Grace

The following post was written last spring, before this blog was up and running. It seems particularly appropriate today. Last night, a family member was admitted to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Life continues to teach me about tough love and grace.


I have a daily yoga routine that ends with a short meditation. In the meditation, I ask for five things to be part of my life: clarity, connection to others, creativity, grace, and abundance. In that order. I usually pause when silently arriving at the word “grace” as it seems to always be appropriate for whatever is happening in my life. Lately, grace seems to be more and more pertinent. I think of grace as the ability to fully accept things just as they are, without having a desire to change, fix, or deny.

I talked with a friend of mine recently. She was recounting an Easter visit to see her elderly mother and older brother, who live together. Her mother, widowed twice, has a house with room for long-term visitors. Her mobility is limited as is her eyesight. Her brother, in his sixties, has lived with mental illness most of his life and only recently decided to have contact with family after being on his own for forty plus years. He functions well enough to buy groceries and run other errands but not well enough to keep a job to support himself. The mother and son have had trouble getting along since the son declared that he did not want to eat meals together. The mother found this offensive. Both sides have their quirks. Another son suggested to my friend that they have a family intervention while she was in town, to make the mother and son “be nice to each other.” My friend’s reply: “Can’t we just color eggs?” And then she said something that struck a chord. “You’ve got two people living together who are a little off-kilter, one who has been away for over forty years. How do you make that right?” She went on to say that there was no abuse involved in the relationship and that both her mother and brother benefited from the arrangement.

Grace has us stop “making things right.” When we stop trying to make things right, we can let go and fully accept what is, grabbing on to only that which is real. How often have I tried to make things right, when things are neither right nor wrong? Mental illness has come up in my own family recently. You can go crazy trying to figure out why someone else is crazy. While others have tried to “figure it out,” I finally decided that there is no right or wrong or simple answer to find comfort in. It just is. Period.

When I can have grace everyday, it’s a lot easier to be in the world, even while others are being drawn into the drama of fixing and controlling that which cannot be fixed or controlled. In the midst of the drama, I can appreciate the forsythia bushes in bloom. I can see the irony of a situation. I can laugh at a magazine ad of a boy practicing a saxophone because it reminds me of my husband when he had hair. For that matter, I can laugh at myself and be at peace. That’s grace at its best.

Falling in Love with Conflict

I was in a training class for advanced coaching skills recently. One of the things that I got out of the class was the idea that conflict is a signal of something new trying to emerge in a system. The system could be a marriage, a work team, or a small business.

I remember when I was in my twenties. My sister’s husband, an in-your-face New Yorker, tried to provoke me to see how I would react to conflict. I politely tried not to disagree with him, preferring to side step our differences. He said to me, “You’re not like your father. Your father was a man who addressed conflict head-on.” I thought of my father, already dead for several years by the time I had this conversation with my brother-in-law, as someone who had a volatile temper. I didn’t see his way of handling things as productive or desirable. I couldn’t understand my brother-in-law’s admiration for a trait that I considered to be unpleasant to be around.

Now, many years later, I can see the value of conflict. I’m still not completely comfortable with it but I am able to be with it more. Last week, I was on a three-way call with two colleagues who ended up in a heated, even bitter argument. Inside, a voice was saying, “Please, just stop the yelling.” I kept returning to this new image of conflict as a marker for something new trying to happen between people. It surprised me that being in such an emotionally charged atmosphere, I felt okay afterwards. I would not die from getting too close to conflict.

This reminds me of a quality present in healthy marriages—partners know how to fight, how to handle conflict so that no one “dies.” Spouses in good marriages let conflict arise naturally.

I’m now able to let conflict be a natural course of events as opposed to something to be avoided or suppressed. What doesn’t get expressed doesn’t go away. It just builds up. People need to move through strong emotions. Otherwise we can get stuck—not expressing, not moving on, building up a head of steam over time. As a coach, part of my value is to provide a safe place for conflict to play out, where no one dies from it. As a wife, I have a new sense of appreciation when my husband brings up something I did that rubbed him the wrong way.

I’m curious to hear your views on conflict.

Katrina, Part 2

The aftermath of Katrina continues to unfold. I have forgotten if this is week 3 or 4. The stories have shifted in tone from “how could this happen?” to “what happened?” to “who screwed up?” to “what will we do next?” In this stage, the news media has settled into a calmer analysis of the impact of Katrina for individuals and the nation. I feel more comfortable.

Three stories linger in my mind from the last couple of weeks. One was a posting on an on-line community of coaches. The author described his experience in being a survivor of Hurricane Claudette in 1979. He talked about how his house and those of his neighbors on his block quickly became flooded and how this street of survivors had banded together during the storm. The most chilling part of his story is what happened a year later—every couple on his block was undergoing divorce proceedings. Not just one couple. Every couple. The author stressed that it was a long block. The author’s point is that the worst is yet to come—the long-term impact on relationships, on lives, comes after reality has set in. After the television crews have gone home and the charity organizations have moved on to other disasters. Have we just seen the tip of the iceberg of human toll from Katrina?

The next two stories represent the flip side of disaster. Those who are not part of the disaster realize how much they have and how much they are able to give others.

I know of a group of women in a book club who decided to support one of the many families recently relocated to Denver from New Orleans. A woman from this book club had volunteered at the local Red Cross and been able to connect with a family of five—a father, a son and his wife, one toddler, and a six month old baby. This book club has about 10 members (all with a great sense of humor as their club is known as the Sip More Wine club.) Through a series of emails over a few days, the club members had located enough donations to furnish a two-bedroom apartment for five people. They figured out who had a truck and delivered the goods over the weekend. Donations came from the members as well as the people they run into everyday—including strangers in an apartment building who responded to a flyer in the lobby of the building. The group is now taking on more families to help them furnish new places to live.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal recently about a family of illegal immigrants from Central America who lived in New Orleans, fled first to Texas and then to Tennessee. In their journey, they were welcomed and supported by the local Latino community—the recipients of fundraisers where the poor gave to the poorer. It is this outreach by the Latino community that is highlighted in the article. A side note of the article is that the adaptability required of an illegal immigrant (leaving one’s home country with nothing and starting over) is an advantage for this once again displaced population. Illegal immigrants figure out how to get jobs quickly, through their network, so that they can continue to send money home to their families outside the US.

I can’t help but marvel.

• Human beings are incredibly resourceful.
• We each have a network of resources to tap into. For many of us, this network can be wider and deeper than we realize.
• We have a lot more stuff than we need.
• Individuals self-organizing into a group for a focused task can come together quickly, with efficiency and great effectiveness.

If this is true, what does it mean for each of us and what is possible?

Habits for Happiness

A friend and colleague of mine, Shawn Snelgrove, runs a business, Brainstorming A La Mode, about creativity. In her newsletter, she references Richard Koch and his book, "80/20 Principle: The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less" . Koch points out seven habits for happiness:

1. Get Exercise
2. Stimulate Your Mind
3. Express Yourself Creatively
4. Do a Good Turn
5. Take a Friendship Break
6. Give Yourself a Treat
7. Congratulate Yourself

Seems like a simple list but hard to put into action unless I’m thoughtful about it. Shawn suggests trying to do all seven each day and noticing how it impacts me and the people around me. I can imagine that just trying to do these things every day (but not always accomplishing all seven) is beneficial. I’m pretty good at the first three. I’m not so good at the last four. How about you?

The Outcome Matters

I've been playing engineer this week--trying to figure out the intracies of autoresponders (that slick software that automatically emails you after subscribing to a newsletter), merchant accounts, blog templates, and even messing with HTML code. I especially enjoyed changing the part of the code that creates my newsletter where my web designer stated explicitly "Don't touch anything above this point!" Oh well.

It's been awhile since I used my analytical skills so extensively. For those of you who don't know me well, I was a software engineer for 15 years and before that, a chemical engineer. Here's what I'm noticing:

• I can get really absorbed when I'm trying to solve a technical problem. Like forgetting to eat or put the kids to bed.

• I have to stay just as focused doing technical work as when I'm coaching. I was testing out the broadcast function of the autoresponder software while listening to a recorded call about marketing yourself. Why I thought this kind of multi-tasking would work, I have no idea. I ended up sending out the same broadcast message three times to a friendly group of users before I got it right.

• Strengths, based on talent, never leave you. Even if it's been years since you called upon that talent.

• Accuracy counts in technical work. Details matter.

These same things come up in my work as a coach--I get absorbed in the work, I must be focused to do it well, I use my talents, and details matter. The difference is that the outcome, the results are so much more satisfying. Instead of experiencing perfectly working systems, I see lives change, for the better.

I'm grateful that I have the engineering skills to get me through the systems part of my business. And I'm happy that I'm not an engineer any more.

Brianna Joanna

I have an imaginary daughter. She’s about 13 years old (give or take a few months), has thought about modeling, loves Pottery Barn bedroom furnishings, and is just about ready to start those SAT prep courses. Brianna Joanna is the daughter that the direct marketing industry created. About once a month, for the last few years, I’ve been getting mail addressed to “Brianna Joanna.” Apparently, Joanna is her last name (I always knew she was a rebel. What’s wrong with the name Ross?”) The mail used to be the kind that would appeal to a small girl (e.g., dance studios.) But within the last year, the marketing lists have pegged Brianna Joanna as a full-fledged teen. We even got six month’s worth of a teen girl magazine whose name escapes me. Imagine the reaction, in a house full of males, ages 10, 12, and 40 something. It was as if someone had asked to paint the exterior of the house pink.

I haven’t quite figured out how to get Brianna Joanna off these lists. Secretly, it’s fun to pretend that I have a daughter. And I’m eagerly waiting for the day when she leaves home and I can go back to being the queen of the house.

Posts I Love

Here are some posts on other blogs that are worth talking about. You can tell because I commented on most of these posts on the blog itself (although from what I hear from Seth Godin, providing comments is “out” and blogging about other blogs as a way of providing comments is “in.” Hey, you mean I’m “in?”)

• What I Love About Being Self-Employed This is on a blog called Lifestylepreneur, written by my friend Maria Sariego, about the art of being self-employed. It’s a great article that brings me back to what I love about my life.

• everything’s better with a little “licious” Written by my wonderful writing coach, Deb Cooperman, all I can say is that Deb has a way with words. And what better way to show who you are than to make up your own words. Deb’s blog is called “entertaining infinity” with the tagline, “life without a lid.”

• Your Board of Directors I loved this post because I’ve been mulling over this same idea for the last few months. What would it look like to have a personal board of directors, not just for your business but your life? This blog, “Making a Difference,” is written by my new friend, Hanna Cooper, who showed me some of the ropes on blogging this past summer.

• Who’s There? the new e-book (free for now) I’ve been on a Seth Godin kick recently, trying to catch up on marketing books he’s published in the last five years. Like lots of other people, I find his stuff to be really good. He’s offering up a new e-book, free to download on his site, that specifically addresses blogging.
  
  Happy reading!
  

Immersion

We have been immersed in the news glut of Katrina for about a week now. Every newscast, every paper, every media-related website reports something about Katrina, every day. Even the images that automatically download when I start up Real Audio each morning display something about Katrina.

I’m reminded of the Columbine tragedy (BTW—what constitutes a tragedy vs. a catastrophe?) I live in the Denver area and with the school shootings so close to home, it was hard not to be glued to the TV. Yet when I went to work each day, I entered a completely different world. I worked as an engineer for Bell Labs, in a rambling building that had no windows. It was a Western Electric factory that had been converted to office space and the way to get around was to understand a numbering system for buildings, corridors, individual offices. So to locate my office, you’d have to decipher what “31F-109” meant. (Yes, I know, this is the epitome of geekiness—a building mapped out by engineers). When I entered that fortress, I couldn’t tell whether it was raining or snowing outside. I had no link to the natural outside world.

So when Columbine hit, I noticed that when I was at work, no one talked about it. It was business as usual. I found this strange that we were all human beings, disconnected from such a human story. What I understand now is that in order to cope, sometimes we need to get into new space, to break from being underwater, if only briefly.

I’m going to write about other stuff besides Katrina this week.

What I'm Noticing

My apologies in advance for the long posting. Sometimes, when stuff piles up inside, there’s a lot to say when I start writing….

I’ve been waiting until today to blog about Katrina. It’s been hard to make sense of it. Like the proverbial onion that has many layers, each day seems to bring another layer to the story of Katrina. Until last Friday, I had only been reading the newspaper accounts—no TV. It’s easier to be detached with words and images on paper. When I started watching TV, the images were incomprehensible, surreal. Then I started reading posts from an on-line community of coaches—individuals wanting to do something but not knowing where to start. Here’s what I’m noticing:

• Catastrophes, whether natural or man-made, bring out the best in people and the worst in people. So many stories of people offering up whatever they have to the hurricane survivors and a few stories of what a society without law and order can stir up in others. The best and the worst are just below the surface of our society every day. What would it take to bring out the best everyday, without the aid of a catastrophic event like Katrina?

• Catastrophes remind me of how many different ways we can view the world. The aftermath of Katrina provided mainstream media with a story that can be approached from a thousand perspectives—political, economic, social, geographical, governmental, commercial. Out of these perspectives come stories about lost families, reunited families, rising gas prices, levee construction, emergency preparedness, shipping channels, washed out swamp land, looting, boat rescues, makeshift morgues, flood insurance, National Guard troops, deployment of military equipment. The list goes on. Catastrophes are by definition so pervasive that everyone can relate to at least one perspective. The collective shared experience becomes thousands of individually shared experiences.

• Catastrophes create a new standard for political correctness. Last week, I had several things I wanted to blog about, none of which were related to Katrina. Yet questions popped up in my head. If I blog about a posting on another blog about made-up words will I be seen as insensitive? What is the purpose of keeping focused on my part of the world when something as large as Katrina has captured the attention of an entire nation? Actually, it occurred to me that how I serve best is to keep focused on my part of the world. People need to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, not just in quiet times but also in tumultuous times. We can get sucked into the real drama of rescue operations and forget that we are in the here and now, impacting our own corner everyday. Still, my fears around political correctness got the better of me and I decide to hold off on any other postings until I had done this one.

• Political correctness gives others the false impression that there is a right way to react to a catastrophe. In reality, there is no right way, only individual ways. I noticed Google put up a black ribbon on their page soon after Katrina hit (no pun intended) to allow users to contribute money. Other groups quickly got into the same mode of collecting on behalf of Katrina survivors—from grocery stores to Boy Scout troops to radio stations. This is all good. What I found offensive was a posting on a blog last week where the blogger was chastising a university website for doing a “flyover.” In the blogger’s words, “no mention of Katrina, but [the site] had handy links to a dental study on enamel proteins and to a performance art piece about being, umm, underwater.” The blogger went on to note that she made a few calls to friends and sent a note to the university to complain and “voila: a Katrina link is up front and center this morning, and the art listing is gone.” Will this same person tell her best friend how much she should cry for the dead and donate to the survivors? It struck a chord in me that has yet to dissipate....

• Maslow’s hierarchy is with us all the time. Being college-educated in Western society, I skipped past the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy—the need for basic survival. Food, water, shelter. To see so many people move back to that survival level is eye-opening. In that light, I understand the panic to get on a bus leaving the Superdome, the decision to drop water from helicopters instead of landing, and the looting of stores for food and water. I think I would do the same.

• Our needs on Maslow’s hierarchy are not the needs of those lower down the scale. At an on-line discussion with fellow coaches, the topic had been how to donate our coaching skills to survivors, to put their lives back together. This discussion went on for several days. Finally on Sunday, one of the coaches with a view into “ground zero” posted a message. Having moved away from her hometown of New Orleans last year to Birmingham, and seeing what her friends and family were now needing, she put some reality back into the discussion. “These people need help feeding, clothing and providing shelter for their families. They need help getting their kids in school, applying for emergency food stamps, doing insurance claims, applying for FEMA assistance ... and these are the lucky ones…I'd rather see you show up with a bag of hand me downs or info on an area where I can get housing and a ride there, instead of offering me free coaching.” Certainly coaching will be useful to survivors, but not until their need for basic survival has been met.

• Catastrophes create a new language in society. The name Katrina is intertwined with this past week’s images and stories—it’s not just the name of a girl or woman any more. Just like 9/11 is no longer just a date. Levees, New Orleans, Superdome—all have new meaning after last week. There will be references in the future to all of these. We will all understand the short hand because we have experienced the real thing (or at least as real as it can get with the Internet, television, radio, and newspapers.)
  
  I’m sure there will be lots more that I notice, but for now, that’s enough. What did you notice this past week?