Psycho-spirituality

Living a cultivated life is a process and can never be done wrong. We are ever-evolving if we have set personal growth as an intention in our life, even when we can see no evidence of growth and transformaton. Like the growth of our physical body through childhood, or the opening of a subtle spring bloom, the shift in us is often imperceptable. It is gradual, but steady if we maintain our intention.

One practice that has helped me tremendously is to begin the day with a short meditation that supports my intentional path of cultivation. During this meditation, I calm my mind by breathing in deeply, all the way into my belly, three or four times and allow my mind to focus on the area around my heart and visualize a light there, first as a pinpoint of light, then growing larger and brighter until it fills my entire body. I concsiously relax each part of my body from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. Then I bring thought in the form of a simple question. I ask “How do I want to feel at the end of today?” Do I want to feel satisfied, happy, content, kind, loved and loving,competent….The answer becomes my intention for the day  and I go through the day with this intention in mind, asking myself, will this bring me “kindness,”  for example, today before a think, speak or act.

This process helps support us on our path to a new way of living. If we begin each day with an intention, this serves as a roadmap for our day and how we will live it. It supports us to be present in our lives today, now, rather than living in the past or the future. When we begin the day knowing how we want to feel at the end of the day, we have an anchor and we feel grounded in ourself, we become inner referring rather than seeking external validation which we cannot control and in the end is meaningless. How we approach and live the days of our lives are a choice we have the power to make and lean on throughout our day.

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

Some people say that it is a fine line between sanity and insanity. As my daughter says, I’ll buy that for a dollar. We also walk a line with our human experience . The line we most often walk is living on auto-pilot rather than in awareness. How do we go through the process of daily life with awareness?

It’s a delicate balance, but not a difficult one. It takes presence. To achieve presence in the moment actually takes, well, presence! It requires us to stop and really notice what we are doing in the present moment, as in, I am working at my desk, I am driving my car, I am washing the dishes, the sky is blue, I feel the sun on my face, I feel happy.

The cost of not being present is that we live a life that is marked by the past and punctuated by fear, anxiety and conjecture about the future. All the while, we miss today. We miss out on our own life. I often hear people say, “where has the week gone?” Sometimes we experience momentary awareness and realize entire years, decades even have passed mostly unnoticed and unlived.

An anchor of some kind serves as a reminder to stop and notice what we are doing. Like the infamous string around the finger, we all need something that anchors us and supports us as we forge a new habit. Even if we only have one moment of presence and awareness a day, it would be a step forward for most of us.

I wear a little bracelet that serves as my anchor. When I look at it, I am reminded to stop and be conscious and deliberate about what I am doing, like really looking my 7 year old grand-daughter in the eyes and listening to her tell me about her day at school, really hearing her, noticing her brown eyes and shiny black hair and funny little gestures. In the past, I have set a chime on my computer to remind me to stop and really be in the moment.

The possibility presence creates for us is endless. In presence we have the ability to create anything we desire. Relationships become real, life becomes rich, joy becomes full.

Every moment is precious. The old saying is, “They don’t call it the present for nothing! Presence is a gift!”

Be present to that.

A wise man once said that something is only worth what a person is willing to pay for it. The dictionary says that worth is something of significant value to justify investment of time or interest. When referring to objects, I suppose this is true. A 1966 Ford Mustang 289 V8 with a 4 barrel carburetor holds a certain value based upon what buyers have been willing to pay for it in the past. According to a recent web search, that price is somewhere around $10,000 to $14,000. This is an interesting fact given the Mustang could be purchased new for approximately $2500 from 1964 to 1968.

When applying worth to people, the concept becomes a bit more complex. My dad used to say that he was worth more dead than alive. I didn’t know what that meant until I became an adult. He died when I was 27, and I can tell you that he was wrong. He was worth a whole lot more to me when he was alive. But what is any life worth?

My feelings of worthiness and unworthiness have fluctuated as my life has progressed. When I was a child, my sense of worth depended upon my outside world and the way others treated me. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Griffin, loved me and thought I was a brilliant and entertaining child. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Houck hated my guts. I couldn’t do anything right and spent an inordinate amount of time in the cloakroom or out in the hall. I didn’t feel very worthy in third grade to tell you the truth. By fourth grade, I had transformed into a wonderful student who was a leader in her class in academics and citizenship. I led by example and Mrs. Galvin adored me and truly valued me. She followed the dictionary definition of worth to the letter. I was definitely a child of significant value to justify the investment of her time and interest. That was the year that I developed my theory that odd numbered grades would be bad and even numbered grades would be great years.

Feelings of worthiness are what dictate the way I experience life, what joy, love, success, fun and pleasure I will allow myself to receive.

When my feelings of worthiness are attached to what I do, from my achievements, bank account, address or body, I become a human doing instead of a human being. I don’t value myself for who I am, but for what I can accomplish. What happens if I get older and can’t accomplish the things I once could? What if I am in a terrible accident and can no longer be a productive member of society in the traditional sense? Do I become less valuable? We say no, but we mean yes. I would become a to-be-pitied drain on social resources if I had no other support system. I would feel badly about that and I would feel worthless.

While every moment will be different, the moments that I spend cultivating my inherent worthiness is time well spent. I do this by trying to expose the behaviors I engage in that undermine my feelings of worthiness and then make a conscious effort to make a better choice that will leave me feeling worthy.

I’m worth that!

From my perspective as a coach, I see a lot of historical baggage in the ways we all choose to view conflicts in all areas of life  My job is not to judge my clients, but to create and maintain a safe space for them to explore their lives, look at things they have been unwilling to examine before and know that they do not have to face it alone. The truth is, we are humans…remember? There are no mistakes and every moment of our lives serve to create the person we are today, with all of our very unique gifts.

It is easy for us all to see what is wrong with others, but our job is to tie all of the content of our judgements back to a process that can lead us to a plan of action that is aligned with our goals.

Another part of my job is to help you look at current boundaries and standards and help you develop more effective ones that are also in alignment with your vision. Tough conversations are another part of our work together as is cleaning up the past. We cannot move forward without cleaning up the past. To do this we have to practice radical honesty with ourselves and others. What is the one incompletion that most impacts your life today? What would be possible if you were willing to make a completion around this?

My job is also to challenge you about ways you have always been in the world, who you believe yourself to be and the associated behavior necessary to uphold that story line, identity. Sometimes we have to be willing to give up the person we have always believed ourselves to be in order to become the next version of ourselves. That’s a pretty scary proposition for most of us. It requires that we let go of our attachments, our little ways we practice control, our belief in the illusion of what goes on around us. We are in the word, but we must always remember that we are not “of” the world. There is a difference.

Don’t let your ego structure drag you around by the hair any longer. You get to choose what kind of life you live, how you will be treated by yourself and others and what standards you desire to live your life around. Review these often because they change as we grow. Life is not an all or nothing proposition. Just relax, take a breath and know that the perfect outcome will be achieved in due time, due process and due diligence.

When you have an opportunity to practice emotional responsibility and maturity, do so.

I encourage you to just stand still, do nothing, be gentle and compassionate with this entire process in times of confusion or deep emotional buy in. Please be willing to give yourself  time. Stand in your own integrity and be willing to believe the best about everyone involved…even if you don’t want to. Never forget that how you choose to show up at work has an impact on everyone around you…everyone can be lifted up or left hanging by the grace and dignity you choose or do not choose to exercise in your life. Be a blessing today and everyday to what ever extent it is possible.

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People pleasing is one of the greatest epidemics known to mankind. It seems that we will do whatever it takes to please others and make them like us. Another motive for people pleasing is to avoid conflict, confrontation or our own truth.

We have been taught from an early age that we should be nice and in order to be nice, we attempt to please as many people as possible an any given moment. And if you are saying to yourself at this moment, that you never try to please people, I am going to assert that you are , in fact, a people-pleaser and are unaware of it.

When we are caught in the people pleasing mode, we completely abandon ourselves and our own needs. This leads to a loss of personal power and ultimately to resentment and anger. When we say yes when we really mean no, we build up a residual resentment against the very people we are trying to please.

A typical example of this is the husband or wife who martyrs him or herself for the good of the other. This results in a set of unspoken expectations. When the other person fails to meet these expectations, resentment accumulates. Eventually, the resentment is so huge it can be difficult, if not impossible for an individual to see beyond.

When the wife of 40 years looks at her husband and sees only the ways he has disappointed her over the years, she is caught in the trap of people pleasing. She becomes blinded to the reality that this is the person with whom she has spent her life, her partner and friend. She has covered up his vulnerabilities as a fellow human being. Both her eyes and her heart have been covered over by the imagined wrongdoings of her husband.

What began, as people pleasing results in a separation from those we love the most. We have to be true to ourselves within our acts of kindness. We have to understand that saying yes when we mean no is not the road to happiness and well-being. It is the road to loneliness and isolation.

Standing in one’s own power means to be confident and courageous enough to be honest and say what we mean. We all want to be liked by others, but the truth is that regardless of what we do, half of the people will like us and the other half probably won’t.

What is really important is that we love our self enough to risk the opinions of others. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “To thine own self be true,” for when we cannot be true even to ourselves, we cannot be true to another.

Projection of the unconscious psyche is often the most difficult concept we must digest in our experience of awakening. It’s counter-intuitive to consider that literally everything in the depths of our unconscious psyches is seen outside ourselves in a projected form. This continues until the day we finally begin to consider that it is at least possible that we are projecting and that much of what we are seeing, judging, blaming and reacting to in others, in very real fact, exists within our own unconscious minds.

Projection and our lack of understanding about it causes untold suffering. Our lives suffer on every level and in every experience because we consistently project our own unwanted, rejected or denied qualities onto others. In short, we don’t see others as they are, we see others as we are. Because we don’t understand this, we suffer in our relationships, careers, spirituality, how we experience fun and joy and most of all we suffer because we limit our own potential.

We assign meaning to what other’s say or do based on our own unconscious deeply held beliefs of who we think we are and our beliefs. This dynamic of the phenomenon of projection is a true gift, because without it, we could never see what is real within us. Without it, we would never begin to step into our own powerful presence and we would never have any choices. We would be stuck inside a hall of mirrors, mocking and rejecting the distortions of our own image, rejecting these unfamiliar aspects of ourselves over and over. Sadly, this process of denial of our true nature and rejection of our selves becomes the definition of a lifetime. The cycle of projection is without end as long as we are unaware of it.

We can only see ourselves through reflection. Externally, that means that we would have no idea what our physical body looks like without the reflection of a mirror, water or some other reflective surface. We can only see our inner selves through the projected reflection of our reactions to others. What we react to, positively or negatively, in other people or situations is always about us.

I often say that things either affect or inform us. That’s my quick way of analyzing where I am coming from in any situation. As an example, I met a woman last summer that very quickly began to tell me all the dynamics of the group I had just entered. She informed me about who could be trusted and not, who was greedy, who had the ‘affair’ and who I was to simply avoid. As she talked, I began feeling really uncomfortable. I listened for a bit, taking it all in before I heard my internal dialog kick in. First, I thought she might be a very insecure person. That was a possibility. At this point, I was comfortable in knowing that this was merely information. I did not feel the need to form a self-righteous position and make her wrong. I made the decision that it would probably be in my best interest to limit our contact, and I have. This informed me.

A few short years ago, one of two things would have happened. I would have either joined in her observations and become her friend and our wounded egos would have validated each other in our self-righteous positions that said we know everything about everyone and we can judge them. Or, I would have formed my own SRP about this woman and made her wrong and judged her as a bad person because she is such a nasty gossip. I might have even passed my judgment of her on to someone else. I would have been totally affected.

Being able to observe my own action or reaction to a person or a situation has given me an incredible perspective from which to evaluate whether I am projecting my own unconscious ’stuff’ onto another or merely noticing the behavior. There is much freedom and power in cultivating the ability to be the observer in one’s own life.

If I had been affected by the woman mentioned above, I would begin the projection process by making her wrong, stupid, nosy, petty, etc. In my judgment of her, I am projecting my own disgust and rejection of the wrong, stupid, nosy, petty person inside of me.

Come on, there’s a stupid, nosy, petty person inside all of us. So what? Can we love ourselves anyway? Only when I can accept that I possess those qualities as well, can I allow another to have them without making them wrong. It’s none of my business. It’s not my place to judge her.

It is my job to notice when I have been petty, nosy and a gossip in the past, forgive myself for it and get on with life. I can make a huge difference in how I experience this group just by making that one choice. I can also have an impact on others in the group by choosing to show up as authentically tolerant and willing to see each person as whole and complete and enjoy them just as they are. I can never do this until I can accept my own flaws and weaknesses. I can only do this when I am willing to stop being embarrassed by my humanity.

This, too, is projection. But, that’s another blog!