www.ComposeYourLife.ca JANUARY 2010:   Welcome to the second edition of the Compose Your Life Newsletter.    As this arrives along with the New Year, we hope it will convey an uplifting sense of new possibilities to help you create your best-ever year! May we welcome the New Year into our lives, and may all who read this be blessed with health, increased clarity of vision and purpose, and fulfillment …    CONTENTS:  1)    Thoughts for the New Year   2)    RESILIENCY: Creating a “New Now”    3)    The 5 C’s to help cultivate RESILIENCE       4)    Quotable quotes   ********************************** 1)         Thoughts for the New Year In our society we are expertly trained from an early age to look for problems. Did you know that approximately 70% of our conversations in the West focus upon negative subjects? And it is a universal law that whatever we look for we will see and attract more of into our lives.    So what happens if we instead make a conscious decision to focus on what IS working right in our lives? We become aware of what is to be kept and improved, and what can be released that is no longer serving our highest self. This shift in perspective releases a multitude of new possibilities to explore, and we can begin to access untold inner resources which were previously unavailable. Working with the accompaniment of a professional coach deepens this learning dramatically. The coach guides the client to their own discoveries by asking great questions and nourishing the client’s awareness of different possibilities. The coach does not provide advice or solve problems directly, but rather propels and encourages the client to dream and play big. By helping with values clarification and building upon positive pre-existing elements, a winning environment is created for implementing desired changes. To help get your New Year off to a positive start, take time to explore a few simple questions: What do you believe that really works for you? What is going on in your life that is already wonderful? Where are you being very loving to yourself? Where are you most content? What do you want to bring to your life? What do you want to create? How do you want the next year to be?   ********************************** 2)         RESILIENCY:  CREATING A “NEW NOW” Resiliency has become a popular buzzword in recent years, but how many of us really understand what it entails? Simply put, resiliency is the ability or process by which people adapt successfully to change and challenges. What better goal for the New Year than to move from simply surviving to thriving and flourishing? Studies have shown that how you perceive yourself - whether you feel you are or have ‘enough’ - determines how well you handle uncertainty and stress. It also influences the efficiency of your stress response and the neurobiological mechanisms involved in coping with stress. If, internally, you maintain a belief that you have 'enough', you are more likely to be resilient.  You can focus on solutions, make meaning, stay positive, keep your head clear, and open yourself up to support and love. Resilient people know that it is essential to find meaning in life, to ask BIG questions such as: “What is important in my life now? What are my priorities? What are the gifts I have to give?”.  By focusing on playing a meaningful game and winning on their own terms, resilient individuals are able to look ahead with positive expectations and avoid getting bogged down with issues from the past.  I like to think of resiliency as that which allows us to sit in the driver’s seat and look at life through the front windshield, rather than through the rear-view mirror!  ********************************** 3)         The Five C’s to help cultivate RESILIENCE     1.   Calm yourself   Establish a regular personal practice of meditation, yoga or other form of relaxation response involving breath awareness. Bringing attentiveness and focus to the present moment allows the mind and the body  to come together with a miraculous calming effect.   2.       Commit to life A “vital engagement” is a commitment to living fully and aiming for meaningful goals. Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.  3.       Control The belief that you are able to make things happen is empowering, and prevents falling into a mindset of victimization.           4.       Challenge Decide to view new and unfamiliar situations as opportunities to grow. Even if you encounter major setbacks en route, you can still find the lessons and the “bless in the mess”.   5.       Community Social supports are an essential pillar in lives lived with resilience and joy.  There is give and take in the underlying social fabric, a constant interplay of offering and receiving; it’s not about playing solitaire…  ********************************** 4)         QUOTABLE QUOTES “Seek joy first, and all of the growth that you could ever imagine will come joyously and abundantly unto you."                                                                       Abraham/Esther Hicks "Live with vision and purpose. Resilient people don't wait passively for the future to happen to them--they become the future by consciously creating it."        Joan Borysenko “You may have a fresh start at any moment you choose, for this thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.”                               Mary Pickford "Resilience is a reflex, a way of facing and understanding the world, that is deeply etched into a person's mind and soul. Resilient people face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air. Others do not."                                                                                     Diane Coutu  “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth - not going all the way, and not starting.”                                                                                                Buddha