Facebook keeps asking me to “enter a milestone” on my Pragmatic Palmist business page. This request reminded me that it’s been a decade since I began reading hands.

I can’t remember what I had for breakfast on Monday (did I have breakfast on Monday?) but I can remember the beginning of my hand analysis certification process as though it happened this morning.

To commemorate this milestone, here are 10 things I’ve learned about business, life and love in the past 10 years:

1. If you’re not happy, nothing outside of you can make you happy. Happiness is an inside job. Your hands can help you home in on your deepest desires, but to make them real, that’s on you.
2. Stretching is awesome, jumping off the cliff in an attempt to start from square one sucks. There’s a misguided saying encouraging you to leap and the net will appear. Not necessarily a great idea. My “leap” happened in the span of 3 months — I asked for a divorce, met a totally unstable new boyfriend, took all my cash and bought an overpriced condo instead of paying back a crap-ton of debt and sold the business that was the source of my income. It’s possible the “universe” didn’t know WHICH net to set up. I learned my lesson that all or nothing is not the only way to begin your best life.
3. Being spiritual isn’t the point, being present is. I thought a spiritual teacher had to be all kinds of holy (and, obviously, poor – see #2). Not possible for me, in fact, now I see it as a pretty ego-driven belief. All that spiritual “do-goodery” was exhausting. Instead, by slowing down and listening to my breath, my life has gotten more joyful.
4. Relationships are paramount. You’ve heard the adage that says you somehow become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with? It’s true. In 10 years I’ve had the complete joy and surprise of meeting and cultivating friendships with men and women who, by their very presence, help me grow- spiritually, mentally and financially. I’ve also watched some relationships fade away because I no longer needed the drama. Making relationships central to my life has been a life saver.
5. Money is not the enemy. I have no idea when or why I decided to remove money from my life like a metastasizing cancer, but I’m glad I figured out that it was ME, not money that was the issue. I’m glad I accepted the challenge to learn this, but I wish for you to never be in that position. I’m passionate about my relationship with money now.
6. If you’re afraid, keep going. Whenever I’ve been afraid (and ‘coming out’ to the world as a hand reader is still scary) I go within and ask for some higher wisdom to find the Love. You can’t be afraid and feel love at the same time. I give myself permission to love my way through to the other side of fear.
7. Dance. If you’ve EVER seen me dance you’ll have a flashback to the Seinfeld episode where Elaine goes nuts on the dance floor. I feel pretty certain that Mr. Seinfeld had a hidden camera on my life to come up with that particular riff. This simple fact about me used to MORTIFY me when others laughed at my dancing. So I stopped dancing. And the only person who suffered was ME. Now I dance and laugh and love the fact that my body can move in all those wacky ways. The more I’m me, the more I get to do good work in the world. So turn on the music!
8. Screw moderation. Everything in moderation? Except moderation. I can see that working for things that aren’t that great for me – like Rombauer Chardonnay or fries, but when it comes to things I love and have passion for? No way. I am passionate about reading hands. I’m passionate about building relationships. I’m passionate about helping people reach their highest and best good and I’m passionate about learning new things. Why would I want to moderate any of that?! I can’t have too much learning or hand reading or relationship love. Ever.
9. Love your body. No matter what it looks like, no matter if you cannot seem to get into the Wheel in yoga or do a headstand or Crow pose. No matter if you have two left feet on the dance floor! Celebrate your body in all its wonder, listen to it, nourish it, and cherish it for everything it does today. I can’t do any work in the world without it and while I know that I, as a soul, am eternal, I am so unabashedly proud of the body I have today – all nearly 50 years of it!
10. Love. It’s taken me ten years of introspection, deep conversation, and study to realize what LOVE really is. It is so much bigger than me and so much more than songs and poems and romance (all good stuff though). Whenever I’m in doubt, think I cannot do something, am freaking scared of going another day trying to do this thing called life, I reflect on LOVE.

Ten years – it’s been the best decade yet!

Written by: Peggie Arvidson