BODY, MIND, and BALANCE
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The Body, Mind, & Balance Bulletin Winter 2006 Issue We are pleased to launch the 3rd issue of the Body, Mind, and Balance Bulletin. We’ll bring you new issues of the newsletter at the Body, Mind, and Balance website four times each year, to coincide with the first day of each new season. As always, this newsletter will feature topics related to the integration of physical health and mental health toward the goal of living a balanced life. Though the newsletter will change quarterly, you will be able to access archived issues. Do not forget to check back to the newsletter more than once during each quarter as new features may be added from time to time. For those of you who have been following our journey, thanks for staying with us. And for those who are new to us, welcome, and we hope you’ll keep visiting. Contents -Cheers from Valerie Cheers from Cory Now that December is here and as we head into 2007, many people start to focus on their New Year’s resolutions. The majority of people will pick out one behavior to work on such as starting an exercise program or quitting an undesirable habit. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, the majority of us will fail with our new resolutions. While we may have a great deal of motivation, we might not have a very detailed plan on how to accomplish our new goals. It is similar to having your car fueled up and ready to travel to a new destination without a map or directions. In short, it can be very frustrating! One way to increase your chances of being successful with your resolution is to find others who have already been successful at what you are currently trying to do. The concept of role modeling has been used throughout the fields of industry, athletics, education, and therapy. In many instances, you will save valuable time and energy by learning the common patterns that worked for others with similar goals as your own. Let others serve as your map in your pursuit of achieving your resolution. Want to start an exercise program; find someone who has been exercising for a while and enjoys it. Want to be able to excel more in your occupation; talk to someone that you feel is already excelling in your chosen field. Why make your goals more taxing if it is not necessary? By using role models, you will be more likely to achieve your goals as well as enjoying the process. The efforts to achieve your goals might not always be easy. However, by utilizing role models, we can make the journey simpler as we strive to achieve them. May your new goals for 2007 be successful. The best of luck and success in 2007! Cheers from Valerie How do we define the word “success?” Put 10 people in a room and ask them that question, and I’m sure they’ll come up with many more than 10 answers, because that word means so many different things to so many different people… Of course, we have the typical easy answer, for the “checklist” type life-livers among us. Go to primary and then high school, graduate high school, go to college, graduate college, get a job, get a better one, maybe go back for more school, get a job after the advanced degree, buy a house, get married, have children, check, check, check, and so on down the list. For many people, this is the standard approach to the living of life - safe, predictable, understandable, no surprises, an orderly passing of the days, weeks, months, and years. And not a thing wrong with that approach, by the way - it’s what many people strive for and achieve in their lifetimes. But what about success for those of us who don’t necessarily fit into the above “checklist” approach, whether by circumstance, or by choice, or both? Perhaps life has thrown a curve ball into that “checklist” approach and forced someone to rethink that path. Perhaps a person, again by either circumstance or by choice, has taken a side road rather than staying on the main “checklist highway.” Do we no longer think of that “side road” person as successful? Absolutely not, in my opinion. Let’s look at the news stories from this week alone, the week of December 11, 2006. On Monday in the Philadelphia Inquirer one of the front page stories was about the growing number of incidents of school students who are resorting to cheating on tests or other graded assignments in order to maintain a high GPA. Students who were quoted in this article talked about how getting a B grade was tantamount to getting cancer! Someone needs to tell me when a B grade became unacceptable. And in this same week came the overwhelmingly sad news that a student, an exemplary student by the way, committed suicide in the hallway of his high school, right here in our local area - Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He brought a loaded gun into school, fired shots into the air first so people would get out of his way and not get hurt, and then he turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. What was the suicide about? He had recently received a report card with falling grades, and his parents had told him he would need to cut back on extracurricular activities until he brought his grades back up. The student was active in scouting and was a volunteer fireman. He was well-liked by many and well thought of for his participation in the two mentioned activities, both of which have to do with hard work, achievement, discipline, leadership - in other words, success. If we think about success, perhaps we could consider how many other meanings there are for that word. Have you ever watched a toddler trying to stand up for the first time? Usually he’s hanging onto some piece of furniture like a coffee table or a couch. He keeps pulling himself up and falling down and pulling himself up again, totally focused on this task accomplishment without stopping until he’s standing upright. And how proud the parents are that their child can now stand on his own! Nobody is telling him he can’t do it, nobody is necessarily putting pressure on him to do it in a certain “best” way. So he keeps trying and eventually achieves the goal of standing upright. That’s quite a success, isn’t it? Let’s go back to those people who for one reason or another have not stayed on the “checklist” type path. I myself am one of those people. Not always in my life have I, by my own choice, or by circumstance, been someone whose life has gone along in “checklist” type order. And along the way I have become more and more pleased that is not the case, because the side journeys have helped shape me into who I am now. Had I gone along in the traditional “checklist” style approach to life, who knows what I might have missed? Every one of us has goals for ourselves. I know I always have. But I never put timelines on any of them, like “by the time I’m a certain age I have to be married,” or “I want to make a certain amount of money by the time I’m a certain age.” I was more about saying things like “Someday I will work for myself.” I do. Or I would say “Someday I will learn to ski.” I have. For me it was never when the goal would be achieved, because that wasn’t important. For me, it’s more important that many of my goals have already been achieved, and I keep setting new ones. For me, this is my success. I’m living the life I want to live, on my terms, in my way. I also think of success, as experiencing life in the here and now, and reminding ourselves of all that we have accomplished already. We can look down the road and envision where we would like to be. Along with that we can enjoy how far we have already come. The journey may have one ultimate direction, which is forward. With each moment, at each point in time, with each decision we make, we drive our own lives continually forward. Sometimes our decisions take us down some side roads we didn’t expect. Sometimes, because of those side roads, we may need to retrace our steps and start over again. Ultimately, success is personal. It doesn’t have to be measured in money or the size of one’s house, or by the kind of car someone drives, or by how many children someone has. It’s not about competing with other people to be better than they are. The only person I think I need to be better than, is who I was yesterday. Take the time to listen to your soul and your heart - what are they saying to you? Finding your voice in the world and then using it to support and encourage and inspire and applaud not only yourself but others - that’s success. Completing this Power Program in and of itself is success. Being happy with ourselves, each and every day, that is success. It can be the most important life work. I was just sent a wonderful quote from a friend through email. I don’t know who said it, but for me it speaks volumes. Here it is: “Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.” What I take from that quote is if we own that our lives are works in progress, then we are our own lifework. And therefore we know and are already achieving success. Looking Forward To Looking Back That title is actually a line from a Carly Simon song, and it sums up how I feel about this time of year. Others may be doing the usual “stress about the holidays” song and dance, others may believe in making New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer to take a glance backward over this year gone by and think about everything that happened in my life. I especially like to review my year in terms of accomplishments. I don’t need to share with you the specific details of my year, because I’m not trying to sound too much like those “newsletter of our year” mailings that some people include with their holiday seasonal cards. I would rather share with you that the overall year’s successes for me far outweighed any setbacks that may have come my way. Any time I’m able to say that at the end of a year, well, that’s the good stuff. I think about the year in terms of feelings too. So much of the work I do is about encouraging, supporting, validating, celebrating others, with the hoped-for result of feeling happy. For myself, I’m pleased to say the year 2006 has been a happy one. How can someone go about making sure to acknowledge the achievements, accomplishments, the successes and emotions of the year gone by? The most important thing is the making sure part. I can’t imagine that anyone would look back at the end of a year and not be able to remember at least one or two moments of joy, happiness, a goal realized, a word of positive praise that came their way. But we don’t always remember to take the time to do this. So many people are often too quick to run themselves down, to not accept compliments graciously (if at all), to be self-deprecating rather than self-celebrating. I say let’s change all that! There’s the old saying that if you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else will. Of course, someone might answer back that to toot one’s own horn is seen as cocky, arrogant, self-promoting, grandstanding, whatever phrase you choose to use. But that’s not the point of staying positive about oneself. There are plenty of ways to do this without going to the cocky and arrogant side of it. It’s a simple “thank you” when a compliment is paid for a job well done or a talent acknowledged. It’s a projection of confidence when entering a room, or meeting people for the first time, or speaking before a group. Since confidence comes from within, it shows itself in more than just the outward appearance. It’s the inward “voice” that we learn to keep on the positive self-talk track. People often say it’s easier to believe a negative about oneself. I disagree. Believing the negative about oneself is a huge energy drain. Why not celebrate ourselves? Why not start with ourselves and own the skills and talents that each of us possesses? Why not indeed! I frequently find myself talking about coming to any situation from a place of strength and independence rather than a place of weakness and being needy. So to re-train that internal voice, it’s about learning to say things like “I will,” instead of “I can’t.” It’s learning to say yes to our feelings, whatever they might be. It’s owning our successes, and understanding that the definition of success comes in many shapes and sizes and is entirely personal vs. the societal “traditional” parameters defining success. For more about success, read my other article also in this issue entitled “Success Without Stress? Yes!” As with every year, there was hard work, and that’s not just in my professional life. When I look at the positive rewards gained from the hard work, I know it was worth the effort, as it always is. In all aspects of my life, there have been highs and lows, as I’m sure there are with everyone. Thankfully, the highs far outnumbered the lows, and I’m grateful for that. Did I achieve goals? Yes. Have new ones been set? Again, yes. Am I taking the time to make sure my inward “voice” is sending me positive affirmations? As often as possible, on my way to always! Taking the time to look
behind before moving ahead is helpful. Seeing where we have been can define
where we want to go next as we journey forward. We can identify the positive
gains resulting from the risks we took to win them. We can catalogue the “no
need to go there again” moments as a way of sidestepping future “land mines.”
We can go back over the year in our mental “photo albums” and organize the
categories, thereby setting the stage for the year to come. If we’re thinking
with confidence and coming from a place of strength, then we can see next year
as full of possibilities and positive challenges. I send my best wishes to
everyone for a happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season. And I send my best
hopes to everyone for an even better 2007. |
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Created: 12/24/05 |
