Good morning, YOWzers! And good morning to all of our readers, near and far. Presumably mostly near, although we do know of at least one weekly reader way out in Edmonton. This weekly reader may or may not be related to the weekly writer, but that hardly seems relevant (hey lil bro, you all good?).
Our endlessly creative co-leader, Rebecca, prepared another fun and original workout for us this morning. In case you missed it (and if the blog title didn’t give it away), this morning we squatted, lunged, planked and silently cursed burpees to the theme of Jeopardy! (← it’s not THAT exciting, but the game show is actually spelled with a !). It was a great way to increase participation and collaboration in the workout, with a sprinkle of healthy competition for those of us who take friendly fitness opportunities way too seriously. Hypothetically.
It seems impossible to think about Jeopardy! without simultaneously thinking of Alex Trebek. Alex passed away last November after a 20 month battle with pancreatic cancer. We didn’t know Alex – to our knowledge he never showed up to an NP workout – but most of us know someone who has fought or is currently fighting that kind of battle. So, most of us also know that people tend to try and find the “right” thing to say to offer comfort when oftentimes, there’s no right thing to say. Nobody has the answers. It seems as though Alex Trebek knew this all along… it’s never been about having the answers. It’s about having the right questions.
- How are you feeling today? (Adding “today” to the end of that question can be helpful. Figuring out the answer to “how are you feeling?” can be daunting. The answer to “how are you feeling today?” might be more manageable).
- Do you want to talk about it? (If the answer is yes, then listen. If the answer is no, also listen).
- Do you have someone you can talk to about this? (You may not be the person they talk to. You can help make sure that someone else is.)
- How do you feel in the quiet moments, when you are alone with your thoughts? (I recently heard someone ask this and realized how different my answer was compared to “how are you feeling?”)
- What can I do? If the person says “nothing”, that’s still something. You can do something for them just by being, without any doing (that was a lot of stative verbs, hopefully that made sense).
Rather than leaving you with final thoughts, we’ll take Cheesy Blog Posts for $1000:
When showing up to this community, you don’t need to know the answers (or the questions).
What is November Project Ottawa?
You might hear this at the end of most blog posts.
What is, we’re heckin glad that you’re here?
Sole-fully,
Rebecca & Becca
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- Let us know how we’re doing: https://forms.gle/EVHo5FpfHv6MDzQcA
- Ask some good questions, don’t worry about giving answers.
- Pet a dog.
This was a great read.
Solid read while driking my coffee at work and catching up on what’s going on.