January 14th Challenge: Mind Your Manners

The last few years have taken their toll on common courtesy.  A nasty sort of partisanship has entered our politics, and name-calling and the type of abhorrent views one knew existed but thought rare fill social media comments. There's an encouragement to distrust and a meanness to discourse. Meanwhile, regular old manners seem to be slipping away-- the use of please and thank you, greeting people as you pass, small talk and smiling.

If you've been doing the tiny resolutions, you've been working on being complaint-free (or at least mindfully reducing our griping).  Let's make that easier by being some of the change we want to see.  For today's challenge, try at least a few of these:

1)  Learn people's names, and use them.  Especially those of people you see often but may not know-- the security guard, the guy at the market you always visit, the admin assistant down the hall at work, the neighbor in the apartment next to you.

2)  Use your politeness words.  Please, thank you, excuse me, I'm sorry, I appreciate that.

3)  When you are talking with someone, give them some reasonable eye contact.  Put the phone away. 

4)  Make a little small talk.  With the cashier, the neighbor, the coworker.  It's not trivial.  When we comment on the weather, the big game, or any other common occurrence we are communicating that we see each other, that we are involved in a common experience.  If the other person doesn't want to engage, we should be able to tell.  (If you can't, learn about and practice reading body language).

5) Offer help when you see someone struggling, if you feel safe and are able.  If someone can't start their car, help them jump it or offer to call someone for them if they don't have a phone.  If someone has their arms full or is injured or frail or with children, hold the door.  As a matter of fact, hold the door for anyone right behind you.

6)  When you talk to someone, be mindful not to monologue and/or only talk about yourself. Ask after them.  Show interest in what they say.  Ask follow-up questions.  Practice the volley:  in these days of tweeting and posting, we forget that true conversation is two-way.

7)  Greet people when you see them.  Smile if you can.

8)  Be gracious.  Graciousness is not about being a martyr; it's about recognizing that other people have strong preferences, insecurities, and feelings just as we do and both parties count in a situation.  Sometimes others' needs outweigh yours, sometimes it's equal, and sometimes yours take precedence. Even or especially in the latter case, we can make that known graciously.  Examples for this:  offer your seat on the bus or at the standing-room-only event to someone who may need it more.  Don't take the last doughnut if you've had one and others haven't gotten to them yet.  Refill the coffeepot if you drink the last cup, replace the toilet paper, pick up after yourself in the common spaces at work, etc.

9) Show appreciation to others when they are kind/gracious/patient/trying hard.  Sometimes that just takes a smile.

10) Be the One Less Asshole in the room.  If someone is losing it, being a jerk, or has no manners, that doesn't justify your doing the same.  If you hold it together with grace and patience, that just means now there is one less possible jerk in the situation.

I bet you have some other ideas.  I'd like to hear them.  We'll do a day of Random Acts of Kindness later, so save those-- but do send ideas about waylaid manners we can try and remember. 

See you tomorrow,
Jana

January Second Challenge: Tiny Resolutions

You made it through the first day of the new decade!  Congratulations.  Hope you had time for some reflection on the past year(s) and began crafting out some personal goals for growth and happiness for 2020.
My morning involved meditation/daydreaming in my cozy bed, going over what was working, what needed adjusting, what I was grateful for and looking forward to.  I used a burning ritual to solemnize some of what I think needs to stay back in the 'oughts.  And I'm calling out for what I want to bring in to my life this year.   Anything you throw generous attention into becomes a sort of magic. You don't go out and manifest it, you are just giving awareness which ripples out, and taking opportunities to get closer to what you want.  A couple early ideas floated up-- more time with people outside of work, for eating, playing, creating, exploring and learning together.  I want to say yes more when yes is good for me, and no more when yes isn't. 

I put these into action today by staying in jammies making french toast out of the holiday panetone (resolution category:  self-care, chill time, good food), making a quick decision to join a friend passing by on a walk (I had to put on real people clothes eventually!--Res. Cat. friendship, walking in nature, being in the moment). I got off the chair and cooked a good curry for dinner rather than making do with leftover cakes and chips.  Played the new games we got as holiday presents and put up MOST of the decoration in the attic.  I liked to dribble it out so it's not such a shock to the system to go back into the real world.  I tended to my mushroom grow kits in hopes of blue oysters elms and chestnut mushroom dinners to come.
A stellar day.

They won't all be like that.  Sometimes I'm going to throw a challenge up and life will laugh and make other plans/  That's ok  These challenges can be flexible-- some days we might do three or four, some days skip.  The point is to make a point of continuing to return to them and try, with an open mind, to see what useful you can find in them. 

If you've a mind for it, grab a fresh new journal. I  discourage really fancy ones, at least if you are like me and find yourself feeling you have to be profound.  But even a bunch of stapled together scrap paper is fine.   Jot down your challenge for the day.  Daydream about ways to meet it.  Keep an eye out for oppourtunity.  At the end of the day, write what happened-- or didn't-- and why.  be honest, not mean, if you didn't do it. What got in the way?  Did you devalue the work?  Your abilities? What emotions were associated, no matter the outcome-- pride, relaxation, fear?Out of that honesty decide if you want to try again another day.  Give yourself credit if you did.

The challenge for Thursday, January 2, is to write a thank you note to 2019.  What was good about it?  What are you grateful for? Who helped you along the way?  What did you learn this year?

Again, this can be scratched on the back of a napkin or written lovingly in your new journal or marked in any way you choose.

Bonus points:  Send a thank you to someone who helped make at least part of that year easier, more amazing, less lonely, more fun.  Send it in an envelope through the postal service.  Or at the least hand write and hand deliver it.

Again, if you don't get to this today, calendar it out during the month.  Try to do as many of these exercises as you can, even if you're not sure they are your cup of tea.  At the month, you can evaluate worth.see where the teachers and teachings show up.

See you tomorrow, and welcome to day two.

Jana

Today's quote:  "Take the first step in faith.  You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."  Dr. M.L. King

SUSPEND YOUR JUDGMENT: Door2Challenge January 5th, 2018

Today's challenge is to spend a bit of time noticing the flow of judgments your brain narrates.  Some will be future casts:  "It's so cold; I'm going to be miserable today".  Some are past-bashing:  "I was a terrible partner/mother/field kicker/student".  A lot will be about other people:  "She must not be very smart", "I wouldn't like him", "He just did that to piss me off".

curious or foolish?

Sometimes our judgements are really discernment, aggregated data we use to sort and to understand potential pitfalls. It's not judgmental to have negative thoughts about a person lunging angrily at you.  It's probably more effecient to get the hell out of there, though.

Today practice presuming BENIGN INTENT, the idea that most people are doing the best they can and mean us no harm. Assume we don't have all the information to truly know their motivations and intents.  That scowl may just be their resting face.  The distraction may not be lack of interest in your needs but preoccupation with their own.  The guy who cut in front of you may not have seen you, may be very late to something important, maybe unaware his turn signal isn't working.  It's possible it wasn't a plot to annoy or scare you.  The woman who is keeping you on hold at her cubicle job is just trying to make a living, pay for a place to live, feed her kids.  Sure, her script is stilted, and maybe her accent is hard to understand, but she's more like us than not, trying to get through the day with the least possible suffering entailed.

Youth gang?  Healthy festive teens?

We can easily fall into traps of thinking others are less than or more than we are.  Both traps are bad and keep us wary and separate.   If you've a mind to, go for extra credit toda and try to understand the other to the point that at least some judgments start to fall away.  she how that poor mama loves on her kid, how strong that fat man is, how kind the alcoholic, offering you a half of his sandwich.

Good ol Annie-- ridiculous person, or master of fun?

And listen especially carefully to our own inner dialogue-- your fear weasel that says you can't make it, you're not enough, you don't belong, you'll never amount to a hill o beans, it's too late etc etc etc....


JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
I mean, really? 

See if you can answer those questions without opinions, just with facts.  Like:  Sometimes my brain doesn't work as week as other times.  Or:  I can be aloof when I feel vulnerable and other people may interpret this as snobbishness.  We all have our defender behaviors.  How about for today we just observe them with a keen and kind eye, trying to figure out their function,and instead of acting them outwe just watch them from a little distance.  We can remind ourselves that moods and fears pass and look for the core that connects us.

Possibile activities for this challenge:  have lunch with an other or a conversation with a stranger.  Look for commonalities between you (you can make this into a game-- find three obscure facts about each other you have in common)..

Do a fearless self-inventory of your failings and rewrite it as FACTS about you, HABITS about you, INTENTIONS of these habits.  Dont forget to put in FACTS about your Strengths as well.

I have a Buddhist friend who, when I would say something judgmental about a fellow human ("she lots a hot mess") would gently bring me out of judgment with remarks like :I don't know her story.  I am not better than she or she than me."  My sister in law gave  me a lesson many years ago when I was in my salad days and saw a older bleached blonde woman in a very tight dress with teetery heels.  "Mutton masquerading as lamb", I said rudely.  Bhodi sister said "I love her self-confidence and that she dresses how she wants, not how others tell her she should. "  Great reframe. 

So just for today, watch those judgments spin out, and if you catch them, replace them with a benign or even positive reframe.  Or just let them drift on by and pay attention to what is really happening around you.  You might be surprised what you can learn, setting judgments aside and paying open attention to others. 

The world is a sweeter, safer place when we can corral our judgments and only pull them out when necessary after examining them through the lens of our preconceptions and limited exposures.  Here's a little film about that.

snail and catipilliar

See you tomorrow!
.