Comfort is the foundation for creativity and creativity is the flower
that gives off the fragrance of service.

Greetings Chic and Certain of Themselves Women:

I'm off to Italy in a day to see my husband Christopher Mosio who has been on the road traveling the world working on a TV shoot for the Travel Channel for five weeks. He's not due back home until December 18th so we decided we needed to head out and see him. It all started with a trip to NY for my consulting work with Real Networks and I thought I'd take Lilly along as she's never been... Somehow that turned into half way to Italy and with the help of a lot of frequent flyer miles and a lot of expenses paid for by Chris' shoot, off we are going. I'm envisioning romance in Venice and the Lake Como area— and also some time to unwind and recharge myself.

So when you read this, I will be hopefully enjoying a cup of tea in a piazza while sketching and reading Henry James!

Ciao,

Comfort Wishes

I wish you a moment each day to press the season close
I wish you an explosion of taste, a reassuring texture, a line of poetry to penetrate the carapace of busyness
Until, like the woman who saw her butter dish for the first time after thirty years when the sunlight hit it just right
And the universe is laid bare to the "I am" you always are

Self-Care Minder

Comfort Glossary
Last newsletter we went to a new way of talking about self-care, organized by four moods and/or stages.

Needing More/ Depleted: Deeply in need of gentle self-soothing, healthy curling-up-in-a-ball-downtime, as well as reminders of your own worth and nudges toward what replenishes you.

Loving Discipline/Tapas: This is the moment and junctures where you need heat, juice, and help staying focused. You have enough energy and your basic needs are mostly being met but you waver in your innate understanding and commitment to making choices that create a life you love. It's when you waver between pushing and shoulding excessively on yourself and listening to your heart and spirit.

Joyful Desire: This is where--mostly--desire is gently tugging you forward and you can often trust that something larger than you is holding you up.

Effortless Service: The moments and relationships and offers in which self-care has blossomed into the fullest and richest expression of service for you.

Depleted
I'm often depleted from striving to do more, offer more, be more. It's exhausting! I believe the way we think about and carry our desires to do good and be of service can be one of the biggest drains on our energy.

Mark Silver taught me a practice last week. I take the part of me that feels it can never be enough or get enough and I hold it while saying, "This and love. This and Spirit. This and Om. This and God." The words are my choices and you must choose words that work for your connection to the divine. The purpose is not to try to change this part of me but to remember it, and I, am always connected to and surrounded by something far larger. The image I get is of this little part of me in the midst of this vast field of love.

Resources:
Laughter Yoga is a new revolution in body-mind medicine that combines simple laughter exercises and gentle yoga breathing to enhance health and happiness. Look into starting a Laughter Club.
Increase Vitality -- Dr. Andrew Weil's Music for Self-Healing -- includes music to get you up and going, increase self-mercy and loosen your grip on life. Classical.
Visit this site for free animated yoga postures to help you reduce stress.

Tapas
In an appreciative approach to life, you are often aware of what is working for you and simmering in gratitude for what is working, thus putting your focus on bringing even more of that goodness into your days. Pretend you are a Pac Man with an appetite for little life-enhancing energy nuggets and a strong aversion to all time and energy-eating monsters. You're on the look out for nooks to rest and enriching company that fills you up. It's so vital to play and laugh when we are taking ourselves too seriously. It also helps to move- picture football players running through tires on the ground, drummers pounding on giant drums, people dancing in the aisles at a concert...give yourself some movement with the intention of creating heat, heat that melts resistance.

Resources:
Here's a fun web tool from Mark Furst who publishes the always fascinating Good Experience Newsletter: Montage-a-google is a simple web-based app that uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms) entered by the user. Not only an interesting way of browsing the net, it can also be used to create desktop pictures or even posters. Try for yourself by testing a key word(s) that matter to you. You'll be intrigued by the results.

Joyful Desire
Grace is when you inspiration comes unbidden. It doesn't have to be huge--the right word for a poem, the perfect card for a friend, remembering an upcoming event with plenty of time to make something special, having all your support needs fall into place so you can sign up for that art class. Feel the change of seasons and listen to what you really want to do to honor this time of change.

Resources:
We just never know how our joy will spread to others. <G> This video is a testament to desire and spontaneity (and cross-cultural pollination).

In case you aren't among the millions who have seen the two Chinese students singing Backstreet Boys, my favorite thing as I am laughing and singing along is to wonder, "What is that other kid at the computer thinking during all this?"

Effortless Service
When you feel like things are effortlessly flowing, write yourself a few love notes or find a poem or snap a self portrait--put them somewhere where you can find them easily when you are depleted or doubting your ability to be of service. Say to yourself, "When I see these things again I will instantly remember my flow. I will know that cycles of energy are just that: cycles. I am blessed and whole."

Resources:
If any of you practice yoga as I do, there is always a longing to spread the peace you feel, to share the sense of well being…one interesting solution devised by yoga instructor Seane Corn is to take it "Off the mat, into the world" and support YouthAIDS.

I wrote the biggest check of my giving life yesterday for this amazing organization.

Life Organizing

This new section will focus on life organizing, the subject of my new book, The Life Organizer, previously the Inner Organizer. The book will release at the end of December and you'll be able to get it here first with some lovely bonuses. In the meantime, why not use the tools we already know and have, like:

Notice the question of your life right now. It could be, "Why am I so tired?" or "Why do I hate that guy at work so much?" or "What color do I want to paint the living room?" or ""What do I really want to do during the holidays?"

Choose one question and convert it to a what question -- "What triggers me to hate that guy at work?" or "What do I like about being tired? What do I hate?" for example if you're question is a why or how.

Then write your question on index cards and place the cards throughout your life -- in your purse, on your desk, in the kitchen. When you see a card, soften your belly, stretch your arms over head, and exhale. Think of a time in your life when you felt very wise and trusting of your own wisdom. It may be a feeling more than a specific memory.

Ask yourself the question and wait in trust for at least fifteen seconds. See what comes to you, no matter how odd. Write down these "clues" at the end of the day and see what you've gathered by the end of five to seven days of doing this.

Queens from Comfort
Birthing Your Own Sovereignty

Our new Yahoo community is off to a great start. Feel free to jump in any time, to comment, or just to lurk!

This week, identify one irritant in your life that drains your energy, encourages you to beat yourself up or is just plain annoying. It might be there isn't enough room to park in the garage and get out with getting grease on your clothes or that your iron cord won't stay wound up or that the mudroom has no clear space for shoes or that you've been meaning to sign up for bill pay or that you never have change for parking in your car.

Name your challenge on the board and any support you may need and then, most important, tell everyone when you are done. Make it something truly annoying and not too big--this is not about getting rid of all your clutter or cross indexing your photos. This can be really, really small!

To join go to the Comfort Community's Home Page.