Tag Archives: joy

2020 Is NOT What I expected!

It’s August and there are only a few signs of ‘normal’.

Like: My golf game. I am still not breaking 90 very often usually hitting closer to 100. My golf seems pretty much just like it has been now for few years!

I am regularly, as usual, getting out on my road bike and on the trails. Not often with others but I still love it!

I am still NOT a huge fan of marketing and it’s still a big part of my world!

Now For a Few of The Changes

I am home in Montana more than I have ever been since moving here in 2008! Plus, we have out first ever garden!!!

Haven, my home on the Island in BC, property and programs closed in March and still now only offer online programs. Sadly, even if a program was running, I can’t cross the border, so there is a significant loss there for me. I do love though that people are still connecting and Haven is finally getting itself firmly online!!

We haven’t traveled out of our state or been on a plane since February. My Alaska status is likely to be lost in 2020 – no extra miles for me!

I invented GROOT-ing and my marketing mind-set has shifted.

Still Life is different so many levels

I wear a mask whenever I walk along our Whitefish streets or go into a store.

I rarely socialize with people unless it is on Zoom/Teams or HouseParty. (or six apart!).

I don’t offer or get many hugs (other than with CrsiMarie!) and my hands are a bit dry from all the singing happy birthday and the new handwashing rituals! (I did wash them before but not for two verses of happy birthday!)

I imagine your life might be a bit different as well.

In general, I feel incrediably fortunate during these times. I have been able to create work and maintain an income. I have stayed healthy and been able to get the things I needed. I haven’t lost anyone directly in my world to Covid and I haven’t been in situations where I have felt threatened or at risk either related to health or because of social injustice.

So I am grateful.

Having said that I am also very aware of the many, many layers of stressors that so many are facing right now.

It’s not just a world pandemic. It’s economic. It’s grief. It’s injustice. It’s politics. It’s diffenences. And so much uncertainty!

I am grateful for the all of the years and training I have done in the area of breath and energy work, dealing with trauma, working in family systems and in corporate cultures navigating conflict and creating better dialogue. Thirty plus years of study and implication have helped me deal 2020 for sure!

I am also grateful for my own life experiences of living with cancer (s), diving deeply into old patterns around trauma and dysfuntion and finding my sanity, humor, purpose and faith in humanity through walking that path.

Finding Purpose: Being In Service – Using The Best of ME!

I am enjoying helping people find presence, faith and joy even in this wild and crazy year of 2020.

This year has generated many new ways of making that offer. Lighthouse Coaching came into being when I realized my equus work wasn’t going to be happening for a while and I wanted to keep working with people. I have loved the coaching. Being a lighthouse really does fit for me.

I enjoy the corporate work we do. We had so many opportunities to work with large organizations, smaller companies, even Chambers and associates – all wanting support in dealing with the uncertainty and change. We actaully have now created a new Unpack Stress program based on the feedback and needs we found will continue to surface going forward.

I also love working with couples. We got to do our online Beauty of Conflcit for Couples with Haven. Plus we’ve been doing more work with couples together.

I enjoy being a sounding board and trusted advisor – i.e. Executive or Leadership Coach. Helping leaders navigate being in a large system and also authentic and true to themselves – is something I am passionate about! People really do matter as much if not more so than results – especially during a world Pandemic.

Still, I just haven’t loved marketing and that actually holds be back from being in service. Because I am a damn good coach and really can help people through these crazy times. So, I have been getting my own coaching and recently decided to rename marketing after my favorite character – GROOT.

The idea of GROOT-ing is so much more enjoyable to me than marketing. GROOT was/is all about finding the joy in life and service!

If you don’t know GROOT well I recommend you watch Guardians of The Galaxy. There are two parts and two GROOTS – both awesome! (Maybe I will devote a blog to GROOT – but for now – watch the movie(s) or atleast this clip! Link here

Let Me Help You!

Are you struggling? Want support? Reach out. Try some coaching. Listen to our podcast, The Beauty of Conflict. Or catch me on ‘The New Morning Show’ – our FBLIve randomly offered now around 10AM three or four times a week.

Simple Moments Of Joy

It’s a gorgeous day here in Montana: blue skies, sunny, and the mountains snowcapped and magical. I know we need more snow and I know all of the reasons this spring-like weather might mean a very difficult summer. However, I can not help but enjoy the moment! It is days like today that make it clear why I love living here!

So the Olympic Games are over and what a wonderful ending. The hockey game was perfect—played hard right to the final second and beyond, with Canada celebrating and laughing at themselves. In the end, the own the podiumseemed to have worked; at least in terms of gold medals and specially in terms of the hockey gold!

What’s next? As I mentioned before, Montana is sunny and warm. Bailey seems to have gotten kennel cough, so I am keeping him away from other dogs. CrisMarie is under the weather as well. I have a bunch of projects that should draw my attention. But for now I am happily sitting in The Green Tea House, blogging.

There are many things I could be worried about. I realize the future can hold some scarey prospects. I am not really one to focus on the negative; I am also not one that lives by affirmations or always looking on the bright side. However, when I consider the future, and have to decide if I want to believe in, a doomsday scenario or something else, well—I pick something else.

I have no idea what will happen in 2012, or any year for that matter, other than this one. The best I can do is fully commit to this moment and make the best choices I can for myself, others, and the planet.

I feel fortunate to have learned somewhere along my path how to fully embody joy. I have these moments when I just vibrate with life. Today, the Montana magic inspires that joyful resonance in me; Sometimes it a simple moment with CrisMarie. My heart is open and I am deeply in touch with loving my life. It is really the simple things that provide the greatest joy: a song, a touch, a taste, a smell or a gorgeous day. Indeed, the senses do heighten my joy meter.

I watch folks struggle with the state of their lives: not having the job they need, the partner they want, the health they have thought would be a given or the opportunities they see others getting. It’s easy to get caught up in any one of those situations at some point in the day or week or month. I can spend many hours, days or weeks trying to change the bigger picture, totally forgetting the simple little moments.

Yet I have learned to tap into some little sensory moment that will wake me back up. It starts by taking a deep breath and becoming aware; aware of what I am doing and aware of how I am separating. Suddenly that choice is highlighted and I usually get it. Take the moment, feel the joy, and let that simple little reflection of all that is possible help me re-member; meaning becoming a member of the whole. When I touch that whole-ness, either inside me or all around me, I do, for a moment, resonate with oneness, the source—whatever you want to call that which is so much more then me.  That nano second of contact is enough juice to alter my cells.

That simple little moment is magical. Today I am very in-touch with the joy. Maybe later I’ll lose it, but for now I am soaking it in.  Tomorrow just seems okay from here and now! Maybe that is just as it should be.