“Adverb in your legs.” Or so I wrote on a piece of paper 13 years ago. Um. Yeah. The first take-home point is:

*Think twice before cleaning out your files.*

The second point came to me after a week of my mind inexplicably drifting back to this sentence. It IS, in fact, a sentence because:

*Adverb is a verb.*

Maybe the most important verb ever.

Adverb = HOW you do what you do

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will 

never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou

The spirit of what you do and say is what people feel.

And “people” includes you, above all.

Adverb-ing is doing things in the way that feels best to you.

How to adverb:

• • Double your To-Do list. (Gratefully!)

Draw a vertical line line down the middle of your planner. Label the left column: What I Want to Do. Label the right column: How I Want to Do It.

If you determinedly go to the post office, write an essay, or deliver soup to a sick friend it will be different than if you do it colorfully. Or peacefully. Or expectantly. Or goofily.

How do you want to feel? What kind of feeling do you want to carry into the world?

• • Generate strange new adverbs. (Unabandonedly?!)

Add “-ly” to the end of all kinds of words:

Not just to emotions but to any adjective and even to places, nouns, and people. (I am going to this party Beyonce-ly OR I am going to this party Pema-ly. Either would be nice. But very different.)

• • And — of course — let those adverbs flow into and out of your legs, your face, your hips.

How you do something is physical. Adverbs manifest via your body. Let them. Freely.