Are you excited?

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

2 min read

Happiness Wordle

My 15 year old daughter is always asking me if I am excited about things that are coming up. Even though I am usually looking forward to whatever it is that she is asking about, I can never quite bring myself to say that I am excited about it.

Excited is a strong word and I find it hard to muster enough energy for that kind of strong emotion when thinking about going to the movies, or out for dinner, or going on a trip.
My daughter seems to have no trouble with it. She is always excited about something. I was attributing this to her youth until I participated in a communications workshop where they gave us a list of commonly used “affect” words to describe feeling.

The words were separated into categories of Emotion (i.e. Happiness, Fear, Anger) and Intensity (Strong, Moderate, Weak). As I was reading the different words I realized that I very rarely, if ever, use the strong words for happiness – excited, thrilled, delighted, overjoyed, ecstatic, elated, jubilated. I do use the moderate words for happiness – good and happy, but I more often use the weak words – pleased, glad, satisfied.

Okay, so again this could be an age thing – too much energy needed to get worked up about things. However, when I looked at the words for anger I realized that I have no problem using the strong words like furious and angry to describe my emotions at times. In fact I am more likely to use strong words to describe all the more negative emotions – sadness (depressed, miserable), fear (afraid, frightened, scared, overwhelmed), and uncertainty (bewildered, confused).

It’s interesting that I can muster the energy to be angry but not to be excited. Perhaps it is not an energy thing after all. Perhaps it is an age thing – or my perception of what it means to be an adult. Children get excited and delighted, mature adults get pleased and glad. However, it is quite acceptable for a mature adult to get angry and overwhelmed.

Now I’m thinking it’s time to stop being quite so mature and adult and turning the volume down on happiness.  Sure, it’s okay to be pleased, glad, and satisfied sometimes, but it’s also okay to be excited, thrilled, ecstatic, elated, jubilated, overjoyed, and delighted as often as possible.

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Preconceptions

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

RedYellowDoorsPreconceptions … we all have them, about everything – that guy looks mean, she looks smart, that course will be hard, that jacket will be expensive.  We form a judgement “in advance of adequate knowledge or experience” – the definition of preconception.

As with most types of judgement, preconceptions can be limiting – especially when they are about ourselves.

We recently visited the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo for a building tour and there was a science and physics expo going on at the same time.  There were lots of demonstrations of cool scientific and mathematic stuff.  Given that I am neither scientifically nor mathematically inclined and that the displays were fairly crowded, I just skimmed past most of them.  However, the guy with the slinky caught my attention.  He was explaining how he does science experiments on You Tube to explain various theories.  He asked the group what happens when you drop a slinky – how does it fall based on gravity, etc.  He looked right at me first and waited so I thought I’d better offer an answer.  He was holding the slinky in the air and I said, in a quiet and unsure voice, that the top will drop down until it meets the bottom.  Now this answer was based on absolutely no knowledge of gravity whatsoever.  He gave me a stony look and moved on to the next person.

My preconception – I am not good at advanced math or science.

Confirmation of my preconception – science guy at the Perimeter Institute just gave me a stony look and did not even comment on my answer because it was so unbelievably stupid that it didn’t even warrant a response.

If I had walked away at that moment I would have left with my preconception validated.  Fortunately, I waited until the end of the demonstration and it turns out that I was right.  The top drops until it meets the bottom.  I was still so sure that I couldn’t have been right that I asked my husband to confirm that my answer had been correct.  Now I’m not telling you this to sing the praises of my science problem solving abilities.  It was a lucky guess.  What I do want to point out is that I had a preconception about myself and my abilities.  When the science guy didn’t even acknowledge that I had spoken, that preconception led me to believe it was because my answer was stupid.  In actual fact, he ignored my answer because it was the first answer and too early in the “show” to have the right answer.  He wanted to play to the crowd a bit more and get lots of answers so that when he showed us the slinky falling it would have a more profound effect.

My perception of reality based on my preconception – my answer was too stupid for the smart science guy to even comment on.

Actual reality – my answer was correct but was ignored because the timing was wrong.

What preconceptions do you have about yourself?  How are those preconceptions clouding your perception of reality and limiting you?  Food for thought this Halloween.

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Me and My Shadow

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

Happy Picture Lisa

Up until a year or two ago, I had an idea or a mental image of how I should look that was nothing like I actually looked.  I had it in my head that other people all looked pulled together, well groomed, and polished.  I, on the other hand, was always a little untidy with messy, unruly hair.  I tried new products in my hair, new hairstyles, new hair stylists, but nothing helped.  I could not control my unruly hair and it never looked good, and therefore, in my mind, neither did I.

It wasn’t until I read the book The tools : transform your problems into courage, confidence, and creativity by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels that I realized that I had created this mental image of how I should look and therefore I had created the stress that it caused me when I didn’t measure up.

As children we have a real sense of our true selves – our inner selves.  Little children don’t care what other people think about them.  However as we age we start to care very much about what others think and we look outside of ourselves for approval.  So we start to hide things about ourselves that we think others won’t like.  These hidden things eventually replace our inner self and become something negative that we carry around with us – our “Shadow”.  We basically turn “something that was beautiful – the inner self – into something we despise: the Shadow.  It may seem like the worst part of us, but really, it’s the doorway to the inner self.  Only when that doorway is open can we truly express ourselves.”

To open that doorway, imagine “you’re in front of a group of people who make you feel insecure and self-conscious.  Focus on the emotions this brings up.  Now push those feelings out in front of you and imagine they form a being with a face and body”.  When I did this, I came up with the image of an older woman, very badly dressed (think bag lady), short, frumpy, with horrible grey frizzy hair – my Shadow.

Our Shadow is “everything we don’t want to be but fear we are, represented in a single image.”  By putting a face and body on my Shadow, I effectively set her free.  She was no longer something I hid inside but she became something outside of me – she became an ally.  So when I faced myself in the mirror and did not see a polished, pulled together image looking back, instead of panicking and thinking I look terrible, my hair is horrible, I would see my Shadow smiling at me and that made it easier for me to be me.  Even though she used to be something I tried to hide, now that she was out, I really liked her.  She made me feel good when I pictured her smiling at me.

So without doing anything physical to my hair, I have totally changed the way I look.  I have stopped fighting my hair and trying, unsuccessfully, to control it.  I still have crazy, wavy salt and pepper (mostly salt) hair.  But the difference is that I’m okay with it now.  I’m no longer trying to tame it to be something that it’s not.  Even though nothing on the outside has changed, I feel good about the way I look and other people notice it too.  I actually get compliments on my crazy, wavy, grey hair.  I no longer strive to be something I’m not, even when I am around very well groomed people with manageable hair.  And when I forget and slip back into my old ways, my Shadow is there to remind me that my true inner self is a good thing.

What does your Shadow look like?

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Choose to be Happy

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

2 min read

Balloon CroppedWe recently watched a movie called Small Apartments.  It was pretty offbeat but I’m really glad we watched it because at the very end there was a real nugget of wisdom in the form of a man’s advice to his younger brother:

Franklin,

What are we so scared of?

You only get one shot at this life.  There are no do-overs.  Time wasted is time lost.  The past is a ghost.  The future a dream.  There’s only right now.

We need to forgive each other, Franklin.  Forgive and keep moving forward because we are all so ridiculously imperfect.  And we need to find a place we call “home”.  A place where we know we’re loved and we feel safe.

I see it all so clearly now.  It doesn’t matter if you live in a small apartment or some big mansion on a hill; doesn’t matter if you live in a mental institution or on some sunny beach in Saint Croix.  It’s all in your mind.  Every moment in your life is what you make it.  Pain, love, fear… happiness.  You choose to feel each of them.  So choose to be happy Franklin, choose to be… happy.  Because happiness is a state of mind.

Happiness is a state of mind.  It’s so true.  We don’t have control over much in life (the weather, the traffic, other people) but we do have control over how we react to life.

A couple of years ago we went zip lining in the rainforest while on holiday.  The rainforest was true to its name and it poured.  We were soaked right through and cold.  I decided to put on a brave and happy face so as not to ruin the day for my daughter.  I figured if I seemed happy in spite of actually being cold, wet, and slightly miserable that she would follow along.  Funny thing, not only did it work on her, it worked on me too.  By consciously choosing to put on a happy face, I actually was happy.  I had fun despite the weather.  I chose to be… happy.

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Incremental Change

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

cropped-p1140435.jpgChange can be overwhelming.  We look at where we are and where we want to be and the gap can seem huge and insurmountable.  That’s why, many times, we don’t even try.  We can’t.  The change appears so big that we can’t even get past the thinking about it stage – it’s too daunting.

I currently lead a relatively healthy lifestyle but there are many areas in real need of an overhaul.  I look at where I am (store bought cookies and chocolate for snacks) to where the really healthy people I admire are (sprouting their own wheat grass and juicing vegetables I would need help indentifying in the grocery store).  It hurts my head just thinking about where to start – which is why my juicer is still in the attic, where it has been for the last two years.  So how do you go from store bought cookies to juicing organic greens?  The answer, luckily, is you don’t.  Well, maybe you do, but I don’t.  I can’t.  It’s too big of a gap for me.

My yoga teacher recently said that the more you fill your life with the things that are good for you the less room you will have in your life for the things that are not good for you.  She said don’t worry about the bad habits to begin with, just focus on developing the good habits.  The bad habits will eventually fade away much more easily because you no longer have room for them in your life.

So if you focus only on the one positive thing you want to do at the moment, and don’t overwhelm yourself with every change you have ever thought of making, it becomes doable.  All of a sudden the gap is smaller and easier to bridge.  Once that change becomes habit, after about 30 days, you can move on to the next small change you want to make.

Dr. Martha Beck uses the example of trim tabs to illustrate how this method works.  Trim tabs are tiny rudders attached to the back of larger rudders that steer huge ships.  The big rudders would snap off if turned directly. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around.  It takes almost no effort at all.

So making these small, doable changes in your life will inevitably move your life in the direction you want it to go.  It avoids the problem of you snapping from the pressure of trying to make too big a change at one time.  Small incremental changes will eventually alter the course of your big life – and my favourite part – with almost no effort at all.

Small, doable changes – and as I explained to my husband, the reason we now have a parsley plant.  It’s my first small step to growing our own vegetables.  The cookie thing will take care of itself in time.  Small, doable changes …

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Moving Forward

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

P1030382Have you ever sat down at your desk because you know you really need to get down to work, but you feel restless and distracted?  You check your email, you play a game of online Solitaire (just to get the juices flowing), you organize your desk … you do anything but actually get down to work.  And then later you think “What is wrong with me, I knew I had to work and I didn’t do it?”

I’ve had this happen more times than I care to mention.  This book finally explained to me why people do this (The Tools: Transform your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels).  It’s not just me and it’s not pure laziness.  It’s human nature.  It’s human nature to want to avoid pain.  It’s human nature to want pleasure.  So anything we deem as painful, we avoid.  Many times the thought of getting down to work equals pain – more pain than actually doing the work.  We get caught up in “this will take forever, I don’t even know how to start this, I don’t want to do this” and we can’t move forward.  So we replace it with something that causes pleasure – Internet surfing, talking on the phone, eating, busy work like checking email, you name it.

We escape into our Comfort Zone – what feels good in the moment.  But sometimes we need to move forward through the pain in order to expand our lives.  If we stay in our Comfort Zone we may end up leading a very small life with many opportunities lost.

The first tool in this book helps us to move forward.  It’s called the Reversal of Desire, which at first doesn’t make much sense.  But if our desire is the avoidance of pain, and this avoidance is keeping us in our Comfort Zone, then we do need to reverse our desire.

This tool can be used when you need to take an action you’ve been avoiding.  For example, I recently decided to turn a workshop that I’d developed into an online workbook.  Okay, by recently I mean two years ago.  Every time I started, I stopped.  I was faced with a blank sheet of paper and I had no idea where to go from there.  At that point I convinced myself that it wasn’t a good idea anyway, who was I to write this workbook, nobody would want it, and I’d put it away again.  After reading this book, I took out the blank sheet of paper and started again.  Every time I faltered I’d look at the tool again and work through it.

I took all my notes from the workshop and put them on my blank sheet of paper.  It wasn’t great but it was a start and, more importantly, it was no longer a blank sheet of paper.  Every time I sat down to the project again I would do something – look up quotes, work on the formatting – anything, as long as I was working on it and moving forward in small steps.  Eventually it began to take shape and I finally finished it earlier this year.

Great, but now I had to put it out to the world.  I really needed the tool before I sent it out to several people for critique and review.  All the old fears came back up – who am I, nobody wants it, etc.  However, the reviews all came back positive and I did move forward.  The workbook, Wake Up to What You Love, is now available thanks to The Tools.

Remember:

  • Those moments when you want to give up are the moments when it’s most important not to quit, and,
  • “Pain is the universe’s way of demanding that you continue to learn.” (The Tools)
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Small Actions – Big Results

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Lisa Ivaldi

2 min read

LeavesThere are over 7 billion human beings on this planet.  Amongst that many people it is sometimes easy to feel insignificant.  It’s easy to ask, “What am I contributing to the world?” and not come up with a satisfying answer.

Even though we are but one of many, each of us has a certain amount of control over how we conduct ourselves and live our lives.  This conduct in turn affects other people we come in contact with, who then affect the people they come in contact with, and so on.

A friend of mine had painters working at her house for several days.  One of them was a particularly happy man who would sing and smile all the time he was there.  She said he made her feel good by just being there.  One day he came in smiling and singing until he answered his cell phone.  Whoever called had clearly upset him.  My friend could see his mood had completely changed after the phone call – no more smiling and singing.  She approached him and commented that she didn’t know who had just called him but she could see that they had upset him.  She reminded him what a good mood he was in before the call and encouraged him not to let anyone take his happiness away.  He realized the effect of the call and decided not to let that phone call ruin his good mood and resumed singing and smiling.

Whoever called the painter that day had set off a negative chain reaction.  The painter went from a good mood to a bad mood.  His bad mood would then likely have been passed on to whomever he came in contact with that day, and so on.  This negative chain reaction is similar to Edward Lorenz’s Butterfly Effect theory which gives the example of a “hurricane’s formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before”.

Everything is connected, so even though we are just one of many, we can still make a huge impact on the world by our everyday actions.  Just like the butterfly’s small action can create a huge effect on the other side of the world.

What are we contributing to the world?  Are we contributing to negative chain reactions or positive ones?  Every day we have the opportunity to improve the world one small action at a time – one smile, one positive or encouraging comment at a time.  And that’s a pretty big deal because you never know where it will lead and who it will affect down the line.

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Commitment

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

Duck PondThis year rather than make resolutions, which I rarely keep, I’m going to set priorities and make a commitment to doing them.  This sounds fairly simple on the surface, but I should explain my current logic with regard to priorities.  I know this is backwards, but I tend to set a priority and then work really hard to get everything else done so that I can clear my plate (or desk) in order to fully concentrate on my priority.  I’m fairly sure you can figure out how that is working for me – I spend a lot of time trying to clear my plate (or desk) and rarely get to my priorities.  Then I think if only I had more time I could get to my priorities.  Interesting logic!

So why, you may ask, am I setting priorities, which I rarely get to, rather than resolutions, which I rarely keep?  Doesn’t seem like much of an improvement does it?  But this year I am adding commitment into the mix.

I read a quote from the Dalai Lama recently, “So, unless you make specific time for something that you feel committed to, you will always have other obligations.”   There will always be lots of things I need to do to but my priorities will come first.  I know, I know, that’s why they’re called priorities but I think I have already covered my flawed logic in this regard – clear plate then get to priorities.

I don’t have much of this new plan under my belt yet, I only started today, so I can’t tell you how it’s working for me yet.  However, this morning I read that Dr. Oz takes time to meditate every day despite his busy schedule.  What a coincidence, “meditate” is number two on my list of priorities, right after walking every day (which I am pretty good at because it is my husband’s priority too and we walk together).  So how does Dr. Oz, who is much busier than I am, manage to meditate every day and I don’t?  Answer – he has committed to doing it.  I have committed to doing everything else and if there is time left over, and I can stay awake for 20 minutes, then I’ll meditate.

The difference is committment.  So now I have committed to meditating every day – I have decided to meditate every day.  It’s not just something that would be nice if it happened.  I have committed to it.  Years ago I committed to being a vegetarian.  It is part of my life and no matter how tempting some non-vegetarian foods may be (I’m thinking a Big Mac), it’s not optional for me.  I made a commitment because I wanted to.  I know I can do this, I’ve done it since 1979 with being a vegetarian.  Commitment is the key.

Oprah said in her magazine many years ago, “Nothing happens until you decide.”  She also quoted mountaineer W.H. Murray who said, “Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.”

So this year, I am going to pick a couple of priorities and decide to do them, no hesitancy – I will commit to them.  Not too many, nothing overwhelming, but a couple of priorities that will improve my life.  What are you going to commit to in 2013?  Don’t forget, “Nothing happens until you decide.”

Wishing you all the best in 2013.

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Perception

Posted on November 20, 2012 by Lisa Ivaldi

2 min read

St. LuciaYou’ve probably heard the saying “perception is everything”.  Like many sayings, it is very true.  Although your perception of a situation may be incorrect, it becomes your reality.  For example, if you are walking down the street lost in your own thoughts and curtly nod your head when I say hello to you, my perception may be that you are mad at me for some reason.  Why else would you have been so rude to me?

Perception becomes reality.  I walk away thinking that you are mad at me and you walk away vaguely aware that someone spoke to you while you were lost in thought.  One situation, two realities.

So if we take this one step further, if perception is reality, then you can change your reality by changing your perception.  This is a pretty cool idea.  It gives you way more control over your life than you may have thought you had before.

For example, you may be wishing you had more money to buy the things you want.  This creates a perception of want, of doing without.  This perception creates a reality of feeling that you need more, of not being happy because you can’t get what you want.  However, if every time you start to think about what you don’t have, you make a conscious choice to think about what you do have, you move from a perception of want to a perception of have.  In actual reality nothing about your financial situation has changed, but your perception of it has changed and in the process changed your satisfaction and happiness level.  Kind of like Scrooge not being able to figure out how Bob Cratchit and his family could be so happy with so little.  It’s a state of mind, it’s perception.

So the next time you feel unhappy about something maybe you could step back and look at the situation objectively to see if a change in perception is all that is needed to change your reality.

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Blame

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Lisa Ivaldi

3 min read

Fall TreesLately the topic of blame has been coming up often in my reading.  Jeff Haden lists it as the number one thing to stop doing in his article Be Happier in Business and Life: 10 Things To Stop Doing Right Now.  Haden says, “Taking responsibility when things go wrong instead of blaming others isn’t masochistic, it’s empowering–because then you focus on doing things better or smarter next time.”

However, one thing that came up for me as I read Haden’s article was what if the problem really was someone else’s fault and there was nothing you could have done “better or smarter” to have changed the situation.

When something happens that really is entirely someone else’s fault and it causes you a problem, your immediate reaction is to get angry at them and/or the situation they have caused, and as Haden says, “blame them for your problems.”  That, in fact, is the dictionary definition of blame – “find fault with” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary).

Okay, so now we have a problem and we are angry and blaming someone else, “If only they hadn’t done that, this never would have happened.”  We are now a victim – we have been harmed by someone else’s actions.   And if we stay being a victim, we will not be able to move forward.  As Phil Stutz and Barry Michels say in their book The Tools: Transform Your Problems into Courage, Confidence, and Creativity, if you get stuck in a “This shouldn’t be happening to me” mode, you are refusing to accept an event that has already happened and are wasting your time wallowing in pain.

The solution, move forward.  Accept that this thing happened through no fault of your own – but it happened.  Accept that this is the situation you now find yourself in and move forward.  Don’t waste time blaming the person who caused the situation or wishing it hadn’t happened.  It did.  What can you do about it and how can you move forward?

Case in point, recently someone forgot to pick my daughter up at a previously agreed upon time and place.  Of course, it was on the worst possible day.  Our schedule was tight, moving from one appointment to another and she had lots of homework to complete for the next day.  She did eventually get picked up but it took about 45 minutes longer than expected.  Her first reaction was anger – it’s their fault they forgot, how stupid of them, now I’m late, I have tons of homework – which almost led to hysteria and tears.  Luckily after letting her vent for a while and not trying to tell her that her emotions were misplaced and that everyone makes mistakes, she calmed down enough to move forward.  She started her homework while waiting for her next appointment and managed to get it all done without wasting too much time on blaming and thinking about why this shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

Brené Brown in her TED Talk The power of vulnerability, describes blame as “A way to discharge pain and discomfort.”  So rather than spend our time trying to discharge our pain and discomfort onto someone else, we may be better served by accepting what is and finding a way to deal with it and move forward with our lives.

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