Prayer for a friend

My heart is heavy tonight, someone in  my life recently learned that she is very sick.  No names, no disesease titles coming out of this post, rather just something to ponder, her bravery, her attitude, her character.

"Please don't treat me any differently" she said, "don't look at me and feel sorry for me",
don't take away my responsibilities", instead, be positive and pray".  WOW.  I"m speechless frankly.    As the tears flowed down my face, I stood alone.  She stands tall and strong, she stands positive, she is brave, she has faith.  I feel fortunate to stand in her presence.  I know I have so much more to learn and there is no doubt I will learn something valuable from this brave young woman.

As most of us do, I thought to myself, how would I handle such news if it were me?   I can say with certainty, not as she handles this news.  Quickly I rushed to the irrelevance of my own problems, so small in the scheme of things, yet, they often seem as large as life.    If you are a person of faith, please pray for this brave, young woman, you don't need to know her name, you don't need to know her disease, you just need to know that a prayer dedicated to her, just takes a second and is worth so much more.

Nourished

Nourished by a wonderful meal;

Lean beef, bathed in red wine for hours

The smell enriches your sense of smell

The taste quenches your hunger

Acts of kindness nourish your soul

One leading to another

Kindness enriches your sense of touch

It touches others by way of love

Being together nourishes your heart
physical and emotional closeness
feeling heard, feeling valued, feeling fed with love

Everyday requires nourishment
somedays you overindulge
somedays you give and take less

" Enjoy at least three feasts a day, with or without food" (Martha Beck)

I love weekends, I feel nourished. I will not let Malnutrition overcome me this week.

Part 2 - The power of your thoughts

In my previous post, I mentioned that I attended a conference.  This post is about a specific session I attended about the power of your thoughts.  Vanessa and I entered a classroom in the basement of the  League.   There were two other woman and an instructor in the room.  The room was dark, the lights were not working, the instructor used an old transparency projector to give light to the room.  Let's just say, it was no accident that the lights weren't working;  this was just part of the two hour journey that we were headed on.

 Lolita, was the instructors name.   She was an older woman, with a mid-sized build.  She was dressed in a skirt, a matronly blouse and mentioned that she forgot her shoes so she was wearing ankle socks and tennis shoes.  For those of you that have spent any time on a college campus you have seen this look a million times, most of us foreigners call it, 'the Ann Arbor look'.  Her voice was soft, and she was eccentric, some may even describe her as bizzare.  I noticed immediately that Lolita was not overly skilled in technology, her entire presentation would be delivered with powerpoint slides loaded with pictoral images and complete with sound.  I was wondering if Vanessa made the right decision to miss her session and stay with me, where was this going?

Lolita started with : Your thoughts, why are they important?  How much energy do we waste "over reacting" about things?  What is it that you believe, Why do you believe it? (what does the little voice in your head say?)  I knew immediately this is the place I wanted to be, as for Vanessa, she would have to decide.

 Lolita went on:   Brain science tell us that 'you repeat a thought in your mind over and over and by doing this you condition your brain to ACCEPT this thought without condition.  You create---or visualize things before they happen, (forecasting what you think the outcome of something will be) and you visualize images from the past, (focusing on things you cannot change) .  Your mind is a garden that repeats your thoughts over and over again.. The garden is filled with blooming flowers or with weeds (negative vs positve thoughts) .  You can change your thinking, Lolita says.    You can change the messages that you create.  Just like any bad habbit (smoking, over eating) change is difficult and there are lots of excuses we make to avoid change.


Lolita shared her own experiences of her bad temper and how she needed to change how she was 'reacting' to things or spending alot of emotional energy on things. It was difficult to imagine this woman having a bad temper.  She would continuously laugh at herself during her presentation, often as she was reading right from her script, she also used alot of Star Wars references and would make the little voices:  Darth Vadar: The Force is with you. LOL --Luke I am your father (this was complete with voices). 

I started to give character to this woman and decided that if she were a cartoon she would be a 'fairy god mother" -her mannerisms, her crazy laughs at herself, and her voices. I wondered ,for a second ,if when the session ended would she disappear into thin air and I would be left wondering if this was a dream.

She talked about women who overcame adversity and made changes, she pointed to examples.  She spoke of our needing to decide if the changes that need to be made (the negative self-talk) was really worth our time.  She quoted "Yoda"  "Do or do not, there is not try".

 Her lecture then shifted to gratitude, and the importance of being grateful.  The research says that keeping a gratitude journal for just 3 weeks can have an effect on your well being for 6 months. (Look up the research she mused as she had several times previously).   She spoke of focusing on the present moment,  to practice shifting any thoughts away that aren't in the present moment.  She shared some resources for future reading  "Happy for No Reason and Seven Pleasures; Essays on Ordinary Happiness. 

I loved this session, it made me wish I could go back to school, get my masters, then my PHD, study and research, make presentations, talk in a soft voice, wear tennis shoes with my skirts and have 20 somethings refer to me as a fairy God mother.  It was thought provoking at the same time a little wierd.  " I heard the Fairy God Mother say, " you can't wish, you must ACT"!   (Did she hear my thoughts too?) Her final words:  "Don't let what you  can't do get in the way of what you can do!"  I may not be able to go back to school right now but I can wear tennis shoes with my skirt! -- watch for a photo soon!

The Power of You

 A few weeks ago, I was obsessing about work and feeling very overwelmed when I received an email invitation to attend The Women Of Color  Conference .  Work is very busy right now, so professional development is one of the last things I would consider doing, arguing that missing a day of work means working two extra days to catch back up.  The conference caught my eye though, because the theme was: 'Balance - Family, Work, Life. I was feeling very out of balance.  So I registered.

The night before the conference I was looking at the map to make sure I knew where I was going, I began to feel a little nervous. The little voice in my head said, you are attending a 'Women of Color' workshop?  Yoohoo, you are NOT a woman of color!  Yes you grew up in Detroit, were a minority in your high school, but you are a very pale girl, with average caucasion features and make no mistake, you are a 'white girl'.  You will be discovered!

I worried that my attendence might be offensive to the women of color that were attending. It wasn't my intention to be offensive, rather to be inspired.   I quieted down the voice in my head, and said of course, you can attend; this conference is about diverse women from every walk of life and color.   I was still a little nervous as I headed into the conference center but I signed in, picked up my materials and headed to the auditorium anxiously awaiting the key note speaker. 

Now is a good time to mention that this will be a (2) part blog, I really want to share my experience at one of the sessions, but first I need to lay some foundation about the conference as a whole.

The keynote speaker was a vivacious young black woman at the tender age of 30.  I was struck by her confidence, what she had achieved at such a young age and some of the barriers she overcame in her life.  I admired that she grew up in Detroit and planned her future around policy and politics to help the working class people of Detroit.   She took questions and gave advice to the audience to woman much older and some close to her age.  To be honest though, I was less inspired by her as an individual and more inspired by the participants in the audience. There was camraidere, an overwelming chant of their faith in God and shere confidence in sharing their thoughts without regard of who agreed, disagreed or even listened.

The first session I attended after the key note was a leadership session.  "Three Invisible Elements you must know to suceed' (blah blah) I entered the room naively thinking I would come out with all of the answers to solve my work problems. I was certain that the instructor would provide a road map and I could go back to work and be more successful.  I was surprised to discover that again, it was less about the instructor and more about the participants.  We did lots of group work in this session, typically I am not fond of group work.  These women in the room,  mostly in clerical to mid-level-management positions were brave and smart and savvy in their responses to questions and problems given us to talk through solutions.  The conference was starting to have an affect on me, my judgements, expectations, preconceived notions and habitual thinking was starting to break down. 

After the first session, I bumped into a young woman that works in my building.  I didn't know her well, but she was part of a reorganization and LEAN project that I worked on a year or so ago. She is in the early stages of her career.  I was happy to see a familiar face, we had lunch together and with several other women.  I practiced my listening skills and let her talk to me about her work and her family, I shared a little as well, but was more interested in hearing her story.  She decided to skip her session and attend the next one with me, I was delighted that she did. 

There were some themes that I was starting to recognize:
1.) Women of Color share a strong faith in both God and eachother
2.) Women of Color support and nurture eachother
3.) Self-Care is not just important it is REQUIRED
4.) How we make people FEEL is our legacy
5.) Life is about creating yourself

I leave you with this quote for Part 1.

There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success. George Burton Adams »