Rebirth, rejuvenation and renewal…

March 13th, 2015

Future_ExitRampSign

My mother, Julie, may she rest in peace, was an avid gardener.  She managed to get through the relatively long, hard winters of the NY metropolitan area not by flying south to Florida or other warm climes as so many of her friends did, but rather by sorting through seed catalogs and researching perennials to add to her flower beds.  And reflecting on what she’s going to let go of to make room for the new.

She was accused of wearing rose colored glasses, forever seeing the positive and the beautiful, ignoring the worst in people, sometimes at the risk of avoiding what appeared to others as the obvious, looming misfortune.  And yet she managed to remain positive even in the midst of the inevitable calamity that avoidance often brings.

As a leadership coach I often see people I’m working with avoiding the difficult conversations all around them – with a direct report who shirks their most basic responsibilities, with a boss who micromanages to the point of project destructiveness, or with a life partner who no longer supports the marriage.  Avoiding the obvious does a disservice to us all.  It is the profound difference between compassion and codependence.  Having the difficult conversation is the path of compassion.  Avoiding it perpetuates the codependence, unhealthy for all involved.

What does this have to do with rebirth, rejuvenation and/or renewal you may ask?

Everything.

I suggest that with the end of winter, we take these last cold, rainy days to reflect on what we need to let go of, what we need to clear out to make room for the wonderful new things that spring will bring, and the conversations, as difficult as they may be, that we need to have in order to move things forward.   And we do so with a positive approach, an act or two of random kindness as a gift of gratitude for all that we have to be thankful for, and, with some rose colored glasses to shade us from the dark glare of the kooky world around us.

Happy Spring everyone!