Wednesday 31 October 2012

I AM


"Whatever follows “I AM” will come looking for you."   ~ Pastor Joel Osteen

In other words:
I am tired means that sure enough I will be
I am broke means that yes I will be
I am unlucky means I am

Similarly:
I am healthy
I am joyful
I am grateful

Changes the paradigm.



“I AM” IS A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHESY.

It cannot be said any more plainly:  
YOU ARE THE CREATOR OF YOUR EXPERIENCE

Tuesday 30 October 2012

WAIT


Not a single solitary person has every accomplished anything of value by waiting for the right opportunity.  

Anything of value?  How about just catching the morning bus.  It means that you have to get up, get ready and stand at the bus stop and create the opportunity for that bus to stop and pick you up.

Waiting is overrated.  The wisdom is knowing what circumstances are made better by waiting (rare to none) and which are squandered by it (almost all).  

Clue: It’s better to leap and apologize later for the gargantuan mess you made, than never leaping, never learning, never risking.

Monday 29 October 2012

STICKINESS


Your experiences, whether good or bad, will continue to stick to you so long as they’re useful to you.

Even bad and painful experiences will be useful to you in keeping you stuck, in precluding you from moving forward, in keeping you from having to experience the fear of change.

Sunday 28 October 2012

WAH WAH WAH


If we’re suffering from lifestyle illnesses like chronic hypertension and type II diabetes and we continue to not exercise and eat crap while telling ourselves that life’s too short and we don’t want to deny ourselves, remember that what we’re actually DENYING ourselves is the opportunity to feel good, be healthy, be engaged in our lives.  The two go hand-in-hand.

So carry on.   But let’s not hear any WAH WAH WAH when we receive no sympathy for the stupid choices we make.

Saturday 27 October 2012

INFLAMMATION


We know better than to pick at that scab, but here we are poking at it, worrying it into an oozing wound.  

Or we’ll reach for a switch - a switch as in a stick the width of our thumb and as pliable as a whip, to lash ourselves with.  (It’s the same switch that husbands were permitted to beat their wives with, back in the day.  The ‘rule of thumb,’ was a sanctioned method of torture.)

The metaphor doesn’t matter.

The trigger that tips us from poking to picking doesn’t matter either.  It could have been the dark and stormy day or a fight with the kids, or the burning of our toast this morning.

The scab and the switch are our insecurities.  They lie dormant until we turn our attention to them. But if we don’t catch ourselves in time, we will pick and prod our insecurities into a roaring inflammation, an infection, or worse, gangrene.  And this matters.  It matters because we are raising welts on our souls.  

The truth is that we will never be rid of our insecurities, they are part of what makes us uniquely us.  However, inflaming our insecurities is damaging. 

In fact, any kind of pain inflicted by an outside source PALES in comparison to the breadth and depth of the damage that we can inflict on ourselves by simply continuing to pick at that scab or reach for that switch.  

When we can feel our insecurities rising, rather than poking at that scab or eyeing that switch, STOP.  Show some compassion.  More than at any other time, when we’re feeling vulnerable and our insecurities are threatening to burn out of control, we need to be kinder to ourselves. 

We need not surrender to the perverse voice in our head who wants to see a bonfire.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

HATERS...


...are green with envy because they’re rotten to the core!

The irony here is that they don't hate you, no, they hate themselves.  Their self-loathing is rotting them from the inside out.

Monday 22 October 2012

TIME & TYRANTS


Tyrants are defined by their toxicity, be it your partner, your boss, your so called BFF or the schoolyard bully. 

The biggest problem is that the toxicity of tyrants is infectious.  If you spend time around it, even just a little bit of time, you’ll be acting like a tyrant yourself, in no time.

Sunday 21 October 2012

LIBERATION


When we truly understand that someone else’s point of view has no bearing on who we are, when our soul is at peace while we understand this, we are as close to being our true selves as we can possibly be.   

Saturday 20 October 2012

TURTLE OR PORCUPINE


While psychological or emotional pain is special to us as human beings, there is a real danger of us becoming defined by it. 

We are either like turtles carrying this pain on our back living weighed down tentative lives succumbing to depression or resigning ourselves to miserable lives.  

Or we’re like porcupines, sharpening our pain into angry, bitter quills and lashing out at others.

Clearly neither is helpful to you or anyone else.   What’s helpful is to understand it.  Go to the root of the pain if you can, otherwise get some distance on it, put it in context, fix it into a time and place so it can’t move around.  

We have to understand our pain, we have to, because ultimately we cannot control what we don’t understand.

Friday 19 October 2012

PAIN


A child’s healthy sense of self comes from feeling as though they are truly seen and heard, feeling as though they matter.  As adults we understand this because in all likelihood we were raised in exactly the opposite way.  

It’s a phantom realization that causes us a great deal of pain.  Phantom because it is difficult to articulate, we just sense an unease, a disquiet, a low grade discomfort in the area of our self-esteem.   

It is exquisitely painful stuff for us to carry around.

But this pain isn’t great because we are special, this pain is great because it is special to us. 

OTHERS


We spend a great deal of time trying to convince others that we are worthy of kindness and respect and yet spend no time at all convincing ourselves of it.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

TRIALS


I believe that God/Grace/Universe always gives you more than you can handle because we’re put on this earth to grow, to understand, to learn.  Dealing just with what you can handle would preclude any of that.

Sometimes Grace is a little heavy handed though and her ‘more than’ packs a wallop.  Do we stagger?  Do we drop to our knees?  Do we sometimes even land on our asses?  You bet!

There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as we stagger back up, wobbly knees and all.

It becomes a problem when we run away.  When we pretend that the ‘more than’ doesn’t exist, or is meant for someone else, not us.  When we bury our head in the sand.  

When we catch ourselves resisting the challenge we should pay attention instead.   Grace is calling us away from mediocrity, pulling us out of the status quo, egging us on to do better.  She wouldn’t do this if she didn’t think we were worthwhile.  And the bigger the challenge, I think, the more worthwhile she thinks we are. 

Does it hurt?  Yup, the important stuff usually does.  

Tuesday 16 October 2012

CONSTRUCTIVE/DESTRUCTIVE


Constructive criticism is a selfless act that you perpetrate with compassion and kindness directly on to the other person.  You do it because you care and you might have some insight that would make this other person and/or what they’re doing, better.  

Criticizing someone to a third party is gossip.  Going over someone’s head with criticism is a selfish act that’s about you.  It’s about you needing to feel superior.  It’s about you needing to STEAL someone’s joy because you have none.

The former says that you have courage.  The latter says that you are a knuckle-dragging, yellow-bellied, scum-sucker.

Monday 15 October 2012

PRECIOUS


Surround yourself with precious individuals.  Those are the ones who can tell you something about yourself that you didn’t know.  They’re also the ones who will remind you of who you truly are in case you forget.

There are far too many people in our lives that don’t know us, in fact, they don’t see us. They don’t have a clue about who we are.  Tragically, more often than we’d like to admit, they’re our so called ‘significant’ other.  I was married to someone who, after seven years together, bought me pecan pie for my birthday.  I have always hated pecan pie, but it was his favorite.  While a small thing on the surface, it was a perfect metaphor for the fatal flaw in our relationship.

See the problem with surrounding ourselves with people who don’t know us is that they will perpetuate a false impression of who we, not only are, but want to be.  Saddest of all, we will learn to define ourselves by who we are not.

Our environment matters.  Who occupies that environment with us matters.  At some point we must stop refusing to be enlightened to that fact. 

Sunday 14 October 2012

CRAP


We need to quit this crap about others being less than because by making others less than we are making ourselves more than.  

And I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you look like, or who you look like, how much money, standing, lineage, land, buildings, you, your father, mother, brother or uncle has, you will never be more than anybody else because no one is less than you. 

PERIOD.

Saturday 13 October 2012

HAMMER


If you’ve struggled with a particular issue chances are others have struggled with the same.  I am all for sharing your insights to spare someone from heartache, further struggle or illuminating the path through.  

But sometimes we come at it like a hammer and treat the person struggling, like a nail.  Bullying people into taking our advice by shaming them, belittling them or judging them, never works.  Coming at someone like a tool (pun intended) will invariably betray the fact that you have gleaned precious little from your struggle and will therefore, have very little of value to offer.    

Ultimately, it’s our prerogative whether we take advice or not, as much as it’s about how well we discern who is giving and how they are giving us, that advice.

Friday 12 October 2012

BACKWARDS


Sometimes we’re knocked on our asses and can’t get back up.  Sometimes we’re so stuck we’re not just frozen in place, we actually start moving backwards.

Here’s the thing.  So what, you’re moving backwards.  You’ve not failed.  At some point you’ll be moving forward again.  Failure is when you stop trying.

We know this but we forget.

FAILURE IS WHEN YOU GIVE UP.  
FAILURE IS WHEN YOU STOP MOVING ALTOGETHER. 

Thursday 11 October 2012

MONSTER


We are both the Hero and the Monster in our lives.  It feels as though we’re slaying Monsters outside ourselves, but that’s just an illusion.  The Monster is within us.   

What does the Monster look like?
It could look like drama
It could look like our feelings are hurt
Like we’re offended
Like denial
Like a grudge
Like jealousy
Like indignation
Fear
Entitlement
Callousness
Greed

Do you see the Monster now?  The Monster is our perspective, in other words, we either conjure up a big Monster or a little Monster depending on how we’re reacting, how we interpret a situation, or how we filter our perspective through the state of our morals, the definition of our values.

Once we understand this, we control the Monster.  If we fail to understand this, the Monster will control us.

HOOORAAYYYY


An easy life leaves us open to manipulation.  If we dodge or ignore struggles by burying our head in the sand, or if we constantly abdicate making our own decisions, or taking some risks or figuring stuff out on our own, then we’re much more likely to end up leading someone else’s life.

Going this route is truly ugly because one fine day we’ll realize that we’re at a place and with people who don’t reflect who we want to be.

Don’t despair.  If today is that day, HOORAYYY.  Now hurry to the nearest cliff, jump, and as Ray Bradbury once said, build your wings on the way down.

Wednesday 10 October 2012

LEVEL


Some days we spend our time trying to get a foothold on the top of a very steep and slippery slope.  At the bottom of this slope is where we keep our fears and phobias, our neurosis and our neediness.  On most days we manage to stay above, navigating the path that runs along the ridge of this hill.  Then there are days when the top is covered with ice.  The more we struggle to keep our balance the more unsure our footing becomes, the steeper the slope will look, the greater the fear of slipping.  

The fear we feel is not from looking into the abyss.  We’ve seen these monsters before, we’ve battled them and won, that’s why on most days we stand, surefooted, on top of the slope. What scares the hell out of us is the falling itself, is feeling the vulnerability, that, and the climb back up.

Letting go and falling is hard only because we believe that the journey back up the slope will be even harder.  That’s why on the journey up, some of us crawl to a certain level and then stop to rest.  Some of us rest too long.  We begin to hear the voice of fear in our ear.  Some of us get stuck on our way up and get lost in remembering the times we were strong, strutting on the lip of that slope, it reminds us how tired and weak we feel right now.  

It’s okay, go ahead and rest on that level.  Rest assured that you will get back up though. You will climb to the top and stand strong again.  How do I know?  Because you’ve done it before and that has provided you with awareness.  That awareness is a guarantee, yes a guarantee, that you will make it up that slippery slope, every time you fall.  

Awareness of your strength, even if you don’t feel that strength right now, just the awareness raises you to a new level, that creates a path that leads you back to the top.

This is the time to be kind to yourself, be patient.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

PERSPECTIVE


Our blessings may very well be someone else’s ordinary.  An apple to a starving man is a matter of life or death.  An apple to a satiated man is something he can either take or leave.

It’s more helpful to us if we come from the perspective of acknowledging our blessings, always.  Because while we may be satiated now, there will come a time when we are starving.  It may be a figurative starving or literal, it doesn’t matter. The point is that a perspective of gratitude will invariably provide you with plenty more to be grateful for.  If on the other hand all you see is lack, don’t be surprised if nothing shows up.

Here’s the thing, it’s not that nothing is showing up, the irony is that to someone who comes from a perspective of lack, they simply won’t see it.  

Be grateful for the ordinary because in reality it is a blessing waiting to be acknowledged.  And like invariably attracts like.

Monday 8 October 2012

LUCKY


When stuff isn’t working in our life we become stuck on what’s wrong rather than the Grace in our life.  We feel anything but lucky and so we engage in some self indulgent whining about why is this happening to ME, poor ME, woe is ME, blah, blah, blah.  We’re so busy throwing a pity party that we can’t see what this trouble truly is.

It’s true that we can have success in one area of our lives but be a complete failure in another. This helps us stay stuck because it’s confusing.  We want to know how we can rock so seriously on the one hand and be such a screw up in another?

If we’re very lucky Grace (GOD/UNIVERSE/PROVIDENCE) will put a thorn in a part of our life, a pebble in our shoe in another part of our life, or whack a brick upside our head  when we’re messing up our whole life.  And then, when she wants to be a righteous bitch, because she’s sick and tired of us not listening, she’ll bring us to our knees. 

Nothing will focus us faster than the kind of trouble that brings us to our knees.  Nothing will get our undivided attention on the matter faster and teach us to shut our mouth and listen.  Nothing will teach us gratitude and prayer faster like BIG TROUBLE.  

It’s the kind of trouble that’ll makes us a ‘prayer warrior’ says Bishop TD Jakes, because it’ll throw us up against the wall and have us screaming to the heavens. 

The last thing we’ll be thinking about is how lucky we are.  But we are.  Grace cares enough about us to talk to us this directly, this vividly, this emphatically.  She’s trying to make a point, teach us something, help us figure something out.  We need to quit whining, shut our mouth, sit still and listen.

Sunday 7 October 2012

HUMILITY


An arrogant individual believes that the suffering that shows up in their lives is not their problem.  Lacking true humility these individuals will find someone who will take responsibility for that suffering, make it go away, appease it, clean up the mess.  

The sad part is that women line up around the block to take on this responsibility every chance they get.  We need to stop figuring stuff out for people who need to figure stuff out for themselves.  

When we step in this way we are practicing a false humility that is feeding a distorted sense of importance in ourselves.

Saturday 6 October 2012

DESERVE


Do you deserve a break today?  I think too many of us feel entitled to breaks, discounts, shortcuts, freebies, favors, free lunches and getting something over someone.  

It’s creepy and completely misguided.  NO, WE DON’T ‘DESERVE’ a break.

The reality is that as human beings we need adversity, resistance, a little bit of trouble.  Humans don’t need an easy life because when we have it we invariably descend to our most basest impulses -- take reality shows for example, no need to have writers think of something thought provoking or pertinent to say, just point and shoot and watch the masses line up for the train wreck.

If you don’t use it you loose it also applies to our moral fibre, which needs to be exercised into developing sturdy muscles so we become determined, so we learn to strive, take risks, be bold.

We don’t deserve a break.  We deserve for stuff to break so that we know what we’re made of.  An easy life, a life of entitlement teaches us less than nothing.

Friday 5 October 2012

STRUGGLE


For the most part, our struggles come from our own making.  So why are we making ourselves struggle?  It could be that we have lessons to learn.  Perhaps we are meant to be leaders and our learning is to figure our way through bad times.  Perhaps we are meant to be great but we need to first overcome our weaknesses.  Perhaps we are meant to be great healers but need to first mend our own broken selves.

The irony, I believe, is this great truth -- the more afflicted we are, the more we grow and that this growth, is the only pathway to realizing our greatest, most authentic selves.  It’s also the only way we’re going to be any good to anyone else.

TRANSITION


Even if we have days filled with nothing but rainbows and ponies, if our default state of mind is negative, it can’t help but look like crap.

Transitions, changes, getting unstuck happens when we decide to shift the way we look at things.



Thursday 4 October 2012

DISEASE


Are you afraid to speak up because even more than fearing you’ll be embarrassed you’re worried that people won’t like you?

Do you ignore your instinct telling you to walk away from an individual because they’re creeping you out, but you ignore it and stay?  Because they may not like it?

In a conversation are you hypervigilant to micro-changes in someone’s expression or body language and will lower your voice, or raise it, speak slower or faster, agree or disagree in keeping with those changes?

Do you start to act like an asshole, even though you know you’re not, but you act like one because you feel you need to mirror the person you’re talking to?

These examples, and many, many more will resonate for those of us who are afflicted with the disease to please.

It’s a deadly disease that kills any possibility we may have to be our authentic self.  Many people struggle with this disease because we don’t really know who we are, authentically.

It’s worth taking the time to find out. But it’s both the easiest and the hardest thing to do.  It requires, quiet, you see.  It requires time and space to simply sit still and listen.  Listen for that small voice that’s been trying so hard to be heard.  Listen for its whisper from the centre of our being.  

Coax it into speaking by asking: “Who am I?”  “What do I believe in?”  “What are my morals?”  “What are my boundries?”  “What things make me feel energized?” “What brings me joy?”  “Who makes me feel like I can do anything?”

Your authentic self is waiting to tell you.  Listen.

When we live our life from a place of authenticity, we will have found the cure to the disease to please.



Wednesday 3 October 2012

RESILIENT


It is easier, I think, to feel resilient when your life has meaning.

When your days are filled with engaging work, be it outside the home, or inside, but doing work that matters, you are better able to handle whatever struggles come your way.  If, in addition to doing meaningful work, you are surrounded by people who respect and care about you, well then, there is very little that can bring you down.

People who are resilient aren’t lucky.  They’ve just understood that they have a choice in determining the work they engage in and the people they allow to surround them.

On the other hand, those that feel beleaguered by struggles  believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that resilience has everything to do with luck.

Tuesday 2 October 2012

FRACTURED


There is nothing more damaging to a person’s authenticity, I think, than to make them believe that they need to be well-rounded.  That’s another way of saying, fit in, don’t make waves, don’t draw attention to yourself, do what everyone else is doing, be homogenous.  

I say cultivate sharp corners by zooming in to what you’re curious about, what captivates you, what draws out your exuberance, what in essence makes you feel alive and true.

How can anyone be themselves and be well-rounded?  People aren’t made to be homogenous.  And while well-rounded sounds as soft as an embrace, it actually feels like you’re being torn into a million pieces because in order to be homogenous you have to continuously tear off the bits of yourself that threaten to rebel.  In the name of fitting in, in the name of propriety, in the name of culture, in the name of feeling worthy of the love of our family, too many of us live painfully fractured lives.

The first step towards an authentic you, starts with, NO.

Monday 1 October 2012

AIRS


When we pretend to be something/someone we’re not, when we put on ‘airs,’ we’re actually engaging in the worst kind of betrayal -- betrayal of ourselves.

What I find interesting is that the only time it is imperative that we put on so called airs, when we should be something we’re not, is when we need to be brave.  But that’s precisely the time we decide not to indulge in it.