Lots of joyful images come to mind when I dwell on the concept of Living Well. Blissful thoughts like riding my bike with my partner in life. Flying our plane on a sunshiny day. Taking the jeep off road for a while. Morning walks with a hummingbird buzzing around. Hiking with friends. A picnic lunch on our deck. Watching some eagles play on the shore. I could go on and on and on. I want to go on and on and on. Little things. Simple things. Moments in time. I want to feel the peace. Exist in the calm. But it’s hard because...life is hard. There’s some kind of pain every day. Sometimes, the source is something small like a dent in my car or a nick in the wall. Sometimes, it's something more like cataracts in my eyes or a broken arm. And sometimes, it's something really big like cancer and the loss of someone I love. Pain. Always pain. Some kind of hurt that maybe, doesn't last very long, or maybe, goes on all day long, or maybe, consumes my life. It can be everywhere, anywhere all of the time like a knife in my side that I can't pull out.

And that's why, I have adopted a principle I like to call: Living Well---a means of moving through life armed with a method to deal with pain that begins with feeling the pain and ends with embracing truth and rising above the suffering. It's a process of acknowledging pain, evaluating its source in a deeply honest way, and learning to manage whatever it is by transforming. By making a change that allows you to live on a much higher plane. "It's a vigil of sorts," I say to myself sometimes, a constant awareness of what's going on inside and a continuous wakefulness with immeasurable purpose and gain. Basically, when something hurts, whether it's in my heart, my mind, or some anatomy part, I pause, examine the source, and try to manage the cause.

In Dancing With Death, it was my broken heart, and I had to dig deep to deal with sickness and death. In A Different Space, the last of my healing series books, it was a combination of my anxious heart and my troubled mind. I was afraid to let go of my past and face a new life. In Aviation Technology Skills, the first of my Living Well books, it's all in my mind. I literally learn how to fly again when I let my ego find its proper place in my life and rise above "Feeling Dumb". Big picture, I transform and transcend using the principle I have now dubbed: Living Well.