It’s true — as of this e-message, I’ve sent you a dozen days’ worth of holiday hooha (spread over the past three weeks) … I hope you’ve found at least some of what I’ve sent entertaining, interesting, informative and/or helpful … and are enjoying a healthier, greener, more balanced and meaningful holiday!!
For my final entry, we turn to my favorite spot — the beautiful islands of Hawai’i — and a website called Managing with Aloha Coaching; specifically, the Value of the Month program.
Every month, life/leadership coach Rosa Say chooses a Hawai’ian value to study, to help our professional and personal values (and actions) match up.
This month, she has opted to post a study of the Twelve Virtues of Aloha — just reading through them tunes me into the moment. See what you think:
Faith. I have some trouble with the concept of fate, but I do believe in having faith as something that empowers us to create our own destiny. There is faith in the divine and the spiritual, faith in others and in self, faith that good will always defeat evil — I choose to believe in every variety and aspect of it.
Freedom. Something we take for granted much too much. Think of all the ways you are unshackled and free to make your choices, and it becomes clear most of us know no other way to live. Within virtue, we set our hearts free.
Grace. This is one of my favorite words, and oddly, because I can’t define it well. But I don’t need to, because its goodness just is. I can only wish to feel it more, experience it more and give it more. I once heard grace called “unmerited favor” and I love that. I want to be gracious, always.
Gratitude. There may be no mightier force in our lives than learning to live in thankfulness for all we are and all we have been given. An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of aloha. The breath of life within you is meant to be shared in appreciation, thankfulness and gratitude.
Hope. Hope is such a beautiful thing. It is an attitude about the best of possibility becoming real. Hope looks at all the good that is true about the present and assumes it will ho‘omau, be perpetuated into our future — and then some.
Humor. Speaking of hearts, this comes from Proverbs 17:22: “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” Laughter fills the holidays, and no one can tell me our ability to laugh at ourselves is not character-building and virtuous.
Joy. Happiness with more than contentment. Happiness with bliss and euphoria. Silliness without self-consciousness. The holidays are so perfect for splashes of joy in color, in song, in tinsel and texture, even in the scents filling the air. But most of all, in people’s faces.
Prayer. There is so much comfort in the thought that Someone bigger than ourselves may be listening, and might care. There is comfort knowing we always have Someone to talk to about anything and everything. I do not shy from using such comforts.
Trust. We can wonder because we can trust. People tend to be kind of needy, and that’s okay. When we need others, we learn to trust and be trustworthy in our relationship-building. We learn to love more. We learn to have faith in each other. We cultivate magnetic attractions to good intention.
Vitality. There is a fire burning within us during the holidays. Give in and let it burn up any stress, replacing it with enthusiastic and eager energy. Zip. Zeal. Zest. All vitally and dynamically virtuous.
Wonder. To have an inner capacity for awe and wonder is such a blessing. To return to childlike innocence and acceptance, to be rendered speechless, and have it feel good and right, never helpless. To not have all the answers but feel it is perfectly fine not to, to just have wonder.
Peace. If we sow the seeds of virtue, we cultivate fertile ground for peace. If we seek to understand and not condemn, to take the high road versus get even, we uncover how alike we are much more than we are different. We all want peace.
Wishing you experience with all of these during the holidays and into the new year!! o<:) For more Aloha Coaching, you can click through to: http://www.sayleadershipcoaching.com/mwacoaching/2007/11/a-new-december.html
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