Good Deeds

This morning I had coffee at a small tea salon at the corner of 73rd and Amsterdam, and I sat next to the window, facing the intersection. We just had 20+ inches of snow in New York, and the corner had two 18" wide slippery, bumpy paths between the mounds of snow, one going West and one going South. For the hour that I sat I watched people, one after the other, helping elderly New Yorkers get across the street. Even in the midst of all the normal rushing, people helped each other. One guy even hailed a cab while the woman he was helping stood on the sidewalk, then got her settled in the cab and walked away. With him as with the others, I could see a pep in their step after their good deed. Helping someone else gives us such a sense of self-esteem.

So, next time you think, "I won't get up/lend a hand/say something. What if it makes them feel old/she isn't pregnant/they don't need help," how about reaching out anyway? The good feeling you get from someone else's appreciation is well worth taking the chance.

Intention

I loved this weekend's Modern Love article in the NYT Styles section. The author had gone to see a rabbi about wanting to meet a husband. She told him about her inability to meet Mr. Right, and the rabbi told her she was cursed. He then (for a small fee), reversed the curse.

The story resonated with me. A year and a half before I got married, I saw a tarot reader about the same issue. Seeing a fortune teller was not something I'd ever done, so it felt like a leap of faith. She told me that I'd be married and pregnant with the current boyfriend within two years. The effect was wonderful. I felt so calm and could finally focus on enjoying my life and my evolving relationship. And it let my intention to marry and have a family live like a soft focus in the background.

Intention is a big thing for coaches. It's one of the reasons we are so into visions. If you have a sense of where you are going, you have an intention. And that intention feeds all of the little choices and decisions that you make. And all of those little decisions add up to a plan, and to action. It's not that I don't believe in strategy and goal setting. I just believe that it all works in harmony. A cousin of mine explained that when he wanted to paint an ocean and sky landscape, he would paint his canvasses blue before beginning the image. Without that, he said, you can never achieve the color cast you are after. So intention is like that initial coat of paint. It shapes everything you do.

Even Coaches Get the Blues

Last month I found myself very busy with work. I also found myself distracted, unmotivated and a little blue. Finally, and thankfully, a friend of mine said, "Maybe you're a little depressed."

It was such a mild statement, but it jarred me. Me, depressed? I am a coach for goodness sake! And after a very short while, it relieved me. In fact, I had reason to be sad. Several shift had recently taken place in my life, some of them good, but I hadn't adjusted to the change and it was throwing me off.

Today normal sadness seems to be unacceptable. Finding literature on this phenomenon wasn't difficult. The book I found actually advocates for sadness as a good thing. I often think of the myth of the Rugged Individual. In America we seem to think that our fate is exclusively in our hands. We reject passive acceptance of sadness because it carries the implication of a lack of control. So what do we do when things happen in our lives that legitimately cause sadness and that need time to digest?

The first thing that seems to work for me is to realize that there is a legitimate cause for sadness and not be so hard on myself. Yes we all should and do get sad. When someone dies, when we leave our beloved friends because of a job change, when we move to a new neighborhood or city, the change can be hard. Once there is awareness, you can work on the problem. The second thing I do is to let time work for me. We think of mourning as something that applies to the death of a close loved one. But mourning can apply to any small loss or change, even a positive one. Yes, a positive one. Along with a great promotion can come sadness for the loss of easy camaraderie with piers who are no longer at the same level. Mourning is a period, no a moment. I let time do its thing. And the last thing I do is take care of myself. A period of sadness is no time to party excessively or laze around. If I am not up for a run, I take a walk. Little by little, the cycle breaks.