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Archive for category: Purpose

Mindfulness, Purpose

Check for “Eww…”

Right now, in this moment, take a look at your calendar.

It’s time for an “Ewww…” check.

It’s simple to do. As you review your entries, check to see if your instinctive first impression is, “Eww…”, in your gut or head or heart.

It’s oh so easy to say yes, and sometimes uncomfortable to say no. We get a lot of rewards for saying yes to the people making requests of us. It can feel quite appealing to our egos to be needed and wanted. “Would you make 50 lemon bars for the bake sale? Yours are the best!”  Or, “You know, we really need your leadership on this initiative.”

When we commit without thinking soberly and seriously about the impact of our yes, we can find ourselves overcommitted. Pause for a moment to consider how you feel when you realize your plate is too full. Resentful? Anxious? Stressed out? Irritable?

Being overcommitted generally doesn’t lead to feelings of peace, ease and satisfaction. When we’re running around like crazy, juggling like mad, we might have some illusory feelings of being important, or even of being a good person.

When we pause and really think about it, though, we generally aren’t the most fun people to be around when we’re rushing about without a moments of peace for ourselves.

Could it be true that you are capable of greater and higher service to others and yourself when you have the courage to reply with a graceful “Thanks for thinking of me, and I have to pass,” than responding with a reflexive “Sure!” that you later regret?

By cultivating the discipline of saying an honest no, your calendar will have far more “Ahh..” than “Eww…”

July 13, 2015/0 Comments/by Jen Wilson
https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png 0 0 Jen Wilson https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png Jen Wilson2015-07-13 15:25:522015-07-13 15:25:52Check for “Eww…”
Facing Fear, Kindness, Purpose

At Least You Have a Cat

I’ve wanted to write an essay with this title for a long time. Since my 20th high school reunion, in fact.

Photo by G. Bathrick

Photo by G. Bathrick

I wasn’t going to go, but I impulsively turned in my registration in a wave of nostalgia and curiosity.

I was fortunate to have a group of girlfriends who made high school bearable, and even fun a good deal of the time. They folded me into a warm embrace of belonging,  unknowingly keeping me standing when  my home life knocked me down. Being in the group insulated me from bullies most of the time and helped me avoid the many pitfalls of teenage life, from skipping school (okay, so Lisa and I snuck out one afternoon…) to drugs and alcohol. We got good grades, played sports, led a variety of clubs, and played in band. The extent of our hooliganism consisted of scamming our teachers for hall passes, pulling sodas out of the soda machine with a yardstick, and tricking our band teacher into letting us out early so we could be first in the lunch line. We had sleepovers, went roller skating, cruised around the square of the nearest big town hoping for something nameless but wonderful to happen. As we took photos on graduation day, arms around each other, I knew for certain that we never would be together again like that. And we never were. Read more

January 22, 2013/0 Comments/by Jen Wilson
https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png 0 0 Jen Wilson https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png Jen Wilson2013-01-22 16:04:362022-04-13 20:24:08At Least You Have a Cat
Facing Fear, Happiness, Purpose

Google Yourself – You Might End Up in Croatia

My friend Linda posted a fun idea on Facebook. Google your name and see what comes up. Are you a lead dancer with the San Antonio ballet?  An artisan cheesemaker in Idaho?  A retired music teacher in Miami?

To play:  go to Google, enter your first and last name in quotes, and that’s it. Example:  “Jennifer Wilson”

There are approximately 1,294,672 Jennifer Wilsons. Okay, I made that up, but there are a lot of us, so I took the very first entry that came up. Apparently, I wrote a book that was heralded as “Best Nonfiction Book of 2011” by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.  (Note: Please leave a comment below with your results!  A friend of mine discovered he was a 15 year old ping pong champion.)

Written by Jennifer Wilson, it chronicles the adventures she and her family had when they moved to Croatia for a year in search of her ancestral ties. She and her husband and two young children were living the American Dream in Iowa – a house they fixed up, soccer schedules, two careers, and frequent pilgrimages to Target. And, they felt they were missing something vital despite their privilege, primarily time together as a family and a simpler life that didn’t involve consuming, watching tv and playing video games crammed between errands. On the basis of a yearning and a late night of giddy dreaming (a bottle of wine was involved), they uprooted themselves and moved to Croatia for a year. As you can imagine, that year changed them all in deep and unexpected ways.

I was immediately intrigued by the book’s description because my partner and I have a similar ambition. Read more

July 11, 2012/0 Comments/by Jen Wilson
https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png 0 0 Jen Wilson https://consultnewleaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/logo-300x100.png Jen Wilson2012-07-11 18:08:432022-04-13 20:25:17Google Yourself – You Might End Up in Croatia
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