Year in Review

“Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”

— Mike Tyson

Despite the fact that this month is a whirlwind for many people, most of us are still managing to find odd moments to judge ourselves against the hopes and goals we had for ourselves in 2016.  We may feel good about our achievements, but we’re also quite likely to be dealing with disappointment about where we may have missed out on things we wanted very much.  No matter how good life is, some part of us is aware of the ways in which things could be better, and it prowls the corners of the mind resenting this gap and grumbling about the injustice of it.

Perhaps now is a good time to actually tune into that voice and see what it has to say.  Periodically assessing where you are is an important part of continually moving forward, and the voice of discontent can be valuable.  Taking a few quiet moments to write down how 2016 went for you personally can help orient you as you naturally begin to think about the approach of 2017.  Much of this past year, you were likely doing the best you could.  If you weren’t, the constructive thing is not to berate yourself, but to gain understanding about why.  Ask yourself:  Where do you feel you got stuck this year?  What are you disappointed and frustrated about that maybe you’ve been avoiding admitting?  Stuffing down these feelings won’t help you resolve anything emotionally, and it also won’t support your learning and growth going forward. What would you do over if you could and why?  How would you like to be able to handle a situation like this in the future if it comes up again?  And what skills will you need to work on in order to become the kind of person who can easily handle it that way?

Doing this before you get drawn into the annual storm of New Year’s resolutions peer pressure will reveal the desires that are most important to you.  If you must resolve to change something, let it be supportive of your movement toward the goals that are authentic to you.  If you are having trouble figuring out why something is so hard for you, it might be time to call in an expert or a trusted friend for a perspective check.  You might need to get a little creative about working with your subconscious to clear out problems that have been dogging you (Tapping, NLP, and hypnosis are great ways to address this kind of issue, and there are plenty of others.)  Even though recurring patterns can be extremely galling, know that you can make progress on these if you are willing to keep working on them and trying things until you find something that works for you.  Everyone gets exhausted sometimes.  When you do, it’s ok to step back, renew yourself, and then get back to it.

So, give yourself a break already.  Nothing in life ever goes exactly according to plan.  That’s the nature of the human experience.  Enjoy any holidays you celebrate this month with zest, and celebrate what went right for you this year with every fiber of your being.  In fact, that would be a helpful resolution for 2017—I will celebrate everything that goes right!  I will acknowledge something that brought me joy at the end of every day, and celebrate the happiness of others as well!  If you acknowledge where you are discontent, and then keeping moving back toward focus on what’s working, it will be easier to keep yourself feeling happy and enthusiastic throughout the new year.  If you can do that, all your hopes and dreams become more possible.

Girl Power!

“Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.”

— Margaret Fuller

I have a beef with a lot of the language I hear out there in the motivation and personal development arenas. There are many wonderful teachers giving their all and providing excellent information.  However, too often I find the available advice to be heavily skewed toward that which boils down to exhortations to students to man up, stop whining, and just do it, whatever the "it" of the moment may be. 

We all have access to both masculine and feminine energy and wisdom, but because the past two thousand years or so have been a time of dominance of masculine energy, experience, and thinking, most of us alive now have all been taught that action and tangible results are what matter in life. The measure of success during this time has been how much wealth one could amass (whether or not one had any plan for actually utilizing it) and how much power and influence one could gain over others.  Not to say that the desire to gain rewards is bad or that masculine energy is no good!  It can be a very helpful and motivating thing to enjoy achievement, rewards, and the process of earning a place of respect in the world.  Masculine energy, and men, have a unique and important viewpoint to contribute that is 50% of the necessary picture.  But we've been severely out of balance with the feminine energy side of things, which would vote that rewards not be gained at the expense of others' rights, health, and safety; that wealth be used to improve daily life for self and community rather than being endlessly hoarded as a symbol of self-importance; that those who are not the most competitive, aggressive high achievers still have inestimable value that may reveal itself through states of being rather than states of doing.

Through my experiences with clients and my own personal work, I have found that the reasons behind the difficulties most people have in creating the success they want generally lie in accumulated pain and in fear, rather than in laziness or weakness.  They don't need to be shamed into action, particularly since shame is a poor motivator—it may spur someone to temporary action, but it's likely to leave him more demoralized than when he started once any challenge appears to block his wave of progress.  We don't need to be whipped into a panicked frenzy about how little time we have to spend on this planet through rallying cries like, "You can sleep when you're dead!"  Instead, we need to learn motivation techniques that are self-perpetuating, those that have a tendency to build momentum over time; such techniques are built around positive feelings like fun, appreciation, and the satisfaction of personal values.  If we try to power our dreams and goals on shame or frenzy, we inevitable burn out, because prolonged exposure to these feelings steals energy rather than creating it.  A few people may continue to pick themselves up and keep going through cycles of ultra-high activity and demoralizing crashes, but for most people, the extreme swings that mark the reality of this paradigm are not helpful or productive.

In pursuing what you truly want, here's what I suggest to help you bring the power of the feminine viewpoint into play:

·      When envisioning a goal, start with the ideal, whether or not it seems attainable. Then, work forward from where you are now and backward from where you want to be to come up with a sequence of steps to get there.  This is essential work, but also, know that the roadmap you're creating is just a draft that you're likely to revise many times unless the goal is very simple.  Avoid becoming rigid about adhering to your plan, and attempt to remain open and curious.  Curiosity is an aspect of feminine energy.

·      Keep in mind that even a master in a given field doesn't know everything, and must constantly adjust plans in order to stay on course as life throws curveballs.  Get used to the idea that flexibility is an absolutely necessary life skill, and challenge yourself to build this capacity little bits at a time.  For example, you might want to rehearse a sequence of supportive thoughts that you can bring to bear when something unexpected happens.  Then, when you’re interrupted or required to reconsider your course, you have that thought string to fall back on to help you remember that this is not a disaster.  Compassion for the self and others is a gift of feminine energy.

·      Make space for your intuition, by which I mean the mysterious gifts of your unconscious mind's workings, your connection with and experiences with others, and your connection with the divine if that's something you believe in.  This is a huge area, but one worth investing in in whatever way you are inspired to do so.  Many of the world's most creative and prolific artists and inventors have powered their plans with ideas that seem to flow to them effortlessly in odd moments.  We can all learn to be more open to such processes.  Intuition is one of the superpowers of the feminine, and we can all learn to make use of it.

·      Make sure you think about how your values underlie the goals you pursue. If your goal is not truly an expression of your highest values, achieving it will be unsatisfying.  Take time to really listen to what’s in your heart about what brings you joy.  Creating harmony with the self, as well as with others, is a feminine-energy strength.

·      As long as you take time to celebrate and feel good about your small victories, making progress can and should be fun.  Most people almost never stop and appreciate what has gone well and the small achievements they’ve made within a larger process.  In failing to do so, they leave a huge source of daily happiness and renewal on the table.  If you’re not having fun, you need to focus more on why you want to achieve your goal, and how great it will feel when you do.  It’s fine to acknowledge that you’re not sure how you’re going to find your way to success, but then it’s time to get off that topic and get back to feeling great about where you’ve decided to go.  This greatly contributes to the creation of positive motivation and energy, and should be part of your daily routine.  Fun and playfulness are some of feminine energy’s greatest strengths.

·      If you feel stuck, it may be because you’re struggling with one of your emotions; try actually allowing yourself to be open to any messages that the emotion has for you.  Even the most unpleasant emotions have wisdom to offer if we’re willing to listen for it.  Talk out or write down what you’re feeling.  You may uncover something that you’ve been afraid to admit, but is your truth at the moment.  If you try to sweep all your emotions under the rug, you’re wasting a lot of energy, because it takes effort to keep them under there.  If you let them come up and examine them, you get that energy back, and you can apply it to whatever you want.  You get even more energy back if you’re willing to actually feel those feelings so they can be released and transformed.  Again, ask for help from a professional if you’re stuck.  Refusing to acknowledge emotions is not a sign of strength, it’s a sign of fear, and if indulged, it will lead to brittleness and eventual meltdowns.  The willingness to confront your personal truths is one of the feminine aspects of courage.

Here are some of the ways in which it's ok to be uncomfortable as you work toward the fruition of your best ideas:

·      Say you find that the next step of your roadmap requires that you learn something that's not fun or natural for you.  Does this mean that you're on the wrong track?  No!  It means that you were not born knowing how to do everything that life requires.  Welcome to life on planet Earth!  It's usually best to get a basic grounding in the skills you need, even if you decide to find or hire help with that skill going forward.  You don't have to master every skill, but you need to know enough to be able to supervise or partner with others effectively.  Learning something brand new is uncomfortable, but this discomfort is just part of the process of growth.  Flexibility is a feminine aspect of power.

·      Working toward a big goal can be frightening.  You may need to grow into a more expanded, more competent person in order to get to it, and you may wonder if you can, or even should, do this.  After all, who will you be then?  What will you have to give up?  Will you like yourself?  Will your loved ones still like you?  How will you cope?  If you're confronting issues of identity, but your goal is something you really want, don't be afraid to get help from a friend, a psychological professional, or a coach in finding a way through your dilemma.  If you don't resolve your conflict, you're likely to encounter resistance from your unconscious mind.  This can take the form of all kinds of obstacles, from illness or injury to confusion and lethargy to fears that stop you in your tracks.  Your subconscious mind is the more feminine-energy part of your mind.  It’s also a much bigger, more influential part of your mind, so you might as well learn to work with it rather than against it.

·      You may worry about how your life will change if you do reach your goal. What if people criticize you?  What if you get a lot of unwanted attention?  Or you might just worry that you won't be able to make it happen at all.  Either way, you need a constructive way to deal with worries and fears.  There may be past experiences and traumas you need to heal.  As usual, I will recommend EFT/Tapping here.  It's a fantastic tool for helping you to calm yourself down and regain perspective so that you can go about your business resourcefully.  When we act in states of fear, we have less brain power at our disposal, less access to our creativity, and often less physical coordination.  When we act from a sense of confidence, we tend to have a much better experience.  It’s worth some effort to change your emotional, mental, and physical state before making decisions or putting plans into action.  Healing is one of feminine energy’s superpowers.

·      You may encounter the negativity and naysaying of others.  While this can be hurtful, no one but you has the right to decide what is appropriate, or possible, for you.  Even if Negative Nellie has your best interests at heart, she is not the boss of you!  Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something when you feel deep down that it's part of your life's purpose to try.  Find more positive people to support you, and work on your own resistance to negativity.  Rehearse saying something like, "Thank you for caring about me.  I'll think about about what you've said."  Then proceed to make whatever you believe is the best decision for yourself.  People often think they’re protecting us by discouraging us from endeavors that seem dangerous to them, even if their fears are based in their own personal issues that have nothing at all to do with you.  It’s up to you to decide what’s worth your time and effort.  Feminine energy can be stubborn, and this can be a good thing!

·      Making mistakes and failing at attempts feels bad.  It won't generally kill you, though, and through these experiences, we often learn the most valuable lessons about how to get where we want to go in ways that we won't ever forget.  Take the time to review what went wrong, talk it over with someone you respect, and put your new awareness to use going forward.  The more comfortable you become with the idea that you will sometimes fail, the less likely you'll be to freak out and quit—and the more you'll learn over time.  You'll also end up with terrific stories, which will make you a more entertaining human being.  Everyone wins!  Being able to laugh at oneself and the absurdities of life is another aspect of feminine power. 

 I hope you can now see that the more feminine-energy parts of you that may resist forward motion have valuable gifts to offer you if you pay attention, instead of trying to trample them under a stampede of frenzied, oblivious action.  By all means, get inspired by the ideas of making great contributions and reaping spectacular rewards, but please don't allow anyone to convince you that you should ignore 50% of your own available wisdom.  When you’re uncomfortable, allow yourself to pay attention to what’s going on, and write it out or verbalize it so you can decide whether there’s an important message in your resistance.  Even if not, it’s best to find a way to care for the resistant parts of you rather than forcing yourself to soldier on despite your discomfort.  Fear is a part of life, but there are things you can do to dial it down in a loving, compassionate way and get out of the fearful perspective without self-judgment.  Once you do, you’ll be more likely to succeed and more able to enjoy the journey to everything you want.  What’s stopping you from making the progress you want?  Go ahead, write it down and see if there’s a helpful message in there for you!