The dance group I belong to, Chinook Country Dancers, is in full-on performance mode for the next few weeks.  I’m not sure the exact number of performances there are in total, but right now, I’m counting twenty-five on my calendar.  Needless to say, we are at the very final stages of polishing the details of each dance so we can confidently perform. 

One of the most challenging parts for all of us at this point in the season is making sure we have our introductions and finishing poses down pat.  When we learn a new dance, we typically learn the pattern of the feet first, then the arm movements are added, and finally the beginning and ending poses are inserted.  Considering we have many dozens of dances, it can be hard to keep them all straight.  Often our opening pose has some version of us leaning slightly one way or the other, hand on the brim of our cowboy hat and eyes cast down. Once we are told the name of the upcoming dance we are expected to get into our pose and hold it. 

Most often it is less than a minute before we hear the music signalling us to begin, but sometimes it can feel like an eternity.  When that happens, we can be seen sneaking peeks as we look around to make sure we aren’t the only person frozen in place in a pose!  We know we really shouldn’t be doing this; true professionals would simply wait as long as it took.  But we get antsy, and maybe even start doubting ourselves and we just can’t seem to help it!

This week, during an early morning performance downtown, I was holding one of our poses and saying, ‘Don’t peek’ to myself.  Suddenly, I was reminded that this is something I have thought many times in my life.

Don’t peek.  Or more accurately, don’t peak!

We all know someone, who despite their age, revels in stories of the time when they were in high school, or at least of a time when they were much younger.  This clearly seems to be a time when they believe they were at their best.  Their peak.  While I love to hear the stories, when I don’t hear any follow up, any more recent anecdotes, I can’t help to feel like it seems like such a waste to peak so young.  When I was teaching, I would remind students who didn’t feel like they were fitting into the most popular groups, that peaking at the age of thirteen or fourteen wasn’t really as glamourous as it might appear.  It’s ok not to peak yet, I would tell them.  You have a whole life waiting for you to step into.

This week, Hayley Wickenheiser was named as one of the six athletes who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in November. 

Wickenheiser began playing minor hockey on outdoor rinks in her hometown of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan when she was five years old. Because there were no girls’ teams for her to play on, she tucked her hair up under her helmet and played exclusively on boys' teams until she was 13.  Not all of the players or their parents were supportive.  In fact, many people felt she should accept that she had gone as far as she could.  They believed she had reached her peak.  Hayley mustn’t have been convinced.

Hayley Wickenheiser was named to Canada’s national Women’s team at 15.  This could easily have been the peak of her career and not one of us would have criticized her. 

She could have believed she had peaked.

She was the first woman to play full-time professional hockey in a position other than goalie and in 2003, Wickenheiser became the first woman to score a goal playing in a men's semi-professional league.

Still, no sign of peaking.

She became captain of National teams that won Olympic gold in 2010, as well as world titles in 2007 and 2012.  During her 23 years playing for Canada, Wickenheiser scored 168 goals and assisted on 211 more in 276 games while winning four Olympic gold medals and seven world championships.

Still Hayley Wickenheiser wasn’t ready to peak.

She announced her retirement in January, 2017, after playing her last game April 4, 2016, at the women’s world championship.
 
Finally, we thought, she had reached her peak. 

Then, on August 23, 2018, Wickenheiser was hired as the Assistant Director of Player Development for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

When the announcement of her headlining the 2019 Hockey Hall of Fame Class was made this week, Lanny McDonald called her.  Why does it not surprise any of us that she could not accept the call as she had been sequestered doing mandatory medical school course work at the University of Calgary?

Hayley Wickenheiser is clearly not your average Canadian.  What she is, however, is a wonderful example of what it means to not peak.  Or at least not to believe that the peak she is standing on is not the only, or tallest peak there could be.  Countless times in her life she could have easily declared she had ‘made it’.  That she had reached all of her goals.  That she had peaked.  None of us would have said she didn’t deserve it.  None of us would have resented her wanting to stop at the peak to just take in the view.  But she always seems to have her eyes focused on another amazing challenge, a peak just off in the distance, reminding each of us that it is not too late to reach some of the peaks we dream of.  

Most of us will never be professional athletes, nor will we be medical doctors.  Some of us may have our best professional years behind us.  This does not mean there are not more peaks awaiting our gaze.  We might open our eyes to the beautiful peaks of wisdom, compassion and friendship.  We may climb the peak of a new hobby or interest.  Or perhaps become familiar with the peak of grace.

I’ll bet Hayley Wickenheiser has some incredible stories to tell of her teenage years.  I know she must have some from her Olympic days.  And I’ll also bet she’s creating some equally exciting stories as she pursues her career in medicine.  And in her role as a mother.  And I’ll also bet when her coaches and professors told her to keep her eye on a certain thing, she didn’t peek either.

When our dance instructor, Reba J, tells us to not peek, I can almost hear a second whisper, ‘Rock this performance but please don’t think this is your peak, my friends. There is much, much more to learn and so much more fun up ahead.’

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What’s my next peak?’

Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and 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 and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to discover your next peak.
 
 

I’ve been trying to get out on my bike more this past week.  Rhonda, my cycling partner and friend, and I, not only registered for the Alberta Ride to Conquer Cancer in August, but also for the Highwood Pass Gran Fondo which is quickly closing in on us in a couple of weeks.  We’ve also been eyeing a couple of multi-day cycling trips; what else would we be talking about as we are cycling along on our training rides?!

Most weeks we each do the bulk of our rides on our own but we set aside at least one day when we meet to do a ‘long’ ride.  The purpose of the long ride is two-fold. First it is to simply keep our butts in the saddle for extended periods of time.  The second is to build strong muscles and lungs.  Both are rather important when you’re pondering the ride from Banff to Jasper; one that has several extremely challenging climbs and covers almost 300km.

When we choose our weekly long ride, we often pick one not only long in distance but also full of climbs.  Somehow the toughest hills never feel like they are getting easier but it’s easier to tackle them when you have a partner.  Rhonda and I don’t ride up the hills together.  We each tackle them on our own, using our own different systems. Being someone who finds herself strategizing about just about everything, and who likes nothing more than to make a little mathematical equation out of a hard workout, I notice myself being very methodical about gearing down.  I try hard not to get into my easiest gear right off the bat.  I kind of ration my gears in my head – ‘When I get to that sign, I can drop one more gear…’   I love knowing I have another gear in my back pocket for just the moment when I don’t think I can make one more pedal stroke. 

I’m not advocating this as a good strategy.  From everything I have read, I shouldn’t be afraid to gear right down and let the bike do the work.  But I can’t stand the feeling of thinking I’m out of gears so I like to ‘save’ one.  There is nothing worse than feeling like you are at your limit, clicking your shifter repeatedly, only to recognize you’ve reached the end of the gear system.

What is interesting to me is that although I always do come to the end of my gears when I’m on a really big climb, I can think of very few times when I actually ever stopped climbing.  One was in Scotland, on the very last day of our trip, when I simply could not put any more pressure on my broken foot and I had to walk the final 30m or so of the hill.  I wasn’t impressed. 

What then, allows me to keep going when I run out of gears? 

I guess it is the same thing that allows any of us to forge ahead when we think we have reached our limit.  We carry an extra gear in our back pocket.

As Rhonda and I were biking along on Tuesday, not climbing😊, I told her that most often when I go out for a ride, I’ll plan on a certain distance ahead of time.  However, I almost never, ever complete that distance.  I almost always (it might even be safe to just leave out the word ‘almost’), do more than I planned.  I did the same thing when I was marathon training.  If I was going out for a 25km run, I’d come home having done 28km.  When I’m out biking on my own, I might decide to do hill repeats as part of the ride.  If I choose to do five repeats, I can almost be certain I won’t be able to resist doing a sixth.  I don’t know when I started this.  I feel like I’ve been doing it forever.  I think it might be part of my extra gear.  In my mind, by doing this, when I’m in the midst of competition, and I’ve run out of gears, I call upon this to remind me I can do more than I think. 

I do this in other areas of my life too.  I may sit down at my computer to work on an upcoming presentation, one I have divided up into reasonable amounts of daily planning.  I’ll often finish the section I intended to, and then get just a little start on the next one. 

I’m not advocating this any more than I’m advocating my ‘save a gear just in case’ strategy.  In fact, after telling Rhonda how my brain works, she kindly mentioned to me that she had taken a biking course and learned that 80% of our cycling should not be done at a ‘difficult’ level.  In fact, 80% should be long, slow, low-intensity miles.  This can’t be right I thought!  I came home and looked it up right away.  Sure enough, Rhonda was right!  These long steady miles are what build mitochondria which is apparently what gives us energy.  Who knew?!  Then the tougher rides, the other 20% make the mitochondria more powerful. 

It turns out I may need another, different extra gear in my back pocket. I thought I needed one that could make me do more and more, harder and harder.  What I really might need, even though it seems so uncomfortable to me, is another gear I can call on to remind me to back off a bit; to lesson the load; to take a bit of a break.  Maybe even to slow down enough to see the baby ducks as we cycle past. To build the mitochondria so I’ll have more of them to call upon when I need power.

Each of us needs extra gears in our back pockets.  Sometimes we need one to push us up a hill, but more often we need one to give us permission to coast down.  Extra gears can come in the form of friends.  Or in the form of goals.  They can come in the form of deadlines or holidays.  They may come in the form of encouragement.  Sometimes they look like rest…and laughter…and maybe even like chocolate and ice cream. 

Summer has officially begun.  What a great time to find our extra gear.  Not the one that says keep going, do more, squeeze more into the day.  Rather the one that says, slow down, ride easy, talk with me.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What extra gear do I need?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and 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 and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find your extra gear.

Isn’t it amazing what can topple us over the edge?  If you read my blog last week, you’ll already know that mid-week we had a mild crisis when our son, Greg had a bike crash.  I’ve had a few things to deal with this year.  Each on their own seems like a ‘normal’ part of the ups and downs life offers us; a stubborn broken foot, a sibling moving away, dear friends with health issues, and most recently, Greg’s crash.  You know the sort – we all have these.  I was bumbling along, minding my own business, thinking I was handling everything just fine, when the final straw landed.  I was headed out the back door on my way to a dance practice, when I jammed my finger in our heavy back door.  And that was that.

‘This is too much’, I said to Jim, tears streaming as I squeezed my finger tightly hoping against hope if I held it hard enough, it would magically heal. 

In fairness to myself, I REALLY jammed it.  The kind of jamming that made me afraid to look at it for fear the end was not fully intact.  Ten minutes later (I really did not have time for this😊), after running it under water, trying to stop the bleeding, and making the assessment that it was, in fact, both intact and not crushed, Jim gathered some first aid supplies and got to work.  He tightly bandaged it and I was relieved to realize that if I left home right then, I would still be on time for dance.  Even I had to snicker at myself as I drove up the Deerfoot Trail, one of Calgary’s major thoroughfares, trying to be on time, with my tightly bandaged, still bleeding, throbbing middle finger held high above my head.  I was aware of the pulsing in my hand and grateful for the Band-Aids that were keeping it stable.

It’s astounding how a tiny bit of support on the outside, a Band Aid, can hold the body together until it figures out what it needs to do to take care of itself.

This idea of support has shown up in my life too many times this week for it to go unnoticed. 

In the case of my poor middle finger, several simple real-life band aids did the trick. 

In the case of Greg and his shattered collarbone, the surgeon applied a rather rigid ‘Band Aid’ in the form of a titanium plate; a support to hold the pieces of bone in place until the body is able to fully mend them together.

In the context of my work as a coach, I use supports all the time.  Holding the belief that each of us is creative, resourceful and whole, I understand that we don’t need to be fixed.  Yet sometimes we need others to hold a vision of ourselves for us that we are not yet able to hold for ourselves.  We need Band Aids.  Other times we notice ways we can uplift or support others in our lives.  In these cases, we become the Band Aids; we provide the support.

The idea of support also arrived in the form of a couple of wonderful emails from my friend, Mark, this week.  I’ve known Mark for about thirty years.  First as a student, then as an observer as he went off to make his claim on the world, and now as a treasured friend.  Mark reads my blog and as he was doing some ‘spring cleaning’ of his inbox, he came across a piece I wrote last year, Amazing Grace. In this blog, I describe my habit of acknowledging other runners and cyclists while I’m out doing my own training.  Mark mentioned that it should have come with a warning – after reading it he went out for a run in Toronto and astounded more than one Torontonian as he waved and called out cheerful greetings!  At any rate, this blog arrived at just the right moment for him.  In his email he described the place he is at in his life.  He’s at an edge, a place where he is ready to take some new steps.  He has consciously removed some negative things from his life and recognizes that he wants to put some deliberate, positive structures in place.  He said, ‘I feel very blessed to have the family and friends that I do. I've leaned heavy on some people over the last number of years and I'm looking forward to doing more of the giving and less of the receiving in the coming months and years.’  Mark has been taking Band Aids out of the box and now he is hoping to replenish the supply.

My final Band Aid moment arrived on Thursday when I took my bike out for a quick ride in our local Provincial Park.  As I was climbing one of my training hills, I noticed a woman running up it.  I had seen her about thirty minutes earlier.  She looked to be training for a long-distance race.  If I had to make a guess, I would say she was in her very late 70’s or early 80’s.  I was astounded.  As I passed by her on my bike I called out, ‘Way to go!  You look fantastic!’  And she replied, ‘Thanks, I don’t feel it.’  Upon reaching the top of the hill I turned around to come down so I could do it all again and I saw her just about at the summit.  Again, as I passed her, I called out, ‘You’re almost there.  Well done!’  And she replied, ‘Thanks!  Now I just have to do it three more times!’

It’s lucky I was headed downhill; had I been climbing I think I might have stopped dead in my tracks.  Being a runner, I know all too well how far a little bit of encouragement can go and when I called out to her, just doing my normal thing, I hoped I was providing her with a bit of support.  Throwing her a Band Aid.  It turned out that she ended up being a Band Aid for me.  I thought of her all day long, I’m still thinking about her.  What an inspiration!  She reminded me to keep at it, and to remember I’ve got enough in me for at least three more hills!

Support comes in countless forms.  It comes in the form of a mother-in-law driving to rescue her daughters’ husband after his bike crash. 

It comes in the form of kind ears, understanding the power of listening.

It comes in the form of updates from Cara from the hospital.

It comes in the form of tool belts and hammers, of baking and flowers.  It comes dressed as phone calls and emails and smiles. 

It comes in the form of a skilled surgeon.

And as praying hands.

Each of us has the capacity to be a Band Aid.  To offer support to friends and not-yet-friends.  And to perfect strangers running uphill.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What support is needed?’

Update:  Greg had a successful surgery on Wednesday.  The day was very long.  He was finally home at about 9:45 in the evening.  He has a plate running the full length of his collarbone.  He’s immobile for now, has plenty of pain and good pain meds.  He’s got a long recovery ahead but the outcome is expected to be a very good one.  Thank you for all of the thoughts, well wishes and prayers.

Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and 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 and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to choose the perfect size of Band Aid.

I had one of those moments this week.  The one where the phone rings before six in the morning.  Jim and I have had a few of those in our life, and most often, a ringing phone at that time of the morning does not bring good news.  Jim answered, got the basics, and quickly handed the phone over to me.  It was our son Greg.  Greg lives in Ontario, with his wife, Cara.  When he gets a few minutes away from the research he is doing for his PhD, he loves to compete in adventure races.  These consist of multi-hour, often multi-day challenges where teams complete canoeing, mountain biking and running portions of grueling courses, made all the more difficult by having to navigate the course by compass.

Two weekends ago, Greg and his racing partner, Chad, competed and won the difficult Storm the Trent adventure race.  Chad called Greg earlier this week to let him know he had managed to secure them a spot in another race coming up in two weeks.  So, when Greg woke up to a nice day on Wednesday morning, he thought he should get in a ‘quick training ride’ on his mountain bike.  Cara was away at a conference, so Greg set his Garmin watch so she, Jim, and I could ‘view his live activity’.  We decided this would be a good idea a couple of years ago realizing that sometimes when he goes out training, he is gone for hours, sometimes to remote locations and it only made sense for us to be able to see where he was and if he was still moving!

Of course, on Wednesday, I hadn’t yet roused myself to check his live feed.  Having been on a long ride myself the day before I had been treating myself to a sleep in; my alarm wasn’t set to go off until 6:30.

The fog in my brain disappeared instantly as Greg’s not-so-normal voice said, ‘I’ve had a crash on my bike.  I’m sure I’ve broken my collarbone’.

Mountain bike crashes rarely happen in convenient locations.  By the time we were talking, Greg had already navigated locating the bike he’d been hurled from, got to a stand, sat back down to avoid passing out, figured out a plan, walked himself and his bent bike out of the forest to the nearest highway, called his in-laws and was sitting by the side of the road trying to manage the shock and pain while he waited.  Calling us was part of what he knew he needed to occupy his mind while the time ticked away.

I kept up a conversation with him for about 30 minutes at which point a thoughtful motorist, a teacher, stopped and stayed the final twenty or so minutes with him as Sharon, his mother-in-law, made the, what likely seemed much longer but in fact was, the 50ish minute,  drive to get to him. 

These moments, these heart-stopping, breath-stealing moments find each of us sometime in our lives.

As Greg was taken to the hospital, and I awaited the next bit of news I thought about moments in my life.  Moments of crisis, surprise or acknowledgement are easy to pinpoint.  I could find some of these in my memory bank.  But I tried to recall other moments; the moment when I had finally felt confident on my bike, or the moment when I knew I had the skills to be an effective facilitator, or the moment I became the mother I wanted to be.  I could remember none of these.   Because, of course, these never were moments.  They were bits of life, on a continuum evasive to pin down.

I was thinking about how Greg handled his situation on Wednesday morning.  The crash, clearly, was a moment.  But the way he handled it did not magically form in one moment.  He was able to navigate the crisis because of the little steps he has put in place throughout his life. Greg doesn’t panic when his plans have a small wrench thrown in them.  He doesn’t get mad when things don’t turn out how he expects.  He isn’t angry when other people or things do not meet his expectations.  When he finds himself at the airport facing a long delay or a cancelled flight, he simply figures out his best course of action.  By practicing dealing with unexpected circumstances with integrity and in a way he is proud of, he has built the muscles he can call upon in real moments of crises.

We don’t wake up and suddenly become something in a moment.  I didn’t become confident on my bike at one particular moment.  I built confidence ride over ride.   I didn’t have a baby placed in my arms and suddenly become the mother I wanted to be.  I built the skills day after day, month after month.  Titles, like president, or mother, or team leader, might arrive in a moment, but the being of a mother, or a president, or a leader is built step by step, decision after decision, day upon day.  Overnight music stars, it turns out, are not so overnight after all.

Neither are most of the things we become.

I’ve come to the conclusion we do not control our moments.  What we do control is every step leading up to them, and our behaviour after them.  If we sit and wait for just the right moment to become who we hope to be or to have an opportunity to do exactly what we’d dreamed of, the truth is the moment may pass so quickly we cannot grab hold of it.  I’m guessing these moments fly by in about the same amount of time it took for Greg to fly over his handlebars in the forest.

Greg had no way of knowing one of his moments would arrive at 5:30am on Wednesday morning.  And yet, he had spent his whole life gathering and honing the skills it would take him to navigate such a moment.

Each of us has moments, good, bad, demanding, and celebratory, coming our way.  We cannot possibly see them coming.  Our challenge is to set ourselves up, by miniature steps of practice, to be fully prepared to seize the moment when it catches the front wheel of our bike.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What will most help me prepare for my moment?’

Afterward:  Greg is scheduled for surgery this coming Wednesday.  The collarbone, currently in three or four pieces will be put back together and held in place by a large plate extending the full length of the bone.  He is expected to make a full recovery and be back doing all the things he loves by the end of summer.  I am so grateful that his surgeon is ready for this moment.
​
Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and 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 and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to prepare for your moments.
 

This was a whirlwind of a week.  I knew going into it that not only was my schedule one that really didn’t factor in any unexpected challenges, but also that each of my commitments were the kind that required my full attention.  I couldn’t exactly breeze through any of them mindlessly.

I started with a video interview on Monday morning, and filled the week with coaching, a new workshop proposal, a bike training ride, a photo shoot for a new head shot for my website, an AGM for our charity, Building Hope Society, a meeting of the Stuff Happens group, three dance practices, a new workshop to prepare, and of course my day with Ben.  There isn’t any let up this weekend either.  Jim is on the board at the Leighton Art Centre and we’ll attend their Sunset Soiree Friday night, followed by my first dance performance of the season early Saturday morning in the Black Diamond parade, and then head to High River to join in the Rotary Club’s incredible lobster dinner.  I’ll round the weekend out with a long training ride on Sunday.

I don’t mind weeks like this one.  I like the variety and I like the challenge of trying to be present for each activity rather than just surviving it, although I found myself looking at my calendar last Sunday night, feeling a bit overwhelmed and thinking to myself, ‘This too shall pass’. 

I’ve often had this expression flit in and out of my head.  Sometimes when I have a stressful situation to navigate, I remind myself that nothing lasts forever and that before long this will be a memory.  Time has a way of marching forward, not really caring one way or the other whether our minutes are filled with challenging or easy situations.  Sometimes I even say to myself, ‘In six hours (or whatever time works), this will be over’.  When I’ve been away from home working on a project, or even last summer after I broke my foot while in Scotland, my memory was jogged with the childhood expression of, ‘Only three more sleeps’.  It’s a way to remind me that one way or the other, I’ll get to the other side.  We all have these moments.  Moments that may not be our favourite or that simply cause us some stress and knowing that ‘This too shall pass’ helps us through.

As I lay awake in bed Monday night, thinking about my early morning photo shoot with the wonderful and talented Ruth Skiffington, I got caught in the ridiculous cycle of thinking that goes something like this: ‘If I don’t get to sleep, I’m going to be exhausted in the morning.  And then my already tired eyes are going to look really tired.  If I get to sleep right now, I can still get five hours.  Maybe Ruth can use her magic editing skills.  I can still get four hours.  I’ve survived lots of days on four hours.’  And then finally peace, ‘Hey, this too shall pass.  Tomorrow will come and go.  And this really does not matter in the big scheme of things.’

I don’t hate getting my picture taken and our photo shoot, taken on a morning when nature was in full cooperation, was a great experience.  It’s looking at the pictures afterward that freaks me out.  I’m not exactly sure why this is.  I may be wrestling with some old teachings about not drawing too much attention to myself, which is hard to do when there are only two of us present and I’m not the one with the camera! If I’m perfectly honest, I suppose the fantasy I have in my mind doesn’t always match the girl in the photo.  When I was telling my sister Mary about this, she could relate, as can, I assume, plenty of people.  Mary brilliantly said, ‘I can assure you this, in twenty years you are going to LOVE these photos.’  Oh boy, did she ever hit that one on the head and I thought to myself, oh no, she’s right.  Not only about the photos, but about life.

This too, shall pass.

I’ve always used this expression to call attention to the idea that bad or uncomfortable things can be handled because they will eventually pass us by.  But this week, since Mary made her comment, I’ve mentally paused many, many times during small, unremarkable but wonderful moments to remind myself that this too, shall pass.  When I was hurrying home from a physio appointment to get back in time for our Stuff Happens meeting (this is a little group who helps provide food for some students who are struggling), I reminded myself to relax and enjoy, for this too shall pass.  I love being with these other like-minded women.  They mean so much more to me than simply group members.  They are my friends.  I don’t want this time with them to pass. 

When Rhonda and I were out biking on a training ride, my foot was tiring and really ‘talking’ to me by the end. I was willing myself back to where we had parked our cars.  Then I remembered, this too shall pass.  I am not looking forward to the day when I cannot go for a long ride with my friend, nor am I looking forward to the day when I no longer have the confidence to train for a race or for the Ride to Conquer Cancer (donate here).  I don’t want it to, but this too, shall pass.

I thought about the video interview I had Monday morning.  I prepared well for this.  This group, the Women’s Rural Resource Centre, provides shelter and resources for women in crisis.  I love the fierceness of the people who make up this group.  I love their passion and commitment for advocacy.  I am so proud to be able to work with them.  Of course, it is stressful to prepare the proposal and later to create the ideal workshop experience for them.  But I remind myself, I really don’t want it to but this too, shall pass.

I hosted book club at my house on Thursday night.  Everyone in our group leads busy lives.  Several of us came to the meeting very tired.  At 10:30 when we were sitting around the dining room table and laughing until we cried, someone mentioned they needed to get home or they would not be able to get up for work the next day.  In my head I instantly thought, oh that too will pass, meaning that tomorrow would come and go.  And then I realized that right now, this crazy laughing at my table, this too shall pass.  And I don’t want it to.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is passing right now?’

Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and 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 and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to make the most of what passes through your life.