Archive for category: Consciousness/Thriving

How to Suppress Your Inner Tyrant

One of the biggest challenges to our sense of well-being is uncertainty about whether or not we are good enough. Many of us falsely assume that the fulfillment of our dreams for a promotion, love, weight loss or writing a best-seller is attributable to our level of worthiness. But one’s essential worthiness has nothing to do with it. Whether we ever come to know and honor our totally magnificent selves is a better question than are we worthy. We are multi-dimensional beings in a very complex world and many of us spend a lifetime coming to the awareness that each of us was born worthy of being loved, experiencing success and being happy. The catch is we have to learn how to remove whatever is in the way of us knowing that is so.

To equate success or failure in the world with our own innate worthiness or lack thereof is not only illogical but dangerous. We get into trouble when we hold ourselves up to a standard of “good enough” that we carry inside us but never seem to be able to achieve and sustain. Alternatively, some of us worship an abstract, external standard that doesn’t really take our personal reality into account. Furthermore, we are bombarded with images of “beautiful people” who are professionally styled, made up and air-brushed — even they don’t really look like that!

Many great athletes have learned that ultimately they compete against themselves rather than against opponents. Life has taught me to require of myself that I do my very best as often as possible and to be very pleased with myself for that. This is a much more gentle way of relating to myself than the many years I spent living with a nagging voice inside my head who ran incessant negative feedback. Do you have one of those? I call them inner tyrants. I have learned that success is about reclaiming authority over my mind from my inner tyrant. It is about doing my best and striving for excellence — not perfection.

The process of learning to drop false standards of perfection by silencing our inner tyrants allows us to embrace ourselves as we are, trusting that we are doing the best we can. It is about becoming better friends to ourselves and is an ongoing journey that involves several key steps:

1. Pay attention to what is going on inside of your head. Notice that when you are being hard on yourself it is usually a red flag that you are getting in the way of creating, promoting or allowing what you want to come forward.

2. Take responsibility for what you are saying to yourself. Notice when you are being unkind to yourself, and stop as soon as possible. Don’t make yourself wrong for beating up on yourself, simply stop the behavior, forgive yourself and move on.

3. Silence your inner tyrant. There are two key strategies here. First, stop feeding the negativity and second insert a more positive view of yourself and your efforts. If a battle ensues as your tyrant seeks to reassert control over your mind, develop your skills as a worthy opponent.

4. Turn the process into a game. Little by little, each time this challenge of your inner tyrant asserts itself, go into this process and turn it into a game of doing more of what works for you and less of what doesn’t.

Whenever I work with a client who is struggling with an inner tyrant, I share the following poem by Portia Nelson which does a great job of describing the process of freeing ourselves from inner negativity.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in, again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit… but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

Doing the very best I can has become my new definition of “good enough.” I have also evolved a great response to my inner tyrant whenever she tests me or when I am having a really hard time understanding why some aspect of my life does not seem to be working out very well. It is simply this: “I am doing the best I can and this is what it looks like!” A little humor, compassion and kindness for ourselves yield far better results than pushing ourselves around forever striving to be good enough to get our own approval or that of others. Just do your best and be proud of yourself.

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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The Two Caveats in the Golden Rule

Many languages and cultures carry the same wisdom: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” One would think that is always good advice. However, there are two fundamental assumptions in The Golden Rule that require a note of caution in its application.

Consider the following situation. Several years ago, I was working with a client who was in an abusive marriage. She was very clear that she wanted to leave her husband and needed to do so. But, she just couldn’t do it. When we explored why, it turned out to be attributable to her deep belief in The Golden Rule. Her interpretation was that her husband was unemployed, fairly unemployable and generally down on his luck and if she was in his shoes, she certainly would not want her spouse to leave her. While enormously compassionate, she was still being abused.

Her literal interpretation of The Golden Rule blocked her from seeing the full picture of what was going on. The reality was that if she was in her husband’s position, she would not behave as he was behaving. He was one of those downright nasty people who took pleasure from manipulating and hurting other people and making his life challenges other people’s problems. Somehow, it gave him a sense of being superior.

The first caveat to The Golden Rule is that it must be applied to one’s self first and then to others. In other words, do onto yourself as you would have others do onto you. If you extend your loving kindness to others at your own expense, then you become your own abuser. Put another way, if there is a conflict between treating yourself and the other person with loving kindness, it is wise to take care of yourself first so that you can come from a position of strength and balance in being of service to others.

I learned this wisdom when I was ordained. The charge of my ministry was to first minister to myself, not in a selfish way, but rather as a loving parent tends to the needs of a child. The ministry then extends to others. It took me many years to appreciate the wisdom of making sure I was maintaining my own health and balance so that I could relate to others in a more loving way without doing so at my own expense.

Here’s how the first caveat applied to my client. She was so focused on how she was treating her husband that she neglected to look at how she was behaving towards herself. She was allowing herself to be abused continuously. When I shared the first caveat with her, she recognized that she was allowing herself to be abused by ignoring her responsibility to herself and focusing only on how she would feel in her husband’s shoes — completely unaware of the fact that she would never behave as he did. Just as repeatedly burning your hand by placing it over a flame is unwise, so is opening the door to repeated abuse.

The second caveat is the assumption that you are dealing with a healthy person of integrity. Sometimes you are not. When someone is in such an unhealthy place in their consciousness as to be repeatedly abusive to others, the most loving response for one’s self and the abuser is often to leave or refuse to engage in an adversarial response. This refusal to support the abuser in his or her weakness can be the wakeup call needed. Our most loving behavior is often to refuse to tolerate abuse.

The bottom line is that we all want to be loved by each other, but sometimes we lose sight of that and treat one another in terrible ways. The way I interpret The Golden Rule is not that we are supposed to turn the other cheek by inviting more abuse, but rather serving one another by example. Figuratively, we can turn the other cheek by not responding to aggression with aggression but with what we truly believe is for the highest good of all concerned. For example, when my client left her husband she wrote him a long and loving letter in which she affirmed her love for him, wished him well, encouraged him to get help and made it perfectly clear that the marriage was over and that it was time for her to look after her own health and well-being.

For me, the message of The Golden Rule is to treat each other with loving kindness. Sometimes this means demonstrating our unwillingness to meet aggression with aggression by choosing not to participate in what others are dishing out.

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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The Power of Bearing Witness

There are times in life when the highest honor, the greatest love is paid to another by simply bearing witness to his or her experience. Bearing witness is largely nonverbal. It is the choice to give the gift of a pure expression of love and respect — being a compassionate observer to the unfolding of another person’s life or a particular moment or event. In a really good marriage, two people bear witness to the fullness of one another’s life experiences — in good times and bad.

When we bear witness, we lovingly give our attention to the other without judgment. We comfort without smothering. We play a supporting role — powerfully upholding the other starring in his or her life. It is not about us. It is about them. Yet, we make a profound decision when we do not try to fix their pain and suffering or share in their experience by telling how we had a similar experience. Bearing witness says, “You are not alone. I see you. I witness what you are experiencing. What you are experiencing matters to me. I surround you with my love.”

As a life coach and grief counselor, one of the primary things I do for my clients is to simply provide a safe space for them to speak their truth — to reveal what they think and feel about their own life. So much of our lives are spent with hidden truths because there is no time or because we don’t want to be a burden or to be judged, or do not feel safe to share. So, we keep our truth to ourselves and often feel very alone as a result. When we allow another to bear witness to us, we give ourselves the freedom to be known. Somehow, it’s like having your passport stamped to say that you went to this country or that. Having someone bear witness to your reality behind all the social masks we wear is a profound form of validation.

When someone we love is hurting or dying, it is easy to feel helpless and to want to somehow end the suffering by fixing the situation. Alternatively, some of us unload our own fears, telling the one whose suffering has provoked our fears how upset and afraid we are about what is happening to them. This can cause added stress and put them in the position of trying to comfort us when they are the ones in need of our comfort. These are often the times that call us to a higher response — to simply bear witness to another person’s life journey — not to engage in it, but to stand beside them in loving support. The focus is not to make the pain go away, but rather to let that person know that they are not alone and that we trust them to do whatever it is they need to do to go through that particular experience. Sometimes, this is best done in silence.

One of the very best examples I have ever seen of the profound support we can offer to each other through bearing witness is the final chapter of “Not Like My Mother” by Irene Tomkinson. I had the privilege of meeting Irene this past weekend and having her read this chapter to me. It shares the inner experience of a mother sitting beside her daughter in a doctor’s waiting room. The daughter has come to have a clinical abortion of the deceased fetus in her womb.

I am currently in the process of bearing witness to my dear friend Roy who had colon cancer surgery about a year ago and has been under hospice care ever since. He has been one of my greatest teachers of the wisdom of life. He doesn’t judge others for making choices that he wouldn’t make. He simply says, “it’s different.” He doesn’t seem to judge his failing health either. He is going along for the ride in full cooperation. I visit Roy once or twice a week and at first I kept trying to figure out what my role was. Other than his family, caregivers and hospice team, I think I am his only visitor. I became aware of the fact that I was ill at ease at first — I didn’t know what to do. I tried too hard to put a smile on his face, to share memories with him, to entertain him. It was a relief for me when he wanted me to read to him because at least I had something specific and tangible I could do. Eventually, I learned how to just be with him. The act of showing up, looking in his eyes and stroking his head or holding his hand is how I bear witness to him. Sometimes I just sit and silently pray for him while he sleeps. I think that is the best thing I can do for him. I learned to get myself out of the way. I am bearing witness to the end of his life. Sometimes just showing up says it all.

For those of you who struggle with going to see a sick or dying friend or relative because you just don’t know what to say or do, try just showing up and bearing witness. Often, it is our own discomfort and the feeling of helplessness that we are avoiding by not going into these situations. Sometimes we forget that our job is not to fix the situation at hand, but rather to help lift the burden of the other person by letting them know we care enough to show up. In good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, it is important that we show up for each other.

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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What One Change Would You Make in the World?

I’m sure I am not the only one who plays the game “if I were king or queen.” We all have ideas about how things shoulda, coulda, woulda been better if only the powers that be would do what we think they should. I’d like to share my personal favorite and invite you to share yours as well.

If I were queen, I would focus my efforts on what I think is the deepest tap root of so many of our social problems. It’s simply this: an awful lot of people are mentally and emotionally dysfunctional and, as a result, their lives are askew. They are inclined to generate a great deal of negativity into their own lives, relationships and the world we share.

I can argue that this is the way it is meant to be in the larger scheme of things — in the spiritual evolution of humanity. It’s their karma and all that. After all, we do seem to gain more wisdom through adversity — so this is indeed fertile ground. But, the businesswoman and visionary in me agree that we could yield a huge return on investment as a society in this area with very little effort. I think the cost of dramatically improving the mental health and emotional intelligence of people would be a mere pittance compared to the price we are currently paying for the consequences of its lack of further development.

Consider how much of our human capital is lost due to people being rendered less productive because they are stressed out. Many are consumed by worries over money, work and relationships. They are being pulled in too many directions at once or simply never having enough hours in the day to keep afloat. In the absence of sufficient mental health strategies and coping mechanisms, people tend to get swallowed up by stress. Many fall into a downward spiral that leads to addictions to drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, gambling, etc. to mask the feelings and situations with which they cannot cope. Add to this the number of people caught in the perils of poverty – many receiving inferior nutrition, education and life improvement opportunities who resign themselves to a hand-to-mouth existence of rage and hopelessness.

Now, just imagine if I were queen! What would it be like to live in a world where most people were clear-headed and had a sense of personal accountability and social responsibility? Envision a world with far less depression, stress, addiction, frustration and anger. Imagine if we actually made it a social priority to foster mental and emotional health as an investment in the quality of our individual and collective lives.

Couldn’t it be amazing if we actually taught our children how to think, rather than only what to think — if we taught them how to cooperate rather than just to compete where someone always has to be the loser. If I were queen, I would assist children in developing their mental and emotional health, rather than focusing on their coolness quotient. I would make it a priority to identify those who needed assistance and help them to create a strong sense of self worth, integrity, pride in their capabilities and dreams of a healthy and productive future.

If I were queen, I would remove the stigma and financial limitations from seeking mental and emotional assistance. I would make it normal to get help as needed and let people know they were smart to seek help. There would be sufficient creative and financial resources to fund programs to upgrade the state of mental and emotional health and human consciousness. There would be a greater value placed on integrity and human dignity which would serve as the fulcrum that delicately balances and unifies concerns regarding personal and collective well being.

If I were queen, I would establish a baseline of educational achievement in mental health and emotional intelligence that would be a normal and essential part of our education system. I would want people to understand the power of their minds and emotions and how to use them effectively. For example, I would foster understanding of the new field of biology called epigenetics that explores how our consciousness controls our health, well being, and even our DNA. I would want people to understand that their beliefs magnetically and selectively attract what is compatible with their thinking into their lives — that we quite literally create, promote and allow what is in our lives. Thus, if we do what we have always done, we continue to attract and create what we have always attracted and created in the past. It’s like planting seeds — you don’t grow roses from sunflower seeds.

It is easy to see why those in positions of power in our world, countries and personal lives might want us to stay as dysfunctional as we are to support them in maintaining their power bases — but I don’t see much wisdom in that choice. I simply can’t help but wonder what kind of wonderful world we could create if we truly supported the idea of mental and emotional health and well-being for all people. If we were empowered to create and maintain healthy inner environments, what would be the likely impact on our outer environments, personal relationships, social interactions and productivity?

Ahhh, if only I were queen! So, until my coronation, consider this: each of us is king or queen of our own little world and we get to decide what to create, promote or allow in our personal kingdoms. So, here are my questions for you:

  • What are you creating, promoting or allowing in your kingdom?
  • If you were king or queen of the world and could make one change, what would you choose and why?
  • What do you think of my choice to change mental and emotional health?
  • Was there anything in this post that you would like me to expand upon?

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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5 Keys to Living from the Inside Out

Essentially, mental and emotional health involves living from the inside out rather than the outside in. This is a cherished outcome of engaging in the process of evolving one’s consciousness. In her new book, The Age of Miracles, Marianne Williamson reminds us:

The outer kingdom is not our real home. The inner kingdom is our everything.

And until we retrieve it, our outer kingdom will be a land of suffering for everyone.

As children, most of us are taught to obey and follow the lead of our parents and teachers. If we are lucky, at some point we begin to develop a sense of our own unique identity. Over time, we begin to develop awareness of an inner truth. Increasingly, we learn to respond to the situations and events of our life from that place rather than simply by being tossed about in this world, reacting to what comes present in our lives as though we were at the effect rather than at the cause of what happens to us.

Here are five keys to recognizing whether you are living your life from the inside out rather than the outside in:

1) Your thoughts and actions are expressions of an inner sense of your identity, purpose and intentions rather than simply being reactions to outer circumstances and events. When we lose track of our inner center or fail to find it in the first place, our sense of well-being is primarily defined by external factors. Our mood may go up and down with the stock market or we may be busy trying to get the approval of other people as a way to feel good about ourselves. In contrast, when we are centered in ourselves, we don’t simply view what happens as “good” or “bad,” but rather we develop our ability to work with whatever is present in our lives. Our response is our engagement in life from a deep reference point of who we know ourselves to be.

2) You experience a fairly steady state of well-being rather than a high-drama roller coaster ride. When you are centered in yourself, bad things still happen to you, but you react differently from those who are adrift. You might even view the hard challenges of your life as opportunities to grow and to develop skills in shooting the rapids of life. You set to work in response by addressing the ways in which a situation has thrown you off balance. In time you learn to stop spinning like a hamster in a wheel — calling all your friends to tell your tale of woe and to spew all your anger and judgment about what someone did to you. Instead, you may turn to your friends for support and a new perspective on the situation, letting them know where you feel stuck. While experiencing your own vulnerability, you take ownership of your experience and take action from a place of who you know yourself to be. You respond by creating, promoting and allowing only that which brings you into greater balance and well-being. And sometimes, that may take quite a while.

3) You experience a lot of synchronicity and harmony in your life rather than a barrage of random happenings. For example, my friend Roy’s 94th birthday was the other day. He has been bedridden for over a year now and barely has the energy to keep his eyes open or to speak for much of the time. I wanted to do something meaningful for his birthday but was at a loss for ideas. Then I found the perfect card that didn’t speak in glowing terms about the future. Next, an iris that has only bloomed in May for the past five years came into full bloom, and it is mid-October! Then some tapes of harp and angelic voice music by Therese Schroeder-Sheker of the Chalice of Repose Project arrived just before I left for Roy’s house. I had wanted to share this music with him because it is designed to lovingly care for the physical and spiritual needs of the dying. It was all perfect. I held a clear intention with no idea what to do. I just trusted and waited. Before I learned to function in this way, I would have tried too hard to force things to happen, and they just wouldn’t have worked out well at all.

4) You have a basic sense of being in the driver’s seat of your own life rather than a victim of circumstances and events. It is enormously empowering to know yourself to be at the cause rather than at the effect of your life. You are less likely to feel that you are in competition with other people. Rather, you marshal your inner resources and focus on doing the best you can. You might find yourself humbled by results that fall short of your wishes, but knowing that you did your best — focusing your skills, abilities and resources to address the situation at hand can be quite satisfying in itself. I like to use one of Dr. Phil’s favorite questions: “How’s that working for you?” It helps me to take ownership of my thoughts and actions.

5) You seek to achieve inner states of consciousness rather than outer things. While you might love and have nice things, your happiness is no longer a result of that. Rather, it comes from achieving a sense of inner balance and well-being. You do not value your own worth or that of others according to monetary abundance or scarcity. You are focused inward, not outward and measure your success by your ability to maintain a sense of inner balance while doing your best to respond to the people, circumstances and events of your life with honesty, integrity and kindness.

Can you think of other keys to living from the inside out?

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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Love with a Capital ‘L’: Recognizing the Divine Through Another

Many believe that the highest expression and experience we can attain in life is to love one another. Yet love is highly misunderstood. There is great confusion about the causation of love and the ways in which we are one and those that separate us.

When we “fall in love” with someone, it is often experienced as an instant affection for them — almost a chemical occurrence. One minute it didn’t exist, and the next it seems to exist more than anything else. It is delicious and we want more, so we focus more and more of our attention on this one person and want them to do more and more of whatever we think caused us to have this experience. What we commonly refer to as “love,” whether as lovers, parent and child, or friends, is really a very spiritual experience that we mistakenly delimit to our relationship with the person with whom we are having this experience. In fact, love is the human experience of the divine. As John-Roger explains it:

As we are looking for ourselves, we often see ourselves in others who are open to reflect. We then love them, not just for who they are, but for that reflection of our love in them. What we’re really saying is, “When I’m with you, that place inside of me that is loving awakens.”

When this kind of love is experienced between two people, four things are happening simultaneously. Each is choosing to give love to the other, and each is choosing to receive love from the other. We are both open to the flow of giving and receiving love. At its best, when none of these four actions is blocked by self-imposed limitations, whether with one’s partner or a total stranger, there is a transcendent experience into a oneness that is beyond earthly concerns. Consider the awe when a parent first looks into the eyes of his or her newborn child, or when in “Avatar” the Na’vi say, “I see you,” meaning, “I see the god in you.”

When we don’t realize that love is a recognition of the divine through another, we falsely attribute the source of love simply to that person. We might fixate on wanting more of that person when in fact what we really want is more experiences of transcendence, of God. Attributing the source of love to the other person is simply a misunderstanding of the causation. When we limit ourselves to looking only for romantic love, we miss the point.

Building upon that misunderstanding of the true nature of love, we zero in on that one person and attempt to stimulate those loving feelings. We develop a conscious and often unconscious agenda of wanting them to behave in ways that we believe are the cause of our transcendent experience. When we take this path, our love often becomes exclusionary and conditioned by our personal preferences and prejudices. Our love flows exclusively with this person but not with others, and we tend to trap each other in a web of expectations. When we look for love on websites, we want our prospective partner to be of a certain age, to have a certain body type and to share our likes and dislikes — all the things that we think will bring us to that transcendent experience. We think that if they are a match, they will be capable of igniting those feelings in us.

Truly loving another person with a capital “L” is a matter of freeing the other person of the responsibility to express his or her love for us only in the ways that we want to receive it. When we truly love, we get out of our own way by dropping all the concerns of our ego and allowing the pure radiance of the divine to shine through us to another. When the other person does that as well, the result is a pure and blissful experience of our own divinity reflected through another into a shared oneness.

I think we should all strive to be ambassadors of love with a capital “L” with as many people as possible, through our willingness to smile at a complete stranger as an offer of momentary transcendence as we pass each other by on the street; by calling to be of service to a friend who is facing a difficult time; and by choosing to sacrifice our petty judgments, expectations and any other ways that we have learned to withhold our loving kindness from others each day. It is a practice of becoming a safe and neutral place in which both our humanity and our divinity can dwell. It is through these actions that the place inside us that is loving awakens.

Perhaps this is truly what is meant in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” We experience God’s presence in the context of our everyday relationships with others. It is a reflective process. When we delight in another, what is actually happening is we are having a pure experience of oneness that transcends all our judgments and our demands that another person be how we want them to be. We have raised our consciousness up above earthly considerations, and that is indeed a divine experience.

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

Also, if you know anyone who might get value from this article please email or retweet it or share it on Facebook.

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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, often forgetting or losing track of what is most meaningful to us.

In the United States, our Thanksgiving holiday is about giving thanks to God, spending time with family and, of course, feasting. For those who actually practice the fine art of giving thanks on this particular holiday or elsewhere in their lives, there is a sense of receiving all over again that for which we are grateful. When we stop to think about what really matters to us, we bring it present in our consciousness and, in the present moment, we are able to experience our joy and gratitude for our good fortune all over again. Gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving.

When I am blue, which ironically is my favorite color, one of the quickest ways to lift my own spirits is to take the time to experience my gratitude for what is wonderful in my life. Before I know it, what has bummed me out pales in comparison to that which I treasure.

I have also noticed that I value the material things in my life not in and of themselves, but rather as a means to an end. It is because of their beauty, functionality and/or comfort that I am attracted to things. I also notice how quickly I take them for granted once I have them. As time goes on, I want fewer and fewer things. I enjoy purging my closets and drawers and passing on to others those things I no longer use or appreciate. Not only does this simplify my life and bring into greater focus those things that I do value, but it allows those things I am letting go of to have renewed life with others.

Beyond things, what is it that sustains you? Is it beauty? Love? Belonging? Or is it something else? I encourage you to take the time to find your answer to this question and, once you have your answer, to celebrate the existence of that source of meaning in your life. Practice gratitude for that which sustains you.

For me, there are three things that give my life its deepest meaning: my spiritual evolution, my freedom, and the opportunity to be of service to assist others in lifting upward. These are the things that, if all else were stripped away, would continue to sustain my spirit and enrich me. For almost 30 years now, I have consciously 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 and guides and nourishes me each and every day. Knowing that we are all divine beings having human experiences casts a very different light on our daily trials and tribulations. There is an inner freedom that I have found in this journey that I also 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 third great treasure is having the opportunity in my life to be of service to others. Whether through my writing, coaching, designing and officiating weddings and memorial services, or simply by being a friend, my life is rich in opportunities to help others. I value that probably because I treasure my own spiritual evolution and freedom so much and know all too well the downward spirals that we can all succumb to in this world. So, whenever I have the opportunity to contribute to raising someone’s consciousness to look upward and inward rather than downward and outward, I consider myself truly blessed. For these treasures in my life, I am profoundly grateful.

Someone sent me this video clip, which inspired me to write this post. May it fire up your imagination, lift you up and warm your heart as it did me. I hope you will invest 12 minutes of your life to view this magnificent piece called “Alice Dancing Under the Gallows.” It is about Alice Herz-Sommer, who at 107 is the oldest living Holocaust survivor.

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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

Learning to embrace the fullness of life and to bear personal responsibility and accountability for one’s own life are precious life lessons. I was recently listening to a CD set called “Radical Self-Acceptance” by Tara Brach. When 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 when my consciousness got above my ego, I began to check in with myself about how and when I am actually saying “yes” to my life or “no” to my life on a daily basis. I was astounded by all the subtle and obvious ways that I was spewing negativity against myself and what is happening in my life. I wouldn’t tolerate others attacking me like that, yet there I was assailing myself.

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 and asked to walk around the room tearing off pieces of the paper representing how they spent their mental, emotional, and physical energy and dropping them on the floor. For many of us, the paper was long gone before we got anywhere near the end of our list about how we spent our precious energy. Many of us also 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: judgment, rejection, resistance, comparing ourselves to others, creating fantasy alternate truths, distracting our attention elsewhere. In what ways do you sabotage yourself each day? 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 my consciousness present and provides the opportunity to claim my own truth and to make different choices, if appropriate. If I am not paying attention, then my negativity runs on autopilot, and I haven’t got a prayer of doing anything about it. So, I pay attention, and once I see my negativity, I can choose to explore it and do something about it. An appropriate reminder here is Einstein’s definition of insanity, which 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 me and in my life gives me a starting point for finding a higher perspective. For example, simply noticing “I am really agitated” begins my process of exploring the source of my agitation and looking at the ways it is manifesting. Knowing that I am 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?” In time, I’ve come to recognize that by embracing whatever is present, I am short-circuiting my autopilot negativity to what I don’t like or want. Instead of allowing my judgments and resistance to escalate, I practice keeping my consciousness open to the possibility that even this thing I don’t like is here for a purpose in my life. I ask myself, “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 and 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 that 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.
  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. When I notice that I am standing in judgment of myself, others or the circumstances in my life, 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 bring loving kindness into the equation.

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The Distinction Between Observation and Judgment

We observe something when we become aware of it. We acknowledge “this is so.” We judge when we form an opinion, as in “I think this about that.” Observation is a neutral act of taking in information upon which we base our responses. Judgment involves rendering an opinion regarding the relative value or merit of what is being observed. We get into dicey territory when we start judging each other for three reasons:

  • As self-appointed judges, we separate ourselves from the other person. Blinded by our own judgment, we label them with our verdicts. Seeing only with our minds, we shut our hearts to them. As Mother Teresa said, “if you judge people, you have no time to love them.” And, as Carl Jung said, “we should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgment of the intellect is only part of the truth.”
  • Judgments are proclamations of polarized thinking and whether or not others buy into our judgments, we usually become vested in them. We often confuse our judgments with reality as in “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”
  • It is important to remember that we are limited in our understanding of another person’s life by our own range of experience. As the proverb goes, “don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes.”

I had an experience recently that inspired this article. I was with a group of people and found myself rather ill at ease. The person who seemed to be setting the tone of the gathering repeatedly made choices other than those that would have been my preference. Suddenly, I became aware of how I was not simply observing this, but was making her wrong in the theater of my mind and essentially blaming her for my sense of separation. Everything was her fault from my point of view.

As I became increasingly irritated, I finally had the awareness that I was the one who was creating my sense of separation and justifying it with my judgments of this woman. This understanding opened up new possibilities for me. I began to pay closer attention to my judgments and each time I caught myself in the act, I quickly rephrased my judgment into a neutral statement of personal preference inside my mind. Energetically, this meant I was not making her wrong, but simply noticing that I was experiencing irritation by comparing her choice to my own preference. I did all that in my mind.

It then occurred to me that I was creating disharmony within myself and had the option of choosing to be more loving and peaceful instead. So, I started making that choice. Instead of seeing only what irritated me, I looked more deeply and was able to see the goodness in this woman as well. Before I knew it, I had shifted my attention to where it belonged — to affirming my intention of being more loving and peaceful and finding ways to do that rather than separating myself through my judgments. Soon, I was focusing on how grateful I was for this lesson in the distinction between observation and judgment.

Then, as I was leaving, this woman extended a kindness to me that reminded me that there are many ways to express our loving and it behooves us to be open to them all, rather than judging and rejecting those that do not resemble our own way of doing things. As Carl Jung said, “everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Sometimes we meet people who simply do not know how else to relate to us than through judgment. Some behave this way with all people, others with only certain people as though they are allergic to them. I have experienced this with a relative who has disapproved of me all my life. As a child, I always felt rejected by her, and, as children do, I stood on my head trying to get her approval. I also fell into the trap of judging her in response to her criticisms of me.

As I matured, I tried to reason with her in an attempt to heal our relationship, but she was not interested in that. In time, I became aware of the fact that her judgment of me not only affected our relationship, but it colored all relationships in our family. Finally, I saw that there were always three people in the room when we were together — me, her and the figment of her imagination that she called by my name. That awareness became my path to freedom. I realized that she was as trapped in her judgment of me as I was. The difference was that I could get out of it and she was not yet able to do so.

As a grown woman, I finally saw that our relationship was a clear manifestation of Einstein’s definition of insanity — “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” My liberation came when I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. Recognizing that her judgment of me was none of my business, but that my own well-being was my responsibility, I chose to end all contact with her. As a result, my life is far more peaceful. When I think of her now, I do not allow myself to judge her. I pray for her and wish her well from afar while going about my own business of holding myself accountable for my inner and outer life and for my contribution to the quality of the relationships in my life.

We can never judge the lives of others,
because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation.
It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path,
but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.
(Paulo Coelho)

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What Kind of Life Are You Creating for Yourself?

“I am seeking the fullest expression of myself as a human being on Earth.”
–Oprah Winfrey

Can you even begin to imagine if each and every one of us lived our lives with deep commitment to such a lofty vision? Why don’t we? What do we make more important than manifesting our fullest expression?

It is easy to dismiss Oprah’s success based on her vast fortune and to say, “Well, I could do great things with all that money, too!” But remember, Oprah started out as a poor, black girl in rural Mississippi, born to unwed, teenaged parents. Her early years were spent at her grandmother’s farm with no indoor plumbing or electricity. Then she lived with her mother in Milwaukee, where she was sexually abused by several male relatives and began to act out as a troubled young teen. Next, she lived with her father in Nashville, and his stern discipline gave her the guidance and stability she apparently needed to flourish. She began to excel in school and by 19 had a part-time job as a radio reporter in Nashville. The rest, as they say, is history.

Even if any of us could argue that we have faced bigger challenges than Oprah, the question remains, “What are you doing with your life?” What is your contribution? What kind of relationships do you have with yourself and others? How do you give of yourself?

Each of us is born, we breathe in and out for an unspecified period of time and then we die. That’s life. Each of us has our very own set of challenges, preferences and capabilities. What are yours, and what are you doing with them? Do you use them as excuses for failure or do you leverage them into greater wisdom and success?

As each new year arrives, many of us take stock of where we are in our lives and what changes we want to make. I am always amused to see how packed the gym is for the first few days of January and then how it gets back to normal in a week or two. It seems that the mere fact that it is a new year fails to provide sufficient momentum in most people to make substantive changes in their lives.

Having been raised Catholic, I am familiar with the experience of coming out of the confessional and feeling like I have a clean slate and wanting to keep it that way. Each new year has always had a similar feeling for me of starting anew, having yet another chance to direct myself through the trials and triumphs of life and wanting to lift myself up higher.

I used to work in strategic planning and learned to view the assets of any individual or organization as people, money and time. I now apply this perspective to myself in managing my own life. As I stand on the threshold of a new year, I am me and all that that encompasses. I have the money I have, no more and no less, and I have another allotment of 8,760 hours to do with as I will. The name of the game, as I see it, is to stay conscious of who I am, what I have and where I am going, and to be open to the possibilities that present themselves. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions or go to big New Year’s parties. Most years, I choose to spend New Year’s Eve alone using the vantage point of ending one year and starting a new one to pause and take a good look at my life. My ritual involves the following:

  • Experience gratitude for the gifts and lessons of the past year. Be grateful for new and existing friends, personal and professional accomplishments, wisdom gained, lessons learned, new skills and abilities and storms weathered.
  • Acknowledge losses. As life marches on, we lose jobs, friends and family, lovers and partners. For each loss, I like to look at how that job or person enriched my life, how we parted ways — whether by death or discord — and how I am better for having had that experience or person in my life.
  • Review last year’s intentions and compare them to what transpired over the past year. Notice whether or not the intentions were realistic based on the information known when they were made. What surprises showed up? What was being ignored?
  • Set clear intentions for what to create, promote or allow in the coming year. Knowing that life will be full of surprises, I like to set clear but flexible goals for the coming year. I frame them more as affirmations of what I choose to claim as my possibilities with a clear intention to do my best to manifest them rather than setting New Year’s resolutions that carry an expectation of not coming true.

As captain of my own little ship on the sea of life, I get to choose my way through the opportunities and challenges that come my way. I do my best to keep on track or to revise my intentions as needed. It’s a living, breathing process, not a rigid goal that must be achieved. I also have an overarching vision or purpose to which I am dedicating my life. This helps to guide my choices and to inform my life each and every day.

How did you celebrate and honor the coming of the new year? What are your rituals?

I wish each and every one of you a happy, healthy and fulfilling new year of 8,760 hours. I hope you will use your allotment well for the highest good of all concerned. And finally, my best wishes to Oprah as she leads OWN, her new television network, which launched yesterday, Jan. 1, 2011, at noon. Her mission is to help unleash the power of human potential by providing mindful, not mindless, television that helps people live their best lives. Thank you, Oprah!

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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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