Going Back Again

Remember that thing you used to do once upon a time?  You know the one.  The one that made you smile and that smile lasted for hours and hours afterwards.  The thing that had nothing to do with being productive or meeting a deadline or “getting things done.”  That thing that made you feel alive…

And This One Was Juuuuuussst Right.

Ever had that experience where you know what you want and you find variations of it, but they are never quite right?  Too hot, too cold, too big, too small, too loud, too quiet, too many people, too few people….just too, too, too!  It’s like living in the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story (minus…

Time To Be Creative

As a culture we’ve somehow gotten everything upside and backwards concerning being creative.  We focus on the product not the process.  We wonder if what we make will be good enough, will anyone like it, will it sell, am I just wasting my time….so many critical voices.  We get creativity all tangled up with merchandising…

Inferred

Communicating live with a person is the original multimedia experience.  It’s not only about the vocalizations, it’s about body language, facial expressions, hand gestures, reference points in space, the environment…it’s a full body process.  To make it even richer we encode huge amounts of meaning into packets which we can then include by inference so…

With The Grain

If you’ve ever worked with wood or been around wood workers you’ll have heard “Go with the grain.”  If you want to make something smooth, sand with the grain (the lines in the wood).  If you sand against it you tear up the wood and just make a rough mess.  If you want to stain…

Balance

Balance doesn’t come from being perfectly still.  Try it.  Being still takes so much energy.  It’s one of the reasons that kids resist it so much. Our bodies do too, but as adults we override our natural and healthy desire to move with negative consequences.  I mean, if I see one more well-meaning article about…

Overwhelm

Everyone at some point in their life (or their day) will feel overwhelmed.  There will be too much input, too much emotion, too much expected, too much….  When overwhelm happens we react.  Being a deer in the headlights is a reaction, it’s just not an active one. 🙂  I have always found it interesting that…

I Need To Have A Win

There are things I have learned about myself and the gym which have completely changed our relationship for the better.  For years I thought it was me.  I was unmotivated, I had a bad attitude, I just wasn’t cut out for fitness, I just needed to work harder, I would get around to it when…

The Cup’s Completely Empty

We’re taught to get the work done first and then we can do what will make us happy.  You know, “Do your homework or you don’t get to go out and play.” It’s practical, it builds a good work ethic, it’s a virtue to be able to work hard and achieve, blah-blah-blah.  It’s true like…

Emotional Illiteracy

Many people have learned, due to difficult childhoods, dysfunctional families, highly competitive work environments or traumatic events that emotions are a vulnerability.  They are a weakness, a deadend that takes away time and energy from more productive pursuits, uncontrollable, never appropriate, and something to be rigidly controlled or avoided.  There are lots of ways to…