True joy is an amazingly unselfish spiritual gift. Joy begets a light heart, plenty of energy, resourcefulness, and the longing to help others find joy. Thanks to the spirit and work movement, I’ve thoroughly learned how to distill joy out of any task, even when reality also includes sorrow, grief or other honest emotions.

Now, thanks to the new movie “Julie and Julia”, my full joy is back in cooking, eating, and sharing food with others. That may not be my paid work, but it sure affects all my paid work and dealings with money. Plus, I’ve got a whole new pair of role models for persisting in any vision around work and money.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Role Model for Any Challenge

In case you missed it, “Julie and Julia” refers to a hot new movie starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Julie is Julie Powell, who recuperated from the daily drudge of an often thankless job by cooking her heart out after work.

Julia Child is the legendary author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which for 50 years has brought a lot more joy into many American kitchens through her book and her PBS tv shows.

Both women sought purpose; both found it around food. Julie’s decision to cook her way through all 524 recipes in Julia’s cookbook and blog about it became a lively journey that intertwines her story and Julia’s. Like any great story, its essence is about all the things the characters learn and the new gifts they wrestle out of themselves in the process of living zestfully. Then there is the essence we can create for ourselves as we allow the story to become an ingredient in our lives.

“Julie and Julia” are loaded with lessons for the kitchen of any soul:

1.    Start with what you love. Whether looking for a new career or an answer to a puzzling problem, start with what you care about most, and give it love all the way. Do it with gusto, not drudgery, even when the task itself is difficult.

2.    Know and stay true to  your own standards. Somewhere inside, you know what really matters to you. Consider the wisdom and perspective of others and let them guide you, not rule you.

3.     Work with allies, not alone. Be an ally to others and find all the family, friends, and other companions you need to cheer you on, provide feedback, keep you honest, call out the best in you, and celebrate or cry with you. And when you’re being unkind in any way to those allies, fess up!

4.   Don’t limit your allies to people you encounter in the flesh. Julie met Julia only through her writings, her cookbooks and her TV shows. Yet, “without you here,” wrote Julie, “I would be a different persons — a smaller, a sadder, a more frightened person.”

5.   Don’t look for perfection in yourself, your allies and friends, your role models. Julie described Julia as a flawed woman of enormous energy and a great teacher who was funny, generous, and confident. … That’s what I love about her – she inspired because she was a woman, not a saint.”

6. Follow “the thirst to keep finding out, the openness to experience that makes life worth living. … [be willing to dive] into the next possible disaster…”

Dealing with food is a huge part of our lives and work — paid or unpaid. If God hadn’t meant us to enjoy it, why are there so many good things to eat?

The movie took me back to the joy of being in the kitchen with my mother, who used recipes primarily as a springboard for her own creativity. During our 13 years together she taught me to be fearless in the kitchen. I can only imagine what she could have done if had she lived past 1956, when the ethnic food explosion and cooking shows like Julia Child’s came into being.

I came out of “Julie and Julia” convinced that the only way I’ll deal with my own food-related issues is not just to cut the carbs and the wrong fats, but also to savor every morsel. After all, food that is savored digests better. Food that is digested sends out signals of enough and fills the body with more energy for a workout.

There are so many more food issues to explore around money and work, like the whole issues of organic and free-range versus factory-grown and depleted soil, and why the concept of fair trade is growing. Because these matter so much to me, I welcome your insights around them them.

But right now, whatever’s on your plate literally or figuratively, Bon Appetit!

As always, many blessings and come again real soon,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

“A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe,” says Wayne Dyer, author of many practical spiritual books.  That’s true whether you’re dealing with work, money, or personal issues. Fortunately, the same skills and attitudes that help us stay centered in our personal and spiritual life are also applicable to all practical, worldly challenges.

A recent health scare led Kim Weichel to the following reflections on staying centered:

Staying centered when things are going well is often not difficult, yet the real challenge is to stay centered when your world suddenly changes, when fear strikes, when chaos reigns, or something potentially terrible happens.

Several weeks ago I was drying off from a cold shower on a hot, humid night in Washington DC, when I suddenly felt a lump on the outside of my right breast. I froze, prayed it was my imagination, but to my horror felt it again. And again.

Terror quickly enveloped what had been an otherwise delightful evening. Might this be cancer, given my family’s history with cancer? How far along was it? Would I feel pain?

I fought back tears and decided not to say anything to my husband for fear that I was overreacting. I also hoped the lump would disappear by morning.

Moving from off-center to centered is usually a process, not a one-time transformation with no back-sliding.

As I got in bed I took some deep breaths and focused on how grateful I was for my great health these 57 years, and calmed myself down knowing that whatever happened I would be OK.

Still, I awoke many times that night in a deep sweat. What if I only had a few years to live? How would my life change? So many questions without answers.

The next morning I wanted to call my doctor, yet we had just moved to the Washington area and were not yet members of our new health plan. I swallowed hard and knew I needed to be patient and wait until we were accepted. Weeks went by.

There’s no better opportunity for some spiritual growth than uncertainty.

We all have challenging moments. How we handle them is the real test of character. I’m blessed with many years of training and practice in centering and other spiritual disciplines. So, each day I had to wait, I prayed and focused on all that I had going for me. I visualized the lump disappearing. Each day felt special.

Still, concerns crept in, sometimes in the middle of the night. I practiced recognizing them, acknowledging them, and then saying a prayer. That helped me to let it go.

Finally our new health plan was in place. I prayed again before going to my new doctor and did some deep centering work again in the waiting lounge. I felt deeply held in God’s grace. Though the lump turned out to be just a benign cyst, I knew that I could meet gracefully whatever happened.

Here are some tools that can help you stay centered in any challenge.

1) Prayer: Prayer will help you get off the fear or stress treadmill and into a space where you can hear the quiet voice of wisdom within. Prayer is a very powerful healer for mental and physical ills. Studies have suggested that people who are spiritual seem to heal faster or cope with illness more effectively than do the non-spiritual.

2) Gratitude: This practice increases happiness because it reminds us of all that is working in our lives. It does not deny the difficulties of life, but it’s always helpful to switch our focus (like changing TV stations) from our fear or scarcity channel to our gratitude channel.

3) Visualization: Visualization is more than just faith, and it’s been used effectively by athletes, entrepreneurs and spiritual leaders. When you visualize, and believe in what you are doing, healing takes place. You see how to deal with challenges and manifest your work, life and money dreams.

You might ponder the following questions about your faith and ability to stay centered:

What pulls you off track?

What works for you to get back on track?

How can you remain centered during the challenging times?

What support do you need?

May you remain centered and grow from your tough times,

Kimberly Weichel

Kimberly Weichel is a social pioneer, educator, author and specialist in global communications, leadership and peacebuilding. She is co-author of “Healing the Heart of the World” and director of the Institute for Peacebuilding. www.kimweichel.org.

Have you ever dreamed of flourishing financially, no matter what happens in the economy?

Does it matter that you flourish with integrity in all its meanings–whole, honest, naturally ethical, true to your own values and in harmony with the rest of the world?

Do you want to meet all financial challenges–from emergencies to long-range planning–with wisdom, not panic?

If these questions speak to you, then I invite you to join a 30-day money challenge:

• Every day for 30 days, set aside 10-30 minutes to discover how you can earn, save, invest and share your money with more integrity, purpose and joy.
• Every day, act more from your deepest guidance about money.
• Every day, take small steps to anchor your personal economy in money sanity, money harmony, and money consciousness.
• Every day, share a portion of your increase with others in a way that empowers them to create money sanity, harmony and consciousness.

At the end of this challenge, I hope we’ll all have a richer relationship with money, measured in spiritual, emotional and financial terms. I believe that participating in this challenge can support us in creating an economy that works better for all.

This 30-day challenge was birthed during a meditation at the November 2008 meeting of the Spirit and Work Resource Center at Unity of Berkeley in Berkeley, California. A few of us have now begun meditating and/or dialoguing about money every day. I’ve started this blog to share my thoughts about money for 30 days, as often as I can. Sometimes colleagues and friends will add their thoughts.

Your comments are welcome here with some simple caveats: no direct requests for money or a job; no stock tips, specific job leads or network marketing opportunity; and no putting down of another’s thoughts. Do speak from your heart and your own experience.

Feel free to join in the challenge at any time, maybe starting with the oldest post and working your way forward. Take as long as you wish to work with each post, and feel free to bring your friends into the dialogue.

What will happen to this blog after the 30 days? I don’t know yet. But I do know that taking on any challenge is a lot easier and more satisfying when people take it on together. That includes common dialogue, sharing tips or inspiration, and encouraging each other to do the things that we can only do ourselves.

Your action today and every day of this challenge, if you so choose: Spend some time alone, thinking and praying about your relationship to money. In your journal, note your insights and understandings. If you receive guidance, write it down. As you discern what is right for you, follow that guidance until you are clearly called to go in another direction.

Talk with other people who are interested in exploring their relationship to money. And start reading, listening to and watching wise people. Here are some recent words from Bill Moyers:

“[Our] self-correcting faculty, even in the darkest hours, is the best thing we have going for us. That and the knowledge that nothing we face in the months ahead is more than was asked of our parents and grandparents in war and depression.

“This giant of a country is bleeding badly from savage self-inflicted wounds, but what happens next is still our story to write. We can be thankful for that.”

Finally, be sure to bless your money journey every day. Here’s my blessing for this moment:

May everything I do to earn, save, spend or invest money be done for the highest, deepest and broadest good. May I always be grateful for the gifts of learning and growing, even when times are tough.

Come back real soon with your own insights and inspiration,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

p.s. To comment, click on the word “comment” below.