Journaling

2008 eclipsed with high hopes. I was on a spiritual and energetic high. I fought back the nagging fear of leaving my home, my family, my friends, my customs, my only known way of life and my language to explore other opportunities in an emerging country, Guatemala.

The fall and winter of 2008 were spent on my houseboat at Lake Thunderbird, living aboard our 43 foot houseboat. I rented our home almost over night and we had to find a transitional place to live. The houseboat became our home base. It was horrifying and completely edifying at the same time. Many days, the northern winds slammed the boat against the opposing dock relentlessly. But, inside, we created a very sweet living space complete with new  drapes, upholstery and carpet. We never had time to get to the 40 year old bath room, but hey? One can only do so much.

However, we did have a home-cooked meal every evening. We also had dish TV and cellular internet so that I could continue to work. As the days grew shorter and more dismal, I studied my spanish inside the boat . I think I did pretty good. By the time we got to Guatemala City on December 27th, I could make my way around.Thankfully my spanish improved daily and I was surrounded by beautiful Guatemalans who wanted to help any way they could.

We arrived in Guatemala City on December 27th and I began a blog about our daily life at guatemalaproject.wordpress.com. I’m still digesting that entire experience from a reflective perspective. At this moment, what I know I took away for sure is the knowledge that we are all more alike than even I realized, the impact a culture has on how we view our place in the world and how much we take for granted as Americans, how much we “expect” and our sense of “entitlement.” I also got a real grasp on how vulnerable we all are to the shifting dynamics of the political climate and foreign policy. None of this has ever interested me very much, but living in a world of such disparaty between the way people live, I realized I should be more aware.

To get an idea of Afganastan and the Taliban and what the current events actually mean to real human beings, I highly suggest reading The Kite Runner. It is a work of fiction, but it is an accurate glipse into how quickly life can change for even the very wealthy when the political climate changes. I always took for granted that my property was my property as long as I paid for it and held a title. But, in places like Afganastan or Nazi Germany, property is yours until someone with a big gun says it isn’t any more…AND you’d be lucky if they didn’t shoot you or decapitate you even if you surrendered your property peacefully.

To be clear, I did not see anything like this in Guatemala, but the instability and corruption was palpable. It was especially disconcerting to see every store or business and most homes guarded by at least one armed guard. To come and go from our apartment, we had to pass through two armed guards who were on duty 24/7. To enter or exit the grocery store we had to pass through an armed guard who gave us a pass that we had to return to another armed guard who was posted at the exit. Once we misplaced our pass and we were not allowed to leave until security searched our car and I could provide proof of ownership. Car-jacking was a daily occurance and the local wisdom was to just give the banditos what ever they wanted. Usually they would steal everything they could from the occupants, then drive them way out of the city to an unsafe zone and dump them without any resources what so ever. And if there were children in the car, there was no mercy for them. While we were there, one man resisted when told to hand over his laptop. They shot him in the head and took the laptop, leaving him to die in his car at a stop light. Unlike in the USA, the chances that these murderers will even be pursued is grim and even if they are pursued and arrested, murder prosecutions are only about 6%.

When we returned from Guatemala on March 17, we had to move back into our houseboat because the lease on our home was in effect until October 31, 2009. As I write, we have not moved back into our home yet. We stayed with some incredible friends until we could get our 30 x 40 metal building that’s on our 120 acre farm, cleaned out.  This was not a project for the faint of heart. I can remember opening the overhead doors and just staring at all of the contents. It was to the rafters and beyond. Overwhelmed would be an understatement. But, one thing at a time, one decision at a time, we cleaned out the entire building.

I made the connection often that this process is much like life and the process I teaching through coaching. Some decisions and choices where more difficult than others. Some were even painful as I took inventory of the contents of the building. I came across many, many things that I hadn’t seen since my husband died 7 years ago. My grief rose up and slapped me in the face. I wanted to curl up and cry…and sometimes I did.

My husband, Jerry, and I camped out, quite literally, all summer long while we built out the inside of the building into a 900 sq. ft. apartment. It’s been a slow, slow process. It’s taken much longer than we thought. Many times we had to stop and learn how to take the next step, like getting electricity into the building or how to frame the rooms and water has been a complicated process.

Again, this is a microcosm of life in general. As we grow, take risks, find oursleves in unknown territory, need support and instruction in life, as we suffer set backs and uncertainty and disappointments and grief, if we respect the journey, we will always be in the exact right place at the exact right time to grow and expand as spiritual beings having a human experience. When we respect where we are at any moment of our lives, without making it wrong or bad, within that moment, there is always a new dawn. I like knowing that.

I’ve spent a year of adventure and excitement that has also been frought with deep challenges to my sense of self on a much deeper level than I have ever allowed myself to go before. And in the end, I really did end up in the woods, living in the most primative conditions I have ever experienced. What I learned in the process is still unfolding as I digest each moment I’ve lived for the past year, but one thing is certain, I have an entirely new perspective on prosperity, joy, love, freedom and inner contentment than I ever believed possible. You see, I took the words I read and write, and went out and lived them and I survived, I grew and I blossomed in the process.

My next series of blogs will be my reflections of the life I chose to live in 2009. Thank you for following my blog.

So, what is perspective anyway and why should we care? Defined by Oxford below, I chose definition two for this blog:

perspective |pərˈspektiv|
noun
2 a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view
• true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion : we must keep a sense of perspective about what he’s done.

In my coaching practice, I often use this real life example of the power of perspective:

I know of a woman who has a personal narrative or story that she does not matter, she can’t ask for what she needs and she bothers people. This is a belief system that arose out of false conclusions she made when she was about 8 years old.

The year she was in third grade was a difficult one for her family in every way. The family dynamic was survival mode and she began to feel very emotionally needy. This manifested as pretending to be sick at school often. By the fifth or sixth time her mother had to leave work to pick her up at school, it was obvious she was “crying wolf.”

Then one day, she really was sick and the nurse called her mother at work just like all the times before and her mother did not want to come and get her and told this to the school nurse. When the nurse hung up the phone, she turned to the secretary and said, “what kind of a mother wouldn’t come get her sick child at school?”

The young girl overheard this comment and immediately began to ask herself that question and her conclusion was that a bad mother would not want to pick up her sick child. And what kind of a child would have a bad mother? A bad child, she concluded.

Eventually, the girl’s mother did pick her up and dropped her off, to spend the afternoon sick and alone. She made it mean that she did not matter, she bothers people (she was clearly bothering her mother) and it was not safe or acceptable to ask for what she needs.

She could have chosen to make it mean that she was a big girl who could stay home alone for a few hours until her mom could come home. But she didn’t.

And this is the power of perspective. When it comes to what we make things mean, or perspective, we really do have a choice. The choice of our perspective is powerful because it is another example of personal responsibility about how we see the world and our place in it. It is the doorway through which we must walk on our journey to create our greatest self.

Taking responsibility for how we choose to view the events and people in our world is like opening the door to a beautiful spring morning that is full of possibility. It creates the opportunity to experience the scope of untapped possibility within us.

Tap into the greatest source for transformation you have, the power of perspective.

For those who practice false responsibility, the news isn’t all bad. While there are many negatives in this practice from the perspective of default behavior, from the place of awareness, there are many, many gifts. Cultivating that awareness begins with taking on the responsibilities that actually do belong to us.

The practice of personal responsibility creates a new level of awareness because we acknowledge what it is we actually have control over in our lives. Understanding this takes us off default behavior and puts us in the driver’s seat of our own lives.

There are only three things we have true control over. Master these and you are well on your way to self-mastery.

1. Our thoughts We have control over the things we allow our self to think about. One good place to begin is to ask what are we making things in life mean about “us.” How are we creating drama, blaming others and being a victim of people and circumstances. Where do we hold onto grudges and resentments and allow them to rattle around in our brain? Another self-inquiry we can make is, why do I think this and does this thought process serve me?

2. Our words We have the power to control the words we speak, the manner in which we speak and the meaning of our words. Once a word is spoken, it can never be taken back or changed. We can clarify, certainly, but words are weighty business. What we choose to say and what we choose  to remain unstated is entirely in our control. A good question to ask before speaking is, what do I want this person to do with this information and why do I want them to have it? Do I have an intention that will lead me toward my goal or will it keep me stuck in the past?

3. Our actions We always have the power to be responsible for our actions. I always told my five daughters that I did not want to take the credit for their positive actions because I did not want the blame for their poor actions. Awareness that each action taken or avoided is our choice and that we alone empower ourselves to practice this kind of responsibility will lift us up and out of the pattern of false responsibility.

Understanding places where you might be taking false responsibility is a key part of stepping forward toward a new way of living. Living beyond your automatic default behaviors is possible and essential, but most of all, it is liberating. When you free yourself and resign as general manager of the universe, a huge weight is lifted. You can then choose to redirect all of the wasted energy of false responsibility toward creating the best life possible and fulfilling your dreams. No one can do it for you and you can’t do it for anyone else. Embrace that and you will have created the shift you need to move forward.

 I have a friend who often quotes his grandfather by saying, “one way or another, it’s going to cost you.”  This bit of trite but true wisdom is no less applicable when it comes to false responsibility. Taking on false responsibility has a high price tag both for you and your unintended victims. Yes, our addiction to false responsibility not only harms us, it makes hostages of those whom we believe we are saving.

We harm ourselves in many ways including these top three:

1. You deny you yourself inner peace.

When every thought is one of responsibility for all things, there is no quiet moment to cultivate inner peace. In fact, inner peace is not an option in the chains of false responsibility because, by default, we are always and at all times subconsciously scanning for the ball that’s about to be dropped by someone else. There is no rest for the falsely weary and there is no inner peace under the sun.

2. You deny yourself the opportunity to live in the moment

Ever vigil, we, the falsely responsible, are never in the present moment. We cannot afford ourselves that luxury. We must live in ready anticipation of what might happen in the next moment. Any spare moment must be spent reevaluating the past, searching for ways we failed or others failed us.

3.You deny yourself the experience of authenticity

So long as we are trapped on the merry-go-round of false responsibility, there is no time to even ponder the question of who we really are. If we’re not responsible for all, then who are we? That’s a question that is just too frightening to acknowledge, much less contemplate. But if we can never consider the question, we will never know the answer and without the answer, we will never be able to develop our deep uniqueness, our true and authentic self. This is the highest price we can pay. We pay with our life.

Then there are our unintended victims. There is a cost to be paid by those we try to save through our own needy, falsely responsible actions. Here are three:

1. You deny others their opportunities to learn personal responsibility

Every time we succumb to our need to take charge, make a decision or martyr ourselves for the sake of the whole, we obstruct the nature process of learning responsibility through personal experience. We all have a god-given right to learn from our own mistakes, but we, self-rightiously demand that others deny their own natural desire to learn from experience because it is more important that we “save the day” or “get it done.”

2. You deny others their independence

In the raw truth of our story of “no one can do it but me,” we become a thief of the most dangerous kind. We undermine slowly and carefully any sense of independence in our victims. We’ve essentially created emotional and psychological cripples for the benefit of our own greedy desire to be needed. Who would we be if they didn’t need us?

3. You deny others the opportunity to develop self-confidence

Every time we do for others what they could and should do for themselves, we say, in effect, that we do not believe that they are capable of figuring things out for themselves, of making appropriate decisions on their own. And with each offense of this type, we reinforce this ugly and untrue message. We wrap it up in the pretty bow of “support” or “loving helpfulness” but the truth is ugly because we have an agenda. We need them to believe they need us because we need to believe it more.

As you can see, the cost is high, and those listed above are just the highlights. It’s important to note that the process of taking on false responsibility is a part of our default behavior, those things we do effortlessly and without thought. A large part of coaching is to support you as you uncover your default map.

False responsibility, part IV: How to shift the behavior of taking false responsibility

False Responsibility Part II

So, if we dabble in the alchemy of false responsibility, what we are sure to conjure up is a big pay-off. What do you get out of taking responsibility for people and circumstances in your life that are not yours?

Close your eyes and think about it for a moment. Here are the top five:

1. You get to be in control

What better way is there to gain control of people and life than to take on the responsibility for EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE. We are the general manager of the universe, at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

2. You get to feel significant

What kind of person is in control of everything and everyone in their lives? Smart? Probably. Reliable? Most definitely. Significant? You bet. If we are the hub of our world, all traffic goes through us. We usually describe ourselves as “hands-on.” That’s an understatement.

3. You get to be self-righteous

Through thick and thin, whether we realize it or not, one of the biggest pay-offs of false responsibility is that we get to be right. When things go well, we have the opportunity to feel the charge of power. When things don’t go so well, we can claim smug self-righteousness. We’re the first to say “I told you so,” even if it is only a silent comment to ourselves.

4. You get to be justified

When everything is our responsibility, the end always justifies our means. After all, we carry the burden of the our entire world, more or less. We have to do whatever it takes, however destructive to ourselves and others.

5. You get to be the victim

And our favorite…we get to be the victim of everyone else’s incompetence, low morality, greed, selfishness, lack of self-discipline. “If only they would do what we tell them to do, if only they could be like us…” But, they rarely do and are, so it is up to us to take care of everything. Poor us.

False responsibility is a cunning component of ultimately feeling stuck and trapped. Because we feel responsible for everything and everyone in our lives, we can’t possibly just quit. It would be against our self-righteous code of morality and principles.  

And this is the lie that we tell ourselves and others…you can’t do it without me…I can’t do without it. The truth is that we believe that we actually are responsible for everything and everyone. That is who we believe we are, deeply and truly. It is part of our identity. Because after all, who would we be without our pain?

Part III: The cost to ourselves and others of false responsibility

False responsibility Part I

I speak with clients daily who struggle to know when they are helping someone and when they are enabling someone to continue poor or destructive behavior.

Most of us want to be as supportive of others as possible, often to a fault. We see this frequently between parents and children. The line becomes blurred here because our children come to us in a state of total need and complete dependence. Supporting them, doing for them, providing for them is a natural part of the relationship.

This behavior can also be seen between spouses, siblings and friends with disasterous results. Once we position ourselves as the savior, the martyr, the provider or the one who is responsible or to blame, we have eliminated any other possible dynamic within the relationship.

When we do for others what they could and should do for themselves, we cheat them out of their god-given right to learn from their own choices. By letting go of our false responsibilities, we free both ourselves and others to learn our most important lessons.

Part II: What we get out of false responsibility

Follow my journey on a separate blog. It can be found at http://www.guatemalaproject.wordpress.com

Since my last post, life has come at me fast. It seems as though once my intention to go to Guatemala was set, everything has moved into position almost magically. It is sometimes unbelievable, yet undeniable.

Thinking it would take some time to lease our house, I posted on a rental site and then the perfect tenants called the next day and wanted possession in about 10 days! Yikes! So I called my husband and we circled the wagons by calling in the sons-in-law crew (and I’ve got 4 wonderful son-in-laws) and my daughters, our friends and maybe a few strangers. It was nothing but action for a week.

This was a fortunate turn of events with one small caveat. We were 8 weeks or so away from moving to Guatemala and needed to find a temporary home. This is where the adventure began and reality set in. I admit I had a sinking feeling as I realized that I had actually committed myself to live and work in another country of which I do not speak the language and that there were many things that needed to fall into place in order for me to do that such as leasing the house, renting an apartment in Guatemala City, selling a vehicle, buying a vehicle there as well as a host of others. From my own limited perspective, it actually seemed impossible. Thankfully I remembered that I am not the general manager of the Universe and that I could, indeed be open to any possibility and attached to no particular outcome. As the last box was loaded, I calmed myself and embraced the thought of where we were going to spend the next 8 weeks…on our 43 foot 1969 Nautaline houseboat on the lake!

Fall is a wonderful time to take up residence on this lake. It is quiet because the summer lake crowd is gone and it is peaceful because natural beauty is all around. Watching the sun rise over the dam has been a very special daily event. Seeing the western sky grow warm at sunset has been deeply moving. In the early morning and late evening, it is not unusual to see deer. At times it may only be a doe and her baby grazing along the shoreline, while other times there is a large group. They are stunning creatures and they always make my heart smile. Watching the ever changing characteristics of the water provides endless opportunities to really enjoy the lake. I took to running a three mile course from the marina where our boat is to a nearby campground and took in every piece I could of the exquisite autumn days.

Then there was winter.