What ‘things’?  And how much do those things really contribute to your ‘life’?  If you are so driven that you find your self eating out time and time again because you have no time to eat well then in what way are you contributing to your ‘life’?

I have a friend who is exactly 20 years older than I am.  She will be 66 this June and I will be 46.  Ten years ago she had breast cancer.  She doesn’t share her health status with me so I don’t really know but when I see her she looks well and she is ‘living’ a full life of travel and creativity and joy and friends and family.  Recently at the dinner table together she said to me: “I don’t understand why people don’t get that it’s important to eat ‘live’ food.  People are eating dead things all the time – no nutrients.  Don’t they understand that their bodies are alive and that they need to eat ‘living’ things in order to support them?”  I have to admit, I have done a lot of reading and gathering of information over the years as an athlete, a fitness instructor, a , a yoga teacher, a coach and a mother and I have had a lot of insights into the need to feed our bodies well so that they can reproduce themselves as they must on a daily/hourly basis but I had never quite thought about it in this way: dead food.  We need fruits and vegetables and minimally processed food to nourish our bodies.

So when it comes to our minds and our souls, it makes sense that we need to be as diligent about nourishing our selves.  And when I think about ‘life’ and breath and spirit and what it takes for these to flourish and be nourished, I just don’t think “accomplishment”.  In fact, I think exactly the opposite.  I think stillness, ‘being’, breathing, connecting.  And yet what I see more of is ‘doing’, running, talking, phoning, emailing, dropping off, picking up, organizing, marketting, networking… people ‘working’ them selves into a frenzy.

Now I am not saying that there isn’t a lot to do.  I have three children and pets and part-time work and other components of my life that I want to continue to sustain for my own personal satisfaction and quality of life.  And the difference may only be in the semantics.  I want to ‘sustain’ while I feel others want to ‘drive’.  I believe the ‘driving’ is what got us all into this mess of overworked and undervalued; out of balance and deep in debt and now for many, homeless and unemployed.

I understand the “abundance” thing.  I’ve read the current spiritual psychology from Wayne Dyer, Sarah Brach?? and a plethora of others.  And I espouse the ideas that we are all worthy and capable of partaking of this abundance.  And yet I sense this ‘instant gratification’ component of our most recent past that we cling to while we reach for our chance at abundance and I wonder if people understand the fine balance between ‘connecting to abundance’ and ‘driving excess’.  In the former, no frenzy is required; in the latter, there is so much doing that the ‘being’ gets lost – both the person and the nature of being.  And that to me just doesn’t seem sustainable for long just as we’ve come to understand that our environments cannot be sustained when we ‘do’ life at this pace; it would seem more likely that we are killing our selves faster at this pace. 

There are plenty of people out there espousing the theory of coaching and helping people become their best selves, live their lives their way, find success, create a business etc. etc. and yet I can’t help but think they’re all too busy to really enjoy ‘being’ who they are.  Surely, I am not the only one who is content to work less so I can have more time with my family?  There are others who eat dinner with their husband and children at least 5 nights/week. I know others who don’t like the feeling of spinning their wheels just too often and too much that they’d rather live a sustainable life at a sustainable pace with less money and less things.  I feel peace, joy, love and contentment in abundance, despite our old cars and mismatched dishes.  I love the serendipity of thrift stores and drinking coffee at home out of real cups instead of cardboard or styrofoam.  I love the quality of my life.  I love eating a relaxed meal at home with ingredients I prepared.  And I am grateful for the confidence to live my life this way without worrying whether or not I ‘measure up’ to any standard set by others. 

I’ve had the experience of being caught up in the theory and forgetting to practice and quickly I forget what the practice feels like; I forget how to feel peaceful and connected and kind and loving and then I cannot be the person I want to be.  I get lost in the world of ‘things’ and illusion and my insecurities rise up to distract me.

We can’t ‘drive’ our natures, our beings; we have to sustain them through practice.  We have to trust that abundance is there for all of us without having to stay busy doing things all the time.  Take time to be.  The world, the collective conscience, your spirit, your community – they all need stillness in order to know peace.  Practice finding peace with simple practice.

Suzanne Ballantyne – zannie@nc.rr.com – wellness coach and yoga teacher

What struck me is the question one woman asked when it was time for audience participation.  She asked, “How many sessions/times would you have to do this with a client?  I’m not even sure she asked about seeing results – she just seemed to want a number.  And I smiled – thinking to myself how powerfully our culture has ingrained in us the notion of beginning and end, productivity and numbers; start a project and bring it to completion.  In fact this paradigm pervades even our thoughts about our lives, not just our work.  We want to know how long we’ll have to be on the diet and how many sessions until we feel better and how long do we have to save money for and when will it end?  How many days a week and how many minutes must I exercise  to see results; and on and on and on it goes.

And I have learned that for peace of mind and well being – the two most vital aspects of life for me – there are no number of days/minutes/month or years.  A lifestyle is a practice.  And we engage in it every day.  We may borrow from theory to get information that is helpful to us or can be modified for our practice/circumstances/body weight/physical condition etc.  But more important than any theory about how many, how much, when, with whom is that we practice regularly.  And that we find a practice that is right for us, so that rather than asking: “How many?” or “How much?”  We can feel and say: “I am so glad I can get up and practice my life every day.  I love it and I’m good at it.  My life brings me peace of mind and wellness, contentment, security, community, appreciation, confidence, kindness, love, health and enough of everything I need”; despite the ups and down of everyday life.

If your practice isn’t working for you.  Please take the time to discover what would work for you.  And day to day take some baby steps that will move you toward a greater sense of well being.  How much? How long?  As much as you need for the rest of your life! ;o)  Enjoy! 

Suzanne Ballantyne – zannie@nc.rr.com – wellness coach & yoga teacher

So this morning I’ve listened to a couple of TED blogs – “Ideas worth Spreading”.  It is a brilliant web site on which you could spend days enjoying taped talks from conferences about “ideas worth spreading”.

The first one I’m just going to post here so you can go and listen for your self… it’ll take you a little over 15 minutes and I believe it’ll get you thinking about your own wellness and how it doesn’t have to “cost the earth” for the world to be happy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html

 And then ironically once I get you thinking, I’m going to ask you to return to your body and check in on your wellness factor that way.  Nic Marks touches on “The 5 Ways to Well Being” and 4/5 of them are directly connected to our connection to ourselves and to others and how we interact in the world.  In fact, even the 5th which is about lifelong learning is really physical if you think about it… Ensler suggests that story telling really helps us absord learning into our bodies.  And so I offer this quote from Eve Ensler – whose TED blog I also watched and I invite you to turn your attention to your own well being and how you are relating to the world.  (If you’re curious – go ahead and search Eve Ensler in the search engine at the TED site.)

“Stories are the way that we transmit information where it goes into our bodies.  I think the world is very much in our bodies.  It’s a body world.  The species really exists in the body.  And I think there’s a real significance in us attaching our bodies to our heads.  That that separation has created a divide that is often separating purpose from intent.  And the connection between body and head often brings those things [purpose and intent] into union.”

I also happen to think that our physical connection to the world – when really mindful – helps us practice this union between purpose and intent.  Our physical learning, growth and change reflect that same growth in our intellect and spirit.  The body is our tangible connection to the abstract.  Yoga, for example, can employ all 5 ways to well being: connection (breath); action (strength and stretch movements), taking notice (mindful movement), learning (new ways to move your body and find comfort) and giving (we offer our practice to a specific intention).  I encourage you to explore other ways in which you can combine all 5!

Here’s to finding ways to practice joining our intent and our purpose as we live our lives in happy and healthy ways.  What we do for ourselves, we do for the world and vice versa.

Be well and peaceful,

zan

I just finished reading “Diabetes Rising” (2010) by Dan Hurley – great accessible, narrative book that sheds light on both type I and type II diabetes. Well sheds light for those of us who don’t have a medical background ;o)

A couple of quotes for you…
“Preventing type 2 diabetes is not just about food, of course. There are the other issues, such as ensuring adequate levels of vitamin D and limiting exposure to persistent organic pollutants, addressed in Part 2 of this book. The other biggie is ‘eneregy expenditure’: figuring out ways to get people to burn more of the calories they so efficiently consume.”

Dr. Arloski of Real Balance Global Wellness LLC ( www.realbalance.com) spoke so much about how important our community support is in our endeavours to create change – so these statistics speak volumes:

“A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that over the course of 32 years, a person’s chance of becoming obese jumps by 57 percent if he or she has a friend who becomes obese, 40 percent if a sibling becomes obese (no matter how far away that sibling lives), and 37 percent if a spouse does. [I find it interesting that friends have a stronger influence than family or even a spouse!] Neighbors had little influence; friends and family members of the same sex had more influence than those of the opposite sex; and statistically significant effects could be seen even from friends-of-friends.”

And lastly – I just think this is a great line!

“…I had to wonder how long doctors would persist in looking for the causes of diabetes – and the reasons for its relentless rise – solely within the islets of Langerhans, rather than in the aisles of Wal-Mart.”

This book also reminded me that wellness is on a continuum – so many life/environment factors will interfere with our wellness and still, we have the possibilities for navigating all of this with awareness and attention to kindness, comfort and compassion for ourselves.

Last week end I watched Julie and Julia with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.  In the ‘making of the movie’ section of the video, one of the commentators mentions that both Julie and Julia found a passion in food that led them to a commitment that helped them find success.  And, naturally since I’m striving for some form of success in my own life the first thing that I notice about their drive, their commitment, their unrelenting ability to complete a monumental task was paved…with no children.

Perhaps this is an obstacle I’ve hid behind, or some form of self-pity I wallow in; I’ve tried looking at it from all angles.  I’ve tried imagining hiring a nanny and throwing caution to the wind and going off to find a ‘commitment’ that would bring me fame and glory.  I’ve imagined spending every penny on cleaning women, working outfits, more education and professional development so that the community will know me so that I’ll be hired and have more work than I know what to do with – saying yes to the projects I like and turning clients away to other professionals I know and like.

And then I realize a couple of very important things.  My children bring me fame and glory and I made a commitment to them years ago; I not only know them, I love them.  I mean I really love them.  I love to be with them.  I love their individual spirits, their relentless energy for more of life, their willingness to participate in our lives in every way.  I don’t want some substitute mother to share in their joys and respond to their woes.  I don’t mind when others do; on the contrary I’m grateful for the variety of input they receive in their lives and I value the differences they each possess and the differences they seek out in advice from friends, family, teachers… it does take a village.  And yet what we have is a solid relationship among the 5 of us.  We all enjoy being together despite our differences and our individual abilities to drive the others crazy from time to time. We know this about each other.  We are each others best friends, mentors, truth-sayers and button pushers.  In the end, I guess I couldn’t be more grateful for the situation I am in.  And the blog posts will have to wait.

And as I write this, I realize there are other women out there saying the exact opposite:  If I didn’t work my butt off to have a cleaning woman and help for my children, we couldn’t survive.  And this is yet another truth.  We’re all working out butts off in different ways for different goals and rewards.  I hope at least we build enough awareness to enjoy whatever is going on in our lives and how we are practicing our ways.

And so it goes… the blog posts will have to wait.  And while I’m not ‘on line’ making a name for my self, I am busy working on other areas of my life-long-learning and growth and development.  And I’m learning that there’s not all that much to say that’s different from last year.  I’m finding some growth and truth in the silence of it all.  I’m practicing more meditation and yoga and ‘being’ in different ways in my life and learning that…

so it goes…  Enjoy it!

In peace and kindness,

zan

Suzanne Ballantyne

‘simple practice’ – individual coaching and contract work; helping individuals and organizations develop healthy practices.

Ms. Condren presented several images of women in the news, and excerpts from comments made by persistently chauvinist, adult (?) males.  Occasionally I’ve heard reference to some of these comments and this debate in the news; like after Hilary Clinton showed some cleavage and a panel of journalists were discussing the different ways in which the media treat men and women in their coverage.  I always imagine that Mrs. Clinton and any other women who receives this treatment - despite this being the 21st century - just shrug their shoulders and let it go, using their wisdom to free them from this unconscious approach to media and reporting.  So when Ms. Condren came down into the audience to ask us how do we deal with these comments and issues in our own lives, I simply said: “I don’t pay any attention.”  I don’t have cable TV and I don’t watch the television more than 2 – 4 hours per week and that includes movies.  When I do listen to the news, it’s usually on public television and I find their programming far more enlightened than most other television stations.

What I guess I haven’t really been thinking about were the numbers of women who have not yet reached this capacity in their own lives (speaking of lacking in awareness ;o).  I wonder if I surprised people in being so nonchalant about ignoring it all.  It’s easy to ignore if you don’t believe it, and even more so if you don’t even see or hear it.  I sometimes forget that I am not your average person.  I forget that most people are watching several hours of television a week – and sometimes a day.  I forget that there are still people supporting derogatory magazines or else they wouldn’t be on the market.  I just don’t choose to spend my money on those publications. 

I’d like to raise some awareness.

Millions of women and girls are still trapped by these stories and images, not having learned yet the value of ignoring such comments.   Oh and I hope not - but perhaps not having learned yet that these sexist ideas are false and ignorant.  Nor perhaps have these women learned to seek out the company of mature adults who have eliminated these thoughts and ideas from their point of view.  I guess what we need now are skills to help these women believe in them selves; to overcome the ignorance around them; to understand the channels to reach out for help and support.

 One beneficial skill - as well as being one of my dreams - is for all people – not just women – to build awarness and to learn the value of mindful and conscious living and the wisdom and freedom that develops from living  with a more open frame of mind.  And we do this by building awareness through different forms of meditation and reflection (yoga, retreats, tai chi, workshops).  We achieve this way of thinking and living when we come to understand who we really are and how this world we live in is really just illusion.  We are connected to and part of something so much bigger than the jobs we do, the families we come from and the things we keep in our homes.  We are nature.  We are pieces of God.  We are little creators connected to the web of Life.  I can’t remember who said this off hand: ‘we are spiritual beings having a human experience’ (some attribute it to an apostle);  I love this comment because it allows us to think of ourselves as eternal and then all of a sudden some jerk’s comment at work becomes so trivial and inconsequential.  I believe that when we leave the illusion of this world, our energy returns to nature in other forms.  Many of us have learned that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it is just transformed.  It just seems natural that our human energy is also transformed after we die.  I don’t know how or what but I am content living with that part of the mystery.  And in the meantime, I will do my best to live peacefully and to help others do the same – with awareness of my actions and my feelings.

I realize there are other ways we need to be more hands on with our help and support of women and men in the workplace who are suffering at the hands of ignorant comments and behaviour; and that despite the belief that this life is only an illusion, it can be a painful illusion when you are the victim of verbal, physical or psychological abuse.  I am not in any way suggesting that this is the only tool we should give people.  And I know Ms. Condren was suggesting neither that we support women no matter what, nor that men who are victims do not warrant support.  I do think she would agree that ‘rising above’ sexist behaviours gives us some distance from the situation and building awareness allows us to develop the skills we need to prevent and protect our selves from further abusive situations.

The greater message in Ms. Condren’s address that Friday in February, is that we are all equal.  We just have different ways of being in the world and arriving at success.  We all deserve to succeed.  Ms. Condren also pointed out that life is long and there is plenty of time to ‘get it right’.  I encourage women – and men - to embrace lifelong learning and curiosity about themselves and their passions so that they can find their way to LIVE in this world, wholly connected to the common good with peace and love in their hearts.

If all people can learn to conceive of this.  If men and women can celebrate the differences between the sexes, the religions, the nationalities; then we can begin to learn from one another.  We can learn to be curious about our differences, to respect them and to let them ‘be’.  We are meant to be different and the same.  The world would be boring if we were all alike.  We need not fear what is different but rather embrace it and learn from it and let it ‘be’. 

Let’s learn from each other and grow.  Let’s let it be alright to be different.  As a Unitarian minister once said during a service: ‘We don’t have to have each other over for dinner but we can live together on the same streets and in the same neighbourhoods.’  We can learn to work together with respect and awareness.

In peace and kindness,

Suzanne “zan” – www.simplepractice.net Life Coach in Cary/Raleigh, NC

“We don’t live in a world of reality, we live in a world of perceptions.”  

- Gerard Simmons -

Last night I was on the phone with my 31-year-old niece and she was telling me about a visit to a massage therapist to whom she went to work out a kink she had from running.  The masseur told her she shouldn’t be a runner; she didn’t have the body to be a runner.  And yet, she grew up in a family where both her parents run – a lot!

The two of us talked briefly about how much we are influenced by our families – sometimes even forcing our selves to do things that don’t really suit us but that we do anyway because we want to feel like we are part of the family, that we belong.  And there’s nothing wrong with this.  I am sure my niece likes to go for a run – it has lots of pleasant associations for her like being with her parent(s) and the good feeling we all get after exercising – the satisfaction, the good fatigue, the feeling of a stronger body, the healthy appetite etc. etc.  And yet, my niece also told me she’s never liked running as much as some other sports and so in some ways it just seemed such a relief to hear this man say she doesn’t need to be ‘a runner’.

How many of us have been living our lives in some way that doesn’t really feel all that great to us but we’re just so used to it and so conditioned to live in such a way that we don’t ask any questions; we just carry on.  At what point do we allow our perception of things to become reality for us? We might even have learned a way of ’coping’ with our ‘reality’ in ways that include negative thoughts and negative self-talk but we’ve never thought of stopping to ask our selves, “Do I really want to keep doing this?” or “Do I really care if I maintain this practice in my family? The one I’m raising now?”  or  “How come I’ve never taken an art course? I’ve always liked art even though no one else in my family liked art.”  Often we just accept our lives as our ‘reality’ rather than just a learned perception.

As we grow up and arrive at that stage in life where we begin to question assumptions and our ‘reality’; we might realize it is just our perception based on our upbrining and experiences.  Many of us get a little (or a lot) introspective about life and aging and we may start asking “what’s this all about?”  In fact this is a documented stage of adult development (Gail Sheehy, Kathleen Brehoney), usually taking place in women a little earlier than in men but very common at mid-life – so anywhere from 35 – 55 years of age.

The one thing I have learned about this stage and how to deal with it - how to reach out to your self and to trying new things; to open up your mind and heart to new possibilities - is that we are better at it when we do it with joy.  Or perhaps, it’s more likely that adults develop to this stage because they have some joy in their lives; I’m not exactly sure which is the egg and which the chicken.  But I recently came across this quote and realized how true it is:

“Psychologists who in recent years have taken up the study of positive emotions, find that joy widens one’s view of the world and expands imaginative thought.  It activates. It makes both physical and intellectual exploration more likely, and it provides reward for problems solved or risks taken.  Through its positive energies, it heals as well.  One joy, the Chinese believe, scatters a hundred griefs, and certainly it can be an anitdote to fatigue and discouragement.  Into those set back by failure, joy tranfuses hope.”   Kay Redfield Jamison in Exuberance – The Passion for Life (2004)

Coaches and therapists typically ask their clients to spend time discovering what brings them joy.  They may ask them to try some new things and see how it makes them feel because we know that inducing feelings of joy in a person helps them to open up their minds to new possibilities for their lives.  It gets our clients unstuck; able to see opportunity in their lives.   Most importantly, it opens up our hearts to the rest of our lives. 

I don’t know yet because I am only 45 years old but I have a feeling that opening up the heart is one of the keys to staying engaged in life as we age and helping us cross over when life as we ‘perceive’ it comes to an end.

In peace and kindness,

Suzanne  “zan” – www.simplepractice.net – Life Coach in Cary/Raleigh, NC

I debate whether or not it’s time to let go of one of my part-time jobs that I keep for income and occasionally wonder if I would’t be better off in a “real job”.  I only linger with this thought briefly as I know deep down I’d be ignoring my own dream to reach out to people, to continue to bring my message to the world about peace of mind, self-leadership and happiness. (see my favorite quote about happiness on my website: http://www.simplepractice.net/aboutsuzanne.html)

I also realize that creating your own career path allows a type of freedom that any job I could go out and start now would never allow me… like say for instance, going to harvest some bamboo in the middle of the morning on a Tuesday; or reading to grade four in the middle of a Monday afternoon; or even an hour walk with the dogs who I couldn’t leave in the car ’til my lunch hour; not to mention the commute and the vacation restrictions.  I know it’s not for everyone; however  I am grateful every day for the possibilities, and one day at a time they play them selves out. 

I continue to grow an awareness of my habits.  Today I watched a short video at www.selfgrowth.com about Steven Covey’s, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People  and I am glad I happened upon it.  I already knew about them, and! I am human and I need reminders every day; I am glad I know that.  I choose to continue to do what it takes to remind my self and to stay on my path.

Reading over one of my previous blogs I realized that I had introduced our garden – which has now been tilled – with much thanks to my loving, gifted and hard working partner.  He has also dug the holes for the bamboo posts which sit majestically (we found some pretty good sized stalks!) around the garden plot.  We have four boxes constructed out of treated cedar and the beautiful beginnings of cabbage, broccoli, basil and onions on the kitchen window sill.  We still need to finish placing the fence around the posts and I am a little late but I am going to plant some spinach and lettuce tomorrow after I work the soil and add some fertilizer.  The rest of the plants will go outside in a couple of weeks.  All this to say the scavenger hunt for the bamboo was entirely worth it!   Just another reminder of what I’m grateful for…

Tonight, my youngest came and asked me: “Are you coming up?”  He likes to be ‘tucked in and many nights I oblige him; what’s not to like about snuggling up to one of your favorite people and telling each other you love them?  Yet sometimes I realize I just cannot interupt the rhythm of my work and in this case I know my husband is available for the bedtime practice.  I gently explained my situation to him and he understood, quietly saying: “Okay” while withdrawing from the family room where I am working.  To my pleasant surprise and yet not uncharacterisically when I think about it, my 14 year old daughter stepped in and “loved” her brother in my place, gently embracing him and leading him upstairs.  I know I’ve been a good model; I also honor the unique beauty in each of my three children and I believe the respect I have tried to show them as often as possible is starting to come back to me.  This too is part of the balance of parenting – being ‘there’ for them and staying ‘here’ for you in a kind and loving way.  What kind of a model would I be if I didn’t pursue my own dreams?

As you know if you’ve read any other things I’ve written or looked at other information about me on the web, one of the big focusses of my work is a healthy work/life balance.  I’ve heard others say there’s no such thing and yet who said balance is static?  It’s positively! dynamic and the value of being able to find your balance – even if you stumble from time to time – is that it allows you to have all that you love in your life without any big sacrifices.  At least this is how I see it.  For someone like me with a renaissance soul that thrives on lifelong learning and variety in every day, this is the only way to live with joy and peace in my heart.

Wishing you the same, in peace and kindness,

Suzanne “zan” – www.simplepractice.net  – life coach in Cary/Raleigh, NC

There is a documentary called “Touch the Sound” about Evelyn Glennie – a drummer and performing artist who has been deaf since the age of 8.  In the movie, Glennie says, “Silence is probably one of the heaviest sounds you’re ever likely to experience.”  Of course I cannot imagine being deaf but I am aware of how difficult it is for most people to sit in silence; including me.  We don’t like the silence for some reason and yet we come from it and we return to it at the beginning and the end of our lives.  I am coming to enjoy the silence more and more; it calms the mind, helps with focus and allows for profound thoughts to stir. 

It occured to me that days of silence and meditation are akin to the “morning pages” that Julia Cameron asks us to write in The Artist’s Way.  Over time you discover what thoughts keep coming to the surface.  With this knowledge you gain wisdom into your deepest fears and needs.  These are the things in life that block our flow, our progress, our success and sometimes our arteries.  We cannot clear them out until we face them down.  And we do this with love and kindness for ourselves.  We grow to understand more and more that the love and kindness we give to our selves, we give to the whole world. 

The difficult part for me – and I know I’m not alone – is the ongoing practice of maintaining loving awareness so that I can continue to be kind to my self – especially in difficult moments.  It is so difficult to override our knee jerk reactions – the habits we’ve had since childhood in some cases – to moments that make us cringe.  It’s in these moments precisely that we want to stop, find loving awareness and bring gentle kindness to our hearts so that we can keep them open and grow them deeper, larger, wider still.  The more I love my self, the more I love.  The more I love, the more peace and happiness I create. 

Coincidentally, one of the retreat teachers was deaf.  It was necessary for each of us or for one of the other participants to sign the first letter of every word spoken so that Jane (not her real name) could understand what was being said during the opening and closing meetings and during short question periods.

I am familiar with the signing alphabet so I had the opportunity to speak to Jane while signing the first letter of everything I said.  I found my self being grateful for Jane’s deafness.  I was forced – in a very good way – to speak slowly and deliberately.  For someone who can talk like the wind, sputtering out words that are often non-essential and gratuitous, this was a humbling experience.  I actually thought of and mentioned it to my family when I returned home – to no avail.  And yet, the more I participate in these retreats and these practices of loving awareness and sitting and walking meditations, the more I model this stillness, this peacefulness, this kindness and presence for my children.  This alone is worth the work of kindness.

In peace and kindness,

Suzanne “zan” – www.simplepractice.net - life coach, speaker in Cary/Raleigh, NC

Our intention is to build a fence.

After checking our email, walking the dog and doing some administrative work, my husband and I went off on our bamboo adventure and spent about 90 minutes cutting and cleaning several long – 15 ft? – pieces of bamboo which we then attached to the roof of the car complete with a hazard ribbon tied to one of the stems at the back.

We got it all home safely.  The idea is to replace an ugly chain link fence that stretches from our garage across to the fence that joins that neighbour’s yard.  I don’t know how long it will be before we get around to building the fence – hopefully this spring.  I just felt so resourceful and grateful to find enough wood to do the job without spending a penny beyond a little gas to get it home.

No, we weren’t working for money for those 90 minutes but we have saved our selves hundreds in fencing materials so in a way we did get paid for our work.

I’ll be blogging a lot about this as my husband and I continue on our adventures developing two businesses of our own.  We realize in some ways we’ll have to work harder than we’ve ever worked and we also know the freedom that comes from being your own boss.  And today was another example.  Wednesday we’ll be tilling the yard to start our garden for the summer so we can grow our own vegetables.

Suzanne or “zan” is the creator of ‘simple practice’ – www.simplepractice.net – Life coach, speaker in Cary/Raleigh, NC