Become the Master of Your Life's Movement with LifeDancing Life is a dance of constant change. But change doesn't have to be a challenge. In every life, we dance with joy and sorrow, beauty and horror, tribulation and peace. Learn how to move masterfully through them all. Your life can be a beautiful choreography, where you are the master of life's movement. It is your choice! In this friendly, wise and practical guide, you'll find simple ways to live in harmony with all around you, to be in the world but not controlled by it. Packed with engaging tools and exercises, LifeDancing welcomes you into a world of integrated ideas, skills and information that psychotherapist Linda L. Lawless has gathered from more 30 years of her own and others? LifeDance successes. Through a step-by-step process, you will learn how to develop and refine a practice of moving through life. LifeDancing is for anyone who has stumbled when change comes along, no matter the life arena. This book guides you through four steps beginning with discovering your Authentic Dancer: ? Turning In takes you into the Dance of Self and the Dance of Story. ? Turning Out takes you into the Dance of Vision and Purpose. In this section, you will create your LifeDance Design Guide, a template you can use to build the framework of your life. Explore how to tap into your values, master goal-setting skills, and put your goals into motion. Then you'll develop a Dance of Strategy, using MindMaps. And finally, you'll integrate these tools into the Dance of Solutions, with practical tips on problem solving using an integrative approach. ? In the Taking the Stage section, you'll go deeper into the Dance Arenas, mastering different realms of your life, using a series of assessments: ? BODY AWARENESS This chapter helps you move with your body and be with your body through self-care. You will tell the story of your body ? from your body's perspective. ? THE MIND OF THE DANCER This chapter discusses mindfulness, consciousness and integrated perception and provides mental fitness exercises. ? EMOTIONS This chapter helps you define your emotional intelligence, glean the importance of emotional narrative and identify your emotional tipping points. ? DANCING WITH SPIRIT Tell your spiritual story, then implement three foundational spiritual practices ? meditation, sacred space and community. ? RELATIONSHIPS The quality of your relationships begins with your relationship to self. In this chapter, you'll work with your shadow side, plus delve into practical steps for better romantic relationships. ? WORK AS AN EXPRESSION OF SELF This chapter helps you identify in your own life when you have been performing a job, doing a career or answering a calling. you'll write your work story, using a work story grid, and you'll gain 13 practices for remaining mindful through your work day, whether you are at a job, career or calling. ? HOME AS THE HEART OF THE DANCER Define what is home for you, do inventory of your environments (physical and emotional), then create your ideal inner home. ? WHOLENESS This chapter will set the foundation for your future beyond this book, with a LifePlan Worksheet. ? In the Performing section, you'll gain mastery, using the techniques of Harmonic Organization and practicing ways to ride ? and glide ? through change. you'll see that the change that once unraveled you now is something to dance through ? gracefully. With the book, you get directions on how to download the accompanying Master Class Workbook and LifeDancing Journal. MasterClass Workbook deepens and expands your exploration through practical worksheets. The LifeDancing Journal is a guided journal that serves as a companion to this dance. LifeDancing is for everyone who wonders how to experience joy in her life. For counselors, life coaches and psychotherapists LifeDancing is a tool you can use with clients to teach self-management and self-directed well-being skills. There are tools you can teach clients to use in a crisis, as well as a life and future building moments. Join the dance now, and savor the applause! About the author Linda L. Lawless, MA, LMFT, LMHC, has been a professional in the mental health field for more than 30 years. Her driving mission has always been to mainstream wholistic health and well-being, remove the stigma of mental illness, and celebrate mental health and integral well-being. In the service of her mission, this book, LifeDancing, is still a work in progress as we learn more and more about what it takes to be a healthy, happy human being every day. She invites you to discover what makes you unique and special, design a life of your choosing, and use the tools offered here to make it so. Won't you not only join, but lead, your dance of life? ?People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences, on the purely physical plane, resonate with our own innermost being, so that we actually feel the rapture of being fully alive.' JOSEPH CAMPBELL