Sitting in the Barefoot Buddah enjoying a kale smoothie, reading some spiritual sayings and recipes for life I came across these two lines.

1. Life is about how you handle plan B
2. Happiness is an inside job.

You’ll understand better why these lines spoke to me when I share how my plans (Plan A) changed overnight and why I am still plugged into the happy channel.

The past few months have been geared toward getting ready to sail to Grenada with my romantic leading man, David, on the yacht Bel Ami. We had a 10 day charter booked at the beginning of August and planned on keeping the boat out of the hurricane belt and returning in November. I’ve been cleaning out (as you could have guessed if you’ve heard my previous shows about getting my books to fit my shelves and lightening my load).  I found a wonderful couple to live in my cottages and take care of my beloved poodles. I was prepared for take off. I even had a going away party last Sunday. My captain went to Wisconsin for a brief trip for work and family and Plan A was to shove off yesterday when he was to have returned – weather permitting.

I’ll cut to the chase and tell you what happened: I moved onto the boat and Dave left for Wisconsin. Three days into his trip he had some chest discomfort and went for a stress test. One week later, he had  coronary bypass surgery, lived to tell the tale and is now recovering in an ICU in Wisconsin (surrounded by family and friends). We are not going to Grenada. I am not leaving – except perhaps to visit him. I now live on a boat. My land home is happily occupied and my poodles are fine.  My daughter is fending for herself.

When friends ask how I am doing, I reply that I miss Dave and wish I were with him but that I feel pretty OK. I have been noticing for a while now that my default settings have changed. I seem to have reprogrammed my thoughts to reflect a more upbeat, positive, energy soothing perspective on things right off the bat. The negative, fearful tapes play, but later and on a much muted channel. Despite the sudden scary diagnosis and treatment, I know that all is well. I believe that Dave will recover and that we will go on to enjoy wonderful times together. I know that as I allow the wind to blow my boat around (me around) my plan B will come into focus. No rushing required.

I share all of this as my testimony to the fact that practicing new habits of thought and working on your body, mind and spirit produces life changing results that make life easier, more fun, deeper and more full of love.

Imagine if you knew that you could maintain/regain your balance and inner joy no matter what was going on in your life – thereby changing your life?

I am here to tell you that if I can, you can. What you focus on expands. As I focus on Dave’s well-being, the amazing timing of everything, the loving energy that has poured his way and mine – it grows, fills me up and helps Dave to heal. He is doing well. I am doing well. The fear tapes that are running in the background that are faint – trumped in a heartbeat by joy and the knowledge that happiness is always an inside job.

So whether today is a plan A Day or one where the fall backs. the improvisations and serendipity of life keep things interesting and where things don’t always work out as planned, what are you going to do?  How do you handle Plan B?

It’s as easy as clicking the remote, turning on a light or opening the curtains. Anyone can do it with instant results. It’s the Super Power of appreciation in action.

I was in the pharmacy filling a prescription and chatting with the pharmacist about my upcoming trip. She wanted to know where I was going and what I do here on St. Thomas. I told her I was Coach Paradise, a Life Coach and she said, “Oh that’s you! I listen to you on WSTA every Saturday and I love you. ” I beamed, pleased to meet one of my anonymous listeners and get such positive feed-back.

Filled with the light of appreciation, I thanked her and turned the spotlight right back at her: ” I’ve got to tell you what an amazing difference you make. You are so helpful, so warm, so friendly.” It was her turn to beam.

We were both feeling pretty good and our little lights had grown visibly more golden, catching passerby in their rays and
I was on a roll. At my next stop – I told my medical practitioner that I’d been seeing her around and meaning to tell her how great she was looking. She beamed and filled me in.

When people compliment us and point out what they like, we see it too. When we do the same for others, they stand taller as they consider the truth of the compliment. If they own it – even a little – their lights start to glow and grow and it is a wonderful thing to behold.

I’ve been on bank lines standing in front (or behind) people with sour pusses until I mention that I love their earrings. I love watching them reach up, touch the earrings and say, “oh yes, thank you my husband gave these to me.” It’s as though they’re seeing themselves for the first time, as in a mirror and they like what they see. There’s a softening.

When was the last time anyone thanked you for doing the laundry or taking out the garbage. When was the last time you told someone how grateful you are that they are a part of your life or what you love about them.

Where ever you are right now, look around, find something to appreciate and speak your appreciation out-loud (for the view, the person, the song on the radio…)

Notice how you feel. Notice how the one appreciated changes. Rinse. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat throughout the week. I’ve found that the act of appreciation opens up a loop like channel that just keeps on giving. The more I notice all there is to appreciate and take a minute to give thanks the more my life overflows with things to appreciate.

Have you ever felt like you’ve won the lottery just driving around and thinking about your life enjoying the scenery here in paradise?

Raindrops keep falling on our heads here in the Virgin Islands. Buckets of water are cleaning the world, turning the hillsides green with foliage and my walls  green with mold. The guts are raging rivers and everywhere I look,  water is making its inevitable way to the sea.

As I follow the water coming down from the hills I notice how it turns where the grade goes down and the slope is just right, how it builds up and moves around a wall or seeps under a rock.   While it doesn’t always go the way I’d have predicted, I know that  each rivulet is finding its unique route and that it’s always the one that’s easiest and most direct.  One stream merges with another or disappears into the bush only to emerge further down swollen with reinforcements, flush with the knowledge of where its going and confident that it’ll get there by any means possible.

When the bridge at Magen’s Bay washed out last year, the force of the water created a channel over the road, through the mangroves and into the Bay turning the turqouise water brown.  There was no stopping it.

Things build up in our lives.  We are flooded by to-do lists, feelings, worries and obligations.  Taking my cue from the watery lines criss-crossing our island, I’m choosing the path of least resistance and enjoying a down hill journey.  The more we honor our natural inclinations, allow ourselves to move freely and relieve undue pressure with outlets for pent-up energy (people to talk to, journaling, exercise, meditation and prayer, creative ventures, regular check-ups and check-ins), the steadier we flow.   Trapped water will find a way and our own individual natures are no different.

Whether raging, trickling, meandering or streaming steadily, make like water, relax and head for the source.  I’ll meet you there.

In the spirit of Mothers’ Day, I’d like to share a story that a coaching colleague told me. It contains a powerful message and a call to action that touched my heart.

It’s about a woman for whom things were going really well. Her life was changing in delightful ways that included love, adventure, friendship, beautiful places and much, much more. She was grateful for all her blessings and good fortune.

You know how, when things are going really well, there can be some aspect of life – a chronic work situation, a relationship, a health issue, a financial blind spot – that keeps cropping up to remind us that schools not out yet, there are lessons to be learned and that life is an unending opportunity to grow in wisdom and in love?

Well, this was what was happening for her and it had to do with her relationship with her daughter. She described the relationship as full of strain, poor communication and resentment on both sides. During coaching, as she spoke of this relationship, her relationship with her own mother kept coming up. She described that relationship as strained, with poor communication and resentments. She could summon up feelings of anger at her mother more than 10 years after her death at the age of 91.

She started to see that she was doing some of the same things that her mother did that had made her feel bad, judged and ‘not good enough’. She said, “Oh my God, I don’t want to do that to my daughter and I think I am.”

It was as though a light bulb went off in her head and heart. She heard an inner voice say, very clearly, that forgiving her mother and healing that relationship would change her relationship with her daughter. She heard the words, “Look in the mirror. Stop complaining about how bad things are and blaming everyone else. Look in the mirror.”

She looked in the mirror and she saw herself. Coaching had helped her appreciate her good aspects more and more but she gasped at other things she saw and wanted to make some changes. Her first step in this process was finding a way to forgive her mother. Later she moved on to forgiving her daughter, herself and others and she spoke of the wonderful ripple effect it had had in her life.

In the way the universe has of lining things up just when you need them, she’d run into a friend who shared a forgiveness exercise that had changed her life.

Here’s the simple exercise/prayer that she shared. I have to admit that I’ve been doing it myself and I like how I feel when I saying it. Like the woman in the story, I know that as I’m saying it I am healing those difficult relationships that contain my most powerful lessons.

This is how is goes. You pick the person you most need to forgive and say, preferably out loud:

Namaste ______name______
The spirit in me honors the spirit in you.

Forgive me   ______________
I forgive you______________
I love you      ______________
Thank you    _______________

When I do it, I feel like some frozen part of my hearts starts to break up like northern rivers do in the spring. After a long winter of thick ice, the river ‘goes out’, making a thunderous, underground noise as the ice cracks and moves downstream, melting along the way until the river flows freely to the sea.

If there’s someone in your life, past or present, living or dead, who still bugs you and arouses anger or resentment (whether it’s your mother, yourself or someone else), give this a try. It’s simple, easy, short and very powerful.

Forgiveness is not forgetting. It’s remembering something else.

Everywhere I turn people are talking about love. Gramps Morgan and Jimmy Cliff filled the Reichold Center with the sounds of joy and the absolute conviction that we are all connected, all part of the same divine consciousness and here to love one another.

My lovely charter guests on board Bel Ami played an audio book by Tich Nhat Hahn about love and relationships and how breaking down the barriers of anger and pain in our own hearts opens us to receive the gifts of love that surround us. Then, last night I watched West Side Story – the amazing musical about star crossed lovers (like Romeo and Juliet) whose desire to cross cultural boundaries results in the tragic deaths of three men.  Maria, the Puerto Rican Juliet makes a passionate plea for an end to hatred.

I saw West Side Story on Broadway when it first came out in the 60’s.  The score by Leonard Bernstein and words by Stephen Sondheim are etched in my memory forever.  I can sing most of the songs and even do a few of the dance numbers but I thought it might be dated.  It’s one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen (on screen or stage) and not only because of its great cast, score and choreography.  I had forgotten the intense raw power of the ending that had us all in tears with one audience member skipping out because she couldn’t bear what she knew was going to happen.

West Side Story is based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  The Jets – a gang of Italian American kids in New York City are pitted against the Sharks, a gang of new immigrant Puerto Ricans establishing themselves.  In the midst of turf war and tough posing, Maria (the sister of Bernardo, head of the Sharks) and Tony (a former Jet who is now working instead of hanging out) meet at a dance. It’s love at first sight.

They stand on the fire escape singing Somewhere – an imaginary  place where they are free to love one another.

Back on the streets, the gangs are planning a ‘rumble’ to determine who gets to rule the neighborhood and call the shots. The duel between two gang members turns bad when someone pulls a knife. Tony shows up to stop the rumble and gets pulled into the fight and ends up killing Bernardo (Maria ‘s brother) who has already killed a Jet.  Before anyone knows what’s happening it’s a full on fight that disperses only at the sound of a police siren.

Just as Tony and Maria are about to run off to ‘Somewhere”, Tony is murdered to avenge Bernardo’s death and Maria cradles his body in her arms.  She gives an impassioned speech to the Jets and the Sharks and says it was hatred that killed them all and now she has hatred in her heart.

Both gangs come together to lift Tony’s body in a procession that includes everyone. Maria’s grief and her love unite them and for a second you get the feeling that they understand that they are not different from one another and are ashamed at the horror and bloodshed they have caused.

There is nothing dated here. Given the violence that threatens to take over my beloved islands, I can think of no better message to share than Maria’s about the dead-end nature of the downward spiral of violence and hatred and that  it is up to us to turn things around by seeing ourselves as connected to one another.  One Love, One Heart….

When each of us, right here and now become conscious and move together toward the light of love, things will change. Reminding ourselves often that we are all facets of the same crystal and that we have been created in love helps us to open our hearts to everyone as we see that we are all facets of a giant gem.

Whatever your religion and whether you speak of God, a higher power, Jah, or the magic of a sunrise – setting your internal dial on loving kindness and compassion and resetting it over and over again leads us to the “Peace is Every Step” of Tich Nhat Hahn and to great joy.

Join me this morning in planting the seed of peace and love in your hearts. Water it each day and send prayers of healing to all who suffer and are in need, including you.

Let’s make the Somewhere that Maria and Tony sing about be here, now, for everyone.  Let’s deliberately create lives we love and celebrate them in a world where it is safe to be ourselves.