Each Day Is a New Creation: Guidelines on Living a Life of Purpose

Copyright © 2012 by Kathleen Stephany.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6405-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6406-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-6407-4 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922223

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Balboa Press rev. date: 01/02/13

CONTENTS

About The Author

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Live Your Life with Purpose

Part 1: Begin and End Your Day in Gratitude and Prayer

Part 2: The Awakening

Part 3: Live in the Present

Part 4: Your Life Is Your Calling

Part 5: Happiness Begins on the Inside

Part 6: Gratitude Is the Key to Joy

Chapter 2: Live with Passion

Part 1: Appreciate the Wonder of Nature

Part 2: The Garden I Call Home

Part 3: For the Love of Good Food

Part 4: The Joy of Reading

Part 5: Celebrate What Is Beautiful

Part 6: Live Life with Fervor

Chapter 3: Improve Your Relationships

Part 1: The Importance of Human Touch

Part 2: The Joy of Being a Parent

Part 3: Acting Out Is a Desperate Cry for Help

Part 4: Everyone Doesn’t Have to Like You

Part 5: You Are Not Upset for the Reason You Think

Part 6: Say What You Need to Say

Chapter 4: Embrace Change and Move Forward

Part 1: Accept Change

Part 2: Your Attitude Is Everything

Part 3: The Power of Our Words

Part 4: Make the Law of Attraction Work for You

Part 5: Reach for the Stars

Part 6: The Gift of Humor

Chapter 5: Face Life’s Challenges with Courage

Part 1: Change the Negative into Something Positive

Part 2: How to Survive a Crisis

Part 3: Give Yourself Permission to Grieve

Part 4: Have the Courage to Heal from the Past

Part 5: Replace Hatred and Guilt with Forgiveness

Part 6: Lend Another Person Some of Your Hope

Part 7: Reach Out for Help from Your Creator

Chapter 6: Make Compassion, Kindness, and Love Priorities

Part 1: Look for the Good in Others

Part 2: Be Kind

Part 3: The Meaning of Compassion

Part 4: How Love Is Able to Transform

Part 5: Love with All Your Heart

Part 6: Be a Peacemaker

Part 7: Your Life Is Your Story

Notes

Other books by Kathleen Stephany:

Honour Yourself: Inspiring Lessons to Enrich Your Life

The Ethic of Care: A Moral Compass for Canadian Nursing Practice

To our beloved Angelika Bucek, the woman who spent her life in loving service to her family.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Kathleen Stephany, PhD, is a registered nurse and psychologist. Kathleen has experience as a critical care nurse, coroner, psychiatric nurse clinician, therapist, and inspirational speaker. Currently Kathleen is employed full-time as a nurse educator in a bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program. She teaches courses in applied nursing ethics, mental health, addictions, and therapeutic communication. When she is not teaching or writing, Kathleen enjoys cooking for friends and family, and she loves to spend time in her beautiful garden. Kathleen and her husband, Harold, live in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia.

PREFACE

The aim of this book is to inspire you to live your life with purpose and passion; to assist you in improving your relationships; to help you to face life’s challenges with a sense of courage and hope; and to make compassion, kindness, and love a priority. At the onset of this endeavor, I did not have a title that aligned with what I set out to accomplish. One bright summer evening my husband and I were invited to dinner at Karen and John Buckley’s house. While seated at their dinner table, I looked up at their kitchen wall and saw a beautiful plaque that read, Each Day Is a New Creation. I knew that would be the perfect title for this book.

The pages of this book are organized in the form of reflections and narratives. All of the stories are derived from my own life and my encounters with wonderful people whose paths have so miraculously connected with mine. I draw from a repertoire of experience in my role as a registered nurse, psychologist, coroner, therapist, teacher, wife, mother, daughter, and friend. In order to protect the privacy of the people who do not want their identities revealed, names have been either changed or omitted. Many subtle details in the stories have also been altered. The themes in this book are not meant to be prescriptive. They are intended to stimulate within you a desire to live a more fulfilling life. Some of the subject matter in chapters overlaps, just as the themes of our everyday life often do. At the end of every subsection of each chapter are suggested exercises. The exercises are intended to help you apply the ideas you’ve decided are valuable. It is up to you whether you do them or skip over them, but I highly recommend that you consider doing at least some of them. The crucial point is to enjoy the journey.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the Creator of all that is for inspiring me to put my thoughts onto paper. I thank my beloved husband, Harold; my children, Nathan, Connie, Kent, and Kim; and all of my amazing friends. Thank you for your unyielding encouragement, love, and humor. I am also grateful to Balboa Press and Hay House for the wonderful opportunity to publish this book.

CHAPTER 1:

Live Your Life with Purpose

I believe that it is an inherent human longing to experience joy and to have a sense that our time here on Earth matters somehow. Therefore, chapter 1 focuses on the importance of living your life with purpose by encouraging you to begin and end each day with reverence and prayer. Living in the here and now is more fulfilling than dwelling on the past or merely setting goals for the future. You will be challenged to view your whole life, rather than just your career, as your true calling and to realize that happiness cannot come from things but must begin on the inside. Also, cultivating gratitude is a means to experiencing more fulfillment and joy.

Part 1: Begin and End Your Day in Gratitude and Prayer

People say that what we’re seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that is what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will resonate with our own inner most being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell, Inspirational Author¹

To give life a deeper sense of purpose and meaning, I highly recommend that you begin and end your day with gratitude and prayer. It sets the tone for the day and helps you to focus on what is most important. Every morning, I say a prayer filled with thankfulness to our Creator. The prayer that I recite was adapted from Marianne Williamson’s wonderful book Illuminata: A Return to Prayer.² My personal prayer is short and easy to remember.

My Dear Creator, thank you for this brand new day. Today I ask that I may be set free from any mistakes I may have made yesterday. May I start today with a fresh beginning. Help me to become more like you and to shine your light, love, and forgiveness on everyone that I meet. Amen.

The notion that I can pray for freedom from any errors I made the day before brings me hope. The fact that the past is history and that it no longer has a hold on me gives me great relief. Yesterday, I may not have lived up to my expectations of what I wanted to achieve, or perhaps I said something I regretted saying or did something that was less than loving. Yet, because I am free from yesterday’s shortcomings, I can begin again and try to do better. I can endeavor to make amends where I have caused harm.

To be set free from yesterday’s actions does not mean that there are no consequences to those actions. Consequences can be our best teacher if we allow them to be. Those consequences demonstrate to us what does not work and also can steer us in the direction of positive change. I have a saying: There is no such thing as error. The only error is not to have learned something from what transpired. My husband and I tried our best to teach our children through consequences, and for the most part, it worked. If they broke something deliberately, they paid for the item out of their mediocre allowance. If they made a decision that got them into trouble, we allowed the repercussions of their choice to teach them how not to behave. One of our teenage boys lent his car to a friend when he was at a party. His friend drove his car while drunk and got into an accident. Luckily no one was injured or killed, but the car was very badly damaged. The insurance company wouldn’t pay for the vehicle repairs because the person who drove the car had been impaired, and my son, the owner, had been aware of that when he gave his friend the keys. It was a painful lesson for our son but one that he would never repeat again.

As we taught our children the importance of taking responsibility for their actions, we were also careful to emphasize that every person has value. People are not bad; they sometimes just make less than favorable choices. The good news is that people can improve their behavior if they really want to. In A Course in Miracles, the Foundation for Inner Peace teaches us that every mistake is a call for love.³

To ask for a fresh start is more than a plea to be forgiven for what happened the day before. I am also petitioning my Creator that the transgressions of yesterday be forgotten, as if they never occurred. That is the meaning of true forgiveness and freedom. I also accept that if we can ask our Creator to forgive us and if we in turn forgive ourselves for our mistakes, we will be more willing to pardon others’ mistakes.

To be like our divine Creator, we must commit to emanating the light of love to everyone around us and to refrain from judging them. Being judgmental closes us off from whomever we criticize. Instead, we should practice the opposite of judgment, unconditional love, which is a crucial part of our eternal calling. If I love you unconditionally, I love you even when you fail to meet my expectations or when you have made a mistake. I love you in spite of your shortcomings. I love you no matter what you have done.

Greeting each day as a new creation is closely aligned with experiencing life with purpose. Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning, and if you possess a sense of purpose, you greet your day with anticipation. The opposite is also true. When one’s life is void of purpose, the rest of the day appears bleak. Often, people who suffer from depression have lost their zest for life, and it sometimes falls to us to help them rediscover it. As part of their clinical experience, my nursing students spend time caring for patients who suffer from mental illness. Little acts of kindness like listening to their patients’ stories, teaching them new life skills, and spending time playing cards or doing puzzles with them is a way of connecting with patients and helping them to heal. To see the light of expectation reappear in the eyes of someone who previously seemed hopeless and shrouded in despair is a gentle display of magic.

Another magic thing about each day being a new creation is that