Questions with obvious answers
These aren’t worth asking, yet we do ask them or even ask nonverbally. Maybe cut to the chase, and head for that obvious answer?

• Should I hang out with this person who drains me?
  
  
• Should I spend the holiday with these people who yank me back to old stuff I don’t want to be in?
  
  
• Should I keep doing this thing that’s making me hate myself while I do it?
  
  
• Should I make small talk with and be polite to this person I don’t respect or enjoy?
  
  
• Should I smile for them when no genuine smile is arising for me?
  
  
• Should I stay in this interaction that’s becoming increasingly violent by the second (even with no physical violence involved)?
  
  
• Should I stay longer as I notice myself feeling more and more contracted [exhausted, withdrawn, frustrated, humiliated, powerless, overwhelmed, …]?

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• ​Should I keep following this topic (in conversation or mind) that’s making me feel self-righteous [angry, annoyed, defensive, some kind of bad]?

Questions based on a false binary
These typically start on a flawed premise that leaves out a whole lot of possibilities and therefore won’t get you to a useful answer [creative solution, new insight, unexpected next step, brilliant course-correction] anytime soon.

• Should I stay or should I go?
  
  
• Is this working for me or against me?
  
  
• Do I do this for money or for service?
  
  
• Do they get it or are they clueless?
  
  
• Do I love them or not?
  
  
• Should we follow this plan or start over?
  
  
• Is this a good or a bad idea?
  
  
• Should I keep my day job or just do what I love?
  
  
• Should I put myself out there or stay in my bubble?

​Questions that take you out of your business
Here, you’re asking from a place where you don’t belong, where you actually have no control or agency. You may notice you’re mentally and emotionally exhausting yourself or even being propelled to take fruitless [forced, uninspired, just wrong, …] actions to try to manage what isn’t yours to manage. These questions typically make you feel disempowered, discouraged, or any kind of yuck.

• Shouldn’t they be doing X or Y instead of wasting their life?
  
  
• Will their feelings be hurt if I say or do that?
  
  
• Am I doing something wrong? What’s wrong with me?
  
  
• How long is this going to last?
  
  
• How many times do I need to tell them …?
  
  
• Why is this happening?
  
  
• Has the whole world gone mad?
  
  
• What have you done for me lately?
  
  
• Why haven't they answered my text [email, voicemail, note I left under their windshield wiper]?
  
  
• Do [will] they approve?
  
  
• Is everything okay?

​If you do keep asking questions that don’t serve you, consider what could support a shift and perhaps bring relief, a sense of new possibility, or movement toward freedom and lightness. Skim through the following and linger with what feels relevant:

You may want to look at the beliefs underlying the question (beliefs about friendship, relationship, roles, ethics, …). You may believe something different in your current reality or phase of life that hasn’t fully come to light and that it would help to articulate. Or you think you’re operating out of your current belief system when in fact you’re still applying an old belief. (A good grown child does this or that for their parents, whatever the cost to self.)

This question may be the equivalent of pointlessly chasing your tail. Put it down and invite a new one, or brainstorm a whole list of questions to support you to think something through more clearly.

A question may be brought to you by some old emotional attachment to operating a certain way or playing a certain role that’s all tied up with being safe [being loved, being good, belonging, succeeding, …]. It could help to be in some process (e.g., inquiry, journaling, coaching, therapy) to locate that so you can disconnect what got wired together. (No, you actually would still be safe and possibly safer if you did move away from or have way more boundaries regarding that person or group.)

You may be asking yourself something you’ve already made a decision about, so it goes without asking. Unless it’s time to look again for real and possibly make a conscious new decision or renegotiation, you don’t need to go in again for more questioning. (You said you wouldn’t get in the passenger seat when that person is driving. So don’t.)

www.amazon.com/Scooch-Edging-Into-Friendly-Universe/dp/0997740108/ref=sr_1_1?
​Some questions are helpful, expansive, empowering, productive. They redirect you to what feels better. They lead to fruitful pondering (not ruminating) and make you feel alive, curious, open-minded, inspired, connected, capable, and more. If you like, find some excellent questions to ask yourself in this blog post:
1 good breath + 1 good question = rumination dissolved!

I like the question NOW WHAT? so much that the conclusion of my book, Scooch!: Edging into a Friendly Universe has that for a title. Bumped into a wall? Now what? Just interrupted an old thought pattern? Now what? This puts you in presence, and open to where you actually want to move toward, or just the one next step roughly in the right direction.

Love & blessings, Jaya

P.S. Who are you to ask yourself crushing questions? Here’s a blog post that invites you to something kinder. 

Try this on: I am one with the Universe and all the workings of the cosmos, which include what is expressed in a single atom in the microcosm that is my own body. Thus, as you move around thinking more in terms of living in alignment and flow, this could most certainly, at a given moment, look like a parking space opening up for you in that right-place-right-time (seeming) magic.

It could equally land you all the way across the parking lot—in which case you might play with the idea that there’s some gift for you in the journey. Could be a chance meeting with a person, animal, or vista. Or maybe the invitation and opportunity to drop speed and efficiency and simply get present to and value this moment of mundane reality: human being on planet Earth, walking across the expanse of a lot dotted with cars.

Applying this REPLACE-DON’T-JUST-RENAME concept ubiquitously
Where have you changed what you call something? Look at that thing and consider what else you’ve changed besides the name. Do you see and think and speak about it differently? Do you interact with it differently? Do you have a different experience of yourself, others, or life that goes with the new labeling? Is there anything you see to do to take this renaming further so you’re actually in a whole new framework and reality?

Examples of typical renaming to jog your thinking …

• Taking on or giving someone a new job title
• Switching out offensive names or terms for politically correct ones
• Changing your name or what form of your name you ask people to call you
• Changing your pronouns or those you use for others based on their request
• Calling something a more highbrow name (like saying films instead of movies)
• Calling something or someone a kinder or more generous name
• Changing out words you don’t want in your vocabulary for spiritual or personal growth and empowerment (like dropping should, or saying and instead of but)
• Changing what you call something old that happened to you (like acknowledging it was abuse, not just poor communication; or acknowledging it had an innocent component—made sense at the time to the person who you then felt was against you or negatively impacting your reality)

If any of those resonate or make you think of something operative for you, check it out. Is it just a name change? Or are you revising the concept on many levels and feeling the better for it?

Ah, the joy of getting ever more clear …

Love & blessings, Jaya

Here's a related writing: DROP REWARD & PUNISHMENT and set yourself free to live & love your life

​From a recent Abraham-Hicks daily message: “The Universe is not punishing you or blessing you. The Universe is responding to the vibrational attitude that you are emitting. The more joyful you are, the more Well-being flows to you.”

Some of you have heard that in my current life with my elderly mother, I’m seeing lots of (bits of) Hallmark movies. Which has led me to coin the term Hallmark-movie wisdom. Can you guess how wise I consider these constant nuggets dispensed by vanilla characters who never offend?

Some of the scripts feature references to THE UNIVERSE, and I’m always fascinated by how this Universe is presented. Most recently, our protagonist was in (pretty) tears because it seemed that she and her friends were DOING THE RIGHT THING and while her friends were getting REWARDED (which meant, they were getting something they wanted and having fun in the process), she was being PUNISHED (or, not apparently getting the outcome she wanted and having less & less fun as she focused on that).

The Universe DOES work this way: You will tend to have increasingly less fun as you focus on all that’s not going just as you want it to. (Nailed that one, scriptwriter.)

The Universe, I daresay, DOES NOT work this way: You get rewarded for your goodness or doing it right by getting just the outcome you want (and perhaps even the desired journey on the way to that desired outcome).

And if you don’t get that, you’re being punished.

Factor in the sad predicament of thinking you’re doing the right thing but not being rewarded, then it also feels grossly unfair that the hoped-for outcome was withheld, and now you’re a victim of this cruel Universe that failed to notice what a good little vanilla girl you are (or whatever your flavor & gender identification).

​To get out of punishment/reward mentality:

Notice that this mindset was instilled in you when you were quite young, and perhaps your child self is interpreting events and getting stuck in feeling bad about things when you’re there. Call in your adult self who gets that shit happens and there’s no reward or punishment about it.

Call in your spiritual self who maybe gets or is starting to get or has experimented with getting that when you carry on believing you’re supported by life, and keep aiming the direction you’d like to go, then you don’t need to get tripped up on evaluating all the ups and downs in the journey.

In fact, you can treat open and shut doors as equally helpful—both offering good information to have, and letting you go where you are and aren’t going.

And you can treat hard or challenging things as building muscles for you that are currently still weaker than you might like. (Remember: muscles are appealing and make you feel strong and capable and badass and maybe even sexy, so build those muscles instead of sinking into a puddle of punishment mentality that just makes you want to give up & cry.)

Your spiritual self probably also knows (and can be called on to remind you) that the more we look away from outcomes while we’re on the journey, the more we benefit from the journey (which includes having fun, feeling good feels, and having wondrous & worthwhile encounters & adventures along the way), and the more PRESENT  we are—so we don’t miss the journey or get lost in a constant referencing of the future and what it’s going to bring in terms of outcomes.

Your chronologically aging self, whatever number of years you can put to that, almost certainly knows that outcomes are surprising. And that sometimes, in retrospect, what seemed like a bad outcome was a bullet dodged, or something invaluable learned or gained, or someone precious brought into the story, or a fantastic story to tell, or … or … or …

So here are some possible components of a reframe:

You don’t even need rewards to be happy.
You don’t need to label outcomes as good or bad.
You don’t need to be bothered by the ups and downs along the way.
You don’t need to assign meaning to whether things are going along to your liking or not or landing just as you thought you wanted.
Do not define anything as punishment, then you’ll get increasingly free of needing to evaluate whether you’re good or prove that you are.

Do focus on loving your life.
Aim toward what you want. (Look away more from what you don’t want.)
Have as much fun as possible along the way.
Gain from anything that does or doesn’t happen.
Carry on and watch for how life keeps supporting you in a million wonderful & often wonderfully unexpected ways.
Watch for how much well-being flows your way.
Watch for how much well-being you generate by living & loving your life and not seeing any of it as reward or punishment.

Love & blessings, Jaya

​For the quick version, scan the 11 points and drop in with the one or ones that calls to you. This stuff has the potential to make your life feel way better.)

As I move along in my journey, I become an ever greater fan of whatever gets you (and me!) down the road most effortlessly. I’m all about rewriting the old scripts about how hard you have to work to get to where you want to go, how nothing worth having doesn’t entail blood, sweat, and tears to get there, blah-blah-blabetty-hard-work-blah.

So here, I offer you 11 CRAZY-EASY WAYS to make a quick shift right here & now as you go along your way. Super-simple things to keep you moving with the greatest ease (and kindness!). Tiny ways to adjust or course-correct that cost you little—beyond keeping them in view and simply reaching for them as a practice.

If this idea of microshifts is hard to keep in view (which will only mean you need practice to recalibrate to a more you-friendly way of being), why not print out the 11 tactics that follow?

1. Simply notice that what you’re doing (thinking, speaking) right now doesn’t feel good! Take note. LET IN that information instead of plowing through it. Breathe a moment as you notice. This feels bad. This is worth my noticing. (Note that you were taught to plow through, not value feeling bad as part of what’s meant to guide you toward what feels better.)
2. Interrupt what feels bad. (This can mean, stop talking, put it down, take a break, leave …) Abraham-Hicks says that you have to VALUE feeling good—value it enough to keep interrupting feeling bad. That just makes simple, solid sense to me. Does it to you? How much do you value feeling good? How much do you expect to feel good? How much do you intend to feel good? How often do you interrupt what feels bad? I invite you to increase that. (It would make a valid & worthwhile experiment!)
3. Reach for what feels better: something to ease, nourish, or hydrate the body; new thoughts or some activity that would soothe or elevate emotion; better-feeling thoughts.
4. Notice when you’re talking about what you DON’T want. Switch to talking about what you DO want. (That’s so simple—and maybe the most important & powerful thing on this list in terms of creating the life you want.)
5. Notice & interrupt your fixation on what isn’t to your liking. Even if you’re really really right about how things should be. Shift your focus to (write down in list form, list to yourself out loud or mentally, say to other sentient beings around you) what’s going right. What’s good or good enough. What’s working, what’s here to support you & get you through the moment. That shift in fixation (as an ongoing practice, and just RIGHT NOW) supports living in appreciation and fosters a greater sense of well-being.
6. Laugh more. Be amused by life and the characters in it. Shift annoyance at someone to enjoying how well they play this caricature of themselves. Say funny things. Find people to play with you in fun repartee. If you need to, watch or listen to things that make you laugh. Ask a child to tell you a joke (their mirth could make you laugh even if the joke’s not that funny!) Find the humorous spin on what’s happening now. (Who is it you want to have around when things get hard and absurd? Those complaining & pointing out all that’s wrong? Or those making light of it and finding fun in the delay, the rerouting, the absurdly piss-poor customer service?)
7. Let go of what you’re insisting on if insisting feels bad. This is where you may get sucked into the illusion that you’ll feel better if … someone else acknowledges something, gets it, offers validation, apologizes, tells you you’re right—all the things you may well deserve and just may not get. So … let go, just for now. It’s ultimately an illusion that you must have these things to feel good. That puts you at someone else’s mercy, or at the mercy of events & circumstances beyond your control. You control how you feel, so let go of the thing you want to hold on to & insist upon that’s making you feel bad. (THAT’S what’s making you feel bad, not the outer stuff people & life are & aren’t doing.) For now, just let it be okay to let go. If some greater thing is needed later for a relationship or system to function better, you can have the conversations or take the actions toward change—later. Right now, just let go. Trust it’s okay. For now, it’s really okay, it’s really better, to let go.
8. Notice harsh or unkind self-talk—including subtle, mental, even pre-verbal instances of that--and speak again. Immediately. If you ask yourself, for example, what the fuck is wrong with you, pause. Let that feel jarring, not normal. Maybe say, Whoa, what’s this? Then speak again: There’s nothing wrong with you, sweetheart. You’re fine. You’re doing great enough. What is it that this moment is asking for? You don’t need to evaluate what’s wrong with you. You just need to head toward what feels good [better, kind, aligned, ethical, loving, wise]. Always give yourself WAY MORE positive messages to counter the negative. Overwhelm the habitual old messages with a torrent of kinder, truer, more positive, soothing, empowering messages.
9. When something tugs at you, respond at once—even to just take a look if you don’t feel ready to act. What’s asking for your attention? What is your guidance system inviting you to move away from, step into, sit down with? What’s feeling bad now that felt good before (the show viewing, the game, even the cleaning or ordering or working)? Respond to those tugs because they’ll get you where you need to go. They’ll support you to notice & shift faster when things feel bad.
10. Right now, reach for your point of least resistance, especially when you’re stuck, stubbornly not budging, feeling contracted, calling yourself lazy, pushing against something (etc, etc). Just find an easy point of entry to just do one thing, to just begin it or move it forward a bit, the one next bit. What’s the easiest thing you can do toward the dreaded task? You can show up better if you shift in the moment out of contemplating (and resisting) the whole task and into considering just the one easiest next thing. Place your foot in the most reachable spot that points roughly in the right direction.
11. Feeling discouraged or bad about yourself or how you’re doing? Go back and look at how far you’ve come. Catalogue your accomplishments and refuse to dilute them by comparing them to those of others or by adding limiting qualifiers (e.g., For such a late bloomer, I did finally do this). Celebrate your small & any-sized triumphs more along the way. Gauge the evolution. You’re growing & evolving, so it’s unfair to yourself and to your ongoing growth trajectory to focus on what you haven’t done or aren’t seemingly nailing right this moment.

​Bring these things to the day-to-day—these and whatever comes to you in the now-moment you need something. What could help you respond in the moment with some small shift to make things feel better & easier? What you want is within reach!
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With this mentality of easy microadjustments in place, you can play with & master shifting quickly in any number of ways toward what feels & works better. What if you committed to making this journey you’re on feel better much more often (right now, and now, and now again)? Whatever is or isn’t happening, whatever you can or can’t do in the ideal here & now, you can keep yourself moving along in kinder, more relaxed, easier ways.

Love & blessings, Jaya

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​Want an even quicker read? Go through and just read the bold. That tells the whole story.


Pivoting is both a simple concept and a simple tool. It’s not even a process. It’s a quick mental adjustment you make and keep making to go from the unwanted to the wanted.

Use it while in motion or being still. Use it while working, walking, cooking--whenever you’re capable of having a thought and being aware of that thought. Use it while waking or dropping off to sleep. Anytime, just for a moment.

Yep, this is also from Abraham-Hicks.

Pivoting has 3 steps.
1) You notice something that’s not to your liking.
2) You consider what WANTED thing corresponds to this UNWANTED thing.
3) You shift your focus to the WANTED.

Examples:
1) You notice you’ve been getting sloppy with punctuality again.
2) You make a mental note that you prefer being a little early to be ready on time.
3) You feel great about that decision (instead of bad about the lapse) and you head out (or to the computer) early for the next appointment.

1) You notice you’re having an irritation response.
2) You pivot toward soothing what bothers you and toward accepting what is, as it is, here and now.
3) Right now, you breathe, relax the muscles that tensed up, tell yourself it’s really okay.

1) You notice you’ve been doing too much and things feel glutted.
2) You pivot toward doing less, finding pauses, making spaces.
3) You tell the story of increasing spaciousness and do every little thing you see to promote that—tidy up this corner of the cabinet, say no just to something between you & you (that shopping trip can actually wait, and today I stay home); say no to an invitation even if it has appeal—because it’s more appealing to do less right now.

Notice from the above examples that what brings the UNWANTED into focus, and thus the call to PIVOT, is simply that SOMETHING FEELS BAD.

When you become quickly responsive to the signals that something feels bad (these signals come from your own system—body, heart, head), then you pause with what you’re noticing and … PIVOT.

What’s so radical—or more to the point, HELPFUL--about this?

I recently heard this gem (during an Abraham Now program): “You can’t get around how you feel when you’re amplifying how you feel with sentences.”

Ever notice you put A LOT of language—even just words in thought, not necessarily spoken—to what you feel? Noticing you’re exhausted, you declare exhausted. You review what’s been exhausting in your life. You give lots of weight to what you can’t control that exhausts you (so now you’re a victim of and stuck in exhausting circumstances). You put much focus on how bad it feels in your body. In short, you tell the story of EXHAUSTED.

So when you have this PIVOT concept in view, noticing exhaustion, you pivot. You tell the story of rest and rejuvenation instead.

And then it’s not so hard to get around how you feel. Your (chosen) focus is now on rest and rejuvenation, you choose your inner and outer narratives accordingly, and you also make choices accordingly.
​

​And that’s how you apply it as you go. So let’s go over those 3 ways to apply the pivot one more time:
1) You focus on whatever you’re pivoting toward (e.g., rest & rejuvenation).
2) You choose your inner and outer narratives accordingly.
3) You make ongoing choices to keep heading that way.

As always, it helps to BRING IT TO NOW. Just right now, I can let go of something and go to bed earlier. Now, I can slow down a bit and do an easier version of the task. Right now, I can pause for 15 minutes and meditate or lie down and rest.

You could make pivoting a way of life!

You could swiftly learn to shift …

• from forcing to allowing
• from defending to aligning with the truth of who you are
• from what scares you & makes you anxious to what you’re excited about
• from feeling annoyed with someone to getting okay with letting them be on their journey and do what they do
• from being bored to just being satisfied with what is and gently watching for what else is possible
• from … to …

Have you ever had some of the most satisfying change come from some simply concept you simply applied? I invite you to try that out with PIVOTING.

Love & blessings, Jaya