Women in the LEAD

WOMEN: Loving Your Life

How many twists and turns were in your day?
Mine for days have seemed to be spinning in whirlwind of
insigificant and significant happenings.
I am tired.
Things seem BIGGER than they are because of it.

"However mean your life is, meet it and live it.
Do not shun it or call it hard names.
It is not so bad as you are.
It looks poorest when you are richest.
The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.
Love your life..."

-- Henry David Thoreau

Thanks, I needed this reminder.
It has been a long day.
Morning brings a new beginning.
A chance to see it all with rested eyes.

How was your day?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
New book...www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Emotions Carry Important Information: Chose to Listen To Them

“When you continue to focus upon any thought, it becomes increasingly easy to continue to focus upon it because the Law of Attraction is making more thoughts like it available to you.  And so, emotionally speaking, you are developing a mood or an attitude.  Vibrationally speaking, you are achieving a habitual vibrational groove, so to speak – or set point.

Your mood is showing you a good representation of what you are inviting into your experience.  Your mood, or your general feeling about something, is a clear indication of your practiced vibration.  In other words, whenever any subject is activated within you through your exposure to your environment, your vibration jumps immediately to your most practiced vibrational place, or set-point.”

Ask and It Is Given, Esther and Jerry Hicks

It is essential to understand that our emotions and feelings serve as guides giving us important information on a daily—minute by-minute basis, When we learn to pay attention to this information we can begin to make far more informed decisions. The art here is learning to trust our feelings as our guides.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Action Changes Things

In commemoration for Memorial Day...
My big brother was always trying to point out women's contributions to me as a way of inspiring me to discover my own gifts and bring them to the world. For my birthday one year, he gave me the biography of Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910. Although, Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday, I always think of her as a symbol of women's contribution during war time.

Florence Nightingale was pioneer in the nursing field. She established herself as a competent nursing administrator during the Crimean War, where her insistence on sanitary conditions cut the death rate considerably. She continued to advance the field in her later years, providing better health service and opportunities for women at the same time.

She was an inspiring women of action...
"I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results." --- Florence Nightingale

At this time in history, I believe women's contributions will be rooted in the same kind of courage. The courage to step up. See our role. Take initiative and boldly put our signatures on tomorrow, more through our actions than our words.

What contribution will you make?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead
New book...www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Our Yearning to Connect With The Soul

“One of the most striking phenomena at the dawn of the 21^st century is the great yearning to reconnect with the soul that millions of people are expressing.  People talk about their souls much more than they used to, and books extolling the care of the soul have become amazingly popular.  I say “amazing” because the 20^th century did everything it could to crush the soul.  The human soul could be the first item on anyone’s endangered species list, for what is more soul-killing than the 20^th century’s invention of concentration camps, world war, mass refugees, genocide and totalitarianism?”

n       Deepak Chopra

When we consider our desire to reconnect with the soul, we must realize that we are part of something greater than ourselves and part of a great awakening.  Many realize that the greater portion of what goes on in us, our world, planet or galaxy is unseen to our naked eye.  People question more and more – “what is the source of all, where did life begin”.  Many faiths have different answers to this question.  Some turn to evolution and science.  I believe we are part of something far greater than ourselves and our soul is our connecting guide to this divine source.

I am pleased that we are delving deeper into questions of the soul.  I am pleased that we are questioning the reason for our greater existence.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Our role as TEACHERS

With all the bad news in recent weeks on so many fronts, a message came with it that made me reflect on what is most meaningful about my work and life. If you think of teachers in a broad sense, I am certain most of you will see yourself in this message with a few minor adjustments in words perhaps. As you read this, consider Richard Bach's wisdom shared in his classic book, Illusions about teachers. Then read the story below.

Learning is finding out what you already know;
Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
Teaching is helping others realize that they know as well as you.
We are all leaners, doers and teachers.
--- Richard Bach

WHAT DO TEACHERS MAKE?
Source: regrettably unknown

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." To stress his point he said to another guest; "You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?

Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied,

You want to know what I make? She paused for a second, then began...
Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.

I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for five minutes without an iPod, Game Cube or movie rental...

You want to know what I make?

She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.

I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them criticize.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to write and then I make them write.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in math.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.

I make my students stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, because we live in the United States of America.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.

Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.

Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant...

You want to know what I make?

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE. What do you make?

I leave you pondering what I make?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Author and founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

My New Book! Putting Our Differences to Work (June 2008)
The Fastest Way to Innovation, Leadership, and High Performance
Learn more: www.puttingourdifferencestowork.com

Join me for monthly online dialogues starting in July, 2008

Hearing with the Heart

The best and most beautiful things in this world
cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.

- Helen Keller

How does one become awake and alive to the feelings of the heart?  One does so by listening from within.  Much has been written about inner leadership and inner strength.  But it is when we fully understand inner listening that all the rest makes far more sense.  When we listen from within, our heart guides to deep revelations.  We must learn to trust the inner sense or voices that come to us daily as they inform our emotions and our understanding of the world.  The heart holds many answers.  There is an art to learning deep inner listening.   

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: Seeing the OPPORTUNITY in Every Problem

Sometimes it is difficult to be experiencing some problem affecting one or more aspects of our life to see the opportunity that resides in it. Emmet Fox, one of my favorite writers from the 20th Century that I've quoted often had these inspiring words to say:

"Your present problem is your great opportunity. Your own mind --- the Secret Place --- is the council chamber where the arrangements and decisions for your whole life are made; it is also the drafting room where where plans for your destiny are formed. Your life is your laboratory. The world is your workshop."

Wouldn't it be great if we could remember to think about problems in this context of OPPORTUNITY when they overwhelm them. Emmet Fox had this encouragement for us:

"...any difficulties that can come to you at any time, must be exactly what you need most at the moment to enable you to take the next step forward by overcoming them. The only real misfortune, the only real tragedy, comes when we suffer without learning the lesson."

As I look back in reflection, I realize this is true --- and it gives a framework for looking to the future too. Do you see this too?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

Mother’s Day: The Power Behind Peace

“Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

     Mother’s Day Proclamation – Julia Ward Howe (1870)

I attended a Quaker Meeting on Sunday as I am sometimes called to do.  This sacred proclamation was read aloud.  When I stopped and realized that Julia Ward Howe’s plea was made 138 years ago, it made me wonder when will we actually learn that from the carnage of others we will never build civil societies or peace.  Each Mother’s Day this proclamation surfaces and each day after Mother’s Day it gets buried once again.  I believe we have evolved now to a state where we are able to see that the carnage of one is not the win of another.  We need to make this proclamation again this year.  We need to learn from it and live its words.

Maureen Simon

WOMEN: LEADERSHIP and Our MOTHERING GIFTS

TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER IN US ALL
"Furnish an example, stop preaching, stop shielding, don't prevent self-reliance and initiative, allow your children to develop along their own lines."
Eleanor Roosevelt 

About the painting: The painting is one of seven leaders I have across the wall above my desk. She looks over me as I work. Her leadership and motherhood of a nation and the world a shining example for us all. Painting by San Francisco artist, mother and grandmother, Sally K. Green.

I am a mother and grateful for gift of knowing its multi-faceted experiences in a lifetime. I have a beautiful daughter and granddaughter. I am so proud of them. It is so rewarding and meaningful to see each of them allowing their mothering gifts to shine in many ways as young women. I've learned over time that motherhood is not just about having children. Motherhood's essence lies within the nature of all women. We are never robbed of its opportunity and responsibility, only by the limitations of our thinking. A woman's life is full of chances to use her mothering gifts. I believe the world would be better for it if we all were mindful of the unique calling each of us has to be a mother in our lives in our own right. Our calling might be with a child of our own or someone else's child or a child in the distance. Our calling may show up in different ways ---- nurturing animals; leading, guiding and mentoring people looking to us for leadership in our work or community, using our caring touch and passion to be stewards of the environment or the care for our planet. Mothering's great purpose may surface in seemingly unrelated endeavors, like shepherding a project in our work or in our community. What we don't always see, or maybe need to see, is the significance of our important deeds and work and their sometimes sweeping influence on a life, on a neighborhood, on a country, on our world.

Motherhood for some is a courageous calling. As I write this, I think of the women in Africa, raising 12 and 13 children, some in these new mothers in teens and twenties themselves or older women called to rise up a again for the sake of many, because they hear their call in the tragedy of aids. Motherhood is sometimes in our inventive minds, nurturing and preserving for the good of others, as it was for Nwakego, a young mother bringing the Igbo tradition of music to the children of the world. Motherhood is most often in the heart of the giver. "It is not what we do. It is the love we put into the doing." --- Mother Teresa.

Nurturing, loving and caring --- mothering at its best --- is needed everywhere in this life, especially at this time in human history with wars, destruction and tragedy in so many directions --- and for each of us, our unique motherhood purpose may be very different than someone else. For some of us, it may not be having a baby at all. I've known many women who have contributed their mothering gifts in ways we couldn't or wouldn't have wanted to miss, some famous and some quietly who remain nameless to the world.

I heard Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordon tell a story about the Prophet Mohammad (upon him peace), which speaks to the significance of our important role as women. She told that when asked who the most important person was, The Prophet said, "Your Mother." When asked who was the second most important person, he said, "Your Mother." When asked who was the third most important person, he said, "Your Mother." When asked who was the fourth most important person, he said, "Your Father."

What is your unique calling to use your MOTHERING GIFTS?
How will you share them with the world around you?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center
Home of Women in the Lead

Life Is The Creation Of The Mind

“What we are today came from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow:  Our life is the creation of the mind.”

The Buddha

What thoughts are your mind filled with today?  What thoughts would your mind need to be filled with in order for your life to be exactly as you wish it to be? 

                        Maureen Simon