BETRAYAL

Words of wisdom by Deepak Chopra.  As you read through it think about this.   Isn’t he talking about perspective?  Isn’t he essentially talking about making many, small decisions?  From how you’re going to perceive something, to how intensely you’re going to feel something and how deeply and for how long you’re going to allow to have something seep into your soul?  Isn’t that what he’s talking about?  Isn’t he talking, fundamentally, about remembering how we are in control? Let me know your thoughts.

“After being betrayed, most of us want two things, usually at the same time. We want to wound the person who hurt us—as deeply and as excruciatingly—as we've been wounded, and we want to rise above the situation and offer that person forgiveness. But neither of these tactics work. Wounding words tend to boomerang and make you feel as terrible as the person you wanted to hurt. Forgiveness, especially if halfhearted, tends to come off as condescension.” 

“There are actions, though, that you can take to can heal yourself.

1. Gain some detachment. Stand back and view yourself as if you were the helper, not the victim.

2. Don't indulge in emotions you cannot afford. Don't act as if you’re feeling worse than you really are—or better.

3. Make a plan for emotional recovery. Look at where you hurt, feel wounded or see yourself as victimized, then set out to heal these areas. Don't rely simply on letting time do it for you.

4. Feel the hole inside and grieve over it—but promise yourself that you will fill it.

5. Seek a confidant who has survived the same betrayal and has come out on the other side.

6. Work toward a tomorrow that will be better than yesterday. Don't fixate on the past or what might have been.

7. Counter self-pity by being of service to someone else. Counter regret by seeking out activities that build your self-esteem.

It requires a good deal of objectivity to set about following such a program. Nothing is easier, of course, than doing the opposite, for example:

1. Dwelling obsessively on how you were wronged. Feeling exultant in our self-righteous pain.

2. Turning your pain into an ongoing drama.

3. Acting erratic and scattered, with no plan for getting better.

4. Mourning your loss forever. Not looking honestly at the hole inside yourself because it is too painful or you feel too weak.

5. Talking to the wrong people about your woes. Seeking out those who keep agreeing with you and amplifying our resentment by egging you on. 

6. Idealizing the past. Obsessing over the good times that are gone. 

7. Letting self-pity and regret dominate your state of mind.  This kind of behavior only makes a betrayal linger.”

Reposted from: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/What-to-Do-When-Youve-Been-Betrayed-Deepak-Chopra#ixzz1zIINRNHq

PERSPECTIVE

You are in control of how you look at something.  You and you alone determine whether to be offended at someone’s remark, choose whether something makes you angry, or frustrated and whether you see something or someone as hateful.

Conversely, you control whether a remark rolls off your back, decide to approach a distasteful task with a positive outcome in mind, or decide not to judge someone or something.

You have this power and you get it by making a choice.  You develop it, in fact, like a muscle, by making the choice, everyday, to have a different perspective on things.

It’s not the Pollyanna principle, or the Rose-Coloured-Glasses dystopia.  On the contrary, it’s the much more difficult, but infinitely more healthy, sane and satisfying way to live.

YOU

Contrary to what you might think, that there are many uncontrollable obstacles to achieving what you want to achieve, barriers to living your best life, impediments to finding the path to the runway so you can take flight, the truth is, more often than not, the biggest, scariest, most pernicious thing standing in our way, is ourselves.

The irony?  It’s also the thing we have the most control over.

“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine.  The landmine is me.  After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together.” 

~ Ray Bradbury

TRUTH

OMG.   SO SIMPLE.   SO TRUE.

“It’s not your job to like me - it’s mine.”

~ Byron Katie

PRISON

“How do you react when you think you need people's love? Do you become a slave for their approval? Do you live an inauthentic life because you can't bear the thought that they might disapprove of you? Do you try to figure out how they would like you to be, and then try to become that, like a chameleon? In fact, you never really get their love. You turn into someone you aren't, and then when they say "I love you," you can't believe it, because they're loving a facade. They're loving someone who doesn't even exist, the person you're pretending to be. It's difficult to seek other people's love. It's deadly. In seeking it, you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have.” 

― Byron Katie

SAFETY

Fear, not the irrational screeching that goes on in your head, but the other kind, the kind that feels like a cold chill down your spine, is the kind of fear that keeps you safe.  

While the lizard brain blows things out of proportion and compiles stories that make you feel anxious when you’re trying to do something that’s outside your comfort zone, this other fear, while also primal, sits in your body, often in your gut.

What’s interesting is that we, more often than not, listen closely and obey the fear in our heads even though it is telling us wildly improbable and unrealistic things.   On the other hand we ignore or rationalize the instinct in our body, the instinct that is telling us truth and showing us reality, the instinct that’s telling us that danger is ahead.  

Why do we do that?  

For women, we’re so socialized to be nice that we don’t want to offend, we don’t want to come off like a bitch that we acquiesce to uncomfortable, and/or dangerous situations, like getting on an elevator with a man we don’t know, while every nerve ending in our body is telling us not to do it.  Or, staying in a relationship and ignoring, denying or rationalizing the signs that tell us we're in jeopardy.  

The Gift of Fear, a book by Gavin de Becker explores this life-saving fear and why we so often ignore it.  The book is also a very practical guide to staying safe by listening to our intuition.  Like so many of us who rationalize and wait for proof of danger, the book points out that the feeling is the proof.

Check out this site for a review of the book: http://mortaine.hubpages.com/hub/The-Gift-of-Fear-Book-Review

This subject was inspired by Oprah’s Lifeclass on intuition.

DISAPPOINTMENT

What if you’ve been working really hard trying to get a promotion or making those sales so that you can realize your dream of being a millionaire.  And then one day the realization hits you that it may never happen -- you may never be a millionaire.  OR, it may hit you that working this hard to achieve this one goal, may not be worth it.

What do you do?  Do you just give up that dream?

That’s a HUGE idea isn’t it.  Giving up a dream.  Almost blasphemy to say it.  But here’s what I’m really talking about.  When we hold on so rigidly to an idea of what a situation, or a thing, or a dream, should look like, we strangle the air out of its potential.

What I mean is that oftentimes our dreams are desires that mask what we really need instead.  Perhaps the dream of being a millionaire is actually a desire for certainty.  Or not, maybe you just want to be stinkin’ rich.

The problem is that when you expect your dream to arrive looking a certain way, you are inviting disappointment.  I think it's best to try and be as clear and concise with our dreams and base them on a truthful need rather than reacting to a neediness based on ego and narcissism.  

The potential of our dreams lies in the asking, but most importantly its fruition depends on our ACCEPTANCE of how it shows up on our doorstep.

FEAR

Here's another reason why I love Martha Beck...there I said it; I love her gargantuan, intuitive, insightful brain.  Go on with your bad self Martha...

"When fear makes your choices for you, no security measures on earth will keep the things you dread from finding you.  But if you can avoid avoidance--if you can choose to embrace experiences out of passion, enthusiasm, and a readiness to feel whatever arises--then nothing, nothing in all this dangerous world, can keep you from being safe."


Read the whole article, The Willingness Factor: Learn to avoid avoidance, at: www.marthabeck.com

20/20

Time plays a key role in moving us toward our flight imperative.  In his article, Why the Deepest Lessons Take Time to Absorb, John Caddell writes: 

“Only with the passing of time can the intense emotions (positive or negative) of an event fall away and allow us to recognize mistakes and our contribution to them.”

Read the article here:http://the99percent.com/articles/7194/Why-The-Deepest-Lessons-Take-Time-To-Absorb

BEST DESTINY

"When various forms of blindness send you off track--and

they will--knowing how to access the Stargazer allows you to

return to the path of your best destiny instantly."

--Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight

And yet, and yet...we are so afraid to gaze at the stars and see our destinies, how curious, how sad, how frustrating.

VALUE

The other day I was at the grocery store looking to buy tuna.   As I approach the section where my preferred brand of tuna is shelved I see a bright yellow ‘on sale’ sign.  I think, ‘cool.‘  But not so fast.  The gap in between the regularly priced tuna and the supposed ‘on sale’ tuna, resembles a toothless grin.  I’m annoyed. Those extreme coupon people strike again.  I’m seeing it more and more ever since that series aired.   

They clean out the stores of stuff that’s on sale and then they stock a bomb shelter type barrack (or their garage) with decades worth of goods.  They just arrange it, inventory it, date-rotate it and keep buying more and more stuff.  Some people spend upwards of 30-40 hours a week -- a full time job -- researching coupons, printing or cutting them out just to abscond with $1,000 worth of groceries for $1.35 so it can sit on THEIR shelves.  So much stuff in fact, that 3 or 4 generations of their kin wouldn’t be able to use it all up.

But here’s what I really can’t stand.

Of the dozen or so episodes I’ve seen of the reality show, only 1 mentioned that he put together care packages for the local shelter.  Truly, just one.

I’ve seen people boast that they have over $50,000 in inventory sitting in their basement or garage -- this one lady had 2 years worth of diapers and she was single without a child, holding on to them for when she gets married.  REALLY.  There are working single moms who could use those diapers you got for free right now.

What type of lack mentality is at work here?  I mean, how needy, insecure and unloved do you have to feel to need to stockpile so much stuff - and usually it’s junk, I have seen 1 show where the extreme couponer had fruits and vegetables on her list.

Don’t get me wrong, I think if you’ve got the patience and you’re clever enough to work it so you get $1,000 worth of groceries for $1.35 - more power to you - but why not use what you need and pay the rest forward -- there are women’s shelters, there are homeless shelters, there are food banks.  These are just a few ways to make yourself feel full and loved and useful.  

We are all interconnected, we don’t exist in isolation.  True value lies in seeing beyond ourselves.  

HEARD

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THIS - I've never looked at it this way but it's dead-on.


"Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable."
- David W. Augsburger


(Reposted from Oprah's quote of the day)

DECISIONS

Decisions are really hard to make.  Even the ones that look relatively easy, like figuring out what to have for dinner, can on some days, feel like having to figure out how to split an atom.

Why are decisions hard?  Because we rarely know the answer to one simple question.

What do I want?

Where we get hung up is that the question seems so definitive, and therefore begs a definite answer.  That’s the paradox.  What we have to remember is that the answer to the question depends on the context -- it’s a very loaded question.  

Sometimes it requires a cursory review, like a list of pros and cons, while other times, it takes a long day’s journey into night a heart wrenching review of your deepest heart’s desire.  

The key to making the most successful decision possible, is knowing the difference.  

RELATIONSHIPS X

They’re attributed to good health and longevity.  They are our gift for being human. They are capable of lifting us up, keeping us tethered and in good company, they can make us feel sane, and sometimes they can even make us feel saved.

Relationships.  Be grateful for them every day. Foster only ones filled with love, compassion and joy, otherwise you shouldn’t have the privilege of having one.

RELATIONSHIPS IX

Getting into anything from a position of desperation will leave you vulnerable.  When you feel desperate you are easily swayed, manipulated, led far astray from what you really want, you’ll agree to settle for so much less.  Nowhere is this more true than getting into a romantic relationship from a place of desperation.  

How do you know when you’re entering something from a position of vulnerability and desperation?  

You’ll know when your body is sending you warning signals telling you that something isn’t right, sometimes it’s a ‘Hmmm” sometimes, it’s a tightness in your gut, sometimes it’s discovering tangible evidence that something isn’t right, but the key here is that while your body is telling you this, your head is choosing to ignore it.  Call it what you like, denial, naiveté, ignorance, whatever - I will never buy the explanation that you were taken by surprise.  If you’re paying attention, it is never a surprise.  

Perhaps it’s because we don’t want to admit to ourselves that we’re feeling desperate, vulnerable, needy, lonely, unloved, etc.  That we want so badly for things to turn out a certain way that we cast off common sense, dismiss doubts, or simply ignore what’s staring us in the face in the HOPES that all the signals to the contrary will magically turn around and all will turn in our favor.

Wake up.  

Trust me when I tell you that it is so much better for your own peace of mind, for your own strength and growth to lean into those feelings of desperation, vulnerability, neediness and loneliness.  Once you realize that feeling them won’t kill you, in fact it will free you - you will never enter into relationships of any kind from a place of desperation again.

RELATIONSHIPS VIII

How is your relationship with your family of origin?  Next to the relationship with yourself, it’s the next most important.  

What’s critical to keep in mind is that if you are estranged from your family of origin because staying connected to them was toxic for you, then that speaks volumes about how well you’re taking care of yourself. 

If however, you’re turning yourself inside out trying to please people, then the relationship with yourself must not be that great.

If you’re not close to your family and are unsure why, look around at the relationship you have with your friends, again, if you’re too busy trying to please everybody and feel depleted and unappreciated, it’s likely that that’s how you feel about your family of origin. 

Looking at that first critical relationship, our mother, father, siblings, is an excellent way to discover, to understand and enlighten, the type of relationship we’re having both with ourselves and others not related to us.

RELATIONSHIPS VII

Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Othello (3.3.360-2)

Jealousy is a sickness.  It has never been and never will be about love, ever. 

 It is another way of ingesting poison and expecting the other person to die*.

*Paraphrased from Deepak Chopra.

RELATIONSHIPS VI

The relationship you have with yourself is the most critical.  It informs how all your other relationships work.   If your other relationships aren’t making you feel respected and cared for, chances are you’re not treating yourself with a great deal of care and respect.

RELATIONSHIPS ~ V

Being a BFF has always been a very serious thing for me and I’m always dismayed when I meet people who take it lightly -- people who make everyone they meet their instant BFF.   I find this indiscriminate collecting of BFFs rather disturbing and sad.

I think people have forgotten how to be a friend, how to have a dialogue, how to distinguish a human being as a best friend and a human being as a pet.  The collector of BFFs really just wants an audience for their ongoing drama, they want a pet to tag along, they want a witness to their fabulessness.  

They don’t care about you, honestly they don’t.  Here’s how you can tell, ask them to listen to a problem you have and then time how long before the conversation has turned to focus on them - I’d bet it would take less than a minute.

The sad part is what it says about you.  Why are you hanging around with a person like that?  What stories are you telling yourself that keep you tied to this person?  Whatever you’re getting: someone to go out with, companionship, whatever you’re telling yourself, isn’t worth the continual loss of self respect that you endure when you’re around them.

In every relationship, you deserve to feel like you matter, that your feelings matter, that your opinions matter, that you just showing up, matters a great deal.  If you’re hanging around people who don’t make you feel like that - dump them. NOW. DO IT. HURRY UP.  

RELATIONSHIPS ~ IV

Realities of marriage:

Misconception that in a marriage 2 become 1:  That’s definitely a recipe for disaster.  More marriages break up because one or both people have lost themselves, lost the sense of who they are in order to make the relationship function.  It doesn’t work. You are always 2.  You are always individuals who together become even more dynamic, but there is no melding, no dissolving, rather the opposite, it makes each individual stronger.  

Manage your expectations: Don’t expect from your partner something that you yourself can’t deliver.   If you’re not capable of: being truthful, being on time, doing what you say you’re going to do, being respectful, etc., then you have no business expecting these things from your partner.

Change: You know how I feel about this so don’t make me come over there.  If, for even a split second, you have the idea that they will change, run the other way.  I SAID RUN THE OTHER WAY, NOW...GO!

Quit bitching: this goes back to the change thing.  For some reason people think that bitching gets results - it doesn’t.  At best it’s annoying at worst it’s corrosive.  So knock it off...both of you.

Talk to each other:  it makes me crazy when I hear people arguing because one person expected the other person ‘to know.’  Just because you’re married now, or you’re co-habitating, doesn’t mean that you can miraculously read each other’s minds.  Spell it out, if you want something ask for it.  If you need something ask for it.

Don’t be a coward:  Show up, all of you and show up as you.  The most cowardly thing by far is showing up all full of yourself and superior thinking that what they don’t know won’t hurt them.  It does hurt them and in due time, will hurt you as well.

Having an affair never has and never will solve a problem in your relationship.   Spending more time online, whether it’s with World of Warcraft or flirting in a chatroom, if you’re supposed to be in a relationship, it's cheating.  Don’t rationalize your asshole behavior, nobody’s buying it.

Don’t bring your arguments to people’s houses and don’t start arguments when there’s company.  We don’t care - get your shit together, work it out before you present yourself in public.

Insist that your relationship be a drama-free zone: This is really important because drama is a distraction.  People create drama so they don’t have to deal with what’s actually not working.  Be brave, address the issues that aren’t working with cool heads and open hearts.

Have you got any realities?  I'd love to hear them.

RELATIONSHIPS ~ III

Is marriage still for the long-term?  Just wondering because while people who want to get married are ‘talking’ about long term, their actions, what they’re doing, suggests that they’re in it for the short term.  

What I mean is this.  I’m amazed at how little people actually know about marriage. You’re probably thinking, well that’s because they haven’t done it so how are they supposed to know?  Just like we’re supposed to know about the migration of the wildebeest in east Africa, read about it, watch a documentary, talk to people who’ve been there and seen it/done it for themselves.  

What I find happens with marriage, is that although this frank type of information is out there, people tend to migrate toward the romantic, fuss-about-the-dress, happily ever after crap, and much of the focus of the romantic is actually  on the WEDDING and not the MARRIAGE -- they're not the same thing.  The former has very little to do with the latter.

If you really want to be married for the long term, in other words, if you're serious about getting married in the first place, talk to people who’ve been married for 50 years, that, like nothing else, will prepare you for what’s ahead.

If you can’t handle that truth, then do yourself a favor and don’t get married, until you can AND your partner can as well -- THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT!

RELATIONSHIPS ~ II

Why is it then, when we know that people won’t change for us, that we continue to stay? Why is it that we stay with people we don’t respect?

That’s right, you should actually still respect the person you’re with.  I know, this concept is a revelation to some people.  If you’ve been in a relationship for a long time you’re probably thinking, ‘Are you kidding me, that’s like asking me to respect my couch.’  Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, you’ve got problems - I wouldn’t be surprised if your relationship hasn’t been fulfilling for a very long time, and so you hang in there because it’s comfortable? Because it’s easy?

What a load of crap that is.  Come on people, really?  It’s a midlife crisis waiting to happen.  Where do you think the craving for fast cars and slow cheap women comes from?

How about when we stay with individuals who beat us, demean us, are disengaged from us, use us, tread us underfoot literally and emotionally?  Dismiss us? What’s going on there?  Are you seriously thinking that they will change?  Really?  Are you staying for the kids?  Have you thought about that? What are you mentoring your kids by staying?

Trust me when I tell you that for your partner to decide that what’s working for them now isn’t working anymore, you'll be waiting a very long time.  Consider that:

1. You don’t have the time to wait for them to change --  10 years will pass like a lightning strike.  You’ll be 10 years older devastated for having wasted all this time.
2. You don’t have the energy to waste waiting around for them to get their act together -- you could be doing something that actually gives you energy, infuses your life with vitality, like: getting an education, working at a rewarding career, being a strong mentor to your kids, your nieces and nephews, your friends.
3. Waiting around squanders opportunities to be with someone who adores you, who is easy to be with, who wants the same things you do.

Like sister Aretha sang R-E-S-P-E-C-T. By waiting for someone to change you're communicating to yourself and everyone else around you that you don't matter.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE:  You only have control over you, over what changes you want to make.  That’s it. When you decide to make a change the message becomes,  'YES, I Matter!'  There is nothing more energizing and awesome than that.

CAVEAT: Don’t threaten to make changes, if you say you’re going to make them, do it.  Empty threats erode your self-respect and add fuel to their abuse.

RELATIONSHIPS ~ I

You can’t love a person to change. You can’t coerce a person to change.  You can’t ultimatum a person to change.  You can’t cute a person to change.  You can’t ‘because I’m special’ a person to change.  You can’t threaten a person to change.  You can’t trick a person to change.  You can’t expect a person to change.  You can’t shotgun a person to change.

People only change when what’s working for them now, doesn’t work for them anymore.  

HERE’S THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE:

PEOPLE WILL CHANGE FOR THEMSELVES, THEY WILL NEVER CHANGE FOR YOU.

NUMB

It’s amazing to me how many people walk around numb.  And it’s even more amazing to me how easy it is to actually do.  All you need to do, it seems, is just react.  We actually develop stuff that helps us react, phones, games, computers, reality shows -- we don’t really need to think anymore, we just have to react.

Thinking all the time isn’t the answer either, in fact as we know from our lizard brain, it weaves continuous stories that keep us reactive even better than gadgets do.

The cure for numb is stillness.  

As always, the most critical stuff is both the simplest and the hardest all at the same time.  

RAY

"You have to jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down." ~ Ray Bradbury


So here's my dream for the time of soul-travel.  The two Ray's - you and Ray Carver and me, at a little joint by the ocean, the chairs sinking into the sand, strands of the dried grass umbrellas lifting in the breeze, sipping a cold beer, mine and Bradbury's will have a lime squeezed in it, Carver's will be stout and black and frothy.  We're sitting back, listening to the ocean and once in a while one of you will say, 'man that was a bitch of a book to write.'  And we'd keep staring at the ocean eyes steady and unfocused, and nod.  We'd be happy, so happy because this is what we'd dreamed heaven would be.  And it was.

MENTOR

You are one whether you realize it or not.  There is always someone watching, a sister, a daughter, a friend.  

The question is, what are you mentoring?  

I’m not talking about your actual actions but the tiny, subtle betrayals of your body.  How you hold yourself, how you speak up, or don’t, whether you listen or whether you’re too busy thinking of the next thing you’re going to say, and are therefore dismissive of the person sitting in front of you.  

Are you angry and anxious all the time holding your body tight, your shoulders around your ears, your arms close to your body?

It’s exhausting to live like this, and it’s not what you want to mentor because it makes their journey and yours much harder than it needs to be.

SPANKING

I love this, it feels like a gentle little spanking -- just to get your attention.


"What's happened more in your life.. that you've lacked opportunities or that you've blown opportunities.  Practice being ready!"
~ Marianne Williamson

JOURNEY

Sometimes our journey requires us to stop and sit by the side of the road for a while.  Do it and don't feel guilty or worried that you're wasting time, not getting anything done. You are.  Trust that it is the right thing for right now.

PUT ANOTHER WAY - ASKING part 3

“The way you ask for what you want or need is also crucial. Say you have an uncle, and whenever the family gets together, he gives you a long, unsolicited and unnecessary critique about how you look and what you do. You don't go up to him and say, "Uncle Boo-Boo, I wish you wouldn't make fun of my hair and job at the dinner table." 

No! Wishes may or not be granted. First you ask for what you want, and then you inform Uncle Boo-Boo of a specific, clear consequence.

[...] 

People often engage in behavior that causes pain because there's no consequence. You have to create that consequence; otherwise, the asking is just wind in the air. But I want you to remember: You're creating a boundary—not a wall that isolates you, just a boundary, one that can be communicated with compassion. So when I get ready to speak to Uncle Boo-Boo, I'm not going to yell at him in front of the whole table. I'm going to say, "Uncle Boo-Boo, can I speak to you for a moment?" Then I'm going to take him on the porch, in the hall or in the living room where there's no one else and discuss my need, because this is between him and me. If I am feeling pain, I'm no longer going to permit, facilitate or deny it. I'm going to own it and deal with it, and then, no matter what he says in response, I can begin to heal. This is a natural process. Over time, you'll have more awareness. You learn to accept more of who people are, and, most importantly, you learn to accept more of who you are.”   

~ Iyanla Vanzant

Her most recent book is Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through (SmileyBooks). 

Reposted from: http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Iyanla-Vanzant-Cause-of-Your-Pain-Oprahs-Lifeclass/2#ixzz1wZl8eaQW

HALFWAY

 “You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you are coming out the other side.”  ~ Chinese Proverb 

(reposted from www.doanegregory.com/blog, an excellent photographer, an excellent site)

How fitting for the first day of June marking the beginning of the second half of 2012.  (Coincidentally, finding this quote was a signpost I stumbled on by ‘accident’).

The quote struck me because the way I interpret it is that when encountering a challenge it helps to see that you in fact only have to lean in, or hang in, or however way you want to look at it, for a fairly short period of time, only half way, as the quote says, the rest of the time, you’re already coming out the other side.  

I find that very comforting, inspirational, and doable.