LIANNE RAYMOND

Why I need Johnny Depp to seduce a woman other than me

Watching Johnny Depp on Letterman the other night got my passions all stirred up again.  No, not those ones! (Well maybe a little, I do love me some Johnny Depp).  Let me explain.

We just finished up another school year here- last Friday morning the students in my Teacher Advisory Group came to pick up their year end report cards.  Can I tell you how much I hate handing out report cards?  I hate that after  spending most of every day for the last 10 months in this school these students walk away with a nondescript piece of paper with assorted numbers on it that holds way too much power over how they see themselves.  Where is their portfolio of work? Their demonstration of growth over time? The project that they poured their heart and soul into? Is it realistic or wise that their whole learning experience for the last ten months be reduced to one piece of paper with some percentages on it? Is that the best we can do?

You probably won't be surprised to hear that I give each student my standard preamble as we look over the report together. I tell them that this report is not the whole picture, that a big part of what is being measured is not their intelligence or skill, but rather how well they fit into the system and that they will know better than anyone where they sold themselves short and could have done better and where the system sold them short and it could have done better, and how failing is an essential part of learning and so on and so on.  And no matter my little mini-rant, I watch as their faces still light up or fall depending on what is written on that piece of paper.  By the time these kids get to high school they have been well steeped in the grading paradigm, and they imbue it with far too much meaning.  That paper tells them that the only thing that matters is product and the only product that matters is the number on that paper.  I feel sad because I know that this will stay with many of them for a long, long time. I see it in my coaching practice where most of my clients still struggle with the perfect product paradigm. I still grapple with it.

So back to Johnny Depp. As he related that he never watches his movies to an incredulous Letterman, I started dreaming and scheming about how I could get Depp to come seduce the BC Minister of Education, Margaret MacDiarmid. (Now you've got to understand how much I truly desire a transformation of education when I'm dreaming of Johnny Depp seducing someone other than me.) I figured that once he had her under his Svengali like spell he could do a mind meld on her transmitting the idea that our school systems are f*#&@d because we don't place any value on process. He could use himself as an example, saying things like he did on Letterman or in this BBC article:

"I prefer to walk away with the experience as opposed to walking away with the product," he explained. "You know, once my job is done on the film, it's really none of my business."  He added: "I like to portray a character, inhabit a character and build character, but I don't want to watch the end result necessarily, because it becomes about money then and I'd rather not think about that." 

Substitute grades for money and you'll see that this is exactly what we do to students - we deny them the experience of becoming immersed in the process without worrying about the product. No surprise that Depp dropped out of school at 16 and has this to say about the experience:

He says, "I did feel like an outsider. I felt completely and utterly confused by everything that was going on around me. It was the one thing that the teachers didn't want you to do in school, you know, question things. But I always wanted to know why. It really p**sed them off because it's a f**king valid question. It's the only question."

In their recent call discussing what blocks us (which I highly recommend if you haven't already listened to it - it's awesome and it's free), Patti Digh and David Robins share a story from the book The War of Art about a pottery instructor who did an experiment with two different classes.  One class was told that they would be graded on the perfect pot. At the end of the course only one pot needed to be submitted and they would be graded on how close it is to perfect. The other class was told they would be graded on the weight of clay used. At the end of the course, the more clay the student used, the higher the grade.   You can guess the result - the first group did not have one finished piece among them at the end of the term, whereas the second group threw a large number of wonderful, beautiful pots.

I have always tried alternative assessment strategies in my Psych 11 and 12 classes, and this story and Johnny Depp have me thinking again about how to refine my assessment further.  I have an idea that one of my assessments will be based on the number of questions asked - the more questions the higher the grade. Questioning functions as both a process for deepening learning and as an indicator of being engaged with the material (and it could also be my homage to the teenaged Johnny).

And if I haven't lost you to a Johnny Depp reverie, feel free to share where in your life you need to let go of product paralyzation and just start throwing some pots.  This blog post is one of my pots.

word of the year: courage

I was guest blogger today over on Christine Kane's blog. I wrote about my experience choosing courage as my word of the year.  Here's what I wrote:

Almost exactly 10 years ago my friend Charlotte and I were sitting in a dark coffee shop listening to an unknown-to-us folk singer named Annie Gallup. She was singing her quirky lyrics in her quirky style and she was getting to us.

When we left that night, Charlotte didn’t hesitate to buy one of her CDs. It was titled “Courage, My Love”.  I picked it up, flipped it front to back a couple of times pretending to examine it carefully and then put it back down, deciding not to buy it. Truth was, I was afraid to go back to where she had just taken me. Like I did so often in my life at the time, I made a choice from a place of fear.

Fast forward ten years and another unknown to me singer-songwriter had romanced her way into my life. I don’t remember how I came across Christine Kane, but soon after virtually meeting her, I was signed up in her very first e-seminar. I was pursuing some exciting new directions and in reading Christine’s writing, I knew she was a kindred spirit - someone who was down the path ahead of me a little shining a light.

The seminar went well. The final week wrapped up.  Then a few weeks later - an email from Christine. Choose a word for the year. I won’t lie.  I rolled my eyes.

Oh yeah, this routine. I’ve done this dance before - the words, resolutions, inspiring quotes, etc. that I had chosen and then abandoned shortly thereafter littered my psyche. Let’s see - there was discipline, wellness, health, vitality, tapas (the sanskrit word for discipline), beauty, grace and so on and so on. Now here’s the thing - there was nothing wrong with any of those words. The problem was that I knew, for me, they were all code for the same thing:

“You’re fat and you need to lose weight.”

Those words were all different ways of reminding myself that I was bad, lazy, ugly, flawed and fat.  They weren’t about creating something new, they were about fixing what was *wrong* with me.  When I realized that, when I decided to take up the challenge of the word of the year from a place of love and creativity, it became meaningful. And when I created the space to find my word, it came to me from the cover of Annie Gallup’s CD.  The one I was too scared to buy. It came to me in this quiet yet persistent way and it said, “Courage, My Love.”  I rolled it around a few times, like a river stone in my pocket, feeling it’s smoothness and solidity.

And then, being a word geek, I looked up the etymology of the word: The state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; boldness; bravery. (from Latin cor, heart) Yes, that was where I wanted to live, what I wanted to create and what I wanted to embody.

It was the perfect touchstone for a year of growth and love and fearlessness.

It’s been a fabulous year.

One of the first things I had the courage to do was to give myself the gift of not dieting for the entire year. I stopped reading fitness and fashion magazines and I stopped reading online forums where everyone talked about dieting and weight and analyzed all their body parts. I gave up comparing in favour of creating. Given that I have been either “on a diet” or “off my diet” or “starting a new diet tomorrow” or “cheating” since I was 12 years old, that was one of the most courageous things I’ve ever done. Who am I if I am not thinking about my diet? I am someone who is loving herself.

Now what was I going to do with all that energy that I used to devote to obsessing about my weight?

Well, I took another leap, took a leave from my job and enrolled in Martha Beck’s Life Coach Training. I already had completed one highly respected coach training program, but Martha was calling to me. The fearful me would have convinced myself that this was just a waste of money, that I already had spent a lot on coach training, that I couldn’t afford it, etc.

But my heart knew better - and as I came to realize over the course of the year of courage- fear often cloaks itself as the rational, the thinking mind, and in this way demands obedience. If you disobey, you are being irrational. But beyond rational and irrational is a deeper sense of knowing - I call it the arational.

With Courage as my mantra, I was able to trust the arational to lead me in a way I never did before. And here are some of the wonderful things that happened for me when I did:

I started a life coaching practice that is thriving.  I was written about in Canada’s national newspaper.  My husband and I decided we needed a new house so I could have a home office.  We visualized what we wanted and found and bought our perfect house a month later.  We put our house up for sale at the worst possible time to sell, and had an offer from our dream buyers in a week.

These were big things, but there were also so many smaller, but just as amazing, happenings that I am now in full agreement with W.H.Murray when he says:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. (from The Scottish Himalayan Expedition)

Word of the year - I’m a believer!

martha, martha, martha

I got in!  Martha beck is a life coach who has written books like Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet and Four Day Win (which I reviewed here).  She also writes a regular column in O magazine.  I heart Martha and so when I saw she was offering a life coaching tele-course I was all over it.  But too late. It filled up fast.  Despondent, I whined to the hubster for a few days, I wrote pleading emails to Martha's minions about why they should let me in.  Then a couple nights ago, I got an email saying they had decided to take 20 more students - but there were 40 on the waiting list.  I hustled my butt and signed up, and have been vibrating with excitement since then.  Especially when I look over the course materials and see some of the great stuff that Martha has incorporated - like The Work of Byron Katie - which I first heard about years ago from yoga teacher extraordinaire, Ramanand Patel, and then finally "read" when my yoga buddy, Kim, gifted me the audiobook of Loving What Is.

Martha's course is going to supplement my CTI training in a way that suits me perfectly. Yay!

borrowing courage

A week ago at this time (8pm), I was already in bed. I was completely wiped out from one of the most nervous and wonderful days of my life. Last Saturday my friend Charlotte and I took what felt like a very big chance - we put on a workshop we had been dreaming of for years (well, more me than her, but once I got her on board, she was just as dreamy as I was).

The fact that I finally had the courage and confidence to walk out on this tightrope is due in large measure to an invisible net of incredible people who have enCOURAGEd me over the years, who lent me their courage until I found my own: my friend BJ, who was the first person to whom I presented the idea and who insisted we had to do it and was the first to sign-up; my online friends, especially my yogalila cohort, who have watched me grow from a yoga newbie to a yoga teacher; my yoga students who make me feel competent and wonderful with their positive response to my teaching; Christine Kane and her Great Big Dreams e-seminar for giving me the courage to even entertain the idea in the first place; and my husband for always believing in me.

Attendance was better than we had dared hope - we had set a maximum of 15 people, but were prepared for less than that to sign-up, as we completely suck at marketing. But we had 14 people -which was perfect.

There was lots we would change about the day, lots that we learned, but the overall response was very positive, with people asking us when we would be doing our next one. Soon, really soon.

I hope if you're reading this and you have some dream on hold, that you'll be encouraged, too.

isabel allende's talk at TED

Totally worth 20 minutes of your time.  Have a listen.

"don't borrow trouble from the future"

famous quote from my grandma

Cheryl Richardson is good, has had many books published and has been on Oprah.

But she still doesn't have anything on my grandma, my original life coach.

a simple idea that has helped me immensely

Whenever I start something you might say I get a bit carried away, and so when I got interested in coaching, I started reading a lot of books by coaches. And last time I was at my version of shopping nirvana: the best Trader Joe's in Washington state which just happens to be right next to a very pedestrian but excellently stocked discount/remainder bookstore, I scored the audiobook version of Cheryl Richardson's Take Time for Your Life. It had some good stuff and a bit of schlock, as one would expect, but it had one brilliant gem of a simple idea:

If it's not an absolute yes, it's a no.

For anyone who has tendencies to indecisive procrastination like me*, this was a revelation. So simple. And it works in so many situations - saving me time, saving me money, saving me from unnecessary stress. I use it all the time now when I'm feeling uncertainty about a decision - I will ask myself, "Is this an absolute yes?"

No more pieces of clothing in my closet that I'll never wear. No more agreeing to put on professional development workshops that I don't care to. No more hanging onto things that are cluttering my house. No more going skiing with my husband and then being miserable the whole time cause it's cold and windy and then blaming him the whole way down for dragging me up the mountain when it was clearly my choice to go.

Not that that last one has ever happened.

(*For those of you familiar with Meyers-Briggs, I'm an ENFP)

rituals instead of resolutions

New Year's Day has always been associated with the particular act of making resolutions. Resolution comes from the Latin resolvere, which means to untie. And this is how many people use their resolutions - as a time to set a goal to break a bad habit. You know the ones. They are narrow goals that are all about STOP! They take the form of "I will stop eating junk food." "I will stop smoking.", etc. These are limiting because there is no new state - no possibilty. We know from the research that we are not motivated by negativity or fear, but we are motivated by connecting to what we really want our lives to be.

Instead of doing the same old resolution thing this year, why not come up with a ritual that speaks to you, touches your emotions (which we know is necessary for change to happen) and allows for space, grace and possibility.

I've gathered some ideas here - maybe some of these will provide ingredients for your own New Year's ritual.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, describes how she brought home what she learned about the importance of ritual in Indonesia (transcribed from an interview with CBC Tapestry):

The Indonesians are the ones who get, "When in doubt, make a ritual. And when there isn't one, make one up that suits you." ...

When you create a ritual, often in Bali they involve burning, smoke, offering up flowers or letting something loose into the sea, you know, you let go of something, you let go of your own sense of doership, you let go of your own sense of "I gotta manage this, I gotta fix this." You give it away. You send it up in smoke, you send it up in prayer, you send it into the water and you come away, regardless of what you might believe about whether God responds to your request, there is no doubt that you come away calmer.

I did a massive New Years' ritual this year with my best friend, Jennifer, here in Philadelphia, who is a yoga instructor. And we got together the week before New Year's and we wrote intentions and we cleaned the house and we did cleanses. And then on New Years' morning we got up really early and we walked down to a pond and we hung these little homemade bird feeders in the trees- you know, little pine cones filled with peanut butter and bird seed, and each bird seed had been put there as a prayer and an intention so the birds could take it and fly it to heaven. And you know, it's all like voodoo, woodoo, goodee stuff, but let me tell you how euphoric that day was - and, you know, coming home feeling like I'm participating in destiny here, you know, I'm making an offering, I'm letting things go, I'm wishing for things, and it's a wonderful way to begin New Years Day, instead of, you know, hung over.

And from Jen Lemen: A Little Ritual for Letting Go of Fear and Other Things That Weigh You Down

Andrea at Superhero Journal makes lists of what she is grateful for and what she intends to create in her life in the next year.

Another popular alternative is creating a life theme or choosing a word for the year.

And emdot and her friends created prayer flags for their words. (If you like this idea, Liz sells lovely prayer flags in her Etsy shop with pockets for your intentions.)

Me, I'm going to do a little combination of things - I'm not sure exactly what it will look like yet, but I'm going for a walk down by the river to think about it and see what inspires me.

music to my ears

A few female musicians I've stumbled upon lately who are worth a listen:

Christine Kane - can't even remember how I found her, but she's got some mojo

Britt Sawdon - cousin of my friend Jill

Rhonda Stakich - download her songs Mixed Up and Dream free here.

Deb Talan - I finally relented and looked her up on itunes after Liz mentioned her a gajillion times on her blog. So yeah, she's half of The Weepies, which, I know, I know, everyone has heard of but me. And they have a song called Painting by Chagall.

Awesome.

body language

I've taken a couple workshops with bodyworker Thomas Meyers. I did the foundation workshop in Anatomy Trains and then did another workshop with him through the Pilates Association of Canada on how to read bodies. I found them both incredibly worthwhile.  Thomas has a way of talking about the body that makes you think about it in a fresh way. But even better than that, the way he talks about the body also makes you think of many other things in a fresh way. He is a systems thinker - and his insights into the body as a system can apply to any system.

Meyers emphasizes that any change to a dimension of the system is a change to the whole system.  If you open it in one dimension, it opens in all dimensions.  For example, as I wrote about earlier, yoga is about creating space, and if you create this space properly (without tightening another part of the body as you do it) in one area of the body, the whole body experiences a new spaciousness.

And so it is in life. If you create space in one part of your life, which could be as simple as decluttering or as big as quitting a job (or as in my case, just taking a leave), that sense of spaciousness expands through the rest of your life. I think this is the part of my  experience of eating better when I have a clean, tidy house.

Or to put it another way, I wrote this in my journal a long time ago -  noted  it as being a quote from Deepockets Deepak Chopra while being interviewed on a CBC radio show (my husband calls this Yoda-speak):

Change that one thing by which changing everything else changes.