It was the third time in a single day that I had seen a blue heron fly over my head. To many of the Native Americans I work with, the blue heron represents a time to go inward. A time for a vision quest or a time to get near water and contemplate your life path. As I pulled my van into the school’s “pick-up-your-student-here” line, I realized why the Universe had given me “the bird” not once, but thrice. It was time for me to pull out of the day-to-day activities and do more thinking then doing.

This takes a bit of creativity when you’re a single-parent and working with multiple schools, scout troops, writing books, running a business and making sure that food is served with each meal. Here are a few tricks I’ve learned to calm myself down and put more effort into thinking rather than staying on the stress machine of doing, doing, doing without thought.

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