I recently had an adventure: it was a date with a man with whom I had been having email and phone conversations for quite a while, and we planned to finally meet in person. I had become excited and even breathless as I anticipated meeting this man who had succeeded in inspiring me to imagine that he might even be “the one”… As I was on my way to meet him, I wondered what it would be like; would our meeting exceed my expectations, or would I be disappointed? Soon enough, I would find out.

Every experience has within it the seeds of opportunity: the opportunity to learn something new, to review lessons forgotten, and to grow in awareness about ourselves and those around us.

What I learned, as I reviewed the adventure of this date, was that it is important to actually meet a prospective romantic partner in person first before jumping to any conclusions about anything at all. A person can look great on a profile; the pictures can be delightful and beautiful and/or handsome. None of that matters. What matters is what the body tells us when we finally meet face-to-face, eyeball to eyeball, energy to energy.

Just to summarize the story: he entered ten minutes after our appointment. As he walked toward me, I could feel the energy in my body drop. Everything in my cells was screaming “no, no, no!” As he approached me, I felt a shudder — not a shiver of delight, but a shudder of repulsion. My body was saying “he is not the one…go home!”

I felt as if I had already grown to know this man and felt a sort of responsibility to spend some time with him, although I’m not quite sure why. He leaned down to kiss me and I wanted to turn away. As we walked along the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, I felt increasingly distant and lonely. At dinner, the conversation was forced. When the bill came, I offered to pay for my dinner and he agreed. As I was signing the bill, he added “the tip is $4.40.” That confirmed everything my body had known from the moment he first walked toward me: this is a man who is stingy, self-absorbed, and intrusive, to say the least. I could never share life with a man who would have the audacity to tell me what I should tip for a meal I was funding! I could never share a life with a man who could leave me feeling lonely because there was never one question about me, about my life, about my interests, although I had engaged in conversation in which I asked about him.

Your body knows everything. It is important to listen to that mind-body connection that my friend and colleague Karol Ward talks about in her wonderful TEDx talk. We are all magnificent mind-body-spirit beings of energy and intuitive wisdom, if we would simply listen to our bodies.

Many years ago, when I was in the midst of a hugely important decision-making process, I consulted my body for the answer to a question: “do I go…or do I stay?” What was at stake was my career, my lifestyle, my work, my livelihood. Yet, I listened to my body as I asked that question over a decade ago. My body was clear: “it’s time to go…” it told me. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was heart-wrenching and one of the most difficult decisions of my lifetime. Truly. Who knows what my life would have been like, had I stayed where I was. in leaving, walking away, and moving toward another path, I shifted the entire direction of my life and my work. Was it easy? No. Did my body know? Yes.

Perhaps there is an important question on your mind; a decision you need to make and you’re not quite sure how to decide. I suggest you follow Karol’s guidance in this video: listen carefully to what your body tells you. It never lies.

To your Joyful Life and Loving Relationships,

Sheila

If we don’t allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we don’t live fully. When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we find what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.

How do we protect ourselves from feeling hurt, pain, disappointment, joy, love…?

We find ways to numb ourselves, anticipate disappointment, minimize excitement and joy, and avoid taking any risks whatsoever in the direction of uncertainty. A new love relationship is risky. Perhaps we decide not to go there. A new job is risky. Perhaps we stay in the old one, although we are miserable.

We associate vulnerability with weakness. It is not true. Vulnerability is at the core of anxiety, shame, fear; it is also the birthplace of love, joy, faith and ultimate bliss…

Disappointment can become a lifestyle; it is easier to LIVE disappointment rather than FEEL it.

We sidestep getting excited about something because we’re not sure it’s going to happen.

Perfection is one of the 200-pound shield: it has nothing to do with striving for excellence. Perfectionism has nothing to do with striving for excellence; it is simply a tool to protect ourselves from fear.

Spirituality is inherently vulnerable.

What is driving this intolerance for vulnerability? It is scarcity: we live in a culture in which we learn that we are not enough…

In our ordinary lives is really where we can find the most joy.

To your Joyful Life!
Sheila

My friends Angela and Becky had been telling me about this new women’s networking group that met in Goshen and invited me to go with them on a Wednesday evening in October several years ago. As I walked into the restaurant, I noticed a tall stately and elegantly dressed woman with a broad smile. She looked like royalty; I was drawn to her and wondered “who is this woman?” as if I was in the presence of greatness of some kind yet to be determined.

“Brenda is my name…and who might you be?” she asked. I learned that Brenda had been making her own clothes for years — the finely tailored melon-colored suit she was wearing was one of her own creations. She then proceeded to tell me about her work and her passion for college scholarships. She was dedicated to helping students get into the colleges of their choice and to assist them in making applications for scholarships.

I was totally drawn to Brenda: the greatness I had sensed was within this noble and sweet woman had little to do with her talents as a seamstress or her new business in scholarship consulting.  It would be several years before I would fully understand the nature of Brenda’s greatness and how deeply her courage would touch me and all who had known her.

After I first met Brenda at that NWIN business dinner over six years ago, she and I became friends; she was also a client for a brief period of time when she asked for some guidance and inspiration in moving ahead with her business. About three years ago, I learned that Brenda was battling cancer; she was not given a positive prognosis. Nonetheless, Brenda pursued every avenue, followed every possible opportunity to capture the essence of life, despite huge challenges and financial hardships. Despite the odds, Brenda prevailed and emerged victorious. She stood tall, wearing those gorgeous and colorful suits she had made for herself. This past Fall she was honored and acknowledged by Independent Living; she spoke eloquently about the dignity and support this magnificent organization had made possible for her and her family. She had slain the dragon. She was victorious and thriving. It seemed…

Last week, I received word from our mutual friends that Brenda had been admitted to the Kaplan Family Hospice Residence in Newburgh. A few days after her admittance, I visited her. This past Friday night, I was having a very different kind of dinner from the one we shared that first night I met her years ago:  Brenda’s college friend and I were sharing a pizza as we lent our presence to an awesome “birthing” process as Brenda slept peacefully in her room at the Hospice Residence.

The moment I walked into Brenda’s room, I knew that Friday evening would be her time of passage to her next chapter. During the past three decades, I’ve assisted many people, including my dear husband, in this sacred passage from the physical to the purely spiritual realm of life. I have experienced this passage as a part of life; it may seem like death because most of us define life as everything physical and when the physical ceases to function we call it death. I have learned that this process is a birthing into pure spirit. A birthing of the energetic ripple effect of a human being’s foot print left behind after the body has ceased to breathe.

As I sat quietly with Brenda, breathing along with her, as she was nearing her last breath, I recalled the few years of her valiant and courageous dedication to life: she was not going to accept defeat; she kept her spirits high even when the doctors gave little hope for her survival of her cancer. In the midst of many kinds of hardship and challenge, Brenda remained the ever-present nobility and sweet spirit of grace.

Friday night, as she was transitioning to pure spirit, Brenda was surrounded by love: her good friends and cousins were with her. I was also with her, assuring her that she was loved and that each of us in her life will continue to honor her memory and be inspired by her courage.

When someone we love has taken that last breath, there are ways that we can step into another level of gratitude for life which lifts the spirit and honors the person who is no longer with us physically.

I offer here – for Brenda’s friends and family, and for those of you who never knew Brenda but have had your own losses – some words of consolation and comfort:

RABBI MORRIS JOSEPH:

It is not God’s role to spare us suffering but to help us bear it. When the visitation we dread finds us, we do well to ask for the strength which will uphold us, for the insight which will reveal new wisdom to us, for the special power which will transform our suffering into a source of blessing. And to such a prayer there is always an answer…
Something precious has been taken from us, and we think of it as something we have lost, instead of something we have had. We sense only how empty our lives are now; we forget how full they were before; we forget the many days and years we shared.
We praise God for our treasures while we have them. Shall we cease to praise God when they are gone? For God never gives but only lends. What is life itself but a loan? “Everything,” said the Sages, “is give in pledge.”
Let us consider the days which have passed not as loss, but as gain – the gain which comes with new courage, with nobler tasks, with a wider outlook on life, with a greater awareness of life’s duties and possibilities.

RABBI MORRIS ADLER:
Our yesterdays are beyond the reach of death,
When our love transforms them into
living influences.
Thus we continue to be guided by a light
Which transcends time and defies death.

RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL:
There are three ways we respond to sorrow.
On the first level, we cry.
On the second level, we are silent.
On the highest level,
we take sorrow–and turn it into song.

THICH NHAT HANH:

“Studying death can help each of us become someone who has a great capacity for being solid, calm, and without fear. Even so, we often feel anything but solid and calm when someone we love dies. Death stirs up conflicted feelings in the hearts of those left behind–some of us feel shaky and tender; others are shocked and angry; almost everyone is confused and unsettled. All of these feelings are included in what we call grief.”

JOHN O’DONOHUE:

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us look for you only in memory,
where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones…

* * * * * * * * * * *

When someone we love has passed, it is a reminder that each of us has our time; we never know when that time will be. Saying “goodbye” is not only sad because we will miss our beloved, but sad because we face our own mortality. I found myself musing about what it is that makes life matter. After all, we want others to miss us when we no longer have breath, don’t we?

What matters for you? Some things that matter for me are: hugs, smiles, laughter, and knowing I matter to someone else. In memory and honor of Brenda and others in your life you want to remember, dedicate yourself to letting the people in your life that matter to you know that THEY matter to YOU. Give them the experience of being important to YOU. Let them see you smile at them when they are approaching you; let them feel your warmth with a hug and kiss when you see each other. There is nothing more telling and precious that seeing the light of loving recognition in someone else’s eyes as you approach one another.

Make sure YOU matter!

With love and blessings,
Sheila

Researcher and author, Brene Brown, conducted an in-depth research project into the phenomenon of the sense of worthiness. In a period of over six years, she studied hundreds of people who had the strong sense of love and belonging. She discovered that those who have a strong sense of love and belonging BELIEVE they are worthy of love and belonging. In this TEDTalk Brene Brown talks about what she has learned about the deep sense of worthiness.

What those who had a deep sense of worthiness had in common was a sense of courage: that word “courage” comes from the Latin “coeur” (heart) - having the courage to be open-hearted and imperfect. It’s about having the capacity to have compassion with Self; without being compassionate with yourself, how can you have it for someone else? Brown connected the dots between the willingness to exercise courage with the ability to live in a state of authenticity.

These people Brown studied fully embraced vulnerabilty: they believed that what made them vulnerable also made them beautiful. They talked about vulnerability being necessary; about the willingness to say “I love you” first; the willingness to say “there are no guarantees.” They exhibited a willingness to invest in a relationship which may or may not work out.

The key to living fully in our full-out vitality: the way to live is with vulnerability. Uncertainty. A willingness to risk and live with a courageous open heart.

We live in a world that is obsessed with numbing vulnerability. You cannot selectively numb emotion. when you say you don’t want to feel one emotion, you are also ruling out all the rest. When we numb the “negative” emotions, we also numb joy and happiness.

The human condition is having the choice of feeling it all. When we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we can also allow ourselves to be fully alive.

To your Joyful Loving Life!
Sheila

Are you going to learn how to “love consciously?” Instead of your relationship be something that just makes you feel safe and secure, what if your most significant relationship was more about you growing and learning what it’s like to live a life with a lasting and evolving love? Imagine saying “I love loving you, flaws and all!” Unfortunately, most couples begin their relationships having the agenda of changing the other, in order to meet their current needs. What if we agree to grow together, move beyond your relationship, and grow to the “bliss” stage.

Which stage are you in now? Where would you like to be?

Stay tuned… I will be sharing all kinds of wonderful advice and resources for you as you are seeking to experience all of the possibilities of love — and bliss!

To your Joyful and Loving Relationships,
Sheila

Dr. Sylvia Gearing talks about the #1 relationship wrecker: Financial Infidelity. It can appear to be innocent; it can even appear to be appropriate to have “my money, your money, and our money…” Some couples maintain separate accounts, and each may be blind and clueless about what each other is doing with the money they make and spend. Dr. Bonnie Eaker Weil, in her book Financial Infidelity: Seven Steps to Conquering the #1 Relationship Wrecker,” guides couples through the seven steps to creating a loving marital relationship that lasts. It includes being open with one another about income, spending, budget, investments, and planning ahead. It includes the notion that partnership in life includes the financial transparency and honesty that builds trust and creates true intimacy between partners.

If you are hiding the evidence of something you bought and don’t want you partner to know about it, you are on your way to damaging your relationship. If you purchase something, go on a shopping spree with a friend, and find yourself saying something like “don’t tell my husband what I spent!” you are your way to a big problem somewhere down the road.

We are all creatures of habit, and I will share an example of how that habit can have a dangerous ripple effect: Roslyn was a compulsive buyer throughout her 40-year marriage and her husband frequently paid off large credit-card balances to avoid the interest charges. The financial drain and constant secrecy threatened Roslyn’s marriage several times. Now, Roslyn is a grandmother and recently took her granddaughter shopping. When she brought Samantha home from their shopping spree, she said to Samantha “don’t tell your grandpa what we bought to day, ok? It’s our secret.” Samantha’s father overheard the conversation and knowing about his mother’s long-time spending addiction, quickly intervened: “we don’t have secrets, mother…Please don’t ask Samantha to keep secrets from grandpa.”

Secrets are relationship wreckers, because they lead to a sense of betrayal and alienation. Be careful what secrets to are trying to keep.

When it comes to how we spend our money, honesty is the only thing that works in a marriage. Anything else spells danger for the future of your relationship.

To your Joyful and Loving Relationships,
Sheila

One of my coaching colleagues, Elle Swan, wrote this message on her newsletter yesterday. She writes about what I have also experienced – but I want you to hear it from HER:

Before I started living vibrantly, my life was empty and sad.

Be Fit, Live Rich, and Have a Vibrant Day!

Be sure to visit Elle Swan at ElleSwan.com

As I also continue to write about living a passionate life – especially AFTER you turn 65 – visit my new blog: agelesssexy.blogspot.com

Stay tuned for further information about my upcoming webinars, teleseminars and workshops on living with passion. In the meantime, smile… See? You can do it!

Blessings and smiles,
Sheila

Is it possible that you, or someone you know and care about, are addicted to suffering?

I know it may sound strange, but some people — more than you might imagine — actually become attached to suffering, as if it is an old and familiar friend. For many, “suffering” does become that old and familiar friend — hard to let go of, hard to break away from…Suffering can become a dangerous addiction; an unhealthy way and and ultimately an unfulfilling way to feel alive.

It is true: many people persist in the habit of suffering in order to feel more alive: SUFFERING IS AN UNHEALTHY and UNFULFILLING WAY TO FEEL ALIVE! Many people hold onto their suffering because it is a way to feel alive…almost like an antidote to feeling numb. Suffering is the ego’s way of feeling important.

Arielle Ford has discussed the addiction to suffering in her newsletter today, and has also linked us to her friend Kute Blackson who wrote a beautiful blog on this topic. As Arielle wisely says, “whether you are a businessman or a buddha, pain is inevitable. There is no way to avoid it. Just by virtue of being in a human body there will be some pain. Trying to avoid pain will only create more suffering. Embrace pain to release yourself from suffering. Suffering is optional. Suffering is a choice.”

What I know from my own experence in life with with working with hundreds of clients every year is that suffering comes from you “story” about what is happening in your life and less about what is actually happening. What is happening is simply what is happening. The suffering part comes from all your interpretations you make up and the meaning you assign to your specific experience. Change your story and you will change your reality within yourself.

I’m sharing here below some of the fabulous information in Kute’s blog so that more people have the benefit of this thinking.

My hope and prayer for you and those you love is that you become liberated from the addiction to suffering, so that you can discover healthy ways to feel alive and transformative ways to feel important – here are some tools for you, the day after “Liberation Day”:

KUTE’S 7 KEYS TO CREATING SUFFERING:

1. RESIST EVERYTHING – resist what is. Resist reality. Fight against what is happening in your life with all your might. This is a guaranteed method to suffer.

KEY SOLUTION: Accept what is, so that you can then decide how to shift it.

2. HOLDING THE BELIEF – “The experience that is happening to me should not happen to me. I should be having some other experience than the one I am having. This shouldn’t be happening to me.” You have probably heard yourself doing some version of this. It just keeps you stuck.

KEY SOLUTION: Embrace your current experience. Your current experience is the experience that you are meant to be having because you are having it right now. Trust, and focus on what you can learn and how you can grow. The experience is here to help you evolve.

3. FOCUSING ON ALL THE THINGS YOU CANNOT CONTROL – This will only cause you to feel completely helpless and disempowered. It will leave you in a state of worry and anxiety. Some of us are professional “worriers.” No matter ho much you worry it doesn’t actually change the situation. Once you are done worrying, the situation will be the same. Worrying is a waste of time.

KEY SOLLUTION: Focus on what you can control. Take actions that are in your power, step by step.

4. REFUSING TO CHANGE – Keep doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. Well, as Einstein said, that is the definition of insanity. Are you so set in your ways that you are afraid of giving up the known suffering for the unknown possibility of happiness?

KEY SOLUTION: Embrace change. Be willing to do something different. Let go. Go into the unknown. Take different actions.

5. GIVE UP YOUR RESPONSIBILTY – Be a victim. Play the blame game making everyone else at fault or responsible for your life and how you feel. Unless you take responsibility for your current experience then you are powerless to change it.

KEY SOLUTION: Take full responsibility for your current reality and decide what changes you are committed to making. Give up blame.

6. FOCUS ON EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG IN YOUR LIFE – Whether a relationship or a person. When you focus on what is wrong, you will surely find what is wrong. You will end up creating more of what is wrong to feel wrong about. Then the negative cycle continues.

KEY SOLUTION: Start focusing on what you are grateful for. Remember all your blessings, and appreciate that daily. What you appreciate, expands. What you thank about, comes about.

7. DENIAL – Lie to yourself and others. Pretend that everything is fine when you know that it isn’t. When you avoid facing what is, you end up staying stuck and repeating the same patterns of pain, and relationship. This only ends up prolonging your suffering.

KEY SOLUTION: Tell the truth to yourself first. Tell the truth to those in your life. Be honest. Face reality.

Life is too short to waste spent suffering. Most of what you worry about today you won’t even remember a few months from now. Most of what you are trying to change in people today, you won’t care about on your deathbed.

You hold the padlock and you hold the key to your freedom. YOU CHOOSE!

To learn more about Kute, please visit www.kuteblackson.com

With blessings and smiles,
Sheila

What makes you cry? Really: what brings tears to your eyes?

Being able to cry is an awesome human ability, although many people (maybe you are one of them) do everything they can to avoid crying, attempting to push back the lump in the throat which often precedes the tears falling, then do whatever it takes to prevent those tears from continuing to fall.

We are born with tear ducts. The newborn baby’s first sounds are usually loud crying, with tears. Tears are natural, from the time we emerge from the womb. Crying is a release of energy, an expression of emotion – strong emotion, “overflowing” emotion. We are born to feel those strong emotions, those emotions that cause us to “overflow” – often with tears.

Bruce Lipton in his book “The Biology of Belief” describes his “heart orgasm” at the moment of discovering how our cells really work. He was overwhelmed with emotion; the best way he could describe it was a “heart orgasm”. Ellie Drake has described the role of the hormone oxytocin as the “prosperity hormone” for women. As Ellie was speaking about this “prosperity hormone”, she was expressing feelings of deep gratitude and overflowing joy with her evolving BraveHeartWomen community: she called her full joy a “SoulGasm”. My friends and I, in the midst of enjoying a concert with “Il Divo”, the four male singers who can take your breath away, often say we feel like we are having an “orgasm”. Like the excitement of good sex and having an orgasm with our lovers, there are moments in life when we are overflowing with emotions, feeling all kinds of “-gasms”. When we have these “-gasms”, we often feel moved to tears – tears of overwhelm, tears of fullness, tears of gratitude, and tears of recognition of a big truth and a big love all around.

A friend of mine spent all of yesterday crying lots of tears: it was her tenth anniversary…and her beloved husband had died six months ago – six months short of this tenth anniversary. She spent the day remembering their life together, the sweet and magical moments of their love and married life. She cried tears of sadness that her husband was no longer by her side, and yet…she cried additional tears, feeling that his spirit and his memory was right next to her, if not totally inside of her.

A few days ago, I officated at the marriage of a beautiful young couple: I joined their friends and family in crying tears of joy and fullness as this couple begins another chapter of their lives together. The bride couldn’t have been more beautiful and glowing as she walked down the aisle, and I felt that lump in my throat, pushing back the tears, since I had to maintain my calm composure as the clergy person in charge of their wedding ceremony. I needed to be able to see my notes, so I couldn’t allow the tears to get in the way of my clear vision. But I felt the tug. I felt that lump in my throat which told me that I was touched: by the sweetness and promise of this couple’s love. I also knew that I also felt my husband’s hand on my shoulder as I chanted the wedding blessings. It was my husband who taught me so much of what I do in that wedding ceremony. My husband’s memory became palpable as I stood beneath the chupah. Our 32 years of marriage flashed quickly past my memory, as this young couple stood in front of me, as I handed them the cup of wine to share, as I pronounced them to be husband and wife.

Sometimes the tears fall when we are afraid: they fall when we feel alone, afraid we might lose our health, or if our health is at risk, that we might lose our lives. We cry tears of sadness when we have feelings of desire and no partner with whom to share love and passion; we cry tears of bitterness when we feel regret for choices we have made that seem to have created our current reality, which is not the way we thought it would be.

One of my favorite Rabbis, Abraham Joshua Heschel, said that “tears are the lubricant for the heart” and that without allowing our tears to fall, we cannot heal, or celebrate, or grow.

You and I are born to cry, and to laugh. We are born to create each moment of our lives. We are born to feel the full range of emotions and to accept each moment as a perfect gift, whatever it is.

When it hurts, be grateful that you can feel whatever it is that hurts. Imagine not feeling anything at all…that would be like a walking deadness. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather feel the pangs and arrows that remind me that I am fully alive, able to feel the emotions that surge through my body, reassuring me that I am fully alive.

Do yourself a favor: if you feel like having a glass of wine or a martini, go ahead and enjoy it as a form of celebration. But…I urge you to avoid taking a drink or popping a pill just to “escape” feeling… Let yourself feel it all! Without the drugs.

Here’s a toast to your tears of sadness and joy; here’s to your “-gasms” of all kinds.

May you be overflowing with emotions that go along with being alive; overflowing with emotions that have no place else to go except through your tear-ducts into your tears that make your face all wet!

May you have the problem of mopping up the mess on your face!

Blessings,
Sheila

Can you suffer disappointment, not win the race, the prize, the job, the lover, the contract…but still see yourself as a winner???

Yes! I know you can, because I have experienced it many times — and most recently…last week!

Sometimes, the greatest achievements occur after someone has experienced extreme disappointment, suffered defeat after defeat, only to rise to the highest level of their abilties BECAUSE of the disappointments that propelled them forward.

I’m telling you my most recent disappointment, because we all have them, but how we handle them is what really tells the story and defines who we are. We can be disappointed. But not stopped. We may not win the race or the contest, but it doesn’t mean we are loser. There are many ways to be winners…

Last week, I flew to Chicago to attend a “Celebrate Your Life” conference. It was important to me to attend for several reasons, but of primary interest for me was the possibility of hearing my name announced as the winner of a contest. Back in February, I entered my new book (still completing it!) “WRINKLED, AGELESS & SEXY” in a contest. After three months of voting, submissions, writing, struggling, waiting and hanging by my fingernails, I made it to the finals! I was a finalist – one of four final contestants – in the “Next Top Self-Help Author” book contest: the winner would be announced, and there was a 25% chance that the name announced would be mine!

I caught an early-morning flight from New York to Chicago, arriving ten minutes before the announcement. I rushed into the ballroom, shoved my luggage in a corner and took a seat near the front of the room. My heart was pounding. Would the winner’s name be mine? For several weeks, I had felt that strong “hunch” that I would be the winner: each time I survived another round of the contest, my entire body was vibrating with excitement with that possibility. Finally…it was down to four finalists. Randy Davila, CEO of Hampton Roads Publishing walked up to the stage to announce the winner: “And the winner is….a Life Coach from…California…Martha Burge….” My heart sunk, my energy drained out of my body as if someone had sucked it all out with a large syringe.

No. My name was not the one announced. For weeks, I had imagined: “and the winner is….a Life Coach from…New York…Sheila Pearl.” But that was not the outcome. Martha has a fabulous book. She deserves to win. Actually, each of the finalists deserved to “win”. And so we do actually win…we don’t really lose at all!

Yes, it is true: in such a contest, only one person gets the prize; Martha gets the contract to publish her book with Conari Press. That is wonderful for her and understandably disappointing for the three of us whose name was not called out. For Craig, Michelle and me, however, we did not lose! Nope! Not at all: first, we became finalists, which means we prevailed and commanded the attention of the judging panel through four rounds of the contest, which began with over 700 contestants from all over the world. Second, each of us has either completed or all-but-completed writing our book. Third, each of us has successfully completed the book proposal – which I now know is probably the most difficult aspect of writing any book! But, for each of us, it is already done. Ready to submit to other literary agents and prospective publishers.

The winner of the “Next Top Self-Help Author” book contest does have an enviable distinction: she can call herself the “Next Top Author” and it sounds really wonderful! However…the winner of this or any other similar contest has not had the advantage of working with a literary agent; it is the agent who negotiates for the author to command a sweet advance and optimum contract terms. A winner of a contest has no agent and is required to accept the contract offered, which may not necessarily be the best possible terms.

The conference I attended was also important for another reason: in one place over a period of four days, some of the world’s greatest thought leaders were assembled to speak and teach. It was a paradise for any seeker of wisdom and anyone, like myself, who has as a goal to become one of the thought leaders in the world. For the few days I attended this conference, I sat at the feet of the masters, drinking in the cutting-edge thinking and wisdom teachers of consciousness evolution and paradigm shifting – so necessary in our point in history, and so important for me, as I continue to craft my own messages for publication.

Did I win the contest? Nope. But…did I lose? Not at all! I won much more than a contest and there was no way I could lose. By entering the contest, I also took a course in how to write a book and get your book published. The whole course cost me $97. I learned worlds about myself as an aspiring published bestselling author. I learned what needs to be done to stay on track, to get the job done, and to keep going when it is inconvenient, difficult and extremely challenging. I learned how to form a team, discovering that no author creates a viable book without a team. I learned how to ask for help and how to receive it.

Most important: I learned that in the face of disappointment, there is simply another level of determination and persistence that is being invited by the situation. I have also learned to re-define “winning” – winning is about believing in yourself, even if you have no tangible evidence; winning is about hearing “it’s not you” and be inspired to stand tall and keep going.

Blessings and hugs,
Sheila