Picky Picky Picky

Picky Picky Picky

Everyday I have the opportunity to transform my life. From the moment I wake up until I fall asleep, I have the opportunity to choose. Sometimes it is a pretty neutral choice, like whether to have coffee or tea with breakfast. It can be a choice we barely notice, like whether we greet the day with a smile or a frown.

Tiny choices all day long.

Why can I choose? What makes me decide? How do I pick my path?

When I choose to start my day on an upbeat note, I will make my tiny choices to support that. When the little snafus happen, like dropping the toothbrush, they make me laugh instead of pissing me off. I can do my routines, but with awareness, so I can change them up if they aren’t working as best they can. I can remember that I like you before I start kvetching at you.

I get to decide.

When things happen, I get to choose to flow with them. I start by practicing with little things like changed plans, dropped stuff, computer foul-ups, misunderstandings. Then, when the big stuff shows up, I automatically choose to flow with it. And life is easy, and I can have fun, and it’s all good.

Why is it so easy? Why do I enjoy myself? How do I know how to choose?

When I choose to stay sad, or blue, or depressed, I don’t have fun. People disappoint me. Stuff goes wrong, I feel misunderstood, sunshine feels mocking. I have a difficult time feeling productive, I often don’t sleep well. and the list goes on.

I also make bad decisions, choices that keep me stuck, and stuck often means that I just sink deeper.

Sometimes, I feel like that because I am keeping myself in a bad situation. And I get the idea that I can’t leave it. Can’t. That’’s what I chose for years, can’t. I can’t do that, I can’t leave him, I can’t go there, I can’t can’t can’t. It all just sucks.

Victim. Martyr. It’s all your fault, and no one else can do what I can do. Except when I can’t.

The way I get out of it, the only way, is to choose. I have to decide that I am going to make my life nicer, and do what it takes. I may need some help, I will need to change some of my favorite bad beliefs, I may need to lose some relationships. Misery buddies don’t support a nice life, they adore to rehearse the bad stuff, so I will have to break up with them. There have been times in my life, twice, when I had to leave a group of misery buddies. I got lonesome, but I felt way better.

Choosing to smile, choosing to look for the good, choosing to seek out the hidden fun, choosing to connect, choosing to engage, is all my choice. The more I choose that stuff, the easier it gets, the nicer my day goes, and the faster I remember to chose it when I can.

How have I changed from choosing the dark side to choosing the light?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07032014

Leaving the Wah-Wahs

Leaving the Wah-Wahs

I’ve said this before, I will say it again. Each of us has our own, particular set of stuff to work through. If we want to be happy grownups, there are some things we need to do.

We first have to accept it. That can take some time. We often feel really sorry for ourselves. We often feel singled out to suffer our own particular hell. We decide that no one understands what we are going through, that no one has ever had to deal with what we have to. This is called “reverse grandiosity.” Seriously. There is always someone who has it worse. If need be, find that person, and help him. Or her. Meanwhile, accept what is.

Once we’ve been able to accept our situation, we assess it relative to ourselves. How does this impact my life? Is this my new normal? Where are my edges? What is gone? What have I gained? Where can I change for the better?

Notice that these are not Creative Questions. Creative Questions have results built in. These questions are searching questions, assessment questions. And it is good to ask questions like these often. I need to remember that my situation will change. Some things will get better, some things will get more challenging. Nothing is static. So my assessment is for now. My plans are plans. When I flow with my life, some plans will work, some will need to be modified, some dropped.

Now that I have accepted and assessed my situation, I can start to grow within it.

How have I changed from feeling sorry for myself to feeling alive? What makes me love my life? How do I experience joy?

I may need to acquire resources. These might be actual items, like canes or walkers, hearing aids, oxygen tanks, medications, or special glasses. These might be tools like behavioral choices, or emotional flexibility. I may need to learn some new things to do when I feel angry or blue. I may need to get help from a 12 step group, or a therapist, or a physical therapist, or some other kind of healer.

Why am I resilient? What makes me flexible? Why do I go with the flow?

I may need to make some amends if I was acting out before I accepted my situation. I may need to make some modifications to my home, to my diet, to my activities. I may need to let go of a relationship that supports me in suffering rather than in joy. Dump my misery buddies. Find a new place to hang out that promotes my well being.

How do I feel like a divine and infinite being? What makes me so positive? How do I feel when I am happy?

As I grow within my circumstances, I am proud of myself. When I stumble, and we all stumble, I pick myself up, or get some help to pick me up, and treat myself with loving compassion, gently, kindly, wisely. I encourage myself in feeling alive, in spending time with people who lift me up. I celebrate.

How have I changed from living in the Wah-wahs to loving my life as it is?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05232014

To Be Our Best Selves

To Be Our Best Selves

All of us like to feel supportive of our loved ones. We want to help them achieve their dreams, heal their wounds, soothe their sorrows. We want to bring them joy, make things easier, keep stuff simple for them.

Or do we?

I was astonished and kind of horrified when I realized that I was supporting you in bad behaviors, supporting you in being miserable, in suffering, in stuff that was full of bad vibes. I would commiserate with you about how awful so-and-so was, about how bad the job was, about how terrible the world was.

I had friendships where that’s what we did, bitch and moan. Misery buddies. Flying directly in the face of what I had sworn I wanted, to be happy. Why on earth would I do that?

And that’s the rub:  Bitching is fun. Saying rotten things about other people is fun. Sharing a whinge with your pal is a bonding thing. Sigh. It’s fun, but it doesn’t move us forward, it just holds us back. Low vibration stuff.

How have I changed from bad-mouthing you to truly supporting you?

I had a friend who said, “You can complain about the same thing three times without doing anything about it. After that, I don’t wanna hear about it unless you are changing it.” Back when she said that to me, I was crushed. Wasn’t she there to hear my woes? Well, no, she was there to support me in being my best self. Woeful is not my best self.

How have I changed from rehearsing the crap to seeking out the good?

When we support each other in a victim stance, we sure are not supporting our best selves. I am not a victim of life’s circumstances, unless I choose to be. We are not victims of our bodies, our abusers, our jobs, our food choices, our exercise programs, or our children or parents needs unless we choose to be. This is a great big steaming pile of important right here. Blaming each other, or parts of ourselves, or our past, for our emo crap is low vibration stuff, too. Right up there with bitchin’. Or should I say, down there.

I need to own my part of what I’m doing, and let it go. I may have all kinds and sorts of chronic stuff; body stuff, behavior patterns, bad habits; and maybe these things feel like they are getting in my way. Am I addressing the topic? Am I getting help if I need help? If I’ve tried ten things and failed, am I seeking out the eleventh? Conversely, if I feel loathe to give up X, my bad habit, my bad pattern, my bad stomach stuff, is there a secondary gain I’m getting from it? Does it mean I can avoid doing things I don’t wanna do? Does it mean I can say “no” to things and feel less guilty or selfish? Does it mean I can beat myself up and prove I’m no good? Yeah, secondary gains are sneaky.

When I unchoose bitching and victim-ing and martyr-ing and sucking, I can start to be truly supportive of your amazing self. I can model better behavior, I can listen deeply, and hear what you are saying underneath, I can help you find solutions, and resolutions. I have easy access to compassion. I can comfort effortlessly.

How have I changed from supporting you in low vibration stuff to supporting you to be your best self?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02112014

Misery Buddies

Misery Buddies

I was at a big event recently where I saw a lot of people I haven’t seen this century. I recognized faces as being very familiar to me from my yesteryear, but mostly found no names coming to mind. What I did find was a nice lift at seeing the faces. I’ll take it.

Why am I glad to see you? How do I connect? What makes me open my heart?

When I choose to engage with you lots of interesting things become available to me. For one, my life gets bigger. For two, I get to have a bigger love exchange; more coming in, more going out. That keeps my spirit healthy and happy. For three, I get more experience. More joys, more fun, and more sadness, too, as we share life things.

I joke around about being a gregarious introvert. There are lots of thoughts out there about what makes an introvert. I love spending time with people, but I recharge on alone time. Good to know.

The other thing that’s good to know is what a huge impact we can have on each other’s outlook, point of view, attitude, opinions, and so on. We can encourage each other to be our best selves, or, um, not.

I used to be a wonderful misery buddy. Now, I will say, I appreciate that we all have stuff, I have stuff. I find it useful to talk about that stuff to find solutions. Complaining, whining, being offended, running a litany of what’s wrong with whatever, or whomever, negative emotional judgments about stuff, feeling either superior or inferior, paying a lot of attention to the negative, brushing off the positive, you know, for example, all work to keep us feeling miserable.

As with so much of our daily lives, misery is a habit. We start in the dawn of time, maybe as hungry or tired babies whining to go home while our mom was running errands. Then we get in the habit of feeling whiny at the store, or in the car. In NLP, we call that “anchoring,” when we attach a feeling to a situation. We are supposed to grow out of it, but sometimes we get stuck.

Giving up those things is part of becoming a grownup.

It’s kind of like we all begin by out looking for the bad stuff. Maybe it’s an old survival thing, but we all mostly do it, like it’s our starting point. It’s easy to see the crap.

As we grow up, we learn that being happy is way better for us is a lot of ways. We sleep better, we have more energy, we stay healthier, we have more fun, we connect more deeply, we find more things to enjoy, we take ourselves both more and less seriously.

Why do I want to be connected? What makes my relationships mutually supportive? How do I engage with you?

We learn to look inside, and we learn that connecting with each other, establishing bonds of intimacy, makes everything nicer, easier, more fun, more profound.

Connecting with each other from a place of positivity, love, and support is so nice. When we have really strong connections with each other, we don’t even need to be in each other’s company to feel supported, we have that history with our loved ones. Our world is bigger, and cozier.

How have I changed from having misery buddies to enjoying grownup relationships?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01132014