Our primary focus is around growing our business. Well as you and I know, growing as a person is part of growing a business. As I was sharing my wins and my intentions for the week, as well as some of my frustrations about areas I was not moving as easily as I would like to be, I was asked what I was doing to take care of myself?  That inquiry had me pause for a minute-the sign of a powerful question! I thought, hmmmm… I am exercising my body consistently. My first century bicycle ride is right around the corner. I am eating pretty well-frozen yogurt is healthy, right? I am doing my best in noticing my feelings and honoring them. So the physical, and emotional areas are in check. After reflecting, the 2 pieces that were a bit off, were the mental and spritiual. I realized that I had not been taking time to connect with spirit daily, which is one of my top 5 passions. I also realized that all summer I have been reading wonderul fiction novels.   I intentionally do this as part of  my summer ritual. Intuitively, I knew it was time to weave back in some personal and professional development books.

The first step in creating change is noticing and notice I did. Now it was time to enhance my journey with the gifts I received. It was easy to amp up the self care in those areas now–more walks with the doggies bring me closer to spirt and I am thoroughly enjoying Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsiegh, the Zappos dude.

The best gift is a shared gift and I love presents! I would love to hear more ways to enhance my self-care…anyone have another gift they would like to give me?

But what about letting the good times roll into the present and the future? Are you keeping your best years behind you or are you creating new memories for years to come? It’s so important to keep your fun thoughts on present and future to continue the moment of a good life.

What do you have to look forward to? A vacation? A new venture? Maybe a new love? When we begin to envision our lives expanding into wonderfulness it keeps us young at heart and having a reason to be alive!

Start by taking a few moments and jotting down what it is you would like to create for yourself. Don’t judge, just write it all down. Then make a check list and begin exploring some of those things. Some call this a bucket list. It doesn’t have to be something huge. You can write down that you want to have a sleep over party with your friends (yes even adults have sleepovers!) Or join a hiking group. Think big and think small. If it inspires you and it feels like fun, then write it down. Maybe you will do them all or not but how fun will it be to try to complete your list.

Maybe you can even give it a name. For instance, many of us have heard of a vision board. What about calling this your ‘Joy Board’ filled with all the things you want to do for fun and to create memories.

Hopefully, even the thought of a joy board will have your good times roll into your NOW. Fun was not just meant for our youth or our past. Create anew everyday!

Enthusiastically,
Fran

It seems like I just blogged about the “Last Day of School,” and here I am writing about the first day of school. I call this phenomenon the “Acceleration of Time,” as I age it seems as though the days, weeks, months and years are all getting shorter. About 2 weeks ago I peeked in at my son in his room. “I’m bored,” he declared. I tried not so smile, sneer or laugh as I looked at him in front of his computer, guitar and amp, IPod, DS, Guitar Hero and PlayStation. I tried not to smile, sneer or laugh. I was just about to preach to him about when I was his age I had this new game called “Pong,” but decided to save my sermon for something more redeeming. “Good thing school is starting in a week,” I stated as I turned and left.

In review, my kids’ goals this summer as stated in the “Last Day of School” were to sleep, play guitar and get his “first kiss.” They slept, most definitely. They played guitar, can’t tell you how many trips we made to the guitar string store. And rumor has it that he got his first kiss about a month ago, though the time, place and recipient are all unknown.
So keeping with tradition, I asked all of them individually what they most look forward to at the first day of school. Once again, the answers surprised me—meeting my new teacher, reconnecting with my friends and “the Hugs.” And sure enough she loves her new teacher, he has reconnected with his friends for every available moment, and my wife swears the other was smothered by a harem of huggers.

The last two weeks have been filled with shopping for new school clothes and supplies and filling up the calendar with all the new activities—jazz band, church youth gatherings, flag football, piano lessons, girl scouts, FFA meetings and dance class. Can’t you just feel the accelerator pressing down?

What if nothing’s wrong? What if joy is still breathing underneath, but life is designed to give us a few challenges so that we learn to navigate reality as the continuum of ebb and flow? What if it just takes something major to wake us up, to shake us up so we see how we were blocked from letting joy work for us?

It’s a humbling experience when we can climb out of the bottom of the hole, sit on the periphery and gaze over the big picture. By the same token, it can soothe our ruffled feathers and remind us that there is so much more going on in our galaxy than the issue with this person at work or that person at home. It’s then we can understand that our joy is still very much alive, using our daily experiences and challenges to expand. This awareness keeps makes us larger than our minds and lightens things up.

Can we see discomfort as a gift offering growth and something better? Bearing witness to that discomfort and how we respond (or react) can impede joy or welcome it in. Joy is out there regardless of whether or not we let it in. During the discomfort, we can trust that there is an ebb and flow to lead us to the other side. And on the other side, we will evolve and grow with more courage – because we held onto trust.

Getting up and walking around the day after having my belly sliced was a requirement for healing, but it wasn’t an easy thing.  Somehow, re-writing the lyrics to Diana Ross’ I’m Coming Out and singing them each time I did (I’m getting … up.  I’m inching off the bed, shufflin’ cross the floor … ) helped.  Eating the pudding they served with lunch did too.  (Hospital food is notoriously bad, but pudding is almost always good.)

Hospital Fun

A few days after being discharged, I wound in the emergency room with a high fever/infection.  My sister went with me, and as we waited for tests, and then for the results (dragging on until the wee hours of the morning) she took photos on her cell phone commemorating the adventure.  One of the residents looked in on us as we were giggling and snapping photos saying: You are far too upbeat for someone with a 102 fever. I replied: Doc, I don’t have cancer; this is nothing.

Later, waiting for an MRI on a gurney in a hallway, I heard U2 pumping out of a radiologists’ office: It’s a beautiful day … don’t let it get away, and I bobbed my head in a makeshift dance.  An attendant gave me a quizzical look as he came to wheel me into the room. Dancing? he laughed.  How can you resist this song? I replied.  He slowed down, listened and said, Yeah, I guess it is a beautiful day.

Even though I wound up having to be admitted to the hospital for three more days to fight the infection, friends brought magazines, I listened to plenty of great music on my iPod, wrote out my gratitude in my journal… and ate plenty of pudding.

While I’m sure it would’ve been a whole lot harder to be joyful if the surgery had gone another way, or if the docs didn’t get to the bottom of the infection quickly, still, with this experience, I saw clearly that when the going gets tough, choosing to be goofy, upbeat and joy-filled really can be the sugar that makes the medicine go down.

( … now, don’t let it get away, this beautiful day …)

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.

When I am driving somewhere that I have never been before, I have to admit, I can get anal about having to have directions to get there. Matt is the opposite, he is okay with having some kind of directions, trusting that we will eventually arrive at our destination.

This can be frustrated when you hold a  belief that life is about the journey, not the destination. If that is so, then why are directions so darn important to me? It could be because I am such a visionary that without direction, I lose focus and travel round and round without making headway. Would it be so bad if I made a few “wrong turns” on my way to the next thing that I am creating in my life?  It depends on the perspective that I choose.

If I end up going in a direction that is different than I anticipated, and I decide that it is an adventure, then the journey is enjoyable and I am open to possibilities. If I deem that turn to be wrong and I beat myself up about it, the first steps to choosing a less than joyful perspective have started and it is all downhill from there.

Enjoying the journey is a matter of noticing the perspectives that we get to choose each and every day.  One of my life lessons is to slow down, so I can make the conscious choices that bring  joy. When I am moving to fast, it is easy to make unconscious choices and wonder where the joy went.

Try taking your foot off of the gas today and choose the perspective that you want to see the world from. Enjoy the view and the journey.

Since this rarely happens – and let’s be honest – it never happens, because who can actually read my mind? So let me rephrase – since this never happens, I have made a point to redirect these expectations toward myself because then if I let myself down, then I only have myself to blame.

Living inside my own head can be exhausting. I have debates with myself about whether or not I am being fair in my disappointments in others, and whether or not I am in fact being reasonable, it’s moot because I can’t rely on someone else the way that I can create for myself what I need in life.

Sometimes when I get upset in a situation, I will scratch any plans I had for the remainder of that day, rent a tear-jerking chick flick, veg out on the couch and cry until my face hurts. While sometimes that is very cathartic, it’s not fair to myself. Why allow that outside factor to affect what I have going on inside me? Instead, I am learning to do things just to spite those negative situations. Something bad happens to me one day? So I’ll go to the gym and work out extra hard, because I know I’ll feel better. Instead of eating a pizza for dinner, I’ll go ahead with the fresh salad I had planned, because food won’t make me feel better – I will make myself feel better. Mind over matter. Only I can bring the joy to myself that I need and deserve.

Eventually I will fully be able to practice what I preach and only look to myself for my daily doses of joy. And when I do find it in outside sources, that will be an added bonus to what I’ve already got going.

But the other morning Barry came into the coffee shop right before opening, and we were able to have a slightly longer conversation. Barry was lit up, even before having his caffeine. That weekend he did something that allowed him to express his creativity and passion – he catered a nice dinner for just one couple celebrating their anniversary.

Barry talked about the menu items, the special requests from his client, the way he set the table and how he was able to ready the meal and leave the couple to be alone and enjoy their wonderful date. Barry described how the clients’ wife looked at her husband, and how that warmed his heart.

It was fun to see such enthusiasm on Barry’s face and hear such passion in his words – all because he was able to express his creativity. If we could all do that from time to time, we could really make a positive impact on the world around us with our joy.

Do you express your creativity through painting, song, writing, problem-solving, gardening or a wonderful meal? Figure out what lights your fire like Barry and be sure to make time to do it.

It was quite a revelation actually.  And I’m not just talking about the fact that we were always walking well behind the younger folks.  When you’re the parent, or the managing aunt as in my case, you’re the one who has to calm down the kids, keep them happy, carry them when they’re tired, coax them to stop whining, handle their tantrums and on and on and on.  But all that’s changed now. See now there’s grown people between me and the 4-year old and I don’t have to do any of that responsible stuff anymore. I can just have fun, I can enjoy taking Felix on the rides, listen to the sound of his laughter, loving every moment of it. And as soon as I hear the slightest whimper, Dad takes over.  It’s perfect.  All the joy, all the love, all the laughter, none of the parenting.

With that kind of generational progress, can handing off hosting Thanksgiving dinner be far behind?  Welcome to the next phase. I think I’m going to like it here.

Even though I have had all of these teachings and experiences, I must say I don’t know if I have ever had as moving of an experience as a video I watched this morning put together by Sivan Garr.

Watching the video this morning was pure pleasure.   It was a truly remarkable experience.  It was something that was so “simple”, but at the same time was such a profoundly JOYOUS experience that I have to share it with you too.   It is the Joy Factor personified!!!

There is no doubt in my mind about our Universal Connection to one another after watching this video.   And I firmly believe that the deepest of wounds in our society and in our world could be actually and truly be healed with these three little words.  My  fellow brothers and sisters, “I Love You!”

Watch and enjoy!