Note from Stacey: Every Thursday we’re thrilled to offer Laura’s Mileposts in the Distance column. You can read more about Laura below.

This week, whenever I thought about what I wanted to write my mind was curiously blank.  Usually, I have any number of things I want to discuss or recount, but there were a couple of Ferris Bueller moments along the lines of “What’s in this week’s Milepost?”

Silence.

“C’mon, what can we talk about in this week’s Milepost?

Not just silence; it echoed.

Rather than convince myself that the well was completely dry and that I was a complete and hopeless failure as a writer (which is where I would have gone a year ago), I let the thought as to why there is silence simmer as I went about my day.  Finally it dawned on me that I feel rather depleted.  There’s a sort of dehydration of the soul going on as the past few weeks have had some enjoyable highs, some moments of nerves, and others moments that demanded delicacy of thought and action.

If I were so inclined, I could say there was drama but that would be an overstatement of what have just been some emotionally accelerated weeks.  I’ve decided to say my life has been full of “Items of Emotional Interest.”   For a change, these weren’t things I conjured up out of a ripe, juicy imagination only to watch them deflate as I confronted them.  No, they were real moments in the lives of people I love.

Our kids have been through an amazing couple of weeks.  The Handsome Son, always keeping things cool and close to the vest, had an opportunity for a position that he wanted with great passion.  He prepared, he interviewed, then he reworked the interview many times in his head, sure he’d missed some point absolutely essential to getting that position.

The Lovely Daughter mixed things up and spent a calm exam week, only to panic about her only exam AFTER she took it.  She’s spent the first days of her summer vacation checking her grades, certain that the failing grade that will signal the fall of the house of cards that is her academic excellence is only around the corner.

As far as work goes, a project that I’d invested a lot of time and energy nearly had to be cancelled, only to be postponed, while the regular daily emails arrived with all the enthusiasm and complaints that are part of the promotion business.

In each of these cases I only needed to react: to bolster the Handsome Son, cajole the Lovely Daughter, solve the cancellation problem and answer the emails kindly.  But I find that I’ve forgotten to replenish that well of buoyancy that allows me to spring back in a positive frame of mind and I’m moving a bit sluggishly on the emotional front.

I did use the tools that I’ve put in the kit over the past 18 months – meditating, EFT, writing – but I think I need to reach for them sooner.  As I meditated today, all that wafted through my head was “You only control your reaction.”  Something I forget in the heat of the moment.  I couldn’t hand my son a job, or grant my daughter an A or change the circumstances at work, but I could remind myself to stand in the fire calmly and to rehydrate my soul at the first, best opportunity.

To that end, I told Stacey in my weekly update that for the week ahead, I want to be a “Peace Reactor” meaning that when in a place featuring “Items of Emotional Interest” I react in a peaceful manner.  As always, Stacey looked at it a little differently:  “How about moving those letters around a bit and making ‘reactor’ into ‘creator’?”  she answered. “Your intentions and actions really can help “create” peace for others as well as yourself!”

See?  I knew if I waited, the milepost for the week would appear.   And my job this week is to create peace.

To bring the story to a close: the Handsome Son was offered the job less than five hours after that interview.  And the Lovely Daughter has two As and an A- (so far).

Laura Reeth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with the man of her dreams. With kids off at college, she no longer plays the role of active, day-to-day parent, and has moved into the complex understanding-parent-of-nearly-adult-children role. The main difference is she gets more sleep now.

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

I once attended an event with Byron Katie, and one of the many people who joined her on the stage was a young woman who was visibly distraught. (Katie has a process she calls “the Work” that helps people release their stressful thoughts. If you’d like to read more about my interpretation of it, click here.)

She asked this young woman what was distressing her. Crying, the woman said, “I don’t know what my purpose is.” Katie led her through the Work, and encouraged her to see that she no longer needed to pursue “purpose with a capital P.”

She told the young woman that her discomfort was because she was lying to herself. She was in pain because she was telling herself she needed to be doing something other than what she was doing. And it wasn’t true.

By the end of her time with Katie the woman seemed relieved. I talked with her after the event, and she said she definitely felt better. She understood Katie’s point that if she could stop thinking she was supposed to be doing something really special, she would be happy. But she was still a little dubious. She said it still didn’t feel like enough.

I knew what she meant. When I was 20 I had no idea who I wanted to be when I grew up and the ignorance was not bliss—it was painful. My father was a physician, and my older brother was in medical school, and I perceived a lot of pressure to choose an “important” profession, something that would give my life a deep sense of purpose.

A while back I took the Enneagram questionnaire and discovered I’m a “7,” which is an “enthusiast,” someone who seeks new and exciting experiences. This means that a lot of different paths look attractive to me, and of course that was my problem at 20. I didn’t know how to decide which path to choose, and so I didn’t. I graduated from college, took the path of least resistance, and ended up working as a nanny.

I’ll never forget hearing my dad tell one of his friends that he couldn’t believe that, after spending tens of thousands of dollars on his daughter’s education, she was changing diapers. I felt embarrassed by his comment, but it wasn’t like I could protest—I couldn’t believe he’d made such a huge investment with so little obvious return either.

So I set the intention of “finding my purpose.” I decided that by the end of the year I would know which path to choose, and that I would look for clues like a detective—talking to people who seemed happy and fulfilled in their work and listening closely for my own voice to express itself, for my internal guidance system to point me in the right direction.

I was raring to go. And so I was surprised to discover a pivotal clue in a free weekly paper. One day I was looking for activities for my young charge in a local parenting magazine, and I saw an ad for a women’s health center staffed by midwives. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

I didn’t even know that midwives existed in a professional capacity—I thought they were the stuff of folklore—and I was intrigued. And that’s the moment I would say I felt my internal guidance system kick in. It seemed to be pointing me right to this clinic. I was overdue for a yearly checkup, so I made an appointment and ended up talking for more than an hour with the midwife who did my exam.

I left there knowing that I wanted to be a midwife and that I would do whatever it took to become one. Good thing, too, because it took 7 years. That was almost 20 years ago and I still love midwifery as much as I believed and hoped I would the day I left that clinic.

I could never have imagined how my life opened up to me after I made my decision to become a midwife, and I believe 100% that it would have opened as fully to me if I had pursued any other path—because it’s definitely held true for any other dream or goal I’ve committed to.

Working as a midwife also revealed my passion for coaching. When I first heard about life coaching—the profession of helping other people define and achieve their dreams—I thought, “That’s what I do every day.”

It only took about 3 more years for me to realize that I could pursue my passion and create the business that allowed me to quit my hospital job (but not midwifery!), help many more women discover their purpose and achieve their dreams, and all while providing for my family.

So I would say to anyone who doubts their purpose: you could take a page from Byron Katie’s map and see that your purpose is to take the path before you, and simply avoid the side paths that are marked with doubt or fear.

Or take a page from my map and be a detective looking for clues to your purpose. Simply pay attention over the next couple of days or weeks or months. After all, the best way to find something is to look for it. But here’s the key: set a definite date by which you will decide what your purpose is and then fully commit to it.

Or finally, you could take a page from Mother Theresa’s map. She said, “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

And that is enough.

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

Note from Stacey: Every Thursday we’re thrilled to offer Laura’s Mileposts in the Distance column. You can read more about Laura below.

It started, as wonderful things sometimes do, as a chore.  We need to get our beach house ready for the rental season, but MDR and I prefer to relax here in the off season, not do chores.  The list of things to do around Memorial Day weekend was beginning to leach any joy from the possibilities latent in the unofficial start of summer.

I looked at my schedule from now until the end of May and chose the best place for an afternoon drive to the beach, an evening and morning of chores, then the drive back.  Not the most exciting way to spend a day and a half, but it would do and give us back some time over the holiday.

Of course, in the manner of all getaways, e-mails and phone calls and the regular day to day stuff got in the way and departure was later than expected.    I was feeling a bit stressed.  But the magic of the ocean has properties even 190 miles inland.  As soon as I turned on the audio book and set my sights east, I started to relax.

It’s different to head to a vacation place alone.  No need to confer with anyone else about when to eat or where.  Here were 24-ish hours in which I had the sole say in what I would do and when.  Sure a honey-do list of things awaited, but I could work as late as I needed and get up as early as I wanted.

The sun was in the west as I pulled in the driveway.    I opened up the house, raised the storm shutters for the season, threw open most of the windows to freshen up the air inside, then went downstairs to tackle the closet at the top of the list.  Two hours later, it was pristine and I was a dusty, sandy mess.  But the result was a closet that I was happy to open and felt comfortable asking renters to.

A job well done.

Showered off the grime, dressed in clean clothes and walked the block to our favorite taphouse on the beach.  My plan was a healthy dinner and a beer at the bar, and that was exactly what I got in the quiet restaurant and empty bar.  Now this was a place thick with people two weekends ago, but I found my new go-to night out:  Tuesday nights at the beach in the off season.  I could hear the music.  I could chat with the bartender, I could read a little.  And someone else made dinner.

Bliss.

I was back at it early the next morning, with the windows wide open and the ocean serving as breakfast music before the beach “rush hour” traffic started to drown it out.  Then I visited with our neighbors before showering and heading back east.

Our beach neighborhood is an eclectic mix of homes with some strictly serving as rentals and others as year round homes.  We are three lots back from the beach and off the beach road, but the height of our house and the lack of it in our neighbors to the east mean that we have a view of the ocean from all our windows, not just the deck.

I took a break and brought up the instagram app on my phone and snapped this photo.  The timeless quality of the house at the ocean, the synchronistic appearance of the PT Cruiser made it look like something that might have been taken 50 years ago.

Not everyone wants a photo of a house that’s not their own, but this suited my mood perfectly.   I’ll happily share the house with MDR and the kids in less than two weeks, but these 29 hours were a small gift, a moment in time.

A postcard from the beach.

Laura Reeth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with the man of her dreams. With kids off at college, she no longer plays the role of active, day-to-day parent, and has moved into the complex understanding-parent-of-nearly-adult-children role. The main difference is she gets more sleep now.

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

Do you wish you had a step-by-step system to unlock your natural state of happiness? What if the process only involved 4 simple practices? Would you want to know more? Me, too!

That’s why I was delighted to be asked to review Code to Joy: The Four-Step Solution to Unlocking Your Natural State of Happiness by Drs. George Pratt and Peter Lambrou.

Psychologists Pratt and Lambrou open their book with the great story of a young truth-seeker who visited a wise monk and asked if the old man would tell him the path to peace and perfect joy.

The monk invited him in to have a cup of tea. As they sat the young man began telling about his studies, his many years questing for knowledge and all of his travels. As the young man talked the old man just nodded and smiled.

After a while the monk brought out a teapot and two cups. He began pouring the tea into the seeker’s cup and continued pouring, pouring, and pouring.

Finally the young man realized the tea was spilling all over the table and onto the floor. He leaped to his feet and cried out, “Old man, are you nuts?! My cup is already full—it won’t take any more!”

Without uttering a word the old man had pointed out that his visitor was already so full of his own ideas and thoughts it would have been pointless to tell him anything new about life.

Pratt and Lambrou contend this is exactly why our efforts to fill ourselves with positive new beliefs and good habits, or to resolve to change old patterns of thought and behavior are so often frustrating: there is no room for the new beliefs until we empty out the old ones.

This was a huge aha for me in understanding why popular approaches, such as affirmations, are so rarely effective in and of themselves. They need to be paired with approaches that address the deep-seated beliefs that can undermine the new practices.

Pratt and Lambrou talk a lot about the subconscious vs. the conscious, and they reminded me of the best metaphor I’ve heard for the relationship between those two parts of our mind: The subconscious mind is like an elephant and the conscious mind is like a human riding on that elephant. Which do you think is more powerful?

And so we must connect deeply with the subconscious in order to create change that will lead to authentic and lasting happiness.

The authors of Code to Joy offer a variety of exercises for cleaning out the old thoughts and focusing on our desired state of mind. In setting up these exercises, they’ve drawn from meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy and Meridian Taping (EFT or Tapping for short)—practices you’ve heard me wax enthusiastically about many times before!

One exercise I absolutely love and am incorporating into my daily routine is the Pledge of Acceptance.

What is the Pledge? First you find an affirmation that resonates for you (what they call your Personal Code to Joy), like “I deeply and completely accept myself. I am worthy of MASSIVE success.” (That’s mine.)

Then place your right hand over your heart, as if you were saying the Pledge of Allegiance. There is a nerve bundle located here, lying just beneath your fingertips. If you press or rub the spot, it will feel a little tender.

They call this the repattering spot: rubbing this spot triggers a neurolymphatic response that functions something like a major acupoint (where energy tends to get blocked).

Don’t worry if you’re not sure whether you’ve located the exact right spot. Firm pressure in this general area above your heart will activate the nerve bundle and produce the desired effect.

Rub this repatterning spot in a clockwise motion with the flats of your fingertips of your right hand.

As you rub the area, repeat your personal code to joy, either aloud or silently to yourself, five times.

Rubbing the nerve bundle opens a gateway to the biofield, allowing your statement to enter you and sink in on a far deeper level than the affirmation alone.

It is a deeply soothing and grounding process.

I really would encourage you to read the book. But if you take away nothing else, I recommend you incorporate the following practice into your daily routine:

The Daily Refresher

• Two minutes of Crosshand Breathing. (In a seated position, cross your left ankle over your right. Place your left hand across your chest, so that the fingers rest over the right side of your collarbone. Then cross your right hand over your left, so that the fingers of your right hand rest over the left side of your collarbone. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. As you breathe in, let your tongue touch the roof of your mouth, just behind your front teeth. As you breathe out again, let your tongue rest behind your lower front teeth.)
• Pledge of Acceptance with the Personal Code to Joy statement (see above), aloud or silent (five times).
• One minute of Anchor Hold (simply place one hand on your forehead, as if you were feeling for a fever, and the other hand in the opposite position, cupping the back of your head) while visualizing positive outcomes to circumstances that are currently challenging you.

For the next thirty days, do this three times a day: for example, first thing in the morning, at noon, and last thing at night.

So here’s the major takeaway from Code to Joy: We are hardwired to connect to bliss, but negative thoughts and beliefs can derail our happiness. To be happy and successful you need to work on the conscious and subconscious realms of your psyche.

When you do this you will literally change your biochemistry, change your biofield, change your moods and thoughts and beliefs, and create authentic happiness and true success.

Do you plan to read the book or incorporate some of the practices I outlined in this article into your daily life? And what are you already doing that seems similar?

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

Note from Stacey: Every Thursday we’re thrilled to offer Laura’s Mileposts in the Distance column. You can read more about Laura below.

You can always tell a real friend: when you’ve made a fool of yourself he doesn’t feel you’ve done a permanent job. – Laurence J. Peter

Change, friendship and timing are the words swirling around my head today.   Here in central North Carolina, the season has definitely changed to summer (for the moment).  Even after a decade living in Arizona, I am re-astonished every year by the absolute wall of heat in the South.  Add in the Southeast’s humidity and the past two days have completely taken my breath away.

The Lovely Daughter’s junior year in college is just about over so there is another change a-coming as she heads home for part of her summer.  We’ve achieved a certain rhythm after the Handsome Son’s departure, but now MDR and I need to switch back into house-sharing mode.  I know that being back here is a shock to the daughter’s system as well – she’s fully autonomous over her life at school, except for the weekly calls with us – and now she will be subjected to the laser focus of loving parents.

There lots of other things on the horizon that I will no doubt report as the months pass by but for now we will concentrate on switching gears.  So there’s your change.

Last weekend I attended a writer’s retreat hosted by the Washington Romance Writers and it was an excellent way to leave the cocoon of a winter working in my home office.  It’s one thing to work at a booksigning on a weekend, then spend time with pals and then drive home.  But for me, it’s a whole new can of beans to stay and mingle for two days.

My friend Mary L (of the blog  I mentioned last week) had invited me way back in January to talk about promotion for the writer.  Now I work mainly with one, already famous, writer, but I am never shy about giving my opinion so I accepted.  Four months later I was cursing myself and letting that Head Cheerleader’s voice come to the forefront:

“You’re not as interesting as you think.”

“Who is really going to sit for 45 minutes and listen to you?”

“Are you going to wear THAT?”

I’ve gotten better at shutting the voice down before she does too much damage, so I let her finish one cycle of negativity, then promised the voice that if she would just shut up I would let her have a shot of tequila when we were done.  Then I finished the presentation, which ironically I’d based on building a margarita.

Hey, it was a more casual retreat and I presented just before the bar opened, it made sense in the context.

It went over well.  Actually I went over well – by 8 minutes.  And that was after the voice shrieked five minutes into the session that I didn’t have enough slides and the whole thing was going to be over in 15 minutes so why didn’t I just fake a fainting spell and get out of the room.  In an ambulance.

The Head Cheerleader’s  voice, you notice, gets a little more aggressive when she’s been told to pipe down.

When it was all over, I settled down and had a beer.  Honestly, they just didn’t have my brand of tequila otherwise I would have honored the promise.

Finally, the cloud of nerves opened up and I could look around at the conference clear-eyed.  Great raffle baskets, beautiful flowers, high energy were the orders of the weekend.  Underlying it all was that pulse of strong, unadulterated friendship as groups of pals expanded and contracted, as aspiring writers talked to some of their favorite published authors, as excited writers came and went from their appointments with editors or agents.

You would think a conference like this would be ripe for the miasma of jealousy, but if it was there it was well hidden.  I’m not naïve enough to think that when a group of writers who mainly work alone are put into the company of other writers there isn’t a bit of comparing and contrasting success.  But for this weekend, that was put in the corner.

The one workshop I did attend was given by a group of friends who blog as the Waterworld Mermaids.  They met at this very same conference in 2011 – newbies to the group one and all – who found each other and grew a friendship that is energetic and alive.  And full of glitter, I think.  To me, they exemplify all that is good about a writer’s conference:  the relationships that are nurtured with other writers.  And the chance to find friends who never think that a foolish moment is a permanent one.

So there’s your friendship.

For me, the best conference souvenirs are new pals.  After this weekend, I have a ton of Facebook friends I can’t wait to follow.  But just as at the national conference last summer where I met a new, dear friend from England, this weekend I met a person just destined to be a pal.

And I learned again about the universe’s sly sense of timing.  (You knew it was coming.)

When we had to the time to chat during the course of the weekend, it turned out Miss B and I had lived parallel lives that actually intersected in 2000 when she was part of a group of romance writers I hosted at a Barnes & Noble in Scottsdale.  None of the things that made sense in a friendship now were there a decade ago, but when it was least expected there she was – trying on my new shoes.

Not looking foolish at all.

I’m curious to see where the winds go next.

Laura Reeth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with the man of her dreams. With kids off at college, she no longer plays the role of active, day-to-day parent, and has moved into the complex understanding-parent-of-nearly-adult-children role. The main difference is she gets more sleep now.

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

If you see yourself practicing 4-5 of these tips in your relationships already, then bravo! I bet you’re enjoying a satisfying love relationship.

If you’re doing 2-3 of these things, then you might want to introduce the other tips soon.

And if you’re in the 0-1 range, well . . . I don’t want to tell you what you should do, but I promise you these tips have helped me create a successful and happy relationship and I’d love for you to make them your practice as well.

First, ask yourself: Do I want to be right,
or do I want to be kind?

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott talks about an argument she had with her then-teenaged son. His behavior infuriated her and she wanted to punish him.

But she managed to take a few deep breaths and then shared the above thought and it has helped me so much in my marriage.

I always feel like I’m right in an argument. Always. (Um, who doesn’t?) If I share my woes with my friends and other family members, they always agree with me too.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because I don’t live with them. I live with my husband, and I’ve learned that I’d rather be kind than right. It just feels better.

Again, it always takes me implementing my #1 ground rule in an argument (leave it) before I can access any kindness, but I have so much practice at it now that it’s gotten a lot easier to do (not easy, mind you, but easier).

So I’m going to lay out the five big things that I do when conflict comes up in my relationship. And I invite you to ask yourself if you do them, too.

1. Do you ask, “What Can I Do to Help?”

I give really good advice. People even pay me to give it to them! But you know who doesn’t think I give good advice? My husband. He hates it. He also doesn’t even like it when I “share a story of what I did in a similar situation that worked for me.”

Of course, I’ve never met anyone who likes receiving unsolicited advice.

Solicited advice is different, of course. But my husband never solicits it.

You know what my husband does like? If he is having a hard time, all I have to do is ask, “What can I do to help?” in a thoughtful, nonjudgmental way, and he acts like I’m the most wonderful, helpful person on the planet.

2. Do you make a positive request?

I know this is a shocker, but complaining, whining, making threats and demands doesn’t go over very well with my husband. I used to say things like, “You never…and I always…and just this once would you…just do it!” with shocking regularity.

The threats and demands may have gotten him to do the thing I wanted him to do, but not once did it feel good. I’ve learned to ask, “Would you be willing to…?” and I believe that simple question has magical powers.

There is a caveat: You ask the question with a positive tone, like “Hey, I got two tickets to the ball game, would you be willing to go?” If I ask with even a hint of a stern or complaining tone, my husband gives me a look that means that I might as well have just made a threat or a demand.

Of course, it’s taken me a lot practice to get to a place where I can achieve the tone and mean it.

I still even make threats and demands. This is an area where I will always be making progress and never reach perfection.

But I’m glad that I found something that works and allows us both to feel good, and that’s enough for me to keep trying.

3. Do you ask yourself what you think is being withheld—and then give that thing to your partner?

Another guideline that I feel is indispensable in any relationship, I learned from one of my favorite authors, Eckhart Tolle. In his fabulous and (for me) life-changing book, A New Earth, he writes, “Whatever you think people are withholding from you—praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on—give it to them.”

This guideline really goes for everything with everyone at every time. It’s also one that requires a lot of practice on my part to achieve anything approximating proficiency.

Conflict with my husband often revolves around the feeling that we don’t appreciate each other enough. As parents of a young, highly spirited child, it usually takes the form of arguing for more “me” time because “if you appreciated my contribution, you’d understand my need for more time alone and find a way to meet it.”

I argued for it because I cared for needy patients all day. He argued for it because he cared for a needy toddler all day. We used to act resentful of the time the other got “off.”

Finally we stopped looking at what was being “withheld” and simply focused on finding creative solutions to “give that thing” that would meet our needs—first, appreciation for the valuable contribution each of us was making, and second, for time alone.

Finding creative solutions to meet everyone’s needs is one of the most powerful tools you can bring to any relationship, and, again, it takes practice to master it.

4. Do you make time for sex?

Don’t stop reading if you’re not in a relationship: In my opinion (note: this isn’t my husband’s opinion), one of the greatest benefits from sex comes from the release of oxytocin and you don’t need a partner to get that (ahem) release.

And as I mentioned in a previous article, oxytocin is a wonder drug available to everybody. It’s a chemical dispensed from your own brain when you do stuff that involves caring touch—like holding hands, getting a massage, or petting an animal.

It’s called the bonding hormone because it increases our feelings of happy connection with others. So it doesn’t just make us feel good (which my husband thinks is the greatest benefit), it truly makes us better in a relationship.

As a woman who has a very full life with a very full to-do list every day, I know I wouldn’t have sex if I didn’t schedule it.

The days of making love all night are o-v-e-r. My son is a night owl and it’s rare that I have enough energy after he goes to sleep to get it on spontaneously.

But I believe in the many benefits of sex and I commit to it just like anything else that’s important to me, like eating well and getting cardio.

5. Do you have fun?

You know what? I just realized that all of these guidelines could be distilled into one sentence that not only works well for all relationships, but in all of life too: Have fun, be kind and just be light about all of it! Is that your goal, too?

How did you do on this quiz? Let me know in the comments!

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

Note from Stacey: Today celebrates the ONE YEAR anniversary of Laura Reeth sharing fantastic content via her Mileposts in the Distance column, which is featured here every Thursday.  Thank you, Laura, for a wonderful year – I can’t wait to see what the next one brings!

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. – Robert Louis Stevenson

We spent last weekend at the beach.  Saturday was spectacularly gorgeous.  I ran a 5K while MDR biked for miles.  Sunday was a complete washout of a day so we lazed around reading.  I dove into the magazines I’ve let pile up for a while, waiting for a good block of time in which I could immerse myself in potential.  I absorbed pages of gorgeously photographed homes and food and, well, stuff, to my heart’s content as I considered and discarded ideas that could be used or just admired.

The Robert Louis Stevenson quote was on the last page of the last magazine.   It struck a chord deep within me as I thought about writing this milepost.  I suppose you could say it’s time for a harvest of sorts as this the 52^nd milepost, the last in the first year of sharing my thoughts, my worries, my winding stream of conscious as well as  every single body ache known to woman.

As a whole, it’s been a pleasure, even when I faced a blank Word document and knew I need to fill it so Kelly could post it for Thursday morning.  Sometimes I made her wait way too close to Thursday morning before I finished, but she’s been patient every single week.

There were a couple of busy, busy weeks in which Stacey said, “You know, you can skip this week if you need to.”  But I was really looking for consistency in myself and I knew if a week went by without a post, it was highly likely that I would look up and it would have been a month without post.  I wrote these mainly for myself as a way to record moments that seemed particular to me, and yet so many people warmly commented that they felt the same.

Some posts that I thought may have been too glib or too smart-alecky were the ones that generated the most comments.  Some of the ones that I later thought may have delved a little too deeply into the maze that is my mind were given the kindness of thoughts and response.  For that, I truly thank each and every person who has stopped by.  I am hugely honored that you’ve taken time in your busy life to read these posts.

But as I’m not done with this space and year two is dead ahead, I thought I’d write just a little about where I find my own seeds: the places that make life a little prettier.  I looked over my Google reader feed and, to a site, the places I prefer create and celebrate beauty in all different ways.  I am a shameless lurker in all of these sites, but the quiet elegance in each is a balm to my mind and heart.

I was meandering through the interwebs last summer and came across Jolie Guillebeau who tells stories through her paintings.  Now I get a painting and a story in my mailbox every single morning — the happiest way to start my day.

I seem to be drawn to the Pacific Northwest in terms of the creativity because the next stop is Posie Gets Cozy: a blog that celebrates needlework, cooking, dogs, home and love.  There is a kindness in the writing and truly gorgeous photos alongside the words.  Just go, visit.  You will want to stay.

The first creative blog I ever followed was The Yarnstorm Blog by Jane Brocket.    I came into Yarnstorm well after the initial wave crested and Ms. Brocket was writing a book that came about from the knitting and crocheting she described on the blog.  The entries are not nearly as plentiful as they were in the beginning, but her photos of flowers and buildings and cakes crafted in all sorts of brilliant colors more than make up for the time factor.

Since all of these lovely sites have links to other places that invite you to meander though the realms of creativity, I will end the list with my friend Mary’s blog, Passionate Perseverance.  Mary’s faithful, busy life makes me seem like I am moving in place.  Her interests, like all the others, run to creative endeavors that I dream of, never act upon (look for the post about making the Christening dress and I dare you not to be awed) and yet she makes the time around the demands of raising a daughter with special needs (and a cheery wardrobe).

Each of these bloggers tells a story of a life, lived imperfectly at times, strained and simmered through everyday joys and sorrows, all the things I do with my own life in these mileposts.

It’s been a fast year, even when I tried to obey the speed limit, and it’s one in which I’ve learned a great deal.  I can’t wait to see what’s up ahead, but I’ll take it one day, one mile at a time, scattering seeds along the way.

Laura Reeth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with the man of her dreams. With kids off at college, she no longer plays the role of active, day-to-day parent, and has moved into the complex understanding-parent-of-nearly-adult-children role. The main difference is she gets more sleep now.

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In my coaching programs I tell my clients all the time that it’s better to do 15 (or even 5!) minutes of action related to their priorities every day than to plan on getting in a big 2-hour chunk once a week. I call it the power of “imperfect action.”

Sure, it would be great if you could do a big 2-hour chunk once a week. But if you are choosing between doing a lot of some activity every now and then OR doing a little bit every day (or most days), choose little and often.

I’m assuming, given the fact that you are reading my article and not something written by Tony Robbins, that you are more interested in greater inner peace and overall well-being than world domination.

I’m also assuming that you are drawn to my work mostly because you want to cultivate your capacity for attention, awareness, compassion, courage, perseverance, commitment, flexibility, and self-kindness.

For that kind of life, little and often is of more benefit than big chunks every now and then or even every day.

So if your inner taskmaster has been giving you a hard time about doing a little (“Just 5 minutes of meditation? Really? That’s all you are going to do?” or “You only wrote 3 pages? That won’t amount to anything.”), here are some responses you might want to try:

• A little every day is doing me more good than a lot once a week; and (most importantly)
• It’s what I decided would be enough, and it is enough. I am satisfied (even if the relentless taskmaster in my head isn’t).

So, let’s think of some long-held dream or goal of yours. I know there must be something you want to accomplish—something you haven’t yet taken action on because it seems too big. You may have convinced yourself that any small effort you might make can’t be worth it.

But think for a moment. Give this question your full attention: Is there a condition to taking action that is out of your control? Does taking action require resources you don’t yet have? Is it an action that needs for something else to happen at some point in the future?

Let’s say, for example, that you want to start your own business. To do that, you know that you’d have to clear any number of hurdles. There’d be money to scrape together, business plans to draw up. You might have to change significant parts of your lifestyle. And from where you stand now, it all probably seems so far down the road that there’s no point in even turning on the engine.

But that’s not true. If you think hard enough, if you really consider, you will come up with something you can do right now. You could start by asking for advice from someone you know who runs a successful business. Or you could start by simply writing down why you want to start such a business. In ten seconds you can start your car; in five minutes you can start the journey to your dreams.

So—do you have a goal in mind? Great.

Now here are 3 simple steps that will help you determine an action that focuses just on what you can do, now, with the resources currently available to you.

What is a single action you can take that is:

1. within your control (it doesn’t rely on the cooperation of someone else)
2. within your current resources, and
3. immediate (doesn’t require you to wait).

Now that you’ve answered these questions, you are ready to take “imperfect action,” and it really is more than enough. Now, go and do it!

And if you had already decided on and taken a first step, but then you got stuck, use those three criteria to find another step you can take.

Bonus points if you choose an action that makes your inner critic start to sit up and pay attention, something that makes the snoozing guard of your comfort zone sit up in her chair and say: “Hey, you, where do you think you are going?”, which often comes out sounding like “Who do you think you are?”

Recognize the fear, look at it with kindness and say “Thank you for your concern, but I trust myself on this one. I’ve got it. You can trust me too. I PROMISE.”

And then go ahead and take that step.

Remember: Little and often. It’s my mantra, and you know what? It helps.

What helps you take the small steps that lead to your big dreams? Please share in the comments!

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Note from Stacey: Every Thursday we’re thrilled to offer Laura’s Mileposts in the Distance column. You can read more about Laura below.

You may have gleaned the fact from some of my posts that I’m not all that partial to change.  The flip side of that is I can’t resist a challenge – something both Stacey and Becca have used to their advantage.  Which I admit – begrudgingly — is also to mine.

Make lists of the top three priorities the next day?  Not so sure about that, Stacey.  But what do you know?  It focuses me.

Pull a 45 lb plate across the gym floor? With my feet? Yeahsureright, Becca.  I don’t think so.  But what do you know? I can do it, and therefore I know I can do a lot of things.

Take 30 minutes every Sunday to focus on the week ahead?  Don’t you know that there’s football or basketball or golf to watch, Stacey?  But what do you know? It lays the week out on a logical path and centers me.

Balance on one leg on a BOSU while curling and pressing a 15 lb dumbbell?  Are you insane, Becca? But what do you know?  On certain days I can kill that move.

When we were going over accomplishments in 2011 and looking forward to 2012, Stacey mentioned that she really thought daily meditation was a missing part of the puzzle that is my day to day life.

Really, Stacey? (That’s my dialogue when presented with something new).  Do I really have to put aside time – as soon as I get up – to meditate?  She was firm on it and since she knows I won’t resist the challenge without a good reason, I was stuck.

I decided to give it five minutes a day during December, figuring it would help during the holidays and it would be habit come the new year.  Stacey has some sterling advice about ways to meditate, methods to try, movements to incorporate.

I ignored it all.  (Sorry about that, Stacey!)

I got up, had a cup of water, made a cup of coffee, sat on my heretofore unused meditation cushion, got up and found a shawl to wear to keep out the chill, set my Zen meditation chimer on my phone for five minutes and started.  Personally, I like the simple method of watching my breath, counting from 1-10 (inhale on odd number, exhale on the even) and starting over once I hit 10.  It’s a method Karen Maezen Miller describes on her blog (http://www.karenmaezenmiller.com/how-to-meditate ) and my go-to whenever my mind gets too busy.

The first day I lasted 2 minutes.  That was it.  I’d sat there, given it a shot, time to move on.

Day 2, it was 2 minutes 30 seconds.  See?  I could do it!  But that was enough.  I wasn’t even waiting for the five minute bell, it was over.

Day 3, I thought about it:  was this working?  Did I really want to sit there when there was so much to do?

“Like what?” asked that head cheerleader. “ Read email?  Read the newspaper?  RUN???”

OK, I was stuck between a promise to Stacey and the rather annoying little chirpy voice in my head.

Five minutes was the time I had sworn to meet and I would stick it out if it killed me.  So when I got antsy on Day 4, I switched the breath pattern to Accept (what I needed) on the inhale, Release (what was no longer necessary to me) on the exhale.  And I got to 5 minutes.  Barely.

I made it through December.  Did I mention the weekends were off? No?  They were.

January 1 signified the start of a 10-minute practice every morning.  And my goodness, it was an eternity, no matter how I worked that breath.  I spent most of the first two weeks insanely emotional about everything and said to Stacey something along the lines of “Why is this happening???? I am meditating!”

She said (with a bit of a laugh), “Yup.”

Let’s pause and edit my list at the top of this post:  I am not partial to change or laughing “Yups” and cannot resist a challenge.

I kept at it, every day.  I made it to the 10 minutes, no matter how hard it was.  I was determined.  But I couldn’t really see how this practice doing anything since my thoughts bounced around like ping pong balls every morning.   My mind was definitely not quieted by meditation.

Then I went to the spa and found myself getting up at 6:30 (sleeping in from my usual 5:45) no matter how late I went to bed, to meditate.  For 10 minutes.  Even though I was on vacation and I couldn’t get my water and my coffee, I sat there and centered myself.

Because that’s what it does.  It centers me.  Today for instance, was one of those floundering days where I am so critical of everything I’ve done or haven’t done.    And just the action of putting my meditation practice into words has calmed me, centered me.

Meditating at the spa also made me realize that I have set up an altar of sorts every morning:  that first cup of coffee.  I take one sip, just one, then I put it on the floor just in front of me and inhale the reward at the end of my 10 minutes.  It makes that first cup all the more refreshing.

I’ve started playing with the idea of 15 minutes in the morning.  Just playing, mind you.  So don’t tell Stacey, ok?  She’ll just nod her head, smile and say, “Yup.”

And you know how much I love that.

Laura Reeth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with the man of her dreams. With kids off at college, she no longer plays the role of active, day-to-day parent, and has moved into the complex understanding-parent-of-nearly-adult-children role. The main difference is she gets more sleep now.

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!

Helen Keller once said, “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” I would amend that state­ment to include “and if we never got off the beaten path.”

If we try, we can remem­ber our own past brav­ery as a way to help us feel more coura­geous as we con­tem­plate step­ping onto the road less taken.

Some­times, though, when we look back on our life, we can only remem­ber the times things didn’t work out. And those mem­o­ries can get in the way of choos­ing to be brave today.

We say to our­selves: Things went wrong in the past, what if things go wrong again?

Things haven’t always worked out great for me. When I returned from Mex­ico after work­ing with Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders, I had no job wait­ing for me. My hus­band wasn’t work­ing and we had used up all of our savings.

As soon as I got back to the States I applied for every job in the nurs­ing field I could find — even jobs that were way below my level of exper­tise (and for­mer earn­ings). I went 2 months before I received a job offer.

The job was as a com­mu­nity health nurse. It would have required work­ing 5 days a week, with very lit­tle time involved in actual patient care because it required a lot of travel and paperwork.

I knew I needed the income but when offered the posi­tion, I just couldn’t accept it. Every fiber of my being knew that I would be mis­er­able at that job. I thanked the nurse man­ager but declined the offer, hung up the phone, and BURST into tears.

I felt cursed by the warn­ings of my father and so many well-meaning oth­ers who had told me that I was fool­ish for quit­ting my good job to take a vol­un­teer posi­tion in Mex­ico, and that I was crazy to think that I could find an even bet­ter job on my return.

All that is to say that I am famil­iar with the demons of grief, anx­i­ety, self-doubt and despair that can haunt you when you get off the beaten path. Very familiar.

My leaps of faith and acts of brav­ery haven’t always worked out exactly the way I had hoped. In fact they’ve often found me down on my knees in despair ask­ing God how I could have been brought this far to fail.

Another month after that “down on my knees” dark place, I did get my dream job, work­ing as a nurse-midwife for a busy hospital-based birthing cen­ter that cares for pre­dom­i­nantly Latina patients — work­ing 24 hours a week for more pay than I made work­ing 50–60 hours a week in my for­mer mid­wifery position.

I worked that job hap­pily for 8 years before I decided that it was time to leave it for my next leap — where you find me today.

And, yes, one year after quit­ting that job, this par­tic­u­lar leap hasn’t worked out exactly the way I hoped either.

My expe­ri­ence of the road less taken has not always been filled with bright sun­shine and frol­ick­ing uni­corns. And yet, when I finally stopped fight­ing the ques­tions and the doubts and the fears and allowed myself to sim­ply be sad or con­fused, I real­ized that every­thing actu­ally was okay.

Even when things are not at all the way I want and expect them to be, they are still okay.

“Things are still okay”? What does that mean?

What it means to me is that I can focus on what I am doing and-most impor­tantly–how I am doing it, and then I can let go of need­ing to con­trol, or even worry about, the outcome.

I have sur­vived fail­ures before, and I will sur­vive them again.

And I prac­tice remem­ber­ing that things always get bet­ter, eventually.

As a char­ac­ter says in Kate DiCamillo’s children’s story, The Tale of Des­pereux, there are many won­der­ful things out there to be afraid of. But your regrets about the past or wor­ries about the future prob­a­bly don’t make the grade.

In these instances, rec­og­niz­ing your fears for what they are-stories about the past that might not now apply, or sto­ries about the future that might never come true-will help.

The Brazil­ian writer Paulo Coelho has said, “Every­thing will be all right in the end. If it’s not, then it’s not the end.” I’ve con­tem­plated that quote enough in good times that it helps me to keep putting one foot in front of the other when things get tough off the beaten path.

What about you? What helps you feel brave as you travel the road less taken? Please share your chal­lenges and tri­umphs in the comments!

If you liked this post, I think you’ll enjoy the free weekly Special Delivery eZine. Just sign up here and it will delivered to your inbox every Tuesday!