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Judy Ringer - EzineArticles.com Expert Author
Judy Ringer is Founder of Power & Presence Training, a Portsmouth, NH company specializing in unique workshops to help organizations manage conflict, communicate effectively, and co-create a positive work environment.
The author of Unlikely Teachers: Finding the Hidden Gifts in Daily Conflict, Ringer provides training throughout the U.S. and Canada with unique workshops based on mind/body principles from the martial art aikido, in which she holds a black belt. In addition, she uses her ... [More]
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- The Centered State
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] The centered state is always available though often hard to find when we need it most. The calm center of the storm, a refuge in difficulty, and the peace of simply being -- why is it so easy to lose sight of this powerful choice?
- Begin it - Lessons on Worrying From Junior High Math
[Self-Improvement:Personal-Growth] What are you worrying about today? Maybe it only seems difficult because you haven't begun it yet.
- Practicing Happiness
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] True happiness connects us with what's meaningful in life. We learn to develop gratitude, awe and wonder, central characteristics of happy people.
- How to Let Go - Steps For Taming the Inner Critic
[Self-Improvement:Personal-Growth] It's a question that comes up all the time in my workshops. Most conflict is with ourselves, I think. It may be generated by something that happens on the outside, but eventually I have to go inside and consider what to do about it. How do I handle this situation and manage myself in the process?
- The Little Things
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] Little things like these are big things in disguise. These ki moments beckon and invite us to notice them, to wake up, pay attention, be present and be happy. And yet, if you're like me, you're mostly in pursuit of the next moment, letting this one get away. On my way to the next moment, the next completed task, I'm never really here.
- The Conflict Lover - Tips For Taming the Adversarial
[Relationships:Conflict] A recent email from a subscriber asked: What do you do with the person who seems to love conflict? You say black, they say white; you say up, they say down. After a while this can be demoralizing, especially if this person is in a managerial position.
- You Get What You Look For
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Tell me a story about the best Christmas, best Hanukkah, best holiday season you ever had. What made it so wonderful? Who was involved? What happened? What about that time makes you remember it so vividly? What do you value about what you did? How did you contribute to its special qualities? Write the story down if you like.
- Cycles - Managing Emotions With Intention
[Self-Improvement:Anger-Management] For me, part of finding my way back to peace, center, and purpose is a willingness to sit in the discomfort of uncentered chaotic feelings. These, too, are life. These messy feelings connect me to what is trying to emerge, to insight, to a source of inspiration-if I can pay attention.
- Bring a Coffee Cake
[Relationships:Conflict] At dinner with my friend Susan recently, I was struck by the simplicity of her conflict resolution strategy. A friend sought Susan's advice about how to approach her neighbor about a potential conflict. The neighbor was prickly and the friend uneasy, and she asked Susan to come along as support for the conversation.
- Hurry Up and Meditate
[Health-and-Fitness:Meditation] Hurry up and meditate, I'm thinking as I sit in half-lotus, willing myself to quiet down and connect with the source. Wow, that's really taking things to extremes. How can you meditate in a hurry? Isn't the whole point to SLOW DOWN? Quiet the rushing stream of thoughts and make the world disappear, at least for a little while?
- When You Don't Know the Answer
[Self-Improvement:Techniques] A client was struggling with how to manage her stress level during the Q&A period after a presentation when she doesn't have an immediate answer. The simple solution might be to say, "I don't know." But it's not that simple.
- Creating Resilience
[Self-Improvement:Creativity] What is your creative practice? Have you actually practiced it lately?
- Cooling My Hot Buttons
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] I know these two hot buttons well. Whenever I don't receive the service I think I should or when technology doesn't work the way it's supposed to, I get hooked. You might think I'd be on the alert, center myself really fast, and not take the bait. But no. I guess that's why they call them hot buttons. Face red, muscles tight, arms flying into the air, blind to what is possible. It's good to know you're human.
- Turning a Difficult Situation Into a Centering Practice
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] You'll forget to center; I guarantee this. When you remember you forgot, center then - at that moment. Practice in your mind's eye. Replay the triggering situation and imagine yourself centered. What changes? How are you different? How does the situation evolve differently?
- A Revolutionary Act
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] It sometimes seems as if there's an injunction against being too happy. We don't want to stand out from the crowd, appear different, weird, or as if we're putting on that happy face to show off or cover something up.
- Can We Talk? A Simple Checklist For Conflict Conversations
[Relationships:Communication] The majority of the work in any conflict conversation is work you do on yourself. No matter how well the conversation begins, staying in charge of yourself, your purpose, and your emotional energy is key to a successful outcome.
- Negativity RX - Change Your Ki
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Negativity is a common theme in my conflict and communication skills trainings. The costs of negativity in the workplace are far-reaching, from lateness, errors, and unhappy customers to illness, accidents, and the loss of more positive-minded employees.
- The Pause
[Self-Improvement] Think of a difficult person in your life, someone whose presence causes you to become uncentered. With a small mental shift you can remake this person into a centering practice.
- Purposeful Conversations - A Role Play
[Relationships:Communication] "I'm sick and tired of HR's red tape. I need this employee now, not next month. My department suffers while you drag your feet trying to get references I don't need. I want THIS person. Get off the stick and make it happen!" Not the best way to get your needs met.
- Attitude Adjustment
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Benjamin Zander, author, motivational speaker, and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, often quotes his father as saying that "there is no bad weather, just inappropriate clothing." I try to practice this kind of thinking as often as possible.
- Heart at Peace
[Relationships:Conflict] "We give ourselves the best opportunity to make clear-minded decisions only to the extent that our hearts are at peace." -- The Anatomy of Peace Choosing to resolve conflict begins when we approach it with a "Heart at Peace." So opens a new book I just finished, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict, by the Arbinger Institute.
- Clarity of Purpose
[Relationships:Conflict] I've been thinking a lot lately about why we fear our more serious conflict conversations, why we put them off or hold them in nonconstructive ways. The answers usually have to do with how well I am prepared ...
- The Weight of Perfection - Lightening Up
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] I was preparing for a workshop and found myself exhibiting the symptoms of a full-blown Perfection Infection. I worried myself into a state of anxiety I hadn't experienced in quite a while.
- Inner Freedom
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] When we celebrate Independence Day in the U.S., we remember the freedoms we normally take for granted and we appreciate our responsibility to honor, maintain, and clarify those freedoms every day. What about our inner freedoms?
- Managing Their Reactions - An Aiki Approach
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] What happens if you're in a conversation or a conflict and the other person is out of control? How do you manage their strong ki, especially when it's forcefully directed at you?
- Neighbors With Drums - Making Choices
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] Every day around 3:30 pm, a neighbor with a new drum set begins practicing - at full volume. The drummer must be on his deck or screened porch, because there doesn't seem to be any buffer.
- A Christmas Carol - Finding The Spirit Any Time Of Year
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] My favorite scene bar none (and there are some GREAT scenes in this movie) is the one where Scrooge has awakened from the nightmare of the three spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and is so happy to be alive and capable of doing good in the world that he can barely contain himself. He runs to the window and calls to a small boy walking below. Scrooge asks the boy to go to the nearby butcher, buy the biggest turkey, and take it to his clerk, Bob Cratchit, and his family.
- Don't Wait - Center
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] If I can catch myself, I can turn the waiting into my own personal rest stop in a busy day. A health break. A ki moment.
- Go Ahead, Be Thankful
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] I was seven or eight years old, playing with my cousins in the back yard of my grandmother's house in Oak Park, Illinois. Mimi (my Aunt Mary) was probably 30-something at the time and in her wheelchair, where she'd been since a spinal disease struck at age thirteen.
- Discovery on an Icy Bridge
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] Driving home late one night during the first snow of the season, I hit a patch of ice on a slippery bridge and collided with the barrier that separates the bridge from the air and the water. I careened off one side of the bridge, slid across three lanes of Interstate 95, and scraped along the barrier on the opposite side. Luckily there weren't any other cars nearby.
- When Tempers Flare - Five Tips to Manage Your Anger in the Heat of the Moment
[Self-Improvement:Anger-Management] Emotions happen. We can, however, make choices about how we manage them.
- When Things Don't Go Well – Find Your Positive Intention
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] What do you tell yourself when you say or do something you regret? Does the inner critic run amok, calling you every name in the book and maybe even trying to blame the other person -- the victim of your gaffe? I know my critic does these things.
- Seeing Things As We Are – The Power of Your Worldview
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] I can't think of a better way to begin each day than to remember the power of our innate creativity. Be mindful of what you hope for and what you worry about, what you believe and what you foster in the world. Read on-
- Managing Emotions: Begin with Self-Awareness and Self-Management
[Self-Improvement:Anger-Management] I turned around in my kitchen and walked into the open dishwasher, cracking my shin on the edge of the door. Ouch!#@%*! It was all I could do to keep from kicking the door. But I caught myself and made some better choices.
- Sophia and Sam: Life Lessons from Little Ones
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] Recently, I had a delightful visit with my friend, Linda, and her four-month-old twins, Sophia and Sam, who taught me some important life lessons without even trying.
- High Hopes and Generosity of Spirit
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] My friend, Suzanne, is an inspiration. One of her favorite songs is "High Hopes." What I've learned and continue to learn from Suzanne goes beyond words.
- Framing Your Message
[Business:Workplace-Communication] In a difficult conversation, frame your message so that it is more likely to be heard.
- There Are No Guarantees
[Relationships] You've spent time and energy preparing and holding an important conversation. You developed a useful purpose, acknowledged your conversation partner, and framed your message with skill. But, in spite of your best efforts, the situation doesn't change. What do you do?
- Stopping to Listen: The Precious Present
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] Life is so busy and so full, it's hard to remember the quiet from which all activity springs. Stop. Listen. And appreciate the richness of the moment.
- Cultivating Gratitude
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] What are you grateful for? Counterbalance worry, doubt, and constant striving by taking a moment each day to "cultivate gratitude."
- Defusing Customer Disputes: 7 Strategies to Centered Communication
[Business:Customer-Service] Defusing difficult or angry customers calmly and assertively benefits the company, the customer, and the service representative.
- Being Heard: Mental and Verbal Strategies for Getting Your Point Across
[Business:Workplace-Communication] We all want to be heard. It's gratifying, empowering, and makes us feel valued. And in a difference of opinion, we want our side to be represented. We want others to get who we are and to hear our valid arguments, even if they don't agree with us–though, of course, we'd like that to happen as well.
- The Power of Not Knowing: Understanding Your Adversary
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Most of the time, your eagerness to get your point across guarantees that you won't. It seems the harder you push to be heard, the harder they push back.
- Stage Fright: Use It and Lose It
[Writing-and-Speaking:Public-Speaking] As a professional singer and speaker, I'm often asked if I still get nervous in front of an audience. I do. But I've learned to use my nervous energy – and minimize its impact.
- Finding Your Voice
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] What are the parallels between finding your literal voice and finding your personal voice – the voice that links you to your purpose, power, and work in the world? Read on
- Conflict Mistakes
[Business:Management] Ever make a conflict mistake? No, I'm sure you haven't. Neither have I. Healing a conflict mistake is possible with patience and positive intention.
- Aikido and Conflict: Turning Difficult Moments into Ki Moments
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] How can we turn daily conflicts into life teachers? Just by asking the question, we begin to transform conflict moments into ki moments and attacks into energy we can use to build the kinds of home, work, and community environments we want to live in.
- Negotiating Life's Detours: Follow Your Energy
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Someone asked me recently if I had a guiding principle that helped me decide what new work to take on, and how I decide how much time to spend pursuing my various interests. It's a great question. Entrepreneurs have an idea a minute, and it's often difficult to know which ideas to invest time in. A mentor of mine gave me this principle some years ago, and I try to live by it.
- View from Another Planet: Learning to Talk to Our Children
[Home-and-Family:Parenting] Conflict within families can be the way to increased connection or separation. Your ability to manage your own reactions is a key ingredient.
- Night and Day: Choosing Your Reality
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] "There's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
- William Shakespeare
The title of this great Cole Porter song -Night and Day - also describes the sometimes changeable nature of my outlook on life.
- Practice Makes Perfect: Changing Your Communication Habits One Step At a Time
[Business:Workplace-Communication] The concept of practice applies to any skill that you want to cultivate. If you take up a new musical instrument, you will need to practice a while before you're ready to give your first concert. In Aikido, the martial art I study and teach, we get on the mat many times each week to practice and perfect our technique.
- Conflict and Change: Managing Emotional Energy
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] The beginning of a new year, like the beginning of anything, brings with it thoughts of change, rejuvenation, new life, and resolutions about how to accomplish these changes. Life offers possibilities of a fresh start for our relationships. But we don't always carry through on our resolutions.
- Greatest Gift
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] In my fifteenth year, I became the proud owner of my first mini-skirt. Upon seeing it my dad hit the roof, and my favorite aunt gave me the greatest gift of all.
- Knowing When I'm Not: 4 Suggestions for Developing a Strong Center
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] The more I practice centering, the more I realize that as important as it is to be able to identify and access the centered state, it is equally important to be able to know when I'm NOT centered. Otherwise, how do I choose?
- Holiday "Ki" Moments: Choosing Your Best Self
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] The Holidays are filled with key moments -- and Ki Moments. Are you ready for them? Gift decisions, company parties, Holiday dinners with friends and family -- they're loaded with opportunities, aren't they? Will the pressure of the moment help you reach peak performance or will you look back later wondering why you did what you did -- again!
- Centering Defined: What, How and Why?
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] What is center? How do you choose to be centered, and why? In what ways can you develop a strong center?
- Breathing: The Way Back to Balance
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] How are you inventing your life today? How does the way you think affect your actions? And how might you become more aware of the process?
A centering breath is a place to start.
- Advocate Respectfully
[Business:Workplace-Communication] This is one of a series of brief articles on holding difficult conversations. In earlier issues of Ki Moments, I suggested ways to open communications that create mutual respect; we talked about the importance of knowing your purpose for the conversation; and we added Inquiry and Curiosity to our conversational toolbox. Here the topic is Advocacy.
- Thank You Very Much - Turning Problems Into Gifts
[Self-Improvement] I am a martial artist and black belt in aikido, a practice that continues to teach me about life, both on and off the mat. For example, at the end of each aikido practice, I express gratitude to my partners by bowing and saying: "Thank you very much." I've found over the years that sometimes I have obvious reasons to say thank you - working with that person was exhilarating and fun. However, sometimes the reasons are not so obvious - my partner was stiff, rough, unconscious, or generally difficult to work with.
- Be Curious - And Be A Successful Communicator
[Business:Workplace-Communication] There are many ways to improve the way you communicate. For example, you will always start things off on the right foot by opening the conversation in a way that creates mutual respect. Using phrases such as, "If you have a minute, I'd like to talk with you about something that I think will improve the way we work together," helps set your conversation partner at ease. It tells him or her that you have positive intentions.
- Go Where Your Energy Is Strong
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] I had undertaken a project that I was beginning to feel was beyond my personal resources to accomplish. I had asked a friend and colleague if I might organize a workshop in the New England area that he would teach. After many months of collecting information, I was at the point of choosing and committing to a conference center. Next would come the advertising, invitations, mailings, registrations, etc. It happened many years ago in the early stages of my new career, and I was beginning to feel that I was in over my head.
- Being the Mountain
[Self-Improvement] As I hiked up the path to the Peaceful Valley Chapel, I relished the quiet of my early morning solitude. After many years as a participant and assistant instructor at Thomas Crum's Journey To Center Program, this beautiful and energizing ten-minute hike had become a personal ritual. Each morning of each Journey to Center week, before our breathing and meditation session at 7, I always hike to the top of this small mountain to be inspired by the view of a much higher mountain range in the distance.
- A Gift of Energy
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] "When attack becomes dance, everything is seen as a gift of energy."
That sounds great, doesn't it?
Couldn't we all use a little more energy from time to time?
- Make Their Day
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] When was the last time someone made your day – or you made theirs? In the national bestselling book, FISH!, by Stephen C. Lundin Ph.D., Harry Paul, and John Christensen, the fishmongers at the world famous Pike Place Fish Company in Seattle do it daily. They do it by throwing fish and joking with their loyal customer-fans, and by just having fun.
- The Hot Tub
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] I swim most mornings at the community pool and then, if there’s time, reward myself with a soak in the hot tub. It's a great tub with room for four or five people, the water is really hot, and you can turn the bubbles on or off. My favorite soak is when I'm alone and the water is still. I sit quietly and enjoy the serenity before my day begins.
- Difficult Conversations - Getting Started
[Self-Improvement] Is there a conversation you've been putting off? Is there a coworker or family member with whom you need to talk - but don't? Maybe you've tried and it didn't turn out as you had hoped. Or maybe you fear that talking will only make things worse. Whatever the reason, you feel stuck and you'd like to free up that energy for more useful purposes.
- Nothing More Than Feelings
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] "How are you Inventing Your Life Today?" – the lead story from my last issue of Power & Presence – drew comments from several readers. Most of the comments went something like: "I wish I could have the degree of control over my life that you apparently do."
I want to say, I wish I had the degree of control over my life that it apparently looks like I have.
- How Are You Inventing Your Life Today?
[Self-Improvement:Attraction] Walking down Lincoln Avenue in Portsmouth, I am struck by the beauty of the day – forsythia, tulips and daffodils, bright sun, warm breeze – and the freedom and privilege I have to walk in a healthy body, through a friendly neighborhood, of my own volition. I think about how much I take for granted, and how easy it is to feel centered and content when life is easy, flowing, and conflict free.
- It's a Habit
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Do you sometimes have the feeling that you're running into the same obstacles over and over again? Many of my conflicts have the same feel to them, like "Hey, I think I've been here before," but I can't figure out how I wound up in the same place. The situation is different, but the conflict feels the same.
- Work, Work, Work: Making Each Moment Count
[Self-Improvement:Time-Management] Time, time, time. It seems there is never enough of this precious life support. In a previous story about time, I quoted the following aphorism:
TIME IS MY FRIEND
TIME IS MY ALLY
I HAVE ALL THE TIME I NEED
FOR EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO.
- Communicating on Purpose
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Last week I attended an excellent 2-day workshop called "Staying Grounded When on the Spot," offered by the Public Conversations Project, in Watertown, MA. Geared to help facilitators and trainers manage challenging group moments, I found that the skills applied in a variety of settings, including one-one-one communication "hot spots."
- Have a Present Moment!
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] It was the 10th day of rain, and I walked into the pool locker room feeling a little soggy around the edges. I asked my pool friend, Laurie, how she was and she said, "Bright and cheery. It's a wonderful day and I'm going to accomplish a lot of good things." Laurie, who is recovering from hip surgery and on most days can be seen walking around the locker room with great care, wiggled her cane at me from under the shower.
- We Have to Talk: A Step-By-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Can you think of a conversation you’ve been putting off. Got it? Great. Then let’s go.
- How to Keep a Good Employee: Look, Listen, Learn
[Business:Management] Recently a client told me a wonderful story about how a change of attitude helped her to keep a valued employee.
- Taking Yourself Too Seriously? - Suggestions for Reclaiming Your Perspective
[Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] I've noticed I often take myself, my work, and my life way too seriously. I blow events out of proportion, demand perfection, and generally behave as if my needs are at the center of everything. Does this ever happen to you? If so, read on . . .
- Are You Worried? 4 Steps to Peace of Mind
[Self-Improvement:Stress-Management] Are you worrying? Awareness and acknowledgment are the keys to changing our habits. Here are four ways to begin.
- Keep the Channel Open
[Self-Improvement:Motivation] Why do you do what you do? What is your real work in the world, and why is it important to know the answer?
- Workplace Conflict: FAQs -- An Interview with Judy Ringer
[Business:Workplace-Communication] Does conflict disrupt your workplace environment? Read on! Judy Ringer answers some commonly asked questions on the subjects of workplace conflict, difficult people, and how to manage them more effectively.
- Working with Difficult People: 3 Questions to Help You Turn Your Tormentors into Teachers
[Business:Team-Building] Kurt Vonnegut uses the phrase “wrang-wrangs” to describe great teachers who are placed in our life disguised as difficult, confrontational, disrespectful, and sometimes horrible people. “Wrang-wrangs” are placed there on purpose and can teach us important lessons, if we’re willing to listen and learn.
- Reflections on a New Image
[Self-Improvement] Occasionally I have an identity crisis. I think that's good. From time to time I have to ask myself questions like: Who am I? What am I doing? Do I like doing it? Am I good at it? Will it help the world? and How does the world know I'm doing it?
- Giving Others the Benefit of the Doubt
[Self-Improvement] Sometimes it’s difficult to ask for what you want in life, that you suffer needlessly because of it, and that you blame others and justify the blaming instead of taking action. Many lessons . . .
- Letting Go Of Perfection
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] What’s the opposite of Discovery? Perfection –- a place with which we're all too familiar. In Perfection, things have to be done right, we have to look good, get good grades, and win the games we play. Our standards are high, and failure is to be avoided at all costs. In daily conflicts, sometimes at the expense of our dearest relationships, we have to prevail. When we feel attacked we fight back, sometimes with our own hurtful words, or with behavior calculated to control, manipulate and diminish.
- Happy Holidays? It's Up To You
[Home-and-Family:Holidays] At Holiday Time, or any time, if you feel like you just can’t get it all done, take a moment to breathe, step back and take on one event at a time.
- Living on Purpose: One Rock at a Time
[Self-Improvement:Inspirational] We’re so busy trying to get it all done -- and trying to get it all done right -- that we sometimes miss life in our hurry to get to the goal.
- Keeping Conflict in Perspective
[Self-Improvement:Happiness] Does conflict unbalance you? When you are surprised by conflict, how do you
regain perspective? This story provides a grounded approach and solid tips for dealing with especially troubling relationship conflicts.
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