Change

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." ~Plato

I think we as a society currently lack basic human kindness toward each other. It seems we were a lot kinder to each other a mere two years ago. This saddens me. I understand the current world happenings are contributing to our inability to show kindness and I think our full, busy and stressful lives are a big contributor to our lack of kindness. We just don’t have time for it anymore and due to social distancing, we don’t have …

A couple of days ago I was feeling totally overwhelmed with so much happening in our world that I got on Facebook  and posted: 

I am feeling overwhelmed with it all.
What do you do to quiet this down?

Here are 15 of the responses I received:

1. Meditate…or more realistically, overeat. 
2. Put on my headphones and put on a favorite playlist of music.
3. Pray.
4. Deep breaths and shaking it out, movement so I’m balancing the stress with joy. 
5. Watch something that makes you laugh. 
6. The Serenity Prayer…

"If you can change your mind, you can change your life. What you believe creates the actual fact. The greatest revolution of my generation is to discover that individuals, by changing their inner attitudes of mind, can change the outer aspects of their lives."

The above quote was written by William James who wrote "The Will to Believe" in 1897. No, that's not a typographical error, he actually wrote this in 1897.

The concepts of the laws of attraction and living with intention have been ar…

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
~ Mark Twain

I once told someone this was my favorite quote. Finding it again brought up the many reasons I love it. All during my life, I have encountered people who were nay-sayers and tried to belittle my ambitions. There was a time when I truly believed those who told me: "You can't do that!"; "That's too big for you to do."; "Who d…

"If you are not taking care of your sustainability, then you are 'full of it.'"
~ Laura Whitworth

The issue of sustainability and self care has come up many, many times recently.

"Sustainability" is defined in the American Heritage Dictionary as: "To keep in existence; to maintain. To supply with necessities or nourishment. To keep from falling or sinking. To support the spirits or resolution of."

The topic of sustainability always comes up in my work with individuals. How do we keep the …

"If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two week's vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days." ~Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Stop the World! I want to get off!" I screamed in the empty space in my car on the way home from a client. I pounded the steering wheel with my fisted hand. The highway (Pre-Covid) was stop and go, mostly sto…

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."
~John F. Kennedy

The above quote and title of this post is from a speech that John F. Kennedy, our 35th President never delivered.

"He was scheduled to deliver a speech in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He never spoke these words. He was assassinated on his way to the event and died before he spoke these words."

When I saw this speech, I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and sat down to read it. It was the message I wanted to deliver to…

“Mindfulness isn't difficult. We just need to remember to do it.” - Sharon Salzberg

These times are stressful for a lot of us. As I was writing this I began to list the many ways stress shows up, but  that in itself felt stressful, so I decided not to head in that direction.

Instead I thought I’d give you one simple technique I learned from WW I’ve been using with success. It relates to mindfulness, which in my mind keeps bringing me to the importance of staying present, being in the momen…

A few years ago, I was invited to do a charity trip to Nepal with five other women and trek to basecamp on Annapurna.  Eight days trekking up to an elevation of 13,550 feet and five days back down.

Those of you who know me know I was born and raised in the city of Chicago where it is pretty flat there and in the surrounding area for mile after mile. Also, if you know me, I have never been a big hiker. Yes, I enjoy getting out in nature and walking leisurely on trails and stopping along the way …

Listening is being able to be changed by the other person. --Alan Alda

I always took great pride in my ability to accomplish a lot. I was one of the fastest “Check it off, it’s done” people I knew. Can you identify? 

Several years ago, during a leadership program I attended, I pulled aside the leader and told her, “I am getting impatient with all these people. They seem to take forever to come to a decision and want to just talk on and on and on.”

She looked at me and smiled. “Pat, I know tha…