Many Blessings

December 12, 2023

Many Blessings to all. I am very grateful for your patience with me and my sporadic schedule this year in posting insights and adding to our tool kits for personal development and transformation.

Recently I have been learning about blessings. How to receive blessings. How to give blessings. The difference between blessings and prayers. The connection between gratitude and feeling blessed. 

So, what is a blessing? I am drawn to the wonderful insight of the great John O'Donohue from his book To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.

"A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen. Life is a constant flow of emergence. The beauty of a blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds. 
…
When a blessing is invoked, a window opens in eternal time.
…
Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where...

Grateful Living

November 29, 2023

I love hitting the pause button in November and taking a break from posting on high performance habits or stress management to revealing more of my spiritual side. November, for me, is always about Gratitude. November evokes memories of the love around the table at Thanksgivings at Grandma's.

This month, we explore Gratitude as a way of 'Being,' a way of Living, a way of 'Seeing' the World.  

November 2023 marks my 6th Blog exploring Gratitude. Earlier notes have delved into gratitude as a feeling and an emotion. We have reviewed a wide range of recommendations for daily gratitude practices. I have also curated a selection of my favorite meditations and courses that teachers on Insight Timer offer to help us deepen our appreciation of gratitude. As the saying goes, "What you appreciate, appreciates."  See the links to these notes at the end of this post. 

This November I want to share the evolution of my...

Transform Doubt, Delay, and Division

May 3, 2023

This is the 2nd Blog in a 3-Part series featuring excerpts from my Certified High Performance Coaching™ Program, The Declaration Course, which is loosely based on Brendon Burchard's The Motivation Manifesto: 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power. These are three of my favorite declarations because the first builds our foundation on a core virtue, the second acknowledges the obstacles we will encounter, and the third raises our ambition to be at our very best to serve. 

• Declaration VI. We Shall Not Break Integrity. Here is the link to last month's Blog, Integrity  in case you missed it.  
• Declaration III. We Shall Defeat Our Demons. This month we discuss how to Transform Doubt with Faith, Transform Delay with Action, and Transform Division with Love. 
• Declaration VIII. We Shall Inspire Greatness. Next month we will tackle another deep Declaration...

Don't Take Anything Personally

February 17, 2021

We are continuing our journey to explore the deep meaning of Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements and the path to personal freedom. 

I like to transform The Four Agreements into a personal statement using the word “I”, creating a prayer which explicitly incorporates freedom and a positive intention. What I say:   

1. May I Be Impeccable with My Word.
2. May I Be Free from Taking Anything Personally.
3. May I Be Free from Making Assumptions.
4. May I Always Do My Best.

This month we dive deeper into The Second Agreement: May I Be Free from Taking Anything Personally. As Ruiz writes: 

"Nothing other people do is because of you. 
It is because of themselves.
All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; 
they are in a completely different world from the one we live in."  

What other people say is more about them. Try saying this out loud: May I be free from taking anything...

Be Impeccable with Your Word

January 19, 2021
 

In this New Year 2021, I have been reflecting on the themes of transformation and freedom. Reflecting on how much I have learned and changed in the past 10 years -- and how much more I have yet to learn. 

There were several conversations with friends over the holidays which brought me back to the wisdom of don Miguel Ruiz’s internationally acclaimed book, “The Four Agreements.”  I love the exquisite simplicity of this book which I read many years ago and has a headline  “A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. The Four Agreements are: 

1. The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word.
2. The Second Agreement: Don't Take Anything Personally.
3. The Third Agreement: Don't Make Assumptions.
4. The Fourth Agreement: Always Do Your Best. 
   
   

Many of you may have read this book. Perhaps you are like me – I savor revisiting this book every so often and refreshing and relearning the...

On Joy and Sorrow

December 13, 2020

Last month we delved deep into the "Heartset of Gratitude." I trust and know from your emails, we are all working on expanding our heartset of gratitude in ways that fit our journey. I believe as our gratitude grows, it gives rise to joy. I dearly want to close this last Blog of 2020 on the upbeat theme of Joy. 

However, there is a dissonance that must also be acknowledged. The year 2020 -- a year defined by the COVID-19 Pandemic, a Stress Epidemic, and Emotional Contagion -- is a year filled with challenges, hardship, loss and sorrow. The loss of loved ones, of free time, of hugs, of financial security, and on and on, is very real. It can be frightening. It is certainly humbling. I see and feel the pain.  

I asked myself how does one reconcile Joy and Sorrow? I turned to Kahlil Gibran's masterpiece, The Prophet, for wisdom. What follows is an excerpt from the chapter, "On Joy and Sorrow:"

   "Your...

The Heartset of Gratitude 

November 29, 2020
 

I look forward to this November Blog on gratitude every year. Writing on gratitude brings a smile to my face because it is an opportunity to reflect and share how my gratitude journey has evolved and progressed over the past ten years. In this newsletter, we are going deeper and will explore, what I call, The Heartset of Gratitude. 

I choose the word “heartset” with intention – because gratitude is an emotion and comes from the heart. “Heartset” changes the focus from the mind and the ego to our heart. More importantly, “heartset” also brings to the fore our passion for how we are living our life – how we are seeing our own reality – as we move forward on our own unique journey.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed almost 200 years ago,  

“People only see what they are prepared to see.
If you look for what is good and what you can be grateful for,
you...

Radiating Peace  

December 18, 2019  

I believe inner peace is there for all of us --- even if it is, at first, only for a moment. 

Do you agree? Do you have an image of peace in the mind-body and soul? Do you feel the energy of peace? These are a few of the questions we will explore in our last newsletter of this year, this decade. 

I grew up on Long Island, New York and was always drawn to the ocean. I went to Jones Beach and loved it -- even more in the solitude of winter than in the heat and crowds of the summer. I love the Great Lakes and am blessed to now live and overlook Lake Erie. The background picture for many of the quotes I post on Facebook and for this Blog is a summer sunset looking out from my Lake House. I am looking forward to taking a new picture this winter when the lake is frozen, and the horizon disappears. 

Sometimes the lake is rockin’ n’ rollin’, sometimes the waves are gentle and sometimes the lake...

My Daily Gratitude Ritual 

December 1, 2019 

Today’s newsletter on gratitude takes shape as a personal note and reflection on my daily Gratitude Ritual and how it has evolved and deepened over the past 10 years.  

I trust that you have crafted your own gratitude practice that serves you. There is a wide range of gratitude practices to choose from, such as: starting and ending your day in gratitude and prayer; creating a Gratitude Journal or a Gratitude Jar; writing a Gratitude Letter; making a special Gratitude Call; or incorporating gratitude into your art, be that poetry, music or painting.  

I offer my gratitude journey as it may give you new inspiration and/or renewed commitment. In my opinion, a daily Gratitude Ritual is foundational and transformational.  

One day in May 2010, I started an intentional daily gratitude practice. In Be Happy NOW!: From Wall Street Ambition and the Illusion of Success, My Path to Happiness, I write:...

Good Vibrations 

July 1, 2019

As Victor Hugo, the famous French poet, novelist, and dramatist said:

“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.” 

Indeed, laughter is healing energy for the Body, Mind and Spirit. It really is all about Energy – Good Vibrations. 

Since the Beach Boys released “Good Vibrations” in 1966, there have been new scientific research and breakthroughs on exactly why and how laughter is good for:

• your physical health, by relaxing the whole body, triggering the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemical, and strengthening your cardiovascular system.
• your mental health, by helping stop distressing emotions and the hard-wired “fight or fight” reaction and stress behaviors.
• your spiritual health, by increasing your bond/connection with family and friends, releasing egoism and defensiveness, and healing resentments. There is an old Yiddish proverb, “What...