A friend forwarded this to me and I couldn’t resist posting it here for all of us well into the 2nd half of the journey! 

Q: Where can women over the age of 50 find young, sexy men, who are interested in them?
A: Try a bookstore under  fiction.

Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause?
A: Keep busy. If you’re handy with tools, you can finish the basement.  When you are done you will have a place to live.

Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 50+ year old husband?
A: Tell him you’re pregnant.

Q: How can you avoid spotting a wrinkle every time you walk by a mirror?
A: The next time you’re in front of a mirror, take off your glasses.

Q: Why should 50+ year old people use valet parking?
A: Valets don’t forget where they park your car.

Q: Is it common for 50+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage?
A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem.

Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly?
A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon.

Q: Where do 50+ year olds look for fashionable glasses?
A: Their foreheads.

Q: What is the most common remark made by 50+ year olds when they enter antique stores?
A: “I remember these”.

 Have an awesome evening!

  Linda

Common ground, common practice, common goals, etc.!  We hear these phrases so often, especially from ‘experts’ in the fields of human relations, communication, psychology; even from pastors and church leaders!

What do they mean?  And are they real ’stuff’ or just the latest buzz phrase craze?

Common means belonging to or shared by two or more. . . familiar, general.  This according to Webster!

When we put together the vision and mission for A Women’s Place, we shared a ‘common’ thought that we want to grow a “community” of women who share a common ‘chronological maturity’ and recognize the 2nd half of the journey as being a period of transitions.  A time to move on as yet unrealized dreams, desires, hopes and goals! 

Community to us means women who are like-minded in many ways, but unique in others!  It means more than just networking for any purpose!  For me, it’s something that occurs when I encounter women whose life and experiences cut across that which has been my own and together we nod our heads in agreement!

But more than that, it’s learning something new that enriches me - even if it’s a small thing.

As I’ve been sharing here this week about ‘community’, I’ve found my thoughts going to those areas of the internet that like to think of themselves as ‘community’, but are really not so.  Places that market themselves as ’social networking’.  Experts in the area of the boomer market are now talking about a ‘boom’ in what they call “silver surfing”.  The increase in the number of ’seniors’ or over 50 folks who are signing in droves with the so-called ’social networking’ sites.

Am I jealous?  A little!  They have huge numbers and get major traffic on a moment to moment basis. But is it or would it be true to our vision, our mission, our goals - our dream?

Not really, because building community is a whole lot different than making it possible for folks to post videos (some not so nice ones at that) or make a space to share things about themselves with total strangers around the world who may not have their best interests at heart.  In fact, there is now considerable concern about how many of the social networking sites are being used and the lack of safety members truly have on these sites.

As I said yesterday, true community is more than just commonly-held values or beliefs.  It’s about building a sense of safety, trust, respect and care for each other - for those who form the larger group we call ‘community’.  If we look at groups that refer to themselves as ‘community’, it isn’t always a fact that one can trust, respect or be respected, feel safe and cared for by those who make up the community-at-large. 

In fact, the very places we ought to feel all of these positive ‘goodies’ are often the places that afford us the most grief!  But that’s a whole ‘nuther direction for another day!

 Can we make community happen via technology?  Something that seems on the surface so sterile and impersonal!  Can we form trust, respect, love and care for others via cyberspace?  Will it be safe?  All these questions are critical to our vision and that of women who’ve joined us here, as well as those who will come in the future.

It’s a huge task!  It involves really knowing what community means to each of us - community that goes beyond networking for personal, business or even spiritual growth reasons.

Tomorrow I want to share how I think community really comes to happen and how that relates to each of us as we move through the 2nd half of the journey wanting to achieve our destined purpose! 

And after all, isn’t that what the 2nd half of the journey is designed for?  To bring us to a point in our ‘chronological maturity’ where what we need to do is definitely more important that what we’ve done in the past that may not be our dream - our destiny, but that of others!

My apology if this seems a little ‘disjointed’, but I’ve had phone calls and multi-tasking out the whazoo this morning.  I promise to be more focused and less ‘frazzled’ tomorrow.  In the meantime,

Have an AWESOME day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda

We’ve been talking about “community” with specific focus on ”community” and “transitions”.  Yesterday I raised several questions that I called ‘thorny’ and today I’ll try to answer at least one of them! 

“How do we know if we’ve found true community?  And is it different for each woman?”

As I thought over yesterday’s conversation, it came to me that “community” has to do with “connecting” and developing a “sense of loyalty”. 

We tend to ”connect” with like-minded folks!  That’s a given.  Whether our like-mindedness relates to chronological age; mental outlook, emotional responses to life situations or something as simple as what we think is ‘healthy food’!

Sounds a little crazy, right?  But it’s true.  I’ve heard women go “at it” over adding sprouts or mayonaise to a sandwich!

In my humble opinion, it all comes down to what we value!  What’s important to us!  And yes, that is different for each of us.  While “community” may form around commonly-held values, each of us may have a very different way of expressing those values.

I grew up in a large rather conservative (in those days) Protestant tradition.  It was a small congregation of folks ranging from infant to considerably ‘chronologically mature’.  We were close as a group and some of those relationships have lasted throughout lifetimes.  As a “community”, we held common general values, but there was a dramatic difference in how each of us lived them out.  But there wasn’t a general sense of loyalty to each other although loyalty existed where small groups of communicants (notice the root word here) gathered.  When I left that tradition to explore another, it created quite a ‘flap’ and I was no longer a part of the “community” to which I had given a great deal of time, energy and loyalty!

I share that because it’s a snippet from my own experience that may help us discover true “community”. 

True community ought to last well beyond the decisions and actions of those with whom we have bonded together.  Even if the decisions or actions are diametrically opposed to the shared values!  Isn’t that what we talked about last week when we discussed ’speaking the truth’ in love as a key ingredient of ‘integrity’ and ‘honesty’?

True “community” cannot exist unless there are at least some core values that are held in common by the group.  And there must be some commonly-held life experiences that are the ‘glue’ that bonds us together.

And there has to be a sense of loyalty borne out of a strong sense of safety!  I have to feel ’safe’ when I’m with others or I’ll not expose myself to them!  Maybe a better word than “expose” is “transparency”.  If I don’t feel safe, I won’t let you see who I really am - I won’t be ‘transparent’ and I won’t develop a sense of loyalty.  To the individual or to the group as a whole.

And yes, it will be different for each of us!  What I want from “community” will be slightly different from another and maybe even from the ‘community’ as a whole.

I believe that what bonds us together here at AWP is a little bit of a number of different things.  One is that we are all - regardless of our ‘chrono-age’ - transitioning from season to season!  And we know that!  Some of us - perhaps most of us - have a common faith tradition that draws us to each other.  It may also be that we’re ‘mulling’ changes in life situations or business/career/profession situations and want to bond with others who have arrived at the same point.

Only each of you can answer that question for yourself, but something draws you here.  And I want us to become “community”.  Not “community” that demands ‘marching to the beat of the same drummer’, but learning from each other because we all ‘march to the beat of our own drummer’!

And I want every woman who comes and joins us here to feel safe!  It may take a while, but I feel it’s part of my role to make certain that every woman senses she is safe - and she is!

Tomorrow I’ll explore the other questions I raised in yesterday’s conversation; but hopefully I’ve given some food for thought that you can ‘chew on’ today as it relates to the concept of “community” and all its multi-faceted aspects.

I’m off to the city today for lunch and a ‘beverage break’ with dynamic women of our vintage and venue - so keep me in your kind thoughts and prayers for a safe journey!

Have an AWESOME day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda

SO YOU THINK YOU

HAVE SEEN

      EVERYTHING!

—————————————————————————————–

 

An archeological team, digging in
Washington DC , has uncovered
10,000 year old bones and fossil remains
Of what is believed to be the first
Politician.

 

 

Yesterday, I was prompted to begin a conversation on ‘community’!  What it means!  How it’s different from just ‘belonging’ or ‘neighboring’ or otherwise ‘hangin’ out!

I started with the idea of ‘transitions’ as a common ground for why women have joined us here at AWP - or why women come together at all! 

Why do we bond?  I think I mentioned watching my goldfish all summer as they ‘huddled’ underneath an ornament as protection and a little ‘fishy’ comfort!

We know that we bond because that’s the way humans are made.  Our Creator made us for relationship - with Him and with each other.  A well-publicized study done shortly after WWII revealed that babies orphaned by the war often failed to thrive and died simply because they did not get held by other humans as they needed.  They got physical nourishment, but lacked the emotional nurturance they required to survive and be healthy.  Quite simply, they didn’t get held, cuddled, talked to as they needed.  The cues that they were ‘loved’ were missing and they simply died for lack of them.

So bonding is a part of our DNA - a part of our basic human need for relationship and companionship.  I believe in the beginning, Papa said, “it isn’t good for man to be alone!”

It isn’t good for any of us to be alone!  We all need to communicate with others.  Notice the root word of community and communicate are one and the same.  Webster describes “communicate” as to “impart”, “participate” and an archaic version, “share” (I don’t happen to think that’s archaic at all!).

So perhaps community occurs to meet our need to “impart, participate” and “share”. 

Do we have to be of one mind and heart in order to form community?  I don’t think so.  I have a wonderful personal physician (with whom I have a check up in a few hours) who is east Indian and a devout Hindi.  We have, over the years, ‘warred’ on a number of issues simply explained by the differences in our cultures.  We adore each other and have been friends for over 25 years! 

During a quite heated discussion on a very sensitive societal issue, we both discovered that our differences were simply a matter of culture and ethnic differences.  Our agreement on that day was that “our mutual respect for each other was more important than the differences that divided us, so we agreed to disagree!” 

Think of the organizations you belong to!  Do you experience a sense of community when you’re together?  Do you ‘hang out’ with individual members or small groups of members at times other than meetings?  Are members of those organizations the first you’d call if in a serious need for assistance?  Can you trust the organization as a whole and most of those who form the organization?

Does it feel safe to you?  Community ought to be a safe haven for us.  Because we commune with each other at a level that transcends differences and meets at the level of our common humanity!

What’s this have to do with transition(s)? 

Well, when we travel from one life season to another - regardless of how traumatic the transition might be - we should find the support, assistance and emotional nurturance we need to step over that which divides the seasons! 

I think it’s in those times of transition that we discover where true community is!  It is often said that in a crisis, we discover who our true friends are and I think that’s true of where we decide community is for us.

How do we know if we’ve found true community?  And is it different for each woman?  Can we experience true community and communication with women more ‘chronologically maturing’ than we are?  Is community a reality, a mindset or an attitude?

Now that’s a mouthful!  Tomorrow, I’ll tackle these ‘thorny’ issues and say a few works about my personal experience of community and communication and try to answer the questions I’ve just posed!

In the meantime, I had another funny from my dear theater friend with whom I share a common first name.  Her delightfully funny photos follow these someone serious thoughts!  So that I leave you with something to chuckle about the rest of this Monday back in the marketplace!

Have an awesome day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda

I’ve been thinking about ‘community’!  What it means; why it’s important.  Wondering if what we have come to understand as community is really what it’s all about.  So I’ve decided to do a few conversations here on ‘community’. 

Webster has a lengthy dictionary post on the word ‘community’.  The general definition is a “unified body of individuals”.  Near the bottom of the post is the following descriptor, “common character:  Likeness (bound by community of interests)”..

The word “community” has become a buzz word in the market place.  It’s a word often used to describe various Christian congregations; individuals identified by their chronological age (how many times do we see the words “a community for older adults”); folks bound by a common geographical location or mind set.

It’s even entered the world of business and I often hear business owners talk about their ‘community’ of customers.

Okay, so what is it really.  What does it mean when AWP talks about an “online community of women transitioning through the 2nd half of the journey”?

Well I live in town now and in a ‘neighborhood’ or a community of folks who populate an area between 15th Street and 13th Street in small town Indiana.  The folks living on this street are considered my ‘neighbors’, but we’ve yet to form a ‘community’ as I think of the meaning of community.  Some of us are closer than the rest.  We talk when the weather’s warm and we’re out in our yards, but I wouldn’t describe us as a ‘community’.

For me, a ‘community’ is a group of individuals bound together by much more than common purpose, common interests, common beliefs, etc.  To me, community is something we don’t see; something difficult to put our ‘finger on’ if we had to explain it to someone else. 

It’s something deeper, richer - at the ’soul’ level.  I can feel a sense of community with another who may have very different beliefs than I have, yet there is something that binds us on common ground. 

Often, it’s common life experiences.  Or a common season in life or similarities in where we are now and where we want to head in the future.

What binds us together here at AWP?  Why a growing group of women (and a couple of gentlemen) who, for the most part, have never met face to face and know little about each other?  What draws us into the same place, at the same time, in the same arena?

Well, let’s examine and see where we are on common ground.  Yes, for the most part, we are women!  Women who have reached a certain ‘chrono-age’ and feel an affinity for and with other women of similar ‘chrono-age’!  And I’m assuming that each of us is in a season of transition or have emerged from one transition season and are headed into the next one.

But I’m going to bet (and I’m not a betting woman) that what binds us together - if only loosely now - is the fact that each of us experienced an ‘ah ha’ when we looked at the vision and mission of AWP.  An ‘ah ha’ that struck a cord with something significant in our own lives!  Something we discovered about ourselves at this point in life that drew us to ‘join up’ believing something positive would come of our decision to do so!

As humans, we are made for relationship - for belonging!  We’re made to ‘huddle’ together in some fashion that strengthens, enriches, encourages and empowers us in a way not possible ‘by our lonesome’.  Believe it or not, there is something exhilarating for me when I come to my inbox and discover a ‘note’ or ‘letter’ from a friend I’ve not heard from in some time.

We’re bound by our common humanity and the more alike we are in our beliefs, desires, hopes, interests, etc., the more likely we are to ‘huddle’ together for the common good as well as our own individual good.

For several months, I’ve wanted to tell you about my goldfish!  We used the large basin of a huge fountain as an outdoor fish pond during the summer.  Because of the heat, we put an umbrella tied down with bricks in the center and a couple of small yard ornaments in the water to give the fish a place of ‘refreshment’ from the heat.

All summer I watched them - or tried to.  What I discovered was that when I came to the concrete bowl to watch them swim and eat, they were no where to be found.  Occasionally, I’d see a small golden tail under the yard ornament.  Once my grandson quickly lifted the ornament out of the water and ‘wha-la’; there were the fish!  All 20 or so of them huddled together in the small open space under the ornament.

All summer I watched them (or tried) and thought to myself - “even the goldfish do it”!  Even the fish huddle together in some form of ‘fish community’ in the tiniest of spaces.

I’m not a naturalist by any longshot and not learned in the ways of animals in the wild, but I do know that it’s a rare animal that doesn’t travel in packs or some form of ‘community’.

So this week, I’m going to share my thoughts on ‘community’ and what we want to build with AWP that meets the common needs of those who’ve come here to find something that meets a need in their lives at this season of life.  And something that meets the needs of those who keep coming as we grow.

Transitions are hard - even when they’re thrilling and full of the promise of exciting new things!  Perhaps that’s where I’ll start is with ‘transitions’ and how ‘community’ helps us bridge from one transition to the next with less rumble beneath and amidst a ‘huddle’ of others who gather around us simply because they can and we let them do so!

Until tomorrow and another week in the marketplace, have an awesome day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda

According to leader team member, Donna Lynch, October is National Popcorn Poppin’ Month!

I don’t know about you but I love popcorn!  Almost as much as I love my Peanut Butter Passion ice cream.  In fact, I often have a bag of the microwave stuff in the evening as I settle in to watch one of my favorite TV shows.   But the best treat of all is a trip to the movie theater and a big tub of hot buttered corn.  Sometimes I think I go to the movies more for the popcorn than for the film!

Donna has some interesting facts about the stuff: 1) Americans consume 16 billion quarts of corn each year and that’s 54 quarts per person, including children; 2) it needs 13-14 % water to pop; 3) it can pop as high as 3 feet in the air; and those pesky kernels at the bottom of the pan (who does it the old-fashioned way anymore?) are called “old maids”.

I keep mine in the refrigerator as I’ve always been told that’s the way to keep it fresh, but popcorn producers admonish against such practice.  They say that keeping it in the ‘fridge or freezer dries out the kernels and without moisture it won’t pop.  Of course, I rarely do it the old fashioned way as reaching for the micro-bag is so much easier.

Donna gave us a couple of delicious-sounding recipes to celebrate the month before it ends.  So here goes:

SUGAR CORN (Kettle Corn)

     1/2 cup unpopped popcorn

     3 tablespoons white sugar

     1/4 cup vegetable oil for popping

Heat oil in medium sized pan until hot.  Add popcorn and sprinkle all of the sugar over it.  Cover and shake continuously until popped.

SPICY ITALIAN POPCORN

      10 cups hot, freshly popped popcorn

      2 tblsp. olive oil

      1/3 grated Parmesan and Romano cheese

      1 tsp. oregano; 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper; 1/4 tsp. garlic salt.

Drizzle olive oil over popcorn in large bowl and add remaining ingredients.  Toss well and enjoy!

Well how’s that for a change of pace!  It looks like a great weekend here in the Midwest to stay indoors, slip into warm leisure wear and enjoy a tub of the yummy stuff!

Have an awesome Friday evening and do a little poppin’ while you’re at it!

  Donna

Another work week at an end!  Well for those whose work week runs Monday through Friday, it’s the end of another week in the marketplace.

This week, we’ve been talking about integrity with special focus on that aspect of integrity called ‘honesty’! 

Today, I want to express what I’ve come to believe is true of integrity and why it fits with what we know of the 2nd half of the journey.

As we’ve stressed so often in the past, the 2nd half of the journey has little to do with chronological age.  But everything to do with emotional age, life experiences and a level of maturity that flows within us.  It’s been my personal and professional experience that the 2nd half of the journey begins when we ‘wake up’ to the knowledge that something is different for us at a certain point.  I call it our ‘arrival point’ or the moment we see ourselves, others, our life and world from a totally different perspective.

What does that have to do with ‘integrity’?  I’ve observed that women who reach the ‘arrival point’ are often mid-30’s and beyond, and they’ve reached an awareness that what has gone before is not necessarily who they are, what they want and where they’re destined to head.

That’s the moment personal integrity meets me head on!

We’ve talked in the past several months about what brings each of us to the ‘arrival point’.  It can be a myriad number of things - something someone says that awakens us from ‘duh’ to ‘ah ha’!  It is often some kind of dramatic life experience that picks us up and sets us down in a different mental and emotional place (sort of an emotional ‘Dorothy in Oz’ experience).  It can be as simple or as complex as it needs to be to move us beyond who we are in the moment to the next phase of our life.

If integrity is only a matter of being true to self (what you see is what you get) then emotional age has nothing to do with integrity.  We can acquire it as a teen (and some actually do) or never acquire it at all.

Integrity isn’t just about being true to self.  It’s also about being honest with self and with others, regardless of the cost to self.

Does that make sense?  It does if you think of those around you who you experience as being persons of integrity!

Again, my personal - professional experience has been that those of us who’ve entered upon the 2nd half of the journey find acquiring greater personal and professional integrity an important acquisition of the rest of our lives!  And for the most part, remaining open to the learning experiences that lead to its acquisition is a hallmark of the journey. 

It takes emotional maturity to move into integrity - into honesty and trustworthiness.  It takes a willingness to explore our own motivations; reflect upon them and discover where we’ve ‘made it’ and where we still have much to learn.

Most importantly, it takes someone (or someones) who will hold us accountable.  Who love us enough to be totally honest with us and in whom we posit a great deal of trust ourselves. 

It takes developing our inclinations in the arena of ‘intuition’ with which women have been endowed by our Creator, so that we learn to trust our own ‘gut’.  And when in doubt, the ‘gut’ of someone(s) in a more objective position. 

And that requires not only integrity and maturity; but a level of confidence in ourselves.  It’s a fact that we can’t give away something we don’t have and we can’t give trust to ourselves or others until we’ve gained it in the first place.

So, as we wind up another week in the marketplace, we’ve learned that one of the distinguishing characteristics of women in the 2nd half of the journey is a sense of personal and professional integrity born out of the transitional time we’ve spent moving from one season to another in our lives. 

Ah, how will we know that we’ve acquired at least a piece of such an important characteristic?

Others will tell us so or in some way let us know that they view us as a person of integrity!

Thanks for letting me share on this subject which is so important to us as a building-block of the 2nd half of the journey.  I’ve had so much fun with this that I’m going to post a fun thing for us all as we head into the weekend.  I’ll do it later in the day, so come back as you head for home to see what awaits!

Until then, have an awesome day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda

From the Pen of Willie! 

What makes me weak? My fears.
What makes me whole? My God.
What keeps me standing? My faith.

What makes me compassionate? My selflessness.
What makes me honest? My integrity.

What sustains my mind? My quest for knowledge.
What teaches me all lessons? My mistakes.

What lift’s my head high? A strong self-concept, not arrogance.
What if I can’t go on? Not an option.
What makes me victorious? My courage to climb.
What makes me competent? My confidence.
      
What makes me sensual? My insatiable essence.
What makes me beautiful? My everything.
What makes me a woman? My heart.

Who says I need love?  I do!
What empowers me?  My God and Me!

Who am I?  I am a Strong Christian Woman!

Blessings,

  Willy

Just had to add this inspirational thought I found yesterday!  Thank God, there’s a 2nd half of the journey so we can move toward becoming who we hope to be and accomplish what we hope to accomplish! 

Says John Newton, “I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.

I must be on the right track with this series of conversations relative to integrity and honesty as a key ingredient of our maturing integrity! 

Today’s “Streaming Faith” devotional that comes each morning talked about “honesty”.  Let me paraphrase Bishop E. Earl Jenkins comments, starting with the quote from Proverbs:  “An honest answer is a sign of true friendship.” Proverbs 24:26 (TEV)

The heart of Bishop Jenkins message is that many times true caring means confronting those with whom we are in relationship - whether family, friends, co-workers or fellow church members. 

The question is “why” do we often shrink from doing so?  Well, it’s not always easy.  Keeping the ’status quo’; playing ‘peace at any price’ or ‘not rocking the boat’ makes us more comfortable. 

But is it true to our integrity or to the other who may need to be lovingly corrected in order to avoid going off on the wrong path?

It takes a great deal of maturity to rise above our fears of confrontation to do the caring thing in marriage, in friendship, and in the market place.  And maturity is another foundational piece of growing in personal and professional integrity!

Let me quickly say that the word “confrontation” has gotten a ‘bad rap’!  It is often viewed as a ‘negative’ word that means argument, yelling, shouting, screaming or worse yet!  But true ‘confrontation’ is not a negative, once we learn to do it in an attitude of love and caring for the other.  Even when caring for the other means owning our own anger, disappointment, hurt or whatever to ourselves and the other.

Our Christian scripture admonishes us to speak the truth in love!  It encourages us to ‘confront’ those who may go astray if we don’t love them enough to speak out!  And it gives us hints on how to do it without being rude or caustic.  Basically if we approach the other in an attitude of respect much as we would approach someone older or younger who is a member of our own family.

For us who are primarily motivated by ’seeking the truth’, speaking the ‘truth’ in love is exceedingly difficult!  For me, it’s more so when out of the professional setting and into personal life.

Yet learning to do so is part and parcel of growing in personal and professional integrity as we seek to be more and more honest with ourselves and each other.

I keep coming back to the ’sandwich’ approach of which I spoke earlier in the week.  Speaking ‘bread’ first; then the ‘meat’ and ending with ‘bread’ again.  And another piece of wisdom I’ve learned is that this kind of “caring confrontation” is better done face to face rather than at a distance. 

When we are face to face with someone that needs our loving confrontation, it’s easier to see eyes, faces, body language.  It’s easier to reach out and ‘touch’ the other in order to emphasize our care for them as the basis of the confrontation. 

I know this via personal experience because I confronted very directly - from a distance - when frustrated and it didn’t turn out well.  Oh, eventually it did, but the heartache between confrontation and “turning out well” made a bad situation worse.  But then isn’t this the usual path of growth that we take?

Don’t we usually learn because we didn’t listen to “mama” and found the stove to be “hot” and burned our fingers!?

My concluding thought for today is to encourage each of us to think about those in our lives who may be moving off on a path that could lead to disaster - or at least a not-so-pleasant detour.  Think about how to speak to them in loving, but firm ways that will address issues of the heart and not the head!  If confrontation is needed and the thought of it makes knots in the stomach; write down what needs to be said.  Practice it as if it were a speech you had to make for your boss or spouse.  Let a trusted-other hear it and give feedback on your tone of voice, body stance, the ‘zing’ of the words you’ve used.

Then refine, refine, refine!  And if you are a praying woman, then ask our Heavenly Papa to open the door to an occasion when the confrontation can occur because an occasion has occurred!

Much easier than forcing it at a time when both parties do not feel equipped for caring confrontation.

I’m amazed that the daily email devotional message was so appropriate for today’s conversation!  Now that’s what I call a ’significant non-coincidence’!

For our daily reflection on this Thursday, October 25, let’s think about what it is that keeps us from speaking the truth in love; adding to the frustration we and others involved may feel because we’re avoiding being true to our own integrity and that of others.   Discovering what it is that holds us back is the first step in learning how to do it with grace and caring!

Have an AWESOME day with much love and many blessings!

  Linda