Hello Hello fellow ECourse Campers! I have been treading water in the Tidal Basin of Chaos for far too long. Once valiantly thought I was going out to learn Surfing the Waves of Change, and ended up just treading water in Chaos! I own that journey, it was mired in loss, grief, massive changes in a small amount of time, life re-evaluation. I never learned the graceful art of Surfing the Grief Waves. But AHA! Small routines, often involving tea and coffee and copious amounts of journal writing and creative writing saved me from undertow currents, rocky shores and shocking but splendid Moves hither than thither in the Grief Waters and Basin of Chaos resulting in discovering blue man-o-wars and jellyfish lurking in the waves! Who worries about sharks when there are those proverbial elusive but sudden shockers, those pain-stributing whoppers lurking about bobbing at your side!

Now I’m on shore, no longer mired in the crashing waves of Chaos. Gratitude has always been a friend– so a daily list of 10 things to be grateful for is a daily ritual. Now that the Waves of Change have washed me ashore to find my way on New Roads of Discovery, New routines, new rituals must emerge. Instead of coffee, I’m switching to green drinks. I am forcing myself to discover new music, read new books. Its time to rediscover who I am as an orphaned adult. It doesn’t make me special, it just makes me human. Still, this too is uncharted territory and I need a new sense of Belonging and Purpose. That’s where this course comes in. This process will too become part of a daily action plan, the ritual of messages, updates, reading others progress, helping with questions, and climbing the rocky terrain of building something Epic, solo- but together.

Laughter Yoga is a daily ritual. Sometimes just in traffic, doing deliberate laughter exercises when Big Truck Man is hounding the bumper, and then laughing at the absurdity of it all, laughing as the Truck passes when the road splits into two lanes, laughing deliberately with laughter yoga exercises still more as we both stop at the same red lights just the same. Other times its laughter with the Laundry, laughter with feeding the dog, or with a friend’s Laughter Yoga structured routine on CD. Laughter for the sake of wellness is required daily in my world.

Note to self — Must keep answers shorter in future. Geepers I did not mean to write a small book as my answer!