We humans also have some pretty ingrained ideas about dualistic thinking - there has to be a good and a bad, a right and a wrong, us vs. them. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the emotion of guilt and noticing how it is tied quite often to taking undo responsibility for things that don’t belong to us. When we take on responsibility for things that are out of our control or power – guilt won’t be far behind. Often we take on responsibility for the reactions of others. How they experience us or we may take on the responsibility of the results that happen from a team or a business of several people – as if we alone are able to create the results that occur when a group works together. Maybe someone can help me understand the reasoning behind how we operate as a society in situations like a sports team that isn’t winning. Rather than looking at what can be done to change things up with the players who are playing the games, or try a different strategy – the coach gets fired. Or a business whose sales are down, often in corporate systems, the CEO is fired, as if they are responsible for all the actions taking place in the people within the company. Is it just that we need someone to blame? Someone must pay for things not going the way we want them to??? Responsibility for all the things that go into success or failure are up to just one person? Do we as a society just need to deem someone “guilty” for the performance of an entire group? For our pain? Do we just need someone to be "wrong" so we can feel less guilty? Guilt has a bunch of stuff wrapped up within it: A feeling of wrongness, potential punishment (real or imagined), self-esteem/worthiness/enoughness, rescuing – see the previous Sandy Chat on the Drama Triangle. Boil it down… guilt = FEAR. Where there is fear there is guilt. “99% of guilt has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. Guilt is really a self-condemnation & self-invalidation of our worth and value as a human being.” – Dr. David r Hawkins M.D. Ph.D The story goes – a man walks along the beach and sees a fisherman with pail of crabs. “You’d better put a cover on those or they will get out!” The wise fisherman replies “No, actually there’s no need for that. When one crawls up to the top, the other crabs reach up and pull him back down into the pail.” This is a lot like how guilt works sometimes. We work to rise higher, become our best selves and then start to feel the “pull” of responsibility or obligation a.k.a. GUILT. We are both the crab about to climb to freedom AND the ones in the bucket pulling ourselves back down in the pile by listening to guilt and responsibility that doesn't belong to us! My therapist, Joy, has a favorite line she says with frequency to me… “It’s not our job to vibrate for anyone else.” Just as it’s not someone else’s job to make me happy (that’s my job), it’s not our job to take on the responsibility of happiness or the experience of another person. We can only help others through our example of our own happiness – not by climbing back down to a lower frequency. Guilt is a lower frequency. It's about punishment typically. It leads to self-rejection, self-sabotage, even projection of self-hatred onto "evil" other people. Studies would indicate that guilt is even the basis of many psychosomatic illnesses. So what benefit do we get out of feeling guilty? It only serves us if we see it for what it is intended to do - provide us with information. Guidance on how we might choose differently next time. It's purpose is NOT to drive decisions. Doing something out of a motivation of guilt is really just letting our inner critic run the show. That is that voice that nags at you internally. It is NOT connected to your joy, happiness, or fulfillment – it’s function is emotional risk management. It’s goal is to protect, keep you small and safe. Sometimes we actually need this information, but when it becomes the leader in most of our mental patterns, we will suffer, big time. Sounds True is currently offering a series of talks on self-acceptance. I’ve heard some excellent tips on how to show up out of a motivation of love rather than guilt/fear. To take these steps, we have to be willing to take charge of our minds – not just hand them over to the media hype, negative conversations we find ourselves in, our need to be liked or seen as positive and agreeable. When guilt/fear is our motivation, we abandon ourselves. Letting guilt be our decision maker, we have turned our backs on our own wisdom and our heart because we turn our measurement of our worth over to someone else. Some great questions I’ve picked up in the Self-Acceptance Summit for when guilt is trying to run our decision making: From Tara Sophia Mohr-
When we operate out of guilt, we are often hoping we will somehow be seen as enough by others. Worthy. Someone will validate that we are “okay”. This is a super destructive way to live. When we don’t believe we are already worthy and enough, just as we are, we will reach for “other-esteem” to fill our void of self-esteem. This fix is temporary – have you noticed??? It feels good for a minute, but it actually makes the inner void worse & keeps us reaching for what we already are. We just don’t know it yet. Self-esteem requires a clear understanding of our limits of responsibility. Where we don’t have control or power – we don’t have responsibility. Where we don’t have responsibility, we can regret, but no guilt. Our fear of disapproval from others is venturing into an area where we don’t have any power/control. Others will experience us, based on how they feel about THEMSELVES. Always. When we accept and have compassion for ourselves, our guilt lessens. When guilt pops up – trying to shame ourselves for feeling it…ummm… that doesn’t work. You’ve got to have compassion for your guilt. Accepting that guilt is there and soothing it is the only way to quiet it. You have to meet it head on, with love. Guilt is trying to protect you, it just doesn’t understand that you’re not going to let it be in charge of your decisions. Here is what you might say to it when it shows up… “Hey guilt. I see you, I know why you’re here. We are going to be okay – no matter what. No matter what the consequences are of the decision – we are going to be okay. I’m going to make the decision, so you can relax. Thanks for caring about us.” It’s kind of like how you might tell your mom, in your most loving way, to butt the hell out. Guilt has a purpose and it can help us become our best selves when we use it to learn how to make better choices going forward. Guilt can be a "department head" but it makes a terrible CEO. Check in with the information it gives us, but love needs to be the decision maker and leader of our lives. Love and knowing we are worthy simply because we are a child of the Divine, THAT is what has to be in charge of our decisions and our feelings about ourselves. Perhaps guilt is irrational 99% of the time because it’s driven out of a need to gain approval and esteem from other people. We don’t have control over that. Since we don’t have control/power over how others choose to approve or experience us – it means we don’t’ have responsibility for it. There’s no benefit in feeling guilty for things that are out of our control – other than to remain in a victim mentality. It’s just self-punishment. When you feel guilty, ask yourself “what is the information in that?” See if you can find what the lesson is and then drop the guilt – it has served its purpose. Try this one on for size this week... rather than buying into guilt and undo responsibility as a motivator, couldn't we accomplish the same or more with a motivation of love? If the quote below holds true (and I feel it does), if we operated out of love rather than fear, at least 51% of the time - wouldn't we show up in a more loving way not only with ourselves, but also with others? Let's give it a try! Let me know what you learn. Choose love over guilt and see what happens, just for fun. XOXOXOXOXO Sandy
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Opportunity. It exists in everything. It’s more obvious in those conditions and situations that feel “good”, and yet it is also in those that feel more like the dark night of the soul. I have an amazing opportunity in front of me at the moment. I have a chance to dive into my own awareness and acceptance of some well-worn emotional patterns that no longer serve me and practice some new routes – all with a beautiful safety net of being loved while I do it. Making the most of this opportunity is my aim. The opportunity doesn’t come as a result of a sudden tragedy, a loss, or an angry hate-filled flurry. So I don't expect that most will understand it, and that's okay! I intend to make the most of it by diving in and noticing who I am now at this point in my life and how I can shine my light more fully more of the time. So let’s get started. Pretty much all families have dysfunction on some level. It’s a rare one of us who was raised by parents who made it clear to us that we were enough simply because we exist. Most of the time we learn that we are enough when we behave in a certain way, get certain grades, do what we’re told, and make life more comfortable for our parents. It’s not that they did it to intentionally to mess us up – it’s what they were taught too. You’re enough, when you perform in a particular way. WE then take this same approach with ourselves as adults... when we weigh a certain #, when we reach a certain income, when we accomplish that thing we've been talking about doing - THEN we will be enough. Seems funny how that day never seems to really arrive doesn't it. The undoing of whatever our particular dysfunction is, isn’t something that just happens on its own. A change in environment, location, career, health won’t change an ingrained emotional pattern long term. Externals may inspire a change but for it to be sustainable takes more than externals and conditions for it to stick. It takes some willingness, and some conscious choices. More on that in a bit. Think of your brain and your emotional patterns like an LP record album – remember those? They had grooves that the needle would sit into and play the song embedded within. This is kind of how your emotional patterns work too. And those grooves can become soooooo deep and worn in that getting out of them can take a major jolt to jump the needle up out of the groove to play a new song that is more in line with who you have become. I mean who wants to listen to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when you are now, at this point in your life, more into Led Zeppelin for instance? Emotional patterns don’t magically improve or change just because someone left, arrived, or stayed – they change when we walk straight into them and ask what it is we need to learn in order to heal ourselves. This is something very few people choose to do. Which explains why it sometimes seems that people don't really change much. We are capable... but not willing. Our insecurities aren't there to taunt us - but to help us HEAL. If you’re unsure what your emotional pattern is that no longer serves you and is inviting you inward to heal yourself – look no further than the person or people who drive you a little crazy. The person who you resent, dislike, or are annoyed by is as Fr. Richard Rohr says “carries our dark side”. We most dislike in others what we most dislike are don't accept in ourselves. This dark side or our shadow self contains some major information that can transform our lives - if we are willing to look at it. So if that is the case, here is what I need to dive into and look at in myself:
To grow myself I need look no further than the things I blame and criticize others for. I am aggravated when people are super hard on themselves and dim their light. I am baffled and a frustrated by people who are amazing, incredible and continue to kick their own back-sides with nasty words and behaviors that dim them. So it looks like I need to increase my OWN levels of self-esteem and self-compassion – THIS is why witnessing it in others annoys me. I also get really frustrated when I hear a lot of blaming, name calling, bullying, defensiveness or not learning from choices made, side stepping honest conversations – this all sounds like things a two year old would be doing, and it really gets my red-haired, Irish, anger up - so looks like I need to take a look at my own emotional maturity. This aggravation, dislike, being annoyed by stuff is showing me “the log in my own eye”. (Matthew 7:5 - I looked it up!) Since #1: low self-esteem is the biggest obstacle to #2: emotional maturity, let’s take a look at what Self-Esteem is and what it isn’t:
We ALL need some increased self-esteem. It’s part of the human conditioning we get here on the planet - to develop this belief that we aren’t enough, not worthy in some ways. It takes three steps to move in the direction of knowing we are indeed enough:
When we accept that we have been making choices to dim ourselves or develop emotional patterns that are hurtful for us, then we have the ability to practice a new or different way. Acceptance and self-compassion are closely linked and many of us have very little compassion for ourselves. We notice that we are doing something that is harmful to ourselves and we then kick our own butts for doing it, vow to change and then go right back to doing the painful thing again. Without acceptance and compassion for why we are doing what we are doing to cause our own pain – we will simply return to the same pattern over and over again. Think about the last time you felt like you needed to lose a few lbs. You become aware that you want to weigh less - so you vow to take action like diet or exercise. You don't give yourself any acceptance or compassion for why you may have added a few, so the effort isn't inspired (pulled) from LOVE, it's motivated (pushed) by FEAR. This is why it doesn't result in lasting change. Acceptance is the invitation to ask ourselves "WHY?" Why am I doing this? What am I getting out of it that I could find a healthier way to accomplish? This quote above is so true! When we don't accept our demons - we try to avoid them and that leads to having them bite us in the butt! Those demons or hurtful emotional patterns aren't "bad". They are there in an attempt to protect you. They just don't realize that you don't need protecting. Acceptance and compassion for our messed up emotional patterns is the step most of us miss in our efforts to revise our ways that are causing us pain and it is the step that will change everything.
So if you have a pattern that you notice you are annoyed with in another person or people, become an observer this week. How is that same behavior showing up in YOU? It might look a little different in how it manifests in you, but notice it – what is it when you boil it down? Then love yourself, show yourself compassion for the behavior you are so annoyed by in others. Consider why you might be doing it, what are you getting out of it? Then see if you can practice one small step in the direction you’d RATHER go in your emotional pattern. If you have some challenges in self-esteem like I do, take a look at the list of what healthy self-esteem looks like and see if you can practice just one of those for a few days. Fr. Richard Rohr’s daily e-mail message all last week was about going THROUGH instead of AROUND the darkness. That’s what it takes to really shift emotional patterns. They don’t fix themselves just because conditions changed – no matter where you go, there you are. The courage to look at, accept with loving-kindness our own role in our suffering and then practice a new way, THAT is the way THROUGH. XOXOXOXOX Sandy Stuff I've been reading this week that inspired some of what I Chatted about here: Pia Mellody on Codependence and Love Addiction - YouTube videos and books Father Richard Rohr: Daily Meditation e-mail and also Hope Against Darkness Tracy McMillan Instagram posts My own journal notes from sessions with my therapist Joy! Have you ever found yourself complaining about how someone else treats you? Ever felt dissed when someone doesn’t return your text, didn't take your phone call, or they changed plans on you, etc...? Do you then hear yourself accusing them, blaming, complaining? We ALL do this sometimes, but when it becomes chronic or a regular pattern – it’s time to take a deeper look. I found myself caught in a loop recently of accusing someone of treating me poorly. I decided it was time to stop and take a moment to see what MY role was in the situation and when I did this, I heard the words “none of this is about them.” What it is really about is getting clear on how I am feeling. As Gay Hendricks says about feeling we are on the receiving end of poor treatment: “The reason this happens is because we tend to demand from others what we are most unwilling to give to ourselves.” When we seek to GET love, connection, understanding, acceptance from others without GIVING it to ourselves first – we are going to feel like we are on the short end of the stick. That’s because we will never fill that void inside ourselves with something or someone outside of us. Even if we feel we get what we need for a moment, it’s not going to be sustainable if we are seeking fulfillment from externals and other people. I took some time and thought about the behaviors I felt I was on the receiving end of…
O.K… so what do I do now that I’m aware? Love and accept myself. Contrary to what some believe, loving yourself is far from being conceited. That’s a whole different animal. It’s about not looking outside yourself to feel worthy. No one on the planet is qualified to determine your worth. That is installed at the factory – standard equipment on every human being. All of us. When we use externals, how other people treat us, to gauge our own feeling of worth, lovability, value or if we are acceptable – we suffer. A lot. Every person in your life is there with a gift for you. That gift may appear to be the very last thing you’d ever classify as a “gift”, but it is. We are drawn together with those who can offer us a reflection, an opportunity to see our OWN level of Divine alignment, our own level of self love and acceptance. So, in my lifetime, I’ve spent a gigantic load of energy talking about, complaining about, blaming about how someone else treats me. Different places, different faces, but the constant… is ME. I'm not saying that as judgement against myself - but instead the awareness that if I am the constant, that means I have the total empowerment to change the conditions no matter what anyone else chooses to do or not do. Perhaps a better approach would be to look for the gift in it. How can I learn to love and accept MYSELF even more, rather than focus on what I think needs a “fix” in the other person? That’s a more empowered question for sure. You don’t get to decide what is “right” or “wrong” behavior, interpretations, or beliefs for anyone else. YOU JUST GET TO CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF. There will always be diversity, differences of intention. Fighting against it doesn’t help anyone. Focus on what you WANT, what you are FOR – now that makes a difference. While you may not agree with what someone else chooses for themselves, the only person you get to choose for is you. Don't focus on what you are AGAINST, focus on what you are FOR. So when someone behaves in a way that tends to cause you to feel less than in some way, rather than resisting it – consider this suggestion from Esther Hicks: (Recommendation: don’t say this out loud to the other person! Just think it to yourself!) “BRING IT ON! Because my happiness & how I feel about myself doesn’t depend on how you behave. My happiness depends upon my ability to focus & the worse you behave – the better my focus gets!” When I traveled to Africa earlier this year, I climbed these two HUGE ladders known as “The Chains” in the Drakensberg Mountains. The picture above is of ONE of the TWO ladders up the side of the mountain. 77 rungs, no safety harness, just you, deciding if you wanted to do it or not. The other day, Don said to me “You are at like rung 75 and you're reaching back to help someone on rung 25.” The more I thought about this comment – it’s a great analogy.
When you love someone, you want the best for them – what YOU think is best for them. We may try to pull them along, “fix” their mindset or view on life. But when we climb back down to where they’ve decided to camp out on a lower rung – we really can’t help them. Now you're both down in the lower level - stuck. Where they decide to hang out on the ladder - it’s what THEY have chosen, where THEY feel they need to or want to be, for now at least. The only way we can be of any help is to keep climbing up to the top and if they want help we can throw them a rope, or shout out some encouragement. We can only help them through the power of our own example of what is possible – NOT by climbing back down to where they are. When you climb back down you don’t help them and you hurt yourself by making yourself weaker, and less able to help if they even decide they WANT your help. You can only call people forward or higher from a place of strength – not from dimming yourself to make it okay for them to play small. I preach this stuff week in and week out in meetings with my team at work. As they say – we teach what it is we most need to learn ourselves. So let others behave as they choose and don’t expect anyone to put your needs first – that’s YOUR job. Get in alignment with the love of you, with the Divine in you and just notice the impact it has on the behavior of those in your life. It’s not about them. It never is. It’s a gift of insight into YOURSELF. BRING IT ON! XOXOXOXO Sandy Have you ever really wanted something in your life, thought about it all the time, maybe even obsessed about it and it just doesn’t seem to happen? Ever been caught up in focusing on what’s missing in a situation and it seems to just be in some kind of endless loop of never getting resolved? Yeah, me either. Riiiiiight. What if YOU are the thing that is preventing the situation from moving forward? What if all your focus on how you DON’T have what you want, on what’s missing - is the very thing that keeps it from manifesting in your life? Well, that would be upsetting news at first, you might see that as "blame" in some way. Yet, when you understand it's not about self-judgement – it’s GREAT news, because it means YOU have the power to shift the situation yourself. You don’t have to wait for conditions or other people to change! You can create what you want with a shift in your OWN thinking!! WOO HOO!! You've got the power!!! All this month, I have been reaching for making a shift in my own frequency. Love and appreciation are the aim of what I want to radiate out into the world and in myself. It’s been pretty powerful, and I find that there is still a pretty huge amount of resistance in me. What I say that I want and want to be – I don’t seem to fully believe that it’s possible. Hence… resistance. In a recent Truthbomb from Danielle LaPorte, she kind of summed it up… When we believe something will happen, that it’s possible, look for the best and believe it’s possible – we will see evidence that it’s on the way, and even if it doesn’t work out exactly as we imagine it, it will work out for the highest good for everyone. Every.Single.Time. Conversely, when we focus on what’s missing, things that disappoint us, frustrate us, these are all examples of RESISTANCE and resistance prevents what we want from coming to us. As Esther Hicks says… “If you want something & it’s not coming, it’s because you are giving more attention to the absence of it than the presence of it. Every time. No exception.” It’s the old “I want it BUT” routine – I want it, but I don’t believe it can happen. This is classic resistance and it’s what keeps things from happening in the way you desire. So we have to make a choice, to live in “reality” or what appears to be reality, based on the way we look at life – or to live in POSSIBILITY, which is also totally based on the way we look at life. We are creating our lives simply by how we choose to look at the world. When we are in resistance mode (fear, anger, disappointment, loneliness, lack) we will see more people and situations that back up our view. When we are in allowing mode (love, openness, willingness, eagerness), we will see those same exact people and situations that match THAT view. Sounds too simple, but, get happy and it will all fall into place. In business this is often referred to in compay mission statements as "assumption of positive intent". Assuming that things are working out for you, focusing on what feels good, trusting, faith, these are all choices & sometimes we find them to be a very difficult choice to make. When what we DON’T want is right in our face, choosing to look in the other direction is challenging. If we can lean toward focusing on love, appreciation, possibility and releasing our resistance that opens us. It seems to me that there are some things we can do to aim ourselves that will help us drop our resistance… Be present. Looking back is often tricky because while we may perceive that we are looking as what was beautiful about the past, it’s often a mine field that can cause us to then notice what is missing in the now. APPRECIATION for this moment, right now. Feel your feelings – without judging yourself for feeling them. When they are other than loving, ask them what they want you to know, thank them and tell them “I got this, you can relax now.” Focus elsewhere. Lighten up and focus on anything that helps you access a feeling of happiness. There are loads of stories out there of people who have had difficult life situations come their way, who made an effort and a choice to focus on anything that makes them laugh, and have turned the situation around. Anything is possible. What else could this mean? We all look for evidence that our negative thoughts are “real”, true, that we are “right” in what we believe. Do The Work on your negative thought… Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How Do I react when I think that thought? Who would I be without this thought? THEN!!!! Turn it around… find three examples of the opposite of that original thought. Fall in love. This is one of the most effective ways to drop resistance. Might be with a pet, a person, yourself, you name it. When we are in love we are an open channel because we use the object of our love as an excuse to see the world the way the Divine sees it. And another action I have found to be profoundly transformative – seek out friends & situations that bring up my level of positivity. Notice that when we are in resistance that we kind of avoid happy people, they are so annoying! We will find reasons (a.k.a. excuses) to be late for or avoid situations that tend to be more positive or uplifting when we are in resistance or a victim mentality. It’s great news that your view of the world is totally in your own hands! It makes perfect sense really – if we are made in “the image of” the creator, it only stands to reason that we, ourselves are creators and we are creating our lives with our thoughts – how we choose to view the world. The shift in perception from fear to love truly is miraculous. In my own life, I have spent a long stretch of time in a lot of fear. (I'm just sayin'... that time is so over. Time to step up in my life and believe in myself again. Check out the bottom half of my Inspiration Page for some added thoughts on this.) If I consider the times in my life that I have felt the most alive, the most like my true self, the most open – it’s when I have been focused on love and appreciation. Giving it, being it, radiating it, seeing it in others and situations. When we focus on love and appreciation – we are living in possibility. ANYTHING is possible, it doesn’t matter what the conditions are or what other people are doing or saying. What matters is YOUR energy, YOUR frequency, YOUR willingness, YOUR trust, YOUR anticipation of the best possible outcome for the highest good for all. You get more of what you focus on – whether you want it or not. Why not go ahead and practice feeling the feelings of having what it is you want? Act as if it’s already here, like a dress rehearsal. BE a match to the frequency of what you want, practice the feeling of having it and the possibilities are endless. It might not look EXACTLY like what you want when it arrives, but it WILL be okay. The timing is all up to you. Sandy XOXOXOXO Here is a great 15 minute audio of ways to reduce our resistance to what it is we want. We are the only thing in our own way most of the time! Energy. Everything is energy. Whether we own it or not, we humans ARE energy and we all HAVE creative energy, sexual energy, intellectual energy… everyone has them, it’s just that we don’t all USE them. As the quote at the start of this chat from Brene’ Brown says – if we don’t use our energies – they have to go SOMEwhere. They sneak out is mutated places that they don’t belong because they are a force we cannot stop. In my life, passion is an important component that has propelled me further than most can imagine. I’ve been drawn to passionate relationships, situations, jobs, hobbies. I’ve been passionate about what I do, my personal growth & people. It was role modeled for me by my parents to be sure – lots of fire in BOTH of them. Passion has also gotten me into some relationships and situations that weren’t super healthy. That’s because when passion isn’t aimed in a way that is meaningful for us – it can become anger pretty easily. I have mistaken anger for passion many times. So after a few rounds of living my life with passion (disguised as anger) – I decided it wasn’t good for me. I told my old friend passion to take a hike because I was going to go for sanity! I had made a conscious decision to not be such an angry person way back in Jr. high, and in my late 20’s I made another decision; to reduce the drama in my life. I meet many super aware people in their 20’s, but I was not one of those! I would make big decisions and then come hell or high water – I was sticking to it. The decision to reduce the drama was one of those times. My brain was in charge and my heart was told to just be quiet and understand that this was better for me. What I didn’t understand is that there is a balance – head and heart working together = wisdom. Either one working on its own = not being whole and fulfilled. And remember, that energy of passion has to go SOMEwhere, even if we choose not to use it. When you are in a situation like a job or a relationship that has low or limited passion, it’s really tempting to become a chameleon. Blend in, strive to be accepted, fit in. Indeed, this can work for a while and if you are really strong willed – even a long while. Your brain can convince you with thoughts like; "Shouldn't this be enough for me? I mean it's not bad - right?" Or "Most people would love to have this - what's wrong with me that I'm not happy with it?" Or the super co-dependent thought... "Well others have it worse off than me, I should feel lucky." Yet eventually, that held down passion will blow the lid off the pressure cooker. It will appear in places that don’t move us forward like anger, rage, resentment and other stuff that’s no fun to be in or around. Above is one of my all-time favorite quotes. The chameleon route has positives for sure. It’s actually great in sales to help built rapport with clients, it can be helpful in many situations. It’s when it becomes the go-to way of being that we can start to lose ourselves. I have been blaming some externals in my life for my feeling a lack of passion in myself. This is quite simply put… bullshit. The level of passion I decide to invoke is not about who or what is in my life, it’s totally about a choice I must make. Am I going to try and match the energy of my surroundings? Or do I want to be a fierce fire and set my own tone? I get to choose. If others or conditions aren’t fired up that is not an excuse to say there is no passion in my life. If I am depending on externals or other people to create my happiness or level of passion, I am screwed. My 30 day challenge to myself to focus on love and appreciation this month has brought along with it some amazing and unexpected added benefits. Simply focusing on being love, being in appreciation and dropping the majority of my expectations, has led to way more clarity about who I am, what I want, & what I won’t settle for. Who knew this was the path to CLARITY!?!?!? As much as going for JUST the basic things in life like: security, ease, low drama, dollars, respect, accomplishment, esteem, etc… may seem smart to our brains – it’s settling. We can have all these needs met and still feel empty without passion. But also, going for JUST passion is also to settle. A relationship or career/situation with JUST passion and none of the basics won’t be fulfilling either. We have to integrate our head and our heart. “We’re either growing or we’re dying” as Tony Robbins says. We ALL want to grow, become more, rise up, move forward. But this is not up to anyone else to give to us. We must give it to ourselves, even when no one else seems to notice or care. It’s not up to my job, my relationships, my conditions to LIGHT my passion. Those things can STOKE the fire, I have to be the one to start it and tend to it. So, will I be a chameleon or fierce fire? Depends on the day, the situation, my self-awareness. They are both fine things to be. It’s when we fall into a default setting of either or when we judge ourselves for being either one that we miss out on the fullness of our lives. What frequency do you CHOOSE to emit today? Will it be determined by other people? Conditions? To some extent – yes, because not everyone can meet you where you are. Will you decide for yourself what frequency you want to be on, no matter what? To a large extent – yes!, because we must create our own life based on what we know is true for each of us. What it all comes down to is how OPEN we decide to be in any given moment, how much love we choose to emit. This decision will be somewhat determined by how open others are with you. How safe it feels. This is simply wisdom. This is what spiritual practice is about. David Deida puts it like this… “Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love, even when you feel hurt, closed down, tense, angry, misunderstood or hated.” It’s coming back to ourselves, loving ourselves and others and choosing the aperture setting on our love and openness… chameleon setting? Fierce Fire? Or somewhere in-between? It's up to you to decide. XOXOXOXOX Sandy I’ve set an intention to focus my energies, my thoughts, my emotions in a way that feels good. The entire month of August, I am tuning up my own frequency to a higher level by bringing myself constantly back around to love and appreciation. I’ve already seen some HUGE miraculous shifts in just a couple of weeks of choosing to focus in a way that feels good. So what happens when a person or circumstance is trying to pull me off this course? When someone is negative, or if something doesn’t go my way, or my inner critic is on a rampage? These are the times when I get to decide if I will let these conditions pull me down or will I stay committed to how I want to feel. While it’s so tempting to make it about how “wrong” the person or condition is – these times are really lessons and opportunities for me to reconnect with who I want to be and how I want to feel rather than judge, blame, go into victim mentality or succumb to feeling shame from my inner bully. Coming back into being connected with ourselves; being who we want to be and feeling how we want to feel in these situations when we get tempted to dive into the pool of sharks and surrender to the negativity is certainly not always easy. It takes willingness and loads of practice to stay afloat on top of the water, as well as lots of self-compassion in those times when you do take that dive into the depths. If you get yourself centered and are feeling positive, happy, enthusiastic, appreciative, or hopeful - whenever we interact with others who are maybe angry, depressed, negative, blaming, or jealous; we are going to have a decision to make; either they will be pulled up toward your higher frequency, or we will be pulled lower into theirs. Whomever is most invested in their current frequency, will pull the other person in. The decision we all must make, thousands of times per day is to answer this question: "How do I WANT to feel?" It’s not about the other person, the condition or the inner critic – it’s about making this choice and then not letting the fierce winds of negativity, externals; including other people’s stuff, blow us off course. If you're not sure what to aim at in your feelings, consider something I read this week by Fr. Richard Rohr... "Love is what you were made for and love is who you are. When you live outside of Love, you are not living from your true Being or with full consciousness. " Being true to ourselves, standing in our own light, is one of the most transformative and rewarding things we can do - not only for ourselves, but for everyone we come in contact with. Yet, this is a very challenging journey for sure. When we take full responsibility for ourselves and give up the idea that anyone else or anything is responsible for how we feel – this is true freedom and empowerment. And it’s not about being there all the time. When you can hold this place just 51% of the time, not only will your whole life change, you will also become a beacon of inspiration for others. What I’m talking about is not "feeling good" 51% of the time – as my therapist Joy tells me, feeling good is not the indicator. It’s about having awareness, acceptance and practicing 51% of the time. So what would you need to focus on today to rise up and feel the way you WANT to feel? Two heavy hitters that will move you there the fastest are LOVE and APPRECIATION. These are powerful forces that when you “open the valve” on them, they can amp up our frequency and help life look a whole lot different than if we let the negative pull have its way with us. When I attended Date With Destiny with Tony Robbins, he reminded me of the story of the Ho’oponopono prayer you see above. Tony said that even if we shorten it down to simply saying: “I love you, thank you” (love and appreciation) the transformative effects of this simple mantra are amazing. When you are confronted with something challenging, either a person or a circumstance, try repeating it mentally several times. It’s calming and helps to get you centered in yourself again. Another great insight I heard my friend’s very wise daughter remind me of recently is to simply set an intention. This is especially helpful when we are pretty sure there is going to be a big opportunity in an interaction that could bring up stress or dealing with someone who tends to be angry, depressed, or any lower frequency. What do you want most in this interaction? To love the other person? To stay in a loving space yourself? Or to be "right"? To win? To point out your or their failings according to you? Those would all be based in FEAR. Give these tools of the silent mantra or setting an intention a try this week and let me know what you notice. And remember, just 51% of the time is all we’re after. That is enough to change your frequency, and your life. Making the choice between love or fear is how we create our lives. XOXOXOXO Sandy Dorothy Pays A Visit I’ve long held that butterflies are my mom trying to connect with me. This past week I had an amazing visit!!! This beauty was not moving much at first, so I brought her in the house to warm her up. That must have been what she wanted. She started climbing up my arm, then to my chest, onto my neck then on top of my head! It was so incredible! After some time of doing this, she got her swerve on and was ready to fly. I released her out the back door and she flew up into the tree. Wowzer… the meanings are endless on this one!
O.K… as someone who can tend to be a "high functioning codependent", when someone I care about is angry or blaming towards me, it is brutally hard to keep loving myself. Damn near impossible sometimes actually. I sometimes take on guilt that doesn’t belong to me when someone I love seems distant, or is frustrated/angry with me. I tend to want to fix it both for the other person and for myself and can abandon myself in the attempts to get things back in order for the other person. Men tend to base more of their self-worth on accomplishments, while women often times base a great deal of their self-worth on the quality of their relationships. So when relationships seem to be at in impasse that continues to flare anger, blame, guilt in one or both parties, it can become a very heavy emotional weight. What can happen is we are often trying to fill an emotional bottomless pit that exists due to not feeling whole and loved. It's not the need to be loved that causes the issues. It's the inability to love ourselves that causes the dysfunction. Being blamed, doing the blaming - either way, it can feel pretty awful. It triggers a wide range of reactions… from anger and biting back, to withdrawing and trying to walk on egg shells to make things okay for the other person. One of the reasons blame feels so crappy is because we feel unseen, unheard and misunderstood. It hurts when someone we care about seems to believe that our intentions are to hurt them, when that wasn't our intention at all, we're typically just doing the best we can. We take on the other person’s experience and take responsibility for it, even though taking that on won't help them. And if we attempt to explain or defend or be understood by the person sending blame our way, it typically makes things worse.... have you noticed? Dr. Margaret Paul offers some great advice on the feeling of being blamed. She says that we confuse the difference between responsibility and blame. Blaming is about avoiding our own responsibility for our actions, then blaming the target for our own bad behavior. It's the adult version of being a "bully". What would happen in partnerships or families if everyone accepted that they are responsible for their own behavior and choices and didn't blame? What if there is actually NO ONE TO BLAME? What if we each chose to open to learning about our own responsibility in any conflict situation without blaming either ourselves or someone else??? What if we really demonstrated that our happiness is our own responsibility and not dependent on circumstances or other people? I'm setting out on a personal challenge to try and prove this to be possible. Everyone gets to do things however they choose in this life. For me, that self-righteous spike of anger and blame can sometimes be what I need to move myself up the emotional scale. And it tastes SOOOO good for a moment! That's because it is a better place to be than in depression – where we feel powerless. It is always easier to feel anger than guilt. BUT! When I make someone else the reason for my feelings – I have just given them my power. Helloooooo victim Sandy!!! Here's the thing, I am an adult and as an adult, I really don't have to explain or justify myself to anyone. And get this... I don't even need to have anyone understand me - not even the person who is blaming me. YIKES! That's a new awakening! Try that on for size! Often trying to be understood by someone who is angry with you doesn't go well any way. Unless they are open to learning, it typically just makes things more tense. I have also felt myself on the receiving end of the blame game, especially in recent months. I am super tempted to buy into the story line and feel like total crap when someone I love tells me that I am the cause of all their pain and all the problems that seem to come up between us. BUT! If I buy into this story of them giving me all the power in their experience – I have once AGAIN jumped into victim mentality. I am a victim of their blame, and that is total crap on my part (and theirs, BTW). When we feel wounded, we love to blame. When we feel blamed, we feel inferior. But in either case, we have put ourselves at the mercy of the person we are blaming and are either taking no responsibility for our own experience or we are taking responsibility that doesn’t even belong to us. The person who's blaming me is feeling hurt, powerless, so they aim their blame me, then I get hurt and I blame them OR! I take on the blame and feel guilty. It becomes a crazy 8*... mad, then guilty, mad, then guilty in a continuous loop. (* See the end of this chat for more info on the Tony Robbins Crazy 8 theory) I am just doing the same exact thing I am accusing the other person of!!! It’s not moving me forward and not emotionally or physically healthy. I'm a firm believer that when something feels negative emotionally, it's because I am choosing not to see the love in the situation. I am choosing fear. I'm not seeing things from the perspective the Divine sees it from. When we feel anger, frustration, resentment, blame...the other person isn't "wrong", and neither am I. We're just both hurting. We are choosing to see the other person or the situation in a way that is counter to how the Universe sees it and that results in emotional pain. Somebody in this dance needs to evolve and Since I’m the one with the awareness – that means it’s ME who needs to go first. I’ve decided that I’ve GOT to find a better way. I’m calling bullshit on MYSELF and taking my power back, in-house. In the midst of being blamed or shamed, have you noticed? Your words don't work. Both parties either get more defensive, or beat down with guilt, and you stay stuck on the roller coaster of the crazy 8. So for me, here is what I’m going to do, I'm going to change my own frequency. I'm going to amp up my love, appreciation and my own alignment with my higher power. Lovingly disengage and work on sending loving-kindness to the blamer via my energy and frequency rather than defending or going into guilt. I am going to spend 30 days up-leveling my own “frequency”. I am going to raise my own standard and my own energy vibration with some super simple daily actions. These actions are a combo of research done by happiness studies done by Shawn Achor, Tony Robbins and also some basics from Abraham-Hicks plus my own knowing what works for me... feel free to join me!
My aim is to focus as much as possible on things that feel good. When I’m feeling blamed by someone, taking on guilt and blaming myself, or if I feel like blaming someone else, I will distract myself with something that feels good like this list above. I'm going to cue up my vibe and my energy closer to the level I have grown to. The end result will be that my frequency will rise to more of a place that is in alignment with who I really am now, and my happiness center of gravity will rise to a more natural and current level. To do this I will have to re-frame the meanings on some things and these activities above will help me to move in that direction. I'm going to do my best to look PAST the junk anyone blaming me is throwing out there and remember that it's just a discharge of pain. It's just like the example of Jesus, looking past the labels and outward appearances of people and just focus in on the light of them. At the same time, I won't subject myself to the blame and accusations when they come. I will lovingly disengage out of love and compassion for myself as well. The note on my calendar in front of me today says “Growth is never about focusing on someone else’s lessons, but only on our own." Blame is focusing on someone else’s lesson. I have way too many of my own to embrace, and I’m going to focus on them and see what unfolds. Come along and let’s see where it leads us! XOXOXOXOXO Sandy ----The Crazy 8 Details - can you see your self or your relationship in this?* The Crazy Eight is a concept from Tony Robbins Strategic Intervention training. It describes what we often tend to do when we feel life is not a match to our own "blue print" of what it should be and feels like it is not in our own control. The emotional states of sadness and anger can tend to loop continuously as we try to convince ourselves we are regaining control, but we aren't. We do this in an attempt to meet a need and to connect with ourselves. It's a terribly painful way to live, I can attest to that!! And many, many relationships have this pattern. Tony explains that unless we find a completely new emotional state we swing continually between the two, which he calls the crazy 8. Sadness/depression/victim mentality is at one end of the loop. Here we withdraw, feeling sorry and helpless for ourselves. We attempt to exert some control through disconnecting and being in a low mood. We are fed up, life is unfair and we see people and experiences through dark glasses. This produces a very low energy state in the body. Feelings on this side of the 8 include guilt, depression, isolation, hurt, shutting down, and feeling rejected. At the other end of the loop is the energy state of anger and blame. Fueled by adrenaline we feel more in our power and a higher state of energy in the body. We make someone or something the villain. Common feelings as we sling to this side of the loops include: anger, frustration, blame, resentment. When we refuse to take responsibility for our own choices of feeling states, we can stay looping around this bad boy our entire lives. It's a self defeating cycle that can happen often in relationships if we don't wake the hell up. When you understand why you are angry or sad, within yourself rather than blaming, you can take responsibility for the real need you are not meeting. Remember, it is always easier to feel angry or sad because it gives you instant connection with yourself. If we are willing to dig deeper and connect with ourselves in a more emotionally mature, intelligent way - our relationships with ourselves and others improve. The crazy 8 is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. Some of the quickest ways to change our meaning on things is to change our physical state (body posture, movement, etc), change our language, and change our focus. The quote from Tony below is a really amazing way to get off the crazy 8 loop!!! ----Need a little playlist to help you reach for a higher frequency? |
Sandy Edie HansenI use this space to "Chat" about things I am working through and learning in my life currently. Join me! Archives
September 2022
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