This is a simple invitation. Take a look around your life and notice where you are leaking. Are there little drains in your life — maybe in your physical environment, your relationships, your finances or your daily tasks — where you notice your vital energy being sucked out? Perhaps it feels like the bathwater with the drain wide open, or maybe it’s just a constant, annoying drip, drip, drip.

Now how about looking for the places in your life that feel like water running IN. What fills you up? And, excuse me, is that tap turned on?

Could you just reach over and choose to close one of those drains? Then reach over and turn on the faucet? Let the water of life fill your big beautiful tub? Could there be an ease to this one small act?

Basic plumbing and flow.

Simple choices can make all the difference.

May we remember it ain’t all that hard.

I have recently fallen into the abyss of a writing drought.  Rather than procrastinate there any longer, I decided this evening to take the same advice I give many of my clients.  Do a One Step.

It’s right there in the new book I just published with my partner Sue Guiher, called Stop Spinning Plates: How to Lose Your Balance and Become a Thriving Mother.  Feeling stuck or overwhelmed?  Take One Step.  Just do one little thing rather than being so hard on yourself (or myself, as the case may be) for not doing the massive amounts of things necessary to court the illusion of being considered valid.

And I gotta tell you.  It works.  Baby steps.  I’m writing.  Thank you.

Which leads me to let you know that today, after days of the flu, I walked outside when the wind was in a lull and I could feel the 75 daffodil bulbs I planted in October stirring slightly under the frozen soil.

Shall we dance?  One Step.  Here’s to us.

P.S.  Find the book at www.stopspinningplates.com!

Wow.  I have just had my mind blown.  A book I received yesterday debunked the Serenity Prayer!  You know the prayer that says God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference?  Just say this prayer and somehow it gets you through, right?

Well, in this book, called Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, by the same guys at VitalSmarts who wrote Crucial Conversations, they say…that’s the problem.  We tell ourselves we aren’t influencers and so we seek serenity…or complacency.  This would be a fine tactic if it weren’t for the list of challenges we face today.

Because of the amazing time we live on the planet, we get the chance to be people with the wisdom to MAKE a difference.  As they say in the introduction “We should be seeking to expand the list of things we can change so that we don’t need to seek serenity so often….Instead of owning up to our responsibility of beoming effective agents of change and then going about the task of improving our influence repertoire (much like an athlete funning laps or a chess player learning moves), we grumble, threaten, ridicule,and, more often than not, find ways to cope….we are wonderful at inventing ways to cope.”

And I would add, this is worth considering so we don’t have to settle for feeling helpless so often, whether it’s with our teenagers, our workplace or the political “process”.

Now, I’m only into the 2nd chapter so far, but I’ve got to say, this lights me up.  This feeds my soul.  It feels like hope and it feels like a guidebook on the path of meaningful existence that I’m here to take.

Three other books I’ve read lately are in this vein:  1)  Concious Evolution, by Barbara Marx Hubbard; 2)  Writing to Change the World, by Mary Pipher an 3)  The Art of Possibility, by Rosamund and Benjamin Zander.

Wake up and, as Ghandi says, be the change you wish to see in the world.

Happy Solstice!  The Sun returns, and so can we.

I had an amazing dream two nights ago. In the dream I was ill with a fever, and there was a woman sitting with me to put cool cloths on my forehead. Apparently, the fever spiked late in the night and I died.

I had a vague sense that the people around me were shocked and surprised. They had not expected me to die just from a flu. I was in a sort of limbo, relaxed and very calm, but aware that the people I’d just left were in pain.

There are some details I can’t recall about who I met and how I was guided after that. But I do remember not knowing how to reach the loved ones I’d left behind, and someone told me just to wait and watch for an opening. “A what?” An opening. Just watch.

Then a little distance away from me I saw a swirling that almost looked like the air looks when the heat rises of a hot road on a summer day. It was a circular shaped field of energy about the size of a beach ball. “Someone’s praying. It’s a portal. Go through.” My guide said. “That’s how you know where to go. They have to ask.”

When I woke up from this dream, I felt as if I’d been given a gift. And the gift was this: I got to experience what it’s like being a spirit and being asked for help. I did not know where to go unless I was asked. I’ve always heard that to really get help from, or connect with, the spirit realm, you have to ask. Now I know it’s true. And making us wait till we ask is not a test to see if we really want what we’re asking for, it’s the only way spirit knows where to show up.

At least that’s what I got from my dream of being dead.

Create portals.

At a college hockey game the other night with my friends and family, there were hypocrites…and they were us. As with most sporting events, the game opens with everybody standing for the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. This game was no exception, and out onto a carpet rolled onto the ice comes a Marine honor guard and a nice young soprano who sang the song beautifully while a movie of a flag waving in the wind showed on the scoreboard.

While this little ritual played out, we were shifting around uncomfortably, my husband on one side and my friend Sue on the other. Our kids spread out down the aisle on either side of us with their hats off. When we sat down, Sue leaned over and said “I wanted to shout out ‘Stop the war!’ but I’m not brave enough yet.” Yes, we agreed, we felt pent up with unspoken yells, too.

Then Sue said, “We’re such hypocrites. I’m a hypocrite. Maybe when my kids are older I’ll allow myself to speak up and get hauled off without traumatizing them as much.”

It’s such a major link between sports and war in our culture. It’s the battlefield one way or another.

Fascinating to own up to our silence. Something to consider as another election comes around.

My mother, who is 86 and just lost her husband of 65 years, is amazing. Ever since my father passed in April, I call her every other morning just to chat. Her spiritual foundation is strong and her outlook is surprisingly light. She’s only got a touch of dementia, so our conversations are very present and can be very uplifting for us both.

Mostly we just report on what’s happening around us. She and I share a great love for nature, so I often talk about the birds at the feeder that morning, the weather, the trees, my son and what he’s up to, what we had for breakfast. She loves it.

My mom loves to laugh and can be quite funny. Yesterday she was telling me about someone who had gotten fired from the assisted living place where she now lives. I asked her if this was someone she was close with, and she said no. And then she said, “It’s so strange living in this big building with all these people who have their own apartments. I’ve never lived like this before. I’m learning a lot” I asked her what she was learning. She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Well, I know it’s important, I just don’t remember what it is!”

Then she started laughing and said “That’s pretty funny isn’t it? I know I’m learning something big, but I don’t remember what. Remembering must not be the important part.”

We laughed together for a while about this. Then I thanked her for helping me start my day by putting everything into perspective.

Ok, so if we’re going to grow ourselves into true, effective elders, learning to really listen is key. Agreed? So, in the interest of a better world, please compassionately consider the following:

When you’re listening to someone,

• Do you think about other things while you’re keeping track of the conversation?

• Do you think about what you’re going to say next?

• Do you listen with the intent to reply rather than with the intent to understand?

• Do you break in with your own ideas before the other person has finished talking?

• Do you listen primarily for facts rather than ideas?

• Do you “tune out” to things that you feel will be too difficult to understand?

• Do you try to make it appear you’re paying attention when you’re not?

• Do certain words or phrases prejudice you so that you don’t listen objectively?

• Do your thoughts turn to other things when you believe a speaker will have nothing interesting to say?

• Do you finish other people’s sentences?

• Can you tell from a person’s appearance and delivery that he/she won’t have anything important to say?

• Are you easily distracted by outside sights and sounds?

Thank you.  You have been heard.

My colleague and I were discussing how we humans use only 10% of the capacity of our brains. She said she often asks God if she could please be granted an increase on that statistic — not to be able to use all 100% — just to be able to up it to, say, 25%. Imagine what it would be like if we all were using that much more of our potential for creativity and seeing possibilities — if we all doubled what we were truly capable of.

The next day, I got an insight into what that might really be like.

It started when my cat Smokey didn’t come home. Now, the Smokester is no ordinary pet for me, he is my familiar. My furry soul mate. My wild mountain kitty boy who I can literally feel looking at me when his food bowl is empty. I feel it. I go into the bathroom where his bowl is. And sure enough, there he is, looking at me next to an empty bowl. Got it, buddy. I “heard” you from the next room!

Smokey loves to hang out with the family. Talking in his meows and curious about what we’re up to. He goes off, but not for very long, like some kitties I’ve had who disappear for days. So when he was gone all day, into the wild windy night and all the next morning, I grieved his loss very hard. I know the deal about having outdoor pets here in the mountains of Colorado – they may go off on an adventure and become dinner for a family of coyotes. And Smokey loves his adventures – drinking from the glacial streams like a mountain lion.

At one point in the morning I had a pang of missing him and I closed my eyes intending to settle down inside myself and let him go, much like I had just done a few months ago when my father died. Instead, I got a very clear hit – an image and a sense of my neighbor’s garage. Huh. That’s funny. Maybe I’ll go check it out.

So I did. And there was Smokey. Stuck in the garage. Got it, buddy! I heard you from across town.

I felt a message in my gut from this experience — Trust Your Instincts! Maybe our expanding our brain capacity isn’t about gaining more analytical intelligence. Maybe it’s about expanding into our emotions and recognizing that our emotions are connected to our intuition. And our intuition can lead to communication with other species. A sort of collective intelligence.

What if our capacity and potential lies in our willingness to relax and open our minds, rather than work harder to process more and more bits of information.

Huh.