September

Colorful Images….and Chocolate!

We’ve all had those times of “feeling blue”. There are those times when we say we are “feeling a bit drab.” So it is no surprise that a recent psychological study indicates a significant correlation between biology and mood. The study measured retinal contrast (in the eyes) and noted differences when comparing persons who were clinically depressed with a control group of persons who were not. So while we each see the world with our own eyes, how colorful or colorless a person sees the world has a connection to our physical and emotional wellbeing. [Recognize that I am not a psychologist and I’m not qualified to write about long-term or intermittent clinical depression here. The “points of feeling blue” that I’m writing about are those that most women experience now and then---the blue mood times.] The blue-mood times are when we just seem to need a little boost of optimism.

So how is your world looking today? Is today a day where you are in the vibrant mood---the one of “color me beautiful?” How illuminated are you today?

How do you lift your spirits when you feel a bit drab? I try to talk myself into a good mood. Mind over matter. Change my thoughts and I can change my world. Think positive. Find something really exciting on which to focus. Be grateful. Sometimes I interrogate myself; I ask what it is that is behind this feeling? What is the root cause? And I keep asking that question until I can peg it. Once I name it, I can address it. Sometimes I go for a long walk. Physical exercise helps; so does fresh air and deep abdominal breathing. Each is uplifting in itself.

But the fastest way for me to lift up my spirits is with chocolate! Chocolate is a wonderful mood booster. Supposedly, chocolate stimulates the brain's dopamine production. Dopamine is important for diminishing pain sensations, enhancing pleasurable ones, and creating a sense of overall well-being. So there you have it…chocolate helps to create a sense of well-being. And when we possess a sense of well-being, we see the world in its full color spectrum. We even become vibrantly animated!

Think about this. If I have a continual craving for chocolate, does that mean that I also have a continual desire for well-being? For happy moods? You bet. I’m addicted to life! Welcome to my colorful, chocolate-loving world.

Have you observed how some event can happen and one person responds negatively, as if everything impacted only that person, as in her own “me—me—me—self world”? Yet another person’s response is entirely different, seeing a much larger view and having a response that flows from a larger, insightful understanding?

Moving to a larger mind is an “awareness process” that involves a way of understanding and responding to whatever is going on. It is a way of relating (of being in relation to) the big picture.

Stephen Covey in his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” (New York: Simon & Schuster Fireside Book, 1990) shares the first habit as “Be proactive.” “Develop the capacity to choose your response.” Covey equates proactivity and reactivity to the large and small mind. The event happens—someone makes a cutting remark; the response follows immediately—an angry retort. Reactivity—no conscious ability to choose one’s response. On the contrary, Proactivity gives the ability to choose one’s response. Covey describes this as “response-ability”, or the ability to be responsible.

Is this a new philosophy for living?

No. Nearly 2500 years ago in ancient China, Confucius discovered a fundamental distinction for human living. (See I Ching or Book of Changes, Princeton University Press, 1967). Confucius taught that two “person-types” dwell within each of us: the small-minded-person in us, and the large-minded-person in us.

The small-minded person in us is narrow, self-seeking, driven by fear and desire, ever comparing. In small mind, we see the world in dualistic (black and white) terms. (Us vs. Them, Win vs. Lose).

The large-minded person in us has a more expansive way of relating—seeing more of the human face, sensing a larger, abundant context, recognizing the web of people affected, viewing the consequences of actions within a larger frame of time.

Confucius saw both capacities in each of us, both the capacity for small-mindedness and the capacity for large-mindedness. He came to the insight that all of us can achieve the nobility of large-minded living. (Yes!!!)

No matter what is happening to us, (hurricanes, floods, sickness, accidents, loss, grief) we still have an important freedom – the capacity to recognize how we relate to what is occurring in our lives. By cultivating awareness, we realize that we are free to choose how we will understand and respond to life’s events.

For any situation there will be at least two ways of relating to what is occurring—one small-minded and one large-minded. Confucius would invite us to choose the large-minded way—the “wisdom way”.

It is not what happens to us in life, it is how we respond to what is happening that matters most!

Try This!

Try journaling for the next few weeks your responses to life’s events. Example: Are you ready to let go of small-minded conversations (personal and cultural). Are you ready to put your gossiping aside? To stop the catty-ness? To move toward positive thoughts and actions?

Helping people to move from smaller to larger mind is something we all can do… “we can lift up the positive”. We can find the “larger-minded response”.

It is also what deep training in leadership and personal growth is all about. It’s about making conscious response choices with our Lights On!

(Ref:/Adapt: Meridians, Spring 1996 Article, John G. Sullivan, Ph.D; Small Mind, Big Mind)

I recently was a speaker at a Gender Pay Equity Conference. One of the threads weaving through it was that women, in general, lack confidence in negotiating pay as they enter the workforce; and thereafter, women have difficulty in creating upward mobility within their respective work organizations. Ultimately, and overall, these tendencies contribute to the continuing gap in relative compensation.

In a larger framework, it has been my experience (in 30 years of working within a large organization and 10+ years in coaching women in many walks of life) that many women lack basic managerial courage (command skills, conflict management, confronting appropriately, being able to stand alone and strong; being able to take criticism and turn it into a learning opportunity. Negotiation is part of this managerial courage—it is a life-important and life-long skill). Please note that my statement is not meant to paint all women with this same brush. Nor is this exclusive to female gender; I’ve also met men in the workplace who lack managerial courage. Some examples of lacking basic managerial courage include: avoiding crises; being wishy-washy---not able to take a stand; fear of criticism/failure; unable to take the heat—uncomfortable being grilled; defensive—low risk-takers—not liking uncertainty; defensive—in the face of complaints; not being open to criticism, and unwilling to learn from criticism. I’ve found that finding one’s managerial courage, finding one’s self—one’s voice—one’s command center is key!

The calendar page turned over to the month of June, and with that transition came another birthday. For me—it is another special life-date, and the celebration of another year. I’m reminded of Sophie Tucker’s old adage about the secret to long life: Keep Breathing!

I’m a Gemini. Perhaps that’s the reason that I’m so keen to notice the dualities of this life: hot/cold, positive/negative, strong/gentle, courage/cowardice, kind/mean, forward/back, yes/no, sickness/health. I don’t notice these dualities fleetingly, but rather, hold them as the basic construct of the hugely dynamic world around us. Dualities are everywhere; our world is one of “constant choice” (we each choose in every moment of every day)…we each choose where, what, and how we will be.

My view is that there is a wide range of choice within each of these dualities—all the time. It is like a sliding scale. Imagine that you are a stick---a stick containing all the dualities of life and a stick on which you move up and down the scale—all the time--depending on where and how you choose to be in any given moment. And, as life moves on, you tend to find various set points along the way that seem to work for you. You might be very comfortable in an optimist setting (as opposed to pessimist); or you might be shy (as opposed to bold). While the set-points become grooves because of repeated choices, we each still have “free choice” to move anyplace along the scale, at any time. Our choices, of course, reflect our growing knowledge base, beliefs, values, life experiences, maturity and personal /professional development.

My coaching brings me in touch with many women in the workplace who are hugely frustrated with behaviors they bump up against on a daily basis. The teaching of the dualities of life is this: Everyone has their own stick----their own choice of where they will be at any given moment. And while you may influence that other person on where they move on their stick, you cannot control that other’s choice, nor can you make them do differently. So if another person is mean-spirited (vs. kind), or deceptive (vs. straightforward), or continually puts someone down (vs. lifting one up), they are choosing their point on that duality scale at that moment in time. You may try to persuade that person to think or act differently, but in the end, it still is their choice on how they will be. (It is about them, not about you).

And the lesson is: The only thing you can do is to choose your own response. Will you remain a “class act”? Fully professional? Or, drop down in the mud? Will you stand up or whither? Will you be courageous or cowardly or somewhere in between? Will you be kind or snarly? Will you back-bite or be conciliatory? Will you move on or begrudge? Will you help or hinder? Will you be positive or negative? What will your response be on the sliding scale of how you choose to be? It is solely your choice. Life is renewing and the dualities of choice are there for us every day. (And yes, every new birthday gives me another chance to improve my set-points!)

The Serenity Prayer really does fit here: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

But I must add this: Accepting things one cannot change does NOT mean “condoning” those things. It means accepting that some things are not yours to change, and are not your battle to fight; not yours to control, nor should you put any energy into them. But rather, to put your focus, energy and attention elsewhere—on the important things where you can make a difference—with your own stick.

We do our best to make the world better in every moment by choosing our responses wisely—by being shining examples of how we want the world to be. (Be the change you wish to see in the world!...Mahatma Gandhi) Lights On!

Claire Knowles

06/07/10

www.lightsonworkshop.com

The title of this article is actually the title of a book written in 1974 by David Campbell, Ph.D. (Argus Communications).   I was browsing through a wonderful used book sale in Ithaca, NY recently and the book practically jumped off the shelf at me.  As a coach and consultant I recognize that this title is profound.

The author, David Campbell, notes that each of us is on the road to somewhere.  Unless you know what you want from life, you are not likely to stumble across it. But how do you know what you want?  Especially when you are young and are still not quite certain what life is all about, how do you decide?  Or what about when you’re at a crossroads?  What compels you forward?  What repels you backward?  Can you find the stillness to truly listen to your inner guidance?  Your intuitive self?  Can you visualize a path forward?

Without a vision—a target—goals—you are rambling; you're without focus. Think of looking through a pair of binoculars. If the lens is clouded, you can't see where you are going—you are hit and miss.  The clearer the view you have of your target, the better your ability to focus; the better your intuitiveness can emerge, and the more that the synchronicity of the universe can rally to help you reach it.

Example: President Kennedy created a vision and mantra for the US in 1961, after Russia's sputnik rattled our confidence. He stood up and said America will put a man on the moon by the end of this decade and will return him safely to earth. Even the best scientific minds of the day didn't know if that was possible. He created a positive target. He made a declaration. He made a choice. He declared the vision and said yes to it.  And America rallied. We cannot underestimate the power of vision, declaration and choice. And what happened? NASA and America did it. Neil Armstrong--1969. The collective vision was manifest.

You co-create your own future too.  Will your future be determined by circumstances beyond your control?  Will you drift through life, or will you play an important role in determining its force and direction?  This depends on whether your binoculars have their lens caps still on; and it depends on whether the lenses are clear. What doors have you closed?  What doors are still open to you?  The more talents you develop, the more skills you acquire, the more doorways to opportunity can be opened.  Can you see your way?

Are your Lights on? Are your binoculars providing you great focus? Can you see your target? Can you envision the steps to get you there?  Lights On!

6/2/10 CKnowles

Each one of us has a special story. It has been said that our stories are diminished by the symbolic “hyphen” of the grave-marker—the hyphen that denotes the space between a person’s birth date and the date of leaving this world. In our heart-of-hearts we know that our lives stand for something special--something immeasurable and non-conveyable by the lowly hyphen. Each of us possesses a vastly important, non-hyphenated story.

I spent a good part of this past winter in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Every so often, when the sun is positioned just right, and the Gulf water’s ripples are  formed in a certain rhythm, one can see “sparkling water”. It is like seeing a host of sparklers dancing on the water. It is a wondrous phenomenon. Yet, if you look in the opposite direction—where the sun’s angled rays differ—there is no sparkling water. Instead, you’ll see beautiful blue water with rippling waves, but no sparkles. As I reflect on our lives, we have that special sparkle too—knowing for what we stand, knowing for what we have passion, and in what we find joy.  All are important to grasp and manifest into our lives.

Choice has been a resounding word for me lately, and the phrase, by choice (of one’s own volition) seems to resonate too.

In just the few hours I’ve been up and about today, I’ve made numerous choices. That is, to have selected or made a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Examples: to take a longer-than-usual morning walk, to have strawberries and bananas at breakfast, to deep clean the tile floors with my steam-cleaning machine, to make a very difficult personal phone call, and to end my procrastination—carving out the time to consciously put pen to paper about this word, choice.