To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven…a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Ecclesiastes 3:2, The Bible
I grew up in Nebraska and I’m a Nebraska girl at heart. Although my ancestors were country doctors, boot makers, lumberyard owners, my Nebraska roots gave me a deep love and respect for the land and farmers.
Prior to moving to Florida, we lived in the midst of Illinois farmland where I felt a part of the planting, sprouting, growing, harvesting seasons and appreciated the farmers I saw working the fields into the night at harvest time.
Tomorrow is National Farmer’s Day and an opportunity to pay tribute to farmers throughout history. I have the utmost respect for our farmers in today’s highly technical, yet labor intensive and unforgiving industry.
Affirmation: I thank farmers who put food on my table.
Coaching request: Take a moment to consider the food in your pantry and refrigerator. Think about what it takes to plant, grow, and harvest the wheat to make your bread. Consider the birthing of calves, gathering of eggs, or feeding of chickens. Consider the back breaking job of picking your lettuce or broccoli. Then, show gratitude.
Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart. Washington Irving, author
In some ways, all friends are “distant friends” in today’s world. Before COVID-19, my best friend and I always ended our in-person visits with a hug. Now that we can only see each other on Zoom or from a distance, she has invented a virtual hug for us. We each put our hand over our heart as a way to acknowledge our caring for one another.
Now, even on Zoom, we demonstrate our love by patting our own hearts.
I recently read that we are, scientifically, on to something. Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, writes, “Putting your hand on your heart has been shown to create a sense of compassion and empathy. Your mammalian system kicks in immediately when you place your hand on your heart. You begin to use a warmer, gentler tone with yourself and with others.”
Our physiology appears hardwired to recognize this gesture as self-soothing. It also creates a sense of compassion and empathy—something we all need right now.
Affirmation: I “hand on heart” you.
Coaching questions: How have you adapted to our new reality? What are you missing in your life right now?
I passionately believe home cooking has vast benefit to individuals, families, community, environment and animal welfare, but in today’s busy society it is often the first thing we outsource. While some may argue this makes economic sense, the cost and benefit of doing so cannot be measured in dollars alone. Alyce Alexandra, author
I think one positive outcome of recent months, among others, has been the return to home cooking.
People in lockdown began to cook again out of necessity. Even now, with restaurants opening, many vulnerable people are staying home and cooking like never before in recent times. The family meal—long threatened—has partially returned.
“So what’s good about all this?” asks the beleaguered home cook. Our health, for one thing. Home cooking generally means healthier meals with more fruits and vegetables, less fats, starches, and chemicals.
I believe that magic happens when families sit down to eat a home cooked meal together. Conversations, relaxation, appreciation. I hope we don’t return to our Grab ’n Go eating style of the past. I hope this is one change that sticks around.
Affirmation: I believe in the home cooked family meal.
Coaching questions: What does mealtime look like at your house? If home cooked family meals are important to you, what will you do to move in this direction?
Because family mealtime is so rare, I had difficulty finding a photo. This is from the American Cancer Society.
Grace is God’s best idea. Of all his wondrous works, grace, in my estimation, is the magnum opus. Friendship is next. Friends become couriers of grace, conduits of heaven’s grace. Max Lucado, pastor and author
In my book, Mom’s Gone, Now What? I tell Vicki’s mother loss story. Vicki lost her 89 year old mother to Alzheimer’s several years ago. She told me about her mother’s life as author and missionary, along with her husband, in China and India. At the end of our interview, Vicki related this grace-filled moment.
Vicki said, “My mom was very passive and hadn’t spoken for about two years. However, one day while I was visiting her—just sitting with her really—she turned, looked straight at me and said, ‘I love you, Vicki.’ I was stunned for a moment. Then I realized she had given me a precious good-bye gift.”
I believe Vicki’s experience was an example of God’s grace—Vicki receiving an unsolicited, perhaps undeserved, gift from God with her beloved mother as conduit.
Affirmation: I believe in grace.
Coaching questions: What grace moments have you experienced? Who is a conduit for grace in your life?
Grief is the reminder of the depth of our love. Gordon Wheeler, psychologist
In one of my all-time favorite books, The Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama says, “Sadness and grief are, of course, natural human responses to loss, but if your focus remains on the loved one you have just lost, the experience is less likely to lead to despair.
In contrast, if your focus while grieving remains mostly on yourself–‘What am I going to do now? How can I cope?’–then there is a greater danger of going down the path of despair and depression. So much depends on how we respond to our experience of loss and sadness.”
The motherless daughters I interviewed for my book, Mom’s Gone, Now What? who seemed to have made the adjustment to their loss, more frequently talked about what their mothers gave them, even if their time with her was short, rather than all they had lost because of her death.
Both conversations are appropriate, of course, but focusing on the former seems to lead to more joy and less long term depression and grief.
By her death, my mother gave me a greater sense of independence, the heart-felt knowledge that death is a part of life, and the ability to show empathy to those who have experienced loss.
Affirmation: I focus on the person I lost
Coaching questions: What is your response to loss? Is it working for you? What will help you focus more on the lost loved one and less on yourself?
Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown. In my heart it don’t mean a thing. Toni Morrison, author
I’m using my “stay at home” time to write a new book. This one is historical fiction. The main characters are my great grandparents, Elizabeth and Charles Horn (shown in photo), pioneers who originally lived in a sod house on the Nebraska prairie in the Loup River Valley.
Lately, I’ve wondered why I’m finding so much joy in writing this story. One idea that came to mind was that I’m getting to know and making friends with my great grandmother. Although she is only fifteen at the beginning of my story, it’s like having a new mother-figure in my life. To me, she is very real and part of who I am. One never knows where they’ll find a mother figure.
Affirmation: I have found a new mother figure.
Coaching questions: Where have mother figures popped up in your life? What difference did they make?
Every day that you attempt to see things as they are in truth, is a supremely successful day. Vernon Howard, teacher, author, philosopher
In the book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford, asserts that as young children our personalities are like a mansion with many rooms. Unfortunately, as we age we choose to shut down different parts of ourselves – close off the rooms that “aren’t appropriate.”
Of course, modifying unruly or antisocial behavior is part of maturing. But we usually go too far and end up with a smaller version of ourselves than we were meant or made to be.
As we reclaim the “dark side” of ourselves, we open up the rooms of our mansion and begin to accept others in a new way. We don’t have to like the dark actions of others or act upon our dark thoughts, but recognizing that we have these traits somewhere within us is powerful.
Affirmation: I will reclaim the closed rooms of my “mansion.”
Coaching questions: What rooms have you closed off? What would it be like to open them with the confidence that you can acknowledge, without acting on, the dark side of yourself?
While our friends in the west are suffering from smoke and fire, many of us in the south have had rain—lots of rain. Jokingly, I emailed my neighbor and told her my husband had started building an ark, which got me thinking about the story of Noah and what we might learn from his example.
Plan ahead. Be ready before the crisis hits.
Stay healthy. You never know what God may ask of you when you’re 600 years old.
Don’t listen to the nay-sayers. Listen to your heart and be true to yourself.
Speed isn’t always an advantage. Cheetahs were on board along with the snails and they all arrived back on dry ground at the same time.
Seek help when you need it. Travel in pairs and listen to good advice when it’s given.
Don’t miss the boat! Take advantage of what’s given to you so you’ll have no regrets.
Affirmation: I embrace the lessons from Noah.
Coaching question: What’s your take-away from the Noah’s story?
Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him. Charles Dickens, author
1. Take time to plan. At the end of each day, plan for the next. Write a to do list that includes deadline-oriented items and steps to move long term projects forward.
2. Set priorities. Do the most important things first. Periodically check that your daily to do list and activities are in keeping with your personal mission statement, goals, and values. Don’t climb the ladder to the top and realize that it is leaning against the wrong building. Set priorities that are meaningful to you.
3. Do the most task difficult first. From your priority list, tackle the most difficult thing at the beginning of the day or when your energy is the highest. If you put off the difficult tasks until the end of the day or the end of the week, they will “grow” in size and seem even more challenging. Conquer inertia. Give the project five minutes of your time and watch the power of activity flow. Getting started is the toughest part.
4. Reward yourself. Pat yourself on the back when you complete a task, especially a task you saw as challenging. Choose a personal reward like a massage, a long walk, or a bubble bath.
5. Understand that you’re worth it. Determine that you are worth having a procrastination-free life. Stop acting like a victim to this behavior. When you believe, in your soul, that you’re worth it, you’ll learn to say “no”; you’ll take care of what is important to your personal/professional well-being; you’ll stop aggravating yourself with procrastination. Procrastination is a habit you can eliminate.
6. Become extremely selfish. Ask for what you need in order to create reserve and space in your life. Space gives you the time to eliminate those things about which you are procrastinating. Remember the visual of the oxygen mask extending down in an airplane. Put it on yourself first, then administer it to others.
7. Choose accountability. Hire a coach, create a success team, or find an “accountability partner.” Being accountable to another person who really cares about your success and won’t be critical if you fail is a giant step towards eliminating procrastination.
8. Use the one touch system. Whenever possible, take care of the task before it gets on a list. For instance, when your mail arrives (snail or email); open it, sort it, file it, act on it, or trash it.
9. Lighten up. Procrastinating is often the little girl in you saying “I won’t do it” because she hasn’t been taken care of. She’s mad that you never take her out to play so she’s trying to create space for herself by keeping you from doing “one more thing.” Sometimes this works. However, wouldn’t it be better for the “adult” to choose when to “go out for recess” therefore allowing the child within to leave “the working woman” alone?
10. Get some rest. Sometimes we procrastinate because we’re just too tired to do another thing. Go to bed early at least once a week. Get eight hours of sleep whenever you can. Go back to #6, maintain boundaries around your day so you can take breaks and end your work at a reasonable time. Take time for yourself!
Coaching questions:
-Consider one or two things about which you commonly procrastinate? Be specific.
-What benefit do you receive from procrastinating? What would you get out of NOT procrastinating?
-Out of the “Top 10,” what will work for you? How will you implement these procrastination-busters or others that you may know of?
-How can you be held accountable to your action plan? If you need another person to help you be accountable, consider who this might be.
If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate. Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 92 pilot, Jason Dahl
Today, we remember the 2,977 people who were killed during the 9/11 coordinated terrorist attacks and honor the first responders and others who personally met the challenge. This day is also dedicated to community service.
I agree with President Obama who said, “Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”
Affirmation: I remember and honor through service.
Coaching questions: What is one small act of service or kindness you will give to help reclaim the spirit of unity? How does your act of service/kindness enrich your life?
Life after losing a mother 