Third Time's the Charm

Third Time’s the Charm

In an unprecedented event, I have drawn the “environment” card again. That’s three times in a bit over a week.

I am guessing that a lot of us are asking a lot of bad creative questions right now, for a bunch of reasons. Stuff is happening all over, as it often does in the spring. And many of those questions are based on fear. I’m not going to give them room here. You know what yours are.

As someone who lived in fear for many years, I will tell you this. Most of the time, it is a colossal waste of time.

The world has never been as safe as it is now. We have, for example, less chance of being murdered or mugged than ever before in the history of the world.

If you are not safe, get safe. Get out of your abusive relationship. Move to a better neighborhood. Find a better job. Get help if you can’t do it alone. I know it’s not easy, but it is that simple.

If you are relatively safe, and still scared, stop it. That kind of fear is a habit.

That’s what I lived in, habit-fear. It was so ingrained in me that I thought everyone just felt like that all the time. I thought everyone slept poorly, had anxiety attacks, constant tension headaches, bad skin, and so on. I was so shut down I had no idea what I was feeling, except I cried a lot. I was in a state of adrenal exhaustion most of the time.

And I could tell something was wrong, and I got help.

What it boils down to is this.The opposite of fear is trust. The opposite of worry is trust. The opposite of anger is trust.

When I trust that things will work out for me, I feel light-hearted. When I trust that my circumstances will improve, I relax. When I trust that I can handle it, whatever my current “it” is, I feel competent.

When I feel competent, when I feel relaxed, when I feel light-hearted, I make better choices.

When I trust, I feel like the Universe is there for my benefit. Everything I need is available one way or another. All the help I need is available. All the resources. All the power.

When I trust the Universe, or me, or God, or whatever you want to call it, I am no longer a victim. You can do to me as you will, and I am fine.

When I trust, I am able to easily take radical responsibility for my whole life. And as I take that responsibility, for my well being, my health, my environment, my relationships, and so on, I own more and more of my own power, I spend less and less time in bad habit-feelings and habit-behaviors. I have more time, more cheerful, quality time, for you. I love that.

How have I changed from wasting my energy in fear to trusting that my environment is for my well being?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04162013

Those Who Candoo

Those Who Candoo

If you know me, you know I like to do stuff. So, yesterday, when I was doing stuff, I found myself wondering, “If other people think I’m busy when all I’m doing is stuff, what are they doing?”

I have had a long relationship with doing stuff. When I was a kid I called doing stuff I liked “play”, working on those skills we acquire by playing. I also did stuff I didn’t like so much, I called that “hate-this.”

When I began to choose happiness, I found that I still had hate-this things. House-hate-this was high on the list. As a child, housework was given to me as a punishment. I wonder why I hated to do it?

Now, I think of it as blessing my family and I enjoy it. Really. How weird is that! I also pretend that I am my own housekeeper, and the faster I get it done, the faster I can get on with play, except that pretending I am my own housekeeper is play.

When I bump into other hate-this things, I look for the purpose, or my reasons, for doing it. I am not made to do things as punishment anymore, so I can usually find a good reason to do something.

I like the feeling of purpose. I like the feeling of satisfaction I get when I finish something. That’s why I like to make stuff.

I like the feeling I get when I learn something. Right now, that means I’m taking two classes, one for my brain, one for the rest of me.

I like to share my knowledge, so I teach, here, of course, but out in the world, too.

So here’s the thing. I am always doing something, even if I’m just sitting and staring into space. It’s my responsibility to decide what I’m going to do, and how I will do it.

When I choose to be aware, it’s way easier to notice what I’m doing. It’s easier to choose what I want to do. Because, if I’m not careful, I can get totally absorbed by something I might not actually have chosen to spend a couple hours on,*cough video games cough.*

When I choose my activities, when I choose what I’m going to do, the other cool thing that happens is that I find I have the energy to do it. Wanting to be doing what I’m doing produces the juice I need to get it done.

It sure didn’t used to be like that. It used to be that I worked three jobs, from 10:00 in the morning until 2:00 AM or even later. Busy. Too busy to be around anyone. Too busy to notice how bad I felt. Too busy hiding from my life. Too tired to notice I was hiding. My teacher at the time helped me to notice. She helped me to decide to start choosing, and I gave up the three jobs for one that paid twice as much with awesome benefits. She helped me choose to start playing again, to start spending time with you again, to come out of hiding as start living my life again. Phew, what a relief!

How have I changed from avoiding my life to living it to the fullest?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04152013

I Love Me, I Love Me Not

I Love Me, I Love Me Not

You are so cool.  You’re fun and interesting, and kind. I love how much you care about your personal evolution. I think you are great.

And I know that sometimes, I might like you more than you do.

Maybe it’s because we spend so much time with our own self, more than with anyone else, our patience with ourselves can get short.

Our expectations can get out of hand, especially if we are comparing ourselves unfavorably with someone else.

We may find ourselves judging with wild abandon our behavior, our thoughts, our appearance, our accomplishments, our lifestyle, our relationships.

Sometimes, we may find that we actually hate ourselves.

Sigh.

It’s yet another example of how we create our world. We judge ourselves, then react to our judgement as though it were Truth. It so rarely is.

We are an expression of the Divine. Yes, you, too.  

Maybe it’s like this. Maybe God had so much fun creating the world and everything else in it that God decided to become a part of everyone, and that way could enjoy creating life all the more. Maybe not. But it’s a nice thought, that I am creating my life as a divine being with super powers, and creative genius.

Maybe, if I spend as much time thinking about how I want my life to be, how I’d like to feel in it, as I am saying hateful things to myself, my life will feel better.

Maybe, if I spend as much time thinking about how I want to be, how I’d like to spend my time, as I do in negative judgement of myself, I might find that my life is rewarding.

Maybe, if I spend as much time thinking about what I can learn from my difficult relationships as I I do in suffering, I might find that my difficult relationships resolve themselves.

Maybe, if I start training my super powers and use them for good, my life will be a thing of grace.

Choice, creativity, compassion, gratitude, acceptance, positivity, the list of our super powers goes on.

If I always do what I’ve always done, I’ll always get what I’ve always gotten. If I want to make my life better, doing what I’ve always done won’t get me there. I need to take it up to the next level. I need to take a step forward.

One of my dear and brilliant teachers always said, “you do know.” You know what you need to do next to begin this phase of your life. You know what you need to do to move forward. You know what you need to do, and you are ready. You have the resources. You have the tools and support. Will you take the change, make the choice, and create the life you want?

How have I changed from spending time in self-loathing to truly loving myself and my life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04142013

Happy Mind vs Monkey Mind

Happy Mind vs Monkey Mind

Why am I happy? What a crazy amazing, powerful  question.  Why do I love my life? What makes me feel light inside?

Why am I in a good mood? How do I find value in my day? What makes me feel so glad?

Everyone of us has stuff going on. more or less. The habits we bring to living our day will make the difference between going to bed feeling satisfied, and tossing and turning with burning thoughts hurled at us by our monkey mind.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love monkeys. I love how playful they can be, how funny and entertaining. But when they get mad, boy howdy! They don’t fight fair, and they throw poo at you when they can get their hands on it. The last thing I want is for an angry monkey to be throwing poo in my brain. That’s just gross.

What do you love about your life? Are there certain people, places, pastimes, or possessions that make your heart sing?

What else do you love about your life? Do you have any favorite foods? Favorite music, or books, or movies? Maybe you have a game you love to play.

Are you feeling lighter? Or did you get the yabuts? I hate the yabuts, Instant buzz kill. You know what I mean, “You look so good today!” “Yah, but my hair is wrong.” “You have such a lovely family.” “Yah, but my job is hard.”

Do you see what’s happening there? When you deflect a nice comment, a compliment, for example, with a yabut, your monkey mind has thrown poo on it before you can savor it. Dang.

We even do it with our Creative Questions. Why am I happy? Yabut, I’m not. What do I love about my life? Yabut, my life sucks.  

So there has to be a way to get passed that, right? Right.

First step is always the choosing. Are you content with the way your life is? Or do you want a nicer life? If you said that you do want a nicer life, you can go to the next question.

Are you willing to change some stuff, to do some work, to make a little effort to make your life nicer?

What might you have to give up that you like now to have the nicer life you want? When I decided I wanted vibrant health, I had to give up feeling delicate. I had to give up feeling like I was entitled to special treatment of a wide variety. I had to give up feeling like it was okay to miss a lot of work, and to expect others to cover for me. Sometimes I miss all those sick days, but I sure don’t miss all that sick!

When I chose to be happy, I had to give up the excitement of emotional drama. That was part of the package, too, when I decided to be peaceful.

Then come with with good Creative Questions. Message me if you want some help with that.

Practice, practice, practice.

How have I changed from being okay with not bad to choosing to be happy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04132013

Stuff Happens

Stuff Happens

Today I pulled the same card I pulled a couple days ago, namely, the “Why is all creation for my well being?” I don’t usually pull the same card twice in a week, so I had to wonder how it could be supporting us.

Here in Minnesota today two things are true. Thing one, it’s April. Thing two, it’s been snowing for several days. The snow is likely to stop, to be replaced by rain for a week, and below normal temps.

When outside is cold and grey and full of really slippery, wet snow when we are longing for buds and irises, how the heck is that empowering us?

You may not like what I’m going to say, but please listen. The faster you can get this, the deeper you let it into your psyche, the happier you will be with not one thing needing to change in your life. Not. One. Thing.

Stuff happens, like the weather, that is completely out of our control. That’s a Truth. (Remember, Truth is Truth for everyone, otherwise, it’s just truth.)

Stuff, like the weather, is neutral until we judge it, and then react to our own judgement. We’re so cute, creating our world, then reacting all over the place to it, except when what we are doing is killing ourselves.

Have you ever been around a drunk? Or a druggy? Even if they are pleasant, it’s kind of gross, really exhausting, and generally unsettling because, at least on some level,  you know you aren’t dealing with the real person, just this nasty facsimile. There is little or no emotional growth because so much energy is being used up by the addiction.

It’s the same thing with emotional addictions. The trinity of emotional addictions are misery, guilt, and worry. When we become addicted to one or more of these, our emotional growth slows way down. We can be working diligently at our readings, our study groups, our attendance at church, prayer, meditation, blah blah blah, but if we are also diligently practicing being miserable, suffering, riddling ourselves with guilt, and maddening ourselves with worry, we aren’t going to get very far in our other practices.

Stuff happens that is completely out of our control. That’s a Truth. How I respond it is my choice.

This is the part I want you to hear, absorb, and start paying attention to. How I respond is my choice. If I feel miserable, guilty or worried, I am choosing to allow addiction to run my life. I can’t change it with affirmations. By the time I’m addicted to these behaviors, affirmations won’t work. Creative Questions will help a lot. If I had gotten myself addicted to these, chances are good that I would benefit from some outside help. (I did. It did.)

Stuff happens. I choose my response. This morning’s snow fall brought up the happy-anticipation feeling of Christmas/Solstice for me. I decided to run with it, and the day so far has been lovely.

How have I changed from living in emotional addiction to choosing my responses in freedom and joy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04122013

Choosing Wealth

Choosing Wealth

On the one hand, I am rich as Gina Reinhart: I am surrounded by wonderful, loving people whom I love dearly. I have a home I adore, with sweet, loving pets. I have tons of fun things to do, lots of places to volunteer, work I find satisfying, a Clark Kent job that educates and amuses me on a regular basis.

On the other hand, I could use more income.

On the third hand, I have plenty of money. Sort of.

As usual, it has so much to do with my attitude. When I feel flush, it seems like money flows to me. It is easy to feel generous, it’s easy to pay my bills, it’s fun to have some left over, to get something I need, to get a treat to save some.

When I feel poor, I get miserly. I pinch those darn pennies, I scrimp, I get tight.

Oh, hey. Tight. That’s one of my trigger-words, words that remind me to relax, to soften, to slow down inside. Words that remind me to live my life, and not let my life live me. Why do I breathe, slow and deep and full?

Money, like every other kind of energy, likes to flow. When we get tight in our feelings, we often clench outside in our world; we hoard And hoarding causes major energy blocks in our lives. I think that’s so interesting. We may be hoarding money in jars, or drawers, or boxes, for example, or we may be hoarding clothing, books, paper including magazines and newspapers, tools, scrap wood, toys, photos. Oh, that list is as long as anything.

Hoarding is feeling broke, it’s based on fear. Do you remember the definitions? Anger is the belief that what we need is being denied us. Fear is the thought that what we have will be taken from us. We put the two of those together and we’ve got some juicy ick to deal with.

We have a way to deal with this, to surmount it, to change it. It’s actually a combination of two of our mighty super powers:  Choice and Trust to the rescue! Why do I choose? Why do I trust?

I choose to feel flush. I choose to acknowledge the plenty in my life. I choose to release excess stuff in my life. I choose to let money flow to me, How do I choose to feel flush? How do I choose to acknowledge the plenty in my life? How to I choose to release the excess stuff? How do I choose to let money flow into my life?

When I trust that the Universe will provide me what I need, I can relax. When I relax, I can look for the lessons to be learned, which is the purpose of challenging situations, and learning is so easy when I am centered. Curiously, the instant I learn the lesson, the situation changes. The difficult person leaves, or becomes easy, the grim job tasks are replaced with entertaining ones, the bills are almost magically paid.

When I relax, I choose to do what I love to do. I don’t mean watching TV with the cats and some popcorn, I mean writing, teaching, speaking about Creative Questions.

When I relax, I can move into a place of generosity, a space where I get to be generous, and the Universe is generous with me. How lovely is that!

How have I changed from clenching around money to letting my wealthy nature flow?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04112013

Optimizing Eden

Optimizing Eden

Are you living in hell or in Eden? It’s all about how you look at it. I know some of you are sick of hearing me go on about how it’s your choice; the way you feel, the way you live your life. I will stop when you get it. Okay, maybe I will stop when I get it all the time.

I am continually amazed and delighted at how the world seems to shift around depending on how I look at it. Apparently, I am the prism of my own life, and I can shine in the pink or be deep in the blues. It just depends on my tilt.

I realized something the other day. I am not an optimist. I used to be a pessimist, but I’m not that now, either. What I have trained myself to is being an optimizer. I like that word better for several reasons.

Reason one. Hilariously, being an optimist has gotten a bad rap. It is often seen as lame, weak,  and saccharine. Too bad. It also taps into the phrase one of my favorite teachers used to use on me, “you play a good game.” Meaning that I convincingly pretended stuff was fine when it so was not.

Reason two. Optimism sometimes seems to deny the gravity of a situation. Everything isn’t always light and fluffy.

Reason three. Optimism often seems to me to lack the sense of action and evolution. It seems a little static to me.

So. What does being an optimizer mean to me? It means that I look at my situations and circumstances, and see what’s good and useful for improving my life, and the lives of the people around me. It means that I see what I need to do next to take the next step forward.

It means that I look at the difficult people and situations in my life and figure out how to learn from them, how to draw motivation from them, how to be inspired by them. When I think of them as my best teachers, I can feel compassion for them, as though they have chosen to be difficult (which they do) in order that they might help me learn my next lesson. What a gift, to give up being a happy, pleasant person so that I might learn something. Oh, look at that, now I am feeling grateful to my difficult people for helping me become better!

Wow! Optimization at it’s best.

Bills remind me to appreciate the abundance in my life. Intense physical sensation reminds me to be grateful for my body.

It means that I look at what I’m doing, and consider how it’s impacting the people around me. Since one of my priorities is to do what I can to make the space around me conducive to happiness for my loved ones and colleagues and community, sometimes, optimizing those circumstances means doing stuff I might rather not do, but choose to because I see the good effect it has on my environment.

And if I assume that all creation is for my well being, then I have a ton of resources, a ton of support, and I can do pretty much anything thing I decide to do. Optimally.

How have I changed from fearing my circumstances to revelling in optimizing?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04102013

Counting Yourself In

Counting Yourself In

How do you know you are important? No, really. Some of you are shaking your heads. Hmm.

It’s not what you do, you know, it’s your own, magnificent self. You work so hard at being indispensable. You work so hard at being important to others that it’s hard for you to remember that it’s your own opinion of yourself that matters the most.

The heck with ‘em.

That’s seems kind of harsh, but here’s what I mean. Pay attention because it’s tricksy.

Look around you right now for all the yellow things you can see in 10 seconds. (Go ahead, I’ll wait. tick tick tick) You found a bunch of yellow things, or not, but how many striped things did you see? Most of us don’t recall, or can recall a few, but because we are filtering for yellow, we miss a lot of other stuff.

The same thing happens with us and others. We filter for the stuff we expect from them, and then miss the other stuff. If we decide SoAndSo is a jerk, we may never notice how tender he is with his wife. If we decide Whosy is an idiot, we may never notice that she is a math whiz.

We all do it. We kind of have to; otherwise, we’d be overwhelmed with all the information coming at us all the time. But, this is really good news for us, because it means we have the power to change our filters.

This is what Creative Questions do. They change our filters. When we ask a question like, “Why don’t I matter?” which is a bad creative question, our subconscious cranks out answers like, I’m not good enough or smart enough or I don’t do enough. Maybe we get answers like, I’m not good looking enough, or too tall, or short, or thin, or fat, or my eyes are blue, or I’m icky, or I’m old, or young. Well, you see what I mean.

When we identify the bad question and flip it into a good Creative Question, “Why do I matter?” we get answers like, because I’m enough, because I make a difference, because I’m a good person, because I’m interesting, because I’m special.

If I don’t feel like I matter, I’m running bad questions.

If I feel insignificant, I’m running bad questions.

If I feel like a bad person, I’m running bad questions.

Are you seeing the pattern?

When I don’t feel good, that’s my clue I’m running bad questions. If I take a couple minutes to formulate good questions, or pick a card from my deck, I can change that, often in an instant. If I feel heavy, or blue, or grim, or stupid, or ugly, or anything like that, I can flip it around quickly and easily.

All I’m asking is that you try it, try changing your bad question into a good one. If you need help, contact me, I’m glad to give you a hand with this.

How have I changed from feeling stuck in my gunk to feeling significant?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04092013

Cultivating the Weeds

Cultivating the Weeds

Some days I wake up crabby. It takes some awareness, and some effort to change my emotional channel. The most expedient way to do that is to get grateful.

When I find things about my life to appreciate, I feel lighter. As I notice how nice my life is, I can relax. As I relax, I remember to let go of worry, guilt, and pain.

I remember to choose to be where I am, and I lose my sense of fatigue. I remember to choose to like what I do, and I feel engaged.

That makes it easy to engage with the people around me, and then I feel connected, and appreciated, and loved.

Ahhh. It’s good to be back.

I am so glad that I learned to choose to feel good. I am so glad I learned that I am not a victim of my feelings, that I am the boss of me. I am so glad I learned to be grateful, to appreciate.

I am so glad I decided to evolve.

When I chose to let my emotions lead me around by the nose, I missed out on a lot of nice stuff. It was easy then to filter for how awful the world is.

That meant I missed all the lovely things we do to help each other, our neighbors, and people on the other side of the world, to help animals, and even caring about the surface of the planet. All I filtered for then was bad stuff.

That meant that I had to watch the local news to see homes burn, people shot, terrible accidents, betrayals by local public figures. That meant I had to watch the national news to hear about killing sprees, and betrayals by national figures, raging fires, landslides, droughts and toxic spills. That meant I had to watch the international news for all that misery and disaster. I had to tune into the news most of the day to stay abreast of how bad everything was.

I sought out miserable people to be friends with. We would nurture and coddle our miseries together, like cultivating nasty weeds in our gardens. Usually while consuming something that would make us feel awful later, if you catch my drift.

Boy, being miserable was exhausting, thankless work.

Being happy is way easier. And thankful, too. I never had anyone tell me how much they appreciated my hang-dog expression, my moaning and groaning about how bad I felt, or my personal misery index of all the things that were wrong with my life.

And now, I love hearing that my cheeriness is uplifting, that my sense of peace is contagious, that my relative unflappability is inspiring.

Which one are you choosing today?

How have I changed from being a victim of my crappy feelings to choosing to be happy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04082013

Signs of Guilt

Signs of Guilt

Guilty. What an awful feeling. We feel it when we have done, or think we’ve done, something bad, or when we haven’t done, or think we haven’t done, something good. Or when we didn’t do something we meant to do, or did do something we didn’t mean to do. Yikes.

Occasionally, we feel guilty and don’t know why.

Occasionally, we don’t even know we are feeling guilty, but we act like we are trying to make up for something we did that was really bad.

Most of us have never done anything that bad.  Many of us feel like we are a bad person, anyway. Sometimes we feel guilty because bad things were done to us. Oh. Golly.

Guilt is a really nasty lifestyle. Like Worry and Misery, Guilt is an addiction that feeds on our lifeforce, our time, our peace, our relationships.

If you feel like you can’t do enough, you probably feel guilty. If you feel like you have to bend over backwards, you probably feel guilty. You also likely have a sore back. If you feel like you can’t do anything right, you might feel guilty.

If you feel like you have to make up for something, you probably feel guilty. If you find yourself giving lavish gifts, or feeling like you always have to treat, or volunteering all of your free time, you’ve likely got the guilties.

If you hear yourself saying “sorry” all the time, if people mention that you say “sorry” too much, you probably feel guilty.

Here is a Truth:  You are not your behavior. You are responsible for your behavior, but you are not it. You are grace.

If you think you feel guilty, identify what you feel guilty about. Make amends. Move on.

If you find that you are feeling existential guilt, that is, guilt about just being alive, go get help. You deserve a nice life, you deserve to be happy, to have some leisure time, to live without the stink of guilt filling your nose.

Because you are innocent. You are pure.

If you are struggling to prove you are innocent, remember that we are pure; innocence is part of our natural state, and it exists in us effortlessly.

Guilt is something we learn to do, it takes work to learn to feel guilty, especially for a child where many of us learn to feel it. And, if we are stuck in feeling guilty, we will need to practice letting it go over and over and over.

And we need not to feel guilty about feeling guilty. Isn’t that a doozy! How do I know I am innocent? How do I know I am pure? Why am I free? What makes me clear?

Your precious self, your pure, innocent, perfect self, is worth saving from the ravages of guilt.

How have I changed from believing I am corrupt to knowing I am pure?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04072013

Righteousness and Wrongousness

Righteousness and Wrongousness

You’re right. No, I mean it. You are absolutely right. You may have your facts wrong, but as far as your beliefs go, you are always right.

Isn’t that interesting?

Even when our beliefs are really wrong, if we are acting in accord with them, we are right. How’s that for inside out and backwards.

You see where this is going. If I believe that torture is good and useful, I will torture in righteousness, totally guilt-free. Creepy, huh. If I believe that children are property, if I believe in corporal punishment, if I believe in murder for a cause, I can do it all with no remorse.

If I believe that it’s okay to be cruel, if I believe that it’s okay to be disrespectful, if I believe that it’s okay to lie and steal, or neglect my physical well being, then all those things are right.

Except they aren’t. See how tricksy it gets?

So we remember two things. One, causing harm to another or one’s self isn’t right. Two, beliefs are not external Truth, they are thoughts we repeat over and over, and so we can change them.

All we have to do is notice them, correct them, and practice the new thoughts until they are habit. Simple.

But not always as easy as we may like. Because often one of our beliefs is that our belief is some kind of external Truth. Isn’t that amazing? We are incredibly talented crafters of reality, aren’t we? I make it up, or buy into someone else’s made up things, and then I pretend it’s real, then I forget I did both of those things, and I have created a mountain in my world.  Awesome.

Causing harm to another is wrong. Most religions say that. It seems reasonable. I’ll buy that for a nickel.

Causing harm to me seems to fit in with that, I’ll believe that, too.

We are each perfect at our core. Well, I had a profound experience that showed me that, so I will believe that one. Now we are up to fifteen cents.

Make amends when we err. That seems to suggest that everybody makes mistakes, that our behavior isn’t perfect, even if we are. Okay, I accept that.

Misery, pain, and suffering are optional, that is, I can create them with my thoughts. I like that. It means that I can choose not to have misery, pain, and suffering. I will buy that, too.

Two bits worth of beliefs. A nice start. Why am I kind? Why do I take good care of me? How do I know I am perfect? Why do I take responsibility for me? Why am I so positive?

I don’t know about you, but I feel better already.  My natural life is one of joy, fun, peace, satisfaction, love, and engagement. Believing beliefs that support my natural life will get me there faster, and keep me there longer each time.

How have I changed from believing horrible stuff to choosing to believe in my natural life.

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04062013

Ew! Toxic!

Ew! Toxic!

Stop it. Stop it right now. 

Stop all that struggling. Stop pretending you can control stuff. Stop fighting. Stop planning your misery. Stop anticipating horrible outcomes. Stop borrowing trouble. Your toxic habit is hurting you more than you know. 

Your habit is hurting you more than your outside circumstances. I’m serious.

When I am all invested in my crappy life, when all I think about is how hard it is, how heavy my burden is, how much I’m suffering, what I get is more of the same. And then I spread that around to each person I come in contact with, like a cold or the flu.

I say stuff like, well I just have that kind of personality, I can’t change it. Or, that’s just human nature, I can’t change it. Or pain is fixed, I can’t change it. Well, that’s the habit, or addiction, if you will, talking. It wants you to stay stuck. It wants you to feed it your life, bite by sour bite. It gnaws on your spirit. It clouds your vision, distorts your hearing. It whispers to you that everything is bad, that your experience is bad, that your sensations are bad. Bad, bad, bad.

That voice is lying to you. Addictions do that. They act like they are doing you a favor, when they are really just eating you up.

Experience is neutral until I judge it. Sensation is neutral until I judge it. Circumstance is neutral until I judge it.

I am responsible for my life, and my growth.

Every day, every moment, I have a choice. Every breath, the question is, “Do I choose Life or do I choose my toxic habit?”

A wise friend said to me, “Only I can hoe my own garden.” I love that image. Gardens are complex. They require diligent attention. They are beautiful and peaceful and sometimes gross and smelly. We deal with the gross and smelly, and then we get back to the beauty and peace.

I am not saying to give up. Giving up and surrendering are to very different things. I am not saying that these circumstances and sensations are not intense, I know they are. I am saying that one thing we do have control over is our thoughts, and our thoughts make stuff good, or neutral or really, awfully, hideously bad.

What I am saying is step up to the challenge of taking back your power from your toxic habit. Choose to live your life in the light rather than in the shadow. If your experience is intense, accept it, and let it be neutral. Choose to filter for grace, joy, harmony, balance. If you need help, get it. You have this life. You are the only one who can change it. You are the only one who can change your thoughts. You are immensely powerful, you have the capacity, you have the resources. It’s up to you.

How have I changed from being crushed by my toxic habit to choosing to feel free?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04052013

The Easy Groove

The Easy Groove

I have a personal triumph to share with you. For the first time in my life, or at least since I was about two, I made it through the month of March without feeling suicidal. I made it through without feeling depressed. I mostly made it through without even feeling blue. I actually felt cheery most days. This was not without action on my part, I’m just saying.

I am not just making stuff up and yammering it at you, I am practicing diligently, as I ask you to do. I have to choose to be happy, and then make adjustments to get there. Just the ways I suggest you try.

Pema Chodron, the famous Tibetan Buddhist teacher,  talks about how not feeling good is a habit, that our natural state is feeling good. I’m not just making this stuff up. As soon as we notice we are not feeling happy; when we notice we are feeling overwhelmed, or ashamed, or exhausted; we need to stop, and readjust back to good.

There are lots of reasons to make that choice over and over, to practice until that path is firmly and clearly delimned in our brains, until it’s an easy groove.

The most important reason is that when we choose to feel good, we feel good. We make better decisions when we feel good. We enjoy being around others when we feel good, and they, in turn, like being around us more when we feel good.

It’s easier for us to stay healthy when we feel good. We sleep better, relax more effectively, enjoy our activities more.

I know some of you think that I’m nuts, or stupid, or don’t understand you and your situation. Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps not. At least consider what I’m saying instead of dismissing it out of hand.

I know chronic pain that is so bad it makes you woozy and makes you cry. Pain that goes on for decades. Pain that eats your sleep, and gnaws your spirit.

I know financial distress with creditors calling, and losing services, and repos, and not having food in the house, and filing bankruptcy.

I know how it feels to be abused for years, feeling like there is no out, feeling like it is deserved. I know how it feels to have to hide it, and feeling ashamed that it’s happening to you.

I know how it feels to live in a house of craziness and feel like you are holding it together all alone.

I know. I choose to feel happy anyway.

I want to live my life by choice, not by habit. I want to think fresh, interesting, supportive thoughts that express my natural state, my natural life. I want to remember that I’m not my circumstances or behavior. I want to remember that, at my core, I’m perfect, that at your core, you are perfect, too. When I am in this space, it is easy. Easy to feel compassion, respect, enjoyment. Easy to do what needs to be done.

How have I changed from thinking misery is eternal to choosing my natural life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 04042013