Time to fly to Durant OKLAHOMA

Good Thursday to everyone and everything! As a cold front moves into Florida I am on my way to Tampa International Airport to board American Airlines for the friendly skies and bound for Durant Oklahoma! I will then be hosted by a remarkable woman there; she has lived in her city for most of her life and decided that it was past time to organize a seminar for all those who are in the business of caring for others. She has worked and worked for months to pull this event together, with passion and purpose as she single handedly managed to get the ear of counselors, health care, hospice, caregiver organizations, Police Departments, Fire Departments, those in the front lines and Universities alike. She feels strongly about the caregivers and those who forget to take best care of self along the way. She has found that many just "don't know what they don't know" and others feel that they are doing fine just fine in the ways that they have always done. Yet she continued on her path, and has folks ready to spend a day in refueling their passion and their desire to take better care of themselves in what they do for a living along with those who care for and about loved ones in communities. It often takes only one person with a fire, a passion to extend that light to another and before you know it, the town and community burn brighter than ever before and those who stand somehow stand closer and tighter together, while being open to receive life and its many gifts. It doesn't really matter who lit the first match, it matters more that the compassion is extended in ways before unimagined by faith in each step along the way!

 Yes I am being welcomed to Durant Oklahoma by a bright light, a woman I call Osh, and who has just amazed me in her faith, her commitment to her community and her desire to make things better for people. A woman who sees a need and doesn't know the word "quit" as she continues to spread the word of self-care and hope in the world of so many along each day with determination and sheer grit. A light so bright that she has indeed gone places in spirit and in travels there that tickle me to life as she talks about the need for a seminar on Compassion Fatigue for those who care for others. I will enter Choctaw Nation with honor and reverence, and it will be a joyful experience to gather with so many of such diverse backgrounds and places of work, with life experiences and those who have walked the walk that only they know.  Through tears, fears, heartaches and stories that they do or do not move through them, we will gather at a Vo Tech Center for a day that will be uplifting, educating, and I feel certain I will learn more than I provide to others as I meet and share a space with those from Texas and Choctaw Nation. I am honored to have been asked to join with nurses, first responders, students, teachers, LPC's, social workers, counselors, PT/OT, physicians, front line workers, food service workers, case workers, child protective staff, Women's services, Empower, the Mayor of Durant, caregivers, folks from the Big 5 Organization, and so many others. It will be a day of authentic gathering with the hope that folks leave better than they came, perhaps walking a bit lighter, their shoulders a bit more relaxed, their heart a bit lighter, and they will have been as glad to spend the day with me as I know I will be to have had the opportunity to be with all of them.
And for that I give thanks, and so it is!

 May you have a wonderful week, a joyful time of knowing that each step is the best step leading to the next step of wonderment along the path as you track the sun across the sky.

 May you walk in Beauty
DRSES
Oklahoma bound!