• Home
  • About
  • Pep Talk
  • Resources
  • Blog
Menu

Start3Things

  • Home
  • About
  • Pep Talk
  • Resources
  • Blog
 
caterpillar-1.jpg
IDEAS
cocoon-2.jpg
INSPIRATION
butterfly-3.jpg
INSIGHTS

“ The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.”

- George Eliot

Flourishing

January 17, 2021

“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” – Jamais Cascio

In a meeting this week, a colleague/friend introduced herself to the group and said she was in the business of “human flourishing.” It was so inspirational and aspirational, I wrote it down as a prompt. It has stuck with me as a lot of seismic changes and shifts are unfolding professionally, in society and the world. What if we were all in the business of “human flourishing,” starting with ourselves first and then moving outward from that center?

Positive psychologist and professor Dr. Lynn Soots (n.d.) describes flourishing as the following:

“Flourishing is the product of the pursuit and engagement of an authentic life that brings inner joy and happiness through meeting goals, being connected with life passions, and relishing in accomplishments through the peaks and valleys of life.”

In an article on PositivePsychology.com, Courtney E. Ackerman offers components and practical tips on how to move toward flourishing. “Most psychologists agree that flourishing encompasses well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction; however, even these components of flourishing have their own subcomponents, including:

  • Meaning

  • Purpose

  • Autonomy

  • Self-acceptance

  • Optimism

  • Positive relationships

  • Mastery

  • Self-determination

  • Resilience

  • Personal growth

  • Vitality

  • Engagement

  • Self-esteem (VanderWeele, 2017)

The idea of measuring flourishing becomes more unwieldy with each addition to the list—and we’re not done yet!”

Research shows that the impact of flourishing includes:

  • Fewer missed days of works

  • Fewer half-days and work cutbacks

  • Lower helplessness

  • More clear life goals

  • Higher resilience

  • Higher intimacy

  • Lower risk of cardiovascular disease

  • Lower number of chronic physical diseases with age

  • Fewer health limitations of daily living activities

  • Lower health care utilization (Keyes, 2007)

To improve your chances of flourishing, she offers the following suggestions:

  1. Expand and enhance your social support system-make new friends and deepen relationships. This is harder and more important as we approach our one-year anniversary of “pandemic living.” Reach out – call, text, email and don’t stop;

  2. Experience the good in life with fun, meaningful events. Establish goals and measurements for progress;

  3. Schedule “fun” into each day. This will be the most important daily activity that you can add to your calendar;

  4. Pursue purpose and meaning, followed by specific actions to achieve them.

There are five key qualities to achieve flourishing:

  1. Attention: Enhance your ability to direct and re-direct your attention. A morning meditation practice can do wonders to tone your attention muscles and set the course for the day. Mindfulness creates the space needed for reflection, perspective and self-awareness;

  2. Time Management: Choose carefully where you invest your finite valuable time. Say “no” more so you can say “yes” to the right things;

  3. Continuous Improvement: Commit to growth by staying open, seeking knowledge and insight followed by application;

  4. Active Listening: Give others and yourself undivided attention, listening rather than passive hearing. Commit to communicate honestly, empathetically, respectfully and openly;

  5. Positive Experiences: – pursue, seek positive experiences daily. You find what you are looking for so search for the positive rather than default to the negative. Suddenly, you will find joy in plain sight.

If your 2021 resolutions are falling flat and your short on motivation, take a step back. Reassess and recommit to daily activities that move you in the direction of flourishing, a worthy lifelong pursuit.

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou

In Insights Tags flourishing, growth, purpose, optimism, resilience, personal growth

“Be soft, don’t let the world make you hard. Be gentle, don’t let the people make you difficult. Be kind, don’t let the realities of life steal your sweetness and make you heartless.”

― Nurudeen Ushawu

Butterfly Work

March 27, 2020

“Empathy is the most mysterious transaction that the human soul can have, and it’s accessible to all of us, but we have to give ourselves the opportunity to identify, to plunge ourselves in a story where we see the world from the bottom up or through another’s eyes or heart.” – Sue Monk Kidd

I keep tripping and wandering back to foundations that have carried and anchored this soul for five plus decades – grace, seasons, empathy, connection, God, faith, joy, family, friends, character, delight, generosity, silliness, imperfection, laughter, resilience, worthiness, purpose, nature, struggle, waiting, patience, more patience, mystery and simplicity.

The past few weeks have been quite a ride for all of us. A roller coaster that has us loosely bound, uncertain whether the seat belt will hold, lonely, socially distanced and longing for connection, uncertain of the future, floundering in open space, unbound by a familiar busyness, confined to our quarters and becoming increasingly aware of what we can control and what we can’t control that we convinced ourselves in the recent past that we could control.

Our first response is to get off the ride and go back to the familiar. Don’t. Forge ahead confident that you and we as the collective whole have what it takes to move into the unknown, to reach deep within to the power that will carry us into a purposeful, burgeoning, creative and abundant near future. Hold tight and enter deep into the gifts of this uncertain time. Where we’ve been in the past won’t instruct us for our new normal. But the past has done its part to build our resilience, reserve and grit to enter the future capable to meet it completely.

This is fertile ground right now. Sacred actually – give it reverence, awe and respect. Cultivate the soil, plant the seeds and prepare for the hearty harvest. We are deep in butterfly work – the cocoon – dark, illusive, waiting, impatience, struggle, unfamiliar territory. Drop assumptions, past narratives and open your arms to the beautiful, dense and rich unknown!

The near future is filled and overflowing with abundance and fruition in due time. Let it play out and drop your preconceived, incorrect notions. You and we have no idea so let it present itself. The ground has been leveled so release the BS, your ego and arrogance to make room for this most excellent and fulfilling journey. Be open to new possibilities. The ones who are not predicting the unpredictable now, the ones who are willing to look at the world with new eyes, the ones who are doing the deep internal awareness and management work will survive, thrive and build the future.

In this very moment, we are in the cocoon on the journey to metamorphosis – the great transformation. And in the struggle, the laws of nature will unfold to transform the caterpillar to the butterfly.

In the past few weeks, many have been rallying to go online, to predict the future, to create virtual connection. The shallow efforts of panic shall fade away and be replaced with depth, meaning and rigor. One of the best learning methods that has existed for centuries is reading books – the classics mainly, which have stood the test of time. The most relevant book on “Butterfly Work” is Sue Monk Kidd’s When the Heart Waits.

Here are a few insights from her work:

 “The True Self is not our creation, but God’s. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.”

“God is offering an invitation. A call to waiting. A call to the mysteries of the cocoon.”

“And somehow the transformation you knew would never come, that impossible lumping of fresh life and revelation, does come. It manifests itself in unseen slowness.”

“The fullness of one’s soul evolves ever slowly. We’re asked only to go within to gestate the newness God is trying to form; we’re asked to collaborate with grace.”

“When the fullness of time comes a sacred voice at the heart of us cries out, shaking the old foundation. It draws us into a turbulence that forces us to confront our deepest issues. It’s as if some inner, divine grace seeks our growth and becoming and will plunge us, if need be, into a cauldron that seeths with questions and voices we would just as soon not hear. One way or another, the false roles, indentities and illusions spill over the sides of our life, and we’re forced to stand in chaos.”

While we have been lost and wandering aimlessly in open time, in remote work, in home schooling, in toilet paper supply angst, we are right in the middle of the mystery, process and gift of metamorphosis. Do not miss, dismiss or bypass this time. Enter fully into the grace that will carry us through and move us fully through to the #otherside - new, whole, refreshed, transformed and very different than what was before. Do the rigor of the butterfly work. Cocoon to butterfly.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

 

In Inspiration Tags butterfly, transformation, resilience, metamorphisisi

'“If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.”

- Dan Rather

Get Your Grit On, Keep Going

December 4, 2019

Mental toughness, resilience and grit are required to navigate the winding roads of life and enjoy the journey along the way. Keeping momentum with forward motion, getting up again and again and embracing a growth mindset are the fuel to finish strong.

In Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth summarizes “grit” as passion and perseverance for very long-term goals, having stamina, sticking with your future, day in, day out, for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint. You can grow your grit by cultivating your interests, committing to the daily habit of practice, connecting with a purpose beyond yourself and embracing hope to provide the inspiration to keep going.

Read More
In Inspiration Tags grit, resilience, mental toughness, Morin, Duckworth

Get in touch with Kathie of Start 3 Things at kathiep@start3things.com