Optimism is having the courage to try things. It’s stepping into something because we hope it will be a good thing, without knowing what will happen.

We choose an optimistic perspective, one that supports us to bear the uncertainty of life and not automatically respond to unexpected situations with fight or flight. We learn to focus on what is healthy, positive, strong and well developed and not on what is potentially dangerous or potentially wrong.

Day One of the initial Gestalt International Coaching Program, co-director Dr. John Carter said to the assembled group of eager students, (of which I was one). A good practitioner of this art should be able to walk into any room of people, anywhere in the world and make a difference with his or her presence.

A configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole. A perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a whole that cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts.