Author's Preface

I have been writing to you for years it seems. But maybe I have just been writing to me. They say that the book writes the author. It’s been about eight years in the writing and re-writing, to be exact. The message is so important to me that I wanted to get the words clear enough for them to mean something to you. And perhaps I needed the time to write and re-write what I was learning so that I could fully integrate it in my own life.

Yes, I have made all of the mistakes that people can make, and then some! They were good lessons disguised as mistakes. While I have taken every growth course I could find, it seems I have still lived my life by trial and error. Sometimes it feels as if I am starring in my own soap opera –  As I Live and Learn.

It’s a bold step for me to launch a book called Cultivate Contentment, as I am not a Sally Sunshine type of person. I am rather intense with a sun in Sagittarius, Aries rising and a moon in Virgo, which gives me a fiery personality and a dose of perfectionism to orchestrate. I always see what needs to be made better and strive for excellence. Yet, over the years, I have learned to consciously cultivate contentment as I ride through lifes challenges and become less resistant to the bumps and potholes.

In these times of current economic uncertainty, we are all experiencing more stress and anxiety. It is as if America is like the phoenix rising from the ashes. First, we had that feeling of safety ripped out from under us by the terrorism of 9/11. Then we had the comfort of our never-ending credit and earning power threatened by economic uncertainty.

If there ever was a time, this is the time to focus on steadying ourselves from within and maintaining our own individual sense of core strength. While we are all aiming to practice the law of attraction, we need the foundation of a set of core values to accomplish our goals. We need to have our integrity intact to manifest what we want.

I have a solid core of values that guide me like a lighthouse through the dark or challenging moments. It is these values, gleaned from the wisdom of ancient Yoga sages, that I feel it is my legacy to share with you. Whenever I tell someone what I am writing about, the response is always an ah-ha of agreement that we do need a return to values.

The principles I am highlighting in this book are not at all new. It is the way that I am presenting them that is unique. I am offering them to you as a way to review your life up to this point in time, clear out the past with compassionate forgiveness, and start living these principles newly to cultivate greater contentment in your life moment by moment, day by day.

I am publishing this book because I am so sure that it will help people thrive. In some workshops I have attended in India, the teacher would start with a prayer that the content be nourishing and that peace prevail.  Thus, I turn these words over to you with a prayer that you will find them nourishing and they will contribute to greater peace in your life.