Resilience and the Power of the Human Spirit

August 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Alice(2) (2) Alice Lee knows something about being resilient.  She has had to be resilient to survive this far. You see, Alice has spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, an inherited neuro-muscular condition similar to ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). The disease is fatal, slowly reducing the person’s mobility and finally shutting down the body. But Alice decided early on in life – or was she just born feisty? – that she would not let adversity take her down forever. She decided to be a survivor, not a victim. “I get down sometimes,” Alice told me, “but I get right back up.”  She means that both figuratively and literally.

Alice tested positive for ataxia in 1995, which killed both her mother and sister and perhaps several other family members, but it wasn’t until 2002 that she started to develop symptoms of the disease. Around that time that she brought a service dog into her life as a constant companion – Morgan, a beautiful golden retriever, who is in the picture, above, with Alice. Morgan knows over 90 voice commands, including “Get the phone, Morgan.”  Alice says that dogs have a tendency to slobber on the phones they fetch, so she buys cheap ones and doesn’t care when Morgan ruins one! It was Morgan who saved Alice’s life in 2003, when she fell while alone in her home and broke her leg – and sprained her ankle.  Morgan came to her side at once, and she told him, “Morgan, get the phone.”  He brought her the phone, to which she had taped a list of the neighbors’ phone numbers.  She was able to call her neighbor to ask for help.

After Morgan came to her aid, Alice was confined to a wheelchair.  She remembers her mother was in a wheelchair for the last ten years of her life, and Alice wanted not to have that kind of life.  She was determined to recover from the accident. “I’m not ready for this,” she declared to herself, referring to the end of her life. Instead of her fall being the beginning of the end, Alice sought out physical therapy and worked hard to regain her ability to walk. She was ambulatory when I met her at Upaya Zen Center in July of this year, five years after the fall.  Her smile and spirit were strong and radiant. However, Alice must practice mindfulness all day, every day, because of her illness. “I have to be aware of where my feet are at all times,” says Alice. “I have to practice mindfulness or I’ll fall.”

I asked Alice about two things: pain and death. When I asked her about what it was like to know that she would die, she said, “We all die. I just have a little more information than most people about how my end will come. I’m not afraid of death, it is a part of the cycle of life. Society makes it scary. I feel that I’ve lived 3 lifetimes. If I die, I die, but I want to be here for my daughters and be a grandmother.”

Regarding pain, Alice said, “You just go through it. You let it come to you, then go through it. It’s your resistance that tries to keep it at bay. I breathe through the pain. When I was working, I had horrible back spasms. I couldn’t make my 30-minute commute without stopping to stretch several times. I would get out of my car, stretch and breathe.”  Alice is grateful for the muscle relaxers and pain medication that keeps the pain at bay, and recommends that others who suffer from pain seek medical help in that way also.

Alice is facing another test of her resilience: Her faithful service dog, Morgan, who has served her so faithfully for more than five years, has developed arthritis and needs to retire from his service dog duties.  Alice needs a new dog that will be trained by Assistance Dogs of the West (a non-profit organization) for the hefty price of $3500.00.  Alice has $1750 already, but needs help raising the other half.  Her dog dancing group, The Santa Fe Dog Dancing Club, is holding a fundraiser for her tomorrow, Friday, August 29, 2008, at which they hope to raise the rest of the purchase price (another $1750.00) for another service dog for Alice.

Alice’s story and her spirit have touched me deeply. Alice is resilient, but she needs our help. Please join me in contributing to the cost of a new service dog to join brave Morgan in caring for Alice.  You can make a tax deductible donation at www.assistancedogsofthewest.org (at the bottom of the page, click on “make a donation”. In the comment field, please type “for the Alice Lee Fund”).  Any amount that you can give from your heart is most welcome! Let’s help Alice stay resilient!

Blessings to all.


Related Articles

Posted by admin | Filed Under The Journey, blog 

August 17, 2008

August 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

It is the end of summer, and at least in North Texas where I live, every parent I talk to is looking forward to the opening of school in a week or two. We all look forward to the resumption of a more structured, predictable schedule. For my family, this is a particularly poignant time, as my first child, now an adult, is going to college for the first time. My husband and I find ourselves feeling both happy and sad – happy that this grown-up child will finally be on his own, and sad because we will miss him.

Isn’t it funny how even working adults seem to have the school year calendar ingrained into our psyches? Even if we no longer have – or never had – children at home, we still feel like summer is the time to take a vacation and travel out of town, spend more time outdoors and generally take it just a little bit easier than during the school year. And at the end of the summer, we look forward to the resumption of our “normal” fall schedules.

The lazy days of summer are coming quickly to a close.

Psychologically, the start of the new school year is a time of new beginnings. To me, it feels like the right time to launch some new business concepts and offerings. I will be unveiling them right here, so check back often to hear the news!

And, it really is the start of the new school year for me. I am starting a three year course of study in Spiritual Direction, I am studying to become certified by the International Coach Federation, and I am enrolled in a spiritual intelligence class. Back to school for me, and I’m excited to be a student once more!

Blessings,

Kristin


Related Articles

Posted by admin | Filed Under Greetings from Kristin 

Seven Characteristics of an Authentic Leader

August 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment

clip_image002Being an authentic leader is a cornerstone of building a spiritually intelligent workplace. To be authentic is to be real, to be genuine. If we consider that the opposite of authentic is phony or fake, then most people would vote for authenticity. It’s like a counterfeit coin, which doesn’t buy us anything once it is discovered, whereas an authentic coin is highly valuable. Personal authenticity breeds trust, commitment and loyalty in a work group. Teams that practice authenticity are stronger, more productive and experience less interpersonal friction than those that are – well, inauthentic.

Teams that empower each person to lead in their own way tend to be authentic, too. I am a firm believer that any person, not just the designated manager, can lead from where they sit in the organizational chart. I’ve seen teams accomplish great things as they rally around a peer who leads and has great influence because of their personal authenticity.

So, what characterizes authentic leaders? They have the following seven qualities:

  1. Awareness and development of personal strengths: The authentic leader has a high degree of self-awareness and understands her strengths. She has developed her innate talents into strengths by practicing them and building a body of knowledge in that area. She may have discovered her strengths through honest self-assessment or been aided by participating in a course of study such as Brio Leadership’s In-Powering People and Teams training. She knows that she is brilliant when she works in her strengths, and is dull and unhappy when she is not.
  2. Awareness and acknowledgement of personal weaknesses: Along with understanding strengths comes self-awareness of one’s weaknesses. The authentic leader recognizes his weaknesses, as indicated by those tasks that he neither enjoys nor excels at. For example, some people do not perform well when asked to do detailed, repetitive work such as bookkeeping. The authentic leader acknowledges his weaknesses and finds ways to mitigate them, often by delegating those tasks to others.
  3. Values-based decision-making: The leader knows her own values and makes decisions based on them. The leader’s values allow her to make forward-thinking decisions that keep the team or organization true to its mission. Says Richard Barrett, author of Liberating the Corporate Soul, “Values are the anchors we use to make decisions so we can weather a storm. They keep us aligned with our authentic self.”[1] An authentic leader will also make sure that her values are aligned with those of the organization she works for.
  4. Integrity: Integrity is doing what you say you will do, being trustworthy and keeping confidences. You can count on authentic leaders to be good for their word. Integrity is the foundation for building high-performance teams. Teams that work in a trustworthy environment will produce much better results than those that are characterized by suspicion and a lack of trust.
  5. Empathy and respect for others: Authenticity means not only being true to yourself, but respecting others and being empathetic to their individual circumstances. An authentic person knows that all team members are not alike, and that our differences, when respected and acknowledged, can make the team stronger. Authenticity is the ability to listen empathetically and with an open heart to the stories, backgrounds and needs of others.
  6. Courage: This is the ability to stand up for what you think is right, to make unpopular decisions, and to speak up respectfully when you disagree with what others are saying, even if it is your manager. I once had a manager who complained that all her direct reports “only blow me sunshine,” meaning that they told her only the good news. She was requesting more courage on the part of her direct reports.
  7. Emotional management: Lest we think that being authentic means to inappropriately express all emotions as they are felt, we must address the need for emotional management. The authentic leader will not hide his true feelings, but will have enough self-control to respond rather than react to emotional triggers. He will know better than to lash out at others when angry, but will be able to express anger in a way that is productive, and with timing that will ensure maximum impact. A leader that expresses anger often and inappropriately will only be feared, not respected – and we know for a fact that human beings do not produce their best work when fearful. The leader who acknowledges his feelings in a way that respects the other person will engender loyalty in his team.

Are you an authentic leader? To find out, ask yourself if you display these seven characteristics. If you fail in one or more of these qualities, think of how you might develop it in yourself. Your team and your organization will profit from your efforts to become more authentic.

[1] http://www.valuescentre.com/docs/ValuesBasedLeadership.pdf


Related Articles

Posted by admin | Filed Under Leadership, Work, blog 

Change your inner thoughts, change your outer life

August 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Change your thoughts and you change your life – we’ve heard this lesson in multiple forms from many teachers.  May Kay Ash told us that “If your mind can conceive it, and if you can believe it, you can achieve it.” Dr. Norman Vincent Peale told us about the power of positive thinking.  The Christian Bible tells us that “whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.”  We know from personal experience that if we wake up in a bad mood and do nothing to change our negative attitude, the rest of the day will be full of disappointments and snafus.  There is something about our inner thoughts, attitudes and beliefs that have an annoyingly reliable tendency to be reflected in what happens to us.

This week, however, I was really struck by the power of this lesson in my own life.  We have a teenager in the family who is only weeks away from going away to college, and his behavior and attitude toward his parents is edgy, to say the least.  We figured it was completely normal, and perhaps even God’s way of making us look forward to him leaving the nest.  My husband and I have been complaining to each other about him – until I happened to be speaking to an adult friend of my son’s who said, “Your son told me he is really going to miss you when he goes to college, and wants to spend some time with you this summer.”  I was shocked that my son would think that, much less say that to a trusted friend.  Ever since then, I’ve looked at my son with different eyes.  He looks so handsome, so kind, so smart now! I give him a kiss more often, tell him I love him and will miss him – heck, I even gave him a back massage this week!  The miracle is that my son has been sweet to me ever since I changed my attitude toward him. 

What a whack on the side of the head!  Duh!  Of course, he could pick up on my energy, attitude and impatience with him, and he was acting accordingly.  Of course, there was a lot of normal teenaged hormones and the process of individuation going on at the same time, but as my husband always says, “Who’s the adult in this situation? It’s you, honey, not the kids.”  I needed to change my inner thoughts to change the outer life of our family.

Is there someone in your life who is irritating you?  Perhaps it’s a son or daughter, or a co-worker, a customer or a friend.  Could you change your attitude, your inner thoughts about this person? Could you start to think they are handsome, kind or smart, like I did with my son?  Could you see that person with the eyes of God, as a blessed child of the universe? I bet if you can change your inner thoughts, the other person will start behaving differently also.


Related Articles

Posted by admin | Filed Under Intentions, Work 

July 31, 2008

August 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment

July has gone by quickly for me, chock full of activities designed to rejuvenate heart and mind: a women’s business conference, a 5-day retreat in the mountains and a family vacation. I come back to the office with renewed enthusiasm and gratitude for my work, my family, my life.

As I look through my journal for the last three weeks, I see a recurring theme. Knowing that I am fairly sensitive to the energy and emotions of others and that I would be around a lot of new people, I sought ways to be open-hearted yet protective of my own spiritual integrity. What worked for me was picturing myself as a piece of Swiss cheese – full of holes through which I could bring in energy and ideas from those around me, and through which I could let flow out of me that which I found to be negative or non-affirming. Sometimes a visual image works wonders with our brains and hearts! It worked for me – I was able to be open but discerning. This technique helped me to take nothing personally, which is the topic of this article on Brio Leadership.

By the way, do you journal? I highly recommend it to participants in my classes and to my coaching clients. Both my husband and I write in a journal several times a week. We find that writing about our emotions and the state of our spirits helps us to process our lives in a positive way.

Blessings,

Kristin


Related Articles

Posted by admin | Filed Under Greetings from Kristin