FYB #8 - Girlfriend Time

My best friend has a really busy life right now. She and her husband just bought a new house and have recently moved in and begun some major renovations. She's kinda busy! Normally we would at least talk on the phone 3 or 4 times during the week and catch up, but lately it's been - if we're lucky - 5 minutes here and there.

So, last weekend I jumped at the chance to get some quality girlfriend time when she asked me to go to the county dump with her. The coffee shop it was not, but when else was I going to get 2 hours of uninterrupted time with my best friend?

Not only did we have the chance to thoroughly catch up on each other's lives, but we created a memorable experience to add to our stories of our friendship. We both went home to tell our husbands about the dump - the long windy, bumpy road up the mountain, the hundreds of circling birds, the hurricane force winds that made my friend squeal and tossed garbage in the air like fluff balls, and the crotchety old bulldozer guy who came down to watch the 'girlies' shovel the rubbish out of the pickup truck. Oh, and can't forget the 2 local guys who pulled up next to us and bellowed out a huge cloud of marijuana smoke when they opened their truck doors.

So, it doesn't really matter how you get that time with those folks who are important to you and if you think outside the box, perhaps you'll come up with a great story!

If you, or your girlfriends, don't have chunks of time to connect, then what about:

• joining a class together
• carpooling to an event
• regularly helping each other with chores
• getting season tickets to the theatre together
• scheduling shared events for your kids

I'm sure you have some other great ideas. What are they?

FYB #6 - Indulge Yourself

Indulgence gets a bad rap. Some think it is sinful or selfish or narcisistic if we choose to indulge ourselves. And it is, if that's all we do. But think of the last time you felt the deep rich experience of a satisfied pleasure. Languish in that and consider that you may want to bring more of it to your life.

There is no better way to be reminded of the power and beauty of indulgence than to watch the movie 'Chocolat', which is just what I did tonight. Perhaps you've already seen it. Indulge yourself and watch it again. The sweetness of this movie will simply melt in your mouth like a bite of a creamy dark chocolate seashell.

The wise woman in this lovely movie tells her grandson, 'don't be so concerned about the supposed to's.' Isn't that sage advice for us all?

What are you doing in your life that feel like a supposed to? What is it that you really want? If you were to indulge yourself, what would it be?

• a long afternoon nap
• the pursuit of a dream
• fulfilling a sensual desire
• having coffee in bed in the morning
• languishing in silk pajamas
• sipping fine champage from a beautiful crystal glass
• dancing the night away
• hiring a cleaning person

Really! What would it be? Name it. Now do it - or begin to work on it. You deserve to indulge yourself. You indulge everyone else, don't you?

Fill your bucket - indulge yourself.

FYB #5 - Clearly Speak Your Truth

This week a business acquaintance did something that didn't work for me. He was very late for our scheduled appointment. I'm not sure exactly how late, because I left after waiting for 40 minutes. Communication about his lateness also didn't work well for me as it was through his secretary, and not to me personally, so there was no consultation about whether waiting would work for me or not.

Certainly this has flavored my feeling about wanting to do business with this person and when I saw him, though he apologized and gave excuses for his behavior I let him know I wasn't interested in continuing a business relationship with him.

However, I felt that I didn't do a great job in communicating with him since I really hadn't explained why I was making this choice. This also is someone that I see every week, so I felt it was important to ensure that I 'cleaned' up the relationship so we had no ongoing and uncomfortable yucky feelings.

So - I sat down and composed in writing my experience of the event, how it impacted me, and how I now viewed him, which impacted my choice of whether or not to do business with him. Then I e-mailed it to him.

While I have hope that this will be helpful information for him, I actually wrote this for me. I wrote it because I kept thinking about it and so it was taking up needed space in my brain. I also have a standard for myself of walking my talk, so I felt it important that I uphold my standard. And, I held a boundary and spoke an important truth for me, which feels freeing and powerful.

I am now confident that the next time I see this man we can continue our conversation and hopefully work on a more meaningful relationship - one in which he is clearly aware of a boundary because I communicated it.

Fill up your bucket by speaking your truth to someone in your life. To do this well so that you fill your bucket rather than creating yet another leak, remember the following:

• be clear about what part of the situation is your responsibility - own your truth
• be clear about what you want the other party to do differently - don't speak in code
• leave the emotion out of it - words spoken with anger are reacted to in defense
• let go of the other person's outcome - you are not speaking to manipulate their response

If you don't feel confident about doing this well, or about the reaction from the other person, then practice with someone - a friend, coach, mentor, or family member.

Speaking your truth is a intensely powerful way to fill your bucket.

FYB #4 - Find Beauty

We've had cold rainy weather for the last few weeks - so cold I've been wearing socks and sweaters, which is amazing in Hawaii! Today, yay! We see the sun and the blue sky, and I can actually put my sweats back in the drawer.

With anticipation I completed all the 'have tos' on my duty list for the day and slathered my middle aged face with sunscreen and went down to the beach for a walk.

Oh my, how amazing the water looked! Kailua beach always looks gorgeous, but today was simply spectacular. With the steady clip of the tradewinds blowing the big puffy white clouds away, the sky was an immense shade of cornflower blue, contrasted by the vivid green of our dramatic Koolau mountains. And the water! Even more blue. From the light blue-green indicative of the shallow, sandy bottom shore lapping water, to the changing shades of vivid turquoise, to the cobalt blue of the deep blue sea, the beauty of the day stunned me.

Beauty fills my bucket. I'm lucky to live in such a place where natural beauty is so stunningly available almost every day.

Look around you now. Where do you find beauty?

• Color or light
• The smile of a loved one
• The play of shadows on a wall
• The patterns in a favorite material
• Music or sound
• Silence
• Your pet's goofy grin
• Your own reflection in the mirror

Focus on finding beauty in your everyday. Pick something gorgeous for your screen saver if you're in front of the compter all day. Beauty has a way of filling us up in an instant, but we can easily miss it when we are not paying attention.

Give your self a fill up at the beauty pump!

Now, tell us what you find of beauty that fills your bucket.

FYB #3 - Laughter!

When was the last time you laughed till your sides hurt - giggled till you thought you were going to wet your pants?

The giggles got a hold of me last night as my husband and I were playing Cribbage and once the waves of giggling glee subsided I was reminded how great I feel after a big hee haw! It's like tapping directly into the joy juice tank and the light clean feeling that comes after a big laugh is simply rejuvinating.

Go out and find the laughter today. Here's some places that may inspire the giggles in you:

• Giggly, laughing babies
• Jokes from your kids
• Comedy movies - everyone has their own giggly taste
• Poke fun at yourself - nicely though
• Act silly - pull your pants way up like a huge nerd and walk around that way!
• Imagine people in public with Graucho glasses/mustache on
• Play with a bunch of kids - they're always laughing
• Quite being so serious for just one day!

Those are my ideas - what about yours? I know you're out there laughing and giving your body a massage from the inside out. Tell us how you do that. Tell us a funny story or a joke, or the silliest thing you've ever done. Let's laugh today!

FYB #2 - Peace and Quiet!

When was the last time you were quiet enough to hear yourself think? A lot of women have busy lives because of multiple responsibilities, but sometimes women have a hard time with just being quiet.

I was watching an episode of Supernanny (see post below) and the busy Mom was instructed to take some time to 'put her feet up', while her family did chores. She couldn't figure out what to do with herself. She was caught folding laundry and summarily sent out of the house so she would just quit doing stuff.

Is that you? Are you failing to fill your own bucket by passing up opportunities to give yourself some peace and quiet?

Peace and quiet fills our bucket in so many different ways. We become much more able to hear our own wise voice and make clear and powerful choices. We can access our creativity and really spice up our life. We can ask ourselves what we really want and actually hear the answer.

There are lots of ways for busy women to get some peace and quiet:

• schedule a day, night, weekend away - by yourself!
• turn the radio off when you're in the car alone
• take a walk by yourself
• lock yourself in the bathroom
• put time on the family schedule just for you
• train others - your family perhaps! - to leave you alone at a certain time
• meditate (more about this in a later post)

A busy mom I know keeps books in every bathroom in her house. She makes her bathroom breaks stretch a bit and enjoys a bit of peace behind the locked door.

What do you do for peace and quiet? Post it in the comments.

If you're a 'human doer' more than a 'human be-er', then pick one from list above and give it a try. You may be a bit uncomfortable at first. Keep it up - make it a habit. You deserve a full bucket!

Fill Your Bucket (FYB) #1 - Food and Water

You feed and water your children, your pets, your plants (well maybe not so good a job on your plants - or perhpas I'm just projecting!), and provide gas and oil for your car, right? What about your body?

How many of you eat breakfast? Raise your hands. Let me define breakfast = a meal that occurs no later than 2 hours after you get up and consists of some protein, carbohydrates, fat, and perhaps fruit, not a bunch of sugar. A doughnut at 10:30 doesn't seem to qualify.

You know that eating a good breakfast is important, right? We learned that in elementary school. So what keeps you from beginning your day with something that is going to feed your brain, give you energy, and make you more productive and creative? Figure that out and then fix it. You'll find that your day is a whole lot easier.

So here's how women I know have successfully incorporated breakfast

• keep easy to prepare items at the office - like: instant oatmeal (not the sugary kind), cereal, soymilk, nuts and dried fruits, lowfat yoghurt, sliced turkey, cheese slices
• make hot or cold cereal at home and put it in a tupperware and take it with you
• enlist the help of a family member who loves to make food for you

These are just a few ideas. Got a different one? Post it to the comments so we can learn from you.

Now - what about water? Don't want to keep going to the bathroom all day long? That's the complaint I hear from most women. However, actually getting up from your desk, or moving away from a task and taking a break makes you MORE efficient and effective when you return. And so does keeping your body hydrated.

If you wait to drink until you're feeling thirsty, it's way past time for water. Thirsty means you're already dehydrated. Dehydrated means you're beginning to feel tired and headachy and feeling like you need a cup of coffee - which is voila', a dehydrator.

Get a pretty cup that you want to drink out of and make it big enough so that you only have to fill it up a couple times a day. Then drink it!

Feed and water yourself properly for a week and then let me know how you feel. I betcha you feel better and can think of other ways to fill your bucket.