All day almost every day–about 15-7–I labor. When I’m not at my desk or in front of my computer, I think about my work. And guess what? Most of this time no on even pays me.

So why do I do it? I love what I do (or most of what I do). I’ve wanted to be a writer and author since I was a little girl. I’ve always loved books. And I love speaking to interesting people, learning and putting what I learn to use in my life and offering it to others for use in theirs. I love spirituality and human potential and all things that speak of possibility and opportunity and connection with something bigger than you and me, including God, the ocean and the Internet. I love exploring the areas I’m interested in and then sharing new ideas and concepts. The best way I know to do this is by putting the lessons down in words and publishing them (and sometimes speaking them). And that’s what my days revolve around.

My life has become about helping others create a similar life. Whether I am helping them create a life as a writer or an author or a around some other passion or purpose, the goal remains the same. I’m helping them focus their daily activities on a labor of love. This comes out of feeling inspired to take action in the world.

Today I read a wonderful article that discussed how to find your purpose and do what you love. It offered quotes from six people, quotes to inspire you to do just that. I hope you will read the article by Maria Popova and do just that.

One of the quotes mentions not comparing yourself–simply following your own heart, dreams, path. It’s so easy to get distracted by the need for acceptance and prestige. The need to make money, for money to prove what we do is good enough, that we are good enough. Yet, if we follow our passion and purpose, as they say, “the money will follow. That authenticity will bring people to our work. That uniqueness that will come from not looking at what others are doing, will make us stand out from the crowd and achieve prestige without trying.

I love the poster above, called the Holsteen Manifesto. I’m going to buy one and hang it somewhere I can see it every day…many times a day. “Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion.” That’s why we are here. at least that’s what I think.

Maybe that’s what practical spirituality is all about…living connected to your purpose and passion at all times so you are inspired–in spirit–in all you do. Especially in your work. Pretty practical if you ask me.

What about you? Is your work a labor of love? Are you passionate about what you do? Do you have a purpose that inspires you to action? Tell me about it? Tell us all so we can be inspired. Leave a comment.

Many of us get stuck in the past. By that I mean we end up living our life looking backward at things that happened in our lives and regretting them. Some call this “looking in the rear view mirror.” I call it living life looking backward.

Here’s the thing: No matter what bad thing happened in the past, no matter what we did or what someone else did or what events happened, they are over. We can hang onto the memory of the hurt, anxiety, pain, suffering, sorrow, or whatever other negative emotion we felt at the time, and we can continue to blame others or ourselves, but this does not help us in the moment. In fact, all it does is hurt us more. It holds us in the same old emotions and prevents us from moving forward, from living our lives looking toward the future. It keeps us stuck.

They say hindsight is 20-20, and that really is true. What we really are supposed to see when we look backward at our lives are the lessons we were supposed to learn and the paths we had to take to get to where we are now. For most of us, if we hadn’t learned those lessons and had those experiences we wouldn’t be who we are or where we are in this moment.

Maybe we don’t think those experiences have shaped us for the good, but they can if we learn and grow from them. That’s the point.

In Judaism, just as in most Abrahamic faiths, we study the Torah, or bible, over and over again. Why? To try to learn from our ancestor’s mistakes and experiences. In that way we won’t repeat them. Rabbis and ministers get up ever week and offer sermons about portions from the Old Testament trying to help us learn how to be better people, have fulfilling relationships, live our lives more fully, connect with God, and t be happier and more peaceful–all by looking at the lives and experiences of those who went before us.

It’s important to look backward, but not to beat ourselves up for what we have done. Rather we want to learn from our mistakes and study the paths and detours we have taken. Then we want to  live our lives looking forward toward the future allowing those lessons to guide us on our way. Looking in that direction our vision may not be 20-20 but we will, indeed, see more clearly for having looked backward to glean understanding.

Over and over again we hear how we must connect our thoughts and feelings to create what we want. Even more important is simply to feel good.

Lately I’ve been having a hard time getting to that feel-good place. Then I watched this video of the Black Eyed Peas singing “I Gotta Feeling” at the kick off of Oprah Winfrey’s 24th season, and I started smiling and feeling pretty good. It wasn’t the singing that did it, though–even though the words of the song are enough to raise my spirits a bit. It started with the lady up front jumping up and down dancing and then the flash mob dance that ensued. Then it was Oprah’s joy and wonder. Wow.

Oprah said it best,”That was the coolest thing ever!” Watch and feel good.

This morning I happened to take the time to click on Jeff Herring’s SUNDAY MORNING INSPIRATION: It’s the journey, not the destination. I was so pleased to watch this great clip from the movie “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior,” which is also one of my favorite books by Dan Millman.

I found this a great reminder not only that life–and all we do–is about the journey, not about the destination, but also that when we are trying to get somewhere…trying and trying…things are happening along the way that are worthwhile–worth noticing and enjoying.

It’s not just the goal, or the place we are striving to arrive at, that is the only thing that matters or that is worth enjoying. We tend to forget that in the course of our striving. We tend to forget to be happy and grateful along the path to where we are going–to enjoy the scenery and experiences along the way.

Sometimes we forget to enjoy arriving as well. Once we arrive at our destination–we achieve our goal, there’s always another destination, a new journey to begin. We tend to focus on that and simply start a new journey.

Life is a never ending journey with one destination after another. So we better start enjoying the trip.

I know I forget this daily. I am so focused on what I must do to get where I’m going that I don’t enjoy the tasks at hand nor their results. I also don’t “stop to smell the roses,” to do what I enjoy, to spend enough time with the people I love, to…well…live fully or enjoy life. I don’t enjoy the journey.

I noticed this yesterday while outside pulling weeds on my very large hillside. I could have sat down for a few minutes and enjoyed the beauty of the day–the sun on my face, the bees buzzing, the flowers blooming, the birds flying by, my cat hunting on the hillside. I didn’t. I just pulled with blinders on until I was about to stop. Then I got mired down pulling a huge patch of thistle that I didn’t want to go to seed before I could get back out onto the hill again. And in the midst of pulling I discovered wild iris blooming in the shadow of thistle and grass and blackberry plants. I was happy to discover them there, but I didn’t take the time to really admire the plants, rather I was frustrated by the fact that they were buried in such a huge amount of unwanted plants and couldn’t go in until I’d pulled the weeds. And I didn’t stop to admire what I’d created after I cleared away all the tall grass, wild blackberry and thistle. I could have taken a moment to simply enjoy the splendor of what nature had planted there on my hillside–beautiful blooming iris. Instead I just went inside, tired and somewhat dissatisfied that I had finished a good deal of weeding for one day but not the whole job.

That’s not the way to go through life. It’s not a way to approach work, relationships, parenting, or any aspect of what we do day to day. Instead, let’s remember that life is, indeed, a journey and not a destination. Let’s not stop being happy when we arrive or when we discover that what we find when we arrive isn’t exactly what we expected.

My husband and I moved to California with a great deal of excitement. We found a high cost of living that caused us to go into debt, created strain on our marriage, made our children feel they were “poor” in comparison to their friends, and generally made us feel unhappy with our decision. Plus, my husband’s job did not work out. We didn’t find what we expected, and we’ve let this whole experience become a negative one. We’ve let it “make” us unhappy. Getting to California and beginning our life here was fun and exciting–like hiking up the path in the video clip above–but arriving hasn’t been. We could change that with the change of a thought or an attitude adjustment.

How do you know that the new job you desire, the book contract you want, the relationship you crave will give you the happiness you seek? How do you know you won’t arrive at your destination only to find it isn’t what you expected and you aren’t happy?

So, you better be happy while you work towards these goals. I better learn to feel happy on my journey as well.

Remember, all aspects of life are about the journey, not the destination. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy arriving at the destination, too, but, by all means, enjoy the journey.

By the way, don’t forget Socrates’ the three rules of life:

Paradox: “Life is a mystery. Don’t waste time trying to figure it out.”

Humor: “Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure.”

Change: “Know that nothing stays the same.”

And Number four:

The Journey: “The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination.”

My husband and I were discussing how we react to things that happen in our lives. We have very different approaches to what could be seen as “irritations” that occur. I tend to take what I call a more “spiritual” approach; he tend to take what I call a more “reactive” approach.

I’m not saying I don’t even get upset or angry over things that happen, but I try to switch gears quickly, problem solve and stay pretty positive and grateful. My husband, on the other hand, tends to just get angry and upset and to feel like a victim to circumstance. It becomes hard for him to see anything positive–any upside or opportunity.

So, for example, when our state tax refund showed up just in time to pay for the property taxes and my son’s summer dance program (both of which we were going to have to pay for out of our savings account), he saw that as something about which to be upset rather than happy. The money that we had just received went out the door as fast as it came in.

And when my old car died just as we were about to get our federal tax return, which we hoped to save, again this was something about which to feel angry.

I wasn’t pleased about spending the money we could have saved, but in both cases I simply accepted the fact that we had expenses–and we had been provided with the means to meet them. I felt grateful that we didn’t have to go into debt or deplete our savings. I also didn’t spend a lot of time getting upset or angry about the situation–or shaking my fist at God.

Rather I felt as if God were acting as my partner. As always, I believed in some way shape or form God’s hand was in all of this. I knew I just needed to trust that everything was okay and would be okay. I knew I just needed to feel connected.

Interestingly enough, this morning after more discussions with my husband about new cars and money, I got an email from one of my favorite rabbi–a man and teacher who has helped me with my own writing projects and who put me on the Jewish mystical (and Jewish spiritual) path. I took the time to visit Rabbi David Cooper’s website and found a post there that spoke to this point (and inspired my post today). In reading Rabbi Cooper’s words I was reminded how hard we must work every day to stay conscious and connected to Source, to not react to what we are presented with in our lives each day but instead to respond. That’s why we must stay on the spiritual path no matter how hard that feels, engaging in some sort of spiritual practice. And, and I’ve said before, it does take practice to stay conscious and connected. It doesn’t happen without effort and daily–almost hourly or minute-to-minute–sessions.

Rabbi Cooper writes:

The purpose of spiritual practice is to gently and consistently move us from our place, where we normally “hang out” in our day-to-day behavior, to a mind state of greater refinement. In this context, refinement is connected with our conditioning, our normal reflexes and responses to situations that arise every day. Through practice, we begin to reflect and react in different ways. This change in our behavior actually causes many significant results.

Spiritual practice, is this context, has a series of tiny ekstasis that arise when we behave out of place of our normal reactions. We must keep in mind that “normal” for most of us is quite different from “natural.” Normal is how we are conditioned to respond. Conditioning develops from the time we are conceived; some say that our propensities to be conditioned go back into our genetic dna. But the spiritual principal at the base of many traditions is that our natural inclinations arise when we fully recognize the basic nature of our own minds and thereby gain greater ability to resist conditioned reactions.

Through our spiritual practice we learn to respond rather than react, to stay connected and conscious. Another of my teachers, author Stuart Wilde, says this is like spiritual weight lifting. We become stronger, more able to change how we react to the irritations in our life–the situations that arise–by constantly practicing remaining conscious and connected no matter what arises–in spite of what arises–in our lives. Life becomes our training ground, our gym, our practice field.

Little by little, day by day, hour by hour we change simply by living. As Rabbi Cooper writes:

Skilled practice results from an ongoing engagement in the mystery of what everyday life presents. As we never know what life will bring, we need always to be prepared to meet this unknowable reality with our highest potential. Thus, to the best of our ability, we continuously are challenged to bring our awareness to the many opportunities that present themselves as a series of invitations for manifesting enlightened actions. Each and every time we succeed, we change the world.

I’ve still got a long way to go–a lot of practice before I become truly “awakened” or “enlightened.” I still react more than I’d like; I still get irritated by the irritations. I notice this when I angrily respond to the fact that my son forgot an essential item that prevented him from taking dance class–after I drove an hour and a half to take him there, the shelf in my living room has not been replaced by my husband after five months or the insurance agent takes two hours to ask me questions I already answered once before. So, you’ll find me in my spiritual gym on most days lifting weights in an effort to become more awakened.

As Rabbi Cooper explains:

The highest teachings are explicit in describing the idea that our most enlightened opportunities occur in the ordinary daily life we now experience. The difference is that one who is awakened recognizes the essential nature of what is happening while one who is not awakened is easily overwhelmed by an ongoing flow of “self” induced dramas.

To rid ourselves of this sense of drama, Rabbi Cooper says we must rid ourselves of the belief that we are separate. When we do so, we also lose many of the harmful actions, false beliefs, negative reactions, confusion, irritation, and suffering that go with it.

Instead of believing we are separate–something most of us have believed for a long, long time–we must remember we are connected and always have been. Connection is our normal state of being. We only think we are separate from the Source; the thought doesn’t happen to represent truth.  It’s a meme, a thought given to you by someone else that you adopted. You can choose to adopt the thought that you are connected instead, but knowing and feeling this connection comes with spiritual practice.

Some people end up feeling too irritated, too angry, and they fall off the spiritual path before they can change their reactions or thoughts. They leave the spiritual gym seeing no results from their efforts. They feel alone in their work there and without a personal trainer. They don’t feel connected, so they go off alone blaming the gym and it’s Proprietor for their failure. They don’t realize that if they don’t stay in spiritual shape, bit by bit, parts of their life start feeling harder and harder. Without connection and consciousness, everything begins to feel like an irritation and a struggle.You get stuck reacting to irritations in your life in the same old way you always have.

Is that what you want? I don’t. So I look for “enlightened opportunities” as they occur in my ordinary daily life to respond in conscious and connected manner. I lift spiritual weights daily. Sometimes I’m not strong enough to do all the sets, but I keep lifting.

How do you react to the irritations in your life?

In a recent blog post, best-selling author and marketing expert made this statement:”No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself.”

He was talking about the fact that authors and musicians are making millions without so-called “gatekeepers.”  They aren’t waiting any longer for publishers and record companies–the “pickers”– to offer contracts. They are picking themselves and producing books and CDs on their own.

Godin stressed that most of us want to get picked; it’s inherent to our human nature. He added that once you reject the impulse to be picked “and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

He goes on to say, “Once you understand there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound.”

I don’t know about you, but for me these word really hit home. I can see how I’ve been waiting around for someone to give me permission to move forward, in particular with my books.

I’ve self-published short books and kept them on my website only. Yet, these are short versions of what were to be full-length books. I wrote them instead of the full-length versions while I was waiting to be picked so I could sell them at the back of the room when I went to speak and build platform–to help me get picked. I was waiting for permission from the pickers to write the full-length versions.

I approach my blogs differently, though, writing about my topics with passion and total self-permission. And there, I’ve already been picked. I have readers–you. Hopefully, you would read my books, too, if only I’d give myself permission to write them and self-publish them. If only I’d stop waiting for permission from a picker.

With my blogs, daily and weekly I solve problems, I use the tools I have, I don’t ask or wait for permission, and I contribute.

Are you ready to get to work? What problems would you like to solve? What tools do you have to offer? Are you waiting for permission to move forward, to take action, to do what you want to do or to fulfill your purpose, achieve your dreams, create change, or contribute in some way?

Just a few days prior to reading Godin’s blog post I came across some notes I’d jotted down during a session with a coach about a year and a half ago. She’d told me  I needed to work with the affirmation ” I am in charge of the delivery of my life.”  Between Godin’s message and this affirmation I could see the need to take control of my own destiny.

What about you? Are you ready to be in charge of the delivery of your life, of how your life unfolds day by day, or are you going to wait for others to give you permission to do what you want to do, to create what you want to create?

Are you going to wait for someone to pick you–a boss, an agent, a man, a woman, a friend, a publisher–or are you going to do the picking? Do you believe in yourself enough to do so?

Don’t wait to be picked. Pick yourself.

Two days after the tremendous earthquake in Japan I was watching the news. I don’t actually watch the news that often, but I wanted to see what was happening in Japan and also how the tsunami had affected the California coastline. I had heard that Santa Cruz, just 20 minutes from where I live–had born a greater brunt of the tsunami than some other areas. I can see Santa Cruz and the coastline from my home in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

After the report on Japan,which was horrific, the reporter began to interview people in Santa Cruz. The damage there really was quite minor compared to Japan. A few overturned and submerged boats. Some damaged docks. Yet, I listed to people calling what had happened in Santa Cruz a “disaster.” They were talking about the loss of or damage to their boat as if it were a huge loss.

Taken 3/11/11, the top photo shows a tsunami flooding buildings in a street in Kesennuma, Mioyagi Prefecture, following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that hit Japan. The bottom photo shows the same scene with buildings in the foreground washed away. (AP Photo/Kyodo News)

I sat open eyed and mouth agape. Had they not seen the pictures of houses floating away? Let’s see…house floating away compared to boat floating away? Which seems a bigger loss? Thousands of lives lost compared to a few docks and boats?  I have heard of just one death here in California–one person washed out to sea. I heard tell of a whole town washed out to sea in Japan.

So, let’s put things in perspective.

The ability to do that–to put what happens to us into perspective–is a lesson we can all use to learn and implement on a daily basis, not just when a disaster happens. When we feel upset that we don’t have enough money to pay all our bills or to purchase that new shirt we want we need only compare what’s in our bank account to what’s in the pocket of a homeless and jobless person sleeping on the street. When we complain about the ache in our back from working too hard or the pain in our shin from running to far we need only compare these ailments to the man at the corner who lost his leg (or legs) in an accident or the person in hospice care dying of cancer.

Everything is relative. Someone is always worse off than we are.

We need to put our own situation in perspective and feel gratitude for what we have or the situation in which we find ourselves–no matter how bad it seems. Yes, it may feel like your own personal disaster–and maybe it is a disaster. But compare it to something worse–like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Is it still a disaster?

Indeed, what constitutes a disaster lies in the eyes of the beholder. As you behold what lies around you, consider if your disaster truly is a disaster by seeing beyond your immediate world.

I often consider and write about the idea of living in the moment. I know it’s not just a concept; it’s a worthy goal and one some people achieve. I have found it difficult to do so, although it remains one of my goals.

Quieting my mind during meditation also remains one of my goals, yet I struggle with this as well. My thoughts flow one after another no matter what I do.

Today, however, I read something that connected what I think of as the flow of thoughts to living in the moment. In fact, I learned that most thoughts are not connected and when we become conscious of the separateness of each thought we learn to live in the moment. This idea intrigued me, especially since becoming conscious of our thoughts represents a requirement of conscious creations on any level–including simply (or not simply) creating change in our own lives.

I learned this while reading a meditation tip written by Swami Nithyananda. Known as the “life bliss swami,” Paramahamsa Nithyananda is a young enlightened master of Yoga and meditation who has inspired more than four million followers worldwide. He has dedicated his life to helping people overcome mental, physical and spiritual barriers to achieve enlightenment and live lives of bliss, success and peace.

He claims that when we learn that each thought is a separate entity, not connected to the one that comes before or after, we can live in the present moment. When we do that, we can experience bliss. Now happiness is one of my goals as well, but bliss sounds even better.

Rather than try to paraphrase his meditation tip for you, I thought I’d just let you read it for yourself. I suggest you not only read it but try it. Here it is:

The mind is nothing but a collection of thoughts. These thoughts rise up in succession like the bubbles in a fish tank. All these thoughts that rise in the mind also appear to be connected. But just like the bubbles in the fish tank the thoughts in the mind are also independent and unconnected.

You can do a small exercise. For ten minutes sit silently and observe the thoughts that arise in your mind. Don’t try to control or stop thinking. Just be silent and witness the thoughts coming. The moment a thought comes quickly, write it down on paper. Then, at the end of ten minutes read out whatever is written. You will see that it’s a mad man’s diary. There is utter chaos. There’s no connection between the previous thought, and the next one. Only when you write down your thoughts you come to know that the thoughts have no real connection. You may be thinking about having a cup of tea and the next moment you think about some pending office work. There is no real connection between having a cup of tea and the office work. Both are independent events. Even if there are two consecutive thoughts about the same event, the thoughts are unconnected as there is no continuity. There exists a silent gap between these thoughts of which one is not aware.

These thoughts by their very nature are unclutched. The problem begins when we start connecting these thoughts. When these independent and unconnected thoughts are linked together, we create illusions of pleasure or pain based on the nature of thoughts that we choose to combine. This is a play of the mind that is constantly happening within us.

When we perceive every incident as a new incident we will see life in a more beautiful way. Everything seems joyful and blissful. You stop taking things for granted. Once you start accepting life from moment to moment, bliss happens to you naturally.

(You can find out more about Swami Nithyananda at www.innerawakening.org and www.dhyanapeetam.org.)

Do you feel like you have lost your mojo? Do you no longer have that special something that makes you glow, feel electric, energized, happy, turned on, and in the flow? Is your magic gone?

I’ve been feeling like that for a while now.

As I spoke to a friend she mentioned that she thought some things in her life had gone awry because she had become unhappy. She had stopped doing the things that made her happy and that turned her on–that gave her her mojo. She had changed because of the person with whom she lived and because of her situation. The something bad happened. That event was forcing her to change, to become her best self again. It was helping her assess how to regain her mojo.

I realized I needed to do the same. I have stopped doing much of the things I love and focusing my time and energy on the things that energize me and make me happy. I have moved away from the me that is my best self, the true me…the magic me, the me with the mojo.

I can get my mojo back. I can focus on those things that I feel are my purpose here in this lifetime. I can put energy into the things about which I feel passionate. I can take time to do the things I love. Little by little, my mojo will return.

Sometimes I think about the people in the Old Testament, or Torah, who had a lot of mojo. Moses had mojo. Miriam had mojo. Joseph had mojo. Who do you know today who has mojo?

What about you? Will you take the steps necessary to return to your true self? If you do, your mojo will return as well.

On Friday I took a walk in a nearby Christmas tree farm. Many people who live near to me walk there. It’s quite beautiful. I walked in the morning because in the afternoon the tree farm would be filled with people buying trees–or rather cutting down trees.

As I walked I looked at the trees. I noticed how many of them were actually new trees grown from the trunk of a tree that had been cut down by a happy Christmas tree shopper. Each time someone cuts a tree, a new tree sprouts from the stump. The same thing happens with the Redwoods that grow around my home. When the loggers came through the area, they cut many trees. Now new trees have grown out of those stumps. Additionally, baby trees grew in circles around the stumps, creating beautiful “cathedrals.”

Trees have an amazing resiliency. We can actually learn a lot from them. When something is cut or torn away from them–when they lose something essential, they simply grow it back. We tend to  focus on what we have lost rather than on how we can create something new to take it’s place or to replace in some way that vital element we need or miss. We would do better to focus our attention on discovering ways to survive without what we have lost and to create something new out of the loss.

Thinking about trees also reminds me of the huge loss of trees in Israel due to the raging wildfire in the Carmel Mountains. You can help put the fire out by donating to one of these two organizations.