In any given moment, we have far more choice than we know. We all have moments when our reaction to external circumstances may feel like it controls us. These moments are precious teachers, for their very intensity wakes us up.

12/26/09: I am swooping along mountain roads that lace along the Kootenai River in remote NW Montana, on the way to visit cousins. We’ve been blessed with dry roads, little traffic, blue sky, and sunshine.

In these perfect conditions, I don’t notice the speed limit lower as we approach town.

A patrol car passes, does that distinctively timed braking and pulls a u-turn. I am the only car on this long expansive road. All bets are… he’ll pull me over.

How many of us know this moment, and the flood of emotions, and reactions, this may bring? In these moments, and in every moment of our lives, we have far more choice than we know.

For me, this moment is exacerbated by the knowledge that this scenario may well trigger nightmares for one of my children. I really care about this unfolding with grace.

Below, I’ll explain what I did in the moment, in that lovely mountain valley, with my family watching. In future posts, I’ll break down and expand each of the steps.

As I watch the patrol car turn, I notice my sensations. A rush of heat and prickly intensity rises through my chest, throat and face. Fear. I do not fight the feeling, but simply relax around it, allowing the sensations to flow through me.

If we can stay out of our own way, the bio-chemistry of emotion will flush from our system within 90 seconds. By not constricting against the fear, I let it wash through, and resolve.

I notice and choose my thoughts.

“He is going to pull me over. “ I am able to choose (based on much practice) this thought to think: “this is an excellent chance to practice” – my shorthand for practicing staying centered, calm, focused, and resourceful.

Our minds are like steering wheels, steering us towards the emotions we feel and the physiological states we access. We actually can shift perspectives, and choose where to aim our minds.

I steadily drop my attention to my lower abdomen, and consciously shift my breath pattern to slow, low, full, and relaxed. I proactively pull over on the rocky shoulder.

Our breath is a potent “re-set button” that we can use to shift into a calm, centered state.

Reassuring my children, I speak truthfully about what is occurring in a gentle, steady voice…. no blame, no shame… just the reality. “He is pulling me over. I was likely going a little fast. All is well. His work is to help keep us safe.”

The truth sets us free. Fighting reality is the cage. Choosing to see myself working with others, vs. against, gives me far more options in how I move.

I am not fighting “what is”: instead I am making the most of what I can influence.

When I accept “what is”, then I can make the most of everything that is within my influence and control.

I focus on being the most relaxed body I can be.

Our energy is viral: we literally are contagious with each other. It is as if our emotional state and physiological state is like a stone thrown into a pond, making ripples that reach out in every direction.

We are always making ripples. The question is: which ripples do you want to create? What are you actually creating?

On this Montana highway, I want to create a sense of safety for my children and a spirit of cooperation with the patrolman. I do not fight what is unfolding; I simply do everything I can to make this as graceful an experience as I can.

After a peaceful exchange, the officer issues me a warning, and we softly continue on our way. Within minutes, the town now behind us, clear skies give way to a mountain snow squall, our wide-open road narrows in a long canyon, and I am grateful…

for the officer who helped me slow down.

From calm center, we have infinite choice over what we perceive.

This is a simple path…. a joyous path… one that can lead to living with far more power, and more grace.

Where in your life are you fighting what is?

What might you ‘soften into’?

What situation do you choose to see with new eyes?

Where might aligning with the truth set you free?

“Individuality rises out of the soul as water rises out of the depths of the earth.”  Thomas Moore

Early in 2009, inspired by commitment to adventure and inner journeying by other friends, I took a deep breath, and planned: 10 days of solo paddling and camping in my spiritual home – the deep north woods of Ontario’s Quetico wilderness.

Why? Partially, to celebrate one year of independence, having completed a collaborative divorce (yes, this is possible) the year before, and one year of growing healthy inter-dependence with friends.

But honestly, I did not know why. I knew that deep solitude, was what I longed for. I wanted a chance to re-connect deeply within me, and with the world. A chance to let go of all the places I was still holding… still holding onto the life I had planned…. a chance to deeply accept the unacceptable. A chance to heal.

Before I went, I was nervous. If I injured myself in the wilds, and could not travel, it could be days or weeks before I’d be found. While competent paddling solo, I’d never paddled the small lightweight solo canoe I’d be paired with – I felt like I was going off to meet a mail-order bride!

So, despite my fears, what helped me go?

Luckily, I was not afraid of being lonely. I love the company of pine trees, loons, and night skies. I was eager to be out – my aloneness leaving no barriers between me and life.

I could remind myself that I knew what I was doing. For I truly did.

The pivotal moment though, in the see-saw of obligations and fears vs. longing and inner knowing, was a gift. A long time friend, paddling partner, and almost-husband from my twenties sent me a treasure of an email, encouraging me on after I queried him about my plans. “You’ll do fine in a solo boat.  Your strength and joy in that environment will glow radiant.  It is a happy thought.”

Thanks Rob. The power of truth. The power of gifts we can give each other. I did not believe him because he said it; I believed him because my body resonated with the truth of his words. My head might have its concerns, but my body, my deep inner knowing, knew he was right. This trip was about opening to joy.

Bone-deep certain now of my expedition’s value to reconnect me with my own light, I sought out gifts and loans from other friends to remind me of our connections – a simple spoon with which I ate each meal, a feather-light solo tent, a special sleeping pad. Words of inspiration in my trip journal. This one stands out, and I carried it within:

“Stay safe, and keep your heart open to every experience.”

Thus buoyed by friends, I did. Here’s what I found:

A felt sense of wholeness inside myself. In every cell, a sense of “being enough” – no longer searching for external approval, or love, or direction. A sense that I could be complete, in and of myself… connected with the vastness of life.

I was at home inside myself. At peace. Flowing with the rhythms from sunrise to sunset, listening to my inner guidance on where and how far to go each day… I found I really could take care of me.

Near the end of my 150 mile trip, I saw a majestic turtle swimming in shallow water just below me, sunlight revealing her multi-hued home. Three times the size of any other turtle I’d seen in the north country, she was deep inspiration to me – almost as if my whole trip had been to allow me to glimpse her there, at peace in those waters.

She carried her safety with her, wherever she went. She could choose when to extend out, and when to rest within her shell. So can I. We all can.

She was always Home. And so are we.

I grew this precious internal sense of wholeness, safety, and grace in the midst of sweet challenge – a cliff-steep trail, an insistent headwind across miles of open water, balancing on logs traversing thigh-deep bogs, choosing which rapids to portage.

For I moved through this country very differently than I had in my old tomboy days. I did not toughen against challenge, but instead softened. Every day, I took time to nap, softening my frame into granite’s sun-warmed embrace.

Moving this way carried me farther, with more joy, than my old tough-it-out ways. I found myself paddling as many miles, traveling solo at 48, as I had ever paddled tandem. The boat (a Bell ‘Magic’) had something to do with it.

But so did grace.

After five months of savoring the grace of my own vibrant shell and my circle of community, I am ready to write again. To share as generously and as widely as friends have shared with me. For I now know that this precious sense of fullness, wholeness, and safety that I found in solitude…. is here to stay.

What is the journey your heart longs for?

Where is your spiritual home?

What helps you feel more deeply at home inside yourself?

What support could you seek out to help your dreams come true?

 “Our greatest glory consists, 
not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

– Oliver Goldsmith          

Sometimes when we come through a rough patch in life, and feel that we are in some way responsible for the muck, we can lose precious time still stuck in that muck and lose the opportunity to fully dance with the life that is right in front of us. 

Here is a simple self-coach process we can each use to accelerate the self-love process of setting ourselves free, such that we can consistently stand up again, hearts open, and face fully into all of life.  Generate a list of answers for each set of questions in relation to the given situation:

What can I acknowledge myself for?  What did I do really well?  What am I proud of?  No matter our level of guilt or suffering, there is nearly always something here.  Sometimes, these are quite precious contributions, much appreciated by others.  So polish your own window, and immerse fully in remembering the gifts and richness that you have brought to others.

What do I need to take responsibility for? This wording is key.   Response – ability.  We have the ability to respond differently.  For each of us, we build our future out of our now.   So while this question may take us to the heart of our pain, it also has an essence of hope: it points to our ability to begin anew.

What is the hard truth about the situation?  Don’t answer this one until you’ve fully explored the two above this.  Just see where it takes you.  Sometimes this is where breakthrough lives.

What is the learning? What have I learned about myself, about others, about life?  What have I learned about what matters most? 

Finally, ask yourself this: What is the way to move now, the place to be in conscious choice, in order to best live my learning?  This is the moment we get to choose to live a new now, and to build the future we want to live, one now moment after another!

We do no favors for those we work with, live with, or love by staying stuck.  Those who truly love us want us to thrive, and want us to be able to dance fully with the joy in life, instead of moving however subtly away from what may remind us of our pain. 

We get to choose.  Leadership is about conscious choices and creating meaning.   Today is a new day.

“No man or woman (was created) even nearly perfect.  But we grow in both our virtue and our capacity to love by the testing, against the world and each other, of those weaknesses which by…grace…we can convert into strengths; and by the finding of those strengths and beauties in each other which we hardly dared suspect were there…. The glory of …(life) lies in the surprises which loving support, acceptance, and graceful forgiveness can bring forth.”

R.B. Crowell (Friends Journal, 11/74)

“The single most important decision any of us ever have to make

is whether or not to believe 


we live in a friendly universe.”

Albert Einstein 

If you need help deciding, then….

Periodically, count all your blessings.  A good friend who devotes much of her life to caring for her beloved yet disabled husband painted this picture for me: she was driving home from friends’, about 45 minutes from Sandpoint, and realized she needed to lift her own spirits, given the suffering she witnesses around her, both at home and work.  

She started counting her blessings, and when she got to town, 45 minutes later, she was still counting!     How many of us can say this?    This friend radiates joy, even though most of us would consider her lot in life quite challenging on many fronts.

With many us of us adjusting to new levels of change and challenge, we might pull a page from the playbook of friends like Judith, who have faced extraordinary challenge for a long time.

It’s a whole new take: counting all our blessings can carry us into whole new terrain – with healthy doses of grace and gratitude.  Some blessings catch us by surprise, and we may take a moment to see them as such, while others unfold with the rhythm of the sun.  Yet we can count them all.

So..when you count all your blessings,  how high can you count?