My Trusty Choice

My Trusty Choice

One of the most powerful decisions I have made in my life was the decision to trust. On the one hand, it’s a huge leap from living in fear to living in trust. On the other hand, at our core, it’s how we really are.

I will freely admit that making this choice was a challenge. I will freely admit that it took a lot of regular practice. I will gladly admit that it was so beyond worth it.

Why do I trust? How do I choose trust? What makes me want to trust?

A dear friend uses the phrase, “faith or fear.” I like that. The point is, simply, that fear is a choice.

I know that it doesn’t feel like that. Believe me. I spend years with terror as my emotional underpinning. It was hellish. And I was living in a bad situation, so it was also reasonable. There wasn’t much I could do as a kid, but as an adult, I have choices. One of those choices is to assess my circumstances and make some decisions. If I am in a bad situation, I can choose to change it. If I am not, but going to fear from habit, I can change the habit.

When I live in fear, I am often exhausted. When I live in fear, I don’t feel well much of the time. My muscles hurt, as do my joints. I often have digestive issues. I may be plagued with nightmares and poor sleep in general. I may feel depressed and not even know it. All sorts of stress-related maladies can plague me. I see the world as a grim and wicked place, I see you as something of a menace even if I love you. I believe that this is the way the world is.

Oy.

Choosing trust is, as the saying goes, a leap of faith. It is coming to recognize that the idea of reality being fixed is a mislearning. Nothing is “just the way it is.” Giving up the notion that I am “just the way I am” means that I can let go of the things that hurt me, the behaviors that hold me back, the relationships that eat my soul.

Choosing trust means that I can start taking responsibility for myself. Wow. I can take responsibility for being in my circumstances and so I can start modifying them to bring me deeper into my natural life. I  take responsibility for my happiness, my state of mind, in general, and that gives me the power to choose how I feel, to choose my thoughts, to choose my beliefs.

When I choose trust, I trust that I will find the resources  I need, that the circumstances that come up for me will be useful and bring me a deeper understanding of myself and of you. I discover that this deeper understanding brings peace with it.

When I choose trust, I stop feeling like everything is personal. I understand that you treat me the way you feel about yourself, I remember that you can only see me through your filters, that I can only see you through mine. I remember that filters are not Truth.

When I choose trust, I am choosing my natural life. My natural life is joyful. It is peaceful and playful, creative, productive, and purposeful. My life feels meaningful. Bliss is normal. I see beauty and kindness.

How have I changed from living in fear to choosing to trust?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 10052015

From Shame to Freedom

From Shame to Freedom

Feeling like we are wrong is a rough place to be in. It eats up our confidence, it makes us second guess ourselves. I, for one, end up feeling kind of powerless when I feel wrong.

Why am I right? How am I powerful? What makes me confident?

There is a huge difference between feeling wrong and owning our mistakes.

When I own my mistakes, I am being responsible for my decisions, and I can make corrections as I need to. I know I am not my behavior, and taking responsibility for it lets me feel competent and grown up. I feel resilient because I can take a step away from what I did to see what I can do. Perhaps I can make amends, but sometimes it’s better not to. And I can do something helpful for others to help me balance my feelings. I can forgive the mistake, let it go, and move on. How liberating!

On the other hand, when I feel wrong, I often feel shame, and that is one nasty emo-toxin. We get the idea that we are bad. That we are worthless, not deserving of good things or people in our lives. We feel humiliated, and that leaves us feeling disconnected. When we feel disconnected from our own selves we feel lonely, that awful black hole in the middle of the chest feeling. And we hate ourselves for doing whatever it was.

As if that weren’t bad enough, shame is very sticky. We can feel shame for things we did as tiny children for decades after we have forgotten the perceived transgression. All that poison in our thoughts just for mistakes. We often have unconscious resentments for the people who taught us to feel shame, even for the people we feel we have harmed, and then feel more shame for feeling resentful. Then we shove it deep into our unconscious and wonder why we feel awful.

We sometimes feel shame for things that are not even of our doing, an accident, or illness, or reversal of fortune. Sometimes we feel ashamed for being a human, “one of them.” Poor little we.

How can I choose? What makes me strong? How am I aware?

We are not doomed to live lives of shame. We can dissolve it. First, I need to identify the feelings. For me, it can either a physical sensation of “bad” or it might be a running monologue of how despicable I am. Once I have noticed the feelings, I can direct positive, compassionate feelings toward myself. I can forgive myself for the shame-torture, and I can recognize the good I do. I can allow myself to experience redemption.

I make it a matter of habit to use my good Creative Questions many times a day, and that changes my unconscious mind. I relax and breathe nice deep breaths. I cannot feel shame and relaxed together.

I didn’t dissolve my shame by myself. I had a lot, very deep. And I had a lot of really fine, high quality help. I still find pockets of it, but now have all these wonderful tools to let it go.

And to use the phrase I got from a dear friend, I now have a locus of control that I trust. That makes a world of difference.

How have I changed from feeling shame-based to feeling free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07172014

AFOGS

AFOGS

You know how annoying I can be here, throwing out outrageous ideas, shaking up our familiar status quo with radical ideas about radical responsibility and radical acceptance. What you may not know is how diligently I am working on this same stuff myself.

Yesterday I had a nice juicy AFOG, another f*cking opportunity for growth. My choices, with variations in between, were to sink into a big ol’ pity party, feeling like a miserable victim, or take responsibility, process the feelings through, and choose to feel good.

I had a lovely day.

Why am I responsible? Why do I choose? What makes me capable?

One of the things I have learned is that when I allow those kinds of feelings to flow, things will often come up from my shadow side, dark stuff that can be uncomfortable; shame, guilt, anger, fear. Like a toddler, if we don’t pay attention to it right away, it will get louder and more obnoxious until we’ve got a full blown tantrum on our hands, and suddenly we are acting out, or having bad physical stuff, or attracting all sorts of strange stuff. So do I let it flow out and away, or push it down to grow stronger and bite me another day?

The card I drew today was the “Why do I commit?”

This was the big shake-up for me this past year, asking that question, “To what am I committed?” I can tell you, I did not like looking at that. The exercise requires looking at our lives as they are to see what we are committed to.  The way things are shows us our commitments. The longer things have been that way, the deeper the commitment.

As I opened up to really looking at the state of my personal world, I found that there were places where I could make some simple change, topics where it would take a bit more, and some stuff where I really needed some help.

I realized that I have a couple topics where I seem to be committed to staying stuck.

Why can I choose? Why am I supported? Why do I let go?

The more we clean up our stuff, the nicer our lives get. That’s just true. Things get easier, more fun, way more satisfying. Our biggest topics will also have more room to come to the fore. We may feel like we’ve done our work, but those big deep topics still want our attention. And we can look at the recurring themes, the things we get called out on, or the stuff that pisses us off, to see what those topics are.

I have what is probably an unrealistic goal. My goal is to have no unconscious material. That means I have made a commitment to spend some time on that regularly, to address what comes up in meditation, or on walks, or when I am sitting in contemplation on my sweet porch.

Or, like yesterday, when an AFOG dropped into my lap, a gift from the Universe.

When a topic floats up, an uncomfortable memory, or just a feeling during those quiet times, I sit with it. I may cry, or shake, or have big scary feelings, but I stick with it all the way to the end, when it stops by itself.

When an AFOG pops, it takes a different kind of attention, because those happen on the fly, often with others, and while I’m doing something. Keeps me on my toes, I suppose!

How have I changed from avoiding the hard stuff to letting it work its way out all the way to the end?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04202014

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Responsibility and Blame

This has come up several times lately so I want to be very clear about my meaning of taking  responsibility.

The difference between the idea that something is my fault and something is my responsibility is huge.

With fault, there is blame. There is a negative moral judgment attached to blame, there is no judgment attached to taking responsibility.

We always make the best decisions we can in any situation. Sometimes we decide something that we know is going to go badly. We may be making that decision based on some stinkin’ thinkin’ so it might not get us good results. When we change that thinking, we will make different decisions, and will get results that move us where we want to go. When we understand this, we can let go of a lot of guilt, anger, fear and blame.

When I am feeling stuck, my first impulse is often to look at what you are doing to hold me down. You may be sitting on my chest, but you can’t sit on my thoughts unless I allow it. If I think of you as my jailer, I am jailed. If I own my freedom, a tiny cell will only hold my body, my spirit can soar.

Blame, fault finding and struggle  come up for me because I am asking bad creative questions. Remember, a Creative Question has a result built into the question. What is wrong with me? Why does my life suck? Why does everyone take advantage of me? Why does everything always go wrong? What did I do to deserve this? Why am I always so miserable? Why can’t I get any help? Why is everything so hard?

Oy.

When I decide that I alone am responsible for my well being, I start asking questions that have solid, strong, positive answers built in. Why am I strong? How do I know I am capable? What makes me competent? Why can I thrive? How have I changed from rehearsing my troubles to resolving my situations?

Ah. Better.

When those questions seem too impossible, I can add the words “would” or “could” and make them softer. How could it be easy? Why would I be strong?

Creative Questions work in our unconscious minds. We don’t need to worry about answers to my good questions, they are in there. But sometimes, I get a resounding “no!” When that happens, I can notice that answer and ask the Question again. I do that over and over, and notice how the answers will shift. It is best when I’m working with a particular question to write it out, on paper, with a pen or pencil. Writing on paper engages our whole self, while typing, though maybe faster or easier for some of us, doesn’t engage us the same way.

As long as I remember that I can think the thoughts I choose when I need to, I can change my sense of being stuck, or trapped, or doomed, and bring myself back to my natural life of joy, peace, and satisfaction.

How have I changed from buying the blame to choosing to take responsibility for myself?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 2014 03222014.1

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The Verdict -- Innocent

The Verdict -- Innocent

Do you have a big pile of stuff that is waiting for your attention? Is it the starting? Or the middling? Or the finishing?

One of the tricks we are really good at is creating stuff to feel guilty about. I know, it’s a “why would we do that?” kind of thing, but we do, It’s in our baby nature:  We have something, we see what would happen if we wreck it somehow, and then we have giant feelings about it being wrecked.

Seriously.

So, as we choose to grow up, we can choose to address this topic for ourselves, for our peace.

Why do I get things done? What makes me follow through? How do I commit?

Why would I start? How do I begin? What makes me take the first step?

As we choose to address this topic, we may find ourselves facing a big ol’ pile of guilt. Guilt for not starting, guilt for not finishing, Guilt for procrastinating, guilt for doing X, but not well enough.

Sometimes, we feeling guilty, and that makes us feel ashamed, so we lash out and blame someone else, or something else, for how crappy we feel. And then we feel guilty about that.

Why am I innocent? What makes me perfect? How have I changed from making up stuff to feel guilty about, to letting go?

Letting go. When I am feeling guilty about somethings, I can fix ‘em, I can make amends. I can make restitution for the stuff I took, or the lies I told. I can take responsibility for hurts I caused, or damage I did. But what about the guilt we feel for that baby-nature stuff, where we kind of manufacture the whole thing? What do I do then?

When I am feeling that kind of guilt, or even guilt for being alive, which a lot of us have, there are a couple things I do. Thing one, I can start using Creative Questions, and thing two, I can practice letting it go.

And how the hickety-heck do I do that?

First thing is to stop the thoughts. Get out of your head. Get into your body, or into a calming image, or a mantra that you like. When I was feeling really stuck, I used a rubber band on my wrist and would snap it as soon as I noticed my negative thoughts. On the one hand, ow. On the other hand, it worked.

The sooner I can catch my thought, my guilty thought, my blaming or shaming thought, and change it, the better. When I know what the thought is, I can more easily craft a good Creative Question to turn it around, but even when I can’t, Creative Questions will help.

How have I changed from all that guilt to knowing I am pure and innocent?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02172014

Honing Trust

Honing Trust

Oo, trust. What a wacky thing that is. There are a bunch of ways that trust works, it’s a thing and an action. We can trust well, or poorly, supportively or destructively.

I can choose whom to trust, with whom to be vulnerable. I can choose to let go of fantasizing that I know the outcome, and choose to assume I will be okay however it works out. I can choose to trust trustworthy people. I can choose to trust my wisdom, and instincts.

I didn’t used to.

I used to brilliantly and consistently trust untrustworthy people. I was in totally denial of my own wisdom, I always knew for sure that things were going to go horribly wrong, and when they didn’t, I knew it would just be worse the next time. “Cheer up, things will get worse” was a phrase I heard a lot, and totally took to heart.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m so glad I was wrong.

How can I choose to feel safe? What makes me protected? Why do I let my life unfold?

As I choose to grow up, I choose to take responsibility for me. That means responding to a lot of stuff. I am responsible for my thoughts. Now, don’t get me wrong, thoughts flow. That’s their nature, and I don’t have a lot of control around what is in that flow as it burbles up from my unconscious mind. But, I do have control of the thoughts I think about. It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s profound.

Working that distinction is a skill that meditation affects, that of letting thoughts flow, and letting them go the moment you realize you are thinking them. There are lots of good thoughts to think, and circumstances under which to think them. My whole organism does better when I think positive thoughts, look for the good, and trust.

When I take responsibility for me, I am responsible for my feelings, which are complex blends of thoughts and emotions. If I feel crappy, it’s my responsibility to look at that feeling, dissect it, so to speak, so that I can let it go. I may need to take measures. For example, I used to get really blue every Sunday from about 11 am until about 5 pm. I ran away from it for a long time, by working, but it was still there. When I finally just sat through it a few times, pushing on it a bit, I was able to break it, and now, most of the time I can enjoy a Sunday all the way through.

When I take responsibility for me, I am responsible for my physical well being. That means I feed and water myself with care, clean myself, make sure I give myself some good exercise every day, challenge my mind, and get some decent sleep. It means I take some time to meditate, and contemplate, and practice my Creative Questions. These things take very little time, or a lot, but I get to choose how I do it. Some days I don’t. I am responsible for that, too.

When I take responsibility for me, I begin to find my wisdom. We all have it, deep down somewhere in there. Little by little, we haul it out and give it a test drive. And each time we get it right, we get a little stronger. We start to believe in ourselves, and, as we nurture that, it grows, and grows.

How have I changed from misusing my trust to putting it where it does the most good?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 01272014

Becoming a Thought-Master

Becoming a Thought-Master

The being positive card came up again today. Fell out of the deck as I was shuffling. It’s a wonderful reminder for me, as positive as I am, cuz I go to funk, too. I had a couple hours of “I suck” yesterday.

I will say that I enjoy the occasional crabbi-ass from time to time. Usually for about twenty minutes, and then I get bored.

“I suck” or “life sucks” is different. I don’t enjoy that, but they are old habits from the dark ages, and I don’t know if I will ever be cut of them. Meanwhile, I get to practice changing my feelings as easily as changing my mind.

Here’s how I do it. You may find all of this works for you, or some of it, or none. But I give it to you with all my love.

Why am I okay?

For me, “I suck” is a feeling I notice most in my lower belly and solar plexus. It’s often an amalgam of shame about something, sometimes guilt, often a feeling of not measuring up to an unknown standard, and also often simply feeling not good enough.

What makes me good enough?

So a quick way to shift things for me is to get that physical space moving, so to speak. I will take a few minutes to do standing forward bends, some crunches or sit-ups, and imagine the feeling getting squished out.

How do I feel when I feel fine?

If the guilt component is present, I take a look at the situation without all the feelings on it, as best I can, and then I assess. Was the thing actually less terrible than my feelings make it? Mostly, that is true. Am I doing something to change the situation? Mostly, I am. Can I forgive myself for this behavior? I am usually willing to do that.

What makes me innocent?

The shame piece is different, since that’s about who I am, rather than what I’ve done, or not done. Shame is sticky and smells bad. It’s like soul-grime. My two best shaming questions are: What’s wrong with you? and What’s the matter with you?

Those are, in case you missed it, excellent examples of horrible creative questions. Let your subconscious mind start working on those and I guarantee you will feel like crap in almost no time at all. You can try it, if you want. Like going to a scary movie.

How do I know I am pure? What makes me feel clear? How do I know I am lovable?

Taking responsibility for how I feel, knowing that the outsides are something I myself choose to riff on, makes me free. I am in charge of how I feel, and I am in charge of changing it. It’s not a fluke, it’s not contingent on you doing something different. My feelings and thoughts are the place in my life where I really do have control.

How have I changed from being a victim to my thoughts and feelings to owning that I am the boss of me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11302013

Worth Loving

Worth Loving

It ‘s a two-card day! I love that, the random blending of questions. Today’s duo are “Why am I good enough?” and “Why do I like what I do?”  Oh, yeah!

Feeling good enough, and liking what I do are both fundamental to a nice life. Amazingly, both of them are my choice.

I know, I know, I was full of those objections, too.

I’m not good enough because I am too this way or that way, I’m not good enough because I’m too much here and not enough there. I’m not good enough because of some other external thing or some behavior I have.

I can’t like what I do because it’s stupid, or gross, or boring. I can’t like what I do because it goes against my beliefs. I can’t like what I do because it’s beneath me.

Harsh words ahead, folks. Brace yourselves. “That’s just how I am.” is a load of old litter. It’s a cop out. And it’s time to cut the crap.

So I stop shrugging my shoulders and saying, “That’s just how I am.”  Crappy thoughts make crappy feelings, and crappy feelings make crappy behavior and, lo, I feel bad about me. Change the thoughts, and I change my life. I have to decide I’m worth loving. I have to choose to feel good enough.

It’s the same with what I’m doing. When I hate what I’m doing, it’s a horrible chore. When I can find a compelling reason to do it, I may not love the work, but I can get through it way more easily. Sometimes I can find ways to enjoy gross tasks, sometimes I can’t. Then, it gets back to finding what is motivation for me.

One thing I do when I can is break the big nasty task into little pieces. When I break a big job into a bunch of little jobs, I find it much easier to enjoy it. My progress may be slower, but I don’t end up feeling all pissy.

Another thing I can do is layer the task with something I like, an audiobook in the background, a movie I know well so I don’t have to look at it, sometimes, promising myself a little reward at the end can be all the motivation I need.

If I really hate what I’m doing, and little tricks don’t help, I need to find something new to do. Sometimes, I do something I hate for a bigger reason. Maybe I get great benefits, or a really nice salary that helps my family. As long as it feels worth it, it can be sufficient.

Sometimes, I end up doing stuff I don’t like doing because I feel like I’m not good enough to do the things I want to do. What a catch-22. At the same time, as I start practicing feeling good enough, that feeling will loosen up and shift out, and with almost no effort, I can find myself doing things that I enjoy, that feel worthwhile, that are satisfying to me.

Bottom line, over and over again, is that I am responsible for my own well-being. That isn’t a big horrible thing, it’s a lovely soft thing, taking care of me with loving kindness gets me all filled up so I can take care of you the same way.

How do I feel when I feel good enough? How do I feel when I like what I do?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11242013

Large and In Charge

Large and In Charge

One of the gazillion things I love about being a grownup is that, since I am just me, I never have to think about how to be. I assume you will like me, I assume we will get along, I don’t second guess what I’ve said to you, and I feel comfortable in my own skin. It wasn’t always like that.

So many of us feel like we are somehow not up to snuff. So we pretend we feel stuff we aren’t feeling. We pretend we are confident, we pretend not to be afraid, we pretend to like stuff, we pretend and pretend and pretend. Sadly, it’s not the fun kind of pretending, it ends up being almost desperate. We end up feeling exhausted, and like big fat fakes.

Poor we.

When we look to the outside world for our own authentication, we will always feel like we fall short.

The phrase I used to hear all the time was, “people pleasing.” We work so hard to try to make stuff nice for others, to make them like us. We work so hard to get them to think well of us, but the truth is, people can tell when we are faking it, even if they say otherwise, we get a feeling about it.

How do I know I’m the real deal?

In the dark ages, I desperately wanted someone to rescue me. I wanted someone to run my life for me, since I’d made such a mess of things. I tried so hard to be everything to everyone that I made myself sick. A lot. Just little things, you know; colds, tummy upsets, headaches, backaches, sore feet. I felt kind of bad most of the time.

When I decided to grow up, when I decided to turn to myself for my own approval, things started to change.

Why am I responsible for me?

I love that, the little thrill of anticipation we get when we are ready to make a good, big change in our lives. I love that we start getting results quickly when we take a step in the right direction.

When I was focused on trying to please you, I never noticed my self as a divine creation. It was pretty hard for me to notice much of anything.

When I stopped trying to please you, being aware, noticing what was going on around me, and within me, was so much easier.

When I stopped trying to please you, I found loads of things I was interested in. I discovered places I wanted to go. My own life got really interesting and fun.

Choosing to stop trying to please the outside world is huge. I end up with a sense of freedom. I end up with a sense of autonomy. I end up with a sense of my own power.

How have I changed from feeling like it’s all up to you to taking charge of my own self?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11112013