Dear Readers,

As I have long said, the words we use matter. No more so than now.

I returned to work after being on maternity leave AND it was great. Everyone is happy to have me back and the feeling is mutual.

I have to say, I fully expected to feel sad, AND I do because I don’t get to spend every waking minute with my baby girl. Important to note, I LOVE my JOB and as my boss is fond of saying, “Time away, gives one fresh eyes”.

There is a part of me that HESITATES in writing that, as “Shouldn’t I be bereft and inconsolable because I went back to work and no longer get to take care of my baby?”
“Shouldn’t I be unhappy that I can’t be her mom and nothing else?”

Well no, because living in the world of AND allows me to say-

“I love my child, I love her more than I thought it was possible to love someone, AND I love my job and am incredibly fulfilled by it.” That’s a pretty powerful thing to say if you think about it. One does not negate the other.

When you say, “but” you tend to negate the things that come before it and in so doing, limit yourself when it’s far more powerful to live in abundance.

It certainly helps my feeling that my husband is a stay at home dad which he is really good at by the way, AND I still miss being with her.

Case in point, I learned about an audition and instead of thinking “I don’t want to tell anyone else about it, because I don’t want to hurt my chances by alerting competition” my first thought was, let me tell a friend about it, because I also think she would be fantastic AND I am still planning to audition.

I am applying this same concept to food as we head into the New Year (for those who don’t  know.. my New Year is my birthday, January 19th -) so “I want a cookie, but I shouldn’t have it” becomes, “I want a cookie, AND I have a weight loss goal that is not supported by my eating the cookie. Let me be clear, this does not always mean I will resist the cookie, AND I have a far better chance of doing so by speaking intentionally about the act.

As an experiment, in the past week, I have done my best to say “AND” when I previously would say “BUT” – Try it. I dare you. You might be surprised at how much you use “but” when perhaps what you intend to express is “AND”

Think about it…