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Keeping The Doors Of Love Open In Your Relationship

Does your relationship provide a safe emotional environment for you both?

Are you free to be who you are?

Or, do you edit yourself around your partner to avoid negative reactions?

Do you walk on eggshells around each other?

I used to officiate at a lot of weddings. And, because I also offer couple’s mentoring, my friends often would kid me about a potential conflict of interest. They asked me, “What do you do? Do you say, ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife. And, if you get in trouble, here’s my card.’?”

The sad truth is at least half of couples will end up divorced.

It seems that loving, honoring and cherishing each other is easier said than done. These three promises that we make in our marriage vows are not just nice concepts. They are daily activities. They must be engaged in each and every day to keep a marriage healthy and dynamic.

One of the greatest keys to creating the kind of environment where loving, honoring and cherishing each other will occur is captured in my favorite wedding ring exchange. It symbolizes the true essence of a successful marriage.

Each partner places a ring on the other’s finger only up to the knuckle while pledging his/her love. The recipient takes the ring over the knuckle as acknowledgement of receipt of the gift of the other’s love. In this way, each one declares their awareness that they are both the giver and the receiver of love.

In order for the exchange of love between two people to remain alive and vibrant, four things have to be happening at once. Each partner must openly give his or her love to the other. They also must be open to receive the love of the other.

When these four doors of love are open, both partners feel safe and nurtured in the love they share. It behooves us all to pay far greater attention to the responsibility we have taken on through our promises in the wedding vows. They are not simply pretty words; they represent sacred commitments, and it is important that we keep our promises. We do so, or not, through the choices we make and the behaviors we express moment by moment, day by day, and year after year.

It’s easy to slam one of these symbolic doors shut when our partner disappoints us in some way. When that becomes the normal way we respond to each other, the trust, safety and foundation of the relationship is eroded. In time, alienation, judgments, distancing and hostility replace the love, trust and hopefulness that started the union.

In marriage, two people pledge to be there for each other — as partners and as flawed beings, through both the good times and the bad.

That commitment gets tested by the winds of change, by fate, choices, personal vulnerabilities and circumstances.

Next time your partner does something you don’t like, try doing these four things:

  1. Separate your reaction to your partner’s behavior from your loving support of the person. Let him or her know why you are disappointed. Let them know how the behavior impacts you and why you find it so upsetting.
  2. Affirm your love for your partner. Let him or her know that your doors of giving and receiving love are still open. Giving this feedback is part of that loving.
  3. If necessary, let your partner know that while he or she is welcome in your heart, the particular behavior, if a significant enough issue, may not be welcomed by you. Let them know what the consequences will be of continuing the behavior.
  4. Invite a discussion of what each of you can do individually and together to move through and past the problem.

If a couple has built a strong enough bond, most anything can be overcome together. Here’s an example: Let’s say you find out that your partner has been having an affair. Once you gather your wits enough to have a civil conversation or to write your partner a letter, try something like this:

I am devastated to find this out, and I hate that you did this to me and to our marriage.

We promised to love, honor and cherish each other, and this behavior is none of those things.

You have broken the deep bond of trust between us, and as a result I do not feel safe with you emotionally or sexually.

Our love is deeper than this behavior.

Know that I love you and that is why I am standing here in front of you, wanting us to find a way through this together.

I need you to know that any continuance of your affair is a further strike on your part against the sanctity of our marriage.

I will not and cannot tolerate that.

If you choose to continue your affair, I will recognize that as your choice to abandon our marriage.

If you choose to end your affair and would like to restore our marriage and work together to rebuild what has been broken, I am here.

You have one week to make your choice.

If you stay in our marriage, I would like us to seek professional help to guide us through the process of finding our way back to each other.

Notice a statement like this could be spoken or written. It addresses all four doors of loving — the giving and receiving of love by both partners. If those four choices are not made, the love will not survive.

What are you doing, or what could you be doing differently to keep the doors of loving open in the relationships in your life?

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

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If so, please share it with them. 

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How to Maintain Your Inner Well-Being – Part 2

Did you know that your brain gives preference to visual information?

Researchers L.D. Rosenblum, Harold Stolovitch, and Erica Keeps refer to our senses as learning portals. They offer the following statistics regarding the percentage of data processed by each of our five senses:

Sight (both through our eyes and unconscious visual perception) accounts for an estimated 83% of the information we process.  Another 11.0% comes through hearing, 3.5% through smell, 1.5% through touch, and the remaining 1.0% through taste.

Why is this significant?

By design, our eyes focus our attention outward. The fact that the vast majority of our sensory data is visual therefore predisposes us to an external frame of reference that focuses on the physical world.

Unaware that we are “seeing” the projection of an internally-filtered reality, we misinterpret our perceptions of reality to be reality itself. Consider the heated arguments between individuals of opposing political points of view. Each sees a different reality and believes that they are “right” and those on the other side of the aisle are “wrong.”

Until we become aware of how our internal data processing determines the reality we perceive, we think we are reacting to an external reality, rather than determining what that reality appears to be.

For most of us, our socialization includes indoctrination into a binary model of consciousness. In other words, we are taught to sort people and experiences into right/wrong, good/bad, beautiful/ugly, desirable/undesirable and so on. In fact, life is far more complex and messy than that.

Learned biases and preferences short-circuit the process of developing curiosity about those differences that we are taught to reject. There is a built-in bias against diversity in this way of encountering unfamiliar people and experiences. Therefore, diversity requires a new way of perceiving beyond our autopilot right/wrong sorting process.

In a binary approach, there are only two choices. That means if we encounter someone who is different, we can’t both be “right” or “OK.” As a result, we develop very narrow tolerances for differences, rather than nurturing our curiosity and openness to all kinds of people and experiences.

Would you like to know the best way to tame your inclination to judge anyone who is different than you or any experience you don’t like? It’s to become really curious and to call upon your inner detective. When we are quick to judge, we shut ourselves down. We also close ourselves off from additional information available to us. Our myopic view blinds us from alternative ways of seeing ourselves, the other person, and the situation itself.

When we become curious, we open ourselves up and draw ourselves closer to those we don’t understand rather than shutting them out or pushing them away.

 By about the age of five or six, we have the foundation of our self-image in place and we begin to unconsciously protect, conceal, or improve our image of ourselves and to become competitive with the self-images of others. We spend most of our time focused outward through our self-image as we negotiate and navigate our way through the world and relate to the imagined self-images being projected by others.

We learn to live in a world that is a collective figment of our imaginations in which we attempt to defend and elevate our status relative to that of others.

We selectively see things that support our existing beliefs and filter out things that do not agree with our way of seeing things.

Another paradox of our visual orientation is that it makes it very difficult for us to verify and trust the existence of non-physical reality. This is the territory of self-knowledge, intuition, and spiritual awareness.

It is interesting to note that when physical things come into being we refer to them as being born. When we refer to entering or increasing spiritual awareness, we call it awakening. We become aware of something that already exists. In physical form, we exist as separate beings. Spiritually, we exist within oneness. It is our mind and emotions that have separated us.

Paying attention to non-physical reality is a bit like being a salmon swimming upstream against the current. It requires an intentional redirection of our focus. To turn inward, we must engage in a more intimate relationship with ourselves. To awaken ourselves spiritually require a different state of mind.

The external orientation of our attention, coupled with the bombardment of unconscious sensory data, makes it extremely difficult to awaken our spiritual awareness. It requires a different state of consciousness to comprehend that we are at once one and the same. We are both singular and separate.

Learning how to become more conscious of our own unique data sorting process is essential to mastering the art of being who we authentically are.

Spiritual awakening involves consciously and intentionally developing our ability to override our usual way of being and perceiving. It requires looking within rather than being drawn to an external focus by the dominance of visual sensory input we are receiving. It means cultivating a non-judgmental perspective towards differences and an awareness of a level upon which we are all the same.

This requires cultivation of a childlike curiosity rather than a defensive and competitive stance regarding our perceptions versus those of others. It requires an entirely different kind of awareness — not based on sensory data. Rather it is a matter of attunement to something greater than our physical form that is shared by all. Language and empirical science fail us in speaking clearly about such matters, but do not negate their existence.

Ludwig Wittgenstein concluded in his monumental book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” This German, philosophical heavyweight is reputed to have put down is pen and become a gardener after writing that.

Each of us has our own unique life to lead.  As we learn about the power of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) it becomes clear that the quality of our consciousness determines how we experience our lives.

Ghandi said, “My life is my message.”  What does your life say about you? How skilled are you at being an active co-creator of your life?

In case you missed it, here is the link to Part 1 of this blog post.

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 

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How to Maintain Your Inner Well-Being – Part 1

If any of the following sound familiar, you will be delighted to know you can eliminate them all!

  • Feeling like an outsider
  • Never feeling like you are good enough
  • Being aware of an inner emotional heaviness or depression
  • Experiencing a repetitive pattern of disappointment
  • The emotional heat of perpetual anger
  • The inability to deeply connect with other people
  • Blaming and judging yourself and others when things don’t go “your way.”

Each and every one of these is the direct result of specific beliefs, fears, or misconceptions through which you are filtering new experiences in your Reticular Activating System.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is truly a marvel of human design. Here’s what it does:

  • regulates our sleep-wake transitions
  • coordinates and integrates our cardiovascular, respiratory, and motor response to external stimuli
  • controls our coordination
  • processes the vast majority of our incoming sensory information

Do you have any idea how much new information your brain is constantly processing? In his book, Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy Wilson quantifies the human brain’s unfathomable ability to process information as follows:

The unconscious processing abilities of the human brain are estimated at approximately 11 million pieces of information per second.  Compare that to the estimate for conscious processing: about 40 pieces per second.

Without our RAS, this barrage would quite literally blow our minds! We live in a constant state of data bombardment.

The fact that the vast majority of our data processing is unconscious is a great kindness in human design. However, this unconscious filtration system runs on autopilot while determining what incoming information we value, devalue, or fear based on our accumulated past reactions.

 Like the default settings on our computers, our past data processing decisions function as self-fulfilling prophecies of our present and future data filtration, unless and until we bring them to awareness for reevaluation. 

Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, 9th edition © 2009, Elsevier

The RAS is located in the brainstem. It consists of a network of nerve pathways. They form a link between the brain stem, which controls most of the body’s involuntary functions and reflexes, and the cerebral cortex, which is the seat of consciousness and our thinking ability. By connecting these two regions of the brain, the RAS functions as a filtering system for the mind. It controls our attention, awareness, thinking, and emotions. It quite literally causes us to construct our own internal worldview.

While we share our physical world, we each have our very own unique inner world. What we are seeing is not as it is in the physical world. We see the world as it is after being processed through our inner filters. Our sense of truth is relative to our inner filtration system.

The good news is you have the power to change the settings on your filtration system. Through increased awareness of how this system works and by paying attention to all forms of imbalance you experience, you have the power to change your inner and outer experiences.

We are biased to the status quo of how we already see things.

Believing that this internally-generated version of the truth is the empirical truth blinds us from reality.

One of the consequences of this misconception is that we believe that anyone whose perspective or way of being is different than ours is “wrong.” What we imagine to be our perception of empirical truth is merely a reflection of an aggregated inner point of view.

Within the privacy of our own consciousness – in the theater of our mind – we create our own sense of reality, which we inhabit and relate to as if it is REALITY.

It is important to remember that no one else on this planet has an identical inner world to the one you live in. The assumption that others see the world as we do is the source of an enormous amount of our misunderstanding about ourselves and each other.

The majority of our perceptions and thoughts are merely the product of our primarily unconscious sensory data filtration system. They exist only in our private inner world.

Understanding the design of the data processing function of the RAS empowers us to do some renovations to the mental and emotional scaffolding upon which we are living our lives.

We access this opportunity by paying attention to where things are not working well for us in our lives. To bring our autopilot ways of responding to our experiences into conscious awareness, we need to identify what is on our filter. So, take a good look at your underlying conditioning, beliefs, assumptions, expectations, prejudices, preferences, fears, memories, judgments, illusions, delusions, hopes, and dreams.  Only then, do we have the option to challenge our default settings and change them as appropriate.

Another way of saying this is we need to clean our data processing filters. In doing so, we can update our default settings. Our freedom lies in recognizing that our RAS makes our lives a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is simply doing what we tell it to do. When we update our default settings, we are redirecting the perspective of our RAS so that it will now validate our new point of view.

Consider this simple example. While on a weight loss journey, I got to within one pound of what I viewed as a major threshold. I plateaud there for six weeks. I was doing everything “right” in terms of complying with my program. What was going on? Upon evaluation of my RAS filters, I noticed that I held a belief that crossing this particular one-pound threshold would put me into a level of success that I had not previously experienced.

Underneath that I discovered that I was fearful and did not trust myself to maintain this success. In this context, my weight loss plateau made perfect sense. Once I  identified the source of resistance to further progress, I was able to bring more of this pattern into conscious awareness and to challenge myself to see my situation through new eyes.

When we get stuck, we need to look to see exactly what beliefs and fears have been preventing us from moving forward. Then, we can choose to replace them with new, affirming beliefs and assumptions.

Bringing unconscious patterns into awareness empowers us to upgrade our default settings in such a way that upgrades the quality of our inner life.

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 

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Never Forget These Two Numbers: 11 Million and 40 – They Rule Your Life

Every second, we are bombarded with information.

What Do We Perceive?

In his book, Strangers to Ourselves, Timothy Wilson quantifies the processing capabilities of the human brain.

While the conscious mind processes 40 bits of information per second, the unconscious mind processes 11 million!

The fact that most of our data processing is unconscious is a great kindness in human design!

How does anyone process so much information? It’s a wonder we don’t blow our own minds! How we sort and store this massive amount of information is one of the greatest wonders of the world.

Don’t be fooled. It is easy to falsely assume that a conscious perception is more impactful than an unconscious one. In fact, being unconscious does not make a perception any less potent in impacting our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When something is unconscious, it means we have no awareness of it. And, if we have no awareness, we can’t do anything about it.

This is why it is so important to intentionally excavate your unconscious mind when you are out of balance in your life. Self-observation is a great place to start. Pay attention to your beliefs, fears, doubts, and concerns. Bring them to your awareness. See if you can challenge their accuracy to change your point of view.

Remember, we are not only perceptual beings. We process and interpret data as well. We are intentional beings who place our focus here instead of there. We choose this action instead of that one.

Consider the fact that the sheer magnitude of unconscious data creates the need for a system of filters to organize incoming information. These filters become autopilot decision-makers for how we respond unconsciously, and they determine the content we perceive consciously.

Furthermore, we may not even be aware of those 40 bits that we take in consciously if we are not focused upon them. For example, I might notice your smile but not the clothes you are wearing while both are among my 40 bits that second.

Where does all this data come from? We gather data from our environment. We also gather information about how people treat us and how that makes us feel. Impressions are made.

Our visual perceptions dominate all others. Our brains give preference to visual information. Researchers L.D. Rosenblum, Harold Stolovitch, and Erica Keeps refer to our senses as learning portals. They offer the following statistics regarding the percentage of data processed by each of our five senses:

Sight *:  83%

Hearing:  11%

Smell:  3.5 %

Touch:  1.5 %

Taste:  1.0 %

*(both through our eyes and unconscious visual perception)

How Do We Decide What is Normal?

Patterns of “normalcy” are initially taught by others. We learn to catalog some things as good and others as bad. For the first five years or so of our lives, we are like little sponges. We absorb it all before our frontal cortex sufficiently develops for us to begin to evaluate our own perceptions. Thus, we begin by seeing through the eyes of others. And, they may or may not be seeing clearing themselves and might not have our best interests in mind.

Our sense of reality is skewed by the autopilot filtration settings of our data processing, largely programmed by others – our parents, teachers, friends, affiliations, and culture.

“If we do not intimately explore our perceptual framework, we will be its victim.”

What should we do?

“It is vital that we pay attention to how and why we function as we do.”

Here’s an example. One day, well into my own process of self-exploration, I made a profound psychosomatic connection. I held my arms fully extended in front of me with my hands turned upward like stop signs. This was to demonstrate to someone how I had been living my life. I had come to believe that I needed to protect myself. So I lived as though keeping everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t be able to get close enough to hurt me. It was a fundamental survival strategy I was unconsciously enacting. As I looked at my arms, I understood why I had developed carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists and bone spurs in my shoulders. Once seen, I began to deconstruct the scaffolding of this way of being. I consciously rolled my shoulders and dropped them at my side whenever I was scared or unsure of myself. This in turn caused me to experience the vulnerability of lifting my chest up and letting my heart lead me forward into the world. Through conscious and intentional repetition, I was able to override my old pattern. I stepped into a healthier and more trusting way of moving through the world.

This kind of remedial inner work is essential to personal freedom. We are all broken in some places within ourselves. But if we don’t take the time to find out where, we limp through life when we could be skipping.  Most people don’t do this inner work. Those who do have access to a kind of freedom and inner peace that is absolutely delicious. So, remember those two numbers and let them motivate you to do your inner work. It’s a matter of mental and emotional hygiene and ecology.

Remember as you move through this world, it doesn’t matter so much what is going on outside of us. It matters what we do with that inside ourselves. That is ultimately what determines whether we exist at the effect of external circumstances, or we thrive from the inside out.

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 
 

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What Are You Afraid Of?

Fear is a Fantasy Expectation Appearing Real. 

Fear can get triggered in many ways. Some people are afraid of dogs or snakes or spiders, for example. Others fear experiencing such emotional states as humiliation, rejection, shame, loneliness, and failure. Still others fear such life occurrences as poverty, serious illness, or death. 

Whether your fear is a momentary reaction or a sustained state of being, energetically, fear is a contraction. It is also a figment of the imagination.

What we are afraid of may be real, but our fear itself is something we make up in the theater of our mind and act as though it is real. 

It helps to understand what happens in our bodies when we become afraid and to know that we have the power to interrupt this response. Bruce Lipton is a cell biologist whose work contributes to bridging the gap between science and spirit. He explains that fear literally contracts our energy. It paralyzes us from thoughtfully and compassionately responding to the object of our fear. He explains:

When we are in a happy state, we are in a state of growth. When we get afraid, we get in a state of protection. And when we get in a state of protection, it completely changes the blood flow to the body, because when you are in a state of growth, you are nourishing the viscera, which is really the organs that take care of maintaining our health, etc. 

But when we start to get afraid, we want to send the blood to the arms and legs  because the arms and legs are what we are going to use for fight or flight to escape the issue or deal with the problem. So the hormones and stress cause the blood vessels in the gut to squeeze shut, which forces the extra blood to go to the periphery where we are going to nourish that fight or flight behavior. 

Well, interesting enough, the same hormones affect blood vessels in the brain, because when we are in a state of happiness and growth, we are using our conscious reasoning and our thinking and our logical thought. But in a state of a reaction to a threat, conscious reasoning is not very helpful, because it is a very slow process.

So, basically what happens is in the presence of stress hormones, blood vessels in the forebrain, which is the center of conscious reasoning and logic, are squeezed shut just like the blood vessels in the gut, and this forces the blood to go to the hindbrain.

Well, the hindbrain is reflex and reactive behavior, so basically it says from the moment you get under stress you actually shut down the thinking processes of the conscious mind and open up the reactive, reactionary processes of the hindbrain. . .
Simply put: when we are under stress, we become less intelligent.

Clearly, some fear reactions are justifiable, such as coming face-to-face with a big bear. In other cases, we can learn to retrain our fear response. Fear does not necessarily have to incapacitate us.

Consider the following two fear reactions by contestants on a recent show of America’s Got Talent. Both were singing their hearts out seeking their big break. Each was faced with an alarming experience. Simon Cowell interrupted them and asked them to sing a different song. The 30-year-old young man was like a deer in the headlights. Simon offered him the opportunity to come back later in the day which he eventually did successfully. But in the moment, he just stood there speechless and unable to think what to do. In contrast, the eight-year-old girl who was similarly interrupted by Simon was also stunned initially. Simon offered her some water and she smiled and said, “Well, that just happened!” She composed herself and sang another song.

In the moment of our fear being triggered, we can unconsciously allow our physiological response described above to kick in and take over. Or, we can do what that little girl did. She overrode her autopilot response by acknowledging that something unpleasant happened and then affirmed that she was OK. 

Here are 5 simple steps to retrain your reaction to things you fear:

  1. Observe yourself. Play detective and watch to see exactly what you do when you get afraid. Notice what triggers your fear.
  2. Interrupt your autopilot response. Practice noticing when your fears kick in. Stay conscious. Don’t lose your mind.
  3. Choose to be OK. Ask yourself, “How else might I respond to this other than being afraid?” Practice telling yourself that you can manage the situation. You can be simultaneously afraid and OK. 
  4. Downgrade your fear. As you practice being OK when you are afraid, your fears will lose their power. Build trust in your ability to cope in the presence of stress.
  5. Repeat. Building new response patterns requires repetition. Be patient and keep doing this consciously until it becomes your new autopilot response.

For further insight into mastering the art of being you, read more here.  

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 
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What Gives Your Life Meaning?

What sustains you?

What puts a smile on your face and lights up your heart?

What keeps the embers of your soul on fire?

What really matters deeply to you?

It is so easy to get caught up in the ongoing activities and demands of our lives. We often forget or lose track of what is most meaningful to us.

There are two things that give my life profound meaning. The first is the process of my own spiritual awakening. The other is helping others to raise the level of consciousness from which they are living their lives. I welcome every opportunity to contribute to raising someone’s consciousness to look upward and inward rather than downward and outward.

These are the things that, if all else were stripped away, would continue to sustain my spirit and enrich me. What about you? What is the source of the deepest meaning of your life?

For over 40 years I have consciously, intentionally, and actively participated in my own spiritual enrichment. As a result, I have evolved an understanding of life’s purpose and a worldview that has changed the course of my life for the better. It guides and nourishes me each and every day.

Experientially knowing that we are all divine beings having human experiences casts a very different light on my daily trials and tribulations. There is an inner freedom I have found in this journey that I treasure. It is the knowledge that I am free to create, promote or allow whatever I choose to participate in within my own consciousness. Regardless of what others say or do to me or about me or with me, my mind is mine to do with as I choose. As Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) wrote:

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.

My life offers me so many opportunities to be of service to others. Through my writing, mentoring, teaching, or simply by being a friend, my life is rich in opportunities to help others.

Being of service is a beautiful win/win experience for me. The more I give, the more blessings seem to flow through my life. For example, when caring for my mother at the end of her life I was gifted with the realization of how deeply I am capable of loving.

Every day, as I work with clients, we learn from each other. And, as they set themselves free from the beliefs, memories, and fears that have burdened them, my soul sings. To be a part of their process and to bear witness to their liberation makes me jump for joy inside.

Where have you found your place in this world?

What is nourishing your soul and tickling your fancy?

 

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 

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Celebrating Oneness in Diversity

Do you and your partner frequently battle over who is “right” and who is “wrong?” If so, battles will be won, but a war will rage on.

Right/wrong thinking makes a relationship an ongoing power struggle. It is the territory of two ego personalities who are only considering two options: winning or losing. Only one can be right, and the other is therefore wrong. As long as we think in those terms, we will always be at war with each other.

It is the decision-making process used, rather than the decisions themselves, that speak volumes about the quality of a relationship.

When you replace either/or thinking with both/and thinking a whole new world of healthy relating opens up. It allows for the process of co-creation by equally respected partners. Whether deciding what to have for dinner or when and how to express shared intimacy, your decision-making style makes all the difference.

Think in terms of a continuum of possibilities. At one extreme the decision-making process will demonstrate one partner dominating and silencing the other. At the other extreme is a shared process of considering each person’s point of view, evaluating the alternatives together, and finding a solution that serves the highest good of all concerned. Guess which one is more healthy?

Take a look at the major relationships in your life and ask yourself how healthy your decision-making style is. Are you a bully? Do you play a victim role? Do you feel heard?

When one partner dominates, something dies in the other partner. When both participate, both partners thrive. This is true whether the two parties are schoolyard children, marriage partners, business associates, or countries.

Dominance expresses a lack of caring and consideration for the concerns and welfare of the other. It is a silencing of one by the other. Dominance breads hostility. It demonstrates a lack of mutual respect and an inevitable retaliation in one form or another by the underdog. Consider the waiter who secretly spits in your soup because you were condescending and rude. What drives a marriage partner to withhold sex claiming frequent headaches?

The fact that you are able to dominate and silence another person by throwing your weight around  doesn’t make your point of view the “best” approach. It simply shows your lack of awareness and inability to participate in more fruitful, kind and caring relationships with others.

Bullies, social and institutional norms, and political hierarchies of power often silence the most brilliant, creative minds that might otherwise contribute better solutions.

I often wonder how rich and healthy we could be if we nurtured the full participation of all rather than the advancement of the few.

Many people who carry unresolved and accumulated anger from their past let off steam by bullying others. Some, flashing the badge of their social position, title or wealth, pursue their own agenda at the expense of others. They tell themselves it is their right — they are entitled and others are not.

Consider the “mean” boss, the bully in the schoolyard, or one who abuses children. Think about how the “most powerful” countries in the world take advantage of the smaller and less developed nations.  “Might” most certainly does not make “right” nor does it demonstrate the best of which we are capable.

The social consequences of allowing bullying, dominance, and right/wrong decision-making to prevail in our world are enormous.

How much personal growth, loving, caring and sharing is sacrificed when right/wrong thinking and dominance prevails?

How much creativity, productivity and camaraderie is lost to systems and leadership styles that stifle  the contribution of employees?

What countries truly strive to maximize the health, happiness, and productivity of their citizenry? The irony is this is more true of “primitive” societies than of “advanced” societies.

The sad thing is that the worst offenders don’t even know what they are missing and are satisfied with the spoils of the greedy wars they wage. They are often unaware of the magnitude of abundance they could create by nourishing rather than starving others.

Look around and you will see many who are consciously working to break through the prevailing cultural pattern of creating personal hierarchies of power in human relationships. It is a slow process of choosing more kindness, more caring, more encouragement of hope and participation. It is fueled by a vision of celebrating our oneness while honoring our differences.

Many are seeking to find ways to tap the vast resources of participation, creativity, and productivity.  Momentum is growing as individuals look for enlightened lovers and leaders and join causes that seek greater health and well-being.

People are learning to speak up rather than allowing themselves to be silenced or to give up. Some are creating relationships and organizations that are alive and evolving. They nurture all participants to be free, safe, and encouraged to fully participate.  Collaborative thinking is being encouraged.

Pay attention to your affiliations and the quality of your relationships. Are you perpetuating the old or helping to bring in the new?

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

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6 Ways to Say ‘Yes’ to Your Life

“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, then what am I?
And if not now, when?”
–Hillel

Learn to embrace the fullness of life. This calls us to bear personal responsibility and accountability for our own life. I was recently listening to “Radical Self-Acceptance” by Tara Brach. She began to talk about the simple act of saying “yes” to your own life. My immediate reaction was, “Like, duhhh! Who doesn’t know that?” Then I began to check in with myself to see when I was actually saying “yes” or “no” to my life. I was astounded by all the subtle and obvious ways that I was spewing negativity against myself.

I wouldn’t tolerate others attacking me like that, yet there I was rejecting myself again and again.

This experience reminded me of a workshop I attended many years ago. Participants were each given a blank piece of paper representing their daily allotment of energy units. We were asked to walk around the room tearing off pieces of the paper representing how we spent our energy. For many of us, the paper was long gone before we got anywhere near the end of our list. Many of us were shocked by how much of our life force was expended in resistance and negativity towards what was present in our lives. I highly recommend that you try this process. It was a profound exercise for me and has stayed with me all these years.

Self-sabotage comes in many forms. We  judge and reject ourselves. We compare ourselves to others and create fantasy fears and illusions. In what ways do you sabotage yourself? What strategies do you use to reclaim and redirect yourself in more uplifting ways? Here are some of my personal favorite ways to say “yes” to my life:

  1. Observation. The mere act of self-observation brings your consciousness present. It provides the opportunity to claim your own truth and to make different choices, if appropriate. When we don’t pay attention, our negativity can run on autopilot, and we haven’t got a prayer of doing anything about it. So, pay attention. Observe yourself.  Once you see your negativity, choose to explore it and do something about it. Einstein’s definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
  2. Naming the Experience. Somehow, labeling what is going on both within you and in your life can give you a starting point for finding a higher perspective. For example, simply noticing “I am really agitated” begins a process of exploring the source of your agitation. You can look at the ways it is manifesting. It helps to be specific in your observations. For example, knowing that I you agitated rather than angry or exhausted expedites the process of finding a way out of the particular form of negativity being experienced.
  3. Welcoming Whatever Is Present. This one is from Tara Brach, and I find that practicing it can be quite amusing. At first, it seemed crazy to me to say, “Oh, I gained five pounds, and I feel ashamed of myself and hopeless. I should welcome these feelings? Come on in and sit with me. Have a cup of tea. What are you here to teach me?” By embracing whatever is present, you can short-circuiting your autopilot negativity to what you don’t like or want. Instead of allowing your judgments and resistance to escalate,  practice keeping your consciousness open to the possibility that even this thing you don’t like is here for a purpose in your life. Ask yourself, “How is this for me rather than against me?”
  4. Cultivating Neutrality. It is so easy to fall into the trap of embracing only what we like in life. But this leads to doing everything possible to resist what we don’t like. We all have our personal preferences. However, just as we might prefer a sunny day to a cloudy one, there will be days and experiences we love and those we can’t wait to see end. To merely encounter the variations through the lens of personal preferences is to miss the point. All our life experiences offer us important lessons. Those experiences we avoid will just keep reappearing until we learn the lessons they are here to teach us. In my experience, many of my most precious life lessons have been delivered through unpleasant experiences.
  5. Accepting What Is Present. Denial doesn’t make the truth disappear. It just postpones the possibility of dealing with it. Acceptance is not about saying you like what is happening. Rather, it is choosing to face reality. It is about calling a spade a spade. I tell myself, “This is what is happening. This is the truth of the matter.” Then, I sit with that before allowing myself to respond.
  6. Exercising Compassion and Forgiveness for Myself and Others. I pay attention to when I catch myself standing in judgment of myself, others or the circumstances in my life. Then I do my best to focus on replacing my judgments with compassion and forgiveness. It doesn’t necessarily happen on the spot. However, by choosing to keep my heart open and present, I welcome loving kindness into the equation.

***

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

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When Loved Ones Aren’t Very Loving

Do you dread gathering with your family and friends for holidays, weddings, funerals and other events? Or have you been blessed with a truly loving and nurturing family? Dysfunctional childhood and family dynamics have a way resurfacing and making us feel crazy, trapped, and wanting to run for the hills.

If this sounds familiar, ask yourself these questions to explore the role you play in these dramas:

  • Are you consistently kind to everyone?
  • Do you reject certain people and favor others?
  • Do you hold grudges that have been festering for years?
  • Are you one who stands by pretending not to see the elephant in the room? Has it been there for many, many years?
  • Do you strive to truly demonstrate loving kindness for everyone there?
  • In what ways do you contribute to the discord?
  • Do you see yourself as a helpless and innocent victim?
  • Are you someone who thinks you are somehow better than everyone else?
  • What kind of attitude and behaviors do you contribute?

The term ‘loved ones’ implies special status – our inner circle. Yet, some of us are kinder to total strangers than to those with whom we share our lives.

In many families at least one giant elephant of discord sits in the room. There is a silent conspiracy that everyone participates in pretending not to see it or to do anything to get rid of it. Perhaps there is a drug-addicted child, or an alcoholic parent whose toxicity dominates the experience of being together. Or maybe it is a nasty, judgmental sister, a boring uncle, a nerd, or someone you hold a grudge against.

If this is a familiar experience for you, are you going along with the same old dysfunctional dynamic? Is there something you might do to contribute to healing the situation? It takes courage to go against the tide. Are you willing to name the elephant and to initiate efforts to deal constructively with the negativity?  Consider the alternative of letting things continue to fester. Do you really want to forego the possibility of having a mutually respectful and enjoyable time together?

Consider the following example. I know one family with two sisters and a brother in the middle. They have put up with the older sister’s judgments and rejection of the younger sister for decades.

The elder sister feels that her disdain is justified by her judgments of her sister. The brother plays the peacemaker and maintains separate relationships with his sisters. He initites family gatherings in the hope that this will go away. He tries to be a good sport and acts as though he is  unconscious of the feud. Meanwhile, the younger sister suffers through these gatherings. After making numerous attempts to talk to her sister about healing the discord between them, she has withdrawn from family gatherings.

Every family gathering is tainted.

“all the while scarlet thoughts, putrid fantasies, and no love”

-Louis Auchincloss

 

Consider what is at stake. Why should everyone have to suffer because someone doesn’t like one of the family or group of friends? Why not challenge that person either privately or publicly? Let them know that you do not appreciate or support their behavior. Acknowledge to them that their negativity is toxic for everyone else involved? Why not go on record as being unwilling to support this kind of behavior in the future? Ask the person what they are making more important then loving one another.

Another constructive act is to let the apparent victim know that you care about their well-being and do not approve of the aggressor’s behavior.

As adults we are each responsible for what we create, promote, and allow in our lives. We are accountable for how our behavior affects others – no matter how justifiable we believe our attitudes and behaviors to be.

At the end of the day, we are either contributing to more loving kindness for all involved or more distress and discord.

Is there something you might do differently next time to demonstrate that nothing is more important to you than being loving and kind to one another?

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

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How Well Do You Face the Trials and Tribulations of Your Life?

It really is what’s inside that counts. It isn’t so much what happens to you that determines the quality of your life. Rather, it is how well you deal with what happens.

The quality of our inner experience matters far more than how we measure up to some external measurement of success.

We all have challenges to face. So why don’t we do a better job of educating our children how to work inside themselves to meet difficult experiences? Why are we being left to our own devices to figure out how to cope with life’s trials and tribulations? Why aren’t we taught some basic life wisdom and coping skills early on to better equip us for our life’s journey?

Here are five coping skills that have served me best in facing the more challenging parts of my life.

  1. Always look for the embedded life lesson.

“What is life trying to teach me?”

Have you ever found yourself complaining about your life, claiming that something always or never happens to you? These types of beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies. Our beliefs are a filter through which we encounter our lives.

Something happens that you don’t like. You process that new experience through your existing beliefs, attitudes, and memories. That in turn generates the same old autopilot thoughts and feelings that you have always had in response to experiences like this. Then, your behavioral response is a fait accompli reflecting this point of view. It has become your way of experiencing your life. That’s how it works.

But how’s that working for you?

“If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten”   – Anthony Robbins

Consider the possibility that all of your life experiences carry wisdom that is just waiting politely for you to invite it into your consciousness. So, do that.

Probe deeper into your beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Look for patterns of how you create, promote, and allow your own suffering.

Look for alternative responses. When you are open to receive life’s lessons, they don’t have to keep presenting themselves to you again and again.

2.  Trust that what happens is for your highest good.  Have you ever lost your job or had a loved one die unexpectedly? Did you think your world had come to an end? Or were you able to see beyond your fear and grief to where the blessings might be?

When I shared a home with my mother for the last nine years of her life, I put much of my life on hold. This allowed us to have quality time together and for me to more fully serve as her caregiver. My loss of income and social isolation were more than made up for by the precious moments and deepened love we shared. I learned things about myself and about life that I can’t imagine having encountered on my previous life trajectory. Catching a curve ball in life can open up new doors that you didn’t have any way of knowing existed. Sometimes, they are the access point to some of life’s most precious treasures.

     3. Focus first on embracing the undesirable truth. Look your life straight in the eye and accept that it is so. Whether receiving a terminal diagnosis, watching your marriage fall apart, or not getting accepted at your first choice college or the job accept it.

I’m not suggesting a passive kind of resignation here. Rather, choose a radical kind of intentional acceptance.

OK this is actually happening. I’m not going to deny it. I can meet this challenge in my life.

The alternative is to  fall into familiar reactions of blaming and judging others, getting down on yourself, or simply being in shock or disbelief.

I remember when I hit black ice going 60 MPH and totaled my car. I went backwards down a hill and the rear end of my car was sliced in half by the tree that finally stopped it. My first thought was, “I’m alive.” It’s good to start with the fundamental facts and go from there with as little drama as possible. Just breathe into the present moment and let your consciousness assess reality.

When we start extrapolating with high drama mental and emotional scenarios, we are rocketing off into our imagination rather than being present to deal with reality.

Be present in your reality, no matter how scary it is.

You might just be amazed at your quick thinking, resilience, and fortitude. Once you accept the undesirable truth, you can get busy doing your best to deal with it.

     4. Take care of yourself and do your best. Some of my biggest life challenges have come in the context of people who wished me ill, didn’t like me, or held different beliefs. What has gotten me into trouble in these situations is trying to change the other person’s point of view or behavior. When I really succeed in dealing with these situations it is because I focus on taking care of myself and loving myself. Trying to defend myself or my point of view in an effort to change the other person isn’t the point.

Taking care of my inner well-being is what helps most.

Let other people live their lives their way. Focus on doing your best to love, nurture, and protect your sweet self. Opinions are like noses — everyone has one.

     5. Find good help when you need it. As a mentor, I don’t view my clients as sick or broken for needing my help. I see them as the smart ones who know the value of good resources. After all, how can you be expected to know something until you learn it? Life presents learning opportunities to us all the time. Sometimes we need a plumber or doctor or marriage counselor or Hospice care. If we are smart, we seek and embrace good help.

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

Do you know someone who might benefit from reading this article?
If so, please share it with them. 

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