Brio Leadership

Thanksgiving, which we celebrated in the US yesterday, is a celebration of God’s abundance – a time to give thanks for the harvest and for the many blessings in our lives.  Today is the day after Thanksgiving, called in the popular press "Black Friday" because of the multitude of people who will descend on stores in hopes of finding a good bargain. For me, today is a day of reckoning and of anticipation. I am reckoning with the tightness of my jeans this morning, with all the leftover food in our refrigerator and the memory of spending all day in the kitchen yesterday. The words of my husband, who exclaimed last night as he was cleaning up after our extravagant feast, "This seems wasteful – why do we do this every year?" echo through my mind.

I didn’t have the words to answer my husband last night, but now I do: I reckon that for me to spend one day a year in the kitchen creating food for my family and friends is a creative and worthy endeavor.  For me, preparing an extravagant Thanksgiving feast is a labor of love.  It is a way to honor the memory of my mother, who was commander-in-chief of my birth family’s holiday feasts and celebrations.  It is a way of celebrating God’s abundance, blessings and the love that I am so fortunate to share with my amazing family. This is why we do this every year.  To do any less would seem, well, less abundantly thankful.

I am not against making Thanksgiving simpler, and I may be moved to do so in the future.  For now, this is what feels right.

Today is also a day of anticipation of the coming holiday season. Many of you have already been out in the stores, snatching up a bargain and working on that Christmas life of gifts.  For many, however, this Christmas will be a lean one, due to lay-offs, slow-downs and reduced revenues caused by an economy that seems to careen from one disaster to the next. Instead of focusing only on gift lists, Christmas cards and the business of the season, take some time today to anticipate how you will find meaning this holiday season. In addition to preparing a budget for your holiday gift spending, make a budget for participating in fulfilling holiday experiences, many of which cost no or little money.

What will bring you the most satisfaction during this holy time of Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah and the Solstice?  How will you honor the birth of the Christ child and the return of the Light within you this season?

• Will you re-commit to your personal prayer or meditation practice and be more faithful to it?
• Will you attend a retreat or special religious service that connects you with the real meaning of the season?
• Will you participate in a service project, either at your place of worship or in the community?
• Will you contribute money to the causes and charities that mean the most to you?
• Will you find some time in every day to listen for the still, small voice of God in your life?
• Will you attend a concert, ballet, play or Christmas pageant that brings joy to your heart?
• Will you bake a family recipe and deliver it to a friend?

Take some time today to reckon and anticipate.  Take a reckoning of where you are right now, in all aspects of your life.  Then, anticipate how you will celebrate the true meaning of the holiday season.

Beauty feeds the soul.  It is important to recognize this and incorporate beauty into your everyday life.  Beauty can be visual, auditory or tactile.  It can be found in nature, in your home, in your leisure activities and at work.  Because our inner life is reflected in our outer life and vice versa, the environment that we attract and create around us is a mirror of the beauty inside of us.

I was reminded of the need for beauty at a symphony concert last night.  Classical music is a testimony to the highest emotions and spiritual yearnings of a human being. So much of classical music is religiously inspired or is the composer’s attempt to express his/her life’s meaning in the midst of its joys and sorrows. Listening to classical music, especially instrumental music, is the equivalent of reading a book vs. seeing a movie of the same book.  The music invokes your imagination and emotions just like a book does, but it does not proscribe the visual images that you create with it. That is up to you.

Visual art also reflects the artist’s attempt to express his/her highest self amidst human frailty.  I need to view art on a regular basis to feed my soul.  In fact, I need some in my home. Nature is another form of beauty that is vital to the nourishment of our souls.  Many people crave the sensory beauty of nature because in nature comes their most poignant connection to Source.

We need to incorporate beauty in everyday life.  To some, that may mean preparing a beautiful meal every night.  To others, it may mean wearing beautiful, stylish clothes.  Or it may mean savoring a good glass of wine or beer. Or creating a beautiful home and garden, or bringing in a flower arrangement into the home or office every week.  To some women, it may mean getting her fingernails done every other week. Thank goodness there is an endless variety of how humans can seek beauty.  This diversity of tastes and preferences results in the rich and varied world around us.

Everything that we experience in this human body is spiritual, so our quest for beauty to feed our souls is a spiritual pursuit.  Contrary to what you may have learned as a child, our whole body experience is God-given and everything about it is designed to provide joy and pleasure, and also challenges and learning opportunities. 

Where does our search for beauty become ego-based and not spiritual?  There is a fuzzy line between yearning for beauty to feed our soul and yearning for more and more things because of a need for prestige or social standing.  When does the need for beauty turn the corner into a want for more? 

Each person must examine their own values and motives in seeking beauty.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting a beautiful house, car, clothing and other accoutrements of the abundant life. If your motive, deep inside, is to acquire more for show or prestige, then that is a want or a grasping.  However, if your deepest motive is to seek beauty in order to live large and abundantly or to seek pleasure in love, then it is a pure desire.  A puritanical approach to abundance, in which you eschew pleasure or worldly possessions to be a good person in God’s eyes, serves no one, including God.  Again, God wants you to experience beauty, pleasure and abundance, because those are integral parts of the human experience – the human experience that God and your soul co-created for you.

And, because no life is without suffering, the experience of beauty provides a contrast to the experience of pain.  In the midst of pain, the most comforting moment can be the recognition of beauty and pleasure – a reminder that life is never all bad.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! I hope that you are able to find many things to be thankful for next week as you celebrate this US holiday in your own fashion. Please visit my post on gratitude to discover the benefits of practicing an attitude of gratitude and appreciation in your life.

My family and I will give thanks for our family (we really do enjoy each other immensely!) and for the small group of friends that will gather around our table for a traditional turkey dinner next Thursday.

Because I would rather stick needles in my eyes than venture out to shop on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I plan to sleep in that morning, have a quiet day at home and perhaps go to a concert that evening with friends.

However you plan to celebrate, make time for counting your blessings and noticing all the good things that come to you!

Blessings,

Kristin

It may seem like an odd time to be discussing practicing gratitude. The economy is a mess. Thousands of employees have been or are facing the possibility of being laid-off, outsourced or cut-back. Because of the uncertainty, many families anticipate drastically reduced spending on holiday extras such as presents and vacation travel.

Now, more than ever, is the best time to practice gratitude.

Why should you be grateful when it seems like things are at their worst? According to recent research[1], the practice of gratitude and appreciation can make you happier – and who doesn’t want to be happier, especially now? There are several reasons that gratitude makes you cheerier. Gratitude directs your thoughts to the positive aspects of living, so instead of concentrating on the dismal reports you read everyday in the newspaper or hear on the news, you concentrate on good news. A daily practice of gratitude, such as keeping a gratitude journal or “counting your blessings”, helps you live more consciously because it forces you to pay attention to what happens in everyday life. Gratitude and appreciation helps you stay in the present moment, because to notice blessings you have to block out worries about the future and regrets from the past. And, although this is not scientifically proven, counting your blessings seems to increase the good things that happen to you, if only because you are more attentive to them.

Lastly, if you want to keep your job, finding a way to be happy is a good idea. In a Harvard Business Review article from June 2005, authors Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo found that managers tend to favor competent and likable people over more competent but less lovable workers. Happier people are generally more likable and more enjoyable to work with than the opposite. In deciding who to lay-off and who to keep, it may be the workers who keep a positive outlook that managers view more favorably.

Here are some ways to practice gratitude and appreciation in your life:

• Keep a gratitude journal. Noticing and writing about the blessings in your life is a great way to keep your antenna tuned to the positive. You might discipline yourself to notice something new to give thanks for everyday – not just the same old things like your family, your home and your job. In my journal, I draw a star next to each entry on my list of appreciations. The stars draw attention to the things I’m grateful for.
• Give thanks in prayer or meditation. Some people incorporate gratitude into a daily prayer or meditation practice. An elderly friend once told me, “You just get down on your knees every night – right there next to your bed – and give thanks for all your blessings.” I’ve always remembered her words.
• Notice and remember Kodak moments. Remember the commercial about capturing “Kodak moments” by photographing them? Kodak moments are those memories that make you smile; they are moments of great happiness or fleeting appreciation. You might notice moments from your family life, you might notice the color of a tree’s leaves, a hawk slowly circling in the sky or a beautiful sunset. Observe the feelings you experience in that moment. Live with your eyes and heart wide open, looking for beauty and grace everyday. Take time to savor your Kodak moments as you notice them, and then write about them later in your gratitude journal.
• Notice and remember synchronicities. Synchronicities are coincidences that are moments of grace. An example of a synchronicity is when you think about someone and then receive an email or phone call from that person. I experienced a synchronicity today – I just happened to be working on my computer early this morning (Sunday) when a reminder for an unusual morning meeting popped-up on my screen. I had totally forgotten about my commitment, and if I hadn’t been at my computer I would have missed the meeting. I wrote about it in my journal, giving thanks for being able to keep my commitment to the people I met with.
• Appreciate others. Make a habit of noticing what other people are doing, and provide them sincere appreciation when they do something well or noteworthy. If you are a manager, you might write a note to one of your employees about something they did that you appreciate. Mail it to their home address so they can share your message with their family. Another way to appreciate others is to simply say thank you and acknowledge the good job that person is doing. My husband plays in a professional orchestra and went for years without hearing any feedback from the conductor. When the maestro finally told him that he had done a good job, my husband was ecstatic that someone had finally noticed his dedication and good results. A little appreciation makes both you and the person you notice feel great!

This Thanksgiving, give thanks for all the blessings in your life, and vow to start practicing an attitude of gratitude everyday. You’ll be glad you did!

[1] “Authentic Happiness”, Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D. Dr. Seligman has conducted numerous studies on positive emotions and finds that gratitude is one practice that helps people increase happiness.

Everyday Mystic @ Work is now Brio Leadership

The freedom we have as entrepreneurs in the twenty-first century is glorious! We have the freedom to design our own destiny, to create new businesses, to dream big or small or in-between. And we have the freedom to change our minds and the names of our businesses. I exercised that freedom last week by changing the name of my new business to Brio Leadership. The reason for the change springs out of several synchronicities I’ve been recently blessed with. (I believe that the Divine communicates with us in direct and indirect ways, and that there are no coincidences, only synchronicities.) Over the past six weeks, several people have lovingly questioned me about the name “Everyday Mystic @ Work” by asking, “Don’t you think that the word mystic is misunderstood and could create a barrier for some of your prospective clients?” It all culminated on a plane ride home about ten days ago, when I just knew- that it was time to change the name – I was tired of defending it.

So, with a little help from my friends last week, I set about brainstorming a new company name and fell in love with Brio Leadership. Brio, Italian for “spiritedly and lively”, has been a word that I’ve been fond of ever since I started my first business, KR Consulting. When looking for a name for that business, I pondered the musical term “con brio”, which means “with spirit”. (I trained as a classical musician in my youth.) At the time, I couldn’t make “con brio” fit into a business name so I rejected it. Finally, I am able to consecrate my love for this Italian word by incorporating it into the name of my business.

Welcome to Brio Leadership, where we are dedicated to helping individuals and teams transform their lives by integrating spiritual values into their lives and workplaces.

Blessings,
Kristin

In a previous post, I made some suggestions for acting in love during the current economic crisis.  I’d like to expand the discussion and create a more comprehensive list of tips for shifting to love when you feel fear gaining hold in your mind, spirit or body.

First, the fear/love choice is like this famous optical illusion – if you look hard at the picture of your life, you see the young lady but if you soft focus your gaze you see another image, the old lady. The same can be said about fear and love.  When faced with a difficult situation, our brain will glom onto the first perspective it can grasp (usually fear), but if we consciously look for another perspective, we can find it. 

Here are some suggestions for choosing love:

• The heavenly perspective.  I’ve already blogged about it, and it is my personal favorite this month. Let me know how it works for you!
• Take time to meditate and pray each day.  My friend Mariel writes down a verse from scripture or from some other inspiring source and keeps that small piece of paper in her pocket all day to remind her of the divine love that continually surrounds her.
• Practice gratitude.  Keep a gratitude journal.  Notice and appreciate all the little things to be grateful for in your life.
• Notice synchronicities in your life.  They happen all the time.  For example, yesterday, I was racing out of the office for an appointment, and when I picked up my purse, a small voice immediately reminded me that my wallet was in another room.  I snatched my wallet and ran out the door, thanking the angel that prevented me from forgetting a very important item.
• Silently bless the people you encounter during the day.  Pray for people you are about to meet with or work with.  Notice how that practice affects the quality of your interaction with that person.

There are so many more ideas.  I open it up to your comments and suggestions.  How do you choose love instead of fear?