Shannon Skinner is a writer who took improvisation and she learned some great lessons about life and taking risks.

HOW a WRITER LEARNS LIFE LESSONS AS AT SECOND CITY

Or at least give it neon lights.

A dear friend then strong-armed me into making a gratitude list.I started with the usual fare-thankful for my kids and Canada, and food and water. Now these are nothing to scoff at, but the list didn’t seem to connect to my heart.

Then I came across the extended versions of the serenity prayer :

l

After the familiar “wisdom to the know the difference” comes the following:

“Appreciation for all that I have. Tolerance for those with different struggles and Patience for those things that take time.

“Appreciation for all that I have.” Hmmm!

This sounded better than gratitude. It sounded like savouring the things in each day and it did. It made my day much sweeter. Appreciation seemed like I was delighting in the the tiny events rather than rattling off a litany. Appreciation engaged my senses and slowed my mind down. I feel like I am seeing and smelling and tasting more of the 24 hour meal offered to me.

Yes this character flaw shows up a lot like a neighbour, who you don’t like

Sure I have to live next to it but I don’t need to invite it in for tea.

Gratitude? Or appreciation? Whatever you call it, it’s nice to live in the joy of each day’s march

Don’t you think?

I had the privilege of being at the Greater Kingston’s Chamber of Commerce for the first ever Inspiration2Women at the K Rock Centre.  Some might think that after all this time women wouldn’t need their own day, but the truth is they do.

On the evolutionary scale, women have come a long way in a very short time. Think of how life was even 20 years ago for women.  Even how life still is today for many women.  Yes, we have come a long way baby BUT as evidenced by nearly a thousand ordinary women in attendance we still need to be inspired.

So many women told me how important it was for them to be there.

It might have been they were at some major turning point in life. Or they were drained and needed to fill up the empty well. Many said a day like this came at just the right time in their lives. One woman’s mom had died the day before.  It was her salute to a 94 year-old mother who encouraged her to live an authentic life. Another was an addiction councilor who was experiencing caregiver burn out and needed to be lifted up.

And lifted we were.

The day kicked off with money maven Gail VazOxlade delivering the straight up goods about getting right with your money. ( Gail got a laugh when she said sex toys can be in the categories in your budget. I decided that for my accountant’s sake I would hide it in the medical dental category.) Susan Sly gave an hour power talk on how to strike life balance. Susan’s central theme was listen to your gut. This was tested a couple of weeks ago at the Boston Marathon where she narrowly missed the bombing at the finish line.

In the afternoon, Catriona La May Doan, Canada’s sweetheart Olympian Gold medal winner in speed skating, had us laughing and crying over her inspirational life. Yes, that girl looks good in Lycra. ( my fave line went something like this, “You can tell how much I was into skating because I married the Zamboni driver.”)

The finishing touch was the HGTV host and all around innovative designer,  Sarah Richardson who wrapped up the day with a slide show of her vision for life and business with a few peaks at some home make-overs.( I know many women were taking notes on how to make a fixer upper into home beautiful for very little bucks–which would have made the first speaker Gail Vaz Oxlade very happy.)

The gals on the stage are woman at the top of their game, but the real inspiration was in the audience. Ordinary women who were reaching for better vistas or perhaps attending so they can be reminded of how fabulous they already are.

So yes I was inspired. And I believe every once in awhile its good to have a giant communal time out to laugh, cry and receive a chiropractic adjustment of the mind- so that we can go back out and shine the light on the world.

Let me know how you get inspired. COMMENT BELOW

SIGN UP FOR MY SCHMOOZE!!

Keep inspiration going by taking another day for YOU on June 15th 2013. FEW SPOTS LEFT SIGN UP FOR WATERFALL TEA ROOM WRITERS RETREAT  

Listen in: Wednesday October 3rd For The Debaters.

Tonight am taping the gala for CBC TV’s Winnipeg Comedy Festival. My topic is Mars vs. Venus and why love is hard after 50. Not hard to come up with a few good lines, especially for an old crone like me.

It will air on CBC TV in the fall.

Plus am doing another debate for the great comedy radio show, The Debaters ( Why Downton Abbey is the best show on TV) I am pro Downton, so not hard to get some funny for the plus side of being a Dowager.

Plus: Tomorrow I am interviewing comic John Wing finally. (we had to keep rescheduling)

He’s one of the smartest comics out there and appeared on Johnny Carson 27 times. ( for you, younguns, that was the guy before Jay Leno!) He has had many CBC shows and appears regularly on Just For Laughs.

John tells us how he finds the funny in life and his method of writing.  As well he shares his love of poetry.

Little known fact: John has written 12 books of poetry.

You won’t want to miss this newsletter which comes out in two weeks!

So I am hoping that will be a real treat for you.

I am off to learn my lines but reminding you to sign up for ONE DAY WRITERS RETREAT outside Toronto. If you want to be a writer but are afraid to start, this is safe, fun and luxurious. There are few spots left. SIGN UP NOW!

A year ago I had been up rooted. I had to sell my house and leave my beloved Amherst Island. Although it was a good move  I have felt that I was a woman divided by two cities. Toronto and Yarker. (okay a city and a hamlet)

Toronto where friends are and Yarker where family is. In Yarker I have a beautiful apartment on 12 acres of land.  In Toronto I have a friend lend me an apartment in midtown on a regular basis.  A good situation indeed.

No reason to not feel blessed. So why such a winter of discontent?

A litany of complaints, ” I am moving, I hate this place, nobody likes me, and I don’t fit in, so what is my life about?”

Then about a month ago, I don’t know why, a switch flipped and the war in mind stopped. The immigration papers got stopped. I felt fine, like I was lucky  gal. Good neighbours in the country. Great friends in the city. I suddenly felt content to buy some new things for the apartment.

It was odd as if my mind just didn’t have any better way to pass the grey winter. Some people go south, I get itchy feet.

When I told my friend Shirley this she said,

” I guess you’re like an African Violet.”

She explained that when you transplant an African Violet it takes a year to get used to its new surroundings– it has a series of false starts and often looks like it is dying , then about year in it gets used to the new locale and begins to thrive.

I have killed ever plant I’ve owned, including African Violets, but I like the sentiment and googled the meaning behind African violets (click here) Some say they signify faithfulness and “I’ll be true” which I like.

It implies that one who is faithful is not likely able to change quickly. And that is me. So I guess I am  anAfrican Violet ( on some gassy nights a little bit stink weed thrown in.)

This is likely why people say don’t make any big changes in the first year after a death, a divorce or giving up an addiction. Don’t move. Don’t  leave a lover or take one. Put the time in and let yourself get acquainted with where life has transplanted you.

How long has it taken you in the past to adjust when you’re uprooted?  Are you an African Violet or more like mint that spreads like wildfire? (COMMENT BELOW)

( TELL A BETTER STORY: If you’re a writer, use the African Violet metaphor,  and  write a story about someone who has been uprooted and transplanted in to a new reality. Was it a year before they felt normal? Or much, much longer?)

I was sick of just writing checks for charity and buying cheese from the school kids. I wanted hands-on helping, like maybe saving children from warlords in Africa. So I went to a local café to ponder how I could get started. I ordered fair trade coffee but the barista told me they didn’t have any. I sat their drinking my four-dollar, unfair trade caramel macchiato, thinking about all the things I would do to help the downtrodden, when a guy sat down beside me. He was playing a very noisy game on his cell phone. I tried to ignore him and focus on what Bono or Bob Geldof would do in this situation. And then I got thinking, “Which one is cuter? Bob or Bono? Bob? Bono?”

Hot men. Hot coffee. Hot men. Hot coffee. And the guy kept beeping his phone and I was getting ticked off, so I started doing a chant I learned at hot yoga. Namaste, I said under my breath. Bless him.

Beep.

Bless him.

Beep.

BEEEEEEEEEEEP him.

Beep.

Finally, I turned to him and said, “Will you please SHUT UP!” Okay, I didn’t really say that, because I am a people-pleaser. And what if he didn’t like me? But I did start to question how I would ever deal with African warlords if I couldn’t handle a few beeps from a cell phone.

This existential pondering caused me to have a serious anxiety attack. No, I have that backwards. I thought I was having a heart attack, called 911, and when I got to the emergency room and saw the waiting time, then I had the anxiety attack. I got labeled “urgent,” which isn’t nearly as fast as it sounds. I sat there so long that someone asked me if I was an organ donor.

After four hours, I met Amiel, a blue-haired woman wheeling a silver coffee cart. Amiel on Wheels. She was living proof that the heart of any hospital is the volunteers (and maybe the cardiac surgeons). She was the quintessential volunteer. Over a couple of Peek Freans and some water thinly disguised as coffee, she informed me that she had joined the hospital volunteer team during the Korean War. It was two dollars a year for her membership and she did it only for the free volunteer luncheon. Over her career as a volunteer, she said she’d come to love helping others. Sadly, she confessed, she had seen many changes in charity work over the years. It was getting harder and harder to help people, she said, what with more germs, more fears, and more rules.

For instance, since the advent of the Privacy Act, she isn’t allowed to tell anyone outside the hospital who’s staying there. That’s crazy! Think about it. Why would an eighty-five-year-old woman risk breaking a hip if she couldn’t bring back a little gossip to the seniors centre?

I don’t know if it was Amiel or the forty percent oxygen I was huffing, but my breathing finally settled. That’s when I had my second epiphany. I wasn’t supposed to go to Africa. Sure, I was to think globally, but I had to act locally. I was being called to be a hospital volunteer. Of course, I could never work in the emergency ward, not where people are bleeding, or complaining, or throwing up. Puking makes me gag. And I’d never help with patients; I can’t sing Christmas carols or sponge-bath dirty old men. No, I couldn’t do that, but I could use my humour. I could be Patch Adams. I could make jokes in the coffee room with the First Response Team. (Which are cuter: cops or paramedics?)

In a flush of excitement, I announced my intentions to Amiel and in a second her face turned to stone. She looked like I had just announced the bus trip to Branson, Missouri had been cancelled. She hissed at me, “There is at least a six-month waiting period.”

“Six months?”

“Volunteering is not just helping out, you know,” she declared. “We weed out the fickle ones. The high school kids who want a form signed. The cons doing community hours.”

“Amiel, I haven’t done time,” I defended. “I live on Amherst Island.”
“How do you think they populated Australia?” she retorted. “There’s due process. You have to have a police check.”

I started fantasizing about a cop patting me down and said, “Amiel, they can do a cavity search for all I care. I haven’t been able to get in to see a doctor in months.”

She didn’t crack a smile. I could see she had never heard of Patch Adams.

“Look, missy, this red apron is not given out to just anybody,” she said. Then she sold me a 50-50 ticket and wandered off to spread her bad coffee and whitener to other unsuspecting sick people.

I checked myself out. As I was leaving the hospital, a very disturbed woman stormed past me, and the security guard, whose head was the size of a turnip, picked her up and put her out on the sidewalk. All she wanted was her meds. That woman might have been having a bad day, but one thing is certain — she is more resourceful than I am. She stood out in the ambulance bay and took off all her clothes. Believe me, when you stand buck-naked in the hospital, you get service. In fact, they bring the drugs right out to the street for you.

That’s when I had my third epiphany: It’s as hard to get good service, as it is to give it. I went home, wrote a cheque to Bono, and binged on the cheese order I had just gotten delivered from the school kids.

Anyone that studies with me knows every

day I sit down and write for ten minutes to download what I am thinking. I learned this from The Artists Way and have practiced it now for 10 years. The simple act of recording  the mundane, the irate and flashes of brilliance on paper is how I discipline a very busy mind. Odd thoughts, in between the line thoughts that lead to something interesting. Or nothing at all. The Funny. Creative. Horrible. Delightful. The whole catastrophe is all grist for the mill.
The amazing choreographer Twyla Tharp has her own version of this. In her book, The Creativity Habit she says she gets up every morning and goes to her studio,  stomps her foot and says BEGIN. The simple act of saying BEGIN gets her creative juices started. Whether her mind is putting up a fuss or her body is protesting, she literally puts her foot down and gets started.

Another technique I use from her book, is creating a box for each project. When she is putting together a show, she put all of her ideas in one box — images, index cards,  pictures of what she is thinking, dreaming about and being inspired by.  Everything that goes into the box feeds the dance idea she is working on. And even if the images she included didn’t make sense she trusts that the sub-conscious mind is creating themes for her. Cutting and pasting ideas together in ways she doesn’t yet understand.
Ideas are like eyeballs. Everybody has a couple. To me it seems God opens up the heavens and I have an aha moment. But if I am not listening the idea fades and and I can spend months trying to Braille back to the initial idea.

But a practice helps circumvent that.

TIPS TO TRAIN THE MONKEY!

1) Set a ten minute practice of writing and dreaming ideas into existence. ( and there will some writing that sucks big time-but it’s the practice you need to do.)

2) Get a big lovely box to contain the ideas you are trying to grow. ( and it will be a great way to keep what you’re doing in one place. AND very importantly keep it sacred.)

Let me know how it goes. CLICK BELOW TO COMMENT

WATCH FREE PEP TALK  FOR TIPS ON HOW TO SET THE TIME TO DO THE WORK!

READ ARTICLE ON HOW TO COURT  YOUR MUSE  (or if you don’t spend time with her you ain’t getting lucky.)

REGISTER  FOR ONE DAY WRITING RETREATS  MAY 11 or JUNE 15h 2013.

OR EMAIL FOR ONGOING JUMPSTART YOUR CREATIVE LIFE COACHING PACKAGES!

c

I don’t know about you but when I think of money the last word that comes to mind, is easy.

When I think of money I think math class. And me sitting in a small kiddie chair with a really big calculator.

Being an entrepreneur and creative type money has been a worry of mine many times over the years. Matching the flow of work with flow of cash.

However, I know that getting right with the money in and out of my life has been the single biggest act of self love I have performed over the past five years.

This has not about going on a budget. ( that is like the word diet-it means you’re about to break it and go on a binge.) It has been about creating a plan and getting honest with myself of what I do with cash.

It means taking action. I am talking about weaning off credit cards and tracking my spending so that I am NOT always spending out of emotion. Emotional spending that has the companion,  justification. Justification sounds like:  ‘It was on sale,  look at how much I saved . Or, “I just had. After all, my kids wanted  it.”

I have come to know it’s not a deal if I have to debt to get it.

Late in life I learned that if I save for what I love rather than just what I want I get a lot of good things.

I have come to know that money is not about making grand gestures. It’s about taking small action steps into awareness.

For me money is just an indicator of things being in or out of balance. For instance when there was a single category of spending that is always out of whack, I realize that it’s an indicator that I am usually spending to fill an unmet need.

For example, whenever I went out with one of my friends I always overspent. Why? Because we had a falling out and when I got back together with her I wanted to just be free and not so uptight.  But I couldn’t afford our time together. Then, I did the emotional work on that person and made amends to them, the overspending stopped. The opportunities to spend more in her presence didn’t cease, but my emotional guilt did.  I have learned it is not about the money, it’s about the feelings the money creates.

There have been tighter times for sure. Everybody is feeling it. But if I am chronically short on cash there are inevitably money leaks; places where money drips out of my life without me being mindful.

Or there are time leaks where time is leaking out without me being mindful, which ironically leads to money leaks.

This is what Marie’s video is about.  The money and time energy leaks, the sludge of debting and how to take small doable steps with your cash so you can get have less anxiety.

I think the most powerful sentence Marie said was,” Your commitment to action needs to become bigger than your commitment to anxiety.”

What if a small action would lower your anxiety? And if less anxiety would make life easier? Would you consider that?

If so check out Marie, she’s the hat trick of coaches: Compassionate, clear and kind!

How can you commit to action rather than anxiety? Comment below!