Esteem Cleaning

Self-loathing. Do you know anyone who hates themselves? How heartbreaking to hate ourselves, to constantly find fault, to say horrible things to ourselves, to feel like a burden to others, to even wish we were dead, when we are divine and infinite beings of brilliance and light.

How wonderful that so often it is based on mislearning and we can shift it around, because here I am, your slightly dinged, relatively shining example of someone who did just that. And now I have the power of Creative Questions. I can address that horrible characteristic at the source: My mind.

Why could I be okay? How am I acceptable? Why would I like me?

I will tell you truly, I tried affirmations for years, and frankly, they made me feel worse. I was not better and better every day, in every way. When I didn’t feel better, I felt like even more of a failure as a person.

Why can I cope? How do I find my resources? Why could it all be just so easy?

Turns out affirmations work best if you are doing pretty well, but kind of suck when you are trying to make a big change, or are already feeling blue. I mean, why would I want to be lying to me? I was living a very nasty life, and telling myself I was happy and healthy when I wasn’t was like an authority figure nagging at me to shape up, and what the hell’s the matter with you anyway. It made me so sad.

The difference between Creative Questions and affirmations is in how our brains process language. When we make a statement, like an affirmation, our brain takes it and stops, unless it starts to ask questions about the statement. The statement drops like a stone in sand, it can raise a little dust, but not much happens.

When we ask a Creative Question, it goes into our minds and kicks it into high gear. Our unconscious minds LOVE a good question formulated like a Creative Question, like dropping a stone in water, all those ripples start to happen. It starts looking for good answers. To supercharge a Creative Question you are working on, add “else” into the mix.

Why else am I good enough? What else makes me valuable? How else do I know I am a gift?

When we have people telling us for a long time that we suck, we buy it, then we start to believe it and internalize it. Our job as grownups-in-training is to change that belief, start to see our value and internalize that, and let go of the crap we absorbed in the olden days. As we move forward in this, we often find that we can even feel compassion for those sad people who hurt us. Why are we so amazing?

Why do I matter? How am I a wonderful surprise? Why do I own my worth?

Notice how you feel when you are asking these Questions. Notice if your body shifts around. For me, I often find I sit up a bit straighter, and a bit softer. Things relax. And then I know my posture for feeling good, and can put that on when I am asking my Creative Questions for even quicker results.

How have I changed from believing my bad PR to knowing I am a gift?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04292014

How do you matter? Why else do you know you are good enough? If you have found something valuable, or useful here, please interact with the page by + or sharing. Thanks.

Connecting Our Gifts

Connecting Our Gifts

How do I feel when I am significant? How do I feel when I am valuable? How do I feel when I am a contribution?

Belonging to our communities, feeling a part of something, is critical to our sense of well being. It’s one of five things; spirituality, social, career, physical, and material. When we have those things going pretty well, we feel great. When any one of them is out of whack, so are we.

Back when, I felt like I had to be a loner. I didn’t feel comfortable around you. I had some rotten, secret stuff happening to me, that was also secret from me, and so I felt like a freak. Hard to fit in when you don’t know who you are.

So, I made my big vow that I would be happy, and started to change things, and bit by bit, I found communities, groups of friends, people I could talk with, places where I felt comfortable, at least to rest, if not comfortable to be me. And I found good teachers.

Those groups changed as I changed, cleaned up, so to speak, as I cleaned up, and got healthier and happier as I got healthier and happier. And I started to feel like I contributed something to them, rather than just taking.

I tells ya, that was a huge moment for me, the first time I realized that my presence had made a difference for someone else. It was another thing that was a secret from me, pretty much until that moment, the fact that I could make a difference.

How do I matter? What makes me count? Why do I feel important?

When I felt like a misfit, I also felt angry at you for being a jerk, and at me for being a freak. When I felt like a misfit, I also felt ashamed that I was a freak, and that I was so repellent.

When I felt like a misfit, I also felt like the only thing that could relieve my discomfort was oblivion, so I developed a relationship with mood altering substances. I had seen a lot of people do that, so it seemed like a good idea, but it really didn’t help, and made a lot of stuff worse.

I had to unchoose my old way of doing almost everything, and correct the mislearnings. It took me a while, but whoa, Nelly! it was worth it.

How do I know I am a gift? Why do I value my contribution? What makes me feel connected?

Unchoosing our old ways that don’t make us feel better is worth it. Unchoosing our old ways that leave us feeling bad about ourselves is worth it. Unchoosing habits that make us feel ashamed or angry is worth it. We are worth the effort it takes to make the changes we want. We don’t need to do anything overnight, so to speak. It took me a while to get here, and it may take me a while to get where I want to go.

My personal example is around my weight. I didn’t gain it fast, and every time I lost it fast, I gained back more. Now I am losing it slowly. I “rest” after a few pounds and pay attention to my feelings. Often I find that I have something attached to a specific weight. Perhaps it is fear, or anger, or grief. When I address those experiences, and integrate them, I can move on from that number down to the next. It may be slow, but it sure is clean.

How have I changed from feeling like a nuthin to feeling how much I matter?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04082014

How do you feel when you matter? What makes you valuable? How do you know you are a gift? If you like what you find here, please + and share. Thanks.

Taming the Dragon

Taming the Dragon

I think it’s fascinating how many of us undervalue ourselves. We are a few minutes late for work, we get an overdraft, we come down with a bug, we forget a special date, and we feel like we are bad people.

How do I know I am valuable?

Here’s the rub. If I feel like I’m not worth very much, you will treat me like I’m not worth very much, even if you treat me with respect and kindness. I won’t see respect and kindness, I will see that somehow you treat me poorly. I expect it. Occasionally, we may find someone who bucks our system, but for the most part, we will get back what we put out. That’s how our filters work.

Dang. Stupid Law of Attraction.

What makes me recognize my worth?

So then some of us start to strive. We strive to be good people. Problem is that we fall every time we screw up, and end up feeling worthless and bad again. Sometimes, we have that self-worth sensor set to such a sensitive setting that we never even feel relief, we never get to savor the feeling of being a good person, feeling like a worthwhile contribution.

Some of us just end up saying what the heck, and go for it.

We can feel that dark side of ourselves.

Some of us fight it, some of us give into it. Some of us accept it and move on.

When I fight my dark side, the qualities I dislike most in myself, I see them all over. These are the things I “hate” about other people. I am miserable.

When I give into my dark side, I act out the qualities I dislike most, and deny my light side. I am miserable.

When I accept my dark side, I see the qualities I don’t like, and recognize that I am human. I shoot for excellence, not perfection. I own that I have stuff, and since I don’t have to fight it, I have a little more juice to catch it when I go there, and shift it around. Or I apologize. I used to envision my dark side, my evil twin, as a terrifying monster. Now I see it more as a big but approachable dragon. When I get dark fantasies, I don’t worry that I’m bad, I understand that I might want to take some nurturing care of me.

When I accept me, I accept the light and the dark. I know that the dark side is nurtured by traumas, many of which happened a long time ago. The more I feel plagued by my dark side, the better I will feel when I release my old crap. My dragon feeds on stress, fatigue, hunger, lonesomeness, guilt, and worry. The more of those I get, the more “dark side” I feel. When I get enough rest, when I eat well, have some fun moving my body, spend time with people I love, release guilty and worry, my dragon goes to sleep, so to speak. And I can see my value, I can feel my worth, and recognize my contribution.

How have I changed from fighting my dark side to loving my whole self?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10302013

Wearing My Fancypants Out Loud

Wearing My Fancypants Out Loud

I am always fascinated by us. I mean, we are so very interesting. The Creative Questions card I drew this morning was, “Why am I a gift?” I had so many thoughts on the topic, it took me a little while to settle on one.

Why would I choose to accept me as I really am?

The phrasing is a little clunky, but the idea is there. We tend to way underestimate ourselves. We do that for a vast number of reasons, most of which we aren’t even aware of.

I’m not talking about about a full minute Superbowl commercial promoting our dazzling awesomeness, but I am talking about recognizing our gifts, our contributions, our value.

So often we deny our value, to ourselves, to each other, to the world in general. We learn that to own it is somehow bad. And so we hide our proverbial light under the proverbial bushel, where glimmers peak out, and we feel a bit ashamed of how wonderful we are, as though to simply and completely be ourselves is somehow shameful.

So we hold back. We think small. We take baby steps. And when things get a little bit bigger, sometimes we freak out. and throw our sabots into the machinery.

Or we get so big and poofy that no one can see the real we, either. Huge goals, huge dreams, but we hide our real selves deep in the nooks and crannies.

What a sad waste of us.

I had a thing about “hubris.” Like being myself meant I was being too much, or overstepping my bounds, or putting on my fancypants.

Well, it turns out that I like my fancypants, so I needed to find a way that I could wear ‘em and not be struck down by the wrath of the heavens.

As has been the case in the past for me, it took me a long time, and, frankly, It continues to be a topic for me.

One thing that has been really helpful for me is promoting you. I love to promote you, and as I do so, I feel more comfortable promoting me. I see how amazing you are, I feel more sanguine about looking right at me. Why am I valuable?

When I take a minute to tell you stuff I love about you, I see that smile of yours, and I feel good. I like it when people notice to me the stuff they love about me, too. And the fact that what we are doing is appreciating each other’s unique gifts, wonderful talents, special skills, kind heart, generous spirit, loving manner, and so on, well, that dumb bushel busts up a little each time we support each other to be our best selves.

Sometimes, I think that if all of us threw off that damn bushel, the light would burn for eternity.

How’s that for a fancypants metaphor?

How have I changed from hiding and denying to owning my own significance?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10022013