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

Simple

Simple

Bottom line is that it’s simple. It’s so simple that most of the time we can’t see how simple it is. We kind of like complicated, it makes us feel important. But simple sets us free.

Are you wondering what on earth I’m talking about? Living our lives. Living our lives in simplicity and freedom.

How do we do that?

How do I choose? How am I happy? How have I changed from living in chaos to choosing simplicity?

Simplicity is, to a large part, all attitude. I make things complicated by intellectualizing them, thinking things to death, questioning, and not in a good way, everything. I make things complicated with negative fantasies about the future. I make things complicated by ruminating on my perceived guilt and shame. I make things complicated by second guessing you, deciding what you mean rather than asking you straight out. I make things complicated by being vague in my communications, by not knowing what I want, by not being present.

Yikes!

When I choose to relax, I am choosing simple. When I choose not to intellectualize, I am choosing simple. When I choose not to fret, when I choose not to make stuff up about you, when I choose to be clear and present, I am choosing simple.

Simple is often a scary concept for us. We feel like we would be losing something if our lives didn’t feel complicated, like we would be bored, or not matter, like we would turn into a hippy-type person, or a slacker, or not care. How could we live productive, valuable lives if things are simple? Life is hard and complicated.

It’s all wrong.

When I choose simple,  my time is softer. My mood is softer, too. Simple makes for lighter, more uplifted spirits. It’s way easier for me to get stuff done when I am cheerful than when I am morose. When I choose simple and aware, I can find joy all over the place. That makes even little things a delight. I can relish small tasks, I don’t need to make stuff complicated to feel important because feeling connected, engaged, and present is so much better.

Now, you need to understand that in the olden days, if there was a way to make it hard, that’s what I did. With everything. When I wasn’t feeling ashamed or guilty, I was fretting about me, about you, about the starving people of the world, about the dwindling rainforests and crime in the streets. If it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t worth doing. Oy.

I catch myself doing that from time to time. I will set myself a task, and then make it hard by including a world of distractions. I will make it hard by worrying about how it will turn out, how to do it perfectly. I can often stop myself from doing stuff by perfectionism.

Choosing simple makes it easy, and I do like easy. And it makes life fun. I love fun! And simple means I can find easy and fun pretty much anywhere.

How have I changed from believing in complicated to choosing simple?

© Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 10092014

Love Love Love

Love Love Love

How do I love my family? Why do I like people? Why do I have best friends?

Our relationships make life sweet. Our relationships can also provide us with lots of learning experiences.

Back in the day, I moved in and out of friendships. I would sometimes have large groups of friends, and sometime barely one. The down times gave me a lot of time to think.

One of the things I realized was that I had a lot of friends I didn’t like. I didn’t like their choices, I didn’t like the stuff they thought was fun, I didn’t like their music/movies/tv shows; you get the idea.

Deciding that I didn’t have to be friends with people I didn’t like was huge for me. I know it sounds really silly, but choosing my friends based on how much I liked them rather than whether they liked me was a minor miracle for me.

Why do I choose my friends? What makes me like people? Why can I choose?

Back in the day, I spent a lot of time with people I didn’t like so I could do my  bad things more easily; drinking and drugs. That was really painful, and made me want to drink and do drugs even more because my life was so gross.

When I made that choice, to stop using mood altering chemicals, I started meeting new people, in therapy groups, in AA meetings, and some of them I really liked. And then I had a feeling that was pretty unusual for me. I found that there were people whom I respected. Wow. That was an amazing feeling.

As a child, all my heroes were fictional, starting with Superman. As a sick kid,  I loved the idea of being invulnerable. But I knew I could never be invulnerable, I could never be Superman. And I was so caught up in my unhappiness that I couldn’t really see anyone else very clearly. What a funny thing that is.

So I started meeting amazing people; kind, interesting to me, working to make their lives better, creating good spaces for others to improve their lives. Respectable. And fun.

As I became friends with them, I had more fun. And suddenly I had role models, people who were living in ways I wanted to live. Inspiring people.

I love that my heros are my friends.

Why do I like people? What makes me choose good friends? Why do I have besties?

Since relationships are not always easy, I try to remember that you cannot disappoint me, only my expectations of you can disappoint me. I try to remember that either everything is personal, or nothing is. I try to assume the relationship, that just because we have a miscommunication doesn’t mean the relationship is over. I try to remember that I feel better when I choose the high road.

How have I changed from thinking that people suck to living in a world of love?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04212014

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Finding Change

Finding Change

What are you looking at? In your mind, I mean. Are you looking at the past, with feelings of sorrow, shame, or regret, confusion, or the blues? Are you looking at the future with feelings of fear, or anger, anticipating the worst?

Maybe you are looking at what’s wrong with stuff; your kids, your partner, your job, your house, your appearance, your health, your finances. It seems like the list is endless. And I bet you feel terrible. Poor lil punkin.

Stop it right now. You heard me.

You deserve to feel good. You deserve to feel light and happy. You deserve to look at your whole life with a smile.

So how do you do that, when everything sucks?

I know it’s really irritating to hear this, but accept this one thing, and your life will start getting better right away. It’s like magic. This single change will start a chain reaction that will make your daily life easier, your relationships nicer, help you find meaning and purpose, satisfaction, and contentment.

All you have to do is change one thing: your mind.

Decide you are going to focus on the good stuff in your life. Decide you are going to stop living in the shame or guilt of the past, or the fear and worry of the future. Decide you are going to practice spending some time being present, being aware. Decide you are going to relax, let things flow, trust you have the resources, or access to the resources you need. Decide to stop looking for crap; crappy behavior, crappy events, crappy circumstances.

Why do I choose to look up? What makes me decide to see the positive? Why would I choose to be happy? Why do I change my attitude?

Now the amazing stuff happens. You will start noticing the tiny lights in the darkness of your life. You will see a little sweetness, a small kindness, a silver lining. You will remember why you love your loved ones. You will see the child in your face, and you can choose to love her or him all over again. Or maybe for the first time.

You will begin to see how things are right. You will start to feel like things go your way a bit more often, You may feel like your luck is improving.

Why do I change my mind?

We are infinite beings with incredibly powerful minds. When I choose to look at the world as a horrible place, I am denying myself, and the world, the miracle of my true self. When I change my mind, and choose to accept what I am, who I am, how I can be, and how my life can be, I being my journey of awareness. I start to spend more time living my natural life. It is easier for me to take care of me, and of you, and of the other things that matter to me.

Why am I so great?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12022013

Ad Hoc Happiness

Ad Hoc Happiness

Doing without. The spirit of thrift. Making do. Reuse, repurpose, recycle. Jury rigging.

I pulled the Why am I Happy? card this morning, and surprisingly found myself considering some of what makes me feel happy.

As I made that list, I found myself thinking about how much fun I have figuring out how to make things work, what to do with leftovers, how to stretch stuff, how to be thrifty. It’s fun for me to find ways to save money without making sacrifices, because one thing I’ve learned about me is that, when I feel like I’m sacrificing, I feel resentful, not happy. But that’s just me.

One reason I like to come up with new life for things, or foods, is because then I feel resourceful and creative.  I like knowing how to fold paper into useful objects; a chopstick stand from it’s own wrapper, a cup from a sheet of paper when I am thirsty, or a fan when I am hot.

Feeling resourceful and creative are elements of happiness for me.

Loving and feeling loved are other elements. Feeling useful and productive, feeling spiritual, feeling like I am taking good care of me, and you, being generous, and kind; these are things that are part of feeling happy for me.

On the other hand, there is happiness that is just feeling light inside, uplifted, fluffy. When I talk about changing feelings as easily as changing your mind, this is the feeling I’m talking about. This feeling is simple, easy to get to; basically, yours for the taking.

Why do I choose to feel happy? What makes me feel light? Why do I choose uplifted?

So turn off the sad music right now, get some light on you, and let’s get started.

First step, relax. That’s the first step for a lot of stuff. It’s not just our muscles that need to relax, but our thoughts and feelings. If I am not feeling peaceful, something is clenched somewhere within me, and practicing relaxing when I feel good or okay is wonderful practice for getting back to peaceful quickly and easily when it’s something bigger.

Step two, start asking those good Creative Questions. Chances are better than not that I am all frothy with bad creative questions; Why is it so hard? Why do I feel so bad? What’s wrong with them? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I ever do X? Why does X always happen to me? Well, you know what your favorites are, and if you don’t, now is the perfect time to start noticing. One of my favorites is What’s wrong with me? with the quick answer, I suck. Identifying your question makes it much easier to flip it into a Creative Question.

Step three, change your posture and facial expression. A very nice rule of thumb is this, if you want to feel blue, slump and frown. Cave in your chest, shorten your breathing, and droop the corners of your mouth. If you want to feel light, sit up and smile, at least crinkle the corners of your eyes, ask your good Creative Questions, and breathe some good, refreshing deep breaths.

When I choose happy, everything gets easier. It’s easier to dump my negative emotional judgments, my resentments, my sense of betrayal over little things. It’s easier to let my emotions flow when I know I can chose how I want to feel. And it’s easier for you to be around me. Practice makes the happiness groove easier and easier to get into. Nice when something beyond the normal daily drivel happens.

How have I changed from feeling like happiness is a mysterious thing randomly bestowed and snatched away to getting that I am in charge of my own happiness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 12012013

Creating Opportunity

Creating Opportunity

Sometimes I crack me up. I have started today’s contemplation three times. The first time was snarky. The second time was dumb.

I’m hoping three’s the charm.

I pulled the “Why do I trust?” card this morning. How have I let go of fixing my life to allowing it to unfold?

Fixing vs. unfolding. Effortful vs. effortless. Tense vs. relaxed.

When I allow my life to unfold, I am assuming the best at the heart of it all. When I am fixing my life, I am focused on the brokenness. The situation I’m in can be the same one, the difference is in attitude, my point of view, my outlook.

When I am fixing my life, I am focused on the problem. I worry about it. I fantasize about how things will go. What if it turns out badly? What if it turns out worse than that? What if it’s so awful I could die? What if other bad things happen when I’m trying to fix this bad thing? What if I can’t do this? What if it all blows up in my face?

When I allow my life to unfold, I trust that I will find my way through whatever happens, and come out richer on the other side. I assume that. I expect that. I haven’t been disappointed.

It’s subject to my interpretation.

I would rather be relaxed and happy, thank you very much. So I choose relaxed. I choose to trust. I choose to feel safe. I choose to feel protected.

When I first started on this path, I thought that choosing to feel safe was dumb. Life is full of danger, am I right? Bad guys are around every corner. When I had that attitude, I ran into them often. Since I decided that I was safe, something happened and I mostly don’t. I mean, most people are good, am I right? Weird.

My attitude creates my world.

When I expect to find the bad, I find bad. I know the outcome will suck.

When I expect to find the good, I find good. I know the outcome will please me.

Stuff is always going to happen. Stuff that happens is neutral. I choose which way I will judge it. I choose to judge it as a good thing, or a bad thing. When I choose to find the good, I feel powerful. I feel competent, I feel uplifted and like I am contributing something to the greater good. When I choose to find the bad, I feel doomed, I feel depressed, I feel drained, and like the world is depleting me.

Next time something happens, you can play the game. Put on your creative genius hat, and ask yourself, “How is this a bad thing?” Come up with one or two answers. Notice how your body feels.

Now ask yourself, “How is this a good thing?” Come up with one or two answers, and notice how your body feels. If this seems challenging to you, keep at it. Believe me, it’s worth it.

How have I changed from being pissed off by the cloud to relishing the silver lining?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10102013