I read the words of Swami Sivananda next to a photo of a man meditating on a mountain top: “Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”

The meditating man demonstrated focus, doing one thing and doing it with his whole heart, mind and soul, but when I thought of small acts, I pictured washing the dishes, petting the dog, changing the car oil and weeding the garden – activities of daily living, some shared and others  reflecting our unique preferences and differences.

Sivananda’s words go right to the heart of what I’ve been thinking lately and what underlies a new minimalist approach I’ve been using with coaching clients and with myself.  Focusing on one small aspect of life and getting it right so it feels true, lined up, unobstructed, satisfying and joyful, is all that is really needed for everything else to work too. When we focus with our whole heart, mind and soul on even our smallest acts, the ripple effect takes care of the rest – inside and out.

I have a client who is focusing on nourishing herself: on menus, food shopping, preparing and eating in a healthful way. She says that the more she gets this aspect of her life flowing easily, the better she feels, the more energy she has and, what’s more, everything else seems to fall into place easily.

Another client is focused on creating a great morning experience for herself – stretching, eating a good breakfast, thinking positive thoughts, setting an intention for the day – and then noticing the impact that new focus has on the day ahead. She is relieved  any of the weighty subjects that fill her thoughts. All she has to do is  create a great morning experience for herself. She’s having fun and ‘get’s that how she begins her day predicts how the rest of it will unfold.

We are overwhelmed with long to-do lists that weigh heavily on us.  In addition to the undone stuff, there are the unfulfilled dreams, the unrealized potential, the if wishes were horses stable. It’s enough to make you want to take a very long nap or finally learn the lesson that keeps coming back again and again, from different angles, taught by different teachers but always the same. – there is no need to look elsewhere, it’s all here, now, keep it simple, small is better. The more we stay in the present, focus on the task at hand, learn to calm the mind and soothe our energy and take pride and joy in the small acts and moments that make up our lives, the more the bigger picture changes too.
My coaching teacher said we are holographic beings and that, as with a hologram, taking a slice of any part of it, contains all the information contained in the whole. A strand of hair contains your DNA as does every other part of you, no matter how tiny.
When we eat well and work out, we feel and look good. We’re more likely to dress well, strut our stuff and enter into new experiences and relationships with greater confidence. Other parts of our lives start feeling and looking better too.
There is great power in doing one small thing, doing it well and opening the locks (as in the Panama canal) so the benefits gained in one place ooze here, there and everywhere.

It’s a Peace is Every Step approach to life and, as I see it, a spiritual truth, organizational wisdom and a recommendation for how to live.

Remembering, as Sivananda said, that the secret of success is to put your heart, mind and soul into even your smallest acts – what small act will you put your heart, mind and soul into today?: playing with a child, mopping the floor, balancing your check book, working in the garden, practicing scales, writing a letter, making a sale, cooking a meal or holding the hand of someone you love – try putting your heart, mind and soul into it and see what happens. May success be yours always.

I had the good fortune to spend a couple of weeks in my other version of paradise this summer: a little island in the middle of a lake in northwestern Maine.  For the past 16 years I’ve been gathering with friends from far and wide.  We are connected by threads woven in intricate and colorful patterns over the past 30 plus years. When the weather grows still and hot in St. Thomas, I start to dream of diving into the cold lake, sitting around a campfire playing music and hugging people I haven’t seen for a year or years, as the case may be.

I recharged, paddle-boarded in fresh water, listened to the call of loons, walked barefoot on mossy, pine needled covered trails through the woods and caught up on the lives of my friends.

As I filled folks in on my life over the past couple of years, I was treated to their stories.  The following tale made a big impression on me. It was told by a woman I  always look forward to seeing. She arrives with coolers and bags filled with produce and edible flowers from her abundant gardens. Her contribution is always the prettiest and the most floral: a gorgeous salad decorated with nasturtiums and she’s known for her colorful scarves and for her dancing.

I’d heard that her long-term partner had taken his leave while she was off on a trip over the winter. She’d come home to find a note saying he’d met someone else and moved out. Since she seemed pretty happy, I asked how she had handled such a shock and a loss. She admitted she’d been devastated and had retired to a girlfriend’s house for a month, waking up each morning with a heavy heart and crying herself to sleep at night.

When she finally went home, she woke up one morning and looked outside at the line of pine trees that rimmed one of her many garden plots – trees that had been a source of conflict between her and her ex. She’d wanted to cut them down and have them milled for building boards and he wasn’t in a rush and didn’t want them milled for boards so they never did anything with them.

She marched into the garage and picked up her chain saw. She chopped down all 18 trees, one right after the other. She felt great. She called the mill and arranged for the trees to be cut into pine boards. That did it. From that moment on she said she was over him. She laughed telling me about a note she got from a friend, “So that’s how Maine women get over heart-break – with a chain saw?” By picking up that saw she picked up the reins of her life and was liberated.

I’m adding this story to my collection about how people get over loss and heartbreak in their own unique and often unexpected ways. When my relationship ended, I dove into painting my house bright happy colors and I did it all myself. She chopped down trees. Other people have taken action in unique ways that channeled their energy and dark emotions into something positive and personal that had the effect of changing the channel, opening doors and letting in a big burst of fresh air.

There are stories that don’t have such happy endings. There is the violent rage of hurt and jealousy that can do untold damage to all involved. There is wallowing and watching the same movie over and over unable or unwilling to watch another film or consider that there is another story waiting to be written and lived and staying stuck instead.

As deliberate creators we are all authors of our own stories and if we don’t like the one we are living or the role we are playing, we can change it and that’s what interests me most.

If you have a story about getting over someone or something that transformed you in surprising and unexpected ways, I’d love to hear about it and so would everyone else who is struggling to rewrite his or her scripts, forgive, heal and move forward.

I was in Portland Maine, on my last night before returning to St. Thomas, when a phone call from home left me sobbing and gasping in shock at the news that a freak accident had taken the life of Roxy, my beloved 13-year-old poodle. I was inconsolable.  I’d been carrying around a little Chihuahua in Maine because she was the size of Roxy and I missed Roxy’s endless licks and joyful barks. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I would never again be greeted by her fluffy over-the-top enthusiasm and bathed in her unconditional love.

Tears flowed freely and in hiccoughs, as I went to sleep, as I woke up, on the plane the next day and as I’ve shared the news with friends, family and those who knew and loved Roxy. I stopped crying long enough to call a friend who said he’d come by early the next morning to dig a grave.

Roxy was a spunky little fur ball with a big presence, an attitude and an endless supply of wet kisses.  She was born on the pillow end of the bed where my then 10 year old daughter and I lay sleeping and has been with us ever since.  It’s hard not to picture her bounding around the corner, demanding breakfast, curling up next to me.

When things end we are reminded that everything changes, that nothing stays the same. It’s the very nature of life on the physical plane.  We get attached to people, pets, places and things, so that their loss or ending leaves a hole, a wound and we experience grief – deep to the core gut wrenching grief.  Even as we know that things change, we resist their changing and it hurts.

As I helped fill in the grave my friend had dug I talked about Roxy’s life, what an amazing dog she was and of how much I loved her.  My friend told me an animal love story about leaving home over a goat when he was 16 and never eating meat again. We shared our love of animals knowing that we are here together, all of us God’s creatures, on this precious earth.

I planted a big stand of lilies on the burial mound and added a wall of stones and shells dotted with small purple flowers and plans for more.  My daughter placed a heart shape rock on the grave and I am tending this sad, beautiful new garden with special love.

Even as I’ve kept drowning in waves of disbelief, I am aware that there are lessons here that have to do with endings, with death and with what I believe about all that.  Just a week before, I’d picked up the book Emmanuel –– a channeled question and answer session with Emmanuel, a non-physical entity who speaks through a guide. Asked about death, Emmanuel replied  ‘death is like taking off a too tight shoe”. It’s a release, liberation, being set free.

He said that our picture of death as an ending is incorrect and the best is yet to come. We continue to exist just in a different, more expansive energetic form.

I’m exploring and learning about death and the transition that Roxy made and that we all get to make. I’m listening, learning and being guided to find and live the answers to my questions.

Carpe Diem is the other message I get loud and clear: seize the day, love the one you’re with, be here now, tell it like it is, tap into the power of now and enjoy every sandwich.

As I continue to mourn Roxy, it feels right to sob out all those tears so I can change the channel and focus on how lucky I got to spend a whole 13 years with such a fabulous creature and to celebrating Roxy. What a joyous long term cross species co-creative relationship and an endless source of unconditional love it was!

My sister said that she’s had a couple of Roxy ‘sightings’ just as she said that our father appeared to her a few times shortly after he passed away.  She said Roxy’s doing great, barking away and jumping up and down.

Since all dogs go to heaven, expect to be licked all over and greeted with wild exuberance and much fanfare by my beloved Roxy (1999-2012) when you make your appearance.

Lately, on my morning beach walks, I’ve been playing with my gaze, throwing it way out like a YoYo so my eyes take in the big picture all the way to the end of the beach, then slowly reeling it in and enjoying the scenery along the way, until I’m finally looking straight down at my feet.

I discovered that there’s a spot where my gaze is most comfortable. It’s where my eyes, neck and head are in their ‘rest’ position and it’s approximately 12 feet ahead of me.

Looking at the crescent shaped swath of beach before me, I see where I am headed and what I can expect. People and objects in the distance are small and indistinct but as I bring my gaze in closer everything gets bigger and clearer until, up close and personal, things are life sized and fill up my field of vision like my big toe in the sand at the end of my close up gaze.

12 feet ahead provides the perfect little world in which to walk, including the footsteps of those who’ve come and gone before, shells, sea gulls, sand crabs, a peripheral view of the sea, approaching people and a peaceful, private inner place.

The word Drishti popped into my mind. It’s a Sanskrit word that refers to where to place your gaze in each yoga posture. When I got home I got down David Swenson’s Ashtanga Yoga Practice Manuel and,sure enough, what I been doing on the beach was experimenting with my Drishti.

Each asana (yoga posture) has a Drishti associated with it – a suggested place to focus your gaze to enhance the benefits of each posture: increasing your stretch by gazing in the direction of the stretch or deepening a bend by gazing at your big toe. In Yoga the Drishti also refers to an internal gaze and inner awareness that, like a microscope, allows us to examine what we may not be able to see externally.

In the same way that there’s a Drishti to enhance each yoga posture, for outer and inner benefit, I’m discovering that there’s a Drishti associated with all our activities, whether we are walking on the beach, washing dishes, having a conversation, sitting at our desks, doing pirouettes, reading a book, driving a car etc. There’s an ideal positioning of the body, head and gaze that is comfortable, good for our bodies (ergonomic), expends the least effort (efficient) and helps us to be present and focused on what is immediately before us and immediately within us.

I thought of occasions where the notion of Drishti (conscious focus) had produced great results like walking on the Camino de Santiago ( a pilgrimage route) in France. When the going was steep and long, looking up and ahead made me feel discouraged, so I learned to look up once at the beginning to take stock and then kept my gaze (Drishti) about 12 feet ahead of me. I stayed in the present, enjoyed the journey and celebrated summits. It worked on downhill runs too with me in the lead leaping sure-footed like a goat.

I learned that it’s good to have a destination and then not to get too far ahead of yourself en route.

A friend confirmed my theory with her account of climbing up out of the Grand Canyon. She said it was daunting to keep looking up and be reminded of how far she had to go, so she focused on one step at a time, kept her gaze relaxed and lived to tell the tale.

I notice the same thing when I’m paddle boarding. If I’m gliding around scanning the horizon for turtles and dreaming of dolphins, my gaze ranges far and wide but when I’m determined into the wind and mustering strength to move the board through the water, I focus on the water just in front of the board (probably about 12 feet ahead), gauge my speed and cultivate momentum.

In Buddhist meditation, it is suggested that you sit and mediate with your eyes half open and your gaze cast downward, relaxed and in front of you – a Drishti to enhance the purpose of the practice – being fully present, inside and out.

Once we know where we are going, we’d do best to return to a manageable chunk of the present and keep our focus on the here and now to enhance whatever we are doing, inside and out.

Here’s to finding your Drishti, the perfect gaze for whatever you are up to today and always.

There’s  a big, beautiful avocado tree  outside my window that I planted when I moved into this house 6 years ago. A tiny sapling then, it’s a large tree heavy with fruit now and, as it’s been coming into its own, I’ve been keeping a proprietary eye on the avocados and the thrushy birds who love them as much as I do.

I followed the advise of an expert and picked them as soon as the birds started pecking, easing them into the basket of my new extension pole fruit picker and lining them up on my kitchen counter – 1 green baby after the other counting in at 15 with a few more on the tree.

Since they’re fetching 4-5 dollars apiece, I scanned my storage room for a table, thought about when would be the best time to set up a stand and asked a few friends if they wanted to keep me company. No one said yes,

I took a photo of the avocados and posted it on Facebook with my dilemma – should I sell or give away my avocados. I got 28 comments. Some people were all for selling them, others felt half and half would do, several said “sell them if you need the money”, a couple voted for avocado philanthropy and one said give away what you don’t eat.

I am fortunate enough to be able to forfeit the $40-$50 selling them would put in my pocket. To feed my kids or pay the bills, I wouldn’t think twice and I’d be up on the road. But I have a hunch that selling them or giving them away is more than a question of need but of inclination, what feels right based on your values, your upbringing, your current status, your heart and your ability to generate cash in other ways.

The luxury in which I now stand is not the luxury of monetary wealth, but the luxury of avocados and coconuts and star fruit, beauty all around and well-being. I can afford to give away my avocados and the pleasure I get from doing so is worth far more than $40. That’s me.

I get that someone else might see all those avocados and think dollar signs $$$$, add the star fruit to boot, throw in some genips and pay some bills or start a fruit savings account.  Payment as an exchange of energy is important and an indication of how invested someone may be in therapy, an educational program, an exercise class. We sometimes value the things we pay for more than what is offered for free. we want to get ‘our money’s worth.”

But this feels different. These are precious gifts offered to me freely by a tree and offered by me to whoever is lucky enough to cross my path or mind or both at the right time. They are given in a spirit of playful whimsy with love thrown in – like giving out roses on Valentine’s day. With my avocados I bestow a small buttery swath of green abundance on all recipients. Or at least that’s the way I like to tell the story, with a smile. And I have testimonials.

So, what’s your fruit situation? Do you have trees that bear? What do you do with the fruit that you don’t eat?
Make tarts or jams, jellies and stews with what you can? What do you do with the avocados? Do you sell them? Do you give them away? Eat them straight for days on end until they’re gone? Have a margarita party?

I just made a batch of delicious guacamole  to take to a friends house.   I’ll give her an avocado to have her way with and might take a couple of extra’s with me just in case –

Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to run into me – right place, ripe time, avocado time.:)