Dorinda Medley’s Black Chain Fringed Tee in The Berkshires

Real Housewives of New York Season 12 Episode 13 Fashion

According to the previews, this week’s episode of The Real Housewives of New York take The Berkshires looks seriously (beware, cheesy pun coming your way) off the chain; and not just in terms of the drama of course, but also in the form of Dorinda Medley’s super cute black chain fringed tee. And based on that alone I think it’s safe to say that not only did she cook and clean, but she also definitely made it dressed up nice. 

Fashionably,

Faryn

Click Here to See Her Sold Out LNA Tee

Originally posted at: Dorinda Medley’s Black Chain Fringed Tee

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s a universal issue to have a list of ambitious interests, projects, and goals in your head that you want to complete.

But, if you’re like most humans, your unfinished projects likely stay exactly where they’re most comfortable – in your head. Which makes sense because your brain is designed to be an excuse-making machine.

That’s right, you’re made to procrastinate.

It’s your brain’s job to reserve your energy for ancient things like hunting, gathering, and steering clear of danger in the wild, which is so out of context in today’s modern world.

To help you rewire your brain so you can tackle your unfinished projects, I bring you three hacks.

Leverage the Power of the Micro-Step

The first trick to finish your incomplete projects is to tap the power of micro-stepping. In other words, break down your project into tiny chunks.

If you’re familiar with my content, you know I’m a super advocate of this powerful formula:

Micro-Steps + Mini-Goals

Why? It works. And it eliminates the typical feeling of being overwhelmed.

Which is a real thing. In fact, analysis paralysis is also called the paradox of choice and causes you stress when you have too many options.

So, to stop yourself from thinking about all your options instead of taking action, chop up your project into several micro-steps that clearly lay out your path.

It’s worth noting that simply having a list of micro-steps alone is not enough. That’s only half of it.

The other equally vital part is, of course, the action-taking part.

The trick is to be consistent with your action. It’s much more powerful to promise yourself you’ll finish one micro-step daily than to cram in several into one day.

Separate Your Time to Think Vs. Act

The second hack is to do what I call “separating your times,” where you designate clear, separate spaces for your time to think and your time to act.

Make them two totally separate activities in your day. The reason why this works is you need to snap your brain out of auto-pilot.

To give you some context, your brain is typically on auto-pilot and makes nearly 35,000 decisions a day, which means most of them are done subconsciously.

As for your brain activity, most of those decisions are being made with the basal ganglia instead of your prefrontal cortex (the conscious decision-making part of your brain), to save you energy for fight-or-flight mode and staying safe in the wild.

Which doesn’t help you make progress on your important projects and goals. So, your brain tricks you into reserving your energy and procrastinating, when you let yourself think at the wrong time and don’t capitalize on your time to move and change your inertia.

All this to say, stop procrastinating by assigning a designated time to think about your project and clear time in your day to acting and actually working on your project.

Bonus tip: Incorporate into your morning routine some brainstorming time to think about what single micro-step you can accomplish that day. If you can write it down, even better. This will solidify your intention even more.

Then, when it comes time to act on your micro-step for the day, just physically move. Interrupt your subconscious brain pattern and snap your brain out of auto-pilot.

Embrace Imperfection with Open Arms

The third hack for completing unfinished projects is a perspective shift – welcome imperfection into your life.

The reason is, perfectionism isn’t helpful… to anyone. Instead, it adds pressure on you to do things, well, perfectly, and if it doesn’t turn out that way, you’re left severely disappointed and you don’t make any progress.

Plus, perfectionism is a great source for excuses to not finish your projects.

It’s like this: when you’re in perfectionist mode, the stars have to be aligned before you let yourself take the first step. Yet there are so many steps you can take in the interim to conquer your projects and goals.

Even if they’re imperfect steps, it’s much more productive to take them, than not at all, right?

This is, after all, what Apple does when they release products out into the market. The $1.3-trillion company releases imperfect products to customers all the time. They simply release updates and improvements after people buy them.

The gist of it is to let go of perfectionism as a way to make real progress.

You don’t have to fall victim to procrastination. It’s a brain trap that you can circumvent by practicing a few hacks.

If you’d like help finishing your projects and reaching your most fulfilling goals, Book a Free 1-On-1 Breakthrough Session with Cyn to see if you’re a good fit for joining her Rewire My Retirement program.

Which hacks will you try? Do you have some hacks of your own? What’s an important project that you want to tackle first? How can you break it down to micro-steps? Please share with the community!

As the winter of 2020 turned to spring, the death toll from Covid-19 seemed insurmountable. For funeral directors, it was the darkest and most challenging time we’ve ever faced. In an industry built on personal contact and a deep sense of tradition, we could count on neither.

“The idea of not being able to do what we were trained to do was the biggest disappointment, the biggest shock through all this. We could not in any way, shape, or form, operate as we’ve been doing with such immediate and harsh changes,” said Pasquale “Pat” Megaro, who owns Megaro Memorial Home in Belleville, New Jersey.

Now, though, we face a different challenge – how to transition to funerals in a world that is reopening but still not out of danger.

The Current Situation

Depending on state and county regulations, and each state’s recovery phase, funeral homes are able to offer the rites and rituals that were absent during the pandemic. Still, they have to do what they can to keep visitors, and staff, safe.

In late May, John Herzig, the president of Toland-Herzig Funeral Home in Dover, Ohio, started to prepare for that return to normalcy.

“We had the barriers installed in our reception areas and began making plans for new ways of serving food (no buffet style) and as far as the funeral home is concerned, we began addressing changes we needed to make for the safety of our families, visitors, and staff,” he explained.

That preparation paid off. The funeral home was ready when, on June 11, it had it first open-to-the-public funeral since March. The deceased was a member of the local Catholic Church, and her family had made the request.

With social distancing markers on the floors, and hand sanitizers available throughout the building, visitors were encouraged to wear face masks. The funeral home provided them for those who did not have one.

“With all things considered, everything went very smoothly,” said Herzig.

The New Normal

As much as people may hunger for tradition after such an unprecedented situation, the reality is that the post-pandemic funeral is not going to look like the funeral of the past, at least not for a while.

With social distancing still in force, the human contact that has been the comforting hallmark of funeral service is perhaps the biggest casualty of what has become the new normal.

“It truly has been difficult for families who could not get the love and support needed during their loss. Some are planning to celebrate those lives in the future, but it is too soon to know how many will plan something now that things are starting to get back to normal,” said Herzig. 

Funeral directors, too, feel constrained in how we have had to deal with our client families.

“This isn’t what we were intending to do from the beginning, dealing with people over the phone and through the computer, and not having that personal touch,” said Megaro, who, like many other funeral directors, rues not having the freedom to comfort a mourner with a hug.

As New Jersey entered phase two, allowing funeral homes to up the number of visitors from 10 to 25% of a chapel’s maximum capacity, Megaro was also able, for the first time in months, to offer a grieving family the ability to have a full visitation.

The rules had fortuitously changed the night before he was to meet with the family to make arrangements. He was also glad to let them know that 20 people would be permitted at the entombment.

That day marked a turning point for Megaro, who’d struggled with the severe, and sometimes questionable, limitations placed upon funeral homes.

Being the intermediary and having to explain the “harsh and hard rules and regulations” to families about what could and couldn’t be done had been wearing on him.

Embracing Innovations

Danny Jefferson, location leader at Pierce–Jefferson Funeral Home & Cremation Services in Kernersville, North Carolina, has been especially innovative.

In both his funeral home locations, Jefferson is offering families the option of either a drive-through or walk-through visitation, followed by either a chapel or graveside service.

“Most are opting for the graveside service so that they can have more people,” said Jefferson.

With up to 25 people now allowed to gather in the reposing room at one time, walk-through funerals have become a popular option.

“Our staff encourages people to continue to keep walking,” said Jefferson. Calling, or emailing the family at a later time, and leaving online condolences on the funeral home’s website are other suggestions to help keep the line moving smoothly.

Jefferson came up with the idea for a drive-through visitation when in April, at the height of the pandemic, a well-known local volunteer firefighter died, and the funeral director sought a safe way for the community to pay their respects.

The casket was placed on the funeral home’s front porch, with a table in front containing memorabilia. As well as being functional, “the table creates a safe barrier for anyone who would want to get out of a car and walk up to the family,” he noted.

For an hour, scores of locals drove under the building’s portico to say good-bye. Many of those were people who would not ordinarily be able to attend, including a 92-year-old man who was out of quarantine for the first time.

Lessons Learned

Funeral service has been upended in a way we could never have imagined, and as we move forward as an industry, we wonder what, if any, the long lasting repercussions might be.

“We’ve been shown how simple things can be. But you still need that attentiveness whether for a simple funeral or for an elaborate one. You have to put the time and effort into it,” said Megaro.

And while some may look at funerals in a different way, he believes that most are “going to cherish and really embrace getting back to the typical wake, funeral services, and Masses.”

Concerns about health and safety, too, have taken on a renewed importance.

“I think the pandemic has made us focus on the importance of safety and to make sure we do everything in our power to make our families, visitors, and staff safer,” said Herzig, adding that the pandemic “has caused everyone in every business and profession to never take things for granted.”

In an article Jefferson wrote for the June issue of American Funeral Director, a widely-read industry trade magazine, he characterized the pandemic as a tipping point for funeral service. After seeing what the absence of ritual has done emotionally and spiritually to the bereaved, he believes funeral directors should “reinvent our profession.”

Jefferson emphasized: “What Covid is teaching us is that people still want ceremony. They still want others involved. They still want a time and a place that they can share.”

Was there a funeral service you wanted to attend during lockdown but were unable because of the restrictions? How did that affect you? How were funeral services organized in your area at the peak of the pandemic? Please share with our community.