontaneous imagination – it just “shows up”. Anchoring this new emotional memory in her body as a felt experience convinces her nervous system that it’s as real and effective as any factual memory.  

Here’s the thing – If you have an unconscious belief that other girls don’t want to play with you at all, it’s no wonder you freeze when asking them to pay you thousands of  dollars to play with you now. The trouble is, if the client doesn’t know what the root issue is, we could spend the rest of our career guessing at what might help.

Working on what we and/or the client “knows” is the issue keeps us blind to what is not available to the thinking brain. And yet, working with the intellectual models still produces great results. I’ve discovered that having clients feel better about their work, just isn’t good enough anymore. I’m looking for massive change, as quickly and efficiently as possible. When we can look beneath the surface, the work almost does itself. We and our clients become far more effective with much less effort.
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So, my top three answers to the big money blocks with my coach clients? Your Father, your mother, and your friends from the third grade. Of course, it’s only true when it is. It must come up organically by following the client’s journey. That said, these common themes are often the deepest source of feeling good enough, having permission to be ourselves, and to ask for what we want. This is where we learn (or not) to set boundaries, and to know at a visceral level, not just while reading affirmations, but to really feel that we are in fact, deserving, worthy, and enough.

Michael Kline is a Master Certified RIM Facilitator and the Senior Trainer at The RIM Institute. He can be reached via mike@intus.life and more information is available at www.intus.life

These are the questions that come up often when I’m teaching. Most of my private clients and my students are coaches and therapists or their referrals. As a man who spent the first half of my life afraid of working with emotions, I’d like to share what I know now. At the RIM Institute, we teach how to identify and then work with whatever is most present for the client in this moment. That may be anything from the smallest emotional block to the biggest of emotions, complete client meltdowns, or trauma.
 
I think many coaches and therapists fear taking clients too deep, either for their own comfort, or the client’s comfort. When these same helping professionals become my students, they assume a different perspective. Their prior training typically was from a cognitive perspective of helping clients shift or reframe issues. What I teach is about creating emotional safety, processing negative emotions without reliving negative experiences. This allows the emotions to freely flow and dissipate on their own while creating new positive emotions, anchored at a visceral level. As the saying goes, “what you resist not only persists, but expands.” Once we learn how to allow our own emotions to flow, we quickly realize how safely and easily we can help clients process emotions with miraculous and sometimes instant results in a single session.
 
At this point, I should address the immediate concern some readers may have. Yes, it is important that every professional stay in their own lane and work within their area of expertise. Coaches and other helping professionals are not mental health professionals, and must not dabble in diagnosing, prescribing, or becoming the “expert”.  Anyone can do this style of big work, while staying within the legal and ethical standards of their profession. I spend a lot of time teaching the difference, and how to create emotional safety for our clients. We all have emotions, and emotions are not a mental illness. Big emotions are just an opportunity for big work.
 
From personal experience, I learned that getting my “own stuff” out of the way was key to better serving my clients. Once we do that, the sky’s the limit to how deep we can take clients in resolving a lifetime of blocks and suffering. The problem is our culture taught/teaches us to fear emotions. When you were four years old and cried, an adult probably told you that big girls/boys don’t cry. You may have been assured that “you don’t really feel that way”, or my favorite, “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
 
My own first memory of being told to “man-up” was at 5 years old. At age 7, upon my mother’s death, I was told “don’t cry, and you have to be a grownup now!” This is obviously not helpful even if our parents meant well. In fact, most parents were not taught to process emotions either. So, they feel discomfort when strong feelings arise and don’t know what to do but use the same language that was used on them as children. Unfortunately, this language can be harmful and weaken a child without even realizing it. It’s the parents, family, friends, and teachers own discomfort with emotions that can create lasting shame, low self-esteem, etc.
 
While participating in a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, I learned that the Buddha was teaching how to process emotions similarly, 2500 years ago. He taught that feelings are intangible, and you can’t think your way out of them. Emotions flow through the body naturally, and if you resist negative emotions they expand and if you allow them to flow, they will dissipate on their own.
 
Dr Deb Sandella, the creator of the RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) method, calls it the River of Emotions. Emotions flow through the body like water flows through a river. Emotions are dynamic in nature, until we resist – or build a dam in the river to block the feelings we don’t like. No matter the size or intensity of emotions, if we allow the client’s imagination to make them tangible in their own unique way, we can create emotional safety so the client can be in it. There, they can regenerate new images in memory (RIM) and experience the emotions dissipating through their body in real time. We then anchor the new positive, lighter, freer, safer feeling in their body. Once complete, the client no longer needs to carry that history. The work on that specific negative emotion/issue is done. The original factual memory is still intact but loses the negative charge it once had. That’s the genius of Dr Sandella’s discoveries about emotions. The client can now move on, the negative emotions no longer drive their decisions and behavior that have been running their lives beneath their conscious awareness.
 
Helping clients bring that which is not in their awareness, into awareness and dissolving it naturally, is relatively easy after we do the hard work of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. This happens once we can allow enough of our own big emotions to dissipate from our bodies. Once we know how it feels to allow and be free, and that we survived what we thought would kill us, we can easily walk with our clients through just about anything. Using the RIM tool, you’ll never again be at a loss of what to say or do with a client even when they go to their darkest moments.
 
For deeper insights to the RIM work I’ve been teaching, I recommend reading Dr Deborah Sandella’s book Goodbye Hurt & Pain or join me for a free sample RIM experience online.


​Michael Kline is a Certified RIM Facilitator and Canfield Success Trainer for personal and group transformation. You can reach him through his website intus.life or e-mail, mike@intus.life.

​My Friday night date night? Our big night in the city was spent at my chiropractor, who held a movie screening for the bestselling, award-winning iTunes documentary, Heal. Heal, stars some of the world’s leading scientists as well as spiritual teachers, including Deepak Chopra, Bruce Lipton, Marianne Williamson, Michael Beckwith, Joan Borysenko and more.

If you’re a coach, therapist or practitioner, I have five surprises for you. If you’re a health or wellness coach, or are interested in wellness, this movie is a more obvious MUST SEE!

While watching the movie, there were several (ok, maybe 20) places I wanted to pause the movie and talk about how the same principles apply to behavioral change, and issues that deal with our emotional/mental blocks in business, relationships, self-esteem and more. The fact is, we have more control over our health and all aspects of life than we have been taught to believe. The RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) tools we use and teach, can be learned by any therapist, social worker or coach, even without a background in psychology. The documentary inspired me to share these thoughts, summarized as:

Five surprises about emotional work:

1. When you’re a hammer, everything is a nail. I can only help people who are ready to do the work and want results. Most people who hire a coach or therapist fit in this category. I have used the same coaching tool to help a fifty year old executive deal with business decisions as I do with a thirty year old full-time mother dealing with her chronic sore throat.  Whaaa?!  (True stories, on my website). Our decisions and behaviors are controlled by our emotions. Even the analytic client with the spreadsheet behind every decision (you know who you are), is still driven by emotions, including the need for the analysis! And that’s ok! The process of helping a client manage and release stuck emotions and old beliefs is simple, proven and effective, without reliving old stories, traumas and dramas. So, regardless of the client or the root cause, the process is the same. The emotion doesn’t care why it’s there, it’s just there and can be released.
2. It’s the environment, stupid! This was the title of my favorite chapter in the book, The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton, who in the late 1960’s was an early stem-cell researcher, atheist and super-science researcher and professor. Dr. Lipton, (who has become a big believer btw), in the documentary, expanded on his views about the environment in which our cells live, and how much we can impact that environment. Consider how easy it is to conjure up an image of standing on the edge of a cliff – your body responds and changes its chemical makeup just from the thoughts you create. Now consider the well-documented impact of stress on the body. Now consider that we know emotions occur in the body, and have been doing so since the day we were born. Our early programming and emotional memoires stored in the cells of our body, continue to drive our decisions and behaviors and trigger stress responses and all the related chemical changes to the environment in our body. We can change from reactive to proactive and create much better outcomes. We can, usually in a single RIM session, create a major shift in our clients’ emotional memory, generating a new belief – not just to feel better, but to feel different. Not merely a new perspective or reframe, but a new feeling and belief at a much deeper level. This is just as powerful as the original belief formed at an early age. Consider what’s possible if we can change decisions and behaviors regarding business, leadership, relationships, and health.
3. Clients aren’t broken and we don’t have to be the expert to fix them. Just because the root of a challenge is hidden in a deep emotional experience, does not mean the client is broken and needs to be fixed by an expert. You can learn the skills to process that work without referring them to a specialist. My own clients will sometimes say “I don’t want to go there”, understandable, given the thought of going into old scary dark places in their past. We don’t have to. The RIM process follows whatever shows up for the client and is led by them. Using the gentle, yet powerful tools of RIM, the client discovers how easily they can identify the root issue, and dissolve or change it, in less than an hour.
4. Emotions do belong in the workplace. Let’s stop pretending they can be left at the door. The truth is, all coaching is personal work and private. Most people don’t want to think about their feelings, yet they can’t stop thinking about their feelings. If I have the trust, and the client is ready for real, sustainable results, I simply ask them if they are willing to try something different, they always say yes. And they are always grateful.
5. It’s not about your relationship with the client. The thing is, all humans want love and connection. We can help them learn to connect more deeply with themselves and the important people in their lives. Of course, we can connect more deeply with our clients, and our connection and trust is valuable in our relationship, but it really is not about their relationship with us. We teach them to not need us in this way, and help them develop the relationship with themselves.

We really do have more control over all aspects of life than we have been taught to believe. If you would like to explore RIM as a tool to deepen your skills, fuel a new direction for your work or just to enhance your personal journey in this world, click here for more about learning RIM. RIM qualifies for 36 ICF credits and 27 NASW credits

By Michael J. Kline

​I’m a procrastinator – I admit it - especially about writing. I’ll get better - one day!
Just the other day, I sat down at my computer to write – I’ve got several ideas for new stories – starting with hobbies we seem to be re-discovering during the pandemic. I tell myself “Kline, just sit your butt down in the chair and start writing”!
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I sit down at my computer – a brand new Surface Pro – I’d seen it in the Microsoft Store window at the mall a million times - $2600 for a laptop – that’s crazy!  But maybe it’s just the inspiration I need – like a muse, or at the very least an invaluable tool! It’s so sexy – and look at the keyboard and the magic arc mouse – and the color options – that blue is totally my color – blue enough, but not too blue – steely, soft and bold at the same time. I think it’s the color of my eyes – if I still had young steely blue eyes that were soft and yet bold… never mind that. This will make writing so much easier!

So I’m sitting at my sexy, blue, soft-touch keyboard, feeling young in the… eyes…  yeah.. well… I need a coffee.  I make a fresh coffee – Starbucks – quarantine style. Reminds of those halcyon pre-covid days when I’d sit at the Starbucks in the mall and write – the mall with the Microsoft store.  Then I realize my coffee habit costs more than the Surface pro!  Focus dammit. I clear out my emails, as required if I’m to focus. Balance the checking account, clean my desk, and check Facebook to see if yesterday’s video of my puppy Luke swimming has any more likes. (We were at 72 likes and three shares as of this morning).

Ok, now it’s time to write – about what? Oh yeah! I was going to write about hobbies – dammit, that reminds me, I was going to start making bread again. I even got the last three packets of yeast at Publix. I wish we still had Piggly Wiggly stores here, it would be so much more fun to say I got he last three packets of yeast at the Piggly Wiggly.

If I dust off the bread machine and get something started now, it will be fresh and hot for dinner. Thirty minutes later, back at my sexy blue, soft-touch keyboard, nothing left to separate me from changing the world with a few carefully chosen words of wisdom and inspiration. I realize I could use a fresh coffee.  I resist – it’s time to write – look at you Kline!  The very model of self-discipline!  Own it!  You’re writing! and avoided getting another coffee!

Just then Luke (the puppy) starts barking like crazy. I rush out to see what’s happening and he’s sitting in the middle of the kitchen barking at the bread machine that had just started pounding and bouncing on the counter, kneading life’s greatest treasures (flour, fat and sugar), into what would soon yield toasted cinnamon raisin bread lathered with a questionable amount of butter. And maybe some powdered sugar.  And what the hell, a little honey. Who am I kidding, a lot of honey. As the machine pounded and bounced on the counter, I realized I had not prepared our little Luke for this type of crazy.  I had introduced him to the vacuum cleaner, the hair dryer, and the doorbell. It never occurred to me to prepare him for the trauma of a bouncing pounding machine in the kitchen that runs by itself.  He’ll be talking about this with doggy therapist one day. Oh god. What if we’re on the Dog whisperer one day?! I’ll be scolded on national television for making cinnamon bread more important than my dog’s emotional well-being.
Am I over-thinking this? I don’t know. I have to wonder though - what would be different in my life if my parents had not prepared me for the surprises, the curve balls and the potholes of life?  What if I had never been exposed to life’s proverbial vacuum cleaners and bread machines?!  We can never be prepared for every specific bump (or pandemic, murder hornet migration and locust swarm), life might throw at us. We can be prepared though. We can build resilience to be able to handle whatever amount of cray cray shit shows up in life. That’s it!  The gift of divine procrastination has once again paid off, fulfilling my quest for the next story topic – Like a puppy with a bread machine, you don’t need to control everything to be able to handle anything.

Michael J. Kline is a Master Certified RIM Practitioner and Trainer, Jack Canfield Associate Trainer and Barrett Certified Consultant. You can reach him through his website www.intus.life, or e-mail, mike@intus.life.

I just finished teaching RIM Essentials in Denver where we had several coaches, a couple therapists, three educators and a few military veterans. What an amazing experience not just for the learning, but the personal journeys, as well. What became very clear is, RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) is as much a movement as it is a technique. RIM is a completely new paradigm of how we experience and work with emotions and the world needs it now more than ever before.
 
As emotions continue to drive our behavior and decisions in all walks of life, it’s time we stop pretending that emotions don’t belong in the workplace, home, school, or anywhere else. Like it or not, emotions are always present, we just pretend that we set them aside, but we don’t.
 
During the training one student shared that she is always stuck in her analytic mind and work, answering to budgets and spreadsheets. The truth is, those budgets were created from emotions, and perhaps from fear or desire.
 
Children are dying because we don’t know how to allow and process emotions. Employees are disengaged, unproductive, calling out sick and quitting their jobs because they can’t bring their true selves to the workplace. Parents don’t know what to do for their children. Children don’t know what to do with their fear or anger. Voters don’t know what to do with their frustration, fear and even rage. I’d say it’s time for a new paradigm about emotions. It’s time for a movement.
 
If you work in a corporate setting, does behavior matter? Does decision making matter? If you work with parents, leaders, couples, vets, trauma clients, men, women, or children… anyone with emotions… which is everyone, can you see how emotions are driving their decisions and behavior?
 
RIM is an entirely new way of thinking about emotions. We can do our own work by turning on our Emotional Operating System or EOS, while also helping our clients do the same. We are not victims of our experiences. Our unconscious mind is driving our decisions and behavior. One of my favorite quotes is from Carl Jung. He said “Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. We are not as subject to fate as we think we are.
 
If you would like to have an even greater impact on the world, join the RIM movement. Free yourself of the limiting power of emotions and welcome the empowerment of your own Emotional Operating System. When you see how easily and quickly you can get to the root issue through the unconscious mind and watch it dissolve, you’ll want to do it with nearly every client.
 
Upcoming training dates are online at www.intus.life/learn-rim
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Need more info about RIM?

I need to blog more. I see my last post was Mother's day! I find it interesting that with all the great and joyful things going on in my life, the last time I was inspired to share on my blog page was about mother issues - and here she is again! Maybe it's time to let go. Again.

Ever have one of those experiences where you want to curse it and thank it at the same time? I just finished a retreat where, once again, I got so much more than I expected. During a RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) meditation, my adopted mother appeared and stirred up some old crap I thought was long gone. Dammit and thank you. I felt a need to share how it ended to anchor my own experience, and perhaps help someone else who might be carrying around similar crap.
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Dear Mom,

I wrote you a letter because there are some things I’ve never said and I’m sure you would never listen anyway.

You’ve been gone from this earth for years and gone from my life for years longer. I forgave you many times, I swear I tried again and again. Every new chance I gave, you blew it. I knew you needed love as much as I did, I just didn’t have any more to give.

So, I worked on me, I forgave me, I learned to love me or at least like me more than I did. I learned to embrace my own life and made it good. I found the love I was missing inside me. I found happiness, it was all around me, I was just blinded by sadness. I stopped crying for these things. I gave up much, and then I gave up trying so hard.

I have no more tears for you. Tears just blur my sight and I see now I have much to see now. I see my purpose, I see my value, and I see I don’t need you.

As I wrote those words, my body shook, and my eyes leaked again. No this is not tears, this is the water here to snuff out the ashes, the embers of hate, rage, anger, sadness and pain still smoldering inside. This water flowing freely from my eyes wash away the remnants of you that still cloud my vision, the remnants I thought were long gone.

So yes, I wrote you a letter, and as my pen hit the paper, my fingers wrote out their gratitude, it seems my hand remembers being little, when you adopted me and gave my life a second chance. It knows you chose to help me. It remembers being given a new space to grow, learn and be safe. As my heart was inspired from what my hand was writing, it too, remembered feeling loved and supported. Then my shoulders looked into the eyes of my heart and joined in reminiscing, remembering how they first felt wide and strong, ready to handle any weight given me. My arms and legs shivered with the vibration of all that is. My pen could hardly keep pace with my thoughts, my feelings and my heartbeat, so my gut gave it some advice. My gut told the pen to just say what it wants, let go of editing and just tell you what has never been said completely, what it felt has never been heard by you. The pen shocked my unaware intellect as it expressed gratitude for all the advice you gave me, for the times you encouraged me, for the lessons you taught me, for the love you gave me, for the honesty you always shared, you were always so fucking honest. It wrote down how much I hated your honesty and the judgments it carried. It told the paper everything. I hate you. I’m angry with you. I hate you. Do you hear me? I fucking hate you! I’m through! Then it knew I was really through. My hand automatically went back to the word "hate" and added a "d" to the end. I hated you. Past tense. I was angry with you. Past tense. I am through. Present tense. I am through with hate and anger. I let it all out, including all the smoldering remnants. This is what forgiveness is, it’s turning the tears of pain into the water that snuffs out the still-glowing embers of pain, anger, sadness and hatred. I put all those things in the letter, then I put the letter in the fire. As that letter burned, I watched with crystal clear vision through the blur in my eyes, as the smoke carried it all away. And as the smoke rose into the clouds, the setting sun sent forgiveness to dry my eyes, and a new fire flickered in my heart. A brilliant jewel appeared in my chest and reflected the light of the fire into the night air as love. The sky sent it back to me. I am grateful that you teach me still. I learned tonight, I can take light and warmth from the fire and it still has light and warmth. I learned that you needed love as much as I did and I can give you love and compassion, and it costs me nothing, for this is the light and warmth of my new fire.

Yes, I freely give love and compassion, for this is the light and warmth of my new fire.    

​Mixed Feelings on Mother’s Day
By Michael J. Kline

Here in the US and some other countries, today is Mother’s Day. As we realize it is a regional holiday, not a universal law of nature, you get to choose to participate or not, and to the degree you want. You also get to feel how you want to feel about it. In my own experience and working with clients, I know Mother’s Day can be challenging. This article is for those challenged today. That may be due to the loss of a mother, the quality of relationship with your mother or your role, or lack of a role as a mother. It may be for a hundred other reasons. The point is, you might feel something other than like a Hallmark Card. That’s ok.  Feel what you feel.

As a child, I took pride in making cards and gifts in school. In my teen-years, I made the effort to celebrate brunch and dinner with the family. Over the years those days felt more and more hollow until I knew it was downright fake. In my twenties and thirties, I would alternate a couple years not on speaking terms with mom, (when life was easy and fun) and a couple years when we would make up (when life was stressful and burdensome). Eventually, I realized I had the power to say enough is enough. It was difficult and painful, but less difficult and painful than subjecting myself to the constant devaluing antics of a bitter, sad, angry woman I couldn’t help or change.

At age fifty, during a RIM session (Regenerating Images in Memory), I changed my perception of my mother to Aunt. I had accepted her as my mother in every way for the 40-some years since she and my uncle adopted me, following my birth-mother’s death when I was seven. I had no memory of my birth mother. After decades of forgiveness work and trying to understand this relationship and my low self-worth, the breakthrough moment came when I fired her as my mother. I instantly realized that while she never could be what I needed as a mother, she had gone far above and beyond any expectation of an aunt. She took us in, fed us, housed us, educated us and did the best she could with her limited awareness, knowledge, skills and tools. When I lowered the bar for her, I could finally forgive her. Following forgiveness, finding gratitude for the gifts received was easy. My loss of a mother was not on her.

During another RIM session, I was able to sense the feeling of being held by my birthmother. The sense was an overwhelming feeling of unconditional love, safety and protection. I cried a lot, I smiled a lot and I discovered that at some level, at some point, I was wanted, valued and loved.

What I find again and again working with clients is, that it is never too late to create a happy childhood. Thanks to RIM, we actually have the power to not only create a perspective shift, or a re-frame, but we also have the power to create an entirely new experience in our imagination. Our bodies, our unconscious mind and our nervous system, treat a well-imagined event similar to a real event. So, while we intellectually know it was an imagined event, we feel completely different. We can neutralize the negative emotional charged stories we tell ourselves. The story shifts from draining to empowering; from suffering to freedom. Our brains never stop growing and changing. Thanks to neuroplasticity in our brain, we now know that anything is possible.
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I hope you have something beautiful to celebrate today. I invite you to consider celebrating you. You have already survived everything that has ever happened to you. You have within you, everything you need to be who you want to be; who you were meant to be.

By Michael Kline
(An experience during my ten-day silent retreat, while walking in the woods.)

Hello tree… I said as I realized I sounded like a crazy person, or at least like the sort of person I would have previously thought crazy. Hello.

You look so sad. I’m so sorry you’re just leaning there, lifeless, full of holes, no branches, no leaves, no bark, just rotting away. How sad to just be there decaying, with no purpose, no meaning. What happened?
I bet you used to be a big deal in these woods. You must have been very tall and straight, powerful and full of life and possibility. You must have housed hundreds of birds, thousands of insects. You provided shade and shelter to animals, and small delicate plants, you dropped your leaves every year to fertilize the soil, you had deep roots, the very model of strength and stability. What happened that you lost it all? How sad to see you like this now.

I am not sad, said the tree. I was a big deal in these woods. I have been very tall and straight, powerful and full of life and possibility. I have in fact, housed thousands of birds and millions of insects. I had the honor of providing shade and shelter to animals, and small delicate plants. I was happy to drop my leaves every year to fertilize the soil, and yes, I was blessed with deep roots, so strong and stable.

I am still full of life, I am full of holes and many animals and insects still make use of me, as I ever so slowly continue to feed the soil for new life to spring up, full of endless possibility. I will never die, I simply change with the times to accommodate my highest purpose in this moment. It is my joy to be here, still beautifying the woods, sill providing what I can provide. And in my later years, to be a teacher to all who seek my wisdom. Thank you for visiting me.

What happened to you, my human friend, that you see sadness here? How sad that is.
 
As I burst into tears, I said thank you to the tree. Oh Tree, it’s me who is sad, that is my sadness I see as I look at you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, so that I might live as greatly as you. That I might be always serving in the best way I can to support, shelter, feed, nurture and love others. That I might always contribute what I can that is needed in each moment. That I may know my purpose and share my many blessings with all who pass by.

As my sadness faded, I felt the underlying fear arise in my body, that was hiding beneath the sadness. The fear that I would waste my most vibrant years and die alone in the woods unappreciated and unused. As I studied the tree further, and appreciated the beauty of its state – the soft bark-less wood, the perfect holes showing how much life still happens here, the graceful stance, even as it leans but would not fall.

As the fear faded away, my body replaced it with goosebumps of excited possibility and tears of joy.

Current neuroscience confirms that 95% of decisions are emotional, not logical. The conscious logical mind can only process 3-4 pieces of new information at a time. Decisions are made by using our subconscious mind filled with a lifetime of experiences, memories, emotions, beliefs, successes, and failures.
 
It’s no surprise that clients get stuck in old stories, negative emotional memories, and repeating patterns of behavior. Since decisions are emotional, having clients shift their perspective or re-frame a situation using logic is limited.
 
To promote permanent change, a more whole brain and body approach that incorporates the subconscious mind filled with negative emotional memories is worth pursuing. The RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) technique created by Dr. Deborah Sandella, releases and regenerates negative emotional memories into positive ones.
 
I invite you to meet your peers and experience the profound power of RIM on our International Group RIM Zoom.
 
Click through for more info about RIM and to sign up for the Zoom.
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By Rebecca MacLean and Michael Kline

Let's just call them resistant, rather than uncoachable, shall we?

If you search articles about coaching the “uncoachable”, you will notice many say “These clients aren’t worth the effort.” “Try to avoid those clients, and if you have them, accept that they are not ready for coaching; end the relationship.”

According to John Mattone, a globally respected leadership coach authority, it generally benefits no one to consider a client “uncoachable.”  John goes on to explain “Most of all, successfully coaching the resistant requires understanding the cause of the client’s reticence so that it can be addressed.” Others advise, “The coach must help the client uncover their own intrinsic motivation to change.” But none of them really tell us HOW to do that. The advice is: walk away, refer the client to therapy, or “it just takes time to build trust.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t help you in your next session; it leaves you frustrated and most likely down one paying client.
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The Real Problem
Have you considered the possibility that the client’s resistance is the work they need to tackle? The client isn’t resistant to coaching per se, the resistance is the problem revealing itself to you. 
According to cognitive neuroscientists, people are conscious of only about 5 percent of cognitive activity, so most decisions, actions, emotions, and behavior depends on the 95 percent of brain activity that goes beyond conscious awareness. The late Dr. Robert Zajonc, social psychologist at the University of Michigan, explained “In many cases when people explain why they’ve made a decision, they are simply rationalizing, attributing what sounds like a reasonable basis for what is really a murky, unknowable process.”
Piotr Winkielman, a researcher and professor of psychology at UC San Diego, states, “The affective system responsible for preferences is separate from the cognitive system responsible for inferences; because early affective processes are automatic and therefore inaccessible to higher-order interventions; and because early affective responses are not represented as conscious feelings.”   That’s why your client doesn’t know what’s stopping them, they just reactively resist. 
The Solution
A technique called Regenerating Images in Memory (RIM)® developed by Dr. Deborah Sandella, RN, PhD, makes this murky and unknowable process known. The early affective processes are quickly brought into conscious awareness so that higher-order interventions rewrite the automatic responses and preferences. Using this technique, clients can safely, consciously, and quickly tap into true sub-conscious motivations for behavior, understand the origin, and resolve any that are no longer serving the client. RIM does not require the coach to be the expert. It is a non-threatening, emotionally safe, client-directed process that navigates directly the root cause of resistance, making the “uncoachable” not only coachable but on a direct path to change. It is important to note that this process is not as complex as it may seem at first, and can be done within the boundaries of coaching. RIM does not require therapy skills and is careful in its training to draw clear lines separating mental health issues from coaching work.
RIM utilizes the client’s imagination, body sensations and images to bring the sub-conscious into awareness. “Language is limited,” Gerald Zaltman, an emeritus professor from the Harvard Business School says, "and it can't be confused with the thought itself. Images, however, can capture unconscious feelings, often discovering a core; a deep metaphor simultaneously embedded in a unique setting."
Dr. Sandella explains how RIM utilizes those images for healing and creating behavior change. “The latest neuro-science findings support the efficacy of RIM® by explaining that the brain and nervous system is “plastic” or changeable. Since the brain registers an imagined experience similar to a real experience, we can re-generate emotional memory to create neuro-pathways for new endings to old stories. All the while, factual memory remains stable. During the RIM® process clients integrate a new felt body-experience that translates to automatic or reflexive behavioral, physical, and psychological changes.” This transforms the uncoachable client’s subconscious resistance into drive and motivation so your coaching can gain traction.
Rebecca MacLean www.macleanlifecoaching.com and Michael Kline www.intus.life are Master Certified RIM Facilitators, who love hosting retreats, teaching, supporting coaches and playing in the world of personal and professional growth.

By Jack Canfield
When we have a big question or an important decision to make, many of us look outside of ourselves for the answers. We turn to Google. We get advice from our friends and family. We read books or consult the teachings of experts. Yet we often neglect to consult the most important authority of all: our own intuition.
Your subconscious mind is the source of your hidden genius and will always provide you with the knowledge you need to move forward in the right direction. This is true for all people, not just those who consider themselves to be psychic or highly intuitive.
Consider this: have you ever been thinking about someone – and out of the blue the phone rings and that exact person is on the line?
Or have you ever felt like someone is watching you – and when you turn around you see someone staring at you from some distance away?
These are just two common examples of your intuition at work. Just like memory, critical thinking, and intellect, your intuition is a mental muscle you can strengthen and use to create success and become the best possible version of yourself.
Here are seven tips on how to develop your intuition and leverage it to make wiser, more soul-inspired decisions for your life.
1. Recognize when your intuition speaks First of all, in order to be able to use your intuition, you must able to recognize it when it speaks to you. Intuition usually isn’t loud or demanding – it’s subtle and communicates in different ways for different people.
For example, you may receive visual messages, such as images that appear in quick flashes or visions that unfold slowly, like a movie.
Your intuition might speak to you as a hunch, a thought, or in words. You may even be able to enter into a dialogue with your intuition to get more information and clarity.
Alternatively, your intuition may speak to you in physical sensations, such as goose bumps, discomfort in your gut, a feeling of relief, or a sour taste in your mouth.
You may receive intuitive messages through your emotions, such as feelings of uneasiness or confusion when your inner wisdom is steering you away from something – or feelings of euphoria and profound peace when you’re being guided down a path that will lead you to greater personal joy and abundance.

Sometimes intuition messages are simply a deep sense of knowing and certainty. If you’ve ever felt that you knew something to be true in the depths of your heart or soul, chances are it was a message from your intuition.
2. Deepen your intuition through meditation In order to access your intuition, you need to deepen your connection to it – and meditation is an excellent tool for this. Regular meditation will help you clear your mind of distractions and teach you how to better recognize the subtle impulses from within.
I recommend you set aside time each day to meditate on your own, or use guided meditations such as those found in my Awakening Power program.
It doesn’t have to be long – even 10 minutes a day will yield powerful results and will make it much easier for you to notice your intuition when it speaks to you through words, images, emotions, or physical sensations.
If you don’t already practice meditation, you can learn how to meditate here.
3. Dedicate time to listen to your intuition each day Life is busy, and in the rush to cross off items on our daily to-do lists, it’s easy to forget to stop and tune into our higher intelligence. But your most valuable wisdom comes when you are most open to receiving it.
That’s why I encourage you to devote time every day – multiple times a day, if necessary – to consciously give your intuition center stage. This is especially important when you’re being asked to make any important decisions. Be sure to take some time to sit with your intuition and look inside yourself for the answers before you choose which path to take.
4. Ask questions Receiving wisdom from your intuition shouldn’t be a passive experience. Get specific about the information you need and what kind of answers you’re looking for. The more clearly you pose your questions to your innate wisdom, the clearer the answers will be.
5. Write down your answers Intuitive messages are subtle and can fade from your conscious mind very quickly unless you take action to record them. In fact, neuroscience research indicates that intuitive insights not captured within 37 seconds will likely never be recalled again.
Journal writing is a highly effective way to access your intuition and capture its wisdom. I suggest you make a regular practice of journaling for just five or ten minutes a day – you’ll be amazed at the clarity of what comes through!
6. Take immediate action The Universe rewards those who take action – and so does your intuition. When you act on the information you receive from your inner source of wisdom, you open the channel between your subconscious and conscious mind even wider and will receive more intuitive messages that are stronger and easier for you to hear and act on.
7. Trust yourself The more faith you demonstrate in your intuition, the greater the results will be.
Whether you want to make better decisions, solve problems faster, or create winning plans for your life, you will achieve your goals faster and more effectively when you tune into your intuition and listen to what your inner wisdom has to say.
Trusting your intuition is all about trusting yourself – and the more trust you place in yourself, the more success you will have.
Easier said than done? I can help
Developing a strong connection with your intuition can be challenging, especially if you’ve spent a lifetime second-guessing yourself or not trusting your own decision- making skills, or if you have too many other “voices” in your head – voices of self-doubt, or blame, or judgment – drowning out your intuition.
If you feel like you need more help with this, I invite you to join me in person at Breakthrough to Success this August. In just five days, we’ll work together to quiet the voices that don’t serve you and strengthen your connection to your inner source of wisdom.

Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul® and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: www.FreeSuccessStrategies.com

RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) is an innovative transformational method that can be used as an adjunctive technique in traditional psychotherapy or as an innovative practice model. I developed this method of working with clients after 25 years of doing traditional psychotherapy as a university professor, community mental health program director,  and  private  practitioner. A synthesis of a variety of techniques that access the unconscious mind. This therapeutic tool combines Ericksonian Hypnosis (Gilligan, 1987), Interactive Guided Imagery (Rossman, 1987), and Somatic Therapy concepts; it provides us the language to program the unconscious radar, so we can consciously choose our direction and heal  our history.
 
Practicing RIM over the last 10 years, it has evolved into a completely new practice model. I have labeled it Transformational Coaching to distinguish it from psychotherapy. Traditional psychotherapy is a pathology- centered model where the relationship between client and therapist creates a laboratory to offer clients a reparative experience. The client is considered broken in some way, and the therapist’s job is to facilitate the fix. In comparison, RIM shifts the focus of connection away from client and therapist and refocuses on the relationship between client and inner self. The coach is a guide who escorts clients to their inherently whole center beneath the layers of human experience. Repeatedly seeing the remarkable results, I have come to truly trust the wholeness that lives at the heart of every human being. Clients also recognize their true selves and are amazed at their own power and wisdom. It becomes a healing moment and frequently, they are initiated on a journey of relating to their inner self and unconscious mind with increased respect and wonder. About Learning RIM...

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RIM uses preverbal primary image associations to dip into the well of the unconscious and bring back hidden insights. As Socrates profoundly described eons ago, imagination is the language of  the  soul.  Anna  Wise (2002) has demonstrated in the biofeedback lab that the unconscious mind can be heard in the quiet spaces between the chatter of our intellectual thoughts. When you  slow  down  rapid-fire  thinking  focused  on the external world, you sense the insight of your unconscious. Merely by closing  your  eyes,  you  begin  to focus in the direction of the invisible unconscious.  Try it, and notice how easily your attention shifts from external analysis to intuitive sensing.
 
Research has proven repeatedly the immense power of imagination. For example, Baylor School of Medicine physician Dr Bruce Moseley (Moseley et al., 2002), surprisingly, found that patients who received placebo surgery for severe debilitating knee pain had the same level of improvement as those patients who had the shaving of damaged cartilage and surgical removal of inflammatory material in the knee joint. The placebo group who received “fake surgery” were sedated and given three standard incisions. The surgeon also talked and acted as if it were real surgery, including splashing salt water to simulate the sound of the knee-washing procedure. After the release of these findings, the media filmed people from the placebo surgery group walking and playing basketball, things they could not do before surgery.
 
More recently, Dr Joseph Disperna explained in the movie What the Bleep! (Arntz et al. & Vicente et al., 2004) that the same parts of the brain light up on an MRI when a person looks at an actual object, or if they imagine the same object in their mind. In other  words,  the  brain does not distinguish the difference between real and imagined experience. This is very good news—it suggests that we can transform traumatic or troubling memories and destructive beliefs, and the mind will integrate the new transformed version.
 
The relationship between the body and the unconscious has become the focus of an explosion of new research since Dr Candace Pert (1997) discovered that neuropeptides and their specific receptor sites are scattered throughout the brain and the body, including the immune system. Pert suggests the neurologic patterns of our unconscious experiences are recorded at these sites; thus, the body holds a cellular log of unconscious content that is activated as a default response whenever triggers are present.
 
The logical mind attempts to keep life predictable by analyzing, thinking, and rationalizing our subjective life experiences. As humans and especially Americans, we have learned to trust our intellectual function to keep us safe, and we expect that if we vigilantly analyze the world around us, we will remain in control. The unconscious, intuitive mind, on the other hand, is illogical, invisible, and ungrounded in reality. Nighttime dreaming is a wonderful example of pure unconscious process. Unlike indigenous cultures, we have been taught to mistrust the invisible, so the insights and gifts buried in the unconscious mind are frequently uncultivated and even feared. Learn the RIM Method...
 
The Process of Implementing RIM
 
Founded upon these scientific findings, RIM allows clients to replace unconscious destructive and painful images with positive images in the same way a message on a cassette tape can be erased and a new message recorded. This process offers a seamless flow through four simple processes for transformational healing:

(a) Close eyes, relax and slow brain waves; (b) Follow the trail of images through the unconscious; (c) Transform, edit, and delete mental images; (d) Locate pain as felt-body experience; (e) Transform, edit, and delete felt-body experience; (f) Save new desirable images in body.

RIM allows us to: 

1. Reveal undesirable unconscious images
2. Intuitively correct healing images
3. Write new endings to old experiences
4. Re-do regrets
5. Edit, delete, and transform painful memories
6. Rehearse desirable outcomes
7. Free physical discomfort held in the body
8. Settle with those who have passed

 
For example, a middle-aged widow came in for a session complaining of loneliness since her husband’s sudden and traumatic death 12 years earlier. When I inquired of her unconscious mind as to where in her body the pain of her husband’s death was hiding, she saw in her mind’s eye it was in the skin covering her total body. Deepening her experience by asking the color of the pain, she gasped slightly, and said with a gulp, “Its black, I’m wearing the widow’s black as my skin.” When asked what she would like to do with this blackness covering her skin, she said through tears, “It’s already changing, soon as I saw it, it spontaneously began to change; it’s becoming a vividly colorful mural of life and nature.” Within a month, she had her first date in 12 years, and is currently in a relationship.
 
Research Findings
 
The RIM method has been tested both in research and clinical experience. The study (Boxwell, 2006) involved 52 participants who suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They were introduced to the RIM workbook and audio program (Sandella, 2002) and asked to do the exercises as directed. The clients were able to significantly reduce the hallmark symptoms of this stress-related disorder and to increase significantly the quality of life by using the RIM workbook and audio program for 6 weeks. The findings suggest that individuals suffering from IBS were overly reliant upon their intellectual function, and that the RIM program shifted their attention away from overachieving to trusting their inner guidance. It is interesting to note that those who consistently wrote down their insights following RIM sessions had the best results, and those unfamiliar with their inner life took almost 4 weeks of practice before experiencing benefit. Learn RIM...
 
Clinically, the effectiveness of RIM was tested when a workshop participant whose psychiatric background was unknown spontaneously disassociated at a personal growth retreat far from home.
 
Jan stood under a sunny tropical sky, as her eyes filled with terror and a faraway blankness, and she fought off an invisible intruder. Rather than trying to draw her out of the disassociation, I used the RIM™ technique of following her fully into the inner experience already playing.

When asked what she was seeing or feeling inside her body, Jan described, “a knife in my vagina.” Feeling a wince of concern,  I continued and asked what she wanted to do with the knife? “Remove it,” came her response and I quickly encouraged her to do so. When asked where she wanted to discard the knife, she spoke with intense emotion, “I want to kill my mother with it.” After a moment of hesitation, I proceeded to suggest she bring up an image of her mother in her imagination. Immediately, she said, “No, then I would be like her; I don’t want to be like her, I want to throw it in the ocean.” At which time, she imagined throwing the knife into the adjacent ocean, and seeing it sink to the very bottom where it quickly slid beneath the sand and disintegrated.

When asked what image she’d like to place in the space where the knife previously had rested, nothing came into her mind. At that moment, however, across my mind flashed the image of a healthy, strong young tree. So, I soothingly shared this vision with her. After receiving her agreement, I let my intuition spontaneously describe the tree roots growing down and out through the soles of her feet deep into mother earth. In this hypnotic moment, I quietly reassured her that this was her new earth mother who was always there to support and nourish her true self. As she and I witnessed her inner process, her well-rooted tree instantly grew and the branches opened upward to Father Sky as she felt the warmth and comfort of tropical sun on her head. When we finished integrating this new image in her body, she was fully present in her body and with me, I immediately asked her to return to the group activity she had left only 20 minutes earlier.

She easily reintegrated into the group engaged in an art project and drew an image of a small tree with expanding roots and a few rising branches with green leaves. During the rest of the retreat, Jan engaged with the other participants in a new, open way, sharing that she “felt more normal than ever before in her life.” Months later, her partner shared that Jan previously had tried hospitalization, medication, and psychotherapy and nothing had worked until this RIM™ experience.

More about RIM...

Learn the RIM Method...
 
If you want to learn more about RIM, you can order Dr. Sandella’s newest book, Goodbye Hurt & Pain, 7 Simple Steps for Health, Love and Success everywhere books are sold, and visit www.riminstitute.com.
 
References
Arntz, W., Chase, B., & Vicente, M. (Producers), & Vicente, M., Chase,  B., & Arntz, W. (Directors). (2004). What the bleep do we know! [Motion picture]. United States: Lord of the Wind Films.
Boxwell, A. (2006). The efficacy of guided-imagery/visualization and journaling in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Subtle Energies & Energy Medicine, 16(2), 21–24.
Gilligan, S. (1987). Therapeutic trances: The cooperation principle in Ericksonian  hypnotherapy.  Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.
Moseley, J. B., O’Malley, K., Petersen, N. J., Menke, T. J., Brody, B. A., Kuykendall, D. H., et al. (2002). A controlled trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee. New England Journal of Medicine, 347(2), 81–88.
Pert, C. (1997). Molecules of emotion, the science behind mind-body  medicine.
New York: Scribner.
Rossman, M. (1987). Healing yourself: A step-by-step program for better health through imagery. (Bressler and Rossman are authors of Interactive  Guided  Imagery).  New  York:  Simon  & Schuster.
Sandella, D. (2002). Releasing the inner magician, ways to find a peaceful and happy life (book and CD). Denver, CO: The Inner Magician Series. (2016) Goodbye Hurt & Pain, 7 Simple Steps for Health, Love and Success. Newburyport, MA:  Conari Press
Wise, A. (2002). Awakening the mind: A guide to mastering the power of your brain waves. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam Books.

By Michael Kline
When we conjure up an image up a leader in business, we might see the stereotypical tall, white man, with chiseled jaw, expensive suit, power tie, you get the picture – a sort of super-hero with an MBA and an unhealthy amount of confidence matched only by his lack of compassion. The strong, results-oriented driver personality, win at all costs, take no prisoners, bottom-line boss image can provide a sense of comfort to employees, investors and clients alike, especially when feeling anxious about the future. It makes sense to our primal nature that a strong leader can solve our problems and keep us safe.
 
No offense to tall people or nice suits, I happen to like both. The problem with becoming a leader (boss), or choosing our leaders with this mindset, is that our tribe isn’t fighting off wild animals and other invading tribes. Of course we all feel fearful at times, and of course it’s natural to respond to fear from the reptilian part of our brain that says we need power or protection to overcome whatever it is we fear.
 
A research team at Cornell University studied the leadership styles, backgrounds and track records of 72 senior executives across 31 companies and concluded that harsh, hard-driving, executives actually diminish the bottom line, while self-aware leaders with strong interpersonal skills produced better financial results. “Bully traits that are often seen as part of a business-building culture were typically signs of incompetence and lack of strategic intellect. Such weaknesses as being arrogant, too direct or impatient and stubborn, correlated with low ratings for delivering financial results, business/technical acumen, strategic intellect, and, not surprisingly, managing talent, inspiring followership, and being a team player.”  There is a better way.
 
While Self-awareness get little attention in the business world, the Cornell study reveals that it should actually be a top concern. High self-awareness scores were the best predictor of overall success. It makes sense that executives who are aware of the lenses through which they filter their perceptions and assumptions might have a more honest grasp of reality, affecting their relationships, decisions and actions. Further, having realistic confidence and an awareness of their own limitations would allow them to hire subordinates who complement their talents.
 
According to Daniel Goleman, renowned Emotional Intelligence expert, “self-awareness is the skill that requires the most patience and honesty, and provides the best foundation for further developing Emotional and Social Intelligence in both work and life situations.” 
 
It seems that soft values drive hard results.
 
Goleman’s research colleague, Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, explains the mind-body connection of self-awareness. “We know that Emotional Self-Awareness can begin with sensations in your body or with your thoughts. When emotions are activated, they are accompanied by bodily changes. There may be changes in breathing rate, in muscle tension, in heart rate. Emotional Self-Awareness in part is the awareness of one's own body.”
 
As a RIM practitioner (Regenerating Images in Memory), I learned this from my teacher and mentor Dr. Deb Sandella, founder of The RIM Institute and author of Goodbye Hurt and Pain. It’s called interoception, the sensing of feelings as they flow through the body, bringing helpful feedback, if we pay attention. With RIM, we guide clients to use body sensing to tap into these usually unnoticed emotions.
 
The subconscious speaks in metaphors and images while the intellect speaks in thoughts and words. When we use imagination to translate and synthesize feelings, a whole-brain experience is created. The results are profound. Neuroscience explains how it works—this ability to change our emotional memory to create new endings to old stories that shape our self-concept, world-views and limiting beliefs.  All the while factual memory remains intact and the client remains in total control. In addition to relieving stress, anxiety, emotional and physical pain, the client enjoys increased internal insight, resourcefulness and self-awareness. 
 
Because emotional work is invisible and intangible, it can seem complicated, difficult to measure, time-consuming, expensive, and unrelated to the bottom line. The opposite is actually true. In reality, results can be simple, quick and easy. New methods such as RIM, can produce immediate results in improved self-awareness, which is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence, repeatedly shown to influence job satisfaction and job performance for employees and effectiveness for leaders.
 
For more information about leadership and team development or RIM, visit www.intus.life/RIM or email mike@intus.life.

By Michael Kline

It’s common to hear coaches say that therapy is about the past and coaching is about the future. Yet, we all know that blocks from the past make our clients’ progress slower.
Imagine the power of being able to redo past events.  We’d go back in time and say the things we wish we’d said, but didn’t.  Sound intriguing?  What if your clients could project their voice in a safe way into old dangerous events?

Like you, my beliefs and attitudes have been shaped by events throughout my life. My interactions with parents, friends, bullies, employers, lovers and pets have all influenced my worldview and my approach to everything from business to eating habits, and not always in a good way. By changing my emotional memories, I have dramatically increased my emotional self-awareness and in the process, shifted many of my beliefs about how the world works.

My life changed in early 2014 at my first Jack Canfield retreat, when I was brave enough to stand up and share a personal experience with about 100 future friends. Jack personally led me through a light RIM (Regenerating Images in Memory) process that quickly and easily had me looking out of my own eyes as my 7 year-old self. With Jack’s careful guidance, I re-experienced, through my imagination, the learning of my mother’s death in a completely new way, with a very different level of support. While my factual memory remains intact, I also now have a new emotional memory of the event and a sense of love and support I had not previously known.

I immediately signed up to learn the RIM process with Dr. Deborah Sandella, founder of The RIM Institute. I wanted to do for my clients and students, what Jack did for me. As powerful as the experience was, I’ve discovered it was only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible.  RIM has been nothing short of a miracle in my life that I now share with clients as we explore new possibilities.

Many clients who come for business help, or who are referred by other coaches, easily discover that emotional blocks are holding them back. I use RIM to help them dramatically boost their emotional self-awareness and shift deeply-held limiting beliefs to create a much brighter future. A recent client reported that one RIM process cleared what years of therapy didn’t. Another client, diagnosed with full-blown PTSD, quit her psychiatric care years ago, claiming each session made her worse. After years of trying “not to think about it”, she came in for a single RIM session and all symptoms disappeared. It is common for clients to rave about dramatic or unexpected positive results. Disclaimer: Let me be clear, I do not diagnose or treat mental illness, and I support traditional psycho-therapy, which offers great relief and benefit for many.  RIM is an organic transformational technique.

I continue to be humbled and amazed by the results of this simple mind-body technique. It’s no surprise that Master Certified Coaches who experienced the process recommend it as a valuable tool to help their clients. If you would like to learn more about RIM for your personal growth, self-awareness, emotional intelligence and well-being, or as an advance coaching skill, visit www.intus.life/rim.