Thinking about: Being the Change

My sister Suzie recently wrote a post about how she was able to honour her value of justice by dealing pro-actively with a variety of customer service situations. Go Suzie!

In the same context, I was able to take action on my values too. As I wrote last week, my deepest value is Life and by that I mean honouring life, loving life, celebrating life. And to me, honouring each other as beings is a part of that. It's deeply impactful to me because I believe that violence and acts of cruelty are only possible when we disconnect, when we turn off our empathy and don't see each other as living, breathing beings.

What does this have to do with customer service? I've been having intense technical difficulties. I have not been able to receive emails to any account associated with my openthedoor.ca domain since last Wednesday. As I run a business, this is particularly distressing. One of the first steps I took to resolve the situation was contacting my ISP (internet service provider). I was stressed, worried and trying to communicate about something I don't particularly understand. The CSR (customer service rep) helping me was aloof, cold and clipped. He was unable to resolve the situation but was able to determine that the problem was not at their end.

At the end of the call, he asked, "Is there anything else I can do for you today?"

"It would have really made a difference if you had been friendly."

"But ma'am I went through all the steps with you. I ensured your situation was taken care of."

"Yes, you did, and I truly appreciate your help. But this is a stressful and difficult situation, and it would have been so nice if I could feel a smile on the other end of the line."

And amazingly, he softened and laughed and for a brief moment we had a human-to-human connection and the world was a better place, at least my world was. I hope his was too.

I'm not saying that every interaction has to be deeply personal. I live in an incredibly busy and crowded city. Sometimes we need to disconnect just to have some semblance of privacy. And I think sometimes people get zoned out and cold because their jobs weigh them down and they don't want to give away one more drop of energy. But when you connect, you get a chance to receive too. We can exchange our energy instead of just our information. On those occasions when our paths do cross, I hope that we can be human with each other. That's the change I want to be in the world.

Project 365 ~ Week 13

Project 365 is my attempt to capture a year in my life through a photograph a day. On Saturday's I'll post the week's pics. At the end of the year, I'll create a video of all these precious moments. Feel free to participate at any time. Yours can be Project 347 or Project 292. It's up to you.

Psst: I snuck in an additional photo because it was so cool to see the intense 1-shot competition at Rock, Paper, Scissors: The Way of the Tosser. And Shannon's got an awesome video clip of the pre-show treat. Check it out at Movie Moxie.

And then a disconnect...

If you've been trying to email me in the past couple of days, please know that I'm having trouble with my service. We've been in intense tech conversations trying to resolve the issue. Hopefully I'll be up and running soon. Thank you for your patience.

Reconnecting

I've been a bit absent lately. Since Bascha's passing, my energy has been a bit low and my schedule has been really demanding. I'm slowly but surely starting to plug back in to the things that are important to me and that includes blogging.

I'm being very motivated by a book called The Power of Full Engagement. It's about focusing on managing your energy instead of your time. It focuses on 4 different aspects of your life: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. Interestingly, the authors define spiritual as living in line with your values.

I've recently been doing a fair amount of values work. I've written about values before. Getting clear on your values can provide a powerful guidance system for creating a life you love. I've seen the impact for my clients, in Circe's Circle and also personally. By values, I literally mean the things that you value in life, the things that are important to you.

In The Power of Full Engagement, they suggest turning your values into virtues by getting into action on them. They suggest that for every value, you start looking at what you can actually do to honour them. I've started this process and was amazed at how certain actions honoured many of my values and had lots of bang for the buck. For example, a self-care activity like going to the spa honours my values of life, love, beauty and pleasure. That's a whole lot of value! Cleaning actually honours my values of home and of beauty. In some ways it can also honour my value of love, celebration and magic.

I've got a lot more work to do but thought I'd share the start I've made in looking at actions I can take towards honouring my #1 value. I start off with some general ideas but am working on getting more and more specific.

I can honour my value of LIFE (enjoying it, living the sacredness of it, connecting to it, being sensitive to its rhythms) by:

• self-care
• healthcare
• fitness
• cultivating self-awareness
• honouring my relationship with the Universe
• experiencing life
• respecting and valuing others
• eating nourishing food
• getting enough sleep
• expressing gratitude
• getting outside
• celebrating the turns of the season and holidays
• celebrating birthdays
• not wasting energy on things that don't matter
• recycling
• gardening
• following the energy
• taking care of my cat, Jinx
• participating in activities that bring me joy
• photographing life
• chatting with the Universe
• throwing parties
• dancing

What are your values and how might you honour them?

Project 365 - Week 12

Project 365 is my attempt to capture a year in my life through a photograph a day. On Saturday's I'll post the week's pics. At the end of the year, I'll create a video of all these precious moments. Feel free to participate at any time. Yours can be Project 347 or Project 292. It's up to you.

Gratitude & Generous Bloggers

I could have posted this under "inspiration" too. Recently I've just been blown away by the generosity of bloggers. There seems to be an underlying value in the blogging community: share. Bloggers share their stories, their creations, their ideas and their support. They share their time, their knowledge, their insight and their passions. Bloggers lead groups, activities, swaps and discussions. And bloggers reach out and touch each other every day.

I've been so touched recently by our beautiful blogging community. When I wrote about knowing that our cat was in her last days, Tammy so, so generously put this pawprint kit in the mail for us immediately.

And recently in the One World, One Heart Giveaway, Tammie of Spirithelpers won a tarot reading from me. And she generously responded by sending me these gorgeous cards as a thank you and sharing how she enjoyed the experience on her blog. (Wild coincidence with the names, eh?)

Swampgrrl also recently had a tarot reading and wrote about it on her blog. All of this positivity is encouraging me to get moving on my upcoming launch of Starshyne Tarot, where you'll be able to purchase email tarot readings. More about that soon.

In the meantime, I also have to thank the talented, beautiful women who are participating in Circe's Circle. Melba has kindly offered to connect with people via email if they'd like to hear about her experience with the group. And Jessie has shared her thoughts in a testimonial you can read here.

I just feel so blessed to be in the midst of a creative community of generous, loving people who share who they are and encourage others to do the same. Thank you for being the magnificent beings that you are, creative blogging tribe!

PS I actually have even more thank yous to share but they involve gifts so have to stay under wraps for a little while longer. More to come on that later too :)

Inspiration... Girls Rock

Meg shared this on her blog yesterday and it blew me away. It still makes me cry to watch it. I so deeply want this for young girls. I deeply want for everyone that feeling that someone "gets you." I hope this film comes to Toronto. Find out about a screening near you here.

New Member of the Family

Justin & I went to visit his mom this weekend. She recently got a puppy. Lisa is totally irresistable. Even my mother-in-laws cat, Homer, is suprisingly tolerant, as you'll see in the little video I've shared at the end. (Please forgive the lack of editing. I haven't discovered how to do that yet)

Project 365 ~ Week 11

Project 365 is my attempt to capture a year in my life through a photograph a day. On Saturday's I'll post the week's pics. At the end of the year, I'll create a video of all these precious moments. Feel free to participate at any time. Yours can be Project 347 or Project 292. It's up to you.

Announcing a New Session of Circe's Circle

Jamie Ridler Studios

presents

Circe’s Circle

Bringing Creativity to Life

Jumpstart your creative project by joining Circe's Circle!

The next session of Circe's Circle will begin on May 5th, 2008. For 12 Mondays certified life coach Jamie Ridler will be leading this weekly tele-circle designed to support Creative Bloggers in moving creative dreams forward.

Circe’s Circle is ideal for:

• People yearning to bring a creative project or dream to life
• People wanting to make their creativity their priority
• People who want to connect with a community of independent, creative dreamers and believers
• You!

Benefits of participating in the Circe’s Circle include:

• Having a professional life coach guide you through the sometimes rough waters of bringing your dreams to life
• Weekly connection with your creative spirit and that of others
• Drawing on the wisdom and encouragement of the group
• Having a forum to discuss common blocks (such as time, money, space, confidence) and solutions
• Having a structure to keep you on track and moving forward towards your dreams
• Having a group to celebrate your progress with

The Details

Dates: Monday May 5 to Monday until July 21*
Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m. EST
Place: Connect from wherever you are to the teleconference
Cost: $300 for the series plus your long-distance charges
Size: This group is limited to 6 participants.

* Depending on the makeup of the participants, we may shift a couple of Mondays due to Victoria Day and Memorial Day.

Contact

To sign up or to find out more, please contact Jamie at jamie@openthedoor.ca.

Project 365 ~ Week 10

Project 365 is my attempt to capture a year in my life through a photograph a day. On Saturday's I'll post the week's pics. At the end of the year, I'll create a video of all these precious moments. Feel free to participate at any time. Yours can be Project 347 or Project 292. It's up to you.

Our Bascha Bear

1990 ~ March 1, 2008

You were truly loved, every day.

Project 365 ~ Week 9

Project 365 is my attempt to capture a year in my life through a photograph a day. On Saturday's I'll post the week's pics. At the end of the year, I'll create a video of all these precious moments. Feel free to participate at any time. Yours can be Project 347 or Project 292. It's up to you.