Tag Archives: Choices Seminars

Facing the belief that is a lie.

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yoda fear

Fear lives in my belly. It is that grumbly, rumbly, churning feeling of disquiet that eats away at my peace of mind. When I give into it.

Love lives in my entire being. It is that warm, soothing, tranquil feeling of quiet joy bubbling up to embrace my peace of mind. When I give into it.

Which one will I choose?  It is up to me.

I can’t try to ‘be fearful’. I am or I’m not.

Yoda said it best.

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

Which will you choose today?

To take the path to the dark side, or to keep walking the path into the light?

Will you allow your fearful thoughts to drag you down, or will you allow loving kindness to lift you up and draw you out of the darkness and hold you in the light?

It is your choice.

On the weekend at Choices Seminars, I had a moment of fear wash over me. I’d made a mistake in how I presented something to the group, and my mind went into hyper-active defensive mode when I heard my co-facilitator point out to me how stupid and unprofessional I was.

Now — here’s the thing. That is not what my co-facilitator said. All they really did was provide me some constructive feedback on how to do it better next time.

In my fear of making mistakes, of looking stupid in front of the group, of being shamed for not doing it right, my fear heard their feedback totally out of context to what they said.

In the moment, my fear rose up and heard condemnation. In the moment, my fear drove me away from courage and truth into the darkness of criticism.

I’d like to tell you I recovered right there on the spot. 🙂  Truth is, as soon as I could gracefully do so without drawing attention to myself, (which was at the first break) I left the room and went to the washroom, had a little pity party and then pulled myself together. When the session resumed, I stood in front of the group and continued.

 

And here’s the thing about those moments.

It was a breakthrough. A moment of such deep clarity and light I could not avoid the truth that came spilling up out of me as all night long I worried over and thought through the events of that evening trying to discern why my reaction to such a simple moment had been so visceral, so immediate, so violent.

The next morning, I awoke, tired yet really clear on what that moment of feeling shame at the front of the room represented. And in my enlightenment, the sun broke through the darkness and light illuminated my path in all its brilliant clarity.

Since a small, small girl I had held a belief within me that is not true. I didn’t even know the belief was there until such an insignificant moment erupted into a deep dive into truth and the ‘belief that is a lie’ rose to the top and screamed in my face and, I swear, felt like it was ripping my heart out.

I won’t go into the details of the ‘belief that is a lie’, I still have a lot of processing to do on it. I will tell you though that I am celebrating. I am dancing. I am shouting for joy. This ‘belief that is a lie’ has caused me a lot of pain, confusion and harm. On some deep subconscious level I have always been aware of its presence, lurking in the darkness, disturbing my status quo and jeopardizing my capacity to feel and know pure joy.

Now that I see it. Now that I know it. Now that I can face it, I can deal with it.

I am grateful.

I cannot heal or change what I do not acknowledge.

I acknowledge that the ‘belief that is a lie’ does not serve me well. It does not bring me the ‘more’ of what I want in my life.

Today, I choose to step boldly, confidently and joyfully onto the path of light, love and well-being.

Which path do you choose today?

 

Namaste.

 

 

 

When hearts break open

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FullSizeRender (75)We all carry the scars and bruises of life.

Those little, not so little and some times huge hurts and cuts that hinder our ability to live fearlessly and freely in love with being who we are.

Sometimes those happenings stop us dead in our tracks.

Sometimes they make us cry, scream, want to pull our hear out and fall into a hole and cover ourselves up with sand.

Sometimes, we carry them for so long we don’t even notice they’re there.

And sometimes, in carrying them, we become so comfortable with their presence, we don’t want to let them go.

I am off this week to coach at Choices Seminars.

To be immersed in hearts breaking open to discover, they can let go. They can heal. They can begin again.

I won’t be posting. — you know, it’s the long days, short nights, fast sleeps thing of living completely on purpose.

See you next week.

 

Our human condition is a journey through love.

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Choices is an experiential journey. It is an exquisitely constructed series of teachings and processes that have been honed and developed over 35 years to fulfill on founder, Thelma Box’s vision of Changing the world one heart at a time. For over 35 years, Thelma Box, Mary, Joe and Greg Davis have created a safe and courageous space for people to step into the wonder and awe of discovering who we truly are when we let go of the negative self-talk and self-defeating games we all inevitably employ to protect our hearts and keep ourselves safe from being hurt by others or to prevent them from seeing we are hurting.

We humans are interesting beings. We are all born magnificent. It is our birthright.

We come into this world crying out for belonging, for love, for connection and then life happens and we quickly forget the birthright of our magnificence as we adapt our behaviours to meet life’s sometimes confusing, sometimes challenging, sometimes painful teachings. We walk through each day into unknown and known places, face strangers and people we know fearing they are judging us, measuring our journey against theirs, or examining our flaws with such intensity we feel naked or invisible. We try to hide in plain view, or stand out in anger, contempt, judgement fearing we will never find peace, love, hope, joy, contentment and in our fear, do everything we can to prevent ourselves from having what we want.

In our struggle to get what we want, we set bars so high we cannot see them or don’t set them at all because we are convinced we will never reach them. And in our fear of constantly having to measure up or our fear of continually falling short, we do not see, it is our judgements of ourselves that are hurting us most. It is our negative self-talk that is killing our dreams. It is our self-defeating games that are keeping us stuck living in the shadows of our fear; we do not matter, we are not worthy, we are unloveable.

At Choices, I am continually blessed to witness people awakening to their magnificence. I am blessed with being part of miracles unfolding as people open their eyes to the truth of who they are when they let go of fearing who they are will never be enough.

We are all enough. Exactly the way we are. Exactly as we were born to be before we forgot that our value is not found in the things we acquire or the things we do or people we know or places we’ve been. Our value is in our being present and true to our hearts. It is found in how we treat ourselves and one another. Our value is intrinsic to our nature of being human when we let go of fearing who we are and remember, we are all magnificent.

It was a beautiful and inspiring five days of connecting heart to heart to one another. Of seeing and hearing the beauty of each person’s heart beating freely and fiercely with the truth that who they are is greater than their fear that they were unworthy or undeserving of Love.

We are all deserving of Love, no matter our human condition, because our human condition is a journey through Love.

Are you afraid of dreaming?

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“The universe is always dreaming bigger things for you than you can imagine.”

The thought rose out of my meditation. It floated into my mind as gently as fog lifting off a river in the morning sun.

When coaching at Choices, there are two team captains whose role is to support the coaching team and focus them on the task at hand. Part of what they do is to remind the team members of their strengths and gifts, and to support them in letting go of the things that hold them back from giving their best to the group.

Between Choices and the two additional weekend sessions of Givers 1 and 2, trainees and coaches return for over the following two to three months after Choices, the team captains put out a coach’s email challenge inviting the team to share their experiences from coaching, and to examine an aspect of their beliefs/behaviours that was illuminated throughout the week of Choices.

This time, the team captain’s asked people to share, if they are willing, one dream they felt stirring that they were going to take action on now.

Dreams are funny things for me.

I fear dreaming, or at least fear articulating my dreams.

It’s that old core belief thingie. Somewhere within me is a voice that likes to stomp on my dreams with its chatter about how stupid I am to dream, how people will think I’m silly, or call me ‘stuck-up’ and all sorts of other vile things that are not true, but are said with such convincing fervor, I give into their demands that I not dream — big or small.

Those are childhood voices that do not serve me well today, but still, they creep in with their insidious insistence they have the right to limit my capacity to dream big and live large.

This mornings centering thought in the 21-day meditation challenge I am participating in is:  “I turn my belief into actions.”

Which lead me to wonder, if I fear dreaming, or simply don’t believe in my dreams, what am I turning into action?

Good question. I wonder if my fear of dreaming holds me back from connecting to the dreams the Universe holds true for me? I wonder if fulfilling on my dreams is the path to experiencing all the Universe has for me?

What about you? Do you have a big dream you don’t like to illuminate in fear it will be squashed, ridiculed, scoffed at? Are you afraid of dreaming?

 

 

 

Who are you when you believe your true self will guide you?

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One of the tools trainees in Choices work on is their ‘contract statement’. A personal I am statement about who and how they need to be to live life outside the comfort of limiting thoughts and beliefs.

My contract is, I am a trusting woman.

Not always an easy thing for me, to trust.

Heck, I could rhyme off a thousand reasons why trusting is not good for my well-being and I’d do my best to convince you every one of them is valid.

Truth is, every one of them is just a limiting belief/thought I hold onto in the misguided belief I’m safer playing small, hiding out and dimming my light.

Truth is, I’m safest when I journey with trusting myself as my guide. When I trust that Love is all around and I trust in myself, in my inner guidance to lead me, and my inner voice of knowing to advise me when to walk away from danger, or walk into the fire and light up my life, my life is full of wonder and awe. Sure, there are circumstances that cause pain, sorrow, grief, trouble, confusion, but when I trust in myself to turn up for me, in all my truth without fearing the outcome, I am safe in the world, safe to be me.

When I turn up, pay attention, speak my truth and stay unattached to the outcome, I am truly me.

This morning when I read the guiding thought in the 21 day meditation challenge I’m participating in, My true self can be trusted to guide me, I smiled.

Haha. How to challenge my thinking before I even sink into the quiet. How to ruffle the waters of peace and tranquility before I even dive beneath the surface!

As I sank into the meditation, I became aware of my thoughts racing. Remember when you trusted and… Remember when you believed in another and… Remember…

Yes. I do. But what was then is not what is now. Remembering when I trusted indiscriminately, when I trusted without listening to my true self because I was so busy listening to my false self tell me all the reasons why I needed to trust the untrustworthy, trust without opening my eyes and ears and heart drowns out my voice of knowing. Remembering does not create space for the light to shine on my inner wisdom today.

I am safe when I trust my true self to guide me.

Learning to trust myself and my capacity to live true to my knowing who I am lifts me up. When I believe I can trust my true self to guide me, I am free of fearing the past. Free of fearing what was then will be again. Free of fearing I am not safe in the world.

Living with trust as my watchword, I free myself from playing small, hiding out and dimming my light.

And when I live large, shine bright, the world becomes a trusting, beautiful place to dance in the light of knowing my truth. I am a trusting woman.

 

Change is possible.

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The biggest obstacle to change is that we think we already know the answer.  Joe Davis

Choices Seminars is about change. It’s about changing the things in your life that aren’t working. It’s about healing the wounds that continue to seep and drain your passion and commitment to living your best life yet.

It’s about learning to let go of past sorrows and celebrate small and big moments freely. It’s about dreaming and building a path to live your dreams outside the comfort of the narrow, small box of doing what you’ve done before because that’s the way you’ve always been or done it.

It’s about being who you are when the chatter in your head doesn’t create static that blocks you from seeing how beautiful, loving, caring and magnificent you and the world around you truly is.

And it’s about learning simple tools that can help you stay on track, no matter the weather, no matter the obstacles on your path.

And still we balk. We hesitate. We resist.

We say, “I know. I know…”  I shouldn’t spend too much, drink too much, eat too much, talk too much, laugh too much, stay alone so much, give so much. I shouldn’t stay silent. I shouldn’t yell. I shouldn’t cry. I shouldn’t believe others when they tell me I am too noisy, quiet, loud, shy, and every other opinion they share that makes me want to change everything about me just so I can fit in. Feel like I belong. Feel like I am seen.

We ‘should’ all over ourselves with the things we say we know we should not do, while fearing there’s nothing else we can do, it’s just the way we are, it’s all that we deserve, what’s the point? why bother?

We all fear change. Fear is a human response to our inability to predict what is going to happen next. It is a natural response to the things we don’t understand in our lives and the world around us.

To offset our fear, we make decisions about ourselves and everyone and everything around us because we believe these are the decisions that will keep us safe. These are the beliefs that will help us make sense of what is happening.

And while the decisions we make may stop the pain in the moment, they don’t translate that well from the there and then when we made them to the here and now in which we are living. They only give us the illusion of feeling ‘safe’ because we know them, we are comfortable and familiar with our decisions. And, as long as we hold onto them, as long as we don’t challenge ourselves to let them go, we know where we stand, even on shifting sands and rocky bottoms.

Because, who would we be, where would we be, without our beliefs in how the world works and where we fit in it?

Choices gives us the opportunity to explore the questions of ‘what do I want more of in my life’ and to find our answers in a safe and courageous space.

It gives us the framework to ask ourselves… What if I’m wrong about what people see in me? What if what I believe isn’t true anymore? What if my pain is caused because I believe people can be…. mean, cold, cruel, unkind, thoughtless, stupid, rigid? What if my fear of moving forward is based on the belief… people always leave, are out to get me, don’t care, don’t see me, don’t hear me, don’t want to know me?

What if I truly do deserve to be happy, loved, content, peaceful, joyful, part of a ‘family’, belong, fit in, safe.

What if I truly do deserve a life of wonder and awe?

Having just spent five days in the Choices seminar room, I am immersed in the wonder and awe of our human condition. Of our capacity to carry pain, and our ability to let it go. To feel hurt and to heal. To break our hearts wide open and love freely.

I am in awe.

We are an amazing human race and the biggest obstacle to our accepting the beauty and magnificence of our human condition and the world around us is, Us.

Change is possible, once we get out of the way of believing the answer is, we can’t.

HOPE: The Ultimate Un-guide. There is hope in hopelessness

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Hope banner copy

It was a week of hearts breaking open, sadness pouring out, sorrow lifting up. It was a week of self-love pushing away hatred, peace embracing anger, forgiveness cascading over resentment.

It was a week of hopelessness transforming into hope, of possibility awakening in the depths of despair, of new life breathing deeply into the darkness that once held hearts frozen in fear.

It was a week coaching at Choices.

And I am grateful.

I am often asked why I volunteer so much time coaching at Choices.

There is so much value I receive by staying involved with the program.

It makes my life and all my relationships better.

It keeps me using the tools I’ve learned through the program so that old habits don’t break down new ways of living life on the far side of my comfort zone.

It helps me stay on track, accountable, and present in my life.

It gives me a chance to give back.

It keeps me connected to people who want to create a world of difference in their lives and in the world around them.

And then, there is the very real and simple reason I experienced this week.

It reminds me that there is hope and possibility for change in every life. It reminds me that in a world filled with darkness, there is light.

On Thursday afternoon last week, I received a call from a former co-worker at the homeless shelter where I used to work. He told me someone I know had been killed. A suspicious death, the police termed it. The investigation into who or what killed him continues but for Ryan Delve, all hope of finding another path to live his life without fearing each step would lead him deeper into the darkness of homelessness died on Thursday, June 4, 2015.

It was the end of his road.

Ryan was an artist. I wrote of him last year when he participated in an art show I helped organize and he chose to donate a painting to the silent auction we held in support of Alpha House, a shelter here in the city.

Like all of us, Ryan had hopes and dreams and a fervent desire to live better, live well, live beyond his past.

Like all of us, Ryan knew what it felt like to lose at love, to be hurt by another, to be lost in confusion of where to go next.

Like all of us, Ryan knew joy, laughter, sadness, despair, anger, fear, peace, love…

Like all of us, Ryan lived his human condition as best he could, doing whatever he could to get from A to B with the tools and resources he had available.

Like few of us, Ryan knew the homeless experience. He lived it. Every day. Even when he was housed briefly over the past year, the shadow of homelessness clouded his world, luring him back to its darkness.

When I heard the news of Ryan’s passing I stood in the hallway outside the room where the trainees were deeply into a process and felt the heaviness and futility of homelessness sink into my heart as quickly as a stone falls to the bottom of a well. My heart felt heavy, tight, constricted.

I asked a friend who was also coaching to chat with me for a moment. I needed to make sense of the senselessness of it all.

My friend R.A. asked if he could say a prayer for Ryan. I said yes.

In that moment of standing with my eyes closed, holding loving thoughts of Ryan and all those who live in the darkness of homelessness in my thoughts, peace descended.

It is true. I could not change the path that Ryan was on, just as I cannot change the paths of the thousands who live on the streets, in shelters, and on the margins of our society.

I can add my best to what we as a community are doing to make a difference to change the trajectory of homelessness into possibility. I can hold space for those who are walking the streets to find their way back home.

And, I can walk every day in peace, love, harmony, joy.  I can create space for possibility to arise, for hope to stay present, for change to happen. I can add my best to what so many others are doing to ensure we do not lose more people to homelessness.

And to do that, to hold space, to hold onto possibility, to create opportunities for change and not become burdened by the heaviness and sadness of homelessness, I coach at Choices.

At Choices I am reminded every day that there is hope, possibility and light in the darkness.

I am reminded that hearts can break open in love, that anger can flow free through forgiveness and that darkness always gives way to light.

I believe we can end homelessness, just as I believe we can create a better world for everyone.

To do my part, I must give my best. To give my best, I must surround myself with people who remind me every day to find value in all things, to live my truth and stand up for what I believe in.

We are all one in our human condition and when we share our light together, when we shine as one, as brightly as we can, the darkness fades, hope arises and possibility opens up in all our lives.

 

 

 

 

I changed my glasses. I can see clearly now it was me, standing in the darkness

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I changed my glasses last night. I hadn’t realized they were foggy until Mary Davis, the facilitator from Choices Seminars, mentioned in an email, “all these things you have on your plate are really lovely items.”

I had written to apologize for having to back out of my commitment to coach at Choices next week. I hadn’t wanted to, back out. I absolutely love coaching at Choices and am privileged to be able to do it as often as I do. I won’t be there in April because of the wedding, and was telling myself I would be letting the whole team down if I didn’t turn up as I’d committed to this time.

I kept telling myself, “I can do this. All of it.”

And then, lying awake in the dark, trying to rosy up my glasses so I could peer into the darkness of my thinking that I was sinking beneath the juggling of all the things I had to do, I realized, it’s not true.

I don’t have to do it all. Sometimes I can’t.  Sometimes, I have to trust it will be okay.

So I wrote and let Mary know I couldn’t be there.

And still, I worried. What would she think of me? Maybe her disappointment in me would lead her to reject me. Maybe everyone would be mad at me and never want to work with me again.

Ahhh, that critter is such a sneaky fellow. He knows I have trust issues, heck he feeds them all the time! So imagine his glee when he realized I was tripping over myself, lost in a sea of angst? HA! Gotcha! he shouted as he catapulted into a new assault of my senseless worrying about what other people think of me. True to form, when faced with even a glint of what he perceives to be my failure to heed his advice, he morphs into a new and slimy perspective designed to keep me playing small in the eye of his hurricane-force howling telling me I am a failure. I don’t belong.

Gosh, I sure can get caught up in my own darkness, and drama, when I take my sights off the truth. I’m okay. In fact, I’m wonderfully, lovingly humanly okay.

I really did think it was my job to cram it all in, juggle it all and keep the world spinning.

Mary’s gentle and loving response to my email stopped my thinking in its tracks.

I was seeing the totality of all I had to do and losing sight of the loveliness of all I had to do.

I was trapped in the dark side of my thinking it was all up to me and not seeing the loveliness and joy of all I am excited about doing.

I have a lot of lovely things on my plate. Some of them include organizing a media training day for executives in the homeless serving sector in March and working with an amazing team on the launch of a Homeless Charter of Rights in April.

My beloved and I are also planning our wedding for April 25th and over the past few months, I have had an amazing time creating for it.

And, this project of launching Calgary’s Updated Plan to End Homelessness at the Summit on March 3rd. It is exciting, inspiring, uplifting. We are in the throes of paradigm shifts and igniting collective impact. It’s amazing!

And there I was bogged down in the minutia of the ‘I’ve got to do it all’ and losing sight of how I can trust others to be doing their best too to change the world.

My glasses were foggy. I changed them.

I can see clearly now.

It was me, myself and I getting in the way of my seeing the truth — Next week at Choices, there will be a whole team of loving, caring, committed individuals doing the wonderful work of Changing the world one heart at a time.

My difference will be felt here, at the nexus of working towards a goal I believe is important to the quality of life of every Calgarian — ending homelessness.

I am truly blessed to have so many lovely things on my plate. Things that excite me and charge me up, that remind me every day — I can be the change I want to see in the world.

We all can.

 

I see you. You are beautiful just the way you are.

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When I walk into the Choices seminar room on the Wednesday morning, I know that miraculous happenings are afoot. That wonder and awe are in the wings, waiting breathlessly for the trainees to arrive and step into their embrace.

And I know Love is always present. And in its presence, there is nothing that has happened that cannot be healed. There is nothing that we’ve done, that cannot be forgiven. There is nothing that is not possible.

I see it every seminar. Trainees walk in feeling worthless, lost, unforgiven or unforgiving. They avoid. Hide. Run away. Argue. Fight for their limitations. Put up walls. Dive deep into silence.

They carry their wounds, their backpacks filled with regrets, their hearts full of woe. They wrap themselves in the belief they are alone, that no one understands them, that no one loves them. They push down their tears, their broken hearts, their anger and fear and stand defiant. No way will anyone break through their shield.

And still, Love finds them where they’re at, exactly the way they are.

Love always loves.

Being in the Choices seminar room is always a testament to the strength of the human spirit and our desire to LIVE.

We hurt one another. We call each other names. We abuse, bully, push and prod and poke and preen. We talk back. We shut up. We force our opinions on each other. We bend under the opinions of others. We know the pain of abuse, divorce, death and the things we cannot speak of that have happened in our lives.

And still, we live. We breathe through every moment, fighting for solace, for relief, for a moment to catch our breath. And even when we don’t find them, we keep breathing, keep taking another step and another until we think we cannot take one more step, one more breath. And we do. Keep stepping. Keep breathing.

Our shoulders slump over. Our hearts harden. And still we keep stepping and breathing.

For some of us, we go our entire lives without ever learning that the past does not keep us safe. It is not a weight to drag around just in case we need it. We believe our death will be the only thing that will bring us relief, and still we keep stepping and breathing.

I used to think it was because people had given up on themselves, on others, on living free. In their resignation, not knowing what else to do, they just kept on doing what they’ve always done. Stepping and breathing.

After years of being in the Choices seminar room, of witnessing miracles transform broken hearts and wings unfold, I realize it’s not all about ‘stepping and breathing’. That their journey isn’t all about hanging on until death comes knocking.

I believe, deep within, no matter how grim or dark our lives may feel, each of us has a deep deep knowing of the sacredness of our being human. It is a sacred space within that we secretly tell ourselves we must protect if we are to survive. So we build up walls of anger, fear, regret, sorrow, despair and push back against the world in fear the sacred essence of our being human will be violated if we do nothing.

Truth is, there is no power on earth than can violate the sacred essence of our being human.

There is no force strong enough, or evil enough, that can desecrate our soul.

We do not have to do anything to protect it. Preserve it or prevent it from being harmed.

The soul cannot be harmed. It cannot be broken. It cannot be corrupted.

It is the essence of our magnificence and it is indestructible.

Yet, because life happens, because we learn to fear ourselves and one another, to hurt ourselves and one another, to protect ourselves with words and acts of destruction,  we forget who we truly are when we are born. In our desperate quest to remember what it was we knew at that moment of our first breath, we spend our lives fearing we never will, and fall under the spell of believing, we are not worthy, wanted, needed, seen, understood, acceptable, forgivable, loveable.

Truth is, we are magnificent. We are each and every one of us miracles of life. Unique. Shining and brilliant.

It’s just life and living has gotten in the way of our remembering who we truly are in the sacred space of our spirit shining brightly for all the world to see.

I watched miracles unfold last week. I stood in the light of many souls shining brightly as Love entered and said, “I see you. You are beautiful just the way you are.”

Namaste.

 

 

 

Can I give you a hug?

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She wanted more hugs in her life but didn’t know where to get them. She lives alone. Drives a milk truck and is always alone. Where to find hugs?

She couldn’t very well ask the farmers whose milk she picks up. They’ve already been at their chores and are having breakfast by the time she drives into their yards. Aside from the cows and other farm animals, there’s nobody around in the morning when she is out and about doing her job.

So she decided to ask the man at the depot where she delivers the milk. She knew he might think it strange. She knew he might think her weird, but she didn’t care. She knew what she wanted and she knew the only way to get it was to ask for it.

Her round completed, the truck container full, April climbed down out of her truck one morning as the dispatcher came out to greet her. She took a deep breath. She was nervous, and determined.

She smiled (she always smiles, it is her nature), and explained what she wanted.

“A hug?” he asked.

“Yes. I want more hugs in my life. It’s important to me. And you’re the only person I see in the morning.”

The dispatcher looked at her. Thought about it for a moment, shrugged his shoulders and said, “Sure. Why not?”

Three months later, the dispatcher and April start and end their morning conversation with a hug. When her truck pulls up, he is there, every morning, waiting to hug. And other drivers are doing it too. Greeting each with more than just a nod of the head. They’re hugging each other.

April’s first request that started with a ‘Why not” response, has turned into a morning of hugs. Of other workers coming out to greet her and hug her when she arrives. It’s resulted in hugs being shared everywhere. Of fathers going home to hug their children. Of wives greeting their husbands with a hug. Of co-workers acknowledging one another and hugging to seal their pact of mutual respect and connection.

A hug may not save the world, but it sure can strengthen our connections. It sure can change our attitudes. It sure can bring us closer together.

April shared this story on Friday night of the Givers 2 weekend — Givers 2 is the second weekend trainees from the Choices program where I’ve been coaching since Wednesday, come back to complete the training. It is a weekend that focuses on communication — and the crafting of each individual’s ‘Purpose Statement’ on Sunday afternoon. On Friday night, in preparation for Sunday’s big event, trainees are asked to share ‘The Best Thing that’s happened to me since Choices and Givers 1.”

This was the story April shared. Inspired by her story, I asked her if I could share it here to which she responded, “If it inspires others to hug more, why not?”

Why not indeed?

When I went through Choices 8 years ago, I wasn’t much of a hugger.  I had a belief, somewhere inside me, that hugs were not okay. That hugs were scary. That people didn’t really want to get that close. That hugging them would scare them. Or offend them. Or make them mad.

I was wrong.

We are all looking for connection. And hugs are a simple way to connect.

Give one. You automatically get one back. Give two. Get two back. And so it goes.

Alexis, my eldest daughter, when asked by a panhandler if she had any change to spare, once replied, “Can’t help you in the finance department, but I have a hug if you want one.”

“Pardon?” he asked.

“A hug,” she replied. “I have no change but I have a hug.”

His face broke into a smile. “Really?” he asked incredulously. “Yeah. I’ll take one.”

And she wrapped her arms around his worn coat and for a moment, they were both just two human beings standing heart to heart.

There is power in connecting heart to heart with our fellow human beings. A hug has been proven to lower blood pressure. To improve happiness levels.

Try it. Ask someone you work with, someone you live with, someone you meet if they would like to connect heart to heart. Ask, “Can I give you a hug?” or, like April, if you’re seeking more hugs, ask for what you want.

Giving is receiving. In the process of giving a hug, you’ll both experience in the reciprocal nature of a hug. What could be better than that?

And if you don’t really think a hug can make a difference, check out this article HERE.

Go ahead. Try it. ask someone today if you can give them a hug and see what miracles happen.

(Thank you April and Alexis for letting me share your stories.)