Wanted Alive…
I have been exploring my relationship with food, fuel, nutrition and health for a good part of my life. At some times I have embraced the labels of “foodie” and “wine brat” other times “vegetarian” and “health nut”. As I am growing older, I’ve discovered that all fuel is not the same, sometimes I feel energized by what I eat, other times sluggish and exhausted. It is a trial by error kind of process. I gave up caffiene (and ergo coffee) 18 months ago, when I discovered that I could barely walk the 1/2 mile return trip home after a coffee run. My energy stabalized for awhile after that change, I don’t miss the addiction and frankly, my wallet enjoys not paying $2.50 a day for Starbucks.
Reunions and Perspective
I spent the weekend in the Outer Banks with ten of my Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters from Va Tech, after an absence of over twenty years. It was a really great experience to reconnect and catch up on all the happenings after a long period of going our separate ways. What made it so great was while there have been many changes: husbands, children and jobs to celebrate and layoffs, illnesses and relocations to commisserate about; there was also a shared history and fond memories to revisit. Sometimes it takes a little looking back to see how far you’ve come and where are you are ready to go next.
Finding a new dream world through meditation
A month ago I purchased a Guided Mindfulness Meditation recorded by Jon Kabat-Zinn. His recommendation was to start with the 45 minute Body Scan for two weeks than progress through his additional CD’s, which include two yoga sequences and a sitting meditation.The first couple of evenings I began the body scan and would find myself asleep on my mat (the body scan position is laying down) about an hour after I had started listening.
A Fresh Beginning
Fittingly enough, it snowed in Raleigh, NC today. A rare event for this southern city. Blanketed by six inches of snow, the landscape looks fresh and new. Similiarly, another rare event, the inauguration in Washington, DC today created a fresh and new chapter in our nation’s history. Selfishly, the snowday provided me an opportunity to watch the entire event on the television from start to finish. Without the snow, I would have been working for most of the day and would have experienced this historic event through reruns and secondhand commentary.
Watching it in the moment gave me the gift of perspective. To see the vast expanse of humanity spread across the mall, moved to travel to our Capital to witness this new beginning allowed me to experience the significance and hopefulness that is Barack Obama and all the symbolism his election represents. When we see Obama, we don’t just see the man in front of us, but all the men and women who came before him, who fought to be recognized and accepted, who made his rise to President possible. We also see the potential, the possibility and the hope for our own futures. Where can we go from here?
Starting 2009 with Intention instead of Resolutions
I have been looking forward to January 1, 2009 for several weeks now. I planned to use this open day as my reset day. A free day for me to clean, dig out my desk, sort out email, pay my bills and cook some dishes for the week. Looking for some background noise to keep me company, I turned on the TV, to find that WUNC had a Dr. Wayne Dyer program “The Power of Intention”. I’ve read his book before, but hearing him talk is always inspiring.
So in addition to resetting the household, I am using the day to reset my intentions for 2009. For me, intention means what is behind what I do? What is the reason? Why would I take that action?
My intentions for 2009 include working from the space of service, ensuring that my time is being well used to help others. Secondly, I want to work from a place of experience and expertise. What am I good at? What do I know? How can I share this with others? And finally I intend to work from a place of cooperation and collaboration. How can I be adding to, not subtracting from or diminishing the value of those things that I am involved in?
So instead of thinking about your New Year’s Resolutions, perhaps you can think about your New Year’s Intention. What is your deepest Intention? What is the driver that moves you forward into 2009?
Happy New Year! With Intent, Susan
The Scavenger Hunt
One of my favorite things to do as a child was to visit the library. I would scan the shelves, pick out a book that looked interesting and become immersed in another world. I have kept that habit into adulthood and at least once a month, I make a special trip to the public library. I scan a couple of shelves in particular, usually the new arrivals, and then I head over to the personal growth, spirituality and self-help sections. I try not to have anything in particular in mind before I go, but instead allow intuition to take over and show me what I need.
This week I picked up a couple of very helpful books, one by Seth Godin called the dip. It was appealing because it was short, only 75 pages long and talks about a theme covered in the song lyrics ”should I stay or should I go?” It has an interesting premise, that every success story is preceded by “a dip” which is to say that if success were easy, everyone would do it, but the dip requires you to slog through discouraging results to find success. I learned the dip in marketing as the transition between the early adopter and the rest of the market being ready to step forward. But it was helpful to remember that the more challenging and higher the barriers to entry there are in reaching a market, the fewer competitors are past the dip and available to share the winnings and the more profitable your business will be. Now, I just need to decide if I am in a dip or a cul de sac (otherwise known as a dead end). I am hoping it is a dip brought upon by our current economy.
Another book I found, Loving What Is by Byron Katie, sounded familiar. I remembered a friend talking about ” The Work” www.thework.com , but until I opened the book, I hadn’t really understood what The Work was about. I found myself moving back and forth between the book, my writing notebook and her website. Her concept is that by asking yourself four simple questions and then making a turnaround statement, pretty much any thought can be dissected for its deeper meaning and reality.
A quick example of something I think very often:”I should eat healthy every day or I will gain weight”
1)Is this true? Actually not, I can eat unhealthy foods, but just eat less than 1600 calories and I probably won’t gain anything. I can eat unhealthy foods and workout more and I should be ok. I might not be healthy, but I may not gain weight.
2)Is this really true? (in case I wasn’t sure the first time, it is good to ask this question one more time)
3)How do I react when I think that thought? I feel guilty, anxious, worried, distressed, overwhelmed and tired.
4)How would I feel to give up that thought? I would feel free, happy, relaxed and optimistic.
Turnaround: I look forward to not eating healthy and not getting fat. Meaning that by letting go of this thought I can let what happens, happens and worry about what happens, when it happens.
This may have been a rudimentary example, but you can watch videos on her website where she walks people through the questions. It is fascinating to watch and see the humor that emerges when people hear their limiting thoughts and beliefs and let them go.
I still have 7 more books to read from my scavenger hunt, but thus far it seems to have been a fruitful trip to the library.
Working From Intention
I just returned from my final Gyrotonic certification weekend in Miami. It has been a long and at times arduous process, a year as a client followed by a year as an authorized teacher, with many long days and weeks of training and teaching to get to this milestone. I entered into the weekend with some apprehension that I might not have prepared enough or even be worthy of final certification approval. There were 21 other trainers that were equally as nervous, everyone had heard tales of strict master trainers and rigid protocols for teaching. We started our first morning sharing our tales of nerves: lack of sleep and loss of appetite from stress.
What became very clear upon meeting our master trainer - Juergan, was that he wanted to take us back to the beginning. To restore and re-acknowledge the intention behind the work and to find that intention within ourselves. He did this with re-inforcement of the basics and lots of inquiry, asking us to look inside to find the answers. By working from intention, everything became clearer, more focused, more defined and yes, we became more confident. It became clear that there would always be more to learn, always be more details to hone, but that if we held to the intention of the work, we would be doing good work.
It was a reminder to me to work from intention in all that I do. Where else would going back to the source, finding the beginning of the thread, renewing my understanding of the basics prove valuable? Even wading through my 160 unread emails feels a little more purposeful, to know that as I am clearing my inbox and prioritizing my week, I am also working from the intention to do good work, to be of service to others and to take the time to learn something new every day. The trivial begins to feel more meaningful.
What would it take to live from intention every day? What would be different?
Smile with Mind
I am re-reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert for at least my fourth time. Each time I read it, it is as if a new page was inserted into the book, with a tale that I missed the previous time. This time, tale 77 struck me as newly born. Liz is visiting with Ketut, her Bali medicine man, and he suggests a new technique for meditation. “To meditate, only you must smile. Smile with face, smile with mind, and good energy will come to you and clean away dirty energy. Even smile in your liver.”
I awoke to this tale because it so much more simply describes what I have been sharing with my ThinkWorkPlay clients. How to shift to a positive emotion and choose to feel differently. Only this is so easy. “Smile with mind” Try it. You will immediately feel your lips shift upward, your shoulders relax, your breath deepen. Ahh, so much better. Do you feel the stress and tension slip away?
Fast Forward
One of the exercises that we use during our Creative Golf Teambuilding Day is called “Fast Forward”. The instructions are for the participants to imagine themselves at their retirement party, and in giving their speech, note their top accomplishments and how they acheived them. The inquiry that follows is that knowing what you want to accomplish, what must you do differently now to achieve your desired results.
We put this program together several years ago, and yet I was blown away by the power of that inquiry yesterday. We took a group out for a very brisk day on the course at The Heritage. The Management Team for an International Manufacturer attended and jumped whole-heartedly into the experience. When I asked each team to go through this exercise, their responses were remarkably similar. They were grateful for their families, spouses and children, grateful for having a long and successful career and grateful for their friendships and relationships with their peers. It speaks to what really matters.
What do you need to do NOW in order to have that perspective in the future? What can you let go of, recognizing that you aren’t really going to care if that was achieved later? Can you get even more specific about your accomplishments in the future? Can you identify opportunities that lie ahead for you now?
