Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Thanksgiving

One Woman. One Turkey. One Story.

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Hand Turkey

 

Yesterday, a friend told me that she’d been to the grocery store and, at the checkout, the clerk told her she’d gathered enough points to qualify for a free turkey.

A free turkey Thanksgiving week! Who says no to that offer?

So, she got her turkey. A big one – 25 pounds – which she lugged to her car.

She knew she couldn’t use the turkey because her husband was out of the country for work and she’d be having Thanksgiving with friends.

What would she do with the big bird?

Inspiration struck and she immediately headed for the poorest part of her town. She drove around looking for… something…a sign? An intuition?

Who needed this turkey?

On one street she saw a man holding the hand of a little boy. They were walking up to a creaky-looking house with trash bags covering what must be leaks in the roof.

She rolled down the window. In her naturally bright voice she said, “Do you have your Thanksgiving turkey yet?”

The man replied that no, ma’am, he sure didn’t.

She said, “Well, you do now!” 

[Now, at this point I could tell you the meaning of this story, or extrapolate a larger story.]

[I could also go all emotional and tell you about how worried he had been about affording a turkey this year and the tears in both their eyes when the big bird was exchanged.]

But I’m not going to.

I’m going to say this: What you do makes a difference. Everything – big things, small things – everyday.

You matter.

You decide how to live, how to be, what to create in the world, whether you’re the one giving, or the one who’s receiving.

It’s simple, really.

Every day you have the opportunity to joyfully give something good to someone else.

Every day you have the chance to receive with gratitude – whether it’s a kind word or a turkey.

And that’s all I’m going to say.

 

Gratitude Opens Doors

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The most successful people I know are also the most grateful.

They feel gratitude for the big things in their lives – like opportunities, mentors, accomplishments – as well as the seemingly more mundane things – like breathing, being, loving.

Back in April, 2009, I met such a person on an airplane, and I wrote this:

I met Faith on an airplane.

She settled in next to me and when I introduced myself and held out my hand, she took it saying, “Wow, that’s so polite. I’m Faith.”

For those of you who have always wondered, how did Faith look? Like a walking goddess – you know, like JLo, without the attitude.

Now I could go all allegorical on you and imagine some deep and meaningful conversation with Faith…

But I really did meet Faith. And she’s a PhD candidate at Northwestern University in Chicago. Young and vibrant, Faith turned out to be wise beyond her years. And we had a surprisingly deep and meaningful conversation on our hour plus some flight from Chicago to DC the other day.

I walked away from meeting Faith with more faith, and that’s what I want to tell you about.

Faith comes from a family that didn’t have many things, and couldn’t provide Faith with many opportunities. But a great one fell in her lap when she was 14 – she got assigned a Big Sister.

This Big Sister inspired Faith, coached Faith, believed in Faith.

So Faith decided to try getting into a college, something that no one in her family had ever done.

And she got in.

And excelled.

And kept going.

And now Faith is a PhD candidate who hopes to use her training to help the community she came from.

She’s got vision, she’s got direction, and she’s got hope.

She’s Faith.

Our conversation was so powerful that I noticed the people across the aisle straining to catch our chat. What did we discuss? We talked about fears, and redefining oneself. We talked about what it’s like to be highly educated in a family made up of people who are not. We talked about how relationships work and how they fall apart. We talked about what women need to do to preserve their identities and their options while in relationships. We talked about books that have been important to our lives, and meaningful quotes. We talked about the past and we talked about the future. We talked about what we believe about the world. We talked about faith.

The plane touched down and we left each other with a smile and a wave. And as Faith walked away, down the airport hallway toward whatever’s next for her, I said a little prayer of thanksgiving. Thanks to that Big Sister who reached a hand out to a promising young girl, and thanks to all the other hands that have helped her along the way. Thanks to Faith who could have made other choices about the direction of her life but hasn’t. And thanks to Providence for placing us side-by-side on that airplane.

Because I walked away from my meeting with Faith renewed, restored and hopeful. Meeting Faith helped me remember that people touch people in the most unexpected and important ways. That people, by and large, are good and generous. That strangers are simply friends I haven’t met yet.

Yes, I met Faith on an airplane. Where I least expected her. Which just might be the most important lesson of all.

If you feel a gratitude gap in your own life, tune in to the WiseWork radio show this week, where my guest is the inspiring and wise Hiro Boga. Take 30 minutes, and reconnect with what just might be the best part of you – your Faith-like faith, and gratitude.

On Thanksgiving, Money, Stress & Finding Your Own Recipes

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In 2009, I reflected on Thanksgiving an all its myriad meanings and ended up writing a post I still recommend to clients who are struggling with family legacies that might need to be changed or dropped:

This week I’ve been thinking about money.

And how so many people get all weird and wobbly when it comes to talking about it. Asking for it. Having it at all.

And it’s interesting that they way our parents and grandparents handled money probably affects the way we handle money. I think about the woman whose immigrant parents struggled and sacrificed and lived in poverty. And now, even though she makes a million dollars a year, she hoards paper towels and soup… just in case.

Or the guy whose dad was a dreamer and a schemer. When they had money, they spent it – lavish dinners, fancy trips, stylish clothes. And when they had no money, they fantasized about how they’d spend it once it came back. Today, this guy has no savings and wonders what happens to his cash.

A couple of months ago I wrote When Gifts Become Junk – just because someone gives you a gift, like a legacy around money, you don’t have to take it.

It’s kind of like Thanksgiving.

I remember the first time I had to cook Thanksgiving on my own. I planned to carefully replicate the traditional family menu, but then ran into a little blip. Where my family had bread-and-oyster dressing, heavy on the sage, his family had cornbread dressing with plenty of celery and onion. My family was mashed potatoes, his was rice. Ours was brown gravy. His had hard-boiled eggs floating in a yellow gravy.

We each had our own idea of What Thanksgiving Is and What One Must Consume So It Is Truly Thanksgiving.

Compromise felt like loss.

Oh, I come by the feeling of What It Should Be quite naturally – another family legacy. I remember my mother preparing Thanksgiving when I was a child. She looked at our loaded table and would always say, “You know, my grandmother would have chicken and dumplings, ham, turkey, fried chicken, and four different kinds of pie…this just doesn’t seem like Thanksgiving to me.” The fact that we had ham and turkey and three pies – never lived up to what Thanksgiving Should Be.

What a struggle. It’s the tension between fantasy and reality, really. It’s the tightrope of being present right here and now, and living in a storied and maybe flawed recollection of a “better time.” It’s an oppressive and unrealistic burden because the past you’re trying to match was probably not as wonderful as you recall. It probably wasn’t any more happy than you can make today.

So to be firmly here in the present, and living a happy life, there comes a point when you simply choose to make your own Thanksgiving.

Take a look at the heritage of your forebears and decide what you want to consciously take forward with you in your own life. It is absolutely OK – hey, it’s more than OK, it’s imperative — to decide whether you want to continue with the tiny marshmallows on the top of the super sweet potatoes, or go a bit healthier and replace that traditional dish with, oh, steamed broccoli.

You create your own traditions, not because what your parents and grandparents did was wrong. It may have been really right. For them. At that time. But now, it’s your life. You can create your own way of being in the world, darling, because you are you – not them.

Look at the legacies gifted to you by your parents and grandparents — around money, around relationships, around body image, around holidays – and decide: “Is this what I want for myself? Does this make me happy, or give me stress?”

If a tradition works for you, and makes you very, very happy – then keep it. If a tradition feels like a heavy obligation, and makes you very, very stressed – then it’s time to lovingly let that relic go.

Feel free to make your own menu, and it will be your own Thanksgiving. Every single celebratory day.

From my family – who have happily developed our own Thanksgiving traditions which do not include miniature marshmallows – to yours: Every best wish for a happy, healthy and gratitude-full holiday.

 

 

Thankful Thinking

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Fall leaves

I once heard someone ask Oprah Winfrey, “Do you pray?”

“Are you kidding?” the world’s wealthiest woman replied.  “I walk around on my knees.”

Boy, that stuck with me.

And it’s in that spirit of grateful living that I ask you to take time this week, especially, to walk around on your knees.  To be fully conscious of gratitude.  To truly give thanks.

I’ll go first.

I am so blessed to have smart, insightful, kind, sometimes obstinate, often shower-needy, perfectly imperfect teenagers – Munroe and Grace Woodward.  Even on the most difficult days, being their mother is my life’s greatest gift.

I, for one, am gratefully conscious that while there are 42.2 million Americans receiving food stamps, I can provide food for my family by the work that I do.

I am thankful for the emergency room physician’s assistant who capably, cleanly, neatly put five stitches in my lip last week after I caught a fast softball pitch right in the kisser.

I appreciate my dear internist who removed the stitches – I think it hurt him more than it hurt me.

Every day I speak with friends from Singapore to Rome.  How? I log in to Facebook.  And while it takes time and effort to be on Facebook, all relationships take time and effort. This is just a new way to do it. And I’m glad for it.

I am routinely astonished that I learn something new every day.

I love the friend I spoke with last night.  A little whacked out on morphine after surgery, she told me she loved me and was so happy.  It’s my pleasure to tell her the same. [Not that she’ll remember it this morning. But she knows.]

I can watch a great movie like Crazy Heart in my own home, in front of a roaring fire, whenever I want.

Great opportunities keep coming, like my new blog premiering at Psychology Today this week.

Sometimes, after being out in the cold for a while, having central heat feels like the biggest luxury ever.

The Circle of 12 brings joy to my heart.

My work makes a difference.

I know what you’re thinking: “Nice sentiments. But so what?”

Being in touch with all these wonderful, mundane, spectacular things gives me strength to muster the courage to handle the hard things.

Because there are always hard things. And tough days. And challenges.

That’s life.

That’s happiness.

And that’s exactly what I’m most thankful for.

Make Your Own Thanksgiving

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This week I’ve been thinking about money.

And how so many people get all weird and wobbly when it comes to talking about it. Asking for it. Having it at all.

And it’s interesting that they way our parents and grandparents handled money probably affects the way we handle money. I think about the woman whose immigrant parents struggled and sacrificed and lived in poverty. And now, even though she makes a million dollars a year, she hoards paper towels and soup… just in case.

Or the guy whose dad was a dreamer and a schemer. When they had money, they spent it – lavish dinners, fancy trips, stylish clothes. And when they had no money, they fantasized about how they’d spend it once it came back. Today, this guy has no savings and wonders what happens to his cash.

A couple of months ago I wrote When Gifts Become Junk – just because someone gives you a gift, like a legacy around money, you don’t have to take it.

It’s kind of like Thanksgiving.

I remember the first time I had to cook Thanksgiving on my own. I planned to carefully replicate the traditional family menu, but then ran into a little blip. Where my family had bread-and-oyster dressing, heavy on the sage, his family had cornbread dressing with plenty of celery and onion. My family was mashed potatoes, his was rice. Ours was brown gravy. His had hard-boiled eggs floating in a yellow gravy.

We each had our own idea of What Thanksgiving Is and What One Must Consume So It Is Truly Thanksgiving. Compromise felt like loss.

Oh, I come by the feeling of What It Should Be quite naturally – another family legacy. I remember my mother preparing Thanksgiving when I was a child. She looked at our loaded table and would always say, “You know, my grandmother would have chicken and dumplings, ham, turkey, fried chicken, and four different kinds of pie…this just doesn’t seem like Thanksgiving to me.” The fact that we had ham and turkey and three pies – never lived up to what Thanksgiving Should Be.

What a struggle. It’s the tension between fantasy and reality, really. It’s the tightrope of being present right here and now, and living in a storied and maybe flawed recollection of a “better time.” It’s an oppressive and unrealistic burden because the past you’re trying to match was probably not as wonderful as you recall. It probably wasn’t any more happy than you can make today.

So to be firmly here in the present, and living a happy life, there comes a point when you simply choose to make your own Thanksgiving.

Take a look at the heritage of your forebears and decide what you want to consciously take forward with you in your own life. It is absolutely OK – hey, it’s more than OK, it’s imperative — to decide whether you want to continue with the tiny marshmallows on the top of the super sweet potatoes, or go a bit healthier and replace that traditional dish with, oh, steamed broccoli.

You create your own traditions, not because what your parents and grandparents did was wrong. It may have been really right. For them. At that time. But now, it’s your life. You can create your own way of being in the world, darling, because you are you – not them.

Look at the legacies gifted to you by your parents and grandparents — around money, around relationships, around body image, around holidays – and decide: “Is this what I want for myself? Does this make me happy, or give me stress?”

If a tradition works for you, and makes you very, very happy – then keep it. If a tradition feels like a heavy obligation, and makes you very, very stressed – then it’s time to lovingly let that relic go.

Feel free to make your own menu, and it will be your own Thanksgiving. Every single celebratory day.