I had the pleasure of attending the Senior Awards night at my daughter’s high school (congratulations Alana).  I was so touched by the whole event and impressed by the teachers for taking the time to say personal words about each student.  But what really made me happy was to hear the description of the effort and passion demonstrated that earned each their award. I have written before about the Growth Mindset (Carol Dweck’s work on the importance of rewarding effort) but it was such a delight to see it in action.  It got me thinking about awards, effort, and life’s great challenges.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all give out awards when merited?  All around us are prize winning efforts that so frequently go unnoticed or unappreciated for the great feats they truly are. Thousands of people are devoted caregivers for people they love.  Grandparents are stepping up to parent when a child is unable. Noble employers make the extra effort to help a struggling employee. I am very sure most all of us have had to bear some burden that we worked so  hard to get through. We did it because it needed to get done. We did it in hope for a better life for ourselves or someone we love. We did it quietly, we did it with little recognition, and maybe we even failed at times along the way.  But we kept going. We picked ourselves up after a relapse or apologized after an outburst.

Every day I have the honor of privately witnessing people working extremely hard to overcome hardship.  I would love to hand out a $1000 scholarship to the woman who left her abusive husband despite her fears and self doubt; a Safeway gift card to the 15 year old  boy who makes dinner for himself and his mother each day and keeps her company to watch movies as she lays in bed disabled from terminal cancer; and a medal of courage to the man who shared with me about being molested by his father, enduring the shame in order to overcome his crippling anxiety.  It is hard work to change one’s fate and break the cycles of neglect, abuse, or poverty. I wish there was a way to publicly award these private efforts.

It’s so hard to take responsibility for our behavior when we need to.  But something I have really learned that still surprises me, is how it can be even harder to give ourselves credit when we deserve it in these quiet moments of personal growth or recovery.  After years of self doubt, criticism, and shame, it can be equally hard for some people to tell themselves they are wonderful, deserving, or even lovable.

For every moment in the spotlight for the awards last night, there were many more moments of fear and failure, including for my own daughter.  It really is in these moments of perseverance that we must see each other and witness the bravery and effort by reflecting it in our appreciation  and praise. While I wish I could give out scholarships and gift cards, I have to remember, even in my own development, that being truly seen in the moments when I thought no one noticed, or when I could not see my own goodness, felt just as affirming as the card on my birthday or the plaque on the wall.  We do have the power to give out awards each and every day if we take the time to witness the quietly deserving and affirm the goodness of well intentioned effort.

While I usually post on Mondays, today is my first Mother’s Day ever without my mom to share it with.  While I’m so lucky to be the mother of two wonderful daughters, there is, along with much joy, an emptiness. I know I’m certainly not alone today in this ache of ambivalence and wanted to reach out to anyone else who might feel the same way.

It’s easy to be swept up in the Hallmark traditions of how things should be on a day like today – brunches with bright flowers and colorful napkins accompanied by cards with thoughtful expressions of appreciation. These expectations create burdens when we don’t feel up to it all or don’t have the people or quality of relationships in our lives, thinking everyone else in the world does.

There are so many ways in which someone around us might need some comforting today.  Besides the passing of a mother, many people have lost children. I often wondered what it was like for my own mother on Mother’s Day to experience the pain from the death of her child  She was a person who didn’t express herself in this way very much, but I know her pain was profound. And then there’s the pain of conflict, wanting a better relationship with a mother or child, or wanting contact at all when there’s estrangement.  Or the pain of infertility. While we celebrate motherhood, many people silently long for the chance for this loving opportunity, mourning a very private loss.

Growing up, my mother thought I was “too sensitive.”   I heard it so many times I might have thought it was my name.  We were very different types of people; not that we didn’t love each other, but I often wished for more understanding between us.  But she loved me and supported me as best she could and now that I am a mother of young women, I understand better how easy it is to miss the mark, even when you try your best.  And at the end of her life, when she came to live with me in her dependent and disabled decline from her disease, we had a good laugh about how it was a good thing for her I was so sensitive.  While those years of her disease were so very tragic and difficult, I’m now deeply grateful for the opportunity for that time together.

There is something about pain and even tragedy that opens us.  My mother and I did indeed grow closer through the oppression of her disease.  She had become so physically disabled, her pride and insistence on independence could no longer keep up with the degree of the needs she had.  When she had to be fed, dressed, and transferred, a humility emerged that allowed her to let down her guard, just enough to be cared for. It was the closest I felt to her, and I am hoping her to me.  While I like to remember her physically in her more healthy days, I hold on to the tenderness I experienced between us in the last year, especially.

So if you are feeling pain this Mother’s Day, please accept my invitation to honor this pain.  It’s the manifestation of a longing for the love so essential to our sense of purpose and well being. You have my complete permission to turn off your phone and avoid the Facebook posts and memes, sent with good intentions of course.  Listen to your desire, give expression to what you feel. While it may be difficult and exhausting, it is an experience of love no less beautiful than any other. If there is one thing I am sure of in my 54 years of being a daughter and near 21 years of being a mother, is that there is no right way of doing and no right way of being.  It is the precious moments of authenticity, while not at all like the Hallmark expectations predict, that most matter and endure.

May your Mother’s Day be full of love, in whatever form it comes.

My younger daughter is getting ready to graduate high school and the empty nest has been on my mind.  It definitely will be a big change after having a child at home for 21 years (between my elder and younger).  As the time approaches for her departure, it seems that everyone has opinions about how to navigate the transition back to “couple.”  What stands out to me in this vast array of advice is a common theme of attitude and proactivity. As I reflect on how to apply this, it occurs to me how the same advice to couples could apply to strengthen any relationship at any point in time.  Whether with family or friends, my decisions to give people the benefit of the doubt or look for the ways they hurt me is really up to me.

In his book, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, marriage expert John Gottman suggests that strong couples find “the glory” in their marriages.  Rather than denying the rocky times, they derive strength and meaning from the hardships they have survived and the doubts they worked through.  The way they tell their story is not with bitterness or blame, but in a way that reaffirms their faith in eachother and their partnership. And while these couples acknowledge that things went wrong, they are more forgiving and generalized about why they did.  Rather than focusing on their partner’s personality as being the source of the problem, they generalize it to an unfortunate incident. If you attack your partner’s character, you are more likely to stir a toxic judgmental dynamic as opposed to expressing a dissatisfaction with a forgivable mistake.  

And of course, just as in child rearing, praise and positive expressions are far more effective than criticism.  And a little can go a very long way. Research shows that non-verbal small expressions of love, such as an approving smile or even just leaning in toward someone, can have a powerful effect on reinforcing a sense of love and caring and help repair the chipping away of commitment that can happen over time.  It seems easier to notice what someone does wrong or forgets to do rather than what they regularly do. Habituation, or getting used to what is normal and predictable, has a natural way of making us take each other for granted.

And recently, someone reminded me of the Five Love Languages.  In the book by Gary Chapman, he outlines basic ways in which people tend to give love:  quality time; gifts; acts of service; words of affirmation; and physical touch. Each of us has a preferred way of receiving love, and in turn, it tends to be how we show it.  By identifying patterns in our relationships, we can identify and appreciate the ways that we are being given love that we may have not noticed. We may also learn how better to give love in a way that our partners need.

What I take away from these relationship building trends is the choices I have and the things I can do to enhance closeness.  Whether with my daughters before they leave, or after they are gone, with my brothers who I don’t see as much as I would like, or my co-workers who are stuck seeing me every day, relationships are living and evolving all around us all of the time.  It’s easy to get stuck in patterns and feel helpless and resentful, especially when we feel dependent on one another and vulnerable. It feels hopeful to me that we can, even with small gestures, change the way we feel in a relationship. So rather than just hoping for the best once my daughter flies off (literally, unfortunately, as she goes to Hanover New Hampshire) I can take deliberate actions to build on the connections I have both near and far away.

Ok, I must confess that when I was writing about procrastination in my last post, I was feeling a little high and mighty, as it is NOT my problem.  In fact, it is sooo not my problem because I do everything not only before the deadline, but as early as possible. But to my surprise while reading about procrastination, I learned that my being early habit,  just like procrastination, also represents a difficulty with emotional regulation, and has consequences of its own. So this week I humbly stand before you saying, “My name is Cynthia and I am a precrastinator.”

David Rosenbaum, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, published a study in 2014 in which he coined the phrase, “precrastination,”  which he defines as the tendency to tackle subgoals at the earliest opportunity, even at the expense of extra effort. More simply, it’s the inclination to complete tasks quickly, just for the sake of getting them done. Further research revealed certain characteristics about people who like to jump the gun.  Precrastinators are actually not impulsive. Rather they tend to be “highly rational and eager to show they’re worthy of responsibility, “ says Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School. He describes precrastination as a perversion of diligence. Precrastinators are so worried about running out of time, especially when people are depending on them, that they may sacrifice quality or efficiency just to reduce the stress of having something on their to do list.

When you have tasks to do, it creates tension.  You could could run out of time to complete the task, or forget about it.  The more a precrastinator has to do, the stronger the tendency to go for the low hanging fruit.  “What happens when you precrastinate is that your anxiety about making progress causes you to dive in headfirst as opposed to giving yourself time to consider your options,” Dr. Grant said.  Other symptoms of precrastination are familiar to me – paying a bill early rather than collecting interest income, answering e-mails immediately rather than carefully crafting a reply, or doing something only to have to redo it as you find out more information. (I have actually had to redo applications or have people tell me to resend things to them because circumstances changed or they could not find something because I sent it in too early.)

So what is a humble precrastinator to do?  Slow down, to start with. Just as in procrastination, learning to tolerate the discomfort of having something to do is the first step.  Also like the antidote to procrastination, planning things out is helpful. Evaluating tasks and prioritizing them is important. But the precrastinator has to think through the benefits of waiting rather than just the relief of having something done.  What information might be good to gather? What people might be good to consult? How might the tasks be done better if more time is taken?

And what about just enjoying the moment?  How much have I missed by not letting myself relax until I get things done?   While the procrastinator misses the deadline because he was doing more preferred things, I just may miss the more preferred things because I make the deadline!  Maybe a little procrastination is a healthy thing after all.

I must confess I am confused by people who procrastinate.  And if I am really honest, when these people are close to me, I am down right annoyed at times.  So to gain understanding and to hopefully be more supportive, I did a little reading about the psychology of procrastination.  It turns out that while most people procrastinate now and then, about 20% of people procrastinate in a habitual manner that has real consequences on mental health, not just on productivity.  So in this weeks post, I’ll touch on some of the research on procrastination and some tools that might help us all.

Most research on the mechanisms of procrastination have focused on the thought patterns associated with procrastination.  Ferrari, Johnson, and McCown identified what is known in Cognitive Behavioral Psychology as the major “cognitive distortions” (errors in thinking) that lead to procrastination:  overestimating how much time you have left to perform a task overestimating how motivated you will be in the future (assuming you’ll be more motivated at some future point); underestimating how long certain activities will take to complete; and mistakenly assuming that they need to be in the right frame of mind to work on a task.

But to  be honest, in my work and life experience with people who have trouble with procrastination, it doesn’t just seem like an error in thinking.  Every time it happens they would analyze the situation, come up with a conclusion, such as “I need to start earlier,” or “I need to map out the project so I won’t underestimate it,” but don’t seem able to change their pattern despite their determination.  In fact, they really suffer from the frustration with themselves and their broken promises when they fail to make what appeared to be simple habit changes. It seems like something else is going on.

Indeed, the researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa conclude that rather than being just a thought problem, procrastination is more of an emotional regulation problem.  In a recent study, Dr. Pychal and Dr. Sirios report that procrastination can be understood as “the primacy of short term mood repair…over the longer term pursuit of intended action.”  In other words, the need to avoid the emotions (anxiety, perfectionism, self doubt, etc.) that come with a task takes precedence over the need to complete the task. Mix this with a few rationalizations such as “I will have more energy later” and voila, you immediately feel better.

Studies have supported this hypothesis when comparing short and long term consequences.  For example, looking at students over a semester, procrastinators reported less illness and lower stress levels at the beginning of a semester.  However, by the end of the semester, this had changed dramatically wherein procrastinators had the highest levels of stress and illness. In addition, high procrastinators tend to experience problems in relationships.  By putting things off, the burden can be shifted to other people who depend on you, such as family, friends or co-workers. They can grow resentful and this creates a negative feedback loop to undermine your self esteem.

Imposed deadlines force the procrastinator to put aside the thoughts and feelings that paralyze them, as they reach the point of just having to get it done.  Unfortunately, research also shows the outcomes are not as good as if they had taken their time to put in their best effort. Ironically, many people who procrastinate are perfectionists.  The anxiety and pressure they feel in sitting down to write a paper, for example, is so overwhelming, they delay and distract from it. Then, with a fast approaching deadline, they are forced to just do it, as Nike would say.  And procrastinators have described that it helps their self esteem to think their performance problems might be a time management problem rather than having put in their best effort and come up short.

The hardest step in managing your procrastination tendency is to recognize when you are doing it, as procrastinators tend to avoid the pain of their procrastination by not thinking about that as well.  Experts in overcoming procrastination have certain suggestions. First, make an honest to do list, meaning making a list of all the things that need to get done and when they are due. Prioritize the most important tasks factoring in due dates and size of projects.  Then focus on the task that seems to have the most priority or that you have avoided the most. Ask yourself in a supportive, honest, and curious way about the emotions that emerge regarding the task – what are the fears, worries, self doubts that are unpleasant and make you want to avoid the tasks?  If these feelings are unmanageable, ask for help from someone you trust. Getting reassurance by talking out your emotions can be very helpful in moving you forward. Perhaps you can meet again with this person to check in on your progress?

Forgiving yourself for past procrastination is also important.  By thinking of procrastination as an emotional regulation problem, rather than a moral or personality flaw, you can work through the emotions that get in the way.  Studies show that increasing self forgiveness on a task reduced the negative emotions on a future task and reduced procrastination. And finally, give yourself a reward.  As in most learning scenarios, praise and rewards work much better than criticism and punishment. So pat yourself on the back, buy yourself a smoothie for a well deserved break, and chart out your accomplishments along the way.  Breaking tasks down into smaller pieces helps reduce overwhelm, and gives that many more opportunities for that amazing feeling of crossing something off the to do list.

“I can’t just stop eating.  I need to eat!” That is the common frustration of people struggling to curb overeating habits.  And it is true. With many behaviors that we decide aren’t good for us, such as smoking, drinking, or being in a destructive relationship, you can give it up.  But with food, we can’t just quit it. We have to battle with temptations daily and constantly be exercising moderation, which is wearing on our good intentions.  So knowing when our eating issues cross over into addiction can be helpful, and applying some of what works for other addictions can be a valuable approach.

Food addiction involves the same areas of your brain as drug addiction. The same neurotransmitters are also involved (serotonin and dopamine) and many of the symptoms are identical.  Processed foods have a powerful effect on the reward centers of our brains. Experiments in animals and humans show that that reward centers are activated by food, especially foods rich in sugar, fat, and salt, in a similar manner to the brain’s response to cocaine and heroin.  Once people experience pleasure associated with increased dopamine transmission in the brain’s reward pathway, they quickly feel the need to eat again. In short, food addiction is not caused by a lack of willpower, but results from complex biochemistry of the brain. Neural systems that evolved to motivate and reinforce foraging and food intake for survival become problematic when high calorie foods are so readily available in our own pantries.

There is no blood test to determine if you have a food addiction, it is based on the following symptom clusters:  You frequently get cravings for certain foods, despite feeling full and having just finished a nutritious meal; when you start eating foods you crave, you often find yourself eating much more than intended;  when you eat a craved food, you sometimes eat to the point of feeling excessively full; you often feel guilty after eating particular foods, yet find yourself eating them again soon after; you have repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, tried to quit eating certain foods or set rules for them;  you often hide your consumption of unhealthy foods from others; you feel unable to control you consumption of unhealthy foods, despite knowing that they cause you physical harm including weight gain, diabetes, etc

The symptoms and thought processes associated with food addiction are similar to any drug addiction. It’s just a different type of substance and the social consequences may be less severe.  Food addiction can cause physical harm and lead to serious diseases like obesity and type 2 diabetes.  In addition, it may negatively impact your self-esteem and self-image, making you unhappy with your body. As with other addictions, food addiction may take an emotional toll and increase your risk of premature death.

If your eating habits are causing you harm, either in physical or psychological ways, there are some steps that you can take.  While it is true, you cannot stop eating, you can identify foods that lead to overeating and decide to eliminate these foods from your diet all together.  This may be difficult at first, especially in social situations, but it can break the cycle of addictive eating, guilt, and relapse. When avoiding certain foods, it helps to focus your attention on what you can eat.  Make meal plans of nutritious food you do like and identify fast food places that offer healthy options when you are not in the mood to cook. The less you have to think about what to eat, the less you will leave room for addictive cravings to creep in.  Research also shows that it is best to hold off on weight loss goals until you have your food addictive behavior under control, that drinking more water helps decrease cravings and appetite, and that eating more protein also reduces food cravings.

Like any addiction, your brain will crave what lights it up.  Learning to handle a craving without engaging in the behavior will take a lot of work at first, but in time your confidence in overcoming a craving will increase, taking away the craving’s power over you.  Triggers can also be times of day (often in the evenings), certain emotions (loneliness), certain places (fast food restaurant), certain people (a parent), or even a memory or thought (self judgment). Make a list of possible activities that you will do when you get a craving.  Make sure you eat three healthy meals on the day you begin your new plan, and use your trigger plans whenever you want to snack outside of meals. Reassure yourself that you have eaten adequately and nurtured yourself with good food. Your craving is a sign of needing other nurturing.  Learning to slow down your eating and eating”mindfully” is also proven to help with eating issues. By tuning into our bodies and our minds, we can better identify our true hunger versus a need for psychological soothing.

Like any addiction, it is not unusual to relapse and lose control over your eating.  Try your best not to get lost in a negative cycle, but to get back on track as quickly as possible.  Know that you are not alone. Finding some kind of a support group is really helpful and is often a key to success for those who engage in it.  Remember that our body chemistry did not evolve for the abundance we currently live in. As Kimberly Steele, a researcher at Johns Hopkins writes, “broccoli and oatmeal do not get us fat.” She notes a direct relationship between the availability of high sugar and fat processed foods and our nation’s obesity rates. So it is our habits and environment that we need to adapt.   As with any addictive substance, freeing yourself from its power over you can have a transformative effect on many levels. Developing a healthy relationship to food can bring back the pleasure in eating.

This week I felt the need to share with you the words of a well known and well respected man who recently shared with the world about his depression.  His talents at writing and expressing his experience truly touched me and I think express for many people the difficulty when our minds have thoughts that can’t be trusted.  Most all of us have experienced at some point in our lives depression or anxiety at such a level that we are, as he says, “not in our right mind.” With the help of other’s love and guidance, we need to fight through and challenge these thoughts, clinging to the reality of our self worth and true value.  

Michael Gerson is a political columnist for the Washington Post, a former Presidential speech writer, and a regular contributor to many national news shows.  He was invited to give a sermon at the Washington National Cathedral in which he decided to help reduce the stigma surrounding depression and talk openly about it. He introduces the topic:  “Like nearly one in ten Americans – and like many of you – I live with this insidious, chronic disease. Depression is a malfunction in the instrument we use to determine reality. The brain experiences a chemical imbalance and wraps a narrative around it. So the lack of serotonin, in the mind’s alchemy, becomes something like, “Everybody hates me.” Over time, despair can grow inside you like a tumor.”

In my own experience and with many of the people I work with, the identification of depression as altering one’s view of reality is so important.  When we are gripped by depression and anxiety, our mind’s take over with a dark cloud or fear that colors the world we see. It is like a lens through which we interpret the world is placed before our eyes.  The problem is, we do not know what to trust. Our very own minds try to convince us that we need to act on our thoughts or fears. Studies show that these distortions in thinking are caused by biological changes as well as defense mechanisms meant to help us control or protect ourselves.  By seeing fear or rejection that is not there, we are driven to withdraw or work harder in ways that serve as desperate attempts at lessening some threat.

Michael Gerson shares some of his journal entries at the times he was most depressed.  Despite being a successful man, one of a few with a column in a National paper, he truly feels like a failure and a dissapointment.  When reading them in his right mind, he can see that they are “just lies,” but at the time he writes them he believes they are true. He reflects:   And it seems, particularly when you’re isolated, it can be very dangerous, because all you have then is this — these thoughts in your own head, these ruminations in your own head. And it really takes other people to try to break into that and say, this is wrong. This is not true. What you’re thinking is not correct.

So please, if you are gripped by thoughts of failure or worthlessness, don’t believe it.  I know this is easy to say, and not to do, but stay open to the notion that you are not in your right mind. Take a moment before you discount the opinions of others who love you and respect you.  Entertain the idea that they, perhaps better than you, are a good judge of your character. Not being able to trust your own perceptions is truly an uncomfortable and vulnerable way of being. Yet, as Michael Gerson explains it, you need to listen to someone who has the courage to say to you:  “You’re, in fact, much too hard on yourself. You’re living in a kind of small little world of your own creation. And you need to come out of it.”

“I’m having a quarter life crisis, mom,” my daughter, a Junior in college, said to me.  “A what?” I replied. “A quarter life-crisis,” she affirmed. “I looked it up. It’s a thing.”  Sure enough, according to Wkipedia’s definition, a quarter-life crisis is a “crisis involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one’s life” which can happen as early as age 18 and last into the 20’s.  John Mayer even had a song about it, concerned the choices he was making weren’t leading to the fulfillment he expected.

It might be a quarter life crisis/ Or just the stirring in my soul/
Either way I wonder sometimes/ About the outcome/Of a still verdictless life/
Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?/Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?
John Mayer, Georgia

As I talked to her about it and considered how to respond, comparing the idea of a quarter-life crisis to a mid-life crisis, and the idea of any type of life crisis at all, it occurred to me that perhaps having this type of crisis at a young age may be a good thing.  When we have a life crisis, commonly around a big birthday or life event, it gets us to question our values and our choices. Wondering if how you are living is truly in line with the values you have is a great thing. The problem, however, with any life crisis is when we focus too heavily on expectations and not values.  When a crisis leads to despair, it’s often because we’re evaluating life not from our own values, but from societal expectations. Feeling like you haven’t achieved enough, made enough money, had enough success as defined by others is the root of a lot of unnecessary pain and an empty search for happiness.

In general, having a plan and meaningful expectations is a good thing.  It gives us direction and purpose. However, in looking back on my life and in hearing the stories of so many people I work with, often the very best things that happen in life were not planned and we could never have predicted.  If you had asked me at age 21 where my life would be now, I would never have predicted I would be living where I am, doing what I am doing, married to the man I am married to – and these are the very things that make me happy now.

A friend of mine shared a quote with me that feels so appropriate for this blog post: Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.” ~ Paulo Coelho

Thinking about this quote helps me respond to my beloved daughter around her anxiety that she “isn’t where she thought she would be at this point” in her life.  Maybe this crisis is a wonderful opportunity to learn early on that life will most often not go as you plan or expect. But along the way, she’ll find many more wonderful things she never could have even imagined!  If we are too busy looking straight ahead down the road, we’ll miss the side roads that lead to beautiful places. Taking the time, whether you are at quarter-life, mid-life or later-life, to “un-become,” shedding expectations, leaves us living within our own unique values and appreciating what we have right in front or even to the side of us.  Not that this shedding doesn’t come with pain, and often disappointment and anxiety, when things don’t work out as we had hoped at the time. But what leads to authentic happiness is having the resilience in staying the course of what matters most and being open to the unchartered course that may lead to an even better destination.

The more we can unbecome, the more likely it’ll be that over the long term we’ll be living life in line with our values, inoculating us from the kind of regrets that cause life despair.  We won’t end up at the “wrong” place if we are taking the right journey all along the way.

I attended a training on coaching people for change (thank you my Health Education Department at Kaiser) and I learned a relatively quick and easy tool for making changes.  I have tested it out a few times and found it to be helpful, especially with people who feel stuck with something they have intended to do, but haven’t quite put into action.  So if you have any New Year’s Resolutions that have already fallen by the wayside, perhaps you might like to give this technique of Focus Mapping a try.

Focus Mapping was developed by Stanford researcher BJ Fogg, who describes himself as an expert at “behavior design and persuasive technology.”  Very Silicon Valley, don’t you think? Despite its branding, this particular tool only requires a white board and some post it notes, or you can simply do it on a piece of paper.  

The first step is to think about the change you want to make.  Let’s say for example, just a random idea out of thin air, you sit a lot at work and are kind of lazy when you finish your day at a Health Center.  You’ve been intending to get more exercise, as there are days your activity tracker wonders if you’re still alive, but you haven’t been successful.  So you take your white board (or paper) and write “Most Effective” at the top and “Least Effective” at the bottom.  Then you mark “Less Likely” on the left hand side and “Most Likely” on the right side.  Now is where the exciting part comes in.  Begin to brainstorm ideas that might help you reach your goal.  Don’t judge or evaluate them, just try to come up with some creative ideas that would be steps that would help you move toward your goal.  Write each idea on one post-it note. For example, one post-it might say “pack your bag with sneakers and work out clothes the night before”.  Another might say “park your car in the far parking lot.” Try to come up with as many ideas as you can.

Once you have a pile of post-it notes, evaluate each idea on the axis of your whiteboard and stick it on.  So if the idea is “run in the morning before work,” you would ask yourself how effective this would be. Highly effective, you think.  Then ask how likely is this? Now the hard part is to be as honest with yourself as possible. While the idea sounds great, and you would love to be the kind of person with that motivation and drive, the truth is, it is not an idea that is likely to happen.  So place the post-it in the top left corner of the whiteboard, in the highly effective, but not likely category. Now go through each of your ideas and place it on the board. Once you finish it will look something like this:

Focus mapping now has identified several steps that are good places to start as a way to break through stuckness – the post-its in the “more likely and more effective” quadrant. These are behaviors that  have been vetted for changes that are likely to be effective, but most importantly, as likely to be completed. Focus mapping is also a good way to learn about yourself, as it helps explain why you might have been stuck.  For example, if your plan was to run in the morning, you will feel like a failure each day you don’t complete your plan, and give up. With your honesty, you can either change your plan, and decide that running in the morning as an idea just isn’t a good choice and choose something else to meet your overall goal, or it may motivate you to make it happen and you can break that change down into smaller steps, such as starting out by walking the block before breakfast.

As a tool, focus mapping is relatively easy, but it can generate a lot of good ideas and clarify where you are with a particular change.  You can use it for everything from drinking more water to getting a new job. The key, and this is the hardest part for most of us, is being honest with yourself about what you are and are not likely to do.  Try to be non-judgmental, as the goal of the entire activity is to pave the way toward change.  Focusing in on small steps, but ones you will actually do, will be bring bigger results in the long run!

Sitting on my shelf next to a prayer book I was given when I had my Bat Mitzvah (an ancient text for sure), is a little volume of poetry entitled Red Bird.  I pull it out when I am in need of a prayer more often than the prayer book, I must confess.  Her words about nature, love, loss, and awe, inspired not only me, but millions of her fans. Mary Oliver died this past Thursday at the age of 83.  As the rain falls outside my window this Friday morning, I am moved to reflect on her call to nature as a path to healing.

Just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate.
It doesn’t have to be blue iris, it can be weed in a vacant lot. This isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks.  
A silence in which another voice may speak.   

Mary Oliver  grew up in rural Ohio.  She endured sexual abuse and described her family as dysfunctional.  She took refuge in the neighboring fields and forests. Later in life, she moved to Provincetown, MA, where she lived for many years, finding inspiration for her poems simply in walks with her dog.  In quietly observing the life around her, her poems were a path from imagery to spirit.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

What has always moved me personally about Mary Oliver’s words were the expression of passion and celebration of love and life, even in its pain.  I found her work comforting and her poems served as a challenge for me to look outside myself in times I was pulling inward. A cricket or a tree could be her great companion.  A master at simple imagery she created deceptively rich reflections. Nature was her great companion and she sought to inspire others to embrace its refuge. She was like a spiritual guide to snap me out of my inner neurotic obsession, befriending me with the great awe of the world.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
And the present is what your life is,.
And you are capable 
Of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
So come to the pond,
or the river of your own imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
And put your lips to the world.
And live
Your life.

Mary Oliver was a great teacher to many and she will be missed.  If you have never read any of her works, I am grateful for the chance to bring her to your attention.  May her memory be for a blessing. And may her memory be for an awakened encounter with a raindrop…or a bird’s call…or whatever is right in front of us.

When it’s over, I want to say:  all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

And lastly, one of my personal favorites:

Watching A Documentary about Polar Bears Trying To Survive on The Melting Ice Flows
That God had a plan, I do not doubt. But what if His plan was, that we would do better?