Just go easy, and go far

For about ten days, my wonderfully talented wife, Julia Rogers Hamrick, was under the weather with the worst cold and chest congestion she has experienced in many years.

Because we are in that ramp-up period before the August 3 release date of her new book, she was fretting a good bit about all the items on her to-do list which were not getting crossed off. Turns out, it is hard to cross off to-do list items while lying on the couch, groaning and sighing and coughing. Who knew?

I make light of it now only because she is almost fully recovered. The last two days, even though the cough is still bad, she has had more energy and has returned to being the force of nature which she usually embodies.

The advice I gave her as she was in the middle of the worst of it was simple: if you choose to spend energy worrying, you will have less energy to devote to recovering from the illness.

No guilt or "you oughtta" message, just the simple reminder that the choice of where she spent her energy, and it was at a premium right then, could well influence how soon she was back in the saddle.

She is the real professional in this family when it comes to life coaching and spiritual education, but this story illustrates an important fact: we all need to be reminded of the tools and techniques which can help us move easily through the challenges we face. The more challenged we feel, the less able we are to access what we already know about meeting the challenge!

So, it just goes to show you that behind every successful spiritual teacher, counselor, intuitive, author person is the reminderer. That would be me for Julia!