We reach for relationships because we long for many things. We long for acceptance, affection, companionship andappreciation. We want to be seen. We need to be heard. And so, we reach. We reach to form relationships so that these beautiful needs, our beautiful needs can flourish. We reach so that we can know love.

How do we achieve this? How do we create the kinds of relationships that fuel our lives? How do we cultivate deep connections? It begins with us. It begins with our willingness and our ability to create a deeply connected relationship with our self.

Acceptance experienced from another is born out of our acceptance for our self. Appreciation from the ones we choose to love has it’s genesis in our appreciation for ourselves.

In fact, the more we are able to meet our own beautiful needs, the more the people in our lives have to build upon. When we refuse to meet ourselves within our own heart, when we starve ourselves of our own love and attention and companionship, our loved ones – no matter their commitment to us – are rendered powerless.

In order for us to feel their love, it has to have fertile ground upon which to fall. That fertile ground is tended by us. That fertile ground is our responsibility.

When we take beautiful responsibility for our own beautiful needs, when we become stewards of our own inner relationship, a space gets created for the relationships in our lives to actually begin to move in powerful new ways.

So how do we get from here to there?

The way we get there my friend, lies in the myriad of moments that happen everyday between ourselves and the people who inhabit our lives. Each of those moments is an opportunity to connect – first to ourselves and secondly to the other person.

On Monday, we focused on a particular kind of moment. We focused on what I called the triggered moment. I chose to start here simply because it’s where we often get stuck.

For this conversation, a triggered moment is a moment:

• That is a reaction to some sort of negatively perceived incident.
• When we’re flooded with emotions.
• Where our thinking takes over and we begin to judge and evaluate the other.
• We disconnect from our self and certainly from the person who is present with us.
• We ‘go away’ into our anger or fear or blame.
  
• That is completely natural.

When handled in a certain way, an emotionally triggered moment can become a beautiful moment of connection; shifting from a moment of pain and strife to a moment where the relationship can deepen and grow.

Harnessing your own triggered moments mean harnessing your power to connect. But before you can get there…know this:

Awareness is the first step to change. So, my friend, how about you do a little experiment and track your own triggers for a week or so? Interested in doing so? Here are some questions to support you:

• What is your response to a triggered state?
• How does it feel when you’re in one?
• Can you see patterns in how you handle an emotionally flooded moment?
• Where do you go? Do you go to blame? Do you go to self attack?
• What happens to you?
• What do you do or say to the other person?
• What impact does all of this have on the connection you really are wanting?

Why even do this?
Because the health of our relationships DEPEND on the moments that make them up and if you’re not reclaiming these moments, then you’re simply adding fuel to the fire that is disconnection.

Some tips for managing your triggered state:

• When we get triggered, we disconnect from our self so the first step is to get reconnected to yourself.
• When we’re triggered, we’re in pain so self compassion and empathy are essential. Don’t worry so much WHY you’re in pain, just that you are. Compassion and empathy are beautiful needs. Start by meeting them for yourself.
  
• Name your feeling (to yourself). This meets your need to be seen and heard.
  
• Take responsibility for your own emotional reaction and for what you’re telling yourself. This is a tough one because we want to blame the other but the truth is, your feeling state is just that, yours. No one can create it but you. Acknowledging this empowers you to shift it. Blaming someone else; making someone else in charge of YOUR feelings disempowers you.
  
• Breathe a few deep breaths.Seriously folks, we hear it all the time but it’s true. Oxygen changes brain chemistry.
  
• Step away if you need to and come back when you’ve settled.

When we learn to harness our own triggered states, they can become portals into the kind of connection we’re longing for. When we build the muscle of meeting our own beautiful needs, in the moment, then that person we’re feeling so at odds with might actually stand a chance of connecting with us.

Be the change you want to see in your relationships and just watch as they take on a new luster and form. Change the way you show up for yourself and watch as the people around you change in the way they show up for you too.

Ah, the power of the mind. Just as it can conjure the scariest of scenarios, so too can it release them. Hold that thought for just a minute or two while you read on. What I want to chat with you about are the three wicked step sisters, Fear, Doubt and Worry (well, that’s a little dramatic but I think you get the point) and how to change the way you relate to them. 

To set the stage, a little gift from the poet Rumi entitled, “The Guest House:” This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice - meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

The premise: We all deal with fears of one kind or another but most of us haven’t a clue what to do with them or how to be with them. Mostly we employ the strategy of fight or flight. When we feel a worry, a concern, a doubt or a fear, we either go to battle with it or run for the hills (how’s that working out for you?).  BUT alas, there is another way. There is a way to be with the heavier side of our emotional selves; a relationship that redefines what it means to be the glorious feeling being that you are. 

A simple man’s definition of fear, doubt and worry: Fear: a natural emotive response to a perceived danger. The two important words here are natural and perceived. Natural, because as beings, we’ve evolved to have feelings. Our feelings are our messengers. Every feeling is intended to deliver a message and move on leaving us clear for the next messenger. (for a deeper exploration on feelings as messengers, check out this article on my blog.) The general message of fear, is one of protection. When we heed the message of fear, it can go on its little way. The other important word in that definition is perceived. Depending on who we are, our system can perceive danger in any change to the status quo. That’s why change can be so scary sometimes but with some awareness, a little logic and some simple strategies, you can examine your ‘fears’ with curiosity, act if necessary or release them like so much dust in the wind.  

Doubt: another natural emotive response. Related to fear, doubt is simple uncertainty. It’s the hesitation to believe something is true or possible especially when there is a lack of evidence. Cool. Not a problem unless you’re a person who has to be certain about things before you can move ahead.

Worry: If you pull it from the dictionary, worry is defined as “tormenting oneself with disturbing thoughts” (Fun!). The way I think about it, worry is pent up, unacknowledged fear. When we don’t work with our fears, they get backed up resulting in worry. So when you find yourself worrying, you know you’ve got some work to do around fear.

Ok with that explained …. let’s turn to some of the tools and perspectives that can help us when we’re dealing with these three states of mind. And to simplify things, I am going to treat fear as a container for both doubt and worry because essentially, how you’ll deal with one is how you’ll deal with any of them

It’s a muscle! Building a healthy relationship to fear, doubt or worry is just like a muscle you work out at the gym. The more you train and practice, the stronger you get and the less anxious you feel. Experiment, play, lean into your feeling self, listen, welcome, allow and over time you will begin to feel so much more empowered.

Fear as protector: Recall that fear is a naturally occurring feeling and as with any feeling, it gets to be felt. It’s ok to feel afraid. We feel fear because our system is trying to alert us to some perceived danger. Thank you, fear. When we understand this, we can stop being afraid of our own fear. When we understand the almost caring role of fear, perhaps we can stop running from our own emotional state and listen to its message. It doesn’t mean that our fear is always “right. It just means that we need to acknowledge the feeling and, if needed, take an appropriate action.

Feeling vs. Thinking: There’s fear, the feeling, and then there’s the thinking or the narrative that gets attached to the feeling and this, my friends, is to me where most of us get stuck. Our task is to separate out what we’re saying to ourselves when we get afraid. If you can isolate the narrative in your head – examine it, get curious about it and question it, you can oftentimes find the wisdom or the fallacy in your fear. Either way, you will have taken a necessary step that will position you for action or release. Getting your fears – the narrative portion of your fears – down on paper is a huge help in sorting through them and making sense out of them.

Some tools for your daily living:

•  Writing. Fears belong on paper, not in your mind and not in your heart. To understand the power of writing down your fears, go here.
• Inner dialogue. Talking to your fears is an easy, in the moment way to address what is coming up in you. A simple greeting like “hello my little fear” creates a welcoming inner atmosphere. It also creates a gap between you and your feeling. In that gap you can feel yourself and the feeling as separate. 
• I am not my feelings. It’s true! You’re not your feelings. Knowing this can really be helpful when you hit your own perfect storm of feelings. 
• Movement. Get your ass to the gym! At a minimum, get moving. Move a muscle, change a thought (or feeling). I can’t overstate the importance of movement when navigating powerful feelings.
• Gratitude. Get your gratitude on, folks. “Thank you Life for everything, I have no complaints whatsoever.” That’s a motto worth living by. When you’re in a world of hurt with your feelings, try on some gratitude and just see what space it gives you.
• Action. You can either act in ways that deepen your fear or you can act your way into a new reality. Feel the fear and do it anyway. If you’re feeling fearful around something, try taking an action towards it then watch as your fear begins to subside. 
• Is it mine, yours or God’s? When worry is the monkey on your back, you can ask yourself this simple question. Are you worrying about something that is in YOUR control? Cool! What action can you take to deal with that situation?? Are you worrying about something that is not in your control? Something that belongs to God or to another person? These are areas of worry to be released. If they are not in your control, practice surrendering that worry.
• Is this true right now? You can almost always assume that your fear is based on some past experience … it’s like we drag around this bag full of old failures, shortcomings and perceived missteps and each time we move out into our life in some new way, we compare that move to something in our past. So, a simple question like “Is this (fear) true today?” or as my pal, Barbara says “Is it true in 2010?” puts you in the present moment so you can judge for yourself with fresh eyes what is real and what is in the past.
• Are you filling your room full of scary tigers? Remember our story -when faced with uncertainty, we will often fill in the gaps with fear based scenarios. We may not even notice it happening at first but before we know it, we’ve created one scary possibility after another and with each new ‘tiger’ we’ve created, our overwhelm goes up while our ability to take effective action goes down.

So you’re feeling afraid … now what?  A simple process to use with any fear:

Step 1: Feel the feeling first. See it. Greet it. Say howdy to it. Breathe into it. Lean into it … whatever you want to do to make its presence ok. Remember being afraid is fine. It’s not a problem until you make it one.

Step 2: Identify what you’re telling yourself. What is it exactly that you’re afraid will happen? If you can get it down onto paper, that’s always a help but it you’re on the run, no worries – this can be done on the fly. The point is to separate the feeling of fear from the thinking of fear.

Now that you have the words associated with the fear, examine it. Is what you’re telling yourself true? Can you be 100% certain? What else might be true? What else might be possible? The point is to question what you’re telling yourself. Remember that most fears are based on past experiences and are therefore not necessarily true in this present moment. Most fear based thinking is designed to stop you; to keep you stuck and out of motion.

Step 3: Act. Act. Act. What action can you take – big or small – that would create a new experience? What one action can you take that says you’re more committed to your vision, your goal or your dream than you are to your fear? Remember, your actions determine your reality. You can act in ways that strengthen and deepen your fear or you can act your way into a new experience, a new reality, and a new version of YOU. (Oh, sweet mystery of life, at last I’ve found you!)

I say it all the time; we’re wired to evolve, to change, to dream, to reach, to want, to transcend. It’s in our DNA. But too, we’re wired to resist and hang on and fear the very things we find being born in our hearts. It’s a bit of a paradox and it can be maddening, that is, unless you simply accept the contradiction as a sort of necessary tension to the whole birthing process. But let’s say you haven’t gotten this far yet. Let’s say you’ve simply identified something you want to change or bring into your life. And let’s say in spite of the best laid plans, you’ve had little luck at the manifesting part of your vision or idea or longing. In short, you’re stuck. Two things you know for sure: you know what you want and there’s no sign of it. What are you supposed to do? How the heck do you move past this point?

Entering stage left, our hero:  The Well Placed Question.

Questions. There is such power in questions. When we’re stuck, a powerful question can be like emotional lubricant that gets us moving again. Questions unlock doors, illuminate dark places, release hidden energies … that is, when their worded right and allowed to do their magic because questions can also shut us down, drive us crazy and throw us into tail spins. Understanding the art of the question is important but rather than use up space to explain … head on down to my second blog entry “Getting the Questions Right” and read up on it. Seriously, it’s super important. (I’ll wait)

Ok, so back to you and that beautiful thing in your heart; that gorgeous vision you have for yourself, your life, the world. You can see it. You can feel it. You can taste it. Is it a new way of being? Is it a venture you desire to launch? Is it the love of your life, a shift in your marriage, the next step in your career? Whatever it is you know you long for it. And yet … it remains that illusive thing like trying to catch a fish in a stream with only your hands. You’re left stymied; entertaining silly thoughts that have you questioning you own self worth and sense of deserving. What you don’t realize is that you might be acting like our little monkey friend. So ask yourself this question: What am I holding onto that I can let go of? Say it out loud. Write it in your journal. Look into the mirror and ask it of yourself. Then sit and listen. Let the question hang in the air. Some questions take a while to be answered. If you can resist the pull of the need to know (now, please!) and give this question space and time, you might just get an answer that will illuminate a blind spot. In fact, if you make asking this question a practice; a part your daily living, I think you’ll find that you will spontaneously release the very things that you’ve outgrown … sometimes without effort. As this question relates to the thing you want to bring into your life, you can trust that you will be shown what is in your way and from there you can begin the beautiful process of letting go. But you can’t let go if you don’t know what it is that you’re holding onto.

The beautiful truth of it is; every vision we have will ask us to grow. That’s the beauty of creation; it’s always asking us, inviting us, calling us into a bigger expression of ourselves. The seed has to let go of its shell, the snake, its skin, the butterfly, its cocoon. When you ask for something – know that something will be required of you. Be bold enough to say ‘yes’ because what awaits is not only the thing you’re longing for but a deeper, more powerful, stream lined experience of your own kick ass self. And that my friend, is what the world needs more of.

- Pema Chodron

Pema expresses to me, the perfect description of the grateful heart; the willingness, the bravery, the audacity to see all of life as a gift not just the pretty parts but all of it. When we make the choice to live from this bold place, we become strong and balanced; positioned to see the gift in any circumstance. Wow. Who doesn’t want that?

Some science behind gratitude. From research done at SMU in Dallas Texas: The results of a study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved. McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another. 

Get Your Gratitude on. When we’re beginning a gratitude practice, we begin with the gifts in our life; the people, love, health shelter of our life. Many folks do keep a gratitude journal to bring awareness and attention to the bright spots in their life. For another approach, check out Gratitude Log 

Gratitude is a muscle. Take it to the gym! Work it out, folks. When you do, you will begin to see yourself, your relationships and your life in a brand new way. Interested in doing some heavy lifting with gratitude? Look for unusual places to get grateful. Experiment. What would happen if you got grateful for a reoccurring challenge or for that place you always get stuck when you try to break an old habit or take a relationship to the next level? What if right there and then you said “even for this I am grateful!” What would that shift in perspective do for you? Try it out sometime and just notice what happens. If you’re like me, you’ll feel a release of tension and you’ll start to access your natural curiosity. Curiosity is like emotional lubricant helping you get unstuck. 

Gratitude is a perspective. It’s a different way of looking at something. It’s a key to a locked door or a candle in a dark room. Looking at a problem from a place of gratitude allows you to access the stuff that is hidden from your normal perspective. 

Gratitude is a choice. On some level we get gratitude. You may even be getting a sense of how to lean into it differently. But beware. So many of us were taught as kids that we ought to be grateful and despite the best intentions of our parents and teachers, gratitude becomes something we should ourselves into. We tell ourselves we should be grateful for this or ought to be grateful for that. We may even really want to be grateful for some particular thing in our life that has us stymied but we just seem to muster up the inspiration. Here’s the deal folks: you can’t should yourself into a grateful state. What I invite you to do is think of gratitude as a tool to be used when you’re ready. Sure there will be times when you easily can access your gratitude but I’m talking about those tougher times and you may not be able to get to gratitude until you’ve processed whatever feelings are stirred in you. Once you’ve cleared out some emotional space (using a nice dose of self empathy) then you might find that you can step into gratitude.

Share your story: As part of my exploration of gratitude, I’d love to hear your stories. Do you have an example of a time when you were able to lean into gratitude in an unexpected way? What were the results? Email me, I want to know …

In my work, the most referenced thing lacking in people’s lives is fun. This got me thinking about fun and more importantly, play. What is the power of play and why is fun so freaking important to people? I did a little research and get this, it turns out that play is as important as sleep. Read that again. What?? It’s true. We’re biologically programmed to play. It supports memory, creativity, reduces stress, and builds trust and safety between individuals and within groups. A playful brain is a happy soul. And we’re talking about play that is not driven by a purpose; it’s simply the act for the act’s sake. In his work on play, Stuart Brown says that if its purpose is more important than the simple act, it’s probably not play. He also says that the opposite of play is not work but depression. Yikes. (Check out his talk on TED). Folks this is huge. Play is not simply fun, it’s kind of essential to almost everything we do!

Now let’s go back to the call of summer. Grrr… it makes me smile just thinking about it. It not only makes me smile but it stirs a sensation in my whole body. Summer has a feeling to it. To me, as a child, summer equaled play. It meant freedom. The days had a different rhythm. In Houston, Texas, summer days were hot and muggy. I lived outside with my friends, Mallory, Lisa, Alice and Scott. We rode ponies, jumped on trampolines, swung on swing sets and played outside late into the night. We canoed in the ditches when the rains came. Summer was about swimming pools and summer camp and building forts and riding bikes and schedules so flexible and spacious there was even time to get bored. Today when the months turn warmer, I still feel the muscle imprint of those memories. I still experience the sense of possibility that came from all that play.

What about you? What are your summer memories? How did play live in your life? Try this: pull together your play history. Go back into your own memories and recall as much as you can about play and fun in your life. Get it all down on paper. Recall the friends, the activities, the games, the fantasies, the stories, the humor, and the laughter. As you do this watch; watch and feel what stirs inside of you. Notice what comes up for you. This is the power of play. This is the altered state of play.

Play is about curiosity, it’s about exploration. There is ritual play, spectator play and physical play, imaginative play, body play and social play. Play is a state of mind. It can be infused into any activity and into all of your life. Play deprivation leads to all sorts of nasty things but add it into a moment and just watch the brain light up.  Play empowers your life, strengthens your relationships and dances with your passions. Play is a force of transformation. Play opens you to possibility.

So, friend, this summer, how can you create space for play? How can you make it a part of your mornings, your meetings, your conversations, your weekends and your work? What if you used play as a form of problem solving? What if play became a strategy for everything you did? What if you became so committed to play that it informed all that you did? What, my friend, would happen then? How would life be different for you? Where might you go? What might you achieve if you lived from a commitment to play?

If you’d like help or want to explore the power of play in your life. If you feel stuck or just want to take all this deeper, reach out to me and let’s connect. It would be an honor to help you connect to your own summer child again.

Right before my eyes what was once only a monotonous and barren land became indisputably gorgeous. I had new eyes. My vision expanded and deepened and not for this landscape alone. In that instance, the way I saw everything changed. From that moment forward, life became an exploration of beauty. I began to discover beauty in the ugliest of places, to seek it out in everything; every landscape, every conversation, every person, every experience, every moment. You find what you look for.

That day in the car sitting behind my father, was a perfect moment. My father’s five words were an arrow that went deep into my young psyche. I was the perfect age to take it in without struggle or question. In fact it might have been the hypnotizing monotony of the very landscape I was watching that allowed that arrow to land so gracefully within me. Perhaps the land itself was conspiring to awaken me. I like to think so. Today, on this day, I am grateful for that conspiring landscape, for those five words and the truth they held, for my father, for my young, open heart and for the immediate and permanent change that took place that day in West Texas 35 years ago. I have built a life on those five words and it’s is a life that no matter what, always sees beauty. For this I am indisputably grateful.

What do you want more of in your life? How ‘bout more happiness or good God, how about greater ease in relationships? What about clarity and confidence in your choices? Belief in yourself and in the world? The answer to all of this is kind of simple. Just tweak what you’re feeding yourself on a daily basis. Eliminate some things and add others. Mix it up.

• You have a creative self. What are you feeding it?
• You have a spiritual self. What are you feeding it?
• You have an emotionally intelligent self. What are you feeding it?
• Many people believe that God, Spirit, the Higher Self dwells within. Do you connect to it?

We’re all used to the concept of how what we eat impacts our physical and mental health, right? In this diet loving culture we live in, you can’t hardly go 22 seconds without a new study or perspective on the relationship between our diet and our wellbeing. On the one hand all this focus and attention can be maddening. On the other, maybe all this attention speaks to something much deeper. Maybe, it’s not really just about food and drink and exercise. Maybe the conversation takes center stage because as a culture, we’re waking up to the bigger conversation which is about how we’re feeding ourselves in all areas of our life. Maybe as each of us grapples with the undeniable facts regarding our food diet we will make the leap to consider how we feed ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If we can accept that a diet based solely on processed food leads to all sorts of yucky things, can’t we then see that a life lived in front of the television or on a steady diet of newspapers and entertainment magazines might result in some equally nasty things (actually, do an internet search on the connection between TV and depression – yikes)?

Can we become emotionally and spiritually anemic?

In the work I do as a coach, at its foundation, is always the question: “What are you feeding yourself?” The fact is, many of us are starving ourselves. The idea is simple, if we want to experience greater happiness, fewer struggles and less suffering then we need to be conscious of what we’re putting into our minds and hearts. Feeling stuck? Depressed? Anxious? Bored? What are you feeding yourself? Feeling elated? Connected? Inspired? In your groove? What are you feeding yourself? Look, we’re born knowing we have to feed ourselves. It’s what has us reach for our mother’s breast (or the baby formula bottle) and it’s also what has us sit at our parent’s feet and listen to how they form words out of sounds. But without awareness, we’re saddled with a tendency to reach for the easiest most accessible forms of food whether it’s for our bodies or our hearts and minds. Until we understand the connection, we will feed ourselves a diet of processed thinking and living devoid of the essential nutrients our emotional self is craving. We will reach for what our culture gives us and we will convince ourselves it’s all we need to survive. And then one day, we’ll wake up and wonder why we feel so empty and lost.

Here’s what I know: we each have inside of us deep, deep wisdom. We have inside of us, a profoundly enlightened self. We have access to truth, intelligence and the capacity for complete and total love. As you read this, your highest self complete with all of its beauty and strength is available to you. It is right there inside of you in this moment, reading this post through your eyes. The question is, are you connecting to it? Because, we too have other qualities, other selves, other voices inside of us. We have voices of fear and doubt and arrogance and they too can be fed and cultivated and connected to. And unfortunately, unless we’re actually choosing the higher road, we will by default end up on the lower one cultivating the very things that keep us up and night and drive us crazy during the day.

Getting Off the Grid

I’ll promise you something. Feeling better about yourself and your life is actually kind of easy and it starts with giving yourself time each day to connect, to plug in or open to higher thinking. Many of us wake up each day and immediately plug into the grid. We go right to our phone or the internet or we turn on the television or sit with a cup of coffee and the paper. How do you begin each day? Do you get up to go to work? Do you get up to corral the kids into their day? What’s the first thing you read or listen to each morning? Is it the newspaper or CNN? What if the first thing you did each day was give yourself something that made you happier, helped you understand truth in a deeper way? What if instead of waking up to go to work, you woke up with the intent to feed your creative or spiritual selves? How would you live your day differently? How do you think you’d be with your children? Your partner? Your boss? What if each day, first thing, you plugged into wisdom, clarity, kindness and serenity instead of danger, fear, doubt and gossip? What if you did this consistently over a long period of time … say 90 days? What do you think would change in your life?  I dare you to. I triple dog dare you to.

Try this: for the next 90 days, begin your day with a simple morning practice called 5/5/5 (thank you August Gold). Doing this in the morning though not essential is ideal. It frames your perspective and outlook for the day and sends a signal that cultivating yourself in this way is your first priority.

• Five minutes of writing what’s in your heart. Get a notebook or a pad of paper or dust off that journal and as yourself the question “What is in my heart this morning?” Then simply write for five minutes. Work to not edit or judge what comes out. The idea is to simply allow what is there to speak; good, bad or indifferent.
• Five minutes of reading something that inspires or connects you to truth or wisdom.
• Five minutes of sitting in silence. This can be mediation or simply silent listening.

Want to take it to the next level? Try infusing your whole day with different ways to connect. You know how some nutritionists suggest 5 to 6 small meals a day to help maintain your metabolism? Same thing. Connecting throughout your day helps you maintain your well, emotional and spiritual metabolism. Give it a shot and see what happens. Here are some simple ideas:

• Create mobile practices that you can take with you:
  • Use “pushbacks” throughout your day.  A pushback is simply a break from your work and is used most effectively if you sit as a desk. At regular intervals during the day push back from your desk, computer and phone (unplug from the grid!).
  • Carry and inspiring book with you so you can pick it up as you’re called.
  • Carry a small, pocket sized journal with you to capture ideas, moments of gratitude or reflection (this is a personal favorite).
  • Invest in CD’s for the drive to and from work that explore new ideas and bigger thinking.
  • Create a breathing practice to use before or after challenging conversations or encounters.
• Give up all together or limit the number of hours of television you watch during the week. (I’ve done this and WOW! The impact on the amount of time and energy I have is huge. I’ve also begun to discover just how many people are doing this – it’s like there is a secret club of folks who have unplugged their TVs).
• Stop watching/reading the news for 90 days. Ok, this one is tough for many but give it a shot. The first few days are tough but very shortly, you’ll start to feel lighter and stronger. After a while you can begin to integrate it back in but at your discretion making it less of a habit and more of a choice.

OK, folks. I promise you if you take these ideas into your life you will see lots of change. If I can help in any way, reach out to me. And if you want more on this topic? Click here to access my April call.

If you’re headed out to make a change in your life, make sure you pack a bag with a few things because you’ll need them along the way: an understanding of the process of change, an engaging purpose or reason for the change, a healthy supply of desire, and a creative, tenacious and persistent attitude.

If you’ve read my other post on change, then you know that sometimes we can come at change from a place that has us as wrong or broken. But if you can maneuver your way around that rather small and limited viewpoint of self, you’ll find that often times, there is vision and dignity in the impulse to change. As beings we’re programmed to evolve. And the headline is, we’ve been given, in part, the reigns to drive our own evolution. That impulse to change? It’s a signal that our internal drive to evolve has engaged. We decide to change because we know something bigger awaits. At the base of the desire to change is the knowing that things can be different for us; better, easier, more empowering, heck, even just more fun. So we determine what needs to change and we decide, we promise, to do or to be differently. And in the moment of that promise made, we stand in a new place resolute to exercise our will in our life. In that place of a new promise to ourselves, is a belief in our ability to succeed perhaps a belief that is a bit fleeting or a bit muted by self doubt but a belief nonetheless stirs within us that says “yes, I can.” We may even feel a surge of strength as we touch the innate power that lives within us to change our life. We believe we can make the change because our desire is deep and it is from that desire that we actually glimpse who we can become; we see into the future, past the old and into a new self. In the moment of that promise made, we can see who we are becoming. We make a promise to build a new habit or step out of an old one because it is important to us – essential to who we are becoming. We make this promise because there is a bolder version of us calling from around the bend. We can hear her or him and listening to the call, we go about the work of shaping our current lives so that we can embody who it is that we know we can become.

Fueled by the desire to become that bolder self, we move into action. In this early stage of change, our motivation is high because we know who we are becoming. Our purpose is clear. We act from a state of expectancy. We move in possibility. Change feels effortless. That is until something happens. Somewhere along the way, when the romance and the desire wears off, what once felt effortless, the act of change, becomes difficult or uninteresting and we find ourselves drifting into our familiar ways; sliding seemingly and perhaps powerlessly backwards. While I would argue this drift or sliding is an important part of the change process (see the entry, “Two Stepping With Change” below), let’s focus in on what happens right before that drift. And to do that I want to point you back to some of the words I’ve been using, words like, desire, romance, and purpose. These words get tossed around a lot, but in the land of change, they are vitally important. In fact they are the fuel that keeps us moving and practicing and reaching. While the actual process of change can be quite systematic and mechanical, without desire, we won’t feel motivated. Desire is what keeps us in the game. It holds our attention. Purpose, and not just any old purpose, cultivates that desire. Change has to matter to you. Change has to have purpose, a luscious, romantic, heart based purpose. The more engaging your purpose, the greater your desire.

Ponder this: Just like gasoline is the fuel for a car, desire is the fuel for change. If the desire is there, the change can happen. The richer and more meaningful the desire, the hotter and more intensely it burns, the greater chance you have of manifesting the change. In fact, the more dramatic the change, the more your reason (purpose) to change needs to appeal to your most romantic and visionary self. And if your desire runs out, your desired change will fall by the wayside. The key (especially in the beginning) is to keep your desire tank filled. Actually topped off. While a car will run smoothly towards its destination just the same on a ¼ tank of gas as on a full tank, we cannot run smoothly towards change when our desire runs low. In fact as soon as you feel your motivation to change waning, you can bet that your desire is low. That slump in motivation is your internal gas gauge. When you feel it creeping in, when your internal dialogue switches from “Yes!” to “I don’t really feel like changing today” you know you’re running low on desire. You know it’s time to fill’er up. One little caveat here, it is worth acknowledging that every change we set out to manifest does not need to come to pass. As we evolve so to do our desires so we need to leave room for our wants and desires to shift. But even with that said, beware. Beware because complacency, resistance and fear are seductive forces in the change process. These guys can be wolves in sheep’s clothing lulling us away from our greatest selves as they assure us life is better right where we are. So your best tool with these scallywags is a full tank of desire and a little band of fellows called understanding, tenacity, persistence and creativity. Indeed in the process of change there is the you that wants comfort and the you that wants results. Each of these aspects of yourself has its own motivations and strategies. Knowing who you’re dealing with is key. Practicing letting the you that wants results have her day, her time in the sun is the doorway to living the life you imagine for yourself.

To be successful at change we need to involve our whole selves. We need our linear, left brain, planning self the one who can come up with a regimen and a strategy and we need our right brain, intuitive, artistic and yes, romantic self. Why? Because change can be a bitch so we need to marshal our whole self to see us through. How ‘bout we step this out a bit? In this process of change, first, arm yourself with an understanding of it. Know how it works. You are not alone. So many people set out to make a change, fumble along the way (a completely natural and predictable occurrence), get frustrated and throw in the towel. From here they assume they’re the failures – that somehow they’re defective. Battered by a seemingly endless parade of failed attempts to wrest back control of their lives they simply settle into their old life assuming that the one they imagined was a mirage or an exotic land intended for only princes and kings. But armed with an understanding of the process of change, you will know what to look for. You can prepare yourself. And you can have the change you long to see. Understanding is key. It takes you off the hook, makes sense of your “failed” attempts and lets you see where you’re headed.

From here, establish a sincerely compelling purpose something that makes your desire run hot. Know that you needs to be cultivated. Regularly. Every day in the beginning. When I am taking on a new change, in the beginning, I practice making and keeping my promise each day (thank you, Albert Gray). Each morning, I write my promise out fresh again in a new and interesting and engaging way. I get in touch with the why behind the change. I get all romantic and deep and visionary as possible. I get creative. Then I go about my day and practice keeping my promise. I am persistent and tenacious. If I don’t do it one day? No sweat. I simply return to my practice of making and keeping my promise the next day. And importantly, I return to it with an attitude of gentle, loving compassion.

It bears repeating that behind understanding and desire are creativity, persistence and tenacity. To me persistence is sexy, tenacity the new black. When change is in our hearts, when it comes from our deepest desire to evolve, the qualities of tenacity and persistence are key. If you make your change a practice along the lines of what Mr. Gray outlines in the opening quote, then persistence and tenacity will grow in you. You’ll be golden. I promise. And creativity? She’s the gal that makes all this fresh and fun and doable. Being creative with your approach to change is its own glorious fuel right alongside desire. Creativity keeps our right brain self engaged and we need her to be if we’re ever to see success.  

Know this: Stumble? Fall? Fail? Forget? Drift? It’s all part of the process. It’s predictable and understandable. When you habitually cultivate your desire, when you’re persistent, tenacious and creative, you’ll pick yourself up as many times as you need, dust yourself off and go at it again. Each time a little differently. Each time a little wiser. Each time with a little more wisdom. You’ll find your way. And in the end you will change. “You will finally wake up one morning, a different person in a different world, and you will wonder what has happened to you and the world you used to live in.”

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”   Oscar Wilde

So often we try to live as other people. We think that perhaps that guy over there is the way we should be living or that gal there on TV is who we ought to be. Perhaps it’s Jesus or Buddha or Mother Theresa or Mom or Dad or Maria Shriver or Samantha Stevens (it would be cool to have her powers though) who we try to live as. Maybe we carry around a checklist we picked up in some glossy fashion mag and assign ourselves the task of living according to it. We judge ourselves harshly when we fail (and we always do) to live up to these models and check lists. But it’s not our fault. We live in a world of mimicry. We’re fed reams of should’s and ought’s and images of rights and wrongs and if-only you-did-this’ or looked-like-that’s. So much so that it’s no wonder we’re left scratching our heads in confusion. Who am I? Is a question that can stir a faceless, hidden, potent kind of fear in us because we know on some level that we’ve strayed very far from any sort of semblance of our own true expression. But hang on there’s hope coming. And it’s simple and easy and dare I say effortless.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. 

~E.E. Cummings

Thank you, E.E. You’re brilliant. But I’d change something in your thinking … I say stop the battle. End the fighting. I get it. This being yourself can seem daunting and, if we choose to take it on, can become a full fledged struggle or conflict. But what if in the middle of this battle, you stopped, you just stopped and laid down your sword and walked off the field. You know that you’d find? You’d find Life sitting there on the sidelines prepared with a moment for you to step into to practice being you. She’d show you how moments are doorways to living a bigger life and a bigger expression of your wholeness. She’d assure the process can be fun and easy and the results, magnanimous. She’d teach you how we’re born whole and how we live our lives expanding that wholeness. She’d talk to you about hot the moments that make up our life are the laboratories in which we get to tinker and experiment. Life would show you that it’s about playing and risking and trying new things. Maybe you’d stand there dismayed, overwhelmed with the options and unsure about what all this means. And to that Life would say, begin anywhere. Start small. Start with the easy moments. Pick any moment (maybe the moment you open your eyes in the morning or the moment you open your front door to go to work) and then ask yourself, what do I want? What does my heart long for right now? How can I show up in some new and fun way within this moment?

Begin with any moment and infuse it with yourself and there begins a ripple effect. The more moments you use to explore yourself and your truth, the more those moments will connect to each other and multiply and then before you know it, your life will begin to look and feel like, well, you. And hold on to those folks that you admire and are drawn to, the Will Smith’s and Gandhi’s and Irma Secontino’s (my sweet grandmother) of the world. They have lessons buried in them on how to live as a human being. But do not fall prey to the seductive pull of mimicry. Let Irma be Irma and you be you. Listen to what she has to say about living and then try it on for size in your own life. When you do this, when you try on a lesson from some wise soul, I’ll bet you’ll find that in order it to truly fit you, you’ll need to take it in here a bit and hem it up there a smidge. You’ll have to make the lesson live in your life for it to have any relevance.

So my friend, pick your moment and start exploring who you are. Start with your own personal solitary moments – the ones that don’t involve another person necessarily. See what happens. Go slowly. Be forgiving. Have fun. Experiment. Trust your gut. Allow for mistakes. Teach what you learn. Ask for guidance. Get support. Track your results. You’ll get the hang of it.

 I’ll see you on the other side. Let me know if I can help.

…continued from part I. Here’s the deal, in the current state of affairs, we tend to cling to feelings that are pleasing to us. We tend to turn away from feelings that are displeasing. We build temples to the feelings that make us happy or empowered because we believe that life should feel like “that” all the time. We turn feelings like comfort or joy or happiness into goals and destinations and feelings like sadness and fear and agitation into scary lands that should be avoided at all costs. When good feelings visit, we dance and when they subside as they always do, we sulk and then grab our camouflaged hunting garb, release the hounds and set out on the hunt, stalking these elusive creatures of joy with net in hand. We set secret traps hoping they’ll stumble into them and finally be ours forever. Or maybe we’ll try a more subtle approach, maybe we’ll try wooing these pleasing feelings, seducing them out of their lair and back into our experience. And when feelings darker in nature slide up next to us while we’re minding our own beeswax and settle in crowding into our personal space, we begin the habituated process of avoidance doing everything we can to simply not make eye contact with them. You see if it doesn’t feel good, we so often believe it shouldn’t be felt.Part of this response is natural, built into our DNA, much of this response is a simple misinterpretation of our feeling nature.

There is this notion out there … that good feelings are worthy, desirable and should be sought after and aimed for and bad feelings are well, bad and should be immediately removed from the premises. (“Someone fire that bouncer – he’s falling down on the job! Nervous and Lonely made it onto the dance floor again!”) Our love for desirable feelings is so great, we actually design entire experiences to illicit them. The rollercoaster, sex, a summer blockbuster movie, a glass of wine, hell a whole bottle. Each of these is a designed experience whose goal is to deliver a certain set of feelings. Cool. Except for the fact that so many of us make the feelings the end all be all. We can get addicted to feelings seeking them out at all costs and interpret, evaluate and judge experiences (and people for that matter) on whether or not they made us feel a certain way. On the other hand, in our loftier and more generous moments, we might accept life’s more challenging feelings, trusting that they are a part of our living experience. We might even be able to espouse their value and acknowledge their role but when push comes to shove, when despair comes a knockin’ most of us react with an attitude of aversion towards the feelings that are deemed as undesirable. Most of us turn away from them or worse fear them or dread them. Perhaps though, you’re one of those folks that has escaped this learned approach to the feeling world. And to you I say congratulations. You most certainly are living a more peaceful life. But if you, like most of us haven’t, then I am guessing that your response to difficult feelings has been limited to one of three options: fight, flight or succumb. Ugh.

Now you might say as I often have, “so what? Who wants to feel all that stuff? It’s downright dark, heavy and unproductive.” Okay, I get that but put that aside for the moment and follow me for a minute more.

You see, I want to join a growing number of voices and propose, that there is a completely different way to be with our feelings. A way of being with and responding to them that actually brings us much, much closer to that desired inner world of peace and happiness. This new way of being with our feelings actually calls us to lean into feelings as they arise, to listen to them, turn towards them and even welcome them. Not to deny them or banish them or reject them but to incorporate them into the moment and understand them for what they are. But in order to stand in this new way of being with our feelings, we need a little perspective and understanding on the nature and purpose of feelings. You see, feelings have a distinctly important role in our daily lives. Feelings have evolved to be our messengers; to alert us about something in our environment. And really, it’s that simple. Feelings are simply messengers. They are part of an exquisitely designed and evolved emotional system. Feelings have something to say. They are imbued with a sense of pleasure or displeasure because each sense carries a different message; each intended to illicit a different response from us, their host. In very simple terms, pleasurable feelings arise telling us that all systems are go, needs are being met, all is good. (Yea.) Displeasing feelings show up when threats are being perceived (perhaps we’re about to get hit by a flying toaster). The problem is when we stop at the sense of the feeling (pleasurable or not), refusing to or forgetting to look into the direction it is pointing us. The problem is when we make the pleasurable feeling the aim, the aspiration or the desire and the displeasing feeling, the thing to be avoided. By treating our inner feelings as something to be avoided, we’re in effect manufacturing a threat to our internal world. Striving for or avoiding a feeling misses the point.

As messengers, feelings have a mission: to get our attention, deliver their message, spurring us into action if necessary and move on. They are not designed to be permanent states. They are intended to come and go leaving us clear for the next messenger. Feelings are what connect us to the world around us alerting us to what needs our attention. Feelings are tenacious, insistent and stubborn. They tend to hang around until the situation at hand it addressed – again, that is their job and they take it seriously. But like air bubbles escaping from silt in the bottom of a pond, feelings are on the move, headed to the surface – destination atmosphere. The problem is, they don’t always make it because often times we either aren’t listening or we simply get in the way.  And let me tell you something else, this highly evolved, exquisitely designed emotional system in which we function has a flaw. A flaw that would spell our demise if we weren’t the inherently creative and evolving beings that we are. The flaw is that our internal emotional system can’t discern from an internal or an external threat. It doesn’t know the difference between a speeding bus and a really bad mood. At first blush this might not seem like a show stopper but when you couple this with our flawed approach to feelings which turns negative feelings into a threat, what we end up with is a bit of a mess that is until we begin to leverage our own intelligence, consciousness and awareness. And as it turns out these are our secret weapons.

Remember our three habituated responses of: fight, flight or succumb? Well we didn’t pull those out of our proverbial behinds no, those are a gift, a leftover of sorts from this elegantly designed, highly evolved emotional system I was so high on 200 words ago, a left over from the days when we lived off the land, when you and me were cave dwelling hunter gatherers. Back then, we didn’t need a ton of potential responses. If a polar bear was coming at you at 35 miles per hour across the tundra, you could do one of three things: fight it, run from it or lay down and well, ponder the state of the local food chain (polar bears one, Neanderthals zero). But today things are different … oh of course, there still are external dangers (the occasional flying toaster, the rogue bus, or even the dwindling bank account with the first of the month approaching) and so our feelings see these things coming, send up their flair and hope we’ll take it from there. But these days (enter the fatal flaw), many of our “dangers” are of the internal variety created by our own misunderstanding of our feelings. And it exactly here that things get a little dicey. If the “threat” is not that speeding bus with our name on it but rather an anxious state of mind which we’ve decided is an enemy that should be eradicated, those three action/doing  based options don’t serve us. You can’t fight anxiety (the very thought make me anxious), you can’t run from it, and to succumb to it only takes you down a rabbit hole. So as it turns out, what is a very effective way of dealing with external threats is really not so good for the internal variety. If we can’t do our way out of these internal states of mind and difficult feeling states then our option is to learn a way of being with them.

Cultivating a peaceful inner world; a world born out of happiness and equanimity is a worthy and honorable focus and it begins by befriending our feelings as they arise no matter what they are. This inner, peaceful world is not free of sadness. It is not free of loss. It is not free of anger. What it is, is a world that sees these feelings as feelings. It’s a world where we recognize that we are not our feelings that they are messengers sent to us from our own intelligence. In this peaceful inner world, feelings and thinking are separated from each other. It is a world where we sit calmly witnessing our own inner mechanics with an ability to respond rather than react.  We can’t  create this inner world by manipulating events or choreographing or controlling the world around us. Nope. To create this peaceful inner world, the first step is to welcome, hang out with, listen to and actually take in our feelings. And  not just the good ones … all of them. When we stop avoiding, judging and demoralizing our feelings – when we take the bold and simple step of being with what it already present, that’s when peace begins to take root. So set a few extra seats at the dinner table tonight, leave some room on your dance card and get to know what shows up inside of you and soon enough, you’ll be sending us a postcard from your own internal land of Milk and Honey with the simple inscription: “Wish you were here.”