Be Clear …

I looked up Clear on http://www.dictionary.com this week and good heavens … no wonder the English language is so difficult to learn!  There are 74 ways to use that little word.  It can be used as an adjective, an adverb, a verb or a noun.  I am focusing on  definition #1 free from darkness, obscurity or cloudiness, and #8 entirely comprehensible, completely understood.

Synopsis:  If I can become clear in my ability to organize and relay information to others, if I can organize my thoughts in such a way as to make them easily understood, I believe that shift in thinking will be key in developing a clear view of who I am.  That process could help me to finding my peaceful center.

Since I started this project on New Year’s weekend, something has happened each week to focus me on one of the 40 items I want to work on “being” this year.  That event didn’t happen until Wednesday this week … as I was reviewing the 40 post-it notes I have on my bathroom wall.  Knowing that I was partnering with a new employee to accomplish the work for the day, I decided that the task would be enhanced if I was “clear” in my instruction.  So off we went and I was less then clear about my expectations.  When he chose his own path to accomplish the work, and I was hesitant to correct him for fear of rocking the boat, I was forced to acknowledge that “being clear” is a difficult challenge for me.

I am so busy trying to cajole everyone along, and keep everybody happy, that I  just don’t lay the tasks and expectations out clearly enough.  The result is that, while we get the job done, it is not always done with harmony.  The lesson for me is to become direct and get on with the task at hand.  This realization reminded me of a long ago experience that taught me this lesson.  I put that experience on the shelf … but it is so relevant that I need to hold it front and center if I make the choice to “Be Clear.”

For 15 years, I had the pleasure of living with Betty Beagle.  She joined my family on a drizzly Good Friday when she parked herself at my car door in a grocery store parking lot.  When I came out of the store … what could I do but invite her into my car, my house, and my life.  It turned out that Betty Beagle was the embodiment of pure joy.  Everything she did, she did with happiness and humor.  To watch Betty be Betty brought me outside myself to savor the true magic of being alive.

Betty was a hunter and every morning she ventured out to see what she could find.  She usually came home for a mid-day nap and then often went out for an afternoon/evening foray.  This made me nuts as I worried about her, even though we lived in the middle of a 1,000 acres of happy hunting grounds.  I asked an animal communicator friend of mine to ask Betty to be in before dark each evening.  Betty agreed that this was doable and to my complete astonishment, she honored her agreement for several weeks.   One fine summer evening, she didn’t return at dusk and I began to worry.  The evening deepened, still no Betty.  As I sat in the garden, awaiting her return … I marveled at the huge, bright full moon … and burst out laughing as Betty ambled up the drive toward me.  It was still light in her interpretation!!  The moon cast a mystic glow over the landscape and her eyes, so superior to my own in the dark, didn’t register it as “dark” at all!  The lesson:  I thought I had been clear, in my mind I was clear … but Betty saw a different reality from mine.

So to “Be Clear”  I have to start thinking in terms of 1.) What do I want to accomplish, 2.) How can a break the task into simple, doable steps, and 3.) If I am asking someone to help me, how can I convey the mission to them in terms that resonate with their value system.  If I can do this, I will not only “be clear” in terms of reaching better understandings, but I will “be clear” in my energy because I will organize the clutter in my brain.  That will be a win-win on all fronts!

What is your interpretation on “Be Clear” and what are ways that you have found to live in the moment and “Be Clear”?

Be Fearless …

Fear is a part of my fiber … so I didn’t look up the definition.  I have my own definition.  Fear is the crippling terror that I will fail miserably at something and I will not measure up to someone else’s expectations in the process, or worse yet, that I will be successful and not handle it well.  It is the gut twisting, destructive energy that dares me to challenge the status quo. To be fearless, I have to step out of my comfort zone.

Synopsis — Being Fearless is not about slaying dragons and beating up bad guys – it is about identifying obstacles and challenging myself to combat my personal fear.

I grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s in what I would consider a very normal middle America family. Yet my parents, products of the Great Depression, somehow hosted a fear based environment (albeit unintentionally).  “Be careful,” my Mother cautioned as any of us walked out the door.  “Is the house locked?” “Did I turn the iron off?” “Did you remember to lock the car?”  “Trim that bush so the bad guys won’t lurk there waiting for us to return home.”  This was standard issue.  Dinner often presented a litany of the latest disasters.  “Did you hear about those kids that got killed driving to the beach?”  “Did you read about that robbery at the gas station?”  You live what you learn and so as I grew up, I was pretty much afraid of everything.  I didn’t go out with friends because I might be in an accident, I worried when my parents went out, and I was hysterical when my Father had to fly on business.  I was sure disaster was eminent.  Thankfully nothing awful ever happened, and I marvel today that all that negativity did not attract a tragic event.

By the time I landed in Shelbyville, Kentucky in the late 1980’s to manage a downtown development program, I was checking locks, taking the iron to work with me so I didn’t have to worry about it, and pruning all my bushes to look like bonsai.  One day I walked in to a friend’s antique mall and she said to me “Nancy, are you going to spend your whole life being afraid?”  That concept took my breath away.  That happened almost 25 years ago and it is as fresh in my mind today as the moment it happened.  It was the moment that I realized I was the one in control of my own actions and I needed to get a grip.  That was the epiphany that led me to understanding that every minute detail of our lives, we have a hand in because we can choose how we deal  – we are the one in control of our choices!  It isn’t my Mother or my husband (if I had one) or my friend’s pet bird that dictates who and how I should be — it is me.  I HAVE A CHOICE IN HOW I LIVE MY LIFE!  Eureka!

Since that day, I have tried to live in the moment more and worry less; I have tried to be open to all ideas, not just cling to the ones I was taught as a child; I have tried to take reasonable risk and to challenge myself to always do my best.  I have tried to face my fears and learn from the experience of working my way through them.  Of course I don’t always make it, I fall prey to those old voices and lazy habits  … but I keep trying.

A few years back, my sister gave me a great little book called “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers, PhD.  What I took away from the book is that if you face the things you are fearful of, and undertake them, eventually you will get comfortable enough with them that fear subsides.  The first time I went into someone’s home to give them a quote for cleaning when I had first started my housekeeping company … I was shaking from head to toe.  I almost tossed my cookies on their doorstep!  I stumbled and stammered my way through … and somehow booked the job.  I’ve probably done a hundred of those quotes now and I barely feel a flutter as I ring that doorbell.

That being said, it seems there is a fine line between being fearless and being stupid.  I pondered that thought as I launched my car down my ice covered drive the other morning and prepared to drive to a neighboring town 45 miles away.  I figured if I made it OK, I was fearless and I would applaud myself for my calculated decision to be adventurous.  On the reverse, if I landed in a ditch with a bent fender and a bump on my noggin, I would chastise myself for being stupid.  It all worked out so I was fearless and happy I accomplished my task … but I recognized to be fearless, you accept an amount of risk and accept the fact that your perfect hindsight may remind you that you made a poor choice. Risk versus return!

Being Fearless is not about slaying dragons and beating up bad guys – it is about identifying obstacles and challenging yourself to combat your personal fear.  Times have been tough … and lately I feel the fear of current financial situations so strongly that I can’t function.  Now how is this going to help the problem?  I HAVE to BE FEARLESS, put on my big girl game face … and get my business growing … that is my commitment to myself and my wonderful team of co-workers.  The choice to be successful is MY choice. I am choosing to BE FEARLESS.

What is your Fear?  How can you face your fear and BE FEARLESS?  Please share your thoughts and experiences!

Be Quiet …

I spent this past week thinking about the word Quiet.  There are 19 ways to interpret it in the dictionary.  For this discussion quiet means: 1. make no noise or sound, 3. silent, 8. making no disturbance or trouble, 10. free from disturbing thoughts, emotions, etc.

The Synopsis – “Just Stop.”  That was the direction I heard when I could quiet my mind enough in 2010 to hear anything but noise.  Just stop being so frenetic and stressed ALL the time.  Those two little words probably saved me on more then one occasion from going right over the top.  So this year, it is time to take that thought a step further and take a deep breathe – every day, even if it is for a second – let everything go, and BE QUIET.  By being willing to set aside all our “filters” for a minute, we might allow for the greater good to provide some insight into a more peaceful way of being.

“BE QUIET!!” I scream to the nine barking dogs that greet me with a cacophony of noise when I come home from work.  “BE QUIET” my Mother would yell as she heard some conversation between my sisters and I begin to ramp up into a full blow battle when we were all young and living at home.  Nothing about “Be Quiet” in those applications faintly resembles the goal I am after.

I was always the shy, quiet kid in school.  That was because I was terrified of how others would view me.  If I retreated into my own world, I could be all the things I didn’t see myself as in the real world.  I could be thin and pretty, I could have good posture, I could be friendly and warm, I could be the hero occasionally.  My imaginary friends actually liked me in my world.  As hard as I tried to become in reality the person I envisioned in my daydreams, old habits did not die.  As an adult, my own little world of my youth seems a distant memory and yet I still feel like that shy, not thin, insecure loser of my past.

The big difference between once upon a time me, and today’s me is that I am anything but quiet. I yell at the dogs, I yell at the cats, I yell at the Universe for my frustrations, I yell at me, I try really hard not to yell at employees and clients, I yelled at fellow Council members when I served an unfortunate stint on our local town council … all this racket … all the time … JUST STOP … BE QUIET.

All the tiredness, all the frustration, all the twisted muscles of scoliosis, and all the people that told me I am a loser — they all vie for attention in my head.  The result is that I need to find my way back to QUIET.  I read the self help books, I have taken yoga classes, stretching classes, I’ve been to a South American medicine woman and I work with an intuitive councilor, I walk every chance I get … but I never set aside a time, each and every day, to just let everything go and BE QUIET.  Just stop.  Really.  Don’t think anything.  Don’t react to anything.  Don’t plan what is next on the endless list of tasks.

JUST BE QUIET … I think I will give it a try, every day, even if it only lasts for one breathe, maybe it will change my pattern and I can start to find a new way to BE.

Be Nice …

The word NICE has 17 interpretations on http://www.dictionary.reference.com/.  I picked the ones that best represented my intention when I decided to “Be Nice” this year.  They are: 1. pleasing; agreeable; delightful, 2.  amiably pleasant; kind, 8. virtuous; respectable; decorous, 9. suitable or proper.

The Synopsis:  I can make a choice to be a nice person.  I can do all the things that resonate with my desire to be a pleasant, kind, agreeable human being.  The challenge for me is to set aside the knee-jerk reaction I have when someone is not-so-nice to me.  It will require a balancing act to maintain a nice attitude while standing up for myself in a world of bullies and rudeness.

This week I have been observing my actions and trying to just “be”… I am trying to place the attitude, the learned responses and the ego in the trash bin and be open to all experiences that present to me … not so easy.  As I start to react to something around me, I find myself saying “Be Nice.” That seems to be the Mantra for the week so I am going to start with it.

I would consider myself nice … I try to do the right thing, I apologize for everything rather it is my responsibility or not. “I am so sorry it rained on your parade.” “I’m sorry your burger is cold; I am sorry your dog has fleas.” On it goes. I try to be fair and balanced in my dealings with people. Yet when I am sitting in the drive thru line at the fast food restaurant, and I am late, and the car in front of me is ordering for the 10 kids and a dog hanging out the windows, my thoughts are less then nice.  Not so easy to overcome all those learned responses and attitudes.

That led to me thinking about manners, and the lack there of in our society today. What has happened to us? What happened to teaching your kids to behave, returning phone calls, not going in the “12 items or less” lane at the grocery when you have 52 items, what happened to being civil in public? Where has respect and courtesy gone … and can we expect the other person to be nice to us if we behave poorly? Really?  Like attracts like, so if you are hateful to me, chances are I will return the courtesy.  This chain reaction needs to stop.

I have a housecleaning company. We clean all week, every week for lots of folks. By the time the weekend rolls around, I am ready to not be cleaning things for other people and I start to wrestle with my own neglected home. So I am plodding along one recent Saturday morning and the phone rings. “Can you come clean my house?” “Well, not right this minute, but I will be happy to give you a phone quote and set it up for next week” I respond. One thing leads to another and I finally agree to go look at the house; it is close to me, the people sound stressed.  Be nice.  I change from my raggedy morning-at-home ensemble and put on my office uniform, I drag through the snow to walk into a dirty home where the people are moving out. I walk through the house, do a very quick quote as it is clear the lady in charge wants to be done with all this and doesn’t think her house is dirty.  I give her the pricing she requests, and she says, “well that is too much, we’ll call you if we need you!” I stand there like an idiot. I tried to be nice, I went out of my way to try to meet the request, and I am now dismissed.  I don’t care that I am not going to get the job, but you could be NICE about it!  I smile sweetly, thinking not nice thoughts, and exit before I tell her off.

So the challenge is, how do you “be nice” without being tromped on in a world that has become so rude? I am going to keep repeating the words in my head and I am going to do my level best to make decisions that seem fair, and to treat people with courtesy and respect. I will do this and I will recognize that if people are rude and lack manners, they do not deserve my respect.  It seems like life is about finding balance and perhaps being nice may be one of the biggest balancing acts of our time.