Must-have Qualities

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Pamela Picard

Bike & Red Geraniums by Al Biegel – Al Beigel Online Gallery

After catching up with an old friend and professional colleague this week, I am reminded of two of the most important qualities to have in this life: a sunny outlook and a positive self regard.

Oh, yes, there are many others: rigor and discipline come to mind. But optimism and positive self regard are crucial.

If you haven’t noticed, Life is always throwing us curve balls. Plans go awry. Dreams get shattered. Or Self Will drives us into the ditch. We thought we were sooo smart. Now look at us. Sometimes we get stuck in the mud of disappointment and the muck of failure. Or we fall down and simply can’t get up.

Shit happens.

No one is exempt.

In these times, rigor and discipline don’t mean much without optimism. It’s as easy for our Lizard brain to get fixed on fear as any another emotion. And fear begets negativity.

Anger. Depression. Lethargy. Apathy. Despair. Hopelessness. Helplessness. Oh, I could go on and on, but you know how it goes – emotional quicksand.

Discipline becomes self indulgence in a continuous loop of trying to soothe remorse, regret, self-recrimination. Or the force of our will constantly lashes out, seeking to asses blame – they, them, anyone but you-know-who. But underneath it all, we always know who. Even when we pretend otherwise.

This self-talk becomes as constant as the hum of electricity in our homes and over time becomes almost imperceptible except in the lack, limitation and despair that it begets.

It’s not so much as we dwell on our mistakes; we live in them.

What pulls us out of the slump?

Yep.

Optimism. Positive self regard.

Mistakes don’t become a Federal case. Failure doesn’t become a life sentence. We are not doomed. We are human.

With optimism, we take it all in stride – the bitter with the sweet. With positive self-regard, we separate our Self from the job, the business, the relationship. We summon the courage to keep on whatever keeping on looks like.

Oh well. That didn’t work. What’s next!

See.

A bientot mes amies. Bonne journee! 

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Allons a Provence – Part 2

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Pamela Picard

I have been very consistent with my French lessons for the last three months. Indeed, I’ve almost completed the available lessons in the program to which I subscribed.

Since then I have greatly enlarged my vocabulary and dramatically improved my pronunciation. Stuart who once teased me about my American accent now says he can’t tell when I am speaking or he’s hearing the lesson.

“You don’t sound like an American speaking French any more.”

Well even a parrot can learn sounds.

LOL

In my self assessment, I’m confident that I could get around – ask directions, buy tickets, order from a menu, find the toilet, make reservations, buy fresh produce at the daily market. Have a conversation? Not so much. Express myself? My God. I’ve spent a lifetime learning to express myself in American. That’s a ways off.

But I love learning French so much, and feel so rewarded by it, this morning I awoke planning how to advance my course of study. It’s truly the first time in eons that enthusiasm has pulled me out of dreams and bed.

I am no longer daunted by a website written in French. I may not know every word. I get the gist. I revisited the Souleaido catalog yesterday. I no longer need to translate the page titles. More, when I hear French spoken in a movie, I understand the lines. Oh, when the dialogue is thick, I still cock my head to one side like my (French) poodle, to pick out words I know. But I’ve gained a great, practical vocabulary.

Grammar and sentence structure need polish. More than anything, I need to tune my ear – listening, discerning, conversing, these have to come next.

Allons a Provence!

I am longing to immerse myself in its art, history, culture, food and joie de vivre. Then my learning will truly be worthwhile.

Chapeau! Hat’s off to Babbel, the interactive multimedia learning program that has made this so much fun.

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Waking Up Dead

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Pamela Picard

“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.” ― Rumi

Stuart went out of town a couple of weekends ago to visit his brother-in-law who has had a heart attack. Since he’s the only person in my immediate sphere, I hit the panic button:

“Who’s going to look after Matisse if I wake up dead?”

So I hatched a plan. Should something untoward occur while he was out of town, Stuart should call our Snow Bird neighbors and then Matisse’s groomer, who could board the dog until Stuart or my sister fetched him.

Then it occurred to me what I was asking:

“Leave the dead body; take the French poodle.”

I got a good laugh out of that.

 

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