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.