Appreciation
May 3rd, 2010 | 
Author: …From Success.bz
What You Appreciate Appreciates
Last weekend, it being the Spring equinox, I got up at 6 o’clock and watched the sun rise over the sea.
The sight was so beautiful that I decided to repeat it the next day. Only to find that the sky was cloud-covered and the sea a forbidding grey.
It got me thinking about Appreciation and how easy it is to appreciate the things we label as “beautiful” and “good” and how hard to appreciate the things we label as “ugly” and “bad”.
It reminded me of one of my first training lessons given by my supervisor when I worked in a customer service centre. Whenever she caught any one of us using what she called the 3 C’s – complaining, condemning, and criticising, – she would order us to replace it with one of the 3 A’s, – acknowledging, accepting, and appreciating.
Like Love in Faith, Hope, and Love, I’ve always thought that the greatest of these was Appreciation.
I’m quite sure that, if she were still working today, my supervisor would be a champion of Appreciative Enquiry, the idea that change works best when it is based on the things that you appreciate and which work, rather than the things that you don’t appreciate and which don’t work.
It’s an idea that I’ve used on more than one occasion when working alongside someone who, in another time, I might have labelled “unhelpful” and “impossible to work with”. By adopting my supervisor’s lesson and replacing criticism with appreciation, I’ve more than once found something remarkably valuable in such people and turned a going-nowhere relationship into one with possibilities.
I call it “seeing the jewels in other peoples’ crowns”.
More recently, I happened to be reading a story by Alan Cohen who reminds us that when we allow ourselves to feel cheated out of life’s wonderful moments, we end up playing victim, playing hurt and playing small. And the amazing thing is, it’s only a small shift in appreciating that takes us to the opposite of these, to healing and wholeness.
This is how he tells the story.
Consider the scenario of a man walking down a street when a flowerpot falls off a windowsill above him and crashes at his feet, narrowly missing hitting him. There are several paths of response the fellow could take: (1) Victim: he slips into feeling vulnerable, goes home, feels sorry for himself, and sends away for self-protection equipment; (2) Retaliator: he dashes up to the apartment from which the flower pot fell and punches out the owner; (3) Stoic: he reasons that it was simply his karma for the flower pot to miss him and he keeps walking; and (4) Healer: he goes to the florist on the corner, purchases another flower, finds the apartment from which the pot fell, and gives it to the owner to replace the one he accidentally lost.
I guess there’s a thread running from my 3 A’s supervisor through seeing the jewels in others’ crowns right up to Alan Cohen’s flowerpot man.
It’s about learning how easy it is to appreciate the finer things in life but knowing how more important it is to appreciate the rest.
Life shouldn’t be about the occasional wonderful moments. But about the wonder in every moment.
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The renowned ‘Floor Stew’
This is a delicious & easy Persian style stew, its absolutely gorgeous and simple to make. I made a huge batch of this to take to a party once and the pan fell off the stove top onto the floor emptying its steaming contents in the process hence the name ‘floor stew’. Dried limes are easy to source on the net and I have just discovered to my delight that ASDA have started to sell them too.
500g Organic Lamb mince
1 onion
pinch cinnamon
2 sweet potatoes
1 tin green lentils
4 whole dried black limes
handful dried cranberries
handful frozen soya beans
organic lamb stock cube
dash balsamic vinegar
pinch asafoetida
3 garlic cloves/ ‘Easy’ fridge garlic or garlic powder
chunk of fresh ginger or ground ginger
pinch turmeric
dash wheat free soy sauce
water
pinch mixed herbs
fresh coriander to garnish
Put two medium sized sweet potatoes in the oven whole, they will take
about 40-50mins to cook depending on size and shape. You can do this
in advance and add them to the recipe cold too.
In a large pan or wok – as stick proof as possible – fry the onion
along with the garlic, ginger and turmeric. When the onion softens
slightly, add the lamb and stir to break up until it is browned a
little. Then add the lentils including any liquid in the can. Pierce
the limes and add them too.
Add the stock cube, cinnamom, asafoetida, mixed herbs, balsamic
vinegar and soy sauce and top the pan up with 500ml of water. Leave to
bubble for about 30mins, stirring occassionally to stop it sticking to
the pan. Timings are not important in this recipe, in fact the longer
the stew is left to bubble at this stage the better – anything up to
90mins is fine as long as you keep the water topped up and stop it
from sticking.
Check the sweet potatoes, once they are thoroughly soft remove from
oven and peel away skin (careful if theyre hot!) Add them to the stew
and using a wooden spoon break them down into the mixture, cooking all
the time, until the sweet potato is dispersed apart from the odd
little lump. This thickens the stew and gives it a beautiful texture.
Now add the soya beans and the cranberries, cook for a further 5 mins
and the stew is ready to serve. It tastes even better if its allowed
to ‘rest’ for a while and for some reason the flavour is magnificent if
re-heated the following day. We usually eat this with rice or salad but the traditional Persian way is to eat with potato chips.
I Feel Empty
I’ve been having a rather tough few weeks and amongst all of the personal chaos I kind of lost myself a bit. The following article just gently brought a part of me back to life for which I am very grateful. Thankyou Margaret Paul.
(article at http://www.success.bz/articles/2569/i_feel_empty)
“I Feel Empty”
If you feel empty, you are not alone in feeling this way.
Many people feel empty inside, and most people who feel empty have some deep false beliefs regarding why they feel empty. Below are some of these false beliefs.
I feel empty because:
* My partner is not giving me enough love and attention.
* I don’t have a partner.
* I’m bored because my partner doesn’t provide me with enough stimulation.
* My work is unsatisfying.
* I’m not successful enough.
* I don’t have enough money.
* I have no one to play with on weekends.
* Nothing excites me. Life is boring.
* I don’t get enough love, attention and approval from people.
* I don’t get enough sex.
None of these situations are the causes of inner emptiness.
What do you usually do to try to fill the inner emptiness? Do you try to fill up with:
* Substances, such as food, sugar, alcohol, drugs, cigarettes?
* Processes and activities, such as TV, Internet, sex, computer games, work, shopping, spending, gambling, telephone, email?
* Manipulations such as anger, blame, over-talking, story-telling, caretaking others?
There are many substances, processes, behaviors and activities that people use addictively to try to fill the emptiness. These may work for the moment, but not for long. Soon, the emptiness is back and you are looking for another fix to temporarily fill up the black hole.
The problem with all these behaviors is that they only address the symptom of inner emptiness, but not the cause.
THE CAUSE OF INNER EMPTINESS
There is only one thing that truly fills the emptiness. Love. There is only one cause of inner emptiness: a lack of love.
But it is not a lack of someone else’s love that causes your emptiness. Inner emptiness is caused by self-abandonment – by not loving yourself.
Inner emptiness comes from a lack of connection with your spiritual Source of love – from not opening to the love-that-is God and bringing that love to yourself through true thought and loving action in your own behalf.
Just as a child feels alone and empty when there is no one there to love him or her, your inner child also feels alone and empty when you are not there to love him or her. When you abandon yourself by judging yourself, ignoring your feelings by staying in your head, numbing your feelings through substance and process addictions, and making others responsible for your feelings and for loving you, you will feel empty. You are causing your own emptiness by your self-abandonment.
Your ego wounded self is filled with false beliefs regarding who you are. Your wounded self may see you as inadequate, unlovable, not good enough, not important, selfish, bad, wrong. Your wounded self operates from core shame – that you are intrinsically flawed.
These are programmed beliefs that have no basis in truth, but they may be running your life. When you believe that you are not good enough, then you turn to others and to addictions to try to feel okay – to fill the emptiness that you are causing with your self-judgment/self-abandonment.
FILLING YOUR INNER EMPTINESS – LEARNING TO LOVE YOURSELF
The truth of who you are comes only from Spirit – from your higher self, your spiritual source of Guidance, from God (or whatever you call Spirit). When you open to learning with a source of spiritual Guidance about the truth of who you are and about what is loving action toward yourself and others, you open to the love-that-is-God coming into your heart and filling your inner emptiness.
This occurs when you SHIFT YOUR INTENT from protecting against pain and avoiding responsibility for yourself through your addictive and controlling behaviors to learning, with Spirit, about what is loving to yourself and others. This is what Inner Bonding is all about.
Today, choose the intent to learn with Spirit about truth and about loving yourself – even if you don’t believe that anything is there to answer you – and see what happens. You might start to feel full of love inside!
Shopping with Aspergers
I’m crap at haggling, I accept this and have moved on. Maybe I’ll return to work on it one day but as it stands I find it embarrassing and tend to get ‘terribly English’ and polite about it. This causes everyone to get confused about what is going on so I usually take the easy option and just pay for the goods and get on my way. Fine for Waitrose but not so great in a market.
Which is another reason why I love the contrast of living with an extraordinary man with Aspergers. We were a Comet this evening which is a large, mainstream electrical shop. We specifically went to buy something but it was more expensive than we expected. Without hesitating, Mark ‘offered’ the shop £50 less than the ticket price. He told them he wasn’t leaving the shop until they sold it to him. The woman behind the counter said thats fine, we’ll lock up and leave you here. I was thinking ‘Wow, he is haggling in COMET!’.
After some negotiations they agreed to sell us the item with a substantial discount, purely because he had asked for it. Cool 
He then spent ten minutes on one of their Macs composing a very loud & complex song in a very empty shop with my 4yr old son seeing how high he can kick his wellies down the aisles.
Ty-Wharton shopping trips are rarely dull.
G
Why Leaders Need Soft Skills
http://www.success.bz/articles/2421/why_leaders_need_soft_skills_during_tough_economic_times
by Ray Williams
During tough economic times, companies are under increasing pressure to produce better bottom-line results. This often leads to layoffs, downsizing, reorganization, and branch office closures.
In previous slowdowns, organizations have turned to the no-nonsense command-and-control type of leadership, with a focus on the “hard skills” of finance, marketing and technology to get the job done.
Soft skills that stress trust, empathy and positive interpersonal relationships may appear to be inconsistent with what is needed. Not so.
A study by the Center for Creative Leadership surveyed a wide variety of industries, asking leaders what worked best when leading organizations through tough times.
The greatest challenges that were identified were motivating staff in uncertain times; being able to clearly communicate the rationale for changes; working within a team format rather than alone and developing staff for redeployment rather than layoffs. Among the necessary characteristics of leadership, the leaders identified traits such as authenticity and honest two-way communication. The softer leadership skills of trust, empathy and compassion for employees were necessary to help the organization through difficult times.
Another study by the Center for Creative Leadership showed a direct correlation between the long-term success of an organization and the degree to which its leaders practice soft skills. There was not only a strong connection between the soft skills of leaders and the corporate culture, but the strength of this correlation increased with the level of the executive.
Similarly, Success IQ University has worked with firms experiencing transitions and found where leaders in those firms possessed and practiced soft skills, the development of a strong and positive corporate culture was stronger and faster.
These studies underscore the effect derailed leaders can have on a firm’s culture and highlight the connection between leaders’ self-development, while a lack of soft skills can negatively affect a leader’s ability to shape a company and hinder its long term success.
A deliciously easy life…
I was kindly loaned the Terence Stamp wheat free recipe book on Friday by my son’s nursery school teacher after we got into a discussion on gluten free diets. Its a lovely book but as I read each recipe I got more and more ‘put off’ by what seemed like unnecessary complications in the instructions. You see, I don’t work like this. It may be appropriate in a top restaurant to carefully wrap things in clingfilm and chill for an hour before moving to the next stage or checking the exact viscosity/ colour/ bubbles of a mixture to make it work but is it really practical in ‘real life’?
I’m afraid I just thought ‘Bollocks to that’ and put the book down. Its not that I can’t be bothered – quite the opposite, I love interesting old fashioned ways of doing things. But there have to be practical alternatives, and some things really don’t need to be that complicated.
My life is easy, because I have decided to make it that way. I make gorgeous meals for my family using all fresh ingredients to a fairly modest budget. I rarely weigh/ measure/ finely chop/ sieve etc anything. Yet it all turns out really well. Its quick, and enjoyable to make. So I think I will start writing some of it on here.
Gina
Corporate Fear – a diagnosis
Earlier on the train I observed a fascinating bloke who shouted his many conversations into his mobile phone fairly continuously for the 45 minutes it took me to get from London to Huntingdon.
What struck me about his calls was the difference in tone, language and quality from one call to the next. The first call he made was clearly to a ’subordinate’. His tone was very domineering, a little patronising and he shoved his point home time after time in really quite an overpowering way.
The next call sounded like it was to his boss (I was sitting 2 ft away from him and he was LOUD, it was impossible not to hear him) and I was surprised to hear his voice change to a meek and mild, submissive shadow of his earlier vocal strainings.
It got me to thinking about how I have observed the ‘ranks’ treated each other within the corporate environments I have experienced. I can think of many occasions when a previously bombastic, overpowering manager has been reduced to a small voiced stuttering submissive in the presence of a ‘big boss’.
I wonder if it is just fear? Do ‘big bosses’ give off a certain vibe that makes you fear them? Do they whiff of ‘You must be scared of me!” Maybe our corporate environments encourage this kind of ‘manager fear’ to keep things ticking along? I mean, its unlikely that your manager is going to sack you for not showing the correct level of deference and prostating yourself every time he appears, is it? Do you think that Richard Branson would behave like this around his manager? (if he’s ever had one!) No! So, you know what, neither will I.
Its bollocks really isn’t it? If you want to impress your boss, act like the confident, self leading, successful individual that you are. He’ll probably be nice to you because he’ll realise that you’re so bloody good that you’ll be his boss at some point in the not too distant future and he’s better not piss you off. Act like the whimpering buffoon on the train and you give permission for ‘bombastic arse’ right back at you.
Gina
10 nice things about commuters
1. They close the door of the train after them to keep it warm inside
2. They have cool electronic equipment and gadgets to play with (if you ask nicely)
3. They are generally well turned out and smell nice
4. They are usually intelligent
5. They stash their bags up above your head in the luggage rack out of the way
6. They get on and off trains quickly and don’t ‘faff’
7. They are pleased when you straike up a conversation with them
8. They have amazing stories to tell
9. They are quirky and interesting to watch
10. They know where the toilets are on the train and where to sit.
Commuters are really just like Buddhist monks, they spend several hours a day alone in their own peaceful shell, oblivious to the world outside. Perhaps a commuter meditation would be useful, they could become the most spiritually developed people on the planet.
G
Pleasure and gratitude
I was just cycling back from the station, it was cold but I was happy and experimenting with a few feelings. I was remembering back to 1994 when I got a job working for Wimpey Construction in Hammersmith. I recall walking to my office window and feeling a rush of warm indescribable pleasure whilst looking out across London at the sunset from my 5th floor window. I could see all the way to Canary Wharf, and standing there in my new role on what felt like a a whopping salary of £10,500 I felt immense pleasure, I felt I had ‘made it’. What I now realise I was feeling was gratitude for my situation and gratitude for the scene around me.
I can remember a few of these intense warm feelings of gratitude & pleasure back then but what I have realised is how long it was absent from my life. I had a period of several years where I felt nothing that gave me pleaure despite my best attempts. Massages, nice clothes, holidays, gadgets, friends, I was numb to all of it. I had to remind myself when doing great things that I was ‘having a good time’ but I got no feeling at all from it. I remember discussing with a counsellor that I had no ability to experience pleasure to which she replied ‘Thats normal for someone who is depressed’. I hadn’t considered being depressed before so I decided to try it out and wallowed in it for a while but wasn’t really very good at it. Looking back I think I felt so trapped by my life at that time I couldn’t bring myself to feel grateful for anything.
I made a dramatic change to my circumstances, moved to a new flat alone with no possessions and, sitting alone one night, it started again. I looked around at the new life I had created for myself and felt so grateful for what I had that I started to cry from happiness. This was when pleasure kicked back in, big time. It has never been far from me since!
My gratitude affects me in so many ways, the more I am grateful for, the more I have to be grateful for, the more joy, happiness and pleasure exists in my life. I have an amazing partner, a wonderful child and I live a truly magical life. And I am very pleasurably happy.
So on my bike tonight I realised that Gratitude = Pleasure.
G