Over Thanksgiving I was listening to Joe Vitale and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len's Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace and More. The recording was done at one of their Zero Limits workshops and included audience questions. If you're not already familiar with it, The Secret Hawaiian System is known as Ho'oponopono and Dr. Len once used it to cure a mental ward of criminally insane patients without ever personally seeing any of the patients. Here is a link to Joe Vitale's blog entry about Dr. Hew Len and Ho'oponopono but, essentially Dr. Hew Len would look at each patient's chart and then clear on whatever came up within himself about what he read. He looked within himself to see how he created that person's illness. By clearing, he performed the Ho'oponopono meditation which is to repeat the words: I'm sorry, Please Forgive Me, I Love You and Thank you. After three years, Len's work was such a success that the unit was closed.
Ho'oponopono is one of the techniques I was taught during my coaching lessons and it is in the curriculum I share with my clients. Although I don't have anything as remarkable to report as an entire mental ward being closed down due to my efforts, it has been one of the clearing tools I use in my own life. Over the weekend, I felt like I understood Ho'oponopono a little bit better and although it feels a bit like juggling slippery goldfish, I want to attempt to explain some of my understanding here.
I had some resistance to Ho'oponopono in the beginning. Particularly to the words I'm sorry. At some point it had been explained to me:
When you say "I love you" ... you are touching compassion.
When you say "Thank you" ... you are touching gratitude.
When you say "I'm sorry" ... you are touching humility.
When you say "Please forgive me" ... you are touching sincerity.
I have no problem saying "I'm sorry." I have spent a lifetime of saying it. So when I would try to say it in connection with Ho'oponopono, it would get tangled up with a lifetime of baggage. The last time I told somebody that (my coaching coach) he once again explained that the "I'm sorry" was all about humility. I spent days asking myself if all of mine had been about humility.
humility: (noun) a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.
By definition, yes, my apologies were humble. The resistance stemmed more from who I was saying the words to rather than from where they were coming. First, I would say those words when a friend or acquaintance would tell me about something that was disturbing them. I would say "I'm sorry" to express my sympathy. Increasingly that was being met with, "Why? It's not your fault." Which was probably due to the second instance when I would say those words, when one of the people in my life who had convinced me I was responsible for his or her feelings would get upset. I said "I'm sorry" so often when trying to stem someone else's anger that it began to feel like I was apologizing for my very existence. Frequently when we use clearing methods, even though we are mostly meditating alone or talking to ourselves, it is when we perceive something is wrong or has happened. It was hard to separate the new Ho'oponopono "I'm sorry" from the earlier ones. I even questioned if I had inadvertently benefitted even though I had never understood the greater implications.
This weekend, what caught my attention was the talk about taking responsibility for our lives. The more I listened, the larger the concept grew and the more different it became from being responsible for how someone else feels.
My assumption is that most people who at some point during their adolescence used the words, "You made me ..." or "Look what you made me do" has heard the lecture that no one can "make" you do anything. You are personally responsible for your emotions and behavior. People may be unfair, unkind and unpleasant, but you are responsible for your own response. There is a meme that floats around the internet: How other people act is their karma. How you respond is yours.
It seems to me that most people think of karma as being a big bad deed boomerang. "What goes around, comes around." "You reap what you sow." During my internet surfing about the subject, I've learned there are two interpretations of karma. The first is the commonly held one I already mentioned, but the second is essentially that you will continue to be faced with the same life lessons until you have learned them. In other words, people will be who they are and you will experience the same people over and over, until you have learned how to respond to them. I would like to suggest Ho'oponopono is the kindest, gentlest, easiest, and most responsible way to respond to them.
In Zero Limits, Dr. Hew Len refers to the stuff you are clearing as "data." There is us and there is all this data. Others like Eckhart Tolle, using a model that is a bit more Buddhist in nature, have referred to what Len is calling data as "ego based states of consciousness."
Think of it this way. You are sitting at a restaurant and a man at an adjacent table belches. Loudly. You mumble under your breath, "What a pig." The facts or what is: a man belched at a restaurant. The data or ego based state of consciousness: "What a pig." Data or ego based states of consciousness are your personal judgements about things that happen around you or others' behavior. Your parents may have raised you not to belch out loud and told you it was an impolite thing to do, but there are other cultures where it is not frowned upon and can be even seen as a way of complimenting the cook.
So the first thing that is important with Ho'oponopono is being able to distinguish between fact or "what is" and your own thoughts, labels, or judgments.
The more energy you have about something, the more it will return as a karmic lesson, so chances are you won't encounter a stream of restaurant belches. But how about that reoccurring boyfriend? Or a mean spirited gossipy friend? You are attracting them into your life for a reason and purpose. Think of it like the movie Groundhog Day. Your day isn't repeating, but the circumstances are.
Before I had a life coach, decided to become a life coach or had ever heard about Ho'oponopono, I had a relationship where I really tried to embrace the notion of unconditional love. I wanted to be the best partner I could be. With no guidance, my brain created a set of theorems.
1. Unconditional = no conditions
2. Loving someone with no conditions means loving them no matter what emotions they have inadvertently triggered.
3. I am responsible for my own emotions and behavior.
I tried. I didn't know about Ho'oponopono, but I tried really hard. When something happened and I was disappointed, angry or sad, I would walk myself through mini pep talks to get myself off the ledge. Of course, everything that was happening were things one or both of us had a lot of energy about, so karmic lessons were in abundance. I can say with a great deal of love and optimism that I hope neither of us has that relationship again. In other words, that we learned the lessons we needed to learn and will level up. At the same time, even though I had few skills or tools to help me in my attempt, the more I study Ho'oponopono, the more I think I had it right.
The problems of our lives are not what actually troubles us. It is our reaction to them. We tend to look for offense like we want to be offended. One of the speakers on Zero Limits spoke of how using Ho'oponopono had enriched her family life. When her children would do something that irritated her, rather than chastising them or demanding that they change, she said the clearing words about the feeling within herself. She said the clearing words about her own judgment that her children were being irritating. As Dr. Hew Len pointed out, she did not suggest her children or any other family member do the Ho'oponopono themselves. In her case, she said that she knew if she did the clearing, all of them would be clear and fine. At the same time, just like you can't control others, Ho'oponopono is taking responsibility for your part in the equation of life, not urging others to do so.
Of course thinking like that, makes me think about my clients. How much of the service I'm providing should be teaching them the tools I have been taught and use vs. actually using those tools on my part in the equation of our relationship. After all, using the Dr. Hew Len model, it is not unreasonable to consider speaking the words to clear on anything about which you become unpleasantly aware.
War. GMO's. Politics. Global warming. Ferguson.
Mother Teresa once famously said that she didn't attend "Anti-War Rallies," but if anybody ever had a "Pro Peace Rally" she would. You attract things based on your energy. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. When what you don't want enters your sphere of attention: Ho'oponopono.
I'm sorry for whatever energy I brought to this situation.
Please forgive me.
I love you.
Thank you.
Showing posts with label Joe Vitale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joe Vitale. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
In Search of "Happy"
This week I've been reading The Ultimate Introduction to NLP: How to Build a Successful Life by Richard Bandler. Although I already had the first pieces to the puzzle, it gave me a bit of an Aha! moment.
In a typical NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) fashion, I ask you to think of something fun. Think of a time when you were wildly happy. If the moment doesn't make you feel like giggling right now as you're thinking about it, you probably need another moment. Think of one of the best feelings you've had. Maybe something so good, you would be embarrassed to share it.
Got it?
Now notice where you feel the emotion in your body. Where does it start? What part of you? Where does it move to? Play with the movement of the emotion. See if it has a color associated with it and see if you can move it through your body. Visualize a lever named "Fun" in your mind and picture moving the feeling throughout your body by moving the lever.
Congratulations. You have just created a lever in the control panel of your mind where you can access "fun" or "happiness" whenever you want.
I've mentioned the Law of Attraction before in this blog. Step 4 of the Law of Attraction is to "Nevellize" (a term coined by Joe Vitale honoring Neville Goddard, an earlier pioneer in the field of the Law of Attraction.) To "Nevellize" is to feel as if you are already living the life of your dreams. If you were living your dream life, you'd probably feel pretty happy, huh? You just built a lever to help you Nevellize. At the same time, we tend to attract people and events that broadcast at our same frequency. There's a very good argument that, if you flipped your switch to "fun" every morning before you went to work or whatever else you did during your day, you would attract only more fun and happiness to you. Even if you didn't believe in the Law of Attraction, couldn't you argue that, by choosing to be happy, your days would be happy?
Now that was not my Aha! moment. I had already learned that if a person can control his mind and choose to be happy, he/she will be happier. It had been a slow realization that came from Eckhart Tolle's quote that I no longer con recall well enough to quote. Basically it was addressing the need to go find yourself and was something like "it takes no time to be you." It also came from witnessing other people who had the belief that you could simply choose to be happy and their subsequent successes and failures.
Now maybe some of you, when I told you to think of a time when you were wildly happy, were faced with an empty head completely silent of any suggestions. Maybe you were left with a big, "hmmmm let me think about this a moment." If so, you're not alone. I was in that exact same place the first time I was ever approached to do this exercise. First, my mind was a big empty black hole. Then, I had a few memories of good times but they were irrevocably intertwined with bad things that happened later. In fact, a good portion of my life has been lived in search of "happy." At times it has been a little embarrassing. My search has come up in conversations with other people. Friends, who invariably would say, "What about when we did this? You had fun. You certainly laughed a lot." It was embarrassing because I lacked the skills to explain that, while their memories seemed vivid and fully detailed, mine were weak and pale, lacking any real substance. That was my Aha! moment. I can explain now because I understand what was happening to me and I know what to do about it.
As Richard Bandler asks in the book: Have you ever had an argument and then replayed it in your memory afterwards? Have you ever replayed an argument for what added up to be much more time than the actual argument lasted? How about this. Have you ever played an argument in your mind, which hasn't happened, but you anticipate it might? You might imagine that my answers were yes, yes and yes! And you'd be right. In the book, Bandler refers to a client who has replayed arguments she had with her mother for years after her mother has died.
How much of the present moment do you think you experience when you're mentally in the audience for an argument that happened years ago? As a child, I learned to constantly troubleshoot my environment. I was always watching my mother's mood, desperate to keep it from switching, but wanting to be aware the instant it did.
Have you ever put a very dry sponge into water? A sponge so dry that it took it a moment to actually be able to absorb anything? That was me and "happy." Basically, I pursued being happy. I did "happy things." But I did them like I was the Universe's Secret Service and I was always on the job.
I attracted a lot of other people like me into my life too. I once went on a trip to Walt Disney World with a man who later told me his every day "base" emotion was anger. Now that was a fun trip. He spent his trip being angry about the lines, how much things cost, and the fact the rides emptied into gift shops and I spent my trip micro-managing how to keep him from getting angry.
It's funny. I got that way because I had been hurt and scared a few times and I wanted to protect myself from it happening again. What I really did to myself, though, was lock myself in a mental prison of worrying about all the worst things that could happen and I very nearly threw away the key.
But I didn't. If you can relate to what I've said and have problems naming a time you were "happy" too. You can retrieve the key as well.
1. Practice being in the present moment. Life happens in the present moment. It is the only moment we actually have. The past is passed and the future is just an idea. Be here now. One excellent tool for doing that is Gil Mciff's Three Step Clearing Method. I mentioned it in a previous blog entry ("The Law of Attraction and What You Resist, Persists" October 7, 2014.) But here it is again.
2. Observe it deeply. What physical and emotional sensations do I feel? Where do I feel them? Or simply I feel it (here,) it feels like (this.) Realize who is doing this inquiring?
3. Thank you for checking in. I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you for no longer feeding the program. Thank you for dis-identifying from the program, thank you for catching yourself and for no longer losing energy here. Thank you for whatever you want to say thank you for. I love you, I love you, I love you!
There it is. That's not me. That's a program.
I feel it here (location,) it feels like this (characteristics.)
Thank you for checking in, I love you I love you I love you.
These steps are not for the purpose of getting rid of the negative feeling (i.e. resisting and therefore feeding what we don't want. That benefit may sometimes come with it, but this practice is more about implementing a new habit/program. So every time you observe the emotion, it's an opportunity to do this practice without judgement. It doesn't matter what emotion is there, what matters is that you simply observe it without giving it any meaning. When this becomes habit you will have successfully reprogrammed the unconscious perpetuation of the old reaction with the automatic newly programmed conscious response.
It takes less than 30 seconds to do this practice. 30 seconds at 10x a day = 5 minutes
How many days will it take before this healthy response has become a new program for you?
2. Actively choose to be happy. Do the "Fun" lever exercise and build a control panel in your head that helps you select how you want to feel rather than being on a treadmill of worry or negativity. Start each day with a happy frame of mind. When you are in the midst of a happy experience, really feel it. Take in all of the sensory details.
In a typical NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) fashion, I ask you to think of something fun. Think of a time when you were wildly happy. If the moment doesn't make you feel like giggling right now as you're thinking about it, you probably need another moment. Think of one of the best feelings you've had. Maybe something so good, you would be embarrassed to share it.
Got it?
Now notice where you feel the emotion in your body. Where does it start? What part of you? Where does it move to? Play with the movement of the emotion. See if it has a color associated with it and see if you can move it through your body. Visualize a lever named "Fun" in your mind and picture moving the feeling throughout your body by moving the lever.
Congratulations. You have just created a lever in the control panel of your mind where you can access "fun" or "happiness" whenever you want.
I've mentioned the Law of Attraction before in this blog. Step 4 of the Law of Attraction is to "Nevellize" (a term coined by Joe Vitale honoring Neville Goddard, an earlier pioneer in the field of the Law of Attraction.) To "Nevellize" is to feel as if you are already living the life of your dreams. If you were living your dream life, you'd probably feel pretty happy, huh? You just built a lever to help you Nevellize. At the same time, we tend to attract people and events that broadcast at our same frequency. There's a very good argument that, if you flipped your switch to "fun" every morning before you went to work or whatever else you did during your day, you would attract only more fun and happiness to you. Even if you didn't believe in the Law of Attraction, couldn't you argue that, by choosing to be happy, your days would be happy?
Now that was not my Aha! moment. I had already learned that if a person can control his mind and choose to be happy, he/she will be happier. It had been a slow realization that came from Eckhart Tolle's quote that I no longer con recall well enough to quote. Basically it was addressing the need to go find yourself and was something like "it takes no time to be you." It also came from witnessing other people who had the belief that you could simply choose to be happy and their subsequent successes and failures.
Now maybe some of you, when I told you to think of a time when you were wildly happy, were faced with an empty head completely silent of any suggestions. Maybe you were left with a big, "hmmmm let me think about this a moment." If so, you're not alone. I was in that exact same place the first time I was ever approached to do this exercise. First, my mind was a big empty black hole. Then, I had a few memories of good times but they were irrevocably intertwined with bad things that happened later. In fact, a good portion of my life has been lived in search of "happy." At times it has been a little embarrassing. My search has come up in conversations with other people. Friends, who invariably would say, "What about when we did this? You had fun. You certainly laughed a lot." It was embarrassing because I lacked the skills to explain that, while their memories seemed vivid and fully detailed, mine were weak and pale, lacking any real substance. That was my Aha! moment. I can explain now because I understand what was happening to me and I know what to do about it.
As Richard Bandler asks in the book: Have you ever had an argument and then replayed it in your memory afterwards? Have you ever replayed an argument for what added up to be much more time than the actual argument lasted? How about this. Have you ever played an argument in your mind, which hasn't happened, but you anticipate it might? You might imagine that my answers were yes, yes and yes! And you'd be right. In the book, Bandler refers to a client who has replayed arguments she had with her mother for years after her mother has died.
How much of the present moment do you think you experience when you're mentally in the audience for an argument that happened years ago? As a child, I learned to constantly troubleshoot my environment. I was always watching my mother's mood, desperate to keep it from switching, but wanting to be aware the instant it did.
Have you ever put a very dry sponge into water? A sponge so dry that it took it a moment to actually be able to absorb anything? That was me and "happy." Basically, I pursued being happy. I did "happy things." But I did them like I was the Universe's Secret Service and I was always on the job.
I attracted a lot of other people like me into my life too. I once went on a trip to Walt Disney World with a man who later told me his every day "base" emotion was anger. Now that was a fun trip. He spent his trip being angry about the lines, how much things cost, and the fact the rides emptied into gift shops and I spent my trip micro-managing how to keep him from getting angry.
It's funny. I got that way because I had been hurt and scared a few times and I wanted to protect myself from it happening again. What I really did to myself, though, was lock myself in a mental prison of worrying about all the worst things that could happen and I very nearly threw away the key.
But I didn't. If you can relate to what I've said and have problems naming a time you were "happy" too. You can retrieve the key as well.
1. Practice being in the present moment. Life happens in the present moment. It is the only moment we actually have. The past is passed and the future is just an idea. Be here now. One excellent tool for doing that is Gil Mciff's Three Step Clearing Method. I mentioned it in a previous blog entry ("The Law of Attraction and What You Resist, Persists" October 7, 2014.) But here it is again.
Three Step Clearing Method by Gil Mciff
Feeding what you want is natural and easy, you are already doing this in many ways.
The emphasis of this practice is focused on starving what you don't want by simply observing your emotions and thereby dis-identifying from being them.
Your habitual state of consciousness is the number one determinant of your personal circumstances. The quality of your consciousness in this moment is the primary determinant of your future. And what determines the quality of your consciousness is your degree of presence.
Check in 10x a day with the question: "How am I feeling emotionally in my body right now?"
You can use a reminder app or alarm on your phone, sticky notes placed in random places, paint one fingernail different from the rest, wear your watch on the opposite wrist or upside down, or put a bandaid on your finger. Every time this catches your attention, ask yourself, "Emotionally, how do I feel in my body right now?"
(A further suggestion my fellow coaching student told me was to do it every time you needed to use the toilet or took a drink of water.)
If there is ANY kind of negativity or if it is simply a lower emotion than you would like to be feeling, the fact is you did not choose it. It's based on conditioned interpretation and is simply an old program running and it is time to do the following 3 steps:
(If you are feeling what you would like to be feeling then start with step 2.)
1. Say These Specific Words - There it is. That's not me. That's a program.
3. Thank you for checking in. I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you for no longer feeding the program. Thank you for dis-identifying from the program, thank you for catching yourself and for no longer losing energy here. Thank you for whatever you want to say thank you for. I love you, I love you, I love you!
There it is. That's not me. That's a program.
I feel it here (location,) it feels like this (characteristics.)
Thank you for checking in, I love you I love you I love you.
These steps are not for the purpose of getting rid of the negative feeling (i.e. resisting and therefore feeding what we don't want. That benefit may sometimes come with it, but this practice is more about implementing a new habit/program. So every time you observe the emotion, it's an opportunity to do this practice without judgement. It doesn't matter what emotion is there, what matters is that you simply observe it without giving it any meaning. When this becomes habit you will have successfully reprogrammed the unconscious perpetuation of the old reaction with the automatic newly programmed conscious response.
It takes less than 30 seconds to do this practice. 30 seconds at 10x a day = 5 minutes
How many days will it take before this healthy response has become a new program for you?
2. Actively choose to be happy. Do the "Fun" lever exercise and build a control panel in your head that helps you select how you want to feel rather than being on a treadmill of worry or negativity. Start each day with a happy frame of mind. When you are in the midst of a happy experience, really feel it. Take in all of the sensory details.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Are You Having Any Fun? (Aka Lessons on the Way to Calling Myself a Coach)
I have never been a mother. I have never been a teacher. I have done a lot of self help work on myself. I have witnessed the Law of Attraction happen in my own life. (By which I mean, I have intended for things to happen. I have needed things to happen and I have had them happen as if everything were simply falling into place through very little effort of my own.) I have learned first hand the benefits of being patient and maintaining a positive attitude. Things work out for themselves and when I am positive and patient, they seem to unfold in the manner which gives me the best personal outcome.
I decided to become a coach because: 1. By nature I seem to like to share my good fortune with others. If I have learned something that has really worked for me, I naturally want to tell others, and 2. I am a writer, I enjoy writing, and my writing seemed to be shifting to a "coaching" direction.
None of that prepared me for the lessons and challenges of actually coaching.
First, did you know, that no matter how much or how little money a client may have paid, they may not do any of the assignments you give them?
I know! My ego had no idea what to make of that. In my mind, I had found something that works for me. So metaphorically, it's like I've found a shortcut to get from Epcot to the World Showcase but while I'm waiving people to that special door, they're telling me, "No thanks I want to walk past 'O Canada'" or "If I walk past Mexico, I can buy a churro."
It feels like I am almost constantly thinking, "What?" "What did you say?" "How should I respond to that? What do I say?"
Not to mention nearly constantly dis-identifying with the situation and clearing on any feelings that may come up.
At the end of my own coaching program (where I was first being coached,) I went to a retreat and met other people who had been in the same program. We talked, as people do, and the subject of "good" coaches and "bad" coaches came up. I am firm believer in the Law of Attraction. I have had horrible moments where hideous words came out of someone I loved and, although there seemed to be no stimulus to cause those exact words, the words were speaking directly to my own negative or limiting beliefs. I've heard the psychological explanation for why they may have been said, but I need no explanation as to why they hit my target so well. I attracted them. I needed to hear them to begin the work to pop the swollen ugly pimple of pain the belief was causing in my life. I have experienced both the good and the bad of the Law of Attraction. I have witnessed it. So when it comes to the question of a "good" coach or a "bad" coach, I know there is no such thing. There is only the coach you attracted into your life. It's up to you to harvest everything there is to be had from the relationship.
The same is true with my clients. I am dedicated and enthusiastic about doing the best job I can do, both for them, and for me. I knew all along that becoming a coach would also support my own efforts and I would learn new things. I have already encountered materials I have never seen before as well as clearing methods to which I had never before been exposed. Honestly, it's a great thing.
I have always worn several hats, though, and one of my other jobs is that of a media technician. One of the things I do is transfer VHS tapes to DVD. It's so simple. You put the VHS tape in the VCR. Take the outgoing cords and feed them into a DVD deck with a burner. Start everything up and 9 times out of 10, it just happens. The tape plays. The DVD deck receives and a couple of hours later, I burn and finalize a DVD. Clockwork.
People don't work like that. I mean, I knew that. Yet here I am saying it. So I must have needed a lesson about it as well. When you drop into someone's life once a week, have a conversation, give them some information and some suggestions; there are a lot of different outcomes that can manifest one week later. You probably could build a mathematic equation around it, but it contains at least two unpredictable variables. Me and the client. As human beings, we are mobile biospheres affected by even more variables: physical wellbeing, emotional mood, blood sugar, hunger, whatever has happened during our individual days .... A lot more than simply, this VHS tape won't play in this machine, I'll have to try another.
The other day I was talking to my "accountability partner" (aka a friend who is also going through the coaching certification program.) He mentions one of the "outcomes" with his client that I would never have foreseen or predicted. As I ask him questions and ask him what he's going to do, at one point he says "I'll have fun with it."
Fun with it? At this point, I feel like a juggler who never sees all three balls in action at once. One has always just hit the floor. At the same time, I am constantly forced to remind myself I am not in control of the balls. I am not supposed to be in control of the balls nor should I want to be. These balls are actually human beings and can decide whether they want to fly and where they want that flight to take them. I'm just the travel agent handing out information and any special tips I can give when they head somewhere I've already been.
Fun with it.
I've been so busy trying to be a good life coach, I forgot the most essential thing.
To just be.
Joe Vitale says to dare something worthy and I've done that. I suppose I hadn't considered how often I'd be holding my feelings of inadequacy back as if with a lion tamer's whip and chair while guiding audience members to a door.
"I decided I don't want to walk through that door."
"Wait a minute. What?"
"Let me set this down for a second."
"What did you say?"
Fun with it.
I'm not having fun with it yet, but I think maybe I can get there from here.
I decided to become a coach because: 1. By nature I seem to like to share my good fortune with others. If I have learned something that has really worked for me, I naturally want to tell others, and 2. I am a writer, I enjoy writing, and my writing seemed to be shifting to a "coaching" direction.
None of that prepared me for the lessons and challenges of actually coaching.
First, did you know, that no matter how much or how little money a client may have paid, they may not do any of the assignments you give them?
I know! My ego had no idea what to make of that. In my mind, I had found something that works for me. So metaphorically, it's like I've found a shortcut to get from Epcot to the World Showcase but while I'm waiving people to that special door, they're telling me, "No thanks I want to walk past 'O Canada'" or "If I walk past Mexico, I can buy a churro."
It feels like I am almost constantly thinking, "What?" "What did you say?" "How should I respond to that? What do I say?"
Not to mention nearly constantly dis-identifying with the situation and clearing on any feelings that may come up.
At the end of my own coaching program (where I was first being coached,) I went to a retreat and met other people who had been in the same program. We talked, as people do, and the subject of "good" coaches and "bad" coaches came up. I am firm believer in the Law of Attraction. I have had horrible moments where hideous words came out of someone I loved and, although there seemed to be no stimulus to cause those exact words, the words were speaking directly to my own negative or limiting beliefs. I've heard the psychological explanation for why they may have been said, but I need no explanation as to why they hit my target so well. I attracted them. I needed to hear them to begin the work to pop the swollen ugly pimple of pain the belief was causing in my life. I have experienced both the good and the bad of the Law of Attraction. I have witnessed it. So when it comes to the question of a "good" coach or a "bad" coach, I know there is no such thing. There is only the coach you attracted into your life. It's up to you to harvest everything there is to be had from the relationship.
The same is true with my clients. I am dedicated and enthusiastic about doing the best job I can do, both for them, and for me. I knew all along that becoming a coach would also support my own efforts and I would learn new things. I have already encountered materials I have never seen before as well as clearing methods to which I had never before been exposed. Honestly, it's a great thing.
I have always worn several hats, though, and one of my other jobs is that of a media technician. One of the things I do is transfer VHS tapes to DVD. It's so simple. You put the VHS tape in the VCR. Take the outgoing cords and feed them into a DVD deck with a burner. Start everything up and 9 times out of 10, it just happens. The tape plays. The DVD deck receives and a couple of hours later, I burn and finalize a DVD. Clockwork.
People don't work like that. I mean, I knew that. Yet here I am saying it. So I must have needed a lesson about it as well. When you drop into someone's life once a week, have a conversation, give them some information and some suggestions; there are a lot of different outcomes that can manifest one week later. You probably could build a mathematic equation around it, but it contains at least two unpredictable variables. Me and the client. As human beings, we are mobile biospheres affected by even more variables: physical wellbeing, emotional mood, blood sugar, hunger, whatever has happened during our individual days .... A lot more than simply, this VHS tape won't play in this machine, I'll have to try another.
The other day I was talking to my "accountability partner" (aka a friend who is also going through the coaching certification program.) He mentions one of the "outcomes" with his client that I would never have foreseen or predicted. As I ask him questions and ask him what he's going to do, at one point he says "I'll have fun with it."
Fun with it? At this point, I feel like a juggler who never sees all three balls in action at once. One has always just hit the floor. At the same time, I am constantly forced to remind myself I am not in control of the balls. I am not supposed to be in control of the balls nor should I want to be. These balls are actually human beings and can decide whether they want to fly and where they want that flight to take them. I'm just the travel agent handing out information and any special tips I can give when they head somewhere I've already been.
Fun with it.
I've been so busy trying to be a good life coach, I forgot the most essential thing.
To just be.
Joe Vitale says to dare something worthy and I've done that. I suppose I hadn't considered how often I'd be holding my feelings of inadequacy back as if with a lion tamer's whip and chair while guiding audience members to a door.
"I decided I don't want to walk through that door."
"Wait a minute. What?"
"Let me set this down for a second."
"What did you say?"
Fun with it.
I'm not having fun with it yet, but I think maybe I can get there from here.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Change & Why I Love to Do the Quizzes on Facebook
I'm training to be a life coach. The path to certification is one where I am coached to coach. I am taught a curriculum or methodology. I pass it on to others. It is a coaching method that is largely based on Joe Vitale's vision of the Law of Attraction in which there are five steps to achieving your goals. You must be crystal clear on what you don't want. Crystal clear on what you do want. You need to become aware of the limiting beliefs you have that may be preventing you from achieving your goals. For instance, perhaps you would like to earn more money, but you believe money is the root of all evil. Step three is to identify and clear limiting beliefs. "Clear," meaning to stop identifying with the belief.
At the moment, my mind is distracted by step three, but I can't leave you hanging and simply list three items out of a list intended to be five. Steps four and five are to act as if you are already living the life you desire and to let go of your attachment to the outcome. Stop worrying how it will happen and when it will happen and simply look for the inspired actions you can take to help make it happen.
*So this week, one of the assignments I am assigned to give my guinea pig clients ... (I call them that because I am coaching them and they are not paying. Something within my limiting beliefs or moral fiber won't allow me to ask someone to pay me money for something I am giving them at nearly the same time I am receiving it. In my eyes, I am not yet a coach, I am more of a coach-elect.)
Anyway, so one of this week's assignments was to list three words to describe yourself. Go into great detail as to why you chose each word and why it is important to you. I was so startled by the very first word that came out of my first client's mouth I can't even remember accurately what she said. It began with a "d" and it was a very negative word. My best guess is "depressed."
I'll spot you one. If I were doing the same assignment, the first word I would use to describe myself is "authentic." Partly because I've had a couple people use it about me and I liked it, but partly because I think it does describe me. For me, authentic takes in all of my human foibles and dresses it up in a positive dress. I'm not stupid or clumsy, over-enthusiastic or naive. I'm authentic. I'm not lying when I say these things in a blog. I'm simply serving up my life in the hopes it will make somebody else feel better. A sort of "I made my mistakes so you don't have to" thing, I guess.
The minute that "d" word came out of her mouth. Even as my mind was spinning, telling me I can't tell her who to be, how to feel or how to behave, the words "no, no, no, no, no, no" are spilling from my lips.
I said, "Don't choose a negative word to describe yourself. Choose words for who you want to be, not who you already think you are."
In my own experience that is a place where we repeatedly let ourselves down. Let's say we want to be a kind person. When we are in a position to voice "I am a kind person," we remember an instant when we weren't so kind. Maybe it was even THE horrible instance that inspired us to be kinder in the first place. We remember that moment and the best we can say about ourselves is "I try to be kind." More likely we say something like, "I can be mean." Or "Sometimes I'm a bitch."
"I'm generous."
"Oh, but I passed by a man on the street the other day playing a saxophone and I didn't drop a dollar into his hat."
"I try to be generous, but sometimes I'm too lazy to even check if I have money."
Yes, it's a little like me saying I'm not a coach, I'm only a coach-elect.
When will you be able to tell yourself you are the person you want to be? How can you ever become that person if you can't voice it? If you're waiting for perfection, keep in mind it never arrives. In his book At Zero, Joe Vitale talks of one of his mentors, Dr. Hew Len getting angry at a complete stranger at a bus stop. Vitale himself talks about how he is continually clearing his limiting beliefs.
You will never be perfect.
I noticed this phenomenon in myself about a year ago. The only definitive positive attribute I could give myself was "I'm trying." I guess I noticed it right in the middle of a Facebook quiz, struggling with which answer to give. Where I've come from. Or where I want to be. So what I did was I started taking every Facebook quiz I spotted, from which Lord of the Rings character are you to What decade should you have lived in and in every quiz, I answer for my best self. I answer from the person I want to be, not the person I struggled to overcome.
We struggle with visualizing ourself as having achieved the emotional growth we were seeking. At the same time, once again in my experience, we don't understand what comes with that growth. We don't understand the true nature of change.
Over the years, I have been a lot of people. What I mean by that is, I have always struggled with life. I have been a tenacious fighter. If I don't like a situation and believe I can do something to change it, I won't give up until I have changed it. The upside to that is I can relate to almost anybody's struggles. Not everybody's. But a lot of people's. At some point, when I was trying to empathize with someone else's point of view, I realized I could understand because I had once felt that way myself. Yet some critical demon or way of thinking had been abolished in me and I could no longer touch how that person felt. It had become an intellectual exercise rather than an emotional one.
What we don't understand about change is simply that. We will change.
It's like we think we will stay exactly the same, but we'll have some new skills or armor. We think we will be me + what I learned. Really it's more like driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. You can't see San Francisco Bay when you're standing at a rest stop along the Grapevine. Your position, in this case physically, has changed.
Please, please, please, don't let that be a source of fear. I'm not suggesting you will be replaced by a changeling. I guess what I'm trying to say is it gets easier. It gets easier because when you set down a lot of your baggage, you really do set it down. Rather than having to reinvent the wheel or start at position negative 20, you pick up where you left off.
They say the secret of a good cast iron frying pan is the seasoning it picks up over time with use. I kind of think that is part of our secret as well.
*used with client's permission
At the moment, my mind is distracted by step three, but I can't leave you hanging and simply list three items out of a list intended to be five. Steps four and five are to act as if you are already living the life you desire and to let go of your attachment to the outcome. Stop worrying how it will happen and when it will happen and simply look for the inspired actions you can take to help make it happen.
*So this week, one of the assignments I am assigned to give my guinea pig clients ... (I call them that because I am coaching them and they are not paying. Something within my limiting beliefs or moral fiber won't allow me to ask someone to pay me money for something I am giving them at nearly the same time I am receiving it. In my eyes, I am not yet a coach, I am more of a coach-elect.)
Anyway, so one of this week's assignments was to list three words to describe yourself. Go into great detail as to why you chose each word and why it is important to you. I was so startled by the very first word that came out of my first client's mouth I can't even remember accurately what she said. It began with a "d" and it was a very negative word. My best guess is "depressed."
I'll spot you one. If I were doing the same assignment, the first word I would use to describe myself is "authentic." Partly because I've had a couple people use it about me and I liked it, but partly because I think it does describe me. For me, authentic takes in all of my human foibles and dresses it up in a positive dress. I'm not stupid or clumsy, over-enthusiastic or naive. I'm authentic. I'm not lying when I say these things in a blog. I'm simply serving up my life in the hopes it will make somebody else feel better. A sort of "I made my mistakes so you don't have to" thing, I guess.
The minute that "d" word came out of her mouth. Even as my mind was spinning, telling me I can't tell her who to be, how to feel or how to behave, the words "no, no, no, no, no, no" are spilling from my lips.
I said, "Don't choose a negative word to describe yourself. Choose words for who you want to be, not who you already think you are."
In my own experience that is a place where we repeatedly let ourselves down. Let's say we want to be a kind person. When we are in a position to voice "I am a kind person," we remember an instant when we weren't so kind. Maybe it was even THE horrible instance that inspired us to be kinder in the first place. We remember that moment and the best we can say about ourselves is "I try to be kind." More likely we say something like, "I can be mean." Or "Sometimes I'm a bitch."
"I'm generous."
"Oh, but I passed by a man on the street the other day playing a saxophone and I didn't drop a dollar into his hat."
"I try to be generous, but sometimes I'm too lazy to even check if I have money."
Yes, it's a little like me saying I'm not a coach, I'm only a coach-elect.
When will you be able to tell yourself you are the person you want to be? How can you ever become that person if you can't voice it? If you're waiting for perfection, keep in mind it never arrives. In his book At Zero, Joe Vitale talks of one of his mentors, Dr. Hew Len getting angry at a complete stranger at a bus stop. Vitale himself talks about how he is continually clearing his limiting beliefs.
You will never be perfect.
I noticed this phenomenon in myself about a year ago. The only definitive positive attribute I could give myself was "I'm trying." I guess I noticed it right in the middle of a Facebook quiz, struggling with which answer to give. Where I've come from. Or where I want to be. So what I did was I started taking every Facebook quiz I spotted, from which Lord of the Rings character are you to What decade should you have lived in and in every quiz, I answer for my best self. I answer from the person I want to be, not the person I struggled to overcome.
We struggle with visualizing ourself as having achieved the emotional growth we were seeking. At the same time, once again in my experience, we don't understand what comes with that growth. We don't understand the true nature of change.
Over the years, I have been a lot of people. What I mean by that is, I have always struggled with life. I have been a tenacious fighter. If I don't like a situation and believe I can do something to change it, I won't give up until I have changed it. The upside to that is I can relate to almost anybody's struggles. Not everybody's. But a lot of people's. At some point, when I was trying to empathize with someone else's point of view, I realized I could understand because I had once felt that way myself. Yet some critical demon or way of thinking had been abolished in me and I could no longer touch how that person felt. It had become an intellectual exercise rather than an emotional one.
What we don't understand about change is simply that. We will change.
It's like we think we will stay exactly the same, but we'll have some new skills or armor. We think we will be me + what I learned. Really it's more like driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. You can't see San Francisco Bay when you're standing at a rest stop along the Grapevine. Your position, in this case physically, has changed.
Please, please, please, don't let that be a source of fear. I'm not suggesting you will be replaced by a changeling. I guess what I'm trying to say is it gets easier. It gets easier because when you set down a lot of your baggage, you really do set it down. Rather than having to reinvent the wheel or start at position negative 20, you pick up where you left off.
They say the secret of a good cast iron frying pan is the seasoning it picks up over time with use. I kind of think that is part of our secret as well.
*used with client's permission
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
The Law of Attraction and Attachment
I fell in love with reading at the age of six and by the sixth grade, I wanted to be a writer. When I begin to read a fresh book, I feel this intoxicating combination of well being and anticipation. I'm not sure if what I wanted in the beginning was the ability to have that feeling available on demand by simply writing it into existence or I simply loved the sound and flavor of words and the combination of them as they trickled out of my mind and onto a page. Whatever reason brought me to the craft, I have discovered I have some degree of talent in it, but my real strength seems to lie in my ability to set aside worries about making a fool of myself and being able to share the honest, dirty details of what it is like to be me. Because whatever feelings I have when I am going through one of life's challenges, chances are you have felt it too.
2014 was going to be "our year." I believed it was going to be the year when I came "home" to my soul mate and love of my life. I thought I had found my family, the ones I had always dreamt about and wanted, in his family. That imploded in July of 2013 on a sad beach in Northern New Zealand where we both slipped, weren't our best selves, and never recovered. Officially, we are no longer friends. I still cry about it. Yet, I know that break up was one of the best things to ever happen to me. It changed my life.
I had known about the Law of Attraction before the relationship. In fact, I thought I had "manifested" the relationship through a Vision Board. You see, the first item I had put on the Vision Board was that I would like to take a trip to New Zealand in a manner that would make the very long and expensive flight seem manageable and comfortable. By the time I had fallen in love with him, I knew he was from New Zealand, but we had talked for months on the internet before I noticed his location and simply felt sad that I would probably never get to meet him in person. I can't imagine anyone feeling more like Cinderella than I did when I took that first plane ride in 2012. Prior to that, I had manifested a cat.
For years I had admired a picture I had taped in a notebook of a man with a cat lovingly rubbing him under his chin. The cat was rubbing the man's chin, not the other way around. So when I adopted a stray neighborhood cat and he rubbed my chin, I could have chalked it up to coincidence, but instead I got goosebumps and realized my cat had come home. The same way I felt standing on Auckland's Mt. Eden with the man I loved. The man I felt sure was my soul mate. Turns out, he probably was. They just aren't always as fun as Disney would lead you to believe. At our best, mine made me feel the most loved I had ever felt in my life. At our worst, mine became a mirror where I could see all the worst and best of me and sent me to a place where I could no longer be complacent about a life where I was essentially boxed in by my limiting beliefs and my past.
Have you noticed? While staying at a friend's house, particularly one you are in love with, presents possibly the most comfortable foreign travel experience you can have, my vision board did not mention a man, a lover, a soul mate or a relationship. It mentioned a trip to New Zealand. I got one. The best one I could possibly have.
Before the Law of Attraction, I had heard about Creative Visualization from my father. You see, when I was ten years old and my dad needed to pay off my parents' mortgage, his uncle died. I had never met the uncle, but he had left my dad a portion of the proceeds from the sale of his ranch. Apparently before he had a ranch, my great uncle had visualized the one he wanted in great detail. He even constructed a scale model. When my father first visited the ranch, he was stunned by how close the likeness between the model and the reality was.
That's how we tend to think the Law of Attraction will be. As if we are Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise and we simply need to the tell the replicator what we want. In my experience it doesn't work that way. In fact, I'm certain that, even though my great uncle's experience does look that way, there is a lot more to the story that we don't know. Things he didn't ask for, standing right alongside those that he did, but I'm equally certain he ended up grateful for both.
I sold that house my father paid off with his inheritance this year. When it first went on the market, I was Law of Attraction-ing all over it. In a short time, I had three offers. One was over asking.
"It works! It works! It works!"
Then the sale fell through. In a rather ugly way too. But in a short time I got another offer. Which fell through in an even shorter amount of time than the first one. I went to the third meeting to receive offers trying not to feel anything. It turned out the house sold to the buyer from the very first offer. A little time had passed. I know the terms this time ended up a little more advantageous for me and I am confident they did for the buyer as well. I'm not sure in what way or how, but I'm certain they did. Because that is the way the Law of Attraction works. In my experience, it may not give you the carbon copy of what you wanted, but it will deliver a mixture of exactly what you wanted wrapped up in exactly what you needed.
There are five steps to take in the Law of Attraction. First, you have to be very very clear about what you don't want. Second, of course, you have to be equally as clear about what you do want. For most people, I suspect those are the only two steps they take. Step three is to identify whatever limiting beliefs you have that are getting in the way of you having whatever it is in the first place.
That trip to New Zealand? When I said comfortable, all I had been imagining was flying Business Class, which for the record, I did. The Law of Attraction upgraded my ticket. Remember the cat I manifested? I can recognize now that what I was really wishing for was love. It turns out I had an enormous amount of energy and hideous beliefs about the subject of love and worthiness. In a way, I always knew it. At the same time, it took two trips to New Zealand and a horrendous break up to shine a light on it.
In step three, you aren't just supposed to identify those limiting beliefs. You are supposed to "clear" on them. They are sneaky little gremlins who patrol your subconscious and prevent you from having the life of your dreams. Shining a light on them. Becoming aware of them. Performing little prayers or rituals about them. Letting go of them. In other words, "clearing" on them, diminishes their power over you. You see another reason you don't get the "replicator" version of the Law of Attraction is because, all of those things you have limiting beliefs about? You probably don't just want them. You believe you need them. You believe they are the difference between you having a successful and happy life or not. The Law of Attraction essentially delivers "you" back to you. So if you need them with the sting of desperation, in my experience, it delivers opportunities to learn the lessons you needed to learn in order to slay the limiting beliefs you failed to abolish earlier. I gave a lot of positivity on a cat and a trip to New Zealand along with a whole lot of energy about love. I received a cat, a trip to New Zealand and a whole lot of love and energy about love.
It would be wrong if I didn't tell you what steps four and five are. The fourth thing is that you need to act as if it has already happened. Joe Vitale calls it "Nevillization," in honor of Neville Goddard. You get what you give, right? The more you can summon up the emotion and energy that you already have what you want, the more it will be returned to you. The fifth thing is to let it go. That doesn't mean stop wanting it. It doesn't mean stop thinking about it. It means to let go of any attachment to how it will be delivered to you and in what time frame. Remember, the sale of my parents' house was more beneficial to me at a later time than I originally wanted. Remember, my version of comfortable was a better reclining seat. The Law of Attraction's version of comfortable was a man and his family who treated me kindly and showed me love.
Let go of your attachment to the outcome. You may be in for a bumpy ride while you learn a few lessons about your own demons if you haven't cleared enough, but in the long run, you will be rewarded with better things than you wished for in the first place.
It turns out 2014 is "my" year. I come "home" to the house and life I am building to my heart's specifications. I even come home to the "love of my life." After all, don't they say that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else? Down the road, I wouldn't mind going another round or two with a soul mate. In fact, I'd be delighted. While it is good, it is wonderful and if it should go sour once again, the bi-products hurt like hell, but they are the best gifts you can ever receive and you get to keep them forever.
2014 was going to be "our year." I believed it was going to be the year when I came "home" to my soul mate and love of my life. I thought I had found my family, the ones I had always dreamt about and wanted, in his family. That imploded in July of 2013 on a sad beach in Northern New Zealand where we both slipped, weren't our best selves, and never recovered. Officially, we are no longer friends. I still cry about it. Yet, I know that break up was one of the best things to ever happen to me. It changed my life.
I had known about the Law of Attraction before the relationship. In fact, I thought I had "manifested" the relationship through a Vision Board. You see, the first item I had put on the Vision Board was that I would like to take a trip to New Zealand in a manner that would make the very long and expensive flight seem manageable and comfortable. By the time I had fallen in love with him, I knew he was from New Zealand, but we had talked for months on the internet before I noticed his location and simply felt sad that I would probably never get to meet him in person. I can't imagine anyone feeling more like Cinderella than I did when I took that first plane ride in 2012. Prior to that, I had manifested a cat.
For years I had admired a picture I had taped in a notebook of a man with a cat lovingly rubbing him under his chin. The cat was rubbing the man's chin, not the other way around. So when I adopted a stray neighborhood cat and he rubbed my chin, I could have chalked it up to coincidence, but instead I got goosebumps and realized my cat had come home. The same way I felt standing on Auckland's Mt. Eden with the man I loved. The man I felt sure was my soul mate. Turns out, he probably was. They just aren't always as fun as Disney would lead you to believe. At our best, mine made me feel the most loved I had ever felt in my life. At our worst, mine became a mirror where I could see all the worst and best of me and sent me to a place where I could no longer be complacent about a life where I was essentially boxed in by my limiting beliefs and my past.
Have you noticed? While staying at a friend's house, particularly one you are in love with, presents possibly the most comfortable foreign travel experience you can have, my vision board did not mention a man, a lover, a soul mate or a relationship. It mentioned a trip to New Zealand. I got one. The best one I could possibly have.
Before the Law of Attraction, I had heard about Creative Visualization from my father. You see, when I was ten years old and my dad needed to pay off my parents' mortgage, his uncle died. I had never met the uncle, but he had left my dad a portion of the proceeds from the sale of his ranch. Apparently before he had a ranch, my great uncle had visualized the one he wanted in great detail. He even constructed a scale model. When my father first visited the ranch, he was stunned by how close the likeness between the model and the reality was.
That's how we tend to think the Law of Attraction will be. As if we are Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise and we simply need to the tell the replicator what we want. In my experience it doesn't work that way. In fact, I'm certain that, even though my great uncle's experience does look that way, there is a lot more to the story that we don't know. Things he didn't ask for, standing right alongside those that he did, but I'm equally certain he ended up grateful for both.
I sold that house my father paid off with his inheritance this year. When it first went on the market, I was Law of Attraction-ing all over it. In a short time, I had three offers. One was over asking.
"It works! It works! It works!"
Then the sale fell through. In a rather ugly way too. But in a short time I got another offer. Which fell through in an even shorter amount of time than the first one. I went to the third meeting to receive offers trying not to feel anything. It turned out the house sold to the buyer from the very first offer. A little time had passed. I know the terms this time ended up a little more advantageous for me and I am confident they did for the buyer as well. I'm not sure in what way or how, but I'm certain they did. Because that is the way the Law of Attraction works. In my experience, it may not give you the carbon copy of what you wanted, but it will deliver a mixture of exactly what you wanted wrapped up in exactly what you needed.
There are five steps to take in the Law of Attraction. First, you have to be very very clear about what you don't want. Second, of course, you have to be equally as clear about what you do want. For most people, I suspect those are the only two steps they take. Step three is to identify whatever limiting beliefs you have that are getting in the way of you having whatever it is in the first place.
That trip to New Zealand? When I said comfortable, all I had been imagining was flying Business Class, which for the record, I did. The Law of Attraction upgraded my ticket. Remember the cat I manifested? I can recognize now that what I was really wishing for was love. It turns out I had an enormous amount of energy and hideous beliefs about the subject of love and worthiness. In a way, I always knew it. At the same time, it took two trips to New Zealand and a horrendous break up to shine a light on it.
In step three, you aren't just supposed to identify those limiting beliefs. You are supposed to "clear" on them. They are sneaky little gremlins who patrol your subconscious and prevent you from having the life of your dreams. Shining a light on them. Becoming aware of them. Performing little prayers or rituals about them. Letting go of them. In other words, "clearing" on them, diminishes their power over you. You see another reason you don't get the "replicator" version of the Law of Attraction is because, all of those things you have limiting beliefs about? You probably don't just want them. You believe you need them. You believe they are the difference between you having a successful and happy life or not. The Law of Attraction essentially delivers "you" back to you. So if you need them with the sting of desperation, in my experience, it delivers opportunities to learn the lessons you needed to learn in order to slay the limiting beliefs you failed to abolish earlier. I gave a lot of positivity on a cat and a trip to New Zealand along with a whole lot of energy about love. I received a cat, a trip to New Zealand and a whole lot of love and energy about love.
It would be wrong if I didn't tell you what steps four and five are. The fourth thing is that you need to act as if it has already happened. Joe Vitale calls it "Nevillization," in honor of Neville Goddard. You get what you give, right? The more you can summon up the emotion and energy that you already have what you want, the more it will be returned to you. The fifth thing is to let it go. That doesn't mean stop wanting it. It doesn't mean stop thinking about it. It means to let go of any attachment to how it will be delivered to you and in what time frame. Remember, the sale of my parents' house was more beneficial to me at a later time than I originally wanted. Remember, my version of comfortable was a better reclining seat. The Law of Attraction's version of comfortable was a man and his family who treated me kindly and showed me love.
Let go of your attachment to the outcome. You may be in for a bumpy ride while you learn a few lessons about your own demons if you haven't cleared enough, but in the long run, you will be rewarded with better things than you wished for in the first place.
It turns out 2014 is "my" year. I come "home" to the house and life I am building to my heart's specifications. I even come home to the "love of my life." After all, don't they say that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else? Down the road, I wouldn't mind going another round or two with a soul mate. In fact, I'd be delighted. While it is good, it is wonderful and if it should go sour once again, the bi-products hurt like hell, but they are the best gifts you can ever receive and you get to keep them forever.
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Cleaning Up Our Acts
Over the weekend I went to an Achieve Today Sundance Retreat in Provo, Utah. It is easily one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. In addition to hearing excellent inspiring presentations by some of the programs best life coaches, I got to meet one of my idols, Joe Vitale in person. Not just in a fangirl, "I love you Joe. Could you please sign a copy of your book for me?" sort of way, but he spent enough time with us, shoulder to shoulder, I got to glimpse a little bit of his humanity. In other words, I got to see a little bit of the "Joe" in me and a little bit of the "me" in Joe. I got to realize and appreciate all of the reasons why he is my idol in the first place. All of this happened while I was surrounded by other Achieve Today students. Awhile back, after hearing about a World-of-Warcraft-loving-friend's Blizzcon experience, I told them I wished I could find whatever it was I needed to find in order to feel like I had found "my people." This weekend I did that. I met people I know I will be friends with for life. I just can't say enough good things about the experience. It is easily one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.
*******************
Sometimes, maybe after a retreat or a workshop, we wake up, look around, and realize it has been as if we have been living our lives in a drunken stupor. We're thirty pounds larger. Our debt is 20% deeper. We look at our lives and we don't like what we see going on, but we have no idea how we got to this place or what to do about it. I have had that moment so many times in my life. I used to view it as a moment of shame, like I was suddenly witnessing what everyone else could see. Angela Estes sitting in a pile of my own discarded trash, spittle on my chin, cake crumbs in my lap with only cats left for friends. (Isn't it funny how we can overdramatize everything?)
Now I see it for what I believe it is. Opportunity knocking. As Joe Vitale or any one of the life coaches at Achieve Today would say, "in order to know what you want, you have to know what you don't want." Those moments display what you don't want as if on a platter before you. In other words, I don't want to be sitting in a pile of trash; I want to wipe off the spittle, vacuum up the crumbs and, while my cat Peabody and I have a relationship that is somehow more than owner and pet, I need human friends in my life. Those moments are the crossroads where we need to be our own advocates. We need to be a little bit selfish, focus on our needs and our wants and sometimes, make some life altering changes.
It's a tricky situation because I believe it is selfishness that put us on that pile of rubble in the first place. It is looking at life and thinking ours isn't good enough and will never be good enough. It is receiving dessert and wondering why we always get the smallest slice. It is sitting at a large table of people and becoming offended when the waiter misses us and forgets to ask what we want to drink. It is becoming estranged from our life partner because we focus on how they have hurt us rather than asking ourselves how we have hurt them. In short, it is picturing ourselves as "the victim."
I didn't know it at the time, but my father once told me a story that perfectly embodies what I am trying to say. My father was a Nuclear Scheduler at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Like anybody, he had preferences as to his work hours. He had a bit of a longish commute and used a Mare Island "commute specific" bus to make life easier. During one extended time period, when he had to work the swing shift instead of his preferred day shift and he was having to drive the entire commute himself, he was feeling a little put out and essentially while he wouldn't say it, I will. He became "the victim." In order to make his situation more bearable, he started stopping at Dairy Queen on the way home and buying a milk shake for the rest of the drive. Then, of course, he woke one morning and had problems buttoning the top button of his pants and swore off ice cream forever. Until the next time.
I think victimhood is the ground floor to the downward elevator called "bad decisions." We feel bad. We feel bad and we want to feel better RIGHT NOW. We demand instant gratification. We may not tell ourselves we deserve to be happy or have the life of our dreams, but it is easy to say, "I've had a hard time here. I deserve that designer pair of shoes." How can we more easily tell a bad decision from a good decision? A bad decision feeds the moment, whereas a good decision feeds the lifetime.
That's a tricky situation too because I believe the way to escape telling yourself you're a victim is to ground yourself in the moment. Because really, you may think you are reacting to something in the moment when you're victimizing yourself, but aren't you really just revisiting a long list of grievances? All of those bad things happened in your past, but when we are wearing a victim's mindset, we see them constantly reoccurring whether they truly are or not. In other words, we spend our days looking to be offended. For instance, let's take that poor busy, harried waiter trying to take drink orders for a large table of people. The victim's mindset can make you actually believe that out of a table of twenty or more people he singled you out to slight as not being worthy enough of choosing a beverage! (Isn't it funny how important we can make ourselves while telling ourselves we are unimportant?) No one at that table knows all your baggage and judges you for it. It is YOU who knows your baggage and judges you for it. While you judge yourself for it, you believe you are undeserving. While you believe you are undeserving, your heart aches like a cut with dirt in it, but instead of actually cleaning it out, you buy designer handbags and milkshakes to bandage the wound and you wonder why it is still festering time and time again.
You need to stop. Take a big breath in. As Janeen Detrick, an executive coach at Achieve Today, frequently suggests "Touch something around you and tell it thank you." Perhaps the chair you are sitting on. Breathe in the air of the moment deeply and slowly. Feel the way the chair is supporting you. Is there a cushion? Is it soft and envelopes you? Or is it cushion-less, but strong, solid and durable? Really notice everything that surrounds you. Rather than always noticing the sudden burst of car alarms or horns honking, what about the birds singing or the breezes whispering in between them. Why not thank the chair for being there to allow you to sit rather than stand? Why not bathe yourself in the gratitude of all the beautiful sounds, smells and sights that surround you. As Eckhart Tolle says, "The past has no power over the present moment." Peace and piece of mind are always waiting for you, grounded in the present moment.
Fully present and in NOW, you have a better chance of making good decisions. The discord and discomfort of victimhood frequently makes us feel like we have to act hastily. "I can't bear this and have to bandage this bad old thing RIGHT NOW!." A calm mind sees choices and decisions as simply a variety of paths and opportunities. There is no right one that is a cure all. There is no wrong one that destroys your life. Every choice is either a blessing and a joy or a lesson learned which can help you better fine tune your future choices.
Let's think again about my father and his swing shift commute. There's nothing wrong with him stopping at Dairy Queen on the way home and having a milk shake. I'm a firm believer in occasionally treating yourself to wonderful tasty things like ice cream. In fact, I had a milk shake just last night myself. But if you treat yourself like that every day, you can not only gain unwanted weight and damage your health, you can suck the very joy out of a "treat." How many days of milk shakes does it take to strip them right down to habit and routine? Meanwhile, there are so many things he could have chosen to do that could have fed his future rather than just his resentment about the drive home. He could have:
1. Listened to a book on tape that would have entertained him and made the time seem like nothing. It would have not only lightened the trip home, but the trip to work as well.
2. Listened to a book on tape that could have taught him skills to use at his current job or towards getting a different one.
3. As the only one in the car, he could have chosen to make a stop each day to enjoy the view or take a little time to meditate.
4. As the only one in the car, he could have chosen a variety of routes and explore different and new sceneries.
5. Even if he couldn't have ridden on the commuter bus he used normally, he could have pursued creating a network of friends who could trade off driving and riding when they were stuck on the other shifts.
.... and those are just a few off the top of my head.
The first step to truly "cleaning up our acts" is learning to make choices from a calm mind grounded in the present moment free of victimhood and past resentments.
That's a tricky situation too because I believe the way to escape telling yourself you're a victim is to ground yourself in the moment. Because really, you may think you are reacting to something in the moment when you're victimizing yourself, but aren't you really just revisiting a long list of grievances? All of those bad things happened in your past, but when we are wearing a victim's mindset, we see them constantly reoccurring whether they truly are or not. In other words, we spend our days looking to be offended. For instance, let's take that poor busy, harried waiter trying to take drink orders for a large table of people. The victim's mindset can make you actually believe that out of a table of twenty or more people he singled you out to slight as not being worthy enough of choosing a beverage! (Isn't it funny how important we can make ourselves while telling ourselves we are unimportant?) No one at that table knows all your baggage and judges you for it. It is YOU who knows your baggage and judges you for it. While you judge yourself for it, you believe you are undeserving. While you believe you are undeserving, your heart aches like a cut with dirt in it, but instead of actually cleaning it out, you buy designer handbags and milkshakes to bandage the wound and you wonder why it is still festering time and time again.
You need to stop. Take a big breath in. As Janeen Detrick, an executive coach at Achieve Today, frequently suggests "Touch something around you and tell it thank you." Perhaps the chair you are sitting on. Breathe in the air of the moment deeply and slowly. Feel the way the chair is supporting you. Is there a cushion? Is it soft and envelopes you? Or is it cushion-less, but strong, solid and durable? Really notice everything that surrounds you. Rather than always noticing the sudden burst of car alarms or horns honking, what about the birds singing or the breezes whispering in between them. Why not thank the chair for being there to allow you to sit rather than stand? Why not bathe yourself in the gratitude of all the beautiful sounds, smells and sights that surround you. As Eckhart Tolle says, "The past has no power over the present moment." Peace and piece of mind are always waiting for you, grounded in the present moment.
Fully present and in NOW, you have a better chance of making good decisions. The discord and discomfort of victimhood frequently makes us feel like we have to act hastily. "I can't bear this and have to bandage this bad old thing RIGHT NOW!." A calm mind sees choices and decisions as simply a variety of paths and opportunities. There is no right one that is a cure all. There is no wrong one that destroys your life. Every choice is either a blessing and a joy or a lesson learned which can help you better fine tune your future choices.
Let's think again about my father and his swing shift commute. There's nothing wrong with him stopping at Dairy Queen on the way home and having a milk shake. I'm a firm believer in occasionally treating yourself to wonderful tasty things like ice cream. In fact, I had a milk shake just last night myself. But if you treat yourself like that every day, you can not only gain unwanted weight and damage your health, you can suck the very joy out of a "treat." How many days of milk shakes does it take to strip them right down to habit and routine? Meanwhile, there are so many things he could have chosen to do that could have fed his future rather than just his resentment about the drive home. He could have:
1. Listened to a book on tape that would have entertained him and made the time seem like nothing. It would have not only lightened the trip home, but the trip to work as well.
2. Listened to a book on tape that could have taught him skills to use at his current job or towards getting a different one.
3. As the only one in the car, he could have chosen to make a stop each day to enjoy the view or take a little time to meditate.
4. As the only one in the car, he could have chosen a variety of routes and explore different and new sceneries.
5. Even if he couldn't have ridden on the commuter bus he used normally, he could have pursued creating a network of friends who could trade off driving and riding when they were stuck on the other shifts.
.... and those are just a few off the top of my head.
The first step to truly "cleaning up our acts" is learning to make choices from a calm mind grounded in the present moment free of victimhood and past resentments.
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