No matter how busy you are, how much you have to do, how little time you think you have ... remember to breathe.

Slow down. Take care of yourself. Enjoy the moment. This is indeed a season of rushing and crushing. Be the difference by being the calm, joyfilled energy that seems to elude so many of us. You have at your core the power to shift the gritty noise to sounds of peace and of love.

Our breath connects us to our wise inner selves and to the greater consciousness that is more real than most of what we see and hear around us during the holiday season. Use your breath to ground yourself and know that the ripple effect reaches far
So not matter what, remember to breathe.

It might just be that this time of year, when it's nearly impossible to avoid the crush of the season's emotional and preoccupation with busyness ... that we are perfectly poised to risk letting go. On a call this morning I felt a deep ever widening pit in my stomach as I suddenly visualized what my client needed to hear/see. I said "Sometimes when we are at a pivotal moment in our lives with our hand outstretched to grasp the next opportunity, we know, with sickening clarity, that the only way to actually reach the next rung is to let go of the one we are holding so tightly to. Just like on high ropes courses where we have to release our left hand so we can lean far enough along for our right hand to catch the next rope."

I hung up the phone knowing that I am SO there. And, no surprise, many people in my life, my world and the bigger expanse of population are in the same spot. New Year's has a way of inviting us to start fresh, begin again, break free. The truth is that while we may well be spurred on by the momentum of the masses who will make resolutions or intentions, unless we have let go of something first, our chances of succeeding are slim.

So I'm wondering, what is it you must risk letting go of? What thought, what habit? Is it a self-destructive behaviour, a limiting belief? Is it a relationship that sucks the life out of you or a situation that diminishes your whole being? What is it that you know in your heart you need to let go of to move more fully into the life you imagine?

And a step I feel is so important - remember to grieve. Letting go leaves a space. Letting go ends drama. Letting go changes you inside. Create a ritual for letting go that completes the process. And then ... be prepared for what flows to you.

I read something today that shook my world. I started to post in my Emotional Eating Blog when I realized that what I was learning was relevant to so many more people than just those who abuse food. It reached out to anyone who has ever avoided being fully alive in some way, shape or form. The words come from Geneen Roth's book Women, Food and God and it woke me right up out of my chair where I thought I was consciously present to my life. It reads: "Dying doesn't frighten those who are already half dead." Whoa. I had a moment of sensing too much drama and then I got it. Many of us really do stroll, march, drift or wade through life half dead. And we keep doing things that numb us or hold us back from full expression. And we keep doing it because when  the part of us that is longing feels dead, we see no reason to breathe life back into anything. I'm not sure this makes sense to anyone else AND I feel the reverberations in the darkest places of my being.

When we feel half dead we don't finish the books we have been working on. We don't make the cd's. We don't paint the bathroom. We don't climb the mountains, swim the rivers, sit in the forests. We don't tell the stories. We don't listen to the children. We don't rage at injustice. We don't congratulate reform. We don't speak up. We don't shut up. We don't feel. We don't forgive. We don't love with all our wide open, precious hearts. We don't make an effort. We don't give in. We don't allow. We don't compromise. We don't accept. We don't say thank you. And ... ultimately, we don't love ourselves.

Only we know if we are really alive and today, in this moment, I am alive with a passion and hunger for fulfillment and satisfaction. I am on the edge ...

"To laugh often and love much;
to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children;
to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others; to give of one's self;
to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - this is to have succeeded."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thank God I have another chance. It's a new day, a new beginning. I get to start all over again. What I did yesterday and the day before and the day before that have definitely had an impact AND I get to choose for today. This day could reveal something powerful and wonderful. Indeed, if I pay attention it will.

Many of us take for granted that we will get a second chance when we wake up in the morning and yet I'm not sure we recognize it when it comes. I'm also not sure we realize that some day that second change won't come. As I've said so many goodbyes in the past year I have realized how important every day is. Yet, I still find myself putting off things and not using my time the way I would if I knew how quickly it could slip away.

There was a time when I felt panicked and immobilized with fear that my life would end suddenly with a long "to do" list unfinished. I felt shame and guilt around not being productive every second of the day. I got over that! When emerged was a new balance of knowing that like every person on the planet my days are numbered. And today I get to begin again; to complete things that are still undone; to say what is wanting to be said; to write the letters I have put off