Owning My Own Self

Owning My Own Self

In the yore days, I was terrified most of the time. One of the things that frightened me the most was the fear that you would catch me out, that you would discover that I was a fraud. I would look at what seemed to be your perfect life, and look at my insides with all my insecurities and fears and failings and wonder how on earth I would ever make it through a day without being caught.

Why am I authentic? How do I know I am the real thing?

So many of us feel like phonies. For some of us, the more we achieve, the more fraudulent we feel. The more we know, it seems, the more we feel like we are pretending.

In the yore days, I didn’t know how to do a lot of stuff; I saw other people doing things that I needed to do. How to be a grownup was a total mystery. I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I was someone else, usually Kate Hepburn.  If that got me what I wanted, like the job, then I would feel awful.

What if they found out that I wasn’t Kate Hepburn?

Answering this question eventually led me to invent the Secret Name (c) game. What I discovered was that calling myself by a different name made me feel different; it gave me access to confidence in abilities I discounted when I was “Pam.” Calling myself by a different name could make me feel more resourceful. Calling myself Kate Hepburn inside wasn’t being deceitful, it was helping me to realize my potential.

How am I resourceful? What makes me creative? Why am I a good problem-solver?

One of the ways we make ourselves miserable is by comparing our inside lives to what we see of others’ outside lives. We don’t consider the fact that we only see slivers of their lives, we don’t consider that we filter what we see through the filters of our experience and, perhaps, mislearning.

I don’t feel like a bamboozler anymore. It sort of crept up on me. One of the big helps were my wonderful teachers who talked about feeling like fakes themselves, and how that feeling would show up after big accomplishments. And how, as they learned to own their successes, that sense diminished. In fact, the more I talked about feeling like a phony, the more I heard from other people that they felt the same. And I heard wonderful stories about how they changed it.

In the before times, doing new stuff scared the heck out of me. I would feel sick, and often get sick. I would be totally self-conscious about everything, sure that the people I was going to be with would mark every flaw. Now, when I need to do something I haven’t done before, where I used to fake my way through and feel awful, I fake my way through and feel accomplished. It’s a change in POV. I assume that I will get along fine, that I will be seen as at least good enough, that I will do well enough. What a relief!

Feeling authentic is one of the joys of living our natural life. As we let go of feeling fake, as we own who we are with all our attendant stuff, we find ourselves effortlessly feeling authentic, able to step up to new activities, new accomplishments, new successes with a sense of excitement and fun instead of rank terror.

How have I changed from feeling like a fraud to owning my authentic self?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 10132015

College and Cancer

Cancer and College

Talking about our health is often as volatile as talking about religion or politics. Isn’t that interesting? I think so.  We get passionate about these things, with huge feelings, and no real way to prove we are right. Fascinating. It often seems that the more a belief cannot be proved, the more likely we are to defend it to crazy lengths.

I am right in there with everyone else; passionate about my beliefs. I try to look at them with the following measures, which I will share with you because that’s what I do.

I value integrity, enjoyment, clarity in communications, respect for us, kindness, soul-happiness and other stuff, not always in that order. In my interactions, I look for ways to relate to you, how we can connect, what makes each of us special, and encouraging our passions, all to the best of my ability.

I also value looking for the good in any situation.

Why am I positive? What makes me connect? Why do I engage?

I don’t usually talk about the specific things that are going on with me, but want to make a little exception and that is to let you know that I was given a diagnosis of cancer a few months back.

Now, it has seemed to me that cancer has a lot of really awful connotations attached to it. We tend to respond to it as a horrible thing, something dangerous, deadly, disconnecting us from the rest of the world, like it puts us in a really icky club. I decided that I didn’t want to go that way, and so I had some big work to do.

On the one hand, I had some big, emergency surgery. I am taking chemotherapy, I get really tired, and my routines are out the window. That kind of sucks. On the other hand, I have met some remarkable, dedicated, loving people who want to help me get past this. That’s really nice.

On the third hand, I am who I am. That means, I am always looking for the good, and, oh baby, I have found a lot of good in this situation. In all of this, I haven’t had a day that I didn’t feel ended up as a good day. Seriously.

I look for all the ways that I feel good. Most of me feels good. Because I don’t use pain language, I don’t engage my emotions in my physical experience. Since we use the same words to describe physical discomfort and emotional discomfort, we easily conflate the experiences, and talk about being in pain, and hurting when we might mean feeling a pulsing in a part of our body, or a constriction in our heart chakra. When we do that, we make each experience systemic.

I would rather use my Creative Questions to generate answers that support my well being, like, “Why do I enjoy radiant health?” rather than “Why am I suffering?” I would rather look at the amazing array of stuff that I am taking to shift back into radiant health as what I am doing today, rather than, O jeez, I am going to have to do this the rest of my life. Present and aware.

I am looking at the side effects of my treatments as interesting, unusual experiences, and appreciating them for the new insights I gain, the greater compassion, the higher wisdom rather than as nasty, annoying things that curtail what I want to do. I look at the change in my energy as a way to practice stillness, to value calm, to revel in my adaptability. And to make value judgments as to what I really want to be spending my time doing.

By looking at this experience with the same sort of eye as going through college, or traveling to another country, I am free to find the extraordinary in it. To enjoy myself, and to help you find ways to enjoy your particular sojourns.

How am I healthy? Why do I choose to feel good? What makes me find the gift?

How have I changed from feeling doomed to rejoicing in my liberation?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 08232014

Secondary Gains

Secondary Gains

We are so interesting, us people. Because each of us is unique, we have endless differences and similarities to explore. Some of those are wonderful, some are tragic, or scary, or fill us with love and comfort.

We are all human. That’s the bottom line.

I recently learned that one of my communities is behaving poorly, and others are noticing. Got me thinking, like stuff does.

Not Creative Questions, but good questions, nonetheless: What kind of example am I setting? What roles am I modeling? When I am behaving badly, what do I get out of it?

Yeah, I don’t much like that last one, either, but since I am committed to knowing myself, I have to look at that stuff.

Secondary gains. That’s what we get when we are misbehaving and know we shouldn’t. It can be challenging and embarrassing to look that clearly at ourselves, but it is also the only way I know of to shed those behaviors.

Most of us like to feel celebrated, like to feel honored. We like to feel proud of ourselves, and that we are a contribution to our communities, from our families to our countries and world. Sometimes, we feel arrogant; better, smarter, more worthy, or deserving. Sometimes we feel the opposite; worse, dumber, less worthy in a weird and punishing way. Neither one feels good.

How do I know I am good enough? What makes me respect myself? Why do I choose to know me? How do I know I am safe to know me?

When I encounter one of those times, being better or less than you, I need to stop. I need to regroup. I usually need to relax something, my body, my feelings, or a notion I have.

When I find myself indulging in one of those behaviors that feel shamefully fun, I try to take a step back, and at the very least, stop. It can often feel really fun at the time, but then I feel bad after. It’s often not worth it to me in the long run.

Secondary gains are interesting. It may be the case that we feel relief from built up, inside psychic or emotional pressure. It may be the case that we feel connected by doing the same things as our friends. It may be the case that we feel elevated, or better than. It may be the case that we feel included, or noble, or self-sacrificing. We each have our own, special list.

Since I want to grow up, I have these topics to address. I will notice when I feel guilty. Is there something I need to do, or do I simply need to let it go? I will notice when I am worrying. Is there something I need to do, or do I just let it go? I will notice when I am doing something that brings secondary gains, and I will stop, and shift my behavior.

I believe that when I learn the lesson, the situation will change automatically. It’s all for me. From your POV, it’s all for you, the Universe providing us with what we need to become our very best selves.

How have I changed from indulging in childish behaviors to choosing to enjoy being a grownup?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12292013

Banishing Dark Sufferance

Banishing Dark Sufferance

My absolutely favorite card of all, my absolutely favorite Creative Question of all came up today, Why is it so easy?

We like to imagine that it’s hard. They say that suffering is a matter of course. That human nature is inherently bad. We also like to imagine that fortune and justice are blind, that Santa Claus is a myth, and they say that we can’t change our spots.

They lie like paint on sand, like a dog on a rug, like a bad toupee.

I see people changing all the time. Sometimes, we see that rapid change when someone discovers a recreational drug.

I saw that change in me, when I did my time on speed and cocaine. The beginning of the end of the dark ages  was seeing a photo of me taken when I thought I was all that, lived on 6 soda crackers a day, with caffeine and drugs, for several months, and oh, dear, the look of my face was terrifying to me. One more piece in my choosing happiness.

As we choose over and over to grow up, to evolve, to touch the center of our perfect selves, to flash into enlightenment awareness, easy comes along as a matter of course.

Why would I choose to grow up? What makes being a grownup fun?

I often know that I’ve taken a detour because it feels hard. When I notice that feeling, of struggle, of dark effort, I take it as a cue to pause, to go inside, to slow down, to find my peace.

The weird thing is that, even though nothing on the outside has changed, getting to that place inside changes everything, and everything feels easier. It can happen in an instant. Really.

Why do I stop worry in its tracks? Why would I choose to feel peaceful? What makes me relax all the way through?

There is nothing that being worried, stressed, angst-y, and clenched can’t make worse.

Why would I choose easy?

When I recenter myself, all that crapola falls off. When I recenter, and restart my Creative Questions, my unconscious mind begins to cook on my well being, and the under current moving me forward gets strong again. When I recenter, I remember that my attitude and POV create my reality, and if there is stuff I don’t like, I can shift my insides to, at the very least, allow it to be.

(I really do this. I don’t just blather on about it. I had a very weird day yesterday, and am using my tools as we speak to bring me back to easy, joyful, satisfying, and so on. Why do I like easy?)

Easy is something I like to practice on every day, especially on the little stuff. The little stuff is easy, and the medium stuff, then, gets easier. Then, when the big hard horrible stuff comes up, I can cope. I can cope in ease, I can cope with peace. Or I can get their pretty fast because I’ve spent all that time carving the pathways in my brain.

How have I changed from buying the idea of hard to seeing that I can make it easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12272013