The Safe, Happy Place

“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two more of Maslowe’s noted preconditions for the effective satisfaction of all our basic needs, which seem to be the most clearly associated with safety, are “the freedom to defend oneself” and “orderliness in the group.” Both of these particular preconditions are of such immediate importance to our ability to meet our safety needs that they are very difficult to ignore.  If they are not in a favorable state in a culture, we will likely find it difficult to attend to anything else but our concerns about safety.  And a life lived around safety concerns will not be a satisfying one for the vast majority of people.  Hopefully you don’t live in a place where you lack the ability to defend yourself and experience basic societal orderliness, but even so it’s worth understanding the ways in which people will react when these preconditions are not in place.

Many countries have laws that allow the use of force for purposes of self-defense.  Since the drive for self-preservation is so basic, we aren’t expected to override it even though violence in other situations is generally not condoned; we often automatically consider that the aggressor was likely at fault, as he most likely had other options for addressing the situation, but chose to attack.  If for some reason the use of force in self-defense is not considered allowable by a culture, citizens will tend to live in fear and either disempowerment (which denies both the person himself and the culture access to the best he can be and produce) or rebellion (which turns all the power the individual can muster against the culture itself).  Neither is very conducive to the happiness of the individual or of the whole in the long run.  As an acknowledgment of the individual’s right to defend themselves, in the United States, for instance, there is a constitutional right to bear arms.  The founding fathers of this nation were adamant that citizens must be able to protect themselves from both each other and any other threatening force, including their own government’s forces, and the forces of other nations.  In today’s far more populous world, and with advances in technology, we now have problems with violence that they could not have foreseen, but the fact remains that the freedom to defend ourselves is very important to both our physical and psychological well-being.

Because our needs for safety are intense, some of the most impassioned debates in any culture will center on the methodologies that are used, allowed, and disallowed in creating and maintaining safety.  Even when it’s not immediately clear how, the loudest arguments usually point back to participants’ fears about safety issues.  It can be helpful to remember this when you run across strangers acting out.  It can help you in taking others’ actions less personally and remaining centered in the face of others’ drama, which allows you full access to all of your resources to keep yourself safe.  Similarly, when you notice someone in your life arguing adamantly or disproportionately about something that seems less important to you, chances are that he is connecting the discussion to an immediate or future loss of safety.  If you’re interested in aiding in resolutions, and you care about this person, it can be helpful to focus on finding out what he’s really afraid of and addressing it more directly.  This may not be an easy task, which is often part of why we don’t take the time to do it.  In today’s world, where many of us are almost constantly dealing with an overactive fight-or-flight response for a variety of reasons, finding the root causes of fears and stress can be a complicated process.  This is where professional help may be in order, as well as the use of tools that can help dial down stress, such as Emotional Freedom Techniques.  Another reason we may not be willing to invest the time and energy necessary to this kind of process is that it may be uncomfortable to be in the presence of this person’s heightened emotions, and those that may be triggered in us as a result.

Unfortunately, most cultures are profoundly uncomfortable with emotional expression and inquiry.  So often, we are given the message from the time we’re children that it’s unacceptable to display or even feel emotions.  We learn to ignore and repress our feelings, and as a result, we learn little to no facility with handling our own and others’ emotions.  We fear anything that looks like emotions or emotional expression as potentially overwhelming.  And we remain stunted and confused about a huge, and totally valid and useful, component of human life.  This is not serving us. 

Moving on to orderliness in a group:  This precondition is created through agreement on the ground rules that members of a society will follow, whether formal or unwritten.  These rules may be created all at once, or evolve over time, but they must be upheld through stable structures like judicial systems in order to govern.  They also need to be able to be updated in response to cultural changes, which are inevitable.  If there is no mechanism for changing them, they are doomed, as humans naturally evolve over time.  When a sufficient number of members does not agree and follow those rules, and they cannot be changed effectively, chaos in some degree is in store.  And when chaos rules, again, the highest potential of members and of the whole group will go out the window.  All will feel unsafe.  Some members of the group will most likely react to the lack of order by hiding and others by resorting to violence.  Smaller groups will band together and may fight each other.  Safety will need to be an individual focus until some semblance of order is re-established.  No matter how creative and adaptable someone is, when a no-rules culture is in play, that person will likely long for some societal structure and agreement, particularly if he has experienced it before.  Humans are inherently social, and most of us desire some semblance of peaceful, constuctive interaction.

Since all of the preconditions are created or challenged in the culture in which an individual finds herself, she cannot likely single-handedly change them; she must therefore find ways to work with them as they are, become part of a movement to shift the current conditions, or physically move to another place with different conditions.  If you find yourself in conditions where these preconditions are not stable, you have a difficult choice to make.  Will you do your best to pursue happiness from within these challenges?  Will you commit yourself to the difficulties of trying to change them from within the system?  Or will you make an effort to transplant yourself into entirely new place?  If you’re lucky, and you live in a place where the governing rules are clear, universally applied, and mostly reasonable, you may find that you take this for granted, as well as the right to defend yourself physically from threats.  It’s easy to forget just how much such conditions support us in moving up the hierarchy of needs into areas more satisfying than safety needs. You may also forget that even when these preconditions around you are mostly favorable, it’s still possible to run up against a circumstance, whether real or imagined, that will snap you back to fear—and that experience can pack a wallop when you’ve become accustomed to safety. 

The next time you do find yourself reacting fearfully, try asking yourself what you’re really afraid of, and do your best to address what you find.  After all, the quality of your life depends on your ability to handle your safety needs and move on to more fulfilling subjects.  Your emotions often have important messages for you about changes you need to consider making.  Keep an eye out for the ways in which you may overreact when you feel (not always consciously or correctly) that your safety is on the line, look for root issues, and look for ways to change your tendency in the direction of calmer responses. Be open to noticing the ways in which those close to you may overreact similarly, and consider how you can help them to feel more safe and attended to, as well as to understand their own fears.  Get help with all of this if and when you need it.  Of course there are times when you’ll need to take real action on real safety issues, but much of the time you may find that focusing on getting specific about what’s bothering you and working on being a better communicator can help to calm your fears.  Becoming more comfortable with admitting that you have emotions, and owning up to what they are, is also well worth the effort, as it can release a lot of internal pressure and conflict. 

It’s natural for us all to crave physical safety and feel that there’s order to our world.  Becoming aware of what’s lacking in these areas and addressing those things can make a huge difference in our enjoyment of life and our ability to spend time in fulfilling ways.

Say What You Need to Say

“Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.”

— Charles Bradlaugh

We’ve now examined each of Maslowe’s fundamental needs.  Did you think we were done with him?  Not so fast!  In A Theory of Human Motivation, the paper in which he originally introduced his understanding of the basic needs in 1943, he mentions some related concepts that I’d like to tour in the next few blogs.  One of these is the existence of preconditions for the continued satisfaction of those needs.  He states that if certain cognitive functions are threatened, we are wired to react.  That’s because, on some level, we understand that our survival is supported by our cognitive functions, that these must remain intact in order for us to protect ourselves.  If we’re denied the ability to freely use those functions, we feel as though our very lives are in danger.  Logically, this will cause us to be drawn back down into the realm of safety needs—which are some of the more dire needs, and less fun and rewarding to spend our time on than some of the “higher” needs.  These preconditions (he mentions “freedom to speak, freedom to do as one wishes so long as no harm is done to others, freedom to express one’s self, freedom to investigate and seek for information, freedom to defend ones’ self, justice, fairness, honesty, and orderliness in the group”), as you will see, are both in the realm of the cognitive and fostered at a societal level.  If they are not present, it will be a lot harder for us to live a satisfying life that includes progress toward the things we really want.

The first of the preconditions that he mentions is the freedom to speak, so we’ll start there.  In “free” countries, there is recognition that allowing individuals to speak openly within society is important for the proper functioning of that society; the importance of free and independent news outlets is also acknowledged.  In the United States, for instance, freedom of speech is named as a fundamental right of all citizens in the nation’s Constitution.  While no one will enjoy hearing the opinions of all the voices that will be raised in such a culture, and conflicts and disagreements will result, the exchange of ideas makes more possible for all.  It’s much easier for anyone to find other like-minded citizens, and to band together with others to explore specific viewpoints, experiments, and experiences, which is often what the pursuit of happiness is all about.  It’s also far easier to stay abreast of what’s happening in the culture and the surrounding world; this supports better decision making across the board, from deciding where to live and work based on our preferences, to how to plan for our family’s safety and development, to figuring out what to do for fun.

Consider what we know of cultures that do not encourage or allow free speech.  They are generally restrictive cultures in which a few make all the important decisions about what will be possible for the many.  Often there are dire consequences to speaking out on any subject that is taboo.  Selling out others who do wish to speak openly to authorities is often encouraged, which creates an environment of general fear and distrust.  Yuck!  In this scenario, the safest thing is to metaphorically and physically batten down the hatches, interact with only a very few people you feel you know and trust, and stay as invisible as possible in order to preserve the freedoms that remain.  Uprisings and coups are inevitable in environments like this in the long run, because the human spirit rebels against such smothering influences.

News organizations, those that publish facts about the happenings of the world and local concerns in any location in real time, assist us in quickly becoming aware of any threat to the preconditions we need in place in order to tend to our basic needs.  When you live outside of a small tribe or close enough to others to interact, this becomes important.  No individual can keep track of everything that happens around him unless his world is very small.  When we can benefit from the efforts of people who work full time on understanding and sharing information about the world, we ourselves can spend less time on this and more on our own interests and personal needs.  That’s helpful in fueling personal progress.  Of course, we have to keep in mind that any writer or organization may have an agenda beyond sharing facts, so it’s best to educate and use our critical thinking skills.  Completely outsourcing our thinking to others has also proven historically to be a bad idea!

On the other hand, there are some obvious annoyances that come with the territory in today’s free countries, such as:

• With the advent of the Internet, the world has rapidly become much smaller in that we have access to a mind-boggling amount of information and shared experience at the touch of a button.  It’s interesting and hard to ignore, and may distract us from clarity about and from spending time on the things we truly want.
• A significant portion of the available content is created by people who are not particularly good at or mindful about what they do.  They are merely excited about doing it, and often desperate for attention.  This tends to mean a lot of fun for the creator, but an amplification of worldwide cacophony for everyone else.
• It can be hard to sort in information relevant to one’s life and sort out everything less relevant in an efficient way.  Most of us end up feeling like our time and focus are being eroded at every turn.

And yet most free citizens prefer these annoyances to the alternative.  It’s hard to go backward once you’ve had a taste of some basic freedoms, like that of free speech, and the free flow of information.  That is, unless you find it overwhelming.  Some do, and may long for simplicity.  That can be created through various approaches, such as moving to a remote area, narrowing one’s field of movement or social interaction, or even narrowing one’s mindset to include only a few restrictive ideas or beliefs.  The first two are examples of actions that can empower you as you find a balance with the modern world, though of course your balance may need to change over time.  This last choice may help some to feel more calm and confident, but sadly, it often encourages its proponents to advocate for the similar restriction of others around them as well.  Insisting that you have all the answers that anyone else should ever need is the height of hubris is this world of variety.  Over and over, history has taught us that adherence to this viewpoint, and the attempt to force it on others, never goes well.  Humans have a natural desire to learn, and ponder, and create that will not allow endless restriction.

The preconditions for satisfying our basic needs need not be perfect in order for us to thrive.  The world’s most successful free countries acknowledge that some limits to free speech may be helpful; for example, there are generally laws against disclosure of state secrets designed to protect the security of citizens (whether or not those laws are sometimes abused, governments are responsible for attempting to keep their people safe from invasion and other harm).  There are often laws against the manufacture and publishing of untrue information that may cause harm to individuals or groups, as obviously these behaviors can cause a lot of havoc and loss.  While some individuals will find these limits upsetting, part of maturity is realizing that no culture or its set of rules is ever perfect.  It’s all in flux all the time as we learn and grow as a race, and that’s also part of what makes life exciting.  We get to participate in that constant change and progress.  What’s important as far as speech is not complete lack of limitation, but that we are allowed to speak and write as we choose as long as we are not maliciously or falsely attacking others.

If you live in a place where this is a protected right, congratulations!  One of the preconditions for the pursuit of what you need and want out of life is firmly in place.  This allows you to formulate and share a message with others that you feel is important.  Self-expression (what you do with your freedom of speech) will be the subject of next week’s blog.  In the meantime, try to take a moment or two to appreciate the freedom of speech that you currently have access to, and think about how you interact with it.  Is the balance you’re striking within it satisfying to you?  If not, why not?  What can you do to move toward a more constructive balance for your personality and your goals?

I Gotta Be Me!

“Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be.”

— Abraham Maslowe

We’ve now reached the final need in Abraham Maslowe’s hierarchy:  Self-actualization, and this is where things really get fun.  When all one’s other needs are met well enough, he observed, only then is one freed to take on “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”  This isn’t about merely remaining functional and motivated to get up in the morning.  This is about living out your own passionate quest for being the very best possible version of yourself.  He acknowledges that there are some rare individuals who have such a need for achievement in this area that they can and will ignore many of the other basic needs in order to focus on it (think of the artist who will live in squalor because all she or he cares about is creating), but these people are very much in the minority.  In fact, it’s far more common for people to feel sufficiently beaten down and exhausted by the constant effort it takes to maintain a stable daily routine that they never really make it to the finish line of the hierarchy—which is probably why the whole structure is so often represented by a pyramid in which the self-actualization sector is the relatively small area at the top.  If you’re someone who cares about happiness and the art of creating more of it, then spending more time in this sector is your ultimate goal; you’ll need to think about setting up your life to support you in continually refocusing on getting back into this zone.

Maslowe was also clear about the idea that the pursuits to which each person will be drawn when they’re spending time in this sector will be unique.  Only he or she knows where the desire for self-actualization must lead.  I’m reminded of how my mother always said that when you have more than one child, you see that they just come out different, right from the start!  Everyone I know who has raised children has experienced phases of their development when they just get a wild idea and lobby hard for it, whether it’s eating nothing but grilled cheese for weeks at a time, or an insistence that they wear layers and layers of clothing rather than just one outfit at a time, because that’s just how they want to roll.  One could argue that this is early evidence of the self-actualization drive.  People like teachers who spend time around lots of children often remark on how they don’t have to try to be unique.  They just are.  And yet, many of us feel, later in life, that we have nothing unique to offer.  We feel deflated, dispassionate, bored, or uninspired.  Sometimes this happens because we’ve suffered disappointments and don’t know how to deal with them constructively.  But often, it happens because others’ opinions and attempts at control have drowned out the inner adventurer.  We learned to tone it down because it wasn’t going over well.  Partly, this stems from parenting conventions that we’re only slowly learning to move beyond that involve a focus on maintaining authority at all costs lest we lose control of the little beasts altogether.  However, it also stems, I think, from the tendency of parents of young children to be sleep deprived, overwhelmed, and to find it easier to try to shut down a child’s annoyingly endless energy and creativity in favor of a little peace and quiet in many single moments throughout the child’s early life.  This is not necessarily bad, as long as that energy and creativity are encouraged at other times.  After all, we all need to be taught basic manners in order to get along well in society with others, and learning that our rampant self-expression can be trying to others is valuable feedback.  But if a child is not encouraged toward her own uniqueness enough, she will learn to bury it.  If that happens, the way toward happiness must involve excavating and bringing it back.

It’s also true that others can feel threatened by the extent of our differentness.  They may feel unable to cope with the challenge to their own thinking and habits; they may have trouble seeing the beauty in something they’ve never before valued; they may genuinely worry that we will not be treated well in the world because of our unique characteristics; they may worry that they will not be treated well because of their association with us; they may even be jealous of our creativity or sense of self.  For whatever reason, there will always be those who will try to train us out of our uniqueness, which is an essential component of our brilliance.

Even if we’ve been encouraged toward self-expression while in school, many of us find that the transition to life as an adult is a shock to the system.  Often we’re terribly unprepared for the rigors of earning an income, setting up a life that works, and generally fending for ourselves.  In many cultures, there are no longer meaningful rites of passage to help us make the transition.  A sense of true community and mutual support can be hard to come by in this age of individualization.  No matter how brilliant we have the capacity to be, at this point we learn, often in very unpleasant ways, that there are some things we’re entirely clueless about.  There are things we didn’t even realize our family or community members were handling for us.  Life is harder and more painful than we expected, at least in some ways, and this can seriously erode our confidence.  If we don’t quickly find ways to adapt effectively, we can easily fall back into the realm of the lower basic needs and get stuck there.

If this has happened to you (and if it has, you’ll know it by the dissatisfaction you feel with your life and your conviction that there’s never time to just do what you want), here are some suggestions:

·      If you don’t know anything that really gets you feeling excited to be alive, think back to your childhood and remember things you loved to do when you were small.  Let’s say you could happily make mud pies outside for hours.  What was it that you enjoyed about this?  Was it being out in the sunshine?  Was it the texture of the dirt in your hands and working on the recipe?  Was it having time to yourself to think?  There are clues in these memories, so take the time to revisit them.  Don’t worry about what anyone else thought about what you were doing.  Just remember the bliss and what made that time fun.

·      When you start to have a better idea of the things you enjoyed in a pure, self-expressive way, think about how you could recreate some of that joy in your life now.  What can you do, even if only every once in a while, that helps you to bring that enjoyment back?  Maybe it’s just something simple, like being more aware of the textures of the objects you come into contact with daily.  You don’t have to reorder your entire schedule in order to start moving in the right direction.

·      Once you have some ideas of a few things you’d love to have back in your life, you will likely feel some excitement about your ideas.  Do not, however, expect others in your life to buy in whole hog and want to do all of those things alongside you.  Some may, but some won’t.  That’s fine!  Go find others who love those things as well and join up with them if your activities are better enjoyed in a group.  You may need to ask for support in making the time available to take action on some of your ideas.  You can volunteer to help others in your life to do something similar if they'll help you.  Everyone in your life deserves to follow his/her own unique passions.  Your loved ones will be far happier if you allow and encourage them to do that.  

·      Look for friends who support your expression of your inner adventurer, whether they’re personally interested in the same things or not.  Some people will appreciate hearing your stories because they get to sample things they don’t really want to do by living vicariously.  Learn to support others in this way as well.

Some schools of thought teach that in order to experience bliss, we should let go of all attachment to earthly pleasures and to outcomes, and give no time to desires for anything but spiritual focus.  There are many fine books and other works that espouse this view, and if you look into it, you’ll see that this path encourages a specific kind of brilliance.  While I’m interested in all kinds of adventures and I love to read about what others find meaningful, I’ve never wanted to live a solitary life on a mountaintop.  I want to live a meaningful life in the midst of all the craziness of daily life around others, and to see where my innermost desires will lead; I think our most deeply held desires can be key to living out lives that elevate those around us and the wider world in which we move and breathe.  Personally, I want to experience that world and experiment with it.  And it could be said that those who turn their focus habitually inward are also following a kind of desire of their own.  After all, who could keep that up if it didn’t somehow excite them?

It need not be selfish to be who you are, to focus on becoming more and more of yourself.  Maslowe defined this as a basic and natural human need.  I’m guessing that if you’re reading this, you haven’t chosen a life of solitary meditation on a mountaintop either.  I recommend spending some time in thinking about how you can follow your inner adventurer and still participate generously in the lives of others. This is your mission, if you choose to accept it.  Where will your adventure lead, and what will you choose to express and give?

R-e-s-p-e-c-t

“It’s easy to not feel misplaced if this tidal wave of appreciation is coming your way.”

— Christoph Waltz

Last week we looked at the importance of gaining significant skills in some area of your choice as a way to bolster self-worth.  The second part of Maslowe’s posited esteem needs is, in his own words, “the desire for reputation or prestige (defining it as respect or esteem from other people), recognition, attention, importance, or appreciation.”  He found that, even if we feel great about our accomplishments, abilities, and our value from within, it’s important that the reactions of others align with our assessment.  If they don’t, if we haven’t clearly earned the respect and commendation of others for having produced something valuable, we will likely feel unsatisfied until the respect of others does show up. 

Humans exist within an evolutionary dynamic in which we tend to be always reaching for new ideas, better solutions, and more progress—not just biologically, but with our hearts, minds, and spirits as well.   This all makes sense, as thriving in a constantly changing world like ours requires the ability to adapt just as constantly.  We wouldn’t have survived for long as a species without this drive to adapt and grow.  Since we’re social beings, it also makes sense that to be considered valuable within a group, it helps for an individual to be good at contributing to the progress of the group, rather than just his own.  In the harsh climates of centuries past, it was extremely difficult to survive alone; if one was not important to a societal group, one’s very survival could be on the line.  Perhaps the reason we long for the adulation of others for our contributions is that, without it, we still feel vulnerable and afraid of being banished as the weakest link.  In the modern world, even though most of don’t live in tribal cultures anymore, it can still be horrifying to contemplate being deemed unimportant or unworthy by family, colleagues, friends or other communities. 

Even if we’re not as afraid as all that, it can also be frustrating to have given our all to something only to find that others don’t value it as we do, or as we thought they would.  Such miscalculations may tempt us to doubt the very abilities and results that we were proud of, and to doubt our worth.  I’m sure you’ve been through something like this, and it does not feel good!  Being out of synch with others can make you feel alone even if you're not.  It’s hard to hold onto your sense of self-worth if you continually receive the message from others that your contributions are not valued, and you're profoundly different from others. 

On the other hand, the perks of adulation, of succeeding in earning the respect of others and enjoying a good reputation, have always been worth having.  In the distant past, if you had the best reputation for valuable skills and abilities, you might have become a tribal leader with access to all the best resources.  You might have lived in the best location, had your choice of a mate, and had a disproportionate say in the decisions affecting the group.  Today, it’s not so different.  You might achieve your share of all of the above (house, spouse, platform from which to influence others), plus a lot more autonomy in directing your future separate from any group.  The prevalent cultures today favoring individualism, the universal nature of money in today’s world, and the relative ease of travel mean more personal freedom for those who now succeed in gaining respect and reputation.  You might even earn some degree of fame (the extreme version of recognition), which can open even more doors for you.  These are the very things for which people have vied across centuries.  Wars are still waged for these things by those who see no way to gain them except through force.  We humans cannot seem to help wanting the privileges that come with the respect of others across time and cultures.

In fact, in a study done by the Harvard Business Review and Tony Schwartz that surveyed nearly 20,000 people, referenced here, workers who responded that they were treated with respect by higher-ups “reported 56% better health and well-being” than those who didn’t!  So not only do we crave the respect of others, but when we don’t think we’re getting it, our very health is likely to suffer, in many cases significantly.  Plenty of other research corroborates this story.  If that’s not an argument for thinking deeply about how you can earn a more satisfactory level of appreciation from others, I don’t know what is—going without it is bad for you!

How, then, can we address a perceived lack of respect and appreciation from others?  Some ideas:

• While it’s a lot of fun to spend our time doing and creating things we enjoy ourselves, if you want appreciation from others, you’ll need to think about how your contributions benefit or please others.  Be willing to try on the way others think, even if it’s foreign to you.  You might find that doing so is a lot more fun than missing out on some of the perks discussed above.
• Once you’ve thought that through, you’ll need to work on adapting in order to provide experiences or results that others will respect and enjoy.  I am not saying that in working in this area you need to leave behind the pursuits that please you, not at all, but you may need to be receptive to the idea of branching out.
• If those from whom you most want respect are significantly different from you in values and preferences, there may come a time when you need to admit to yourself that what it would take to earn respect from them is unacceptable to you.  While this kind of impasse can be quite disappointing, there is also power in accepting that you need to find your respect and appreciation elsewhere, and let go of any fruitless power struggles; those can waste a lot of your energy, and people only really change of their own accord.  If you’re trying to make them change, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
• From a perspective shared by most of the world’s major religions, compassion for others expressed by helping someone in need for no personal gain at all is its own reward.  Yet, because this is a widely held perspective, and because receiving appropriate help and love from someone who expects no return often feels good to the receiver, this too can lead to the respect of others and a favorable reputation.  This is a different route toward these than mastery of a particular skill set.  If you lack confidence in your own ability to shine in other ways, or you are someone who is more inspired by the idea of gaining respect for having and sharing personal qualities such as kindness and generosity, then you can bolster this area of your life by focusing on giving more while still maintaining your own health and balance.

Earning the respect of others is a collaborative process.  It requires listening and responding to feedback.  You have to be willing to find ways to surprise, delight, and benefit others, and to enjoy the process of co-creation.  The good news is that in many ways we are hard-wired to cooperate for mutual benefit, and when we do receive the approbation of others, it tends to be a pretty darned enjoyable experience.  It won’t do to ignore your own opinion of yourself; that must be maintained through meaningful accomplishments and the expression of personal qualities that you yourself can decide are valuable.  But the innate desire we have to be considered worthy by others is important to our happiness and health.  If this area of your life feels a bit empty, you may make big gains in your overall satisfaction by spending some time in consideration of how to improve it followed by some tailored action.  I wish you great success in your efforts to value yourself and to be appreciated for your work and your fine qualities. 

Ever a New Summit

“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

Another among the esteem needs that Maslowe wrote about is a sense of achievement.  This is an important factor in our conviction of self-worth, both because human beings are built with a natural drive toward creativity they long to satisfy, and because most cultures revere those who have achieved unique and groundbreaking results.  It’s worth periodically looking at how you’re feeling about what you’ve achieved in the course of your life so that you can address your innate desire for a sense of achievement; doing this helps to show the way toward keeping your self-esteem at healthy levels.

So what is achievement?  Dictionary.com defines it as, “Something accomplished, especially by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed.”  So this is no walk in the park—it needs to be an accomplishment that required unusual innate qualities, or strife, or both.  And who decides what it should be and when the criteria for accomplishment have been met?  In the context of a discussion about self-esteem, only you decide what an achievement is and when you’ve attained it.  Others will have opinions about what you’ve done, and that will most likely impact your self-assessment to some degree, which we’ll discuss in later blogs in this category.  But no one can ultimately decide for you when to be satisfied with your own performance.  That is your responsibility, and the process of deciding shapes both your life and your opinion of yourself.  This is where clearly defined goals can be useful.  If you have taken some time to think through what you want to the best of your current abilities, it’s far easier to direct yourself along the path to the finish, and to be certain about when you’ve arrived.  If you haven’t clarified your goals, you are far more likely to encounter confusion about where to go, what to do, and when you’ve accomplished something about which you can feel satisfied.

Here are a few other factors that will impact how you feel about your accomplishments:

·      Was the goal something you really wanted to pursue?

Most likely you’ve had the experience of having put considerable time and effort behind something that didn’t bring you the satisfaction you originally expected when you finally achieved it.  This can happen for numerous reasons, such as:

o   It was never really expressive of you.  Someone else wanted this for you, and you went along, either to make them happy, or because you thought it was a good idea, but you never noticed that your own passion was never truly engaged.

o   Somewhere along the way it would have been appropriate to adjust the goal, but you refused to do so for whatever reason.  People do and must grow and change.  It’s normal to realize once you’re in the middle of an effort that your expectations or process need to adjust in order to keep pace with what’s true for you.  A goal is meant to draw you forward, not lock you rigidly in place.

o   Your goal was not worthy of all the time and effort you poured into it.  If you spent years on a complicated revenge scheme, you might eventually achieve it.  However, if you felt satisfaction at the result, there would also be shame mixed in; you would know that your achievement spoke of your own unresolved pain and pettiness.  If you had, instead, taken steps to express your pain, forgive over time, and protect others from injustice, you would likely have felt satisfaction that was clean and clear of internal conflict.

·      Was the process enjoyable?

o   If the process of getting to your goal was not enjoyable, you may have forgotten to build fun into your process.  Sometimes we think that only through suffering can we create results that are glorious.  While it’s true that the application of discipline required to achieve things that fit the dictionary definition of achievement will probably result in some discomfort, it’s also important to be able to enjoy your life during the times that you’re waiting for the gratification at the end of your road.  All of it is your life, not just the occasional end point of an extended effort.

o   If you hated every minute of working toward the goal, once you achieve it you are most likely exhausted, depleted, and in the habit of being in a bad mood.  You may also have convinced yourself that this is the only way anyone gets anything done, and that life is grim and difficult (if you didn’t already believe these things before).

o   Was someone else trying to control you throughout the process?  If so, you’ll end up with a strong flavor of resentment about the whole experience, even if you like the end result.

·      Does your goal result in a satisfactory change in your life?

o   If you thought that your achievement would result in a harvest that didn’t appear, you’re likely to feel frustrated even if you feel great about what you did.  Sometimes we follow in others’ footsteps and expect to have the same experiences, which doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes we pin our fantasies to our goals, such as fame and unreasonable fortune, and are surprised when the fantasy elements aren’t a part of the achievement.

o  If your goal did result in the expected harvest, it’s still possible that you didn’t end up feeling the way you thought you would about it.  We have a tendency to expect external achievements alone to change how we feel about life and about ourselves, but this discounts the inner game that we must also play in order to feel good about life.  As the saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.”  You can’t outrun your own negative emotional and thought patterns.  No achievement will absolve you of the need to do the inner work that is uniquely yours. 

No matter how satisfied you are with an achievement, you will find that, as soon as it’s yours, you want something else!  This is a normal part of life as a human being.  We are creative, evolution-oriented beings who crave experience.  This is why it’s best to avoid seeing any goal as the solution to all things in your life and focus on more on a sense of enjoyment of the process—otherwise you’re missing out on the vast collection of moments that make up the majority of your existence.  People who look back at their lives in old age often regret that they were not more engaged in all the small and less significant moments of life, and that they did not take every opportunity to be present to the love and enjoyment that was available in every one of them.  It’s all important.  But if you feel unhappy about what you’ve achieved in life when you take all of it into consideration, I hope you’ll take the time to consider deeply what it is that you most want, and begin to chart a course toward it.  Working toward goals that feel great and significant is a basic human desire; if you want to live a life that feels whole, you must not neglect this.  And try to do it with zest for maximum enjoyment! 

To Love and Be Loved

“Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.”

— Bertrand Russell

A discussion of love and belongingness needs would certainly not be complete without a look at romance and intimacy, so that’s what we’ll focus on this week.  In case you haven’t noticed, the world we live in is obsessed with romantic love, and the dream of intimate relationships between “soulmates,” pairs of people who seem to have achieved perfect harmony.  Practically every song on the radio and every story line ever written include stories of loves won and lost.  While many of us do seem to yearn for a deep sense of intimacy and connection with another, others find the idea of this less compelling, or find that what they yearn for is outside the accepted norm of romance; for some, what feels like a truthful expression of self in this realm will lie well outside the much idealized (but less often achieved) happy long-term monogamous relationship between two people.  The good news is that, whatever your vision for yourself, there are likely many others in this wide world who want to achieve something similar, and with whom you might find what you’re seeking.  Your chances of success are greatly enhanced if you’re willing to be honest with yourself and others about what that is, and courageous enough to stand up for it. 

Anyone who has been in love knows that the feelings that result are intoxicating, blissful, both calming and energizing, inspiring.  The chemistry of what happens in our bodies when we’re in this state is very real, and it all just feels, well, really good!  Often effortlessly so.  It’s natural to want to stay in it.  However, maintaining this state over time requires some effort, the building of numerous skills that must mature with practice and experience, and the willingness to be challenged repeatedly.  In some ways, this kind of love is even more challenging than familial relationships specifically because we are not related (at least let’s hope!)  Your family members didn’t choose to be related to you, but they always will be.  In romantic partnership, we’re clear that the other person always has a choice in whether to stay or walk away, and knowing this creates constant vulnerability.  If one hasn’t done the necessary work to feel like a successful independent person who can comfortably live alone, this vulnerability can feel nearly unbearable.  Human beings are social creatures who come pre-set with a terrible fear of being rejected and alone.  Allowing love in is, in some ways, a radical act of optimism and one of the greatest leaps of faith it’s possible to make.

Vulnerability in relationships is also a product of allowing someone close enough in to really see us for who we are.  In revealing ever more of ourselves, we give the other ever more chances to judge us as not good enough, and to wound us with that judgment.  For many people, the fear of not being good, not being enough, is the worst of all.  The idea of letting someone else see us clearly, and giving them the opportunity to confirm it if they will, can be terrifying.  But one of the greatest benefits of taking a chance on love is the opportunity to be seen with our faults and loved anyway.  This doesn’t happen every time—obviously—but when it does, it can go a long way toward helping us to heal from our fears of inadequacy.  There’s no substitute for working on bolstering our self-worth from within, but real, accepting, caring love rewards our radical leap of faith by unleashing radical forces of healing.  I think part of the reason so many of us pine for it is that we instinctively know the truth of this.  While sexuality need not be a part of the equation in order to experience this kind of healing, there’s nothing like feeling that we’ve shared all the aspects of ourselves with another and still been acknowledged as worthy and lovable.

In order to keep love alive over time, here are some of the essential skills:

Courage.  Love is not for the faint of heart.  Maintaining enough vulnerability to foster intimacy can be taxing.  Sometimes you’ll get hurt.  You’ll need to have the courage to take another chance on this happening again and again even as you work on ways to hurt each other less.  Relationships are not perfected overnight.  Some relationships are easier.  Others are harder, but offer great rewards that make the difficulty worth it.  Each relationship is different.

Flexibility.  Being truly close to another can be a wild ride.  Each human being is unique, and we are so complex to be, to some extent, unpredictable always.  Remaining close to someone over time means being willing to allow them to grow and unfold even when that is inconvenient for you.

Curiosity.  If you can’t find others genuinely interesting, your long-term relationship prospects are slim.  Intimacy requires taking an active interest in another and being willing to share in their revelations; you must be willing to be thrilled by their life as well as your own. 

Generosity.  Being close to someone else over time requires that you be willing to give as well as to take.  If a partner feels that the balance of generosity is unequal in a relationship, they are likely to withdraw, and rightly so.

Openness.  A good long-term relationship must be built on honesty and truth; it must allow both parties to share the best of themselves, and at least some of the worst of themselves.  It also needs both parties to be able to openly adore the other much of the time.  No relationship is all sunshine and rainbows, but if we’re unable to show love and appreciation openly, the relationship will not feel good.  We also need to be able to allow ourselves to be adored and accept the love of the other.

Creativity.  Each relationship being unique, there are no standard solutions that will work for everyone in all situations.  Problem-solving skills are crucial in your ability to keep love alive.  Issues will crop up, but if you come to the table with a determination to find a way through that works for all parties, and put your thought and creativity behind the pursuit, you are far more likely to find an excellent solution.

Patience.  Sometimes solutions to the problems that arise will take time to find and implement.  Sometimes we must live with discomfort.  But being truly present in an intimate relationship can spur tremendous growth and excitement in life.

There are plenty of other fine qualities that aid in the maintenance of intimate relationships, of course, but these are a few to get you thinking.  Are there others that you’ve worked hard to hone?  Add a comment below to share what you know about making love work.

Despite all of our best efforts to perfect the art of being happily close to others, mystery will always be a part of our relationships.  Chemistry is mysterious.  How, why, and when people change is mysterious.  Our evolving desires are mysterious.  As much as we might like to feel an unshakeable sense of stability in our intimate relationships, it’s best to continue to strive to be comfortable with the idea that some things will always be unknown.  It takes humility to admit that there will always be things we don’t know, but in this information age, it should be obvious that no one can know it all!  Acknowledging this makes it easier to enjoy the surprises without feeling affronted by them, and that allows the journey of love and intimacy to be a lot more fun.  

A Friend Indeed

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another important pillar of having a life that feels like you belong and are loved is having friends.  There’s nothing like a close friend who appreciates you with all your flaws, and with whom you can have a wonderful time doing anything or nothing, to help you feel like all is right with the world.  Unlike with family, we have choice in who we will align ourselves with in friendship from the time that we are children.  While this can allow for more generally comfortable, easy and supportive relationships than those we may have with family members, this may not be so if we don’t have natural talent in relating to others.  For many people, the world of friendships can seem bewildering to navigate and fraught with peril.  Engaging may not seem worth the risk.  And yet, without close friends, loneliness is virtually inevitable.

As with many other aspects of life, we rarely get direct instruction on how to foster friendships.  We’re expected to pick this up through osmosis, which is not the most helpful approach when we’re small, vulnerable, and have no idea what to do, and no one else does either.  Many of us have painful memories of difficult experiences with other children, who tend to be pathologically honest, are often thoughtless and come across as mean, and who often start experimenting early with hierarchy and power games.  Most of us remember betrayals that led us to approach the process of making friends with more caution, at least for a time.  Some people will choose to opt out of the process altogether after these stings, depending on how painful they were and how frequently they occurred.  Success depends on our natural ability to fit in and persist in resiliently failing forward until we, and those around us, develop some actual skill in relationships.

Often when we’re younger it’s easier to create strong bonds with others, because we spend so much time in close proximity with so many other people during our years in school.  Time and shared ups and downs help to draw us closer with others.  As we get older and live farther away from some of the friends we made in youth, and as life gets busier and more complicated, it can be hard to hold onto those relationships.  Long-distance friendship skills are a different ball of wax, and several degrees of difficulty harder to maintain.  It can also be harder to make new friends as adults, since we have a lot less time on our hands than we used to, and we’ve reached the time of life when it’s likely that we’re focusing on our own pursuits and passions, whether those be work, family, dating, or other extracurricular activities.  If we don’t encounter others we take a liking to in the course of work, hobbies, or religious/spiritual devotions, it’s going to take work to find friends elsewhere.

Men may have a more difficult time than women with making new friends at all ages, particularly in Western culture, because of the way that they are socialized.  Men are taught to be active, always doing and solving and tinkering with projects; there is a prevalent image of the hero as a lone cowboy who doesn’t need anyone else because he can handle everything just fine all on his own.  There is often a drive to establish hierarchy in relationships between men, which can keep them locked into specific roles.  In general, boys tend to make friends through proximity; they are less encouraged to learn complex manners, be nice to everyone, and sacrifice their own comfort for the feelings of others.  While many women learn to overbalance toward unhealthy self-sacrifice, they do tend to get more practice in observing, understanding, and caring for others, which may make it easier for them to quickly bond with someone else in a way that men may not have built the patience for.   These are gross generalizations, and each friendship will be the unique product of the interplay between two individuals who may not fit into any established stereotypes.  I do think it’s important, though, to acknowledge the extra challenges men may face here. Recent studies have shown that loneliness causes the production of stress hormones in the body, and a stressed body is more likely to develop a host of chronic illnesses.  It’s a matter of health that we learn to create more satisfying friendships, and it’s worth working on social skills required to build and maintain friendships even if it’s uncomfortable at first.  It’s also worth thinking through the stereotypes you were taught, and making your own decisions about who you will become.

So what are the essential skills involved in friendship?  Here are a few to consider, though you can doubtless think of more:

• Acceptance.  If you were to do nothing but criticize another, they would be unlikely to enjoy spending any time with you at all.  Your willingness to accept a friend as good enough just as they are allows them to relax and feel safe to be themselves with you. They will share more of themselves with you, and understanding will grow between you.
• Loyalty.  If you’re not able to stand behind your friend even when they act out of character, make a mistake, or are going through a difficult time in which they have little to give, you are likely to grow apart.
• Encouragement.  Find ways to listen to what your friend wants for themselves and offer your support, through words or deeds; celebrate what goes right for them, even if you feel moments of envy, so they know you’re invested in their success. 
• Compassion.  Work to understand how your friend feels.  No relationship can have much depth without a sense of mutual compassion and care.
• Generosity.  Be willing to give your time, love, and support (in a way that works for you too, of course).
• Honesty.  If you aren’t willing to be open with another about what’s true for you, there will be a wall between you.  If you aren’t willing to hear what’s true for them, they will end up feeling frustrated.  The best expression of honesty is combined in equal measure with kindness.  “Brutal honesty” is a display of lack of effort and consideration—after all, do you enjoy being treated with brutality by others?  I thought not!
• Fun.  While sometimes it helps to pour out our worries and woes to a friend, if you aren’t willing to let those go and allow yourself to have a good time with your friend, you’ll be missing out on one of the best things about friendship.  Everyone likes to have fun in different ways, but you can cultivate some sense of fun with each friend.  (If you can’t, then you’re probably not a good match.)
• Appreciation.  If you don’t genuinely appreciate your friend’s mix of unique qualities and feel enthusiasm for their company, they will eventually notice.  It feels a lot better to be around someone who clearly likes you than it does to spend time with someone who is non-committal and blasé.

Whether or not you’re currently good at these skills, growing more comfortable with them is time well spent.  Decide to think about one of them each week or month as you go about your social interactions, and notice how you and others display them; experiment with how you can use some of the same techniques you’ve observed, or improve your expression of the ones you’re already familiar with.  These are all skills we practice for a lifetime, and there’s no such thing as perfect.  Just get in there and work on how you can do a better job than you have in the past.  We are social creatures, and any improvements to your relationships will improve the overall quality of your life.

Thicker than Water

“A happy family is but an earlier heaven.”

— George Bernard Shaw

Having reviewed the most basic needs in Maslowe’s hierarchy, we now move into examining love and belongingness needs.  Once we have satisfied the physiological needs necessary for survival, and successfully created an adequate sense of safety, the theory goes, we will long for love, affection, and a sense of belonging with family, friends, and other social contacts such as those we make through work and religious affiliations.  The family is the first set of social contacts we have in life, so we’ll start there; the relationships we build at home will lay the foundations for the habits, beliefs and expectations of a lifetime.  The experiences we have at home when we’re young will resonate throughout the rest of our experience in ways both pleasant and upsetting, such that no matter where we are in our development, we are likely to be contending with the memories of these formative times.

It is a natural human desire to feel loved by one’s nearest relations.  We yearn to feel that we’re valued and have a place in the family structure.  And yet, there is just so much that can go wrong here!  My mother always said that when you have more than one child, you notice that they just come out different.  I know I’ve noticed in the course of making friends in life, and growing to understand them more deeply as an adult, that people can be much more different from me than I would have thought possible when I was younger.  We don’t choose our family members, and depending on the luck of the draw, we can find them baffling and endlessly frustrating.  Despite the fact that we all want very much, on some level, to give and receive love, the true connections that make this possible are often missed as though we’re out-of-control freight trains speeding through the night, driven by conductors behind locked doors.  And yet, our family will have more opportunity to know us better than most others ever will.  This can all create webs of complex dynamics that defy resolution.  It takes an enormous amount of work sometimes to move beyond their ability to continually press our buttons.  After all, they co-created those buttons.

“Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”

— Cary Grant

Every person I’ve ever spoken to who has become a parent has echoed the sentiment that one can never be really ready to have children—it’s such a deeply challenging experience that it cannot be adequately communicated, and that’s probably for the best.  If anyone fully understood the reality beforehand, they’d be unlikely to do it, and the human race might be in trouble!  Given that, it shouldn’t be surprising that most of us feel dissatisfied with some of what we experienced at home.  Most people get no useful instruction in the art of parenthood.  They make it up as they go, and the younger they are when they embark on this adventure, the less likely they are to have worked out the recipe for their own peace and happiness beforehand.  One cannot pass on what one doesn’t have.

“The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.”

— George Carlin

To complicate matters, Nature seems to have set up human development to support the most rapid possible learning of the young in order to ensure their survival.  In Spontaneous Evolution, Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman note that until we’ve reached the age of six, our brains are most often in either delta (sleeping/unconscious) or theta (imagination/reverie) states, meaning that they are basically operating in a hypnotic trance.  Children this young are unable to analyze the information and programming coming at them from all sides.  They just absorb it directly into the subconscious for good or ill.  This helps them to quickly get up to speed with the requirements of their environment, but it also makes it possible for anything they observe to be written into their deepest psychology.  I find this to be a stunning revelation, and an incredibly strong argument for bringing the most awareness and care you can to your interactions with children—you are, quite literally, creating their worldview with your input into their experience.  Sadly, most people have no idea that children are quite this undefended, and children become products of carelessness.  Later, when we’re old enough to reason and make decisions for ourselves, we can clear out the jumble of unsupportive programming and experiences, but most of us have a lot of detritus to deal with, and the process of sorting through it is not fun.  That’s why we often avoid it and just live with the original stuff!

Giving and receiving love in the context of family dynamics often requires complex skills and a great deal of maturity.  Doing this well can be one of the greatest challenges we face in life.  Since the desire for love and belonging in the family is not going anywhere, one of the foundations of a happy life is to continue trying to rise to the call of what is necessary in your case to improve your relationships with family over time.  One of the skills we all need to build in order to do this is the ability to take over as parents to ourselves; this is an essential element in the development of real maturity.  We must learn to give to ourselves what we wish we had gotten from our own parents, whatever nurturing and care was missing in our early days, so that we can feel less needy in the presence of family in the moment.  In order to do this well, it is necessary to find a way to accept and let go of the past, which is a tall order for many, I know, especially for those who experiences trauma at the hands of close family members.  I’ll write more on how to do that in later posts.  It’s also necessary to become emotionally observant enough, as well as courageous enough, to learn when you need to create boundaries, speak up for yourself, and bring behaviors that are problematic for you to the attention of family members if you want to improve relationships that are challenging.  There is a world of books written on the development of these skills, and no shortage of professionals who can assist you with instruction, perspective, and coaching here using any number of great methodologies and tools.  As galling as it can be to have to do all this work, if you want to live a truly happy life, I think you’ll find it’s necessary, and it does get easier as you learn.   You deserve a happy life that’s full of love, connection, and harmony, and your family members deserve the chance to be in loving relationship with you.  However far the distance may seem that you need to travel, just start with a small step, and start building momentum.  

The Way Toward Heath

“I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.”

— Joyce Meyer

In the pursuit of a life that feels safe and secure, health is an extremely important topic.  Few things can be such a distraction from a life lived on our own terms as physical pain or disease, or emotional or mental pain and dysfunction.  Tending to our health is not as simple as building walls around our property or choosing our friends wisely (though these things may have their complexities).  I would have to say that there is more misinformation and confusion around what sustains health than in virtually any other area of inquiry I can think of.  Most of us are disheartened by the sheer volume of contradictions we encounter as we do our best to take care of ourselves and our families, and the fear-mongering rhetoric designed to sell us things pertaining to our health.  There is more information available than ever before in history, but no clear consensus on what works, and we are in danger of becoming overwhelmed and giving up entirely on having the experience of balance and vitality we’re after.

Many of us did experience vibrant health as children.  If so, we have a memory of what that felt like, at least.  We know what the best-case scenario is, and we can try to recreate and support it with our best efforts.  Those of us who didn’t may feel that the quest to gain it has about as much chance of success as a search for a legendary pirate’s treasure chest.  How can you find something you’re not even sure is really possible?  More on this later.  But chances are, if you’re out of your teens, that you may have encountered some sort of health challenge, whether that’s an old injury that just never healed quite right or a chronic issue that you haven’t been fully able to resolve.

Once we’ve had this experience of an unwanted problem that interrupts our physical, mental, or emotional functioning, fear of what the future may hold often creeps in.  After all, if this could blindside us, what else is in store in this life?  If the body can betray us in this way, how can we ever trust it again?  Of course, we may have been taught to have an adversarial relationship with our bodies before there was ever injury or meaningful illness in our lives.  We learn early from our families and communities about what our bodies do, what they mean, what we can expect from them.  If we see people around us suffering and feeling disempowered about maintaining and renewing health, then we come to believe that the body is fragile, and that our health is already eroding with each birthday.  We hear messages about how as we get older, aches, pains, and illness are inevitable.  Aging starts to sound like a bad deal for us, something to dread.  Does this sound to you like a helpful mindset for living in successful partnership with your body, mind, and emotions? 

If you notice that you have negative beliefs about your ability to enjoy health, working to be healthy, or taking appropriate care of your mind, body, emotions, and spirit, what can you do about that?  As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, admitting you have a problem is the first step.  Once you’re aware that there are conditions in place in yourself that you don’t prefer, congratulations!  You are now in a position to do something about it.  While these beliefs remain unconscious and unexamined, your life is likely to proceed in much the same familiar direction.  Becoming aware of disempowering beliefs can be painful and frightening, as this tends to stir up uncomfortable memories and the emotions that go with them.  This is where it might be a good idea to get help from someone more experienced, whether that’s a psychologist, a spiritual counselor, a coach, or a book about someone else who went through something similar and can give helpful guidance.  There is enough evidence now about the very real effect that our thoughts, beliefs and emotional states have on our long-term health that we should all be taking these into account and finding new ways to optimize them if we’re serious about supporting lifelong health.

Vast numbers of books have been written, and will continue to be, about the mechanics of what you MUST do to create and maintain health.  I am not going to enter the fray here by trying to give you some seven-step process to perpetual perfection.  As someone with some experience in dealing with chronic physical pain from different sources over the course of years, I feel that the most important thing I can add to the collective pool of knowledge is that we are each unique.  There is no one-size-fits-all solution.  I give you permission now to stop looking for it.  Now, before you wail in despair that managing your own health without a formal education in medicine is too large a project for you to be taking on, let me ask you, how does it feel to be clueless about how to maintain your health?  What if you could, little by little over time, learn what your body needs until you felt your energy, harmony, and confidence beginning to overflow?

The truth is, of course, that you can.  This doesn’t happen overnight, but if you decide that it’s what you want, and start thinking in this way, you will start compiling information that will help you in your quest.  You’ll start to notice that you feel better when you eat certain foods, sleep for a certain amount of hours starting and ending at certain times, do certain kinds of physical activity.  You’ll notice that you have more energy after spending time with certain people and less after spending time with others; some activities are more energizing, others more draining.  What most of us feel best with is the creation of balance, such that you intersperse these so that you never end a day feeling too drained, and you always add in some things that energize and uplift you to keep you going.  If you’re going to eat things you know aren’t good for you, at least you learn to balance that with making sure you get some high-quality nutrition into your body every day.  It’s the noticing and the intention to support your own health that will begin to swing your trajectory in a wide arc, over time, into an entirely new direction.  Those two things have more power than you might believe.  They don’t seem like the solution to anything when you’re desperate and in pain, but they are the long-term solution to finding what you need in order to thrive.  Most of us do our best to ignore pain signals from our bodies, minds, and emotions in favor of remaining functional, because this is what we’re taught to do.  We think there’s no point in dwelling on the negative or opening up to the experience of what the pain has to tell us because we haven’t considered that there might be wisdom there.  If you have a helpful technique to use, often there is, and it’s not necessarily hard to find (ahem…Tapping…or meditation or journaling or any number of others).  As you have some success in observing, implementing small changes, and feeling positive results, it will be easier to keep activating that intent to continue learning and implementing your way to vigorous health.

If you’ve never had the experience of health that you want, or it’s been a long time since you have, and you’re feeling disappointed and pessimistic, you will need to work on your ability to trust—trust that the world is large enough to contain the ideas and guidance you want, trust that you are capable of learning and growing, and trust your body to communicate to you when you are doing something right and when you may be contributing negatively to the issue at hand.  Read stories or watch movies about others who have triumphed in any situation for inspiration.  Allow yourself to relax for at least a few minutes a day and imagine how good it will feel to, well, feel good; really allow yourself to enjoy the experience of imagining this.  Enlist the support of others in reminding you of problems you’ve solved in the past, and all the fine qualities you have that can help you in moving forward this time.  Make sure you’re bringing some humor into your life by listening to one of the many brilliant comedians working today, spending time with someone who makes you laugh, or doing anything that tickles your funny bone.  Humor is essential to getting through hard times, and has profound healing powers of its own.

If you want to speed up you progress, then, as with anything, it’s a great idea to go do some research on what people who are considered to be successful in this arena have to offer.  Read stories about others who have had similar challenges to yours, or who are just passionate about health and sharing what they’ve learned.  Search for experts in relevant medical fields.  Find local health practitioners, including natural health experts like nutritionists and acupuncturists, who are highly rated online and seek their expertise.  Just remember that you are not everyone else.  What has worked for many others may not work for you, and vice versa.  If you’re really after health security, you’ll need to commit to firing up a lifelong curiosity about how to support your health as you continue to balance all the other areas of your life.

I wish I could say that I have all the answers and I can make it easy for you from this day forward to maintain glowing good health throughout your life.  I believe that the truth is that you are the only one who can chart the appropriate path to this goal, but there is support available for you every step of the way.  No one else could do this for you even if they wanted to, because the responsibility for the choices you make every day will always rest with you.  I think you’ll find that over time, as you grow to trust in your ability to care for yourself successfully, you’ll enjoy the ability to make your own choices and strike your own balance as a privilege.  The process will cease to be so overwhelming and become more satisfying, and you will become a source of information and guidance for others.  With no disrespect to the wisdom inherent in the Star Trek franchise, I say that I think that in today’s world the healthy functioning of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual unit is really still the final frontier, practically speaking.  Most of us aren’t ready to move beyond this challenge into the realm of space—currently an inspiring, fantastical, glorious avoidance of the fact that we’re not even able to get our basic selves together!  We still have so much to learn about doing a decent job of being healthy humans on this planet.  This is a challenge that’s worthy of us too.  By all means, let’s keep dreaming big, but let’s also do the work to buoy ourselves up long enough to get to our biggest goals by attending to the unglamorous bits too.  May you have the most radiant health this week, this month, this life!  Feel free to comment below on anything you find to be a particularly helpful part of your own health regimen for the benefit of others.

Money, Honey!

“The lack of money is the root of all evil.”

— Mark Twain

Continuing to follow along with Maslowe’s concept about the needs we must take care of before we can really thrive as a total human being, in this week’s blog, we’ll take a look at another aspect of security:  Your ability to make enough money to support yourself and your family.  We’re not talking here about your ability to live the most abundant life possible, as that will be for a later post.  This one will be about how to create the feeling that you can always handle your basic financial needs.

Your feelings about making money, saving money, and spending money are shaped most profoundly by what you were taught experientially by your family.  If you saw your parents and other family members struggling to make and have enough money, then you most likely learned that making money is hard, and that not having enough is something to be feared.  If you watched their fortunes go up and down, you probably came away from that experience feeling that money is fickle, and one can as easily lose it as gain it.  If you were often told that your family couldn’t afford the things you wanted, then you may have learned to resent money as a concept altogether.  I’m sure you can see that these attitudes that so many of us learn about money are not at all helpful in our quest to feel safe and secure enough to pursue the life goals that most excite us.

With these attitudes in tow, we are far more likely to talk ourselves out of taking even small risks in moving toward our goals.  We will tend to move through life with a sense of fear and pessimism about our possible monetary outcomes.  We are likely to feel that we’re not equal to the task of providing for ourselves and those we love during changing times.  All of this will sap our energy and enthusiasm for life in ways it’s hard to fully comprehend until we’re able to finally find ways to transform these beliefs and attitudes.

As far as monetary skills, some of us are lucky enough to have been taught some of these at home.  If you did learn some basics about balancing a checkbook or budgeting, for instance, then you may have built some confidence around your ability to handle money.  If you were allowed to participate in discussions about financial decisions, then you probably built more there.  Those of us who were very fortunate may have learned about investing, or how to run a business. It’s also possible that you learned some things at school that were relevant to finance.  You may have had classes in junior high or high school that touched on the basics of earning and using money.  You may have elected to take classes in college about business and finance.  All of these create advantages that help us to feel competent in the financial arena of life.  Unfortunately, many of us come through our schooling with little to no practical learning about financial matters such that we lack confidence and a sense of literacy in this extremely important area.  If you didn’t learn these early, you may still be struggling to learn them now, but there are resources available to help you at every turn if you are willing to look and learn from them.  It’s not hopeless, even if you’re not where you want to be!

Once we enter the workforce, we start learning through trial by fire if we’re still relatively clueless at that point.  Now we are responsible for earning money and paying our expenses.  We’re likely motivated by both needs and desires to make ends meet.  We start gaining valuable on-the-job skills, and realizing that some of the things we picked up along the way, like social and communication skills, have very real practical value on the job.  If we’re willing to continue learning and stay flexible, we can often parlay our gains in experience into better job opportunities or entrepreneurial ventures.  If we stop learning or aren’t assertive in looking for expanding opportunities, for whatever reason, then we’re not building the confidence in our ability to earn that would help us to create the important sense of security we’re after.

Another way to build confidence in your ability to support yourself is through life experiences in areas not related to income.  Say you encounter a health challenge and are able to make lifestyle and attitude changes to help you in regaining vibrancy as you follow a recommended course of treatment.  Rising to the occasion has taught you that you have power within the circumstances that present themselves in your life; you have the ability to roll with the punches and come out better than before, with new knowledge, skills, and belief in yourself.  Or say you have a serious issue in a relationship with someone close to you, and you confront it and take action to improve the relationship.  While the skills you learned in doing so may not seem immediately relative to your income, you will often gain faith in your ability to handle whatever comes to you in the future.  And you may also find that those skills will eventually help you in your moneymaking ventures down the line.  Things that you are particularly good at in life have a way of making themselves useful in surprising ways. 

The world we live in has changed so much, and so rapidly, that many of us were never formally prepared for the kind of economy in which we now must function.  It wasn’t long ago that the norm was for a worker to spend 30 or more years working at the same company and retiring with a financial package designed to keep him going for the rest of his life.  Now the norm for a similar worker is to move to a different job, and often workplace, every few years.  She is now responsible for her own retirement income.  We are at a distinct disadvantage if we’re not good at negotiating and selling ourselves and our talents, or if we’re afraid to try new things and branch out into different kinds of work.  Things move quickly in this economy, and sometimes it’s necessary to regroup and take an opportunity that’s being offered even if it’s not what you were looking for.  It’s possible to leverage every step you make into more of what you want, but sometimes patience is required.

If you want to feel a sense of security that will free you, here are the items I recommend considering:

• Take stock of your financial skills.  Do you know how to budget, balance a checkbook, organize your yearly information to get your taxes filed?  If not, spend some time on basic financial literacy.  These skills are essential to feeling secure around money.
• Learn about the basics of investing.  What are some of the kinds of investments available?  It can be very helpful to ask people you know about what investment ideas they’ve come across and chosen to use.  Obviously, it’s better to ask people who seem like they’re doing relatively well financially!  You may not put this research to use right away, but the more comfortable you become with investing concepts, the more easily you will be able to make good choices when it’s time.
• Regularly take stock of your marketable skills and update your resume.  Often we don’t give ourselves credit for the skills we’re constantly learning in the course of life and work.
• Think about skills you have that you might not normally include on a resume, but that help you to remember that you can be flexible, and that you have learned and grown all throughout your life.  If you don’t like trying new things, find ways to stretch outside your comfort zone, and make an effort to enjoy the thrill of the novelty. 
• Have the courage to examine the beliefs you were taught about money and your ability to have enough.  Find a process you can follow to transform any that are clearly not helpful.  Often this process yields tremendous gains in your confidence and ability to excel going forward! My favorite way to address this is through Tapping, which can help you to quickly gain clarity and improve your money-related beliefs, but there are many possible paths to the same result.  Find one that appeals to you and do this essential work.

I hope this post has given you a few things to think about as you work toward creating a sense of confidence in your financial safety and security.  Until next time, I wish you and your family all monetary happiness!

There's No Place Like Home, Part II

“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

— Maya Angelou

In the last blog, we examined the importance of your feelings of safety from the outside world while you're at home. This week, we'll talk about maintaining a safe, secure environment inside the home, which is just as vital to your health and happiness for all the same reasons.  There are two aspects of safety we’ll touch on, both physical and emotional safety; both need attention if we are to feel that we are truly free to reach confidently for the things we most desire out of life.

When we're spending time in at home, in the space that's supposed to be just for us, we deserve to feel supported, loved, understood, and protected.  We live in environments that we ourselves have created in our imperfect image—we are constantly confronted with the choices that have made it what it is; we've made these choices over time, sometimes without even realizing that we're doing it.  The countless small decisions of the past add up to an effect that we feel every time we open the door.  Let’s take a few moments to consider what you’ve established and whether you feel good about it.  For instance, do you feel comfortable with how being at home generally feels to you?  With the way you spend your time there?  With the others who populate the world of your home? If not, you have the power to modify the conditions inside your home to improve your comfort and safety.

The louder of the two aspects of safety is the physical—if you feel like your safety is in jeopardy because someone close to you is violent and may potentially harm you physically, this will tend to be very obvious to you, very upsetting and hard to ignore.  That’s as it should be!  Someone who can’t even treat you with the respect required to refrain from hurting you outwardly does not belong anyone near you.  Unfortunately, there are many reasons why we sometimes put up with behavior from others that is completely inappropriate.  Those may include that this person is a family member, and we can’t just choose not to be related to them anymore (it can seem unthinkable to cut someone out of your life who has been such a long-standing part of your life.)  It may be that we love and care for this person, even feel that we understand them, and so we wish to be a loving influence in their lives.  It may be that we fear change and are afraid to be alone.  Whatever the reason you might give, there is a lot of great information out there in the world on dealing with abusive relationships, and while I certainly hope that you’re not a part of anything that looks like this, if you are, there is help for you.  I encourage you to go find it.  No one should have to live in fear for their physical safety.

On a slightly different note, it is also possible to feel physically threatened by a pet that lives with you.  Sometimes it’s necessary to be honest with yourself and admit that a pet that seemed like a good idea at one time is not conducive to your happiness and safety any longer.  This can be very difficult for some of the same reasons as described above regarding threatening people.  Our pets are family to many of us, and recognizing that a relationship with one isn’t healthy and taking action to correct the situation can be extremely painful.  However, it may be easier to change/”train” a pet than a human, so if this is your issue, you may want to look into getting professional help with the animal’s behavior.  You’ll still need to be ready to make a new choice if the relationship feels threatening after your best efforts.  Your safety, again, should come first.

In order to create an environment that really feels safe and secure from the inside, we must also consider the emotional quality of our relationships with people, as they are at the core of our home's overall effect on us.  If you feel that those who figure importantly in your time at home are likely to attack you, your choices, your character, you are not going to be able to enjoy the sense of harmony from which you can be at your best, see clearly, have good ideas, and live a high-functioning life.

·      Most importantly, who gets to live in your personal space with you? As anyone who has ever had a bad, or even just incompatible, roommate knows, this affects so many areas of daily life.  If someone in our space is at cross purposes with us, it can seem like the whole world is opposing our every move!  On the other hand, if you enjoy the people you live with, you get to experience a sense that life is more fun because you’re not alone; you get to feel that others are looking out for you and the home base you share.  Ideally, those you live with love and support you in such a way that you feel seen and accepted for who you are when you're around them.  If this in not what you generally feel at home, you are dealing with unnecessary stress and dissonance, and you can improve your happiness dramatically by giving some thought to the situation and taking appropriate corrective action.

·      Who visits regularly?  Who else you allow into your space with regularity also has a lot of bearing on how you will feel at home.  If you’re allowing people into your personal space who don’t seem to be on your side, people who are judgmental, selfish, or overly demanding, you will begin to feel that you cannot relax even at home.  It will be hard to rest and enjoy downtime there.  Again, you are inviting stress into your experience that could be eliminated through the establishment of some better rules about how you use your home.

·      Who calls your home number and expects you to pick up the phone?  You train others to expect your time and attention by demonstrating when you’re available to them, as well as, in this case, giving out your digits in the first place.  If you’re in the habit of giving away all your time and energy to others over the phone when you’re at home, this is another way in which you may be creating a home environment that doesn’t feel safe, calm, and supportive to you.  While I’m not suggesting that you should act like a hermit and refuse to talk to anyone once you’re home, I do think it’s important to make sure you get some time to yourself regularly that’s free of unwelcome demands.  You decide what time you will give to your community of friends and family, and must make sure you communicate what time is off limits.

·      Who has a key and can let themselves in?  This level of trust belongs only with those you know you can trust no matter what, and it pays to be very selective on this count. 

If a relationship with a family member or other roommate is not supportive to you, and you want to restore your feelings of safety, you'll need to find a way to communicate your experience and ask for changes.  This is an area in which we tend to be woefully uneducated, and the idea of confronting others about what’s not working can be frightening because we’re not confident that we can lead the situation to a helpful resolution.  There are many excellent books available on building your communication skills, and I highly recommend that you make it a priority to brush up on them if you ever have trouble talking to people in your life about important subjects—and who doesn’t, really?  One of the books I like to recommend is Crucial Conversations, by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, because it deals specifically with isolating the bad habits we usually fall into when attempting to communicate important content and finding ways to break out of them.  I think that communication skills are a critic necessity for living a happy life, and I encourage you to consider yourself a lifelong learner here.  Being able to accurately and confidently express yourself makes it possible to achieve so much more in your life.  You deserve to be able to handle whatever comes up with other people in the most constructive way possible.

Beyond verbal discussion, there may come a time when you need to set some boundaries and enforce them in order to create a sense of lasting safety for yourself.  Again, many of us have not been trained in confidently discerning and putting into place the boundaries we need.  If you are in a situation that feels bad to you, particularly at home, and you don’t see a way to resolve it, you’ll need to find an advisor to help you find a way through.  A smart, balanced friend or family member or a professional counselor of some kind can help you to see the situation more clearly and find the course of action that is most appropriate for you.

Taking some time to review how safe you feel at home, both physically and emotionally, is extremely important to the overall quality of your life.  It’s very difficult to be your best self if you don’t feel that you have a place to be in your downtime that is basically supportive and peaceful for you.  Please allow yourself to really consider this and see if anything stands out to you as needing your attention.  Confronting these issues can be most uncomfortable, but is well worth it in the long run.  Proving to yourself that you can improve this aspect of your life will improve your confidence in yourself and your ability to improve other areas of your life as well.