Our across the street neighbour, Harold, dropped by the other day.  It was a gorgeous, warmish, spring day, and Harold had come across to ask how we liked the winter weather on our side of the street.  He told us they were loving spring across the road.   Harold’s front lawn is south facing, and ours is north.  So, while we continue to look out onto feet of piled high snow, their lawn is almost clear.  Certainly, the flower gardens closest to their home are bare of snow.  Harold stayed for a short visit, delighted with his teasing, and exchanging bits of conversation.

It’s been a long winter.  Long.  This week on our hike we were begging spring to arrive, maneuvering through snow, ice, slush and even some mud, as we listened hopefully for the song of a spring bird.  Is that possibly a robin, we wondered, peering into brush and trees where many little winged friends were singing?  Alas, no robin song was heard, and no robins found.  I suspect there have been a few sightings in the city, but not on our hike and not in our backyard where we still have a healthy three-entrance snow tunnel, and piles of snow well over three feet high.

While I doubt there is much chance of anyone heading out to their garden anytime soon, a ‘normal-for-most-years’ reminder caught my eye this week.

According to the flyer, butterflies, bees, and other pollinators overwinter in leaves and gardens.    Until it is consistently above 10C they will not revive themselves and get to work. We’re not to do our yard work until then, or we will literally be throwing them out.

I haven’t seen as much as a fly or an ant yet this year, and we certainly haven’t had any temperatures above 10°C.  Yet, the cute little bee on this little flyer reminded me that soon we will see bees, and soon those industrious little insects will become hyper focussed on one thing, and one thing only.  Pollination. 

When a bee visits a flower or blossom, it’s usually there to collect nectar.   The nectar fills the bee up, providing it with energy, and providing the ingredient for it to make honey.  But while it’s filling its belly with nectar, some of the pollen from the flower ends up sticking to the fuzzy part of the bee.  When the bee heads to the next flower or blossom, again to find nectar, some of the pollen it picked up, gets rubbed off on that flower.  This transfer of pollen helps the plants to be able to continue to grow.  Without the little bees, and the process of pollination, we would lose many of our valuable food sources.

Oh, to be a bee!  To live a life where you know with certainty, exactly what you are put on earth to do and to not become distracted by other things. 

All of us are pollinators.  Alas, almost none of us arrive on earth hard-wired to know, without a shadow of a doubt, what our purpose is.  Each time we have an interaction, any interaction, we pollinate either the other person or the relationship we have with them.  The difference between us and the bees is this, bees’ purpose is to encourage life, to promote growth and more and more lately, to ensure certain plants, and therefore the animals who consume them, do not become extinct.  Bees give the flowers and plants maximum chance to reach their full potential.  Many of us, on the other hand, are careless pollinators.  While we certainly affect each person and relationship we touch, often the amount of brain power we use creating conscious, positive, growth-filled interactions, would be dwarfed by the thinking of a bee.  A sobering thought is this, considering bees’ brains only contain about a million neurons, while human brains have about 100 billion!

I have some wonderful pollinators in my life.  When I spend time with them, some of their wisdom, confidence, kindness, talent, and support rub off on me.  It’s no surprise, these are the people I’m attracted to.   They draw me in, in some ways they are as hard to resist as flowers are for bees.  I hope when I leave them, I carry some of their positive qualities with me to drop into my next interaction.  I hope too, I leave some positive pollen behind.

If only we used just a tiny part of our human brains, say, one million neurons, to pollinate like a bee.  We might just end up encouraging life, promoting growth, and giving each other the maximum chance to reach our full potential.

Harold, our across the street neighbour, is a pollinator.  He never fails greet us with a smile and some kindness.  A month or so ago he arrived with some of his wife, Janie’s, oliebolen, fresh from the deep fryer.  This week he arrived with a little tease to make us smile, and dropped off some of his kindness in the form of catching us up on news in his family.  In return, by the time he left after a short visit, Jim, upon learning Harold was due to have some surgery, had made the offer to help him out however he could while Harold was recovering.  It’s magical how much good can come from a little pollination between humans.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How well am I pollinating?’
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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 and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find out how to learn to pollinate like a bee.
 
 
 

Last week, we sprang ahead.  Daylight savings time is upon us once again.  Usually I don’t notice much of an effect from our spring and fall time changes, but this year, the loss of the hour seemed to throw me off.  I’m guessing the combination of the hour lost Saturday night, coupled with two more hours lost the day before due to travel, were just enough to tip my apple cart.  Luckily, I’ve always been able to  function on less sleep than some; a gift I appreciated this week.

Time has been quite a persistent, colourful, attention-seeking, character in my life lately.  No matter how I try to ignore her, she keeps insisting I pay her some attention. 

Time fills my days.  Completely full.  I have an already very full life, and somehow, Time, makes everything feel more rushed, more urgent.  No matter how I plan for her, I seem to always have just a few too few minutes to complete each thing, and I can never get where I’m going without being aware of her tick, tick, ticking as she comes along with me.
My trip last week was a work trip.  Except for a couple of incredibly wonderful, very short, hours with two of my sisters, the entire trip was focused on work.

The great news is, this is exactly what I went for, what I was expecting, and what I wanted to do. I loved my time working with this leadership group, who I admire, respect, and never fail to be humbled by, and learn from.  We always work long, hard hours, and yet somehow, in all of that, we make space for leadership growth, rich conversations, and even laughter-induced tears.  These people are a joy to be with. 

Although we had a specific, complex task to complete together, Time, not to be deterred or left out, came right along with us.  The room we had for our work sometimes got crowded.  With only four of us around the table, we should have been fine.  But Time pulled up a chair, forced herself in, and managed to occupy a big space.  So too, did another issue hanging over the heads of this group.

These leaders, apart from working extremely hard in new and innovative ways that certainly are disrupting the norm, are heading into a time of transition, both organizationally, and personally.

By the time we close the curtain on 2023, two of them will have left the organization, and the third will have made not only a significant role change, but also a significant life change.  And so it was, after one of our sessions, the four of us found ourselves involved in a conversation around these changes.

Time wormed her way into this conversation too.  After all, when one knows that they will be making a transition away from a role, or a group, there is a sense of urgency around it.  Urgency to make the most of the next months.  Urgency to complete several large and many small projects.  Urgency to leave the organization positioned for success.  Urgency to know what’s next.  Urgency to end the journey with a sense of pride.

It's a lot to ask.  It’s a lot to accomplish, especially with Time, in her completely uncooperative way, refusing to slow down, no matter how urgent we think things are.

As we discussed life transitions, I thought back to a few from my life, in an attempt to offer some insight and wisdom.  I’ve been through more than a few.  Some were times when I was the one making the transition.  Sometimes it was me staying behind and trying to prepare as someone else did the leaving.   

What I remember most clearly about those times is this.  I never wished that the people leaving me to pursue new opportunities, or to enter a new stage of life, would work harder in their final months with me.  I never wished they’d do one big thing to really ‘make a difference’.  I never wished they’d work as hard as they could to finish all of their projects.

Looking back, what I really wished for was simply to share Time with them.  When my good friend, Al, who I taught and coached with for many years, announced he would be accepting a new position at a different school, all that seemed important was to spend a bit of Time with him.  We still enjoyed our hours working together.  But more than that, I loved the time we made for little conversations, some in passing, some in his office, and some outside as we ran along side by side.  Somehow, Time looming over us helped make them feel richer, more special, and worth savouring.

The same happened when our kids headed away to university.  Of course, I’d have loved for them to have left perfectly clean rooms and no loose ends for us to manage, but mostly I wanted more snippets of time.  More time for Kaitlyn to hop up on a kitchen stool and tell me all about her day.  More time to listen to Greg play the piano before school in the morning.  More time to share family meals.  More time to just be together. 

I reminded these incredible leaders, that while their minds were busy thinking of all they had to do, the truth is they won’t be judged by their productivity in the next months.  All their colleagues will really want is to join them at the table with Time. 

Time to talk and time to sit in silence.  Time to truly see one another.  Time to understand and be understood.  Time to acknowledge accomplishments and lost dreams.  Time to cherish the gifts they have given one another.  Time to think about the impact of their time together.  Time to soak in each other’s very essence. 

I’ve come home with a long list of work to do, work generated from our time together.  It’s important to get it done.  But tomorrow, instead of getting right at it, I’m planning a special Ben and Gramma afternoon.  Time.  It’s really all we have.
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My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What am I doing with Time?’

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 and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find out how to make the most of Time.
 

Earlier this year I wrote about beginning my ‘Danda’ quilt for little Andy.  Dandas are Pandas, in almost-two-year-old speak.  At the time, I was struggling with how to manipulate the curved pieces, so I could sew them together without puckers.  I finally mastered the skill, and once those were complete, I sewed with reckless abandon as I attached my very straight borders, first red, then blue to complete the quilt top.  Finished, I thought!  Home free!  Done early!

Not so fast little lady. As usual, when things seem too good to be true, they usually aren’t.  My quilting friend, Janet, who attaches the quilt top to the batting, and then to the backing, using her incredible creativity and long-arm machine, called me about a week after I’d dropped it off.  I could immediately sense she was hesitating to say something.  I assumed the cute panda ears, sticking out to add character, were causing the problem.  Not so.

“How did you attach those borders?”, she asked.  “Did you sew them on, then trim them, or measure them, cut them, and then sew them on?”  A quilt class from my distant past started to come into focus.  For Andy’s quilt, I’d cut slightly longer strips than needed, attached them, then trimmed them off.  But that foggy memory, and Janet’s voice reminded me I should have measured the length and width of the quilt in three places, taken the average of each dimension, and cut the strips to those specifications.  This would have ensured that the top and bottom were identical, and the left and right sides were too. 

Fabric is interesting, and not all fabric is created equal. My red fabric, it turns out, had a lot of ‘give’ to it.  When I attached it, I ended up using a longer length of strip than the actual size of the quilt.  Then I added the blue, magnifying the problem even more, and causing a slight wave in the borders.  Janet knew the fabric would pucker once it was quilted.  The result was I needed to either accept there would be puckers, or remove all the borders and start again.  I chose the latter.  I suspect this quilt will be used for many years.  When I compared that to the time it would take me to make the correction, and the way I would feel if I didn’t do my best work, it was an easy decision.

A border is what frames the picture of a quilt.  It holds it in place, and shows it off.  It allows the eye to relax, fully focus on the design, and not be distracted by little bits of the quilt that are wandering into border territory.  Borders create security and clarity.  Within them, we get an accurate and complete experience of the picture, fully appreciating its beauty and detail. 

So too in life.

When countries have clearly defined, stable borders, the citizens living within those borders have a clear understanding of the rules, culture, norms, and values by which the society functions.  Visitors to those countries witness the full beauty within, and gain an understanding of why the people living there live as they do.  Unstable borders on the other hand, create uncertainty, even chaos.

In our personal lives it is the same.  When we take time to think about and put in place clear borders, we show up in our lives as the person we aspire to be.  These borders, create the frame to support our life.  The picture we create, the tapestry we weave inside the frame becomes a true reflection of us living a life aligned with our values.  Our values, our borders, make it easier to welcome into our lives, only the things we intend to have there.  The borders also keep out things that distract us from our best life.   

It is when we become less diligent with our borders, when we fail to consider the limits we are willing to live within, our picture, our life begins to feel off-kilter.  My dad used to remind us to get our priorities straight.  He meant for us to think about what was important to us, and to live accordingly. In other words, to get square with our values. 

Luckily for me, the borders on Andy’s quilt were removeable.  It did take time and care.  I had no extra blue fabric so I couldn’t risk damaging any bits of the original. I had a lot of tiny pieces of thread to carefully remove.

I’ve now measured, measured again, cut, pinned, eased and sewn.  It shouldn’t have surprised me that the new version, with the newly measured borders, vastly improve the look of the quilt.  The cute pandas are still cute.  But somehow, they look so secure, so peaceful, now that they don’t have to worry about the edges failing them.  Now that they know they are safe and being supported by unconditional love; the love of this Gramma, Chamma as Andy calls me, who would do anything to support our precious little Andy.

May you shore up your borders this week, allowing the picture within them to dazzle others with its beauty and intentional detail.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How secure are your borders?’

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 and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find out how to secure your borders.

This week I’ve been working in my office with the door closed.  Normally, I’d leave the door open; it’s only Jim and I at home and we work from separate floors of the house so there is no need to close myself off from anything. This week, however, the sound of hammers and drills, and more importantly perhaps, the frigid air coming into our home from the gaping hole in the living room wall where the window once was, has me hunkered down with the door to my office firmly closed!

We’re having our windows replaced.  This house has its original windows, and we’ve noticed it doesn’t hold its heat in the winter and doesn’t stay as cool as we’d like in summer. We decided to bite the proverbial bullet to install state of the art, triple pane, energy efficient, brand-new windows.  Alas, mother nature couldn’t care less, so this week, awaking to snow falling and a temperature of minus ten, we knew warm sweaters and closed doors would be good companions.  In truth, we don’t have a thing to complain about.  We are not doing the work.  Our only job is to make sure the crew working has easy access to all windows.

Not surprising, I’ve had windows on my mind.

This house doesn’t have the kind of windows we had in our acreage home. When we designed that house, we chose huge picture windows, knowing the view from outside would provide the artwork for the inside of our home.  In this house, in the city, we don’t have an expansive view from anywhere.  And yet, I’m still noticing the windows have the same effect.

Windows give us a safe place to look beyond.  Beyond the familiarity of our home. Beyond our familiar conversations and dreams.  Beyond the safety of our well-practiced preferences.  Beyond the comfort of our familiar habits and ways of being in our world.  From behind our windows, we can imagine things to be different.  We can imagine possibilities.

As we’ve chatted with the crew over the installation process, we learned from Amari, the head installer that he, and the other three crew members are from Georgia.  The country, not the state.  I wondered to myself how they had come to be in Canada, and in Calgary.  I couldn’t help but imagine someone in their life, no doubt someone who loves them, showing them an open window once upon a time.  No, I don’t think they ever suggested they emigrate to Canada to learn to install windows. Rather in my imagination, I see them opening the window of opportunity by encouraging them to pursue adventure.  I imagine that throughout their life someone, or much more likely several people, opened windows by noticing their gifts, by encouraging them, by believing in them, and by wanting for them, all the possibilities in the world.

When the crew was installing my office window, I heard Amari, who was working outside, go into the office to talk to Tadis, who was working from inside.  From what I could understand, Tadis is new to this work.  He was doing something incorrectly, and Amari was there to make sure the job was being completed according to his expectations.  He kindly showed Tadis what the mistake was, showed him how it should look, and explained how to do it.  As he was leaving the office he said, ‘You will be good at this job.  You need to be very exact, and do everything correctly; this is how you become professional.’  At noon that day, Jim and I offered to buy lunch for the crew.  They had been working hard and we really appreciated their work.  Jim talked to Amari and asked if this would be ok.  The lunch was ordered and Amari went to tell the others.  He told Tadis, who replied that he had brought his own lunch.  Amari’s response?  “You will take your lunch home and bring it tomorrow.  Tadis, Jim says you are doing good work.  This is excellent for you.  Good job.”

This kind of simple interaction happens every single day in one form or another.  We are all doing, we all make mistakes, we all need correction, we all need to correct, we sometimes show confidence and sometimes we doubt.  In this interaction, Amari choose to open the window for Tadis to believe he could be successful at this new job.  It would have been just as easy for him to show his frustration at his new worker’s lack of expertise; to close the window on his hope.

Just like our new windows, which open and close with equal ease, it's easy to both open and close the windows of life.  We open windows when we believe in others, when we encourage others, when we reach out to others, when we listen with empathy, when we show grace, and when we persevere when others do not match our expectations of them.  Sometimes we are called upon to hold open windows for others when they cannot do so for themselves. 

I am grateful for the window openers in my life.  I’m watching for opportunities to open windows for others.

The day after the office window installation was complete, Andy took some little trucks and ‘people’ into the office to play with them on the new windowsill.  As I watched him line up his vehicles and people at that new window, looking out every once in a while when a car or truck went by, I made some wishes.

I wished that Andy and Ben would always look through windows and see possibilities.  I wished they would be surrounded by window openers, people who focus on their strengths, and want the best for them.  I wished they would be brave enough to try new things, and when they do, that they will have friends to walk with them.  I wished they will be the kind of people who open windows for others.  And I wished they could see themselves through the same window I see them; the one where they are capable, kind, and brave, supported, and loved beyond measure.
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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 and has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find out how to open windows.