UltimateInclusion.com, a blog from Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – I love genealogy, the trolling around looking into my ancestors, their families and their extended families. Genealogy is a massive hobby, however, as every person has four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents and so on. Going back just 20 generations is equivalent to approximately 600 years!

There are 1,048,576 people involved in knitting together the unique pattern of DNA and cells that make each person. This is too massive to contemplate unless you have several hours of temperature controlled, uninterrupted thinking time. Over a million people, and that’s just the grandparents and relatives! You might as well say that you are related to about a billion people who are currently walking the earth ~ a million different souls that loved and lived and passed on their genetics to the next generation and now, today, you are the direct result.

No one person, therefore, is ordinary or mediocre or isolated. Each and every person is unique, absolutely original and a “one of kind offer” here to make the world, in his or her generation, just a bit brighter. So, I go forth today hoping that I make my 500,000 grannies proud to say that they were responsible for a few stitches in the knitting pattern that is now who I am.

Your gifts, your interests, your talents and the way you think – these are all the result of a complicated recipe. Share your uniqueness all over the place!

UltimateInclusion.com, a blog from Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – This past weekend, I was talking with someone who has worked in retail for many years and he talked about how January is so predictable ~ shelves packed with smoking cessation products, other health aids and exercise equipment. He went on to say, however, that in pretty short order, sales of those items drops off and are moved to the back of the store to make way for the Valentine’s Day chocolate.

It is the way we are wired ~ to think of a fresh new year as an opportunity to make a fresh new self. We conclude the joyous and food laden Christmas season and then look to eating something good for us, leaving the daily cheese and Ferrero Rocher behind.

I think this is human nature and that’s a good thing ~ a little readjustment, a little commitment to doing something better for ourselves. I heard a rather eloquent resolution this week – a colleague intimated that his goal was simply to be more mindful about what he ate, thinking about how it nourishes and uplifts.

Maybe this is a gentle resolution for all of us. Perhaps, we can stay the course once the Valentine chocolate abounds if we are gentle with ourselves – gentle in our approach to simply being more aware of how we are treating this wondrous machine we call our body that so ably carries us around each and every day. Take pause to say to ourselves, “Is Ferrero Rocher the kind of nourishment that my cells need to do their best work today?”

Happy shiny New Year ~ a vast canvas waiting for our first courageous brush strokes.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – Welcome to a new year!

Each and every January I have the same feeling – a feeling of freshness, of dreaming dreams and of getting organized and recommitted to healthy, mindful living. The great thing about a new year is that it feels like everything is possible, and that the weary old mistakes of yesteryear can be overcome.

My challenge to everyone is to take a minute and breathe in the new 2019 air, make a commitment to a plan or dream, and make a promise to yourself to see that commitment through. Is this the year you finally take that flying lesson, finally learn how to knit a sweater or finally read that classic?

What dreams have been rattling around waiting for your attention? Make 2019 the year of those dreams!

Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!”

William Arthur Ward

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – There are so few days now until Christmas. Hoping everyone has a chance to make merry in their own way.

I was given a wonderful gift this year, which I got to open already. It is a glass ball that I placed in the window of my Peterborough office. I was working at my computer and glanced over. I saw cracks in it coming up from the base and I worried that I had damaged it in just a few short minutes of ownership. However, when I took it out of the window the cracks disappeared. It turns out that the spidery cracks that were present
in the window were the reflection of the birch trees in the courtyard.

How wondrous that what I thought was damage is actually a magical reflection of trees in my window. Now I look and see the inverted image of the trees, and that makes me smile at the beauty. It also makes me wonder how often we see cracks where there is actually magic, flaws that are actually reflections. How often do we see flaws through our window of perception that are really reflections of ourselves?

It is that time of year during which magic is all around us! Look beyond the cracked exteriors of hurry and find the beauty of the holidays.

Photo by Bogdan Dirică on Pexels.com

 

 

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – Part of the fun of a recent Christmas lunch was a gift swap game. One gift, which was unwrapped for all to see, was a gravy fountain. The person who opened it said that she liked it and hoped she could keep it. The game progressed and many gifts moved around, but in the end the original opener was, indeed, left with the gravy fountain. A few minutes passed and then she opened the box … and found it full of butter tarts. It turns out that there is actually a market for gag boxes to be used for gift swaps as a way to add to add to the hilarity of the game. Here is the catch though … it was designed to be a gift that no one wanted, that would get pushed around the swap to add to the fun.

This gift swapping adventure makes me think … a large company found a niche market and created a gravy fountain box, complete with flashy photos and product details. Someone bought said box as a way of adding to the enjoyment of  the game but, in the end, there was an unintended outcome … actual disappointment at not having received a gravy fountain!

This tale is a good reminder for all of us that, while we think we can guess what will be appreciated or that we can predict what is of universal appeal, everyone is completely different and unique. We all need to slow down a little and get to know a person – listen, observe and seek to understand what it is that makes their heart sing – so that we can support, work with or just walk on the planet together in the most positive way possible. There is always a case for caution and exploration because one person’s gravy fountain gag gift could be another person’s Holy Grail of Christmas gift giving… which we cannot necessarily predict.

Photo from Pixabay.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – In my early childhood there was no yard light and the walk to the barn could be dark and long despite that fact that it was only about 50 metres long. Ours being a big family, flashlights were often lost. So one of my brothers, at a very young age, worked out a strategy … he could walk to the barn in the dark as long as he carried a piece of straw. If he focused on the straw while he walked, he was not afraid or overwhelmed by the darkness.

This is genius for a six year old! He knew already that the answer to getting through the tough stuff is to focus on what is close by, what is in the present moment, what is controllable. He could traverse that long, dark passage because he had something on which to focus.

I should add that he is often teased mercilessly about this practice, even now, but the strategy holds. A big expanse of troubling unknowns or challenges is conquerable if we focus on what is the next step, what is close, what is in the immediate span of control … and keep moving forward. The barn will soon loom large in front of us if we focus on one piece of straw at a time.

(This brother shall remain nameless so that he never knows that I think his strategy was genius, but there it is … the strategy for challenges of all kinds is a piece of straw.)

Photo by Jeff Nissen on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director –

Ear worms are unpredictable. This morning my husband called out, “I guess you’re not in the shower … since I can hear you singing Chattanooga Choo Choo from the bedroom, I am flushing the toilet.” This is the kind of loving exchange that can be heard at my house all of the time.

Here’s the thing … I was not really consciously aware that I was singing Chattanooga Choo Choo and, furthermore, I would be hard pressed to guess when I last heard, thought about or sang that particular song. Then, when I did start paying attention, I realized that I was mashing up about three oldies into weird verses that seemed to always end in, “She’s sixteen, she’s beautiful and she’s mine.”

The brain is a marvelous and mysterious thing. Mine was clearly on its own this morning in the way of music choices. I guess this makes me think about all of the other things that our minds do when not really attended to. Do we slip into habits, form opinions on auto
pilot? For sure my husband usually flushes the toilet automatically whether I am in the shower or not…

Listen to your ear worms … not necessarily because there is secret wisdom in unconscious humming, but more because doing so will snap us back to where we are, guide us to a more thoughtful moment and – when we are all being conscious and mindful – there are far fewer screeching hot shower flushes and other such mishaps and misadventures.

Thank you for all you do each day.

Photo by Albin Berlin on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – This has been a tough week for a whole community with the passing of Carol. I have heard some wonderful stories from dozens of people about her smile, her quirky habits, her volunteer work and her passion for parties.

One story, though, still has me thinking. A person told me that in no time at all after meeting Carol, she could count on being greeted with a big smile and hug. The person recounted, “Even though Carol did not know me that well, she saw me, she accepted me and she made me feel like a valued person.” Maya Angelou is often quoted as saying that all kinds of things will be forgotten, but someone will always remember how you made them feel.

This makes me start to reflect on how often I am rushing and busy and I pass people I know with just a quick wave or smile without slowing my step. How often do I really stop to hear the story or ask how someone is? How often do I take the moment to really wonder how people are while I am quickly asking like an automaton, ‘how are you?’

Am I seeing people? Making people feel valued? These are questions worth asking because story after story has little to do with roles, accomplishments, wealth or achievements, but instead presence, smiles, and ensuring people felt important. This is how Carol navigated her community and left her lasting, widespread legacy.

Slowing down and take the time to truly see someone is challenge in this fast-paced world in which we are so bogged down in roles, responsibilities and busy lists. So, let’s start small –  the next person you bump into, try to stop and really see them, really wonder about their life at present, really take a moment to make them feel valued. And of course one more thing ~ if there is music, dance.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – My work this week took me to Toronto, where I stayed in a hotel by the airport. What you have to grow accustomed to when this happens is the sound of a massive jet engine ripping through the sky every 4 or 5 minutes. It amazes me that so many people have so many places to go so very often. There must be tens of thousands of travelers each and every day.

Deepak Chopra would say that often we get trapped in our stories.  By this he means that the stories we tell ourselves about what is going on – the stories about our roles and our reactions to the struggles of day to day life – limit our effectiveness in seeing what is truly around us. Life gets difficult sometimes and this week in Haliburton it has been hard with the passing of Carol. There is a comfort in what we know; the story reels in our heads that we play over and over to get through.

I guess that the challenge is to remember that at any moment we can make a fresh start.  If we are thinking that we are trapped by a role or circumstances often small changes can change the whole trajectory.  What new insight, adventure, role or story awaits after a pause and realization that a large part of what is happening right now is controlled in our reactions. Maybe it is just a matter of looking up and noticing that another option is available in so many of our moments. A jet fueled opportunity is ripping through our day every 4 or 5 minutes; just watch for it and jump on board when you need a change in plot line.

Thanks for all you do together, each day and in so many different ways.

Thank you to the team that put together the vendor market – it was awesome.

Still thinking of Community Living Trent Highlands not only in Haliburton but the whole community at this time.

Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

From the desk of Teresa Jordan, Executive Director – This past week I had the pleasure of attending the volunteer recognition night for the Kawartha Lakes Sport & Recreation Council. At this event, community sport and recreation contributors were nominated and honoured for their role and action in changing lives through sport in Kawartha Lakes.

I was reminded of the timeless truth that it is the volunteer – the person giving freely of his or her time and gifts – that builds the rich layers of community. Well beyond the sports world, all over there are people passionate about their different gifts and interests who are sharing willingly with others –  many people making places and opportunities for citizens to grow, to develop, to test waters, to improve.

It was a fantastic night to remind everyone attending of the significant contributions that volunteers make. Sometimes we fall into a pattern at our agency in which we reference the community as if it is some kind of crystalline entity somewhere downtown. Community is driven by people connected by place, by interests, by commonalities. Community is time, talent and common interests freely given to one another in places where we can gather.

Thanks so much for all you do each day at the heart of community.