Confident Directions Life and Wellness Coaching

Every single line of this poem is a reminder to connect with the essence of your life.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come, to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted,' from John's books:
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)

Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Sky Road, Connemara, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

One of my very favorite Rumi poems.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond✨

🤍Rumi💚
“The Guest House”.

It’s always a good day to put it down. Whatever worries or stressors are swirling in your head, dedicate some blocked off time to letting it all go. For me, doing art or gardening is super helpful. How about you?

We carry so much. Yet it’s not so easy to just put it down, is it?

Much of it falls away when you take refuge in the present moment ♥️

Repost Iuliastration

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves. The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent. When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.

This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely. Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached. The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Kerry, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

A lifetime of reframing. There will always be unanticipated events and we get to choose our response. Very freeing in a weird sort of way.

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
Maya Angelou - Letter to My Daughter, 2009.

Who’s ready for change? Bring it on, please!!

🌝 Happy Lunar New Year 恭喜發財 & Year of the 🐉Dragon in the Chinese tradition.🦖🐲The year of the Wood Dragon is said to be a rare and auspicious astrological event that occurs once every 60 years.
⛩ It is a time of great change, transformation, and innovation, as the powerful and visionary Wood Dragon is said to bring new possibilities and opportunities to the world

Light and love to all!

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Feels like there are constant thresholds. Every minute of every hour of every day. Per usual, the author brings it on home.

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotion comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossings were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds: to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his books: To Bless the Space Between Us (US) / Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

What a beautiful winter day! The silence has been immense!

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles, nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found —
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.
-Mary Oliver

Art by David Lidbetter

If you listen carefully to your self talk, you’ll discover it is creating your reality.

"What is the secret to moving forward
and creating a better life?
It is this:
The vocabulary that I use
is only ever in the present tense:
I speak not of what has passed
nor of what has not yet come to pass
but only of what I am presently doing, being and creating.

For the past
has come and gone,
and the future is merely
a continuation
of this present moment
and by living well in this moment,
I create a bright and beautiful future for myself.

And so I will keep my focus on the present
as where I am right now
is where the alchemy takes place."

Words by Tahlia Hunter

Artwork by Claudia Tremblay

We are in the quiet season.”Give yourself time to make a prayer that will be me the prayer of your soul.” It takes quiet.

Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul. Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Listen to your hungers. Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life. Listen to your memory and to the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost. Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigour to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty. Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Doolin, Co Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

Great holiday happenings at BAC!

This weekend! Stick around after the Saturday performance and enjoy some punch and cookies as we sing some of your favorite carols around the piano. Reserve your spot here: https://becketartscenter.app.neoncrm.com/nx/portal/neonevents/events #/events/816

Loving this artistic vision of peace. Powerful and beautiful!

This drawing is by Anja Rozen, a 13 year old primary school student in Slovenia. She was chosen from 600,000 children around the world to create a piece of art to show what peace looks like. She is the winner of the international Plakat Miru competition.
“My drawing represents the land that binds us and unites us. Humans are woven together. If someone gives up, others fall. We are all connected to our planet and to each other, but unfortunately we are little aware of it. We are woven together. Other people weave alongside me my own story; and I weave theirs,” said the young designer.

May it be so🙏❤️

BLESSING FOR PEACE

As the fever of day calms towards twilight
May all that is strained in us come to ease.

We pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.

For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.

That those who make riches from violence and war
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.

That we might see through our fear of each other
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.

That those who enjoy the privilege of peace
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.

That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares

And no hurt or harm be done
Anywhere along the holy mountain.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

From the book, Benedictus
https://johnodonohue.com/store

Saint Patrick's Cathedral
Dublin, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

My Irish roots. Love this daily practice.

She found her way. We can too.

Tina Turner:" I used to be baffled about why I had to endure so much abuse, because I hadn’t done anything to deserve it. After I began practicing Buddhism, I realized that my hardships could give me a mission—a purpose. I saw that by overcoming my obstacles, I could build indestructible happiness and inspire others to do the same. Then I could see everything that came my way, both the highs and the lows, as an opportunity for self-improvement and for sparking hope in others. "
I never considered giving up on my dreams. You could say I had an invincible optimism. And I always knew that the “what” was more important than the “how.” In other words, although I had a hard time seeing how I could make my dreams come true, I focused more on what I wanted to achieve in my life, personally and professionally. I took actions day by day, often outside my comfort zone, to better myself and bring me closer to those goals. In Buddhism we call this inner process of transformation “human revolution.”

Interview by Alison Beard

Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage

Just beyond yourself. A journey worth taking, worth the risk, worth the effort, the lessons and the challenges that present themselves to you. Waking up to this new day, time to get started once again.

Just Beyond Yourself It's where you need to be

Thinking about all the beauty in the world that comes from the pain inside of us.

Daily review. What’s in my cup? Next question. What do I choose to be in my cup?

I LOVE THIS ANALOGY:
You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Why did you spill the coffee?

"Because someone bumped into me!!!"
Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea. Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So we have to ask ourselves... “what's in my cup?"

When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratitude, peace and humility?
Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting-tendencies?

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.
Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.

Source: Austin Tang

Heartbeat of connection is possible. I do believe that. It’s our only way to thrive and survive.

The world I believe is possible is one where we don’t wake up and hear our neighbor is hungry and pull the covers up over our heads, roll over, and go back to sleep. Where we see countless people driven into homelessness, and don’t reach uneasily for any silencing distraction, but continue to pay attention, as difficult as that might be. Most days, disconnection and strife seem to rule. But still, that heartbeat of connection is discernible when we learn to get a little quieter to hear it. We can take that sense of life into our everyday encounters and situations. Based on interconnection, we respond with much more empathy, compassion, and a realistic sense of the world and how much we need each other. Interconnection enables us to see that what we do matters, because that action ripples out along these threads of connection. What we care about matters and who we are matters, because we are part of a greater whole.

We can all contribute to a strong net. Maybe this is the year we hold each other up.

Safety Net

This morning I woke
thinking of all the people I love
and all the people they love
and how big the net
of lovers. It felt so clear,
all those invisible ties
interwoven like silken threads
strong enough to make a mesh
that for thousands of years
has been woven and rewoven
to catch us all.
Sometimes we go on
as if we forget
about it. Believing only
in the fall. But the net
is just as real. Every day,
with every small kindness,
with every generous act,
we strengthen it. Notice,
even now, how
as the whole world
seems to be falling, it
is there for us as we
walk the day’s tightrope,
how every tie matters.

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

[Art: Colleen Wallace Nungarrayi:
Australian First Nations Artist]

A reminder that life isn’t perfect and it can still turn out ok or absolutely fabulous.

One more Father’s Day post I like to share each year:

“This is the final days of Patti's first pregnancy, and I receive a surprise visit from my father at my home in LA. Now, he'd driven 500 miles unannounced to knock on my door, that's his style. So at 11 a.m. we sit Sunday dining room, and we're nursing morning beers, that's his style.

When, my dad, never a talkative man, right, blurted out, "You've been very good to us". And I nodded that, that I had, and he says, "And I wasn't very good to you". And, the room just…stood still. As to my shock, the unacknowledgeable was being acknowledged, if I, if I didn't know better I would've sworn an apology of some sort was being made, and it was.

Here in the last days before I was to become a father, my own father was visiting me to warn me of the mistakes that he had made, and to warn me not to make them with my own children. To release them from the chain of our sins, my fathers of mine and our fathers before, that they may be free, to make their own choices and to live their own lives.

We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence.

My father, on that day, was petitioning me, for an ancestral role in my life after being a ghost for a long long time. He wanted me to write a new end to our relationship, and he wanted me to be ready for the new beginning that I was about to experience.

It was the greatest moment in my life with my dad, and it was all that I needed.” - Bruce Springsteen

Sharing this quote for Father’s Day. I am not a father yet, but I think about this concept when I think of my hopes of being a good father one day. I hope to have an ancestral role in my children’s lives, and in their children’s lives.

Isn’t that the greatest gift we can give - to give those who come after us more than what those who came before us gave to us.

📸: Rob DeMartin

Beautiful daily reminder!

I sometimes forget
that I was created for Joy.
My mind is too busy.

My Heart is too heavy
for me to remember
that I have been
called to dance
the Sacred dance of life.

I was created to smile
To Love
To be lifted up
And to lift others up.

O’ Sacred One
Untangle my feet
from all that ensnares.

Free my soul.
That we might
Dance
and that our dancing
might be contagious.

Hafiz 🧡

Art by Mahmoud Farshchian

What else could be said about this…

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