Welcome to the redesigned site – just in time for Christmas!
As you can see I have finally emerged from behind my “little cartoon me”…
I used yesterday to upgrade to Thesis 1.6 so I could take advantage of Chris’ new drop down function on the navigation bar. I believe it’s a testament to the power of this incredible theme that I was not only able to upgrade quickly and easily but I could then tweak and customise the changes to get it the way I wanted in only an hour or so. (I couldn’t have done this without spending a long time in the support forum – it is such an invaluable resource and given my tiny amount of experience with CSS and PHP, I would have made such a mess without their help!)
But most importantly I hope this redesign has made the site a little more me - and now I’m really keen to hear what you think. continue reading…
If you have ever tried learning a new skill, then you will know how it feels to be a clumsy and embarrassed beginner.
You totter and stumble, like a baby learning to walk for the first time. But thankfully, in those early days when you tried to take your first steps, no-one ever said to you, “You know, maybe you should just give up on the whole walking thing. I mean, you keep falling over, and you’ve been trying for months now and you still can’t put one foot in front of the other. Why don’t you just stick to crawling, you’re great at that!” Instead you were given abundant permission to fail because there is a knowing that everyone gets there, eventually.
But as adults, we are much more likely to withhold this permission to fail from ourselves. It’s too easy to give up if we don’t immediately get it “right”. The gap between how we are performing and how we think or assume it ought to be done can seem a gap too wide and humiliating to conquer. We have our pride. We have bizarre ideas of what we are capable of and what we are just “no good at”. Our time is precious, and we expect so much of ourselves that sometimes it’s easier to just stay “specialized” and stick to what we know we can do, rather than waste our days on something new that only makes us feel like a failure.
But we often give up right when the prize is literally inches away from our grasp. continue reading…
Have you ever stopped to notice how often you complain about something?
Think back over the past 24 hours and try to remember the conversations you had, not just with other people, but with yourself.
What did you spend your time focusing on? The good stuff? Or the stuff that really made you mad, annoyed, sick, upset, depressed or pissed off?
We tend to get a lot of mileage out of being miserable. Why is this? Is it somehow more beautifully tragic? More attainable? A tasty way to get more attention? Or do we place so little trust in our own ability to deal with our negative experiences that we have to seek out the solutions (and sympathy) from other people?
Or maybe it’s just that we’ve learned, over time, that no-one wants to hear how great we’re doing. That would be bragging. Cocky. Just weird.
We can get the same effect by storing up all the crappy stuff in our head instead, like a proud and wounded ninja unwilling to burden those around us with our noble inner turmoil. But the effect is still the same, whether you share it with the world or keep it to an internal monologue.
It’s called focusing on the stuff we hate. And it only breeds more of said stuff to hate. Which makes you talk about it more, think about it, broadcast it to others, label it in neon lights as “true”…before you know it, there goes another funky little failure mantra over and over in your head like a bad song on a loop. continue reading…
Today I wanted to share with you the exciting and quite frankly terrifying news that in the next week or so I will be introducing baby number three to the family.
Yes, as you may not already know, I have now finally arrived at the very end of that 9 month growing-another-human-being thang. I’m tired, and a little over the being kicked part. I know that this will be nothing compared to the exhaustion that comes with the “actually having baby in the room” part that is coming up, so I’ve forgone my usual 5am starts in favour of staying in bed as long as possible.
So this week I have been a little quiet on all fronts – and I wanted you to know that this, like everything, is only temporary.
In the meantime, I offer this little poem continue reading…
Have you ever had one of those conversations with someone when you knew they were not really listening to a word you were saying? I bet you could almost hear them planning what to say next while you were speaking – their eyes taking on a dull glaze as they wait for a pause.
It’s really boring after a while, when you know you’re being heard…just not being listened to.
In the real world, we tend to do what we can to avoid hanging out with these kinds of people. They tend to suck away our energy. Make us feel unimportant. Undervalued and unappreciated.
But – when someone really listens! continue reading…
I know you do it.
When you’re home on your own. When you’re certain you won’t be overheard or interrupted by someone walking in on you.
When you strip off all your clothes, draw the curtain (or close the glass door) and stand wet and naked in the steam…
It doesn’t take long before the urge strikes. And I should know, I’m guilty of indulging myself all the time. continue reading…
Have you ever watched “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (If you haven’t seen it for a while, check out this episode featuring Robin Williams.) It’s a show that combines stand-up comedy with improvisation (and I do love it, yes I do.)
As a performer, I was trained to practice improvisation as the ultimate way of being creatively in the moment. When an improviser is on form and “in the flow”, the result is dynamic, adventurous, rebellious and unpredictable – but this entertaining craziness all hangs very carefully on a stable craft that makes us – as the audience – feel completely safe, despite the chaos on the surface. This is why “making it up as you go along” is actually a misleading description, because it’s not about marching in blind and simply winging it…
It’s about knowing the rules that work and then playing spontaneously within them.
Taking risks is so much easier when you know there is a safety net beneath you. It gives you the permission to have more fun being “in the moment”, and the courage to dance madly on the tightrope.
So if you want to be more playful and free, really engaged and wildly creative, why not try using the “psychology of improvisation” to help you? Here are 10 improv principles that will help to get you started: continue reading…
Compromises. You make them all the time – humble little decisions to acquiesce that keep the wheels of life oiled and generous.
You may make a simple compromise over where to go for a meal, or what kind of car you buy or who gets to do the dishes. You may argue a compromise with yourself, but more often than not it involves a certain amount of “haggle” with another person.
I like to think of it as sitting on a see-saw, and you’re just taking it in turns to go up and down. It’s probably more fun being up than down, but you can’t have one without the other. (And it’s no fun sitting on a see-saw all by yourself, is it?)
Whenever you choose to compromise, you generally make a choice to give something up in order to get something of consolation back – usually something you perceive to be roughly of equal value. You’re happy to take the highs with the lows because you know that the ride will probably even out in the end.
But at what point does a compromise become a sacrifice?
If a “compromise” is an evenly matched ride on a see-saw between two people of roughly equal weight, then a “sacrifice” is more like a game of tug o’ war, where one side is doing all the pulling, and the other side – you – gets dragged across the floor, through the mud, over the line with nothing to show for it but rope burn and a face full of dirt.
Whether you get up, spit out the mud and walk away red-handed but joyful depends on what you are making a sacrifice for. continue reading…
Welcome to Series #1 of “Tiny Stars”. This is where I get a huge kick out of introducing you to amazing and inspiring people who are doing tiny but significant things to make a difference in a huge way. I hope you appreciate their stories as much as I do!
I love the people I am meeting right now, through my blog and especially through Twitter.
Coaches, writers, parents, teachers, healers, artists, marketers, thinkers…to those who dismiss Twitter as being trite and pointless rubbish, I say to thee – you are just talking to the wrong crowd!
I have never had more opportunities to connect with people who challenge me, inspire me and generally impress me every day with their generosity and spirit.
Take Nikki McGonigal over at Nikki, In Stitches. She is busy sewing a particular kind of tiny magic on her blog that I deeply admire. Having left her teaching career to be a full time mom to her gorgeous son, she is now days away from giving birth to baby number two. And what has she been doing with herself in this precious calm before the beautiful storm? continue reading…
