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

How do you feel when you matter? What makes you valuable? How do you know you are a gift? If you like what you find here, please + and share. Thanks.

Working That Attitude Thing

Working That Attitude Thing

Why do I try my best? What makes me give my all? How do I deliver excellence?

How do you feel when you see those questions? Happy? Excited? Anxious? Hopeless?

Feeling productive, feeling accomplished, feeling pride in what we do; these things are so important to our well being. It’s one of the reasons we ask these questions a lot.

I used to think that my productivity, my attitude, my results, were partly dependent on you. If you told me I was worthless, I didn’t work as hard, because why bother, and then I sink into the misery of low self-esteem. Or I redoubled my efforts to try to get you to change your mind. What a sad mislearning, not taking responsibility for myself.

But, here we are, again, with that attitude thing. I know, I know, what a pain in the patootie, that attitude thing. The sooner I can accept that I can change my attitude, the sooner I can start living my nice life.

If I have a job I hate, I have at minimum three choices. (This works for a lot of situations.)

I can accept it. That is not the same thing as resigning myself to it. Giving up and letting go are two different things. The first drops me into hopelessness and despair. The second is about releasing our negative judgments and finding a way to accept, maybe even love, our situation.

I can change it. Now, accepting a situation will often require us to change inside. Sometimes what we need to do is change things on the outside. Perhaps what I need to do is find an ally, or swap tasks with someone. Maybe I need to change my hours, or my work station. Sometimes this is all it takes to make things better.

I can leave it. For many of us, this seems like a great solution to a crummy situation, but here is an icky truth about leaving. If the situation is a pattern for us, we will find it wherever we go, and we will be confronted with our pattern again and again until we resolve it. There are lots of ways to resolve our patterns, but do it we must if we want to stop repeating ourselves.

And now, since I have accepted it, changed it, or cleanly left it, I am back to my natural life. I am naturally service minded. I want to contribute to my communities. I want to deliver excellence, and I will go the extra mile for the joy of it.

Why do I like what I do? Why can I choose? Why am I happy? What makes me feel efficient? How am I effective? Why am I on purpose?

So often, all I need to do is find a compelling reason to do something I don’t want to do, and I can enjoy it, or find satisfaction in the doing, or feel virtuous, or proud, or something.

Sometimes, I can turn it into play. I can see how quickly I can get something done well. I can see how many Xs I can finish in a block of time. I can pretend to be someone who enjoys the task, make up a name, a persona, and let myself become that person for a while, like I did when I was little. Sometimes, I can resort to self-bribery; I get to do X after I have done Y.

Whatever it takes to make it mine.

How have I changed from hating what I do to finding the value, finding the gift?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04072014

Did you get a little inspiration to make your tasks more fun, or interesting? Did you find an answer to something you were wondering about? If you found something to like in today's post, please + and share. How do you feel when you matter?

Everything You Wanted to Know

Feeling wanted is one of those things that is essential to our well being. Because it is so important, it’s one of the places where we can have a lot of feelings, not only the ones we are aware of, but the others, too, the ones that are roiling beneath the surface.

Those “beneath the surface” feelings are so interesting. When they start swirling around, we can feel like we are going crazy. They bump around inside us, but we don’t have any conscious thoughts, no words, no images. We are having physical sensations that, because we don’t know what they are about, feel awful.

I know I am having those big unconscious things going on when I feel dread, or doomed, or even when I have a hunch. You know, those belly feelings. Turns out that we have a kind of second brain in our guts; they are filled with the same kinds of neurotransmitters we have in our heads, and sending information about our being up to the brain all the time.

Since our belly brain doesn’t have verbal language, we have to learn to read it differently. The best way I know to do that is to sit still for a while to let the information resolve into something my conscious mind can understand.

In the course of living our lives, we get stuff wrong about how the world works. We may learn bad patterns from our childhood adults who got it wrong from their adults, all the way back. Things as awful as legacies of abuse happen this way. But little things, like cutting the ends off the roast, like great-grandma did because she didn’t have a pan that was big enough, will be passed along, too.

Our minds and bodies are connected, regardless of our recognizing those connections. Our bodies are conveying important information about our well being all the time in the only way they can, through sensation. As we become more adept at reading those communications, we can make our corrections in our actions, or choices, or thoughts more quickly and get back to our true paths of happiness.

One of my examples was a headache that happened at the base of my skull. It turned out that I got that headache when I was ignoring my wisdom. When I would attend to my wisdom, the headache would disappear. I could also make it go away with drugs, but then I missed to gift of listening to my wisdom.

When I am having physical discomfort, I find a lot of benefit in “reading” it. Maybe it’s like a horoscope, simply giving me a point of view to consider, but maybe it’s actually knowledgeable, and conveying personal and useful information. After all, I listen to it being hungry, or tired, or thirsty.

The more we learn to read the information we are getting from our bodies, the easier we will find our living. Paying attention to these messages will let us know the work we need to do to make our way smoother every day.

When we experience well being in our social lives, our career, our finances, our physical selves, and our communal selves, we feel great. I want that, so I try all sorts of things to get there. And when one doesn’t work, I will try another. Reading my sensations, and Creative Questions are two of my absolutely all time favorites for their high success rates.

How have I changed from ignoring my whole experience to attending to all my information?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04062014

I know this is a challenging and controversial topic. It has made a huge difference in my life. All I ask is that you consider it. Oh, and + or share, if you like what you find. What makes you feel great?

Counting My Pennies From Heaven

Counting My Pennies From Heaven

What do you think about the big picture?  We have so many words for it; God, The Universe, Force of Nature, Higher Power. We have very strong beliefs in this arena, beliefs for which we are willing to kill each other in huge numbers. Okay. So, we will now quietly leaving this space, and get around to the business at hand.

The question I’m asking is more like this. Do you believe that your environment is malevolent, benign, or benevolent?

I used to believe that people sucked, and God felt sorry for me because he loved me, but wasn’t really gonna do anything.

I don’t think that God is actually something that behaves like a dysfunctional human any more. I’ve kinda decided to go with the notion that God is greater than I can imagine.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve become kinder and more compassionate, so I decided that my higher power is infinitely kind and compassionate. That’s a nice thought, useful, even.

If that’s the case, my belief, then it would follow that the Universe is benevolent towards me. I like that, too. If that’s the case, then the things that occur in my life, and my environment, are meant  to support me.

How would my environment support me? How do my circumstances benefit me?

I mean, what if I am a divine and infinite being who forgot that’s what I am. And, since the universe is divine and infinite, it’s doing everything it can to help me get back there. It provides opportunities and resources for me to chip off that accreted gunk that blocks my memory of my true self. It does everything it can.

So, lately, my environment has been awash in change. Circumstances have been highly charged, emotionally fraught, with changes in the physical look of stuff happening all over. In the olden days I would have freaked out. I would have flipped into cowering, helpless victim, and hated it all.

But, if this is a gift, if these circumstances are here to support me, then all I need to do is find that supportive piece, and apply it.

I find it helpful to label my current gifts from the universe, the pattern or attitude or old trauma I’m being given the opportunity to clean up. Right now I have two big ones up; unchoosing victim, and working through the fear of an old pattern coming up again.

I know I can do this work because I am a resourceful grownup. I don’t need to hide, or run away. Because I am a resourceful grownup, I know that “victim” is a mind-set, and attitude, and I can unchoose it quickly by asking myself stuff like, Why am I strong? How do I know I am capable? How do I know I am competent?

Because I am a resourceful grownup, I know that my fear of that old pattern recurring is about negative thoughts, and I can easily change those with questions like, How have I changed from doing X to doing Y? and How do I feel when I do Y? Then I just need to sit in those new feelings for a while. Sometimes, I have unfinished internal business around that old pattern, and may need to clean that up. Sometimes I need a little help, but I can find help because I am a resourceful grownup.

How have I changed from feeling threatened by my environment to finding my amazing gifts and support?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04052014

What gifts have you been getting from the Universe lately? Remember to + and share if you like what you find. How do you feel when you recognize the gift?

How to Banish Negativity

How to Banish Negativity

I like music. A lot. I love to sing, I love to listen, I love to learn songs, I love to write songs. I tend to prefer songs whose chords are harmonious, rather than discordant, although sometimes that’s kinda fun.

It’s also how I prefer my life. Harmonious, I mean.

Harmony isn’t born of discord. It isn’t born of negativity, and I am always blown away by how many of us don’t have a clue how negative we are.

Here’s the tip-off: If I don’t feel good, I’ve got some negativity going on. If I pay attention, I may be aware of it, but chances are good that it’s unconscious thought being my party pooper.

Here is the most annoying thing about my negativity. It’s not your fault, it’s my responsibility. You can be a total jerk, but I have to choose to go down down down with it. Sometimes I really want it to be your fault. And no matter how much I blame you, it will never be true.

Okay, so here is one of my relatively new, dynamic, life-changing beliefs. I believe that part of what we are here for is to grow up. That suffering and misery are optional, and that becoming an adult means learning to grow past misery, past suffering. It doesn’t mean really icky stuff won’t happen, it means that I don’t take it personally, I don’t blame anyone, I am responsible for my feelings, and use them to tell me when I am on my good path or on my bad path.

I also believe that when I am feeling negative, nothing will ever change, and nothing will help. When I am feeling negative, you are an idiot or worse, and you don’t have to have done anything. I may feel punished when stuff happens because I take things personally.

When I am feeling negative, I am giving my personal power away right and left. I often can’t sleep because you drive me crazy. I look for things to go wrong, I discount things that go right, and it will never be enough, whatever it is.

Yikes.

Why do I choose to be positive? What makes me feel light? Why would I take responsibility for me?

Why am I good enough? What makes me okay? How am I clear?

How do I feel when I am peaceful? How do I feel when I surrender? How do I feel when I am relaxed?

What happens when you slow down a bit and really ask those Questions? How does your body feel different? What emotions are you having? Do you like it?

I have been making choices like this for a long time now. A lot of it was trial and error, and that’s one of the reasons I decided to write this stuff down, so you might find it easier. You deserve a nice life. You deserve some soul-happiness, and enjoyment. You deserve smiles that come from your heart.

How have I changed from seeking the cloud to rejoicing in the silver lining?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04042014

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Rolling in the Dough

Rolling in the Dough

Statistics are so interesting. The Internet means that we can just google stuff, and Bob’s your uncle.

I drew the Why am I wealthy? card this morning, so I googled average salary worldwide. Google pointed me to the BBC who said $18000 per year, or about $9.00 an hour for every adult.

How do I prosper? What makes me feel rich? How do I experience abundance?

Sometimes we forget how magnificent the material aspects of our lives are. Or maybe we just don’t know. I sure didn’t know for a long time how amazing my material life was.

My appreciation for the relative luxury in which I live has skyrocketed since I started using Creative Questions.

How do I live in luxury? What makes me manifest prosperity? Why do I enjoy the flow of cash?

When I live in gratitude, when I am relaxed, when I feel peaceful, my prosperity flows. Abundance flows in, abundance flows out, and I am all the richer for it. I find value in being generous, not just with money, but with my time, with my gifts.

These days they are saying that the maximum payoff for happiness from money rolls in at around $80,000.00 after which it is a case of diminishing returns.

So it isn’t the stuff that all that money can buy that brings the happiness. We know, because we are brilliant, that our real happiness comes from the inside. We know that our freedom comes from the inside. We know that our sense of belonging, our feeling of engagement, our feelings of being loved, all come from inside us.

Now, I do love to drive my car. I think it’s super fun, and super comfy, and I feel appreciation for it every single time I drive that car. That appreciation will often extend to all the people who help me take care of it. I also know that I have had other cars I loved, and will have other cars I love. The magic is in the ability to appreciate, not so much in the car.

What makes you feel luxurious? How do you feel pampered? Why would you be indulged?

Sometimes we have music that we feel lavish to, sometimes there is art, or physical movement. Sometimes there is a certain taste or smell that leaves us feeling awash in opulence.

Sometimes that feeling can make us feel very uncomfortable, and, ooh, then we have some work to do.

I have two kinds of tea that hit me like that, for example. Neither one is very fancy, but I feel so treated when I drink them. Knowing what our favorite indulgences are is great, indulging in them from time to time is, too.

How have I changed from feeling stingy to feeling magnanimous?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04032014

If you are feeling a bit richer, or a bit more pampered, please + or share. Thanks. How do you know you are wealthy?

Spooky Smart

Spooky Smart

Universal, infinite wisdom. Divine, infinite being. Natural life of bliss and satisfaction. Sentence fragments, sure, but so much content.

Over and over again I am confronted with a very simple concept. When I am clenched , stuff is more challenging, and when I relax, things are easier.

One place I find this to be true is with solving stuff, figuring things out, remembering stuff, being smart in general. I find it much easier to do that when I let my mind relax. I know I’ve kind of been going on about relaxing, but, dang.

In my qigong practice there are three rules: Don’t worry. Don’t intellectualize. Relax.

There are three more rules: Relax. Relax. Relax.

When I remember to relax, I remember that I do what I can, and let go of the rest. When I remember to relax, I can let stuff flow, my thoughts, my emotions, my responses to life. When I relax, time stops racing past me. Days slow down to a nice day-length, weeks are a nice week-length and a year takes a whole year, like it did when I was a kid. I really love that.

When I relax, the wisdom of the universe can flow through me.

How do I know I am brilliant? Why am I so wise? How am I clever?

I have met several people in my life who are spooky school-smart. They remember stuff from college like nobody’s business. They have IQs in the 170s. Or something. I have also met people who have music smarts that blow me away, or visual art smarts, or people smarts, or cooking smarts, or physical being smarts.

Point is, we are all brilliant. I have to work at math, but I can read your face and body stuff pretty well.

How are you brilliant? Where does your brilliance shine? What do you excel at?

As we own our skills, and talents, and gifts, our self-esteem grows, we feel good about who we are, what we can do. Because we are connecting with our core self, our natural self, we feel less attachment to our ego-self, that part of us that wants everything to stay exactly the way it is. We feel excited for change, excited by the flow of our lives, we love to be surprised by what’s next, and we feel competent, strong, and capable of handling whatever comes our way.

Like you, I am a work in progress when it comes to this stuff. Like you, I have stuff come up on the outside, and come up on the inside. Like you, I plug away at it, doing what I can to remember what helps me keep moving forward. I try to remember to be kind, to have compassion, to stay peaceful. I don’t always succeed, sometimes I really screw up. I get angry, and ashamed, and fearful. I worry.

But I am much better, as my life lately has been pointing out to me, thank you, Life.

How have I changed from feeling stupid to owning my brilliance?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04022014

What did you like in today's contemplation? Did you get it about how smart you are? If you like what you find here, please + or share. Thanks. How do you know you are brilliant?

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

If you found something here to like, to inspire, or to question, please + or share. Thanks. How do you feel when you are appreciated?