Integrate!

Welcome to Canadian Thanksgiving, 2020 edition. Do you feel like the walls are closing in?  We're experiencing the last few weeks when reasonable people expect to sit outside and enjoy it. And we're facing our first COVID winter, a time when gathering outside is probably unpleasant and gathering inside is either forbidden or risky. Our kids are still in school, but they are confined to their desks for most of the day, their worlds reduced to a few square feet of not-very-comfortable territory. It's tough in here. It's tight and getting tighter. So what can you do? You have access to three powerful tools for creating space.  The first is movement. If you can, get outside and walk. The weather doesn't matter so much when your muscles are warm and working. The skies are always higher than the ceilings, and you'll see people or animals that are sharing your world and moving with you.  The second is connection. I know that a phone call or video call is not as good as...

What do you do when you are tired and overwhelmed and your to-do list is so long that you can't face writing it all down? Sometimes I go for a walk. I trust experience (and quite a lot of science) that suggests that I will get more done if I recharge first. And then I walk away from the computer and find some trees. If I can find some water too, that's even better. I still hear the voices in my head that tell me I don't have time and I should work harder. I don't really fight them - it's like fighting construction noise. I just let them make sounds in the background until I stop noticing them.  I walk until I feel my muscles loosen and my thoughts unwind and I realize that my number one priority is not the top thing on my list: my number one priority is to remember to live each day as well as I can.  The voices in my head will kick up a fuss when I get back from my walk. But I'll be ready to calm them then. Happy Thanksgiving! p.s. I...

ThinkSpot You'll notice right away that this is not a picture of frustration. It's a picture of the opposite of frustration: people are experiencing connection and growth with other people and with the garden that surrounds them. And yet, it's also a picture of how close we always are to frustration. Our topic at ThinkSpot was Dealing with Anxious People. When someone we love is anxious, we feel blocked at every turn. It's easy to feel that nothing will change and there's no way to move around the facts of anxiety. Everyone that came that afternoon knows that anxiety is a breeding ground for frustration. It was our third spring day at ThinkSpot and the forecast early in the week predicted clouds and rain. I laughed. "Our usual," I thought. But the sun came out and the afternoon was a gift. Things do change. The answer when you are frustrated is some form of what is happening in the picture above. Breathe. Move. Connect with kindness. An...

Photo credit: Mikka H I have often sat in an airplane before take-off, listening to the safety presentation. When they show parents putting on their own oxygen masks before helping a child, my first reaction is always "not likely." It goes against all my fiercely protective instincts to take care of myself before making sure a child (anyone's child, really) is safe. But the safety presentations make a good point. This weekend, I am running a workshop on Dealing with Anxious People. Of course this means that I have been surrounded by anxious people for several weeks (it's not just confirmation bias: it's end of term at college). And here's the thing I absolutely, down to the toes, know is true about handing other people's anxiety: how well I do it depends on my own state. If I don't have my oxygen mask firmly in place, I catch anxiety faster than I catch colds from the toddlers I love. If someone else's anxiety is driving you nuts, the...

This herd of deer was very aware of us as we stopped to watch them graze. Deer are interesting because we think of them as symbols of both calm and caution. There's a fine line between mindful and anxious. Language, at least the English language, defines anxiety as worry or nervousness. We are all familiar with people who get stuck in this kind of worry and face it everywhere they go. Like deer, they regard all change with caution: all movement could lead to disaster. And yet, if they are anxious to do something or anxious for something to happen, it means that same feeling is also a mark of desire for change. Anxiety doesn't tell us whether the world is good or bad: it tells us that change creates stress (either because we want it or because we fear it). If you are feeling anxious, imagine being a deer. Imagine that your heightened sensory awareness allows you to scan for danger and for the presence of your herd. Imagine that scanning allows you to put your head down an...