As I walked up the trail to the Relaxed Valley Chapel, I relished the quiet of my early morning quietude. After many years as a partaker and helper instructor at Thomas Crum's Journey To Center Program, this attractive and energizing ten-minute hike had become an individual ritual. Each morning of each Journey to Center week, before our respiring and meditation session at seven, I mostly hike to the top of this little mountain to be inspired by the view of a way higher mountain range in the distance. I stare at the 14,000-foot tops, open my arms and breathe, inviting their energy, power, beauty and peace into my being. I contrast their stability and their "just there-ness" with my very own approval-seeking energy, their easy poise with my battling to do the decent thing, and their natural and classy essential nature with my need to appear informed and lovely and focused.

Could I presumably just BE? Like the mountain? There. That turned out to be my practice this year - and I let the mountain be my teacher. Everytime ( well, most times ) that I landed up in trying or approval-seeking mode, I stopped, breathed, and thought about the mountain. Everytime I practiced, I felt my body come back to a cool position, mind clear, my being at rest.

It was like I had been leaning forward - out of myself - hunting for something, somebody, to be O.K. As I presumed of the mountain, I came back to center. Is there a place that helps you return to your own powerful presence? Your requirements are met, you are O.K just the way in which you are. Find it now - in your office, your house, your cubicle.