Appreciation

Reflection: While taking my morning walk along the riverbank trail, I came across a couple of staff from the Meewasin Valley Authority. They were working their way along the trail, emptying the garbage cans scattered throughout the park.

It’s a workplace setting that has a lot to offer especially on a warm spring day. You can’t beat the great outdoors with a river view.

Still, emptying trashcans can’t be the most pleasant job in the world. They’re jammed with sticky cans and bottles and the remnants of fast food lunches in the park. To top it off, they’re overflowing with stinky, leaky plastic bags of doggy do.

On my way past, I gave the fellas a wave of my hand. And then I thought, “I could do better than that!”

So I stopped in my tracks, turned around and said, “Hey, guys, thanks for all the work you do cleaning things up out here. It makes a big difference for all of us, and I really appreciate it!”

And they, in turn, stopped what they were doing, looked up, and rewarded me with two of the biggest grins I’ve seen in some time.

I smiled right back and carried on.

Action: And in that small exchange, I was reminded that it doesn’t take much to lift another’s spirits or make someone’s day. (more…)

Looking for a tangible way to encourage and express your appreciation for others in your world?

The Take A Bow booklet (67 Ways To Pause For Applause, Celebrate Your Success, & Keep Your Spirits High) makes a great gift.

It has a much longer shelf life than flowers, and, unlike chocolate, it won’t add unwelcome pounds on the hips!

You’ve always been able to purchase individual copies and bundles of 30 or 100 at reduced prices.

For the month of April, you can take advantage of a Take A Bow Spring Special and pick up  bundles of 10 for 39.50.

Just click here to place your TAB Spring Special order.

PS – They make great gifts for Administrative Professional Day.

Reflection: I so appreciate the fact that spring on the prairies is finally putting in an appearance. It seems that the month of April offers no shortage of opportunities to appreciate a variety of things and people.

This very week in Canada (April 6-12) is National Volunteer Appreciation week. A quick glance at an online calendar of special days reveals that’s not the only special day on this month’s agenda.

April also brings you National Siblings Day (10^th), National Librarian Day (16^th), Volunteer Recognition Day (20th), and Administrative Professional Day (23^rd). You’ll find a host of whacky days on the calendar, too. Feel free to celebrate jelly beans, scrabble, and rubber erasers to name just a few!

In today’s everyday busyness, it’s easy to think that celebration and recognition are not that important – that appreciation is just icing on the cake. However, that’s just not true.

Many employee surveys show that a lack of recognition, appreciation and acknowledgement are a major workplace issue and a significant source of disengagement. It’s such a shame, because it’s such an easy challenge to address.

Action: What to do? Focus on small daily appreciative actions like these. (more…)

Reflection: If you happened to view any of the three short videos I shared while the regular Pause ezine was on hiatus, you would have caught one or more messages about the value of stepping back to step ahead. Just in case you missed it or them, today I’m sharing a ‘summing up’ and a link to the complete article.

I have come to understand that nonstop action is a dead end strategy for success. When we nix time-outs, we just hit the wall – not the mark. Sometimes we really do have to step back to step ahead. Making the most of our days involves building strategic pauses into everyday experiences.

When we step back, stand down and chill out, we tap more readily into renewal, appreciation and perspective.

Action: Here are nine (3 x 3) pause practices that will help you generate more energy, enthusiasm and insight. (more…)

 Reflection: I don’t know about you, but I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee. Well, truth be known, I like to sip coffee all day long. Decaf – for the most part – so I’m not jangling from a high wire by high noon.

This morning I set the coffee to drip as usual, and went about getting my day started elsewhere in the house. Hearing the beep that signaled the coffee was ready, I returned to the kitchen to pour my first cuppa java. What I discovered was an empty pot and a kitchen counter covered from one end to the other in a slick of steaming brown liquid. Apparently the flow-through flap on the pot lid jammed, and the coffee had nowhere to go but over the top.

Cleaning up a swill-spill was not how I’d planned to start my day – especially before my first cup of coffee. I muttered a few choice words as I mopped up the mess.

I also recognized the situation as one of life’s moments of choice. I could feed my frustration, let the annoyance overflow, seeping into the rest of the day like the coffee itself; or I could take things in stride and let it go.

Action: At the root of our frustrations about life’s unexpected challenges lies a quirky little belief that we’re somehow entitled to a world that runs smoothly all day every day. In fact, speed bumps, detours and breakdowns are a normal part of life. The real challenge is to keep it all in perspective.

Here are five ways to let it go and sidestep a frustration hangover that can set a downer tone for the rest of the day. (I used all of these this morning!) (more…)

With the new year peaking around the corner, it’s so easy to suffer whiplash – as we intently scan the past year and eagerly anticipate the next. But, as the infamous Yogi Berra once observed, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

And so, my invitation to you for the remainder of 2013 is to be as present as you can possibly be to the people and experiences that cross your path in the closing days of the year.

Presence is an awesome gift, one that’s far more valuable than any presents that may come our way in this the season of giving. When we find ways to be present we’re much more likely to appreciate the delights of each moment as life unfolds around us.

I hope you enjoy reading a few of my favorite quotes about presence. (more…)

Sur Rue De Buci Paris

Reflection: The final week of my recent ‘Grand Pause’ was spent in Paris. It’s a city that’s renowned for its monuments (think Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe), its museums (think Louvre and Musee d-Osay), and of course its food (think buttery croissants and boeuf bourguignon).

Like any large metropolis, it also has a few downsides. Nonstop crowds of people and hordes of tourists (yep, I was one of them). Bikes, scooters, cars and buses all jostling for space on the streets. Honking horns and ‘ee-aw’ sirens day and night.

And still, in the midst of the commotion, there are places of peace and tranquility. The wide open spaces of public gardens – like the Luxembourg, the Tuileries, and Parc Monceau – are well used by the residents of the city.

Even more appealing to me are the many Parisian ‘pocket gardens’ tucked away in hidden spaces – just around the corner from the chaos of city life. You can find these tiny oases secreted away beside the National Archives, behind Notre Dome, on the western point of Isle de la Cite, and in countless other nooks and crannies sprinkled throughout the city.

These ‘parcs de poche’ as the French might call them are quiet, green, and frequented by individuals or small groups of two or three people who are clearly enjoying the peace and tranquility on offer.

Action: In the chaos and commotion of your daily life, where are your private parks – your points of pause and places of peace?

They could be anywhere. A bench in the atrium of a nearby office building. A corner in a public conservatory. A swing in a schoolyard or neighborhood park. A window seat looking outdoors from your local coffee shop. The lawn chair in your backyard.

Whatever and wherever they may be, keep them on your radar. Build time-out visits into your regular routine.

There’s much to be said for a pause practice that delivers a measure of peace and quiet in the midst of a crazy day and a chaotic world.

Quotes Of The Week:

Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. – Gary Snyder

Time and space – time to be alone, space to move about – these may well become the great scarcities of tomorrow. – Edwin Way Teale

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike. – John Muir

And this chuckle by Demetri Martin is just plain goofy: I was walking in the park and this guy waved at me. Then he said, “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.” I said, “I am.”

Resource Of The Week: Do you or does someone you know need more convincing that downtime is essential? Here it is – signed, sealed and delivered – in this article from Scientific American: Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime.

Readers Write: In response to the last ezine, All Will Be Well, Pause reader CT writes: Thank you for your e-zine this week. My husband often tells me something similar: “Everything’s going to be all right”. Sometimes I listen and sometimes I don’t; and yet he always seems to be right. I tend to catastrophize situations. Right now I’m at a low place. Things are not going as planned, and I despair. My head says I need to act on faith (as you put it) and stay the course, but my heart isn’t in the same place. Your reminder that “All will be well” was timely indeed!

Autumn Elms

Reflection: Perspective is a wonderful thing. One of the gifts of growing older is that you’ve seen a few things, experienced a few things and, hopefully, learned a few things along the way.

And, so it was with interest, that I watched the answers roll in to a question posted by a friend on Facebook. She was marking her 50^th birthday with a bit of reflection. Looking back she pondered what kind of advice she might have given to her 20 year old self and invited her FB friends to share their suggestions

There was no shortage of responses to this ‘If I’d known then what I know now kind of question’. Here are some of the suggestions:  Stay present. Stay fearless forever. Stop and think before you act. Have fun. Take more risks but don’t be impulsive. Don’t worry about others opinions of you -your opinion of yourself is the most important. Never settle for anything less than you deserve. You’re not gonna believe how great it’s gonna be. Buy nicer underwear!

Although there were a handful of possibilities that came to mind for me, in the end I settled on: ‘All will be well!’

‘All will be well’ reflects these life lessons I’ve learned along the way: (more…)

Reflection: One of the many pleasures of this summer, was a night spent camping out in a tent in the backyard with six year old grandson, Ethan.

This is the second year we’ve done this. Last summer Ethan wondered why we couldn’t bring the TV or the ipad out to the tent. This year, that idea didn’t even come up.

Still he wanted to know what we’d do – besides eating a giant bag of cheese puffs, which apparently has already become a tradition.

I suggested we’d mess around with the flashlights, read some books, play a few games, make up some stories and well, just talk. We did all those things and more.

One of the sweetest moments of the adventure – and there were many – was when Ethan turned to me late in the evening and declared, “You know, this talking is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.” And, indeed, it was! (more…)

Reflection & Action:  Rituals are powerful things. Hello/goodbye, good morning/good night kisses are an everyday occurrence in my marriage. Leave takings with our daughters – by phone or in person – are punctuated from both sides with the phrase, ‘Love ya’. Our dinner grace includes a ‘Today I am thankful for…’ comment from each person around the table

Like brushing your teeth in the morning, these actions and phrases have become second nature. That doesn’t make them meaningless. Each exchange expresses deeply held values of love and appreciation.

One of the keys for bringing our values to life is turning them into rituals. If you value your health, turning a lunchtime walk into an automatic ritual breathes life into that value. If you value family, the ritual of a weekly phone call with a parent or sister keeps the connection alive. If you value the beauty of nature, the ritual of placing fresh cut flowers on your desk at work or your table at home keeps nature in the center of your everyday life. You get the picture. (more…)