I’ve thought a lot about what to share today. I don’t feel clever enough to send out something profound. I thought about sending a blacked out email. That didn’t feel appropriate. I thought about going in the opposite direction of how I’ve felt lately and sending something humorous. That seemed naive and disingenuous. I thought about just being silent. That just seemed cowardly. And then a line from my notes that I used for a presentation this week stood out to me. We are not solely in charge of our own happiness. We co-create it with others. Happiness exists in the spaces between us. Of course I’m responsible for my own pursuit of happiness by making positive choices and creating positive events (e.g. acts of kindness, expressing gratitude, savoring life’s joys), but there is also the social component of happiness. Other people matter. How I show up and what I do matters and affects others around me. Strong social relationships affect our attitudes for the good and the bad. I know I want to be someone who starts a positive spiral, not a negative one.

This past Sunday morning I caught myself looking at the calendar and thinking, “Oh good, today’s the last day of May, tomorrow will be a new month.” It’s June, a new month and an opportunity for a fresh start. What does that mean and what does that feel like? I know I don’t want to keep doing the negative things I did in May, hoping for a better result. I have to change something; a mindset, a limiting belief, a bias behavior. Thinking about it isn’t enough. What will I do? One thing I’m going to start doing is listening more intently. To stay in curiosity longer and be much slower to judgment and advice giving. What will you do differently? And how will your experience change because of it?

To a better June,

Lisa