Karen Casey - Living Long, Living Passionately: 75 (and Counting) Ways to Bring Peace and Purpose to Your Life

Each Day A New Beginning

The Promise of a New Day

Worthy of Love

If Only I Could Quit

Some Days

In God's Care

A Life of My Own

A Woman's Spirit

Daily Meditation for Practicing the Course

Keepers of the Wisdom

Girls Only

Girl to Girl

The Miracle of Sponsorship

Each Day Journal Book

Fearless Relationships

Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow

All We Have Is All We Need

Be Who You Want to Be

Codependence and the Power of Detachment

It's Up to You

Cultivating Hope

Serenity

Let Go Now

My Story to Yours

Peace a Day at a Time

Getting Unstuck

The Good Stuff from Growing Up in a Dysfunctional Family

This edition first published in 2015 by Conari Press, an imprint of
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2015 by Karen Casey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-654-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.

Cover design by Jim Warner

Cover rose photograph Kristo Gothard Hunor / Shutterstock

Cover runner photograph Halfpoint / Shutterstock

Interior by Jane Hagaman

Typeset in Minion Pro

Printed in the United States of America

M&G

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Use this book as your guide and inspiration. Have a notebook or journal dedicated to the exercises you choose to do from this book. Take the book at your own pacespend as much or as little time as you want to spend with any one topic. You can either go through from start to finish or skip around as topics appeal to your needs and interests.

Explore fear and love, resistance and acceptance, willpower and discernment. Bring peace into your daily life. This is a book to return to again and again. Savor each of the seventy-five essays and the practices that follow it. Choose the ones that speak to you and discard the rest.

The gift of a somewhat retired life is having the time to fully appreciate the power of now, the power of nothingness. Which is, of course, the power of everythingness. This is a space I'm growing into in these days and weeks, hopefully months and years too, since turning seventy-five. Everythingnesswhat a glorious doorway to the unfolding of a life already well lived, and yet one that is ripe for far more living.

Since the age of thirteen, I have been employed. I have also been an alcoholic since that age. Until now, I had not considered that parallel in my life. Does the alcoholism in fact complement the work life? I think it did for me. The drink was quite often the reward for work well done. As I aged, the alcohol also fueled the act of working. Seldom did I grade papers, develop strategic plans, or study for exams without a glass of Jack Daniel's by my side. It eased the transition between thoughts and words on the page. It eased all the years it took to become a PhD.

Throughout the journey from drink number one to the celebration of thirty-eight years of abstinence, I passed through many portals of life, and seldom did I take the time to breathe, pause, and breathe again. I simply rushed by the events, the people, the inclinations to make choice A rather than choice B. I had never considered the idea that what caught my attention had been sent from on high.

Today, my faith is a thread that I have busily knit into the tapestry that is mine, and only mine. Knitting and breathing and pausing I know to be my main assignments. I say assignment because that word implies a necessary act. The act of breathing is, of course, mandatory for us all. The gift of pausing is an act to be cultivated, daily, hourly, even minute by minute. Cultivated not unlike the garden of vegetables we hover over after planting, pulling the hungry weeds stealing the moisture away from the roots feeding the carrots and the lettuce and the ruby red tomatoes. And knitting? Well, knitting the myriad threads is done automatically. By you, by me, by every creature of the forests and the streams.

The many flowers along the side of one's house scream for our attention in the midst of the breathing and pausing that have become our work, as the years draw us into the future moments, moments that have our names indelibly etched on them. Having these future moments call me to attention is one of the rewards of a life well lived, a life that has learned to be willing to listen for the next invitation, a life that knows there were no accidents along the way and none will follow me into the future.

My certainty that the divine has always been the creator of the appointments I have been inclined to make and keep has, in its way, given me the confidence coupled with the willingness to breathe, pause, and breathe again at this time, at this age, with these people who share my journey. Life is a long time from being over, but it's also mandatory, from my current perspective, to take the time to breathe, pause, and breathe again while the mood is still calling me. Can you allow it to call to you too?

A pause is a suspension of activity, a time of temporary disengagement when we are no longer moving toward any goal...

Tara Brach

Right now, before reading any further, take a few moments to yourself to breathe, pause, and breathe again. Sit alone in a room that comforts you. Sit quietly. Close your eyes. Enjoy the moment.

1. Upon awaking from this silence, what thoughts come first to mind? Share these thoughts in your journal.

2. What most pleases you about this exercise? Share this thought in your journal too.

3. Will you set aside time to repeat this tomorrow? Why or why not?

I began the practice of stepping aside only after years of stepping into business that was clearly not my own. I had mistakenly assumed that helping others make their decisions was an important calling. It showed them I cared. It was my way of remaining important to them. Or so I thought...

From childhood on, I had virtually always felt on the edge of abandonment. By girlfriends. By boyfriends. By husbands. Thus, I felt the constant pull to live in the middle of everyone else's life. That way they couldn't forget about me. They couldn't go off, leaving me behind, the way Marcia, my best friend in the sixth grade, left me behind when she chose to ride her bike with Mary after school rather than waiting for me to join them. It stung. It happened again and again. And I carried the fear that would continue to define my life well into my thirties.