Get Your Zen On…. Show Up, Let Go.

I am fortunate enough to have a great and varied assortment of friends. Most have one thing in common. We make ourselves coo-coo with anxiety over how our work, our relationships, our very selves are received. We want to feel joyful and appreciated; we want to avoid pain. Yet we consistently put ourselves in situations that set us up for pain.

We pin our happiness to people, circumstances, and things over which we have zero control, and then hold onto them for dear life. We stress about the possibility of losing them when something seems amiss, whether it’s real or imaginary. Then we dissolve into grief when something changes—a lay off, a break up, a rejection letter. We attach to feelings as if they define us, and ironically, not just positive ones. If you’ve ever wallowed in regret or disappointment for years, it can seem safe and even comforting to suffer. It’s familiar. It’s what we know. It’s home. In clinging to the familiar, we limit our ability to experience joy in the present.  A moment can’t possibly radiate fully when it is smothered in “what-if” fear.

When you stop trying to grasp, own, and control the world and circumstances around you, you give it the freedom to fulfill you - without the power to destroy you.  When you stop trying to force outcomes; you can sit in an experience and truly, well, experience it! That’s why letting go is so important: letting go is letting peace and bliss in.
This not a one-time decision, like pulling off a band-aid. Rather, it’s a daily, moment-to-moment commitment that involves shifting the way you experience and interact with the very things you instinctively want to clutch tightly.

 

Experiencing This Moment

Accept this moment as it is. Don’t try to recreate something from the past; that moment is spent. Don’t contrive how you can make this moment last forever. Just settle into the moment and enjoy it because it, too, will eventually pass. Nothing is permanent. Resisting that reality will only cause you pain.
Know that right now is enough. Because it’s true—tomorrow won’t be the same as today, no matter how much you try to control it. A relationship might end. You might have to find a new job. Asteroids might come hurtling towards the Earth. Deal with those moments when they arrive. All you need right now is gratitude for what is. It’s enough.
Check yourself. Learn what it looks like to grasp at people, things, or circumstances so you can redirect your thoughts. When you find yourself brooding over keeping, controlling, manipulating, or losing something, instead simply experience it. Define yourself in fluid terms. We are all constantly evolving and growing. Define yourself in terms that can withstand change. Defining yourself by possessions, roles, and relationships breeds discontent because if all you are is what you do or what you have then when you are not doing or having, you are nothing.

 

Letting Go of Dependency

Befriend yourself. It is extremely difficult to release people when necessary, if you depend on them for your sense of worth. You are worthy whether someone else validates you or not. By awakening to this fact, you begin to relate to people—not just how they make you feel about yourself.
Go solo sometimes. Cultivate your own interests, ones that nothing and no one can take away. Don’t let them hinge on anyone or anything other than your values and passion.


Hold gently. This one isn’t just about letting go—it’s also about maintaining healthy relationships. Contrary to current popular romantic mythology, you are no one’s other half. You are a complete and whole being just as you are, right now. By all means, hold loved ones close to your heart; just remember, if you squeeze too tightly, you’ll  both suffocate. Stop telling yourself lies.” I can’t let him go—I’ll be miserable without him. I’d die if I lost her—she’s all that I have.”  These thoughts strengthen beliefs that are not facts, even if they feel like it. The only way to be healthy and feel less pain is to know you’re strong enough to carry on if and when things change.
Everyone needs people, and there are seven billion on the planet. Stay open to connection.

 

Releasing the Past

The past cannot be changed. Even if you obsess about it endlessly. Even if you chastise yourself. Even if you refuse to accept it. It is over. The only way to relieve your pain about what happened is give up the hope that that past could have been any different. It couldn’t because it wasn’t. No one and nothing else can create peace in your head for you.
Choose love, not fear. When you cling to the past, it often has to do with fear; fear you messed up your chance at happiness or fear you’ll never know such happiness again. Reframe your thinking to focus on what is joyous about your life now and you’ll create happiness instead of worrying about it.  
Create Yourself. Instead of thinking of what you did or didn’t do, the type of person you were or weren’t, do something worthwhile now. Be someone worthwhile now. Reinvent your life the way you envision it. Make today so full and meaningful there’s no room to dwell on yesterday.
Tell a New Story. How we experience the world is largely a result of how we narrate it to ourselves. Instead of telling yourself dramatic stories about the past—how hurt you were or how hard it was—challenge your emotions and focus on the lessons you have learned. That is really all that is needed from your past.

 

 

 

Stop Trying to Force Outcomes

Let it be. This doesn’t mean stop actively working to create tomorrow. It simply means you

make peace with now, as is, without worrying that something is wrong with you or your life. Operate from living and loving right now, and improving the future. Show up for the work every day and the results will take care of themselves.
Question your attachment. If you’re attached to a specific outcome—the perfect job, the perfect relationship—you may be indulging the common illusion of “Some day when everything is perfect, then I can be happy”. No moment will ever be worthier of your joy than now because that’s all there ever is.
Embrace uncertainty. Life is uncertain, no matter how strong your intention. Obsessing about what may happen, wastes today. There will always be a tomorrow on the horizon. Life holds no guarantees about how it will play out. How well you live today places you in alignment for a better tomorrow.
Get on purpose. You needn’t have scads of money in the bank to live a meaningful life right now. Figure out what is important to you, and fill pockets of time indulging it. Audition. Volunteer. Redecorate. Whatever it is that you love, do it. Don’t wait—do it now.

 

Feelings Are Not Facts

Understand that loss is unavoidable. No matter how well you do anything and everything in life, you will lose things that matter and feel some level of pain. But it needn’t derail your entire peace of mind. Pain and loss only mean that you care deeply for something or someone. This too shall pass. As the saying goes, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
Talk it out. Engage your feelings. acknowledge them, express them, and then let them naturally transform. Even if you want to dwell in anger, sadness or frustration—especially if you feel like dwelling—save yourself the pain and commit to working through them.
Write it out. Then toss it out. You won’t always have the opportunity or even the desire to express your feelings to the people who inspired them. Don’t swallow them. Write in a journal. Write it out and set it aflame in a blaze of forgiveness. Anything that helps you release and free yourself.
Get Grateful. I know, I sound as if I’m stuck on repeat but this one thing alone transforms everything. It allows you to fully embrace your happy moments—love with abandon; be so passionate it’s contagious. If a darker moment follows, remember: it will teach you something, and it will pass. You will soon be in another happy moment in which to rejoice. Everything is cyclical.

 

 

 

Let Go

Allow peace. Most of us desire to feel happy and peaceful. Even if you feel as if you want to stay angry or upset, what your soul ultimately wants is to be at peace. It takes a conscious choice to process the emotion and allow it to transform or pass.

Get Your Zen On. Experience, appreciate, and let go to welcome another experience.
It isn’t always easy. Sometimes you will attach yourself physically and mentally to people and “stuff”—as if it gives you some sense of control or security. You may even strongly believe you’ll be happy if you struggle to hold onto what you have. That’s OK. It’s human nature.
Just know you have the power to choose from moment to moment how you experience things: with a sense of possession, anxiety, and fear, or with a sense of freedom, peace and love.

 
It’s a choice. What do you choose?

Insane Courage, Embarrassing Bravery

The question I ponder more than any other most days is this: 

What makes the difference in the quality of people’s lives? 

Is there a single factor that shapes and controls our happiness or our destiny? 

Most people think that our history decides our destiny, that the past equals the future.  Well….. It can—but only if you live there.  Any study of history shows that the difference in the success or failure of human beings comes down to one thing: an ability to harness the power of decision, often in spite of crazy, adverse conditions. 

“Success and failure are not overnight experiences. It’s the small decisions along the way that cause people to fail or succeed. It’s the power of decision that led Rosa Parks to remain in her seat and state, “No, I will not go to the back of the bus.” It took a forceful decision to compel an unarmed man to stand in front of a tank at Tienanmen Square. It was the strength of decision that led President John F. Kennedy to declare that an American would be first to walk on the moon by the end of the 1960s. “

–Anthony Robbins

Making a decision only takes an instant – but as the quote above states- it requires courage- Just 20 seconds of insane courage, of embarrassing bravery.  It’s the vacillating, over thinking, and worrying that take weeks, months, or years. Once you have made a real decision – it’s instantaneous.  Follow through is the only possible option.

Example: Anyone who knows me knows I used to smoke cigarettes.  A lot. Chimneys had nothing on me.  I also had quit smoking eighty-four thousand times, unsuccessfully. Why? Because I didn’t really want to quit.  I used nicotine as my panacea for stress, my weight loss/maintenance program, my social awkwardness eliminator.  All this, despite the fact that I watched everyone in my family drop dead of heart disease.  I knew better, of course, but my addiction was stronger than any reason I could come up with to quit. It wasn’t until I started to value myself more and started to hate the way I felt, physically, that I made the real decision to quit smoking. I screwed up every bit of courage I had, reminded myself of the compelling reasons I had to quit (my children and grandchild, my health and well being) and I quit cold turkey. I have not picked up one cigarette since then and have no desire to smoke. Not even a tiny bit. Why? Because I’d made a real decision to look past the lies I was telling myself about how smoking was managing my stress, my weight, etc.  I suffered some physical withdrawal symptoms for about a month and then it was over.  I am no more stressed than I was while I smoked. I have not gained an ounce; in fact I’m in far better shape than I ever was.  It was all self-deception. Once I shifted my focus on to gaining good health, instead of losing my ‘pacifier’, being smoke-free became second nature.  I felt extremely powerful and was able to build on that success to make more and more empowering decisions for my life.

Let’s be honest here:  decision is the ultimate power—and there are three core decisions each of us makes every moment of every day. These decisions have the capacity to empower, advance, frustrate or derail us, depending on what we choose:

Decision: What are you choosing to focus on?

Remember that what you place your attention upon is what expands in your life. Do you focus on things you’re excited about, your goals, projects or passions?  Do you focus on things you fear?  Do you “what if” yourself into fear paralysis? Wherever your focus goes, your energy flows.

Decision: What does this mean?

Is the situation you are currently experiencing the end or the beginning? Do you live in a world where you are being punished or rewarded? The minute you decide to focus on something, you give it a meaning. Your definition of any event produces emotion about that event and determines how you feel about it going forward.  But YOU choose what it means.  Your friend didn’t call you back could mean they hate you, could mean they’re busy.  Without talking to them, where does your head automatically go? We need to change the default settings of our thinking to the most positive possibility instead of the most negative.

Decision : What are you going to do about it?

Bottom line: are you going to give up or follow through? The meanings we assign to our life events influence the actions we take as a result. A real, deep-down decision is always preceded by that 20 seconds of insane courage, and is always followed by action, however small.  It’s our decisions, not our conditions that shape the ultimate quality of our lives. The decision you make, right now, can change the course of your life forever.

Be Brave.

Decide.

Act.

Succeed.

 I’ll be right here, cheering you on!

Let's Talk About Fear, Bay-bee.

Oh, Fear...
That old friend that has kept us alive since way back when the primeval versions of ourselves were running around, fending off mastodons. 

That old enemy that keeps us from doing the things that call to our deepest soul.

Fear is the ultimate "frenemy".

Let's be fair.
Fear isn't all bad. (see: mastodons, fending off of - )
It's programmed into our DNA to keep us from hurtling off cliffs or letting our daughters date drummers. A healthy measure of fear is part of our survival mechanism. When fear becomes problematic is when it paralyzes us from doing things we long to do, or things know we ought to do. Let's take a look at some of the most common forms fear takes in everyday life and what we can do to put it in it's place.

The psychological condition of fear is, in most cases in modern life, divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger (i.e. mastodons). It's more often fear of something that may never happen that stops us in our tracks. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, nervousness, anxiety, panic, tension, dread, phobia, and so on. This kind of psychological fear is always of something that might happen, not of something that is happening now. You are in the here and now, while your mind is in some imagined future. This creates an anxiety gap. And if you have identified with this imagined outcome, that anxiety gap will be your constant companion. You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection - you cannot cope with a future that does not exist yet. We humans are the only creatures on earth who do this. The human ego is very vulnerable and insecure and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the person is outwardly very confident. Now remember that an emotion is the body's reaction to your thoughts. This is important: Fear, like all emotions, is physical. It exists in the  body. What message is the body receiving continuously from the ego? Danger, I am under threat. And what is the emotion generated by this continuous message? Fear, of course.

So how does it manifest? Like this:

Staying in Situations That No Longer Serve Our Well-Being 
How often in our lives do we stay in a job that sucks the life out of us or a relationship that sucks the soul out of us? We've all done it, but why? Because the alternative that we've dreamed up is far worse, in our fearful minds, than the situation that is currently draining our life dry.
We couldn't possibly stand up and calmly leave the toxic relationship. That would make us a bad person. Our fear projects a future where we are alone, eating frozen lean cuisines for one and are utterly unlovable because we're such a loser.
We couldn't possibly leave our soul-sucker of a job. That would make us a quitter and irresponsible. Our fear projects a future where we are homeless, destitute and no doubt smelly and utterly unlovable because we're such a loser.

Let me ask you this?
Have you ever been fired from a job?
Have you ever been dumped?
Ever had those two things happen at the same time?
It seems like the end of the world.
But caving in to your fear wasn't an option. Your worst fear has come upon you and you can cope, you can recover, you can even thrive - because you must. It is here now and we CAN cope with real situations in the present moment. The Universe has just removed you from the situation you were too fearful to leave on your own. You're welcome.
 Cut to six months later: You're in a better job or have started your own business, you are more fulfilled and more abundant than you ever thought you could be.  The right people have arrived into your life right on time and you can't believe you were ever afraid. That catastrophe was the best thing that could have happened to you.

People-Pleasing 

I think everyone has had a time in their life when they've run around to all and sundry, pleading "Validate me! Please!"  We are social creatures by nature and the abject terror of our internal Judge Judy, of being judged and found wanting is the most universal fear there is. We don't want others to dislike us, to disapprove of us, to think less of us or to think we are a "bad person". So we scramble around trying to fulfill every one's needs but our own, which creates an expectation from others of our constant availability, which we then try to fill and have no idea how to stop the spiral for fear of being judged. The result? Burn out, depression and a lingering resentment for being taken for granted. The irony of this situation is that very few people respect a people-pleaser. Folks may appreciate what they do, but respect? Hardly.  It's hard to respect someone who has no boundaries. No boundaries denotes a lack of self-respect. And in case your mama didn't tell you - NO ONE will respect you if you don't respect yourself. You teach people how to treat you.

Paralysis
This is by far the most common manifestation of fear. Doing absolutely nothing. If I don't move, I can't make a wrong move, can I? That's safe. Right?
Wrong.
Here's a little truth cookie for you to munch on: If you are not consciously expanding your comfort zone, it contracts all by itself. This is undoubtedly the quickest route to hiding in your room, isolating yourself and greatly increases the chances of dying there, all alone and being eaten by your cats. All of creation is in motion. Standing still is not an option. Eventually you will have to do something.


So what's the antidote to fear?

Courage

 

If we learned nothing else from the Cowardly Lion's story in "The Wizard of Oz", we learned that courage is not the absence of fear. It is being absolutely terrified and doing what needs to be done anyway. It is facing the Wicked Witch, going through the Dark Forest even though "I do believe in spooks, I do, I do I do!" It is fainting in the face of the great and powerful Oz, and getting back up to receive our medal.
When we face our fears, we must remember: The flying monkeys have taken Dorothy. We're the only ones who can save her (and her little dog too!). The hourglass is on the table and now is the only time we have. What to do?



These 3 Things:

1. Take massive action. - As mentioned earlier, Fear, like all emotions, is physical. It exists in the  body. In order to move past fear, it is necessary to break the pattern of habitual thinking and acting that put us in fear to begin with. Do something, anything, to literally or symbolically take on fear in general.  Go ziplining, talk to a stranger, seek a support group, make it your business to educate yourself, learn to fire walk, dress up like a guard and sneak into the witch's castle, ANYTHING. Just take action. You needn't do it perfectly. Just do it.
2. Build on Successes - Every time you face something that scares you and don't die or anything, you've triumphed over fear. Keep the momentum going by taking another step and then another. If you fall, get back up. It's just a hiccup on your path and it will pass. Remember that what you put your attention upon is what expands in your life, so if you are consistently focusing on your successes, more successes will surely show up. Work on your weaknesses, by all means, but build upon your successes. Your gifts are unique and who will treasure them if you do not?
3. Embrace Fear as Energy - Think about it. Adrenaline is powerful stuff. The more intense your fear, the more energy it produces. You are a thinking being, you can choose what meaning to give that energy. Suppose you take that intense feeling and decide it will no longer be fear, it will be the power to produce change. What would happen then? It's your energy. You get to decide what it means. If your fear is screaming "I can't!", you can decide that this means "I MUST!".

You - 1
Fear - 0

You Win.