don’t say it’s not working, don’t give up on yourself Sometimes someone tells me they were having a hard time with something, and nothing they did worked. Or they speak more generally about stuff they try and … it doesn’t work. And if you were ever the one to say that to me or if you’ve witnessed me talking to someone in a group who said that, you know this is when I hit the pause button. So I’m going to tell on myself here and then lay out what we really mean when we say it’s not working and then offer something bolstering and supportive and kind. Here goes. I bumped into something rough in the past week in the form of someone I love and respect speaking to me in a way that I don’t typically receive from anyone these days. And it THREW ME OFF. The ego-mind would not shut up about it. (I love not to identify with the mind. The thoughts were thinking me, as Byron Katie says.) The whole thing took much longer for me to move along than usual. I want to tell you about this and invite you not to give up on yourself, and to keep reaching for the right tool in the moment, and to keep tossing out any thoughts that you should be beyond this, and just do your work and soothe yourself and take care of yourself until you’re back in alignment. Because you will come back to alignment. Nothing in the Universe cares a bit how long it takes or how many processes. Your job is to not give up on yourself. Keep interrupting the preposterous (defensive, counter-attacking, victimized, offended, self-righteous, other-correcting) thoughts. Reach for the right tool in the moment and keep reaching. And do not say It’s not working. Here’s what I did right, which I tell you in the spirit of inviting you to stop putting the focus on what you’re doing wrong or even worrying about whether you might be doing it wrong or exhausting yourself with the belief you need to figure it all out.
I did NOT believe that these things weren’t working. I definitely noticed that this wasn’t moving along as fast as usual. I reminded myself that this meant an old wound had been reactivated and that this was a chance to heal it. And I believed it, even though that didn’t stop the mind or make me feel better. (The kind mind really can bring the heart along, even if the heart isn’t there yet right now. So I plugged away, calling in the kind mind.)
If you believe It’s not working, that usually means things like this:
So this is what I want to tell you. You’re fine. You’re doing fine. You’re enough. You’re doing enough. The revelation wants to come. This is only happening for your healing and evolution. It’s really okay. It’s okay if this takes awhile. The timeline isn’t your business. What is your business?
You’re either going with your negative (stressful, painful) thoughts or you’re interrupting them and reaching for something else (see my first bullet list above). You’re either going further down the rabbit hole or you’re heading out. Got something big, bad, deep, and ugly going on? No problem. You’re equipped. Keep scooching. Don’t give up on yourself. DO NOT SAY IT’S NOT WORKING. Or hear yourself and say something else. Like:
Love & blessings, Jaya PS #1. Remember my 11 Rules for When You’re Discouraged and Distressed? There’s a printable pdf on that page now. PS #2. New and repeat people come to drop-in group-coaching night all the time. You too are so welcome to join us on- or off-camera, to speak or stay silent, to come take care of yourself by receiving teachings & moving through processes that apply to all, whatever the presenting story or question. I always invite you to follow your inner guidance system to take what you like & leave the rest. PS #3. Slowing down the mailings in 2024. Going for every other week-ish. Drop-in group coaching happens every Monday night unless specified as paused (as for Feb 5). In other words, group coaching happens whether it’s a mailing Monday or not.
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… and be kind (and ACTUALLY helpful) to your entire self Warning. This is an invitation to self-love. I promise not to get weird about it. I’ll make it actionable and invite you to keep it up. Now & now & now. Sometimes someone I’m working with tells me they don’t know how to get through some specific moment and actually apply the things we talk about. I then typically give them a few simple reminders. I invite them to simplify things. Just remembering a few simple things, you can learn to walk yourself through KINDLY. As in, ACTUALLY, be your own best ally and make yourself feel better instead of worse. That’s a great start right there. To simply value feeling good so much that you’re committed to catching yourself feeling bad, interrupting it, and quickly pivoting to walk yourself toward feeling better. That’s already HUGE. I love to remind folks to BRING IT TO NOW. The now part is crucial. Don’t try to figure out how to fix everything or fix something in some done-with-it-once-and-for-all forever sort of way. That dip into everything and forevermore is overwhelming and feels bad. (It also puts you in the Universe’s business, which you’re not qualified to manage.) Don’t do a quick, warped scan backward over the past. You might mistakenly grab the lens that makes it look like you’ve never gotten it right and it’s not getting any better. (And, yup, you’ll be in the Universe’s business again.) Just RIGHT NOW. What would feel kinder, truer, better now? Do that. And keep doing that. Now and now and now and now. Do not ALLOW yourself to sink down into the worst of what you’re able to believe about yourself. If you stop walking yourself kindly toward what feels better, that probably means you’re using a bunch of NOW moments to accept being mean to yourself. And just to accept feeling bad (which is not that nice). I’d like you to HABITUATE to walking yourself through as if you were aware of your younger selves that need and deserve to be gently guided along. That, my friend, is self-love in action. At some point in my growth journey, when I was having some obvious successes and actually feeling better a lot of the time, and I was ALSO feeling bad or impatient about what I wanted to manage better or have success with faster, I started thinking in terms of NOW much more.
Right now, am how am I walking myself through? Right now, how am I talking to myself about what's happening? Right now, am I making myself feel worse or better? 3 directions to focus how you walk yourself through Here’s a great clue about what to do for yourself, your entire self, in any NOW moment you realize things aren’t feeling good. Know and remind yourself that you’re a 3-centered being. That is, you have
They all three need tending kindly. And they all three have wisdom and guidance for you (that comes in NOW, in the actual moment you need it). And if you’re stuck in one center, either tend it, or GET OUT. Reach for one or both of the others. Body tending Ask yourself, Right now, am I even in my body? Am I taking in that my body is tense, contracted, agitated, overrun with adrenaline [whatever it may be]? Am I moving nervously or frenetically, or am I going frozen or stagnant and need to rev things up? Your body wants you to tend that, soothe it, calm your nervous system. There’s also simple stuff like HYDRATE. EAT GOOD FOOD. Back to body basics: ground; connect to the felt sense of the breath (and stay with that a while, even as you go about your business); connect to the five senses (or however many you’ve got). Do something that feels good physically: Move, dance, exercise, stretch, do yoga or qigong, walk. Take a bath, take a nap, take yourself to a natural setting where your senses will be filled with life-giving, soul-soothing stuff. Take an action: The realm of the body is also the realm of action. Is there one thing I could do right now that would feel good to do? That would make me feel good about tending any corner of my world? That would move something forward and potentially start some momentum toward what I actually want to be, do, have? Find your point of least resistance and do one thing. Heart tending Right now, as I notice I feel bad emotionally (frustrated, angry, sad, discouraged, scared, disappointed), am I making room for it and soothing it, or am I judging it or evaluating how I’m doing or telling myself what I should be feeling itself? Heart tending isn’t about thoughts, so stop analyzing or evaluating or explaining your emotions. Maybe stop talking (to yourself or others) about them. FEEL THEM. If you must bring the head in, then notice whether you keep going from one thought to the next to keep matching and probably revving up what feels bad. And could you instead tell yourself kind things that are likely to make you feel better? The heart wants you to ground yourself (see body tending above), feel the feeling in the body, breathe it (make room for it with the breath), allow it. Just let it be, let it have its life, and give it 2 things:
How simple is that? That’s it folks. Your heart space, when in pain or discomfort of any kind, wants those two things. Review them: awareness & breath, awareness & breath, awareness & breath. Head tending Right now, am I believing and carrying on with thoughts that feel bad or interrupting them? As you notice that thoughts are making you feel bad, consider some version of this: maybe they don’t match what your Inner Being knows to be true; or they don’t match the way Source gazes upon you; or they represent an assessment that isn’t useful and isn’t coming from the part of you that’s seeking to believe in yourself and step consciously toward your full potential, or the best you’ve got right now, or the truth of who you are. You can simply reach for better-feeling thoughts. Just tell yourself or write down one thing after another that makes you feel better instead of worse. Go general at first (I don’t have to figure this out right now, I’m okay and my needs are met, I’ve gotten through worse before and other human beings have too). And go from there. You can do a focus wheel. (I just did one this morning when I noticed I felt bad about something and wanted to clear that up before I moved anything else forward!) You can do some inquiry (including a short-cut version of processing unhelpful thoughts). You can check out whose business you’re in and then look for what your actual business is here (where you have agency and what’s yours to manage). (Hint, it’s always your business to soothe yourself and to shift your state if you don’t like the state you’re in—or, to keep it simple, if you don’t like how you feel.) Bring it to now, and walk yourself (all the parts of you, body, heart, and head) toward what feels better right now. My intention for myself and my ongoing practice are to keep going deeper with this, keep getting more subtle. I invite you to it. You are worth your own kind, gentle, patient walking-yourself-through. You are worth feeling good much more of the time. You are worth interrupting quickly what doesn’t feel good and responding kindly to what feels bad. Take care of yourself, body, heart, and head. Walk yourself through, lovingly. Then you can truly feel good much more of the time. Love & blessings, Jaya P.S. New and repeat people come to group-coaching night all the time. You too are so welcome to join us on- or off-camera, to speak or stay silent, to come take care of yourself by receiving teachings & moving through processes that apply to all, whatever the presenting story or question. I always invite you to follow your inner guidance system to take what you like & leave the rest. from Holiday time to New Year Hi good folks, I’m currently doing less work than usual (yes, part of my own reset) so I offer you two things I created in December of 2016! These will serve you well through the rest of the Holidays and into a conscious New Year. 6 tips for CONSCIOUS EATING
The full post with conscious-eating points has only a bit more than the above. Find it here. 11 ways to HIT THE RESET BUTTON during the Holidays
Invitation not to let bad sensations accrue, not to allow untended thoughts to take you down the rabbit hole! Prioritize feeling good: this will connect you to your guidance system and let in the inspiration of the moment to keep moving toward love. 1. Take a breath. Take several conscious breaths. Watch the breath go in and out. Get absorbed by the breath. 2. Go outside and breathe there. Look into the sky. Experience what's out there with all the senses you can engage. 3. Exercise. Stretch. Run up & down the stairs. Go around the block. Do anything to move your body and focus your attention off the mind and onto your marvelous capacity to feel, move, inhabit a human body. Find someone on YouTube to guide you through some qigong or yoga or whatever. (Here's my favorite simple qigong sequence with Mimi Kuo-Deemer.) 4. Stay away from work, even mentally. Leave it alone and see what seeds sprout later. You've already given it great attention. Celebrate that. Let it go. 5. Feasting for the holidays? Chew more, taste more, give yourself full permission to eat whatever you choose to eat. Take long breaks between times of food intake—not to be righteous, but to enjoy the contrast and to be hungry again when you eat more. (Hydrate between meals!) 6. Do the unexpected, have an adventure, go somewhere you've never been, do something appealing that scares you or goes against how you see yourself. 7. Meditate, even for 5 minutes. You could even exit (physically or mentally) during a conversation you don't want to take part in and just watch your breath go all the way in, watch it go all the way out. Until you decide you’re done, keep coming back to the breath when you stray from that focus. 8. Call someone you almost never talk to, or haven't talked to in a while, or even the one you've believed is too far from the last contact to justify any lasting connection: you connect if you're drawn to. (Follow the inspired impulse, not the thoughts about it.) 9. Feeling challenged? Tell yourself or another or write down all the reasons why this hard thing you're going through is perfect, the best training ground for what you know you need to develop in yourself. This is a moment to keep applying your own belief system and to take further whatever you've been experimenting with to live more consciously and be healthier and truer to yourself. 10. Unplug for a day (or days) from any computer activity, phone apps, social media. Include news in the exclusion. Walk away from political conversations if that feels better. 11. Sleep. Nap (30 minutes or less to stay out of deep sleep, 90 minutes for a whole sleep cycle). For naps and nighttime rest, be sure you go to sleep with a consciousness of RESET, of all things new/all things possible when you wake up. (The writeup of 11 resets above comprises the whole post, and here’s the link to see it on my website if you like.) Love & blessings, Jaya P.S. New and repeat people come to group-coaching night all the time. You too are so welcome to join us on- or off-camera, to speak or stay silent, to come take care of yourself by receiving teachings & moving through processes that apply to all, whatever the presenting story or question. I always invite you to follow your inner guidance system to take what you like & leave the rest. This post is a redo of a writing from 2017 that never made its way to this blog. I was inspired to bring it back because I needed an alignment meditation, then a client needed one, then ... THEY'RE BACK. Alignment meditations reset us when we lose alignment with someone we love or something we believe. Out of the blue, I'm into Alignment Meditations. They take less than 5 minutes—because it's not that hard to align. In fact, alignment is all about ease—the antithesis of straining, striving, forcing, contorting--so it can only be easy to get into alignment. Sound too easy? The caveat is: you have to let go. Let go of all you want to control that isn't actually in your realm of control. The meditation eases you into the water, then your job is to give yourself to the flow, let it take you downstream. If you're in resistance, you'll paddle against the current shouting, No, that way, that way, my way! (You'll make an awful internal ruckus—your inner seagullwill be shrieking Mine! Mine! Mine!) (My first Finding Nemo reference ever.) You know when you're out of aligment. If you're out of whack with a person, everything between you gets needlessly complicated. Out of whack with a place—just feels wrong to be there. Out of whack with a role you play--you feel miscast, even fraudulent. You can be out of alignment with your own body, ay, and that's hard to reconcile—like the discord originates with you while it's also externally imposed. In any case, you know you're out when you're out. The misalignment may not be your doing, so doing isn't likely to make it right. (Kind of radical, really.) You can't require another person to show up the way you want them to (to see you the way you want them to, to treat you ...). You cannot force your way into some society or require it (with its many faces) to look upon you with unconditional welcome. You can't bend time or sway the timing of other minds or machines or the healing mechanisms of the body. You can't require what hasn't yet arrived to come forth NOW. So how do you align with a lot of moving parts that you (rightfully, appropriately, even mercifully) cannot control? You stop trying to control anything external AND you align internally (thoughts, feelings, the vision you keep in view) with what you want. This is why a meditation is a great way to quit pounding on the door that won't yield to you: meditations aren't about DOING. Meditation allows you to slip into where you want to be--but you slip in the back way, with slow, steady breathing to support you. Alignment requires nonresistance. Start there. Nonresistance is simply letting it all be exactly as it is, like it or not. (But only for now—it can and will all change!) Alignment goes well with surrender—the good kind. Let go. Let go of outcome. Let go of what the other person does or doesn't do, what others think, what they think of you. Let go of the future; definitely let go of predicting the future. Let go of how you thought it should go, what you thought you should feel, what level of evolution you thought you should have attained here. Whatever's happening is fine—really. The meditation: alignment first happens internally, energetically, as a powerful precursor to external change. Here comes the white-ligh part. Stay with me? To meditate into alignment, sit in a column of light, aligned with that light. Watch your breathing as you sit there. Now imagine that the situation (person, group) you seek to align with is equally aligned with this column. This light represents and holds the alignment. It's a beam of light—the most effortless, uncrowded thing you might imagine. Now find where you're already aligned. Find your essential oneness with the other or the situation. Don't think it, but feel into it. Find the essential love that unites you. Open to shared philosophies, mission, history. (Invite the mind to play movies of such things.) Focus on the passion for a topic, ethic, or aesthetic that all those involved connect to, even where details of your visions don't match. You may see lots of overlap and feel instant relief—and instant movement toward alignment. You may need to drop down to the lowest common denominator: we're both/all children of the universe, inherently worthy. Or get scientific, if you will: we're made of the same stuff, exchanging the same oxygen and carbon dioxide. Anything that's real to you works. My simple meditation invites you to cast a beam of alignment and sit in it. Feel and breathe into what connects you with the thing, situation, concept, person, or group you're out of alignment with, and let go of where you're stymied by differences, disconnections, disillusionment. Sit in the truth of essential oneness. We're never separate, even when we feel separation. Oneness or unity is truly the way of it, so sit in that, the essential truth of that—never mind where anything in real life makes it hard to feel. Find the easy way to feel it in this meditation. Alignment may require ongoing tweaks and adjustments. The tightrope walker steadies themself with the pole, weaving in and out of balance. Still, they walk the line, however tricky or dangerous it looks. Don't expect yourself to meditate into alignment then hold the alignment. Sit imagining and feeling into alignment for the love of alignment, not to indulge some magical thinking that you get to have your way if you use a spiritual tactic to have it. Align without expecting anything else to happen on the physical plane, in actuality. (This doesn't mean it can't or won't.) Align mentally just to have a private experience of alignment, whether you get it publicly or not, whether you get to share it with another or not. With a touchstone of internal alignment now available, you can keep coming back to alignment as you take action and as events unfold without your orchestration. Keep coming back to alignment, just because alignment feels better. While this doesn't guarantee any certain outcome, it does make feeling better super likely; it makes course-correcting toward alignment much easier; it makes the actions and tasks you step into from that alignment much more effortless. It opens you to guidance for unexpected solutions, inspired actions. If you experiment with this at all, you simply cannot simultaneously white-knuckle it the whole way. Just play with it as you might try a yoga pose, testing the wobbly line between pushing and releasing. Endless applications. I've sat with a teacher, realigning her with the students she's not certain she's serving; a post-grad student, aligning her with a professor she thinks is disappointed in her; an artist, aligning him with the unknown galleries that want to represent him. You can align with the employer who will hire you, the lover you haven't met, the baby on the way. You can align with the maddening political scene, the uncertain marketing thrust, the slippery social event. I do this often for myself, always briefly, always lighter and easier in the aftermath. It's a great thing to do at bedtime: fall asleep from a place of alignment. You just might wake up feeling aligned. Try your own meditation. There's really no formula. Even the column of white light is dispensable if it bothers you. Just sit with your breath, intending alignment with a task, concept, person, group. Sit breathing into the possibility of alignment; open to where it already exists. Let go of striving and experiment with believing that the way is clearer, simpler, more accessible than you currently believe. It's easy to align. Love & blessings, Jaya AND IN ALL OF LIFE AND WHY ALL YOU NEED TO MIND IS HOW YOU FEEL In the sky & sea pics that follow, check out the variety of colors. So many. Fewer than in real life (!), but still plenty captured by my phone camera. It started with noticing one rainbow. We were walking along the shoreline, my long-haired son & I, in that marvelous pre-sunset hour. The winds were whipping up waves and hair, the usual dogs recognized us and bounded over for cuddles & scratches, and LOOK (he said)—a rainbow! In the weirdly busy hour that followed, we saw more rainbows and bits of rainbows in clouds and sky. We actually weren’t doing much. We just walked the strip of sand that got us to the lounge chairs we could rent for the price of one fizzy drink full of lime wedges, floaty mint leaves, and small ice cubes. Then everything got still for the next 40 minutes. Except nothing was still. The winds kept whipping, the rainbows & dogs came and went, and the colors in the sky never quit changing. We got up once to take a picture when the array of colors was beyond insane, and by the time we found our desired places and the camera was ready (not even a full minute), our background wasn’t the same. Everything changes. Always. Constantly. Always. Constantly. That’s why it’s a waste of precious time to fixate on what’s not to your liking in the present moment. That’s why it serves nothing to say you’re stuck. You really can’t be. (It’s okay if you feel stuck and notice you feel stuck. It’s great if you hear yourself think or say that you’re stuck. Just use that to come to and remember again--no wait! I really can’t be.) Abraham-Hicks tells us again and again, Don’t fixate on current conditions. They’re not reality. (Not a fixed reality. Not the whole reality.) They’re not going to be here in one more moment. Fixate on how you want to feel, and you’re good. Then you’re completely in charge (AGENCY!) and at nothing and no one’s mercy. Let conditions come & go. Some will be to your liking, some not. Some you will think are really wrong. Some will be fucking amazing. Keep the focus on how you feel. Check in with it. Notice it. And reach for what feels better if anything doesn’t feel good at all (subtly or hugely or in any way). What thought would feel better right now? What connection to body & breath would feel better right now? What can you do to soothe your feeling state right now and simply make yourself feel better?
Are you fixating on what feels bad? Sinking into it? Dissecting it? Discussing it? Revving it up? That’s an option. (And you’re not a bad person if you’re there! Just a person.) What else is possible, though? You could take charge of the one thing you can control as conditions keep changing. Mind how you feel. Reach for what feels better right now. Love & blessings, Jaya P.S. Monday-night group-coaching drop-in sessions are on a different schedule in December. We did not meet last week, but we’ll meet this week and next (Dec 11 & 18). I’m also doing a special Dec 27 Wednesday-night group (still 7:30-8:30 ET). New and repeat people come to these Monday events all the time, so it could be you! You too are so welcome to join us on- or off-camera. |
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