...by Claire Knowles, Lights On! Workshop

   Two very different thoughts and events converged for me yesterday. One was about the Mood Ring and its varied colors and related meanings.  I watched as two young women tried on their new mood ring costume jewelry and shrieked and laughed as the color changed to reflect their respective emotions. One person's mood ring turned a dark blue color, supposedly indicative of calmness, and in turn, happiness, love, passion and romance; the other's turned amber color, indicative of nervousness, mixed emotions, being unsettled and overall restlessness.  Mood jewelry has been around for a long time. I suspect that you, the reader, have worn a mood ring at some point in your life and like the young women described herein, also have had the experience of wondering if the mood ring could actually convey your emotional level at that time.  Perhaps there's something to   it---that our stress levels can be identified by the heat and tensions emerging from our own physical beings. As we become more anchored in our own personal awareness---physically and emotionally, we don't need mood rings to convey what's important.  We know where we stand.

   The other reflection, for me, came after reading an article called "Why Your Life Matters" by Cash Peters which was published in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Spirituality and Health Magazine.   The article purports that "Beyond random acts of kindness are moments when the essence of our true divinity breaks through and shows itself".  The author describes various life events when the right person has emerged at the right time to provide the right guidance that the receiver needed to hear; and conversely, how the author has felt like a "beacon" at times, knowing that he was supposed to be in a certain place, at the right time and say the right words for someone else to hear at the right moment.  Could it be that each of us has intuitive promptings and that we each have certain contact points (as colorful beacons) to fulfill within our lives, and within the greater orchestration of life? Perhaps that is our call to service---to be beacons in this world for others.

   Consider this:  If I'm a beacon, I wonder what I'm projecting from moment to moment. If I wore a mood ring, would it project that I'm ready to deliver my random act of kindness?  to pay it forward? To be in the right place at the right time and with the right words and the right action?  If so, color me happy!

March Musings:  March Madness & The Ides of March

March Madness!

    My husband is an avid basketball fan---especially at March Madness Basketball Tournament time.  I tend not to get excited about it until the Final Four is reduced to the Terrific Two;  and then those two teams compete and a Champion college basketball team emerges as #1.  Sometimes (en route to the Final Four) there are Cinderella teams whose basketball prowess comes as a surprise. They shine when many counted them out.  "Who knew?"----of that unique team that had that special spark emerge to move forward together so remarkably?

       Generally, I avoid sports team examples.  But it is March.  It's worth making the connection to the world of work and the Work-team---that's the team of people with whom you share common work goals, interact with, and hopefully, that you stay collectively motivated toward the goals!  The way a team plays (together) as a whole determines its success. Well-functioning teams can out-produce the collective of what each individual could do on his/her own. How's your team's performance? Does it have a Cinderella story? Is your work team in an upward spiral? Or not?  Much research has been done on why some teams succeed and why others fail. I think you already know the reasons.    

       I've worked with many work teams and groups and Boards; and so often the team loses sight of the goal because of interpersonal difficulties, egos and conflicts (elephants in the room) that are keeping them from being the best they can be.  That can be maddening!  But it doesn't have to be that way.  The elephants can be lifted up and addressed and the madness stopped.

The Ides of March!

      The "Ides of March are upon you" is one of those phrases that is often lifted up as we turn the calendar page to the month of March.  It is a negative phrase and one that is steeped in Roman history and in verse:

On his way to the Theater of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar saw a seer who had foretold that harm would come to him not later than the Ides of March. (Meaning the middle of the month).  Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come", to which the seer replied "Ay, they have come, but they are not gone."  This meeting is famously dramatized in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned to "beware of the Ides of March."

     Our world is a lot different than Caesar's---thank goodness.   Still, we have things of which to be wary.  We know when things at work, for example, aren't coherent; when cooperation is lacking; when back-biting and belittling behaviors happen; when conflicts run high. Have your ever felt that your workplace was downright dysfunctional? Or, caught yourself dreading to go to work? Or, listened to your internal complaint conversation-with-yourself as you drove home?  Likened to the Ides of March, is modern-day cynicism closing in on you?  Maybe that airline commercial jingle,

"Wanna get away?" is enticing to you right now.

     The good news is that it doesn't have to be that way!  Dysfunctional can become functional. Incoherent can become coherent.  Uncooperative can become cooperative. Negative can become positive. Conflicts can be resolved.  Teams can become professional, including yours. There's a choice.  Which do you choose?