The Spirit of the Season

For everyone who's been wondering how come I haven't replied to your e-mail, it's because Jack and Jennifer are both sick, and I've been doing a little flurry of intense year-end work at a client's office...so times have been...interesting.

This is a great time of year to dread. The point of the season is about joy and giving and love, but sometimes it becomes about avoidance and regret and discomfort.

One of the most important aspects of NLP is remembering choice in the situations where we forget that we do have choice.

I received the following e-mail from Bob Proctor's Insight of the day today. I think you'll probably agree that it does truly reflect the spirit of the season.

I want to take this opportunity to offer to you, from Jennifer, Jack and myself, my sincere hope that you remember to choose this holiday season's best and to skate past the things that press your buttons.

Jack, up from his nap, just (no joke) walked into the office and, hugging my arm said, "Poppa, I love being here with you." There's a nice choice for you.


Here's the story: Enjoy.

- Hugh

White Envelopes

It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas. Oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it, overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma, the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son, Kevin, who was 12 that year was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended, and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.

These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in the spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids, all kids, and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse.

That's when the idea of his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition, one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there.

You see we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.

Author Unknown

Iams (No - not the cat food)

For as long as humans have been self-reflective, one of the elemental questions of human existence has been, “Who am I?”

We take endless tests. IQ tests, personality tests, colour tests (Am I a green/yellow or a brown/orange?). We take the MMPI and the DSM-IV (rather the psychiatrist administers those), the LAB profile and the DISC profile and hundreds of others, each of which claims to have the answer to that basic question: “Who am I?”

Notice this: Ironically we look for external tests to confirmation to help us understand that we are indeed ourselves. Interesting that, eh?

Once we decide (or someone decides for us) who or what we are, and we accept that diagnosis, we give up little important things called choice and flexibility. In essence by accepting definition, we reduce our identity to one that supports the narrowness of the belief of who we now are.

Guard your I AMs with your life.

When we say, "I am", it is important to differentiate between our behaviours – things that we do – and our identity, which is truly who we are.

Knowing the answer to the question of who we are can become a double-edged sword.

We all know the kid who behaved badly come to be known as “The BAD kid”, and perhaps the girl who dressed in a certain way became known as “The SLUT”

When behaviours become identity statements, negative identity statements become traps that are difficult to escape, and ironically our behaviour adjusts to match the unwanted label as we take on that identity…so we end up becoming that which we were labeled.

By keeping behaviours as behaviours (i.e. I did a stupid thing vs. I AM stupid), and ensuring we only use positive identity statements, we keep who we are safe from the randomness of the world around us.

Think diagnosis

Part of our relentless external search for the ‘who am I’ answer can leave us particularly vulnerable to people in positions of authority making pronouncements about us.

One hugely vulnerable area is our health. When you go to the doctor, it is absolutely crucial to keep positive identity statements in your head, because one diagnosis can lead us down a trap that is very difficult to escape.

When the doctor says, “You have _________”, we process that internally as, “I AM ________.” And in an instant our lives rearrange to accommodate the diagnosis.

We begin to live in service of diabetes or cancer or high blood pressure. The diagnosis penetrates every area of our lives until we ARE cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure.

The key is to remember to separate behaviours from identity. Your identity is something to be, truly, guarded with your life. Behaviour is something we do.

Think Frank Sinatra: keep your Be’s separate from your Do’s.

My Way (or the highway)

There's a cool comedian/storyteller called Dave Roche. He's a guy who was terribly disfigured as an infant and has a shocking (some would say awful) appearance.

Here's a quote from his website:

“When I walk on stage, I encourage the audience to ask, 'What happened to your face?' “I then explain that I was born with a severe facial disfigurement. On the left side of my face is an extensive cavernous hemangioma, a benign tumor consisting of blood vessels. As an infant and child I underwent many facial surgeries and heavy radiation therapy, which left radiation burns on my temple and eyelid. “Yet my face is a gift, because my shadow side – my difficulty and challenge – is on the outside, where I have been forced to deal with it.”

What I love about what he lays out is the difference between shadow side and 'public' side.

One of my favorite David Roche lines is this:"I'm an incense survivor." meaning he's a recovering Catholic.
:-)

Coming from an institution that presents itself as holy and different and superior, I have discovered a significant respect for people who are truly Christian (as in, following the steps of Jesus Christ who I consider an inspirational historical person). Check out my friends Ryan and Holly here

I've found myself on the wrong end of a few 'christian' transactions over the last several years and have noted with amusement how the 'CHRISTIAN' franchise has overplayed its hand with unsubtle tomes like "Jesus wants you to be RICH" (when Jesus was, if placed in the appropriate historical context a social democrat), and "JESUS CEO"

I'm not really qualified to or interested in demonstrating what I consider the egregious hypocracy between christians and christianity. I only point to it here to express the difference between internal and external, behavioural and intentional, and what the hell - belief and identity.


I don't think it would be inappropriate to point out that the success oriented American Culture has created affluence. The interesting thing is that the affluence in the last few years has expanded and reached the Evangelical Christians who are now rushing towards more wealth.

(I have a huge theme that I'd be happy to talk about one day equating the blurring of the lines between bible and constitution in the USA but that might be for another post)

Not saying wealth is bad at all. I'm saying that if you follow Christ, from my understanding (if placed properly in his context) you would be a social democrat.

The comfort for those who look at Christians and expect Christian behaviour has always been to look over at Billy Graham who maintained a salary of $50,000 per year regardless of what was going on in his ministry.

This evening after painting a bathroom I clicked onto the Washington post and saw an article that really highlighted what is a double-bind for the Christian world in the US these days.

Christianity has placed itself above all. Megachurches, Tammy Faye and Jimmy Bakkers...these people aren't the exception - they're the rule. There was that recent guy who had a homosexual affair...

The irony is that me - a non churchgoer thought, "Oh yeah...scratch a homophobe, scrape a closet door..whatever."


The real problem is these people frame themselves above others. The put themselves on pedestals then wonder why people react when they act beneath the altar they themselves created in their own reflection.


You can read it below, or you can simply understand this: Billy Graham's wife of 63 years wants to be buried somewhere pastoral and peaceful - in a place she created to help those who are in the ministry to recharge. Her son, the heir apparent, wants her to be buried at, essentially, a theme park...where at the end of the tour her and Billy's grave will sit.

Um...so it's about money. Grave in woods: no money. Grave at end of cheesy tour (complete with talking cow and straw pathways) = money.

So to bring it back delicately to NLP, think about the shadow side of all behaviours. Remember - we do things to get stuff for ourselves. The question to ponder in each context is this: is the doing the shadow or is it the getting?


Click here to read the article. Me? I'm going to wash.

NLP & Sports

There's an old story that I've heard in a few different ways over the years. It goes like this:

An un-named NLP person (I've heard Bandler's name and Tony Robbins mentioned) made a deal with either a San Diego Padre or a San Francisco Giant. If they worked together, and that player's statistics rose beyond a certain threshold, the NLP Practitioner would get a percentage of the player's salary.

Neat huh? I've been trying to figure out for a couple of years how to work with a hockey player here in Toronto (ehhh maybe Montreal) and set up the same deal. From my perspective it'd be pretty simple.

I have worked with athletes in the past and can tell you that it's fun working with people who are very good and want to get even better.


If you've taken my course, I've at some point probably mentioned my sister's son Ben who is the white water kayak kid.

The story I tell is fun - I watched him on the Ottawa River (where the 2007 world championships will be taking place) a few years back. He was heading down a patch of water I wouldn't take a helicopter down. On that first pass he scoped out the river and picked what seemed to be a fairly treacherous path through the rapids.

I was very impressed.

He then paddled back upstream along the edge of the river back to where he had started. He then carefully positioned his kayak, and quickly turned it 180 degrees so it was now pointing upstream. He then cheerfully laid the paddle across the boat and waved happily at me as he took the same rapids backwards.

Snotty kid.


In any case, Ben is now in Vietnam gearing up for the World Championships. He is looking for sponsorship. Should you know of anyone who would want their company logo on a kayak whose paddler has an excellent chance of winning the worlds, this would be an excellent time.

If you click the following link, you can read an interesting story on him from his hometown paper in Brockville (he fondly calls the place Brock Vegas).

Some interesting video of him doing his thing is available here

Today is International AIDS Day

Today I am remembering an old friend: Keith Lowther

Keith and I started out as friends-of-friends. I met him through an old buddy Bruce who was doing his PhD in Philosophy, and Keith was doing his in History. What - me hanging with eggheads? :-)

In time, Bruce stopped coming and Keith and I continued the tradition the three of us had meeting at a Jazz bar in downtown Montreal for a beer every Saturday night after those two geeks finished watching Star Trek The Next Generation...

We would sit and talk about anything and everything. He had a distinctive laugh (think honk) and a good ascerbic (and occasionally catty) sense of humour.

Around 9 or 10pm he would take the Metro east to the Gay Village, and I would either stick around or go west, home to my apartment.

In November 1996 he confided that he was HIV positive. The following February he was hospitalized for the first time displaying a bizarre array of symptoms that eventually turned into Lymphoma.

Keith had many friends, but he had (as another friend once described as) Chinese walls between himself and people. He had many sides and some saw aspects of his personality but few got to see him when he wasn't 'on'.

I was one of the few, and, because he was my friend and had no family in Montreal I visited him in the hospital as often as I could. As time went on, and he was in the hospital for so long, he became part of my day. Another friend of his who became a friend of mine, Dominique and I began to play 'tag team' so he would have a visitor seven days a week.

As time went on, his condition deteriorated. Dominique was finishing off her Thesis so when it came right down to the end - when the doctors told him that they had done their best, but there was nothing left, his voice had gone; he could no longer speak. So around 8pm on a Thursday night it fell to me to callhis parents to tell them the bad news.


It was only four days later that Keith passed away in the Palliative Care ward of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.

Keith was a Canadian Historian, so it was fitting that a classic Can Lit moment of weather happened the moment he died: the August heat shifted to Autumn crispness.

That night I watched a friend die at the age of 33 of a disease that is decimating Africa right now.

Today is International AIDS day. Bristol-Myers is donating one dollar every time someone goes to their website and lights a candle. (For once, this isn't an Internet hoax.)

It takes only one second to raise a dollar.

https://www.lighttounite.org/