A Special Announcement

Dear Readers,

Please pardon me while I alter the usual format to make an unusual announcement. Before I do that I want to start by thanking you all for your support of last Friday’s post. It has been and continues to be heavily shared on social media and understandably so. Hopefully it can be a part of the positive force that helps change our world into a more open and accepting place, and certainly one that is more supportive of women.

Regardless of your gender I would also like to thank you for your ongoing readership. It is a pleasure each day to sit down at my desk to write to you all. My genuine love for others is what makes that process such a joyful act of creation and that love always extends to each and every one of you every day regardless of your history or your present situation.

As I often write, understanding the principles contained in my work does lead to increased happiness. That said, that does not happen by discovering greater happiness, rather it occurs as a result of our being more open and accepting to everything, including pain. Suffering is mental and thought-based and that we can do something about, but despite our best efforts every life will contain pain and that is just the yin and yang of it. The only way I can impart this to you is if I am able to be an example of it myself.

I fully expect my own situation will greatly inform my writing going forward but the simple fact remains that my current circumstances will necessarily prevent me from being able to work on the blog for a couple of weeks. This blog is written as you see it, so these will literally be the first days off I’ll have taken since I started the blog four years ago.

The reasons behind this are all good: I am blessed to have had incredible parents. As incredible as they are they have for some time required more of my attention than my life has actually had room for and attempting to keep up has been running me ragged for some time. As the bulk of the population ages I’m sure this is happening to many of you as well. This being the case I will use these next two weeks to invest myself in getting both them and me set up in a way where I can provide them more easily with my permanent ongoing care. They looked after me, it is now my turn to look after them and I am pleased to be able to provide them with that safety and comfort.

During this time I do appreciate your patience. I know some of you visit a few times a month and read ten posts in a row (and that can still be done via my archives), but I also know there are those who like to start each day with a touchstone for mental and spiritual health and to those of you I would also encourage you to utilise the archives. Even if it was a post you’ve read before, you’ll be a different reader now and it would not at all be unusual for you to find completely new insights within it. In that way you can treat the posts like Richard Bach’s Messiah’s Handbook, wherein any post/page you open will be perfect for you provided you earnestly believe it is and then look for why.

I’ll miss all of you and I am already excited by the idea of my return on September 6th. I will relish that feeling knowing it is the other side of the same coin that makes the blog such a pleasure to write. If you would like me to undertake a series of posts on what this transition is like and how I approached it from a spiritually principled way, please feel free to email me here. If enough readers are interested I’ll commit to writing about the associated challenges, of which there have already been very many.

Again, thank you for your patience. I’ve chosen one of the blog’s slowest periods as parents prepare their kids for their return to school, so hopefully this might even correspond with a hectic time of your own. Please know that even in the absence of new posts, my writing always speaks to a connected, wise and powerful inner strength within you. Even with me away, you won’t be. That strength will always be there for you to access if you seek it. I wish you the very best in doing so in my absence. See you in two weeks.

Much love, s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.