Kathrin's Blog - for blog with images: https://kathrinlake.wordpress.com/

The Power of Fun

November 6, 2009

I believe in the power of fun. Fun is the greatest motivator because it doesn’t feel like a motivator at all. This is why I have said for years that while it may be important for your health to include regular work-outs, it is even more important to your whole life to include fun-outs. Fun-outs are physical activities that you do that are 100% fun, like playing Frisbee, bowling, line-dancing, orienteering, playing with your kids, or pets. Unlike work-outs you do not have to make yourself do them. It should feel the same way you felt about play as a kid. No one had to make you play. Not only are fun-outs good for your physical health, they are good for your mental and spiritual health. Participating in them can help protect your immune system as well, because you are happier, active and laughing. Fun-outs do not have to be as physically high-powered as work-outs, as long as they get you off of the couch, out and about.

Don’t think that making things fun is only a good idea for your exercise regime. You can make nearly anything more interesting by adding a little fun. Like a meeting that starts with someone telling a joke. I knew a CEO that rotated a jokemaster role at the start of every staff meeting in order to start the meeting on a positive note and help all of his people with their public speaking. I use to have a Popeye punching bag outside my office as a fun stress reliever. People loved it! Perhaps a little too much, as he sprung a leak after taking too many hits. The point is, figure out how to make something fun and it will be good for everyone.

See this You tube presentation from Stockholm, of how a brilliant, fun design scheme helped people get healthier without them even knowing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw&feature=player_embedded

Procrastination and Power

Just when you think you are rid of it, it rears its ugly head again. Those who know me, and have been to one of my workshops, know that I like to look at what’s behind procrastination. And a large part of what’s behind it is self esteem issues. So, being an “authority” on this subject, what happens when I notice that I am procrastinating again? There are four steps: 1) I become aware of it and don’t make excuses. 2) I ask myself if I have been maintaining my self-esteem. 3) I ask myself what frightens me about this thing that I am procrastinating on. 4) Take the action to undo those things I discover and move forward.

Step One

How do I know I am procrastinating? Essentially, I know I am procrastinating when I am ignoring priorities. The thing that is important (but not urgent) gets ignored while I do the menial things which may or may not be urgent, but have no great consequences to my life if left undone, or delayed. Usually the important thing is important because it can change the course of my future in some way.

Step Two

I ask myself if I have been maintaining my self esteem because I know that people with high self esteem do not tend to procrastinate. I also know that self esteem isn’t something that comes with a lifetime membership. Just like with our bodies, we have to maintain our self esteem. So, am I telling myself positive things about myself consistently? Or is there something negative happening, that I am allowing, that is chipping away at my self esteem? Do I nurture my soul by including enough soulful things in my life daily, like laughter, hugs, playful fun, positive people, art, music, and other things?

Step Three

I ask myself what frightens me about this thing that I am procrastinating on? I do this is a gentle way, as if I were asking a child about the monsters that she is sure are under the bed. I know it frightens me if I am avoiding it that much. It means that I have given that thing greater power. I have decided that it may be more powerful than me. I am not up to it. It is overwhelming to me. But is that true? That is why this is so carefully linked to your positive self image. Who has the power? The thing that is sitting there inert? Or me, who has the power to accomplish and change things? If I keep asking myself, what frightens me about this thing, I discover what is at the bottom of it. Maybe I am avoiding it because, I am really avoiding making another choice that my heart and soul wants me to make, but my self image right now thinks I am not ready for, and better to play it safe. Yes, sometimes it will reveal that I am procrastinating for a positive reason. However, remember that most of us freeze from doing anything at all in these cases because we are afraid of making a mistake with consequences, whichever way we go. If I ask my higher self esteem self what it thinks may happen if I take the next small step towards this thing that frightens me? What’s the worse thing that can happen? In most cases, my high self esteem self says, in essence, that the worse that can happen is that I will learn more. I will learn more about this thing, but also I will learn more about myself, and will be more certain of who I am and what I want.

Step Four

After analyzing why you are not progressing, you need to take a step forward in one direction or another. If the direction is to close the book on one path, but open another, then so be it. If the step is that you need more information or guidance, you can go get it. Think small. Think first steps. Think about focusing on the positive you and giving yourself more pats on the back for each thing you do.

It has been repeated many times that the things we regret are the things we didn’t do. It also is true that we give things more power by making them big, when we can start with the small. We can realize that the consequences, especially for first steps are not as great as we thought, or may have only positive consequences. This is the power of viewing things realistically from your higher self esteem self. You may want someone to coach you through this process, in order to ask you, and get the answers to those important questions. Remember, even coaches have coaches.

Do Words Change Reality?

September 18th, 2009

Many years ago I had in my home office a magazine cover I ripped out and pinned over my desk. The article featured on the cover wasn’t as interesting to me as the title, which was a question. The question was something I intuitively knew was important. It said, “Do words change reality?”

There are examples in history where words, or the consciousness of how we use them, have altered our realities permanently. In recent history, the feminists in the 1970’s insisted that we stop using titles that imply that a man is the only person who can fill a role, and started directing us toward gender neutral terms. Those of us who lived through this period remember that it was quite a hot debate. I remember when I first used the phrase “in all humankind” in an essay, I got blasted by a male professor that the correct grammar was “in all mankind,” he was later put in his place by academia, but it took time. People reluctantly started trying out new words, and everyone stumbled over terms like “chairperson” or “salesperson.” But they evolved into talking about people as being “in sales” or addressing “the chair.” We think nothing now about talking about a “letter carrier” rather than a “postman,” we talk about “the police” rather than about “policemen,” or “fire fighters” rather than “firemen.” We adapted to the new consciousness. But did it pave the way for the little girls born after the seventies? I think it with other consciousness made a tremendous impact. I see the young women born after the 70’s as not thinking twice about traveling the globe on their own, taking on a variety of careers without a thought of boundaries, jumping into technology, or playing sports, even hockey at a young age. I remember I was forced to wear uncomfortable white figure skates, whose picks I was constantly tripping on, and the idea of girls playing hockey was just not discussed. I was well into my thirties before I discovered I could wear “hockey skates”, that had previously always been called men’s or boy’s skates. Forty years after the feminist wave of the 70’s, we even have the first household name, female hockey hero, Hayley Wickenheiser. All in all, this was in a rather short period of evolution. Of course, in North America there were many other concurrent changes in language to represent diversity in cultures, in tandem with the civil rights movement.

So, if changing words is seen as an important step in transforming whole future generation’s reality, what can it do for you…right now? I am a life coach and the purpose of Life Coaching is to transform people’s lives positively. In order to do that we have learned that language is incredibly important. I was reading through one of the recommended coaching texts and found this story. It is the story of a native aboriginal boy growing up with his grandfather. The boy, now a man, recalled how rich his life was growing up. He lived in a small house by the river that the wind whistled right through. Every day his grandfather and he did things together like fishing and swimming in the river, and many other escapades in the woods. To him, life with his grandfather was an adventure. Then one day, a social worker came and looked at their ramshackle house and said that they were well below the poverty line for what was normal. He said with certainty that they were poor. He remembered that his reality had changed in that one day. Up until then, he did not know that he was “poor”, and these new words shaped his future reality.

I had my own personal awareness of how words had been keeping me stuck, the story of which is in my book. Here is an excerpt from, From Survival to Thrival:

I first started to confront the words that I had been using against myself in therapy. It was my counselor who pointed out to me how much I used the word “need.” She questioned whether I really needed something, or wanted it. This led to a lengthy debate on what were truly survival needs and what were wants, or the things we know will make us thrive. For example, like many others, I insisted that one of my needs was love. She insisted it was not a need. This was such a radical idea for me that it upset me immensely. I was ready to walk out of her office and never come back. It seemed obvious to me that everyone needed love. Keep in mind that what I was thinking of as love, was love from others. But she stuck to her guns and said for survival, we did not need love. There are, unfortunately, lots of examples of people who have survived without love. She was not suggesting it was a great way to live your life, or to raise children, just that it was not a need. Needs, she pointed out, suggest desperation. Despair. Who wants to live their life in despair? Yet perhaps I had been living my life in despair.

At first, I resisted this idea, insisting that I certainly did have all sorts of needs. In truth, I would come to admit that I liked the drama of needing, which was also connected to my procrastination. I would let things become what I thought of as a "need," before I felt motivated to act. However, my therapist soon made me see that all I was doing was robbing myself of my own ability to choose. Later I found out that the word need is of pre-historic Germanic origin, and means more than necessity, it means distress or misery. My therapist was right: it was a word of despair.

After much work, I now say things like, “I want a vacation," replacing, “I need a vacation,” or “I want to get some work done” over “I need to get some work done.” I experience the power of making a choice. I no longer burden myself with a desperate, empty wish, but back up my choices with realistic actions. I make a plan to save for that vacation (process), instead of investing in lottery tickets, fantasies or blindly running up charges on a credit card (products). Those fantasy-credit-card choices deliver the promise of a product with no process. That is the thrust of what lottery tickets and credit cards advertise: fulfilling products without process. They also make products seem like routes to happiness. That is why advertising and marketing people are always talking about “creating a need.”

In answer to the question, do words change reality? The answer might be: You bet! But a better question might be: do your words change your reality? To which the answer is still: You bet! But only when one is prepared to take some consciousness to the task, and pay attention to what words are coming out of one’s mouth now, and deciding if the picture they are painting is the reality you really want? How do you want your future to be painted?

When God Laughs

The other night we saw God laugh at our puny attempts. Every year is the Celebration of Light Fireworks at English Bay where we live. For those who have lived here for years, it has become blasé and an inconvenience as the tens of thousands of people pour in, and the streets are shut down. But this Saturday, two hours before the Fireworks were to start, and typically after they have closed off all traffic and the crowds are picking out their best spots on the beach, something different happened. God decided to upstage the show with a spectacular light show that made fireworks look trite and tacky. First, the whole sky turned an amazing orange and a downpour ensued. The orange of the sky gradually turned crimson as night fell. Lightening forked across the sky, and the boom of thunder shook the window panes the way it does for the fireworks. This went on for three hours, right through the fireworks themselves (see link to photos I am including). I had to laugh as we were once again humbled.

It reminded me of a favourite expression one of my family likes to use, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Life has a way of going sideways despite our best intentions. Some of you had retirement plans that didn’t work out; some split up with their partners; some were laid off thanks to the economy; some had vacation plans implode. When life goes sideways, and forces beyond your control are at work, what do you do? The answer is you practice the hardest lesson we all have in life, that of acceptance. Just like my lightening show, the only thing you can do is to sit back and watch, feel the emotions, don’t resist, enjoy the show, and let it pass. This storm will move on as well.

When I had a relationship break-up, many years ago now, a native aboriginal friend gave me advice from her elders. When you are feeling the pain, just let all the feelings come through you, don’t resist, feel them fully, and then just watch as they gradually fade and pass through you, as inevitably they will. Release. Sometimes we need to fully grieve and release what is beyond our control. It is not a time to show how we are stronger than all other forces. It is a time to let go. When we stop resisting and release, it naturally leaves a place for renewal to start happening, both in our hearts and in our lives. The universe responds by starting to get better day by day. The storm passes, and the sunshine returns.

Link to Kathrin’s photos of God’s fireworks:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/kathrinlake4/LighteningFireworksNight?feat=directlink

Le Tour de Vie

July 26th, 2009

I have to talk about it. The one sporting event which I am passionate about: the Tour de France; the greatest cycling race, possibly the greatest race, ever created. For the minority North American cycling fans who are crazy enough to get up early to watch it live, or make sure they tape it daily to watch 2 to 3 hours every day for three weeks, they understand that this is no normal sporting event.

Although Lance Armstrong is the individual champion synonymous with the sport in the public’s minds, we know that cycling is a team sport and one filled with everything that life has to offer. Not only is it a team championship, but it is filled with strategic alliances with members of opposing teams; many generated along the road as they are pedaling together amidst the race. In addition to physical prowess, it requires unbelievable psychological endurance. In addition to science, it requires a triumph in human spirit and poetry in motion. It has drama, controversy, corruption and struggle. It has true and deadly hazards, grinding work, bitter disappointments and betrayals. But overwhelming all of that, is courage, triumph, and an amazing tide of support, loyalty, respect and unselfishness. When you see a rider stuffing seven heavy water bottles down his jersey and grinding up mountain roads in search of his thirsty teammates in a mass of bicycles, you know that everyone has to get humble. Even Lance Armstrong this year is among a team that guarded the yellow jersey of his teammate Alberto Contador as they raced on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. No one works independently of others.

The comparisons to life’s journey and our own ups and downs to this race are hard for me to miss, however, my overriding fascination is with the interconnection of it all. The fans are a part, an active part. How many sporting events are fans allowed to jump out in front of the athletes in crazy costumes and pat them on the back? At the top of the mountains, fans offer grateful riders newspapers to stuff in their jerseys to stay warm during a 60km/hour mountain descent. Now, fans Twitter back and forth with Lance Armstrong and other riders in between race stages – again I can’t think of another sport where there is that kind of access and interaction. The excellent commentators, who are our storytellers, entertainers and analysts are a part. Phil Liggett is commentating at his 34th Tour de France – well over half his life - and his passion does not wane. Two of the commentators are former racers in the Tour and all the commentators still ride bicycles and know and love the sport. The media are a part, the mountains, the countries, the farms, the animals, the towns, the spectacular scenery, the castles and architecture, and the weather are all a part. The engineers, the mechanics, the team chefs - who borrow restaurant kitchens across the country - the police, the artists, the camera operators, the pilots, the doctors, the podium girls, all create and add something. The TV viewers who share their passion for the drama are a part. Nothing and no one is missing a place in this journey. This is as life itself. The Tour de Vie. Everyone adds to it. We always think that in any journey (tour) it is the destination (the goals) that are the purpose, but in reality it is always the journey itself. Therein lies the truth and the beauty. Our daily lives have all the wonder of an epic journey, in which everyone has a part and creates the dance. Remember to honour it as it happens, with its dramas and drudgery, your own Tour de Vie.