Nancy Oelklaus - Simple Serenity: Finding Joy in Your Life

Advance Praise for Simple Serenity

In the seemingly ceaseless cacophony of life today this book reminds us that the necessary grounding of mind, body and spirit is possible when we take the time to contemplate what really matters: the nurturing energy of insight that flows from within.

Sometimes it takes a sage guide to lead us through the distractions of our daily lives: Nancys book of meditative insights takes us where we need to go to stay the course of life on lifes terms.

William Moyers, VP Public Affairs and Community Relations, Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, author of Broken, Now What?, and A New Day, A New Life.

What Nancy Oelklaus has given us in this book is not only razor sharp check-ins for our personal life but also powerful insights for how to start our day over when we are out of sorts. If I can be so bold, this lady disappears within these pages so that Universal Truths might shine through with purity and simplicity. This treasure will make a good platform for a book study group.

Albert Clayton Gaulden, author of Signs and Wonders and Youre Not Who You Think You Are

I edited this book for the publisher while running an online positive psychology course. In that course, I use two of my own books as references: students are required to read a specific section from one or another before a session, and another after. While working through Simple Serenity, I have realized that I could use it equally well as the textbook. Everything within it is the wisdom of the ages, and everything within it has been demonstrated as effective through research on positive psychology.

Bob Rich, author, From Depression to Contentment

Peace. Serenity. Throughout the ages, great spiritual teachers have offered us these pathways to survival in a world troubled, grieving, and afraid. In this same tradition, Nancy Oelklaus shares her personal journey to quiet places in the heart. In language both beautiful and simple, she gently guides the reader into shifts in perspective, out of storms and into safe havens. Out of exhaustion and anxiety into balance and gratitude. Out of unrest into loving mindfulness. Simple Serenity, a soft light of hope and inspiration, is to be read and re-read. Oelklaus is more than a teacher. She is a wise friend and a comfort. A treasure.

Helen Delaney, author of The Messenger: The Improbable Story of a Grieving Mother and a Spirit Guide

Dr. Nancy, as Ive always known herfirst my client, later hers, and ultimately, trusted colleagues. Great friends from the beginning. It hit hard when I learned of her plans to leave Texas. Initially, a sense of loss, until she began blogging her Journey from Head to Heart. I read every one. Shared widely to fellow seekers. Often responded to her gracious invitation to express myselfand always received a thoughtful reply. Now, the Simple Serenity meditation collection! Will savor her inspirational wisdom going forwardfrom head to heart.

Lucky Lindy Segall, Fredericksburg, Texas

I have been on my intentional spiritual trek for almost 40 years of the 78 years that I have been blessed to live. I have chosen this life because the world has been such a challenging place to live as an African American woman. My heart and soul knew that there had to be another way, while still honoring my gratitude for being a Black woman in America.

Living in fear of injustice and prejudice was the way of the world for people of color. It has been very challenging to grow to love who I am with confidence, grace, humility, and gratitude. I found this fear-based reality in everything and everywhere I lived and traveled in the USA. But, in the serene nature of Sedonas Red Rock Country, I was able to refocus and gain a stronger sense of myself as a Black woman and as a spiritual person. And, after over 20 years of being in Sedona, I realized that I had learned many of the lessons that Nancy puts before us in Simple Serenity, and I could leave and take these lessons of the Red Rocks with me.

I realized that the dichotomy of life shows us both sides of the coin always if we can stop, be still, and reflect on what is actually before us. I have come to understand and know that EVERY single experience is a lesson. I believe that is the big lesson that Nancy is calling us to consider both sides of the big questions that LIFE puts before us. Which will we choose? I believe that she is calling us to live our life for the HIGHEST GOOD. Sit in the stillness and consider SIMPLE SERENITY for your life every single day.

Sarah Payne Naylor, author of Crossing Rough Waters: A Journey from Fear to Freedom and COVID-19 TOOLKIT: Mindfully Manage Stress and Anxiety.

Simple Serenity: Finding Joy in Your Life

Copyright 2022 by Nancy Oelklaus. All Rights Reserved

Learn more at www.NancyOelklaus.com

ISBN 978-1-61599-663-6 paperback

ISBN 978-1-61599-664-3 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-61599-665-0 eBook

Loving Healing Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Bertrams Books (UK/EU), New Leaf Distributing (USA).

Audiobook edition available from Audible.com and iTunes

Dedication

In Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town, the character Emily, from her afterlife, says, "Oh, Earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live itevery, every minute?

This morning as I journal, a gentle snow is falling. Looking out at the white beauty, my whole being fills with amazed gratitude. In this moment, I am realizing life while I live it.

This book is for those who want to join me and for my sister Carolyn in her afterlife.

Foreword

Once in a lifetime, if you are very lucky, you may meet a special person who seems to have been put in your path to magnify the moments that make you feel alive. These individuals elevate the ordinary and sanctify the mundane with the lightest touch, and a bemusing smile. Somehow, you are gently invited to open up your heart to recollections of your own that have been long forgotten, shut away from the light in the recesses of dismissal, minimization, and forgetfulness. Such a person is the author of Simple Serenity, my dear friend, Nancy Oelklaus.

In this beautiful book, Nancy shows generosity of spirit as she shares with us perspectives she has allowed to develop within herself over years of living courageously, sweetly, and boldly. From the Dedication onward, Nancy extends to us a personal invitation not only to retrace the magical moments of discovery along her life journey, but also to reconsider our own unique pathways and their lessons for us. For Nancy, prose becomes poetry, and the reader is entrusted with reading between the lines.

Jan Ford Mustin, Ph.D., Psychologist

Peak Performance Institute,

A Professional Corporation

Welcoming Serenity

I was third in line at the grocery checkout. The woman in the middle was complaining, to no one in particular, about Sedona. I hate this place, she said. I cant wait to get out of here, and Im moving tomorrow.

The woman first in line turned around with a bit of a smile. In Sedona, we say that the energy we bring into this place gets amplified.

But many people coming to Sedona expect a miracle and are disappointed that one doesnt materialize.

My husband Harlan and I moved to Sedona, Arizona, in June of 2005, after a month-long vacation the January before. We simply fell in love with the Village of Oak Creek, and before we left to go back home to Austin, Texas, we had bought a house.