The roots of a plant are like your inner world. They must be strong and nourished with the right elements in order for the leaves and branches to be strong and robust with abundant blooms.
Ask yourself the question, "how does this external action feed my inner being?" "How is this action contributing or detracting from me being whole?" "Is this behavior nurturing my roots and helping my roses bloom?"
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So, when the local ABC Open called for submissions to their Open Story project recently, rather than thinking "one day I would like to do that" I took the bull by the horns and attended the workshop. In order to support the arts in my community I did what I could to promote the workshop to others, particularly those who I didn't think would hear about it otherwise but who would be interested. I also agreed to be interviewed for the local paper to further spread the word, and the story made a beautiful front page article highlighting the arts in our community. And now, I am using the material I wrote as the content for my blog post.
The alternate scenario could have been that I thought "one day I would like to do that but I can't now" and then spent the day of the workshop begrudgingly selling raffle tickets for the local arts council fundraiser, spent another day depressed by the article on the front page of the local newspaper printed because the Editor couldn't find an alternative for the week and then another day thinking of a topic and writing my blog!
What activities could you modify to better capture your "one day" list?
Read MoreIt strikes me that knowing and understanding that there are differences in the way we each behave in different situations is important but what is more important is really knowing yourself, really knowing your own preferences for communication style, self awareness of what floats your boat and what gets you fired up. Once you become clear about your own style - humour vs serious - you can then ensure that there is a balance, being open to humour if it is not necessarily your thing, being willing to go deeper if you have a tendency for keeping things light, but also being able to reflect back to others this need for balance. If someone is dominating the conversation with their preferred style it is important to be able to reflect this back to them in a manner that helps achieve balanced conversation - this to me, is where the magic lies.
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