PULSE Conversations, SHIFT Happens, Social Exchange

An Independent Spirit

I have always thought of myself as independent. Even when I was totally financial dependent on others, I imagined that I still had decision making power and control over how things would turn out. I acted as if my voice still counted and I took responsibility for those decision that I helped to make.

An independent spirit requires that you maintain a certain level of competence and distance from others. It is not that you loose any sense of compassion or caring. It is just that you take the observe role and see the situation from a perspective that allows you to observe the good and the bad in any and all possible outcomes. You do not become lost in the needs of others nor do you ignore their needs to gain your own advantage. It is this level of autonomy that keeps us sane and healthy in difficult situations and it is that level of autonomy that we lose when we slip into dependence – emotional, financial, physical, spiritual, intellectual or relational.

How do we guard ourselves against that kind of dependence? First we must recognize the signs of waning self confidence and waxing loss of identity. Knowing your own mind, heart and body is the first step and being tuned into changes or SHIFTS is key. When you begin to set aside your own needs on a regular basis is it is time to take stock. When you are blaming others for your situation it is time to take stock and when you are making decisions for others it is also time to take stock. It is a balancing act and you will know when you are in the GROOVE

Take good care this week. Keep in touch with yourself and your relational well-being. Maintain a healthy distance from those you are not ready to trust. Rely on yourself and on those with whom you have developed a healthy INTERdependence.

A Happy Heart

“Happy, happy, happy, happy” What makes you happy?

Research is showing the our thoughts control our moods. In other words, if you think happy you feel happy. That is cool. I have always felt more in control of how I think so this research is suggesting to me that if I can control my thoughts I can also control my feelings.

I like to feel happy. I believe that most people do. I also think that it can be a lot of work sometimes to maintain a level of thinking that keeps us happy. Reframing our lives, even our past childhoods into positive experiences is always a choice. We can accept what we see, hear and experience as happy or sad, good or bad, heaven or hell. It really is up to us.

That’s a lot of responsibility. If live gives you lemons you are EXPECTED to make lemon aid…AND DRINK IT.

Here’s the thing…We only know what happiness is because we have experienced sad. Choice comes from understanding the contrast. I believe it is good for us to sit in the negative emotion for a while until we truly understand the source. What thoughts or familiar thought patterns have taken us to the dark side. It’s okay to wallow in it every now and then. Chronic wallowing is not encouraged but sometimes it can be cathartic. So go ahead and be sad, feel bad and live in the hell you are creating for your self. Just know that happiness, goodness and heaven are just a choice, a thought away. Your call.

Heart and head influence each other so much. Give yourself a break and generate the happy heart you deserve. Find the positive in the situation or the humourous and enjoy a good laugh. It’s good for the heart. So is a good cry. Be Gentle and Honest with yourself and watch for the contrasts that can teach you how to be happy.

Take good care.

Thanksgiving is two words

Today is a day to give thanks. Thanks Giving is a verb and the cool thing about it is if you give you often get back in return. Reciprocity is one of my favourite words. We get back what we give. Sometimes we think we are getting stuff we don’t want from others because they are mean or rude or something else less than pleasant but often we have treated them or someone else like that. What goes around comes around as they say. Although we may have inadvertently taken rather than given in a conversation or a social exchange and we may not have intentionally cut someone off when they were speaking, or allowed our thoughts to wander instead of listening to someone else’s story, that kind of behaviour gets returned to us just as surely as gratitude comes back to us when we give it away.

Today is a reminder to think about how we treat others, who we might be taking for granted and to also notice who thanks you for being a part of their life and how you may have earned that thanks. Get into the act of thanks giving and you will be amazed what comes back to you. Give the gift of listening. Offer a space to be heard. Provide a shoulder to cry on or an ear to be bent. It’s always worth the time it takes for you and for them. Give thanks for the opportunity to be there for someone. Who knows … one day you may need the reciprocal services you provide today.

Smile and listen deeply. There are no better gifts.

Nouveau Plan

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 webistes. 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 your 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 its 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 try to consoldate 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 my self to one email address and change the address on my drivers 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.

PULSE Level 2 and other thoughts on learning in the new world

Today I had a call from someone interested in taking our PULSE level 2 course. It is the second 40 hours of mediation training using the PULSE Frame. We haven’t had much call to offer it lately so it is exciting to see some renewed interest. Anyone with a basic mediation course could register and if we get enough interest we will offer it sometime in late November.There is some flexibility for us to set up the first 2 days as an online program though Jig saw box and have participants come to the St Albert Office for the 3 day intensive practice sessions.

Please send an email to me at nancylove@pulseinstitute.com if you are interested.

I find myself looking for ways to help individuals get what they need lately. Coaching and one on one teaching and training conversations provide me with the kind of opportunities to share ways to improve social exchanges in real time. Our society is moving that way. Everything is on demand. Why not training? I like it. Individualized learning is not new. Tell me what you need to learn and I will help you. If you are working toward credentialing as a coach or mediator, I can help you with that. If you want to improve your leadership skills I can help you with that. If you want to improve relationships and conversations at home or at work I can help you with that. If you want to become a well rounded confident, courageous, competent, compassionate person I can help you with that. If you and I can’t figure out how to get you to where you are going then I will help you find someone who can.

Teachers have been providing individualized programs for students for years. Always a teacher, I am moving toward providing that service to my grown up clients. It’s exciting and practical. Client directed learning. Contact me today!!!!

A Sharp Mind

Thursday is the 4th. The 4th of each month I have scheduled a free webinar for PULSE people which includes anyone who is interested in what PULSE is and how it works. This months Webinar is on a Sharp Mind. It deals with the magnificent brain, neuroscience and many other amazing things that help us maintain and increase our mental capacity and our intellectual strength. Of course in forty minutes we can only scratch the surface. I invite you to join in the conversation especially if you have an interest in what research is saying about brain function and capacity or the difference between “mind” and “brain”.

This will be the first in the SHIFT series of Webinars. Sharp Mind, Happy Heart, Independent Spirit, Fit Body and Trusting Soul make up the series and are scheduled on the 4th of each month at 10:00 am Mountain Time for the next five months. Join the discussion. You’ll find more info and a link below.

Event: ‘A Sharp Mind’
Date: Thursday, September 04, 2014 – 10:00 am
Duration: 40 Minutes

One of the measures of wellness in the SHIFT process is a Sharp Mind. All of us have days where we feel dull, where the words we are searching for are just out of reach, where our brain feels sluggish and not always engaged, like it is slipping gears. Then we have other days were the focus is crystal clear and we know the answers and we can solve any problem, where we are witty and thoughtful and ON. What are the skills that we can use to increase the likelihood of a having Sharp Mind every day? What makes it sharp or dull and how can we measure on a scale from dull to sharp where we are now?
Join us on September 4th to talk about intelligence of the mind!
Click the Link Below to Join the Webinar:
https://pulseinstitute.adobeconnect.com/_a935439986/sharp/

The Maritimes

Good friends. Cousins. Good food. Great music. Home.

I am sure that most people have a place that they go to where they immediately feel at home. For me it is here in the Maritimes. Of course I was born and mostly raised here so it is familiar, but there is more than that. It’s the salt air. It’s the friendly chatter at the Walmart. It’s the cadence of the language and the stories in the songs. It’s the laughter and the smiles and the people that share them with each other.

I had a chance to attend a show at the Tidnish Community Hall this week. “The Elderly Brothers” was a story and concert performed by local musicians and actors worthy of the Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton. The Everley Brothers would have been proud of the harmonized vocals, the guitar riffs and the gently told story of their life.

Everywhere in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI talented people play to small audiences on a regular basis. For twenty dollars you can be thoroughly entertained. For another twenty you can have an absolutely magnificent lobster meal, chowder and all you can eat muscles and salad bar and a medium sized lobster. Don’t forget dessert. Pies and crumbles to die for.

Today it is time to go home, back to Alberta, back to my family. I am taking with me wonderful memories that will sustain me until next time. When I return it will be familiar again. Not much changes here and I am glad it doesn’t. The ocean waves, the wind in the trees will be here forever calling those of us who have had the experience back for more.

The Territory is more, much more than the Map.

Aloha – Back to the big island

My girls and I are back on the big island for our mother daughter trip. It is beautiful here. It is relaxing and each time I come I feel more at home. My goal is to learn a few more hawaiian words this trip.

We head home today. Those of you following my girls on face book know we had a great time. WE hunkered down for Iselle but aside from a little wind and rain this side of the Island was spared any damaging impact. It wasn’t so bad. I learned a new card game.

It isn’t just the beauty of Hawaii that calls me back. it is the feeling in the air. The negative ions I have written about before. It has the right recipe for relaxation … equal parts sunshine, salt water and air, palm trees and a sprinkling of birds.

This week provided a stark reminder of what might happen if the weather changes. The south side of Hawaii got hit. It reminded me of last year in Calgary. People without power or water living in shelters. I wish a shorter recovery time for the Hawaiians. I know that many people in southern Alberta are still licking their wounds even a year later.

Sending Aloha to everyone.

Connected….

Today I had the internet access installed at the lake. I thought I would be able to leave connectivity for a while…even a year but it’s no use.I have succumbed to the threat of 3G bills and installed something on my roof that ensures that I can see the world and the world can see me. Even at the lake. I guess that’s alright.

It was nice to be “offline” for a couple of weeks. At least in my own mind I was off-line and feeling pretty self-righteous about it too. I found myself bragging about not having internet. How weird is that? Our society has shifted so much in the last decade or so that you are odd if you are ‘offline”.

We are a connected world. I’m not sure how much that is helping us though. A hundred years ago we were not as connected and yet there was a “shot heard round the world” that resulted in a world war. Now every shot is heard around the world and there are so many on a daily basis that we are becoming numb to the destruction and the loss of human life. It all seems hopeless and we feel helpless to do anything except stay connected … at least to our friends and family and to those we care about.

Although I can get TV programming through my internet I have unplugged from my daily fix of CBC news. In my apartment in St Albert the CBC news keeps me company. Here at the lake the birds and the wind in the trees keep me company. I have all of the conveniences of home here and yet … as those of you with cottages and cabins can attest … a home away is both of those things…home and away. There is a different pace and a different feel here. I like it.

It is not as if you can forget that world is once again on the eve of destruction. It’s just that it seems further away and not so immediate. I hold out hope for mankind. Songs of the sixties are ringing in my head and I realize how much they influenced my stance on war and sex and drugs and rock and roll. I am encouraged when I hear remakes of those old tunes and see the fashions of that time coming back. I so hope that the thinking comes back too. Bring back the revolution. “Give Peace a Chance”

We are connected. We are the world. Let’s make a difference.

Another year ….. Warning : melancholy to follow…

Last year I turned sixty. Today I am older again. Where does the time go?
So much has happened in the last 12 months. Its hard for me to imagine that I would be living in St Albert full time with a beautiful cottage at the lake. I am happy to be back in northern Alberta with friends and family although there are special people that I miss in Calgary.

It has been a beautiful month here in St Albert and at the Lake which is only 40 minutes away. The weather has been great and I have been very busy with the move of furniture etc from Canmore to Lac St Anne. My new writing centre is now within driving distance. Work on the books in progress is actually progressing!!

Golfing with friends and family, birthday celebrations for grand kids and children, gatherings around the back yard fire pits and wahshooo tournaments has made for a relaxing and fun filled summer so far. I love being where my daughters and their families can drop in or request help or invite me for lunch.

Next week my daughters and I take our annual trip. Last year we went home to Halifax to celebrate my birthday. This year we head back to the Big Island for a week of mother daughter sister bonding. I love our time together each year. It means a lot to me. This year especially I understand the importance of creating memories together. We lost my mum this year which was hard on all of us.

Birthdays are an opportunity to look forward and back and assess where you are on your journey. I am where I ought to be and headed in the right direction … reason to celebrate. Thanks for all the wonderful wishes.