Blog post

A themeless day!!!

Fun with words … themeless like seamless only different!!!

Today I attended another milestone birthday party. My friend turned 60. She is wonderful and bright and enthusiastic and talented and intelligent and fearless and I could go on and on. I am honoured to know her. There are many women in my life like her and I am grateful for that. I know she enjoyed today’s festivities and I was able to connect with people I didn’t know that she knew. It was a great party dedicated to celebrating a birthday with friends and yet themeless.

am reading a book called Dropped Threads that Marjorie loaned me. It is edited by Carol Shields and Marjorie Anderson .. no coincidence that the two women who are supporting me and my work right now are a Marjorie and a Carol … I love this book. The sub title is “What we aren’t told” and is a collection of lessons – untold lessons – where the authors, some of whom I have had the good fortune to meet, reveal the secrets of aging as a women that they felt no one had shared with them. “Nothing prepared me for this” is the theme and yet it is themeless.

I am doing a little volunteer work for my Federal Liberal Candidate, Jennifer Pollock. She is a good candidate and I enjoy the supportive role that she is allowing me to play. She is putting together a luncheon on Tuesday for all female candidates in the City of Calgary at a nice restuarant. Janine Kreiber will be there. She is a fantastic person and it was her idea to invite a non-partisan or cross partisan group of women to join for lunch to show the public how things might be different if more women were elected. A great idea … a themeless lunch, an invitation to open dialogue and see what is possible.

Three ideas emerged in this entry, seemingly themeless until the theme emerges. Women, celebrating their connection to each other. The strength and power of the sisterhood, changing the world, one converstion at a time.

Post-it-notes and Bandaids

Marjorie and I are sitting in the office chatting as she edits the PULSE Advanced program which she will present in Kansas next week. Post-it-notes … I forgot to pack them for her. She will pick some up. We use post-its for the parking lot items in class. Participants post their unanswered questions so that we can deal with them after breaks. It is interesting that few participants take advantage of the opportunity. That may be because we encourage dialogue in the learning conversation…..

We were also talking about bandaids because Marjorie has mine in her kit for next week. We print the skills for changing cycles on bandaids, defining a bandaid as something that covers a wound so it can heal from the inside out. The Bandaid or skill represents the solution that is needed to allow for the healing. We do an exercise where people decide what skill to apply, and how. Scenarios are described and bandaids applied. First Aid for conversations, you might say. It is a great exercise that provokes a lot of discussion.

“Sometimes it doesn’t fully load” is what Marjorie just said about the footers that for some reason begin on page 39?? in version 2 of the Advanced course. We spend a lot of time figuring out the program language so that we can have the computer do what we expect. Computers and people need clear instructions and expectations. Computers are less forgiving and will not do something you haven’t asked them to do in a way that they understand. People will pretend to know or think they can figure it out and then get it wrong, not out of bad intention but out of a desire to please and to appear knowledgeable.

There is this wonderful creative energy that is only resident in people. People will try to use Bandaids as Post-it-notes and vice versa. Computers would never think of doing that. Would you?

Friends

It is weird how computers seem to change their minds about how or what they will do for you on a given day. They can be like people that way and like people you need to spend time with them… be patient and try to figure out exactly what position you need to take in order for things to go the way you had hoped or expected. It is part of redefining the BEACH. I Belief, Expect, Assume that my computer will accept the commands I have always used to perform certain tasks. I am concerned when it doesn’t and hope, upon hopes that if I change slightly my approach … it will return to the original expectations.

Friends and colleagues can also be like that. Something changes while you are not watching and the old behaviours that used to create connections, now have a distancing effect. Things that make you go HMMMMM.

I have been sooo lucky in this life to have GREAT friends who have stuck by me, who have never changed their default settings, who are predictable, reliable and always there when you need them or just want to spend time with them. Thanks to those friends who continue to follow the blog and notice when I have something interesting to say. I am so appreciative. Your support means alot.

I have decided to travel less and write more in 2009. That will likely help me keep my commitment to continue with the blog as a daily ritual that will help me sort my thoughts as I endeavour to capture them in some sort of order that will make sense to the world. Your input and your encouragement will come in handy. Keep in touch… that is the key to communication and to conversation and relationship. Notice how when you keep in touch, keeping in touch is easier, no surprises, no unexpected responses. Even a little time away makes the next encounter less certain.

It is interesting how friends and computers respond to communications and patterns of communication in conversations. Let’s keep in touch for years and years to come.

Discipline comes in waves

While I was at the IEA Conference in Atlanta I purchased a DVD called “Is Enneybody Home”. It is a great DVD that shows one actress acting out all of the types. It is especially powerful because it is one actress acting out all of the types… It is easier to experience the enneagram stances as BEACHes or Perspectives on the world rather than as a stereotypical typing tool. It is great and we have incorporated it into the new level 2 or advanced practitioner training.

BEACHes – sets of Beliefs, Expectations, Assumptions, Concerns and Hopes – are what we stand on that determines our perspective and BEACHes shift. Evidence of that was clear a couple of weeks ago when Carol and I were in the Virgin Islands, working with people from the University and the Government of the BVI. The tail end of Hanna swung through one day bringing wind and rain and a storm surge that raised the water level about a meter and a half. Where the Beach once was there was ocean and lots of if. A Day later the water subsided and the Beach returned. It was not the same BEACH. It had been reformed by the wind and water and we knew it would be some time before it was the same BEACH we had enjoed days before.

BEACHes change. What does your BEACH look like today? What have the elements and the environment done to reshape your BEACH. So many questions fit the metaphor. and so the title of this entry. For me, the discipline to write the blog comes in waves. Like the calm BEACH that we played on, I can come back to this place and write and play … except when the storms of my live surge to a level where I am unable to find the BEACH. The wind and the waves of training and travel take away the calm space to write and to think. It is interesting that while I was on holiday in Italy I still had the space to complete the blog. Travelling and working fill my head, like the storm surge so that I am unable to find the discipline.

Like the BEACH – I am back – for a while – until the next storm.

Back to the World

August 5th was the last entry here. Hard to believe that a month has past since I last sat down to consider things from this electronic format. Since then I have been in Hawaii and Washington DC and St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands. I have many adventures and misadventures, sailed on Chesapeake Bay, and sat on the beach in two beautiful places thousands of miles apart. the idea of PULSE BEACHes was never far from my mind.

Since August 5th, the US has had their political conventions gearing up to and this morning the writ was dropped here in Canada for an October 14th election. Most of you know my political stance. I was most impressed this morning by the Green Party and their leaders plea with people to vote, to give up apathy and learn the issues and be aware of what their choices at the polls will mean for the future of the country and the planet.

It is true. People need to take politics seriously in this day and age, to get involved enough to understand the ramifications of choosing more of the same and the opportunity that these elections give us to change the world if we choose to. Beyond the rhetoric and the mud slinging there is a real choice to make.

Choices are the gift of PULSE. We ask people to consider their options and choose the ones that create a better future for them. At no point do we involve ourselves in that decision. We are impartial with respect of the outcome because we believe that people know what has to happen and when all of the information is on the table, the future becomes obvious. So it will be with these elections. The people will decide. PULSE practitioners and professionals will hold voters capable of making a decision that will work for them and the future of our countries and our planet.

Our role in mediation and in election readiness is to make sure that people are informed, that they know the process or Prepare for the Conversation; that they understand what is at stake or Uncover the Circumstance; that they understand why it is important to them locally and globally or Learn the Significance; that they consider options or Search Possibilities; and the VOTE or Explain in writing their plan of action, their commitment to the future.

It is good to be back in Canada and in Calgary. I look forward to blogging more regularly and to being settled and centred for a while. The good people of the US Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands and the District of Colombia are perhaps better prepared to deal with their own working realities after their PULSE practitioner training and I am holding them capable to do what needs to be done to change their corner of the world, one conversation at a time, to step back and value the choices of others while teaching them how to hold themselves and others to account for a more positive and appreciative future.

Holidays

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 and I plan to spend a lot of time doing very little. I might read a book of 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.

Journals – Creating Reality

Journalling has been an important part of my life for the past 20 years. I don’t write everyday 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.

Journalling 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. Journals are a wonderful way for us to begin to see the Walsch Illusions, the Love Criteria and the Riso-Hudson Qualities from earlier entries on this blog.

Let’s continue this dialogue by examining more closely each of the rows of the chart that shows my suggested relationship between the Illusions, criteria and qulaities over the next few days. Meanwhile, journal …. write what you are feeling, doing and or thinking and notice which is more comfortalbe to write about. Have fun!!

Happy Canada Day

I am a very proud Canadian. I love my country. I know that I am not alone. I stood on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on July 1st, 1996 and sang O Canada with about 150,000 other proud Canadians. Ottawa is my favourite city and I was proud to take my daughters there last summer so they could feel the electricity and pride of nation that exists in our capital city. I lived there in the as a child in the 60’s, the Trudeau years and I met my husband Jim there at a political convention. I love Ottawa, the city and the idea and the country that it has governed.

My dad spent more than 30 years in the Canadian Navy in all of its iterations over that time frame. We lived in Halifax and Ottawa and Edmonton. He also served with the Blue Berets, the UN Peace Keepers, in the Middle East. I learned many lessons from my dad; how to be a gentle leader, how to stand at attention, to be respectful of the Queen and my country and to appreciate the fact that people die in the name of our country. I am not sure that I understood the meaning of “the ultimate sacrifice” the first time I heard it. I was very young. I knew, however, that my grandfather had made that sacrifice in World War II and was buried at Groesbeck, near Nijmegen in the Netherlands. One of my proudest Canadian daughter moments was watching my dad stand back and salute his father’s grave when we visited it together in 2000. Another was watching him on the big screen as the videographer focused on him in the crowd standing very tall and at attention while they played O Canada at my graduation when I received my doctorate.

Canada is home and the idea of Canada as a peaceful nation where two European cultures came together and made peace with each other and eventually with the First Nations here has been a source of pride for me. I loved reading “Reflections of a Siamese Twin” by Jonathon Ralston Saul, my favourite Canadian Philosopher. From a young age I was interested in my country. It was important for me to learn French and understand First Nation and Métis cultures. When I was young we visited Quebec often. My grandmother lived in Montreal and for reasons I never quite understood she never really learned how to speak French. I felt that it feel to me to come to Alberta and become a French as a Second Language teacher to rectify or balance that somehow. I also studied and taught Canadian History and French English Relations in Canada and took Alberta students to Quebec so that they could learn about our country.

When the referendum in 95 was so close and no one else in Alberta seemed to care, I ran for Parliament in the 97 election. Someone had to make sure that Quebec stayed in Canada. I didn’t think I could do it alone but I had to do something. I lost that election and the one in 2006 but I did make sure that Albertans in rural Alberta who supported my vision of Canada, a united, peaceful Canada, had a place to put their vote.

Last summer, months after I had accepted the nomination to run again in a federal election, I had a serious talk with my friend and colleague from Ghana. He, himself, had been a politician there. His own ideas of how to serve his country had changed as a result of his experience in parliament. He made good arguments for me to leave the political scene and become focused on PULSE. He argued that I could serve my country better as an ambassador for peaceful conversations all over the world and especially in Canada. The two prime ministers with whom I had run for election and other countrymen, like Stephen Lewis, had devoted at least some of their political energies toward the African Continent. Why couldn’t I? He reminded me of how he had used the PULSE Discovery to settle long standing disputes between warring tribes in Ghana and how, with support and focus we could make a difference in other areas of the world as well.
Those arguments convinced me that maybe if I were to focus on a campaign to have people all over the world learn about the PULSE Discovery as a peaceful way to reach sustainable resolution, even in difficult situations, that I would contribute to the Canadian reputation as Peace Makers and Peace Keepers. World Peace – One Conversation at a Time is a mantra you hear often at the PULSE Institute. Contribution to my country and its reputation in the world is important to me. I knew there were many ways to contribute to Canada and had chosen teaching and politics at the municipal, provincial and federal levels as the way for me to do that. He was suggesting another way. I took him seriously. So for this past year I have been away from politics and focusing on PULSE. A book, video and 30 PULSE Professionals trained. It is amazing what you can accomplish with focus. Politics is never far from my heart. I heard a politician say recently “Politics is a conversation”. He is right and there are times when I miss the conversation and the protocol and the ceremony that contribute to our identity as Canadians. I am committed to continuing to contribute as best I can as the Peace Maker from Canada when I travel in the US and Africa over this next year. My goal is to contribute and to make you all proud of this Canadian as she continues her campaign, not for political office but for PULSE – World Peace – One Conversation at a Time.
How are you contributing to your country??
Happy Canada Day.

WHY? PULSE Ways of Knowing

PULSE is brain based conversation. It is also heart based and body based because thereare three ways of knowing that integrate in PULSE conversations. We study not just how conversations work but why they work. Examining the why has lead to an interest and curiouslty about brain knowledge and body knowledge connection andheart knowledge in this triangulation of ways of knowing. I recently read an article “The Brain at Work” by Adrienne Fox on the SHRM Website. It is a very interesting account of where motivation goes and how it ebbs and flows much like confidence does. It talks about serotonin, a chemical that increases happiness and motivation and what leaders can do to have the brain secrete serotonin. hmmmm.

I think the PULSE conversation is good at creating situations or experiences that induce serotonin production. People feel satisfied that they have been heard, that their criteria have been considered and met after a PULSE conversation. When leaders accept the principles that underlie the PULSE Conversation, they act in ways that focus on the positive and a future based on what’s best from the past. Serotonin is produced when people are hopeful and are aware of the truth, goodness and beauty around them. And once they have begun to produce serotonin they see more truth, goodness and beauty and it becomes a self perpetuating state. The GREEN Zone, as we call it at PULSE, is a good place to be,

The Heart knowledge in PULSE is based largely in the Enneagram and the work of Riso and Hudson. I have been distracted from the completion of the Sunday thoughts on illusions and wanted to get back to the ideas of integrating the illusions described by Walsch and the Paths for Transformation described by Riso and Hudson. As a reminder, Walsch describes 10 illusions; Need, Failure, Disunity, Insufficiency, Requirement, Judgement, Condemnation, Conditionality, Superiority and ignorance. Reading through the descriptions of the illusions I was struck by the possibility in the re-frame of the illusions. What is missing if you believe in this illusion? I had identified need as more universal illusion that could be re-framed as Abundance and re-framed the others; Failure to Success, Disunity to Unity, Insufficiency to Sufficiency, Requirement to Approval, Judgement to Acceptance, Condemnation to Forgiveness, Conditionality to Inclusion, Superiority to Identify and Ignorance to Understanding. I could see the Enneagram types in each of the re-frames.

Referring back to Riso and Hudson, I found 9 Paths to Transformation described using some of the same words I had used to re-frame the Walsch illusions; Acceptance, Self-nurturing, Authenticity, Forgiveness, Understanding, Courage, Gratitude, Self-surrender and Self-remembering. Coincidence??? I think not. Riso and Hudson describe the Enneagram essential qualities as Wisdom (1), Unconditional Love (2), Value (3), Equanimity (4), Direct Knowing (5), Will (6), Joy (7), Strength (8) and Unity (9). So let’s put the three lists together and match up the ones we can …

	Walsch’s Illusions	Love’s Criteria What’s missing?	Enneagram Path’s (Love)	Riso-Hudson’s Qualities

1	Need	Abundance		Integration
2	Failure	Success	3	Authenticity
3	Disunity	Unity	9	Self-Remembering
4	Insufficiency	Sufficiency	7	Gratitude
5	Requirement	Approval	6	Courage
6	Judgment	Acceptance	1	Acceptance
7	Condemnation	Forgiveness	4	Forgiveness
8	Conditionality	Inclusion	2	Self-Nurturing
9	Superiority	Identity	8	Self-Surrender
10	Ignorance	Understanding	5	Understanding

Can you hear me now????

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 notice 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.

Category : Blog post