Two Different Colored Socks

A wise woman...colors outside the lines. 

While Christmas shopping this year I came upon a silver pendant that had THE most perfect message on it for one of my daughters. It simply read, "color outside the lines". I raced home with this little winner in my pocket and promptly tucked it into my secret Christmas hiding place. I couldn't wait to give it to her.

I continued to joyfully tackle the lengthy list of Christmas to-do's for the next few weeks, but I couldn't stop thinking about the necklace. Why was I so excited, and my mind so preoccupied, with this message?

As the holiday hullabaloo wound down the ah-ha moment came quite quickly. While I thought I was giving my daughter some sage wisdom that I hoped she would live her life by, I realized that my enthusiasm for this message was because it has one of MY greatest life lessons ~ that ironically I learned from my daughters.

My rigid thinking, rules oriented upbringing certainly influenced how I parented my daughters when they were little. Fortunately with their help and guidance, I've learned how to re-prioritize some things. 

Now I'm not talking about moral or legal things, without societal guidelines we'd all run amok. I'm talking about important things like matching socks, creative thinking and other ways we express ourselves to discover our own person-hood. Coloring outside the lines when we are little affects how we approach the bigger stuff later - like how we goal set, find solutions, release our imagination, or choose careers and partners. I'd venture to say that without coloring outside the lines (or in adult speak, out of the box thinking) we'd be void of life's greatest discoveries and inventions. "If you continue to think like you've always thought...."

I am so grateful that my girls intuitively followed their inner wisdom and boldly colored outside of the lines that I was conditioned to draw for them as a parent. 

Each day, I remind myself to take a page out of my daughter's book and give myself permission to color inside as well as outside of my lines...and that living it in full color is a lot more fun.

If I were to do it all over again...I'd wear two different colored socks.

We're Connected, And So Is Our Joy

A wise woman...knows that JOY is a choice

We're now in full swing with the holiday season, and the notion of bringing Joy to the World naturally comes to the forefront of our minds. We often refer to this as the Christmas Spirit - a state of being that I am personally committed to encouraging year round.

By now you have most likely heard about this 20 year study on happiness conducted by Harvard, but just in case it slipped past your radar, I've included a link to the study below. My hope is that this article will serve as a reminder for all of us of the powerful impact we personally have on the world around us.

While the whole article is filled with golden nuggets, two lines in particular struck an important chord with me, "Whether you're happy depends not just on your own actions and behaviours and thoughts, but on those of people you don't even know." and "The pursuit of happiness is not a solitary goal," Fowler said. "We are connected, and so is our joy."

Perhaps this proven contagiousness of happiness and joy supports the idea that we ALL have a personal opportunity, and maybe even accountability, to promote and manifest joy around us with deliberate intent.

To quote Lou Tice from The Pacific Institute,“ it starts in the inside (of us), and works its way out”.

My challenge to you?  Deliberately choose to be in a happy state, conduct random acts of kindness, offer a smile or encouraging word, purposefully look for the good around you - in others and in circumstances.

As it turns out…how we are inside makes a huge difference to those around us.

Wishing you a joyous holiday season surrounded by an abundance of joy clusters and the people you love.

Cheers,

Lauri

Joy to the world is contagious: study

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/12/04/happiness.html

Press the Pause Button!

A wise woman...remembers to pause often ~ for the health of it.

I think a person would have to be living under a rock to have not been exposed to the abundance of messages and information out there encouraging us to slow down and take care of ourselves.

While it's easy for us get this on a conceptual level, we still seem to be struggling with it on an implementation level. Knowing and doing are two very different things.

Without taking regular time to pause, we're asking for trouble. All work and no play not only makes Jane dull, it makes Jane a stressed girl too, and stress causes disease...get it?

dis-ease

We'll continue to find creative ways of reminding women to pause more often. In the meantime, enjoy this reminder from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Ease by Elizabeth Gilbert

"We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough.Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless...

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take TWO steps back. Turn off all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: the world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

So go take a walk. Or don’t. Consider actually exhaling. Find a body of water and float. Hit a tennis ball against a wall. Tell your colleagues that you’re off meditating (people take meditation seriously, so you’ll be absolved from guilt) and then actually, secretly, nap.

My radical suggestion? Cease participation, if only for one day this year – if only to make sure that we don’t lose forever the rare and vanishing human talent of appreciating ease"

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Excerpt from Seth Godin's free ebook "What Matters Now". To download your own copy follow this link.  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/what-matters-now-get-the-free-ebook.html