Shelly Ackerman
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Reasons to be Cheerful

7/18/2024

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photo by Gary Walker-Jones via Upsplash
I wanted to share something sweet. There is a website curated with good news.  It is called Reasons to be Cheerful.  The tag line is:  Tonic for tumultuous times

We are bombarded with negativity. And yet there are many things to celebrate in our world. Yes, there is much to be bummed about too. But where we put our attention, our energy, we support or even grow. The news and even Youtube and social media, is about getting your attention quick for your clicks to find out more reasons to be shocked! Our brains are wired to be alert for danger. We must make an effort to seek out the calm, the sweet, the beautiful and support and grow that too. Again, where our attention goes, energy flows. Think about when you feel a certain way, especially in an extreme, don't you then notice a lot more confirmations of that, whether that be wanted or unwanted? Thinking people are mean and greedy will often cause more mean and greedy folks to cross your path. Feeling a love of neat sports cars, you seem to see more of them on the road that day! Or loving good deals at the store. Try setting an intention before you shop. I did this today before going into the thrift store. I stated that I would find perfect items I needed  (nothing super specific) at great prices. (Because let's face it, even thrift store prices have gone way up.) Well I found some great items, some for 90 cents! I have rarely been so successful at one thrift store little-lone two in a row!

So seek out and surround yourself with more good news, more loving and hopeful things. Notice pretty flowers, cute dogs, cool clouds, sweet butterflies and let yourself feel the joy they create in you and bring that forward into the next moment and the next and even the next! And check this site out and maybe even subscribe to get the occasional email with new cheerful stories, right in your inbox. I bet there are a lot of negative emails in your box. Why not add one that is not?!
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/


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Can you reduce your food waste by 60%?

4/17/2024

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You can make a difference in reducing harmful greenhouse gases every single day by reducing or eliminating throwing food into the garbage and thus landfills. Tossed out food is a waste of your money and the energy that produced it and brought it to your table as well as stored it in your fridge or freezer. Please consider how you might let less food get to the point of tossing it out, and when you do need to, place it in a compost or worm bin instead of the garbage can.  Check out my short video below with suggestions and comment here or on my Youtube channel if you have ideas, questions or wish to share what you do to waste less food. We can all do this! Thank you in advance for your time and effort, because it is estimated that a 60% reduction in food waste translates to a 7% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions. That is big!

https://youtu.be/3KvMYu2BNFo

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Business - Busyness

1/29/2024

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I was writing the word Busyness. I struggle with spelling and I first put the letter i in place of the y. Then I saw it - that spells business! 🤔Hmmm. Is that really what we want in our companies, shops and workplace - always with so much to do? It is good to have things going on and things to do, especially when that means customers, connections, profit and that we are getting our offering out into the world. But busyness is about excess, a bit too much, leaving little room for quiet space, being in the moment, creative time... Interesting is it not?
When I am not busy with what I consider productive things, I tend toward guilt and feeling like I am not carrying my weight. Yet, when I have time to get to sending that birthday card, sign that online petition for saving old growth or the wolves in Montana, or in support of an environmental improvement bill in the legislature, I am supporting that which I value and wish to improve in this world. If everyone is too busy to speak up, volunteer or spend time with a sick relative or sad friend, then why be doing all this? To hopefully have time after retirement? What if you don’t make it that long? What if you have few friends or family to do anything with when you get there?
I can relate to wanting more income to do things we want to do; buy things we want to buy. And while I would expect to pay a surgeon more than a librarian, some of our salaries are not related to it's value. As in the professional sports industry, or even actors, which are really for entertainment. Nothing wrong with wanting and being entertained! But compare their pay to those that provide basic building blocks of a society such as educators.  Very unbalanced. 
Where did this belief we have that equates busy and useful come from? Likely grade school. You get a star for getting your work done. You get extra points for extra credit assignments. You can actually get more than a 4.0 in high school.  And Nadia Comâneci’s 1976 (when I was a young grade school gymnast myself) perfect 10 in the Olympics. Now gymnasts can get more than a “perfect” 10. Not saying it is a bad thing, but a curiosity. Always striving for bigger and better. Again, not bad. Unless we kill or nearly so, ourselves doing it. Or give up on what we truly value and enjoy in life.
I thought about what I want my work to look and feel like. And what the larger working world might be like if we didn’t have this deep association with busyness and value. A society where everyone feels valued, loved and free to express their true self, as joy and love, like who they came in as when they arrived as an infant - full of curiosity and joy. Adventures and challenges to overcome, growth to experience, all inside a container of love, compassion, understanding and support. Kindness and heart felt connection and wanting the highest and best for all beings. Regardless of how much money you make, I want you to feel inherent worth and value.  When one feels valued and worthy, one is happy to support others and their community. But we need time for true connection and to listen, care and help. If we are busy all the time, there is little to no time for this.
Work is not only a way to make a living, it is also a way to express our gifts and talents, share our interests and creativity.  When people choose to do what they feel called in their hearts to do, that can sometimes mean less money coming in, and that scares some people off. I wonder if we were able to track and collect data regarding those that follow their bliss and those that don’t, what the bottom line truly would be. Of course we can’t monetize happiness, but unhappiness usually goes along with more illness and disease (dis - ease) and maybe even lost time and poor painful choices inside our basic needs and relationships, even an early death. Would we really choose that if we could compare those options? I don’t think we would.
That vision is so far from how we are set up as a society, it can be hard to image how everyone would be able to do what they felt called to do, with joy, and have their needs met, including the extras. But I would venture to guess that it is worth imagining and actually would work and balance out. Not everyone wants to live in a mansion, own a private jet, or drive a Bentley. Some people would still enjoy driving a big garbage truck or dump truck for a living, others would really enjoy building houses, others writing books, others cooking or growing food. If we were all happier and healthier, we would need fewer hospitals, therapists and addiction recovery programs. And I would further venture to guess, less social services, jails and police. Happy people that enjoy life and have enough of their basic needs met don’t steel nor try to escape life through drugs.
When we are not too busy to do the things we enjoy, and our businesses are not run by profits alone or worse yet, stockholder returns, people and the environment win.  When our businesses include time to connect with co-workers or customers, take work breaks, try something creative, move our bodies, and basically calm our nervous systems, then we’d have happier, healthier employees, lower health care and absentee costs, meaning lower prices for consumers or customers, and a more resilient company over all. 
Busy does NOT equate to value. Busy can be a temporary and occasional state. But is not required to be worthy of money, prestige or acceptance. Ask yourself what you equate being busy with, for yourself and others. Can you envision occasions of busyness with other times where you have enough time to get all you wish done in your day? Can you look at your todo list with different eyes? What can you trim off? What is missing from that list that is health and wellness focused? Thinking long term, what do you desire? What changes can be made to take a step toward that vision? I empower you to make even one change. Then try another. Even small things add up, especially over time and over many people. We have a ripple effect on everyone around us. Make your ripple be of more love, joy and connection. See what happens. 

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The Psychology of Disorganization

1/13/2024

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I have come to understand a deeper reason for how we tend to keep our spaces, whether that be our home, car, yard or desk. There is an energy at play. It reflects our state of being, our belief systems and our moods, even if we are not able to identify those.  We may go between living in a relatively clean and tidy space for days, weeks or months, to allowing things to get messy or dirty and thus needing to undertake a major clean up. Why?

Most of us are not hoarders, yet we have so much more stuff these days! Likely we have experienced feeling some level of anxiety around letting go of things. We may not even be very aware of what is around us, and in the case of the hoarder, not see the chaos and unhealthy situation (tripping hazards, mold potential etc.) we are living in.  The energy of our thoughts and emotions appear visibly in our outside world. I suspect you wont find a depressed person’s home spotless, tidy and full of light, with vibrant colors and music. I also suspect you wont often find a home of someone who has a truly healthy love for life and themselves to be cramped or cluttered, where the shades stay drawn day in and day out.

I wish to suggest an opportunity here. To begin, look with curiosity at friends and family, but ultimately at your own, spaces to see if you find a connection between your observance or what you suspect is the state of mind, and what their homes, cars or office look like. You may not be a psychologist or therapist, but you may have a good sense of what is going on with your friend or family member by not only observing their words and actions, but how they live. What clothes they wear and how they keep the spaces they are in control of, says something about their state as well as their personality. 

This could be the more nuanced but critical piece in keeping your spaces organized and clean, where you can find what you need and relax or entertain. More than will power, intention or your energy level. It’s my understanding and experience anyway, that why a person can’t seem to stay organized is not about being lazy or not caring, but more about their mental or emotional state or beliefs about themselves or the world. I wondered why some people seem to be disorganized to a certain level -  it doesn’t seem to get worse quickly but also they don’t seem to be able to maintain a level of clean they say they want. Things seem to return to a place of equilibrium or normal level of messy for them.

Reasons could include not feeling we are good enough, fear of loosing it all or not having enough, the need for “proof” that we are successful, fear of limitations or limited options, fear of missing out, of not having what we need, fear of abandonment, are some possibilities.The most common statement from clients and friends is “what if I need it later?”. Or they have plans for it. Even if those plans have been around for 10 years with no action. 

Might you be interested in finding out why? To get honest, real and a bit vulnerable in order to find out what is at the deeper, subconscious level of the reason you are living as you are? There are a variety of ways to get some answers and to shift old fears and beliefs. I am trained to help through Energy Codes Coaching and healing, but there is a whole long list of ways one might get some insight and support on this. The emotional piece has a big effect on the getting to and staying organized. If you think you “like” mess and clutter, ask yourself if you prefer going into other peoples homes, stores, or other places of business that are messy, crowded or cluttered. Or if you prefer a store where you can find your way around and find what you are looking for relatively easily. A friend’s home where things are clean and there is a place to sit down for a chat versus one where you have to watch where you step and move things off the chair or couch, table etc. in order to sit down. Likely your “like” of messiness is really just a tolerance of your own mess because it has become what you know, what you are used to.  Just like we get used to living on a busy road after a while. The sounds (possibly maintaining a low level stress response) are still there but we take less notice of them. It takes effort to change our space, and ourselves and that seems like too much work. There could even be a reason you don’t think it is safe to have it clean or organized. It might also be true that it is causing more stress and anxiety than you know. Just because we are “used” to an unpleasant situation or person, level of stress or frustration, doesn’t mean it isn’t effecting us long term.

We have a local grocery store that I wish to support as it has great produce, local options, wonderful employees and donates back to the community. However, they fill every possible space with other items too, ones that are not typical of a grocery store. And it makes it hard to navigate around, especially with a grocery cart and I get overwhelmed by all the STUFF in that store! So I only go there when I need just a few things and I can be quick. I keep my eyes on the areas I am needing items from like the produce section and have learned to tune out the other. But it is still unpleasant. I disliked going into Toys-R-Us with my young kids because there was just so much to look at, the eye doesn’t know where to land! Same with Walmart. I don’t shop there for a number of reasons, but one is how crowded with stuff, the tall and skinny isles etc. I feel anxious in that store! There is no room to breathe or think!

I am working on some short YouTube videos where I talk about organizing steps - but also focused on the mental part as well as the planning and prep. You know what organized and disorganized spaces look like. You also might see images of well organized closets, garage or rooms and feel it is out of reach to you which make you discouraged to ever start. My videos will be focused on the thought processes and feeling into what it is you want. And offer questions or tasks to help get you started. I hope you find them useful and get you off to a good start as you prepare to make some healthy and happy changes for your spaces. Winter and the start of a new year is a great time to start your year off!  Good time to do indoor projects in preparation for having more time and energy for outside activities and tasks when the days are longer and warmer! 
Check it out here… LINK 
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Your choices DO make a difference

1/4/2024

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After the holidays, I used to have a bit of anxiety around where to put all the gifts I received. There was also a mixture of gratitude and guilt. I appreciated the giver and the gift, and also longed for less stuff. Luckily over the years my family has done a better job of reducing the number of gifts we exchange. As a bigger clan, we draw names and get one gift for one person rather than a little something for everyone. Some of us request gifts of experiences. That could be a gift card for a service, such as a massage, pedicure or coffee house. Or what I most love, an event in the future that we will do together. Dinner out, a show, an escape room, etc. And to be honest, for my partner who has little time to shop, I will set aside items I have bought for myself (cute socks, a t-shirt, lotion) that I felt funny buying for myself as I was shopping for others, but knew I wanted (maybe needed) and liked! It still feels special to open as I got exactly what was wanted - with no worry that I might need to exchange it! And sometimes, if done well enough in advance, I forget about the items and it is a surprise after all!

Seems timely to be sharing this well written blog post from Credo Mobile (my cell phone carrier) regarding how our individual purchases matter. I would also add that if more of us shop at the eco-friendly businesses that try hard to protect our planet and us, in supporting them it increases their ability to lower prices for all of us. We vote with our wallets people! Really and truly! And even you, yes YOU, make a difference! 
Check it out - it has some helpful links in it too.
​Credo's Blog Post
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Death Cleaning

11/18/2023

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Someone recently recommended to me the book “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. How to Free yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter” by Margareta Magnusson. I had never heard of it. So I put a hold on the audio book from my local library.  It came up as ready to listen to just days after the death of my Father-in-law. I wished I had been able to suggest this book to my in-laws prior to his passing.

The author, who was in her 80’s at least when she wrote it back in 2018, is quite funny and prioritizes like I do. Although she is not a fan of hiring help with downsizing! She thinks services like mine are expensive when considering you want to do this slowly with thoughtfulness. So maybe there is one thing we would disagree on.

Not that you need to do it fast without thinking it through. Doing it slowly with a great deal of thoughtfulness is best for sure. AND there are many folks out there that will never take the time to do it that way.  Sometimes, not always I realize, doing something quickly without getting too in your head about it, works quite well. It is my belief, that if you truly need something, it will find it’s way to you. So not giving or throwing things away because “I might need it someday” can fill up your spaces fast. Possibly cost you a lot of money as well. Way more than buying something again down the road should you indeed need it. Especially if you don’t remember you had it or can’t find it and buy it again anyway. 

Her main point is - do you really want to burden your family with ALL your stuff when you die? Obviously we need some stuff. But a house filled to the brim with stuff is an overwhelming and burdensome gift to leave those you love and care about. So thinking of them now is a gift you can give from beyond. 

Have you seen how many storage rental businesses there are around in your community? Americans are BIG consumers! It’s an addiction. And like most addictions, not a healthy one.  We have so much stuff we can’t even store it in our homes that we have to spend money to rent space to store it! Wise? Cheap? No. This is when hiring help is cheaper than not!


We are destroying our health, our lives and our planet - all at the same time - with all our STUFF! The items we keep and the items we throw away every day - plastic being the main thing. But food, clothes etc. The fashion industry has come under great scrutiny about the impact on the earth. And  those companies that sell the clothes who are tossing returned items because it is cheaper than re-stocking them! When will it stop?  Well maybe when we learn something from this Swedish death cleaning woman for a start. 

She suggest decluttering throughout your life, not waiting until you are closer to a likely departure. After all, none of us know when exactly that will be.  Decluttering and donating or gifting (or tossing) sooner rather than later, is just wise and kind. Less to clutter you now, and less work for your family members to have to deal with when your times comes.

I am happy to help you downsize, de-clutter, get organized, to be enjoyed at the time and well into the future! It really is a good feeling to know what you have, be able to find it, and be free of piles of things, duplicates or items spread out everywhere. I bet many of us could get a second kitchen up and running without missing much from our own! Open a drawer or two in your kitchen and if you can’t see what is in there in about 10 seconds, you could benefit from my services. Or the book at least.

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Organizing is cost saving!

9/27/2023

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BEFORE...
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AFTER!
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My client was going to have her carpenter build her more shelves for her pantry. I was pretty confident that what she really needed was a few organizer bins and me to organize it all! I had a great time moving pieces around like a rubiks cube. I am not sure what she would have spent on her new shelves, but I do know having custom items built and installed is not cheap. Besides, she also would still have had items spread out, often with similar types of items not together. This is already a lot to look at at once, making it hard to find things, but add that not all like items were together, it can be easy to buy what you already have. She now has a template to work with - storing similar types of foods together, appliances together, etc.  And if she doesn't like where I placed things or wants some items more eye level, at least she now has a sense of how she might re-arrange but keep things well organized. 

I spent just over $100 on storage bins and mini wire shelves. I repurposed some of her left over containers (she had a lot) to contain like items such as chocolate bars, bulk seeds and grains, saving probably $25. Now she can more easily see what she has, find the right spice, or see if she is getting low on something before heading to the store.
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Food waste is a huge methane gas producer on our Earth. In fact, it is the single largest category of material in US landfills!  When we throw food away that has gone bad or is just old, it gets buried with all the other trash in the landfill and does not decompose, causing methane (a green-house gas) to build up in those piles. By keeping an organized pantry and kitchen (Fridge too!) you are contributing to a healthy planet. It also saves you money and time. Win win!!
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Self Imposed Insanity

8/1/2023

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Humans are curious creatures, are we not?  We want big and impressive! Then we want small and simple. I live in a tiny house right now. But I used to live in a 2,600 s.f. home. I loved both. But neither would have worked in reverse. We change and along with it, our needs and desires and then the world around us. Yet, we often struggle to fully embrace change. The mind likes predictability and familiar! 

So much of what we know we should do, we struggle to actually do. Like get enough quality sleep. Or eat whole foods closer to their original state, rather than overly processed with additional chemicals to preserve them. Things in moderation, including coffee, alcohol, sweets etc. We know those things are not the best for us, and yet we almost crave them and tend to over indulge. Our grocery stores are filled to the brim with them! 

We know that producing plastic items that never fully breakdown, over time pile up, add to pollution and leak toxins into our already overly toxic environment. If it is true that each of us consumes a credit card size of plastic each WEEK - why do we keep approving new plastic manufacturing plants?

Perhaps we are asleep at the wheel. We prefer blissful ignorance. We just want things to stay the same. Until we don’t. Or can’t. We think we don’t have time to be aware and make better choices or change, we rely on quick, simple, easy and justify it because we are very busy. And yet our lives are filling up with problems that need our time, attention and often more of our money. Not exactly blissful. An abundance of cancers, chronic diseases, physical limitations on our actives due to our ill-health. We have polluted soils and water and we KNOW how & why! And yet here we are, looking for ways to allow producers and industries to continue business as usual, looking for “solutions” that help them continue profiting a few at the expense of many. Some plastic is useful, yes. But we are swimming in it. Quite literally! Have you swam in an ocean or been to a beach lately? Watch your step! Broken plastic pieces are sharp. 

We have identified a wide number of things that cause cancer, including and maybe primarily, stress. Instead of going to the source, the reason for the stress for example, and alleviating that, we spend tons of resources to “fight” cancer. It is like allowing someone to poke us in the eye (or worse, poke ourselves) and wonder why our eyes are red, blurry, hurt and we can’t see well. Rather than look to the source, the poke itself, we spend time and money researching and trying new eye drops, stronger glasses etc. 

We are killing off our bees with pesticides created to increase crop yields. Bees are a necessity for the pollination of those same crops! Without them we wont have crops! We are fracking and polluting our water. We already know of alternate cleaner energy solutions. We need water more than energy! And our crops need clean water. Even we are made of 75% water - so is Mother Earth. We understand the cycle of water and yet apparently we are ok with polluting it and thus ourselves. 

In which ways are you supporting the current state of insanity? What things do you already know and yet don’t follow through on? What do you want to change for yourself? Do you want to eat foods grown closer to home, closer to how nature grew it? Do you want to slow down enough to rest well each night? How about living in a enjoyably clean and tidy space free of excess stuff and clutter? Do you want to spend more time with those you love and/or doing things that bring you joy? Do you want to stop buying things in container that stick around on this planet longer than you will? Do you wish to experience more balanced between “doing” and “being” human?

There is an energy and emotional reason for much of what we do or don’t do. Maybe subconsciously we don’t feel worthy enough. Sometimes we hide behind our illness, weight or ignorance. We may feel powerless to impact our world, feeling like we can’t possibly matter that much or worse, assume the victim role. So we continue along the same path, continue to buy and consume what isn’t good for us (media too!). 

So what can you do? Start by writing down an intention. What is one thing you can change today? Find that thing and do it (or don’t do it if that fits) again tomorrow. And the next day. Stick with it for a month and then assess your life - still ok with the change? Once that becomes normal and feels good, then look for something else to try, give up, or otherwise be of benefit to yourself and/or Mother Earth.  Gradual steps will be more likely successful than big changes all at once. Although that can work too for some!

When we change, our world changes. It can’t be any other way. You have choices. What world do you want to live in tomorrow? Shift your thoughts and actions and see what happens to bring about that desired world. Big house or Tiny; both are good. At the right times. My needs changed so I shifted and the world around me shifted to accommodate.
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Please share your intention(s) or experience in the comments below. I’d love to hear about it!
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Trauma and clutter can go hand in hand

6/1/2023

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​My organizing/decluttering services are surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) linked to my energy codes work.  Unprocessed emotional upset can affect how we keep the spaces around us. Maybe you have an area in your home that you can't seem to keep tidy. Or perhaps there are things you keep "just in case"? I share about it on my coaching website... LINKED HERE
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Boody Eco Wear for the WIN!

5/5/2023

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I love this bamboo top! It is perfect for yoga or as a member of your regular wardrobe - really great as an under layer. Made of 79% viscose made from bamboo, 15% nylon, 6% spandex. I love the 3/4 sleeve. It is super soft, well made and both warm or cooling - wicking moisture in the warmer months. Perfect amt. of stretch. See link to this specific top below...https://boody.com/products/scoop-top
This company, based in Australia, is focused on ecological consciousness. If you are looking for better for the planet textiles, here is one! They have undergarments, activewear, sleepwear and more, for both men and women. Children too. This is my first purchase but I will try more!
The clothing industry is under a lot of scrutiny right now due to the great harm to our planet that the production and life of clothing inflicts, especially where it ends up, sometimes having never been worn (see my blog entry further down about the truth of online returns.) Buying less but higher quality, versatile pieces from eco-focused companies is becoming a real focus and goal for me. I found this cheaper at Quimper's in Port Townsend than it is advertised online. Quite likely there are other local stores that carry this brand as well. If I find out about any I will add it to this post. Or let me know if YOU know of a store in the greater Puget Sound area that does!
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    Bringer of Light and Love. Transformation Facilitator. Lover of Mother Earth & Nature

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