I was talking to my friend, Kimasia, a couple of weeks ago.  She and I have known each other for over ten years.  We speak the same language.  We both love to look at the big picture of life, and to be active architects of our own lives.  As we caught up on each others news, she described the season of life in which she finds herself.   With a teenager, a just turned three-year-old and a brand-new infant, the architectural drawings she created five years ago are no longer relevant.  The amazing thing is she isn’t doesn’t fazed in the least.  She completely embraces the gift of her growing family.   As she talked about some of the challenges she has faced, both being a busy mom and with all the pandemic has brought, she talked about choosing to be at her creative best.

This has really impacted the way I am seeing my world.  The word creative is not one I’ve always used to when describing my top attributes.  I’ve never considered whether I operate at my creative best.  I think this is because I can’t draw.  Somewhere in my youth, I must have associated creativity with drawing, and when the best I could do was copy a picture of a brick building, using a ruler, I plopped myself firmly in the category of not-creative.  I don’t think I’ve ever reconsidered the idea that even though I can’t draw worth beans, I still might be creative.

Over the past month I’ve had my head bowed over my old sewing machine.  I’ve had my good old Kenmore machine since the very earliest days of our marriage.  It’s helped me create outfits to wear to school, in the days when teachers did such a thing.  Then it worked with me as I made cute overalls for our kids, then curtains for new homes, endless Halloween costumes, and Raggedy Andy for little Benjamin.  In the past few years, several quilts have been created with this oldy; it’s quilts I’ve been stitching lately.  My machine has no fancy features, but it’s dependable.  Kind of like me.

When I think of my machine, and many other things in my life I’ve bought and then used and used and used, never updating, I can understand why people might think I’m not particularly creative.  Perhaps they also think I’m set in my ways and not adventuresome.  I get it.  Sometimes being creative can be associated with being a free spirit, always trying new things, and wearing colourful and flowing clothing.  None of these describe me, me with my sensible bob haircut and black turtle neck sweaters.   Nor does my background in Mathematics and Computer Programing nudge me into the creative category.  Shiny new objects don’t grab my attention. 

Creative isn’t all about being a free spirit.  Nor is it about jumping from one thing to the next, although it can disguise itself as such.  When used as an adjective, creative means relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas.  When Kimasia talked about committing to being her creative best, it gave me a whole new perspective.  She was talking about finding herself in challenging situations every single day, and stopping, just for a breath, to figure out how to be her creative best in that moment; how to be imaginative and original.  I notice she never talked about being her best.  She simply talked about taking a pause in the moment to ask herself the question, “What is my creative best?”

When I consider this kind of creativity, when I think of it this way, I open the door to give myself more grace.  I give myself permission to think of myself as being creative.  What I notice is the very things others may point to as uncreative, my dependability, my strong values, my willingness to not upgrade to new and shinier models, my predictability – these are the very things allowing me room to be creative.  Because they are such a part of me, I don’t have to stop and wonder what my values are, and I can act creatively in the moment, assured I will not step on my values.  When I pull out my trusty old sewing machine, I don’t take any time to wonder how it works, and all my energy can go into making creative projects.  I attempt many more designs, knowing all my focus can be on the creativity, not the nuts and bolts functioning. When I pick up Benjamin to spend the day together, I don’t need to wonder about the basic flow of the day, and I can be creative within our routine.  This week floating popsicle sticks down the melting ice water on the side of the road felt pretty creative to him.

I was raised with a healthy amount of advice to always do my best.  There isn’t anything wrong with this, and the intention behind it was good.  But I’ve never found I can be my very best every single minute of every single day.  It can feel like a failure when I fall short.  The truth is, I hope I haven’t found my best yet.  If I have, I may quit growing.  I don’t want that to happen.  But I can be perfectly content being my creative best in most moments. 

That said, for the record, I have ordered myself a new sewing machine.  
 
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is my creative best?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to be your creative best.

On Tuesday, driving to meet Brenda for our ‘Tuesday Trek’, I listened to an infectious diseases’ specialist, talking about all the complexities of the Covid 19 vaccination process.

We’ve all had a lot of information to try to process and absorb in the past months. A year ago, had there been a ready-to-go vaccine available, one that had been created for just this exact pandemic, I suspect we’d have had line ups around the globe.  However, we did not.  And so, for better or worse, we’ve all had a front row view of the vaccine-making process.  Up until this pandemic, I really hadn’t given much thought as to how vaccines are made.  I don’t think I can name the efficacy of the shingles or annual flu vaccine.  I certainly do not know which pharmaceutical company produces them.  But this year, with the Covid 19 vaccine, it’s a different story.

I’m now familiar with companies such as Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZenica.  I’ve listened to one news story after the next about which vaccine might be best for which age group.  Sprinkled in among these stories were stories of potential safety hazards.  Would the vaccines be safe?  Were the vaccines created too quickly? Which is best? And on and on.

Since Tuesday was the same day I had a booking for my first dose of the vaccine, I was fully tuned in to what the doctor had to say.  It wasn’t, after all, too late to change my mind should new pertinent data have surfaced overnight.  So, as I drove I listened carefully as the doctor explained some of the complicated controversy that has surfaced around the available vaccines, in particular, the AstraZenica vaccine, the one I was scheduled to receive in about 8 hours.

I found him to be both reassuring and comforting.  He also made me think.  One thing he said that stuck with me is that doctors take an oath to ‘Do No Harm’.  He explained that people often mis-interpret this to mean that when a doctor takes an action, that action should do no harm.  There should be no intention to do harm with the action.  Patients, and families of patients, tend not to be forgiving when a mistake in action is taken.

However, he explained there is another side to the oath.  He said it is also possible that a doctor may choose to not take any action.  Most people think this would be safe.  However, it is possible that by not taking action, harm is also done, thus breaking the oath.  The interesting thing is that people are more likely to forgive an inaction, than an action, even if both have a negative result.

He put this into context with the vaccine.  He understands that people have reservations, that they may think that by taking action, by receiving the vaccine, they may inadvertently do harm.  He also understands they may be using the faulty reasoning of by not receiving the vaccine, they could not be doing any harm. 

As I drove along, trying to absorb this new thinking, my mind began to think about places in life, non-Covid places, where we use this faulty reasoning.  We worry that by saying something we might do harm, and we reassure ourselves if we stay quiet, we could not possible hurt anyone.  We’ve all had opportunities to step up and do something or say something to help someone in need.  Sometimes we do or say the thing, and other times we’ve been afraid we might not know the exact right thing to do, so we’ve erred on what we thought was the ‘do no harm’ side. 

This belief of course has a serious flaw.  It is based on the assumption that by doing nothing, we can not possibly do harm, that by saying nothing, by not getting involved, by minding our own business, by bystanding, we will certainly not make a situation worse. 

This new thinking is not any easier for me to sort out than is all the information about vaccines.  Luckily, in the world of vaccines, I really don’t need to do all the thinking.  We are blessed with incredibly competent medical professionals in Canada.  In my own life, making day to day personal decisions around whether to take action or not, it’s a different story.
I know there have been countless times when I have spoken up, when I have said something to someone when it may have been easier to quietly walk away.  When people are in grief, or struggling with health or personal issues, it isn’t easy to know what to say.  Over the years, I’ve learned to be intentional with my words, and to not be afraid to show up in support.  I have found it much less easy when I notice an injustice being done, to find my voice.  I don’t have trouble finding my voice in a professional setting; it’s in those unexpected places, like the grocery store or on a city pathway, I notice myself reverting to childhood teachings of ‘mind your own business’.   I tell myself I am doing no harm, but today, in light of my new learning, I understand I have simply been rationalizing my behaviour.   I can think of many places when I have taken action, good, positive, action, and other places where I’ve chosen to become invisible.

Do no harm.  Three simple words.  Such a complex idea.

In order to live this, I have to become nimble.  I’m going to have to challenge that old belief of minding my own business, and not use it as my automatic go-to.  There will still be some great places for me to mind my own business.  There will also be places for me to take action, and places to continue to speak up.  There will be places where my action is not needed and places where my voice will not add anything of value.

There is no template for us to use in our lives to ensure we do no harm.  We cannot either always take action nor can we always stay silent.  We can however, begin to ponder, how best our actions and words, and our inactions and silences help us make our worlds better places.

On Friday I was sitting in a lab, getting ready for a CT scan.  I was required to drink a contrast dye solution prior to the scan; one cup every 20 minutes for two hours.  There was one other person doing the same thing.  She was a bit older than me and spoke very limited English.  She was there with her daughter who was translating for her.  We had used our eyes to smile at each other when she arrived but had not spoken.  At one point I noticed we were filling our glasses at about the same time.  I waited for her to fill hers.  She looked inquisitively at me.  To myself I thought, ‘Do no harm’, and I raised my glass toward her, smiled under my mask, and said, “Cheers.  To good health.” The corners of her eyes crinkled as she raised her glass to me.  “Cheers”, she said.

​
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How can I best do no harm?’
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to best do no harm.

When Meghan Markle and Harry sat down with Oprah for her now famous Sunday evening interview, I don’t know whether they knew they would start a rumbling deep under the foundation of Buckingham Palace.  A rumbling that would grow stronger, into a shake, as it quickly spread up to street level and around the world as fast as people could log into their devices the next morning.  It’s hard to shake the very foundation of the monarchy, but shake it they did.

As the ‘fount of justice’, the Queen takes her role seriously, making every attempt to be fair and just.  For those who research the history of Queen Elizabeth, they will find she has tried to do this through all manner of hardship and obstacles, through personal tragedy, and through heartbreak.  The interview revealed, however, that no matter how firmly she believes in fairness and justice for all, there may still be cracks, weakening the foundation she has worked to hold strong. 

I’m just a casual observer of the Royals.  I love a great royal wedding and I, like many of my generation, was fascinated with Diana, and what she brought to the Royal family.   To say I am an expert on the Windsors would be an outright lie.  The Queen would not be amused.  But, because I’ve had my radio on this week, and watched some news, and read the paper, I’ve been thinking about foundations, their importance, and what it might take to both create a strong foundation, and to repair one, once it shows weakness.

Since the pandemic began a year ago, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say all of us have felt a shaking of our foundations.  We’ve found this both in the shake up in how we now move about with daily life, and in the shake down in terms of our mental health; our relationships, our values and our coping strategies.   There is, it would seem, a slight advantage to being my age at this time of pandemic.  It turns out I’ve had practice at shake-ups. I’ve had practice feeling like my foundational supports have been stripped away, without warning.  And I’ve had practice successfully using new skills to firm up my foundation again.

Ten years ago, if I had thought about a life without running, I could not have imagined it.  Running was my meditation, it worked my body exactly hard enough to bring me peace, and it gave me a place to unscramble my thoughts.  I solved many, many problems while running, even when I wasn’t consciously thinking about the problems while putting one foot in front of the other.  I believed I would run well into my late seventies.  I still hold this as a possibility, even though I haven’t really run seriously for several years now.  When my running came to an unwelcome, abrupt stop when I had a knee injury, falling unceremoniously while hurrying to my car after school one day, I first told myself my situation would be temporary.  By the time an MRI was complete and the word surgery was on the table, not as an option, but as a necessity, my old friend running, was not able to help me through.  I needed to make myself a new life friend.

The surgeon recommended biking and yoga.  These were only casual friends of mine and I wasn’t keen on letting them get any closer.  Understanding though, that the foundation upon which I’d built many of the other parts of my life, the same strong foundation that had kept me healthy, was weakening, I knew I needed to find new things to keep my foundation strong.

Flashing forward several years, I begrudgingly allowed my bike to come along with me as I ran.  To be clear, I never ran with my feet.  But in my mind, I was running along the pathways.  I’d give my runners wave to the real runners on the path, hoping they would recognize me as ‘one of them’.  I gave the same courtesy to the other bikers, (I am Canadian after all), although I did need to adjust my wave technique to fit in with this group.  Over time, I figured out ways to allow biking to become a solid, and welcome, presence in my life.  She began to feel like the best kind of friend.  Once I could relax with her, I could simply be myself.  My thoughts began to unscramble themselves and I was able to solve problems without thinking.  My trip biking trip to Jasper with Rhonda was as good as most marathons I have run. 

Running and biking are not, of course, the foundation of my life.  If I had to choose three things forming the foundation of my life, I’m not sure I could choose.  Family would be on the list, as would integrity, honesty, teaching, and many others.  Faith would make the cut.  Running and biking would not come before these, and at the same time, the top things on my list could never possibly be as solid as they are if I did not fortify my life with good friends of mine like running and biking. These friends help me when my foundation becomes shaky. 

None of us are immune from outside forces impacting foundational shifting.  I’m learning to feel less afraid of shaking, for among all the shifting and shaking, a most wonderful thing has revealed itself.  My foundation is strong.  No small, or even mighty rumble, has toppled it.  When I find myself feeling the rumblings, I remind myself of the foundational pieces of my life.  I picture the cracks in my foundation, and I imagine what I need to fill the cracks, making the foundation stronger than before.  The more rumbles I have felt, the clearer these repairs have become to me.  As it happens running and biking are excellent repair agents, as are hiking, yoga and dance.  I use them with reckless abandon. 

It’s also been revealed to me, whilst examining the foundation of my life, the reason the physical activities I love are foundational pieces, the reason they are so necessary for me, is they give me the mental clarity and physical stamina I need to ensure I can take care of my other precious cornerstones; my family, my coaching practice, my relationships, my values, my charitable foundation, and lately, my voice. 

Every one of us has things that help us repair the cracks that appear in our foundation.  Most people reading this will cringe at the thought of endurance activities being part of their list.  They should not consider them.  Instead, they will find their very best ingredients to create their own strong foundation.  They may choose music or cooking, photography or reading, a glass of wine with a friend or a reflective meditation. 

No doubt, if the powers that be at Buckingham Palace, can get beyond the fear invoked by this week’s Royal shake up, they will discover some cracks waiting to be filled.  Something is just waiting to be created.  May they choose well.

May we all.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What ingredients help firm my foundation?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to create a strong foundation.
 
 

With our windows open to let in some incredible warm air, this week we found ourselves believing that Spring might actually reveal herself a bit early this year.  It’s tempting to believe.  The familiar phrase ‘spring is just around the corner’ is being bantered about. 

Similarly, with the rollout of the Covid 19 vaccines, so many hopeful Canadians are whispering, ‘Getting back to normal is just around the corner’.

Just around the corner. 

We often use this phrase.  We use it to talk about time, about how we won’t have to wait long for something. We use it to describe the unknown, about how we can’t see around a corner to know what might be there.  I’ve been thinking about corners this week, how we look forward to rounding them, and how sometimes we can come upon them suddenly, finding ourselves unprepared for what is around them.  Every day of this week held corners for me to ponder.

Monday, I had a visit with our friend Steve.  Steve told us about an incident he had last week.  He was driving home from an appointment along a stretch of recently opened, brand new, road, part of the newest portion of the ring road around Calgary, when he rounded a curve and came face to face with a ridge of snow right in the middle of his lane, accidentally left there by a grater.  The conditions on the rest of the road were dry and bare, so there was no preparing for this unexpected obstacle.  I won’t do the details justice, so, suffice it to say Steve’s car did some spinning, an oncoming car joined in, both cars ended up on opposite sides of the highway, no one was injured, and there is at least one car that will never drive again.

Steve couldn’t possibly have known what was around that corner any more than any person could have. 

Tuesday morning dawned bright and I met Brenda and Rhonda for one of our Tuesday treks.  Brenda and I both arrived with bear spray.  Some weeks we have forgotten to carry it but with our deep woods, deep snow hike last week, we both felt we should have had some with us.  The bears are likely still sleeping, but cougars don’t rest in the winter.  We all laughed when we saw the two cannisters of spray.  You never know what you’ll meet around a corner, we thought.

On Wednesday morning we decided to take little Ben out to our friend, Shirley’s farm for one of our regular visits.  He was so excited to be going.  He only found out about our adventure upon waking in the morning.  We waited to tell him until we knew for sure the day would be a good one for the visit.  He loves visiting Shirley, loves being outside in the fresh air, he loves looking at all the machinery, and he loves saying hello to the animals there.  Last week when we were there, he ‘drove’ a big blue grain truck.  I was in the other blue truck beside him.  We each had our window rolled down so that we could chat as we ‘drove’.  I asked Ben where we were off to.  He told me he needed to pick up an elephant at the zoo and bring it to Shirley’s farm.  This week, we brought along a little toy elephant so we could complete our mission! 

As the morning wore on, I noticed Ben rubbing his eye.  This isn’t something he normally does.  He wasn’t keen on having me look at it so I waited for the right time.  Just after he had inspected one of the combines to make sure it was in top working condition, he came around the corner where I was standing.  I could easily see his eye was swollen and red, and his nose was running.  My heart sank.  Knowing runny noses and red eyes are two signs of Covid, I couldn’t help but worry.  A few hours later, after a call to Kaitlyn and a Covid test booked and completed, we settled in to await the results.  We were all trying to peak around the corner to see what we might be facing.  But corners, and life don’t work like that.

It’s a funny thing about corners.  There’s no avoiding them.  No matter how we try to anticipate them, or circumvent them, some still sneak up on us catching us off guard.  Try as we might to predict what lies around them, more often than not we haven’t a clue.  Many times, we round corners with trepidation.  We fear there is something not on our ‘bucket list’ waiting for us there.  Other times we confidently stroll around a corner, thinking we know exactly what we’ll find, and end up face to face with unexpected news, unwelcome diagnoses, or startling events.

There are still other times in life when we go around the corner and are greeted with unexpected events of the absolute best variety.  I’ve opened emails to find a message from a friend I haven’t heard from in a while.  I’ve had invitations to work for organizations I never dreamed possible.  We’ve had announcements of pregnancies, engagements, recoveries, new jobs and other milestones.  We’ve had children move away, toward incredible opportunities, and return home, to share their adventures.

I’m learning to accept corners.  More accurately, I’m learning to fully appreciate my complete inability to predict what is around the corner, and also my complete ability to choose how I will navigate it.  Some of them feel scarier than others.  It’s a work in progress. 

A final update; at about 5:00am on Thursday morning, Kaitlyn received a text from AHS saying Benjamin’s COVID-19 test had come back negative.  Another corner safely rounded.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How will I navigate this corner?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has particular expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to navigate corners.