Some of you may already have read my earlier post: DD is 100 Years Old Today! What's her Secret?, about my maternal grandmother, Mildred Maclean (aka, to her grandchildren and many others, "DD"). I wrote it for her 100th birthday on March 8, 2011. She is now 102! She is slowing down but is still very engaged in the world.

For example, she took her first art class when she was 100 years old and has continued to attend weekly ever since. My daughter joined her at a class as a fellow student.  How many children can say they have taken an art class with their great-grandmother? In my previous post about DD, I mentioned that she has always loved to give advice, and ever since I have been an adult, I have known enough to listen closely.

I feel privileged to have been able to have this adult relationship with my grandmother and to be the recipient of her advice. She has seen so much in her lifetime and yet she never stops wanting to learn more and to share what she has learned in a helpful way. So, here's another post in her honour, for the Grandmother Power Blogging Campaign initiated by Tara Mohr, an inspirational coach I follow.

In this post, I want to share some words of wisdom that DD and my grandfather, Alexander Maclean, shared with me and my husband Andrew, when we announced we were pregnant with our first child, over 15 years ago. They sat us down in their cheery kitchen in my home town of London, Ontario, and laid out their wisdom on the table for us. DD did most of the talking. My grandfather, a Scotsman, was a man of fewer words and a talented whistler.

At the time of this particular advice-giving, my grandparents had been happily married for almost 60 years. We already knew one of their mottos/secrets, which had to do with two "bears" - "ForeBear" and "Bear With". On their wedding day they were given two little bears, one with the sign "Fore" and the other with the sign "With". Fifty years later, they were presented with the crystal version of the bears pictured here. They gave us similar fuzzy bears when we were married. However, apparently there was more to a thriving marriage and thriving children than just the bears. We were about to find out the goods. It boiled down to three points:

1. The best thing you can give your children is a happy marriage.   To have a happy marriage, you need to invest in your relationship on a regular basis. Doing this is good for everyone.   You benefit from being away from the children and they benefit from being away from you.

DD elaborated a little more on this point….The children leave the house when they are about 18 years old and then you are left with each other.  At the time of the advice-giving, my grandparents could look back and see that the majority of their marriage had been spent together without their three children in the house. So their message was, be proactive about keeping up a good relationship throughout.

For us this has translated into regular date nights, usually on a Friday, as well as relatively regular overnight trips, for just the two of us.  The biggest gift of this advice for me has been having NO guilt as we take  time away as a couple.  I truly believe it's good for everyone.  My children benefit from having people other than their parents care for them and teach them.   And, I've noticed that the best dates are usually the simplest and the cheapest, and tend to involve a walk with a good chat.

2. Never underestimate what your children understand, especially when they are young.  They understand more than you might think.

I think DD and Grampa were bang on with this one. This was a good "heads-up" for us.  We  have tried not to talk about our kids in front of them as if they weren't there, even when they were little. When children start to talk and ask questions you realize just how much they have been taking in about the world around them.

3. Try to be consistent with each other. Don't undermine each other in front of the children.

This is a really hard one!  We strive to do this, but in the moment don't always succeed on the details.  But on the bigger points, it's so important to try to present a united front, don't you think?  I find children are very intuitive about sensing any weakness in the parental positions. That being said, I am ok with our children knowing that their father and I don't always agree on everything and that sometimes we need to discuss issues before coming to an agreement of some kind. Of course having a strong relationship helps to make healthy discussions and disagreements possible. Back to those date nights.

Upon reflection and 21 years into marriage, 14 of those with children (3 in total, and 1 with special needs), I can say that receiving and acting on this advice from DD and Grampa has been instrumental in defining our marriage and our parenting. Our marriage has remained strong because we have proactively taken time to be alone together regularly. We are continuing to evolve as parents, operating from the firm foundation this advice helped us build.  We are so grateful to have received their advice!

Have you ever yearned to find more passion, or even some passion, in your work?  Reading Lean In: Women, Work and The Will To Lead by Sheryl Sandberg over March Break made me remember an experience when I so strongly felt that yearning.  About ten years ago, I went for a ride in a hot air balloon with my Dad.  We flew over my home town of London, Ontario on a bright, still, sunny morning, full of possibility.  What reading her book triggered for me was the memory of talking with the pilot of the hot air balloon and hearing his story of how he became a pilot.  It turns out that piloting hot air balloons was something he did for fun.  Flying hot air balloons was his passion.  He worked as a real estate agent for his "day job".  I remember thinking: "I so wish I could find work I am passionate about!"   Ever since I had decided to become a stay-at-home mother back in 1998, I had been yearning for work I could be passionate about.   I didn't find passion in my lawyering.  However, now I know that I might have found some there, or at least hints of it, had I known how to look.   That's part of my mission as a coach for high-achieving women like you - to help you find, connect with and harness your passion to help you achieve goals that are deeply meaningful to you.

Sheryl Sandberg offers us much wisdom in her inspiring and empowering book.  One of the first steps she suggests taking before "leaning into" your work/life/whatever it is you are doing is to find something you are passionate about to actually lean into.  Leaning into work that you don't feel passionate about is not part of her recipe for success.  I know from my experience and that of my clients that finding passion and then acting on it is not always an easy process.   Sometimes it may even feel impossible.   However, now that I am a coach, I also know that there are ways to access and harness our passions, because they are there in us.  For sure.

Taking a step back, before I offer you a first step to help you find your passion, let's look at a definition of passion, from a foremost expert, Prof. Robert J. Vallerand:

"Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like (or even love), that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy."

When we are passionate about something it also becomes a part of our identity.   Someone who is passionate about tennis, doesn't just play tennis; rather, she is a "tennis player".  (Prof. Vallerand, who I heard speak at the First Canadian Conference on Positive Psychology last summer, further divides passion into two types - obsessive  and harmonious.  "Obsessive passion refers to a controlled internalization of an activity in one's identity that creates an internal pressure to engage in the activity that the person likes.  On the other hand, harmonious passion refers to an autonomous internalization that leads individuals to choose to engage in the activity that they like....With this type of passion, the activity does not occupy the entire space in the person's identity and is in harmony with the other aspects of the person's life." [from "Passion at Work", p. 178 of Emerging Perspectives on Values in Organizations] Harmonious passion is the type of passion we need to access to improve our well-being.   For our purposes, I will be assuming we are looking at harmonious passion.)

There are many routes to uncovering and following one's passions.   Here is one way, suggested by Barbara Fredrickson, a preeminent positive psychologist, in Positivity. Notice when you go into a state of "flow".  Find those unique activities that allow you to be in flow. "Flow" is  "a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it."p. 4 Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Here's a super short video that explains "flow" well.  Think about when you completely lose yourself in activity, even losing track of time.  To be in flow you need to be challenged just enough, as is well illustrated in the video.  You also need to have a clear goal in mind and  immediate feedback.

Take a moment and reflect on when you might have been in a flow state recently.  Were you immersed in project at work?  Were you flying down a ski hill?    Were you in a deeply meaningful conversation with someone and completely lost track of time?  When you are following your passions, finding flow, you are building  your opportunities for positive experiences and emotions and that is so important for enhancing your well-being, especially happiness.  And of course, it's step one in following Sheryl Sandberg's advice.

Here's an example from my work life to further prompt your reflection.  When I think back a few years to my time as a young lawyer, one of my favourite experiences was having to draft a contract for which there was no "precedent" (lawyer talk for similar contracts).  I was so used to relying on precedents  that the challenge was a bit scary, but mostly it was fun.  And I definitely got into a state of flow while I was drafting.   Had I known then what I know now, I would have reflected on that experience more afterwards.  I would have thought about why I enjoyed it.  Was it the writing? Yes.  Was it the challenge? Yes.  Was it the novelty? Yes.  Was it about how much I enjoyed working with the more senior lawyer on the file?  Yes, that too.  (I might have also realized that what I was doing was creative and that alone would have been a huge insight, since I did not think of myself as the "creative type".  BTW, this was a total misconception.  We are all creative.  It's just a question of how we are creative....but that's another blog post.)   All of those questions and answers - that reflection - could have helped me to then be more proactive and look for more experiences like that.  More flow.   And then I would have been able to say that I had found some passion in my work as a lawyer.  Those experiences would have generated more positivity for me and who knows what would have been different - at least I would have felt a whole lot more positive.  The fact that I did not feel passionate about my work made it much easier for me to decide to be at home with my young children.  I leaned away from work toward my children and home for which I did (and do) feel passionate.   I learned so much from being "at home" and loved much about that time.    It shaped who I am now and it helps me to be a better coach.   However, I also had this yearning for work outside of my family life that I was passionate about - there was something missing for me until I found coaching.  I do love "being" a coach.  I'm leaning in now.

What about you?

Where do you find flow in your life?

How could you create more flow in your life?

If you are eager for more ideas about finding your passion and what to do when you have found it, here are some steps you can take:

1. Sign up for my newsletter to get more ideas and tips to prompt your reflection (put your name and email in the box up on the right on this page).  Periodically, I make special offers such as the opportunity to apply for a complimentary coaching conversation with me - a Shifting Gears Strategy Session valued at $175.   This session could really help you get clearer on your passion and where you want to go with it (i.e. your vision for your future).
2. Sign up for a complimentary, secure journal on my journaling site. Once you are there, indicate in a journal entry that finding your passion interests you and say a bit about why and what's challenging for you.  If you select "Have a coach review my journal for free",  I will see your entry and review it and offer you some questions and more ideas to help you along in your reflection.   More info here.
3. Read  Lean In: Women, Work and The Will To Lead.  Sheryl Sandberg's book is all about helping you lean in more to this work you are passionate about, as are the Lean In circles she is encouraging people to create, via Leanin.org.

If you are really keen and determined, do all of the above!  What are you waiting for?  Make some room for this in your life!

As always, I love to receive your comments.

P.S. And to tie this post to managing energy, a theme in many of my posts: feeling passionate generates energy - emotional energy and the human spirit kind.  Then the question is: what  are you going to do with all that wonderful energy?

P.P.S. I have blogged about passion before - see this post for more: Elements and LEAPS in Las Vegas.

Photo credit: EJP Photo / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

For as long as I can remember, my maternal grandmother,  Mildred Maclean ("DD" to me), would make the plum pudding for our Christmas dinner.  (Post about DD.) A few years ago, when she was well into her 90s, I took over the role of plum pudding maker.  I now make the pudding, bolstered by my grandmother's notes, delivered to me in a cute little journal she bought for the purpose, as well as my good friend, The Joy of Cooking.  At first there was bit of a learning curve and a getting over the knowledge of the actual not so healthy ingredients for this incredibly delicious concoction.   I also had to learn about steaming puddings, which is quite a production, but not hard once I got the hang of it and had the right tools.

You can see from the accompanying photo, that the pudding is ceremoniously served flaming, after letting it hang out in brandy or rum for several weeks and then giving it a good douse just before the flame hits.  It's quite a sight.  And then the exquisite taste sensations follow, when the pudding is served accompanied by the delectable soft rum sauce.

This is a mutli-dimensional food experience, one which does affect several of the different types of energy I have been blogging about.  Two blog posts ago, I made the observation that eating really isn't always just about managing physical energy; there is usually an emotional component, maybe a mental and often a spiritual component.  Having just made, served and eaten several helpings of pudding in recent weeks (it keeps well as a leftover too, amazing! :)), pudding was top of mind for me as an example of food that is more than just managing physical energy.  So let's take a quick look at this pudding experience more closely, shall we?

Spiritual energy, to remind us, is about acting in harmony with one's deepest values and about feeling a connection to something greater than oneself.   So, in this case, making, serving and eating the pudding, does have a spiritual component for me on several levels.  Making it makes me feel like I am contributing something special and significant to our family.  The recipe makes two good sized puddings so there is always enough for my nuclear family and one for my extended family - this gives me the connection to something larger.   On the values side, I place great importance on my capacity to love and be loved - in other words, it's all about loving connection for me.    Making the pudding makes me feel connected to my grandmother, especially when I go over her careful hand-written notes to me or call her for a quick bit of advice.  I also feel more connected to my mother who is often hosting many people at Christmas-time and feels grateful to me for making the pudding.  Finally, I receive the gratitude from the rest of my family members, which boosts my positive emotions (giving me emotional energy).

I should say that, this year, as I often do, I had the negative conversations with myself about not having enough time, leaving it too late (should be done about a month in advance), and general grumpy scrooginess about how much work Christmas is.   These are draining conversations - ever had any like this? :)   And to boot, when I finally got around to it, I realized I had actually forgotten to buy the "plums" - the raisins  - and had to run out down to the store to get some to mix into the already prepared batter.  This was after I had already sent my son down to get more flour - we were low on that too.   However, when I open myself up to the bigger picture, as I wrote about above, I am able to shift gears and become energized, rather than frustrated by, the experience and the task itself.  I managed to accomplish this shifting of gears  after a few deep slow breaths, upon returning with the raisins and stirring them into the batter.

So making, serving and eating the pudding is an annual ritual that contributes to my managing of my spiritual energy -  if I allow it to, if I am open to it.  It does fill me up spiritually, as well as physically and emotionally.   It nourishes my soul, so to speak.  You could really call it the "pudding of love".   This all being said, we can find easily the spiritual and emotional components in everyday food experiences if we look.   For example, I think this way in terms of soup that I make and serve to my family too - a big bowl of love served up piping hot.  Gathering family or friends together to eat can beautifully create this effect, regardless of what is being served - even cereal for dinner.   I have a friend who bakes up goodies to take to work to the team she manages - from what I can tell, this fuels everyone involved spiritually and emotionally, as well as physically.   (Have a look at this inspiring book, The Family Dinner by Laurie David, if you want ideas.) What about you - what foods and circumstances serve this purpose for you and those around you, whether you have prepared them yourself or not?

As always, I love to receive your comments and ideas.

PS Upon reflection, I have realized that my statement: "Where I am at now, essentially, is that I see food as fuel for my body primarily and, as a far second, as something delicious, to be shared,  experimented with, etc."  in this earlier post isn't quite accurate.  The deliciousness, the sharing, the other experiences are very important to me too.    I am very focused on the healthiness of the food I eat, it is true, but I also do love to eat things that aren't so healthy.   This approach offered, by Alice Domar in Self Nurture: Learning to Care For Yourself As Effectively As You Care For Everyone Else p. 134, when she talks of eating for comfort and pleasure, is a more appropriate guideline for me to keep in mind.  It's the 80/20 plan -

"If 80 percent of the food we eat is nutritious - low to moderate sources of protein, including fish, chicken and dairy products; fresh fruits, vegetables beans and seeds; whole grains and breads - then we can allow ourselves to enjoy 20 percent that fall outside these categories.  In this manner, we can allow ourselves the comfort foods - chocolate chip cookies, cakes, ice cream, and chips - with far less guilt and a clear sense that we have not abandoned our physical health or betrayed our bodies."

What about you? Does this work for you?

PPS Thank you to my assistant Rebecca who read this piece a few days ago and shared her insightful comments and editing assistance!

This is a post I made in 2010 on my own site before I began blogging for Northumberland Kids.  I think the message is just as good now as it was then.  Enjoy!

I wonder what would it be like if, this holiday, along with our turkey, we all sat down to a feast of strengths cooked up by every person around the table?

I had the privilege of attending the International Coach Federation's Annual Conference this Fall in Fort Worth, Texas.  This is the third such conference I have attended.  At each conference, I feel like a giant sponge just soaking up all the new ideas I experience.  I then like to spend the next year digesting all of the material.  I have so much fun!  Anyway,  one of  the speakers I heard  in Texas was Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener. (See a review of his book "Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching" by Louisa Jewell.  This book comes highly recommended to coaches interested in incorporating positive psychology into their practices.  It's on my Christmas list!) His presentation was focused on strengths. He called them the "back door" to happiness.  Using our strengths is energizing.  Happiness is beneficial.  It doesn't just feel good. It is good.  Happiness leads to desirable outcomes: happy people are more creative, have more friends and have better health.

Biswas-Diener demonstrated his technique for us.  He encouraged us to try the exercise with a partner right then and there.  We were to share with each other a time when we were at our absolute best. Afterwards,  Biswas-Diener pointed out how such a conversation creates a bond between the two people involved    It is intimate and special to hear someone open up (and be vulnerable) and talk of themselves in this way.  Biswas-Diener  talked about how in coaching we create an artificial environment where it is "ok" to "brag" about our strengths.  That idea of creating this artificial environment has stayed with me.  Hence my question about a feast of strengths.  Why does the environment have to be artificial?  Let's make it real!

Here is a way to bring strengths to the table at your holiday feast:

Turn to the person beside you and ask them to tell you a story of when they were at their absolute best.  Listen to them attentively. Listen for where they get  energized, where they sound proud of themselves.  Share what you notice with them.  Pick a word that you think describes the strength they were showing in the story and offer it to them.  See their reaction.  Don't be offended if it's not bang on.  Your offering might be enough to help the person see their strength for themselves and share it with you.   Have fun!  I have a feeling your feast will be extra-delicious this year!

P.S. Here  is some more reading about strengths in my friend and colleague Lisa Samson's Nov 30/10 post "CSV vs DSM".

P.P.S. I am "serving up" my strengths here on this website and blog.  (In keeping with my desire to be transparent, my signature strengths (derived from the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, a free questionnaire)  are: the capacity to love and be loved, curiosity, kindness and generosity, judgment and critical thinking and gratitude.  See my second blog post for more info on how to do this for yourself.)  Please feel free to take my strengths as you like, with some seasoning (maybe not too large a grain of salt!), hot, cold, lukewarm, in small servings, with ketchup, pickles etc.!

This post is about noticing disconnect and encouraging vulnerability.  By "disconnected", I am referring to a situation in which our perception of ourselves is very different from how others see us.

But before I get into those subjects, I want to reflect a bit on the effects of my last post.  It took me a few days to recover from that post.  I am so happy I wrote it, and I am aware of how my body and mind reacted to the effort.   It makes more me sensitive and empathetic to my clients and others I know who are trying to make change and grow.  It can be scary and hard, that's for sure.   It can play out in aches and pains (a stiff neck and achy hips for me) and constant barrages of negative thinking from our inner critic (aka "gremlin" or "voice of judgment"), that voice inside our head which really wants us to stay the same and not grow.  I needed to manage my energy after that experience which did deplete me emotionally at the time.  By contrast, writing the post fuelled my human spirit energy - it made me feel more connected to others and to something bigger than I am.   I also felt proud for being more courageous than usual,  which is something I value for myself and admire in others.   This is another aspect of human spirit energy - acting in a way that is aligned with a deeply-held value.

So that all being said,  I think it's time to move on to the core subjects of this blog post.  All this reflecting about my food story years ago made me remember an anecdote that I think really helps emphasize this idea of being disconnected.  My wise high school classmate Joanne aptly expressed disconnect in her comment on my last post: "You never know what is going on at home".

This is the anecdote I want to share with you to illustrate disconnect .  One day during the time in my early high school years when I was dealing with bulimia (see my previous post for the background),  I received a letter in the mail; the mail arrived after school and I was the only one home.  I was excited; I could see it was from one of the boys at school.  However, I became shocked and so upset when I read the contents.  It was hate mail from a group of boys who I thought were my friends.  They lambasted me for being too skinny (of all things!).   Specifically,  the boys accused me of  being "wind woman", of being so skinny I could be blown away by the wind.    And here I thought I was too fat; I was obsessed by my "fat" thighs.   What a disconnect between my perception of myself and what others saw!   I never showed the letter to anyone and ripped it up and threw it away immediately.  But the way I felt upon receiving that letter is still pretty darn clear to me.   I felt a deep sense of shame:  because of who I was, I had caused people to think and write those things.  I also felt angry.   Was it because I was good at math and was a keen student who liked to answer questions in class?  Was I trying to shine too brightly and needed to be knocked down a few pegs?  Today, I know that there were many issues swirling around, many of which I was not a part of, for the boys who wrote that letter.  They were likely having a hard time adjusting to high school too.  And, as I reflect on it now, they may have done me a favour in helping me realize that my perception of my body was completely out of line with how others saw me - that disconnect.  (By the way, in its extreme this can be body dysmorphic disorder.)

I chose that story because it is such a blatant example of the disconnect.  More often, I think it is harder to put your finger on it.  One way or another, I think we feel uncomfortable when that disconnect exists.  I know from my coach training, and now from experience with many clients, that the path to feeling the sense of belonging and connection with others that we all crave as human beings is through greater transparency -  when our "outside" slides into closer alignment with our "inside".    We can start to feel comfortable in our own skin, more often and in more roles we play personally and professionally. To get to that place requires vulnerability and an unmasking of sorts.

So, how do we begin to unmask ourselves and be a bit vulnerable to begin to slide into alignment and rid ourselves of disconnect?   Let's turn to Brené Brown for help.  True vulnerability, as Brené explains, is:"uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure". And "vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage."   Brene also debunks a number of the "myths of vulnerability" including the "I don't do vulnerability" myth.  She warns that if we don't "do vulnerability, it does us".

When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviours that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.  Experiencing vulnerability isn't a choice - the only choice we have is how we're going to respond when we are confronted with uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.   As a huge fan of the band Rush, this seems like the perfect place to throw in a quote from their song "Freewill":  "If you choose not to decide, you will still have made a choice."  (p. 45 in Daring Greatly.)

So, we can pay a high price for thinking we can avoid vulnerability;  we may be not be behaving in a way that reflects who we want to be.   We must instead try choose how we are going to be vulnerable and that requires courage.    Some reading I did for my book club last month can help us gain some  more insight here too.   We were reading The Rules of Civility", by Amor Towles, about a young woman on her own in New York City in 1938.   This quote  from p.3 struck a strong chord with me since I was composing these posts at the time:

Anyone who has ridden the subway twice a day to earn their bread knows how it goes:  When you board, you exhibit the same persona you use with your colleagues and acquaintances.  You've carried it through the turnstile and past the sliding doors, so that your fellow pssengers can tell who you are - cocky or cautious, amorous or indifferent, loaded or on the dole.  But you find yourself a seat and the train gets under way; it comes to one station and then another; people get off and others get on.  And under the influence of the cradlelike rocking of the train, your carefully crafted persona begins to slip away.   The super-ego dissolves as your mind begins to wander aimlessly over your cares and dreams; or better yet, it drifts into an ambient hypnosis, where even cares and dreams recede and the peaceful silence of the cosmos pervades.

It happens to all of us.  It's just a question of how many stops it takes.  Two for some.  Three for others. Sixty-eighth Street.  Fifty-ninth.  Fifty-first. Grand Central.  What a relief it was, those few minutes with our guard let down and our gaze inexact, finding the one true solace that human isolation allows.
I think that this quote hints at where we can start being vulnerable and more courageous: with ourselves.  We can unmask with ourselves and have an honest conversation with ourselves about what is going on for us, what's important to us and why....in a journal, perhaps (you may know I am a huge proponent of journaling).   Having an opportunity to be alone to reflect is so important!  Through such reflection, we can get an idea of how we may be disconnected, and how we might realign our carefully crafted persona with what is actually inside us.   Wearing a mask all the time, maintaining that carefully crafted persona, can be exhausting, can't it?    Imagine how much energy we would have left for other parts of our lives if we weren't working on keeping our mask in place all the time.

Once we have been vulnerable and honest with ourselves, maybe it will be easier to be vulnerable with someone else, and that disconnect will begin to be a thing of the past.  What do you think?

Here are some other questions to ponder...

• Who have you chosen to be vulnerable with?  What has that been like for you?
• When do you wear a mask that you would like to take off?
• As you begin your rounds of holiday parties, ask yourself what parts of you you want to take into those parties and why? In other words, set your intention about how you want to be at those events.
• How do you reconcile being the professional, the expert in your field, with also being vulnerable?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts!

This is definitely the hardest blog post I have written since I started two years ago.  I have been thinking about it for over a year, debating with myself about whether to share this story with you.   After building up my courage with some consults with several wise women, and listening more closely to my own intuition, here I am, writing this.

I want to share my food story with you in the hope that it will help some of you to develop a better relationship to food.   (Composing and recomposing this, reflecting and re-reflecting has helped me already, personally and in my parenting.)  To tell my food story in integrity, I need to share with you what used to be a shameful secret: I had bulimia in high school.   It was a secret until fairly recently, when I was compelled to share it in the hope that it would help someone close to me.  I do wish I had had the courage to share this years ago, particularly when a friend of mine was suffering from bulimia.  Maybe it would have helped her in some way -  to feel a little less alone, perhaps?    What I know now, from hearing Brene Brown speak earlier this month in London England at the International Coach Federation Conference, is that shame can only exist when it is unspoken.   When we tell someone about our shameful experience, it can no longer be shameful.   So, I want to transform this story from a shameful one to a helpful one.   I think and hope that this food story I am sharing with you will be helpful in that you will see where I came from and how I got to the place where I am.  I am happy to say that now, I have a very healthy (not perfect! :))  relationship with food.

Where I am at now, essentially, is that I see food as fuel for my body primarily and, as a far second, as something delicious, to be shared,  experimented with, etc.   This mindset, combined with the fact that I am determined to get plenty of exercise every day and sleep well too, is what keeps my relationship with food healthy.   If I don't exercise enough or get really overtired, then I start to eat more unhealthily.  Those three elements,  exercise, sleep and eating, are all very closely intertwined for me.    If I am really tired, I still always exercise, because I know I will sleep better the next night and also eat better too.  I am really proactive about the exercise because I know how much it helps me.   It's taken me a while to get here to this healthier place and I think what might be helpful to you is to hear what some of the milestones/aha moments were.

As I have been trying to write this thing, I have realized how so very complex our relationship to food is.  When I try to overlay this story with my blogging theme of managing energy not time, I realized that choosing food, preparing food, eating food, even growing food, and so on, can touch each of the four types of energy:  physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. (For new readers, managing energy, not time, is a topic I have been blogging about for over a year. It has been an overarching theme.    I think this is a critical approach to be aware of, for all of us, including the busy professional woman for whom there is never enough time.   Here is a link to my first post on the subject.)

Part of this story and my background is rooted in the historical and cultural context of meat, potatoes and a "veg" upbringing in Southwestern Ontario  in the 1970s and '80s.    That was the norm, though in my family we did branch out from that quite a bit.   My Mum made lots of homemade food and my parents were highly conscious of food as nutirition (my Dad is an endocrinologist who has spent his career focusing on the challenges of diabetes, so there was plenty of knowledge in the house).   But I was growing up to be a striving perfectionist and, despite those relatively solid foundations around food, in high school, I began this habit of binging and throwing up after school, totally in secret.   I got into a habit of eating whatever I could get my hands on and/or concoct, watching the "Y&R" and then throwing up.   I was really stressed in high school in those first couple of years, trying to fit in (not unusual, I know).   I was a bit younger than most and also the first-born child, so a little sheltered, and not so savvy.    My body, being the resilient organism that it is,  didn't really seem to be much affected by this harm I was inflicting upon it, so I don't think I fully appreciated the seriousness of what I was doing.

Somehow, I managed to stop that damaging habit before I hurt my body more seriously.   At this point my memory is quite vague as to how or when I stopped exactly.  I think the habit seemed to fade out of existence over the period of a few months.  I think the fact that I became a bit more sure of myself socially at school, and the fact that I felt that I belonged to a group outside of school (a downhill ski racing team), was enough to bolster me back up.    I know that when I gained significant weight during a 3 month exchange in France in grade 12  (a chocolate croissant a day at recess will do that), I relied on diet and exercise to get back to my healthy weight and I did not fall back on bulimia.   My confidence and self-trust grew tremendously with that experience too, which must also have helped keep me on a healthy track. (I can write more about self-trust and food in a subsequent post if it's going to be helpful.)

Moving out of high school to university at McGill for undergrad and then U of T for law school,  I do recall some of the "Freshman 15" creeping on, but I was getting more exercise, feeling better about myself, learning a ton, and having a lot of fun, so things were looking up.   I do remember stocking my desk drawers with oreos and smarties and eating a lot of those when studying, which was obviously not a healthy approach.   (I know now that those kinds of "snacks" need to be at least three feet away from us to lessen temptation.)  During that time I also ate a lot of "kraft dinner" and other not so healthy foods, just because I could (they weren't in our house growing up) and they were cheap.   I know this is pretty typical.   The focus on plain white pasta continued for me into my early working and married life.   I drank diet coke almost every day while working and tried to eat low fat and low sugar - meaning I ingested way too many chemicals at that time.  When I was posted to my law firm's Hong Kong office for 3 months in 1996, I gained extra weight since I tried every kind of food offered to me (except chicken feet :)).   I realized what was going on and increased my exercise while I was still away.  This shift  helped me to continue to enjoy the adventure I was on food-wise while still remaining a healthy weight, so that was an important learning experience for me.

So, all in all, at this point, as a young adult, my relationship to food was ok but not great.   I could have been eating a much more balanced diet with much more emphasis on fruits and vegetables and whole grains and good fats,  but really didn't realize this at the time.  I know part of this is because we were not as well informed then as we are now, due to more recent advances in nutrition research and food labelling.

The next big shift happened after I had my first baby over 14 years ago.   Of course, during pregnancy, I saw and felt my body grow larger.  At times, I confess, I did feel fat and somewhat out of control, which I know is normal.   Someone else was sharing my body temporarily.   I did my best to eat well for two and get exercise, though I was a little nervous about over-exerting myself, understandably.  I did consume a lot of hot chocolate/decaf coffee and jujubes at work in the afternoons to fuel myself, not really realizing that I could have been making better choices if I really wanted to be productive at work.   My baby was born very healthy and I was grateful. And I was in awe of what my body could do, both during pregnancy and then after, as I was able to nurse him and then slowly lose the weight I had gained while pregnant.   While women get pregnant and give birth every day, I am nevertheless in awe of what our female bodies can do!!!   This feeling of awe has definitely helped me treat my body better than I did when I was younger, and helped me in my two subsequent pregnancies and recoveries.  I think this feeling of awe is accessible to us whether or not we ever have children.  Our bodies are really amazing organisms.  Period.

When my first son was one, I joined a wonderful organization called Metro Mothers' Network ("Mumnet", for short).   Mumnet turned out to be a critical part of my development in so many ways - definitely enough for the subject of another post.  For today, the relevant part is the fact that sometimes we had guest speakers and, shortly after my daughter was born, around 2001, we had Mairlyn Smith come to speak to us.   She was hilarious; she is a comedian and a cookbook writer and Mumnet alum.  Her latest book, then called The Ultimate Healthy Eating Plan That Still Leaves Room for Chocolate, co-written with Liz Pearson, became my bible after that morning with her.  It was exactly what I needed.  I had been feeling a little lost and overwhelmed with the responsibility of providing a healthy diet for my family, day in, day out.  Half the book was nutritional information and explanations as to why we should eat good fats, whole grains and even why  a little chocolate and some wine could be good for us.   The other half was all the recipes that put that wisdom into action.   All of the sudden I was empowered and felt fantastic about what I could make for my family that would be healthy and delicious.  Since that time, my commitment  and interest in healthy eating and how it relates to us personally, our children, and now our planet, has continued to grow.   (I have pinned more of my favourite cookbooks here.)

So, as I said above, I am focusing on how this story relates to managing physical energy.  I have found that if I appreciate, and am even in awe of, my body every day and fuel it with food that is going to provide long term fuel, preferably food that is both healthy and delicious, I am able to manage my physical energy very well.  That is, very well, if I am also getting sufficient  exercise and sleep , as I have alluded to above and blogged about.  Though, often my sleep is interrupted because I am a mother of three.   Even when this happens, if I exercise, I do still eat pretty healthily.   Sometimes I rely too much on coffee though.

What about you?  If awe doesn't work for you, what other positive mindset could you put yourself in to help cultivate healthy eating habits?  Love and compassion for yourself?    What also helps me is to remember how badly I need my body to be healthy so that I can accomplish all those wonderful items on my very long to-do lists.   Also, I have found my body to be a great refuge from my mind, an escape from my mind chatter (see this blog post).   I really value having that escape and want to keep it open as an option as long as possible by maintaining healthy habits.

So, in conclusion, to maintain what I consider to be a healthy relationship to food and manage my physical energy, my advice to myself is this:

• eat food that is predominantly healthy fuel for my body and also preferably as delicious as possible;
• keep the health of the planet in mind too and eat local, organic and lots of vegetarian meals as often as possible
• exercise every day so that I crave healthier food and it tastes even better
• aim for a good 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep a night (this often gets eroded due to children's exploits!)
• sit down to eat and focus on my food  (This is a hard one for me and I will discuss it more in relation to mindful eating; I tend to eat as I am preparing food.)
• keep the sweets to a minimum and really savour them as I am eating them
• encourage my family to take a similar approach

I am not a food expert so I am not giving this advice to anyone but myself.  I am, however, a coach and coaches work with questions more than advice, so...

What about this post helped you?
Have you experienced something similar? Different?
What would you like to hear more about?

Please comment below or send me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .  I really look forward to hearing from you.

As professional women, we tend to be in our heads a lot - analyzing, judging, sorting, drafting, calculating.  Lots of left side of the brain stuff.   It is quite easy to begin to neglect our bodies when we are so in our heads.    However, in doing so, we are really cheating ourselves.  It is obvious, but I think worth stating, that caring for our bodies is fundamental to sustainable excellent performance at work and in the rest of our lives.   I know, from personal experience and that of my clients, that the first things we need to establish in order to flourish are good solid habits of self care.  Yes, I know we won't be perfect at this; that's ok.  Let's just try for "good enough" most of the time.  We need to create "good enough" habits so that we have that framework to go back to after a hard day or week or even month when we did not meet "good enough".    In earlier posts,  I have looked at sleeping and breathing in terms of managing physical energy, but I have not covered food and exercise.  Now's the time to look at exercise and next will be food.

Those who know me well are aware that I put a lot of emphasis on regular exercise.  This summer, in anticipation of this blog post, I read a fantastic book called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John Ratey, MD.   Ratey explains what aerobic exercise actually does to our brain and why we can feel so good after exercising.*  Ratey validates how I have felt about exercise over the years - I view it as basically "medicinal" for me.  If I don't get it, things spiral downward.  I feel half-alive.  Drab.  I don't sleep as well, I am more irritable and unfocused, I am more tired and I reach for high sugar, high fat foods and caffeine to try to get the boost I crave.    When I do get regular exercise (and these days I am striving for at least a half hour a day, to walk my talk), I sleep better, am less tired, feel more positive more often and, while I still love my sweets, I actually seek out healthy food to eat.  I see the food as fuel to give me sustainable energy, not just a quick fix.

Ratey explores excercise's effect on the challenges of stress, anxiety, depression, ADD, homonal changes, aging and learning.  He shares and explains the results of many studies to make his points.   Since I work with professsional women in stressful environments, I will share my take on what Ratey says about stress and exercise.    He says that exercise helps to innoculate us against stress.  Exercise helps us to recover from stress more quickly.    This is interesting, since exercise itself is a form of stress.   Exercise makes us more resilient.  Some stress is good, psychologically and biologically.    For example, challenges are what allow us to strive and grow and learn.   (As Daniel Pink talks about in Drive, mastery of a challenge or skill is one of three key components of intrinsic motivation.  I know this is a key point for professional women; we tend to seek out challenges.)  At the cellular level, stress sparks brain growth.  From p.61:
"Assuming that the stress is not too severe and that the neurons are given time to recover, the connections become stronger and our mental machinery works better.   Stress is not a matter of good and bad, it's a matter of necessity. "
So the key is to exercise daily to build resiliency and our ability to recover from stress.   And also key is to allow time for recovery from stressful situations so the stress does not become chronic - we have got to turn off and put away our "iPhones" on a regular basis!

This is also worth quoting:

"The stress of exercise is predictable and controllable because you're initiating the action, and those two variables are key to psychology.   With exercise, you gain a sense of mastery and self-confidence.   As you develop awareness of your own ability to manage stress and not rely on negative coping mechanisms, you increase your ability to "snap out of it", so to speak.   You learn to trust that you can deal with it..." (p.79)
This speaks to me!  You?

One late August night a couple of weeks ago, I was not sleeping well.  I thought to myself "I didn't get enough exercise today".   Then I asked myself - "What is this about "getting"?  Was I expecting someone to hand it to me on a silver platter?"   Then I decided I should have said to myself: "I didn't take enough exercise today", or "I didn't make room for enough exercise today."   That rephrasing is more proactive; being proactive is one of my key values.   Why wouldn't I be proactive about something that is so critically important to me, which when I do it, make me feel fully alive?   And also,  "taking exercise" fits with my feeling that it is medicinal.   Just like I am quick to take ibuprofen for a headache, why wouldn't I be quick to take my exercise?  So reading Spark has inspired me to be even more proactive about taking my exercise and also about passing this wisdom on to my family, and to my clients, where appropriate.  It has also inspired me to shake my routine up a little and try new things, and that's another blog post....

Exercise is critical for us in managing our physical energy.   Our bodies are designed to move!  To perform at our best and to be fully engaged, we need to build exercise into our lives every day.   Ratey gives some advice on how to begin.   Hiring a trainer for a few sessions is an excellent place to start, he says.   He also gives other advice too about how you can structure your workouts to greatest effect.  Ratey's last words in the chapter on stress (p. 84):

"Just keep in mind that the more stress you have, the more your body needs to move to keep your brain running smoothly."

Whatever exercise you choose to do, I invite you to schedule it in to your calendar like the important priority (big rock!) that it is.

What works for you? What doesn't?  How could you make sure you move your body for at least 30 minutes a day, like the research suggests we need to be healthy in the long term?  (For more facts and inspiration, see this fantastic 9 minute video Twenty-three and a Half Hours - what's the single best thing we can do for our health? by Dr. Mike Evans here in the Annex in Toronto.  It has had almost 3 million views to date!)

Check out my resources page for some of my recommendations.   And also let me know how you take your exercise in the comments below!

*  Ratey focuses on aerobic exercise in the book, since that what the studies focused on.  When I talk about my personal experience, I am referring to all types, especially running, yoga, pilates and weights.

For part of last summer, like every summer of my life, I spent some time up at our family cottage on Blue Sea Lake, in Quebec's Gatineau Hills, north of Ottawa.  Our extended family has been going to this place for seven generations. When I am there, I make a point of getting out on the old railroad track, which has been converted into a fitness trail.  I love to run and walk on it.  So, on one of these occasions last summer, I was out on the trail with my dog, and I had an epiphany.

Coinciding with the launch of my first newsletter this month, I thought that this would be a good time to review what I have been blogging about for the last year and give some hints and some direction as to where I am going.

First a little background.  This blog post is based on an email I recently sent out in gratitude to the participants of the Making Room For You Assessment.  (The Assessment is still open and if you are a female professional,  I invite you to take it!  I will then send you the series of emails I created to thank the participants.  I have received great feedback about how helpful the content has been to readers.)

Hi Readers, I am sorry for the long time between posts.   I am happy to be back here blogging again!

My family and I were lucky enough to be able to go to Florida last week for March Break.   We had a really lovely holiday; lots of good "family of five" time as well as fun times with grandparents and a great aunt and great uncle.

Happy New Year Everyone!

To start of this year of blogging I thought you might enjoy Michele Wong's inspiring story below.   I met Michele last November at a Young Women In Law Charity Gala  which was held to raise money for the Belinda Stronach Foundation.  I was struck by Michele's brimming enthusiasm and clear passion for her work and life.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate Hanukkah! And Happy Holidays to everyone!   May there be lots of light of all kinds in your lives this season.  (You can see from our front yard display that we are working hard on this.  And this is just the front yard....!)  I wish you a wonderful 2012, with lots of Room For You included!

I am sitting here at home on this wet, grey December Monday morning, feeling a little unfocused.  This is ironic, given that I really want to write about mental energy and how focusing mentally can help us manage our mental energy.  However, as I write this I realize, maybe this is just what I need!

This post explores "worry" versus "concern" and connects these ideas with exciting research on positive emotions.  Remember, I have been loosely exploring managing our energy not our time since the summer and this post fits with managing our emotional energy.