December 2019

18 Dec 2019

From Our Home to Yours

What a wonderful year! I loved presenting at the schools, conferences and businesses that have invited me to share my UPower message.

I have had the opportunity to connect with so many amazing people who believe that emotions matter! Speaking of emotions…let me share the behind the scenes of our FUN family photo.

Our 7 year old son Kai was so annoyed when I told him we were having a family photo taken. His reaction, ‘I don’t want to! It will be boring!’

I had thought, before I even mentioned it, that he would probably rather be playing with a friend instead of posing for the camera, but I wasn’t prepared for the extreme stance he took. His ‘late to bed’ and ‘early to rise’ certainly didn’t help his mood or reaction.

So let’s see … we have lack of sleep, mixed with ‘I don’t want to’ … causing family photo shoot meltdown.

Trying to reason with him was not getting us anywhere. Kai’s emotions were running too high. Off he stomped to his room. We let him be. We let his emotions run their course.

Then my husband, George came up with a brilliant idea, ‘Kai, how about we wear hockey jerseys in the photo.’ Kai was all ears. My husband was enrolling Kai by speaking to his main interest…Hockey!

Kai said excitedly, ‘Why don’t we all wear jerseys!’ His mood totally changed as we started looking around our home for jerseys and wouldn’t you know it, since my husband is a long time Pittsburg fan and I’m a Sidney Crosby Fan, we found 3 Penguins Jerseys.

I definitely wasn’t planning on wearing a jersey for our family Christmas photo! But … being open to possibilities brought us a solution.

It ended up being the BEST family photo shoot we have ever had. It was Fun! We role played hockey scenes and we laughed a lot. We didn’t let our emotions stop us from creating a GREAT memory!

Whether you are a Pens Fan or not … from our family to yours … Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year too!

Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be Wonderful!

Until next time…

I Just Want to Be Me

I received an email from a student who felt they were two different people – one side of them is their school self, the other side is their home self.

I could relate to this student as I remember my ‘school self’ being self conscious – worried about what others thought about me – wanting to be liked and accepted by everyone. I did have confident moments and many good times in school, but there was a voice in my head sometimes saying, ‘What will they think? Do they really like me?‘

Looking back, I can see that there were times when those self-defeating thoughts stopped me from being totally free to Just Be Me.

My ‘home self’ felt and still feels free – a place where I allow myself to relax and be me. When I am home I don’t worry about my clothes matching or what my hair looks like. I can choose to change into my pyjamas as soon as I step inside the door and to feel my true emotions without worry of judgments.

When you are not being who you really are, you are most likely worried about what other people are thinking about you. I still have moments when I worry what others think of me. But now I recognize those moments.

That recognition now gives me two choices: Allow those thoughts to hold me back from being me or notice the thought and take a stand for who I am regardless of the opinions of others.

The true essence of who you are should not change from place to place. If you feel you have to pretend to be someone that you are not in order to ‘fit in’, not only is it exhausting, but also frustrating.

Being true to you will be way more fulfilling than trying to be someone that you aren’t. Your real friends will accept you for who you are.

At the end of the day I believe it is imperative that you can say ‘I am proud of who I was today.’

Until next time…