Greetings

May is the month for women!

We just celebrated Mother's Day — where in addition to celebrating the one, very important woman who gave us life, we each get to be grateful for being born and for the opportunity to have this human experience. It also celebrates the creative and life-giving power of women — the Hallmark version celebrates women with children, but that power is expressed in so many different ways, with or without children, throughout the lifespan. Women's abilities to generate positive solutions and nurture them into long-term viability are truly important transferrable skills!

Mother's Day is this month — when we can all be grateful for being born and getting to have this human experience. It also celebrates the creative and life-giving power of women — the Hallmark version celebrates women with children, but that power is expressed in so many different ways, with or without children, throughout the lifespan.

May is also the month when we commemorate National Women's Health Week, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. So we devote this issue to women's greatness — with an article on how we women can take care of ourselves each and every day in simple ways, and a story demonstrating what the strength and commitment of a woman can build. Which is all the more reason to be sure we honor other women and "take good care ..."

At Creating Legacy we focus on supporting successful, mid-career women to be their best and do their best so they can ultimately give their best — in a way that is fulfilling and satisfying.  And we look forward to working with you!

Cheers, Dolly


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Take Care ...

How many times a day do you hear the words ‘take care’?

We hear these two little words from many people and in many places. We say it when a loved one leaves on a long trip or simply goes to work in the morning. We offer it to close a casual conversation or even a TV commercial.

Do you heed that advice? We women so often neglect to ‘take care’ of ourselves. If you don’t, before you know it, you’re the one taking care of others, exhausting and depleting yourself physically, intellectually, emotionally, creatively, spiritually …

No wonder it’s tough, if not impossible, to consider doing one more thing to make the world a better place. And the idea of creating a legacy project on any level becomes daunting.

Here are some tips for ways you could turn around this ‘take care’ notion, make it your own with small steps, rituals and practices that consistently remind and restore you about caring for ALL of your best self:

Your body: 

1. Get more sleep than you think you need … add 5 minutes each day for the next two weeks. You’ll add an extra hour’s rest before you know it and have more energy!     
2. Feed your cells with oxygen first … take care with three deep breaths in and out several times during the day. Start first thing in the morning, when you’re still sleepily waking up.  Then create mini-moments to breathe into your day. You can design fun reminder notes for yourself. Put them prominently around your own environment (on the mirror or fridge, at your desk, on the computer, etc).
3. Feel stiff, stuck? Want more flexibility? Do some head to toe stretches.  Very gentle forward, side-to-side neck stretches are gifts to your eyes and brain. Foot/ankle circles help get your circulation revved up. Reach up over your head and do hand/wrist circles… your back and arms from your shoulders to your finger tips will love you!  Soon enough you’ll be reaching for the stars!
4. Do some balancing acts … not exactly what you think!  If you’re sitting, shift your weight to one side.  Notice what happens with your body, head, vision? Get out of your chair now and stand on one foot … start with your eyes open and your arms where ever you like, use a handhold for balance if you want.  Experience how your body naturally works for you to stay upright. Take care of it.
5. Or you can go for a brisk five minute walk – even something that small, done consciously, will revive you.

Your Intellect:

1. Take five minutes to read good news, poetry, a paragraph or two in that new novel or in the draft of your friend’s first book …
2. Listen to an NPR or PBS interview … even just once a day for a few minutes as a diversion or to refresh your thinking.
3. Sign up for that stimulating class on a topic that’s new for you … easy to do and it will get your creative juices going just thinking about it!
   

1. Stay connected to your feelings. When making choices, check in with your heart, not just your head.
   
2. Keep good company. Take five minutes to talk with a highly motivated friend; listen to a motivational video, interview, or read inspiring quotes.
   
3. Like music? Listen to uplifting music of your choice .. it has the power to change or enhance your mood instantly!
   

Your Creativity and Spirit:

1. Take time for self-reflection. You can do this with five minutes of journaling, a quiet walk alone in the woods or by the water, or enjoying a soulful conversation.
2. Explore the rich insights that come from your dreams (or daydreams …!)by writing them down and talking about them with people who will encourage and honor your interpretation.
3. Immerse yourself in the beauty of the natural world.
4. Make moments of personal silence, meditation or prayer as much of a daily priority as you do other activities like doing laundry, eating meals, or caring for your family.  Or make those activities a form of prayer by consciously connecting with your own trusted source while doing them!
   

Remind yourself that you can choose to do what inspires, uplifts and fills you with joy. Identify three five-minute choices you have available to you right now – and schedule them into the beginning, middle and end of your day.

And, remember, you can ask for help with anything and everything … and that will certainly contribute to your self care!

• In what ways will you take care of your body, your mind, your spirit … your very being?
• What can you do to get in motion, literally?
• What small actions will you take to nourish yourself for your own legacy level living?
• What practices and rituals will you put in place to support your creating legacy? 

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A Legacy For Women – If You Build It, Other Legacies Will Bloom

In our 7 Steps To Creating Your Legacy program, the first step includes a focus on “who” – who you are and who and/or what you care about.  We have exercises to help you figure that out, because it often includes going way back in life or other deep explorations.  In simpler times your passions and interests may have been clearer, but left behind in the process of growing up, getting an education and building a career. 

For Constance Collins-Margulies, it was seeing a homeless person for the first time at age 13 that left an indelible mark in her heart and soul.  It imprinted there a question:  “How can any of us be happy as long as one of us lives like this?”

As it is with many successful mid-career women making a decision to give back through building a legacy project, it took Collins-Margulies nearly 40 years to come back to that question with an answer – in the form of a decision.  That decision was to create a solution.  And it appears she is as happy as she’s ever been as a result of the good work that decision led to. 

Collins-Margulies started with a clear focus on who she is, what she values, who she cares about and how she wanted to impact them, having a personal passion for social issues and women's causes – and the issue she’d carried with her since adolescence. To develop her vision for making a significant, tangible impact, she set up the Sundari Foundation, named after one of the wisdom goddesses in the Hindu tradition. Aptly named, Sundari was known for her inner beauty and the embodiment of enlightened consciousness. The name perfectly fit the foundation’s mission to promote the education, advancement and social inclusion of poor, disadvantaged and homeless women and children. 

Formed in 2004, structured as a 501(c)3 nonprofit, the foundation’s first project was the Lotus House Women’s Shelter, which opened in 2006.  It was named for the lotus flower – as a universal symbol of compassion, hope and enlightenment. True to its namesake, the primary purpose of the Lotus House is to support, connect, uplift, and empower poor, disadvantaged and homeless women and children to realize their dreams of a better way of life.

The first manifestation of that vision and mission was through the purchase and renovation of an old building as a free, non-denominational, resource center and residential facility in the Overtown District of Miami. Overtown is one of the poorest neighborhoods in one of the poorest large cities in the U.S., where there was an overwhelming need by homeless women and children for shelter, support, resources and civic engagement.

Lotus House Women’s Shelter opened with 1 woman in residence, 1 volunteer nurse, 1 part-time counselor, and Collins-Margulies as shelter director.  Only three years later, increase in residents required a staff increase to nine: 2 counselors, 2 resource coordinators to connect the residents with other social services available in the community, 1 full-time health coordinator, 1 full-time employment and life skills coach and 3 resident managers.  The latter, serving as both house managers and mentors, came up through the program themselves and were then in a position to give back.

The Lotus House grew organically, as such things often do.  Newly identified wants and needs spur the creative work of finding additional solutions to those needs.  In all ways, Collins-Margulies tries to take a holistic and inclusive approach to improve the quality of life of Lotus House residents on every level:  body (through medical, dental, eye care and even safety training), mind (through counseling, mental health treatments and support groups) and spirit (through things like art, music, crafts, book clubs, gardening, and field trips). She notes the work is about healing first, then helping create balance and stability, then helping the women grow to become self-sufficient.  It is about job training and financial counseling, but the growth is not just about jobs or income.  Like the lotus, it is about blossoming in every sense of the word to help the women become fully self-expressed and then move into the community to make their own contributions, legacies in their own right.

That holistic, creative approach works. In times of financial challenge, charitable giving on which the shelter relies has diminished.  So they’ve had to find creative ways to fund the shelter and further its mission.  Lotus House has taken the excess donations of clothing and household goods they receive – beyond what they need to use in the shelter – and created a Thrift Shop.  The women in residence work in the shop and get retail training, as well as help produce income for the shelter. 

And the creative approach is very attractive. 

In the fall, Lotus House holds an annual arts based fundraiser that brings in about half of their operating costs.  Using art as a theme provides a connection to the creative source at the heart of the Lotus House project.  In 2009, the annual event expanded into an “art happening,” like those from the 1950’s – where artists work with the audience to create live works of art.  Collins-Margulies wanted it to be a thought-provoking connection, so she wrote to artists asking them to submit proposals for the event based on the theme of ‘hope’ – what does it look like, sound like, taste like on every level?  She notes that many artists have struggled so they tend to be very generous – and responses came from artists of every nature from all over the country.  The event was designed to bring community and art together to make hope blossom.  “That’s what we do every day at Lotus House,” she notes.  And thus, Collins-Margulies legacy project engenders more legacy level activity from the other contributors.  See how the event unfolded here. 

Another legacy within the Lotus House legacy is exemplified in the “Art of Dentistry” project, the extraordinary coming together of over 50 volunteer oral surgeons, dentists, hygienists and assistants organized by The Pankey Institute as they created a make-shift, mobile dental clinic in the Collins-Margulies Art Warehouse to provide free dental care to shelter residents.  A must-view video of this additional legacy that bloomed within the Lotus House legacy will warm your heart to watch.

In a video interview by Scott Pacheco of Miami Today news, Collins-Margulies sums up her project like this:

“It’s about healing on a very holistic level; and it’s about [the women] growing, I think, into who they are truly meant to be. It’s about blossoming in every sense of the word. Then as someone leaves with that foundation they can look forward to being a rich contributor to the community.  They give back and that’s probably the most empowering thing you can do, is give back.”

Where might you start to give back, to begin a similar fulfilling journey?  We’re here to help from start to finish and every step in between.  (DMG)

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Send us an email about someone you know who is living or building a legacy. We’d love to feature their story. Maybe it’s you?!