Category: inspiration

anxiety, discretion, humor, inspiration, life lessons, management, mindfulness, motivation

Good Morning Monday

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“[T0day] is a new day.  You shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.” — Emerson

By Sunday night, the glow of the weekend begins to fade and the anticipation of another week begins.  Stomachs get tight, hands begin to rub temples and the list of all that needs to be done begins to grow into an unwieldy paper dragon flying around in your head wreaking all sorts of havoc on those synapses which had fired so calmly for two days.

 

I admit, I obsess – more often than not about the things I ‘should’ be doing with little regard for anything that I already did.  It doesn’t make for many internal feel-goods, I must say.  More importantly though I make myself crazy (with a nod to the reality that I’m already a garden-variety nut).  When I was working full-time this was just an accepted form of doing business.  Everyone had lists that seemed to procreate at night, so the next morning there were even more items than when you left.  A year later, I’m still a work-in-progress.  Learning to align what is important to me  with that which really has to happen is a tough assignment.  And it’s one we all have to assimilate at one point or another or we’re denying ourselves the one thing we know we have – right now.  Now, don’t dismiss me with the thought that I have no idea what’s on your plate, the pressure you’re under, how hard you have to drive yourself.  Not true – I do know.  I also know that you are far more important than anything you’ve got going on today.  And if you don’t at least try to take a bit of care of yourself today, at some point you won’t need to consider tomorrow.

So if you’d be so kind as to put one thing on your list this morning – and place it first.  YOU.  Find a little space today for you.  Close your office door for ten minutes (if you have a door).  Stay off of email for a few minutes and stretch your legs.  Let the call go to voice mail.  Not for so long that you begin to sweat and itch.  Just long enough to let your body catch up with your mind.  Long enough to close your eyes and smile with the delight that for ten little minutes you were unencumbered.

Happy Monday everybody..

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

A Tiny Pause For A Big Thank You

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If you have never visited the site of DrBillWooten@wordpress.com – I enthusiastically encourage you to do so.  Dr. Bill provides me with a daily dose of thought-provoking quotes paired with amazing pictures that enhance the inspirational impact of his posts.  He was kind enough to include me in his list of Sunshine Bloggers, and I am very appreciative.  Rather than respond to the questions – for which I still haven’t answers, I am excited to once again acknowledge some blogs which I now routinely visit.  I’m trying not to repeat the names of ‘old friends’ (six months being the definition of ‘old’); I trust you know how much I think of your writing, your heart and your humor.

First and foremost there’s kizzylee@wordpress.com – She included me in a game of tag, and I think I’m still ‘it’.  I may be a failure at the game, but kizzylee hits it out of the park every time she shares her perspective on life and family, challenges and joy.  I think she writes as she must speak – fluid stream of consciousness that is a joy to follow.

Momentumofjoy@wordpress.com – Joanna doesn’t ignore the tough stuff, she just refuses to give it any power over her approach to life.  She has amazed me with her writing, but also on a personal level with her knowledge of me (without ever having met or spoken with me).  She shares her gifts with heartfelt generosity – I am but a lucky recipient.  You will leave her blog always the better for having visited.

PaperKeeper@wordpress.com – Bonnie calls it as she sees it – but always with a smile on her face and in her blog.  I am a relatively ‘new’ visitor, but am thrilled that I have made the connection!  You will be too.

AGratefulMan@wordpress.com – Russ makes me want to be a better person.  Don’t ask me how he does it – it’s just reflective of who he is.  Genuine, funny, deeply caring, observant…I could go on, but I’ll sound like a mush (ok, I am a mush).  Russ is a grateful man; he is also an amazing one.

TeacherAsTransformer@wordpress.com – I think many of you already know Ivon’s beautiful work and equally impressive photography.  If you have not had the delight of reading his blog, please visit – you’ll be so glad you did.

SusanDanielsPoetry@wordpress.com – I found this site through HelpMeRhonda@wordpress.com – and I am continually amazed at Susan’s talent and her prodigious ability to make words leap into your heart or challenge your perspective.

TracyLouisePhotography@wordpress.com – The most amazing images from an amazing talent (who is so self-effacing she doesn’t even realizes how talented she is)…You’ll be awed – and she’s self-taught!!

There are more, but I want to save some up just in case I get lucky again and get to share more with my friends.  Thank you again and have a superlative Sunday!

 

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

In Friendship Friday

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“This is how it works.  I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as necessary.  For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you’re loved.  So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you.  And this isn’t any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much.  Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.” — James Lecesne

It’s that simple.  And that complicated.  Coming out of my little migraine haze yesterday, I found that in a 24 hour time span, I had missed a lot of important stuff.  Stuff that is important to me.  My circle of friends is small – though it has grown in miraculous ways over the last six months.  At the ripe old age of not-so-young,  I hold my friends close.  Perhaps it is because I lost one of my closest friends to suicide ten+ years ago.  I’m not ready to write about that just yet.  But I would call her Winnie (long story) and she would call me Piglet (a size thing – not so long a story) and though we held few secrets, I never thought she would need to leave this world.  I truly believed that as long as she knew that I was always at the end of her rope when she reached it, she’d hold on.   But she couldn’t.  Again, a story for another day when the sun is shining and my heart can risk the mention of her name.

Yesterday one of my friends was circling the abyss which is filled with doubt and dread and darkness.  I wasn’t worried that she would slip, I worried  that she didn’t know that she had safe haven from the awfulness that was riding on a non-stop carousel in her head.  She kept switching seats;  some of the horses were magnificent (and went up and down); others were fierce though immobile, yet too seductive to ignore.  I’m not blessed with a sixth sense – but I do begin to feel uneasy.  Not hearing from Simon made me worry enough that I couldn’t let it go until I heard from him.  Reading a message that held a more important message behind the words sent me to a very special friend to check in.  The silence before she responded to me was interminable.  The fact that I caught her on the merry-go-round as she flew past one horrid thought after another was luck.  Luck and the evidence that there are invisible connections between friends that bind them in amazing ways.

Sometimes life overwhelms.  Despite all of our efforts to see the sky and believe in the beauty of all things, days can just…well, suck.  I don’t know that friendship can change the course of a day; it can perhaps slow down the carousel long enough so that someone can get on the ride and saddle up next to you.  You can each hold onto your pole and circle the darkness together.  Sometimes just having someone next to you makes the continuous rotation less dizzying.  The key to friendship is wanting to be there even if you hate carousels, if the depth of the abyss scares the hell out of you, but being present for your friend trumps any hesitation.  Other times you just have to hug hard and bring Kleenex.

Pain and confusion, the enormity of choices we make throughout the course of our lives – they arrive and take their own time to work through to resolution.  Friends can’t eliminate these realities; they are safe havens when someone needs it – whether or not they know it.  Friendship reflects the awesome power of love that won’t back down.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.  “Pooh?” he whispered.

“Yes Piglet”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand.  “I just wanted to be sure of you”  (A.A. Milne)

That power of love – it can get you through an awful lot.  It can give you the gift of being your best self.  And in doing so – everyone feels they have received a prize at the end of the ride.

 

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

The Beauty That Is Us

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..all of us.  I spent more minutes than I care to admit just marveling at these pictures this morning.  How can we look in the eyes of another human being and not feel connected to them somehow?  We love our families; want the next generation to enjoy a more peaceful, prosperous, kinder world; we value our traditions and celebrate love in a myriad of ways.   Our faces tell a story, our culture gives it context.  And each one of us weaves a story that is unique, marvelous, heartbreaking, celebratory.  I look in these eyes and I wonder – what is the story?   And though I may never know each and everyone, I believe with all my heart that there would be more that I would understand than not.

 

 

discretion, inspiration, leadership, life lessons, management, mindfulness, motivation, work life

Thoughtful Thursday

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Oh Al I swear, you’re a genius!  Even before ‘multi-tasking’ became part of the social lexicon, you were decrying its effectiveness.  Good on you big guy, and lucky for the woman you were kissing in the car.  Better to pull over and focus.  A taboo idea I know – doing one thing at a time and getting it right.

When I was at the firm, he who juggled the most balls in the air without dropping any, won.  Yes, there were migraines, emotional short-circuits, missed anniversaries and birthdays – but man, could people juggle conference calls, client meetings, intra-office drama, toggling between dual monitors in their offices while checking Blackberries and texting on their iPhones.  Conversations – if that is what one chooses to call them – were stolen in the Starbucks line, or in fifteen minute intervals, or checked in a box.

You’re right – balls got dropped.  Perhaps not the ones that determine the size of a year-end bonus, and most assuredly not those that would compromise the zealous representation of one’s clients.

I spent a lot of time with people who had dropped the other stuff along the way – without thinking that the ramifications would be so profound.  The parent who routinely watched her daughter play in a sports tournament while emailing on her iPad and chairing a conference call and genuinely fretting because she and her child weren’t close; the husband who couldn’t reconcile the wonderful woman he had married with the raging, angry alcoholic she had become – for she had never shown any signs.  The affair that grew over time because neither person was ever home long enough for intimacy and friendship to grow roots there – though they insisted they tried.  They didn’t intend for this to happen.  The thrown blood clot that resulted from excessive time on planes and trains.  The pseudo-friendships that ended up defining one’s inner circle because there was no time to cultivate genuine loving relationships, and the resulting  isolation and loneliness that prompted yet another script for antidepressants.  The young associate who wept in my office upon discovering that this brass ring for which she had sacrificed much was not what she thought it would be and didn’t want to ride the carousel anymore – but for the enormous debt, mortgage and car payments.

No signs?  Really?

I didn’t judge it then, I’m not judging it now.  I do find the sincere disbelief…well, surprising.  We all struggle to do the right thing in the face of competing demands and increasing competition.  But what do you want to win?  And who are you kidding if you think that everything you are juggling has equal weight and heft, allowing you to balance it all equally?  The reality is that those weights change and morph according to time and circumstance.  Sacrifices will be made and balls will drop – that’s the reality.  There is also this inalienable truth – you have to decide what to focus on, what values you will only compromise so much and how to give the people you love the best of who you are.  Maybe you should focus on that kiss.

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Post This

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I did!  I have post-it’ed messages in lots of fun places today…This one was put on the napkin holder at Uno’s…

 

 

The Post-It notes had one of three messages – “You’re Terrific”, “Smile” or “Have A Wonderful Day”… I started at the gym, surreptitiously placing notes on the handle of an exercise bike, on the mirror in the locker room and on the windshields of two cars in the parking lot.  Honestly?  I felt both tremendously silly (and I do silly very well) and sneaky (I don’t do that as well) .  Onto a quick meeting, where I left one Post-It on the panel of the receptionist’s desk and again on a windshield.  At Starbucks I put one on the cash register (there was no one behind me in line – the place was empty for a change), left one on the sugar/cream counter and in the ladies’ room…Boldly I strode into the supermarket, where some unsuspecting soul will find a message on a package of chicken breasts, a yogurt container and the cover of a “Newsweek”.  And yes, another parking lot, another car…

Talk about stepping outside one’s comfort zone!  I haven’t passed hidden notes since junior high.  The best part of course is not knowing who the recipients are and recognizing that some will crumple them up and throw them away.  But maybe, someone will see it and smile, or laugh or shake his/her head while looking around to see if anyone remotely culpable is standing around.  Maybe it will make someone feel good on a really bad day, or maybe it will make no difference at all.  The best kindness is that which is extended with no expectation of anything in return, and given my stealthiness I am confident that I will remain unconnected to this crime of good fun.  My thanks to Christine for the inspiration behind this atypical day.  How fun it was to step outside myself  for a little while.  How intrepid and bold of me!!  And if it provided a small giggle for someone today, then all the better.

Perhaps as the karma truck keeps rolling along on its path, it will stop to pay the kindness forward.  Not to me, but to those I love – my sons and their wives, my son and his girlfriend.  Maybe the truck will make a pit stop in their respective driveways, and give them the blessings and peace and joy that they so richly deserve.  Perhaps it will stop near the homeless person who plays his sax on a corner in DC, or swing by someone who is bowed under the strain of getting through the day.  And that my friends, would be more than I could ask for – just because I ‘love-bombed’ a few unsuspecting souls today.

 

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Tuesday Morning Musings

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Interesting exercise – how did you read it?  Please don’t run too far with your result – I read it as “life is nowhere” and immediately got upset with my self for not first seeing the more optimistic phrasing.  The beauty of course is that we can look at it again and opt for the interpretation which most closely aligns with what we believe.

Yesterday’s post prompted a response from Christine – her blog  TheBookOfAlice.com delivers a daily dose of delight (my how alliterative!).  She wrote that she was going to consider arbitrary  ‘love-bombings’ – placing Post-It notes with a positive thought in unlikely places.  I’m sure she wasn’t suggesting that one paper a wall with such messages (after all, she read “You Are Special” on the wall in a ladies’ room).  Ok, Christine, you’re on.   I’m going to do this today – the Post-Its and felt tip marker are already in my bag.  I realize it’s not the greenest approach, but what if one person takes the note to heart?  Puts it in his/her pocket?  Shares it with someone else?  Ok, I admit it’s a little hokey, even a contrivance.  It also sounds like fun and if I don’t get caught, a challenge to myself to do something a little out of the ordinary.  Yes, I admit – I’m feeling a little exhilarated.

Perhaps too, I need to put some more positive energy out there – and maybe it will return to those for whom I wish the most wonderful things.  Who knows?  Maybe it’s just about adding some new accessories to my daily outfit (metaphorically speaking).  Shel Silverstein, who delighted my children and me for years with his tender poems and stories penned a lovely little rhyme which seems apropos this morning…

May the hugs be with you.