Loving Me Loving You

Loving Me Loving You

“I am a realist, not a pessimist,” says a woman I know. She likes to talk about how awful the world is, how horrible people are, how rotten are her co-workers, and how crappy she feels all the time. Poor little lamb. The world she lives in is dark and terrifying with awful people doing awful things to each other. She is exhausted and sick a lot of the time.

I used to live there. I used to believed that people, all people, were awful to each other. I believed the news media. Do I need to say that I was terrified all the time? I felt responsible for suffering all over the world, and doubly guilty because what was I doing to help them? So I was terrified, but also uber-stressed and depressed. Imagine that.

Why do I like people? What makes me notice the good in others? How do I value your presence?

I had this idea that paying a lot of attention to the news was the responsible, adult thing to do. War, pestilence, murder, rape, greed, fire, famine --. Oh, la! Dose me up with misery in the papers, on the radio and tv. It justified my unhappiness. It justified my guilt. It justified my pain. It justified my sense of helplessness.I made friends with people who were as miserable as I. We could spend days telling each other how miserable we were. We did, actually. And it somehow absolved me of taking responsibility for my own well-being. Clearly, if there were so much misery in the world, it stood to reason that I would be miserable.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that the media doesn’t monger news, they monger fear. And every time I shared bad news, every time I promoted the awful things that happened, I was mongering fear, too. I have come to realize that I am the only one responsible for my well-being. And I am not responsible for yours. I am responsible to you, and endeavor to create safe space for us all to thrive and grow. And I apologize to you for all the horrible things I told you about in the dark ages.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that people are doing their best, For most of us, we are doing our best to be kind, good, and loving. What we have are issues, topics, mis-learnings and these dictate our behavior. In relatively normal situations, these are pretty mild, annoying perhaps, but not damaging. As the topics get bigger, the behavior gets worse; substance abuse, addictive behaviors, violence, and so on. When the topics get really big, at least inside the person, the behavior gets worse. You know what I mean.

And, as one of my dear friends says, “I am not my behavior.” Remembering this gives us an entree into compassion, and we may need to find that way in for ourselves as well as for others.

In fact, our attitude to others is often our attitude to ourselves. If I see the world as a terrifying place, chances are good that I don’t feel very safe inside me. If I see the world as full of bad people, I may be feeling like a bad person deep inside. It might even be unconscious. And if I see the world as full of kind and loving people doing what they can to make the world nicer, I most likely have a life full of kind and loving people who are doing what they can.
I prefer to live in a world of love. I prefer to look for the good in people, and I avoid the regular media’s take on things. I seek out good news about good works, powerful discoveries that help, individual kindnesses, gracious gestures. My favorite from yesterday was a restaurant owner who posted a notice that invited the person who was eating from her Dumpster to come in for a meal.

How have I changed from wallowing in the worst of humanity to reveling in our goodness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04122015

Changing the Go-To

Changing the Go-To

One of the many things I go on and on and on about is gratitude. It was one of the big things I learned about that really helped me start making significant changes in my life.

Gratitude didn’t come easily. I was so invested in suffering that, as I used to say, I had three feelings; bad, terrible, and I wish I were dead.

It’s hard to feel anything else when that’s what you’re working with.

Most people got the “I’m fine” line. My nearest and dearest got to hear about how wretched everything else was. I had a few misery buddies who would return the favor, such as it was, and a wonderful, sunny best friend who did her best to cajole me up to “okay.” That didn’t happen a lot. We spent our time watching a lot of Monty Python, and playing cards. I think it may have been defensive on her part. And I did figure out years after she passed that she loved me unconditionally.

Somewhere on my path, someone told me that we can only really feel one thing at a time. Now I don’t know if I think that’s true, but I did discover that if I am focusing on one feeling, that is the main thing I’ve got going on.

Why can I choose? How do I decide? What makes me aware?

Noticing what I was feeling, specifically, was something I had to pay attention to. I had to accept that “bad” wasn’t a feeling, and wasn’t even very descriptive. I had to figure out what the feeling was, usually some moosh between angry and scared and grief. Once I got some kind of a handle on it, I wanted to do something about it. I was already addressing my big emo-stuff, this was more about how to manage on a day to day basis.

One of my teachers liked to say, “You can change your feelings as easily as changing your socks.” And while it irritated the heck out of me, I wanted that. He suggested that I try gratitude. I don’t think I rolled my eyes out loud, but I was skeptical. He helped me get to a place of feeling grateful, really feeling it, and had me set an anchor. For this one, I pressed the web between my thumb and forefinger while I was feeling grateful.

This was way before I knew to ask, “How do I feel when I feel grateful?”

What happened when I got really grateful? I was so focused on gratitude that the bad feelings I was having, mostly old habit feelings, went away. And I started to recognize them for habit-feelings. You know about those, right? Our go-to feelings when we don’t really have anything in particular going on.

I had to give up some stuff to change that bad go-to feeling. I had to give up saying, “That’s just the way I am.” I had to take responsibility for my feelings, how I felt, how I reacted to stuff, how I responded to my circumstances. I had to notice what was good about my life. How it was perfect for me where I was in my journey. I had to decide that I prefered feeling good, with its attendant stuff to feeling bad with its attendant stuff.

Now I wake up feeling good, feeling grateful almost every day. When I wake up crabby, I own it, I look at it, I change it. Sometimes just that is enough to let it go.

How have I changed from feeling stuck in bad feelings to choosing to feel grateful?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 08022014

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

Resect Your Secret

Resect Your Secret

I have a few minutes in the morning when my thoughts can go anywhere. This morning I noticed I was thinking about secrets. I won’t go so far as to say that secrets are the opposite of intimacy, but there is a correlation.

There are some secrets that I love to keep; what I got you for your birthday or winter holiday gift, for example.

I also love to keep your secrets. The image I get is that I put your secrets in a box, and lock it up tight.

My secrets are for telling.

I am doing my best to tell all my secrets to at least one other person. This takes trust, something I really stunk at for a long time. One thing that really helped me start to trust was realizing that there were people out there who had jobs where being trustworthy was in the job description. They have to keep secrets, you know, lawyers, clergy, therapists.

It was a good place to start. And there are some really good reasons for telling.

When I am living my natural life, I am relaxed, in my muscles, in my thoughts, in my emotions.

When I am harboring my secrets, I am clenched in my emotions with fear that someone will find out. I am clenched in my thoughts with trying to hold it down. And those things will often clench up my body. Ow.

When I am harboring my secrets, there are usually some big feelings attached, and when the thoughts of those secrets cycle through my unconscious mind, I will often end up feeling crazy because I don’t know why I am feel so bad, or scared, or angry. As I tell my secrets to trustworthies, that feeling of crazy subsides. Not only that, but I get better and faster at noticing when I have a lot of unconscious material whanging around in my head, and can address more effectively.

When I am harboring secrets, I am also disconnecting from my life. Ow. I cannot have a loving and respectful relationship with myself if I am denying my experience. That’s a big and controversial idea there, so give it a moment.

Why do I own my life? How am I responsible for me? What makes me feel connected?

If I am denying my experience, I am putting conditions on loving myself. Dang. I want to love unconditionally, but as long as I say “no” to my experiences, I am putting limits and boundaries on my love.

As I tell my secrets, and feel the feelings, I remove those edges. I can release the fear, or shame, or guilt, or anger I felt, and now I have more room inside for the nice stuff, loving myself, compassion for me, and you, wisdom, insight. My capacity for connecting with me, and connecting with you, grows, and I enjoy more intimacy, sweeter, and more profound, than I could have imagined before.

How have I changed from clamping on my secrets to feeling free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05312014

A Part Of or Apart From?

A Part Of or Apart From?

The card I pulled today was “Why am I wanted?” What an interesting kettle of fish that one is!

You may never have had this issue, but it sure was a ginormous one for me. Feeling valued for my being, rather than my doing, was something I longed for, and very rarely felt.

We all want attention, okay, maybe not northwoods hermits, or other fringe-ers, but for most of us, attention is nice. The wacky thing is that, for many of us, if we can’t get the positive attention we want, we go for negative attention.  Ow.

I will say this over and over and over again until we get it. When we are doing something like going for negative attention, or making awful choices, or being in denial about something, it is NOT OUR FAULT. No blame, no fault. Our behavior is based on our beliefs and mislearnings; we are doing the very best we can in challenging circumstances.

Now, once we get that we are going for negative attention, or making awful choices, or being in denial about something, then we can take responsibility to change our thoughts, examine and replace beliefs that do not support us, and unchoose our mislearnings.

That negative attention one was big for me. I was a past master of negative attention. In addition to feeling like all I got was negative attention, I also felt on the outside. All. The. Time. Excluded with a giant X.

I also felt like a freak. I felt like no one understood me. I felt isolated, and trapped, and forlorn. I will tell you, that had way more to do with my feelings than the world. The Universe loves me, and was just waiting for me to notice.

Why am I wanted? What makes me feel a part of? How am I included?

When I was doing the drugs and alcohol thing, I was surrounded by people most of the time, but always felt apart from, never a part of. It got better when I stopped medicating and went to AA and Alanon. It got way better when I found my best teacher. She was a therapist, and the eighth one I tried. We worked together for twenty years.

Until I feel like I can belong somewhere I want to belong, it simply won’t happen, regardless of how the people in that somewhere feel about me. I might be in that space, but I will feel like an interloper until I choose to feel like I belong.

How do I feel when I belong? What makes me connect? How do I engage?

When I feel like a toxic waste dump, I pretty much am not going to want to connect or engage with anyone who isn’t. I may want them to rescue me. They can’t. They can create a safe space in which I can heal, but no one but me can heal me.

When I have the toxic waste dump going on, I will most likely benefit from finding a trustworthy person to help me get rid of it. There are at least hundreds where you live. It may take you a few tries to find someone you click with, but hang in there. You are so totally worth it. You are worth the effort to create your nice life, you are worth the time.  Your divine and infinite self is waiting patiently, lovingly, with complete acceptance of you.

How have I changed from feeling disconnected to feeling engaged and belonging?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04192014

Remember, take what you like, and leave the rest. If you have found some value in these contemplations, please + or share. It makes a difference. Why are you so lovable?

Vacating the Drudge-Rut

Vacating the Drudge-Rut

How do you feel when you feel alive? Light? Engaged? Aware? Rosy? Vibrant?

For many of us, feeling alive is something we remember from the past. We have gotten ourselves mired down in crud, in bad thinking, dull routines, and stuff we don’t like. We have friends we don’t like, work jobs we don’t like, activities we don’t like. We eat food that’s supposed to be good for us, drink health drinks, and still have no energy.

Makes me tired just thinking about that life.

What makes me feel alive? How am I energized? Why do I feel engaged?

Every so often, when I am feeling stuck in that drab ol’ drudge-rut, I will make a list. I like to make lists. If you like to make lists, you might like this list. And do notice that this question is very much not good Creative Questions.

The answers come from the question: What am I doing that makes my life harder?

It takes some looking sometimes to see how we make things rough on ourselves. For example, we may have a habit of getting up at the last minute, and then have to race through our morning. We end up getting side-tracked, and next thing you know, we are late. And feel rushed, and guilty or even ashamed. So now we may act out our crappy feelings on our community.

Or maybe we get up extra early, and spend that time doing for everyone else, feel taken for granted and then resentful, and then guilty or angry for feeling bad. And what makes it even more so is that it’s often not even in our awareness, so then we can also feel crazy. Oy.

Maybe we made some resolutions that we’ve been blowing off. Maybe we have some good intentions we’ve stopped tending. Maybe we have a bad habit we’ve been meaning to phase out. And we don’t do whatever, and we feel bad, and guilty, or even ashamed.

What can we do? How do we turn it around? Why do I choose to unchoose?

Oh, yeah. We can change it in an instant. How do I feel when I feel alive? Focus on that question, ask it again, maybe try shifting it a bit to, “How else do I feel when I feel alive?” Notice the shifts in your physical experience. Pay attention to how your body feels.

When I remember that my feelings, my attitudes, my moods, and my emotional states are of my making, that I have the power to make me feel like a drudge or a dream, I am taking responsibility for my well being. I empower myself, or officially give myself the power to effect change in my own life.

When I remember that I didn’t get to this ickly place overnight, but by making thousands of tiny choices, over and over, and I can start unchoosing right this very second. Ooh, I like that feeling. I can choose to slow down inside, and treat my morning like a walking meditation on the blessings in my life. I can choose to pause for a moment and make my bed, or spend 10 minutes in the evening preparing for the day ahead. Maybe I choose to walk past my favorite don’t-wanna-eat-that aisle, maybe I choose to go to bed a little earlier. Maybe I choose to refrain from harsh words. Tiny choices, I get to choose ‘em, I get to reshape my day. I get to feel vibrant and luminous and alive.

How have I changed from feeling full of gray to feeling radiant with life?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02202014

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

Abandoning the Emo Ghetto

Abandoning the Emo Ghetto

Today I drew the “Environment” card. Mostly when this card comes up, I like to think about our physical environments. But we have other environments in which we live. We have our internal environment that we create with the quality of our thoughts. We have our spiritual environment. And we have a social/emotional environment that we create with the people we surround ourselves.

Huh. That’s interesting. What kind of a social environment do you live in? Is it warm, and lively, and full? Is it cold, and grim, and full of drama? Is it almost empty? Is it crowded and lonesome?

Finding new ways to think about our old stuff can help us shift out from places we may be feeling stuck. So, let’s take a look at the people we fill our lives with.

In the dark ages, I knew some wonderful people; kind, loving, wise and generous, crazy talented. I also knew dark, grim, abusive, terrifying, miserable people who seemed to shun the light in favor of the dismal dank. They were often really interesting, and also crazy talented. Compelling. Seductive.

The deeper in I went, the fewer lovely people I knew, and the darker the folks were whom I was spending time with. A day that was just dark was a good day.

Soon, I’d stopped working days, and started working nights. In the winter, I never saw the sun. We were all so starved for attention, but all we could ask for was negative attention. I felt like I was full of a heavy, huge, black hole where my heart used to be.

When I decided to change my life, one of the things I had to do was change my social environment. I wanted to stop using alcohol and recreational drugs, so I needed to stop spending time with people who did. I wanted to be soul-happy, so I had to start looking for friends who got that. They didn’t need to be happy, just wanting to get there, willing to do something to get there.

For my own growth and well being I had to walk away from all my friends not once, but twice.

Why do I respect my people? What makes me choose to grow? How am I supported?

When I look at my people with an open and honest eye, what do I see? Do I see people who encourage me in my best? Or people with whom I love to trash talk, or misery merge, or share activities but not intimacy? Do I have friends, or bad-behavior buds?

It meant that I had to do some stuff. I had to choose people who seemed respectable, kind, and real. I had to choose to trust that, if I gave them a pointy stick and showed them where it would hurt me the most to poke, that they wouldn’t. I had to open my heart. Boy, was that door creaky!

On the one hand, I made a lot of mistakes. On the other hand, I found some wonderful friends who have weathered all my changes and interesting adventures for years.

Choosing our social environment is another step in choosing happiness, another piece of becoming a grownup. Choosing intimacy is an act of courage. Taking responsibility for all our environments helps us make our lives easy, makes it easy to relax, to move into peaceful, to accept and allow our lives to flow.

How have I changed from living in an emotional ghetto to choosing to live in a place of warmth, understanding, and love?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01032104