"It's Your Life, Make it Work!"

When it comes to that four-letter word (WORK), we could all use a nudge in the right direction. Especially when we want to find a meaningful job (or better yet, a vocation), in this murky economy.

Life coach Clare Harlow, MSW, is here to pull you through the tough times while keeping you focused on finding your dream career.

With over ten years of experience in business, health care and non-profit organizations, as well as in fundraising and volunteer training, Clare's life goal is to help you fulfill yours. After just minutes of speaking to her, you'll feel a whole lot better about whatever employment (or unemployment) situation you're facing.

Clare offers personal and group coaching as well as classes and workshops on Career and Life Planning, Communication Skills, Stress or Time Management, and People Reading using the DiSC Personality Profile. 

Her six-week, small-group teleclass currently costs about $197, with an optional six-week follow-up for $120. Visit her Web site for more information or email her at clarehl@juno.com.

Zap Stress Now

Previously, on The Delicious Life, I wrote: 

Sometimes, when we hear someone say "stress," our skin begins to tingle. Imagine the Wicked Witch of the West repeating this onomatopoetic word with her half-snarl, half-smile and arched eyebrows. She wriggles her gnarly green fingers at you. "Stressssss, stresssss, stresssss," she says, her upper lip curled and touching the tip of her unmistakeable aquiline nose.

Bearing the same surname as the ever-popular Medicine Woman, licensed naturopathic physician Dr. Diana Christoff Quinn is here to help you (and me) melt that stress witch for good. No water required.

The current president of the Michigan Association of Naturopathic Physicians and member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Dr. Quinn has her own practice in Ann Arbor, MI, called Naturopathic Women's HealthCare. 

Dr Quinn says:

We all have stress in our lives, and often there is little we can do to decrease the stress load we face on a daily basis. Yet it is imperative to create space and time to decompress from the stress that builds up in the body and mind, as holding on to these tensions can quite literally make us sick. Below is a simple relaxation exercise to help let go of the stress of the day. Also helpful are meditation, guided imagery or visualization exercises, and journaling to emotionally 'decongest.' 

Here are her tips for banishing daily anxiety. Try them before work, on your lunch break, when you get home in the evening or any time you need to refresh your mind and body.

Progressive Relaxation

Take about 15-20 minutes to do this basic but essential relaxation exercise every day, or when you feel tension in your body and mind.

Deep abdominal breathing: lying on your back, rest your hands on your belly. Take deep, regular breaths so that your hands move up and down with your belly with each breath. Take a moment to regulate your breathing so the out-breath is a beat or two longer than the in-breath.

Starting with your feet, clench your muscles tightly and hold for 30 seconds. Then relax the muscles, exhaling deeply while letting go of the tension in your body. Progressively clench and relax the following muscle groups:

Feet

Calves

Thighs and buttocks

Abdomen

Arms and shoulders

Neck and face

Finish the exercise with a deep abdominal breath.

For more information about Dr. Diana Christoff Quinn as well as her practices, visit her Web site:

www.naturopathicwomenshealthcare.com.

Be well!

Gulp & Go

"If you hold on tight to what you think is your thing you may find you're missing all the rest." ~Dave Matthews Band, "Best of What's Around"

When I was younger, my mother, a hospital technologist famous for in-depth dinner conversations about gastrointestinal procedures, would often serve up the saga of my birth along with pork chops and potatoes: "In the womb she almost strangled herself with her umbilical cord...she wouldn't let go," she'd say.

As much as I wanted to bury my face in the salad and hide my head in the peas, I can't help but think how my life brims with symbolism; how I wanted out before giving the daylight a try. How I held on so tightly to the thing that connected me to Ma, afraid to let myself breathe on my own. 

Yup. You guessed it. I've done a lot of holding on...and a lot of choking. But you can't really taste life when it's stuck in your throat or clamshelled between your sweaty palms.

Holding on: I didn't give up the baby bottle until my fourth birthday. After Ma begged me, I slowly, reluctantly lowered it into the trash. I let the rubber nipple slip through my stubborn little fingers. Bye bye, ba ba. I did it, but the process was like dipping my toe in a pool of lava.

Choking: When I was ten, I won the fourth grade spelling bee and qualified for the local competition. My fear of screwing up felt like thousands of tiny red ants crawling through my veins. I told my friend to take my place. 

Can you spell q-u-i-t-t-e-r? I can. 

I'm young, but I've already skipped a LOT of fun events and missed a lot of opportunities because I was afraid of looking like an idiot or failing while trying. Sometimes, I still have to force myself to unwrap those same stubborn fingers from the situation and let it slide away.   

If you're like me, you'll pace around your apartment with the object in your hand (the thought in your mind) before you can finally come to terms with chucking it in the trash and walking out the door to enjoy the rest of your day. But, like I learned in one of my journalism classes, you've got to "gulp & go;" you force yourself to do the thing you fear. The first time, you feel the lump in your throat. The second time you do it, it starts to break up and fizz away like an Alka Seltzer tablet. And you do feel better fast.

Maybe your "thing" is a fear, obsession or false self-identity you've clung to for years. Whatever it is, now's the time to write it down or draw a picture of it (think kindergarten here!) and let it dissolve like sidewalk chalk in the rain.

Wisdom, Please!

(Photo Courtesy of Rachel Snyder's Blog, rachelsnyder.wordpress.com)

For every letter of the alphabet, there's a word to sate your hunger for hope. 

My junior year as an undergrad, I found Rachel Snyder's Words of Wisdom for Women at Barnes & Noble. Unlike the oodles of banal self-help books that elicit the eye-rolling reflex, this one genuinely stops you amid life's chaos. It forces you to smile. It helps you to breathe. 

A woman who reports selling shoelaces in her local shopping mall, Snyder ties humanity to divinity by lacing this lexicon-of-the-soul with thought-provoking phrases. Each page brims with honest, simple-yet-challenging metaphors and meditations to guide you through the day.

Words of Wisdom is an active approach to life's obstacle course, or labyrinth...or however you picture it. Snyder gives us no excuses. If we hit a wall, she tells us to turn around and find another way out. What have I learned? When in doubt, act out. I mean that, of course, in the most positive sense.

Here's a sample page:

Sift

Imagine all the possibilities of your life in one large, glorious pile. Now start sifting. Painstakingly examine each grain, each morsel. Do you want it? Need it? Does it serve you? Decide what stays, what goes, what gets folded in together. Sift slowly and mindfully. It may take months or years. Or your entire life. Once you've sifted things into neat piles, start the process all over again. Sift and resift, sift and resift. Wheat from chaff, sand from jewels, truth from illusion. Let the insignificant details fall through to the ground, leaving what's solid, what matters, behind.

Visit Snyder's Blog: http://rachelsnyder.wordpress.com

This is a great gift for a friend or for you. The book sells for about $7.95 at Barnes & Noble. You can find it for less on Amazon.com. 

Enjoy & Be Well!

Holly