seven steps - mr. musselman's ap psychology...

Seven Stepsto

Choosing Joy!Discover the Power of Your Inner Wisdom

Leslie Ackles

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Copyright © 2015 Leslie Ackles.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical

problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right,

the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Gremlin-Taming™ is a specifi c method developed by Rick Carson and described in his seminal work, Taming Your Gremlin® © 1983 Richard D. Carson. For more information on Gremlin-Taming, and professional trainings in the Gremlin-Taming Method, contact The Gremlin Taming

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Print information available on the last page.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-3664-2 (sc)ISBN: 978-1-5043-3665-9 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 7/7/2015

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Contents

Acknowledgements ixIntroduction 1Prologue: A Fairy Tale 5Step One: Awareness 9Step Two: Breath 23Step Three: Choice 39Step Four: Decide to Say No 53Step Five: Elf Management 65Step Six: Fun and Fulfi llment 79Step Seven: Gratitude 97About the Author 111

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Acknowledgements

Great thanks to my parents, Margaret and Phil, sisters, Anne and Laurie, and brother, David, for their support of me being true to myself, and for their constant love and friendship.

To Dream Factory Community founder, Nancy Cantor, for her guidance in keeping my dream alive.

To my book group for laughter and love in the midst of life’s ups and downs.

To my Chief Dream Offi cer Circle for their continued deepening of connection and support.

To Brianne Krupsaw for her insights, laughter and lightening of my burdens.

To my early readers: Paul Plamondon, Allison Carolan and Bill Ackles, for making critical suggestions with grace to improve the quality of the book.

And to Paul, what can I say? Thank you for your continual support, wisdom, love and belief in me.

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To my editor and book designer, Ellen Keiter, who made insight-ful adjustments and changes to create the book you see today.

To Clare Harlow for pinpointing the pivotal concept of love over fear.

To my mentor, Abby Seixas, author of Finding the Deep River Within, for being my supporter and my inspiration. You will see her work infused through out this book.

To my stepsons, Zach, Chris, Alex, and Andrew, for those hilarious family gatherings that light up my life.

To my children Jason and Emma for supporting my efforts, loving me unconditionally even with all my foibles, and for providing an infi nite source of material for my musings.

Finally, a thank you to my husband, without whom none of this would have been possible.There is so much truth in how he describes his role: “I am there to remind you of all the things you teach others.” And that is just the beginning of the support he provides. You are my safe haven.

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The recognition that life is out of balanceand the intention to make different choices

are the critical fi rst stepsin this process.—Abby Seixas1

1 Abby Seixas, Finding The Deep River Within: A Woman’s Guide to Recovering Balance and Meaning in Everyday Life (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006).

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Introduction

You have the power to create peace and calm in your life. You have the power to break destructive patterns of living by making active choices about how you want to live your life. You have the power to discover your true self and your true passions. That power comes from slowing down and accessing your oasis of inner wisdom.

This knowledge has been inside of you all along, just waiting for you to open up and listen to its messages of hope and desire. Through tapping into the power of your own oasis of inner calm, courage and creativity, you can make a difference in how you live your life. I call the potential force of this knowledge “Oasis Power.” Choosing joy starts by gathering this wisdom from your inner oasis and then applying the power of that wisdom to your life. You have the power within yourself to choose joy.

How would it feel . . .

* To give yourself permission to have fun?

* To design your own life?

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* To be energized by your own unique life purpose?

* To be calm, courageous, and creative?This book provides a guide to choosing joy through the discovery

of your own power and inner wisdom buried deep within you. This seven-step process is based on the premise suggested by Abby Seixas, author of Finding the Deep River Within, that “perhaps it actually isn’t more time that we need, but a different way of experiencing the time we have.” Maybe you do not need more time in your day, but rather a different way of choosing how you spend the time you have.

Throughout this process I encourage you to not give up. Your goals may need to shift a bit, and you may need to make some new choices. Each choice you make has something to teach you, and will bring you ever closer to fi nding the joy that you seek. As Richard Bach points out, “There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.”

At the heart of this transformational work is the information that you hold inside you already. You have, deep in your core, the answers to what steps to take next. The key is slowing down, listening, and then acting on the answers you receive.

To aid you in discovering these answers, you will fi nd an Oasis-Power Practice at the end of each passage. These actions will assist you in both accessing your inner wisdom and using that knowledge to take steps toward choosing joy. Each practice is constructed on a foundation of the breath. Conscious breathing will bring you into the present moment, and will allow the spaciousness necessary for your own unique answers to bubble up. It is through the breath that you will step back from your habitual responses and open to what it is possible to create in your life. Take a deep breath, take these fi rst steps towards unleashing your own Oasis Power, and choose a life fi lled with joy.

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The Seven Steps to Choosing Joy:

Step 1: Awareness—Listen to your heart and body.Step 2: Breath—Relax, center and gain clarity.Step 3: Choice—Choose what will bring you joy.Step 4: Decide to Say No—Say no to what de-energizes you.Step 5: Elf Management—Notice and manage those inner voices.Step 6: Fun and Fulfi llment—Lighten up and discover what brings

you joy.Step 7: Gratitude—Be thankful for everything.

It is not too late to choose joy.

It Is PossibleIt is possible to change how you live your life.

It is possible to reclaim your life.It is possible to live your dreams . . .

By slowing down and fi nding the door to yourself . . .By discovering your oasis of inner wisdom lost along life’s journey.

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Prologue:A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She had a short pixie haircut and willow-green eyes. She loved to dance, play and explore. And she loved to help others who were less fortunate.

As she grew older she discovered that in order to fi t in and to be loved she needed to behave in a certain way and follow a particular path. She learned to do what was expected of her. She learned to do what she was supposed to do—what she “should” do.

She quietly placed her true self in hiding, deep inside her core, and kept that self safe from ridicule, judgment and criticism. That way, her true self would be with her always and would be safe; she would not get hurt.

The little girl grew up and went off to college, got married, bought a house, and had children. Along the way she forgot about her true self. She forgot what she loved to do. She forgot her unique gifts and talents. She lived her life according to what she “should” do.

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As time went on, she began to experience a vague feeling of yearning for something that was missing in her life, but did not know what that might be. So she continued her life of doing what was expected of her. It just seemed easier that way.

So it happened that one summer the woman fell six feet down through a hatch, into the engine room of a boat. She could have died. The next spring she was diagnosed with fi bromyalgia—a chronic pain of the muscles and joints for which there is no cure. The follow-ing summer a bite from a deer tick gave her Lyme disease. Again, she could have died.

It took these three life-altering events for her to awaken to her current life of “shoulds.” These three crises created a tsunami of realization. She fi nally grasped that life really is short. She became aware that she was living her life according to rules that no longer worked for her. She realized that she was not living the life she was meant to live—the life that made her heart sing.

Her path then became clear. If she were going to fi nd out what she was yearning for, she would have to begin a journey of discovery. She needed to rediscover her true self and her unique gifts. And she needed to do it now, before it was too late.

So began her search. She set on the path of “the hero’s journey.” She slew dragons—those voices in her head that said “Are you crazy?” “What will people think?” “People won’t like you!” She dis-covered new lands and terrains within herself. She even found her “Prince Charming.”

To her shock and delight, she ultimately found that her true self had been kept safe all these years—in a cage of her own making, deep within her core. With great presence of mind, she fi nally set herself free. Her life was now her own.

Oasis-Power Practice:Write your own life story. This is a critical foundation for your

journey through the Seven Steps to Choosing Joy. The clues to where you are stuck now are hidden within your story. The events and

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your reactions to those events have shaped your life and continue to shape your life. It can be hard to face these past events, so take care to create a safe environment to hold and nurture yourself as you explore and remember.

Find a quiet, safe space. Take in several deep breaths, releasing them slowly. Bring to mind and allow to bubble up:

* Major events in your life

* Emotional moments

* Pivotal momentsThen take some time to recall:

* Others’ reactions to these events

* Your reactions and feelings

* Your actions and the outcomesJot down the essence of what you discover. Using those notes,

begin to write your own story. Your story can be in the form of a fairy tale, a play, a dialogue, a poem or even a drawing. Claim your own story, your history. Allow your story to inform you as you take the Seven Steps to Choosing Joy.osing Joy

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for the sound of the genuine in yourself.It is the only true guide you will ever have.

And if you cannot hear it,you will all of your life spend your days

on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.—Howard Thurman2

2 Dr. Howard Thurman, Baccalaureate Address, Spelman College, Atlanta, May 4, 1980.

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Step One:Awareness

The fi rst step to choosing joy is to slow down and climb off the treadmill of life. When you slow down you can create enough “white space,” enough quiet space, in order to actually see the habits and patterns of living that you have developed over the years. These patterns can become well-worn paths of automatic living, always responding in the same way to similar events. Through the quiet space you can become aware of these responses and actions. By becoming aware of how you are reacting it is then possible to actively and consciously choose your response. Awareness is that very fi rst step towards joy.

Take a moment and just listen. . . .Take a moment to notice your own inner responses. . . .Do you notice the fl utter in your own heart when you think of a loved one?Do you feel the tightening in your shoulders and neck when you are struck

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Do you feel the energy in your bones as you are inspired by a new creative idea?

Do you notice when you automatically say yes to a request, when you really wanted to say no?

Do you notice when you choose “busyness” and your to-do list when you are craving peace and balance?

This is awareness.Pay attention, and notice your current patterns of living. Notice

that moment when you are about to respond to a situation. Notice what you would always do. Notice the urge, the pull to follow your habits of living. Then, pay attention, notice, and listen to what your heart and body are telling you. Begin to notice what choice will energize you, will bring you joy . . . and then the choice is yours.

Oasis-Power Practice:Get into a comfortable position, feet fl at on the fl oor, in a seated

position or lying down. Close your eyes, and breathe. Take three deep breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Then come back to your natural normal breath. Imagine a disagreeable, distasteful experience in your life. Relive the experience in your mind’s eye. Notice who was there. Notice how you are feeling. Notice how your body is feeling. Notice the thoughts you are having. This is what it feels like to be dispirited and unhappy.

Now, imagine a delightful, joyous experience in your life. Relive the experience in your mind’s eye. Notice who was there. Notice how you are feeling. Notice how your body is feeling. Notice the thoughts you are having. This is what it feels like to follow your joy, to be in joy.

Take this new information forward as you begin the process of becoming aware of your patterns and habits. Notice when you body feels dispirited and unhappy. Notice when your body feels the joyous feelings. Consider choosing to pursue the events that bring you that joyous feeling. Your body is telling you how to realize the joy.

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The Making of Maple Syrup

I was taking my walk recently, thinking about all the things I needed to get done: e-mails I needed to write, workshops I needed to design, and yoga dances I needed to create. My head was totally into planning my future tasks.

I walked by some maple trees and barely noticed the buckets hanging from their trunks. On my return loop home, I had quieted my mind and was simply enjoying being outside. I walked back by those same maple trees with buckets attached. Amazingly, I heard this plink . . . plunk . . . plink . . . and stopped dead in my tracks. What was that sound? Could that sound be the sap dripping into the buckets? Sure enough, it was! I was hearing the drip . . . drip . . . drip . . . of sap for maple syrup dripping slowly into the buckets. What a beautiful sound! I don’t believe I had ever heard that sound before.

What would I have missed if I had continued to plan my future instead of living in that moment? When I got home I looked up “making maple syrup.” According to David B. Fankhauser, PhD, the fl ow of sap doesn’t begin until after a time of hard freeze followed by several sunny days. Did you know that the peak fl ow occurs early in sugaring season when it freezes at night and is bright and sunny the next day? Did you know that it takes from thirty to fi fty gallons of sap to make a gallon of maple syrup? Did you know that if the trees are tapped too soon and fl ow does not begin, it is possible that the holes will seal over and future fl ow is inhibited signifi cantly?*

Hmmm. . . .Maybe our lives are like the making of maple syrup. Maybe we

need to have those hard freezes, those hard times in order to come into the sunshine and start to see, feel and hear the fl ow of our true lives. Maybe we need those hard, cold times in order for the fl ow—the

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design of our lives—to pop out when the sun shines. Maybe if we act too soon, if we rush this fl ow, this design of the future of our true selves will be inhibited and actually take longer to emerge.

Oasis-Power Practice:Take a walk outside and experience the beauty of nature around

you. If you can’t get outside, look out a window. Be completely present. Let your concerns about the past and your worries about the future recede into the background. Take a deep breath. Breathe the beauty of nature into your body. Create space in the midst of your busy life, and let the design for your true self—the design for your life—emerge when the time is exactly right.

Hurricane Sandy and Your Life

When I saw the devastation in New Jersey and New York from Hurricane Sandy, with whole neighborhoods destroyed, towns going completely dark without light or heat, streets completely fl ooded over the cars, I realized how lucky I was—how grateful I was for what I have. When we strip away everything else, there are family, friends and community, and there is love for each other—and that is really all that matters. These are amazing gifts to hold dear. What other gifts, what other insights are waiting to be discovered within this storm experience?

Living just north of Boston, we lost power on the afternoon of the fi rst day of the storm. The fi rst thing I noticed was the quiet. All I could hear was the wind and the rain. No humming of the refriger-ator, no ding of the microwave, no “whishing” of the dishwasher. . . . Just quiet.

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At fi rst I paced between rooms, the wind swirling around, rain lashing against the windows, and no power. I felt unmoored. My usual activities were not possible: checking my e-mail, typing my newsletter, listening to music. Then I realized that I could read, medi-tate, rest and renew. There was nothing else pulling me away from the healing power of stillness. Sandy’s fi rst gift was the gift of quiet.

Our son and his girlfriend lived in our mother-in-law apartment then, and we often went days without connecting. That night they came upstairs for a potluck family dinner—grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade soup, both cooked on the outdoor grill. We drank champagne and wine, laughed and told stories—all bathed in candle-light. Sandy’s second gift was the gift of family reconnection.

Many events were cancelled. I found a sense of relief that some-thing was called off. I was able to be home and not out at one more meeting. There was an insight waiting for me in that sense of relief. Maybe it was time to reconsider an activity. Sandy’s third gift was the gift of time.

During the storm our favorite tree came down, falling uphill—away from our house and the electrical wires. The wind was blowing steadily at 35 mph when all of a sudden, a huge 60-65 mph gust came charging through, sounding like a freight train. I froze, not knowing what to do . . . and so had a perfect view of this most favorite of trees collapsing gracefully away from me, away from our home. Losing a favorite tree is nothing like losing a home or a loved one, but it still gave me pause. I felt very lucky. It could have been so much worse. Sandy’s fourth gift was the gift of gratitude.

My experiences with Hurricane Sandy made me wonder: Do you sometimes feel that you are in a hurricane of your own making? Running here and there, busy, busy, busy, checking things off your to-do list, going to events without question, never standing still?Maybe the lessons and gifts of Hurricane Sandy point us in the direction of quiet time with those who matter most.

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The great truth that surprise wants to teachis that everything is gratuitous, everything is a gift.

—Brother David Steindl-Rast

Oasis-Power Practice:Why wait for a hurricane? Close your eyes or have a soft eye

gaze on the fl oor. Take three deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, fi lling your belly with air on the inhale, and collapsing your belly on the exhale. After three breaths, come back to your natural, normal breath. Place both hands on your heart and breathe in compassion. On the out breath, breathe out chaos. Continue for one to two minutes. Then on the in breath, breathe in compassion for those you hold most dear. Bring them into your mind’s eye. Breathe them into your heart.

When you are ready, tip your head gently side to side, roll your shoulders, maybe wiggle your fi ngers and toes and slowly open your eyes.

Become aware of how this love and compassion feels in your body. Even in the midst of the hurricanes of life—the chaos and intensity of life—consider choosing who matters most in your life, then surprise them with the gift of your time and your presence.

Robin Redbreast

Robin Redbreast, what can you tell us about life? I am sitting here watching a robin gather up a string in her beak. The string is wrapped around a rose bush in our garden, probably tied there to support the roses in full bloom last summer. Right now, there is only hope that those roses will come out again.

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The robin pulls and pulls with all her might but that string will not budge! Finally she fl ies away. I imagine that she left with a heavy heart—discouraged that this prime piece of building material was unattainable. But then, to my surprise, she came back to try again. I guess this piece of string was just too good to pass up. . . . Still that string would not break loose, no matter how hard that robin yanked and pulled.

At fi rst I thought the message for me was from the children’s book, The Little Engine That Could: “Keep trying, keep striving and you will reach your goal.” I have successfully done this in the past. I kept chugging up the hill in my career—striving to be at the top. I kept chipping away at my debt, fi nally paying off my credit cards and loans. I reached for the stars and got into the graduate school of my choosing.

Now the robin has fl own in three more times and has fi nally gone off for good, to fi nd easier prospects for her nest, I assume—to fi nd strings that fi t into her life, that are possible for her to attain.

With the robin fl ying away, abandoning this choice nest-building material, I realized that the message was not about obstinately striving towards my current goals. Even though that tenaciousness worked for me in the past, single-mindedness may not be what is called for now.

I began to realize that maybe the reason I was unable to accom-plish a particular goal was because it was the wrong goal!

I considered my beloved “Let Your Yoga Dance” program. Training to become a “Let Your Yoga Dance” teacher was the fi rst thing I did after retiring from the University of Massachusetts. It opened my heart and soul to all that was possible in my life. I love moving and dancing, and my goal was to share that love with others in my hometown by teaching one night a week. But it had become a drain on my time and energy. I felt myself being pulled in other directions—away from Yoga Dance.

Maybe what I needed to do was look at Yoga Dance with new eyes and change the goal . . . or let go of the goal all together.

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How often have we thought that we have found the perfect solution, the perfect goal, only to fi nd out it is not working? When it doesn’t turn out the way we expected, we sometimes feel that we have failed. What if we needed to take this step in order to fi nd out we were meant to go in a different direction? What if it had served its purpose and it was simply time to move on? Or what if it wasn’t the right goal?

Maybe this wasn’t the right action, the right goal for me at this time. Maybe it was time to let go, to shift it slightly or just move on. . . .

What would it be like to let go of the striving for a goal that is not working for you no matter how hard you try? What would it be like to change that goal of a workshop or program, an outlook, a job, a relationship?

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.—Henry David Thoreau

Oasis-Power Practice:Do you have a goal or a situation in your life that is just not

work-ing for you . . . no matter how hard you try? No matter how hard you push?

Call to mind a goal that is not serving you.Take a deep breath. Take several deep breaths in through your

nose and out through your mouth. Let the breath help you take a step back from that goal.

Consider the essence of what you are trying to accomplish. Consider the underlying purpose behind the goal. Breathe into that purpose. Allow thoughts and feelings concerning that essence, that purpose, to bubble up for you.

Consider a redesign of the goal, or consider letting go of the goal in order to meet that essence in a different way.

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Going Round and Round . . .

Remember those rides at the park that we went on as kids? I remember “driving” a race car attached to a hub going round and round, feeling so proud of myself for steering a car! The car, of course, was securely anchored at the center to keep children safe while they practiced being grown-ups.

The same can be said for all the rules we internalized growing up. Rules are meant to teach us, keep us safe, and put us on a successful road to adulthood:

* Eat all of the food on your plate.

* You can’t go out and play until all your homework is done.

* Be nice and never disagree.

* You must be the best.

* You must work harder than anyone else.

* People won’t love you if. . . .

* You must always be busy.Do any of these rules sound familiar? The hardest one for me

was: “You can’t go play until all your work is done.” The problem for me became: “All my work is never done. Does that mean I can never play?”

So I’m curious . . . how are these rules serving you now? Are these rules keeping you attached to a safe hub that is no longer working for you? Just like the children’s ride, are you going round and round in your life and not getting anywhere?

Are you asking: “Is this all there is?” “Is this what I want to be doing?” “Is this what I was meant to be doing with my life?”

So how do we decide which of these rules, if any, to listen to? How do we break away from the safe hub of our lives? I use the ABCs of choosing joy:

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* Awareness

* Breath

* ChoiceAwareness: Become aware that you may be feeling uncomfort-

able or unsure in a particular situation. For example, I once chose to attend a meeting at work when my son was playing in a champion-ship soccer game. I felt my stomach drop out as I realized I was not supposed to be in this meeting. I had chosen the rules: “Always do the best you can” and “Work harder than anyone else” instead of “What I value most in the world is my son.” The fi rst step is to become aware of what your inner voices or rules are telling you to do.

Breath: Take a deep breath into that voice. Your conscious breath pulls you away from your automatic responses to a situation. It breaks the pattern.

Choice: Now consciously choose whether or not to listen to that rule or voice. You have a choice. You can choose what is right for you. Choose the response that fi ts how you want to live your life.

Oasis-Power Practice:Try this the next time you notice you are in an uncomfortable

situation. For example, perhaps you are wondering why you are cleaning the house when it is a beautiful day outside.

* Notice how you are feeling, asking yourself, “What am I doing here?”

* Take a deep breath. Take several more deep breaths.

* Refl ect on the subconscious “rule” you are following.

* Ask yourself, “How is this rule serving me today?”

* Then consciously choose what you want to be doing.

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Magic Wands

Each one of us has a magic wand inside of us. This magic wand is waiting in our Oasis of Inner Wisdom. What we need to do is slow down, open to its power, and tap . . . tap . . . tap . . . our magic wand to access our courage and true passions. I recently received a letter from a potential client who tapped her magic wand and began the courageous journey to transform her life:

Dear Leslie,I have been meaning to write to you for quite some time, and the

new year got away from me. Last year my partner recommended that I start coaching with you, and in your very generous sample session you told me that I had the magic wand inside me that would lead me to my life’s work. At the time, I admit, I was frustrated by that, feeling I just didn’t have the time to look for that magic wand or that life’s work. I also did not have the courage.

But for Halloween I dressed up as a fairy princess, and so I had to make a magic wand out of things I could fi nd in my offi ce kitchen—chopsticks and aluminum foil—and then a month later, I stood up to lead a service at my church and fi nally accepted that I’ve known for a long time that I am called to spiritual leadership, but I have been too afraid to admit it.

The magic wand was and still is planted in the spider plant at my offi ce—waiting to be employed again. Forgive me for doubting you, and thank you for all the good work you do.

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Oasis-Power Practice:Take a moment out of your busy day, take a deep breath, and pay

attention to what comes up. As you go about your life, ask yourself these questions, adapted from Dennis Linn in Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life:3

“When did I most feel life draining out of me?”“When did I feel the most energized today?”

Notice when you are feeling the life draining out of you. What does it feel like in your body? What are your thoughts and feelings? Notice when you are feeling the most energized. What does it feel like in your body? What are your thoughts and feelings?

This is the beginning of choosing joy: bringing awareness, bringing a spotlight to what brings your joy. Start activating your own magic wand, listening for what it has to say—even when you don’t have the courage to act. The magic is there waiting. The key is opening up to the magic and tapping that wand three times. . . .

3 David Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, Matthew Linn, Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, (Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1995).

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Step Two:Breath

Question: What is something that you have with you always that can bring you calm, peace, and clarity and can counteract the stress response?

Answer: Your breath.Your breath is the foundation of the Seven Steps to Choosing Joy. You have

it with you at all times. Your conscious breath can pull you out of your automatic responses, your anger, or your worries. Your breath can pull you out of destructive patterns of behavior. When you con-sciously breathe into a situation, you are:

* Providing oxygen to all parts of your body

* Relaxing, renewing and bringing clarity

* Breaking your pattern of automatic responses

* Pulling your mind from past worries and future plans

* Bringing yourself into the present momentYour breath is that second step to choosing joy. Your breath is

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a tool to bring you into the present moment and out of the chaos of life—the doorway to bringing your mind, body and spirit into the same place at the same time. Becoming aware in the moment of your reactions and habitual responses and then taking a deep breath begins the development of a mindfulness practice. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is way of being aware: “on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”

Mindfulness is about being full awake in our lives.It is about perceiving the exquisite vividness of each moment.

—Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Learning How to BreatheLearning how to breathe may seem a little crazy, since you

breathe every moment of every day. However, there are certain ways you breathe that can bring on a stress response, and ways you breathe that produce a relaxation response.

Many people take a breath into the chest and then exhale out of the chest. This is shallow breathing, which actually brings on a stress response. This is how I used to breathe. It came as a shock to me that it was contributing to my stress.

The way I teach people how to breathe is to start with a big, deep breath, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Breathing through the nose warms up the breath and fi lters the air before it enters your system. Exhaling through the mouth allows for a more complete exhale. When inhaling, bring the air into your belly—completely fi lling your belly with air. One way to check this out is to put your hands on your belly and inhale. If your hands rise with the inhalation then you have mastered the inhale! Then exhale your belly back toward your spine so that your belly collapses, squeezing out as much air as possible.

Once you have completed three deep inhales and exhales, the next step is to do what is called “1:2 ratio breathing.” This breathing technique has an exhalation that is twice as long as the inhalation.

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So, for example, if you inhale to the count of four, then your exhala-tion would be to a count of eight. This elongated exhale actually helps to bring on the relaxation response.

Once you have learned this breath, come back to your natural, normal breath. Then, drawing from Herbert Benson’s The Relaxation Response,4 choose a word or a phrase that has meaning for you. This anchors your mind in your breath and in the word or phrase. On both the inhale and exhale, say to yourself your word or phrase. When your mind wanders—as it always will—do not react to any thoughts that come in. Just notice them and let them fl oat away. Then bring your mind back to the breath and to your chosen word.

We can either change the complexities of life . . .or develop ways to enable us to cope more effectively.

—Herbert Benson

Oasis Power Practice:Take a breath using this technique for a continuous three to fi ve

minutes at least once a day. You can choose a specifi c time of day—for instance, fi rst thing every morning or before you go to bed. Or you can take a breath when you are frustrated or overwhelmed. Whenever you breathe consciously in this manner, you will bring yourself into relaxation and clarity. Your breath is the foundation for each of the Seven Steps to Choosing Joy.

4 Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response (New York: Harper Collins, 1975).

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26

Seeking That Perfect Shell . . .

I love the beach! It’s my favorite place to spend time. Every time I go to the beach I fi nd a shell and bring it home with me. I put it in a beautiful glass container and write a brief note about what trip I took and what insights I gained. I keep this running log in the book my mother gave me years ago, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and have been doing it for years.

So it was no surprise that I was searching for a shell on this one particular trip to Florida several years ago. I was seeking that perfect shell to take home. My head was down and I was completely obsessed with fi nding that perfect shell. Maybe even muttering to myself, “Where is that shell?” I looked and looked and couldn’t fi nd it. The ones I found were broken into pieces or were what I consid-ered ordinary.

Then it hit me. Maybe I was trying too hard to fi nd the shell. Maybe I needed to relax a little and let go!

So I looked up and noticed the deep blue sky fi lled with wispy clouds gently fl oating by. I heard the waves swooshing in and out again, and then felt those same waves as they came up to tickle my feet, then sneak away. I heard the children laughing in the surf, saw the toddlers running from the waves, felt the breeze lifting my hair and brushing my skin.

How blessed was I to be here on this beach at this time!Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe I needed to let the shell just

appear. Maybe I needed to let the shell fi nd me. . . . So I continued on my walk, no longer with my head down.

Within fi ve minutes the most amazing channeled whelk appeared right in front of me. I still have it to this day in my “Gifts from the

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Sea” collection. It made me wonder, Maybe, if I let go a little and don’t hold on so tightly to what I am looking for . . . will what I am seeking fi nd me?

The sea does not reward thosewho are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient.

One should lie empty, open, choice-less as a beach—waiting for a gift from the sea.—Anne Morrow Lindbergh5

Oasis-Power Practice:Bring to mind something that you are holding onto very tightly.

Take a deep breath in, and on the out breath let it go. . . . Do this three times, letting go each time.

Once you have done the breathing, bring your arms forward, straight out in front of you, palms up. Take a breath and offer up what is no longer serving you. Slowly lower your arms to your side, palms facing forward.

Gradually stretch your arms out to your side, level with your shoulders, your palms still facing upwards. Take a deep breath and gently roll your chest forward, leading with your heart.

In the space left open by letting go, be open to what is next for you. . . . Repeat as needed throughout the week. In this new spaciousness be open for the gem—for the perfect shell that appears in your life.

5 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983).

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The Path Less Traveled . . .

On a recent trip to the British Virgin Islands, my husband and I took a small six-passenger propeller plane to our fi nal destination. The view from the plane was thrilling because we fl ew so much lower and could see so much more. The pilot pointed out all of the islands. As we fl ew over St. John I could see the path we always took to get to the beach. Then I looked around and saw different paths to the same beach and paths to other beaches that I didn’t even know were there! I sat back in my seat, pondering this discovery and thought, Some-times I need to step away from my life in order to see my paths, my choices, more clearly.

If you rush through life you often only see what is right in front of you. You can’t see the big picture until you step back. By stepping back you can see your patterns—your well-worn paths of living—beaten down into a groove as you follow the trail without lifting your head to look at what is on either side. By getting above, by lifting your head, you can see that there is a hint of a trail, overgrown and lush, that is just waiting to be discovered and explored. My heart races as I consider what it means for me to take a step off that well-worn path that is my life.

This insight made me think of a time with my daughter when she was maybe twelve or thirteen years old. We were arguing in the kitchen. For the life of me, I can’t remember what we were arguing about. I remember getting so frustrated and upset that I just had to walk away. I left the house and took a walk. For the fi rst part of the walk I was fuming over how she would not listen to me. Gradually I started to calm down and continued on my walk so that I could appear to be more sane when I went back home. In this state of

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calming down a thought just popped into my head, “She is so scared. All she wants is to know that I love her. All she wants is a hug.” I have no idea where the thought came from, but it was crystal clear and I just knew it was true.

I went directly home, walked in the door and opened my arms to my daughter. She fell into them, and we embraced and cried.

Oasis-Power Practice:Take a break from your life by taking a walk. As you walk,

con-sider slowing down, choosing a more leisurely pace. One way to do this is to count backwards with each step you take. Start by counting backwards from ten with the fi rst step as “ten;” then the second and third steps as “ten, nine;” then “ten, nine, eight” and so forth. The counting and breath will anchor your thoughts, quiet your mind. When thoughts come in, notice them then let them go without reaction.

Clear your head of the clutter and let that oh-so-small voice speak to you about what path, what action could open up a whole new trail for you, a whole new perspective.

Stoplights . . . a Gift?

The next time you are at a stoplight, consider taking a deep breath. . . . How much time do we spend at stoplights, in long lines, or on hold on the phone? How annoying those times can be when we are in a hurry! This recently happened to me. I was on hold off and on with a utility company for half an hour! I almost had to be

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peeled off the ceiling when I got off the phone, and I certainly needed to have my shoulders surgically removed from my ears from all the stress that collected there—and my issue with the company wasn’t even resolved!

I began to wonder, What if I chose to look at that call on hold or that stoplight as a gift? What if I chose to see it as an opportunity to slow down a little, or as an opportunity to take a breath? What if I took a deep breath at those times instead of feeling frustrated or annoyed?

The breath is the foundation of the Oasis Power practice. The breath is something that you have with you always, and is the constant that is a necessary ingredient for relaxation and peace in your life. Learning how to use your breath can be the crucial piece we need for continued health and well-being.

Oasis-Power Practice: “One Minute Oasis Break”The next time you fi nd yourself at a stoplight, stuck in traffi c, in

a long line or on hold, use that time as an opportunity to bring an oasis of calm into your life by doing the following:

Take a deep breath in through your nose, fi lling your belly with fresh air. Exhale all that air, pulling your belly back toward your spine. Do this three times.

Come back to your normal breath, as Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, saying “in” on the inhale and “out” on the exhale. Focus on your breath for a few moments, saying the words “in” and “out.” If your mind wanders, that is okay; just bring it back to the breath and the words “in” and “out” for each inhale and exhale. Finish with a big inhale in through your nose and exhale out through your mouth.

Take that oasis of calm out with you into your day and see how much more tranquil you now feel.

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31

Is Your Life in a Knot?

“Let me just do one more thing before I get ready to go out,” I mutter to myself as I fl y around the house. Can you guess where that leads? Not enough time to get dressed and out the door. I wonder if many of you have been in this same situation.

I decided to wear my favorite purple sweater and I have this purple teardrop glass necklace that matches perfectly. My husband bought it for me on our “Empty Nest Trip,” so this necklace is not only the perfect color, it also holds all sorts of precious memories. So of course I wanted to wear that necklace. Wouldn’t you know that the chain had a knot in it? It was a tangled mess.

So, being all about slowing down, I took a deep breath and started to work on the tangle. I carefully tried one strand of the knot and then another until one started to give a little. I continued to wiggle that strand and followed where it led. Slowly, very slowly, the knot began to come apart, one tangle at a time. That fi rst strand was connected to the entire knot. By fi nding the entry point or the loose strand I was able to untangle the knot in the necklace.

I realized that the knot in my necklace is like our lives. Our lives can feel crazy, out of control, an ugly tangle of obligations and responsibilities. Our lives can feel as if they are in a knot. Do you sometimes feel:

* Out of control?

* Unappreciated?

* Unfulfi lled?

* Angry at others for not listening, not helping . . . ?

* Controlled by your “shoulds”?

* De-energized at work?

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Is it time to start untangling the knot of your life? Time to pull on a thread and see where it leads? Imagine that necklace again. If you yank and pull in frustration on any one strand, the knot only gets tighter and tighter. What if you gently and lovingly started to nudge and wiggle one strand of your life?

Many of us don’t even know where to begin to bring some balance, calm, and creativity into our lives. Just like the knot in the necklace, it doesn’t matter which knot or issue you work on fi rst. They are all connected. The key is to start trying to fi nd the loose chain, the loose link, the strand that you can handle.

We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.—Jean Toomer

Oasis-Power Practice:Consider taking a baby step. Stop . . . take a deep breath . . .

and gently explore one strand of your life. Notice and become aware of one area in your life that is out of balance or one area that is not working for you. This strand might be a romantic relationship, your work, your health, your family and friends, fi nancial considerations, your own personal growth, or your own physical environment. Take another deep breath and choose to examine that area that is out of balance. Take one small step towards untangling that strand. You choose that fi rst step.

Each step creates a shift, and that shift leads to another shift. It can be scary because we don’t know where these baby steps are leading. It is essential, though, to start gently untangling the knot that is your life in order to lead the life you were meant to lead.

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33

Resilience Reboot

I just returned from a vacation that included a boisterous family reunion and a visit with my elderly parents. I got home, unpacked, did the laundry, perused the mail, got back to work seeing clients. . . . Then a few days later, I hosted a goodbye party for our son and his girlfriend who were leaving soon to teach in South Korea. I planned, shopped, cleaned, cooked and set up. Over fi fty people came by to touch base and say goodbye. I enjoyed every minute: the laughter, memories shared, games. . . . Then came the cleanup, storing of food, taking out garbage, and doing dishes.

That was Sunday. On Monday I woke up exhausted, spent, depleted. I’d had a memorable vacation with extended family, then came home to a fl urry of activity. I realized that I needed to revitalize and renew. I needed to take a break. I needed a vacation day right after getting home from vacation! How crazy was that?

I am always asking my clients to consider in a moment of choice: “What do you need?” “What do you want?” But when it comes to me, I often forget to ask myself these same questions, prompting my husband to query, “And you teach what?” He told me last night that he felt that his job was to remind me of all the things I teach others!

I have those same voices in my head that can plague my clients at some of these “choice” points:

* “Who do you think you are?”

* “What makes you think you deserve a day off?”

* “What will people think?”

* “You can’t have fun until all your work is done.”I had to laugh because I am starting to redesign my “Resilience

Reboot” class. Resilience can be defi ned as “the ability of something

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to return to its original shape after it has been pulled, stretched, pressed, bent, etc.” (Merriam-Webster).

A core premise of resilience is the expenditure and replenishing of energy. It is only through a combination of expending energy and the experience of rest and renewal that we can become sturdy and strong for the long haul. It is how we can come back to our original shape. If we continue to push, push, push and work, work, work, we will burn out, get sick and exhausted, and be unable to continue at the same level. A critical key to resiliency is the “rest” segment. We all have the “work” part down to a T! It is rest and renewal that we need to practice.

So, I accepted my own advice and took the day off. I texted my husband saying, “I am taking a vacation day!” I puttered around the house, read a great book (The Goldfi nch by Donna Tartt), and took a long walk. The next day I woke up revived, exhilarated and energized to move my household and business forward. What a gift!

Oasis-Power Practice:When you are exhausted, spent and depleted, consider taking a

vacation day in the middle of the week to renew and refresh. If you aren’t able to take a vacation day, consider taking a break. It is not only okay, it is essential to your long-term survival.

Courageous Compassion

The words were out of my mouth before I could pull them back. I was just so frustrated, so angry. Why couldn’t he see that he needed to help Mom (my mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s)? Those

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words of accusation, insinuating that Dad was not doing what was necessary to support Mom, ended up being a turning point for me.

Dad’s response stabbed me as if it were an actual knife, not the virtual knife that he employed. It came as an unmerciful e-mail beating me back away from his life—the very same life that he had asked me to support. And wouldn’t you know it? We were en route to see them both.

Tears fl owed as we fl ew high above any issues facing us. Tears fl owed on the taxi to the airport, in the airport, on the airplane, in the rental car hurtling towards my parent’s home of over fi fty years. Hurt and anger coursed through me, becoming part of the blood that reached every part of my body.

Stepping over the threshold into my parent’s home, apologies were spoken almost immediately. “Heartfelt” was not part of the equation for the apology on my end. I coddled the hurt, protected the hurt, keeping it out of the reach of Dad’s apology.

I went through the motions of a visit. The hurt and anger stayed with me until the pain was too heavy to bear, the visit too precious to waste. I was succumbing to its weight. I had to do something. I could not live like this any more.

The turning point ended up not being a shift in our relationship but a shift within me. It reminded me of a Marianne Williamson quote:

In asking for miracles, we are seeking a practical goal:a return to inner peace.

We are not asking for something outside us to changebut for something inside us to change.

—Marianne Williamson6

I was able to view my father with a new set of eyes—the eyes of compassion. I realized that he is doing the best he can with the tools

6 Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love (New York: Harper Collins, 1992).

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he has available. He is an elderly man who once was a high-powered attorney. My mother doted him on, and with the Alzheimer’s diag-nosis she is no longer able to do this. He wants to maintain as much control over his life as possible, and yet is afraid that he is not up to the task. He wants the support and help of his children, but does not want to give up that control.

I took a deep breath, brought my father into my heart, and held him there. I felt the love that had taken a back seat to my anger. I breathed right into the love. I then saw him in his entirety. I saw his struggles and desires in a new way. I began to see the world from his point of view. I found that through this new perspective and this recovered love I could bring compassion into the equation.

I now touch base with Dad, then wait for him to ask for any assistance he might need, thereby shifting control to the rightful owner. In the meantime, we each love each other from our own separate and fulfi lling lives.

Sometimes it can seem easier and more satisfying to hold onto the hurt, when the more courageous and fulfi lling response is ulti-mately compassion and letting go of that hurt.

Oasis-Power PracticeBring to mind someone who has hurt you, someone against

whom you are holding a grudge. Take a deep breath. Imagine bring-ing that person into your heart, and hold him or her there. Give them a virtual hug. Breathe right into the love.

Now imagine a light coming from above. In your mind’s eye see the warmth and glow of this light enveloping this person. Breathe in the warmth and brilliance of that light. From this place, imagine seeing the world from their perspective. From this new place, surround this person with your love, light and compassion and imagine the words you would like to say to them.

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Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing:the last of human freedoms—

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—Viktor E. Frankl7

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Step Three:Choice

You choose.It is your choice.You have the power.You have the power to choose the life you envision, the life of

your dreams.You have the power to create the life that you desire.What will you choose? An automatic life of “shoulds?” Or a

life fi lled with inspiration, energy and authenticity?You have a choice about how you want to live your life. You can

take ownership of your decisions and non-decisions or you can feel put-upon. You can choose to feel like a victim, to feel totally stressed and out of control . . . or you can make conscious choices to live a more fulfi lling life. By actively making choices you will:

* Start to access and listen to your own voice.

* Decide to do what really matters to you.

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* Make active choices to do what brings you joy.

* Be at peace with the decisions you make.Actively choosing brings you closer to joy!

Oasis-Power Practice:Putting together the fi rst three of the Seven Steps to Choosing

Joy (Awareness, Breath and Choice), do the following:

* Bring to mind a current situation or a decision that you need to make. (Awareness)

* Take three long deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, fi lling your belly with air. (Breath)

* Slowly put your choices into a statement of already having decided to do each one (Choice): “I will do this . . .” or, “ I will do that. . . .”

* Take a quarter and decide which choice will be heads and which choice will be tails.

* Flip the coin.

* Notice how you react to which side comes up. Notice how your body reacts. Your reaction to the result will tell you what the right choice is for you.

* Then consciously choose what you want to do.Taking these three steps, Awareness, Breath and Choice,

will start you on your path to choosing joy!

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41

Your Time, in Jelly Beans

I don’t know about you, but September is the beginning of a new year for me. It surely has something to do with school starting after the “ lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” I know that most people celebrate New Year’s Day on January fi rst. For me it is the Tuesday after Labor Day.

So I spend time during the slower summer months considering: What do I want to experience in the new year? What is my intention? What assumptions do I want to let go of? What do I want to create? What will energize me? What will bring me joy?

As I was contemplating my intentions for a recent upcoming year, I came across a video, “The time you have . . . in jelly beans,” which expressed many of my feelings about how I want to consider the precious time I have left to me. It spoke to me, so I want to share it with you.

What this video illustrates is how we currently spend much of our time, and asks how we want to choose to spend the time left to us. The video opens with 28,835 jelly beans being spread out on a dark fl oor—one jelly bean representing each day of your life. Then a person comes in and slides away jelly beans for the number of days you spend growing up, sleeping, eating and preparing food, working, commuting, watching television, taking care of others, chores, volunteering, and performing community duties. The mound of jelly beans that is left is now much, much smaller—a small fraction of the original pile! This is the time you have left to laugh, hike, read, do something you love.

Ask yourself: What do you want to do with the time you have left? What if you only had half that time? What if you only had one day? What would you do today?

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I hope that each of you has work that you love. . . . I hope that each of you is able to enjoy this moment . . . and this moment . . . and the next. . . . I hope that each of you has found joy somewhere in your life.

You have a choice.What will you choose to do today?What will you choose to do tomorrow, the next day, this year?

Oasis-Power Practice:Escape to a quiet place. Get comfortable. Take a deep breath

and consider this question: What am I going do with my wild and fabulous life? What do I want to create in my life? You have a choice.

Is Your Second Chapter Calling You?

Even children get olderand I’m getting older, too. . . .—Stevie Nicks, “Landslide”

It all started when we dropped off my youngest stepson, Zach, at college on a beautiful fall day in New England. Zach is the youngest of my husband’s four boys, but my fi rst to send off to college. One year behind Zach came my son, Jason, and one year later my daughter, Emma.

We unloaded the car and moved him into his dorm room, making it as homey as possible. Then hugs and kisses goodbye on the steps and waves out the back window of the car as Zach stood alone waving back to us. No sooner did we turn the corner then I

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burst into heart-wrenching tears. These tears were the vocal kind with groans and cries and ragged breath as the heartbreak took over my whole body. These sobs lasted the whole way home in the car—two hours! Obviously this empty nest thing was not going to be as easy as I thought!

I soon concluded that I was not only crying because I would miss Zach but I was also crying about losing my son and daughter in just two years’ time, and also about losing a way of life that I had come to know and love over the past eighteen years. I knew I had to do something or I would collapse when the next two left for college. I needed to fi gure out how I was going to “survive” that empty nest!

When all three kids were gone, I recognized that the biggest change for me was in the decision-making process about how to spend my time. I asked myself: What do I want to do? What are mydreams? How do I want to spend my time?

I initiated a process to design my empty nest life: to design my life—not just survive. I suddenly remembered that I had always wanted to start taking pictures again, and asked for a camera for Christmas. I set out to reclaim this passion. I even had a picture accepted and printed by our local paper! I lost those thirty-fi ve pounds and began working at Weight Watchers one night a week to help other women lose weight. I started taking yoga classes and exercising on a regular basis. My husband and I realized that we could travel any time we liked, so we took that trip to the Caribbean that we had always wanted to take.

When I read in the church newsletter, “Give yourself a Mother’s Day present this year, and go with a group of women to volunteer to help rebuild Biloxi after Hurricane Katrina,” I realized that this was something that I really wanted to do. It was something I was never able to do while I was raising my kids, but a gift I wanted to give myself now.

I found that I was not only surviving but thriving in my empty nest! I still miss the kids and I miss having them defi ne my life at times, but the joy of watching them grow up, the thrill of having

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them come home to visit (and still leaving their shoes in the front hall and their coats draped over random furniture) and the cell-phone calls for advice (and money) keep me in the loop and still a mother. The difference is that now I am a mother of adult children, a mother who is also accomplishing dreams of her own.

Oasis-Power Practice:Give yourself the gift of nourishment and self care and do

something for yourself, just because you want to do it and for no other reason. It is not only okay to take care of yourself, it will also start you on the path of healing and refreshing your soul.

A Race to the Finish Line?

Graduation season is a time of great joy when parents, family and friends swell with pride at the graduate’s accomplishments. It is a time to dream about what is next. It also seems to be a time for us to look back on our own lives. To remember our own graduations, our own dreams and aspirations. There may be feelings of joy and con-tentment about where we are now. There may also be some feelings of disappointment at not achieving the dreams we remember from our own graduation. Or some sadness and regret at how quickly the time has passed, at how much of life is behind us. We may be thinking “If I had to do it over again I would. . . .” We do know that we can’t do it all over again. We can however, change how we live our lives from this moment forward. We have a choice to make.

Ultimately, life is not a race. It is not a sprint to the fi nish line. May you savor every moment of every day. May you embrace your

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journey. May you embrace your life going forward from this moment, and this moment and the next . . . choosing not to make life a race to the fi nish line.

Oasis-Power Practice:Is there one thing that you dreamed of doing when you gradu-

ated? Bring that image to your mind and heart. Is it still a dream of yours? Has it transformed into a new dream? Envision three steps that you could take to make this new dream happen. Take a deep breath and take those fi rst steps towards realizing this dream.

Your Choice: Love or Fear

3,000: the number of miles I live from my elderly parents.1: the number of years since my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.57: the number of years my parents have lived in the family

home.4: the number of brothers and sisters we have to support our

parents.Infi nite: the love we have available to share with each other

and our parents.Unique: the gifts each sibling has to bring.I am a wreck. I am emotional. I am physically shaking. Tears

are welling up. Things are shifting and changing in the lives of my elderly parents. My mother’s Alzheimer’s is progressing. There is visible slippage in her memory and in what she can do. My father struggles physically to walk from room to room.

And yet, the greatest desire of my parents is to stay in their home

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as long as possible. Independence is what they crave, if at all feasible. Their children’s greatest desire is to keep them safe.

My parents want to go solo without the help of caregivers in the home. Their children want to start ramping up help to come into the home to support them.

The Dilemma: Independence vs. Safety

Some of the children’s fears are that:

* Something will happen to our parents.

* We will feel guilty forever if either parent is harmed in any way.

* Our parents are suffering and we are unable to help them.

* Our mother is in pain and is not being supported enough by our father.

Some of the parents’ fears are that they might:

* Lose control over their lives.

* Lose their privacy.

* Lose their freedom.

* Begin to feel unnecessary, unneeded.

The Response: Love or Fear

How will we, as loving supportive children, choose to respond?Out of fear we could insist on the confi guration of help that we

believe is needed and necessary in the home.Out of love we could listen to our parents’ deepest desires and

honor their struggles to stay independent. We could craft a solution that will maintain their independence and keep them safe. We could design a solution that will work for all—a win-win.

The opposite of love is fear.Dispel your fears with love.Dispel the fears of others with love.You have a choice on how you react to these and other situations.You can choose to respond from Love or from Fear.What do you choose?

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No act of love, however small, is ever wasted.—Aesop

Oasis-Power Practice:Consider a situation you may currently have with a friend, family

member or co-worker. Consider whether you want to respond with Love or Fear. You have choice. Ask yourself:

* Is this response rooted in a deep fear of loss or guilt?

* Or is this response opening me up to empathy, to love and to compassion?

Your choice could change the outcome and the relationship forever.

Teddy Bear, Anyone?

If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,This is the best season of your life.

—Wu-Men

I counted them: 123 stuffed animals languishing in our attic all these years. Six children and an easily accessible attic and we are inundated with stuffed animals. Bag after bag fi lled with bears, ele-phants, unicorns, monkeys and hippos. . . . I laid them out in our yard, lining our walkway and beyond, taking a picture and a video to send to the kids to preserve that special animal that would bring back warm memories.

My summer project was to clear out our attic, donating, when possible, things that we no longer needed and boxing up and labeling things we wanted to save.

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I was shocked to discover what I held onto. Some of the items I saved: National Geographic and Bon Appetite magazines, baby toys, animal cages, work papers . . . the list goes on and on.

So I wondered, what are you holding onto?Is it time to let go of some of this stuff by going through your

attics, basements, closets, and cupboards? Time to do some “summer cleaning” ? Time to fi nd those possessions that are no longer serving you and let them go to make room and space in your life? Time to open up white space for miracles to happen? Some ideas for how to release special items:

* Take a picture.

* Share the story.

* Embrace the memory.

* Then let it go.We don’t just hold onto possessions way beyond their usefulness;

we hold onto clutter and burdens in our hearts and souls as well. Maybe it’s time to clear out the cupboard of your soul this summer as well. What do you need to let go of?

* Resentments?

* Grudges?

* Old habits?

* A failed relationship?

* Painful past memories?

* Addictions (busyness, work, eating, shopping)?Consider giving up those parts of your life that are fi lling you

with pain. Let them go, making room for something new and miraculous to come into your heart. Let go, breathe, and make room for an Oasis Miracle that is just waiting for you. Make space for something new and exciting to come into your life!

Oasis-Power Practice:Take a deep breath and consider what you need to let go of in

your life. Ask yourself: What possessions are no longer serving me? What hurtful emotions are pulling me back into the past?

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Then, if you have diffi culty letting go, breathe through the steps of ALLOW:

Attention: Pay attention, become aware of the emotions and feelings that are playing within you. Honor them.

Listen: Slow down and listen to what those voices, emotions and feelings are telling you.

Let go: Release those feelings, emotions, possessions that are no longer serving you.

Open: Keep sacred the space left empty by letting go. Be open to what comes next.

Wait: Be present. Be patient. The right action will make itself known at the right time.

Open yourself to the miracles awaiting you.

Are You Guilty, Too?

Are you guilty of getting ready to go to work, to a meeting, or to pick up the kids, and notice you have time to do one more thing . . . and then you are rushing out the door late? Are you guilty of saying yes to a commitment then wonder why . . . when spending time on this activity takes you away from what you intended to do?

Are you guilty of spending hours trying to fi nd that one special thing for your home or business and then not having time for what you planned to accomplish that day or that week?

Yep—I am guilty as charged!I decided that I wanted to get a frame for a wedding picture of

our son who recently got married. The issue I faced was that I had two wedding pictures of other children in matching frames and those

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frames were no longer available. So the hunt was on for a frame that would blend in with these other two, and not cost too much. I have to admit that I am guilty of adding in another twist . . . I have two more sons who may get married. For full disclosure, you need to know that they are not even engaged yet! But I decided that I wanted to buy frames for their potential future wedding pictures so they would all match! I spent hours and hours at different stores and online looking for frames that would blend in until I realized . . . this is crazy!

Are you guilty of doing something that you regret because you were just rushing around too much?

Yep—I am guilty of this too!I was running errands, ending up at a coaching session with a

client at a local café. I decided to go to Trader Joe’s fi rst. I bought ice cream and came prepared with a cooler. “Way to go!” you say? Well, just wait. As I was pulling into my appointment, the cooler tipped over and the lid fell off. I saw it, knew it happened, but was in a hurry, so between the time I pulled into the parking place and opened the door, I forgot. It was a relatively warm day in New England. So you guessed it: the ice cream melted!

What about this? Are you guilty of being in such a hurry that you put your sweater on backwards three times in a row?

Yep—I am guilty of this too! Anyone else? Or am I the only one?So where is the learning for me?, I wondered. . . . What if . . . ?What if . . . I set my intentions for the day and stuck to them,

letting go of those things that don’t really matter?What if . . . I take a deep breath before deciding to do that “one

more thing”?What if . . . I am able to forgive myself for the melted ice cream?What if . . . I am able to laugh at myself for that wacky sweater

that wanted to see the world backwards?We all get busy and let ourselves be pulled off track. What if we

noticed when this was happening and took a deep breath and chose a different path? What if we took a deep breath and just took a moment to laugh at ourselves?

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Oasis-Power Practice:The next time you fi nd yourself getting so busy that you are

melting ice cream, putting your sweater on backwards, or not making the time for what matters most, take a deep breath and laugh at yourself. Take a deep breath and consider a calming technique I learned from Gabrielle Bernstein, author of Miracles Now. The tech-nique is called “Peace Begins with You.”8

* Gently press your thumb against your index fi nger, then press your thumb against your middle fi nger, then your ring fi nger, then your pinkie fi nger.

* When you touch your index fi nger, say: peace

* When you touch your middle fi nger, say: begins

* When you touch your ring fi nger, say with

* When you touch your pinkie fi nger say: me

* Breathe deeply as you say each word.Slow down and carefully choose your response, your path.

8 Gabrielle Bernstein, Miracles Now (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2014).

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Step Four:Decide to Say No

What are those decisions you need to make in order to choose joy? The choice you have is whether to say yes or no to a situation or attitude.

Say no: The skill to say no is necessary in order to take ownership of the choices you are making in your life. In order to choose joy you must make choices that align with your most deeply held values. Choosing joy involves saying no to many of life’s situa-tions and attitudes that do not bring you joy.

What are the benefi ts of saying no?

* Feeling less overwhelmed

* Having more time for higher priorities

* Being more aligned with your own needs and values

* Making time for renewal, insights, and creative solutions.

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The Yes-No Dilemma

Dilemma: Saying yes to one thing means saying no to some-thing or someone else.

Issue: The “no” you say is usually to yourself. You give up on your needs and joys in order to meet the needs of others.

Solution: Actively make choices that match your values; actively make choices that bring you joy.

For anything to change you must start acting differently. You must start making different choices. Your most familiar path is the status quo. Oh, it is so easy to stay in that comfort zone! In order to change, you need to choose an adjustment, a shift in what you are doing now. So how do you determine what to say yes to? What to say no to? One way is being clear on your most deeply held values. You need to become clear about what brings you joy—what makes your heart sing. Once you have determined your values, you can look at each choice and ask yourself, “Does this choice align with my values?” “Is this how I want to be spending my time, my energy, my life?” Because ultimately:

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oasis-Power Practice:Discovering your values: Take some time to sit quietly, or

take a contemplative walk. Take a deep breath and allow the memory of a joyous, high-point experience in your life bubble to the surface. Relive that experience. Feel those feelings. Let them envelope you.

Then come back to the present. Recalling that experience and your feelings related to it, write down all of your core values that reveal themselves to you through this joyful event. This is the begin-ning of your list of most deeply held values. Over the next week, mull over this list, add to it, change the wording, make it your own.

Making a decision based on those values: Once you have

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a good idea of your most deeply held values, bring to mind an up-coming decision you need to make. Consider each side of the decision: what is the “yes” and what is the “no.” View the decision through the lens of your newly discovered values, and consider which choice best honors those values. Then actively choose what you want to say yes to and what you want to say no to. Actively choose how you want to spend your time.

Your To-Do List . . . or Your Life?

For years I considered myself the “To-Do List Queen.” I would write down everything I needed to do, then cross completed items off with glee! I was even one of those people who would write something down after I had just completed it so I could cross it off! But I started to feel like all I was doing was rushing from one “to-do” to another, and was not savoring my life. I was certainly not fl ourishing. I started noticing that I felt empty and unfulfi lled.

It was during this time that I went to a workshop at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in western Massachusetts, where the featured speaker was author Cheryl Richardson. During the question and answer period I stood up in front of two hundred people and laid out the issue I was having: needing to complete my to-do list before I could do something for myself—before I could have fun. Cheryl looked me right in the eye and said, “Leslie, you have a choice: your to-do list or your life?”

I felt like I had been hit with a lightning bolt. Goose bumps ran up and down my body and time seemed to stand still, as the utterly stark veracity of what she said sank in. I had a choice and it was up

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to me to make the choice. I had to take responsibility for how I spent my days because:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.—Annie Dillard

Oasis-Power Practice:As you enter a new day of hope, promise and possibility, what

are you willing to do to move towards living your life to its fullest? Here is a suggestion for you:

Figure out one joyful or peaceful habit that you would like to develop and practice each day. Maybe it is taking a deep, conscious breath with that fi rst cup of coffee in the morning, or reading the paper or a chapter in a book, or taking a walk. . . . Put this new habit on your to-do list as a must-do item. And then do it every day!

Your Choice: Yes or No

My stomach dropped out. I felt like I plummeted through an air pocket on an airplane. Nausea rolled through my body. I put my head in my hands, elbows on the table. It suddenly hit me: here I was sitting in one more meeting with my colleagues, while my son was playing in a critical high-school soccer game to decide the team for Regionals. I said yes to the meeting and no to cheering for my son. At that moment I knew I had made the wrong decision. I vowed never to make that mistake again.

What are you saying yes to?What are you saying no to?

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These questions have been at the forefront for many of my coaching clients. Many have heard me say, “If you say yes to one thing, you must say no to something else. And that something else is often you!”

There is only so much time in the day. We can’t keep saying yesto things that do not fulfi ll us and then wonder why we are not living the life we want to lead.

I asked several of my clients to share their goals, and what they had to say yes and no to in order to reach those goals. I will share one of them with you today. Real lives, real dilemmas, real tough choices. . . .

Allison:Being a mother of three small children has been a major adjustment for me!

I’m generally a pretty positive and happy person but I noticed that as I added more children my patience level decreased. So over the summer I really made it my goal to have more patience. I really had to look deep into what the recipe for what a good day was for me.

I found a good day really had to do with my health! My best days didn’t have to do with how well my children behaved, but they had more to do with my ability to handle whatever was thrown at me. I was the problem, not my kids! To have more patience with my children I needed to say yes to:

* Eight good hours of sleep,

* Not having any glasses of wine the night before,

* Exercising (not only gives me energy but gives me ninety minutes of time for just me or me with a friend while the kids play in the child-care area),

* Eating well.The better I felt about myself the less likely I was to fl y off the handle upon

discovering glitter throughout the house or being able to calmly handle the lovely public tantrums, etc.

So for me, if I really want to be at my best and not yell more then I talk, then I need to say no to the evening glass of wine and the late night show and yes to an earlier bedtime with a little reading beforehand and some chamomile

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tea since I sleep better doing that. I need to say yes to foods that make me feel good and yes to time for myself every day.

Does this mean I always do that? No! But I know my recipe for more patience and make a conscious choice when I drink that glass of wine or stuff myself right before bed or choose to not exercise. I know what I’m in for the next day, and as a result I’m much better at making good decisions. Plus, I’m still less likely to lose my patience when I see the sink in the kids’ bathroom overfl owing with toothpaste water because I can remind myself that kids will be kids and the reason why my face is burning and I want to scream is because I only slept six hours and haven’t had any time to myself yet that day, so I just need to breathe and get through it and know that tomorrow is a new day.

It is not easy to fi nd happiness in ourselves,and it is not possible to fi nd it elsewhere.

—Agnes Repplier

Oasis-Power Practice:Do you have a goal or a dream that you have been trying to

reach but always fi nd that you don’t have: the time? the money? the resources? the support? Consider this: What one small step can you say yes to in order to bring yourself closer to your goal or dream? Then, what do you need to say no to in order to allow the space and time for the yes to happen? You have a choice: will it be yes or no to your life?

Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever?

I don’t know about you, but I always forget: is it “Feed a cold, starve a fever” or the other way around? I received a “gift” recently:

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a doozy of a cold. I was down for the count—even with all my remedies, immunity tea, and rest. I was out of commission for a full week.

During that week I had to opt out, postpone, or cancel many commitments. I have to say I was amazed that the world continued to spin without my presence, and without my input at these events or meetings.

I had just fi nished reading Home by Julie Andrews, and although this may sound a little dramatic, fi nding out I wasn’t needed to hold up the world made me think about the song “Without You” from My Fair Lady:

There’ll be spring every year without you. . . .And without much ado we can all muddle through without you.

So maybe we don’t have to hold up the world all by ourselves; maybe some parts will be fi ne without us . . . and that might leave us the time and energy for what we hold most dear.

Through my own recent Oasis-Power journey of life discovery, I have learned how to say no to commitments that don’t fi t with my vision and goals. I have learned how to breathe through stressful situations and to start creating and choosing a life with less chaos and with more peace and calm.

What I was shocked to discover through this week-long cold was that this illness was a learning experience for me. This cold was another gift for me. I still have more to learn. Through this episode I learned that there are even more steps I can take to:

simplify,simplify,simplify.

I found out that maybe I wasn’t needed everywhere I thought I was. I found out that maybe there are more things that I can say no to in order to say yes to something else—to say yes to me and to what I hold most dear in my life.

What strength I had during that week I used for those things that were most important to me, most critical to me. It happened to

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be the week when my mother, out in California, was waiting for a critical diagnosis. I was able to focus on what she needed in a way that would not have happened if I had been busily living my life. I was able to ensure that my mother had the support she needed when she received her diagnosis.

Without the quiet time spent in rest and recovery I would not have seen so clearly what she needed, nor had the perseverance to lean into that need and fulfi ll it with love and presence.

Oasis-Power Practice:When you reach a “choice point”—a moment when you must

choose yes or no—consider making a list of all of your possible options in this one particular situation. Then take a deep breath and slowly review each item on the list, noticing where you feel drawn, where you feel peace and calm. Choose to say yes to what will bring you that peace and simplicity.

What Makes You Come Alive?

Recently I was taking my walk a little earlier in the day than usual. The sun was just coming up, the light fi ltering through the trees, splashing directly onto my face as it started its rise into the sky. The sun seemed to be touching all the birds, awakening them to this glorious day. “Wake up! Wake up! It’s a beautiful day!” Those birds started chirping and twittering throughout the woods. I could hear a woodpecker pecking away in the distance with that quick rhythmic tap-tap-tapping. A robin fl uttered past on its way to pull up a worm or maybe to “feather its nest.” It seemed like the whole world was

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coming alive. I stopped walking for a moment. I closed my eyes and just let the sun warm my face, and let the birds’ songs awaken my spirit. I considered all of the things that awaken me, all the things that bring me great joy.

So, consider: . . .

* What is it that makes you come alive?

* What energizes you?

* What brings you great joy?

* What would it mean to answer these questions and then take action on them?

It is not that simple you say?

* You say that you don’t know what makes you come alive?

* You say that you don’t have time?

* You say that you have too many responsibilities?And yet, at the end of the day do you feel drained and discour-

aged? Find out the answers, and then go do what makes you come alive! By doing this, you will bring joy into your own life and into the lives of those around you.

Consider this: doing something that makes you come alive does not mean you need to quit your job or change everything in your life. It could be as simple as taking up a much-loved hobby, or adding a walk into your afternoon. It could mean including directly into your job or career something that gives you energy. For example, I needed to stay at my job for fi ve to six additional years after I realized that it had many aspects that were draining me—paperwork being one of those! I needed to stay because we had three children in college, a mortgage. . . . You get the picture! So, in order to bring some light into the workplace for myself, I designed and offered work-life balance workshops to our clients. These workshops created joy for me right within my present position.

Doing something that makes you come alive may mean saying no to something else. Maybe it’s saying no to that meeting that de-energizes you, or that TV show that you watch because you have always watched it, or that project around the house that can wait.

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With spring we often think about rebirth, renewal, and coming alive again after the long cold winter. Maybe this is just the time to come out of that “winter” in your life, fi gure out what brings you joy, and go do it!

Oasis-Power Practice:At the end of each day ask yourself this question, adapted from

Dennis Linn in Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life:9 “What made me come alive today?” Jot down the answer. Do this daily, and a pattern, a light, an awakening can occur. Then it is up to you to follow that insight, to choose to do what makes you come alive.

9 David Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, Matthew Linn, Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, (Mahwah, NY: Paulist Press, 1995).

It was such a relief when I realized that the “ voices in my head”did not need to be me: I had a choice.

—Leslie Ackles—

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Step Five:Elf Management

Do you sometimes feel like there is a circus in your head? Do you hear competing voices telling you what you should and should not do? Do you respond to multiple strictures and rules telling you what to do and what direction to take? It can become very confusing when what you want to do and be is something else.

I call these voices “Elves.” Others have referred to them using various labels. Abby Seixas calls one of the voices “The Inner Critic.” Don Miguel Ruiz calls one of these voices “The Judge.” Rick Carsen labels them “Gremlins.” And Dr. Kim D’Eramo identifi es them as MIMH (Mother-in-My-Head). Whatever you call them, these negative voices need to be brought to the light in order for you to live your life to its fullest.

Consider the negative messages you have been telling yourself and how they might be holding you back:

* “I’m not good enough.”

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* “What will people think?”

* “No one will like (respect) me if I do that.”

* “I should. . . .”

* “I will feel guilty if I don’t. . . .”So where did these negative thoughts come from? What was

their purpose? These messages are usually rules you learned in childhood—a time when you took in the messages around you without the maturity to fi lter out what you wanted to reject and keep what you wanted to retain. They became a part of you. They became a part of how you defi ned yourself. For example, I learned to do what I was told or I would be punished. I learned that I would be rewarded for pleasing others and for doing what was expected of me.

These messages or voices helped you to safely navigate your childhood. They brought you to this present moment. Some ways to think about the origins of these messages might be:

* They were an “inner babysitter” helping to keep you safe.

* They were trying to protect you.

* They served you once.One question to ask yourself is whether or not these messages or

voices are still serving you. Do you still need them? These voices may actually be holding you back from becoming your true authentic self. So what to do?

The fi rst step in managing these Elves is to identify them. Become aware of each of the voices, and learn how to tame them in order to diminish their power over you. By becoming aware of these Elves, you can start taking steps to quiet them. You can take your power back and step into the fulfi lled and joyful life that is waiting for you.

Oasis-Power Practice:The fi rst step toward managing your Elves is to notice them in

the moment that they come into your thoughts. Get to know your individual Elves. You can’t run away from them. In order to tame them, you must face them and consciously choose to listen to them

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or not. Remember your ABCs: become Aware, take a Breath, and Choose. . . .

Try this visualization:

* Close your eyes, take three deep breaths and bring to mind your loudest, most prominent Elf. Picture that Elf. What does it look like? What is it saying to you?

* Name your Elf: Give your most dominant Elf a name. Now you can address it by name when it appears in your thoughts.

* Message: What is the message it is giving you? Write it down.

* New message: With what would you like to replace that message? What would you like to hear instead? What is a new declaration you would like to make to yourself? Once you create your new message, post it where you can see it and repeat it every day.

I will share an example of this process from my life. I did this exercise at the beginning of my self-discovery journey and found that my most prominent Elf was saying to me, “You cannot have fun until all of your work is done.” I named her “Miss Party Pooper.” I learned to tell “Miss Party Pooper” that I appreciated what she was trying to do to keep me safe but I had this under control now. I was going to play and it was going to be okay.

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Butterfl y in a Jar

I kept my true authentic self in a glass jar deep inside myself. I told myself it was to protect my true self. In that jar was an exquisite monarch butterfl y—colorful, unique, and bold. I felt I had to keep her safe. If I let her out she might get squished. She might lose love, relationships, commitments, and the esteem of neighbors. She might get in trouble or she might not be loved. It was too scary to let her out so I kept her locked up, close to me.

Many times she fl uttered against the jar—her glass cage—saying, “Let me out!” And I would tell her, “But it is not safe for you to be out! You might die.” Finally, I found that if I didn’t let her out I would die from presenting only my false self, a façade. So either way I would die.

By releasing my exquisite monarch butterfl y, I released my true authentic self. My public and private face became one. I was no longer squelching my true nature, but rather I was spreading my wings and showing her off to the world.

Shouldn’t the world have the experience of your true self, your own exquisite, unique gift before you die?

Oasis-Power Practice:Copy and post this quote in a place where you can see it every

day and breathe in its beautiful reality:

The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are—without apology, without excuses,

without masks to cover the truth of who you are.—Debbie Ford

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Dark Shadows

During a March snowstorm we received almost another foot of snow. I got frustrated and upset. To me, March is supposed to be spring! This was most defi nitely not the spring I envisioned. I am always so ready for spring that I have been known to walk around the yard kicking and stomping on the remaining patches of snow so they will melt faster! There was too much snow this time to partake in that cathartic activity—so no outlet for my frustration.

This March day snow remained covering our yard and was very slowly starting to melt. I noticed that the snow was melting where the sun hits, where there was light. The snow was not melting where there were shadows. I started to think about those shadows, the frozen patches of snow hiding in those shadows, and how those shadows related to our own lives.

We all have those shadows within us—places where the sun doesn’t penetrate. Places we don’t want to look. We are afraid of what we might fi nd there—the emotions, feelings and patterns of behavior we want to shun. So we do things to avoid facing them: we keep busy, shop, drink, eat, and push down those emotions that may be scary or that might reveal something we don’t want to see or don’t want to deal with.

Inside those shadows are old patterns and old feelings that have been with for us for years. They protected us through our youth but are not necessarily the patterns and feelings we need in order to grow into the person we are meant to be. An example might be learning as a child to always do what is expected, trying to be “perfect” so that your parents or teachers will respect and love you. Maybe doing what was expected of you kept you from experiencing criticism in your

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childhood. Maybe you chose to not try things because you couldn’t be perfect. Is always doing what is expected of you serving you now? Is trying to be perfect driving you crazy? Is guilt guiding your decis-ions, leaving you feeling empty and frustrated?

So here we are, frozen in these patterns of behavior of doing what is expected, trying to be perfect. These feelings live in the shadows of our true self. These patterns and feelings cannot just be kicked away to help them to melt faster, like those patches of snow in my yard. They must be brought into the light so that the light of our under-standing can begin to melt them.

Turn towards the shadows. Shine a light on those parts of your-self you aren’t always proud of. Become curious about them and how they are serving or not serving you. Bring in compassion, love and understanding to embrace all parts of you: the light and the shadow.

Some people are walking around with full use of their bodiesand they’re more paralyzed than I am.

—Christopher Reeves

What can we do to free up those frozen parts of ourselves, to live our lives more fully so that we can grow and become compassionate to ourselves?

* Become curious.

* Become compassionate.

Oasis-Power Practice:Become Aware of feelings or patterns as they emerge. Breathe

into that feeling, that pattern. Become Curious. Ask, “How is that emotion, feeling, or pattern trying to help me? What role did it serve in trying to protect me when I was younger?” Be Compassionate.Put your hands on your heart and say to the feeling, the pattern, “Thank you for trying to help me. I am going to try it another way.”

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Breaking the Rules

Is there ever a reason to break the rules?At a recent training program held at the Hyatt Boston Harbor

Hotel, three of us were taking a walk during the lunch break. We ended up at a shipyard in East Boston. On the top of the main building was this amazing steel sculpture, which looked like a cross between a woman, an octopus and something out of Star Trek. It was fascinating, creative and gorgeous all at the same time. We walked toward it to get a better look, but it was inside a fence marked “Restricted.”

The gate was open. Hmmm. . . . Only one of us walked through that gate. She walked to the other side of the sculpture and got an amazing view, seeing things about this work of art that the two of us on the other side of the fence could not see. There were workers walking back and forth and not one of them gave her a second look. She came back and as we walked back to the hotel, she asked us why we didn’t go in through the gate. We both had the same answer: because we didn’t want to break the rules. She disputed whether it actually even said “Restricted”—and I think she might be right! I think it might have had an offi cial sign and it looked restricted. She got this amazing view that we will never see because we hung back trying to be good and follow the rules.

I thought about this and wondered. In the past I was always someone who tried to “color within the lines.” I tried to follow the path that was set out for me, doing what was right and expected of me. But, I began to speculate, what if my true life—the life I was meant to lead—was outside the lines? What if the life I was called to lead meant I had to break some of these rules laid out for me early in

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life? Would I follow that voice inside me telling me to “color outside the lines”? This questioning reminded me of a quote:

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desireThat disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

—John O’Donohue10

Maybe the life we are meant to lead is not neatly laid out for us within the rules, within the prescribed lines. Maybe we need to take that risk and not settle for comfort and safety. Maybe we need to “color outside the lines” to fi nd our true life. Maybe we need to take a risk to fi nd our fulfi llment.

Oasis-Power Practice:Take one step towards breaking a rule that is no longer working for

you, using the question suggested by Abby Seixas: “Who says?” “Who says I need to do this now or do it this way?” Take a step, take a risk, and “color outside the lines” in one area of your life—an area in which you are perhaps not listening to that “voice of desire” calling to you. . . .

Embrace Your Imperfections

I am leaning back in a beach chair, the dappled sun playing across my body, waves rhythmically rolling in and out . . . in and out. And I am reading about shame, guilt and imperfection. I need to have my head examined. Or do I?

10 John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us (New York: Random House, 2008).

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I am reading Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection.11

Certain phrases and concepts popped out for me and kept demanding attention during my refl ective (and warm) walks on the beach:

* “Perfectionism is the birthplace of shame.”

* Shame is “an intensely painful feeling of believing we are fl awed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”

* Guilt says, “I did something bad,” versus shame saying, “I am bad.”

Because these concepts kept hijacking my consciousness, I became aware of the imperfections all around me. I began noticing that the shells I was dazzled by were not the perfect white scallop shells, the distinctive turkey wings, or the opaque yellow jingle shells (“toenails” as my children call them), but the imperfect, uneven, worn-down whelks—each one a beautiful elegant shape, each one a gift, each one unique, each one imperfect. These whelks had been broken and worn, yet were still strikingly elegant. They were imperfect but gorgeous.

I held one of these well-worn, elegant shells in my hand and felt the comfort of the smooth edges. So soothing to slowly rub my fi ngers along those edges and curves! I collected those imperfect shells and embraced their beauty.

I laid them out and pondered the mystery of their beauty. Questions bubbled up: Why do I sometimes feel the need to be perfect, to show no fl aws? Why do I turn myself into a pretzel to be who others want me to be? Why do I strive to have my life perfectly presented to the outside world? And when this illusion of perfection is not pulled off, why do I feel ashamed? When I forget to do some-thing, why do I beat myself up? Why can’t I embrace my beauty and uniqueness in my moments of imperfection? Why can’t I love myself for who I really am, for my unique and gorgeous self?

Then I took a deep breath and asked myself a tougher, more specifi c question: What if I embraced my moments of imperfections

11 Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (Center City, MN: Hazelden, 2010).

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on this trip? Could I let go of the shame and embrace myself? Three moments of imperfection immediately came to mind:

* Taking off my sneakers, leaving them at the beach restau-rant and not realizing it until two days later. Of course, when I checked back they were gone. (Shame says: “I am not good enough” and “I am a money-waster.”)

* Getting upset with my husband for starting a heated political discussion for fun because I might be embar-rassed. (Shame says: “People won’t like me.”)

* Beating myself up over eating desserts because I thought I was going to gain weight. They were delicious, by the way! (Shame says: I can’t do anything right” and “I can’t stick to anything.”)

Luckily, I was reading Brene’s book. I was able to follow her steps and walk across the threshold from shame into the arms of forgive-ness and self-acceptance. Walking across this threshold is not easy; however, we cannot be truly authentic and love ourselves without taking steps to embrace our imperfections, our full selves.

Oasis-Power Practice:Adapted from Brene Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, here are

some of the possible steps for embracing those imperfections:

* Name it: Become aware of what triggers your shame.

* Talk about it: Talk about your imperfections or your shame with those whom you trust.

* Own your story: Embrace all parts of you, even the struggles, even the imperfections, and let go of what other people think!

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Meaningful Missteps

My husband and I moved easily into single fi le as the path narrowed up a gentle hill. We were hiking up through a thick forest of tall, stately oak and pine trees swaying in the breeze, crunching on leaves left over from fall. As we approached the crest of the hill I looked over and gazed with wonder at the young, bright green pine trees clustered on either side of the path. They were at most knee high and appeared to be fuzz balls of prickly green needles. It brought to my mind the buzz cuts our boys got as kids, and how I loved to run my palm over the freshly cut stubble. We stopped and gazed in awe at such glorious new growth after the strenuous winter. We realized that, amazingly, the new growth was only in this one spot.

Curious, my eyes strayed up to the blue sky. I noticed the light streaming in, bouncing off those young pine trees. The needles glimmered and sparkled, dancing in the sunlight. The tiny new pine trees were growing and thriving where light burst in through the old, established trees. Light had broken through the spot where older trees had tumbled down and were lying all-a-kilter on the forest fl oor.

New growth, light, hmmm. . . .This brought back my deeply held belief that it is through our

“missteps” that the light gets in. It is through the cracks in our perfec-tion, in our façade, that we learn and grow. Just like the bright green, knee-high pine trees, we need a crack in our thoroughly ordered world so we can grow. Our “missteps” show us the way during those times that we:

* Say yes when we really want to say no.

* Choose a job or a position and later regret the decision.

* Send e-mails and reproach ourselves immediately.

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* Say something that can’t be unsaid.It is through the “missteps” that true growth can happen. Ask

yourself, “What can I learn from this?” It is your choice? You can worry, fret, lose sleep, wallowing in misery . . . or you can say to yourself, “Okay, that wasn’t such a wise thing to do. What can I learn so I don’t choose that misstep again?” Or I guess you can do what I do, which is to worry and lose sleep for awhile before I turn my face to the sunlight of opportunity and growth.

So, are these “missteps” or are they opportunities—gifts to bring you closer to that stronger, more courageous you?

There is a crack in everything;That’s how the light gets in.

—Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

Oasis-Power Practice:At your next “misstep,” instead of beating yourself up with: “I

am not enough,” or “I can never do anything right,” ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?”

Turn your head toward the light. . . . Close your eyes. . . . Take a deep breath. . . . Feel the sun on your face. . . . Let it bathe you with its glory. . . . Open yourself to the gifts and opportunities of your “mis-steps.” Grow into the whole, strong person you were meant to be.

May the gift of lightshine through the cracks in your façade.

Let the growth and learning begin!

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Step Six:Fun and Fulfi llment

Happiness is not something ready-made.It comes from your own actions.

—Dalai Lama XIV12

Following your passion to fi nd your fulfi llment means honoring and expressing who you are while you are still alive.

Many of us spend our days completing our to-do lists, taking care of others, working at jobs that do not fulfi ll us. At the end of the day we can feel depleted, drained and empty—in large part because we are not paying attention to ourselves and what will bring us joy and fulfi llment. We are denying our true selves in order to fi t in, to help others, or to just get by.

Take a moment out of your busy life to consider the life you

12 Committee of 100 for Tibet and The Dalai Lama Foundation, The Missing Peace: Artists and the Dalai Lama (San Francisco, CA: Mandala Publishing, Earth Aware Editions, 2006).

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would like to create for yourself. Take time to consider whether this is the life you want to be living and how you want to spend your time. Ask yourself, What is the life that will bring me joy?

Discovering your passions depends upon the creation of “white space:” a time for quiet and peaceful refl ection. White space is actually a design term used in architecture and in other fi elds. An architect creates enough white space around his or her design for that design to pop. For us, the creation of white space allows the design of our lives to burst forth. As you initiate this refl ective exploration, ask yourself the following questions, drawn from the work of Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way:13

1. What would I love to do if I had all the time, money and energy I needed?

2. What would I love to do if I didn’t care what other people thought?3. What would I love to do if it weren’t too selfi sh?4. What did I used to love doing that I don’t have time for now?

It takes great courage to follow your passions. It takes great courage to choose fun, play, and laughter in a culture where hard work is worshipped. The truth is, though, that you cannot live a life of fulfi llment and joy without discovering what your passions are and what brings you joy.

Let’s take a moment now to refl ect on what you have learned so far on your journey. Where are you with your Seven Steps to Choos-ing Joy?

#1 Awareness: Noticing how you are reacting to events.#2 Breath: Slowing down to create an aura of peace and calm

in your life. Through that spaciousness you create the oppor-tunity to stop your habitual responses and open the door to change.

#3 Choice: Making conscious, active choices on how you want to live your life.

13 Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (New York: Putnam, 2002).

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#4 Decide to Say No: Saying yes to what energizes you.#5 Elf Management: Managing your inner critic and

choosing whether to listen or not.#6 Fun and Fulfi llment: Discovering what will make your

heart sing, and choosing what brings out your passion for life.

Actively choose what will bring you fulfi llment and joy. Stop, notice, and step out of your automatic, guilt-induced responses and choose you instead.

Oasis-Power Practice:Many people die with their music still in them.

—Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

One exercise I often do in my workshops is to ask participants to write their own obituaries. I know it might sound morbid, but it can be fascinating to discover what you list as the things and people you love—not the to-do list and not the job. When thinking about regrets at the ends of our lives, I have never heard anyone say that they wished they had spent more time at the offi ce. By starting with your end in mind you can more easily craft the steps you need to take today toward your life fi lled with joy.

Making time to do something you love is a way of honoring and expressing who you are while you are still alive.

—Abby Seixas14

So take a moment. Find a quiet spot, take a deep breath, and write your own obituary. How do you want to be remembered? What is your legacy? This offers you another step on the path to discover-ing what fulfi lls and energizes you.

14 Abby Seixas, Finding The Deep River Within: A Woman’s Guide to Recovering Balance and Meaning in Everyday Life (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006).

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Car . . . Truck . . . Jeep

Several years ago I was in Hawaii for a family reunion over the holidays. Warmth during a typical New England winter was greatly appreciated. What I appreciated even more was time to spend with my extended family. One family member I got to know was my eighteen-month-old nephew, Owen. I offered to watch him one day while his parents were cooking dinner. We walked to the beach where there was some incredible surf. Islanders hadn’t seen waves this big in years! There were surfers galore out trying to catch a wave! I thought that Owen might like to watch them surf, and might also enjoy taking in those huge waves as they came crashing to shore.

Instead of watching the waves, Owen’s head kept turning to look behind us. I fi nally looked to see what he was looking at. He pointed and jumped up and down in my lap saying, “Truck!” We could see the road from where we sat, and Owen was excited by the vehicles driving by. So I picked him up and turned around, putting our backs to those impressive waves. We watched, with growing excitement, all the vehicles that passed by. Owen called out: “Jeep . . . garbage truck . . . motorcycle. . . !” Owen was in his element. He knew exactly what he loved to do—watch Cars and Trucks and Things That Go (to quote the title of a famous book by Richard Scarry).

I was amazed at how clear he was on what brought him joy. I wondered about how, as we grow older, we lose some of that certainty about what we love to do, what brings us joy. I thought, “If only we could go back to that time when we truly knew . . . when we knew what we loved, and we knew what brought us joy!” I wondered:

* What did I used to love to do but don’t have time for now?

* What did I used to love to do but forgot in the busyness of life?

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I’d like a chance to be the girl who used to be me.—Patti Austin, “The Girl Who Used to Be Me”

Song from the movie Shirley Valentine

What would it be like to bring back what we used to love into our lives again?

Oasis-Power Practice:Close your eyes, take a deep breath and bring yourself to a place

where you can refl ect on the following question:What did you love to do as a child that has been lost over the

years? What brought you great joy in your youth?

* Take a deep breath . . .

* Then three deep breaths . . .

* In the quiet, notice what comes up for you that you used to love to do. Stay in that moment and feel your love for that activity.

* Consider how that love will inform your steps forward.

Unwrapping Your Gifts

What are your gifts and talents? For twenty-six years I had an amazing career at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Donahue Institute. For the last fi fteen years of that time I was the Director of Organizational Development and Training. I loved what I did. I worked with an amazing staff, organized training programs, and planned and envisioned our next steps. The work at UMass also gave

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me the opportunity create a fl exible schedule: to work only three or four days a week so that I could be more available for my family. What could be better than this? I was good at organizing, managing, planning, and problem-solving. So why, when my children went off to college, did I fi nd that this job wasn’t making my heart sing any more? Where had that spark, that excitement gone?

When the last three kids were gone, I felt unmoored by the time and choices that were now open to me. Before the empty nest, when an opportunity presented itself I would send out my “mommy sonar” to “ping” the children, checking to see if I could: stay late at work, go to a class, or attend a church activity. If a child had a soccer game or needed help with a big project, or if I just wanted to be home for that critical time right when they got home from school, then I would choose to not stay late or do the activity.

But when they left for college I no longer had my center—the hub of my wheel, my children—to “ping.” I felt as if I was spinning wildly out of control with no center to ground me. I ultimately realized that it was now my time. I needed to be the person that I “pinged” when I made a decision. I longed to put myself in the center and ask: What do I want to do? What are my gifts and talents? What are my dreams? What will bring me joy? As a result of “pinging” me, and putting me at my center, the following things happened:

* I started taking photographs again.

* I concentrated on healthy eating and lost thirty-fi ve pounds.

* I found I had time to take those yoga classes I had always wanted to take.

* I started exercising more regularly.

* I started reading fi ction books in my spare time.Following the path of discovering what made my heart sing ulti-

mately led me to retirement from UMass and to my current career. UMass worked for me brilliantly while I had a family, but once I experienced the empty nest I realized that there was another path calling me. I fi nally understood that I had a unique gift and that it was important to share this gift, this passion, with others.

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Oasis-Power Practice:Find some construction paper or just plain white paper. Draw

a heart and cut it out. Center yourself with three deep breaths. Feel yourself relaxing into this moment. Allow the appreciation of your own gifts to come forth. On the left side of the heart write what you love about yourself. On the right side of the heart write your gifts and your talents.

Post the heart where you can see it every day, and breathe into the possibilities. Consider what you love about yourself and what talents you have to share. . . . Begin unwrapping your gifts and joys.

What is Your Dream?

I had a dream of someday working for myself. I had a dream of helping women to lead more fulfi lling lives. But—and this was a big but!—I needed to pay the bills, pay for college, and pay the mort-gage. . . . You get the idea!

My job was a great source of joy to me for twenty-six years but then I started feeling as if there must be something else I was meant to be doing with my life. I felt called to explore something beyond my current job and career.

So what to do? How was I going to keep my eye on my dream while I continued to work on paying the bills?

Well, a huge part of this was my participation in a women’s organization called the Dream Factory Community. I joined the Dream Factory to keep my dream alive while I did what I needed to do to support my family. The Dream Factory women accepted me

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where I was and helped keep that fl ame, that fl icker of a dream, alive in my heart. They supported me in discovering and living my dream.

What I discovered was . . . passions that I had lost along life’s journey. Photography was one of those passions. I could feel great joy and fulfi llment immediately by taking pictures! Wow! I could take steps now! What a revelation!

What I discovered was . . . that I could work towards my dream while still working full-time. I started taking classes in health ministry, life coaching, “The Deep River Within,” and mindfulness. I also started designing workshops and offering them to staff members at work. Wow! I could take steps now! What a revelation!

* What is your dream?• Are you a stay-at-home mom who feels that everything

she does is for someone else?• Are you looking to reclaim a passion from years gone

by—even for a few hours each week?• Do you feel like you have not touched your dream

in years?

* How would it feel to bring fun and passion into your life?

* How would it feel to gain clarity and support around your dreams?

* How would it feel to start designing your own life?

It’s not too late! You can still live your dreams!

Oasis-Power Practice:What is your dream? One way to start discerning your dream is

to create your own “Passion Board,” as described in Abby Seixas’s Finding the Deep River Within. Before you starting your passion board, take a moment to breathe deeply, letting the worries and frustrations of your day drop away. Breathe into your heart. The answers are there waiting for you.

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Once you are centered in your heart, fi nd pictures that represent what you long to include in your life. Download and print pictures, use your own photos, or cut out of magazines those pictures you are drawn to. Be open to what energizes you. You may uncover a hidden dream, desire, or vision for your life. Once you have a number of pictures, secure them to your passion board. Put your passion board where it can serve as an inspiration as you step into your new life.

Dare to Dream

We came around the last hairpin turn, and stretching out before us was a magnifi cent fi eld of lavender—all the more brilliant against the grey of Sénaque Abbey. Cicadas chirped and the air sizzled with heat. We were here! . . . in Provence, France after yearsof planning.

Now that I am home, the memories keep fl ooding back . . . the wine tasting at the chateau, the superb dinner at this tiny café in the middle of nowhere, the impromptu wine and cheese dinners at our place, and of course the markets with their fresh fruits, cheeses and spices. I will also never forget the huge semi we encountered coming the other way while driving through a hilltop town on what we thought was a one-lane road . . . stone buildings opening right onto the road; me backing up to a wide spot to let him pass, hugging the walls of the buildings; my friend Ellen calling out, “You’ve got eighteen . . . twelve . . . six inches to spare!”

This was my trip of a lifetime. Traveling to Provence for an extended period of time was on my “Buddha Bowl List” (you may

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know it as a Bucket List). Now I can say that I had a dream and I brought it to life! What is on your Buddha Bowl List? Are you taking steps towards living those experiences?

How did we get there? How did this happen? How did we live this dream? In the fall of 2011, I facilitated a women’s retreat titled “Bring on the Joy!” For one of the retreat activities I asked the participants to create their own unique Buddha Bowl List. When these women read their lists to the group, we were all amazed to discover that ten of the twelve women included traveling to Provence!

Fast-forward a few weeks. E-mails fl ew back and forth between the participants, talking about what insights they had gained, changes they were making, and steps they were taking based on what they had discovered at the retreat. Of course, this idea of Provence was at the forefront. At some point, one of the women put “Provence: Summer 2013?” in the Subject line of the e-mail; everyone pounced on it.

We organized meetings with eight of the women; we dreamed dreams; we fl oated ideas. There was much laughter, and a little French wine consumed. Four of the eight women ended up deciding to go to Provence together. And . . . we made it happen! Regarding the other four women who did not go on this trip:

1. One had already been there.2. One went on her own in autumn of 2012.3. Two are planning trips with their families.

So what happened here? Someone placed a dream on a list. That dream was shared with others. Discussions ensued. Plans were made. The dream became reality.

Oasis-Power Practice:What is on your Buddha Bowl (Bucket) List? I have renamed my

Bucket List a “Buddha Bowl List.” A Bucket List can imply simply checking things off your list: doing rather than being. I am suggesting a “Buddha Bowl List” in order to focus on savoring and experiencing

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each item, and being open to opportunities and serendipity in the process.

For your Buddha Bowl list, what are fi ve things that you would like to experience before you die? Take a moment to breathe deeply. Allow your inner knowing an opportunity to speak to you. Write down those experiences that come to you and start sharing them with family and friends:

* Dream.

* Verbalize your dreams.

* Share your dream with others.You never know what will come back. Take those steps towards

your dreams now. It can happen.

Dare to Smile

One joy shatters a hundred griefs.—Chinese Proverb

Everyone has a story. Everyone has a smile. A special group of people I met have lived through some horrifi c things, but still they greet each day with a smile. Just the words strike terror in my heart: the Khmer Rouge. Still, each day they smile.

I spent two weeks on a humanitarian mission to Cambodia with the Sharing Foundation (www.sharing foundation.org). We visited an orphanage and took the orphans to a water park; we taught English to high school students; we gave away six hundred school uniforms. Each place we went, we heard their Khmer Rouge stories:

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* A guide’s father was darker skinned, so was able to pretend to be an illiterate peasant. His father was then forced to labor in the fi elds and made to enter into a loveless marriage.

* Another guide’s grandparents were part of a Khmer Rouge round-up. They disappeared one day, never to be seen again.

* A forty-four-year-old man in the Cambodian Sharing Founda-tion remembers being an eight-year-old in a work camp with his younger brother. They were so hungry they went against the rules and stole corn from the fi eld. His brother was caught and this man witnessed his brother being beaten to death. Fortunately, he was able to escape across the river to another work camp.

* From the prison we heard the story of a niece seen on the street who could not be sheltered because it put her uncle’s family at risk. She was never heard from again.

And still these amazing people smile. They say that it was in the past and they must live in the present. And they smile. . . .

We all have a story. Some of us were physically or emotionally abused as children. Some of us struggle with addictions—our own or those of someone we love. Some of us struggle with physical limita-tions, life-threatening illnesses. Some of us struggle with depression or anxiety.

What if we smiled anyway?We can become cynical. We can become consumed with our

struggles and problems. We can lose our sense of awe and wonder. But that wonderment can be reclaimed. You can choose to fi nd joy regardless of your situation. You can choose to fi nd that reverence every day. You can change. You can fi nd hope and promise. You can come back and see the world with true appreciation, with a smile, with awe and wonder.

When you fi nd yourself becoming a victim, when you fi nd yourself getting cynical, when you fi nd yourself bemoaning the

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strug-gles of life, pause . . . take a deep breath . . . and choose to fi nd joy in the simple things. Choose to see hope around you. Choose to bring wonderment back into your life in that moment and the next . . . and the next. . . .

Your success and happiness lies in you.Resolve to keep happy,and your joy and you

shall form an invincible host against diffi culties.—Helen Keller

Oasis-Power Practice:Random acts of kindness: Consider performing fi ve random acts

of kindness in one day. These can be small or big, but best if they are a variety of different things. These random acts of kindness will bring a smile to you as well as to the recipient.

Studies have shown that random acts of kindness can make you feel happier! I encourage you to give it a try!

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Don’t wait to have fun. You are the fun you are seeking.—Loretta LaRoche

When was the last time you laughed so hard your stomach hurt? When was the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe? When was the last time you laughed so hard you nearly

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peed your pants (or actually did)? That long ago? Why is that, I wonder? One of my last times was on vacation with friends. . . .

Each fall my husband and I go away with three other couples for some rest and relaxation. These are friends we have known for many years, so it’s easy for us to relax and enjoy each other’s company. We can completely be ourselves without any worries of judgment or criticism.

This particular weekend we played a game called “Fitz It.” Without getting into all the complicated rules of the game, “Fitz It” primarily calls for each team to convince the other teams that the story they developed from the word cards they were dealt matches or relates to the chosen word card on the board.

We clustered around a low coffee table, resembling gamblers in an alleyway rolling the dice, as we inspected word cards placed with precision by the team of two. The six of us leaned back skeptically waiting to be convinced that these words made sense together. What story were they going to spin? What would we accept?

The yarn began and the rest of us reacted in disbelief. Some of the matches were outrageous, many of the arguments were even more outrageous, and good-natured yelling and hilarity ensued. Shouts of “No way!” and “You are crazy!” erupted. Then gulps of laughter rolled over us like huge waves hitting rocks on shore. The laughter, snorts, and tears running down our cheeks took over as the team continued their bodacious attempt to rid themselves of all their cards and win the game. Counter arguments and negotiations mingled with the laughter. We laughed and laughed until our stomachs hurt and we couldn’t breathe.

What I will always remember is the laughter—the kind that keeps you from speaking because you are laughing so hard, when you snort at the intake of breath, and tears roll freely down your face. The kind that made me run to the bathroom so I didn’t pee in my pants. The gift of this weekend for me was the laughter. I could not remember the last time I had laughed like that, with such complete abandon.

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So, of course, I pondered why it was that it had been so long since I had laughed until I cried. I thought back to the workshop I took with humorist Loretta LaRoche. Loretta contends that there are at least six reasons why we don’t lighten up:

1. Too busy2. Afraid about what “they” might say3. Need to be right4. Rules and regulations that must be followed5. Need to suffer6. Ego getting in the way

Do any of these reasons strike home for you? There is new research being done on laughter as the “best medicine.” According to the Mayo Clinic, laughter can:

* Increase endorphins released in your brain

* Soothe tension

* Activate, then relieve your stress response

* Improve your immune system

* Improve your mood and personal satisfaction

* Relieve pain

What is it that holds you backfrom uncontrollable fi ts of laughter?

What if you laughed once a day?How would that change your life?

If you’re waiting for someone importantto give you “permission” to have fun . . . forget it.

They’re not coming.They’re out having a good time.

—Loretta LaRoche

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Oasis-Power Practice:Take a deep breath and let go . . . lighten up . . . decide to bring

laughter and uncontrollable fi ts of joy back into your life. Consider one of these actions recommended by Loretta LaRoche:

* When you walk into your home or offi ce ask for a standing ovation.

* Watch a funny movie at least once each week.

* Start your day by dancing around the house.

* Sing the Mighty Mouse song as you go to work: “Here I come, to save the day!”

* Sit with a friend and tell her all of your stresses and request that her only response after each stressor will be, “Oh, that’s awful,” with exaggerated feeling!

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Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.—Melody Beattie15

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Step Seven:Gratitude

What does it mean to be grateful? What does it feel like? What does it create? In your busyness, in your struggle to complete your daily tasks, you can often lose sight of what matters most. When you are stressed out you may tend to focus on the negative and put a spotlight on what is missing from your life. This focus can de-energize you and leave you even more depleted and discouraged.

Focusing on what you are thankful for shifts your energy. Turning your attention to what matters most in your life carries with it a sense of fulfi llment, peace and joy. Gratitude has the power to heal and energize, and is an integral step to choosing joy. According to Robert Emmons, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis and the world’s leading scientifi c expert on gratitude, studies on gratitude have shown that being thankful:

* Increases happiness

* Improves relationships

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* Increases optimism

* Increases generosity

* Lowers blood pressure

* Decreases anxiety and depressionWho wouldn’t want more of that?Once you step into gratitude you start to witness tiny points

of sweetness and grace in your life. You recognize more and more moments of kindness, awe and joy. It is a matter of choosing to see, and then opening to those gifts of gratitude. Using the Seven Steps to Choosing Joy, growing into gratitude includes:

#1 Awareness: Noticing when you are drowning in worry or swept up into a tornado of activities.

#2 Breath: Taking a deep breath to bring you into the present moment and to stop your automatic habitual response.

#3 Choice: Making conscious, active choices on how you want to view life.

#4 Decide to Say No: Saying no to focusing on what is missing in your life.

#5 Elf Management: Managing your inner critic and choosing whether to listen or not when that voice says “you do not deserve happiness.”

#6 Fun and Fulfi llment: Choosing to do what will make your heart sing and what brings you fulfi llment and joy.

#7 Gratitude: Opening your eyes and heart to what you have in your life. Gazing with awe and wonder at the abundance and beauty surrounding you.

Feeling and experiencing gratitude for all that you already have in your life allows you to appreciate the life you have right here, right now. It gives you the opportunity to shift your focus to what is present, to the realization that what you have is enough, what you areis enough. With that sense of peace, gratitude allows you to live your life from a place of fullness and optimism.

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Imagine if at every momentwe each embraced the world as the gift it is:

an apple is a gift;the color pink is a gift; the blue sky is a gift;

the scent of honeysuckle is a gift.—Rabbi Marcia Prager16

With a new set of eyes you can better see the world and the gifts you are receiving, and acknowledge those gifts with a thank you.

Oasis-Power Practice: “Thank You”Expressing thankfulness is the fi rst step to bringing the energy of

gratitude into our lives. We say thank you often—many times without thinking, whether it is in the workplace, in the grocery store, or at home with family. Consider saying a conscious, meaningful, heartfelt thank you to each person who assists you in any way today. Notice how those receiving your heartfelt thank you respond. Notice how the thank you shifts your experience of gratitude and thankfulness.

Be Thankful for Everything . . . Really?

Be thankful for everything? Really? Even those mistakes, imper-fections, and hardships? To be thankful for everything requires a shift in perspective. It means looking at the world through a new set of eyes.

16 Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessings: Experiencing the Energ y and Abundance of the Divine (New York: Bell Tower, 1998).

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A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue,but the parent of all other virtues.

—Cicero

I learned the true meaning of being thankful for everything in 2004 when I was diagnosed with fi bromyalgia. I had noticed some joint pain for about six months, but didn’t pay much attention until one day I was sitting at my computer, stressed out, trying to fi nish some “critical” report or proposal (I don’t even remember what) before I went home. I noticed a heaviness in my arms, but again didn’t pay much attention. That is, I didn’t pay attention until I put my arms in my lap to ponder some aspect of what I was writing, and found I couldn’t lift my arms up again. It was as if they did not belong to me. They just lay there in my lap.

At this point I started to cry, tears running down my face in bewilderment. My administrative assistant walked in to say goodbye for the day and found me there. It was amazing to see it through her eyes—I fi nally saw the seriousness of the situation. “Leslie you need to see a doctor!”

After talking with her and calming down a little, I was able to move my arms again; I called and made a doctor’s appointment for the next day. I was lucky because my doctor diagnosed fi bromyalgia right away. Fibromyalgia is in the news and in ads more now, but at the time I had never heard of it. My doctor said there is no cure—just rest and exercise. I was devastated.

Of course I went online, which, I discovered, can provide way too much information. I read everything I could fi nd. I stayed up all night. I went into fi bromyalgia chat rooms where people talked about not being able to drive anymore, losing their jobs, living on disabil-ity. . . . I cried and cried until fi nally, after many days, it dawned on me that this diagnosis was actually a gift. The “cure” or management of fi bromyalgia for me involved:

* Eating right

* Getting enough sleep

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* Exercising

* Practicing yoga

* Learning to stay calm and breathing more consciously

* Savoring life

* Spending more time on the things I value mostMany people become paralyzed in car accidents, are diagnosed

with cancer, or lose a loved one before they realize what is truly important in life. I had the good fortune to be diagnosed with fi bro-myalgia. How lucky was that? I had been handed a real gift. I had been given a diagnosis that required that I get enough sleep, eat right, relax, do yoga and do things I loved. A gift that put me on a path to savor every moment of every day. A gift that put me on the path to be thankful even for this.

Oasis-Power Practice:For the next month, consider awakening your heart to gratitude

and joy by starting a “Gratitude Journal.” Create a safe, quiet space—even for a few moments—at the same time every day. This will help you develop this new habit. Ask yourself every day, “What am I most grateful for?” In your journal write what comes up for you. Notice if your whole outlook on life starts to shift as you change your focus on the gifts life gives to you.

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One Minute She Was Here . . . the Next, She Was Gone. . . .

I greeted the e-mail that gently informed us of her death with shock, and then overwhelming sadness. I felt the grief wash over me in waves. I had met her at a women’s retreat where I was the facili-tator. We had all shared what we were thankful for and then shared our dreams, and our Buddha Bowl (Bucket) Lists. During the retreat, she discussed her health issues, but also the book she was writing and her enthusiasm for a possible summer group trek.

Then a few weeks later she got sicker and went in for tests. I talked to her on the phone, e-mailed her, and sent a card during that fi rst month. Unfortunately, the holidays hit and my New Year’s resolution to reach out to her never happened. Then the e-mail came. . . .

After the shock, sadness, and grief came the guilt and remorse at not reaching out to her in her time of need. A sinking, heavy feeling descended upon me. What do I do with these feelings? Those of you who know me know that one of my fi rst steps in these situations is to breathe. Okay, I am breathing, but where do I put these emotions? Who am I if I can forget to reach out to someone in need?

Well, I am human. I am imperfect. I realized that it is actually through those imperfections that we learn. It is actually through the cracks in our facades that the light comes in. So what to do?

I followed my heart and allowed these diffi cult emotions to come into my life, my body and heart using a technique I learned from Stephen Cope:

* Breathe—Take deep breaths into your belly then come back to your natural, normal rhythm.

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* Relax—Notice your body. Are you comfortable? Adjust yourself to be more comfortable. Notice any areas of your body that are tight. Relax those areas, starting with the belly fi rst, scanning the rest of your body for tension, relaxing as you go.

* Feel—Actively notice where you are holding any feelings. Take your awareness to the place in your body you are feeling those emotions. Notice the texture of the emotion. Then visualize the feeling as a wave and dive right into it. It is safe to let the feeling move through you like a wave. Stay with the feeling.

* Allow—Surrender to the wave of sensation, and let go of control. Such a relief to let go! No need to understand . . . just let go. Everything is okay . . . no need to hold on to the emotion. Stay a moment in the quiet. Know that whatever insight you need is right there.

Breathing through “Breathe, Relax, Feel and Allow” I realized, again, that every day is precious. Every day is a miracle and a gift. We often are running so fast from one thing to another that we don’t take the time to savor the sweetness of the breath, the wind, or life itself. This is what I learned through my grief and remorse; this is what she would want us to do: savor your life, savor each loved one . . . savor each moment as if it was your last. This may in fact, be your last moment.

What a wonderful life I have had. I only wish I’d realized it sooner.—Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Oasis-Power Practice:If you found out that this was going to be your last week on

Earth, what would you do right now that would be marvelous and astounding? Relax . . . breathe . . . let that idea bubble up, then go and do it—or take a step towards making it happen.

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Every Time a Bell Rings. . . .

Ok, I admit it. It’s A Wonderful Life is my favorite holiday movie. We watch it every year as a family; sometimes there are only two of us, sometimes fi ve or more.

What I really love about this movie are the messages for my life. These are messages I need to be reminded about all year long, but especially during the holiday season when my time, energy and resources can get pulled away from what I believe is truly important.

For those of you who are not familiar with the movie, it is about a man named George Bailey. In a nutshell, George is on the verge of losing everything—his money, house and reputation. He considers suicide and thinks it would have been better if he had never been born. An Angel Second Class is sent to him and shows him what life would have been like for those he loves if he had never been born—if he had not been there at the right time to provide the guidance, love and support they needed.

Of course, the lives of those he loves take a tragic turn when his life does not touch theirs. When George realizes that the love of his family and community is more precious than money or his reputation he comes back to the present day and to his family. By helping George, the angel “gets its wings” and succeeds in becoming an Angel First Class. The fi nal line in the movie is, “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.”

I have a theory that we are all angels. We all touch the lives of those around us in ways that we can never fully grasp. Every day we change the path of those we touch, however slightly, just by being a part of their lives.

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. . . to know even one lifehas breathed easier

because you have lived . . .this is to have succeeded.

As angels we can bring a moment of joy, relief, love, or laughter into the lives of those around us. We can even change the course of their lives. We are “earning our wings” every day. So when you hear a bell ring, know that an angel—one of us—is touching the life of another human being.

Oasis-Power Practice:Consider the lives you touch every day, from the person you

allow to go in front of you in line, to your child, parent, partner or friend. Take a breath and consider what small gesture you can make to change the course of their day, or their life. What can you do to earn your wings every day?

Where is My Mother?

Where is my mother? Where is the mother I have known for these past fi fty-seven years? She is standing right in front of me, but she is not my mother. Or is she? I look into my mother’s muddy brown eyes and I don’t see her refl ected back to me. What I see is fear, confusion, and anxiety. The look immediately calls to my mind the bulging eyes on a spooked horse ready to bolt. I reach out my arms to her and say, “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll remember that for you. You don’t need to remember.”

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After my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis I began recording and listening to her memories—urgently capturing those elusive mem-ories before they were gone forever . . . like gathering precious shells before the waves crash down upon them and sweep them out to sea. I started to realize that she will live on in my memories of her. There is comfort in knowing that. Then I sat up, surging into my own panic. What do I truly remember about my mom?

What I consider fi rst are all the things I do not remember about Mom in those early years growing up. I don’t remember specifi c instances of her mothering me. I remember her always being at home. I know she made meals, cleaned the house, got me ready for school, and made my lunch. I don’t remember her reading me stories, fi xing a boo-boo, or playing with me.

However, I also don’t remember a time when I did not know that I was truly loved by my mother—unconditionally. I remember play-ing dress up with her old nightgowns, jewelry and high heels. They would end up strewn through out the house. I remember making forts—removing every sheet and blanket from the linen closet and draping them over all the furniture in the family room.

What I do remember is feeling free to make a mess and just be me. What I do remember is my mom creating a safe environment where I could explore being myself. A sacred space where I could feel safe to make a mess, be creative, make a fort, pull out all the dress-up clothes, yell and shout with friends, and run around the house. I was able to do all of these things without fear that she would get upset with me or that she would ever stop loving me.

What a revelation for me! So maybe the message for me is that my mother is in the memories and feelings I do remember. And what I do remember is that my mother created a safe place for me to just be myself, right in my own home. I knew that she would always love me and that she would always be there for me no matter what I did. My mother gave me the precious gift of unconditional love.

And now it is time for me to give that gift back to her.

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Oasis-Power Practice:Do you have someone very precious in your life? Maybe you

have a parent still living, a great aunt, a grandparent? Don’t wait to tell them “thank you.”

Consider writing a “Gratitude Letter,” a suggestion from the Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkley. “Bring to mind someone who has done something for you for which you are extremely grateful, but to whom you have not expressed your deep gratitude. This could be a relative, teacher, friend, or colleague. Describe in specifi c terms what this person did, why you are grateful to this person, and how this person’s behavior affected your life.”

Next, deliver your letter in person if possible. Read the letter slowly out loud, noticing his or her response as well as your own. Leave the letter behind as your gift.

Letter to My Daughter

My Dearest Daughter,I love you so much. I will always love you. You and your brothers

are the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel so blessed to be a part of your lives. I am so proud of all of you. There is so much I want to say to you. . . .

First let me sayPlease forgive me.

Please forgive anything I might have said or done that caused you pain. That was never my intention. I have only ever wanted what is truly best and right for you.

I forgive you.

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108

I forgive you any slight that you think you might have done to me. There is nothing you could ever do or say that is negative that would stay with me. I love you too much.

Thank you.Thank you for all you have done for me. From the joy you gave

me growing up from babyhood through your teens, all the way to the woman you have become. I have learned so much from you. I know that I would not be the person I am today without your questions, your pushing back, and your love. I admit there were times when I didn’t want to grow and learn any more in response to your question-ing, but I always ended up in a stronger more powerful place. You are a shining light in my life. Most of all, I want to thank you for being you and for being part of my life.

I love you.Honey, I love you now. I will love you forever. I love you for who

you are, not for the person you think I want you to be. I also love that person deep, down inside of you waiting to be released to the world—the person you truly are meant to be, the person you are meant to grow into, to become.

My wish for you is that, when you are ready, you take a journey of discovery. You have so many gifts and talents to share with the world. My wish is for you to emerge into the light of your life where you will fi nd joy, and in turn you will fi nd your true self.

I know that this journey will be scary beyond imagination. Just like back in college when you were terrifi ed to go back to school. Even so, I am still going to ask you to consider taking this journey. I will be with you every step of the way.

I love you now and forever.Love,Mom

Oasis-Power Practice:Is there someone special in your life whom you sometimes take

for granted? Or someone you are feeling distant from? Or someone

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you are holding a grudge against? What would it be like to heal your relationship with that person or to deepen that relationship? Take a moment, center yourself with three deep cleansing breaths, and con-sider trying this four-step process from The Four Things that Matter Most: A Book About Living by Ira Byrock:17

1. Please forgive me.2. I forgive you.3. Thank you.4. I love you.

Notice if using this process shifts the energy in a current relationship.

17 Ira Byrock, The Four Things that Matter Most—10th Anniversary Edition: A Book About Living (New York: Atria Books, 2014).

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About the Author

Leslie Ackles is a freelance writer, speaker and life coach. Her short story, “Fairy Princess Leslie Anne,” is included in Living Our Dreams: Success Stories from the Dream Factory Community (Framingham, MA: Dream Factory Press, 2014). Her writings have appeared in the Concord Journal and other online publications. Leslie was diagnosed with fi bromyalgia in 2004. She has, however, successfully eliminated her symptoms through the use of yoga, breath work, mindfulness, exercise, rest, and dietary changes, as well as through regular observation of her Seven Steps to Choosing Joy.

Leslie lives in Concord, Massachusetts with her husband. They have a blended family of six adult children. Leslie can be reached at: leslie@oasis consultant.com. Visit her on Facebook at 7StepstoJoy and online: www.7StepstoJoy.com and www.oasis-power.com

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