Recruiter Friend or Foe

I have not been doing a whole lot of job “searching” these days. It turns out that I have two very good possibilities that I am following through. One is a job that I really want, but there is about a 50/50 chance of my being the chosen candidate. The other is only a so-so opportunity that will “put me back in the game. I can tell you one thing…I am tired of looking right now. I have run into two fantastic recruiters in my travels recently and I think I will sit back for a while and let them look for me.

What is your experience with recruiters out there in the marketplace? I have found that for the most part, many of them are just collecting resumes (just in case). It has been difficult for me to build relationships with the voice on the other end of the line when they are no longer interested in me as an individual and what I can offer their client. I miss the old recruiter/candidate relationship. Like I said, I have two that I finally feel that “old feeling of being appreciated”. Tell me your recruiter experience.

I will be happy to share the names of my two new "knights in shining armour" with you at your request!

Don’t forget the Wonder

Have you stopped to enjoy the wonder lately?









I so much enjoy many of Eric’s blogs such as the one at http://ejmdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/03/monday-motivation-dont-forget-wonder.html

Don't Forget the Wonder he says! “We so often focus so much on what is immediate, on what is "important" that we often forget that there is wonder and discovery as close as our own back yards. As close as walking outside to our cars. As close as now.”

I think about how often I “stop and smell the roses” and its so true, we focus on the immediate and we forget to live in the moment. If you have ever found yourself at home thinking about what you need to do at work, or at work thinking about things happening in your personal life, you know how distracting it is. Living in the moment means you are totally immersed in an experience.

What were the magical moments that have been in your life? Can you really sit down and write a list of every time that you were totally and completely immersed in the act of living?

Living in the moment is easy during special times in your life. However, most days don't contain special events, and unless you learn to live in the moment, worry, fear, resentments or other distractions will rob you of your life. I know that this is true for me. I have to really work on finding those few times that I can honestly say “I am alive and I feel, see, touch, smell and taste” every sensation.

Sarano Kelly used to teach us to stop several times during the day and just breathe….deep cleansing breaths…. have a moment of “gratefulness” and then refocus.

So, I vow to spend more time working on “living in the moment and reliving the wonder” that all live has to offer.

Its All About You so Climb On

Continuing the climb after last week's terrible and humiliating experience I am inspired by Eric Marschall's blog from Monday:

(Personal photo from a recent Pilgrimage to Montserrat, Spain)




"Today's a simple idea, a simple message, but hopefully something that will help drive your day.

It's about you. When it comes to the end of the day, when you turn off the lights, when you look in the mirror in the morning, you are the person you have to live with. You are your passion, your brand, your word.

So from now on, realize that you are the only person you have to impress.

Be your own barometer. You'll be a harsher judge and prouder producer than anyone else can be of you.

Now go out there and get 'em!"

http://ejmdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/03/monday-inspiration-impress-yourself.html

Happy St Patrick's Day Toast

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!


Every Saint Patrick’s Day I take a moment to reflect about another mentor of mine, Bill Murphy. Bill is a staunch Irish American Catholic and one of the earliest mentors in my career.

He has such a zeal for life and really knows how to get the most out of every situation. He used to proclaim St. Patrick’s Day as an unofficial work holiday and would go down to Crowley’s Pub in Mt. Adams, (at what seemed like the crack of dawn) for green eggs and ham, green beer, and a full day of festivities!

Thanks Bill for laying the foundation for me to be a good business woman and how to enjoy life to its fullest, (a lesson that I had forgotten for a short while somewhere along way). Today I drink a green beer in your honor so “Beannachtam na Femle Padraig, Céad míle beannachta, and Slainte chugat” wherever you may be!

(Happy St. Patrick’s Day, One Hundred Thousand Blessings’ and Good Health to you!)


Image from google images

How to Get a Job Fast

A colleague of mine and his partner just published a book entitled “How to get a Job Fast.” Here is a Direct Mail Piece from them that I have included for you to read and explore. The interesting thing about this first communiqué I have received from them is that I thought it was common knowledge that once you interview with someone, you send a Thank-You. (Its Marketing and Sales 101! – It’s the Golden Rule, when someone gives you a present or does something nice, you say Thank-You). Apparently, from Ted and Don’s research, that is not the case. By the way, I don’t think they would be too pleased with the Thank-You I sent to Kathy on Friday, do you?

After Friday’s experience, I went to the card shop to buy some Thank-you’s for the physicians that I interviewed with the week before. I decided that instead of trying to navigate through the UC mail system, that I would hand deliver the thank-you to their office. I will let you know if that technique worked. In light of this, I thought that Don and Ted’s information was very timely and I wanted to share it with you.


“Here is a job-search technique you can use with or without a L.E.A.P. form. (Hint: This really adds power to your L.E.A.P.)

My wife had just completed college, and was job-hunting during an economic downturn. The job market was tough with more job seekers than jobs.

She was looking for work as a law clerk because she would be starting law school the coming Fall. Yet there were more law students than ants at a picnic, and the competition for the few clerk jobs was difficult.

With persistence she managed to garner a half dozen or so interviews. What her Dad taught her to do was acquire the name of the person who gave her the interview. Yes, learning the correct spelling of the interviewer's name was mandatory.

She also made note of the mailing address, and the department address for sending mail - real Post Office mail - not email to reach that interviewer.

Her secret weapon...

... a stack of blank "Thank-You" notes and postage stamps kept in her car.

Immediately after an interview she would write a short thank-you to the interviewer:

"Dear so-and-so,

Thank you for taking time to see me today about the job as clerk.

It was nice meeting you. If I can be of any help please contact me.

Signed MMMMMMM
Phone number 123-4567"

She would go to the nearest mail box or post office and mail her thank-you notes.

This technique is probably mentioned in every How-To-Find-A-Job book on the market, but...

... almost no one ever follows through with it!

How do I know? I've owned a half dozen businesses over the years.
Yet I have never seen a thank-you note come from a prospective employee. Not once! People just don't think about writing one.

Present a L.E.A.P. with it's special question at the interview, then send a thank-you note to the interviewer after the interview.
You will be the one they want~!

I would have been blown away by anyone who did. Many of our friends are business owners and employers. They tell me the same thing.

If you are still job hunting - or if you will ever search for a new job in the future, read "How You Find A Job - Fast!" because it will show you how to get to the top of the interviewer's hiring list!


Get "How You Find A Job Fast" here:

http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=7.AlV&m=LX0.Ax23CFXa0H&b=h0sgwdiW09ENPgW7TAFDfQ

In it you will discover...

-Why someone should hire you

-Opportunity Cows Affect Your Future

-Three "Invisible" psychological strategies that help you get hired

-How you are better than other job seekers

-Benefits - How you can benefit the employer

-How to be unique and integrate that into contact

-Specificity in marketing yourself to employers

-How to make a concise "wording" about what you do

-How to build a large network so you can find future jobs

-How to locate prospective employers

-How to define your perfect employer/job

-How to plan for your career growth

Get it here and become employed!

http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=7.AlV&m=LX0.Ax23CFXa0H&b=h0sgwdiW09ENPgW7TAFDfQ”


"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore,
is not an act but a habit!"

-Aristotle

Where Am I Going

"When you're clear, what you want will show up in your life, and only to the extent you are clear."

Thanks Brenda


Personal Perigrino Photo from "El Camino de Santigo"

Bye Bye to Bullies

This will be a rather long post so I hope that you will indulge me. On Friday, I went for an interview for the position of Acute Care Coordinator with a large Dialysis firm. I thought the position sounded interesting and challenging. (Besides, I need a job, right). I didn’t know if this position would be right for me or not so I wanted to explore the opportunity. It was undoubtedly the worst experience of my interviewing life. When I came back to my office I stewed over my experience and then began calling some of my mentors. It was suggested that I write her superior a letter. When I called to find the name of her boss, Rachel, the nice young lady that I talked to, informed me that there was a formal complaint process. Usually, I let things go but I was angry also, I working through my ability to act upon my intentions, so I filed a formal complaint that read like this:

“I wanted to take the time to share with you an experience I had this morning interviewing for the position of Acute Care Coordinator in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have attached a copy of the letter that I have put in the mail to the Director of Operations, Kathy M., who conducted the interview. I want to tell you that I have never filed a complaint like this before. After giving it some thought though, I think that I would want to know if a potential candidate left my place in the same state in which I left Kathy M’s office.

I have never in my life felt so unwelcomed into an organization than I did today. Typically, I would just move on from this experience, but I am so passionate about dialysis clients and the many different wonderful extracorporeal therapies that are out there that I felt that I needed to finally make a stance. Kathy indicated that a competitor, Liberty Dialysis, is “stealing” your clients and your staff and that you have lost quite a bit of market share to them over the years. I would not be surprised if that fact is true if Kathy’s treatment of me is any indication how employees and patients are treated. Good customer service extends from the top down and I can tell you that as much as I wanted the challenge of working in the Acute Care Coordinator role, I could not work in a corporate culture as the one shared with me today.

As I answered her questions, (to the best of recollection as she was asking me questions that related to the work I did twenty years ago) she made a point, in an angry tone, to tell me that my responses were incorrect. This was the most hostile and unprofessional interview in which I have ever participated. I felt as if each question built upon the next to set me up for failure.

I’m fairly thick-skinned. I have run organizations as large as 60 employees and 300 clients. I also know that I have been very fortunate and lucky over the years to be in the right place at the right time and to have had the opportunity to be a part of so many wonderful and innovative device designs and implementations. I felt as if Kathy wanted to make some sort of example out of me with her “interrogation techniques,” that I left her office so angry and upset, by the time I made it to the car I was in tears.

Feel free to call me if you wish to understand more about my experience. Thank you so much for your time.”

This is really just an example of some of my experiences. It would take a small chapter in a book to outline the entire experience for you. After she told me my “resume was a mess, there was too much on it and she couldn’t read it, her first question to me was, “Where do you get off claiming you were the only company that offered private pay dialysis?” I responded cooly and told her that my referral sources told me that I was the only HOME HEALTH CARE Company that would take on PRIVATE PAY dialysis patients. So now, I am even more on edge than when she walked into the room. I almost got up and walked out but I wanted to play it through to see if she would warm up a bit. Not!

At one point in the conversation she asked me which CLCDC I worked at. I told her that I think, at the time there was only one and I worked at the one in Clifton. Mind you, I worked there twenty years ago so I was pulling on old memories that really no longer existed as far as I was concerned. She said to me, “You are wrong! There were x number of units in…blah blah blah blah….I say “Blah Blah” because I couldn’t believe her hostility towards me and I was not paying attention. She asked me who my nurse manager was at that facility and I told her. She scoffed and rolled her eyes. Now I was pissed. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at the name of one of my greatest mentors! This woman took me on and taught me everything there was to know about management and dialysis. She was the foundation to my career and she was, at that moment in time, being scoffed at by Nurse Ratchet!

At the end of the interview, she asked me if I had any more questions. Well, I just wanted out of there and so very calmly I said, “I do have more questions but I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. I’m sure that the answers will be flushed out as we continue through the interview process.” With disdain in her voice, she responded to me, “Well you didn’t ask about training, you should’ve asked about training, that would’ve been a good question!” I was thinking to myself, “woman, I just want out of here, there will be no training because I would not work for you even if Hell froze over!” It was like an episode of Ally McBeal going on in my head because what I really said was, “Well, I just assumed that there would be a training program in place.” I then had to sit through another fifteen minute diatribe about her anticipated training program (which she really didn’t know because she reported to two different managers herself). She said she would be in touch and I thought to myself, “not bloody likely” and we said our goodbyes.

I told the woman at the corporate office that it was like a scene out of the movie “Mean Girls” and she was the mean one. What “Grinds my Gears” though is the bullying! I hate a bully and I have always worked hard to fight them with every ounce of energy I could muster up when I felt it was for a good cause. This is a good cause. These patients and the nurses who provide care for them deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, not be governed by intimidation in fear. We are not in the old Soviet Union! We are in the United States of America where we were built by individuals who chose to make a stand against bullies! I will not be bullied and this woman should be dethroned to make room for a kind, loving and caring nurse who will provided excellent care to both her/his employees and patients.

Here is the "Thank-You note that I sent to the mean lady:

“Dear Kathy,

I would like to withdraw my application as a candidate for the position of Acute Care Coordinator for the Greater Cincinnati area. While I find that the position itself would be intellectually challenging and a fun way to pull from all of my various extracorporeal and leadership skills, I feel that our management styles would directly conflict with each other over time.

I have thought long and hard about how I would respond to our interaction this morning and I think that the best way is to just put it out there, honestly and as objectively as possible. I felt as if you were bringing me into the office for a personal attack on myself and my skill set. When you entered the conference room and the first statement you made was, “I will be doing your interrogation, so to speak,” it made me extremely uncomfortable. As you picked through my resume, I felt as if you made an attempt at every turn to belittle the experience that I could bring to your table. While some of my facts may not have been correct (because you focused on my experience twenty years ago) I did not feel that the pointed confrontations on my recollection were warranted.

I have experience in hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, continuous renal replacement therapy, aphaeresis, stem-cell processing, and other state of the art extracorporeal therapies and equipment. Just because some of it is industry related, it doesn’t make my experience less valid. It is someone like myself, who works for a corporation and sets up intense training programs for staff across the nation, that teaches nurses in the units how to perform the therapies safely and effectively.

My personal corporate philosophy is that everyone in the organization is treated like a customer; both internally and externally. Also, I treat everyone alike, without judgment, and would never knowingly make someone (especially a new candidate) feel as if they are not a welcome part of the organization. I foster a corporate culture that is respectful, courteous, warm and welcoming. I lead by example. This is the primary reason for my withdrawal and why I feel that we are not a good fit for each other.

I have such a passion for dialysis and other extracorporeal therapies that I am saddened by this experience. Dialysis is hard anyway, for both the nurse and the client that I always tried to be the “bright spot” for my fellow employees and especially, my patients. But that brightness shines from the top down and without continual positive support, the message never reaches the place of most importance.

If you knew before I came into your office that I was not the right candidate for you, I wish you would not have wasted my time or your time. I can tell you that the one lesson I have taken from this experience is that I will investigate more fully the corporate culture before I begin the interview process.”

Thanks But No Thanks

As I expected, Sunshine IT was not exactly hiring the best candidate for the job, they were waiting on the computer to sort out for the monkeys. I received a response from them the other day:

“Thank you for taking the time to explore employment opportunities with Sunshine IT I want to personally thank you for your interest in our open position, as well as the patience you have shown throughout our screening process.

It is our sincere desire to match the best-qualified candidate to a potential opportunity within our company. Although your background is impressive, we are not able to move you to the next stage of our employment process.

Again, thank you for your interest. Best wishes for success in your career search.”

Of course, the reality is that I want to work for a company that has a more personal corporate culture so I knew before I even sat down to do their littler proficiency test that working for that company was by no means going to be a good fit for me. I don’t know why employers are wasting so much time and energy on computerized exclusions programs. What are your thoughts on “being weeded out by a computer?”

What is the Dream Job

Recently I received an e-mail through my blog from Brenda asking me, “what is the dream job I am looking for?” The journey is really that I don’t know that for which I am looking. The journey is really about the search for what it is I really want to do post sale of my company. Its an interesting ride really. Really, it is! Through my blogging process I have flushed out my passion for corporate education, so that is the area of my focus. But to be honest, I am open to other opportunities within my skill set. The problem has been the wading through of HR procedures, the emotional ups and downs of the interview process, the idea that I didn’t think I knew who I was as an individual or a professional anymore and then working through it and realizing that I had the answers all along. Thanks Brenda. If you know of any companies looking for a corporate educator I would appreciate you passing my name along!

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."
-Robert Collier

(Personal photo from trip to Sydney 2007)

Pavlov’s Dog, Trained Monkey, Idiot or Genius

Well today I think I almost suffered the ultimate indignity in job search activities. I received an e-mail the other day for an IT company in which I applied and this is the response that I received:

Thank you for showing an interest in Sunshine IT Inc.

After initial review of your resume, we are interested in moving you forward to the next step in our employment process: our on-line assessment.

You should be receiving an email shortly from Test First that will provide a link to their website as well as your log-in and password information.

Please set aside 2-2 ½ hours of uninterrupted time to take the assessment. Most of the sections within the modules are timed, so accuracy and speed are important. You may not use a calculator, but the use of pen and paper is encouraged. Each section has multiple pages; please make sure you complete as many pages as possible. Do not move to the next section until you complete all the pages or you run out of time. The assessment must be taken on a PC, using Internet Explorer web browser. Other browsers are not supported. It is also important to answer the questions as honestly as possible, since the tool tracks whether you are answering candidly or telling us what you think we want to hear. Assessment results will not be shared with candidates.

Please be aware that if you move to the in-person interview stage, you will be asked to retake the first portion of the assessment again, to make sure all of our applicants are being tested under the same conditions. The assessment will apply to all opportunities at Sunshine IT.

Thank you for your time and consideration. You will hear from us a week or so after you have completed the assessment. If you have questions in the future, please don’t hesitate to contact me. In the interim, please feel free to browse our corporate website at www.sunshineit.com

I was curious. I’m on spring break from my teaching position so I had a little extra time to kill so I clicked on the link and took the “little test”. What a slap in the face that experience could have been if I were seriously looking for a position with that company.

“What is the next letter in the sequence?” AABBCCDD 1.A 2.B 3.E 4.F

“What is the next shape in the sequence?” Square, Circle, Triangle Pentagram, Heart shaped tutu!

“What does almost mean?”

“Do the math” – You are the bus driver. There are 20 kids on the bus. You stop and pick up 3. Then you drop off 5. Next you pick up 7. Then you drop off 15. Next you pick up 30 and let off 15 and then pick up 400 and drop off 500. What is the name of the bus driver?

“When did the US enter WWII? Who is the president of the UN? What is a bear market? Blah blah blah blah blah…..who the heck cares and what does all this have to do with my ability to train and educate learners on their particular healthcare IT product?

Searching for a job has become ridiculous! When employers make applicants jump through a ton of hoops that really don’t mean a hill of beans where does that leave us as a human race? I can tell you first- hand what it does to the human person; it is demeaning and degrading. A robot is deciding whether or not I will be a good candidate for the company. All this data sorting, and key wording, and search criteria, take the human out of the being and debase the individual into compressed statistical megabytes of information.

When will this nonsense stop? When will employers put the human back into resources? I know this, I am an excellent educator but the HR person on the other end of my “Monkey Test” will never know. Perhaps they do know. Perhaps they are only looking for Pavlov’s dog. Time will only tell. Will I be labeled as another idiot applicant or will I be revered as the latest genius to pass through their electronic matrix?

“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.” - The Buddha

HR Are You Out There

Weekly re-cap: I worked for a company out of Denver for several years. We went through transition after transition after transition. The last president for whom I worked told us something at a national meeting that has stuck with me all these years, “what have I done to make money today”. I can take that to a different realm while I am searching for a job and say, “what I have done to search for a job today?”

Well, on Wednesday, I received a direct mail from Sunquest Information Systems. They found my resume on Career Builders. So, like a good little job searcher, I applied for a field position for a Clinical Product Specialist. I was actually pretty excited to complete the on-line application (for the first time in a long time). I didn’t even need to take a deep breath before I got started, I just started! I like the fact that I could list my own “key search words” for the system to pull. The recruitment site was very user friendly. I liked being able to add my own comments to strengthen my position. I used my new resume so lets see what it pulls.

Many of these recruitment sites are so frustrating….the worst site that I have encountered thus far is Tri-Health in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tri-Health makes you jump through so many hoops, is not user friendly and there is no way for an applicant to “personalize” their inquiry. I have tried four times now to apply at Tri-Health without success. I am either booted out of the site or I just get frustrated and give up. I probably won’t attempt to re-apply at Tri-Health.

So my goal was five applications this week using my new resume. Along with Sunquest and my attempt at Tri-Health I have applied for two positions at Hillenbrand Industries and have applied for about the umpteenth time! They apparently have a recruiting firm that screens all of the applications. I will probably never get to the appropriate HR person but I keep applying hoping that at some point someone will see my resume for the millionth time and say, “hey, why do we keep seeing this crazy woman’s resume?”

I have also submitted my resume at the college where I teach for a full-time position. I don’t know if I am even remotely qualified because the job description was extremely vague but we’ll see if I get a call back.
So, I think this means I met my application goal this week. However, the one thing I didn’t do was really target the application process. It is hard to do that when applying for a job in a company in which you already have a profile, i.e. Hillenbrand Industries. Its not easy to change a profile with some of these on-line recruitment processes. Some of them, when you already have a profile in place and you apply, it just goes….I don’t know where it goes but it just goes…. What experience do you have with updating your profile on some of these sites? I would really like to know.

Unlock your personal power

My friend Laura read my post today after I sent her the link over IM Chat. She sent me a quote from an unknown auther that she really liked.

“At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It's like one day you realize that the fairy tale is slightly different than your dream. The castle... well, it may not be a castle. And it's not so important that it’s happily ever after – just that it's happy right now.”

So along with Magic, I need to renew faith within myself. This will lead to the unlocking of my personal power and finding the joy that has been missing lately. Its been tough to even find that with which I am grateful.

Many years ago there was a book that I read called Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breatnach (http://www.simpleabundance.com). In her book, she talks about creating a Gratitude Journal and write five things in which you are grateful everyday. It was a wonderful exercise and really helped open up my eyes to all of the beauty and goodness that surrounded my life on a daily basis. Sarano Kelley had us repeat that exercise when I was doing my coaching session with his team through Silpada.

I think of the close friends that have been along the ride with me on my journey and I am grateful. To those of you strong women out there (and yes, you know which ones you are) I offer a sincere amount of gratitude to you for being there for me when I need a listening ear, a girl's night out or a quiet bottle of wine by the fire. Thank-you Thank-you. You all mean so much to me. You are my fairy tale. You are my castle!

(Maireid Castle - Google Images)

Unlocking the Magic

Its magic that is missing from life. I realized that when my daughter told me the other day that she no longer believes in Santa Claus. I can’t tell you the last time I actually believed in something. I have forgotten how to live. While I feel driven to learn as much as I can out of life, I still feel that something has been mislaid.

I’ve always looked at things a little different than most people. As a young adult, I remember how I found solace in taking a book to my favorite tree on our 90 acre farm (10 acres shy of Pooh’s) and reading all day. I believed there was a kind of energy created by all living things and the “Mother Earth” was the center of this phenomenon. I believed all this even before I knew there was a “Mother Earth”. I also understood that we had the power to control our own destiny just by visualizing and having faith in the universe.

So I wonder what happened? Why can’t I invoke this power anymore? It’s the magic. I had temporarily lost the magic. I will work on getting the enchantment back into my life then all of my supernatural powers will return.

A recent blog I read by Sherry Hartzer was entitled “Imagination: Believing in Tinkerbell.” Sherry, I believe in Faeries, I believe in Faerie dust and I believe in fairytales. I don’t want the magic to go away again. I need to explore ways to "unlock the magic" in my life.

Living in the Moment through Decluttering

One of the things that gives me most peace is have a clean, simple home. When I wake up in the morning and walk out into a living room that has been decluttered and there isn’t junk lying around, there is a calm and joy that enters my heart.

When, on the other hand, I walk out into a living room cluttered with papers, toys and books and extra things all over the place, it is chaos and my mind is distracted.

Sarano Kelley taught us that if we get rid of all the clutter in our environment it allows us to focus more clearly on our goals and live more wholly in each and every moment of our lives. When there is too much disorder in my surroundings I find that I am unproductive, I don’t sleep well and I certainly don’t enjoy life because I stress over everything that needs to get done. Its hard for me to focus on my goals when I am constantly picking up everybody’s things.

For the past two autumns I have undergone some massive “decluttering”. When I get into this space I am merciless. Its time to do it again! I look at the mess though and I get utterly overwhelmed. One of the things that Sarano stated was to pull an all-nighter to really be able to “dig-in” and make a huge dent into the process. Perhaps tonight will be my “all-nighter” night.

Here are top decluttering tips from http://zenhabits.net/2007/01/zen-mind-how-to-declutter/ :

• Do it in small chunks. Set aside just 15 minutes to declutter just one shelf, and when that shelf or that 15 minutes is up, celebrate your victory. Then tackle another shelf for 15 minutes the next day. Conquering an entire closet or room can be overwhelming, and you might put it off forever. If that’s the case, just do it in baby steps.

• Set aside a couple hours to do it. This may seem contradictory to the above tip … and it is. It’s simply a different strategy, and I say do whatever works for you. Sometimes, for me, it’s good to set aside part of a morning, or an entire Saturday morning, to declutter a closet or room. I do it all at once, and when I’m done, it feels awesome.

• Take everything out of a shelf or drawer at once. Whichever of the two above strategies you choose, you should focus on one drawer or shelf at a time, and empty it completely. Then clean that shelf or drawer. Then, take the pile and sort it (see next tip), and put back just what you want to keep. Then tackle the next shelf or drawer.

• Sort through your pile, one item at a time, and make quick decisions. Have a trash bag and a give-away box handy. When you pull everything out of a shelf or drawer, sort through the pile one at a time. Pick up an item, and make a decision: trash, give away, or keep. Don’t put it back in the pile. Do this with the entire pile, and soon, you’ll be done. If you keep sorting through the pile, and re-sorting, it’ll take forever. Put back only what you want to keep, and arrange it nicely.

• Be merciless. You may be a pack rat, but the truth is, you won’t ever use most of the junk you’ve accumulated. If you haven’t used it in the last year, get rid of it. It’s as simple as that. If you’ve only used it once or twice in the last year, but know you won’t use it in the next year, get rid of it. Toss it if it’s unsalvageable, and give it away if someone else might be able to use it.

• Papers? Be merciless, unless it’s important. Magazines, catalogues, junk mail, bills more than a year old, notes to yourself, notes from others, old work stuff … toss it! The only exception is with tax-related stuff, which should be kept for seven years, and other important documents like warranties, birth and death and marriage certificates, insurance, wills, and other important documents like that. But you’ll know those when you see ‘em. Otherwise, toss!!!!

• Create a system to stop clutter from accumulating. There’s a reason you have tall stacks of papers all over the place, and big piles of toys and books and clothes. It’s because you don’t have a regular system to keep things in their place, and get rid of stuff you don’t need. This is a topic for another day, but it’s something to think about as you declutter. You’ll never get to perfect, but if you think more intelligently about how your house got cluttered, perhaps you can find ways to stop it from happening again. This is the one area that I can’t seem to get on top of. I can’t seem to get my family to use my systems that I put into place.

• Celebrate when you’re done! This is actually a general rule in life: always celebrate your accomplishments, no matter how small. Even if you just decluttered one drawer, that’s great. Treat yourself to something delicious. Open that drawer (or closet, or whatever), and admire its simplicity. Breathe deeply and know that you have done a good thing. Bask in your peacefulness.

Life is a strawberry so just consume it

You think about how fragile life is and how quickly it goes by you start to put things in perspective. While I am working on not taking life for granted, there is a great zen story that I once heard in which I try to bring to mind that helps me stop worrying about the future and focus on the moment:

"One day, while walking through the wilderness, a man encountered a vicious tiger. He ran for his life, and the tiger gave chase.

The man came to the edge of a cliff, and the tiger was almost upon him. Having no choice, he held on to a vine with both hands and climbed down.

Halfway down the cliff, the man looked up and saw the tiger at the top, baring its fangs. He looked down and saw another tiger at the bottom, waiting for his arrival and roaring at him. He was caught between the two.

Two rats, one white and one black, showed up on the vine above him. As if he didn't have enough to worry about, they started gnawing on the vine.

He knew that as the rats kept gnawing, they would reach a point when the vine would no longer be able to support his weight. It would break and he would fall. He tried to shoo the rats away, but they kept coming back.

At that moment, he noticed a strawberry growing on the face of the cliff, not far away from him. It looked plump and ripe. Holding onto the vine with one hand and reaching out with the other, he plucked it.

With a tiger above, another below, and two rats continuing to gnaw on his vine, the man tasted the strawberry and found it absolutely delicious.”

Good Intentions are worth a box of coal

I have a very good friend that currently in formation of becoming a Franciscan sister. I love the Franciscans! In my opinion, they live life in real “East meets West” sort of way. They appear to experience and “taste” each moment as if it were the last, fully and whole-heartedly, making every second count. For years I have been trying get to this space, but I have been so “busy” moving from point A to point B that I rarely stop to enjoy the moments that really count. As my friend travels on her journey, she inspires me to continue upon my own.

I told her at dinner the other night that I live my life with “good intentions.” You know what, good intentions are fine if they are acted upon but in my life they have been worth about as much as a box of coal. Living in the Moment entails accepting and experiencing both elements in life, positive and negative. This acceptance of life’s duality reaps great benefits through this understanding.

I think about doing things all the time, whether it is making a phone call to a friend, planning a charity event, taking the kids skiing, etc. I never let myself “get-a-round-to-it”. I shared with her that I have been planning to call her and arrange a mini-retreat at the beautiful 300-acre Oldenburg facility for several years now but just haven’t made the time. She inspired me to start making the time to act on the things that I have been “intending to do”. So, I took the kids skiing! So, we have planned a week-end retreat!

I am going to stop living my life with “good intentions” and begin acting in life as a full participant. I will practice being present and focus on all that is created in each moment until I became much more aware of the activities around me, and I have learned how to be more attentive to, and appreciative for, what life has given me. So point me in the right direction because I'm finally headed down the road.

(Personal photo from the Camino de Santiago)

Apolysis and Sunsets

I feel like a caterpillar (image from google images) in one of the middle stages of instar wondering when my next apolysis will happen. Those who know me and are close to me have recognized that this personal process that I have been undergoing has had its share of both joy and pain. I had almost forgotten how to live in the moment and this blog has really allowed me to explore possibilities in which I had never before envisioned. Not only that, because I have made myself so public (something in which I am not accustomed to doing with my personal self), it has forced me to look a little more introspectively and become more contemplative before I publish my post. Possibilities are beginning to appear around corners that I never thought were there before. It’s a wondrous feeling.

Over the week-end, I took the kids skiing. We live 2 miles from a ski slope and we had never been as a family. Why? Why have we not taken advantage before of this wonderful opportunity? I think that its because it has always been there so I just took it for granted. Life is a gift! It should never be taken for granted! Why do we do this? Why have I let our lives become so “dog-in/dog-out”.

This week-end, after our ski lesson on Friday, the kids and I took the ski lift to the very top. Just as we were moving to the crest of the hill, you could see the sunset off to the west in the distance. I said to the kids, look at that! It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had seen in a long time. We glided off of the chair lift and stood away from the crowd and just stared out at the beautifully intense red, orange, yellow and purple hues that lit up the twilight sky. What was even more spectacular was watching the kids watching the sunset. My son immediately took out his cell phone and began taking pictures. My daughter commented on all of the beautiful colours. We live in a valley with tall surrounding hills so sunsets are very rare for us. I relished in the calm and beauty of sunset from atop the snow covered hill and took great pleasure from the appreciation that my children had with same experience. Today we are definitely not taking life for granted!

"When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”-G.K. Chesterton, essayist, novelist and poet