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 best years of our lives are not behind us"

A few weeks ago, an article from the Yale Daily News made the rounds on Facebook.  A young, talented writer had some encouraging words about her experience at Yale that I think apply to us all, no matter how young or old we are, no matter whether we went to Yale or didn't.  She says:

But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves...” “if I’d...” “wish I’d...”

Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.

Marina Keegan, 22, was set to graduate from college with more wisdom than some of us attain by 122.  Unfortunately, she never made it there, as she died in a car crash just days before commencement.   Her writing (which you can read the rest of here) is so full of hope, of encouragement, and stands as a reminder to the rest of us that it's never to late to do something about your dream.  To find those people who make up your web and be grateful for them every day.  And to spend more time with the boy across the hall and less time procrastinating.

what I learned about generosity

After a full month of thinking about generosity, I figured that I'd thought it all. (Because, you know, I'm so generous in my opinion of myself.) After a call tonight with three other inquisitive, generous souls, I've learned even more.

Our conversation covered a variety of topics, but I can break it down into six major areas.

Generosity and intention

The big agreement had on the call was that generosity has everything to do with intention. That the energy behind a generous act must be freely given, and released from expectations.

For example, if I hold the door for people but get miffed when they don't say "thank you," then I'm not necessarily being generous. I'm being generous with expectations on how that behavior will be received or rewarded. Similarly, giving someone money does not necessarily imply that you're generous. It's how or why you give the money that makes you generous.

Generosity and guilt

One participant talked about the "escalation" factor between two people who, for all intents and purposes, look like they're being generous. One will pay for dinner tonight, and the other will pay for dinner the next night. The first then feels compelled to buy tickets to the next event. The second then has to reciprocate. And it leads to bigger and more expensive shows of "generosity" and can lead to feelings of guilt and competitiveness.

The learning? If you start to feel guilty about being generous -- or not being generous -- it may be a sign that your motives (or the motives of the person you're with) are not truly generous. That they're coming from an intention to impress or compete or fill some obligation instead of coming from the heart with a desire to freely give. So what can you do? Accept the other person's generosity at face value. If someone does something nice for you, receive it, smile, and say "thank you."

Generosity and the comfort zone

An interesting perspective was brought up about the comfort zone, and how people will often be more generous in areas that are more comfortable to them. If, for example, you have money (but not time), you may feel more apt to give away money. But which is more generous? Giving away the money or the time? To be truly generous, do you give away something you have lots of? Or something precious to you?

I think it all hinges on whether you give it freely, and I, personally, think people are more likely to give what they feel they have ample amounts of.

For example, I baked a cake for a friend's birthday the other night. Because I like to bake, it didn't feel particularly generous for me. If I had bought a round of drinks, say, or ordered in dinner for the party, that would have felt generous. But my bringing a cake, when viewed from the outside, can easily appear -- to my friend especially -- very generous of me.

(Which, of course, begs another question -- is an act generous when it doesn't feel generous? Does something have to register with the giver as being generous for it to actually be generous?)

Generosity and heroism

Acts of extreme heroism can be considered generosity -- but are they? Wesley Autrey, the guy who jumped onto the subway tracks to save a total stranger, has claimed that he was doing what anybody else would do. But nobody else jumped in front of an oncoming train on that platform that day. So does that mean the station was full of non-generous people?

Again, I think this goes back to the comfort zone, and risk. What Autrey gave freely is considerably more than I would freely give. And maybe that's the difference between a generous act and a heroic one. I'm not sure.

Generosity and compassion (and pity)

Give a rich person a dollar, and it doesn't feel generous. Give a beggar a dollar, and it does. So is there a link between the "deservingness" of the recipient of a generous act and the amount of generosity involved? Does the recipient have to be in need of the generosity to benefit?

I think this goes back to the question of expectations and what impact the giver intends the act to have. For example, I would be more likely to make assumptions about how a beggar would spend my dollar than I would about how a rich person would. I would also be more likely to give the dollar freely to the beggar.

So is it compassionate to give to someone in need? Or is it generous? Or, is it, as one one participant asked, showing pity? What's the link between the three?

Generosity and awareness

It's morning rush hour and you're walking on a New York City street in the snow. A crummy neighbor has shoveled inadequately, so there's a mere 12 inches of walkway to be had for ten feet. There's someone coming towards you from the opposite side of the snow patch, so you step aside and let that person go first. But she's wrapped up in her cellphone and doesn't notice your generous behavior.

Is she rude? If she hadn't been distracted by her phone, would she have been more generous herself? Does living in the city make people less generous? Does it make them less thankful for the generosity around them? What's the link between generosity and gratitude?

Here's what I think: the universe has been incredibly generous with me. I have a great job, amazing friends, a family I love spending time with, and a brain and a body on loan for the rest of my lifetime that's right up there in the top. And I repay the universe with my gratitude. I share my gratitude with others through acts of generosity.

It's been an incredible month, and I don't want it to end. I've learned more about generosity -- of spirit, especially -- than I ever thought I would. But February's all about passion and determination, and how AWESOME is that going to be??

How's it going, generosity?

As you may or may not know, I'm on year-long (well, ok 14 month-long) adventure where I'm saying Yes! to more things and exploring different qualities every month. January's qualities are generosity, gratitude, acceptance, allowance, and flow. (They kind of meld into one. Like cheese in a microwave. mmmmmm.)

I've come up with a couple of interesting observations.

1. I can be generous in three different ways (that I've uncovered so far); thoughts, words, and deeds.

Essentially, I can give more people the benefit of the doubt, and think better things of them. I can share my thoughts generously and not keep them or hoard them as if there were some kind of Thought Lack pervading the land. And I can do more things that are generous, like buying my sister a pair of shoes that both she and I think are cute (but that her husband makes fun of her for -- ungenerously, I might add -- because they're from a somewhat Old Lady Brand).

2. It's kind of fun to force people to let me be generous.

I've bought lunches, drinks, and dinners. I've split checks in unequal ways. I've bought tickets to shows and music festivals. And my friends have protested, but I told them that they HAD to let me do it, it was all part of the plan. And when I forced my generosity onto them, some were much more willing to accept it.

Which begs an interesting question... when is generosity NOT generous? Does it count as being generous if you get something out of it, too? And is it generous if it's something you'd do anyway? Or does the nature of generosity force you into going above and beyond what you'd normally do?

3. I can be generous with myself and that totally counts.

There were times when being generous with myself meant spending more money (like when I sparred with a trainer and got my ass handed to me on a platter this week) and there were times when being generous with myself meant being disciplined and NOT spending extra money.

4. Being generous with time frames, accepting and allowing other people their right to their own timeline, is much less stressful than expecting everyone to do it my way.

News flash: not everybody does things the way I want them to when I want them to. (I know, this is sad news, indeed.) But my practice this month of allowing things to just flow the way they happen to be flowing (instead of forcing them to "flow" the way I want them to) has opened me up to new perspectives. A guy doesn't call when I think he should? How fascinating! A coworker doesn't get back to me within twenty minutes? How fascinating! This has forced me to take some of the stress out of my life.

The month's not over, and I know there's more to learn. That's why I'm hoping you'll join me for a group call on generosity. What does it mean to you? Where do you practice it? Where could you practice it more? Are there rules to generosity? What's your favorite way to be generous?

Ask and answer these questions and more on January 30th at 4:30pm Eastern. Just call 712.775.7100 and use the participant passcode of 500681# to join. (Feel free to leave an RSVP in the comments!)

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.

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker

I read a lot of self-help books, but rarely do they offer me so much new information that I feel compelled to share them with you. (The last book I recommended was The Magic LAMP, which I read in February!) I recently came across a book, though, that I want you all to go out and buy/rent/borrow/steal. (Ok, maybe not with the stealing.) Today! Now! Go!

Oh wait. You need to know what book first.

In this book, What Happy People Know, Dan Baker, the head of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch (a spa/resort/retreat I may never make enough money to visit) offers up useful information in an approachable and easily digestible fashion.

According to Baker, there are six major happiness tools people can use:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with your strengths

5. Language and stories

6. Multidimensional living

Because it's had such an impact on me, I thought I'd take you through some of the highlights of the tools.

1. Appreciation

I've talked about appreciation and gratitude before, but Baker takes these concepts much deeper, offering three or four practicable tools to make appreciation not just part of your regular routine, but also part of your disaster recovery mode.

For example, he shares one exercise called "Freeze Frame." When things are going All Kinds of Wrong, instead of thinking about how things are getting out of control, you think of something you appreciate. A loved one, a natural phenomenon, your dog, whatever. Doing this will calm your heart rate and give you space in which to see things differently. I've used it, and found it incredibly helpful.

He also talks about optimism, and how being an optimist is not simply walking around with a dopey smile on your face and approaching life with a glass-half-full attitude, but rather, it's an understanding that the more difficult or painful a situation is, the more profound the learning will be. This has helped me a lot recently while going through an incredibly emotionally break up -- I knew that when I came out the other side of the break up I would know more about myself and how I operate, which felt like a gift compared to the kick in the pants the break up was giving me. Does it make me want to run right out and break up again? No, absolutely not. But it does give me some silver lining and light at the end of an otherwise unpleasant-smelling tunnel.

(His mother also chimed in with the soothing idea that "no two people ever love each other the same -- and that whoever loves the most is the lucky one.")

2. Choice

Baker calls choice "the voice of the heart" and "honesty in action." I like that.

He talks about failure, helplessness, and powerlessness (and a bunch of shocked dogs... which made me sad) and offers some thoughts that can serve to remind us to stay strong:

1. Failure only occurs when you quit -- he talks about how Thomas Edison "failed" to design a lightbulb until his 2000th try

2. Be brave enough to resist when someone offers you the tempting scenario in which they strip from you the right to make your own decisions. While it is occasionally unpleasant to make (and live with) our own choices, imagine the other alternatives...

Finally in this section, he discusses the "Life Changing Quarter Second" in which we have a brief moment of control over our emotional reactions. There is a quarter second in which we can wrest our thinking away from a fear reaction and into a considered response, but we have to see and seize that moment regularly to stay in a place of choice.

3. Personal Power

This is that indefinable something that enables happy people to be happy, even when things are difficult. (In my leadership class, we call it the "Internal Locus of Control," meaning essentially the feeling that, no matter what comes your way, you can do something about it.)

Baker encourages his readers to watch out for VERBs -- Victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame. Highlights include:

V: He says that other people can hurt you, but only you can victimize yourself.

E: The mind and body thrive on struggle. Satisfaction without effort doesn't create happiness, it makes for boredom, alienation, weakness and feelings of worthlessness. And I can tell you that, after looking for a new job for six months, I was so elated to finally get one because I had struggled and put my time in.

R: There's a difference between assistance and rescue. There is nothing wrong with asking for help as long as you're willing to do your share of the work.

B: Blame solves nothing. If you were in a car driven by a friend that was going over a cliff, would blaming that friend keep you from crashing into the ravine below? Instead, what can you do to improve the situation for yourself (and/or your friend)?

We'll take a look at the other three tools in my next post.

Hep Gleck!

(that title makes me feel like I'm blogging in Ikea. But don't worry, Hep Gleck can be assembled without pictures.)

I have a daily ritual that I perform on the subway -- I open up my journal, give myself an affirmation (for the last several months it's been "I have everything I need") and then set an intention for myself. Usually the intention is in alignment with something I'm working on -- patience, breathing, being present, not comparing myself to others, etc. -- and then I sit down and list five things I give myself credit for. After that, it's a list of things I'm grateful for, and a Daily To Do list. I've discussed all this before (see here) and bring it up again because my friend Jon recently introduced me to an even deeper practice that expands on this base.

It's called Hep Gleck.

Ok, no, it really isn't, but I like calling it that, so that's what I'm calling it.

Learned from a Tony Robbins book (but slightly unclear as to which one -- though I'm guessing now it's "Personal Power" as I got some help from this website in writing this post), Hep Gleck is actually an acronym that expands on the idea of listing things for which I am grateful and for which I am giving myself credit. Each letter stands for another feeling, and carries with it three questions. The feelings are:

Happy

Excited

Proud

Grateful

Loving

Enjoying

Committed to

Kate is Awesome

(Ok, there's no K in the acronym, but "Glec" doesn't look like a strong word, whereas "Gleck" does, so I added the K for phonetic reasons. Sue me.)

And the questions are:

1. What am I happy/excited/proud/grateful/loving/enjoying/committed to in my life?

2. What about that makes me happy/excited/proud/grateful/loving/joyful/feel committed?

3. How does that make me feel?

The key to this exercise, though, is to NOT JUDGE, and that's a caution I extend with big, red, wavy flags.

For example, this morning I wrote that I was grateful for sunsets.* So to deepen the experience using Hep Gleck, I would then ask what about sunsets makes me feel grateful? I could respond with "their beauty," or "the sense that the world is bigger than I am," or "just 'cause." And then I have to report with honesty and curiosity about how that makes me feel.

A trap I could easily see us all falling into** is being happy about something that truly makes us happy -- the way the driver of that car honked and waved at us on the way to the subway, finding the $20 bill on the street, having an awesome smoothie for breakfast -- and then judging the experience. What about that makes me feel happy? Well, he thought I was hot stuff, so I felt like hot stuff and that made me happy. It's a free $20, what's not to be happy about! The way the tastes blended together was so amazing. Watch out for then falling into despair with the "How does that make me feel" angle. I might be very tempted to go down the I-suck-because-I-need-some-guy-in-traffic-to-validate-my-feelings-of-hot-stuffedness road.

I'm going to try Hep Gleck. And Jon is, too. (Or at least I think he is.) Are you?

*Secretly, I wanted to write sunrises, but it's been EONS since I last saw a sunrise so that felt like stretching the truth.

** And by "us all," of course, I really mean "me," but I wanted to take you with me so I wouldn't be lonely.

just what I needed to see

This was shared with me at just the moment I needed it most. So in that spirit, I'm sharing it with you.

what's your positivity ratio?

Yesterday I was on a webinar called "Boost Your Happiness Through Evidence-Based Activities," and, while it was kind of a cheesetastic hour, there was one exercise I came out of it with that I found interesting and worth sharing.

It's about your positivity ratio.

Think about the last 24 hours. And in the last 24 hours, have you felt any of the following:
Amazement
Amusement
Gratitude
Hope
Interest
Inspiration
Joy
Love
Pride
Serenity

You can have felt them a little, moderately, or a lot. (If you only felt them a little, don't count them in this round.)

Total up the number you've felt and put that number aside.

Now think about the last 24 hours again. Have you felt any of these?
Anger
Contempt
Disgust
Embarrassment
Fear
Guilt
Hate
Sadness
Shame
Stress

Again, you can have felt these a little, moderately, or a lot. (With these, if you felt them a little, they count.)

Take your positive total, and divide it by your negative total. That's your positivity ratio.

The inventor of this test, Dr. Barabara Fredrickson, has research indicating that "a positivity ratio of 3 to 1 is a tipping point. This ratio divides those who merely get by in life from those who truly flourish."

But if you scored below 3-to-1, don't be surprised. More than 80% of U.S. adults fall short of the ideal 3-to-1 ratio. (I did, too, and I consider myself a highly positive person.) Instead of feeling guilt, shame, or stress over these results (because, watch out, you'll have to account for those tomorrow!) why not take interest in what you can do to up your ratio? Why not seek out a poem, a song, or a friend who inspires or amazes you?

You are in charge of where you put your attention. So when you catch yourself in a feeling of anger, frustration, or guilt, take some time to balance that out with some love, amusement, or gratitude. A simple way to approach this is through an exercise where you list five things you're grateful for -- like the comfort of your fluffiest pillow, the crispy, minty taste of your toothpaste, or the support of the people who love you -- and really sit in that gratitude as you move through your day. Similarly, sit down and list things that crack you up -- like the way your sister snorts when she laughs really hard, the way a muppet ends a joke by settling down into its neck, or that cute guy who is ninja funny -- and just sit with the enjoyment of that for a while.

Negative stuff will come and go, and I personally have a harder time keeping the negative feelings at bay than I do redirecting my attention onto the stuff that makes me happy. So this is a good exercise for me, too.

(And in just writing this post I've upped my hope, amusement, inspiration and gratitude quotients for today, so maybe tomorrow I'll have a 3-to-1!)

as the year wraps up (or as the new one begins)

I have a daily practice of writing a list of things for which I'm grateful. This list routinely includes family and friends, my job, my home, and other things I consider essentials, and occasionally includes luxuries like NPR, compelling fiction, Christmas carols, and my mother's codcakes.

I also have a daily practice of listing the reasons why I should be given credit. And by "credit," I really mean little nods to myself. There's no actual credit (no gold stars, no pennies in the jar, no messages sent to Santa on my behalf), and normally, nobody sees it but me, so the reasons aren't generally colossal. They're usually things like completing a task I set myself to do, facing a challenge (like the pile of godforsaken Christmas cookies I walked away from yesterday), or taking a baby step forward in my thinking. Sometimes, however, I get credit just for getting out of bed! (This morning "being me" made the list.)

When I looked over my lists for the year, one of the things I'm continually grateful for is my job, and the money it brings me. And I looked at a number of the other things for which I'm grateful, and many of them could really use some of that money. So this morning, I sat down and gave money to my local NPR station (for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me), Chicago Public Radio (for This American Life) and the New York Public Library (for books).

I'll let you guess what will show up on my list of kudos tomorrow.

One of the things I intend to do today, on the last day of the year, is to create a list of 50 things for which I am grateful. They may be events from the past year (like meeting one of my new best friends), opportunities for next year (like meeting Mr. Right), and constants throughout my life (like my family). I encourage you to take a moment and do the same. And then, if there are things on your list that could use your support, give it! Volunteer at a shelter. Give your old clothes to Dress for Success. Or give money. Ira Glass said that if each podcast listener of This American Life gave only $5, we could cover the cost of the show. Five dollars!

(Since I'm truly grateful for what the show brings to my life, I gave $15.)

And at the very, very least, tell two people on your list that you're grateful they're in your life. It makes a difference.