Jim and I watched the Netflix movie, The Two Popes, this past weekend.  With temperatures here in Calgary in the minus thirties, and Jim battling a bad head cold, we had little motivation to be out and about.  I hadn’t really heard much about this movie; we just happened to see it in the list of ‘Popular on Netflix’ and decided to give it a try.  I’m glad we did.  There were a few lines that really resonated with me.  And it was comforting to watch two leaders of the Catholic Church, two heads of the Church, each having their own unique beliefs about what direction the church should go, trying to at least understand a different point of view.

The movie tells the modern-day story of Popes Benedict and Pope Francis.  Pope Benedict, a traditionalist, resigned his papacy in February of 2013.  The reason is not completely clear, as is often the case with such things.  Although, in fairness, how would we know?  No pope had resigned for almost 600 years before him.  What we do know is that Pope Benedict stands firmly on the ‘old ways’ of the Catholic Church.  No marriage of priests for him.  No women in the priesthood.  He was dedicated, prayerful, and very fixed on his beliefs.

The movie tells us of his successor, Pope Francis, just shortly prior to Pope Benedict resigning, coming to the Vatican to ask for permission to retire.  Of Pope Benedict refusing to sign his papers.  Of the two men, polarized in many of their thoughts, learning to listen to each other.   In the week or so the two men spent together at the Vatican, each wrestling with their own spiritual calling, Pope Benedict confessed that he wished he had a ‘spiritual hearing aid’.

This felt like a humble comment.  The Pope is the head of the Church. It is assumed that his faith is unwavering.  It is assumed that he might have a direct line to God.  I imagine many of his followers believe he has the answers.  The right answers.  And yet, his wish gave insight into a different perspective.   It spoke not only to the idea that life would be easier if there were clear rules and if the rules were spoken directly into our ears, but also to the idea that there might not necessarily be a right answer, and that there are many possibilities. 

I’ve been pondering the idea of hearing aids this week. Both the real kind, and the kind of which Pope Benedict spoke.  I’ve been thinking about why many adults don’t want to even consider that they could benefit from hearing aids.  I’m thinking about how much of life people miss out on because they can’t hear what is going on.  I’m imagining how helpful it would be if each of us could purchase a ‘variety pack’ of hearing aids, tailored specifically for us, to guide us through life. 

I’ve been trying on some hearing aids this week.  I don’t need the real kind.  But I could fill a drawer with hearing aids that would help me in my life.  Some of mine are easy to wear.  On Thursday, it was little Benjamin’s second birthday, and I asked to spend the day with him while his parents were at work.  I always need to have my Benjamin hearing aids in when I am with him.  I need to be completely tuned in to what he is doing.  These days I also need to be completely tuned in to what he is trying to say.  I noticed that when I arrived first thing in the morning, after not seeing him for about a week, my ear was not attuned to his little expressions. It took me a minute to get my ‘Benjamin hearing aid’ adjusted, so I could quickly make the translations from his words to mine.  It didn’t take long before ‘lock lit lips’ made perfect sense.  Chocolate Chips!

I’m trying on other pairs from my personal pack too.  The Benjamin ones are easy and comfortable to wear.  I’m highly motivated to be able to communicate with Ben, and to have a good relationship with him, so I put my hearing aids on without a second thought.  I’ve noticed though, there are some pairs of my hearing aids, I’ve been avoiding.  The hearing aids that would whisper to me, ‘You don’t need to be so firm in your ideas’ haven’t yet got a lot of use.  But they are calling my name.  I know I need them.  I know they would make parts of my life easier. 

I want to experiment with the hearing aids that make me more compassionate.  And with the ones that say, ‘Slow down.  You don’t have to get it all done in a day.’  Those that remind me to hear what is being said behind the words would also come in handy.   I’d love to find my wisdom hearing aids.  With those I could ask myself, ‘What will matter in 20 years?’  I’d love hearing aids to remind me to call a friend.  And those that said, ‘Pay attention, this could be important.’

Each of us really does have a package of these hearing aids.  We simply need to open the drawer, decide which ones will serve us best in the moment, insert them, and turn them up.  Hearing specialists tell us that when hearing starts to fade, if left untreated, it increases the risk of cognitive issues, specifically memory.  I’m imagining that if I don’t turn up my compassion, and my ‘slow down’, and my wisdom, I’ll forget how to use them.   

I’m guessing Pope Benedict did have a spiritual hearing aid even when he was doubting it.  He may have forgotten the batteries, but it likely was there for his use all along.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What hearing aid do I need?’
​
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 choose the perfect hearing aid.
 
 

Jim and I spent last weekend helping Greg and Cara, our son and daughter-in-law, install new hardwood flooring in their home.  They took possession of the house in late September and have spent the past three months doing a complete renovation.  By complete, I mean, complete. 

The house was taken down to the studs, the kitchen and dining rooms were relocated, a room was removed from the second story to open up the ceiling, and the master suite was reconfigured.  It looks like a completely different house.  Although they’ve been residing in the basement of the house, this weekend, they are finally ‘moving in’.  They have plumbing and electricity, dishes are in the cupboards and their furniture is in place.  It’s a very exciting time for them, and no doubt, a big relief to finally see the fruits of not only their labours, but of the labours of many people.

We offered to help with the flooring.  Jim has been over helping with odds and ends over the weeks.  My contribution has been to bring them dinners.   They have a hot plate in their basement ‘suite’ but no means of really cooking anything much more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich.  At the end of a long day of construction, sometimes a grilled cheese just doesn’t fill the tank.

This past weekend, when they were doing flooring, we figured this was a place we might be able to lend our help.  Their house has a large footprint and they were laying hardwood throughout the main floor.  I’ve never helped do this particular job before.  I had heard people say they had done it.  It sounded so simple.  I imagined just snapping pieces in place and standing back to admire the result.  I couldn’t really imagine the parts where you opened box after box of different lengths of boards, attempted to place them in a random, but purposeful order, lay a bead of glue, cut the boards to fit, hammer (tap is the ‘official’ term) the boards snuggly together and finally air nail them in place!  We had a pretty efficient assembly line going.  I was on layout, Jim was the cutter, Cara the ‘tapper’ and Greg the nailer.

At first what surprised me was how I was unable to estimate how long each room, or part of the room, would take to complete.  Once we got the first day under our belts, and a few Advil in our bodies, I had polished this skill.  And yet, it still astounds me, that a small closet could possibly take almost as long as a much larger, open space. 

The challenge in a closet is that the confines of the small space means we were trying to fit all of us, our tools, our skills and our ideas into one fixed area.  It didn’t work well.  So, after I chose the pieces for the front hall closet, I stepped aside to let the others work.  I was watching us use the same skills and tools we had used so well in the big spaces, in the smaller ones.  The problem was, the little spaces had walls that kept getting in the way.  I began to think about what happens when we try to fit our life, our ideas and our dreams, into small spaces too.    I think the same result occurs.  We are able to accomplish things, but not nearly as well, or creatively, as when we have more open areas.

When we were working in the larger spaces at Greg and Cara’s I had a chance to lay out many pieces of hardwood, to see how they fit with the previously laid rows of flooring and to make sure I wasn’t repeating a pattern.  I also had a bit of a chance to get ahead of the others, to open new boxes, to make piles of the different sizes of wood and to plan for the next steps.  I was even able to see what pieces might come in handy when we reached one of the smaller spaces.  Every single piece of wood fit somewhere in the large spaces.  There was room for everything.  Nothing had to be discarded.
But in the small spots, the ones with the closed in walls, I wasn’t able to step back to see my work.  I couldn’t notice where I was repeating patterns.  I had to discard plenty of pieces that just could not fit.  I knew that I didn’t have room for a lot of people, nor for a lot of variety, nor for a lot of vison.

The truth is, we miss a lot when we are inside closets. 

We get so focused on the details of them, we fail to see the huge opportunities available to us just on the other side of the wall.  We miss the chance to be something bigger than our small thoughts.

When we have small minds, it means we have rigid walls established.  We have firmly fixed ideas of what is right.  No matter how many new ideas try to float into them, the little walls make it almost impossible.  After all, the space is already filled with our own firm thinking.  So, we take a new idea and see if it can fit into what we already believe. If it cannot, we throw it out and look for an idea that will fit.  It’s hard to incorporate new ideas without moving the walls.  Just like in closets, walls are not easy to move; it’s easier to just fit our old way of working inside them.

I’ve often built up walls for myself.  I don’t usually recognize it when I am doing it.  It is only later, when I look back and notice how many things I missed out on, that I realize what I thought I was doing to keep my world organized and efficient, was actually just keeping my world small and predictable.  I was protecting myself instead of trusting myself to grow.  I was looking inward instead of out, in the mirror instead of out a window.

I’m glad we took care of the details inside of the closets at the new house.  No one will every likely go inside them, get down on their knees and examine the work.  But they will provide a wonderful place where guests can hang their coats before entering the big spaces, where there is enough space for everyone’s ideas, thoughts, beliefs and dreams.

We could have used more of this in our world this past week.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How can I expand my closet?’
​
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 get out of your closet.
 

We’re just a few days into the New Year.  Already I’ve had a ‘time-stopping’ moment.  I spend a lot of time observing people.  I’m just interested in all of the different ways we can occupy this planet of ours.  When something happens to catch my interest, I take note.  Inevitably, later in the same day, or in the few days following, I’ll notice something else that reinforces the initial thing I noticed. 

This happened to me this week.  It’s given me a humbleness with which to walk this year.

I was on the Calgary C-train, heading to a dance performance.  Because we are the focal point for people in our audiences, we each wear not only our red shirt, our black pants or skirt and our signature bandana in our back pocket, but we also each try to wear some kind of brighter-than-usual lipstick to brighten up our faces.  I, who love a natural look, have only this year been brave enough to try a red shade.  When I put it on all I can think of is that I am drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to myself.  I am not comfortable with it yet, but I am determined to give it a fair shake. 

As I was heading to my performance, I wore my red lipstick.   The train was not crowded, I had a seat all to myself.  The seat in front of me was empty, as was the seat in front of that one.  At an early stop, a very nice-looking young woman boarded.  She sat in the seat two ahead of me.  I noticed her turn to the window and smile, pursing her lips.  At first, I thought she was finding the scenery to be so pleasant as to bring a smile to her face.  But as we went along, I realized she was looking at her reflection in the mirror and ‘posing’ for herself.  I was mesmerized.  She was lovely looking; I’m guessing in her mid-thirties.  In my mind, I was debating whether she could really just be admiring herself.  I thought surely she is looking at something else.  But when we went through a couple of dark tunnels, made of bleak cement, and she continued to practice her poses, I realized that in fact, she was fully focused on herself – not on the scenery.  To be clear, she was not show-offy, nor did it appear that she was trying to seek attention from others.  She was simply very focused on her own face.

This continued the entire trip.  As people got on and off, she never once looked at anyone else, or communicated with anyone else.   Eventually, her stop arrived, she rose and stood by the door as the train slowed.  She caught her reflection in the glass and continued her routine.  Something about her behaviour fascinated me.  Despite her beauty, and outward confidence, she had a nervousness about her.  It was as if her fascination with herself, protected her from any possible interaction with others.

I was grateful for her; she took my mind completely off my own red lips!  And she stayed in my mind off and on throughout the day. 

After the performance, once off the train, I got into my car and stopped at Shopper’s Drug Mart on the way home.  As I crossed the parking lot and stepped up on the sidewalk, I found myself behind a teenage girl, walking with her mother.  The mother had her hand on her daughter’s shoulder as they walked.  At first, I thought the mother was simply affectionate.  But as I continued to walk behind, I wondered if the mother had difficulty with her sight.  As I slowed, I could see that it was the mother’s balance that was the issue.  I am not a medical professional, but both the idea of a stroke, and of MS, came to my mind as I observed her. 

The mom had to work hard to walk and her speech was laboured.  The daughter, who I am guessing was sixteen or seventeen, was helping her mom navigate the outing.  The daughter was keeping up a steady stream of chatter as they walked.  She told her mom about the math test result she had just received.  Then she explained that they only had one unit left to finish this semester; probability.  The daughter was sure she would have no trouble with it, after all, she said, it’s just common sense.  The daughter seemed to understand that if she maintained some interesting conversation, it would take her mom’s mind off the challenging task of simply maneuvering through the drug store.  The daughter held a beautiful balance between being completely tuned in to her mom’s needs, and never drawing attention to them.  The roles are reversed, I thought; the young daughter has become the care giver. 

We passed by all kinds of glass windows on our way in, and dusk was falling.  The daughter could have tried to catch a glimpse of herself in the glass.  I never saw her steal a glance.  She remained fully engaged with making the outing easy on her mom.

While the daughter made the relationship and the outing look easy, I couldn’t help but think what a heavy load she was carrying.  Teenagers are supposed to be focused on themselves.  They are supposed to be figuring out how to navigate their own friendships and schoolwork; their appearance and their interests.  They are supposed to be looking into mirrors and window glasses to see how they look.  I don’t think the manual, if there was one, would have a chapter on how to care for, and treat with dignity, a parent with challenging needs.

I wished I could have known what to say to the young girl to let her know how impressive she was.  Or at least to acknowledge her grace as she did her heavy lifting.  As I drove the short trip home after my stop, the young woman on the train came back to my mind.  My first reaction was to judge her; to think how the young teenager really outshone her.  And then it dawned on me; the woman on the train was very likely carrying a heavy load too.  Her seemingly self-absorbed behaviour may well have been born out of some feeling of ‘not-enough’.  I wished I would have known what to say to her too, to acknowledge her load.

I’ll bet if I had continued to drive around and make random stops, I would have had the chance to see more people, each carrying their own version of a heavy load.  Each of us carries them.  Some times our loads are heavier than others.  Sometimes we get a break.  Sometimes we mis-identify our load; what we think is heavy and important, is, in the big picture, not heavy at all.

I arrived home, lipstick still intact. I hadn’t thought about it at all until I glanced in the mirror.  I’ve decided it doesn’t qualify as a heavy load.  And I’ve decided to keep in mind I have no way of knowing what is heavy for another, and that I will look for times and places where I can help carry.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How heavy is that load?’
​
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 recognize and ease heavy loads.
 

As I sit to type this, I can hardly believe we are going to roll the calendar over into the year 2020.  It seems like only a blink ago, we, the collective world, were almost holding our breath in anticipation of a new millennium.  And here I sit, watching the third decade of this new century and millennium rush toward me.

It's unbelievable.

On December 31, 1999, we stayed at home on New Year’s Eve.  Our friends, Jack and Lorrie, were with us.  We had all been well ‘warned’ about the possible things to fear as the clock struck midnight.  We had heard that computers had never been programmed to handle a new date, one starting with a 20 instead of a 19.  We had been instructed on how to avert this possible malfunction by upgrading software.  And we understood that it was possible that if some large, important corporations had not taken proper precautions, we could all be thrown into some kind of chaos.  Bank accounts could be inaccessible, as could any stores or businesses relying on computer technology.

As the clock struck midnight in Australia, then Asia and Europe, the world gave a sigh of relief as we could see that Y2K, and all the fretting that came with it, had been for naught.  Electricity still flowed, computers turned on and worked (although we may still have been using a dial up connection), televisions powered up.  It was all systems go.  Within moments, we were back to playing game, wishing each other a Happy New Year and no doubt making some resolutions for the year 2000.

Here we are again, twenty years later, at the cusp of a new decade, once again looking forward.  This time our vision is 2020.  Literally.  We are trying to imagine how to improve ourselves, our lives and our circumstances.  The new page is blank and we are free to imagine whatever our imaginations can conjure.

I don’t know when I started making New Year’s resolutions. I can remember seeing my older sister, Mary, writing hers in a book when she was a young teenager, so I can guess I was about ten or eleven when I first began to understand this notion.  I take them seriously when I write them, but put absolutely no pressure on myself to fulfill them.  I think I must just love the idea of a clean slate.  A possibility for a fresh start; a chance to become my best self.

As I consider heading into the 2020’s, I’m thinking more broadly.  I recognize that rather than this being just a fresh sheet of paper, it’s more like an entire fresh roll of paper; blank, unrolled and taped to the wall in front of me.

Normally I’d start writing down what I’d like to accomplish in the upcoming year.  The problem with my method is from this vantage point, the year seems so long.  I can’t picture next November or December.  And even worse, when I do picture them, they seem so far away that I tell my self I have plenty of time to get started on and to complete my goals.  Even though I’m not really even starting on my resolutions, I somehow convince myself there will come a magical time when I reach my goal!

This year, I’m approaching it differently.  Instead of me looking at that huge unrolled piece of paper, waiting for me to write or draw on it starting from the left side, I’ve decided to stand at the right hand side of the same sheet of paper and look back at it.  Whether my mural sized paper represents only the upcoming year, or the entire approaching decade, I’m going to approach it as if.  As if the year is in my past, in my rear-view mirror.  I want to ask myself the simple question:
When I look back at 2020, what do I want to be able to take pride in?

Looking at the year from this perspective, I certainly don’t want to have a blank paper.  I really don’t want any parts of it to be blank.  And at the same time, I don’t need it to be filled with just busyness.  I want to consciously place images and words and events that I will be proud and even delighted to see.  I’m picturing old-fashioned hard copies of photographs.  I’m thinking of what will fill those pictures and what pictures will fill the mural.  When I look at my mural from the right side looking back, I’ll be terribly disappointed if I can’t look at those pictures with pride.  I don’t care so much how I physically look, as I do how much I am fully present.  I care about how passionate I am.  I care about how I feel about others.  I care about how I do my work. I care about how I show up.  I care about what I contribute.  I care about what I create.  I care about how I connect.  I care about how I love.

It’s said that hindsight is 20/20, that when we look back, it is easy to see what decision we should have made, what path we should have travelled, what friend we should have called.

We don’t need to wait until the end of 2020 to achieve 20/20 vision.  We can polish up our 2020 goggles right now.  We have the capacity to know now what will feel fulfilling at the end of the year.  By standing at the end of 2020 in our minds and looking back, we can start to fill in our murals with pictures that represent the best of ourselves; the best of our time; the best of our talents; the best of our relationships; the best of our skills; the best of our love.

Happy New Year.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What will fill my mural?’
​
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 fill your mural.
 

When we were kids, one thing we looked forward to every year was watching for a couple of special packages that came in the mail.  One came from Newcastle, NB, from our Grampy, our mother’s father.  Grampy was always generous with his gifts.  He loved to send us each something special and then add some of Mom’s favourite treats to the package.  The five-pound box of Ganong chocolates, ribbon candy and barley toys quickly became not only Mom’s favourites, but ours too. 

The second package we watched for also came from the East Coast.  Also, from New Brunswick.  Our Dad’s family lived there, and we were especially close to our Sussex cousins.  We each received one gift from them, as they did from us.  Looking back, none of the gifts were expensive, but when we opened them, they were valuable beyond measure.  It felt like magic had been packed in those parcels.

I don’t have a strong memory of any of those exact gifts, but I seem to recall receiving a powder puff, shaped like a little mitten that I could put my hand inside, and that had powder sewn right into it.  None of the gifts would have cost much to buy.  I am guessing that many of the ones we received might have been purchased at Steadman’s in Sussex.  Looking back, I now understand the gift wasn’t the important part of the exchange.  What was important, what our parents taught us in the exchange of the gifts was two-fold.

First, they taught us that wrapping mattered.  Not the wrapping paper, or the bow, or the gift tag, or even the tidy folded corners, but the actual act of wrapping.  When we opened the brown paper package from our cousins, memories of love poured out.  Inevitably we would feel the exact same kind of excitement and closeness we always felt during our precious summer weeks together.  It was as if when they wrapped the gifts, little bits of themselves got caught up inside too, and came pouring out when the tape was peeled off.

I’ve never talked to my cousins about this, but I have a feeling that on Christmas morning, when they opened the little gifts we sent them, they likely had the same experience.  I’m guessing none of them can remember any particular gift we sent, but that they can remember the excitement of the package arriving in the mail and the feelings and memories that would have washed over them when they opened them.  I know we didn’t buy expensive gifts or use fancy paper either, but I know we did pack our hearts in those little packages.

The second thing our parents taught us was that the appropriate way to acknowledge a gift was with a thank you note.  So, inevitably, on one of the days following Christmas, we’d sit at the kitchen table and, using brand new note paper, the kind that comes in nice box with matching envelopes and that very likely was one of the gifts from our cousins, we set about sending a letter to say thank you.  Even though we likely had to be prodded to get started, the writing of the thank you letters became a treasured tradition.  It wasn’t that the letters themselves were literary treasures.  No doubt, mine would have started with:

Dear Joan.  How are you?  I am fine.

No, the content was not remarkable.  But understanding that by sending the letters we were connecting again, and even better that we would get a letter back, made the task feel exciting and important. 

I don’t know if our parents thought through the lessons they were teaching us.  It’s possible the buying and sending of the gifts was just one more in a long string of jobs they had on their Christmas to-do list.  But if our parents hadn’t given us the opportunity to spend precious time with our cousins each summer, no gift arriving from them at Christmas could have felt so good to receive. 

Most of my gifts have been purchased and wrapped for this year.  I know that most of my gifts won’t be the gift at all.  The real gifts are the little connections and experiences and conversations we have throughout the year.  The knowing that we value others company and presence.

Christmas hasn’t quite arrived yet this year, but I think I’m going to do my ‘shopping’ early and often for 2020.  Then, I will rest easy knowing I’ve already given the best gift.  The little wrapped one will still be fun to buy, wrap and give, but I know what will be remembered long after the paper has been recycled is not the gift, but the relationship.

May your home, heart and gift-giving be filled with love this Christmas season!

Merry Christmas.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What gift are you giving?’

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 pick out the perfect gift!

Last Sunday, the Critchley Clan made their annual trip to Banff to enjoy an incredible brunch at the Banff Springs Hotel.  If you have never seen Banff Springs, it might be time to put it on your Life List.  Sunday was particularly beautiful.  With frost on the trees, a fresh dusting of snow on the ground, and a perfect Alberta blue sky, we felt like we were driving on the front cover of a Christmas card.  When the majestic Banff Springs Hotel came into sight, it was a breathtaking sight.

Impossible though it may seem, things only improved as we stepped into the lobby of the hotel.   Fondly known as Castle in the Rockies, this UNESCO World Heritage Site is world famous.  Wandering through its beautifully decorated hallways and ballrooms, it’s hard to imagine someone envisioned and then had this masterpiece built over 130 years ago. 

Sitting in the dining room, while the food on our plates was magnificent, the view out the window beside our table was the true showstopper.  I’ve been there many times and it never ceases to make me want to pinch myself.

Our family started this tradition of a Christmas season Sunday brunch some years ago.  As our family expands, so does the size of the table.  As I sat with everyone on Sunday, I couldn’t help but think about what a luxury this tradition is.  Of course, the hotel itself is luxurious.  So is the food.  So is the atmosphere.  But as I sat, producing interesting items from my purse to amuse Benjamin, and listening to the conversations, I started to think about what it means to live in luxury. 

Never before had I considered my life to be luxurious.  We do not have a particularly luxurious house.  Our cars are of the domestic variety.  Until my most recent car, five years ago, I had always driven a second hand car.  My clothes are nice, but would not be described as luxurious.  The food we typically eat is healthy, and very good, but not luxurious (unless Cara and Greg are treating us to some of their gourmet treats).  We tend to be a camping family, rather than a luxurious hotel family.  We want for very little, but we don’t live extravagantly. 

And yet, on Sunday, as we ate together, and as we drove to and from Banff, I could think of many, many luxuries I enjoy.  It turns out, I am surrounded by luxury.

While we were eating brunch, Kaitlyn, who loves to bake and who is quite accomplished at it, mentioned (while nibbling on a mince tart) that she thinks her pie crust could use some tweaking.  She asked me if I could help her.  I too love to bake and have made many hundreds of pies over the years.  Yes, I would love to make pies with her, I replied.  Inside of me I thought, this, this is luxury; having my daughter wanting to spend time with me doing such a simple thing. 

On Monday, I took care of Benjamin, having changed my regular day of Friday to Monday for this week.  We have a little routine on our days together.  Our mornings are spent outside, wandering in nature.  After playing with his cars, and making and eating lunch, I ask him to get me some books to read before his nap.  He often chooses a ‘truck’ book, carrying it over to me, and turning around backward so I can pick him up in my lap.  ‘Read?’ he asks.  When we read, I hold the book with both my hands and he rests his little hands on my wrists.  As I read, I can feel his hand as he gently pulses his little thumb against the underside of my wrist.  This, this is luxury; sitting peacefully with this boy, who I love so much.

After dropping Ben off on Monday afternoon, I headed over to Greg and Cara’s new house.  Renovations have been underway there for a couple of months.  While a crew has been demolishing, framing, wiring and plumbing, Greg has been designing and building cabinets, framing doorways and hanging new doors.  Yesterday, the tradespeople moved out, signifying it was time for Greg and Cara to be able to start painting.  Knowing they have been living in their basement, using a hotplate and microwave, I thought they might like a ‘real’ meal so I offered to take one over.  It wasn’t fancy.  When I got there, it was dark.  They had bright lights set up on the main floor, and using those and some camping headlamps, they were in the midst of taping up the windows so Greg could spray paint the new frames.   I asked if I could help and together, we finished the final couple of hours of taping.  I left them to have supper, knowing they would be working late into the night again.   As I drove home, I thought this, this is luxury; having our son and daughter-in-law living close enough by, after more than a decade of living away, that I can stop by to visit and help.

Luxuries have been showing up in my mind all week.  I’ve been making a habit of recognizing them and naming them to myself.  It is a luxury that both our children will be spending Christmas with their in-laws, and that we are invited to join in; how lucky are we they each married into welcoming and loving families.  It is a luxury that I have sisters and brothers who keep in regular contact with me, and whom I love being with when we are in the same part of the country.  It is a luxury to attend Christmas functions with my Jim; to not have to navigate alone.  It is a luxury to have my friend meet me for a walk with Ben.  It is a luxury for me to have friends to spend time with.  It is a luxury to have friends to share my hobbies.  It is a luxury to receive an email from my friend wishing me a Merry Christmas.  It is a luxury to snack upon a childhood treat, a wishbone candy, brought to me by one of my dancing friends.  It is a luxury to dance in a little Christmas parade.

I don’t know why I did not know I had a luxurious life.  I think I may have been defining it incorrectly.  I am not sparkly, or beautiful or rich.  But my life is filled to the brim with luxury.  This season, I plan to celebrate all my luxuries.

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

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 recognize luxury.
 

When the snow arrived last week, it piled up quickly.  While we are usually used to Alberta snow being dry, light and fluffy, this time it was unusually heavy.  As the temperature dropped throughout the day, the snow became drier and lighter.  Unfortunately, the base layer, now sitting underneath the lighter snow, turned to a hard crust of ice.  Not only did that make driving tricky, it also caused maneuvering by foot to be slightly challenging.  Leaving my house on Thursday for a yoga class, I was driving slowly through the school zone near our house, when I saw a twenty something man at a pedestrian crosswalk.  I was still quite far away but I slowed down even further, knowing the road conditions were icy.  He confidently stepped out onto the road, as one does when they have the balance of youth, and in an instant became a flurry of flailing arms and legs as he ended up flat on his back on the road. 

I’m imagining that as he stepped down off the curb, his foot struck some ice and he was thrown off balance, unable to recover.  By the time I neared him, only seconds later, he had gotten to his feet, and with his body no doubt bruised along with his dignity, was already across the street.  The sight of him falling stayed with me all day, and in my mind, I still see him going down. It happened so quickly; it would have almost been impossible for him to stay upright.  

Balance.

In the middle of this week, after a delay due to the recent cold and snowy weather, the company we hired to put up Christmas lights on our tall front lawn tree, arrived.  Jim and I used to decorate our trees ourselves when we lived on the acreage.  It was almost a full-day activity.  We had over ten trees we liked to adorn with bright lights.  Our driveway was lit up, as were trees on the front and back lawns.  In our final year living there, we knew we were reaching our limit in terms of how many more years we could decorate the trees ourselves.  It had nothing to do with the number of trees, or the cold, or the length of time it took.  We simply could no longer reach the highest trees, even with the hand-crafted extension Jim jimmied up on the sixteen-foot extenda-pole!  So, when we moved into our new-to-us house in the city and saw the over thirty-foot-high tree on the front lawn, we knew we had more than met our match!  Hence the hiring of the light installation company. 

They were just getting started when I pulled into the driveway after my short but successful shopping trip.  I noticed them unhooking long ladders; one of the men was pulling on a harness and some fancy boot grips.  My home office is at the front of the house and when I came in and got to work, I couldn’t help but periodically sneak a peak at the action on the front lawn.  My breath caught when I looked out to see one of the installers almost at the top of the tree; the other high up on a step ladder with his own extension pole, passing the strings of lights to his partner.

Balance.

In our final class of yoga on Thursday, our most wonderful instructor, Mona, was setting us up for a pose.  She said, ‘Don’t worry if you lose your balance.’   In my mind I wondered what she meant.  Balance was required for this pose.  We needed balance.  She continued, ‘If you lose your balance, just stop and regain it, and start again.  You won’t be able to do the pose properly unless you have your balance.’

Balance. 

There it was again.  All week it there have been signs of it in my life in one form or another, but Mona’s comment really brought it home for me.  When we first think of balance, what comes to mind is often a mental picture of us trying to do many things, all equally well, all at roughly the same time.  We may even use the expression, ‘I have so many things to balance.’  And of course, each of us know this is almost impossible.  When I think of balance in this way, it brings on a feeling of urgency, and anxiousness and as sense of ‘I just need to get this all done’.  None of this is what I strive for in my life. And yet, I do strive for balance. 

Mona’s comment spotlighted that this is not what is meant by balance.  Balance is how we ground ourselves.  It is how we get centered and focused on the task we are about to undertake.  Balance has a physical component, but much more important than the physical, is the mental awareness required.  When we are only concerned with ‘getting it done’, we often rush headlong in, attitude askew, awareness of others turned off, and adrenaline on high alert.   It is only when we are finished our mad dash to the end of the task, that we pause.  If we are very lucky, we then take the time to notice how our wonderful ‘balancing’ has impacted others.  If we are not so lucky, we keep pushing ahead with our list of important things, leaving behind us collateral damage.

This Christmas season there will be many balancing acts available to us.  There are parties to attend, deadlines to meet, gifts to buy, friends to visit, families to host, games to play, houses to decorate… the list goes on and on.  Rather than trying to plow through each one, noting the check mark in my coil notebook as a sign of success, I’m going to change things around.  Before starting on a task, or two or three as the day demands, I’m going to take a breath and think about what spirit or attitude I’d like to adopt as I approach my busyness.  I’m going to find my balance before attempting the pose. 

No doubt I’m going to wobble.  I’ll expect this, then I won’t be so upset when the wobbling appears.  It will be as though it’s a normal part of things.  As Mona said, ‘Don’t worry if you lose your balance.  Just stop, regain it, and begin again.’
Wise words from the master.

My inquiry for you this week is ‘What needs my balance?’
​
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 find balance.
 
 

I was in Ontario last week facilitating the staff at a large women’s shelter and sexual assault centre.  We are working together to design the direction the organization will take in the next three to five years.  This organization has gone through some major organizational changes in the past three years, merging two distinct organizations, with very different foci, into one.  The work of each of the original organizations is critical.  In the vast majority of cases of the women they work with, they provide life changing refuge. 

No mergers are seamless; this one is no exception.  As each group struggles to maintain their identity and to do their important work, they’ve found themselves feeling like bystanders, standing on the sidelines, waiting to fully participate in  whatever the new ‘normal’ is.

Bystanders are people just off to the edge of the action.  They are present at events or incidents but do not take part.  Sometimes they are bystanders by choice.  Sometimes by necessity of the system.  Sometimes out of fear.  Often, it doesn’t take much to turn a bystander into one who feels empowered to take part.  In recent years, bystander, has come to be used to describe a person on the edge of a very specific event; a bullying or violent event.  However, a bystander refers to anyone present at any event who does not take part.

When I landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Sunday, it was, like most days at Pearson, bustling.  Like most days there, and at all airports around the country, there were plenty of bystanders.  There were those just standing and sitting on the edges watching the people, and there were those with the official titles; those on stand-by.  The bystanders.  These people are, in the most literal way, standing on the edge, but not yet taking part.

People who fly stand-by, the bystanders, most often do so for one of two reasons.  Either they, having been unable to commit to a particular flight earlier, need to fly at the last minute, or they want to fly at a cheaper price.  Either way, they find themselves standing at the side of the action, not taking part.  Once they are assigned a seat on a given flight, they cease to be bystanders.  They are no longer not taking part.

When we behave like bystanders outside of an airport setting, I think we may have the same two considerations.  Either we haven’t, or haven’t been able, to plan ahead to figure out where we can jump into the action, or we think the cost of jumping in might be too high.

As I observed bystanders both in the merged women’s organization I worked with, and at the airport, I began to think of the other places I have noticed bystanders.  And I recognized that I too, have played the part of bystander many times in my life.   

This weekend we will turn our calendars over to December.  December.  It hardly seems possible.  At our house this signals the ‘legalization’ of all things Christmas.  Our outside lights will be turned on, gifts will be purchased, plans will be made to see friends, Christmas music will accompany me in my car, and smells of baking will fill the house. 

This year, as a new Christmas focus, I’m going to commit to a season where I do less standing by, and more jumping in.  And no, I’m not anticipating a sudden outbreak of violence.  Instead, I’m going to be on the lookout for places where I can get involved.  When it might be just as easy to stand off to the side and not make an effort, I’m going to be a participant.  I’m going to find places to offer kindness.  I’m going to initiate simple conversations with all sorts of people, rather than sit quietly on the sidelines.  I’m guessing store cashiers and clerks could use a kind word during this busy season.  I may find myself smiling at the people manning the Salvation Army donation sites.  Perhaps I’ll throw in a loonie or two.  I’m going to say yes to knitting scarves for the homeless.  I’m going to dance at seniors’ centres.  I’m going to join in singing.  I’m going to fit in a walk with a friend.  I’m going to stay longer visiting at the dinner table and hope the dishes wait for me 😊

I’m going to assume that the present is the present.

While many bystanders worry that the cost will be too high if they jump in, I’m going to assume I simply can’t afford to stand by.  My little effort may make all the difference to someone’s season.  I’m guessing it will make all difference to mine too.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Bystander or participant?’
​
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 participate fully.

In a lot of ways, this has been exactly the kind of week I love/hate.  I think I love it.  It’s the kind of week where I’ve had a very busy calendar, but more noteworthy, the things I’ve had on the calendar have spanned from meeting with some women friends to quilt, to writing a Strategic Plan document.  In between there have been client appointments, my yearly physical exam, written proposals, workshop planning, yoga, book club and a day with little Ben.   There haven’t been many free minutes!  I also stopped in at Greg and Cara’s under-renovation house to catch up on their progress.

When most people hear they purchased a house and are doing some renovations, their minds go to paint and perhaps some new flooring.  This would not be the case for this house.  Most of the main floor has been taken right down to the studs, one upper room has been removed to allow the full height of the twenty-foot ceiling to be showcased and the kitchen and dining rooms have switched positions.  This is not a renovation for the feint of heart!

To add to the challenge, a massive beam needed to be inserted to support the ceiling, once one of the demolished walls was removed.  Clearly, this is not a renovation that is dreamt up on a Monday, and finished by Saturday.  They have a fantastic project manager working with them, and of course, they have a blueprint.

A blueprint is a very specific, technical architectural or construction drawing.  In the case of houses and other buildings, once a blueprint design is approved, it must be followed.   Each of the tradespeople involved in the project must use the blueprint as their instructions.  If someone wants to make a change, the blueprint must be changed and approved.  There isn’t room given for personal preference.  The blueprint is the rule book.  It is assumed that following the blueprint will lead to the safe, successful completion of the project.

I just LOVE a blueprint.  Now, truth be told, I’ve never really built a house.  And in full disclosure, I’ve don’t really know how to read a blue print.  But there is something about the certainty of it, the idea that there is a defined right way, that sets my mind at ease.  Yet, although this feels so right to me, I recognize that this is also a weak spot for me.  Clearly I have a high value around security, or control, or responsibility, or correctness or whatever it is called, and obviously it serves me well in many places, but I also understand this comforting feeling I have when things are in order is not a good blueprint for every part of my life.

Clearly there are places where blueprints are not the answer.  For all those other places, this week I have discovered Moo Prints. 

On Wednesday morning I was invited to join a small quilting group.  The idea was that four women would get together; each bringing their own project and spend as many hours as they wanted on their own quilting venture.  When Brenda first called to invite me, I immediately said yes.  I knew that although I didn’t have a project on the go, I had seen a quilt a couple of years ago that I wanted an excuse to try.  It is a fairly large project.  Of a cow.  A beautiful, colourful cow, made of strips of material.  What I didn’t realize was that my beautiful cow did not come with a beautiful blueprint.

Instead she came with some steps to follow that seemed rather loose to me.  For instance, step three talks about cutting the black fabric into strips.  Then cutting the strips into a variety of lengths and widths.  Pardon me?!  In every quilt I’m made in the past, the cutting forms the most precise and perhaps the most important part of the project.  It is what sets up the design to fit together.  I read the instructions myself twice.  Then I looked at the picture.  Then at the instructions.  Then I asked Jim see if he could see what I had clearly missed.  Then I took the pattern to Brenda’s to have the ‘girls’ help me out.  Sure enough, I was to cut it into a variety of lengths and widths, of no specified dimensions!

As the morning wore on, I gained my confidence and having cut the fabric, I started to lay it out onto the traced pattern.  The more I placed the black fabric, the outline, on the pattern, the more I realized that the less precise I was, the better it looked.  This cow is not meant to look like a perfect ‘log cabin’.  She is meant to look like a cow. 

It dawns on me that while I love blueprints for many parts of my life, some of my most treasured memories and some of my most proud accomplishments have come from times when I’ve only had a mooprint, not a blueprint.

I had no blueprint when raising my family.

I had no blueprint for dealing with each individual student in my care when I was teaching.

I had no blueprint for establishing my coaching practice.

This weekend there will be no blueprint for how to be when we attend the funeral of the husband of our dear friend.

There is no blueprint for how I love little Benjamin.

In each of these, the only blueprint I’ve had was in knowing how I want to show up; who I want to be.

For all the rest, for the details of how things will turn out, I’ll trust myself to cut and arrange irregular shapes with perfect and not so perfect placement, and stand back to enjoy the beauty.

My inquiry for you this week is. ‘Do I need a blueprint or a mooprint?’
​
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 mooprints.

I’ve been thinking about a little encounter I had last week when I was in Ontario.  It was a non-event, really.  But is has been rattling around in my mind.

Part of the trip was business and the other part was pleasure – all pleasure.  Being able to be present for Greg to defend his PhD was a highlight of my life.  Greg’s defense was on Friday.  On Saturday, I had been invited to Cara’s family’s home, situated about forty-five minutes outside of London to join in a celebration for Greg.   While I’d been to ‘the farm’ several times previously, I had always driven there with Jim, or with Greg and Cara.  Being a typical passenger, I had mostly simply enjoyed the beauty of the southwestern Ontario countryside and hadn’t paid much attention to road names or signs.  I knew the general direction, but on every other trip I’d made to the farm, we had left from Greg and Cara’s place.  This time I would be leaving from London.

Before heading off, I make a stop at a beautiful greenhouse and gift shop, situated right at the edge of the city.  I had been there before and loved it.  This time I was hoping to find a little something I could take for Sharon and Dan, Cara’s parents, to thank them for hosting me and for hosting our celebratory dinner.

My trustworthy GPS led me to the greenhouse and I found what I was looking for.  As I was paying, I thought it might be a good idea to ask the girls at the cash register, what might be the quickest way for me to get to Highway 402.    I figured the girls might know a better route than the one the GPS was showing.  I was also thinking that there was a little town, Komoka, that I had been through many times before and since it was on the way to the highway, once I got there, I’d have my bearings.  So, as they were looking on their computer for the highway, I suggested they just tell me how to get to Komoka and I could find my way from there.

Komoka?

They each looked at me with a blank expression.  I was a bit confused.  I was pretty sure I had the name of the town correct.  And I was also pretty sure it wasn’t much more than about a five-kilometre drive from where we were.  (Full disclosure:  It turns out the distance is closer to 9km than 5km)

I’ve never heard of it, was the honest reply of one.  The others agreed.  Between us, we found Komoka on their map and they were able to steer me out the door with ‘good enough’ simple instructions to Komoka, which hopefully would lead me to the highway and then to the farm.

This entire interaction was short, really pleasant, and ultimately helpful.  I arrived at the farm in one piece and relatively unflustered!

Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about that interaction.  Komoka was so nearby to the greenhouse and yet the three people I spoke to there had never heard of it. 

I was raised on a farm so my circle of community was larger than it might have been had I been raised in an inner city.  Even so, it stopped me in my tracks to realize even though I might know more about the geography of my five-kilometre circle, in many, many parts of my life, I’m sorry to admit I live in a bubble that is much smaller than five-kilometre bubble.
So many of us surround ourselves with familiar people, places and things.  We’ve created a small circle around ourselves, stretching oh, about five kilometres in any direction, that contains not only our family and friends, but also our familiar go-to spots, our hobbies, our thoughts, our opinions, our beliefs, and our worldviews. 

When we stay inside our little five-kilometre circle, we never have to challenge ourselves.  Since we carefully, over time, create our circle ourselves, we don’t even notice that we have selectively eliminated many, many discomforts from it.  We’ve eliminated the need to hear opinions that may challenge our own.  We’ve eliminated experiences that have the potential to grow us as people.  We’ve eliminated opportunities to not be ‘right’, but to just be. 

Back in Calgary this week, Jim and I were returning home one evening and exited a main road to stop at our grocery store (yes, the one I’m most familiar and comfortable with).  Once we were on the off ramp, we could see flashing police lights ahead.  We assumed we would be detained due to motor vehicle incident. We drew up alongside a police cruiser, and stopped at the red light.  To our amazement, there was no accident.  The young police officer was out of his car and he was walking toward what appeared to be a homeless person.  We could not hear or see the exchange.  What we did witness, was after a few words, the two men shook hands.  The Calgary police officer returned to his cruiser and turned off the flashing lights.  The other man, eating the homemade sandwich the officer had given him, crossed the street in front of us, head held just a bit higher than I suspect it had been when the officer first arrived.

The life of living on the streets is far, far out of my five-kilometre circle of comfort.  It may have been out of the circle of comfort of the officer too.  But he chose to go there.  He chose, not because he had to, to take the time to create an interaction neither of those men may ever otherwise have had.  The twenty or so metres he walked was not even close to getting out of his geographical five-kilometre circle, but he bridged an infinite distance of connection.  It was humbling to watch.

I’ve been thinking of ways to stretch my circle.  Driving alone to the farm was a miniscule beginning.  I’m thinking it’s time to make some sandwiches.  Mine will not look like those of the officer, but hopefully they will be just as open-minded, as nourishing, as connecting and as kind.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘How big is this circle?’
​
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 grow your circle.