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The Best Life Guidebook -- that's what I want my blog to be. I recently wrote a book I think of as the guide to life I wish I'd been given when I was born (stay tuned for details about its publication), and writing it deepened my awareness of the stories we tell and how they create the experiences in our lives. The book's finished, but I'm still exploring ways to live my best life.

I invite you to my blog, TheBestLifeGuidebook, where I post generally on Tuesdays and Fridays, or read a sampling of them below.

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January 11

More on Change

Still on the subject of change and why it’s so hard, another reason is that we’re loaded up to our eyeballs with stories about why we shouldn’t have to change. We (okay, I) can vow to exercise three times a week, but when the time comes, my stories say I don’t have time. Too much work to do. I can vow to be nicer, and then when I have the opportunity, there are stories I can tell myself about why it was really the other person’s fault and they’re the ones who should be nice. If I convince myself of that, then I’ve missed an opportunity to change. Yes, but… I tried that, but… I can’t because… and all their cousins work really well to keep us stuck right where we are.

The solution? Take a deep breath and tell other stories.

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January 2, 2012

Change Meister

New Years is synonymous with parades and football games and resolutions. Parades and football games are easy: You come up with a plan, you do your best, the results are in, and you’re done till next year. 

Not so with resolutions. We start out… uh… resolute. Sometimes even enthusiastic. We’re going to eat better, drink less, give up smoking, let go of a dozen habits we know stand between us and the life we should be living. 

Sometime around January 3^rd, our thinking starts to get fuzzy. We remember the resolutions, but forget how much we wanted to keep them. 

Why is it so hard to change?  

Well, for one thing, on some levels what we’re doing offers payoffs. I can hear you protest. But think about it: behaviors that don’t work don’t become habits. Comfort eating doesn’t help us lose weight, but the payoff is that it makes us feel good. Same with drinking and smoking. Working all day at my computer isn’t healthy, but when I do, it makes me feel like I’m Accomplishing Important Stuff. Going for a walk, meditating, doing other nurturing things for myself doesn’t feel like I am. But I know that once I change my habits to include walking, meditating, and nurturing myself – then those will work to make me feel good.   

How do we move from negative behaviors that make us feel good to helpful behaviors that make us feel good? According to Roy Baumeister, coauthor of the book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, willpower is a muscle. It has to be built up in order to be strong. The best way to build a muscle is to start slow and build. So instead of vowing to work less and walk, meditate and do nurturing things for myself, I’d be more successful if I chose one thing. Let my willpower muscle grow some before I take on something else. Here we go. Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

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December 23

Money Money Money Muuuuneeeeey…

Is it too early to start thinking about how we’re going to do our finances differently next year? (BTW, in January, I’m going to write about change (who wants to, when, why, why it’s so hard, what will work.)) There are a lot of online programs you can use to log your money, but this low-tech version is what’s worked best for me.

Go over past bills so you know how much to set aside for regular bills (insurance, food, gasoline, etc.). Add a reasonable amount for emergencies. Note: Not having anything to wear, not having chocolate, needing a new lipstick don’t count as emergencies. Well, maybe chocolate. Add a reasonable amount for spending money. Add it up. Put the amount for items you’ll pay for by check in a special checking account. Withdraw cash for the items you’ll pay cash for, and put each amount in a labeled envelope: Food. Dinners out. Babysitter.

Here’s the only tricky part of the whole deal: When you’re out of money, you’re done shopping.

Forget about the politicians; shopping with money you don’t have will not boost the economy. Companies that can’t sell what they make are either making the wrong things or they’re making too much of it. On the other hand, only spending what you have will help your own economy tremendously.

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December 6

This Just In

News commentators say job growth is up… but it might not be permanent.

What is?

Why can’t we celebrate good news instead of looking ahead for the darker side?

How would we, our communities, our country, the world be different if we could build on the energy of hopefulness instead of looking for, expecting, impending gloom?

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November 25

Update on Fear

I’ve committed to doing something every day for a year that’s a little scary. Not scary like sky diving or bungee jumping, but avoidance-scary things like trying to figure out how to do something that I’ve had problems trying to figure out; calling radio stations to ask them to promote my book; exercising instead of putting it off till tomorrow.

It’s easy to identify what to do by noticing what I really don’t want to do. Here’s the fun part: I’m not feeling the avoidance as strongly as I did before I made the commitment.

It reminds me of a fable I love: A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson: I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart, he says. One wolf is vengeful, angry, and violent. The other wolf is loving and compassionate. The grandson asks which wolf will win the fight and the grandfather answers, The one I feed. 

When I feed fear, I find more to fear. When I feed the attitude of just getting something done, it’s easier to just dig in and get it done.

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November 21

The Antidote to Fear

I’ve written several posts about recognizing fear, and the next logical step would seem to be… and then? Since the brain can only really focus on one thing at a time, and since the brain can also be fooled into releasing the same happy chemicals when we think something as when we experience it, the trick is to move our focus to something that makes us happy instead of afraid.

In my memoir, Learning to Trust Myself: Lessons From Cancer and Other Life Dilemmas (available for $3.99 from Kindle or as an e-book from the order page) I write about deciding not to take on the toxic treatments my doctors said I need to have; choosing instead to be well in a more holistic way, and sometimes my bravery would terrify me. I trained myself to notice when I went to fear, then interrupt those stories with a happier one. I imagined a TV cameraman holding a mike out to me and saying, “So, tell me, Karin Ireland, did you always know you’d be rich and famous?” I would smile modestly and say, “Yes. I always did….” Sometimes I’d go on with my fantasy, but mostly I didn’t. The fearful train of thought had been interrupted, and I could turn my attention to the shopping, or writing, or whatever I was doing.

I read once that it’s impossible to be afraid when you’re relaxed. I first tested that idea on a shaky gondola ride up a steep mountain. When I noticed my body was tense, I closed my eyes and moved my attention over my body instructing it to relax. It worked!  

Sometimes, letting myself consider the worst that can happen helps. I think it’s easier to find ways to get rid of the elephant in the room than it is to keep trying to deny it’s there.

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November 18

Yup, There’s More About Fear

Thank you so much to those of you who’ve been sharing my blog with others. Although the number of (missing) comments makes me wonder sometimes if anybody’s reading it, a look at the stats tells me people are.

The subject of fear seems to resonate with a lot of readers. I don’t think there’s any question about why. These are uncertain times. That said, there’s a lot we can do to let a lot of our fear go.

First, we have to recognize it. I’ve written about fear showing up as avoidance and reluctance, and efficiency that can grow into control. Fear also shows up as being reasonable. I’m sure you’ve heard this: “Don’t count your chickens till they’re hatched.” It’s said as a warning (fear) not to get your hopes up so you won’t be disappointed if things don’t work out. If you’ve been exposed to the law of attraction even a little bit, you know that we get what we put energy into. If our energy goes into not getting it, not getting it is what we attract.

New Age stuff aside, doesn’t it make sense to focus on what makes us feel good? Isn’t basking in the possibility of getting something we want worth the possible disappointment if we don’t? Unfortunately, if we’re “reasonable” for too long, it becomes a habit. Over time, being reasonable can grow into disasterizing. Booked a dream vacation next month? Probably you’ll be sick, the weather will be awful, your luggage will get lost, and your plane will crash.

Here’s something I want to remember: Mostly, I’m just making up all the stuff I think. So why not make up stuff that makes me feel good?

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November 15

And More About Fear

Avoidance and reluctance are two behaviors that have their roots in fear (see previous two posts) But a behavior we think of as positive has its roots in fear, too: Efficiency. I learned at my first job to be very efficient. I got applause for looking ahead, finding potential problems, and fixing them before they happened. Now, this is a really useful skill! But like fire, water, and electricity, it can also go sooo wrong.

The extreme of efficiency is control. When we try to be too efficient we try to control people and things so that everything will be pleasing, so that nothing will go wrong. But excess efficiency is like excess water: it can drown us. The antidote is to notice when we're anxious or stressed, trace our thinking back to the triggering fear, and then see if we can let our need to control whatever it is we think we need to control...go.

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November 12

More Anatomy of Fear

In the previous post, I wrote about avoidance being soft version of fear, and then I recognized that reluctance is a softer version of avoidance. With avoidance, you call it like it is. You’re not going to do whatever it is you’re afraid to do. Like have a much-needed talk with somebody about something you’re afraid to talk about. You tell yourself stories like, It’s not that bad the way it is, He won’t like me if I say that, I need this job/apartment/relationship right now so I can’t speak up.

With reluctance, you do the avoidance behavior, but you tell yourself that you will address whatever it is you’re not addressing, as soon as…. As soon as you have time, As soon as you finish this project, I’ve had trouble with this kind of thing before, so I’ll put it off until….well, there’s no limit to what you can come up with. And all that time you’re not doing It, there’s a twinge of anxiety running just below the surface.

Why not do the thing we fear and just get it over with? So I decided to do something every day that I’d usually avoid: speak up, take a risk, dig into one of those tasks I’ve been putting off. Interestingly, I woke up the next morning and when I thought about my day nothing made me feel anxious. I’m going to try to keep in mind some wise words I heard in a movie tonight: Enjoy the ride.

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November 10

Anatomy of Fear

Every once in awhile fear shows up for me, and when I stop to examine it, I’m surprised how invasive it is. And how things I don’t think of as fear are rooted there. One trigger for fear is needing to be in control – and then not being, or worrying that I won’t be. Avoidance is one of the results of fear. Like not opening my MasterCard bill until I’m in the right mood. Not trying to puzzle out how to insert links on my blog until I get other, more urgent stuff done. Not speaking up when I want and need to because I’m afraid of conflict or what the person I need to speak up to might say or think.

I’m reading Noelle Hancock’s memoir, My Year with Eleanor. Roosevelt. Apparently the First Lady was riddled with fear, and she just decided to move into it and through it. I like that notion. It’s soft. No struggle involved. Just move into it and get it done. Noelle has challenged herself to do one scary thing every day, but not in a soft way. She challenges herself with things like trapeze school, being a fighter pilot for a day, diving in a shark cage, running down the hall of her apartment building nude if it’s late night and she remembers she hasn’t done a fearful thing yet. Hey, she’s twenty-nine and gorgeous.

I’m going to do a fearful thing every day, too, but I’m not going to do something just because it scares me. Rather, I’m going to look for something I want or need to do that I’ve been putting off and then do that. I’m making a list of mantras that I intend to put on cards, pulling one every day for guidance. Today’s is: What’s the story I’m telling myself about why [insert the fear] seems scary? What story can I tell myself instead?

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October 20

10 Things I Love

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October 18

I Love This

What’s Holding You Back Is the Thought That Something is Holding You Back.
– Ralph Marston

What would be different in our lives if we didn't think something was holding us back?

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October 7

Calling Your Energy Back

I just finished a workshop on meditation, and was reminded to practice calling my energy back to my body. I learned about how we leak energy from author Carolyn Myss the first time I had breast cancer. My doctors were pushing me to have toxic surgeries and treatments that didn’t feel right for me (my memoir, Learning to Trust Myself: Lessons from Cancer and Other Life Dilemmas is available on Kindle for $3.99), and whenever I talked to those doctors, or even thought about them and the treatments they said were my best chance to “maybe survive,” I leaked energy.

We leak energy every time we resist what is. We leak energy when we want something to be different than it is. The way we know we’re leaking energy is that we feel an unpleasant emotion like anger, impatience, frustration, judgment, fear. The way we call our energy  back is to stop fussing, and make that choice (and maybe do a little ritual like this: close your eyes, imagine calling your energy back into a ball above your head; then move that ball down through your body, filling any spaces that need to be filled).

We have dozens of opportunities every day to lose energy, and the same number of opportunities to choose not to. For the last four months, my Internet connection has been iffy. Sometimes, I leak energy when I let myself get frustrated. Other times, I don’t: I just move to another task. Okay, and I call my husband to bail me out. But yesterday, I made the choice to stop putting temporary patches on the situation. I’m going to stop asking my husband to bail me out and I’m going to make however many phone calls I need to make to find someone who can tall me how to make the fix permanent.

In the meantime, if you email me and I don’t respond pretty quickly, call me. My phone works most of the time these days.

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September 30

Making a Bucket List

My husband and I watched The Bucket List (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) again last night. We’d forgotten what a fun movie it is. It made us wonder, what would we put on a bucket list?

I’m happy to say that I’ve done most of the things I was passionate about doing; but why did I stop looking for more? Probably, it was the Yes Buts. Yes, but, it’s too expensive, too far; it would take too much time or energy. Or maybe it wouldn’t be enough fun. When did that thought show up? Was it when I started putting work before almost everything else? I did it again today. Haven’t been outside at all. Rest? Play? Right. Just let me get this done first….

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September 24

Stories About the Economy

If we ever need an example of how stories can affect outcomes, we have only to look at the economy. Put aside your in-depth understanding of economics, and go with me for a minute.

Wherever the economy actually is at a given moment can be affected, sometimes wildly affected, by a story about it.

When the “experts” say the economy looks good, listeners repeat those stories to themselves, they feel confidence, and their resulting behavior actually causes the economy to move from where it is at that moment to someplace better. Nothing changed until the stories changed. 

On the other hand, when the “experts” say the economy looks bad, listeners repeat those unhelpful stories to themselves, lose their confidence, and their resulting behavior actually causes the economy to move from where it is at that moment to someplace worse. Again, nothing changed until the stories changed. 

What can we do? Since everything begins with thought and thought/energy creates our experiences, we can be informed, smart about our finances and the economy in general, and then refuse to add more worrying energies to the ones already out there. Imagine if we could call a time-out on minute-by-minute analyses of every bit of economical minutia and instead tell stories about all the things that are wonderful in our lives, in the world. What would the headlines read then?

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September 20

No Problem

Last night I watched the movie, Soul Surfer. It’s about Bethany Hamilton, a passionate surfer who was 13 in 2003 when she lost her left arm to a shark off Kauai (surfboards look like turtles to sharks; especially with arms hanging over).

Less than a month after the attack, she was back in the water surfing. In case you haven’t heard of her, she was an amateur competitor. Surfing was her passion. It was relatively easy for her to go back in the water. Not so easy to overcome the incredible difficulties of surfing with only one arm. Not easy at all to accept that she would never be able to surf in the same way she had.

But her passion was so great that she fought hard to be able to surf, and win competitions, in a different way.

Kinda puts the problems I sometimes think I have into perspective.

~ 

September 17

More About Stories

I write a lot about noticing the stories we tell that keep us from having and doing what we want to have and do and then changing them to stories that empower us instead. You might think that being as steeped in this as I am, I’d be able to avoid getting stuck in thinking that isn’t helpful. But I'm not.

Like life, change is an ongoing process. Who told us we have to get it right every time? Oh, right. Poor parents get blamed for everything. And teachers... bosses.... Ah, but those are just stories.

A better story might be something like this: Everyone in my past did what seemed like a good idea at the time. Everything I did in the past seemed like a good idea at the time. Today... right now... I can change any story I want to change. I can find a true, but positive version, and be excited to see how it unfolds.

~ 

September 10, 2011

Not Such a Happy Anniversary 

The ten-year anniversary of 9/11 is almost here, and the memory of that day brings tears to my eyes. Something else that brings tears to my eyes is how much damage we’ve done, and are still doing, to ourselves.

We let stories about what Iraq did, had, and wanted push us into a war that has killed and maimed too many young Americans, too many innocent Iraqis; our behaviors gave our enemies even more to hate us for and pushed our country into debt and division.

Even before Obama was officially President, certain members of congress were boasting they’d be the instruments of his downfall. They may be more powerful than they know; they may be the instruments of the country’s downfall.

Are there enough of us telling stories about how we need to work to get along, we need to work to set aside greed in order to help people who simply can’t help themselves in this country people with money have shaped? Are there enough of us telling stories about how we need to reach out a helping hand instead of a fist?

What stories do we need to tell right now in order to move cooperative people into leadership positions so our people can come together and help each other? What stories do we need to tell to set aside greed and, instead, take just enough? What stories do we need to tell to know that we can make a difference, and, in fact, we are the only ones who can?

~ 

August 29

Use It Or Lose It

A few months ago I blogged that I’d finally finished the book I’d been working on for more than a year. Since then, I’ve read it four or five times clarifying ideas, eliminating vague or unnecessary words. Now, I’ve REALLY finished it.

In my meditations I imagine sharing the information with an audience, and I imagine someone asking me if my life is always perfect now that I know about telling only helpful stories. Uh, no, I say. Knowing about the stories is like knowing there’s food in the ‘fridge: Food can’t help me unless I remember to eat. Understanding the power of helpful  stories can’t help me unless I remember to use them. Then I imagine us all remembering to do that.

 ~ 

August 12

Try This Guided Imagery

I was introduced to this guided imagery exercise at a writers’ group, and I was amazed. I offer it here for you. Take no more than 10 minutes, write with a pen or pencil on paper.

Ready? Imagine you’re walking down a path. Describe the path; what it looks like, how you feel, and whatever else you want to about it. Then you find a key. Describe the key and whatever you want to about it. Then you find a cup. Describe the cup, etc. Finally, you come to a wall. The wall is too tall to go over, too long to go around. Describe it and what you do.

In my next post, I’ll tell you what I wrote and what the leader said about it. Take 10 minutes. It’s fun.

 ~ 

August 4

Media Cries: Consumer Spending Down. Companies still laying workers off. Where will new college grads find jobs?

Maybe, instead of telling stories about how we should be pushing things back to the way they were, we, media pundits, economists, should spend less time on stories of doom and gloom and more on possibilities.

This is the story I’d like us to tell: Maybe consumer spending is down because folks have realized they don’t need all that stuff they used to buy. Maybe people are saving, as they’ve been told forever they should do, rather than spending every penny they have and more. Maybe companies are laying off employees because they (companies) grew too large to match consumer desire for their products or services. Maybe it’s time for them to scale back and let someone with a better business plan hire their workers.

Maybe colleges should teach more classes for entrepreneurs. Teach students how to build their own businesses. Then there will be new companies for other college graduates.

 ~

August 2

Making the Best of What Is

The condo I moved into a couple of months ago is perfect – except for one thing. Our neighbor on the next wall is a one-man band. A tireless one-man band. With a penchant for acoustical harmonica that runs the scales on one note and then another.

When he keeps the volume relatively low I can distract myself enough with Pandora’s Hawaiian radio station to work. But sometimes he turns the volume too high, and it’s impossible to do anything but escape. Not an option at the moment: My husband has the car.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve figured a way to turn limes into margaritas. I turned the TV on the wall he shares to a Mexican music station. Loud. Not to say, hey, Bucko, this is how loud your stuff sounds (but I wouldn’t mind if he made that connection. He’s still playing, though, so I’m guessing he hasn’t), but to give me something else to listen to. It’s sunny in my office. I’m barefoot. I can imagine I’m on a beach in Cabo. Now, if my husband would only come home and offer me a margarita, I’d be mucho contento!

 ~ 

July 30

Emergency Planning

At 4 am this morning, the building’s fire alarm shrieked me awake. I was relieved not to smell any smoke. I opened the front door to the hall, and was relieved again. Still, I’m of the opinion better safe than sorry (or deaf: the alarm was piercingly insistent), so I dressed, put my computer in a TJMax bag, grabbed my keys, and my husband and I joined our neighbors on the stairs to yard below.

The firefolks were there, searching for the source of the alarm. Third floor, my floor, their sensors said. They didn’t find anything. Down to the garage. They didn’t find anything. Good. But they also didn’t find a way to open the garage door to the outside, and they didn’t find the alarm box to turn the shrieking off. 

Once in San Antonio, during an electrical failure in our neighborhood, my husband and I came back from dinner where there was still power to find the City’s repair folks wandering from backyard to backyard with a flashlight and a piece of paper looking for the transformer so they could reset the fuse. My husband and I knew from earlier electrical failures where it was and gave them directions. Why didn’t they have it written down someplace?

Why wasn’t the location of our building’s fire alarm unit written down someplace? My husband happened to have stumbled on it earlier, so he guided the firefolks there. He got the remote control from our car to open the garage door so firefolks could pass through.

The firemen wanted to contact the homeowners’ association president to see if she knew how to turn the fire alarm off and make it stay off since there wasn’t any fire, but they didn’t have her number. Did I? my husband called me to ask? She lived in the building next door, and I didn’t. I called the property management emergency number, but they never called back. The firefolks called the number on the alarm box, but they never called back. Finally, after four or five tries, the alarms stayed off, and we all went back to bed.

The moral? I guess we should go to the next homeowners association meeting (even though we aren’t), and suggest a better plan for the next time. Residents have been through so many false alarms that many didn’t bother to leave their apartments, and that’s not good. Firefolks couldn’t have gotten into the garage to put out a fire there, and that’s not good. My husband is the curious type, and this morning he remembered there’s a trap door to the attic in the ceiling of our community storage unit that the firefolks didn’t know about, didn’t find to check out. And that’s not good.

It’s Saturday, so not much can happen until Monday. But Monday, we’ll make some phone calls and see if we can’t get someone interested in filling in a few of the gaps so next time the firefolks will have the information and the access they need.

 ~ 

July 26

What Are the Possibilities?

One of the drawbacks of living life as fast as most Americans do is that we don’t have time to ponder. Few of us spend lazy afternoons lounging on porch swings, or fishing in a quiet lake, or sitting in a park looking at the flowers or the birds or the sky. We are so busy multitasking to get it all done that we don’t take time to let possibilities in.

Our society and our schedules push us to hurry: to think in a hurry, to choose in a hurry, to do in a hurry. When we move so fast, we’re mostly guided by reaching for stories about what did and didn’t work in the past. When we let the past guide us we’re not really making new choices. We’re just applying old choices to new situations.

The number of choices expands enormously when we ponder the unknown instead of  rushing for conclusions. It doesn’t take an afternoon; it doesn’t take a lake or even a park to ponder. It just takes a willingness to step out of the rush and consider possibilities. 

 ~

July 22

Let Your Ego Help You, But Don’t Let It Be in Charge

My ego, bless its heart, can be a huge help when it nudges me to start working on a talk weeks before I’m to give it so I won’t be embarrassed. It’s helpful when it whispers I should put a little more thought into what I’m wearing before I leave the house; when it nudges me to defend myself against someone who wants to take advantage of me. But it’s not helpful when it nudges me to be rude to someone who’s being rude to me; to insist I’m right when it really doesn’t matter; or to struggle to be perfect when there’s no reason to be.

 ~ 

July 20

Change Your Stories, Change Your Life

I write a lot about how changing your stories can change your experiences, or at the very least, your feelings about them, and here’s an example.

My husband and I share a car, and this morning he took it to go to a doctor’s appointment on the other side of the bay. I knew he might wander around over there awhile, and there wasn’t any urgency about when he’d be back until I made an appointment for a massage at 3:00 and suddenly it was 2:00 and I had no idea when he’d return. I called his cell phone; he didn’t answer. I called again a few minutes later, and he didn’t answer again. So he was either driving, I figured, or he’d turned his cell phone off.

I could hear the start of stories about how he should have remembered to turn his phone back on after his appointment; I could feel myself slipping into the role of a victim because I’d have to ride my bike and the errands I had to do afterwards would be more difficult, but I heard the start of those stories, and I changed them. I’d been meaning to ride my bike places, went one of my new stories, and now I would. I could use the exercise, went another story, and now I’d get some.

I called my husband again at 2:30, no answer, so I found the combination to my bike lock, went to the storage room for my bike and was on my way to the elevator when I remembered I’d meant to take a jacket. I walked my bike back to my apartment, and as I was ready to turn the key in the lock, the phone inside started to ring. It was my husband. He was just turning into the garage, he said, and the car would be downstairs by the time I got there.

I’ve written before that I don’t believe in coincidences – those unlikely line-ups of random events. I DO believe in synchronicity, though (which is defined as a seemingly accidental occurrence that connects events which are highly unlikely to connect and the connection is meaningful to the observer) and I believe that one of the ways we set synchronicity into motion is with the energy we create with our thinking, our stories, and scientists are proving that this is true.

 ~

July 12

Look For Solutions in the Right Places

I’ve been in my new apartment for nearly a month now, and I still reach for the kitchen light switch on the wall just inside the doorway. It’s a habit. That’s where it’s always been. But in this apartment, the light switch is on the wall just outside the entryway to the kitchen. It doesn’t matter how much I think it should be on the inside; it’s a waste of time to look for the light switch where it isn’t, so I’ll develop a new habit.

What else in my life can I make easier if I remember to look for the solution where it is rather than where I think it should be or where it used to be?

 ~ 

July 8

Let It Go… For Now

When I teach about letting go of attachments to outcomes, people ask just how you do that. Often, I say one way is to distract yourself with another thought. When I had breast cancer the first time, my body gave me clear guidance (with my feelings) that it wouldn’t be right for me to have the toxic treatments my doctors insisted I needed to “maybe” survive. Still, I was often very afraid that I was making the wrong choice. Was I so attached to not losing my breast, not losing my hair, that I was risking my life as my doctors made me believe?

When the crazy-making fear took over my thinking, I made it a habit to interrupt with this pre-planned distraction: I’d imagine a TV cameraman putting a microphone out to me, saying, “So tell me, Karin Ireland, did you always know you’d be rich and famous?” I’ve always imagined one of my books might someday be a bestseller, so I’d mentally respond, “Yes, I always did…” and the spell fear had tried to choke me with was broken.

Letting go of attachments is a daily practice, sometimes hourly, as life gives us lots of opportunities to practice. Now my attachments aren’t nearly so dramatic. Often, I find I’m annoyed with what I consider someone’s inconsiderate behavior. I tell myself I’ll just ignore it for five minutes. Or ten. If the behavior hasn’t stopped, I’ll figure out what I can do next to stop being annoyed. Amazingly, more often than not the irritating behavior does stop before I have to figure out the next thing to do.

 ~ 

July 4

Happy Fourth!

Today is Independence Day, when we celebrate America’s legal separation from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was the outcome of an eight-year battle, bravely fought, to throw off control from outsiders so our country could be free.

This could be a good day to also reflect on our own personal bravery as we fight to be independent of the stories from others about who we should be so we can be free to follow our own inner guidance instead; we’ve struggled to let go of negative, limiting thinking so we can explore possibilities, and we work at being gentle on ourselves when some of those possibilities don’t turn out the way we’d like them to.

The outcome of our efforts is that we’ve separated ourselves from the control of group thinking, and I think that’s worth celebrating!

 ~ 

June 29

Wabi Sabi

Wabi sabi is a notion I want to remember more often than I do. Not only is it a fun thing to say, it can make life itself more fun. Wabi sabi is seeing the perfection in the imperfect. The mind boggles to think of how many people and things I can apply wabi sabi to. Want to join me for wabi sabi Wednesday?

 ~ 

June 26

The Tipping Point

In his book, The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell writes about how things shift from being one way to sometimes the opposite at a certain tipping point. He gives the example of a rundown neighborhood that has empty buildings with few broken windows. As long as only a few of the windows are broken, most people don’t seem inclined to break more. But over time as more are broken, peoples’ inclination shifts. You can almost hear them think, what the heck, there are so many already broken… as they lob a rock. The windows may have been mostly unbroken for a year, but after the tipping point, almost all the rest may be broken in a few weeks.

My husband and I have just moved from a place we were charmed with 18 months ago. People were friendly, said hi as they passed. Not so much now. I asked him if our energy had changed (having loud, disrespectful neighbors can do that), and if people sensed that. His feeling was that the people who’d been friendly when we moved in had moved out long ago; maybe to escape their own loud, disrespectful neighbors.

So I’m thinking we were very wise to move instead of trying to reason with our neighbors (okay, we tried, and they weren’t the reasoning kind of folks) or trying to be “enlightened” and not let it bother us. The population of our old apartment building has tipped to mostly noisy people. And that’s not a bad thing if you’re a noisy person yourself or if you don’t mind them.

What I think I’m getting from this is a lesson I’ve been offered so many times before, mostly in workplace situations: If something important isn’t working where I am, I need to go someplace else. I can’t fix it. I can’t, with the right attitude, always ignore it. And when I can’t, I need to leave what isn’t working and head toward something that might.

 ~ 

June 13

Be Here Now

Be Here Now; hardly a new thought. But since I don’t remember to do it, it seems new every time I read it.

I’m going through books and magazines that I’ve carefully saved to read when I have time. Many have pieces of paper stuck at places I thought were worth revisiting. But I never do. Because so far, I just don’t make time for that kind of thing. Notice I didn’t say I don’t have time – I have as much as anybody; I just have chosen to use it doing things that feel like I’m getting more done.

I’m going with a notion I’ve had before, that I’m more likely to reread a valuable book or saved article if it’s not part of a pile of ten or twenty of them.

I’m determined not to have So Much Stuff at our new place.

As I sort through my physical stuff, I’m going to sort through some of the thoughts that I’ve been holding in my head for way too long. I’m determined not to have So Much Stuff in my head, too.

 ~ 

June 11

On the Road Again

We’re moving – well, it’s been a year-and-a-half – and I’m at the point where I’m packing the books in my office. But first, I decided to look through some old journals. This is never a happy thing for me to do because I tend to journal most when things aren’t going well. Who needs to revisit old pain?

But I did find a page that I think is worth keeping: Thoughts I’d intended to start each day with (but of course never got around to).

1. What can I do today to be happy?

2. What can I do right now to be happy?

3. What can I do today to be kind?

4. What can I do right now to be kind to myself?

5. What can I let go of today, right now?

6. What can I do today to take care of myself?

How is it that I (and I’m guessing some of you) have to make lists to remind myself to do things that came natural before I was taught to put other things first?

Is there any hope that I can actually shift back to that woman who doesn’t believe that getting stuff done is the measure of her worth?

 ~

June 6

Who Knew?

Once again, I’m reminded that I need to be very specific when I send my intent out into the universe. Francis and I have been looking for a new apartment and we have a solid list of what we wanted and didn’t want. It never even occurred to me to include carpeting on my wish list. So we found a place that we think will be perfect, but the owner has just proudly installed hardwood flooring. Who knew? I can see how much cleaner the floor will be, but my tradition of a shoes-off household will end after seventeen years – seven in Hawaii and ten on the mainland because both Francis’ and my feet are too bony to walk around all day without cushion. Wait, did the Universe read my mind? I’ve always obsessed (too strong a word, but you know what I mean) about having a clean carpet, and now I won’t have to worry!

Our landlord gave us the option of bringing in a cleaning service for $150 then charging us that when we moved out or cleaning ourselves and not paying a cleaning fee when we leave. We chose to clean. OMG. I’m glad we did, because a cleaning service would not have put a dent in all that needs to be done. We’ve spent twenty six hours scrubbing so far, and figure we have about another ten. It looked relatively clean, but we didn’t open cupboards or move the ‘fridge or look under the washer and dryer… I’ll spare you the details. Anyway, we’ll move next week. Woo woo!

 ~

May 16

Sometimes Good Enough is Good Enough

In our society, we’re encouraged to measure who we are by our job, home, car, clothes, and friends, and then we’re encouraged to feel that whatever we have isn’t really enough. So we work harder and longer hours to get it all done; to be able to make what we want to have happen happen.

It’s good to have goals to have and be the best… sometimes. But sometimes, good enough is good enough.

Right now, my goal is to be really good at taking care of myself; to be a loving partner to my husband; to write good books that will help other people; to be the woman who is calm and kind and who really knows how to accessorize.

The rest of the stuff I do every day? Most of the time just getting it done is good enough.

 ~ 

May 9

Oy Vey

All these years, I’ve been proud that I am almost nothing like my parents were. I’m social and open minded and I think I was a good parent (and, hey, happy birthday today Tricia!). I take wise risks, I’m interested in other people, and I look for ways to encourage them rather than tear them down. The list is long, but I think you get the idea.

Then a few days ago I was in a picky mood and I just found fault with everything. That’s not quite true: I mean with everything a certain person did. At some point I recognized my parents’ snarkiness coming out of my mouth! Not a proud moment. But helpful, I think. Kind of like once you know where the ants are coming from it’s easier to get rid of them.

I’ll probably never be rid of all the unhelpful stories stored in my head that came from my parents, but I can remember to choose not to use them.

 ~ 

May 2

Why, Oh Why?

Back in the mid-seventies, I had a refrigerator that was at eye level. The freezer was in a drawer at the bottom that pulled out on a set of smooth wheels. I’ve never understood why that didn’t catch on! Shelves started at eye level. No need to bend over double to see what was hiding on the bottom shelf; what was hiding toward the back. No need to sit on the floor, as I have to do in my current apartment, to see what’s for dinner.

I just Googled “bottom freezer refrigerators, and they’re still available. Why doesn’t everybody have one?

When I think about having to dive for food three times a day, I wonder what else we’ve chosen, for some obscure reason, to do the hard way.

 ~ 

April 28

Your Life is What Happens After You Say, Yes, But…

I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out that nothing changes after I say, Yes, but… because some of the worst times of my life have followed those two words.

When we say, Yes, but, we truly believe there’s a reason why whatever someone’s suggesting won’t work. And while it may be true and it won’t work, saying, Yes, but… closes our mind’s door to exploring other options that might. Saying, Yes, but…keeps us stuck in the very situation we want to move out of.

Yes, but… and its cousins, I know, but… I’ve tried that, but… I can’t, because… and but first I have to… are usually just stories that support attachments we have to something being the way we want it to be, and those stories always close the door to possibilities.

I know a better way of thinking now. Instead of yes, but I try to keep the door open to possibilities by saying, okay, and now….

 ~ 

April 26

What a Difference a Word Makes

Ages ago, I made a choice to do work I love instead of work that would earn me lots of money. Of course, I hoped the work I love would eventually earn me lots of money, but so far it hasn’t, and year after year, I still choose to stick with the work I love.

One of the side effects of this choice is that I’ve learned to be frugal. Sometimes, I’ve been very frugal. Thrift shops are the first place I go when I need something, and usually, I find exactly what I want. Spending lots of money on fancy dinners and drinks feels kind of inefficient and meals rarely live up to my expectation of what they should taste like. Give me a used car with dents over a new one I’ll worry about.

But here’s the thing: When I sell a book or a corporate workshop and suddenly I’ve got a bit of money, I still think it’s insane to pay $75 for a pair of jeans; I still think spending more than $30 for a dinner for two is usually a waste; and I still prefer my old Camry to any new car on the road.

If not spending money when I don’t have it makes me frugal, does not spending money when I do have it make me cheap?

And while I’m wondering this, I wonder what other behaviors that are exactly the same are judged differently because of their name?

 ~ 

April 23

See Abundance Everywhere

While I was a single mom and working at the winery, I really didn’t have any money. I was always worried about having enough to pay the bills, and the more I worried, the more it seemed I should be worried.

A friend suggested I focus on noticing everything that was undeniably abundant, and I agreed to give it a try. Look at all those leaves on those trees, I’d tell myself. Look how many blades of grass there are in that lawn. There seem to be endless grains of sand on the beach.

Silly? Maybe, but it worked. With that simple change of focus from lack to abundance, I felt different. My new thinking calmed me and helped me be optimistic, and that helped me sell wine and develop some loyal customers.

We can do the same thing with health, good relationships, and anything else we want more of. Noticing the abundance around us fills us with the perfect energy to attract more.

It can be really hard to make that shift when we’re feeling overwhelmed, but, of course, that’s when we need to do it most.

 ~ 

April 20

The Final Goodbye

My Dad wanted his ashes scattered in the Sedona mountains near a formation called Coffee Pot, so Saturday my brother and I climbed probably a thousand feet to a shelf of rock that overlooked a canyon and the town below.

By the way, a six-foot-two man, even though barely 140 pounds, produces about eight cups of surprisingly heavy sand-like ash. John and I and a friend of our dad’s took turns sprinkling and tossing his remains.

I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that I chose the family run by my dad to learn lessons, and I did. My sorrow, as I did his last bidding, was that we’d made it such a struggle.

Afterward, John and I drove a short distance to a Tibetan Buddhist Stupa we’d discovered more than a decade ago just a few blocks away from our dad’s house.

A Stupa is said to be a sacred place, an energy vortex, where people can connect with the God energy, their higher selves; a place where their wishes may be fulfilled. At the one in Sedona there’s a large concrete pedestal with a large image of Buddha on top. People leave mementos as offerings on the shelves. Sun-faded Tibetan prayer flags hang from trees and flutter in the breeze -- one is a set I sent the monks after my last visit, but I don’t know which.

Two Buddhist monks and a handful of followers sat on a sheltered platform chanting. I sat at the foot of the Stupa and started to sob for the relationship I wished I’d had with my dad.

Then, during a quiet moment, I heard, “Goodbye, old friend,” and in that instant everything shifted. I let go of the pain between the physical forms of my dad and me. This old friend and I had come together to do what we’d agreed to do. Not as gently as we might have, but we got it done. And that was our agreement.

 ~ 

April 18

Let it Go

These days I don’t have a deck or a wilderness area to throw tortillas off (see previous post), so when I want to let go of a thought or problem that I can’t let go of with my breath, I have other methods.

Sometimes I visualize my unwanted thinking as an image on a slide show. To let it go, I say, “Next!” and replace it with an image of nature or someone I love. It works to put an image of unwanted thinking on a TV screen, too. I aim the remote and change the channel.

Another is a letting-go technique that can help you let go of unwanted thoughts or feelings and even physical pain. Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably. Close your eyes, and relax, then notice what is upsetting you. Notice the place in your body where you feel the discomfort. Then mentally give the discomfort a shape – either see it or just know what shape it is. Sometimes the shape will be round, but sometimes it will be sharp or jagged.

Next, imagine using one of your hands to remove the shape; then imagine dropping it into a bucket your imagination has placed at your feet. Enjoy “hearing” the satisfying clunk.

Repeat these steps until the bucket is full, or as full as you want it to be. Then take your foot and nudge the bucket off the cliff that your imagination has provided for you.

Keep removing these shapes, tossing them in the bucket, and nudging the bucket off the cliff as long as you feel there is discomfort in your body you want to let go of.

 ~ 

April 14

Let It Go

When I worked at a winery trying to sell wine on the phone to corporate executives, I practiced letting go of attachments to outcomes I only knew one way to detach, and that was to breathe in and imagine letting the attachment slip away as I exhaled.

That’s still the easiest, but if an attachment or a story or any kind of unwanted thinking takes more to let go of than that, I’ve discovered several other techniques that work.

Here are two: Put an image of your unwanted thinking on a mental chalk board, and then imagine erasing it. Watch the thought or feeling disappear; then replace it with an image of the ocean or something else you love. (If you don’t imagine by seeing, just think about the image.)

My husband and I came up with the Tortilla Toss when we lived in an apartment with a deck that overlooked a wilderness area. We’d take a stale corn tortilla, give it the name of a thought or problem we wanted to let go of, then we’d toss it Frisbee style into the woods. If it sailed nicely, we considered the thought or problem gone. If the tortilla wobbled and landed too close to the deck, the rule we made up was that we needed to be a little more intentional, and throw again until we got one to sail.

Silly? Yah. But it works! More letting go ideas in my next post.

 ~ 

April 11

You Can Be Right and Happy

I always used to struggle with the question, “Would you rather be right or happy?” I know the answer is supposed to be happy. And I do want to be happy. But I also want to be right. Especially when I know I am. Okay, and I want the other person to know I’m right, too.

As I thought about what being calm would feel like and what I could do to feel that way, I realized that to be calm, all I had to do was let go of thinking and behaviors that made me not calm. It really is as easy as that.

Now, when my first thought is to be right and prove that I am, I try to take a breath and remember what I really want is to be calm. It’s okay that this person and I don’t agree. It’s okay that I think I see a better way. It’s even okay when the other person is clearly wrong (just kidding). I can choose to be calm, and I’ll probably be happy.  

 ~ 

April 8

I Finished My Book, Yay!

Have you ever wished your life had come with an instruction book that would show you how to have the life you want without struggling?

Me too. So I wrote one. Just finished it, in fact.

I started writing when I was struggling to get my husband to stop a work schedule that was draining him of energy, and life, when I was overwhelmed and depressed, and didn’t know where to turn next. A wise friend advised me to figure out what I believed and use my beliefs to pull me out of the feelings of hopelessness I was mired in, then write about what I discovered to help others.

Having a book completed is just one step of many in publishing these days. It’s not enough to have a great book; writers need to have a “platform,” which generally means people who will want to read the book.

Readers of my blog will be my platform, so I’d like to invite you to invite as many people as you can to follow me. I post twice a week (generally Tuesdays and Fridays), and readers can subscribe, go directly to my blog site (www.TheBestLifeGuidebook.com), or look for it on my Facebook page.

For the next several months, each post will be a few paragraphs from one of the 54 sections of the book. I hope you’ll enjoy them, and I hope they will help you live without so much struggle.

 ~ 

April 5

Stop That Thought

The fact that stress is caused by fear won’t surprise anybody, but I’m constantly surprised at how, after I’ve consciously let go, it keeps popping back up.

I write about letting go of attachments to outcomes, and what are attachments but fear? Fear that we won’t get what we want, or if we do, it will be snatched away from us; fear that people won’t behave the way we want them to or that they won’t like us for not behaving the way we want them to.

I remember one year I made a conscious decision not to make any decisions based on fear. It went really well. But decisions are one thing: just as stressful are the thoughts we have that make us afraid.

I love projects, so my new one will be to notice when my thinking is fear based and resurrect my mantra from the first cancer days: “So tell me,” the cameraman asks for the nightly news, “did you always know you’d be rich and famous?” And my response, just like in the first cancer days will be, “Yes, actually I did.” So much more fun to think of this story than the fearful one.

 ~ 

March 29

Making the Best of What Is

A trip with my brother to comfort our dad after a heart attack turned into a last-minute move from independent living to assisted care. Fortunately, the assisted care facility was just a doorway away from the independent living side of the building, but, oh, so much work.

Ever try talking a 91-year-old stubborn man out of some of the possessions he’s certain he needs that you’re certain won’t fit into 300 sq. feet of living space? Does he really need 30 plaid flannel shirts? Ten heavy, heavy blankets? Gardening gloves (it’s been years since he’s been near a garden).

We compromised. He didn’t let go of as much as I wanted him to, but he let go of more than he wanted to. The local hospice thrift shop has lots of new stuff to sell.

And speaking of hospice – I knew about hospice facilities, and I knew that hospice helped families who had someone ill and dying at home, but I didn’t know what a blessing they can be for people living alone and away from their families. Their support is huge.

Dad has wanted to pass on for quite awhile, and wishes he’d succeeded with his recent heart attack. He had a Do Not Resuscitate order at the hospital, but the tricky part is that that only works if the patient is unconscious. He wasn’t, so the only recourse paramedics and hospital staff had was to help him survive.

Enter hospice. After Dad made it clear to them that he wants to pass, they gave him an orange sheet of paper to tape to his ‘fridge door. This sheet tells early responders that Dad only wants comfort care, and that they are not to administer any lifesaving care at all, nor are they to transport him to a hospital. Rather, they are required to call them, hospice.

This alone makes hospice a valuable ally. But they will also provide medication related to the illness available free, as well as equipment like beds, oxygen, etc.

Of course, there is no ideal situation. Loved ones deserve to die surrounded by family and friends, but sometimes that isn’t possible. We do the best we can. And hospice certainly helps.

 ~ 

February 15, 2011

Vision Boards

There’s a reminder on my vision board that says, “Celebrate the Power of Choice.” Boy, isn’t it all about choice? Everything from what we eat for breakfast to where we spend our time and money to how we’ll be remembered when we croak – it’s all about choice.

Sometimes the little choices seem as challenging as the big ones: Where do we live? What job to we take, how long do we stay? Not that much harder than Do I let myself feel bad about that snarky comment or do I remember that when people are rude it’s about them and not me? When I get discouraged, do I remind myself that I get what I focus on and then give myself a pep talk?

I’ve had so much success with vision boards that it’s hard to understand why I don’t use them more: My first in ’73 had a picture of a blonde, blue-eyed baby girl and in ’74 I had Tricia; I made one with romantic scenes on the beach and attracted a guy who planned to live on his boat in a year and sail forever then reminded myself to have balance on my boards. Ages ago, I started a notebook with pictures of what I wanted to experience in my life and they are terrific. Trouble is, I forget to look at it.

This morning I took some pages from the book and made another vision board. It sits just to the left of my desk, and I plan to look at it often. Because what I have today is because of what I thought about yesterday. And what I have tomorrow will be what I think about today.

 ~ 

September 27

The Universe Handles the Details (Thank You Arnold Patent)

The other day I went to Target with a mental list of four items. I found three of the things I was looking for, but couldn’t remember what the fourth one was. I told myself to take a breath and let my mind float and I walked past a woman saying to her husband “…this clock….” A clock! That was the fourth item on my list.  I love it when the universe helps, and wow! This time it was so fast!

I Don’t Believe in Coincidences

A couple of days ago I logged on to Facebook and saw that one of my network friends had posted a note asking for information about earthquake safety. A friend of hers had added that she’d like some info on earthquakes that an elementary school teacher could use.

In the late ‘80s, I wrote an article about how to be safe if an earthquake hits while you’re driving, and a brochure for the Red Cross that coached parents to talk with their children about what to do if they were on their way to or from school. I posted a note on Facebook saying I’d be happy to copy and send the articles to both women.

Last night my husband and I watched Abraham: The Secret Behind the Secret for an infusion of what we believe about how the universe works. This morning I got an email from the woman who wanted earthquake information for children with her mailing address. At first I was confused, because it was my address. I looked again: different apartment number. We are neighbors.

I’m convinced this was the universe reminding me what it can do. I don’t have to struggle to get what I want, I just have to hold my attention positive on having it. Yay.

 ~ 

Sept. 13

The Spin Doctor is In

I remember once asking someone how I could be cautious with my money without feeling like I was poor, and she suggested that if I changed my wording, I’d change what I thought and felt. I’m choosing not to spend my money on this right now makes me feel like I’m in charge of my money, and what I do with it is my choice. There is nothing limiting about that sentence. So I changed what I said and it did change the way I felt. I was choosing not to spend my money on that right now. I’m going to look for one way I can change my words every day to make me feel (even) better.

 ~ 

Sept. 6

In Search of an Empty Mind

My husband planned the outing. We went to the bay and…did nothing. He’s been going there to do nothing for a few hours several times a week, and he swears that he’s calmer and that he’s learned to sit there with an empty mind.

When you’re used to being a Busy Person, it’s hard to sit still. I have all these stories about what I should be doing. But I watched the water for awhile. I concentrated on my breathing, and eventually fell asleep. Sitting there in my camp chair! Not the result I was going for, but when I woke up I was calm and my mind wasn’t as crowded. I am seriously going to start meditating regularly. 

 ~ 

Aug. 19

First, Do No Harm

It’s a good message for doctors, but it’s also a good message for the rest of us. A couple of mornings ago I woke up in a bad mood. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does I warn my husband. He’s come up with two responses: He either says he’s sorry and then leaves me alone or he hugs me and leaves me alone. Either one is the perfect response. I know he cares. He knows it’s not about him. (Unless it is about him, but that’s for another post.) After whatever was going on is done, my mood lightens and I’m back. And neither of us has anything to apologize for.

 ~ 

July 29

Patience – Such an Easy Concept

I know a gazillion reasons why patience is always the best choice. But sometimes I forget to choose. Like today. I went into the bank for help getting to my online banking account. I signed in and waited patiently for 20 minutes. I was pretty patient when the rep wanted to review all my information line-by-line. She asked in a sweet salesperson’s voice, did I know I could pay my bills online? Uh, yes, everyone over the age of seven knows that. I was pretty patient when I told her I didn’t want to. After about 10 minutes, she decided she couldn’t help me, I’d need to call for tech support. But BTW, this time in a sweetly chastising voice, the bank hadn’t heard from me about whether I wanted to accept their offer of overdraft protection. Now, I can feel myself start to lose my patience. A) I’ve been in the bank for more than half an hour and have been told that they can’t help me and B) I’m being shamed for not responding to a message that each of the twenty snail mailings I got said if I didn’t respond I would not be enrolled in the program. I didn’t respond. I’m not enrolled. Still sweetly, I’m told I have to sign my name, add the date, and initial – on two forms – that I really, truly, seriously, don’t want the overdraft protection.

I didn’t sound angry, just impatient. But it probably just frustrated us both.

I think the take-away lesson is that sometimes I need to plan to be patient. I need to let go of any expectation that the transaction will go the way I want it to. I need to look at these kinds of activities as a test. A test I want to pass so I won’t have to practice in a more difficult way. I need to let go of all those stories about how things should be, and reflect on all the things I have to be grateful for.

Stay tuned…  

 ~ 

July 26

There’s a Whole Other World Out There

I understand the way money flows, that when women in New York’s upper east side spend thousands of dollars on a single item of clothing those dollars pay salaries for people to buy food and rent and doctor visits. But it’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around the extravagance: Yves Saint Laurent linen canvas dress $1,990, Marc Jacobs sequined rayon and cotton dress with pearl detail (seriously Harlequinesque looking) $5,500, Louis Vuitton embroidered pink, white and black cotton silk and polyester shirt, $5,070, Dior silk chiffon dress at $23,000, as pictured in W magazine, April 2010.

In the same issue there’s an article about stealth splurgers, women who stash “staples like leather jackets and ‘many a pair of Maolos’ – for six months or so before wearing them” so they can say, “This old thing?” when their husbands notice something new. Or they horde cash and only put a “small” amount on the credit card. When her husband gets the credit card bill one woman says can say, “’I got a $3,000 dress for $800. I saved money!’” She boasts that using this trick and others, she “’managed to slip $20,000 worth of Balmain, Rick Owens and Givenchy in my closet without leaving a paper trail.’”

I don’t begrudge them their money, I’m sure they and their husbands work hard for it. Harder than dedicated teachers, though? Harder than social workers? Harder than… well, there’s a long list of people who are overworked and underpaid. And I can’t help thinking how many low-cost rents, doctor visits, and trips to the grocery store the money these women spend being beautiful could pay for people to whom the cost of one frock would seem like a fortune.

 ~ 

July 19

Why Not Choose Stories That Make Me Happy?

I’ve learned that a lot of my thoughts are just stories I’ve gotten used to having loop in my head. Most of my stories come from things that people told me or things that happened in the past, but some of them are stories I make up about the future.

It’s no surprise that so many of them are limiting and negative. I mean, look at the messages we’re bombarded with daily from the media, women’s magazines, employers, coworkers, and sometimes family and friends.

As I began to learn to trust myself when I was trying to choose a wellness plan after my first cancer, I started questioning the stories I told myself and others about what I could and should have, think, feel, do, and be.

How can others know more about me than I know about myself? (They can’t.) How can they know what’s better for me than I do? (They can’t.) Why do I have to make them happy instead of making myself happy? (I don’t!)

So now, I try to pay attention to what I think. I listen to the stories I tell myself and others, and if they don’t help me, I let them go. I realize I get to choose my stories, so I might as well make them the best ones I can imagine!

 ~

July 15

The Number One Way to Be Calm No Matter Where You Are

I’ve spent dozens of years and buckets of money reading books about how to be calm. They all have good suggestions – at least they all seem good while I’m reading about them. But when the book’s at home and I’m at the grocery store getting more and more frustrated because I can’t find what I’m looking for and I can’t find a clerk to help me look, none of the suggestions in any of my book at home come to mind.

 I read a very simple suggestion recently that’s easy to remember wherever I am. The easiest way to be calm is to stop doing things that make me not calm. So when I’m at the grocery store and I start to feel frustration move into my body, I can stop and ask myself what I’m attached to having happen differently than it is. Then I can simply decide that nothing has to change for me to be calm except my thinking. So what if it takes me two more minutes to find what I’m looking for? Or even five? It’s not like I’m so important that the world is waiting for me to show up someplace else. And even if I were, wouldn’t I be more helpful showing up calm?

 ~ 

July 12

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Don’t worry if you put your airport car-park ticket in your jeans pocket so no one can steal your car while you’re picking up your husband and it somehow seems to fall out before you get back to your car; you probably won’t have to pay the $36 lost-ticket fee.

When I got ready to leave the parking lot, I picked the lane with no cars in it hoping the ticket-taker would be in a good mood, and was prepared to show her a computer printout of my husband’s arrival time and a receipt for a magazine I’d bought, but she just asked for my driver’s license and registration to make sure the car was mine, copied my license number on a form and had me fill out my name and address. She said a camera had taken a picture of my license on my way in (who knew!?). She got on the phone to someone, then asked me for $6 (the correct fee), and I was free to go. I love it when people have a plan (in this case the parking folks’) that’s simple and works.

 ~ 

July 5

Can America Be Mighty and Gentle at the Same Time?

You know those crawlers that run across the bottom of the TV screen while other programs are playing? I had that kind of experience Sunday night while my husband and I watched New York City’s fireworks display on our TV.

The screen showed what was arguably the most amazing fireworks in the country. But the crawler that ran in my mind below the beauty was, I wonder how many people that money could have fed? I wonder how many people could have been given shelter for the night?

For awhile, my husband and I had the sound on: military music reminding us that we Americans are brave fighters, we are mighty, and we fought for independence and won. I’m absolutely grateful that our forefathers stood up and fought to be free. I’m grateful to our men and women in the military today who put their lives on the line daily to protect us. But too many times since our own independence we’ve fought not to be free, but to impose our will on others who wish we hadn’t, while at the same time ignoring people who pleaded with us to step in and help them survive.

The theme of Macy’s New York show was American Harmony. I pray one day it will be true, and the crawlers that run in my mind will be gratitude for how hard the brave people in America fought to provide food and shelter to people who can’t provide it for themselves; how we fought to be free of old thinking that keeps systems in place that don’t work; how new thinking led us to affordable housing, education in a variety of formats for everyone who wants it, and low-cost healthcare. I want to be proud that we fought for and won freedom from agenda-based thinking in favor of searching for options that benefit the many instead of the few. I look forward to a time of American Harmony when my crawlers reflect a peacefulness among races, a respect for children, an enjoyment of diversity, freedom from fear, and true peace. 

 ~ 

June 28

The Secret to Getting to Yes

My husband tends to be easier to please than I am, which has its good points, but it has some drawbacks, too. Take apartment hunting, which we’ve done a lot of, since we seem to share a nomadic gene.

He and I set out knowing what we want, and we actually want the same things. But once we actually start looking, we see apartments differently. Him: This looks nice. Me: I mentally roll my eyes. Blue shag carpets? Uh, let’s keep looking. Him: This is nice. Me: It is, but it’s $300 a month more than we want to pay, or It has a balcony that looks into the neighbor’s bedroom, or It’s on the third floor and we need an elevator to haul groceries up. Of course I say all this in the nicest possible way. He’s good natured about my fussiness, and eventually, we find the apartment we both agree really is perfect. It looks good. It feels good. It’s in our budget. We both say yes.

What we’ve learned from this is how consistently we get what we want when we keep saying no until we find it.

 ~ 

June 24

Life is Full of Choices

The other morning I went to the bay marina/park near my home for a quiet walk along the shore. Up ahead, Mexican music blared from a car beside a group of guys fishing. Not exactly the quiet walk I’d looked forward to. But I recognized that I could choose to not be attached to my expectation of quiet; I could imagine I was on vacation, walking in the sun along a bay in Mexico. So I did. Ole!

 ~ 

June 21

Sometimes I’m Just a Walk-on Part

Frequently, I get a reminder that the practices I write about are exactly that: things to practice. When I’m in line at the bank and the people in front of me take forever, it’s an opportunity to practice being patient. When someone is particularly annoying, it’s an opportunity to practice being kind. When someone interrupts my brilliant comments and seems not to have been listening to a word I was saying, I can practice love.

When my husband and I moved into our current apartment, I had an opportunity to practice not taking things personally. The manager arranged for us to borrow a neighbor’s parking spot overnight since we hadn’t finished unloading the truck. The next day, I left the neighbor a thank-you note on her windshield and invited her to get together for coffee. She left a sweet message on my answering machine, and ended with a final-sounding good-bye. I felt sort of rebuffed. But that night the wise me decided to come up with ten reasons she might not have wanted to have coffee that had nothing to do with me: She didn’t like meeting people for coffee, she was moving, she had a super-busy schedule, she worked nights and slept all day…. Were any of the reasons I came up with true? It didn’t matter. It helped me remember that I don’t always know what people are thinking, and I’m not the star of every show I’m in.

 ~ 

June 10

Boundaries: What We Can Learn from Canada Geese

There’s a pair of Canada Geese by the bay where I walk, and they’ve claimed a small, fenced off pier as their home. They let a black cat roam, and random smaller ducks, but not people. They honk noisily if you get too close. They hiss if they think you don’t get the message.

I admire these geese. They know what they want. They’ve set up boundaries and they’re not shy about defending them. They won't change what they want so you'll like them. I wish I'd learned earlier what these geese know. 

 ~

June 7

Disaster Avoided

Every once in awhile, I have to clean my office. As I dusted the top of my desk, I heard a soft thunk. The tiny purple felt mouse my daughter gave me had dropped through the narrow space between the back of my desk and the wall. I tried to lean across the desk to reach it, and I heard a louder thunk. My other hand had bumped the pink plastic pig that holds messages in a clip on its head (also a gift from my daughter), and now it was on the floor, too. The desk was too heavy to budge, so I tried reaching behind it with kitchen tongs. They wouldn’t fit, so I got the broom. I tried brushing to the side, but all I did was brush my toys under the desk. As I pulled the broom up, the handle bumped the straw cup that holds my pens and pencils, and they scattered across the floor. Honest, I couldn’t make this up.

The old me might have been really angry. The me that’s practicing being patient thought it was pretty funny, and I asked myself, What’s going on? Ah, yes, I need to focus.

I hoped if I emptied the file drawer the desk would be lighter and I might be able to scooch it away from the wall a bit. But first, I looked to see what else could fall when I did. And here’s the blessing: If I’d moved the desk without thinking, my beautiful ceramic Buddha could have gotten chipped, and the bottle of perfumed oil (the kind that holds those sticks that wick the scent up) would have tipped over and made a huge mess. I moved them to a safe spot, retrieved the animals, put the pens back in their cup, and shoved the desk back into place. Then I said a silent thanks that I didn’t have to clean ceramic chips and oil out of the carpet next. 

 ~

June 4

Can Peace Be This Easy?

The other day I made a left turn on a green arrow that turned orange before I got through the intersection. Apparently I slowed down the driver of a black pickup truck coming from the opposite direction. I’d barely cleared the intersection when he turned behind me, crowded my bumper, and blared his horn to make sure I knew that I was in his way.

In the old days, I’d have been angry. I’d have told myself stories about how rude and angry this guy was. But I’ve been practicing letting go of the way people and things are supposed to be, so I was actually just surprised. How could the driver be so frustrated about having to slow down for a second or two?

After I’d completed my turn, I stayed in the right lane, accelerating at a normal rate to merge into freeway traffic while the truck flew around me on the left. As it passed, I put my left hand up to the side window, my fingers in the V for peace. I glanced over and was surprised to see the passenger’s right hand at his window, returning my peace sign.

I’d like to think this made a difference to the passenger, maybe even to the driver. I know it did to me. Can it be as easy as changing our stories to break through barriers of impatience and disregard for other people?