Ho‘ohana Aloha

Funny how some mantras just come to you, seemingly out of the blue, but they really are very perfect.

Good conversation tips. They sync up pretty nicely with the Listening Challenge we are working on.

…therefore, our next D5M Ruzuku challenge will be delayed until sometime after the holidays… details …

I imagine there has got to be something for everyone here if you are looking for inspiration… I love that people continue to celebrate blogging. Period.

Timely for those of us now within the Ruzuku Listening Challenge, and quite useful for everyone.

Susan:

I can think of no more important place for our leadership to make a difference than in our families.  The Holiday Season is a particularly opportune time for us to lead the way for something new and maybe even miraculous to show up.  Wherever in the world you may live the holidays have a way of amplifying the best and worst of our family relationships, add to our stress levels in both good and bad ways, and heighten our emotions.

I appreciated Susan’s list of 5 ways, but I actually got the most out of the tip in her preface:

You might start with creating an intention for the season.  What do you want this season to be like for you and for your family this year?  Last year my intention was to “stop sweating the small stuff and really enjoy the important stuff”.   In the spirit of that intention we declared no more adult gifts.  Instead of running around shopping for each other the days before Christmas we spent time together at the beach.

Therefore, I left this comment for her, and comment-wrote my way into a holiday mantra for myself!

Susan, I really love this idea of having an intention for the holidays. This year it will definitely need to be “Christmas is in my head first, arriving with me wherever I am, all month long” for it will not be the actual day… the only time we will be able to get our family all-together in the same place will be between the 14th and 18th of the month, and away from home. I know it will be wonderful, yet that also gives me another thirteen days to New Year to fill joyfully rather than allowing them to fall flat in the aftermath. Your post is getting me to be more inventive yet still focus on that mantra of decking the halls of my head space!

Guess what? There is no more “business as usual” for 2009. It is December 1 (yesterday even happened to be Cyber Monday!) and you can’t stop the rest of the world from being in the holiday mindset any more than you could stop a tidal wave.

Here’s some better advice…

Introducing our December learning theme on Joyful Jubilant Learning… really looking forward to the stories sure to flow from this one!

Hard to argue with these… however “must read” is not enough. Will be a more valuable exercise to journal your self-reflection for each, one a day over the next week, and see if they open some directional doors for you.