2016 - Happiness: Affect or Effect?

How often have you said I will be happy when…?  When I lose weight.  When I get a new job. When my financial situation changes. When I move.  When I meet the right person. When I divorce. When I have a baby.  When my kids grow up. When I retire. When I travel. When….

We often perceive happiness as a destination rather than a mode of travel. We view it as a product of our life rather than a process. We experience is as an external force rather than an internal one.

Studies have shown that happy people are more likely to be creative and have a lower rate of heart disease. So how do we get there?

Come explore together:

Two events – 

March 9th 7pm to 9pm Nyack NY (Women's Event)

March 25th -27th Retreat at Pearlstone in Maryland (LGBTQ Women)

Women’s Health and Wealth Networking Event

March 9th 7-9pm

Happiness: Affect or Effect?
Plentiful Retirement: Affect or Effect?

Hosted & Presentation by Julie Wendholt, Financial Advisor, Morgan Stanley 
Presentation by Chani Getter, Certified Professional Coach

Is happiness your destination or mode of travel?
 Is Plentiful Retirement your destination or mode of travel?

Come explore healthful ways to make happiness your conscious choice during your journey through life.

Wednesday, March 9th , 7-9pm

Where:   The Hudson House, 

  134 Main St. 2nd Floor

  Nyack, NY  10960

RSVP:  

Attendance is complimentary but space is limited.

Please RSVP for you and any guests to Julie Wendholt 845.731.2518 or julie.wendholt@morganstanley.com

LGBTQ Nehirim Women's Retreat

Click here to register

2015 - 60 Second Miracle

http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/193502/people-of-interest-chani-getter-spiritual-counsel/

Gretchin Rubin writes in her book Happier at Home: I remind myself, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”(Cribbed from Voltaire.) A twenty-minute walk that I do is better than the four-mile run that I don’t do.  The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer. The dinner party of take-out Chinese food is better than the elegant dinner that I never host.

I will add, the 1-minute of conscious breathing is better then the 30 minute meditation that I never sit for.

A healthy adult takes 12 – 20 breaths per minute. We breathe every day, every hour, every minute, every second.  Whether consciously or not, our bodies bring air into our lungs that sustains us and gives us life.

In this crazy busy and hectic life society has created, we often think that the only way to find our center is to meditate or run or do something for half an hour or more.  Since we don’t have that much time, we often spend our days, running from one thing to the other. We are as the hamster on its wheel, in constant motion but never moving forward.

However, all we need to do is to take one minute, wherever we may be, 60 seconds of conscious breathing to shift that feeling. Take a minute, use the timer on your phone, and breathe.  Notice your breath, notice your body, and without needing to change anything… breathe. You will see that simply from your connecting to what you are already doing (breathing), everything changes, ever so slightly in just one minute.

Click on this link to a Yiddish interview (with Englishsubtitles), where I discuss this phenomenon in a little more detail.

2015 - Where Has Thanks-Giving Gone?

This year more than ever before, I am noticing a disturbing phenomenon. We seem to have forgotten about Thanksgiving, store shelves are stacked for Christmas and Black Friday now starts on Thursday morning.

We misplaced our Thanksgiving tablecloth. After checking with everyone in the family we determined – it simply vanished.

I ran out to look for a suitable replacement - a nice fall-like tablecloth that could be used for both Sukkot and Thanksgiving. The stores we visited were filled with Christmas tablecloths, a few Chanukah patterns but NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING for Thanksgiving!

Besides being upset about not finding a tablecloth, I am saddened by what I am seeing. Thanksgiving, the most widely celebrated holiday in the United States, the day in which we take a moment as a nation to give thanks for the many blessings we have. The one holiday where we come together with family and friends and sit down for a meal, one that is not connected to any religious, spiritual, or political beliefs, with no pressure to exchange gifts – is vanishing.

The extent of this phenomenon is even more visible now that stores are opening their doors for shopping ON Thanksgiving. Making Thanksgiving seem as just a delay to the start of Black Friday deals.

What would happen if we as a society openly stood up against this?

If we didn’t go shopping on Thanksgiving?  

If we still took this time to show our gratitude?

To sit with family and friends and be grateful – to the God of our understanding or to life in general?

To notice the plethora we have and be thankful for it?

To let go of the commercialism and the craze of what comes next?

And to sit in what is now, THANKS - GIVING and be grateful?

This morning my partner and I went for a walk and gathered beautiful fall leaves. We then had our 5-year-old adopted grandchild place red, yellow, green and brown leaves under each glass plate on the table. We are using a tablecloth we inherited from my friend’s mother.  It is absolutely beautiful! I am thankful we had the opportunity to look at what nature provided us and be grateful for it. We chose gratitude for what we already have over the impulse to buy yet another item.

I bless us all with a wonderful Thanksgiving, one that is filled with gratitude – for nature, for family present and far with a return to simplicity and a rejection of the over commercialization of life; and the ability to see opportunities for gratitude in every potential crisis.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chani

                                      www.chanigetter.com

2015 - Leaning Into Discomfort

Dear Friends, 

Life is a constant series of changes, and some times when I change, I notice this uncomfortable feeling and sometimes that feeling overwhelms me. Every time I step more and more into my power, into who I am meant to be, into what is next for me, I feel embarrassed and awkward.

It is difficult enough when I feel it, what makes almost unbearable is sharing it with others. It feels so vulnerable, as if I am standing naked, stripped of defenses.

Sometimes in 2014, I realized that once again, My website was out of date and that I needed to update it.  This happens every few years. Websites, like clothing or hairstyles, go out of style and need to be revised. In addition, I change and so the content of my website needs to be updated along with me.

The journey began, I knew that I needed a full overhaul, that I would need to create something from scratch, but I wasn't ready to let go of the one that I had build in 2010. It had taken so much work, so much effort.  How was I just going to delete the entire thing?

Knowing myself, I began to change things slowly, first I updated the website that I had. I changed the home page then I changed the contact me page.  I realized it needed more. I began to change some of the content. 

I hired someone who had marketing skills. she helped me hone in on what I do, what I bring to the world, what I love about my work, and how to bring my message forth.  Then I enlisted someone who had graphic design skills and an amazing way with words. Together we created what everyone can now see as my website.

My goal was two fold. One, I wanted to have a website that was easy to read, and had enough information that individuals, families or organizations who want my services could easily navigate. Two, I wanted it to be beautiful.  After all, life is beautiful and I am a little vain. Beauty speaks to me. I was hoping it would speak to others as well.

There is a part of me that wants to let this change, my website going live, happen and not tell anyone about it. I don't want to talk about the hard work I put in, the months that we worked on it, the thought, and energy that consumed so much of my past few months, because I know the uncomfortable feeling may overwhelm me. I want to pretend that my website always looked the way that it does now. This way, no one will give me feedback, no one will say "Why'd you change it?  I liked the old one better!"  and more importantly no one will criticize it.

However, I stand for honesty and living my truth and stepping courageously into the uncomfortable places in our lives. 

I wonder:
What makes you uncomfortable?
How do you deal with it?

Marketing experts tell me that I need to be online - that I need to have a presence and so here I am.

My new website is live - please check it out www.chanigetter.com
My newsletter is now a blogpost - subscribe to it if you feel so moved http://chanigetter.blogspot.com

I have a YouTube channel where I am beginning to upload workshops and speeches. It is not fully there, and I haven't been very good at taping myself, but I have a few things up already and more will follow  https://www.youtube.com/c/ChaniGetter

Feel free to like my Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/chanigetterinc

And if you are on Twitter, please follow me https://twitter.com/ChaniGetter or @Chanigetter

I promise, I'll keep growing and changing and stepping into the uncomfortable places, and maybe, just maybe I'll get better at it. 

Blessings
Chani