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“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”
― Umberto Eco

FATHERS AND FREEDOM

Sunday is Father’s Day, a day we acknowledge dads and their contribution to our lives. Sunday is also Juneteenth Independence Day or Emancipation Day.  It marks the day in 1865 when the last enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas got word of the end of the Civil War, and the end of slavery.  This occurred more than 2 ½ years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had become official on January 1, 1863.

Juneteenth has been celebrated as an African American holiday. It is now it’s a federal holiday and one that all human beings should be proud to celebrate. This isn’t about politics; it’s about acknowledging the freedom from 1 human being owning another human being. We...

New Beginnings

June! It is a time for summer vacations, weddings, graduations, and for endings and beginnings.

Some years ago, on my 50^th birthday, my husband gave me an exquisite cloisonne pendant of a dancing figure, arms up over her head in joy titled by the artist, “new beginnings”. My beloved knew exactly what I needed to lift my spirits as I reached that major milestone. I felt like my youth had ended and something else was taking its place…a new chapter in life.

With each year that passes, new milestones are reached, and new discoveries abound. Yet, to get to the new, very often we must release some of the old. When I left my job leading a wonderful hospice many years ago, I wasn’t certain about what was ahead for me. But once I began to have the time and grace for some “breathing space” to just relax, all manner of ideas and inspirations revealed themselves to me, and The Watershed Group was formed.

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Kindness

This week the 56-year-old brother of a dear friend of mine died, of Covid. We like to think it’s over, but it’s not. Perhaps the worst is behind us…a million people died of Covid in the US and millions more are grieving due to this incredibly tenacious virus. But people are still getting sick, and death continues to loom in the shadows.

This is where kindness comes in. And compassion. And the commitment to listening. When those things occur, change happens. Here are 3 small examples of how our words can impact others for the rest of their lives.

A nurse in my course Awaken To Your Purpose relayed a story of a hospitalized patient she was working with to help him arrange for discharge. He was discouraged and his symptoms were preventing him from going home when he hoped. She said, “I just kindly and told him I had high hopes for him to be going home the next day and that he should too, and I just encouraged him to stay...

Upon re-entry into Humanity

For the past two years, I have been more or less a hermit. At least in terms of my physical exposure to other human beings. This is not my nature. I am a card-carrying extrovert who is energized by being around other people and engaging in lively conversations!

When the world closed down in 2020 I was in a tailspin. My routine of traveling two or three times a month to visit clients coast to coast and attend meetings was stopped. My commute became from my kitchen to my home office vs. through the Atlanta Hartsfield airport.

Over the past 25 months, I have only occasionally eaten in open-air restaurants, I’ve only attended gatherings of less than four people (who have all been vaccinated) and my daily exposure to humanity has been on the Zoom screen of my computer.

Now the idea of traveling two or three times a month on an airplane and staying in a variety of Hampton Inn hotels, ordering the proverbial consultant’s...

What if?         

            What if most of what we know about the process of growing older is wrong? What if we could free ourselves from our presumptions about aging’s inevitable decline, and by doing so come to a new, richer understanding of what our late-life years could and should be? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

            Visionaries are those who see how tied they are to all we “know” – all the conventional assumptions we mostly accept without examination - and choose to cut that cord, to untether themselves from those limitations, and imagine a better world.

            From among them spring the innovators – the mavericks who kick-start revolutions and movements that change the world. Our aging society...

DREAM ON

It is SPRING!! We have new green leaves sprouting from the cypress tree branches in our yard.

Easter lilies are yearning to burst from their buds and the northern hemisphere will soon be awash with flowers to brighten up our world!

For the past two years, most of us have been focused on managing what is right in front of our eyes. It’s time to consider what’s next.

It’s about vision and the intention for how you want to show up in the world. Moving forward, what really matters to you?

When civilizations have no vision they perish. It’s Biblical. It’s true individually as well. If we don't have a vision for next week, next month, or even next year we can lose connection to the dreams of our future, and our happiness begins to evaporate.

Thanks to my many years of working in hospice I think about death on a regular basis. I know, it’s a morbid topic for many of you, but to me, it helps me recognize the...

Goals and Intentions

I have been thinking a lot about intentions lately. Merriam Webster dictionary defines intention as “a determination to act in a certain way”, and goal as “the end to which effort is directed”. Generally, my intention for each day is to feel good and be happy. My goals are often specific tasks and objectives.

In these days of turmoil and crisis and uncertainty, it can be difficult to stay focused on my intentions. My commitment “to act in a certain way” can be challenged. The small annoyances can seem large, and the large ones can feel enormous.

This week on a group Zoom call with participants in my Awaken To Your Purpose course, my internet connection was dismal. In fact, it was nearly non-existent. It would have been less frustrating if it had been completely non-existent, but it was teasing me with a few glimpses of the group then ZAP, it was gone.

My goal for the call was for the group to feel heard, supported, stretched,...

WORK-LIFE (OUT OF) BALANCE

Steve Jobs said "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it." 

He was dead at age 56.

Those of us in the working world often talk about “work-life balance”. For workers in the US, work consumes the largest part of our waking hours. If we find work that we love doing, it doesn’t really feel like “work”, it feels like Life.

My new course Awaken To Your Purpose has begun and I have a group of amazing women participating who are over-achievers. Each of them has contributed to the world in great and meaningful ways because they have loved what they do. Remember, Mr. Jobs says “…the only way to do great work is to love what...

What's Next?!

The past 2 years living with a global pandemic has turned my business and life upside down. In the “before times” I would travel 2-3 times a month to visit clients, navigate airports, adjusting to all types of rental cars, Uber drivers and Google Maps. That was my normal life. My work commute was through the Hartsfield International airport in Atlanta. I was a Delta Million Mile flyer.

And then it stopped.

For the past 2 years I have not been on a plane, have not attended a conference, and I have not worn stockings or dress shoes until last night when I attended an award ceremony for my beloved Steve. My feet hurt all night!

Most of you have had your own life and work challenges adapting to the new world order. The energy it has taken to adjust to such change has been enormous. Trying to keep up the old ways of working while creating new paths to follow has been exhausting.

But now there are glimmers of hope that Covid19...

Eye Can See Clearly Now

Happy New Year! It’s crazy that it’s already the end of January 2022. This long and winding treacherous road of Covid19 has worn everyone out and the exhaustion level for so many has been off the charts.

My healthcare colleagues and clients are reporting staff call-outs for sick and/or quarantining at higher rates than at any other time since the pandemic began. Thankfully those vaccinated have not been gravely ill. One colleague said 10% of their staff have had close relatives die of Covid.

The indefatigable stress and strain in these times take a toll. Most of us went into healthcare to serve others, selflessly. That’s great when the reservoirs are full. However, for many, the tanks are empty. So how do we go on? What will it take to keep putting 1 foot in front of the other?

Intention. All of us alive today who keep going to work, caring for the kids, brushing our teeth, getting meals prepared, and functioning...