Inspiration

And The People Stayed Home
by Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested,
and exercised, and made art, and played games,
and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant,
dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.

And when the d…

Photo and poem by David Whyte

Out here in California this week is our third week of the state’s ’stay at home’ directive. I am finally finding a bit of structure in my day to day activities. My work has been impacted and postponed for several months so I now have time for taking better care of me. My last blog “What You Mutter Matter,” was about the impact of words and how one word can change your feelings and reactions.

Today I want to offer a poem. I’ve been selecting a different poem every …

"Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced will you be able to hear the deeper vibration. Listen carefully." ~Sarah Ban Breathnach

Let's think about our days. They are made up of meetings, making phone calls, answering phone calls, checking voicemails, reading emails, responding to emails, texting, updating all our social media sites, attending events, blah, blah, blah...

When was the last time you stopped...paused...and reflected on your progress?

I was reminded of Stephen Covey'…

"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." ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

I struggled with what to use as the topic for this post. I just kept thinking and thinking and thinking and nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Then I took a deep breath, leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes and just breathed. Deep... long... full breaths. The idea came to me. Serenity. That ever elusive, but wonderful, glorious feeli…

‘Tis the season! Yes, it is here and it seems to have arrived ever so quickly.  As I’m pondering what I want to create for my experience of this season, I realize I want to create this season to be one full of gratitude. 

Mirriam-Webster defines gratitude as simply the state of being grateful. The English Language Learners definition of gratitude is a feeling of appreciation or thanks. 

While researching the impacts of gratitude I ran across an article Giving thanks can make you happier by Har…

“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable." - Moliere

“Accountability” seems to be the buzzword lately. This has been coming up a quite bit over the past year, but it seems to be more predominant now than ever before.

I remember working in companies when the question, “Who is accountable for this work?” would bring up fear when the boss asked it. We knew that he was looking for one individual to blame. It was viewed as negative and we were always lo…

I just completed my fourth year co-leading an 8-month Women in Leadership program. This cohort had twenty-four emerging and new leaders who completed the program. We cover self-awareness in the context of the doing and the being of leadership. Much is revealed over this program that changes the definition of what leaders are for these women.

The closing exercise in individual groups of 8 is to look back on their journey and look forward to their new journey being future leaders. We ask them to …

Resiliency is the ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s the ability to stand up after a hard fall and wipe the blood off your chin.

Dictionary.com defines it as springing back; rebounding; returning to the original form or position after being bent, compressed, or stretched; recovering readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyant.

I imagine resiliency to be like a rubber band. It can stretch and stretch and when you let it go, it returns back into its original form. …

Some of our best lessons are learned by just listening to other’s stories.

Alex Borstein who plays the opinionated manager Susie Myerson on Amazon Prime’s "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", won the Emmy this year for best supporting actress in a comedy series.

She dedicated her award to “the strength of a woman” and paid tribute to several women including her grandmother.

She said “to my grandmother, Nudgy, (they) are immigrants, they are Holocaust survivors. My grandmother turned to a guard. She w…