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

How to Easy Up Your LIfe

How to Easy Up Your Life

I love how often I get the “Why is it so easy?” card. Maybe it comes up more because over the years the very card has gotten thicker with all my handling. Maybe it’s because I need to be reminded more often that, as the song goes, “The livin’ is easy.”

So many things turn out to be simple in our daily lives. Got a bad habit? Stop doing it. Want new circumstances? Change ‘em. Want to have more fun? Do it. See? Simple.

So what happens to that simple? Simple! We have stuff around our stuff.

Why is it just so easy? How could it be smooth sailing? What makes my life a snap?

I think I should change my bad habit. Instead of just stopping running late, over-indulging, not exercising or exercising too much, choosing misery, being too messy or too clean, and fill in your faves here, I justify it. “I deserve X, I like X, I don’t have time to not X.” I have negative emotional judgments. I resist for reasons I may not even be aware of.

Next thing I do is beat myself up for continuing my bad habit. For many of us, we have a running internal dialog about how much we suck.

This is where Creative Questions change everything. When we start asking good Creative Questions, things will change. It’s automatic. They change things way deep down inside. All we have to do is use them. I like to pick one and kind of chant is as I am walking. I will often add the work, “else” as in “Why else is it just so easy?” I don’t need to try to come up with answers, I just let the Creative Question wash through my unconscious mind.

The “How have I changed” Creative Question makes transitions easier. How have I changed from believing that life is hard to living it easy?

We have to choose this. We have to muster up our courage to go inside, deep inside, to our place of peace and love. We have to decide that we can live easy, with joy and satisfaction in what we do. Once we make that choice, that commitment, life seemed easier. We start to feel the flow of life, and we find ourselves relaxing into our natural life effortlessly.

Choosing easy doesn’t mean that interesting things don’t happen. Life will unfold as it does, but we choose easy instead of going  to negative emotional judgments. If I don’t think of a thing as negative, it’s just a thing. That’s easy. I can deal with a neutral thing.

As I get used to choosing easy I find that I don’t need complain; I address the topic. I act. I find that I am answering the Creative Questions “Why am I strong? Why am I capable? Why am I competent?” automatically. I find that I am experiencing auto-mood-tuning. I unchoose  crabby, I unchoose victim, I unchoose scared. I go to gratitude and appreciation quickly and comfortably.

I find that I don’t need to respond to drama and false emergencies. I take better care of me and my loved ones because I have more energy, I’m not using it up on distractions, but on things that really matter to me, things that actually enrich my life. That’s nice.

How have I changed from buying into the myth of struggle to living a life of easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04152015

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

Creating the Big Easy

Creating the Big Easy

One of those lines we hear on TV a lot is this, “We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way” On TV the easy way is usually caving in to the bullies, and the hard way is staying true to oneself. Mostly it’s not like that in the “real” world.  Here is a true thing: Easy is better, but not always what we think it is.

“Why is it easy?” is a lot like asking “How do I go with the flow of life?” When I stop resisting what is, and allow it, I don’t freak out. I don’t tense up, I don’t struggle, I don’t suffer.

With this chemo stuff, I have a bunch of opportunities to go with the flow. I find myself amazed that I can physically feel bad, and emotionally feel good, that I can find other stuff to attend to besides my discomfort, and that I really believe that “this too shall pass.”

I am amazed that I can let go of my big list of shoulds, and just be where I am. How can it be just so easy? Why do I go with the flow? What makes me flexible?

So here’s a wacky thing. Since I started rehearsing these “easy” questions, I’ve mostly stopped having bad days. That sure doesn’t mean that, uh, interesting stuff doesn’t happen any more. It does mean that I have some choices to make.

Do I want to be so rigid that one “interesting” thing can ruin my day and make me choose to feel angry or scared or miserable? Or do I want to be so flexible that one interesting thing can be the trigger to a wonderful day?

Sometimes I have ideas about myself. “That’s just the way I am.” Or, “I’m a taurus. That’s how we are.” Or, “I’m a woman, or American, or size 16.” When I hear me saying stuff like that, I have to stop for a bit. Am I saying that to support the me I want to be, or to justify or excuse a behavior that keeps me in struggle?

Why would I choose easy? What makes me let go of misery? How do I recognize my choices?

A big part of growing up is recognizing, and owning, our choices. It can be very challenging to do, especially when we feel buffeted by circumstances. We may be feeling like we are reacting to what is going on, not responding. We may feel like we can’t respond, like we aren’t choosing, but we can make our choices in a fraction of a second. Being aware, or looking back and noticing, can start to make a huge difference for us, for our comfort, for our sense of competency, for our feelings of personal power, for our experience of ease.

Sometimes we bale out on stuff we know would make us feel better, but it’s just on the other side of our comfort zone. It would take moving into unfamiliar territory and we don’t like to do that.  We have the idea that familiar is the same as easy. It’s not. When I was in an abusive relationship, of which I had several, it felt very familiar. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was ¨normal” for my life. Choosing to let that go was challenging, but gave me back a lot of me, and made so many things easier.

By looking at my ideas of ¨who I am¨ and assessing them, by looking into my heart and seeing who I want to be, I can start making choices that support me, that don’t hold me back, that don’t make me miserable, or push my loved ones out. I make choices that make my life easy.

How have I changed from making it hard to making it easy?

© Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 12062014

Moving to Easy Street

Moving to Easy Street

Here’s a little “try this” for you. Clench your fists tight, so you feel it up your arms. Hold it, hold it... Now let the clench go.

Easy.

I don’t know about you, but I have a bunch of places where I still seem to run into the clench. Places, situations, circumstances where I seem to make it harder again and again. I still respond to the idea of certain people with a clench. There are even places in my personality that make me clench. When I notice I am doing that, I let go as best I can, and relax. I start asking Creative Questions on the topic.

Wellness appointments can be clench-y for many of us, especially if it involves treatments. I used to have a lot of challenging feelings about them. Now I start asking good Creative Questions several days ahead: Why is my appointment comfortable, easy, and fun? What makes my appointment a good experience? How do I allow and accept my procedure? Why do I release my tooth? Okay, that last one is really specific, but it meant that my extractions were easy, and healed fast with no discomfort. Amazing.

Easy.

I like to be on time for stuff, and I hate rushing, and so one of the Creative Questions I use a lot is, “Why is my timing perfect?” I don’t always arrive on time, as I prefer, but it seems like when I am tardy, it works out.

I have also composed some Creative Questions songs that I sing a lot. I think singing Creative Questions is amazing. They get into different part of our minds, activate different things. Singing them is a powerful act. Try it!

Why is it just so easy? Why can I trust? How do things go my way? (Did you sing those Creative Questions?)

Integrating easy wants practice. I love practicing easy on small things. If I am having clenchies about something coming up, I will ask my regular CQ with would or could in the question. I will imagine different ways the upcoming event could work out fantastic for me. Fantastic. It often does. Then, to continue integrating the experience, I will make sure I take time to appreciate that the experience was good. This is why we should always celebrate even our small successes, our tiny achievements. Practicing feeling good is necessary to get to our core. We often blow past this step. Please stop doing that and feel appreciation for things working out, for being so smart as to imagine the good rather than anticipating awful.

If I am doing a little house task, or work task and getting frustrated, I will stop, take a few deep calming breaths and ask my easy questions. Usually when I get back to the task, I find that the jar opens, the gunge come up, I can reach the item, I find the thing, I suddenly figure out a better way to do it.

The other thing I like to practice is relaxing all the way through. If I am in stressful times, practicing relaxing all the way really helps. I use meditation, qi gong, Unlimited Breath to help me get to soft. Regular practice means that when something big comes up I have resources. I like resources.

How have I changed from believing in hard to trusting in easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07232014

Easy Peasy

Easy Peasy

One of my most favorite questions EVER came up this morning, namely, Why is it so easy?

I love this question, because I am finding that it is, indeed, so easy. Just about anything I do can be just so easy.

It’s all up to me.

What makes it easy? How could it be easy? Why do I enjoy easy?

All I have to do is remember to go there.

When I choose  easy, I remember to relax, not just my body, but my thoughts as well. Relaxed is how easy feels. When I choose easy, I see more beauty, I see more kindness, I see more opportunities. I am present in my life.

When I choose easy, I am going with the flow of my life. That is effortless. I don’t have to earn it. I don’t have to work hard for it. I don’t have to do anything, just choose it. When I choose easy, I give up struggle.

Choosing easy can be weird when I have struggled to work hard and earn it my whole life. Now, let’s say we have a habit of struggle, of striving. We don’t believe that choosing easy could be that easy. We totally believe we have to do something to earn it, to work hard for it. So we have to unchoose those beliefs, and then choose easy. It helps to remember that easy is mostly a feeling, and we create our feelings with our thoughts.

Why would I choose easy? What makes me positive? How do I feel light?

Once I start to notice that I think something is hard, or difficult, or that I have to work at it, I can ask, “How could it be just so easy?” I can give up feeling clenched, or up tight, to use a very descriptive old bit of slang. I can also ask, “How do I feel when it’s just so easy,” and let the feeling wash through me.

Easy, for me, feels peaceful. It feels soft, it feels excited and curious. I have been paying attention to curious a lot lately. Curiosity is one of the flip sides of fear. When I am curious, I open up. I look for possibilities. I look for hidden treasure. Curiosity engages my best self. Curiosity is easy. Curiosity is powerful. Curiosity is a damsite better than scared.

Sometimes all I need to do is pay attention to my breath, and unclench my clenchy muscles. Sometimes all I need to do is stop for a moment, and regroup. Or count something. Sometimes all I need to do is reframe something. That means to look at what’s going on with a different point of view. Just that, the simple act of look at X from over there instead of over here can change it from hard, or dark, or icky, to a blessing, a gift, an opportunity.

Sometimes, what I need to do is find the humor in the situation, and crack wise about it. When I put on my smartypants, life is way more fun. I like to imagine what my smartypants look like. That is often just the disruption I need to lighten me up.

How have I changed from heavy and dark to feeling light and easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06292014

Flowing It

Flowing It

“Resistance is Futile” or at the very least, a strange occupation. We can burn a lot of energy; psychic, emotional, and physical, in the act of resisting, and not gain a thing.

Resistance comes about when we say “no” to what is.

“What is” comes about through our thoughts. The attitudes we bring, our beliefs, our focuses, color the world we see. When I am focused on my foot, I will not be paying much attention to the lovely smell in the air. When I believe life is hard, I will miss all the little blessings that float in and through my days. When I focus on “no,” I miss a lot of opportunities to say “yes.”

When I believe that things happen to me, rather than for me, I am pretending that I am not responsible for my life, my well being, my happiness.

Why can I choose? What makes me enjoy? How am I aware?

Many of us mislearn that things happen to us. We can’t imagine that there is a gift in the occurrence. That feeling, of stuff happening to us, can make us feel out of control, and scared. So we respond to that by trying to control our outside circumstances, our loved ones, and communities. It takes a huge amount of effort, and doesn’t really get us very far.

When I choose to believe that things happen for me, that there is always a gift, sometimes a very profound gift, I open to my life. I recognize that I have enormous control over the quality of my experience, all through my mind, my thoughts, my ideas.

This means that as my life unfolds, I am interested in what is happening. I am curious about the lessons to be learned, I am excited by the hunt for the gift. I say, “Oh, this is how life is now,” and get on with things. Resistance is absurd.

What makes me decide? Why am I positive? How do things go my way?

I choose to believe that it can all be just so easy.

That doesn’t mean I never have discomfort, that means I flow with my discomfort, I don’t put emotional weight on it, whatever kind of discomfort it might be. I choose to soften, I choose to relax, I choose to trust. I remember to breathe, I remember to choose awareness, I act mindfully.

I may put my focus deep into the discomfort, but it is lightly, without negative emotional judgment. I may choose to pay attention to anything but my discomfort, not pretending it away, just not feeding it with my focus.

Why could it all be just so easy?

When I take responsibility for my life, I get to choose. I get to decide if I will suffer or enjoy. I get to decide if I will open my heart, or harbor resentments. I get to decide if I will make things easy or make things hard.

How have I changed from fighting it to flowing it?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06132014

Going For Easy

Going For Easy

What do you think about the idea that it could be easy? Do you think I’m full of baloney? Do you think that maybe this is easy, but not that? Do you nod your head and say, “Oh, yes, it’s all just so easy.”

We hear a lot about easy; taking it easy, easy does it, easy going, easy street. We hear people saying all the time that life isn’t easy. What would it mean to you if that weren’t a Truth? What would it mean if a lot of easy happens in our thoughts?

When I have a thought like, “This is so difficult,” I clench up. A nice visceral way to experience this is to make a tight fist and try to pick something up.

When I clench, everything gets more challenging. It’s why we have the second set of rules in my qi gong school; relax, relax, relax. I get ideas about how our life goes, and when we have decided that things will be hard to do, they will be hard to do. We will have lots of big, icky feelings. We will make unconscious choices that increase the difficulty. We will get what we expect. New Agers call this the Law of Attraction. We know it’s because of how we are filtering, and that we see, for the most part, what we expect to see.

When we are little, we have experiences based on our very short lives, and our limited understanding. We acquire a lot of mislearning as little ones, all of us. Our job as grownups in training is to correct these mislearnings to live our lives feeling free and happy, not the Yay-I-got-a-new-car kind of happy, but the happy that comes from living our natural lives of awareness, open heartedness, compassion, and wisdom.

Why could it all be just so easy? How do I relax? Why do I choose?

Going to the dentist was where I first really experienced the spectacular difference easy thinking could make in my life. In the olden days, I had an extraction. My face swelled up and looked bruised. I had a ton of pain. I expected to suffer, and suffer I did, for several days.

I had to have another couple extractions a few years ago. I had Creative Questions by then, and used ‘em. Why is my appointment gentle, easy, and fun? Why does my mouth feel great? And during the extractions: Why do I release my tooth with loving gratitude and joy?

No swelling, no bruising, and after the anesthetic wore off, no pain. Seriously.

When I think things are going to be hard, I get feelings of fear, anxiety, anger; stuff like that. Clenched. When I think things are going to be easy, I get feelings of joy, of fun, of excitement. Relaxed. When I assume things will work out in my favor, I feel relaxed, and can go with the flow. When I assume things will go against me, I feel tight.

Why is my timing perfect? How do things go my way? Why can I trust the Universe?

When I start expecting to be lucky, when I start expecting things to work out, when I expect to heal quickly and well, things change. When I take my emotions out of my physical discomfort, I relax and feel better. When I turn my thoughts to easy, things will get easier.

How have I changed from believing in struggle to enjoying the easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06012014

The Back Way

The Back Way

I would like to see a show of hands for those of you who think, “Oh, that Pam! She’s fulla beans when she says that things can be easy. Life is HARD!”

Why would I change my mind? How do I know I choose? What makes it all so easy?

How would your life change if you believed life is easy? How would your day change if you thought, “It’s all just so easy.” How would you feel this very moment when you think, “Why could it all be just so easy?”

Do you relax, and breathe a deep breath, or do you clench your fists and think, “LIES!!!”

Sometimes, we have to go around to the back and sneak in to find out what we wanna know.

What is making it so hard?

This is one of those times when we want to find answers, rather than our usual way of letting the answers be quiet in our unconscious minds.

I don’t like the task. I don’t want to be here. I don’t like So and So. I am not good at this. I am too hungry-angry-lonely-tired. I never get what I need. No one understands me. I have to do it cuz no one else can do it right.

Did I hit one of your favorites? My two faves are the first two.

So what I have to do, if I want it to be easy, is find a reason that matters to me for doing the task, and a reason I value for being here. When I do that, everything shifts and I go to easy.

Unless I want it to be hard. Ew. That is a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish.

That taps into the whole martyr thing. Or the perfectionist thing. Sometimes we want people to feel sorry for us. Sometimes it’s asking for help in a really bass-akwards kind of way. When someone asks me how I am and my first response is a how-hard-it-is response, I know I am off path, swimming against the flow, saying no in some way to my life.

And here again, I can go to the back door and sneak in to find out what is going on with me.

What don’t I like about my life?  

In this very moment, our lives are the perfect manifestation of what we are asking for. That can be kind of scary, but once we start looking at what is truly going on, and how that translates into a need or desire on our part, we get some power. For example, I had been feeling stuck in hating my living room arrangement for a while. I felt ashamed when I looked at it, and kind of helpless to change anything. Living rooms for me translate in to being sociable. I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed in my social world. Hmm.

When I came in through the back door, I realized that I needed help, asked my besties to come over, and we brainstormed what I could to to make the space match where I am now. I thought I needed to strip it to the bones to feel ok, ie, move to a deserted island, but they helped me see that I needed mostly to rearrange some things, let go of some things I don’t love, and open up again to loving the space. For me, that translated into paying a bit more attention to what I agree to do, let go of some of those soft addictions that eat up my free time, and spend that time doing things I really love.

Wow.

How could it all be just so easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04172014

If your life is easy, or hard, + or share. What makes you great?

Living Hard to Living Easy

Living Hard to Living Easy

“Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I love that saying. I like it even better when I remember it appropriately.

One of my favorite goals is for easy. Easy, effortless, smooth. I have times like this, many more than I used to. I imagine that I will continue to have more and more.

One of the ways I have easy is by remembering that your topics, generally speaking, are not my topics. Sure wasn’t the case back when. Back when, I made your stuff waaay more important than mine, or me. I believed that I was responsible for your happiness, your comfort, and the fact that you were so unhappy was all my fault. I thought your bad behavior was my fault. Everything was my fault.

I’m serious. I know it sounds nuts, but that’s what I thought. And I wondered, way deep down, why you didn’t feel like that about me. I thought that was love.

I would wake up in the middle of the night worried about you. I could get so overwrought about your well-being that I would cry for ages. I thought that was love.

I would drop everything if I thought you might need me. Being needed was hugely important to me, all my self-esteem sat there. I mixed up being needed and being loved.

I believed that you would stop abusing me when X happened. That X changed a lot depending on how things were going. I believed that if I held you blameless enough, if I treated you well enough, If I forgave you enough, you would stop. I thought that was love.

That was not easy. It was also a great big pile of mislearning. The nice thing is that we can walk away from  a great big pile of mislearning like that and it will eventually fade away. I will also tell you that I got a lot of help unchoosing that mislearning.

Why can I relax? What makes things go my way? Why is it just so easy? How is my life effortless?

When I understand that I am responsible for me, and to you, things get easy. When I understand that I cannot make you do anything, and you cannot make me do anything, things get easy. When I understand that I filter my world based on my beliefs, and that I can change my beliefs, things get easy.

Back when, I had people say, “Wow, you sure live hard.” I thought it was a compliment. Now, I like easy. Easy is fundamental to our natural lives, right along with relaxed, peaceful, satisfied, content, blissful, creative, and connected. Easy is inside me. Easy is inside you, too. It’s just all covered up with old beliefs, outdated notions, expired ideas, that need to be cleaned up.

Why can I let go? What makes me surrender? Why do I trust life?

As I choose to become a grownup, I choose to let go of all that old, useless stuff. I choose to take responsibility for my own well being, and be responsible to you. I choose to let go of worrying about how stuff will turn out, and trust that I will manage well. I choose to relax. I choose to go to peace. I choose easy.

How have I changed from choosing hard to choosing easy?

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