Mindfulness Mode

Today I’ll talk about bliss and how to find it. My wife, Darlene and I were reminiscing last night. We were talking all about our amazing trip to Colombia we enjoyed back in 2017. There were so many vivid memories about people we met, things we did, and places we went. It was blissful thinking about those incredible memories. Then today, we did it again with our son, Ben. He was about to turn 17 at the time, and it was interesting to hear his version of the same memories. One of the things we did was climb to the top of the La Piedra.

I think bliss is fleeting and comes at unexpected times and sometimes in places you’d never expect. The dictionary defines bliss as “perfect happiness”. Great joy. Typically to be oblivious of everything else. Here are some ways I believe you can achieve bliss in your life.

Last night our son, Ben, finished a lab report he’d been working on. Darlene and I asked him to tell us when he was finished and when he did, we cheered, had a group hug and just talked about how great it was that he was finished and had this work handed in. He looked a little puzzled, and said, it’s only a lab I’ve handed in. I said, yeah, but it’s one more thing checked off on your journey to earn a physics degree. I think it’s important to celebrate the small things on the journey. He smiled and we had one more group, family hug.

Bliss is reaching a point where you don’t feel judged by others and you don’t judge them. In other words, I feel like learning to be non-judgmental is not only an important aspect of mindfulness, I think it’s important in life because becoming less judgmental ultimately has made me a happier and a more blissful person. This is monumental aspect of bliss and happiness in general.

Bliss is making sure your life includes quiet time. Some will call it meditation and some will call it prayer. It might be the solitude you find when you run, swim, or walk. Quiet time can be a daily time spent in nature or just in a quiet space with some incense, essential oils, or a candle.

Without quiet time, your life becomes chaotic, hectic, and you lose your sense of being grounded and centered. A lot of lives have become harried and dramatic. For me, losing the drama and making sure I have quiet time every single day is a big part of finding bliss.

To make sure my life is blissful, I find it’s important to choose the people I spend time with very carefully. I notice how I feel when they’re around. I notice what they say and how they react to what I say. If we have similar goals and ideals, that is important to me. I also love being around people who have loftier goals, who think bigger than I do and who raise me up. Some of my most blissful moments have been around people that fit this description.

One of the ways I find bliss is by making sure I am active every day. I take a one hour run every morning. For the last three months or so, I’ve been running 6.6 kilometers or 4 miles. It feels good to be outside, no matter what the weather. I love the cold, frosty mornings, but I’ve learned to appreciate being outside no matter what the weather’s like. This morning there was a light, misty rain – it actually felt refreshing and the temperature was cool and there was a calming quiet to the air. I feel grateful to live in a fairly rural, slightly remote community where I can run every morning and seldom see a vehicle or person. It’s beautiful solitude. I look at the sky, the hills, the fields, the road pointing towards the horizon. It feels empowering and somehow extremely calming.

I know there is science that talks about how there is a connection to being active and having positive and healthy thought patterns. I don’t have references, but I believe that’s true. Creating a habit to be active everyday is a way to make sure you enjoy bliss more often. 

I once subscribed to a training program about finding peace and happiness. The presenter on the CDs was so interesting. I think he was a psychologist and I loved psychology in university, although I specialized in music and didn’t take a lot of psych courses – Anyway, the guy kept saying that finding true peace in your life all boiled down to 3 words. He kept referring to the 3 words, but didn’t reveal what the three words were until the very end. He kept me in suspense, although he kept giving clues and cliff-hangers. I kept guessing in my mind what those 3 words could possibly be. I kept questioning, “could it really be that simple?” It didn’t seem to make sense that being happy was actually as simple as 3 little words.

When he finally got to the end of the several chapters in the training sessions, he revealed the 3 Crucial Words. Be Happy Now.

That’s mindfulness. Be Happy Now. Live in the moment. Don’t be so focused on the past or the future, simply remember to Be Happy Now.

If you stop what you’re doing at any moment in time, if you stop thinking about what you’re thinking at any given moment, and you think those three words, there’s usually nothing stopping you from choosing to Be Happy Now. In my opinion, Choosing to Be Happy Now will bring you bliss. Maybe that will be on a family trip like we took to Colombia, or maybe it will be a fleeting memory of a special time in your life. Maybe bliss will be thinking back to a group hug with your family when your son or daughter achieved something that didn’t seem major at the moment, but represented a moment of bliss, because it was a small achievement on the way to something life-changing.

Enjoy bliss in your life. Choose to BE HAPPY NOW..

• Book: Wild World, Joyful Heart by Laurie Warren

• COVID19 Finding Bliss In Times Of Crisis; Moneeka Sawyer

Michele Sammons is an inspirational author, spiritual teacher, and highly-attuned guide who works with clients worldwide helping them transform their lives through divine guidance. As an empath and intuitive, Michele’s light-hearted, joyful approach embraces her clients right where they are on their spiritual path and gently guides them to personal clarity and understanding. Michele is passionate about working with Spirit to uplift others while spreading love and joy along the way.

• Website: www.MicheleSammons.com

• Martha Beck 

• Mindfulness is huge when it comes to emotions. Being an empath, and being aware not only of my emotions, but other folks emotions, just knowing exactly what's mine and what's someone else's is huge.

• Breathing is one of the ways I connect into my meditations. Once my mind quiets, breath is the thing that I focus on until that naturally expands into other things.

• Book: The Little Book of Big Knowing: Tiny Bursts of Insight To Wake Up Your Soul by Michele Sammons

• I think that bullying can come in a lot of different forms; physical, mental, emotional.

• 512 Living Your Best Life Through Radical Self-Love; Tiffany Toombs

Learning to let go is the topic of my episode today. Many of my coaching clients who have begun to learn about mindfulness, soon realize that they are holding on to things that are disrupting their flow. They’re holding on to emotions, or memories, or beliefs that are getting in their way and preventing them from moving on. In many cases, these emotions, memories and beliefs are keeping my clients from becoming the people they truly want to be. They are often preventing money from flowing into their lives and sometimes the beliefs are preventing unwanted pain, heartbreak and grief from flowing out of their space.

Consider working less hours or less overtime at work. Another thing  you can do is outsource more. If you're an entrepreneur you can get a virtual assistant or if you're a mom or dad at home with children, think of ways you can ask for some help. Sometimes there are people right among you who would love to help you out and all you have to do it ask.

The pace there in Newfoundland is so much different than here in Ontario. I remember meeting a guy who had never been off the island, and his manner, his disposition, his way of looking at the world, was all so different. I felt like he had a natural sense of mindfulness that he’d been born into.

In Hal Elrod’s book, The Miracle Morning, he talks about the practice of scribing. Scribing is an old-fashioned term for simply writing down your thoughts. Include plenty of thoughts of gratitude and ideas of where you currently see yourself in life and where you are headed. Talk about goals, dreams, and desires.

This week I interviewed a woman who said she couldn’t get through the day without journaling. It’s an innate part of her life. She lives in India, and even though she had a demanding job and is a mother and wife, she says she journals every morning. She can’t wait to put pen to paper. And she loves the sensation of holding the pen and writing on the paper. She told me that she puts a lot of value on the way the pen feels, and the way the ink flows onto the paper. She said she has a large collection of pens and this makes her journaling even more special. I tell you this, because I think that making elements of journal particularly meaningful in this way, can have an impact on how much you enjoy it and how much benefit it will end up being for you in your life.

There is something magical about combining body movement with thought. Many great ideas have popped into my head during my trampoline sessions. I have a mini-trampoline and I find amazing things happen when I jump on my trampoline and move my arms in opposite rotating motion. In my experience, big arm movements connect to my thinking brain and some amazing ideas pop into my head. I mentioned last week, that I’ve set aside an hour to run every morning before I start work and during this time I do a type of personal running meditation. It’s actually self-hypnosis and it helps me clear my mind and incredible thoughts and ideas come to me as a result. This self-hypnosis is called 7th Path Self-Hypnosis and I’m going to be teaching this method, so stay tuned for the details.

.4/ Meditate

I’ve been a meditator for around 8 years and as I already mentioned, one of the ways I meditate is a running meditation. I also do silent meditation, and feel like this has made a big difference in my life. I certainly learned to let go of a lot of a lot of emotions, memories, and beliefs that were holding me back. When I say that, it doesn’t mean I removed them from my memory. It means I was able to identify them and then re-evaluate the way I thought about those events. I was able to think differently about what that event meant to me and how it sat in my mind. For 2 years my meditation was usually in the form of a guided meditation. Sometimes I listened to my own personalized guided meditations, and sometimes I listened to meditations I downloaded from the internet. I use the app called, Insight Timer, and I’ve listened to many meditations there. I’ve also recorded meditations there so if you search my name you’ll find them.

You can find lots of affirmations on-line and you can adapt them for your personal use. Getting suggestions from people who have meditated for years and studied mindfulness for years will help you to create meaningful and positive meditations for yourself. Like I said, you can adapt them using terminology that you related to and referring to your own goals and desires. Maybe you want to live a life of contentment, be more grounded, or be more sensitive to others. Include some of these ideas in your affirmations and then record them on your phone. There are lots of apps you can use to listen back to your affirmations. One of those apps is Enso. ENSO. Check it out. It has great reviews. It’s marketed as:

What people say about Ensō:

“For a distraction free meditation experience that lets you customize intervals and timers, you want Ensō.” – iMore.com

“Beautiful interface that just gets out of the way :)”

So you might want to check out Enso, or some other app that can help you record and listen to your affirmations in an easy and effective way.

• Book: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

• 098 Let Go Of Judgement To Become Truly Mindful Says Alex Charfen

India Leigh is a spirit intuitive, reader, clairvoyant, and coach who uses an array of modalities and gifts to help you clearly understand the messages being sent to you by your guides. Using her skills, India will help you connect more deeply with your own divine inner guidance. She also will empower you in coming into more connection with your own divine energy and creative power, aligning your energy, thoughts, words, and actions with your greatest good and highest purpose.

• Website: www.IndiaLeigh.com

• Wanda Devan, Yoga Teacher

• Shattering the idea that I could not control my emotions was the biggest change. You get to your thirties and you think, I guess I'm just an anxious, fearful person, that's just who I am. Noticing that this is a choice I can make and realizing that emotions do not need to rule you, is something you can do.

• Breathing is the quickest way to get into the moment.

• Book: Untamed by Glennon Doyle

• I learned early on, the avoidance tactics for myself. It was looking around and thinking, this mistreatment is possible in the world, but if I look pleasant enough, or look pleasing enough, or if I can just stay under the radar, then I'll be spared from that.

• 443 Film, Fitness and Food Heals; Allison Melody

Consistency and Mindfulness is the topic today. Do you feel you would be better off if you were more consistent? Would you like to know how to use mindfulness to help you be more consistent? Consistency is something that can help you feel more grounded, with more of a sense of control. When life is confusing, unpredictable, and you lose your sense of stability, then more consistency will help. Today I’m going to share 5 ways to bring more consistency to your life.

Decide what mindfulness activities you want to implement into your life. Make a list and write down or record your thoughts about what you want to achieve.

You’ve journaled or recorded your thoughts. Now take some of your key ideas, and meditate on them. Narrow the ideas down to a few sentences, record them on your phone, and meditate. This can be in the form of a traditional guided meditation, or use it as a walking or running meditation. Your subconscious mind will process your thoughts. Listen for resulting feedback. In other words, what comes to mind during and following these meditation sessions?

Keep your promises to yourself. We usually think of honesty as being truthful to other people, like our family, or others at work.

4/ Reward Yourself

Know what mindfulness activity feeds your soul the most and give yourself the pleasure of treating yourself for keeping your mindfulness activities consistent. For instance, maybe you just love taking walks on the beach and watching the water. Give yourself the gift of dropping everything, and going for a relaxing, fulfilling walk on the beach. Just listen to the sounds of the birds, the breeze, and the water. Allow your body and mind to drink in the mindful pleasure of this activity without listening to recordings or feeling you have to accomplish something at the same time.

If you are consistently doing a mindful activity every day, you will get to the point where it won’t be a struggle or a challenge to just go ahead and do the activity. Make a mental note of how good it feels in your body and mind to not struggle with a decision. You are actually being rewarded for having made the decision to be consistent. Life is easier. You have control over this aspect of your life. Taking control of what you can control in your life is freeing.

• Book: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

• 415 Cultural Brilliance To Boost Organizational Excellence; Claudette Rowley

Francis Cholle uses deep human learning and cognitive science to help leaders and organizations solve complex problems and thrive in disruption. A Wall Street Journal and USA Today Best-selling author and international speaker, Francis Cholle has presented at Davos World Economic Forum, on the TED stage, Wharton and Columbia Universities, to name a few. His recent book is called: SQUIRCLE A New Way to Think for a New World. It offers a simple yet unconventional science-based model to make sure decisions in an unsure world.

• Website: www.SquircleAcademy.com

• My acting teacher and my voice teacher.

• I'm a high-strung, hyper-active person and I've learned through the years, including March last year in the moment of the pandemic and the economic collapse.

• I took myself and said, you know what COVID is asking us to remember what nature is and that nature rules the world, we don't rule the world. I decided to learn it now, what can you do now? I decided what I can do now is start breathing consciously, be in the moment.

• Book: The Intuitive Compass by Francis Cholle

• Things that happened between me and my brother and my father, some were violent experiences. They probably have shaped who I am. My father would always say, “Francis, why can't you do things like other people?”

• 383 Making Sense Of Mindfulness With Keith Macpherson

Mindset is the topic today. Would you like to tweak your mindset? Would you like to transform it so you can achieve your goals and be the person you want to be? Many of my coaching clients have told me they’re stuck. They say they know what they want to achieve and they just can’t get their mindset on track to accomplish their goals. I’ve been there. I can remember times in my life when I felt like my mindset was holding me back. I didn’t know how to move forward. So, Let’s dig into this topic of mindset. Today I’m going to share 9 ways to change your mindset.

Sometimes I refer to self-talk as self bullying. It’s important to notice what you’re saying to yourself and make a note of the actual messages.

Many humans experience imposter syndrome at some time or another.

That means that somewhere in your subconscious or even your conscious mind, you believe you don’t deserve your accomplishments. Deep down, you may feel that you’re somehow a fraud. You might have a hidden concern that someday people will find out that you’ve been faking it. Mantras and affirmations can help counter this belief.

The words mantras and affirmations are often used interchangeably, but 

They actually have different origins and meanings. Mantras are words, sounds, or just short sound bytes.  Sometimes, people associate mantras with mysticism and spirituality and they’re meant to help you gain inner peace.

The ideas of affirmations came from neuroscientists and what they understand about psychotherapy and linguistics. They believe that you can consciously rewire thought patterns towards more desired outcomes by repeating impactful phrases and sentences referring to something you absolutely believe in, or want to believe in, in the present moment.

One of the mantras I personally use is, ‘I am a strong, confident creator’.

I practice a system that uses affirmations, and self-hypnosis, and I repeat 9 different affirmations over and over every day. They help me to work through past experiences and events that I might have otherwise pushed down. It helps me process my ‘pain’, or ‘anger’ or ‘just confused thoughts’ in a positive way. The name of the system is 7th Path Self Hypnosis’. 

One of the affirmations is about seeing everyone and everything, with compassion.

Erika Flint, my hypnosis teacher explained it this way. She said, imagine you are looking into a totally dark room. You shine the beam of a flashlight into the room and you can only see one small area of the room at a time. You can move that light beam around, but you're not able to illuminate more than a small amount of the room at any given time.

Then you switch the light on. You can suddenly see everything in the room. That fully lit room is like our subconscious mind. It is filled with a large number of details. Our conscious mind only reveals a small amount at any given time, just like the beam of light revealed.

4/ Spend Time With Like-Minded People

Jim Rohn famously said that ‘we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with’. This relates to the law of averages, which is the theory that the result of any given situation will be the average of all outcomes.

The people with whom we surround ourselves are the biggest influence on our behavior, attitudes and results. The course of your life is set by the people you choose to spend the most time with.

Habits have been a powerful way I have achieved goals in my life. You can use habits to your advantage to help change your mindset and accomplish some of your most daring dreams.

I encourage you to read a book called, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. This book talks about scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Duhigg uses stories to help us understand the power of habit and how we can all use it to our advantage. 

Another book you may want to consider reading is, ‘Atomic Habits by James Clear.'

Don’t stay in your comfort zone. Decide what you want in your life and go for it. 

What motivates you? What makes you tick? Some people don’t know. Look back to childhood. Meditate – discover the answers to these questions by spending time alone, in nature or in silence. Maybe for you these answers will be revealed as a result of forms of exercise like running, swimming, or mountain climbing. Once you realize what you truly want in your life, then begin, step-by-step, to make that happen. Make a promise to yourself and be determined to make it happen.

In my last point I talked about embracing your fears and I said you need to come to terms with what you truly want in your life. Journaling is a great way to get in touch with what you truly want. A lot of times, we are suppressing our true desires. We are afraid to be vulnerable because we often have fear and pain related to these goals. Maybe we’ve experienced failure. Our subconscious mind wants to protect us. It wants to make sure we’re absolutely safe so it will do almost anything to make sure we don’t experience pain or hurt. Even though it’s protecting us in the short term, in the long term we’re much better off if we’re willing to experience some vulnerability. Step out and have the courage to embrace your fears. Daily journaling is a powerful way to make this happen, and it can speed up the process considerably. Make journaling a daily habit.

They will set up appointments and will offer you a listening ear. There are lots of skilled therapists and counselors out there, and many people have been successful with this method of getting unstuck. A skilled counselor will help you work through the inner challenges of what’s holding you back. This is a method to consider if you have exhausted every other method you can think of. Be prepared to be vulnerable and be willing to take the necessary time to make the progress you’re looking for.

One of the quickest ways to break through your mind blocks and to move forward is to work with a hypnotist. A skilled hypnotist will help you discover what’s holding you back a lot faster than some of the other methods.

Not to say the other methods aren’t effective or powerful, it’s just that hypnosis can be a shortcut into your subconscious to address issues that perhaps you’ve been pushing down all this time. Maybe your conscious mind wanted to protect you and you just haven’t dealt with the issues. Like I said, psychotherapy or counselling can work, but it sometimes takes months or even years. Having a hypnotist help you is usually much faster. Another thing you can do is to learn the skill of self-hypnosis. Most people learn how to do this from a hypnotist who already understands how hypnosis works.

• Book: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

• Using Habits To Gamify Your Life; Will Moore

Katherine May is the New York Times bestselling author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. A writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Katherine has had journalism and essays appear in a range of publications including The New York Times, The Times (London), Good Housekeeping, and Cosmopolitan. She lives by the sea in Whitstable, England, and is an avid lover of the outdoors.

• Website: www.Katherine-May.co.uk

• Lauren Rodych-Eberle, Meditation Teacher

• Mindfulness has helped me reach a more level situation, to avoid the extremes and to get on top of extremes when they come.

• I don't enjoy very controlled breathing. I enjoy watching what my breath does, and being with that rather than jumping on top of what it's doing.

• Book: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts

• I was bullied at school a lot because I was so different. Also, I increasing think I was quite unkind to a lot of other people at school as well. It's so easy to recognize your own victimhood without think of the wider impact of that. I was really unkind to some girls at school.

• 097 Journaling For Adversity; Kim Ades

What can we learn from children about mindfulness? If you pay attention, you will gather a huge volume of knowledge about mindfulness by paying attention to children. I'm going to focus on the 2 words, ‘What If'.  If you find yourself thinking these two words a lot, you may not be as mindful as you think you are. Or those two words may reveal to you why you’re struggling, why you’re not feeling grounded, why you experience scattered thoughts.

Just think about those words for a second. How often do they pass through your thoughts?

What if I don’t finish this report on time? What if that car veers over and hits me head-on? What if I get the corona virus? 

We can start a million questions with WHAT IF, and does it do us any good? That’s something we could debate, but lets think for a second about children and how they think. Do any young children you know often ask the question, WHAT IF? 

If they do, it’s probably because they’re learned that phrase from adults. In their most comfortable, happiest state, I’ve noticed that children are in the moment and seldom think about WHAT IF.

Listen, Listen, Listen. And as you listen, show interest showed genuine interest, ask questions, smile. When they tell you something, be genuine about, about your interest in what's going on in their minds and in their life. Sometimes it's important to get down physically on their level and then just listen to what they have to say. And I can't emphasize this enough. Being a great listener is such an important skill to develop and we can always improve at being a better listener.

Find out what activities they truly love and show interest. Now, my son loved Pokemon for a long time. So I would learn the names of some of the characters and ask him how he was doing in his recent Pokemon games. And, and I would ask him about YouTube videos that he would look at that were about Pokemon.

And I think that made a difference. I think it's really important to show genuine interest and find out what children really love. Like when I go into classrooms and I'm with children. They sit up and take notice when I say, hey, so what games do you like to play? Or what do you like to do after school? Or, you know, things like that. And it just shows genuine interest. So find out what activities they love.

It's so easy to mispronounce some names and I can be the world's worst at that at times. But when I'm with a group of kids, whether I'm teaching mindfulness or I'm at a school filling in for a teacher, I make an effort, a real true effort to get their name right.

And I tell them that right at the beginning of the day, I say, look, I will put every effort into getting your name right. And if I get it wrong, please, correct me. I want to know your name. I want to say it right. And you know, you've probably heard this before. There's no sweeter sound and hearing your own name. Of course don't overdo it. It's gotta be natural. It's gotta be comfortable when you refer to that, that person, but really make an effort to use the person's name. Use that child's name

Like most humans, children love stories, and they learn from them. And they particularly like stories about topics of their own personal interest. Makes sense. Right. If you know the child likes spiders, like they just have this really profound interest in spiders, then tell a story about a unique spider web you once saw or a story about a movie where there was a spider featured. If you really allow yourself a moment to think about it, you can probably remember an appropriate story. It might even be a post that you noticed on social media that relates to spiders.

5/ Offer Encouragement. So be as upbeat as possible and say at least three or four positive comments compared to every less positive comment. So now this takes a lot of practice and skill to do this, to convey lots of positive comments compared to your negative comments.

And as adults we're used to noticing what's wrong and then commenting on things, noticing what the child is doing wrong or what they need help with, you know, telling them how to do it. We're used to telling them to settle down, be quiet or be more careful, all these kinds of things. Aren't really the most positive. I mean, obviously you have to say things like that sometimes, but try to balance those kinds of comments off with statements like, wow, I noticed how quiet you were while the baby was sleeping well, that's, that's great. Thanks for doing that. Or, or gee, you're getting really good at putting your boots on yourself. Wow, terrific. You know, children really respond to that kind of thing.

Children are reading our body language all the time and it speaks volumes to a child.

So yes, the words we say are critically important, but our body language can be very, very important. A lot of times we're in a hurry and we have to go and do so many different things. That busy and frantic frame of mind can display itself in our body language. So, so take the time to notice yourself and you know what? You might even, you might even try this. Use a video camera or your phone to shoot some video of you spending time with your child. Notice your body language. You might be surprised what you see on that video. And of course, make sure you get permission from anybody who might end up being in the video.

Showing relaxed body language and being aware of the body language that you are showing is a skill that takes time to develop.

7/ Smile and Laugh. I think we don’t laugh enough in life. When you spend time with children you see that they love to laugh. They love to smile. In their natural state, they are pretty happy.

They just really want to focus on what’s happening at the moment. They become connected with what's going on at the present moment. And I think the more we can go with the flow and encourage a happy pleasant atmosphere, the better it is. So smile and laugh as much as you can and you will become more mindful. And if you can become more mindful in your life, you, you will have less anxiety. You will feel more grounded. You will feel more focused. There are so many benefits to being more mindful.

• Book: Mop Rides The Waves Of Life by Jaimal Yogis

• 180 Education on Fire and Source Energy with Mark Taylor

Dr. Lin Morel is a pioneer in connecting the dots between our spiritual nature and everyday life. She is the author of a number of books including 3 on the bestsellers list and her most recent book; Beyond Lovelyville: A Parable of Self-Awareness and Rising Above Trauma. A survivor of multiple traumas, Dr. Lin is dedicated to helping others transform their trauma into an inspired positive life. She invites you to join the joy movement and become a positive force for change.

• Website: www.DrLinMorel.com

• Christ

• It takes a lot for me to get upset. I used to be hair-trigger because of my sensitivity.

• My current spouse taught me to drop my abdomen because my umbilical cord was too short, so I had a physical issue with breathing.

• Book: You Can't Afford The Luxury Of A Negative Thought by Peter McWilliams

• I was chubby, I was uncoordinated. My parents house was messy, kids weren't allowed to visit. I was ridiculed and not invited to parties, or they planned parties and changed the date so I would show up a week later. Cruelty like that. People would knock my books out of my arms at school, stamp on my pens, called me names.

• 496 Stop Missing Your Life; Discover Mindfulness With Cory Muscara

Bruce is speaking at this upcoming event called Tell Your Stories. If you’re in business, make a lasting impression on your potential clients with your story. My friend Elizabeth Johnston is The Story Expert, as well as a Literary Prof at Concordia University in Montreal and an On-line Teacher. She is hosting an online retreat that will unearth your stories. You’ll learn: • why story is important • the power of story circles • how to connect story to your business, and so much more! Here’s the link to register: www.MindfulnessMode.com/TellYourStories Dates: March 3 to 5, 2021