Like right now for instance. Even if you’re just about to crawl into bed and go to sleep…you can start your day over.

During a great “My dinner with Andre” lunch with a good friend today among our topics of divorce, grief, depression, little life tests and more was the realization of how we write “stories” in our minds about what is going on sometimes without any investigation or research to see if our creations are valid.  As luck would have it, we’re also both writers so the fact that we create stories about pretty much everything in our lives guarantees that we will never run out of material to write about.

But it did get us to thinking.

What little worlds had we created out of the very thin air in our minds that we had no idea we had created AND were walking around reacting and responding to as if they were the truth?! Such as, for example, in my past if something negative were to happen to me first thing in the morning (and it could be something as simple as stubbing my toe on the edge of the bed frame) then that was a set up for my creating all kinds of other negative things to support the story that my day sucked.  All I really had to do was acknowledge that I had stubbed my toe possibly because I was still half asleep and not paying attention to where I was placing my feet AND that I could sit down on the edge of my bed (after I had done the jump around dance holding on to my foot routine), take a deep breath and start my day over. So simple yet so disregarded.

This morning I headed off to school earlier than usual so that I could take a test that I had missed while on vacation.  Where we had to take the test was in a different building from the class with a simply amazing number of stairs to take from outside to inside until you reached the class.  Now, I could have made up a whole lot of stories about how this day was going simply based on the fact that I still have a sore foot from a full tank of oxygen falling on it a few days ago and that I was having to walk up several flights of stairs to take a test….but instead I gave myself permission to take my sweet time climbing the stairs and then crammed with some fellow students while waiting for the Professor.  Somehow my morning was almost fun.

You can start your day over anytime if you need to do so, but are you willing?

And you thought you were having a bad day!!

Stuck in a rut? Tired of doing the same ole routine day after day?  Find a way to get away from it all and travel.  Where there is a will, there is a way.  Right now I’m sitting on the balcony of our hotel looking at another incredible Mexican sunset.  There is rain off in the distance on the mainland and underneath the cumulus clouds on the horizon is a very faint patch of clouds which are  outlined in rose.  All of these clouds, of course, are hanging over the beautiful Caribbean Sea.

We had another great day of diving and spotted 8 or 9 Sea Horses! Yay!! Finally got to see them in their habitat.  And these guys were big!! I’m talking at least an inch or more!  So beautiful with their arched necks hanging out with their looped tails on a blade of grass.

Seahorse in Cozumel

We also so a puffer fish when we were sailing over the grasses looking for Seahorses who was such a funny beastie.  He hung around really still at first as if he was saying, “you can’t see me, I’m not here..”

Puffer Fish

New ways of thinking are coming into my consciousness because my usual ruts of thinking have been changed by all the new sites, sounds, and people that I am seeing and experiencing. Right now the last rays of the setting sun are bursting through the clouds making big wide blue and white streaks that reminds me of the Northern Lights.  It’s easy to forget what I thought was so important last week when I was worried about how to bring in more income.

So grateful for travel and for friends who we love and enjoy enough to travel to experience all kinds of places.

How will you discover new ways of thinking for yourself?

Male Seahorses are the ones who carry the eggs...

Unless you’ve been hiding out under a bush, you’ve probably read or heard about the wild fires that have been raging across Texas since early summer.  This past Labor Day weekend, those of us who live in Central Texas witnessed or experienced huge fires from Steiner Ranch to Pedernales Falls to Bastrop.  Some are still going on as I type this.  I love us Texans because we are a group of people who can really rally the troops when all hell breaks lose.  Already this morning every news station I turned to on the radio was giving out information of donation drops that had been organized overnight to help the victims of the fires as well as the men and women who are out there fighting the fires.

Having been born into a family that tends to go for the gusto when it comes to helping people in disastrous situations, my DNA began to thrum with questions of how I could best be of help, especially for the animals involved.  I had all kinds of ideas running through my head from going to help out a friend of mine’s mother-in-law who had lost her ranch, but rescued all her horses and in-door pets, to helping a fellow FB friend who had a lot of animals that she had to evacuate because of a fire.  No clear answer was coming to me, but I kept praying.

I puttered around doing my morning chores and put the garden hose into the pool to fill it up a bit turning  the nozzle lever off on the sprinkler attachment so that the water would come out of the regular spout and returned to finish reading the paper and my first cup of coffee.  Soon after I sat down the dogs’ curious movements outside the window caught my attention.  Our old Black Lab was in her high alert stance with all the hackles up on her back as she trotted to and fro on her toes and our Aussie was running back and forth along the edge of the pool with his nose close to the ground. At first, I mistakenly assumed that somehow the sprinkler attachment lever had been flipped and so they were getting excited because of the rigorous spray of water but then as I looked longer I could see that the commotion in the pool wasn’t just located at the end of the hose but was moving towards the other end of the pool.

And then I saw her.  A beautiful Morning Dove who had some how landed in the pool and was frantically trying to fly out of it with her very wet wings.  I corralled the dogs into the kitchen and returned to carefully rescue the startled Dove.   With both hands I gently cupped her up out of the water (and kissed her head to let her know I wasn’t going to eat her) and put her over near the water bowls where the birds gather to drink.  She sat on the edge of the fence very still. Something (was she communicating with me?) was letting me know that this Dove’s preference was for me to let her alone in a safe place outside so that she could gather herself after such a terrifying event.  I went back inside to retrieve a towel so that I could put it down on the fence for her to sit on while she dried off in the cool morning air but when I returned with the towel, I startled her so that she jumped off the fence.  She could only flutter on the ground  so I carefully cupped her and brought her back up to lay her on the towel in a  little Mourning Dove huddle.  I looked out the window every five minutes or so but she didn’t move a feather as far as I could tell and I’ve watched a lot of birds in my life.

All during this time, I kept battling between  the still knowing  inside of me that knew the best action to take was to leave her alone  so that she could use her own Dove wisdom to heal and that frantic insecure voice that says, “you should bring her inside and put her in a box and get her seed/water and gravel -n- grit….”.  Finally, at about twenty minutes later I want outside to check on her and as I opened the door she took off upwards and across our yard with a strong healthy flight.   Turns out, the still knowing was right.

I also believe my prayers about what to do for the animals effected by the fires was answered on the wing of a Dove.  I was reminded by a friend that many animals and birds have been savagely uprooted from their homes and will be flying and running to new territories all over the place. I know that one of the best actions I can take is to help those animals that come to our home.  Just before I got into the shower today, I looked out the bathroom window to see several Finches hanging and talking on their seed sock and right next to that Cardinals and other song birds hanging on their feeder and across the way doves and squirrels gathered around their feeders. On our porch were several families of Hummingbirds flitting around the feeders and a Cardinal was taking his morning dip in a watering bowl.  They all seemed happy and content which is always a good feeling for me when I can assist any living being in feeling happy and content.

How about you?  How have you received answers to the questions coming from your heart and head?

Mourning Doves

I confess that I have been known to check my email and FB on my phone when stopped at a light or while sitting in my car waiting in line but I’m starting to realize that I’m slowly falling into that hole of wanting to look down at my phone instead of engaging in the world around me.  I can’t tell you the number of people I see looking down at their phones as they walk in-between classes at school.  No chance of ever making eye contact there.  But then maybe that’s the point.

Still, I wonder what senses we’re slowly eroding away by not paying attention to what’s going on in our environment when we dive into playing with our phones.  There’s that biological theory that eventually we won’t be born with an appendix since we don’t use them anymore.  What senses might we lose by not using them?  I have noticed that more and more of the people I know have a harder time remembering names, events, dates, numbers…you name it. And it turns out that it’s not just people my age, or hormones or gender.  All kinds of people are having trouble with their memory.  Is it because we’re moving so fast that there are only so many byte spaces in our brain and we can’t hold anything more in them? Or are we quickly evolving to GOOGLING when we want an answer?  Or….are our brain waves being effected by all the technology using various waves to communicate?  There’s an article by David Dalka that would suggest so.  The good news is that there are many scientists working on this now according to a recent BBC New Article.

I’m grateful that I can enjoy a walk through our neighborhood and see all kinds of things going on that I might miss if I was staring at my phone such as  the beautiful Nighthawks soaring at dusk or one of our neighbor’s old dogs getting excited at seeing Paul coming up her street and that somehow, in spite of the horrendous drought we’re experiencing right now and the extremely hot summer there are some trees along our walking route that are sprouting fresh green leaves. I don’t know where they are finding the energy and resources for new buds….but they’re finding them.

On our morning walk today, there was a huge Harlequin Great Dane galumping back and forth across the street and a young girl with her dog on a leash frantically trying to keep her dog from attacking the Dane. Meanwhile, David was concerned that our little macho man would do the same thing. Luckily, I’d been raised with two Danes in my life so I know this one was just looking for fun (and that even though he was huge, he was still a puppy).  He came right to me when I called him and the little girl told me he lived in a house nearby. Sure enough, his home had the front door open and I called into see if anyone was home (they were so Dane and Master were reunited!).  I did help the Dane narrowly escape a nipping for his escapades but unfortunately there was not enough time for me to give him a thorough patting so that I could enjoy his exuberant energy.   If I’d been looking down at my phone, I could have missed so many cues from the little girl wanting to walk her dog on without the Dane, to the fact that she knew the Dane and knew where he lived to finally recognizing that he was a young pup in a big boy body and didn’t mean any harm.

So, when you’re out walking around put your phone in your pocket and take in what’s going on around you, you just might miss something important!

Great Danes playing!

Over the years much ado has been made about the groups of people we share our lives with and many books have been written with one of my favorites being “Tribes” by Seth Godin. I also like what Max DePree has to say about tribes in his book, “Leadership as an Art”.In the chapter, “Tribal Storytelling”, Max talks about “the penalty for failing to listen to (the tribal storytelling of your “tribe” or company) is to lose one’s history, one’s historical context, one’s binding values” and that “without the continuity brought by custom, any group of people will begin to forget who they are”.

We are really fortunate in our family to have several really good storytellers amongst us.  There are several stories that my parents will tell again and again of their growing up years (or of  my brothers and me) that I have never grown tired of hearing. Because we all live pretty far apart (except for one brother who is residing in Texas for a short while) when we get together the first thing we do is lapse into storytelling as a way to remind ourselves where we came from and what we share with each other.  There is one story I love of my brother when he was 9 and I was 11. My parents had been divorced for just a short while and my mom, brother and I had moved to a house out in the country.  It was the late sixties and so many things were changing fast. Dad was preparing to go to Viet Nam as a fighter pilot and mom was trying her wings at being a self-realized woman for the first time in her life.  One afternoon in particular, my mom, her friend and my brother and I along with our three shepherds were returning from the park.  My brother was sitting in the way back of our Buick station wagon (avocado green of course!) with the dogs. He was one of those skinny kids who was all feet, knees and elbows and because we both have huge heads with big brown eyes, all you could see amongst the flying fur of the dogs was his knobby knees and big blonde head.  At some point the song du jour came on, “I am woman” by Helen Reddy.  I think my brother had experienced just about enough changes in my mom with her wearing blue jean jackets instead of skirts and trying to smoke cigarettes (I say trying because she’s always been a health nut and she sure didn’t seem to know how to smoke a cigarette like the other adults!).  Anyway,  all of a sudden my brother belted out in his little soprano–cracking–alto voice, “I am man” where of course Helen sings, “I am woman” and we all cracked up laughing.  It was funny and poignant and marked a certain time of change in all our lives.

When I get together with friends who I many not have seen in a while, such as boarding school mates, we also swap stories of adventures and misadventures we experienced together way back when.  Everyone has moved all around the world, have families and different lives from that time but after a short time of telling stories we are reminded about the binding history that we share.  One group of friends who I’ve known for 20+ years always tells the story of the weekend the men who had gone away for a camping trip survived a huge tornado and how one of them took the time to cook up some bacon in the middle of all hell breaking lose.  Same with another group of close friends who my husband and I have traveled with and gone on many scuba diving adventures together.  Some of my favorite images conjured when swapping stories with that group is the one of all 9 of us renting mopeds to take a ride around the island of Cozumel.  We all felt so cool wearing our helmets and riding like the wind on our mopeds around the island.  We even had magical moments like when we stopped at Bob’s Marley Bar

Storytelling in song, dance and word

(before the hurricane that shredded it to pieces so that they rebuilt it) and they had exactly 9 hammocks for all of us to lounge in as we drank beer and listened to reggae.   Our friend Tony dubbed our group, “Antonio’s Angels” even though there were two other men in our outfit!! We still laugh at how much fun we had and how slick we all thought we were even though pretty much everyone who can afford transportation on the island drives a moped!

So next time you are with your tribe or one of the groups of people you would call a tribe, listen to what stories are being told and pay attention to the ones that are familiar.  There’s more being told then just a story.

Okay, I admit it.  I’ve been pulled down the “Mad Men” tunnel and am half-way through watching the second season.  Likewise, my husband and I are in the process of catching up on Showtime’s “Brotherhood“. The first one is set in the 50′s and 60′s and the latter is present time.  Although both shows have completely different premises, MM is of the world of Advertising and Media and BH is of the Irish underworld—Tony Soprano done green.  In both shows, everyone seems to have something to hide.  Some kind of secret behavior—affairs kept from wives and husbands or drug use—or keeping secret and withholding who they really are and what they really think.

Really?

I mean, I can understand society heading out of the 50′s going into the 60′s having a certain polish and persona that they’ve been building since WWII but it’s interesting to see the same kind of withholding done in the underground of today as well.

So where does that leave you and me?  Who are we hiding from?  What are we hiding from?  What is so damn important to keep under wraps that we would sell our souls to keep it private?  Really?  Does that make for a happy home life or a happy work life or a happy public life?  And when does it stop?  When do we get to finally be who we are and just relax and “be” ? The joke though is that many times, the very thing that we think we should keep hidden or quiet—someone “sees” or senses about us anyway.  In a lot of cases who we are is obvious to others around us.  Unless you’re a really good actor and if you are, I bet your surrounded by other really good actors as well.  Doesn’t sound like much of a fun life to me.  What is the pay off to you for hiding?

If you don’t get honest about who you are with anyone else but yourself right now, do that.  Get quiet and listen to what you have been trying to hear from yourself.  You just may be surprised at the outcome.

Saran Wrap Keeps Everything Fresh---Even You!

About seven years ago, I took the Winslow Assessment because I wanted to offer it to my coaching clients and my Coach at the time used your own personal assessment as part of the training for understanding and explaining  it to others.  One of the personality traits that stood out about me was that I had pretty much off the charts a need for recognition.  Just like “if you give a mouse a cookie” , having a high need for recognition can be a good thing or a negative thing depending on how it is perceived and handled.  Some of the wisdom that I received over the years from the wonderful Coaches who I have worked with includes the belief that we all have needs. Needs are not good or bad, they just “are”.  Much as a flower needs sunshine, soil, water and nutrients, we “need” certain things as well.  Then it was advised that when you recognize an unmet need, to come up with as many ways/times/conditions etc. as you can to get that need met. In other words, create a way to get your need saturated.  Coach Steve Straus likes to say that he believed that “needs can be permanently healed:”.  When I first heard Steve say that, I thought that sounded pretty off the wall but I respected him enough to hang with it to see if it was possible to permanently heal a need and I’ve come to believe that, at least some needs, can be permanently healed.

Some of what I did to get recognized in a healthy way was to write.  I’ve been writing and writing and writing since 2006 and in fact just began another 365 blogs in 365 days competition with myself.  I also have been hosting web radio shows, one that is defunct and one that has been going on for a few years now (www.blogtalkradio.com/hope42day) where i get to interview all kinds of people from all over the world who are up to good things that bring hope to us.  Slowly, ever so slowly I began to feel that need for recognition dissipate where I preferred to share recognition with others and in some cases reflect it to others completely.

Some of the gifts that come from healing that huge need for recognition (that probably got me into a lot of trouble in my youth!) is that I can take my kudos from all kinds of places and in all kinds of degrees today.  One of my favorite Starbuck’s Baristas and soon-to-be-radio-talent Herc Trevino, gave me some of the nicest compliments about some postings of mine the other day as I grabbed my java.  Absolutely made my week!  Another friend on LinkedIn voted my share as “Best of” for her Question which was a true honor that I really appreciated.  Did I need either of these to meet my need for recognition? No.  But I accept them gratefully and take in the generosity from which they were given with gratitude. Such a nice place to be in when receiving instead of being needy, needy, needy!! But I haven’t figured out yet how to get through the needy, needy, needy without finding a way to absolutely drench yourself with ways to get your needs met first so that when you are (I am) recognized, I’m able to receive and reciprocate the appreciation that has been extended because I have an overflowing cup to give from.

The grandfather of coaching, Thomas Leonard, used to tell us to get your needs fully met so that you can then give to others from your reserves. The idea being that you can give from your overflow gladly because there is plenty to go around.

What kudos/recognition/needs have you recognized today?

Accepting Kudos from Whence They Came!

Okay, let me get this straight. What “everyone” is saying (you know “everyone” and “the experts” and “them”….) is that in the “old days” it used to be so much better because…XYZ…and now everything is moving too fast and no one is spending time to connect with each other “like we did in the old days”….is that about what we’ve been hearing/reading/understanding about what is going on today?

I finally have been able to download a few of the episodes of “Mad Men” (which is about the slick world of advertisers, men and women of the 1950′s) and am horrified about how misogynistic it is towards women.   Even though I came along a decade later, there were still vestiges of that era that wafted its way through my growing up years.  Trust me, even in the “free love” decades of the 60′s and 70′s, people as a whole were still hiding behind their facades for the most part.   Even in the 1980′s when the world really let loose and fantastic creative ways of acting out were expressed through art, music and the way we dressed … we were all still not completely communicating with each other individually and at a group level.  We were rushing to there to get away from here.

In the 1990′s and the beginning of the 00′s, the internet and the mighty web sprouted to life.  I’ll never forget that feeling the first time I communicated with someone back and forth in real time.  It was almost sensual the level of immediate intimacy that took place.  I could definitely “feel” someone’s personality just by how they communicated with their words, because there wasn’t the distraction of the person or any of my other senses.  Just the words.

And now we find ourselves in today where most of us are interacting by at least one social networking group if not two or three or more.  I must confess that it does kind of mess with the judge in my brain when I’m walking through a University campus and see almost everyone that I come across fervently looking at their iphone while texting madly with one thumb. The one hope is that evidently hormones are stronger than any smart phone can come up with yet and so where the pheromones are flying, people are engaging in conversation and direct eye-contact.  In so many ways, our lives are so much richer today than they’ve ever been.  As a species, we humans are more able to connect with each other today on a deeper level then ever.  And therein lays the rub.  I’m learning that the human condition is such that we will always be looking for that next thing that will make our lives the best ever. I’m sure it is an evolutionary composite of our personalities. That we are always striving to improve our lives.  The trick is to remember, when we are able, to enjoy those moments of  in-between here and there.

I don’t know how you remember things, but some of my sweetest memories are what I call “postcards from the Divine”.  I will remember the color of the setting sun on clouds at 8:00pm on a summer night.  My brain recalls the warm cream/yellow of the clouds with the pinkish highlight on the sides and the brush of purple on the bottom.  I’m pretty sure that these “postcards” are what help me remember the specialness of everyday.

Remember that it only takes a moment to stand in the middle of now and open your arms up wide to accept it.  I’m a collector of these kind of postcards of yesterday and today for reviewing tomorrow.  How about you?  What postcards will you give to yourself?

In coaching, religion, therapy and other self-help modalities you will often be encouraged to listen to the still small voice within you.  For many of us, to get to that still small voice is like running through the dark alleys of a very fast moving and sophisticated city (as in one of my fav sci-fi movies, “Blade Runner”).  There are other louder voices that are constantly moving us towards our fears and away from the truth that we have to navigate over and through before we can sidle up quietly to hear that still small voice within.  For many of us though, we have to simply take it on the faith of others who say they have heard (and often listen to) that still small voice—that someday we too will be able to hear it.    Loosely using the framework of the 12-steps of AA, here are some steps I’ve taken to evolve the voices to one still small voice:

1. The first step to getting to the still small voice is to admit that there is a cacophony of noises that I’ve/you’ve/we’ve  allowed to get in the way.
2. The second step is to believe that that is a still small voice within all of us.
3. Reach out for help whether it be from a trusted friend, family member, clergy member, psychologist, mentor, etc. — someone who can help you navigate through the bramble.
4. Document what you are noticing about the voice or voices in your head.  One of the Founder’s of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Richard Bandler has many books and CDs that teaches you how to work with the voices in your head that you want to transform.
5. Find someone you trust who you can share what you’ve discovered about the voices in your head and how you want to be able to hear the still small voice within.
6. Resolve to take consecrated action towards training your brain how to direct its attention away from the committee of unhelpful voices by focusing on the positive truths that you know.
7. Keep asking for help in getting your thoughts in alignment with how you want your mind to be. (I don’t know about you, but I want a nice place to hang out!)

For me it has taken concentration, focus, tenacity, patience, trust, trust  and more trust to weed out the voices that no longer serve my mind.  I’m sure at some point in my life these voices probably had to be REALLY LOUD to get my attention so that I wouldn’t harm myself or others but I’ve grown up quite a lot since then and am capable and willing of taking responsibility for the thoughts that ramble through my brain.

You can do this too if you’re willing to take one small step towards trusting that it is possible for you!