J is for June and for JOY!!

Joy… What comes to mind when you think of joy?  Have you heard the term “unadulterated joy”?  Take that term apart – “un-adult” –  and it seems to imply adulthood gets in the way of joy. I recently had a conversation about my own relationship with joy and this idea that I need to earn it, need to complete all the tasks on my to-do list before I can experience joy. Unsurprisingly, the to-do list is never-ending!  Does this resonate with any of you, this idea that joy is only allowed once you’ve done your chores?  When I also think more about joy, I think of children and the purity of their joy in the simple pleasures and new experiences of life – playing in the rain or running through the sprinklers, eating ice cream, learning to walk and run, building a fort or a Lego creation, sharing their success, playing at the park – the list goes on and on.  I have memories of this joy, but I admit, I often think partaking in that kind of joy is now out of reach as an adult. 

But what if it is not?  What if we can still tap into that child-like, “unadulterated” joy?  What if we don’t have to earn it but can stop and experience joy along the way, as we work through that never-ending to-do list of adulthood?  If the list is never-ending, what’s the harm in a break from time to time? This is what I encourage you to think about as you read this June edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday and embark upon the summer months.  How can you invite more joy into your life? How might joy be just the thing you need to fill up and go further?  How might you look at life through the eyes of a child and pause now and then to pick a dandelion, eat a popsicle on a hot day, laugh, jump in a puddle, and simply live in the joy of the moment?

Quote(s) I am sitting with, pondering and find inspiring:

“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”

~ Brené Brown ~

Podcast I’m Listening to:

The Happiness Lab – Laurie Santos

You might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life… more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations. You’re dead wrong. Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale — the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history — The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will change the way you think about happiness.

Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: Lao Tzu

May 2, 2021 : 37:09

The challenges of life often cause us to work frantically to overcome our difficulties – but the Chinese thinker Lao Tzu recommended that instead we should emulate the slow, steady, yet powerful flow of a river.

Solala Towler has studies and taught the principles of Daoism for more than 30 years – and explains how we can implement them into our daily lives. Things like retaining our childlike wonder, being content to go with the flow, and appreciating moderation in all things so that we don’t burn ourselves out.

You can read more about Solala’s work at https://abodetao.com/

Book I am Reading:

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

An instant New York Times bestseller

Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question.
 
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.

In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?

They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.

This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecedented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye.

We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives.

The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.

Recently, I had the opportunity to be a guest on a podcast – my first time and it was so fun!  Erika Parker Price created the podcast, Ready, Pause, Go, “the only podcast that focuses on the POWER of the career pause.” You can listen to my episode with her here.

Please check out my latest blog post, Lessons of the Run, Part IV: GRIT. You can also find recent posts Are we Losing Our Humanity? and previous lessons of the run, Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest. If you missed my May edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well.

On April 27^th,  Kathy Hadizadeh and I kicked off the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA. Our next session will be on June 22^nd and we will be diving deeper into Self-Awareness: Surfacing and Understanding Emotions.  If you are interested in joining and co-creating this learning community, please use the link above to find out more and to come along for the journey!

I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, new podcasts to listen to, so please send your suggestions my way or comment on this post to offer some new recommendations!  Your feedback is always appreciated!

            On my wedding day, we had planned to say our vows outdoors in the autumn beauty of Southwestern Colorado.  I’d grown up there and the fall was always my favorite time of year with warm, sunny days and beautiful aspens turning gold among the evergreens.  We woke up to rain, not just a drizzle, but torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. No problem, we had a backup plan to move the ceremony indoors.  Then the power went out so we hunted up every candle we could find. No problem, surely the power would be restored by dinnertime. We took photos, dashing out from the covered patio when the rain would take a break to capture the shot.  The overcast skies made the colors pop!  The power did not come back on in time for dinner.  No problem, the stoves were gas stoves and a few friends had brought their guitars – dinner by candlelight and music played by friends, what a gift! 

            This year, we made it to the Tulip Festival in Skagit Valley just north of where we live.  It was a bit rainy as we set out.  No problem, there were no crowds to navigate, and wow did the colors pop!  As we stood in the colorful fields of tulips and daffodils, storm clouds overhead, a light drizzle around us, I couldn’t help but think of my wedding day, and in a broader sense, of how the storms of life can make joy really stand out.  I also couldn’t help but see the joy of my boys as they bought me a bouquet of flowers.  The clouds and drizzle couldn’t dampen the beauty they saw. As I looked through their eyes, I, too, felt joy in the beauty I saw before me in the meeting of the storm clouds and the fields of blooming tulips as far as the eye could see. The beauty of the bloom was dependent on the rain from these clouds.

The contrast of the dark and threatening skies and the fearless beauty of the flower seems important, essential even.  The focus of our vision determines what we see and what we make of the situation, of the picture before us. Do you typically see the storm clouds and fear the rain? Do raindrops make you want to go inside and wait for sunny weather? Do you see how the overcast skies serve to make the colors even brighter in contrast? Do you focus on the clouds or the flowers? What about in your life?  Do you focus on the fear, uncertainty, and suffering or do you savor and appreciate the contrasting joy and beauty? Do the dark days make the good days even more valuable and precious?  Where does your focus lie? How can you begin to reframe the storm clouds that may allow your view to change and the colors, the joy in your life, to “pop”?

Do you see wilting flowers or the beauty of the bouquet my boys bought for me a week past its harvest?

Quote(s) I am sitting with, pondering, and find inspiring:

Don’t let the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing stop you from doing anything.

We start everything from a place of not knowing – walking, reading, dating, working. And through the doing, we learn.

We may not get it right the first time, but eventually, we know what we’re doing.

~ Neil Strauss, @neilstrass ~

Podcast I’m Listening to:

Quit Overthinking Things – HBR IdeaCast

Ethan Kross, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, has spent years studying how people talk to themselves and the effect that this “chatter” has on our performance. From professional athletes to top students and senior business executives, even the most talented among us sometimes struggle to quiet the voices in our heads. And Kross says that, while some self-talk can help us, it’s often unproductive. He offers tips and tricks to break out of negative thinking and get back on track, especially at work.  He is the author of the book, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It.

My notes:

I appreciated this podcast as I thought about the clouds and the flowers, and how our perspectives and lenses can become habits. Kross highlights negative thought loops, the inner voice, struggling with chatter, frequency, and intensity which can vary, and calls out the impacts of this chatter specifically on these areas of life:

1. Thinking and performing at work
2. Social Relationships
3. Physical Health

Uncertainty propels chatter, and we can get stuck – this seems especially relevant in the uncertainty in which we’ve been living. I often refer to getting stuck as “the hamster wheel.” Kross also notes that chatter factors into depression and anxiety.  We have a lot of time alone with our thoughts.

Tips from Kross to tame the chatter:

• Distant self-talk – giving advice to yourself that you’d give to someone else. Leverages language to switch our perspective and how we relate to ourselves.
• Self-coaching
• Temporal distancing or mental time travel – how will I feel 6 months from now? Broadens perspective and gives hope
• Use environment to calm chatter – create focus

Book I am Reading:

I have been working to question and get curious about my own lens and habits, and on understanding and taking control of changing habits, such as I mentioned above for instance, the voice in my head that often allows negative self-talk to take the stage first.  As a part of this curiosity, I have been trying to cultivate a gratitude practice and space for a more positive, optimistic self-talk.  Working to cultivate new ways of being and new patterns has set me on a path to understand habits, and how I might break old habits and ways of seeing that may lead me astray or cause me to stumble.  Likewise, I want to understanding how I might replace these old habits with new habits that better serve me on my path.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and BusinessNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This instant classic explores how we can change our lives by changing our habits.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal • Financial Times

In The Power of Habit, award-winning business reporterCharles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. Distilling vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives that take us from the boardrooms of Procter & Gamble to the sidelines of the NFL to the front lines of the civil rights movement, Duhigg presents a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

With a new Afterword by the author

“Sharp, provocative, and useful.”—Jim Collins

“Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception. Charles Duhigg not only explains how habits are formed but how to kick bad ones and hang on to the good.”—Financial Times

“A flat-out great read.”—David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
 
“You’ll never look at yourself, your organization, or your world quite the same way.”—Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind
 
“Entertaining . . . enjoyable . . . fascinating . . . a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.”—The New York Times Book Review

Please check out my latest blog post, Are we Losing Our Humanity?  You can also find recent posts Lessons from the Run, Part 1: Mile 18 – Endurance, and Lessons from the Run, Part 2: Resilience, Lessons of the Run, Part 3: Rest, andBe and See the Light which are all still relevant to our current circumstances. If you missed my April edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday, you can find it here, on my blog as well. On April 27^th, Kathy Hadizadeh and I kicked off the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA.  Our next session will take place on Tuesday, June 22nd at 11 am PST and will focus on Self-Awareness. If you are interested in joining and co-creating this learning community, please use the link above to find out more and to come along for the journey!

I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, 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!