That isn't such a big deal. I took a walk the day before too. With a friend. At about 2:30 in the afternoon. The big deal is that I took one of those things I've been meaning to do and did it. I don't know about you and your life, but in my life, I seem to see significant changes every half year or so. One of my more recent changes is in my sleep patterns. I fall asleep pretty early most nights, sometimes waking up in the insomniac time zones of the night only to realize the reason I'm awake is because I've already gotten enough sleep. Seven hours is seven hours whether you wake at 7:00am or 4:00am. For a week or two now I have felt twitchy. It's as if my body is trying to tell me I have been neglecting it. I keep hearing friends who talk about morning walks. They sound really good, but the time always seems to slip away leaving me once again ready for bed without having ever taken that walk.
Not only did I take a walk, by myself, but I took it at 6:30am.
For the first three blocks I was still on the fence as to whether I wanted to walk or not. The air was cold enough I was still a bit chilly even in my sweat clothes. I had only walked by my neighbor's house before my left foot felt like I had extended it too far and I had a sharp pain in the arch. I usually wear Chuck's. If I'm not in my slip on Converse shoes, I'm probably barefoot. I've never understood how shoes I essentially "live in" can suddenly become uncomfortable just because I do something a little out of the normal like take a walk or go to a convention or a theme park. I kept walking.
Three more blocks and I'm off my street. I told myself two blocks ago the only reason my left foot hurt is because I'm focusing my attention on it. Think of something else. Listen to the birds. I can feel the cool air in my throat and bronchial passage. I'm unsettled by my breathing becoming a bit more labored and I struggle with my inner critical voice who decides now would be a good time to tell me I'm a loser who never works out and who looks like a potato. My right foot starts to hurt. I keep walking.
Three more blocks. Whether they are now successfully "warmed up" or "stretched out," neither foot hurts anymore. I'm far enough now that going back home and "forgetting this ever happened" is no longer an option. If I cave in and quit early, I will remember. If I succeed and finish my planned route, I will remember. I keep walking.
I walk through the exhaust stream of a car warming up just before I pass my friend's house. My route is roughly based on our walks together. Just past her house is the half way mark. Neither foot hurts and I have warmed up enough that my sweatshirt seems almost unnecessary. I've been walking a slightly wider, more busy street on the border of my neighborhood, now I turn and head into the interior streets. Immediately I notice it is even quieter. It is almost as if I am the only person awake. I feel almost like an intruder. Except for another empty car left running to warm it up, the only other life present is a cat trying to keep warm at the end of a driveway and a crow who seems to want to chase me off his street with his persistent cawing. I pull out my phone, take a picture of the cat and a tree I admire in one of the front yards, and continue walking.
Three more blocks. I'm closer to home than not, but on a different street than I usually use when in my car. Nothing hurts. I'm feeling good and I'm taking in the scenery as I pass it. My inner voice, no longer trying to abuse me, is full of "that house is a pretty color" or "I wonder when they added the extended porch to that house." After another three blocks, my confidence is high, I feel almost like a veteran walker and I can see my house in the distance.
Walking up the steps to my house, I picture myself flopping into a chair and relaxing. As I open the front door, my cat, an even greater creature of habit than myself, is startled by the unusual activity and puffs twice his size. (The front door at my house doesn't usually open before 8am and that is usually after he has requested it verbally in a variety of meows.) Honestly, I don't remember what I did next. I know it wasn't flop in a chair. I kept active. I kept moving. A certain momentum had begun and I seemed reluctant to let it end. What I do remember was how my legs felt the rest of the day. Relaxed, moving smoothly, gracefully. They felt happy about the morning's events.
I think that's how change works. You have to fight past your natural resistances. Your ego/mind wants to protect you and will sling a bunch of abuse at you to discourage you. It can't see any dangers in your comfort zone. It doesn't know that living your life with box-like limitations is very ..... well ..... limiting. If you can distract yourself long enough to get past the initial discomfort and internal naysaying, you surprise yourself by doing things you've never done before. Frequently with ease. You might even actually enjoy yourself. Still, for awhile, the next time will require the same effort. It will require remembering how good my legs felt rather than thinking how cold the air feels or that my left foot has started the journey unhappy again. I know too that, if I can keep this up for four weeks, at the end of that time I will be a walker. It will become a habit. At this point, it is mine to decide whether I want it or not. I'm a big believer in occasionally assessing "what do I want out of life?" and then going out and getting it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to take a walk.
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label change. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
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, June 10, 2014
Change (aka Why I am one of the Luckiest People on the Planet)
A long time ago I had a very sad lunch with a friend I didn't know all that well whose marriage was ending. It was a strange situation in that she had incorporated me into her circle of friends to the point where she felt comfortable asking a very large favor (the one I was being treated to lunch for doing,) but I had always thought of her as a "friend of a friend." "People pleaser" that I am, I did the favor even though it took me more than 50 miles out of my way on my day off.
It wasn't a very fun lunch and the food was not especially memorable. What stays with me is the conversation surrounding her soon to be ex-husband, although we didn't actually know it yet then. The chorus to her complaints was always, "He's changed. Why did he change? I didn't change."
My challenge of the day became how many ways I could think of to tell her, "Change is good. People change. It's a good thing. People are supposed to change."
While I was never sure he meant it as a compliment, my ex-husband used to say to me: "You are constantly reinventing yourself." Now I realize it is probably one of the best and most advantageous things about me. I have embraced change for most of my adult life and I have never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness. The changes my ex-husband witnessed were mostly of the surface variety. He met and married me as a Clerk-Typist working at Mare Island. For a year or two afterwards, I worked as a Secretary and then chose to down size to working part time at a bookstore while I "worked" towards my true passion, writing. Of course that drifted to community college classes and the growth of my other passion, photography. For awhile, I created fine art photography and actually sold it at galleries and shows.
An underlying theme in my choices has always been freedom. Freedom of time. Freedom of choice. The ever present itch for freedom always made me suspect that wedding or product photography would kill the passion inside me. Even if I could think of an outlet for my writing in a pre-Blogger world, chances are copywriting or articles would be equally suspect. The thing that makes the artist starve is their own artistic attitude and an unwillingness to compromise.
I need to take a moment and express my appreciation that I was able to make those changes. I know my ex-husband wasn't happy about them, yet I was lucky enough to do them anyway. I am blessed two fold. First, that I have had wonderful people along the way who enabled me to change, whether they were totally onboard with the idea or not. Second, that I have always embraced change.
You know I don't mean simply the transition from Clerk-Typist to Photographer. Although a lot of my changes do include physical aspects, it is the accompanying emotional aspects for which I am the most grateful.
Let me give you an example of how they actually work in tandem. Somewhere near the end of my marriage, I decided I wanted to learn how to build a computer. My father had recently purchased one put together by a Mare Island retiree and it really didn't seem like that big of a deal. I thought you could fine tune a computer to be more what you wanted or needed if you built one yourself. I thought maybe you could build more computer for less than you might pay otherwise. Mostly, I wanted a good media computer because I was getting sick and tired of discovering new and wonderful music in movies only to find no one "in charge" thought it was worthy of being released on a soundtrack. It might seem like a big leap, from Clerk-Typist to Computer Geek, but when you frame it under "Recording Geek" it might make more sense. Especially if I tell you that a few years earlier I mapped out what I needed to do to transfer reel to reel tape family home recordings onto audio cassette and did the work myself.
Around the same time as when I got the itch to build a computer, my ex-husband's work was buying new computers and selling the old ones for a cheap price to their employees. I saw an opportunity. After several months, a nearly rebuilt computer and several thousand "God dammit's" screamed by me in of all places our living room, he convinced me to pay someone else to build one. Honestly, it was one of the defining reasons I later concluded we were incompatible. See, I may have been born with the self esteem to attempt building my own computer like that, but I lost it for many years along the way. I had already changed nine or ten times just to build up the self esteem to believe I could do that. Finding out that the only reason my re-built computer didn't work as well as the paid for one was because I had underestimated the aspect of Dell propriety software interwoven in the Bios and Windows operating system changed me an eleventh time and probably pushed me towards the self esteem I needed to believe I could get a divorce.
I believe change is unavoidable and by extension an essential component of being alive. Say no to change and you find yourself being an accomplice to a tiny portion of your own demise. Oddly my father was actually a fan of change, or at least the growth of technology, and one of his favorite notions was that of a "paradigm shift." A paradigm shift as explained and paraphrased via Wikipedia is a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. Among my family it morphed into less of a term about science and more of a term about society. We live in times where an individual can actually experience multiple societal paradigm shifts in his own lifetime. Don't believe me? Just think about all of the different ways you have played or recorded music at home and let your brain wander to as many of the accompanying changes that had to happen as you can imagine. Darwin's theory of the Survival of the Fittest was referring not to the strongest as popularly presumed, but the "Most Adaptable to Change." When those societal paradigm shifts occur, those most adaptable to change just bob and weave along with them.
Even the most reluctant to change have it thrust upon them as they age. One day you look at the "Sexiest Man Alive" cover of People magazine and think who the hell is that? You never realize you've been listening to your favorite high school songs for decades until you hear them in some venue calling them "oldies."
Change is good. People change. It's a good thing. People are supposed to change.
Lately I've realized it doesn't come without a price. Perhaps more than one. The one I have encountered recently are the people you leave behind. A lot of people don't choose change and have only the amount that is inevitable. For someone like me, chasing change like a spiritualist chases enlightenment, only I can really grasp how much I've changed. Put it this way, not that long ago the person who was me would have been completely intimidated by the me I am now. She would have noticed my confidence and the ease of my smile. Depending on which earlier sister, she may have been jealous and hated me or she may have wanted to hang out with me and hoped that whatever I had was contagious. I can make that guess, colored with emotional speculations, because I have scattered friends lost along the way. The losses of a paradigm shift between my view of the world and theirs. We transitioned from chatting buddies to strangers who no longer knew what to say to each other. The worst part is that sometimes as we part ways and they are stating their case, I know exactly what they mean. I just no longer feel the same way. I won't lie to you. I have suffered heartbreaking losses this way. Yet it was still worth it. I still say I am one of the luckiest people on the planet.
Did you hear the part about "I never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness?"
The greatest gift my childhood gave me was a model of how I didn't want to behave. My parents had good intentions, but like many, neither the training nor experience to confidently pull off a "No Loss" job. Those losses as well as those wins shaped me into the person I am today, was yesterday and will be tomorrow. It left me with just enough self awareness not to like what I saw and have the drive to change it. Even while I wallowed in unhappiness, my drive pushed, "if it doesn't make you happy, identify the problem and edit it out." Taking in just the portion entitled "adult life," my life has transitioned from a black and white Kansas to the technicolor of Oz.
From jobs to hobbies to learning about the present moment, I have never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness.
It wasn't a very fun lunch and the food was not especially memorable. What stays with me is the conversation surrounding her soon to be ex-husband, although we didn't actually know it yet then. The chorus to her complaints was always, "He's changed. Why did he change? I didn't change."
My challenge of the day became how many ways I could think of to tell her, "Change is good. People change. It's a good thing. People are supposed to change."
While I was never sure he meant it as a compliment, my ex-husband used to say to me: "You are constantly reinventing yourself." Now I realize it is probably one of the best and most advantageous things about me. I have embraced change for most of my adult life and I have never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness. The changes my ex-husband witnessed were mostly of the surface variety. He met and married me as a Clerk-Typist working at Mare Island. For a year or two afterwards, I worked as a Secretary and then chose to down size to working part time at a bookstore while I "worked" towards my true passion, writing. Of course that drifted to community college classes and the growth of my other passion, photography. For awhile, I created fine art photography and actually sold it at galleries and shows.
An underlying theme in my choices has always been freedom. Freedom of time. Freedom of choice. The ever present itch for freedom always made me suspect that wedding or product photography would kill the passion inside me. Even if I could think of an outlet for my writing in a pre-Blogger world, chances are copywriting or articles would be equally suspect. The thing that makes the artist starve is their own artistic attitude and an unwillingness to compromise.
I need to take a moment and express my appreciation that I was able to make those changes. I know my ex-husband wasn't happy about them, yet I was lucky enough to do them anyway. I am blessed two fold. First, that I have had wonderful people along the way who enabled me to change, whether they were totally onboard with the idea or not. Second, that I have always embraced change.
You know I don't mean simply the transition from Clerk-Typist to Photographer. Although a lot of my changes do include physical aspects, it is the accompanying emotional aspects for which I am the most grateful.
Let me give you an example of how they actually work in tandem. Somewhere near the end of my marriage, I decided I wanted to learn how to build a computer. My father had recently purchased one put together by a Mare Island retiree and it really didn't seem like that big of a deal. I thought you could fine tune a computer to be more what you wanted or needed if you built one yourself. I thought maybe you could build more computer for less than you might pay otherwise. Mostly, I wanted a good media computer because I was getting sick and tired of discovering new and wonderful music in movies only to find no one "in charge" thought it was worthy of being released on a soundtrack. It might seem like a big leap, from Clerk-Typist to Computer Geek, but when you frame it under "Recording Geek" it might make more sense. Especially if I tell you that a few years earlier I mapped out what I needed to do to transfer reel to reel tape family home recordings onto audio cassette and did the work myself.
Around the same time as when I got the itch to build a computer, my ex-husband's work was buying new computers and selling the old ones for a cheap price to their employees. I saw an opportunity. After several months, a nearly rebuilt computer and several thousand "God dammit's" screamed by me in of all places our living room, he convinced me to pay someone else to build one. Honestly, it was one of the defining reasons I later concluded we were incompatible. See, I may have been born with the self esteem to attempt building my own computer like that, but I lost it for many years along the way. I had already changed nine or ten times just to build up the self esteem to believe I could do that. Finding out that the only reason my re-built computer didn't work as well as the paid for one was because I had underestimated the aspect of Dell propriety software interwoven in the Bios and Windows operating system changed me an eleventh time and probably pushed me towards the self esteem I needed to believe I could get a divorce.
I believe change is unavoidable and by extension an essential component of being alive. Say no to change and you find yourself being an accomplice to a tiny portion of your own demise. Oddly my father was actually a fan of change, or at least the growth of technology, and one of his favorite notions was that of a "paradigm shift." A paradigm shift as explained and paraphrased via Wikipedia is a change in the basic assumptions, or paradigms, within the ruling theory of science. Among my family it morphed into less of a term about science and more of a term about society. We live in times where an individual can actually experience multiple societal paradigm shifts in his own lifetime. Don't believe me? Just think about all of the different ways you have played or recorded music at home and let your brain wander to as many of the accompanying changes that had to happen as you can imagine. Darwin's theory of the Survival of the Fittest was referring not to the strongest as popularly presumed, but the "Most Adaptable to Change." When those societal paradigm shifts occur, those most adaptable to change just bob and weave along with them.
Even the most reluctant to change have it thrust upon them as they age. One day you look at the "Sexiest Man Alive" cover of People magazine and think who the hell is that? You never realize you've been listening to your favorite high school songs for decades until you hear them in some venue calling them "oldies."
Change is good. People change. It's a good thing. People are supposed to change.
Lately I've realized it doesn't come without a price. Perhaps more than one. The one I have encountered recently are the people you leave behind. A lot of people don't choose change and have only the amount that is inevitable. For someone like me, chasing change like a spiritualist chases enlightenment, only I can really grasp how much I've changed. Put it this way, not that long ago the person who was me would have been completely intimidated by the me I am now. She would have noticed my confidence and the ease of my smile. Depending on which earlier sister, she may have been jealous and hated me or she may have wanted to hang out with me and hoped that whatever I had was contagious. I can make that guess, colored with emotional speculations, because I have scattered friends lost along the way. The losses of a paradigm shift between my view of the world and theirs. We transitioned from chatting buddies to strangers who no longer knew what to say to each other. The worst part is that sometimes as we part ways and they are stating their case, I know exactly what they mean. I just no longer feel the same way. I won't lie to you. I have suffered heartbreaking losses this way. Yet it was still worth it. I still say I am one of the luckiest people on the planet.
Did you hear the part about "I never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness?"
The greatest gift my childhood gave me was a model of how I didn't want to behave. My parents had good intentions, but like many, neither the training nor experience to confidently pull off a "No Loss" job. Those losses as well as those wins shaped me into the person I am today, was yesterday and will be tomorrow. It left me with just enough self awareness not to like what I saw and have the drive to change it. Even while I wallowed in unhappiness, my drive pushed, "if it doesn't make you happy, identify the problem and edit it out." Taking in just the portion entitled "adult life," my life has transitioned from a black and white Kansas to the technicolor of Oz.
From jobs to hobbies to learning about the present moment, I have never made a change which didn't bring me more happiness.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
My Intentions
It is well known that Americans don't have enough savings, particularly for retirement. They also carry a lot of debt. It is so well known, I don't need to bother looking up any statistics to prove it to you. It is common knowledge.
My intent is to help the 99% repair their relationship with money and turn their lives around. It is a daunting task that has three elements I fear I may not be able to overcome.
The first, why listen to me? I graduated from UC Davis with a BA in English, back when a BA seemed to mean enough every educated person didn't feel compelled to continue on for an MA or PhD. My dream was to be a writer and I have spent decades working in retail and playing at writing and photography. At the same time, valuing my free time and freedom itself, I have worked part time, three half days a week, for nearly two decades. Although my income lands me solidly among the 99%, the rest of my statistics are a little different. I don't carry debt. I have accumulated savings, including retirement savings. I have paid off my mortgage and own my house free and clear.
At least all of that was true when I began this project. Since then, I have been trying to sell my deceased parents home. Between paying to have a bridge repaired and having dumpsters delivered in order to ready the property for sale, my savings have been whittled down significantly. Even as it undermines my own confidence that I can do what I already did and teach others to do the same, it also underscores the necessity.
Money is a tool. That's all it is. Money is a tool by which you can buy education, comfort, and freedom. They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy things which will bring a smile to a loved one's face. It can buy experiences a person will remember for the rest of his life. Money is nothing but a tool, but it isn't one like a hammer or a saw. It is more like putty or sand. You can find yourself running out and wishing you had more.
Second, a huge percentage of my financial strategy involves the Law of Attraction. Every time I open my mouth and try to explain its principles to somebody, I see that look on her face. The one that suggests I just told her that fairies are real and I was haunted last night by a banshee.
There was a joke on Saturday Night Live years ago about learning to be an art critic. After learning the fundamentals and beginning to critique a gallery's art, the student turned on patrons around her and criticized their outfits, their postures, their smiles. Looking for the negative and pointing it out comes as naturally to humans as breathing. When we've actually been given permission and free reign to do so? We become relentless bullies, nearly unstoppable.
The Law of Attraction is the belief that "like attracts like." We create our world with our thoughts.
I once read about a social experiment. A researcher gathered a group of people together and had them look at two straight lines drawn on a chalkboard. The two lines were exactly the same length, but the researcher had placed one individual in the crowd who claimed one of the lines were longer. It turns out, I can give you advice and tell you what you should do and you probably won't follow it, but one person placed in a crowd, confidently repeating a lie, can cause you to agree with him and doubt your own eyesight.
Every day we are surrounded with a negative onslaught of news supporting the notion of a world of scarcity. If abundance is mentioned, it is still framed as there being enough for everyone's needs, but not their greed. Many of us buy things we don't really want or need, frantically stuffing ourselves to feel happy, while feeling judged for our attempts.
I ask you, who hasn't purchased some stupid, silly item, perhaps for as little as ten dollars, that seemed so great at the time, but we are later ashamed to admit?
How can I ever convince drowning victims, under water for the second time, flailing about with no idea who will save them, that they can save themselves simply by changing their thoughts?
At this point in my life, it feels like I have been every type of emotionally damaged and unhappy there is to be. I can remember the days when my mouth would involuntarily scowl if I so much as saw a poster proclaiming "Love is a warm puppy." It's as if negativity isn't happy just existing. It has to roll around in the muck continually reaffirming its ugly existence.
"Ugh! This smells really bad. Here smell it."
"Ugh! That really stinks."
I have been dedicated to changing the way I think for decades. It still took me years to realize that love? It IS a warm puppy. Sort of. Or at least the sustained joyful warm feelings about life and its wonderful possibilities that you might feel when enjoying the company of a baby of almost any species.
Third, we are all unreliable narrators. In writing, an unreliable narrator is someone who tells a story, but who has a warped view and perception of everything. We each have our personal story and we tend to believe the details we tell ourselves. Yet we experience our lives through the distorted window of only seeing through our own point of view.
Think about that room with the chalkboard and two lines. Even though they end up united in an answer as to the length of the lines, if you ask them about the experience afterwards, they will all have a different story to tell. Some will have a simple recitation of facts. Others will have anecdotal details which may not appear to be connected to the event, or at least not to anyone other than the person whose viewpoint felt they were important. Unless the researchers are included, probably not one story will include the information one person was asked to lie.
At the same time, we continually second guess ourselves. We say we want to lose weight and doubt we have the will power. We ask the universe for some money. Buy a lottery ticket and say "I knew that was a waste of money" as we throw our losing ticket into the trash.
I recently had a bad break up. I loved that man so much. My heart felt as if it had shattered into a million pieces knowing it had ended. I cried and cried and cried. One day, posting happy little kittens to cheer myself up on Facebook, I noticed how many friends I had who were talking and interacting with me. My heart flooded with love and appreciation. It was then that I realized how close I had come to seeing only what I had lost when all I had to do was turn my head and see all of the good things and people who are still right here with me.
Really that is everything I am trying to get you to do. I am trying to get you to stop focusing on your losses and failures and to look and really see life's wonders. I want you to appreciate all of your good fortune and know it didn't happen by accident. You're not an ungrateful sinner who deserves only God's tolerance and indulgence. You aren't a bad boy who is too lazy or lacks willpower. Each and every one of us is no less a miracle than a blade of grass growing despite humans blocking its path with asphalt. Each and every one of us is as important and essential as every atom that makes up a molecule.
C'mon. (Metaphorically) take my hand and we can do this thing. Just do one thing for me first.
Turn your head.
My intent is to help the 99% repair their relationship with money and turn their lives around. It is a daunting task that has three elements I fear I may not be able to overcome.
The first, why listen to me? I graduated from UC Davis with a BA in English, back when a BA seemed to mean enough every educated person didn't feel compelled to continue on for an MA or PhD. My dream was to be a writer and I have spent decades working in retail and playing at writing and photography. At the same time, valuing my free time and freedom itself, I have worked part time, three half days a week, for nearly two decades. Although my income lands me solidly among the 99%, the rest of my statistics are a little different. I don't carry debt. I have accumulated savings, including retirement savings. I have paid off my mortgage and own my house free and clear.
At least all of that was true when I began this project. Since then, I have been trying to sell my deceased parents home. Between paying to have a bridge repaired and having dumpsters delivered in order to ready the property for sale, my savings have been whittled down significantly. Even as it undermines my own confidence that I can do what I already did and teach others to do the same, it also underscores the necessity.
Money is a tool. That's all it is. Money is a tool by which you can buy education, comfort, and freedom. They say money can't buy happiness, but it can buy things which will bring a smile to a loved one's face. It can buy experiences a person will remember for the rest of his life. Money is nothing but a tool, but it isn't one like a hammer or a saw. It is more like putty or sand. You can find yourself running out and wishing you had more.
Second, a huge percentage of my financial strategy involves the Law of Attraction. Every time I open my mouth and try to explain its principles to somebody, I see that look on her face. The one that suggests I just told her that fairies are real and I was haunted last night by a banshee.
There was a joke on Saturday Night Live years ago about learning to be an art critic. After learning the fundamentals and beginning to critique a gallery's art, the student turned on patrons around her and criticized their outfits, their postures, their smiles. Looking for the negative and pointing it out comes as naturally to humans as breathing. When we've actually been given permission and free reign to do so? We become relentless bullies, nearly unstoppable.
The Law of Attraction is the belief that "like attracts like." We create our world with our thoughts.
I once read about a social experiment. A researcher gathered a group of people together and had them look at two straight lines drawn on a chalkboard. The two lines were exactly the same length, but the researcher had placed one individual in the crowd who claimed one of the lines were longer. It turns out, I can give you advice and tell you what you should do and you probably won't follow it, but one person placed in a crowd, confidently repeating a lie, can cause you to agree with him and doubt your own eyesight.
Every day we are surrounded with a negative onslaught of news supporting the notion of a world of scarcity. If abundance is mentioned, it is still framed as there being enough for everyone's needs, but not their greed. Many of us buy things we don't really want or need, frantically stuffing ourselves to feel happy, while feeling judged for our attempts.
I ask you, who hasn't purchased some stupid, silly item, perhaps for as little as ten dollars, that seemed so great at the time, but we are later ashamed to admit?
How can I ever convince drowning victims, under water for the second time, flailing about with no idea who will save them, that they can save themselves simply by changing their thoughts?
At this point in my life, it feels like I have been every type of emotionally damaged and unhappy there is to be. I can remember the days when my mouth would involuntarily scowl if I so much as saw a poster proclaiming "Love is a warm puppy." It's as if negativity isn't happy just existing. It has to roll around in the muck continually reaffirming its ugly existence.
"Ugh! This smells really bad. Here smell it."
"Ugh! That really stinks."
I have been dedicated to changing the way I think for decades. It still took me years to realize that love? It IS a warm puppy. Sort of. Or at least the sustained joyful warm feelings about life and its wonderful possibilities that you might feel when enjoying the company of a baby of almost any species.
Third, we are all unreliable narrators. In writing, an unreliable narrator is someone who tells a story, but who has a warped view and perception of everything. We each have our personal story and we tend to believe the details we tell ourselves. Yet we experience our lives through the distorted window of only seeing through our own point of view.
Think about that room with the chalkboard and two lines. Even though they end up united in an answer as to the length of the lines, if you ask them about the experience afterwards, they will all have a different story to tell. Some will have a simple recitation of facts. Others will have anecdotal details which may not appear to be connected to the event, or at least not to anyone other than the person whose viewpoint felt they were important. Unless the researchers are included, probably not one story will include the information one person was asked to lie.
At the same time, we continually second guess ourselves. We say we want to lose weight and doubt we have the will power. We ask the universe for some money. Buy a lottery ticket and say "I knew that was a waste of money" as we throw our losing ticket into the trash.
I recently had a bad break up. I loved that man so much. My heart felt as if it had shattered into a million pieces knowing it had ended. I cried and cried and cried. One day, posting happy little kittens to cheer myself up on Facebook, I noticed how many friends I had who were talking and interacting with me. My heart flooded with love and appreciation. It was then that I realized how close I had come to seeing only what I had lost when all I had to do was turn my head and see all of the good things and people who are still right here with me.
Really that is everything I am trying to get you to do. I am trying to get you to stop focusing on your losses and failures and to look and really see life's wonders. I want you to appreciate all of your good fortune and know it didn't happen by accident. You're not an ungrateful sinner who deserves only God's tolerance and indulgence. You aren't a bad boy who is too lazy or lacks willpower. Each and every one of us is no less a miracle than a blade of grass growing despite humans blocking its path with asphalt. Each and every one of us is as important and essential as every atom that makes up a molecule.
C'mon. (Metaphorically) take my hand and we can do this thing. Just do one thing for me first.
Turn your head.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
The Decisions You Make
A few months back I was talking with a friend about her damaged uncle. My friend, while I'm sure she has struggled with different issues throughout her life, is one of those people who can just push through the discomfort quickly and emerge victoriously on the other side. To an outside viewer, she appears to do it effortlessly. I couldn't even begin to tell you what childhood mishaps attacked her self esteem because she never seems to have made them her home. My struggles more closely parallel those of her uncle and I found myself trying to explain why a man in the final decades of his life could still be struggling with "but my parents mistreated me." Repeated attempts made me believe three undeniable concepts are at work.
1. No matter how old a person is, if he or she can still mentally touch an open wound from past mistreatment, there will be a corresponding degree of rigidity and incapability to change and move forward. It is easy to assume the larger the pain, the greater the problems, but I don't think that necessarily plays out. Or at least not in an obvious way. For one thing, pain is individual. Most of my childhood problems were more of the "Barbie gets caught on the outskirts of a bad neighborhood" variety. There was a very funny moment in a very disturbing movie remake decades ago. The movie was "The Collector" and the laughable moment was when the heroine, already being stalked by her eventual killer, heatedly explains her discomfort to the police. "He gave me gifts!" I can't tell you how many times I've remembered that scene and my nervous laughter when I've tried to explain my relationship with my parents and why I've struggled with self esteem.
Pain is individual. We're not allowed to line up the damaged and judge whether or not they have a right to feel hurt. I believe an individual's problem moving forward stems less from how badly he was hurt than what he does with that pain. Do you remember one of your first childhood cuts or scrapes? Remember poking the wound throughout the healing process to see if it still hurt? A skinned knee will eventually scab over and that poke won't feel any different than it does to the adjacent skin. Emotional wounds don't heal the same way and repeated checks, rather than confirming or denying forward progress, tend to create a habit of negatively reaffirming your life. People who are stuck in this "Groundhog Day" of emotional pain seem to believe they can move to forgiveness when it no longer hurts and don't realize that the healing will begin (and it will hurt less) AFTER they forgive.
2. Frequently, pain colors "the damaged's" entire life. On a ten scale for difficulty, they wake up every day at about an eight. Before the red lights, traffic jams, road rage or other daily challenges, they wake up thinking: "What the hell might happen next. I don't know if I can stand much more." There's a good chance they have at least a few documentable obvious problems like debt or health issues. Their baggage contains a whole lot of entitlement because "my life has just been so hard or unfair, I really need someone to acknowledge or validate my pain." They don't need to poke the wound to see if it still hurts. It always hurts. It never goes away. That is exactly how I felt during the years leading up to my divorce as well as a few afterwards. "Can't anybody see I'm drowning here? Somebody, anybody, please throw me a line."
I was talking with a friend recently about one of her retail customers. The woman was one of those constant complainers. Nothing was right. Nothing was what she wanted. All of which added up in the customer's view to discounts she was entitled to receive as well as a free coke. I listened, all the while feeling very fortunate she had not been my customer. Then I tried to explain to my friend why the woman might be that way only to discover my friend already knew. A core limiting belief of people in that mode of thinking is "no one understands me." In reality, a lot of people do understand and aren't without empathy at your situation. They genuinely are sorry for all of the lemons life has handed you. What they don't understand is why you felt the need to build a monument to that pain and move in there. At the same time, you are not a lot of fun to be around and "if you can't find a way to "move on" emotionally, could you please just "move on" physically. Seriously, there are other stores that sell this stuff, you know?"
This sort of person is stuck where they are because everything is filtered through "me." Rather than noticing how hard the sales person may have tried before they gave up, they will be stuck in the fervent outrage of "how could they treat me that way? Don't they know the customer is always right? I'll show them. I'm never coming here again!" Never realizing the sales person is probably thinking, "You promise?"
The empathy that "damaged" is looking for is also the exit door he or she keeps missing. It is a "get what you give" world. If you aren't receiving any empathy, appreciation or consideration, there is a high likelihood you aren't giving them to anybody either. Besides which, remember that notion "pain is individual?" The worst childhood story I have ever heard involved the children of an undiagnosed schizophrenic woman who was also a single mom. For the first eight to twelve years of their lives, mom locked them in a closet every day because "the voices" told her that was where they would be safest. I don't know about you, but I know it wouldn't help my self esteem very much to be outrageously indignant about my poor treatment as a customer only to discover my persecutor's childhood was far worse than mine. That isn't even because I know it is a "get what you give" world. It is simply because I have this notion perhaps I don't deserve things I am unwilling to give to others.
3. There comes a time where it is no longer a question of what heinous things may have happened to you. If you aren't happy with your life, it isn't because of your parents, your government, your president, the Democrats or the Republicans or your boss. You are the one ultimately responsible for your life and if you aren't happy, it is exactly like the internet meme says: "If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done."
Maybe it is as simple as counting your blessings instead of infringements against you. Maybe the world is so offensive because you really are looking to be offended. Maybe each time your thoughts repeat the word "me," as in the sentence "how could you do this to me," you could ask yourself what they might have been feeling right before they hurt your feelings. Could you have unknowingly hurt their feelings? If that is possible, is it possible they didn't know they hurt you? Is it possible that was never their intention?
If you can't do any of that, consider this. Writers, musicians and painters frequently learn their art by emulating the voice or techniques of established masters they admire. Find someone you admire who has whatever it is you feel you lack. Success. Love. Happiness. They have it. You want it. So do what they do. Read their blog or their biography. Look up their Wikipedia. Find out as much as you can about how they have lived their life and repeat it. Fake it to make it. Repeat it every day until you are living the life you want on your own.
1. No matter how old a person is, if he or she can still mentally touch an open wound from past mistreatment, there will be a corresponding degree of rigidity and incapability to change and move forward. It is easy to assume the larger the pain, the greater the problems, but I don't think that necessarily plays out. Or at least not in an obvious way. For one thing, pain is individual. Most of my childhood problems were more of the "Barbie gets caught on the outskirts of a bad neighborhood" variety. There was a very funny moment in a very disturbing movie remake decades ago. The movie was "The Collector" and the laughable moment was when the heroine, already being stalked by her eventual killer, heatedly explains her discomfort to the police. "He gave me gifts!" I can't tell you how many times I've remembered that scene and my nervous laughter when I've tried to explain my relationship with my parents and why I've struggled with self esteem.
Pain is individual. We're not allowed to line up the damaged and judge whether or not they have a right to feel hurt. I believe an individual's problem moving forward stems less from how badly he was hurt than what he does with that pain. Do you remember one of your first childhood cuts or scrapes? Remember poking the wound throughout the healing process to see if it still hurt? A skinned knee will eventually scab over and that poke won't feel any different than it does to the adjacent skin. Emotional wounds don't heal the same way and repeated checks, rather than confirming or denying forward progress, tend to create a habit of negatively reaffirming your life. People who are stuck in this "Groundhog Day" of emotional pain seem to believe they can move to forgiveness when it no longer hurts and don't realize that the healing will begin (and it will hurt less) AFTER they forgive.
2. Frequently, pain colors "the damaged's" entire life. On a ten scale for difficulty, they wake up every day at about an eight. Before the red lights, traffic jams, road rage or other daily challenges, they wake up thinking: "What the hell might happen next. I don't know if I can stand much more." There's a good chance they have at least a few documentable obvious problems like debt or health issues. Their baggage contains a whole lot of entitlement because "my life has just been so hard or unfair, I really need someone to acknowledge or validate my pain." They don't need to poke the wound to see if it still hurts. It always hurts. It never goes away. That is exactly how I felt during the years leading up to my divorce as well as a few afterwards. "Can't anybody see I'm drowning here? Somebody, anybody, please throw me a line."
I was talking with a friend recently about one of her retail customers. The woman was one of those constant complainers. Nothing was right. Nothing was what she wanted. All of which added up in the customer's view to discounts she was entitled to receive as well as a free coke. I listened, all the while feeling very fortunate she had not been my customer. Then I tried to explain to my friend why the woman might be that way only to discover my friend already knew. A core limiting belief of people in that mode of thinking is "no one understands me." In reality, a lot of people do understand and aren't without empathy at your situation. They genuinely are sorry for all of the lemons life has handed you. What they don't understand is why you felt the need to build a monument to that pain and move in there. At the same time, you are not a lot of fun to be around and "if you can't find a way to "move on" emotionally, could you please just "move on" physically. Seriously, there are other stores that sell this stuff, you know?"
This sort of person is stuck where they are because everything is filtered through "me." Rather than noticing how hard the sales person may have tried before they gave up, they will be stuck in the fervent outrage of "how could they treat me that way? Don't they know the customer is always right? I'll show them. I'm never coming here again!" Never realizing the sales person is probably thinking, "You promise?"
The empathy that "damaged" is looking for is also the exit door he or she keeps missing. It is a "get what you give" world. If you aren't receiving any empathy, appreciation or consideration, there is a high likelihood you aren't giving them to anybody either. Besides which, remember that notion "pain is individual?" The worst childhood story I have ever heard involved the children of an undiagnosed schizophrenic woman who was also a single mom. For the first eight to twelve years of their lives, mom locked them in a closet every day because "the voices" told her that was where they would be safest. I don't know about you, but I know it wouldn't help my self esteem very much to be outrageously indignant about my poor treatment as a customer only to discover my persecutor's childhood was far worse than mine. That isn't even because I know it is a "get what you give" world. It is simply because I have this notion perhaps I don't deserve things I am unwilling to give to others.
3. There comes a time where it is no longer a question of what heinous things may have happened to you. If you aren't happy with your life, it isn't because of your parents, your government, your president, the Democrats or the Republicans or your boss. You are the one ultimately responsible for your life and if you aren't happy, it is exactly like the internet meme says: "If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done."
Maybe it is as simple as counting your blessings instead of infringements against you. Maybe the world is so offensive because you really are looking to be offended. Maybe each time your thoughts repeat the word "me," as in the sentence "how could you do this to me," you could ask yourself what they might have been feeling right before they hurt your feelings. Could you have unknowingly hurt their feelings? If that is possible, is it possible they didn't know they hurt you? Is it possible that was never their intention?
If you can't do any of that, consider this. Writers, musicians and painters frequently learn their art by emulating the voice or techniques of established masters they admire. Find someone you admire who has whatever it is you feel you lack. Success. Love. Happiness. They have it. You want it. So do what they do. Read their blog or their biography. Look up their Wikipedia. Find out as much as you can about how they have lived their life and repeat it. Fake it to make it. Repeat it every day until you are living the life you want on your own.
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