And get onto how you want to feel (Photo of person with tattooed arms gripping head from Blake Cheek on Unsplash)
I can already hear someone out there mumbling about denial or spiritual bypassing. Please just come with me on this ride. Afterward, I’ll drop you back off where we started, and if you want to carry on with what you were doing before … you get to do that. Note that this writing includes a 3-min audio I made to support you in how to think and speak about how you want to feel. What do we typically do with a topic that’s problematic to us? The topic where we’re not where we want to be and we really REALLY want it to change? WE STAY ON IT. We’re taught that’s a good thing. It’s the right thing. It’s how we’ll be sure to change it. 3 examples of our problem topics and how we stay on it follow. Finances: we keep looking at the bank account, reviewing spendings, fretting over how else to make money; we keep an eye on news of the economy. Relationship: we keep going over what we’ve done wrong, compare ourselves to what others are doing around us, get caught up in the sorry way the song or movie makes us feel, stalk an ex or a new interest on social media. Job: we think about how underused our skills & talents are, worry about the dynamics with boss or colleagues that make things problematic, stay on top of job notices and what’s happening in our field. My favorite current phrase is No no no no no no no no no. Side trip: Check out this quick clip from the film Get Out and just stop when she’s all done saying no. (In this part, we found the nice black woman creepy before we learned that the creep effect came from—SPOILER ALERT—her body being occupied by an old white woman.) (If you watch a couple of seconds beyond the no, you get the priceless way our protagonist is looking at her.) So here’s what I invite you to instead of staying on it. GET OFF THE TOPIC. Look away. Do not give it your time and energy. Don’t speak about it. Interrupt your own thoughts about it—obviously (but let’s be explicit) especially when thinking about it feels bad and starts taking you to nefarious places (like finding yourself wrong or not enough, predicting horrible futures for yourself, comparing yourself to others or imagining what they think about you, etc). By staying on it, you think you’re minding what needs minding, but you’re really reinforcing what’s wrong. As Abraham-Hicks loves to point out, you’re focusing on what’s missing, what’s lacking, what’s not here yet—when you think you’re focusing on what you want. Quick reminder of the most basic basic basic Law of Attraction (LOA) teaching: What you focus on expands. Or, what you rehearse and review, you get more of. And what you’re focused on is the problem. Even holding something like it’s a problem and constantly looking for solutions is focusing on the problem. So what expands—or WHAT YOU GET MORE OF—is the problem. I have this problem. This is a problem. I can’t figure out this problem. Or worse: I’m doing everything right and there’s still this problem. Then it just all feels like a mind-fuck and you start to feel life is against you. Or you turn that problem-focused gaze to every realm of life and start finding it all wrong, and you were just kidding yourself about all you thought was improving, and ... Let’s quit that. Okay, so let’s say you want to run an experiment here (I highly recommend thinking in terms of experiments) and actually practice getting off the topic. What would you focus ON if you go OFF that? FOCUS ON HOW YOU FEEL AND HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL. How you feel tells you where you are with the topic now. Notice you don’t need to analyze thought to just know that, right now, how you feel with this whole topic is
How you want to feel is easy to identify. What would you feel like if the topic were not a problem and did not require cracking a code or tensing up to give it your full focus to make sure you tame this beast??? I began with negative phrasing, there, so now let’s flip it and get more to the point. How would you feel, related to this topic in your life,
I’ve made a 3-min audio to demonstrate how you might think about it. I made this during a session with a client using the topic of not liking the body you’re in because you think it’s too heavy. If you get off the topic and stop focusing on what’s wrong with it, and how to change its size, and what those imagined or perceived others think of it, then this audio gives you words for how to frame things instead, focused on your feeling state. (Hey, start at the 55-second mark if you JUST want the things you could say to yourself to grope toward how you want to feel. There’s some preliminary stuff that repeats some of the above.) Let’s take a moment to look at WHAT TERRIFIES PEOPLE ABOUT THIS TACTIC. In short, the fear is that then YOU’LL BE STUCK WITH THE PROBLEM. If you make yourself feel good now—or feel how you’d feel if all this realm of life were just as you’d like it--then you’ll just stay put right where you are. Okay, well, if that happens, at least you’ll be a fool who feels much better. HOWEVER, what’s more likely to happen is that your life will gradually (and sometimes very quickly) start to match how you feel. Your behaviors will match what you want more of. It will be easier to head toward what you want more of because you’ll feel better and more hopeful. That’s how LOA actually works. I invite you to play with it. In summary: Lighten up, quit thinking there’s a problem, look away from what’s wrong, and let the work and play be about feeling how you want to feel. Bonus: how you feel NOW alerts you to whether you’re focused in the right place or not. If not, please head back toward how you want to feel. Say things to yourself like I said in the audio. Get off the topic of what’s wrong. Has this concern popped in yet? YEAH, BUT YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO SOME THINGS IN THE PRACTICAL, MATERIAL WORLD RELATED TO THIS TOPIC. Cool. Of course. That’s reality. I’m not saying don’t do stuff. Just do it when you feel good. Do it when you feel how you want to feel. And DO NOT TRY TO WORK ON THINGS AND MOVE THEM FORWARD WHEN YOU’RE BACK IN THE OLD PROBLEM MENTALITY AND THE FEELING STATE THAT GOES WITH THAT. And if you started working on things while feeling good and you even START to feel bad again (at the first whiff of feeling bad), get off the topic again. Got it? Now we’ve come full circle. If you’re still worried about denial or spiritual bypassing or losing track of the problem and being stuck with it—now’s your chance to just say Jaya’s full of shit and I just want to do what I’ve been doing. If you get what I’m offering here and you’d like to get it better, a great old LOA-oriented blog post to review is Are you a match to the problem or the solution? Love & blessings, Jaya
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 Solstice is all about expansion! In the Northern hemisphere, Winter Solstice is the darkest day of the year, when we begin the expansion into longer days and greater light. Summer Solstice is the culmination of that expansion, and while it does mean that the decrescendo has begun, we also find ourselves in the time of greatest expansion, long days, lots of light, and everything around us is in growth. I like to use Solstice to gauge growth and intend further personal expansion.
If you want to walk yourself through the expansion, minding your personal evolution in both the kindest and most effective way, you might want to respond well to catching yourself in an old pattern. Hey, if you get out the whip when you catch yourself, why would you even want to be self-aware? Learning to witness yourself (thoughts, words, behavior, feelings) with kind compassion and getting curious about what else is possible here and now will take you a lot farther a lot more quickly than sinking into shame and horror. A pattern is something that repeats: no surprise when it does. (No surprise and no problem! Quit acting surprised or being dismayed or incensed. OF COURSE it’s back. Pattern!) It’s okay if it repeats after you’ve done a bunch of work on it, or (wow--proof of work done) thought it was gone entirely. You might begin bysupporting yourself in the following simple ways:
What follows is an extended example of how you might talk to yourself. I recommend doing this ALOUD because in your head you’re more likely to slip into old habits of self-recrimination (it’s a veritable morass up there).Let’s say you just got abysmally unaware of how time works (a way you used to chronically live) and your timing is sufficiently off that someone will be inconvenienced. Try something like this while you’re driving: Sweetheart [or substitute your favorite term of endearment for self or, if you don’t have one, play with something that doesn’t sicken you], here it is again. It’s okay. This is something human beings do, and you’re a human being. Welcome to the human race, love. You’re actually so much better at this time thing now. It’s really okay that you can stray into warped perceptions again. Isn’t it great to notice you like the more functional way better? [Switching to I] I’m getting okay with this misdemeanor. I’m heading that way. There are worse wagons to fall off of. I know I can get back on better if I’m not too hard on myself. I’m willing to be kind to myself. I’m willing to meet what’s happening right now. I’m willing to meet it without believing it shouldn’t be happening. I’m going to breathe into this tight place in my belly that says I’ve done it wrong. [Pause for 3 breaths that target the belly gently, just making space, forcing nothing.] I’m going to get there as quick as I can and I’ll drive safely the whole way, because getting flustered and reckless is just part of the old pattern that actually, I’m more done with than not. And maybe it's a life's journey, and I'm willing to take it. I also truly believe that everyone’s safety—mine included—mine included—mine included—is more important than my getting there any earlier than it makes sense at this point. This is reality. I’m late. And I’ll get there. I’ll apologize. I’ll say I’m sorry once, and I won’t grovel. I won’t make an excuse, either. I’ll let L know I value her time. I’ll value myself by getting calm on my way there so I can be at my best currently possible with her instead of being a discombobulated hot mess. And if I’m not a vision of beatific calm by the time I connect with her, I’ll get okay with that too. I don’t have to be at my best to be worthy or worth someone’s while. I’ll keep calming myself when I’m with her by watching my breath even as I listen and talk. I’ll come back to the core of myself. I’m doing that now. [Insert another breathing pause and check in with how that same spot in the belly now feels.] I refuse to act like a dog with my tail tucked in and my head hanging down. I’ll just try on Louise Hay’s old two-part affirmation right now that I used to make fun of: I love myself. I approve of myself. Truth is, I’m pretty happy with who I’ve become. I love who I’m becoming. I actually trust in my own evolution. I trust life to support my evolution. I’ve seen signs of it my whole life. The fact that this event is abnormal and feels off shows how far I’ve come. I’m not doing a half-bad job at this being human thing. Why did I go on and on for paragraphs? Because that’s the undoing. Don’t say a couple of there-there things to yourself as the mind tenaciously yanks you back to its meanest, ugliest ways and you head straight for self-loathing or giving up on yourself. Self-abandonment no more means having none of it: so go for a generous helping of the antidote. Let’s conclude with Rumi, who has such a gorgeous way of telling us to welcome what we don’t like in ourselves. If you know his work at all, you know this one. There’s no unkindness to self in his approach either—not a whiff of it. And don’t you love rereading it? I invite you to beginner’s mind: receive it like you’ve never heard it before. The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning, a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. — Jellaludin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks Love & blessings, Jaya P.S. Find a related post, I should be beyond this, right here. The more we accept and meet ourselves wherever we are here & now, the more easily we can move toward what feels better and keep becoming a better version of ourselves. Another post related specifically how you talk to yourself as your own best ally, in empowering, uplifting, no-bullshit ways: Upstream or Downstream? Finally, Let's make this easy offers a simple way to counter negative thinking in the moment so that you feel better and give yourself actual support instead of sabotage. |
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