Right Expectations Inspire Greatness

I must admit I love to teach.  Maybe it was my mother’s influence watching her each morning prepare for her kindergarten classes, or having some really good elementary school teachers that even though I had learning issues, kept me believing I would/could “learn how to learn”.  When I think back now on how many years I struggled as a student, but kept trying, I realize the importance of the life-energizing role a good teacher, coach, or mentor plays.  Yesterday, at the AHA meeting someone asks me, “What has been your biggest challenge in wellness?”  I have been asked this many times, and my answer, “Teaching senior management, middle-managers, and well professionals to set the right expectations for their “big p” and “little p” programs.  Wellness exponentially grows in organizations, teams, and individuals when the right expectations are set and met.  Right expectations inspire greatness!

Worksite Wellness Value of Investment

As the new breed of worksite wellness programs continue to better integrate within company cultures their value to the bottom-line is so much more than the classic ROI expectations.  Senior and middle managers of these programs have added VOI or value of investment to their arsenal of evaluation tools.  ROI would be included in a VOI dashboard, but the VOI dashboard goes way beyond just equating dollars invested to the return on investment.  VOI converts the benefits of being “well” into benefits that move companies from “good to great”, and individuals to “being the best they can be”.  At MD Anderson, tailored programs for diabetics translate into individuals that have the energy to be the best they can be at work, and still have the energy to have a life after work.  VOI looks way beyond the money and into the soul or cultural variables that make a company great.  Has your company moved beyond ROI?  Why not?

Escape

Escape.  Some days we just want to escape for just a little while, lose the shadow that some days bring.  Yesterday, I had one of those days.  A car hit my outside cat Precious, and I cried hard as I wrapped him in one of my favorite soft t-shirts the color of his eyes, and buried him in our garden.  This morning, we talked through my tears, as I watered the wild rose bush I planted over his grave.  He loved to scratch his nose on my beard, as he sat on my chest, and purred as I gently rubbed his ears.  Yesterday was one of those days when I experienced the fragility of my life in its fullness, a fullness that this morning I celebrated with gratitude for the time I’d been given with Precious.  Whole person living is about opening your heart to the full experience of each moment – try it!  

Letting Be & Letting Go

Last week in Wichita, I spoke at the LeadingAge Kansas conference.  My cousin Peggy and her husband Tom live in Wichita, so we also celebrated a mini family reunion.  Tom and I both have active cancers treated at MD Anderson and each night Tom and I would walk and talk about life.  The first evening we walked under a blue ocean sky, silhouetted trees, and a perfectly placed rising first quarter moon and Venus.  I so wanted to say, "Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."  For lately, I’ve realized how important “letting be” and “letting go” are in life.  Trusting and accepting what is and being mindful of the precious moments we share, softens our hearts.  Today, spend time with someone special and “let be and let go”.  Thanks Tom!

Episodic Memories

I slowly shift my weight again to stop the leg cramps caused by two days of walking to set up a DZ and too much lying in the bush and waiting.  But I can’t  move, and realize I am not on the DZ, but several years have passed and I am in the hospital with a broken back living past life moments through morphine drip dreams.  Feeling an inside smile I slowly wake shift my weight, and remember how lately, early morning leg cramps have been one of the side effects of my new cancer drugs and I’m 67 not 27.  Forty-five years of episodic memories jumbled together around leg cramps and living.  Life events, growth opportunities, and life choices have molded me into who I’ve become.  I close my eyes and I’m back on the DZ energized and waiting, my leg cramps are gone and first light brings the roar of planes.  

Happiness by Life Design

Yesterday was one of my cancer care days.  At 1pm, I arrived for my blood draw at the seventh floor lab, and noticed him waiting with his wife.  They would lean into each other, smile and laugh, as she caressed his arm with her hand.  When I came back at for my 3pm appointment with my cancer care team, he was in the same spot, but with another friend, and still smiling and laughing.  Psychologists tell us that the single biggest determinant of our happiness is how we treat ourselves and how those closest to us – treat us.  Keep people in your life that truly love you, motivate you, encourage you, inspire you, enhance you, and bring happiness into your life.  

First Light Connections

Mornings, there is something special about the way mornings unfold that make me crave first light moments.  For the past few days I’ve been in Ohio staying with a friend who lives on a small lake.  My last morning the lake was covered with a thin blanket of fog as first light stretched across the horizon.  I’d taught at Lourdes University, and the last night met with a local support group of cancer caregivers and survivors.  We talked about our cancer journeys, and I told how daily wellness practices fuel the resiliency that ripples through my life energy nurturing my soul.  Joel Bennett, in his book Raw Coping Power, talks about our ability to thrive through our inner connections with ourselves, and our outer connections with support communities.  What I felt around the table that night was empathy, compassion, commitment, and love.  It stretched across the table like first light, a beacon of hope.  Today, be mindful of your inner and outer connections.  

Magical Memories

I’m headed to Ohio today to give a keynote on “Whole Person Living” at Lourdes University, a community of learning, reverence, and service.  Maybe it’s the trip to a community that feels so right; for I woke to one of those magical memories.  It was our last night in San Diego and we walked to the Fish Market across from the USS Midway Museum, the moon was rising, making it was one of those perfect evenings.  MaryBeth’s fingers wrapped around mine as we both held Auggie’s leash.  We had a nice meal surrounded by families with small kids, all very interested in Auggie, and after dinner took a bicycle taxi back to the hotel.  What makes a magical memory?  It’s felt through the heart and is filled with a tenderness and warmth that reenergizes our spirit with faith in the power of love.  Be mindful of life’s magical memories, don’t let them slip away.  

Culture of Health

Culture of health and employee engagement had been major themes at the conference, and many of the presenters showed positive productivity and healthcare results to support their value in business sustainability.  However, as a wellness programmer, I was looking for more of the “how to”, or the program strategy or mix that weaves the two together to generate sustainable results.  After carrying two bags into the house, I was sweating profusely, and then I remembered I was back in Houston where we have humidity. 

As I started to carry in the last two bags, I looked up to the flowering vine on our balcony.  The flowers have multiple petals with deep purple cores surrounded by a softer, lighter purple fringe.  I realized the flowers represented a strategy for weaving employee wellness engagement and culture of health together.  A strong line of wellness programming engaging employees on both emotional and transactional levels building self-responsibility and accountability surrounded by department and organizational cultures that support and value health.  Will it was a start – smile.  

Healing Energy of Love

Every morning I feed our two outside cats on the front balcony.  SweetBoy a longhaired Norwegian Forest cat is always patiently waiting, but Precious a shorthaired blond 1/2 Siamese, is usually in the garden below. As I call, “Precious”, he answers back, and immediately scampers up the tree for breakfast.  When I leave for work, he’s waiting by my scooter, or walks me to my car parked around the corner.  Even in rain like today, he walks me to the corner, staying under the umbrella.  At the corner, I reach down and give him one last gentle stroke, and he purrs, “I love you”, and we both feel the exchange of the healing energy called LOVE.  How will you share your healing love energy today?

Aliveness Celebrations

We’ve all had time stop in life moments that touch us deeply and become celebrations of our aliveness.  After three back-to-back meetings I was worn out and walking back to my office on the sky bridge.  They approached from the other direction, she wore a knit cap covering her baldhead with a yellow sunflower on top, and he wore a cowboy hat.  A father with his young daughter, they were laughing as she skipped and he was walking fast trying to keep up.  It wasn’t their laughter, but the warmth of their smiles that instantly started a celebration of aliveness deep inside me.  On your life journey today, be open to others bearing gifts engaging you in celebrations of your aliveness.  

Vanishing Points

After my mom’s funeral, my dad pulled out a box containing all the treasures she had saved from our time together.  My first baby scribbles, school art projects, homemade Christmas cards, and a bundle of letters I’d written her in my summer travels.  I sat on the floor, cried and slowly went through the box reading her handwritten notes.  Before she started our family, she had been an English teacher, so poetry was always a part of our life together, and she had saved my first poem.  She gifted me with the need to put my feelings into poems, and it is through writing I experience what artists must feel as they experiment with different vanishing points offering infinite possibilities, and for me a fuller vision of life.  

Open Your Heart to Wholeness

Mark Nepo in his latest book writes about how our life journeys are scattered paths leading to glimpses of wholeness when we open our hearts.  I was one of the two reactors to Dr. Fredrickson keynote on positivity, and talked about how her work had changed the way I approach my cancer journey.  I ask her for suggestions for our nurses that must move from patient to patient, carrying the cancer burdens, and yet caring in ways that provide hope.  As I started to close the session, and thank her for the science she gave us, my words were covered in tears.  Through the tears, I finally closed to the audience of 400+ with, “What will you do different tomorrow?”  It was a moment where the depths of my feelings had opened my heart and I had felt wholeness.  

Glow Moments

I stood at the window in still darkness; it had been an amazing week.  I’d met Dan Buettner, author of “Thrive”, and Barbara Fredrickson, author of “Positivity”, both spoke about the importance of the connections we share in our lives opening our hearts to happiness, health, and healing.  My son had attended as a student intern 10 years ago, and was back and we had worked together all week.  As the clouds softly brushed across the full moons glow, I realized my week had been awesome because of the life moments shared with family and good friends.  It’s not the connections, but the precious life moments shared through these connections that add a happy glow to our lives.  Share more “glow moments”.