In the race for a meaningful life, we often find ourselves stuck in a chasm between “our time” and “the right time.” And regardless of our efforts, no amount of self-inflicted pressure is gonna magically transform desire into destiny. 

Purpose calls to us from a thousand miles away. And while we may hear it early on, the voice is usually faint. And almost always ignored. But if we commit ourselves to forward movement…and we keep the faith…all will come into focus…at a time and in a place…where all will make sense.

The chasm between “my time” and “the right time” began to close on June 5, 2002, when I discovered the one thing that inspires me above all other things. And in my nine-year journey from “passion discovered” to “purpose revealed” I have come to appreciate and value the difference between “our time” and “the right time.” And my path to a meaningful life has become more clear.

The path to our purpose is lined with the stones of our greatest passion. And each step along the path…every moment spent pursuing our greatest inspiration…brings us one step closer to fulfilling our purpose for being in the world.

So this morning the one thing I’m most curious about is this:

Where are you on the path from passion to purpose? 

So how’s your lemonade crop this year? 

I ask…because our ability to harvest lemonade is essential for creating and living our Best Lives.

In the creation process, there are times when we set the plough in front of us and confidently push forward…allowing our talents and gifts to drive us toward our reason for being on this planet. And then there are times when the plough bogs down…and we find ourselves farming on faith…dodging “life lemons” and looking for the lemonade.

And it’s in the finding of your lemonade that the transformation begins.

challenges find Solutions. fear finds Courage. and frustration finds Hope.

And with Hope…all things are possible!

So go out today and plant some lemonade. And then watch as your Best Life begins to soar.

(from BeautyArtSoul.com)

My artist-mom created this graphic on her iPad the other day and sent it to me. I immediately uploaded it to my mobile phone to use as my wallpaper. Because it reminded me of Nietzsche’s famous quote:

“One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star.”

And lately my dancing star has been doing the quickstep! Because in the last year I’ve left the job…sold the house…and started a year-long southwestern migration that is likely to find me living in Santa Fe, New Mexico sometime in the near future. All in the name of pursuing my passion and living my purpose for being in the world.

I’m not sure that it’s possible to move toward purpose without at least a little bit of internal chaos. Because our tribe has done a pretty good job of convincing us that the well-worn path is safer and more secure than the road-less-traveled.

But hopefully when our still, small voice gets tired of being ignored…and grabs a megaphone to scream in our head, “Do what brings you joy,” we’ll have the requisite courage to at least listen to the voice. And then slowly gain the confidence to move along our intended path…the one that results in living a “no regrets” life. 

Because I don’t think that it’s enough to go through life and get to our last few moments and breaths on earth…only to find ourselves wishing we’d seen more, been more and done more. That kind of wishing doesn’t honor our unique talents and gifts and our purpose for being in the world.

So as I write this…I’m curious about your dancing star. Is it doing the tango or the waltz? Are you creating and living your Best Life…or are you marking time?

Either way…the choice, as always, is yours to make. 

I don’t sleep much these days. My calling won’t let me. Inspired to do more with my time on earth, and infused with a keen sense of life’s finite nature…I move forward in the world with a renewed belief in the power that we all have to make a difference in the world.

But there are times when I say to my calling, “Look you’ve got me out here on an island…twisting and turning by myself…moving in directions that I hadn’t envisioned…and in ways that are not very comfortable.

And my calling says to me, “Keep going.”

In anger and frustration I respond to my calling, “But this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Things are supposed to be easier!” 

And my calling says, “Says who?”

“Says Me” I cry…”This is my life and I should be able to live it any way that I want to!”

“You can” my calling responds. “All you have to do is ignore me.”

Confused…I ask, “So what will happen then?”

But calling says nothing in response.

I cry out in desperation…”Calling…what happens then?”

And still I hear nothing from my calling.

A few moments later, calling returns:

“Don’t worry” calling says. “I’ll never desert you. For as long as you have breath…you have me. But I wanted you to feel what it feels like when you ignore me. That emptiness. That longing for something bigger than yourself. And the desperation that comes from ignoring who you really are…and ignoring why you’re really here.”

“So when will it get easier?” I ask.

And quietly…calling responds “When you let go.” 

Going through my email inbox recently, I came across a newsletter from one of the better known folks in the personal development movement. The title of his newsletter was “The Difference Between Winners and Losers.” 

My reaction to the title was probably the opposite of what the author had hoped for, because I was so disturbed by it that I immediately deleted the newsletter without reading any further. And even though deleting it meant that I might miss an important nugget of truth lodged somewhere in the article, I just couldn’t wrap my heart and my brain around the word “Losers.”

Because in my mind, there are no losers! That’s a word used to write people off, a way to discount the potential that each one of us has for discovering and using our unique talents and gifts to make a positive difference in the world. And it offers no hope of recovery from whatever it is that has prevented us from creating and living our Best Lives to that point.

The truth is that wherever we are in life, even if we believe that things couldn’t get any worse than they are right now, we have the potential to rise above our heartbreaks and setbacks to find our footing and move in the direction of our Best Lives. 

So with that said, I believe that we need to embrace a new term: “Winners-in-Waiting.” These are the folks among us who have not yet discovered and embraced their gifts, talents and purpose for being in the world. But as long as they, and we, have the breath to do so, there is always hope.

Carpe Diem!

In his wonderful book of meditations entitled, “The Book of Awakening,” Mark Nepo quotes poet Kurtis Lamkin:

“Believing is all a child does for a living”

I’ve been thinking about that quote for the past couple of days as I move my life in a new direction. And it occurs to me that as adults, we would do well to get back in touch with the child in us that had no other options but to believe.

Sometimes it feels like belief is our only option: The money’s gone. Or the job is gone. Maybe we just saw our spouse pack a suitcase and leave for good. Or maybe we had to ask him to leave. Maybe we just lost a child. Or maybe the doctor just gave us the bad news.

Whatever we face, belief is an island we can swim to in a storm. 

It’s a promise to ourselves that if we just hold on a little longer, the sun will shine again.

And it’s a refuge that we offer the people we love, the ones that may have forgotten their child-like ability to believe. 

There are moments when we need to take them by the hand and heart and say, “I love you and I believe in you. And you’ll get through this.” 

There will be times when we see only one set of footprints in the sand and know that we’ve been carried. And sometimes, those footprints will be ours.

But that’s what life is about:

Believing in ourselves enough to turn dark clouds into rainbows

And Believing in others until they believe in themselves

Recently I watched a documentary film about Philippe Petit, who walked a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. And it occurred to me that sometimes our lives feel like a high-wire act.

Whether it’s money, the kids, our health or some other pressing issue, we try to maintain our balance on a very thin line. Make it to the other side and we can breathe again. Fall off the wire and who knows what could happen next.

But what if we choose instead to view our high-wire act as the path to our Best Lives?

One of my favorite quotes from Wayne Dyer is, “When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.”

Consider the wire as the path from where you are to where you want to go with your life. And the pole you carry for balance, your belief in your gifts, talents, and purpose for being in the world. So with path established and a belief in ourselves, you’re now ready to take that fist step out onto the wire to begin the journey.

So what’s required for the first step?

Belief: Believe that you have unique gifts, talents and a purpose for being here

Faith: We’re not talking complete faith - more like mustard seed size faith.

Incremental Courage: Begin with a little bit of courage and watch it grow

Maybe you’re thinking to yourself that Philippe Petit had some sense of fearlessness that enabled him to cross a thin wire from one tower to the other. And you’d be wrong. In the film he talked about his fear of falling. But the vision for his life was bigger than his fear. So he took that first step off the ledge and onto the wire with courage, a belief in his abilities, and faith in himself.

Create a bigger vision for yourself. String a wire from where you are to where you want to go. Believe in yourself and know that you arrived in this world with talents, gifts and a purpose. And have just a little bit of faith and courage. Just enough to get you started.

And watch as your life begins to soar.

This morning I felt pressed for time. I had a deadline looming and a laundry list of things that I needed to do before I could call my  day a “success.”

And then my friend Tom called.

Tom’s been living with MS for a while now, and this morning he wanted to tell me about a new treatment regimen that he has been undergoing since receiving the results of his latest MRI.

He began by telling me that he had read a book on the use of bee stings to help treat MS patients. And I could hear the excitement in his voice when he told me that one of his neighbors was a beekeeper.

Tom said that every other day for the past three weeks, his neighbor had come to Tom’s house to apply bees to his arms with the hope that the venom would help relieve some of his symptoms.

We laughed for a moment about the fact that, for our entire lives, we had tried to avoid getting stung by bees. And now here was Tom, intentionally trying to get stung. And not only that, he was doing it thirteen times every other day! When I asked how much longer the treatments would continue before he could hope to see some results, he told me that he had at least a couple of more months to go.

After we finished our conversation, I thought about Tom, a man in his early forties with a wife and three young kids. And it occurred to me that in pursuing the bee sting treatments, he was showing a tremendous amount of courage and hope in a process that many mainline physicians would look at with a certain amount of skepticism.

And yet, every other day the doorbell rings and the woman with the bees steps inside…carrying both the bees and a little bit of hope. Hope that Tom will be around to hear his kids laugh, bandage their wounds when they fall, take pictures of their first homecoming dances, escort them down the aisle, and answer those tough life-questions that only a battle-tested father can answer.

Laundry lists don’t seem to matter very much when the only item on the list is to survive. And when success is measured in breaths and not in tasks accomplished.

“I complained because I had no shoes until I met…”

Thank you, Tom

On this beautiful cloudless, sunny Sunday morning in the Shenandoah Valley, amidst the sound of doves cooing and the clop clop of horse-drawn buggies filled with Mennonite families on their way to church, it was my intention to write a pithy and poignant blog post about the beauty of life.

Then my lovely Jennifer reminded that she needed some “me” time of her own, complete with her buddy Martin and her favorite stuffed pig. I resisted at first, thinking that what I “needed” to do was more important than what she “wanted” me to do. And then it occurred to me that what she wanted me to do was also a part of the beauty of life.

So I guess that pithy and poignant will have to wait until tomorrow. I’ve got a dog to love and a pig to chase. Have a Blessed Sunday friends.  

Recently I completed the manuscript for my first book. It’s the true story of a ten-year period in my life that was filled with amazing adventures, a bit of international intrigue, and more painful experiences than anyone should have to go through in a single lifetime. It’s a “lessons learned” kind of book that I hope will inspire people to create and live their Best Stories (aka their Best Lives).

I had blocked that ten-year period out of my mind for a long time, because it was too painful to think about or deal with on any level. And then three months ago I summoned the courage to write my way through the pain of that old story and the most amazing thing happened…I began to heal.

In the midst of writing my old story, I found myself in an odd place. I didn’t want to continue writing because the memories were so painful. At the same time, I found myself unable to stop writing. So I had to make a decision to quit or continue. I chose to honor the voice inside of me that implored me to continue writing my story. I plodded on, enduring a couple of stress-induced minor illnesses and several short bouts of frustration (how could I have been so stupid to…) to come out on the other side of my old story, ready to create and live my Best Story.      

I believe that our past experiences are not random events, but stories that we create and live. And it occurs to me that if we create them, we can also let them go, in favor of creating and living our Best Story. I’m convinced that wherever we are in life, regardless of age, financial condition, past or present circumstances, we can let go of our old stories in favor of creating and living our Best Stories.

For most of us, our Best Story is always a work-in-progress. We move through life…loving, leaving, crying and laughing. Sometimes we’re stopping to smell the roses and at other times, somebody’s hurling lemons at us and we’re desperately looking for the lemonade recipe.  

So with that in mind, I’m curious to know if you have ever stopped to think about what you’re telling the world with your story? Do you believe that you’re living your Best Story? Are you willing to let your old story go?

If you want to move in the direction of your Best Story, a good place to begin is with one question and four energies.

First, the question: If money was irrelevant and failure was impossible, what would you do with your life?

If you listen for, trust in and act on the answer to that one question, it will likely guide you in the general direction of your Best Story. 

The four energies that we can call on at any point along the journey, to assist us in creating and living our Best Story are Passion, Intention, Gratitude and Grace

•Passion - Doing what inspires us

•Intention - Focusing our energy (thought and action) on our passion

•Gratitude - Expressing gratitude for the journey and for our blessings along the way

•Grace - Living with humility equal to our blessings

Passion starts us down the path to our Best Story. Intention keeps us steady on the path. Gratitude opens the path to attract more blessings along the way. Grace widens the path so that others may join us.