I Heart Me

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There are so many things we can do to make our lives more fun and satisfying to live, little things that we change deep inside that will create big changes on the outside. Trust, forgiveness, compassion for ourselves, and each other, self-responsibility, just to name a few, are things that, as we practice them, make each day nicer and help us live our natural lives.

One of the biggies is self-love.

Why do I like me? How am I valuable? What makes me a gift?

When I begin to own my core self, my past, my gifts and talents, my experience, and appreciate them, things change. I relax. A lot. Because I practice forgiveness, I have accepted my past and let go. Because I trust, I use good Creative Questions during my day, and expect that I will see how things work out for me. Because I am compassionate, my interactions with others tend to go well. Because I am responsible for my own behavior and thoughts, I am strong and competent and capable.

Because I own my core self, I see things about me that I like. I feel respect for who I have become. I value my accomplishments. I appreciate my body as it is.

I love me.

This is not narcissism for one simple reason; the more I love me, the more I love you. This is about opening my heart to my life.

What a nice equation that is. Because I accept me as I am, because I flow with my life now, rather than fighting it, I can accept you as you are.

Because of these things, my life is already nicer, and way easier. Because I understand that I am the only one I can change, I put my efforts toward my growth. Because I understand that I can control my thoughts, and behavior, I stop trying to control the world. Now I have more energy for fun, more energy for tasks I find rewarding. And because you are no longer “my project,” I can relax and enjoy your company, or leave you alone, as I wish.

Why am I contented? What makes me satisfied? How am I joyful?

Loving myself doesn’t mean I never annoy me. It doesn’t mean I am always happy or always peaceful. Sometimes I am sad, or mad, or even scared. So I feel those feelings, and that means that I get back to peaceful faster. It means I can let go more quickly.

Loving myself doesn’t mean I never make mistakes, or screw up, or even sometimes hurt my loved ones, but it does mean I forgive and don’t harbor resentments toward either you or me. It means I look for the gift in my mistakes, and move on.

Loving myself doesn’t mean I stop growing. I understand that, while I am perfection in this moment, I have more to do, more to learn, more to accomplish. My life gets bigger, my relationships grow deeper and warmer, I have more fun, more satisfaction, more peace.

How have I changed from being my own worst critic to loving who I have become?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06242014

Seeking Spirit

Seeking Spirit

What do you think about the idea that we are all divine beings? What do you think about the idea that we are sacred? Do you think that’s hooey, or do you get it?

For a long time I was working from a really bad belief. I believed this, but it was way unconscious. I believed that because I felt bad, I was bad.

Now, I really didn’t want you to know what a rotten person I was, so I tried to cover it up by being nice. I worked really hard to prove to me that I was good, while knowing in my heart that I sucked. That was hard. I looked in the mirror, and I saw a liar, a fake, a mask. So I pretended even more. You can imagine what that got me.

How do I know I am sacred? What makes me feel spiritual? How do I value my divinity?

To top it off, I thought that in order to be a spiritual being I had to do fancy religious stuff. I figured I had to be a nun, or a hermitess living in the Boundary Waters. I knew there was no way I could just be me, and be any kind of spiritual person.

I love it when I’m wrong about that kind of thing.

What I discovered was that I had to accept me as I am, gifts and shortcomings, talents and foibles, skills and flaws. That was pretty much it. I am as I am. In this moment, I am perfect.

I have stuff, we all have stuff. I work on it as I remember, but I am no longer convinced I am a bad person pretending to be a good person.

I also discovered that I need to slow down for a while every day. I need to just be for a bit. Generally speaking, I do that on my porch. I look at my little bit of nature; my boxelder maple tree, my lilac bush, my little birds. I look at the sky. I contemplate the flow of traffic. I breathe. I sit on my chair, in my body.

When I do that, when I ask my good Creative Questions, I feel good. I feel innocent. I feel engaged. I frequently feel bliss, in that mundane setting, looking at mundane things, I feel blessed beyond words. I feel connected to something profound and awe-inspiring.

I am spirit.

And, if I am spirit, I am spiritual. I don’t have to try. I don’t have to work at it. I don’t have to spend hours every day in prayer or self-flagellation. All I need to do is slow down and open my heart.

Why would I trust that the Universe provides? How do I live a meaningful life? What makes me feel blissful?

I feel different when I remember that I am a divine and infinite being, that I am more than I can comprehend.

You know how I love a good quote. This is one of my faves:  God is that than which nothing greater can be known. Saint Anselm of Canterbury said that. I like it because it’s so about us. We are so deep, so profound, that even with decades of self study we will only know a fraction of our true selves. If that ain’t the stuff of divinity, I don’t know what is.

How have I changed from feeling like nuthin’ to owning my divine nature?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05152014

Is there a place you like to go to, like me and my porch? How do you feel when you feel spiritual?

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Love Me True

Love Me True

Back in the dark ages, I had a feeling that people were holding out on me. That there were secrets, arcane bits of knowledge, esoteric rites that you knew, and that I knew nothing about.

Turned out I was right.

Uncovering those secrets is what I do, Pamiana Jones of the Happy Life. And then I share them with you because I love you. Living a life of joy, ease, and peace is simple, if you know the secrets.

Be warned, just like the best magic tricks, once we see what they are, we tend to go d’uh.

The most profound secret of all, the one that will start everything moving toward a most beautiful life is this. Drum roll, please.

Like yourself.

I told you that you would go d’uh.

So often we spend a chunk of our waking hours running tapes in our head that offer the basic message of “I suck.” There are, of course, a thousand thousand variations on that theme, and each of us has our favorites.

“I suck” are magic words. They create a giant bubble of yuck around us, where people are disrespectful to us. They create a life of missed opportunity, of scant motivation, failed dreams and relationships. They create feelings of anger, frustration, dissatisfaction, and, well, you know. We’ve both lived it.

Why do I like myself?  How could I like myself? Why would I like myself?

Here is another secret:  While we often can’t choose whom we are going to love, we, many of us, anyway, have to choose to love ourselves. What an interesting thing that is.

What it means is that we have to decide that we are okay as we are. That we are lovable in this very moment. That we can accept ourselves all the way through.

“I’m okay” are magic words. They create a life we enjoy, where people treat us reasonably, where we feel loved and accepted. They create a life where we find opportunities, and have the juice to accept them. They create a life where we take care of ourselves so that we can help each other lives happier lives.

Asking our good Creative Questions everyday will go a long way to helping us come to love and appreciate ourselves. Why am I lovable? How do I recognize my value? What makes me see my good qualities?

The more I ask my good Questions, the deeper they go in, the weaker the bad ones become, until they just fade away.

Each of us deserves to be loved by the person closest to us, ourselves. Why do I choose to love me?

How have I changed from being disgusted and annoyed by me to valuing my own friendship?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 11092013

Taming the Dragon

Taming the Dragon

I think it’s fascinating how many of us undervalue ourselves. We are a few minutes late for work, we get an overdraft, we come down with a bug, we forget a special date, and we feel like we are bad people.

How do I know I am valuable?

Here’s the rub. If I feel like I’m not worth very much, you will treat me like I’m not worth very much, even if you treat me with respect and kindness. I won’t see respect and kindness, I will see that somehow you treat me poorly. I expect it. Occasionally, we may find someone who bucks our system, but for the most part, we will get back what we put out. That’s how our filters work.

Dang. Stupid Law of Attraction.

What makes me recognize my worth?

So then some of us start to strive. We strive to be good people. Problem is that we fall every time we screw up, and end up feeling worthless and bad again. Sometimes, we have that self-worth sensor set to such a sensitive setting that we never even feel relief, we never get to savor the feeling of being a good person, feeling like a worthwhile contribution.

Some of us just end up saying what the heck, and go for it.

We can feel that dark side of ourselves.

Some of us fight it, some of us give into it. Some of us accept it and move on.

When I fight my dark side, the qualities I dislike most in myself, I see them all over. These are the things I “hate” about other people. I am miserable.

When I give into my dark side, I act out the qualities I dislike most, and deny my light side. I am miserable.

When I accept my dark side, I see the qualities I don’t like, and recognize that I am human. I shoot for excellence, not perfection. I own that I have stuff, and since I don’t have to fight it, I have a little more juice to catch it when I go there, and shift it around. Or I apologize. I used to envision my dark side, my evil twin, as a terrifying monster. Now I see it more as a big but approachable dragon. When I get dark fantasies, I don’t worry that I’m bad, I understand that I might want to take some nurturing care of me.

When I accept me, I accept the light and the dark. I know that the dark side is nurtured by traumas, many of which happened a long time ago. The more I feel plagued by my dark side, the better I will feel when I release my old crap. My dragon feeds on stress, fatigue, hunger, lonesomeness, guilt, and worry. The more of those I get, the more “dark side” I feel. When I get enough rest, when I eat well, have some fun moving my body, spend time with people I love, release guilty and worry, my dragon goes to sleep, so to speak. And I can see my value, I can feel my worth, and recognize my contribution.

How have I changed from fighting my dark side to loving my whole self?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10302013

How to Shine

How to Shine

One of the ways I’m pretty brilliant is about us. I get us, poor little we, with all our stuff. So much fear, and anger, so much mislearning, and grief, so much self-hate. I get us.

I’ve been doing what I do since I was a kid. I have always cared about you, I have a good ear, a big heart, and have always had a pretty good sense of what we are about. It got messed up during the dark ages, but I healed that up nicely.

I also draw pretty well, can do music-y stuff pretty well, and I can write.

As an expert on people’s stuff, I will tell you that, in my experience, everyone is brilliant at something, and even good at other stuff.

Oh, boy, am I hearing some interesting objections. I am not talking about being brilliant at screwing up. I’m not talking about being brilliant at failing. I know this, remember, and just because things don’t seem to be going your way doesn’t mean you suck.

How do you know you are brilliant? What makes you smart? Why are you so wise?

You know you are, deep in your heart of hearts, you know you are. How am I brilliant? What makes me use my smarts?

When we settle down, and just accept that we are brilliant, and in our particular way, we can start to enjoy it. Owning that we are brilliant is fun. Using our brilliance is fun. Being really good at something is fun.

I used to think that being brilliant was about being able to do math. Period. There are so many ways of brilliance, like stars in the sky. My balance of brilliance is unique to me, and yours is to you. Maybe you are brilliant with languages, and can communicate with tons of people. Maybe you are a genius with money, or can write songs that people love. Perhaps your genius is painting, or you are a baby-whisperer. Maybe your cooking is your genius.

Why do I own my genius?

When I settle down, and just accept that I am brilliant, I start seeing your brilliance, and seeing how brilliant you are is a joyful thing. And when we combine our brilliances, our collective magnitudes shine dazzlingly bright, and we can accomplish miracles.

I found that using my brilliance was one of my favorite things to do (“Pam! Stop that socializing!”) even if it wasn’t being valued by others. When I tried to stifle it, I felt miserable, and hobbled. I bet you have, too.

We need to find places to let our brilliance shine, where we get to enjoy our smarts, and feel satisfied with our cleverness. It may not be the job we are doing, but we will be so much more content when we give it a place to run.

How have I change from hiding my light to letting it shine all over?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 09192013