Today, I have Jan­ice Lynne Lundy here, shar­ing a story of beauty and love.

Jan is an author, speaker, retreat leader, and spir­i­tual direc­tor.  She also writes deeply mean­ing­ful arti­cles at her two blogs, Awake Is Good and Awak­ened Liv­ing.  When I first con­nected with Jan, I was drawn into the hon­est and car­ing space she has cre­ated in her writ­ing.  Stop by for a visit, and you too will feel the warmth of being in her presence. 

As Jan and I talked over the last cou­ple of months, she indi­cated she had a spe­cial story she would like to share.  Today, that story is a gift I am hon­ored to share here.

Jan will be tak­ing us back to an ear­lier time in her life, and how a very spe­cial gen­tle­man gave her a beau­ti­ful gift — the gift of his time and car­ing.  This is a won­der­ful story of how we can all touch another person’s life through our car­ing and love.  Please read along, as Jan shares:
 

Frank and Me:  A Legacy of Men­tor­ing
  

  “I’ve learned that peo­ple will for­get what you said, peo­ple will for­get what you did, but peo­ple will never for­get how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou

It was the early 1990s and I was the mother of three small chil­dren, earn­ing a part-time liv­ing as a rep for a direct sales com­pany. I enjoyed my work, shar­ing an excep­tional line of self-esteem based prod­ucts to par­ents, teach­ers, and counselors.

It was at our annual con­ven­tion in Salt Lake City that I met Frank, the men­tor who would change my life. This is his story—and mine—and how I came to know the impor­tance of reach­ing out and help­ing oth­ers through mentoring.

Actu­ally, I never met Frank at the con­ven­tion that year. I saw him from a dis­tance, an ener­getic and affa­ble con­sul­tant they’d brought in to fire up the sales reps. Rumor had it that he was a retired multi-millionaire, hav­ing started, or bought and sold ten com­pa­nies. He didn’t need this gig as a con­sul­tant; he was doing it for the pure plea­sure of it, and as a favor to the owners.

I also heard he was cherry pick­ing reps, work­ing with them one-on-one to improve their sales. The thought ter­ri­fied me. With three kids, a mul­ti­tude of house­hold and vol­un­teer duties, I sure didn’t want some­one breath­ing down my neck to urge me to do more than I was already doing.

I remem­ber the day all that changed. The phone rang, I answered it, and a voice boomed, “Hi, Jan, it’s Frank ____, from the con­ven­tion. Have you got a minute?”

I was imme­di­ately struck with feel­ings of ter­ror. I did not want to talk to this man; I did not want to per­form bet­ter or achieve sales goals. But for what­ever reason—now it’s known to be Divine Prov­i­dence — I said, sure, I had a minute.

“I’d like to men­tor you,” he announced. He went on to explain how he would do this and what would be involved on my part. Actu­ally, it all sounded pretty good, more sup­port­ive than scary, but I was still puz­zled. Why had he honed in on me? So, I asked him.

“Jan,” he replied, “I see some­thing in you that you don’t even see in your­self. I’d like to help make that pic­ture a real­ity.” I was intrigued so I agreed, hes­i­tantly, and we were off. Thus, began the men­tor­ing rela­tion­ship that changed my life, a rela­tion­ship that, in time, steered my own life path toward mentoring.

Frank called me every week for one year, on his dime. He told me what books to read, what tapes to lis­ten to (no CDs then!). We started with Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, and my eyes were opened. What sem­i­nars to attend—Tony Rob­bins, Dan Kennedy, Denis Wait­ley, and my world shifted a bit more. Frank taught me how to moti­vate myself; to set daily, weekly and monthly goals in all areas of my life, though we focused pri­mar­ily on income, work per­for­mance, and another of his pas­sions, health. He taught me how to visu­al­ize and manifest.

Soon, my goals were being met, income was ris­ing, and my self-esteem was off the charts. At the next annual con­ven­tion, my efforts were rec­og­nized. I’d made it into the Top 10 in the nation in sales. And, within months, Frank had me train­ing other reps at regional con­ven­tions. Before I knew it, I was a full fledged per­sonal and pro­fes­sional growth speaker and trainer.

And then the day came, a day I will never for­get. Frank called me for our usual weekly phone con­fer­ence, but this time, his tone was dif­fer­ent. Seri­ous, quiet.

“Jan,” he said, “this is the last time you’ll be hear­ing from me. Our time together is done. You’ve done a great job and I couldn’t be prouder.” My heart sank. Tears filled my eyes. I had come to deeply love this man. As a men­tor, he’d accepted me as me, some­thing I’d rarely expe­ri­enced with oth­ers. He gave of him­self in such unselfish ways. When I failed or expe­ri­enced self-doubt, he was there to encour­age. He looked for the light within me and helped fan it to flame. I had grown by leaps and bounds under Frank’s tutelage.

I couldn’t believe our rela­tion­ship was over. Surely, we’d be in touch? “Nope,” he said, “but I will be in touch one way, because I know, beyond a doubt, that some­day I will be lis­ten­ing to your tapes and read­ing your books. (With that pro­nounce­ment, I remem­ber think­ing to myself, ‘Ridiculous.’)

“Now, I need you to do some­thing for me. I need you to do the same thing for oth­ers as I’ve done with you. That’s what life is all about, you see.” With that invi­ta­tion, Frank said good­bye. I never heard from him again.

Though I did try to con­tact him, I never imag­ined myself an author, so when I did write my first book in 1998, I sent Frank a copy. No response. I sent him a let­ter, just want­ing to touch bases; to thank him for all that he’d done for me. Noth­ing. It was true, he was not reach­able. All I had were mem­o­ries, and Frank’s voice echo­ing in my head remind­ing me to do for oth­ers what he had done for me.

And so I have. In 2000, I ded­i­cated myself to men­tor­ing oth­ers, though the form was dif­fer­ent than Frank’s. It was focused on the spir­i­tual. Via a for­mal, three-year train­ing pro­gram, I found my way beyond Zig, Tony, and Og to Meis­ter Eck­hart, Rumi, and Teresa of Avila; to Jesus and Bud­dha and beyond.

To men­tor, to offer myself in sup­port of the life path of another has been a pro­found expe­ri­ence, even beyond teach­ing or writ­ing. To see a spark of the Divine in each per­son and help fan it to flame; to encour­age him or her to see their innate beauty and light, what joy!

This, I believe, is what we all must do for one another, espe­cially now, with the world being what it is. In this piv­otal time when so many are suf­fer­ing or con­fused; anx­ious or depressed; weary or over­whelmed, we can men­tor. Offer an out­stretched hand, a lis­ten­ing ear, an affirm­ing blog response, a phone call or hand­writ­ten note of encour­age­ment. In what­ever way you do it best, bear wit­ness to another’s heart and lend a piece of your own. Be a sup­port­ive presence.

I pass the baton, today, from Frank, through me to you. Men­tor. Men­tor with all your heart. Will you accept?

Who crossed your path today? To whom can you give a kind word, a gen­tle touch, pock­ets of your time? Every­one wants to be val­i­dated, val­ued, and under­stood. Will you accept my invi­ta­tion and men­tor some­one? Frank would be really happy. I will be, too.

Spe­cial Note:  Jan has gra­ciously offered to give away one copy of her recent book, Your Truest Self: Embrac­ing the Woman You Are Meant to Be, to one lucky win­ner.  Alter­na­tively, if you would rather have one of her ear­lier books, they are avail­able also:  Awak­en­ing the Spirit Within or Per­fect Love.

Win­ner will be cho­sen at ran­dom, from the com­ments below, on Sat­ur­day, Decem­ber 12^th.  (Edit Decem­ber 12, 2009:  Win­ner is Erin Prais-Hintz.  Con­grat­u­la­tions Erin!)

Learn more about Jan Lundy, her pro­grams, books, and spir­i­tual men­tor­ing at her web­site: awakenedliving.com. She blogs there, and at awakeisgood.com.

While I’m out of town for a few days, I have Evita Ochel here shar­ing some of her beau­ti­ful writ­ing.  Evita is very won­der­ful friend and the author of three blogs, including:

Evolv­ing Beings
Evolv­ing Well­ness
Evolv­ing Scenes

I’ve known Evita since early on when I started this site.  In that time, I’ve come to love and appre­ci­ate her deeply thought­ful and intro­spec­tive soul.  And she’s about the kind­est and most car­ing per­son I know — her heart is filled with a deep and car­ing com­pas­sion.   Much of what she writes about is about get­ting to our own truths, and con­nect­ing with that core within us.  And she does this in a way that feels right and okay, no mat­ter what path our life is on. 

Really, I see this as a spe­cial gift she has, in how she can draw upon her expe­ri­ences, and have her read­ers take some­thing from that which is deeply mean­ing­ful to them.  Evita has a beau­ti­ful way of help­ing us to con­nect more per­son­ally with our own souls.  And that is a great place to visit!

You can keep up with Evita by sub­scrib­ing to her blog, and fol­low­ing her on Twit­ter.

Please enjoy the won­der­ful writ­ing Evita shares in…

Fol­low­ing The Bliss­ful Brick Road

photo credit: Ren­nett Stowe

“Fol­low your bliss and the uni­verse will open doors where there were only walls. “ ~ Joseph Campbell

 We all have moments that chal­lenge us.  Some of those moments can chal­lenge us deep within our core.  And it’s in those moments,  hav­ing a rock to lean on — what­ever that “rock” is for each of us — can be the some­thing that helps pull us through. 

Today I am hon­ored to have Peggy Nolan, from Serendip­ity Smiles, here as she talks about some of the adver­si­ties she’s had in her life, and how deeply con­nect­ing her yoga rou­tine was for her dur­ing those dark days. 

One of the chal­lenges Peggy has faced was breast can­cer.  Today she talks about that and more, and how yoga has been a source of com­fort and heal­ing through it all.

Please read and be inspired, as Peggy so beau­ti­fully writes about…

Find­ing My Yoga

 
photo credit: B Mully

“Adver­sity is like a strong wind.  It tears away from us all but the things that can­not be torn, so that we see our­selves as we really are.” ~ Arthur Golden, Mem­oirs of a Geisha

The frigid Jan­u­ary night I kicked my ex-husband out, my yoga mat took a beat­ing with­out com­plaint.  She absorbed the fire from my feet, the sweat from my body, and the tears from my heart.  She rooted me like a tree while the tor­nado of his deceit swirled around me.  Stand­ing on my right leg with my left foot tucked inside my right thigh, I lifted my heart and my arms upward toward the sky.  I had learned how to breathe through four months of rage, anger, and emo­tional upheaval.  My yoga mat gen­tly held me in child pose as night after night, I wept my pain away.  She bore wit­ness to my dis­cov­ery that the imper­ma­nence of ever after is no dif­fer­ent than the imper­ma­nence of each breath.  Let­ting go of my nine­teen year mar­riage and life as I knew it was not easy but I learned to un-cling myself from the past and live my life forward.

In hero pose I let my yoga mat help teach me to be still in my anger.  Sit­ting with my right knee wrapped around my left knee and both feet flexed out­wards I rounded my spine as I bowed my fore­head to my top knee.  I learned how to rec­og­nize my anger, accept it, to imag­ine hold­ing it the palm of my hand and gen­tly blow­ing it away with each exha­la­tion.  At first my ex hus­band was the object of my anger — a speck of dust that I’d visu­al­ize blow­ing away with my breath.  But as I unpeeled my anger I learned who I was really angry with — my self.  I did every­thing I could to save a mar­riage irrepara­bly dam­aged by my ex husband’s dou­ble life and in doing so, I com­pro­mised my self, my daugh­ters, my val­ues, my prin­ci­ples and my own dreams and aspirations.

Grap­pling with a pro­found sad­ness, I let my yoga mat con­vince me to take flight in eagle pose. Twist­ing my right arm over left with my palms touch­ing each other while wrap­ping my left leg around my right leg I could feel the return of my inde­pen­dence.  Bal­anced in this pos­ture, I often imag­ined myself fly­ing tri­umphantly out of Sal­vador Dali’s “Dis­in­te­gra­tion of the Per­sis­tence of Mem­ory.” I could see myself stand­ing in the mid­dle of the paint­ing sur­vey­ing the loss of time as it melted off the clock. I could see the shat­tered world I was afraid to leave.  I knew this frac­tured mis­er­able world — for years I had deter­mined to keep my fam­ily together no mat­ter what.

When I dis­cov­ered that “no mat­ter what” came at the expense of my own self-respect, I decided that a leap off the can­vas of dev­as­ta­tion into the great unknown was the best option.  I learned that when I made deci­sions that were right for me they were also right for my daughters…even if they didn’t see it at the time.

Yoga helped teach me to be my self with­out some­one else defin­ing who I was.  I mended frac­tured rela­tion­ships with peo­ple in my fam­ily and friends that my ex didn’t like.  I made choices that were right for me, like sell­ing the house my daugh­ters and I lived in and buy­ing some­thing smaller and eas­ier to man­age.  Through my divorce yoga taught me to con­nect my body with my mind and my spirit.  In doing so, I found my inter­nal spring of love, hope and grat­i­tude from which my soul is immea­sur­ably replen­ished and nur­tured.  This dis­cov­ery came not a moment too soon because five short months after my divorce was final and one year to the day after my ex hus­band and I began our dis­en­tan­gle­ment, I was diag­nosed with breast cancer.

While I needed the stead­fast strength of my friends, my fam­ily, and espe­cially my father, it was the lov­ing soli­tude of my yoga mat that I craved.  Breath­ing into the pow­er­ful war­rior poses I’d watch the ques­tions as they entered my mind: “Who am I when I no longer am who I was?” “What am I sup­posed to be doing?”  “Am I on the right path?”  “What am I sup­posed to be learn­ing right now?”  In between breaths, I’d lis­ten for the answers. 

While the answers didn’t come right away, I began to learn patience.  I became more aware of my thoughts and how my thoughts affected my cir­cum­stances.  In order to face breast can­cer I cleaned out the remain­ing neg­a­tive skele­tons from the far reaches of my mind and I decided to face this dis­ease the only way I knew how — with grat­i­tude and a deep appre­ci­a­tion for being alive.

Four days after my first surgery to remove a three-inch clus­ter of non-invasive can­cer cells, my yoga mat hugged me close as I lay uncom­fort­ably belly down. Poses that were once sim­ple, like cobra, bow, and air­plane now pre­sented a phys­i­cal chal­lenge that I couldn’t just bull­doze my way through.  Lift­ing my shoul­ders off the floor for the first phase of cobra pose, some­thing I could eas­ily do just a week before was an incred­i­bly painful chal­lenge.  Lay­ing face down on my yoga mat, I know I heard her laugh as I learned to be hum­bled by the power that resides in not doing.  After my doc­tor called with the results of the first surgery, I real­ized that I’d be doing a lot of not doing on my yoga mat.

My doc­tor started with the bad news first.  Pathol­ogy deter­mined the can­cer to be inva­sive as well and that it had spread to my lymph sys­tem.  The good news, she told me, was that this was all treat­able with surgery and chemother­apy.  I would lose my breast and in return I’d most likely go on liv­ing for another 40 or so years.

Nine days after hav­ing a mas­tec­tomy, I unfurled my yoga mat in the stu­dio. 
Sur­prised, well mean­ing friends asked me what I was doing back so soon after surgery.  My yoga mat didn’t ques­tion me for she under­stood why.  She knew I needed to be there and move my body — to see what worked and what didn’t work.   The com­pas­sion of my blue sticky mat sup­ported me, cra­dled me, and kept me safe.  While I couldn’t do down­ward fac­ing dog I could and did mod­ify the pose and was the only one in class mas­ter­ing the fine art of the one armed down dog.

Through chemother­apy, my yoga mat hung onto me.  Qui­etly coax­ing what lit­tle my body could give she made me dig deep and helped me dis­cover the place within myself where the Divine resides and where I am at peace.  I bat­tled with lone­li­ness — and can­cer is a very lonely dis­ease — only to uncover that by accept­ing my lone­li­ness I found a free­dom and lib­er­a­tion that trans­formed my per­spec­tive on liv­ing my own life.  Lay­ing in shavasana, or dead man’s pose, my arms and legs stretched out in relax­ation, I found that my some­day is now and now is all I have.

Dur­ing radi­a­tion ther­apy my yoga mat wel­comed back my energy and strength. 
I put her through the paces often dou­bling up on Mon­day nights and doing back-to-back classes.  One hun­dred and eighty min­utes of yoga to which my friends thought I was nuts but my yoga mat knew I was catch­ing up on some long over due work.  Plank, side plank, chat­terunga, up dog, down dog, back to plank.  I’d repeat the series until I heard the white lotus blos­soms whis­per, “less is more.”

Two months after I fin­ished treat­ment and one year after I was diag­nosed, the com­pany I worked for laid off my entire group.  The day after I lost my job I sat in a twist on my yoga mat try­ing to fig­ure out how I was going to deal with one daugh­ter in col­lege, the other in high school, recon­struc­tive surgery, health ben­e­fits, the mort­gage, and still put food on the table.  With sur­pris­ing force­ful­ness I heard her say, “another sil­ver lin­ing.”  I untwisted myself and felt an amaz­ing release. 

After all I’ve been through I now saw that los­ing my job was an oppor­tu­nity to change direc­tion. Inspired by my favorite TS Elliot quote, “If you are unwill­ing to impose your own terms upon life, then you must be will­ing to accept what life offers you,” I knew it was time to impose my own terms upon life.  I rene­go­ti­ated a bet­ter sev­er­ance pack­age; I found a new posi­tion within days but took a six-week break from the insan­ity of cor­po­rate Amer­ica; I went on vaca­tion; I started writ­ing again; and with a clean bill of health from my doc­tors, I became a breast can­cer thriver.

Oil and sweat from my feet and hands have left indeli­ble marks on my blue sticky yoga mat.  My toes have worn out spots — all those lunges and war­rior poses — and my yoga mat is crum­bling where I ground down with the balls of my feet.   My mat has car­ried me through three major life-altering events in less than three years: divorce, breast can­cer and los­ing a job.  I can count on my yoga prac­tice to be there, unfail­ing and sup­port­ive of the parts that are all of me.

The answers I seek through my yoga prac­tice are open ended.  I’m no longer plagued by the sense of loss of who I was because I haven’t really lost who I was — she’s with me as I cre­ate a new vision of who I am.  I believe that the Uni­verse is unfold­ing exactly as She should and I’m stand­ing in the mid­dle of my own unfold­ing.  Root­ing down into my yoga mat, I stand in God­dess pose com­pletely recep­tive to my own inner strength, courage, and wisdom.

About Peggy Nolan
Peggy Nolan is a free­lance writer, breast can­cer sur­vivor and cer­ti­fied yoga teacher liv­ing in Derry, NH.  Peggy is the author of two blogs, Serendip­ity Smiles and The Stepmom’s Tool Box, and is pas­sion­ate about help­ing oth­ers help themselves.