Kinsa Blog | Butterfly Moments - moments that inspire you...

March 02, 2010

Butterfly Moments - moments that inspire you...

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of presenting to a group of women at ConAgra Foods in Tri Cities, WA. The speech I was asked to give was "finding your passion" - an easy topic was my first reaction - geez I'm a passionate kinda gal! That's until I started to write... turns out, it wasn't so easy to pull together all those amazing moments I've had where I know that my passion for that opportunity, or that event, or that person has had a life changing effect on me. How do you capture that?

In the absence of any creative ability to get my thoughts on paper, I thought I'd do the next best thing - find a nice power point template! So off I went to Office online and there staring me in the face was one of the power point templates with the most stars that week. It was a different kind of template, no flashy colours, bold strips or diagonal zig zags - it was simple, it looked like a piece of lace tapestry with butterflies embroidered (as I said a different kind of template!)

As I admired the template it came to me "butterfly moments" that is how I feel when the passion for something I'm about to get involved in takes over... I opened my speech like this:

"When Sharon first invited me to speak at this event and shared the topic with me, I actually got butterflies in my tummy, in the same way as I might have as a child, just before going on stage to sing in the school choir - or the night before Christmas. You see passion for me is about doing something that gives you butterflies and I want to share with you today the ways in which I have found my passions and my hope is throughout this presentation those butterflies will flutter in you."

It then became easy to talk about all those inspiring passionate moments or butterfly moments when you believe that anything is possible.

Since giving that speech and perhaps serendipitously I've had a number of validations of why one of my greatest passions, the Mothers Online Movement is on the right track. One of those moments was when I recently had the privilege of having lunch with Galit Solomon who many of you know in the same way that I did as a reporter on CTV Toronto. Galit and I had been communicating for a while over e-mail whilst trying to navigate my less than ideal Jan/Feb calendar to book lunch. Through those brief exchanges I came to learn that Galit had her own story to tell - a courageous story of a 12 year old girl who had been sexually assaulted in her homeland of Israel. Galit recently launched her own website Project Butterflies to tell her story and help children who are survivors of sexual assault access resources and navigate the healing process. We connected as individuals who are committed in some way to helping create awareness of this issue and helping kids heal, and I learned so much listening to Galit's own healing journey and her deep understanding of the impact sexual abuse has on a child. Galit's story brought to life for me the real impact and long term effect of sexual abuse, but most importantly her story of courage inspired me. She truly is a very special lady and Project Butterflies is a great example of one person who is truly going to make a difference! A butterfly moment, absolutely!

And then... a couple of nights ago, I was invited to participate in an event being hosted by www.urbanmoms.ca to talk about online safety in partnership with Microsoft Canada. It was a great event bringing together moms who blog to learn about the new Windows 7 product and parental control features paired with good food and lovely wine (who knew you could pair Windows 7 with a good Merlot). I was asked to join as the "online safety expert" (which scared me to death). Fortunately, a wonderful colleague of mine Ruth was on hand to manage all the technical demo stuff (because as we all know it would have been a disaster had I attempted). I got to talk about what I'm most passionate about: keeping kids safe online and the Mothers Online Movement. I loved the honest and open dialogue and true validation that as MOM's we all share the same anxieties over technology (lots of nodding heads when I mentioned my struggle with the DS... and daily effort to embrace it in the same way I would if my child were reading a book... its difficult). Worries over our kid's behavior online, an increase in bullying and yes the dreaded "sexting" - all drew intense discussion. What struck me the most was despite our natural mother bear instincts to protect our children - every mom (and a dad) there also shared the vision that technology is a positive and relevant part of their kid's lives and its here to stay. They wanted to talk about how we make kids experiences positive and help our kids create a digital society that is built on the values that as parents we want our kids to live by. Our conversation moved beyond the basics of "make sure your PC is in a visible spot" to teaching our kids to respect themselves and others online and to recognizing how our children in many ways are showing us the value of peer-to-peer support and healthy vibrant networks.

The Mothers Online Movement also resonated and when I say "as Mothers we are powerful" - I lived it on this night - WHOA!

Our evening was over far too quickly and I find myself lobbying the Windows 7 product manager to be invited again :) Yep - feeling those butterflies!

Paula Knight

Founder of the Mothers Online Movement

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March 02, 2010

Butterfly Moments - moments that inspire you...