Tag Archives: self improvement

Relax. You’re Fine. Just The Way You Are.

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Barb| 22 Comments

A few weeks ago, Karen Schulman Dupuis invited me to take part in this year’s Ignite Stratford. So of course I said yes. The title of my presentation was, yes, “Relax. You’re Fine. Just The Way You Are.” A few people have asked me to post the transcript here, which, hey! Easy blog post! The videos will be up on YouTube soon and I’ll post that as well, for those of you who weren’t able to make it out last Thursday night.

Many years ago, while browsing through the Self-Help section of my favourite bookstore, I thought that if I ever wrote one of those things, I’d call it “Relax. You’re Fine. Just the Way You Are.”

Inside would be blank…

And then someone invented blogging, so I did that instead.

As I look around, I am always amazed and saddened by how dissatisfied we are with ourselves. How we enact Get Tough policies against ourselves on an almost daily basis, thinking we need to lose more weight, get more organized, be more successful. We think we need to become perfect when, really? There’s nothing wrong with who we are!

We are, all of us, miraculous.

Alive.

Feeling.

Throbbing with life.

Every single one of us is completely unique. Since the dawn of time, there has never been anyone quite like you. And there will never be another you, ever again.

I say, let that shine and to hell with those last ten pounds!

As a Reiki Practitioner, I get to touch people. And the variety of proportions of people is amazing. Upper arm to lower, arms to legs, left side to right, no one matches. No one is “in proportion”. We are all ourselves – a unique and miraculous measure of humanity.

And in the face of that, notions of correctness and perfection go right out the window.

Perfection and definitions of perfection are an arrogant and frightened attempt to corral the wild wonderfulness of life into something manageable.

Give it up!

Let the wildness and the wonder of it wash over you. Wallow in it. Drink it up and understand that perfection is everywhere. Yes, even in you!

Whether you believe that humanity evolved over time or that we each come straight from the hand of God, isn’t it strange, after your Mother’s been through 97 hours of labour to have you, to then look at her and all the ancestors who formed you and say, “No. It’s OK. I can fix this!”

It’s like looking at a sunset and telling it to try a little less orange next time. Or telling a robin that his song is too high-pitched. Or telling flower that it needs to drop a few petals.

YOU DON’T NEED FIXING!

There are so many better things you can do with your time, your limited, once in all eternity time on this earth.

This is your trip of a lifetime. Do you seriously want to spend it whipping yourself into shape? Forcing yourself up that ladder of success? Feeling bad about yourself?

There are so many more things to see and experience. Stuff to try. Trouble to get into.

Big crazy projects to launch, just to see where they go.

Friends to discover and cherish.

There are babies to snuggle.

Books to read and wine to drink.

Ideas to follow down strange and wonderful tangents for no productive reason, but because they’re interesting.

There are old people to learn from and love (and to mourn when they’re gone).

And dinners to share, during which you tell the stories of the people you’ve known and the ideas you’ve had.

I’m not saying to never make improvements or to let everything slide – humanity jsut isn’t built that way.

Lord knows, I’m a huge improver! I like to keep my house on the cleaner and tidier end of the spectrum. It suits me.

Eating healthy food and getting enough sleep lets me function better so that I can really enjoy the big adventures when they come along.

And, when I’m out walking my dog, I have been known to break into the occasional light run. It feels good and Ruffles loves it.

So jog if you want to. Cut out the junk food if it makes you feel better. Give to a good cause if you really believe in it.

But please, do these things because they bring you joy, because they’re part of the wonderful banquet of life and not because you think you’re loathesome. Because you’re not.

Believe me. You can relax. Because you’re fine. You are SO fine.

Just the way you are.

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Posted in Happy Living

Tagged Relax, self improvement

How to Be Rich and Happy

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Barb| Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I did a book review, hasn’t it?

When How to Be Rich and Happy by Tim Brownson and John P. Strelecky first came out, I thought it probably wasn’t for me. Not that I was rich or particularly happy. In fact, I was between jobs and slightly miserable. In hindsight, I should have bought the damn book the instant it came out. Stubborn, I think, is the word we’re looking for here.

Let’s get clear on the boys’ definition of rich. It’s brilliant. We’re not talking Donald Trumpesque investment advice. They don’t even assign a dollar value to it. Their definition of rich? Having the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want. Now that’s a richness I can totally live with.

From there, you work with the book to figure out what’s most important to you. I was surprised to find that my TOP priority was happiness. If asked, I would have said freedom. But, see, there’s this exercise where you make a list and then use a formula to figure it out. It’s kinda wacky, but it’s fun. And then you know. There’s also a list of attributes to avoid at all costs. Because they will make you miserable, no matter how much you think you need the job. Yup, coulda used that knowledge a whole lot sooner, too.

There are practical tips for figuring out how to maximize your happy richness for time spent. A real, practical formula for living your ideal life.

And I think that’s what I like best about this book – it’s not about what the authors think will make you happy. They don’t actually care what makes you happy. I think they’re quite busy spending their time on their own happiness. As you work through the exercises, you will figure out what gets your own heart beating faster and how to incorporate more of it into your life right now, no matter what your situation (see, it’s all about getting more rich and happy minutes into your day…)

I don’t want to oversell it. It’s never good to make an author blush. But it’s definitely worth the price of admission. And there’s a bonus. For every copy of How to be Rich and Happy they sell, Tim and John are donating a copy to someone who really needs it. How cool is that? Plus, if you head on over right now, Tim’s having a bit of a sale.

Thanks guys! Sorry to take so long to fall in love!

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Posted in Book Review

Tagged self improvement

The Kerplunk Theory of Energy Movement

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Barb| 13 Comments

Friday’s post touched a bit of a nerve. Seems a lot of us use avoidance but feel kind of bad about it. Which made me think about energy and how pottering about over here can make something shift way over there and how we can use that to our advantage when we don’t feel up to dealing with the stuff over there. A bit like how scubbing the floor really hard with your mop can knock a bunch of stuff off the kitchen counter with the other end. Only in a good way.

You’re used to my tangents by now, right?

So I told you awhile back that I’d been feeling stuck. Creatively, financially, life path-i-ly. And then I got my Reiki attunement and things started to shift.

But they didn’t shift because I meant them to shift or because I shifted them. They did that all on their own, because other things were shifting and moving around.

As a Reiki practitioner, I play with energy. And sometimes it seems very direct and straightforward. I play with the energy in your knee and your knee stops hurting. Simples.

But sometimes it’s a lot less straightforward. I play with the energy in your shoulder and you suddenly start seeing opportunities where none seemed to exist before. Ummmm, what?

I like to figure things out. I’ve never been able to accept “It’s a mystery” as an answer for anything. This is why I made such a bad Catholic, but why I seem to be having some success as a blogger.

So here’s my working theory of how shifting energy can lead to such unexpected results and why that’s such good news for you.

Remember the game Kerplunk? Clear plastic tube with parallel holes into which you stuck a whole bunch of skewers (the set-up often took longer than the game itself) and then dumped in a bunch of marbles. Then you took turns pulling out one stick at a time until the marbles dropped all over the floor and you had to go play outside for awhile.

Sometimes the marbles would drop within the first few turns and sometimes they’d wait till the very last stick. And you never knew which it would be (though you got pretty good at predicting exactly when your friend’s mom would throw you out of the house…)

That’s kind of how it works with our energy. We might have an idea where we’re stuck (I’d like a better job, I wish I could write more, why can’t I find a decent partner???) but we really don’t know what to attack to fix it. Or we might not have any real clue where the stuck is hiding, we just know something ain’t right.

And the ‘go after your dreams wrangle them to the ground and make them your bitch’ style of coach will tell you to, step-by-step, figure out where you’re stuck and then unstick. Which probably works. But can also be really really scary and maybe you’re not up to unsticking that particular part of you. But you can unstick your sock drawer. You can draw a silly picture every day. You can go for a walk to clear the cobwebs and then delete old contacts from your address book.

What all of these things have in common is that they help your energy to flow, maybe just a little bit, but movement is movement and you never really know what it is that’s going to get the big stuck unstuck. It’s a gentle approach to your life and your enery and your tender, fragile dreams. And if you do these things with intention, with the desire to find an answer or just to see what happens, chances are good that your subconsious, that part of your brain that’s working all the time, will come up with an idea that you might just be able to use to get to the next step.

You don’t have to attack the big scary things. You don’t have to take the direct path. You can approach your dreams obliquely. Just play with the energy and let me know what happens.

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Posted in Happy Living

Tagged breathe, creativity, self improvement

Celebrating You, Doing This

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Barb| 2 Comments

Hard as I’m finding it to believe, today is Christmas Eve. I know a lot of you will be taking the next week or so off and I’ve decided to do the same. Which means that if I want to offer you another Sign of Encouragement (and you know I totally do!) it has to be today. So, Ta Da!!! Sign of Encouragement #3. You Can Do This (because you can TOTALLY do this).

Your This may come in the form of a New Year’s Resolution. You want to quit smoking or start a diet. Finally learn to speak Swahili. You can do this!

Or maybe you’re in the middle of something – raising a family, say, or looking after your parents. Maybe it’s a career step that has you in need of encouragement. Dude! You can do this! Think of all the things you’ve done before. Remember your triumphs, your achievements, your I Did Its. And use them to remind yourself that, really, you can do this, too.

Or maybe you’re about to launch something new and just a little scary. A business, a blog, a new artistic endeavor. Print this out and put it where you can see it. Remind yourself that This? Yeah, you can do this!

This Sign of Encouragement is offered with the same dealio as last time. And the time before that. Just right click to ‘save as’ and if you’d like to shoot a donation my way, well that would be super (and thank you to the lovely people who have made donations – you know who you are and I hope you know how grateful I am!). But you don’t have to.

I’ll be back here early in the New Year. I hope you have a lovely Christmas if you celebrate. And if you don’t, I hope you enjoy the wide-open spaces on the internet over the next week or so!

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Posted in Signs of Encouragement

Tagged celebrations, inspiration, self improvement

What if Life is Wiser Than You?

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Barb| 13 Comments

Success, failure and trying are the topics for discussion here. But there’s a deeper issue.

I think it’s time for another story.

Four years before I was born, my oldest sister died of leukemia. She was eight.

I was born into a family with History. And a very different perspective than probably most of yours. Adding to that History and that Perspective, a year after Patty died, my sister Eileen was born. She had Down Syndrome.

Now, when you ask just about any expectant parent if they want a boy or a girl, most of them will smile and say “I don’t care, just so long as the baby’s healthy.” Meaning not just born without a cold, but with all the fingers and toes in the right place, the requisite number of chromosomes and not one more. Which is as it should be. We want our children to get the best start in life. We wouldn’t wish extra challenges or disabilities on anyone.

And yet.

And yet I am the person I am today because I was lucky enough to have Eileen for my sister. She taught me compassion and joy and the importance of a really great pair of shoes. I learned different definitions of success and failure from her. I learned not to hold back my joy or my affection.

She had an ability to focus on the good that still takes my breath away.

Life was not easy for Eileen. People are not always kind. But she scolded the people who needed scolding, ignored those who were not worth her time and loved the rest of us fiercely and well.

A child with a disability is not what any parent would choose. We would avoid that, as we would avoid illness and unemployment. We plan for our interpretation of the best and call it a success when we get there.

And yet.

And yet it’s the times that life sandbags us that we see what we can truly become. Or what others can truly become for us. It’s the wabi-sabi people with their wabi-sabi lives who make this a world worth living in.

I would never choose those moments of crisis and grief. No one would. You make plans for happy Christmas dinners and great vacations, not gathering the family in hospital corridors or down at the police station.

And yet.

And yet without these moments we are nothing. We are merely successes.

It’s not that I don’t make plans, that I don’t try to move my life in directions that seem like a good idea to me. I apply for good jobs. This week alone, I’ve been a job-applying machine. And if any one of those tantalizing possibilities works out, then yay me! There are times when I can rock a To Do list with the best of them.

Making plans and getting things done are fine, are great. They’re what you do to fill the time between the really big adventures. But life sends you opportunities, moments that strip away your defences and your successes, that leave you wide open and heart-broken and amazed. And it seems to me the height of arrogance to think that my plans, my ideas for how life should be are wiser than that, are wise enough to rely on.

Eileen died thirteen years ago. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her and miss her. I’m still learning the lessons that she taught me. And she is probably why I cannot ever fully get behind any kind of lifestyle design/productivity/reach for the stars stuff. People say that your life is of your making and I hear Eileen’s gleeful snort of laughter.

Yes, you CAN build your ideal life, but no matter how big your dreams, I think it will still be a small life. You can ask: what do I want my life to be? But what if life is wiser than you?

If you know anyone who might find this post helpful, I would be so grateful if you could share it on Twitter, or Facebook or in any other way.