You Get As Good As You Give

Are you getting what you want?  If you’re not, your energy needs some tweaking and to do this you need to change the way you feel.

Think back to any social situation you’ve been in and recall the people you wanted to talk to. You were most likely drawn to the positive people.  Positive people spend most of their time feeling good.  That’s attractive.  I suspect, rarely, if at all, are you clamoring to get close to someone who is putting out the negative, downer vibes. That’s quite unattractive. The same principle applies to objects, situations and events.  If, for example, I want a really great job for myself, but every time I think about that job I get frustrated or sad because I don’t have it, I am putting out negative energy.  I will have difficulty getting myself a great job with negative energy, because negative energy is repellant to positive situations (and very attractive to negative situations).  Even if I do land a great job with the negative energy, I’m likely not to enjoy it or even lose the great job because now I’m thinking that I need to hold on to it to be happy! What a conundrum!

The good news is changing my energy is as simple as changing my thoughts to something that feels better than whatever thought was causing me to feel frustrated and sad.  There is a feeling that I am after when I think about the job of my dreams, it could be a sense of security, contribution or even accomplishment, but it’s a very positive feeling I want to feel. When I think about how awesome I perform in my dream job, the exciting work I’m doing, the generous compensation I’m receiving and the variety of very cool people I’m working with (notice I’m using present tense to really see myself in the job) I get very enthusiastic.  This turns me into a very strong magnet for what I want, because now I’m vibing positive, confident, feel good energy and that’s attractive. Heck, I feel so good, I don’t even care if I get the job! But I will get it. . . Conversely, if I am vibing negative, clingy, needy energy I will become quite repellant to this killer job I want.

The most important thing to do when you want to attract a certain person, situation or thing into your life is feel good.  People often believe that they’ll feel good once they have the person, situation or thing that they want, but they have it backwards: they will have the person, situation or thing they want when they feel good. From this feel good place will come fresh, inspired ideas.  Inspired ideas lead to inspired action—inspired action can be quite intense, but it is way easier and  far more productive than struggling and muscling through to accomplish something. Always.

One way to feel good immediately is by focusing on someone you are crazy in love with (he or she could be someone alive or someone who has passed: a child, significant other, friend, grandparent, even a pet).  Sometimes focusing on people (even the ones we love) is challenging or they bring up stuff that messes with our feel good vibe, in this case just focus on something you love like an object or an activity (dancing always does it for me). Try it now: focus on someone or something you love and see how that feels.  Now picture yourself having what you really want while hanging out in that feel good place. Doesn’t that feel amazing?! If you start to lose the good feelings by focusing on your want, just forget the want for now and stay in your feel good place for a while.  Practice getting in and staying in this feel good place regularly and start to focus on some simple, easy wants (like a cup of coffee, a book, etc), then you will gain the ability to focus on the bigger wants while occupying this feel good space.  By doing this, you’ll start attracting some pretty yummy things to you including, but not limited to, what you consciously want.  In fact, you may get something even better than what you thought you wanted! While you’re patiently waiting for your want to become a reality, prepare yourself for having it, because it’ll be here before you know it.

You Are The Best There Is (Part 2)

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. ~George Bernhard Shaw

In last week’s post, I invited you to go out and be exponentially more you. Some of you may have gotten right on it and  signed up for that martial arts class, spelunking club or quit your job, moved to Africa and are currently pursuing a career as an animal tracker (I actually know someone who is an animal tracker in Africa, pretty cool, huh?!).  For those of you who are unsure about how to proceed in discovering your unique talents and gifts, no worries, I have the perfect tool for you to use.  It costs nothing to very little, it’s really fun and you have the ability to do it your whole life.  It’s called playing.

I promise you this: if you are not enjoying your life at least 90% of the time, you are not playing enough. Before your analytical, rational, logical party-pooper left brain starts discounting the value of play-time, let’s keep ol’ lefty happy with some cerebral facts about play:

• Play readies the player for the unexpected or unusual
• Play encourages effective problem solving
• Play enhances social connections, awareness and cooperation
• Play is essential to creativity and innovation
• Play helps us develop trust and coping skills
• Play helps us make sense of the world
• Play helps us transform ideas into reality

Also, let’s not forget that playing is just plain freakin’ fun!  That happens to be my most favorite reason to engage in play, but if your left brain still needs something more academic and scientific to wrap itself around, it can learn even more about the benefits and necessity of play from The Nationaol Institue For Play (I love that hardcore scientists are studying play!).  You can also watch this great TED presentation given by Dr. Stuart Brown.

Now I want to address your creative, fun-loving right brain, the part of your brain most in touch with who you really are at the core of your being.  Go back to a time when you were having a blast, for some of you, this may mean going back to childhood.  You can also think about the last time you were so engaged in an activity that you completely lost track of time. Go there now.  What were you doing when you were having so much fun? Were you alone or with people?  If you were with people, who were they? what were they like? Were you indoors or outdoors? Were you using your mind or your body, or both?   Really nail this scene, because this is a huge clue telling you where to best invest your time and energy and it’s definitely a clue showing you what your natural feeling state is: joy and fun.

When you are feeling exhilarated, inspired and free you know you are on the right path. This does not necessarily mean you become a professional martial artist now that you enjoy playing with martial arts (but then you never know!).  The vitally important take away you get from playing is that you learn how you feel when you are on—what it feels like to stand in your power (a very yummy sensation).  You can use this feeling to gauge how effectively you are utilizing your unique talents and gifts in any area of your life. For example, do you feel on when you are engaged in your current work?  If not, figure out why–is it the tasks involved that turn you off? The field you have chosen or the work environment?  If you don’t feel playful at work, in your relationships, in your body or with your finances, you definitely need to play more.  Through play, you will be inspired to take the right actions for you and then when you do act, your actions will feel effortless and will have a positive impact on you and everyone your life touches.

You can start playing right now. Do something that’s fun for you! Share a funny joke you recently heard, take a long lunch and go test drive that exotic automobile you dream about owning one day, flirt with that super cute barista at the coffeehouse, fantasize about all the cool things you will accomplish now because you are mastering how to be more you by fully engaging in play time.   If you need just one more piece of evidence to get you inspired to play more, look around at any serious non-players you may know and ask yourself if you aspire to be more like them or if you aspire to be more like those who approach every thing they do with a sense of playfulness. Go find examples of both and compare notes–nothing is more powerful or more convincing than discovering and clarifying what you truly want in life.  Find what you love to play with and then play at least 90% of the time.  Your mission in life will become clearer, your relationships stronger  and the world becomes an amazing playground for you to explore.  Have fun!

I love learning what other people do for play, so please post the ways you play and what you get out of it—I can’t wait to be inspired by you and your playful shenanigans!

You Are The Best There Is (Part 1)

No one  does Oprah better than me. ~Oprah

A few weeks ago I was listening to Jeannette Maw’s Pray Rain Journaling audios (I love everything this woman puts out) and she offered the following affirmation: I’m the best there is.  I adopted it immediately.  A few days ago I was warming-up while listening to the song One in a Million by The Romantics (remember them?) and I thought one in a million? I’m so way more unique than THAT.  And so are you, the person sitting next to you, your neighbor,  your co-worker, etc. That led me to wonder why it is commonly believed that unique individuals are so rare, when, in fact, we are all unique.  Then it occurred to me:  it isn’t someone’s uniqueness that makes someone stand out, it’s when an individual chooses to express their uniqueness that gets others to really see and appreciate them.  Not in an egotistical, graspy, desperate sort of way, but in an authentic, thrilling, deeply resonating way.

I also got to thinking about what society considers normal (and even this arbitrary standard shifts and changes over time) and the astoundingly high value many people have chosen to place on this concept.  How many times have you heard someone (maybe yourself) ask is this normal? I, for one, have asked my doctor if the white freckle (where apparently no pigment exists) on my arm is normal and I was relieved to hear that it is, indeed, normal (she used the word common, actually).  So, yes, in certain circumstances, it’s very comforting to hear that my condition is normal.  For the life of me, however, I cannot ever remember hearing myself, a childhood friend or even an adult say “when I grow up I want to be normal!”  NEVER have I heard this.  It may be because normal is predicated on the preferences and behaviors of others and not necessarily on those of the individual.  It may also be that I simply do not tend to attract people with this particular life design in mind! All the people I know yearn to shine, to do what THEY do best, to share THEIR innate, extraordinary gifts and to feel deliciously good.  This is inevitably what happens when individuals express their own uniqueness.   They forget about trying to squeeze themselves into the tiny, claustrophobic confining container of normal and they grow bigger and bigger, sprout wings, take off like a rocket and accomplish the most amazing things just for the hell of it and because it’s just plain fun.

Looking at just some of the most successful high profile individuals we are familiar with, like Oprah, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Tiger Woods, Dara Torres—pick  a person, I know you have one in mind (and they may not be high profile at all)—they all do one common thing well: themselves.  I suspect none of these people stopped and asked permission of anyone to express their unique talents, gifts and skills.  They just do what they’re meant to do.  When you express your uniqueness, we all benefit and people come out of the woodwork to support and encourage you. You are the best there is. Nobody does you better than you.  If you know deep down inside that you are meant to do something that you currently aren’t doing, I’d get on that. Now. We have a finite amount of time on this planet to express who we really are before, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it, our hour upon the stage expires.  Go on, then, and give us, you and the whole world a brilliant performance that only you can give.

Next week, I will share with you the most valuable tool you can use to help you be more you and draw out your most unique talents and gifts.  I’m too excited to wait to tell you!  So, I’ll give you a hint: it’s playing!  Okay, that was more than a hint, but I will talk more about it  and its super important role in making you shine and making your life fabulous next week.  I can’t wait!

A Few (Gazillion) Of My Favorite Things . . .

It seems that I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how to complete this sentence. I love _____. Now I realize that this is a complete sentence. I love. ~ Robert Higginson

Back in July I had the incredible experience of getting together with over 3oo amazing, awesome, fabulous people at the Martha Beck Coaches Convention.  I have to tell you, being around these people is so inspiring, so uplifting and SO addictive!  I want to be around these people all the time (and so far I haven’t gone one month since June without seeing at least a couple of my fabulous peeps).  The best I can describe what I feel for these individuals is what I imagine people who are in love must feel for their beloveds: I can’t stop thinking about them (and I don’t want to stop!), I wonder what they’re doing (right now, in fact!), I can’t wait to see them again, I talk about them like someone who has just discovered a rare and valuable gem would talk about their find and I feel 110% supported, loved and encouraged (okay, I feel like a total rock star) when I am in their presence.  Not just with a few of them or ten or fifty of them, ALL OF THEM.  What are the odds of this happening?  So when Martha, our courageous, real and beyond generous leader took the stage of our convention and enthusiastically announced to all 300+ of us you’re all my favorite! the room exploded in laughter and applause, because we all recognized that the feeling was mutual among each and every one of us.

Recently, I was listening to Law of Attraction coach extraordinaire, Jeannette Maw, speak and she mentioned that she, too, has many favorites.  It hit me: why don’t I claim more favorites? Why do I feel compelled to have only one paltry crumb favorite of anything?  That felt very limiting and miserly to me and the moment I realized that, I also discovered that allowing myself to have as many favorites as I wanted was deliciously liberating and thrilling.  Now, I proclaim my favorites whenever I come across them (sometimes even before I come across them. . .), and let me tell you, I had no idea I have so many!  I can’t believe I had been hoarding favorites and turning away other potential favorites by declaring only a spartan few, not a good place to be when you’re all about flowing abundance, right?  And, guess what? When I embrace all my favorites–all my favorite people, all my favorite foods, all my favorite activities, all my favorite colors, smells, sights and feelings–I discover and enjoy even more favorites!  I’m swimming in a sea of favorites and I like it. A lot. Seriously, who came up with this small idea of having a limited number of favorites?  That’s just silly and does little to express how big and full of juicy potential we really are. There’s a whole wide world of fascinating, awe-inspiring and plain kick-ass people, activities, events, situations, things and places.  Now that I have tasted the vastness, freedom and abundance that allowing myself an unlimited supply of favorites provides—there’s no way I’d ever limit myself to liking only a few things again.  I pooh-pooh the very notion (that phrase cracks me up, I totally put that in there for my own gratuitous entertainment).

Have you ever felt pressured to choose only one favorite among two or more of your favorites?  What happens if you just choose all of them to be your favorites—let yourself go there, imagine how it would feel to allow yourself to have as many favorites as you like!  Isn’t that fantastic?! Now imagine allowing, encouraging and supporting others to have an unlimited supply of favorites, too.  Just imagine being in a room full of people with unlimited favorites.  As someone who regularly shares space with people who embrace multiple favorites, I can tell you, firsthand, that it blows away being in a room full of people with limited favorites.

The good news is you don’t need permission from anyone to start letting your favorite machine crank out some mighty fine product, but if you’re not ready to hear that just yet then I hereby grant you permission–no–I challenge you to come up with more favorites than you could ever possibly enjoy in two lifetimes.  Go on. I dare ya.

Every Moment Is Equipped With A Built-in Reset Button

At the age of ten I was sexually harassed by two of my male classmates on a daily basis.  When I complained about their behavior, my fifth grade teacher reprimanded me for using the swing-set when the boys were around (apparently this indicated that I was begging them to look up my skirt) and for generally being a female.  However, she pardoned the boys’ shenanigans (which involved a lot of butt-grabbing and the putting of things down my shirt). When I look back on this situation I can see that this woman was a few clowns short of a circus.  Unfortunately, I had no idea who Byron Katie was at the time and my ten-year-old mind created a story out of the crazy fodder this particular grown-up had produced.  The story went something like this: boys good, girls bad.   As I grew older, I took it upon myself to further embellish on this story: if I captured a boy’s attention, I was at fault and therefore I should probably  like him back—by the time I reached adulthood, I believed that my wants and boundaries were irrelevant, that I caused boys to become wantonly lustful and that my retribution was to just let them do whatever they wanted with me (emotionally, physically, verbally).  Not so empowering, right?  Don’t worry this story has a happy ending, I promise!

Fast forward to my most recent date.  This guy was nice and had a sweet athletic physique, but I was feeling zero chemistry.  We ended up having a decent chat, the date ended cordially and I assumed he was feeling the no chemistry thing, too.  Then he texted me not five minutes after our date was over telling me he wants to see me again.  Seriously? I was immediately gripped by the thought “well, maybe you should go out with him again now that YOU got him all interested, you shameless harlot!” It was, unmistakably, the voice of my batty fifth grade teacher. But two things happened: first, I remembered some advice I gave one of my twitter friends last week: “every moment is equipped with a built-in reset button.” I knew I had an opportunity to ditch the old crazy teacher voice in my head and act in my own best interest by being completely clear and real with my date.  Also, I could give up the practice of acting crazy, cold or just plain mean toward the interested party in a manipulative attempt to turn him off of me—this was my preferred method of breaking up, btw, giving the guy enough evidence that I wasn’t worth the trouble.  Second, after doing a healthy amount of self-coaching around this whole issue, I discovered a story that feels far superior to the one I’d been telling myself since I was ten years old: it’s not just okay to allow others to show me love and appreciation without having to match their intensity or even reciprocate it at all, it’s completely fabulous! I can accept the admiration, attention and love, be thankful for it and leave it at that (exception: the throwing of items down my shirt will be met with a swift roundhouse kick to the head—unless there’s chemistry, of course).  The egos, self-esteem, thoughts and emotions of others are none of my business, that’s all on them.  But my feelings, wants and thoughts are totally my business. So I fired-off a friendly, but clear text telling my date that I wasn’t interested.  He eventually thanked me. I let a guy go and I didn’t even have to get involved in a relationship with him before I tried to manipulate him into ending it! It felt very clean and peaceful. It was honest. Yay me!

My guess is that you also have an old tired story that you tell yourself that doesn’t serve you.  It might be about your relationships, your career, your weight, your health or your finances.  What thought are you choosing to believe that keeps you stuck and prevents you from getting what you truly want?  Exercise your option to hit the reset button in this moment and change your story right now, just a subtle shift in your thinking is all that is needed (try the focus wheel process, it rocks!)—find a thought that feels even slightly better than the one that is causing you to suffer. Feel the freedom and relief that comes when you start truly leading your life and then observe how differently life treats you.  I gotta tell ya, it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

Getting Clear: Cleaning Up My Communication Style

Last weekend I attended an amazing workshop led by horse whispering life coach Koelle Simpson.  I knew I would be learning some really cool tools and strategies on how to better manage my energy (and boy did I!), but the most valuable lesson I learned was how necessary it is to be crystal clear about what I want.

Working with the horses showed me exactly what my energy communicated: a jumbled mess.   The first time I attempted to get a horse from the workshop to move in a direction I wanted, I was really hopped up on high manic energy and the thought I will make this horse do my bidding! I had heard a lot about join-ups (getting the horse to think you’re okay enough to lead him around) so I thought I was the bomb when the horse did this without me initiating it.  The problem here was that I didn’t initiate or communicate this to the horse, he just decided to do what he felt like and I let him. I told myself this is how I wanted this to go down and called it a success.  In reality, my intention was to jog him around the ring a few times and then have him join-up.  At one point, Boyd Varty, who was co-coaching with Koelle asked me do you know what you want the horse to do right now? and I had to admit that, no, I really didn’t.  I thought I had everyone (especially me) convinced that my communication style was direct and clear, but at that moment, my lack of clarity was as obvious as a Lady Gaga outfit. I’d been in this situation before. With my children, I’d thought I’d been clear when I asked them to go to bed and told them I expected them to stay in bed and with my ex-husband I thought I’d been clear when I’d told him we really should just be friends and never get romantically involved—in both cases my words communicated one thing and my energy broadcasted something entirely different.  Consequently, the results I yielded from both of these circumstances looked very different from what I wanted.

So now that I knew what the problem was, I wanted to figure out how to make it right. This is what I learned about communicating clearly and I knew if it helped me, it would surely help others (this can be applied to your family members, bosses, spouses, neighbors, God, the Universe or anyone else you communicate with):

• Figure out what you really and truly want. I made a list of qualities that I wanted my relationship with my children to reflect—Koelle made me get really detailed with this: for example, peaceful was not going to cut it, however, I would like my children to go to bed peacefully and stay in bed without my involvement was much more clear.  Listing my intentions was a good start, but the intentions lack teeth without the proper energy and actions to back them up.

• Set and maintain your boundaries. If I intend for my children to go to bed and stay there, it’s a good idea to have some follow-up actions lined up in case they feel like testing the boundaries of what I expect.  Since my girls share a room, I separate them when they start causing each other heartache, ironically, they hate being separated even if one has the other helplessly trapped and screaming under a plastic bin. I always let them know beforehand what the consequences are if bedtime becomes a hassle, and I don’t hesitate to follow-through when they challenge the limits I set. I separate them without any emotion or judgment on my part (takes some practice, especially when they are freely sharing their criticisms and feedback with me).  It turns out that, as do horses, children appreciate people who know how to set boundaries for themselves, especially if they are assuming a leadership role.  It demonstrates that they have the ability to keep not only themselves, but also their dependents safe from harm.  Becoming a doormat does not win brownie points in the animal or children kingdom.

• Stay in your own positive energy.  It doesn’t matter what my children are doing.  If they are acting up, I don’t have to join them by getting tangled up in their chaotic vibe.  I can put my attention on my own positive feelings, creating scenes in my mind if it helps (go to my happy place) and bathe in that.  If my kids are wilding out, they can do that while I’m blissfully recollecting the time I had the house all to myself for two full days and nights until they are finished. They’re going to finish whether I add to the drama by yelling and acting out alongside of them, or if I just remain calm. My experience is that my children finish their episodes much quicker when I maintain my serenity. I can also help them manage their energy more effectively when I’m present and relaxed.  They are much more inclined to pay attention to me when I’m engaging them in a focused, but calm manner.  Also, it’s just no fun trying to get a rise out of Mom if she’s not buying into the bedtime games.

• Let go of any attachment to the outcome. I just stay focused on feeling good, I don’t tell myself any stories about how I really hope my children will give me a break and listen to me, but, seriously, who am I kidding? They do this every night, why would tonight be any different? But I will seriously lose it if they don’t go to bed now! My kids don’t give a hoot about what I’m saying, but they can certainly sense my lack of clarity about what I truly want and expect. I say I want a peaceful bedtime situation, but my energy reveals the fact that I lack confidence in getting what I want.  I personally can’t remember ever responding favorably to anyone who made a desperate request of me then became unstable and agitated when I didn’t deliver whatever it was they thought they wanted.  Why would I expect my kids to react any differently?  If I’m clinging to the outcome or telling myself something about the situation that simply feels gross (like my kids should do what I say when they’re doing quite the opposite . . .), I take that mess to Inquiry.

The good news is that I’ve been practicing these strategies all week and they totally work! I have noticed a marked difference in my girls’ demeanor and how they respond to me. They are calmer, more peaceful and more relaxed around me—they are mirroring the energy I consciously choose to generate around them.   Whenever I do catch myself being unclear, disrespecting my boundaries, getting caught up in someone else’s energy, or attaching to outcomes, I know it only takes a moment to correct the situation and I’m back to leading my own life again and communicating what I truly want effectively.

Why It’s Important To Feel Good Right Now

When you feel good, good things happen.  Some people get this backward and believe that they will feel good when something good happens. These people spend a lot of time waiting to be happy (I’ve been there, and I can tell you it’s very boring, not to mention frustrating). . . If you are one of these waiting people, think back to any positive event in your life: were you bringing joy and enthusiasm to the situation or were you bringing bummer energy?  I suspect you were bringing a positive vibe. That’s how it works. You can create positive situations by feeling good and the key to feeling good is choosing good feeling thoughts.  If this concept is new to you or you could use a refresher, here are some tips to help you start feeling good right now:

The most important choice you can make to feel good is to ALWAYS accept whatever is happening right now. This is really easy to do if you are experiencing an ideal situation, more challenging if you’re not.  You don’t have to like the situation, just acknowledge that it is happening.  There is a huge difference between condoning or liking a situation and accepting it.  If you resist what is happening right now, by condemning the current situation, you will not feel good; instead, you will most likely feel anger, frustration or sadness.  If you acknowledge and accept your current situation, not only will you feel better, but you will also be in a powerful place to make the next moment better if that’s what you want.  Because you won’t be wasting all your energy complaining and fretting—these are very draining activities—you will be able to use that energy on more productive pursuits, like finding a solution (which may include just letting it go). It’s much easier getting access to even better feelings when you remain in a place of acceptance most of the time (notice I said “most of the time,” our minds will continually challenge us to fall out of this mode, but these challenges just present us with opportunities to find our way back to acceptance.)

Practice acceptance with easy situations at first. For example, the next time you are at the grocery store and someone brings 12 items to the 10 items or less check out stand and gets away with it without a public stoning, accept that this egregious injustice has occurred.  You don’t have to like it, but if you don’t, notice your thoughts about it, because it’s your thoughts that are causing you to feel icky.  What’s really getting to you? Is it the extra two items?  The brazen flouting of a posted sign above the cash register?  The weighty watermelons and bottled water you’re holding? More than likely it’s the thought that 12-item guy should respect the 10-item limit.  But he’s not in compliance and you’re the one suffering from the thought that he should be. Insult piled on top of injury.  Instead, challenge your crappy feeling thoughts and then either take action to improve the situation if you can or just let it go. Once you master the small stuff, you can progress to practicing with the more advanced challenging situations, like the ones that come up when dealing with your immediate family.  That makes the 12-item guy outrage seem relaxing, right?  so practice with the daily smaller annoyances first—before you know it, you will be throwing down some serious acceptance skills when your mother comes to your house and rearranges the entire contents of your kitchen cabinets without asking.

Now you have access to a better feeling thought. Anchor your attention to something you genuinely appreciate in the moment, no matter how minor you believe it to be, as you are experiencing it (it could be a sight, sound, a pleasurable thought, a pleasant sensation or even your breath).  I had an incident just yesterday where my six year old was melting down: I had just accepted her screaming and whining  (admission: my acceptance was not instantaneous. . .) and turned my focus to a song I liked that was playing on the radio.  This provided me with enough clarity and patience to simply be there for my daughter, allow her to experience what she was experiencing without getting caught up in or contributing to the drama.   In fact, I believe my acceptance of the situation led my daughter to wrap it up more quickly than if I became an active participant in her tantrum.

Don’t cling to outcomes. When you look toward the future and hang your happiness there and only there, not only are you completely missing the opportunity to feel good right now, you ironically decrease the likelihood of attaining that future thing you want so badly.  Have you ever known a clingy individual who thinks they need you and won’t leave you alone, no matter how many times you threaten a restraining order against them? How drawn to that person are you?  Other people, situations and things are no different from you, in this respect; desperation and neediness are repellant qualities and cause people, situations and things to run screaming from them.  And, by the way, if you’re clinging to an outcome, that is another great opportunity for checking out the thoughts creating that yucky feeling.  Planning, however, is different.  Plan to have something, look forward to it even, just don’t latch on to it as if your life depends on it, it doesn’t. Feel good now, without the outcome, and the person, situation or thing will be more attracted to you.   Don’t take my word for it, though—try it.

The bottom line is that you have everything you need to feel good right now.  Pick a thought that elicits the feeling you want and let it rip.  This is totally your choice.  Now take it even further and decide how you want the rest of your day, week, month and year to play out.  Feel accordingly.

Putting Attention On What’s Right

This morning I caught myself in the middle of a negative thought, not once but twice.  The first thought assaulted me when my daughter spilled the entire contents of her bowl full of O cereal on the floor and I immediately thought “she should not spill cereal on the floor! Why does she do this to ME?!”  The second time was when I was on the freeway thinking about getting to my salon appointment downtown later this afternoon, my thought was “oh great, it’s the first day of the Comic Con convention (downtown), traffic is going to be ridiculously bad.  If it’s not Comic Con it’s the Fair or opening day of the Del Mar race track. Summer in San Diego sucks.”   Stress and anxiety accompanied these thoughts respectively.  Getting caught up in useless negative thinking is a bad habit of mine; thankfully, I’ve learned much better habits in the last couple of years that trump my bad habits.  One of the most useful habits I practice is the habit of questioning my negative thoughts.

Whether I performed the duty with drama or not, the end result looked like me sweeping up the O cereal and placing it in the trash.  The O cereal, the floor, broom and dust pan couldn’t care less if I was cursing and fuming as I cleaned up, however, it made a huge difference to my daughter and me.  My thinking that “my daughter should not spill O cereal” made me feel resentful toward her, I then treated her as if she was intent on ruining my morning which then put her on the defensive and set me up for less than pleasant interactions with her.   I didn’t clean up my thoughts around the O cereal incident right then and I believe this fueled my negative thoughts about the traffic.  Luckily, I caught myself mid-thought while condemning the Comic Con and San Diego before I spiraled into a crank-fest meltdown.  I realized that I was projecting a traffic report in the future that I couldn’t possibly know to be true and accepting it as fact (my salon isn’t near the Comi Con venue, by the way).  Furthermore, I live in freakin’ San Diego(!), the very city many travelers make a vacation destination.  As I write this, it is 68 degrees, sunny and drop dead gorgeous outside.  If that weren’t enough evidence to support the fact that summer in San Diego does not suck, I can also throw in the fact that I can be at any number of beautiful beaches in less than 10 minutes.  Did I mention I can see the ocean from my house?

Now before you start thinking your summer and/or life sucks because you don’t live in San Diego right now or because you believe some other situation is causing your misery, back up and look at the facts of your situation.  The facts of a situation will never be the cause of your feelings–the story you tell yourself about the facts is what causes you to feel what you feel.  The good news is that you can choose a better story to tell yourself about the facts that will result in a much better feeling and a happier ending.  The next time you are stuck in traffic, focus on where you are going, the reason you hopped in your car in the first place.   Why are you making the trip? You must want to go to your destination (if you really don’t want to arrive at your destination, you may want to investigate that).

We all get caught up in what’s not going right from time to time (or more frequently, for some us), but it’s far more pleasant and productive to focus on what is going right.  If you think you are at a loss for proof of what is going right in your life, start a list and include these two items: 1) you are literate (you’re reading this, right?) and 2) you are breathing (bonus points if you can do this without the aid of medical equipment).  You can then move on to the various amazing skills, talents and qualities you possess. Build on that. It’s difficult to complain about what’s wrong when you’re appreciating what’s right.

Life: Drive It Like You Stole It

Sometimes I take life too seriously.  I can always tell when this is happenening because I start feeling stressed or anxious. This is exactly what happened to me recently when I was researching ways to market my coaching practice.  It all started out innocently enough, my plan was simply to attract clients who would benefit from my skills and talents as a coach, so I could do what I really enjoy doing: coaching.  I wanted to do this authentically and organically.  When I started researching all the various ways to accomplish this, I was soon overwhelmed with all the information on how best to put myself “out there”.  I got stressed because according to the many marketing experts I’ve contacted, read or researched, I had infinite challenges and issues; here’s a short list:  I don’t have a brand,  I don’t know how to develop a brand, my industry is overcrowded, I don’t know how to use social media, I don’t know anything about search engine optimization, I need to narrow my niche further, I should be using Facebook ads, I should NOT be using facebook ads, I should be breaking rules by following another set of rules (btw, I detest rules). . .

I started thinking I was never going to have a successful practice, I’ll never attract enough clients and I’ll never figure out how to properly use #FollowFriday on Twitter.  I had just started my business and I was convinced it was doomed.  I was stressed about it being doomed.  Then I smiled.  I realized I was taking all of this way too seriously.   When I drill down to the essence of what my business is all about and tell all but a scant few of the experts to, respectfully, take a hike for a minute, I see very clearly what my purpose and goal is and it’s the same as it was when I started: I want to coach people.  It’s what I do because I’m really quite phenomenal at it (no marketing expert ever said I lacked confidence. . . ) and it’s really fun for me.  When I was fretting over marketing, I wasn’t coaching.  I don’t want to be a professional marketer, not for all the clients or money in the world.  Nope, I want to go on a coaching tear—I want to help people get unstuck, move forward and fulfill their deepest desires and highest callings.  I am a coach first, and an entrepreneur by accident.  When I admit that to myself, the stress leaves me and I’m ready and excited to do what I am called to do.

The world is your playground.  Neither play nor work should be stressful, if it is, you may be taking it all way too seriously.   From what I gather, we don’t get to take any of our worldly acquisitions and achievements with us when we leave this earth (including the drama we create in our lives–good news, right?)–it’s all on loan to us.  It exists so we can play with it. Knowing you have to turn it all in at the end of your ride (I mean all of it–your body, too) how will you conduct your life from now on? With seriousness or playfulness?

I say drive it like you stole it.

Practicing Life With a Focus On Integrity, Not Perfection

I was in yoga class the other day when I discovered that after a two month hiatus from classes, my biggest challenge had nothing to do with flexibility, strength or technique (though all three had regressed)—my biggest challenge was my ego.   My teacher asked us to either practice handstand against the wall (a pose I had done a gazillion times before) or practice a modified version of handstand which, given my current physical conditioning, I knew was in my best interest. A modified handstand meant working into the pose progressively, building strength and improving technique incrementally until I was eventually strong enough for a full handstand.  My ego, however, had its knickers in a twist, it harassd me with thoughts like  “how do you expect to master a skill at this rate?”  “why waste your time with preparation, just get into the final pose – you know you want to!”  “seriously, folks are going to think you’re a beginner . . .”

If you are remotely familiar with yoga you will notice immediately how un-yoga-like  these thoughts are.  In fact, it’s really an antithetical yoga practice, more like yego.  Of course, the opposite of every ego thought I had is true: by practicing slowly at a pace that was in alignment with my body’s strength and ability in that moment, I am truly practicing yoga and gaining mastery.  As for people giving a flip as to what I’m doing in class, that’s just hysterically funny.  I, myself, am so caught up in my own practice and thoughts (see previous paragraph) there’s just no time or energy left over for opinions about others (my ego, of course,  thinks people are always thinking about me, judging me or praising me).  Also, in yoga, mastery is really not the point, it’s about the journey one takes seeking mastery; so, really, I am most proficient when I adopt an open, receptive beginners mind. One of my favorite things about yoga (and I have many favorites about yoga) is how the lessons learned can be practically applied to life in general, for example: adopting a beginners mind allows me to be open and receptive to experience growth  in all areas of my life.

The ego is all about getting us to buy into the phantom promise that we will be rewarded with peace and joy once we acquire and achieve more.  The truth is unless we are already expressing peace and joy–which come from within us, not from without—no achievement or acquisition, no matter how great, will ever truly satisfy our soul.  Take a moment to see where this might be true in your own life.  Remember the car you really wanted and got?  Are you still amped up over the new car smell and the way it handles? Are you more calm and peaceful when another driver cuts you off at the intersection while you are sitting behind the wheel of your dream car? or are you already thinking about how much better you could give the guy the finger in a newer, cooler ride? 

At the end of my yoga class, lying still in the final pose feeling relaxed and refreshed, I was grateful that I ignored the crazy, anxious voice of my ego and, instead, heeded the calm wisdom of my body. This is a practice that I am still learning to master (this is why yoga is referred to as a practice) and as an insightful yoga teacher once told me, yoga is a practice of integrity, not perfection.  And wouldn’ t you know? that is another great lesson from yoga that transfers well beyond the yoga studio: practice life with a focus on integrity, not perfection.  Give it a try, it just may increase the quality and enjoyment of your pursuits exponentially – it has mine.  Namaste.