Three Thoughts for Thursday – March 2022

March 17, 2022

Spring is Near!

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

As much as I love the season of autumn, I also love when the days start to get longer. March marks the start of Spring with the Equinox! Having grown up in Colorado, spring generally makes me think of the mud, but this year, I am thinking of the light.  Equal days and equal nights.  For me, as spring emerges, there is a sense of restoration and readiness to stretch and plant and grow, to bask in the light of the longer days.  I can feel the light charging me up.
 
My ancestors were farmers so perhaps there’s something genetic that gives me the itch for spring, to dig in the dirt and plant things, to stay outdoors longer as the light allows me to stretch the day.  I also am feeling this year, this urge to reconnect, to reinvigorate relationships, friendships, connections.  Perhaps that is the purpose of winter, just as with plants and with animals who hibernate, to rest and restore in preparation for another season of planting and growing, stretching and connecting.
 
As I write this, the sun is shining through the green leaves of the tree outside my window. From this light of the sun streaming through the branches, I feel a warmth of anticipation, peace, hope, joy, a weight being lifted off of me as if I am becoming physically lighter in the light of the sun. I feel a reminder that I have everything inside of me to grow into all that I am meant to be as the sun shines upon me and provides its light and warmth to aid my growth.
 
As the seasons change, the days grow longer, plants begin to bloom, how are you feeling, both physically and emotionally? Do you connect with the seasons physically, mentally, emotionally?  Do you feel a shift in your mood, in your patterns of being?  Are you feeling energized?  More connected? Longing for something different and new to spring forth? Or are you still in hibernation mode? How does spring make you feel and what does this season inspire? Metaphorically, what seeds do you want to plant and what will these seeds grow this year?

Photo by Joy Yu on Unsplash

Quote Currently Resonating:

“…this is too extraordinary. This is too wonderful. I must tell Botticelli that he was wrong. Suffering is not the answer. Light is the answer.”

~ Roscuro in The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo ~

Photo by Calvin Mano on Unsplash

Featured Podcast: 

I recently had the privilege and opportunity to be a returning, second-time guest on the podcast,

The Career Butterfly with host, Erica Parker Price

“Careers come in Phases. Find your Passion. Discover your Purpose.
Soar into the Future.“

This podcast is for the millions of women who have taken a career break and are ready to find their wings and soar like a butterfly.  We provide weekly insights and interviews with women who have successfully returned to work, as well as experts working to make it easier to hit pause and un-pause on your career.

In Episode 123, Bringing Your Emotional Intelligence to Work, we take a deeper dive into EQ and its power to transform and connect us as human beings.  You can also find resources that relate to the discussion and have informed my own research and work. If you are interested in my first interview with Erica, you can listen to Episode 116, Riding Your Own Unique Wave, to hear more about my personal journey.

Please check out all the other episodes, as well, as they all share common themes around resilience, humanity, struggle, reinvention, growth, and provide inspiration to continue to adapt, evolve, and grow – great themes connected to spring!

Photo by Daniel Hajdacki on Unsplash

Author I am Enjoying and find Inspiring:

David Whyte is a poet, author, speaker, philosopher.

From his website:

THE POWER OF THE POETIC IMAGINATION
David Whyte’s writing explores the timeless relationship of human beings to their world, to creation, to others, and to the end of life itself.


He makes his home in the Pacific Northwest, where rain and changeable skies remind him of the other, more distant homes from which he comes: Yorkshire, Wales, and Ireland. He has traveled extensively, including working as a guide in the Galapagos and leading trips into the Himalayas; much of his work chronicles a close relationship to landscapes and histories. He speaks to the suffering and joy that accompany revelation, and the necessity of belonging to families, people, and places. 


David Whyte’s poetry can be heard in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, the hallowed halls of educational institutions, and from the stages of literary festivals and theological conferences. In each of these disparate settings, his work and compelling speaking style are moving and relevant, transcending the confines of any individual context.  


I have been taken with his book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, and his book, Everything is Waiting for You.  His words have been resonating and inspiring me to see beauty and purpose, love and joy, and have served as a great reminder that I have everything I need to become.

Photo by Dennis Bertuch on Unsplash

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.
 
Please check out my latest blog post, The Problem of Intentions.  Also check out my post, Be Careful, Recipes and Inspiration Yield Different Results! and my February edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday here on my blog, as well.
 
Beginning in April 2021, I have had the privilege of Co-Hosting with Kathy Hadizadeh, the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA.  Please join us for April’s session on the 26th of the month! 
 
For more information and to register for the March “EQ and WooWoo” workshop with my colleague and Spiritual Coach, Katie Kay, click here. This workshop series is designed to help you manifest action towards the year you want to live, the person you want to be, the goals you want to achieve.  We will be hosting quarterly sessions that intertwine the use of Tarot (and other Woowoo tools) and Emotional Intelligence to help you and your clients step outside the box in order to take your coaching and personal work deeper. March will focus on Self-Management and planting what you want to grow.
 
If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the links above to find out more about ICFLA’s Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group and the EQ & WooWoo Workshops. I hope you will 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!
 
Wishing you a season of light and abundant planting!

Three Thoughts for Thursday – February 2022

February 17, 2022

Inspiring Heart-Work, Creativity, and Magic!

With Valentine’s Day right in the middle of February, this month always makes me think of love and matters of the heart.  I’ve been inspired to tend to the relationships around me and to consider how well I love and care for myself, reminding myself of the example I am setting for my children on a daily basis.  I challenged myself to write on a red, cutout heart each day, for each of my kids, something I love and appreciate about them. I noticed how this shifted my moods on days I felt rushed and grumpy, and how even on days I felt positive, loving, and patient, how this brought me added joy, this pausing to consider all the ways and traits and things I love about each of my children.

As I write this, I am wondering what I would write and how I would feel if I challenged myself to think of something each day that I love and appreciate about myself.  So often, and I know I am not alone, I am quick to criticize myself and rarely think of the things I’ve done well or like about myself. Perhaps that is the challenge for me and for you as we finish out the month of February – consider each day what you love and appreciate about yourself and write it down!  Notice how you feel when you acknowledge good, positive, wonderful things about yourself and write that down, too. What comes up for you?  Is this task easy or difficult and why? What if you make this a habit?  How do you start to feel? How does your view of yourself begin to shift? How does the tone of your inner voice change?

Photo by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash

Quote(s) I am Pondering:

One of my favorite times of day is when I get to read with one of my kids before bed.  This is a task my husband and I divide and conquer.  One of the books I recently read with my younger son was The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.  This quote stood out and made me ponder, along with the second quote I came across elsewhere that also seemed to fit.  These quotes made me think of the various ways we can approach brokenness and pieces, with carelessness or intention. Our attitudes can determine the outcome of how we bring the pieces together and what we make of them.

“There are those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves in a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman.”

~ Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux ~

“Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.”

~ Unknown ~

Podcast I’m Listening To and Appreciating:

Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert #BigMagic

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love and Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

which I featured in my Three Thoughts for Thursday, November 2020.

In this podcast series, Elizabeth Gilbert sets out to provide “roadmaps for creativity.”  She takes the subject of creativity out into the world to have real conversations with real people, giving us the extra nudge we need when we’re feeling stuck in our creative lives. This podcast was intended to “help another batch of aspiring artists overcome their fears and create more joyfully.”

Unfortunately, there are only two seasons of this podcast, but it is still worth the listen! What are your creative gifts and what are you doing to nourish and use them?

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Book I’m Reading:

Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

What Amazon has to say:

In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
 
Over the past two decades, Brown’s extensive research into the experiences that make us who we are has shaped the cultural conversation and helped define what it means to be courageous with our lives. Atlas of the Heart draws on this research, as well as on Brown’s singular skills as a storyteller, to show us how accurately naming an experience doesn’t give the experience more power—it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice.
 
Brown shares, “I want this book to be an atlas for all of us, because I believe that, with an adventurous heart and the right maps, we can travel anywhere and never fear losing ourselves.”

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

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.

Please check out my latest blog post, The Problem of Intentions.   You can also find my most recent posts, Be Careful, Recipes and Inspiration Yield Different Results! and Losing Sight, along with my January edition of Three Thoughts for Thursday here, on my blog, as well. Beginning in April 2021, I have had the privilege of Co-Hosting with Kathy Hadizadeh, the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA.  Please join us next week, on Tuesday, February 22nd at 11:00 am PST for our first session of 2022, The Impact of our Blindspots on our Coaching with our very special guest and EI and coaching expert, Alison Whitmire, President of Learning in Action. 

In January, I kicked off the workshop series “EQ and WooWoo” with my colleague and Spiritual Coach, Katie Kay, designed to begin the new year with manifestation in mind.  We will be hosting quarterly sessions that intertwine the use of Tarot and Emotional Intelligence to help you and your clients step outside the box in order to take your coaching work deeper and create intentional action. Upcoming sessions will take place on March 22nd, June 23, and September 21 – email or watch for future announcements for details on how to register.

If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the link above to find out more about ICFLA’s workshops and watch for more information on registering for March’s Curate Your Garden: Workshop 2 in the year-long series on “EQ and WooWoo”.  I hope you will 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!

Wishing you a season of light and love – both for yourself and those around you!

The Problem of Intentions

January 19, 2022

I’ve been pondering my own negative reaction to the idea of intentions as we begin the year 2022, and I hear people begin to talk of setting resolutions and intentions.  Just thinking about the word, intention, I feel my face scrunch up into a frown or grimace, a face full of skepticism and disdain. I feel frustration, even anger, and my temperature rises.   I had to look up the word to determine exactly what it meant apart from my associations, interpretations, and strong, visceral reaction. 

In-ten-tion: noun, a thing intended; an aim or plan.

“She was full of good intentions”

Synonyms – aim, intent

Perhaps some of my disdain stems from the fact that the word is a noun, and a noun alone is devoid of action.  Come January or tomorrow or even today, don’t we want to create action? When I think about reflecting and looking forward, I think about change and achievement and choice, actively moving forward, not just hanging out with a noun.  Then I start thinking about the meaning of this noun, and for me, the word intention seems to become synonymous with an excuse, another noun and stumbling block for creating action.

“A thing intended; an aim or plan” is the definition that comes up when I google the word, intention. I don’t want to intend to act, I want to create action. I don’t want to aim at a goal, I want to accomplish the goal. I don’t want to simply make a plan, I want to actively start walking, taking the steps, doing the work with purpose. What describes how I want to act is the adjective form, intentional.

In-ten-tion-al: adjective, done on purpose; deliberate

“He was cited with intentional wrongdoing and harm.”

Synonyms – deliberate, calculated, conscious

I want to be deliberate and conscious and calculated, but again, “to be” still isn’t an active verb. “To be” still sounds stuck in one place, to me.

What gets closer to the action I seek to live by, or the verb form of “intention”, is to act intentionally, deliberately, on purpose.  I want to live with purpose, act with purpose, make decisions with purpose. A friend, colleague, and fellow coach, over the years, has taught me the importance of language.  The words we use, think, and speak are attached to our actions and either propel us forward or hold us hostage. My intentions will no longer hold me hostage!

My word for 2022 is INTENTIONALLY. 

In-ten-tion-al-ly: adverb, deliberately; on purpose.

“I intentionally scheduled time to talk.”

Synonyms – deliberately, on purpose

I will act with intention.  I will be intentional.  I will make decisions and choices about how I spend my time, how I use my resources, how I choose my words, how I show up,  and what I accomplish INTENTIONALLY. I will not set intentions and shrug them off to have been good but not important enough to achieve or at least create action in an attempt to achieve.  I will not set intentions and use them to excuse my lack of action. I will intentionally make choices to ensure I am intentional about living my life and achieving my goals and I will manifest with intention.  Sure, intention can come along, but I will be intentional about intentionally creating the path ahead.  I will not be detoured by good intentions but will be guided by intentionally seeking, exploring, designing, generating, and producing the year I envision.

Words are important as they form the stories we tell ourselves and the reality we create.  What is your guiding word for 2022?  What words do you use that may be holding you back or getting in your way?  How might you be more intentional with your words and intentionally write new stories and create new realities?

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash