"Chance favors the prepared mind."

So, are you prepared?

For the moment?

The moment in the morning that you wake to the life that you're living.
The moment someone disappoints you yet again.
The moment you walk by a homeless person.
The moment when it's easier to do nothing than to speak up.
The moment you could "settle" for your boyfriend/girlfriend.
The moment when it seems like everyone else has more stuff than you.
The moment your child asks you to explain something you've done.
The moment you are rejected.
The moment that you could decide to take the job because it's the "right" thing to do.
The moment that someone cuts you off in traffic.
The moment you need to decide if you are going to stay safe or jump outside your safety zone.
The moment your body won't do the things you want it to.
The moment your friend needs you and you feel like you have nothing left to give.
The moment you realize that sacrifice will be required.
The moment that the sun sets; gone, never to be recaptured.
The mention you have to say yes or no.
The moment that a person you love is gone.
The moment you're told that time is running out.

The moment your time has run out.

Prepare your mind.

Start with KNOWINGNESS. Ask yourself:
Who and how you want to be?
What do you want to do?
What do you want to have?

Write it down. Revisit it often.

And you'll find that, in the moment, chance won't win.

What are you leaving in hearts?

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

It might sound odd but I like to go to cemeteries. I feel like they represent the "boiled down" version of a person's life; the recap, the summary, the last whisper of what they were and how others see them. 

.......how others see them. Notice, that phrase isn't in the past tense.

What are we, if not what is left behind in the hearts and minds of those we leave behind?

I believe that it's the ONLY thing we are.
And yet, I believe it's NONE of what we are.
 

Me: You shouldn't care what others think. What others think of you is none of your business. The only reality that exists is the one in your mind.
Me, again: Yes, but part of how I want to show up in life is about how I interact with others, what I am to them. When my mind no longer exists, theirs will carry who I was.

                      Which camp are you in? 

                                                               To care or not to care?

5 Ways to Attack Your Funk That Will Have Immediate Impact

Recently, I've been feeling my world get smaller. Doing less. Interacting less. Exploring less.

This morning, I woke up and noticed the dark shade hanging in my bedroom window to keep the light out and I realized that it had been doing exactly that.....and so had I.

So, I opened it.

It seemed like a simple thing but it felt simply right.

Attack your FUNK!!

1. Let the light in. LITERALLY. Find the light.
2. Go outside. Go for a walk. Look at the sky. Find a bumblebee. Notice the trees sway.
3. Talk to someone else.
4. Listen to someone else.
5. Do SOMETHING different. Drive to work a new way. Go to a new grocery store.

5 Ways To Start & End Your Days With Your Kids

It starts at home. We need to TEACH our children HOW to BLOOM. Start with saying these simple things. They encompass the foundational principles of blooming: knowingness, life ritual, and action.

Morning 

1. I love you.
2. You will have a fantastic day.
3. What one thing will you get done today?
4. Help whenever you can.
5. Remember to share your smile. It is a gift to the world.

Evening

1. What was the best part of your day? What was the worst?
2. What are thankful for?
3. Did you get it  done?
4. Are you proud of who you were today? 
5. I love you.

It starts at home.

What Will Make You Face the Life You're Living?

Eight years ago, I moved from Cleveland to the Twin Cities. My husband, at that time, stayed behind for three months to close up his private psychology practice and sell our house. I brought our kids and dog to live in temporary housing while I looked for a house. Everything was new to me here. Within a month, I found myself in abdominal surgery to remove what they thought was a huge ovarian cyst only to wake up and be told it was a 7 lb malignant tumor. Ovarian cancer. The surgeon wasn’t equipped or qualified to proceed, so she just removed the tumor/ovary and sewed me back up. It would be three months until I could know how far it had spread and take any next steps. I had to wait for the adhesions to heal.

I remember the first week after the first surgery….not having any idea of what my life would be now. I had been told that most ovarian cancer isn’t diagnosed until a person is in Stage 3 (meaning it had moved outside of the ovaries, beyond the pelvis, into the abdomen). A Stage 3 diagnosis has a prognosis of a 15-20% five year survival rate. So, all the odds said that I probably had an 80% chance of dying within the next five years. I sat there with that “sentence” hanging over my head and was trying to figure out how to weave it into my brain. What should it mean? I just started a brand new job. Should I keep looking for a house? Should I move back to Ohio and try to get my old job back? Were my kids going to be motherless within 5 years?

life isn't happening TO you

There were three gynecological oncologists in the Twin Cities area and I immediately called them. I wanted information and action ASAP. To my horror, their first appointments were at least three months out. I couldn’t wait that long. I needed to know what to do with my life and I needed information to help me figure out a plan. I pressed, told my story and asked if there was ANY possibility of getting in sooner, in the next week. I ended up persuading them to fit me in. And in the next week, I listened to them give me the same advice. Wait 3 months. Get a complete hysterectomy. Do the cancer staging to see how far it has spread and create a plan based on that. 

My husband returned to Ohio. I returned to work and lived the only way I could. Until the data says otherwise, I lived life with what I knew. I would not allow my reality to change yet. I based the plan on the latest information and right then, I could only assume I no longer had cancer. I don’t remember a lot about those 3 months. Being a single parent in a new city with a new job provided me with plenty of things to keep the dark thoughts at a distance. I think I turned my brain off as much as possible. I remember walks with my kids. I remember baths in my condo reading a wonderful book called “The Anatomy of Hope”. I remember standing on the deck with the realtor and talking about what a great yard the house that we were going to buy had. Great for kids, parties. (But would I be there for them?) I remember going to the house closing and wondering whether I should be buying a house. But it was the only thing to do. Life could not stop based on maybes. I kept it at a distance, at bay. I refused to deal with it until there was something certain to deal with. But there were moments that eased their way in, usually with the help of a song, that would wake me to possible realities and the profound sadness associated with them – motherless children being the most difficult one. Lifehouse’s song “Hanging By a Moment” was my song that summer. It was a plea, a promise, an anthem all at the same time. It was my negotiation with life, with the Universe, with cancer, with myself. I just needed this one thing – to not die. Just give me this one thing and I’d make it worth it. I wouldn’t waste it.

So, three months later, as I pulled up to Abbot Northwestern, listening to Cities97, “Hanging By A Moment” began to play – the Universe with its grin – and I walked in not knowing that when I walked out, I would be one of the lucky ones. Stage 1A. The cancer was only inside one ovary – and even though it was 7 lbs, it remained completely encapsulated. No chemo, no radiation. Nothing further to do except watch. 95% survival rate.

wake up

I returned for my follow up appointments and as I glimpsed each time into the eyes of what could have been, I was reminded of my secret negotiations with the Universe. A poke in the side to recognize time was passing and it could be taken away at any time. The Universe wasn’t blinking and it wasn’t going to allow me to hide. So, I had no other choice but to allow cancer to become one of my gifts and slowly face the life I was living.

Or better yet, the life I wasn't living.

5 Short Steps to Achieve FOCUS

Are your days passing and you find that you are busy but you aren't busy doing the right things?

1. Brainstorm for 5 minutes - "What am I trying to accomplish in my life?" WRITE the answers!
2. Circle the 3 most important things.
3. Review the list at the beginning of each day. 
4. Review the list at the end of your day. Did your activities drive the 3 things?
5. Adjust. Repeat.

                                                   

An Angel Scrubbing My Floor???

Do you ever feel like you're in the presence of an angel? I used to really NOT like the whole idea of angels. Then, over the last few years, I've had encounters with people that have left me after feeling like I was just in the presence of an angel. Yesterday, I had one of them.

It was one of those times where you feel like so many things aligned that you couldn't possible believe that it was a coincidence: 

• I brought a Groupon over a year ago for housecleaning. I was going to use it to get my townhouse cleaned when I moved out.
• I didn't use it.
• It expired.
• I call the company and asked if they would extend it for me.
• They graciously said, "Yes."
• I had to book my appointment 3 months in advance and I promptly forgot about it.
• I got a call yesterday morning to remind me that they were going to clean my house that afternoon.

• I rushed home. A woman arrived.
• I started to talk to her.

Well, we talked for the ENTIRE time she was here. 

• We talked about our daughters and how they frustrate us in the same ways.
• We said the same, atypical words at the same time.
• We shared the same fundamental life perspectives. It was haunting. It brought tears to my eyes.
• She was tattooed with stars and she said one of them stood for existence because she always like that word.
• And so much more.

By the time she left, I only felt that I couldn't let her just walk out of my life. We weren't done. I told her that she couldn't just leave. We were meant to stay in contact. We exchanged information. We hugged.

I smiled when I walked back into the house. An angel was just here.

Don't let the angels walk out of your life.

Don't Be Dumb

I finally got around to straightening my garage yesterday. It had been getting increasingly messy since I moved in 9 months ago. I was tripping over shoes trying to get to my car.

The cleaning took much longer that I had anticipated. Well, I also had a visit from my neighbor's two year old. He had wandered over and hesitantly sat at the end of my driveway watching me clean. I finally enticed him to come closer by pulling out some bubbles, the kind with the big wands. Once I showed him what to do, he was determined to cover me with bubbles and eventually just started dipping the wand into the soap and then tapping it on my head. It was at that point that I suggested that we switch to chalks. I have a big ole box of sidewalk chalk that's actually mine because I love to chalk but he didn't seem too interested in those. I finally pulled out the liquid roll on chalks - it's just like paint. You used a roller brush to paint the surface with chalk. Eventually, it just turned into fingerpainting. We sat there and chalked until he had to go in for a nap and I returned to cleaning my garage.

As I went back to my cleaning, I started thinking, "I don't feel grown up. I wonder if most people feel grown up."


I really enjoy Gretchen Rubin's (author of The Happiness Project) fb page where she asks Happiness Question of her readers and she always gets enthusiastic responses. I started thinking that I would love to hear her reader responses to the question of whether they will ever be grown up.

Then I thought, "Well, I think that I'm just going send an email to Gretchen and propose the question for her readers. It couldn't hurt to ask and would be fun if she responded. I COULD do it........I wonder if most people would give themselves permission to ask her. I wonder if they think that she wouldn't respond to an ordinary person, so they'd abandoned the idea before they even got started.................Ya know, everyone should remember to ask. Just ask for what they want. I'm going to ask her."

I walked inside, found Gretchen's email address on one of the sites and sent her my suggestion.
Forty minutes later, my question was posted on her fb and readers were busily responding and I was happy I asked. And once again, I was reminded that you should always ask for what you want. 

Do you know what you want?
Are you going to ask for it?

Gretchen's info
Here's Gretchen's fb page: http://www.facebook.com/GretchenRubin?ref=ts
She also has a website for her book: http://happiness-project.com/

How To Stumble Upon Yourself

I went bike riding yesterday for the first time in about six years. Besides the fact that my butt is sore, which isn't a surprise, I'm still thinking about a moment that happened. I stumbled upon myself. I was riding and I looked up and there, in my memory was the picture of me sitting alongside the football field. The memory came to me instantly and just as instantly brought tears to my eyes.

I was sitting and waiting for my daughter to finish cheerleading clinic put on by the high school. I was reading "Happy for No Reason" by Marci Shimoff. I had gotten to page 39 of the book where Marci challenges you to do an exercise:

The Exercise
Get out a piece a paper. Create two columns with the headings Expansion and Contraction. Under each column, list things that expand you or contract you. Things expand you if they make you feel more lightness, openness, happier. Things contract you if the make you feel fear, pessimism, low energy.

At that moment, I realized that my marriage would go in the Contraction column.....that choosing to stay in my marriage was choosing something that contracted me. It was choosing unhappiness. Somehow, that exercise simplified what I had complicated. It delivered "new" information to me. So, now I had to decide if it was okay for me to live an unhappy life.

I closed the book at that point. I couldn't go on. I had to give that new, simple fact time to sink into my brain. I certainly didn't know what I was going to make of it once the processing stopped. I didn't open the book again until years later; not until a year after I had moved out and moved on. I was finally ready to process some more.

So, when I stumbled upon me, the tears were to grieve for the person that lived in unhappiness at one time and were to celebrate and acknowledge the person that I have been since.

What CONTRACTS/EXPANDS you? What are you going to do about it?

M