Looking back at 2009 is a journey filled with contrasts and conflicts. A lifetime of learning and experience confirms that opposites are often the same and that often our greatest challenges are our greatest blessings. If you’re a member of this the self-growth hub, you understand.

January 3, I was laid off due to the economy. Although I though I had immediately found new work, it fell through. Both a blessing and a challenge.

Through two more soul-searching months while working daily to customize resumes and cover letters to find work, something still didn’t seem right. I looked deeper and found more.

I started a blog, Baby BoomerWanderings, to discover what this Internet boom was all about. After all, I had been a marketing executive for decades. It didn’t take much to recognize that Internet marketing knowledge was imperative if I was to continue in my career.

The blog got me hooked. I’ve always had a desire to help others and “make a difference” even when I was a child. Now that I was unemployed and learning the power of the Internet, my world for helping others suddenly and dramatically expanded.

Then I heard a news report about a town who “paid it forward’ by buying coffee for the person behind them. That night I awoke with a vision of doing the same nationally to help the unemployed. Thus my website EmployTheUnemployed.com.

I poured my heart into the project believing that if I could get people nationwide to donate just $3, I had the strategy, business experience, connections and vision to create hope and change for people who had lost their homes and/or jobs. As a writer, I saw an important story to be told about the people landing in the growing tent cities. To this day, I believe it’s possible to impact actual change, but I was not able to generate the necessary trust to get others to donate $3.

In the meantime, I needed to start focusing on my own well-being. As a result, I had to abandon the project. It was about then that I discovered StomperNet and the incredible support they provide for Internet businesses.

Since then, I have opened a simple e-commerce website designed to, once again, help people. This time it includes coaching and support as well as a series of products that are healthy and teach “mindfullness.”

Mindfullness is a form of easy meditation that acts as a stress reducer by teaching people awareness. By increasing awareness of our surroundings, we calm the mind and reduce stress. Mindfulness exercises build the individual’s ability to focus the mind in the present moment. My technique uses the 5 senses, touch, smell, hear, see and taste, to catalyze the event.

By living in the moment and maintaining a conscious awareness, our lives improve. We make conscious decisions rather than reacting, and we learn to visualize our well-being with confidence. Stress fades to the background, and our ability to manifest our desires increases. Mindfulness exercises can be life transforming when practiced daily.

Books including The Secret, Conversations with God, The Celestine Prophecy, The Power of Now, The Hidden Parables and many others by Stephen Covey, Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Todd Michael, Eckhart Tolle and other authors discuss the power of positive visualization and the resulting ability to manifest.

My own experience confirms the reality of positive visualization and synchronicity. A lifetime of study and experience has given me the tools to customize mindfulness exercises in a simple process anyone can follow.

If you’d like to learn more, I challenge you to visit my latest website, http://www.ATeaFlowerMoment.com/videos and sign up for the FREE video Mindfullness Tour of Santa Barbara. Use the videos, and use tea flower tea to practice mindfulness exercises.

Tea flowers are not only wonderful focal points for the 5 senses, they are high in antioxidants, healthy and provide aromatherapy. Learn more about the products at the home page, http://www.ATeaFlowerMoment.com/tea-flower-store. Join as a member at http://www.ATeaFlowerMoment.com/tea-flower-club to get customized tips, product specials and a monthly shipment of tea flowers.

Practice daily for a month. It only requires a few minutes a day. Take tea like the English. It’s a habit that dates back thousands of years to Asia and eastern medicine. There’s a good reason that it’s been a successful habit for so long.

If you find that after 30 days of genuine practice, you’re just as stressed, maybe you're stressing yourself over the exercises. If time is the issue, start with 5 minutes a day and work up from there.

If you find it’s too difficult to practice daily for 30 days, start with 3 days a week. The following week, do 4 days, and the third week 5 days and so on until you're practicing 7 days a week.

No matter what, don't allow yourself the excuse that you just can't do it. Instead, be gentle on yourself and set reachable goals. Don't beat yourself up if you miss a day you had planned. Just keep going.

The challenge is for 2010 to be your best year yet. What have you to lose?! A few minutes a day and you could be grateful for the rest of your life.

Sign up now. It’s free and fun. You’ll learn some things and start a new and better life.

Author's Bio: 

A single parent who has raised three children on her own, Robin Eschler has been a marketing professional working as an employee and independent contractor. She has also been a life-long student of healing, personal growth and spirituality.

Having successfully launched products internationally and established market presence for corporations and small businesses, and having worked in nonprofit for close to 12 years, her goal has been to establish prosperity, in all contexts, not only for herself but for others. She has worked with various disadvantaged populations to improve their lives and opportunities. Her current goal is to help people of all backgrounds experience a better life and future.