Tis the season for awards in Hollywood and I’m rooting for hometown girl Jennifer Lawrence to pick up an Oscar for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s a beautiful story about how people deal with their mental health, relationships, losses, Philadelphia Eagles football and ballroom dancing. There’s something for everyone.

And for the record, I’m not partial to reviews or recommendations for the film that explain the storyline as a tale about “madness” or how a man (and a woman) take their “crazy” and find true love. That’s bullshit. Bipolar disorder is just that — an illness that requires skilled treatment and courageous management. Mourning and grief have no timeline or road map for how to walk the line after you lose your husband (or anyone else for that matter). Those who watch others grapple with these kinds of things stand back and say, “How does someone get through that? I could never endure that.”

Yes you can. And you may already have at some point in your life. Here’s what I know for sure about life from the work I do: no one lives without some form of pain, sadness, damage or trauma. It’s what we do to move through and beyond those times. It’s about transcending the idea of being scarred and stepping into resilience. 

That’s what the characters in the film do. The “silver linings” aren’t about chanting positive affirmations or muting the feeling of having your heart broken by careening into new relationships or endeavors with your way-unfinished business from the past.

• Silver linings are about owning the light and the dark inside of you and facing it every day. They’re about taking your meds, putting on your garbage-bag sweat-vest and going for a run (you’ll have to see the movie to understand).

• Silver linings can find fertile ground in loss and closure after the grasping and struggling has been buried.

• Silver linings are made from showing up for yourself over and over and over again because you and your precious life are worth it.

I am an adept partner in helping my clients find silver linings, and when we do that work, it’s way bigger and far richer than a movie montage could ever convey. It’s equal parts inquiry, compassion, challenge, bullshit-detecting, healing, and planning. It’s not just a playbook: your life becomes a living, breathing narrative of your past and ever-evolving present. You get to take it all and make a future for yourself. What will you do with your “sloppy” and “dirty” coupled with, say, your insatiable curiosity and boundless optimism?

On this Valentine’s Day, I want to offer you a way to find your own silver linings. What’s the stuff happening now that’s the muck and heaviness of your life that’s really the promise of your potential? What are the habits, traits, or stories you possess that feel like a cage but really just need to fly for you to find out who you really are and what you want in your life?

You can have your own Silver Linings Session with me to get to the heart of an issue and come out with a playbook to help you move “ever upward” (which is the meaning of the Latin word “excelsior” — again, go see the movie and you shall understand). And here’s what will happen:

• Pre-work will be sent to you via email so you can complete it and I can get a good idea of what area we’re zooming in on to do laser-focused work.

• We’ll work together in one 75 minute coaching session via phone, Skype or in-person (if you live in the Louisville area or want to travel to see me — that’d be cool, too) on an agreed upon day and time.

• This will be a conversation that’s all parts questioning, story, challenges, goals, and hopes — and all the while, I’m mining this information for your playbook.

• After the call,  you will get an email from me that where I’ll give you the “table of contents”  based on what came up in our session. This is the foundation for your playbook.

• From there, I will create the playbook: these are sacred and detailed plans that will help you create your own silver linings. You can buy lots of self-help books or pay a self-proclaimed expert to tell you what to do; this is more special than that. It’s your brilliance, courage and wisdom along with my skills, strategies, interventions, tools, and love that will have you polishing your silver into platinum.

• The final document will be mailed to you in an old-school-put-a-stamp-on-it envelope. I will create your playbook on my computer and print it out, but I’m a lover of handwritten notes, so I’m taking a page from the playbook of athletic coaches and writing in some of my own additional Xs & Os after I’ve let your book sit with me for a few hours. You’ll get the finished work within a few days of the session.

This is going to be one of my signature offerings — it’s a babe I’ve dreamt of and nurtured long before I saw the film. The film was just the catalyst for this to be born in this form. These kinds of tailored, individualized, creative, and connecting experiences are what I do best and it’s only going to grow from here.

From February 14th, Valentines Day, through February 28th, I am offering The Silver Linings Session experience for $149. I do not anticipate that I will be able to offer this program for this kind of price again because I’m going to blow.this.up. There’s more to come beyond silver linings and clouds — I’m takin’ it to the moon and beyond people : ) Really, take advantage of my “love offering” this month and be your own Valentine. Excelsior.