Michelle LaBrosse Blogs

Waiting until I am inspired to take the next logical step has helped me continue to show up in the most loving and kind way to myself and others in the development of the Inspired Eagle business. Loving myself more is about showing up where and when I feel the most love.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Several years ago I had an idea on how to be of better service to humanity based on what I was learning from my own challenges. I was experiencing one difficult life transition after another and realized as we age these major life transitions increase in both frequency and intensity. Are we ever really prepared for what is inevitably around the next bend?

The healthiest and happiest amongst us get the privilege of routinely rising to the occasion of being there for others as cheerleaders, caregivers, mentors and guides.  But who is there for us?

As I saw this play itself out in one friend after another’s life, I wanted to do something to offer solace in the storm – as I figured if I needed it, others needed it as well.  Plus I felt called to honor the memory of my mother – as she was my steady home base – that voice of reason about whatever standard life challenge appeared around the next bend in my life.  I was so lucky to have this for my first 50 years. I wanted to be there for others like she was always there for me.

This is why I created this business I call Inspired Eagle.  I came up with the name from an experience I had when caring for my Mom in the late stages of her brain cancer.  She had slipped into her first coma and I was out taking a walk on a river path near the South Florida hospital where she was.  This bald eagle followed me. At first I did not think much of it as I was rather lost in my own morose state.  Then I stopped and took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to my daughter in Alaska.  It dawned on me – how unusual there is a bald eagle here.  A bald eagle appeared two more times that day – back at my parents home and again as I was getting onto the highway.  Too often to ignore.  I researched this a bit and learned in Native American lore, eagles represent the transition between heaven and earth – exactly where my mother was.

I knew what I wanted to be for others to offer solace and support through life’s challenging transitions and had some ideas of how to create this.  The key element was doing it.  As well, I can get kind of busy with life as I had already created it. But I just kept taking the next logical step whenever I felt called to do so and showing up how I needed to in the moment.

Usually I get everything done at Cheetah speed – this was not to be the case with this new idea.  How to create an environment of loving kindness and support for others in a way that uplifted them into a plane of enduring happiness – this was my goal. After all why shoot for a life of half lived mediocrity?

What has emerged is so incredible.  I just finished my fourth Inspired Eagle Yoga Retreat.  My first two we had four people over four days.  I changed the format and we now do it in two days.   Now we have eight people there.  (If I change it to one day does this mean 16 people will be there?). What made it quicker was the introduction of this yoga mat I designed that has all the yoga poses and flow.  But it’s so much more than just teaching how to do our Happy Aging Yoga. Connecting with my peers in this way is always so profound.

My team and I did this yoga retreat in conjunction with this magical cooking school experience.  We had people come to it from Florida and the Bay Area (Northern California).  Sometimes my ideas don’t play out like I initially envision them – but not this one. How we created a supportive community for each other around our yoga mats was exactly what I envisioned.

I am going to continue showing up to take the next logical step as I am guided to do so. I am assembling a fantastic team that is taking care of details beyond my capabilities – they are showing up too.

For me it is truly about showing up in the ways where I feel the most love.  Whether it be planning on where we are hosting the retreats or who’s invite to accept to lead a retest, to the people who are attracted to come to the retreats.  It is as if my Mom is guiding this through the language of love. As I’m learning how to love myself more, I’m finding myself more open to this guidance and showing up where and how I need to as I am needed.

Kate’s comment: I got shudders when you mentioned that bald eagles represent the transition between heaven and earth. In Haines, as you very well know, we have the American Bald Eagle Festival. It’s starting here next week, and I’ve always felt that Haines itself is a pleasant, suspended limbo between heaven and earth. There’s this great, full life energy here.

As for the subject of “showing up” – I once won a 5k just by showing up. I’m not a fast runner by any means, but all the fast runners in town decided to run the 10k that morning. For the curious, I ran the 5k in 31 minutes (definitely not a typical winning time).

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Artichokes of power – I am happy I sprouted a pair.

This weekend, I’m helping five wonderfully unique woman learn how to create their own version of happiness through our  Inspired Eagle Yoga retreat with our Happy Aging Yoga mats.  This is what I live for – to help others soar.  I’ve said for years I teach what I need to learn. While teaching  this technique I call “conversational yoga,” it hit me – one of the reasons I get charged from an encounter is I’m somehow comparing myself to another.  The comparison usually starts with me thinking something like this – “well how dare they, I can’t imagine ever saying that to another person.”  And then the churning, bubbling and frothing of emotionality spews from there.  It all starts with the comparison.

Soooooo…… the core issue then is of comparison and it’s  blockage to loving myself more.  I know in my work with creating accelerated learning experiences, the way to accelerate learning is to remove the blockages that slow people down with learning. The same is true with learning how to love myself more – what gets in the way of this is comparing myself to others, to earlier versions of myself, or to some ideal state I feel I should be.  Who I am is unique and perfect just the way I am – even in all the ways I perceive myself as imperfect – those are perfect too.

We were discussing this thing about perfection in class yesterday.  Perfect in comparison to what standard?  I posed a contemplative question to the group – “who amongst us would ever tell a new mom their baby was anything less then perfect?”  We all have a bit more savoir faire and good social graces to know – of course a new baby is perfect, especially through the eyes of a new mom.   And at one point in time each of us was this perfect new baby, welcomed into this world.  At our core, yes, I am that perfect baby – just the way I am.  Unique in all the ways I’m unique.  Just like we each are.

My second “wasband” (this is ex-husband) used to teasingly admonish me about my lack of desire to show off my cleavage. He called it “boobs of power.” While I was flattered he was so attracted to this aspect of me, I’m relatively uncomfortable being sexy for the general population. I am more about brains than beauty anyhow. My friend Barb has said for years – “brains can buy beauty but beauty cannot by brains.”  Some woman feel if they have it, flaunt it.  This is not who I am.

I do understand people’s complimentary intentions when they say I can better leverage this or that aspect of what they enjoy about me.  I also know when it’s a reflection of their own insecurities born out of comparing me to some “ideal” that only serves to shame or blame. Of course, allowing others to follow their own path is my main mojo – we all get to choose how we move through the world.  For me, I’m choosing to love and enjoy the unique aspects of me – which does pretty much defy comparison. There is no one else like me. Loving and enjoying more of my uniqueness is the ultimate gift for myself.  Thank you Kate for inspiring me to do this 66 day challenge to love myself more.

Kate’s comment: It’s really interesting to see your transition to loving yourself and owning everything about yourself. Your point of comparisons made me think of this quote by Confucius:

“It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.”

Maybe comparison is easy – it’s a simple default and it’s very easy to get stuck in. It’s like the universe’s entropy – disorder is natural and it takes effort to work against hate, bad things, or in this case, comparison.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

The grand finale at cooking school. What an amazing banquet of talent. Small tasting portions is my new preference now. I learned too much of a good thing causes  “palette fatigue.”

Phew that is done.  I finished my week long Stella Culinary Boot Camp where we were trained to cook like professional chef’s.  I thought I was a good cook BEFORE this – well what I did not know about cooking was amazing.  For our final project, my teammate (Barb Sleeper) and I created a theme around “Mom’s Magic.”  This was a spin off of the name of whatever Barb would find in the fridge to serve her kids for dinner as they were growing up.  (Her grown children now want her to come live at their homes and cook for them – what a change of events…).

With our final project, our goal was to bring out the nostalgia of Mom.  To do that we choose to make a Chicken Noodle Soup and Waldorf Salad.  We started with my already legendary chicken noodle soup and then brought it up a couple notches to the required four star restaurant quality.

We started with making the bone broth our way – that meant lots of roasted bones with the skin on it.  And minimal spices and veggies – just peppercorns, onions and celery, absolutely no carrots as they over power the delicacy of the broth the way I make it.  And no other herbs – same reason as the carrots. (This was not the way they do it at cooking school).  Plus, I simmer the bones for at least 24 hours – it pulls out more flavor.

Technique builds the flavor – not lots of herbs and veggies.  After my boot camp, I now feel confident to speak with authority on why I do my chicken bone broth how I do it.   What made this one so much better than any I’ve done before – the quantity of the chicken parts we put into it.  As a class we learned how to debone chickens yesterday so we had 12 carcasses.  We made ten gallons of chicken broth  – we used all of in the making of our chicken soup.

With the ten gallons of bone broth – we took five gallons and reduced it to two gallons (talk about flavor).  We then made our own noodles.  We used conventional semolina with sprouted grain flour, lemon zest. pepper and chia seeds.  Thank god for my great executive assistant who came through with the sprouted grain flour  – the school was not able to procure that.  She brought it up from the Whole Foods in Reno.

We set up the dough the night before, and then became a noodle factory as part of the prep (this was our most fun part of the grand finale – we felt like we were in an episode of I Love Lucy).  I was a little concerned about the dough and we got back up egg noodles. I usually mill my own flour for the noodles – but the dough for these was the best I’ve ever made.  We did a practice round on the noodles with a small pan of bone broth and lemon juice.  We learned they released quite a bit of starch, so we were not going to cook the noodles right in the soup like I’ve done in the past.  We took the rest of the bone broth (five gallons), tossed in lemon juice, and cooked the noodles ahead of time.   (BTW – this is a GREAT way to make noodles – they tasted incredible by themselves).

The day before, we had already prepped the celery, onions and chicken meat that was to go into the soup. So we had extra time.  When we looked at the entire menu of what everyone else was preparing, we thought we needed more veggies.  So we decided to make my Mom’s favorite – a waldorf salad.  We whipped that out in under 15 minutes – now being the professional chefs that we are.

Every team had fifteen minutes to finalize their creations and present to the group.  Our final prep was so simple – we decided to serve the noodles separate as there were some gluten free folks in the group.  It soared – we knocked the broth out of the park and the massive dosing of onions, celery and dark chicken meat sent it to the moon.  The General Manager came in later to help himself to the banquet – said off the cuff – wow these noodles are just like what my grandmother used to make.  And YES – score – that was the exact sentiment we were shooting for.  As we learned in cooking school, it’s not so much the flavors you create, but the emotions you evoke with what you serve.

Isn’t that the same pretty much with everything?  How do you feel based on what you just experienced?  With completing this cooking school, I feel confident I can share more of my love in even more unique ways.  I can do the small things with great love – like serving love in a bowl (aka – chicken noodle soup).

Kate’s comment: you mention evoking emotion from flavors – and I think this is where the line gets blurred between food and art. Because if you can make people really feel something from food, doesn’t that elevate it to art? Sometimes, when I eat REALLY good food, I have to get up and dance. I know it sounds silly, but I experienced this with you with the bolognese we made before you left Haines. It even had fennel in it, but I had to get up and dance it was so good. Food can be art – this is that “food serves more than one function” aspect that has become my mantra. If you don’t feed the soul, it will starve.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

My first mentor (a Korean War Vet) used to say, don’t stand when you can sit and don’t sit when you can be lying down. Have we become overly stern task masters of the go go go life? Now sitting is supposedly the new smoking – when will the harsh judgement of our inherent nature cease?

I’m at the half way point of this 66 day challenge to love myself and I need to rest.  Lucky for me, with this practicing loving myself more, resting is getting easier to do.  Yesterday was the fourth day of this cooking school boot camp.  While I’m immensely enjoying learning all types of  cooking techniques that do in fact make preparing great food much easier and quicker, I reached my saturation point and needed to rest. In the past I’ve been so hard charging and unforgiving on myself, I would just push through.  I’ve realized though with this effort, loving myself more means resting when I need to rest.  We had a half hour break after lunch and I headed to my room to take a quick nap.  I got there and the cleaning service was in the room.  In the past I would have left and allowed them to finish their work.  Becoming a stronger advocate for my interests (and not really giving much of a rip if my room was tidied up or not) – I told the gracious woman my room was fine and she was done.  She seemed quite happy about it.  So, we both won because I was more on my own side for what I really needed.

In the past it seemed to take a cataclysmic event  (usually some health issue) where I could even allow myself to rest. I’m getting better at tuning into what I really need rather than being there for others as my priority.  (I really don’t think this is my challenge alone – it seems like this is the standard MO of most mothers).  I realized almost two decades ago whenever I got a sore throat, what was really going on was I needed more rest.  I don’t get sore throats anymore, but the same inclination to go and go and go until I crash still exists. So today was a good sign I may be moving onto a new more gentle way of existing with this challenge to love myself more.  I am allowed to take care of myself in the manner that is right for me in the moment and today’s moments required a slower pace.

Kate’s comment: I love that we’re halfway through this challenge – how awesome! I am also very glad you’re letting yourself rest when it’s not due to a cataclysmic event. Although this is the MO of most mothers, mothers should know (or remember from when they were children) that their children want them to rest sometimes. Many of your readers should know that you don’t take vacations like other people.

In fact, you don’t take vacations at all. What people think are your vacations are actually supercharged work events where you are creating a course or writing a book – things most people need a vacation after completing. I’m glad you’re letting yourself rest as a form of loving yourself.

Just like the beauty of this scene existed whether I captured the picture or not, love is ever present whether I notice it or not. Love is not a currency that only exists when exchanged.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

I was reading an article yesterday that introduces a concept I had never considered before – that of affirmation currency and ego economics.  The premise is that we exchange sentiments of affirming other’s good in some type of quid pro quo as a way of getting our own egos stroked back in similar ways.

Of course I evaluated this for relevance of my behavior and intentions.  Over a decade ago I created a program in Cheetah Learning we call “atta cheetah,” where people who work within the company can give their colleagues attitude of gratitude points for doing something they appreciated. Over time we had to create some rules for it as it was tied to a monetary reward for the points earned.  The system that has now been in place for the past ten years is you can only extend 200 points per day to any one person.  Everyone starts with 2000 points to use per month.  If you use your alloted points, we increase your points.  When the company achieves its revenue performance goal, at the end of the month $5000 is distributed to the staff based on their percentage of Cheetah points earned.  What we have noticed is the more Cheetah points someone gives, the more they get.  So even though I bristled a bit at the idea of ego economics and affirmation currency, here in play with a system I created is validation of this very concept.

I got to wondering do I have a love myself more currency – so when I’m exhibiting the behaviors I believe bring me in line with being “better,” I’m more loving to myself?

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Nutmeg dusted butternut squash risotto – stay tuned for the recipe….

I’m here at the Stella Culinary Boot Camp –  learning much in some very unique ways.  It’s like the outside world has ceased to exist as I am completely immersed in this cooking school experience.  Today we did a cooking TV show like challenge where we had to create a meal from two primary ingredients – halibut and scallops.  We had two hours to work with our teams to put together everything we have learned in the past day and a half.  The intensity of this early challenge focused all my attention on our task at hand.  I love being completely consumed like this.

I had a vision of having this fall-oriented risotto with nutmeg dusted roasted butternut squash accent bites.  It was what we were placing a pan roasted halibut atop.  It was great fun making this under the watchful eyes of our teachers and my confidence with the challenging prep increased.

The butternut squash carried the day. It was pretty darn good and the risotto did have a uniqueness about it that made it go well with the halibut. The chef though had a different perspective about the risotto which he shared with the class. What was curious was I had had my own ideas on how to proceed I ignored to follow his direction.  I am not sure why he did not tell me of his perspective while he was helping me make it?  It really did feel like a reality TV cooking show.

I realized his comment was a reflection of his teaching style so I did not take it personally.  In my classroom, when I am teaching and a student’s performance is not what I anticipated, I question how I can reach them in other ways. So I can have compassion for his teaching approaches with this.  I did learn from this to better follow my instincts when preparing my creations because there is no way an outsider, no matter how qualified, can know everything going on with something I am creating – especially when it’s complex and synthesizing decades of experience. I am grateful for this lesson and that he shared his perspective how he did.

Our teacher’s positive intent is to help me become a better chef and he did that with this approach. Good life lesson on this challenge to love myself more by finding my way to the positive intent from another’s actions.  I prefer this perspective.

Kate’s comment: that dish sounds great! I wish I could have tasted it. It’s too bad that you and the chef had a miscommunication, but conflict can create great outcomes.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Alignment happens from the overlap between passion, purpose, profession and pay.

I’ve been contemplating the image on this post since I saw it a couple days ago.  It illustrates a Japanese concept called “ikigai.”  The more alignment between the four areas of Passion, Mission, Vocation and Profession, the greater the meaning in your life leading to enhanced satisfaction.  For my purposes of contemplation, I relabled this to  – Passion, Purpose, Professions, and Pay.

As part of loving myself more I’m standing on full alert with this concept.  I started last week on a twenty week structural realignment exercise program to get my posture back aligned and in balance to heal my persistent heel pain.  After day four of the first two weeks of exercises my feet are feeling better.

I got to wondering  where else is my life out of alignment?  My passion – that which I love to do – the cooking, yoga, learning, entrepreneurial pursuits, travel, connecting with my family and community – this is the same.  My purpose – inspiring others to joyfully and skillfully pursue their dreams – this is the same.  My profession – well I have became a yoga teacher – this has changed.  I’m still a course developer and teach project management and still love doing that.  But my new profession as a yoga teacher yes this has changed.  And the pay – well I still make my living teaching project management. I’m working on bringing my way of doing accelerated learning into yoga to help people quickly learn how to move through life with more comfort, grace and ease. The pay for the yoga though is no where close to my passion for it.  So yes there is a part of this ikigai image that is a little off kilter right now – just like how my posture is a little off kilter. I could easily bring the ikigai into alignment by adjusting my passion levels for the unique professions commensurate with the pay.  But seriously that feels so out of integrity and oh so not what the yoga teacher calling is all about.  And it got me thinking – hmmm I’ve been here before.  When I got Cheetah Learning  going my passion level there was way out of alignment with the pay as well – but I did it anyhow as I felt called to share what I had developed with the world.  The pay caught up with my passion for my profession then and well time will tell here with the new profession of being a yoga teacher.  So being a bit off kilter for a while is part of the process when it’s imperative for me to live with the passionate fire in my belly of my pursuits.  Loving myself more, I’m good with this now.

Kate’s comment: something that Dr. Thorgesen said when I first started at his practice (and I was so holier-than-thou about not over-charging people for my services) was that if I don’t make enough money to sustain myself, how can I expect to help people? I’d have to leave Haines and leave my patients, and then where would that leave them? Dietitian-less.

I’m working on finding the balance and my worth in it all. I find a LOT of worth in what you’re doing with Happy Aging Yoga. The world needs it in a big way. Although money is not what yoga is about at its core, it’s what it takes to get people to move towards their happiest, healthiest selves.  You are a natural capitalist – the proper course will find its way..

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Who joins me on my journey significantly enhances my view.

I am enjoying the beautiful fall scenery as Kerry drives us to cooking school.  (Well not really, as I am writing this blog post on my iPhone.) I was just sharing with her how nice it is to get to be the passenger on this drive as I usually am the one behind the wheel.   It’s not that I don’t trust others to do for me, I don’t often allow that which I can do for myself.  I like to be independent.

I find myself allowing for more and more participation from other capable souls in my life – capable being the operative word. I’ve become accustomed to a high standard of performance in many realms of life. As a female engineer I considered the quest for equality with my male counterparts a very low benchmark. I strive to being the best in everything I pursue and prefer shining bright. Shrinking violet has never been a term used to describe me.  I question if my pursuit of excellence allows for grace for others, or myself with anything less than high performance?

Loving myself more though does not mean lowering my standards – it means celebrating my capabilities.  Including my drive for excellence in all realms. I have a knack for attracting highly competent people into my life.  The allowances we afford each other to shine the light on our unique genius creates an up spiral of goodness.  This inspires me to become even more capable – especially with loving myself more.

Kate’s comment: it’s so fun to see that you’re chasing the fall colors! Up here, all the leave are off the trees (we’ve had a windy and rainy past few weeks). I’m glad that you’re letting someone else take the wheel – part of loving yourself is also letting others love you and take care of you.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT

Kerry getting closer to her food.

I’m busy prepping for a week away – heading to hone my cooking skills at the Stella Culinary Boot Camp .  My Happy Aging Cookbook collaborative partner Kerry Miller wanted to go and it seems like a great idea. I love cooking school. Kerry and I are road tripping there – a ten hour drive.  We are both foodies so of course this prep involves creating great road trip.  Part of the fun of a road trip for me is making incredible sandwiches on the side of the road in the remote wilderness somewhere. For this trip, we have a sprouted sour dough bread with a great chew, organic cheeses and meats, juicy heirloom tomatoes and wonderful naturally fermented pickles.  It’s like heaven in my hand – especially since I don’t normally indulge in sandwiches too often.

I love myself too much to eat fast food on road trips.. It rather shocks me what passes as edible in these places.  It’s more than a little alarming.  In 2010 I challenged myself by driving across the country fully supported with foods I grew and/or raised myself. I wanted to see if I could do it. Every couple of days I’d have to heat water for my thermos – but other than that, I had delectable food I had prepped for the adventure.

Supposedly as you get older, you get more picky and less desirable.  Yet I have not found that to be my truth.  As I’ve become more discerning about what I consume and committed to prepping a healthy food environment for myself, I’ve also attracted people who share similar sensibilities. Now I’m surrounded by loving, caring, kind and compassionate people who love themselves as much as I love myself and we create amazing meals together.  I’m deliriously happy  I prep to the level I do and only participate in what truly nourishes me – including the people who share the moments of my life.

Kate’s comment: I am so with you on the fast food during road trips sentiment. I already feel cruddy from being cooped up in a car all day – the last thing I want to do is give myself a stomach ache from yucky food. I remember how much fun it was to make sandwiches with you on the side of the road on our way to Whitehorse – and I felt good afterwards! What a difference real food makes.

Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYP

Jean and I have become masters of making order from chaos in all our various collaborative efforts over the years. We have far more fun creating our magic from a place of wonder than from a place of panic.

I’m wondering about wonder today.  For me when I wonder, I feel expansive as I explore and play with an idea or a possibility.  Then I wonder about a perception that feels as if I’m being crowded and I wonder how much of my existence is being constrained by a previous construct?

Let me be less vague here.  When I became a yoga teacher during my training which was 8 hours a day for a month,  where we did yoga poses throughout the day  – I got pretty darn sore. I noticed my classmates, many  20 years younger and lots smaller, were kvetching about their soreness as well.  I started to wonder about the stories I told myself about my own soreness.  I realized my story about the soreness could either make it worse or make it better.  My pain was in direct relationship to my perceptions of the pain.  When I felt the love of what I was doing, the soreness was a celebration of my accomplishment.  When I was critical of myself for experiencing soreness, the pain required pain management.

So I was wondering how else this plays out in my life?   I decided to be  more mindful of where I  can be more playful (also loving) and less critical of what I’m experiencing to expand and enrich my experience in the moment.   Yesterday I was talking with my key collaborator and partner in creating order from chaos – my friend and colleague Jean.  We met each other in first grade (our daughter’s first grade classes that is).  These same daughters are now married (well Jean’s is getting married next Saturday).  Yes we have known each other a while.  I was wondering how I could see this current desire I have for creative expansion to be driven from euphoric ecstasy and delight rather than from a frenetic need to meet some business imperative we have set for ourselves (which puts a choke hold on me to be creative – get off your butt and create or your ass is grass type thing).   You might be getting the idea why this habit to love myself more is so important to me with this type of critical self talk.  I realized it’s the same thing as my stories about the soreness in my yoga class.  Celebrating our accomplishments inspires me to expand into the next logical creative step for the business.  Whereas panicking about the natural ebbs and flows of business puts me into a poor me victim funk where I don’t even want to be around me.  My new question to pivot into a more playful frame where more magic happens is “I wonder what is here to celebrate?”  The love then flows naturally.

Kate’s comment: celebrating moments as accomplishments rather than identifying them as muscles to be soothed is a form of positive thinking. When patients haven’t lost weight according to the scale, but their clothes fit a little different, I love to celebrate that win. I urge them to focus on the positives of clothes fitting looser (more metabolically active lean body mass, less fat mass), because this is still a HUGE win!