Attracting Paradise

Little did I know it was our last dance, there in the rum shack in Spanish town. The speakers were crooning country western, “Blue Eyes crying in the Rain” and we danced outside pressing together in slo mo and I thought how much I loved and missed our sensual, easy, open enjoyment of one another.

When, a couple of days later, my romantic leading man told me the romance had gone for him a while ago, that he’d spent the past month acting ‘as if’ and had decided he did not want to be in the relationship any more, I said,  “Wow”, “Knock me over with a feather.,” “When were you going to tell me?”  Cut and run? Fear? Sucker punch. Better now than later. Hazel eyes crying on the boat.

If I really loved him shouldn’t I be on the floor, incapacitated for weeks??? Begging him to change his mind or plotting my revenge. Instead, I’m teary eyed with a big lump in my gut and a mind that can’t help racing over the past months reviewing life in the light of what I know now. I’m swimming in a sea of emotions ranging from powerless, hurt, angry, sad, relief, joy and back again like ocean swells.

We’d been struggling and something had to change. I was planning on going home, reclaiming one of my cottages and hoping we’d step up to the plate and do some healing together. There was a wounded, powerless, angry, sullen, hurting 8 year old in me that wanted healing. I was picturing a life that honored him and me and us. When I created a new vision board in my mind, he was a part of it, along with the boat and my house and music and love and the sea etc….

I’m disappointed he decided not to go any further with me and that I’m not in his bigger picture. He must have gone through something that he chose not to or couldn’t share or maybe he tried and I didn’t listen. All I know is he broke up with me and, rather than dying of a broken heart, I am turning it into new lease – a “Next Segment”

Dave and Annie

and I’m sprouting new feathers. A blog title came to mind:  My Boyfriend Broke up with Me, So How Come I’m not Broken-Hearted?

Tears flow freely for our special connection and for the pure joy of loving and being loved. I say thank you, thank you, thank you. I am so grateful. More please.

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Last weekend I went to my ex’s wedding. It was a moving, joy filled celebration of love and commitment at any age and a wonderful party.  It was also proof that love trumps all,  forgiveness heals old wounds and relationships are forever offering  gifts if we’re open to receiving them. I loved seeing old friends, many of who were guests at our wedding 24 years ago and my ex and his bride were glad I showed up. It was a miracle as defined by The Course in Miracles: a change in perception/seeing things differently. On this balmy afternoon, new seeing left me feeling light, uplifted and radiant, surrounded by warm hugs, dances, reunions, new friends and old.

If you had told me in 2000 that I’d be feeling love and friendship for my ex I would have said, ‘No Way.” Anger, hurt and self-righteousness had hardened my heart. I had my dukes up. I’d turned my life upside down and, celebrating my freedom, I  struggled with single parenthood and going it alone. Thanks to our daughter, my ex and I stayed connected over phone lines and annual visits when I moved away with Lily, but our conversations were short, to the point and emotionally charged. No lost love, you might have said, but there was.

Our 23 year old daughter was in the wedding party and it brought tears to my eyes to behold her: beautiful, grown up and happy, walking down the outdoor aisle at Inspiration Hall at Paradise Cove. We took our photo ops hugging and chatting easily and our couple of years of teen/mom acrimony, worry, anger and frustration flashed before me. I gave thanks for yet another miracle, for new vision, the transformational power of forgiveness and the healing power of love.

They say that time heals all wounds but it takes more than time to drain the emotional abscesses that get down deep and fester or lie dormant popping up and infecting every other relationship including the one with ourselves and our higher powers (God, Source, our inner guidance). Looking back over these past 12 years and over the past couple of difficult years with my daughter I could see what helped me most to move to this gathering place free of anger and hurt with open arms and an open heart.

When I discovered the Law of Attraction, I started to move from being a victim and thinking that someone else was responsible for my happiness to learning about being a deliberate creator of my life, inside and out. I meditated and glimpsed my true nature underneath (and beyond) the endless mental chatter. Tapped into a source of love and joy, I focused on what I wanted rather than on what I didn’t want and realized that being happy was the best way to attract more of the same into my life. Since ‘thoughts become things’ I paid attention and started thinking thoughts that would lead me to happier places. I did lots of inner work (therapy, prayer, meditation, spiritual study and becoming a coach) which helped me to heal, to discover who I really am, dismantle limiting beliefs, let go of expectations and assumptions, take responsibility for myself and stop playing the blame game. The Law of Attraction has helped me, allowed me to help others and to have lots of fun along the way. I decided to end the drama and rediscover the joy in my relationships and, while it’s a work in progress, I am so much happier now and eternally grateful for all that I now celebrate including this magical afternoon at my ex’s wedding.

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The deliciousness of contrast

The Law of Attraction says we come into the world to have experiences, give birth to new desires and expand the universe.  There’s nothing better than contrast to highlight what we love by showing us what we don’t. In the  buffet of life,  I started at the vegetable station,  tasted brussel sprouts and gagged.  I don’t  waste time on brussel sprouts anymore  knowing that I’m happier hanging out with string beans.

The experience of contrast can be painful and unpleasant. Illness unleashes a desire for well-being and we chooses  jobs,  relationships and health regimes only to find the job boring, the relationship abusive and the health regime ineffective.  If we are wise we will let this information inform our next decisions  by pointing us in the direction of what we love so we can choose anew.

But, it’s not always about choosing one thing or the other. It’s about loving the contrast and delighting in the myriad tastes and experiences available always and everywhere.

En route to a friends house, I made a quick stop at Food Center because I was hungry.  I chose one very green granny smith apple  and a bag of home made pretzels. At my friends, I created an hors d’oeuvre plate – slices of apple and pieces of crisp, salty thick pretzel. We each bit a piece of each and looked at each other with a WOW. The tart sweetness of the granny smith was driven crazy by the crisp, saltiness of the pretzel.  We started musing about other combos that embody the pure deliciousness of contrast.

1. The walrus-like joy of basking in the warm sun and feeling a cool breeze blowing by

2. Hot fudge Sundaes –
2. Hot and sour soup
3. Curry and mango chutney
4. Baked Alaska (akin to the hot fudge Sunday but in a class all by itself)

5. Wasabi and ginger

6. Heat on in the car with cold air blowing in your face (kind of like the sun and wind

7.  Your suggestions here.

The best part  is when each of the pair is distinct and totally itself in that  initial burst of contrasting flavors (and sensations). What makes for magic and steals the show isn’t the apple OR the pretzel but APPLE + PRETZEL = THE DELICIOUSNESS OF CONTRAST

In a relationship – her spiciness enlivens his solidity and together their dance is about lightness and stability. Her  love of planning allows his spontaneous nature to have places to stay each night. His extroversion may be over the top and point her in the direction of a more introverted partner and a business team is best built of contrasting personality types. Crowded conditions may lead us to creating rooms of our owns and places of peace.  Opposites like  Ying and Yang are two parts of a whole: inside and out, happiness and sadness, hot and cold, light and dark, peace and confusion, noise and silence, love and fear, sweet and sour, wet and dry.  Contrast helps us define, describe and create worlds.

When I appreciate contrast and stop  judging things good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable, I live in a beautiful kaleidoscope of shifting pieces, patterns and possibilities. I may prefer one over another, be drawn to this or that, like red better  than blue but I know  it is all bounty.  Every experience comes bearing gifts, one of which is always a lesson in the deliciousness of contrast.

May we all come to appreciate the sea of flavors in which we swim, learn from them all and be nourished, inside and out.

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The Bel Ami is anchored in Anegada with new charter guests who came, as they all do, bearing gifts. I now have a Wisconsin badger t-shirt that says “Captain Dave’s Wench”,  much wisdom about business, art collecting, history, second marriages, cooking okra and a new vocabulary word,  lagnappe.

We consider our guests’ likes, dislikes and wish lists  for what to see, where to go and what to do and we consider the weather. . My captain  consults weather sites daily that zone in on our part of the world and tell him about wind direction, wind speed and likely precipitation.  We share this information with our guests when planning their trip. Since we’re are a sail boat that rarely turns on its motor,  the weather makes heading certain places easy, doable, challenging, not advisable or impossible.

It’s amazing to see the same places under different conditions and watch the world morph from benign or  inviting to scary and forbidding in a heartbeat (like when I realized that picking up a mooring ball at the Baths in Virgin Gorda might turn me into a woman overboard). It’s a whole different trip to sail to Anegada  in a straight line ( one tack) than zig zagging and taking twice as long.

We live in a world of climates and shifting weather. Waking up to a sunshiny day and a rainbow is better than vitamins. Grey skies and torrential rains not only impact our moods but how early we leave for work, what we wear, whether we look for that lost umbrella and how carefully we drive our cars down roads that are walls of water. We pay lots of attention to the weather outside. We listen to the radio, read the newspaper and check internet sites when deciding whether to plan a picnic for the coming week- end or not. The weather is a reliable topic of conversation as we worry about global warming and plan vacations to escape cold or heat.

The world outside stays the same except in extreme weather conditions like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis that change the landscape (sometimes forever).  Even if it looks different when its raining, or  hazy or so hot and still that everything seems to be baking and drying up in the heat, the rain can come and turn the island green.  In places of dramatic seasonal changes, things are basically the same underneath no matter what the season.

Our emotional lives are the weather on the inside.  While I’m on a sailing journey,  I’m also on an emotional journey and I’ve learned that taking stock of my inner weather conditions (emotions) makes all the difference which is why I tune into my inner weather channel every morning. I ask : feeling good? or feeling bad? and to get clearer about the subtler movements of my inner weather system I ask if the feeling bad is anger,  depression,  sadness  or the feeling good is hopeful,  enthusiasm,  joy.

Inner conditions are good to know when gearing up for a corporate presentation, an exam,  a visit to your folks or to getting started on a new project at home or at work. Like deciding not to go to Anegada if there’s no wind,  you might decide to wait for better inner weather before you make an important phone call or a crucial decision. It might be wise to consider the acronym HALT and ask if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired before doing something that you might regret and taking the appropriate action to mange the weather – eating, venting, calling a friend or taking a nap. There are some things that are better on fair weather days.  Even if you can’t reschedule or avoid the “what’s up next”,  it’s helps to take inner weather  into account.

Inner weather is trickier than outer weather. All you have to do to know that the weather is inclement is to look outside and  see the rain or ‘rain coming’. Since we are taught to hide our feelings (even from ourselves) appearances are often deceiving. When we put on our make-up, our outfits, our stiff upper lips and head on out,  we are not always taking inner weather into account and we may find ourselves on sharp shoals, in conflicts with loved ones and colleagues and in places that we didn’t really want to go.

A tool that I use with clients and in my own life is  The Emotional Guidance Scale. It’s list of feelings with joy and bliss at the top and powerlessness at the bottom.  It is found in Ask and It is Given, a Law of Attraction classic by Abraham-Hicks. Since your emotions are indicators of your vibrational frequency, in order to move up the scale toward happiness, joy and bliss you have to start where you are now – ie, tune into your inner weather report.  In between powerlessness and bliss there are many other feelings and once you can pinpoint where you are, you can choose a higher frequency feeling.  If you are feeling depressed and powerless, reach for anger because its closer to joy than depression. From there you can reach for other feelings like worry and even disappointment in your climb up the ladder to contentment, hopefulness, enthusiasm and passion enroute to joy,knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love and appreciation.

What if I had only visited the Baths in Virgin Gorda on that stormy day and thought that is what the Baths were like or that because I’m feeling sad and kind of depressed, I will always feel that way. Our inner weather (emotions) have a lot in common with outer weather. Both are always in flux, always changing, always moving from sunshine to rain, from feeling good to feeling bad – and back again. This too shall pass is an apt description for both.  If there is no wind today, there will be wind again sooner than later and if I am feeling sad today, happy days will come again.

When you open your eyes in the morning, check your inner weather (your inner guidance system) as well as the weather outside before plotting your course to minimize the chances that you will be lost in a storm, drenched to the bone, overdressed or  that you will put your foot in your mouth, project your inner weather onto others or get so tangled up in the swells of your emotions that you make poor decisions, dig yourself into a hole or play victim.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of waiting for the storm to pass or revising your plans and there’s nothing like the rainbow after the rain or the relief of finding that good feeling place inside.

Remember, even as the weather swirls around and within us there is an eternal place of deep calm and abiding peace. In a hurricane they call it the eye, and in times of trouble it is that still, silent place within.

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Each Valentine’s Day for the past 10 years I have thought of my friend Nancy Jacobs who once asked me to distribute long stemmed roses to her kids’ teachers in thanks for their love and concern during her long illness.

I shared the day with my young daughter and we delighted in gifting friends and strangers alike with roses.

Well, once again Valentine’s Day rolled around and there  I was, sitting around telling the story when I clicked into gear and made up my mind that I was going to do it again this year, put my money where my mouth was and head down to Roses Too.

To make sure that I’d follow through, the friend I’d been talking to called to ask if I’pick up a dozen for a girlfriend.  I was on a valentine’s day mission from then on in.  Selecting two brown paper cones full of long stemmed red roses from the refrigerated room at the florist, I set one aside for delivery and one for me. I started handing them out.  I began with my accountant who lit right up and said it was her first valentine of the day and promptly put it in a vase on her desk.  Next was my favorite newspaper lady at the Frenchtown post office, the two lovely ladies who run Flagship marina, my friend Carrie at the Yacht chandelry and provisioning service, Nancy at the Dockside bookstore…  I stopped by the family and maternal health clinic looking for my mid-wife friend.  She was out to lunch so I left a rose on her desk with a love note.  I put one on my friends’ steering wheel  in the Antilles parking lot.  I gave one to a steel pan player who was delighted to have something to give his lady friend and the long stemmed ladies at the bar at Secret harbor were all smiles at being handed their floral counterparts.  I gave one to my sweetie and we ended up with 6 that have opened to gorgeous rose elegant proportions in a white urn on the boat.

I realized that the brown paper cones full of roses each contained two dozen roses so my friend was gifted with a double sized bouquet and I gave out 18 roses.  It was one of my best valentine’s day’s ever because I spent the day spreading the love.

This year, I have a loving and much loved romantic leading man in my life but I have spent many a year single and what I know for sure is that spreading the love is the best way to ensure that I receive it in all ways, shapes and sizes not the least of which is the smile on each person’s face, the delight, the gratitude –

Give what you would most like to receive. Collect evidence for an abundance of love in all its many manifestations and make everyday a be mine, I love you kind of valentines’ day.

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I finally got around to writing my New Year’s letter. I figure that any day can be the beginning of something big – of a new year, of starting now. I dated it December 31 2012 and I addressed it to my Divine (my inner guidance system) but you can address it to yourself, to your higher power or to Dear Diary. It just helps to be writing to someone.

I started by giving thanks for a most amazing year and looked back over 2012 to acknowledge the changes in all areas of my life: spiritual growth, love, career, financial situation, health, my relationships with my family and even the state of my beloved puppies. I carefully considered how I would like to see things evolve and develop in each area and how I would like to feel. Some things were easy and predictable and grew out of seeds that I have already planted and been tending.  I made sure to leave room for surprises and unexpected twists and turns. I made sure to acknowledged inner growth, especially an ability to roll with the punches, stay light on my feet, be flexible and curious.

I really got on a roll  imagining how I’d like things to be: what I’d like to stay the same and what I’d like to discard. I felt as though I were in a giant cosmic try-on room where I could play with alternate scenarios, push the envelop, be daring and even discover desires and parts of myself that were shy and in hiding. I got to create an amazing year for myself – and in so doing I got the chance to explore and examine my own heart and its deepest longings and create my year from that place.

It’s a work in progress and I get to change it. Today when I reread it (as I have done each day since I wrote it) – I was struck with how cool my year is shaping up to be, how exciting it’s getting and how eagerly I am anticipating everything all that is about to happen.

I made sure to include in my letter that “what is troublesome and difficult will work out even if I don’t know how” and that solutions emerge to all that makes me anxious, including my own ability to soothe my energy, see things differently and stay grateful.

From where I now stand at the beginning of 2011 AND in my imagination on Dec. 31st 2012 – all is well. I have imagined a year that feels wonderful, entirely plausible, possible, likely and includes everything that floats my boat – adventure, romance, spiritual connection, health, personal growth and  I’ve left room for surprises, for not knowing, for being taken somewhere I had no idea I wanted to go or even existed.

When I referred back to my letter to tell my sister how a particular situation was going to work out, I realized that it’s working, that I believe myself and that I know in my heart that the seeds that I have planted have been nourished by putting them in writing. They are already sprouting.

I signed my letter and placed it in an envelope that I’ll open on Dec. 31, 2012. In the mean time, I am enjoying how this ritual has changed how I am stepping out into my life. I am eagerly anticipating what I already know (it was in the letter) is at this very moment, simmering into a most delicious recipe for abundance on all fronts. I set forth this morning curious about the details and expecting to be surprised. Like ‘enhancing a photo’ – there’s a new level of clarity and color and energy that wasn’t there before.

Since What you can do with your life has little to do with what’s going on in the world And everything to do with what you see as possible, I suggest that you ‘sit right down and write yourself a letter….”

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I’m on my way to Jost Van Dyke with my honey and his daughter, bf and family. We’re taking them sailing and we’re going to get the trip (and the year) off to a memorable start at Foxy’s: great company, great music, high spirits (no puns intended). I’m already cultivating one of my themes for 2012 – Eager Anticipation.

There’s a lot to be said for being excited about something that’s coming up. The psychology of the Advent calendar has us approaching the big day with excitement and starts each day with the high vibration of eager anticipation. There’s nothing like it for build up and it’s powerful ripple effect. Eager anticipation makes everything taste better and it is contagious.

As a coach I get lots of emails at this time of year offering programs and seminars and tele-conferences focused on goal setting, finding the love you want in 2012, being abundant in the new year, getting your business off to a rousing start, shifting gears, stepping up to the plate etc…. I too have a great year-end completion and New Year beginning exercise that I’m going to do but this time I’ll be adding a heaping dose of eager anticipation to the recipe. It’s the best way I know of to make sure that whatever it is I’m wanting to see, do, experience is something that not only floats my boat but fills my sails and carries my spirit aloft in a big way.

You may want to lose weight, stop smoking (the top resolutions), exercise daily, reduce your cholesterol, stop swearing (I heard that one the other night), mediate regularly, be a more attentive parent, a more loving spouse, earn more money, stop biting your nails. But when you think about it – how excited are you about any of these?

Maybe you could get excited about going on a hiking trip with your honey next summer. With that big day in mind, exercising daily, losing weight, becoming a non-smoker are the natural precursors for your eagerly anticipated trip.

You dream of writing a book and are looking forward to attending a writing workshop in the spring. You can’t wait to study with authors you admire. When you sit down to write each morning before you go to work, you picture getting on the plane with a finished first draft of your memoir feeling deeply satisfied and excited and it’s that feeling you carry forth into your day. It makes everything better and it keeps you writing even when you’d rather sleep late.

What turns you on? What are you eagerly anticipating? When you close your eyes and dream, what are you doing, being, and having? What’s going on inside and outside in the life of YOU that makes you sing and dance and want to tell everyone all about it? These are not idle questions? The answers are the building blocks of creation. Imagination is the cosmic soup from which everything arises.

That’s what I’m aiming for in 2012 – a year of eager anticipation.

Like one of my favorite poets Mary Oliver says:
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Please join me in fanning the flames of eager anticipation. and say “thank you for everything” to 2011 and “yes to all that will be” in 2012.

Happy New Year.

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It’s easy to be thankful when things are going well, even if we sometimes need to be reminded how lucky we are and not to take things for granted.

It’s harder to be thankful when things are not going so well and we are struggling with finances, relationships and inner demons.

And then there’s that place in between, where things are actually pretty good, but we’re caught in the gap between our expectations and what’s actually going on. Maybe we feel badly that we haven’t been able to reproduce the Norman Rockwell portrait of a happy family sitting around a table smiling. Maybe we are far from our families and nostalgic for better times. Perhaps we decided to invite people over for Thanksgiving dinner and all but a few had other plans so we felt abandoned and rejected. Perhaps you are alone – a stranger in a strange land and you weren’t invited anywhere and perhaps you received multiple invitations and got all twisted up inside trying to avoid hurting this one’s feelings and honoring how you really wanted to spend the day.

What if we could separate gratitude from the object of our thanks. What if grateful were a state of being, inseparable from who we are; a quality that we exuded from the inside out. What if everything we encountered were automatically bathed in its’ light?

What if gratitude were not a reaction we had to something that we have labeled good or desirable but something we brought to the party no matter what?

What if gratitude were like kindness or beauty – a quality of being that we could cultivate. Instead of facials or massages we could keep gratitude journals, find something to appreciate in everyone we meet and tell them about it, meditate, pray for our hearts to be filled with appreciation and starting with our own breathe move over our bodies: thank you feet for carrying us this far (even if they hurt), thank our eyes for being the windows to the world (even with our glasses) and to our souls and our amazing pump of a heart for keeping our blood oxygenated and circulating – just for starters. if we really got going here the list would be endless and….. that’s just the point.

If you were a grateful person, how would I know? How would you show up differently? Happy for sure – because gratitude and joy are inseparable first cousins; enthusiastic about everything – the people we meet, the sunsets we see, the rainbows that wow us almost daily at this time of year as well as the tougher situations that help us grow, humble us and remind us of the resiliance and fragility of our shared human condition.

We get so caught up in having and doing, especially over the holidays and what we leave out is being. Instead of have, do, be – I’m switching the formula around to Be, Do, Have.

Be gratitude, Do what someone who is grateful for everything would do and I guarantee that the having will take care of itself.

Whatever is going on in your life, take a few minutes today and everyday to water your inner quality of gratitude. You’ll feel it. The people in your life will feel it and the world will be a better place because of you.

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Relationships are at the heart of life, from the start of life. There is no life with out relationship.  Starting with the connections between the particles out of which everything is made., we have relationships with our parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, colleagues, teachers, neighbors, ourselves, others and with God (higher power, divine, inner guidance). There is no way around being in relationship, even for people who say, “I’m over relationships. I just have a cat.”

When we have conflicts with  people in our lives we suffer greatly. We spend a lot of time and precious energy trying to change the people we think are responsible for our suffering (including ourselves for not measuring up) and we exhaust ourselves trying to ‘fix’ things and rearrange reality.

I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t change anyone else. I’ve twisted myself into various shapes and sizes and that didn’t work either. I noticed that I kept playing the same roles in different relationships and choosing people who had similar qualities even if the packages looked different. At one point I realized I’d married my mother and that certain thorny issues that I had with one friend cropped up with other friends. I wondered why I kept finding myself in situations where I played second fiddle, met men who were non-committal and got upset around people I called “pushy”.

Despite lots of self-help books, therapy and a profession focused on helping people through tough times, it took discovering the Law of Attraction and A Course in Miracles to experience, what the course defines as a miracle,  a change in perception. When I started seeing people in a new way all my relationships changed – for the better.

I remember struggling to stay in my marriage and having the wind taken out of my anger when I looked over at my spouse and, instead of seeing an angry out or sorts man, I saw a toddler with hair uncombed and his boxers sagging and – angry and in pain. My heart opened and softened and the anger dissolved into compassion.

I had a client who was troubled by a rocky relationship with her son and spoke, guiltily about her days as a young mother. She’d done the best she could but had made big mistakes. We spoke of forgiveness  to open and soften her heart, clear the way for healing and welcome a new relationship with her adult son.

The Law of Attraction says we can only create in our own reality – not someone else’s. The best things we can do to enjoy positive, loving relationships are to:
1. Practice self love.
2. Focus on what we love in another.
3. Understand what we find distasteful in others is a projection of parts of ourselves that need to be healed.

When people ask me how I met my honey they want to know the name of the dating site so they can sign up and get a honey too. They are missing the point. I’m grateful to dating sites and cyber-cafes but I know that I met and am still with this same wonderful man because I’ve done a lot of inner work. I’ve uncovered a lot of unconscious limiting beliefs and assumptions that kept me from enjoying the kind of relationship I craved, and I’ve started to release them and take responsibility for who and what I attract into my life. I get that we are all deliberate creators, that the world is our mirror and the more we clean up what’s going on inside of us ( how we feel about ourselves, how we’ve dealt with past traumas, hurts and the resentments we’ve stored away for so long), the more the world reflects joy, well-being and love right back at us.

There is nothing more important than shifting the way we perceive and connect with each other. Our very lives and life of our planet depend on it.

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Now

I got up early, meditated, made a fruit and kale smoothie and smiled about the day ahead: sailing at the Ritz, lunch with my daughter, a massage with my favorite masseuse and, as if that weren’t enough, winding down at the Nirvana Temple’s evening meditation to the sound of the surf.

Pinch me please!  People pay for days like this and long for a life that, my sister says, is fit for the rich and famous.  I laugh, because I do enjoy that life and I’m not rich and I’m not famous (yet).

As I headed to the Ritz, I confess that, in addition to smiling at my good fortune, I was also feeling guilty. I kept thinking I should really be working on my book and focused on making money. Voices in my head said, “What gives you the right to la-di-dah around? Get real!”  I  wondered if joining the morning rush hour would make me a better person and assuage my guilt.

As if on cue, I started to worry about my future. I heard Suzie Orman (and my mother) scolding me for foolish financial decisions.  I made a to-do list for my books and my courses and, was haunted by unfinished paperwork and then…

I realized that I had totally left the present moment. I had moved from the land of my most amazing life to a run down project and a none to pleasant future that was bringing me down.

Tuning back into the lush tropical landscape, I saw what that I was polluting and diluting the rich, shimmering present moment with negative thoughts about the past or the future. I was my own party pooper and I had a choice.

Even if I call Suzie Orman and hand out my resume tomorrow, I get to choose whether to be present to my life right now. I can meet it head on or live in the imagined past and future. There’s a big difference.

Vigilance is required.  I’m constantly going astray and bringing myself back to the here and now. My chattering monkey mind lures me elsewhere and, otherwise occupied, I keep missing my life in its full on HD intensity.

I decided that starting right then and there(once again) I’m was going to choose the present, even if I had to do it over and over and over again.

We’re taught at an early age to censor our desires, not to toot our own horns, to buckle down, work hard and keep the peace. We love the idea of unbridled joy but have a love/hate relationship with people who are fully present to each moment.

It’s much more fun to do things fully and forget yourself. When you realize you’re in the past or future in your mind, just come on back. Bring yourself back with your breath and scan your body. Get curious about all that’s going on in the here and now. Savor each moment.  Expand its edges.

The only thing preventing us from fully enjoying our lives is our monkey mind selves (our egos).  The antidote is cultivating practices that encourage ‘presence’, like playing music, meditating, sailing, yoga, sunsets and being ‘mindful’ of what we are thinking.  When we pay attention to our thoughts we can intervene when they head south and return ‘home’ to now.

Thinking you should be somewhere else, with someone else and be someone else, is an automatic joy squashier. It leads to a life of going through the motions. You cheat yourself out of the charge of direct touch, full immersion living.

The late, great rock musician and song writer, Warren Zevon had the right idea when, shortly before leaving this earth he told his fans to “Enjoy every sandwich.”

I’m almost at the Ritz.  The rains have turned the foliage lush and neon green.  I inhale deeply and find myself back in this present moment of yet another amazing day. I roll down the window and tell the guard, “Good morning. Sailing school,” and turn into the manicured grounds of the luxury hotel property as if I belonged there as if I owned the world.

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