February gives new meaning to the words blah….blah….blah.  It’s the month with the least number of days yet feels like the longest. Our new year’s resolutions are waning and we have started to settle back into a familiar rut of doing what’s comfortable. Sound familiar?  Our programs/belief systems are like homing pigeons who take the message they’ve received and regardless of circumstances they follow the familiar path back to where they started.  And because the path is well worn and predictable there is no desire to change the path as so much of this cycle takes place at the subconscious level.  Hence the benefit of Personal Mastery. As most of you know this seminar is designed to create awareness around just those programs that I am referring to that often don’t serve us and quite frankly feed into making what can be a challenging time even more difficult!

The dreariness of the February landscape (especially for those of us that live in areas where we experience radical shifts between seasons) has us being far more introspective because we don’t want to venture out. We throw up our hands and exclaim “oh well” without looking any further to see if there is another path for us.  It is much more comfortable to reside in the doldrums because we don’t have to take any action and we can settle in and turn our focus inward and be smug about how we think the world is treating us.

Sometimes, however, out of nowhere, the external world jolts us back into reality and we are drawn out of our self-created cocoon to be reminded that there are people who have been shocked out of their own comfortable existence.  Take the very recent events in New Zealand where hundreds are suddenly missing and thousands more are affected by a natural disaster. There is no complacency for those people and while survival becomes paramount, how they choose to deal with the disaster is very much a choice.  Choices will involve being proactive about next steps, whether that means helping a neighbor, praying for relief, offering monetary assistance, rallying resources to overcome obstacles or expressing gratitude for their own safety.

This disaster highlights that despite our own inability to be in control the circumstances of our environment, we can control how we choose to behave in the face of tragedy.  We can choose to be humbled by the force of nature and know that we can be resilient and be ready for any upcoming trials.  We can be uplifted by people around the world who will be moved to act because they have chosen to take themselves out of their own February blahs to look around at others in need. But most of all, we can choose to remember that we are not alone; there is a greater community that we are all part of regardless of where we reside physically.

So whatever the weather or wherever you are, remember that we choose our experience based on the viewpoint we are prepared to take. It takes great effort at times to step into being a Compassionate Samurai. And if you’re not prepared to do it for yourself, then perhaps you are big enough to do it for someone else.

Sona van der Hoop – Director of Facilitation
Leadership Development

Heart attacks strike at least 1.1 million people in the United States every year.  Just imagine how many professionals are involved when the dispatch office gets a call of desperation from a loved one who realizes someone they care about is in distress.  The ambulance and medic teams are mobilized, hospital staff is prepped, health administration is at the ready, pharmacists dispense the necessary drugs, home care follow-up is initiated and, if the patient is lucky a recovery gets underway.  That heart attack jump-started a response that has been practiced and rehearsed a thousand different ways to ensure that a person will receive treatment and care for a physical condition that is quickly recognized and has a protocol in place.

Now what do we do about a different kind of heart ailment that affects just as many people a year but that leaves you emotionally rather than physically broken?  What about the kind of pain that starts as an ache and grows and grows because we don’t know how to treat the symptoms?  It could be a relationship that has faltered, a love that has been lost, suffering that continues to plague us and deepen our sense of malaise but we don’t know where to place the emergency call and so there is no response team ready to help us.

Why don’t we start at the very first step.  We know when we’re in pain physically and we know what to do.  We reach out. If you are suffering a heart attack, your human instinct for survival will kick in pretty quickly. You and the people around you will rally to make sure that you are getting the care you need right away.  And if we learn to ‘self-honor’, one of the 10 traits of a Compassionate Samurai, then we would  respond with the same imperative when our hearts ‘feel’ like they are breaking.  It’s about loving ourselves enough to reach out during difficult times,  knowing that we don’t have to go through challenges alone. Accepting that people will not think less of us for asking for help may also make us more likely to extend help to other when they need it.

This Valentine’s Day reach out and touch just one heart with a kind thought, a kind word, a kind deed and maybe there will be one less broken heart.

Sona van der Hoop – Director of Facilitation
Leadership Development Training