Sunday 30 June 2013

TOXIC WORLD


Our resistance to change is frustrating and fascinating all at the same time.  It’s frustrating because the reason we don’t change is that we’re afraid.  And that fear isn’t based on any kind of reality, it’s based on stories we have told ourselves about what that change could look, feel or be like.  Fascinating because whatever that change might be, we don’t do it despite knowing that the change will be very good for us.  

Here’s the thing.  We have no choice but to change.  And while ‘change’ is some ambiguous word, change means cleaning up our own toxic life.   Getting out of abusive relationships, stopping our own destructive behaviour, dealing with our own past pain.  We must stop acting like five-year olds and expect that other people will clean up the mess we create.  It simply cannot always be someone else's fault.

As a society we are nearing critical mass, if we’ve not reached it already, in terms of the anger and violence that permeates this world.  This anger and violence isn’t created in a vacuum, it is created from the dysfunctional lives we insist on living.  We must connect these dots.  The way we live our life ripples out.  It is us, individuals who make up society - not some phantom being that we have nothing to do with.

It’s not a new idea, but it is radical only because we resist change so strongly.  Perhaps we’re just not evolved enough but truthfully, I don’t buy that, it’s just another excuse.  It’s about taking responsibility for our lives and ironically, we vehemently resist that too.

If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”  Mahatma Gandhi

Friday 28 June 2013

THE CHOICES WE MAKE


We have a choice whether to be offended by someone’s remarks, or not.  Usually, taking offense is a waste of time because it isn’t about us in the first place.

Thursday 27 June 2013

CRISIS


How long would we listen to a friend complain about the pain in their broken leg when they refuse to get it fixed?   How long before we throw up our hands and let them take responsibility for their health?

It’s so easy to see the craziness of the situation when we’re talking about a physical issue.  Yet when it comes to change, either our own or someone close to us, we enable this kind of craziness.  For example, how many hours have we listened to friends lament about some hurtful things in their lives that they refuse to do anything about?   How many times have we heard them recite the same litany of issues and yet have done absolutely nothing about them?  Still we remain shoulders to cry on, we offer comforting words, we try to think of solutions for them knowing full well that they have no intention of using them.  

What we have to realize is that we are not being helpful, we are being used.  People who talk about change but don’t actually make any, are using us.  The talk for these people is the doing.  That’s why nothing gets done. 

The sad reality is that most people don’t change unless there befalls them an unbearable crisis.  The greater the resistance to change, the greater the crisis needs to be.  We need to get out of their way in order for that crisis to happen.  It’s the hardest and yet the kindest thing we can do.

Wednesday 26 June 2013

TRUST


Consider that we live our life on trust.  We trust that the day will dawn, gravity will keep us in place and the world will keep spinning on its axis.  We have no guarantee that this is going to happen but we have no experience to the contrary so we trust that the same conditions will continue.  

Here’s the thing.  That force which wants the dawn to rise, the gravity to pull and the world to spin, is exactly the same force that wants for us our best lives and our greatest success.  Why?  Because we, humans, are made of the same energy that creates the dawn, manifests gravity and spins the world.  

And yet we can’t trust it.  We can’t leave it alone and just trust it?  We insist on meddling, maneuvering and controlling.  

I truly believe that when we get out of its way and trust, totally and completely, trust in that force that wants the very best for us, we will see nothing less than magic.

Tuesday 25 June 2013

COMPASSION


LOVE THIS:

"Surrendering allows the truth to set us free. 
And how do we surrender? 
Two words: Observe compassionately."
~ Martha Beck

Monday 24 June 2013

FEAR/FEARLESSNESS


It bears repeating because we are confused by them so often.  Godin just says it so beautifully...


Fearlessness is not the same as the absence of fear

The fearless person is well aware of the fear she faces. The fear, though, becomes a compass, not a barrier. It becomes a way to know what to do next, not an evil demon to be extinguished.
When we deny our fear, we make it stronger.
When we reassure the voice in our head by rationally reminding it of everything that will go right, we actually reinforce it.
Pushing back on fear doesn't make us brave and it doesn't make us fearless. Acknowledging fear and moving on is a very different approach, one that permits it to exist without strengthening it.
Life without fear doesn't last very long--you'll be run over by a bus (or a boss) before you know it. The fearless person, on the other hand, sees the world as it is (fear included) and then makes smart (and brave) decisions.
~ Seth Godin
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/06/fearlessness-is-not-the-same-as-the-absence-of-fear.html

Sunday 23 June 2013

FREE WILL


It’s a comforting thought to know we have free will.  That we are free to make our own choices.  But do we really?  If we take into account where we come from and the environment we were brought up in, the influence of those two things leave very little doubt that our will is not that free.

Saturday 22 June 2013

HISTORY REPEATING


We cannot go forward without going back.  Back means all the way to our family of origin.  Sure we can convince ourselves that we’ve put our history behind us, but what’s really happening is that we’re not seeing history endlessly repeating.  It just looks different.  The issues you had with your father, for instance, are now manifesting with your husband, with your son with your boss.  The ill-fit with you mother is playing out with ill-fitting friends, sisters, daughters.  History will continue to repeat itself until we stop and start digging up our past.  

Here’s the thing, we don’t go back to relive the pain or assign blame, we go back to understand it.  That’s a huge and much more helpful distinction.  

Friday 21 June 2013

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD


There is nothing more gratifying than seeing an old friend finally give up the struggle and step into a more authentic version of themselves. 

It’s a fragile time.  There will be relapses. There will be inexplicable backward steps.  Be patient.  Reassure them that you have all the time in the world to watch them evolve fully, effortlessly, into who they're supposed to be.

Thursday 20 June 2013

MEANING


Effortlessness isn’t a ‘new age, airy fairy, mamby, pamby’ concept.  It’s been around since time immemorial.  Back in 6th century China, Lao Tzu, whose name means Old Master,  actually wrote it down.
Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
We need to hear things many times and in many different ways and even then, only when we’re ready to truly hear what is being said, will it take on meaning for us.

Wednesday 19 June 2013

PROVOKE


Sometimes we struggle with being alone.  This struggle has roots in a very old place.  Back in our family of origin we were probably made to feel abandoned, perhaps even really abandoned, as in having been left behind.  The prospect of being alone, with this kind of history will cause us to panic and hold those around us in a vice grip.  The problem is that it’s the fastest way of making them run the other way, the first chance they get. 

The solution is in digging into that history.  Try and understand it.  Provoke a shift in how we see our history so that we can see our future with less anxiety, less struggle.  Greater ease.  People are drawn to that.


Tuesday 18 June 2013

AH! STRUGGLE


Why is it we always think the struggle is with something outside of our control?

The confrontation waiting to happen...
...is not between you and your boss, your critics, your editor, your competition, your spouse or some other outsider.  
The essential confrontation, of course, is with yourself.
You are your own biggest critic.
And your own biggest competitor.
Now that it’s easier than ever to pick yourself, the question is, ‘why haven’t you?”
And now that it’s easier to ignore the competition and become a category of one, the question is the same.
Our instinct is to externalize the forces that are holding us back, but in fact, that’s not the problem, is it?
~ Seth Godin

Sunday 16 June 2013

CAJOLE


Cajole, coax, entice, butter up, lure, seduce, wheedle, maneuver, con, persuade.  If you have to use any or all of these methods you’re more invested in the struggle and getting your way than respecting the issue or the individual at hand.

Saturday 15 June 2013

FLEXIBLE


Control is a lie.  
The best we can hope for is that we can keep it together for whatever comes our way. 

It’s like when you know you’re about to fall.  To mitigate injury we need to relax and go completely limp - that’s operating from our instinct.  But we don’t trust instinct so instead we try to control our fall by tensing up and contracting.  That’s how we get hurt.

Leaning in, breathing and loosening our grip keeps us nimble, flexible, quick, resourceful.  It allows us to keep it together for whatever comes our way.

Friday 14 June 2013

CONTROL


Letting go of control, being grateful for the good in our life, and being present, right here, right now, is the way to cultivate effortlessness.  But it’s by no means easy.   It’s not the easy way out or a short-cut around.  In fact, one of the hardest things we could possibly try and do, for a lot of us, is give up the need for control.  

Control has us caught up in the hamster wheel of worry and anxiety about ‘what was’ and ‘what can be’, too entrenched on seeing lack and not having enough.  It has us convinced that struggle is the only way we have influence over our lives.

It’s simply not true.  But effortless is not easy.  In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we can cultivate.  Yet, here’s the thing, to quote Uri Alon*, in order to discover something truly new, at least one of our basic assumptions has to change.  This is the problem right here.  Our basic assumption is that effortlessness is suspect, it can’t be trusted, IT’S TOO EASY.  

It’s a paradox.  We have to give up the struggle in order to allow for effortlessness.  In other words, we have to give up what we perceive to be hard in order to get what we think is too easy, but is in fact, really hard.

I know.  A head scratcher.


*Professor & Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Thursday 13 June 2013

ACCIDENTAL


Say for example you’re looking for a job and things aren’t going well.  Conventional wisdom suggests doubling our efforts, pressing our nose even more firmly to the grindstone, pounding that pavement even harder.  To me, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  If what we’ve been doing isn’t producing results, doing twice as much, applying double the force, will only produce double the aggravation, anxiety and worry.  

Here’s the thing.  I think we need to do the exact opposite.  We need to give the need to steer the situation a rest. Struggling, fighting, controlling is blocking the things that feel accidental from being delivered to us.  You know that accidental thing that has you calling your most trusted confidant and shouting, “You’ll never guess what just happened.” The accidental thing that was aiming for us through effortlessness always comes with a gasp of “Holy Crap.”  

It’s the supper cool thing that happens to us that we have absolutely no explanation for.  The thing that arrives even more magnificent than whatever it was that we were struggling for. This is effortlessness.  

We cultivate effortlessness by trusting, by letting go of control, by being grateful for the good in our life, and being present, right here, right now. 

Wednesday 12 June 2013

LET GO


Effortless doesn’t mean easy. Effortless is more about getting out of our own way.  By surrendering our need for control, by managing our expectations, by staying in the present and not future-izing ourselves into a panic attack. 

We surrender the effort, the struggle, the control.  When that happens, what we want will be set on the path toward us.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

DRAMA


Creating drama takes up so much space in our lives there is no room for effortlessness to show up.   For someone who feels empty and disconnected, this works out just fine. In fact, for these people, drama is the only thing that makes them feel alive.  Effortless, for these folks, is not even conceivable.

Monday 10 June 2013

SUCCESS


It’s crazy trying to wrestle something into the shape we need it to be, rather than respecting the shape that it is. 

Nothing good will come from results procured with the use of a blunt object. Yet we’re convinced that this path will lead to success.  It’s a misguided notion. Genuine success requires grit, perseverance and resilience.  It comes from the effortlessness of respecting what is, AS IT IS.

Struggling to be something that we’re not will never lead to success. Genuine success springs from a source that is honest, authentic and true -- genuine success fits who we are, without the struggle.  Genuine success is effortless.

DELIGHT


Effortlessness is delight.  And inherent in that feeling of delight is a sense of contentment.  Contentment is a feeling that comes from being acknowledged, being heard, being thought important enough to delight.  Delight is voracious in that we never tire of it, we can never get enough of it.  And that’s as it should be.

Right now, our society is not interested in delight, it’s interested in the most common of common denominators.  It’s interested in the quick and dirty buck to be made.  It’s interested in perpetuating the impression of lack - it’s a false impression since there’s more of everything we could possibly want.  It’s interested in running a race to the bottom of mediocrity, in the “you’re lucky to be getting ____ so shut up and sit in a corner.”(insert item or behaviour or service that’s broken, that’s unsatisfying, that’s just wrong),  And we obey.  We sit in our corners and nurse our indignation, our victimhood and mourn that craving for delight.

Here’s the thing.  We don’t have to wait for someone to delight us.  No.  The fastest way to get delight, is to give it.  Delight can be given in random acts of kindness without need for acknowledgement.  It can be cultivated in mindfulness and by gratitude.  By  giving our anxious need for control a rest. 

It starts with thinking for ourselves, releasing the struggle and cultivating effortlessness.  

Sunday 9 June 2013

HISTORY


Some of us are suspicious of things that come too easy.  I think because somewhere in our history we’ve convinced ourselves that we don’t deserve easy.  And if we deserve anything at all, we deserve to struggle to have it.

What in our history could possibly have that kind of influence over us?  Our family of origin.  Who our parents were, how they were raised, where and when they were raised affected in a fundamental way, how they would parent us. 

It’s in our family of origin that we form the beliefs about what we deserve -- a life that is effortless or one filled with struggle.  This isn’t about placing blame on our parents.  It’s about taking responsibility as adults to stop living within the dysfunction of our childhood and choosing effortlessness for our lives.

Friday 7 June 2013

EFFORTLESS


We routinely de-value our intuition.
Relationships, when they’re right and true, are effortless.  Our life, when on an authentic path, moving in the direction of compassion and love, for ourselves and others, is effortless.   Struggle does not equal value.  When it comes to relationships of any kind, or the way we lead our lives, struggle appears as fear, anxiety and apprehension.  It’s a warning from our intuition that we’re moving in the wrong direction.  It’s telling us that we’re hanging out with the wrong people, doing the wrong job, pursuing the wrong things.

We constantly over-value our irrational thoughts.  
When we see the smoke signals coming from our intuition (and we do) we tell ourselves that we’re just being silly.  That we’ve gotten the wrong impression, have misunderstood, or are just plain wrong.  Usually we side with our irrational thoughts.  These are the thoughts that tell us that if we don’t hang out with the people we’re feeling apprehensive about, we’ll die friendless.  Or, if we don’t stick it out with this job we hate, we’ll end up homeless.  That if we kick our abusive partner to the curb, we’ll live forever unloved.  Sounds irrational doesn’t it?  That’s because it is.

Our intuition will not steer us into friendlessness or homelessness.  Quite the opposite.  When we listen to our intuition and release the struggle to please, or be accepted or be chosen, we throw open the doors for the things that will do us the greatest good.  Friends and partners with integrity and our best interest at heart, will show up.  Jobs that feed our souls and pay our rent, come knocking.  A life based on effortlessness, brought to us by our intuition, will lay before us.  

And yet, we don’t trust effortlessness.  Why is that?

Thursday 6 June 2013

DECISIONS


When we get stuck trying to make a decision, it’s a good idea to pay attention to what’s happening in our bodies.  More than anything it’s our bodies that will tell us which way to go.  In other words, if thinking of one option makes us feel anxious and breathless, chances are it’s not the direction to go.  If thinking of another option we feel fear but a definite undercurrent of excitement, we’ve arrived at the right direction.

What’s amazing to me is how we resist making a decision by dismissing the option that doesn’t feel like a struggle, one that actually feels good.  It’s a radical notion.

Wednesday 5 June 2013

MARVEL


Think of the word S E R E N I T Y.  Now feel it.  Sense the stillness that comes over your body.  Feel the peace that envelopes the tight knot of worry in your shoulders, that dampens the anxious chatter in your head.  Observe the transformation of the knot into love, the chatter into compassion. Marvel in the tranquility that settles into your heart.

DITCH


Digging into our past and trying to understand our parents and the decisions they made that inevitably influenced who we would become is not stirring up trouble.  It is not wallowing in self pity, or engaging in the blame game.  It is an essential task that needs to be undertaken if we ever hope to get out of the ditch we’ve dug ourselves into.

TERROIR


It is never just one parent or the other that ‘parents’ us, it is a collective of people and things that influence how we are shaped, how we grow and who we become.   The metaphor to a wine’s ‘terroir’ therefore is not too far off the mark.  The minerals in the soil that a grape is grown in, the geographical region, whether the vines are planted windward, or down-slope, pollutants in the rain, how they are harvested, the manner in which the grapes are processed, fermented, stored, bottled, ALL matter in developing the distinct characteristics of the final product.  
Imagine how important factors of genealogy, geography and environment are to human development.  Whether we believe it or prefer to rationalize away why we make the decisions we do, our terroir is the key to who we are.  UNDERSTANDING our terroir is the key to who we will become.

Monday 3 June 2013

DESTINY


Environment matters. 

Connecting the dots between where we come from and who we are right now provides us with the insight to mould and steer us into our future selves.  It bestows on us the confidence to master our destiny so we can yield the most productive, most fulfilling life we can imagine. Connecting the dots is key.   Finding the dots to connect in the first place, begins with our own, personal, dig into our very own pre-history. 
In other words, the more you know about where you’re from and who you come from, the better able you are to make decisions as to who you will become, rather than letting history become destiny.

Sunday 2 June 2013

RESIST


We come up with all kinds of reasons why we’re not doing what we know we need to do.  We procrastinate and then weave stories around why we procrastinate.  

Here’s the thing, it’s not providence, intuition or a foreshadowing trying to tell us that it’s the wrong direction.  It’s very simply resistance.  And resistance is fear.  Somehow we’ve attached fear to what we’re supposed to be doing and so want to avoid it like the plague. But fear is all it is.