Quotes from Gina Greenlee

We can't script every detail of our lives. But we can solve the riddle of fulfillment when we plan ahead while simultaneously embracing the surprises of each moment.

What do you resist examining up close? How can you ground yourself so you feel safe enough to try?

Be who you are. You may not always please but you will never go wrong.

At chaos' core lies the invitation.

If you want it badly enough, it's yours.

Much of what we acquire in life isn't worth dragging to the next leg of our journey. Travel light. You will be better equipped to travel far.

Sometimes our dreams are affirmed in the most unlikely ways by the most unlikely people. That's why we need to speak our commitment out loud.

The week before the marathon, sleep well. If normally you "get by" with five hours but require seven, make sure you get seven every night. The sleep you get the week leading up to the marathon is more important than the night before. The night before, you probably won't sleep well due to anxiety, excitement and anticipation.

How far are you willing to go to create the life you want?

Do your fears warn of external dangers? Or, are they the kind that keep you from becoming more of your true self?

Sharing our story is one way we create intimacy. And like a good novel, it's more engaging – and lasting – when we allow it to gradually unfold.

It is not so much the grand dramas of our lives that transform us as it is the tiny one-acts we produce in between.

The trip changed all that. Stirring the murk of a life ill-fitting, Something More was perceptible though without name or form. Something More was the genesis of a map, not one handed to me but rendered with each step taken, a skill seasoned by a cruise gone bad.

If we never challenge our shortcomings, we ensure that they remain our Achilles' heel.

To believe that we can have what we want is an act of trust – not only of others but also, ourselves.

Feeling lonely? Wish you had a special someone to help fill the void? Reconsider your definition of romance, reconnect to your passions and be swept away.

In 2006 I had begun the discernment process for locating my rightful geographic home. By the time my corporate pink slip arrived I had spent two years researching and taking recon trips to five different cities in southern California. Having crossed them off my list, in February 2008 I visited Sarasota, Florida, at the urging of a friend who winters in a neighboring town. Though Florida had never been on my radar, only minutes in Sarasota I knew I'd found home.

It is our beliefs, more than our experiences, that determine life's possibilities.

Rest and repose are as much a part of life's journeys as seeing all we came to see.

My post-cruise sabbatical would spark the idea for my first book, Cheaper Than Therapy: How to Keep Life's Small Problems from Becoming Big Ones – The Lesson of the Paper Clips. How? In my data entry job all I did for 20 hours a week was paper clip printouts of computer screens. For three years. I loved it.

Wandering is not limited to geography. Also an altered state of consciousness, it allows a disembodied self to drift on currents of collective awareness with minimal attachment to the physical world. This state of wander tapped imaginative faculties that opened me to a freedom of being only previously experienced through travel.

Stop now and always wonder. Press forward and tap the wonder.

During those days of whirling about the globe, I had an epiphany: travel was the only area of my life where I had no expectations. I anticipated nothing while fully engaging each moment. What bred adventure, surprise and deep experience was not knowing, surrendering to now and letting go of control.

Then I'd go home, return to a pattern of worry, unable to tap the surrender core to travel's inspiration. What was different?