I am incredibly honored that a publication I highly respect, Brain, Child Magazine, has published the essay I performed for the Listen to Your Mother show. People have asked me when the You Tube link will be available. That link will go live some time in the summer. But now you can read the essay on Brain, Child Magazine’s site.

My piece is called “The Blessings of a Botched Piano Recital.” It’s about the tug I feel between hovering over my kids and letting them learn from life without my constant intervention. It’s about learning to see Sam, and all of my kids, as separate individuals with personalities, gifts, and challenges of their own. Oh, and it’s about last year’s really awful piano recital, too.

The photographer who donated her time to the Twin Cities Listen to Your Mother show, Jennifer Liv Photography, took a picture of each cast member and added a quote from our piece to the shot. I’m finally sharing mine below. I hope you’ll also click to read the entire essay and let me know what you think over on Brain, Child’s site.

courtesy Jennifer Liv Photography

One of my favorite genres (though not an “official” literary genre) is the prep school story. I loved A Separate Peace, the Harry Potter series, and the novel Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I’m also a fan of prep school movies and I know I’m not alone. I challenge you to find a thirty-something Jewish woman who, in the early 90s, did not see the movie School Ties starring Brenden Fraser at least ten times. And with the rest of our teen brethren we also rented Dead’s Poet Society and Toy Soldiers more than once.

Read the rest of my recommendation at Great New Books. Win a copy of The Year of the Gadfly simply by leaving a comment. And find out why this was my favorite quote from the novel: “What was I doing here? If being on the inside meant I was trapped, I didn’t want any part of it.”

I met writing coach Rochelle Melander, author of today’s post, when I won a 30-minute consultation with her on Christi Craig’s blog. This is the magic of the blogging world. Because of course by “met” I mean there were blog comments, then email, then a phone conversation. I was inspired by my short conversation with Rochelle and I was even more inspired by the ideas she’s sharing with all of us today about living our best possible lives.

Please welcome Rochelle!

How to Imagine the Best Possible Life by Rochelle Melander   

One summer, a friend brought me a wonderful gift: four bulbs from her mother’s garden. She helped me figure out where to plant the flowers. I anticipated seeing them emerge the next spring but my friend cautioned me: it might take more than one year for the bulbs to take root and flower. Still, their presence gave me hope.

In January, while I was still curled up on the couch, drinking wine and whining about the weather, my gardening friends were pouring over their seed catalogs and envisioning their gardens. As they looked out at piles of snow, they saw rows of vegetables, brightly blooming flowers, and butterflies flitting from bud to bud. I saw piles of snow. I knew my bulbs were there, hibernating. But with all the snow, I could not imagine what else I might plant in my tiny yard.

Just like the gardener, we must imagine our future selves before we can create them. Once we get a sense of what we’d like our future to look like, we can make plans for today—what pieces of our life to weed, to plant, and to let lie fallow. In several studies, researchers have discovered that imagining our future life by writing about our best possible future self improves moods, health, and ability to set and achieve goals. I’ve used this exercise with many clients and writing classes over the years, and I’ve seen it transform their lives. Like a gardener with a seed catalog and a sketchbook, the exercise gives us the ability to draft out the details of our happily ever after.

Try this:

1. Choose a point in the future: six months, a year, or five years from now.

2. Write a detailed vision of your life at that future point, imagining that you have worked hard and everything has gone well. Write in the present tense, using sensory details. Write about every area of your life—not just your job. Think about your living environment, what you wear, how you exercise, the foods you prepare and eat, and the people you connect with.

If you get stuck, try these brain-freeing ideas:

+ Instead of simply journaling about your best possible future self, write an article about yourself from your child’s point of view, create an acceptance speech for a coveted award, or do a visual profile of yourself.

+Do the exercise away from home. It’s hard to see the seeds for your beautiful future when you are staring at piles of dirty laundry and unpaid bills. Go to the art museum, a coffee shop or library and write there. You will be able to think bigger, more creative thoughts away from home.

+Try the exercise more than once. (In the original study, participants did the exercise four times.) I found that the first time I tried this exercise, I experienced the same difficulty I had with imagining my garden. I was so tethered to the present that I could not vision the future. The second time I did the exercise, my tether was a bit looser. Each try brought bigger dreams. As I worked at the vision my description of my best possible life became more detailed.

Finally, and most importantly: have fun! Play with your vision.

About the author. Rochelle Melander is an author, speaker, and certified professional coach who visions regularly while sitting on her porch in Milwaukee, WI. She is the author of ten books, including Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (and Live to Tell About It). Rochelle teaches professionals how to write good books fast, use writing to transform their lives, navigate the publishing world, and get published! For more tips and a complementary download of the first two chapters of Write-A-Thon, visit her online at www.writenowcoach.com

Resource: Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How to increase and sustain positive emotion: the effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves. Journal of Positive Psychology, 1, 73-82.

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In other news, I’m excited to announce the two winners of last week’s Haute Barre giveaway. Using randompicker.com (and with Bryan standing over me while I entered the names and clicked the “draw” button), I saw the names Samantha and Jill pop up on my screen. Samantha and Jill, I will send your email addresses to Amber, the owner of Haute Barre, who will contact you with all the details. Thank you, Amber, for giving me the chance to share my barre love with my readers!