Great Quote

I was watching reruns of Bones, one of my fave TV shows, and a character, the Watcher, delivered this in a monologue.

“There is an infinite thrumming, unseen web that joins everything. Everything is connected to everything else. This fact is nearly impossible for us to grasp because we are just mollusks, shut up tight at the bottom of a dark, cold ocean trying to make sense of stars we cannot even see. I challenge everything because when I do a quick bolt of electricity jolts through between two elements that otherwise seems unconnected. You call it paranoia, I call it epiphany."

Love it!

Pay It Forward for Yourself

It's a great book to work through with a partner or close friend. Thanks to Angela for recommending it to me

More on the power of thought, not in a "the Secret" kind of nebulous way, but in a "you are what you think" or "you become what you believe" kind of way.

In her book You can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay writes that self criticism will only  perpetuate negative feeling and behaviour. She says, "The place to put the mental energy is into releasing the old and creating a new thought pattern." She suggests constructing affirmations that counter your negative thought. Affirmations are a way of reprogramming your brain's thinking tracks. Affirmations are a way of being pro-active as well as reactive to negative thought patterns.

I really like Hay's encouragement to focus on what you wish to retain in your life as constructive and what you are willing to release as destructive. An example of an affirmation she gives, "I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it."

I found it helpful to make a list last year of the things I wanted to release and retain as I entered 2011.
Different from a New Year's resolution, but with the same intention for positive change. I was amazed, looking at my list in April, how I'd released all already! Incredibly potent the brain is.

Thoughts on Thoughts

How to manage your thoughts?

1. Notice them: see if they are constructive or destructive
2. If destructive, call that thought back, rework it, and send a constructive version back out

Dr. Badri Rickhi MB, BS, FRCP out of Calgary researched the effects of meditation on controlling emotional states. Dr. Rickhi proposed that monitoring thought was crucial to healthy emotions. In his 8-week programme teaching spiritual principles and practices to counter unipolar depression, he talks about "calling back" the energy of a negative thought. He says we awaken each day with only so much energy, so we must reclaim and recycle that which was squandered in destructive thought.

Dr. Rickhi & Dr. Hal receiving Dr. Rogers $250,000 award

Simple as that. Notice the thought. Call back the destructive ones. Upcycle the negative and send it out.
You don't cancel the thought so much as flip it around. Be purposeful with your thinking. Not purposempty.



The abstract from Rickhi's study may be found here. Worth a read--especially if you find yourself in a rut of negativity. Good for athletes and children. Good practice.

Vulnerability & Safety

Parents yearn for children to be safe. Safe in a world where uncertainty hides under every bed and evil crouches behind each and every closet door. We teach our kids how to manage volumes of information, how to embrace diversity, how to extend empathy and compassion to others. But we equip our children little to fight the invisible monster that is the truest threat--their own thoughts. The incessant bombardment of  thoughts in our heads which measure us as lacking or adequate, weak or powerful, broken or brilliant attack us or fortify us. It is our thoughts which rule us and our place in the world more certainly than any learning we might aquire.

I have been working on the Maverick Project, assembling the stories of people who have crafted original lives for themselves, because I believed that they could be talismans of what is possible for those just starting to carve their trail through the forest of possibilities. But maybe I am wrong. Maybe mavericks' tales don't illuminate the way through darkness, but rather obfuscate the truth. 

Our kids are most vulnerable when they leave school "ready" to take on the world. In fact, each of us is most vulnerable when one foot is in the old world, and one in the new. Transitions are where we need to watch that the flying monkeys of doubt don't come and smother our babies in the night. Our thoughts can give us wings or paralyze us. Our thoughts can be seeds or graves.

Julian Barnes photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters

On CBC's  Writers & Company (at @43:05min),  Man Booker Prize winner, Julian Barnes, recalled his time at Oxford, "There is a vulnerability at that age when you go out into life for the first time, when you leave behind the institutions where rules and companionship and everything protect you...I remember when I was a student, there was always one or two students a year who would kill themselves and it always came as a surprise. And yet,  it shouldn't have done."

Our kids walk a slackline strung between worlds. Have they hope, confidence and helpful self talk as their companions? Or have they doubt, rampant fear, and self blame or loathing? We are all "students" transitioning through different stages. We've never been exactly "here" before with this set of experiences, skills, knowledge and awareness What do we believe to be true? What ruts have our thoughts worn into the road ahead? I have to be constantly vigilant that my thoughts are creative and buoyant, focused on possibility finding rather than doubting and sinking. As they say, "Think you can or think you can't and either way you'll be right". We each need to teach and model possibility thinking. How do you do that?

Comfort Food

I recently moved into a new place with a GREAT kitchen. It's moved me to cook. My friend Vicki called me and we were talking about chicken pot pies. I was inspired. Only thing, I had no wheat flour, butter or lard for the crust, and no milk or cream for the sauce.

Instead I used some homemade Boursin (soft cheese) for the fat mixed with rice flour for the crust. Tasted very cheesey & peppery. Then I ground up some roasted root veggies along with white wine, chicken stock and water to make the sauce, flavouring it with thyme and rosemary. I added in remnants from a roasted chicken, frozen peas, onion and garlic, and shazam! I had me a chicken pie. It was soooo delicious!

Why do I mention it here? Because my intention was to make a chicken pie and my momentum was not stopped by an idea of what "perfect" ingredients were in order to create the vision in my head. Sometimes we have to create using what we have, and in so doing, find a new and better way.

TEDx Waterloo

I am thrilled to be included in the list of amazing speakers and speeches on the TED.com website!
Thank you to Matt Gorbet and the team in Waterloo who all made it happen.

If you haven't seen the talk, please check it out along with the lifetime's worth of inspiration at
http://tedxtalks.ted.com

Collaboration

Collaboration is my mantra for this quarter. Everything on which I have been dragging my heels has remarkably moved forward under collaboration.

What If's new brand had been mired in development for almost 18 months. While browsing in a local bookstore, I see some greeting cards which remind me of a friend's artwork and think, "I'd like to work with her on a project." I call her up, we meet, and I find the momentum to evolve the brand.

Working with the local artist then leads me to my favourite art gallery where her husband works. I drop in to say Hi but he's not there. Instead I get talking with the gallery owner about her upcoming show--it's brilliant and exciting. We brainstorm how to capture the essence of the exhibit for posterity. She's delighted with the enthusiasm and ideas. Later, I ask her to advise me on my brand. "Poof!" She comes up with an enlightened perspective that will take the visual brand from simply decorative to enriching narrative--completely in alignment with the experience we are shooting for with the evolved brand.

My friend Grace and I have been speaking each week to move my passion projects forward a little more each week. I would be nowhere without her keen mind, fresh ideas,enthusiasm and regular check ins.

For 5-6 years I've been stuck with too many ideas for books I'd like to write. I've developed 5 outlines over the years and committed to none. Then I read a friend's wife's blog and thought "she's the perfect one to write a book with". We're 3 weeks in and have already created an incredible amount (more on the book later). Collaborating with Laura is WAY better than starting a writing club which is what I was thinking about doing. More writing and less organizing of others this way. Plus we laugh a lot.

Same with my fitness-collaboration is golden there too. Working out or exercising on my own is soooo uninspiring. I spend hours by myself already and for an extrovert, too much alone time is enervating. Since January I have P90X'd with my friend Vicki, kayaked with my friend Barb, cycled with Heather and Martha, hiked with Doon (who is training for Kilimanjaro) and all of a sudden, I'm fitter, lighter, happier, and more energetic all from collaborating with friends on exercise that brings as all closer to our goals. Fantastic!

So my mantra will continue as my operating principle into this next quarter. It seems to be working for me. What's your mantra for this quarter? Or even today?