The Reason For The Season

 

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

Jesus is the reason for the season.  And regardless of your religious or spiritual affiliation, I highly recommend his teachings as a path to a life of peace and joy,  One of his most powerful teachings was forgiveness, and I believe that this time of year – the Joy of Christmas and Hannukah, and the coming celebration of a New Year – is perfect for practicing forgiveness.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you.”  Lewis B Smeades

Resentment is a grievance or grudge held against another person.  It begins as a judgment that someone has mistreated you or behaved badly toward you in some way.  When the present time belief, feeling, or judgment that someone has done you wrong is carried into the future it becomes resentment. There are few things more treacherous than resentment.  It is an insidious poison that eats away at anyone who partakes of it, destroying health and happiness.  YOUR health and happiness.  You see, resentment is something we feel toward someone out there, but 99.9% of the ill effects of resentment are wreaked on the person harboring the resentment – not the person who is the object of the resentment.

And guess what:  It does not matter how justified you believe your resentment is – it is definitely going to diminish your capacity to be present to the current moment, diminish your ability to experience happiness, and make you sick.  Even if everyone in your life agrees that you were wronged, and that you have every ‘right’ to be resentful, YOU still suffer by harboring it. 

It does not matter how heinously you were treated by another person in the past.  As long as you hang on to that resentment YOU are the person hurting you in the present.  And the poison will seep into all your other relationships and human interactions.  

The antidote to resentment is forgiveness.  Yes, I know, how unfair.  Someone else does something hurtful, and YOU have to do the work of forgiving!  Actually, you don’t have to.  Like everything else, it is a choice.  You can go right on nurturing your resentment for as long as you are willing to reap the consequences: diminished access to your innate happiness, a compromised immune system, decreased energy, increased likelihood of heart disease and cancer, and the list goes on and on. 

 The root of “forgive” is the Latin word “perdonare,” meaning “to give completely, without reservation.”  The word was translated into German and then Old English as “forgiefan,” – meaning to give up, or allow.  In modern English forgive means to pardon, exonerate or absolve. In Aramaic the word for forgive  is “shbag” and it means to untie.

Forgiveness is the antidote to resentment, it is the path to freedom from all the ills and suffering that resentment creates.  Forgiveness is one of the most powerful life tools you will ever learn.

In our culture the practice of forgiveness most often involves one person (the one who was wronged) letting go of the ill feelings/anger that she/he has toward the person that has ‘caused’ the hurt.  When this is done sincerely and completely, the person doing the forgiving is immediately released from the creation of the ongoing harmful effects of resentment.  Note that this release occurs regardless of whether the person being forgiven ever knows about it.  It is the forgiver who is released.

Forgiveness is for YOU.  Forgiveness sets YOU free.  Forgiveness is first and foremost a selfish act.  Hooray for that!

Secondly, understand that you are forgiving the actor, the person you perceive as having hurt you.  You are NOT condoning the hurtful act.  In other words, when developing/choosing forgiveness for your former spouse who cheated on you, you are NOT making a statement that cheating is acceptable. 

It is true that if the person who hurt you is remorseful about what they did, then knowing that they have been forgiven can also be a significant release for them.  It is indeed a gift you can give another human being.  But, as the quote at the beginning of this chapter suggests, it is the forgiver who is immediately and most powerfully released from the suffering created by resentment.

When you harbor resentment toward another, you close your heart to them.  This may or may not have an impact on the person you are resenting.  It always and dramatically has an effect on you.  Any time part of your heart is closed off, you suffer.  Whether you are aware of it or not, it impacts your immune system, drains your energy, constricts your creativity and increases your ‘stress’ level.  Overall, it diminishes your ability to experience life fully and joyfully.  Most people walk around harboring multiple resentments.  Is it any wonder that happiness is so difficult to achieve? 

I am not suggesting that forgiveness is easy, only that it is very, very powerful.  As a life skill, it is one of the most transformational ones you will ever learn.  It will change you first and foremost, and that creates the opportunity for others in your life to change.  The first step is merely cultivating within yourself the desire to forgive. 

Wishing you the most Joyous of Holidays

Yes, It is Still NOW

It always will be. 

If you haven't read the previous blog about the Present Moment, please do so.  Because this blog is a continuation of that subject.

But first, I received an email from a reader last night who asked about my closing sentence of the blog: "When you can say yes to the moment at hand, and make it your friend no matter HOW it shows up, you will experience a freedom you have never imagined."  She wanted to know what that 'freedom' would look/feel like.

It feels like joy, laughter and creativity.  It feels like life is fun and easy, even when unpredictable.  It feels like you can't stop smiling.

NOW let's look at two other ways we rob ourselves of the present moment.  They are called Past and Future.  And they exist only in our minds.  Any moment that your mind is focused on the past or the future, you are not experiencing NOW.  All right, don't get your pantaloons in a twist.  Yes.  Our lives do require some planning for the future.  And yes the past can be useful as a tool, a reference for what worked and what didn't.  AND, remembering good times, good people, good experiences can be fun.  Just be aware that experiencing good times in the present is more fun and more rewarding than reliving the past.

So yes, there are those few exceptions where we use our memories of time gone by, and our imagination of times to come in positive ways.  Much more often though Past and Future are our tormenters.  The past is most often called to mind in the forms of regret, resentment, anger, judgment, and disappointment.  Dragging those feelings into the NOW does two things.  First, it releases the poison of those emotions into your mind and body again.  Second it obliterates your experience of the present moment.  The only good reason to drag those emotions/states into the present is to work on releasing them. 

When your mind and body are focused on remembered pain and suffering, you cannot experience the beauty and joy that is waiting for you in THIS moment.  Same thing with future tripping.  When our minds conjure pictures of the future, it is most often in the forms of worry, fear, anxiety, unease, trepidation.  We imagine all kinds of disagreeable or abhorrent possibilities that VERY likely will NEVER come to pass.  Yet we experience the pain and suffering of some imagined/illusory future right here in the present!  How crazy is that!!  Think about all the times you have made yourself anxious, scared, nervous, stressed out over a mental fabrication of something that never had life in the NOW! 

The present moment is our friend, and we are our own worst enemies!  We steal our own opportunity for joy and creativity and instead make ourselves sick with incessant trips to Past and Future.  You can put an end to this insanity. 

Let the past be the past.  If you are harboring resentments, regrets, disappointments - do the work to let them go.  You deserve to be free of them.

Plan for the future only as much as is necessary.  The future gets built in the present.  It is your relationship to the present that creates your future.  Can you embrace the present regardless of how it shows up?  When your answer becomes yes, you become a mastermind of the good life.

So consider this.  When you argue with what is, you lose.  Every time.  What is, already is.  It cannot be changed.  The only thing that is changeable is YOUR relationship to what is.  What you resist, persists.  It has to because you are giving energy to it.  When you cease resisting, and move into acceptance (which is the only sane approach to what already is), you create the possibility for something different to show up next.  Accept what is and imagine the next best thing you want to bring into being. 

Have you asked yourself today: "What is my relationship to this moment?"

The Most Important Relationships

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There are two relationships that determine most of what you experience in life:

1.  Your relationship with yourself

2.  Your relationship with the present moment

If either one of these relationships is dysfunctional, there is little hope of experiencing life as easy, joyful, fun and rewarding.  Yet most people never even think about the state of these relationships.  Consider this: Are you ever – is it even possible – to be not with yourself and not in the present moment?  Absolutely NOT!  The present moment is the only place we can ever actually be, and we are always there with ourselves. 

Of the two of these relationships, my experience of 20 plus years of coaching indicates that #2 is the most difficult one for people to “fix”.  For most people the present moment is NOT their friend.  And since all we have is the present moment, if you argue and fight with it continuously, you cannot create a joyful life.

This is how people fight with the present moment:

1.  We treat it as a means to and end.  Yes, YOU do this.  How many of your moments do you rush through just to get to some ‘future’ moment that seems more important?  Any moment you are rushing thru is just a means to some other moment.  And when you get to that moment how present are you? How many moments are you going to treat as throw-aways??? 

2.  We reject it or make it wrong.  It shows up not the way we want it to and we just want to change it, reject it, hold our breath until it goes away.

3.  We make it our enemy.  We complain about it, argue with it, blame someone for it.  Feel annoyed, exasperated, frustrated by it.

The present moment is our best friend.  It is the only place we can ever experience life and take action.  It is the only place we can create anything.  So why do we treat our best friend like it is a nuisance, a problem, an inconvenience, a burden, an obstacle, a hassle???

When you heal your relationship with the present moment, your entire experience of life will shift.  Start by asking yourself as often as you can throughout the day, “What is my relationship with this moment at hand?”  Be honest with your answer, and you will begin to see the insanity of our inability to be with the moment at hand in a welcoming manner.  You will begin to see the myriad of ways that we all make an enemy of the present.

When you can say yes to the moment at hand, and make it your friend no matter HOW it shows up, you will experience a freedom you have never imagined.

The Voices in Our Heads

We all have multiple voices in our heads that seem to have a life of their own.  Okay, I am NOT talking about the voice that tells you Great Aunt Sally is buried out in the back yard and wants you to rescue her.  I’m talking about the very real voices of all the people in our lives that have influenced us over the years.  Here are a couple of my personal favorites:

1.  Whenever it is a particularly gorgeous day (which happens a lot in our area) I always hear my departed mother exclaiming gleefully, “It’s a dilly, dilly day!”

2.  When I drop something in the kitchen I hear my (then) 10 year old daughter shouting, “Fiddlesticks.” (this comes with a visual of her friends looking at her with that “where do you come from?” scorn).

3.  Whenever anything REALLY goes wrong I immediately hear Tom Hanks intoning, “Houston, we have a problem.”

Now, these are all perfectly benign voices, and I actually enjoy them chiming in.  But most people also have a whole litany of voices that are not so pleasant to hear.  These are the voices that have hurt or belittled you in the past.  The parent who said you were unlovable, the teacher who said you would never do well, the boss who told you you weren’t good enough.  The friends who mocked you; the co-workers who criticized you; the family members who made light of your dreams; the spouse who highlights your shortcomings.

The present day issue is not that these things were said.  It is that they continue to play in your head, and continue to cause pain and dysfunction.  What I want you to know is that YOU have the right to invite these voices to cease and desist.  Any voice that does not speak to or acknowledge the good in you needs an eviction notice.

Here is a process for deleting these unwanted voices:

1. Become aware of them.  Everything begins with awareness.  Often, these voices have been playing so long that you no longer consciously hear them.  So start by repeating to yourself every day that you intend to tune in to any negative messages running in your head.  And if/when you find yourself feeling any negative emotion, stop and figure out what you are thinking and whose voice it is.

2. Look consciously at the message that is being repeated and ask if there is any truth in it that YOU can own in a positive way – any kernal of truth that could make you a better or happier person.  If so, rephrase it in your own words and make it a positive message to yourself.  Every time that old voice shows up, calmly inform it that its residency has been revoked (use your own style of ‘hit the road jack’).  Then repeat your new, self created positive message.  If the original message was completely out in left field, with no iota of validity, then laugh at it!  Talk back to it, like “You’re kidding, right?  That is so absurd it is hilarious.  I am so not that way.  I am _______________________.  Fill in the blank with the goodness in you that makes a lie of the voice. 

Understand that you will probably have to evict the unwanted voice more than once, and perhaps many times.  The longer the voice has been playing in your head the more deeply entrenched it will be.  Just stay vigilant to its presence and keep doing the steps above. 

Also, keep it about the message, the voice, not the original person who spoke the words.  No matter how off base, wrong, or hurtful the person was, it is not about them.  It is about you gaining freedom from the unwelcome voice that lives in your head. 

Experiment With Your Life!

 Seventeen years ago I was given the best advice of my life.  I received this radical wisdom on the very first day I attended the Unity Church of Boulder (Colorado) and listened to Minister Jack Groverland.  Over the next twelve years of Sundays Jack repeated his sage advice often: “Experiment with your life.”

I was intrigued by his message that first day, and scared at the same time.  At age 41 I was pretty much run by routine.  I had a good life and I didn’t think messing with it was such a wise idea.  Thankfully Jack is relentless and brilliantly insightful about human beings.  My life changed dramatically over the 12 years I listened to Jack and practiced what he preached – changed from the inside out.  And the biggest change?  I came ALIVE!!!

Do you ever feel bored?  Uninspired?  Chronically Tired?  Disinterested?  Short tempered? Distracted?  Lethargic?  Complacent? Unable to sleep?

It turns out that human beings NEED change.  Yes, I know we all fear it, but that is a discussion for another day.  Human beings require mental, emotional, physical and spiritual stimulation.  Without change we stagnate.  Our hearts, minds, bodies and soul must be refreshed by connection, ideas, movement and inspiration that is not ‘same old, same old.’

One of the reasons that kids are so joyful and energetic is that they are continuously involved in experimentation.  It is what they do all day, every day.  For them it is all new, new, new – and intriguing and fascinating.  When was the last time you felt that way about your life?  Well guess what, if you want things to be different (interesting, dynamic, engaging, exciting) – you need to think and act differently.  If you are not changing, you are stagnating. 

Everything about life is based on change and renewal.  Think of the seasons.  Thing of the life cycle.  Think about your body!  It is actually a new body every year because all its cells are replaced with new cells!

As we move into adulthood we relegate more and more of our living to routines.  This obviously saves time and energy.  But the downside is that life becomes more and more lifeless.  And all those symptoms listed a few paragraphs earlier are a direct result of the deadening of our lives.

YOU are meant to be a dynamic organism: growing, changing, expanding, creating, refreshing yourself continuously throughout your life!  PLEASE: Experiment with your life!  Take a fresh look at everything you think, do, say, and feel.  Experiment with small changes and move on to more meaningful ones.  For the biggest rewards of all consider rethinking WHO you think you are – on all levels.  You just might surprise yourself!

The Best Day of the Year

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year because it is so simple.  All you have to do is share the day with people you love, eat good food, and be thankful.  It is a day for giving thanks, a day for gratitude.

Gratitude is the most essential tool in creating a joyful life.  And it is one of the few things of which you can never have too much.  There are three powerful tools for creating more gratitude in your life: willingness, focus and perspective.

Willingness is the key to all change.  Most people want at least something in their life to be different.  But wanting and willingness are two different things.  Willingness is the oomph that moves you from desire to action.  It requires that you do something different or differently than you have been doing.  It often requires that you tolerate discomfort (mental, spiritual, or physical).  It always requires allocation of time and energy.

Focus is where you shine the light.  Imagine all is darkness.  Focus is the place you aim your flashlight.  In every person's life there is an infinite number of possibilities on which to shine the light.  We are always choosing our focus.  The quality of our lives is often determined by the direction of our focus.

Perspective is about interpreting the subject of our focus.  Human beings are incessant interpreters.  We assign meaning to everything.  We tend to believe that the things (people, places, events, circumstances, etc) have their own inherent meanings, but this is an illusion.  WE assign meaning.  And at any time, we are free to change that meaning.  THAT is perspective.

Let me illustrate with a short story from my childhood.  I was ten, my brothers were 9 and 12, and my stepsister was 4.  We were playing a football game along with my Stepmother.  Boys against the girls.  We girls had the ball and we drew up a play to give 4 year old Cathy the football and Renee (my stepmother) and I would block the boys to give Cathy a straight shot to the end zone.  It worked perfectly except that Cathy got turned around somehow and ran to the wrong endzone, resulting in a touchdown for the boys.  I lost it.  I was screaming, "Not fair, not fair, do over, do over." I was over the edge upset.  Meanwhile everyone else was rolling on the ground laughing.  My focus was on the scoreboard in my head that had just rung up 6 points for the boys; and my perspective was that this was a calamity!  The rest of my family was focused on the fun of the game and their perspective was that it had just gotten hysterically funny.  They were all having a much better time than I was.  The facts were the same for all.  The focus and perspectives determined the level of enjoyment.

In these days leading up to Thanksgiving Day, I invite you to investigate what YOU focus on in your life.  In any given day you can focus on what drives you nuts or you can focus on the things for which you are grateful.  Your experience of your day will be determined by your focus and perspective.  Are you willing to shift your focus in order to experience more joy in your life???  And here's something else to consider: whatever you focus on you create more of (yes I know that is a dangling preposition - feel free to laugh about it!)  Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Come on Let's Get Happy

 

No matter what you want, what you really want is happiness!  I could list for you hundreds of different goals, intentions, desires, and things for which clients have hired me to Coach them in creating or manifesting.  In every single instance the real desire was and is happiness.  Every item on that list is nothing more than a stand in for the real thing.  Happiness.  And THAT is a good news/bad news fact!

The BAD news is this: There is no thing, person, goal, intention, achievement or desire that can bring you real or lasting happiness.

The (outrageously) GOOD news is this:  Happiness is already yours.

Happiness is your birthright.  You came into the world with it.  Unfortunately, from nearly the first moment of your arrival here on the planet, you have been unconsciously learning how to cover up and bury the happiness you brought with you.  Human beings pass on to each ensuing generation the misconceptions and misunderstandings that perpetually ensure that few individuals ever find their way back to an ongoing experience of the happiness that lives inside each of us.

We are so removed from the truth of our essential happiness that most people never consider that waking up each day in joyful expectation of every moment is actually the way we are meant to live.  Instead, we settle for momentary pleasures, and brief flashes of joy or contentment.  And we pursue people, places, things, events, and achievements in an ongoing attempt at more lasting happiness.

Attaining happiness is not about getting or achieving or having anything.  It is about letting go of the beliefs and behaviors that prevent your experience of the happiness that lives inside you and always has.  Almost every human on the planet has at some moment or another experienced an unexpected or brief interlude of joy that had no direct cause.  That delicious moment was your essential happiness leaking through to the surface.

Yes, you absolutely want to pursue your dreams and aspirations and give full reign to living out the life you imagine!  We are here to expand and manifest. Life is a vast playground.  There is no limit to the number and variety of experiences a person can have in the course of a lifetime.  In fact, part of being human is the capacity to continuously enlarge the possibilities for fun, expression and experience.  That is what we are here to do.  Enjoying the playground is not the issue.  The issue is in believing that happiness is found out there in the playground, instead of understanding that happiness is what we need to bring to the playground in order to fully enjoy it.

Human beings want to be happy.  More than anything else, we want to be happy.  And as long as we look for that happiness out there in the playground, it will continue to elude us.  When we focus FIRST on uncovering the essential core of happiness from which our dreams spring, manifesting our wildest desires and expectations becomes as easy as breathing.

Happiness is the gift you give both yourself and the world.  Happiness is highly contagious (proven by scientists), and your happiness changes the world around you and every person you encounter.  ONCE YOU LIVE FROM THE STATE OF HAPPINESS, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

Liar, liar

"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."  Polonius/Hamlet

By all reports, lying is epidemic in our culture.  It is often said, "Everyone lies."  People lie for many reasons: because they believe it will help them get what they want; because they fear the consequences if they tell the truth; because they want approval or love; because they do not want to deal with people's reactions to the truth; to appear 'better' than they are.

The consequences of lying often depend on the size/significance of the lie, and on whether one gets caught in the lie.  But there is one consequence that is independent of both of these factors.  Every time you lie it is a message to yourself that you are not okay, that who you truly are is not good enough.  Every lie erodes your self-respect.

This is a serious problem because your relationship with yourself is the basis, the starting place for all of your interactions in the world.  When you do not fully respect yourself, trust yourself, and know yourself to be a person of integrity, you cannot create clean actions or clean relationships.  Everything is tainted by your own rejection of yourself.  Whether the world knows or not, if you are a liar, YOU know.  And the message to yourself is: I am not good enough the way I am.

You can change this at anytime.  Start by taking stock of the things you lie about.  If you were really okay with whatever it is, you would not need to lie about it.   Your lie is a message that you need to change something.  Keep addressing these things until YOU are right with YOU.  And then you will not ever have to lie to anyone.  Your relationship to yourself is paramount.  It creates the quality of your relationships with others and the world.

Living in the Present

The best remedy for a painful, troubling, or disappointing past is living in the present.  Today's experience of life will be determined by the lens with which you view the world, your life, and your circumstances.  Every single moment each of us is writing the story of her/his life.  What story will you create today?

Today you get to decide if you will experience the world thru the lens of your past, or thru the lens of the story you wish to create for yourself.  Who is the person you want to be?  What is the life you want to live?  Today you can begin a new story simply by being that person you envision and making choices congruent with the life you want.

The past no longer exists.  There is only now.  And now creates the nature of tomorrow.  IF you allow the past to be the past, it does not matter what mistakes you believe you made, what hurt you experienced, what you failed to do.  All you need to salvage from the past is a clear vision of what worked, what did not, and who, where, and what you want to be now.

'Living in the present' is more than being in the present.  You are in the present because that is all that exists.  Living in the present means bringing all you are and all you want to be to this moment, and leaving all the stories of the past in the past.  It means being, in this moment, the truth of who you are at your deepest level today.  

Today, begin your new story.  Forget all that has been.  Express all that your soul envisions.  Use each and every moment to write the life you truly want into creation. You and only you are the author of your life.

 The words of the tongue should have three gatekeepers: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

- Arabian Proverb 

The words that we speak ripple forward into the world creating waves of impact.  How many of us are consciously aware of the nature of the waves our speech creates?  Do our words generate peace, understanding, communication, respect, approval, and kindness?  Or do they engender defensiveness, hostility, judgment, criticism, distance, and distrust?

Every time we speak we have the opportunity to promote either goodness or negativity.  And when we are in a calm and/or positive state of mind it is fairly easy to choose the high road.  But what about those moments of tension, stress, overwhelm, frustration, disappointment, and anger?  How conscious are we in those moments about the words we send out into the world?  For most of us the answer is: not very conscious.

The antidote to spewing negativity in 'the heat of the moment' is to s-l-o-w  it down.  The more emotionally charged a moment is, the less access we have to our normal reasoning faculties.  Malcolm Caldwell, in his international bestseller Blink says, "Arousal leaves us mind-blind."  The best choice in these moments is to slow everything down: slow our breathing (which will slow our racing heart), slow our thinking, slow our response time.

Why?  Because these moments are the opportunity to create the world we really want to live in: a world of peace, kindness and connection.  And in order to seize that opportunity we need to ask ourselves some important questions.  The first one is 'What do I truly want?'  Do I want to walk away from this situation being 'right'? Or do I want to create connection and understanding?

It is very enticing, in the moment, to want to be right.  But it is a short lived and shallow thrill.   Rightness is merely a matter of perspective anyway (another subject for another time).  Being right makes someone else wrong.  How good do you feel when someone makes you wrong?  There are other choices: understanding, acceptance, compromise, forgiveness.  These choices promote what we all want and need: connection and respect.

Every communication we send forth into the world has effects.  Each of us has a choice in every moment about what type of ripples we want to generate.  And in our 'heated' moments the stakes are raised.  These are the moments that we can truly manifest change in the world by choosing wisely.  These are the moments to move slowly and choose consciously to promote peace, understanding, respect and connection.

 

 

What You See Is What YOU Get

 

“Whenever conferring with another – either face to face or across the miles – whether a human being, departed spirit, or sentient tree, always speak to the highest within them.  It makes such a difference.” 

Mike Dooley

When you read this quote, don’t you intuitively know the truth of it?!  Yes, because whether you have consciously thought about this or not, you have experienced it.  We have all experienced the power of certain people to call out the best in us.  And this happens because those people see us in our highest light, speak to the best in us, and hold a perception of us that reflects all the goodness that we are.  And in the presence of someone who persists in seeing, honoring and speaking to the highest in us, we cannot but respond with our best.

This is the greatest gift you can give another person.  And in giving it you receive the greatest gift in return.  YOU get back from that person what you have insisted on seeing in them.

Of course this also holds true when you insist on seeing less than the highest in another person.  Whatever you consistently see and speak to is what you will receive.

When someone in your life is showing up for you in less than their highest version of themselves, you don’t have to wait for them to change.  YOU are the only person who ever needs to change.  Consciously search for the brightest expression of your friend (spouse, co-worker, child, family member, neighbor) and see and speak only to that person.  It makes all the difference.

Few people change due to our ‘judgments’ about them.  Nearly all will respond to our unquestioning belief in their goodness.

 

What’s Your Story?

You have one.  Every moment of every day you have one (many, actually).  Because human beings are story makers.  And your over all experience of life is determined by the stories you choose.  Life is made up of the simple reality of what is, experienced thru the lens of your story.

The simple reality of what is, is that you are a human being sitting, or standing.  You are a human being sitting or standing, and reading words on a computer screen.  That is it.  Until the story.  The story may be “I don’t really have time to be reading this . . . I have so much work to do . . . I am never going to catch up . . . I’m so tired . . .I should have slept more this weekend . . . but I needed to go out . . .I’ve been so stressed . . . I never have enough time to get everything done . . .why am I wasting time reading this . . .I need to  . . .

How does that story make you feel?  And notice that you believe the story – you accept it as part of the reality instead of seeing that it is an interpretation, a fabrication of your own mind, a story.  Always, in every situation, there is only simple reality (person sitting, reading words) and your story.  You can begin to discover the powerful truth of this for yourself by noticing your stories and playing with changing them.

Stories called “I have too much to do”  and “I am so far behind” are seldom pleasant, AND they are false.  What is true is that in any moment you are doing exactly what you are doing.  And in the next moment you will be doing exactly what you are doing – and the story of being behind and having too much to do is the lens that colors your experience of the simple reality of a person doing what she is doing.  Who would you be without that story?  You would be the same person, doing the same thing, but having a different experience.

Once you truly understand the power of your stories, and the fact that YOU are the one writing them, you can have whatever experience you want.  What story do you want to experience today? 

The Power of Focus

 Are you familiar with these two sayings?:

1.     Statistics don’t lie.

2.   You can prove anything with statistics.

These seemingly contradictory statements are both true.  And they demonstrate a very important practice in creating the state of happiness.  I am referring to the practice of choosing your focus.

Here are two more statements to consider.

1.     The world is a scary place.

2.   The world is a beautiful place.

Whichever of these is true for you, it is based on your focus.  You can find all the evidence you want to prove either one of these statements.  And this is true for everything in life.   So whether you realize it or not, you are the person creating the world you live in.  If you want to inhabit a world different than the one you are living in, change your focus.

One of my recent coaching clients came to coaching because she was miserable at her job and needed to figure out how to move forward.  After thorough analysis of all the factors in her life, we came to the conclusion that changing jobs at this particular moment in time was not a good option.  That meant either she was going to continue to be miserable, or she was going to have to turn a miserable job into an enjoyable one.

We had already made an extensive list of all the things she hated about the job – she was clear about those when she came to coaching.  Our new task, having decided she was going to stay, was to find all the things that were positive about the job.  It was like pulling teeth at first, but eventually she did come up with a small to moderate list of the good aspects of her job.  From that moment forward her job was to focus her attention only on those aspects and appreciate them as much as possible every single day.  Every time she found herself focusing on some part of her work environment that she did not like, she would stop what she was doing and immediately focus on one of the positive aspects. 

After two weeks she reported that she was beginning to feel less resistant to getting up and going to work in the morning.  By the end of the first month she had added new items to the list of positive work aspects.  And (this is my favorite part), by half way thru the second month she came to our coaching session and said that she thought that the other people in her office must also be doing coaching because they were being so much more cooperative and helpful!

That is the power of focus.  It changes your experience of life.  And as you change, others around you change.  Don’t take my word for it.  Try it for yourself.  Choose some small area of your life on which to experiment.  Change your focus in relationship to this area, and see what happens over the course of a month.  And, if you are willing, send an email and tell me about your experience!

Where Ever You Go, There You Are

YOU are the common ingredient in EVERY experience you have.  That means that you are also the primary ingredient in the over all experience of life you are having.

No matter where you go -  to work, to the mall, to the beach, to school, to the gym, on vacation, to a seminar, etc.,  AND even if you are staying home -  your experiences in these places reflect not very much about the places themselves and a whole lot about you.  Your experiences in these places reflect very little about the other people you encounter in them, and virtually everything about you.

Everything that you experience is created primarily by who you are being.  And this is true on multiple levels.  First, you perceive according to how you think and believe.  We like to think that what we perceive is what is there.  Not happening.  Ever wonder why two people can have such diverse reactions to the same event?  They are not having the same experience!  The 'out there' event is just the raw material that gets filtered on its way in by everything you currently believe, and then transformed into your version of reality by that same belief system and your current operating systems (desires, world views, fears, judgments, limitations).  Each of us is creating our reality moment to moment.

The next level of creating our experience is that who we are being moment to moment draws to us like oriented people, places and things. In other words, you get more of who you already are.

So, if you are NOT particularly pleased with how you are experiencing life - don't look out there to make changes, because it ain't happening out there!  If you want anything in your life to be different, change the common ingredient  - YOU.

From Worry to Concern

Have you ever paid attention to the character of worry?  In most cases it is repetitive, cyclical, amorphous, and insidious.  It slips into your consciousness and lurks there, eating away at you but never really declaring its size, shape, or purpose.  Do you have certain worries that have remained the same for weeks, months, years, decades???  Have no doubt, they will continue to lurk in the shadows, waking you up in the dead of night in a cold sweat, until you shine a light on them and take away their power.

You can dis-empower your worries by transforming them into clearly identifiable concerns.  Concerns (unlike amorphous worries) are well defined and actionable.  Let's look at an example.  Let's take one that we have all experienced!

Worry:  "I have so much to do tomorrow, there is no way I can get it all done, I don't know what I am going to do."

Concern: "I think I have too much on my plate for tomorrow."

Excellent.  If you truly have too much on your plate, you need to decide what you want (to eat) and what you are willing to share.

1. Prioritize - List everything on your plate and assign priority numbers.
2. Eliminate - Anything that can be postponed to another day - postpone.
3. Deligate - Anything that absolutely needs to be done, but someone else can do, share it.  Ask for help!!!
4. Separate - For the things that have to be addressed, can you separate it into steps to be taken, and address only the steps that are absolutely necessary.
5. Allocate - Start with the highest priority and give your energy to that item to the extent that you need to (for today), and then move on.
6. Evaluate: How did your day turn out?  Did you do all you could do?  Were there items left over?  What does this tell you?

The bottom line on this kind of concern is that you can only do what you can do when you are giving your best.  If you take all of the above steps and find that you could still not accomplish your list, you need to get a new list.  Remember, reality rules.  If the reality is that you can not possibly do all that you have on your list, your list is the problem.

The How of Happiness

You have absolutely everything you need, right now, to be happy.  Nothing outside you needs to change in order for you to be happy.  Happy lives in you.  If you are not experiencing it on an ongoing basis it is because you are indulging in thoughts, words and actions that prevent you from doing so.  These would be:  annoyance, frustration, complaint, anger, resentment, regret, judgment, blame, worry and/or fear.

Nothing outside you needs to change.  This is the most difficult fact for people to accept on the path to happiness.  If you feel internal resistance to this concept, you are not alone.  Every person I have ever coached has balked at accepting this essential understanding.  And absolutely all of those who saw through their resistance, have successfully established the ongoing experience of happiness in their lives.

There are a number of reasons we resist this idea.  First off, our culture encourages us to look outside ourselves for happiness - to pursue people, things, and experiences as the source of our happiness.  Secondly, believing the source of our happiness is out there somewhere lets us off the hook to some degree (we don't need to change, our spouse/children/boss/co-worker/job/house/body etc. needs to change - and then we will be happy).  And finally, we are afraid that if we accept that nothing needs to change in order for us to be happy, then we have to accept everything in our life exactly the way it is.

Accepting full responsibility for our own happiness gives us all the power to actually make it happen.  And choosing happiness now, (not at some elusive time in the future when you have managed to force everything in your life to conform to the 'perfect picture' you imagine), does not mean you cannot endeavor to make changes to the way things are.  It just means that you put happiness first, and then from that state of happiness go about creating the details that you believe will maximize your enjoyment of life.  If you are operating from happiness, everything else becomes an adventure.

The Unexamined Life

Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

In our fast paced world, it is far too easy, and common, to lost sight of the absolute magnificence, majesty and magic of life.  PLEASE, stop for just one moment and reflect on this incredible experience we call life.  Leave all the nitty-gritty details and complications behind, ever so briefly, and let the sheer awesomeness of the wholeness of life remind you what a precious gift it is.

The trait that most distinguishes human beings from the rest of the beings with whom we share this planet is that in addition to living our lives we can reflect on our living.  We can examine, analyze and ask questions.  We are consciously aware of our own existence and capable of viewing our thoughts, words and deeds objectively as well as subjectively. We can look at how we are being, and make assessments about the quality and value of what we see.  And we can choose something different.

I do not wholly agree with Socrates.  Life is such an amazing gift that I think IT WOULD still be worth the experience even without reflection.  I also think that those who choose to go through life without examining the experience they are having/creating, actually experience a mere shadow of the fullness of life.

Life is a creative process.  It is your own personal work of art.  Every moment of your life you are creating who you are.  In every moment you can reflect on what you have created, what you are currently bringing into being, and where you actually want to go with your creation.

You are the author, the sculptor, the painter of your life.  Take courage and express the truth of you.  Question the stories you have been told all your life, the rules and codes that other people have expected you to incorporate in your living. Question yourself as well.  What beliefs do your thoughts, words and actions express?  Do you truly embrace those beliefs?  Have you chosen them, or were they chosen for you?

You are responsible for what you are expressing - even when you did not choose the beliefs from which those expressions spring.  You are responsible for choosing differently.  You are responsible for the work of art/life you are creating. 

Reality Rules

Do you know what reality is?  Reality is whatever already is.  One of the ways that we all step away from happiness is by arguing with reality. 

Whatever is, is exactly what should be. How do I know? Because that's the way it is. How presumptuous we are when we are constantly saying to reality: "you're wrong - this is not the way you are supposed to be." 

If it's raining and you run outside and shout, "It shouldn't be raining," how sane are you? Well, reality rules. So every time you argue with reality, you are wrong.  

This doesn't mean you have to like it. And it doesn't mean you can't endeavor to create a different reality. It just means you might want to stop wasting time talking about how things "should be," or complaining about the way things are. I'll say it again. Reality rules. (and laughs at our whining)  

Until reality becomes something else, it is exactly the way it is supposed to be. The fun part is going to the next step and asking, "Okay, what is the value in this reality, and how do I use it to create a different one?"

Worry, Worry, Worry

 Worry is the number one way that human beings give away their present moment happiness.  And the average human being gives away literally years worth of life to this negative behavior.  Most of us are so accustomed to worry that we have no idea how much or how often we do it.  It is robbing you of your happiness.       Lets look at the anatomy of worry.  Worry is: thinking (with fear) in the present moment, about a future moment.   It most often involves wanting something not to happen, or fearing something you do want will not happen.  Why do we worry?         Because we can.         As trite as this sounds, it is a very real part of the answer.  We are the only species on the planet actually capable of worrying.  This is explained by the fact that within the last three million years  the human brain went through a huge transformation.  It more than doubled in weight due primarily to the development of the Frontal Lobe.  This area of the brain is the entity that allows human beings to imagine themselves into the future. No other animal on the planet has a Frontal Lobe as developed as ours.  This unique part of the brain is our time machine.  Without it we would be forever trapped in the present moment.  With it, we can foresee tomorrow.    

     Researchers have determined that for the average human being, about 12 percent of their daily thoughts are about the future.  And it turns out that we future trip for a variety of reasons.  Pleasure is one of them.  We have the capacity to imagine infinite scenarios in which positive, fun, successful, lucrative events occur – and we actually enjoy these imaginings as if they are real.  This type of trip into the future stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain just as a real time occurrence does.    

     Not all our journeys into the future are positive.  In fact, most of us take the pain train into tomorrow more frequently than we board the pleasure cruise.  We imagine all manner of un-pleasantries, problems, screw ups, tragedies, and disasters.  These are not enjoyable forays into the future, so why do we insist on them?  

     When asked why they worry, human beings generally answer one of two ways.  They either say, “Because I can’t help it.”  Or, they insist, “To keep bad things from happening.”  The  interesting thing about these answers is that they are both wrong.  Worry is not thrust upon us, it is a choice, and for most people, a habit.  And believing that worry has any ability to control the future is magical thinking.     

     To break the worry habit, you first have to stop believing that worry is effective.  What were you worried about last year at this time?  What were you worried about two months ago?  What has become of those worries?