Happy Sunday my GOLDEN friend !

I joined the 60’s Club on Nov. 9!

It’s been a whirlwind week+ since my husband and kids surprised me with dinner and a slumber party, yet I’m still flying high from the experience. I had spent a quiet birthday, thinking that we would be celebrating later, during Thanksgiving when we would all be together. I admit, I felt a little bit sad by the end of my Big Day. The next day, my husband Tom said he wanted to take me to my favorite Mexican restaurant in Dallas, just the two of us. 

Well. I walked in and nearly fell over to see my son Grayson, who had flown in from Denver, and my two daughters Lauren and Meghan sitting at our table. EVERYONE had kept the secret perfectly and I did not have a clue that “The Original Five” would spend the evening together!

We went back to our house and had a slumber party with movies and popcorn. Then we went to our rooms and slept in the beds we slept in so long ago, when they were my young children, and it was as if time had granted me a gift that sparkled in the moonlight and caught my breath with its beauty.

This is us, plus Willa our littlest grand baby.

It was all surreal and wonderful. It made crossing the Rubicon of 60 feel like a rite of passage, a way forward into a decade that has seemed so formidable.

I tried to finish this email last week, but simply didn’t have the words to express the tenderness in my heart for my family, my children. They made such an effort to make this special for me, and I will not ever forget the feeling of being carried, of being loved, and…of unexpectedly leaning in to this new season.

Lean In.

It’s a term that’s been such a big part of my message as a writer and a creative coach. Leaning In is one of the four pillars of my work, the engine that carries action forward and creates something out of nothing.

Leaning In accepts what is imperfect and is willing to work toward perfecting your craft, deepening your knowledge, and strengthening your abilities.

Leaning In establishes routines and practices that allow you to shift and grow and become.

This is what I want to do in my sixties.

But along with Leaning In, I’m finding that you must also Let Go—and this decade offers a chance to do just that.

Let Go.

Let go of petty opinions and limiting beliefs that keep you stuck.

Let Go of perfectionism and its impossible standards.

Let Go of what you can’t control.

Letting Go means releasing the disappointments over what you think you “should have” accomplished by now but didn’t. 

Letting Go means releasing yourself to the flow of your life—the river that has carried you to TODAY. That river is a Divine Hand that has kept you, protected you, pushed you, pulled you, held you.

My friend, you are held. Even when you don’t feel it or see it.

You are here today, just so I can tell you this:

Lean in, and let go.

You see, life happens to all of us. But we get to choose what we’ll lean into and what we’ll let go of. 

Let’s pinky-promise to lean into the good stuff and let all the rest of it go.

Here’s to sixty.

With love, 

PS Thank you for all the birthday wishes, emails, comments and texts! You made me feel so happy… and I am grateful!

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