Nancy Love’s Weblog

Sochi has begun.  Vancouver is fading into the history books.

I was cleaning out some files today and came across a piece of paper with the The Jenn Heil Collection on it.  In Vancouver I bought a necklace with five rings designed by olympian Jenn Heil who is from Spruce Grove not far from here.  There are five different styles and sizes of rings attached to the necklace and each represents something different.  The first ring represents the dream.  It is a soft cloud like texture symbolizing the creation of a dream and it serves to hold that chains that the other rings drop from.

The second ring symbolizes focus.  It looks more like a tiny target representing the precise concentration required to hit the mark.  The third ring is a little bigger and it represents team.  It has a braided design that illustrates the power of many working together as a team.  The next one is a little larger still and represents courage.  It is thicker and stronger to represent the courage it takes to compete.  The last one is the largest.  It has a bubbly design meant to symbolize the feeling of joy that participation brings.

It takes all of these, a dream, focus, team, courage and joy, to create an olympian and an olympic games.  I wish those athletes competing in Sochi and their coaches the very best experience ever.  I also take off my hat to the organizers, the volunteers and the thousands of people who have contributed to these important games in a multitude of ways.

My heart is with the Canadians.  Go Canada go!

When we talk about life after death we are usually talking about our own experiences beyond this life.  Today for me this phrase has new meaning.  It is inviting me to consider what to do now that my mother has gone on. “Gone on” is a Newfoundland saying that my family has used forever. I like it. To me it means they might come back. Who knows if that is true. the after life is a mystery but experiences similar and shared by those who have come back from a near death experience do make you wonder.

Meanwhile back here in the earthly realm we struggle with creating a new normal that doesn’t include our loved one. It’s wierd. Right now its like she left on vacation except that she has left behind all of her expectations for us, reminders to sit up straight and to eat your vegetables and watch your weight and get an education and a good job. You never really are free of the voice in your head …. your mother’s voice.

SHIFT in this post mother world is a little different for me. I am not feeling Sharp or on top of things. I am feeling scattered and fuzzy headed. I am not necessarily Happy. In fact waves of deep sadness catch me unawares from time to time. I am not feeling Independent. I have depended heavily on friends and family in the past week and will continue to for a while. I am not feeling Fit. I have not exercised or eaten properly lately. Although my mother believed in a higher power, I am not feeling Trusting. My world was turned upside down and I need time to understand the wisdom, the necessity of this event right now.

SHIFT happens both ways, up and down the knuckles. I am comforted by the base of understanding it provides in a suddenly unfamiliar place. I am comforted by the knowledge that I have been better and will be again … just not right now.

Thank you to everyone who has sent condolences and thoughts and prayers. I really do appreciate the support.

Last night I went on a Sunset Cruise down the Kona Coast. There was an historian and a guitar player on board. It was magical.

We went to the Captain Cook Monument and heard the story of how he was greeted by the natives and then, upon his return, stabbed and killed there by the same people. The wall behind the monument is full of caves that, legend has it, are full of the bones of the Alii or Royal family. It is a sacred place and as our boat quietly sat in the bay a school of dolphins joined us to play in the waters. It was very humbling and inspiring.

The swells were big last night and the waves were crashing into the lava cliffs all along the shore on the way back. The sun was setting and the wind came up so we donned our hoodies and watched the waters as we listened to the amazing guitar music of LT Smooth. Then a spout … no two …. and then a tail ….. no two … and then the most beautiful full breech of a whale I have ever seen only two or three hundred meters off of the starboard bow. EXCITING. Then the baby tried three or four times. It was awesome. What a show … and all to the stylized mellow songs of Neil Young and U2 and others. MAGICAL.

My friend Donna and I have been meaning to look up the significance of the call of the ocean. She had heard something about the health benefits of being by the sea related to negative ions. This morning I looked it up and found it interesting to learn of the effect on mood and health by the negative charges released by crashing waves and water falls etc. Negative ions are the antidote to free radicals. Who knew? No wonder. The sea calls us to heal us from our modern lifestyles. How nice.

I am fortunate to have been born by the sea and to have an opportunity each year to return to Hawaii for my dose of negative ions. In Alberta we have few places where waves crash or where water falls to create this mood enhancing phenomena. I am not sure how SNOW fits in. It is a form of water which is where the ions come from. Maybe there are also benefits as long as you venture out into it. What I know for sure is that there are a lot of Canadians here right now. In fact we ran into a couple I know from Calgary last night. It was one of those “OMG” moments.

All of us can benefit from water falling, even in the shower. Water can make us whole. It is the first medicine … inside and out. It improves all of our faculties and intelligences and enhances our well being on all of the scales. Use water to RENEW and SHIFT.

I am reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. I like the book and the way she presents her extensive research findings. A book about shaming and vulnerability is always cause for self reflection which is and of itself a risk, a vulnerable act but I did it anyway. Brene’s message is delivered in a wonderfully vulnerable way. She tells her stories. She opens up to the reader explaining in detail with examples from her own life how shame works and why being shame resilient is important for everyone. I highly recommend it.

I was especially taken by the chapter on the differences between Male and Female experiences of shame. Like her, I believed that we had moved beyond pink for girls and blue for boys but the truth is we haven’t. A story from our visit to the Vatican yesterday came to mind. Our wonderful guide Francesca, told of one of the first women painters to actually use her name on her works of art in the Baroque period. The story goes that she was the daughter of a famous painter and one day he left an unfinished painting in his studio. When he returned it was completed … by his daughter. He decided to send her to get some formal training with another famous painter of the time. The teacher raped the girl and when she told her father they brought charges against the teacher. Although he was a famous painter, he was found guilty which was a rare event under such circumstances and sent to jail … but not for rape. He was convicted of reducing the father’s wealth, of taking something of value from him. It was the reduction in financial worth of a girl who had been raped that sent him to jail, not the crime of raping another human being.

Girls believe that they are still worth more if they are thin and nice and subdued. Men believe that they are worth more if they are big and strong and successful. Shame is about worth and worthiness and it is sad for me to think that we are still trapped after all the “progress” our society appears to have made. Brene talks about a web of shame for women. We get caught in the opinions of others. She talks about a box of shame for men. They are caged by shame.

I like her antidote … vulnerability. She suggests that if we can all be vulnerable with people we trust, people who show us empathy so we know we are not alone we can become shame resilient. We can break out of the box and free ourselves from the web. The tricky part is that vulnerability requires trust and trust requires vulnerability. The question is who will risk first to begin the trust building.

In mediations I have done I have watched this dance of vulnerability and trust. I know from my own experience that voluntary vulnerability is critical in high conflict situations and I can see how Brene is suggesting that it is important in any and all relationships. Voluntary vulnerability begins the cycle of connection and moves us to the green zone in conversation. It is scary sometimes and if we are in our shame boxes or webs it can appear to be even more of a risk.

I have coached many people to just try explaining how they feel, how what has happened as impacted them will move them to a different way of relating. When they do, they find out that people appreciate a gentle, honest, open, specific talk. They learn that being voluntarily vulnerable creates a space for the other person to share their own vulnerability. The conversation opens up and everyone ends up with a deeper understanding of the situation at hand.

Brene Brown and I agree that more people need to learn about this and begin to practice being courageous. She talks about Daring Greatly, having the courage to move toward trust through vulnerability. I would add that being curious is also important. Curiousity, I think leads to vulnerability and away from blame and shame. Curiousity takes us away from assumptions which are, I think a path to judgement that needs to be avoided. Asking yourself or someone else about the motive behind an event or action is often more forgiving. It allows us to separate the deed from the person, what they did from who they are. It is a way to remove judgement from our responses and create a green zone of connection.

Finding ways to connect us to each other so we can clearly understand our self worth is what it is all about. Brene uses a quote “You are not a bad person. You are a good person who bad things have happened to.” If we can start from there we can become curious about a persons past rather than judge them as a bad person and we can begin to see ourselves in that quote. We are all good people doing the best we can with what we know.

Be courageous. You are worth it. Be curious. So are they.

It’s a Sunday night in Calgary and I have a chance to sit and think about the status of things, about the PULSE Institute and where I am personally with my goals in life.  I am thinking and not talking and that is always dangerous.  When you are talking and sharing your thoughts there is this second sober thought from the other person that mitigates or softens the harsh bits and grounds the flights of fantasy and fancy.  Even a facial expression from a quiet listener can stabilize your thinking.  Left to its own stabilization my thought patterns scatter and take flight.  Ping pong balls or bingo balls in an air machine.  I can’t seem to catch any of them long enough to make much sense. So let me share some with you in the hopes that it will sort them out so the winning numbers appear.

I am thinking about the upcoming practice course in November and how to get more people interested. It is on the 14th and 15th and 16th of November in St Albert at our office.  One suggestion which I like is to pre-qualify anyone who has had ADRIA mediation course.  We will invite them to attend and use it for elective credit because we specialize in workplace situations.  I will ask Erika to post it on their website to generate some interest.  We will also have to get it onto our website.  I will talk to Wendy tomorrow.  It should be front page news.

I am thinking about the on-line Jig  Saw Box course in PULSE Concepts that we have been working on for months now and some of the frustrations around how to manage that.  I think if it were the only thing I was working on I could do a much better job of writing the information to be included in the modules.  It will be a wonderful way for people to learn the concepts behind PULSE without leaving their desk and at their own speed.

I am thinking about reprinting the PULSE Conversations for Change book because we are all out of them right now.  I would like to include the changes we have been making before we send it to the printers… another biggish project.

I am thinking about the new Stepping Stones to Success Book that should be published soon by Insights Publishing.  I have a chapter in it and I am wondering what marketing we can do with it.  http://davidhumes.com/resources/books/SteppingStonesToSuccess.htm 

I am thinking about the Principals: Faces of Change Book.  Trafford Publishing has agreed to do more publishing by listing it in schools and university library catalogues where people who read and order such books are more likely to find it.  We had a Kirkus Independent Review done which is pretty good to use to promote it. Here it is….

PRINCIPALS
Faces of Change
Love , Nancy and Mel Blitzer, etc.
Trafford (124 pp.)
$26.99 paperback, $9.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1426927973; April 19, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A study of how school principals respond to mandated change in educational standards and procedures, from the PULSE
Institute in Calgary, Alberta.
Primary author Love (Principal Portraits, 2004, etc.) and co-authors Blitzer and Munroe present case studies of five
Canadian junior and senior high school principals. Each administrator must implement a series of required changes to his
or her curriculum, assessment and administrative procedures, drawing on the efforts of staff and students and often
encountering hefty obstacles along the way. The authors assign each principal an archetype that characterizes his
leadership style: the Sherpa, the Coach, the Gardener, the Rescuer and the Impresario (“He cajoles, he charms, he
pushes, he connects…he flies through the air with the greatest of ease.”). These nicknames, and the frequent quotations
from the principals themselves, give the study a welcome vitality. Each chapter summarizes the legislative or
administrative mandates each principal faced and provides brief demographic and regional context for each school. After
describing and assessing each principal’s strategies and solutions, the authors provide a chart containing their leadership
profiles. Overall, the book is succinct, well-paced and clear, avoiding lengthy literature reviews or academic jargon. Its
relatively casual tone (including addressing the reader in second person) makes it even more accessible to readers outside
the world of higher education. At times, however, the authors err too much on the side of brevity; although the case
studies bear the imprint of academic research, they omit basic information such as the dates of data collection, an
explanation of research methodology and a description of the sample selection process (readers may wonder why the
book only features male principals, for instance). For American audiences, a brief glossary might also have been helpful;
for example, in Canadian English, “writing exams” means “taking exams,” but to most American readers it means
creating them. Despite such small foibles, however, the book accomplishes its goals economically and effectively.
An engaging series of case studies, ideal for use in education leadership seminars or management retreats

I am thinking about the Sociology of the Enneagram of BEACHs book which is languishing in its BEACH bag in the back of my office and is not receiving the attention it needs to get to manuscript stage.  I think the new title for it might be “The Space Between Us”  What do you think????  That’s the title for the presentation at the Canadian Enneagram Association Conference in Victoria in February.  I would be so happy if I could have a manuscript to share with participants there.

I am thinking about the novel that I have written but not typed into my computer yet.  No one but me can do that because I find myself editing as I type.  A friend just came back from Santiago with pictures for me.  I asked him to take some to supplement the book which right now ends on the Camino de Santiago.  I also have a friend who just had a book launch for her book about her journey on the Camino.  I need to call and have coffee and get a copy.  Her Name is Pat Klinck.  She is brilliant.  I haven’t read the book yet but I know it will be inspirational.

Each Step is the Journey: The Call of the  Camino     http://eachstepisthejourney.com/

I am thinking about what I learned yesterday at my CAPS meeting.  Canadian Association of Professional Speakers are my favourite bunch of people.  There is a camaraderie that I have never really experienced else where and I love to go when I can and learn from the people there.  The speaker was talking about follow-up and professionalism and I realize how my website, my cards everything is dated somehow and I need to find a way to renew those things without spending too much money.  I need to recommit to the newsletters and blogs on a more regular basis.  And I can. The presenter reminded us that air planes are off course 98% of the time and that correcting for drift is what life is all about.  I don’t need to get frustrated by this constant state of course ambivalence. I need to focus and steer.  I can do that….

This week I go to Ottawa for a few days.  I am looking forward to the colours of the leaves in the Gatineau Hills.  We will be at Montebello for the weekend.  It’s a great life.  Things to think and talk about and things to do and see.  Places to be and a wide range of emotions to experience as we move through it all.

Have a great week and please share this with friends.  Right  now about 20 people read this blog.  It would be great if 50 people did.  I kind of suspect that more of you read it on linked in and on face book and don’t necessarily go to the word press site.   My goal is to increase the readership.  If you can help that would be great.

Take care and remember not sharing your thinking can be dangerous like TNT. Find away to share that works for you.