"You're soaking in it."*

Aw, Madge. You'd hate my nails, but you are so very right about a lot of things. Buddha said, What you think, you become" What we soak in really makes a difference.

I can feel something changing inside me. This week I breathe easily, relax more fully, laugh with a deeper appreciation, and am feeling less angst.

It isn't a lack of stress, I mean I have leapt from the cliff and there is no safety net in sight. The bills have to be paid, food must be purchased, and I forgot to put the WoW account on hold and paid 15 bucks for an account we aren't using. Life goes on and a lot is sitting on my shoulders. It is scary - but I am starting to defrost from the panic I felt. I have to hustle, I have to pick up the phone, I have to connect with people in a very competitive business. So I do it. But, there is aa seismic shift happening deep inside me and I honestly didn't see it coming.

Something is happening to the way I see the world and the way I interact with it. I guess I didn't realize the impact of my environmental influences over the last few years. Though I am a pretty positive person by nature I found my self too often "going to a dark place in my mind", and preparing for the worst of behaviors from the folks with whom I had contact. It wasn't just that I would be prepared, because I have no problem with that - in fact I think preparation for the worst is a helpful skill. The problem was that I was beginning to believe that the worst would happen. And, of course, it often did.

Something dark had come over me and I don't think I knew it. I knew there was discomfort, I was aware of a disconnect, I felt a tenseness and could taste a dissonance, but I didn't realize the extent or the effect it was having on me. It was wearing me out and down in some very basic ways.

I was marinating in negativity. I was beginning to grasp at things instead of holding them gently. I remember having conversations with my self where I was worried that the dark world view would rub off on me permanently, or that people would begin to think of me in the way I was beginning to see my old company. I know that at the heart of my escape (and it is beginning to feel more like an escape and less than a job change with every passing moment)I wanted to prevent any further lasting damage from a stingy, negative, grasping and dark environment. I really need to reflect on the right description of what it felt like, but I remember it smelling like weakness, disdain, fear, desperation and hypocrisy.

We had a saying in our office - "Anybody is capable of anything at anytime." It is a great saying, and I still believe it today. It helps one be prepared for the worst very effectively. But, there are two sides to that equation, and one without the other does a disservice. We can be prepared for the worst, and also be prepared for the best. After all, someone could step up and surprise us with the best of human behavior, it doesn't always have to be a disaster. In fact, I am beginning to think we should expect the best while we prepare for the worst. That way if a person doesn't know how to react to us we give them a chance to be good.

This week people have been wonderful to me. I have seen and felt kindnesses from people I know as well as from strangers. Thousands of instances of people reaching out to me via the Virtual World and Real Life. Emails, phone calls, paper deliveries, LinkedIn connections offering to help me get my business off the ground, old friends reconnecting with a positive word, all expressions of mutual humanness. They have reminded me of what good we are capable of doing for ourselves and each other. Connection isn't just everything - it also makes everything easier.

We reap what we sow, and we do, indeed, become what we think. I am going to immerse myself in the thought of the possibilities of kindness, generosity and good manners. I am going to shape my life around those tenets because that is a life I can believe in and it is the universe I want.

The good is out there. I believe in it, I feel it and I choose to surround myself with it in the way I live, the way I work, and the people I choose to have in my life. I left my old job so I could create a life of work that was congruent with these core beliefs that are a deep part of who I am. I can feel it like a good, hot, richly scented bath in a roomy tub - it has welcomed me home, and I am soaking in it.


*Some of you may be too young to remember Madge. We're sorry. This is for you.