can you really have a life strategy?

You and I are the sum of our parts -- a combination of everything from early childhood to last week's dinner table conversation. All of those parts work together - or integrate - to form the way we live our lives, make decisions and plan our future.

We can't control the future, but we can control the choices we make today that influence the options we have tomorrow. To some people, life just happens. If you could measure your ability to live according to your full potential, how are you living? 100%? 60%?

If someone offered to help you discover how to live 100% according to your design, what would you do? Ask any business planner, having a plan does not guarantee results, but having a plan sure does guarantee better results than having no plan!

Your life strategy is

• a look back at what has influenced your life until now,
• an honest look in the mirror at who you are today, and
• a hopeful look into the future based on your unique gifting and design.

So, do you think you are living your whole life now?

the moral bucket list

This is circling our staff like lightening. Starts with a simple vision about a person who radiates an inner light. They are not thinking of themselves at all, but looking after others. The "sadder thought" is that "I have not achieved that." Hooray for that sad thought! What better motivation to move in that direction, through

• humility
• confronting weakness
• depending on others
• energizing love
• following the call and
• taking the conscience leap from "neediness into constancy"

This NYT op-ed article is an excerpt from David Brooks' "The Road to Character."

5 simple ways to self health

It's time we admit it, the way health care works these days there is nobody looking out for your health or your pocketbook but you. Yesterday after 25 years of treatment for hypothyroidism, I met a practitioner who identified why I might be tanking in the afternoons. I won't go into the intricate details of T3 and T4 manufacturing in the body, but let's just say for the first time in 25 years the future looks bright.

Great health is the foundation of a great life - fully lived as opposed to nursing a list of ailments and grievances. How can we be well heart, soul, mind and strength? It's a process of self discovery. Admittedly, my best plan may not be yours. There are so many variables in self care and health management, there's really nobody who can manage that better than you.

So, what next?

Especially if you are a woman in your 40s, you might wonder if you are crazy or, worse, going through peri-menopause. Before you run to the doctor or the pharmacy, check out this 360º check list:

• Have I had enough sleep? Sleep can affect the cortisol levels that impact weight gain. It also impacts brain activity. How happy are you when your computer runs 80% of the time? How much more would your boss say it would be nice for you to be 100% engaged in your work?
• What did I have to eat lately? Don't get caught up in rules about food. Keep a log of how you feel after you eat and seek out foods that give you energy. Unless you've mapped a plan for an afternoon nap, pasta at lunch might not be your best choice. Can't sleep? How much caffeine or sugar did you have after dinner?
• Have I had enough exercise? Ditch the voices in your head that tell you that all the things your should be doing. No time for the gym? All you need to stimulate the dopamine levels in your brain, reduce heart disease and improve the receptors in your cerebral cortex is 20 minutes a day. Nobody can tell you what that 20 minutes needs to be. As long as it raises your heart rate, it's good for you. Maybe it includes your dog, a bike or your favorite music.
• Do I spend enough time with friends? This is just as serious as the others. You need social connection for complete mental wellness. Your spouse cannot meet all your social and intellectual needs. Maybe combine this with exercise and go for a walk or combine it with lunch - you have to eat, why not with a friend?
• What have I created lately? Even if you have creative responsibilities at work, think outside of the wheel of productivity. Have you painted, cooked, woven a basket, planted a garden? Running out of ideas? Reorganize your pantry and bask in the beauty of order!!

Once all those things are running on schedule, then it's time to figure out if there's something really big wrong with you. Take a bit of control, one day, one action at a time.

Some of us have a more accurate view of ourself than others.

puppies are bad for your teeth

A friend from Germany asked, "Why do all Americans talk in a high voice when they're around babies and puppies?" Granted I don't know if the condition applies to all Americans, but I do see a trend. Now that we have a puppy, I can attest to the silly, high-pitched confessions of undying love to this little black fur ball we call Riley.

There's another trend that my girls can attest has been quite bothersome. Whenever we're around puppies and babies, we clench our teeth to the point of having a headache.

I wake up, I see the puppy, I clench my teeth.
I tell the puppy goodbye in the morning ... and clench my teeth.
I come home and greet the happy puppy, and clench my teeth.

Nobody ever told me that having a puppy would be bad for my teeth. There are a number of reasons doctors and dentists tell you why we clench our teeth, especially orthodontists who want to realign your jaw so your teeth will fit naturally together. I fixed this with a good night guard.

While Medicine.net might tell you that your teeth grinding is related to stress, you'll never read on Web MD or any other Internet doctor site that the cause of headaches is puppies. The best well-rounded article I've found is on Discovery Health. There's never a simple, single reason for why we do self-destructive things. The answer covers all corners of your life: heart, soul, mind and strength. We have to be mindful of a problem in order to fix it and in some case we have to put a little sweat behind it to redirect the stress. Exercise is part of the whole solution.

So next time you find that jaw clenched shut, take a breath and a yawn. Take a deep breath. Remember that you want to keep you teeth for a long time, so close your eyes, think on something good, be mindful to relax your jaw and breathe.

And kiss your puppy.

mid-life unraveling

What some people call a mid-life crisis, I like to think of as an "unraveling." Picture the knotted cord of the mini blind that needs to be unraveled for it to work properly. This is my life mid stream.

Brene Brown captures this beautifully in the preface of The Gifts of Imperfection, "People may call what happens at midlife a "crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling--a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're 'supposed' to live. The unraveling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are."

Ahh. I can't express the immense relief I feel in reading this. As much as I admire the likes of Carly Fiorina and Sheryl Sandberg, I don't think I'm destined to be a chief executive, or even a vice president, in this lifetime. As much as I'd like to think I have to offer, this is not my debt to society. Every time I've had an opportunity to advance, I've taken a step back instead. Why?

Life is about choices and trade offs. Is there a single universal divine will for each life? Roughly, yes. Bernard Shaw wrote, "Where is the life I have lost in living?" Years ago I realized what he meant. There's a pursuit of some lifestyle that seems to rob us of the life we are destined to live. Lose the striving for the lifestyle and, voila, you have a full, happy, wholehearted life.

season of restraint

I missed (blew off) the Ash Wednesday service, but my yoga class tonight opened up clear direction on my intentions to practice some type of spiritual discipline this Easter season.

Mindful restraint.

Not original to me, the opposite of poverty is not wealth, but enough. It goes without saying that in America that word is seldom heard. We are very mindful of our comfort and particular about our pleasure. Where I work, every day is a reminder of the difference enough means in different cultures. We see both ends of poverty - hopeless and hope fulfilled. We see it in the life of a young woman released from poverty and becoming a judge, a lawyer, a doctor.

What do I hope for as a middle class white mother of three? A bigger house? A new car? College tuition for my kids? I'm not advocating that we shouldn't have that stuff, but I'm mindfully aware that my comfort and pleasure take a high priority in my life. It's time they take a back seat for a spell and practice mindful restraint in what I eat and take time when I drink coffee ...or wine...to drink with a friend. To truly take a break. To work hard and rest well.

In curious to know what you're doing to slow down this season or to get more out of life. Abundant life is a promise. It's how we spend it that's the key.

things I vow NOT to do this year

When was it that we all voted on exhaustion as a status symbol? (Thanks, Brene Brown). As I was leaving work on Friday, I ran into a colleague and noted in passing, "It's been a productive week. You have to feel good going into the weekend." As he proceeded through the door he sighed, "No matter. I'm working all weekend anyway."

At first I felt guilty that I don't plan to haul my work home for the weekend and then I reminded myself of the things I said I would not do in 2013 so that I can live a balanced life. When George Bernard Shaw said, "I want to be thoroughly used up when I die" I don't think he was talking about letting his life get sucked into the vortex of one thing without tending the rest. All of the categories of life - work, play, family, friends - are meant to work in concert and not opposition. So in the spirit of Shaw and Brown both, I have decided that in 2013 I will not:

• take my day job home with me.
• permit myself to blow off exercise, unless I'm sick.
• stress over the pressure to grow plants in my house; I'll use the planter to collect wine corks.
• let my herbs mildew in the bottom of the vegetable drawer.
• stress over mildewed food in the bottom of the vegetable drawer.
• use the three step system for washing my fact; two will do.
• keep my house pristine; I compensate with low lighting.
• cook dinner every night; my children are old enough to heat a frozen pizza.
• schedule impossible-to-meet back-to-back commitments; my life needs more margin.
• leave the house in a rush without kissing my husband and kids; they're the why for most of life.

What are you doing to add margin or value in your life?

falling well

Listening to Daughtry as I write, this first week of the new year has made a poignant impact on my resolve. Santa brought skis for Christmas. The year started with a ski day at Copper Mountain January 1. 16º and intermittent sun made it difficult to move, difficult to enjoy skiing without stopping to blow in my hands. To boot (no pun intended), my boots were too large, which left me little to know ability to navigate. I fell more times in one day than in the 20 years I've skied. Here's the fun part.

There was a juncture rendering two choices: return my skis and take up reading in the lodge or keep the skis and try again in a few weeks, maybe with better boots. On a warmer day.

Whatever it is you tried last year that didn't work, it's not over yet. Yes, you will fall. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, mean people will laugh and tell you to give it up. We can't get rid of the mean people, but we can change the way we respond to them.

This is the year to learn to laugh at failure. Fall with grace, if not just a sense of humor. Get up and attack your mountain again.

wholeheartedness: a short study on daring greatly

I've always been a skeptic about what I call  "fluff" psychology. I didn't think it possible to find an academic who studies matters of the heart. While I'm a bonafide "feeler" according to Meyers Briggs, I'm also addicted to the scientific process. It's the journalist in me that requires all "facts" backed up with valid research references.

Enter Brene Brown, author of Daring Greatly, whose dissertation included what it takes to live wholehearted-- a lifelong pursuit of mine. In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brown defines ten guideposts for wholehearted living:

1. Cultivating Authenticity: Letting Go of What People Think
2. Cultivating Self Compassion: Letting Go of Perfectionism
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit: Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy: Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith: Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
6. Cultivating Creativity: Letting Go of Comparison
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self Worth
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness: Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work: Letting Go of Self-Doubt and "Supposed to"
10. Cultivating Laughter, Song and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and Always in Control

I followed this with a four page study of the translations of the word heart in the New Living Translation of the Bible, which shows seven different Hebrew and six different Greek translations of heart. When you compare these to the word wholehearted, it all comes back down to the inner man, the combination of the mind, will, understanding and the inclination or resolution to act on that.

This heart as the seat of appetites, emotions and courage renders Brene Brown’s research relevant from a scriptural point of view. There is no courage to dare or live wholly without an elemental understanding of the heart. Our emotions must be rooted properly, like a strong tree, in order for our courage to engage. This is why food has so many emotional ties. If we satiate our appetites too well, our heart becomes flaccid, just as poor nourishment grows shallow roots, and our courage will be empty. Interesting how this might be connected to America's infamous obesity crisis and a rampant rise among our youth in an inflated sense of entitlement.

If I'm reaching a bit too far in drawing parallels, challenge me. I think Brown is onto something that would change the way we live if we could just apply it. What do you think?

your heart 360º, life's wellspring

There's an old proverb that says "a man's heart is the wellspring of life." The word wellspring is used in so many ways these days that it's hard to actually find a reference that defines the original use, how well water is taken from the ground. You don't build a well just anywhere. You have to know where the water is. You have to know that it's running, not stagnant.

I left a glass of water on the bathroom counter one day after I left for work and my husband reminded me that standing water is a magnet for germs. Water from the rain is fairly pure (generally), but once it collects and stagnates on the ground it breeds little swimming things.

What's swimming around in the water of your mind today? Is your mind filled with things that are true or polluted with bitterness, discontent or insecurity?

Have you ever been the one who wasn't invited to a really great party? Have you ever seen two people whispering? You just KNOW they're talking about you. Someone you really respect doesn't make it to your book launch and you're certain they don't have the heart to tell you they don't like the book. These are all examples of that cesspool of lies and speculation. There's no truth in them.

So what do we do to keep the well fresh?
1. Read something that's true, like scripture or an inspirational book. Read it aloud.
2. Sing. Roll up your car windows or sing in the shower if you don't like how it sounds, but let the vibration of music resonate through your body. It will change your outlook on the day.
3. Act. Movement changes minds. Action speaks louder than words. Maybe what you need is a good walk with your headphones or maybe you need to write a letter or make a meal for someone. Act.

a life 360º

Have you ever seen a banyan vine? It looks like a tree with many roots, but really it's a multitude of interconnected vines.

In the Indo-European Gujarati language, banya means "grocer/merchant," not "tree." The Portuguese picked up the word to refer specifically to Hindu merchants and passed it along to the English as early as 1599 with the same meaning. By 1634, English writers began to tell of the banyan tree, a tree under which Hindu merchants would conduct their business. The tree provided a shaded place for a village meeting or for merchants to sell their goods. Eventually "banyan" became the name of the tree itself. *

Ancient scriptures use the analogy of the vine to talk about the role of man in relation to God. References to vines, fruit and pruning all point to a cultivated spiritual life. Many of those references conjure a grapevine or a fig tree, which is essentially what a Banyan tree is. A banyan (also banian) is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte (a plant growing on another plant) when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree (or on structures like buildings and bridges). When you see a Banyan vine up close, the analogy takes on a whole new meaning.

The vines are interconnected and deeply rooted. The tree cannot be easily moved. If you saw the movie Avatar, you witnessed a tree that served as home to a whole community. The roots were interconnected throughout the forest with other living plants. For some, this takes the analogy too far. What you cannot discard is that many things in life are interconnected this way. Your holistic well being is a perfect example.

You can care for your heart and neglect your soul. You can discard both in favor of physical fitness. Either way, your life is half full. (Or half empty, depending on your world view.) To tend your heart, soul, mind and strength like a garden, or a Banyan tree, is the center of living fully alive.

*Quotations from Wikipedia. Though not a valid research source, still a good repository for general information.

your strength 360º

In the holistic context, strength is talking about pure ability, force, strength, might. Your mind conjures a strong weight lifter of a guy, or Natasha Romanov in The Avengers. Seconds before I logged in to post on what makes our bodies strong:

• exercise
• great food
• sound sleep

I stopped to consider those with chronic pain and conditions that prohibit them from experiencing comfort in every day life. When I think of the chronic sinus pressure I deal with, I consider my brilliant friend who suffers from a long list of physical issues. He's in pain every day to the point that he lives on painkillers. Yet in the midst of that pain, he's the most brilliant technical architect on our team.

Lesson learned here is that we can only do so much to care for this earthly shell. At some point our bodies will fail us. If we've invested 360º in our heart, our soul and our mind, then the body might fail but we still have a lot to give. That  healthy balance is what feeds our ability to live 360º even when things are not perfect - to choose life when pain threatens to overtake it.

your mind 360º

How do you distinguish between your mind and your heart (center of physical life) and your soul (the seat of your feelings, desires, affections, aversions)?

1) the mind as a faculty of understanding, feeling, desiring

2) understanding

3) mind, i.e. spirit, way of thinking and feeling

4) thoughts, either good or bad

This is why 360º living is so vital to a great life. The mind is a hosting ground for the contents of your heart and soul. Joyce Meyer in her bestselling book says that "the mind is the battlefield." Once we've lost in our mind, we've lost.

My daughter lost something we'd accidentally donated to charity. In her frustration she said out loud, "there's no way they'll give it back." I looked her square in the eye and said, "honey, if you really believe that, then it will be true." I called the manager and explained the situation; we got the item back the next day. This was a small issue, but a huge life lesson for a teenager who has to choose whether she will believe what she fears over what's true.

Part of the process of beating the mind into submission is to train it, feed it and give it rest. A good book (qualifying the word good as in stimulating) is just as important as a good nap. A mind that's busy all the time is like a cluttered closet. What does your mind look like today?

your soul 360º

We use the word soul for things that touch us in a deep place. When we experience music or art that seems to set off an electricity inside us, this is how the human feels the soul move.

The first mention of the word in the King James Bible was on the occasion of the creation of man. It was when God breathed the breath of life that man's soul came alive. The same Hebrew translation uses the word differently in a holistic context:

1) breath

a) the breath of life

1) the vital force which animates the body and shows itself in breathing

a) of animals

b) of men

b) life

c) that in which there is life

1) a living being, a living soul

2) the soul

a) the seat of the feelings, desires, affections, aversions (our heart, soul etc.)

b) the (human) soul in so far as it is constituted that by the right use of the aids offered it by God it can attain its highest end and secure eternal blessedness, the soul regarded as a moral being designed for everlasting life

c) the soul as an essence which differs from the body and is not dissolved by death (distinguished from other parts of the body)

We think of breath as a physical thing, yet it's the seat of creation and an ongoing vital force. It's no coincidence that our vital functions are tied to our breath. Our emotions and passions,  as well. How many times have you heard, it took my breath away, when someone was talking about an expression that moved or inspired them?

Our breath is linked to our mind as well. How many times have you been concentrating on a problem and didn't realize why you were growing a headache until you noticed you were holding your breath?

If we starve our soul in favor of intellect or physical accomplishment, we're living a life half full. How do you feed the soul? It begins with stillness. Selah.

your life 360º

What is life 360º?

George Bernard Shaw wrote, "Where is the joy lost in living?" Take a moment and ask yourself. Happiness is purchased with possessions, experiences and circumstances. Joy circumvents the things we cannot control. A life lived 360º taps into all the ingredients of a full life to create someone fully alive - heart, soul, mind and strength.