Engaged

Engaged

Growing up is exciting. It’s messy, it’s interesting. The opportunities that we get to learn stuff, to practice stuff, to stretch our edges, are unpredictable and fascinating. Each step we take brings us benefits, treats, and treasure for the taking. Everyone of us has stuff to learn, stuff to let go of, stuff to accept. Each of us has our own unique set of thos things, and each of us goes at our own pace.

Why do I like to engage? What makes me want to connect? How do I choose to be curious?

Growing up can be challenging. We encounter experiences inside us that feel like an impenetrable wall, or a huge block, or situations where we feel like we sabotage ourselves every time it comes up. Those walls will come down, the blocks will melt away, the sabotage will cease when we address them in certain ways, and there are many ways, but address them we must if we want to be free. Sometimes we can deal with those things ourselves, but it is often of greater benefit to us to find a good teacher to help us.

Why would I choose to evolve? What makes me want to grow? How do I expand my life?

When I choose to engage with you, things happen. You shake up my existance. You have a different way of seeing stuff, even if we are very much alike. When I choose to engage with a community, my neighborhood, or religious group, there are that many more different ways to see things, that many more opportunities to see things a new way. You may introduce me to new activities, new foods, new adventures. This will shake me up. Sometimes it will make me uncomfortable, sometimes it will change my life for the better. Sometimes it will do both. I won’t know until I try it.

Before I chose to connect with you, I stayed to myself. My life felt safe and predictable. Turned out that safe felt kind of like hiding, predictable was actually kind of boring. As I reached out, I felt different. I felt like I came up into the sunshine. For years I had activities I used to distract myself, or to make the time pass, but when I started to engage, I started to have fun. You taught me how to do new stuff, you brought me to activities I had never tried.

The way I best engage is when I relax in my body, my feelings, and thoughts. Engaging is a natural result of living my natural life, and I get there by letting go, by relaxing, by choosing easy.

Engaging with you also opens me up to receiving, to asking for help. When I engage, this becomes a bit of an equation, that is, being part of a community or relationship means that I will both give and receive, and if I have trouble with one or the other of those, I will have ample opportunities to learn how to do it better.

It also gives me opportunities for helping you. When I help you, as a parent, partner, or friend, or as a volunteer for my community or in some other way, my life gets that much bigger. I can practice compassion, empathy, and opening my heart. Perhaps it is a way for me to practice being generous with my time, or resources, knowledge, or spirit. Perhaps it is a way for me to appreciate my own life. Perhaps I feel like I am giving back.

How have I changed from feeling disconnected to engaging with life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserves 07212014

Accessing Your Personal Global Support Unit

Accessing Your Personal Global Support Unit

Somewhere along the line, I decided to look at the world as though it exists to help me become the best person I can manage to be.

It is a big and interesting shift in point of view, one that makes everything different.

In the olden days, I subscribed to the notion that life was a bitch, and then you die. Grim, terse. I believed that bad things just happened to me, to you, too, but more to me. It’s an attitude called “inverse grandiosity,” the idea that I am the worst, unluckiest, saddest, baddest, etcetera, person in the world. Yeah.

Bad stuff happens and you just have to slog along as best you can. Some people have good luck, some people have bad luck.

Yeah, right.

So, it turned out that when I decided to look at life as a great big kick-ass opportunity, stuff changed.

How do miracles come my way? Why am I so lucky? What makes things go my way?

So, it seems like when I consider the crappy situation I’m in as holding a personal lesson for me, I get to spelunk around and see what I can find. When I find and integrate the lesson, the crappy situation resolves itself almost instantly. Crazy.

If all the world is here for me and I’m not relishing that, it’s about me, not the world. Why is it all for me? What makes me take responsibility for me?

When the world is all about supporting me, and I let that in, I can afford to be helpful and kind. I gain by being helpful and kind. Being helpful and kind ends up being easy and natural.

When the world is all about supporting me, and I let that in, I find benefits, lessons, opportunities, and treats, all over the place. I expect solutions, resolutions, and progress. I find that I also expect that things will work out for me, go my way. I find myself feeling like life is peaceful, relaxed, satisfying, blissful, and I am content at the end of the day. I have satisfying things to do, lovely people to do those things with, lives of all kinds to take care of, and I feel taken care of, too. Balance.

What makes me so successful? Why am I accomplished?

As I let my sense of the world supporting me sink in, something else happens. I start feeling like a winner, but I lose the sense of someone else having to be a loser.

I like that a lot. As someone who saw the world as winners (you) and the Biggest Loser (me,) I gave those words a lot of negative power. Now, I review my day before bed, and most days, I can say that I won, and helped at least one other person win, too. Simple. Easy. Natural life.

Every time I take a step away from letting my past dictate my present, every time I make a conscious and thoughtful choice, every time I seek a new thought, a new way of doing stuff, or seek a fresh solution, I win.

How have I changed from letting my past dictate my present to being the boss of my own life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01152014

The Secret Name Game

The Secret Name Game

I’ve been thinking about about limits lately. “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” (Wittgenstein)

We get notions. We get ideas. We decide stuff about who we are, how we are, what our lives are like, what we might expect. If you hold your fingers up and almost pinch your thumb and forefinger, that’s about how much room we give ourselves to be ourselves.

We are divine and infinite beings. That sounds all romantic and pretty, but what does it mean when we get down to those shiny brass tacks? Limits. Edges. Stopping points. Can’t-do.

John Wheeler, the quantum physicist, said, “The only law is the law that there is no law.”  There are places where the laws of physics don’t hold.

Right, so, blah blah blah. Get to the point.

Okay, you infinite being, you, stop putting those constraining limits on yourself. Take some time to think about what you could accomplish if you weren’t scared.

Fear is often the thing that keeps our fingers pinched in that little allowance we give ourselves to be capable in.

How would I feel if I were unafraid? (That’s not a good Creative Question because the word “unafraid” is a negative, but I want you to see the direction we are going in.) How do I feel when I trust in me? How do I feel when I know I can? How do I feel when I level up?

When we start thinking about what we might want to accomplish or achieve beyond our current limits, we start adding wiggle room. When we decide that we want to step up our experience, to live a bigger life, we begin to make tiny changes in our choices, in our behavior, and our life starts to shift. We begin to find opportunities to challenge ourselves, a different flavor of responsibility, a new shade of commitment.

Why do I choose to be more than I think I am?

I think a big reason we stay close to where we are is being attached to the persona our name brings up for us. We ourselves become a loop of habit. So I like to disrupt that with a game I call the Secret Name of the Day.

I make up a name, and ask myself, how do I feel when I am X? I notice the differences, and if I like ‘em I push on ‘em for a while. It is amazing when I really let myself go there. I find qualities in those other names I don’t much have with this one. Once I’ve felt them, my Pam self can take them on. It’s a fascinating game, and I have found my way out from a lot of stuck places by playing it.

I used to be afraid of being responsible, being capable and competent. I thought it meant that I would never have any fun, just have to work all the time. Instead, I find that I have more fun, more joy shows up in unlikely places, I can really relax, I have a peaceful core.

How have I changed from my limited self to allowing my divine infinite being the room she wants?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01042014

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