As I read through my gazillion newsfeeds each day, I search for that one little nugget of wisdom that just knocks me down. You know, the story that stops your in your tracks and has you feeling breathless and almost sick from the insight it provides.

Today I found such brilliance in an article that chronicles what elderly people regret looking back at their lives — they regret worrying.

This story is filled with recollections of times they worried and yet all that energy didn’t affect the outcome. So with the wisdom of age, they can now see how fruitless much of their worry and angst was. One of my favorite examples was of a priest who found himself emotionally wounded, and asked his superior how to let go.  The elder priest told him to “just let it be.”  The younger priest tried that and admitted that it didn’t work at first, but in T I M E, he found acceptance through the repetition of those words.

I often feel this way — I dismiss advice to seek calm because I assume it can’t possibly snuff out my worry. And yet if I keep going to the calm center, things are easier. It might not happen immediately (and rarely does) but the practice of seeking calm over time can ease future stressful events. It sets you up to conquer that cycle of worry better and faster as you practice. Meditation is one way to accomplish this, and I can now see that you don’t need to do all that much of it in order to feel the change (I’m a part-time meditator at best — so believe!).

I take this to heart today because although I’m not elderly, I have been reflecting on my time off work this past year. And I see how much of myself I poured into worrying — trying to stave off all things that would show up to disrupt my perfect little haven. And for what? All I did was take away some of the joy of not working.

Picture yourself as a respected elder giving the interview to a journalist  – imagine what you would say as you look back on today and decide not to worry, decide to just let go.

One of the great myths about mindfulness in the workplace is that many people think it’s about just floating through one’s day, often with the goal of getting by. It conjures up images of ne’er-do-well slackers or social butterflies. Well, I’m here to tell you, that assumption couldn’t be more wrong.

Mindfulness is all about being present — being fully engaged in what you are doing and paying attention to your work and tasks.

But it’s not easy to bring focus into our frenzied lives. Our American culture has created and perpetuated the myth that in order to be productive, we must do many things at once — juggling tasks constantly, and keeping ourselves over scheduled to fit it all in. Somehow, we came to define success, in particular career success, as doing more, and doing it nearly all the time now that technology has found its way into our personal lives as well.

Yet, there’s a big secret… I can be incredibly mindful and be working quite diligently, with great focus and engagement. I’m working very hard in this state, and I’m being quite productive, meeting deadlines and getting the important things executed. I feel calm when in this state of work, flow and creativity. This is one of the great by-products of mindfulness; this calm, confident state enables me to be a better leader, a better collaborator.

For anyone who thinks being mindful means skating by, floating through, or chillin’ out … I can relate because I used to be just like you. I sneered at the notion that doing something so radically different from my “give-it-110%-and-add-some-elbow-grease” work ethic could improve my life. But now that I know and appreciate the power of mindfulness and focus at work, I laugh about how wrong I was!

So if you’re looking to float through your day, you will have to look elsewhere. But if you’re looking to tap into your brilliance and excitement at work, try learning more about mindfulness.

Our lives can get more complicated as we grow into the middle of our adulthood. Jobs and/or unemployment concerns, economic challenges, children and caregiving, and health concerns for ourselves and perhaps for our aging parents… just writing this here can make me feel anxious.

During my time off work this past year, I decided to take a more active role in understanding my stress, and its roots in neuroscience. This led me down a path of self-exploration, one where I became more educated on mindfulness, gratitude, and the mind-body connection.  I came to realize the importance of finding mindful moments throughout my day, of really being fully entrenched in whatever I was feeling or doing. And accepting it, even when the circumstances weren’t so lovely.

April is National Stress Awareness Month. While there are hundreds of sites devoted to de-stressing our lives, sometimes I find the simplest ones are those that help us digest it into small steps — like this article on 10 important scientific discoveries about how stress affects us, and how to combat it.

And as a lifelong striver/achiever myself, I caution you; don’t feel compelled to “do” all the tips recommended. Focus on one that resonates with you and try to work it into your day. Just like a good joke or a best friend can lighten even the darkest of moods, a peaceful moment can alleviate caustic stress. You think it won’t, and it might not have an immediate impact. But consistency over time does make a difference — the more often you accept what is, the easier future bumps in the road of life will feel.

While I still get challenged by the crazy stresses of my life, I have noticed a greater sense of calm when faced with things like an unexpected health condition or my longtime nemesis, stress over money and security. Although I might not always start out calm, I usually end up there, after I simply let go of the outcome.  I owe this to mindfulness and meditation.

Here’s to less stress, and more fulfillment and joy!

Everyone seems to believe (mistakenly) that California has beach weather all year round. I think people believe that we walk around in sandals and barefeet all year, with short sleeves and shorts, basking in the sunshine.  Well I’m here to tell you, it just ain’t so.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we can get some cold weather.  No, not as bad as other areas of the country but we typically see morning lows into the low 40s/high 30s and our daytime temps might not climb out of the high 50s. The saving grace is that we often have sunshine. But it’s still cold.

This past winter was particularly cold. In my 25+ years of living here in Silicon Valley, I don’t ever remember a winter with so many mornings hovering near the freezing mark. I watched my two dogs slide across our backyard deck numerous times on their morning outing, both caught unaware of the slippery frost that covered their beloved playground. I even lost plants, something that so rarely happens here.

And now that spring has sprung, and our weather has made its turn towards that lovely temperate zone of the 70s, I kicked off my Uggs (that have kept me so dearly warm and cozy these last 5 months) and realized that my feet look a little worse for wear. Okay, worse than that… they look neglected and feel sluggish.

But I’m not going to stress about:

(1) That my coveted black Uggs created a grayish stain on my big toenail. Why they dye the inside of these black is beyond me when they could keep it natural off-white and we could avoid this side effect.

(2) My need for a pedicure (to cover up the gray tinge). Yes, it would be lovely but it’s not on my priority list right now.

So, celebrate with happy feet; feet that are overjoyed to feel the warm sun and bust out into the spring fashions and strut their stuff. Our feet carry us through so much in our lives that I’m grateful for the ability to walk each day and not have anything worse than a temporary gray toenail.

You may recall I made a pledge to write each day about something I was going to NOT stress about. My March mantra was to do this daily, and in the process I was sure to shed some of those striving habits that can sometimes weigh us down. I vowed to write about “what not to stress about.”

My last post here was 11 days ago… oh well! Life got in the way with workload, travel, and allergies (a 3-day pollen haze). I refuse to feel that I didn’t live up to my own expectations, or that I failed at meeting my goal. Because really, what difference did it make?

My advice for what not to stress about today is the compulsion to do things because “you should.” We can spend an awful lot of energy doing things that aren’t always necessary. And while you might think “what harm comes of doing these tasks,” the reality is that the more you force yourself to do things “you should,” the more likely you will berate yourself when faced with not doing them. That just sets you up for perfectionism and, ultimately failure. Because no one can do everything “you should” all the time.  Impossible.

So today, abandon your thoughts about what “you should” do and simply do the things that are most important. Choose wisely, with care and thought, about things that actually need to get done. Then do them without judgment, and follow with some activities that bring you joy.