JUDITH’S BUST A BLOCK A DAY CHALLENGE
By Judith Parker Harris | September 4, 2009
What better way to spend a few moments every day than by busting a few blocks? I challenge you to Bust A Block A Day. Read the rest of this entry »
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What If There’s An Earthquake in the Middle of My Surgery?
By Judith Parker Harris | March 1, 2010
What If There’s An Earthquake in the Middle of My Surgery?
Block: Anxiety
Buster: Excitement
I’m going in for a little “corrective” surgery tomorrow morning, and while it’s a safe procedure that I want to do, I found myself slogging through a worry pit of my own making this weekend. My poor husband had to put up with questions like this: “What if there’s an earthquake in the middle of my surgery?” What could he say? He just looked at me with a smile on his face that conveyed his amusement mixed with love and assurance.
And, who wouldn’t be amused? The very question show’s the audacity of thinking that I’m so much in the center of the world that an earthquake would follow me into surgery? But, that’s another topic isn’t it? Getting over thinking we are the center of the universe and realizing we’re simply part of an interconnected chain link fence that somehow holds things together.
Just last Friday, at a luncheon and book signing for Dani Shapiro’s recently released memoir, Devotion, I learned a new word that sums up my worry tendency. It’s a Yiddish word, Zorg, which means to create unnecessary anguish. The word makes me laugh when I say it, as I look back on the hours, days, months and, yes, years I have wasted zorging.
We have a choice, you see. My husband tells me that all the time. We can open our hearts to the joy and wonder of each new day, or we can fill the day with a thousand zorgs that will rob us of time, create anxiety and most likely will never happen. (With “most likely,” I left a little opening for a zorg to happen. Gotta stop that.)
So, today, as I prepare for my little procedure, I’m going to wish my surgeon a relaxed and blessed day, bask in the gratitude that I have for my wonderful life filled with friends, family, opportunities and incredible experiences, and every time I start to zorg, I’m going to ask myself, “Is this anything that I can do something about?” If so, I’ll do it. If not, I’ll bust through anxiety with excitement and embrace the day and my life with gratitude and love. I’ll do my part to stay connected to life’s chain link fence and be thankful for those who are supporting me on either side.
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Stop Trying To Fix What Isn’t Broken
By Judith Parker Harris | February 22, 2010
Block: Embrace and fix
Buster: Acknowledge and Understand
In my business, I find that practically every client shares one trait, they feel overwhelmed and anxious. These feelings sometimes lead to anger and beneath that anger is fear. Now, I have a confession to make. I, too, feel overwhelmed and anxious.
I teach my clients to drill down to find the source of the anxiety. We do that by looking at blocks, perceptions of other people, disappointments, losses, and the various stories in their lives. Recently, however, I was taken to the source of my own anxiety faster than I ever thought possible.
I was at a prestigious women’s luncheon, in which successful women in media come together to brainstorm solutions for our times. I had just shared about helping women visiting the United States from 7 middle Eastern countries to find commonality with each other and with American women by talking about their favorite movies. I also spoke about the importance of learning to listen carefully to what lies beneath the words people speak.
Suddenly I was asked a question: What do you wish you had done differently in your career up until now? I found myself saying, “I have always felt an overwhelming need to embrace and fix the problems of people around me.” Another woman asked pointedly, “When what you could be doing is simply acknowledging and understanding?”
I thought about that and a light bulb went on in my head. It’s when you want to embrace and fix everything that anxiety becomes overwhelming. To a certain degree, President Obama wants to embrace and fix everything and the entire nation is anxious.
It takes time, but acknowledging and understanding is far more comprehensive. Acknowledging allows you to take a person and perhaps a problem they are presenting in to your consciousness without criticism, judgment, blame You simply acknowledge and sit with it for awhile without taking responsibility.
Understanding allows you to look at the challenge or complication from all sides to see where you might be able to help, lead, guide, share experience, or perhaps simply console or empathize. When the big burden of embracing and fixing is removed, freedom is found to fit in where needed and then move on – or stay if you see another area in which you fit.
It helps to look at what lies beneath the word “fix,” and that is the assumption that something is broken. The truth is that what you are struggling to fix may not be broken at all, it’s just suffering a growing pain. The assumption of broken sets up a polarization of “You are broken, I am not,” “You need fixing, I don’t.” “You are wrong, I am right.” Like a plant needing water, minerals and sunlight, it just needs nurturing, care and the benefit of someone else’s light to see how to take the next step. Beware, however, that step may be taken differently than you would take it, because it’s their movie not yours.
The magical difference is that acknowledging and understanding is by choice not obligation – by connection not usurpation. And the irony of it is, something may be fixed in the process – in a whole new way than you would ever expect.
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Play Valentine’s Day Forward
By Judith Parker Harris | February 14, 2010
Block: The perfect Valentine’s Day
Buster: Put the heart into every day.
My husband, Jack, and I love Valentine’s Day. We have celebrated 23 of them together and each one has been grand. He showers me with flowers, cards, and a sparkly gift and I shower him with candy, cards and some mushy, little gift. We have a glorious brunch if it’s Sunday like today, or an extravagant dinner most any other day of the week. We toast and we remember our other beautiful Valentine’s days.
This year comes after Jack has been very ill, thus this year we are extra grateful. In fact, at Brunch an ambulance came to take away a stricken diner and I know we both were thankful the ride wasn’t for us. How many more Valentine’s days do we have? How many more perfect days?
And, there is the real question and sometimes the problem. Sometimes we put so much worry into making it the perfect day that we forget to just notice the day. Instead we are knocked off course by any number of little things that can go wrong to disturb our perfect day. We didn’t get the right waiter, the table wobbled, motorcyclists disturbed the quiet, he or she didn’t say the right thing, maybe we should have gone to __________ instead. All of these saboteur thoughts and nuisances can ruin a perfect day as they distract us into the “I can’t” part of our brains.
But, what if it’s not a perfect day. What if it’s the “best day you can possibly make it day?” It’s just a slight brain twist. When it’s “the best you can make it day,” you have a choice about all the things that could take you off track. You can decide not to notice, to make the best of it, to incorporate it into your day, to discuss it, to relish surprises, to work it into your day, to laugh it off, to stay focused, and that’s just a few of the possible choices.
When I was in my early 20’s, I had a perfect day and I stopped my companion and simply said, “snapshot.” He asked, “What?” And, I said, I’m taking a mental snapshot so I remember this day always. I then found myself looking for perfect moments to snapshot. But, instead of more, I had fewer mental snapshots because I was waiting for “perfect.”
Today, I feel that my 23 Valentines Days with Jack have been the best we could possibly make them, and that is absolutely fabulous. Today, I am reminded to do that every day – to put the “special” way we treat each other on Valentines into every single day. The roses, and candy and gifts are very nice, but the absolute essential is saying “I love you,” and also saying something else really nice –noticing something you’ve taken for granted, being conscious of the couple and what it means to be together, taking in the other’s needs and expectations, stopping to SEE each other as if for the first time again. The search for perfection can keep you from seeing and enjoying the moment. The buster is to put the heart into every day and to be conscious of and receptive to those you love.
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How Much Mocketing Will Super Bowl Sunday Hold?
By Judith Parker Harris | February 7, 2010
Block: To mock
Buster: To love and respect
It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I’m one of those people who is completely obsessed with the advertising that runs as opposed to the football game. After all, I was in the biz.
Today, however, while watching the Sunday Morning Show on CBS, I learned a new word…mocketing. (as opposed to marketing) A group of kids was being interviewed about commercials they like and they “hated” or “mocked” anything with heart. They are totally into messages delivered with sarcasm, ridicule, silliness, scorn, contempt and humiliation. All words used to define mock by the way: (Mock – to treat somebody with scorn or contempt. To imitate people in a way that is intended to make them appear silly or ridiculous. To prevent something from succeeding in a way that causes frustration or humiliation.)
This flies in the face of the old advertising adage, “If you want someone to buy your product, you must show that your product takes away a pain they are suffering. Good advertising used to solve a problem thereby making the consumer feel good. Now our ads must cause pain and humiliation of some kind to get attention.
This takes me back to an article I wrote called, “The United States of Anger.” We are such an angry culture now that we don’t identify with loving, feel good, heartfelt messages.
In order for a message to get through, it must be delivered with a “mean” edge. Mocking doesn’t stop with marketing, there is mockudramas, mockvertising, mockumentaries…and the list goes on.
So, I ask, what is mocking blocking? Perhaps our ability to feel emotions that open us up to being vulnerable. Oh, no! It’ much better to mock all the people on reality TV, like all the losers on American Idol. You don’t have to feel anything if you stay on the surface where you can tease and make fun of and laugh at people making fools of themselves. Mocking is made up of fear, distrust, disappointment and complete lack of respect. Any wonder our kids are feeling this way when they have been let down by so many of their leaders, heroes and institutions? Tiger Woods was a hero, now he’s a lightening rod of ridicule and mockery. Tabloid journalism and internet social media is full of the latest good guy or gal gone bad.
How do you bust the mocking block? I suggest that we actually have to give our kids something to love, trust, respect and believe in – and then teach them how to do just that. While rebuilding our society after the huge Recession we’ve suffered, we need to focus on what there is to love, respect and believe in and build from that. In the same morning show today, they also did a story on the family who sold their big, beautiful home, bought a much smaller home in a different neighborhood and gave half the money to charity to combat hunger in the world. The family found a charity to love and in the process found more love for each other and more love and contentment in their lives. Take that mockery! And, score one for love and respect.
As for the Super Bowl ads today – I’m going to watch them and see if I can find one that makes me feel good, that solves a problem for me, and that makes me feel love – and if I do, I’m going to buy that product.
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How do you Profit from Creativity When Technology Delivers it For Free?
By Judith Parker Harris | February 5, 2010
Block: Giving Away your livlihood
Buster: Free is the pathway to abundance
I want to share an excellent blog post with you written by the Social Media Boomer, Barbara White. Exploring the conundrum of how you make money through social media when you are encouraged to give so much of your information away for free. The title of her article is, Social Media is about Giving and Supporting Others.
thesocialmediaboomer.com/social-media/social-media-is-about-giving-and-supporting-others
Barbara walks her talk. She set up my social bookmarking for me — for free, gave our group a seminar on tweetdeck and offers what I think is the question of the decade: With all information accessible to everyone from so many different sources, how do people make a living off of their own intellectual property? The music industry sees their songs downloaded for free, piracy in the film industry is rampant and all the big players in the book publishing industry are struggling to remain relevant when up against I-pads and the next latest and greatest invention to disseminate books for next to nothing.
So, I ask all of you, is free the answer? And how about the partner of free, which is forming communities, partnerships, groups and teams to help each other succeed?
There is one thing I know for sure and that is that in today’s Information Society, connecting with others is crucial to success. I am happy to be connected to Barbara White and I encourage you to do the same.
The rest of my article is the comment that was inspired by Barbara’s Blog post.
About 20-years ago, I had my first epiphany. I was in an impossibly hard exercise class in Hawaii with all other women participants half my age. I tried to keep up, but couldn’t. My goal was to get into a body-hugging, jeweled dress for the Academy Awards. (I was attending for the first time) When I felt my lungs about to explode, I suddenly looked around me for help and I saw that I was surrounded by beauty — the Pacific Ocean on one side and beautiful tropical gardens all around. I took in deep, body cleansing breaths and suddenly had more energy flow into my body than I knew what to do with. The epiphany: Everything you need is all around you and if you connect to the energy you will thrive on abundance. I caught up with the girls, finished the workout, fit into the dress and had a great time at the Awards. However, my life changed. I would always be aware of my environment, my connections and the energy field of my life. Thank you, Barbara, for the epiphany from our Master Mind. I, too, have been haunted by giving away my hard-earned intellectual property for free. In the movie business, the copyright and ownership is everything, but that, too, is being eroded. For me, the bottom line is to get your gift out there. Make connections everywhere that you can, be conscious of the opportunities all around you and build through team work and community like we have in our own little, mastermind family. This is a huge topic. Let’s all continue to get it out there and help each other reap the rewards of our talent, knowledge and hard work.
I leave you with the question: What do we own other than the impact we have on others and on our planet? It seems that everything else we are simply borrowing or renting for the short time we’re here.
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