Morning Call: Creativity Works: How to find sunshine on a rainy day

William Childs
Special to The Morning Call

June 13, 2017, 6:00 A.M.

Last month, I attended my daughter's graduation ceremony at Moravian College. It rained heavily that day, so the commencement was moved to inside the gymnasium. As I sat there, my clothes wet from the long walk from the car, I did everything I could to distract myself from the fact that I was going to be sitting here for the next three hours on these hard, wooden bleachers.

I was not happy about it.

After a couple of short speeches from several dignitaries, a voice began to rise above the din. From my unfortunate vantage point, I couldn’t see who was speaking. The voice I heard over the sound system asked all of us to close our eyes and focus our minds entirely on the meaning of the day and to commit to being present in this moment fully. I must admit the request caught me off guard, but I complied.

I settled on the thought of how proud I am of my daughter because she's the first person in our family to graduate from college. I simply forgot about all the rain and my busted umbrella. When I opened my eyes, I felt connected to the moment.

The speaker was Dr. Katie P. Desiderio, associate professor of management and chairwoman of Economics and Business at Moravian College. She spoke about how every day we encounter choices regarding how to face the day.

Will I choose to be positive or will I decide to be negative?

Don't be afraid to embrace your raw vulnerability. Too often our society encourages us not to do that because it gets viewed as a sign of weakness.— Katie P. Desiderio, associate professor of management & chairwoman of Economics and Business at Moravian College

Desiderio chooses to be positive. She reminded the graduates to make a conscious choice to fall up, not down. To choose the lens of falling up, which will help them to grow, and learn and embrace their vulnerability.

That's when I knew I needed to find out more, so I reached out to Desiderio, and I met her in her office at Moravian. She began by telling me about how she uses “Recognize, Reflect & Connect” in her approach to both life and teaching.

"When you start to feel yourself becoming negative, the first thing to do is, stop and recognize it, and ask yourself, ‘what's happening here? Why am I feeling this way?’ Second, reflect and then decide on who can you reach out to help you get through it. Don't be afraid to embrace your raw vulnerability. Too often our society encourages us not to do that because it gets viewed as a sign of weakness. It's not. Give yourself permission to be human," Desiderio said.

The final step she shared with me is to connect with a solution and decide how you are going to move through it to enable a positive outcome. I was impressed with how Katie employs this strategy every day and uses it as a mechanism to keep her grounded to everything that's good in her life.

She told me that she opens every one of her classes with two minutes of meditation to help her students set the tone for the class. Her meditation exercise at the commencement helped me focus on what really mattered that day: My daughter.

I'm incredibly grateful that I got to hear Desiderio deliver her inspiring message and for helping me to find sunshine on a very rainy day.

To read the column as it appeared in the Morning Call,

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Morning Call: Creativity Works: How to find sunshine on a rainy day

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