~ Pausing in the Busyness ~
Wow, how the weeks have been flying by! And boy is it dark here in Seattle as we arrive at the Winter Solstice! The busyness of life especially astounds me and catches me off guard this time of year as the to-do list is so long, and the days feel so short. I have found myself trying to just put one foot in front of the other but also reminding myself to look up to see the light. I am excited to share some of the bright spots – the completion of another great term teaching at Seattle University and, even more exciting, the official approval of my Dissertation Proposal from my Committee, putting me one more important step closer to completing my Ph.D. These accomplishments feel really good and have put me in the mood to celebrate this holiday season, along with the contagious excitement and joy of my kids, while also serving to help clear my plate a bit to have the space and capacity to celebrate with my family.
Sometimes all we can do is keep moving forward, one small step at a time. And sometimes, we need to pause in order to take the next step forward. I’ve learned how important it is to celebrate the wins, big and small, and to create space for intentionality, joy, and light even in the busyness. I continue to learn that light flows two ways, and it is important to let light in and to also let light out, to spread joy and to enjoy, to accept kindness, to be kind, to see the goodness and be the goodness. This time of year, I always deeply appreciate the give and take and juxtaposition of the abundance and brightness of light in the darkness.
This December, how and what are you feeling? What do you wish you were feeling more of? How do you want to be showing up? What do you want to be more intentional about? How might you put out into the world without expectation some of what you hope might come back to you? What do you need to do for yourself in order to show up and experience this season the way you’d like to? What are your typical patterns to see the goodness, kindness, and light, or the negative, the shortcomings and darkness? What might happen if you simply started saying yes to opportunity, yes to connection and joy? How might you reframe and step in with more intention and joy as you close out 2023 and prepare to step into 2024? How do you make space for more enjoyment? What will your guiding light, word, phrase, or intention for 2024 be, and how might you start setting about living into the intention now?
In this special edition, you’ll find a summary of the quotes, podcasts, and books I’ve featured in my Three Thoughts for Thursday throughout 2023!
Quote(s) I’m pondering:
“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
~ Søren Kierkegaard ~
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
~ Suzy Kassem ~
What I’m listening to:
Year-End Reflection Part 1: Intro to the Good Life Buckets
The Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields
It’s time for deep reflection as we close out 2023. Over four weeks, join us for an intimate year-end review built around the Good Life Buckets. We’ll guide you to reflect on how this year unfolded, your role in it, key learnings, and how to carry those into 2023 with more wisdom and agency.
Year-End Reflection Part 2: Our Vitality Bucket
It’s been a turbulent year for many of us, taking a real toll on our vitality buckets – our energy levels, physical health, mental focus, and overall sense of well-being. In Part 2 of this special Year-End Reflection series, we’re tapping into the wisdom of the Good Life Buckets model to help you understand how the last year has impacted your own vitality.
Jonathan shares the key ingredients for refilling our vitality buckets, along with 5 clarifying questions to ask yourself during this period of reflection. This insightful episode will provide a framework to help you reflect on the past year and make intentional changes to optimize your mindset and physical vitality as you look ahead to the new year.
Take a look at The Good Life Bucket Quiz to discover your levels.
Year-End Reflection Part 3: Our Connection Bucket
In this illuminating episode, we dive deep into the power of human connection for a fulfilling life. We explore how to take stock of your Connection Bucket and nurture the few deep bonds that matter most. Learn simple but profound practices to be more present with loved ones, keep your bucket full in tough times, and cultivate chosen family.
If you want to feel more connected, this episode will inspire you to take small steps that ripple into big changes. Strengthening your core relationships could be the best investment you make next year!
What I’m reading:
The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
By Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD
A New York Times Bestseller
What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? In their “captivating” (The Wall Street Journal) book, the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, show that the answer to these questions may be closer than you realize.
What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.
The invaluable insights in this book emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard Study as they were followed year after year for their entire adult lives, and this wisdom was bolstered by research findings from many other studies. Relationships in all their forms—friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, tennis partners, book club members, Bible study groups—all contribute to a happier, healthier life. And as The Good Life shows us, it’s never too late to strengthen the relationships you already have, and never too late to build new ones. The Good Life provides examples of how to do this.
Dr. Waldinger’s TED Talk about the Harvard Study, “What Makes a Good Life,” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the ten most-watched TED talks ever. The Good Life has been praised by bestselling authors Jay Shetty “an empowering quest towards our greatest need: meaningful human connection”), Angela Duckworth (“In a crowded field of life advice…Schulz and Waldinger stand apart”), and happiness expert Laurie Santos (“Waldinger and Schulz are world experts on the counterintuitive things that make life meaningful”).
With “insightful [and] interesting” (Daniel Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness) life stories, The Good Life shows us how we can make our lives happier and more meaningful through our connections to others.
~ A Year End Review ~
Quotes I’ve pondered:
“In the game of life, what I’m solving for is regret minimization. . .I want the highest score in net fulfillment.”
~ Bill Perkins ~
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~ Jack Kornfield
Confucius once said, “A seed grows with no sound, but a tree falls with a huge noise. Destruction has noise, but creation is quiet. This is the power of silence. Grow silently.”
“Every experience we have reveals to us a word in the language of our own wisdom which we are here to discover one experience at a time. And when we resist that we can’t understand our experience, we can’t understand each other. Suffer means to feel keenly. To feel joy, we have to feel keenly.” ~ Mark Nepo
“I look at the human life like an experiment. Every new moment, every new experience, tragic or otherwise, is an opportunity to gain a more accurate perspective and helps lead to clarity.”
~ Steve Gleason
“In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person can’t switch gears. It’s a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because they are almost always the same thing.”
~ Steve Jobs
Destroy the idea that you have to be constantly working or grinding in order to be successful. Embrace the concept that rest, recovery, and reflection are essential parts of the programs toward aa successful and ultimately happy life.” ~Author Unknown
“Hustle
Align
“I ate a food I really like
I laughed with a friend
I picked up a phone call
I wrote a poem
I put on my makeup
I slept for nine hours straight
I don’t always get
To be kind to myself,
But when I do,
It’s always these little things
That if I don’t list them down
Might just go unnoticed.”
~The Clumsy Lass
“A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.”
~ Jorge Luis Borges
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Life is lived in the first twenty years, and the remainder is just a reflection.” ~ Graham Greene
“Everyone succumbs to finitude. …Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest; a chasing after wind, indeed.” ~ Paul Kalanithi
What I’ve listened to:
Optimizing Life for Maximum Fulfillment, Episode #237, The Drive with Peter Attia
How to Expand Time & Increase Happiness with Cassie Holmes, The Good Life Project, Hosted by Jonathan Fields
The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman, Martin Seligman || From Learned Helplessness to Learned Hopefulness, Episode 208, June 3, 2020
The Good Life Project: More than Enough with Elaine Welteroth, June 21, 2020, Hosted by Jonathan Fields
Transcending our Stories, Eckhart Tolle: Essential Teachings, June 9, 2021
The Perfectionism Project, With Sam Laura Brown, Episode 165: 5 Practical Tips to Stop Being A People Pleaser
The Mel Robbins Podcast, Turn Anxiety Into Power: A 3-Step Process to Master Your Emotions with Dr. Luana Marques
First Person Plural: EI and Beyond with Daniel Goleman, Episode: Richard Davidson: Stress and the Brain
First Person Plural: EI and Beyond with Daniel Goleman, Purpose: A Light in the Darkness
What I’ve read:
Resonate: Zen and the Way of Making a Difference By Ginny Whitelaw
The Midnight Library By Matt Haig
Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization By Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.
Coming Alive: 4 Tools to Defeat Your Inner Enemy, Ignite Creative Expression & Unleash Your Soul’s Potential By Barry Michels and Phil Stutz
Facing the Mountain By Daniel James Brown
The Instruction: Living the Life Your Soul Intended By Ainslie MacLeod
Willpower Doesn’t Work: Discover the Hidden Keys to Success By Benjamin Hardy
My Name is Lucy Barton By Elizabeth Strout
Olive Kitteridge By Elizabeth Strout
A Very Punchable Face By Colin Jost
The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life’s Direction and Purpose By Oprah Winfrey
When Breath Becomes Air By Paul Kalanithi
~
You can sign up to receive my Three Thoughts for Thursday post as an email on the third Thursday of every month by clicking here. If you’ve missed any of my Three Thoughts, you can find them all on my blog. If you enjoyed this post, take a look at November’s Three Thoughts and my post, The Climb. You may also be interested in my four-part Lessons of the Run series – Endurance, Resilience, Rest, and Grit.
If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, I also offer leadership and emotional intelligence coaching and workshops. You can find more information on my website, or you can use this link to set up a free 30-minute introduction to coaching session.
Earlier this year, I celebrated the 5th anniversary of my stroke with the writing of this commemorative post, a training run, flowers, pie, and special time with my kids. I continued the celebration by running the Boston Marathon in April, five years after I ran the course for the first time (six weeks after my stroke). Please join me in celebrating these milestones by taking time to celebrate your own milestones and by fully embracing the opportunities in front of you, the value in the little things, and the beauty that surrounds you in this wonderful, messy life.
Last September, I hosted my first local, in-person event here in the Seattle area, Savor the Sweetness. I hosted the event again and had a different but equally fulfilling experience; I think I will be making this an annual event! Contact me for more information or to join the invite list!
I have the privilege of hosting the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA. We closed out this year’s sessions on October 24th with guest, Kevin Bush of Teams and Leaders, as he shared with us how we can better Navigate Reactionary Situations and Employ Empathy in the Workplace, and continue the EI learning journey. You do not need to be a coach or a member of ICFLA to attend these sessions. Please join me for our sessions in 2024!
If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the links above to learn more about ICFLA’s Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group and the Women’s Events. I hope you will come along for the journey!
I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, and new podcasts to listen to, so please send your suggestions my way or comment on this post to offer some new recommendations!
As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!
Wishing you a season of reflections, cozy conversations, nourishment for your mind, body, and soul, and joy! May you create space in the hustle for enjoyment and rest. I am continuously grateful for you! Thank you for being a part of my journey!
Desiree Briel Rodi Consulting & Coaching 
[…] my Three Thoughts, you can find them all on my blog. If you enjoyed this post, take a look at December’s Three Thoughts, which includes a recap of the year in each category. Take a look at my post, The Climb. You may […]
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