Today I wanted to talk to you about why we keep holding on to all this STUFF! Is it because we feel guilt if we decide to get rid of it? Is it the voice of our parents in our heads telling us, "This is a family heirloom"? We attach meaning to the stuff. In my case, I have carted around a whole set of fine china from house to house and haven't used it in over a decade. How silly is that? Let's look around and assess what is truly meaningful to us. Not to our parents. Not to our grandparents. To us. What surrounds us should be meaningful, useful and/or beautiful. Beyond that, let's let it go. We don't need to keep "stuff" because it is meaningful to someone else. Keep it if it is meaningful to you.

Do you ever find yourself wasting time ruminating on the past and what could have been different or on the mistakes you made that you wish you could take back? How about the good times? We can also get sucked into sadness that those good times are "over". Both of these scenarios rob us of the present moment that we are now missing out on. I know there have been times I've gotten stuck obsessing about what I could have done differently. Pretty soon, I am on a spiral of the "whys" and the "what ifs" and in that spiraling, I've wasted the joy of the present moment. Mistakes teach us lessons, if we are paying attention. It is ok to look at them and learn. In fact, it is a really good thing to examine our actions, hearts and learn to do better. So, if you find yourself going down the rabbit hole of regret, or even the rabbit hole of the good times, be sure to not let it last too long. If you do, you just might miss out on the joy that is right now, right here, in front of you. Let's stop living in the past and step forward. Enjoy the moments as they come. They are what you will regret not noticing after they are gone.

What does the word, "failure" really mean? Who gets to decide what a failure is? So many times, we decide for ourselves or others that we or they have "failed" because something didn't work out the way we thought it would or wanted it to. But the real failure comes from not learning the lesson it was teaching. I recently quit my job in accounting and took another job in a completely different field. Is that a failure? Not at all! It is a better fit for me and, in turn, those I work with and the company I left, for that matter. Is a "failed" relationship a failure? I think if you are willing to examine your part in it and learn the lessons it teaches, it really isn't. Let's replace the word "failure" with "lesson" and see how that changes our mindset. If we are willing to do the hard work on ourselves and see what life is trying to teach and then change how we are showing up... we are learning the lessons. Not failing. So go forth today and learn.

Who doesn't love a good grandpa story? Today I wanted to talk to you about one of the best men I ever knew. My grandpa Henry was so many things to so many people. He was a son, a husband, a father, a carpenter, a logger, a farmer, a story-teller and, most of all, a teacher. He was a teacher about life and what is really important. His impact on me was immeasurable, even though he passed away when I was still very young. As a kid, I loved collecting rocks. I loved the shiny ones, the pretty ones, the colorful ones. I loved them all... except the ugly ones. He noticed my interest and, being a rockhound himself, decided to teach me a lesson about life using a thunder egg. Thunder eggs are rocks mostly found in the Oregon area. They are lumpy and grey and frankly, not at all attractive. He had boxes and boxes of them in his basement. One day, he told me I could choose a thunder egg and he would put it in his rock cutter and saw it open so we could see what was inside. I looked around and finally chose one. He studied it and decided the best way to cut it. He placed it in the rock cutter and shut the lid. I watched as the water splashed while the rock was being cut. This seemed to take forever. He asked me, "What do you think it will look like on the inside?" I said, "Probably ugly." When he finally opened the lid and took the rock out for me to see, I was amazed at the beauty inside. It had blues and whites and browns. It looked like it had a lake buried inside it. It was one of the prettiest things I had ever seen. He said, "This rock is like people. You might walk right by them, never see them and never notice the beauty inside them." I have never forgotten that day with my grandpa and the rock and the lesson I learned. I might have walked right by that rock and never noticed it but because he saw the beauty inside it, I have a beautiful pair of book ends to remind me of the beauty we don't always see in others. Thanks, Grandpa Henry, for that lesson about life.

Is it truly better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, like the saying tells us? Well, I say, "yes". In episode 14, I talked about vulnerability and that it means opening ourselves up to being hurt. Without that openness, we can never experience real connection with others. This heartbreak thing can happen in any deep, loving relationship, romantic or otherwise. We can choose to be closed off and superficial. But, if we do, all we will get is closed-off and superficial relationships. But that isn't what we as humans really want. We have a need for deep, meaningful connection with others. Without vulnerability, we cannot gain that deep connection. And without that deep connection, there is no love. And without love, there is no heartbreak. In life, we can experience all kinds of heartbreak, big and small and in any kind of relationship. Sometimes we learn a lesson about ourselves and other times, we learn a lesson about someone else. Either way, there is a lesson in the struggle. At least that has been the case for me. I love the quote, "Love doesn't break us, it breaks us open". Question is, if we knew we would have heartbreak, would we change the story?

I had a conversation years ago with my dad, a fire chief, about diamonds and how they don't burn in a fire but they are lost in the soot and no one can find them. I thought about this recently and realized, there has to be a lesson here. I know... pretty predictable that we are the diamonds who get lost in the rubble. But let's dig deeper, no pun intended, and get down to the issue of life's soot and grime that we let cover us up and dull our shine until, not only does the world not see it, but we forget it was ever there. Today, I want us to remember that shine. Remind ourselves of the joyful, passionate people we once were before the crap of life covered us up. Let's remember who we were before we let someone else tell us who and what we should be! Dust yourself off for this episode because it will make you remember who you once were and make you want to find them again. 

I recently went on a walk with my dog and looked up and saw the Big Dipper for the first time in I don't know how long. It reminded me of laying in the grass as a kid and looking up at the constellations. Then I walked under a streetlight and, of course, I could no longer see the stars. This got me thinking. What a metaphor for life. So often, we get distracted by the "streetlights" of the world, the noise, and lose track of our North Star. We lose track of our aim, our arrow, our purpose. In today's episode, I talk about getting back to that North Star and finding it again in all the crazy, busy, distracting noise of the world. Our purpose may shift throughout life but if something lines up with our values, intuition and aim, we are still pointing at our own personal North Star. Life is the greatest teacher and if we don't listen, it will keep bringing the lesson until we do. Go outside today and remember a simpler time. Remind yourself that in all that has changed, the North Star hasn't. It is still there today just like it was and it will be there tomorrow. Reset your arrow and find your North Star again.