SunAgape's Spot

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Happiness Runs

Do you know why I encourage us to have a gratitude practice? Do you know why I encourage us to look for the good? Or to find the gift?

Here’s a little visual for you to try. Look down, dropping your head all the way. What do you see? Now lift your chin, and look out. What do you see?

When we feel burdened by our circumstances, when we rehearse everything that sucks, when we seek out the cloud, it’s like we have dropped our head to our chest and all we can see is ourself, our misery, our crummy life. Our view is small and pretty much just us. Maybe a bit of floor, or chair. The head-hanging pose is the pose of suffering, and it makes our life so small.

When I start my day thinking about the good from yesterday, the good I have now, and the good I have planned, I am lighter. My brain makes nice, juicy chemicals that help me feel good inside. I can lift my head up and see the world I am creating from an uplifted point of view.

That makes room for me to be a part of the world, instead of when I am in misery and I am it.

When I am part of the world, I want to bring my special gifts out to share. Or I want some help to figure out what my special gifts might be.

Why do I choose positive? How am I upbeat? What makes me choose?

When I choose to be part of the world, I want to do my best, and be my best. I know I have all the support I need just by asking, I know I am resourceful, and capable. competent and strong, and so I relax. A lot. And as I relax, I move into my natural life.

In my natural life, I am relaxed, and powerful. I am creative and brilliant. I trust that things will work out. I do good work, and feel satisfied, with my efforts, and content. I have a strong sense of my direction, what I want to accomplish, what I want in life. I move through the world, and respond to all sorts of things with bliss and joy.

When we put these pieces together, we notice that we feel happy, from the inside out. That happiness is free and flowing, and we want to share it, so we find ourselves smiling more, doing little nice things for others that feel effortless, and we notice other people doing nice little things. We find ourselves thinking better of each other, hopeful for humanity.

Thing is, when we do these little nice things, the smile, the kind word, it spreads. We are finding that these things spread way faster, and broader than the misery stuff. Maybe that’s because misery is so isolated, so specific to our own self. When we see a stranger grumping down the street, we don’t automatically go to grump, but a stranger smiling at us, that makes us smile.

What makes me happy? How am I content? Why would I be joyful?

Smiling is also a mechanical mood lifter. That is, if I am feeling blue, I can sit up straight, lift my chin a bit, and smile a big smile, all the way to my eyes, and it will release those feel good chemicals into my body. I can totally enhance the experience by asking good Creative Questions.

How have I changed from seeking happiness outside me to finding it at my core?

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Finding the Win

One of my most precious beliefs has a few pieces to it. II believe that one of the reasons I am here is to be the best me I can be. I believe that the Universe is benevolent. I believe that the Universe gives me what I need to be the best me right now, and to become the best me I can get to. I believe that everything that happens in my life brings me a gift, sometimes many gifts, and part of my task is to find those gifts.

What do you think about that?

This may be one of the most profound paradigm shifts I’ve experienced, that of looking for the gift in everything. Especially since my whole way of being was playing victim/martyr.

Why can I choose? Why would I choose positive? Why do things go my way?

Ok, that last question can be a doozy. Especially when it seems like things are bad. That’s the time to bring out your favorite Creative Questions.

How do I benefit? How does this situation bless me? What makes me see the good?

When I look for the ick I will always find it. People are selfish, or hateful, or cruel. Life makes us suffer, things are bad.

The same way, when I look for the blessing, the good luck, the gift, I also will always find it.

Well, finding stuff to feel grateful and appreciative about changes how I see the world. No matter what is going on, I can find something to feel thankful for. I have a mind of infinite possibilities. I have a good imagination. I am creative, and brilliant, and I can use these super powers to create my reality.

Remembering that you can’t disappoint me, only my expectations of you disappoint me, is a profound thing. Remembering that you are doing your best, that you are a divine and infinite being who also wants to live a nice life, lets me feel compassion for you. Once I feel compassion, I can relax about you, and I can relax about me, because I know those things are true about me, as well.

How am I healthy? What makes me feel well? Why am I strong? How am I soft? Why would I choose to go with the flow?

When I choose to flow with what is, I stop resisting it, and I stop clenching. I can choose easy, I can choose relaxed, I can choose to live my natural life. When I stop fighting, I can choose to see the benefit, I can see the limitless support available, and I can feel how all of my world is there for me. I feel like it matters that I am here, I feel my place in the world.

Winning and losing are, more than anything else, attitudes. I can look at my current situation, and think, “As someone who is dedicated to creating a healing space, I am a failure.” Or I can look at my current situation and think, “I have a shining opportunity to learn about me, about wellness, about healing, and about finding the joy in anything. I will be better and stronger, wiser, and create better, more wholesome spaces, because I choose to flow with this.”

How have I changed from fighting the loss to relaxing for the win?

Monday, June 16, 2014

If You Think You Can or You Think You Can’t

You know how much I like old saws, good quotes, and pithy sayings. One of my faves is from Henry Ford: If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.

Capability has less to do with what we can or can’t do, than it does with what we think we are capable of. So many of us mislearned that we couldn’t. For years I felt like there was nothing I could try at which I wouldn’t fail. This is not a recipe for success.

Why am I capable? What makes me powerful? How am I strong? How am I competent?

Capable comes from a word that means to take. When we are capable, we take responsibility for something. We take charge. We take care. We take pride. We take enjoyment. We do our best, and know that it is good enough.

Capable is what we bring to the puzzles in our lives, the topics, the focus points.

Notice I didn’t say, “problem.” Words like problem set us up. Lack words. Sick, pain, problem, poor, can’t, hurt, hard, loss, and so on, are words that define our lives as wanting; disempowering language.

Think about this. Think about what is easier, getting from poor to rich, or from rich to richer? From sick to healthy, or from healthy to healthier? From pain to comfort or from discomfort to comfort? The distinctions are about our attitudes, not about facts.

On the one hand, it’s just semantics, on the other hand, get back, Hannah. There is power in words, and we are wielding it.

I choose to believe that at any given moment, my life is perfect. That means I have exactly what I need to be my best self, to live my best life, right now. And now. And now. I choose to live my life as an empowered individual, resourceful, capable, strong, and soft. I choose to live on the positive side of the scale. I expect my needs are met, so I can let go of that. I expect I have the resources I need, and they show up, I expect to have things go my way, easily, comfortably, fun, and they tend to do just that. It has taken practice, but every moment was worth it.

How do I know I can? Why am I positive? What makes me choose?

When I trust that I am capable, my life opens up. Addressing the topics in my life is easier because I know I can. Changing my attitudes is possible because I take responsibility for me. Letting go of old stuff is doable because I take care with me, value myself, and treasure my life.

When I trust that I am capable, my life brings me interesting things to do. I get to have more fun, learn more stuff, make a bigger difference. When I trust that I am capable, I stop second guessing myself, I don’t doubt I can do it, whatever it is, either alone, or with help.

When I trust that I am capable, I feel proud of my work. I feel good about my actions. I feel like a I make a nice contribution.

How have I changed from I can’t to I can?

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Helping Hands

One of the nicest things in my life is feeling supportive. Making space for us to live our natural lives, making space for us to let go of our emo crap, making space for us to love ourselves, is a nice activity.

Thing is, you do that for me, too.

The other thing is that when I was suffering, I couldn’t have cared much less about your happiness or well being. In fact, I kind of resented it. Oi.

It’s one of the features of focusing on what sucks in our lives, a particular flavor of selfishness. We get ideas about our suffering, how it’s worse than yours. That’s called inverse grandiosity. We end up resenting people in general. If you aren’t suffering as much as me, what makes you so special, and if you are, or, heaven forbid, are in worse shape, how dare you trespass on my particular domain! No one wins.

When we focus on our suffering, our biggest concern is getting our own needs met. We expend a lot of energy identifying our needs, worrying about them, figuring out how they will be taken care of, who will do it for us.

Sometimes we have a sense of being selfish, and know that it doesn’t serve us well, so we pretend we care. That can be excruciating for us, and for the people we are pretending about. We can always pick up that insincerity on some level.

When I focus on the good in my life instead of what sucks, my life gets nicer. I can calm down, and stop feeling like I have to scramble to get my needs taken care of. In fact, I often find I have fewer needs. Things that seemed vitally important might just drop off my radar.

Why am I positive? How do I see the good? What makes me choose?

When I focus on the good in my life instead of what sucks, I find I don’t need to borrow trouble. That means, I want to support you in living your best life, and stop fretting about your situations, your bad habits, your relationships; things, in other words, I have no control over.

The more attention I pay to the good things in my life, the softer I feel. I don’t get riled up about stuff as easily, I don’t go to scared as fast. When my emotions feel even, I don’t need tons of reassurance that things are okay, I don’t need to be convinced, I know. I trust.

And so I have a lot more energy. And because I am feeling good, and it was pretty easy to get there, I want you to feel good, too, so being supportive of you comes naturally with my joy and peace.

And now I am living my natural life. My spirit is renewed from the inside out, and I find bliss and contentment easily, I feel productive, and creative. I feel connected and engaged. And I want to make space for you to find your natural life, not my idea of how you should be, but your own, unique life.

How have I changed from dwelling on my misery to opening my life?

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Opening to my Life

Take a moment and notice what’s around you. Notice any sounds, any smells, notice the space you occupy. Notice sensations on your skin, points of contact or pressure, clenchy muscles, breath, your insides. Notice your feelings, your emotions, your thoughts.

Oh, awareness.

I go on and on about a lot of stuff, and awareness is one of those things. Being aware brings a quality to our lives that shines. With awareness comes clarity, and we make better choices. With awareness, we slow down a bit and remember stuff like that habit we want to change, or that we we decided not to make plans on Friday.

Why am I aware? How am I mindful? What makes me present?

As I have told you many times, I was a sad case in days of yore. I lived in my head, and there were big consequences. I didn’t know how I felt, beyond bad. I was in a lot of discomfort all the time, my poor body screaming at me to take care of it, and I paid no attention unless it flattened me. I tripped, bumped, stumbled, ran into things, snagged myself, cut me and burned me on all sorts of things, and generally felt like a klutz.

I’m not anymore.

It took practice. You can call it action, if you want, or choosing, or doing. I put a rubberband on my wrist, and every time I noticed it, I would notice my feet, and if I were sitting, my bottom, and then my breath. I practiced every single day, except when I didn’t. But I practiced a lot. When I was going to cut bread or something like that, I got present, and paid attention to the task.

When I choose to be aware, things take less time because I am paying attention to the thing, not meandering around in my noggin. So then I have time to stop and think about stuff safely.

When I choose to be aware, I enjoy my moments more. I can notice the nice stuff going on around me. I am able to recognize blessings, and gifts, and opportunities way more easily, and can choose to enjoy them.

When I choose to be aware, I can consider my decisions. It’s easier for me to remember what I’m doing, what my goals are, where my path is, and to make choices that honor those directions.

When I choose to be aware, I remember to relax. I remember to soften my clenched muscles, soften my clenched thoughts, soften my clenched feelings. When I choose to relax, I can let go of all sorts of things that used to clog up my insides.

Why do I live my natural life?

When I choose to be aware, I choose my natural life. I choose to find bliss, I choose peace. I choose to be well, to focus on how I feel good, on how I know this is right for me. I learn to read my non-verbal communications with myself. I choose to live my life, rather than letting my life live me.

How have I changed from feeling unconscious to being aware?

Friday, June 13, 2014

Flowing It

“Resistance is Futile” or at the very least, a strange occupation. We can burn a lot of energy; psychic, emotional, and physical, in the act of resisting, and not gain a thing.

Resistance comes about when we say “no” to what is.

“What is” comes about through our thoughts. The attitudes we bring, our beliefs, our focuses, color the world we see. When I am focused on my foot, I will not be paying much attention to the lovely smell in the air. When I believe life is hard, I will miss all the little blessings that float in and through my days. When I focus on “no,” I miss a lot of opportunities to say “yes.”

When I believe that things happen to me, rather than for me, I am pretending that I am not responsible for my life, my well being, my happiness.

Why can I choose? What makes me enjoy? How am I aware?

Many of us mislearn that things happen to us. We can’t imagine that there is a gift in the occurrence. That feeling, of stuff happening to us, can make us feel out of control, and scared. So we respond to that by trying to control our outside circumstances, our loved ones, and communities. It takes a huge amount of effort, and doesn’t really get us very far.

When I choose to believe that things happen for me, that there is always a gift, sometimes a very profound gift, I open to my life. I recognize that I have enormous control over the quality of my experience, all through my mind, my thoughts, my ideas.

This means that as my life unfolds, I am interested in what is happening. I am curious about the lessons to be learned, I am excited by the hunt for the gift. I say, “Oh, this is how life is now,” and get on with things. Resistance is absurd.

What makes me decide? Why am I positive? How do things go my way?

I choose to believe that it can all be just so easy.

That doesn’t mean I never have discomfort, that means I flow with my discomfort, I don’t put emotional weight on it, whatever kind of discomfort it might be. I choose to soften, I choose to relax, I choose to trust. I remember to breathe, I remember to choose awareness, I act mindfully.

I may put my focus deep into the discomfort, but it is lightly, without negative emotional judgment. I may choose to pay attention to anything but my discomfort, not pretending it away, just not feeding it with my focus.

Why could it all be just so easy?

When I take responsibility for my life, I get to choose. I get to decide if I will suffer or enjoy. I get to decide if I will open my heart, or harbor resentments. I get to decide if I will make things easy or make things hard.

How have I changed from fighting it to flowing it?

Monday, June 02, 2014

Stop the Dissing

Why does liking myself matter? What difference does it make?

We’ve been talking a bit lately about the differences between clenched and relaxed.

When my body is clenched, I often have discomfort of varying degrees. My muscles might be tight. I might be holding my joints awkwardly, and my gait might be off, locked ankles, or knees, or hips, or feet or knees turned in or out, causing long-term dysfunction. When my body is clenched, I could be causing myself systemic symptoms; digestion, circulation, lymphatic, nerves.

When my thoughts are clenched, I’m usually stuck in a bad thought loop where I can’t seem to stop myself thinking about something awful. This can be fretting about someone, or imagining horrible scenarios, negative fantasies of all sorts. It can be replaying a bad scene we’ve already lived through. It can be running our helpless and hopeless tapes in our heads until we can hardly move.

When my feelings are clenched, I’m stuck in anger, or fear, or grief, usually. I know I’m stuck when I feel like I am always pissed off, or scared, or crying a lot.

Sometimes my actions are clenched, when I get stuck in repeating a bad habit that hurts me. This can be a habit of action or inaction, of consumption, or movement, or lack thereof. It can be a habit of procrastination, or of

When I don’t like me, I am clenched. When I don’t like me, I never get a break from that clench, and that’s exhausting. It can wreak havoc on my sleep, and damage my relationships. I am usually very lonely, with a black hole inside.

When I don’t like me, I am practicing negative moral or emotional judgments. These will always have a nasty impact on me, and often on others as well. We have the gift of judgment, and when we refine that gift, we have a superpower. We use our judgment all the time to make good decisions about stuff, to decide what we want, how we want to direct the course of our lives.

When it comes to me, I am often hyper-judgmental, and then I say horribly cruel and shaming things to myself, things I most likely would never say to another person. I get into the habit of verbally abusing myself, and can do it without even thinking about it. I will end up making strange decisions that are often not very good, since I am always feeling less than, I may be weird to you, or do wacky things to try to compensate.

Why can I choose? Why would I like me? How do I want to be with me?

Since I am with me all the time, I may as well choose to like me. When I connect with me, the black hole of loneliness vanishes. When I cease the constant self-trash-talk, I have room to find things I like about me.

I also know that you are amazing. You have your special gifts, your special ways, that make you interesting, and valuable. You have your good heart, your wisdom, your creativity, and desire to grow, all of which make you exceptional. The more you like you, the easier it is for us to connect, and that’s wonderful.

How have I changed from dissing me to feeling proud that I am who I am?

Sunday, June 01, 2014

Going For Easy

What do you think about the idea that it could be easy? Do you think I’m full of baloney? Do you think that maybe this is easy, but not that? Do you nod your head and say, “Oh, yes, it’s all just so easy.”

We hear a lot about easy; taking it easy, easy does it, easy going, easy street. We hear people saying all the time that life isn’t easy. What would it mean to you if that weren’t a Truth? What would it mean if a lot of easy happens in our thoughts?

When I have a thought like, “This is so difficult,” I clench up. A nice visceral way to experience this is to make a tight fist and try to pick something up.

When I clench, everything gets more challenging. It’s why we have the second set of rules in my qi gong school; relax, relax, relax. I get ideas about how our life goes, and when we have decided that things will be hard to do, they will be hard to do. We will have lots of big, icky feelings. We will make unconscious choices that increase the difficulty. We will get what we expect. New Agers call this the Law of Attraction. We know it’s because of how we are filtering, and that we see, for the most part, what we expect to see.

When we are little, we have experiences based on our very short lives, and our limited understanding. We acquire a lot of mislearning as little ones, all of us. Our job as grownups in training is to correct these mislearnings to live our lives feeling free and happy, not the Yay-I-got-a-new-car kind of happy, but the happy that comes from living our natural lives of awareness, open heartedness, compassion, and wisdom.

Why could it all be just so easy? How do I relax? Why do I choose?

Going to the dentist was where I first really experienced the spectacular difference easy thinking could make in my life. In the olden days, I had an extraction. My face swelled up and looked bruised. I had a ton of pain. I expected to suffer, and suffer I did, for several days.

I had to have another couple extractions a few years ago. I had Creative Questions by then, and used ‘em. Why is my appointment gentle, easy, and fun? Why does my mouth feel great? And during the extractions: Why do I release my tooth with loving gratitude and joy?

No swelling, no bruising, and after the anesthetic wore off, no pain. Seriously.

When I think things are going to be hard, I get feelings of fear, anxiety, anger; stuff like that. Clenched. When I think things are going to be easy, I get feelings of joy, of fun, of excitement. Relaxed. When I assume things will work out in my favor, I feel relaxed, and can go with the flow. When I assume things will go against me, I feel tight.

Why is my timing perfect? How do things go my way? Why can I trust the Universe?

When I start expecting to be lucky, when I start expecting things to work out, when I expect to heal quickly and well, things change. When I take my emotions out of my physical discomfort, I relax and feel better. When I turn my thoughts to easy, things will get easier.

How have I changed from believing in struggle to enjoying the easy?

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Resect Your Secret

I have a few minutes in the morning when my thoughts can go anywhere. This morning I noticed I was thinking about secrets. I won’t go so far as to say that secrets are the opposite of intimacy, but there is a correlation.

There are some secrets that I love to keep; what I got you for your birthday or winter holiday gift, for example.

I also love to keep your secrets. The image I get is that I put your secrets in a box, and lock it up tight.

My secrets are for telling.

I am doing my best to tell all my secrets to at least one other person. This takes trust, something I really stunk at for a long time. One thing that really helped me start to trust was realizing that there were people out there who had jobs where being trustworthy was in the job description. They have to keep secrets, you know, lawyers, clergy, therapists.

It was a good place to start. And there are some really good reasons for telling.

When I am living my natural life, I am relaxed, in my muscles, in my thoughts, in my emotions.

When I am harboring my secrets, I am clenched in my emotions with fear that someone will find out. I am clenched in my thoughts with trying to hold it down. And those things will often clench up my body. Ow.

When I am harboring my secrets, there are usually some big feelings attached, and when the thoughts of those secrets cycle through my unconscious mind, I will often end up feeling crazy because I don’t know why I am feel so bad, or scared, or angry. As I tell my secrets to trustworthies, that feeling of crazy subsides. Not only that, but I get better and faster at noticing when I have a lot of unconscious material whanging around in my head, and can address more effectively.

When I am harboring secrets, I am also disconnecting from my life. Ow. I cannot have a loving and respectful relationship with myself if I am denying my experience. That’s a big and controversial idea there, so give it a moment.

Why do I own my life? How am I responsible for me? What makes me feel connected?

If I am denying my experience, I am putting conditions on loving myself. Dang. I want to love unconditionally, but as long as I say “no” to my experiences, I am putting limits and boundaries on my love.

As I tell my secrets, and feel the feelings, I remove those edges. I can release the fear, or shame, or guilt, or anger I felt, and now I have more room inside for the nice stuff, loving myself, compassion for me, and you, wisdom, insight. My capacity for connecting with me, and connecting with you, grows, and I enjoy more intimacy, sweeter, and more profound, than I could have imagined before.

How have I changed from clamping on my secrets to feeling free?

Friday, May 30, 2014

Truth About Happiness

I have been intrigued lately by how many articles I’m seeing that boldly declare that happiness is a bad goal. Or that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. So I figured this is a good time to talk about what I mean when I go on about happy.

Happy for me is feeling on purpose. It’s about feeling connected to you, engaged in my activities, enjoying what I am doing. Happy is about being aware, having mindful experiences, feeling like I make a contribution to the plus side of life. It’s the state of being that says. “I am living my life well.” I’m not talking about the emotional happy I get when I ace my exam, or see my loved ones after being gone, or am having big fun.

When I am happy, I am emotionally relaxed, I feel peace at my core, things are pretty easy. I am strong, competent, and capable. I am beautiful inside and out. I feel creative and inspired and motivated. I feel worthwhile.

So the word happy for me is shorthand for all of this. I have it all squished up into that one word.

Why am I happy? What makes me feel good? Why do I choose my natural life?

I am happy a lot, but I am not always happy. I have learned that when I am not feeling good, I am making some kind of bad choice. Sometimes I am in a bad thought loop, sometimes I am in a bad habit loop. Sometimes, I have a pile of unconscious material sloshing around and making trouble for me. However it goes, if I’m not feeling good, it’s my cue to take some time to look at where I’m at.

If I can identify the bad thought, I can change it, and feel better. If I can identify the bad habit, I can change that, and feel better. The unconscious material, which I often identify as “feeling crazy,” often means I need to either talk with a trustworthy person to bring it into the light, or sit by myself, in a place of deep trust, and the knowledge that I’ve already survived whatever might be down there giving me feelings.

By now, many of you know that my big bugaboo is going into victim mode. Chances are good that if I feel bad, part of me is thinking it’s your fault. If I don’t feel good, I take some time, and consider if I am blaming someone for how I feel. I consider how I’m feeling; angry, scared, sad. And then I own my feelings, own my attitude, ask some good Creative Questions, and feel better.

Sometimes it takes a while. It’s always worth the effort.

I think it’s interesting that, in general, spiritual leaders talk about happiness as a guide, and it’s the researchers who say that happiness is not that great, that striving for happiness makes us unhappy. They don’t get it.

I also think that the best grownups I’ve known tend not to flap. Stuff doesn’t seem to get to them. Even when they are being excited or passionate about stuff, they still exude an inner calm. They seem to experience bliss a lot. These are my role models.

I’m getting so much better at it. I think you are, too, and that’s about how brilliant you are, how you’ve come to respect yourself so much more, to trust your gut, to notice your thoughts, and to be sweet to your own, sweet self.

How have I changed from feeling frustrated to finding my own happiness?

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Oo, That’s Nice!

Oo! A two card draw, and two I bet most of us could use. This is gonna be important, so put on your listening ears, and your thinking caps, and be ready to share, cuz we can use all the good ideas we can get.

Why do I have pleasure? Why am I creative? How do I pamper me?

Everyone who has a bit of a challenge pampering yourself, raise your hand. Yeah. I thought so.

For many of us, the only way we seem to take care of ourselves requires getting sick or hurt. Then we feel like we can justify taking time away from our daily routine, to catch up on our sleep, or have some time alone in the house. It’s the only way we can nurture ourselves, soothe our souls, refresh our spirits. We treat everyone else better than we treat ourselves.

When we just plunk away at our routines week after month, we can end up feeling like a drudge, bored, resentful, and sad. We may be living the life we dreamed of, but when it’s the same old thing every day, even paradise can feel dull.

What inspires me? How do I feel refreshed? Why do I feel rejuvenated?

When I take some time, before I get sick, or distracted, to replenish my emotional reserves, it takes much less to leave me feeling refreshed.

So here’s the big question: What refreshes you? How do you experience self-care? What makes you feel nurtured?

If you responded with an “I don’t know,” then you have some work to do, namely, to find some stuff that makes you feel cared for by your own self.

Walks, bubble baths, massages, a movie marathon with popcorn, a mani-pedi, mindful eating, mindful listening to your favorite music, playing in water, visiting an aquarium and watching fish swim, have a picnic, go to bed early in fresh bedding, aromatherapy, visit someplace new in your town. If you don’t spend much time with your friends, call one. If you are always connected, turn off your devices for an evening. Let folks know so they don’t freak out. Make a list of things you like about you. Read it out loud to yourself.

Those are a few ideas. Some of them just take a few minutes, but 5 minutes spent mindfully consuming a square of chocolate or delicious cup of something can make a huge difference in our stress levels, in our sense of connection to our own lives, in the level and quality of care we can give our loved ones. Even just taking deep, slow breaths, and really enjoying each inhale and each exhale, can go a long way to leaving us feeling like we care about our own selves.

Honor, respect, celebration; these are things we can give ourselves. Treating ourselves well is something we can incorporate into our daily routine, a few moments here, a something nice there. The biggest trick is to focus on that treat, to really experience it in the moment, to savor it, and to enjoy it fully. This may take some practice. So practice a bit each day. Set a timer if you need to. Remember, our soft addictions are not pampering, they are escapes, so pick things you don’t normally go to, at least to start.

How have I changed from feeling like a drudge to treating myself with nurturing respect?

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

You Are Not the Boss of Me!

Power is such a funny thing. We all have it, we each use it in our own way. Some of us own our power, keep ourselves separate from others’ shenanigans, and go on about our business. Some of us pretend to give our power away, and feeling like we have to do someone else’s bidding. Some of us pretend that we can take others’ power and get them to bend to our will.

Thing is, and I know this is kind of creepy, but you don’t have access to my power, only I do. I have to go through a bunch of mislearnings to learn to act as your proxy inside my head so you can seem to be the boss of me.

Sometimes I will act as your proxy to push me around from fear of you, or from fear learned a long time ago from one or more of my adults. Sometimes shame may be the impetus, or feeling like we have no resources. This feeling often comes with an icky, shrinky feeling, like we are less than.

Why am I strong? What makes me capable? How am I competent? Why do I trust?

Sometimes I will act like I have power over you. I will try to intimidate, or scare you, or manipulate you in some other way into doing what I want you to do. When you do, I may often feel better than.

Sometimes I am in a situation, like work, where someone is the boss of me, or I am the boss of someone. If I have less than or better than stuff going on, this can make for interesting dynamics we call power struggles, which tend to be high on drama and low on productive activities.

And then there is teamwork.

How am I a good team player? What makes me work toward our goals? Why do I enjoy cooperation?

When I a good team player, I know what our goals are. I know what my job is, and I know how we are working together. When we are a team, we work for our mutual support and that feels great. We get a sense of community. We get a sense of connectedness. We share a sense of purpose, and those things all contribute to a sense of personal well being.

When I am clear about my goals for us, and make sure that we understand each other, working together is much easier. When I am clear about what my expectations of your performance, and my performance are, we can take measure of where we are. Because we are communicating respectfully, we can ask for help or guidance if we need it, and can trust the answers we get.

That is the ideal. Doesn’t always work that way, but I can do my part to help bring it about. I can be clear in my communication. I can ask for help if I need it. I can be straight about my performance and accomplishment. And often, the others will follow suit. They will see that it is way easier. I like that.

How have I changed from pushing myself around to being a good team player?