Archive for month: January, 2017

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

For 8 years now, the Democrats have accused the Republicans of foul play for their obstructionist behavior and lack of support of Obama as president of our land.  Tomorrow, the 45th president of the United States will be inaugurated and I confess to being among those who cannot say his name and the title ‘President’ in the same sentence.  At least 60 Democratic Senators and Representatives are boycotting the event and huge numbers of Americans plan to protest on Friday.

Even many Republicans are stunned and concerned about having a hot-tempered, loose cannon president who tweets insults to anyone who disagrees with him and wants to move the press out of the White House.  Many of us fear a new kind of Mccarthyism or echoes of Hitler in a man who appears to be driven by such an enormous ego that perhaps he loses sight of his responsibility to serve the needs of ALL Americans rather than simply proving his wheeling and dealing prowess boasting that he is the only one who could successfully run his personal empire and the US simultaneously.

Surely, many Republicans are delighted to have ‘control’ of the White House, Senate, House, and Judicial branch of our government. But, there is something more at stake here than ‘winning.’

Are we becoming so focused on pushing through our own myopic political agendas that we are losing sight of functioning as a government of the people, by the people and for the people? 

Who is genuinely listening to the people – to the heart of our concerns?  Who is listening to our call for an end to institutionalized racism and sexism and a minimum wage that ensures remaining in poverty? Who genuinely cares enough about these issues that they are willing to fight to fix what is broken in our country even if it means risking being re-elected?

How do we get from where we are to a place where we can truly work together for the highest good of ALL concerned.  How do we elevate our consciousness above ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ to where we are able to see the importance of celebrating our oneness while honoring our differences?  When we simply fight against each other because of our differences, we lose all sight of the humanity that joins us together as one.  We also fail to see the situation in a much bigger perspective that entertains such thoughts as:

  • Maybe this mess we are in is necessary for enough of us to bring forward systems and solutions that transcend self-serving polarized thinking.
  • Perhaps we are approaching the moment when we are so sick and tired of our dysfunction that we are inspired and courageous enough to birth a kind of governance that draws us together rather than tearing us apart.
  • What would it take for ALL Americans to feel that they are being heard and that their needs and concerns are indeed the agenda of the local, state and federal governments that serve them?
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Do You Know the 6 People in Your Marriage?

Have you ever noticed that you and your partner keep having essentially the same fight over and over again? No matter what the topic, whenever you get into an argument, does it always seems to follow the same trajectory and turn out the same way? That’s usually because you are shadowboxing with the wrong person.

Let me introduce you to the six people in your relationship.
#1: You, when things are going along fine between you.
#2: Your partner when things are going along fine between you.
#3: How you see your partner when he/she has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#4: How your partner sees you when you have pushed one of his/her emotional buttons.
#5: How you see yourself when your partner has pushed one of your emotional buttons.
#6: How your partner sees him/herself when you have pushed one of his/her buttons.

You might have noticed this all boils down to button pushing and how we react to one another when our buttons get pushed. The tricky part of this is most of us are unaware of our internal emotional wiring and how and why we are getting triggered. We prefer to think the problem is always our partner’s fault. So, we end up trying to get our partner to change his/her behavior, rather than working within ourselves to understand what is going on inside of us that is making us angry, defensive, feeling misunderstood, etc. I know, in your case it really IS your partner’s fault! Right?

Here’s the good news – once you change the game from blaming each other because you don’t like what is going on to lovingly using the current discord to decode what is really going on – you are on the road to significantly improving the health and well-being of your relationship. Plus, you get to know yourself much better and to heal some of your own leftover hurts from the past that have been getting in your way. Remember, it’s much easier to righteously blame your partner for every problem that arises, but eventually all that will do is drive you apart seeking seemingly greener pastures. What I am suggesting here instead is embracing the opportunity to transform your relationship into a safe emotional haven for you both.

The following example might help you to recognize the six people in your marriage or partnership in action. Remember, most arguments seem really stupid when you replay them. Meet Robin (#1) and Jack (#2). They are in love, have been dating about a year and are becoming disillusioned by their habitual fights. To make it easier to follow, I’m just going to present explanations of Robin’s behavior and leave Jack’s perspective (#4 and #6) to your imagination. Robin is a graphic designer and marketing expert for one of the big music companies and this is her first serious relationship.

A recent argument went as follows. Everything was just fine between them. Then, Jack was telling Robin that he was planning to develop a new website. His plan was to lay out his vision of what he wanted and then to turn it over to his friend Chip to do the graphic design work that would bring his vision to his website. Robin, incensed that Jack did not even consult her for her graphic design expertise in the development of his plan or invite/ask her to do the graphic design work for him, began spinning reasons in her head about all the things that are “wrong” with Jack, fueling her upset. At this point, he could have been reciting the phone book and she wouldn’t have noticed because she was too busy convincing herself of how “right” she was and how “wrong” Jack was. Her response to him was to condescendingly correct him saying it would be Chip who created the vision – not Jack. Jack objected to Robin’s inference that he was not creative and would have no creative input in the design of his own website. And it escalated from there until Jack, running late for work, headed for the door and Robin was left in disbelief that he could just walk out like that.

Well, here’s the decoded version of what was really happening in the above scene. All was fine between them until Robin (#1) got triggered by several things that she misinterpreted about what Jack way saying. She took offense that here she is a graphic designer and loving partner (#5) and it didn’t occur to Jack to ask for her input. For Robin, this perspective reinforced her belief/fear that Jack didn’t value or respect her professional competence (#3) and that’s the person she was fighting with.

When I asked Robin to focus on the feeling she had when Jack first pushed her button and to trace it backward in her life to where else she felt that way, she immediately recognized this feeling being associated with her relationship with her older sister. A specific image came to mind of how, when playing with their Power Rangers, her sister always took the pink one and never even noticed or cared that Robin would have liked the pink one too. This had become a pattern in her life. So, standing there with Jack, her sensitivity to being left out of consideration by another was skewing and fueling the intensity of her reaction to Jack’s plans. Angry, she asserted her authority (#3) by correcting Jack’s description of turning over his designs to a graphic designer to execute. Jack, with his own sensitivity to believing that Robin didn’t think of him as having any creativity (#4), got angry and disgusted with her, feeling that, as usual, she was making an issue where none existed and headed for the door, wanting to get away from her and this craziness. Robin, outraged at his choice to leave at that moment, feared that he was leaving her forever – another childhood fear triggered by the memory of how her father used to storm out in disgust on her mother and the fear she remembered that he would never return and that it was all her mother’s fault. With Jack gone, she began turning her anger on herself and blaming herself for pushing him away and fearing he would never return. Got the picture? Each one was having an entirely different experience and conversation – doing battle with figments of their imagination.

This is common behavior between all seemingly “normal” people who have not done the decoding work to identify and work through their past baggage that gets triggered in their present relationships. So, what do you do? If you can afford it, I suggest getting a marriage counselor or life coach with a good sense of humor to work with you to approach the situation in a constructive, exploratory, and non-blaming way. Alternatively, try to do this decoding on your own. The place to begin is always to turn your attention inward instead of outward to help you shift from the blame game to truly healing and transforming the quality of your communication. It is important to realize that we each need to man the dashboard of our consciousness and become intimately aware of how we are wired based on past experiences or else it all runs on autopilot and runs amuck as in the example above.

If your partner is not willing to do this together, don’t let that stop you from pursuing your own inner work. He or she simply might not be as convinced or ready as you are. Take the lead. Do your part to take ownership of your own baggage and discover how past hurts are creating current sensitivities. Once you start behaving differently – as in doing a different dance step – your partner will follow along eventually. When six people are fighting, no one is being heard.

If you would like to know more about me and my work, please explore my website here.

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When Critical Illness or Death Catches You By Surprise

An email I received from a reader provoked this article. She wrote “I’m 50 years old, sitting in a hospital room with my 43 year old husband, who is trying to recover from surgery for esophageal cancer. His diagnosis in early March sent me into a tailspin, triggering many unresolved fears that I have around the concept of mortality.” Like so many of us, this woman was thrown into the chaos of dealing with matters of life and death. Unfortunately, we do not do serious illness and death well in this country. Most of us don’t know what to say, what to do, or how to comfort one another. We never learned how because we live in a society that treats death like an invisible elephant in the room. Like a soldier having his first experience under fire in battle, nothing prepares you for the thoughts, feelings, and devouring experience of facing your own brink of death or that of a loved one.

Here are four sanity-saving and powerful keys to coping well when critical illness or death catches you by surprise.

Acknowledge and accept what is happening. Trying to pretend things are other than how they are only postpones dealing with reality. And, the only moment of our lives when we have any choices is the present one. So, it is important to do whatever is necessary to face the truth head on and settle into it so you can decide how to proceed. Pay attention not only to the news you are receiving, but to how you are reacting. Bear witness to what is happening inside yourself. Are you shocked? Angry? Unable to listen? In denial? Wanting to believe this is a lab error? These are all perfectly normal responses, but they do not serve as a solid foundation from which to respond to the situation.

As stated in a previous post:

Acceptance is a conscious choice to drop all forms of resistance to whatever has come present in the moment and making the most of it. Acceptance isn’t about liking or approving of something. It is about letting life flow and unfold without getting in the way. It is about being receptive rather than exerting resistance to what comes present.

(For more about acceptance see my previous article on the topic.)

Love yourself. It is not uncommon to be critical of your own ability or lack thereof to face the rigors of critical illness and death — your own or that of a loved one. Don’t hold your behavior up against some fantasy standard of how you “should” be thinking, feeling, and behaving. Stay present in the truth of how it IS for you and love yourself through it. That means not “shoulding” on yourself. Give yourself permission to be a mess mentally, physically, and/or emotionally. It means recognizing that you are in new territory and don’t have a reference point for what is “normal.” Choose to be kind and compassionate towards yourself and others in the situation, and allow yourself to experience your negative thoughts and feelings. When you deny or bottle them up, they build up pressure within you that will inevitably result in either an unattractive outburst or an implosion of negativity into your physical being. Let yourself be however you are. If you are the caregiver, it is easy to feel guilty or selfish for caring about your own comfort and well-being when your loved one is facing a life or death challenge. Remember that you must only give to others from your overflow. When your giving depletes your own needed resources, it is natural to feel resentment, anger, and self-pity. It is not bad to feel these things – they are perfectly normal reflections back to you that you are not taking care of yourself and need to do so. If you find yourself unable to cope – reach out for professional help – someone who can bear witness to your authentic experience and can teach you how to support yourself through it. Seek help from someone with seasoned experience dealing with dying, death, and bereavement.

Don’t attempt to protect others from the truth. When you tell yourself you are protecting another from a devastating truth, actually you are preventing them from having their own experience. This attempt to put a lid on or deny reality, is a choice to try to control the situation rather than allowing it to be as raw and real as it is. This is a decision based on fear. Alternatively, when we are authentic and tell the truth – no matter how unpleasant, we are respecting the other person’s right and ability to cope and are keeping the door of honest, intimate exchange open rather than playing the game of pretending the stakes aren’t as high as they are. Go against everything you have been taught about the great death taboo. Our society has trained us to avoid the “D” word. I say, “Say it outloud! Death is as essential to the human experience as life is – be vulnerable to it. Tell your loved ones what you are thinking and feeling. Talk about your beliefs – what matters to you and what you believe to be true. Give voice to your fears so others can love you through the experience.

Maintain mindfulness. Matters of life and death have a timeless quality, yet involve an endless bombardment of new thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Hold the intention of staying current with what is happening in the moment. We have all kinds of defense mechanisms for dealing with bad news – denial, shock, anger, isolation to name a few. Know that these are normal. Use some good questions to move yourself back into a functional awareness of what is happening. For example, ask yourself “What is the most loving thing I can do for myself in this moment?” or “How do I really feel about this?” “What are my options?” If you are the partner or loved one of the patient, consider asking these questions both of yourself and the patient. If a complicated hospitalization or prolonged illness is involved, keep a daily journal of what is happening for the patient medically, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. These notations often hold essential keys for better understanding the situation.

We may not have any control over the fact that we are all a phone call away from tragic news. However, we do have the ability to affect how we handle that news. Just do your best – that’s all any of us can really expect of ourselves.

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Are You in Charge of What You Think?

 

In the theater of one’s mind is a multi-dimensional consciousness in which our thoughts point our attention in a particular direction.  Neuroscientists have discovered that repetitive thoughts form neural pathways as neurons that fire together get wired together.  Thus, the more a particular thought or belief is activated and reinforced, the stronger these neural pathways become and the more automatically they become our “go to” pattern of perceiving.  Ever feel like you were in a rut or maybe a little insane for doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results?  Maybe there is something to be said for it being “all in your mind” – or at least to some significant degree.  The power of human thought is also worth considering in terms of the ongoing influence that society and family beliefs have in molding our point of view as individuals – for better and for worse.

Here’s some good news about this.  Neuroscientists use the term “neuroplasticity” to refer to the fact that our brains have the ability to change our synaptic wiring, which is reflected in our point of view.  Thus, we have the opportunity to intentionally change our thinking by forming new neural pathways that in turn will change our experiences.  Indeed, we have the opportunity to be powerful creators of our own consciousness or to be passive heirs to the autopilot programming of our own history and external authorities.

When we are operating unconsciously on autopilot, we are selectively perceiving our experiences by interpreting them in a way that is in alignment with our existing beliefs, fears, hopes, and dreams.  Quite literally, it’s almost impossible for a different point of view to get through to us when we are on autopilot.

Our expressions and behaviors are quite literally self-fulfilling prophesies of our mindset.  Over time, when we are running on autopilot, new experiences simply serve to validate our existing way of being in the world – our autopilot responses to future experiences.  Thus, when we are not consciously encountering our lives, our experiences simply validate and reinforce our existing beliefs and fail to inform us of new possibilities.

When our perceptions of ourselves, others, and the world we live in are based on little or no conscious awareness and intention to create greater health and well-being, our lives are defined by the autopilot recycling of our attitudes, judgments, illusions, delusions, memories and memory patterns, thoughts, feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams.  We exist in a veiled state unable to see what is right in front of us.

Autopilot is not all bad.  For example, when we establish healthy habits like eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, and having a healthy sense of self, we can put them on autopilot and not think about them unless and until we have the need to change them.  However, autopilot can get us in trouble if we have negative patterns of thoughts or emotions running us and we aren’t even aware of it.  The degree to which we allow our negativity to run on autopilot (without conscious awareness) is the degree to which we are powerless over it.

In contrast to autopilot, when we create through conscious intention, we bring our awareness fresh and new to each present moment and allow our beliefs, fears, hopes, and dreams to change based on new input.  This updating process allows new and different thoughts and feelings to emerge, which in turn can result in new behaviors and ways of being and experiencing our lives.  We have the ability to consciously direct our thoughts and feelings through the power of intention, thus taking a far more active role in creating, promoting, and allowing more of what we want in our lives. The state of our consciousness forms the bedrock upon which the dramas of our lives unfold. Within the privacy of our own consciousness – in the theater of our mind – we create our own sense of reality, which we inhabit as our role in the great drama of life.  It is a complex structure, like a skeletal system for our consciousness.

An old Chinese proverb captures the power of our thinking in shaping our lives:

Sow a thought and reap an act;

Sow an act and reap a habit;

Sow a habit and reap a character;

Sow a character and reap a destiny.

This is true for us as individuals as well as for groups and societies at large.  Thoughts persisted in become taken for granted and are often misidentified as the truth because of their familiarity.  They become the building blocks and assumptions that serve as the foundation for a point of view that, unchallenged, will invisibly run on autopilot and shape our future thinking.

To step into the process of creating our lives through conscious intention, unencumbered by all of this is to simply be – free and authentic, with a sense of personal accountability and responsibility for our own creations. When our consciousness is present in the moment, we live in our authenticity, encountering and integrating our new experiences, open to change and alteration as appropriate.  There becomes a fluidity and aliveness to our experiences rather than a rote repetition of the past.  Even our deepest, most treasured beliefs no longer define who we are.  We let go of our story, as we awaken to the magnificence of living more consciously in each moment.  However, the price of admission is to let go of the need to be ‘right’ in a fixed point of view and to move fluidly through life, open to change and evolving one’s point of view.

 

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

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When Your Partner Becomes a Stranger

Sometimes, seemingly out of left field, your partner becomes someone you don’t recognize. An invisible line gets crossed and you find yourself being treated like his or her enemy or someone they are disinterested in rather than as their cherished partner. One minute everything seems fine and the next you don’t recognize this person inhabiting your loved one’s body. What do you do? Is it a passing, but forgivable, mood? Or is something bigger going on here? Is it time to pack your bags? Time to stand up for yourself? Or is it time to work on your relationship together? The fact of the matter is there are no hard and fast rules here except to pay attention, hold your own counsel, and trust your gut.

Chances are when things get this out of hand it’s because neither of you have developed effective enough communication skills to be really heard by each other. When communications are running smoothly – even when you have very different points of view, and emotions and stakes are high – both parties are concerned not only for their own preferences, but for the health of the relationship and the well-being of their partner as well.

The bottom line is that a marriage or partnership can only be as healthy as the two people involved. Since there are no perfect people, there are no perfect relationships. Most of us have never learned how to have healthy disagreements and therefore end up either fighting for our own point of view or withdrawing from the conversation. This kind of fight or flight response carries with it two very dangerous consequences. First, it triggers a primitive physiological response where our blood flows to our extremities and quite literally renders us less brainpower with which to work. Secondly, it places us in an adversarial response mode where we view our partner and his or her different point of view as the enemy we are fighting against or fleeing from. When it gets to this point anything your partner says other than “you’re right” will be rejected and just add fuel to the fire.

As we move through our lives, our behavior in relationships is a powerful and accurate mirror and feedback mechanism for us to see ourselves in action. Unfortunately, when the going gets tough, too many of us project our own imbalances out onto our partner and end up lashing out by blaming and judging them or withdrawing our caring. The idea of bearing responsibility for our own part of the dysfunction by recognizing our own fears and unmet needs and going to work on them gets lost in the shuffle. If you come into the relationship with dysfunctions (which we all do), sooner or later they are going to be acted out. We are complex, multi-dimensional beings and from birth to death, whether or not we are in primary relationships with other people, we will always be in relationship with ourselves. What this means is we need to take responsibility for our own health and well-being physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we do that, we have a far better chance of having healthy relationships with others.

Here’s an example. John and Mary have been together for a few years and both seem to really want their relationship to last. There are minor irritations and grievances here and there, but they always seem to work things out. Then Mary becomes increasingly stressed out about some other aspect of her life and her stress starts spilling over onto their relationship. She becomes short-tempered, judgmental, and emotionally unavailable to John. Then one day, she lashes out at John with an overblown reaction fueled by a litany of past, unresolved grievances she has been building resentment over. John is blind-sided. He doesn’t recognize himself as this awful person with whom Mary is so furious. Stunned in the moment, he doesn’t have a clue what to do. Clearly, there is no talking to Mary when she is worked up like this. So, he retreats and starts running all her accusations through his mind and starts to doubt himself, reasoning that she knows him better than anyone else, so maybe she’s right – maybe he is the terrible, selfish, inconsiderate loaf she is making him out to be. But, another voice in his head is probably saying “No, I’m not that person and I don’t recognize Mary when she acts like this and am wondering what I am doing with someone like this.”

So, what are their options. Unless either or both of them move past their myopic self concerns and consider the impact their discord is having on each other and the relationship there is probably little that can be done. They will either wear themselves out or wear their partner down and possibly kiss and make up until it happens again. Maybe one or the other will hit their limit and decide they are better off out of the relationship then in it and leave. Alternatively, they will get professional help to learn how to recognize their own dysfunctions in action and to resolve their differences in a healthy manner.

I do not believe that either the longevity of a relationship or a lack of disagreements is a sound indicator of its health. People stay in relationships for all kinds of good and bad reasons and many stay together far longer than is in either partner’s best interest.

Whether a couple is married or not, the choice to be a couple inherently suggests a level of commitment to care about the well-being of your partner and the health of the relationship. Each couple needs to carefully consider the nature of their relationship commitment. For example, in the traditional marriage vow are they pledging to be together until the death of one or the other’s body or the death of the relationship itself?

When in doubt, pay attention, hold your own counsel, trust your gut and see where that leads you. If you believe that you and your partner will be able to learn and use healthier communication skills – go for it. If not, cut your losses, learn your own lessons, and move on.

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The Ultimate Wedding Ring Exchange

The exchange of wedding rings typically occurs immediately after the sharing of wedding vows. It is a symbolic ritual in which marriage partners place a ring on their partner’s finger to create a physical reminder of the sacred vows they have exchanged. The wearing of the wedding ring serves several purposes. It reminds the wearer of his or her promise to love, honor, and cherish their partner. It also serves to inform others that the wearer is in a committed relationship. How many times have you checked out someone’s ring finger for this sign of being married or possibly available?

My personal favorite ring exchange ritual carries a beautiful message of how love flows between two people. In the exchange itself, each partner places the ring only up to the knuckle of his or her partner. In turn, the partner takes the ring over his or her knuckle to its resting place. As they do so, each giver, looking deeply into his or her partner’s eyes, might say something like “I give you this ring as a symbol of my promise to you” or simply “I love you.” The recipient, also maintaining deep eye contact, might respond saying something like “Receiving your love is my greatest blessing” or “I will treasure your love always.” No matter what the exchange of words that accompany this exchange, the gestures themselves hold a deep meaning and reminder about the conscious choice individuals make in entering the sacred covenant of marriage with another and of their respective responsibility for the flow of love between them.

Here is what this symbolism means. There are four gestures – each partner gives his or her love to their partner and each receives love from the other.
I think of these four gestures as representing four doors or passageways that either admit or restrict the flow of love between two people. For love to flow fully between two people all four doors must be open. In other words, I openly choose to give my love to you and to receive love from you and vice versa. Each is the gatekeeper to giving and receiving love.

This symbolism can serve the couple as a great reminder of their mutual responsibility as they face the realities of daily life and the trials and tribulations of their journey together. Whenever either partner becomes aware of the fact that the love is not flowing between them, it is time to look at which of the four doors is fully or partially closed. Am I mad at you and punishing you by withholding my love from you? Or, has something happened that has closed my heart to your love? It would behoove every marriage partner to ask him or herself these questions whenever the marriage becomes strained. Asking ‘which of the four doors has been shut?’ is a shortcut to figuring out which partner is restricting the flow of love between you and why. It is important but difficult to do this without throwing blame around. Rather, it is best approached with an honest intention of wanting to restore the health and well-being of the partnership. If both partners understand and embrace their responsibility on this level, they will be far more likely to reestablish balance and their love more quickly when a shutdown occurs and to truly learn from their experiences facing life together.

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What Do You Really Believe?

When was the last time you challenged your own beliefs? When I work with couples to design their wedding ceremonies, I always ask them how they were raised in terms of religion and spirituality and where they are now in those terms in their lives. I have always been in awe of the deep questions regarding human existence – What is the purpose of our lives? What about God? If you believe in the existence of God, then how do you live your life as a true reflection of that belief? In working with couples, I am sad to discover how few have truly probed questions like these. Many label themselves as affiliated with a particular religious tradition, yet do not actively participate in its practices.

So, who are you in these terms? And, what do you believe? Do you actually breathe life into your beliefs by living according to the precepts of your tradition? I was in the airport recently and saw a family eating their homemade sandwiches together. They didn’t dress like the rest of us. Their clothes were humble and homemade, the grown and young girls wore their hair in pigtails, the mother wore no makeup, they had no cellphones or electronic games – they simply had each other. They prayed together before eating and I witnessed a loving camaraderie of interconnectivity between them all. Each of our lives is strongly informed by the presence or absence of our parents’ religious or spiritual worldview. Some of us sustain these traditions for the rest of our lives with varying degrees of personal passion, while others rebel against them or find a different perspective that seems to suit us better.

Regarding belief or disbelief in God, Pascal’s Wager offers an interesting perspective. He knew that reason was not the basis upon which one could establish the existence or non-existence of God. However, he recognized that the act of believing or disbelieving had certain predictable outcomes. In the case of one who believes in God, there are two possibilities. If God does not exist, the believer has perhaps been comforted by his or her belief, but is eternally unaffected. In the event of God’s existence, according to Pascal, the believer will be blessed by what he called ‘eternal salvation’ or what I might call alignment with God’s will. For the non-believer there are also two possible outcomes as well. If God does not exist, the non-believer suffers no real consequences other than the smugness of being ‘right’ having taken an unpopular position. If God does exist, Pascal reasoned that the non-believer
would face eternal damnation. His conclusion? Given the options of facing either no consequences or hell as a non-believer or no consequences or heaven as a believer, Pascal reasoned that it makes sense to open oneself to faith.

So, if for no other reason than to hedge one’s eternal bets, those who have never really explored the deeper questions of life’s purpose and the existence or absence of God and what all that means, exploring this terrain appears to be a wise investment of time and attention.

I have explored these questions for most of my life and been richly comforted by the beliefs that have resonated most deeply within me. My personal beliefs are not relevant here, but the experience of finding my truth has been one of my most treasured experiences. I regularly challenge my beliefs and they guide and comfort me each and every day. I encourage you to take stock of your beliefs. Are they alive within you or passive, intellectual concepts? Do you extend the freedom of belief to others? Or do you find it necessary to try to convince them that they are wrong and you are right? I do not believe that one set of beliefs is suitable for us all. Rather, it seems to me that we are each evolving in our own ways and what makes sense from one person’s perspective may seem ridiculous or wrong to another. I think it is important to remember that different reference points yield different points of view and if you stood in another’s shoes, you would most likely see and believe as they do. Tolerance and respect for our differences is essential to shared peace in this world.

So, what do you believe? And, are you able to extend the freedom of belief to others by honoring your differences? If not, why not?

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Who Pushes Your Buttons?

We all have sensitivities to the behaviors of others and it can be helpful to look below the surface of that dynamic. Our automatic response is generally to blame and judge the other person and then to attempt to get them to change their behavior. Why? Because we perceive their behavior to be the source of our irritation or upset. We want to decrease or eliminate our distress and the obvious solution seems to be to get them to stop doing what irritates us.

But wait – while this might be an effective short-term solution, it doesn’t deal with the fact that we have the hot button in the first place. Usually these sensitivities point to something much deeper in our psyche that has little to do with the situation at hand.

Here’s an example. I tend to get extremely irritated by the “customer service” and/or technical support telephone experience. I find myself talking back at the mechanical voice that tells me how important my call is to the company and I get increasingly irritated by the call routing process of “press 1 for this and 2 for that.” There never seems to be an option for what I am calling about and I just want to talk to a human being who cares about my concern and can help me. By the time I finally reach someone, I’m often so upset that I feel the need to tell them so before getting down to business which simply starts us off on the wrong foot. Granted, in my perfect world, customer service and technical support would be efficient and effective in responding to the customer’s needs in a timely fashion. But, in reality they seldom are. So, of what use is it for me to get upset? Why don’t I just take a deep breath when I need to call for help, accept the reality that it will take more time than I would like, and be grateful that someone will eventually help me? Can you even begin to imagine how hard I am on myself when I am inefficient or ineffective? Inside of me, there is this mini-kingdom of inner torment that generates great billowing clouds of negativity when I encounter inefficiency and ineffectiveness in myself and others. When someone honks on that button, guess what? It’s not their fault! It’s simply a reminder to me that I need to get to work desensitizing myself in that particular area.

So, what are your buttons? Ask yourself – are you a completely mellow-mannered person or do you have hot spots that spew anger when provoked? Does it happen when you are impatient? When someone cuts you off driving? When someone repeatedly interrupts or talks over you? When someone is unkind, inconsiderate, mean, petty, or small-minded? What sets you off?

Next time someone pushes your button, look inward instead of outward for the key to restoring your inner peace. Even if you can’t stop yourself from reacting in the moment, take the time after the fact to explore your inner territory. What assumptions are you making about how people or the world should be?

When I explored my issues with customer service experiences, I discovered that I really did believe that customer service systems and representatives should always be efficient and effective. So, the problem I experienced was not that they lacked these characteristics, but that I was unwilling to accept this reality. We live in a very imperfect world where human behavior is concerned. When we rage against the imperfections, we add more negativity to the mix. I am not suggesting that we simply play victim to the injustices and imperfections we experience with each other. Rather, we need to first and foremost be responsible and accountable for our own contribution – to our own reactions. If we are not inclined to raise public awareness about the issue at hand by proposing solutions and seeking momentum to bring about change, then our job is to tend our own garden. For my little drama this means reminding myself that the experience is likely to be more time-consuming than I would like and choosing to be as efficient and courteous as I can be to improve my chances of having a better experience. I also, put the phone on speaker and play computer solitaire while I wait – that helps a lot.

So, next time someone pushes your button, consider trying the following techniques to restore your inner peace:

• Count to ten before you react.

• If you must react, make sure your response is productive and does not add fuel to the fire.

• Choose to focus inwardly on your own consciousness rather than outwardly on the other person and their behavior.

• Ask yourself what beliefs or assumptions you hold that are in conflict with your experience and seek a more reality-based perspective.

• Remind yourself that you are an active participant/contributor to the quality of experience you are having.

• Seek to master skills in dealing with those parts of your experience that aren’t to your liking in a way that serves the highest good of all concerned.

Imagine how much nicer this world would be if we each did our part to desensitize our anger buttons!

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Living as Though Your Humanity, Mortality, and Divinity Really Matters

Is there anything we take more for granted than life itself? We are alive – what a miracle! But here’s the question – What are you doing with your life?

  • Are you living it on the surface checking off endless to-do lists?
  • When was the last time you had a deep conversation with someone you love or a total stranger?
  • How well do you really know yourself, your family and friends?
  • When was the last time you explored your deepest beliefs about life and death and the spiritual dimension of it all?
  • From where do you draw meaning in your life?

When I was in college, I discovered The I Ching and was particularly fascinated by how this ancient book of oriental wisdom captured the comings and goings and the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, light and dark, life and death in the human experience. Each movement in the dance of life has embedded within it opportunities and challenges to awaken one’s consciousness to an intuitive wisdom that is woven into the human experience. Yet, how many of us are paying attention to these deep messages of the mysteries of life and death?

Just as our physical muscles require exercise for optimum performance, so too does the part of our consciousness that is capable of perceiving life’s deepest mysteries and lessons. Surely, there are many sensual and delightful pleasures to be enjoyed and disturbing experiences to be avoided living on life’s surface. However, there are dimension of love, spiritual transcendence, compassion, and other rare gifts of life’s bounty that are only accessible to those who seek them and are willing to risk the vulnerability of residing in unfamiliar territory.

I attended a Death Café last week and was struck by how vastly private and diverse our experiences and approaches are to this rarified territory. The fact that seventy strangers showed up to talk about death with each other was a testament to the hunger many of us have to share the richer and deeper parts of ourselves. At my table of six only one person, a woman with stage four metastatic breast cancer had broken the death taboo with her own family with frank discussions about her prognosis and what that meant for them as a family. The rest of us were typical of the society as a whole, silenced on the topic yet hungry for existential meaning. Our conversation was energetic, profound, respectful of differences, and a refreshing opportunity to have others bear witness to our deepest truths and fears. I confess that I have a really strong aversion to the name “Death Café”, but once I got over that the experience itself was deeply enriching.

Our table was like a microcosm of the world at large. One person is living moment to moment with a terminal diagnosis, another is a devout member of a local Bruderhof Christian community, and two had only a vague sense of what they believed. Another discounted any and all beliefs regarding death and/or what happens after death because all is purely speculation from his point of view. I would describe myself as deeply spiritual, but not religious and one who spends a significant amount of time probing, expanding, and uplifting my consciousness. As diverse as our points of view were, there we all were with a shared desire to let total strangers into our private inner worlds to our most passionately held and life affirming and altering beliefs.

Conversations like this with ourselves, our loved ones or total strangers are important because they provide an opportunity for us to claim and affirm what resonates and reverberates as truth within us. This kind of sharing exercises those deeper consciousness muscles so that we can learn to rely upon them as our core strength. Recognizing this inner truth within ourselves serves to guide us in making our daily and life altering decisions in alignment with this inner compass of knowledge and belief. As we share deeply with others, we broaden our horizons and bridge the gap of our otherwise very private inner worlds. Instead of giving each other an airbrushed version of ourselves, we risk the vulnerability of letting others know who we most profoundly know ourselves to be.

In my own life’s journey so far, one of the things that is most precious to me is deeply connecting with another person in such a way that we experience a kind of transcendence into a sacred territory of mutual respect and oneness. Yet, these moments of encounter are very few and far between despite the fact that I have a lot of like-minded friends. I can’t help but wonder why we spend so much of our time disconnected from each other or engaging in right/wrong power struggles rather than both/and transcendence.

A final set of questions:

How deeply do you know yourself?

How deeply do you let your family and friends know you?

How precious are you making the gift of your life?

Are you living as though your humanity, mortality, and divinity really matter? If yes, how? If not, why not and what might you be willing to do differently?

How do you imagine our shared world could be different if we really lived as though our humanity, mortality, and divinity really mattered?

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Radical Transformational Gratitude

Many of us hold in our hearts the desire for, or perhaps even the memory of, a Thanksgiving gathering joyfully sharing a feast of plenty with family and friends where everyone is happy like in the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving image entitled, “Freedom from Want.” Unfortunately, reality often fails to measure up to this ideal. Some of us find ourselves dreading a family holiday gathering where we anticipate being miserably caught in a reenactment of the dysfunctions of our childhood family gatherings. Others, yearning to be with familiar faces and traditions, find themselves adrift far from home either alone or as a guest, perhaps feelings like an outsider, at someone else’s table with unfamiliar traditions.

If you anticipate a Thanksgiving that will fall short of your desires, you are sure to have that experience. This is especially true if your imaginings are focused on the menu and who will or will not be there. If, on the other hand, you focus on the spirit of thanksgiving, which is about being grateful then your focus turns inward to where you have a choice about how you experience whatever your holiday circumstances might be.

What I am suggesting here isn’t a Pollyanna approach, but rather a radical form of gratitude that just might give you a whole new and delightful experience as a powerful creator of your own experience and not the victim of circumstances or the behaviors of others. Be patient. This is a process not a one time fix it solution.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you are spending Thanksgiving with your family and dreading all their questions and judgments about what you are doing with your life because you know your truth will never garner their approval. How have you handled this in the past? Perhaps by creating your best spin on what’s going on with you in advance, or maybe by drinking too much, or physically and/or emotionally isolating yourself, or getting angry, or some other creative attempt to protect yourself from having to feel the pain of their disapproval. What if, instead of dreading their disapproval, you welcomed it as an opportunity to heal the part of you that somehow buys into their disapproval? Think of it as a tug of war that you have the power to dissolve by releasing the tension on your end of the rope.

The key to this approach is to change your own point of view on the situation. Instead of thinking they are wrong and you are being picked on, consider the possibility that this experience is absolutely perfect for you to learn some importantly needed lesson in your life. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to let them have their disapproval of you while being emotionally free of their opinions? How sweet would that be!

What I am proposing here is not easy, but it works. Here are 6 keys to how you can use radical transformational gratitude to be at the cause rather than at the effect of your own experience in any situation.

1. Accept the situation as it is without trying to change it. Imagine that you are establishing a brand new neural pattern in your brain (which you are) so that you can view the situation in an entirely new way, which in turn will give you a different way of experiencing it. So, before gathering with your family, pay attention to your self-talk. Play a game with yourself to identify all the ways that you experience your resistance and dread.

2. Listen to your self-talk and pay attention to your feelings. Notice your expectations (thoughts, and feelings) that are based on the belief that it’s going to be the same old awful experience as in the past.

3. Make a list of all the ways you identify in Step 2. For each one, create a forgiveness statement such as the three following examples:
• I forgive myself for judging myself as the black sheep of the family.
• I forgive myself for judging myself for hating my father for being so critical of me.
• I forgive myself for judging myself for judging my family for rejecting me.
Be as specific as possible in capturing the nature of the disconnect between you and your family. Notice that what you are forgiving is any judgment that you have been creating towards yourself or others. Keep this list handy during your family visit and run these forgiveness statements through your brain whenever you get caught in the old pattern.

4. Play detective with yourself to identify your emotional hook. Ask yourself some of the following questions and create and probe some of your own questions until you find a deeply resonant ‘aha’ within you indicating that you have identified your deeper truth in this situation:
• What’s my emotional payoff in the way I have been experiencing this situation?
• What is the nature of my pain and suffering in this situation?
• What do I really want to be true here and what might I do to create, promote, and allow more of what I want without making others wrong?
With each answer you get, go deeper by asking ‘what’s underneath that?’

5. Close your eyes and do the following gratitude process. One by one, call forward each person you have held responsible for your unhappiness – including yourself. Breathe deeply into your heart and imagine that you are intentionally sending love from your heart to this other person. Looking into their eyes, say ‘My happiness is not dependent upon your approval. I love you. God bless you. Peace, be still.’

6. Assume that this situation is for you and not against you and be grateful that it has presented you with the opportunity to deepen your friendship with yourself.

Notice that the unpleasant situation that you were facing was not something ‘bad’ but rather a perfect opportunity and steppingstone for you to improve your mental and emotional health and wellbeing. Now that’s something to be grateful for!

Happy holidays, everyone.

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