Unless you are a rose in the arctic… Our desire for one liners that can support YOU to fix everything and change your life NOW is vast and never-ending. This month I’m digging into a few I see the most. I want to show that 1) yes,they can be supportive (at times) but they can also 2) do serious damage and harm when used incorrectly. Bloom where you are planted. The visual on this statement makes it instantly understandable and recognizable. We can see and understand the limitations and rules of nature surrounding us. No study or internet research needed.…
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I’m currently reading “The History of Coined Words” by Ralph Keyes where he tells the stories about words we use today. Some were meant as jokes that then turned into fields we know today (ie. scientist). Some were meant for degradation and then used by others to empower themselves (ie. suffragette). Some were words used to explain a whole different idea that turned into worldwide phenomenons themselves (ie. paradigm). It’s freeing – we made ALL of this up and we can remake ALL of it up again. And it’s petrifying – we DO have the responsibility to make it all…
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Contact Lenses Audre Lorde Lacking what they want to see makes my eyes hungry and eyes can feel only pain. Once I lived behind thick walls of glass and my eyes belonged to a different ethic timidly rubbing the edges of whatever turned them on. Seeing usually was a matter of what was behind my brain. Now my eyes have become a part of me exposed quick risky and open to all the same dangers. I see much better now and my eyes hurt. I came across this poem reading “The Selected Works of Audre Lorde” Edited and with Intro…
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I have invested lots of money into coaching and leadership programs to help myself and to help other people (CAVEAT: if they should want my help.) These two words, coaching and leadership are so loaded, so diluted and so mainstream that they really don’t mean anything anymore. It’s sad that they have become shells of their former meaning. I have never really liked the word coach. I’ve had a few coaches of my own over the years. I am so grateful for them. They helped me immensely – holding me accountable, helping me think through things, and giving me resources…
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January is the perfect “excuse” to embrace contradictions – hell, it seems like we are all for it as a society. Just only in a certain way. “Start your goals NOW!” In the dead of winter, without processing anything really from last year, without resting and letting things percolate. Then beat yourself up when you crash sometime mid-January and tell yourself that YOU are the problem. “Of course I am the problem. How could it be the society and systems that give lip service to rest and balance but just use them as a way to get more productivity out…
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Though I mentioned that I try VERY VERY hard not to schedule things in January (or after 5 pm), I acquiesced a few weeks ago for a beginner climbing class at the gym. Things to know before reading on: Sprained my left ankle last year (and it’s still hurting), I have zero arm or grip strength (I drop things all the time), I am definitely of a bigger body and I’m not good with heights. So why did I sign up for this class? Well, four reasons – I found myself with two other beginner climbers (we were all women)…
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For years, my Google calendar had a banner across all the weeks of January into February. It looked something like this: DON’T SCHEDULE ANYTHING. DON’T DO IT! I KNOW YOU THINK IT WILL BE OKAY BUT IT WON’T! JUST DON’T SCHEDULE ANYTHING – YOU ARE GOING TO BE MISERABLE. I saw it a lot. I saw it every time I added something to the calendar, reading that warning, feeling the sinking feeling in my gut but adding the event anyway. “Because I had to, because this is a singular opportunity, because I agreed to manage x,y,z and it just happened…
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And the sometimes not so positive consequences “When we have the courage to let go of the dream we have now – the dream and drive and trance to accumulate more – then we have the space to envision and create the new dream, a dream that sees us engaged in respecting, preserving, honoring what we have.” – The Soul of Money Lynne Twist I am baffled that within 3 years EVERYTHING has gone back to the way it was in 2019. It’s like 2020 and 2021 never happened. Am I the only one that has whiplash? Am I the…
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(and why how we think and talk about it all matters) Today is Thanksgiving day in the United States and I’m still ambivalent and frustrated…So today’s post comes from my pent up frustration and anger at the stories we tell ourselves that don’t serve us or the people around us. If the words “I am” are so important…(and they are) Why are we putting them before jobs, before roles, before hobbies, before things we prefer, when all of that can disappear in a heartbeat? We know that “I am” is so much bigger, so much larger and encompasses so much…
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I had the opportunity to volunteer at a local bookshop last week for a talk on Thanksgiving. (The speaker actually wrote a book (some books) about it.) I have always had a difficult time with Thanksgiving as a holiday. Even before we started to collectively acknowledge that the “traditional” narrative is false and opened Pandora’s box… As a child it rang false to me. There was no flexibility whatsoever with this holiday. This is the meal, these are the people, this is how we do it. Suggestions, disagreements or mentions left the air around me full of tension and anxiety.…