Just the Way I am

Just the Way I am

We all want to live lives we love. We want to feel satisfied at the end of the day, we want to feel accomplished, productive. We want to feel loved and loving, to belong somewhere. We want to feel good about being ourselves, about being in our bodies, about who we are.

A lot of us don’t. We have a lot of reasons explaining why we aren’t living that life. ¨It’s just the way I am¨ is one. Breaks my heart every time I hear it. ¨Life is just hard¨ is another one. Things never go my way, I only have bad luck, I’m doomed. The reasons go on, and we buy into them from a very young age.

How could it just be so easy? Why would my life be easy? What makes it all so easy?

I have had an unusual  year. Four surgeries, two with complications. A ferocious round of chemo, and more coming up. Radiation! Steroids! Fatigue! Well, you get the idea.

I’ve made some choices. I decided to choose health. I don’t identify with ¨sick¨ or the ¨c¨ word. I am always a bit shocked when someone says to me, ¨you have cancer.” It’s a label that is filled with fear, and anger, and expense, and death. Screw that! What is right in my life? Why do I choose alive? What makes me vital? Yeah! That’s the way to go, daddy-o!

I decided to choose grateful. I publish my appreciations every day on Facebook. I write them, for the most part, first thing every morning while I am drinking my first cup of hot beverage. I think about the previous day and what made me smile, what made me feel light, what gave pleasure. I have been practicing this for a few days short of two years and it makes everything easier. I spend more time noticing nice stuff, I actively seek nice stuff. I smile more because I find so much beauty, so much kindness, so much that is gentle and good and powerful in the course of a day.

I have chosen easy. Easy gets a bad rap. We are told from the time we are tiny that life is hard. Great. When I reframe that to ¨life is challenging¨ stuff shifts. Why do I enjoy challenges? How do I value my challenges? What makes me rise to a new challenge? ¨Life is hard¨ is like dropping a rock in the sand. Thunk. Everything stops. Rising to a challenge is dynamic; I change, I grow, I evolve.

I have chosen easy. This means that I recognize stressors as neutral events that I put judgments on. The more I do this, the more I can flow with my life as it unfolds, waxes and wanes. I do put judgments on events; I am aware that I am doing so, and will consider those judgments.

A nice example of this messes with the thought that ¨nothing ever goes my way.¨ Ick. I remember feeling like that, my sense of entitlement betrayed. When I shift that into a good Creative Question, ¨How do things go my way?¨ everything changes. I start seeing the benefit to me in a wide range of circumstances. I become more open to opportunities I would have missed in days of yore. I feel more good at the end of the day. I like that.

Things start to feel easier. If I allow my life to flow, I release the drama and things feel easier. I know that’s a biggie for many of us. We love the drama. It makes us feel important. It makes us feel engaged. It pumps things up into technicolor events so we are more excited about stuff. It’s only a paper moon, as the song goes, grease paint, sets and props. It’s not real, it just seems like it because it is so big. As we can let go of our love of drama, everything gets easier.

How have I changed from loving the ¨just the way it is, hard drama to embracing the deep bliss of easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 08252015

Easy is as Easy Does

Easy is as Easy Does

The other day I saw my onco doc. First thing he said to me was, “No more chemo.” Yay! As I was celebrating that night with my sifu and TCM doc, I heard myself say, “All things considered, that was pretty easy.”

Seriously.

Why is it just so easy? What makes me flow with life? What makes me relax?

What would you do if your life were easy? How would you fill your time if you chose to stop worrying? What would you replace stress with? What would change if you stopped choosing misery?  I don’t mean these questions to sound dorky, they are quite serious. They are also quite possible.

I sure didn’t believe that in the days of yore. I really believed that life is hard. I really believed that we had to just suffer through it. I believed that misery was the watchword for the world. Poor former me. I believed that my beliefs were the Truth.

I can’t even tell you how glad I am that I was wrong.

How could it be easy? What would make it simple? Why could I relax?

My attitude doesn’t change what happens to me, but it most certainly changes how I think about it, how I feel. When I decide that it is easy, I loosen my hold on my commitment to negative emotional judgments about stuff. It’s just stuff.

Negative emotional judgment. Let that concept sink in.

I make the judgment that stuff is bad. I may go there because I see others going there, I may choose it because I’ve chosen it since I was a little kid; “X is bad!” I may choose it because I think I may lose something I have or not get something I want, and am having big feelings about that possible change of state.

When I stop making negative emotional judgments, situations are neutral. That neutrality makes for flow, it squelches drama, it maintains equilibrium, and that, baby, that means peace at my core.

I trust me to handle what comes my way, I’ve handled some pretty intense stuff. It may take me a bit to catch my breath, but I mostly don’t flap these days.

I am not saying that, for example, the loss of a loved one is not to be grieved. We need to feel our feelings as they come up. And let them flow through and out and done for now. And then we are back to the questions we started with.

What would you do if your life were easy? How would you fill your time if you chose to stop worrying? What would you replace stress with? What would change if you stopped choosing misery?

I have time to meditate since I don’t worry. I have time to really relax since I’m not so stressed. I have inside room for enjoyment since it’s all just so easy. I have more room for you in my life since I’m not all obsessed with how awful everything is.

How have I changed from believing life is hard to knowing it’s all just so easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04062015

The Colors of Fear

The Colors of Fear

One of my dearest friends has a very simple motto that she lives by: Fear or Faith. It reminds her to choose the sunny side of the street. When she first told me that I loved it. And I realized I had a  version that was just slightly different: Fear or Curiosity.

The point is simple, fear sucks the life from us, faith and curiosity fill us with spirit. I live a life of adventure. One of my heroes is Indiana Jones, master adventurer. My journey of self discovery feels like an Indiana Jones type adventure full of danger, and scary times, and priceless discoveries. the best of which is love and respect for my very own self.

My teacher pointed out that I had already survived the danger, that I was looking at the left-over shadows of it. That let me feel curious about what I would find. Sometimes I discovered things that changed the way I felt about someone, but it also gave me the opportunity to bring up a lot of unpleasantness to the surface where I could address it, and let it go, and forgive. Can’t do that when it’s all unconscious.

Why am I curious? What makes me interested? Why do I want to know?

When I choose to let fear run the show, I am saying no to life.

Life is fearless, life is curious, engaged, interested. Life wonders what is next, and accepts what comes, no fear. No matter what, my circumstances are interesting because they are tailored to me. They provide me with information about what I can learn, about where I can go, about what I can accomplish.

Worry is a kind of fear. When we fret about our loved ones, or ourselves, we are sluicing our lives with a negative energy, and then we have to slog through that negativity. We feel heavy and sad, and often don’t know why. Worry is a Coyote emotion, a trickster. It makes us feel like we are doing something useful, while it feeds on our spirit. Ew.

Guilt is another kind of fear. When we feel guilty, we fear that we will get caught. We fear being found out. We fear reprisals. We fear losing the little thrill we get from the behavior we feel guilty about. Dang.

Strangely, procrastination is often another kind of fear. The two biggies of procrastination are fear that we won’t do X perfectly and fear that something big will change if we X. It’s not that it will change for the worse, it’s just that it will change. We fear the loss of our status quo, even though it is always shifting around.

Negative moral judgments are yet another kind of fear, fear of the different.

When I decide to go with curiosity, with interest, with faith and trust, my life blossoms. Events have significance because they happen to me, for me. I seek out the nuances, I seek out the value. I seek out the benefit to me.

When I get that little thrill of anxious feeling, I choose to ask myself, “Why would I be excited? How is this fascinating? Why do I engage?” The feeling of excited and the feeling of anxiety are so close that asking my good Creative Questions can flip my experience in a wink.

How have I changed from choosing fear to feeling curious?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06212014

Stop the Dissing

Stop the Dissing

Why does liking myself matter? What difference does it make?

We’ve been talking a bit lately about the differences between clenched and relaxed.

When my body is clenched, I often have discomfort of varying degrees. My muscles might be tight. I might be holding my joints awkwardly, and my gait might be off, locked ankles, or knees, or hips, or feet or knees turned in or out,  causing long-term dysfunction. When my body is clenched, I could be causing myself systemic symptoms; digestion, circulation, lymphatic, nerves.

When my thoughts are clenched, I’m usually stuck in a bad thought loop where I can’t seem to stop myself thinking about something awful. This can be fretting about someone, or imagining horrible scenarios, negative fantasies of all sorts. It can be replaying a bad scene we’ve already lived through. It can be running our helpless and hopeless tapes in our heads until we can hardly move.

When my feelings are clenched, I’m stuck in anger, or fear, or grief, usually. I know I’m stuck when I feel like I am always pissed off, or scared, or crying a lot.

Sometimes my actions are clenched, when I get stuck in repeating a bad habit that hurts me. This can be a habit of action or inaction, of consumption, or movement, or lack thereof. It can be a habit of procrastination, or of

When I don’t like me, I am clenched. When I don’t like me, I never get a break from that clench, and that’s exhausting. It can wreak havoc on my sleep, and damage my relationships. I am usually very lonely, with a black hole inside.

When I don’t like me, I am practicing negative moral or emotional judgments. These will always have a nasty impact on me, and often on others as well. We have the gift of judgment, and when we refine that gift, we have a superpower. We use our judgment all the time to make good decisions about stuff, to decide what we want, how we want to direct the course of our lives.

When it comes to me, I am often hyper-judgmental, and then I say horribly cruel and shaming things to myself, things I most likely would never say to another person.  I get into the habit of verbally abusing myself, and can do it without even thinking about it. I will end up making strange decisions that are often not very good, since I am always feeling less than, I may be weird to you, or do wacky things to try to compensate.

Why can I choose? Why would I like me? How do I want to be with me?

Since I am with me all the time, I may as well choose to like me. When I connect with me, the black hole of loneliness vanishes. When I cease the constant self-trash-talk, I have room to find things I like about me.

I also know that you are amazing. You have your special gifts, your special ways, that make you interesting, and valuable. You have your good heart, your wisdom, your creativity, and desire to grow, all of which make you exceptional. The more you like you, the easier it is for us to connect, and that’s wonderful.

How have I changed from dissing me to feeling proud that I am who I am?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06022014

How to Throw a Pity Party

How to Throw a Pity Party

Some days it’s really easy, light, and everything seems to flow with the shine and magic, but not the poison, of mercury. Some days it’s really challenging, heavy, and everything seems to sludge along, a little bit stinky and really slow.

Some days we find extraordinarily taxing, some days leave us feeling super-charged, and blissful.

I have taken to writing a daily set of appreciations. “Why am I grateful?”is one of my favorite questions, and I write them very first thing when I get up, so I’m not much awake. I decided it was a great way to open my eyes to a new day, appreciating the one just past.

Most days, those appreciations flow off my fingers like butter in the sun, but every so often, it’s not like that. This morning, for example.

Clunk clunk clunk. I can’t think of a darn thing I’m thankful for, even though I am surrounded by luxury, love, abundance, health, and fun. I’m serious.

When that happens, when my normal flow feels chunky, I am pretty sure to have some negative emotional or moral judgments going on about something, feeling a bit sour, or bitter, maybe. At the very least, I may be pissed off about something.

This is where being a divine and infinite being of great creativity comes in handy.

Now, as creative people, when faced with this kind of old fashioned heaviness, we can innovate. We can invent ingenious ways to lighten up, we can imagine novelties that free our spirits, we can craft Creative Questions that shift everything in an instant. Aren’t we cool?

Sometimes, just playing with a question like, “Why do I feel light? or How do I feel when I feel light?” will do it, but sometimes I have to poke around in my nether mind and look for the whats: What’s making me feel this way? What’s my negative judgment? What does that heaviness come from?

When I find my topic, mine this morning was a lot of busyness at work, I can use my creativity to address and change the negative judgments. The bottom line is this, if I don’t judge something negatively, I don’t perceive it negatively. It’s that simple, and sometimes, I know, it can be really annoying.

Sometimes, we want to feel crappy. We feel like we deserve it. Sometimes, we feel justified in our funk, or our misery, or our bitterness. Sometimes, we feel like we’ve earned the right to be angry, or nasty, well, maybe you haven’t, but I know I have. But, the same way we might binge on food or alcohol, we sometimes binge on these icky feelings.

When I am in the throes of the Ick, and I recognize it, I go for it. I wallow. I squish it up between my toes, I fill my lungs with it, I taste the bitter, or sour, or angry. I deck myself out in self-pity until I am absolutely saturated with it. Usually takes me about ten minutes before I’m sick of it, and wanna get back to my happy self.

I do appreciate a good pity party.

How have I changed from feeling stuck in my ick to finding creative solutions to lift my spirits?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02272014

Negative Emotional Judgments

Negative Emotional Judgments

So, have you become an expert relaxer yet? Can you soften your muscles on command? Can you quiet your thoughts? Shift your feelings from ick to nice?

Learning these skills takes us a long way toward being happy.

In my twenties I was diagnosed with acute chronic nervous tension. Basically, what that meant was that my neck wouldn’t move. My shoulders were like stone. I was not a happy camper.

The good news was that I got to participate in the first US study of biofeedback at the Mayo Clinic. That may have been the beginning of my love affair with woo woo healing stuff. My always-freezing hands and feet warmed up. My frozen neck loosened, my shoulders softened. All by changing my thoughts. Freaking weird. Especially for the Mayo Clinic.

It was around that time that I made the decision to become a happy person. I have traveled a long and interesting road, with a lot of detours into a lot of dark places since I made that choice. I don’t live in a happy place all the time, but I will say that my worst day these days is better than my best days back then.

Why do I choose to be happy? What makes me relax? Why do things go smoothly for me?

As we make our tiny choices all day long, one of the beliefs we may smack into is the idea that life is hard. It’s not true. I know that’s a wacky notion. I know it may be challenging to get our heads wrapped around it, but it’s not true. It’s a mislearning, and we’ve been reinforcing that lie our whole lives. Everywhere we look, it’s being reinforced. Advertisers rely on it, the news banks on it, insurance companies make millions off it.

What is true is that we make negative emotional judgments about stuff. Stuff is neutral until we put a judgment on it. I can usually tell when I’m in that negative emotional judgment mode because I feel bad.I get there when I’ve forgotten that the Universe gives me opportunities, not problems. The instant I call something a problem, I’ve put an NEJ on it. The same with the words trouble and difficulties. On the one hand, it’s just semantics, on the other hand, it’s an emotional set-up for suffering.

NEJs make us tired. They cannibalIze our good feelings, and then, when they’ve devoured our good feelings, they start in on our physical well being. NEJ consume our sleep so we wake up feeling agitated and worried and can’t seem to shut off our churning minds.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying stuff will never happen that we feel sad, or scared, or angry about. All I’m saying is that NEJs will make any situation worse. When we lose a loved one, for example, we will have feelings about that. Sorrow, grief, anger, and so on. That’s how we do it. Loss does stuff to us. When we take some time to identify our NEJs and let them go, the feelings get clean, and we can experience them with ease, and sometimes even a kind of enjoyment for the purity and power of the moment.

Life isn’t hard, I make my life hard. When I get me stuck in a bad thought place, I may need your help to get out. You do that for me. I really appreciate it. I hope I return the favor, and that the more we practice it, the less and less often we will go there. I do love that.

How have I changed from believing life is hard to knowing I have choices?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02042014

Losing the Win

I'm back! I missed you, and I surely missed writing our contemplations. I wondered what would stop me writing to you, and it turns out that a big sick will do it.  Love you!!

How have I changed from feeling crappy to feeling happy?

Losing the Win

Isn’t it interesting how certain words hit us? No word has inherent emotional weight, and yet we can imbue them with the power to disgust us, or inflame our passions, warm our heart cockles, or break those same hearts.  I used to get kind of bent whenever I heard the phrase “you people.” We are so cute.

For some of us, the reaction is a resounding, “Hells, yeah! Whatever it takes, baby!” And with it comes the joy of triumph over others.

For some of us, the reaction is a shrinking away, “If I win, you lose” kind of thing. And with that comes a feeling of sorrow for the ones who didn’t come in first.

It’s all one thing when we are talking about a sporting event, game tournament, talent show, state fair gig, or grammar competition, but another thing altogether when we are talking about living in general. First prize is great, but our daily life isn’t a competition.

We all have our own personal dark ages. Since we are here, I assume yours are falling behind you, as mine have. One aspect of our own, personal age of enlightenment is that we no longer need to feel better than or worse than the other fella. That changes the whole concept of winning.

What makes me a winner? How am I victorious? How do I conquer?

When I spend time trying to beat you, outside of a normal contest, I start out the loser. If I try to put you down, or undermine you, or sabotage your efforts, I am the loser. If I try to manipulate others to side with me against you, or say rotten things behind your back to pump me up, well, you get the idea.

Nowadays, the way I see myself a winner is if at the end of the day I have lived my day in accord with my beliefs and values, the new ones that support me, and you, then I have won. Now, I am in competition with my former self for charge of me, my thoughts, my actions.

I admit, it is kind of a weird thought, being in competition with one’s self, but I find it kind of  a useful thought. It helps me remember that I want to be, as Deepak Chopra says, a “pioneer of the future” rather than a “prisoner of the past.”

Why do I choose my new path? What makes me strive forward? Why do I welcome my growth?

When I remember to feel compassion for you instead of spending time thinking about what a jerk you were, I move forward. When I remember to treat me kindly when I misstep, instead of being self-abusive, I more forward. When I am generous with my abundance, I move forward.

Each time I notice an old behavior that doesn’t support me, and shift it out for one that does, I grow a bit. Each time I stop me from making a negative emotional judgment about you, I grow a bit. Each time I find and shed a fixed delusion, I grow a bit. Each time I allow a negative judgment from you roll off me, I grow a bit.

Why do I win? What makes me feel accomplished? How do I triumph?

As I start to practice this way of winning, I can ease up on me. That makes me relax a bit. Trying to beat you all the time is exhausting, so when I stop I get a lot of energy back. Now, I am relaxed and full of energy, and I can let go into my natural life, and how blissful is that.

How have I changed from needing to beat or be beaten to knowing I can best triumph over my former self?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01192014

Perfect, Schmerfect

Perfect, Schmerfect

Good enough. Words I have come to love. In the yorely days, good enough never was. Being a perfectionist sucks. Well, at least it sucked for me.

There is a huge difference between doing my best and doing it perfectly. When I strive to do my best, I feel satisfied and content with my efforts, and I am relaxed. When I try to do it perfectly, I am frustrated and tense, and may find myself reworking and reworking and never actually getting my project done.

I also found, for me, mind you, that the older I got, the more my perfectionistic tendencies got in my way. In fact, sometimes I would actually be stymied into inaction. Yikes. It turned out a lot of my old procrastination was based on an unconscious fear that I couldn’t or wouldn’t, do X perfectly, so I couldn’t even get started, and would withdraw into time-wasting behaviors. Oy, did I hate that. Especially since I was just baffled as to what was going on.

How do I know good enough is good enough?  

Of course, one of the things I did think was that somehow my divine perfection was tied into my being able to do stuff perfectly. It meant that because I made mistakes, I was inherently flawed. If I were inherently flawed, with no hope of change, what was the point of even trying? Depressing.

How do I see my divine perfection? What makes me good enough?

It seemed to me that I was surrounded by people who were better than I, people who never made mistakes, who recognized my flawed nature, and looked down on me for it.

Oy. What makes me compassionate?

As I let go of my perfectionism, I started to see how much those people who had been looking down on me were suffering, trying to hide their mistakes by drawing attention to me, or anywhere except on them.

As I let go of my perfectionism, I started to see how much leeway we have in how we accomplish stuff. I used to think there was one right way to do things, and either I knew it, and was somehow better than some people for it, or I didn’t, and was therefore, less than.

Oy. Why am I flexible?

The perfectionist thing is all about negative emotional judgments, judgments that hurt both the people we make them about, and hurt us because we stay stuck in the I’m better/less than X.

Exercising our judgment is a good thing. We can make decisions about behavior and consequences, but when it starts slipping into our thoughts about people, we need to take a step back. Often, when we want to make negative emotional judgments about people, we’ve got some topic up that is bringing up feelings of not good enough for us. When we can identify those topics, and address and integrate them, we will go back to feeling fine.

How do I know I am okay? Why do I feel safe? How do I trust the Universe?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01112014

Autumn Tears

Autumn Tears

It’s autumn here. The temperature is right around freezing, we’ve had a little snow, the leaves have fallen from the trees. I’ve watched my birdies get fatter and fatter at the feeder, and seen the squirrels burying like crazy. I love autumn.

At the same time, I get really sad in autumn, watching all the plants die off, or go into hibernation. But it’s a strange and curious sad, because it’s also just part of the cycle. So I feel sad without all the attendant stuff that I often have with that feeling.

For me, when I am feeling the other kind of sad, I can feel ripped off, like something has been taken from me. I often feel miserable in that grief. Sobs and tears and snot being wrenched out from me.

In this kind of autumn sorrow, I feel different, part of a cycle, like exhaling. I like this kind of sad. This kind of sad is enjoyable to me, and when I can remove the accreted crud, I have found I can feel it elsewhere, too.

Point is, having a positive mindset doesn’t mean I’m happy all the time. Having a positive mindset doesn’t mean I pretend I’m feeling up when I’m not. Having a positive mindset doesn’t mean I lie about what’s going on with me to make things see good when they aren’t.

It does mean I notice what I am feeling, and if it’s crap, I change it. Oh, yeah, it’s just that easy.

When I can, I remember that circumstances aren’t inherently good or bad, but only become so when I judge them. Yeah, that was a big one for me to get my head wrapped around, too. I still have to think about it from time to time.

Why would I choose to feel positive? How do I choose to exercise my judgment? What makes me choose to find the good?

How do I choose to exercise my judgment? What happens when I decide that event X is okay and not a crisis? What happens to me?

Sometimes, it feels okay because I realize I can handle it. Then, I get to save a lot of energy not freaking out about whatever the thing is.

Sometimes, it feels okay because I remember I can ask you for help. Then I get to save a lot of energy not worrying about whatever the thing is.

Sometimes, it feels okay because I know I’m already doing something about it. I get to stay peaceful.

Sometimes, it feels okay because it’s part of a cycle.

Sometimes, it just feels bad, and I have to get through it. Sometimes, I have to do that over and over again.

I can do that, and still have a positive outlook. And so can you.

How have I changed from thinking I’m stuck in the crap, to having a positive outlook?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11252013

What Awareness Did For Me

What Awareness Did For Me

By Pam Guthrie

Do you remember theme papers? Do kids write themes anymore? Well, that feeling, of writing a theme, hit me this morning when I pulled the Awareness card, and I suddenly had a little flash of being in fourth grade.

For someone who loves learning as much as I do, I really hated school. I don’t recall doing much daydreaming, but I do recall becoming hyper-aware of my surroundings, looking for all the little oddities I could see; curled corners, chipped paint, cracks in the walls, ink stains on the wooden floor from past generations of children.

I remember watching the other kids, wondering what life was like for them. There was the sullen boy who sat behind me, whose boots stunk of cow manure. When I complained to the teacher, she said that he had to milk the cows before he came to school, and put them to pasture. All I had to do was get up. That smell meant something very different after that. He was still sullen, and I don’t think he ever spoke to me, still, I felt respect for him. But I digress.

Being observant is part of being aware, but it isn’t awareness.

When I am aware, I know what emotions I’m feeling and what feelings I’m having. I notice my behavior, I’m cognizant of my thoughts. I see you, read your body language, the pitch and timbre of your voice, although that may be unconscious on my part.

When I am aware, I am in my environment, I have a sense of what is going on around me.

Being aware isn’t about being hyper anything.

I can be truly aware only when I am relaxed and peaceful in my core. Often, my mind is quiet, I’m not thinking about being aware, I’m not thinking about what I am seeing, hearing, smelling, or any other sensations, I am in it. It’s like letting experience wash over me, as my thoughts flow through my mind.

When I relax as I pay attention to you, I see so much more of who you are. I see your micro-expressions, your true emotions, without all the feelings on ‘em. I clue into your body language. I hear meaning in the tone and timbre, the pitch and inflection of your voice, not just the words you say. When I relax I absorb more of how you process the world. It makes you so much more vivid to me, more real. More dear to me.

When I am relaxed and present, I can savor my life. I may be moving fast on the outside, but I’m slooow on the inside, so I can take it all in. I can see the little secret beauties that fill my environment, I taste my food and drink, I enjoy feeling my body as I dash down the street.

And, when I am relaxed and present, I’m not reacting all over the place. I can respond to my life as events unfold. I have time to remember to set aside my negative emotional judgments, and view events as neutral. Neutral events don’t require anywhere near as much energy as CRISES do, so I am simply tired at the end of the day. So I can sleep easily and wake up refreshed.

Why is it all so easy?

How have I changed from feeling all cranked up inside to relaxing into easy, peaceful awareness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10222013