• Home
  • About
    • Elizabeth: Personally
    • Education Certifications Affiliations
  • Coaching
    • Educational Coaching
    • Non-Profit Coaching
    • Executive Coaching
    • Leadership Coaching
    • Group/Team Coaching >
      • Sample Workshops
    • One-to-One Coaching
  • Testimonials
  • Media
  • Africa Project
  • Blog
Critchley Coaching
Contact Elizabeth
403.256.4164
​critche@telus.net

Empty the Cupboard

1/15/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I was listening to the radio last week when I heard part of an interview with the remaining members of Gord Downie’s band, The Tragically Hip.  One of the members recalled an early performance where he described them as being unexpectedly asked to play for longer than they anticipated.  He said, ‘We emptied the cupboard that night.’

I loved this image.  No song was left on the shelf.  Each one was brought out and sung, no doubt with great enthusiasm.  I can imagine them leaving the venue that night buzzing, completely satisfied.

I’ve been trying to think of places and ways in my life where I empty the cupboard.  Places where I end my day, or even part of the day, with complete satisfaction, knowing I did not hold back, not with my relationships, not with my dreams, not with my work, or with my bravery.  Places where I use the resources I have at hand, to create a moment better than expected.  As I considered this idea of emptying the cupboard, and what Olympian effort I might have to make to do this, my week revealed some inspirational and humbling examples for me.

I took Benjamin tobogganing twice this week.  I do realize I may be pushing the edge of the time period of respectability for this activity, but it’s just too much fun to resist. Most times when we go, we have the hill completely to ourselves.  But on Monday, Kaitlyn and I took the boys over in the morning and there was another family, a mom and her kids, there too.  When Jim and I returned on Wednesday with Ben, we met the same family.  This time the mother had her mother and father with them.  Her mom, Grammie, the kids called her, decided to join in the fun.  I could see this was not her normal kind of activity, but I could also see she was fully committed to spending a memory-making day with her grandchildren.  She sped down the hill with her grandson and then she and the three children invented races to compete in.  They invited Ben and I to join in.  We had a wonderful time together, she and I silently acknowledging there could be some muscle pain to pay.

Jim struck up a conversation with the mother and grandfather, all watching as we tried to keep control of our sledding devices.  As we drove home, Jim told me the mom had told him that her mom’s sister, Grammie’s sister, had died that morning.  Grammie was devastated but explained that while she was so sad, she had this day in front of her, and she needed to spend time living.  She wanted to do that with her grandchildren.

Grammie emptied the cupboard on Wednesday morning.

Later the same day as Jim and I drove home having dropped Ben at his house, Jim told me he had talked to one of his clients that afternoon.  This client, who lives in British Columbia, told Jim that his adult daughter called him just before Christmas.  She had come across a young mother and her two children who had been living in a motel since their home had been flooded in the floods of late November.  The mother was out of money and about to be out of a place to live.  The daughter did not know what to do but having heard the story didn’t feel like she wanted to just walk away.  The father, Jim’s client, said, ‘Bring them here.’

And so, she did.  This week the father and daughter, having spent the past month, including Christmas, with the little family, are just finalizing plans to have the mother and her children move into government assisted housing.  The father explained it had been expensive, and challenging, and he was so incredibly glad to have been able to help.  That father emptied his cupboard last month.  I suspect it will sustain him for many Christmases to come.

It turns out I do not need to make an Olympian effort every single minute to find ways to empty the cupboard.  Emptying the cupboard is simply fully engaging in life.  It is using what we have, to create a meaningful life.  It means drawing on our resources, even when they might feel minimal, to create a moment, or hour, or day, or month we can look back on with satisfaction.  Most often, it means making a decision to invest our energy in that which is before us.  Gord Downie and his bandmates no doubt had some misgivings about playing every song they had ever written, but it was all they had, so they did it with delight, digging deep in their cupboard trying to think of every song they knew to share with the audience.  It turns out it was exactly what the audience wanted; for The Hip to give completely of themselves, using the resources and gifts they had.

Most of the cupboard-emptying moments in life do not require exhaustive planning and preparation.  I suspect the expression originates from a time when a homemaker might have had unexpected guests and had to empty the cupboard to create a meal that might feed everyone.  So, while I was overwhelming  myself with thoughts of how to create moments to empty the cupboards of my life, it turns out these moments do not take much planning at all.  They tend to just show up at our door, requiring only that we recognize them, and act upon them.

It is not lost on me that as we empty our cupboards, the result is a filling of ourselves we could not otherwise experience.  It’s not one of those feelings of fullness that is gone in a few hours.  It’s a fullness that lasts forever.
​
My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What cupboard can I empty?’

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 empty the cupboard.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Sign up below to have my blog delivered to your inbox weekly.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Elizabeth Critchley (CPCC, ACC) is an accredited, certified, Professional Life Coach who excels at helping motivated clients clearly define and work toward their goals, dreams and purpose.  She believes it takes the same amount of energy to create a big dream as it does to create a little dream.  She encourages her clients to dare to dream big.

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    Categories

    All

©2018 Elizabeth Critchley