Author: Kathleen Doyle-White

Good day, team,

It’s a new year and a good time to think about our resolutions and intentions for 2009. I must confess, I’ve given up on the resolution that I’ve repeated every January for the past 10 years. Each new year I resolve to lose 15 lbs. Alas, I weigh exactly what I weighed in 1999, according to an old health club application dated Jan. 6, 1999. So rather than resolve to do the same old thing that I can’t seem to do, I thought I’d try something new this year.

While I was talking with my editor yesterday evening on the phone, she told me about a recent incident in which she learned, yet again, about the importance of trusting her instincts. That struck a chord in me, and this year I’m resolving to trust my instincts.

When I got off the phone, I remembered several good examples of the benefits of trusting your instincts. Here are two of them:

One evening after work, my husband and I were driving into the city to meet some friends for dinner, traveling a busy city street with many stoplights. As we approached one of the intersections, a car from the other direction sped through at high speed, running the red light. If my husband had not slowed down and stopped, that car would have hit us for sure. We were both pretty shaken up, but continued on our way once it was safe enough to do so. After a long silence, I exclaimed, “Wow, what was that?” My husband replied, “I had a ‘blink’ moment.” He was referring to a book named “Blink” that he had just read.

“Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” is a 2005 book by Malcolm Gladwell in which he explores the power of the trained mind to make split-second decisions. He also talks about trusting our ability to do this, demonstrating that we miss many opportunities by over-analyzing our thoughts and feelings.

Another good example occurred last year when I was working with a nonprofit to help them find a new executive director. There were some candidates whose resumes indicated they would be a perfect fit for the position, but my instincts told me that something about them wasn’t quite right. In a hiring situation, I try to remain completely open-minded throughout the process and give everyone an equal chance. But when my gut tells me that something is off, I have to dig a little deeper to find out why. In the end, my instincts were right, and as the candidates went through their interviews, those instincts proved to be accurate.

As a coach, I often find that people speak to me with two voices: the one I can hear with my ears and the one I can only hear with my heart. Sometimes a client will tell me something that is only partially true. The rest of the truth is unspoken, but something in me gets a message anyway. I recall one client saying to me, “Gee, I remember you asked me that question a month ago, and I guess I only half answered it. The truth is … .” In these moments I’m grateful for that little voice within me that knows, even though it has no intellectual basis for knowing.

Whatever your new year’s resolution, make it one that isn’t too hard to achieve. I have a feeling that this will be a challenging year for most of us, and setting resolutions that are too difficult to achieve will just tend to depress us. Trust your instincts on this one and listen to the little voice within you that already knows what you need to resolve to do this year that you can actually accomplish.

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day team,

Today is the winter solstice and as I look out my office window, I see a landscape covered in many feet of beautiful, white snow that has fallen on Oregon over the past few days. We don’t get too much of this stuff and so when we do, the city pretty much shuts down. A few inches of snow here and everything slows way down.

Snow has a silence about it that is like none other. It gives us an opportunity to stop all of our normal external activity and burrow inside of ourselves to listen to what’s going on in our interior world. Sometimes it’s quiet in there and often it’s not. But, I always see it as an opportunity to do a little soul searching when my regular life is interrupted and I get to sit and ponder. Nothing like a cup of tea and some introspection on a cold winter’s eve!

In that spirit, I offer you some good end-of-the-year questions to ask yourself as you gaze at the firelight and ponder this past year. These come from a post by Ariane de Bonvoisin on the Huffington Post. My husband was good enough to forward them on to me for this last Coach’s Challenge of 2008.

* What was the best thing that happened to me this year?
* What did I do this year that I’m really proud of?
* Who did I really help?
* Who do I need to thank and acknowledge for having been there for me?
* What are the top three lessons I learned?
* What increased my happiness and joy this year?
* What’s something I got through that was really tough?
* What did I avoid that I must pay more attention to in 2009?
* What character trait did I develop most this year?
* What new people did I meet that are now in my life?

“Some of these questions may take some time and thought to answer, and that’s OK. At the end you should be able to see that you’ve made some progress on at least one front in your life! Give yourself a bit of credit for that.”

I love that last sentence she wrote. Add a little bit of brandy to that hot beverage of your choice and give yourself some credit for all that you’ve accomplished this year. It’s been a doozy and we should all celebrate that we’re still here for each other.

I wish all of you Happy Holidays filled with light and love! Let’s all pray for more peace and prosperity in the coming year.

Kathleen

Note: I’ll be back with the first challenge of 2009 on January 4.

Good day, team,

Last week I experimented with the challenge by sending a link people could access and then asking for feedback. Here are some of the comments I received:

“For me, the most important statistic is that China is going to become the largest English-speaking country. Number one, it’s a relief: Chinese is SO hard. Number two, maybe it’s an opportunity to teach some people who are eager rather than apathetic about improving their English skills!”

“Pay attention to where things are going, not where they came from.”

“I don’t think that we in the USA are up to the challenge… .This doesn’t scare me, it only enlightens me to think more out of the box.”

“That is truly mind boggling; it’s stressful… . I think my challenge was to not be frightened by but to realize I am a part of this.”

Many thanks to all who responded.

These comments led me to think about the continuing efforts we all make to deal with change. Because change generally evokes an immediate response of fear, the real opportunity seems to be in summoning up the determination we need to see all change as an opportunity rather than an impediment or loss.

Over the years, many of my clients have endured huge changes in their jobs, their families, their marital status, their family ties and their health status. It astonishes me when I think about all of their stories and how fearful they were when they came to work with me. But I continue to be amazed at the magic and grace life bestows upon people who overcome the fear of change by mustering the courage and forbearance to deal with it. It is a spiritual experience for me to watch a person engage in the change that’s happening rather than resisting it.

In the first few months of the Civil War, when President Lincoln realized he could do nothing to prevent it, he willed himself to think of what good might possibly come from the altercation. Certainly, freeing the slaves was one of the great outcomes. It’s possible that the Emancipation Proclamation could have been written under different circumstances, but the war was the circumstance Lincoln found himself in, and by fully dealing with it, positive changes came about that resulted in great benefits.

Your challenge this week is to choose an area where you see change happening in your life and try engaging in it rather than resisting it. Take the energy that fear produces in your body and your heart and use it to serve you rather than wreck you. Ask others to help if need be. Sometimes I ask my husband how he would handle a particular change. He always has a different viewpoint that helps me expand my thinking and gives me new ways to approach something. Sometimes I use what I call the bottom-line trick: Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

If I lose my job, will I starve to death? If my marriage falls apart, will I ever find love again? If my house forecloses, will I have a place to live? By thinking through the worst scenario, we often find the strength we need to move forward to an unknown place. It may be bad, but it will still be possible to navigate some way through.

Some good always comes from even dire circumstances, although it may be very hard for us to see it.

One of my favorite quotes about change comes from Charles L. Morgan:

“The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change, for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

I noticed that over the past few months I’ve been encouraging you to experiment with ways of doing things. In that spirit, this challenge is an experiment. I’ve never added a link to any of my challenges before, so I’m eager to find out if this works. Feedback, please!

I’m sending you a link below that I hope you can all access. You may have to copy it into your browser directly to do so.

Your challenge this week is embedded within the video. For each of you, it’s an opportunity to see whatever in this message strikes a chord with you, enlightens you, frightens you or educates you.

Whatever it is, spend some time this week reflecting on the message and how it affects you. I myself was overcome to realize how we are all so connected, how fast the world is moving and, in the midst of it all, how important it is for me to pay attention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

I read this remarkable story in The Oregonian on Nov. 28. Take a look:

“A 17-year-old supermarket employee who found a bag containing $10,000 at his work’s bathroom returned the money, much to the owner’s delight.

“The Tacoma News Tribune reports the bag of cash found at the Top Food & Drug supermarket in Federal Way two weeks ago had been left behind by a man from Vancouver, Wash.

“Police say the $10,000 were Fred W. Smith’s life savings, and he was carrying the bag because he was moving.

“Moisei Baraniuc—a Ukrainian immigrant who bags groceries for minimum wage at the store—says he was in the supermarket’s bathroom when he saw the bag. He peeked in and saw a ‘pretty thick stack’ of cash.

“Baraniuc says the first thing he thought about was keeping the money, but he then remembered his father’s lectures about working hard for yourself. He turned in the bag to the store’s manager, who then called police.

“Police returned the money to Smith last week after verifying the cash belonged to the Vancouver man. Smith thanked Baraniuc on Wednesday for turning in the bag.”

I thought about what I would do in this situation. No doubt it would be very tempting to keep the money. I mean, who would know? When an old guy came back into the store asking, “Did anyone find a bag full of a lot of money?” everyone in the store would think he was kind of cuckoo and tell him no. Meanwhile, think of all the things I could buy during this year’s great holiday sales!

Ah, but what if I heard my father’s voice in my head saying, “You have to earn it yourself by working hard.” How would I feel then?

This story made me think about a similar situation in the workplace. Isn’t taking credit for someone else’s work the same as taking their money? You know what I’m talking about. You work really hard on a project and finally make a breakthrough. You get it all finished and are proud that you’ve done such a good job. Then you’re in a meeting to present the results, and your boss takes the credit. Or maybe a co-worker—whom you asked repeatedly for help and who avoided you—is suddenly talking about how much work he or she put into this project and how hard it was to accomplish. How about the people who claim that they worked really hard with you as part of the team, even though they sat through all the meetings checking their Blackberrys and never contributing a thing?

It seems to me that we can learn a good lesson from Moisei Baraniuc: He didn’t take the money because he hadn’t earned it. Your challenge this week is to do the same. Try not to take credit for someone else’s hard work. If necessary, ensure also that no one on your team takes credit for another person’s work. Sometimes it’s hard to know who has done what, and in our constant desire to get things done, we overlook who actually did the work and who also contributed. Your challenge is to pay more attention to those working the hardest for you so that you can give them the credit they’re due.

Some circumstances invariably demotivate and dishearten a team, and one of them is watching somebody get the credit for someone’s else’s work and no one standing up for the person who worked the hardest. None of us likes to be in that position; as a leader, you need to protect the team’s camaraderie, which comes from all team members holding up their end of the load and giving credit where credit is due.

Fred Smith is a lucky man. An honest young guy returned his life savings and saved his life. If there is such a thing as good karma, I think that young Moisei Baraniuc just earned enough credit to make a huge deposit into his karmic life savings as well.

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge comes from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. I offer it for this Thanksgiving week because it has helped me to be grateful. In this fast-moving, turbulent world, Thoreau’s words remind me of the importance of stopping to notice the wonders and abundance that are all around me.

“There are times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revelry, amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.

“I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.”

Your challenge? Take some time over the holidays to stop and notice the world around you.

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day, team, This week’s challenge comes from an article that my good friend, associate and coach extraordinaire Kate Dwyer shared with me. Here are excerpts from “Job Survival Advice: Don’t Fear the Whitewater,” published Nov. 12, 2008, online at Knowledge@Wharton. According to Gregory Shea, adjunct professor of management at Wharton, and business writer Robert […]

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about finding peace.

Once the election for U.S. president was over this past week, I reflected upon the state of the world. We’re on a wild ride economically, ecologically and politically right now, and the safety and security that we’ve enjoyed for generations seems to be threatened.

Sometimes I wonder about this perception. It’s possible that much of what we’ve thought was safe and secure was an illusion and that, in our dreamy state, we ignored some key signs along the way that were trying to tell us to pay more attention. In any case, here we are, six weeks short of a new year, facing some great challenges.

Where in all of this do we find peace? How do we maintain our equanimity in the midst of stormy conditions, not just outside of us, but within us as well? Peace of mind and heart are challenged when our external circumstances grow grim, and yet these are the very times when peace and tranquility are what we need to face adversity.

When things get tough for me, I notice that my peace of mind is most challenged by what I call bundling. I let my mind run helter-skelter, and one thought builds on another until there’s a huge bundle of worries that overwhelms me. It goes something like this:

“Gee, my retirement account is worth about one-third of what it was two years ago. What will I live on when I retire, if I ever do retire? Given the state of the world, I’m liable to have to keep working till I’m 100! But then what makes me think I’ll be able to even stay in business over the next year? Most consultants don’t make it in hard times. What if I can’t make any contributions to my retirement account? I mean, the dollar will probably tank some more, so even the money that’s there won’t be worth anything. It’s all just paper anyway, so what makes me think I’ll be able to take care of myself in my old age? What will happen to me if I get sick and have no money to pay for insurance or medical bills or…?”

And so it goes. In one stream of thoughts, I’ve gone from worrying about my retirement account to not having any work to not being able to support myself to getting sick and not being able to pay my medical bills. As one thought piles on to the next, and then another, and then another, they all fuse into one big bundle that becomes much too difficult to overcome. Then we become depressed, and that negative state just adds more grim thoughts to the bundle, and so on. Regaining peace in this scenario is almost impossible, and once we’re depressed, it’s much more difficult to access the positive thoughts that might pull us out of that state.

The solution is to prevent a bundle from accumulating in the first place. When these thoughts try to pile on top of each other, I have to stop and say to myself, “Hold on here, let’s not bundle all these thoughts. They really don’t belong together in the first place, and sitting here allowing them to build on each other will not help your state of mind or your retirement account. Try to look at exactly what is directly in front of you.”

This little exercise of looking out of my eyes helps to break the thought pattern, and one more bundle that wanted to become bigger has just been unbundled! What a relief! In these moments, I can once again access a spaciousness and awareness that gives me much more freedom, clarity and peace in the moment.

Your challenge this week is to find peace within yourself, particularly in the midst of difficult circumstances. Perhaps you put a reminder of peace on your desk and each time you see it, you return to that state within yourself that feels content and at rest. Sometimes reminding yourself to breathe will give you immediate access to a more peaceful state. Taking a walk and breaking up the pattern of the day can often bring peace to our hearts.

One of my friends makes a list of all of the things that come up in her mind when she starts bundling. By doing this, she can stop the ranting and raving, as she calls it, because she can actually see on paper how the thoughts are unrelated. Then she puts the list in a drawer and says to herself, “Nope, I’m not going to keep doing this. I have more important things to attend to, and my peace of mind is more important to me.” I have a note card on my desk that asks, “Do these thoughts and feelings serve me in this moment?”

Try experimenting with whatever reminders you can come up with to save yourself from bundling. The beauty of peace is that we can access it at any time within ourselves by choosing it over anything else. Even in the most dire circumstances, our internal state of peace is always possible.

One of my favorite writers, Wendell Berry, describes peace beautifully in the following poem:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Have a peaceful week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249
© Copyright 2008 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Good day team,

A few years ago, I attended a public speaking class for two days. In a nutshell, it was painful. There were 20 people in the class from lots of different companies here in Portland. We were all strangers to each other, but over the course of the class, we got to know each other in ways we could not have imagined.

Simply put, standing up in front of other people and speaking makes most people extremely nervous and vulnerable. In our class, we all experienced painful moments of stuttering, silence, lots of ‘umming’ and ‘aheming’, and all sorts of odd looking body movements. One woman ran from the room each time it was her turn to speak and we would have to coax her back so she could complete her assignment. My personal experience was thatthe group was very supportive, forgiving, and compassionate. When people suffer together, they come together in profound ways and our little group did just that.

I learned that public speaking is an art and not something that comes automatically to anyone. There’s no doubt, some people are better at it than others, but after two days of videotaping, coaching and open feedback from fellow participants, you learn that even the most comfortable public speakers have a lot to learn. You focus on how to stand, what your gestures look like, what tone of voice to use for different messages, when to pause appropriately, how to make eye contact, etc. After hours of grueling practice and honest feedback, you begin to learn the tricks to effective presentation. But, learning how to be an effective public speaker can also become an obstacle to the audience believing in you and your message. If you follow the rules too closely the audience can feel like you’re trying to sell them something and within moments, they will become suspicious of you and your message.

In the November 2008 Harvard Business Review, there’s a good article about “How to Become an Authentic Speaker”, by Nick Morgan. Here are some excerpts from his article.

“Authenticity – including the ability to communicate authentically with others – has become on important leadership attribute. When leaders have it, they can inspire their followers to make extraordinary efforts on behalf of their organizations. When they don’t, cynicism prevails and few employees do more than the minimum necessary to get by. We all know by now the power of nonverbal communication – what I call the ‘second conversation’. If your spoken message and your body language are mismatched, audiences will respond to the non-verbal message every time. Gestures speak louder than words. And that means you can’t just stand up and tell the truth.”

Our author goes on to say that you cannot rehearse authenticity and that leaves you in a quandary about how to be more effective without looking practiced. The classic suggestions you’re given in these presentation and public speaking courses i.e., maintaing eye contact, spreading your arms, walking out from behind the podium, etc., can often back fire. They make you appear inauthentic and the audience sees you as being artificial.

Science teaches us that non-verbal communication starts before words actually get spoken and it takes place the instant after an emotion or an impulse fires deep within the brain. This happens long before it’s actually articulated in speech, and we often find ourselves having made certain conclusions before the thought actually gets translated by our brains. I recall walking into a manager’s office recently and immediately ‘knowing’ that he was not having a good day. The expression on his face registered exasperation, he was sitting on the edge of his seat, pounding on his computer keys. I knew he was having a hard time. The thought occurred to me, “this is probably not a good time to bring up the coaching budget for 2009”. We started our meeting from a completely different approach than I had intended. I asked what kind of day he was having and he talked for the next 15 minutes. This gave the manager time to unwind and to get some of the stuff that was bothering him off his chest. It gave us a chance to connect emotionally and for me to listen to what was really important to him in that moment. By the time the subject of coaching came up, he was in a completely different frame of mind and much more open to discussing the program for 2009.

Here are some suggestions the author makes in his article to assist us in communicating authentically:

“Tap into four fundamental aims, or ‘intents’ of a good presentation: be open with your listeners to connect with them, be passionate about your topic, and listen to messages from your audience, either spoken or unspoken. In practicing your speech, work to get into the mind-set of each of these aims and you’ll achieve the perceived and actual authenticity that creates a powerful bond with audiences.”

“How can you become more open? Try to imagine giving your presentation to someone with whom you’re completely relaxed – your spouse, a close friend, your child. Notice what that mental picture looks like but particularly what it /feels/ like. This is the state you need to be in if you are to have an authentic rapport with your audience.”

And, don’t forget the importance of being present to your audience. I have often found it helpful to try to feel my feet throughout my presentation. It grounds my energy before I being speaking and although hard to do, whenever I can feel my feet, it brings me back into the moment and gives me a new opportunity to check in to my audience, hear myself speaking (so I know what I’m saying), and breathe.

This week, your challenge is to experiment with being more authentic when you speak. It doesn’t have to be in front of a large group of people, it can occur around a conference room table with just a few people in a meeting, or even over the phone experimenting with your tone of voice. Try setting the intentions mentioned above before you speak. Maybe you can try being more authentic in a one-on-one conversation with someone by listening to their unspoken as well as spoken communication. Experiment with your attention when you’re speaking and when you’re listening.

I have often thought of this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, before going into a conversation,

“When the eyes say one thing and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.”

Have a great week!

Kathleen

Good day, team,

Out walking the other morning, preoccupied by thoughts about one of my clients, I suddenly marveled at the beauty I saw all around me. The trees were colorfully arrayed with muted orange, fiery red and bright yellow leaves. The backdrop of greens and browns only added to their bright hues, and I found myself in awe of nature’s great showcase this time of year.

Until the beauty I beheld woke me up, I had been in imagination most of the morning. I hadn’t heard from this client in awhile, and I was worried about how the person was doing. My mind jumped from one worrisome thought to the next. In the moment when I came back to the present, I thought, “Try to be here, instead of in imagination about something else. It’s so beautiful here; try to remain aware of it.”

The next few minutes were a wonder. As my consciousness became more and more attuned to what was around me, I began to feel the crisp, cold air on my skin. I could see faint traces of my breath in the air. I heard my feet as they walked over crunchy leaves on the sidewalk. Each tree was in the midst of transformation, many of them still green in some parts with others turning various autumnal colors. The sky was azure blue in places and still shrouded in fog elsewhere. The morning sun made big, broad diagonal strokes of light across the landscape as it majestically rose in the eastern sky. What a feast I was experiencing!

Just when I didn’t think the moment could get any better, I suddenly noticed hundreds of spider webs everywhere. They were strung between the leaves on the trees, hanging from the eaves on houses and across porch screens, woven in the small spaces between rocks. They glistened with tiny drops of morning dew like bright crystals. As I stopped to inspect one of them, the sun reflected on the dew drops and the intricate pattern of the web took my breath away. Surrounded by these miracles of the moment, I thought, “How appropriate that people use cobwebs as Halloween decorations. They’re everywhere!” But then I began to wonder whether they are always there, but I never see them because I’m so often in imagination.

In an attempt to return to the present, I decided not to analyze the subject of whether the cobwebs are always there or not, since I knew it would take me right back out of the moment again. How funny, that imagining being in the moment or analyzing why you’re either in it or not is just like any other kind of imagination: It takes you out of the moment and plunges you right back into imagination.

Your challenge this week is to be as present as you can so you can experience what’s going on around you. Try not to let your imagination take you away. This is harder to do than it sounds, so experiment with it. Challenge yourself to spend just five minutes being as present as you can. Part of the experience is seeing what tries to take you out of the moment as well as experiencing what’s in the moment.

Maybe you decide to take a short walk and try to see and hear as much as you can while walking. Perhaps you are working on a project, and you commit your attention to just what’s in front of you. If you strike up a conversation with someone, try to be present to that person’s tone of voice and facial expressions and to the words you’re exchanging. The emotions you feel as you speak with them and the thoughts that come into your mind as you respond to what they’re saying are all things you can observe to be fully in the moment while it’s happening. Whatever you decide to do for your experiment, enjoy the experience of simply being where you are, doing what you’re doing.

I believe that our consciousness is capable of far more expansion than we realize, and that it’s possible to be present to multiple things at once. By experimenting with our attention, we may find that there’s much more to life than we normally experience. It’s possible that it’s been here all along, but if we’re not present to it, it doesn’t exist for us, and we miss it. Just as I suddenly saw the exquisite spider webs, it’s possible in any moment to clear away the cobwebs of accidental thoughts from our minds and allow our attention to experience little gems that normally go unnoticed.

As the Chinese Zen Master Wu-Men Hui-k’ai (1183-1260) reminds us:

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Have a great week!

Kathleen