Category: What Has Become Clear

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The ‘U’ in YOU

I was listening to author Carol Graham, Happiness Around the World – The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires, being interviewed on CBC. My husband Jim and I were traveling to Ottawa where I was to deliver a talk. Part of my preparation prior to giving any presentation is listening. That may be inwardly, to my own quiet voice, or outwardly, to whatever voices appear in my immediate environment. Whatever appears is a roadSIGN and this particular interview had a bearing on what I was about to present as Graham discussed happiness.

There were few surprises as she expanded on the notion of happy peasants and miserable millionaires; money, it seems, does not assure us happiness. Despite this, we in western societies are on the ‘hedonic treadmill’ pursuing our belief that the more we acquire the happier we will be.  This of course is a fallacy and as Graham’s research revealed, many of the poorest people on earth, leading simple and uncomplicated lives, experience happiness in ways we can only dream about.

In measuring happiness over the adult life span, beginning at age 18 and upward, Graham also identified a ‘U’ curve. Happiness tends to be at its lowest point between the ages of forty-two and fifty. Is this what we in western cultures have for so long labeled as the mid-life crisis? Is this the big ‘U’ in YOU? 

I thought Graham’s research to be very interesting. As a coach I have certainly identified this mid-life anxt among my clients, although not always limited to this specific age group. It is, in my view, a critical time in both our personal lives and careers, a time where typically one sits back and takes a look at what one has accomplished and what is coming next. By the age of forty, most of us have 15 to 20 solid years of work experience behind us and, if you have traveled a similar path to me, you begin to assess what it is you really want to achieve through your work. You might even ask the question what is my work, what do I believe I am here to do? How am I being asked to serve? What is my ‘WHY’, the meaning behind my choices? Am I making a difference? 

I believe that your JOB may or may not be your work. Let me illustrate this with a story. A friend of mine and fellow writer, Dawna, experienced a serious form of cancer in her mid-thirties. She was hospitalized for an extended period of time receiving chemotherapy and other cancer treatments. She was very sick and during that time admits to losing her sense of who she was. Her illness simply took over her thoughts.

Dawna admits that the most difficult time of each day was after 8:00 p.m. when visiting hours ended and she lay awake in her bed, alone with her thoughts. Every evening however, she would have a visitor. As the darkness settled around her, she would hear the sound of the mop coming down the hallway, its familiar swooshing sound approaching her room as the evening janitor cleaned the hallways of the day’s accumulated dust. As this night worker approached her room, the mop handle would click against the wall just outside her room and this person would glide into her room. She would sit beside Dawna’s bed, take her hand and whisper to her, “Dawna you are bigger than cancer; Dawna, you are bigger than your illness. Dawna you have much more to give this world, focus on this”. After a few moments of sitting with Dawna, the person would rise and leave her room. The swooshing sound of the mop would resume and disappear down the hall. 

Throughout Dawna’s journey, this woman visited her. Dawna did heal and she eventually left the hospital. She did not know the woman’s name and in fact had never seen her face, for they always met in the dark. As you consider this story, you will recognize that this woman’s JOB was to be a janitor. Her work however, was to be a healer. While her JOB gave her the avenue to pursue her work in the world, she had many choices as to how she approached her job. 

The ‘U’ in YOU, that time when you happiness wanes, is an opportunity. Rather than judging it, why not use the time as a signal for checking in with yourself and asking those critical questions about meaning and how you are experiencing life.

Imagine for a moment that you are a pebble. You are thrown into a smooth, glassy surface of water. The moment you and the water connect, you create a ripple effect and those ripples continue to expand affecting life around you. The ripples represent your choices, how you engage in life and the world around you. 

As you reflect on the ripple you want to create, here are the three critical questions to examine:

1)      How do I choose to live in the world? What are my core values?

2)     What do I choose to do in the world? What is my work, my call to service?

3)     Who do I choose to ‘be’ in the world? What makes me tick?

Let these be your roadSIGNS.

By the way, according to Graham’s research, the happiest people are healthy and in stable relationships. Happy people live longer, enjoy life, are politically active, believe in God or a higher power, and have friends and family they can rely on. Interesting how none of these attributes are directly connected to ‘material goods’.

Until next time….

Betty

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Delayed

Desolee, as they say in french. On July 9th, Jim and I departed on the great adventure. It was early morning, and we were ready to take the great leap. I felt remarkably calm, centered and focused. Of course, I was not hanging out of the door of the plane at that point either. Thirty minutes into our drive to the airport we hit the first storm, the rain coming at us so fast and furiously we had to pull off the highway and proceed at a snail’s pace. It did not last long, and it was advance warning of the day to come, as a series of storm cells marched through the Ottawa River valley.

Arriving in Ottawa, I called the airport and spoke with the young lady scheduling the flights and the jumps. “We have you on stand-by”, she informed me.

“What does that mean exactly?”, I asked. 

“We wait until we see a break in the storms, then you take off”.

I am thinking that this is less than perfect for me, imagining us jumping among the huge black cumulus clouds that are crowding the sky, the occasional thunder and lightening circling us like a great celebratory dance. Sky diving took on a whole new dimension as I imagined myself guided to the ground by electric shock therapy.

Despite my reticence, I gave her my cell phone and said , “Call me when we are good to go!”

Jim and I went on to Starbuck’s for a brew and a chat. As it was attached to the Indigo-Chapters bookstore, we wandered,  sipphoned through the CD’s on sale coming up with a few gems from the past that we had never replaced from our extensive record collection, like Moody Blues and other favorites, picked up the new Fast Company Magazine and headed out. It was raining, again. Without any discussion I called the shydiving company again and re-sceduled. The young lady seemed non-plussed and non-committal. I was thinking that customer service was not her forte or she is not comfortable speaking english, as it was evident that she was a Francophone.

Ottawa is a great city to hang out in. Off we went to the Glebe, one of our favorite neighbourhoods, had lunch, relaxed. It was a reminder that we were, after all, on vacation. I am learning that a Stay-cation has its merits and downfalls. I love being at home in my gardnes and being a tourist in my own part of the country yet I don’t detach completely from my everyday life.

We went on to have dinner with friends Marie-Josee, Luc and their children Julien and Edouard. Aren’t these amazing names? And yes, they are French Canadian, something that I love about my life here in this part of Canada. M.J.’s mom Louise joined us and this is where I had to make the jump after all, dive into life in a way I had not expected that day. Louise speaks very little english and my French is very rusty. Have courage I thought, you speak French, yes you make mistakes, so what, take the jump.

And so I began, and through patience on my part and my French Canadian hosts, had an amazing conversation about spirit, and life, and children and friendship – all in French and occasionally moitie-moitie – mixed english and french. I also noticed that two glasses of a fine merlot advanced my ability to speak significantly, whether that or my natural inhibitions dropped! Would this be a recipe for the next jump, the one where I leap from the plane, I wondered? Better not – I want to be completely lucid.

We are now booked for Sunday, July 18th at 5 P.M. I will keep you posted. For now I remain calm and serene knowing that when the time is perfect, I will be making that jump.

Before then, a busy week looms ahead with a trip to Toronto to deliver the final Insights Discovery Workshop in the current project I am on follwed by hosting a wedding here at Tigh Shee on Saturday. The Labyrinth and the gardens have been extraordinary this year.

Tigh Shee Labyrinth Summer 2010

Until next time,

Betty

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Paint Me a Masterpiece

Moving on from turning sixty, it’s time to simply continuing living fully and being in the world as I love to be. The week started with a trip to Toronto to attend the Your Workplace Conference on the theme of creating the Engaged Workplace. Here are my reflections:

Is it time to start painting outside the lines in your ‘paint by number’ routine? I ask myself this question whenever I feel myself succombing to some unwritten rule that seems to be forcasting my decisions or life choices. These rules, have been defined by the ‘shoulds, have to’s and must do’s’ I have acquired through the years. What about you, do you suffer from the same self-imposed limitations?

Recently, my husband Jim and I participated in the annual Your Workplace Conference. Held in Toronto, the conference theme this year was ‘creating an engaging workplaces’. With that theme in mind, we as exhibitors were asked to engage conference participants when they came to visit our booth. The first task for us, attract a creative idea which would do just that. We decided to engage the artist within each person, knowing that within every individual there lurks a creative soul. Unfortunately that creativity may have been laying dormant for a few years. Our challenge was to invite it out to play.

To create our engraging booth, we purchased a three by four foot canvas, and installed this on an easle at the corner of our venue. We placed boxes of high quality markers around the easle offering everyone the tools they required to be creative. Our invitation was to ‘Paint us a Masterpiece’, simply choose your colors and add to the canvas.

As conference attendees drifted by our booth we pulled them in, asking them to dip their hand into the box of colors, add an element of their choice to the painting and make their contribution. You can imagine the responses. We heard the usual litany of ‘I can’t draw. The artist in me died in Kindergarden. There isn’t a creative bone in my body!”

Your Workplace Conference ParticipantsFinal Painting ~ YWP Conference

  The interesting thing we noticed, is that we did not ask people specifically to draw, only to add to the canvas. This could have been a line, a blob, a curly-cue, whatever. The choice was theirs to make.

So how does this experience relate to life and painting outside the paint-by number lines? With the same hesitance as our exhibitor booth visitors demonstrated, I noticed the extent to which we do not allow ourselves to fully engage in life, the hesitation to pick up a pen or brush and add new strokes to the canvas of  life. Notice how you are holding yourself back in ways you do not even recognize.

Each of us is an artist. Art comes in different forms, shapes and sizes; it might be a drawing, a simple line or a bold new color; it might appear as a painting, a novel, or a creation of some other form. Whatever it is, I encourage each of you to pick up a crayon, a marker or a paint brush and add something new to the canvas of your life.

As Gordon Mac Kenzie wrote in Orbiting the Giant Hairball,  begin wielding a wider brush – pure ox-bristle. Swoop it through the sensuous goo of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, or Ultramarine Blue (not nos. 4, 8, 13) to create the biggest, brightest, funniest, fiercest damn dragon that you can. Because that has more to do with what’s inside of you than some prescribed plagiarism of somebody else’s tour de force.

You have a masterpiece inside you, too, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. And remember: If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you. 

Our conference visitors did, in the end, create a masterpiece filled with doodles and swirls, suns and rainbows, stick people and animals, whatever inspired them. The result was impressive (bids for the painting are now being accepted!). Now it’s your turn to stretch a little, step outside your ‘shoulds, have to’s and must do’s’. You might be surprized at what appears – there may even be a dragon lurking there.

The Final Masterpiece

Remember this is not about perfection, imperfection is better. It is what cracks you open. As a yoga instructor said to me recently, the poses don’t have to be perfect. Lack of perfection creates cracks and it is the cracks that allow the light to come in. Let the light in. Step up- start painting your masterpiece, stretch a little, crack your life open!

Until next time…

Betty

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Thoughts on Turning 60!

In a few short days, on April 28th, I will celebrate another birthday. I generally let these days slide by unnoticed but this year marks another decade. I am turning 60. I am not in shock even though that voice inside me asks how this happened when I turned 50 only just a few short days ago. No, I am not suffering from early onset dementia, perhaps a menopause moment, or just the realization that life speeds up with every decade.

Of course many have spouted the rhetoric, “Well how do you feel about that?” My answer, “I can’t change it so I may as well enjoy it. Is there really any point to being in a late-life crisis over this?”

I am curious about those who claim to be in crisis over turning 60, and about those who ask how I feel. As if we can change the fact that we are growing older, and that each of us will hit all these landmarks sooner or later unless something unexpected happens.

 Honestly, I feel 37. I told a sales clerk at the Body Shop the other day, when she asked if I had an April birthday, entitling me to a 10% discount, that I was about to turn 50. She casually looked me over then smiled and said  that I did not look 50. Silently I applauded her and partied inside cheering the fact that, at least in her eyes, I wasn’t even close to 60. Of course Jim couldn’t stand it and ‘outed’ me. Poor girl is still confused about my exact age. And why do I have to fess up to it anyway. If I say I am younger than the calendar tells me, will I not attract more youth? 

Yes, just like anyone else, I have the desire to live and look young. Of course the mirror tells me something else. I see the wrinkles creeping in around my eyes and mouth and the furrows deepening in my cheeks, and still I can’t see 60 years. It is only a date after all, my biological age. I think I will continue to defer to the sales clerks and my own inner voice and ignore the mirror.

Party on! And on May 1st I will do just that – we are hosting a labyrinth walk and I decided it was also time to party. Now this is a big decision for me as I had my last real birthday party when I turned 9. It was memorable in that Donna Covey ate too much cake and barfed all over my new shoes. I remember a few tears and the chaos that followed. Not to say there haven’t been other opportunities, I have simply chosen to find other ways to celebrate. I turned 50 outside Portland OR at my friend Delayne’s home nestled at the foot of Mount Hood – that was very special. I can’t remember how I celebrated 20, 30 or 40. I want to remember celebrating 60 and I’ll let you know how it goes.

As for the rest of you who will hit this landmark age along with me this year, you are invited to my party and to witness what a real celebration looks like. I have a picture painted in my head of dancing, and drumming – moving forward on the heartbeat of life. Care to join me?

Until next time,

Betty

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10-10-10

Just the other day, my friend and business colleague and I were on our way to WXN – Women’s Executive Network, in Ottawa. It was an ungodly hour as the breakfast meeting began at 7:15 and we live an hour out of Ottawa. Add time for parking and catching our breath, I was up at five and on the road 20 minutes later on my way to rendezvous with Doreen. I could continue to carp or switch gears and tell you how magical it is to be out on the road before most lights have even been turned on in the homes I passed and to witness the colour rising in the sky as I wound through the back roads of North Glengarry. And then there is the comradeship that Doreen and I share, both of us being entrepreneurs and both of us working full-time with our life partners. It was Doreen who I turned to for advice in the early days of Jim’s retirement as she and her husband Heinz had years of experience in the ‘work together’ arena.

Weeks ago we had decided to attend two networking events in one day, one at breakfast, and one late afternoon, allowing ample time in between for play – a spa date, lunch and conversation. Despite our best intentions, talk turned to work, sharing our excitement and occasional frustration with what we do. Both of us actively work with the Law of Attraction however, so we allow little air in the frustration balloon, choosing instead to fuel the fires of attraction.

Doreen introduced me to a book she is currently reading by Suzy Welch entitled 10-10-10: A Life Transforming Idea. I have yet to read this myself  however I gleaned an interesting idea from our conversation, related to day-to-day decision making and the impact our decisions have. 10-10-10 is a filter. Consider this, when making a decision, you ask yourself what effect will this decision have on your business or your life in the next 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 weeks or on a larger scale, 10 days, 10 months, 10 years. I have been steadily reflecting on this and it has helped  become aware of how often I make decisions because they feel urgent. I don’t necessarily pause to consider the long term consequences; I react. I am wondering what would happen to my decisions if I engaged the 10-10-10 filter.

 I am sure Suzy’s book is much richer than what I have suggested, I simply like the idea of considering this 10-10-10 philosophy and beginning to apply it to my daily decision-making, especially as it applies to business development. Business, as we all know, requires responses that will sustain and grow our business in both the short and long-term. Using 10-10-10 as an aid to decision-making could be a simple yet powerful strategy. So, thanks Doreen!

On another note, I wanted to comment on networking. One year ago, as I was beginning to re-build my business following a writing sabbatical, I decided, with the encouragement of my colleagues, to begin networking in earnest. I am proud to tell you that I am now the member of at least 6 networking groups. I also want to share that networking effectively is not what I thought it was a year ago. It is far more than exchanging business cards, follow-up, and searching for new business opportunities. It is, in my view, a way of connecting with others, seeing them, make a heart-felt connection with 2-3 unique people with each networking opportunity, building community, contributing, and more. I have learned that seeing networking through this lens is much more attractive than the card exchange and chasing people – an important learning on my part.

Life is one great lesson – I am eager to hear yours as well!

Until next time…

Betty

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The New Story of ME

I had the opportunity this past week to present to two different West Island audiences – a public lecture sponsored by AMCAL Family Services and the English Montreal Coach’s Breakfast. It has been awhile since I have given key note presentations and it was refreshing to return to this energy and have a conversation with an audience. It was certainly a SIGN for me that this is where I want to play.

One of the topics that frequently arise during my presentations is, “Do you believe is counselling?” I assume the question is asked as I bill myself as a coach. I address this question by first clarifying the difference between coaching and counselling.

Here is my explanation: Coaching focuses on forwarding the action in your life. It does not look back; it assesses where you are at the present time and assists you in becoming clear about what you want to attract to your life. In this sense it is about today and the future.

Coaching utilizes the art of inquiry and deep listening. It may be the first time in your life that you feel totally understood and that you are valued unconditionally.The focus of coaching is to allow you to re-discover the many facets of who you are. This includes your strengths, gifts and talents; those aspects of yourself that you may be overlooking.

Is this similar to counselling? Counselling and Coaching have two things in common, they both begin with the letter ‘C’ and they are both based on working directly with a client to examine an aspect of their life. Counselling tends to focus more on the past, an excavation process which allows the client to examine old wounds, relationships, and the many aspects of life which could be intefering with the present. In this way counselling serves a purpose.

In responsing to the question “Do I believe is counselling?”, the anwser is yes and no. From a personal perspective I have always asked myself, how does it serve me to dig up the past. I ask my clients and audience participants the same question. It is not for me to decide on their behalf. I will add however, that where our attention goes, energy flows,  that is to say, I believe that if we focus on the wounds of the past we will attract more of the same. That is unless we become very clear regarding what we want instead of this ‘Old Story’.

Shifting back to coaching, the process I engage clients in is creating and recording their New Story. This involves listening in on the self-critic, who represents all the fears and limiting beliefs of the past wrapped up in one complex messy fur ball; untangling the strings that bind this mess together, and becoming clear on the messages you want to feed yourself everyday. My suggestion is that these messages stem from your Heart Voice, a guidance system deep within you that truly wants you to attract all that is in your highest good. These messages would be self-affriming; they would acknowledge you and the gifts and strengths you bring into the world in both your relationships and your work, and would encourage you to step fully into your personal power in terms of living the life you know to be the one you actually want to live.

The New Story is rich and deeply textured and it is built upon all the lessons of the past. As a coach, I don’t avoid discussing the past with clients, in fact I encourage clients to complete what I refer to as a life review. The purpose of this exercise however, is not to dwell there, but to assess those ‘bliss moments’ of your life. These moments represent those times in your life where all the dots lined up – you felt successful, you felt joyful, you felt complete. You knew that this was a significant achievement.

I offer this exercise as I have noticed, both in myself and others, that we rarely acknowledge ourselves. Instead we focus on what we did not achieve, on our failures if you will. As a result we do not really see ourselves and the contributions we have made to the world.

I hope the SIGN for you in this blog, is to step up and begin celebrating YOU. If you don’t know where to start or how to do this, find a coach. Although there is much to be learned from examining the past, today and the future is where your life is really playing out. It no longer serves you to linger in the days of memory, it is time for all of you to step into the New Story of Me, and begin living the life you have always wanted and which has been there waiting for you to claim it.

Until next time…

Betty

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On the Road

There have been so many wonderful roadSIGNS this past week, not the least of which was an event I co-facilitated for Leadership Ottawa (LO). Of interest is that LO does not call their team facilitators, but cultivators. You have to love that, cultivating, seeding, nurturing and so on. For me it conjures up an entirely different energy.

In sharing this with my colleague and fellow coach Patty Walters this morning, I was able to notice that years ago I set an intention to work with individuals who understood that Leadership is an inside out process, that to be an effective leader one must first address the inner landscape of self. And this is where I was called to play during the LO retreat.

I am so grateful. And I have a dream of running a leadership event where this is the focus. I want to merge ME FIRST with leadership, in fact ME FIRST is exactly that, leadership of self. What follows naturally is stepping into being a leader in the eyes of others. Leadership, again in my view, is rarely about doing. It is a state of being.

And this is the beginning of our ME FIRST road trip, planned many months ago and now underway. Currently we are in Garrison, New York, in the upper Hudson Highlands. Tomorrow we will run a ME FIRST Retreat Day hosted by our friends Lynn and Norm. Sunday we will dip into NYC to see friends. Next week we travel on to Tennessee to run a series of ME FIRST Events. I will keep you posted as  frequently as possible.

Something I recognize is that I have not been keeping up with my blog – unfortunately I have allowed this venue to become simply one more thing on  my to do list, a chore. That is not where I want to play. I enjoy writing. I enjoy having this conversation with all of you, even though I am not aware of who is visiting. And I want to be attractive, inspiring and uplifting. This is the energy I insert here, in the spaces between my words.

I invite you to share my intention for a leadership event/retreat which is inspiring, uplifting, provoking. Without knowing where or when, I can absolutely see it happening and see you there.

More notes from the road later!

Until then,

 Betty

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Life and More

I have been less than attentive to my blog of late and feeling somewhat guilty for my behavior. Now how does that serve me? I began to ruminate as to why I started a blog to begin with. Yes there was that pressure things my colleagues and clients telling me that, “You have to have a BLOG”.  

As I write this I am aware that I don’t like the word blog, it sounds too much like Blah, and that is simply not very inspiring. Anyway I stored the blog ideas on my shoulders where I carry all my should’s (did you ever notice that should is the root word of shoulder?) until one day I simply broke down and asked for help. That was a break through moment, asking for help, and once I did, it happened rather easily and effortlessly with the help of a friend, Alyssa. I did receive a lecurette at the time on the importance of having a regular presence on my blog, which I am now wondering if I failed at.

Oh PHOOEY! I just want this to be fun, so here I am today with a momentary rant. I release all the should’s, yep that feels better. I am signing up to make the blog FUN – another shoulder release. A deep breath – there we are. So what’s become clear to me lately (and you)?

Tonight I am profiling at AWE (Alexandria and Area Women Entrepreneurs). I love that this is happening on our Valentine’s Celebration, after all our logo is the flying heart.

The challenge in profiling is to understand what your audience wants. Does the audience want to know more about me and how I arrived here or do they simply want to know about the business or do they want a smidgen of both. I think I will go with door number three, a little of both. I only have 20 minutes however, so I want to be scarce on the details.

Saturday we leave on our first road trip of the season – five days in Burlington and Kitchener, Ontario. The tour is designed as a networking, book promo, business building opportunity. A colleague of mine has planned an “Evening of ME FIRST” in Kitchener. I love these evenings, inviting attendees into the ME FIRST conversation and hearing their views. It is challenging and exhilarating as I never know exactly what will show up. The following day I am participating in a Company-of-Women event in Burlington. This is a first for me and a way to become acquainted with this organization. We also have the opportunity of visiting with friends and playing a little – you have to have that fun quotient.

On our second roadSIGNS teleconference call this past Monday, I was gifted with a new idea. One of the participants who is about to retire coined the phrase ‘Re-Wirement’ instead of retirement. I always viewed re-tirement as a hyphenated word, designed to convince Jim that leaving the corporate Pharma world three years ago was simply putting on new treads. I think he secretly had hoped to put his feet up or to play hockey everyday. (I know he loves his current job!) Back to Re-Wirement – sounds like a possible book title to me!

Everyday is a new learning and a new opening. As 2010 began I set an intention for expansion, personally in terms of how I show up in the world, and business wise, with roadSIGNS. I want to attract new possibilities and opportunities that I have not imagined in the past. And I see the SIGNS everyday that this is happening. My clients feed and fuel me and my imagination. Doors are opening. What has become clear is the power of INTENTION!

Well this doesn’t feel blah – maybe this blogging is not so bad after all. I simply need to relax and have some fun and be in a conversation with each of you. Let me know what you think and what is becoming clear in your life. 

Until next time…

Betty

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I See You

On January 24th I had the opportunity to see the movie Avatar. On the surface, like so many of these American blockbusters, the movie was about good and evil, peace and war, love and fear. Cutting through those threads you also see the secondary theme of stewardship versus greed, that human trait that leads us to destroy what is in our path when there are resources to be harvested, failing to consider the long term effects of our actions.

The movie is clear, humans have destroyed Mother Earth and now they are seeking the necessary resources elsewhere leaving, yet again, a path of destruction in their wake. I have to admit the message of the movie weighted me down. I had to sit with it overnight and re-consider the movie in the early morning hours.

When I did, and I allowed all the violence and destruction within the film to evaporate, I was able to remember the beauty of it, the magnificent creatures that inhabited this amazing planet, Pandora. This was my roadSIGN, the quiet themes that ran behind the scenes that had initially occupied my attention.

The indigenous peoples of Pandora, the Nabi, understood the interconnectedness of all life. They saw all life as sacred, whether that was a member of their own species, another animal, or plant form. Their greeting to one another was, “I see you”, a greeting stated without judgment and deigned to connect with the other person at the heart versus head level.

Did James Cameron intend for this to be the real message of the film. I can’t say. What I know for sure is that once I allowed for it, and reflected on the film rather than accepting it for face value, there was that deeper richer meaning. And it has affected me.

As I write this column it is raining, and although this is January, it all seems perfect. I once heard rain described as Mother Earth’s tears, and I am thinking that perhaps we need to cry, often, for that is what washes away the greed, and the fear, and the destruction and allows both the earth, and us, to heal.

I am not here to sell you on the movie – clearly that will be your choice if you have not already seen it. Whether you have or you haven’t, I simply want to ask you, are you choosing, everyday, to be a good steward or are you driven by fear, or greed or desire for more. Do you take the time to connect, with yourself, with your family and friends, with nature? Do you see yourself, not for all the things you think you should be, but for the beauty of who you really are? Do you understand that when you become a good steward of you, holding yourself in unconditional love and high regard, that this ripples into the world around you. Isn’t it time to shift our relationship with ourselves and others?

JOY!

At a meeting the other day, I heard someone saying that tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. I found this interesting for, as we know tomorrow never comes. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Today is the day when change begins. Today is the perfect time to change your conversation with you and shift from the inner-critic’s saboteur to your heart voice which speaks of respect and gratitude for who you are. Today is the time to begin blessing others rather than judging them, for everyone is in your life for a reason. Today is the day to begin to speak for Mother Earth, for she is as much a part of us as our own parents and children. Today is the day to begin a new journey and to step onto the path that you choose for you.

If not now, when?

I see you!

Until next time… Betty

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Positivity

As a coach, one often feels alone and isolated. I have been in this field longer than most, since 1990. I did not call it coaching then, the term had not yet been coined as it applied to personal and professional development.

The isolation comes from working by yourself. Don’t get me wrong – I love what I do and why I do it. I see the rewards everyday when I witness the shifts occurring in my clients and I seeing them moving forward with their lives. The aloneness is more one of lack of collegiality.

Recently however I found the Montreal coaches network and, for the second time this past Friday, I attended the morning breakfast. There I met others, who like myself, are coaches, each with their own speciality and unique approach. What truly inspired me is that the group is there to collaborate and support one another – there is no competition.

In addition to finding this community, each month features a guest speaker. This month Kurt Shuster from Vancouver spoke in regard to Positive Psychology.

What is Positive Psychology – the study of human flourishing, the science of happiness. Positive Psychology, as I learned, is the science that validates what I do, that coaching clients through the Law of Attraction and helping them shift to a positive versus negative world view can be proven empirically to change a person’s life.

Now I always knew that yet somehow when someone says to me that they can prove that what I do makes a difference, it makes my work seem more legitimate. Perhaps that is the old scientifically based physiotherapist who resides in my body.

As an example, Kurt talked about the research on approach versus avoidance goals. An approach goal would state something like, I want to be on time for all my meetings, where as an avoidance goal would state, I don’t want to be late. The approach goal students who participated in this study were, as you can imagine, more successful

This idea is also fundamental to the Law Of Attraction which states that you must be clear on what you want rather than stating what you don’t what. Whatever you give your focus to will manifest. It matters.

Next Kurt presented the four pillars of Well-Being: positive emotions, character, engagement and meaning, and positive relationships. While we did not have time to discuss all of these in detail, you can see that the relationship between the pillars and how you choose to live in the world. In the end, it always come back to you and I. We are responsible for our own happiness and it is within our power to be happy or not. Happiness is not based on some magic bullet that lies outside of us.

An additional piece of research regarding Character, Strengths and Virtues (Christopher Peterson et al)  examined the qualities that are associated with a strong sense of well-being. The research found that, across cultures, the five strengths associated with Well-Being are hope, gratitude, curiosity, zest, and the capacity to love and be loved. In addition, their research showed that the 2 strengths associated with work satisfaction are hope and zest (passion, excitement and energy).

You can take the VIA strengths assessment to evaluate your strengths at www.viacharacter.org and visit the science of coaching blog at www.blog.noomii.com if all of this interests you.

This is only a brief summary of Kurt’s lecture – there was much more. I share it with you as I felt uplifted by the presentation, connected with a community of coaches, and validated for the work I choose to do. It is clear that each of us needs support, whether you are the coach or the coachee, and that support, if well chosen, lifts our spirits and helps us in taking on the world in a positive way.

Life is Good - Maintain an attitude of gratitude!

Have an attitude of gratitude and see how this influences your life.

Until next time…

Betty