Welcome to our best time of year! Our clear desert skies are blue, the mountains shine in copper and gold and the crisp air brings calm with every deep breath. It’s a welcome sight in what has already felt like an overwhelming year.

Have you found yourself dwelling on negative thoughts? With this year’s many tragic events and uncertainty, I’ll admit I have. They seem to captivate our brains playing over and over in a repetitive loop, spiraling into a storm of emotions that feels completely out of our control.

Clearing my mind through meditation and focusing on beautiful things helps. Like the weather we are enjoying, and figure skating.

I had the great honor of working with Dorothy Hamill over 30 years ago when she purchased the Ice Capades. A trip to meet her brought me to the Coachella Valley for the first time. 20 years later, life brought us together again through a chance meeting and figure skating came back into my world, along with the wonderful emotions that come with being a part of this warm and welcoming community.

Then Acrisure Arena brought ice to the desert offering everyone in the valley a myriad of opportunities to come together, cheer on our team and lace up our skates. This edition is dedicated to their efforts and the beauty of ice skating, and also offers many tools to address negative thoughts and feelings.

The search for deeper internal peace is global and this year’s wellness trends may surprise you. We need to lean on each other more than ever as Alison Mullins shares in “The Value of Friendship.” Jen Yockey welcomes spring and the opportunity for our souls to bloom, while wellness coach Phillip Moore shares strategies to help unlock inner drive. Maintaining a healthy diet also directly affects mental well-being and you’ll find much inspiration from Edith Jones-Poland, MD, in “Eating a Rainbow.”

As psychologist and philosopher William James said, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” Let’s all make a conscious effort to fill our lives with beautiful things that warm our hearts.

Thank you so very much for reading. We look forward to seeing you out and about this spring!