Sunday 30 September 2012

GAP

Paraphrasing Seth Godin regarding the gap between wishing something and doing the work to get the something you want.  The thing is that wishing requires magical thinking and magical thinking is for people who are disempowered, and fear-driven.  

Doing the work, on the other hand is the journey, doing the work is how we empower ourselves, fall, pick ourselves up and build courage muscles.  Doing the work is what makes our adventures and in turn, ourselves, interesting, fun and yes....magical.

But it’s about the work.  Unfortunately a lot of us are caught in the gap -- the space between magical thinking and the work.  In actuality, this gap is quicksand and this is where we become stuck.  Just the realization of this, being aware of it, is the first step toward the work, toward getting unstuck.




(Seth Godin The wishing/doing gap)



SELFLESS


Crutch is a noun - it is a thing.  
When we are a crutch we become the temporary thing someone leans on during a rough patch.  It means we are a great friend, an awesome parent and generally a soft place to fall.  Being a crutch for someone means we offer a shoulder to cry on and an ear to vent to.  It communicates to this person struggling that we have every confidence that they’re strong, smart and resilient enough to pull through.   

Enabling is a verb -  it is doing.  When we’re enabling someone we accomplish the exact opposite.  While we attempt to ‘do’ or ‘fix’ the problem what we’re actually telling the individual is that we don’t trust their ability to make the right decisions, that they don’t have the wherewithal to solve their problems, that in essence, they are weak and need you.

Notice the difference?  

As a crutch, the confidence and power stays with the other person, the longterm benefits are that they feel supported, empowered and confident to not only deal with but flourish through their struggles.

Enabling, on the other hand, transfers the power from the person struggling to the person ‘doing’ and ‘fixing.’  The benefits are all to the doer and none to the person struggling who now feels, unsure, overwhelmed, anxious and afraid.  

What’s interesting is when you meet a person who desperately wants to be enabled when all you really want to offer is a crutch. 

In this scenario the real difficulty lies in refusing to offer the former, and from a true selfless part of yourself, with deep love and respect, extend the latter.   

Friday 28 September 2012

SOURCE


The problem with believing what other people say is that you don’t know the source. 

How do you know, for example, that the source, the person talking to you, the person telling you how you should live your life doesn’t have an agenda, an agenda that has nothing to do with what’s best for you?  

The moral here is that unless you know the source, you know the heart, spirit and motivation of the person talking to you, there is no point whatsoever in you listening -- why would you?  Why would you even waste one minute listening to someone who hasn’t proven their integrity to you? 

And yet, people do it all the time, torturing themselves trying to live up to the expectations of a source whose integrity is suspect at best, dangerous at worst. 

Thursday 27 September 2012

SHAPE


What shape are you trying to fit in?  
If it feels tight, then it probably is.  
If it feels loose, then it probably is.

Here’s the thing, I bet you thought physical when I said shape. Am I right?  But it could be anything.  Ideas can be too tight or too loose.  Ways of life can be too tight or too loose.  The point is that your life, your ideas, your shape has to fit YOUR particular size, your individual concepts and points of view.  No one else’s.  

It’s a radical concept for some.  It’s a scary idea for others but it all boils down to knowing yourself.  Asking yourself some important questions, like:
Who do I want to be?
Am I leading the life I want?
Is there joy in my life?
Where am I living? How am I existing?  What am I being?
Do I like what goes through my mind?

If you aren’t asking yourself these questions then how will you ever know who you are and what you stand for?

Ah, but that’s the point isn’t it?  If you start poking around, scratching that surface with pesky questions, the next thing you know you’ll want to make changes and then what? FEAR, FALLOUT, CHAOS, ANARCHY?

If you’re very lucky. YES. There is nothing more powerful to shift your shape than that.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

FALLOUT


It’s uncanny how fear can whip us into a frenzy using our insecurities, foibles and distorted sense of low self worth.  It makes just the potential of any shunning and shaming feel so real that it freezes us in our tracks.  It’s extremely effective in keeping us locked up in our cave, terrified to venture out, try anything new, expand our horizons, develop our curiosity.

The reality is that if we went through life showing everyone exactly who we were, warts and all, our family would still love us and our friends would still cherish us, in truth, there would be precious little fallout.

Fact is, everyone is in the same boat.  We’re all worried about being lovable.  The irony is that if we were a little more courages and lived authentic lives, fear would loose its power.  Certainly, we would still feel it but it will have lost its power to imprison us.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

CLARITY


We will truly never get at the root of a problem, or arrive at clarity, if:
There is drama
There are lies
There are secrets
There is blame
There is a closed mind
There is overwhelming fear
We don’t take responsibility
We don’t understand that clarity is the goal

Monday 24 September 2012

LUXURY


The epitome of a luxurious life is one lived free of lies and secrets.  Both are toxic and lead to chronic pain and suffering.  Joy is hard to come by when this type of toxicity rules your life.

Whatever the reason lies and secrets entered your life it was probably in the hopes of alleviating pain, shame, or solving a problem.  The irony is that lying and keeping secrets ALWAYS produces the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.

The hard part about coming clean is that you have to be willing to handle whatever fallout there might be.  And while there will be strong emotions to deal with at the beginning, people who truly care and respect you will still be there on the other side.

Sunday 23 September 2012

FAIR


The opposite requires that a larger than usual piece of your consciousness is missing even the most fundamental ability to understand an entity outside yourself. 

In other words, to be the opposite of fair, you need to be exquisitely self-conscious.  In order to be unfair therefore, you live in so much fear that being pathologically self conscious is an act of preservation.

Unfairness to you is a matter of survival.  Should you even entertain the possibility of taking only what you need from a situation, to make a situation ‘equitable’ for all parties concerned, to you is akin to mutiny, suicide or, yes, even murder.

Fear in you is all powerful.  It dictates the very narrow delineation of your miserable life.

CONSCIOUS


It’s about being aware.  We’re either externally conscious - aware of things outside ourselves or we’re self conscious -aware of things within ourselves.  

It seems that when we’re dealing with superficial things, how we look: our hair, nails, weight, clothes, etc., we’re very self conscious.  We believe that everyone is looking in our direction and so we invest a great deal of time torturing ourselves convinced that others are judging us cruelly.  The reality of course is that because we are so self-absorbed WE are the only ones judging ourselves because everyone else is just as self-absorbed and doesn’t really notice us.

Even when it looks as though people are judging externally, judging others, this happens most especially to women and how they look, the judgement is actually reflexive.  The person casting judgment on someone else, is actually comparing themselves with the person they are judging.   If they believe the person they are judging is superior to them in some way, thinner, prettier, then it serves as confirmation of their own low self worth.  If on the other hand, they judge the other as inferior to themselves, then it serves as confirmation of their higher self worth.

Either way, the point is that WE, as in the collective everyone, are to a huge extent focused on ourselves.  If we do happen to notice anyone else, it’s usually a way to reflect back on what it means to us, how it makes us feel.

It’s a testament that for most of us, our awareness, sad to say, encompasses a pallidly, malnourished circumference.

Friday 21 September 2012

REMEMBER


Why is it that we have such a hard time being focused on the present? Why is it that we struggle to appreciate the moment we’re living in right now and choose rather to be distracted by what was past and what’s up ahead.  

We struggle to be present, that is, until we need to face something that might cause us pain.  Then we have no difficulty staying in the here and now, holding  at arms length any past pain or future fear that threatens to surface.

Interestingly, this has to do with our need to avoid pain at all cost.  But here’s the thing, we forget how often we’ve actually overcome fear. We forget that we have shown courage in our life at some point, at some time.

In fact, I bet you've overcome harder things than what you're struggling with right now.  You have simply forgotten.

The courage is there, waiting, and we can call it to our side at any time. We just need to remember that.

Thursday 20 September 2012

REVOLUTION


How did generations become convinced that earning a living meant bartering the ‘privilege’ of a roof over our heads and food on our tables for the very small inconvenience of our soul.   That it was impertinent, foolish and downright crazy to pursue a dream, opt out of the rat race and follow your heart.   

The good news is that the confluence of technology and a changing economy have produced a perfect storm of change.  Everywhere you turn opportunities are springing up for you to live your life on your own terms and STILL be able to clothe and feed your children.  

But it takes courage to change. And fear won’t be silenced easily, it’s always close at hand to remind you that leaving a ‘sure thing’ is impertinent, foolish and downright crazy.  It isn’t.  

What’s crazy is thinking that working for a large corporation is a ‘sure thing.’  There is no guarantee.  What’s crazy is those who side with their captors and beg to remain chained to their cubicles, to their company jobs, crying “Who will take care of me?”  “Who will tell me what to do, what to think, what to say?” Beating their chests and chanting for their retirement packages, pocket watch and pinky ring.

What’s crazy is sticking your head in the sand and pretending that the earth isn’t shaking.  It is.  

And hallelujah for that.

Wednesday 19 September 2012

PERFECTION


It’s overrated.  It’s an excuse really.  Because if you’re busy trying to get something perfect, what you’re really doing is not getting anything done.  

Why is that?  Here’s the mashugana moment -- because there is no such thing as perfect.  Besides, even if there was, no one would notice because everyone is too busy trying to be ‘perfect’ themselves.

Here’s the thing.  If you’re trying to accomplish anything it’s better to get the thing done as best you can, and get it ‘shipped’ like Seth Godin says.  Forgive your imperfection but get the job done, meet the deadline and add another project to your portfolio.  It’s what moves you forward.  Perfection, is what keeps you stuck.

AMBITION


I think women fear ambition.  They fear the word not the intent.  Why?  Ambition means that one has a desire for personal achievement and women are socialized to defer to others, primarily male others.  Society strongly encourages them to take on supporting roles and calls them aggressive, bitches, un-feminine and unattractive, if they seek personal achievement.  It shuns and shames them.  Little wonder women will never admit they’re ambitious.

Just because they won’t admit it however, doesn’t mean they don’t want it.  The real shame, is that while men have a whole support system behind them to make sure that they are successful, women work twice as hard on their own, keeping their desire for achievement locked in their hearts.

Think that we’ve come too far for this to be true?  Think again.  The double standard is alive and well and the stereotypes are thriving.  While we’ve made strides in having record number of women entering med schools and graduating law, the reality once women enter the workforce not only obliterates those strides, it downright regresses them.

Here's an interesting article on this:

Monday 17 September 2012

QUIT


A four letter word.  It’s unequivocally understood by our society that to quit, to even entertain the idea of quitting, is to be a loser.  To quit is to tell the world that you don’t possess the wherewithal to do something hard.  The irony of course is that it’s harder to quit something than to just carry on.

Never say quit is exquisitely dumb...of the head against a brick wall variety.  Having the blinders on and dumbly plodding on when your internal GPS is telling you to quit, is silly.  Yet we do it all the time: the job that isn’t working, the relationship that’s wearing us out, the project that has morphed into a losing proposition. On the whole, I think we refuse to quit because we simply don’t know what else to do.  

Here’s the thing, what if we quit and then waited, just stopped, did nothing for a bit. The answer of how to proceed, the direction to take or whether to wait just a bit longer will, invariably present itself.

That’s the problem though isn’t it? The hard part isn’t knowing when or what to quit, in fact you know it already.  The hard part is sitting still for the alternative to unveil itself.

Sunday 16 September 2012

FRUIT


Fruit you have to wait to eat for it to be flavorful.  Fruit has seasons and temperatures and geography that makes each variety unparalleled and unique. 

Desire on the other hand is not fruit.  You don’t have to wait for a particular season, you don’t have to adjust the temperature or the geography of where you’re at.  If you want your desire to come to fruition, all you need is NOW.

If you want whatever is aching in your heart to grow, then you need to start NOW.

If there is something in your heart’s desire that needs to be nurtured and tended, do it NOW.

Like fruit, desire spoils.  Leave desire unrealized for too long and it becomes a rotten mess filled with bitterness and regret.

Saturday 15 September 2012

DISAPPOINTMENT


"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
It’s a scary proposition to follow your heart, your intuition or your desire.  So most of our energy is expended in doing just the opposite -- running the other way.

I think one of the things that would help is knowing how to deal with disappointment and the attending feeling of discouragement that inevitably follows, on the road to following your heart or intuition.

The problem is that the only way to deal with disappointment and discouragement is to actually experience it: the more you experience it, the more you see that it’s not the end of the world.  That in fact, you come away having learned something, even if it’s just the knowledge that you’re not going to die from disappointment.  

How awesome would it be to become an expert at disappointment because in order to become and expert in this field it means you’re an expert in getting up, dusting yourself off and trying again.  The upshot is that if you keep that up whatever it is you’ve got your heart, intuition or desire set on, will inevitably be just around the corner.

"When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else." ~ Joseph Campbell


Friday 14 September 2012

DESIRE


An examined life will invariably be a life lived with desire.  I mean true desire, your heart’s desire.  A lot of folks are frightened by desire, why?  Because desire can mean disappointment.  If you desire something, if you want something, especially if the desire involves realizing a dream, if you don’t get it you’ll be disappointed.  People are freaked out by disappointment, some are devastated by it.

Folks are also afraid of desire because it means they have to do something, like go after something and going after something might also mean change and possibly more disappointment.  See what I mean?  Desire is fraught with all kinds of inconvenience and unpleasantness.

People will go to devastating lengths to avoid feeling desire. They’ll engage in all kinds of drama and distraction by thinking that desire means wanting material things.  Others will self-medicate with alcohol and/or drugs, or succumb to depression, develop chronic illnesses that drive them to an early grave.  Folks will do all of this just so they won’t feel desire, just to avoid doing the work required to change or try something new, to live an authentic and meaningful life.

There is no way around it.  An examined life will invariably be a life filled with desire.  What surprises me is how few people are willing to live this courageously. 

Thursday 13 September 2012

PSYCHOLOGICAL PARENT


What or who is your psychological parent?  I’m not talking the nurturing parent.  And it doesn’t need to be a person, it can be a thing.  

What circumstance, or thing or person elicits this imbalance of power?  Is it your boss?  Is it your kids?  Is it your home life?  Is it driving a car?  Crowds?  What is it that makes you feel overwhelmed, helpless and unable to cope?  What represents such an authority over you that you are unable to challenge it?

We obey our parents for a relatively short period of time.  Then we grow up and part of that process is learning to think for ourselves.  And yet, there are ‘trigger’ events, or things or people, that take us back to when we were children and, especially if you had volatile parents, elicit overwhelming feelings of powerlessness.

These are critical feelings to examine.  It's the only way to  identify what or who wields this enormous power that keeps you pinned to the ground.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

SUFFERING


Therefore, to be fully human is to also be divine.  Spirit is inherent, it is implicit in our full humanity.

What’s troublesome is that we seem to be hypnotized by reason and reason, invariably, takes us further and further away from our centre, away from spirit.  

The further away we get from spirit, the closer we get to suffering.  And while suffering is also a part of being fully human, we run the risk of it taking over our lives.

Paradoxically, as a fully human species we not only posses spirit AND are aware of possessing spirit, we are capable, at the same time, of knowingly inflicting suffering.


RIP 9/11/01

Tuesday 11 September 2012

FULLY HUMAN


A tree knows it’s a tree implicitly, a dog knows she’s a dog, a rock is a rock implicitly -- it would never question its ‘rock-ness.’  So too, humans know how to be fully human.

Socrates said that it was man’s virtue that made him fully human, the ability to know right from wrong.  Later philosophers expounded on that idea and reason became the distinction that defined her full humanity.

Although virtue and reason certainly separate us from other species, what embraces our full human-ness, I think, is the ability to recognize our spirit to recognize our divine nature.  

That we possess spirit is implicit.  That we know we possess spirit is what’s distinctive.  


Monday 10 September 2012

MORAL DUTY


Why should you live an examined life?  Why should you live your best life?
To arrive, to uncover, to know, to acknowledge your truth.

Not asking questions about how you’re living your life means that you are living someone else’s truth.  

Paraphrasing Plato’s paradox, either we already know what our truth is and don’t need to look for it, or we don’t know what we’re looking for and therefore wouldn’t recognize it if we found it.

I suspect that most of us don’t know what our truth is because its uncovering requires, as Plato states, a ‘recollection’ of our eternal reality.  

What the hell am I talking about?
Finding your truth is about living your life connected to the spirit at the core of your being -- the eternal thing inside all of us that existed before we were born and will continue to exist after we die.

The more we are able to live connected to this spirit, the closer we come to our moral duty to live our best life and to know our truth.

RIGHT/WRONG


Aside from the obvious illegal things that one ought not do, what are your values, or morals about what is right and what is wrong in the way you live your life?

This is a great question to ask as a starting point to examine your life.

Sunday 9 September 2012

EXAMINE


Formal dilemma:  Is our life better because we examine it, or do we examine it in order to make our life better? 

Either way, to examine your life will invariably lead you to appreciate the fact that you have been given this opportunity to be present in this time and this place.

Examining our life leads to intellectual independence, teaches us to think for ourselves, to question our life and to become aware of how we’re thinking and where that thinking 
takes us.

An unexamined life is not worth living - Socrates

Saturday 8 September 2012

EXPECTATIONS


Expect the best and the best will happen.  

Send love on ahead and love will be waiting for you - I’m not talking romantic love here, I’m talking love as in goodwill and compassion.

The reality is that the energy that you put out there is what you attract back to you.

If you don’t believe that, you can always test it.  Go ahead, expect the absolute worst, and see whether that's what you get.

Send anger, bitterness and anxiety on ahead and see what awaits you.

Friday 7 September 2012

OLD & MEAN


There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that keeps me focused on a path to my best life and being grateful for everything in it, than having a close encounter with an angry, bitter, ungrateful, busy-body, negative and just plain mean old person.

It’s bad at any age, but when you come across it in an elderly person it just seems so much worse because it comes at you with incredible force the speed of which, you can imagine, has been picking up for a lifetime. 

These individuals have learned nothing about gratitude and abundance and compassion and are so closed off they will likely learn nothing in the few years they have left.

And in a weird way, it’s actually good to come across people like this, every once in a while, because it reminds you who you will work very hard to NOT become.

Thursday 6 September 2012

GOOD/BETTER


Hearing is good.  Listening is better.

Can’t remember who said this - we were given two ears and a mouth so we can listen twice as much as we talk.  

I know that I experience the greatest sense of love when I feel I have been heard.

HISTORY REPEATING


If you feel as though you’re being presented with the same lessons over and over again, the universe is trying to tell you that you’re not listening -- you’re not listening to your heart’s desire.  Until you do, history will keep repeating.

Pay attention to the patterns in your life.  What circumstances keep coming up.  Connect the dots. Then change the connection.

If the wrong guy keeps showing up in your life, why are you continuing to react to him in the same way.  Once you know that he’s the wrong guy, and I bet you can tell inside of a second, why don’t you walk the other way?

If you continue to find yourself in dead-end jobs, why don’t you get clear about the job you really want and say no to the next dead-end job that shows up?

The thing to remember is that, sure, the same stuff can keep showing up.  The difference is in how you respond.  Change the response, change the connection, stop the repeating pattern.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

LABEL


What have you believed about yourself all your life?  Is it true?

It’s inevitable that growing up we received messages about who we were, whether directly or indirectly, from our parents, our teachers our friends.  Maybe you were told you were stubborn, maybe that you were brilliant, or perhaps you were the creative one, or the diva, or the fat one, the lazy one, the stupid one, and on and on.

Whatever the message was, and it was probably not a positive message, chances are you’re still carrying it around with you.  Chances are you’ve never questioned whether the message matches with who you actually are.   

How tragic to walk around, as adults, with labels and names of who we are without our approval, without question, we’ve simply inculcated it assuming the people who gave us those labels must be right. 

Think about one or two things that you have always believed about yourself, especially a thing that you’re not sure how you came to believe it.  Then ask yourself, truly touch base with your intuition and ask yourself whether it’s true.

I bet you it won’t be.

Monday 3 September 2012

15 MINUTES


If you believe that you were put on this earth for a life that’s bigger than the one you’re living right now, please schedule 15 minutes into your day and watch this right to the end. 

I would suggest that instead of ‘great career’ substitute whatever resonates for you, ‘achieving your goals,’ ‘realizing your dreams,’ ‘living without regret,’  ‘seeing what you’re really made of,’  ‘acting on the flight imperative,’ whatever feels right for you.

Watch it with an open mind and an open heart.  

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career.html

Sunday 2 September 2012

AGAIN


We all know this but we forget so it bears repeating.

Here’s the thing about love - if you don’t have it for yourself, then you can’t possibly have it for anyone else.

And if love is too fuzzy a word for you then use compassion instead.  And if compassion is too new-agey, then use respect.

The point is that WHATEVER you don’t have for yourself, you can’t possibly have for anyone else.  Period.

Then again, whatever you have for yourself, you will also have for others.  So if you hate yourself, if you disrespect yourself, if you continually judge and sell yourself short, then guess what...

It cannot be any other way.