|
A Trick for Welcoming Yourself to the Human Race  Image of colorful clouds at sunrise or sunset reflected in water with silhouette of a seated human being looking on. From Niilo Isotalo on Unsplash. 2 words to set you free: FIND IT What I offer here will automatically support you to set yourself freer & freer if you play with it. It’s likely to help you do some (maybe all) of the following:
Context for the invitation to FIND IT In 2006, I went to the School for The Work of Byron Katie to save my life. I was deeply immersed in suffering, and because I was a parent to two and step-parent to another, this meant that human beings cuter and more innocent than me were affected, sometimes intensely, by what I couldn’t shake myself free of. The stakes felt high. Also, I was pretty sick of myself. Many things happened in the School’s psychic excavation that spanned 10 days. All of it centered around questioning our thoughts—any thought that felt bad. If some belief, even one we were convinced was right, good, and true caused any modicum of suffering (discomfort, anxiety, disempowerment, self-loathing, confusion, sense of being limited, etc, etc), we were invited to question it. I redefined what nice was, what no meant, what I owed others, what made me a good person, what I had to have in place to be okay, what I thought I couldn’t forgive, and on and on and on. When someone (of the 250-ish international participants) stepped up to question something with Katie, they were bringing some superlative: worst fears, greatest pain, most debilitating shame … the stuff that keeps us most stuck. As soon as their bare-bones story was sufficiently stated to give us the them, Katie would turn to the room and say, FIND IT. By which she meant, find this in your life, find it in you. Obviously, everyone present didn’t have a specific extreme story of the same nature, or even in that same realm of life. But the invitation (or injunction) was to find where that story was our own, to whatever degree, in any way, shape, or form. The invitation was NOT to declare:
 Image of person seated sideways on bench looking out contemplatively over ocean view with cloudy sky. From Mohamed hamdi on Unsplash. Find it meant, locate in yourself something like:
It didn’t matter if you had a thimbleful or a boatload of their oceanic issue. It didn’t matter if you had it in a house or with a mouse, in a box or with a fox. Katie pointed out that if we could find in ourselves no more than a drop of it (whatever the it of the moment), that drop was where our suffering was; that drop was where our work was. This also meant that the other person’s ocean had nothing to do with us. Nothing for us to judge, nothing for us to measure ourselves by for better or worse. And, BONUS, it meant that we could both look upon them with compassion, and see ourselves in the same kind light. Never did another participant bring in a problem or negative tendency that I couldn’t find in myself. Not once. Even when they offered something that no part of me wanted to find in myself, when I looked with some modicum of willingness & curiosity, I found it. I couldn’t have predicted the profound & enduring impact this would have on me. I didn’t realize the ease it would bring in over time, the clarity of self-awareness, and especially the RELAXING OF SELF-JUDGMENT (which inevitably goes hand-in-hand with a less judgy gaze upon others). FIND IT: A great way to shift judgments of others After the School, I kept looking for—and finding—anything in myself that I caught myself (critically) finding in others. Not always instantly, but it never took that long, either. Judging feels bad, and Katie’s inquiry process had calibrated me to QUESTION MY PERCEPTIONS anytime I felt bad. Before that, I just carried on (cheerfully or miserably, or in some weird combo of both) poring over thoughts that made me hate my life, myself, or humankind. I re-trained myself to catch my own judgments of others as mental intrusions (not normal stuff to think about)—which I often noticed precisely because they felt bad. I learned to redirect my attention from the judgee back to me by directing myself as Katie had: FIND IT. I would look to find in myself whatever I saw that I thought was wrong with them. I still always could. I still always can. Yes, I can be that rude, yes I can be that unfocused, yes, I can yell at my children, yes, I can forget that my agenda isn’t the only one, yes, I can give a cringy performance, yes, I can butt in where it’s not wanted, yes, I can stay quiet when someone voiceless could use a mouthpiece, yes, I can stir up a pointless war … Hey, if someone BOTHERS you, feel free to move away from them. That’s a very good idea. But if you persist in judging them, and try to control them, even with useless mental reviews of what they’ve obviously got wrong, you’ll just create suffering for yourself & others. Katie taught me that I can’t stop judging altogether. The mind judges. But I can
Sometimes, Abraham-Hicks taught me, course-correcting just means moving my attention to what makes me feel better. Locate what I value about someone I’m judging by cataloging Easy Existing Matches to focus on what I genuinely appreciate, enjoy, or value about them. Or ZOOM OUT and remember it all comes out in the wash and people shift and change over time, but maybe not today, and maybe not right away in the exact way I’d like. (Turns out I don’t manage anyone else’s growth process and it’s not my business!) It’s alway weirdly effective to get off the tricky topic completely and focus on what doesn’t churn up resistance, doesn’t make me feel superior or inferior, doesn’t involve evaluating others or myself--maybe get on a topic that just feels nice, fun, easy, satisfying, calming. That’s radical, and it makes for a better internal & external reality. Love & blessings, Jaya
0 Comments
New Thoughts about What It Means and How to Get Out of It  Image of a clay piggy bank from Markus Winkler on Unsplash. And by SCARCITY MENTALITY you mean …? You’ve certainly heard the phrase. You’ve likely used it in sentences that made sense. You may have accused yourself of having it; it could even be that you’ve made way too much identity of it. Let’s see if we can do something new with this topic here & now. We all know that scarcity entails small amounts of something, or a total lack thereof; it implies insufficiency. In scarcity mentality, we see NOT ENOUGH of whatever we’re measuring. Not enough food to fill the belly. Not enough health to feel vital and strong. Supplies that run out before more come in, or more money comes in to replenish them. Scarcity is often used with regard to money, but we have it with time (ah, do we have it with time!), love, freedom, good people, sex—any facet or version of well-being. Say SCARCITY out loud, and take note: it sounds like SCARE CITY. Apt enough, as a sense of lack almost inevitably generates fear & anxiety. It implies or even screams not being okay. My needs aren’t getting met (or I fear they won’t get met later). What I need (or want) isn’t anywhere in my vicinity and I don’t believe it’s heading my way. Sometimes scarcity mentality includes a disquieting sense of the unreachable: There’s some code for me to crack to get this thing I don’t have, and I’m not certain I’ll figure it out (or I’m pretty sure it’s a puzzle I can’t solve). Scarcity mentality is super self-defeating, emotionally demoralizing, and even destabilizing. It sets you up to lose track of what’s possible, to feel incapable of getting what you want, to feel bad about your potentially and already beautiful life! Here’s an important thing to understand: In a scarcity mindset, you’re focused on what’s missing, not on what’s already here or on what else is possible. You may be talking about what you want, but that’s really not where your focus is; you’re focused on the fact that what you want isn’t here. From there, it’s an easy segue to believing it won’t ever show up. Scarcity becomes a permanent condition, a chronic illness.  Photo of the inside of a fridge containing only one can on its side from Enrico Mantegazza on Unsplash. I love the teachings of Abraham-Hicks because they make some things crystal-clear to me that seemed hopelessly murky before. What Abraham teaches about scarcity is that anything wanted exists on “two ends of the stick.” On one end, there’s what you want, what you need, what your vision is, what you’re after. On the other end, there’s the lack of it. The fact that it’s missing. The (undeniable) fact that you don’t have it yet. Where you THINK you’re focused on what you want, I invite you to stay open to the possibility that you’re actually not. Of course, you mean well and you’ve done all that you’ve seen to do so far. You have your eyes on the prize. You’ve spoken the dream and written it down—it’s activated inside you, held clearly in view. You’ve set intentions or goals around it, you’ve written out steps to get there, you’ve made a vision board, everyone you’re close to knows what you’re up to—you must be heading in the right direction. Right? Wellllll … if you’re still frustrated about what’s not here, look again. You’re probably on the wrong end of the stick. You’re probably thinking more in terms of what’s missing or what’s NOT HERE YET than about what you want. If you’re focused on what you want, it feels good, not frustrating. It may feel inviting, exciting, or activating in the best way. It feels like you can taste it already. It feels inevitable. It feels worth the wait. Most important, you let yourself feel happy already, because you’re not waiting for that thing to happen to let in some version of happiness that depends on it. If you’re curious about which end of the stick you’re actually on, watch your language; hear how you talk about what you want. How many of your words are about lack? I’m not there yet, I don’t have what it takes to get it (whether you mean resources or connections or support or skills or qualities or anything else). It’s not happening. It’s taking forever. It’s still missing. Sometimes, just asserting (again) how very very much you want the thing puts you in a focus on not having it. You don’t need to long for things when you know your needs are met; when you know the next iteration that includes more of what you want is in the works, on the way, a sure thing. Usually, if you’re on the wrong end of the stick, it gets worse as you go (whether you rev it up in thought or speech or journaling or you name it). What’s not here becomes a character flaw or a failing: I can’t seem to … I’m not capable of … I’ve always and I’ll never … Your scarcity package could even include a victim theme, some catalog of advantages you’ve never had, or how the cards are stacked against you. (And, hey, I always invite my clients to find the victim vibe without judgment, because we all have it in some way or another. It’s just something to notice and move away from, not something to be horrified by!)  I sent this collage card I made to a client in Europe and the mail let us down—they never got it. So I’m sharing it with everyone whose eyes land here so that a whole bunch of us get the abundant vibe instead of no one.
I do believe that we can change anything, heal anything, rewire anything. You can most certainly get out of scarcity mentality if you’re in it. You can also take further any work you’ve aleady done, and get more & more subtle with this (as most of us are in it some of the time, to some degree). If you’ll permit me this one sentence of inviting you to my program, I teach tools to transcend scarcity mentality in my Manifestation & Magic groups (scroll down for information on that, with next week start dates to pay attention to); since these are COACHING groups, we actively apply the concepts to what’s up here & now in participants’ lives, thus optimizing for effective application. Speaking of here & now, a lot of the undoing, probably most of it, happens in the moment: you witness in real time where you find yourself to be (what you’re feeling, what you’re saying, what you’re doing), being or getting okay with wherever you find yourself, and stepping (speaking, choosing) into or toward where you’d prefer to be instead. Rinse and repeat, practice practice practice, and notice the gains: you catch yourself ever more quickly; you do it the old way (the wrong-end-of-the-stick way) less frequently; and at some point … a new default is in place. What if you lived with a sense of abundance (fullness, plenitude, enoughness; current needs well met, future needs not a concern, past scarcity just an old, distant story that needs no review or retelling)? How about an ongoing focus on what you want (your delicious next vision), with a surety that it’s on the way and the ability to feel great in the meantime, right now (not waiting for anything to show up or increase or upgrade in order for you to feel good). Once again, I invite you to BRING IT TO NOW. What you’re thinking, speaking, doing, and feeling here & now is what matters. As you know (and I’m inviting you to know it more fully), NOW is where your power lies—the power to change, the power to live into what you want, the power to create and feel the joy of life. Let’s move from scarcity to abundance, now and now and now and now and now … Love & blessings, Jaya You might take these ideas further with my post on focusing away from current conditions, another clear & super-helpful teaching from Abraham-Hicks. We keep ourselves from the rich, full life we might create by focusing on the lack we perceive in our reality here now.  Still shot from film A Lien. Hey, if you’ve ever read anything I send out, you know my intention is to inspire, soothe, support. I’m pointing you to what feels better, not worse. That’s still true here, and I’m also seeking to meet you in any pain and distress you may already be feeling in the current American socio-political climate. If you’re not there now, you may want to come back to this when you are. Or engage with this now to get a strategy in place for next time you’re walloped by the hard stuff. Below, I offer three simple (one SUPER simple) strategies for BEING WITH what hurts about the state of the USA. Maybe it comes into your field sometimes or often. Maybe you just don’t want to shut out the pain altogether. So this will give you ways to feel you can contain it when it’s active. You can experience soothing and even offer it out at the same time. There’s the possibility of not being wrecked by it (at least not in an ongoing way), or of feeling it without a sense that it’s unbearable. Strategy #1: CONSCIOUS BREATHING AS SUPPORT IN THE MOMENT How immigrants are treated at this time is one of the worst current issues for me. The photo above comes from the short live film A Lien, which clocks under 15 minutes and was one of the five nominees at this year’s Academy Award. The directors (brothers David and Sam Cutler-Kreutz) use a lot of close-up, even claustrophobic, cinematography to bring us right up against the pressing fear felt by immigrants and their families. In this story, we meet a family made up of a white American woman, a brown man originally from a Spanish-speaking country, and their little daughter. We watch the man getting arrested during their scheduled green-card interview, not because he’s done something wrong, but because he’s easy prey. Yes, these people are following the right legal protocols and he’s detained during that process like a guilty fugitive from the law. It’s an actual current practice that the filmmakers depicted with great skill in a few minutes. Predictably enough, watching this felt devastating to me. Right? No surprise. I already find the whole issue, the whole reality, to be devastating. Remember, I’m offering strategies here for meeting the pain we’re already in, and being able to do that in the moment that pain strikes anew. The breathing strategy I used is the super-easy one. I simply breathed through the film (the whole time) very, very consciously. I felt the pressure of the fear and was immersed in the wretchedness of what real human beings are subjected to for no good reason, so I breathed into that. I breathed around that. I breathed as fully and gently as I could. I made space for the pain inside my own body using the kind spaciousness of the breath. Notice that this tactic doesn’t take you out of the reality or even out of the pain. It makes it bearable. It makes it containable. It gives you a way not to tense up against the pain (resistance). Instead, you’re acknowledging what hurts (here it is, this is reality right now), and you’re bringing in the breath to help you contain it. Never force the breath when you do this. I once heard Marion Gilbert, a somatic Enneagram teacher, talk about how the breath will never force its way in anywhere, so we don’t need to force it into places that aren’t already open. We can gently direct breath that way and it will lap kindly up against any walls or shields we have up in resistance and self-protection. It will gently finds its way in through the cracks, forcing nothing. I don’t even know anymore what’s her language and what’s mine when I talk about this. It’s been with me and in my guided meditations since I heard her discuss this, because it struck me at once as truth and consistently matches what happens in my experience. I used this tactic all through the film, on my drive home, and later when it grabbed me again, including in the wee hours. Very helpful. Bonus breathing support Find my playlist of soothing 3-centers meditations on YouTube.  Photo of Pema Chodron in front of a waterfall. This is the picture (with waterfin motion) used in her 12-min video describing Tonglen. Click on pic to watch that video. Strategy #2: THE BUDDHIST MEDITATION PRACTICE OF TONGLEN TO SEND OUT COMPASSION AND EASE SUFFERING If you click on the photo above, you will get a short video of Pema Chodron describing the practice of Tonglen. In a nutshell, you’re breathing in the pain of the world (or of one population or one sentient being), feeling its claustrophobic density, then breathing out a sense of spaciousness and relief. She lays it out clearly in four simple steps. The Buddhist approach is typically very heady. And there’s a ton of HEART in Tonglen. It’s really very beautiful. When you can’t do something here and now in the physical world, you can use a meditative approach to offer goodness into the world and intend the release and removal of suffering. A couple of tweaks I don’t think Pema uses the word RELIEF. I invite you to feel the out-breath as relief (or even the intention of relief) for you and for those you’re focused on. She talks about exuding that from every pore of your body, and I’d like to invite you to then send it way out to the ethers, to space, so that you tap into infinite spaciousness and possibility. The Universe has room to contain this. The Universe (and time, evolution) can dissolve and dissipate the whole thing. She also suggests using a word during that relief phase, during the out-breath that invites the release of suffering. Certainly, do use a word if that works for you. I prefer focusing the feeling and leaving language out of it. I like to use images that call me to spaciousness and relief, including a simple image of light-filled empty space radiating out, out, out, though and beyond that exhalation. A structural support you might use If you like Pema’s idea of using a gong at the beginning of the meditation as a way to access some semblance of clear mind, do you already know about Insight Timer? You can set up timed meditations using various sounds of bells, chimes, and gongs. So you might take Pema’s idea of 4 phases of tonglen and consider how long you’d like to spend on each one. Open with a gong and choose some other sounds to ring at specific intervals, calling you to each next phase. It’s not that hard to figure out and it will hold the structure for you while you simply move through the soothing and blessing experience of tonglen. Here’s a shorter version of Pema describing tonglen. Under 5 minutes!  Photo of tall cairn (rocks of diminishing size stacked one atop another) at the edge of a body of water from weston m on Unsplash. Strategy #3: REACHING FOR BETTER-FEELING THOUGHTS Wait, I’m sorry. Did you think I wasn’t going to mention Abraham-Hicks this time? I must, because they teach a very simple process of stringing thoughts together, preferably out loud, reaching for one statement after another to soothe and soften anything that feels bad. Whatever you’re telling yourself that feels awful, however true or real it may be, you can counter with better-feeling thoughts. And later, when you want to give some conscious attention to what hurts, you can come back to it from a solid place. Side note on staying with thoughts that hurt Don’t stay in the pain of the world full time. I would even invite you to take whole days and other chunks of time off. No one is equipped for full-time focus on what feels terribly wrong. No one can function well steeping in the worst of it. No one can bring love and beauty and relief into the world from a steady focus on hate, pain, horrors. Please take that seriously. Thoughts on how to reach for better-feeling thoughts Better-feeling thoughts often involve what Abraham calls zooming out, or going general. Take yourself past the specificity of what’s problematic and painful. Take eagle view, or even satellite view. Look across the eons from geologic time if you need to. A better-feeling thought is anything you can tell yourself that’s kinder, gentler, truer. Reach for what stirs hope. Doing this calls in or activates your intentions or greater values for yourself and others, for the entire world. In other words, it bring focus to the wanted, not the unwanted. Reaching for better-feeling thoughts shifts your focus to what feels more relaxed and in flow, or to downstream thoughts (not the upstream thoughts that push against the current). Please do practice it for yourself and your smaller world, then you’ll have better access to this tactic for the big-ticket items. Honestly, this is probably hardest to do for things in the greater reality, the political realm, the global stuff. (Perhaps because you have less agency there.) And still, reaching for better-feeling thoughts can support you to walk yourself through harsh realities. For now, you may not be able to fix or change something. You can shift your focus and cultivate ways of thinking and talking to yourself that allow you to process the harshness, and perhaps to be part of the change. An example of stringing together better-feeling thoughts The day I watched the film, I started reaching for better-feeling thoughts as I got close to home and lingered in the car to find a few more before heading inside. The best I was able to do involved finding some statements of willingness and acceptance, and it actually did help. For me, it was a no-bullshit way to feel better. I took off from hearing myself think, I don’t want to live in a world where this is happening. Right after that, I heard Barbara Kingsolver say (a character of hers says it to another in Animal Dreams), You do live in that world. So from there, I found my willingness to be in this world, as it is and as I am.
You can go on and on and on with this. Say whatever comes to you out loud and carrying on until you feel even a little different. Reach AND tap to take it further If you want to try this tactic while you tap (using the technique of EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique), that creates a sort of reaching-for-better-feeling-thoughts-ON-STEROIDS. I have a whole EFT playlist on YouTube geared to support political pain & anxiety. Check it out if drawn. Reminder of an ongoing resource Or come to a Monday-night drop-in group-coaching session (info below and on the home page of my website). People sometimes bring the topic of political pain, and we meet it together. Anything is allowed in the space, including the personal that may feel small by comparison. Anything anyone brings is the stuff of human reality, and I make sure we approach it in a way likely to benefit all present. Love & blessings, Jaya Less of this, more of that  Photo of young person with short dark hair and pale skin looking downward with a piece of duct tape over their mouth. From Jackson Simmer on Unsplash. Shortest read: Scroll down past the first photo and skim through the end for the things you’re likely to say to yourself in the headings. Drop in with those to see how else you might approach it and what other words might serve you better. Less of this:
INTERRUPT that shit. Stop talking, get off the topic, hit the pause button, redirect your focus, move away from this, get out of head and into body, do anything but keep following those trains of thought or bits of dialogue. You’ll just built momentum in the wrong direction if you keep going with something that was not a useful direction to go in the first place—a direction that leads to all that you don’t want. Next I’m going to offer better things to say to yourself for each of the above. Essentially, all we're doing here is what Abraham-Hicks calls reaching for better-feeling thoughts. Replace each heading below with something like the suggestions that follow. Feel better? More of that. Each sentence under each original statement could represent one next thought to reach for that feels even a little bit better than the first thing that popped into your head or out of your mouth. This can’t be happening. This is reality, so it must be normal human stuff that I don’t need to get all riled up about. I’d like to accept what’s happening here, which doesn’t require me to like it or approve of it. I’d like to get real. From that place, I think I can see more clearly and peacefully where I’d prefer for things to go. This is bad. This is just life unfolding. I don’t need to label it good or bad, just soothe myself where it feels bad and reach for thoughts, words, ideas, a vision, one action to take that feels better. This is not okay. It’s okay. It’s really okay. I’m okay. (Hey, younger me, I’ve got you. You’re okay. This isn’t the old thing you were stuck in. We’re not stuck here.) What is wrong with me? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m on a human journey and sometimes I’m in touch with loving that journey. I’ve come a long way. All is well. I’m willing to keep showing up, learning, growing, healing, being a better version of myself. How could I have done (thought, said) that? There’s nothing I ever do that isn’t normal human stuff. When it feels off to me, I can love that my guidance system is working. When I feel bad about it, I can make myself feel better and take actions that feel aligned to me. I can simply course-correct. I don’t have to make identity out of anything I do, think, or say. I can simply keep feeling into what I prefer and head that way. This is so hard. This is just unpracticed. It’s probably not that hard. I could build these muscles. I could get used to this. I really just need to try the new way here and now and not jump ahead mentally beyond this moment. I feel so guilty. Most guilt is false and based on old concepts I no longer believe or someone else’s concepts I don’t need to subscribe to. If I feel guilty, instead of carrying around a guilty feeling and talking (to myself or others) about how guilty I feel, I can check it out. If I’m really guilty, there’s stuff to do (make amends, clean it up, do something else now or later). But if I’m not, then I simply need to soothe the part of me that’s uncomfortable about something here. (I don’t like being seen by them in this way; I hate not giving someone what they seem to need and want from me; I don’t like disappointing them; … I have to figure this out. I don’t need to figure this out right now. I need to soothe myself and get into a better space and then watch for inspiration—maybe just for one next step to take toward what feels aligned with what I’m after. I’ll never figure this out. I’ve learned so much in my lifetime, corrected so many wrong understandings, expanded my viewpoint, stretched my perspective … I’m open to perception shifts and new information and awareness. I don’t have to have everything clearly in view right now. In fact, that’s not how it works. What I see and don’t see now is all good enough.  Photo of a person with short dark hair and dark skin smiling with fists raised in celebration of accomplishment or triumph. From Andrej Lišakov on Unsplash. I can’t. I’ve surprised myself with things I’ve gotten to that I didn’t know I could get to. I will again. I may or may not achieve this specific thing. I’m still going to keep aiming for things I want to create and experience and be/do/have and who knows how life will surprise me next, and how I may yet surprise myself. I don’t know what to do. I don’t need to know what to do. I can just soothe myself and get realigned and then I’m more likely to see one way to aim roughly in the right direction. I don’t know how. I’ve done so many things I didn’t start out knowing how to do. I don’t need to know how. I need to keep in view what I’m after, what matters to me, and follow what comes to me to do. I’ll mess it up. I’d like to be done predicting my own failures or graceless processes. I’d like to be willing to fail or bumble through something without making identity of it—or start making identity out of my badass risk-taking self. I messed it up. This didn’t give me the outcome I wanted. That’s okay. That’s a normal human experience and part of the human journey. In fact, I’ve gotten so much better at releasing outcome, which sometimes enables me to move forward when I’m not sure how things will go. So … Now what? I missed my chance. Life is full of opportunities. The field of pure potentiality is always before me. Life brings things around again & again & again. As Abraham-Hicks says, You can’t miss the boat because there’s always another boat coming. Everything’s ruined. I love catching myself in all-or-nothing thinking and knowing it can’t be true. Everything can’t be ruined. I’m still alive. There’s more to love, enjoy, savor, learn, create, play with … It’s not gonna happen. I don’t know what’s next or what will or won’t come to be. I know I have a few things I’d like to head toward. I love the journey. I love remembering it’s a journey, not a struggle toward a series of outcomes. What will be will be, and in the meantime, here I am. I so appreciate getting to be here. Got it? The simple concept is, less of what makes you feel bad, more of what is soothing and encouraging and makes you feel better-good-great. Walk yourself through kindly. Speak to yourself in ways that are actually helpful. Do not ALLOW yourself to carry around thoughts that defeat you and make you feel like you’re not living your life well, you’re not enough, you’re not equipped for reality. You’re doing great. You’re equipped. You’re amazing. Love & blessings, Jaya PS. I also have a post on a simple way to recognize thoughts as working for or against you! Upstream or Downstream? Also relevant, is Talk yourself through. How do you want to talk to yourself as you kindly walk yourself through things acting like your own best ally? & CHOOSING CONSCIOUS SELF-PARENTING INSTEAD  Photo of a light-skinned parent with long brown hair lovingly putting a laughing pale-skinned blond haired child to bed. From George Dagerotip on Unsplash. This is a relatively brief one, so take it in. As always, you can sift through following the bold print if you want a quicker read. Get the gift of this important thing to notice & reframe, with easy tactics for making this all feel better and for your beautiful life to go better for you! This persistent NOT ENOUGH thing. You too? I still catch myself, while doing things, moving about my world, transitioning from one task or event to the next, holding a vague sense of finding myself wrong, not doing enough, not having gotten to something yet, not performing or achieving at the right level, not not not … Sometimes I feel a vague or acute disappointment or dissatisfaction, especially at the day’s end, that I might put any or all of these words to:
If you amplify all of this (and some egoic part of you actually thinks its job is to amplify this), this swiftly swells into a baseline (wrongly held as factual) of I’M NOT ENOUGH. (Hey, whether you’re actively saying that to yourself OR NOT, that’s the message.) It may even follow a dissonant crescendo all the way to I’M NOT A GOOD PERSON BECAUSE I’M NOT DOING ENOUGH. Um. WTF? It’s so unfair, and it’s just wrong. It’s based on a false premise that your worth is and must be established by what and how much you do. It implies that this constant negative assessment (which by some wacky defiance of emotional mathematics keeps adding up to NOT ENOUGH) somehow does something of value. To be clear: It does not. Go ahead and look for whether that soothes you, bolsters you, motivates you, energizes you, inspires you … It’s also horrendous self-parenting. Imagine the parent following the kid around while tensely describing what they’re not getting to and how they’re not doing enough and how disappointing they are in what they are and aren’t doing. BAD parenting. Imagine putting a child to bed at the end of the day with a furrowed brow and a list of all they haven’t gotten to and what they didn’t do well enough and what they’d better be on top of tomorrow … This is not the picture of parenting that goes with a thriving child, is it? Here’s what I do with this: I interrupt it every time. I interrupt it as quickly as I notice it (at the first whiff of it) so it doesn’t build momentum. I do not accept walking around with that sensation, never mind any self-talk that might go with it. When I catch it and interrupt it, I give myself (usually out loud to fully hear them) new messages that feel good and encouraging. Messages that
Because that positive, generous vision of myself, held in view, reinforced, and constantly cultivated, is actually what points me to flow with life in the best way. That’s what calls me to feeling good and embodying goodness and creating good and beautiful things. Sometimes living in the flow does look like accomplishment and efficiency, and sometimes it does not. The flow is the flow. One version of it is not better than the others. We all know it feels better when we’re in it. We all know what resistance to the flow feels like. If we try to make the efficient version of flow the right version, we will, again and again, judge ourselves harshly and be disappointed in ourselves.  Photo of a medium-skinned parent with short hair and glasses standing, holding and kissing a happy toddler in their arms. Image from Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash. Time for reparenting, or conscious self-parenting If you didn’t get perfect parenting, welcome to the club. Whatever you did or didn’t get, it’s up to you now. Will you parent yourself unkindly, always gazing at yourself through that NOT ENOUGH lens? Or by bringing in calm, soothing, encouragement, positive messaging? Will you tenaciously hold yourself in good esteem? Why should accomplishment and efficiency be the ruler by which you measure your worth, your whole life, or even any given day? That doesn’t even make sense. That sounds like modern human foolishness, not universal or divine intelligence. I invite you NOT to ALLOW ongoing self-defeating inner dialogue and negative assessment. I invite you to quick interruption of what is unfair and inaccurate and keeps you feeling bad. Then aim for what feels better, and tell yourself the things you need to hear to soothe and encourage yourself, to promote loving your life as your wondrous dance with consciousness. Toward that end, here’s a 15-minute 3-centers meditation (addressing body, heart, head) that contains positive messaging in and for each center. And if you like the 3C approach, you can join in live every day from 11:45 to noon six days a week. My lovely colleague Rebecca Mehnert leads on M-W-F, and I’m on T-Th-Sat. Join link is on the homepage of my website (scroll all the way down). Love & blessings, Jaya Note that I have a blog post that teaches Abraham Hick's MARBLE GAME and uses the ubiquitous idea of not emough time as the topic to illustrate how the process goes. |
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed