An Inspirational Guest - you don't want to miss this!

Today I am so excited to feature a woman who I admire in so many ways. She's a physician turned homeschooling mom, artist, avid blogger, and now published author. Laura's creativity and energy is infectious and her thoughts on health and healing are as wise as they are innovative, provocative, and profound. I urge you to take a look at her website heartsongfineart.com. Make sure you give yourself a few minutes to peruse her many artistic creations from amazing paintings, to exquisite ornaments, decorative vase garlands, and perfect birdhouses. I guarantee you will find something you'll love and must have. Laura's latest project is a fabulous children's book about a little Guinea Pig named Jake. The story takes Jake from a place of questioning the confines of his "home" on a quest of sweet discovery and adventure. He looks outside himself for "something" to make him whole and happy only to realize his wholeness was there all along in the place he started. When he changes his thinking from what he lacks to the abundance he already has he changes his whole reality. What a poignant lesson for us all. Laura's illustrations are no less than stunning and are radiant in the expression of the heartwarming story they breathe life into it. To get your very own copy go here. And then get one for a friend.

So first off  what was Laura's inspiration behind Jake: a Guniea Pig Adventure?



"I wrote this book to say one thing: happiness can meet you anywhere. I really want kids to know that. I want grown ups to know that. I want myself to remember that. I want a book that I can pick up to remind me. You can invite happiness in to meet you right where you stand. Nothing needs to change at all. Joy can flow to you whether you live in a cage, in prison, in a diseased body, or are living your very last breath. The universe is so expansive, it can reach anywhere. It can follow you into any dark corner. It can follow you down every twisty turning maze path, even ones that are dead ends. It can follow you and support you and welcome you as you pass from life into afterlife. Happiness can always meet you where you are. You simple invite it in by gratitude."

Her words say it all. I asked Laura to be a guest on my blog not only because I just love everything she does but because she has important lessons to teach us all. Her honesty is refreshing, empowering, and so real I imagine you will find yourself in her words, as I so often do. What follows is the story behind the story. This is Laura's tale as she describes her personal  journey of discovery, so much like our little friend Jake's, where happiness is not found with your eyes ever seeking distant horizons but simply by looking down at your feet and where you stand right now. Everything we need is in this moment.  We are exactly the place we need to be . When we finally grasp that gratitude fills  us and we are at peace. The following words are Laura's and is just a segment of her inspiring story.  Her amazing journey can be seen in it's entirety on her blog next week Monday, Oct 4th so go to her website and sign up for her blog or follow her on facebook for updates and blog posts. Enjoy!


Our thoughts can create a prison any where we go. A movable prison, that you can’t out run, can’t dig out from under, can’t break through. Everywhere you go, your mind goes too. If you are alive, your mind is with you. If you are breathing, your mind surrounds you.
I have a very active mind. I think and think and think... I enjoy thinking, I hate thinking, I think of new ideas and create new images and possibilities and worlds in my mind all the time. I think when I lay in bed at night. I think when I wake up. I think when I am washing the dishes, when I am in the shower, when I am typing these words. I have a love hate relationship with my active mind... it used to torture me with worry and what-ifs and existential questions... but at the same time it used to thrill me with new ideas for paintings, new poems I had to write, helped me dance easily through college and medical school with absolutely no studying, no effort... I just woke up each day and went off and running, doing anything and everything under the sun.

Exciting but exhausting. And never any deep comfort, no sustainable sense of purpose. No meaning behind it all. No sense of fulfillment. Just the next thing and the next.

My mental diarrhea went with me no matter where I lived and no matter what I did. It just kept on running. 

Until one day, with the birth of my children, my perspective changed.

I became less consumed with needing to do and was finally able to pause and just be. For once, I fell so completely in love and so overwhelmingly satisfied, holding my precious child in my arms, that my brain fell silent. And I stayed in that moment. And then my brain picked itself up, dusted itself off, and was up and running again in no time. Trying to convince me to speed through life again, trying to distract me from the *being* with lots of *doing.* But this time, my perspective had changed. And I wasn’t so easily fooled. My mind could no longer trick me and steal my time. It couldn’t trap me so easily. I had found evidence of the eternal... the love I felt for my children reminded me instantly of the *great love* that exists in the nature of our souls. Once awakened, I couldn’t go numb from my mind chatter any longer. I was free.

 It has been almost a decade now and I just keep feeling more free and more free. Every single day life reveals to me that the eternal is all around, that to be alive is to be blessed, that just by breathing I am living in a sanctuary. That every moment is a blessing. That I don’t have to *do* anything. Being present and aware has opened my eyes to the blessing of life and the joy of interconnecting with other souls along the way.

With a new emphasis on being thankful where I stand... not where I am going, but where I am RIGHT NOW, my mind feels free and open to possibility.