I’m writing you from my hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona.

I can see blue sky, red tiles, and a fountain.

We’re not in Toto any more, Kansas.

By the time you read this on Friday, I’ll be in a closed-door training intensive with Martha Beck and some of her master coaches.

Ten years ago, when I first got my hands on Martha’s memoir Expecting Adam, I never dreamed that this would happen.

When I read that book I was broke, depressed, and in many ways broken.

My life looks so different now.  Not perfect.  But beautiful.  Rrrrrich.

I hear a lot of self-development-guru-helpful-spiritual-whatever types talk a lot about ease, and manifesting, and attracting.

I’m happy that this works for them.  (Sort of.  Happy in a bitter sort of way.)  If you can believe it, apparently checks magically appear in their mailboxes and their cars fix themselves and their babies change their own diapers.  Plus–Porsches!  Appearing in their driveways!

This has not happened for me.

I still work hard.  Really hard, sometimes.  I’m often wiped out by the end of the day.  I do not float through my days wafting peace and radiance.  So I hesitate to say this, because I don’t want to sound like one more crystal-waving-aura-smelling-energy-talking hypocrite.

Even though I work hard, my days are full of bliss.  In fact, the whole texture of my life– even when I’m exhausted– is toothsome to me.  Sometimes it’s the deep challenging satisfaction of walking a client through a gnarly situation.  I really love that.  But more often it’s the tiny joys I’ve learned to savor: a cup of tea, sparkly earrings, a flash of color, the poetically snarky phrase for my blog.

My point is, you don’t have to dramatically change your whole life, your job, or go to an ashram to have amazing things happen.  Neither do you have to wait for good things to ‘attract’ themselves to you on their own.

I wash dishes, and do laundry, and whine about the same shit everyone does.  AND.  I also feel moved to tears with gratitude almost every single day.

If I could give you just one piece of advice, I’d tell you that filling yourself up deliberately with sensual, visceral, delightful morsels of gratitude is THE quickest, easiest way to shift your reality.  Your joy is a ridiculously powerful energy.

I know all this airy-fairy-true-wealth-bliss stuff might seem like something extraneous, an indulgence you don’t have time for.  But I will tell you (having learned this the hard way, many times) that if you don’t absorb a spiritual lesson the delicious way, it will almost certainly come to you in more aggressive flavors.

Diving into bliss is the most powerful, beautiful way I know to show you how to get stronger.  Engaging bliss is like doing energetic and psychic pushups.

Who knows?  After a few days with Martha maybe I’ll have Porsches magically materializing in my driveway too.  But until then, for us ordinary humans, flawed and glorious as we are, this is the best thing I’ve found.  I really want to share it with you.