Journals a Reprise June 2021

Off to get my second Covid Vaccine, today. The world is still waiting for me.  I am getting ready to travel again, to explore a new version of an old world … a post covid world.  Should be interesting.

I pulled this blog from 2008.  It is about journaling as a way to record and inform learning.  Studying PULSE requires sensitivity to the tense that someone is speaking.  Journaling and then going back to notice the tense that you use more frequently can help you tune in to the tenses in a conversation which can be used to guide participants to common ground and resolution. 

Journaling is more than that for me.  I know that there have been times in my life where my journal has helped me focus, helped me see things as they were, not as the horrible mess I had created in my imagination. Journaling allowed me to appreciate who I was, what I had and what I was doing and gave me the courage to do more, think more and feel more about the good things in my life.  I came to realize that I can create a better life for myself by imagining a better life for myself and moving toward it. 

Journaling is more than a record of the past.  It becomes a record of the future you are creating with your intentions. Have a good one.  It is a choice you can make. Take Care.

Journals – Creating Reality July 2008

Journaling has been an important part of my life for the past 20 years.  I don’t write every day and I don’t beat myself up if I forget or get too busy and miss a day or a week of entries.  I do not use my journal as a record of my everyday life but as a record of the thoughts that just won’t go away until I see them on paper.  Writing is powerful.  It makes things real and somehow solvable.  Writing about something that is on my mind takes it off of my mind and puts it on a piece of paper somewhere that I can refer to later if I choose to … or not.  At least it is not rolling around in my mind driving me crazy.

Journaling truly keeps me sane.  It also allows me to formulate new ideas and synthesize issues and look at things in a different way.  When we have participants Journal at PULSE we ask them to write.  It doesn’t matter what they write, just write.  Once they have written we ask them to read it over and then notice whether they have written about thoughts, actions or feelings.  We ask them to use coloured dots to categorize their journal by placing red dots by feelings, yellow dots by actions and green dots by thoughts.  It is also possible to use the red for past, yellow for present and green for future categories.  When people do this, they begin to see patterns in their writing that begins to help them understand more about their own predispositions and maybe even Enneagram types.  Are they in the Head Triad thinking about the future, Heart Triad feeling about the past or Body Triad acting in the present?

It is already, August of 2021.  Over the summer I have had family and friends join me here in Halifax.  It is always wonderful for me to spend time showing people around and reacquainting myself with this wonderful birthplace of mine. Climbing the rocks at Peggy’s Cove and sailing in Halifax harbour are two of my favourite things to do and it is great to have someone to do those things with, things I am not as likely do on my own.  This blog from 2008 reminds me that thinking positively helped me to create this new reality… living back in Nova Scotia and doing the kind of things I LOVED to do as a child.  Imagining this journey allowed me to work toward it and to notice when opportunities presented themselves.  The pull to show up here again was strong and I am happy that I was in a position to take advantage of the situation and move myself gently and slowly back to a life that helps me feel like a kid again. Thinking positively generates positive experiences and making and keeping the Four Agreements with yourself works to create a life you can be proud of, one that FEELS right and good.  Recognize the contrast between what makes you feel comfortable and what might be uncomfortable for you. Find those experiences that give you a sense of awe and appreciation and do more of those. Make comfort the rule and not the exception. You will be happy that you did.

Exceptions – THE RULE – and The Four Agreements – October 2008

It is interesting how we focus on the rule and not the exception.  Often it is the exception that will teach us the most.  That is what Appreciative Inquiry is about for me.  It is a search for the exceptions to the overwhelming focus on the negative.  When you ask “Where is this solved?” you get new information and new approaches.  I have been asking myself this week…”When is life NOT a chore?”  “When I am happy and worry free?”  Myself and I are talking about focusing our attention on the positive in our life and creating more of that.  …. I think it is working!!!!

One exception for me is when I read old blogs and think … “that is something I would enjoy reading if I were someone else.”  That encourages me to keep going, to write and write until something profound finds its way on to the page.  I like to write and to share my thoughts on the screen or in my journal.  For me it is a comfortable way to process and move from the past to the future with deliberate intent to do my best. 

I am reminded of the Four Agreements (RUIZ), some of which I will reframe here.  Always do your best: I think doing your best is all you can ever expect of yourself.  As long as you have been conscious and deliberate in your attempts to arrive at whatever destination or dream you are chasing then you can look yourself in the mirror and smile.

Be impeccable with your word – To me that means “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”  It is the beautiful combination and balance of the Gentle and Honest pieces int eh GHOST protocol.  If you are only gentle and not honest you are not impeccable.  If you are honest and not gentle you are not impeccable.  Be impeccable with your word.

Check Assumptions – If you have a “leemer” – which is the name for the nagging instinct that tells you that something is not right before you know that somethings not right – if you have a “leemer” then check it out.  Ask!

Get Curious – It is not about you – that is my version of what Ruiz identifies as “Don’t take anything personally”.  In my quest for positive reframes I have some to understand the intention of that Agreement is to be emotionally mature – to detach without disengaging.

The rule is be good to yourself and treat others the way they would like to be treated.  It is often referred to as the platinum rule.  We have accepted it as one of the PULSE Rules.  The four agreements are also congruent with PULSE thinking, doing and feeling.  They provide another foundation for this appreciative work.  Look for what works and do more of that……  that’s the rule.

Sometimes a message comes to you from your past and you wonder if you will ever solve the problem, you set out to solve years ago.  This post from 2014 reminds me that I am still a multiple even though I am very single.  I have even more email addresses than I did then and I have purchased more property.  I have not matured enough to SETTLE DOWN.  And I guess that’s okay for now.  Seven years and the world I have imagined for myself, where things are simpler is still an illusion.

I am stepping away from one adventure and opening up to experience new things.  Many people my age they are looking for new and different things to do with their time and for me it is about focus.  I want to do less.  I want to be known as one person with one identify, an integrated self, with the wisdom that comes with having experienced multiple lives.  I choose happiness and creativity in whatever form makes me smile.

The same plan … integration.

Nouveau Plan October 2014

One of the things that kind of drives me crazy is the number of identities we have these days.  What I mean is that we have multiple email addresses and multiple phone numbers and multiple addresses that we send things to and live in from time to time.  We carry multiple devices and identification cards and have multiple passwords for multiple favourite websites.  We have become multiples.

Do you wake up each morning wondering where you are and who you have to be that day?  Are you asked for a password or a PIN number more than twice a day? Do you feel like you’re being is consumed by the multiple interactions with machinery that guide you through the day?  It is weird, isn’t it? Mind numbing actually.

Maybe it’s the fact that I have just returned from Hawaii and the Aloha spirit is still in my soul.  I have been fighting the multiple aspect of my identity for almost a year now trying to consolidate who I am and what it means to be me.  No easy task.

Is it even possible to have one address, one email address, one credit card, one password and unity of purpose in our day and age? I am struggling. It is especially important as I research happiness. Me and thousands of others have been doing that for a long time. I saw Hector and the Search for happiness in the theater the other day. It’s a great movie with a great message.

Happiness is experiencing all of your emotions and understanding the contrast. Happiness is a choice. Circumstances are not the cause of happiness because different people experience the same circumstance as happy or sad. It is all relative. So, can you be happy in a world that only knows you through machines and numbers and passwords? It seems you can. All you need is one person to know you and love you anyway.

I am still going to work toward a single identity. I am going to find a password that meets ALL the criteria ANYONE has set for passwords and use it. I am going to wean myself to one email address and change the address on my driver’s license to reflect where I live most of the time. I am working on integrating myself and my identities. It is my Plan Nouveau. How else can you be one with the universe if you are not first one with yourself?

Have a great day.

Thirteen years later and I am not sure how I would describe fun.  I enjoy life.  I like to travel and I enjoy working with people in other places or learning about other cultures.  I am playing the piano more since Covid lock downs forced everyone into their own spaces to find things to do.  I spent some time improving my French which was fun and interesting.  What I noticed was that it was very difficult for me to write under the stress of Covid.  It was weird. And of course, travel was out of the question. With restrictions lifting who knows what to expect.  One thing is for sure.  I am writing again and that is FUN.

Holidays will be weird going forward.  I hope to spend some time at the University of the Virgin Islands in the fall and I do plan to be on the Big Islands of Hawaii over the winter.  I do plan to go back to Alberta to celebrate birthdays with my family later this month.  All of that will be fun for sure.  I find myself also really looking forward to my brother and his wife coming to Nova Scotia for a visit soon and my dear friends from the Edmonton Area will be down in August.  Three of the four visitors I am expecting this summer have never been to Nova Scotia.  It will be fun to show them this delightful place and explore things with them that I might not explore on my own.

Maybe fun is just the things that make you smile.  Let’s go with that.

Holidays August 2008

Tomorrow morning, I leave for a week in Hawaii on the big island.  I am taking my computer to do my blog and my golf clubs to complete a couple of rounds and I plan to spend a lot of time doing very little.  I might read a book or sit by the pool or go for a ride in a helicopter.  It will be fun.  I have been searching lately for a definition of fun.  Other people I know have hobbies and pass times that excite them.  I am not sure what mine is.  I travel.  I golf.  I write.  I entertain.  Are those my FUN??

What do you do for fun, to relax??  I am not sure I even know how to turn it off and just have fun.  We’ll see.  We’ll call this research into the experience of fun.  Hmmm. That may make it work and not play or fun.  I will let you know.  Aloha.

Today is a difficult and confusing day for me. My whole life I have celebrated Canada Day as the day my country was founded. As a social studies major in my Bachelor of Education Degree, I learned more about the people who were here before European contact. It was new to me. We had lived our lives in the firm believe that this was our country, that we, the Europeans, had conquered those who came before us and that we were civilizing this great land.

Today, as more unmarked graves are found near old Residential Schools, I am sobered by the fact that the conquering continued, that people, children, were murdered so that we could ‘civilize’ this country. Today Canada seems tarnished for me and that makes me very sad. I want to be proud, but only a generation ago, Indigenous children were taken from their homes and given to Eurpoean families to raise. Children were taken away and raised in residential schools or day schools far from their families, culture and way of life and it is estimated that more than 4000 of them never came home. I am trying to imagine how frieghtened and confused they must have been and what horros they could have endured. I can’t even begin to do that. It hurts me deeply.

There is an image of Indigenous children that began to circulate after the mass grave of 251 children was located in British Columbia last month. It depicts small children holding hands and the caption reads.. “It’s going to be okay now. They have found us.” It makes me cry everytime I think about it.

I have always been a proud Canadian. I have even run for Parliament … twice. How do I reconcile my long-held version of Canada with this image of children being mistreated and murdered? I am depending on this government to do the right things, what ever they are, to help heal this gaping wound for our Indigenous people and for all Canadians. These children were our children. Our European ancestors married Indigenous people. We could all be mixed blood, Metis people and we should be proud of those stories from our family that point to that possibility and we should grieve together … all of us … for our loss.

For many of us this is truly NEWS. We have lost our innocence and must accept that the Canada we know and love still has untold mysteries for us to discover, many we will not be proud of. We can do better and we will. We MUST.

Off to get my second Covid Vaccine, today. The world is still waiting for me.  I am getting ready to travel again, to explore a new version of an old world … a post covid world.  Should be interesting.

I pulled this blog from 2008.  It is about journaling as a way to record and inform learning.  Studying PULSE requires sensitivity to the tense that someone is speaking.  Journaling and then going back to notice the tense that you use more frequently can help you tune in to the tenses in a conversation which can be used to guide participants to common ground and resolution. 

Journaling is more than that for me.  I know that there have been times in my life where my journal has helped me focus, helped me see things as they were, not as the horrible mess I had created in my imagination. Journaling allowed me to appreciate who I was, what I had and what I was doing and gave me the courage to do more, think more and feel more about the good things in my life.  I came to realize that I can create a better life for myself by imagining a better life for myself and moving toward it. 

Journaling is more than a record of the past.  It becomes a record of the future you are creating with your intentions. Have a good one.  It is a choice you can make. Take Care.

Journals – Creating Reality July 2008

Journaling has been an important part of my life for the past 20 years.  I don’t write every day and I don’t beat myself up if I forget or get too busy and miss a day or a week of entries.  I do not use my journal as a record of my everyday life but as a record of the thoughts that just won’t go away until I see them on paper.  Writing is powerful.  It makes things real and somehow solvable.  Writing about something that is on my mind takes it off of my mind and puts it on a piece of paper somewhere that I can refer to later if I choose to … or not.  At least it is not rolling around in my mind driving me crazy.

Journaling truly keeps me sane.  It also allows me to formulate new ideas and synthesize issues and look at things in a different way.  When we have participants Journal at PULSE we ask them to write.  It doesn’t matter what they write, just write.  Once they have written we ask them to read it over and then notice whether they have written about thoughts, actions or feelings.  We ask them to use coloured dots to categorize their journal by placing red dots by feelings, yellow dots by actions and green dots by thoughts.  It is also possible to use the red for past, yellow for present and green for future categories.  When people do this, they begin to see patterns in their writing that begins to help them understand more about their own predispositions and maybe even Enneagram types.  Are they in the Head Triad thinking about the future, Heart Triad feeling about the past or Body Triad acting in the present?

Journals can be quite revealing and you may even find out more about yourself then you really wanted to face.  A journal is a friend and, like good friend, it doesn’t judge. It only allows you to observe yourself in a reflective safe environment.  Write what you are feeling, doing and or thinking and notice which is more comfortable to write about.  Have fun!!

This blog post from 2008 reminded me how very fortunate I have been in my life.  I have collected interesting people.  I value their contributions to my way of being and I thank them for all that they have given me and for all the ways they continue to influence who I am and what I do.  Since 2008, my collection has grown.  I am so grateful for all the friends, family and colleagues in Calgary and St Albert.  I carry them with me. Back in Halifax for a while now I have added new friends and colleagues and become reacquainted with the wonderful souls who have stayed in my life for the duration of it. When we look up from what we are doing to find who we are, we see it reflected in the people we have surrounded ourselves with.  I love what I see.  Thank you.

The Element of Surprise June 2008

 I was completely caught off guard yesterday when I arrived at my friend Laurie’s place for lunch and 20 or so of my favourite people in the whole world were there waiting in the driveway for me, shouting Happy Birthday.  I was confused.  My birthday is more than a month away.  It didn’t really matter to me why all of these women had gathered.  It was just wonderful to see them.  My daughters, my mum, my sister- in -law and niece, my Tuesday night girls, mediator and business friends, my neighbour.  To my greater surprise, my friend from San Diego and my friend who summers in Saskatchewan had flown in and Carol, my best friend from Lethbridge had left out of town visitors at her house to drive two hours to be there.  It was WONDERFUL.

The Tuesday Night Group had rewritten Hey Jude so that it became – Hey Nance and they sang for me.  There was food and wine and conversations and the most wonderful gifts. Yesterday morning I had been looking for something to journal in and had found an old one with a few empty pages at the back and had used that space to clear some thoughts.  Today I have six new inspiring blank journals to write my next books in.  Wonderful, touching cards and wishes and thoughtful gifts and gift certificates and a magnificent poem by one of my Tuesday Night Girls that made everyone cry.  My daughters had written something on the way from Edmonton in the car that was very, very touching that resulted in more tears being shed.  I love them forever and always.

I am at a loss as to how to thank everyone, how to tell them how much it meant to me to think that people would take time out of their busy lives to gather together like that to help me celebrate being on the planet for a very long time.  THANK YOU.  It hardly expresses it.  Imagine a large swell in the middle of the ocean, one that could create an enormous wave.  That is the feeling I have.  My heart is full of warmth and gratitude and appreciation for what you have all done for me.  My life is richer because of all of you.

Carol Steen said it best, “Nancy couldn’t figure out what to collect so she started to collect interesting women.”  So true and lucky me.  I bet I have a better collection than Oprah.

Back to the serious stuff tomorrow.  THANKS…

Whether you are in Florence, Italy or Halifax, Nova Scotia there is beauty to behold, goodness to be experienced and truth to be gathered through interpretation.  The eye, the ear and the mind of the listener play such an important role in communication because you only see what you are looking for, hear what you and listening for and experience what you expect to unless you are prepared to see, hear and experience more.  

Have a great weekend.  Expect the best of everything. Remain open to the possibility fo beauty, goodness and truth.

In Search of Beauty, Goodness and Truth June 2008

Yesterday we visited the Uffizi Gallery here in Florence.  It was awesome to see the many priceless treasures, the statues and portraits, the tapestries, all interpretations of life in another time.  There are 50 or 100 renditions of Madonna and Child.  Each has a sameness and a uniqueness about it.  Each is an interpretation of a biblical event and yet each is seen and PORTRAYED through the eyes of the interpreter/artist.  I wondered about the differences.  Why was it that the facial features of each of these Madonna’s was different?  It seems as if the artist portrayed, in each instance, his own interpretation of beauty which, I am confident, also portrayed something of himself.

Each of us sees beauty, goodness and truth through our own lens.  As we look at any work of art we see not only the work of art but the artist as well. So, we are interpreters of interpretations as we stand and admire and begin to recognize the artist in the painting or the sculpture.  We see their technique or their style.  We see their preoccupation, their stance, their perspective and we are left to appreciate as observers of observers, adding yet another perspective on the life portrayed.

As PULSE practitioners we are artists.  Our participants are the subjects as they portray to us and to each other their version of events and circumstances.  They are also artists, painting the picture from their own perch or stance.  We are the interpreters, the portraitists, looking for the beauty, truth and goodness in what they have said, providing a PULSE interpretation of or focus on the situation, a new perspective … an appreciative FRAME through which to view their world.

The art in PULSE is in the listening.   In every work of art, it is the artist who adds light and colour to what he sees or hears as significant.  PULSE artists work to remain true to the beauty, goodness and truth of the subjects of the masterpiece.  PULSE practitioners understand that their perspective is one of many and they greatly value the perspective of the subjects of the portraits, understanding that it is truly the only valid perspective, the one that must be honoured in the portrayal.  As they listen, PULSE practitioners focus their subjects on the truth, goodness and beauty in the work of art that is their conversation.

So the style of a PULSE artist/practitioner could be described as appreciative realist, an artist who uses simple, skillful, brush strokes or questions to focus attention; an artist who allows the beauty, goodness and truth of the participants to predominate in their rendition or interpretation of the circumstance; an artist with a simple yet complex approach that encourages individuals to inperpret for themselves, to take the beauty, goodness and truth from the past, see it in the present situation and to search for beauty, goodness and truth in their rendition of the future.

Thank you for listening and adding your own interpretation, taking your own meaning, seeing your own beauty, goodness and truth.  Today we go to Cinque Terra.

This short blog from June 2008 reminds me that there is a loneliness that the internet allows.  WE have all spent so much time on line these past years and yet we do not always feel connected by the waves of information that fill the space around us and are captured and translated into words and images on a screen. Video chats and on-line meetings have actually help me stay connected with family and friends for sure but… What is missing is the human reciprocal caring that is so much better in person. All those years of writing blogs and I know sometimes only my parents and my ex-husband were reading them. I could track the stats.  Now they are not part of the audience so you wonder who will read them now and how will I know?  Thank you to Sharon, Karen, Judy and others who have noticed. I so appreciate hearing from you.

Can You Hear Me Now? June 2008

It is interesting to write blogs into the ether. You don’t really know if anyone at all is reading them or if they are, what they are thinking.  It is the “If a tree falls in the forest question??”  Is there an internet if no one uses it??  Okay… I know that people read this from time to time and my goal is to make it interesting enough that you will come back or suggest a topic or learn something or just smile.

Have you ever noticed how confidence is like a tide?  It seems to ebb and flow.  I am not sure if the moon has anything to do with it but it is an interesting thought.

I love this blog from 2008.  It was an extraordinary day in Florence.  Thought provoking and magical all at the same time. It did seem like a smaller world that day.  Today I am wondering if perhaps Covid has somehow increased the distance between people and has expanded our world.  Are we still a global village?  Travel connected us.  Maybe someday it will again.  Take care everyone.

It’s a Small World June 2008

Yesterday, here in Florence I saw David. THE David by Michelangelo.  It is a magnificent work of art and the marvel of it is in the detail and the size.  It was wonderful and I enjoyed the experience tremendously.  I was even more touched by a plaster cast of a marble statue entitled Dancing Girls, more because of the personal attachment I had to it immediately and even more so once I read the details of the statue.  The two girls in the statue were among the daughters of Lady Charlotte Campbell of Scotland.  Being a Charlotte of Scottish heritage myself (Charlotte Nancy Love, MacKinnon Clan, Isle of Skye) that caught my eye.  And when the girls’ names were a match for my two daughters, I was even more intrigued.  My daughters are also dancers so the whole experience was interesting and made me smile and think about how we may all be repeating the lives of our ancestors in increasingly modern versions …

The other thing that happened that was astounding was that as we were leaving the Accademia, I literally ran into a friend from Edmonton, a PULSE Practitioner and former high school principal like me.  She was in Belgium for the summer visiting her daughter. We were both surprised and spent a few moments catching up and looking for ways to get together when we return.  What are the chances?  What lesson is in a chance meeting like that?  Now I am on the lookout for familiar faces and it seems that everyone I see could be someone I know. 

It is so much fun to be away and see the world from another perspective.  Perspectives on your own world change too, sometimes almost imperceptibly … but they do.  It is a small world.  Being gentle and honest, open and specific and talking with people you encounter comes back to you and makes chance future encounters a joy.  Enjoy.