Fill 'Er Up!

Fill ‘Er Up!

I pulled the “Why Can I Choose?” card and you know that is one of my very favorites. As I lolled on the porch, I thought about what I choose, what I have chosen during my Adventures in Wonderland. I realized that the most important, life-changing thing I have done since it started was choosing to be curious over being afraid.

That choice meant I had to change the way I do some things. I am an information nut and a research queen. Under other circumstances, I would have researched the heck out of my new situation. What I quickly came to see was that most of the information out there has a scare-the-pants-off-you undercurrent. This is not useful. I quickly decided that, since I was under the care of so many people, I would choose ignorance, to a certain extent, and become curious about my physical experiences.

Why can I choose? What makes me feel engaged with my activities? How am I so alive? What makes me feel so curious?

Fear is a very low-vibrational thing. It is useful in actual dangerous circumstances, but really doesn’t do us much good as a hobby. Dispelling it takes some doing, especially as we often don’t even recognize it. We call it worry, or anxiety, or tension, or unease, or disquiet, and on and on, but it’s all just fear. Negative fantasies about the future. I’ve even seen it called “praying for the worst.” Yikes! I do not want to be putting my energy there.

When I let my curiosity out, fear melts away. In fact, sometimes just being curious about my fear melts it. I came to realize that I am not afraid of dead. That was nice. I can get afraid of discomfort, but if I stop judging it, that fear goes away.

My appreciations practice is grounded in curiosity. I wake up and wonder what delights I will experience that day. Where will I find beauty? How will I feel joy? What will surprise and enchant me? Where will I experience kindness? That sets me up in a very specific way to seek out those things, and, Lo, I find them almost every single day.

Curiosity helps me change my attitude about stuff. How can I make this (excruciatingly dull) task fun? Why would I choose to be here? How can I embrace my chemo/radiation experiences so I can enjoy them? How can I reframe this physical discomfort so I can do other stuff? Why would I be okay with having to sleep so much?

My Adventures in Wonderland have run on curiosity. It is the fuel that lets my days flow without freakout, without rage, without terror or depression.

Why would I choose to go with the flow? Well, it’s easier for one thing! I don’t know about you, but I like easy. How can I choose to have fun? If I can find a way to make it enjoyable, I can do anything.

Then there is one of my most favored old saws, “This, too, shall pass.” Then I wonder, what good lies ahead? How do I become more myself? How can I have more peace and joy?

How have I changed from choosing fear as my motivator to choosing curiosity as my fuel?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2016 all rights reserved 03102016

Stress Into Success

Stress into Success

Resolution, progress, answers, solutions, decisions, choices, options, outcomes, results, success.

Nice words, good feelings. How fun to be full of good questions that lead to good answers.

One of the ways I know I have good questions is that I have good answers. When the answers or solutions I’m coming up with suck, I’m asking bad questions. The worse the answers, the worse the questions.

It’s one of the reasons it pays to be self-aware, so that we can notice our bad questions and change them before the answers get us by the throat.

We know we are asking bad questions when we stop feeling good. It’s that simple.

Why do I feel good? How do I know I am right? What makes me victorious?

Many of us feel like we are under a lot of stress. There is a verb we use in NLP that I like a lot; to presuppose. In order for us to be under stress, we have to presuppose that stress is a real thing. So we have two things so far. One, stress is a thing. Two, we can be under it.

The same thing works for the notion of success. One, we presuppose success is a thing, and two, that we can have it.

Both of those ideas are based on our judgments. I judge this as bad, so I go to stress, I judge this as good, so I go to success. Using our judgment is really important, and learning to use it to decide when it’s a good idea to unchoose stress as a thing can transform a day from an awful disaster to something fine.

When we are stuck in the past, we can get depressed. Depression is rage turned inward.  We are having big feelings about how our past played out, and we are hanging onto that angry feeling, to resentments, to shame, to guilt. We presuppose that things should have gone differently than they did, and that we somehow lost out.

When we are stuck in the future, we can get anxious. Anxiety is negative fantasies about ourselves. We may say to ourselves, “I’m worried about so-and-so” but we really mean that we are scared for ourselves and how we would feel if something bad were to happen to someone we love. We presuppose that something bad will happen and we will lose out.

When we choose to be in the present, we let our life flow.We presuppose that everything changes. We presuppose that everything happens in its time, with good in it, and that we can find the good. We presuppose that we have power to make a positive impact. We presuppose that we are enough, that we are good, that good things happen for us. We have a lot of presuppositions, but they support our well being, our growth and evolution, and support us supporting each other. We understand that loss without judgment is change.

When I choose to experience my life as flow, miracles happen. I am successful. I feel fantastic, engaged, wise, and happy. When I am present, change is change, neither loss nor gain. I am full of compassion for both of us, for all of us.

How have I changed from choosing stress to choosing success?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03102014

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Stifle Yourself!

Stifle Yourself!

Today I drew the Innocent card. How do I feel when I feel innocent?

You do play with the “How do I feel when I feel X?” questions, right? They are crazy powerful. And you can often completely shift your internal state, how you feel, by taking the time to ask one of these questions, and then let the new feelings develop.

Archie Bunker, on American TV, used to admonish Edith, “Stifle yourself!” on a regular basis. How mean he was to her. The heartbreaking thing is that we do it to ourselves all the time. We do it through fear and anxiety, through worry or dread, through guilt about stuff we’ve done, and guilt about simply being and by focusing on what’s wrong rather than dealing with what’s wrong, and focusing on what’s right.

It sounds kinda dumb when we read the words like that, but it’s another thing altogether to live with it.

Of course, when we are in it, we are in it, and it’s hard to imagine ever not being in it. I know these feelings really well. All of them. I lived terrified for years, in such a pervasive way that I didn’t even know I was scared. Anxiety attacks were normal, worrying through the night was normal, and existential guilt was my very strange middle name.

I know what you go through regarding these feelings. Yuck.

Big, slow breathing, and Creative Questions, will help a lot. The breathing helps clear out the adrenalin whoosh, and the Creative Questions changes your thinking, which, of course, is where the feelings start.

Why am I innocent? How do I know I am perfect? What makes me divine? Why can I feel that I am pure?

As we grow up, we become more forgiving of our past selves, for our transgressions, both real and existential. I can let go feeling like I have to prove my worth, my right to be alive.

I become more aware of my thoughts; I notice when my thinking starts down those paths, and can haul it back to center.

If I start to get one of those bad feelings, like waking up in the middle of the night with an adrenalin lurch, I know it’s not “true” and I can calm my thoughts, and my body and breath quickly and easily. I almost instantly will go to a body scan, thinking clearly to myself, “My feet feel heavy and relaxed. They feel warm and comfortable.” Work up the body, but I’m usually back to sleep before I even get to my hips.

It takes trust, believing an equivalent of “God don’t make junk.” It takes paying attention, and some discipline.

If I’m starting to have anxiety about a situation in my life, I will do a “thought-tree.” Can I do anything about it right now? Yes? Do it. No? Do something else and change the thoughts.

I believe that I am worth the effort. I believe that you are worth the effort, but you are the only one who can make those changes happen. Practice on the little ones everyday. Practice on the middling ones as they arise, and you will be all limber and ready when the big ones come along, as they always do. You are amazing. You are worth it. You can do it.

How have I changed from stifling my amazing self, to allowing me to become a happy grownup?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01102014