My kitchen smells like oatmeal, oranges, and stargazer lilies this morning. The red tulips feed my need for color. The room feels like a warm embraces on this cold snowy morning. Tipping toeing into a day, ahead of the sun and before the house fills with activity lets me slip into my life. Between dawn and daylight, the world is a different place. The edges of things aren’t as hard. That is when I find time to write, paint, and dream.

It has taken decades for me to learn that I’m at my best when my days start this way. I’m crabby when I go too long without solitude. Yes, I love being with friends and family. But those times are unlike these early silent hours. I need both. Like most women, I work to keep the proportions of care divide between other and self. That balance is much easier to find as a grandmother than it was as mom.

Here I am with two of our four granddaughters, Taylor 10 and Reese 4 at a recent family celebration. They’ve entered a world unlike that of my mother’s. When she was born, women couldn’t vote. The women of her era didn’t have a voice in more than the political process. Now our granddaughters have many opportunities and could even have a woman president. Our circumstances vary over time and from one woman to another. But no matter what we face, each of us must answer Mary Oliver’s poetic question. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” ="left"> Whether it’s through individual coaching sessions, workshops, or ongoing groups, I can help you discover what you want to do with your wild and precious life. Partly because of my training but mostly it's because I’ve explored that question with hundreds of women and continued to ask myself that same question. That means doing something that most of us have difficulty doing—focusing on what we want. We have to look inside to find that answer. I’ve learned the truth in what the soft-spoken Eudora Welty said ''for all serious daring starts from within.'' These words are from a woman whose love of writing earned her a Pulitzer Prize. First, we must look into our own hearts and discover our own dreams.

It was a dream that brought me to Spain and finishing my bachelor’s degree there-- a story in itself. Studying abroad isn’t unusual, but I was thirty-six, married and our son and daughter were young teenagers. My husband kept our home running while I was gone for nearly four months. He’d be quick to tell you he had his own adventure doing that. Later I earned a master’s degree—near our home-and for two decades had a private psychotherapy practice. In 1991, I created Daremore Seminars to encourage women to follow their dreams

I know that we each have unique gifts and we won’t be satisfied until we are using them. I love helping women in their own discovery process. That means focusing on what we love and what works. Like Anne La Mott says in Plan B, “you celebrate what works and you take tender care of what doesn’t with lotion, polish, and kindness.”

Honoring dreams changes our lives. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly to other women over the last two decades. It isn’t just that a new business, job, or lifestyle shifts our perspective. No, a willingness to take dreams seriously transforms us. It reflects a belief that our voice, gifts and talents are worth expressing.

It says that we are worth it.

I couldn’t close without introducing our other two granddaughters Eliana 12 I couldn’t close without introducing our other two granddaughters Eliana 12 and Lilly who is 9.