Life and Happiness

This Coach Talk is dedicated to the memory of Micah Mei

I was reluctant to start this Coach Talk with a topic that brings up so much sadness and discomfort for most people. Yet, to begin with anything else would simply be disingenuous. The 1 1/2 year-old daughter of two of my dear friends unexpectedly passed away this month. Can anything be done or said to help this family deal with the pain, the numbness and the realignment of life without their daughter? Probably not. I do want to pass on the message from the father of Micah Mei (at least my version of what I understood from his speech at the funeral):

“____________ Love! Hug! Appreciate! ______________ ”

Let your family and friends know how much you love and appreciate them TODAY. We have once again been reminded that we can't take life for granted. So even if a few people love, hug and appreciate as a result of this message, more meaning would be added to Micah Mei's short life.

Choose Happiness
This is a simple yet powerful reminder. Let us remember to choose happiness first - not success, not power, not anything else. Let us remember to not pursue something else in order to be happy. Let us pursue happiness first and allow everything else to be born out of that energy.

"'Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." --Albert Schweitzer

"If you're doing things in order to be happy, you're doing them in the wrong order!" --Michael Neil, the man who inspired this portion of Coach Talk

Experiment
This is an experiment that will allow you to align yourself with choosing happiness first.
1) Close your eyes. Take a deep breath... and another...and another. Allow your whole being to simply BE for a few moments.
2) Now ask yourself the question: "What would I like to do right now?" Not in 5 minutes, not in 5 years. "What would I like to do RIGHT NOW?"
3) Just do it.
4) Repeat daily.

Total Immersion
This month, I have been completely immersed in the blogosphere. I have read thousands of blog posts. I have learned how to set one up. I have read a book on the subject. I have started writing my own. I've researched ways to promote a blog. I have spoken about blogs to many of my friends and clients. I now feel like an expert in the area.

I knew that I was obsessed. I knew that I was actively borrowing from other parts of my life in order to quickly gain the knowledge and the experience to feel comfortable in a new area for me. I sacrificed some of my life balance. And I felt good about it.

Could I have done this as effectively over a 6-month period? Perhaps. Yet intuitively I knew that greater immersion was needed for me in this arena. In the last month, I felt like I was living in the blogosphere. It was like I traveled to another country to truly learn the language and the culture of this new world.

I gave myself permission to let go of life balance for a time and now feel more in balance as a result. Becoming immersed in grief can complete our feelings around it more quickly. Living in a foreign country is more conducive to learning the language of that land. Borrowing from other parts of our lives to get into a new hobby, to expand our business or to begin a new relationship is sometimes the most balanced thing we can do.

This experience has served as a reminder that our lives are in balance when we don't create the pressure to keep it in balance all of the time.

Personal Reflections
We take nothing in life more for granted than life itself. How can we possibly imagine ourselves without our life, without our bodies? These reflections haven't been easy for me. Yet I feel more alive as a result of being more in touch with the impermanent nature of life... more precisely - my life.

This Coach Talk has been a battle to complete and not easy to send out. It's shorter nd deals with life, death and happiness. I feel like I am crossing the line somehow and know it's a line I must cross.

In closing, I wanted to share with you a poem:
Life After Death by Laura Giplin
These things I know:
How the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them
so that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk falls to the ground
and the moss covers it
and in the spring, the rabbits find it
and build their nest
inside the dead tree
so that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.