Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit, Licensed Psychologist, has opened a counseling and coaching office, WisdomSources PLLC in Morgantown, WV. She has also joined the staff at Phoenix Psychological and Counseling Associates, a private practice of mental health professionals located in Quiet Dell, West Virginia, just south of Clarksburg.
Dr. Pettit offers individual, couples and group counseling to adults age 18 and over. Although she works with a spectrum of mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, grief, compulsive behavior, and stress, she especially enjoys working with couples.
“When I do work stress and leadership trainings around the country, it never fails that people want to talk about how and why their personal family relationships are not as harmonious as they would like them to be, “ Dr. Pettit reflects. “All of us want our life at home, what I sometimes think of as our ‘base camp’, to be peaceful and loving. Stress at home tends to show up in every area of our lives.”
Dr. Pettit says that her first goal when working with a couple is to help each partner begin to move out of a stressed state of mind from which they are innocently tending to bring out the worst in each other. She teaches her clients that they create their experience of stress from the inside out, moment to moment, via their use of the gift of thought.
“Unlike many other therapeutic approaches, the focus of my work is NOT on changing what we think,” Pettit explains. “It’s focused, instead, on learning how thinking works so that we can cooperate more gracefully with it.”
Once partners see how they stress themselves out, their minds naturally quiet and they begin to calm down. “In a calmer feeling, we become less “me-focused” and reactive.” Dr. Pettit explains. “Then we are more able to access the love and creativity at the core of our beings. As soon as we’re connected with our wisdom, insights about how to solve the challenges in our relationships flow more easily.”
Dr. Pettit states that she often finds that couples put off coming in for counseling because all the talking they have already done about their problems has left them exhausted and hopeless. Their legitimate question is “how can more talking help?”
“We often just don’t see that when we talk about problems from a troubled state of mind, we actually are at high risk of making them worse. Because of this, I focus couples away from a lot of problem talk, rehashing of the past and techniques that feel artificial,” Dr. Pettit explains. “Once hope is rekindled and people begin to trust again that they can solve their own problems, counseling can quickly become a shorter-term, creative and even light-hearted process.”
Even when couples decide they cannot stay together, Pettit continues, they can certainly access wisdom for moving apart in a way that is respectful.
Dr. Pettit asks that all her client couples read, The Relationship Handbook by George Pranksy, Ph.D. “It’s a little gem of a book that distinguished “high mood therapy” from “low mood therapy” and is filled with good common sense about how to have nice relationships.
Through counseling, coaching, speaking, training and consulting, Dr. Pettit has worked for 25 years in mental health, hospital, university and business settings to help people develop healthier relationships. She can be reached via email at linda@wisdomsources.com. To schedule an appointment, call Phoenix Psychological and Counseling Associates at (304) 622-6404 or WisdomSources PLLC at 304.777.4848.
Have you noticed that creative projects seem to have a timeline and evolutionary process all their own?
When I began developing what has now emerged as my new “At Peace with Life” ebook, I first wrote and packaged it as an e-mail based on-line course. The format just didn’t seem to work, so I started over, revising and revamping the material as an ebook.
Revision after revision later, the book is now ready for purchase on my website as a downloadable ebook for $19.95. The book comes complete with a $75 off coupon toward a consultation session to allow for more personal integration of the contents.
One reviewer said, “I love your beautiful, beautiful book.” Another said, “I expected to skim through it quickly, but found I couldn’t put it down. It prompted my own insights about the grief recovery process.” Another said, “It’s creative. Thought provoking.”
The book, At Peace With Life: Embracing Health and Creativity After Loss, focuses on how we can connect with our innately healthy and resilient spirits after a major experience of change. The change might be a spousal loss, health loss, job loss or loss of a world view, for example, the loss of innocence after a traumatic experience.
Recent research published by Bonanno et al (2002) suggests that resiliency is common after the loss of a spouse. In the Bonanno study, nearly one-half of subjects did NOT experience significant depression or distress following after their partners died. Several factors seemed more predictive of resiliency: a happy marriage, an independent spirit, overall self-confidence and coping skills, an acceptance of death and a belief in a just world.
The good news the research points to, I think, is that there is a way for all of us to come through loss with resilience and health. There are principles, basic truths, that we use to create our experience of life from the inside-out, that enable us to weather life’s challenges, including the most difficult, with grace, balance and gentle humor.
It seems to me that people, including those who struggle to connect with their resilience overall, often appear to reclaim the best of the best within themselves WHEN they are confronted with a major loss. Over and over I’ve seen loss become the birth canal for greater generativity, creativity and an indomitable spirit! The “Women of Wisdom” stories on this website testify to that fact.
So, if you’ve come through a loss and are ready to re-engage with life in a new, strengthened, more creative way, I invite you to read “At Peace with Life.” I’ll welcome your reflections about the material.
Bonanna et al. (2002). “Resilience to Loss and Chronic Grief: A Prospective Study from Preloss to 18-Months Postloss.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 83, No. 5, 1150-1164.
I haven’t seen his sweet, crooked smile in seven years, since he died suddenly. Yet, the essence of that smile, the love it evoked, is as strong as ever.
I remembered that smile all day. The thought was peaceful and so very grateful.
I’m grateful whenever I see the echoes of that smile in my tall, slender daughter’s kind face. She reminds me of him constantly and that is a blessing I never fail to count. She pays forward his love.
Jim taught me to protect turtles, and I’m grateful for that. I move them off the road whenever I see them crossing, to prevent unfortunate accidents. Doing so reminds to be present to spirit in all of creation.
I’m grateful for the family I was welcomed into when we married. My heart is soft with respect and love for them. The harmony they keep is special.
I’ so very grateful for the years we enjoyed together on the hill in Millstone, West Virginia. Times spent laughing and dining in warm country kitchens on snowy winter days with hill friends are like hot fudge sauce on the ice cream of my dearest memories.
250,000 miles spent together on a Gold Wing Interstate motorcycle, touring back country all over the North American continent. I’m so deeply grateful that we witnessed together the amazing beauty of this land.
I kept his leather. Every once in a great while I just hold it and inhale the scent of it. In my imagination, I can still feel the warmth of the sun on it and his body in it. That makes me smile.
I especially remember the trip around the Gaspe Peninsula in Canada. We cried together several times because the beauty was just almost too much to take in.
I’m grateful for the depth of his love and understanding. I know he would feel nothing but happiness that I am so in love with my new husband. He was just that way. Jim would love Bill. They are cut from the same beautiful cloth, woven with love, peace and good humor: men of simplicity and uncommon wisdom.
Jim’s life and death have been such a lesson: try to leave nothing behind but love and good will. Such purity of feeling illuminates the path for those who must go forward with hearts broken open by the presence of the giver’s absence.
Jim’s birthday is my gift. Thank you JP. You ARE remembered. Always.
It was difficult to watch the images of a town socked in the stomach with grief after the loss of its university football team, coaching staff and civic leaders in a plane crash. The rawness of the shock portrayed hit home.
The early days and weeks after the sudden death of my first husband in a motor vehicle accident on Christmas Eve in 1999 were so painful.
I remember shaking. I remember walking around feeling like I was caught in a very bad dream and couldn’t wake up. I remember the feeling of my heart breaking, the difficulty I had breathing as life shattered around me.
I watched the movie with deep empathy for the suffering people experience when their loved ones leave them suddenly. When there are no good-byes. When stories of love and life go permanently unfinished. When tomorrows dawn drastically altered and we are helpless to do anything but to wake up and live them.
And yet. And yet. It was heartening to be reminded that we do heal. Always. Some slower. Some faster. Each in our own way. Yes, grief changes us irrevocably. But we have much to do with the direction: inspired and enlightened or embittered and broken.
In the movie, Matthew McCoughnehey plays an unpretentious, down home coach, long on humor, short on words. He’s not afraid to go quiet in the face of unspeakable grief. But frankly, what he knows to do is focus on the healing of the town, rather than its exposed woundedness.
I’m reminded of a story of another tragedy from the book, Mystics, Magicians and Medicine People:Tales of a Wanderer by Doug Boyd. Boyd describes watching with his sister, a nurse, as a motorcyclist is mowed down by a VW bus in New York city. Dropping to her knees next to the terribly injured man, Boyd’s sister begins whispering in his ear: The accident is over. Forget it. It’s done. The injury is in the past. You are already healing. Focus on that. The healing. It’s all that matters.
When we are injured in the contact sport of life, healing begins instantaneously. I KNOW that from my own experience of grief. The trick is not getting in the way of that healing energy. And that takes a willingness to GENTLY shake ourselves free, moment by moment, from the thoughts that take us away from the experience of peace.
As you read this, I feel certain you are experiencing loss at some level. It’s just part of life. I’m aware of missing my husband, who has gone to work. I’m aware of an energy building that is likely to catapult me through another big life transition. I’m aware that my body is changing, moving in fits and starts through menopause. Some of you may be dealing with really huge losses, like I did after the death of my first husband.
As a fellow human being who has lost and won through, I’ve found that there is a process for moving gently and creatively through loss.
For me that process boils down to four simple reminders:
Keep a quieter mind. Don’t take seriously any thoughts that interfere with being at peace.
Life from a beautiful feeling. (calm, love, peace, joy, wonder, curiosity, etc.)
Listen deeply for wisdom, a felt sense of knowing what is right and true.
Watch for synchronicities to confirm any course of action.
The first reminder is crucial; the rest flow gently from it. As we are able to keep a quieter mind, our natural well-being, our innate health and creativity are more able to bubble up into that purity of stillness. In that state, we are often able to move forward and heal with confidence and competence.
Not sure about that? You might consider signing up for my e-course, Transcending Loss, soon to also be available as a downloadable ebook. I feel confident that if you can be open to understanding several principles that show us how we create our experience of life moment to moment, you will glimpse a way of living, of moving beyond loss, that is heavenly.
3 a.m. last night. I wake to an awareness that my body feels flushed from head to toe. It’s like I’m sitting in the intense Hawaii sun, minus the beautiful ocean, swaying palm trees and sweet breezes. There’s no shade; I can’t escape this unbearable heat. I’m vaguely nauseated.
What’s worse is that I’m feeling incredibly anxious. Heart’s pounding. Shaking inside. This feeling gives new meaning to the word jittery.
Immediately my brain tries to make sense of the experience. What is this about? I know, I’m worried about my family! That must be it!
My brain is off and running, one worry about family quickly compounding another. The anxious sensations worsen and become alarming….all the signs now suggest that I’m in for an early waking worry-fest that will extend until dawn. Not good.
But wait. I’m the thinker of my thoughts and I don’t like where this particular train is taking me. Let go of the worrying. Seek a quieter mind. Go to that sweet place of more peaceful awareness. Take a deep breath. Rest. Wait some more.
A quiet new thought appears. What if these body sensations are JUST a hot flash? A HOT FLASH? Certainly possible. I’m 53 and quite obviously speeding toward menopause, but to this point I’ve been pretty free of the hot flashes and night sweats my age-mate women friends laugh and lament about. Hmmm…a hot flash.
Suddenly, I’m curious. What is this like? Well, like every pore is on fire, including the roots of my hair, even though no flames are visible. It occurs to me….my BODY is jittery, but I now am not. My spirit, my essence is rather quiet and calm, simply observing what is happening in my body.
I leave the warmth of my heated waterbed and head downstairs for the cool of my lazy-boy chair.
My husband jokes that my Native American name would be “Princess Woosie With Cold”, PWWC for short.
This name came to him after I repeatedly stated that it doesn’t completely suit me that on winter nights he wants to open the windows, turn on the ceiling fan, turn off the water bed heater AND turn the house heat down to 65. He would be surprised to see me at this moment, seeking, inhaling, embracing the cool Arctic air of our home.
Once in the chair, cooler, I continue to just watch the experience of this hot flash unfold from a more impersonal, neutral perspective. I remember thinking, “what an interesting thing it is to be in a human body.” That is the last thought I remember before sliding into a peaceful sleep. I awaken several hours later, freezing, and return to bed, grateful to slip back in next to the warmth of my beloved’s body.
Funny isn’t it? Detaching from a train of thought that was hell bent on taking me on an exhausting, nerve-wracking journey opened the door to a new understanding. Curious too, that from a quieter mind I accessed a more philosophical perspective that seemed to change the experience of my symptoms.
Gives concrete meaning to the Buddha’s comment, “we are what we think, with our thoughts we create the world.”
It’s been awhile since I blogged. My last post was in May! Incredible how a few days away from writing can stretch into months.
In the intervening months, life has happened. Children have married. Grandchildren have arrived. I traveled for the first time in Europe. I’ve taken lots of training. I reopened my practice of psychotherapy in Parkersburg, WV and have been very busy seeing clients.
And it also seems that during the last six months I’ve pursued a number of promising career options that have come to dead ends.
What exactly does the creative person DO when her walk through the maze of life starts to feel less like an adventure and more like an experience of being lost?
For awhile, feeling a little anxious and frustrated, I just kept trying new pathways. Result? More dead ends.
So for now, I’m doing what, in my heart, I KNOW is always really best to DO when wisdom has become hard to hear. Stay still. Listen with deeper attention. Turn to the place of “no thought.”
So far, the only whisper I’ve heard is “write.” So here I am.
“No thought” is really such a wonderful experience. Put the clutch in. Disengage the thinking gears. Stay in neutral. Idle. Inevitably what I experience is presence....a sweet awareness of the now, the moment I’m in. And always, a sensation of love and wonder, seasoned with gratitude.
Trouble is, my brain tends to want to slip into gear and sometimes, before I know it, I’m back in overdrive....analyzing and worrying rather than listening and creating.
All I know to do when brain autopilot occurs is to re-engage neutral once more.
Why bother? Because the relaxed, calm feeling of being in “no thought” is SO much gentler and nicer than the tight tension of over-thinking… and, in the end, so much more productive.
Many of you know the routine. Submit to the annual mammogram (in the privacy of my own mind, I call it the breast squashing ritual!)
The mammogram technician says, “My you have dense breasts!” (does that mean they are big AND dumb?) Orders more tests.
Results come back: more fibrocysts. BIG sigh of relief.
Two weeks later, visit the dermatologist. Slightly different mole on a leg becomes a target of concern and that once smooth spot is now a healing crater “wound” a.k.a. biopsy site. Oops… a melanoma scare.
Family doc says, “You’re over 50! Time for a colonoscopy! Aaargh....so now there’s a colon cancer scare in the offing!
I’m not afraid of dying. There were so many mysterious miracles and synchronicities surrounding my first husband’s death! I don’t pretend to understand them, but they did convince me that there is another side. The form of it may be a mystery, but the magnificent, peaceful spirit of it is not.
For me these cancer scares are stop signs. They bring me up short to a fear of being sick. AND, they remind me that one of these days I WILL have to surrender this precious gift of sensual human life.
The fear of being sick is fleeting. I know it’s a product of thought. I’ve been sick before, and had a multi-year experience of chronic pain. I know I have the potential to deal with those issues creatively, in the moment, and retain my capacity to experience joy, love and life.
But the surrender of life is another matter.
I LOVE being alive. I LOVE sensory experience:
The JOY of seeing the breath-taking beauty of the West Virginia mountains shrouded in mists.
The AWE of looking through the eyes of love at my beautiful daughter’s face.
The exquisite PLEASURE of making love to my husband.
The WONDER of watching a client find peace and relief from suffering.
The TASTE of great food.
The INSPIRATION of beautiful music.
The ARTISTRY of great writing.
These sensual gifts are DIVINE...heaven on earth. The body truly is the vessel through which an experience of the kingdom within is possible during this human walk.
Hmmmm...these cancer scares remind me how fragile life is. Surrendering to the heaven I cannot know is an interesting mystery. Surrendering the heaven I DO KNOW seems a challenge.
Guess I’ll just do what I can to stay out of the illusion of my thoughts and in the experience of beautiful feelings. When I’m in such feelings I have EYES for all the miracles around me. And even the most ordinary experiences of life are precious and magical. I want to experiences as much as I can of the great round of life!
Cancer scares? Or practical reminders to be present to the heaven in front of me?
As I thought about writing this post, I encountered some inner resistance. The voice went, “Oh gosh, put this out there and you’ll be classified as some “out there” woman who has lost her ground and entered the “airy fairy” psychic stratosphere.”
Sorry. Not so. The story I’m about to tell you is truthful and factual. It happened just as I tell it. I did not seek out this experience, it just happened. And the lessons it taught me about wisdom, a quiet mind and beautiful feelings are priceless.
This is a story about wisdom and synchronicity, coincidences that are meaningful to you. It speaks to an understanding that there is an intelligent energy in this universe that guides you. It points the way to order and stability all the time. Listening for it is especially important after a life-shattering loss.
The year is 2002: three years after my first husband died in a motor vehicle accident. I am a very busy woman. My WisdomSources business is growing. I’m practicing psychotherapy full-time. And, I’m raising a daughter who happens to be a student athlete, making me a “volleyball” and “basketball” Mom.
In that description, read: I don’t have time to think about a love relationship!
Yes, I was sometimes a little lonely, but mostly I was too occupied to care. At some level, I really doubted there would ever be another man in my life.
Did I want to have a relationship? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I had become quite satisfied and happy with my single life.
One of the projects keeping me busy at the time was that I was attempting to help organize a large group of holisitic health practitioners in the mid-Ohio Valley so that they could move their agenda forward. I resonate with complementary health practices that respect and honor the inseparability of body, mind and spirit.
That led me to meet Ellen, an intuitive, who practices palmistry and other metaphysical arts.
Ellen did not actually join the Healing Arts group because she didn’t want to slow down attempts to integrate with local medical and spiritual organizations.
Nonetheless, she suggested that she and I meet so that she could help me understand more about her work and her understanding of metaphysical phenomenon.
On a sultry, hazy day in August, we met at a Bob Evans in Marietta...and really, the rest is history.
Ellen told me that she believed in destiny, but also believed that free will can always override it. As she talked, a lot of what she said just made common sense to me. And, she came across as a grounded, caring and loving woman.
But on to the story. Ellen asked to see my hands. She studied them for a short while. And then she began talking about my past, my present and my future. The accuracy of her understanding about my past stunned me and gave me a “heads up” to listen with an open mind to what she said about the future.
Ellen told me that I would soon meet (in five or six months, she thought) a man who I would marry. She said he would be a medical doctor teaching a nontraditional understanding of mind and body. She told me we would have loads of fun together and that we would teach each other a great deal...over a long span of years. She gave me additional delicious (and spicy!) information about what it would be like when I met him!
Hearing all this was fun! But it was what was happening inside me that I was paying attention to. Somehow I KNEW Ellen spoke the truth. I had experienced other flashes in that time period, coming from within me, suggesting that a relationship was in the offing. What Ellen said was an invitation to TRUST what I already had a sense of.
I felt hope, excitement, curiosity and anticipation. Nice feelings. Beautiful feelings.
Another sweet note: several days after meeting Ellen, while eating at a Chinese restaurant, I opened a fortune cookie to read this note: “The love of your life will appear in front of you unexpectedly!” How funny!
Six months later, on Valentine’s Day of 2003, I met my husband (a psychiatrist) while I was speaking on The Power of Unconditional Love in Healing at the West Virginia University Medical School for the Grand Rounds program of the Department of Integrative Medicine (unfortunately, now defunct.)
Bill had seen an announcement of my talk and had decided he was too busy to attend. On his way to lunch, he saw a poster outside the door advertising that I was in the process of speaking. He decided to step in “for a moment.”
Our first date was in March, we got engaged in May and were married in September. It is a delicious relationship!
Really, this is not an endorsement of intuitives. There are some, like Ellen, who clearly have a gift and an enlightened spiritual understanding. They, like Ellen, will tell you they are tapping into something that is available to all of us.
As I’ve often said when I teach about intuition and synchronicity, I think consulting intuitives can be like trying to buy fast food “take out” intuition. The quality of what you get depends a lot on who is cooking up what you order. If you want, you can order up your own home-cooked, trustworthy meal.
This story does speak to the power of beautiful feelings, the power of a quiet mind and the gift of wisdom.
Hearing Ellen and FEELING the connection to my own wisdom was inspiring and joyful. That sense of being inwardly connected stayed with me and I felt a wonderful, peaceful buoyancy in the ensuing months. I didn’t think AT ALL about what I had to do to attract someone. Simply, I stayed in the now, lived in a beautiful feeling and life UNFOLDED.
I knew a greater TRUST in my intuitive wisdom. I felt receptive to men and experienced a strong sense of WONDER about when one would appear in my life.
People told me that I was RADIANT with happiness. Small wonder that Bill, a very healthy, radiant individual himself, was attracted to that!
Recently, a colleague expressed some surprise that I wanted to write a book about loss. She said, “But your life isn’t about loss, it’s about life…a big, full life!” She may be right. Maybe there’s another “big life” book in me!
Yet….I find myself called, or pulled, I’m not sure which, to extend a hopeful hand to those of you out there who are finding your way back to a full life after a loss.
The time after a loss can be so sacred. I think about the loss of my first husband. That loss slowed me down. Turned me inward. Loss made it difficult for me to think and to analyze.
Somehow it seemed to me that my ears got more sensitive and my eyes developed x-ray vision. I listened deeper. I saw deeper. Into the heart of things. Into what really mattered.
One moment stands out in particular. I pulled into the driveway of my home in the West Virginia mountains. It was hot; early summertime. The ground was moistened and the trees perspired with the rain dropped by a quick-passing thunderstorm.
In my car, the CD, Love is Space, by Deva Premal was playing: the song was a chant honoring the Divine: Jai Radha Madhav.
I sat for awhile before leaving the car, listening to the beautiful sacred chant and absorbing the natural beauty around me. The colors seemed very bright. The fragrance on the air was fresh, strong and beautiful.
A peace surpassing all understanding enveloped me. I knew I would be all right. I knew Jim’s death was all right. I knew life was going to turn out all right. Somehow. Some way. I felt it from within, even though I had no idea what would unfold.
My grief broke, like a fever, and a huge wave of love and gratitude had me laughing and crying at the same time. Hard to explain. But it was a turning point.
And unfold life did…to new, inspiring work; to a wonderfully loving partner; to the joy of watching my daughter mature; to becoming part of a much larger family, and more.
Loss taught me that if I was quiet enough; if I was awake to the wisdom within me, life would simply unfold and I would see opportunity and possibility.
I held out. I waited. I listened. When it came time to act, I acted. And here I am: stronger, more alive, hanging on to a peace more often than not that surpasses all understanding. So can you.
Many moons ago, two friends from opposite ends of the continent sent me the same greeting card about being an “artist of life.”
Colorfully-clad figures of women danced in a circle in the drawing on the front of the card.
The image pointed to the idea that an artist of life created loving, joyful, beautiful relationships. The idea that I could be an artist of relationship as much as I could be an artist of painting, photography or pottery stayed with me…even becoming an important part of my business tag line.
During the FREE WisdomSources Artists of Life Inspiration TeleCircle tonight, from 7-8 p.m. EST, we’ll be sharing understandings that make it easier to live in harmony with husbands and children, as well as with neighbors, local or global.
Joining us is easy. Sign up here or to receive the phone number and access codes for our call.
Each call we enjoy a guided relaxation and check in with each other to share ideas, practical steps we’ve taken and progress we’ve made toward living more creative, wise and beautiful lives.
We also share provocative ideas each call about the art of living well. Currently, we’re using Jonathon Haidt’s book, The Happiness Hypothesis, as the platform for our discussion.
Tonight, we’ll be talking about:
• understanding that each of us uses the gift of thinking to create separate realities to live from
• our human tendency to believe down to our toes that our reality is best, better and more right than anyone else’s
• ways of seeing so that separate realities become invitations to compassion, understanding and appreciation rather than tickets to conflicts ranging from personal arguments to world wars.
• HOW to understand and free ourselves from the pain of judgment.
Live with greater wisdom and peace. Join us for a lively hour of connection with kindred spirits and wise women from around the country!
Is the elephant the sum total of our unconscious thoughts, wishes, and impulses, which we, the conscious rider, sometimes desperately, try to get control of so we can move in a chosen direction?
Jonathon Haidt likes that analogy. In his book, the Happiness Hypothesis: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times, he uses it to describe why we often find doing ourselves doing other than what we consciously want to do.
Join our free Artists of Life Inspiration Telecircle for women, Tuesday night from 7-8 p.m. EST, to discuss the elephant and rider analogy and to explore ways to more gently and fluently unfold your deepest dreams for your life.
Perhaps there are ways—simple ways—to bypass what seems like a divided personal mind and align beautifully with the intelligent energy behind all of creation!
Email me today for the call-in information for the TeleCircle! I invite you to be a part of the energy of wisdom so evident in this beautiful circle of women. From a spirit of support, harmony and love, I know we can all find insights for being artists of life!
First priority for the week-end? Relax. Have some fun!
Of course, I know you have a lot to do. House work. Laundry. Grocery shopping. Children to chauffeurr to games. Bills to pay. Church.
Do as much as you can and want to. But first, how about deliberately taking time for kicking back and doing whatever floats your boat in the leisure department? An investment in rest, fun, play and relaxation makes common sense AND is a necessary condition for a continual flow of wisdom in your life.
When Bill and I got married two and one-half years ago, one quirky difference between us was immediately apparent. When he got tired, he took a nap. When I got tired, I drank a cup of coffee and kept going! I ended up grumpy and unproductive. He was cheerful and effective. Hmmmm...a lesson learned!
I plan to play this week-end. I’ll be glued to the T.V. on Saturday watching the Mountaineer Men’s Basketball team work their court-stopping magic. GO MOUNTAINEERS! On Sunday, I’m really looking forward to watching the Steelers play in my hometown, Detroit, and hopefully triumph over the Seahawks.
You might think I’m a sports nut! THAT would elicit a hearty laugh from my husband.
As I’ve learned to live in a more tranquil state of mind and gentle heart, my attitude toward my sports-loving husband AND the sports he loves, especially football, has, well, transformed. It happened like this:
One day, while looking at him through grateful eyes as the umpteenth game came on the TV, I thought, “My husband is really very bright and he’s not at all a violent man. There must be SOMETHING in this game beyond the violent collision of bodies on a field that interests him.” I was curious.
I started paying attention when he described plays to me. And, I started asking questions when I didn’t understand what was happening. He’s a great teacher. Before long, the elegant strategy behind the practice of many sports actually became fascinating for me. I’d never been exposed to that before. I went to Ladywood, an all-girl’s Catholic High School in Michigan, for goodness sakes!
So now I watch with great enjoyment. BOTH because I enjoy the games and because I just like sitting by him enjoying something that he enjoys immensely. It’s a nice feeling. Being in that feeling will be wonderfully rejuvenating this week-end!
My wish for your week-end? Lots of nice feelings, tranquil times and rest. Back on Monday!
Think about your deepest, most cherished dream. If you truly knew how to fully embrace your creative spirit and accomplish your desire, what would you do? Find a new job? Write a book? Lose weight? Find a mate?
What holds you back? What holds anyone back? Make a quick list of all of the “causes”,"reasons" or “obstacles” that you think might explain your delay in achieving your goals.
Next week, in our “Artists of Life” Inspiration TeleCircle, Tuesday, 7-8 p.m. EST, we’ll be talking about these interesting questions and your answers.
We’ll explore the way ancient indigenous people, venerated philosophers and poets, and contemporary psychologists have answered those questions.
We’ll also look in the directions suggested by modern physicists...which are being explored by many psychotherapy models...for greater light about how to be more effective in our lives.
Do join us! Your voice and contribution are welcome in our growing circle. {embed="Linda@wisdomsources.com" title="Email me">for the call-in number and access code.
Thank you to the commenter on the “Angels Fly Lightly!” post.
Let’s reflect a bit on her comment that the terms “inner peace” and “busy women” are in conflict, but don’t have to be. A central point that the author of the book, Inner Peace for Busy Women, Joan Borysenko makes is that we can learn to stay in the “eye of the” cyclone of busyness that often characterizes our lives.
How do we stay in the eye? Joan suggests that we can take a big step in that direction by learning “mindfulness” practices. What is mindfulness? A commonly-accepted definition is that it involves awareness of present experience with acceptance. So, when you are mindful you are present to whatever is happening (outer circumstances as well as inner experiences—thoughts, feelings, sensations) in the moment. And, you observe such experiences without evaluating or judging them.
ONE of the endpoints of mindfulness is that it changes your RELATIONSHIP to your thoughts, feelings and sensations. Instead of BEING them, you HAVE them. That, proponents of the technique hold, ideally, leads to greater equanimity and respons-ability for what you do about them.
Mindfulness is generally taught through meditation and other meditative techniques (yoga, mindful walking, conscious breathing, for example.) Teachers of mindfulness suggest that moments of ordinary mindfulness can be relatively easy to come by, but that continual, sustained mindfulness takes hard work and lots of practice.
I like the idea of mindfulness and I practice it. It can make even the most mundane tasks enjoyable.
I remember once getting mindful while washing a bathroom floor...just watching my mind...seeing my angst at the question of why I was the ONLY ONE in the family who washed bathroom floors....
...noticing my knees screaming at me...noticing the frustration about hairs that just won’t be captured by wet rags...seeing the sunshine dance across the beautiful tiles...noticing the way the colors of the tiles and wall paint I had chosen complemented each other so beautifully...feeling grateful for the abundance I enjoyed.
Somehow, when I found the nice feeling, I just stayed there. I actually found myself moved to tears with the level of my appreciation.
Mindfulness seems to do that for me...leading me, inevitably, to a nicer feeling state.
I will say, however, that I do think being in a more and more continual state of mindfulness actually can require much less “hard work and practice” than many proponents would have us believe! Children know how to do it naturally; we adults just forget how. More about THAT in coming days....
What do you do to keep your creative spirit strong and focused?
Frequently, my coaching clients mention that they struggle not to get distracted from their creative goals. The challenges to creative focus for women are many and varied: for example, housework, unexpected illnesses, jobs, legitimate family needs, self-doubt, lack of information about how to proceed and unrealistic expectations of the creative process.
Some of my strategies for connecting with, nourishing and having discipline with regard to my creative spirit include:
first and foremost, aiming to stay relaxed, rested and in a quiet mind as much as I can so wisdom about what to do next flows to me easily
spending a few minutes at the beginning of each month imagining that the month is over and wondering what projects I would feel ecstatic about accomplishing and WRITING THOSE DOWN.
making a list of “to dos” every day and prioritizing them in order of importance and moving down my list one by one.
“sandwiching" tasks I’m not too excited about between those I’m itching to get to so something motivates me to keep going.
staying present to myself when I get stuck. Not judging the experience, but just observing it and letting wisdom guide me to know whether I should take a break, keep going or alter my course until I feel the flow again.
remembering that DISCIPLINE involves looking at myself through the eyes of a teacher who loves me. Practicing “cease and desist” and reclaiming my attention when my thought flow gets self-critical, impatient or stress-producing.
, by Deva Premal was playing: the song was a chant honoring the Divine: Jai Radha Madhav.