I like to tell people today that in today’s communications for most women my age (and I gotta tell you, quite a lot of men too!) it takes a village to convey a thought. Luckily, I have a quite a few women friends who have known me for awhile and are very intuitive so usually when I start out with a thought if i lose the words for it in mid-stream, someone around me will either intuitively “know” what I am trying to say or several people will jump in with words and conjunction function so a thought can be completed.

Not to get lazy or anything, but the village concept does help!

So does charade communications.

Charade communications come in handy for those times that you have either run out of the herbs that help your preceptors receive or you happen to be with someone(s) who doesn’t know you that well so they can’t anticipate your thoughts. With charade communications the rules are pretty simple since mostly anything goes if the thought has been communicated, received and understood; however, a good rule of thumb is to keep it simple. When using charade communications, fill in the prepositions first and then the pronouns (a, the, or, of, he, she, it, we, us) then move into the verbs since you can fairly easily act those outs. And just like in regular charades, use your tools like “sounds like” — pulling your ear–or breaking the word into syllables (2 syllables, 3, etc.).

For advanced level charade communicators (usually those who are intuitive) this is where you can really use your intuitive skills both ways (communicating or receiving) by sending your thoughts in very clear word pictures to the receivers or to pick up a senders thoughts in pictures. Everyone will be so focused on helping you (or whomever is communicating) to get their thoughts across that they won’t notice (usually) that you have used your bewitching powers.

We have been inundated with so many forms of communications over the last ten years that you cannot tell me that it isn’t effecting us all in some way, great or small. Sometimes I feel like my thoughts slide apart like my Palm Pre when I want to remove a note or expand an application with a simple sweeping of my hand. These thoughts moving to opposite portions of my brain like magnets repelling each other which makes it very difficult to pull them together to communicate one cohesive thought to someone else. At least today I have something visual that I can direct people to in order to show them what happens to me and my brain. A Google Brain is a very apt description for times like these.

So the next time you find your synapses gliding apart in opposite directions, remember about charade communications and know that all is not lost. You can communicate what you need to, you just need to bring in all aspects of your communication abilities.

Small short word sounding like the little buzzing thing that flies around and sometimes stings—-small short word that begins with an a—small short work acted out by expanding your arms like you want to hug everything at once—small short word meaning not out but——small word that sounds like fist—long word two syllables first one sounds like the number two, second syllable kind of sounds like the motion of someone picking up a bunch of flowers and putting them into a basket!!! (We are all in this together!!!

Finally made time to sit down and watch the movie, “Precious” (http://tiny.cc/8rl0f). Wow.

Precious is not the kind of movie that you would tell people that you “enjoyed” (and if you would, then I probably wouldn’t want to know you…) but it is the kind of movie that you would say was, “compelling”. Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the middle of the desert, you’ve probably either seen this movie or heard about it. It’s about a young African American girl who grows up in an extremely dysfunctional family (though there are bit-scenes throughout the movie that her family was not an anomaly). For me, it seemed like the point of the story was to show how Precious found her way out of the draining life that she grew up in even with all the odds against her. Some of the reason was because of her tenacity and ability to dream for better no matter what kind of abuse she suffered and some if it was because the right person was in the right place to help her at the right time.

Kind of like the way life works.

I guess I’ve lived long enough now and sat inside of enough rooms with people telling their own horrifying life stories that this movie wasn’t as shocking as many people had portrayed it to be (though M’nique–her mother— did an incredible job of making sure that you hated her by the end of the movie). It’s amazing what some people who you may see everyday at work or ride the bus with or order a Starbucks from may have had the kind of life that would blow your hair back if you only knew. But most often we don’t, we just go through life pretty much focusing on ourselves. There’s nothing the matter with that but just focusing on ourselves does limit our lives.

I could learn something from Precious in the way that she was able to dream and think of good things when she was being abused. Her mind did not turn on her, in many ways it actually befriend her. That piece, the piece of self-love that she was able to hang on to in spite of everything being done to her and said to her about her, is her special gift. The fact that she was able to love her children born of incest and to see their innocence and want the best for them is also a special gift.

I know I’m going to be thinking of this movie for awhile and especially tonight when I fall asleep because my mind likes to work things out before the morning comes, but from where I sit right now Precious gives me great hope for the possibility of man and woman-kind. I think the very end of the movie says it the best….”for every precious girl out there”.

One of my favorite dreams that I have every now and then is where I am with a group of people and there’s a whole bunch of activity going on and all of a sudden I jump up and fly, hovering just above everyone’s heads. I love it because the people in the dream are always absolutely amazed that I can fly. I also have a similar version of this dream only I open my mouth and let out pure sound that stops everything and everyone in its tracks.

Yes, I’m sure Carl Jung has some kind of interpretation for this kind of dream. But the reason I’m blogging about it today is because I believe all of us have that one special gift that nobody else has that we can share with the world. There is a belief that I heard awhile back (but can’t recall the source) that says that each of us is like one pure note and all of us together make up a song. Without the pure note that makes up you, our song goes flat.

I would still love it if at some point in my incarnation of spirit I get to fly but until that time may come, I want to learn how to let out what it is that I have to offer right now. The trick is to know when we are experiencing our gift and to recognize it and be grateful for it. I suspect that clues that can help us along the way reside in such things as when we feel blissful and when we get into the “zone” of our being and time seems to effortlessly lapse. I’ve heard this referred to as being in our genius.

How does your genius show up? Really!! I’m serious about this. When, where, what is going on when your genius is fully engaged.

Then we can fully know that we are definitely “ALL THAT” and the bag of chips and the pickle that goes with it!

When do you usually get your best idea? Oh, c’mon now, we ALL get ideas. Yep, yes we do. Mine usually come streaming from my head as fast as the water running down my body in the shower. And like the water , I leave many behind in the stall–but stay with me here for a moment.

During lunch today with a new friend one of the topics we talked about was how many great ideas we’ve come up with in our lives. Some of them we’ve acted upon and some of then we haven’t. One of the things that I realized for myself is that I’ve allowed many of my ideas to be stopped in mid-stream before I have time to think about acting on them. It’s as if I have a big ole gigantic can of RAID IDEA KILLER that I spray-spray-spray when I get a good idea and that ole RAID does its job killing all my fresh ideas and must have an incredible half-life because it sticks around to retard the blossoming of several new generations of ideas for awhile after the initial slaughter.

Some of the ingredients of RAID IDEA KILLER are: to tell someone your idea who is a natural “editor” about all things possible, to compare yourself to others who seem to be leading a life that you are completely envious about, to pull out what my sponsor in a 12-step program calls “your dripping bag of crappola”, to wish that you had made different choices in your past –and one that I am quite fond of—to pine for what you wish would be in your future.

One of the remedies for someone who has had a good spraying of RAID IDEA KILLER, is to think of your ideas in a different way. If you feel a burgeoning of an idea about to happen, however you would normally handle your idea, find a new way to handle it. For instance, if you usually talk about your idea with several people and get hypnotized by their response so that you don’t feel like taking action–write your idea down and do not tell anyone else until you’ve taken at least 3 action steps for your idea.

Likewise, if you usually keep your idea to yourself and then let it get swallowed up by the quicksand of your mind, think of 2-3 people that you know have your best interest at heart and who you can trust and ask them if you can sound out your idea with them.

I’m sure that someone out there has come up with the statistics to back this up, but I would imagine that a normal human being comes up with a huge amount of ideas per hour, much less per day. I would betcha as well that it would be interesting to interview a couple of great minds of people who make their living out of the ideas they generate. Great technical minds, great scientists, even great writers all get to hook into that inconceivable thing that I believe we’re all connected to and take their ideas as far as they will go. I would imagine that the reason they can do this is that they do not let anything or anyone get in the way of their realizing their idea. Let me repeat that. They do not let anything or anyone get between them and their ideas. Further, they are mature enough to sift through which idea is a “keeper” and which idea to throw back into the pool for further growth.

So, what if we agreed to think of our ideas in a different way. Start paying attention when you get those inklings, those buzzes, those flashes of brilliant insight and treat them with the respect they deserve. If you don’t do anything else beyond acknowledging them for coming through you and enjoying them while you have them, then that is good enough.

Me? I’m ready to see what I can create. One idea that came to me today was that I’ve been berating myself behind the scenes because even though I’m a certified Career Coach, I don’t know what my dream job is and then I realized that I most certainly do know what my dream job is, I love to write and interview others, it’s just I’ve allowed myself to get discouraged by everyone else who doesn’t see or get my idea. All I’m doing right now is being open to various sources of income that are coming to me now while I write and interview until I can create or discover the ideal way to earn income with what I love to do.

It’s the big ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Life is good when we love ourselves and appreciate our ideas. Embrace yours and try thinking of them in a different way.

So here’s the cliffhanger question that has been slamming my spiritual program up one wall and back against another: What is it that you do that shows others who you are?

I rolled around the idea of letting who I am show through what I do and realized that is much different than saying what I do is who I am. To my way of thinking, letting who I am show through what I do encompasses every aspect of any action I take in life (walking my talk) but doing something (and more specifically a job) just for the sake of “showing” who I am seems to me to be more of an ego structure.

Early in my training for becoming an adult, the message that came across very clearly to me was that what you do defines the who in you. Couple that with my very deep need to be recognized and acknowledged and you pretty much come up with a mud-pie of a person who is hell bent on doing, doing, doing to get seen, heard, and recognized. One obvious hiccup with that strategy for life is that when you live your life that way you can rush right past thinking about who you really are and how you want to be in life.

My next phase in growing up was to ratchet down my doing to learn how to better “be” who I am. I’ve done it for the past year as I’ve returned to school and although I’ve done some coaching, I’ve pretty much been working a part time job to pay for my Starbuck’s habit. I’ve learned a lot about myself concerning my preferences and beliefs, which I am grateful for; but, geese louise is it hard for me to not gage my worth by what I do.

And now I’ve come full circle and although I believe that what I do shows (me) others who I am, the meaning is completely different now then it was many years ago. One of my favorite short stories is, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexi which is about a native American in the Seattle area who is homeless and an alcoholic. At the beginning of this character’s day he stumbles upon his grandmother’s feather dancing costume in a pawn shop and, of course, he doesn’t have the money to get it out of hock. Well, the pawn shop owner takes pity in Jackson and gives him some money and tells him to go get $1000 and he’ll sell it back to him. So the whole story is how Jackson spends that first $30 for bottles of whiskey for three of his friends and himself and then he finds someone else to give him money and back and forth with his drinking it up and getting more money until at the end of the story he ends up with just $30, which is the same amount when he began. So when the store owner asks Jackson if he has the $1000, Jackson tells him no and that he has $30 but it’s a different $30 then the pawn broker gave him that morning. Because of Jackson’s great story, the pawnbroker sells him the costume for the $30.

I share that story with you because just like how Jackson started off with $30 and ended up with $30, the money that made up the $30 was different so is the case of believing that what I do showing who I am…only the “do” is different. As some good friends and I like to say,”It’s the same, only different”.

How do you show others who you are by what you do?

If you’re not someone who has ever experience depression or at least been down in the dumps for a period of time that left a shadow in your memory, than this post may not be for you. This post is for those people travelling through life who have sometimes experienced the hiccup of depression.

The thing about committing to blogging every day for a 100 days or more is that before long, the darker parts of your spirit are going to show up for an airing and for sure if you experience depression. For a long time today, I felt not so much as depressed but melancholy and for someone like me who has spent years cleaning out the cobwebs of my mind and heart and finding just the right elixir to ward of full blown depression—it takes effort to remind yourself that “this too shall pass”. Additionally, I fought off a bout of that ever not helpful self-judgement and began comparing myself to some of my friends and pretty much suffered keyboard paralysis for much of the day.

Until it dawned on me that perhaps the sharing of my experience, strength and hope around depression might be helpful to someone out there who is feeling the same way. I learned a long time ago that for someone who can get as down as I can, drinking was not a good companion (and I for sure was not a good companion with that combo!). Years later I further discovered that trying to find any kind of an out by throwing something at it like food or acting out etc. wasn’t going to help matters either. Yep, today I sometimes feel like I’m some kind of a monk-in-training, what with my being sober and flour/sugar free and no caffeine. Yet, I got to tell you that most days I feel better physically, emotionally and spiritually than I ever felt doing all the stuff that I used to do to self-medicate and I can guarantee you that I sure feel better in the morning!

Today when I could feel myself dipping, I did those things I know to do to take care of myself that have helped me in the past. I went for a long meditative walk with the dogs (and watched the crazy woodpecker flying from telephone pole to telephone pole and telling everyone about it!), I ate a good breakfast, I took a nap and I made quick check-in phone call with a couple of friends. Just goes to show that even with all the therapy and spiritual spelunking that I’ve done in my life, I can still walk that tight rope with the negative voice in my head and almost believe that I have always felt as lousy as I did today and that I always will. Luckily, I have experience and history on my side so I know that premise isn’t true. One remedy is to incorporate some NLP into my thought process and have a conversation with that negative voice and stop it in mid rant. It’s sometimes hard for the drama queen who lives inside of me to give up throwing a humongous pity party, but I think she knows that someone like me can’t afford one.

Sure enough, around 3pm or so the brain drain began to lift. I’m glad that I was able to hang in there today and allow for the feelings to come and go. I remember when I was recruiting/managing a small technical consulting firm how many times over the years my team and I were called to help consultants who were battling depression or alcoholism, we even had a few suicides as well. The reason I’m sharing this with you is to let you know that if this has ever been an issue for you, or someone close to you that you are not alone. Many of us have at some time in our lives and some more than others.

Today I will do whatever it takes to feel healthy and happy and ready to take on life. The difference from what I do now to make that happen vs. what I did then is that today I don’t run from it, I acknowledge whatever is going on and get out my trusty kit of spiritual and emotional tools to find just the right one to help with my off kilter running motor.

I don’t know why this quote from St. Julian of Norwich makes me feel so calm (because when I’m in a dark place, I have low tolerance to all things that sound Julie Andrew-ish) but it does work and the quote is:

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”.

May you be well.

So it turns out that many of the tidbits that we’ve heard or read over and over in our lives such as to put down the toilet seat after you’re finished your business so that all kinds of items and animals don’t plunge inside (much less a sleepy person navigating to the commode destination in the middle of the night) are certainly helpful in the long run, if not just plain “right”. But often times, we humans being who we are, have to try something out for ourselves to exert our free will I suppose and feel that we have a modicum of control of our lives (which by the way is an illusion, but I’ll save that for another blog).

Take a topic such as “communicating with others”. Have you just about read and heard every dang thing you can possibly stand on this subject? As communicative an animal as we people are, you would certainly think that we would know how to communicate with each other but every year someone writes yet another new book on the subject. And for crying out loud if there isn’t just a heck of a lot of people waiting to gobble up the books and put the title and author on the bestsellers list for weeks and weeks at a time.

But, yeah, we do have so much to learn about communicating with each other. Still. I know I do and I blog everyday and interview people on the radio every week and I still have so much to learn about communication with others. The tidbit that has been helpful for me to remember lately, because it really does work, is when you are meeting someone you don’t know (or at least, don’t know very well), become genuinely interested in who they are and what they do. For some people, this tidbit will seem about as boring as watching paint dry but all of us are going to end up at some point in our lives when we’re just going to have to buck it up and communicate with others. Remember to be interested.

Why is being interested in someone else a good communication tool? Because most people love to talk about themselves and/or what is going on in their lives. Many people love to be recognized and “seen” by someone else. There was a friend of mine who was very popular in this town until he moved away several years ago and I think one of the reasons so many people liked him was because he seemed like he was really interested in who you were and what you had to say. He also remembered things that you had shared that were important to you. Very simple tidbits my friend used, but they worked very well for him.

I had my last American Literature class today and said goodbye to some of my fellow students. Our class had over 200 people in it but there was a core group of us that went to most every class and we all sate in the front section. I’m so glad that I put aside any nervousness or insecurity that I may have felt so that I could get to know some of the other students. It’s fun to walk through campus and see fellow students that I know and to end up in another class with each other again and again.

This past weekend my husband and I attended a party that was a celebration for one of our friends who is just blossoming in the world of journalism. The hostess’ home was absolutely gorgeous and the other attendees were all so interesting and doing such important things to encourage and improve humanity. I had just learned the day before that long-time gig that I’ve had for over a year is ending in two weeks and I’m also in this place right now where I am recreating myself. So when someone asks me “what do you do” I’d truly have to splinter that answer in several ways and don’t really have one specific “thing” that I can hang my purse on. But as luck (or Higher Power) would have it, I was so interested and curious in who the other people were and what they were up to that there never really was an awkward moment where I had to say what exactly I did.

In my past, this situation that I described above would have sent me into a tail spin of awkward feelings and wanting to run away. “Ahhhhhh”, my inside self said, “get over yourself Lynn!”

So think about some of the tidbits of wisdom that have made it into the storage cells of your brain and remember that there are probably a lot of things and ways of being that you do know what to do and how to be. They’re just so simple, it’s easy to think right past them.

When communicating with others, be nice, be curious and be interested, you never know, you just might find out something or get to know someone you enjoy!

(published earlier for Mother’s Day)

Mi Madre is not your typical mother. But then again, she’s not your typical anything! And, of course, neither am I.

Before I was a teenage, and my parents were still married, if you had asked me, I would have told you that my mom was the perfect mother. She taught us to swim and to water ski on adult-sized skis in pint-sized bodies. She taught us how to obedience train our German Shepherds (while obedience training us!). She always encouraged us to partake of some kind of art project (such as molding with clay or painting with water colors) and she loved all kinds of music and showed us how to “dance” with your car (doing the jerk and the swing and the twist).

When our parents divorced in 1969 and we moved from a Julie Andrews kind of Middle American life style into an alternative world of airy farmhouses on 40 acres to living in an adobe house in the middle of New Mexico my hormones began to convince me that I needed to get away to somewhere else…anywhere else…but where I was and who I was with at the time. Still, my mother tried her best to connect such as giving me a cockatiel we named Charlie (who lived til the grand ole age of 25!) who traveled back and forth across the country with us as we tried to find our roots. When I finally went off to boarding school at 15, the kind of mom and conversations I went home to on the weekends were filled with discussions about life, death, God and the potential of extra terrestrials We watched Star Trek and Iron Side and listened to Dionne Warwick singing “Promises, Promises”. My mom didn’t teach me how to cook or how to sew on a button but I could talk withl you about most of Ayn Rand’s books , or John Steinbeck, or Isaac Asimov.

We also laughed a lot, through the tears and the screaming and the pouting. My brother and I were gifted with comedians for parents. Both of our parents would patiently let us stretch their faces anyway would could think of and I know I could have gotten my mom on the Letterman show if it had been around then. She can arch either eyebrow up on it’s own at will as well as either side of her upper lip. Now that, folks, takes talent.

When I lived in my mother’s house, I don’t think I appreciated her singing too much. I think when she was 18 or so, she’d been invited by the San Francisco Starlight Opera or something equally as grand, to sing and had been persuaded by her own mother, not too choose that pathway. It wasn’t until I heard a recording of a young Ella Fitzgerald singing “Sentimental Moon” (http://tiny.cc/7eux6 ) that I realized why her voice sounded so familiar…ma mere….

Today my mother lives on ten acres on top of a West Texas hill over looking the mountains with my step-father and their great big rusty tabby cat and Great Pyrenees. We talk most everyday on the phone and keep each other posted on life’s goings-on. Recently, my mother became a certified Ham Radio Operator (I think there is a more technical title than that, but I can’t remember it!) and volunteers to do emergency-radio-calling-thingies-with the West Texas Ham Radio club crowd. It did my heart good today to think of she and my step-father enjoying a day trip to the basin of Big Bend to take in the wildflowers and blooming cacti. I don’t know who is more excited about what I’m learning in class each semester, my mother or I , but she is my ringside fan for regular updates. And if the black clouds of gloom descend upon my brain and heart and I feel like I cannot take in another fabricated breath of BS from anyone, mom is the one I call to weave it all into some kind of a scenario that will have us both laughing cautiously at our wicked wicked interpretations.

Finally after all these years, I’ve come to a point in my life (while my mom is still alive) that I can appreciate her for just being who she is and not be disappointed in who she is not. I can also celebrate the parts of me that I obviously have gotten from her (I can arch one eyebrow up into a facial question mark on command!) and be grateful for her Vulcan blood that races inside of me.

Ma Mere. Learning to understand the many facets of who she is is helping me to get closer to understanding who I am.

Heck, I can’t even spell the word vulnerable much less “do it” very well. What does it mean to be vulnerable anyway? How in the world did “they” (you know, a group of people from long ago who sat in one big room thinking and planning all of our lives down through history) come up with that word anyway? It looks like it ought to have something to do with vultures or being vulture-like.

But I digress….

To me, being vulnerable means being able to maintain that balance of having your feelings but not putting them on anybody. Or, at least, not having your feelings with a million tiny whip-like threads reeling out to pull victims in towards you for later eating, like some giant emotional-spider person. You know the type, you’ve probably come across one or two in your life or perhaps you’ve even been guilty of spinning a GESP web yourself at some point in your life.

Being vulnerable with class doesn’t mean you wipe away your tears with a Hermes scarf (though that would be cool) but rather that you know how to let others see you when you don’t have it all together and your in mid-trying-to-figure-out-who-and-what-and-how-to-trust. I feel like I walk around with a big shiny blue baboon butt so much in my life that learning how to be vulnerable with others is really, really uncomfortable for me as I’m sure it is for you as well. Besides which I have a slight speech impediment when it comes to saying the “vul” in vulnerable (really wicked librarian-types had to have created that word).

Right now I feel like I’m in mid-cry. There’s been just enough happening in my life that it’s kind of knocked me a bit off kilter yet none of it is enough to knock me down completely. It’s like I need to have a really good sneeze and I keep taking inhales ready to release with the biggest sneeze ever, only the sneeze won’t come. So, I have to give up trying to control how I’m going to respond and surrender to feeling vulnerable. We Aries-types surely don’t like being in such a spot. Give me a big juicy traumatic or dramatic event that needs someone to come in and calm things down and get thing in order and make everything okay and I’m your gal. But don’t pitch me into this nether space of waiting and not quite knowing where to go next. This must be how fetuses feel when they’re floating in embryonic fluid or at least how the astronauts feel when they go outside their spaceship to tighten a bolt or whatever excuse they use to go outside and float in wonderment. That’s about how slowly my movements feel in going on to the next “thing”, whatever that is, in my life. In fact, I betcha if someone was to stick a microphone up to me and ask me what I was doing now, everything would come out in r e a l s l o w m o t i o n and sound very very distorted and slow..

It’s interesting though that in both examples I used about how I feel in limbo, that both are attached to something greater than themselves (Mom or ship take your pick). I guess I have to trust that I have an invisible chord attached to my HP and that really in the great scheme of things, everything is okay. I’m just feeling a bit vulnerable.

Geesh, that word! Even when I sound it out silently while typing this, in my mind it sounds like I’ve eaten peanut butter and had a big glass of milk. Vulnerable. See?!?!?! Like a deep dreaming sleep-talking Barney Fife floating backwards into limbo, I’m off to practice being vulnerable……..

Well, there you have it! Today turned out to be one of those days where every half hour or so you’re saying to yourself (or perhaps maybe a wee verbally) ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

This morning began so wonderfully with the sun shining and the birds singing and so many butterflies flying that they really should be called a flock instead of a swarm. I meditated and thanked my higher power for a new day, I spoke with four people that I sponsor for fifteen minutes a piece, had breakfast, kissed my dogs, cats and husband good day and headed out the door. I got my first clue that something might be coming down the pike right after I left SB’s with my coffee for the day and was headed to a long-time, part time gig that I’ve had. Out of the blue, I felt awash with a really bad, nerve wracking sadness that went to the pit of my belly and then it was gone. I wondered what it was about, checked around inside of my heart to see if there was something I’d stepped over but couldn’t find anything so I continued on to my gig.

Thirty minutes later, I found myself in a phone call with a client who was twisted way out of sorts and I couldn’t figure out how to help them find peace. By the end of the day, I was ready to go home and hang it all up and hope for a better day tomorrow but learned that due to changes happening in the work place, the part time gig that I’ve had for over a year will soon be ending after this month. Finally, upon arriving home I learned that one of our neighbors had passed away unexpectedly earlier this morning.

I didn’t know our neighbor too well, but we had lived on the same street for over 14 years and we did check up on each other when things were going on in our neighborhood and I sure did love seeing the couple sitting in their rockers on the porch waving at us whenever we walked or drove by their corner. We visited with the husband this evening and he shared with us that they’d been married for 44 years and next week would have been their 45th wedding anniversary. I know they have family that will be coming in to care for their dad, but please do keep Robert in your prayers. Good people those two.

As far as my long-term part time gig, well, although it was a shock to learn that things were changing I also believe that God is doing for me what I could not do for myself. It’s time for me to stripe out there and do something that really fills me up. I am opening up my coaching to accept some new clients and I am also exploring what I can do in terms of writing, interviewing and advising. What I don’t want to do now is to crash head long into depression like I would have done in the past. It’s amazing how in my past when things happened around me (and to me) in my life I would take them so personally and become really selfishly absorbed within myself. Today, I know that I don’t have to do that.

There would have been a time not too long ago that if any one of the things that happened to me today had occurred it would have been a fabulous reason to go tear into the night, but I know I don’t have to do that now. Instead, I knew that all I was having were feelings and that these too would pass. Now, I must confess that upon coming home and listening to the voice mail from my neighbor I did ask a rather loud question of God, but I was also able to let the feelings come in and know that all would be okay. In fact, my husband and I took a walk around the block, stopping by to pay Robert our condolences. We seem to do some of our best talking and bonding when we’re walking—even if I did have to trade sides twice because our hands were getting too sweaty from holding each other too long!

I’m grateful for many things today. I’m grateful for all the sponsees that I got to talk to this morning and for a friend that I got to talk to while waiting for my SB to brew. I’m grateful for my husband and my an-i-mules. I’m grateful for my health and all the good friends and family that I have (like you!). I’m grateful that even when that client was bitching me out, I was able to feel compassion for her in the moment and know that something really rotten must of happened in her world that had nothing to do with me. I’m grateful that my higher power is giving me the opportunity to s t r e t c h and find something that I can do with the talents I have that will bring in more income and allow me to continue with school. And I’m grateful that our dear sweet neighbor, Robert, told us that Shirley was the love of his life.

Gratitude helps us to keep it all in perspective. Loss is just a change in our schedule and ways of looking at things so that we can see all the possibilities of life.