Health coach, Cheri Timmons is here to encourage you to cultivate your connections. Connection with knowledge, others and self can enhance the wellness of the relationships you experience in your family, community and the world. Below, Cheri provides strategies of how you can choose to find connection.
From Cheri:
Your Invitation to Cultivate Connection: With Knowledge, Others and Self
Over the past 2+ months, I have had the opportunity to share weekly insights, tips and motivation to enhance whole-person wellness within our community.
As each of us continue to navigate life in response to the coronavirus, as well as recent, powerful national events, my thoughts for this post landed on the concept of CONNECTION.
CONNECTION as access to deeper knowledge.
CONNECTION as honoring our natural, human bond with each other.
CONNECTION as tuning into awareness of our personal biases and beliefs.
The recent protests in our country have spread over four hundred cities and towns in all fifty states. Demonstrators are using this platform to express their support for those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd, speak out against police brutality and focus on the continued work to be done in the wider Black Lives Matter human rights movement.
I realize that each person reading this post has unique life experiences, individual reactions to what is happening in our world and a choice to make. Some may choose to listen for a while, then tune back into business as usual.
Others, I am hoping most of us, will make a choice to embrace the opportunities of CONNECTION. CONNECTION with knowledge, others and self as a way to enhance the wellness of the relationships you experience in your family, community and the world.
I don’t pretend to have the answers…but what I do have are ideas of how you can uncover and discover what you don’t currently know or accept.
So, how can you choose CONNECTION?
CONNECT with Knowledge:
Research people and organizations who are doing the work of challenging racism and police brutality and supporting human rights
Read books or listen to podcasts that share a voice or ideas different than yours
Start talking about race with your children or other young people in your life
CONNECT with Others:
Take time to notice,
Who are you reaching out to during this time and why?
Who are you shying away from during this time and why?
Step out of your comfort zone and do something kind for someone else.
With whom would you like more connection?
Whose voice(s) are you choosing to listen to right now?
Who else could you learn from?
CONNECT with Self:
What is your mindset about race, racism, equality and diversity?
How do you talk with others (including your children) about these topics?
Do you discuss these issues with people from different backgrounds? Why or why not?
Do you demonstrate respect for those who are different than you or with whom you disagree?
Do you seek to understand other’s perspectives?
What privileges do you have that others do not?
What privileges do you not have that others do?
These questions are meant to get you started as you move towards CONNECTION – to help you uncover new insights and information, discover connection with others and deepen awareness of your personal beliefs.
For additional resources, the amazing folks at O’Hey, a guide to all things Greensboro, have compiled a helpful list: click here to learn more.
- Cheri
For more tips, personal coaching and more, email cheri@chericoaching.com
Cheri Timmons is a Greensboro Downtown Parks program partner. The work she does with us is critical to providing FREE wellness programming to our park community. As we make our way through these unprecedented times, consider how you might support local Greensboro non-profits like us, as well as local businesses, artists, entrepreneurs like Cheri, makers, and more. We'll continue to bring you free programming through our digital platforms and look forward to having you join us and Cheri back in the parks soon!