Refreshing Your Spirit

Time to read: 30 seconds

Gwynn Valley at sunset

Hello Rebels,

I'm away at camp.

I spend three weeks working at my children's summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. In a departure from my regular life of coaching and momming, I spend my days as the Miller (as in grain and an actual water-powered mill) where I take children through a farm to table experience that involves lots of corn and lots of food. (It also involves dead fish, which is a story for another day.)

At camp, there is little cell service, spotty wifi, no TV or technology, lots of fresh air, baby animals, and hundreds of children. Even though I end each day covered in cornmeal and drop in bed exhausted at night, I am grateful I get to spend so much time each summer playing with children. They refresh my spirit.

As we prepare to start the Quiet the Noise Challenge, I invite you to consider what refreshes your spirit.

Where can you step outside your usual existence, even if only for a few minutes or a day? What can you do or where can you go to quiet the noise in your life for a while?

If you'd like a quick daily practice starting on August 5, our challenge is just the thing. You can join us here.

Anne and I look forward to seeing you there!

Christina

P.S. If you're excited for the challenge, please invite some friends to join by forwarding this email to them. They can sign up here.

Have You Paid Too Much?

Time to read: Less than 90 seconds.

You don't have to earn this. It's already yours.

I belong to a writing salon. Once a month, a small group of unlikely friends gathers around someone's dining room table to write and read our journals, stories, essays, and memoirs. We've been meeting for five years and have seen each other through retirements, deaths, grandchildren, job changes, and the rediscovery of our creativity. This month, one of my esteemed colleagues wrote a beautiful piece with a great reminder of the price you think you have to pay for pleasure.

I was deeply moved by his piece, and he generously agreed that I could share it with you. It's a perfect message for Corporate Rebels in summer.

From Bill Peterson:

In the busyness years of my life, I remember reading an article in which the author recommended some “good summer reads.” I’m thinking it was about twenty years ago. My history is no longer five or ten or fifteen years ago. I now have to reach back twenty, thirty, forty years or even more to reach those heyday years.

For years, I have longed to sit in the leisure of summer, open a book and enjoy a good summer read. And now, this summer I have arrived! I have laid aside the demands I put upon myself through a combination of purposeful intention and opportunity. On Sunday afternoons and mild weekday evenings I am finding myself stretched out on the old couch in the front porch with my feet up and the lamp lighting only enough to illuminate the pages, and I am enjoying a “good...summer...read.” Serendipitously I'm reading a book entitled, “The Art of the Wasted Day”, by Patricia Hampl. A wasted day? I don’t think so. You'd have to read the book to understand that part. But, for me it's more like, “The Fulfilled Day”, “The Blessed Day” or “The Day Long Awaited” because I feel like I have been waiting for these days all of my life.

I’ve paid for these days. I’ve paid with hard work and toil, sweat and burnt skin. I’ve paid, but the truth is I’ve paid too much. And I’m wondering if I really didn’t need to pay for these days at all. They were always there for me, but I told them to wait...for too long...way too long!

So now, here I am, in summer 2018, and I am fulfilling a life dream. I am reading with no intention to rush. I am savoring each word, each sentence, each thought. At last I am enjoying “a good summer read.”

If you loved Bill's writing, please email me and let me know. I'll share it with him.

Happy rebel-y summer, everyone!

Christina

P.S. Do you have a colleague who needs permission to sloooowwww down and put their feet up? Send them this newsletter and invite them to sign up for the Corporate Rebel Video Podcast and Newsletter right here.

Something I rarely do!

Estimated read time: 50.44 seconds

I'll be chillin' with these two!

I've been a busy bee this summer. It's been fun. I've loved the interaction with all of you and the cool new things I've gotten to do. Our family has had fun travels and are enjoying our new house.

And, I tend toward workaholic, to believing that my self worth is tied up with production and constant forward movement. I have to be disciplined about slowing down, staying present, letting go, and chilling out. Can you relate?

I'm going to do something that feels even more risky to me than putting videos of myself in public. I'm going to take a week off!

Next week, my kids and I are going blueberry picking. I'll chow dairy products at the Minnesota State Fair, sleep in (oh yes!), buy folders and pens for the start of school, and watch stupid movies. (Mall Cop, anyone?)

Research shows that you are more creative and more productive when you let yourself rest. Yet, how often do you allow yourself to take a break? To recharge. To gain a new perspective?

If you feel like you drive yourself hard, that you've got too much to do and not enough time to do it, or that you would like some balance or rest, let's talk. Click hereto be taken to my calendar where you can schedule a time to chat (after next week, of course). As a recovering workaholic, I can help.

And if the whole chilling' is one of your gifts, please hit reply to this email and share your tips with me. It's my growth edge!

Here's to sleeping in!

See you in a week!

Christina

P.S. If you know someone who would like to receive this newsletter, they can sign-up for The Corporate Rebel Video Podcast and Newsletter HERE.