February 2010

The Seeker’s Guide, Elizabeth Lesser

Original Blessing, Matthew Fox

Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness, Marc Ian Barasch

Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford

Soul Without Shame: A Guide to Liberating Yourself from the Judge within, Byron Brown

You have taken step one and have assessed both your current levels of satisfaction and the amount of energy you devote to each area of life. Now you are ready to consider what your ideal life would look like. Take a look at each category separately and really think about what your ideal would be. The sky is the limit here. Really go for it as you begin to make a list of what your ideal might look like in, say, health & wellness. Make a list. So under health & wellness, I would list  healthy weight, cardiovascular health, healthy diet, regular exercise that is fun. After you make your list, go back over it and ask yourself what qualities you seek. In other words, what qualities would I gain if I obtained my ideal health & wellness. I would gain the qualities confidence, energy, enthusiasm and an over-all feeling of well-being.

Next, ask yourself these questions and journal about the answers:

1. How would you ideally want your time and energy distributed differently among these areas?

2. What would it take for you to feel like you were functioning at a 10 in each area?

3. What thought or belief would you have to give up in order to have a balanced life?

This step is not intended to be completed in one sitting. It takes some time to process the information you excavated from within and integrate that into action. Take one life area a day until you’ve completed the process. Don’t worry, you can’t do it wrong unluss you don’t do it at all. And even then, it’s not wrong, you aren’t wrong. It’s a choice you made for now. You can come back to it, but put in on your calendar so you won’t use “I forgot” as an excuse not to re-visit your work.

Take a deep breath and begin. The hardest step to take is always the first step.

We are well into the second month of 2010. By now, most of us can crank out “2010″ without a thought or a strike-through when we write the date, but how many of us have created some new habits that will support our dreams for 2010? Often, the larger question is, where do I begin? Without knowing where to begin, the chances are good that we never will and another year of mediocrity will be in the works as we remain on auto-pilot with our behaviors.

Fear not! Here’s a quick little exercise that will assist you in determining where to start. Think of it as a short diagnostic test.

1. Draw a large circle on a piece of 8.5 x 11 paper and divide it into 8  pie shaped pieces of equal size. Inside each wedge, label them as follows: Money & Finances, Health & Wellness, Primary Relationship, Family & Friends, Spiritual Development, Home & Surroundings, Fun & Leisure, and finally, Work & Career.

2. Rate each area of your life on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the highest, indicating your current level of satisfaction. Think of your experiences and achievements in each area as you rate it.

3. Look over them again and evaluate the percentage of your time that you spend developing each area  of the circle. Your total allotment for all eight areas should equal 100%.

4. Look over each area once more and evaluate the amount of energy, positive or negative, you devote to each area. For example, I may spend 80% of my energy worrying about my health or body, but only 5% on actually taking actions that will improve my level of satisfaction in that area.

Check back for what to do next, Step 2, in my next blog.

Good Luck!

We all go through troublesome times. That’s part of life if you are a human. And it’s not the times that are the trouble, but more what we make them mean about us, how we interpret times,  that create trouble in our lives.

For example, if we make a mistake, we can give ourselves a break, make a correction and move on. Conversely, we can confuse our actions with our identity and believe that WE are a mistake.

I’ve got a newsflash here that can change your life. Let yourself off the hook! Forgive yourself for being human. The only person in the world who expects you to be perfect is YOU. Stop it!

The biggest culprit in self-sabbotage is an unforgiving spirit toward ourselves. Once we start down the road of self-flagellation, it’s the beginning of a deep spiral until we are at the bottom of an abyss. When we are in such a deep hole, it’s difficult to know how to get out. Sometimes we stay stuck there for a long time, perhaps even years. The way out is forgiveness. Forgive, but don’t forget how desparate it feels to be alone in our own self-constructed prison.

One way to support yourself in this practice is to look yourself in the mirror and say, “I forgive you for……” Another powerful action step is to write a letter of forgiveness to yourself. Seriously. There is magical transformational power in the simple act of self-forgiveness.

Forgive yourself. Who are you NOT to forgive yourself? And never forget that you hold the key to your freedom.

I just had the experience of watching a family meet the newest member of their family a few moments ago. It was moving for me to witness the celebration of a new life. This particular hospital plays a lullaby over the intercom each time a baby is born. As I hear it now, I am grateful it is not for our baby,

I began this blog in late August, while stationed at the hospital where my daughter was trying to keep her remaining twin daughter in utero long enough to give her a fighting chance at life. We lost her identical twin sister at 19 weeks, after an intra-uteran surgical procedure in an attempt to save the girls, Harper and Reese.

The girls developed a rare disorder of the placenta that can only occur in identical twins, It is know as twin to twin transfusion syndrome, or TTTS. In very lay terms, that means that they share vascular connections in which one baby becomes the “donor” and the other baby becomes the “recipient. The donor baby does not receive enough blood to develop properly and the recipient baby has too much fluid, which causes congestive heart failure.

We lost the donor baby, Harper, in the early hours after the surgery and were told of the risks to Reese as she continued to develop. Through love and prayers and a blanket of positive energy, my daughter was able to postpone birth of both babies until 25 weeks. My surviving granddaughter weight 1 pound, 12 ounces when she was born on Septmember 10. Her due date was December 23.

It has been a long road for her mother and father, but they have shown nothing but courage and hope and faith. Courage to face so many obstacles during their first prenancy, hope that all woud be as it should be and faith that little Harper is exactly where she is supposed to be.

Reese got to come home right before Chrismas on her due date and has continued to thrive and grow. There is no feeling like watching her grow and improve daily and observing her journey has taught me that if she can make it through all of her obstables as a tiny micro-preemie baby, I have no excuses. I can do anything.

If you are curious about TTTS they have a foundation and a website:http://tttsfoundation.org

and if you have a friend or loved one who has recently been diagnosed with twins, make certain they know if there is one  placenta. This is a significat indicator of the syndrome, and if diagnosed early enough, there is hope to save both babies.

Our little angel, Harper, is my constant reminder to get the word out about TTTS.