WD40 for the soul

                                                          

Yes, I am harping on the comment which was most likely made with good intentions. Sorry about it, but it is too good to pass.  Apparently, my soul is in danger of corrosion as I look backward too much. I do not want this to happen, my soul to corrode, I mean, so I started to think about how I could protect myself from it. I started to look for WD40 to save my soul. Turning to google for suggestions it gave me some religious answers, but I do not think that the Anonymous leaving the comment, meant I should turn in this direction. I am myself not inclined to go there. So, I am a bit at a loss. Not looking backwards was given to me as a clue, another clue was The Intern, a film with De Niro.

Hmm…Looking backwards is something I do not want to stop as I am just writing a story of my first love and I am enjoying the process. I am also doing some self-analysis as I go and I, self-centred me, always liked the process. This time it is even quite enlightening, so I will not stop. At least not for a while. This does not stop me to look forward. I am prepared to pay more attention to the future especially that my trip to Poland is around the corner, if I am lucky that is. Polish and Irish have a lot in common, it seems, so maybe I will experience the luck of the Polish? I am planning to go! I want to go! There are also some things to look forward to like renovating the bathrooms. For that one needs to be a little masochistic so I hesitate, especially after my troublesome experience with the kitchen renovations.

Improving my bridge is another good, looking forward thing especially for a learner type of people I belong to. There is a possibility of some achievements there. This is another of my values I cannot shake off. Even if I try, it is still somewhere dormant in me, so I resign to be an aspiring bridge achiever.

For my soul to flourish I need love and friendship. This is a tricky area as it needs others to play fair with you. With life experience, I lost my rose colour glasses and see things more clearly or, should I say, less naively. But the disappointments do not hurt so much as they used to and my first more accurate impressions protect me a little better than they used to.  I have not given up on new friendships, but I do not expect that much depth or commitment as I did in the past. Even if it is not ideal, I still look forward to semi-friendships and I find them. So, what do you say, Anonymous, is there anything else I could do for my soul here?

Creativity is also good for the soul and I create a bit. I write my posts. I take out the love objects from my heart vitrine, I look and them, think about them, recall my memories and write about them. I knit a sweater for myself and intend to finish this tapestry I started some years ago. From time to time I create a special meal.

My idea of bliss - friends, conversation, little wine and good food

                                                

I pay a lot of attention to beauty, another healthy food for the soul, pure WD40. I go to exhibitions, art galleries whenever I can. I would do much more of it if I lived in Europe, but when I am there I will catch up, maybe skipping Vienna 😉. I flaneur as well. Maybe I should read poetry? Never liked it much, but I know this would be good for me. New gentle resolution?

Pleasure… I definitely have to have pleasure in my life. Here is one sore point for me and I am not sure how to solve it. Anonymous, could you help? I really like intellectual discussions and I have problems with finding partners who would be interested in the same things as me. I have been often accused of complicating things and this is exactly what I am missing, discussions with a person who would not mind some complications to talk or write about. I remember somebody saying “why would one like to simplify things when one can so beautifully complicate them”. Was it Hasek in The Good Soldier Svejk? Do you remember, Lech?

There are many little things that give me pleasure, little prosecco, a flower, cleaning up some mess in my home, giving to others, sharing meals with friends, reading, writing, listening to Polish radio and its political news. This is a doubtful pleasure, maybe just the opposite to a pleasure, but I seem to miss it a lot when I do not have internet. Let’s call it my favourite vice. My soul needs that.

I do not think, Anonymous, that you should worry about my soul any more. I refer to you few times here, but this is only an issue of form of this post. You may say, I used your comment to my purposes. Your comment triggered of some thoughts and it was a good opportunity for me to do a self-check. I am satisfied with the results.  So, thank you.

The Chinese Curse

May you live in interesting times. Even the Chinese origin of the statement is apocryphal, and I am going to make adjustments to serve my purpose. I want to modify it a bit to say - May you live an interesting life and examine its merits.

This blog makes me look back and reminisce, observe my past and myself in it. This is sometimes like self-psychoanalysis. My life has been interesting and seems to continue along the same line. I mean, continues to be interesting. I have lived in four countries. I was married to three wonderful men. One at a time, I would like to clarify. I have lived in three exciting, big cities: Warsaw, Paris and Sydney and some not so big and not so exciting: Włocławek and Düsseldorf. I had the interesting and successful career, changing my profession three times. I have had many great friends and have met many interesting people. I traveled quite a bit; I walked on fire, I have learnt many useful and not so useful skills...  

I feel that there have been many, many changes in my life, many very good ones and some character building. I was born in a small village in Poland somewhere close to the Russian border in the part of Poland that is still considered to be in the Poland B category. This means behind normal Polish standards. The happiest times of my childhood I spent with my grandparents in a village where electricity came long after the rest of Poland was considering it a normal convenience. Then it was time to go to school, and they were times spent in the industrial town, I consider small. Ray from Mummulgum thought that 75,000 citizens constitute a metropolis. People have different ideas about things.

When the time came to go to Uni in Warsaw, I felt really small and insignificant, lacking looks and manners of a big town girl. I was tutored in the big city skills by my husband to be. He was a man about the town; smoking, riding a scooter, knowing how to behave in fashionable places and generally very impressive, perhaps not only to me, a girl from a small town. I caught up with all of that jazz in a short time.

The next major step was to learn how to live in a western country with my second husband, extremely elegant in his looks and behavior. Another need and opportunity to smarten up. I rose to the occasion again.

All of that may look like bragging, but it may be just the opposite. Recently, in discussion with a friend, I was asked about happy moments in my life. The memories of times spent at the home of my best friend came immediately to mind. I have many such wonderful memories, and I hope I will be adding to them with time passing. We were nineteen years old when we met and when I was first invited to her home. From the first moment, when I entered the house where she lived, I was enchanted. It was a quintessential family home, and her parents seemed to me, quintessential parents. Warm, kind, caring for their daughter and her friends. The place smelled of good, homemade meal we were soon going to have. I felt accepted and invited to this sanctuary from the first hello and the first warm smile of the parents. This has never changed even after the parents passed away. The mother left us quite recently. She lived 105 years and to her last day she was up and about making sure that there is no drop in the family standards. My friend took over the home and cooking, but I always recognised the school of the old lady. The cooking and the place itself have been modernized with time but with respect to the roots and the family traditions. To me, it always meant love, safety, authenticity, generosity, stability, and happiness. To this day when I cross the gate, I enter this very special atmosphere, and I know it will warm me up and restore my spirits.

My friend has lived in the same place since her early childhood, has been a math’s teacher all her working years, married to only one great man also a teacher. She retained the important friendships from way back while I lost many of mine through moving. She is a mother of a wonderful young man, happily married and a proud grandmother of a beautiful and clever girl. In my mind, she has all that I would love to have. However, I made different choices. I wanted to have an interesting life, and I have had what I wanted.  No regrets, but have I lived in agreement with my core values?

How to live Prime Minister ???

Some years ago my favourite politician Donald Tusk intended to show interest and compassion towards people affected by adverse weather that ruined some crops. It worked very well up to the point  when he met a capsicum grower. He was an articulate and outspoken man. His complaints and demands towards the government were as substantial as ill justified. He spoke emphatically and at length for more than 10 minutes complaining at the weather and the government. I was in Poland at the time and watched the program live, after a while I became impatient with repetitions and silly arguments but one statement got my full interest and attention. The man who was worried about losses in his capsicum plantation asked Donald Tusk : and how to live Prime Minister???

For some reason the question became well known in Poland and it is now proverbial with me.

In the recent times I experienced many setbacks, health problems, complications, bad news, loss of friends and generally massive lack of luck. It has been perhaps the most difficult time I have experienced. I believe that I am over the worst and now on the mend physically and emotionally. Many things redefined themselves in the hard times; I was no more sure about my values or meaning of life.  During those times the question of the capsicum grower was coming frequently to my mind: How to live Prime Minister??? In asking the question I was equally pathetic as the outspoken capsicum man. I was not asking any Prime Minister for answers but perhaps even I was addressing a superpower. Not sure, but I was sort of desperate and I literally feverish.  This is my excuse.

                                                           

On reflection, I came to think that it is really a good question, a coaching question. There are times when things change so much in our lives or we get such a jerk that we need to look and reevaluate few things. I am a great believer in importance of knowing and understanding our personal strengths, purpose or meaning, believes and values. This is how I approach career transition issues when I coach. Now it is time for me to go to my personal drawing board and look again at what really is important to me. I have not done it in a structured way yet, but I already know that friendship, learning and contribution will be on my short list. I am glad to realize that the most important has not changed in my personal earthquake.

I am recommending to anyone the capsicum question: How to live Prime Minister? Only let’s seek the Prime Minister and the answers within us. 

Challenging times

It has been rather difficult for me to write new posts lately. One of the reasons is that I have not physically travelled much and my travels always provided me with easy and obvious choice of subjects. No easy choices these days. Another reason is that I am going through challenging times and it takes my thoughts away from communicating through blogging. The subjects that preoccupy my thoughts do not lend themselves to sharing through internet, at least I feel so. So what shall I write about ? This is my question.  The subjects that are currently in my thoughts are: friendship, gratitude, courage. They are very big subjects and I do not feel up to writing anything profound, at least not now. Hmm...

So I will write a bit about professional side of my life. I want to be current here so I will not reminisce on my past successes and failures. The middle part of my carrier was all about management, project management and leadership. This came to an end but I was not ready to keep smelling the roses as my only occupation. So, I became a certified life coach. There is a link here to my management/leadership past. There is continuation. But in the past I did not think much of “selling” even if for a while I thought that life is all about selling, that we sell something all the time. Like ideas. I think selling skills are important but I have not acquire them to the level of knowing how to sell my coaching successfully. I have not given up though. I strongly believe that coaching is something I could use to make my contribution.

This is how i see the scope of life coaching. My personal expertise is in Personal Development and Career

A week ago I came up with an idea to write posts for my coaching blog www.accoachonpurpose.com. Posts related to values. I feel very strongly that knowing and understanding one’s values can be very helpful in making life decisions. Recently it came to me through the LinkedIn contacts that knowing my values can help me to manage my emotions. This I found intriguing and very promising. The new writing project is to write a chapter about each identified value considering its practical uses and some general descriptions. This is still evolving in my head but I am excited about the project. Will it be also a marketing tool for my coaching? Not sure but I will have fun writing about something I have been very interested in for some years. I will learn some things in the process as well. That’s a plus.

This picture (by Stella Bowen) will find a place in my future articles about Values. To illustrate Friendship perhaps? 

and this Picasso should be a great illustration for writing about Freedom

This has been a bit different post today to the previous ones. A bit up close and personal. More than my earlier posts. Hmm...