she wears her heart on her sleeve

she wears her heart on her sleeve                                                           

she wears her heart on her sleeve

like a note from her mom

safety pinned to her warm, fuzzy sweater 

on the first day of school

apprehensive and shy 

she saunters through early days

with a small child’s voice

she wears her heart on her sleeve

like book full of enchanted stories

sitting on a shelf waiting to be desired

exuberant and hopeful

she dances through the early-days

a young woman’s voice

she wears her heart on her sleeve

like a badge of honor

earned during the turbulent times

rising above, with confidence and strength

moving through the pain 

to embrace inner peace

she rejoices in today

her true voice and heart joined as one

My Summer Breeze Moment

Summer is here. I take a huge breath in and out, because I have finished spring semester at St. Kate's. My degree is nearly complete, and I feel like my next step is right on the brink of bursting open, like a hot summer breeze in my face.

The class was Leadership and the Art of Persuasion. It took a while to persuade myself that I am truly a leader, but I realized it about midterm of the class. My summer breeze moment dawned on me that I have been a leader all my life as a mother. The parenting role molded me into the person I am today. The results of my efforts are two awesome kids, and the opportunity to live vicariously through them and fulfill something in my life today, that I missed while growing up.

So I sat in class, pondering my personal leadership mission statement. That is when I connected the dots of raising kids and leadership. I accepted them where they were, let them make mistakes, and was there to console when they needed. I looked for the best in my kids and supported them to achieve their goals. I nurtured, cheered, guided, and accepted them all in the same breath in and out. Sounds easy, but it certainly was a process.

Crediting my journey of leadership to my kids made me realize accepting myself was the next step. As for the art of persuasion, well kids will persuade certainly to get their own way and what they want, but my personal persuasion was the path to enlightenment of acceptance and tolerance. I needed to take a chance on letting it all hang out, to lose the manager mask, and be a true leader as I define it within my heart. Leadership is an ambiguous term. It is really more of an individual path to finding your inner truth and becoming selfless. Just like parenting.


I struggled for many years to hold everything in, to do everything perfectly, to fit the mold and have a "plan". As I look back, there was my stumbling block. My summer breeze moment (this one was more like a straight line wind) was realizing the MISTAKES are the learning tools and PERFECTION was the roadblock. Perfection is unattainable. The moment I let that perfection breath out forever, clarity emerged. Today, I do the best I can in the situation, striving for excellence not perfection. Here's to giving up the vicious crazy cycle of perfection and just flying by the seat of my shorts.

Ya, perfection is overrated anyway.

Excellence not perfection will lead me on the path to happiness. Barbara Holt

The biggest challenge for me these past few weeks has been patience. And with the absence of patience I get exasperated. To counteract my impatience, I have been trying to do some positive awareness self talk....So here goes: What I know today is that I am warm, well fed, blessed with many friends and a great family, along with the opportunity to make this a great day.

So I will run with it. The best thing I can do today is give up the thought that I can control anything that happens. I can choose to react, or accept. It is up to me to be miserable, and sad .....or to roll with it and be happy.

The lack of patience for me comes from the fear of the unknown and wondering what am I suppose to do next. I sat in the chapel on campus this week, and asked the questions, "what next, what if, and how come". These were all valid questions I thought, but in the end, in the asking, it really got me nowhere but frustrated.

What I realized is that I need to trust more, accept that I have no control over anything and what ever happens I will make the best of it. I will look for what I am supposed to take away from the situation and learn from it.

What I learned this week, by Barbara Holt.

Patience is something I have to practice. For me, giving up control is something I will always struggle with, and finding a focus is hard when you are giving up control and being patient. It is an oxymoron!

The moral of the story: When I try to focus, I try to control, and then I get impatient. I am thinking there may need to more of a balance in my thinking. The other thought is maybe to expect nothing and whatever happens is a surprise bonus. It is so hard for me as an overachiever to live this way.

And waaala. There is the lesson.

Trust
Put away the need to overachieve
Have no expectations
Lose the focus - blurry is OK
and.....

be patient with myself.

I do not always have to be "doing something" or "achieving" to get my control fix. It is acceptable to be idol, non productive, and get a B on a paper if I have done my best. The world will not end.

My thought for the day....
Excellence not Perfection.

Inclusiveness and Differences

Inclusiveness is belonging.

I believe a basic human need is the need to be included.

To me, to be included means that I am welcome, I am invited no matter what I bring or who I am or what I believe. I am inspired when I am included in different opportunities, regardless if there are opposing opinions, different backgrounds, or unique ideas.

I am writing this from my point of view of exclusion, because at some time I was not included and thought it was probably because I was different from the rest.

Yes, I am human. I struggle every day with many situations that make me a unique person, with thoughts to process, choices to make, and insecurities to overcome. I choose to do this with hope, tenacity and a positive attitude. In this world, as different as we all are I do believe we all have the basic human need to be included, to be respected, and to be loved for who we are inside.

This is how I live my life. I am really not that different and just like most people I want to be included, whether I am different or the same. I have feelings, struggles, and ideas to share, along with an open mind and a heart that does not judge.

I believe being inclusive is the basis for finding peace and hope in the world. It starts with the inclusiveness of people, ideas, voices, and the respect of each person's unique point of view. I agree everyone has the right to their own opinion, because we are all unique human beings and have many different thoughts and ideas. However, I also believe that to foster inclusiveness, we need to embrace another person’s thoughts and ideas to build community and replace exclusivity.

We as a society are quick to chime in with our own thoughts and exclude another person's ideas. This is making something right and something wrong. With ideas, there are no right or wrong. Ideas are in the form of thoughts, hopes, dreams, expectations, hurts, losses, triumphs, sacrifices, and a person's own personal truth. How can any of this be wrong?

Do we listen to each other anymore? Do we sit in the moment to really learn about someone, or do we quickly try to force our own personal opinion on someone to hear ourselves talk and get our point across.

I propose we as a society try to be more inclusive, we need to listen more to each other, talk less about ourselves, and never ever judge.

I believe that we learn in the space of differences, we grow in the face of adversity, and we flourish in the act of inclusiveness. - Barbara Holt

I'm Back

This BLOGGING is hard work.

I was asked if I was going to continue my blogging on "Voice of the Spirit" this weekend. I guess someone likes what I have to say!

I promise to be more consistent with my entries.

The New Year has started with a JOB interview opportunity! I have one today. I am excited because it is where I have always wanted to work. Hopefully it is in the plan for me to get this position. It has been a LONG time a comin'.

My job search has been one of perseverance and patience. It has made me stronger as well as deepened my faith. I believe there is a reason for everything and I am blessed to have had this time on my journey to get back to the basics of living simply and loving unconditionally.

I have found that for me this is what my journey has been really all about. I try to helping others in need and make the world a better place to dwell in for everyone.

My St. Kate's experience has supported me in my mission to make changes in my life as well as make a difference in other people's lives in my community and in the world.

Throughout my journey I have learned one important thing: A positive attitude is everything! There is always HOPE, and a smile and a kind word is the best way to make yourself as well as another person's day brighter. I am a believer in putting out positive vibes to the universe.

"If you're NOT thinking about a negative thought, your vibration is going to raise to its natural positive place."

--- Abraham

Peace out. Have a great day!

Barb

Fresh outlook

I wrote the first draft of my memoiré for class last night. Creative writing has been challenging, fun and insightful. I am not sure of my path, the only thing I am certain of is today, who I am, how I want present myself in this world and what I can give to others to make the world a better place.

I have struggled, fallen down, picked myself up and moved on with my life. I cherish each moment, and live in that moment as best I can. I try not to borrow from the future or regret anything from the past.

I value collaborative relationships, love to see people happy and succeed, always look for the best in everyone and hope that someday, by my experiences and relationships that I have made a difference in someone's life.

I'm living in the moment and always remembering where I came from, and how far I have come:)

Bias vs. Opinion

I have heard of an unbiased opinion. But when an opinion is based on biased, where have we learned what we know? How do we know what we know?
What have we learned and taught our children?
Should children form their own opinion?

These are all things that I would like to make a difference one person at at time. It is like a fish in water. The fish does not think twice about the water. It has always been there, and it is taken for granted by the fish. The water is all around it, yet invisible. This is how discrimination maintains itself. I also want to touch a bit on sexism, ageism an classism. These are all alive and well in the U. S of A.

I have experiences them all in some shape or form, and want to raise awareness to the cause of equality, rights to equal opportunity, and just pain playing fair on a level field.

I want to nurture a voice that opens minds, questions assumptions, teaches people to be tolerant and to accept people where they are and who they are. Take a breath before speaking, and walk in another person's shoes before passing judgement on them or their situation.