So Much Happier Blog
Feeling Reeeeeally Tired?
“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”
Photo by Ethan Brooke
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this year has felt like an endless Groundhog Day-style slog for a lot of people. We’ve all had to adapt to major changes nearly overnight, and these changes have involved confusion and sacrifice. Much has been uncomfortable, frustrating, contentious, and challenging. Living in times when everyone is feeling these things has led to drops in efficiency across all of our activities, and interactions with other people that are increasingly strained by the pressures everyone is facing. We’re being called to think and function in new ways, and many people have been pushed over the edge past where they can find any sense of balance.
Times of intense challenge require innovation, as the “old way” of doing things will often no longer be effective or even tenable. Unfortunately, humans don’t seem to like change very much! Throughout history, there are endless examples of blind resistance to change that was doomed, yet the trend was to dig in and refuse to reckon with change anyway. It takes work to change our thinking, our habits, and to change our own sense of identity—which, because of the endless antics of the ego, can actually feel like a kind of death. Fun!
To cope with all of this challenge, we need tools to foster internal adaptation and resilience. Unfortunately, most of us have been told that the answer to everything related to mind and emotions is willpower, a.k.a. stubbornness. You’re “supposed to” be able to muscle through whatever comes up, and if not, well, you’re weak and useless. This thinking paints people into corners where they think they need to suffer in silence in order to be valuable. In fact, if we want to be the most effective (not to mention happy) people we can be, just the opposite is true! We need to acknowledge where we’re struggling, find ways to vent off and transform our emotions into useful knowledge, and take action to create healthier balance in our lives.
You probably know by now that I find Tapping to be one of the most effective tools in existence for helping us to do all of these things. It’s simple, direct, and it works on all levels, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. And it’s free to learn and use as a self-help tool whenever you need it. It does encompass a lot of techniques that take time to master, but just the simplest version can make all the difference in how you experience your every day. If you haven’t yet started to practice using it, I strongly recommend that now is the time to put in a few minutes here and there to remind yourself of the steps and practice.
One of the things I like best about Tapping is that we don’t need to try to force anything to happen in this medium. We just express the reality of what’s going on in our inner world, and allow change to happen organically while we Tap. How we feel is not just ok, but important, and allowing it can lead to illuminating understandings and change that naturally occurs in right timing for our capacity. Symptoms of stress may melt away, sleep may improve, and you may find yourself feeling a lot less resistance to appropriate change with continued use. (Those are side effects we can all live with!) The name for the specific version of meridian tapping in which I am trained is called EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, for good reason!
I also want to share an article this week that makes some excellent points about how much the sheer uncertainty of the current environment can wear on us. Of course life always involves uncertainty, but these are unusual times to be sure. I hope you find it a useful reminder that you are not alone, and that it’s ok to be feeling on edge right now. Just don’t forget that you have the power to help yourself feel better about whatever stresses are on your plate, maybe after just a few minutes of Tapping.
Elevating the Quality of Your Leisure Time
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
Photo by Orlova Maria
To be honest, lately I’ve been focused on several activities that have required discipline, and I’ve been feeling less creative personally, and times like this are not my favorite. As a way to add compensatory interest and inspiration during this time, I’ve found myself thinking about bringing some highly concentrated creative beauty into my life courtesy of some wonderful artists whose works I’ve admired over time, or who have been more recently highly recommended.
I have to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed diving into these works of stunning beauty when the day is done and it’s time to stop thinking and acting. I’ve been reminded how much different it is to have contact with something sublime and masterful rather than just mildly interesting and easily accessible. Some works are merely light and fun (which of course is fine, and these have their place, particularly when we’re exhausted and need some mindless time). But some works are more satisfying to each of us, depending on our tastes. Finding and reveling in these can make a huge difference in how inspired we feel, and how much energy and enthusiasm we have at the ready to pursue our own lives on the other side. Don’t you find that when you take in an especially great book, movie, painting, song, etc., you think about it for weeks, months, sometimes years afterward and still feel the joy of the experience? Doesn’t that add to your life in ways that are hard to quantify?
Making a habit of this corresponds to the “Do Something Awe-Inspiring” section of this article on secrets to happiness that I thought I’d share. I actually found this after I’d been working on locating these compressed missives of joy for myself, and it was a good reminder about why this and other key strategies work to improve our moods. Feeling awe, inspiration, and connection to others is essential to creating great happiness. And we’re all living through times when we’re more challenged in these areas, and it’s hard to know when we’ll catch a collective break. That means we need to work harder right now to wring more satisfaction out of things that can sustain us through challenge.
In the week ahead, take just a few extra moments here and there to consider the kinds of creative works you have found most fulfilling. If you don’t have a library card, it’s usually not hard to get one, and that will open up a world of books and other media to your enjoyment. Maybe you have access to services that offer home entertainment that you can mine for experiences that fall within your favorite genres. Lots of museums are offering online tours and other content right now. There’s a lot of content online, some free of charge right now. What have been some of your most beloved works? Where can you find more of those? Friends with similar tastes can be a great source of ideas, so don’t forget to ask around for items you might not have found on your own. Maybe with just a little extra consideration you’ll find some new personal favorites as I have recently done—books you’ll read again and again because they really are that good. Movies you’ll replay in your mind and giggle about every time you think of that favorite scene. Music that will become part of your most passionate shower karaoke sessions. Visual art you might hang on your walls or just revisit when you can.
I wish you an inspiring week. Feel free to share any of your favorites you’d like to pass along in the Comments section!
Acupressure Points that May Help with Anxiousness
“Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.”
This week I came across an article on some acupressure points that can be helpful for anxiety, and I wanted to share it with you. As you well know by now, my absolute favorite method for emotional management is Tapping, but anything accessible that can help us all dial down stress right now is crucial. If you want to try what this article suggests, you can apply pressure at a level that feels good to you, or you could tap on these if you prefer, and see if you get extra relief. Sometimes, you’ll find that a particular point feels amazing and really seems to get you extra-great results. At other times, you might want to spend a minute or two on each and see how that goes. Just be sure to heed the warnings about not using some of these if you’re pregnant. I also want to mention that the one on the back of the hand near the thumb has been known to induce nausea in my experience, so you might want to tread lightly with that one as well.
Here’s the link to the article. Note that natural health methodologies tend to be poorly funded because they don’t have huge, powerful industries behind them like drugs do, but Tapping can now claim a growing number of well-constructed studies showing that it works across a range of issues. Acupressure is derived from the same knowledge base, Traditional Chinese Medicine, some of the principles of which are echoed in a number of other traditional health systems established long before the Western version of scientific inquiry was born. When treated with respect and common sense, and pursued with appropriate education or consultation with experts, many of these natural approaches can be gentle and helpful.
As always, I wish you and yours health and peace, and the ability to keep working to make the world a better place even through the most challenging of times.
Navigating Assaults on Your Spirit
“You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.”
Sadly, one of the characteristics of the human condition is suffering. Much as we may work to avoid it and maximize our happiness (and I will never argue against doing this in ethical ways that don’t harm others, as it often yields great rewards to us and the world around us), we can’t escape our share of difficulty in this life. And some people accumulate far more than their share. Thinking, feeling human beings partake not just in their own pain, but in the pain of others, which can be just as difficult. And in this day and age, when so much bad news in in our faces all the time, the visible levels of human suffering can be overwhelming on a daily basis. When there are spikes in sad and senseless world events, which has happened numerous times this year alone, it can be hard to continue functioning at all.
Despair and powerlessness are at the very the bottom curve of human emotions. When we’ve fallen this far, coming back to equanimity is a process. It doesn’t have to take a long time chronologically, but it does take work. What drives us into these states is unique and complex, and the severity of our fall is determined by the timing of many factors and how they interrelate. I think we’ve all had the experience of multiple misfortunes coming in rapid succession at times, and in these cases, it’s far harder to remain emotionally and spiritually buoyant if you’re not an enlightened master, or at least someone who has trained for the most challenging and soul-sucking times. In our darkest hours, our task may be to just hang on as best we can so that we can heal and renew when some light returns.
Let’s get right to it. Some ideas for supporting yourself in your worst of times:
Rest. I personally find sleep to be a huge help when I’m emotionally overwhelmed and drained. It’s never the whole story, but it does offer a certain magic. Sometimes the healthiest thing to do is give your system a reset, and this is a good one if you can leverage it.
Do your best to keep drinking water and eating some nutritious food every day. If you can’t be bothered, this is something you may be able to ask for help on from a family member when you’re at your wit’s end.
Indulge in “distraction techniques.” These can include any number of activities, like watching a movie that completely gets your mind off what’s weighing on you, playing a game, playing with a pet or child, taking a bath and reading a novel, or otherwise directing your attention off of the problem. This can seem frivolous when everything seems wrong, but you’re no good to anyone when you’re having trouble summoning the will to do anything at all.
On the other hand, you might find it more helpful (especially when you’ve regained enough energy to feel angry or frustrated) to express your feelings by joining with others who understand what you’re upset about to vent, or consuming art that describes your experience and your feelings, creating art, journaling, going to cognitive therapy, or Tapping. In some cities there are now “rage rooms” where you can pay a fee to let loose and break and destroy things, which I understand can be pretty satisfying! Finding a support group around a long-term struggle you share with others can also be incredibly helpful.
This can also be a great time to decide where you will invest energy in the future to help others or support a great cause that is aligned with your struggle, or with skills you enjoy sharing. Committing to an effort to make the world a better place and improve someone else’s life can give a lot of meaning to yours.
Remind yourself what your highest values are, the things that make life worth living, even if it all seems questionable at the moment. When you learn to do this often, it can be something that saves you from the deepest plunges even when your greatest challenges emerge.
There’s a lot of great work you can do when things are looking a bit better that will help you deal with the next time you hit a deep trough, but it takes more energy to do these than you probably have when you’re in the depths. Setting up a support system, finding like-minded buddies and groups (virtual and in real life), as well as practitioners who can help if you’re really in need, spiritual gathering places where you feel at home, and cultivating comforting rituals and other supportive practices like meditation, physical exercise, healthy emotional and mental attentiveness and venting, or spending time with friends who uplift you.
There will be times when your life will feel terrible and hopeless. I wish that wasn’t true, but I don’t think it’s possible to escape this reality if you live a human life. Without acting out or taking out your emotions on your friends, it is important to take time to express your emotions and thoughts, and also, at times, to studiously ignore them so you can partake of various kinds of healing. Whatever your year has been like so far, I hope that you can find support from a variety of loving sources when you need it. I hope you can become stronger and more compassionate despite, or even as a result of, challenge. I hope the time you spend in your worst pain is dwarfed by the time you spend experiencing solidarity and meaning. When you are on solid footing, I hope you will take your turn supporting those who are not with whatever you are best at giving. I hope the human race finds ways to become better and more humane so that all people can experience better lives.
Where to Start?
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
In last week’s blog, I wrote about how during these strange times, you may be able to find space for some activities that will support your renewal even during all the uncertainty. You may be the only thing you have the power to change right now, but changing yourself can be very powerful—it can initiate change that ripples out and affects everything and everyone around you. If you’d like to do this, you may be wondering how best to figure out what to work on. Most of us have lots of emotions, thoughts, and beliefs left over from previous life events that could be benefitted by Tapping, so how do you know what you should work on today? As long as you don’t choose anything that seems too big or scary, there’s really no wrong answer, but here are a few ways you can land on something that will feel fulfilling to make some progress on right away:
Ask yourself what has been bothering you lately. If we give ourselves a moment, most of us can pretty easily rattle off the things we’re worried, scared, annoyed, angry, or frustrated about at any given time. This does fluctuate, sometimes based on identifiable triggers, and sometimes in ways that are more unconscious and mysterious. Your answer today may be quite different than it was last week. If it’s one big thing, you can Tap on that. If it’s a lot of things, you might want to try the Tap and Rant technique, in which you just Tap through all the points and just vent all of it and how you feel about it.
If you’re focusing on one thing, you can just notice the emotion that bothers you and how it affects your body as you Tap, being as specific as you can about all the sensations you feel. As you Tap, the intensity should come down. You may need to be patient depending on how intense it is, and do multiple rounds of Tapping to get results.
You can also work through an event using the Tell the Story technique, in which you narrate the story of something unpleasant that happened, starting from a neutral place before anything really bothered you, and as soon as you feel any emotion or physical discomfort whatsoever, you pause telling the story and Tap. If you can reduce those feelings to a low number (two or lower on a zero-to-ten scale), then you can resume telling the story and pause to Tap whenever you start to feel anything again at a later point in the story. Once you can tell the story start to finish without feeling much of anything, you’re done with that event!
You can simply scan your body for any discomfort. If you find anything that stands out, you can try Tapping as you voice the sensations. Often what happens as you do this is that the sensation will move and change. After each Tapping round, you can reassess and notice what you feel now. This is called the “Chasing the Pain” technique, and it’s considered one of the Gentle Techniques in EFT. You don’t have to know why you’re feeling the sensation, you just Tap and describe it and how it transforms until hopefully you no longer feel discomfort. How this can be pretty surprising and defy all logic, but often it really helps.
You can also use the Personal Peace Procedure, in which you make notes on a whole bunch of things that bother you, and just pick one each time you Tap to work on. Over time, you can work through them one by one, and you’ll find that even a few minutes a day helps you erase your emotional reactiveness to them and cross things off your list. Eventually you should notice that you feel better and have more energy. Some people like to brainstorm a long list, but that can be overwhelming. You might prefer to just make a short list, and then brainstorm a new one when you finish with those initial items. Trust me, there will always be more to work on!
Remember that as you go, it’s important to be honest about what you feel and not try to force it to change, particularly when it’s at the high end of the intensity scale. If you try to immediately talk yourself out of your feelings as you Tap so you can avoid them, you won’t get good results. It’s necessary to just admit to what’s true and let the Tapping organically change how you feel. Most of the time, it will start to do that naturally within a few rounds.
You may sometimes get stuck at a plateau with something you’re working on. If the intensity came down at all, feel free to call this a win and give yourself a break. You can always come back to it later for another attempt, and sometimes your system needs time to adjust and reveal all the benefits you created.
You may also find that if you’ve worked on something multiple times and you’re not getting anywhere, it’s time for some help. Some things are just tricky to work on, and getting an outside perspective from a practitioner can help you solve the mystery of what’s going on with the right questions and the use of some more advanced techniques.
I hope this helps you venture into more frequent Tapping that will help you survive and thrive in challenging times. What’s better than something you can do anytime, for free, that feels good and supports your short- and long-term balance? Not much in my book!
Melting that Stress Away
This week I want to share an article about a recent study on the efficacy of EFT on stress relief. This study replicates a previous one that showed a significant decrease in cortisol (one of the main stress hormones) production, with an even better average result. This confirms what anyone who has actually learned and used Tapping knows, that it quickly helps to relieve stress and calm the body and mind. On the right side of the above linked page, you can access other studies about EFT’s efficacy as well. You may not want to wile away your day perusing these articles for fun, but if you need a reminder about why it’s highly practical to spend some time becoming comfortable with Tapping and weaving it into your daily routine, perhaps these articles will provide that for you. It’s my hope that you will use this incredible simple, free, supportive range of tools for your benefit always, but particularly at times of high stress and uncertainty, like the ones we’re living through right now.
Need reminder about how to do it? Head over to this page. It only takes a few minutes per day to start practicing and gaining confidence that you can improve your moods and functioning across the board with these techniques. A lot of people have more time right now, so you may have a perfect opportunity to spend a little time each day using Tapping to decrease your stress and clear your slate for a better day, no matter what you have going on. I would never want to be without the ability Tapping gives me to completely change how I feel about my current challenges in just minutes, and I hope it brings you the same kind of solace.
So Much Togetherness
“There is no such thing as fun for the whole family.”
If you are in one of the many places in the world that are self-isolating right now, then you have been experiencing multiple challenges. One of those is a LOT more time with family and pets who may be used to having a lot more space and alone time. I came across an article on how to keep the peace with you loved ones, and I thought I’d share it for your health and enjoyment!
You can find that here. In addition, know that anytime we undergo big changes to our routines and have to turn on a dime as we have recently, it’s very normal to feel confused, overwhelmed, frustrated, afraid, annoyed, and to be tempted to lash out at others. That doesn’t tend to go well, though, so I suggest you plan to do extra work on yourself and your inner life right now. Taking a little of the time you normally spend on commuting, doing errands, attending social engagements, etc. to do calming activities like taking a bath, writing in a journal, reading a good book, or Tapping can be a huge help in managing all the rapid change you’ve been enduring. Life will begin to pick up again at some point, but for now, don’t try to pretend this isn’t hard.
Some Research on Positive Results of Tapping
“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”
This week, I know many of us are dealing with changes to our everyday routines due to public health imperatives, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. At times like this when we’re under all kinds of stress due to global events and distressing local realities, we really need to be managing our inner lives in order to stay healthy (in addition to following the guidance of public health experts, of course). In case you still haven’t gotten up and running with Tapping, below are some links that show evidence of how much it can help our bodies to adapt positively in a variety of situations. If you know someone else who is on the fence about it because it seems strange at first glance, you might want to pass along these links to them. Even if you do Tap regularly, you still might want to check out some of this information, as it’s always interesting to see how others are succeeding with Tapping. Now’s the time for all of us to be using these amazing, free techniques to keep ourselves in the game.
EFT International's Research Page
EFT Universe Science and Research Page
The Tapping Solution's Research Page
I hope you find these links helpful, and I wish you peace and health as we all navigate these strange times in which we find ourselves. Have a safe and sane week!
A Simple Way Toward All the Good Stuff
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
If you’re reading this, it’s at least partly because you like finding ways to make your life better, happier, and more inspiring through methods that only require a reasonable, doable amount of effort. Am I right? In this spirit, this week, I wanted to pass on a link to an article about something that is simple, yet so powerful in helping you to feel better about your life almost instantly.
There’s a lot more research happening these days on the powers of our behavior, including the internal behaviors of our thoughts and emotions. In this article, we get a short summary on some of the scientific findings about the power of making compassion an intentional part of our lives. Sometimes a simple outlook shift can change everything for the better, and prioritizing compassion is one of the most lauded shifts we can make. Compassion is referred to throughout human history across time, place, and culture as one of the most important components of a life well lived. If you want to increase your satisfaction, your relationships, your overall happiness, not to mention your contribution to making the world a better place, this is a shortcut that you can implement anytime for free just by how you think, and it opens the door to the creation of supportive action and habits.
A few thoughts from me:
Practicing compassion requires us to become aware of and care about another’s experience. This takes us out of ourselves and gives us a break from worrying about our own issues.
Humans are naturally social, and wired to help others. Problems arise when we over-give, so keeping an eye on balance is important, but when we’re in balance, sharing and giving feel great.
When we give in a way that answers what another truly needs, everyone’s happiness is amplified. Keying into what someone else needs may require putting aside our own opinions and preferences. If this is hard for you, Tapping can help you find your calm, centered place. From there, you will be more easily able to hear clearly and let the other person express themselves without jumping in with your own preconceptions. As mentioned above, prioritizing someone else’s needs may be a challenge, but it can also be a relief.
Listening is highly educational. You just might find that when you put a bit more attention on listening, you’ll learn a whole lot about how others think and experience the world, not to mention other random topics they’re concerned about, which may be interesting as well.
True leadership starts with listening, and if you both listen and act on what you hear with compassion (without losing yourself, because you’re an essential part of any interaction), you’ll be able to build a better life for yourself and begin to lead others to better things as well. How can you listen compassionately to someone else this week?
Remember Reading for Fun?
“You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
I recently read about a study that was done in 2009 at the University of Sussex in the U.K. on some basic stress relief techniques and how effective they could be in short periods of time. It held some happy surprises, and I wanted to pass them along to you this week. While you know that Tapping/EFT is definitely my favorite stress relief technique, I like to make sure you know about lots of others you can weave into the fabric of your daily life. Nothing is the right tool for everyone all the time, and what I like about this study is that it points out the utility and surprising rapidity of results you can get from enjoying everyday things you already know how to do! Fast, easy, effective, and no learning required? Yes, please!
In this study, subjects’ heart rates and muscle tension were monitored while they engaged in various activities. Here are the results they recorded for each:
Playing video games: 21% improvement in stress levels. So maybe that silly game you downloaded onto your phone is not just fun, but more helpful to you than you knew!
Taking a walk: 42% improvement. Sometimes age-old low-tech wisdom is the best!
Enjoying a cup of coffee or tea: 54% improvement. Whoa. Does this surprise you as much as it did me? Next time you feel tense, maybe grab your favorite hot beverage and just savor the flavor for a highly effective relaxation break. Amazing!
Listening to music: 61% improvement. I don’t think it’s too much of a surprise that music we like takes most of us to our safe, happy place, but with this kind of proof, we really have a case for working it into our days more consistently. Turn the volume to your preferred level and enjoy. Extra points if you twirl and jump around while listening, because plenty of other studies have shown that moving around and getting the blood pumping produces endorphins, our “happy” chemicals.
The grand prize winner, reading: 68% improvement in as little as six minutes! What?! (Take note that this is based on reading fiction for fun—NOT news or business articles and the like.) Enjoyable reading distracts us from our own thoughts and problems (and distraction techniques have been shown to be quite helpful for anxiety, for instance), as well as firing up our creativity, which adds another supportive element. I find this to be pretty exciting, because it’s so simple. Plus, I’ve always been a big-time bookworm. As long as you’re not multi-tasking, but allowing yourself to be absorbed in the story, I’m guessing you’d get the same results from listening to an audio book.
Isn’t it nice to hear about a few things that are fun and not at all bad for your health (as long as you don’t sprain your thumb playing video games)? In the week ahead, how about digging out your library card (or getting one) and reading a chapter a day of something fun? Even better, walk to the library to get that book, listen to music and gyrate as you make a cup of tea, then curl up with said tea to read that chapter. It’s all good for you! Simple yet powerful pleasures. Who says stress relief has to be hard work?
How about Some Good News?
This world we’re living in can be so busy and difficult and distracting, and filled with the constant blaring of bad news, that sometimes it’s hard to remember that there are good things happening all over the planet all the time as well. I thought this week I’d just send a few sources for updates of this kind. Feel free to bookmark them and return whenever you need a reminder about all the great work being done. You may even be inspired to join in here or there! Even if not, it can be inspiring and heartening to read about uplifting news. I hope you enjoy and get a lift from these sources. Please feel free to share and help others around you remember the good as well!
And just for fun, here’s a nice compilation of a bunch of good stories from 2019. See you next week!
Feeling Out of Phase?
Well friends, here we are solidly into 2020, a new year and a new decade! Whether you were raring to go or felt blindsided by the trappings of wrapping up the old year, time marches on. Like a lot of people, I spent the transition groggy with a nasty cold, and I feel like I’m only now finally starting to wake up again. Maybe you’ve already hit the ground running with exciting new ideas and plans, and if so, well done!
Whatever your experience has been so far, remember that your personal timing doesn’t have to line up with everyone else’s to be valid. Sometimes we all get a little (or a lot) out of step with where the world seems to be headed. You may experience this in small ways, with a sense of being out of synch in your closest relationships or in your local routines. For much of human history, the local was most of what we had to worry about! However, now, with the advent of the Information Age and the 24-hour news cycle that must be filled, no matter how low-quality the programming, we are bombarded with so much more than we can ever participate in, and much of it is fear-mongering. The split focus and temptation toward constant worry that this constantly induces is confusing at best and utterly overwhelming at worst.
And this is not just experienced on a personal level. Our new normal is affecting the genesis and reaction to mass events the world over. This time in history is in many ways chaotic and shot through with layers of rudderless conflict. We’ve hit multiple tipping points that require us to change on a global scale if we want to have a planet to live on at all in another decade or three, and the majority of the world’s leaders seem convinced that childish, self-obsessed stupidity is the way to go.
I actually think a lot of our issues come down to failures in educational systems. That’s not really surprising, since education used to be only for the wealthy, and only quite recently has there been an effort to scale it up to cover everyone in cultures across the world. This effort has revealed a whole new set of challenges that are not easy or quick to solve with our current level of experience regarding the effective transfer of information and skills in group settings. And just recently, the number of readily available distractions has exploded. It used to be that for those with the luxury of free time, one of the exciting things you could do was learn, and expand your horizons in self-motivated ways. Now so much is handed to us, even foisted upon us, that learning is less a joy and more of a constant drudgery as we try to keep up with everything that a cacophony of questionably valuable tastemakers tells us we must.
I don’t mean to sound like a grumpy old person here (“It used to be that everything was just great, blah blah blah”), because there was never a time when everything was perfect on planet Earth! What I’m hearing from so many people right now, though, is that the fight against constant overwhelm is becoming more and more consuming and exhausting. If you feel like you’re bogged down in a cycle of just getting through each day and recovering from it, you’re in good company! Here are some ideas that may help you as you begin to construct your vision of this new year and begin to set it into motion:
Acknowledge that this world is a challenging place in which to live, and don’t be so hard on yourself about it. You have to balance yourself and your needs, the needs of those closest to you, and your relationship with the wider world, all of which are demanding, and these demands are constantly shifting. Give yourself some love and credit for keeping up with all of this. Some people like to make their lives look effortless on social media. Don’t believe that #*%~.
Reaffirm that only you can be the source of the most high-quality information about you. By all means, consider feedback from others as you chart your path, but if their assumptions are wrong, reject them. Only if you retain the right to be the arbiter of your opinions about yourself, and choose to make self-compassion a guiding principle, will you have access to the constant stream of creativity you need in your daily efforts to make your life the best it can be.
Have a written list of your priorities that you refer to daily. Focus is key. You can imagine far more than you can ever accomplish in the flesh! You must prioritize your highest values and connected projects if you ever want to get anywhere. Do you have this? Almost no one does. If you don’t, make a list now in your phone or somewhere else you can easily refer to it. Have you done this yet? Seriously, do it now!
Unless you are a writer or other passionate content producer by choice, focusing on living your life in the real world is far more crucial than narrating your every move in the twittersphere. Yes, stay in touch with important people in your life in the most convenient ways for you. Just don’t confuse running in endless circles online with accomplishing your goals. Simplify and focus.
Carve out the time you need to take care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. If you think you’re too busy, start with small steps. If you fall off the wagon, get up and keep trying. You can’t sustain an optimal life if you always put your basic needs last.
Get clear about the ways in which you want to contribute and give, the ways that feel appropriate and exciting for you. If you’re not sure, get out there and practice donating some of your favorite skills. Be careful to corral your giving into this mission statement so that you don’t start behaving as though you owe all things to all people. We all need to exist within a give and take dynamic with the societies we live in, but doing too much will exhaust you and deny the world the best version of what you have to give. Give joyfully, and when you can’t, plot your rest and rejuvenation, and then get back to your chosen areas of giving.
Keep an eye out for ways to make your life fun. If something isn’t fun at all, you’ll tend to quit, because there are limits to human reserves of willpower. Enjoyment keeps us motivated in healthy ways. It also draws us toward activities we’re good at, which helps nurture our effectiveness and deeply feed our life vitality.
It’s fine to be influenced by the timing of the world and the people around you, but remember that those who have invented some of the best solutions in history have been considered eccentric-to-outright-crazy because they were not following the pack. In case you haven’t noticed (you probably have if you’re reading this), the world is desperately in need of creative solutions to a wide variety of problems. Paradoxically, you may be better able to help by refusing to have your timing and your activities dictated by conventional wisdom, immediate imperatives that you’re not the right person for, and public opinion.
Treasure the people you trust. Friends who have your best interests at heart as well as their own, and who have demonstrated the ability to maintain relationships characterized by a balance between giving and receiving, are one of the best things in life. Appreciate these people at every opportunity!
There are times when we need to meet life with a warrior spirit, and no matter what you’re attempting to do with your life, it seems to me that now, this moment on this planet, is one of those times. I don’t mean that we need to be combative, but rather suffused with a courageous willingness to do what is necessary and appropriate in order to meet the challenges we face, both personal and collective. Find someone from any time in history who inspires you in this direction.
I wish you courage, focus, friendship, ease, and joy as you face whatever may unfold for you in 2020. Be awesome!
Cultivating Your Vision
“Dream and you shall become.”
Assuming that you’ve been following along, last week you thought about what you would categorize as this year’s successes and failures, and what you’ve learned from it all. So now what, you ask? Excellent question! Doing this exercise can leave you with a jumble of thoughts, emotions, and impressions from the past year that can be unsettling and confusing, but that’s obviously not the goal! When you’ve spent the time to reflect on your year, the next step is still not action. Instead, it’s more reflection—this time on what you’d like to be able to experience in the new year.
Following nature’s rhythms, it’s a time of year for harvest (enjoyment and celebration of what you’ve produced this year) and envisioning, at this darkest time of the year, what you will begin to set in motion when the light begins its return on the winter solstice.
What positive capacities would you like to continue to strengthen in this coming year?
What do you need to rethink and attempt again in new ways? What will you do before that—research, education, seeking advice and new ideas?
What might you decide to stop doing? (The answer to this has the potential to move you forward in surprisingly powerful ways!)
More than anything, what would you like your life to feel like? See if you can cultivate that feeling now, in the relative quiet of the long nights of winter, regardless of your circumstances. Practicing this can help you to become aware of what supports and what tears at this feeling when life starts to pick up again in the spring. Noticing helps you to make better choices about what belongs in your life and what doesn’t.
It’s easy to get caught up in the spin and rush of the holiday madness that’s all around us now, but it’s important to be resting and recharging our batteries, so remember to slow down enough to be really present for the time you may spend with friends and family this month. Modern life is relentless, but we can choose to unhook, unplug, and get off the crazy wheel sometimes, because we all need to take breaks. All the busy-ness is no good if we’re never experiencing any quality of life.
Remember to carve out some time this month for quiet, reflection, appreciation of what you have to celebrate, and healing from what was difficult this year. Look for ways to experience the joy of mid-winter celebrations that societies all over the world have made a tradition. Give yourself time to dream of what you may create in the new year as the old one winds down. Treat yourself with kindness as you come in from the cold to rest for a while before striking out anew.
Reclaiming Polyanna
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
Years ago, I heard Maryanne Williamson speak on the topic of the story of Polyanna (there’s an old Disney movie based on a novel if you’ve never heard of it. It’s about a little girl who stubbornly sees the good in everyone, and about how this affects the people she interacts with.) She talked about how it’s become fashionable to bash the title character’s perennial insistence on seeing the positive in all things—after all, isn’t someone like that pretty annoying in day-to-day life? Maybe inspiring in a short movie, but otherwise just too much? Marianne went on to point out, though, this little character’s immense power to transform the world around her, which plays out in the story. I thought it was a fantastic point. Would we rather complain and reserve our right to be cynical, or reach for more optimism and the tremendous power that follows?
In light of this awareness, I want to suggest that it’s a good season for thinking about closing down the year that is winding down, and envisioning the year ahead. As we do this, it behooves us to think about what results we were able to create, both positive and negative-seeming:
Where did we succeed, and what can we learn from these successes? What should we continue doing in order to repeat these successes, and what might we need to stop doing?
What successes might we have blown right by without noticing or celebrating, and what would be a meaningful way to celebrate these now?
Where did we fail, or mess up, and what can we learn from this?
Here’s where Polyanna comes in—if you’re having trouble seeing what you can take away from this that would be beneficial to you in the future, play a game with yourself where you give yourself permission to be as obnoxiously and stubbornly cheerful as you possibly can about everything you think of. Really go overboard and get ridiculous about it, practicing on other people’s life events. Then turn that back on the situation from your life and see what that kind of playful, exaggerated thinking can show you about it
Knowing what you know now, how would you go back and redo this situation if you could?
Is there still anything left undone about it that you’d like to wrap up? Maybe you just left the pieces where they lay, rather than cleaning up so you could move on as smoothly as possible. Now might be a good time to pick up the pieces and make peace with it one way or another
Try actually rehearsing mentally how what you learned can help you next time you’re in a situation where it would apply. Learning something new to the point where it’s immediately useful when you need it usually takes some repetition and practice
What can you give yourself credit for in that original “failure” scenario that perhaps you haven’t yet done? In what ways did you really try your best? Where did what you tried come very close to working? Where was bad luck involved, such that you couldn’t have foreseen or controlled certain factors with the knowledge you had?
Is there anyone you need to apologize to or make some other contact with in order to tie up loose ends?
Regardless of whether others have forgiven you, think about how you might forgive yourself. Sometimes we have to let others have their own feelings and their own timing, but we still have the power to decide that internally, we’ve suffered enough for the time being.
In taking stock of recent life lessons, it’s important to both acknowledge our progress and the things we still need to work on. It’s human nature to learn most things by doing, and without the emotional punch packed by the experience of failure, many things we would be likely not to learn at all—yet continuing to learn is often what makes us worthwhile people. As this year enters its final month, it’s a natural time to take stock so that we can let go of the old and allow the new room to grow in the new year. I hope you’ll be able to find a willingness to go easy on yourself, giving yourself proper credit, while still being willing to look clearly at where you were less awesome, make amends as needed, and learn from that. It is through finding this balance that we maintain a sane perspective on both ourselves and others around us, none of whom is perfect, but all of whom have value..
Where Am I Stuck?
“How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.”
Last week, we looked at the ways in which we tend to resist noticing where we could grow and improve for faster progress toward our goals. This is a very normal human behavior, but it keeps us from being everything we can. This week, I want to encourage you to think about where in your life you feel stuck, and what part in that you yourself may be playing.
It’s usually pretty easy to notice your pain points—often you probably spend much of your day mulling, even obsessing over them. Unless you’re a master at avoidance of your own emotions (and some people are), it probably isn’t hard for you to rattle off the things that are currently frustrating the heck out of you, and the situations you still don’t seem able to change no matter what you try. This is step one.
Step two can be harder because of the blind spots we’re all prone to. This is where I will ask you to think about the ways in which you may be contributing to the pain you’re experiencing, even if you haven’t been doing so consciously. Your first reaction might be, “I’m not! It’s the world, the industry, my family, etc.!” I’m sure that there are numerous factors playing into your situation, but are you sure you have NO hand in it? You might also wail that it’s all your fault, and that wouldn’t be true either. Life on Earth is a shared experience, and if you don’t live on a desert island, then nothing comes down to only you. The important thing is to get used to becoming open to observing where we have the power to choose differently, grow, and become more able to succeed in the ways we hope. So even when you’ve just had it with the factors that are not within your direct control, remember to think about any little part of the problem that could trace back to you. What would make you able to immediately solve this problem? Resources? Skills? Knowledge?
Once you have a better sense of this, you can start making a plan to work on those things that would be helpful and are within your control. This week, ask yourself what you would need to do to improve your own standing in the context of your most annoying problems. Next week we’ll talk about what to do with this information so that you can start moving forward again.