Life in Miseriopolis

Life in Miseriopolis

Back when I lived in Miseriopolis, I used to think people were jerks. In general, of course, but also because they didn’t seem to want to listen to me go on about my misery; my angst, my pain, my suffering, how hard my life was, how I was disrespected, blah blah blah. I felt discounted, I felt like my feelings weren’t being validated. That was all about you, you see, and how you lacked in compassion for me.

I am so sorry. I didn’t know.

I had a great deal of mislearning about how to be an adult. I won’t go so far as to say everything I knew about being an adult was a mislearning, but I am a bit tempted.

One great mislearning was that misery was my birthright. I was entitled to feel miserable, with all its attendant benefits, like being able to bow out of things I had agreed to, but didn’t wanna do, by being sick with a migraine or back pain. Who could argue with that? Was I miserable because I was sick, or was I sick because I was miserable?

Another great mislearning was that my misery was somehow your fault. That meant that all my interactions with you had a dash of bitterness and resentment attached. How charming. It’s why I felt okay about being snarky and sarcastic with you. You deserved it for making me suffer. Somehow.

Another great mislearning was that “this is just the way things are.” What a cop out. There is a huge difference between accepting what is and flowing with life, and becoming resigned to X. Flowing with life gives us room for peace, and joy, and bliss. Resignation is not joyful, or peaceful. It’s all full of rust and dust and bitter gall.

Ask many people who have gone from misery to joy how they did it, and most of them will say, “I realized it was a choice.”

Why am I a leader? What makes me positive? How am I uplifting?

Someone will always lead. May as well be us. We set examples all the time, may as well lead by them. We have choices to make a thousand times a day. May as well choose up.

One of the secrets about this attitude stuff is that cheery has a lot more energy than miserable. Miserable takes up loads of energy. We are meant to be uplifted, that makes us feel light, light is high-efficiency. Misery is down and dark. Dark takes up a lot of juice, it is very low-efficiency. That’s part of why we wanna just stay in bed when we feel down.

One of the secrets about this attitude stuff is that my feelings are my responsibility. I know it seems like Joe Blow makes me mad, or scared, or sad, but it’s me acting as his proxy. I am responsible for my feelings. I finally got it one morning when my little fur family was making me crazy. I was ranting at them, and suddenly realized that they were doing what they do every day, it was only my reaction that was different.

Unchoosing misery, choosing uplifted, is one of the most powerful things we can do for ourselves, and subsequently for our families, our communities, and on and on.

How have I changed from being entitled to my misery to choosing to lighten up?

3. Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 10082014

Doom or Bloom?

Doom or Bloom?

Helpless, hopeless, doomed. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever goes my way. Everything happens to me. My misery is all your fault.

Huh.

Some of us feel like this. I was one of them. I couldn’t leave my rotten job for a hundred reasons. I couldn’t leave my rotten living situation for a thousand reasons. I couldn’t leave my abusive relationship for a hundred thousand reasons. Most of them were your fault. And then, when I got fired, or evicted, or dumped, well, that was clearly your fault, too.

Please accept my apologies. I had a powerful heap o’ mislearning I needed to dump.

Can’t is a crazy word. Can’t stops us cold, tenses our muscles, cramps our thoughts, constrains our behavior. When I choose can’t, I stifle myself. I curb my enthusiasm, I cage my heart, I chain my mind. When I choose can’t, I don’t grow.

Why am I capable? What makes me choose?

I drew those two cards this morning. When I throw in “Why am I competent?” and “Why am I strong?” I can unchoose victim/martyr. I can choose to accept the circumstances I find myself in. I can choose to do what I can to change them. I can choose to get some help. I can choose to leave.

I can choose to accept you as you are, and stop fighting to make you be different. I can choose to take responsibility for my well being and walk away from our relationship if I need to.

When I approach the world from a place of resourcefulness, where I believe all the support I need is there for the asking, I feel powerful. In the olden days, I believed I was powerless to impact my life, except sometimes with a tantrum. I learned that when I was very small, and it was pretty true then, but I got older, and bigger, and it became less accurate, and a deeper mislearning.

Why can I relax? What makes me peaceful? Why can I decide?

Every so often, something would happen to shake that belief, until I finally noticed that I actually did have some power of choice. I began to seek out good teachers, I began to leave “friends” who encouraged me to stay small and helpless. I started to notice my really bad habits that left me feeling awful, like abusing recreational chemicals, and got help to replace them with habits that showed me new ways to think.

I didn’t change this overnight. I did take baby steps. One little change here, one little change there. Some of them took right away, some I had to revisit again and again. Some I am still revisiting. The habit of being competent, of feeling capable, of knowing I can, has gotten stronger. The habit of taking responsibility for my own well being is stronger, and easy most of the time.

Each of us is the only one who can change our own internal experience. Each of us has all the resources we need available. We just need to learn how to ask.

How have I changed from being wedded to “can’t” to feeling the power of “I can?”

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07082014

Easy Peasy

Easy Peasy

One of my most favorite questions EVER came up this morning, namely, Why is it so easy?

I love this question, because I am finding that it is, indeed, so easy. Just about anything I do can be just so easy.

It’s all up to me.

What makes it easy? How could it be easy? Why do I enjoy easy?

All I have to do is remember to go there.

When I choose  easy, I remember to relax, not just my body, but my thoughts as well. Relaxed is how easy feels. When I choose easy, I see more beauty, I see more kindness, I see more opportunities. I am present in my life.

When I choose easy, I am going with the flow of my life. That is effortless. I don’t have to earn it. I don’t have to work hard for it. I don’t have to do anything, just choose it. When I choose easy, I give up struggle.

Choosing easy can be weird when I have struggled to work hard and earn it my whole life. Now, let’s say we have a habit of struggle, of striving. We don’t believe that choosing easy could be that easy. We totally believe we have to do something to earn it, to work hard for it. So we have to unchoose those beliefs, and then choose easy. It helps to remember that easy is mostly a feeling, and we create our feelings with our thoughts.

Why would I choose easy? What makes me positive? How do I feel light?

Once I start to notice that I think something is hard, or difficult, or that I have to work at it, I can ask, “How could it be just so easy?” I can give up feeling clenched, or up tight, to use a very descriptive old bit of slang. I can also ask, “How do I feel when it’s just so easy,” and let the feeling wash through me.

Easy, for me, feels peaceful. It feels soft, it feels excited and curious. I have been paying attention to curious a lot lately. Curiosity is one of the flip sides of fear. When I am curious, I open up. I look for possibilities. I look for hidden treasure. Curiosity engages my best self. Curiosity is easy. Curiosity is powerful. Curiosity is a damsite better than scared.

Sometimes all I need to do is pay attention to my breath, and unclench my clenchy muscles. Sometimes all I need to do is stop for a moment, and regroup. Or count something. Sometimes all I need to do is reframe something. That means to look at what’s going on with a different point of view. Just that, the simple act of look at X from over there instead of over here can change it from hard, or dark, or icky, to a blessing, a gift, an opportunity.

Sometimes, what I need to do is find the humor in the situation, and crack wise about it. When I put on my smartypants, life is way more fun. I like to imagine what my smartypants look like. That is often just the disruption I need to lighten me up.

How have I changed from heavy and dark to feeling light and easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06292014

Honor and Integrity

Honor and Integrity

I had one of those weeks, you know the kind, where all of a sudden you have a hundred things to do that you’ve never done before. I think it’s very interesting that months can go by without needing to do a new, big something.

So, as usual, I had a lot of choices for how to hit it. On the one end, I could have flipped out and had a fit and refused. On the other end, I could act as if I knew what I was doing, and dive in.

Why am I strong? Why am I competent? Why am I capable?

Outstanding questions. These are the way out of feeling like a victim, but there is another really important part. You know what I’m talking about.

Why do I trust?

Before I tackled each task, I relaxed. I imagined getting all the help I needed. I imagined enjoying the outcome. I relaxed some more and imagined having fun. And then I opened my heart.

How do I feel when I trust?

Now, learning to trust the universe did not come easily for me. I held onto feelings of betrayal and violation like a drowning woman to a jagged piece of flotsam, tearing at me, wounding me over and over. Half the time I couldn’t even remember what the original wound was, but I sure had the feelings.

At the same time, I trusted untrustworthy people all the time. Ow.

As I resolve my old traumas, I have started making better choices, used better judgment, found trustworthy people to trust.

I am getting better at trusting the Universe. I am trusting me, more, too.

When I make crappy decisions that hurt me, I am violating my trust in myself. It makes my relationship with me wobbly. When I feel like I can’t rely on me, when I don’t trust me to take care of me, I start to clench. When I clench, I often start to act out. That makes trouble for me. It makes things uncomfortable for you.

This relationship, the one with myself, is the most important one I have. Trusting me to take care of me, to choose wisely and well, to be kind and respectful to me, leaves me light, and energized, with all the resources I need to take good care of my loved ones.

As soon as I catch myself in that clenched place, I relax my body, relax my emotions, relax my thoughts. I make amends to myself as I can. I use my good questions. The more I practice, the longer between my own betrayals of my trust, the nicer my life gets. It gets easier to remember to unchoose when I am heading down a painful path. When I am behaving honorably to myself, I am living my natural life. Things are easy. Life is rich and full.

How have I changed from betraying my trust in myself to behaving with integrity to me, and to you?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04272014

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Connecting Our Gifts

Connecting Our Gifts

How do I feel when I am significant? How do I feel when I am valuable? How do I feel when I am a contribution?

Belonging to our communities, feeling a part of something, is critical to our sense of well being. It’s one of five things; spirituality, social, career, physical, and material. When we have those things going pretty well, we feel great. When any one of them is out of whack, so are we.

Back when, I felt like I had to be a loner. I didn’t feel comfortable around you. I had some rotten, secret stuff happening to me, that was also secret from me, and so I felt like a freak. Hard to fit in when you don’t know who you are.

So, I made my big vow that I would be happy, and started to change things, and bit by bit, I found communities, groups of friends, people I could talk with, places where I felt comfortable, at least to rest, if not comfortable to be me. And I found good teachers.

Those groups changed as I changed, cleaned up, so to speak, as I cleaned up, and got healthier and happier as I got healthier and happier. And I started to feel like I contributed something to them, rather than just taking.

I tells ya, that was a huge moment for me, the first time I realized that my presence had made a difference for someone else. It was another thing that was a secret from me, pretty much until that moment, the fact that I could make a difference.

How do I matter? What makes me count? Why do I feel important?

When I felt like a misfit, I also felt angry at you for being a jerk, and at me for being a freak. When I felt like a misfit, I also felt ashamed that I was a freak, and that I was so repellent.

When I felt like a misfit, I also felt like the only thing that could relieve my discomfort was oblivion, so I developed a relationship with mood altering substances. I had seen a lot of people do that, so it seemed like a good idea, but it really didn’t help, and made a lot of stuff worse.

I had to unchoose my old way of doing almost everything, and correct the mislearnings. It took me a while, but whoa, Nelly! it was worth it.

How do I know I am a gift? Why do I value my contribution? What makes me feel connected?

Unchoosing our old ways that don’t make us feel better is worth it. Unchoosing our old ways that leave us feeling bad about ourselves is worth it. Unchoosing habits that make us feel ashamed or angry is worth it. We are worth the effort it takes to make the changes we want. We don’t need to do anything overnight, so to speak. It took me a while to get here, and it may take me a while to get where I want to go.

My personal example is around my weight. I didn’t gain it fast, and every time I lost it fast, I gained back more. Now I am losing it slowly. I “rest” after a few pounds and pay attention to my feelings. Often I find that I have something attached to a specific weight. Perhaps it is fear, or anger, or grief. When I address those experiences, and integrate them, I can move on from that number down to the next. It may be slow, but it sure is clean.

How have I changed from feeling like a nuthin to feeling how much I matter?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04082014

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Becoming an Appreciationist

I don’t think of myself as an optimist, someone who sees the glass half full. I am certainly not a pessimist who sees the glass half empty. I am an appreciationist who rejoices in having a glass. Not only can I drink from it, and share drink with you, but I can use my glass to hold ice cream, cut out biscuits, trace big circles onto things, and make polka dots, a place to root plants, a temporary place for bugs, stash my gold coins, well, you see what I’m getting at.

Lavish, luscious, sumptuous, opulent, plush.

The opposite of love, they say, is fear. It is also the opposite of trust, of positivity, maybe even of living. Fear devours our spirit little bite by little bite, and leaves us worried, anxious, guilty, angry, and sad. It grips us by the throat, roils our stomachs, squeezes our lungs, and steals our sleep.

We can unchoose it.

Why am I positive? Why can I trust? What makes me confident?

When I remember that I can change my feelings as easily as changing my socks, my life gets better. I can unchoose being annoyed. I can unchoose being scared or worried. I can unchoose feeling bad. I can do that because I am responsible for my thoughts, my emotions, my behavior.

I can choose to trust. I can choose to trust that I will find a solution, a resolution, a way out. I can choose to trust that there is a silver lining, and I can find it. I can choose to trust that I can change my ways. I can choose to trust that I can have all the support I need.

When I am feeling lost or scared, or lonely, or dark, or something like that, I can choose to remember than I am an appreciationist. I can find things that matter to me. I can find things I like. I can find things that I enjoy.

Here’s a little secret I will share with you.

When I am feeling kind of stuck, choosing gratitude can break that up pretty fast. Sometimes, for me, gratitude is easier to get to than relaxed, peaceful, or happy. Part of that is, for all my stuff, I own that my life is nice. I have seen enough to know that, even at its worst, my life still had things in it I could appreciate.

Why am I so positive? Why can I trust? What makes me confident?

I have made amazing progress in my life. I have worked through stuff, moved beyond stuff, overcome stuff. One of the most important reasons that I have been able to do that is because I found trustworthy teachers to trust. And then I trusted them, and did what they told me to do. Not one hundred percent, but way more than half.

When I have needed a teacher, a trustworthy teacher, one has always come along. Sometimes, twice, maybe, I’ve had a teacher who turned out not to be trustworthy, but the painful lesson brought me to a much better place. I trust that I am here to grow, to evolve, to really live a life of joy, and bliss, and connection, creativity, peace, satisfaction. I believe that you can have a life like that, too. Why can we choose to live our natural lives?

How have I changed from a glass half full or half empty to rejoicing in having a glass?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04012014

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Choosing the Doing

Choosing the Doing

Two cards popped this morning. Why do I like what I do? Why am I celebrated?

Well, that’s certainly a powerful set o’ Questions, isn’t it!

These are relatively new experiences for me. I know you aren’t surprised to hear that. Of course, I had things I liked to do, but they weren’t my occupation. I often hated what I was doing, even when I got my dream jobs.

We get ideas about how things go. We learn as small children by watching our adults. We learn that work is satisfying, or contemptible. We learn that we have to work jobs we hate, or we get to work jobs we love. We learn that co-workers are an important part of our emotional life, or that they are a burden to be carried and suffered. We are, for the most part, unaware of these made-up rules of employment, but we find that every job we go to has the same set up. Fancy that.

These notions, arbitrary, based on observation by our baby minds, turn into fixed delusions. And because they are delusions, as we do our daily lives, we don’t even see that they are just made up ideas.

One of the things I learned in High School was about doing critiques. All a critique is, is coming up with a line of bullshit and finding stuff to support it. Useful, cynical. And that’s what a fixed delusion is, a pile of made-up stuff that we then spend a lifetime finding stuff to support. We actually live a lot of our lives doing that. It’s the filtering thing.

We have to filter in order to function in the world. There is simply too much information available at any given time.

What makes me decide? How do I choose? Why can I slow down?

When I give myself permission to slow down, to start to notice what my patterns are, to consider the notion of fixed delusions, I begin to choose freedom.

How do I feel when I am free? Why can I decide? How do I find solutions?

When I notice that my ideas about work match the ideas one of my adults from my childhood expressed, and they weren’t good, I have a little wiggle room. When I see how my notions about relationships with co-workers do the same thing, I have a bit more wiggle room. I also have an arsenal. I have free will that can I exercise. I can unchoose the mislearnings of my past. I have Creative Questions.

Why do I like what I do? How do I know my efforts have value? Why do I enjoy my work environment? What makes me appreciated?

By taking responsibility for the quality of my work life, I have a sense of control. I know I get to choose my attitude. I understand that when I’m being pissy at work, I’m operating from a fixed delusion. I get to change that, and I know that making that shift will make things better for me, and for you, my co-worker, which is how I am responsible to you.

How have I changed from hating my job to loving what I do?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03192014

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Unsticking the Stuck

Unsticking the Stuck

I get curious when the same cards come up over and over. I figure that there is something I’m missing, an important piece I need to get.  So when the awareness card came up again, I figure it’s time to take another think.

Awareness comes with its own set of questions. We shift from asking, “How can I do more?” to “How can I be more?” That’s kind of exciting, isn’t it, that question.

How can I be more?

We each have the same amount of time in a  day. We each have a brain, talents, skills, creativity, insight, stuff we like to do. We live in the world, and we live lives where stuff happens. The point is, what do we do about that? Well, we also each have choices.

Why do I step up? How do I succeed? What makes me a leader?

When big stuff happens in our lives, we make choices. Sometimes, we choose a dark path. We may bail out. We may shut down, or act out with inappropriate behaviors. We may pretend nothing is going on and then, get sick, or have an accident, or even die rather than address this new thing.

On the other hand, sometimes, we step up. We see our new situation as an opportunity for growth and expansion. We do what we need to do to get more healthful energy, more efficiency, more effectiveness. We drop things that are less important, we change our relationships. We follow this new path to our new level, and find that we have more resources, skills, talents and enjoyment, love and support than we had before.

We do that with awareness. We do that with self-knowledge. We do that with support from people who love us and want us to be successful. We unchoose listening to those who talk smackchoo about us, or even to us, and we pay more attention to the loving voices, even if they are in our minds. We remember that we are living a new, more dynamic life, where we get to be more of who we are, and when we remember that we are divine infinite beings, well, that’s a lot of life.

For the people who follow their dreams, who achieve their goals, this is what we mean by a rags to riches story.

How do I feel when I wake up happy and excited for my day? How do I feel when I feel productive and satisfied?

When I make the choice to level up, I can expect that some old emo crap will come up. I will have to address my ego, who likes things the way they are, thank you very much. I will have to confront issues from my past, maybe around claiming my power, or what my responsibilities are, or what is expected of me. But I know that I am capable of handling those things. I have resources, I have courage, I have all the strength I need, and I  know that when I’ve finished with that list, I will feel freer than ever before, I will have more energy, I will feel motivated, inspired and competent. And I will get to do more of what I love. I love it when I win.

How have I changed from feeling stuck and helpless to feeling present and empowered?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03152014

Stillness of a Spinning Top

Stillness of a Spinning Top

One of my favorite words these days is “stillness.” One of my favorite pastimes these days is going to stillness. I really like it because for so much of my life, stillness was just a theoretical concept.

I have a giant mural of the heart of a forest in my bathroom. I know, kinda dorky, but I get that feeling when I look at it, even though I know how noisy forests can be. Stillness isn’t about quiet.

On my porch, during rush hour, with the river of traffic, and sirens, and horns, and helicopters. Stillness isn’t about a lack of activity.

In the midst of your craziest day, running errands, playing taxi, meeting after meeting, loved ones in need, dinner, laundry, more and more and more. Stillness isn’t about stopping.

Stillness, like peace, like happiness, is inside us. It may be deep, but, baby, it’s there. All you have to do is go there.

Sometimes the path is clear, sometimes the path is barely discernible, but it’s there, nonetheless. Taking the time to find it may seem daunting, a lot of the best things are. And once you find it, it’s yours.

Stillness also isn’t always about going deep inside, sometimes it’s about coming up for air, so to speak, allowing our internal turbulence to fend for itself without our needing to be there, tending it.

Meditation is one way. And there are so many different ways to meditate. I lead guided meditations that produce a state of aware sleep. I practice silent meditation, zen meditation, and on my porch, I practice what I think of as open meditation, where I am aware of my externals, all the sights and sounds and smells and experiences that sitting on the porch brings me.

If the idea of stillness within the busy seems like a contradiction, think of a spinning top, zipping round and round so fast that it looks still.

Stillness happens when we let go of conflict, discord, and negative moral or emotional judgments. Stillness happens when we surrender into the flow of our life, even if that life is spinning like a top.

One of my favorite examples was during my qigong practice, when I found myself spinning like a top. As I watched me spin from the inside, I wondered about dizzy. Then, I realized that “I” was still, while my body swirled around me. My body spun like that for several minutes, and when it stopped, I, the still, inside I, opened my eyes, and the room spun visually for a while, but I was still. Freaky weirdo stuff, I tells ya. Still.

When I choose the path to stillness, I choose to unchoose a lot of things. I choose to be patient, gentle and kind with myself, but also to be firm about my choices. I choose to shed another layer of my fixed delusions. I choose to trust, to let my life flow, and I choose to believe that life is good. I choose to believe that, whatever my circumstances, I can find my place of peace, of stillness, of happiness.

How have I changed from living in discord to feeling harmonious?

(c) Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 03/07/2014

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Living Hard to Living Easy

Living Hard to Living Easy

“Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I love that saying. I like it even better when I remember it appropriately.

One of my favorite goals is for easy. Easy, effortless, smooth. I have times like this, many more than I used to. I imagine that I will continue to have more and more.

One of the ways I have easy is by remembering that your topics, generally speaking, are not my topics. Sure wasn’t the case back when. Back when, I made your stuff waaay more important than mine, or me. I believed that I was responsible for your happiness, your comfort, and the fact that you were so unhappy was all my fault. I thought your bad behavior was my fault. Everything was my fault.

I’m serious. I know it sounds nuts, but that’s what I thought. And I wondered, way deep down, why you didn’t feel like that about me. I thought that was love.

I would wake up in the middle of the night worried about you. I could get so overwrought about your well-being that I would cry for ages. I thought that was love.

I would drop everything if I thought you might need me. Being needed was hugely important to me, all my self-esteem sat there. I mixed up being needed and being loved.

I believed that you would stop abusing me when X happened. That X changed a lot depending on how things were going. I believed that if I held you blameless enough, if I treated you well enough, If I forgave you enough, you would stop. I thought that was love.

That was not easy. It was also a great big pile of mislearning. The nice thing is that we can walk away from  a great big pile of mislearning like that and it will eventually fade away. I will also tell you that I got a lot of help unchoosing that mislearning.

Why can I relax? What makes things go my way? Why is it just so easy? How is my life effortless?

When I understand that I am responsible for me, and to you, things get easy. When I understand that I cannot make you do anything, and you cannot make me do anything, things get easy. When I understand that I filter my world based on my beliefs, and that I can change my beliefs, things get easy.

Back when, I had people say, “Wow, you sure live hard.” I thought it was a compliment. Now, I like easy. Easy is fundamental to our natural lives, right along with relaxed, peaceful, satisfied, content, blissful, creative, and connected. Easy is inside me. Easy is inside you, too. It’s just all covered up with old beliefs, outdated notions, expired ideas, that need to be cleaned up.

Why can I let go? What makes me surrender? Why do I trust life?

As I choose to become a grownup, I choose to let go of all that old, useless stuff. I choose to take responsibility for my own well being, and be responsible to you. I choose to let go of worrying about how stuff will turn out, and trust that I will manage well. I choose to relax. I choose to go to peace. I choose easy.

How have I changed from choosing hard to choosing easy?