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  • Your Epitaph?
  • Powerful Questions
  • Eat, Pray and Love

    • The Dawn October 2007

    My webmaster, Marshall McComb, sent this stunning photo to me.

    At Fox Creek in Oregon he wakes up to this magnificence every day.

    My EZINE is a few days late this month. I just returned from a 5-day meditation retreat with Ruth Dennison, one of the first women to bring Buddhism to the West. Her meditation retreat was very body-centered. At 85 she is full of life. She's in better shape than I am. I suspect that's because she has practiced body-centered mindfulness for 30 years.

    I cried all the way home from the retreat. I don't question the tears anymore. I just welcome them as the cleansing agent they are.

    As is always the case when I return from a retreat, I'm challenged with re-entry. I vow to maintain the peace and serenity I experienced at the retreat.


    Pauline Laurent

    Your Epitaph?

    I turned 62 last Tuesday. Now I'm a real senior citizen. With each birthday, I become more committed to living each day to the fullest. Carpe Diem (Seize the day)

    At my age, I'm not driven by values that are not my own. I no longer try to do it all. Doing less is better for me. Living with less is better too, less distractions and less visual clutter. My mind has more clarity in sparse surroundings.

    So I ask myself at 62, how do I want to spend the remaining 1/3 of my life?
    What do I want to do that I have not taken time to do?
    I've fed my ego for too many years. My patient soul has been waiting in the sidelines.
    How can I deepen my spiritual connection?
    Ruth Dennison says we are all sensory deprived and we try to make up for it with unsatisfying practices, like compulsive shopping, overeating, over- indulging in things that don't really satisfy us. One very satisfying soul activity I've found is taking an early morning walk. But before I do that, I light a candle and sit quietly while having a cup of tea. This is my precious time to connect with myself and create my day.
    All day long I have to watch for serenity thieves and not let them take away my peace.
    Obsessive worries steal my serenity.
    My motto for this year is De-Stress, De-Clutter and Decide what nourishes my soul and do it.

    Another beautiful photo above by my web designer. The red bushes are sumac. Aren't they brilliant?

    Powerful Questions

    As a coach, I frequently ask my clients questions. Clients do better and are more likely to follow through when they have come up with their own solutions. My job is to ask them a question that sends them deep into their wisdom to discover what needs to be done in a given situation. Here's a few examples of powerful questions:

    1. What's working in your life?
    2. What are you trying to ignore?
    3. What's boring you?
    4. How do you want to be remembered?
    5. Who do you love?
    6. What's next?

    Eat, Pray and Love

    One of my clients informed me yesterday that the author of Eat, Pray and Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, was going to be on Oprah, so I tuned in. The author was in her early 30's with a picture-perfect life when she started waking up at 3 a.m. every morning.

    Her husband was encouraging her to have a child. She knew it wasn't the right thing to do. That was one compromise she wasn't willing to make. After some soul searching, she decided to leave her marriage. She set out on a journey. First she went to Italy where she ate whatever she wanted for 6 months. Then she went to India and learned meditation and yoga from a spiritual teacher. Finally she went to Bali to pull it all together. While in Bali, she fell in love with her soul mate. She suggested that every day we ask ourselves the following 3 questions:
    What do I really, really, really want?
    What was the best part of this day?
    How can I change my mantra?
    Most of us have bad mantras running in our head. She suggests updating our mantra with more positive information.

    My favorite part was Elizabeth speaking about being held in "the palm of God". Oprah was real curious about that. If you've ever experienced that feeling, you know how life-altering it can be. The place where I feel held in "the palm of God" is on meditation retreats... which explains why I frequently attend them.

    Do you feel held "in the palm of God"? If so, how does it happen for you?
    Coaching can lead you down that path as well as many other spiritual practices. Give me a call to discuss the possibilities.

    Be well and enjoy this beautiful autumn.