Choices

I always have choice in everything that I think, say and do. I may choose to believe that I don't like any of the choices available to me, but that doesn't negate the fact that I have choices. Saying and believing that I don't have any choice in what I think, say or do is a lie, plain and simple. It keeps me a victim and irresponsible. What belief would I have to change or question to know that I always have choice? Am I willing to question it?

I can be irritated that it's cold outside, or grateful that I've lived to see another change of the seasons. I can be judgmental of my family's actions or grateful that they're a part of my life and helping me to learn and grow. I have choice in EVERYTHING. ALWAYS. It no longer serves me to forget or deny this.

How and where in your life do you believe that you don't have choices and don't get to do what you want to do? Are you willing to admit that it isn't true? What might be possible for you if you accepted that you always have choice in everything?

Do You Judge Like This?

Up is no better than down. Right is no better than left. Top is no better than bottom. Why then do we choose to make happiness better than sadness? Peace better than war? Love better than hate? Don’t they all serve us? Doesn’t each one help guide us to a greater understanding of ourselves, others and the world? How then can we judge one as good and the other as bad? The question makes no sense. They’re all equal. They all are. Period. Not right or wrong, good or bad. To assign such labels requires judgment. Judgment requires comparison. Comparison leads to dissatisfaction.

There’s nothing to be dissatisfied with or about. Everything is as it is. The past cannot be undone and the future can only be changed during its present moment. Nothing is accomplished in either the past or the future. Only now. Now is all we have.

What are you doing now? Where are your thoughts? What actions are you engaged in? What are you learning? How are you growing, sharing, connecting and behaving lovingly and compassionately? Right now. In this moment. That’s what matters.

More Smiles ~ November 2008

Experience Peace by Embracing Life

Most of us consistently engage in a behavior that dooms us to feeling disappointed, angry and resentful: we expect people or situations to be a certain way and resist the way that they actually are. Worse yet, many of us have no idea that we even operate like this! We may even bend over backward trying to please somebody else and overstep our own boundaries and integrity in the process. Then, when the person we were trying to please still isn’t happy, we’re left wondering why we even bothered. The truth is, why bother? Each of us can only please ourselves. Nobody else can do it for us.

As long as I expect people or situations to be a certain way, I’m locked into things looking or being just one way. If my friend, business associate or family member respects me, then they’ll return my calls. If my spouse or partner loves me then they’ll do what I want them to do. Well, what happens when my calls aren’t returned and my spouse or partner does what they want instead of what I want them to do? If I’m unwilling to accept things the way that they actually are, I may very well end up spending most of my time feeling miserable. Actually, expecting usually sets me up for unhappiness since I don’t get to control the people and circumstances of my life, and rarely if ever is reality an exact match to my expectations.

Expecting sounds like, “Things have to go THIS way. Everything is all wrong.” It feels like disappointment, anger or resentment. It looks rigid, righteous and unyielding. Having expectations makes us dependent on other people and the circumstances of our lives in order to be happy.

Accepting sounds like, “Things went differently than I thought they should or might go, but it turns out that’s great because ________. Everything is all right.” It feels like peace and joy. It looks soft, opening and giving. Being accepting of whatever presents itself in our lives allows us to experience peace and joy regardless of our circumstances. (This does not mean to stay in an abusive or unhealthy situation. This means that you can see the benefits of your current situation even as you take actions to change things for the better. Maybe you have a strong support system on which you can rely, or perhaps you have a plan that you’ve begun to put into action to remove yourself from the situation.)

Changing the way that we think and behave from expecting to accepting can feel uncomfortable because we’ve formed opinions since a young age about the way things should be and how people should act. But, when you accept the way things actually are, you begin to experience peace on a more regular basis. Things flow instead of feeling like a struggle. You’re not only opening to the situations and circumstances of your life, but also embracing the people in it, including yourself.

Call to Action: Where in your life do your expectations have you locked in and resisting the current reality? What do you gain by thinking and behaving this way? What might be possible for you or available to you if you chose to consciously recognize the gifts in the way things actually are? What action can you take this week to shift around this person or situation?

Remember: Nobody else can make you happy via their words or actions. It’s only your thoughts about yourself and the world that determine whether you live in peace and the flow of life, or in discontent and resisting life. Which do you choose, to expect or to accept?

What's Your Truth?

Based on our life experiences, values and beliefs, each of us has our own truth. What is true for you is not necessarily true for me and vice versa. There is space for all of our truths to coexist simultaneously. No one has to be right and no one has to be wrong. What’s true for us is simply true for us. And it is okay for our truths to change in any given moment or on any given day. Actually, it’s natural for a person who is growing and changing to have what is true for them grow and change with them.

Don Miguel Ruiz says in his book, The Mastery of Love, that we should not believe him. Similarly, he advocates that we don’t believe anyone else, or even ourselves. I think that this is really sound advice. What it means to me is to recognize that what is true for anybody else is not necessarily true for me and that what I accept as true for me may not actually be my only truth. Basically then, acting on Ruiz’s advice has me continuously questioning what I believe to be true. This is a very useful tool for personal growth.

When I’m not questioning my thoughts and what I believe to be true, I become entrenched in my thinking, stagnant and locked into just one way of viewing myself and the world. Clearly, this is hardly conducive to growth. Questioning, on the other hand, brings me present to this moment and what is true for me within it. With these realizations, comes greater self-knowledge.

It’s also important for me to point out that I only know my own truth and you only know yours. Consequently, I don’t have your answers. What a relief! I don’t know what’s right for you and you don’t know what’s right for me. It’s a beautiful and liberating thing because it means that ultimately, as adults, we are each responsible only for ourselves.

What Are You Waiting For?

Richard Bach says in his book, Illusions, that it’s not faith that we need or lack in our lives, it’s imagination. We create and draw into our lives all that we experience. So, to change what we have, we need to imagine what we’d like to have. This got me thinking about peace. Really all I want more of in my life is peace. This is great because it happens to be one thing that I control. Woo hoo!

In the past, when I thought about peace, I thought about it in more global terms. It was always ‘out there’ somewhere. It didn’t have much to do with me, because I wasn’t going around waging war. Or so I thought. The truth is that I’m not peaceful anytime that I’m judging. As soon as I think someone or something is right or wrong, I’m no longer present with myself. I’ve entered into my story and I’m running with it. Usually this looks like me trying to build a case to persuade myself or someone else that I’m right. The point I’m trying to make here is that peace doesn’t happen first in the world around us and then we can feel peaceful within ourselves. Peace starts inside us and then it naturally shows up in the world around us, not the other way around.

This has been really obvious to me when I think about the recent presidential election. You know, I’ve got my life experiences and the things that I value dictating what I choose to believe. From this, I align with whichever candidate or party seems the most similar to my beliefs. The easy thing to do is to then believe that anyone who doesn’t believe the same things I do is wrong, uninformed or just plain stupid ~ to judge them for being different than I am, in other words. Repeatedly, I’ve found myself wondering how anybody could possibly align with the ‘other’ party.

My tendency is to believe that if they’d simply ‘get it’ and change their beliefs, we’d have peace. Obviously, that isn’t true though. The issue isn’t whether or not we all think alike. (I’m actually quite glad that we don’t or the world would be a truly boring place.) The issue is whether or not I can own that I’m waging war within myself when I think that somebody else is wrong, or even when I think that I’m wrong. I’m anything but calm and peaceful when I believe that somebody else is wrong. In fact, I’m usually loud and quite agitated.

The truth is that the ‘other guy’ isn’t wrong and I’m right, or vice versa. We’re both right. When we take into consideration what our life experiences have been and what we each value, it becomes very clear that our beliefs are right for us. My beliefs are right for me, and yours are right for you. One of us doesn’t have to be right and one of us wrong. In fact, that kind of thinking creates war within us. I believe that our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. So, if there’s war surrounding us, as there is in our world, then it’s there to mirror the war within us. Clean up the war within us and the war without us can’t continue. How can it possibly continue without us?

Well, like I said earlier though, the good news is that this is within my control. I get to choose to be right, which may be what I’m most used to doing, or to be at peace. I choose peace. This requires that I imagine what peace might look and feel like inside of me concerning this situation. Peace is warmth, beauty, joy and acceptance coursing through my body. Peace is physical relaxation and perhaps a smile on my face. Peace is observing my thoughts instead of wholeheartedly believing them and then making ‘the other guy’ wrong for believing differently.

How fun to then imagine in what ways my life might be different if I just consistently engaged in this behavior of observing myself instead of judging others! What might be possible for me? How might my family life change, my business alter, the city in which I live be affected by this one simple act of me becoming more peaceful?

That’s where my thoughts can dwell when I have a moment to myself to think and be quiet ~ to imagining all the beauty that could be possible in my life and surroundings just by my shifting out of judgment and into observation, into peace.

Call to Action: Where are you giving away your chance for peace and blaming somebody else for it? “It’s their fault! If they’d just think like me, everything would be grand!” Notice how you feel when you do this. What happens to you physically? Where do your thoughts go? Is this something you want more of in your life? If not, ask yourself what you can do to shift this pattern in your way of being, then commit to doing so, and do so. Start today.

Remember: The difficult but responsible thing to do is to own and accept that you are the only one that controls what’s going on inside of you and in your life. If it’s less than ideal, only you can change it. As long as you wait for everybody else to change and get their thinking and their act together, you get to be right but miserable. What are you waiting for?

More Smiles ~ October 2008

What’s Your Motivation?

The more conscious I become of my thoughts, words and actions, the more I recognize how much of my life is controlled by ‘shoulds’, ‘supposed to’s’, and ‘have to’s’. What I’m only just now realizing though is what’s behind those ‘shoulds’. By ‘behind’ I mean the thought that’s leading me to believe I ‘should’, am ‘supposed to’ or ‘must’ think, say or do something. The truth for me is that I’m now aware of two things that are behind a lot of my ‘shoulds’.

One of these two things is my desire to please people. This is where I believe that what I think, say or do makes somebody else happy or unhappy. Not only is this belief of mine untrue, but it’s irresponsible in that it has me constantly focusing my attention on what somebody else may or may not be thinking or feeling instead of on the one thing I can control and am responsible for ~ myself.

(See the May 2008 edition of More Smiles here on my blog for more on the topic of people-pleasing.)

The second thing that I’ve recently come to understand is behind many of my ‘shoulds’ is a previously unconscious bartering or trading. For me, this bartering is simply how things have always been done. For the past few years, I’ve been resisting bartering without knowing that that was what was going on. Let me explain. When I give someone a birthday present primarily because they gave me one for my birthday, I’m bartering. I’m not giving them a gift because I want to, like to or love to. I’m giving them a gift because I’ve been taught that it is polite to barter. I'm trading my gift for theirs. It’s an obligation. I think I should give them a gift since they bought me one. (In this instance, I'm also people-pleasing in that I don't want to hurt their feelings.)

So, I’ve been in the process of weeding the ‘shoulds’ out of my life and replacing them with authentic desires (my ‘want to’s’, ‘like to’s’ and ‘love to’s’). It feels so much better to me to be motivated by my pure desire to give to someone else, instead of my fear that I'd “better do it or else”. In the past, I was very busy moving through my life without being present in it and minding everybody else’s business. And, I didn’t take the time to first determine and then speak my truth.

All that has changed. I'm now more present or conscious than I ever have been. I endeavor to mind my own business. When I catch myself going on about somebody else in my thoughts or words, I stop and investigate how this is really about something I’m unhappy about in myself. I also take the time to determine my truth and I have the courage to speak it.

Does everyone in my life like the changes that they’re seeing in me? Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t asked. I like the changes.

Am I making other people throughout my life really happy now? Again, I haven’t asked. But, I’m sure that I’m happier and I know that it’s impossible for me to please everyone else anyway. Besides, they’re not my business. I am.

For me, this is all about responsibility ~ being responsible for myself and consciously moving through my days with clarity, intention and purpose. I used to be so worried about the ‘shoulds’, ‘supposed to’s’ and ‘have to’s’ that they overwhelmed my days and my thoughts. There was neither time nor energy left for the soul filling, joy producing ‘love to’s’. Besides, I didn’t believe that I deserved the ‘love to’s’ anyway. Now I know better. We each deserve to fill our days with thoughts, words and actions that express our love and that fill us with love as we think, say and do them.

Call to Action: What are your ‘love to’s’? Get quiet and make a list of them. If you struggle to come up with many, for one week at the end of each day write down what you thought, said or did that day that either expressed your love or filled you with love. (It’s also in giving that we receive.) When the week is over, commit to consciously choosing to do at least one of those ‘joy producers’ or ‘love to’s’ each day for the next week. Wouldn’t it be more fun to roll out of bed in the morning if you had one of those to look forward to every day?

Remember: The things you commit to don’t have to be expensive or time consuming thoughts, words or actions. It doesn’t take much time or cost a penny to think to yourself, “Awesome job!” for a project well done. It’s quick and free to hold your child on your lap while you read them a bedtime story. And who knows what difference the small donation of time or money that you offer to a charity will make?

Wonder

Rescue everyone.
From what?
From their own terrifying thoughts, from themselves.

I can't.

I can only release myself from my own frightening thoughts and beliefs,
And they can only release themselves from their terrifying thoughts and beliefs.
In liberating myself,
I show them a way, a path a possibility for themselves.
There is an alternative to the horrors we each put ourselves through every day with our scary and judgmental thoughts:
Question their validity and
In so doing, allow the thoughts to let go of you.

Be curious enough to wonder,
"Who is holding whom?"
Are you clinging to your thoughts for dear life, or
Are they clinging to you?

More Smiles ~ September 2008

What Are You Thinking?

I’ve spent my life believing that I’d be happier if only x, y or z would happen, or if only a, b or c hadn’t ever happened. It’s not true though. My happiness truly doesn’t depend on any person, situation or event outside of myself. My happiness depends solely on my thoughts. Whenever I feel bad ~ sad, angry or hurt ~ I know that I’ve just been thinking some thought that caused that emotion.

Since I’ve spent my life practicing the belief that my happiness depends on someone or something outside of myself, I often don’t even notice the thoughts that ‘set me off’, or lead me to the ‘negative’ emotion. I really have to be present and pay attention to how I’m feeling if I hope to lead a happier and more peaceful life. Again, these ‘negative’ emotions aren’t bad. It’s more like they’re compassionate reminders of the fact that I’ve been thinking untrue and disturbing thoughts.

So, what can I do about it? What can I do when I recognize that I’m feeling disgruntled that my sibling isn’t doing what I think they should, or my financial picture isn’t what I expect it should be or somebody hurt me terribly in my childhood? I can start by noticing the thoughts I’m thinking about that person, situation or event. Whatever the thought is, I clearly believe it or it wouldn’t have sent me down the path I’m on and into my negative and unhappy spiral. But the question is, “Is my thought true?” What I’ve repeatedly found from applying Byron Katie’s process, The Work, is that my original thought is never the only truth about that person, situation or event. And, my believing that it is the only truth keeps me closed off and stuck in misery or uncomfortable feelings.

Regardless of whether or not I believe with all my heart and soul that my original thought is true, I can still choose to notice how thinking that thought makes me feel. What emotion do I feel when I think this? How do I treat the person, situation or event about which I’m thinking it?

And, if I didn’t think or believe this thought, what might I be sitting here thinking, feeling, saying and doing instead?

What it boils down to is that everything I see going on outside of myself in others and in the world around me is really just a reflection of what’s going on inside me. I’m usually totally unaware of it going on inside of myself though and so I need the rest of the world in order to learn about myself and to grow. When I understand this truth, I can take whatever my original thought was and ‘turn it around’ to myself. If I was seeing selfishness in my sibling, I can look for instances of where and how I’m selfish. Or, if my original thought was that my financial picture should look more positive, I can look for how my thoughts should look more positive. If I felt resentment toward someone for some past hurt, I can look for ways in which I’ve hurt myself or others.

This is basically a description of Byron Katie’s process, The Work. The Work is a series of questions that allow us to become aware of our thoughts instead of continuing to be controlled by our thoughts. We each have a story. If I asked you to tell me about your life, there are certain things you’d be sure to include: the death of your grandfather, going to college or your career path. The Work allows you to step outside of your story and take a truthful look at what you’ve made the events and circumstances of your life mean about yourself.

Call to Action: The next time you find yourself feeling some ‘negative’ emotion stop for a moment and notice what thought you had just been thinking. I guarantee it was an uncomfortable thought for you. Then take yourself through The Work. Ask if the thought is true, how you feel and react when you believe the thought, who you’d be and what you might think without the thought and then ‘turn the thought around’. See Byron Katie’s http://www.thework.com/thework.asp for a more detailed description of applying this process to your thoughts.

Remember: This isn’t about what’s right or wrong, it’s about investigating the truth and coming to know, love and understand yourself better. It's about experiencing lasting peace and happiness. My experience has been that I get so caught up in what I think is right or wrong that I ignore, fight or miss the truth. When I’m fighting the truth, I feel anxious, wrong, mad, afraid or whatever ‘negative’ emotion. To feel more peace and joy, I only have to quit fighting the truth by exploring my thoughts.

Would You Rather Be Right, Or Happy And At Peace?

Even if my body is injured, hurt or damaged,
I can only be emotionally hurt if my thoughts
are that my body, things, situations, people, or life
should be different than how they are.

Always, it’s only my thoughts
that can cause me emotional pain and suffering.
Not even what somebody else does
to me physically can do that.

My body might hurt,
ache or bleed, but
I only suffer emotionally over
that if and when I
believe that my body
shouldn’t do those
things yet still it is
doing those things.

Always, it’s only my thoughts
that can cause me emotional pain and suffering.

If I believe I should be
asleep when I’m awake in
the middle of the night,
being awake causes me to
suffer.

If I believe
my thoughts, words and actions
affect somebody
else’s happiness, and someone
around me is unhappy with
what I’ve thought, said or done, then
my thoughts, words and actions cause me to
suffer.

If I believe I need
somebody else’s acceptance,
approval and understanding
to be who I am and do what I do,
and I don’t have their acceptance,
approval and understanding,
then I suffer without it.

It’s always my thought or belief that causes my
emotional pain or suffering, not what somebody else does
or doesn’t say or do, and not how the situation does
or doesn’t play out.

I do not control anybody
else’s happiness, just
as they do not control
mine. My thoughts
determine my happiness
and nobody else is in my
head telling me what
to think ~ just me. In
each moment, I choose
happiness or sadness,
trust or fear, peace
or war based on the
thoughts I choose to
believe and how believing those
thoughts makes me feel.

The same is true for everybody else.
So, if somebody tells me that I
made them angry or hurt their
feelings, it’s not true! It’s
their thinking about what I
said or didn’t say, or did or didn’t
do, that makes them angry or
hurts their feelings.

This is so subtle, yet so profound!

So, if I tell somebody that they
made me angry or hurt my
feelings, it’s not true! It’s
my thinking about what they
said or didn’t say, or did or didn’t
do, that makes me angry or
hurts my feelings.

I can choose to be right and justified in
my anger and hurt, and keep believing my thought,
or I can choose to be happy and at
peace by exploring and investigating
my thought. The question then becomes,
“Would I rather be right, or happy and at peace?”

Continuing the Journey with Your Emotions

Something that I say a lot is to allow yourself to feel your emotions. When I say that, I don’t mean to then park and live there. I don’t mean to hang on to them with all your might. There’s always an ebb and flow of emotions moving through us if we’ll allow it.

I know that I have a tendency to get angry with someone or something and then build my case for being angry. Then, once I have my case firmly built, I can comfortably and very righteously LIVE in that place of anger. While that’s very human, it’s not particularly healthy or growth oriented.

It’s much healthier to notice my gripe with that person or thing, recognize that I feel angry and that I’m in the process of building my case to deserve to feel angry and STOP THE PROCESS THERE AND REDIRECT IT. Rather than creating Angry Land where I can live ‘happily’ ever after, I can start to get at the truth around my anger by being curious about it. This curiousness allows me to naturally and healthfully move through the emotion. (Again, it’s not that it’s wrong or bad to feel the emotion, but I don’t want to park or live there. All emotions are intended to flow.)

There are lots of ways I can be curious about my emotion. I can look at my physical body, my thoughts or my actions. When I notice that I feel angry, I can ask myself where the anger shows up in my body. What am I actually feeling in my body to even know that I’m angry? Is my jaw clenched or my stomach tight? Have I experienced this before, and if so, when?

Once I’ve explored my physical feelings, I can be curious about my thoughts. What thoughts are going through my head while my body is feeling this way? “I can’t believe she did this to me again! It’s the fourth time! How long am I going to put up with this? I shouldn’t be such a wimp!” Blah, blah, blah, blah blah… If I allow myself to get that far, I’m well into my story.

By that point I’ve built what feels like really strong justification for my anger. The beautiful part of this is that there are probably some very interesting things I can learn about myself if I pause and investigate these thoughts. It can be helpful to ask myself what I am really angry with her for. Another thing to be curious about is what I may be angry with myself for. How have I been making myself angry? And, what do I get out of being angry with myself or with her? (I wouldn’t engage in the behavior if there wasn’t some payoff in it for me.)

I can also explore my actions and reactions. How do I react when I’m angry with her ~ what do I think, say and do? How does it make me feel to react this way? What action can I take, what can I do, to experience some relief around this situation?

All of this questioning and being curious allows me to float freely through my emotions instead of getting stuck or bogged down in one emotion because of how justified I believe I am to feel that way. (I know I’m right, and you know I’m right. Remember my story about it? It proves I’m right!) That’s what feeling your emotions is all about: acknowledging what you feel when you feel it, consciously dwelling there as you explore it and lovingly allowing yourself to flow through the emotion. Feeling your emotions, being curious about them and moving through them is an alternative to building a solid case for how you’re right to feel what you feel and walling yourself in with this case so that you can cling to and wallow in that emotion seemingly forever.

Call to Action: Where are you stuck in some ‘negative’ emotion like fear, anger, resentment or worry? What story or case have you built to support your right to be there? What might be available to you if you started to be curious about it all instead of being so committed to being right to feel that way?

Remember: Allowing yourself to feel your emotions and recognizing what you’re feeling is a great first step. To continue on your path of growth, next become curious about your feelings and compassionately investigate them rather than building a case for how right you are. Be open to seeing the whole situation differently, through new eyes, and you’re well on the road to lasting peace and joy.

What Are Your Actions Telling You?

I've noticed that I have a pattern. I say that I'm committed to something, but then I take actions that actually head me in the opposite direction of what I claim to desire. My eating is a good example. I've been saying that I want to eat better by incorporating more fruits and vegetables into my diet and yet not eating more calories overall. But what I've been doing isn't that at all! I have done a pretty good job of eating more fruits and veggies. The 'problem' if you will is that I'm also eating more calories over all. There's a line from the movie The Kindergarten Cop where Arnold Schwarzenegger's fellow undercover police officer is sick as a dog from eating everything but the kitchen sink. She says something to the effect of, "It couldn't have been the nuts. It couldn't have been the tomato juice. It couldn't have been the potato chips. It couldn't have been the grapes. It couldn't have been the candy bar. It couldn't have been the pizza ... (that made her sick)." That's how I recognize I frequently feel after dinner. Yes, I ate fruits and veggies, but what about all the other junk I threw in on top of my dinner?

The end result is that I end up worrying about my eating going berserk while I do it anyway. As my niece would say, "Is that insane, or what?" Well, I'm always claiming that recognition is the first step and it's true. Now that I've recognized this insane behavior, I can choose to investigate it if I want. What I notice instantly when I investigate this eating pattern is that I feel anxious, ashamed, out of integrity, uncomfortably full and unsettled when I engage in it. I also feel disappointed in myself and my lack of progress toward leading a healthier lifestyle. Then, I get frustrated and I want to give up.

Does any of this sound familiar to you regarding some area of your life? It's not something unique to eating. It could be that you do this type of thing pertaining to your spending, or to your organizing, or to your working. Maybe you say that you want to save a certain amount of money each month, but then you fail to do so. Or perhaps you desire a decluttered home, but each evening and weekend finds you parked in front of the TV or out running around. It could be that you say you have a work goal you'd like to achieve and rather than planning out steps to take to achieve that goal, you spend time socializing with your coworkers.

The point of all of this is that our actions always speak louder than our words. Saying that I want one thing and taking actions that oppose that show me that I'm more committed to something else. To continue the investigation of my eating pattern, I asked myself, "What am I more committed to?" I'm more committed to instant gratification and to eating what I want when I want. (Don't tell me what to do! : ) The issue with this is that that kind of commitment nets me the same results ~ poorer health and uncomfortable feelings. The good news is that I get to choose the decisions that I make. I can choose differently if I'd like to experience different outcomes.

What can I do to help myself make different choices? Is there an action I can take or one I can stop taking that would make it easier for me to remember what I choose to head toward? Might it help if I posted a note in the kitchen that reminded me that health and wellness are a choice? Or would I benefit from not waiting until so late to eat so that I'm not as hungry once dinner rolls around? Maybe I want to journal about what I get out of eating whatever I want whenever I want. The possibilities are endless.

Call to Action: Pick one area in which you say you want one thing but your actions indicate that you're currently more committed to something else. Choose to pay attention to how you feel when you're engaging in one of the behaviors that leads you away from your stated goal. What thoughts go through your head? What are you more committed to than achieving your goal? Would you rather stay comfortable by doing what you've always done than risk changing? Finally, ask yourself what action you can take this week to help yourself make different choices. Do you need to enlist someone to help hold you accountable? Commit to taking whatever action comes up for you.

Remember: The truth is that your actions speak louder than your words. If you think or say that you want one thing but you keep taking actions that lead you away from that, you're really telling yourself what you're more committed to. Are you willing to investigate it? That's the first step toward change. Have fun!

More Smiles ~ August 2008

Whose Business Are You Minding?

Everything is all about me in that it’s my thoughts that either torment me or bring me peace. I’m always telling myself and the people with whom I work, to focus on themselves. On the surface this sounds narcissistic, but it’s not. It’s responsible.

Basically, all your complaints about other people and events are really advice being given by you, to you. Recognizing this truth is quite liberating. Once you realize and accept this you can start to be curious about your thoughts and statements. When I’m thinking or saying, “She needs to clean up her yard,” it’s really my inner wisdom telling me something to compassionately take a look at within my own life. Maybe my lawn is immaculate so it isn’t true for me that I need to take better care of my yard. Then, I can ask myself, “What do I need to take better care of?” What have I been neglecting? Are my finances a mess? Do I fail to get appropriate amounts of exercise? Am I a workaholic?

In my view, no matter what person, situation or event I’m looking at in my life, it always comes down to the same thing. I have to do my own work in order to experience lasting peace and joy. By my own work, I mean that I always have to focus on myself, be curious about my own thoughts and emotions, or as the author Byron Katie says ‘mind my own business’.

According to Katie, with every thought I am either minding my own business, somebody else’s business or God’s business. (I’m not saying that you need to believe in God, nor is Katie. By ‘God’s business’, all that is meant is things that are out of everyone’s control. Feel free to believe in God or not.) When I’m thinking, “She needs to get out and have some fun, they shouldn’t yell, or he needs to keep me informed,” I’m minding somebody else’s business. On the other hand, when I’m thinking, “This drought needs to end or Hudson shouldn’t have autism,” I’m minding God’s business.

Whenever I’m worrying about anything other than my own business, I’m blocking myself from much growth and learning and creating anxiety and discomfort within myself to boot. Remember, everything is all about me in that it’s my thoughts that either torment me or bring me peace. So, to both experience lasting peace and joy and to grow spiritually and emotionally, my focus needs to be on my own business. Whose business are you minding?

Call to Action: Notice when you’re in somebody else’s business. Are you thinking how irresponsible your friend is because of all of their debt? Should there be no war? Do you wish that your neighbor would take better care of their pet? Are you worrying about dying? Should your parent, partner, friend, child or co-worker do what you ask them to do? All of these are examples of minding somebody else’s business. When you catch yourself, ask yourself how this thought is true about you in your own life. Do so compassionately. Rather than beating yourself up and making yourself wrong, be curious about yourself and your thoughts.

Remember: When you are focusing on yourself and your thoughts, the goal isn’t to blame or shame yourself. The intention is to be curious about what you are thinking and to recognize whether the thoughts torment you or bring you peace. You are either questioning your thoughts in a search for truth and subsequent peace or you are blindly accepting and believing your thoughts and holding on to being right. Which are you more committed to ~ being right or being curious about the truth?

What Are You Making of Life?

I had a really unusual day last week. My car broke down, and that was a surprise because it had been running perfectly. But, the owner at the business I was at was so incredibly nice! She let me use her phone and phone book to call AAA, gave me pen and paper to write the info down, and offered me a bottle of water while I waited. She even asked me to bring in business cards and display them at her business!

AAA got there really fast, and my car was running in no time. I had called my dealership to see if they could get me in to service it, but no luck. So, I called another garage and they said they could fit me right in. They looked at my car and quickly determined that I needed more work than we had anticipated. (It turns out that my alternator had gone bad and taken my battery with it. You always have to watch who you hang out with! ; ) But, they both had an alternator and the time to do the work. I gave them the go ahead.

It was getting pretty late in the day by then, and I hadn’t had any lunch. So, I walked to a nearby restaurant, which happens to be my FAVORITE restaurant in town. They were closed until dinnertime when they’d reopen. But, they offered to make me lunch anyway! Shortly after I finished my delicious to-go meal, the garage called to let me know that my car was done.

It was so strange! Every time something went ‘wrong’, something else related to that followed immediately that was so ‘right’. It just feels like further proof to me that the good stuff is always there if we’re open to it and look for it. (On that day I didn’t have to look hard at all to see it. The ‘good’ stuff was always so blatantly staring me in the face.)

I’m thinking that it’s always true that the ‘good’ stuff exists in every situation, even those that seem the darkest and bleakest. One of the most touching and beautiful experiences of my life happened as a result of and almost immediately on the heels of my dad’s death. My sister and niece, Lily, had flown into town shortly before dad passed. The two of them and my step mom were staying at our house. The night that dad died, none of us slept well. I know I was numb from the shock of it all since he had been healthy and well only hours earlier, and assume that everyone else felt that way too ~ except my niece who was too young to know what was going on.

Anyway, all of us adults ended up awake and prowling the house in the middle of the night. Not knowing what else to do, we sat down to have some tea. As the four of us sat at the dining room table drinking tea and watching dawn approach, we heard Lily stirring in the other room. My sister immediately moved to go and get her, but my partner looked longingly in that direction. My sister told my partner she could go and get Lily and at that moment, the four of us realized we all wanted to go together. So we did.

Once we got in the bedroom, we gathered around the bed where Lily was laying smiling and cooing. We all touched her, stroked her and spoke comforting and reassuring things to her. She looked at each of us and made happy noises back. In that moment, I experienced such profound joy and connection. We wouldn’t have all been together, just the five of us women, without Dad’s death.

I am profoundly grateful for the experience. Once again, I believe it reinforces the notion that nothing is inherently good or bad. It’s all what we make of it. True, nothing had changed regarding Dad’s death. He was still physically gone. I still felt huge loss. But the loss was somehow more bearable now, its edges weren’t as pointed and hard and unyielding as they had been only minutes before. The grace and light of our shared connection as we gathered around Lily and she reminded me that as Dad always used to say, “Life is good,” had softened the intensity of my grief.

Call to action: Where are you only looking at and for what’s wrong? Can you find any beauty in the person, event or situation? Are you willing to open your mind, thoughts and beliefs and try?

Remember: Nothing is inherently good or bad. Everything simply IS. We frequently torture ourselves with our repetitive negative thoughts about a person, situation or event. It doesn’t have to be that way. You have the power to change what you focus on. It’s up to you to do things differently. Nobody else can do it for you.

More Smiles ~ July 2008

Do You Feel Challenged to Receive?

I’ve been doing a lot of receiving in my life lately. I injured my leg earlier this week and have received quite a bit of help ~ getting to the doctor, having doors held open and having things brought to me. Plus my birthday was this past week so I've received many cards, well wishes and gifts. What I’ve recognized is that receiving can be difficult for me.

Webster’s dictionary defines receiving as taking into one’s possession, having something bestowed or conferred, to be burdened with, to accept from another, to meet with or experience and to greet or welcome. Reading that definition, I noticed that I have a tendency to view receiving as a burden.

You can receive all kinds of wonderful things. You can receive support, gifts, touch, news, help, people, money, titles, compliments, love, prayers and degrees. But just because these things are offered, does that mean that they’re received? I don’t think so. I think a person has to be open to receiving. If they’re viewing receiving as something bad, like my viewing it as a burden for example, they’re much less likely to do their part and actually accept whatever is being offered. Or at least they probably won’t accept it eagerly and graciously. I’m reminded of a quote from the book Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar, “Before you are able to receive … you have to be open to it; a bottle with its cap screwed on tightly cannot be filled with water no matter how much water we try to pour into it or how often we try – the water simply runs down the sides, never filling it.”

I think it’s easy to be like that bottle with the lid screwed on. It can be very scary to receive. It’s not uncommon to wonder what you might be obligated or expected to do in return, or if you can ever somehow repay the giver. For me this is a learned response. I don’t have any memory of it being difficult to receive when I was a kid.

In truth, it’s an honor to receive. Giving is one way that people show that they care, that they love you or that you are important to them. Giving and graciously accepting or receiving what is given connects us to one another. It’s a way to spread love. If you screw your cap on tightly and don’t receive what is given, you cut yourself off from living a richer, more fulfilling life.

So really, receiving, like everything else in life, is what you make it. Do you view receiving as something negative and worry about your proper response? Or do you view receiving as something positive and feel grateful for the love and connection that are being shared? Are you looking for what’s wrong or for what’s right? And does your response change based on what’s being offered? Is it hard or easy to receive a compliment, money, support, touch or a favor?

Call to Action: Pay attention to how you view receiving. What might be available to you if you focused on the positives associated with the receiving instead of on the negatives, if you gave yourself permission to simply accept, feel grateful and move on with no strings, ‘shoulds’ or obligations attached? What thoughts and feelings go through your mind and body when you give or receive something? Do you make one ‘better’ than the other, giving versus receiving? Is one ‘right’ and one ‘wrong’ in your mind? How do you block receiving or screw your cap on tightly?

Remember: Everything is whatever we make it. Neither giving nor receiving is inherently bad. If you’ve been struggling with one or the other, you can choose to change your thinking around it.

Who or What Are You Blaming for How You Feel?

I have this recurring theme in my life where I blame other people for the problems in my life, for who I am, for the decisions I make, etc. It’s never true though. I always control myself. Nobody else ever controls me. It’s a nice way for me to play the victim when I act like it’s not me; it’s not my fault; he, she, they made me feel this way or think, say or do it; etc. The truth always is, always was, and always will be, though that each of us can only control one thing ~ ourselves. We each control our own thoughts, words and actions. Period. Nobody else controls us. We control ourselves. And often equally mind boggling and painful ~ we don’t control anybody else.

It’s true, what other people think, say and do can influence our thoughts, words and actions. But, we always control ourselves. This tendency to blame others is so insidious! Lots of times, I have no clue that that belief (it’s somebody else’s fault) is what’s behind my pain, hurt or suffering. This tendency to play the victim goes hand in hand with not accepting what is or the way things are.

The way it works is that I believe what somebody else thought, said or did caused me to think, say or do something. I believe that whatever it is I thought, said or did was wrong. I feel unhappy about what transpired. In short, I don’t accept or am not at peace with what has happened or is happening. I’m making something or somebody wrong and nine times out of ten it isn’t me.

Let me give you an example. My dad left and my parents divorced when I was in elementary school. I then went into ‘I have to fix it’ mode and tried to care for everyone in my immediate family and make everything okay. As a result, I deprived myself of much of my childhood by trying to take care of my mom, my brothers and our house and yard. I’ve believed for years that I did that (went into ‘I have to fix it’ mode) because my dad left (read, ‘It’s his fault!'). I’ve also believed that it was wrong for me to have had less of a childhood. So, I’ve felt miserable not only about my dad leaving but also about my childhood.

The truth is that I honestly don’t know if I would have deprived myself of a carefree childhood if my dad hadn’t left. There’s absolutely no way for me to know with certainty what might have transpired if that had all played out differently. Even thinking that I could be wrong about this long held belief feels very threatening to me. It threatens my core story ~ my dad shouldn’t have left ~ and takes away my major opportunity for victimhood. I feel very comfortable being a victim. I learned to feel like a victim in childhood, have practiced it all my life and now it feels like a well worn pair of jeans. Like a really comfy pair of old holey jeans, I really am not at all sure that I want to get rid of my victimhood.

I mean, who am I without this story? MY STORY? It’s like I have to rewrite history ~ rewrite who I am. And so many subplots are drastically altered by my letting go of this comfortable and comforting story. (You might very well ask how it could possibly feel comforting to me to be miserable all my life and to blame my dad for that misery and the answer is, “That means I’m right!” At this point, it’s much more important for me to be right about this than it is for me to step out of my victimhood. Or is it? If it weren’t time for me to step out of acting like a victim, I don’t believe I’d be having the realizations and understandings around this that I’m currently having. You know, it’s sort of that ‘When the student is ready, the teacher appears,’ or in this case, ‘When the individual is ready, the realization dawns,’ scenario.)

Again, the truth is that I don’t control anybody else. All I control is my own thoughts, words and actions. In other words, I only control my own reactions to what is happening in my life. So, if I’m miserable about something IT’S MY REACTION THAT IS MAKING ME MISERABLE. My reaction consists of my thoughts, words and actions around whatever is transpiring or has transpired. If I feel angry about whatever is going on, you can be sure that I’m thinking angry thoughts, using angry words and/or taking angry actions. None of this is to say that I’m wrong or unjustified in feeling angry. On the contrary, this is all to say that I’m the one controlling how I feel. Not some other person. Not the situation. I CONTROL MYSELF.

While this is hard to swallow, it’s also very empowering. If I can come to accept this truth, I take my power back. Okay, so if it’s my doing that I feel angry, hurt and victimized by my dad’s leaving all those years ago and if it’s my doing that I went into ‘I have to fix it’ mode, then it’s my doing that I didn't enjoy some of my childhood.

Can I still choose to feel angry, hurt and victimized by what I did and now take responsibility for? Absolutely! Do I choose to? No, I no longer choose to feel angry, hurt and victimized by what transpired. It no longer serves me. By this I mean that it keeps me trapped in a place of sad feelings. I now knowingly choose to shift out of that place. I now choose to accept that I control myself, I always have controlled myself and I always will control myself. To believe anything else or to act like what I feel is somebody else’s fault is a lie. Plain and simple.

What this means is that if I’m in a mood that I no longer wish to stay in, I can choose to change my thoughts, words and actions in order to shift out of that place. It always comes down to first of all recognizing that I don’t like where I am emotionally, secondly owning that I’m the one that put me there, thirdly being willing to start thinking, speaking and acting differently and fourthly actually doing so ~ consistently thinking, speaking and acting differently. This is not necessarily easy. If it were, everybody would be doing it.

But, there are many tools to help you shift into higher mood states like joy and peace. Once you learn them and practice them, it becomes easier in time to shift when you want to. If you’re interested in learning a technique to help you think, speak and act differently, attend my Peace Workshop on August 23rd. E-mail me at Jill@AltmanLifeCoaching.com to learn more or to sign up for the workshop.

More Smiles ~ June 2008

Can It Really Be This Easy?

So often there’s something in my life that I don’t like and that I wish would change. How I spend the bulk of my free time is one such thing. A simple truth that I tend to forget though is that the person who wants the change has to be the person to make the change. Couple this with the certainty that, ‘If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten,’ and you have the recipe to change your life forever and for the better.

I can sit around until the day I die waiting for how I spend my free time to just magically change form (which it’s very unlikely to do if all I’m doing is wishing for it to change) or I can determine what I want my free time to look like and then start taking steps in that direction right now. As long as I’m consistent in taking steps toward that vision, I’ll eventually turn it into my reality, even if my steps are baby ones.

Unfortunately, my tendency is to believe that I’m not the one that decides how I spend my time, free or otherwise. This belief is a lie though. It’s a great way to act like a victim, but the truth is, I always get to do exactly what I want to do. If I don’t take the time to figure out what it is I want to do, it’s nobody else’s fault.

So, the truth is that I always get to do exactly what I want to do. How empowering! In each moment, I get to weigh my options and determine my best course of action given what’s important to me and what my vision for my life is. This goes so far as to include what I think and believe. I always get to think and believe whatever I want to think and believe. I have choice ~ in everything. If I don’t like where I am or where my past thoughts, words and actions have landed me, all I have to do is change them.

At this point, you might be asking yourself if it can really be this easy. The answer is ‘yes’. I think many of us are so unconscious of acting like we’re a victim in this way and that in all honesty we chart the course for our lives, that it seems impossible that to change we simply need to make different decisions, think different thoughts, say different things and take different actions.

Call to Action: What’s one thing in your life that you’d really like to see change? How long have you been waiting for it to ‘magically’ alter itself? Are you willing to take responsibility for the fact that you created this in your life and that you can change it by taking actions that you’re not accustomed to taking regularly? What’s one small positive thing that you can do differently starting today or this week to create a shift in some area of your life that’s less than ideal? Are you prepared to commit to taking that action and then to actually take it?

Remember: Regardless of how impossible it seems that you really do have choice about everything in your life, you do. Consequently, you did create the situations you’re experiencing that are less than ideal. The only question then is, “Are you ready to own the situation and actively do something to change it?”

What Are You Looking At?

I was talking with my hair stylist today and she basically said that everybody was driving her nuts. (It didn’t help that she has recently quit smoking. : ) But for example, her kids are making messes everywhere and it’s driving her bananas! So, I asked her where she has messes in her life. She looked at me sort of quizzically until I told her that whatever she can see in somebody else is also a part of her.

“Huh?” she said.

Look, if you can see messes in somebody else’s life and those messes really have you emotionally stirred up (meaning that you’re not simply informed by them but you’re passionate about them) you’ve got it going on in your own life too. So I asked her if she’s got clutter someplace, is carrying around grudges and resentments from her childhood or has some communication that needs to be cleaned up (something she needs to say to somebody but she hasn’t said it), because those are all examples of messes somebody could have in their life. Suddenly I could see the understanding dawn in her.

What can be even harder to accept though is that if you see something beautiful in somebody else, like generosity for instance, and you’re really charged or emotional about it, you’ve got that in your own life. Say what? If you just are in such awe of somebody because of some fabulous quality they have, you’ve got it too. You can’t see it or recognize it in somebody else if it’s not already in you. (Okay, the truth is we all actually have every quality both ‘good’ and ‘bad’. That’s too much for me to go into right here, so read Debbie Ford’s book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, for an in-depth explanation of it.) Back to my point. I think the author and poet Maya Angelou is one of the most brilliant women ever. I’m very emotional about it. I mean I just love her. Well, I know it’s even harder to believe it or ‘own it’ about good stuff than it is about bad stuff, but I couldn’t see brilliance in her if I didn’t have some going on someplace in my life. It’s true. I’m brilliant. ; )

So here’s the thing, whenever something really has you wound up and you’re really angry about it for example, stop. Take your focus off of whoever or whatever situation has you riled. Look around your own life and see where you have that same type of thing going on. You’ll eventually find it if you’re really open to seeing how you’ve been operating and committed to starting to change the way you think, speak and act.

Keeping your focus outside of yourself and on what somebody else should or shouldn’t be doing or on how some situation should be different in order to make your life better, just keeps you stuck and playing a victim. If you’re tired of continuing to create in your life what you’ve always created, bring your focus onto how that quality or situation that has you riled exists in you. Then start doing something differently from how you’ve been doing it. I promise you you’ll start to feel less emotionally charged by whatever had been going on.

Does this mean you’ll now tolerate the kids making messes everywhere and never cleaning up after themselves? No, it means that now you’ll be informed by their messes instead of ready to scream and yell and throw things in order to get them to clean up the messes. Now you’ll be able to be curious and more rational about their messes and calmly let them know the expected behavior without shaming them and making them wrong. You can approach the situation from peace and love instead of from judgment and anger.

Call to action: Try it. The next time you hear yourself going on and on to your spouse, partner or friend about some situation where somebody else is all wrong, stop. Turn your attention to yourself. Ask yourself where you do that same thing in your own life, where you have done it or how or where you could be driven to do it. Notice how recognizing that your upset is really about how you’re like that in your own life starts to release the pressure around the situation. It’s really not about that external situation or other person so much as it’s about you. That’s a HUGE insight in and of itself.

Remember: If some person or situation has you emotionally charged, it’s really mostly about you. Are you willing to ‘bust’ yourself and take the time to see how and where you are that way? It’s guaranteed to bring you more peace. Try it and then share your experience on this blog.

Where Do You Ask And Then Fail To Act?

For years now there has been quite a buzz about the book The Secret. I love both the book and the movie. They have lots of valuable information in them. You do get what you focus on. Our thoughts do produce our reality. I believe that and I’ve seen it happen time and again in my own life. It’s the notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think about driving that new BMW, feel the emotions of actually being out there doing it, and see yourself joyously cruising along behind the wheel and there’s a good chance that you’ll end up having a new BMW in your life at some point.

My ‘gripe’, if you will, about The Secret is twofold: 1. Visualization like that described above is only part of the equation. 2. The Secret emphasizes things or material stuff.

My experience has been that visualization without action is simply daydreaming or fantasizing. To move something out of the ‘dream’ category, I need to be taking action to bring it about. It’s as if The Secret encourages me to be irresponsible and a victim. “Well, I really want a new BMW, but the Universe hasn’t seen fit to give it to me. So, I’ll keep visualizing.” It feels disempowering and incomplete. I believe that it’s missing the part where I take action.

At some point, we have to do more than just ask for something or declare our intentions. We have to act. A friend asked me recently, “If 10 birds are sitting on a wire and 9 decide to fly off, how many birds are left on the wire?” The answer is 10. Nine birds simply decided to fly off. They never actually did so. So, The Secret feels like the deciding part to me. It’s a great first step.

My second concern with The Secret is that it’s focused on material things. Don’t get me wrong, I love nice stuff. Ask anybody who knows me. I live well and I enjoy it. Quite honestly though, I believe that misses the entire point of our existence. In my world view, we are love. We are here solely to express and share the love that we are.

When I’m focused on stuff I’m not generally paying attention to spreading or sharing love. I can be. I mean if somebody is without food, clothing or shelter and I help provide that for them, that’s both loving and focused on things. But if I were to say we have a ‘problem’ in the United States it’s that we’re so caught up in stuff. Certainly things are one measure of success or abundance. But for most of my life, I allowed my focus on things to distract me from my real purpose ~ loving and sharing my love with myself and others. It’s much easier to focus outside myself and on things. Ultimately though, that doesn’t bring me lasting happiness. When I focus instead on being honest with myself and others, taking actions that are self-loving (like taking time for reflection or eating well), and being grateful and responsible, then I grow and learn, and feel happier and more fulfilled.

What I’m saying then, is that in my view The Secret is a great jumping off point. It can inspire somebody to feel passionate about changing their life or helping others lead better lives. Inspiration and passion are fabulous motivators. They’re a big part of the puzzle, but without being coupled with action, it’s like owning a sports car but having no fuel. It’s nice to look at, but you don’t get anywhere very fast. Plus, if I don’t much like myself and am spending the bulk of my time doing things I don’t enjoy, a sports car, with or without fuel, isn’t going to bring me lasting happiness or fulfillment. In my estimation, looking within, at my own thoughts and beliefs, is more important. That’s how I can come to love myself more and more, which then enables me to share that love with others.

Call to action: Where are you simply wishing for something and then sitting back and waiting for it to magically happen? Are you willing to take some small action towards bringing it into your life today or this week? For example, do you desire a closer relationship with a family member, but you’re not making any effort to see them or connect with them in a meaningful way?

Remember: It is always true that the person who wants the change has to be the person to make the change. If there’s something that you want to be different in your life, it’s up to you to create it through your thoughts, words and actions. They all need to be in alignment with one another. If any one of the three, your thoughts, words or actions, is pointing in some other direction, your ability to manifest what you desire will be severely hampered.

"Will the real me please stand up?"

The other morning I was so struck by how beautifully connected we all are. It’s as if there are countless fine silver threads connecting our every thought one to the other, both within one person and between people. With many of our thoughts, words and actions we have no idea what their repercussions are. When we get a chance to glimpse the effects they have on people and how those feelings of love, peace and acceptance are passed along it is truly inspiring.

We really do never know the far reaching effects of everything we think, say and do. So often I find myself holding back, not sharing who I really am, or what I really think because of my fear of what somebody else might think of me. You know what? Who am I not to share who I really am or what I really think? How many people will continue to believe that they can’t speak up because ‘they’re the only ones like this’? Or that they can’t engage in some nurturing activity because it would be wrong? By my sharing authentically myself, by being myself, I give others permission to do the same, to be themselves. I show them that it’s not only SAFE, but also rewarding. Sharing who I really am and what I really think ‘pays off’ in big ways. That is how I connect with somebody else. That is how we learn that we think differently or disagree on an issue, but that that’s okay.

The intention in being myself and saying what I really feel isn’t to get somebody else to be my clone so that they think, speak and act as I do. The intention in being myself is being known as myself. The intention is also that I come to know myself as I really am. We all cover up who we really are out of fear that we won’t be liked. The truth is, when we do that WHO is it that the other person is coming to like? It certainly isn’t us! We’ve covered us up so completely that even we have trouble finding our true or authentic selves.

Back to my original point. When we don’t bother to learn who we really are and then aren’t courageous enough to share that person with the world, we’re robbing the world of our gifts. So often the things we’re trying so hard to hide are exactly the things that people most love about us, and the way that they most connect with us, because those things make us unique and show that we’re human, or approachable, too.

When I can tell somebody is being fake or just telling me what I want to hear, my guard goes up instantly. I suddenly feel like I’m dealing with a phone solicitor or door to door salesman. My internal gate closes, the lights turn off and no connection occurs. I wonder what they want from me, and on some level, I don’t trust them.

On the other hand, when somebody shares what they really think and who they really are, whether I agree or not, at least I’m getting to know them. A connection forms. We begin to understand one another whether or not we believe identical things or have similar likes. Our oneness is recognized.

So, in an effort to feel safe, I have found that I frequently haven’t shared who I really am or what I really think. It no longer serves me. It doesn’t move me forward or help me to become the supportive, accepting and compassionate person that I am. I therefore am consciously choosing to watch for that guarded behavior within myself and to be open and authentic instead. It can be difficult. I’ve hidden myself since I was a child. This ‘coming out’ is new to me and as such, I’ll stumble. That’s okay though. What matters is my intention. I intend to be myself, and to pay attention to when I’m not being myself and to what excuse I’m using for not doing so. Not only does this behavior keep others from knowing the real me, it keeps me from knowing the real me.

Call to action: What beautiful part of yourself have you been hiding? Do you love to draw but think you’re ‘not good enough’? Is playing something that delights you but you ‘simply don’t have the time’ and besides ‘what would people think’? Do you thrive when creating things with your hands but deny yourself that pleasure? Will you commit to allowing yourself to engage in the beautiful self-loving activity that you yearn to do this week, and then actually take that action?

Remember: It takes courage to be yourself, especially when you think that somebody else may judge you as not good enough, bad or wrong for it. Your true, loving, compassionate self deserves to be shared and heard. Are you courageous enough to share it?

More Smiles ~ May 2008

Do You Sabotage Your Own Happiness by Trying to Please Others?

We’re taught from the time we’re young to do what it takes to please others, especially authority figures in our lives like parents, teachers and society. Don Miguel Ruiz in his book, The Four Agreements, calls it our domestication. Just like animals, we are punished when we fail to do as we’re asked or told and rewarded when we do as we’re asked or told.

As a child in particular, this conditioning serves to keep us safe as well as to teach us society’s rules. “Stay with Mommy,” or “Take Daddy’s hand as we cross the street,” potentially prevent us from getting lost or becoming injured. So, not only does adhering to the desired behavior please those around us, it also keeps us safe. Clearly then, this is a good thing.

It can become problematic though if we begin to believe that our actions are responsible for Mommy or Daddy’s happiness. When we think we control or contribute to somebody else’s well being or peace of mind we may start consciously or unconsciously trying to manage their emotions through our actions. Before we recognize what’s happened, we may be moving through our days and our lives in a constant state of low grade anxiety as we perpetually seek to do or say whatever will make those whose opinions we value happy.

At that point, what had been a self-loving action of staying safe while crossing the street as a child becomes a self-sabotaging action of people-pleasing. When we’re people-pleasing, our own needs are frequently never considered. Or even more sadly, they’re considered and then dismissed as unimportant. We believe we don’t matter. It’s irrelevant what we need to do in order to stay within our own integrity or to be authentic. The only thing that matters is the ‘greater good’.

I’m not saying that we should be narcissistic and do whatever we want, whenever we want at the expense of all others. On the contrary, I’m suggesting that “to thine own self be true”. Your truth could involve selfless hours of hard work for the benefit of your family, a friend or a charitable organization.

The difference between having something that you do that pleases somebody else be self-loving or people-pleasing (self-sabotaging) is, I believe, the motivation or intention behind your action. Are you motivated to have the whole family over to your house for the holiday meal because it invigorates you and you find it fulfilling or rewarding? Or are you having them all over because you believe you should or you must? It’s what somebody somewhere would want or tell you to do…

Contrary to what many of us, especially women, have been taught, being honest about our desires isn’t selfish behavior. This is authentic behavior. If you think, feel or mean ‘no’, you don’t say ‘yes’. Who would you rather interact with ~ the person who smiles and says they’d be glad to water your plants for you while you’re on vacation and then tells all your neighbors what a chore you are (because they really didn’t want to care for your plants), or the person who honestly replies, “I won’t be able to do that for you. Have you tried John’s son across the street? I know he’s been doing things like that to earn some spending money this summer.”

Call to Action: The next time you get ready to do something and recognize a feeling of resentment, disappointment or anger accompanying it, ask yourself what’s motivating you to take that action. Who are you trying to please? Have you asked yourself what you really want and what would be a really loving thing for you to do for yourself?

Remember: No matter how many aspirin you take, you can’t make somebody else’s headache go away. None of us can make somebody else happy. We can only make ourselves happy. One way you can make yourself happy is by showing yourself that you matter to yourself. Each time you ask yourself what you want and need in order to be self-loving and then follow through with that action you’re declaring to yourself that you are important too and do matter. As Debbie Ford says in her book, The Right Questions, “How we feel about ourselves now is a result of all the choices we have made in the past. So if you don’t like the way you feel about yourself, you have the power to change it.” Start today.

Do You Also Fail to Trust in This Way?

Something that’s been coming up for me in my journaling, thoughts, and conversations a lot this past week or so is not knowing ‘why’. Knowing that I need to take some action in order to stay within my integrity, and not knowing ‘why’ makes me bananas! I feel like I always have to have all the answers. Then, when I don’t know ‘why’, I hesitate to take the action even if it’s my soul’s desire or what my heart craves. Instead, I sit on the fence, hemming and hawing. And let me tell you, my fence sitting is never comfortable because they’re always picket fences!

Eventually, I give in and do what my soul directs me to do in order to stay within my integrity, even though I don’t know ‘why’. I’ve recognized that my next hurdle is frequently “Okay, how?” followed by more fence sitting on those damn pickets!

What I’m coming to understand though is that neither the why nor the how matter in the least. Sure, they’d be fun to know, but they truly are irrelevant. What matters, and I’d maintain it’s the only thing that matters, is being willing to take whatever action has come up. Period. I get to turn it into some big production by deliberating and stressing over the why and the how for days or weeks or years, but ultimately, both how and why are unimportant.

I believe that someone in the movie, The Moses Code, said something to the effect of 'the only thing that matters is your willingness to go there, to take the action. The reason for this is that you aren’t called to do something because you’re ready and already fully equipped to do it. You’re called to do something because you’re willing to do it and will grow into it. You’ll learn the skills you need to achieve whatever scares you the most, whatever you’re called to do, in each moment as you say ‘yes’ to the task at hand.'

This is so exactly what I experienced when I decided that it was time to hike the Appalachian Trail. I had known for years that it was something that my heart desired. In fact, it just felt like something I was supposed to do. I perched precariously on that fence for the longest time though. Why was I supposed to do it, and how could I possibly make it happen since it would require that I quit my job, leave my family and live alone in the woods for over six months? Ultimately, none of those questions really mattered. The only purpose the questioning served in this instance was to keep me stuck and not taking action.

The instant that my partner and I agreed that we could make it happen (Read, “The moment I said I was willing to go there,”), things just started falling into place. I called the only person I knew who had completed a hike of the Appalachian Trail, Jean Deeds, author of There Are Mountains to Climb, and she not only returned my call but connected me with another local woman who had completed the trail numerous times, Carol Barnes. With Carol’s generous help, I learned how to reduce my pack weight so that it would take less of a toll on my joints. (I’d be carrying in a pack on my back everything I needed to survive in the wilderness alone for over 2000 miles. Every ounce mattered.)

And on it went. As each question would come up, the answer would appear seemingly by magic. I now know that this was Divine Right Timing at work. I didn’t need the information before, so I didn’t have it. As each hurdle presented itself, the perfect person and or solution would arrive. Almost before I knew what had happened, the time was upon me, and I was leaving to hike from Georgia to Maine by myself.

I’m always telling my clients that recognition is the first step to change. First we have to be curious enough to recognize what we’re thinking, saying and doing. Then we can endeavor to change it if we so desire. Well, I’ve just recognized this pattern that I have of resisting taking actions unless I know the ‘why’ behind them. Now that I’m conscious of the behavior and how uncomfortable it makes me to sit on those picket fences, I can consciously choose different behaviors. It’s a lovely and empowering place to be! Not surprisingly then, I like this new awareness. I enjoy consciously choosing my behaviors instead of gliding along on auto pilot like some character out of Dawn of the Living Dead, or like a cow following the herd.

You know, ultimately I did learn both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of my desire to hike the Appalachian Trail, and it felt great to know. It wasn’t until about six months after I returned from successfully completing my hike that I learned the ‘why’ of it. (That’s a completely different story though and will have to wait for another time.) I learned the ‘how’ of it each step of the way as it all gloriously unfolded.

I guess the moral of all of this is that sometimes you have to be willing to go where your heart leads you even though you don’t know why or how. In short, to honor your heart you frequently have to simply trust that your soul knows what’s right for you and take that leap of faith. Instead of needing to know why or even how, I can choose to be curious about when and where I learned to cloak my fear in those questions. That’s all ‘why’ and ‘how’ really are, fear/self-sabotage/lack of trust that I’m always supported and Divinely guided, masquerading as inquisitiveness.

What it boils down to is that I don’t have the master plan. At least if I do, it’s not in my head. I’d venture to guess that I have it in my heart. So my head can ponder and I can sit there uncomfortably for as long as I want, and my head and I still won’t have the master plan. I can spin my wheels forever trying to ‘figure out’ what my master plan is, or I can trust that my driver/heart has it and go with that. That Divine Right Timing thing is at work again here. If and when I’m ready to know the ‘why’ and the ‘how’, they’ll be revealed to me. You know? ; )

Call to Action: What action has your soul been calling for you to take, and your heart been beckoning for you to listen to? Have you been hung up on, “What could I possibly gain from doing this?” (the why) or, “How could I possibly accomplish that?!” (the how)? Are you uncomfortable enough on your fence that you’re willing to make the leap of faith and jump down off of it today or this week by actually committing to taking the action that your heart craves?

Remember: One of the most effective ways that I know of to show yourself that you matter, to love yourself, is to take the actions that your heart calls to you to take. How might the world be different if we all lovingly gave ourselves the beautiful, uplifting and nurturing things that we desire?

The Only Way Out Is Through

Alanis Morissette has a song entitled, Out Is Through. That line so perfectly describes the sole way we can each successfully deal with our problems or the situations in our lives that torment us. What I know from my own life is that when I have a problem I need to deal with it as soon as I can. If I don’t, it grows. No, I’m serious. It’s like it becomes some huge unmanageable thing getting bigger and bigger as the hours and days go by.

Take what happened with me and my stepmom for example. She invited me and my partner on a family vacation with the rest of my siblings. I knew that I probably wouldn’t want to attend for a variety of reasons, but I told her quite honestly that I would consider it. Since it’s something she’d really like to have happen, it’s not surprising that she heard that I’d go. Then, after I considered it and determined that indeed I didn’t want to go and shared that with her, we had some tension in our relationship. After all, she heard that I’d go. Now here I was backing out and ruining her plans.

Clearly, we needed to talk about this before hard feelings developed on either side, if they hadn’t already. That however, was a very scary proposition. All I’d have to do is say ‘yes’, capitulate on my decision, and she’d be happy after all. True, but I’d be unhappy. So, we did need to talk. Not that it would change what either of us was or wasn’t going to do, but so that we could both hear how the other felt and respect and honor those feelings.

Well, I didn’t call my stepmom right away. Then one morning last week as I walked through my neighborhood I saw a woman cutting down the suckers (tree branches that sprout up from the tree’s roots) on her crabapple trees. These suckers had been ignored and growing for many years. Suddenly, it hit me. If she had dealt with those suckers when they were sprouts, she could have broken them off by hand before they developed any bark on them. Instead she waited. Eventually, they grew and had bark on their stems and could no longer simply be broken off. At that point, they required hand clippers. Still she waited. They grew much thicker and taller with trunk diameters of over an inch and a half wide. The suckers then required loppers to cut them down. She continued to not deal with them. They’re now at the point where they’ll take a handsaw to remove them. She cut down what she could with the loppers, but tall ‘stumps’ remain. Had she waited still longer, the suckers would be trees unto themselves and require a chainsaw to remove them.

Did I want to wait and not address the ‘bump’ in my relationship with my stepmom? Not any more! What might become of our relationship if I ignored a miscommunication and allowed it to grow for years and years like the crabapple suckers? I was unwilling to find out. So I called her and we talked about it. She still loves me and would like for me to go on family vacation, and I still love her and am unwilling to go. That didn’t change. But the sucker was removed before it got out of control.

I’ve talked before about letting go of something, some problem or situation or thought that’s tormenting you. It struck me with this situation that letting go doesn’t mean not dealing with it. By all means, if you have some issue in your life, deal with it and as soon as possible. If you don’t, you’re just stuffing your feelings, like holding a beach ball under water. The ball won’t go away of its own accord. You’ll devote tons of energy to holding it down. Eventually the ball ‘wins’ and explodes out of the water when you least expect it to. So, letting go doesn’t mean not dealing with the issues in your life. Letting go means choosing not to think unproductive thoughts, like blaming, about your situation. Letting go means choosing a time and a way that you will look at the situation and then following through and doing so.

So, back to the title of this blog, The Only Way Out Is Through. You can’t go around your fears, pains and sorrows. You can’t ignore them and have them go away. You can’t go under them or over them. You can’t hold them down indefinitely. They’ll simply continue to grow like the suckers or to exist like the beach ball. The only way to successfully deal with the issues in your life is to move through them, or step into them, by honestly looking at them. You get to choose if you do that with love, compassion and joy or if you fight every step of the way.

Call to Action: Where are you holding a beach ball under water or letting the suckers grow to unmanageable proportions ~ with a friend, family member, or co-worker? What do you need to do today or this week to address the issue? Are you willing to pick a time and day by which you’ll address it and then do so?

Remember: This isn’t about making one person right and another wrong. This is about improving your communication with others and lovingly moving through things that could possibly become huge grudges and resentments at a later time if left unattended.

More Smiles ~ April 2008

Being in and Accepting the Present

There’s a quote by Confucius that I love. He said, “Happiness does not consist in having what you want, but in wanting what you have.” To be happy often requires that you let go of how you think the situation should look, and accept how it does look.

That’s not to say that you have to remain in a situation that you find unpleasant, like feeling unfulfilled at work, for example. You can choose to look for whatever happiness you can find each day at work while you simultaneously create your vision for what you want your career to look like, come up with a goal to help you manifest or bring into reality what you have envisioned and take actions that assist you in achieving your vision. So, yes, by all means set and achieve goals, but don’t neglect the fact that there’s another critical piece to the puzzle: the only way to lasting happiness is to be present in each moment and notice the happiness that already exists there.

The reason that presence is necessary for lasting happiness is that happiness only exists in this moment. You can’t feel happiness yesterday or tomorrow. You can only feel your emotions right now. You can feel happy while you think about a past or future event, but you’re still experiencing that feeling in this moment. So, while visioning, taking action steps and achieving your goals all help you to experience happiness in those moments, the joy is always fleeting. That’s the way of happiness, just like with any other emotion. Emotions are short-lived at best and always exist only in this moment.

Our goal then, as individuals who want to lead happier lives, is to accept things the way they are and to be present in each moment. If instead of being present with whatever you are experiencing in the moment, say working outside in your yard, you are thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner, worrying about a project you have yet to complete for work, or beating yourself up for how stupid you must have looked to that person your friend introduced you to today, you miss the opportunity to be happy while working in your yard on a beautiful spring day. Every moment and every experience has the possibility of happiness inherent within it, but you’ll certainly fail to recognize and feel that happiness if you’re not present within that moment or experience.

This brings me back around to the notion that it’s not where you are (your external circumstances) that brings about happiness, it’s what you think. Your thoughts tell you whether or not you’re accepting what life is handing you in that moment and whether or not you’re even focused on the current moment. You can change your location or external circumstances, but if you fail to change your thinking, you’ll continue to be unhappy even in that new situation. Think about it. It has happened to each of us over and over again throughout our lives. “Oh, when I graduate from college, then I’ll be happy. No more studying and exams all the time.” Or, “As soon as I finish this project, my boss will get off my back and I can relax and feel good again.” Or, “I can hardly wait for vacation! That’s just what I need to know that life really is good.”

Each of these events makes us happy during the event or for a short time afterward, but if we don’t also change the way we think, we slip right back into looking for our next ‘happiness fix’ or goal to achieve. In the process, we constantly delay happiness. We rarely feel it in this moment because we’re always thinking about some future event (we’re not present) and looking to that future event to bring us joy. It’s like we’re dogs on a track endlessly chasing a mechanical rabbit that’s always just outside our reach.

That’s why I spend a lot of time working with clients to get them to look at and pay attention to their thoughts. As long as your thoughts stay the same, you remain on the dog track. New rabbits may be brought in and different dogs may join you. You may even move to a different track, but you’re still endlessly seeking in the future that which only exists now, in the present.

You know, it’s like that saying, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” If you keep thinking, saying and doing the same things, you’ll keep getting the same results. The only thing you control in this world is your thoughts, words and actions. If you’re discontent and you don’t change how you think, speak and act in the world, you’ll continue to experience the same level of happiness and fulfillment in your life.

It’s great to know all of this, but if you’re like me, you want to know what you can do about it. How can you change your thoughts, words and actions? What can you do to become present in the current moment? How can you accept the less than perfect circumstances you find yourself in? This is how you’ve been all your life. You don’t know any other way to be.

Call to Action: One very effective way to be in and accept the present is to regularly practice The Work, developed by Byron Katie. If you’re unfamiliar with this process, you can learn to apply it to your life in my live, hour long teleclass (class conducted over the phone) held the third Wednesday of each month from noon to 1pm Eastern time.

Remember: You deserve to feel happy and fulfilled. We all do.

What's Your Gift?

At birth, each of us is gifted with the most incredibly beautiful ability and responsibility to go forth and create whatever we most desire in and of our lives and the world.

Some of us forget this along the way and never consciously choose who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world or what we want our world to look like.

Some of us glimpse what's possible and live from that understanding ever after, because once you remember what you've been gifted with you can't go back nor would you want to.

Each of us is unique in all the world. We each have gifts that only we bring to the table. If we choose to ignore those gifts or to never recognize what they are, we not only withhold them from ourselves but from all of humanity.

I encourage you to actively seek and share your gifts. Let nothing stand in your way.

Celebrate your gifts as well as everyone else's. Build on them. Allow yourself to be ever expanding, growing and glowing.

And open to receive everyone else's gifts as well. You deserve it. You deserve all the good life has to offer. Not because you've done, said, or thought something, or not because you look just right but because you were born.

It is your birthright ~ all the good in the world ~ simply because you exist.

Remember that. Dwell in that. Live that.

(I'm not talking entitlement here. This is an exchange of love, of energy, not of things. I'm talking love. Lovingly share all your gifts and lovingly open to and receive everyone else's.)

Share your love with everyone and everything else in the world and receive their love. This is your purpose in life. This is the purpose of each of us. There is no other. Give and receive love. The only question is how can you best share your love? What are your gifts?
Holding (a space or an intention)
Listening
Touching
Seeing
Expressing
Allowing
Accepting
Encouraging
...What do you do best?

Allow it to bubble out of you without effort as if you were a spring, and then open to and receive the bubbles of love from others.

Ultimately this is what it boils down to: you matter. Each of us does. We are each important.

It's impossible for somebody else to show us that we matter or to try to 'prove' it to us. We must each discover it for ourselves. With the discovery comes the desire, the necessity, to share that knowledge with everyone else by living our light side, our empowered side, the richness and fullness of all of who we are, our totality. With the discovery that we are important comes the desire to lovingly share our gifts.

Do You Struggle to Achieve Your Goals?

One of the main things I do in my business is coach people through a 16 week process of self-discovery and goal setting. While I am constantly employing a coach (being coached myself), I am also usually simultaneously coaching myself through this 16 week process. One of the topics of the 16 week process is self-love. While reflecting about self-loving actions that I take or have taken, it recently occurred to me that I’ve begun a new way of being in my business. It is a carry over from how I’ve been showing up in my life and it is transforming my company.

What is this new way of being? It’s being self-loving at and pertaining to work. Self-love can and does take many forms. Forgiving yourself when you’ve made a mistake and compassionately helping yourself get back up, dust off, and try again is one example. The type of self-love that has really rocked my work world though is this: stretching instead of striving.

Let me explain. I used to do something that wasn’t very self-loving at all. I’d come up with a goal and then plan and scheme how I’d ‘get’ there. Then I’d do all kinds of uncomfortable things that I knew somebody somewhere expected me to do in order to reach my goal. It not only felt awful, it wasn’t very effective.

My new way of being is to come up with a goal, determine baby steps that will head me in that direction and then when I’m ready take the least scary of those steps to move me toward my goal, every day.

On the surface, it may not seem like much of a change, but in reality it’s HUGE. The baby steps allow me to be ready to do things much more quickly than I might otherwise be and to successfully navigate toward my goal. For many months I’ve wanted to reach out to hospice, bereavement programs, singles groups and anybody else that might benefit from my work. Last year, I generated a list of who I should contact, the steps I should take once I had contacted them, a detailed description of exactly what I was offering etc. Then, I contacted a couple groups, made little to no headway, felt discouraged and quickly gave up.

Contrast this with what I’m now doing. I still have the same goal to reach out to hospice, bereavement programs, singles groups and anybody else that might benefit from my work. Now, I keep my ears open for people who work for those organizations or for friends and associates who have contacts within those organizations. I tell people that’s what I’m looking for. Then, when just such a contact falls into my lap, I ask them what they’re about, tell them what I’m about, and we see if we might be able to assist one another in helping adults who have lost a loved one.

Since starting this self-loving approach less than 8 weeks ago, I’ve met at least 4 different people who pop to mind instantly and are working with the same group of people with whom I specialize. We have a common goal and are eager to help one another assist the people in our target markets. Not only is this easier, it’s more effective and I haven’t gotten discouraged and given up. My action steps are so much more within my comfort zone and therefore infinitely more do-able. There is ease and flow where there had previously been difficulty and struggle.

Because the self-loving way not only feels better but also produces better results, my next question is how do I know when I’m being one way versus the other way? It came down to those two words for me, stretching as opposed to striving. My old way of being involved striving. Striving looks like me trying to push a huge out of round boulder up a steep debris strewn mountainside alone. It feels helpless, hopeless, futile, scheming, relentless, hard, fearful, separate and lonely. Striving has a big agenda attached to it. (See my very first blog at the bottom of this page for more information on agendas.)

Stretching looks like me taking one baby step at a time outside my comfort zone (in this case that frequently translates into my leaving the house to meet people). There are no mountains to climb or boulders to fight. Stretching feels do-able, soft, trusting, effortless, safe, allowing, receiving and partnered. It has an intention associated with it and so it is open to how the goal will be attained. (See my very first blog at the bottom of this page for more information on intentions.)

Both stretching and striving involve a long-term goal. They each require lots of hard work. And, they can both be scary.

I think that maybe one of the most beautiful things about stretching is the trust that it embodies. When I trust that I already know everything that I need to know and that the exact people I need for my intentions to be realized are already in my life, it’s as if I’m declaring to the Universe, “I’m ready, and I’m willing! Bring it on, because my door is now open to receive!” Then, striving just seems to fall away and stretching slips in to take its place.

Call to Action: Sign up for my free monthly e-mail newsletter, More Smiles, by clicking the link to my website at the top right of this page. You can also sign up for the RSS feed of this blog by clicking the icon at the top right of this page.

Then, ask yourself, "When and where am I prone to strive instead of stretch?" What thoughts go through your head when you’re pushing yourself that way? “It won’t happen if I don’t make it happen?” “It probably doesn’t even matter that I’m doing this, I’m not going to reach my goal anyway. I never do.” What new thoughts could you replace those with in order to trust that it not only can happen, but will happen if you’ll just let go of how you think it must play out, and open yourself to receive?

Remember: You deserve all the good life has to offer. It’s your birthright. There’s nothing for you to be or do differently except change your thoughts and beliefs. That in turn will change your words and subsequently your actions. Then you’ll be saying, “Bring it on, Universe! And thank you!”