​This has been another busy week in our house.  For the past couple of months we’ve been excitedly planning for our daughter, Kaitlyn, and future son-in-law, Matt’s upcoming wedding which is to be held in July.  Because we have many family and friends coming from “away”, we’ve been thinking of ways to make them feel welcome, to help them see some of the beautiful sights of our province and to provide some Western hospitality.  Many people will stay for a few days after the wedding and we have some events in mind for that time.
 
I notice that as I write this I’m choosing words to reflect the image I’m hoping to have – welcoming, relaxed, under control (yet not controlling :)).  The truth is I really want the experience to be lovely, first and foremost for Kaitlyn and Matt, but also for everyone who is joining us to celebrate their wonderful day.  At the same time, I can feel my compulsive list-making starting to work its way onto my countertop.
 
Well, by last week, Jim and I thought we had a pretty good plan worked out.  And then, as it as prone to do, life happened.  Our son Greg, and his girlfriend, Cara called and thrilled us with the news that they are engaged! They’ll be getting married this summer too.  In August – one month after Kaitlyn and Matt!  In terms of dreams that parents have for children, we feel like we’ve hit the jackpot.  We dreamed that our kids would follow their passions (they have), become contributing citizens (they have) and find someone incredible to share their lives with (check).  It’s a lot of joy.
 
So I found myself wondering why my list making was reaching a fevered pace. 
 
And I couldn’t resist doing some self-coaching.  A great question that a coach might ask is “What do you need?”  When I posed this to myself I realized that I need permission to simply be grateful for each of these events and permission to enjoy every moment of this upcoming wedding season.  This also means I need to give myself permission to take some time (daily, weekly or ....) to do the little things for myself and others that will allow me to arrive at each of our children’s wedding day, knowing I am bringing my  best version of myself.
 
There are times in life when we all need to give ourselves similar ‘permission slips’.  We may need permission to relax, permission to succeed, permission to fail, permission to start, permission to say ‘no’, permission to say ‘yes’, permission to dream, permission to be ourselves.
 
This week, by the powers invested in me ... I grant each of you some blank permission slips.  Take some time to consider what thing you need to give yourself permission to do that will bring you closer to who you want to be.  Then slip a piece of paper in your pocket as a reminder – just in case you forget.

My very, very dear friend, Coralie, became a grandmother this week.  What a celebration in their house!  Of course, once it was verified that the baby was healthy, the very next question was, “What did they name her?”  We have all very likely asked this question.  Those of us who are parents know how we agonized over choosing just the right name.  Those of us who are teachers often had an even shorter list of names to choose from!  When we owned our acreage, we named it too– Elkwood.  It seems that once we give someone or something a name, or a label, we have defined it – at least in our own minds.  Many of us have even looked up our own name’s meaning to see how the label fits. 
 
So, that got me thinking.  Other than our names, what labels have we given to ourselves that help define us?
 
 Sometimes I hear someone say something like, “Oh, I’m so clumsy.”  Or, “I’m very organized”.  Or, “I’m not very adventuresome”.  Or, “I’m such a geek”.  Or, “I’m a runner”.  While none of these is particularly oppressive, each of them does put us into a box that begins to define us in our own minds.  When we define ourselves in a certain way in our own minds, we give others permission to define us in the same way. 
 
When we see a product in the grocery store we often look at the label to determine if we will even give it a chance to make it to our table.  The label that has been placed on it, good or bad, gives incredible influence to the consumer on whether or not to purchase.
 
I’ve always thought it is incredibly sad to hear a young child mention that they are not very good at something.  It is amazing to me, that by about 5 or 6 they have already put some limiting labels on their abilities.  Sometimes parents help them along with this by adding, “Don’t worry honey, I was never good at that either.”  I often hear adults say that they were told the things that they would never be good at.  And it stuck. 
 
So I think about Brooklynn, the brand new baby, who just arrived in our world this week.  I’m trying to picture a wall above her bassinet with blank labels.  And I’m wondering who among us would be comfortable entering her room and with the help of a permanent marker, writing things like “Not good at math”, “Terrible organizational skills”, “Maybe just mouth the words instead of singing”, “Afraid of flying”, “Not very creative”, “A bit clumsy”, “Shy”.  Imagine.
 
When I see a new baby, I see only possibility.  It is as if they have every potentiality waiting for them.  If our best-self entered the baby’s room and wrote on the labels, I suspect we would write things like, “Dreamer”, “Visionary”, “Talented”, “Kind”, “Endless Possibility”, ”Beautiful”, “Wise”, “Good Friend”, “Confident”.
 
I challenge you to keep this image in your mind when you are tempted to apply a label to someone, including yourself.  When we label people, it is as if we are writing it with permanent marker, in a place where we read and re-read the label every day.  We begin to believe it.  Maybe it’s time we all choose to scrape off the limiting labels that we, or others, have given us and replace them with labels that allow us to become who we are striving to be.
 
Welcome to our world, Brooklynn.   May your life be filled with people who continue to see only possibility in you!

Love.  It’s a word we use often and to describe many things.  “I love this coffee”.  “I love watching the sun come up”.  “I love my job”.  “I love Fridays”.  “I love you”.   It seems a shame that there is only one word in our language to describe so many things. 
 
This, Valentine’s weekend, I thought I would share some of my ideas on love.
 
 In my life, I have been blessed with many, many examples of love.  Thirty-seven years ago I met Jim.  We fell in love very quickly and were engaged only 4 months after meeting.  Now that was LOVE!  When I fell in love and married Jim, I thought that I was getting a handsome, thoughtful, smart, hard working, loyal, adventuresome partner.  And I was.  But I was also naive back then, and I could not possibly understand what this man would turn out to be.  Jim, as it turns out, personifies love.  He was by my side through the birth of our two children.  He travelled with me across the country and helped make setting up our new life in Alberta seem like an adventure.  He accepted my family and my friends and he always treats them with love too.  He has listened to my dreams and walked with me toward them when I have been brave enough to pursue them.  He loves my cooking and my company.  And the best thing he has done for me is to allow me to be myself.  Turns out I got way more than I bargained for.
 
Lest you think that our life has been made of softly muted colours and a romantic song playing on repeat in the background, let me fill you in on some other parts of our life. 
 
Jim and I cried together through 5 miscarriages before our first child was born.  This too, is love.
 
We thought we would never be whole again when our children headed away to university, even though we knew that our job was to get them to the place where they had the skills to ‘do it on their own’.  This too, is love.
 
Jim held my father when he died, and then had to call home to tell me what had happened.  This too, is love.
 
We drove away from our beloved acreage, and each wondered if we had made the right decision, not wanting to have disappointed each other.  This too, is love.
 
We sat in Foothills Cardiac ICU together and Jim placed a call to each of our children so that he could tell them he loved them before he went in to the operating room for his open heart surgery.  I could barely listen.  Let me tell you, that too, was love.
 
Love doesn’t always come in the form of hearts and flowers and chocolates.  Sometimes it comes in the form of tears and heartache and disappointment and even terror.  When our son, Greg walked away from a horrible rollover accident on my birthday quite a few years ago, we sat together in our living room that night trying to wrap our heads around what had happened and what could have happened.  Greg said, “Mom, I’m so sorry this happened on your birthday”.  I replied, “I can’t think of a better birthday gift than having all of us sitting here tonight”.   This too, is love.
 
This Valentine’s Day, I hope you find love in whatever circumstance you find yourself.   Love can disguise itself quite artfully.  Don’t look for it only in roses and chocolates.  Some of the greatest moments of love in my life have come in the midst of challenges and disappointments.  I was just lucky that someone once shared with me the idea that “This too, is love”. 
 
Happy Valentine’s Day!

In the last couple of weeks several very prominent stories involving trials have been highlighted.  Many people have become almost obsessed with ‘Making a Murderer’.  At the same time the TV miniseries , ‘The People v O. J. Simpson’ has been aired and has stirred up some old theories.  And the Jian Ghomeshi trial is the number one story on the Canadian national news night after night.  Each of these stories is different in content, but they share the commonality of what, in the world of trials, is referred to as ‘he said, she said’.  In each case there are two sides.  In each case, each side is trying to find or bring forth evidence that proves their position.  And no doubt there is some truth on both sides of each case.
 
In our own lives, there are mini versions of this happening regularly.  Oh, perhaps not the murders, drugs and sinister activities, but no less time consuming are the trials we act out in our minds, searching for evidence at every turn to prove our carefully considered theory.  Often, the only person we are trying to satisfy with this evidence is ourselves.  And doggedly, we continue, sometimes even enlisting the help of others to find evidence to strengthen our theory.
 
Think for example of someone you work or live with.  It will work best if this person you are thinking about gets on your nerves a bit.  Perhaps they do not support you the way you think they should.   Perhaps they get more opportunities than you.  Perhaps they seem to play the part of victim in the movie of their own life.  Perhaps they think they are better than everyone else.  Perhaps they are just plain irritating. 
 
When we have someone like this in our life, and we all do, whatever story we have made up about their actions prompts us to look for evidence to prove that the label we have carefully attached to them is true.  I can think of two small examples that hopefully will illustrate the point.  When I taught school, junior high, I had many, many people wonder how I could stand being with this demographic day after day.  Their contention was that these young people ran in packs, were self absorbed, moody, rude and did not much care about the feelings of others most of the time.  Truth be told, I am betting that the people who held this belief had found plenty of evidence to support their theory.  Let’s face it; it’s a fairly popular theory.  On the other hand, during my teaching career, I looked for and found evidence of these teenagers being polite, (Thanks for teaching us today, Mrs. Critchley) helping others (giving up Saturdays to donate their time to others), working hard so they could be very proud of their academic results, supporting others when life got tough (would you like to join my group for lunch?).  Really.  This is what I saw.  And the more I saw it and acknowledged it, the more I saw more of it.
 
Another quick example might be a social experiment that all of us can do.   Sometime when you are driving, challenge someone else in the vehicle to find examples of thoughtful drivers.  Meanwhile, you can quietly focus on noticing all of the rude drivers on the road.  At the end of the trip, compare notes.  I suspect that you will each have found many examples to support your ‘theory’ of drivers either being thoughtful or rude.  Imagine.  You have both taken the same trip, in the same vehicle on the same road. You have both found evidence for your side.  You are both right.  In life, the reality is that we will always find evidence to support the theories that we have come up with.  “She is so self-absorbed”.  “He is just power-hungry”.  “No one listens to me”.  And on and on.
 
My wonder is about why we would ever want to look for evidence to support our negative theories.  What possesses us to spend time ‘proving’ that a colleague, a partner, a spouse or a child is less than what we want?   I know that when I have tried to find evidence that definitely ‘proves’ that someone is (insert negative trait here ), I can easily do it.  It makes me feel good, even superior, for a very short time.  And I also know that when I spent the exact same time finding evidence that they (insert positive trait here) I am also be successful in winning the trial in my head.  And I end up feeling much better about them, and about myself.
 
In no way am I suggesting that we each become Pollyannas in our lives.  It would be foolish to turn our backs on hard evidence that might serve to protect us or that might help us make good decisions.  What I do suggest is to be aware of what we are looking for evidence to support.
 
Your inquiry for the week is “What am I looking for evidence of here?”
 
 As always for coaching to help bring your life or business into sharp focus, please feel free to contact me.

In the last couple of weeks several very prominent stories involving trials have been highlighted.  Many people have become almost obsessed with ‘Making a Murderer’.  At the same time the TV miniseries , ‘The People v O. J. Simpson’ has been aired and has stirred up some old theories.  And the Jian Ghomeshi trial is the number one story on the Canadian national news night after night.  Each of these stories is different in content, but they share the commonality of what, in the world of trials, is referred to as ‘he said, she said’.  In each case there are two sides.  In each case, each side is trying to find or bring forth evidence that proves their position.  And no doubt there is some truth on both sides of each case.
 
In our own lives, there are mini versions of this happening regularly.  Oh, perhaps not the murders, drugs and sinister activities, but no less time consuming are the trials we act out in our minds, searching for evidence at every turn to prove our carefully considered theory.  Often, the only person we are trying to satisfy with this evidence is ourselves.  And doggedly, we continue, sometimes even enlisting the help of others to find evidence to strengthen our theory.
 
Think for example of someone you work or live with.  It will work best if this person you are thinking about gets on your nerves a bit.  Perhaps they do not support you the way you think they should.   Perhaps they get more opportunities than you.  Perhaps they seem to play the part of victim in the movie of their own life.  Perhaps they think they are better than everyone else.  Perhaps they are just plain irritating. 
 
When we have someone like this in our life, and we all do, whatever story we have made up about their actions prompts us to look for evidence to prove that the label we have carefully attached to them is true.  I can think of two small examples that hopefully will illustrate the point.  When I taught school, junior high, I had many, many people wonder how I could stand being with this demographic day after day.  Their contention was that these young people ran in packs, were self absorbed, moody, rude and did not much care about the feelings of others most of the time.  Truth be told, I am betting that the people who held this belief had found plenty of evidence to support their theory.  Let’s face it; it’s a fairly popular theory.  On the other hand, during my teaching career, I looked for and found evidence of these teenagers being polite, (Thanks for teaching us today, Mrs. Critchley) helping others (giving up Saturdays to donate their time to others), working hard so they could be very proud of their academic results, supporting others when life got tough (would you like to join my group for lunch?).  Really.  This is what I saw.  And the more I saw it and acknowledged it, the more I saw more of it.
 
Another quick example might be a social experiment that all of us can do.   Sometime when you are driving, challenge someone else in the vehicle to find examples of thoughtful drivers.  Meanwhile, you can quietly focus on noticing all of the rude drivers on the road.  At the end of the trip, compare notes.  I suspect that you will each have found many examples to support your ‘theory’ of drivers either being thoughtful or rude.  Imagine.  You have both taken the same trip, in the same vehicle on the same road. You have both found evidence for your side.  You are both right.  In life, the reality is that we will always find evidence to support the theories that we have come up with.  “She is so self-absorbed”.  “He is just power-hungry”.  “No one listens to me”.  And on and on.
 
My wonder is about why we would ever want to look for evidence to support our negative theories.  What possesses us to spend time ‘proving’ that a colleague, a partner, a spouse or a child is less than what we want?   I know that when I have tried to find evidence that definitely ‘proves’ that someone is (insert negative trait here ), I can easily do it.  It makes me feel good, even superior, for a very short time.  And I also know that when I spent the exact same time finding evidence that they (insert positive trait here) I am also be successful in winning the trial in my head.  And I end up feeling much better about them, and about myself.
 
In no way am I suggesting that we each become Pollyannas in our lives.  It would be foolish to turn our backs on hard evidence that might serve to protect us or that might help us make good decisions.  What I do suggest is to be aware of what we are looking for evidence to support.
 
Your inquiry for the week is “What am I looking for evidence of here?”

As always, for coaching to help you bring your life or business into sharp focus, please feel free to contact me.