Lets Start Small

I have been thinking a lot about leaving a legacy here in Barrow. It is quite the place with plenty of needs for leadership and love. I’m still not sure what my legacy will entail, but one small thing I can do now to help others is to build an on-line network. I feel I have been inspired and I am actually pretty excited about getting the whole project underway.

It looks like I can get web hosting for the year and all the programming to run an “open source” forum and calendar of events for less than $150/ year. The idea would be to have a forum where people could post events, activities and tips for survival here. There could be a place for groups sharing the same interests and it would provide for special interests such as stay-at-home mommies and people suffering from Seasonal Depression.

It would be so much fun and give me a lot of experience in building a website for future endeavors… like the big dream of the adventure lodge. In any case, it would be a service to the community, and I could sure use a project to occupy my time and tap into my creative side for cause outside myself.

I have been putting some thought into a domain name and I could use any recommendations for the site. Here are a few name ideas I came up with:

• Arctic Community Resource
• Arctic Connection
• Barrow Family Network
• Polar Playground
• Tundra Trax

Updating the Dream

So, the New Year has come and gone. We are in the middle of February now and I am re-evaluating the resolutions that I set back in January that have already gone by the wayside. I pulled out an old mission statement that I had built back in a Steven Covey Leadership course in college and made a few updates. It would sure be a lot easier to renew my focus on the goals I set vs. making new ones. :)

Personal Mission Statement

When my time on earth has ended, I want to have left a legacy of love, leadership, integrity, and many shared adventures. I have recorded a few goals into four categories of focus to help me fulfill my mission and deepen my influence in every relationship. These categories are: Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical and Socio-emotional.

Spiritual: Improving my strengths in this category will increase my capacity to love, courage to lead, and desire to serve.

Goal: Build a closer relationship with God by...

Praying daily for guidance and strength to further discover and fulfill my mission

Serving others with love and compassion weekly

Seeking out the beauty in all things

Taking monthly wilderness adventures to ponder Gods’ role in fulfilling my mission

Intellectual: Improving my strengths in this category will increase my opportunities to love, lead, align myself with truth and be safe on my many adventures.

Goal: Gain a stronger understanding of truth relevant to my mission by…

Being open to all truth from all sources

Seeking relevant truth through daily study and prayer

Discerning what is true and relevant through meditation and prayer

Developing skills in leadership and management through training and experience

Taking monthly wilderness adventures to ponder the role of truth in fulfilling my mission

Physical: Improving my strengths in this category will increase my stamina and prolong the joy in love, leadership, integrity and adventure.

Goal: Increase my physical capacity and stamina to fulfill my mission by…

Exercising my body daily for 1 hour

Preparing whole and nutritional foods that promote a healthy lifestyle

Rising early every day and getting adequate sleep

Taking 1hour each day to groom and 3 hours each quarter to pamper

Taking monthly wilderness adventures in higher elevations or for longer distances to push my physical capacity

Socio-emotional: Improving my strengths in this category will provide opportunities to express love, exercise leadership, demonstrate integrity and share adventures.

Goal: See the world as it could be and do everything possible to make it that way by…

Looking for opportunities to help others

Acknowledging problems as growth opportunities

Seeking first to understand and then to be understood

Being sensitive to the hearts and needs of others

By striving to realize these goals, I will be better prepared to fulfill my mission and deepen my influence in each relationship. My mark the world will be a legacy of love, leadership, integrity, and many shared adventures through my family, friends, community and acquaintances along for the ride. I write this in hopes that I will remember my goals and align my behavior with the mission I want to live.

My One Word

I was inspired by a fellow blogger to come up with a one word focus for the year. It is an interesting concept that lends itself to bettering the world and bettering my personal universe. This one word is supposed to be a guide or a goal for making progress on a daily basis.

Over the past year, I have committed myself to making many changes. In the process, my one word for last year naturally became CHANGE. In the wee hours of a January morning, I was rocking my new baby to sleep and found that I had been “going through the motions” with my life. Much of the busy things that had filled my life had lost their joy and meaning for me. I tried to recall when it was that I lost it, and couldn't. So I knew it was time for CHANGE.

The good news is that CHANGE allowed me to reconnect with God in the language of my heart (through Nature) and find myself more in tune with who I really was, what was important to me and what I needed to do protect it. I set new goals that were in line with my true self and made lots of CHANGES including my career from Public Relations’ Director to Mom, losing 104 pounds, getting back into the wilderness, and abandoning anything that hindered who I really am.

This year, I have found that my environment is a bit contradictory to the positive effects of last year’s one word, and I am discovering that I need to be a lot more INTENTIONAL about my decisions. With the transition of the move and the harshness of the Arctic, I am losing my connection to God through the wilderness. It is here in rare spurts, but I often get mixed messages because I am not built to thrive up here. I must now be INTENTIONAL about seeking Him out and finding His path for me through the blinding, biting cold and isolation of my new home. I have also lost my resolve to lose the remaining 30 pounds and must be INTENTIONAL about staying active and eating right in an environment that is not accommodating to either.

Another neat aspect about the one word INTENTION is the fact that many times, I still miss the point of what I am doing. I have committed myself to focus on the meaning or the INTENT of the actions that I take as well as really listening and seeking out the INTENTION of others’ actions. This has required that I really listen with a spirit of discernment and love. It takes a lot of energy to truly understand the meaning behind an action or a word.

Since I began seeking out the INTENTION and aligning my INTENTION with what I feel in my soul to be truth and right, I have been more grateful, more humble, more patient and a lot more in tune with what is going on around me. It has deepened my friendships and expanded my compassion for others. It has served to protect me from being taken advantage of and has served as a guide to understand and even appreciate the complicated symptoms of the depression I fight every day. It has allowed me a glimpse into God’s INTENTION for me and given me the opportunity to align my life with Him. By seeking for God’s INTENTION in my trials, I am better able to recognize the issues at hand, battle the root of the problem and more effectively escape the chains of misery.

INTENTION is my one word for the year and I hope that everyone will take a few moments to identify a one word that inspires them to make positive changes and find meaning in their lives over the course of the next year.