CATALYST NEWS

Eva Dahm, CPCC, MA

February, 2004

Dedicated to your growth and exploration

POTPOURRI OF REFLECTIONS

As you well know, readers, if you want to know what's up with me all you have to do is read my newsletter. This month I am sharing numerous insights and musings. Hope one or two will be useful for you. Enjoy and share with a loved one.

SPRING

"When is spring coming?" my mind plays over and over. "I hate winter." Then I go outside and hear the birds singing joyously. Whether it is 20 or 50 degrees, they share their songs. I wonder what blocks me from expressing (or even feeling) my joy everyday? Joy is being alive on a beautiful planet. What blocks you from joy?

Donna Eden, author of Energy Medicine, shared a simple way to really connect your brain with your joyous feelings. Whenever you see a sunset or beautiful array of clouds that bring your spirits up, simply tap for a few seconds on the place between your eyebrows on your forehead. (The third eye) This will ingrain the feelings in your mind. Try it!

COMMUNITY

Going through a serious family illness has reminded me what I have known for years now. I think they should teach high school students the value of friends and family in the tough times as well as the times of celebration. It's crucial to have like-minded people who can be there and listen whether it's joys or heartaches.

When I was divorced years ago, I especially appreciated the handful of close friends who would listen and commiserate as well as take me places to have some fun together. Handling grief and loss should be a required class along with balancing a checkbook.

TAX SEASON

Yes, it's that time again. (I know a great accountant if you need a referral.) I am reminded of the importance for itemized deduction of making charitable contributions.
We hear reminders in December to donate before the end of year cutoff. However, some organizations need more support in winter than others might. Shelters are busier in these months if that is an interest you have.

I give fairly regularly to Greater Chicago Food Depository. I have worked there twice and see how they recover food that might otherwise be trashed. They pack hundreds or perhaps thousands of food boxes for a family to eat from for a week. What an eye-opener and window into the very different lives others in this area live. Where can you give your time or money today?

ACTS OF KINDNESS

In the ancient chakra system, your heart is about loving others and yourself. Another heart theme is how do you serve others? Does your job involve serving or caring for others? How do you assist other spiritual beings in this world? If your job is caring for others, how well do you care for YOU?

When are you moved to assist others as you walk through your day? I recall grocery shopping one day and discovering a very small, older woman struggling to take a package of Pepsi down from a display over her head. I KNEW I was there to get it down for her--no hesitation. Or the time I was waiting to board a plane with a mother carrying a child and all the assorted necessities of having a child. I knew in a flash that I was to assist them on the plane.

Have you been called to a similar act of love-a stranger helping another who they will never see again? Have you heard the nudge to act and ignored it or talked yourself out of it? To stop your car and let another go ahead? To take a shopping cart back for an elderly couple since you were going in anyway?

Do you hear the nudges? Do you respond? Random acts of kindness improve individual's moods (yours and theirs) and then they pass it along to lift the spirit of others.

SPEAKING YOUR GRATITUDES AND REGRETS

Many years ago I found myself back in Iowa City and looked up my first coworker, the editor of the University of Iowa Press. I sat with him and shared how he had taught me to pay attention to detail and to be a professional marketing/sales person. He was surprised and pleased. I learned later that he died a few months after my visit. I was so glad to have expressed my gratitude to him personally. Who do you need to thank for their role in your development?

On his birthday, I honored my father with a framed poem about his accomplishments as an engineer and as a father. Well, it wasn't a literary masterpiece. And he understood how much love and gratitude went into every word.

Feedback that is too general-good job is not as meaningful as specific information about what the individual did well. "Your attention to detail in the books we published was a model for me in how to be a professional. And your sense of decorum was always a yardstick for my own behavior at our book celebration events," was what I told him. Who are you giving feedback and how could you improve the impact by thinking of specifics.

I recently expressed a regret that had been gnawing at me lately. I wrote and talked to the individual concerned and received a marvelous moment of forgiveness and a reminder that perhaps my recollection of the situation was not the most accurate perspective. What an overwhelming lovely intimate moment we created. How fabulous to feel that forgiveness and acceptance of who I had been in the situation so many years ago. Healing happened. Who do you need to forgive? Who might you want to ask for forgiveness?

If you feel you could have done more or been more for another at some time in the past, it is healing to speak that sorrow. I also encourage you to recall you are judging yourself then from the perspective of who you are today. You know more now and would be different in any situation now versus years ago. So be gentle with yourself also.

SHARE YOUR MEMORIES

Our family was together recently to celebrate a wedding. Such a memorable time! Every moment of laughter and talking was heart-warming. During our time together, memories were shared and compared. And since then, my Mom wrote up even more memories of her sister who died at a young age.

If you are looking for a way to honor someone, sharing moments of their past is a touching way to reveal who they were. I not only received glimpses into my Aunt's childhood, but a true sense of my mother as a sister and friend. I will cherish these stories forever. And I know my cousins feel the same to be shown the joy of their mother's soul.

Is there someone in your family who would be blessed by writing some stories down to share? A truly unique gift.

PURPOSE OF LIFE

If the Dalai Lama is correct, our life purpose is to be compassionate, kind and loving to others. I also add loving to ourselves to that purpose. So do you need to honor another person with your gratitude? Are you in this place and time to serve and give to someone? Who will benefit from feeling your joy? How can you share your memories and bring to life someone who was a faint glimmer before?

Love and light, eva