Communication — Page 57

Easter in a Grocery Store Aisle

April 29, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Red Food Coloring.

Shouldn’t be hard to find. I was in the grocery store aisle where there were cake/pie/bakery goods—

they had sprinkles and crushed nuts and ground up chocolate chips—

of course there would be Red Food Coloring there. . . .

I couldn’t find it–

anywhere so I did what it at least took me fifteen minutes to do:

I A S K E D !

“M I K E”

was very accommodating in assisting me;

in fact, M I K E

didn’t TELL ME WHERE TO GO…

M I K E

walked me down to exactly where the Red Food Coloring was placed on the shelf.

He reached up on the shelf, took it and handed it to me and then before I could ever say,

“Thank you,”

M I K E thanked me.

“You were so great at the funeral of my dad. It was such a rough time for us and never having met him, you made it so personal–it’s was like you knew him forever. I can’t thank you enough.”

Again, before I had a chance to respond, M I K E continued you on.

“Things haven’t gotten a whole lot better since then. My wife’s mom died and our, I mean, her daughter, who’s only 32 is now on Hospice. She’s dying. She’s been staying at our house with her 8 year son. Her husband kicked her out of the house and moved his girlfriend in–he’s still sending people around because he thinks she’s lying about the cancer thing. . .

I still had done nothing more than square up and look him in the teary eyes. I nodded and said the deep, profound, highly theological gruntings of,

“Uh-Huh,” “Ohhh,” “Really?”

“But in spite of it all, I don’t think my wife and I have ever been closer. We’re really pulling in the same direction right now like we’ve never had before. Even her dad has been coming by now for the first time since she’s graduated from college.”

With no breath fully taken or care for who’s around us or that his red vest and name tag, M I K E

were in full view of all who were coming down the aisle and dodging us, he said,

“And even right now,

(HE GULPED AND BREATHED HARD) “

“THIS, THIS is no accident. I needed to have you here today, and here, HERE you are! I know this sounds crazy, but man, it’s just like Easter happened all over again. . . .”

right here, right now. . .

just when I needed it. You know, it’s people like you that makes me know that things are going to be ok even though there’s just no proof to back it up. Man, I’m so glad you showed up today. Thank You. Gotta go unload a truck now. Happy Easter!”

Confession:

I don’t remember his father at all !

I don’t believe I can tell you the day, week, month I conducted his Memorial Services. . .

it was in 2015 though

(only because he said a lot has happened this past year).

I do, just barely remember MIKE

because of running into him one other time before at the grocery store very shortly after the Funeral.

He was right:

“IT’S JUST LIKE EASTER ALL OVER AGAIN,”

right there in front of the hard to find/see Food Coloring.

What are the odds?

I don’t know. . .

but I was better having been there

THAT day at

THAT time in

THAT aisle for

THAT reason—

whatever the odds. . .

Bet’em!

Could be right down your aisle, too!

S M I L E

March 28, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/P8Ggykm0Wko

It’s a vicious lie,

you know?

It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile

F A L S E !

Dr. David Song (University of Chicago Medical Center) recently did this study on the very topic and the average frown requires 11 muscles while the average smile requires 12

Now I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t know what I don’t know

but this method of counting the number of muscles used by Dr. Song doesn’t take into account variables like the energy used by each muscle or that some

SMILE MUSCLES

in some are more developed than in others

Uhhhhhh. . .

You can send in all of your comments of THANKS

for not taking any more of your time by naming all of the

FROWN MUSCLES

quickly followed by the all more important MORE

S M I L E M U S C L E S.

Here’ s the Catch:

Even though smiling uses more muscles, it’s believed that it takes

LESS EFFORT

than Frowning.

B E C A U S E:

people tend to smile more, which means the relevant muscles are in better shape!

How about some

B O N U S F A C T S:

Most primates, especially apes, have many of the same muscles that we do and use them to express similar emotional information. Chimps that hunt in groups use only non-verbal cues to relay information and to remain organized.

Humans are born with the ability to smile,

it’s not something we learn. . .even blind babies are able to smile.

The take away?

S M I L E

If you don’t want to smile with others or because of them

. . .give them a great reason to

s m i l e

or with you.

Back in February, I attended and completed and became certified as

Certified Laughter Leader

With Steve Wilson and the World Laughter Tour.

I loved a simple technique he taught us with a straw.

W H E N

I F

you find it impossible to smile

stick a straw in your mouth between your teeth

sideways

for a few minutes

. . . You’ll have a

WOW Moment

YOU WILL FEEL BETTER

Here’s the deal with Smiling

(or for that matter, laughing)

FAKING IT

MAKING IT!

Don’t believe me. . .or anyone else

Go Lab Experiment

on Yourself

Try. . .

disproving it!

(Scheve, Tom, “How Many Muscles Does It Take To Smile? Discovery Fit & Health. (2011)

Work Out; Work I N

January 29, 2016 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

It’s amazing all the things you

h e a r

when you listen.

I first met her at the gym.

We are early birds.

She and I are usually the only ones in the pool at 5:30 a.m.

She does water aerobics as I water run.

We talk. . .We Listen. . .We Hear.

She’s not always there. . .she has a hard time sleeping and sometimes after a long night, falls asleep right before she would normally get up and come to the gym. She tells me it’s the worst part of getting old and at 84 she should know. All idle chit-chat since July when I joined the gym

. . .u n t i l. . .

You heard that Kent died. . .that’s why he hasn’t been here; I know that we all have a time to go but he was only 57; I heard he got an infection in a heart valve and couldn’t recover from it; I never could understand that whole when it’s your time, it’s your time thing. I think I’ve asked that question a million times since my daughter died. She was a flight attendant on a plane crash in Newfoundland in 1985. Look, I still wear the earrings she wore when the plane crashed. I had a dream that she died face down in the snow and was told that her body was in tact in the snow, face down. . .I’ll never forget the night at the nursing home when I was taking care of a patient and she told me how she kept having out-of-body experiences and was afraid that she might not come back to her body some time. . .and then she began telling me how my daughter was happy and alright; she told me that she didn’t like the fact that we turned her bedroom into a storage area and of incidents that no one, not even family would have ever know. . .because of that I believe in heaven but it doesn’t make me miss her any less. . . .

Hmmmmmmm. . .she had been aerobisizing and I had been water jogging way past our times to stop. . . .

I’ve never told another person what I shared with you today. . .I now know why I met you, why you came here all those months ago. . .it was all leading up to this morning; I needed to tell this story

. . .and I needed to hear it,” I finished her sentence.

We went to the gym to

WORK IN

instead of

WORK OUT

and we got in a much different kind of

s h a p e. . . .

We talk. . .

We Listen. . .

We hear. . .

You hear the most amazing things when you listen. . .

when you listen not to respond

not to hear

but to

complete a story that needs to be

told

heard

acknowledged

experienced

known

s h a r e d

Sometimes. . .

when you’re ears get a work out

it’s the heart that gets better. . . .

What. . .what did you

s a y?

Excuse Me. . . .

January 25, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes. . .

Life isn’t so much as a cabaret

as it is a

C H A R A D E

T H E Y

tell us that 93%

of communication is non-verbal.

Dr Mehrabian

is a UCLA professor who published his study all the way back in 1967 in the Journal of Consulting Psychology.

He identified

N O N – V E R B A L

Communication is basically everything that’s not words;

Eye Contact

Gestures

Inflection

Dress

Proximity

all play important, but subtle roles in determining our understanding of a person’s meaning.

S E E

Life really is a Charade. . .

So maybe it’s so much as

W H A T S A Y Y O U ?

as it is

W H A T H E A R Y O U ?

Listen closely with your e y e s

and be amazed at what you

r e a l l y

hear!

The Best Medicine

January 18, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes. . .

The Best

most effective

least evasive

cost efficient

non-addictive

m e d i c i n e

isn’t found in a

syringe

capsule

elixir

pill

intervention

therapy

treatment. . .

b u t a t t h e e n d o f y o u r e x t e n d e d h a n d

Sometimes. . .

it takes more than medicine.

C O M P A S S I O N

(s u f f e ri n g w i t h)

a powerful antidote

for the human condition

F I L L

. . .D E L I V E R

that Prescription

Every Time!

ABRACADABRA

December 14, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

As you can imagine, this brief video was posted on YouTube by Dan Zaleski and has received well over 3 million views in less than a week. The orangutan at the Barcelona Zoo just couldn’t resist monkeying around when he saw this lame trick of placing a chestnut in a Styrofoam cup, putting the lid on, shaking it up, quickly dumping it before Dan removes the lid and shows the bewildered little fella an empty cup. The orangutan paused ever so briefly before reacting in the best possible way–throwing his head back, opening his mouth, laughing wildly and falling back in disbelief, legs high in the air.

Maybe you question if he was laughing at the actual trick or the lameness of it. . . ?

Well. . .

I’ll be a monkey’s uncle

and I usually am. . .

W E

all usually are when it comes to

Communication.

Who would have thought that a really bad

magicians trick

would have caused such a laugh-a-thon for an amused orangutan?

If only, huh?

If only we’d spend half as much energy trying to

amuse

connect

communicate

convey

interact

unite

link

reach

each other. . . .

Usually what’s

N O T

S A I D

S H O U T S

T H E

L O U D E S T !

I remember reading an interview with Jane Goodall, the world renowned Primatologist.

She was asked if chimps have emotions.

She said something like,

“. . .well they don’t have human emotions because they aren’t human. They have Chimp emotions which are just as real and might be human-like in many cases. . . .”

A B R A C A D A B R A

Maybe the real

Magic

is that we

ever understand

each other. . .

You can bet your Monkey’s Uncle

that we desperately

n e e d

(keep trying)

. . .and now

for my next trick . . . .

CHOICES

December 4, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

W E L L . . .

W H A T S A Y Y O U ?

Simple question, huh?

Not really. . .

I posted this randomly on my Facebook page and I received the most comments and shares out of any other post–

Facebook

Twitter

Blog

Instagram

ALL COMBINED . . .

E V E R !

Some answers were

Philosophical

Theological

Humorous

R E D

B L U E

B O T H

Some Answers were filled with

Justifications

Validations

Rationalizations

Hopes

Wishes

Dreams

Goals

But make no mistake. . .

it erupted with

R E S P O N E S

S O . . .

WHAT SAY YOU ?

and maybe more. . .

W H Y

S A Y

Y O U

Monkey Wrenched

October 2, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Ever felt like a

S M A S H E D P L A T E ?

S H E D I D

It was the Saturday before Halloween all the

W A Y

back in 2002

It was an all day retreat that I was contacted to do on

HOLY HELL

for a couple of Church groups that wanted to work through their

SMASHED PLATE SYNDROMES

S H E

was the one who contacted me; she was a Parish Nurse.

The day before the retreat, unbeknownst to me for these past 13 years,

S H E

had been diagnosed with MS.

I broke a plate using a monkey wrench

over and over again while asking:

“WHAT’S YOUR MONKEY WRENCH ?

I pointed out to the group that this was a harrowing sound as these smashed pieces jingled in the bag as I walked around the circle among where they were sitting.

I shared that this eery sound reminds us all of the one single day we celebrate every day of the year, sometimes with gusto: HALLOWEEN

(Because of all of the varied and many masks we wear)

I told the group not to worry because psycho-sociologists have a remedy for this bag of broken pieces that sounds like a bag of chains with each step taken. . .

“PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON”

Problem:

WE STILL HAVE A BAG OF BROKEN PIECES!

B U T . . .

There’s a Universal law that every major Religion and all of the

N O N E S

agree:

ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW

( Pssssssssst: Which Spring doesn’t Prove THAT? )

I often tell every group I present before:

“I AM NOT HERE FOR THIS GROUP TODAY. . .I AM ONLY HERE FOR ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU ?

Nearly Thirteen years later I found out it was

H E R

I conducted the funeral for a 95 year old gentleman I had never met before. He was retired High-School Choral Teacher and there were many of his former students there. I actually joked about what George Burns once said about getting THAT old:

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PEER PRESSURE”

S H E

was the wife of the Choral Teacher’s grandson.

S H E

came up to me after the service and said,

“You probably don’t remember me. But I hired you to come to a Church in 2002 to give an all day Seminar for a group of grieving people. I was one of them. I had just found out the day before that I had MS and I know it doesn’t show that much but I struggle every day. My MRI is a mess and I was a terrible wreck that day with where my Life was headed with this terrible Detour I had just been told. You smashed that plate, telling us that our Life has a way of meeting up not so well with Monkey Wrenches that get thrown into the middle of our living. I felt like those broken pieces and just when I thought you were going to leave us with, ‘PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON’ you showed us that there was something much better than trying to pick up the pieces and futilely attempting to put them back together, or just going on. . .You held up a brand new plate that was a replica of the one you had just smashed and boldly stated:

BEHOLD. . .ALL THINGS BECOME NEW !”

With tears trickling down her face she said, “That day. . .that moment. . .you transformed my life. Can I give you a hug?”

“TODAY. . .I AM HERE FOR JUST ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU?”

What. . .

What message are you giving. . .

What One, Single Person needs The Gift. . .

DESPERATELY NEEDS

The Gift of Y O U, today?

Sometimes, it may take as much as Thirteen years to find. . .

Sometimes, you may never find out. . .?

S H O W U P

Do not Disappoint. . .THEM

G I V E

even when you feel

like The Gift is Empty

or as if it’s

N O T H I N G. . . .

Throw a Monkey Wrench at Something bad to make something good. . .

SOMETHING NEW !

BULLY

August 31, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes. . .

The Bully gets

B U L L I E D

Most of the time, we’d stand up and cheer when we actually see or hear of this happening.

It is, actually, what makes this video so viral. . .

WE LOVE CHEERING FOR THE BULLIED. . .

The Underdog.

Here might be the question of the year. . .maybe even the decade. . .maybe this Century and

CENTURIES PAST:

What if the BULLY and the BULLIED

are one and the same. . .

What if

The Bully and the Bullied are actually

Y O U ?

The worst Bully you might ever encounter is the one that stares you down in the mirror

. . .there just might not be any more of a Brutal Bully.

I’m Fat. . .

I’m a Loser. . .

I’m Lazy. . .

I suck. . .

I’ll never get this right. . .

I’m not meant to be in a relationship. . .

I’ll never kick this habit. . .

I_________________________________. . . .

Whatever you believe about negative Self-Talk

YOU BETTER NOT BELIEVE THAT IT’s JUST IN YOUR HEAD !

The Research shows that HAPPY people have a way. . .a habit. . .of putting bad days behind them and LEAVING them there. . .

Head-butting the over matched, huge, big, bad Bully and not only standing up against that Bully

but actually

BACKING IT DOWN

Knock THAT TRAIN off it’s tracks.

We all do Self-Talk

We all do NEGATIVE Self -Talk

We all have the capability of doing POSITIVE Self-Talk

HOW?

Three Words:

C O N F I D A N T

S M A R T

E F F E C T I V E

Go ahead, Bullied,

Test it out. . .

The next time the Bully starts the trashing of YOU

Get YOUR BULLY on

See YOURSELF as Bullying the bully by being

Confident. . .Smart. . .Effective.

Hmmmmmmm of the The Day:

I bet that’ll get your Goat!

Paint Your Picture

August 17, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

It’s one thing to paint a

M A S T E R P I E C E

. . .And it’s quite another to just realize

YOU are a MASTERPIECE

John Bramblitt

went blind and only then began to really see. . .amazing that he felt going blind was actually the BEGINNING, the Prerequisite of him becoming an artist?

Have you ever gotten the feeling that there just might be something else you no way, no how, ever can do?

John Bramblitt is a blind artist from Texas who not only had sight, but is now blind, but

NOW AN ARTIST WHEN HE ONCE WAS NONE!

John paints the most amazing, colorful paintings–and he can’t see them, but to paint them he just doesn’t

i m a g i n e

he actually feels them and maybe best of all. . .

makes you experience them!

Obviously the inspirational point is apparent. . .

or. . .or is it?

Need we become so blind to

g e t i t ?

Y O U

are the Masterpiece the YOU need to BE

Y O U

are the Masterpiece the World needs to SEE

Y O U

are the Masterpiece that needs set Free

S E E, B E, F R E E

that magnificent Masterpiece in you

(o f t e n)

Get SHARED

The World is your Canvas. . .

waiting for your

C O L O R S

Deprive your Audience no longer!

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