SpiritWalk

I bought a copy of Eat, Pray, Love over a year ago, but lent it out, so I just finally read it. I lent it to my friend Debbie, who hated it.  She couldn’t get through Italy with Liz.  Debbie said that she couldn’t stand how self absorbed and whiny the author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about her love journey.   I had to laugh at that and make the comment ‘Right, cause I’ve never seen you be self absorbed or whiny about your love life’.  Debbie feigned innocence, but we both know we have each been very self absorbed and very whiny many a time.  I thought Liz was self absorbed and whiny in the Italy portion as well, but she wrote about it in a funny, self-deprecating way, so I enjoyed it.  Plus, I love Italy.  I was married in Italy and plan to go back in May with my family to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  Liz’s description of the Italian food and the people brought back a lot of really good memories for me.  I can’t wait to go back!  The other comment made to me was, ‘Who can just drop everything and travel for a year?’  Well, I writer with now kids and no husband can that’s who.   And what is wrong with that?  That is how the rest of us get a taste of the world, from writers who decide not to work for the corporate giants and take a different path, and I thank them for that.

So, I went to see the movie just after I finished reading the Italy portion.  I enjoyed the movie, but it is a renter in my opinion. I did enjoy the scenery.  Thank goodness they filmed on location.  I also appreciated that they did not ‘Glam Up’ Liz and actually had Julia Roberts wear appropriate travel clothing.

Back to the book and India.  I think everyone should take some time out of their lives and learn to meditate and India seems like the place to do it.  The world would be a much nicer place if everyone meditated on a regular bases.  People wouldn’t take all their silly problems so seriously and would be able to get through their serious problems with more ease.   I could totally relate to Liz’s mind chatter issues and her break through. Coincidentally, I am also planning a trip to India next year to attend my friends wedding.  I am nervous and excited about traveling there, but Liz made it seem more doable for me.

Okay, I have no plans to go to Bali yet, but now I would love to go there someday.  It sounds absolutely charming.  I will not be looking for love there, I am already happily married, but would love to have some chill time on the beach hanging with the locals.

All in all I give the book Eat, Pray, Love 3.5 stars out of 5 and I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.

I joined a local athletic club last spring after I quit my job.  Mostly I joined because the club has a great kids outdoor swim area and I envisioned spending lots of times hanging at the pool with my kids.  Also, I joined because my friend Nina told me I should, because all my friends belonged and that is where my friends and my kids friends were all going to be all summer long. So, what the heck, I’ll try it.  If I don’t like it, I can quit. Well, it worked out pretty well this summer.  We did spend a lot of time by the pool, which was really nice, but the best part of joining the club is my NIA class (I also love the Yoga classes too, but I’ll save that for another time).  So, as you may know I’m all about the ‘YES’.  I try to stay very open minded and say ‘Yes’ to new opportunities and experiences.  Another friend of mine Suzy, who goes to this club, told me I had to try NIA.  I was dubious.  I had never heard of NIA and when I peaked into the classroom, it looked a little crazy.  A little too ‘New Agey’ for me and I am sort of ‘New Agey’, but this seemed out of my comfort zone.  There were barefoot women hooting and hollering, arms swaying, legs kicking, all to really…..great…..music.   All these women looked like they were having a blast.  Okay, I decided, I’ll try it.  If I don’t like it, I don’t have to go back.  Just for a little background, NIA was created in the 80s by Debbie Rosas and Carlos AyaRosas. It is a low-impact sensory-based movement, that combines dance arts, with martial arts and the healing arts.  Very cool stuff.

First NIA class: I still know really nothing about NIA, I’m thinking to myself  ‘you want me to do what with my legs at the same time as I am doing something else with my arms and wiggle my hips and be grateful for my body all at the same time?   Okay, maybe I’ll try one thing at a time.’   I’ll start with legs.  ‘Hey, I remember these steps from my high school jazz class, I can do this, no problem. Oh wait, now were suppose to do all these crazy kicks, I have never taken an sort of martial arts.  Next, I add arms.  Stretch up, shoulders down, fingers extended, gentle arms, ‘Hey, this is a lot like all those ballet classes I took….wait, now I am suppose to punch?’.  Hips, I have hips, I have not moved these hips too much.  Hips are just where my legs are attached, right?  It’s amazing, hips can go back and forth, side to side and around in circles.  My NIA teacher says the only way to trim the waist is to move the hips, that got me motivated.  I’m starting to get the hang of this, now I just need to add the mental aspect of it, be grateful, be open, be aware, love, give, take and do this all with your dancing.  Wow, so intense and so fun.  Now, I just have to figure out how to move my head.  My head is stuck up on my shoulders like a brick.  Come on head just move.   What I really love about NIA is that not only am I actually getting a great work out, I am having a blast and getting some really great mental therapy all in just one hour.  What a bargain!

When I first started this blog I had dreams of quitting my high stressed corporate job and trying my hand at being a stay at home Mom and maybe starting my own side business.  Four years ago my husband Ken quit his job and was the stay at home Dad for our two kids, but he also started his own business.  There were times when I would say to by husband, ‘why don’t you just go get a job, and I will stay home’, but we both had a dream. We felt that if we could make Ken’s business model work, I could quit my job and we would both have a lot more flexibility in life.  Ken’s business had many failures and there were times I thought my dream would never come true, but we kept visualizing this thing happening.  We were very grateful for what we had, but we always kept visualizing what we wanted our lives to look like.  Well, I am happy to say, it worked!   I quit my job last March.  Ken and I spent those four years really getting our finances in order, socking away money and working on Ken’s business.  During those four years, I actually thrived in my job.  I was promoted to management, I created a really good name for myself in the company and there were parts of my job that I really enjoyed.  I think because I always really thought that I would be quitting my job, that I was never ‘desperate’ and people could see that.  I just always did the best that I could do everyday and I kept getting rewarded for it.

So, there is this funny cartoon video spoof that I saw where the Wiley Coyote’s dream of all dreams comes true, he gets the Road Runner.  He is so triumphant, he gobbles him up and saves Road Runner’s skull as a trophy.  Of course, then he has nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, nothing to work towards.   He has a complete breakdown and identity crisis.  When I saw that video before I quit my job, I knew then, that would happen to me too.  I wasn’t sure what it would look like, but I knew it would happen.

One of the other reasons I wanted to quit my job was that I needed to help out my Mother.  She had really been struggling with dementia over the past several years and it was just getting worse and I felt she didn’t have too many years left on this earth. I worried about her constantly. Every time the phone rang, I dreaded that something had happened to my Mom.  On my very last day of work I got a phone call from Brother telling me that Mom was in the hospital with, what the doctors thought was Pneumonia.  That night we found out that it was not Pneumonia but full on lung cancer.  She had survived breast cancer many years before, but it had now come back with a vengeance and metastasized to here lungs as well as other organs.  Thank God I was not working.  My Mom quickly needed round the clock care with several people helping.  Well, my Mom only lasted two weeks.  It was a blessing that it she went quickly, but also very hard.   So, now two of lives biggest stresses have happened to me in a two week time period, a parent dying and a change in job status.

Ironically, at the same time the two biggest stresses in my life were gone.  My Mom and my job.  I really didn’t know which way was up.  My kids were a wreck.  They lost their last Grandparent and now their Mom was running the house and there Dad wasn’t around so much.  I had thought that I was going to really whip the house and kids into shape.  Make my home a smooth running ship.  Boy, was I ever delusional.  When the kids got out of school for the summer they were not too thrilled to have Mom running the show.  Mom is a lot more strict than Dad.  The kids also really missed the structure that school gave them.   We did a lot of fun stuff this summer, but it was exhausting.  I have felt like a bit of a failure.  The kids actually said to me ‘Why don’t you go back to work, we want to be with Daddy’.  That was knife through the heart.  I thought my house was going to be so clean and organized, but it is impossible to keep it clean and organized when four people are in it all day long.

The kids are now if school, my son is just starting kindergarten. So, I home without kids for several hours a day.  I think this is going to be good for all of us.  I feel like I can spend a lot of time with them, but I can also figure out what I want to do now.   This is such a blessing and very exciting, but very scary.  I had visualized quitting my job for so long and it happened.  Now I have to figure out what to visualize on next……hmmmmm.

I was recently promoted to management….yikes.  I have never had any desire to be a manager.  I really don’t have a lot of drive or ambition.  I am all about quality of life.   So, how in the world did I ever get promoted?  Well, I am a Virgo and I like everything to be neat and orderly, which applies to my job as well as home.  When I am at work I try to make things go as smooth as possible.  I work really hard on my relationships with my management and my peers.  If I am going to a job I am going to do it right.  I rarely complain. Whatever work is given to me, I find a way to get it done.  No matter what obstacles are thrown my way.  Hence, my manager promoted me.  I considered saying ‘no’.  My husband encouraged me to say ‘no’.  He has been down the management path and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.  But, I said ‘Yes’.  I thought, ‘this will be good for me’.  ‘I need to step outside my comfort zone and try something new.’  ‘When an opportunity like this is presented to someone, it is a gift and I should just go with it.’ Now I have 10 people reporting to me and all the responsibility associated with it. Now I am saying ‘I am in over my head’.  ‘I have no idea what I am doing.’  ‘Can I request a demotion?’   I just read an article by the author Michael Cunningham entitled ‘A writer should always feel like he’s in over his head’.  I am thinking maybe that should apply to everyone.  If you never get in over your head how will you grow? Everyday I remind myself of these things: I will get my arms around this new job.  I can only do what I can do.  I can only know what I know. Don’t obsess about the things I have no control over. Most importantly for me, don’t take things personally.  This new job is all part of my journey and I need to take deep breaths and just go with the flow.

The other night I was tucking my daughter into bed and told her ‘Have a great day tomorrow’.  I wouldn’t see her until the next night.  I only have to go in the office two days a week, but those days I am gone from 6:00 am until 6:00 pm.  My daughter said back to me, ‘You have a great day too Mommy, but I know you won’t’.  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked. She said ‘You never have a good day at work’.  I realized she was right.  I never really do have a ‘good’ day.  My days are ‘okay’.  There are some good parts to my job. There are times when I have a real sense of accomplishment. I like most of the people I work with and enjoy the team dynamic. I work for a very large corporation and lead a team of 11 people who are spread out across the country.  I spend most of my day on the phone, responding to emails and putting out fires. To get real work accomplished I have to play the political game, cut through yards of red tape and constantly massage egos on a daily basis.   By the end of day I am drained, so when I get home and my family asks me how my day was, I always say ‘it was okay’, or ‘it was fine’ in a tired voice.  Never do I say ‘I had a great day’. I started thinking, what kind of message does this give my kids? When they think of work, they think ‘yuck’.   Is this what I want for my kids?  For them to grow up and go to a job that is just ‘okay’?   Is this what I want for my self?  The answer to both, of course, is no.   Right now, I cannot leave my job.  I need it to pay the bills and to provide for my family.  I have a pretty good job, especially in this economy.  I am thankful for this job.  If I inherited a million dollars tomorrow, would I quit?  Absolutely!  Since, I probably won’t have a million dollars drop into my lap anytime soon, I still need to work.  So, what are my other choices?  I can look for another job, which would most likely be very similar to what I do now. I can start a new career at a very reduce salary. Or I can stay at my job and just decide ‘I am going to have a Great Day!’  Nothing is perfect, things go wrong, people get upset.  But does that need to drag me down? No, I can choose to view things in what ever light I choose.  I have learned that sometimes what I perceive as a ‘bad thing’, turn out to be a ‘good thing’.   Everyday I just need to keep reminding myself that ‘events’ happen, they are not necessarily bad or good.  I just need to stay open, stay calm and stay happy.  It is my choice.  Next time I come home from work and my family asks me how my day was, I am going to say ‘Great!’.

“The ‘Secret Behind ‘the Secret’?” is the DVD program that features interviews with Jerry & Esther Hicks and Abraham (channeled by Esther). ‘The Secret’ of course is referring to Rhonda Byrne’s self help film entitled ‘The Secret’. ‘So what’s going on here?’ you ask. ‘I thought I already found out what ‘the secret’ is. It’s the ‘law of attraction right?’ Well, according to Esther and Jerry, ‘The Secret’ sold us all short and only gave us part of ‘the secret’. So what is going on here?

I bought ‘The Secret’ for my husband last Christmas (2006) on a whim. I had never heard of ‘The Secret’ and I was doing some Christmas shopping at a local new age bookstore. I was just about to check out, when I realized I still had not bought anything f0r my husband. I asked the owner of the shop if she had any ideas and she handed me ‘The Secret’ DVD and said to me ‘It’s really good’. I thought ‘What the heck, Ken and I are always open to something new’ and threw it in my basket.

The year 2006 had not been an easy year for us. Ken had quit a very stressful job at Christmas time the year before. He then became the full-time stay at home Dad for our 1 year old Son and part-time with our 4 year old daughter. I had been working part-time, but went back to working full-time to support the family. My Son’s first year of life had been a constant struggle with reflux and ear infections. He basically did not gain any weight from the age six months to one year. We just prayed everyday that he would eat ’something’. My husband had been spending the nights and weekends of 2006 trying to start a web based business. My full-time job was becoming increasingly stressful. In August of that year I went to the emergency room because I thought I was having a heart attack, it turned out to be an extreme anxiety attack.

Christmas day rolled around and lucky us, we all came down with a stomach virus. While the kids took their afternoon nap. Ken and I popped ‘The Secret’ into the DVD player and wallowed on the coach. I have to admit the opening was a bit hokey to me. The whole conspiracy of ‘the secret’ being hidden for thousands of years and what not. We stuck with it, and in fact, really enjoyed it. ‘The Secret’ is not perfect, it definitely has some flaws, but it also has a lot of good advice. The film is really very up lifting and my husband and I needed some lifting at that point. The secret being ‘the law of attraction’ was very interesting to me. This is what I took away from ‘The Secret’.

• Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.
• Be thankful for what you already have.
• You can have what ever you want.

All of these lessons are good in my mind. Of course, I don’t think if I actually sat here today and wished for a new luxury car that is suddenly going to appear. I think one actually needs to do something, like get a second job, to make such an event happen. When I really started to think about it, I realized I pretty much have obtained everything that I have wanted. Some things have taken longer than others, but eventually I did get it. That realization made me start thinking, what is it that I really want now? That is hard part, deciding what I want out of this grand life. After a lot of thought, I now think I have some pretty good ideas.

I have to say ‘The Secret’ helped turn things around for us in 2007, or at least it helped Ken and I to start looking at things a bit differently. I would guess, if Ken and I had just watched ‘The Secret’ once or twice and never talked about the philosophy of ‘The Secret’ with friends and family, probably nothing would have ever changed for us. But we are the type of people that love to sit around and talk about topics. As I have mentioned in my other blogs, we always have friends and family coming and going at our house. So, pretty much everyone we hang out with watched ‘The Secret’ the week between Christmas and New Years. My friend Barb had already heard about ‘The Secret’ and she told me the whole ‘Law of Attraction’ philosophy was introduced by a disembodied entity known as Abraham whom is channeled by a woman named Esther Hicks. ‘Well, how interesting’, I said. ‘Do tell more!’ I’m a pretty open mind individual and I had even been to a ‘channeler’ before, but I was not entirely convinced that such a thing could actually be possible. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Turns out, my friend Marie was also very familiar with Abraham’s ‘law of attraction’ and proceeded to educate me on the husband and wife team, Jerry and Esther Hicks. Marie had also heard that Esther was a big part of the original ‘The Secret’ film, but that Esther had been edited out due to some conflicts with the original agreement concerning the way the movie would be distribute. We did, by the way, get a hold of a copy of the original ‘The Secret’ that included Esther and we enjoyed watching this version very much too.

I’m not sure what happened between the Hicks and the ‘The Secret’ crew and at this point I really don’t care. I am just thankful to ‘The Secret’ for turning me on to Abraham. I have now read several of the Hicks’ books and have really enjoyed them. Where ‘The Secret’ falls short, Abraham’s teachings have it together. One interesting tidbit, is that a book called ‘Think and Grow Rich’, written by Napoleon Hill in the 1930s, was ‘the book’ that Rhonda refers to in ‘The Secret’ and was also a huge inspiration to Jerry Hicks starting back in the 1960s. Jerry Hicks, at one point in his life, actually made a career out of teaching the principles from the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

Back to this whole channeling business. Until recently I have thought, ‘Can Esther’s channeling of Abraham be for real?’ I know that there are tricksters and fakes in the world that are just looking to make a quick buck, but one can pretty much see right through those shams. The Abraham-Hicks message is very consistent. The message never changes, it just grows. The message is given with such love that I think ‘when something is done with such love how could it be fake?’ The Hick’s have been conduits for Abraham’s teaching since 1985. I don’t think anyone could do something like this for so long and have it all just be made up.

‘What is the secret behind ‘The Secret’? In my own words based on what I read in their latest book, the Hicks feel that ‘The Secret’ missed the boat by leaving out the key to the ‘law of attraction, which is ‘Vibrational Alignment’. In order for the ‘law of attraction’ to work one must be vibrationally aligned with what one desires. How does one become vibrationally aligned? Well, here’s my very short answer. One must use their emotions to become aligned with one’s desires and stay connected to one’s source energy. If you want abundance in your life you have to stop feeling poor. You need to be grateful for what you have today, but also have a vision of where you want to be in the future. Easier said than done, I know. The Hicks have published many books that have actual exercises outlining exactly how to get vibrationally aligned with ones desires. I just completed the Hicks’ latest book ‘The Astonishing Power of Emotions’ and it has a great analogy for getting one’s emotions vibrationally aligned. Abraham compares vibrational alignment to a person in a canoe on a river. Abraham asks the reader to consider how hard it is to row against the current and then how easy it is to flow with the current. Being vibrationally aligned is like riding with the current.

I was very excited to watch ‘The Secret Behind ‘The Secret?’. I was curious to find out just what the Hick’s were going to say about ‘The Secret’, which surprisingly was very little. I’m not sure if they mentioned ‘The Secret’ at all. The DVD starts of with Jerry and Esther being interviewed, which did not meet my expectations of the Hick’s. I expected them to very polished and well spoken. They were actually a little goofy. The interview did not seem rehearsed at all. Their conversation kind of bounced all over the place. The interview really made them a bit more endearing to me. They just seem very sweet and it is obvious how much Jerry and Esther Hicks love and respect each other. The second part of the interview was with Abraham being channeled through Esther. Abraham speaks so differently from Esther. Abraham is polished, stays on topic and gives a very consistent message. What have I learned from Abraham?

• We are on this planet to experience Joy.
• We are all eternal beings.
• In order to receive what I want, I must ask for it and stay vibrationally aligned with my emotions.

In my opinion, all good things. How has my life changes since last Christmas? My son is healthy, both my kids are fantastic, my husband’s web business is actually making money, I have cut back my hours at work from full-time (40 to 50 hours a week) to part-time (33 to 40 hours a week). My job is still stressful, but I have learned to deal with it in much more healthy and productive way. I am less fearful, less angry and just plain happier.

I know my last post was about friends, but I guess I’ve been thinking about my friends a lot lately. So, I’m going to write about friends again, or to be precise, this post is going to be about one particular friend. My friend Debbie. Some people call your quirky, some call her zany and some folks even call her crazy. I call her my adopted Italian Sister, my partner in crime and friend. Some people have even compared us to an old married couple for the way we argue.

Debbie was raised in Queens, New York and you can pretty much guess that’s where she is from the moment you meet her. I love to tease her about how she mixes her ‘Rs’ and her ‘As’, when speaking. For example, Debbie says drawa instead of drawer. Last Christmas she was telling a story to my daughter about Santers Helpas. I asked her with a grin ‘What are santers helpas?’, she said ‘You know elves!’. Then I say with a bigger grin, ‘Well who in the world is Santer?’. ‘Around these parts we call that guy Santa.’ Oh, the Italian hands went up in the air on that one.

Debbie sold her swank Soho apartment and moved to Boulder in the late 80s early 90s. The 5th daughter of Angelo, a New York taxi driver, and Carmella, a woman with a lot of style. Boulder didn’t know what hit it when Deb came to town, I still don’t think the city has quite recovered. I first met Debbie in 1995 while working at the local newspaper ‘The Daily Camera’ in Boulder. I worked in IT she worked in accounting. We became fast friends. Debbie is a very generous person with beautiful brown eyes, a big smile and a quick wit. She loves to do pretty much anything outdoors. Debbie’s 10 years older than me, but has about 30 years more life under her belt. She has traveled extensively, has had many jobs and is accomplished at many sports. She taught me how to ski double black diamonds, ride technical trails on a mountain bike and how to make a killer salad. My friends and I all attempt to make what we call ‘The Debbie Salad’, which always has at least one nut, one cheese, one fruit and a lovely homemade dressing. By the way, another accomplishment is the woman is a fantastic cook! We just had dinner at her house this past weekend where she served a smoked salmon straight from her smoker, with a lovely herb sauce, oven roasted potatoes seasoned to perfection and one of her famous salads. Believe me, there were no left overs.

Debbie has held jobs at many of the local iconic businesses in Boulder, Tom’s Tavern, McGuckin’s and the Daily Camera, to name a few. During the tech boom in the 90s Debbie went back to an earlier career of high tech head hunting. She was really rockin n’ rollin right up to the crash of the dot com industry in 1999. Those were some hard times for Debbie and she did a lot of soul searching to figure out what her next career would be. She decided to get into a career path that there are always jobs no matter where you are. Nursing. Debbie enrolled in nursing school about 5 years ago. Working part-time at hospitals and nursing homes, while going to school at the age of 45 proved to be very challenging, but a challenge Debbie was prepared to face head on. Debbie had not been to school in over 20 years, and for someone who never considered themselves a student, there were many times that she wanted to throw in the towel. Thanks to Debbie’s drive, courage and a large support system of friends, she graduated from nursing school last spring. At the nursing pinning ceremony my daughter Tori and I had the honor of ‘pinning’ her. I felt like such a proud Mother at that point, I couldn’t help but cry right along with Debbie. My 4 year old daughter was so perplexed why these two woman where balling there heads off at such a happy occasion. I was so happy for my dear friend.

Well, that’s not quite the end of the story. There’s a little pesky test called the NCLEX one must take in order to obtain a nursing license. This proved to be one last hurdle that Debbie needed to get over before starting her new career and life. Debbie’s biggest challenge, through out nursing school, was taking the tests. Debbie felt she was a terrible test taker and had such anxiety every time she had to take a test. The NCLEX is the Grand-Daddy of tests. It’s long, hard and doesn’t necessarily reflect what one learns in nursing school. Debbie was flat out scared to take that test, so not too surprising when she failed it the first time. It was heart breaking when she failed it a second time, probably one of her lowest points. I know she was ready to give up at that point, but she dug in deep and figured out what she needed to do to pass that test. The threat, ‘You will take that test again and if I need to I will get on a plane to Boulder and kick your ass’, from her childhood best friend Sheila may have been a bit motivational too. Thank goodness, the third time was the charm. She passed!!!!

Now I am happy and proud to say, my good friend Debbie is a full fledged nurse with a job at a nice hospital at the age of 50. How great is that? What an inspiration to anyone looking to follow a dream at any age.

I am truly a blessed individual. I have really nice husband, two fantastic kids, a great family and a lot of really wonderful friends. Friendships have always been very important to me. I have learned so much from my friends. They have taught me how to have fun, how to laugh at myself and the world. They have taught me how to down hill ski, cross country ski, cycle, cook, play volleyball, and in-line hockey. But mostly they have taught me how to love.

I have always considered many friends to be part of my extended family. Every holiday consists of my entire family of 18 and then our adopties, which usually includes Matthew, Debbie and Marie, but really anyone is welcome. We have the kind of house that there always people coming and going. The smart ones always come around meal time, because they know there’s always enough food for one more person. We have 4 or 5 regulars that come a couple of times a week, my Mother, our friends Marie, Matthew and Debbie. We have several families that we get together with on a regular basis. My kids adore these people. Pretty much every day my Daughter says, ‘Mommy, who’s coming over tonight?’, if I say ‘Nobody’ she puts on the big pouty face. Because of all the interaction my kids get they are not shy, they are articulate, they have many interests and they always feel comfortable in groups of people. My friends have been such a positive influence on my children.

My friend Matthew calls our large group of friends ‘a freak of friends’. He says, ‘you have your gaggle of geese, your prided of lions, your herd of cows and in our case we have a freak of friends’. I love that saying, because it is so true! Each one of us have are own little unique freaky side. We all have very strong personalities, are very opinionated and of course each of us thinks we are always right in our opinions. The great thing about my friends is that we can sit around and talk about hot topics and have really heated conversations over these hot topics and get really worked up and irritated at one another and then the subject can completely change into something warm and fuzzy and we’re all laughing and hugging. I love that we can all be different, yet appreciate the differences.

Let me close by saying ‘Thank you!’ to all my friends. You keep me honest, joyful, spiritual and happy!

I contemplate the existence of God all of the time. I have asked myself the question over and over ‘How can I know that God exists?’ Friends and family have told me why they believe in God and why they do not believe in God, but it doesn’t matter to me what anyone else says (even the Pope). I have to believe for my own reasons. For a long time I waited for an epiphany. I wanted some miracle to happen that would prove to me that God exists. Finally, one day I was driving home from dinner with my husband and kids. It had just rained and where we live we have the most beautiful rainbows. As we were driving home one of these magnificent colored arcs appeared. Now, I have seen hundreds of rainbows in my life, but in that moment I thought to myself ‘Rainbows are proof of God’. To me rainbows are such a miracle, and I don’t care what the scientific explanation is for a rainbow. They are still a complete miracle to me. They are so breathtakingly beautiful. That moment started me thinking on what are other reasons I believe in God. So here are my top 10 reasons I believe in God.

10. The Sun – One of my favorite things to do in the morning is to walk outside on our deck and look at our lovely view and feel the Suns warmth on my face and shoulders. I tip my face towards the Sun and say ‘Thank you God!’. Just letting my mind relax and focus on the wonderful warm feeling from the Sun is so blissful. Without the Sun our world would not be what it is and to contemplate how our solar system works and how the planets revolve around the Sun and why they revolve around the Sun is just baffling to me. It is truly a miracle.

9. The Moon – The Sun lights up our day, but the Moon lights up our nights. There is something so magnificent about how the Moon goes through its cycles. There are times when I glance out and see the Moon and don’t even recognize it as the Moon. Once I came home and looked out the window and I thought there was some sort of celestial event happening. I saw this giant orange light in the sky, it almost looked like a fire in the sky. I just sat and stared trying to figure out what it was I was looking at. I called to my husband and as he entered the room I realized it was the moon. It had been distorted by some clouds passing over it. I had to laugh at myself for not recognizing the planet that I see almost every night. It’s interesting what a special relationship my kids have with the Moon. It was definitely one of both of their first words and they always point it out to me. When it is big and full it is such a joy for all of us to see. A complete miracle.

8. Flowers - Flowers are the Eart’hs decorations, each flower is a great masterpiece. The colors, the aromas and the shapes. Completely amazing, how different each flower is, yet how beautiful. People always ask ‘what’s your favorite flower?’. Well, for me, it depends on what’s blooming that particular week or where I am. When I see the first crocus of the year sticking their little heads out of the snow, I get completely giddy. The aroma of lilacs send me to Nirvana. The exotic shape of the iris would make you think that they are delicate, yet throw a clump in your backyard and they will take over. I even like dandelions, mostly because my kids get such a kick out of them. My daughter showed me a picture the other day of the praying mantis that looked just like a pink orchid. I could not believe it, so bizarre yet so beautiful.

9. Rainbows - Ahh rainbows…I love them. First of all, I love the rain, especially a summer rain that cools off a hot day. The rain is my main course and the rainbow is my dessert. Our house has great views to the east. We often see complete double rainbows. Yes, there is a very logical reason we see rainbows. Rainbows are seen when raindrops, falling in the distance, bend and bounce sunlight back towards your eye. Each color of sunlight is bent and bounced in a slightly different direction. The colors separate around the bright edge of the reflection. Here’s the miracle ‘each color of the sunlight’. Is that not a complete miracle that the color of sunlight is actually made up of all those different colors.

7. Laughter - There is nothing more contagious than laughter and there is nothing that makes you feel better. I can be in the darkest mood and sound of my children giggling pulls me right into the light. Try this experiment at your next gathering. Take one of your friends into another room and start laughing. I bet within 10 minutes every person will gravitate into that room, keep laughing and just watch everyones reaction. You will have everyone laughing and they won’t even know what they are laughing about, but no one will care because it just feels so great to be in a room full of laughing people. What a true gift from God.

6. Tears - It is so perplexing to me why we actually cry. I understand feelings of sorrow and grief, but why do we cry? Why does our body produce a watery substance from our eyes, when we feel sad or sometimes extremely happy? I think tears are like rain. They are a gift from heaven.

5. Music - Sweet, sweet music. Music can bring up so many emotions and so many memories. There are songs that I associate with different times in my life. When certain songs play on the car radio when I am driving, like Eric Clapton’s “Bell Bottom Blues”, I can not leave the car until the song is over. It brings up such feelings of nostalgia. Music is so healing. just listening to music can change your mood in a matter of minutes. I know when my kids are having a rough time all I have to do is start singing there favorite song and they forget all of their worries. Thank you God for music.

4. Eyes - Eyes, they view this beautiful world and they are beautiful to view. Each set is so unique and so wonderful to gaze at. You can pretty much tell what kind of life a person has led by looking deep into their eyes. The eyes are so telling of what a person is all about.

3. Birth - From conception to birth the whole process of creating a baby is so incredible. How those little bundles of love start from a couple of tiny cells is miraculous. How the women’s body does exactly what it needs to do to give the little create a place to grow and thrive is mind boggling. How could this happen by some freak of nature. How can anyone believe that this live just happens because of some random coincidence of chemical reactions. I just don’t buy it.

2. The Universe - Just thinking about the Universe hurts my head. There is so much we do not know about the Universe and I’m not sure we will ever now. It is a complete mystery. I love reading all the different theories of how the Universe was created and what is happening ‘out there’ today. Well here’s one of my theories. The Universe is God, the whole thing, including us. We are like tiny cells of God.

1. Love - And the number 1 reason I believe in God, is ‘LOVE’. The most wonderful thing that we humans have. I start my day every day thinking about how lucky I am, because of all the people in my life that I love and all the people that love me. I remember asking my Mother when I was a child if we were rich. She always answered, ‘Yes we are rich, rich in love’. She was right.

My 40th birthday was on Wednesday, so I took the day off from work. I wanted to do something different and I wanted it to be something meaningful and self reflective. Going to a spa just wasn’t going to cut it. My friend Barb had been going up to the Shambhala Mountain Center, where Tibetan Buddhism is taught and practiced, on weekends at the beginning of the summer. Barb worked there on the weekends in return for lodging and meals. All summer I heard how fantastic the Shambhala Mountain center was and how she couldn’t wait to get up there the next weekend. I decided that I would like to experience the Shambhala center myself and it would be a perfect way to spend my 40th birthday. Barb was kind enough to rearrange her schedule and take me up and show me around. Let me just say ‘It was a perfect way to spend the day on my birthday’.

Before I start telling my experience of the Shambhala Mountain Center, let me first give a little background on Shambhala Buddhism and the Mountain Center. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Meditation Master, brought Shambhala Buddhism to Western Civilization from Tibet in the late 1960s. Trungpa founded more that 100 Shambhala Meditation Centers through out the world. He also founded the Naropa Institute, now known as the Naropa University in Boulder Colorado, where he taught the practices of Shambhala Buddhism. Trungpa taught that “there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in the world, which is the innate wakefulness of human beings. This is the basis, in myth and inspiration, of the Kingdom of Shambhala, an enlightened society of fearlessness, dignity and compassion.” The best aspect, in my opinion of Shambhala Buddhims, is that it is accessible to people of all religions and of no religion. Trungpa taught how to incorporate meditation into everyday life. You don’t have to go to the top of a mountain for three years to find enlightment, you just need to find your own peaceful place where ever you are. Trungpa passed away in 1987, but his teachings continue on today. Trungpa’s son Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is now the head of Shambhala lineage.

The Shambhala Mountain Center is located in Red Feathers Colorado, just outside of Fort Collins. It’s about a two hour drive from Boulder or Denver. At the Mountain Center is ‘The Great Stuppa of Dharmakaya’ , the largest and most elaborate example of Buddhist sacred architecture in North America. The Stuppa alone is reason enough to journey to the Mountain center, it is amazing. There are all kinds of retreats and classes held at the Mountain Center year round.

Back to my Mountain Center experience. Barb and I arrived in the morning around 10:00 on the most perfect end of summer day. The leaves were just beginning to turn. I had no preconceived ideas on what the day would entail. I let Barb be my guide and was content to let the day unfold as it would. First we did a short 15 minute hike up to the Stuppa. There is a nice path that leads all the way up with flags on either side of the path to guide the way. When I first saw the Stuppa it looked completely out of place in the mountains surrounded by pine and aspen trees. It is a giant white very tall and oddly shaped structure with brightly painted embellishments all over it in brilliant greens, blues, yellows, reds and gold. My friend Barb actually helped paint the Stuppa this summer, which is quite on honor. One actually needs to have special qualifications to be able to paint this sacred building. During the summers while she was going to college back in Connecticut Barb painted Victorian houses to earn extra money. So, the head Stuppa painting guy gave her shot. I guess she did really good job, because she got to go back pretty much every weekend after that to help paint the Stuppa. By the way, the painting is really beautiful.

The structure of the Stuppa actually represents the Buddha sitting in his meditation position, hence the odd shape of the structure. The Stuppa is filled with Buddhist symbolism both literally and figuratively. Within the walls of the Stuppa are all kinds of Buddhist paraphernalia, like miniature stupas and Buddhist texts. I guess to give the Stuppa extra magical Buddhist juice. The Stuppa has four levels representing earth, water, fire and wind. The first level is an open area that can be entered by anyone which is very unusual for Stuppas. The other levels can only be entered by certain levels of Buddhists. I am very curious to know what goes on in those other chambers. There are four large gates on each side of the Stuppa. Before going in the Stuppa it is customary to do a walking meditation around the Stuppa. We walked around the Stuppa seven times, this symbolizes something, but I’m not sure what. I was very focused on clearing my mind, so I wasn’t at all thinking about what the inside of the Stuppa would look like. So, I was very surprised when we entered the Stuppa to have a giant, and I mean GIANT, golden Buddha staring down at me. His eyes were so intense I became a bit intimidated. He had such a stern look on his face and I felt a like he was questioning what I was doing there. I went ahead and sat on one of the meditation cushions right in the middle and settled in and went about the business of clearing my mind. Barb is a much more accomplished meditater than I, she can sit still for a very long time. I had to adjust a few times, plus I was very curious about the inside chamber. So after a while I opened my eyes and peered up at the giant Buddha. I started to meditate while looking up at him. The strangest thing happened, his face softened and I swear he smiled. Whoever built this Buddha is such an incredible artist.

Next we did another small hike up to another shrine called the Daitozan Jinja (Great Eastern Mountain Shrine) built for the deity Amaterasu-Omikami Jinja, a Japanese Sun Goddess. Not sure the validity of this story, but what I heard was that Trungpa visited Japan and the Sungoddess spoke to him and said she wanted to return with him. So there was some special ceremony and the deity came back to the states and is now a little ways up from the Stuppa. Anyway, there’s a ritual that one can do on the short hike up to the the shrine. Of course we did it and it was really nice.

Next….lunch. Lunch is served at 12:30 and it is recommended that a $7 dollar donation be given for eating lunch. Well worth it. Tibetan Buddhists are not vegetarians. I was suprised to learn this, but Barb pointed out to me that there’s not that many options for food in Tibet, given it’s high altitude, so if they did not eat meat they would starve. That works for me. So for lunch there was lamb, brown rice, seasoned tofu and a lovely little salad bar. It was delicious.

The last part of my journey was spent at the Shambhala gift shop. Great shop, all kinds of Buddhist goodies. I bought a few trinkets, including some beads, a meditation bell and tiny little green Buddhas for my kids.

Really, what a fantastic way to spend my 40th birthday. For more information here’s a link to the Shambhala Mountain Center - http://www.shambhalamountain.org/.