personal stories

I wonder if the tide is turning about Christmas. This year, it seems that more is being written about putting the meaning back in Christmas. This is pretty dicey territory, because Christmas does in fact have different meaning for different people.

To many, Christmas marks the birth of Christ in a manger, with the three wise men and the sheep and the goats and the cow -- oh ya, and Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. Most of us know the story, but is that what most of us are actually celebrating at Christmas?

Transitions are a big theme in my life right now.  My son is going off to University, I finished a book a year ago and am pondering next steps in my life, and every client I am coaching seems to be going through some sort of significant life change.  Transitions are comprised of endings, beginnings and the space in between.  I was struck by something I read last week, “in order for something to begin, something else needs to end.”  Seems pretty obvious and yet it caught me off guard.  A beginning is also an ending, hmmm...

 It was when I was late for a meeting with a sponsor, running  around the house cursing, senseless with anxiety and frustration at once again not being able to find my car keys, that I had this epiphany:  we don’t make things different by keeping them the same.  If you want different results in your life you have to do things differently. I had an inkling that this was true for far more than my habit of flinging my car keys to the nearest table top when I first arrived home.

As a speaker, a writer and advocate for healthy kids, I make my life in the business of communication.  As a NLP Master Practitioner and Life Coach, I pay attention to the words people chose to express their ideas and emotions, and I am careful of the language I use to express my own.  I am a voracious reader, and it is normal for me to have nine or ten books going at once.  Words matter to me.

I was standing beside Jane Roos, founder of the Can Fund, when I heard the sad news of Randy Starkman's passing. Randy was loved by every amateur athlete in this country.  When he called, my assistant would simply say "Randy called" and I would know that Randy would want my perspective, my reaction, my historical memory on something to do with sports and the athletes he so meticulously and fairly followed.