Pacifying the Drama

Pacifying the Drama

I drew the “Why am I peaceful?” card today and, as usual, it got me thinking. I cannot be peaceful, which I really like, if I am being dramatic. As I have been going through all the chemo stuff, I have been pretty peaceful, and drama has not shown up much, but it shows up when I let me go to miserable. I can’t be peaceful and miserable at the same time.

When I choose to be miserable, because I am annoyed, or tired, or want to be doing something else, I am looking inward at my expectations. When I do that, I clench.

In my qi gong practice, we spend time with the idea or intention of being upright and relaxed. When I am upright and relaxed, it often has less to do with my physical being than with my emotional and spiritual self. I can feel upright and relaxed lying down and curled up.

So often, I find that my expectations of how this moment should be, rather than how it is, can lead me to clenched. I may have expectations of entitlement, or different circumstances, or that I should be feeling something else.

The Truth is, and notice the capital T which means true for everyone, this moment is perfect for me. Perfect. For. Me.

In my clenched state, I say, “What the heck does that mean? This moment sucks.”

Every moment is full of information for us about what we are doing, and how we are doing it. If I can soften up enough, I can notice the bad creative questions I am asking that are getting me the results I am being dramatic about.

Why am I so miserable? A bad creative question that will get answers like, nothing goes my way. I hate my life, I should have more money, friends, fun things to do, productive work, health, joy, contentment, a car, more ease, a better home. Look for your shoulds. They are a great way to beat ourselves up. A transitional creative question can be, “What stops me from having more joy, etcetera?” Or “What gets in my way?” If I am putting that on someone else, I can wonder why I have someone so obstructive in my life, or why I allow them to block me.

That moment can give us information about our blocking beliefs. One of my favorites is that if I have less stuff I will be bored. Really. I just noticed it this morning, thinking about being at my grandmother’s house with room after room of less stuff, and what we did on Sunday mornings was sit around having to be quiet while the adults read the paper, played solitaire, chatted quietly, or even napped. Napped! In the morning. Good grief. I, on the other hand, can stress out about how messy my house is, how the dishes and stuff need washing, and surrender to my sense of overwhelmed and watch old movies while feeling guilty. Huh. Insight.

Why am I peaceful? What makes me take care of myself? Why am I supportive?

Oh, supportive. Supportive of me staying away from the drama, which the preceding belief engenders. Why would I support myself? Why would I care for my environment? Why would I unchoose drama?

The more I practice feeling peaceful, the better the pathway to get there in my brain. When I get peaceful, I get more stuff that I want to finish finished. I make better choices about how to spend my time. It’s easier for me to say no, and I say yes with more clarity.

How have I changed from choosing drama to choosing peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 09142014

Trust Babies

Trust Babies

Have you noticed how much more enjoyable life is when you are feeling present and relaxed? You can let things just happen, and roll with it, finding enjoyment and purpose as you go through your day.

It’s a weird thing. If I don’t have to make things work out, I can slow down inside. I can savor my moments. Time passes at a reasonable rate, and I don’t feel like it flies by. A week takes a week, a month takes a month, and it’s a nice, long wait from birthday to birthday.

If I’m not trying to make things go a certain way, I have more energy to find the fun in what I’m doing, or the satisfaction, or the contentment. I get to the end of my day, and feel gratitude and appreciation for my good day, and when I wake up, I wake up feeling like that, too. It beats the heck out of going to sleep stressed and tense, and waking up the same way. I did that for years.

If I’m not trying to seem smart, or fancy, or fascinating, or just trying to think of how I’m going to respond to what you’re saying, I start listening to you. Really listening. And amazing things happen. I learn stuff from you. I learn more about you. I remember more of what you say. I find that I feel closer to you when I listen to you than when I am all focused on me. And because I heard you, my response is better, we are really having a conversation.

Why do I trust? How do I know the Universe is for my benefit? What makes me relax?

When I stop trying so hard, to please, to fit in, to conform to my ideas of what is normal, I find me. When I stop feeling victimized, angry, scared, confronted, attacked, or beleaguered, and choose to flow with my life as it unfolds, I find that those feelings dissipate, and I am comfortable in my skin, in my thoughts, and behavior. I make choices that suit me better, and if things don’t go the way I think they should have gone, I am free to see how it actually works out for me.

When I choose to trust, I take the pressure off. I lose a lot of my wacky expectations. I love the old saw, “You don’t disappoint me, only my expectations of you disappoint me.” It’s one of the reasons I like to look for emotionally-neutral language to describe interesting circumstances.

Neutral language helps me respond to what’s actually going on rather than to my ideas, or your ideas, of what is going on. Lots of places in the world use emotionally charged language to try to manipulate us into doing stuff. The one I see the most is fear. If I scare you enough, you will buy my stuff, or take my treatment, or shop at my sponsor’s store.

So I avoid the “news” and scary healers and anyone else who seems to have an agenda that uses fear, and make sure I slow down to process and release their stuff if I get hit with it,

And I trust that I can cope.

Why am I capable? Why I am competent? What makes me strong? Why do I trust?

When I take on those Creative Questions, when I claim them for my very own, when I ask myself those questions, I set myself free. When I choose to trust the universe, I set myself free. I am free to connect, to engage, to have bliss, to feel joy, to live my natural life.

How have I changed from second-guessing and gainsaying to trusting and living free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07072014

Finding the Win

Finding the Win

One of my most precious beliefs has a few pieces to it. II believe that one of the reasons I am here is to be the best me I can be.  I believe that the Universe is benevolent. I believe that the Universe gives me what I need to be the best me right now, and to become the best me I can get to. I believe that everything that happens in my life brings me a gift, sometimes many gifts, and part of my task is to find those gifts.

What do you think about that?

This may be one of the most profound paradigm shifts I’ve experienced, that of looking for the gift in everything. Especially since my whole way of being was playing victim/martyr.

Why can I choose? Why would I choose positive? Why do things go my way?

Ok, that last question can be a doozy. Especially when it seems like things are bad. That’s the time to bring out your favorite Creative Questions.

How do I benefit? How does this situation bless me? What makes me see the good?

When I look for the ick I will always find it. People are selfish, or hateful, or cruel. Life makes us suffer, things are bad.

The same way, when I look for the blessing, the good luck, the gift, I also will always find it.

Well, finding stuff to feel grateful and appreciative about changes how I see the world. No matter what is going on, I can find something to feel thankful for. I have a mind of infinite possibilities. I have a good imagination. I am creative, and brilliant, and I can use these super powers to create my reality.

Remembering that you can’t disappoint me, only my expectations of you disappoint me, is a profound thing. Remembering that you are doing your best, that you are a divine and infinite being who also wants to live a nice life, lets me feel compassion for you. Once I feel compassion, I can relax about you, and I can relax about me, because I know those things are true about me, as well.

How am I healthy? What makes me feel well? Why am I strong? How am I soft? Why would I choose to go with the flow?

When I choose to flow with what is, I stop resisting it, and I stop clenching. I can choose easy, I can choose relaxed, I can choose to live my natural life. When I stop fighting, I can choose to see the benefit, I can see the limitless support available, and I can feel how all of my world is there for me. I feel like it matters that I am here, I feel my place in the world.

Winning and losing are, more than anything else, attitudes. I can look at my current situation, and think, “As someone who is dedicated to creating a healing space, I am a failure.” Or I can look at my current situation and think, “I have a shining opportunity to learn about me, about wellness, about healing, and about finding the joy in anything. I will be better and stronger, wiser, and create better, more wholesome spaces, because I choose to flow with this.”

How have I changed from fighting the loss to relaxing for the win?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06172014

The Cake or the Crumbs

The Cake or the Crumbs

I had an interesting moment recently, when a friend pointed out that something I had asked for recently wasn’t very much. Throwback thought ensued.

Back when, I hoped for crumbs. I hoped people wouldn’t be mean. I hoped someone might remember my birthday. I hoped I might get a kind word, or some positive attention.

Because we are unique beings, each of us has our own mind map of how the world goes. Each of us has our own idea of what words mean, what gestures mean, what facial expressions mean. We tend to be drawn to people who interpret things more or less as we do, rather than people who look at things in a very different way. It’s one of the reasons that travel is so life-expanding; experiencing life in a very different context.

Looking at our expectations can be eye-opening.

What do I want? What do I expect? How am I satisfied? Why do I choose?

When we ask questions about things like expectations, desires, how the world goes, we are looking our beliefs straight in the eye. We get to use our powers of judgment to decide if these beliefs serve us well or poorly. We get to decide if they support us and our loved ones, or rip us off. Do they set us up for success or not?

When I couple crappy expectations with a bad attitude, my day is going to suck. So often we have a thing to do, and rehearse all the ways it can go wrong. We build up our expectations for things not to work out, so even if they do, we feel disappointed. We are so cute!

By rehearsing all the ways stuff can blow, we are setting ourselves up in a bunch of ways. We start to expect things to happen as they do in our ugly fantasies. Coping with negative stuff takes a lot more energy, so we feel wiped out physically and emotionally, we feeling like we deserve to indulge in our favorite soft addictions, and deserve to be in a bad mood, and inflict it on everyone.

Yikes.

Why could things work out? How would things go my way? Why would I choose to be happy?

If I am feeling really clear about what I want and I’m not getting it, chances are good that I have a bad belief in the way.

Okay, that’s the next piece of this little equation. Sometimes we get a limiting idea about ourselves, and identify with it, and color ourselves with that brush. We can find these by noticing when we say or think stuff like “I always, I never, I can’t, I don’t.” Notice variations on that. “People always treat me, nobody ever comes through for me.”

Sometimes, when we start noticing these beliefs, apply our good Creative Questions, we can change them in an instant. Sometimes, we will need to practice for a while, but it’s another way we will improve the quality of our life.

It takes a lot more energy to filter for crap than it does to filter for good.

How have I changed from expecting the worst to enjoying to best life offers?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05032014

Do you have a conflict between a want and a belief? What would be a good Creative Question to resolve that conflict?

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Webs of Trust

Webs of Trust

Fragile and powerfully strong, fundamental and elusive. Emanating from tiny creatures to help nourish them, to help them stay connected. No, I’m not talking about spider webbing. I’m talking about trust, and us.

What a weird thing that is. We all need trust as a building block for growing up. Or maybe it’s the mortar. Trust connects us to each other, to our world.

It is a curious phenomenon. When I trust, I am effectively giving you a pointy stick and telling you where it will hurt the most to poke me. If you are trustworthy, you will take the stick, and you won’t poke. Otherwise, ow!

In the dark ages, I got poked a lot. I trusted all the wrong people. I believed that everyone was untrustworthy, like the people I was choosing to trust, who seemed to relish every jab they gave me.

I don’t get jabbed much anymore. Seems like I can tell better who is likely to wield that pointy stick.

Trust is a belief, which is an idea, which is a thought, which we can choose, or unchoose, to think.

As I left the dark ages behind, I changed the way I thought about trust. I started over in a lot of ways, and Creative Questions really helped me focus that by focusing on the result, the outcome, I wanted.

Bad creative questions had been my norm, “Why do people always hurt me? Why don’t things ever go my way? Why do I always get the short end of the stick?”

Now, I could start asking good Creative Questions, “Why do things go my way? What makes me successful? Why am I intimate? Why am I happy?”

By making little shifts in my beliefs, I started making changing the quality of my days. And I started to expect that things would be nice. When I believe my loved ones will be kind to me and support me, instead of believing that they will always, eventually, let me down, I change my behavior. And if they do let me down, it has somehow shifted from a personal poke to just a thing. Although sometimes it may take a bit for me to remember that.

When I started to believe that the Universe is here to support me, that my environment is here to support me, that the whole of my existence is here to support me, everything changed, just a bit, then gradually more and more. I started to look for silver linings, opportunities, lessons for my spiritual growth.

When I remember that you can’t disappoint me, only my expectations of your behavior can disappoint me, I can take responsibility for my feelings about you. If you are constantly not meeting my expectations, I get to change them. If I remember that you can change your behavior, just as I can, I give you a lot more latitude.

How have I changed from putting my trust in stinky bad places, to trusting it is all for my benefit?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01062014

The Danger of Expectations

The Danger of Expectations

Expectations. Wow. What a great big pile of mess we can make for ourselves with expectations.

Sometimes we call our expectations hope, and look to the future with bright, shiny faces.

Sometimes we call our expectations dread, and look to the future with pale, drawn faces.

We are so darn creative!

As a dear friend says, “You can’t disappoint me, only my expectations of you can disappoint me.” Perhaps that is a subtle distinction. On the other hand, perhaps it is glaring. I tend to go with glaring on this one.

It ties in with the old saw about nobody can make you feel anything. I used to think it was a load of horse hockey, and then I set aside my jerking-knee reaction, and really looked at it.

I know you can see where I’m headed with this. Why do I choose?

I can’t change you. I can change my expectations of you. When I change my expectations of you, our relationship shifts.

That’s where the magic happens.

When I change my expectations, when I change my behavior, we are in a different relationship. Sometimes, you decide you can’t handle it, and you leave. More often than not, you will shift with me, and we have a new relationship, often one we both like so much more.

Imagine this:  We fight the same three arguments over and over. I see that it is a habit with us, and so, when we start playing Fight No. 2, I don’t. Perhaps I say something like, “This is a bad habit with us, and I love you too much to want to put this bad energy between us.” There are a thousand ways to diffuse.

You can’t make me feel anything, unless we collude. I’m not talking about sensations. You can “make me” feel sensations.

If I am feeling abused by you, I am, on some level choosing that. I know we don’t like to hear it, but there you go. I choose it because it is familiar. I choose it because it meshes with my childhood experiences.

I can unchoose feeling abused. Now, I’m not talking about physical abuse or physical neglect. If these things are happening to you, go get help right this minute.

Feeling abused is a habit, one that many of us learn when we are very young. It’s not truth, it is collusion between us to prove that I’m less than even though I’m not.

I can unchoose feeling abused. When I choose to support myself, when I choose to feel good enough, when I choose self-esteem, your words won’t hurt me because your hurtful words don’t have a way in.

How have I changed from feeling abused to feeling good about me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11062013

Great Expectations

Great Expectations

One of the things I love about being a grownup is being able to feel satisfied in so many different ways.

Why is it so easy?

Well, for one thing, satisfaction is all about expectations, and whoo boy, do we have junk around expectations.

Open your mind to the possibility of a different way of handling our disappointed expectations, This can make a huge change in your level of happiness.

We have all sorts of ideas about how things are supposed to go, how people are supposed to act, what constitutes reasonable behavior. Those ideas are not universal.

The bottom line is this:  You don’t disappoint me, my expectations of you disappoint me. Just one more way I create my reality, if you see what I mean.

My expectations of you are based on my filters, my mislearning, my NEJ (negative, emotional judgment), my beliefs, and so on. My expectations are based on my personal fantasies about how the world works. Some of those are negative, and some of those are positive, but they are still fantasies.

This is also true of my expectations of me. On the one hand, I know that in this moment  I am perfect. I also know that sometimes I fall back into my old crappy habits, and disappoint my expectations. I can often find myself treating me really poorly as a punishment for that disappointment. It’s all just made up, and there I am feeling rotten about a made up story.

If I am frequently disappointed by others, I will benefit by looking at my expectations. I love it when I find ways to make my life nicer by correcting my stuff. Lord knows, I can’t correct yours!

One of the ways I make this course correction is to shift my expectations from you to “the universe” when I’m wanting things to get done. Once I started doing that, and asking Creative Questions about feeling so supported, I found that I could be supported in a whole bunch of unlikely ways, by people I never would have expected. How do I feel when I am fully supported?

One of the ways I make this course correction is to shift my idea of you into looser territory. Many years ago, I read something that stuck with me. I don’t know who said it, but it went something like, “we can’t behave out of character, only out of our idea of character.” So if I can find a way to allow you greater leeway in your thinking, in your behavior, I will be way less disappointed.

The other piece that will help me experience less disappointment is clear communication, but that’s for another time.

How have I changed from feeling so disappointed to feeling satisfied?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 08262013