Just the Way I am

Just the Way I am

We all want to live lives we love. We want to feel satisfied at the end of the day, we want to feel accomplished, productive. We want to feel loved and loving, to belong somewhere. We want to feel good about being ourselves, about being in our bodies, about who we are.

A lot of us don’t. We have a lot of reasons explaining why we aren’t living that life. ¨It’s just the way I am¨ is one. Breaks my heart every time I hear it. ¨Life is just hard¨ is another one. Things never go my way, I only have bad luck, I’m doomed. The reasons go on, and we buy into them from a very young age.

How could it just be so easy? Why would my life be easy? What makes it all so easy?

I have had an unusual  year. Four surgeries, two with complications. A ferocious round of chemo, and more coming up. Radiation! Steroids! Fatigue! Well, you get the idea.

I’ve made some choices. I decided to choose health. I don’t identify with ¨sick¨ or the ¨c¨ word. I am always a bit shocked when someone says to me, ¨you have cancer.” It’s a label that is filled with fear, and anger, and expense, and death. Screw that! What is right in my life? Why do I choose alive? What makes me vital? Yeah! That’s the way to go, daddy-o!

I decided to choose grateful. I publish my appreciations every day on Facebook. I write them, for the most part, first thing every morning while I am drinking my first cup of hot beverage. I think about the previous day and what made me smile, what made me feel light, what gave pleasure. I have been practicing this for a few days short of two years and it makes everything easier. I spend more time noticing nice stuff, I actively seek nice stuff. I smile more because I find so much beauty, so much kindness, so much that is gentle and good and powerful in the course of a day.

I have chosen easy. Easy gets a bad rap. We are told from the time we are tiny that life is hard. Great. When I reframe that to ¨life is challenging¨ stuff shifts. Why do I enjoy challenges? How do I value my challenges? What makes me rise to a new challenge? ¨Life is hard¨ is like dropping a rock in the sand. Thunk. Everything stops. Rising to a challenge is dynamic; I change, I grow, I evolve.

I have chosen easy. This means that I recognize stressors as neutral events that I put judgments on. The more I do this, the more I can flow with my life as it unfolds, waxes and wanes. I do put judgments on events; I am aware that I am doing so, and will consider those judgments.

A nice example of this messes with the thought that ¨nothing ever goes my way.¨ Ick. I remember feeling like that, my sense of entitlement betrayed. When I shift that into a good Creative Question, ¨How do things go my way?¨ everything changes. I start seeing the benefit to me in a wide range of circumstances. I become more open to opportunities I would have missed in days of yore. I feel more good at the end of the day. I like that.

Things start to feel easier. If I allow my life to flow, I release the drama and things feel easier. I know that’s a biggie for many of us. We love the drama. It makes us feel important. It makes us feel engaged. It pumps things up into technicolor events so we are more excited about stuff. It’s only a paper moon, as the song goes, grease paint, sets and props. It’s not real, it just seems like it because it is so big. As we can let go of our love of drama, everything gets easier.

How have I changed from loving the ¨just the way it is, hard drama to embracing the deep bliss of easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 08252015

Drama Queen Abdicates!

Drama Queen Abdicates!

Back in the dark ages I was churned up most of the time. For example, I thought I liked drama. I was so shut down emotionally that I couldn’t feel my normal feelings. It was only when things went to big that I could really feel anything. So I made a lot of drama. Misery is good for that. Crises are good for that. Rage and shame are good for that. On the other hand, I wanted peaceful desperately.

Why would I choose peaceful? How could I choose peaceful? What makes me choose to feel my feelings?

Back then when I thought about someone being at peace, I thought of a saffron-robed monk sitting alone on the top of a mountain with his eyes closed to the world. Boring! My grandfather was reported to have said during a conversation about yogis who lived in caves, “Anyone can feel peaceful living in a cave. I’d like to see them pull it off out in the real world.”

Well, Grandfather, I would like you to know that it is not only possible, I’m doing it.

Choosing to feel peaceful rather than going to all the cranked up choices we have takes some dedication. We are deluged every day with opportunities to go to drama, from the news media to contending with traffic, from daily frustrations to the big stuff that can come into our lives. We are encouraged to go to drama by watching people misbehave in movies, on TV, in the stores we visit to run our errands, in our families of origin. We come to believe that yielding to anger is normal, that freaking out in a crisis is normal, that little blow-ups are par for this course. Oh, yes, we do.

What makes me allow my life to unfold? How do I stay relaxed? What makes me calm?

I had to practice many times every day to unchoose this mislearned love of drama. I could recite my litany of ills and wrongs, of pain and stressors, of betrayals and losses big and small, and would. I would run them through my head rehearsing how awful my life was, and then use all that bolstered up misery to justify a whole lot of bad behavior from incessant complaining to drugs and alcohol, to rage attacks with yelling and, oh, so much drama. Letting off steam, I called it, never mindful of the fact that I had made all that steam myself.

As I unchose drama, I had to pay attention to my thoughts. I had to notice when I started to run my litany of suffering. And then I had to choose to stop it. It took some practice to start running a list of gratitude instead. It took some practice to start to notice how full of blessings and wonders my life is. It took practice to stop comparing my life to the lives of others who seemed like they had it better, or easier, or softer. Each moment of noticing, each moment of choosing to look at the good in my life, brought me closer to being able to choose peaceful.

As I unchose drama, I began to make better decisions. I chose calmer people to be around. I chose people who wanted to be happy and peaceful, and I even found people who were happy and peaceful. I watched them. I learned from them. I began a meditation practice, granted it was ten seconds at a time to start, but I started. I worked through old traumas, let go of old hurts, practiced allowing my life to unfold as perfect in this moment. I let harbored resentment sail away, I forgave. Every moment of practice was worth it.

How have I changed from loving drama to embracing serenity and peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05252015

The Peace Core

The Peace Core

So, I’m going to make a confession. Ready?

I used to think that being emotionally healthy would be boring. I thought that if I didn’t have a lot of drama in my life, it would feel mundane and tedious. I thought that if I weren’t in the throes of some intense negative emotion, I would succumb to a moist, grey ennui.

I kind of thought that part of why there were so few enlightened folks walking around was because no one really wanted to give up the excitement.

I was scared to let go of my crazy behavior.

Boy howdy, was I wrong.

How have I changed from thinking crazy to taking responsibility for my own life?

Just because I have reached my peaceful core doesn’t mean I have a boring life.

Really.

I have more fun having fun than I ever did before. Maybe it’s because there is way less junk between me and fun.

Why do I have fun?

At some point, I realized that I like to have fun. That sounds ridiculous, but it was true. For many years what I enjoyed was drama and misery. It was enjoyable to me, in that particular mindset, but it was so not fun.  

I love not having relationship drama. I love not having work drama. I love not having problem drama. I love not feeling crazy. I love not having suicidal thoughts drifting through my head.

How have I changed from choosing drama to choosing peace?

I love having found my core of infinite peace and stillness and mirth and bliss and cosmic hooha. I enjoy how much fun I can have just being present, getting out of my own way.

The more responsibility I take, the more fun I have. Who ever set that up has to have a wicked sense of humor.

Because I am not all wrapped up in how my life isn’t going the way I want it to, I get to enjoy how it’s unfolding. As I enjoy it unfolding, I notice more opportunities for fun. They were always there, I just didn’t see them. When I am focused on crap, I find crap. When I focus on fun, I find a thousand thousand opportunities to have fun.

It really has so much to do with how I am looking at it. It really is that easy. I could wake up tomorrow morning, catalog my aches and pains, anticipate how much X will suck, how so and so is going to be annoying, how the walk from the bus stop will be cold, etc, and have a crappy day. Or not. Frankly, I’d rather have a good day. So I choose my peaceful core, my happy filters, my being present, and taking responsibility for me.

How have I changed from crappy days to enjoying days wrapped around a core of peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11132013