Blog – Page 2 – Gitte Klitgaard

🧐 So.. What is next?

As I finished my work at Mentimeter, many colleagues asked “What is next?” or “Where are you going?”, and my honest answer was: “I don’t know – yet”. The only thing I do know is that I will be staying in Stockholm. This is where I feel at home.

Priority one has been taking some rest and taking care of some tough private matters that needed handling. As I now start to feel my head is above water, I have started contemplating what to pursue next.

Stairs made of stones going upwards in a green forest. There are trees on both sides of the stairs and small hedges following the border of the stairs.
The photo is there to symbolise moving forward into something green and fruitful. — Photo by Sebin Thomas on Unsplash

In the meantime I will be doing shorter engagements, meaning I am available, if you want to buy a workshop/courses or a talk from me. I can also be booked for advising, 1-1 coaching, facilitation or coaching short term.

Feel free to reach out if you would like to talk to me about an opportunity.

I will be speaking at conferences like Agile on the Beach and more that are yet to be confirmed/revealed. I might even take part in some podcasts if they sound interesting 🙂

I am holding the door open for longterm things, so if you have just the right employment or consultant gig for me, I am open for input and inspiration 🙂

Maybe I will go back to being an agile coach? Maybe I will be a manager? Perhaps an organisational coach? Do more 1-1 coaching or advising as I have done before? Maybe something totally different? Maybe I will be employed again? Or be a consultant in my own company?

There are many options. All I know for now is that it will be about helping people grow and feel safe. Working with people and creating good environments is what I do best.

It will most likely involve elements of psychological safety, vulnerability and courage, trust, communication, learning environments, helping people think and reflect; retrospectives, working with responsibility, accountability, and clear expectations. These are things I believe matter the most. It could be working with individuals, teams, leadership, or organisations… Engineering culture, agile, going from vision to daily work, processes, structure, planning – my palette is big. I prefer working onsite as many of the interpersonal skills benefit from being in the same room.

For now I will continue my contemplations…

What do you think I should do? Leave me a comment please!

Depression – what you see and what you don’t

In connection with #mentalhealthawarenessmonth I wanted to share this to show what it can also look like with high-functioning mid- to severe depression, stress, and taking care of others before yourself.

I am not doing this to get pity or support; I am doing this to create awareness about the difference of what is going on inside and what is going on on the outside.

What you see:

On the surface I am a smiling woman with new t-shirt for the summer, freshly coloured hair, and makeup.

I am functioning fairly well, helping people, listening to the people I am manager for – and others who come to me because I create a safe space for them. I do what I am supposed to do. I smile, I eat.

What you don’t see

What you don’t see, is that I am sad inside, that I was hoping it would help to dress up, but it didn’t. That I didn’t take part in reverse casual Friday for a while – after having posted in twitter, facebook, and instagram it quite consistently for two years.

What you don’t see, is that I had to buy new t-shirts because I gained a lot of weight and I am now on my max ever. Weight from eating too much, eating comfort food, not having the energy, headspace or urge to cook, not having the energy to move (and this is before my post-covid). That I managed to still move out of being pre-diabetic but still becoming more obese.

What you don’t see, is that I cooked once in the three weeks I have lived in my current apartment, because I don’t have the energy – long live microwave food and McDonalds. McDonalds is my guilty pleasure, but I haven’t enjoyed it for a long time. I just eat it because it is fast.

What you don’t see is that I am not done unpacking because it feels like such an enormous tasks and I finally made it to the box with the makeup.

What you don’t see, is that I had my hair coloured a month later than usual, because it is hard to make appointments – especially appointments for me. That I was hoping it would bring me joy; and it is pretty but I have no joy.

What you don’t see, is that most evenings and weekends the last six months, I did nothing – sleeping a bit, a few sudokus, but I really don’t know what I did with all that time. I used to watch tv, read stuff, meet people. I do still sometimes but almost never on my initiative – and I say no to things. Wanting to be with people, but not wanting to be a burden, so I don’t.

What you don’t see is how I struggle with the question of “How are you?” – do I lie or do I put all this burden on the other person. More darkness than most can handle.

What you don’t see is the frustration, dark pits and sadness and self doubt that I share with my closest friends. Or how often I have the need to do so just so I get it out of my head. Or how often I don’t because I don’t want to be a burden

What you don’t see is friends saying “your dark days become more and more often”, and me brushing it away.

What you don’t see is the weird paradox of knowing that I am good at working with people, organisations, safety, coaching, and at the same tie knowing that I am not providing any value… I deliberately write “knowing”, because that is what it feels like.

What you don’t see is that the energy is used on helping others, and little is left for me. And that I don’t know how to do it any other way (yet – I really hope it is yet).

What you don’t see, is the frustration of realising that I need to reach out for help, and finding it almost impossible to do so – or figure out what to do. Or how hard it is to get help, and not just have a psychologist say “this is not for you, call a doctor” once I finally got around to asking for help (thanks to my boss that pushed me).

What you don’t see is how the mood deteriorating over the last six months into not finding joy in things that I used to enjoy. And not really realising how bad it has become until I filled out a self-assessment sheet.

What you don’t see, is that this week I had meeting where I was crying most of the time, then ate a box of cookies and then going to bed for the rest of the day crying.

It will be all right.

So the point is: you can’t see what is on the inside. And I can’t tell you what is inside others.

What I can tell you is that I am getting help and talking to a doctor tonight. It will be all right.

I have been here before and I have won every single time.

“Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end”…….
Patel, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

See more about what depression looks like from the inside in this video from The Black Dog Institute

Please take care of yourself and get help if you need it – you are worth it <3

Wrapping up things

As I have now done the last two years, I will attempt to write a blog post a day for the 12 days of Christmas; the first year the topic was “Hope”, the second I wrote about what ever comes to mind; seems that this year will be the same. This is the blog post for the fifth day of Christmas 21/22.

Eleven months and 7 days ago I finally moved properly to Sweden; well at least I went and got properly registered as a resident in Sweden after having lived there on and off for more than three years.

Becoming a resident is one thing, and then there are all the other practical things that need to be done like getting a bank account in Sweden, or filling out four pages to be able to keep my Danish account; so much information like where I got my money from; I really had an urge to write “I just want to keep the same account as I have had the last 20 years, so you know where the money comes from..” Sometimes I really had the all the rules that prevent money laundry; I see why they are there, but they sure make it difficult for people like me.

As the year passed, I slowly closed down anything having to do with my Danish company like ending subscriptions, moving the phone number to myself. Where I “owner of Native Wired” signed that I “private person” could take over the number, and then I “private person” signed that I wanted to take our.. Gotta love red tape.

Now the year is ending and I have finished up all the papers from the company; all that is left is to send it to my accountant, who will finish of the financial reporting and very important: calculate my taxes. It is hard enough to figure out under normal circumstances, but with changing countries and closing a company I have no clue. Well worth the money to have my accountant do it. It costs a bit more and then I know that things are settled and I can look forward. I have started my Swedish company and made a bit of money there, so next “fun” thing will be to figure out taxes there..

I am also trying to wrap up the medical things. A year ago I sat for two hours trying to document my Danish medical history, so I could bring it to Sweden. That I have, but the Swedish healthcare seems decades behind on electronic journals, so I am still working on making everything registered there. A good (bad?) example of that is that I got my third shot of Pfizer in Denmark, as they use the leftovers at the end of the day for people without appointments to not waste it. Once an ampoule has been open it has to be used the same day. However it is not possible for me to have my third shot registered in Sweden. The other way works fine: my two Swedish shots are registered in Denmark…

The wrapping up of things feels good. I am starting to really feel the need to build my nest in Sweden. I walk around in shops and remember the stuff I have in storage or look at Christmas decorations and think of those there. I have very little furniture there, but I do have a bunch of personal things, books, kitchen stuff, Yoda and dragon collection, a “tiny bit” of LEGO, and a chest that was my great grandmother’s. I know that once I get the boxes to a home, I will get rid of some of it as I have not had access to it for more than two years, but there is also stuff I miss.

I am luckier than most: I have an apartment in Sweden, and I have a home in Denmark as I have my own room in my best friend’s house, when I am here. Not all have that privilege. And yet I long for my own.

I want to live in an apartment, where I pick the furniture, where I can buy things that I like and not think “why buy something just to put it in storage?”, which happened to me recently when I found an amazing wooden table. A place that is mine, where my roots can start seettling.

To do that I need to get more things wrapped up. I need to close my Danish company, to pay my last Danish taxes, some more Swedish taxes, to get my medical things in order.

And then; then I can move on; I can start building my nest in my new country. I will always be Danish, but Stockholm is the place I have always felt the most at home in.

Now to wrap things up so I can truly be in my place.

Blog post for the first day of Christmas 21/22: Love is all around
Blog post for the second day of Christmas 21/22: The Voice of Reason
Blog post for the third day of Christmas 21/22: Resting to get headspace
Blog post for the fourth day of Christmas 21/22: Building bridges

Building Bridges

A few days ago Archbishop Desmond Tutu died. More than anything he was known to fight for what is morally right – and doing so in a non-violent way. I think this is very important; it played a big part in bringing down the apartheid regime in South Africa (though remains of it still lingers).

But even more important and inspiring, I find his message of compassion, of doing good, of reconciliation and of embracing that we are one people on the planet. That we need to do what is good and right. A man who saw his country suffer and still believed in healing and building bridges.

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.
Desmond Tutu

He lead The Truth and Reconciliation Commission to promote forgiveness and reconciliation by facing the things that happened. Bringing the truth to people’s attention, allowing victims and perpetrators to meet. From what I have read, this work was very draining and hard for him, and yet he did so because he believed that this was the right thing. That we need to build bridges, to forgive and to embrace differences.

I think we need this today; maybe more than we ever did. Sometimes it feels like our world is becoming more divided, more alienated. That we see others almost as enemies; that we fear what is not from us. That even a thing like covid is splitting us into different sections. And so many nationalist parties are getting traction all over the world; wanting to protect “our own” over what “the others” are bringing, sometimes to keep the others out, sometimes just to keep things as they “have always been“. Which is kind of interesting as nothing we do today is as it has always been. We have not always lived in houses, we have not always celebrated Christmas, we have not always had borders. Even the fact that we have borders is something that we humans invented – to some extend it is an artificial line in the sand…

And while we are different, we are also the same: we are all humans and it would be good if we could see that and we could embrace that our differences can help us. None of us can do all the things; I may have good listening skills, but I cannot work with my hands… Just as one example.

So maybe we should read some of the things Desmond Tutu said and take them to heart, like this quote:

Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.
Desmond Tutu

We do need each other; we can do so much good for each other and while we cannot do everything, we can do something. I tend to want to save the whole world, to make the world a better place, to have people respect, accept, and embrace each other. This is what I have wanted for a long time – most of my life. And we can do something:

If we do things that matter a little to us, and a lot to someone else, we can make the world a better place
Me at 9 years old

It can be very small things like holding the door for someone that carries stuff; smiling at someone and make them feel seen; spend ten min to give someone a lift instead of them spend half an hour on the bus; doing things that matter. And it all adds up in the end.

Don’t just take my word for it. I will end with another quote from Desmond Tutu, who will hopefully be remembered for his kindness, his laughter and his compassion as well as his politics. And may we build the bridges it takes to make the world better.

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
Desmond Tutu

Blog post for the first day of Christmas 21/22: Love is all around
Blog post for the second day of Christmas 21/22: The Voice of Reason
Blog post for the third day of Christmas 21/22: Resting to get headspace
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 21/22: Wrapping up things

Resting to get headspace

As I have now done the last two years, I will attempt to write a blog post a day for the 12 days of Christmas; the first year the topic was “Hope”, the second I wrote about what ever comes to mind; not sure what this year will bring yet. This is the blog post for the third day of Christmas 21/22.

When I started this year, I had the idea that I would at least start with a few blog posts about love, but my brain decided to take me in different directions 🙂

This year has been stressful in many ways. Corona is still the haunting us with all that it entails of fear and uncertain; my last gig as independent was so stressful that I would sometimes cry myself to sleep. My first boss as an employee drained me, and I am still recovering from that. My job now is very exciting, we are doing a lot of things at the same time and we could really use some more engineering managers to help pull the load, so it also takes its toll.

I am working on it getting better and started seeing a stress therapist that is helping me figure out why I get there. She is really good and helps me feel things that I only knew logically before. Things like saying out loud that I value myself lower than others, which means that I will take care of them even when I am already running on fumes. I logically know that I need to take care of myself to take care of others, and yet that is not what I feel. I do some self-care, but not nearly enough and it is draining. It does mean that others feel safe, feel better, feel taken care of – or maybe don’t see what things would have been, if I had done nothing. It is good that others are taken care of; it is not good that it sometimes comes with a high cost for me.

I have learned to take better care of myself; I have not yet learned how to do that if it means that something important does not get done.

One of the results of this year has been that so many things have fallen between chairs for me, and I feel constantly behind on things. Some of them are small, but still feel like impossible tasks to get done. I get a bit done here and there – mostly when others depend on me, and I prioritize my own things lower to the extend that I may not ever get there.

Today I actually got a lot of stuff done; from accounting to sending a package, from laundry to looking at nice Christmas Trolls and figuring out which of these cuties go on my wish list. I finally had the headspace.

I think it is because of the resting. I have been off work for ten days now and except for some small things with family and the friends, I live with when I am in Denmark, I have done a lot of nothing. I have done small things like taking part in the chores of the house, I have celebrated Christmas, but most of all I have chilled, rested, watched movies, taken naps, talked, listened to music… resting…

Today started the same way.. Slow breakfast with a paper newspaper including doing the daily crossword and sudoku, small walk in the sun to send a package, putting on facemask, eating leftovers. And then my head was back and I got so much done in not very long time. I still have a few tough ones on my todo list, but I feel hopeful that I will get them done.. Now that I have the headspace 🙂

Do you rest enough to get things done?

Blog post for the first day of Christmas 21/22: Love is all around
Blog post for the second day of Christmas 21/22: The Voice of Reason
Blog post for the fourth day of Christmas 21/22: Building bridges
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 21/22: Wrapping up things

The Voice of Reason

As I have now done the last two years, I will attempt to write a blogpost a day for the 12 days of Christmas; the first year the topic was “Hope”, the second I wrote about what ever comes to mind; not sure what this year will bring yet. This is the blog post for the second day of Christmas 21/22.

Yesterday when I talked about starting on these 12 posts, my girl reminded me that the last two years I have sometimes been very frustrated as I was not inspired and really felt like I need to write something. I couldn’t recall feeling that way; sure I was a bit late with some posts, but I didn’t recall the frustrations…

And yet here I am in the evening of the second day frustrated that I do not know what to write, and that I decided to write these posts. I could of course just write two posts tomorrow – but then that would be cheating. And once again Cathrine comes with the voice of reason:

“How is that cheating? There is no rule that says you have to write a blog post a day.
You set up the constraints and only you can decide if you break the constraints that you have set up for yourself.
paraphrased Cathrine, as she said it in Danish 🙂

She is right. I set up the rules and the constraints, and I am the one, who can choose to break them. It is not a law, it is not a rule, it has no consequence if I don’t do it.

Well except that it would be wrong!

For as long as I can remember, I have had a very strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. Which can be good in many cases; being fair is a very good virtue in my eyes. This means that I don’t cheat as that would be wrong.

When we organize the German Agile Coach Camp, we have a lottery as we have more people interested in participating than we have places. And I spend a lot of time making sure that this is done in a fair way. I use randomized numbers, I don’t skip anyone, I fit people into the rooms, check if they want to share or not, I do my best to make people share with the ones they want (if the other person got in), which means that is a lot of shifting people around in a spreadsheet until it fits and it is fair. I hope we can get back to organizing it in 2022 after these two covid years…

Back to focus: I have a very strong feeling of right and wrong – such as “a blog post a day” means writing it on that day; maybe stretching it to “before going to bed that day” like last year, where I wrote the blog post for 31rst of December as people were outside watching the fireworks after midnight.

But not only that; I also make rules all the time. And I find it very hard to break these rules even though they are rules that I make up myself for myself. I think I have always done this and I am not sure why. One of my friends told me that kids, who grow up with one or more substance abusing parent make all sort of rules to survive, and that resonated so much with me – so maybe I do know why.

“Well isn’t it good to have rules?”, you may ask.

Yes sometimes it is; it helps us to interact with others, it helps us to make structure. I have a rule that if I mess up, I try to fix it, whether that is apologizing or cleaning up – because that is the right thing to do. I think that is a good rule as I take responsibility for my actions – even when I don’t feel like doing what it takes.

And sometimes the rules don’t help us at all. Sometimes they are old legacy from family that may have made sense once, but make no sense anymore to us; yet we still follow them. Sometimes they are obligations – “shoulds” that pushes us to do things that we may not want – but maybe if we do it, we will be loved. If you want to know more about shoulds and family rules, and how to change them into guides, I recommend looking into Virginia Satir’s work, this post by Esther Derby – or ask me .

And sometimes we continue to make rules for ourselves as we grow up. I even have rules about peeling potatoes; as I like raw potatoes, I can only eat a bite of the raw potate for every three potatoes that I peel – that way I don’t eat too much. And I still follow it.

Can I decide to break my own rules and constraints?
Yes I can as my girl made me aware.

Will I?

That is a much bigger question and one that won’t be answered tonight as I have made the question into a blog post, so I still follow the rule of one blog post a day for the 12 days of Christmas.

Blog post for the first day of Christmas 21/22: Love is all around
Blog post for the third day of Christmas 21/22: Resting to get headspace
Blog post for the fourth day of Christmas 21/22: Building bridges
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 21/22: Wrapping up things

Love is all around

As I have now done the last two years, I will attempt to write a blogpost a day for the 12 days of Christmas; the first year the topic was “Hope”, the second I wrote about what ever comes to mind; not sure what this year will bring yet. This is the blog post for the first day of Christmas 21/22.

I will start with love as it seems to be everywhere this Christmas; I don’t know if I am more aware of it, or if we need it more, because of the last few years, but it seems that love is in so many places.

Love for family, love for partners, Christmas movies about love, Christmas calendar about love… Love is all around.

Today and yesterday I spent all in all six hours building the LEGO Architecture set of Taj Mahal. The original was build “by” Shah Jahan in memory of his favorite wife. This monument of love took almost 16 years before it was done, and then additional building was added over the next 5 years.

While the building is known for it’s amazing architecture and is considered one of the 7 wonders of the world, it is mainly seen as a symbol of love. Tourists from all over come to this place, where love was so beautifully manifested in a building. And many couples have taken pictures with it; maybe to show that their love is as strong as that of Shah Jahan? We can only guess.

Love seems to be a good topic, so tomorrow it continues, and then we will see where my brain takes us. One never knows 🙂

Blog post for the second day of Christmas 21/22: The Voice of Reason
Blog post for the third day of Christmas 21/22: Resting to get headspace
Blog post for the fourth day of Christmas 21/22: Building bridges
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 21/22: Wrapping up things

Anticipation

As I did last year, I will attempt to write a blogpost a day for the 12 days of Christmas; except this time I will pick a new topic each day. This is the blogpost for the twelfth day of Christmas 20/21 and yes it is four days late 🙂

This is not what I anticipated, and not what you anticipated either, I guess. Yesterday I was watching “The Oxford Murders”, which besides being a good crime story had some points about series, how we humans like to have series of things, and knowing what is next. Numbers, months, shapes- we like series and we like the order that lies in anticipation and knowing the next step. And yes the 12th post of 12 posts 🙂

Today’s topic is inspired by the wise Geepaw Hill, who is also a very supportive friend 🙂

My original plan was to write a blogpost during each of the days of Christmas and it all went well until the last day. Most were written in the evenings and the one on New Year’s eve even after midnight, while the rest of the house were out watching fireworks. And then we came to the last day, where I was just full of inputs from lovely people all over the world; my plan was then to write about skipping a day (again thanks to suggestion of GeePaw) or the concept of slack and how important that is (thanks to suggestion from Bill Caputo). Both are very important topics. And then the siege of the Capitol in the US happened – not what I expected and yet not surprising. I could only watch that train wreck with horror.

There are still lots that needs to get out in the open, but some facts are there. A defeated president who said “we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, I love Pennsylvania Avenue, and we are going to the Capitol“, t-shirts printed with “MAGA – CIVIL WAR – January 6th 2021” showing how planned this was, and yet the police did not seem prepared. And then the things that need confirmation. Like Pentagon offering forces before the day and being told that it was not needed. Or figuring out why reactions did not happen sooner. Or how white supremists can get into a place that is supposedly secure…

It seems like the Capitol police did not anticipate this at all and I think most of us did not. Somehow I just wish I was more surprised. I must admit that the last 5-6 years has taught me more about the darkness of human actions than I ever wanted to know and thus my level of surprise has fallen even when I see terrible and evil behavior or built-in prejudice in what ever form that takes.

I don’t have the same kind of anticipation that people will do good as I did, when I was younger. Sometimes that removes my hopes for a better world as I see no way of figthing this. And then I bounce up and start figthing again. I want to change the world to a more tolerant, kind, and accepting one, and I believe we can all do our bit; it is not enough, but it is a start. We also need more systemic changes for the built-in things; we need lots of learning and unlearning; we need to face that ugly monster in the mirror that shows us “this is us; this is who we are“, so we can move to “this is not who we want to be” and it all starts with us making a choice to make a difference.

I have read the following story in so many variations that I do not know the origin, but it ressonates with me and it has a good point.

It is a day on the beach and the tide has pulled the water back in the sea leaving many starfish on the shore. A young boy walks along the beach, picks up a starfish and throws it back into the sea. An old man sees this and asks the boy “Why do you do this? Look at how many starfish lie on the shore. You will never be able to help them all before they dry out, so you won’t make a difference.”
And the boy answers “It makes a difference for this one”.

For now we might not be able to help all the starfish, but we can make a difference for one. And if we all save one starfish that is a lot of starfish back in the ocean.

I also think this has another effect: it makes us feel that we can make a difference. We need that feeling to keep on moving, keep on being motivated to make that difference. Once we have that feeling, we have the anticipation that we can do more of a difference. It may be a small effect in the beginning and yet that can lead to big changes.

For the most anticipations are for things outside of us and things beyond our control; what if we changed that things that are within our control? Changed it to things we can affect and then go for having the anticipation be fulfilled.

What is a change that you want to see?
What is an anticipation, you want fulfilled and what can you do to make it so?

Blogpost for the first day of Christmas 20/21: Time for reflection
Blogpost for the second day of Christmas 20/21: Unicorns
Blogpost for the third day of Christmas 20/21: Raining again
Blogpost for the fourth day of Christmas 20/21: Being or doing
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 20/21: Gratefulness
Blogpost for the sixth day of Christmas 20/21: Having people in my space
Blogpost for the seventh day of Christmas 20/21: Family
Blogpost for the eight day of Christmas 20/21: Uninspiration
Blogpost for the ninth day of Christmas 20/21: Fear (and courage?)
Blogpost for the tenth day of Christmas 20/21: Jumping in puddles
Blogpost for the elleventh day of Christmas 20/21: The choice is yours

The choice is yours

As I did last year, I will attempt to write a blogpost a day for the 12 days of Christmas; except this time I will pick a new topic each day. This is the blogpost for the eleventh day of Christmas 20/21.

As I wrote on the ninth day, my friend Elisabeth helped me by writing a summary of my medical history that I can bring to a doctor in Sweden. I am nervous about that and she is a doctor, so she could help. One of the things, we discussed in connection with that, was my history of mental health and treatments related to that.

For 12 years I went to a psychiatrist, who helped me deal with some of the things I struggled with because of my dominant alcoholic mom. With the knowledge I have now, I believe she might have been borderline, but I will never know. I have come far since that day in 1996, when I first got help, but I still suffer from things from my childhood – handling them bit by bit, layer by layer of the onion.

As we discussed these things, I mentioned that it might be good for me, if I could forgive my mother. To which she responded “I don’t think you should forgive her for what she did. She did the best she could that is true, but she also decided to do all those things. She had the option to not do them”.

She has a good point; I will think about if the forgiveness is needed for me to be at peace with it. If I ever will be.

More importantly, it started a lot of thoughts about choice, which is something I have worked with for 5-6 years, since I first heard about the responsibility process at a talk by Christopher Avery. That process has many layers that one can dive into and for the purpose of this blogpost, I will look at the choice part. To me a big part of taking responsibility is making active choices instead of just going with the stream. Often we think that we don’t have an option to choose, when really we do. All choices have consequences, and it is still a choice.

One example that I have met in my many one-on-ones at work is that some people are very unhappy with their job, and yet they feel that quitting without having a new job is not an option, nor is getting a job with lower pay. Aka they don’t have the choice of quitting.

Most of the time, they do have that choice. The choice would mean that they could not travel on vacations twice a year, or go out every week or similar thing; that does not remove the choice. I think it is helpful to consider that. Maybe you still want to be able to travel twice a year, and then you don’t choose the option of quitting, but the option is still there. There are also people, who don’t have that choice because they have mortgage to pay and mouths to feed, but we all have more choices than we think.

At the end of Being or doing I wrote “Remember that who you are is always good enough, what you do may not be.”, which is something that I have come to believe more and more over the last years especially after learning more about Virginia Satir (again a story for another time).

We are who we are and this is good enough no matter what. What we do may not be. For our actions to not be okay if we ourselves are good enough, we need to have made a choice to do that action- consciously or unconsciously. There are of course some actions that are built-in physical reactions, but most of our actions are learned behaviors. Sometimes we do not even know when that choice was made or that we even made it.

My friend Morgan likes to talk about this quote by Viktor E Frankl: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” and he does great talks about it. (It seems the quote is propably not from Frankl. Read here )

When something happens to us, we get a stimulus; that can be a physical stimulus, an emotion, a smell, something we see. And we respond, sometimes that respons is word we speak, sometimes a movement, sometimes others emotions that is triggered by the first. What they all have in common is that there is a small space between them.

It is not always easy to find that space, nor is it easy to react within it in. It is something that needs to be trained and practiced. The more you practice, the more you can actively choose your response, and that gives you so many more opportunities for what to do.

Again it is a matter of choice. The triggering of all these thoughts were not only about the choices my mother made, it was also about the choices I have made. I could be a victim of my childhood or I can choose to work with what is. There are many things that I wish were different, but we cannot change the past. We can change how we react to it, and thereby gaining more freedom.

I shall end this post with some quotes from some of my favourites wizards. From Lord of the Rings: Gandalf the Grey and from Harry Potter:Dumbledore.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” “[The sorting hat] only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin…” “Exactly,” said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle.”

It is all about choices: the choice is yours.

What do you do to make active choices?
Might it help you to do this more often?

Jumping in puddles

As I did last year, I will attempt to write a blogpost a day for the 12 days of Christmas; except this time I will pick a new topic each day. This is the blogpost for the tenth day of Christmas 20/21.

Yesterday my friend Elisabeth started reading these blogposts and after reading Raining again, she concluded that I must have forgotten the joy of jumping in puddles. So she “made me” do it today.

In the afternoon her 25 year old niece came over, we all found wellies (aka rubber boots), rain pants and a coat, and off we went to find puddles. It has not rained a few days, but we found a gravel parking lot with a bunch of puddles and mud.

The two of them started jumping and laughing, and I gave it my best effort. I jumped in muddy puddles, so much so that I had mud as far up as my winter hat. I learned that I am not very good at jumping or at splashing, and that I do not have the same joy that they had. I very much enjoyed seeing them having so much fun, but I am not sure that is for me 🙂

Nevertheless I think it is important that we find that joy and giggling inside that Elisabeth and her niece find when jumping in puddles. I guess it is more refinding, as we most likely all had it as a kid. I felt that joy the first time I saw real dinosaurs at the Natural Museum of History in Ottawa in 2015. I felt like I was 5 and I would burst of joy.

I think it is important that I refind what makes me feel that childish joy again . I guess I have hibernated a bit during all this isolation, so finding what makes me giggle could help me wake up again.

What is your jumping in puddles?
When do you feel that innner joy and giggle?

Blogpost for the first day of Christmas 20/21: Time for reflection
Blogpost for the second day of Christmas 20/21: Unicorns
Blogpost for the third day of Christmas 20/21: Raining again
Blogpost for the fourth day of Christmas 20/21: Being or doing
Blogpost for the fifth day of Christmas 20/21: Gratefulness
Blogpost for the sixth day of Christmas 20/21: Having people in my space
Blogpost for the seventh day of Christmas 20/21: Family
Blogpost for the eight day of Christmas 20/21: Uninspiration
Blogpost for the ninth day of Christmas 20/21: Fear (and courage?)
Blogpost for the eleventh day of Christmas 20/21: The choice is yours
Blogpost for the twelfth day of Christmas 20/21: Anticipation