Category: Sunday Letters

Every Monday, three friends and I get together for a chat, catching each other up on the happenings of the previous week. We’ve been doing this now for nearly 18 years.

It all began as a Master Mind group focused on self-development and having, as I recall, a dozen or so original members. Over time, interests changed, life took people in new directions and our group dwindled down to us four. We met via conference call for many years. Now we meet on Zoom and love seeing each other’s faces..

Last week I found some notes I’d made after a call from a decade ago. We were talking about how each of us tends to think of our own life as ordinary. Mundane. Pretty routine. Boring, even. But then we realized that we found each other’s lives fascinating. We keep calling every week, after all, just to find out what happened next.

It turns out that what happened next usually wasn’t some great achievement or adventure (although we’ve had our share of those), but instead it was maybe a new insight or observation, a way of looking at the familiar from a slightly different vantage point.

We had been talking at the time about ways we could become more aware of the stories we tell ourselves, of the habitual labels and judgments that we slap on our experiences, and how becoming aware of that helps us break free of them and lets us experience things with greater freshness and joy.

So I got to thinking about the way we label our lives as ordinary and deem that to be a negative thing, as if life held zest only if it was filled with new and exciting events.

What if, I wondered, we chose to see the routines of our lives as a pleasure? What if we awakened to the comfort they gave us?

What if our stretches of boredom were simply the result of not paying attention? Ta-dah! There’s a little eureka moment for you!

Then, mid-week, I was doing some random surfing on the Web and I stumbled on one of those “photos of the day” sites that offers glimpses into the way people around the globe are spending their time. There’s a lot of celebration and achievement going on out there! But there’s a lot of pain and conflict and suffering, too. And the photos showed the whole range.

The photos that struck me most were one of a woman feeding her infant a spoonful of soup inside a tent in a refugee camp, and one of a father holding rolled razor wire up with a stick so his five year old daughter could crawl under it toward the relative safety that waited on the other side.

And I’m going to complain that my life is routine and ordinary? I could be one of the firefighters battling flames. Or one of those whose homes were burning. I could be digging through mud with a stick, trying to find any belongings the flood may have left behind.

May I be grateful for the ordinariness of my life!

Yesterday, I went in search of insights into the benefits of ordinariness from other people. The first one I found brought the photos back to mind:

“How we take it for granted – those trivial conversations; those mundane moments that we think hold no meaning. We never realize how much we rely on the ordinariness of everyday life. When love is gone – when our entire world is gone – only then do we understand those moments are what we live for.”

― Dianna Hardy, in Cry Of The Wolf

And then there was this one, echoing my own realization that awareness is the key:

“I thought: This is what the living do. And I swooned at the ordinary nature of the task and myself, at my chapped hands and square palms, at the way my wrists bent and fingers flexed inside this living body.”

― Dee Williams

The ordinary s the stuff of the good life, the day to day conversations and routines. In the end, the ordinary things are the ones that give our lives meaning. The key is to see them for the treasures they are, to be aware in them, and grateful.

Here’s a poem little from a guy who gets it. I’ll leave it with you as my parting gift for today:

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

― William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

Wishing you a gloriously ordinary week!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Pexels from Pixabay}

My friend sent me a video the other day of the workshop she’d built for herself over the winter months. A couple years ago, her previous workshop burned to the ground in a fire.

The new one was a work of art. It’s walls were hung with organized tools above cabinets and sets of shelves on rolling casters filled with labeled bins, and a rack for storing lumber. She could rearrange her space according to whatever project she was working on. As usual, she’d done a top-notch job.

I was impressed.

I smiled as I watched the video. One of my friend’s top joys in life is designing and building things. Big things. The coop she built for her flock of chickens, for instance, is so elegant that I call it “the chicken palace.” Yet with all these achievements, she talks about herself as being lazy.

So I watched the video of her fabulous new workshop I wrote back, “Not bad for a lazy girl.”

She told me about the list of tasks she still had to complete, the final touch ups. She’d put in months of work on her project and the few loose ends weren’t exactly sparking her to get up and get them done.

But then she found the key. Instead of thinking “I have to,” she taught herself to say “I want to.”

And then, she said, “It gets done!”

It was a technique I’d discovered, too. I’ve learned to turn “have to” into “get to,” framing an obligation, responsibility, or less-than-welcome task into something I was privileged to be able to do.

I turn “should” into “could,” too. Instead of feeling pressured to do something, I claim my freedom to decide whether to do it now or not.

I consider how long it would take, how much energy it would require. I check my current intentions and priorities. I consider whether there’s something else I genuinely need to do now instead. Or maybe I’d rather do one of the other things that I could get done. All this takes place in a few seconds. Then, whatever I decide, I’m making my choice consciously and freely, and I get to do what I truly want to do.

My friend and I had both stumbled on one of the simplest and most powerful tricks for shifting into a more positive mindset: Our choice of the words we used to frame our situation.

Here’s how this magic works. Picture a triangle with the words “behavior,” “thoughts,” and “feelings” written on each of its sides. Now imagine an arrow pointing from each word to the next. What it’s telling you is that our behaviors influence our thoughts, which influence our feelings, which influence our behavior, and around and around.

If you make a change in one, each of the others will shift, too. You can try it out right now. Put a big smile on your face, or sit up straighter and see what happens to your thoughts, to the way you feel.

When you can reframe things in a more positive way, you get a lot more done and done more easily. Because you’re dissolving the stress of the oppressive thought, you free up pathways that are healthier on all levels.

Just think! It’s the beginning of a whole new season in your life – one where you get to do anything that you want to, that you could. All you have to do is notice when you’re putting off a ‘have to’ or a ‘should’ and reframe your view of it with a friendlier word. And isn’t that a fine trick to know!

Wishing you a week of inviting choices. Happy Spring!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image from my friend’s video.}

A neighbor of mine, a single mom with two small kids, told me about a remarkable experience she had this week.

She’d gone shopping with her two little toddlers in tow and had set her purse atop her car while she buckled them in their car seats and loaded the groceries into her car. She’d spent her last dollar on the food and was anxious about how she’d find money for gas to get to work the rest of the week.

She was almost home, she said, when she reached for her purse to grab a tissue and realized what she had done. She broke into tears right then and there in despair. She retraced her route, scanning the roadside in the vain hope that she’d spot the missing purse. Then she drove to the local police station to report her loss.

To her astonishment, the police had her purse! It was beat up, as if it had been run over. They said some dirty, tattooed biker had brought it in just minutes ago. He told them if the owner happened to report it, to ask her to call him. He had left his phone number.

Puzzled, she called him while the police listened in, afraid he might have extortion of some kind in mind.

He said he was just returning from a 200-mile charity run and had spotted the purse by the side of the road. He told her that he looked through it for ID but only saw the photos of two babies in the empty wallet.

He thought the woman who owned it must be having an awful day. He said he was sorry she had lost whatever else was in the purse, but he had brought it in just as he found it. Except for one thing.

My friend said, “One thing? What was that?”

“Look in the zippered pocket,” he said. She did as he asked and discovered a crisp $100 bill.

“I hope that helps a little,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that good things happen in life as well as the setbacks.”

The police officers on duty were as shocked as my friend. “Just goes to show you,” one of them said, “You really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

That was two years ago, my friend said. And she never forgot the biker’s amazing kindness—or the lesson about judging people on the basis of stereotypes.

You never know how much impact a kindness that you do will have on other lives. Each gesture of kindness ripples on and on.

I know the grungy biker’s act of generosity meant everything to my friend. And I hope by telling you about it, you’ll benefit from his kindness, too.

Pass it on.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Susi Schneider from Pixabay}

After hearing about the losses and illnesses in several friends’ lives, and of the anxiety brought to more than a few folks by the world’s current events, I was reminded again of one of the most valuable teachings I ever learned.

I’ve shared it with you before, but this seems like a good time to remind you about it, too. It’s this counsel from Tara Brach about what to do when you find that you’re in distress. Say this to yourself, she says:

“This is suffering.
Everybody suffers.
May I be kind.”

I’m always comforted by that. It lets me put a name to what I’m both experiencing and witnessing in the world around me. Suffering. It reminds me that none of us is ever alone in our suffering, that every human being everywhere experiences it. That’s kind of a deep thing to realize. None of us escapes pain, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or a mix of them all. Life in this world isn’t for sissies. It puts all of us to the test.

Knowing that, the only worthwhile response is to be kind. Accept that at one time or another, life is painful place. Reality here has a brutal streak. And in the face of it, kindness is a healing balm. It washes over the scene with a gentle warmth. It ever so subtly brings a soft light to things, allowing us to feel a spaciousness wide enough to peer beyond our pain, to sense the love around us, too. Let yourself remember a moment of kindness you experienced and notice how it lifts and soothes you just to think of it.

The first place to focus your kindness when you’re in distress is on yourself. Imagine giving yourself a gentle, compassionate hug, one that conveys that a sincere understanding of what you’re feeling. You’re human. Pain comes with the territory. Let it be what it is; it will pass.

Then, once you open yourself to being accepting and kind towards yourself, however slightly, let it flow out to everybody around you. You never know what’s going on inside somebody else’s skin. It could be that the person right next to you needs a friendly smile as much as you do. Let it touch the entire situation you’re in—everything and everyone involved.

A friend of mine sometimes says, “Love isn’t a feeling; it’s an action.” I think of that when I think about what kindness is.

Just because you aren’t feeling especially generous toward someone doesn’t mean you can’t treat them with respect and consideration. Kindness means you look past your own troubles to try to help lift the load for somebody else. After all, it’s like the old guru said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

.Another beautiful thing about kindness is the way it generates a feedback loop. It’s like instant karma, returning to you the love that you give, multiplied.

I know I often encourage you to “tuck this one in your pocket,” that I hope you’ll adopt a quote or an exercise as part of your own tool chest. But I especially hope you’ll gift yourself with this one. You have your own way to store things in your mind. Maybe you make a written note of it. Maybe you practice chanting it until you feel it embedding itself in your memory. Whatever means you use, use it with this one: “This is suffering. Everybody suffers. May I be kind.” Its benefits are real, and healing, and strong.

Wishing you a week of peace and ease.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay}

Suppose the Events Designer—the cosmic faculty that makes all the coincidences and opportunities pop into our lives—has his sensors right there in the invisible space between you and everything else – say, between you and the screen where you’re reading these words for example.

By the way, I call him Ed.

Now suppose that Ed’s primary job is to collect all your thoughts and expectations, figure out which ones carry the strongest emotional charge or are linked to your firmest beliefs. Then he sends his findings on to his staff at Cosmic Coincidence Control Center with orders for their fulfillment.

Okay, that’s just an analogy. But let’s suppose that it’s more or less how things work.

Assuming it is, what you need to know about Ed is that he doesn’t recognize the difference between a highly charged negative thought or belief and highly charged positive ones.

He doesn’t know that you have preferences—that you’d rather have health than illness, or wealth instead of destitution. All he can recognize is how much emotional energy you attach to your thoughts or how firmly you believe them, and he orders events that match those that carry the greatest charge.

So what happens is if you go around saying “Nothing good ever happens for me,” Ed will notice that you attach a boatload of energy to that thought and he’ll order up events for you that support it.

If your boss is a jerk, and you tell all your friends, “I just can’t stand him! He’s such a jerk!” Ed will arrange things for you to prove that you’re absolutely right.

“I can’t lose weight.”
“I can’t make myself go to the gym.”
“I’m too old.”
“Nobody will hire me.”
“I could never learn that.”

Your belief is Ed’s command.

Ed’s a pretty powerful guy. And he’s attentive, too. He has to be; it’s up to him to create the reality you most fervently envision for yourself.

That’s why the Best Self movie works, by the way. You create it in your mind, infusing it with genuine joy and enthusiasm. Then you play it every morning, and voila! Ed turns it into an order. Amazing little coincidences and opportunities for new choices begin flowing into your life.

In fact, the Best Self movie is just one concentrated process for getting Ed’s attention. In reality, Ed is listening all the time, 24/7. And that means that YOU get to live a life of delicious self-made adventures and achievements, and all you have to do is keep whispering sweet somethings in Ed’s ear.

What if you decided to replace “I can’t” with “Of course I can!”
What if you decided to believe that doing what you most want to do, being who you most want to be would really be an absolute hoot?
That your life could be rich, and satisfying, and fun?
What if you choose to believe in magic? In miracles? In the possibility that an unending flow of good fortune is going to sweep you up this very day?

What if you saw a fabulous future so vividly that you walked around whispering Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! all day?
What if you started seeing more and more goodness and beauty everywhere?

What if you decided to fall completely in love with your life and the turns that it’s taking right this very day?

What if you chose to immerse yourself in a pool of absolute contentment?

Imagine what Ed might do then! Wayne Dyer wrote a book once with the great title, You’ll See It When You Believe It. I think he was on to the secrets of the Events Director. I think he knew how to whisper the most delicious thoughts into Ed’s ear.

I’m imagining you’re getting the knack yourself, right? That you’re leaping into the week thinking that this reality-shaping stuff just might be great fun!

Go for it!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Public Co from Pixabay}

I saw a roadside sign this week that said, “When things go wrong, you don’t have to.”  

Think about that for a minute. Paint it in your favorite colors on some wall in your mind where you’ll see it now and then. 

Let it remind you that when events take an unexpected turn, you can snap yourself into the immediate reality and grab your chance to choose how you will respond, to ask yourself what the next best step really is.

Often when things go wrong, we react in some habitual, programmed way instead of choosing the best attitude to bring to the situation. We get mad or sad, irritated or angry. We pull inward and close ourselves up. 

Those kinds of emotions rob us of the broadened perception that allows us to find creative solutions. When you can interrupt your habitual response and center yourself for a moment, you’re much more likely to see greater possibilities.  

“When things go wrong, you don’t have to.” 

You can reach for something lighter, something higher, something kinder, something more helpful. A good place to begin is with acceptance of the fact that things seem to be going wrong, and that you seem to be not liking it at all. Okay. Yuckiness happens. And here it is. What’s the best way out?

Yuckiness, I’ve decided, is like quicksand. Fighting against it only makes things worse. You have to relax and take easy, deliberate motions toward solid ground. That’s what will save you.

When you can accept your circumstances for what they are and relax, you’ll be able to spot tools and means and opportunities that you would be blind to if you let yourself go wrong, too. But accept the pickle you’re in and you might even find yourself laughing at it all.

Maybe that’s the whole purpose behind Murphy’s Law. Maybe things go wrong just to give us the opportunity to discover what creative and resourceful beings we humans really are.  

Of course if I had a magic wand, I’d wish you a week where every day was smooth and filled with beauty and joy. But life is what it is, with its ups and downs, is delights and disappointments. So the best I can do is wish you a week where you’re awake and aware, a week that allows you savor the bits of goodness that even difficult days offer, and to remember that when things go wrong, you don’t have to.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay}

After a week that held its share of attitude testing events, I found myself burrowing through my inspiration folder for a way to bolster myself against the temptation to give in to gloom. It had been a cold and dreary week in my little corner of the world, and I needed a lift.

When you notice that your spirit is sagging, it’s good to search for rays of light. We find what we look for, after all. Pro-actively seeking the positive is far healthier than allowing yourself to slide into a pit of gloom and despair. Pity parties are so boring.

I ran across a trick I liked from Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, positive psychology researcher. She suggests that when you’re on a gloomy patch of the road, you begin simply by asking yourself, “What’s good about this moment?” and expecting to find an answer.

I gave it a whirl. “What’s good about this moment?” I asked, as I felt the heaviness in my heart over the latest piece of news.

“This pain allows you to see the depth of your compassion for all who suffer,” some kind of inner knowing said. “In this moment, your love is overpowering, flowing through every molecule of you and out into everything in the world, and everyone you think of.”

I hadn’t expected an answer of that depth, but it put me in touch with what was going on in the center of me. And from there, it radiated out.

I noticed the colors around me, how the photos on the wall always made me smile, the way the light and shadows fell so softly around me. That was my love flowing out to my surroundings. I could feel it and it made me smile. Deeply. From the inside out, full of contentment and gratitude.

That’s the way it works. Ask what’s good about the moment, and in one form or another, the answers will present themselves to you.

I returned from my reverie to the open inspiration folder on my screen. My eyes fell on an exercise that I’d added last spring. It was an exercise you could do in the morning to begin your day on a note of hope.

That fit. It was hope I was seeking when I opened the folder in the first place.

This little exercise is from the book Five Good Minutes by Jeffrey Brantly, MD and Wendy Millstine. 

What you do is speak (to yourself, or our loud) a list of as many hopeful thoughts for yourself, your loved ones, the planet, and the universe as come to you, beginning each sentence with the words, “I have hope today . . .”

Here are some hope-filled suggestions the authors give to get you started:

“I have hope today that everything will go smoothly at work.”
“I have hope today that my family is healthy and happy.”
“I have hope today that my pet is feeling safe and content.”
“I have hope today that my friends and loved ones are having good experiences in life.”
“I have hope today that peace on earth will infect the planet and restore harmony.”

You get the idea. Make up your own.

The brilliant thing about the exercise is hidden in the wording. Not only are you sending good wishes to yourself, your loved ones, and the larger world, but you are reminding yourself that you have hope, that it resides inside you.

Writer Barbara Kingsolver has this to say on the subject. “The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is to live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

This little morning exercise lets you do just that: name what you hope for, and then live right under its roof all day.

Give it a try. I think you’ll like it.

Wishing you a week bright with high hopes and happiness.

Warmly,
Susan

PS
Haha! While I was writing this, song lyrics floated into my mind: “You gotta have hope. Mustn’t sit around and mope . . .” Check this out. It will give you a smile.

(You Gotta Have) Heart – Stereo – Broadway Classic Damn Yankees, 1958

^{Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay}

“Don’t fall for the spell. You are free.”

I borrowed that from a wise woman I’ve lost track of over the years. I tacked her words on my bulletin board for a long while and appreciate them deeply.

They came to mind again this week as I watched news coverage of recent events. The tragedies with which we’re faced seem relentless and incomprehensible. I noticed a definite ratcheting up of the fear factor. That’s the spell, you know. Fear. It’s a trap. Don’t go there.

If you notice it luring you in, or if you find yourself up to your knees in it all of a sudden, I heard a great way to set yourself free of it so you can function sanely. These days, knowing how to avoid or escape from the clutches of fear is a handy skill to have.

So the only way this guy said that he could come up with for dealing with the cascade of unsettling events is to be the best possible you.

Think about that for a minute. “Be the best possible you.”

If you hold your focus on that, you automatically take control of your fear; you overpower it. What’s the very best way I can be, right here, right now. You ask yourself that, sincerely wanting an honest answer.

Your best you doesn’t necessarily mean your ideal you, the strong, composed and centered one. It means the very best you can manage in this moment that you’re standing in. It means just be as top notch as you can.

The New Gold Standard? Really?

A while back I heard somebody say “Good enough is the new gold standard.” I revolted at that, to tell you the truth. I want to aim higher than that.

Sure, often it’s the case that good enough is good enough, and you can walk away satisfied. Maybe it wasn’t the best that could be done, but considering all the factors, it was good enough. It would do its intended job. You got ‘er done.

But to say good enough should be the highest you aim for isn’t good enough for me. Always settling for good enough is paving the way to mediocrity.

It makes you stand straighter when you know you reached a bit higher than good enough, that you gave it one more twist toward better, just because you could. It’s satisfying to know you put a little extra spit and polish on something, left it shining a little more brightly.

I think the world smiles more when we take those extra little steps, when we go beyond what’s required and leave things improved somehow in our wake. What’s the old vaudeville saying? “Leave ‘em laughing, kid.” Good enough doesn’t pack much joy. Spice it up a bit. Give it a jolt of the best you can muster.

See, if you’re thinking about that, about how you be your best possible you as you do whatever you’re doing, you don’t have a any space for fear of the what-if’s to wrap you up in their stories.

If it’s not happening within shouting distance, it’s likely not something that requires your response beyond, perhaps, a few prayers.

Instead, you focus on being the best possible you right now. Because it feels good. Empowering somehow. And in however small a way, it makes the world a nicer place. All because you got such a kick out of reaching past mere good enough.

Now, imagine what would happen if you went for spectacular! Just kidding. Reaching for your best is spectacular. Comes with built in rewards. Go for it.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Micha from Pixabay}

One of the things I like best about the beginning of the year is that it’s sort of like holding a freshly purchased Power Ball ticket in your hands. Oh, the possibilities!

Whether resolutions hold any stock for you or not, January slips you a moment where you slide into dreams of your new and improved life, all polished and shining in the sun. All the flaws of the person you were yesterday disappear, and all that’s left are your finest attributes, waiting for you to put them to work.

Your inner curmudgeon–the part of you that says, “Yeah, sure, kid. Now back to work,”–steps aside for a couple minutes, lets you dream, lets you wish.

Well, what if you grabbed that moment, the one where everything was possible, and lived it? What if you could say that the unworthy parts of you were too yesterday to bother with? What if you stepped into Living in Magic, in a space where you assumed the power to be and do all the things that you dreamed?

What would that look like? What if you played a movie of it in your head every morning when you woke up, every night as you drifted off to sleep? What if you loved who you were in the movie? What if the soundtrack made you laugh, inspired and empowered you?

What if the index finger of your dominant hand became a light sabre, and any time a thought-monster appeared to growl, “You can’t!” you zapped it to oblivion?

What if it took you until, say, mid-April to really start getting the hang of it? What if you kept playing the movie anyway?

What if little possibilities started taking shape in your imagination? What if interesting coincidences started to appear? What if you began to find that clues were everywhere?

Who would you want to be? What would you want to have? What would your life be like? What would you accomplish?

You know, there’s this old saying, attributed to Henry Ford: “If you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.”

A couple weeks ago, anticipating the New Year’s arrival, its baskets of magic in hand, I started a “what-if” list for myself, writing down things it might be fun or interesting to do or to master in the coming year.

I wrote the words, “What If I …” at the top the page and started listing things, like “read at least 2 books a month?” and “always kept fresh flowers in the house?” and “practiced until I could make it to the top of Seneca Trail without stopping?” I’m getting a kick out the list. It’s a playful way for me to draw from the Cosmic Soup of Infinite Possibilities some of the little things I’d like to have and do in my life. If you want to try Living in Magic, that’s one way to begin.

I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll be chatting more about Living in Magic in the coming year. For now, just savor that January moment where you let yourself imagine what might go into a good “My Best Self” movie. Then let it sparkle in your mind over and over, as if you just couldn’t get enough of it.

Wishing you magical dreams and a 2025 that surpasses your expectations in every possible way.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Ennaej from Pixabay}

I ran across a quote this week that I want to share with you It’s from Kent Nerburn, an Native American author who has been called “one of America’s Living Spiritual Teachers,” and I think the quote will show you why.

Before you read it, take a moment to breathe slowly a few times with your eyes closed, to relax and to open yourself to receive these words as a gift of wisdom.

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun.

“Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made.

“And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither.

“Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”

Let me invite you to dwell on those thoughts a bit, to let them settle in your heart. Then imagine how your world—our world—might be transformed if each of us let them be a guiding light for us as we went through our days.

If we truly look past our differences and recognize our shared humanity, if we could extend to each other the respect and kindness we want so deeply to receive, perhaps we would meet each other with a new gentleness, with compassion, with a willingness to let there be understanding between us.

It’s a long quote to remember. But you can remember the feeling it creates in you and take that with you into your world in the coming week. You can remember to give of whatever you possess—even if it’s no more than a smile, or a decision not to complain or blame. You can start your day with the conscious intention to be generous of spirit to others, even with those who push your buttons, or whose differences are outrageous and glaring.

Care for those around you. Ask, “What can I give here? What can I share?”

It’s a worthy experiment. And as Nerburn says, the rewards are a life of meaning and a heart at peace.

And that, my friend, is what I wish for you this week.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Alana Jordan from Pixabay}