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

The Colors of Fear

The Colors of Fear

One of my dearest friends has a very simple motto that she lives by: Fear or Faith. It reminds her to choose the sunny side of the street. When she first told me that I loved it. And I realized I had a  version that was just slightly different: Fear or Curiosity.

The point is simple, fear sucks the life from us, faith and curiosity fill us with spirit. I live a life of adventure. One of my heroes is Indiana Jones, master adventurer. My journey of self discovery feels like an Indiana Jones type adventure full of danger, and scary times, and priceless discoveries. the best of which is love and respect for my very own self.

My teacher pointed out that I had already survived the danger, that I was looking at the left-over shadows of it. That let me feel curious about what I would find. Sometimes I discovered things that changed the way I felt about someone, but it also gave me the opportunity to bring up a lot of unpleasantness to the surface where I could address it, and let it go, and forgive. Can’t do that when it’s all unconscious.

Why am I curious? What makes me interested? Why do I want to know?

When I choose to let fear run the show, I am saying no to life.

Life is fearless, life is curious, engaged, interested. Life wonders what is next, and accepts what comes, no fear. No matter what, my circumstances are interesting because they are tailored to me. They provide me with information about what I can learn, about where I can go, about what I can accomplish.

Worry is a kind of fear. When we fret about our loved ones, or ourselves, we are sluicing our lives with a negative energy, and then we have to slog through that negativity. We feel heavy and sad, and often don’t know why. Worry is a Coyote emotion, a trickster. It makes us feel like we are doing something useful, while it feeds on our spirit. Ew.

Guilt is another kind of fear. When we feel guilty, we fear that we will get caught. We fear being found out. We fear reprisals. We fear losing the little thrill we get from the behavior we feel guilty about. Dang.

Strangely, procrastination is often another kind of fear. The two biggies of procrastination are fear that we won’t do X perfectly and fear that something big will change if we X. It’s not that it will change for the worse, it’s just that it will change. We fear the loss of our status quo, even though it is always shifting around.

Negative moral judgments are yet another kind of fear, fear of the different.

When I decide to go with curiosity, with interest, with faith and trust, my life blossoms. Events have significance because they happen to me, for me. I seek out the nuances, I seek out the value. I seek out the benefit to me.

When I get that little thrill of anxious feeling, I choose to ask myself, “Why would I be excited? How is this fascinating? Why do I engage?” The feeling of excited and the feeling of anxiety are so close that asking my good Creative Questions can flip my experience in a wink.

How have I changed from choosing fear to feeling curious?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06212014

Have You Reached a Verdict?

Have You Reached a Verdict?

What are the greatest ills in the world? Poverty? War? Horrible things. I find it very curious that those things come up when I think about “the world” but the world is made up of us, individuals with our own minds, our own choices.

Now, my opinion shifts and I find myself thinking, worry, fear, guilt, bitterness, misplaced shame, rage. Suddenly, it’s very personal.

Frank Herbert called fear “the mind-killer, the little death.” Worry drains our emotional resources, guilt drives us mercilessly, and misplaced shame will shred us from the inside out. Not a very supportive environment for following our passions, or sharing our gifts.

Why am I innocent?

As a person, it’s not unusual for me to encounter these things, and many more, that sap my joy, throw off my equilibrium, screw me up. They make me feel bad, so I make bad decisions, and I make them over and over. I feel stuck, I feel miserable, I feel helpless, and I will ventilate those feelings, lashing out at you, or me, or someone less powerful, and we can sustain horrible situations because we nurture our bad feelings. It’s sure how I turned me into a drunky dope person.

How do I know I am pure?

I decided to grow up. I decided I wanted to be happy from the inside out. I decided I wanted to live a life I liked, a life I approved of, a life I felt proud of. Nice decisions, but they meant I had a lot of emotional detritus to clear out.

What makes me feel clear?

Worry and guilt, anger and fear, and so on; these turn into habits so easily. Breaking these habits is a fascinating challenge. Creative Questions help so much. I wish I’d had access to them back in the day.

I used a rubber band on my wrist. The instant I noticed I had starting thinking “those” thoughts, I would snap the rubber band and think thoughts that made me feel good. In the very very beginning, I would also say, “Stop!” out loud while I snapped that band. Psychologists call it

extinguishing behavior, and I am so glad.

Worry always feels like I’m doing something. It’s insidious. Guilt often makes me feel like I can’t do enough, and fear, like I can’t do anything. Lies, all lies.

Now, I’m not saying that we should never feel fear or anger. They are hard-wired emotions. We have choices. I have to say that there are been times in my life when fear was the right response, and got me out of some dicey situations. On the other hand, I mislearned to go to fear in a lot of situations where it was not my best choice, likewise with anger. With practice, I learned to recognize the feelings in their infancy, and can often release them with just a good, deep breath and some awareness. How nice is that!

When I make feeling peace rather than worry a priority, when I treat it like learning to play the piano or speak a foreign language, and practice regularly, my life gets easier. I have more energy, more joy. I’d say that’s worth it.

How have I changed from feeling lies to knowing I’m innocent?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02012014

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