Annette Petrick

Introducing Connection Messenger Annette Petrick, writer and narrator of the popular radio show Consider This. 

Don’t you just love people who embrace life and live it to its fullest, regardless of their age or their circumstances? With few exceptions, these folks have a positive attitude, an appreciation for the good things around them, and a natural tendency to want to share those good things with others. They also have a lot to teach us if we’ll only listen.

Annette Petrick is such a person. Business woman, speaker, community leader, wife, mother, grandmother, and lover of life, Annette is a friend here in the Shenandoah Valley, and she is the creator of a wonderful radio show called Consider This. It consists of daily 90-second broadcasts in which she presents stories, life experiences, and tidbits of wisdom that are dished up in just the right portion sizes for most of us with busy schedules. Sometimes they inspire, encourage, or motivate me. Invariably they make me smile or warm my heart. Here are a couple of audio samples:

Friendship

Accept Compliments 

Happily Annette has recently created a collection of these wonderful shows on her Consider This CD – Vol. I : A Heartwarming Collection About Life and Love. We’ve made it available here at Heartspoken, either from this page or among our “Gifts That Inspire.” I’ve also categorized this post among those in the Our Wisdom Spoken Project, because I believe these shows contain a treasure trove of life wisdom. 

The CD contains more than two dozen tracks with messages and lessons in short (less than two minutes long), easy-listening format. Track themes include Mothers, Friends, Coping with Life, Women, Spectrums of Love, Opportunity, and Lessons from Life. Whether you purchase the CD in its beautiful booklet case or in a deluxe boxed gift set, you’ll get the code to download a free 28-page bonus book with expanded writings on themes on the CD, photos, and the author’s personal story of life and love.

The CONSIDER THIS CD – VOL. 1 is the Perfect Gift:

• to celebrate
• to encourage
• to comfort
• to enjoy
• to reward yourself
• to show SOMEONE SPECIAL how much you care

Consider This CD Vol. I

 0007 Consider This CD – Vol. I – $14.95 ($3.00 shipping for up to five.)

Call 540-436-3969 or email Elizabeth at e…@heartspoken.com if you need more than five)

CD in lovely booklet-style jacket and enclosed secret code to download free Bonus PDF Book

Consider This CD Vol. I in Deluxe Boxed Gift Set

0008 Consider This CD – Vol. I in Deluxe Gift Box –  $16.95 ($3.00 shipping for up to five)

Call 540-436-3969 or email Elizabeth at e…@heartspoken.com if you need more than five)

CD and its jacket nestled inside a deluxe red gift box, ribbon tie, with a personalized gift card and enclosed secret code to download the free Bonus PDF Book

This wonderful CD is the perfect stocking stuffer, teacher gift and gift swap gift. Order today and order in quantity.

If you have any ordering issues, email Elizabeth at e…@heartspoken.com or call her at 540-436-3969. Ask us about special quantity pricing.

Annette enjoys your comments on her Consider This Online Facebook Page, and we always are happy to have you join the conversation on Heartspoken’s Facebook Page.

Welcome to guest blogger and Relationship Mentor, Sarah Anma. When I read the words “We don’t need drama. We need connection,” I knew this was something to share with my Heartspoken readers.

==============================

When we think rationally, we would never say out loud that we “need” drama. In fact, most people would state that they avoid it like the plague. And yet, we shake our fists at a driver that cuts us off. Or we roll our eyes at a friend. Or we pick a fight with our beloved.

We don’t need drama. We need connection. We long for the feeling of belonging and loving. Often, when we don’t meet that need, we make mischief in order to achieve something! If we attempt to connect with our beloved and they are unavailable, it is all too easy to resort to a childish antic to get attention at whatever cost.

As a rehabilitating Drama Mama, the drama gets more and more subtle. As we shine the light of awareness, it can go underground so that it is harder to detect.

I still must be diligent about “poking the bear” as I put it. If I am in an emotionally immature state and don’t have the awareness to see that I am not getting my way, I may make some mischief to get a reaction, just to be sure that I still matter. I do not endorse this method!

Drama is addictive and flammable. When someone speaks of bad news and the listener gasps in horror that is putting gasoline on the drama-fire. Drama loves to be fed with re-enactments, exaggeration, and company.

This lousy and saccharine substitute for actual connection is dangerous to our well-being and the well-being of others.

Here are some signals of drama:

1. Worry or fantasy about things that are unknown/unseen and can’t be acted upon.
2. Taking on someone’s side to the point where you are having the same or larger emotional response as the person who is actually involved.
3. “Poking the bear” or making mischief in a relationship when things were going well.
4. Blaming someone else for our unhappiness.

Drama gets us off the hook for personal responsibility. If someone else is at fault or there is yet another “emergency,” then always we have an opportunity to shirk any responsibility for our own happiness.

Why would we do that? Because it takes a darn lot of courage to be happy and create a life that continues to grow and expand in that direction.

Your Assignment:

Can you see where drama has been holding you back? Are there areas where you could substitute vulnerability instead and get a more meaningful result? When you engage in drama, can you see it a little sooner and clean up any mess that may have been caused? Can you see where emotional immaturity is simply another form of fear of intimacy?

 

Sarah Anma, Relationship Mentor

Sarah Anma, Relationship Mentor, is founder of Art of Relationship which provides a proven step-by-step system for optimum relationships.  She helps frustrated singles figure and loving and committed couples to create and grow the love life beyond their wildest dreams.  To get your free CD, “How to Attract and Grow the Love of Your Life,” and receive weekly tips and tools visit http://www.artofrelationship.net.

 

Permalink for this post: http://www.heartspoken.com/2011/03/the-need-for-drama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This may seem like a strange topic for someone who is passionate about learning to make and cultivate important Connections, but the cold hard truth is that all of our important connections with other people should also have boundaries. If you are someone who loves to do things for others, even when you don’t expect anything in return, you know that there are times when you get weary and resentful and feel that too many people “want a piece of you.” People in the caregiving fields are especially vulnerable: priests, physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists, nurses and social workers come to mind. Also at risk for falling into this trap are those caring for the disabled or the elderly or anyone with a chronic illness. None of us, however, is immune.

I confess that I am one of those people who has a hard time saying NO. I get involved in lots of worthwhile things, but from time to time, the perfect storm of circumstances arises and I find myself exhausted, mentally and physically. Then I become irritable and emotionally labile, and my poor husband bears the brunt of putting up with me until I get some rest and some perspective. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why don’t we recognize our own boundaries and respect them?

Family relationships are particularly fraught with boundary invasion. Parents put their children on guilt trips when they act like their happiness is dependent on a particular action or set of behaviors by our children (“Why didn’t you come see me?” “Why didn’t you call me?” “Why won’t you come for Thanksgiving?”). One spouse controls the other through guilt rather than through love.

I’m reading an amazing book by Henry Cloud called Changes that Heal (click on book image below), and it is offering lots of insight into the ways that people drift into unhealthy relationships and fail to recognize or honor boundaries–their own and the boundaries of others. This can include thinking you should take responsibility for someone else’s happiness instead of letting them take responsibility for their own. We can’t make someone else happy, so why do we keep trying? Cloud offers scriptural support for emotional maturity that embraces taking responsibility for ourselves and our own happiness and cultivating a clear sense of our own boundaries and honoring them. That includes stopping the ridiculous habit of thinking we can be all things to all people or that we can single-handedly save the world…or, God forbid, that some organization or event or project could not possibly manage without our participation. Oh, Guilty, Guilty Guilty!

Now imagine a life in which we get to know ourselves and cultivate a relationship with a higher power, so that our communion with whatever power that might be (Cloud and I call it God) guides us in the choices we make for the use of our time, our energy, and our money. There are millions of worthy things out there calling to us, but we are not supposed to do them all.

So when you get to the crux of the matter, it’s all about Balance: the balance between Grace (unconditional love and acceptance) and Truth, what is real…the way things really are.  Henry Cloud reminds us that Truth without Grace is judgment, but Grace without Truth can lead to an “I can do anything, since I’ll be forgiven” mentality. “Real intimacy always comes in the company of Truth.” Cloud suggests that when we graft Grace to Truth, we get Growth.

From a psychological standpoint, our identity develops around our uniqueness and our separateness from others. When we connect with others in a healthy way, it should not involve losing our own identity and individuality. Real relationship with someone else is not possible without a strong sense of self. “Boundaries, in short, define us,” Cloud says. “In the same way that a physical boundary defines where a property line begins and ends, a psychological and spiritual boundary defines who we are and who we are not. ”

So we must own ourselves, our feelings, and our unique personhood. We are responsible for cultivating and discerning our own gifts and talents. We are responsible for our own happiness. We are responsible for how we spend our time, our energy, and our resources. If we give from a place of love and understanding, that is healthy and generous. If we give from a sense of obligation or compulsion, we place ourselves under the Tyranny of Shoulds, and the potential for damage is huge, since it makes us feel out of control, so we resent those persons or things whom we think control us. “It’s the opposite of freedom and the opposite of love.”

In your own life, where have you allowed others to violate your boundaries? Where have you been insensitive to the boundaries of others?

Explore this topic with me further when I am interviewed by Sarah Anma, Relationship Mentor from The Art of Relationship website on her monthly World Relationship Summit on Tuesday, March 22 at 5pm Pacific time/8pm Eastern time. Our topic will be, “How do you draw the line between giving and giving too much?” Join us or listen to the recording later. Through her website and her professional work, Sarah provides a proven step-by-step system for optimum relationships.

Permalink for this blog post: http://www.heartspoken.com/2011/03/when-does-giving-become-giving-too-much

I have just returned from a workshop in North Carolina attended by about 23 power connectors, and I’m brimming with lessons learned. The Influence Style Indicator^™ workshop (a brand new assessment instrument from Discovery Learning) was sponsored by AvoLead, a strategic leadership consultancy in North Carolina that was co-founded by my sister, Sarah Albritton, and her associate and friend, Charles Eakes.

The workshop participants were almost all professional coaches with impressive credentials and wide-ranging areas of expertise including executive leadership, transition management, and organizational effectiveness. These are men and women whose defining talent is helping their clients get in touch with themselves and those with whom they live and work. As a serious student of the Power of Connection, I was in a gold mine! I made a point to meet every participant, and I also observed the way they interacted with each other. Some knew each other, but many were meeting each other for the first time. These master connectors were wonderful role models for anyone wishing to become a better connector. Here are some things they had in common:

1. Without exception, when they greeted me (and each other), they made eye contact, smiled, and offered a firm handshake.
2. Even in the most brief conversation, they asked me something about myself in a way that seemed warm and genuine.
3. If someone who knew my sister discovered our relationship, they spoke highly of her and her work. Since she is ten years younger than I, the ones who REALLY made points with me, commented on the family resemblance .
4. A surprising number were able, in a very short time, to find out enough about me to recommend a book, ask for my card, or make a connection they thought might help me. To do this they had to have been listening, paying attention, and asking follow-up questions based on what they heard.
5. Those for whom I’d written biographical profiles expressed appreciation for my work on their behalf.
6. A hallmark of their interactions was the spirit of mutual support.
7. When I returned I had emails from at least two people I’d met who were following up on something we had discussed.

These  high level consultants knew instinctively–or had learned–the simple, critical elements of making a meaningful connection with someone in a professional or social setting: eye contact, touch, listening, asking questions to affirm attentiveness and glean more information, identifying interests or acquaintances of mutual interest, and following up. Of course paying a sincere compliment — to another person or to someone their family — is always a wonderful way to connect with them in a way that is both affirming and memorable.

Practice these simple things until they become natural–always using them with authenticity–and you’ll find that not only will you make more meaningful connections, but you will be richer for the enlargement of your circle of influence.

Photo credit: Henk L. from Amsterdam via Stock.xchng

Nothing is certain and nothing can be taken for granted.

My planned “Happy New Year” wish to my readers seems hollow in the face of a phone call I just received telling me that a fine young man who was in my daughter’s high school class and whose parents are friends of mine was killed yesterday in a small plane crash here in the Shenandoah Valley. My heart aches knowing the pain and loss that lie ahead for so many who loved him. This community is reeling…it is just beyond understanding.

This Heartspoken blog explores the Power of Connection, but at times of tragic loss, even life’s most essential connections seem so fragile. We shout our “Why?” to the heavens and can’t hear an answer. Is our connection with God lost?

I believe that especially in the midst of tragedy or hardship, connections become even more important, and the strength of the connections we’ve made in good times will serve us well in the tough times. When we feel that our own faith is gone, we are sustained by the faith of others. When we don’t think we can possibly go on, we realize that others have rallied around to help us stand until we have the strength to stand on our own.

So I hope that those of us who find ourselves at the beginning of this new year in a good place of abundance and happiness will first give thanks for our current good fortune and then reach out to someone less fortunate. Write a note. Make a phone call. Pay a visit. Volunteer your time. Make a donation. Each is making a connection with someone in need. Each is adding life-giving water to the well of love from which we all need to draw eventually.

And if you are one of the many who are hurting, hungry, homeless, or hopeless, please remember that you are not alone. Don’t give up without looking for a connection to someone who wants to help, because the transaction of love is two-way. Without a receiver, there can be no giver.

Nothing is certain and nothing can be taken for granted. Strengthen those essential connections while you can.

Photo credit: Daniel Nabil- http://www.danielnabil.com/

Todays meditation on Acts 16:25-40 (in which Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God and inspiring other prisoners, even after they had just been flogged) from Forward Day by Day was first published in 1962. Authors are always anonymous:

“The world always listens when we Christians sing in our midnight hour. What wins people to Christ is not our sound doctrine or our beautiful worship or our high moral standards… It is the courage and joy which sings out from our souls when midnight misery descends upon us.

Deep breath…

I will be thinking long and hard about this. It resonates with my father’s teaching that the test of our character is always in the way we handle the tough times, not the way we conduct ourselves when everything’s going our way.

While the inspiration for this meditation is Christian scripture, I urge you to contemplate its significance, regardless of your religious persuasion. Your ability to connect with others…your ability, even, to connect with God…is, I believe, reflected in your ability and willingness to find gratitude and joy — yes, even courage — in the midst of your life’s darkest moments.

I remember some wise advice: just because we don’t feel grateful or joyful at any particular time doesn’t mean we can’t reach down deep inside and “act as if” until things lighten up a bit. I know this is not easy. I know that I do not always practice it. But I believe it to be good advice, and I am going to practice more from now on.

Just as an athlete’s practice prepares her for the actual race, practicing spiritual habits that I know to be sound and healthy will ensure that I am fit when times get tough. Then the song of joy that is so easy to sing now, when I see nothing but good all around me, will still find its way to my lips when I find myself in a darker place.

And when those we care about are in the midst of darkness or despair, perhaps the most important gift we can give them is the quiet comfort of our love and presence so that they have something to hang onto until their own song can find its way to their lips again.

Lord, use me as a conduit for your love. Help me stay spiritually fit so that when I face challenges or find someone in need, joy and courage will spring from my soul and bear your message of love and hope. AMEN.

Photo credit: Robert Proksa, Jaworzno, Slaskie, Poland (courtesy of stck.xchng)

I was reminded today of a powerful connection tool that’s easy to use and absolutely free: the pen and small notepad. I first was impressed by the use of this simple, low-tech tool years ago when used by Warren B. French, Jr., retired President of Shentel and an international leader in the telecommunications industry. He always carries a little spiral notepad in his pocket, and if you ask a question or say something he wants to follow up on, he writes it down, and by golly, you’ll get a response within 48 hours. I’ve seen other people use small index cards equally effectively.

Today I was in The Market in Woodstock (a gem of a market that carries quality foods, health foods, and unique country gifts, as well as local foods and crafts) when its owner, Rich Church, came in. Rich is one of those warm, friendly people who has a real gift for making others feel special.  When he asked how my business was going, I knew he was really interested, because as I told him about this new venture and blog, he asked questions to get more details. And then he used the magic connection tool…he walked around the counter to get a pencil and notepad so he could write down the name of my website.

Our whole exchange took less than five minutes, but I can assure you that that one action on his part — writing down my website’s URL — made the difference between a polite conversation and a meaningful connection…between talking and engaging. I left feeling affirmed, and I made a mental note to myself to use this magic tool more often myself, whether I’m talking to friends or business associates.

And where do you think I’m most likely to shop the next time I need a product that The Market carries?

The foundation of any business or personal relationship is LISTENING. How can you possibly respond to the needs of your constituents if you don’t know what they are? Pay attention to every conversation, whether it’s in person, on the phone, or through social media. Stop multi-tasking and focus on the other person. You’ll be amazed what a difference it makes when you arm yourself with the information and insight this provides and when others sense that you’ve given them the gift of your attention.

Listening may be the most powerful connection tool in your whole toolbox.

NOTE 8/17/11: This blog post has been updated to reflect the transfer of content from our old Facebook Group “Revive the Art of Personal Note Writing!” to this Heartspoken blog. I now have a “Notewriting” category that will include content, encouragement, and resources to Revive the Art of Personal Notewriting!

The personal note or letter is a time-honored tool for staying in touch with people who mean a lot to you: family, friends, loved ones, and even business associates, customers, and prospects. Electronic media have given us so many other options, that it’s hard to maintain the practice of picking up a pen and paper (or even a computer and printer if your handwriting is illegible) and sending something by mail.

We can’t let the practice of writing personal notes and letters die! To paraphrase the folks at Crane’s stationery: “People always remember a note, long after they forget what exactly they did to deserve it.”

I am so passionate about encouraging people to write more personal notes that I started an open Facebook group in 2009 for discussion, tips, and inspiration about this timeless and meaningful way of connecting with people. It grew to over 150 members, but when Facebook changed the way they handled groups in 2011, I decided to gradually move that content over to this blog. You can find all these articles under the category of Notewriting. I want to make writing personal notes more fun and much easier.

Don’t miss my Secret NOTES formula for writing notes that encourage, inspire and comfort. Just put your email into the box in the right sidebar of this page. Once you confirm your email, you’re minutes away from this free report. It will rejuvenate and inspire your notewriting!

Who would love to hear from you today?