Little Andy and I were out for a walk one morning this week.  He has just found his walking legs and he loves to use them.  We had already taken a ride in his little black truck, meaning Andy steered and lifted his feet while I pushed!  For our second loop, I switched to the wagon, pulling it from the front while Andy pushed from behind.  My idea was that should he tire out, I could easily sit him in the wagon and pull him home.  I shouldn’t have worried.  He could have walked all day.
As we wandered along with Andy pushing the wagon, an around-the-corner neighbour, out checking her garden, was delighted to see the sight little Andy made as he walked along. She said hello to him, and commented we were smart to get out before the rain started.  I agreed and then she added that we’ve already had a lot of rain.  Again, I agreed and made some small talk with her while Andy checked out the feel of a soft evergreen bush.  She paused for a moment and then, looking around at the lush green lawns and the beautiful first flowers in bloom said, “The aftermath is really beautiful, isn’t it?”

Her use of aftermath in this way has given me great pause for the last few days.  I’ve always only used this word to describe carnage.  When the massive windstorm hit our gorgeous hiking trails last Fall, we spoke of the aftermath of the storm, meaning the devastation that was left behind after the storm had passed. When the floods of 2013 struck, the aftermath was, I thought, the terrible things left behind by the power of the storm.

I’d been thinking the aftermath was only the bad stuff.  I never gave much thought to the idea that aftermath could be a good thing, a beautiful thing even.  But it turns out that aftermath is really just the aftereffects of an event, usually a significant unpleasant event.  It’s the event that is significant and unpleasant.  The aftermath is simply what is left behind.

No one gets to judge for us what constitutes a significant, unpleasant event.  Of course, most of us can agree on the big stuff.  Natural disasters won’t get much pushback – they clearly qualify as events with an aftermath.  Yet so too can office meetings, traffic jams, rejections, unkind comments, missed opportunities, embarrassments, and personal loss.  The key is that they are not only unpleasant, but that they are significant.  To us. 

Most of us have lived long enough to have experienced several, if not many, unpleasant events.  All of us who have, have stood in their aftermath.  Sometimes we stand there stunned.  Stunned by the devastation.  Stunned by the feelings.  Stunned by the unexpected turn of events.  Sometimes stunned by the physical evidence of the event.  When the experience is unexpected or shocking enough this is our natural, and reasonable reaction.  The time we linger in this land is not prescribed.  It can last only moments or for months.  Here, we are certainly in the aftermath.  And yet, even once this time passes, we continue to be in the aftermath.

In this new land, possibilities reveal themselves.  Where we once only felt numb or shock, we can begin to see new possibilities.  In the aftermath, we can appreciate the growth resulting from the rains, the beautiful lawn and gardens of our neighbour, the communities rallying together, the relationships made stronger, the commitments to one another solidified, and the goals and dreams made more vivid. 

This perhaps is why there is a second meaning of aftermath. In the farming community, aftermath refers to a second growth, a rowen. 

What a hopeful concept.

To think there could be a second (and third and fourth) chance for our own growth, especially after disappointment, or loss, or even catastrophe is so promising.  It’s what allows us to continue to dream, to make plans, and to pursue dreams, knowing that while there may be ‘significant, unpleasant events’ in our futures, so to will there be some beautiful aftermaths; walks with precious tiny boys, just finding their walking legs, giving ways to chance meetings with wise, new-to-us neighbours.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is the growth in the aftermath?’

It’s the end of June and for the second year, I’ve decided to take a little break from this blog.  Not from writing though, for I have a couple of other projects on the go.

May you have a wonderful summer, with no significant, unpleasant events, and with lots of opportunity for new growth.

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 expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to grow in the aftermath.
 
 
 

Last week I commented about the ‘glorious rains’ quenching the thirst of our parched lands.  I generously noted how we’d missed our hike but didn’t mind given rain has been prayed for by every farmer in Southern Alberta.

Perhaps I was a bit premature in my excitement.  Perhaps I got carried away before I fully knew what the rain gods were capable of, for this week they unleashed their full force on our city and surrounding countryside dropping more rain in a couple of days than we usually receive in a month.

I missed most of it, watching from afar as I facilitated a leadership retreat on the shores of Lake Huron.  While each day, I awoke to calm, glasslike water, a clear blue sky and temperatures rivaling the hottest days of summer in Calgary, my family at home awakened to torrential rain.

The forecast for the rain came just before I left the city and caused great unease among the residents. The flood of 2013 has not yet left our memories.  2013 was an unexpected and frightening time.  Like it was yesterday, I remember so well having the morning off work that day to drive Jim to his six-week check up after his second open-heart surgery.  This one, while open heart, was not to fix his heart.  Nine months earlier he’d had a quadruple bypass surgery.  Just days after that initial surgery, all the wires used to close his sternum failed, bursting the wires into tiny bits inside him and leaving the sternum healed but not together.  This surgery was to remove the hundreds of bits of wire left inside him, and then to close the sternum with four long titanium rods.  Our appointment was on that June day in 2013.

The appointment was kind of exciting.  We had looked forward to the day.  Jim was feeling well and we fully expected he’d get the go-ahead  to drive again, and that he was out of the woods in terms of his unjoined sternum.

It was raining as we headed toward the Foothills hospital, but no flood warnings were issued.  It felt like a rainy June day.
Only a couple of hours later, we dodged heavy rain as we made our way back to our car with a clean bill of health.  As we listened to the news, we couldn’t believe what we were hearing; bridges were washed out, rivers overflowing their banks, towns were cut off from other towns, large trees and boulders were being swept down swollen streams and the residents of small towns and large cities alike were being evacuated.  It took us a long time to really register what we were hearing.

While Calgarians and Albertans are a resilient bunch, that flood tested and shook every one of us.  Yes, everyone pitched in to help.  Yes, there were stories of heroics and incredible kindnesses.  Yes, there were things to be thankful for.  But for those directly affected, it was devastating. For the rest of us, it unsettles us to this day.

So, last week when Jim told me about the rainfall warning and potential for flooding, I, like all Albertans, felt a worry go through me. This year, the snowpack in the mountains is exceptionally heavy, heavier by far than in 2013, and the rain was expected to be just as heavy.  Yet as I write this, while gentle rain is still falling, and despite the fact the rains have come, torrential at times, and the rivers are swollen, the floods have not come.

It's hard to believe. The conditions were all there, yet the waters were contained.  It’s unbelievable. And yet not.

2013 was disaster.  Literally.  But once the imminent crisis had passed, once the waters had receded and there was only sand, silt and mould, unlivable homes and unstable building foundations, and uprooted trees and boulders to deal with, every municipality and district affected got to work to make changes so that, heaven forbid, should the crazy conditions align once again, we’d be much better prepared.

There was some grumbling about the cost of the mitigation.  After all, the event of 2013 was billed as a ‘once in a hundred years’ event.  What were the chances it would happen again?  Yet for the most part, the vast majority were on board and mitigation went ahead.  Thank goodness it did.  This week we were spared.  Certainly, some outdoor events had to be cancelled, but by and large, all that was endured was rain and wind.

I’ve been thinking about the contrast in those two weather events, the one from 2013 and the one from this week, clearly not one hundred years later.  I’m thinking most of us could borrow a page from that book.  Luckily, most people never have to deal with a severe disaster.  But when we do, we want to do everything in our power to make possible a different outcome the next time.

While we may not have to deal with severe disasters, almost every single one of us does deal with micro-disasters, in our lives.  Perhaps not the kind where we’ve set our hair on fire, for these kinds teach us quickly how to avoid them.  But the kind that feel less life-threatening are easy to repeat.  The kind where we offer opinions that aren’t needed, or when we hurt someone’s feelings without meaning to, or when we put meaning to someone else’s actions that are not accurate, or when we miss the important meaning of what someone is trying to say, or when we sabotage our own success at something by repeating familiar behaviours, all the while hoping for a different result.

I’m thinking of the pride, and perhaps relief, being felt by our elected officials this week.  Pride that their hard work, careful planning, and willingness to change, paid off.

Most of us have potential impending micro-disasters heading our way. We’re human after all.  Most of us, should we take a few moments to reflect, could easily change the outcome of these with very few minor changes and at little cost to ourselves.

Perhaps we’d do well to take a page from the incredible response we saw in 2013 to make a lasting positive change in our own lives.

Stay dry, my friends!

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How is this helping me avoid ‘disaster’?’
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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. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to avoid micro-disasters in life and work.
 

I didn’t hike this week.  We had a glorious rain Monday, Monday night, and into Tuesday morning.  I was disappointed in missing the chance to be in the mountains, but I was delighted that our farmers have finally received some of the rains they have been desperate for.  I won’t hike next week either as I have a work commitment.  Luckily, I am certain the mountain we planned to climb will still be there once I’m ready to go back to it.  It may look different on the surface, but it will be there.

While I wasn’t marching up any mountain this week, I did take time to think about them.   I was looking at some of the photographs we’ve taken over this year and was struck by how different a mountain can look season to season, and yet, how underneath it all, it remains the same.

Sometimes it wears a coat of snow, giving it a stark contrast to the blue sky.  Soon it just goes wild and dresses itself in a riot of colour.  Sometimes mountains are covered in trees, sometimes barren and rocky. 

But underneath it all, under the snow and wildflowers, beneath the trees and shale, the mountain remains; unchanging, steadfast, dependable, certain.

Last weekend we attended the Celebration of Life for my brother-in-law, Bill.  My sister Barb, Bill’s wife, and her family, planned the perfect event.  It was held at our family farm, a place where Bill loved to visit. As his Alzheimer’s worsened, this was a place he felt at home and found some peace.  Last Sunday afternoon was an afternoon Bill would have loved.
Besides the perfect setting, the company was just who Bill would have loved to visit with, family all of us, Bill’s and Barb’s combined ‘kids’, Bill’s extended family and our extended family.  Barb asked four different people to speak. Each of them knew Bill in a different way.  Each had been in Bill’s life in a different season.  None knew what the other would say.  Each of course, had their own personal memories and recollections of their time with Bill.  What stood out for me was that although the stories, the characters and events, were different, each of them highlighted a remarkably similar theme.  No matter if we were hearing about Bill as a young boy, or him as a friend, or father, or stepfather, or brother-in-law, or husband, it was so, so clear.  Bill was the mountain.

He was the same with every single person in his life.  Kind and gentle, and ‘on your team’, was Bill.  Bill could have been at a cottage, at work, at home, or away on a fishing trip with his brothers-in-law.  It didn’t matter.  Bill was Bill.  He didn’t make adaptations in his personality to fit the occasion.  He always showed up as himself.  Kind and gentle, every time.
What a tribute this is.  What a wonderful way to be.  To be so much yourself that even being covered with new places, people, situations, life-events, and challenges aren’t enough to cause you to change yourself.  To be the mountain.

I thought about this on the long flight home.  I’ve continued thinking about it all week.  I want to say I’m the mountain too.  I want to say I’m so secure in myself and sure of my values that no matter what gale blows, or snow falls, or flowers bloom, I don’t waver.  But once in a while I do.

Certainly, there are many places in my life where I am the mountain.  But there are also times when my ego or pride, or fear get in my way of simply being myself.

I’m committing to work on this.  I can’t think of anything much better than having people trust that when they are with me, I am not only fully myself, but I am the me I am most proud to be.  I am the me I have chosen to be.  I am the me who when the snow melts off, and the clouds lift, and the wildflowers end their season, I can be counted on to still be me.

When I look out on the mountain ranges we see as we hike, I’m learning the names of some of the individual mountains.  What is hard about this is how many mountains there are.  What is easy, is once I learn the shape and placement of a mountain, I know with certainty, she will be there the next week, with exactly the same shape, in exactly the same place, standing with exactly the same amount of self-assuredness, welcoming all to be at home with her.  She doesn’t bend and twist herself to find acceptance from others.  She knows who she is, and she stands tall and proud.

I’d like to be the mountain.

Go softly, Bill.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How am I being the mountain?’
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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. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to find out how to be the mountain.
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Jim spent many hours this week constructing new bluebird boxes.  Luckily, he has some good friends to share this project with.  It’s a familiar ritual at this time of year; the garage is emptied of cars, the bikes and strollers and wagons are moved to a different location, and the saws and worktables are set up for production.  This past Tuesday and Wednesday, the assignment was to create enough birdbox kits for each student in the Outdoor Education option at Millarville school to have one to assemble.  The students were then each going to build their own bluebird nest box from the kit Jim, Daryl and Dave assembled for them in our garage.  Once assembled, the students could choose to paint their boxes or not and donate them for one of the established bluebird trails or keep them for placement on their own property.

Jim had gone over to the school the week before to teach the kids about the bluebirds, how they migrate and come back to our area each year, nesting in boxes along the Bluebird Trail, to lay their eggs and start new families.  Millarville is located along this migration path, the Bluebird Trail, but of course many of the students would never have realized how far these little blue birds, such a familiar sight in our springtime, might have travelled.   Jim said they were enthralled with learning about how he puts the tiny little bands on the legs of the bluebirds so their migration, and lifespan can be tracked and used to help keep the species alive and thriving.  It wasn’t many years ago when this particular species faced extinction.

I suppose it’s possible some of the students had never even noticed a bluebird before, even though they very likely fly in and around the school grounds.  For us it’s hard to believe a person wouldn’t have noticed these gorgeous little flying creatures.  When we lived on our acreage, also along the Bluebird Trail, the bluebirds were one of our favourite sightings, and a first sign of spring.  Going for a walk, or driving in our car, seeing a pair perched on a power line or fence line, always brought us to a halt as we marveled that these beautiful small creatures had somehow made their way from as far away as Mexico in the south, and some on their way to as far north as the Yukon.

On the very day Jim and the boys were making up bluebird box kits for the students, I was high on Mount Hoffman with my hiking friends.  It was one of those magical days.  We had a plan to stop on top of the mountain for our lunch.   Brenda and I had been there before but this was a first for Lynne and Pam.  It’s one of my favourite places.  Near the top, above the treeline, Lynne stopped to take a picture of a beautiful, tiny, wildflower.  It was growing in front of a rock.  As I had passed the rock, I thought the designs on the rock were interesting, but never really stopped to examine them.  Lynne however, with her sharp eye for all things of beauty and interest in nature, commented on how incredible it was that the lichen could create such beautiful designs on the rocks. 

‘Lichen?’, I thought to myself.  Not wanting to seem uniformed, or unobservant, I took a closer look at the rocks all around me.  Where I had seen what I thought were simply interesting lines in the rocks, were clearly evidence of tiny little organisms growing out of the rock.  I had carelessly (and obliviously) walked right past this incredible piece of nature.  As I looked closer at the lichen, I realized that all around me were other tiny forms of spring life.  We were treated to many species of wildflowers trying so hard to grow against all odds.  These tiny wee beauties stay close to the ground to avoid the wind, and at this time of year the warm sun and spring rains give them just enough nourishment to bloom.

I like to think I’m observant.  I definitely have my antennae primed for observing people, and apparently, I just assumed that skill had bled over to observation of all things.  The little lichen has humbled me. 

As we took our fill of pictures, sat atop the mountain, had our lunch, and breathed in the mountain air and the beautiful scenery, I had some time to think.  How many times have I missed what has been right around me? How many times have I walked past moments of opportunity and of joy?  How many times have I stepped right over the suffering of others, assuming that what I was seeing on the surface was the truth of what was really going on?  Perhaps even worse, how often have I stepped right on something precious to someone else?

The lesson on the mountain was perfect this week.  It was gentle and unforced.  It was offered with no expectation for anyone to receive it.  It’s been there for as long as those mountains.  Just like the students at Millarville receiving the bird boxes were ready, I too was ready to learn.  They will mount their boxes on their fences and watch as pairs of bluebirds arrive and try to decide if the location is safe to nest.  I suspect they will now watch for these beautiful small bluebirds every spring for the rest of their lives, just as I shall watch for lichen and wildflowers, dreams and feelings, disappointments and sorrows, and chances to welcome new friends.

Nature is a wonderful teacher. This week the student was ready. 

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What are you ready for?’
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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. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to be ready.