So Much Happier Blog
The Functional Value of Compassion
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Every major world religion upholds the importance of extending compassion to others. Usually, this is presented as the right and virtuous thing to do, to be done for its own sake. There's much to be said for that, but there's an additional argument to be made for the importance of compassion that is more mechanical, more specifically practical: Without coming to a place of compassion for another person, it's not possible to fully forgive them for wrongs they've done—and without forgiveness, we remain both bound to and continually irritated by that person and their wrongs. In this state, we can never be free.
Compassion, then, becomes a way in which we give to ourselves, paying into our own freedom from the burdens of the past. If you want to lead a happy life, you can't dig in your heels and hold onto resentment against everyone and everything that ever contributed to your discomfort. In fact, that's pretty much the recipe for a very unhappy life. On the other hand, it's usually not enough to decide with your conscious mind to let someone off the hook. If you want to do a thorough job of it, you need to get your subconscious on board, and its job is first and foremost to protect you. Legitimately finding compassion for someone else requires that you heal sufficiently from the ill effects of their actions to be released from the hold of your own trauma enough to see beyond it. From a more whole perspective, you can see that this person is flawed, like every other human you know, including you. It becomes possible to understand, at least a little, what might have possessed them to behave in the way they did. This willingness tends to build momentum if we let it, reminding us of episodes precipitated by our own less-than-fabulous life choices, which in turn reminds us of how similar we all are, and primes us to let go of the past and want what's best for everyone in the future.
This is a very natural cycle, and becoming efficient at moving through it is one of the greatest keys to happiness you could ever find. The tough part is the personal healing. Frankly, emotional technologies have lagged so far behind physical, mental, and spiritual ones in modern society that there isn't a lot of guidance on the specific hows of accomplishing such healing. This is why I find EFT/meridian tapping techniques to be so exciting—they simplify the processing of events with emotional impact, facilitating rapid broadening of perspective in ways that are gentle, , and organic, and appropriate for the individual. This is what true emotional healing looks like, and most of us have been taught to struggle toward it by attempting to will it into being by sheer force. Sometimes people get there by persistence, through clear intent and continuing to stumble toward the goal, but this is a long and painful way toward forgiveness. When better ways are available, I want to make them available to others, and this is why I do what I do. The personal empowerment that results when you can step yourself forward at will through such a process is so freeing, and the world would be a vastly better place if no one felt stuck and alone with their most difficult emotions. Tapping can help to spring us all from the old, outdated ties that mold us into the shapes born of past trauma.
Compassion and forgiveness are certainly virtuous on their own merits, and thinking of them as always the goal is a good way to keep ourselves on track to avoid the regrets that can result from our own actions. However, we cannot avoid the importance of emotional healing, and the self-serving bonus to our own happiness that accrues when do the work to facilitate it. It feels so much better to have the wherewithal, the resources, to extend generosity to others than to remain stuck in the tension and misery of trauma and resentment. The more you practice moving through the cycle, the more of your own energy you free up to spend on the things that bring joy and meaning to your life.
When You See It, Believe It
“The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”
The world can get pretty crazy, pretty overwhelming, and it can be very hard to know who to trust when it seems like there's an endless parade of people and businesses constantly—and loudly—vying for your attention. The stress of the constant stream of small decisions required to navigate through your day can be exhausting. Here's a simple trick we all probably know, but it bears repeating as an aid in making good decisions: Rely on what people do, not on what they say.
In the context of private relationships, this means that, though we all think and talk about many courses of action (some with great enthusiasm), we won't end up following all of these to successful completion. We all have to make value judgments in order to land on decisions about what to do with our limited time, and this happens in an ever-changing medium of context. While talk will tell you what people would like to do and experience, only their actions will reveal what they are willing to work and sacrifice for.
Some people's value judgments will be easy to understand. Others' will seem erratic and inscrutable to you. Still others' will be reprehensible in your eyes. It simplifies life and reduces stress to align yourself primarily with those whose actions you can mostly understand and approve of ("mostly" because let's be honest—no one is perfect, and everyone's viewpoint is slightly different based on the cauldron of experience, good, bad, and ugly, that has shaped them). While we can't expect faultless reliability or other flavors of perfection from anyone, we can expect that interactions with some people will feel good to us because they're fun to be around, and a good match for some of our most important values. Others won't. This matters. But if you're not also watching their long-term actions and allowing those to educate you about this person, you'll miss all the best indicators of where they're actually going.
Predicating your life on someone's potential rather than on who they actually are in this moment will open you up to a world of hurt and disappointment. I believe that people have boundless potential, but a happy life requires that you learn to choose relationships with people on a similar enough wavelength that you can love and enjoy them as they are now. By all means, challenge yourself to appreciate and love people who are outside your current comfort zone, but don't expect to live peacefully if you've allowed a whole bunch of people whose actions betray wildly incompatible values into your inner circle.
In a business context, you're looking for something similar—how does the business treat its customers? How do you feel when you interact with it, respected or played? Are its sales pitches showing you value that might help you and inviting you to participate, or seeking to manipulate you and your emotions through pressure and control tactics? How the business and its representatives behave is more important than the words, which may turn out to be acutely self-serving, just as any single person's may be.
As you move through your life, I hope you'll let the actions of others inform your actions, and that you'll find it a lot easier to make healthy decisions for yourself this way. It can cut down on the confusion in making all the judgment calls that make up a day in a modern life. Anything that provides clarity and greater ease so that we can all be less stressed and have more time to live out our purpose is definitely what I'm after! Feel free to comment below on how observing others' actions has helped you, or would have had you managed to do it!
How Do I Work This Thing?
“The goal of spiritual practice is full recovery, and the only thing you need to recover from is a fractured sense of self.”
I'm often asked by clients, and those just starting to use EFT/Tapping, how they should Tap at home. You might know that it helps, and want to do more of it, but feel awkward about starting to use it more regularly. (This is normal when we're starting almost anything new—most things feel unnatural until we've logged some hours of practice.) Here's my advice, and I hope you use it to get more out of the time you have to rest and recharge each day.
First of all, a quick disclaimer! Keep in mind that you should never tackle anything that feels too scary or overwhelming without assistance. Trust your judgment and intuition. If you become uncomfortable while Tapping, stop, breathe, and get help. Otherwise, you can't do it "wrong," so just do some when you have free moments, and you'll grow more comfortable with the process.
One of the easiest ways to start is with a simple "tap and rant" approach. When I first started Tapping, I did pretty much only this, and it felt great! The vast majority of us have been taught in so many ways and for so long to hide, disregard, and denigrate our emotions that we're used to shoving them down and doing our best to ignore them. This takes a ton of energy! When you start to let some of that built-up pressure vent using this technique, you'll likely find that it's pretty fun. All you have to do is tap on the points in the sequence for EFT and say whatever comes to mind, like "OMG I can't believe he said that to me! And how dare she behave like that? Who does she think she is? I'm so tired of all this. I just want to go back to bed and stay there for a week. And politicians, don't even get me started," etc. Really let it all out (and you should always do this where you won't be heard--whisper if you have to. You don't want to be editing yourself because someone else might hear you, and you also don't want to be causing stress to your relationships because someone heard something that wasn't meant for their ears when you were just blowing off steam).
There may need to be a lot of complaining mixed into your stream of thought, and that's perfectly fine; in fact, it's necessary to start with a statement of "what is" for you in order to get the best results. Often people are reticent to really indulge this, as it seems so negative, but if you go ahead, how you feel will usually quickly change. You may find surprising bolts of insight occurring to you, seemingly out of nowhere, that help you to change your perspective. But even if Tapping only seems to help a little, I'm always happy to take small gains too! Sometimes a small change is the difference between feeling completely overwhelmed and being able to move ahead with something or other that will create some positive momentum in your day. Baby steps are better than no steps!
Another simple technique is Tapping on body sensations. Say you've had a stressful day and you feel like there's a knot in your stomach. You can just describe the sensation as you Tap on the points, and allow yourself to notice if there's a particular emotion that seems to be associated with the physical sensation. If there is, you can describe that along with the physical feelings. Be as specific as you can, and feel free to throw in your observations of any images, colors, shapes, textures, or sounds that help to describe the feeling. If you observe addition aspects of how you feel that seem separate from the first thing you noticed, you can put those aside for further Tapping after you get relief on the first item. Keep in mind that when we Tap, we enter a space where the subconscious has a chance to speak to us, and not everything that comes up will make sense. Even if what you observe doesn't seem logical, try to go with it and follow where it leads. Sometimes within a few minutes of doing this, the feelings will change, and that's good. Just keep describing what you sense and Tapping, and before long you'll probably feel a lot better.
These two methods are the easiest ones to start with, but they're also just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more to learn! Sometimes these bring you great relief; at others, you may plateau and feel stuck while using them. Usually this happens because there's a deeper issue underlying your current symptoms whose resolution needs a more nuanced approach. Sometimes you're just tired or dehydrated and need to take a break so you can come back to this later with more energy and patience. Resolve to keep practicing and learning, because facility with EFT can bring such transformational power to your life. Check out EmpowermentStrategies.net if you'd like further information.
The Accidental Maze of Meaning
“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.”
I've written before about the importance of writing down your goals and periodically checking in on them so you can stay focused and adjust appropriately as conditions change. One of the most important reasons for this need is that the mind is constantly busy interpreting the events of your life, choosing meaning to assign to them in an effort to help you make sense of your world an keep yourself safe by learning from your experiences. However, this doesn't happen in a vacuum—it happens through the filters of all the previous choices it has made, both consciously and unconsciously, about the meaning of past events, and the stories it has evolved using all that assigned meaning using the data available to it. The interpretation is assigned so quickly, and beliefs based on it spring up so seamlessly, that we're generally not even aware that any of this is happening. We don't often feel a sense of involvement in the process, or the power to understand and change any of this, unless we're specifically working at being conscious of it. We certainly don't receive much instruction on it in the course of a standard education. And yet, intervening in this process for our own good is not outside the realm of our power, and in my experience, it's one of the most empowering things we can learn to do.
There are various techniques we can use to become more aware of our beliefs, as well as the interpretations from which they spring. Meditation, for instance, is an effective tool for becoming aware of many areas of your experience once you've built some basic proficiency with it, and decided where to point it. Talking to a friend with great listening skills, or a cognitive therapist if you need a professional, can help you to gain perspective on your beliefs. A skilled hypnotherapist can be a great help in this. Even just deciding that you want to become aware of this stuff and giving yourself some quiet time every day to jot down any realizations that come to mind can accomplish a great deal. My personal favorite method for increasing self-awareness is the use of Tapping techniques/EFT. I love it because it's a relatively simple self-help technique you can use anytime, and it facilitates the rise of understanding that would be slower to acquire through other methods; because it is a somatic technique (meaning it involves the body), it facilitates access to connections that techniques led solely by the mind never can.
When we use EFT, the mechanics of how we've assigned meaning to past events can quickly become clear in startling but cathartic ways. I can't tell you how many times I've found myself, or heard clients saying something like, "Now it all makes sense!" Realizations arise is organic ways we cannot plan, ways that are in appropriate timing for the current capacities of the person doing the Tapping. It's rare that in an hour-long session some doesn't include one of these illuminating moments. From here, we can look at the effects of previous choices and whether or not they currently serve us. We can keep the wisdom that resulted from past events, but make new decisions about what they mean, and what is possible, as well as how me will behave, in the future.
It is entirely possible, and sometimes even necessary, to realize or choose new meaning for a past event in order to move forward with your goals. Some beliefs are so foundational that holding them means you will not be able to get "there" from "here" because you believe you can't or that it's not safe to do so. While the conscious and unconscious self-sabotage that results when this is the case is often incredibly frustrating, it happens because the most primitive parts of the self are so strongly focused on self-preservation, and will use all means necessary to help us stay alive and safe. This is a worthy goal, obviously, but sometimes unconscious attempts at achieving it are misguided and rooted in outdated information.
If you are not regularly reviewing the state of your goals and of yourself in relation to them, how will you notice when you're stuck in a rut of past (many times unconscious) decisions about what's true and what's possible? Life is always changing all around us. There are sometimes conditions that seem to refuse, unnaturally, to change for an extended period of time, but how will you know when they finally do if you're not looking? How will you notice and leverage emerging opportunities if you're assuming the present will always be just like the past? (Hint: You won't!) When you do engage in this process, you notice when you keep coming up against barriers to progress in a specific area. With this awareness, the problem solving can begin, and we can keep track of whether our efforts are working as we continue to check in on progress regularly. While none of this is glamorous, nothing gets done in the long term without some version of this process being in use. The more you commit to doing it regularly and on purpose, the faster and more streamlined your progress can be. If you haven't already, write down some goals, and decide how often and when you will review your progress toward them. You may feel like you don't know what you're doing, but that's ok. You learn as you go, and you're not alone. In today's world, there are so many resources available to help you whenever you get stuck, but you have to start by admitting what you want and being willing to take some action and keep adjusting course to get there.
Exploring the Emotional Jungle
“If you don’t think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again. All of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body, which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system. Learn how to cope, sweet friend. There will always be dark days.”
One of the things I've learned about working with emotions is that they exist in a complex, ever-changing ecosystem, and interrelate with many elements of the self and dimensions of one's outer environment. This may seem to be a fairly obvious statement, but I find the degree of complexity of these interactions to be well beyond what most people have had occasion to deeply consider and fully realize. In a culture that tends to sweep emotional experiences under the rug as unimportant and even sometimes shameful, we are not taught how to value the emotional realm and healthfully integrate it into our daily experiences. Beginning to do a better job of this requires that we respect the complexity and the mysterious non-logic that governs emotions, as well as become open to adventures of a new an unfamiliar kind as we learn to effectively navigate this jungle.
In the subconscious, where the vast majority of resistance to change and progress originates, the coin of the realm is emotion; the subconscious speaks in symbol and color, in the way our bodies feel, and in the way our emotions mysteriously interact with all of this. A truth that can be maddening to the logical mind and the ego is that it takes openness to a more feminine-energy process than the analytical mind can comprehend to make progress in these shiftings sands. We're all familiar with the concepts of structured goals and linear processes to get to them, because these are all we've been offered. In fact, we've been so entrained by millennia of masculine-energy, logical-mind-and-discipline glorification that we think to enter the mysterious waters of the subconscious and to let a helpful process evolve organically (which, for some goals, is absolutely the most useful process) is folly, weakness, wishful thinking of the most ridiculous kind. After all, this period of history has given us some excellent understanding about how to use logic and discipline effectively, and there are many great success stories that have resulted from these methods. And yet, when you invest some time in getting to know the vicissitudes of your emotions, you find that there are actually discernible patterns that can guide your journey through them into greater wisdom and effectiveness on a whole different level than can be accomplished only with the accoutrements of the conscious mind.
No matter how much you "understand" where your resistance comes from, as my partner Andrew likes to say, "the mind is not the right tool for every job." You can't "think" yourself out of the physical and emotional effects of trauma, for instance. No amount of pure logic will dislodge entrenched emotional patterns that you learned before you were old enough to notice what was happening. This is what cellular biologist Candice Pert was getting at when she said, "The body is the subconscious mind." Bruce Lipton, another cellular biologist, writes about how the subconscious mind is like a tape recorder. Yelling at the recording won't accomplish anything. If you want to change the recording, you have to overwrite it, and that can happen only at the level of the subconscious mind, which is very much connected to the physical body.
To make things more confusing, though, emotions can be influenced by thoughts, experiences, and words we've encountered at any point in our lives, whether or not they were even ours. When we're children, we pick up a great deal of our learning through observation, and we don't yet have the awareness and intellect to discard the rubbish that gets thrown into our paths. The untold number of chemical reactions and communications going on in the physical body at any given moment influence emotion in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, some of which we can influence with factors like food and exercise. Our emotional habits draw us in certain directions. What's going on around us, including the macro of world events all the way down to the micro of how those closest to us are feeling, influences us. How energy is moving through our body's meridians affects emotion. All of these together form the basis of interactions so complex as to be nearly inscrutable. It can seem as though our emotions behave like wave forms as random as crashing surf on an uneven coastline.
If you want to master the art of working with your emotions, as with any worthwhile goal, it does take some time and commitment. It also takes familiarity with tools designed for this purpose. There's a lot of great information out there on ideas for accepting and working with this essential part of yourself, and I encourage you to seek methods that appeal to and work well for you, realizing that learning anything complex may require trial and error. For me, the use of EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) has been revolutionary because it elegantly incorporates so many essential pieces of the emotional puzzle, surpassing the utility of anything else I know:
- It calms both the body's physical fight/flight/freeze response and the amygdala, the limbic center of the brain (which deals with emotion)
- It helps energy to flow more evenly through the body's energy meridians, which Traditional Chinese Medicine and other systems have recognized as key to the maintenance of human health for thousands of years
- It gives you a strong, calming focus for your mind, acting like a moving meditation with extra benefits
- It facilitates the opening of a conversation with your subconscious mind, allowing game-changing bolts of insight to surface about the origins of your habits/patterns, and your resistance to the changes you want to make in your life
- Overall, it helps you to quiet noise on all levels and get back to feeling a sense of clarity about yourself and your situation, as well as build confidence that you can accomplish the goals you seek
Wherever you are currently on the scale of comfort and facility with your emotions, I hope you find ways to move forward in your exploration, as no one can be whole without greater-than-average skill in this historically neglected area. If you befriend your emotions and learn to value them for the valuable guidance they can offer you, you actually open up new abilities to blaze trails more quickly and with less resistance and confusion and mess than ever before.
No Part of You Left Behind
“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.”
There's a great deal of scientific evidence showing that unhappy emotions like anger and grief block healthy bodily functions, whereas emotions like joy, love, and gratitude enhance health and healing. In addition, rather obviously, feeling good is more fun than feeling bad, as well as more energizing and more enjoyable for others to be around. And yet, though most of us would rather feel great much more of the time, being happier isn't just about deciding to be. It's true that we can do quit a bit by intending to and choosing to focus on happiness with the conscious mind. But if you've been through traumas that your body and your subconscious are holding onto, releasing them is not about willpower—the conscious mind is the wrong tool for this job. What's required is a safe way to process the trauma that involves the body, emotions, mind, and spirit all at once. This is why I'm a passionate proponent of EFT, which is a superhero of a toolbox that is made precisely for this jobs well as for the processing of less difficult, but still not ideal, emotions. Through using it, we can take back our power to let go of the old and outdated and live squarely and freely in the moment.
Now let's get back to the subject of feeling good. With the power of the conscious mind, you can absolutely choose to spend time every day, even just in odd moments like while you're sitting in traffic or in line at the grocery store, consciously bringing to mind happy, fulfilling experiences you've had and making an effort to feel joy and gratitude for these experiences. By the way, these don't have to be grandiose, world-transforming memories, just those of times when you enjoyed something beautiful or the company of someone you like. We often spend a lot of time obsessing over what we want to change and fix in our lives; why not balance this out with thoughts of happiness and zest for the good things in life? Doing this for even a couple of minutes a day will give you a physical boost of happiness chemistry that can color your whole day with good mojo. It also builds better mental habits so that over time the balance of your thoughts will start to skew more positively, and you'll start to get out of vicious circles and into more productive ones. Habit is powerful, and when a habit is enjoyable, it's easier to solidify it. Just be sure to go about this exercise with a relaxed attitude and focus on the enjoyment of your happy memories. You're not looking to force anything, just have a good time and appreciate the good times you've had in your life.
Now, while the mind is powerful, I want to point out that this kind mental focus won't work as well if you're not clearing out old traumas, because you'll find that it's hard to concentrate on what's good in the presence of the negative beliefs that arise from those. It's also easier to do this if you've learned the basics of meditation, and know how to get back to a neutral place in your mind if more difficult memories or current concerns do interrupt your happiness and gratitude practice. And they will! Even the most practiced person alive never achieves lasting perfection. There's a concept in Buddhism that tells us that after achieving enlightenment, which is sometimes referred to as the dropping of burdens, we must eventually pick them up again and keep walking (go on with the business of living)—we should just do our best not to pick up more of them. In this interpretation, even those who achieve enlightenment don't necessarily stay in a beatific state forever, so don't be surprised when you (a normal mortal, I presume) can't manage to keep all your thoughts happy and bright! Still, the more you can clear out the charge of anything in your past that was traumatic, the fewer internal hooks your worries and complaints will have to hang onto.
One definition of trauma that I think is useful is: Anything that causes us to feel that our survival is threatened while we are, at the same time, powerless. Knowing how overactive many people's fight/flight/freeze response is in the modern world because of its constant, overwhelming pace and endless sensory stimulation, plus unreasonable societal expectations, it's easy to see how often we may experience trauma, whether or not we're used to thinking of it this way. Animals in the wild will physically shake off trauma, and researchers now believe that this natural response holds a key to humans' ability to heal as well. When we can bring the body and its sensations into our healing work, sometimes even shaking as animals do as we let go of traumatic past experiences, we are better able to move forward without lasting effects continuing to limit us. For more on the nature of and recommendations on healing trauma, you may find Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick to be useful. Note that anyone who has big trauma in their past should seek the help of a qualified professional before attempting to work with it. Having appropriate support in this kind of work from both professionals and family and friends is a requirement of creating the safety necessary for success.
I hope you will consider both the importance of using your mind and that of involving your emotions, body, and spirit in your concept of constant self-improvement and in your journey toward greater happiness. Only in doing so will you find the most complete healing, the greatest reclamation of lost energy, and the most fulfilling empowerment you have sought. Everyone deserves to live with authenticity and freedom from past difficulties, and I wish you more of those in the week ahead.
Fun for the Whole Family
“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell.”
This week in the U.S., a lot of people will be spending time with family and friends they may not see very often, cooking up a storm in a time-sensitive sprint toward serving up dinner for the Thanksgiving holiday, and eating and drinking way too much. What could go wrong?
Often people feel a lot of pressure around holidays to act as family members expect them to, keeping the peace even though there are old, unresolved tensions underneath the surface that cause everyone a lot of stress. We try to have a good time even if we're not being treated the way we'd like to be in hopes of helping everyone to stay happy, or at least civil. Any perceived deficiencies in the experience can bring into stark relief the gap between what we currently have and what we wish we'd had in the past, as well as between what we'd like and what currently is. It's a triggering time for many people, especially when we add in the extra demands on everyone's time, gift shopping (or making) for those whose holidays include a tradition of giving, a hectic round of parties, financial year-end activities at work, extra traffic on the roads, etc. This time of year can be a real powder keg. Not to scare anyone, but it's the time of year when the most heart attacks occur, probably because of the soup created by boiling all the above reasons in a pressure cooker.
As I wrote last week, there are times when you're going to be busier than normal, and that's ok. The trick is, when you're busy and stressed, you need to be taking countermeasures to keep yourself sane. Believe it or not, there are some fast, free, simple things you can do to maintain your stability (go back and read last week's blog for more on that), but chief among them that I'll recommend this week is good old EFT. If you haven't yet learned the points to Tap on and the basics of how to do it, now's your chance! I know it may seem like a small, unimportant addition to your life when there's so much going on that's bigger, louder, and more dramatic than the call to pour a foundation of calm underneath it all, but this is something that is easy to learn and that can pay off every day of your life once you do. Imagine being able to help all of your body's systems to relax measurably in just a few minutes, and being able to calm uncomfortable emotions quickly as well. Life becomes so much better when your emotions and even how your body feels are not at the mercy of everyone and everything that crosses your path. The power of having a tool this effective that's gentle and always available has been life changing for me and many of my clients. I know it works from deep personal experience, and my mission is to help others to have access to all of these benefits as well. That means I'm going to challenge you to go learn it now. If not now, then when? What are you waiting for?
There are many helpful actions you can take to boost your happiness and your sense of well being, but there aren't many that can deliver on so many levels all at the same time—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritua—-as EFT does. To really "get" this in your bones, to see it in brilliant technicolor, you need to commit to using it consistently until you have an "aha" moment or three. I suggest practicing for a few minutes daily for at least two weeks, which should allow you to start feeling comfortable with the routine and notice some real benefits if you don't right away. Then, when you're confronted by something shocking, insulting, annoying, or whatever, you can disappear for a few minutes and Tap yourself back to feeling more like yourself again.
Family members will often have very different ways of looking at life than you do, and those may not be open to change. Sometimes the best thing you can do is learn to accept your differences, but that's generally not something that can be accomplished with only the conscious mind. When there are old memories and patterns that trip up our experience of the present, those need to be addressed at the level where they're held: In the subconscious mind and the body itself. EFT does an amazing job of helping us to gently access and lighten the load of stored experiences so that we can become more free from the automatic reactions that arise before we're even aware of what's happening. You don't have to agree with everyone you're related to on every subject, but clearing out the causes of your knee-jerk reactions allows you to decide how you will behave instead of running on autopilot when an old, annoying subject comes up. You'll gain skill with EFT over time, but even the most basic routine can really help you to stay calm when you feel triggered and trapped. Give it a try, and I think you'll be surprised at how a little can go a long way.
Clear the Decks!
“In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find—and I hear from other people that they agree—that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness.”
Everyone who wants to learn how to maintain a high level of effectiveness in life must master the basics of organization. If you're not good at this and dread tackling the task of improving these skills, I hear you! It doesn't sound like fun to admit you're kind of a disaster in some ways, and to design systems you'll need to sink constant effort into if you want benefits. The first step in determining whether to focus on this is to admit and accept where you are versus where you'd like to be; if you're totally content with your level of success, well, more power to you! That's fantastic. For the rest of us, the question is, "Are there ways in which I could make more progress if I cleared the decks?" If your answer is yes, and you want progress, you have your answer.
Imagine for a moment that you had a clean, clutter-free environment in which to do your thing. What if you knew that you were all caught up with communication and any tasks that you owe to others? That would be a great feeling, right? I'm betting you'd feel more free to work on the next steps toward your goals, and a greater sense of enthusiasm. That would serve you well, particularly if you were able to maintain this consistently. So why don't you do what it takes to get here...? I have a few guesses:
- Overwhelm. You are literally trying to do too much, and you can't do any of it as effectively as you might if you learned to be more realistic with your time. See this article on time management. Challenge: Staying true to your most important values and getting comfortable with saying no to what is not yours to do. This might sound easy. It's usually not!
- As mentioned, putting kick-a$$ organizational systems in place that you will adhere to over the long term sounds like a drag. Challenge: Make it more palatable by enlisting the help of a friend who loves to organize, or hire a professional to help you get set up with what you need. Remind yourself that life requires maintenance of numerous kinds, and this is one of them. Do you need to eat every day? Pretty much. Do you need to exercise regularly to stay healthy? Yup. Do you need to clear the decks continually as clutter piles up? Yes. Yes you do.
- You're avoiding something that's buried in those disorganized piles, or harsh judgments you might make about yourself along the way if you confronted them—or you're avoiding having the time and space to work on what you really want because of fears connected with your concepts of success and failure. Challenge: Allow yourself to see what your resistance is really about. Then be willing to do the work it will take to reduce it and increase your enthusiasm for the tasks ahead.
Does creating space for your own successful functioning take effort? Why yes! But if you want to spend your time on what you choose and create results, you need this effort. You want this effort, because you want these results! You can work on this a little at a time. In fact, if you want to go the distance, you'll need to get into the habit of small, but constant, daily efforts. It may seem unsustainable at first to add yet another task to your list, but over time, this is a habit that will create more energy than it burns. As with anything, you gain confidence and efficiency through practice and small victories. When you get good at this, and you're not getting tripped up by so much visual noise and other distractions, you'll be free to build momentum that will be hard to stop—and that's when life gets exciting!
Sniff, Cough, Blech
“‘Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.”
No matter how well you take care of yourself, there will be times when you get sick and need to take some time to recover. Modern life is a complex, high-speed high-wire balancing act with a lot of moving parts. Think about it—if you're moving around at all during the day and eating food you haven't produced yourself, then you're constantly coming into contact with various microbes from far-flung locations and all manner of influences that are potentially challenging to your system. Everyone is trying to get our attention for one reason or another, not to mention influence our behavior. We are asked to be more and do more than ever before. We're completely out of touch with natural rhythms because of the 24/7 opportunities technology has produced. We live in a world of high demands and we don't get enough high-quality rest, nutrition, and exercise unless we're really prioritizing our own high functioning. For many reasons, most of us aren't. But even if we are, being human means that sometimes plans go awry.
Which leads me to my main point. Getting sick is not a failing. Sure, it may point out to you some of the ways in which you need to up your game in the arena of your own care and feeding, but it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is out of balance, or that you should have been able to avert this. Our bodies have natural defense systems that respond when they come into contact with invaders, building up immunity to those microbes in the future, but this takes time, and sometimes we experience symptoms until this work is complete. In this case, your body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
Sometimes, as our bodies balance with the cacophony of daily influences, a clearing out becomes necessary. Perhaps some substance has accrued to unsustainable levels in the body, and needs to be expelled. This is sort of like spring cleaning, and though I'm not a health specialist of any formal kind, from my own observation, I think this happens to all of us sometimes. Our bodies do their very best to maintain health no matter what we put them through, and they use various tools and options to do that.
When you feel under the weather, it's a fine time to consider what you might do better in supporting your health and balance from the outside, as well as how your own stress levels and mental and emotional discord may have gotten out of control. Stress is now widely understood to be a major risk factor in not just immunity to day-to-day threats like the common cold, but also in more serious health conditions across the board. Look first to the classic trifecta of sleep, exercise, and good nutrition. During times of high demand, you might also want to think about supplementing with herbs such as adaptogens, which help your body to keep returning to balance no matter in which direction you tend to get off track, whether too yin or too yang, "too much" or "too little." It's always best to consult with a professional before trying this, as herbs are powerful, and not generally a one-size-fits-all solution. I'm fortunate to have a close friend who is an accomplished herbalist, but you can probably find someone good locally by checking online reviews for your own and nearby communities. You should also talk to your main health practitioner so that everyone advising you knows what's going on.
To me, it's excellent common sense, now that we know the pervasive corosiveness of stress to our long-term health, to get serious about dealing with it—not just when sick, but on a daily basis. That's why I suggest having a daily practice that addresses this area of your life. Everyone knows that you can't just exercise one time and feel great forever. I'm telling you that you also need to think about what an "emotional gym membership" would look like. Some people get a lot of mileage out of pure expression—talking things out with friends, writing in a journal, creating artwork in any number of media. While I agree that all of those are wonderful outlets, for me, the practice of regularly using EFT has added an exponentially more powerful dimension to the mix. It allows for faster, more complete processing of thoughts and emotions, and facilitates amazing new understanding of self and others in a way that's easier, more enjoyable, and more natural than anything else I've found. Whatever you find appealing, choose to use it more often and you'll most likely find your ability to relax, renew, and heal improving over time. The goal is not a perfect body (impossible) but one that can bounce back from times of higher demand with some measure of grace. When you support it with what it needs, you make that more possible, more probable, with every helpful action. So what will you do this week to build a better set of resources for your body and your long-term health?
People Are Annoying
“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!”
You know how some days you have a run-in with someone (not homeless or obviously mentally ill) who displays just jaw-dropping rudeness, selfishness, or malice? This can be a shock to the system, and it happens to us all. Even microagressions can pile up in the course of a day so that you go home feeling like you just hate people. I don't think any of us is proud of this, but it's a common enough experience that I suspect you recognize it! This week, I've been thinking about how important it is to actually work at acknowledging that the world we live in is like this, and letting go of the tendency to let our sense of outrage ratchet up and push against it all. Being in a state of outraged resistance is an exhausting distraction that will erode the ability to achieve your own goals.I'm not saying that it's easy to avoid, but you can learn ways to navigate the world that will minimize its negative impact on you.
This gets to the heart of a truth espoused by many ancient schools of thought that seems counterintuitive, which is that in order to be happy and at peace, we need to first accept what is. The very human response to this idea tends to be immediate rebellion, because we think that must mean we have to also accept that "what is" will never change, or we have to somehow approve of something that is downright wrong (or at least drastically not to our liking). Yet neither is true. All it means to accept the present conditions is to step aside from the cyclone of emotion and the physical, chemical responses that stem from falling down the rabbit hole of rage and resistance. The more you can avoid that slide, the more you can stay on solid ground, maintain your equilibrium, and keep access to your greatest skills at your fingertips. If you manage to do that, you can be a part of the solution you seek; if you don't, you miss opportunities left and right to live a life that really fulfills you.
For most of us, the right answer is to learn to acknowledge the chaos that is this planet, vent about it when absolutely needed, and then get back to focusing on what is uniquely ours to do. Now, there could be a few people out there who feel that their purpose is to educate others on how to move through the world with broader understanding and better manners—latent Mother Teresas of the chronically rude (and if you're one of them, that's fantastic. Please let me know and I'll help you get the word out!) But making change happen in this arena would, I fear, require a commitment at about her level of total dedication. Most of us have other purposes. Spending unnecessary time in outrage is draining and will distract us insidiously from projects in which our brilliance would be best harnessed for good.
As you deal with people you don't know, see if you can make it a game to acknowledge that many people WILL be annoying to you—and it's not the end of the world—while you keep ahold of your calm, and even cultivate a sense of amusement at the crazy. You still get to choose how to react, in other words, you get to choose who you will be in the world even in the face of annoyance. I'm sure there are some aspects of the incredible diversity that greets you every day that you appreciate. It makes sense that in order to enjoy that, you might have to put up with a bunch of things you'd rather not have as possibilities. Endeavor to spend less time and energy worrying about the second group, and practice continually enjoying and refocusing on the first. If something feels like your mission to fix, then go for it, and try to enjoy the process. Do it because it's an expression of you and what you have to give, but not because you're desperately seeking perfection that will last for all time. Such a thing doesn't exist, and that's ok. Life is always change, whether we acknowledge that or not. Trying to create an unassailable legacy that will last through the ages is about fear of death and an out-of-control ego rather than joy and authentic purpose.
Being annoyed won't hurt you (though being chronically stressed out may, so learning to stay calm is a great investment in your health). Remind yourself that annoyance is part of life, and practice avoiding unnecessary, reactionary drama. This is one of those lessons we all have to keep learning, so just stick with it and do the best you can!
Below the Surface
“Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious—it’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”
Now that you're clear about the beliefs you'd like to change, and have done some mental work (see last week's blog if you don't know what I'm talking about), what's the next step...? Now, I recommend working on the emotional side of things. Modern culture heavily emphasizes the mind in problem solving, so that's what many of us think is the alpha and the omega of making progress in anything, but your belief work won't hold if you don't address your emotional realities. These are deeply seated in your psyche and your body, and they will block your progress past a certain point. The great thing is that with effective tools like hypnosis or EFT, you can reach and work with the subconscious realm of old, ingrained emotions and patterns, which is where these blocks, and the power to create lasting change, reside.
You can do this work alongside the mental work (affirmations, for example). Ideally, all of your efforts will coordinate with and support each other. Assuming that you wrote out all the reasons you have the undesirable belief you're working on, the next step is to address each reason. There are other ways to do this, but since my favorite method is EFT, we'll be using that as the framework here. Using the same example as last week, if you believe you're too old to get in shape, one of your reasons might be that you think you have bad genes. In that case, you can do some Tapping for "I have bad genes"; this is a good start, but it's general, and the best results in EFT come from getting as specific as you can. Ask yourself: Why is this reason true, and what makes you sure? Look for your proof in specific events that have happened to you, like someone in your family having a traumatic experience that illustrates this, or someone important to you telling you this with a lot of conviction and emotion at a key moment for you. When you use EFT on these specific experiences, you are dismantling the support for your limiting belief one reason at a time. If you don't take on this work, all the mental work in the world won't usually get you permanent results, because you have these powerful emotional realities hanging on in the world of the subconscious. You may have to work on multiple supporting events in turn in order to start feeling different about each reason, but you may not have to work on everything similar that's ever happened because of the Generalization Effect, in EFT terms. Translation: To some extent, working on one event in a series tends to bring down the intensity of all of them.
As always, if anything feels too big or too confusing for you to handle alone, get help. There are numerous ways to do this, and so many great resources available to you. If you really want to make progress toward your goals, you will need to break the cycle of avoidance that tempts us all and do at least some of this work. You might as well figure out whether you're more likely to tackle it on your own or with others, and get started. Doing something new will always engender some feelings of awkwardness and discomfort, but in this case, the payoff can make the discomfort you endure worth every second in the long term.
I do want to be realistic and tell you that the process of working through all the reasons that support your belief can take some time. Depending on how much time and energy you devote to this, you will move forward if you use EFT faithfully, but you may not see instant results. Try not to quit before you see any. Sometimes you just need to keep at it. How much work will be needed varies widely from person to person and from subject to subject for each person. I also want to mention that sometimes, we hold onto a limiting belief because we get overwhelmed when we consider moving forward without it, and we use the belief as a shield against change. You may be frustrated by your difficulty with making progress in the past, but keep in mind that this behavior is designed to protect us. Humans evolved to be highly risk averse out of self-preservation, one of the strongest drives there is. Sure, you can try to fight this if you want, but you'll make yourself miserable and waste a lot of energy if you go that route. You can't discipline or shame yourself into confidence—I find that partnering up with the side of you that's afraid and trying to keep you alive (even if that's an overreaction) is the smarter and simpler way to go. Often you'll learn something new about what's been motivating you underneath the surface of things when you allow yourself to be open to it. Try asking yourself, "What's the worst thing that could happen if I no longer had this belief?" Once you have an answer, or several, treat each one as its own separate reason using the process outlined above.
This is the basics of working on the emotional glue that keeps old, outdated beliefs in place. If you don't have a good grasp on how to do the Tapping, review that before you attempt it, and always use common sense, pay attention to the signs your body is giving you, and don't overdo it. Otherwise, give it a try and see how including emotional work can help your beliefs to quickly evolve in the most positive way!
When What You Believe Doesn't Help
“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.”
If you're someone who reads my blog regularly, chances are you're aware enough to know that you have a belief or two (or 20!) that are holding you back from being the happiest, most successful possible version of yourself. It's completely normal to pick up less-than-optimal habits and patterns from others, particularly when you're a child and don't even notice it's happening, though this can happen at any time of life. Those habits then stick around until you do specific work to change them. It's all well and good to know this, but what do you do about it? How can you permanently change a belief that might be based on years of conditioning, including examples you've observed and powerful formative experiences you've had personally?
I won't pretend that we can just wave a magic wand and presto, a limiting belief is gone! On the other hand, sometimes it seems like changing these deeply ingrained beliefs must take a Herculean effort, and that need not be true either if you're willing to use the best tools for the job. Here are my suggestions for taking an inclusive approach that will get all of the parts of you on board. An action in one area will help you to progress, but when you work in all areas, everything happens faster and is more likely to solidify into permanent change.
First, get clear on what you'd like to change and why. There might be numerous beliefs you'd like to rewrite, but pick one! You can get to them each in turn, but without focus, you won't get much done. Let's say, for instance, that the belief you've chosen is, "I'm too old to get in shape." Now, spend some time with your mind. Write down all the reasons this is true for you. Are all your family members who are older obese? Do you feel like you have too many aches and pains to move your body? You can probably come up with a ton of reasons, so keep writing until you feel like you've gotten them out, however bad they sound. It might seem overly negative to really reach for more reasons past the most obvious ones, but trust me, this stuff is gold when it comes to making change possible for yourself. You need to know what's in your mind on autopilot when you're not looking if you want to have a chance at working with it.
When you've dug deep and you feel like you have a good picture of what you believe and why, it's time to think through these reasons (Part I). When you think about them consciously, do you truly believe each one? It can be helpful to ask, "Whose voice is this, and when did I learn it?" Also, "Would I give a close friend this advice?" Sometimes you'll find that you don't fully believe these tapes that play in your head. The process of changing any part you still do believe will need to include purposely challenging the old messages when you find yourself thinking disempowering thoughts. When you find yourself (using our example) thinking that there's no exercise you can do that won't cause you to injure yourself, you'll need to interrupt that with something like, "Wait a minute. That's the old belief talking. Surely there's something I can do to move my body a little that is gentle enough to start building strength and balance without injury. I can start with some searching online for gentle exercise and see what I find. Other people get into shape all the time, and I can too." But even the items you don't consciously believe may still continue to influence you because they're ingrained and habitual.
One excellent tool for fostering change is the use of affirmations. These are positive statements of the new beliefs you'd like to have that you repeat daily until they become new habits. In order to find these, you can look at the negative beliefs and reasons you wrote down in the first step and write out the most opposite inspiring statement you can for each one. Then you simply say them out loud at least once per day. Affirmations have gotten a bad rap lately, but I find them to be a useful support in the midst of change. It's a sort of self-coaching that reminds you where you're going and helps you to try on the feeling of a new belief until it seems more natural. I'll warn you that if you really need an affirmation, you won't even want to say it out loud--the new statement will sound ridiculous and embarrassing! But give it a few days and you'll stop needing to squirm uncomfortably when you say it and consider actually holding that more positive belief. This step alone will not get the job fully done. The mind is a fantastic tool, but it can't solve all our problems alone because it's not the only part of us. This is why some people have taken to claiming that affirmations don't work, but they can be, in my experience, a powerful element in your strategy. More on how to work with other parts of you in later blogs.
Another great way to support the changes you're looking to make with your mind include feeding it new information, like reading or listening to books that will expand your knowledge about the subject at hand. You could read about how to start slowly and get into shape at a healthy pace while avoiding injuries. There are many guides out there on workouts for almost every person and situation. You also might want to read biographies or articles about other people who have done what you want to do. Most of the time, there are many people with experience who can help you along with inspiration and the fruits of their own labor. Knowing that others have been through the same thing, and learning about how they triumphed, is a supportive way to teach your mind that more is possible for you.
It can also be hugely helpful to find at least one other person who is working on the same kind of challenge with whom you can share the journey, the highs and lows, and make the effort more fun. When you can enjoy your efforts, you'll be much more able to stick with the program than if you're trying to muscle through on willpower alone. Joining with others can also help you harness the positive powers of both cooperation and friendly competition. Just make sure that person is also willing to put in effort on the mental side of things and making an effort to stay positive. Partnering with someone who is not doing the inner work to make change last can be more of a downer than an inspiration. You want to put yourself in proximity to people who will cheer you on and have your back when you're having trouble staying the course.
This week has been about supporting change with the mind because this is what our culture tends to offer first, and sometimes only, as the way to make change happen. Much of this probably sounded familiar and fairly logical. In the coming weeks, we'll look at how to bring the rest of you to bear in supporting change so that you're allowing the process to ripple across all parts of you. If you do the work to isolate a belief and the reasons you hold onto it this week, you'll get more out of the weeks to come, so make you sure you take the time to do that now. I also encourage you to experiment with affirmations, and even if it seems goofy, try to have fun with them as a way to start practicing the new. You're on your way to a new, more empowering belief already!
You Are What You Eat, So Know What You're Eating!
“Looking good and feeling good go hand in hand. If you have a healthy lifestyle, your diet and nutrition are set, and you’re working out, you’re going to feel good.”
I've just finished reading what I think is an extraordinarily helpful book about food, so I'm interrupting our ordinarily scheduled programming to tell you about it. Before you decide you don't have time for one more "diet" theory, let me just assure you that it's not a strict, one-size-fits-all set of claims. It's The PlantPlus Diet Solution by Dr. Joan Borysenko, and unlike most fad-ish diet books out there, this one examines each of the most familiar concepts currently in vogue about what humans should eat, and provides a summary of the scientific research available regarding them. It explains why each may work well for certain people but not others. It also examines biases and the psychology of different food choices in a way that I found illuminating.
While I have no connection with the book financially or otherwise, I want to highly recommend that you read it. Because of my own personal experiences, I came to the conclusion years ago that each of us is unique, and would do well to observe our own results carefully and personalize our diets accordingly. That is also the conclusion of this book. If that sounds like a daunting task, don't worry! The author lays out the basics of what we currently know about healthy eating, and gives us guidelines on how to figure out what's really best for us. My first introduction to this personalized eating concept was Eat Right for Your Type by Peter J. D'Adamo, which suggests which foods are best for the particular chemistry of each blood type. When I tried the suggestions for mine for two weeks, I found that I felt much better than I had previously, and that convinced me that even within a healthy diet one can enhance it based on trial and error and observation of one's unique body.
There are no doubt many excellent books about sensible eating plans, but this one is also unique in that it lists medical tests you can ask your doctor for that will reveal some of the best guidelines for your personal eating plan. How does your body handle carbohydrates versus fats versus proteins? You're about to find out! There are also recommended tests that will reveal over time how any changes you've made are affecting unhealthy markers like inflammation. Most doctors get almost no training on diet and nutrition in medical school, so they most likely won't do these unless you ask, but these tests can help you avoid eating a "healthy" diet that's all wrong for optimizing your ability to thrive throughout your life. You can gain a lot of insight through observation, but medical testing can really shorten the learning curve and reveal things that most of us just aren't going to be able to tune into.
Even if you're already eating a fresh, organic whole foods diet, the name of the game is now personalization. The difference between illness and brilliant health can be about small but powerful refinements. It might not seem all that exciting to do this detective work, but I'll tell you what is exciting—living a pain-free, high-energy life in a physically fit body. No matter where you're starting, I'd be willing to bet you can make strides toward this vision by focusing some attention on providing your body with its most appropriate fuel. Even if you don't get those medical tests done right away, you'll finish the book having acquired an excellent basis for making food choices with increased understanding. Science will keep evolving, but why not utilize the best of what's currently available? This book covers some technical information, but remains pretty fun to read, and I think you'll find it useful as you make your daily food choices.
Free Your Mind
“The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.”
When dealing with a long-term challenge, even if you find that you're well on the way to a solution, it's often true that nothing happens as quickly as you want it to. Problems that you acquired over time will usually take time to solve. The thorniest part of addressing them is often dealing with the daily disappointment, or even heartbreak, of still having the problem despite all your efforts. One of the most powerful things you can ever do is condition yourself to celebrate even your smallest wins rather than bemoaning your losses and worrying about how you will confront tomorrow. This may also be one of the hardest things you'll ever learn to do. It sounds very simple, but is, for most people, astonishingly difficult. It also changes everything about how you experience your life and what is possible for you, once you understand and become practiced at it.
When you think about what a downer it is to harp on what's not working, it makes a lot of sense that consciously focusing on the progress you're making instead would be more helpful. (I'm sure you've spent time around someone who complains all the time. I bet you can't wait to get away from that person when it's someone else.) Unfortunately, your mind is most likely in the habit of worrying about what might go wrong, including everything that ever has for you before. This may be due both to Nature and to Nurture—it's a rare family situation that teaches children only to be aware of risk for practical reasons, but otherwise steeps them in confidence and zest for challenge. Usually there's a lot of "you can't" and "don't you dare" and "what if" mixed in in frenzied tones. It might all be protective and well meaning, but sometimes it's also other things like power plays and unconscious panic. As far as Nature, the mind is designed in part to protect us from risk, and in addition to running the the stressful thinking patterns we learned from others, it tends toward obsession over possible risk as a survival mechanism. If you want to counter these powerful formative and ingrained forces, expect it to take some doing. And here's the kicker: The work you do, if you really want to succeed, can't all be done in and with the mind. Uh oh! Wait, doesn't that make this all of a sudden a lot more complicated? Yes, my friend, it sure does. And that's why it ends up being difficult!
Focusing on progress rather than fueling your every moment on fearful thinking requires work that goes to the very nature of being alive, to all your notions about how safe you are, and what human nature is all about. These reside not only in your conscious mind, where it becomes apparent what your basic beliefs are if you just choose to start becoming more aware of them, but also in the subconscious parts of your mind, where your body and spirit are much more involved. You may be starting to wonder what the use is of my opening up these complexities, since rarely does anyone teach us what it's like to deal in the coin of these realms of us. Because of the personal journey I've been on, I know from experience that a deep well of experience and belief that you're probably unacquainted with is running your life far more than you would believe if I tried to tell you at this moment.
It might sound like I'm trying to scare you or manipulate you, but I'm not. I want you to understand that, from what I've found, a better quality of life, less stress and more confidence, result from clearing out chaff that is weighing you down in ways you can't even see. While there are many wonderful ideas, systems, and people out there in the world doing good work, nothing I have found has ever done for me what EFT/Tapping does in facilitating this clearing out. Because it's a self-help tool, you are in the driver's seat as far as how you use it and on what. You also often become aware of profound understanding and shifts in how you think and feel as you use it. This process is empowering in ways I can't describe. You really have to experience it in order to fully understand what I'm saying. Once you start to get on a roll with this clearing out process, it's amazing how much easier it becomes to think in more constructive ways so that you can enjoy a more happy, vibrant life. I've said it before, but I'll say it again—there's little else I can recommend that would be more helpful to creating more of what you want than learning the basics and making a practice of using EFT. As you do, you will encounter and clear out impediments that will help you greatly. I'm betting that some of what you find there will also surprise you as it did me, and that the process of removing its charge will thrill you as well.
When you can spend more time using your mind in positive ways, you make fewer decisions out of fear and more out of inspiration, and the healthy desire to create better conditions for yourself and others. As long as you're trying to accomplish everything with your mind, you're missing out on the power that can be yours when you get other important parts of you on board. As you use Tapping, you will also tend to naturally build compassion for others that will make you even more effective in understanding and communicating with them. So much can be gained from this practice, so don't put it off! Learn it, love it, and live it!
Can I start Now?
“I learned that we can do anything, but we can’t do everything... at least not at the same time. So think of your priorities not in terms of what activities you do, but when you do them. Timing is everything.”
It feels great when life works out such that you get to follow your own best and most natural timing in working toward your goals. That seems to happen roughly never in the real world, though, doesn't it? Most of us have messy lives with lots of competing demands, and people we love, to fit into a limited schedule every day. Timing isn't just about our whims, but also balancing all of these important demands while hopefully staying healthy at the same time. Given the difficulty of juggling everything you have going on, even your most important goals can end up on the back burner. Working toward personal goals can feel like a selfish thing to do in the moment, even if the results of your work will benefit everyone you know. Additionally, it can be particularly hard to carve out the necessary time for your pursuits if you're not confident that you really can create the results you want—and since experience builds confidence, this can be a vicious cycle.
In addition to scheduling difficulties, we also have to deal with the internal results of not following the best personal timing. If your natural timing is constantly interrupted, that can be frustrating. Your enthusiasm can take a lot of hits if, in contrast, you just never quite get yourself on a roll. Some tasks legitimately need uninterrupted, concentrated effort to be completed well. No project ever seems to proceed in a perfectly orderly, gloriously serene manner! There will be unexpected developments and distractions—these may even prove to be beneficial in hindsight. But when they arise, it may seem like you just can't seem to get anything done, and it's not even your fault! In this blog, we'll look at how to deal with timing that feels less than ideal.
In the ideal scenario, if you had all the time in the world, you could organize your day in the way that you most enjoy. You would go to sleep and wake up at the times that feel most natural for you. You would decide each day what you'd like to work on and in what order, and when to take breaks for meals. You would spend just the amount of time you prefer working versus spending time with friends and family. Maybe you're laughing right now and thinking, "As if!" But this is what I'm talking about when I mention ideal timing. Whether we admit it or not, most of us have a fantasy of living life this way, and we long for more of this quality in our lives. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy to move in this direction, but I will say that if you don't know what your ideal day would look like, it's helpful to consider it. Even if you can't rework every day to look more like your ideal, you could add some of your ideal elements some days. Even small steps in the direction of what you long for as far as scheduling choices can help you to feel empowered, energized, and more like yourself. It's not self-indulgent to find what works best for you and try to do it. In fact, doing this will tend to make you happier, more productive, and more pleasant for everyone else to be around.
Since it's not always possible to set up everything the way you'd most like it, a big part of sustaining your momentum is constantly dealing with the stops and starts, and the emotions that come up for you throughout this process. A few simple go-to strategies are in order here. The top idea I recommend, which can really boost your clarity and save the day when you're stuck, is to write out both your goals and your current life priorities, and make sure they stay current over time. I've written before about why it's helpful to be able to refer to your goals on a daily basis, but since your progress toward them must be balanced against your present obligations, you actually need both. Perhaps you have young children or pets; no matter what you're building toward, they still need your care. Maybe you have adult friends and family members who depend on you, or responsibilities in your community that can't just be dropped because they're an important demonstration of your core values, and they feel like part of who you are. If you have a clear statement of these that you can refer to when you're frazzled, you will most likely find it easier to figure out how to proceed.
Prioritizing something over something else that's also important doesn't mean you're abandoning anything, just that you're making a choice to change the order of tasks to make sure the thing you chose gets done first today. Sometimes you'll need to ask for help, or accept that another task will be pushed back a day. Often we have more latitude than we think; the deadlines we assign to things may be arbitrary on further examination, or we may be assuming that someone else won't be on board if we need to move things around. It's worth asking directly. It's also worth learning that it's o.k. to say no to others sometimes and working on increasing your comfort with doing that. You are here to live your life, and contribute what you have to offer that's unique, just as others are. It's easy to get drawn into a bunch of scheduled items that don't have much to do with your life and your priorities. If remembering and acting on this is hard for you, I recommend finding someone who shares some of your important values who will enjoy hearing about your adventures and sharing their own. You can support and learn from each other as you get better at focusing your efforts.
Take just a few minutes to write out your highest values. (Really. Like now, people.) These are qualities you wish to define you. You can clarify some of them by thinking about what behaviors from others drive you nuts! If you can't stand when others are rude and oblivious, then maybe the opposites, consideration for others and generosity, are among your core values. Put your core values in positive terms that can remind you, whenever you need it, what is most important to you and who you want to be. Reading over these should engender enthusiasm and help you refocus each day. When you really hit the mark with these, you will find that thinking about them brings you renewed energy and gets you excited about at least some aspect of your life. Put these somewhere you can easily see them. You can make a note on your bathroom or in your phone, or multiple places. Consult it if you're having trouble figuring out how to prioritize your day.
Keep an eye out for what helps you to want to get tasks done and try to incorporate it. Maybe you're energized by loud music. Maybe silence is what you crave. Maybe you like to take breaks every 20 minutes. Maybe you need to build in social interaction to keep your mood up. The more you learn about how to keep yourself happily engaged, the more you can accomplish while feeling like you're flowing with excellent timing. This is highly personal, so no one can just give you perfect instructions. You need to stay observant and be willing to try thing for yourself. If you keep doing this, you'll end up with a decent instruction manual on how to make progress to your goals with the least friction and the most ease and enjoyment.
It's normal to run up against conflicts between all of the things that are important to you. Caring about more than one thing just proves that you're human. It's a good idea to take stock at least once a week and make sure that your time is really going toward the things you most care about, and I recommend this too, but the small decisions about what to prioritize above what is the work of being alive. It's all a learning process. If you don't like how things went today, then work on changing your choices tomorrow. If you keep taking action toward your goals, you'll make progress, even if you keep getting interrupted, if you keep reminding yourself what's important and let that inspire you today.