I’m in a funk!  I feel down, unmotivated, unproductive, lonely.  And, truth be told, I have good reason to be feeling this way.  For starters, read the newspaper.  There isn’t a lot of good news out there.  On top of that, I’m sending my first born off to college in a few weeks.  If you don’t think that’s rife with emotions, guess again.  Yesterday marked the 4th anniversary of my dad’s death.  That one creeps up on my out of nowhere every year.  I’m just back from a month ‘sabbatical’ on the coast of Maine and re-entry is proving challenging.  The summer is drawing to a close.  Enough?  There’s more but I won’t bore you with the details.

If you’ve been following me for long or know me well, you know that I’m not one to whine and complain.  So what’s up with this downer?

The first step in shifting your attitude and mood is to acknowledge it and try to understand what is causing it.  Identify what is and isn’t in your control;  honor the things that cannot be changed and act on the things that you can do something about.   So in my case, I can’t bring my father back but I can remember positive things about him and honor my feelings of sadness and loss.  I can’t reverse the stock market slide (sorry, wish I could) but I can sit down with my husband and take a look at our finances and our spending and take some appropriate, responsible action to cut back on spending.  That will give me a sense of intention and control.   I can, as I’m doing here, share my feelings with others and not internalize it all and think, “I’m the only one.”  And I can support others to turn their attitudes around too.  I can be  grateful for the wonderful 18 years I have had with my son living at home and be proud of him and us and be excitedly curious about who he will become as he launches into this next chapter of his life.   I can look around at my friends and neighbors and collect evidence that it all works out and they live through the separation process.  I can focus on the good fortune I do have and show gratitude because there are so many people in the world who are in far worse situations than I.   I can, above all, be gentle with myself and keep moving forward at the pace that I can, confident in what history can tell us:  “this too shall pass.”

I’d love to hear from you, how do you shake your funk or help others to do so?

Sometimes the seeming enormity of what lies  ahead of us as we contemplate making a change in our lives, stops us in our tracks.  We don’t even begin when we are staring ‘certain failure’ in the face.   Take for example, the woman who wants to lose 50 pounds, or the one who wants to make a significant mid-like career change.  How long will it take?  What hard work will she have to endure?  When will she see noticeable results?  Many of us, consider these questions and more and resign ourselves to staying stuck where we are.

But change, taken one step at a time, with built in support and milestones, can happen almost magically when done the right way.   This is one of my favorite stories about the power of getting started and taking baby steps until you reach your goals… and beyond.

Daffodil Garden

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.”  I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.  “I will come next Tuesday”, I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy.  Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there.  When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds  of happy children.  I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

“Forget the daffodils, Carolyn!  The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!”

My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.”  “Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her.

“But first we’re going  to see the daffodils.  It’s just a few blocks, “Carolyn said.  “I’ll drive.  I’m used to this.”

“Carolyn,” I said sternly, “Please turn around.”  “It’s all right, Mother, promise.  You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”

After about twenty  minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read,  “Daffodil  Garden.”  We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path.  Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.  Before me lay the most glorious sight.  It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes.  The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy
white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow.  Each different-colored variety was  planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with  its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

“Who did  this?”  I asked Carolyn.  “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered.  “She lives on  the property. That’s her home.”  Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame  house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory.  We walked up  to the house.  On the patio, we saw a poster. “Answers to the  Questions I Know You Are Asking”, was the headline. The first answer was a  simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time,  by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.” The third answer was “Began in 1958.”

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.  I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an  obscure mountaintop.  Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown  woman had forever changed the world in which she lived One day at a time, she  had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.  The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles  of
celebration.

That is, learning to  move toward our goals and desires one step at a time–often just one baby-step  at time–and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily  effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the  world .

“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What  might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or  forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those  years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way.  “Start tomorrow,” she said.  She was right. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays.  The way to make learning a lesson of celebration  instead of a cause for
regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use  today?”

Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting…..

Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get  a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go  back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the  house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your  desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10  lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a  divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to  school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until  spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you  die…

There is no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a  journey, not a destination.

So work like you don’t  need money.

Love like you’ve never  been hurt, and, Dance like no one’s watching.

Don’t be afraid that your life will end, be afraid  that it will never begin.

~anonymous

I think I could live by quotes alone!  I love how other people       use language and often think they can express things better than I.  And so, I say, why reinvent the wheel?  Why try to best the greats?  But instead, why not share the wisdom of others with the universe?
In that spirit, I share a quote about appreciation and ask you to think about what it means in your life and how, if you are so inclined, you might take action on its message in order to enhance your life.

“Each day, awakening, are we asked to paint the sky blue? Need we coax the sun to rise or flowers to bloom? Need we teach birds to sing, or children to laugh, or lovers to kiss? No, though we think the world imperfect, it surrounds us each day with its perfections. We are asked only to appreciate them and to show appreciation by living in peaceful harmony amidst them. The Creator does not ask that we create a perfect world; He asks that we celebrate it.”  ~Robert Brault

Some simple daily practices to make appreciation a habit:
1. Each time you have a negative thought,  pause and think about what might be good about the situation.  Even after something as horrific as the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11, people were finding things to be grateful for… the flight they were supposed to be on but missed, early morning doctor’s appointment that made them late for work, the many, many people who were fortunate enough to survive.  If people can find the upside in something so terrible as that, you surely can find the silver lining in your misfortunes.
2. When you see something you like, make a point of commenting about it to someone.  I am especially awed by things in nature, even worms and spider webs.  I don’t like them but they are beautiful.
3. When someone does even the simplest thing for you, even if you expect it, say thank you and show appreciation.
4. Tell someone you are happy to help them.
5. Thank the cashier, bus driver, waitress, janitor for their efforts.  You may not ever want to do those jobs but imagine if no one did them.
6. Remember, you have to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’ (Gandhi) so if you want more appreciation, you must show more appreciation.  It will come back to you ten-fold.

Noticing and showing appreciation can lift your mood, enhance your relationships, be a means by which you make a contribution to the world.  Appreciating can put things in perspective, give you relief from your daily worries and troubles.  It is potent medicine and best of all, it’s free.

My son graduated from High School last night and will be headed off to college in the Fall.  Talk about a change.  Aside from there being a million things to do throughout this process, there is also a spectrum of emotions to surf.  In any given day I go from bursting with pride to regret at some missed opportunity to sadness about the reality of a chapter ended to fear about an unknown future to excitement about that same unknown road ahead.  It is like a roller coaster, a carnival ride of which I have never been a fan.

But emotions are a big part of any change.  We swing back and forth from excitement about what’s to come and sadness about what’s never to be again.  And we feel every feeling in between.

Whether you are launching a child off into the world, quitting smoking, beginning a new job or business or trying to improve your health, there are things to mourn and things to celebrate.  Don’t fight those feelings.  Don’t deny them or run away from them.  Rather acknowledge them.  Name them.  Sink into them and feel them to their fullest. Explore them.  Understand where they are coming from and use them to inform your next steps.  Share them out loud with others and hear what others have experienced or journal about them.   To do otherwise is to live your life from the neck up, a great practice for a scientist working in a lab, but not so for a savvy woman seeking to live a rich life!

Change reveals the whole of you.  Embrace it all.

Making any change requires that you do a lot of small things differently. And, for most of us, doing things differently makes us uncomfortable.  We’d rather do what is predictable and feels comfortable, even if it isn’t getting us the results we want, than step outside our comfort zone.

Think of creating new behaviors like going to the gym to work out.  We have a few choices about how we approach our work out.

1. We can lift a huge amount of weight during our first visit and experience serious injury, which will guarantee that we will have to stay clear of the gym for a long time (Hmmmm.  Is that what I really wanted?)
2. We can lift really low weights stopping before we break a sweat and remain really comfortable but see no progress over time.
3. We can lift a safe but challenging amount of weight, working our muscles until we feel them burn, experiencing a bit of discomfort.  Over time, that weight and number of repetitions becomes more comfortable and we begin to notice our bodies looking more tones and feeling stronger.  We have created a new comfort zone, to be pushed past, if we want to continue our growth.  So, we move on to heavier weights and/or more reps.

Which do you think most people choose?  If you said #2, you were right.  Most people like to be able to say they are doing the ‘right thing’ but don’t like to move outside their comfort zone.  Having ‘checked the box’ for going to the gym, they can feel righteous but they have created a self fulfilling prophecy: “I knew it wouldn’t work.  It’s hopeless.” This is true of exercising, getting out and networking to meet new people, trying new healthy foods, being on time if we are perpetually late, being more assertive, asking for help, you name it, if it’s different, it’s bound to be uncomfortable.   All of these things, require that we use muscles we haven’t dusted off in years.  And using them can cause discomfort both physically and emotionally.

In order to experience success in the change we want to make, we have to be willing to move outside our comfort zone.  Not by making a full 180% turn or working out with 100 pound weights at our first attempt, but by making small changes that stretch us just a bit until we are comfortable at that level and then taking the next step to stretch a bit farther and so on.

How do we build our comfort zone muscle?  Practice making little changes each day.  In order to get in shape for the big change you want to make, just get used to making changes.  Start with ones that aren’t related to your goal for example, take a different route to work, listen to different music in the car, change up what you eat for breakfast or try a new food each week.  Attend a new and  different cultural event,  go see a different kind of movie than you would normally choose.  If you tend to be very quiet in meetings or social events, try speaking up more, or, alternatively, if you are the person who is always participating verbally, hang back,  sit quietly and listen more.

Trying different things in a non-threatening environment wakes up your brain and makes you more open to other changes.  Keep a journal of your reactions as you make these changes and see what you learn about yourself and change.