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.
Transforming to Succeed
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
Last week we talked about being able to look at ourselves and notice what we have the power to change that would improve our prospects in moving toward our goals. This is definitely not the easiest thing to do! We’re likely to struggle with various emotions in the process, because no one likes confronting their own limitations. Also, the idea of change, of tackling what we may have found and working toward new skills, can be challenging and scary. And yet this is exactly what we need to be doing all the time if we want to grow into the kind of people who can succeed in a changing landscape—which is what life will always present, whether you’re a hermit or a big-city dweller.
Once you know what you need to change, I recommend first setting your focus on what you really want and why, and find ways to think about this often. Every day you will need to refresh your motivation, particularly when your endeavors require struggle and persistence—and in the process of change, this may be nearly every day! You might want to make yourself little notes or display pictures that you find inspiring. Maybe you’ll make a playlist of music that buoys you and reminds you what all your work is for. Change takes focus and grit, but you’re allowed to have fun while you’re working at it! Make sure you’re finding ways to keep your purpose alive and remind yourself what it’s all about.
You’ll then need a roadmap that shows you your path to your goal so you can see what you need to do, and in what order. Important: Right from the start, accept that this will be a living document, and you will add to and edit it as circumstances change and as you learn experientially. If you add time-related goals to your map, know that those can and sometimes must change. They’re meant to challenge and draw us forward, not tyrannize us. Too many of us have become demoralized by the idea of setting goals at all because not meeting a deadline can feel like failure, and that’s a very hot button for many of us. Overreactions to our perceptions of failure are common, and yet destructive to our learning and growth in profound ways. The truth is that when things don’t go as planned, there’s almost always something to learn that will help you as you continue toward your destination, and if we lose sight of this, me may quit. If you really want that goal and you keep managing your energy and your outlook, you will return over and over to the plan with a willingness to evolve it and yourself as you go. No one is ever perfect, even those who succeed wildly! We’re all human, and trying to hold yourself to impossible standards that include never making mistakes is not helpful.
The last part of this process I want to mention is attention to your physical and emotional well being. If you don’t eat enough nutrient-rich food, move and stretch your body, and get enough sleep to help your body regenerate, you’ll most likely burn yourself out before you can accomplish anything meaningful, and never be able to sustain the prolonged activity that the pursuit of most goals requires. If you don’t manage your emotions, you will be fighting the chaos of bad moods and demotivating thoughts, which will seriously cut into your productivity. You’ll also be missing out on the priceless information that your emotions are trying to convey about how you may be getting off track from your own values and truest desires, as well as about parts of you that may need attention before your subconscious mind will get on board with your success. And trust me, your subconscious is powerful! If it’s not on board with your plan, it will find ways to sabotage that will be both highly effective and most likely invisible to you so that you have little chance of countering them. Sure, you can vilify and stuff down your emotions because it’s what you know, and learning new skills takes time and effort, but if you take a little time to learn an alternative method of operating, you’ll be able to benefit from much smoother sailing for a lifetime. Doesn’t that sound better? I have found that learning some powerful emotional management tools can revolutionize our experience of day-to-day life for the better.
As you probably know already, I recommend Tapping as one of the most highly effective and useful tools for emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical transformation. It’s incredibly supportive in working through road blocks all along the way, whatever it is you may struggle with. If you’ve forgotten how to use Tapping, you can find a couple of quick videos on the subject here. It doesn’t take long to start getting the benefits, so get going or brush up, and I think you’ll find that it really helps!
How 'Bout Now?
“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.”
Those seeking to gain every possible advantage in maintaining the greatest possible levels of health and happiness may know that meditation (for instance) has been shown to improve quality of life in numerous ways, and understand that having a regular meditation practice is a great idea. Yet, as with other obvious areas in which change is far easier said than done (like diet and exercise), actually getting there can seem like a Herculean effort. Overall, solidifying new habits requires preparation, practice, and daily management of distractions and the thoughts and emotions that arise throughout the process of change. So many things can make the consistency required hard to achieve. Sometimes people decide that the whole thing is just too hard, and not worth it.
Now, there are times in everyone’s life when it really doesn’t make sense to tackle the creation of new habits, as in when you’re already dealing with a major life change, like the birth of a child. When you’re overwhelmed by high demands, the chances of succeeding with a new habit that’s also demanding are lower. Often we only contemplate taking one on in these situations in order to give ourselves the illusion of control, when the most loving thing would actually be to embrace the mess for a time, and refuse to push ourselves to beyond exhaustion until the critical need passes. Trying to do it all when we don’t have the capacity can end up just piling onto our feelings of incompetence and disappointment, which isn’t helpful in the long term.
On the other hand, obviously, claiming we’re too busy can also be a defense mechanism against making necessary changes. We’re all busy, and there’s never a perfect time to do the thing you’re resisting because you know it will be difficult. At some point, you’ll need to accept the discomfort and choose to start taking action anyway. We all have the ability to rise to a challenge when it’s important.
So, if you want to start up a helpful new habit, unless you’re maxed out by unusual circumstances, there’s no better time than now. You don’t need to choose goals and measures that are inhuman. The best way to get rolling is often with micro-steps toward your overall destination. If you want to get more exercise, for instance, you might choose to climb one more flight of stairs per day than you normally would, or park a little farther away from your errand than you could to get in some extra walking, and only build up to more activity in small increments. If it’s diet, go hunting for new recipes and just cook one new one per week. You get the picture.
If meditation is where you want to grow, here are a few ideas that don’t take much time at all, and aren’t as scary to try as some people fear:
Take a short walk somewhere pleasant and practice noticing how your feet feel on the ground, and all the data you’re taking in through your senses—temperature, breeze, scenery, scents, sounds, quality of the light, etc. When you notice your mind wandering, bring your awareness back to the here and now. This is a simple moving meditation that can help you get a break from the daily jumble of your thoughts and emotional reactions
In odd moments, imagine that every cell in your body is smiling. (This was recommended by a teacher Elizabeth Gilbert writes about working with in Eat, Pray, Love.) Even just a few moments of this feels pretty good!
Whether you’re walking or sitting, try repeating a word or phrase, commonly referred to as a mantra, over and over again. This keeps the mind occupied. It could be a single word like Love or Release, or a phrase like “I am blessed.” This keeps the mind occupied with something benign
Imagine that you’re in a beam of pure white light, and that it’s shining through every cell in your body. This one may seem less intuitive, but it can be powerful
Tap! Just sayin’. Also qualifies as moving meditation. It tunes you in to your body, mind, emotions and spirit, and helps you clear out old stuff and feel better.
People often think that meditation means only sitting quietly and clearing the mind of all thought. This may seem very difficult, since most of us have pretty busy minds, and the thought of sitting there trying to fight this fight may sound hellish. This type of meditation is quite difficult to master, but the point is not to be perfect. The point is to practice and get better at it over time. It may never be easy! However, it’s not the only option. There are other kinds of meditation practice that may be easier to start with, and still offer great benefits. It’s worth finding out what’s out there if the idea of building focus, calm, and better brain function appeals to you.
Starting small with changes you want to make can ease your transition into better habits, and help you build momentum toward, and consistent focus on, your goals so that working toward them becomes a normal part of your day. If grand gestures inspire you, by all means go for it, but if they overwhelm you, there’s no reason you can’t get moving anyway in smaller increments.
Can People Change?
“Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say ‘no.’ But saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow.”
I don't know if you've noticed, but change is often frightening for humans, in part because we're wired for self-protection, and opening to change requires uncertainty; also, it's difficult to envision exactly who we will be on the other side of change, and that's a threat to one's current life and personality—and can be interpreted as a threat to others in the immediate vicinity depending on their beliefs. I think it's out of these concerns that the "This is just who I am/how things are" excuse arises, and it's a goal killer. If you want to achieve anything on your bucket list, avoid giving yourself this "out" at all costs.
Now, I don't mean that you should feel bad about it if this is your first reaction to the idea of change. We all fall back on habitual defenses sometimes, and again, this is a survival mechanism that evolved for the sake of keeping the species alive. But if you hear this coming out of your mouth, just notice. In order to reach your aspirations, you'll need to address this attitude, and your reasons for digging in your heels in the face of the unknown. Fear can be incredibly potent, causing us to freeze even when doing so makes no logical sense, and even sometimes contradicting our deepest values. Yet it isn't totally in control overall. We retain conscious choice over the direction of our lives even when fear seems very big and loud.
When you feel stuck in your current position, fear is calling you to work through your objections because moving forward seems unsafe, and guess what's an amazing tool for helping you to gently calm your jitters about change? Tapping! But you knew that already! Through Tapping, we can much more easily allow the reasons for our fears (usually adverse experiences from the past) to raise their hands and be heard. When we allow these old truths to come to the fore, be expressed, and allowed to dissipate in intensity while we Tap, it's truly amazing how we can suddenly see things quite differently; stepping forward into position to grab new opportunities is not as big a deal as we thought it was just minutes before. Uncertainty feels more manageable, excitement for the new often surges, and we feel a renewed sense of possibility that allows enthusiasm to carry us forward. Once you're in this state, making plans that are both optimistic and reasonably balanced with appropriate self-protection is much easier. Your chances of success skyrocket, particularly when you're practiced enough in this process to repeat it whenever you find it necessary to get unstuck again. When you're your own one-person fear triage team, it's pretty hard to keep you down!
Nobody who has ever wowed the world with a game-changing invention, artistic vision, physical achievement, or other advance has just sat back down and allowed things to stay as they were instead of following their inspiration. Sometimes the road to success is long and strewn with frightening thoughts and symbols that need to be navigated under, over, or around. Nevertheless, growth is almost always possible. Make excuses now and then if they slip out, but then decide again when you've had a chance to think and take action to surface your fears. Fighting them takes a lot more energy than acknowledging, allowing, and transforming them before you swing into action. What have you been fearing and resisting? Maybe it's time to let yourself acknowledge the reasons why so you can address them start the process of forward motion.
Surge Forward or Have Patience?
“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
Because we live our lives in a constantly changing landscape of influences, we're always learning about the possibilities that are open to us, and the new ones constantly appearing through the creativity and interactions of the billions of other people who share the planet with us. The flow of ideas through which we move makes it possible for us to be learning things without even realizing it. Our minds are continually synthesizing everything they take in, giving us access to the building blocks with which to come up with our own new ideas. Often we disregard such ideas without even fully vetting them because of old programming left over from the past; this slows down our own progress, as well as the progress of humanity as a whole, by depriving it of your potential contributions, which is why it's a good idea to stop sometimes and take stock of what you really want. You may find that your old goals no longer satisfy. When you really open your mind to what would excite you most to work toward, you may find that it's time to make adjustments.
If you never do this, you may find your energy and enthusiasm tanking without realizing that it's because you're not moving toward anything that feels truly inspiring. For instance, I have a client I recently worked with who had been starting to yearn for a particular change, but hadn't really admitted this to him/herself until we sat down together and there was some dedicated time and space to say, "You know, I think what I really want most right now is this." It turned out to be something quite achievable, and within a week, everything was being arranged in a new way to support the stated goal. This person was relieved and energized, and couldn't wait to do the work of actualizing the new plan. And isn't that where we'd all like to be—enthusiastically meeting life every day and enjoying the tasks we take on?
On the other hand, it's also very possible to be vigilantly on the lookout for new opportunities and feel that they're not showing up, which can be particularly frustrating when we see how quickly everything is changing around us, including for other people we know. My best recent story about this is my own. I had been looking for ways to make a change in a particular area of my life for what felt like way too long without feeling like I was getting anywhere—despite doing everything I could think of that seemed in line with my desires. When a new opportunity finally did arise, I had an epiphany about why the process I'd gone through to get to that point was actually going to end up being important and useful in ways that were previously unforeseen.
Without telling the whole long story here, I'll just say that that the new state of things included a resolution to something old and very thorny that I'm still not finished dismantling, but that will feel like a great accomplishment to me when I am. It wouldn't sound all that splashy to everyone, but I feel like I've gained higher, more satisfying ground and a deeper understanding of the good that can come of something that has been extremely difficult for me for a long time. I see a bigger, and quite expansive, picture now of where this fits in the context of my life, and there were times when it seemed like this story would never make any sense. All this is really to say that sometimes the only thing to do is persist, because the alternative is to lie down and give up. If you do persist, the creative, constantly aware parts of your mind that are always working may eventually reveal patterns to you that you did not see coming at all. The moment when it all coalesces can be a gorgeous, stunning thing that is worth the wait. I'm still not super psyched that this whole thing took as long as it did for me, but feeling like it was all to a purpose makes all the difference in the world.
Sometimes one of the hardest things in life is to know whether you should be surging forward or waiting for opportunities to align. This will always be individual and therefore mysterious, something no one else can dictate to you. But I think finding the balance here involves both making space for awareness by reexamining your circumstances with regularity to find what's true for you in the now, and being willing to persist and have patience when it looks like there's no possible resolution to your problems. Things will keep changing, and eventually, those changes will align to help your cause if you're paying attention and ready to seize the moment.
Where in your life do you think you need to reexamine right now and where do you need to have patience? This is a question to ask yourself often. It can really get the creative parts of your mind activated and working for you. You might want to do this with someone else, taking turns talking through both sides of the question. If you try this and have any useful realizations, I'd love to hear about it in the comments section below. I hope you end up with new realizations that keep you moving ever onward and upward.
Below the Surface
“Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious—it’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”
Now that you're clear about the beliefs you'd like to change, and have done some mental work (see last week's blog if you don't know what I'm talking about), what's the next step...? Now, I recommend working on the emotional side of things. Modern culture heavily emphasizes the mind in problem solving, so that's what many of us think is the alpha and the omega of making progress in anything, but your belief work won't hold if you don't address your emotional realities. These are deeply seated in your psyche and your body, and they will block your progress past a certain point. The great thing is that with effective tools like hypnosis or EFT, you can reach and work with the subconscious realm of old, ingrained emotions and patterns, which is where these blocks, and the power to create lasting change, reside.
You can do this work alongside the mental work (affirmations, for example). Ideally, all of your efforts will coordinate with and support each other. Assuming that you wrote out all the reasons you have the undesirable belief you're working on, the next step is to address each reason. There are other ways to do this, but since my favorite method is EFT, we'll be using that as the framework here. Using the same example as last week, if you believe you're too old to get in shape, one of your reasons might be that you think you have bad genes. In that case, you can do some Tapping for "I have bad genes"; this is a good start, but it's general, and the best results in EFT come from getting as specific as you can. Ask yourself: Why is this reason true, and what makes you sure? Look for your proof in specific events that have happened to you, like someone in your family having a traumatic experience that illustrates this, or someone important to you telling you this with a lot of conviction and emotion at a key moment for you. When you use EFT on these specific experiences, you are dismantling the support for your limiting belief one reason at a time. If you don't take on this work, all the mental work in the world won't usually get you permanent results, because you have these powerful emotional realities hanging on in the world of the subconscious. You may have to work on multiple supporting events in turn in order to start feeling different about each reason, but you may not have to work on everything similar that's ever happened because of the Generalization Effect, in EFT terms. Translation: To some extent, working on one event in a series tends to bring down the intensity of all of them.
As always, if anything feels too big or too confusing for you to handle alone, get help. There are numerous ways to do this, and so many great resources available to you. If you really want to make progress toward your goals, you will need to break the cycle of avoidance that tempts us all and do at least some of this work. You might as well figure out whether you're more likely to tackle it on your own or with others, and get started. Doing something new will always engender some feelings of awkwardness and discomfort, but in this case, the payoff can make the discomfort you endure worth every second in the long term.
I do want to be realistic and tell you that the process of working through all the reasons that support your belief can take some time. Depending on how much time and energy you devote to this, you will move forward if you use EFT faithfully, but you may not see instant results. Try not to quit before you see any. Sometimes you just need to keep at it. How much work will be needed varies widely from person to person and from subject to subject for each person. I also want to mention that sometimes, we hold onto a limiting belief because we get overwhelmed when we consider moving forward without it, and we use the belief as a shield against change. You may be frustrated by your difficulty with making progress in the past, but keep in mind that this behavior is designed to protect us. Humans evolved to be highly risk averse out of self-preservation, one of the strongest drives there is. Sure, you can try to fight this if you want, but you'll make yourself miserable and waste a lot of energy if you go that route. You can't discipline or shame yourself into confidence—I find that partnering up with the side of you that's afraid and trying to keep you alive (even if that's an overreaction) is the smarter and simpler way to go. Often you'll learn something new about what's been motivating you underneath the surface of things when you allow yourself to be open to it. Try asking yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen if I no longer had this belief?" Once you have an answer, or several, treat each one as its own separate reason using the process outlined above.
This is the basics of working on the emotional glue that keeps old, outdated beliefs in place. If you don't have a good grasp on how to do the Tapping, review that before you attempt it, and always use common sense, pay attention to the signs your body is giving you, and don't overdo it. Otherwise, give it a try and see how including emotional work can help your beliefs to quickly evolve in the most positive way!
When What You Believe Doesn't Help
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
If you're someone who reads my blog regularly, chances are you're aware enough to know that you have a belief or two (or 20!) that are holding you back from being the happiest, most successful possible version of yourself. It's completely normal to pick up less-than-optimal habits and patterns from others, particularly when you're a child and don't even notice it's happening, though this can happen at any time of life. Those habits then stick around until you do specific work to change them. It's all well and good to know this, but what do you do about it? How can you permanently change a belief that might be based on years of conditioning, including examples you've observed and powerful formative experiences you've had personally?
I won't pretend that we can just wave a magic wand and presto, a limiting belief is gone! On the other hand, sometimes it seems like changing these deeply ingrained beliefs must take a Herculean effort, and that need not be true either if you're willing to use the best tools for the job. Here are my suggestions for taking an inclusive approach that will get all of the parts of you on board. An action in one area will help you to progress, but when you work in all areas, everything happens faster and is more likely to solidify into permanent change.
First, get clear on what you'd like to change and why. There might be numerous beliefs you'd like to rewrite, but pick one! You can get to them each in turn, but without focus, you won't get much done. Let's say, for instance, that the belief you've chosen is, "I'm too old to get in shape." Now, spend some time with your mind. Write down all the reasons this is true for you. Are all your family members who are older obese? Do you feel like you have too many aches and pains to move your body? You can probably come up with a ton of reasons, so keep writing until you feel like you've gotten them out, however bad they sound. It might seem overly negative to really reach for more reasons past the most obvious ones, but trust me, this stuff is gold when it comes to making change possible for yourself. You need to know what's in your mind on autopilot when you're not looking if you want to have a chance at working with it.
When you've dug deep and you feel like you have a good picture of what you believe and why, it's time to think through these reasons (Part I). When you think about them consciously, do you truly believe each one? It can be helpful to ask, "Whose voice is this, and when did I learn it?" Also, "Would I give a close friend this advice?" Sometimes you'll find that you don't fully believe these tapes that play in your head. The process of changing any part you still do believe will need to include purposely challenging the old messages when you find yourself thinking disempowering thoughts. When you find yourself (using our example) thinking that there's no exercise you can do that won't cause you to injure yourself, you'll need to interrupt that with something like, "Wait a minute. That's the old belief talking. Surely there's something I can do to move my body a little that is gentle enough to start building strength and balance without injury. I can start with some searching online for gentle exercise and see what I find. Other people get into shape all the time, and I can too." But even the items you don't consciously believe may still continue to influence you because they're ingrained and habitual.
One excellent tool for fostering change is the use of affirmations. These are positive statements of the new beliefs you'd like to have that you repeat daily until they become new habits. In order to find these, you can look at the negative beliefs and reasons you wrote down in the first step and write out the most opposite inspiring statement you can for each one. Then you simply say them out loud at least once per day. Affirmations have gotten a bad rap lately, but I find them to be a useful support in the midst of change. It's a sort of self-coaching that reminds you where you're going and helps you to try on the feeling of a new belief until it seems more natural. I'll warn you that if you really need an affirmation, you won't even want to say it out loud--the new statement will sound ridiculous and embarrassing! But give it a few days and you'll stop needing to squirm uncomfortably when you say it and consider actually holding that more positive belief. This step alone will not get the job fully done. The mind is a fantastic tool, but it can't solve all our problems alone because it's not the only part of us. This is why some people have taken to claiming that affirmations don't work, but they can be, in my experience, a powerful element in your strategy. More on how to work with other parts of you in later blogs.
Another great way to support the changes you're looking to make with your mind include feeding it new information, like reading or listening to books that will expand your knowledge about the subject at hand. You could read about how to start slowly and get into shape at a healthy pace while avoiding injuries. There are many guides out there on workouts for almost every person and situation. You also might want to read biographies or articles about other people who have done what you want to do. Most of the time, there are many people with experience who can help you along with inspiration and the fruits of their own labor. Knowing that others have been through the same thing, and learning about how they triumphed, is a supportive way to teach your mind that more is possible for you.
It can also be hugely helpful to find at least one other person who is working on the same kind of challenge with whom you can share the journey, the highs and lows, and make the effort more fun. When you can enjoy your efforts, you'll be much more able to stick with the program than if you're trying to muscle through on willpower alone. Joining with others can also help you harness the positive powers of both cooperation and friendly competition. Just make sure that person is also willing to put in effort on the mental side of things and making an effort to stay positive. Partnering with someone who is not doing the inner work to make change last can be more of a downer than an inspiration. You want to put yourself in proximity to people who will cheer you on and have your back when you're having trouble staying the course.
This week has been about supporting change with the mind because this is what our culture tends to offer first, and sometimes only, as the way to make change happen. Much of this probably sounded familiar and fairly logical. In the coming weeks, we'll look at how to bring the rest of you to bear in supporting change so that you're allowing the process to ripple across all parts of you. If you do the work to isolate a belief and the reasons you hold onto it this week, you'll get more out of the weeks to come, so make you sure you take the time to do that now. I also encourage you to experiment with affirmations, and even if it seems goofy, try to have fun with them as a way to start practicing the new. You're on your way to a new, more empowering belief already!
A White-Knuckle Ride
“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”
If you want to live a life that feels exciting and fulfilling, it's extremely important to define your goals. I hope you've taken the time to do that so that you have a basic roadmap for the path you want to tread. Once you've done that, you have many decisions to make regarding your preferred pace and methods in working toward them. One of the most difficult things about working on long-term projects often turns out to be the discomfort of becoming someone new, someone who has and can confidently use the skills necessary to achieve your stated goals. It can be equally difficult to communicate the changes in progress to the important people in your life, and to unveil your plans and results to people who may display mixed reactions to them for any number of reasons.
Sometimes the best course of action will be to fly under the radar as you begin to make your initial steps toward your goals. Change can be messy, and you don't necessarily need others poking at you with their opinions about what you're doing in the early stages. Your choice here should have a lot to do with your personality—how much do you like to talk over your daily experience with others? How much support would you like from others as you work? Would you rather not have to deal with the endless advice of others who may have your best interests at heart, but tend to be fearful or don't know much about your subject area?
But eventually, you'll need to come out into the light of day with your projects and be willing to unveil your changes and be seen in order to fully succeed. This process can be scary when you don't yet have it all together, and don't relish the idea of being judged. Knowing that others are watching as you stumble through things you're not yet expert in can leave you feeling pretty vulnerable. And yet, no one ever achieves new things without navigating this situation. You don't have to love it, but the more comfortable you grow with being seen to be imperfect, the more free you'll be to keep moving through all the uncertain moments in your projects—and there will be many!
You can practice gaining comfort with vulnerability by working on your projects and learning new things. (Continually stretching beyond your current abilities and knowledge also keeps you from getting stuck in any ruts and becoming bored. It also keeps your brain working, which is great for its long-term health.) Every time you research your next steps, attempt to move forward through trial and error, or experience an inspiration leading to new possibilities, you acknowledge what you don't know, while at the same time reaffirming that it's ok not to know everything, and you can and will get where you want to go anyway.
Another one of the ways that you can practice being ok with uncertainty is by choosing to be more communicative with others, and this requires no special situation. All of our interactions with others offer fertile ground here, and most of us encounter numerous other people every day. It's rare that anyone can say that they never encounter discomfort in communicating with others; unfortunately, most of us were taught in some way or other that honest communication is dangerous. This may have been through experience, by noticing that our parents vastly preferred it when we were "good little children" who expressed no opinions or desires (they were busy, and raising kids is hard, so it's not hard to understand why our parents sent the message sometimes that silence is golden). Maybe you asked innocent questions of teachers and didn't understand their disapproving reactions. Maybe as a child you communicated without a filter, as kids do, and sometimes hurt friends' feelings without meaning to. Or maybe you learned to avoid communication because you got one too many bombshells dropped on you at some point, and decided that it was better for everyone to keep things to themselves and refrain from rocking the boat. Whatever may have happened to slow down your interest in owning your truth and communicating openly and confidently, when you're an adult, it's incredibly empowering to work on taking back your ability to share what needs to be said in timing that is appropriate for you.
There are many wonderful sources of information about helpful communication techniques that you can learn from, but in order to become competent in using them, you must practice. Because this practice will offer you plenty of awkward and uncomfortable moments no matter how smart you are (because every person and situation is different) it will serve to help you acclimate to that feeling of stumbling through the use of new skills, and finding that the world will not end because your performance wasn't flawless. As you find out what works well for you, you'll also be gaining confidence in your ability to learn and keep going through uncertainty and discomfort—important skills for any kind of success!
Honest communication can be more frightening than skydiving, and working at it can bring up similar amounts of fear and adrenaline depending on your skill level. If the thought of just calmly and openly stating how you feel and what you want makes you feel like you're about to keel over, then start small. You might ask clarifying questions next time you're buying something in a store or ordering food in a restaurant, explaining what you're trying to accomplish or what you prefer. You could try asking people for the time or directions just for the sake of interacting on topics with little importance. Or try asking someone you care about to do something minor that they normally do with you in a slightly different way, because it seems like fun. When you become willing to express opinions about small things, you start becoming more aware of what you want and what you have to say. You also get used to others responding reasonably to minor requests, as most people will, which will build your confidence in considering tackling larger issues.
Next week's blog will continue where we've left off here, and suggest the most helpful principles I've found for communicating well with others. This week, I hope you'll remind yourself that change is often uncomfortable, but it can become less so as you become familiar with the process. So much can be gained when you're willing to keep going even though you don't know everything about how to climb your mountain.
Chasing Your Tail?
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
Do you ever find yourself asking, “Why does this keep happening to me?” If so, you’re in good company! You may have encountered this kind of confusion many times. We all get stuck sometimes in patterns that aren’t helpful, but also aren’t easy to solve. You may have no idea what’s going on, or you may know exactly what the problem is and feel powerless to change your outcome. Assuming that you want to start getting better results when this is your complaint, read on. We’ll look at how to break out of a persistent pattern and move toward happier developments.
When you feel stuck, you’re probably also feeling frustration, anger, sadness, pessimism or hopelessness. Since good ideas don’t usually pop up in the midst of strong negative emotions, it’s best to work on changing your emotional state before working on your issue. You might do this by venting how you feel in any number of ways (writing it all down, talking with a friend who won’t mind hearing your tale of woe, working out to let off steam, etc.), or by just getting your mind off the subject for a while. If you’re tired, hungry, or thirsty, you may need to address those physical needs too. At a time when you can feel fresh physically, mentally, and emotionally, you’re more likely to be able to take a good look at what has happened or is happening with curiosity and openness to new insights and ideas.
When you’re ready, here are the steps I recommend for moving yourself forward.
1. Start with your mind, as it helps to figure out what your level of clarity is before troubleshooting. Think through your pattern and how it tends to show up in your life. How have the circumstances played out over time? Have recent experiences been very similar to those further in the past, or are they different lately? Have you made any progress at all on the issue? Can you see any way at all in which you may be contributing to the problem? Treat this like a full-on investigation—feel free to enlist the help of a supportive friend and really get your Sherlock on. Sometimes telling someone else about all the times something similar has occurred gives you a chance to have your experience validated as unusual, which can help you feel like it’s not just all in your head. Sometimes it’s just helpful to have someone there to help as you think about your problem, and bring a different perspective to illuminate aspects you might have missed.
This is a good time to brainstorm, meaning to toss around any wild idea that comes to mind about what’s happening and why, and then try it on to see whether it seems to have any merit. Trying to exaggerate, get creative, and make things outrageous to the point of silliness (without judging yourself) brings in an element of fun, which helps you to remember this is not the only thing in your life, and it may be possible to change things for the better.
2. Hopefully, you now have some clarity about what you know. If this is a case where you know exactly what the problem is and have some ideas about how change it, but you feel a lack of confidence or an unwillingness to try your best options, skip to #3. On the other hand, if you still feel thoroughly confused, it’s now time to find an expert. You can run an online search for information about your problem and see who has experience with this, and who’s offering information about it. You can visit a library or bookstore and see what information is available there. You could find a support group for people with a similar problem, and see if anyone there has valuable insight for you. You could talk to a coach or psychologist or religious counselor, depending on the nature of your issue, and see whether that helps you to gain clarity about your options. Once you have a better idea of how others have dealt with your issue, you should have some ideas about possible steps to take.
3. If the thought of taking any of the steps that would be part of your best ideas makes you want to have a meltdown, you need to go back to physical needs (do you need hydration or nutrition, sleep, exercise, stretching, or other attention to your physical body?) You don’t have to be in perfect condition to move forward, but if any of those physical needs is very loud, you’ll do better to address it first so you’re not distracted. Once those are taken care of, it’s time to look at your emotional state.
How you feel is a powerful indicator of other factors that might hold you back if not given some air time. You can want to make progress all you want with your mind, but if some part of you is afraid to because of previous experiences or outsized worries, you’re going to have a hard time getting anywhere. We’re so often taught by well-meaning mentors that we must ignore and power through fears and other emotions, but I find that emotions are often there for good reason. They may hold important information that can help us understand how to proceed in the most efficient way for our unique needs.
This is where the use of EFT can really save the day. If emotions come up when you consider taking some reasonable step toward a solution, Tapping can help you to get clear on why you feel the way you do; it can then help you to release the fear or other emotion that is keeping you feeling stuck. I’m not suggesting that this is a one-time endeavor, because change is often difficult, demanding, and scary. Emotional management is a crucial component in maintaining motivation and effective action at all times. A persistent fear, for instance, might be difficult or impossible to completely remove from your experience, but having a tool like EFT makes it much easier to keep coming back to a calm, more resourceful state; with it, you can take useful messages from your emotions and settle them with reassurance rather than ignoring or trying to dominate them out of existence.
4. Take action on some of those good ideas you came up with in other steps. There’s no substitute for experience and the feedback it results in. Keep reminding yourself that any change requires practice; your new action may not be a comfortable tool to use at will until you’ve experimented with it numerous times. You will probably make mistakes, or find some of the shortcomings of your new policy, and you will need to start back at #1 with anything that doesn’t work for reasons you can’t quite make out.
Then, rinse and repeat. Your life is unique, and solutions that are right for you may not be such that you can copy them directly from others. It may take a lot of experimentation and refinement to find what works best for you. That’s normal and ok. Only you can decide how to best be yourself! You get to choose how to express who you want to be in every moment, and that’s a privilege. It’s one of the exciting things about being alive. The willingness to concentrate on and truly observe your own life and experience makes understanding and innovation possible. If you want a life that is more to your liking, getting there must involve focus and observation—bringing your desires into being requires that you first notice what is true for you and what you want. While not everything can be solved with the mind, it is our best tool for beginning the process of appropriate and fulfilling change. I challenge you to start paying attention to what you’re not enjoying in life, and activate the power of your curiosity.