If the hard economic times have put some stress and strain into your marriage, maybe you and your mate could use a little brunch therapy.

That’s right. Take some time off on a weekend morning and have a cup of self-esteem with that buttery croissant, or add a dash of positive thinking to your sunny-side-up eggs.

That’s the idea of the Couples’ Cafe, the brainchild of Sharon Massoth of Madison, a licensed psychotherapist, interfaith minister and certified professional coach, who has been working with individuals and couples for 34 years. She’s beginning a series of Sunday morning two-hour brunches for up to 12 couples, which include spiritual inspiration, as well as a chance to appreciate each other and learn some tips for coping.

The brunches will take place at Chestnut Fine Foods & Confections at 1012 State St. in New Haven, and there, among the atmosphere of soft jazz, good food and light-hearted inspiration, Massoth hopes she can help couples remember how much they love and treasure each other, and learn some skills for keeping their relationships alive.

“I see how couples get tense with each other in these tough times,” Massoth says. “With so much fear around, they start to take it out on each other. People are worried about unemployment and overspending, and they need to come up with creative ways to keep their relationships thriving.”

Massoth works with groups a lot, she says, but has found that typically, men aren’t as comfortable with introspective work in a group setting. At many of her other groups, she says, there will be 20 women, but just one lone man. She’s hoping to make this a safe and fun place for men as well as women. “There will be exercises and activities — all very nonthreatening,” she says with a laugh. “Men will have buddies there, and, as they know, there’s safety in numbers.”

Some social science experts have claimed that the recession has made it impossible for couples who wish to separate to do so. Indeed, Massoth says she hears from people all the time about their desire to figure out solutions to their marital problems, rather than separate.

“Couples who are ‘on the rocks’ are talking openly to me about the fact that divorce would be a financial disaster for them right now,” she says. “So rather than let things get to that point, I’m hoping that couples can learn to spend time nurturing themselves and each other. And, with the cost of marriage counseling often being beyond what people can afford, I hope that offering some counseling services in a group, over brunch, will help people preserve this most valuable asset, their marriage.”

Massoth decided on offering this at Chestnut after she was telling her friend, Patty Walker, owner of the cafe about her desire to help couples who are struggling. Walker pointed out that the cafe’s closed on Sundays, so Massoth could use the whole space for her brunches.

“One of the things that this cafe is known for is the nurturing love they give to their customers, along with the nurturing food,” Massoth adds. “Just being in there is like therapy.”

Massoth intends to help couples move from a state of fear back into a state of love — for themselves and each other. “I’m going to teach couples how to reconnect with gratitude, through using a gratitude journal. I’ll ask them to do couples’ outings where they connect with their sense of spirit. I hope these exercises can give them a sense of their greater, more powerful self that is their loving soul.”

Some of the topics include ways that women can communicate so that men can hear them, how it is that the law of attraction can create a better relationship and bring about remedies and healing, and how creating one’s own happiness is essential for being happy as a couple.

For those who might be reticent, Massoth says that she won’t be asking people to disclose to the group anything that would make them uncomfortable. “They can ask questions to me anonymously if they wish,” she says, “and there will be time to meet with me privately, as a couple, to talk briefly. Basically, I hope to give them skills they can take back home and use. I’m hoping we can meet every six weeks, and that they can see the progress they can make.”

Kara Gagnon of Essex can’t wait. She and her husband, John, will be attending the first session, along with several of their friends. Kara has been seeing Massoth both for individual sessions and in group sessions for a year now.

“My husband and I are both working full time and raising children,” she says. “I think this is going to be a great way for us to take time out from our chaotic schedules and take some time to think about our relationship. Sharon is so intuitive about what’s going on, and so incredibly loving and truthful. I know that the men who come to the session are going to be amazed by her insights.”

As a certified professional coach, I work area residents and businesses to help increase the success and joy in their lives.

Primarily, I focus on increasing their intuition skills and positive attitudes to bring out their winning edge and magnetize their success in achieving goals. I often coach my clients on the power of gratitude to help them accomplish this process.

Below are a number of life issues that clients often face because they forget how to apply gratitude to promote positive outcomes in their lives.

Have you had ideas of fun adventures, great relationships, satisfying jobs or new possessions that you greatly desire yet can’t seem to create? Do you feel stuck?

I see a lot of people who are unhappy for the following:

1. They are not living a life of what they powerfully want.

2. They are not living a life that is expressing their unique talents.

What they are missing is making gratitude a key part of their lives.

You must first connect with a loving energy if you want to change the nature of anything. By finding and connecting with gratitude even in negative situations, you tap into a power that can result in healing and transformation. Fighting an undesirable situation only makes it worse, for that denies the positive, the learning that is within it.

Here are some ways to increase your ability to use gratitude to increase your joy and success.

The importance of positive thought has been written about for centuries. According to the writers of the film “The Secret” and authors Esther and Jerry Hicks of “The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent,” everyone can be a powerful creator of what they desire by holding positive intentions and feelings. Conversely, you can repel or slow down what you desire when you hold negative thoughts. For example, if you think and feel poor, you will continue to want. If you feel lonely, you attract more loneliness.

I like the idea of tweaking thoughts and feelings upward by reflecting on gratitude. I first allow full recognition of the negative state instead of repressing it. I then gradually move my feelings upward to a more positive one. Most of us can’t jump octaves, but we can let our fingers climb the scale one by one. The intention makes all the difference.

A lot of people constantly wish for aspects of their lives to be different and never feel content in the moment.

The worst thing you can do is squelch positive changes. People who find happiness in each day while naturally intending and working on new things succeed.

Below are three examples of how to be grateful for all the things that happen in our everyday life.

Gratitude for lessons learned

I always like to think that while my ego self goes kicking and screaming, my wiser, trusting soul sees the reason for all challenging events.

I feel a release followed by a deep peace when it all makes sense.

A recently divorced man told me that he changed his thinking from, “I hate that I married my wife. I have lost most of my life living with her,” to “I am grateful that I left that relationship. It was good for many years and then it was time to leave except I wasn’t strong enough. From dealing with my insecurities, I have learned how to have the strength to quickly end things that are less than what I want.”

Gratitude for feedback

Recently, it appears that few bosses, from corporate to military circles, are grateful for feedback. Jean Lipman-Blumen, author of “The Allure of Toxic Leaders” wrote, “Toxic leaders feed their followers the illusion that they are both omnipotent and omniscient,” decreasing their ability to receive feedback.

Leo Hindery, chairman of InterMedia Advisors, said chief executives “can easily surround themselves with subordinates who only affirm and seldom question.”

When you are grateful for feedback from all levels, you can ward off embarrassing mistakes. Gratitude for feedback reveals your true inner strength.

Gratitude for your uniqueness and courage

Be grateful for your unique contributions and style. Don’t waste your talents by not believing in yourself.

Lucinda Watson, author of “How They Achieved: Stories of Personal Achievement and Business Success,” included an interview with her late father, Thomas J. Watson Jr.: “I would tell young people starting out today to dare to do what they really want to do.ÊTo not be afraid. To try new things – even if they’re ultimately not successful. To be ready to see an opportunity and take a risk. I talked my father blue in the face about taking IBM public É obviously it was a good thing.”

Sharon Massoth offers intuitive life coaching in the Greenwich area to individuals and business leaders. She has been a motivational speaker at the Wainwright House in Rye, N.Y., and at leadership conferences. Reach her at massoth@comcast.net or www.sharonmassoth.net. She is a member of Greenwich Associates for Well-Being, an interdisciplinary group of independent practitioners collectively dedicated to promoting the awareness of and facilitating opportunities for holistic well-being. Contact Kimberly K. Kristoff, LMT, CRM, founder, with questions or information at GAFWB@yahoo.com.

Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/features/scn-sa-bewell2feb06,0,4343835.story?coll=green-features-headlines

It’s Labor Day, time to think about what work means to us. You’ve heard the old saying, “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”?

Well, we’ve found three people in the area for whom this is the absolute truth: They can’t wait to get to their jobs each day. Here are their stories and how they found these great gigs for themselves:

ROSEMARY CHIEPPO,

New Haven, personal organizer

“My family and friends laugh so hard that I became the poster child for loving your work,” she says. “I was the female equivalent of a ‘Good Time Charlie.’ Work was far down the list of anything I ever really cared about.”

Indeed. Chieppo has been an assistant to the headmaster of an independent school, she’s sold radio time for a country music station, she’s worked for a start-up limousine company; you name it, she did it. She’d work at a job for a while, master it, get bored, and quit and move on to something else.

But then eight years ago, she says, she had an epiphany of sorts. She realized that she was the happiest when she was organizing things. Not only were her own drawers set up with brilliant systems, but she just adored getting her family and friends’ goods in order, too. “I could always just look at a jumble of stuff and know what needed to be done with it,” she says.

She quit her perfectly respectable job as an executive assistant and set up shop for herself. Being an organizer, she knew what she had to do first: print up business cards and start spreading the word. She got her first client right away — a company that needed months and months of help — and after that the word just spread.

“For the first few years, I eked out a living, but then it just took off,” she says. “I now appear once a month on the noon news on WTNH, I write a tips column which runs in local papers, and I’ve written a book about organizing that will come out in October.”

Why is this fun? “I’m a free-spirited organizer, not a person who comes in and raps people’s knuckles,” she says. “I’m fun. I don’t see it as drudgery. I see it as giving people more time to do the things they want to do. When I’m at work, I’m in a state of flow. It’s not like work at all.”

Chieppo’s company is called Born to Organize, and her Web site is www.borntoorganize.com. She can be reached at (203) 389-4242 or at roseorganizes@hotmail.com.

BILL PREVIDI,

Branford, head tennis pro

How many people find their calling when they’re 15 years old? That’s what happened to Bill Previdi, who was sent, somewhat unwillingly, to tennis camp for the summer when he was a sophomore in high school. He’d wanted to go to basketball camp, but his parents told him, “No. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re 5 foot 7. You’re headed for tennis.”

It turned out that Previdi was pretty good at the game. He got hooked on it almost right from the beginning, and by the time he was a senior in high school, he was teaching tennis to others, and making lots more money than his friends were making at their after-school jobs. He was so good, in fact, that he got a scholarship to college to play tennis, and in his senior year, his coach took him aside and said, “I watch you teaching the other players, and I really think you could make a living at this.”

“At first I kept thinking that I’d probably end up having to get a real job,” he says with a laugh. “But then I was working at the U.S. Open in 1978, and I met my future employers, the owners of the Guilford Racquet and Swim Club. And they hired me at age 23 as their head pro. I’ve been doing that ever since, and I can’t imagine ever doing anything else.”

Previdi is also the tennis coach at Mitchell College in New London and has coached the boys’ and girls’ tennis teams at Branford High for 19 years.

Why is this fun? “Teaching keeps evolving and changing,” he says. “I’m lucky that my employers let me work with marketing and changing lesson plans. I love inspiring people to keep trying, and I’m always looking for better ways to teach. I also play competitively, and that keeps me understanding what my clients go through. I came to the game late — 15 is forever! — and I tell them, ‘You could never lose as many matches as I have, and look at me, I just keep going.’”

Previdi can be reached at the Guilford Racquet and Swim Club at (203) 453-4367.

SHARON MASSOTH,

Madison, intuitive life coach

Sharon Massoth received her master’s degree in social work back in 1975, and almost immediately, she realized that she wasn’t going to be able to stay in the confines of being a traditional psychotherapist. “I always had a strong intuition,” she says, “and I saw that I wanted to teach people to use their own intuition to better their lives. The New Age spiritual revolution was just getting started, and I realized I wanted to be part of helping people by becoming a life coach.”

Massoth meets with people in her private practice and also works with groups to help people achieve their goals and look at what is important in their lives. Although Massoth was one of the first to call herself an intuitive life coach, these days this work is much more accepted and mainstream, she says.

“Even big corporations now accept the idea of using intuition to build skills,” she says. “I now work with lots of high-level executives to help them define themselves and their work. I show them how to trust themselves through all the ups and downs of business, how to tune in and learn which risks they can take. I think one of the main things I do is teach the power of positive thinking and intention.”

One of the main things she shows her clients — those both in business and those seeking guidance in their personal lives — is that true wealth and well-being come from a place of no regrets. “I show people how to drop down into their heart to learn the lessons they need to succeed,” she says. “I find meaning in situations and help them to understand why things happen the way they do.”

Why is this fun? “I feel open all the time to what’s really important in life,” she says. “When I speak from my intuition, it ripples as truth right through the person. People feel truth in their bodies. It’s an honor to help people in this work.”

Massoth can be reached through her Web site at www.sharonmassoth.net., by e-mail at sharon@sharonmassoth.net or by phone at (203) 245-0084.

©New Haven Register 2006

Because life is busy and full of challenges, you must use your intuition if you
want to be successful. Yet, many people don’t trust their intuition.

As an intuitive life coach, I am often asked, “Are your intuitive abilities a
gift? Can I learn to be intuitive?” The truth: You were born intuitive, with
all the wiring in place for your “sixth” sense. Intuitive guidance flows
constantly into every person. For some it’s an “aha” moment or a strong gut
feeling, while others say it’s a little voice that speaks to them. Every
successful business person knows that intuitive ability is the added edge for
success. It can lead to creative breakthroughs or simply the ability to be in
the right place at the right time.

The challenge is to be cour ageous enough to respond to your inner guidance.
Follow your intuition even if your logical mind tells you differently. One
client followed an inner call to reach out to a long-lost relative and later
that year inherited thousands of dollars. Others heed the call to apply for a
job and find they are a perfect match for the company.

“Hurry up and do more,” is the tense fearful voice of a five- sensory attitude.
It never works. Using a sixth-sensory attitude helps you navigate with the
least amount of mistakes.

If you ignore intuition when dealing with problems you may feel stressed or
that something is not quite right. It is your body’s way of alerting you. For
example, marital problems may be known subconsciously before discussed.
Listening to their intuition has saved many of my clients’ marriages.

Signs of ignoring your intuition are about the same as depression:
irritability, the craving for alcohol/sweets to self soothe, neg lect of
exercise, chronic pain, boredom and lack of creativity.

Excessive stress can be costly; $200 billion spent annually in the United
States for stress-related help.

How do you activate your intuition and become less fearful? Utilize your
personal spiritual belief system: pray, meditate, read or visualize. Spend time
in nature. Slow down and do deep belly breathing. Cut out the talking. Listen
to classical music. Do mindless tasks – vacuum, walk, shower – which make space
for your intuitive voice.

Practice intuitive hunches: Anticipate who is calling when the phone rings.
Have fun. If you ask for a solution, you should get an answer, even if it’s not
immediate. Know that you are not alone; you have your sixth sense as well as a
responsive universe when you trust it.

Sharon Massoth, certified professional coach, offers intuitive life coaching
and psychotherapy in the Greenwich area to individuals and corporations. She
has been a motivational speaker at the Wainwright House and women’s leadership
conferences. She is a member of the Greenwich Associates for Well-Being, an
interdisciplinary group of independent practitioners collectively dedicated to
promoting the awareness of and facilitating opportunities for holistic well-
being. Contact Kimberly K. Kristoff, GAFWB founder, at GAFWB@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2006 Stamford Advocate