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Tragedy has a way of getting your attention and shaking you to your core. COVID-19 is certainly that wake-up call for the entire world. As an individual, you may be facing extended isolation, the loss of a job, family illness or the death of a loved one. These jolts to the system can stop you in your tracks, make you question your values and priorities and challenge the choices you have made and continue to make daily. If that’s the case, don’t be alarmed. You’re not drowning. And you’re not alone. You’re having a natural reaction. The bigger question is: do you want to take the time to go deeper to explore how to get past this fear and anxiety brought on by COVID-19? Because if you do, the reward could be your chance to make significant changes in your life so you can live how you were meant to live, both personally and professionally. In other words, it’s time to learn how to sing your song. Don’t Be Afraid to Look for Your Song To learn how to sing your song, where do you start? I recommend taking three key steps. First, take a look at the book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It’s one of those classic books that nearly everyone reads at some point in their life. I seem to remember reading it 10+years ago. A few months ago, it somehow appeared at the top of my Audible library list when I was searching for something else. Books only come to the top of your list if you open or download them or have some recent interaction. I had not knowingly clicked on the book, yet there it was right at the top of my reading list. This was the equivalent of a book jumping off the bookshelf and landing at your feet. So, I followed the sign and re-read the book. The book tells a charming fictitious story of Santiago and the search for his “personal legend.” You join him as he faces his fears, loses everything, overcomes obstacles, falls in love and still follows the signs and omens that deliver him back home to where his “treasure” has always been waiting for him. Through this we learn that the journey is much more than the destination. There are so many beautiful lessons and people that he meets along the way. His willingness to follow his “personal legend” inspires those he meets to do the same. It doesn’t hurt that he is successful, and he gets the girl in the end. But along the way, the story inspires us to follow the signs in our own lives toward our own “personal legend.” The second step to learning how to sing your song is to really listen to the small quiet voice within you because your song can be found only in one place, within. Ask yourself, “What is it that brings me joy? What ignites my passion?” There are many paths to the source of your song, including meditation, prayer, selfless service, nature, inspirational readings, music, dance and immersing yourself in the love of family and friends. And then plunge into those experiences. Watch for the signs and signals, keeping your mind and heart open. What do they tell you about your song? The third step is to identify where you are going in the distance, something I call the castle, and then define the first step you plan to take in the direction of this new destination. In my practice, I use something I call creative manifesting to hold the vision of the castle firmly in mind, to unite with that vision of myself, and then feel what it will be like to finally arrive back at my authentic self. What It’s Like to Sing Your Song When you start to sing your song, you feel a clarity of intention and the draw of intense attention. Beautiful music requires a singular focus. It’s impossible to sing with your mouth full, or your attention divided between different melodies. You can only listen and sing one song. Yours may require you to let go of things that are disharmonious or things that no longer serve you. Or you might change your focus to that which brings you the most joy and fulfillment. Your song may start faintly, like a warmup before the show starts. It can lead up to a prelude before the main act, appear in exactly the right place and right time in your story, and then end with the crescendo of You living and breathing your life’s purpose. That is what we all want in the end, to have satisfied our life’s purpose, with our song playing loudly in our life, and for those who we are here to serve. Can you afford not to find your song? I know the world will be a better place when you find it, and your happiness may depend on it. How I Found My Song in the Midst of COVID When I was reading “The Alchemist”, I learned that life was pushing me into my next adventure. And I moved toward it despite confronting personal difficulties along with this historic pandemic that we all continue to face. At the same time, a dear friend of mine tells me she wants to hire me as her Life Coach and formalize the work we have been doing together informally and sporadically. I thought I was being a good friend and doing what I always do with my team, staff, volunteers, family, and friends; listen and hold them in the highest vision of themselves. The request for me to be a Life Coach led me to take a 30-hour intensive workshop and become a Certified Life Coach. During the class, it became clear to me that helping people find their “personal legend” resonated as an excellent descriptor of what I strive for when coaching my friends or colleagues. These words were inspired by “The Alchemist.” The name , Personal Legend Coaching , a nd website URL were available, and I took the plunge. I am now on a path where I am doing what comes naturally to me, helping others see the best in themselves. I will leave you with my favorite quote from the book: “The boy didn’t know what a Personal Legend was. It’s what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.” –Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist. Your Personal Legend is your mission on earth along with the journey back to yourself. As terrible as the world events seem right now, goodwill emerge, especially for those who decide to examine how they live their lives and listen to the signs the universe is sending.

The couch or the castle — which one are you reaching for? We think the goal in life is to make a comfortable nest, and at the center is our comfy couch where we can while away the hours with our many screens filled with entertainment and more comfort. Most of us are creatures of habit, and not all of them are good habits. We create a life that is comfortable, familiar, and maybe worn around the edges. It’s a lot like a comfy couch that we sink into, feeling safe from whatever might be “out there.” And this is the place where we can lose ourselves into mindless activities such as binge watching, social media black hole surfing and games that help us relax or escape. But what is it that we are escaping from? And then, along comes a disruptor that jars our happy existence. This disruptor may toss us off the couch and demand more of us. It could be something like a pandemic, a divorce, a job loss, a major health crisis, or the loss of a loved one. In the case of COVID-19, some of us are finding our couch is on fire with our emotions about the pandemic bursting into flames right before our very eyes, and we cannot seem to move quickly enough to escape the flames. Times like these can shake us to our core and make us question things we took for granted. It’s during these times when the castle comes into view. The “castle” is a metaphor for something bigger, our true calling or real purpose in life that perhaps we may have been ignoring as we lounged on our couch. We may try to ignore it, avoid it, or pretend that it’s not there, but the castle is calling, and the signs keep pointing in that direction, indicating that we know there is more to our life. There are times when we see the castle most clearly. It may be far in the distance, indistinct, lacking the clarity of structure or details about design or purpose, but we see it. We feel the pull, even if just for that instant. To finally find that something “more,” you will need to get off the couch. My First Castle Calling I had my first castle calling around midlife when I was living in Belgium, working for Dow Corning. I traveled across Europe and Russia for my work but also for self-enrichment. That was a wonderfully comfortable couch. But I was tossed off it by the demands of a country that wanted me to leave so that a local could fill my job. This typically happens after about 4-5 years into an expatriate assignment. It was not personal or unexpected. Somehow, I could not face returning to Midland, Michigan, so I struck out on a one-year adventure of a lifetime. I lived in an Ashram in Yogaville Virginia, studied with a Shaman and lived in Hawaii, and traveled to work in the gardens at Findhorn in Scotland. These were three spiritual experiences that called to me, and so I answered the call. This was a powerful journey that put me back on a path to embrace spirituality. It also surprisingly took me back to my father, from whom I had become estranged emotionally since I was a young child. I had a lifetime of resentment toward my dad because he left me before my first birthday when he and my mother divorced. After embarking on my journey, I discovered that it was a trip back to my authentic self and to healing my relationship with my father. When I began, I had no idea where it would lead me, but lead me it did. During this time, I was asked to retell the story of my life 22 days in a row. Each time I had to keep the facts of the story constant, but my assignment was to tell it from a different perspective. One time my life was a tragedy, the next a drama. Another time, my life story was retold as a comedy and so on. After retelling my “story” 22 times, I realized that it was just a story and that I could decide what the outcome was by changing my perspective – my perception creates the narrative and is not necessarily reality. All my life, the story I told myself, and anyone who would listen, was that my dad left me and my anger about that blocked me from giving and receiving his love. And during this storytelling, I was finally able to see that he always had love for me and had been sending it my way by spending every other weekend and special occasions with me without fail. It was my own wall of resentment that blocked me from seeing and feeling that love. In that moment of acknowledgement, I was flooded with a lifetime of love that literally changed my past. I’ve heard about changing your mind to change your future, but this was the first time that I experienced the ability to change my mind and change my past. I will be forever grateful that I was able to reconnect with him before he passed. The change of heart about my dad became a building block to my current journey and castle. I believe everyone has a dream, either realized or not. It is majestic and aspirational and something that inspires us. For me, my castle is helping others find their true direction and sharing stories that make a difference in people’s lives. It’s the Same for Celebrities, Real or Fictionalized For Bill Gates, his journey is making the world a better place with the billions of dollars he earned from creating and selling computer software programs. If he had stayed at Microsoft, that would have been a comfy couch for him for the rest of his life. But he and his wife, Melinda, knew that the universe was asking more from them, and that their castle called them from every corner of the world. And they have done the soul searching to find exactly the right causes to champion for the greatest impact. The analogy extends to fictional characters such as Bilbo, from the Hobbit, tucked away in his comfy hobbit hole, enjoying his second breakfasts and his life surrounded by friends. That was upended when a wizard came and told him about the castle that awaited him. His life would never be the same. Taking this adventure made his life fuller, longer and created connections deeper than any before he left. Just like Bilbo or any great fictional or real hero, your fears and doubts will surface when you realize the castle may be calling and you take your first step off the couch. Walk toward those fears, embrace them, and put them to work as you move toward the castle, which is where you will find your authentic happiness. Taking the First Step When you’re ready to strike out, let go of the “couch” and begin your journey toward your castle, find a mentor or coach who supports and encourages you to follow your true calling. My coaching mentor is responsible for moving me closer and more quickly than any other resource I have tapped. A coach will never tell you what to do; he or she will encourage you to find the answers within. You’ll be glad you did, and you, along with the world around you, will be a better place because of it. Photo credit: Unsplash.com

If you think that comic book superheroes are the only ones that have superpowers, think again. When you realize that you are the right person, at the right place, at the right time, created with gifts and powers that are unique in all the world, you know you are nothing short of a superhero. There is no other being in creation, alive today, that matches you and your specific talents. And no matter how hard you try to avoid it or deny it, you have a unique gift that the world is waiting for. How you are currently living may not seem like you are in superhero territory. And you may not feel like you are using superpowers, but they exist – maybe untapped, maybe repressed, maybe denied by your inability to embrace, and unleash them, but superpowers they are. That is the problem with superpowers — you need to discover them, exercise them, build them up and find the right places to use them so they can flourish. Most successful superheroes have a coach or a mentor that gets them into the “gym” and puts them on a regimen to build up their self-esteem and superpower muscles. I recommend you ask for and get help, otherwise discovering your superpowers will take much longer than it needs to, and you may become frustrated and fall back into bad habits or let inertia take over. Start with Desire How do you get started? First, with desire. You must want it more than anything else. The pain of staying the same must be greater than the pain of facing your fears, uncertainty, and doubt that will be required to unleash your own superpowers. You know that starting a workout routine can be painful, but no pain, no gain. The same is true of our superpower workout. You will need to challenge some of your limiting beliefs and rewire or change some behaviors to ones that support you instead of tearing you down. But the effort will be rewarded mightily. Then, Smash the Kryptonite If you really are a superhero, why do you feel you are living in a cave filled with Kryptonite? Examples of Kryptonite are: feelings weighed down by fear, uncertainty, and doubt; judgments about the past; and missed expectations. The good news is that the Kryptonite is self-inflicted and within our control to remove. Making the decision to stop focusing on these energy killers and switching to establishing superhero goals will minimize the impact of negative activities. Just like Superman, you need to focus. When he leaped tall buildings in a single bound, he certainly was focused and had no fears. So, determine what you want out of your life and set goals. That will crush some of the Kryptonite. But to get rid of it all, you will also need to fight bad habits of complaining, blaming, and lamenting how little energy or creativity you have. Our mind is wonderful because it is a success-seeking machine that has phenomenal auto-correct capabilities. Instead of seeing past failures as negatives, view them as steps taken to get closer to your goal. Failures provide valuable feedback, and you will autocorrect going forward. We can use each experience, good or bad, to inform our goal-seeking machine, and help stay on track. The sooner we take our focus off what we don’t want in our life and replace with a clear and targeted goal that is worthwhile, the sooner we can become who we were meant to be. One Secret for Finding Your Superpowers I want to let you in on a secret that will be a game-changer if you apply it. While you are waiting to decide on whether a coach is for you, find a substitute teacher – a 4-legged friend. Think about a significan t pet t hat shared your life. Those of us lucky enough to have had a close relationship with animals know that they have a unique superpower, something remarkably simple – unconditional love. And that is something everyone has available and at their command. Deciding to focus on the love in what you do gets you out of your own way and closer to your life goal faster than a speeding bullet. Photo by Elias Castillo on Unsplash

The thing about being curious, analyzing and learning things is that it can create a situation where you become increasingly frustrated due to the lack of response to this information or your lack of ability to take action on what you now know. It is what happens when you conduct customer or employee satisfaction surveys. We gain access to valuable information that can be acted upon to make the company and workplace better for employees and customers alike. And then nothing happens. Well other than the presentations and promises to make changes, at the end of the day and in the midst of an economic crisis, nothing really happens. Okay, lip service might be considered more than nothing by some folks. I mean the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But it happens to me too. I learn something and know instinctively what needs to be done but then there are always too many things to do and not enough resources to do them all, even in my department of one in my personal life. I look in the attic and know that I need to purge to keep the flow of energy and things moving in the universe but do I do that or pay my bills? Florida Plunder and Loot (FPL) thinks I can wait to act on my information while I pay my light bill. And so the next time I'm in the attic struggling to find 2 inches of space for a 3 foot by 5 foot box, I get increasingly frustrated at my inability to act on the information I gained the last time I visited this remote region of my home. So what's the answer? Do something small each day. If you have a choice to do nothing or the choice to do something small instead, do something small. So if you don't have time to completely empty the attic, open each box, purge and cart things off to Goodwill then at least take down 1 box and do that one small thing. At least the next time you are up there, you might have room for the new treasure that is finding it's way to the national storage facility (remember Raiders of the Lost Arc?) Same thing with the surveys, with anything. Pick one small thing to do and act on that. Once completed you can select another small thing and so on. You will feel better and your frustration levels will subside at least a little and every little bit helps. Photo Credit: Cheryl Piekielek

During my mid-life crisis years it seems I learned a lot about myself and was able to finally put some perspective on things that had eluded me in my youth. Right around this time of my life I decide to take a pre-retirement (retiring when you are young enough to enjoy your time off) and for a year I traveled and visited places that had significant draw and opportunity for spiritual growth. The places I went to included Hawaii (for about 5 months) studying with a powerful Shaman - Chuck Spezano, Findhorn Foundation Spiritual Center in Scotland for about a month, Integral Yoga Ashram in Yogaville, Virginia (just South of Charlottesville) for about 3 months and Palm Beach Florida for a month to heal my relationship with my Dad. What a blessing to have had that year, to work for a company that offered unpaid sabbaticals and to have the savings to afford me this luxury. In the Hawaii portion of my journey I worked with about 50 other people who committed to 66 days, 22 at a time to do some very intensive introspection. One of the most powerful takeaways was an exercise we did with an assigned partner over a period of 22 days. Our task was to tell our life story every day but each day we had to change the tone of the story. So one day our assignment was tell our life story as if we were a hero in our life, the next as a victim, the next day as a fairytale, the next as a tragedy, again as a comedy, and then a drama - on and on for 22 days, 22 different stories all based on the same factual basis. We could not change any of the facts of our life, only our interpretation of those facts from these different perspectives. What did I learn? That my life story is just that, a story. Every single rendition was true. I didn't change any of the facts but what I did change was the spin on those facts. I changed my interpretation of my life events, which is what we do each and every day. We decide each moment how we are going to perceive every event in our life and it is just that, a perception, a judgment, a spin that we put on the facts or reality of our life. I was so sick of "my story" at the end of 22 days, 22 tellings, 22 renditions that I didn't care if I ever heard or told that story again. That was all it was, a story. Something I made up about the events that happened around me in my life. None of it was true and none of it was false, the facts just were and my story was something in my mind that reflected those facts but did not take their place or become real just because they lived in my mind. Oh but how real that story had become to me and my emotional body, how much I had invested in it, how much unhappiness it caused me, and for what purpose? It was about as real as the fairy tales I read when I was a child. A fantasy born out of some experience or idea that has little to do with reality. So my lesson was a reinforcement of one of my favorite historical figures most famous quotes, "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be" by Abraham Lincoln. So what about your story, is it a drama, comedy, tragedy or a romantic novel? Remember, you are the one that gets to write it and tell it any way you want it to be. Photo Credit: Sheryl Cattell

So one thing that always amazes me when I read about enlightened beings or in the very few times in my life that I have had the opportunity to experience one in person, Swami Satchidananda, The Dalai Lama and Sivaya Subrahmanya Swami, I always marvel at how they got from where I am in my consciousness to theirs and I want to what I can do to get there myself. One thing they all share in common is a wonderment that is very similar to a child. They see everything in the world as if it were new and beautiful, including even when they are doing something mundane. They also seem to be at peace and in bliss at the same time, experiencing something I recognize but just don't seem to get enough of. You know those moments in your life when you have an experience of God. It can be a moment of watching the wonder in a child's eyes as they discover the world, that moment when you are overwhelmed with love for someone and you are so full of joy that you could burst with bliss. Or maybe it is a majestic sunrise that takes your breath away due to the beauty it bathes the world in. These are the moments that enlightened beings live in. So someone told me that the way to get from here to there is to see these moments like a doorway on our dark room that opens a just a crack to let in brilliant rays of light from the outside and then closes again. My goal should be to have more of those moments each month, each week, each day, each hour so that the door opens more frequently. In addition I should focus on keeping the door open longer and longer each time it happens. To stay in the moment, to relish it, to not let the mundane interfere or shut the door. Slowly but surely I can get to a place where the door opens more frequently and stays open longer eventually filling the time of life experiences creating heaven on earth. This makes it seem more attainable to me, increasing the number and duration of those small glimpses of brilliance a little at a time instead of going from darkness to total enlightenment in an instance. But then again, there is no difference between a small miracle and a large one in God's eyes. Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash

I'm reading the Emerson Essays again and there are two things about him that strikes me. He is 1.) wicked smart and has amazing insight into the human spiritual psyche and 2.) extremely inaccessible to mere mortals that don't have a reading vocabulary at the Ph.D. level. Okay maybe I exaggerate a little bit but seriously, I have to look up at least 1-2 words per page of content and most folks don't have that much patience. In a world where our President is selected based on "out of context" soundbites, I can't imagine the average person taking the time to read Emerson. So I had this idea, if I could somehow reduce the essence of Emerson, or any great spiritual thinker down into a manageable soundbite then I could do a great service to the world. The great thinking inaccessible to many could be delivered over coffee with the Sunday funnies. The only problem I have is that I'm an okay writer but my drawing skills are nil to none. I love the self portrait concept and have always believed this idea that what we say of others we really reveal about ourselves, but I never said it with such eloquence and directness as Emerson, "A man cannot speak but he judges himself...he draws a portrait to the eye of his companion by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it." I've seen it in my own life time and time again. And the reason this happens is that we typically have something inside ourselves that resonates with the person we are talking about. The more emotional we are, the more resonance. So for example a thief will suspect everyone of trying to cheat him or steal from him because that is how he thinks about the world, what can I steal or take that isn't mine. And on the positive side, a trusting soul will leave their door and heart open to others because how they are is how they see the world, full of trusting honest people. The next time you are tempted to go on a tirade about someone or something that is happening, take heed and notice how much more you will be saying about yourself.

A friend of mine reached out to me yesterday for some advice about her work situation. She felt that her boss was trying to force her to resign so that the company wouldn't have to pay severance or unemployment. Things had gotten so bad that she thought her health may be at risk, feeling panic attacks and moments when her heart seemed to be beating in her throat either when she was at work or thinking about it. She had decided to give her 2 week notice on Friday but wanted my advice before she did that. Myself knowing what a difficult market it is out here and knowing that she just had a baby in the past 6 months and knowing that her job is the one that provides benefits for the family I advised against that move. She then asked about an alternative of going to HR with her list of grievances to see if that would help the situation. Again I advised against that approach. What I did suggest was that the universe was giving her a wonderful opportunity to learn how to be in the world but not of it, an opportunity to create peace and tranquility even in a difficult situation, to learn that peace is something that comes from within and isn't something that anyone can take away from you without your agreement. I asked her to find a picture of a lotus flower to help visualize what this might look like. The lotus flower is a wonderful metaphor as it is one of natures most beautiful creations and one that grows best in the most stagnant and putrid of waters. It reminds us that wonderful things can emerge from seemingly terrible conditions. I asked her to visualize herself as that lotus flower, emitting her inner beauty and not reflecting her putrid surroundings. I also said this would help her direct her focus on what she wants to have happen in her life instead of focusing on what she doesn't want to happen. Whenever we invest energy into complaining or fretting about a bad situation it robs us of the very thing we need to set us on a right and peaceful course in our life. The more time we spend focused on what we don't want there is less focus that we can give to what we do want. So I told her to find a picture of a lotus flower that she could look to for inspiration whenever the putrid waters rush over her. To look within to find the peace and focus to create something better in her life. It is an old Sufi saying that we should be in the world but not of the world which means that we are here to give to life our fullest potential rather than being sucked into anything less which might happen if we let the world around us determine who and what we are. Of course I also told her to use some of the energy that this would free up in her life to create the next place for her to exercise her creativity. And I'm happy to report she is already seeing improvements on both fronts. An excerpt from the site I link to about this quote written by A H Almaas about conflict and challenges in our life: "Your essence is very intelligent, very generous. It has a way of throwing a conflict in front of you, so that by looking at that conflict or barrier you'll find out something you need to know. The situation that you are given is perfect in terms of timing, place, the people involved, your capacities, the capacities of people around you, everything, every detail. The situation is such that if you actually try to understand it, you'll understand something about your essence." A not so funny thing that we do as humans is that when confronted with conflict or challenge we somehow think that if we can only remove ourselves from a situation, a relationship or a person that somehow we can remove whatever exists within ourselves that called that situation to us. So we throw away partners, jobs and friendships thinking that our problems will be solved when they are gone but then we eventually find ourselves facing the same issue in the a new job, relationship or situation. How much easier it would be to understand and learn about ourselves so that we can grow into something even better, no matter where we are or who we are with. Photo by Carlos de Miguel on Unsplash

Everyone is a perfect expression of Spirit - how far from reality does that feel some days, for myself and for those that seem to upset me. I say seem to upset me because no one can make me feel anything. I am the only one that can decide how I react or feel about someone or something. So today's message for me is to remind me that we all are perfect expressions of Spirit who are here living and learning and making choices every day to the best of our abilities. So I try to think of it this way. I'm here on earth stumbling around trying to find my way back to my Godliness and all of the souls in heaven look down and say, hey, who wants to volunteer to give Sheryl a hard time so that she can learn how to be at peace no matter what might be happening around her. And some gracious soul raises their hand and says, "Its a tough job, but I'll do it" and they appear and give me a hard time. My peace comes when and if I can remember that we are both, all, perfect expressions of Spirit and no matter what might be appearing otherwise, it just isn't the truth about any of us if it deviates from this fact. Do people sometimes do desperate or mean things? Of course they do, but if the meaning of life is to give and receive love then those mean and desperate things are only a cry for love from someone that needs it and perhaps they are in my life so that I can learn to give it no matter what they might be doing outwardly. This song by the Roches but it is one of my favorites and communicates this message very well: Everyone is Good by The Roches I would like to be a person who does not judge Free to be me whatever that might be I don't want to hold a position, don't want to hold a grudge 'Cause it seems to be the cause of a lot of misunderstanding Heartbreak misery Looking in your eyes you're different from me Why does it have to be that one of us is better Can't we both be beautiful even if we don't agree Like the flowers in the garden and the animals in the wood Each one with a purpose and each one is God Everyone is good Nobody's God says hate your neighbor Even if the neighbor doesn't believe in God Put aside your religion do your God a favor And wouldn't it be something to be loving and kind Forgive yourself for everything having once been blind Everyone is good Everyone is a perfect expression of Spirit.

I spoke recently to someone I care deeply for and wanted an update on her budding love affair. Well, although they absolutely adore each other, she told me that she wasn't sure it was going to work out. She felt like she was losing herself in the relationship, just like she did in her last one. Somehow she had magically found and fallen in love with someone that was almost a carbon copy of her last long term relationship. How could this have happened? Indeed, how is it that when we leave unhealthy relationships that we somehow recreate them wherever we go, no matter who we fall in love with - they turn out to be similar to the one we left? Here's my analogy, life is like a math problem. So we are sitting in class, math class, and our teacher (the person we are in relationship with) comes to us with a problem to solve. We don't like the problem so much so we change schools (relationships). And after the initial getting to know you phase at our new school, an amazing thing happens, the exact same math problem is the one that our new teacher presents us with. So why is this? Well the math problem is our lesson in life, something we need to solve within ourselves in order to move up to the next grade, the next level in our relating with others. And our math teachers are perfect beings of Spirit that volunteer to come into our lives to teach us this important lesson, no matter how unpleasant they might have to be in order to get the point across. So when you think the other person in your life is being difficult because of some character flaw, that might be the case. But if that character flaw follows you around from relationship to relationship, then maybe it is something within yourself that can be changed, improved, learned. For example, if you find yourself in controlling dominating relationships, ask what is it in myself that teaches others that it is okay to control and dominate me? What things are there in my life that I'm not doing or getting that I have voluntarily denied myself so that I can give control to this teacher? Maybe this relationship is an opportunity to change the way I teach people how to treat me? Maybe I won't give permission to anyone to dominate me. Maybe I will just go out and get that puppy after all, even if it isn't logical, rational or perfect timing. I'm the one that wants it and only I can prevent me from getting it. Well at least that's true after I graduate. Photo by John Moeses Bauan on Unsplash

I know, you think I'm bad in math and got the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) wrong, but this is the rule that really matters in life, the 95/5 rule. It is human nature, nothing magical about it, just something we all do in life. We do it with our jobs, our family, our intimate relationships, we just can't seem to help ourselves. Finding fault is not a virtue, it is a deal killer. I see it kill deals every day. "I hate sitting in so many meetings, I don't like writing status reports, I miss my old boss or my friends back at such and such company" and on and on. Right now we are doing less and less of this at work if we are lucky enough to still have a job, so there is a silver lining in all this economic devastation. We are finally focusing on what is right about our job or our company or our colleagues because we are so thankful to have them. Relationships are an even juicier outlet for the 95/5 rule. In the beginning our future soulmate is everything we ever dreamed of and more. And the reason this happens is that we have no idea who they are, so they can be whatever we want them to be. We project all of our dreams and fantasies into the knowledge void we have about who this person really is. But then over time the void starts being populated with facts and experiences that are attributed to the real person and we start to pick them apart, finding all of the things about them that are wrong. But the problem with this approach is that we completely miss the 95% of the person and relationship that is absolutely right. Now of course no one is going to be 100% our dream but in reality, I'm not that great at dreaming and usually the person I'm with turns out to be better than my wildest dreams, which is the case with my wife Toni. For me to find relationship joy I need to be open to asking for what I want in life and adding at the end of my endless list of demands the statement, "this or something better." Because the person we are in a relationship with may not match up exactly to our expectations causing us to become fixated on all of the ways they aren't our perfect match, totally missing how they may in fact be better than we imagined. I find that this fixation on the 5% starts to consume us, to get on our last nerve as the focus magnifies the differences and makes them take on a life of their own. All of the endearing qualities that our soul mate had in the first months of the relationship now drive us crazy with frustration, but how could they have changed so much? Well the truth is, they didn't. It is just that we know them better now and they aren't the person in our dreams, they are a real person in flesh and blood. And given the chance to interact with my dreams and a real person, the real person wins hands down (no pun intended). So if your goal is a lasting and beautiful relationship that is better than anything you could have imagined, my advice to you is to mindfully turn your focus each and every time one of those 5% issues rears its ugly head, to one of the many things about the person you love, to the 95% that is right. And before you know it, that 5% will lose its grip on your attention and most likely you will grow out of your need to have everything in life delivered exactly to your specifications. Relationships that last tend to grow deeper into wonderful things that we can hardly imagine but changing our focus is the only way to get to this deeper place. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Focus, focus, focus, if I could only just focus. But when we do focus, what is it that we spend our time and attention on? Is the glass half empty or half full? The reason this is important is that what we focus on is what we will create more of in our life. So I ask myself, am I focusing on what I don't like about my situation or am I focused on what I want more of in my life. How many times in my life has someone asked me, what is it that you want most? And my response is a litany of what I don't like or want about my current situation. How this works is much like the person with arachnophobia who hates hates hates spiders. And how is it that this person experiences more spiders than anyone else they know. It is as if their fear or hate acts like a magnet pulling toward themselves whatever it is that they are focusing on and in this case it is spiders albeit a hatred, it is still an intense focus. Another way to explain this is the law of attraction, our thought patterns are attracting the things we think about. Focus on positive thought, good things are drawn into your life. Obsess on the negative and it draws more of the same. But anything in life can be like a spider (or a whole herd of them if you really focus). If I am focused on not having a full time job and the fragmentation of having 3 part time ones, then I will get more fragmentation and keep attracting the lack of a full time job. If on the other hand I focus on more abundance than I can imagine from what I am doing now or something better then I have a better chance of drawing that into my life. It sounds so easy but how quickly we slip into our old pattern of thinking...where did I put that flyswatter anyway? Photo Credit: Unsplash