Haston Helping Hands

Dear Readers,

I am saddened and dismayed at the events that unfolded on Saturday in Charlottesville.

I am not surprised because since Trump has taken office, there has been one atrocity after another. It’s so easy for me to type that and dismiss it like it’s this annoying fly that won’t go away because of my white privilege. Let’s go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room. This white woman is writing about racism even though she has never experienced it herself.

I can’t say I understand what my friends who are not white are going through because I don’t know. I only know they are in pain, so anyone reading this who is in pain, please hear me. “I am with you, you are not alone and I see you”

No, I don’t know your pain, how could I possibly? I am not you.

Saying that isn’t enough, not nearly enough, there needs to be action behind the words, so that we can all love each other a little bit more and pump more kindness into the world.

So, that’s a tall order and I know you must be thinking, but Jennifer, I am one person what can I do? A lot actually. You can stop looking at your phone and look up at people when you are in the elevator, you can talk to your neighbor, yeah I am aware it’s 2017 and “this just isn’t done” Do it anyway. If you know your neighbors, you are already on your way to strengthening your community, then once you meet your neighbors, hold a block party and get to know your neighborhood and so on…

Do you have a church you love? Find out what your church is doing to help people of different races feel safe and protected. If they aren’t doing something, ask them why and volunteer to start it yourself. Don’t wait for someone else to speak up, use YOUR voice, and say, I want to help.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel, if you look around in your city, county and district, you can likely plug into something someone else is doing.

Standing against it, is just one step. When you see it happening, you have to say something. You have to stand and be counted on the right side of history.

When it comes to teaching our little girl about people who are different than she is, I plan to tell her, love all people and do your best to be a helper to all people.   That’s my opening salvo, I am open to other things to say, much more eloquent than that, so please if you have suggestions, lay them on me. In the meantime, I am not just writing or talking, I am doing something.

The revolution is what’s next. I am ready to act. Are you?

The truth is, the tagline of my blog is “No one has a voice like you” and it’s true, no one does. No one tells your stories exactly the same way you do, and has your life experiences that add to the color and flavor of your story.

Own that story (as Brene Brown tells us) and keep listening to other people tell theirs and don’t try to cut them off with sympathy because you FEEL uncomfortable. Be there, be uncomfortable.

Don’t wait for this atrocity to happen in your city.

ACT. ACT NOW.

Dear Readers,

Thank you all for the heartfelt wishes, prayers and good vibes you sent our way as we waited for our daughter’s test results from the endocrinologist.

For those who missed my update, all is normal, no chemical abnormalities exist so I guess I can stop worrying. HA! As if that is even possible. I am a parent, I believe it goes with the territory to worry about your child. But seriously, I am glad that there was such a strong reaction to my last post because as I read your comments, questions and viewpoints it helped me crystallize what I want to say even more.

I don’t think people mean to be mean about anything really, they just don’t THINK before they tweet, instagram, post on facebook or comment.

T    H      I    N     K                                      T    H      I    N     K                        T    H      I    N     K

Is it True? Perception is truth  – I think Gandhi said that – so this could get a little wooly, but I think it’s a worthwhile to ask yourself, is what I am about to say, True? or do I think it’s true but maybe it’s not ?

Is it Helpful? – Be careful with this one, sometimes “Help” masquerades as helpful but what it is really is bossy or controlling.

Is it Inspiring? Ouch. How often is what we say, not inspiring? Our words have so much power, we can lift or we push down, let’s be sure we are doing our best to lift others not bring them down.

Is it Necessary? To add to this, is it necessary that you say it or is it maybe what someone else should say if you will give some space for them to do it, instead of jumping in (I am very guilty of this one)  And I am working on it. I freely admit that I love to talk, and sometimes I will say something that isn’t necessary to fill silence. Silence can be good. Magical things happen in silence.

Lastly and I think most importantly-

Is it Kind? I don’t have to tell you gentle reader, we can all use just as much kindness as we can get our hands on in our current climate. For a long time, I have concerned myself with being nice, but a few months ago, a friend pointed out that nice is not what she aspired to be, but kind. I like that and continue to strive for that label.

I have posted recently about some fights my partner and I have been having. It’s normal, and we are working our way through it. I was trying to pinpoint a cause or an inciting incident of the frequency of our fights and I think that it all stems a sincere lack of kindness with each other.  Not mean, exactly, but not kind. I came to this conclusion recently so hopefully it is the answer, but what I am finding is that there is not just one answer but many and like life, you can’t look at the back of the book for the answers, you must figure it out as you go. Trying some things and watching them fail, and then trying again, hopefully this time figuring out where you went wrong and doing it better that tenth or eleventh time.

In the meantime, dear reader, I invite you to…

Think about it… and while you think about it, it’s not a bad idea to jump in on the 31 Days of Kindness my buddy Ryan Avery is doing and DO something yourself!   #31DaysofKindness (check it out)

Tomorrow is Day 9-

DAY 9 – Give/send someone a small, anonymous gift
Of course receiving gifts on birthdays and holidays are fun but even better is a random gift for no reason! You could look up someone’s ‘wishlist’ on Amazon and send them something. You could leave a coffee gift card on your coworkers desk. You could also buy a small something, leave it in a park with a note saying “For you!”

I think that is a pretty kind gesture so even if you just do tomorrow’s task, that would be better than nothing, right?

Think About it….

Dear Readers,

I am embarrassed to admit this, but there are times when I need a boost.

I think it would come as no shock that we all could, but when you are a motivational speaker and life coach sometimes that “boost” is a little hard to come by, especially since your goal is to raise others and advise them on how they can feel good about what they are doing and will do. Remember, my daily goal? “To inspire one person a day”

Some days are easier than others and today was not that day.  It was a tough day at work, and I was feeling frustrated, nothing terrible but definitely a difficult day, so I did a little self-care also known as retail therapy (within budget of course) and did some shopping.

I was trying on clothes and trying hard to decide, “Does this look sexy?” “Do I like it?” “Does it look good on me?”, and I must have been saying these things aloud because out of nowhere a very pretty woman who was nearby said, “Girl, you got it going on, curves, hips and you are just gorgeous, and that top looks amazing on you” I blushed a little and said, “Thank you, I appreciate you saying that. She smiled at me and then went back to her shopping and I went back to mine.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned it was embarrassing to admit I needed that “kindness of a stranger” to reassure me about my own looks, why is that?

For two reasons.

1. I did a show about how you vital it is for us ALL to embrace how we look and love it and cherish it (not even three months ago)
2. My voice telling me that I am good enough, that I am sexy enough, that I am ENOUGH is not always enough.

I am working on that, but today, I was grateful for the stranger who cared enough to comment.

So on the off chance that you are having that day today, allow me to say to you, the following….

YOU ARE AWESOME! You are up to things in life that are hard and you are doing them every day and every day you get a little closer to that goal. I don’t know exactly what your goal is but I know you are getting there, bit by little bit. I got some advice a long time ago from the mother of my heart, the only mother I acknowledge and she said this,

I got some advice a long time ago from the mother of my heart, and she said has asked me this series of questions when I was stuck and not moving forward, which has been many times in my life.

“What do you want?

“What are you doing to get it?”

“How’s that working for you”

Three questions that help guide me in my daily life, so perhaps they will help you.

If you are having a rough time and feeling a little sorry for yourself, another piece advice (from Mom of course) is this, “You can have a pity party, just don’t stay there”

So whichever side of the spectrum you are on, you now have some tools and maybe even an action plan. Go follow that map you just drew and remember, you are doing WAY better than you think.

Think about it.

(This is a picture of me, very proud of my body)  I will be proud of my body tomorrow at 5 am (gulp) when I go swim to continue to show my love and self-care for my body. I post these pictures to help remind me of the evolution of love I have for my figure. I also post things in my blog, to make me accountable to the rest of you.

Dear Readers,

Back in January, I wrote a blog post asking the question: Are you addicted to technology?

In it, I talked about the last minute laissez-faire (laid back for the non French people) attitude pervasive in our society which leads us to cancel plans last minute.

For the curious, https://jenniferhastonsays.com/2017/01/26/are-you-addicted-to-technology/

Today, I am posing a different question.

What does your technology cost you? How much are you missing out on because you can’t or won’t put your phone down?

Perhaps a silly look you get from your daughter after she falls down the ninth time as she is learning to stand up and find her balance, bonus, she laughed at herself and then crawled over for a hug right after that. You might miss that your husband looked at you with a loving look after you said something because you were looking down at your phone. This has happened to me and to him, and the feeling you get when you realize that you looked lovingly at someone but they didn’t see it, you don’t really get that moment back. How about at a meeting at work, did you ask your coworker about their project, vacation or were you buried in your phone or laptop before the meeting started? (I was guilty of this today, but I am aware of it, so will strive to do better) – That’s all any of us can do.

As parents to a nine month old, alone time is so hard to come by and recently I said, we need to do something to protect it. We have actually instituted a no phone zone (we actually lock up our phones) at the dinner table so we can focus on family time and beginning as we mean to continue since we certainly want to teach her to connect and talk and laugh and play and listen.

I am going to be honest, It’s hard sometimes, and that realization in and of itself is scaring me enough to realize how important it is to share this idea and really work to revolutionize how we are interacting with each other as a culture and do our level best to focus on connecting in real life, not just on social media or via text.

I was having this discussion over dinner last week and again last night and neither of us had our phones out, “all we do is play on our phones and watch (insert your favourite streaming method here)” . I think that many of us are like that, and it’s okay in moderation but when was the last time you did an audit of your “phone use” ?

It might surprise you to learn how much time you spend on your phone. Do you check it 150 times a day? I found that hard to believe and then after doing an audit, I found I check it at least 50 times a day which seems excessive to me.

I can’t tell you what that looks like for you. Perhaps that means one night a week, you don’t use your devices between this hour and this hour, and maybe your goal is to actually be “bored”. There are studies that have pointed to great strides in creativity when someone gives their brain the space to “be bored”

Maybe you have the balance DOWN and don’t need a wake up call. But I know I need to be vigilant about this because it’s way too easy for me to pick up my phone and mindlessly scroll through the internet, I click on articles and say I will read that later. When was the last time you had a night without devices or you and your partner took a walk, yes it’s hot but do it anyway, or get in the car for a drive and look at the nature that surrounds us all that we don’t always appreciate.

When was the last time you had a night without your phone? How about the last time you didn’t watch Netflix? When was the last time you opted to put your phone down and not engage in battle an internet troll? How many times have you said, “one more episode?” and wound up watching three more?

Don’t get me wrong, I have my Facebook scrolling, Netflix intake just like everyone else, but much like my current eating plan of “I want a cookie so I will eat one cookie, in hopes that I will not want the entire package of cookies” I try to limit it, so I am spending more time with the three dimensional people and living and interacting with them and spending less time liking, commenting and digitally connecting.

How about you? What do you think your technology habit is costing you?

Think about it.

Dear Readers,

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that a few years ago my husband and I spent some time getting out of debt. For those that do not know, it is possible to live a life without debt. In this culture, we get sold a bill of goods that you must have debt to survive and thrive but it’s simply not true.

I digress, the reason I bring up the baby steps as a way to success is because while I was swimming my 12 laps in the pool this morning, I watched the Olympic level (to my untrained eye) swimmers in the 7 lanes next to me swim efficiently, kick, turn and come back to the other side and I marveled at their ability to do it so effortlessly, and found myself comparing my efforts to theirs.

Considering I am engaged in a true effort to stamp out unhealthy comparison (yep, there is such a thing as healthy comparison-long story short? It’s comparing yourself to your best possible self!) wherever I find it, this is frustrating but I stopped myself midstream (yes in the pool) and said, “hey, you have been swimming for exactly 3 months, of course you aren’t an expert, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

I then moved on with my workout but the thought lingered about how long I had been working out and “forming the habit” if you will. The truth is, I said I wanted to go to the gym once a week for almost 6 months before I actually did it, then I was having trouble coming up with motivation to actually go so there was a period of time there where I wasn’t going AT ALL, but I kept listing it as a goal. Then I got tired of it sitting there, taunting me.. “Yeah, you give all this advice, but do you take it? You talk about how taking care of your body is a key to having all around success, but you aren’t doing anything about it” Till finally, I said to myself, “ENOUGH”…. and two weeks ago, just got up early and started to do it. My reward? A Pepsi and a pop tart. It may seem like a contradiction in terms to work out and then eat fairly unhealthy food but stick with me. Right now, it’s a baby step to work out, eventually, I will move to fruit for breakfast.

The same concept applies to anything BIG you want to do. We paid off 40,000 in consumer debt (Lane Bryant, Target, VISA, My car, Student Loan, his car) and it took us three years and working 5 jobs between us to do it. It did NOT happen in a day. It took us THREE years, we also had to learn how to handle our money responsibly which took time as well. We didn’t start off by paying off debt, we learned how to budget first, we took stock of where our money was going and why we were spending 300.00 a month on restaurants.

Here is our debt free scream for the curious-

Now, many years later, it’s almost rote, we don’t even think about it. Let me amend that, we do THINK about it, but we don’t worry about it, we have a plan for our money, so why not for our fitness?

So, it stands to reason, baby steps worked there (astoundingly well, I should say) so with patience and time, and some pop tarts, we will likely see some pretty great strides on our health as well.

The picture above is a great image to think about it, it was my first night 5K and it sucked.. rocks everywhere and it turned out to be a 3K UGH, but the picture is of me accomplishing a goal (I kept going to make it a 5K) . I encourage you to do the same, take a picture when you are in the thick of things, so you can look back and say, look how far I have come.

Think About It.