More Information on the Guidesses

To become a Guidess, the following women completed the Life Works Advanced Program. This three-year comprehensive training program prepared each of them to personally guide clients by providing ongoing support and giving focused attention to short-term issues. Well-versed in relationships, they work with individuals and couples in-person or by telephone.

Barbara Blair Dallosto

Barbara Blair Dallosto has spent most of her professional life helping people to work out solutions. She holds a bachelor's degree in interpersonal communications from Hunter College in NYC and worked in the television broadcast industry managing people and projects throughout her career. Most of her work satisfaction and enjoyment came whenever she was called upon to listen to a dispute and help people to work through to a solution.

Though Barbara considers herself a true New Yorker having spent a lifetime as a single woman living and working in and around New York City, she recently brought her heart to San Francisco. She currently resides in the Bay Area with her husband, Gene, who she me while on a hiking trip to Switzerland and Austria in 1998. Now her love of New York and enthusiasm for her new home in the California climate sit side-by-side. She has taken on the challenges of living on a new coast and learning to be part of a new family. As a result, she has become an expert of how to deal with the discomfort and fears of change.

Barbara has been a Guidess for Life Works since 1995. In this realm she feels that she's in her natural element. She says that guiding people through difficult times has helped her become clearer about what she wants in her own life. She continues to enjoy her guiding practice on the west coast — working with clients throughout the country and abroad.

I have learned that though we often want things to be different and that change happens, we are scared that it will happen too fast or that we won't know ourselves once it does. Through guiding others, I have realized that there are ways we can have more of what we want in our lives by learning how to take care of ourselves in the every day.

Carole Forman

Carole Forman has been an artist, copywriter, editor, radio disc jockey, strolling troubadour, actress, chanteuse, business owner, yoga instructor, creative / spiritual movement teacher, and most recently, a spiritual storyteller. After earning her BFA in painting she set out in pursuit of her true passion, acting and singing. But then she wavered and spent 7 years in children's book editorial and copy writing before returning to singing-waitressing, summer stock, cabaret, off-off Broadway and one Broadway play.

While in the spotlight Carole realized she missed seeing the audience and she had to admit, her real joy was not acting but that time of collaborative experimentation and creation before the show; and that she loved most to inspire and share the dance- not perform it. She founded "Yoga at Noon!™ / Yoga Oasis!™ to bring tools for well-being and consciousness to working people. Her firm has served over 50 companies, hospitals, and organizations. Her Soul Motion~TenuYah workshops in creative / spiritual movement have freed-up participants in states around the U.S. and in Canada.

Now a Life Works Guidess, Carole delights in her eclecticism. She remarried 4 years ago and travels and works together with her writer-teacher-storyteller husband. At Life Works she has designed movement workshops that embody Life Works ideas and have been a part of many Life Works programs.

It is a great honor to be the trusted Guidess of another individual, to provide a safe environment for another soul to explore and discover what is authentic and enlivening for her. I am deeply touched being a part of this process — when I see my clients take a leap I have to hold back my tears. This is a journey with a heart and I love it.

Sara Lustigman

Sara Lustigman is a research scientist who has dedicated her professional life to the studies of infectious tropical diseases and how to prevent them. She got her doctorate in Israel where she was raised after her family relocated from Poland. For the last 16 years she has resided in New York City where she manages a very successful research program.

For years she thought that because she has decided to be a career woman she couldn't also have a full life that includes a family. However, through the teaching of Life Works she realized that it is OK to dream to have it all, and not just dream but also actually work out what was in the way and then manifest what she wanted. She is proud to announce that she became a first time bride at the age of 51 just a year ago and now has a full life that includes a wonderful relationship with her husband.

As a Guidess, I am committed to support other women to have their desires come true. What I learned for myself I also teach: what we believe happens; if we limit our horizons then we only have what we have said we can have, however, on the other hand if we expand our beliefs and visions to places we did not think we can or deserve to have we can actually make that happen as well. So please start dreaming, you can have it all just the way you want.

Cheryl Marks-Young

Cheryl Marks Young joined the Life Works Advanced Program in 1997 as a single businesswoman in New York City, in search of something more. Her intention was to learn how to stretch time to be able to do more, have more and be more in all aspects of her personal and professional life. The Life Works technology provided a new perspective with a much broader universe of possibility. Using the support of Life Works, Cheryl designed a career she loves and married a wonderful man she met while doing her own personal research into the world of online dating. She brings her experience and Life Works training together to help others have more of what they want for themselves. As a Life Works Guidess, Cheryl has created and teaches a course called Finding Him on the Internet.

Cheryl works with her clients to help them to energize and balance their busy lives, deepen their personal connections and establish passion and purpose in their lives and work. She is the author of the upcoming book Momorphosis - What Every New Mother Needs to Know about the Transition through Motherhood (Overcoming the Myths and Embracing the Truths of Motherhood) and co-author of Live Your Purpose, Love Your Work.

Her professional experience includes senior management positions in the cable, media, entertainment, telecommunications and non profit industries. In addition, Cheryl has held positions as a board member for the New York Chapter of Women in Cable and Telecommunications (NYWICT).

Cheryl was born in the Bronx and spent most of her childhood bouncing between New York and Virginia. A lover of travel and the world, she has completed a life-long goal to step foot on all seven continents and plans to visit them all over again. She is happily married and resides with her husband and son in New Jersey.

Life Works has taught me the world is full of possibility and we have the power to create and be creative in our lives. In this process we can dream and include everything we want for ourselves as we design a life we truly want to wake up into.

Sylvia Moss

Sylvia Moss maintains an active international practice as a certified Healing Science Practitioner, Energetic Therapist, Life Works Practitioner, Ordained Minister and Photographer — her first photography book, soon to be published. In her private healing practice, relationships and women's issues are some of her specialties where she has helped clients through such areas as fertility issues and healing past wounds and physical imbalances. Sylvia's guiding supports clients to live from the point of view that the universe is on their side and that they can create their future to be different from their past.

She is a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, studied acting with Lee Strasburg and is a graduate of the American Theatre Wing. In Vancouver, B.C., Sylvia co-founded and directed the Healership Training Program and also taught Energy Medicine Healing. Sylvia created and taught a hands-on healing workshop at the Conference on Creativity and Art in Medicine, Psychology and Education in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Back in New York she is known for her special Solstice and Equinox healing evenings. Born and raised in Covington, Kentucky she attended Lindenwood College in Missouri, later moving to NYC to attend The American Theatre Wing. Sylvia has been in relationships most of her adult life, including a successful 19 year marriage where she created two fabulous daughters who, now as grown woman, are working on having the life they most desire for themselves. Sylvia currently resides in NYC in a fabulous park side apartment.

As a Life Works Guidess since 1995 Sylvia has facilitated the Gatherings and the Money Support group. She is part of the support team for the Relationship Support Group and teaches the segment on the Art of Empowering Ourselves.

I love working with my guiding clients at Life Works and mostly being a place where they come and discover themselves, their dreams, and hearts desire. What is most rewarding to me is being a witness to my clients as they move through and heal their history, manifesting the life they have dreamed of having and the joy it brings them.

Nell Robinson

Nell Robinson graduated from college with a major in English, a minor in psychology, and a passion for theatre. Since then she has mixed and matched these interests – first getting a masters in social work and working with families and children during the day while working in theatre at night as a director and production manager. She later left social work to follow her dream of having her own theatre company. She was co-founder and artistic director of the Off Broadway StageArts Theatre Company, successfully producing and directing new plays for 12 years. While she was deliriously happy during those theatre years, she found that as the theatre grew, her work became more and more on the administrative / producing side of things and she missed the one on one interaction with the actors. What she loved about directing was working with an actor to discover and express those parts of herself that were relevant to the character she was playing. She now began thinking that she wanted to work with people to apply these techniques, not to a fictional character, but to people’s real lives. So once again she shifted gears and since then has combined her love of theatre and love of working with people by teaching and coaching professional actors, as well as teaching acting techniques to non-actors both privately and in workshops as tools for personal growth. She currently runs an “Acting Just For The Fun Of It” workshop in NYC.

Her focus for herself at Life Works has been on reconnecting with and expressing those authentic parts of herself that were temporarily lost after closing her theatre, and on expanding her life to bring herself more fully to her newfound career, and to the amazing relationship she has with the man she loves who cherishes her.

I have been blessed to discover from my experience at Life Works that who we truly are is, and always has been, in us waiting to flower. There isn’t just one path to an authentic life, and it’s never too late to create a life that fits us. I see guiding as a wonderful opportunity to share this profound work to create an environment that allows others to discover and express what is authentic for them in all areas of their lives.

Gloria Waldman-Schwartz

Gloria Waldman-Schwartz is a native New Yorker whose travels have taken her from her native Bronx to Spain, Latin America the Caribbean, among other points east, west, north and south. She is a professor of Spanish language and literature, Women's Studies and Latin American and Ethnic Studies at York College of the City University of New York and of Latin American and Latino / a theatre in the PhD program in theatre at the CUNY Graduate School. She is the author of books and articles,Feminismo ante el franquismo, Luis Rafael Sanchez: Pasion Teatral, Argentine Jewish Theatre, An Annotated Anthology, Women Writers from Spain, A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book; the co-translator of Borges, In/and/On Film, as well as Drama Critic for the daily newspapers, El Nuevo Dia in Puerto Rico and El Diario/La Prensa in New York. Her latest book is a translation of the biography of the 19th century Puerto Rican feminist, Luisa Capetillo.

Since her college days at CCNY she has been involved in transformational technologies and in the personal growth movement. She manages to combine her academic life, her personal life and even have a life as a cabaret singer in New York clubs.

The anchor of her active and exciting life is her work with Life Works, which she credits with giving her the tools to create more satisfaction and depth in an already fulfilling life. She met her husband Norman through a blind date and married him in 2000 at age 53. She insists that she would never have been ready or available to him without the Life Works technology that allowed her to own her part in their relationship as a first step in understanding how to make a relationship work.

Life Works has shown me that my way is not necessarily the only way; that patience and slowing down can actually allow me to move forward. I am no longer a steamroller. People feel heard in my presence and truly listened to. And I feel more centered and powerful. My husband is the beneficiary of my work with Life Works and feels taken care of and safe in my presence — not waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is the life experience that I bring to my guiding.

Marion Yuen

Marion has always been the introspective type. In her quest for more life, love and successful enterprise, she met Marilyn Graman who was lecturing at a dating service. Marion recognized a mastress when she saw one — since 1990, she has been learning from and working with Marilyn Graman and Maureen Walsh.

President of The MYA Group, Marion develops business collaborations, drawing on her talents and skills as researcher, strategist, communication advisor, and mediator. In her practice, she brings together her Life Works training, a multi-cultural sensitivity and a multi-disciplinary background in the social and biophysical sciences. A skilled convenor and facilitator, Marion assembles diverse audiences and provides them with platforms for open, efficient face-to-face information exchange. Marion co-created the GreenTrading Summit™ and is co-editor & a contributor of the book, GreenTrading™: Commercial Opportunities for the Environment (2004).

Marion holds Masters Degrees in Communications from Columbia University Teachers College and in Biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley, and an A.B. in Physics from Wellesley College. She is a certified mediator and arbitrator. Born in Hong Kong, she currently lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where she is a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce.

At Life Works, Marion is a Guidess and coordinates the Training Intensive working closely with Marilyn and Maureen to help the Guidesses-in-Training find their wisdom. Marion is ready to assist clients in getting in touch with their true desires and unleashing their creative springs.

Life Works technology has enabled me to be more aware of my intuition and more trusting of my creative impulses. I've learnt to focus my intentions and manage my efforts towards the manifestation of deep desires that truly warms my heart, no matter how unlikely they may appear in the beginning.

Maureen M. Walsh

Co-Founder of Life Works

Maureen Walsh is co-owner of Life Works, Inc., a Guidess Trainer, business therapist and co-author of the Life Works series of books. She was born in Dubuque, IA and was raised in Madison, WI. An undergraduate degree in Art History, several tours of Europe, and fellowships in the theater department and business school while studying for her Marketing MBA, prepared her for a life in the arts. She managed The Philadelphia Company which was devoted to new American plays, then the Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis, the nation's premiere company for kids. Next came the Brooklyn Academy of Music and planning for the launch of its Next Wave Festival, then Marketing Director at the Joffrey Ballet.

Work in advertising led to her own consulting business in the early 80's working with artists and healers to help them develop successful business lives. Life Works is one of Maureen's many collaborations. Others include her real estate ventures with writer and husband William Speers and her interest in producing movies, plays and special events. She has taught marketing and arts management courses at the grad and undergrad levels and 7 years ago created "How to Make a Graceful Living," a Life Works course to help people find more authentic work. Her most recent course creation, "Reboot Your Life," encourages Boomers to psychologically prepare for retirement.

Maureen is also the publisher of Life Works Books, guides the development of new projects, and is the business head of Life Works. She is always looking for new people, projects and resources. Her maternal grandfather owned a small resort town in Iowa during her childhood. With that experience in her gene pool, she has been looking at summer camps and retreat centers since the early 1980's to create the Life Works Wise Woman's Home — where we will live and teach to advanced ages, the Life Works Education Project — to guide teachers to assist children in remaining conscious during their education, the Art Camp — a cross pollination of master artists, patrons and emerging artists, the School for Patrons — to encourage patronage of individual artists and several other large projects. When not in New York City, she lives in Santa Fe, NM and Hollywood, CA.

At Life Works we are all very lucky to be able to help people have more of what they want at such a dynamic point in our history. Forty years ago the doors flung open and now we are helping women adjust to the deep shifts, incredible opportunities and enormous possibilities for self-expression.

Marilyn Graman

Founder of Life Works

Marilyn Graman says that she learned most of what she knows about human beings in her 12 years as a kindergarten teacher in Jamaica, Queens. She is a graduate of Queens College and holds a Masters Degree in early childhood education from City University. A psychotherapist since 1978 with a thriving practice in Greenwich Village, she began what is now Life Works Inc. in 1984 with business partner Maureen Walsh. The business' mission is to help people have more of what they want in life. She has developed a curriculum of courses for women and men, structured to teach and support the process of creating and living an invigorating, fulfilling and meaningful life.

She has appeared on television, gives lectures around the tri-state area and has taught regularly in Dallas, San Francisco and Mexico. With two books in progress and a long-range intention to work in early childhood education again, Marilyn teaches ongoing groups, monthly seminars and weekend workshops at the Life Works offices in Manhattan.

Marilyn was happily married to Vishnu Jayson until his sudden death in 1995. She intends to be happily married again soon. A resident of Fire Island's Fair Harbor and Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, she travels extensively, studying what it means to be human around the world.

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