Alabama Potential

Just got back from Alabama. It was a hectic return as our flight out of Birmingham was delayed due to weather and so we missed our connecting flight in Chicago and had to spend and extra day there before making our way home.

Once again my time in Alabama was an enlightening and nourishing experience. My trip last year, being my first, was extremely difficult for me as I am a very shy person who is definitely more at home on the mat teaching than I am networking and making new friends. With last year’s experience under my belt I had hoped that this year would be a lot easier. Despite my teammates from Team 6 being fantastic and unbelievably supportive, my social awkwardness was worse than ever and it definitely spilled over.

The potential I see in the UBBT is massive. When I think about the thirty minutes it took for me to raise $1000 for HERO just by getting my twenty student members to contribute $50 each, what are the possibilities if Coach Tom can get each school owner to do the exact same thing? While $50 is not going to hurt any individual’s financial situation and $1000 may not dent any organization’s lot, $50,000 can definitely promote change. That’s just financially, what about the social change that can be initiated if Coach Tom reaches 50 school owners who reach 200 students each? That’s ten thousand people who can be rallied instantly for any cause worth tackling. That is truly inspiring potential.

The only thing needed for us as a team to realize this massive potential is our commitment to the ideal. If we all stay engaged in the UBBT project and truly buy into the concept and participate fully, we’re definitely gong to make history.

“Well done is better than well said.” - Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

I Am Project - Honest

It is difficult to temper empathy with honesty. Why, I don’t know. Seems pretty obvious when you think about it but yet it is not easily applied. I find it difficult to be 100% truthful with someone if I know the truth is going to hurt them and so I tend to sugarcoat things and carefully consider their feelings before speaking. I have always thought of myself as a giving, caring person but in retrospect I see my passive approach to honesty as selfish, cowardly, and short sighted.

If I am honest my life becomes unburdened. It is easy for me to stay in the moment if I am expressing myself fully and openly without conscious effort. If I am honest my relationships will be based upon trust and reality as opposed to guilt and insecurity. If I am honest the respect I am showing will be reciprocated upon me. When I am honest I will be free.

“Every act of dishonesty has at least two victims: the one we think of as the victim, and the perpetrator as well. Each little dishonesty makes another little rotten spot somewhere in the perpetrator's psyche.” - Lesley Conger

I Am Project - Breathing

A week passes, and then another. Plans are made, circumstances change, responsibilities compete with commitments, and past mistakes come home to roost. For the first time in my life I have questioned my ability to compartmentalize and push my way through the pressure.

I have always thought myself as independent, a loner. I’m shy, painfully quiet, and have never really reached out for help because I have never doubted my ability to persevere alone. Things have happened these past few months and have come to a head this week that have shaken my perception of myself.

I now realize that I do depend on others. It’s funny how one does not notice these things until it is too late. Take one important individual out of the intricate cogs of my life and the entire mechanism of my balanced existence begins to breakdown. This is what happens when the foundation of your equilibrium is based upon a fallacy.

So what does one do when one finds oneself in such a situation? If you’re me you immediately set out to consolidate your independence by contracting your world into something more safe and manageable. That is if you are the old me. The new me, the evolved me, has learned to stop, take a deep breath, and reflect as opposed to react. The new me realizes that the problem is not my dependence on others but rather my ignorance of the deep dependence that has always existed.

I have learned the importance of breathing in the handling of stress. When I stop to breathe, the decisions I make tend to be more reflective than reactive thus allowing me to grow and evolve. I have learned a lot from this UBBT directive writing project. I have learned so much about myself and more than anything I realize I am not as humble as I thought I was nor am I as humble as I should be. I am not alone, I depend on others and the fact that they have been quietly helping me with such little fanfare that I did not even notice what an important roll they played in my life, shows that they are truly the humble ones. As long as I keep my wits about me, breathe in, breath out, this is a lesson that I will not soon forget.

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” - George Shinn (b. 1941)

I Am Project - Forgiving

Mistakes. I’ve made a few. Okay I’ve made a lot. While I am not proud of my mistakes I am content that I have made most of them honestly and without feelings of malice. I believe with all I am that beyond individuals with severe social disorders, this statement holds true for everyone. There are more evil acts in the world than there are evil people committing them because good people can make bad decisions without malicious intent.

I have been struggling to mend some personal relationships that have gone horribly wrong over time. I am finding that there are so many dynamics at play that it can be difficult to find a common thread of shared perspective to build a foundation of understanding and forgiveness. I do know that if I am forgiving I also need to forget. It is difficult, if not impossible, to bury a grudge if one continues to hold another accountable for a misstep. It can be argued that forgetting can perpetuate a cycle that enables someone to continue to hurt you but at the same time the guilt that comes with a misdeed can become a cancer that consumes and destroys a relationship from within. At some point the slate must be wiped clean.

As the term implies, there is more than one person involved in any personal relationship and all involved must want to mend the relationship if success is to be achieved. If I want to create common ground so that reconciliation is possible, I need to be forgiving and I must continually remind myself that bad decisions and acts do not automatically translate as bad intent.

“Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” - Gerald Jampolsky

I Am Project - Listening

The lack of responsible reporting by the media is a major issue that we are going to have to address if as a society we continue to allow them to do our thinking for us. Anyone who still thinks that the media presents unbiased facts either isn’t really listening to what is going on around them or did not notice what CTV did to Stephane Dion a week before the federal election. If you have access to American television just tune in to Fox News if you want to witness pure, destructive partisan journalism at work and if you don’t have access then check out - http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Daily_Show_Fox_attacks_Obama_on_0123.html

When we don’t really listen to what is going on in the world around us it can be easy to get manipulated. How many western Canadians are blindly supporting the Conservative Party just because they used to support the Progressive Conservative Party? Are we listening to the differences in the platforms or are we just going with the party that shares a common term in their name? Now that we have the strongest and most stable banking system in the world because of our banking regulations, I am sure everyone has forgotten that Stephen Harper has been fighting for deregulation up to now. It is important that we listen if we want to make informed choices in who is going to speak for our country.

When I am listening, I make my own informed choices by recognizing agendas and self serving rhetoric. Listening is important but it is imperative that we consider all sides of an issue. Very few points of view are not affected by prejudice, paradigms, and ego.

“To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation.” - Chinese Proverb