Tell Me Your Tale

Tell Me Your Tale

Why do I engage? Oh ho ho! What a powerful question that was for me because I didn’t, or only did reluctantly for so very long. What I wanted, what I thought I wanted, was to be invisible to you. What I believed was that if you got a chance, you hurt me. Sorry about that. I had some serious trust issues. I used to joke, ¨I love humanity, it’s people I can’t stand.” Poor little me.

As I chose to address my issues, or deal with the white hot mess that was my life, I found that I had to do some stuff. I had developed perseverance from staying in abusive relationships, so when it took me eight tries to find my best therapist, I could do that. I had developed courage from living in my terrifying life, so when I needed to do something like a leap of faith, I knew I had courage, even though I was scared to pieces.

Engaging. That was something I didn’t really get. What the heck does it mean to engage? How do I connect? How do I touch someone, and be touched by them?

For me, I had to let go of my fear of being seen for who I am. I had to find a way to sincerity. Holy moly! I needed help to get there. That, of course, meant that I had to be vulnerable to people instead of just seeming to be vulnerable! Wow! What a spooky notion. I had a group of friends who, for about five days, said, ¨I don’t believe you,¨ when they didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t that long, but it helped me to break my bad habit of saying what I thought you wanted to hear and saying what I meant instead. And not one of those people hurt me as I was being vulnerable with them.

Why do I engage? What makes me seek out connections? How do I see that we are alike?

As I have learned to engage, some really neat stuff has happened. I find that I have something in common with all sorts of people. I find that I want to hear your story, hear about how you see the world. I want to connect. Now, I like to find a way to engage with you quickly. I delight in finding our commonalities. I feel more human as let strangers touch my spirit, and I feel good about leaving a random interaction with both of us smiling.

When I engage, my world gets a little bit bigger. When I engage, my world gets a little bit sweeter. When you, a stranger, share a bit of yourself, I recognize the gift and feel honored by it. And then, when I have my down time, I am often overwhelmed by the amazingness that is now my life. I do enjoy feeling blissed out.

Sometimes I speak with you, sometimes we may share a smile, sometimes it is just a look that we share, It is that moment of sharing that makes the difference. When we engage, you will often share one of your gifts with me. Or a talent, or a skill. I love that! I love to know what you are good at!

What do I have to do to reap all these lovely benefits? Engage, be present, listen.

I engaged with the guards at the museum. They each gave us so much -- fun, inside stories about the installations, pointing out exhibits we might have missed, little flashes of their personal lives.

We want to connect, we want to engage with each other. We are one and that oneness likes to happen in our interactions. As we grow up, we find it easier to do, but for many of us, we have to practice.

How have I changed from isolating myself to choosing to engage?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 07112015

Lush and Lavish

Lush and Lavish

Hanging out on the porch one day last week, my friend and I were listing all the mundane things that make our lives lovely. How fun! I had been thinking about the notion of feeling like one is living in the wrong time. While this desire isn’t one of mine, I have known many people who feel this way. I guess it’s because if I had been born even ten years earlier, I would have died when I was three. And again when I was ten. And again in my 50s.

I joke a lot about living in the future. I say that because my inner ten-year-old remembers vividly discussing with a good friend what we thought things would be like in the 2000s. The whole bad idea of flying cars aside, we talked about communicator devices, teleporting, and fashions, and travel to the stars. I think about how exciting it was to imagine being in my 50s. I was so right! I remember thinking that I would live in luxury. I sure feel that way now. Thank you, prophetic former self!

How do I feel when I feel that I live in luxury? Why is my life so luxurious? What makes me notice my luxuries?

When I decided to give up my poverty mentality I had a lot of work to do. I had to really pay attention to what I was saying, to what I was thinking. For example, I often caught myself saying, “I can’t afford it.” The feeling I had when I said that was icky. I felt deprived, or undeserving, or I was lying and used that line instead of saying, “No thanks, I don’t want to,” which was more often than not what I actually meant.

I used to think I couldn’t afford nice clothes and shoes, for example. I did a lot of shopping for my stuff at cut-rate stores and felt frumpy and frowzy. I felt like I couldn’t afford wholesome food, so I ate processed stuff, and cheap snacks full of ingredients. I felt crummy but believed that I couldn’t afford to go to a gym, or take classes, or go out with my friends. I had the idea that I couldn’t make a good living, that somehow I couldn’t really take care of myself.

Poor little me!

Everyone learns to view the world through mental filters. We have to. The sheer volume of information we are exposed to would leave us completely overwhelmed. So we filter. And we filter. And we learn to filter for certain things, like the kind of people we are attracted to, like the way we view ourselves, like a poverty mentality. Many of these filters we acquire as very little children, and many of them are just plain wrong. I call that “mislearning.”

One of our tasks in life is to grow up. Not just to get older, but to mature, to eliminate our immature or childish thoughts and behaviors and to replace them with adult behaviors. It’s one thing to have a temper tantrum when we are 3, but another thing altogether when, as a fifty year old we are still giving people the silent treatment, or shouting at them, especially when we have the same fights over and over.

Shedding our poverty mentality is similar. Learning to notice when we get that lack-feeling and then immediately addressing it with a good Creative Question will go a long way toward turning poverty mind into luxury mind. Practicing gratitude and appreciation will also bring us a sense of the magnificent abundance in our lives.

How have I changed from feeling want to reveling in my abundance of luxury?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 07012015

How to Lose the Losesr

How to Lose the Loser

Why do so many of us feel like we are losers? It’s so sad. For some of us, our adults regaled us with negative emotional judgments. For some of us, we learned to compare ourselves unfavorably to others. There are other reasons; you may know yours. For me, I learned that there was nothing I could try at which I wouldn’t fail. It was pounded into my head, first by some of my adults, and later, just me by my own self. My belief made trying to progress in my life very challenging.

Some of us believe we are losers almost to our core, but try to fight it so hard by acting as if we are better than everyone. We are constantly putting down those around us as incompetents, terrified to look at how inadequate we feel, terrified that someone will notice what losers we are.

Opposite sides of the same, fundamental belief; that we are not good enough, that we are losers. A belief based on mislearning.

What does that mean; a belief based on mislearning?

Our beliefs are simply the filters through which we view the world. We hold them dear, we treat them as Truth. Occasionally they are True, that is, True for everyone, but mostly they are just ideas we’ve taken on. Some beliefs, like the notion that infinity is infinite, not more or less infinite, is a belief that is pretty benign. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t Truth. A belief like “I am a loser” is both false and pretty damaging.

So what do we do with a belief like that? We change it. Sometimes changing a belief is easy peasy. Just a simple challenge can be enough to send a bad belief packing. Sometimes, we need to chip away at a bad belief, and that’s why Creative Questions are so helpful.

Why am I so successful? How do I know I win? What makes me feel triumphant? How have I changed from feeling like a loser to knowing I am victorious? Why do I own my success? Why am I proud of me?

Sometimes, we don’t really know what we believe. I know, that is kind of weird, but it’s true. Finding out is so important if we want to change them to supportive beliefs. It’s pretty simple, although not necessarily easy.

To discover what you believe about yourself, notice what you tell yourself about you. One of my favorites was “What’s wrong with you?” There were many variation on that question, but it always got me going on the things that were “wrong.” Sometimes I told myself disparages like, “You are so stupid! You are so ugly! You can’t do anything right!” I know that if you are reading this, you have your own “favorites.”

The happy news is that we can use those horrible things we tell ourselves to make beautiful, life-changing Creative Questions. It’s what the “How have I changed” Questions are for.

How have I changed from feeling wrong to knowing I am amazing? How have I changed from thinking I am stupid to owning my wisdom? How have I changed from feeling ugly to seeing my own beauty? How have I changed from feeling like I can’t do anything right to knowing I am competent?

See? You just find the opposite of the horrible thing you say to yourself, and make it into a Creative Question. Then, whenever you notice yourself being awful to you, use the new Question. You can also add the word, “else” to the Question for even more awesomeness: How else have I changed from ...

How have I changed from feeling like a loser to owning how I am a winner?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05262015

Drama Queen Abdicates!

Drama Queen Abdicates!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05252015

Righty-Oh!

Righty-Oh!

Back in the day I felt pretty inconsequential. Invisible in certain circumstances, even. I mentioned that to some friends at lunch one day, that I could go invisible. They naturally pooh-poohed the idea, so invisible I went. I stayed that way for about 20 minutes and the look on their faces when I “reappeared” was priceless. It was a skill I learned to avoid abuse. I have met a number of people who know how to do this. It’s usually a response to abuse. I don’t know if I can still do it.

For many years, and a lot of bad stuff, I felt wrong. On some level, I believed that my adults were right and that abusing me was their privilege. I had to learn to roll with it, so to speak. I learned to forget and forget I forgot. I learned to disassociate, and, depending on how bad it was, I could get out of my body several layers. I believed that everyone lived in fear like me. And I believed that I was fundamentally bad and wrong.

Why am I right? What makes me trust my instincts?  How do I know I am good?

I felt perpetually guilty, ashamed, terrified, helpless, and, oddly, put upon. I was mostly really depressed and spent a lot of time wishing that I had never been born.

As I chose to grow up, I started to lose that sense of being bad and wrong. I began to find a feeling of being right deep inside, and with it, I started to understand consequences.

My poor adults didn’t understand that they had choices. They were ensconced in misery, feeling desperate and helpless and took it out on those who were weaker. Poor little adults.

The more I worked through my feelings of resentment and fear, of rage and guilt and shame, the more compassion I found for my abusive adults. And the less I felt abused. The more I cleaned out my toxic feelings and thoughts, the easier it was to forgive. I began to understand that “victim” was a choice.

I began to see that I made a difference in the world just by being. I began to understand that my words were heard, my actions seen, my energy responded to by all sorts of people. I could see that I had an impact and I started to experience some wonderful consequences.

I began to understand that I was not bad and wrong, I was right. I could see that while my poor abusive adults seemed to think that they were right, many of them also felt bad and wrong. It’s so challenging to make changes when we feel like we are bad people who make bad decisions. This is a good time to get outside help.

When I feel right I feel peaceful and relaxed. I feel open to new ideas and open to the diversity of our opinions. I am clear on the notion that neither you nor I are our behavior. I can model for you ways of behaving that yield better consequences. By telling my story, what it was like, and how I changed it, I can often inspire you to try new ways to think, new beliefs that are supportive of the lives we want to live. In other words, I don’t need to proselytize or lecture or try to pound my ideas into you. I can, instead, create a safe space for you to find your way, as I have found mine. When I feel right, I can understand that what works for me may not work for you, and trust that you will choose to take care of yourself in your best ways. I can choose to believe in the power of your good heart.

How have I changed from living in negative consequences to enjoying the positive consequences of feeling right?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05232015

It Isn't Really That Way at All

It Isn’t Really That Way at All

I was recently reading about a man who hasn’t eaten or drunk anything in decades. Doctors and scientists studied him for weeks, even to the point of sealing the toilet in his suite. There are others like him, and there is a spiritual movement called Breathariansim. Oh, yeah. Somehow, these people are able to sustain a high quality of health through their breath alone.

I am not a breatharian. I do find the idea intriguing because it reminds me that the world that I live in isn’t what I think it is.

That’s a hefty thought.

My world is cobbled together by my thoughts, my beliefs, my filters, my habits, and the people I choose to be around. It’s just so much personal convention, and at the bottom of it is “I don’t know.”

How amazingly liberating is that, “I don’t know.”

Why can I choose? What makes me happy? How am I spiritual?

When I remember that I don’t know, there is suddenly room for miracles, mystical experiences, life-expanding occurrences, delightful surprises, and all manner of wonders to be had. All I have to do is get out of my own way.

In my qigong practice, we have six rules. The first three are don’t intellectualize, don’t worry, enjoy! The next three are relax, relax, relax. Now, I am a philosopher by temperament and training so intellectualizing is what I am inclined to do. When I remember to think of it as play, some interesting things happen. My thoughts become more fluid, and I don’t need to take them as Truths.

I used to be a championship worrier. I fretted over my stuff, your stuff, and if we were somehow stuff-free, I would fret over the state of the world. My current favorite POV on this is that worry is like praying for negative stuff. If I am putting energy into thinking rotten thoughts, I am not putting it into living a joyful and purposeful life. Unchoosing worry and fretting was a challenge; it took a ton of practice, but every moment I spent turning my thoughts away from it was worth it. I notice much more quickly when I see stuff that triggers worry in me. I look at the thought; is this something I can do something about right now? Usually not. Is this something I can do something about later? If so, put it on the list, if not, strike it. And start thinking neutral or positive thoughts. This is not Pollyannaism, pretending things are fine when they are not, this is about my well-being. Worry and fretting are physically damaging to my body, and since I live here, it’s good to take some care. There is a big difference between fretting and considering options and solutions.

The whole concept of “I can’t do X, this is just how I am” falls into this category, too.

I enjoy myself when I feel on purpose, aligned with my relatively new, supportive beliefs. I enjoy myself when I am in the present with awareness. If I choose to believe that every moment is perfect for where I am, if I look for the gift, the silver lining, the lesson, it is alway satisfying.

These attitudes are the foundation of my spiritual life, the universal urge we have to find connection, purpose, and meaning in our lives.

How have I changed from feeling adrift and lost to feeling spiritual purpose and joy in my life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05152015

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Inalienable rights granted to us by our Higher Power. How many of us live our lives like that? How many of us consider what those things mean? How many of us plod through our days, vaguely dissatisfied, suffering, and imprisoned in our own minds?

Life. This right isn’t about simply existing, it’s about being alive, experiencing our lives fully in each moment to the best of our ability. Using our senses to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, and consider the moment. This moment is it. It’s always just this moment. Will we squander it by dwelling in the past, or fretting about the future? Will we waste it by judging it to be wanting in some way? How would your life be if you considered each moment perfect for where you are right now?

How do I feel when I feel alive? Why can I feel alive? What makes me enjoy living?

Liberty. What if liberty weren’t just about free speech and freedom to practice the religion of my choice, freedom to live where I want, freedom to vote, and so many other things we hear about, but rather, what if liberty were freedom from noxious beliefs, unsupportive habits, self-loathing, mistrust, isolation, suffering, and so on. What if that is what we are meant to be pursuing? What if supportive habits and beliefs, self-love and care, trust, connection, joy, and bliss were available to us all? How freeing! How much energy we would have to live our lives in ways that matter deeply to us, not from a sense of obligation or duty, but from joy and connection!

How am I free? What makes me feel liberated? How am I untethered?

Happiness. As a kid, I thought this was about houses and cars and prestige jobs. I knew artists and musicians and writers who were living their passions,  but none of them was happy. Most of the ones I knew drank too much, were angry and resentful and felt like the world owed them something. I know, nice crowd! What if that happiness were just waiting inside for us to stumble upon it? What if happiness were something that we got by being present in the moment, by liberating ourselves from limiting thoughts and behaviors, and was simply there, inside us, just for the taking?

Why am I happy? How could I be happy? What makes me own my bliss?

Who am I surrounded by? Do I seek out others who want to live their natural lives of satisfaction and peace? Or do I hang out with grumps who find treasure and complain that it’s heavy, or who pour their energy and attention into pain and misery, judging everyone as lacking, or better than they are?

I have sat on my porch, in blissful peace, surrounded by the birdies, the plants, the fresh air, my beloved friends, but I have also found peaceful joy in the hospital with tubes coming out of mentionable and unmentionable places, with life-changing circumstances and physical discomfort. My happiness is not dependent on outside stuff anymore. I appreciate the outside stuff, but that’s not where my bliss is. It has taken daily practice. And even more important that practice, I had to admit that I was wrong about the world, about my life, about you. I had to choose Life, Liberty, and Happiness. Are you ready?

How have I changed from feeling dead, trapped, and miserable to enjoying my gloriously free and happy life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05132015

Deciding to Choose

Deciding to Choose

I got my favorite card today, “Why can I choose?” This is where the action is, this is where change starts, this is the beginning of the life I want.

Why can I choose? How do I know I decide? What makes me notice my choices?

It is also something that we tend to deny.

What’s that you say? Why would I deny my choices?

Each of us has a huge pile of beliefs. We believe them We trust in them. We forget that they are beliefs and act as if they are just the way the world is. We have beliefs about ourselves and everyone else. We have beliefs about aging, beliefs about success, beliefs about limits, about nature, about food and art and music and joy.

So much of what we believe we took on as little kids. And a lot of it is just plain wrong. We mislearn based on watching our grown-ups do stuff. We mislearn based on listening or observing with baby-minds. We often forget the experiences that led us to our beliefs, and so we take them as fact. Or truth. And then we end up in trouble.

Drama is a good one. We get the idea that giant feelings are normal. Rage, grief, fear, resentment; we have the idea that holding onto these feelings is the way to go, and we let them build until we are yelling or weeping without end, saying horrible things to each other, hold onto perceived wrongs that others have done to us, or feel guilty for decades about things we did that we think are wrong.

Poor little we.

Taking things personally, feeling better than or less than, hiding our gifts, suffering, controlling, and looking for the worst are more examples of mislearning.

As we start to practice choice, we begin to be aware of our thoughts, and then aware of our beliefs. Recognizing that I believe X to be true means that I can look at that belief and see if it supports me. Recognizing that a belief is an idea, and not a law of nature, means that I can erase it, or rewrite it, or tweak it in a way that will make my life easier, freeing up my energy for things that matter to me.

Sometimes I need to take action to change a belief that harms me. Sometimes I need to delve into my past and complete an experience, one where I shut down before I got to the end. There are a lot of ways to do that. Find the ones that suit you best and clean up your emotional basement.

One of my friends refers to making these kinds of changes as using our want-power. For most of us, will-power just doesn’t work. We end up feeling weak and like we have failed. When we choose what we want, and then remember that we want it, we can unchoose behaviors or thoughts that get in the way of that desire. That’s easy.

How have I changed from believing my beliefs to knowing that I choose?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 05112015

How to Easy Up Your LIfe

How to Easy Up Your Life

I love how often I get the “Why is it so easy?” card. Maybe it comes up more because over the years the very card has gotten thicker with all my handling. Maybe it’s because I need to be reminded more often that, as the song goes, “The livin’ is easy.”

So many things turn out to be simple in our daily lives. Got a bad habit? Stop doing it. Want new circumstances? Change ‘em. Want to have more fun? Do it. See? Simple.

So what happens to that simple? Simple! We have stuff around our stuff.

Why is it just so easy? How could it be smooth sailing? What makes my life a snap?

I think I should change my bad habit. Instead of just stopping running late, over-indulging, not exercising or exercising too much, choosing misery, being too messy or too clean, and fill in your faves here, I justify it. “I deserve X, I like X, I don’t have time to not X.” I have negative emotional judgments. I resist for reasons I may not even be aware of.

Next thing I do is beat myself up for continuing my bad habit. For many of us, we have a running internal dialog about how much we suck.

This is where Creative Questions change everything. When we start asking good Creative Questions, things will change. It’s automatic. They change things way deep down inside. All we have to do is use them. I like to pick one and kind of chant is as I am walking. I will often add the work, “else” as in “Why else is it just so easy?” I don’t need to try to come up with answers, I just let the Creative Question wash through my unconscious mind.

The “How have I changed” Creative Question makes transitions easier. How have I changed from believing that life is hard to living it easy?

We have to choose this. We have to muster up our courage to go inside, deep inside, to our place of peace and love. We have to decide that we can live easy, with joy and satisfaction in what we do. Once we make that choice, that commitment, life seemed easier. We start to feel the flow of life, and we find ourselves relaxing into our natural life effortlessly.

Choosing easy doesn’t mean that interesting things don’t happen. Life will unfold as it does, but we choose easy instead of going  to negative emotional judgments. If I don’t think of a thing as negative, it’s just a thing. That’s easy. I can deal with a neutral thing.

As I get used to choosing easy I find that I don’t need complain; I address the topic. I act. I find that I am answering the Creative Questions “Why am I strong? Why am I capable? Why am I competent?” automatically. I find that I am experiencing auto-mood-tuning. I unchoose  crabby, I unchoose victim, I unchoose scared. I go to gratitude and appreciation quickly and comfortably.

I find that I don’t need to respond to drama and false emergencies. I take better care of me and my loved ones because I have more energy, I’m not using it up on distractions, but on things that really matter to me, things that actually enrich my life. That’s nice.

How have I changed from buying into the myth of struggle to living a life of easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04152015

Loving Me Loving You

Loving Me Loving You

“I am a realist, not a pessimist,” says a woman I know. She likes to talk about how awful the world is, how horrible people are, how rotten are her co-workers, and how crappy she feels all the time. Poor little lamb. The world she lives in is dark and terrifying with awful people doing awful things to each other. She is exhausted and sick a lot of the time.

I used to live there. I used to believed that people, all people, were awful to each other. I believed the news media. Do I need to say that I was terrified all the time? I felt responsible for suffering all over the world, and doubly guilty because what was I doing to help them? So I was terrified, but also uber-stressed and depressed. Imagine that.

Why do I like people? What makes me notice the good in others? How do I value your presence?

I had this idea that paying a lot of attention to the news was the responsible, adult thing to do. War, pestilence, murder, rape, greed, fire, famine --. Oh, la! Dose me up with misery in the papers, on the radio and tv. It justified my unhappiness. It justified my guilt. It justified my pain. It justified my sense of helplessness.I made friends with people who were as miserable as I. We could spend days telling each other how miserable we were. We did, actually. And it somehow absolved me of taking responsibility for my own well-being. Clearly, if there were so much misery in the world, it stood to reason that I would be miserable.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that the media doesn’t monger news, they monger fear. And every time I shared bad news, every time I promoted the awful things that happened, I was mongering fear, too. I have come to realize that I am the only one responsible for my well-being. And I am not responsible for yours. I am responsible to you, and endeavor to create safe space for us all to thrive and grow. And I apologize to you for all the horrible things I told you about in the dark ages.

As I have grown up, I have come to realize that people are doing their best, For most of us, we are doing our best to be kind, good, and loving. What we have are issues, topics, mis-learnings and these dictate our behavior. In relatively normal situations, these are pretty mild, annoying perhaps, but not damaging. As the topics get bigger, the behavior gets worse; substance abuse, addictive behaviors, violence, and so on. When the topics get really big, at least inside the person, the behavior gets worse. You know what I mean.

And, as one of my dear friends says, “I am not my behavior.” Remembering this gives us an entree into compassion, and we may need to find that way in for ourselves as well as for others.

In fact, our attitude to others is often our attitude to ourselves. If I see the world as a terrifying place, chances are good that I don’t feel very safe inside me. If I see the world as full of bad people, I may be feeling like a bad person deep inside. It might even be unconscious. And if I see the world as full of kind and loving people doing what they can to make the world nicer, I most likely have a life full of kind and loving people who are doing what they can.
I prefer to live in a world of love. I prefer to look for the good in people, and I avoid the regular media’s take on things. I seek out good news about good works, powerful discoveries that help, individual kindnesses, gracious gestures. My favorite from yesterday was a restaurant owner who posted a notice that invited the person who was eating from her Dumpster to come in for a meal.

How have I changed from wallowing in the worst of humanity to reveling in our goodness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04122015

Wise Guys

Wise Guys

I have been privy to a very curious phenomenon recently. I talk to a lot of people over the course of a day, and many of them are reporting variations on doubting themselves. Riffing on notions is fun, but I don’t think self-doubt is on that list.

The thing is, we are wise. Effortlessly. We accrue wisdom by just living our lives, experiencing our experiences. Sadly, for many of us, we listen to people who tell us we aren’t wise. They may even tell us we are stupid. Depending on who they are, what our mis-learnings are, we buy into that idea and believe we are dumb.

Poor we!

How do I know I am wise? How do I feel when I own my wisdom? What makes me trust my smarts?

In the dark ages, I was in so much pain. I bought into the idea that I didn’t know anything about living, but a tiny part of me trusted my wisdom. That wisdom told me to find a good teacher. My first brilliant teacher whom I found on my own was a shrink named Dan. He helped me to begin to see that my emotional pain was based on past events I was holding on to, and by habits that kept me stuck.

I trusted my wisdom more because of my time with him and started to clear out the negative, abusive people in my life. I made some big changes.

I sought out more teachers. I found good ones, sometimes they were there to teach me one lesson, sometimes more. I found a wonderful teacher who worked with me for many years. She created a space for me to find my way, my wisdom, my self.

We all need teachers at different times in our lives. They always show up when we need them. Our job is to trust our wisdom enough to spot them, and then to trust them, and ourselves enough to learn the lessons they are meant to give us. Sometimes we have a topic that is a bit treacherous, and we need to address it with more than one teacher.

Our Personal Doubt is that kind of lesson.

Our Personal Doubt is our first mis-learning. We mis-learn it very early in our lives, and we buy into it wholeheartedly. For some of us, it’s that we are wrong. Or that we hurt people. Or that we are bad. Or that we are unlovable. There are many others. It’s that bad feeling that has been with you for your whole life. We may not even be aware of it.

My Personal Doubt is that I am garbage. It informed many of my choices for many years. I have worked on releasing that belief for a long time, and bit by bit it has gotten much less powerful. Like all our really important stuff, no one else can fix this for us. Like happiness, the truth behind our personal doubt will come from inside us.

The more we practice trusting our wisdom, the easier our lives will get, the less our Personal Doubt can flatten us. The wonderful teacher I mentioned above, Vi, would say, “You do know.” Oh, I hated that phrase! But she was always right. When I relaxed and calmed down, I always knew what I needed to do.

How have I changed from denying my wisdom to believing that I do know?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04112015

Captain Commitment

Captain Commitment

I am fascinated by all the stuff we do, we think, we feel, that we are unaware of. I am serious. I couldn’t believe that when I first encountered the concept. How could I be living my life and so clueless at the same time? It’s why they call it the unconscious mind.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be clueless. I don’t want to be ignorant of what I’m up to. I want to be the boss of me,

There is a whole bunch of new age-y terms for it, mindfulness being the one that seems to be bandied around the most. All that means; pay attention. Pay attention to your thoughts, notice what you are thinking when you are thinking it. If you practice doing that, you will be amazed at what’s going on in your head.

Why can I choose? What makes me aware? Why do I commit?

So the next step is to look at my life. I found it somewhat horrifying, and still do, that we see what we are committed to by looking at our lives. I want to be committed to a peaceful life. Do I see peace or is my life full of chaos? I want to be committed to flowing with life. Do I see flow or do I see drama and resistance? I want to be committed to warm, loving, respectful relationships. Do I see those relationships, or are my relationships full of strife? Are you getting the idea?

I live what I am committed to.

If there is a disconnect between what I want to be committed to and what I am living, chances are really good that the block is unconscious. When we are stuck we often beat ourselves up and say rotten things to ourselves. That’s so not useful. Creative Questions help us change those patterns.

I like to think of this particular Creative Question as a transitional question. It starts making way for us to change; moving the boulders out of the way, surveying the line of sight, grading the pathway and paving the new road to our desired outcome. (Can I write corn, or what!)

How have I changed from living in chaos to living in peace? How have I changed from resisting life to going with the flow? How have I changed from stressful relationships to loving and feeling loved? For example.

One of the bennies of choosing my commitments instead of my mysterious unconscious choosing for me is that I can stop bitchin’ about what’s going on in my life. I can feel like I’m steering my life a bit more. I mean, unexpected stuff happens, but my conscious commitments give me direction.

Taking action is the piece that makes our commitments dynamic. I know it’s a big “duh” but it’s often a piece we miss, and it’s why we are still living the old way. If I want my good parking spot at work that someone has been parking in this week, praying for it to St Dot of the Parking Spot is one thing, but leaving a few minutes earlier is another. So I did both and got my spot. For example.

I want to make sure that my action is going to move me forward to my goal. Sometimes that means I need to get some help. I love the old saw, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” That’s great for playing a musical instrument, but kind of not so great for making fresh changes.

How have I changed from feeling stuck to creating dynamic commitments?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04102015

Easy is as Easy Does

Easy is as Easy Does

The other day I saw my onco doc. First thing he said to me was, “No more chemo.” Yay! As I was celebrating that night with my sifu and TCM doc, I heard myself say, “All things considered, that was pretty easy.”

Seriously.

Why is it just so easy? What makes me flow with life? What makes me relax?

What would you do if your life were easy? How would you fill your time if you chose to stop worrying? What would you replace stress with? What would change if you stopped choosing misery?  I don’t mean these questions to sound dorky, they are quite serious. They are also quite possible.

I sure didn’t believe that in the days of yore. I really believed that life is hard. I really believed that we had to just suffer through it. I believed that misery was the watchword for the world. Poor former me. I believed that my beliefs were the Truth.

I can’t even tell you how glad I am that I was wrong.

How could it be easy? What would make it simple? Why could I relax?

My attitude doesn’t change what happens to me, but it most certainly changes how I think about it, how I feel. When I decide that it is easy, I loosen my hold on my commitment to negative emotional judgments about stuff. It’s just stuff.

Negative emotional judgment. Let that concept sink in.

I make the judgment that stuff is bad. I may go there because I see others going there, I may choose it because I’ve chosen it since I was a little kid; “X is bad!” I may choose it because I think I may lose something I have or not get something I want, and am having big feelings about that possible change of state.

When I stop making negative emotional judgments, situations are neutral. That neutrality makes for flow, it squelches drama, it maintains equilibrium, and that, baby, that means peace at my core.

I trust me to handle what comes my way, I’ve handled some pretty intense stuff. It may take me a bit to catch my breath, but I mostly don’t flap these days.

I am not saying that, for example, the loss of a loved one is not to be grieved. We need to feel our feelings as they come up. And let them flow through and out and done for now. And then we are back to the questions we started with.

What would you do if your life were easy? How would you fill your time if you chose to stop worrying? What would you replace stress with? What would change if you stopped choosing misery?

I have time to meditate since I don’t worry. I have time to really relax since I’m not so stressed. I have inside room for enjoyment since it’s all just so easy. I have more room for you in my life since I’m not all obsessed with how awful everything is.

How have I changed from believing life is hard to knowing it’s all just so easy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 04062015

In The Flesh

I love my body. I love to dance it, to qi gong and yoga it. I love walking around in it, I love to sleep in it. I love to feed it, and pamper it, and dress it. I think it’s pretty cute. I like living here in it.

It sure didn’t used to be like that. Used to be I hated living in it. I saw my body as the source of a lot of my misery, pain, and suffering. I hurt it a lot, intentionally, and unintentionally. I blamed it for a lot of my woes. I demonized it. I sickened it with wretched thoughts, and ugly behavior.

I have been making up to it for a long time.

Why do I love my body? How does my body support me? What makes my body perfect?

You might find this attitude strange, especially with my recent adventures through the C. But here’s what I will tell you. I think about how most of my body has been doing it’s best to bring me back to full-on radiant health. I fully believe that radiant, abundant, lavish health is where we are meant to be, so I focus on that.

One of my most favorite sayings from 12 step groups is, “Misery is optional.” It reminds me that I choose the filters through which I see my life, through which I experience my body. I choose. I may be choosing unconsciously, but I am still choosing. I like to think that part of my job as a human being is to unchoose misery, to find other ways to filter my life experiences than through the misery filter. I’m getting pretty good at it. It is a much shorter path to joy from not-miserable, or happy, as I like to call it.

I like to think that one of our jobs as humans is to relieve suffering. Fundamental for me is to unchoose my own sense of suffering, and often my first source of suffering seems to be my body. By learning that I can unchoose my personal physical misery, I start to see that I can effect other change in my own life, I can impact my personal environment, and that makes ripples.

Bottom line is this. We have amazing power. We often don’t learn as children to harness our own superpowers, Unchoosing physical misery isn’t moving into denial. All it means is allowing the physical experience to be a part of our experience, not the whole show. The more I focus on my shoulder, or queasiness, or wacky foot sensations, the more I notice them until a relatively small part of my body is taking up most of my attention.

When I start paying more attention to my activities, my relationships, my enjoyments, than I do to my discomfort, things shift, my internal priorities change, my time seems more satisfying. I can do my qi gong practice to change my perspective, I can meditate, or practice yoga. Sometimes, I make a phone call and chat with one of my fascinating friends or family members. Sometimes, I read or knit or draw. And, sometimes I lie in it, and squishy it up between my toes, and wallow in feeling rotten. Yes, I do.

How do I enjoy my body? What makes my body just right? Why do I love being in my body?

I think it’s a fascinating thing that many of us don’t spend time in our bodies. Do you think of yourself as accident prone? That’s about being in your head. The word “mindfulness” gets tossed around a lot these days, It simply means being in your body. I had to learn how; Where are my feet? Where is my butt? How do I feel in my body?”

How have I changed from living in my head to loving my body?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 03302015

The Way of Happiness

The Way of Happiness

Are you walking the walk, or just talking the talk? Are you being aware of your choices, or mindlessly choosing, feeling a little like things are out of control, scary? Are you practicing living the life you want? Have you taken some time to think about the life you want? Do you have an idea of how you think of yourself, the labels you wear?

On Facebook, I have a couple practices I do every day. One is my appreciations, the other is my secret name of the day. Every day I make up a name for myself, and sometimes for others when they ask. It’s fun. The point of the secret name of the day is to remind myself that I am not who I think I am; I am boundless.

We get into habits, routines, ruts, patterns. We are mindless of what we are thinking about. We come to believe that our way is typical, like everyone feels as we do, or we may think that we are strange, unique, and that no one understands.

Why can I choose? What makes me aware? How am I present? How am I connected? What makes me engage?

We tell ourselves sad or bad stories about how we are. We tell ourselves things like “my life is hard. No one understands how my life is. I’m so dumb, or wrong, or bad. I am doomed to this crummy job, abusive relationship, chronic physical stuff. I believe in suffering, in misery, in drama. I believe happiness is for others, not for me.”

We lie like bad toupees.

Amazing things can happen when we start to notice the stories we tell about ourselves, and then when we allow that maybe they are just stories, not the truth. The more we can accept that we are boundless, that we are meant to be happy and healthy, full of joy and contentment, things in our lives will start to shift.

As we let go of the sad, sad tales we tell about ourselves, we loosen up our old traumas, and can experience them all the way to the end, we can let them go. As we let go of the sad, sad tales, we can start telling ourselves good stories about how we truly are.

Sometimes we need help to find our way. It might be from a therapist, or counselor. Perhaps we need help from a healer, traditional or otherwise. Perhaps we need to develop new skills, or find a new outlet for our talents. Maybe we need new friends who will support us in being our most amazing selves. Sometimes we need a new job, or a new location.

One of the stories we tell ourselves is that we can’t have help. Maybe we can’t afford it, or we can’t find it, or we can’t make the time, or we can’t imagine anyone actually helping us. We make these beliefs true by filtering for them. One of my favorite examples is that of the victim who claims that no one has ever helped them when people have been trying to help them all over the place. It is a matter of denial, ignoring facts that go against the bad beliefs we hold that keep us small.

When I decide I deserve a good life from the inside out, I start to change my stories, I change my decisions, I change my choices, I change my behavior, I change my environment.

How have I changed from choosing to struggle to choosing happiness?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 03122015