Tag: emotional intelligence

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Victory

The hard truth

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how both thinking too highly or not highly enough of yourself can be your own worst enemy. Yet at times it is really difficult to have an honest idea of who you are while realistically understanding your gifts and talents along with your weaknesses that need to be worked on.

As I was reflecting on how to have a healthy view of yourself, I remembered something that happened a number of years ago that puts this topic into perspective.

One thing we’ve taught our kids from a young age is to think about three things you love about someone and add those things to their birthday and Christmas card. My eldest daughter decided one year to write each person in her class a detailed Christmas card, using this method. During the last week of school, one mum grabbed me on my way to pick up. She asked if I had read the Christmas cards my daughter wrote before she gave them out… I realized I hadn’t as I slowly shook my head. She smiled a huge smile and pulled a Christmas card out of her bag. My child wrote… thank you for being such a great friend. I love playing with you. Over the holidays maybe try to talk less so next year you don’t get into trouble in class….

I can’t even put into words my response – this was like a grade 3 version of a performance appraisal. The mums grin put me at ease as I profusely apologized. She said, her child cried after reading it out to her. I still didn’t know what to say. I was shocked, sad and completely at a loss of what to say.. she then went on to say, the card made her laugh, as it was true and her daughter simply couldn’t handle the truth…

I’m not saying we should go to bed crying because of what others think of us or even bluntly tell people what we think of them… rather listen to those around us, like this mum who knew the truth about her daughter, and hear how we can grow our weaknesses rather than hide from them.

Who do you have in your life that is prepared to tell you the truth?

Who do you speak life into, as you let others know the truth?

Categories
Victory

Navigating hang ups and bang ups

In the last post, hang ups and bang ups we looked at how hang ups and bang ups happen, and how we respond is our choice. As hard as that may be at times, to choose the right response, the integrity filled response, the unexpectedly kind response. After one particular hang up and bang up, I was sent this quote.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

Charles R Swindoll

What I’m interested to hear is what is your first response to this quote?

My first response when reading this quote with a stream of thoughts starting with yes, I can see how that is true, then I moved onto, wait I have no control over what happens to me and how could I possibly try to respond positively all the time to ‘ what happens’… the reality is, there is no real answer. But what we do have in this quote, which is very thought provoking, is once again a choice, we need to step back and make every time we need to respond to something that happens -whether it’s negative or positive. What happens to us, as per the quote, isn’t what we are in control of, what we are in control of is our response. A little daunting isn’t it. Yet, with a little perspective though, it’s easier to see what we do have control of and how our response matters the most.

I am for want of a better word and avid people watcher. I love to observe, I love to chat, and I love to listen to people’s stories. What amazes me, is how different people respond to trauma, how different people celebrate milestones and how people admit to strangers their deepest darkest secrets. Part of my amazement is the learnings and growth in my own life that come from listening and gleaning during these conversations.

What I want to encourage you with, is how you navigate the hang ups and bang ups in life, can inspire others to see their own hang ups and bang ups differently. Sharing your story in the right context with the right person at the right time can make such a huge difference and truly inspire others to live in victory and rethink how they respond to what happens in life.

Categories
Victory

Who are your people?

Over the years I have written about us needing connection and community with others. At times we’ve probably all felt we would like it, not sure how to get it and question if we actually really do need it.

I’ve been prompted to write this after a few conversations lately that have just shown me, the spectrum of response people have to the question of if we need connection with others.

My short answer is yes. I firmly believe we are hardwired as people to live in community and connection with others. What I also believe is, we as people often ignore this and hope for the best in how we live, with others around us, but not really knowing anyone or having anyone know us. Why? Because it actually takes effort.

I’ve been reading a book called “Find your People: Building Deep Connections in a lonely world” by Jeannie Allen. She talks about in order to find our people, and they could be those few people in our inner circle, those we bump into incidentally ( our village) and then acquaintances, we need to be humble, available and vulnerable.

Can I simply ask, how hard is it to be vulnerable? How hard is it to be available? How hard can it be to be humble? When I first read this my mind ticked over, well I am available after school one day a week and I could maybe find time between sport on a Saturday and oh boy, why would some one want me to be vulnerable with them – life gets messy… In summary, building connections with others and community takes effort. Effort we may not have the energy for….

After spending some time processing these thoughts, I realized we all have messy lives and we all need to get over that and love people in their mess and importantly allow people to love us in our mess. I need to confess my hypocritical behavior here.. When I go to some one’s home I never judge the cleanliness of it. I get the mess of life, the busy, the muddy dog prints, the washing the everything. I often ask if I can help out if them seem a bit overwhelmed. But, when people come to my place I try my hardest to have it all clean. I judge myself before I judge others… Any one with me?

Last weekend, when I literally ran out of time to mop the floors before we had visitors (coming to our house for the first time), because it had rained and my dog ran her muddy paws through the house, I apologized to our friends at the front door. Their immediate response was – don’t worry, we get it. End of story, not mentioned again, we had a great meal together. It was the first time, I felt that I could just let that go.

In hindsight, it was a way of being humble and vulnerable. I had done it. Yes, it felt hard, yes it felt awkward and not normal – but none the less it happened. What I loved the most was, sharing the meal was about the people, not how clean or unclean my house was.

My challenge for you is, who are you being humble, available and vulnerable with in your sphere of influence? I’m not saying open your life up to everyone, but who can you think of, that would benefit from you loving them in the mess of life and you allowing yourself to be loved in the mess of life.

Building community takes effort we may not have the energy for.. but building community brings energy as we are all in it together.

Homes of Victory
Categories
Blue Print communication

The Whiteboard

Some times as a leader ahem parent, leading multiple people whether they are three years old or thirty three it can be a difficult task. Different opinions, different values, conflicting behavior standards the list goes on. At times we need to stop and as a leader take our team back to the drawing board so to speak and nut out the issues.

In our home, we now have a whiteboard, as we needed to introduce something subtle that would stop the lack of listening and the lack of -not-admitting emotions. ” I’m not tired!”, ” I’m NOT angry!”. You know how it goes, with tired and emotional children… and at times parents.

So how is a whiteboard helping the family with listening to each other? It actually isn’t. What it does do is, it stops us from speaking ( read repeating questions multiple times) and allows us to communicate through the board. It is an additional communication tool, one that has taken away our frustrations and enabled the kids to vent theirs by allowing their creativity to flow. No longer is it the kids trying to articulate words about how they feel, they know they can draw, write or talk to us in the moment of cranky, tired, hangry the list goes on.

When we installed the board we all sat and talked about how it will be used and why we felt we needed it as a family. Needless to say the two older kids love it and use it for its purpose – most of the time, the five year old has now finally lost interest in drawing all over it. Although we have enjoyed looking at the attempts made to draw multiple minions…

We have drawn icons for who is doing what task- an easy visual reminder of allocated chores, we have a table for feelings – happy, sad and tired. We can all tick off how we feel at the end of the day and chat about it at dinner time. One day I even wrote on the board, ” stop fighting” – aimed at the kids. They ran over to see what I had written and within minutes were writing funny responses and the tension had dissipated. We use respectful language on the board, we write quotes that inspire us, we write ” to do” lists and we leave love notes for each other. It has been a welcome addition to our kitchen and the family response has been amazing.

This may or may not work in your family life, but this brain wave from my husband has certainly made an incredibly positive difference in our home.

Take some time this week, to think about how you could adjust or add something small to your family home, that you believe will make a positive difference to your family life.