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Tag Archive for: Joy

Posts

Change and Transformation, Mindfulness

Busy is the New Fine

Woman On Her Cell Phone

Picture two friends running into each other at the grocery store. Their conversation goes something like this:

“Hey, great to see you! How are you?”

“Wow,  super busy. You?”

“Oh, same as you. Busier than ever!”

Sound familiar?

We used to say, “Fine,” even if we weren’t. There will always be situations where this exchange is meant to be a polite social ritual, not an invitation to download every trauma we’ve encountered over the past week. When we walk into the office in the morning or greet the barista, “Fine, thanks!” is a polite response.

But now, we aren’t fine.  We are busy.  Super busy.

Sometimes I wonder if we equate being busy with being valuable. If we replied, “I’ve been taking it easy the past few days,” would we fear being judged as lazy, unproductive, or – worst of all – selfish? Read more

January 16, 2019/0 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 Wilson2019-01-16 16:34:032019-01-16 20:36:51Busy is the New Fine
Happiness

What do you do?

Postman delivering mailThis question causes me to stumble and trip over my words more times than I like to admit. I have so many answers, and they’re all true: I coach, facilitate, teach, train, consult, advise, coordinate, manage, lead, design, write.

This morning, this thought popped into my head: “I will do anything I can to help people see things from new perspectives.”

Hearing someone say, “I never thought of it that way,” excites me more than just about anything on the planet. It means there is an opening, a loosening, a letting go of a fixed idea about How Things Should Be or the way we want them to turn out. It means stepping out of certainty and into curiosity and creativity.

So that’s what I get excited about in my work with people and organizations.

I think it’s really important for each of us to redefine what we “do.” Instead of listing our tasks, job titles or functions, what if we stated our guiding principles and passions?

What is your guiding principle? What is the value that you can find in your work, no matter what you do?

For example, if you work at the post office counter, your guiding principle could be, “My goal is to make each person’s day a little brighter and give them a reason to smile.”

Guiding principles transcend the tasks, such as selling stamps or whatever it is you do, and focus on the value or the nature of how we go about our work. When we commit to caring about what we value, we maintain satisfaction in our roles even if the tasks themselves aren’t what we feel called to do in life.

And, we can change the world. There’s a lot of research that shows that just being in proximity to happy people increases your own happiness.

What if everyone you encountered in your day was living according to their guiding principles, values and passions? What if you did? You’d generate happiness and contentment in yourself, and everyone around would benefit.

As the saying goes, it’s not what we do, but how we do it that matters. And we all matter, no matter what we “do.”

April 1, 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 Wilson2013-04-01 11:25:582013-04-01 11:25:58What do you do?
Happiness, Mindfulness

Life Unplugged

Happiness on the Oregon Coast

My partner Doug and I loaded up the Subaru and pointed the car west.  We had fifteen days ahead of us, and a loose plan to spend time in the redwoods, on the Oregon coast, and in the Cascade mountains.

The only firm plans we had were to spend the last two days before the long drive home resting our trail-weary muscles in hot springs and taking time for yoga, meditation, and awesome vegetarian meals while camping at Breitenbush Hot Springs retreat center.

My intention for our trip?  Be completely present.  That’s really it.   I knew that if I could be present, I wouldn’t miss out on the trip I was actually on, if that makes sense.  I could get so much more out of each day, make the days seem much longer,  and create deeper experiences and memories.  I could be fully present to Doug, and to myself.

This turned out to be the case.  Both of us practiced being mindfully present, and we found that when we were in the mountains, our time in the redwoods seemed like a long time ago, even though only a week had passed.  Each day unraveled slowly, new delights and sensations unfolding luxuriously.How often in our regular routines of home, work, home, work do we find that another week has zipped by?  The time between Monday morning and the weekend zooms, months flutter past like the calendar pages in old-time movies when they want to show time passing.  Birthdays arrive ever more quickly, the older we get.

The antidote to all this zippiness is presence. Read more

September 28, 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 Wilson2012-09-28 11:52:372022-04-13 20:24:41Life Unplugged
Facing Fear, Gratitude, Mindfulness

In Memory of Julie

With Julie in the gazebo at Zilber Hospice

I met Julie several years ago because of life coaching.  I was a guest presenter in a Coaches’ Group that met by phone and included people from all over the country.  When Julie heard that I was in Milwaukee, she got in touch and we started getting together in lovely settings from the Urban Ecology Center to her favorite restaurant, Casablanca.

What I remember most is walking to my car after we spent time together and feeling lighter on my feet and in my heart.  Julie lived her life with passion and vibrancy, her huge heart on her sleeve.  Even when people pissed her off, she did her best to respond with compassion and healing, and more often than not, succeeded.

The word that I most associate with Julie is generosity.  She gave freely of herself, her energy, her love, her friendship.  Even when she was dying, she made sure that everyone around her felt the full force of her love and did her best to help everyone feel okay, or as okay as we could in the circumstance.  Her generosity of spirit created a luminous glow of love around her, like a blanket that she drew around her for warmth and comfort that we were invited under, too.

She was still coaching and teaching, right until her last day, by the way she gracefully carried on.  Julie had her dark moments in this journey, of course, but she immediately accepted her diagnosis and the way things were.  Her acceptance freed her to experience and feel and love, instead of grasping and fighting with fear and anxiety.

Julie cracked jokes as she always had, filled notebooks with writing, gave long and deep hugs, and made sure each person felt treasured – all while she struggled for each breath against the cancer that was overtaking her.  She and her equally amazing and generous husband Joel created a welcoming space in her room or out in the gazebo on the hospice grounds, inviting friends and family to share time.  What a gift!  There was food, wine (only for Julie), lots of laughing, storytelling, hugs – they created community among people who were often meeting each other for the first time.

Julie, you taught us all how to live, and now you’ve taught us how to die.  You live on in our hearts, and in our lives as we do our best to live with the grace, love, humor and generosity that you showed us.  Go well, bright spirit.

 

 

August 23, 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 Wilson2012-08-23 09:28:142022-04-13 20:25:01In Memory of Julie
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
Mindfulness

Lessons from Settlers of Catan

My partner and his daughter love playing games.  So do I, of a certain variety.  Cribbage?  Yes!  Scrabble?  Bring it!  Bananagrams?  Undefeated!  Ping pong?  I’m not very good, but I’ll play!  I just don’t care for board games of strategy such as Monopoly, Risk and Settlers of Catan (no offense, devoted fans).

However, they both indulge my cribbage cravings so I willingly reciprocate by agreeing to play Settlers on occasion.  The last time we played, I was agonizing over my next move.  I didn’t know where to place a new section of road and sat staring at the board, getting more confused and tense by the minute.  I finally said, “This is too stressful!”

My partner smiled and gently replied, “You can’t take it so seriously.” Read more

January 4, 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 Wilson2012-01-04 23:47:232012-01-04 23:47:23Lessons from Settlers of Catan
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