Tag: happiness

Fred, Ingrid, Jen, and Kurt: My Joy Hunting Inspirations

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One of the underlying principles of demanding the shimmer is to cultivate celebration in our day-to-day lives. I think that notion might overwhelm some busy people who might interpret celebration as one more thing to do. Sometimes making a big, all-in, shimmery, outsized deal about something considered ordinary can be truly wonderful and worth the effort.  But most of the time, demanding the shimmer is just a little kick up. And I think one of the best ways to work your shimmer muscles is to get in the everyday habit of joy hunting. This is a practice I’ve been cultivating for many years now.  This practice became a lot more intentional during the pandemic lockdown, and though it admittedly wanes here and there, lately I’ve been finding it nothing less than essential. 

 

I’ve spent some time lately thinking about the origins of this practice, and four people came to mind as important inspirations for my practice – three are people I don’t actually know personally, and one is the one I know the very best. Each of these people share a practice that I think all fall under this umbrella of joy hunting. 

 

What exactly is joy hunting?  It is whatever you are likely thinking it is, because what it looks like is going to be a little different for everyone. Essentially it is a practice of seeking out evidence of joy (and it’s cousins: wonder, beauty, love).

 

Fred Rogers (best known as Mr. Rogers, of course) taught us to look for the helpers. There are memes galore online about this idea, especially now when the world is so uncertain at best and terrifying at worse, for some more than others.  Finding evidence for acts of help and care gives us hope and may inspire us to more intentionally be the helpers.

 

Ingrid Fetell Lee, in her book Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness (2009) and on her website The Aesthetics of Joy teaches the practice of joyspotting. She is a designer who teaches principles of joy in design, ranging from harmony and renewal to abundance and surprise.  After reading that book, I had such fun practicing joy spotting in the elements of design in my own space, and then worked to incorporate more. During COVID she launched a Facebook group called The Joyspotters Society that allowed people space to post photos of the evidence of joy they found on walks or in their own spaces to help keep each other buoyed.  She also started featuring some active members of the community with featured bio posts. Guess who got to be in the Joyspotters Spotlight one time?!? Can you see me beaming at the memory?

 

Over lockdown I also read Jen Pastiloff’s book On Being Human (2019) – a beautiful memoir of a woman struggling with loss, mental health, and progressive hearing loss at a young age.  It is in equal measure heartrending and inspirational, and what stuck with me most was her practice of beauty hunting.  Her beauty hunting is another perspective on the practice of joyspotting. It got me looking in unexpected places for evidence of beauty, and I think it broadened my perspective on what beauty is to me.

 

This brings me to my favorite partner in joy hunting, Kurt.  Many years ago on his birthday, when he was alone at a bar (Duke’s) in Waikiki, Kurt invented a beauty spotting practice of his own. Annoyed at his own tendencies to feel critical of strangers in a crowd, he decided to play a game. He would pick random people in the crowded bar and find something beautiful about them and describe that feature in detail in his head.  Of course there are people who exude obvious beauty, but once you start this practice, it is impossible not to see beauty in everyone. This isn’t meant to promote objectifying people for their physical features. In fact, we often note the beauty in the way they are looking at their partner, their funky choice in eyeglasses, or their contagious laugh. We play this game together sometimes when we are out and it is one of the most joyful things to do.  It is antithetical to all the meanness, criticism, and disdain we witness every day. 

 

All of these are different manifestations of joy hunting. It’s an activity but also an intentional approach to being in the world that can eventually become a life enhancing habit.  True, it may be more natural to do this when times seem optimistic, but perhaps even more important to practice when they aren’t.

 

Happy hunting!

 

 

 

 

Maximizers, Satisficers, and…Shimmerers?

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For my 20th (!) blog post I have been thinking about how to return to the origins of this project:  Demand the Shimmer.  I realized this week that a conversation that Kurt and I had in Hawaii this summer is a great vehicle for taking us back to what it really means to demand the shimmer.

 

We were on a walk (actually, it was Big Walk Day – see last November’s post about that) and I had asked Kurt about a change I was proposing in how we ended the route. He said it sounded good which for him meant he agreed (in earnest) and the matter was closed. But I kept going, talking about why I thought it was a good idea. This has been a pattern of ours for years and I think it makes him a tiny bit crazy. He already agreed to it; why am I still providing reasons? I could tell he was getting slightly annoyed (and we were on like mile 19 at this point, and a bit hangry, so no surprise). I said, “when I do this, I’m really trying to convince myself.”  He said the insight from that was like a lightning bolt, and changed everything. He not only understood what I persisted but recognized that there were fundamental differences in how we make decisions – even ones that involve both of us.

 

The next day over poke and beer we continued this conversation, leading to a discussion of satisficers and maximizers. For those of you unfamiliar with these concepts, they are terms describing general decision making tendencies– they’ve been heavily researched for years in psychology, business, behavioral economics, etc.  In a nutshell, maximizers want to make sure that they make the very best decision or choice out of all possible decisions or choices. They spend a lot of time thinking and researching their options, and often hesitate before taking action.  In the extreme, they may end up with analysis paralysis, especially in cases where there are tons of choices – something that happens nowadays so much more frequently.  They also often feel some regret over choices, or at least lingering doubt over whether it was actually the best.

 

Satisficers, on the other hand, decide on a set of criteria for what they want, including what (or whether) something is required and whether it is just desirable. They favor efficient decision making; when they encounter something that fits their must-have list, they are likely to make that choice, and then not give it much thought after. It’s not that they just choose any old thing – they do have criteria, but they are not outsized and they don’t feel the need to make every possible comparison and rank order the potential choices.  If it’s over the bar, it will suffice.

 

As we discussed what happened, Kurt proposed that the crux of this recurring issue might be that he is a satisficer and I am a maximizer – but I immediately scoffed at that idea. Truth be told, I always identified as a satisficer. I generally make quick decisions and I’m rarely disappointed in my choices. 

 

But wait…what about demanding the shimmer?  Let’s revisit some points I made when I launched this project.  In the origin story on the landing page I say, in reflecting on the fateful magnetic poetry phrase demand the shimmer, that “good enough, okay, and fine are no ways to live” and we should “not settle for the dull and matte; look for the spark in everything.”  The essential goal of my Demand the Shimmer project – this blog, website, and products – are to help people find more joy in the everyday.

 

Is being a satisficer antithetical to this?  Am I actually encouraging people to behave like maximizers?  Or worse, as perfectionists? 

No, I’m really not.  And I do want to make sure that’s clear.  This philosophy for a joyful life is not to demand the very best of everything. It’s not to hold out for the perfect choice.  Best and perfect have no home in a joyful life. 

 

I think to be a shimmerer (I know, I know – it does not glide off the tongue, but let’s go with it) means to include in those criteria of must haves something that brings you joy.  Maybe slide a little something over from the desirable list to the required list.  Not everything, but ask yourself honestly, is there something joyful in this choice.? If not at first glance, can I create something joyful from this choice – or will this choice lead to the likelihood of something joyful increasing down the line?  If it does, that qualifies as not settling for fine.

 

Essentially, it’s satisficing – but with jazz hands.

 

 

 

Conversation Kickstarter: Lead with Joy

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For my new year’s blog post in 2024 I wrote about a practice I call the Joy Review. This was all about ways to develop a ritual or set of rituals in your life designed to really savor the joy that we sometimes let pass us by or fade too quickly from memory.  You can link to it HERE.  I absolutely stand by that idea and indeed right now, as the world seems to grow more challenging by the hour, I think it’s more important than ever pay attention to joy. Today I want to build on the idea of reviewing your own joy and expand it to suggest a simple way you can not only encourage a joy focus in the people you encounter in your daily life but also spark a potentially meaningful conversation between you and friends or even you and a stranger.

 

I was recently at my annual professional conference, which is in itself actually one of my most joyful times of each year. I get to see many of my favorite people in the world and also get reinvigorated in my career.  It is a place to reconnect with close friends and fond acquaintances and also to get the opportunity to meet many new people who could grow into those first two categories in the years to come. There is a lot going on at once at all hours of the day and evening, and many conversations happen in passing in the conference center or at a reception.  The “what’s new?” or “how are things?” opener to these conversations, less than scintillating in a typical year, seemed to trip people up this year with a lot of pressure felt to give a caveat on the state of the world before proceeding with their own recap. 

 

After one or two of these conversations on the first day of the conference I decided on the spot to change the question, and to everyone I met up with I asked, “what moment gave you the most joy in the last year?”  This was a game changer.  At first most people looked a bit taken aback and then I’d see a modicum of guilt pass over their faces as if perhaps we are not allowed to openly discuss joyful experiences in light of the burden of the world.  But then that cloud would quickly pass and they would light up and tell me a story.

 

Sometimes it was big – often a trip somewhere wonderful or big event like a honeymoon – but other times it was truly a moment.  For instance, one person told me that she and her husband watched a silly old comedy they haven’t seen in years and had belly laughs together that they really needed on that day.  Someone else told me of one particular day they connected with their grown kid.  One person who had at first told me about a trip stopped me later in the conversation to “change his answer” to something he had actually witnessed earlier that day that was a surprising delight.

 

I initiated a few of these conversations with people I was meeting for the first time, and I felt a sense of more immediate connection to them than I think I would have in a typical introductory conversation.  Joy is not small talk.  Joy is personal.

 

I’d like to hope that these conversations sparked some wonderful memories in those I spoke with even long after our encounter.  Following up after the conference, one person told me she was going to steal this idea for the future.  Steal away – all of you!  Please.  We need it.

 

 

Indepartners

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I have been wanting to do a blog for a long time now on the beauty and benefits of long distance relationships, and what better time for it than now as my partner, Kurt, and I are getting ready to launch our podcast on the topic, Indepartners!  This month’s blog serves double duty as my quarterly post and an introduction to the podcast; the trailer should drop at the end of January.  You can check out a bit more detail here.

 

Kurt and I have been indepartners, or living together apart (LAT is the sociological term for us) for the entirety of our relationship – 13 years now.  We were friends and work colleagues for years before that, as we are both organizational psychology professors who met through our professional society.  When we progressed from colleagues to close friends to falling in love, we were completely enamored not only with each other but with the balance between the lives we already had and the new one we were building together.  

 

We loved getting really excited to see each other, spending intentional time doing fun things completely engaged with each other, then parting, missing each other a lot, and then having time and freedom to also live our individual lives.  Everyone we knew assumed living apart was a temporary arrangement and we’d work to try to move to be together all the time.  That honestly had never even been on the table. Why mess with perfection?

 

When we have the opportunity to really talk about our relationship with people, it seems to make much more sense to them.  But even if they “get it”, folks seem to range in their reaction from thinking it’s not for them but understanding why we like it, to getting a wistful look on their face and wishing they could ship their partner across the country .  In all seriousness, although we know an indepartnership isn’t for everyone (it requires a certain level of resources and independence), we really believe that the lessons we’ve learned in designing this beautiful relationship could help a lot of people:  from those who find themselves facing distance they didn’t think they wanted to people in more traditional, cohabitating relationships who could mix things up with a bit more intentionality.

 

In the Indepartners podcast, we’ll be busting some myths about long distance relationships and discussing the benefits of concepts like intentionality, communication, anticipation, and rituals.  Regular readers of this Demand the Shimmer blog might recognize some of those themes; many are practices that I try to incorporate and model in my individual life as well.  We’ll have some guests, including others in similar relationships, and we’ll take questions from our audience.  We are so excited to launch!  I hope that you’ll give us a listen. 

 

 

Holiday Invention #1 – Big Walk Day

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My life partner, Kurt, and I are long distance by choice (our podcast on this, Apartners, will be launching in December or January – eek – stay tuned!). One of my favorite things about our relationship of over twelve years is that we have made up a bunch of holidays that we celebrate every year. I’m sure that plenty of couples, and probably especially those with children, have special rituals and traditions that they do regularly. It’s my observation, though, that these are typically associated with traditional holidays or birthdays. On the other hand, many of ours are just made up completely independent of those things and designed in part to be sources of anticipation. I wanted to share a few of ours in case they may be a springboard of inspiration.  This month I am going to highlight one of my favorites:  Big Walk Day.

 

Kurt and I both love to walk. We may be just a bit obsessed with our step goals (ok, by we I really mean me). We also are very fortunate and privileged to be able to travel fairly regularly, and firmly believe that walking around a new place is the best way to enjoy it. Big Walk Day actually was sort of invented by accident. Kurt had an opportunity to teach a course in the summers in Honolulu for a few years, and one day ago we decided to walk from our friend’s condo where we were staying to downtown rather than hopping on the bus. It was a beautiful day and we just kept wandering around, and we realized at some point that we’d probably end up with over 30,000 steps that day. We patted ourselves on the back for this over cocktails and snacks, and we decided then and there that the following year we’d go for 40,000: Big Walk Day was born.

 

This quickly became a much-anticipated holiday that still continues. It happens in the summer, and we’ve done it so far in Hawaii, Memphis, and New Orleans. It involves setting a step goal given our current physical states (one year we took it a bit too far and I got a little sick, likely from dehydration; lesson learned and we no longer try to beat the top time each year and I’ve doubled down on the water). Then, Kurt maps out a general route that should get us back to our starting point about the point we should be reaching that step goal, give or take.  To put a typical goal in perspective, we usually go around 50K steps, which is over 20 miles, and do it over the course of a 12-14 hour day.

 

For any of you thinking this is a big workout, health-focused thing, let me disabuse you of that idea!  Big Walk Day includes a big breakfast out, coffee and treats, lunch, beer, and dinner. Ok, sometimes more beer in between. We always have a plan about when the next stop will be – some of the stretches are longer than others, and we make an unplanned stop if we need a rest.  We take lots of photos (and post a selfie at every 10K steps on social media – shown above is us mid-walk one year). We each plan out topics to talk about, but we also have some really random and often funny conversations prompted by things we see. We are also comfortable with long stretches of silence, just focused on being where we are and keeping moving.

 

I think there are a lot of different reasons why Big Walk Day is one of our favorite days of the year, and several of them tie into themes I’ve written about here in Demand the Shimmer in the past.  First, of course, it is a ritual, and there are so many satisfying elements of rituals in our life (I wrote about Rituals vs. Routines in one of my first Demand the Shimmer blog posts).   

 

Anticipation is such an underappreciated emotion, and it’s so important to always have things (in the day, the next week, the month, the year) that you are really looking forward to.  We don’t celebrate Big Walk Day on the same day each year, but it’s almost always in the summer.  When we do it in a place we’ve done it before, we make sure to include some of our favorite spots (big shout out to Bogart’s Café in Waikiki and their spectacular Mama’s Fried Rice – breakfast of champions!). We also try to add at least one stop we’ve never been to before to be able to look forward to new discoveries that may or may not eventually become favorites. Because Kurt and I live apart, planning when and where we will be together in the course of a year is a regular part of our relationship, and during the course of this we can generally get a sense of when Big Walk Day will be and start to get excited about it.

 

Setting goals as a couple (or as a family, or a pair of friends) is a great connection builder.  Breaking out of the habits of the things you typically do together on a day off helps to see one another through fresh eyes, and accomplishing something moderately challenging together and celebrating the win is pretty exhilarating. There is also something magical about literally falling in sync with other people by matching their pace and sharing repeated movements while experiencing the same sights and sounds.

 

If Big Walk Day sounds intriguing to you, please make it your holiday too! But if walking isn’t something you are able to or are interested in doing, what type of day-long ritual can you create – with a partner, family, friends, or on your own?  How can you introduce the elements of anticipation, detail planning, and a moderate challenge of some sort?  Is there a time of year you think you get in a rut that this could spark you out of? 

 

Happy Holiday!

 

 

 

Joy Elixir

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Recently I was wandering around a craft store, and being a sucker for colored paper of all kinds, I spotted on one of those little hanging racks on the end of an aisle a smallish pad of thick colored paper, maybe about 3 X 5.  It reminded me at the time of a prescription pad (is that still a thing?).  I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it but I was sure it was supposed to come home with me.

 

Later in the week I heard Gretchen Rubin on her Happier podcast talking about an Audio Apothecary – essentially a playlist to lift your mood.  That word “apothecary” really appealed to me.  Still later, the word “alchemy” popped up in two very different things I was reading.  Finally, when I was feeling a little overwhelmed from some work issues mostly out of my control and journaling to try to work through some stuff, it all kind of came together.  I needed to write a prescription for myself to lift me out of my stuck place  But, prescription sounded a bit too sterile and pharmaceutical, so I thought perhaps I needed an elixir.  Or maybe a spell?  I’m still deciding which I like better. Either way, the plan was to craft my own apothecary to give myself a boost of Demand the Shimmer magic.

 

I grabbed that colored paper pad and wrote myself a spell.  It included things to do, ways to breathe and move, songs to hear, things to consume, things to say.  Since then, I have made one for bravery (something I really needed to tap more into), sleep, energy, transitioning into vacation mode, and transitioning back to home. 

 

I talk a lot about ritual in these blogs, and this overlaps with ritual in some ways, but I think it’s a little different in that these are really quick to do, a bit silly, and have this tongue-in-cheek nod to magic and playfulness.  

 

I often find that my social-scientist brain and my joyful-goofball spirit to get into tussles with one another.  In fact, that was one of the reasons it took me a couple of years to create this blog and then five years to go from first publishing it to finally telling people about it.  A lot of this stuff I come up with when I’m wearing my Demand the Shimmer hat seems at first at odds with what I know about researching and testing happiness interventions as a scientist.  But are they really so disparate?

 

Maybe not. Here’s what I’m thinking:

 

  • I really enjoyed reading Gretchen Rubin’s book Life in Five Senses last year, and have been working on ways of both noticing how I use all my senses each day and trying to purposefully use them more. She discusses several sources of research on these benefits. An older and gorgeously written book about the senses is Diane Ackerman’s A Natural History of the Senses.  My elixirs utilize a multitude of senses.

 

  • Even though I know I the particular combination of things I’m doing/hearing/consuming etc. is just something I made up, (a) the individual things range from harmless/enjoyable to evidence-based efficacious (e.g., breathing exercises), and (b) placebos can have real effects in some cases if you choose to believe they will work.

 

  • There is a growing body of research on the many benefits of play for adults in a variety of disciplines, and several practical books on introducing more play into your life. A favorite of mine is an interactive workbook I received as a gift one year; it’s called Play: Ideas, Exercises, and Little Ways to Add More Fun to Everyday by M.H. Clark.  To me, making up magical spells absolutely fits the bill of playfulness.

 

  • These spells are essentially a checklist; accomplishing an entire checklist is one mechanism for producing feelings of efficacy and accomplishment in many people, me included. It has been pointed out to me that my name is even List if you change one letter!

 

 

Okay, if that all sold you on this – would you like to create your own apothecary?  Or maybe just try one spell/elixir?  Here are some steps to get you started:

 

  • First, think of a state you would like to create. Is it sleep, energy, joy, something else?

 

  • Next, think about ways to use at least 3-4, but ideally all five, of your main senses in a way that typically helps with that state. For example, what sounds would be helpful?  What could you touch or feel or how could you move to make that more available to you?

 

  • Add some element of whimsy.

 

  • I have found I like to end it with saying something out loud – it sort of acts as an affirmation. Yes, people make fun of those, but check out Jon Acuff’s book Soundtracks for a hot take on affirmations. The speaking out loud also seems to make it more like a Hogwarts-esque spell.  No wand though. Yet.

 

 

Joy

The Joy Review

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The Joy Review

January 15, 2024

 

Happy new year!  For someone like me who is obsessed with rituals and practices to help bring more joy to everyday life, the new year is one of my favorite times on the calendar.  Some people scoff at new year’s resolutions and all that fresh-start stuff.  If you are one of those people, that’s cool, but hear me out on this one ritual that I think might be worth your time.  I used to just call it the yearly review ritual but I think it’s time to rebrand it as The Joy Review. 

 

When you take time to just think about the past year as you’re stuck in traffic or doing the dishes, you likely hit the highs and lows – the major events that really planted themselves in your memory.  It’s human nature to notice the negative.  This ritual is not going to solve big problems or heal real wounds, but it is a practice to help remind us of some of the small, everyday moments of joy that happened this year and give you the chance to savor them again

 

I should warn you that to do this thoroughly you’re going to need to set aside several hours, but it is also something that can be done a bit at a time, perhaps reviewing a month a night or even a week.  I do this as a regular ritual during December 31 and January 1.  There really is nothing magical about those days, so if this appeals to you, don’t wait until next year – give it a try now.

 

I think everyone’s tools for this ritual will differ.  For me, it’s a journal, my photos on my phone, my Facebook timeline, the one second every day app[1], my weekly journal, and my one-line-a-day journal.  Starting with January, I find all my photos from January, the one second a day video I made for January, and I go easily back to my Facebook posts by going to my page and hitting the Filter button and selecting January of last year.  I flip through all of these resources and take some bullet point notes from some of the everyday things that happened.  I am continually astounded by:

 

  • How many fun and funny moments that I completely forgot about that instantly bring me joy to experience again.
  • How much I was sure at the time of those moments I’d always remember them, but if I hadn’t done this exercise, I would have forgotten them.
  • How many worries (typically issues at work and things that were giving my self-esteem a hit) I had completely forgotten all about.

 

That last one was a big eye-opener for me.  I can get really caught up in my head about performance anxiety or rejection, and in the moment it seems like such a monster, but so many of these I end up completely forgetting about. You might think reliving them brings back the anxiety, but I found that it actually brings joy to know that those types of worries really are fleeting.

 

A lot of the joy of even the bigger moments are in the details.  For example, I had the great privilege to go to Paris last year. Of course I remembered Paris and I could tick off the memories at the big event level (the boat ride by the Eiffel tower right as the twinkle lights came on, the trip to Giverny and Versailles), but I hadn’t been remembering the first fun startle when the whole boat whooped with glee when the boat passed under the first bridge and how the people on the banks of the Seine, drinking wine and picnicking, would wave.  Or, the exact vivid shade of pink I captured in a perfect flower in Monet’s garden.  This ritual brings an echo of that tangible joy right back.

 

If my partner is with me during this exercise, he kindly allows me to review each month with him as I go and he ends up also delighted by all the things he’d forgotten. It also helps to talk out loud about these little memories to increase the intensity of the detail.  When he hasn’t been around, I send him the recap in emails.  I can see two friends getting together to do this together and exchanging favorite moments.  And if you come across a fun pic of or with a friend that you think they may have forgotten about, text it to them and spread the joy.

 

If you try this for the first time and find you don’t have a record of the little moments, maybe that’s a sign to try to start a practice this year where you will have some good reminders next time around.  Tools like one second a day allow you to take a quick video of something – anything – happening in your life each day so you can step away from the camera and be in the moment.  Similarly, for people who find the idea of journaling intimidating or boring, a one-line-a-day journal allows you to record just one good thing from the day and takes only a minute. Both of these are easy practices to start and will give you a lot of smiles later for a tiny time investment.

 

One of my favorite memories from this year was a picture I took in the coffee shop of my computer as I was finishing the blog post I wrote to release Demand the Shimmer into the world more broadly.  I look at it and feel those butterflies again in my stomach, but remember that determination was winning the battle against doubt and it was sitting at that table at that moment drinking that latte that I knew I’d start sharing.  Joy review indeed.

 

[1] Check out 1SE – 1 Second Everyday Diary – where you get your apps.

 

New ritual: ITL

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Do you ever just have the feeling that there are things weighing on you, but you can’t quite pinpoint what they are? It’s like this little niggling poke now and then, but when you turn where the poke seemed to come from, the source doesn’t quite come into focus.  It’s not major anxiety, it’s just something underneath the current that keeps you from really fully being present where you are and feeling as energetic as you could.

 

After a slew of social events, a weekend was on the horizon with no plans. Not a one.  And I decided rather than to just catch up on errands or cleaning, or even try to do some extra reading or organizing projects – things that for me are soothing and self-caring – I would design a specific retreat day that would allow me to try to uncover all of the things in my life that were lurking in the shadows.  I realized that bringing these things into the light, and more importantly planning an action step around each of them, would make them far less scary. Consequently, I’d be less likely to be looking over my shoulder when I’m trying to fully live the life in front of me.

 

Here’s what I did.  This was a stay-at-home retreat (although different in focus and scope than my regular QTR retreat I’ve described before; you can find a link to my guide for Quarterly At-Home Retreats here if you are interested in that process). The most important thing with any stay-at-home retreat is to have the day to yourself without interruptions. I know that’s easier said than done for some.  I’d suggest at a minimum you do this somewhere you can be uninterrupted except for an emergency, and you keep any notifications off. 

 

Because you are going to need your bravery today to face uncomfortable tasks, conversations, changes, etc., arm yourself with intense comfort.  Plan ahead by thinking of what really brings you comfort using all your senses and gather whatever you think will be soothing.  I was in the coziest of clothes, not one thing itchy or tight.  I had warm lighting, delicious drinks and food all day (but nothing requiring any fuss or distraction), and classical music in the background. 

 

Although I normally don’t combine work retreats and nonwork retreats into one – I hold fast to my strong boundaries between these realms – in this case I decided I needed to examine aspects of my whole life to understand fully where my blindspots were.  I created a OneNote project for this; I am as a rule more of a paper journal person, but the speed at which I could type out insights appealed to me for this, before I lost the glimpse of whatever started coming up.  I started with a freewrite just to get the juices flowing.  Then, I wrote down various categories of home and life and asked myself “what am I pretending isn’t a problem here?”  It was kind of like coaxing a cat out from under the bed; I just kept looking deeper until I saw it there looking back at me. 

 

I can’t pretend that I didn’t at all have an “ugh” feeling looking at this list when I finally herded all these cats, but it was accompanied by a feeling of pride and bravery for taking my head out of the sand.  It also felt like a really good start, and starting is almost always the hardest part. Once that first stage was completed, I did celebrate that accomplishment, but the process couldn’t end there. What I needed was the most concrete, doable action step I could come up with for each challenge. My rules were: (a) I had to be able to do it in the next 48 hours (and preferably some of them immediately doable), (b) the step would take no longer than 15 minutes to accomplish, and (c) it would be something I knew how to do and had the power to do without any additional resources.  I also planned out some fun little rewards for achieving each of these first steps and for planning the next several steps once the first ones were completed.

 

When looking back at the details of this day to write this blog, I’m happy to say that I discovered almost all of these issues have been completely resolved or have lost their power to rattle me.  Doing this one time of course hasn’t prevented me from burying things that I’m not sure how to approach and then letting inadvertently giving them the power to morph into monsters.  My head still goes into the sand sometimes, and I recognize it when that niggling starts again, or when I feel myself more distracted or lower energy than normal.  But now I know what to do, and you do too. ITL: Into the light.

 

 

 

 

The Return of MWOWs

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The return of M-Wows

My amazing mother, Rhoda Finkelstein, passed away on August 31, 2019, after a week’s stay in the hospital with a litany of major issues, just shy of her 93rd birthday.  We said goodbye on day 3 of that week – she felt the end was coming and she wanted to make sure we had that conversation while she was still completely lucid.  I am so grateful for the heartfelt goodbye we shared and I know because of it I was ready to let go. Honestly, I was more relieved than I’d ever been in my life that she passed the very day after she was put on palliative care, knowing that she went quickly before she became “un-her.” 

 

I moved my mama up from Florida almost three years prior when she could no longer live alone. She was in assisted living as I couldn’t provide her the professional 24-hour care she would need for the remainder of her life.  She was a firecracker and even though her body gave out, her mind was sharp –  her sense of humor and her kindness competing for her defining feature.  Stories of my mama became my most common topic on my social media, and she started to develop quite the fan club among my friends and acquaintances.

 

When she passed, the outpouring was truly stunning, including many messages about how folks felt like they knew and loved this woman they had never met through my posts.  A few weeks later, I decided to do a series of posts to share some of the most precious lessons I had learned from her over the years.  On the second one I dubbed them M-WOWs:  Mama’s Words of Wisdom.  Every now and then I post a memory of an M-WOW and I’m told how much they are missed.  I decided to reintroduce the M-WOW series to my blog, now with a bit of expansion and embellishment.

 

Please enjoy the update of my first M-WOW from September 17, 2019, entitled Treat Yourself…

 

The original: I’m starting a series of posts called “Wise lessons from Mama Rhoda”. I have been thinking a lot about all I’ve learned and this way I can share more of it and spread her wisdom. First lesson today: Treat yourself! This was Mama’s ring. She bought it for herself probably back in the 60s (wish I knew when for sure) when she got a raise at work. Both my parents worked hard and we didn’t have tons of money but she knew the pleasure of a once in a while little splurge on something special, within reason.

 

New reflections: I realized as I thought more about this that there are other subtle and important lessons nestled in here.  First, my mama taught me that it is ok to buy yourself gifts that our society often tells us should come from other people as a sign of love.  Fine jewelry, and most particularly rings, are quintessentially in this category.  I rarely suffer from the guilt at acts of self-care and self-appreciation that seem to be common, especially among women. I think this may be one more thing I can thank my mama for.

 

Second, my mama was a very hard worker and she was incredibly smart, and she took a lot of pride in what she brought to her workplaces.  Although she never used the term “headhunted” (probably a good thing – what a terrible term!), I know she was lured away from more than one workplace to another on more than one occasion because she was so skilled at what she did and so pleasant to work with.  She wasn’t shy about sharing those stories and showing pride in the quality of her work and her work ethic.  I believe from her I learned that taking pride in good work is different from bragging and is something most definitely worth celebrating.

 

Lastly, Mama had her own sense of personal style.  This ring is not something I would have picked for myself, though I now enjoy wearing it because it is so her.  Even into her 90s she was very particular about her clothes and jewelry and putting together a look that made her feel good.  Right before she moved into assisted living, we went on a big shopping trip (akin to back to school shopping) and debated on the best look for her “first day” outfit.  Treats do not have to cost a lot, but there is something about wearing something new and very you that can help you seize the day!

 

How will you treat yourself this month?

 

 

Savor Watching

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It’s pretty typical to have someone ask you what you’re binge-watching, but you never hear people ask about savor-watching.  I am a savor-watcher.  I think in part it might stem from my love of a ritual. I used to love looking forward to Mad Men on Sunday nights – and for y’all who are my age-ish, who can forget Must-See Thursdays on NBC?  I still remember counting down ‘til Saturday night and the Love Boat as a kid (I realllllly wanted to be Julie McCoy when I grew up). 

 

Watching a bunch of episodes in a row of a show doesn’t really appeal to me. In fact, these days I find I can’t even watch a whole episode of a show at a time – I’ll often spread the one episode out over a couple times in the week, or even across weeks.  That way I can spend time with Midge Maisel and Jonathan Van Ness and Mr. Kim and Emily Cooper for a much longer stretch of my life than I would have otherwise.  In between, I can anticipate.

 

I think anticipation is one of the most underrated emotions, but more on that coming soon about that with my ode to the long distance relationship. Stay tuned!

 

Back to savor-watching. I think it’s part of an obsession I’ve been having with the idea of savoring as a key component of a joyful life.  Research in the field of positive psychology has seen an uptick in scientific interest in the effects of efforts to increase people’s savoring in various aspects of their lives.

 

Proponents of positive psychology recognize that while it is really important to help people cope with negative experiences and states, that is just one side of the coin. It is also vital help people who are doing just fine go from fine to thriving and flourishing.  This is definitely on brand with Demand the Shimmer. One of the researchers lighting the path toward more scientific work on savoring is Dr. Fred Bryant from Loyola University in Chicago.  He and his colleagues recognized that just as people can learn to proactively cope with negative stuff, they should also be able to proactively increase their joy in reaction to positive stuff.  Savoring is the practice of doing just that, and it can involve the whole process of anticipating something awesome, mindfully experiencing the moment of awesomeness, and actively practicing reminiscing about the awesomeness. 

 

Some other savoring practices I’ve been trying to put into place this summer include:

 

  • Taking the last meal of a vacation or the last leg of a road trip to review the whole thing event-by-event with whomever I am with to relive all the fun memories again. Typically, different people will have had different little memories stick, so sharing expands everyone’s experience.  And, If I do a daytrip alone, I’ll actually talk the details out loud or write them down so I can relive them before the memories fade.

 

  • If I see something beautiful or funny or interesting, like most of us I am quick to snap a photo, but I try to stop and really look carefully and savor the moment rather than count on a pic I may never return to.

 

  • This one might sound a bit weird, but when I have a feeling of joy or happiness come over me, I try to stop and say (out loud, even if I’m alone) “I am so happy.” Noting happiness and sitting with it for a few extra beats helps to expand it.

 

  • Keeping a one-line-a-day journal where the one line or phrase is the most fun moment of the day. Even a crappy day often has at least a moment of humor, connection, or beauty.

 

Although savor-watching and some of these other savoring practices come pretty naturally to me, I really struggle with the type of savoring people typically think of first – eating slowly and savoring food.  I am and have always been a fast eater, as much as I try to slow down.  In fact, I’m writing this at a coffee shop and I just got to the last bite of a delicious pan au chocolate before realizing I had finished it mindlessly.  I am going to double down the efforts on this; I know it will be worth it.

 

What will you try to savor?

 

 

Cheers,

Lisa