Healthy Women Cafe Blog

Tally Green’s  blog is a place shares about things which she is most passionate about. It is her desire, one we all appreciate,  to share with all women the natural ways to heal their mind, body and spirit by using alternative healing methods.

Check out next Thursday’s blogging seminar hosted by Beverly Mahone, expert media consultant. 8:00 PM Eastern, Jan. 24.

This teleseminar is for you if:

• You’ve been thinking about blogging but don’t know where to begin.
• You’re not sure what to “blog” about.
• You want to learn more about how to attract more readers.
• You don’t quite understand the “technical” aspects
• You want to make money from blogging

These are just a few of the topics that will be covered with a panel
of experts:

Heidi Caswell Connect Simply
Betty Lynch My Country Kitchen
Karlyn Karlyns
Kathie Thomas VA Directory

Details and sign up information can be found at Talk2Bev.

A few days ago a did something I’ve meant to do for some time, subscribe to ProBlogger. I know that is a great place for any blogger at whatever level to do more. Why subscribe? Because I’m an airhead, forget things. Months would go by without me visiting Problogger, I knew they were there, but never took the time to visit. I know, I know I should use my rss reader more often, but I’m still in the email habit, now those blogging tips and news comes straight to my inbox.

While writing my first post to go with 24 Blogging Days Till Christmas, I recieved ProBlogger’s latest posts. A couple stood out and I thought you might enjoy:

For new bloggers read about afraid to blog.

and Getting your blog ready for Christmas.

I’ve not been adding new material to WinLadiesBlog for a while. Group blogs require participation. Busy time of year for all of us, building my business, expanding my own business websites. More as time permits.

But I didn’t want any of the Win bloggers to miss out on this fun event, not 12 days of Christmas, but double the fun. 24 Blogging Days till Christmas. Each Day participants will receive a new blogging tip in their email from Dina Giolitto. (Those who don’t know Dina are missing out, visit her website today and you’ll know what I’m talking about. ) The challenge is to post once a day on your blog till Christmas, follow the blogging tips, gain more exposure for your blog. Accept the 24 Blogging Days till Christmas challenge here.

Heidi

I’ve moved WinLadiesBlog to IXhosting.   Sadly, I wasn’t able to pull out the complete database, although I was able to easily import posts and comments, so they are all intact.  I had to copy paste the blogroll, couldn’t get the import links to work as I wished.  Everyone may want to double check your links.   The wierd thing is how the users moved over.  Some of the group have chosen to be blog authors, but that didn’t move smoothly.  I think I saw Angela’s picture on Jeanie’s posts, and I had to make new passwords.  I’m mailing those out, feel free to edit and change your profile, any questions, just ask.

Participants will retain far more of the information you present if they participate actively in your presentation. If you do not want involvement from participants, be clear about that from the beginning, for example, by telling them to save their questions until the end. It is confusing to encourage participation and then thwart it. No one wins. It takes more skill to manage time when participants are actively involved than when they are passive. As with all choices, there are tradeoffs.

Here are some techniques you can use to encourage audience involvement. Some work better in large groups; others in small groups. Some strategies are more effective for formal presentations; others for informal ones. Some are dependent on your purpose, for example, presenting a proposal, delivering a training program, conducting a team building session, presenting facts and figures, problem solving, brainstorming for a project. Some are dependent on your role or relationship to the participants: manager, trainer, consultant, coach, keynote speaker, workshop leader.

Consider and select the ones that are most appropriate for your audience, your time allotment, your subject matter, your experience level, and your style.

Arrange Your Room for Interaction. Round tables take the emphasis off the presenter and promote participant interaction. Tables set up to form a square or chairs set in a circle establish equality between participants and presenter and promote group discussion. A U-shaped set of tables, too, promotes interaction, while establishing the presenter as authority.

Allow Time for Participants to Get Acquainted. When participants have the opportunity to know about the others with whom they are expected to learn, the learning process is enhanced. You and they will be able to make more meaningful theory connections and build a climate of trust for responses throughout your time together.

Ask Questions that can be Answered by a Show of Hands. Questions need not be mutually exclusive, but should allow for everyone to respond at least once in a series (e.g., “How many of you have been managers or supervisors for fewer than six months? More than six months? More than two years?)

Listen. Show you are interested in everything that every participant says. Your body language, your facial expressions, and your words in response to each learner reveal the extent to which you are listening. The presenter who models the ability to listen especially well at the beginning of the presentation, encourages ongoing participation.

Elicit a Response from Everyone. Early in the session, ask each participant to respond to a question or comment. It may be a “getting acquainted” question (e.g., “What is your job function?) or related to the specific content area (e.g., “How do you expect your subordinates will react to this new procedure?”).

Use Buzz Groups. When you ask a provocative question, divide the total group into groups of about 3-5 participants. While you will not personally be able to hear from everyone, each will have the chance to speak, which is extremely important for those who like to talk! In the total group, you can hear from several or all groups so that each participant will feel represented.

Prepare a Program Book or Handouts. Consider carefully the timing and types of handouts or program books to support your presentation, as some foster participation and others limit it. Generally it is far better to distribute your book or papers prior to speaking so that participants can make notes. When they are writing, they are involved. You do them no favors by saying, “You don’t need to take notes; I’ll give you handouts on everything later.” If you decide to hold the handouts until later, suggest how to take notes as you are talking. If you show a slide that is in the packet they will get later, tell them that.

Provide an Initial Self-scoring Assessment or Survey. Generally, if you use such an assessment, it should not be long or complex. If it is simple enough that all can do it, then they will be involved and learn something about themselves. If possible, design this so that you, as the presenter, can discover information about the audience without making them reveal anything more than is comfortable.

Count to Ten. When posing a question to the group, count to ten before asking a second question, restating the question, answering the question, or moving on. When you demand speedy responses, some will feel inadequate or discouraged about participating. By allowing more time, you show that you value all types of involvement — silent and thoughtful as well as vocal and immediate.

Allow Thinking Time. When stating a problem or asking a question, ask the participants to jot down a few notes before any one responds verbally. This gives those who are slower to verbalize an opportunity to go through the thinking process, even if they do not actually speak. It also allows deeper thinking for those who are quick to fill silent moments with obvious responses.

Invite Questions. “Any questions?” is automatic punctuation by many presenters. When it is sincerely asked and you allow a count to ten as explained above, this familiar phrase can be effective. Better yet, ask “What questions do you have about ______?” Or, still better, state “Please take a few moments to review and reflect on what I have just said and see what questions come up for you.”

Use a variety of activities and approaches. Vary your presentation techniques to increase overall audience involvement. When a presenter stays too long in one particular mode or activity, participants lose enthusiasm and tend not to participate.

Presenting to a group can be stressful; it can also be exhilarating. Participants who are involved in the subject matter can challenge your ideas and deepen your thinking. They can also make the experience more fun for you. Usually the most empowering experiences for participants occur in the midst of some messiness. If the presentation is too slick, participants may remember the presenter but not the subject matter.

Copyright © 2007 Marshall House, http://www.mhmail.com. Jeanie Marshall, Empowerment Consultant and Coach with Marshall House, is the author of Energetic Meeting: Enhancing Personal & Group Energy. Discover her empowering guided meditations at the Voice of Jeanie Marshall, http://www.jmvoice.com

Calling all Win Bloggers, if you are taking a part in this blog action day, post a link to your article here.

One day a year for bloggers to come together and support a cause is not asking too much. Today over 15,000 bloggers are writing about the environment for their 12 million plus readers on this 1st annual Blog Action Day. One more day to add to your calendar.

I’d like to share some of the posts I’d gleaned and a few of my thoughts:

• Mark Athitakis of Washington City Paper
  

  Blog Action Day seems to figure that if everybody blogged about the same thing at the same time something big would happen—like that old bong-hit discussion about whether the earth would fall off its axis if everybody in China jumped at the same time.

• Chris Garrett feels otherwise in his “Notice the world around us” :
  

  Bloggers can help. . .If we ask each of our readers to be more environment conscious, just for one day, and to ask people they meet to do the same, how many millions will we reach?

• Tech Blorge shares tips on “How to be a Green Computer User”. Some of these tips I’ve heard, others are new to me. One thing I appreciate is that links are posted to various ways to recycle your old computer parts. I love that idea. Once my home seemed to become the storage place for anything computer related that the owner no longer wanted. So they’d give their old monitors, servers, computers, you name it, to my sons.
• LifeHacker posted their top 10 suggestions from their readers from cloth diapers, and recycled poop, to monitors, and eating utensils. Worth checking out.
• Last 100 gives us 5 internet TV channels about the environment.
• The most unique idea came fromMarketing Pilgrim. The novel idea of Akismet for the snail mail that comes in our physical mail box. For those who aren’t familiar with Akismet, it filters out unwanted spam emails from our blogs. I remember being in the post office the other day, watching people sort their mail on the spot, junk mail quickly filling up the bin. Just think how many trees would be saved if each of us had such a system.
• Dreaming, no Akismet for junk mail, what a shame. Yet there are other ways to help. I was very happy to hear SendOutCards announce this August that they would now be using recycled paper. My suggestion to business owners is that instead of filling up mailboxes with ads to their clients that go straight to the trash, that when they do a mailing out to their list, that they offer something of value. Let their customer know they are appreciated, send out tips, good advice, useful articles. Would you rather be known as the business that stuffs physical mailboxes with junk mail, or as the business who really cares when they send out cards to their clients?

If everyone in China jumped at the same time, earth would not fall of its axis. Yet if everyone who wrote or read a blog did one thing to help the environment, it would have an impact. Just blogging isn’t enough. It is the action part. For the impact to be felt each writer and reader must take action and do one more thing than they’ve been doing to help protect our earth. No idea where to start? Search some blogs.

Heidi

Deep listening is a quality of presence rather than a specific set of skills. If someone is not physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually present or ready, techniques or training cannot change the consciousness. Deep listening is more about being than doing, although doing is a viable beginning step.

Listen Beyond Understanding

I wrote Make it New, Now! which connects deep listening with compassion. For me, compassion is the capacity to be with someone in a heart-centered space. To be with may seem initially to be a benign concept, but, in my view, it is one of the most profound gifts that you can give to someone, including yourself.

Deep listening might have elements of understanding, but understanding intellectually is not required and sometimes hampers the process of listening deeply. Intellectual understanding takes place in the head; deep listening takes place in the heart. Often I tell a friend or client “I am with you” or “I will be with you (at a specific event)” and I hear words or sighs of appreciation that are unlike any that I might hear when I say “I understand.”

Non-listening

To explore listening, it is also helpful to touch on non-listening. Perhaps you have done your share of non-listening in your life. This can be very valuable when you hear falsehoods or are simply not interested in a topic. After all, you cannot listen to everything. However, you are not in your most powerful place when you turn a deaf ear either with your heart or with your head to someone you care about. Everyone wins when you listen deeply and then follow your heart to tell you what to do or say.

In my early career as a stand-up trainer, I facilitated a listening exercise with participants in pairs. It is a simple exercise, and not particularly original. Most participants initially resisted it as fluff and discounted it as meaningless, but I continued with the exercise anyway, because I observed that their ability to start listening more deeply changed significantly after the exercise!

Here is the group exercise: In pairs, one person (A) was the designated speaker and the other (B) was the designated listener. In the first round, I instructed A to speak about any subject that was important to him or her while B exaggerated non-listening behavior. It was a grand demonstration of non-verbal behavior that usually yielded considerable laughter.

I watched as the B’s looked up at the ceiling or down at the floor, mimicked filing their fingernails, or turned their backs to the A’s. When we discussed the experience of the pairs in the total group, the B’s always made disclaimers about their behavior saying things like, “of course, I’d never really do that to anyone.” To complete the exercise, the A’s and B’s switched roles and repeated essentially the same behavior followed by the same disclaimers.

It may be true that they never really do the exaggerated behavior, but the equivalent subtle behavior can be just as devastating. Sometimes it is more devastating, because it is harder to identify and laugh about. Overt acts are not required to be a non-listener. My experience is that most people demonstrate non-listening behavior in all too many situations. Non-listening has many faces and forms, which is the very point of the exercise I have just described.

Focused Listening

I recently had a conversation with a dear friend about my preference for doing one-on-one consultations by telephone rather than in person. I admitted that I frequently tell clients that it is more effective to work by phone than in person. Some clients agree or understand and others do not. However, as I was talking with my friend I could more clearly understand that it is more effective for me to work by telephone than in person. The reason is that my only activity is listening deeply to my client on the other end of the telephone.

With the phone as the instrument of connection, I do not look at my client’s facial expressions nor concern myself with providing drinking water, tissues, and a comfortable room temperature. Not only am I listening more deeply when my primary outer connection is auditory and energetic, but I can see more accurately and deeply with my eyes closed. I certainly would not want my relationships to be restricted only to those I have by phone, but this is how I now conduct all my consultations.

Head Chatter

Many people have a challenge listening to others because they can only relate to others through the chatter in their heads. As someone else is speaking, such persons are considering what to say as soon as a space opens up. What follows may or may not be related to what was just said.

What about you, do you get caught up with the chatter in your head? At any given time you might be preoccupied with what is going on in your own small world of internal chatter: what if’s, pros and cons, judgments, memories, and the like. If that is the norm, though, it interferes with connecting authentically with others.

One of my clients refers to the internal chatter as the “committee in her head.” These are the voices of debate and options. One time when she was describing all the voices of confusion (which I could hear in her head, as well), I suggested that she fire the committee! It seemed to me that it was timely to discharge the voices and enlist the aid of a new committee or perhaps a single voice of inspiration, the voice of the heart.

Do you have a lot of chatter in your head? When you are upset about something, the chatter might be very intense and distracting. You have to choose whether or not to give it your full attention or (as I suggested to my client), dismiss the chatter. If you choose to listen to the cacophony of sounds, you need to also choose whether to be in charge of the chatter or to let it take charge of you.

Listen to the Whisper Within

Deeper than the chatter is a whisper of wisdom. Most people must learn to hear that whisper when they are in the silence. What about you? Can you recognize your whisper? After you know the resonance of the wisdom whisper, you can more easily hear it in a crowd or while performing on a stage. This whisper of wisdom is a powerful gift. Sometimes this whisper is more like a shout because you have not been able to hear the wisdom as a whisper, other times it is a slight nudge which you can recognize.

I cherish the whisper within and listen to it as deeply as I possibly can whether I am in activity or in silence.

Copyright © 2007 Marshall House, http://www.mhmail.com. Jeanie Marshall, Empowerment Consultant and Coach with Marshall House. Check our Jeanie’s Listen to the Whisper in Your Sleep Guided Meditation on CD album or MP3 download. Jeanie writes extensively on subjects related to personal development and empowerment and assists coaches and consultants who want to write about their knowledge, wisdom, and experiences for publication on the Internet.

Why not blog for a cause?

Oct. 15 is blog action day, a day set aside to blog for the environment. Bloggers all around the world will be blogging in support of our environment. Thanks to Jeanie Marshall for the heads up in her post:

Announcing the October 15 Blog Action Day: A Day to Blog for the Environment

You don’t have to go off-topic on your blog, put some thought into it over the next few days. What is one thing in your field that you can share to help the environment? Do some brain storming. Click on the link below for more information, and sign up your blog as a participant.

Got your post written? Not Oct. 15th yet. You are on the ball. Check out the WinLadiesBlog tip on Keeping Up with Your Blog

Does’t it get frustrating, when you find a blog that you love, subscribe to their feed, then no new posts?

Lack of information and the imagination runs wild.

• Did the author have an accident, die, get kidnapped, or even abducted by aliens?
• Did the author decide she had better things to do with her time and abandon her readers?
• Did her computer crash, internet connection get yanked, her town hit by a hurricane?

Don’t leave your readers guessing. Either let them know you will be absent for a while or better yet write some posts in advance and set them to be published while you are away.

How do I do that? One way is to keep your post as a draft and then publish when the day arrives. True, one more step and you may not even be where near an internet connection at the time. In WordPress just change the date to whatever day in advance you want the post to show up. Other blogging platforms may do the same.

Space out your posts. Your readers may not have time to read 5-6 posts in one day. I know, you were on a roll and the creative juices were flowing. But then you may starve your readers while you catch up with your life. So space out your posts, just change the date to one in advance. Then you can concentrate on the next project without feeling like you’re neglecting your readers.

Keep that pretty smile on your face!

Heidi