Bonus Day

One of my favorite books about cancer survivors is Perseverance by Carolyn Rubenstein.  It’s filled with stories of young people who turn fear to hope.  A hope that changes the way they breathe in each day.  Peering at my mortality makes each day a “bonus day”, just waiting for me to decide its meaning.  Along my bay walk I pass a garden splashed with deep heather pink, and Anne Frank’s words, “nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”  Today, what will you do with this bonus day?

Bluffs - Moss Beach CA

The sheer aesthetic beauty of the cypress path along the bluffs to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is overwhelming.  Spread across a soft green blanket these tall majestic wonders wrap my soul in sacred solitude where my heartbeat is instantly synchronized with that of the trees.  And in that instant I am drawn within, and for a few steps find myself straddling between their spiritual healing and the pull of a world so hard to slow down.  Today, look to nature for sacred solitude moments to slow your life down and be touched by the spiritual healing within.     

Half Moon Bay California

It’s early and I am walking the coastal trail along Half Moon Bay CA.  The sun is barely up and the Pacific wind is cold.  I’ve been reading Matthew Kelly’s book The Rhythm of Life which is all about the courage it takes to be the best version of ourselves.  This cold morning I walk to the edge of life, feeling the surf pounding the shore, pondering who I will become, as a new day stretches before me.  Who will you become today?  Passion + Purpose = Life Energy

Gift of Self-Discovery

Gordon was my age, lived next door, and during elementary school was probably my best friend.  Our yards backed up against an open sewage ditch that remained a drainage ditch after they laid in a sewer system.  Playing in our ditch, we learned about Louisiana snakes, lizards, salamanders, exotic insects and plants.  Life was an adventure that I shared with Gordon as I learned about myself.  It is through the giving of ourselves, the relationships we form with others that we discover who we are and who we can become.  Thank the Gordon’s in your life today for the gift of self-discovery.    

Easter Memories

I was 3+ when we returned from living in Japan.  My dad was fighting in the Korean War, and we were living in a second story apartment above the little store and deli across the street from my uncle’s furniture store.  Around Easter I contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized.  Memories of the oxygen tent, being scared and alone still linger, but my most powerful memory is of the love I felt from my immediate & extended family.  Love is a life-giving energy that heals and at 3+ I learned an important lesson I haven’t forgot.  Love starts with loving oneself.  Give yourself a kiss today and heal. 

Gratitude & Blood Moons

Last night I missed the first of a series of “blood” moons or lunar eclipses.  It’s caused by an incredibly close Mars that aligns with Earth and the Moon, and only occurs a handful of times every two-thousand years.  You missed it to?  According to NASA we have an opportunity to see it again on October 8^th, April 4, 2015, and Sept. 28, 2015.  Dr. Mary Steinhardt, U Texas resilience expert, tells us to feel gratitude for the good and bad, for gratitude is a potent tool for snapping us out of fear and self-pity. Even on my worst days I find things to be grateful for, I just have to mindful to look. Be mindful of your gratitude today.     

Somehow Life Just Happens

All too quickly, life somehow just happens.  One day I’m complaining to my parents about having to wear shoes, and the next day our high school principal is telling me, “Billy if I see you walking around with your blue tennis shoes untied again, you’ve had it!”  And then, I’m tightening the laces on my jump boots, checking the 21 rounds for my 45, and securing the 420 rounds for my M16, as the jump master says, “GO!”  Was it minutes, days or years when I am taking my first step after breaking my back and not walking for almost two years?  I was barefoot and scared, but so very mindful of where I had been, even if life had somehow just happened.  Be mindful of how life happens today.

Fight Back

Relay for Life Friday night was all about “fighting back”. The event started with Dr. Foxhall who talked about MD Anderson’s Moonshot strategy that is all about fighting back. The next speaker, a cancer survivor, described how the American Cancer Society has walked with her along her cancer journey, strengthening her fight back attitude. The Star Spangle Banner was sung acapella by a soloist who gave it a beautiful southern edge, and when she reached, “and the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air”, a helicopter flew over. I was immediately transformed back to the first time as a soldier I was shot at while riding in a helicopter. I could feel my tears as my fight back instincts flamed inside me, and I felt the strength of my resilience to my cancer / life journey. Today fight back!

Wakefulness Lessons

Some days I work hard at remembering those times I want to forget.  There is that time each day, right before I wake, that I am suspended between dreams and wakefulness. I’ve found it is my most creative time and has given birth to life solutions and innovations, but it also can be a time I relive life experiences I’ve worked so hard to forget.  At some point I recognize I’m dreaming and slowly become more mindful of today and focus on the lessons learned from yesterday’s I worked so hard to forget.   

It is Purpose or Passion

Purpose driving by passion or is it passion driven by a meaningful purpose?  Vic Strecher, friend and UMICH professor opened the Arts in Science conference telling the story of his 19 year old daughter who died of a rare heart disease forcing him to rethink his understanding of life, death, and our ultimate purpose.  “Julia woke me from my sleep and made me realize that every one of us has a tentative hold on life and that we should live life to the fullest.”  Subsequently, Vic wrote a self-discovery book called On Purpose and companion app that leads to crafting and tracking a meaningful life purpose.  Are you missing purpose or passion in your life?  Checkout Vic’s website, it might just be what your life is missing – smile. 

http://www.dungbeetle.org/the-book/

Culture of Health

Yesterday, I was the closing keynote of the Conner Strong & Buckelew Wellness Summit in New Jersey.  Many knew about MD Anderson because of the partnership with Cooper University Health Care right down the street.  I talked about how worldwide companies are being challenged to better engage their “overwhelmed employees”, and how many companies now recognize the power of a culture of health.  Culture of health initiatives work when they become inextricably linked with the strengths of the existing culture.  You know they are working when employees have the energy to be productive team members at work and to have a life after work.

My mom taught me how to drive.  She’d drive us way out Highland Road, past Magnolia Woods onto the back roads, where we’d switch seats and I’d practice driving with her guidance, patience and encouragement.  By the time I took Drivers Ed. I had a feel for the brake-clutch rhythm, but still had a tendency to over steer.  My memories of Driver’s Ed. are LSU parking lots with lots of cars, lots of turns, and lots of practice learning not to over steer.  My mom had a 15 year journey with cancer where she practiced patience and not over steering, but accepting the way things are.  Today be mindful of your patience and what it brings to your day.   

Vietnam Tears

The speaker was talking about taming daily stress by keeping it in perspective as the room got dark around an old picture of a soldier.  He talked about being a young boy during the Vietnam War and being constantly reminded the lifespan a 2^nd Lieutenant in Vietnam was 16 minutes; as a young boy he didn’t really have big problems.  I couldn’t stop the tears as the faces and laughs of my friends I’d lost to Vietnam swept over me.  Forty-plus years and they are still a part of me, not the ugliness of their deaths, but the laughter and joy we shared.  Pulitzer Prize author William Saroyan, reminds us, “In the time of your life, live…smile to the infinite delight and mystery...” that you share with others along the way.