Today is the 40th day of My Turn Challenge. It became "my turn" when, after 7 days, the official "Your Turn Challenge" was over and I decided to keep going, committing myself to shipping every day which, for me, means writing a blog post every day.

In the ancient Indian healing science of Ayurveda, it is said that it takes 40 days to break an habit, change a habit or create a new habit. Although it takes 21 days for a habit to create new neural pathways in the brain, it actually takes 40 days for those pathways to become fixed as a new habit.

I feel like I'm well on my way with the commitment to keeping up with my blog and believe it or not, my life is changing because of it. I wake up in the morning thinking about what I am going to write and can't wait to get to it. Last night I didn't get my blog posted until something like 11:53 pm but I still got it done before I turned into a pumpkin!

The word "practice" comes to mind. This is a practice. I am practicing essentially to become a bit more structured, a bit more disciplined, so that I can continue to make room for all the things I want to do, create, and accomplish- on a daily, weekly, yearly and lifelong basis- different levels of goals.

Yesterday I decided to add a new My Turn Challenge to my day and I have committed to doing a simple yet powerful group of exercises every day for 7 days- The Five Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation. About 12 years ago I did them consistently for two months. I began to feel very positive changes in my physiology after as little as two weeks and I would have to say that after two months the change was quite dramatic. Then one day I had a bad fall playing tennis a little too ambitiously, damaging my wrist and my knee, and I never got back to practicing the Five Rites consistently again. I do them sporadically, once very few days or weeks, usually when I have some sort of pain in my body which they typically seem to relieve quickly. I want to do them, I know they work wonders for me but I don't. What's up with that? Who knows... I don't need to figure it out- I just need to make a change.

Yesterday, waking up with a pain in my neck from carrying wood, I decided it was time to do them and then I thought, "Well, what if I just commit to doing them every day for a week just like I did with blogging?" Start with a simple doable goal. So that's My Turn Challenge for this week. I'm off and running with the blogging- I won't let go of one to pick up the other.

I also just started a book that my therapist recommended to me- Vinegar Into Honey by Ron Leifer. I was talking to him yesterday about the challenge of finding time to read during the day. Why should that be a challenge? I love to read but of late it is. I start to read just before I go to bed when I am so tired I can't read more than two pages typically! It suddenly occurred to me that I could use the My Turn Challenge idea for this too and I decided that when I wake up in the morning- before I check my phone for messages, emails, updates and suddenly discover an hour has gone by- that I will pick up the book and read for at least 15 minutes. Then I can get up do "The 5 Tibetans" (which is exactly what I did this morning- Day 2 of Tibetan Challenge).

One of my bigger goals is to finish writng a book on sound healing that I started well over ten years ago. What I am anticipating is that by getting in the flow of writing in my blog on a daily basis, very soon I will get back to writing something every day in my book and one day in the next year or so it will be done, completed, finito!

The working title, by the way is Sound Possibilities: Restoring Balance and Harmony Through Sound and Music.

Oh and by the way again- I am very excited that I have gone from typically less than 20 page views a month on my blog to 129 yesterday!

So again, a big shout out to Winnie Kao, creator of Your Turn Challenge, and Seth Godin whose work was the inspiration behind it, to all my Facebook Your Turn Challenge new friends, supporters and motivators who on some level I answer to every day and look to for continued inspiration. Also to all the people, friends known and unknown, who "like" my Wholistic Sound Facebook page, who are members of my Sound Body Wholistic Health Center Facebook page, who read this blog, who come for sessions, workshops, sound journeys and meditations and to my four amazing sons- Namdev, Moose, Ben and Nic- who I believe have all come to appreciate that I am always pushing the envelope and know I will always support and encourage them when they want to do the same, do something daring, think outside the box, take a chance, step into the unknown. I love you guys!

Almost a month ago I accepted Winnie Kao's challenge to ship every day for a week- she was referring to blogging. I didn't actually know what it meant but got the inference as I read about it. I haven't read Seth Godin's book Linchpin, where apparently he introduces this term. (I just ordered it!) It seems to mean something like putting your idea, project, product, inspiration out there- sharing whatever it is that is important to you and hopefully benefiting others in the process. Doing what it takes every day to make a difference. So it's not necessarily just writing a blog, although that was really what the challenge referred to.

I was afraid to accept the challenge and didn't actually commit until about two days before it was scheduled to begin. Consistency is not my strong suit and I was afraid I would fail- which meant letting myself down. What actually happened was quite different- and exciting! A group of people accepted the challenge and every day thousands of blog posts were going up on Tumblr- so many that on the third day they actually crashed the site temporarily!

As I began writing every day and randomly reading other people's blog posts I began feeling surprisingly connected to this group. Somehow I thought I would be out there failing on my own! Haha- surprise! We had all made a commitment and we were going to all do it together in the same timeframe. We were joined in our intention. On one level it didn't matter what people were writing about- they were doing it. On another level, they were writing about what was important to them and so of course it mattered.

So there was this very powerful energy of being part of a group and suddenly I felt like I would be letting others down if I missed a day- not because I thought anyone was necessarily even reading what I wrote, but that simply we were all in this together! I felt like the group carried me, like I was riding a wave. It was fun to write every day. It was the first thing I thought of in the morning and I couldn't wait to see what was happening of everyone else. I wrote 7 entries in 7 days. And on the 8th day I wrote again! I have been writing every day since except three days ago when my computer was down and by the time I finished messing with it, trying to figure out what was wrong I had to leave the house. It didn't come back online until after midnight so I missed that one day- however I sent out a link from my iPhone to a global event that I was participating in so I still shipped.

After the 7-day challenge ended a group of people who had participated started a Facebook page and we all continue to ship every day. I feel like I have a group of new wonderful supportive friends and am part of a community that is amazingly powerful! I feel connected. I feel grateful. I feel like I am still riding the wave and I have had a huge shift in energy. I had been in transition in pretty much all areas of my life for the past 3 years and due to a number of circumstances had not really been putting my own sound healing work out there. This week I have led a community chanting group, I have almost completed my new flyer and I have shipped every day.

To my Your Turn Challenge group and to all my other friends, family and clients who believe in me and support me in my process, thank you!

In the words of Dr. Masaru Emoto, "I love you, I thank you, I respect you."

Water Crystal "Thank you"
From Dr. Masaru Emoto's Hidden Messages From Water