giving thanks

Thanksgiving at my sister's is always a crapshoot: which interesting disease will I catch from her daycare-attending nephews this year?  (As my date later pointed out to me:   Turns out it was a stomach bug -- probably because I was already on antibiotics from the cold I caught (that turned into a sinus infection) from them over Halloween.

You know how a stomach bug feels.  When you can't move in case it makes you want to barf.  How the smell of onions sauteeing in butter makes you want to die.  And how all you want is your mom.  Well, this time I was actually lucky enough to be sick near my mom.  And she took care of me.  In every perfect way.

She petted my head.  She brought me toast.  She encouraged me to take a shower when I really didn't want to, and sat in the bathroom, just in case I felt lightheaded in the shower.  She did everything I've ever wanted someone to do when I'm sick.  Because she's my mom.

I hate being sick, and I especially hate it when it takes me away from my nephews for a full day.  But I am so incredibly thankful for my family, who not only took care of me, but took care of each other without me.  My sister consoled me by swearing it would pass in 24 hours.  My dad asked if I needed anything.  My brother in law brought my littlest nephew's sleepy butt into my room so I could imagine myself patting it.

Every family has it's ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade mine for the world.

the gift of fear

I recently spent the weekend with a dear friend who is going through a series of life transitions all at the same time and she is, quite understandably, terrified.  And while I don't envy her situation, I am able to see a silver lining in it -- if she weren't afraid, she wouldn't have the opportunity to be courageous.

Think about it:  courage is not about being fearless, it's about being afraid and acting anyway.  Without fear, there is no courage.

I make my living as a corporate trainer -- I speak in public regularly.  For some people, my job would be their waking nightmare, day after day, speaking in front of others.  For them, it would take massive amounts of courage.  But for me, because I'm not afraid of it, it's a no-brainer.  Conversely, moms around the world will hold their children's hair while they barf.  (Hell, college freshman do it, too.)  For me, that would require inner depths of strength that I don't know if I have.  Fear and courage are both relative, and just because you're afraid doesn't mean you're weak.  It's how you choose to act while you're afraid that helps to define and forge your character.

So what can you do to become more courageous, and to tune down the voices in your head that say you're going to die?  Here are a couple of things that have worked for me in the past:

1. Focus on the learning.
When I'm doing something hard (/scary/terrifying) I often look down the road and ask myself what the long-term benefit will be.  Will I be growing into someone I want to be?  Will I be proud of my actions in this current moment once it has passed?  What am I striving for from my life, and will taking this terrifying action give me more of that?  If so, I act.  I seize the opportunity to grow.

2. Lean into it
Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop fighting the shoulds -- "I shouldn't be afraid of this" or "I should know how to do this already" or "I should be able to handle this."  Instead of worrying and shoulding all over yourself, think of the challenging situation as an opportunity to think about who you could become.  Find a way to be ok with the uncomfortable feelings -- maybe by regularly repeating something like, "this, too, shall pass" or breathing deeply every time anxiety shows up.  Just leaning into the change in a gentle, what-is-possible-here kind of way.

3. Use beginner's mind
The apocryphal Zen story helps to define (mystically) the concept of beginner's mind:  A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

When we treat ourselves as experts, there is no room to fail and grow.  And this makes uncertain times even more stressful because we feel like we have to know what to do.  We don't give ourselves credit for never having been in this exact moment before.  Maybe it was a similar situation, but it wasn't this one.  And maybe this one requires a new mindset.

4.  Get support

Going through change alone can be isolating, alienating, and all together lonely-making.  The most important thing I've learned in going through change is how important it is to have support.  Whether that comes from a loving coach, a skilled therapist, a dear friend, or a supportive community, finding others who can give you perspective, advice, and help you navigate your way through a change is invaluable.  I would never be where I am today without my coach, my therapist, my friends, and my family.  And I'm not the least bit ashamed to ask them for help.  Because I would want them to come to me if they felt the same way.

So to my friend, and to anyone else out there who is going through change and is afraid, remember that you're not alone, and that no matter how scary it gets, the key is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.  And to reward yourself for just making it through.

on harmony. no, wait, I mean patience.

This month has been about harmony, but I’ve been so immersed in patience that I’m not going to pretend to write about harmony when, in fact, I’m writing about patience. Because I know you’ll see right through that. (And who has the patience for that?)

Before I get started, I should tell you that I see patience as a skill, and a two-pronged one at that – there’s long term patience and short term patience. And I’m pretty good at short-term patience. I don’t get too bent out of shape by standing in a line or waiting for the train traffic ahead of us to clear. Because there’s little to nothing I can do about the situation, and my anxiety and frustration isn’t going to fix it. And even if getting all worked up would change the situation, it’s rarely worth the effort. So I read my book, or hum a tune, or look for cute boys and let the situation resolve itself.

Same thing with teaching. When I’m with a student or a client who doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say, I don’t get all huffy and defensive and try to force them to understand me, simply by saying it MORE SLOWLY AND LOUDLY. I take the time to find out what they don’t understand, and then pitch it to them in a way that makes more sense to them. Our mantra at my old company was “if you don’t understand me, that’s my fault.”

Long-term patience, however, has always been my Achilles’ heel. Because I see myself as an agent of change, as capable of writing my own future, when I’m faced with a long-term patience situation, I feel like there’s something I CAN do about it. So I want to get going and do whatever it is the situation seems to be demanding from me. And I start to mutter curses and shuffle around like an angry crazy person with a big bag of smelly cans and bottles on the subway.

You know, because that totally helps.

I’ve been in a number of situations this month that have forced me to see the parallels between short-term and long-term patience. When other people – lovers, family members, bosses, roommates, whoever – are making decisions, there really is little I can do to hurry them up. As much as I want to pick up the phone and say, “I’m ready, let’s go!” it’s not necessarily going to help the other person make a decision. Will it tip them positively in my favor? Maybe. Maybe not. And so the waiting becomes an extended act of short-term patience.

Now, I don’t want to say that patience is about sitting back and not making things happen, because I don’t believe that and it’s not the way I want to live my life. But I do think it’s about taking my little greyhound of a mind off the racetrack and putting a friendly little bulldog or chihuahua on the loop instead. Something more entertaining to look at and run with while I breathe more and stress less.

The Nice Day

Last month I attended the “I Can Do It” conference sponsored by Hay House publishers, and there were tons of great presenters –Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Cheryl Richardson, and my absolute favorite, Robert Holden.

Wayne Dyer kicked off the conference, and the idea that struck me the most out of all of the ideas he presented is that we should spend the last five minutes of our days thinking about the fulfillment of the dreams and wishes we have for our lives.

Think about the last five minutes of your day, as you’ve climbed into bed and ready to pass out for the night. What do you do in that time? Do you start to worry about all the things you didn’t get done today? Or think about how you screwed up today? Or dread getting up tomorrow morning and doing it all over? If so, that’s pretty natural. Many of us don’t pay attention to the way we send ourselves off to sleep.

But think about it for a minute. Our subconscious is the most powerful processor in our brain. But it doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s imaginary, so if we soak it in frustrations or agitations before going to bed, it could very well process them as if they really happened.

Enter your good friends, Toss and Turn.

If we take the last five minutes of the day, when we’re cozy in bed, comfortable, relaxed, and have the most peace we’re likely to see all day, and we focus on what it would feel like if our wishes came true, it allows your subconscious to marinate in what you want – not what you don’t want. Remember that it’s all about attention – what you focus on is what you’re likely to see more of in your life. So focus on what you did well during the day, what it would feel like to be 25 pounds lighter, how nice it would be to snuggle up with that somebody you’ve been longing for, or how terrific it would feel to wake up to a clean house.

So Wayne Dyer may be a spiritual teacher for the ages, but my mother knew this idea instinctively. When we were little, she would read to us in bed, and then end the bedtime process by telling us the Nice Day.

“We had a nice day. We got up, and went to school. There was a hard test in math, and we did our best. We had a fight with Sherri on the bus, but it’s over now. We practiced the piano and had a good dinner with the family, and then we watched some tv, and now it’s time to go to sleep.”

Simple. Focus on the things that happened, release the stressful or the negative, focus on the positive, and let your brain go to sleep thinking about the good stuff.

My nephew is now 13 months old and, while he talks a lot, none of it is quite English yet. But my mom suggested recently to my sister that he’s old enough now for the Nice Day. And I love the thought of my sister being able to help him form a habit that will serve him for the rest of his life.

shhhhh! this contract is silent!

I was challenged recently to look at my silent contracts -- you know, the agreements we're abiding by that we've never really acknowledged as agreements. Roles we may not have signed up for but that we're playing nonetheless. Things like being a "good daughter" or "the fat sister" or "the problem solver." Some of them may be roles we want (like "the smart one" or "the pretty one") and some of them may be Sisyphean burdens that we roll up the hill of our lives day in and day out (like "the smart one" or "the pretty one").

The thing about silent contracts is that sometimes they're so silent, we don't even know we have them. I spent 30 years playing the role of "peacemaker" and "perfect daughter" not realizing that my family didn't need peace, and actually preferred me with a couple of flaws. The contracts or the roles we play can be positive, but usually they're sneakier than that. We can have silent contracts with ourselves (in fact, one could argue that's the only person they're with) but usually they're experienced in relationship to someone else.

My specific challenge? To look for places where the silent contract of being "the single one" may, in fact, be keeping me single.

Much to my surprise, I found a few.

First: Two of my best friends are married to each other. They have two sons, and five seats in their car. When they go on an adventure, there's always a seat for me. But not for my boyfriend. Is this keeping me single?

Second: My sister and brother-in-law say that I'm the only non-parental visitor that they can really tolerate. They think I'm cool and easy to get along with. But what about my boyfriend? Could he live up to that, too?

Third: The bedroom in my apartment is only big enough for a double bed. (Any bigger and you wouldn't be able to get around the foot of the bed into the rest of the house.) It gets crowded with someone else sleeping in there. Is that keeping me single?

These revelations in and of themselves are somewhat meaningless. The real question is what I want to do with this information. I'm certainly not going to stop being friends with my friends, or become an unacceptable houseguest for my sister. But I'm acknowledging that there are things to gain and things to lose whenever we give up a silent contract. I think, in this case, the gains would enough outweigh the losses. Which makes it worthwhile for me to still look for a partner.

Watch out, sis.

book review: The Five Love Languages

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet.

Seriously. How could I have gotten this far without it?

There's an amazing book that will change your life forever if you go out and read it. How do I know? As the saying goes, I'm not just the president, I'm also a member.

Gary Chapman has written an incredible book about the ways in which people express and feel love called The Five Love Languages. At a certain point, the book gets a little more God-and-Jesusy than I like, but before it gets there, he shares with us some observations about the way people love that have changed the way I both interpret people's behavior and express my own feelings.

Chapman's argument is that there are five major styles -- languages, if you will -- that people use to express their love. And those, in turn, influence the way people feel loved by other people.

Those five languages are these:

1. Acts of Service

Some people will DO THINGS for those they love. They will take on the chores they know disgust you, or go out of their way to perform a task for you, whether you've asked them to do it or not.

My father is a perfect example of this. Once, when I was incredibly sick (and a mere two blocks from the doctor's office), I called him hoping for some sympathy. My father, instead of telling me how much he loved me and letting me know I would be ok, immediately offered to get into the car, drive to where I was, and take me to the doctor. He was more than willing to take 3 hours out of his day to find me, chauffeur me to wherever I needed to go, and then go home. Because he understands love to be about DOING.

2. Words of Praise

Some people are moved to show their feelings by saying nice things. It could be as simple as "you look pretty" or as complex as a sonnet on the shine of your hair, it doesn't matter. Words of praise people will TELL you how much they love you.

I had a boyfriend once who fell into this category. He sent me the most romantic letters, poems, and emails. He spared no opportunity to speak to me with words that made me smile.

3. Quality Time

Still, others prefer stopping their world and making spending time with you the most valuable thing they could be doing at the moment. To these people, it doesn't necessarily matter what you do, just as long as you are BEING together.

I once had a boyfriend who found that time on the phone to his family was also quality time. What mattered to him wasn't the amount of time, but rather the intention behind the time -- making space to really connect with another person -- that mattered.

(This was a good thing, as he happened to live across the country from me, too.)

4. Physical Touch

These people are the huggers. They're the hand-holders, neck-nuzzlers, and back touchers. They're the ones who seek reassurance and connection through physicality. And it's not just about Naked Time. It could be sitting on the couch with his feet in your lap, or patting him on the head as you walk out the door. These people FEEL love physically.

5. Gifts

Gift people like to give things -- expensive or free -- to those they love. They collect and hand over presents that the object of their affection has either requested or not.

My mother is a perfect example of this. She always plies us with food or "something I saw at the store that made me think of you." I remember growing up and taking long car trips -- my mother would GIVE us a little something to unwrap every hour.

Odds are that you fall most strongly into one category or another. That doesn't mean you have to speak only one language, but that your main mode is likely to be only one of the above.

Me? I'm all about gifts. I love to give people presents, and I've been known to squeal with glee when someone gives me something that made them think about me while they were out and about. But I'm also into words of praise. After that, I'm probably acts of service, and then physical touch. Quality time is very difficult for me to understand -- why wouldn't you want to be with me all the time?? So it's best for me to go out with men who are either gifters or who understand the value of gifts to me.

And this is where it gets cool. When you know the five languages, you can choose to express yourself in any language, not just the one that makes the most sense to you. If you know your partner feels love through quality time, you can make an appointment with him or her. Conversely, you can interpret your partner's behavior -- wanting to spend a night with you -- as his or her way of expressing love.

Let's go back to my father for a minute. When I called him, I was looking for words of praise -- "You'll be ok," "I love you," that kind of thing. But my father hasn't read this book and doesn't know that his way of expressing and my way of feeling loved aren't the same. So it was up to me to interpret his act of service as love. Once I realized that he was sharing his love in the only language he spoke, I was able to hear how much he cared.

Similarly, with my Quality Time boyfriend. When I realized that his language was one I couldn't comprehend, I told him about the five styles. I told him I was more a gifts/words of praise kind of girl, and he tried to modulate his behavior to meet me there. And I tried to see his desire to spend time together as his way of saying he loved me.

This has been an incredible tool for me in understanding why people behave the way they do. Why, when all that matters to me is that you tell me I'm beautiful, are you always taking out the trash? Who cares about watching TV on Friday nights -- can't you just bring me home a tootsie roll?

And one of the really neat things to look at is whether or not you use your own love language on yourself. If you're a gifter, do you allow yourself to buy that sweater you can't stop thinking about? If you like words of praise, what kind of things do you say to the mirror? When do you schedule the quality time with yourself?

Forgive my oversight in not having posted this sooner. There's still time -- go out and buy this book! (See? I'm trying to gift it to you right now!)

the most perfect baby in the world

Watch out, because I'm about to brag.

I have the most perfect nephew in the entire universe. He's cute, hilarious, warm, sleepy, adorable, and the softest, sweetest lump ever created. And he's mine!

Over Thanksgiving, I was rocking him to sleep on my shoulder and his tiny little butt was tucked into my elbow, his sweet little breaths coming quickly and shallowly near my ear, and my heart just melted.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I looked at my sister.

"Do you ever just love him so much that it hurts?"

She looked at me with a smile and four months of Mommy Wisdom, and then I loved her so much that it hurt.

So, Kate, aside from the fact that he's perfect and you're lucky, who cares? Finding and connecting to that kind of pure love was so powerful, so clean and raw, I feel like it's something everyone should experience. It felt like a light shining from the depths of my heart onto the baby, and my sister, and my family, and me.

Maybe you're not into babies. That's fine. They're noisy and they poop a lot. I get it. What I'm saying is how important it is to really connect with something pure and something 100% love. If that's theatre, then see a show. If it's music, start playing. If it's writing, grab your pencil. And you don't have to marry it, or move in with it, or make it your life. (Lord knows I've turned down a free apartment in Boston more times than my sister has offered.) Just connect with it. Feel it. Let it shred you a little. The stitching back together feels incredible.

cultivate the good

The other day I was in a session with a client who has a very strong habit of focusing on the negative and totally disregarding the positive. It's a familiar habit, one that I have definitely engaged in myself, and one that leads to nothing but bleakness, sadness, and truly bad train karma.*

I did what I could to help my client to see that focusing on the negative is only going to bring more negative (boooooooo!), and that focusing on the good is only going to bring more good (hooray!). One of the tactics we tried was imagining that she was living in a sci-fi world where goodness was dying out. And that she was one of the few people left who could cultivate and protect goodness. So any time she saw something with even the faintest tinge of good to it, it was her responsibility to take that goodness, plant it in a garden, and tend to it.

She lit up with this idea, recognizing that "goodness" was not a judgment about whether or not an achievement was reached or someone was "worthy" of being deemed good, but rather a quality that could inherently exist inside something -- a situation, a person, herself...

So I closed the session feeling like I had cultivated some good, once again proving to myself that I do an excellent job of living what I teach.

And then the next day came.

I found myself getting twitchy about not having heard back from a guy I am dating. And when I catch myself doing that, I immediately call my sister (my cucumber cheerleader) because I know she's good at easing my twitch.

And, without going into too much detail, do you know what I was doing? Focusing on all the negative, and completely disregarding the positive! With blinders on, I was zeroing in on all the things that seemed "wrong" to me, and paying absolutely no attention to the things that were there to inspire me or give me hope that he was, in fact, interested!

Boy did I feel like a dummy.

But instead of focusing on how stupid I felt about not catching myself doing something it was so easy for me to see my client doing, I looked at how awesome it was that a) I did catch myself doing it, and b) I called someone who could help me get back on my path.

Sure, I could use this experience to prove to myself that I'm a horrible coach and can't possibly offer anything of value since I can't live it myself, or I can recognize (and celebrate!) the fact that I'm human, that I'm living it, too, and that life happens moment to moment.

And every triumph is worth a celebration.

(hooray!)

*the best way to cultivate good train karma? Focus on the times the train comes into the station right when you get there, and ignore the times you spend hours and hours waiting in the sauna for the train to finally come and then not be going to your borough. **

** I haven't gotten really good at this yet, obviously.

Christmas Expectations

When I think back to Christmases of my childhood, I have a strong recollection of feeling let down. Either people didn't like the presents I got them as much as I had hoped they would, or I didn't get the Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker (for the third time in a row... Santa!), or Christmas just didn't live up to what I had hoped it would be.

I tried, for many years after childhood, to make Christmas live up to itself. To invest more time and energy into picking out presents for people, or trying to force my family to behave in a certain way that made Christmas feel more Christmassy... but it never worked.

This year, I tried something new. I released all my expectations about Christmas. It would be what it would be, and I would enjoy it for what it was.

Easier said than done, of course.

I had some help with this effort, however. My family is fantastic, and we've gotten to a place in our gift giving where we are very clear when we receive something that we don't want. We simply say, "Oh, I have one just like this at home..." and the other person knows that the gift didn't quite land the way it was intended. Nobody says "Yuck! I hate this!" or throws it on the floor in a fit of pique. Nobody pretends to want something they don't want.

And knowing this about my family -- that they might have one just like it at home -- makes me less connected to the idea of giving them the "perfect" gift. And the reality is that you never know if someone is going to have one just like it at home or not. So why get attached to the idea that you are a perfect gift giver? It's just likely to lead to let down.

Similarly, we used to have a tradition of eating Christmas Eve dinner every year with family friends. They have since moved to Florida and Europe, so that regular tradition has disappeared. And that fluidity of what we're doing on Christmas Eve has freed up some expectations, too. I don't know what's going to happen when I get there. I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. So I can't try to force it into a shape that feels familiar. And again, the reality is that you never know what's going to happen. You can have ideas, agendas, hopes, and plans, but they all amount to a big hill of beans when faced with other people.

It sounds easy to release your expectations, and in fact, it's not as hard as it sounds. It takes attention and energy. But the benefits of not feeling let down so far outstrip the amount of focus required to be laid back that I definitely recommend giving it a try.

Do it one day at work. Just release your expectation that things are going to go the way you think they will. Maybe the train will come, maybe it won't. Maybe your boss will praise you, and maybe she'll scold you. When you're not counting on anything, it makes each thing that happens an adventure!

A perfect time to try it would be New Year's Eve. Because if that holiday isn't laden with expectations, I don't know what is!

The Vienna Plan

A couple of years ago, my family vacationed together in Vienna. Originally, I wasn't inclined to go, as I didn't really enjoy the way my family traveled together. (My mom jokingly broke down the various roles each family member played on vacation -- it was Mom's job to plan everything, Dad's job to pay for everything, my sister Polly's job to boss everyone into doing everything, and my job to "step in in case of an emergency.")

While we still laugh at our roles, at the time it was pretty true. Mom did plan everything, and Polly definitely bossed everyone into doing everything, even if she wasn't 100% sold on doing it herself. Grousing and bickering (or seething and simmering) often ensued. Awesome.

So when I was offered the opportunity to pay lots of money to do it again in Vienna, I politely declined.

My sister and brother in law offered to pay for my trip. I still wasn't interested. It wasn't about the money, it was about the angst and frustration of feeling obligated to do stuff that I didn't really want to do.

Luckily, after a lengthy conversation with my mother, she agreed to help me try to change our family pattern.* The new model had mom and me planning things together, and Polly wouldn't have to boss anyone because they'd either be doing something they wanted to do, or they could go home and take a nap. This freed Polly from the role of Bad Cop, and, since it was never really true in the first place, Dad didn't have to pay for everything.

With this understanding in place, I doing my own research. Picking out the things I wanted to see, and making it known that that's what I wanted to do. Getting excited about all the cool stuff there was to see and do in Vienna. Inviting others to come along, but being willing to go and do things on my own if nobody else was interested.

And this is what I call the Vienna Plan. Filling up your life (or your vacation) with things that you want to do, see, hear, eat, touch, and play with. Letting others know they're more than welcome to come along, but knowing that your happiness doesn't depend on their attendance. Delighting yourself at every opportunity, whether other delight with you or not.

I've brought this home to my real life recently, riding horses, going to the circus, and making plans to see the shows I want to see or eat the food I want to eat. And it's rocking my world! I use the Vienna Plan on dates, too -- if the guy turns out to be a dud, oh well! I'm doing something I've been meaning to do!

The key to the Vienna Plan is really letting go of your expectations of others. If you're not willing to go to that party alone, then the Vienna Plan isn't going to fix that. If you're lonely, the Vienna Plan may not fix that, either, but it will give you something to distract you -- and it'll give you something else to talk about when you do meet up with people later.

I can't recommend the Vienna Plan enough. Because if I want to go home and take a nap, that's what I end up doing. (Although I'm finding that the more I stick to the plan, the more cool stuff there is to see and do!)

*I am blessed with a really communicative and functional family. Go ahead, envy me.