As of August 2020. Working to update website with more interactive features for us "challenged." Coming in October, a fictional series.

Happy Thursday,
This week let’s talk about background noise. In other words, the sounds and speech that comes through whether we like it or not. It can be via the news, family and friends texting/calling you or social media posts you read. Block your background noise. Here are a few tips to help.

• Know your limit. Talk to the hand so to speak. Know when the noise has become too loud.
• Follow scientific facts, from medical professionals.
• Turn off what is too much for you. Find your place of stillness with music, walks and exercise. Even to close your eyes and put on headphones to get silence/no sounds.
• Take care of yourself. This is all of the above. Be you and find your zone of comfort always. Talking to family and friends is crucial for love and support, but keep it to just that.

That being said, I want to provide a link on Facebook which includes these 5 things we know to be safest per Dr. Fauci.  Go to the 30 minute marker, expand the screen and listen if you have the time.
https://www.facebook.com/gupolitics/videos/887042948448843/?d=null&vh=e

1. Wear a mask when you are out
2. Avoid crowds, especially in high infectious areas
3. Stay 6 feet apart
4. Wash your hands after touching things outside, don’t touch your face until you have washed your hands
5. Live, be smart, be clean, laugh often 

Happy Thursday!
This week I wanted to share some ways to save time. Even though, currently, most of us work from home, the irony is, we have less time. Here are a few tips that I have found useful.

• Check your personal email once a day. Check them only in the morning as you eat your breakfast. They will be there again, in the morning.
• Make your bed.
• Use a calendar, have a schedule. Load it onto your phone or laptop.
• Be sure to schedule your work, each activity and all tasks you want to complete. Even the dog walks, naps and children pickups from school. Once completed, delete them from the calendar. This way you can check the calendar as you go.  Once the day is empty, it is time to play.  How about some Netflix or make that fort with the kids?
• Find your balance with work, appointments, activities and tasks. Personally, I schedule doctor appointments in the afternoons and due to work, no other things for that day. Sometimes it takes most of the day to complete, just two things.
• Only complete what is scheduled and for only the allotted time you have scheduled it for. There will be more time tomorrow. Things can be moved, but don’t be lazy.
• Complete the tasks that benefit you most first, then do the second most beneficial and so on. You will soon find out, what things really deserve your time.

Time is valuable and it must be treated as such. Tell others to honor your schedule. Teach them. Things come up, but your time is scheduled. Keep a boundary; expect others to honor your schedule. I have found, I have one day that time is on my side, and then the next, it’s not. On these days, I let go and laugh. I know tomorrow will be a time saver day once more. What time saving tips have you found useful?

​Happy Thursday,
Have you heard the saying, “find your tribe?”
It is finding a sense of belonging with others. Finding a space to Be You, an acceptance, without the formalities and expectations that is needed in life and functioning. Here are a few tips to help you find your tribe.

• Look for activities which aside from sleeping and eating, you would do all the time. They are there, waiting for you.
• Notice what people do when they are silent. Do they do things you understand?  If so, seek them out. They could be one of your tribe members.
• Notice the people, who have no expectations of you, rather they just show up. They need you too.
• Notice if time spent with another gives you a good gut feeling each time. Do they make you laugh?  If it feels good, they are your tribe member.
• Finally, if you have been unable to find your tribe or a few tribe members, perhaps seeking out adoption of a rescue animal, fostering a child or volunteering in the activity you can do all the time can assist. Trust your gut always, put yourself out there. They are waiting.

A sense of belonging or tribe is essential especially during this crazy time. Do you have a tribe? Has it made the trying times in life more bearable? 

Happy Thursday,
So it’s been about 4 months that we have been asked to quarantine ourselves. One of the biggest things I believe we have recognized is that we need socialization more than we were aware of. Even going and being among our fellow humans as we carry on about our day is essential. My memory goes to days I was riding the subway in New York City. The smells of urine permeated the air as I made my way to my destination. The smell really sucked but it was human. It was humanity. I am a people watcher and I need to be with people and watch the world.
Now we are becoming pod people. Imagine a world in which we all are bouncing around in bubbles. Bouncing against each other like balls on a tennis court. Maybe that’s my next short story?
About this time of year, we all might be planning a trip or a vacation with friends to release the pent-upness of life, but now we have to think twice.
Here are a few tips to help with release.
​

• Schedule a tailgate party. Six feet away, keep to just under 10 friends. Wear masks. Order some take out, eat together and laugh.
• Have a virtual happy hour. Put on a favorite tune, sing and groove with everyone.
• Take a drive to a lake, park or place there is few people. Enjoy nature and play a game with family.
• Set up a movie outside on an iPad, tablet, or even the actual TV itself to watch with a small number of neighbors and friends.

Be good to yourselves. Listen to your body and mind to release and balance. I have included a video that I use to get my groove on. Maybe you can funk out with me virtually. 
https://www.facebook.com/nzspiritevents/videos/176655476983681/

​What the hell are you talking about…rest?! I have too much to do!
This week, let’s talk about rest or more important fatigue. There has never been a time in our history in which humans have been exposed to stimulus at such a high frequency.  We can get it, see it, learn it, do it, whatever we want…it is just a click and charging that credit card away.
In the current pandemic if we work from home there is no down time between work and play. Now more than ever we need time to rest.
Our animals and children will remind us. My nephew just called me on a group chat. When I saw the missed call and text my sister to ask if she had called, she replied that he took her phone. She was working and he is only nineteen months old. Ha!

Even in doing this research I was bombarded with advertisements which I had to click on to remove from the screen while trying to get information.
Shut up already!
​How many calls a day do you get from advertisers? Putting your phone on silent is the only option to get anything done these days. How many family members need something from you, or of you, now?  “Just email me” is the new norm. We just don’t have time. We have to prioritize everything we do. It is like a dog barking at a doorbell and we all…are barking internally.

Take time to rest. Here are a few suggestions.

• Listen to your body. If you feel tired, take frequent breaks during work time.
  Close your eyes and breathe through your belly for five minutes. Set a timer if you have too.
• Take a walk. Just walk and let your mind wander. Alone.
  Going alone is important as family, including animals is demanding. You need time for you to rest.  Look at the trees, plants, flowers. Just be, walk until you feel that things relax and settle. Your body and mind are resting.
• Turn off the television, any device with a light (cellphone or IPad) one hour or more before bedtime. Drink calming tea, lie in bed and meditate. Remember you need to pet the barking dog inside you.
•  Schedule a day to do nothing, not even exercise.  Unless exercise, even sex is something you enjoy. You must schedule this at least one day a week to rest your mind and body.
• Skip a scheduled activity. Give your body and mind time to rest. You can do it next week. It might even give you time to rethink where you want to spend your time in the future. You are the boss of you, always…ultimately. Be you.

Lastly, humans need down time to reboot. Communicate and coordinate with family this need. Stress kills. Make no mistake about it. If you do not rest sometimes, you will become like a tire shredded away to nothing. Take time to rest.

This title refers to the thought that if you want to be something, allow yourself to get out of the way. Many of us have absorbed the thoughts, teachings or beliefs given to us as we grew up. As a result, we had to do a dance with our thoughts about what to keep and what to discard which dictate how we act in the world. What are the rules supporting how to survive and succeed?  Like many of us I have been struggling with what to write this week, given the last few weeks in which there has been great hope and great despair. And, we are in the middle of a virus rewriting our way of life.  So I too, am struggling with how I feel. And being white, I feel the need to be an example of being better.
The one thing that comes up is we humans need to get out of our own way. Meaning, let’s stop being proud and selfish. Be open and see yourself in another, even animals. Would you allow harm to yourself in this way? Plus, personally, I was given what some were not, simply because of my skin color. I have to remain aware of this privilege.
I recently watched again, the film entitled “I Am Not Your Negro,” to hear what Mr. Baldwin calls, “moral apathy.” My understanding of what it means is, in the face of moral wrong to others we do nothing. Just like when there was slavery to protect one’s investments, just like when we allow mass incarceration of people mostly of color to continue, just like when we see someone being marginalized or killed, we say or do nothing to change it. We do not vote or support businesses which uphold moral decency. Why do we have to have other? Why do we believe we have no power?
My older brother sent a video which I think illustrates the dance we as white people do. Do you think how you act can impact the tapestry of our world? How do you get out of your own way?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.

What a time we are living in now. A virus, quarantine, deaths by choice from those in law enforcement and death by those as a reaction to it.
We are tired.
We are ready for change.  A change that is respectful of all life on this planet we call home.
Have you had enough? Is your instinct talking?
Instinct is within all of us and it is the thing, if we listen, will give guidance when we cannot find it elsewhere. So if you have been feeling lost, here are a few tips to remember your instinct.

• Just breathe. If something does not feel right, it isn’t. Take a breath and wait until it does feel right.
  
  
•  There will be days that nothing seems to work. Just let it pass. Like a leaf blowing in the wind, you will settle once again. Just relax and let it pass.
  
  
• Stay true to yourself. As this blog talks about, Listen. Be you, always. You know the answer for you, it is there, always. It is your instinct talking.
  
  

I was raised to believe it is a higher power speaking to you. What do you think?

Happy Thursday,
Today, I am taking a tiny detour. I wish to post this 11 minute video which sums up my thoughts the moment I saw George Floyd on the news. I hope you will watch and represent for our children and the future. It takes a village. We are all pieces of the same puzzle. Vote, do not forget this happened.......again.

​Happy Thursday,

Times are calling for this, to have strength.  It is a time to find it within you. Some would say it is a part of you that like finding yourself as this blog talks about, comes from a higher energy or a higher place in which to look toward. To find strength.
Here are a few tools to go to if your strength is not what you feel it must be.

• Realize that you are never in control of any outcome. Sometimes this outcome has already been created and you were never considered in the equation. Tough to hear, but true. Many think of the win, not the outcome for all.
• Give up all sense of being important alone. Like the saying goes, do onto others as you would do onto yourself. Just do what’s right for you.
•  Look at the outcome and see whether it truly is something meant to make things better.
• Realize you are never alone. Ask and wait for the answer. Sometimes the answer you get may not be what you like. Yet, what you do must feel right for you, always. If it does not, it is not right for you.

Strength is a sense of being. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is, see that having strength is not always based in muscle, ability or performance.