your senses by being present on the walk: don't talk on the
phone or even listen to music, if you can do it! Go outside.
• Manage your intake of news, social media and information.
This is tough for many, but even if you can do an experiment
for a week, shift your focus and say "yes" to yourself rather
than "yes" to the world at large. This is about rejuvenating
your spirit.
• Acknowledge your feelings, especially grief and loss. We
experience this range of emotion from the smallest
disappointment to the grandest trauma. Unexpressed grief
and loss are the painful foundation for illness, stress and
many other psychological ailments. Have a trusted
confidant? Talk or share. Work with a therapist? Get the
support you need.
• Reframe when possible. Seeing challenges as opportunities
doesn't mean you take a spiritual by-pass of what's
happening (see the above point), but it does mean that you
can begin to reframe how you might deal with a stressful or
unavoidable situation at work or at home.
• Hold the vision for yourself and others. Keep the end in
mind. Whether it's a project, a company, a program, stay
connected to the ideal vision of it, remind yourself why and
what's the purpose of what you are doing. Connecting with
purpose is life-sustaining.
• Spend quality time with people who matter to you. Every
artistic tradition in every culture reminds us to focus on what
matters, and what matters is love. Everything else pales in
comparison. Whether it's beloved friends, a partner or
spouse, a child, or a pet, we are not meant to be solitary
characters floating in time and space.
I enjoyed a previous On Being interview with Krista Tippett
and poet Marie Howe, who were talking about poetry and
things that matter to them. When Marie Howe asked the
question, "which face is the one I gaze into the most? " we all
held our collective breaths... because we all knew it was the
iPhone, the video conference call, or some other technology —
the things that tie us to our busy-ness, not to the ones we love.
Maybe the smallest, most radical act might be just that: to
gaze into another face more often.
RO
Libby Wagner, author of The Influencing Option: The Art
of Building a Profit Culture in Business, works with
clients to help them create and sustain profit cultures.
www.libbywagner.com
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