Can you believe it's our 50th?

When we started Storytelling on March 2016 who would have thought all the adventures we would go through. We experienced a few different venues and it is great to be back at Mission Creek Golf Course. We have heard almost 300 story so far and have had over 3000 people attend. I personally love hearing all the stories and the community connection we all experience through them.

BODY | FINANCIAL | MIND | SOCIAL

by BalAnce Writer, Tom Kernaghan

Courtney Kafka

Courtney Kafka strums the body electric, to borrow from Walt Whitman’s famous poem. For Courtney and her clients, however, the song of the body can be discordant or staccato when afflicted by injury, stress, or other imbalances in life. The owner of GPS Fitness, Courtney practices Bowen Therapy, a modality of treatment developed in Australia in the 1950s and now practiced in 40 countries around the globe.

Bowen Therapy is unique in the world of body work in that it doesn’t use strong force or rubbing. Rather, Courtney gently “plucks” the tendons, ligaments, and muscles like guitar strings, and then pauses so that they can communicate with the brain. By slowly pushing and pulling these soft tissues, she helps to create a vibrational conversation between problem patterns and the neurological system, releasing tension, realigning joints, and reestablishing harmonious flow within the body, both energetically and physiologically. The health effects can be far-reaching, from managing pain to addressing fertility issues, for everyone from newborns to the elderly. Call it the search for the perfect body rhythm!

Courtney understands the struggle to achieve mellifluous inner music from years of experience with her own injuries and imbalances. After suffering a childhood bike accident, she began receiving Bowen treatments. Years later, as a personal trainer in Vancouver, she suffered myofascial constriction and pain in her back so severe that it restricted her ability to work, sent her back to Bowen Therapy, and inspired her to become a practitioner herself.

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Your Values and You by Dale Choquette

Have you ever thought about what your values are? How are you living your values?
Values are important to every aspect of our lives so it’s important to know what they are.

There are two definitions of values:

• The importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

• A person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.

For our purpose let’s talk about the second definition. A person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life.

Three of the types of values are individual values, relationship values and organizational values. Individualvalues are how you show up in your life and what you live by. They may include enthusiasm, creativity, humility, and personal fulfillment. Relationship values are how you relate to other people in your life. They can include openness, trust, generosity, and caring. Organizational values are how your organization shows up and operates in the world and may include financial growth, teamwork, productivity and strategic alliances.

Are you a writer? by Pamela Lynch

I didn't start out intending to become a writer.

As a little girl, I'd gobble up Nancy Drew books until the bathwater turned cold. I remember looking down at the book sitting on the tub's edge, thinking, 'I want to do this.' I didn't know what "this" was.

• Did I want to be a mystery writer?

• To feel seen?

• To have adventures like Nancy?

• Did I want to be an author? A publisher?
(Not that I could name these as things to "do.”)

What my Soul knew was that one day I'd be known as a Spiritual Librarian. Five decades passed, and that dream faded even though I spent three decades growing up in book publishing.

10 Ways to Spot a Narcissist by Tricia Veltri

The word ‘narcissist’ has been quite the buzz word these days and has been popping up more and more in our everyday lives. These wolves in sheep’s clothing are walking amongst us and for some of us, sleeping in our beds. In my counselling practice, I have seen an increase of my female clients in relationships or have had past relationships with men that appear to have many of the traits of a narcissist.

In this article I use male pronouns “him” and “his” as most of my clients are females but want to note that females can also have traits of narcissism; however, it is more common in males (Fjelstad, 2017).

So, what exactly does it mean to be a narcissist? It is a term that many people are familiar with, a person who has an excessive admiration of themselves. But for those involved in a personal relationship with a narcissist, they know that it goes much deeper than that. On the surface this person may be charming, attentive, outgoing, the life of the party, boasting with self-confidence, and full of stories of success and accomplishments, but be aware, this is how they draw you in!

Leadership Stress by Barri Harris

No matter how well we think we are doing as managers and leaders, stress brings out the worst in us.

Even though I've taken and taught lots of training on managing conflict and communicating effectively, I still have those times where in the heat of moment I react and snap. This week was one of those times.

Even within my core team, where we've built a lot of trust and collaboration and really appreciate and respect each other, we still got peeved with each other. Tempers were short and patience had run thin -- not just me but each of us has been carrying a lot of extra work supporting a system go-live that impacts internal staff and external customers. There were definitely some sarcastic words said and some not-so-nice tones (because just like my mom used to tell me, it isn't WHAT you say, it's HOW you say it).

I handle stress by going into perfectionist mode. When I do that, I take on everything myself because "it's faster to do it myself than try to explain it to someone else".

Each of my colleagues handles stress in their own way, which for each of us is typically partly based on personality and partly based on conditioning -- based on painful past experiences and whether your go-to is flight, fight or freeze.

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