And heeeeere it is! My post about meeting Derrick Coleman and the fabulous experience helping to run a fundraising event. Read it and enjoy!

Elizabeth with Derrick Coleman. Photo credit: Corky Trewin, Seattle Seahawks Photographer

I took a Reiki workshop on a beautiful Saturday not too long ago. As I rode my bike there, I felt ambivalent about taking it and was not in the best mental space. A few troubling firestorms had occurred that week and were occupying some mental space, plus I am always reluctant to spend a beautiful day inside.

A friend had taken Terri Sandusky’s workshop and recommended it to me. It was close to where I lived (convenience is a big deal for me in this busy world of mine!) and lately I had been thinking about “what’s next” in terms of work/career stuff. It seemed like a good first step towards seeking clarity. And I’ve always been interested in health and how the body has an enormous capacity for self-healing.

So what is Reiki?

Reiki is a spiritual, healing practice, transmitted energetically through touch. It is great for stress reduction and induces a state of deep relaxation.

The class was small- there were three other folks. I like small classes- they  are more intimate and you get more one-on-one attention from the teacher. The teacher, Terri, was incredibly enthusiastic about what she was teaching and talked quite a lot. But when we got to the actual hands-on practicing of Reiki, that’s when things started to shift for me.

Each person in the class received Reiki at the same time from the others, which was pretty powerful. Imagine 3 pairs of hands gently placed on your body as you lie there in a state of extreme relaxation. The caring energy was palpable- you could really feel it. After my session I felt lighter and calmer, and my preoccupation with the week’s events was gone. The negative energy that had been bottled up inside me had just vanished.

Elizabeth having a Reiki session. Note the two pairs of hands. The third pair are down by my feet. Credit: Terri Sandusky

During the last Reiki session on one of the participants, the teacher had me encircling my hands around her head. A few minutes later, my eyes started tearing up.  The participant had been talking about a particularly troubling relationship and I think she had been feeling some sadness/anger/pain. Because my hands were on her head, I was able to sense the painful feelings behind her thoughts. I had no control over the tears that were flowing and actually felt detached from the emotion itself.

This type of intuition is no big surprise to me. I have noticed that when someone I am interacting with expresses grief or tells a painful story, I often find myself also feeling that emotion (which is why I would probably be a terrible therapist!). I think it runs deeper than just feeling compassion for someone– my body actually senses the emotion. This sense of intuition has allowed me to be compassionate as a listener and over the years I’ve been able to learn how to mute my reactions and somehow remain detached from the person’s emotions and feelings, while still being present and caring for the person.

Since I’ve taken the workshop, I have practiced Reiki on myself and my family with positive results. My daughter claimed her cough went away, my squirmy son relaxed quite a bit, and my husband fell asleep. What a great tool for self-healing and coping with stress!

Today is Monday. I am feeling sluggish- got a pain in my back and the weather is still ominously grey outside. It’s Seattle, after all. I swear I could be related to Garfield the cat sometimes.

I took my electric toothbrush out of my mouth too soon this morning and THIS is how it felt.

I keep reminding myself, I shouldn’t complain. I’m no longer an east coast gal (Buffalo, NY is where I lived til I went to college) and where I live now (Seattle, WA) is paradise compared to what’s happening over there, with those endless winter storms pummeling everyone with snow, snow snow. Global warming doesn’t seem to be affecting them over there! Over here, we are really feelin’ it.

Snoqualmie Ski Area. Taken by Steve Ringman, Seattle Times

The Snoqualmie ski area is just less than an hour away from my house. I feel lucky that I’m surrounded by mountains and water and can get to them fairly quickly.

Anyway, I gotta get off to work, but just writing this post makes me feel better. There’s a lot of good going on out there in spite of all the weather madness and the Brian Williams disaster. I’m determine to post something inspiring soon. Let me know if you have something you’d like me to share!

The words stayed there on the screen mocking me.

Day 365/365 of exercise.

I could not stop staring at them. I sort of wanted to slap my face for getting so hooked by this seemingly simple Facebook status update. My first thought: How is it possible to exercise EVERY DAY FOR A YEAR??

A classmate from middle school had written it. I emailed her immediately asking a barrage of questions: what does this mean…how did you do this…did you really exercise every day for a year?

And she wrote back and told me she got up very early in the mornings and went to the gym. Plus her kids were older teens so she was able to pull it off.

So then I thought: well, going to the gym at 5 am is not gonna work for me. I have an elementary-school age kid and a kid about to enter middle school in the fall- there will be lots of schlepping them around to school and activities and I’m not quite ready to leave them home alone.

But as I thought about that status update, something shifted inside me. Suddenly my state of inertia completely morphed into a state of extreme motivation. I realized I wanted, no, needed, this challenge really badly.

I had been bummed about feeling out of shape and not making the time to exercise regularly- that’s always been sort of a mantra for me, to be in shape and STAY in shape. I always felt better and stronger when I was active. And I felt like such a slug a year ago.

And here was a way for me to take charge and be motivated and stay motivated.

I started telling people about my goal to exercise every day for the next 365 days as a way to make it more real. I’m not a person who likes to fail, so saying the words out loud made me feel more accountable to my success.

Most people were thrilled and intrigued. One person said: you shouldn’t set unreasonable goals. It made me wonder why people say such things, and for a moment I dwelled on: why wasn’t it possible for this person to be supportive and say: wow, I hope you can do it! That would be hard for me! which is probably what they were really thinking and feeling at the time.

I didn’t dwell on that naysayer though. Luckily, I had a neighbor who exercised regularly and we started going for walks once a week in the morning before work, then when the weather turned nasty, as it ultimately does in Seattle, we started swimming also early in the morning. I was getting up at 6 am, which was certainly better than 5 am! In recent months right as daylight savings time was just about to kick in, we would look at each other and go: are we crazy? But it felt SO good afterwards.

My parameters for exercise: I had to move my body in some way for at least 20-30 minutes straight each day. My goal was not to do intense cardiovascular workouts every day for a year, but rather, get my muscles active and spend more time outside increasing my Vitamin D levels. And here were my main activities:

biking (usually twice a week), swimming (twice a week), hiking, walking (2-3 times a week), yoga (once a week), stair master at the gym (once a week), and playing frisbee or basketball. Skiing was out this season because the snow was nonexistent. Every week was different, depending on the weather and whether I was driving carpool or working at this job or that job.

In December I was sick for a week with a horrible sinus infection that had me completely drained of energy. But I made myself exercise- and it was very gentle and mostly consisted of me going for 20 minute walks around the neighborhood or doing yoga at home.

A friend commented that I seemed more peppy and cheerful than usual especially during the winter. And it is true, I have experienced many positive benefits of exercising every day: less moodiness and sadness, better sleep, feeling stronger and more toned, and it has now become a daily habit. I feel restless and stiff if I don’t make the time to move around.

I copied this status update on Facebook and hope it inspires someone else. I am undecided if I will continue the daily exercise regimen. Maybe it will be more like 5 days a week.

Next goal: I want to meditate every day for a year.  I will let you know when I start that :).

Today our family walked down to a neighborhood parade and on our way back home, ran into an elderly couple who could not remember where they parked their car. We stood with them on the sidewalk, trying to help them picture where they had left it. They didn’t seem to be terribly worried (the woman had this amazing grin on her face the whole time) and the man made a  few jokes here and there. They had thick accents and I wondered if they were Norwegians participating in the parade, which happened to be Syttende Mai, the 17th of May celebration of the Norway Constitution Day.

So we walked with them not even a block, when the man pointed excitedly to a parking lot and said, “That’s it!” And we ambled on over there and sure enough, their car was right there. We gave them directions to the freeway (clearly they do not have GPS on them) and we parted ways with big hugs and smiles from the woman and hearty handshakes from the man.

This event gave us warm fuzzies as we walked back to our house. We were glad to have been able to touch these people’s lives with kindness. It was a little bittersweet for me, because it reminded me of my own parents and where they are in their lives, attempting to maintain their independence and not having the easiest time getting around. I wish and hope they will be kind to the strangers they meet (my mother’s anxiety often gets in the way) if they ever need help as they navigate their new-ish environment.

Ever since the World Cup games several years ago, my son has become very interested in sports. He has tried out (in this order) ultimate frisbee, soccer, and most recently, basketball.

My son uses two cochlear implants to hear, and because basketball is pretty physical with lots of body parts moving around, the implants are in danger of getting knocked off. They are held in place pretty securely by an ear mold, but anything can happen. I had encouraged him to wear a headband to prevent them from falling off, but he refused, understandably, because he didn’t want to stick out as the odd player wearing something on his head. There was another player on his team who consistently wore a bright red headband, but still that didn’t sway my son.

Then the inevitable happened.

It was the second game of the season. My son was playing during the first period and not even three minutes into the period (there are eight minutes in each period), his implant went flying off. Maybe he bumped into another player whose arms brushed against them– who knows.

Apparently the implant was dislodged off of the tube that goes inside the ear mold which holds it in place. My son was momentarily confused as he rushed to pick it up and didn’t find the ear mold on it. All I know is, I am sitting on the bleachers experiencing that panicky feeling I didn’t want to experience as I watch the events unfold, and having it get stronger and stronger. I see him frantically searching for his implant, see him thinking he also lost his ear mold, see the game stop, see the coach come out to the court to help him look for the ear mold, feel the dead silence in the gym, and I am immediately flying (leaping? jumping?) out of my seat to reach my son who has run off the court crying from the humiliation and self-consciousness he feels.

I immediately look in his ear and see the ear mold resting in there, intact, called to the coach that we found it and the game resumed, thankfully.

My son was beside himself. After I comforted him and put his implant back together and back on his head, I told him it was time to go back in. He was reluctant and I thought for a teeny tiny second how easy it would be to just avoid all this and take him home. But instead I told him he couldn’t let this stop him from doing what he loved and perhaps we could talk about using a headband for future games. I told him his team needed him.

He went back in and lo and behold, a few minutes later, they came flying off again. Same scenario, him running off the court in tears, me rushing to him, comforting him, giving him a pep talk and encouraging him to go back.

After that incident, I immediately ordered a headband (in the most inconspicuous color possible- black) and when it came time to wear it for the next game, my son refused. Aside: my son is a very strong-willed young person and it is very common for him to say no to anything new. I told him he did not have an option. He went anyway, red-eyed and morose. However, that game went by without incident.

Before the next game, he asked me to put it on him (yes!).  As I watched the boys practicing, I noticed something was very different. It took me a minute to figure it out. Every single boy on my son’s team was wearing a bright red headband!!

Here’s what happened. The coach had seen that my son was struggling with this whole issue of his implants getting knocked off and seeing him feeling so self-conscious that he decided to order headbands for the whole team as a way of supporting him and making him feel like he didn’t stand out.

Gestures like that go a long way. It made me realize that even though people are watching what’s going on, they do care and are compassionate. Sometimes they simply don’t know what to do, but this coach, he just somehow knew he had to do SOMETHING. And for my son, I think he noticed that gesture and feels more a part of the team than ever before. Thank you, Coach, for that wonderful act of kindness. You make the world a better place.

In February I did Sharon Salzberg’s Real Happiness Meditation Challenge. Each day I would get an email introducing the day’s topic which also included a brief guided audio meditation. It was really great- just 10-15 minutes or less each day focusing on mindfulness. And the best thing about it: I asked Sharon via Twitter if she could provide a transcript- my hearing loss prevents me from being able to understand any audio guides. And she did! Thanks again Sharon!

I decided to participate in this challenge to help me through this funk I have been in lately. This past winter my parents died within two months of each other. I think most of us know our parents/older family members will die some day but no matter how cognizant we are of that fact, it seems as though one is never really ready when it actually happens. And the whole thing happened so quickly that I am still in disbelief.

And of course, Trump somehow got elected and turned my world upside down.

And THEN I injured my foot just this past Friday when I missed a step in an art museum. (what a metaphor- my foundation has disappeared!)

Digression: I was having the most lovely time with my son who had had the day off from school. We had just come from his student conference which he led from start to finish. Proud mama, I must say. It’s his last year at this school- he goes to middle school in the fall. Seems like this whole year is full of transitions…my daughter is also going to a new high school.

I spent the whole weekend icing and elevating my foot and it really made me slow down. I am usually racing from one thing to another- mostly in my mind- until I get overwhelmed by the sheer number of to-do’s I create for myself.

So there I am lying on the couch, surfing Facebook (ok, it’s not what I did ALL weekend- I actually finished a book!) – oh, some backstory here: I had noticed some time ago that a Facebook friend (a classmate from middle school) had started posting daily gratitudes. I would glance quickly at them–“oh, that’s cool. Let’s see what so and so is up to now”– but while I was stuck on the couch this weekend, I noticed she had posted her 60^th-something gratitude!

A light bulb sort of went off for me at that point. I had a flashback to my Peace Corps days when my morale was low and the rainy season prevented the mail from being delivered (my roommate and I really depended on that connection with our family and friends). I would draw upon my reserves of positivity and remind myself the rain was only temporary, we were having an amazing experience, I was making a difference, I had a cool boyfriend, etc. And I would feel grateful having had this unique opportunity to serve in the Peace Corps. That positive attitude has served me well up to this day but has definitely taken some hits in the past year.

Then really soon after that I was talking with a childhood friend who had lost her parents some years ago, about a) how time takes away the pain of grieving and b) remembering that they were such a positive part of her life.

And then I realized when you verbalize a gratitude, some of the positivity starts to seep back in. I notice it every week when my family does Friday night gratitudes at dinner time. We share what we are thankful for and what we are looking forward to. It really brings a certain lovely energy into the space.

So I am going to try and make time to write down my gratitudes every day for as long as I can. Here we go as a start:

I am grateful to have had parents who loved and supported me unconditionally throughout my life. (ok, this is making me a little teary, so I am not sure it is making me feel positive right now, but I know deep down it will in the end)

I really am fortunate because I work for an amazing organization that helps people become resilient by nourishing them and providing resources and connections with others via our food bank and resource center. Many of these people have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Research as shown that the greater the number of ACEs, the increased likelihood there will be negative outcomes in one’s life.

My parents were good people and were staunch advocates for me. Just knowing this on a cellular level only reinforces how I want to be with my own children and grandchildren: supportive, loving, nonjudgmental, generous, and welcoming.

So it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I have been preoccupied with lots of things lately, including my parents’ deaths, figuring out career stuff (I am currently in between jobs), volunteering on a few projects, helping my kids with school, life, etc.

One of my volunteer projects has been co-planning a retreat in 2019 for deaf folks like myself who rely on lipreading to understand what is being said. We grew up learning to listen and talk, rather than using sign. Some of us later learned sign language (I didn’t, although I did take one class in ASL long ago and soon realized there was no one to practice with, so my minimal signing skills all but disappeared).

My friend Robert, the other co-planner, and I decided to have a bit of fun making some videos for the retreat attendees. One video was about how we have known each other for 20 years and might end up killing each other trying to plan this retreat. Another video announced the date of the retreat, with some silly participation from our friends. Lots of expressive acting there. Robert and I plan on making a few more, just because it is So. Much. Fun.

When my family went on vacation this summer to the beach just south of Los Angeles,  my friend David came down to visit. David and I also go way back- we were pen pals in college. Like Robert, we have a few things in common: both of us are deaf and we have a wicked sense of humor.

David and I are always talking about all the embarrassing situations we find ourselves in because of our deafness. That’s the thing about hanging out with my deaf friends- they really get what it is like to be in my shoes. I knew David and I would have a blast making a video because we love to make fun of ourselves. We decided to film a few scenes where we sometimes encounter, ahem, misunderstandings, a.k.a. “deaf fails”. We enlisted the help of my kids to film, edit and caption the video. I honestly think I was an actress in a past life because I love doing this kind of thing! Hollywood, take notice!

Disclaimer: we made this video in less than an hour after much laughing and not enough rehearsing, so the quality is not the best. Enjoy!

I’ve been working hard on a few projects lately.

I left my job in 2017 and went back to school to get my certificate in nonprofit management. I felt pretty confident I would find a new job easily, considering my robust skill set in fund development, communications and program delivery. I found that the job search was taking longer than expected. Since I am so goal oriented, I knew I needed to focus on some kind of project to keep me energized, busy, and feeling like I was making a difference while job hunting. First I signed up to be a coach for Social Venture Partner’s Fast Pitch program. I got to listen to other inspiring organizations make a pitch for why people should invest in their program. Another coach and I also met weekly with Seattle Against Slavery, and helped its Executive Director refine his amazing story so that it was 5 minutes or less. He ended up winning first prize AND audience choice award, which was quite exciting. Check out his amazing story in the video below.

Then I volunteered for 501 Commons where I got to help another great organization, Pike Market Food Bank, develop protocols and systems for their volunteer program.

Job search still was taking a while. I exercised like crazy, met with a job support group, and dreamed about my next project. I ended up starting the Seattle-King County Cultural Accessibility Consortium which focuses on helping cultural arts institutions make their spaces, programs and events accessible to people with disabilities.  I got funding for three workshops from 4Culture and the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, put together a steering committee of passionate individuals, and developed relationships with cultural arts staff who wanted to make accessibility a reality in their organizations.

In spite of all these projects and doing a ton of networking in the community, nothing was panning out with jobs (a much longer story for some day).

So I decided to start consulting full-time and last month (September), I launched my consulting practice. My objective is to help organizations engage constituents, such as volunteers, donors, participants, and community partners, in the mission of the organization. My work focuses on Fund Development, Program Delivery, Communications and Community & Board Engagement. I also specialize in Accessibility- working with organizations to make their spaces, programs and events accessible to all. I help them integrate accessibility into strategic plans, websites, staff trainings, and marketing/outreach strategies. Check out my LinkedIn article on accessibility here.

So that’s what I have been doing this past year and am excited to see what emerges from the work. Please contact me if you are interested in learning more about my work in accessibility or my consulting services.