An Epiphany of Eros: Esther Perel’s Interview with Elise Ballard
Feb.13.13

There is a difference between just living and being alive. We are meant to feel aliveness, to be alive, to restore life on this earth, and to breathe life into others. —Esther Perel

For this month of love and eros, I thought I’d post an excerpt of renowned sex therapist and best-selling author, Esther Perel‘s epiphany from my book. This was of the most surprising interviews I did – I was not expecting the story she told me at all. It was so interesting to hear her perspective and experience as the child of Holocaust survivors. I think about living vs. existing all the time because of what she shared. Her account also spotlights and explores the depth, meaning and beauty of our sexuality and its transformative power. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself …

BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE INTERVIEW

I was referred to Esther by a mutual friend. I didn’t know anything about her or her work, but I trusted my friend, who said she would be a fantastic interview. Also, I loved the title Mating in Captivity, and the fact that she was a highly respected sex therapist. Her epiphany was sure to be interesting—and it was, although, as usual, it was not at all what I had anticipated. I interviewed her in her loft in New York City, sitting on the very couch where many of the epiphanies we talked about took place. You can watch the video below as well as read her excerpted interview.

ESTHER PEREL’S GREATEST EPIPHANY

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I would say my greatest epiphany was more of an epiphanous odyssey or succession of epiphanies, if you will, that happened while I was writing my book Mating in Captivity, which came out in 2006. I wrote for two years, from 2003 to 2005, and in the process of writing I discovered that there has been one major determinant in my life. It explains to a large degree what I do and who I am and why, throughout my life, seemingly totally irrelevant things keep coming back to this aspect in ways that defy my imagination. In a way, this determinant had absolutely nothing to do with me—it was imposed on me: I am the child of Holocaust survivors.

My book is about eroticism, but at this point I had not really asked myself why I was interested in it. It was when I was talking one day with my husband, who is working in the field of trauma and political violence with torture victims and refugees. Sitting on this couch, I asked him, “How do you know that the people you work with are once again reconnecting with life? How do you know when they cross that line again?” He told me it’s when they are once again able to be creative, to take risks, or to be playful—because you can’t play if you don’t feel safe. Once you begin to feel somewhat safe or grounded in the world, you are able to leap out and experience your exploratory needs, the way a child goes into the world to see what is out there. While we were discussing this, I started to put all the pieces together.

In my community in Belgium where I grew up, we had an enormous number of survivors living there. Among them, there were two kinds of people, those who didn’t die and those who came back to life—those who were just living and those who were really alive. The people who were just living were very fearful, didn’t take any risks at all, didn’t trust that the world was a safe place, and generally could not experience much joy or guilt-free pleasure. Neither could their children. They were surviving, but they were not really alive. The other group were the ones who knew how to keep themselves alive—they were people who understood the erotic as an antidote to death. Eroticism, sex, when you experience it in its full intensity, is a means of defying death. You feel alive as you do at no other moment. Eroticism implies playfulness, risk, daring, imagination—aliveness. The poetry of sex, the vitality, vibrancy, playfulness, renewal, all that stuff—I had seen all these in this subset of Holocaust survivors who really came back to life. Luckily, my parents were part of that group. My parents understood aliveness. I was a symbol of that for them, and I know what being alive really means because of my parents.

Eroticism for me is about the mystical sense of the word eros, rather than what modernity has done, which is reduce it to sex. I know now why I’m not writing about sex but rather about that other experience that one can have through sex. What I’m capturing is the quest for otherness—you’re at the same time completely inside yourself and completely outside yourself, or completely inside yourself and completely inside another. It’s a moment where you transcend death, that moment when you basically connect with the Divine.

When I work with couples on sexuality, when I work with desire, it’s about how one maintains a sense of aliveness—a connection to one’s erotic self. It’s really not about frequency, positions, technique, statistics of sex—it’s all about that erotic connection. When people come to my office and they complain about listlessness of their sex lives, they sometimes want more sex, but what they really want is better sex. And the better thing they are looking for is eros, the deeper dimension of sex.

That conversation with my husband, connecting what he’d learned from contemporary victims of traumatic abuse with what I remembered about Holocaust survivors and my family…it made things click for me. In what I call an ongoing series of epiphanic moments, I came to see that I was tracing two parallel narratives: histories of great suffering and death, and histories of eroticism as an expression of aliveness and pushing back against death.

I have moments such as that one all the time in my work, where I make connections between particular aspects of my life and its overarching story of being the child of survivors. Growing up with Holocaust survivors connects you to a larger history. You are not just a daughter of two people or even just a daughter of a tribe. As a descendant, you are a symbol of survival and revival for people, each of whom may have lost two hundred relatives, like my parents. Your life from the first day on is about much more than just you. You carry the name of somebody who’s no longer there. You have a mission. The mission is renewal. You are proof that death and dehumanization didn’t prevail, that there is life after an atrocity, and that there must be joy in that life lived after the atrocity. It’s not just about surviving, but it’s about reviving. It’s about a spark, of bringing an essence of vitality into the world.

You begin to connect yourself with that larger history, and it makes you feel special—but also very burdened, because you better do big things. Nothing in my life could just be okay or good enough. It had to be a lot better than good enough, because (as my parents remembered) if you were just good enough, you didn’t survive. Only if you were really big, really daring, really cunning, really determined—and lucky—would you survive. Halfway didn’t get you there. No problems that you might have could compare to the terrors Mom and Dad had known, so you never could really have a problem or ever really be worried or sad in our family. That has its downside, but it definitely made me somebody who charges at life, who pushes, who goes all out. I dread mediocrity or doing anything halfway; you could see that as either perfectionism or simply ambition. But once I understood what really drives that impulse in me, I saw that it didn’t center on being exceptional, but on being meaningful. My actions could never be haphazard. My life needed to be meaningful. I make choices based on that. It’s never been about work. It’s never been about money. It’s about meaning.

My moment of very crisp realization about this happened again during the process of writing the book when the fact sank in: “I have signed with a publisher to actually write a book!” I’d actually signed on to do something I had never thought I’d do, and I was willing to try even though I wasn’t sure I could succeed. I realized that this was the first time I was doing something without feeling sure about the outcome. And you know what? It only could happen after my mother passed away. I no longer needed to feel, “It’s got to work, it’s a live-or-die situation, if you don’t do it perfectly you’ll die.” And something about that live-or-die, all-or-nothing pressure softened after she passed away. I don’t think she imposed any of this on me. But it was only in her absence that I could for the first time do something I wasn’t sure about without fearing that I would die if I failed. Nobody knew I had always been holding back. Only I knew.

These epiphanies changed the way I operate. They crystallized what I’m actually working on with my patients. They have focused my thinking because I have a much deeper understanding of myself, of the concept of the erotic, and of how it is connected to much bigger, broader concepts. The way I conduct sex therapy or couples therapy is more a way of thinking than a method, and it’s this way of thinking that has attracted more and more people from all over the world to study with me.

What I learned about myself clarified my mission both personally and professionally: it is to be a “connector.” I help connect people with their aliveness. I was a symbol to my parents of aliveness—of the capacity to regenerate after the massive death and annihilation my family endured. I connected them with their aliveness, and they showed me what it meant to be truly alive.

I am not just a person who is living. I am a person who is meant to restore life on this earth and to breathe life into others. We all are.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ESTHER AND HER WORK.

 


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Music Legend Clive Davis’ Greatest Epiphany in Life, as told to Elise Ballard
Feb.10.13

By completely trusting and acting on your instincts, the course of your entire life can change.
—Clive Davis

It was the summer of 1967, and of all places I was at the Monterey International Pop Festival. I had come out of a corporate law career, never expecting to be involved with music. But life is often shaped by fate, and about a year before an opportunity had come my way, out of the blue, to become head of Columbia Records. The world of creativity and music was totally new to me. So I set out to analyze how the company was operating, where music was heading, and whether the team that I had inherited could move the company forward into the next decade. I didn’t know our next step.

By good fortune, Lou Adler had just started Ode Records, and I’d made a label deal with him. Lou is one of the great music producers of all time—he handled artists like Johnny Rivers and The Mamas and The Papas. He and Abe Somer (the top music attorney at the time) were on the board of the Monterey Inter- national Pop Festival and they invited me to join them at the festival. All I assumed was that we were going to have fun. I knew that The Mamas and The Papas would be singing, as well as certain other major name artists. So I went there with my wife, expecting at most a weekend that would be entertaining. I had absolutely no idea what was in store for me.

I arrived in Monterey and went to the festival grounds and was literally stunned. It was a culture shock—everything was different. People had come from Haight-Ashbury, from other parts of San Francisco, from all over the West Coast. They were in flowing gowns, with long hair. And here we were in our preppy New York clothes…I remember we just looked so alien amidst this visual outpouring of love and peace—people greeting you with flowers, sometimes putting them in your hair. It was funny and fitting because my first record that I had brought into Columbia, from Lou’s Ode Records, was a single and the title of the song was “If You’re Going to San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” by an artist named Scott McKenzie. It literally took the country by storm and went straight to number one…and sure enough, at this festival there were more people here with flowers in their hair than not! At first it was a visual— people’s faces, the openness, the communal spirit, the hope, the idealism that pervaded them. I experienced a social and cultural shock. And even that paled by the next morning when we got to the festival grounds.

I didn’t know that new artists would be appearing at the festival, but when they started performing in the afternoon, it was clear that the music they were playing was completely new, unprecedented. I was sitting in the audience, and this group I’d never heard of came on, just billed as Big Brother and the Holding Company. Then this female dervish came on the stage. She was hypnotic, compelling, electrifying—she shook and sang and conveyed soul like no singer I had ever seen before. Of course, it was Janis Joplin.

I realized that a revolution was in the air, that what I was experiencing while watching Janis Joplin on that stage could change the rest of my life. And it did. My gut told me I had to sign this artist, that I needed to follow my instinct and move from the purely business arena into the creative. I was totally unsure whether I had ears or the talent for picking artists. I had never been trained for it. Before that moment, it had never occurred to me that I would be signing artists. But I just knew I had to move to the forefront and trust this instinct. And that’s what I did. I immediately met with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin, and the group known as the Electric Flag, and signed both groups. Over the next thirty-six months I was to sign Blood, Sweat and Tears; Santana; Chicago; Loggins and Messina; and Earth, Wind and Fire.

It was only when subsequently these artists and others I signed came out and succeeded that I got some confirmation of my gift for identifying talent—which I’d never have thought in a million years that I had. If I had stayed in law and just did tax, corporate work, and estate planning, it would have been a totally, totally different life. But I’ve now had the opportunity to interface and deal with unique and special talents like the Grateful Dead, Annie Lennox, Aretha Franklin, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen—renaissance women and men, people who have affected millions all over the world. It feels good today when people tell me how their lives have been affected by the music of artists that I’ve either signed, discovered, or developed. I consider it a great honor and gift to do the work I do, and it’s financially enabled me to do things like establish scholarships to help others, which is something I always hoped to do, since I was only able to attend college and law school because of the generosity of other people who had established scholarships. Further, I’ve always felt that the music world has been portrayed inaccurately, usually negatively, regarding the executives coming out of it. The men who historically shaped the world of music—Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, Goddard Lieberson, Jac Holzman, Mo Ostin, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, Jerry Wexler, and David Geffen—represented the best in the entire entertainment world: I wanted to help the next generation of music leaders. And so knowing how my career was affected by study, by being immersed in music, I’ve established this degree-awarding program at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University so those that study music can get a degree to learn and further their profession.

Without question, the most important epiphany of my life happened in the middle of the Monterey Pop Festival. By completely trusting and acting on my instincts, the course of my entire life changed. My life and career have been much more fulfilling and rewarding than I’d ever thought was possible. In truth, I still pinch myself all the time at my good fortune.

This is an excerpt from Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform. GO HERE to read more about Clive, his illustrious career, and the behind-the-scenes of this interview. His new auto-biography, The Soundtrack of My Life, is out FEBRUARY 19, 2013. You can order it NOW.

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Deepak Chopra’s Greatest Epiphany In Life, As Told to Elise Ballard
Jan.29.13


This is the excerpt of Deepak Chopra’s epiphany from my book, Epiphany, that was the catalyst that set him on his renowned trajectory of studying and practicing medicine in a whole new way, leading him to become one of the first people to bring the mind, body, spirit connection into the mainstream conversation. The interview is short, sweet, and to the point — oh-so-very Deepak! (In fact, I think this was THE shortest interview I’ve ever done!) I always use this epiphany as an example of a simple, interior shift that completely changes a person’s perspective and direction, resulting in a major and positive Ripple Effect out in the world.

Behind-the-Scenes Peek of the Interview

When Deepak and I spoke for the first time, we were on the air live when he interviewed me on his radio show about this book and the Epiphany project. Later we met in person when he worked with my production team in New York on one of his stellar iPhone apps. He kindly squeezed me into his incredibly crammed schedule early one morning for a phone interview. Our conversation was so brief, I have to admit I was worried. But when I started reading the transcript, I realized it was totally clear, and he had just practiced exactly what he teaches by connecting with and expressing the basic, true essence of his experience. It was a great lesson and example for me, being the extremely wordy sort that I am.

The Epiphany

In 1980 I was practicing medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. It is a habit of mine to take a walk after meditation. One day, at about ten o’clock in the morning, I was taking my morning walk in the Fenway Park area, pondering why some of my patients were healing and others weren’t.

Suddenly it hit me: People have the power to heal themselves. 

I had been observing over my years of practice the rare patients who had done so, who had recovered from their illnesses, and it occurred to me at this moment that there was a common factor— they moved from a place of fear to a place of extreme joy and what I would call the intoxication of love. It hit me that they all had the same kind of shift in consciousness. You know, it sounds simplistic when I say it, but actually the shift is very profound and deep. For forty years people had been studying the effects of stress. But nobody had actually studied the biology of joy or love. So it occurred to me that that’s where we need to move.

After this initial realization, several epiphanies which I consider part of this overriding epiphany occurred. One part of it that was very important for me was that there was the return of the memory of wholeness. The words whole, health, and holy are the same word. Health, healing, wholeness, holy.

My entire practice and life focus changed after this realization that a shift in consciousness can cause a shift in biology.

I started researching it, and I started writing and speaking about it. My whole life is now about establishing a scientific basis for consciousness influencing biology, and it all goes back to this original epiphany and this original premise.

To learn more more about Deepak Chopra and his work, click here.  

 


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How Are You Rippling Out in the World? TV Writer/Producer’s Epiphany Leads to New Breast Cancer Foundation
Jan.2.13

We probably all at one time or another have heard the terms “ripple effect,” “six degrees of separation,” and the “butterfly effect.” Just in case you haven’t or as a quick review, in every culture and religion there is a belief in “the ripple effect” — how one event or action will have reach and ripple out, like a pebble thrown in water, affecting the whole. “Six degrees of separation” is the belief that we are all connected only six people away at most from strangers and the underlying idea is that we are all connected through others and many, if not most times, we are completely unaware of it. The “butterfly effect” refers to the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can cause a hurricane eventually in another part of the world, thus pointing out that a seemingly tiny, meaningless action can have a much larger, far-reaching effect on subsequent historic events. 

All of these ideas tie in to the notion that every thing, every action, every person has an effect on others and the world at large, whether its meant to or not, or whether we are aware of it or not. 

What has been interesting to me during my journey of studying epiphanies is that I have experienced these three ideas in super-crisp Technicolor, so to speak. Epiphanies are one way, one prism, for us to study how interconnected we truly are and by examining our epiphanies and noticing the actions that result, we can witness and experience the “ripple effect” in quite profound ways.

When one person changes because of an epiphany it affects not only his or her life, but everyone around them and sometimes the world at large in huge ways.

One very recent example of an epiphany that keeps rippling out is David Hudgins’ epiphany. I interviewed David in 2010 for my book and his epiphany was sparked by his sister encouraging (or reprimanding) him to go for his dreams and not to wait on “some day” or lament them as something he couldn’t do. She was only 37 and battling breast cancer at the time and the next day, David changed his life to start pursuing his dreams of making films and television and now is a very successful television writer and producer. (His Parenthood episode that aired January 1, 2013 was the top rated show the night it aired and has a breast cancer storyline, and his blog of the behind-the-scenes story is stunning.) 

That one moment in Catherine Hudgins Tuck’s hospital room not only changed David’s life when he took action on it, but it changed his family’s life and he embarked on a new career that has touched and is touching thousands of people’s lives as he writes for television. Years later, his epiphany proceeded to have a huge impact and act as a major source of encouragement for me (and still is) when he shared it with me for my book and website, and it has gone on to touch others that way. Now the epiphany is moving into even much bigger realms – a couple of weeks ago, the Catherine H. Tuck Foundation was launched. The foundation’s mission is to specifically support women getting treatment for breast cancer with living expenses so they can focus on healing. Catherine and David will now touch many, many more lives for the better…see? Ripple.

How are the things you’ve done and are doing rippling out?

Even with a kind word or action? Have you thought about it? Are you taking action on your epiphanies in big or little ways? Any action counts and makes a ripple. Just take a minute and think about it and observe maybe how you’re “rippling” out in your own lives. Maybe even tell your family and friends how they might have “rippled” out and touched your life in a positive way and thank them — and maybe even ask them how you they see you “rippling” out there. I encourage us all to start thinking about how we can make our ripples as positive as possible as we start out this brand new year.

Maybe we start by thinking about new commitments and outreach by CHECKING OUT DAVID’S FOUNDATION and supporting it financially and/or with your time or with any other charities that resonate with you.

To learn more about Catherine and the foundation, please go here and read David’s beautiful tribute. His interview from Epiphany is excerpted below and/or you can also view his filmed interview.

 

David Hudgins’ greatest epiphany, as told to Elise Ballard:

If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else is going to. So go for it. Find what makes you happy and do it. ~ David Hudgins

I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and in the mid-nineties, I was living there, married with two kids, practicing law. Over time I recognized that while I didn’t hate law, I didn’t love it either. I observed the older partners in the firm—very nice people— and saw myself in thirty years. “That will be my life. I’ll practice law at this firm. At sixty years old I’ll be going to the country club and to bar association dinners, after raising three-point-five kids inside a white picket fence.” All that was fine, but it wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t want “fine.” I wanted great.

I started reflecting on what really makes us happy. After a lot of soul searching, I decided that it’s about doing—acting on our deepest aspirations and doing what we really want to do in life, whatever that is. For me, I had to finally admit that meant making movies. I’d done theater in high school and had always been creative. I’d always loved to write and loved films. But how would I ever make them? How did you get into that business? I had no idea.

But then something happened. Some childhood friends of mine in Dallas, Luke and Owen Wilson, made a movie called Bottle Rocket. These guys had no clue what they were doing. They had just had a funny idea, got some money, and shot this movie. Nobody knew whether it would get shown anywhere, and it wasn’t a big hit—but it made their careers. I remember going to the movie theater to see that movie and thinking, “If they can do it, anybody can.” I’m kidding, but seriously, the Wilson brothers inspired me and got me really thinking about what I could do. But I was just doing that—thinking about it—when we got news that changed our lives.

My older sister, Catherine, got diagnosed with breast cancer. About two years into it, I was visiting Catherine in New York. She was undergoing chemo at the time, and we were in her room talking. I had been a lawyer for about seven years at this point, and I started complaining about it. Finally she stopped me and said, “What do you want to do?” I paused and said, “Well, I want to make movies. I want to write and make movies.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Look at me. Use me as an example. You have got to grab life while you can, David. Do you want to be sixty-five years old, looking back saying, ‘I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that’?”

That was the moment it clicked for me. Catherine was right. When I left her that day, my life took a whole new direction.

Fortunately, I have a very cool wife who is completely supportive, and she was on board with what I felt I needed to do. I quit my job, and we sold our house and moved the family to the hills of Tennessee, where my parents had a cabin, so we could stay rent-free while I wrote.

As with almost anything that’s valuable and worthwhile, there was a lot of risk involved. Everybody thought I was crazy— including me at times. Late at night, I’d lie awake in bed. “Am I really doing this? Am I really going to quit this job, take my wife and two little boys and move to the hills of Tennessee?” But I kept moving forward, no matter how scared I got.

We thought we’d only be at the cabin for six months. Uh, yeah. We ended up living there over two years. Finally I had a screenplay optioned. It was not a lot of money, but that didn’t matter. Somebody thought I could write. Somebody was willing to pay me for my work. It was time to pack up and move to L.A. So once again, we uprooted our family (now with three boys), and moved to Los Angeles.

This was all in 2001, right after 9/11. I had no job and was sitting around wondering what to do. Then, surprise! Megan got pregnant with our fourth boy. Love him to death, but he was not planned. We came to a very dark moment. I said to myself, “It’s a good thing I kept my license current, because I may have to go back to the practice of law. I may have to give up. I may not get to do this.”

So my first year in L.A. was really tough, especially when I was watching my boys go to school and my bank account get smaller and smaller. But I stuck with it. And thank God I did.

At a birthday party, I met a guy named David Kissinger. I was excited just because he was Henry Kissinger’s son, but my sister-in-law who works in the entertainment business said, “No, dummy, he’s the head of NBC Universal Television. You need to give him your scripts.” I didn’t want to be that guy—the one who says, “Hey, I met you at a party. Here, read my script.” But she told me that was how L.A. works, and I had to do it. So I gave him my script. He liked it. He got me a meeting with an agent. The agent signed me. A week later I had my first job. And it’s been a hell of a ride ever since.

Acting on my sister’s advice changed everything for me. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to do something you love. It’s made me incredibly happy. I get to work with actors and really smart writers. I see the world. I’m creating something. And I knew that I was never going to be fulfilled unless I tried to do that. I tell my boys all the time, “You can do anything. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t. And don’t tell yourself that. If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else is going to. So go for it. Find what makes you happy and do it.”

I have tremendous gratitude for Catherine and how instrumental she was in changing my life. When she died in May 2001, at only thirty-nine, I had just gotten my first job. It’s nice that before she died she knew I might be on my way.

~ David Hudgins (See the video and read more.)

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Disappointment & Dreams – How to Cope & Begin Anew!
Dec.27.12


I keep a journal. And at the end of every year I review what I wrote. Sometimes it takes a long time depending on the year and how diligent (or neurotic) I was that year, but it’s very informative actually, especially if you are a candid writer in your journals (which why keep one if you’re not, but that is another tangent I will embark upon another time). I’m not very good about writing details nor do I write every day to be sure. But it’s a very good way to observe what you did and did not accomplish, reflect on what your dreams were and what they’ve become, and remember what was heartbreaking and when you were triumphant. It is a record of your growth. Or not. So in reviewing this year, I started thinking about my dreams and disappointments and thought of writings of others that have been exceptionally poignant and helpful for me in this area.

“Letting go of a dream is hard, yet liberating. Sometimes it’s just time to start living a different dream. ~ Bart Knaggs

A very important quote for me from my book is Bart Knaggs’s. It was one of my editor’s all-time favorites too. Bart talks about his epiphany being when he finally let go of a long-time dream that he’d experienced some success with and began taking action toward a new dream that led him to heights and satisfaction beyond his imagination. Here is an excerpt of his interview that could really be applied to anything, not just a career dream:

Letting go of anything you love is hard…Knowing how and when to move on from one dream to another isn’t easy, but I knew it was time to start living a different dream. Letting go of a dream can be extremely hard, yes, but it’s also liberating.  ~Epiphany, p. 224

Below is an excerpt from Martha Beck’s writing. I simply love her work and her writing, and this anecdote about disappointments and dreams is spectacular. Thinking about letting go of our disappointments and beginning, creating, and discovering your new dreams is a wonderful and exciting way to start the new year.

My favorite story about handling disappointments comes from the India guru Amrit Desai. He had a collection of very rare crystals that he’d accumulated over many years. One day his cleaning lady knocked over a display case and smashed most of the irreplaceable crystals. When she tearfully pointed out her mistake, expecting a violent reaction, the guru shrugged and told her “Those things were for my joy, not for my misery.” This month, accept things for your joy instead of making them the reason for your misery. Hope for your wildest dreams to come true, and then spend all your time imagining, discussing, dreaming, and enjoying the happiest possible outcome in advance. If your heart’s desire does not happen, you have my permission to be extremely disappointed—but not for very long. The fact is, the only reason you are alive is that far more has gone right for you than has gone wrong.

Your dreams are for your joy; even if they lie crushed on the ground, you need not make them responsible for misery. If you raise your eyes from the shards you’ll find more dreams all around, and many of them can come true.

As Marcel Proust wrote, “If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.” ~ Martha Beck

May this be the year that your dreams that are meant to serve your highest and best become realized in spades — for you and for the good of us all.

(And if you aren’t already, you might want to think about giving writing in a journal a whirl this year. I just write in those 99 cent old-school composition notebooks you can get at any drugstore and end up using about 4-6 a year. Or you can buy a special leather-bound notebook, or write and keep it on your computer, or there are even apps for it now so it’s kept for you somewhere in cyberspace. But try it and see what happens. Maybe you’ll find yourself next December having an extraordinary experience as you review a year in the life of the unique and magnificent YOU…)

If you ever want to share your experiences, dreams, epiphanies, a quote, a joke, whatever, you know what to do…or join us in the conversation on Facebook.

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