So Much Happier Blog
I Can't Even
“You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others.”
Often, the reasons we don’t make progress toward our biggest goals boil down to overwhelm. When life seems like it’s all just too much, we tend to shut down as soon as we think about taking action. When it seems like there are always way too many things to do in a finite number of hours each day, when change comes at you so fast it’s hard to prioritize strategically, when you’re under stress and chronically exhausted, you’re probably operating in a state of overwhelm. You feel stuck and confused, and optimism is hard to generate. This is not a powerful place from which to get things done.
Having just gone through a period of very low energy (I was scheduled to the max and got sick three times in short succession because I was determined to keep my commitments and rest later) I was reminded that the most basic level of countering overwhelm requires adequate physical energy. I remembered that the definition of energy in my high school biology class was paraphrased as “the ability to do work.” As a human, that ability requires other things too, but the physical energy part can’t be skipped. After my busy period wrapped up, it was a couple of weeks before I really felt alert, awake and alive again. In those weeks, I got tired early in the day, had less available willpower, greater challenges in finding my natural positivity and resourcefulness, and generally felt a total lack of desire to be productive. As soon as I had gotten some high-quality rest and allowed myself to recover, all of that started to improve. Moving my body helped to boost it all too, once I had the energy to do that. But it was so clear to me that without our own vital energy to pour into our projects, our goals are toast.
Nurturing your energy, therefore, should be primary in your quest for the things you want out of life! The pace of change is often far slower than we want it to be, so you probably won’t be able to create anything truly significant in a flame of short-term overwork. You’ll need to maintain a longer, slower burn in most cases. That means you’ll need to attend to these aspects of creating and maintaining adequate energy to do work:
Physical needs. Nutrition is key here. Sure, you can run your body on nothing but doughnuts, but this is going to short you of everything except a sugar high and subsequent crashes, and subsequent long-term breakdown. You need to work on gravitating to adequate amounts of lean proteins for your level of daily activity, plus plenty of veggies and some fruits throughout the day for all the rejuvenating micronutrients they offer. As much as possible of your diet should be certified organic so you’re not taking in unnecessary pesticides, hormones, and other toxins. If the multiplicity of conflicting views on what you should be eating has left you confused, consider consulting a nutritionist who shares your most important values around food. This can yield huge gains for decades to come.
Exercise. Your body wants and needs to move for optimal energy, balance, sleep, moods, and overall health. You don’t need to overdo it to see and feel results. Find something you don’t mind doing, even if you don’t love it—just do something.
Sleep. If you’re not getting enough, you’re trying to pursue excellence while mentally and physically impaired, and you’re leaving huge areas of your own capacity out of reach. Do what you can to set aside more time for sleep and solve problems you have with it. There may be periods of your life when you won’t get much sleep (such as the first year of a new child’s life), in which case you’ll need to minimize other goals to some extent if you want the process toward them to be something other than a disheartening struggle.
Emotional needs. It’s pretty hard to find the energy to knuckle down and get to work if you’re immobilized by fear, anxiety, grief, or other emotions. These are not just distractions, they’re sources of important information that can actually help you find a deeper sense of purpose and maintain a strong sense of self and what’s right for you. Tapping to the rescue! Of course there are other options that can be of help, but I’ve never found anything more efficient than EFT to help move, illuminate, and clear emotions.
Mental needs. The mind functions best in balance with all of your other parts, so bonus—your work in the other areas helps here too. We’re also learning that meditation helps the brain to function better. Being able to calm your mind gives it space to function without the unnecessary din of wild, reactive thinking. If sitting still and trying to get quiet internally feels too challenging, you can start with moving meditations like walking and repeating a rhythmic mantra, or spending some time every day consciously listening to and enjoying some soothing music. Tapping can help calm your thoughts too, and I consider it to be another type of moving meditation. Just sayin’.
Spiritual/Values-Based Needs. Humans are naturally social animals with a desire to participate in efforts larger than themselves. If you are not finding a way to do this in some way that feels appropriate and inspiring to you, then you’re disconnected from one of the greatest motivational engines you could ever harness. This doesn’t have to show up in a standard-looking religious or spiritual manner for you, but it does need to express what you consider to be your highest values, the best of who you are and want to be. As with exercise, baby steps are fine, just start something and see where the inspiration takes you.
Look, I know this is a lot to balance, and that’s why life is such a challenge. It’s ok to admit that! Working toward and constantly correcting this balance for yourself is a lifelong process of learning, and not something you ever achieve and put behind you. If you want to sustain the energy you’ll need to accomplish your goals, though, it’s the stuff of your daily assignment. Go forth and be energetic!
How Did I Get Here?
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
Now that winter is out and it’s officially spring, we’re almost a quarter of the way through 2019. It’s a good time to stop and take stock of how things are going for you compared to any goals you may have set for the year. Without periodic analysis, you may not make the necessary course corrections to keep yourself moving forward efficiently; however, the context for your progress and the messages you take away from your analysis are important, not just the accuracy of the analysis itself.
Yes, it’s helpful to be clear and honest with yourself about how far you have (or haven’t) come, but it’s also important to notice the reasons why you may have gotten off track so that you can learn from your experience and do something useful about it. For instance, did you overestimate how much you could add to your daily routine while still keeping up the maintenance on everything you already like about your life? Did you get completely stuck somewhere, which prevented you from making your expected progress? Did you decide to take another opportunity, or go in a slightly different direction, so that you made a different kind of progress? And will you choose to see these happenings as failures, or will you mine them for the value they may have to offer?
If you got overwhelmed, maybe you need to break your goals down into smaller steps and try to accomplish a little less every day so you can avoid burnout. If you got stuck and didn’t know how to break your logjam, what can you do to solve that? If you branched out in an unexpected direction, will you need to go back to what you skipped later, and if so, when will that make sense? Taking the time to notice what happened allows you to calibrate to your current reality so that you can make clear, efficient decisions grounded in facts rather than muddling through each day confusedly hoping that all this effort will somehow be worth it someday. Creative, mindful tinkering may lead to real results, but blind muddling generally will not!
No process ever unfolds without surprises. This truth can be both frustrating and invigorating, and sometimes both at once! It can seem desirable to plan and execute everything to perfection, and after all, planning is absolutely necessary to peak productivity; on the other hand, fighting the need to adjust and remain flexible will only drain your energy, because life on planet Earth requires it. Where billions of people are running around exercising free will, it will often be hard to predict exact timing and results no matter how skilled you are at planning! If you want to reach your goals, you need to build in time for reflection, honest measurement of your progress, and strategic adjustments.
One last observation I’ll lob at you: Many of us try to gear up and start the new calendar year with a bang, but according to Traditional Chinese Medicine and other traditions, winter is a time to replenish yin energy, sleep, rest, and dream your ideas into being—it’s not the best time for massive action, pushing yourself, and trying to force timing. If you’ve had trouble with New Year’s resolutions you made at the turn of the year, it may be because you were using the collective habit and energy of those around you to try to fire up some change when what you really needed was some rest and restoration. You might need to just slow down your process a bit, or you might need to allow yourself a break, some space to clear your mind and let your natural enthusiasm start to bubble up again. Now will be a better time to start new things, but again, realize that effecting change takes time and patience. It’s not all about willpower, or trying to force your ideas into being. It’s about working with and remaining open to body, emotions, and spirit as well as mind. Change lasts when you take the time to get all your parts on board with the plan and help them adjust.
Wherever you find yourself in relationship to your goals, you know what to do. Examine why you’re there and what you need to do next to address your position. And don’t forget to Tap on any emotions, thoughts, or beliefs that come up as you do, which will help you to clear out internal blocks to seeing a clear path forward. Happy spring!
A Ton of Great Free Info!
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
This week we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a special announcement. Every year, those who run one of the largest Web sites dedicated to Tapping, The Tapping Solution, run a tele-summit dedicated to showcasing experts using this amazing set of tools in various, interesting, and sometimes creative ways. It’s a great way to hear about what others are doing with it and get inspiration on techniques you might try in areas where you might not have thought to apply it. This year’s event starts today! I have no specific connection with this event, but I do participate every year because there’s always something to learn from the people who are interviewed. You can listen to the whole thing for free if you can make time to do so on their timeline. You can also choose to purchase the recordings if you prefer. Even if you you only end up catching one or two, I think you’ll find it to be a good use of your time.
If you want to sign up to receive all the information, you can do that here. Because this is my thing, I look forward to this every year and I totally geek out on the little turns of phrase and technique refinements the interviewees share. Maybe you can listen to every shred of content. Maybe you just want to check out one lecture with title that interests you. In any case, I hope you enjoy taking a look at the free content and come away with something that gets you a little more excited about making Tapping a part of your daily life. Thanks for reading, and for being someone who is willing to do the work to grow and improve your life. You make the world a better place!
Ready for Your Shot?
Timing is tricky. In order to have a life that feels like it hums along and really works, it’s necessary to learn skills that help you to keep up with your goals and desires. You have to be reasonably ready for the opportunities you want when they come knocking, otherwise you don’t move forward. The challenge is that life is complex, with seemingly infinite numbers of moving parts to coordinate. It’s easy to be distracted and exhausted by less important factors before you invest your time and energy where you most want to—and that’s assuming you’ve been able to come to clarity on what you want in the first place.
Readiness requires work. I know this may not be what we all like to hear, but most of us don’t gain mastery at any skill set in a short period of time. It takes practice and the wisdom gained from experience over time to gain grounded confidence. Being willing to put in this work day after day, month after month, year after year, and so on, is a huge part of timing. “Overnight success” tends to happen to those who have done this unglamorous work in the background long before the spotlights and the acclaim showed up.
One of the most valuable skill sets that most of us don’t spend nearly enough time building is the constant acquisition of the knowledge and habits required to build and maintain our personal health and wellness, including physical fitness and vibrant energy as well as mental and emotional well being. You cannot excel when handed opportunities if you can’t get out of bed in the morning, right?
But the thing that probably frustrates humans more about timing than any other factor is the existence of all the elements we just can’t control. Earth is a pretty chaotic place, what with billions of people exercising free will to the best of their abilities all the time. Efforts to stand out, muster resources, find and team up with like-minded others, and keep all the basics of life spinning take a lot of doing. Sometimes external conditions seem prohibitive, or at least inhospitable. And when it seems like we’re not getting anywhere, we get frustrated.
We’ve all heard stories about people finding romance after long periods when such a thing seemed like it would never happen. Often, the timing of one or the other partner was such that they were in the midst of other occupations and not truly available until they finally came together. It may be that one or both seemed to wait forever, but eventually the waiting came to an end. Other areas of life are like this too. Sometimes the wait for the right conditions for success seems interminable and pointless. Yet if you fill your time as best you can, you are preparing for the moment that may yet arrive, even if well past your preferred due date.
Many things about life are mysterious. This may make us nuts, but we can never control everything—not even close! The best we can do is invest in ourselves and our goals, always learning and proceeding as best we can. There is no total certainty on this planet. We must manage our emotions around this if we wish to enjoy happiness despite never having absolutely everything we want. Because humans are pretty darn creative, it’s unlikely that you ever will. Learning to be ok with this and appreciate what you do have is at the core of allowing happiness in.
While you may feel that it’s hard to stand out among such a large population, the high number of others around you also offers you a high number of chances for collaboration. Sometimes finding the right partners or supporters makes all the difference in charting your course. As frustrating as it can be to wait for the right conditions for your success, you must keep going if you want it. Fill your downtime with friends, mental and emotional management techniques, fun, learning, and preparation, and when that chance arrives, you’ll be ready to latch onto it and make the very best of it. You can’t make timing work, but can make yourself ready—so do that! This is your part in supporting the magic of timing.
What If I Can't Do It?
“A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway.”
As we approach the last week of January, I bet you’ve noticed some (possibly pretty serious) resistance to continuing your actions toward your New Year’s resolutions or general 2019 goals. I wanted to chime in at this point and remind you that this is completely normal, and that no one who accomplishes anything requiring sustained effort is always certain that they will prevail. Uncertainty assails us all as we reach for more than we’ve accomplished in the past; only when we’ve proven that we can do something, usually repeatedly, does confidence really start to root. Those who succeed find a way to cope with the worry, uncertainty, and doubt and keep moving and adjusting, failing all the way forward if necessary.
While you may be able to hold onto your enthusiasm for a new project in the short run despite difficulties, as weeks and months wear on, it will be challenged. Below are some strategies for handling the inevitable . I hope they help you to envision how you will work through tougher times, but know that the possibilities are endless, and a chief part of your job as CEO of your life and your mission is to expand this list and figure out which strategies really hit the bullseye of what you need in the midst of challenge.
Have a statement of what you’re working toward and why, and read it multiple times per day. Be descriptive and really write out everything you expect to have and feel when you’ve accomplished your goal. When you read this, you should feel inspired and as though your mission is a wonderful expression of who you are. When you read it, do not give in to negative, detracting thoughts, but just remind yourself why you started this process and why you still want the goal
When something comes up that tempts you to just run screaming and give up, remind yourself that it’s ok and part of being human to get frustrated
Be prepared to tinker your way to new solutions that may be unique to you
On the other hand, be willing to learn from others who have covered similar ground, or parts of it—you never have to do anything without the benefit of wisdom from others, even if it’s just in the form of reading books on a topic somewhere in the realm of what you’re working on, or looking up how-to’s on technical instruction online
Practice taking care of yourself when the tough times rear their ugly heads. What really works for you when you’re feeling overwhelmed and disheartened?
Naps?
Baths?
Cooking a beautiful and at least partly healthy meal that you and others around you can enjoy?
Spending time with certain positive, loving, accepting people or pets who help you to feel seen for who you are at your core?
Spending some time on a creative, fun hobby that brings you joy?
Inspiring music or other forms of art that remind you of the better things about humanity, and who you are and wish to be?
Moving your body in ways you enjoy?
Hikes or walks in natural surroundings to get you outside in the air and sun?
Getting a massage or some acupuncture or visiting some other kind of professional healer-type person?
Talking out issues with a friend or therapist?
Finding a support group for whatever you might be experiencing?
Teaming up with someone else who may need help and support as they work on goals as well, or with a coach who can assist you with your process?
Finding ways to laugh more and bring some hilarity into your life (just not at yourself in a derogatory way, though)
Just trying something, anything, new in your leisure time to get out of a rut
Addressing your emotions specifically, with Tapping or something else that helps you express and move past difficult feelings and get back to creativity
Planning treats into your regular routine that don’t contradict your goals so you always have something to look forward to
Etc.!
It’s easy to think up ways in which you’d like to succeed, but often much harder to actually bring these to fruition. I hope you have an enjoyable time in reaching your goals this year, but if you struggle at any point, there’s absolutely nothing unusual about that, and it doesn’t mean you can’t get to the results you want. It just means you need to be crafty as you go up against your challenges and keep getting better at something related to your goals every week. The self-renewal piece absolutely counts, because it’s what will help you to sustain your resilience when everything seems like too much.
And now I’m taking my own advice and going to get ready to see a fantastic improv group in LA that made me and my companions laugh really hard last time we went. I’ve worked really hard this week and I deserve some downtime! What do you need at this moment, or what would be most helpful? That’s your job to figure out as you take action, receive feedback from the world, and regroup to surge forward again. No matter what you’re up against, you can find ways to keep moving toward your worthy goals in ever smarter and more effective ways. Striving toward things that are meaningful to you is part of what makes life worth it, so keep modifying your techniques and even your goals if you must, but don’t give up!
Pushing the Eject Button On Fear
“There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.”
As we finish the first week of 2019, you may be fully invested in New Year’s resolutions; you may be already resisting yours; or perhaps you didn’t make them at all. Whatever you choose to do around this tradition, I believe that the most important thing is always to pursue your goals in a steady flow of self-acceptance, calmly learning and readjusting all along the way. If this sounds “soft” or unlikely to produce, that’s because we’ve all been so indoctrinated with the idea that we’re inherently lazy that we may think we have to ratchet ourselves up into a state of mania in order to make any progress; that we have to constantly channel our inner drill sergeant if we’re going to motivate ourselves; that nothing but constant a$$ kicking will get the job done.
Sadly, for most people, this is a terrible idea, born of an extremely cynical view of human nature and thousands of years of raw fear seeming to be the best life preserver in a harsh world. From a purely evolutionary standpoint, this idea may have served us well, but as modern humans we suddenly find ourselves in the opposite of our traditional state—rather than fighting the elements to survive on a daily basis, we now inhabit an overpopulated planet on which the most valuable skills are intellectual and social—the more able we are to learn quickly as technology changes, and to negotiate and de-escalate violence in favor of fair long-term solutions, the more equipped we are for life in today’s world. It turns out that turning harshness and shame on anyone, including ourselves, tends to foment anger and resentment. Inspiration and genuine excitement about creating a better future are exponentially more powerful as an engine for getting us up and going each day, and for moving us through blocks and setbacks that will arise in the course of any project; they also tend to naturally motivate others around us in positive ways without any additional effort, because enthusiasm is infectious!
One of the reasons people tend to resist working with specific goals is that they don’t feel up to dealing with disappointment—which, by the way, will be a part of any process. Sorry, but that’s life on this chaotic planet! Unfortunately, many of us learn from observing adults around us when we’re young that disappointment=impending failure and doom, and it means that we’re stupid/cursed/incapable, or whatever other counterproductive adjective may have been on the menu. The truth is that disappointment may come and go, but it doesn’t have to mean anything except that you’re still learning about how to succeed. Handling negative emotions as they arise, and moving on when you’ve absorbed the helpful message in the feedback you’ve received (and had a chance to rest and renew), is the name of the game. Anytime you take an underwhelming result as a referendum on who you are or what’s possible for you is when you begin a downward spiral that will cost you a lot of time and pain. Falling back into fear and harshness as a hard-wired self-preservation habit is understandable, since throughout so much of human history we didn’t have a lot of time or mental and emotional space in which to consider and practice the best ways to do things. Now, though, we have a lot more access to the higher mind, and we can choose to come off autopilot by noticing our self-talk, and how we’re feeling as we go about our days. Shining a light on our own patterns and being willing to address the ones that don’t serve us through Tapping or some other method that accelerates change will allow us to grow far more quickly and easily in the directions we choose for ourselves.
Whether you’ve made specific resolutions or not, remember that it’s rare for any project to speed forward to the finish line without impediments. One of the most valuable skill sets you can ever acquire is the discernment to note challenging emotions and the patience to follow a process that will resolve them, help you build experiential knowledge, and get yourself moving again. This skill set renders you basically unstoppable! On the other hand, if you don’t build it, you’ll keep repeating the same patterns over and over without understanding why you can’t ever seem to get out of a confusing loop you can’t even see. It sure can seem like there’s just something wrong with you if this is where you are, but that’s not it. You’re in the groove of some pretty ancient wiring that needs attention and replacement. It may not happen overnight, but you can change the way you operate and break out of the old, constrictive ruts. When you do, you’ll see the tendency to rail at yourself for your imperfections for what it is—an old, outdated habit that you can replace with far more effective and happiness-inducing mental software.
Welcome, 2019!
As we begin a new year, I decided to share a beautiful guest blog by my friend Lexi Soulios. I hope you’ll take in the energy of this blessing and return to it all year long when you need to feel refreshed (bookmark it for yourself if you’d like to do that). Enjoy, and I look forward to sharing all the blessings off 2019 with you!
GENTLE, LOVING BLESSINGS FOR YOU 💖
...as we leave the darkest days of the year behind.
✨ MAY YOU BE BOUNTIFUL in all things good and nourishing this year.
✨ May you see the support that's available and feel comfortable receiving, so that YOU CAN THRIVE.
🌿 May you remember each day to close your eyes and take a deeeeep breath...to fill your lungs with the MIRACLE OF *YOUR* LIFE.
✨ If fear and worry steal your ability to be in the present moment, may you realize that you are MORE THAN CAPABLE of handling any challenges you encounter.
✨ If shame weighs on your shoulders and caves in your chest, let your mind come upon a new curiosity about where that shame was born. YOU ARE GLORIOUS and GOOD and DESERVING OF SUNLIGHT ON YOUR FACE!
✨ If you often work to suppress an ever-present anger, please know that healthy anger CREATES NEEDED BOUNDARIES and PROTECTS LOVED ONES. If you have more anger than you can handle, may you notice if you’re carrying anger on behalf of someone else—and be able to give it back to them. (It’s theirs to handle.)
🌿 For every day that you step your feet onto our precious earth, may you feel your DIVINE RIGHT TO EXIST, to be exactly who you are, exactly where you are.
✨ May your world reflect back to you all the ways YOU ARE WANTED AND LOVED. 💗
✨ May you FEEL WORTHY and KNOW YOUR OWN VALUE.
✨ If you're calling in a new job, a new home, a new assistant, a new partner...may you realize that this person or situation you are praying for is praying for YOU too. 🙏🏼
YOU ARE THE ANSWER TO OTHER PEOPLE'S PRAYERS.
Every characteristic that is *uniquely you* is *uniquely right* for where you’re meant to be and who you’re meant to be with.
🌾 If you feel absolutely stuck and unable to move forward in the way you want, may you realize that every block in the way (of your wealth, your ideal partnership, your peace of mind, your joy) is not as formidable as it may seem.
BLOCKS CAN BE BROKEN DOWN INTO SMALLER BITS AND CLEARED.
🍃 May patterns of overwork, over-responsibility and over-giving disintegrate, and a more HARMONIOUS FLOW of give-and-take and BALANCE BE RESTORED in your field.
🌺 MAY YOU ALWAYS BE BLESSED with physical comforts, genuine connection, and plenty of sacred time for quiet and rest.
☀️ As the light returns to our hemisphere once again...
may your JOY GROW,
your PEACE OF MIND COME TO STAY,
and your HOPEFULNESS EXPAND INTO VISIONS OF THE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES before you. 🌅
Wishing you and all your loved ones a wonderfully auspicious start to 2019.
Dream or Dread?
“I have a new philosophy. I’m only going to dread one day at a time.”
Have you ever noticed that when you’re afraid of or dreading an event or confrontation, you rehearse it going negatively in your head many times beforehand? (Holiday dinner with crazy uncle Fred, for example!) You may not do this in every case, but I bet this pattern is familiar to you, because we all do it sometimes! Unfortunately, for numerous reasons, it’s not the best strategy if you want to set yourself up for success.
First, the emotional reasons. Imagining that the experience will go poorly, everything will fall apart, and you can’t win is likely to just fuel your dread of the event until you’re really miserable—not just about this, but about anything similar that happened in the past and that you’re afraid of recreating. This starts you rolling with a pervasive bad mood, which is likely to send you into a tailspin if anything else happens to annoy you; it may color your world through grunge-colored glasses so that it’s hard to enjoy the things that are genuinely good in your life. No one really wants to feel bad, but we create and exacerbate bad moods with our mental habits because we’re struggling with something we don’t see how to solve. Because we’re encountering things that are challenging. Because we’re used to treading subconscious grooves that we may not be aware are even there.
Physically, these unpleasant emotions create chemicals in your body—stress hormones and others—that cause a chain reaction, making it hard for you to do basic, necessary things (that the body can place on hold in an emergency) like digesting your food and thinking logically. Studies show that whether you’re a single cell or a human, you can’t be in defense mode and constructive/healing mode at the same time. Essentially, undue stress incapacitates you for everything but immediate self-preservation functions.
Which brings us to the mind. Brain science shows us that the more time you spend practicing something, the more robust your supporting neural pathways become. Your brain becomes habituated to doing that thing, so that’s it’s comfortable, easy, and likely in the future. It’s then a path of least resistance. This is helpful when what you’ve practiced is a positive skill or habit, but not so great when it’s your propensity to imagine and expect the worst. By the time the event you’ve been dreading happens, you’re primed to see and contribute to the worst result with your own expectations and actions. Even if it goes better than expected, you may come away from it with a sour taste in your mouth because of all the negative buildup and your tendency to be in the groove of those feelings you practiced so many times over before the scene ever unfolded.
Fortunately, this is just a bad habit that we tend to run without realizing we have a choice in the matter. We can choose to circumvent it and all of its dubious consequences with better choices, and achieve better results. First, we need to become determined to notice when we’re starting to project negative results. This may be challenging, but it gets easier with just a little practice. If you check in with yourself numerous times each day and become aware of your emotional states, chances are you’ll start to catch yourself rehearsing cycles of dread. You can remind yourself to do this in any number of ways, such as sticky notes, calendar reminders, phone alarms, etc. Eventually, you’ll catch yourself a lot faster and be able to arrest the pattern before it really takes hold, knowing that this worry won’t help you, and you need a better strategy.
You then have choices. The goal of meditation is often to rehearse a calm, neutral state so that it’s more natural to live without prejudgments, automatic emotional triggers, or preoccupations that block us from seeing what’s actually happening in each moment. You can shoot to come to each situation with a neutral, open, curious “beginner’s mind.” This is great for staying open to all of your creativity and capacity, and at the very least not making a challenging situation worse than it needs to be. Or, if you’re pretty good at keeping your cool already, you can shoot even higher and make your goal to actively improve your situation through intending the best possible experience for everyone, leading to the best long-term results for the world. When this is your intention, you may find yourself realizing as you rehearse that you need better skills and some help preparing for your challenge—but also feeling motivated to find what you need to grow into the person who can sail through the challenge with excellence rather than just skating by without disaster. Either of these choices is better than what you’re doing when you’re mindlessly worrying about the situation! Whichever you’re going to work with, you can then substitute imagining your upcoming challenge going easily and well using one of these two focuses.
These ideas may sound simple and relatively easy to implement, but they can be surprisingly tricky to habituate yourself to. There’s a lot that we do mentally on autopilot, so it really takes some effort to change your mental habits effectively in a global way. I encourage you to work on it anyway, because this effort pays better returns in the coin of happiness than most of the ways you could be spending your time. And, of course, when you find that you’re really stuck on a situation, don’t forget to Tap to reduce your fears, frustrations, and limited thinking around it. The mind can do a lot, but you can’t think yourself out of all your emotions and concerns. Sometimes you need direct intervention that aligns the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual parts of you in the face of difficulty. When you use all the tools you have and stick with it, you’ll find that you make progress, and over time, you gain confidence that you can handle more challenging situations, which reduces your overall stress.
Your Grateful Presence
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”
In the U.S., last week we celebrated Thanksgiving, a holiday entwined with the seasonal return of nature’s harvest and plenty. Generally, we congregate with family and friends and eat way too much. We have leftovers for days. It’s a lot of fun if you like that sort of thing! The underlying meaning of the thing may be getting a bit lost in the holiday trappings, though, so this week I decided to slow down the view to make sure we don’t just blow right past it.
Nowadays most of us don’t farm our own produce, so we’re not focused, out of self-preservation, on minute natural rhythms the way humans have been throughout recent history. It’s easy to work oneself into a pace at which such things seem to fade into an irrelevant background blur, and the time of year barely enters the picture. Yet, leaving behind our ability to notice and relish the delights of each season removes a powerful tool for grounding, presence in the moment, and pure enjoyment. When we pretend that it doesn’t matter that this planet and its cycles are the backdrop for our experiences, we’re not fully here, and time can pass with a monotony that flattens out what can be most zestful about being alive. The enticing, mysterious, unique fragrances you encounter when hiking a trail at various times of year, for instance. A bright, clear blue sky, or one filled with clouds that sunshine occasionally streaks through in a burst of rays. The singing of birds and insects only present for a time. The arresting invigoration of a cold snap versus the soothing warmth of a summer breeze. Life is not only about technology! It’s also about being a physical, sensual being.
Our relationships with others can often pull us down to earth as well, reminding us to feel grateful for what’s good. Others surprise, delight, and challenge us in ways that will always keep life interesting. These interactions stir things up and keep us reaching for greater joys and better solutions. No one alone can produce a harvest as spectacular as one created in cooperation with worthy partners. Even poor interactions with others remind us of who we do and don’t want to be, which can spur us onward if we keep moving.
As long as you’re not in a life-and-death situation, it’s never a bad time to look around and notice what is unique to this moment. What’s going on in the outdoors today? What weather will you be dressing for, and what can you notice about it rather than completely avoiding its features? What kinds of fun have you had, or could you have, in it? What fruits and vegetables are in season, and how can you enjoy them right now? Who are you most grateful for and how can you express your feelings to them? Who is it that you can’t stand, and what does this have to teach you of tolerance or the courage to act?
By endeavoring to find gratitude throughout the year, even in the bleaker times, we fan the flames of inspiration. We practice awareness of our environment, which helps us to unlock opportunities we otherwise wouldn’t notice. We practice happiness, which can be a result of a diverse skill set and good old-fashioned effort and focus, not just of things going our way. We help others around us to enjoy the fruits of harvesting the moment and what it can offer us rather than only lamenting what is absent. When we do this, we can feel richer without much in our circumstances changing, and this is a kind of power that, in turn, can change everything.
Finding the Fun in Giving
“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”
In recent weeks, I’ve been writing about the importance of boundaries in maintaining your balance and ability to sustain progress. Now that we have a grounding in creating those, this week I want to talk about the opposite! We’re entering a season when giving is often at the forefront of people’s minds, and this can be a beautiful and fulfilling time for all of us, regardless of what set of traditions may belong to our family and loved ones. Since giving traditions are playing out all around us, it’s a great time to consider the place giving has in our lives, and whether this dynamic is in balance with the rest of what we have going on.
Appropriate boundaries allow us to greet each day as the healthy, energized people we want to be. I’m a huge fan, in this world of overwhelm, of taking regular steps to ascertain that we haven’t been slowly tempted into overextending ourselves so that we’re living run-down, miserable, barely conscious lives. On the other side of this coin, though, is the question of whether we’ve become so self-protective that we’re not taking our rightful place in the flow of life around us—not contributing our unique gifts, which our communities need, and not experiencing the deep joy of connection and reciprocity with our neighbors that is part of what’s most worthwhile about being human. Both sides of this coin are essential to sustaining our inspiration on a daily basis.
It is often through openness to giving that we find the most life-changing opportunities to expand our viewpoints and our capacity for compassion. In giving, we may find that we are called in an exciting way to become more, greater versions of ourselves, as we reach to improve the lives of others. We may find that we have more to give than we thought, that we’re capable of more than we guessed. Because human beings love to push boundaries and grow, such realizations can feed a positive cycle of giving and invigorating personal achievement that elevates everyone involved.
Receiving with a grateful heart feels amazing, but often the one on the receiving end is surprised. The one doing the giving gets to savor the anticipation of giving the gift, in addition to the moment of the reveal and the memory the exchange creates. That anticipation can bring a great deal of warmth to this period of lead-up if you allow it to. You don’t have to be giving profusely every day in order to experience the heart-opening glow of making giving an important part of your daily happiness practice; you can just spend a few minutes planning how you will give, enjoying memories of giving or receiving, or complimenting others on the fly when you recognize something you can appreciate about them. The more you start to associate giving with joy and fun, and the opportunity to bring brightness to others’ lives, the more its power will compound to bring more richness to your experience. In many traditions there are teachings about obligational giving, and guidelines reminding us about how the virtues of generosity can be helpful, but if you leave out the delight factor, everyone’s experience around giving and receiving will be dampened. Isn’t it more fun to receive a gift from someone who is obviously enjoying the gift-giving process than from someone who seems to be giving out of obligation, or with strings attached? Doesn’t it make you want to reciprocate more when a gift seems like an expression of love and appreciation? Do you see how when everyone gives with joy, the result is a force, a wave that travels outward carrying greater potential to everyone it touches?
If you are looking to live a happy, inspired life, you need to balance your self-care and your habits around giving. Both are necessary in order to keep your physical, mental, and emotional states at optimal levels. Each of us may find that a different mix of giving and receiving is appropriate at any given time, as what we need and what we can give will fluctuate based on the innumerable factors that make up a life, and that’s ok. As long as you’re remembering to consider these two sides of the coin when you have choices to make, chances are good that you’ll choose well and continue to learn and grow in joy and potential and balance, doing your part in creating a better world for everyone.
Shifting Sands
“Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that.”
Last week, we looked at the importance of setting boundaries in order to support your long-term functionality and excellence. This week, we’ll delve into the “how” of knowing that your boundaries need attention and making new choices. Since we are living in a world of limitations in bodies with specific needs, there will always be limits on how much activity we can sustain. Just to make things confusing, though, we’re all different. The range of talents and physical capacities that exist across the members of the human race is wide. What works for others won’t necessarily work for you, and vice versa. Attaining mastery at anything takes trial and error and a whole lot of practice. Only through testing your limits can you really know whether a condition is truly a limitation or merely a plateau. Boundaries, then, are often temporary in their usefulness, with a need to be periodically reevaluated if they are to serve their purposes and not become limitations of their own.
As mentioned last week, one of your best indicators of a need for a boundary is the constant feedback of your emotions. If you listen to what they’re telling you in real time, you’ll save yourself an enormous amount of angst and inefficiency by gaining clarity and being able to act on it; if you ignore them, the pain inherent in your situation is likely to become louder and louder until you are unable to ignore the message. By then, things may have gotten much worse than they ever needed to be. Situations may have fallen apart. Your health may have suffered, because stress is physically bad for us. You will have experienced, to at least some extent, the opposite of inspiration—disappointment, loss, and frustration. So much of this is avoidable if you just take a few minutes out of your day to notice and admit what’s going on with your emotions and why.
Ignoring what’s true for you may be more comfortable in the short term, but the longer you ignore the truth, even if it seems you can’t change it, the more of a powder keg your repressed emotions become. This is why, when someone is new to Tapping, I often recommend that they use the very simple “tap and rant” technique, in which you pretend you’re talking to a best friend who will support and commiserate with you about all your frustrations while maintaining her/his sense of humor. You just vent, mentioning every little thing that’s bothering you while Tapping. Not only is this fun because we usually try to hold all this in, and it feels a little outrageous and rebellious to let it out, but it relieves pressure physically by calming your body as well. Once you’ve spent some time on this, you’re usually more clear on what your most important, timely issues are. Now you can give those the attention they need with greater focus.
When you’ve achieved this clarity, you can more easily recognize situations that are untenable and need your creativity. In what way would you like those to change? How can you communicate your desires clearly to others so that they understand your preferences and requests? What will you do if change is not forthcoming, and how will you communicate your contingency plan along with your request? All of this can be very scary depending on what you stand to lose if others choose not to cooperate with you on a solution. Luckily, Tapping is also great for releasing fear and finding your courage! Fear is a constricting, immobilizing force. If it’s stopping you from doing what is best for you and others, you’ll need to relax its grip so you can move. By Tapping while expressing the emotional and physical sensations of fear, we teach the body that it’s ok to feel fear and still relax and function. Life you n today’s world is complicated, whereas many of our body’s systems evolved extreme reactions to protect us from physical harm in times of emergency. Tapping helps us to bridge the gap between the ancient protections and the push-and-pull needs of modern life.
Living the life you really want requires that you be in touch with what’s true for you. If you make important decisions about your life without doing some work to clarify what you want and need and how the choices in front of you can serve these, you will always feel like you’re wandering around lost because there’s no YOU there informing and guiding the way. If you leave yourself out, you leave discretion over things that materially affect you to others, or to chance. Taking the reins consciously can be demanding, but that’s why daily work on clarity and emotional management is so important. Doing it can keep you calm and on the path when you might otherwise run screaming from confusion and overwhelm, perpetuating a cycle of mindless drama that saps your power. Just like exercising the body, doing this work is not optional if you want to operate at peak capacity. What will you do this week to increase your sense of calm and clarity?
Your Line in the Sand
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.”
Most people know that it’s supposedly a good thing to set up appropriate boundaries in relationships, but setting them, and more importantly policing them, can seem like a bewildering process in which all targets are constantly moving. Becoming comfortable with communicating your boundaries ultimately takes self-knowledge and confidence, as well as discipline and faith. This can all seem like a pretty tall order! Since every one of us is different, we can learn from each other, but mastery only comes with practice in listening to our inner indicators on how much is too much of anything. Our emotions are a huge portion of these indicators, and we ignore them at our peril. If we don’t receive and act on their messages, relationships crumble. The pursuit of balance within relationships may be laborious work, but the creation of it is an essential element of any real peace and happiness.
A lot of people who are empathetic find it difficult to say no, either because they’re afraid of conflict, or because they just prefer to make others happy whenever possible because it’s more fulfilling—a noble goal. Of course, too much investment in making others happy (needing positive outcomes too much) usually ends up yielding annoyance in you and everyone around you. Neediness is not much fun to experience from any angle. If you need an outcome that is not within your control, your happiness will always be at the mercy of others and of fate, and you will always feel like a victim to some extent. On the other hand, when someone comes at you with a great deal of need about something, you might feel an overwhelming sense that they are trying to manipulate you, or that if you say no you’ll be proving that you’re a bad person…after all, this person NEEDS something you might be able to give or contribute to. The values fostered by one’s religious and cultural influences can amplify the discomfort by teaching us that we should always give to someone in need. Yet, obviously, one person can never be all things to all people, especially on a planet with billions of other people on it. It would be possible to very quickly over-give to the point of the annihilation of your energy and physical resources, which would not be at all helpful to anyone in the long run. This is what setting boundaries is all about.
I read an interesting article once about Mother Teresa that revealed her personal struggles. Despite being a massively inspiring presence on the world stage, demonstrating selfless love and compassion in the extreme for the poor and needy over a lifetime of religious service, and cutting a truly saintly figure, she apparently quietly battled depression for decades. Now, there can obviously be many contributing factors when someone is affected by clinical depression, including chemical issues that may be independent of the effects of mental, emotional, and spiritual life experiences. However, there is a growing understanding that, most often, there are strong experiential factors that go into creating someone’s depression. I personally don’t find it at all surprising that someone who worked tirelessly amid the most unfortunate people, in the most poverty-stricken areas, having taken personal vows of poverty and service, might have gotten pretty burned out emotionally from seeing all that suffering. I have to wonder if she took breaks. I wonder if she had sympathetic friends to laugh with sometimes to keep from constantly and solely mourning over what she saw on a daily basis. I wonder if she sought the help she needed. Even someone saintly is still in a human body, having a human experience, and subject to human emotions that need to be managed.
Most of us are not so saintly. We’re just normal humans living our lives and trying to make something good come of them. I’m not saying that we can’t do great things, but first, I think we need to understand the importance of sustaining ourselves. We need to learn how to operate our bodies sensibly so that we have a chance at health and stable moods. We need to learn to observe and learn from our experiences so that we can gain enough maturity to go beyond merely surviving. We need to learn that both caring for ourselves and caring for others are necessary if we want to be powerful sources of good. And we need to learn that without bringing rejuvenating and joyful experiences into our everyday experience, we will quickly become depleted, desperate, and even dangerous individuals.
When you can successfully cultivate your own overall balance, then it becomes easier to understand how much you can give to others before you need to retreat and renew. It becomes easier to notice which kinds of service to others are so much fun that you can happily do them all day long, and which kinds you come to dread because your strengths and weaknesses make you unsuitable for them. From a place of balance, it’s easier to admit what kind of tool you are and where you can be of most use rather than trying to prove that you can do absolutely whatever is asked of you at all times. And it’s easier to notice when something is making you uncomfortable because it’s going against your most important personal values, which will drain you very quickly every time.
Here are some recommendations for growing your capacity to set and insist on the honoring of your personal boundaries:
Learn to pay close attention to your emotions. They are one of your best indicators of how much you can currently handle. You can practice stretching your comfort zone over time, but if you do too much too fast without building in recovery, you’re likely to fold.
Make working on the quality of your nutrition, sleep, and exercise a non-negotiable part of every day. No two days are the same, so you’ll always be adjusting, and there’s no need to be a perfectionist, just don’t ignore these basics.
If saying no is hard for you, practice, practice, practice. Start with strangers if that’s easier. When you can execute a simple, cheerful “No thank you” response to random requests at will (when appropriate), you can start replicating that in higher-stakes relationships through more practice.
When your “no” affects others, it will be appropriate to give a short explanation, compassionate to both yourself and the other, about why this is your answer. Still, firmness is your goal. Being honest about what you can actually handle will serve everyone better than your saying yes and then collapsing midstream.
Cultivate friends with whom you can discuss the confusing situations that arise in life. No one should have to go it alone, and seeking other viewpoints can often help us make far better decisions than we could have arrived at alone.
Keep in mind that in order to have the space to give what you most want to, you have to keep yourself from always being so full up that you just can’t take on one more opportunity, no matter how perfect a match it seems for you.
Know that while you must take responsibility for yourself and your own actions because you’re the only one who can, you can’t take responsibility for everyone and everything else. Not knowing your boundaries amounts to hubris. Everyone else has a part to play too, so let them, and encourage them to seek their own balance.
Celebrate often both what you are able to give to others, and the ways in which you give to yourself. Allow yourself time to rest and play, then do it all again.
Practice Makes Progress
“Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.”
This week, I came across an interesting article that speaks to our growing understanding of neural plasticity, or the brain’s ability to change and grow all throughout the course of a human life. So much for the difficulties of teaching old “dogs” new tricks! If you’re using the old standard line, “This is just how I am,” to justify a lack of effort to become who you wish to be, take heart—with some attention and effort, you can actually change habits and outcomes. In fact, there are a lot of interesting nuggets in this article, each one of which is worthy of note, but I wanted to call your attention specifically to the greater efficacy of happy people, and to your ability to move in the direction of greater happiness through simple practice.
Take a romp through this resource when you have a moment, and feel free to leave a comment about what you find most interesting, or what you’re going to do to start changing negative mental habits that drag down your efficacy. You don’t have to be perfect right away, just pick something to work on and start!
Becoming Your Own Ultimate Pit Crew
“Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.”
The world is filled with a whole lot of stuff that I bet you think is not ideal, to say the least. Things you can’t stand, things that make no sense, things that are unjust, stupid, and hurtful to you. How do I know? Because it’s the same for all of us. We live on a planet of incredible diversity, conflicting forces, and even chaos. The upside is that we have a lot of opportunity to experience an astonishing range of experiences. The downside is that many of those will not be pleasant.
One of the greatest challenges of coping with such variety and unpleasantness is in preserving your energy in the face of all the friction between you and the world around you. Experiencing continual conflict can be, and often is, exhausting for many of the people I work with. Feeling chronically depleted is demoralizing, and life can seem to devolve into nothing but a disappointing slog if we don’t find ways to preserve and rejuvenate our energy. We all want to feel alive, vital, and enthusiastic about life. How do we get there when we’re challenged so often?
Here are a few of my essential tips for preserving your vital life energy for the things and people you care about most:
Address your emotional realities before they snowball into giant, flashing, wailing signs that you need to pay attention. Suppressing emotion uses a ton of energy that is far better used elsewhere. Allow yourself to consider what that emotion is there to tell you, and then take steps to allow yourself to resolve the emotion for the time being (hint: Tap!) Note that this NOT the last time you’ll feel this emotion, because you will inevitable get off balance again! That’s life. But being able to calm yourself, get the message, and heal so you can move on is priceless. Finally, make new plans about changing the situation that gave rise to the emotion, or your reaction to it, in some way. This is how progress happens—through human beings exhibiting the courage to make new decisions and try new things.
Think about your thoughts, the stories you tell yourself, and start noticing the ways in which the ones you think most often aren’t serving you. You can change these. Perhaps not overnight, but more quickly than you might think once you decide to become aware of them and start working to consciously shift them. Our thoughts feed us constant, powerful messages about what’s possible for us. If you allow your stories to be of a negative and limiting variety, it will be difficult to find the energy to make good decisions and take effective action. Tapping can be a tremendous help here too in speeding the process of changing beliefs that have been created by your life experience.
Take care of your physical needs. Sleep, move your body, and keep working toward a more nutritious and less junk-foodie diet. There’s no way around these if you want sustained energy, vitality, and stable moods (which, all together, increase your capacity for achievement and living your greatness). Period.
Get clear on what’s important and most inspiring to you, and remind yourself of these priorities daily. If your life doesn’t feel meaningful, you’ll struggle with energy as surely as if you were sleeping and eating poorly. Humans are designed to express their talents and preferences in constructive ways. If you don’t, you won’t be able to muster enthusiasm for life.
Most of these actions don’t take a lot of time, just some thought and planning. You must carve out time for all of them regularly, though. As soon as you start dropping the ball on these, you’re starting a downward spiral that makes it extremely difficult to meet life’s many challenges with the grace under pressure that helps you preserve choices and create the best results. What we want is to be in a zone in which challenge doesn’t feel like a major assault, just the normal friction (from which you know how to recover) of living life in a world not entirely of your making. With some daily attention to these essentials, this is firmly within your grasp.
The Emotional Pressure Cooker
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Last week I mentioned that most of us are trained through the way we’re socialized to minimize any emotions we feel that might be uncomfortable—for anyone, not just for us. The result is that we ourselves generally don’t know how we really feel and why, we don’t learn from our emotions, and we feel powerless to combat the rising tension that accumulates as we age over the persistent unresolved emotional gunk that we’ve swept under the rug.
When someone starts Tapping, they’re often surprised at the intensity of something they thought was relatively minor as we open it up and work through it. It’s well known by practitioners that the intensity of a targeted issue may seem to rise rather than abate in the first few rounds, but this is actually a result of the client tuning into what they’ve been studiously ignoring in the absence of productive tools and solutions. When further rounds are completed, and the heart of the issue is uncovered and addressed, the intensity will start to fall as expected. Then, when it dawns on the client how much relief s/he has experienced, s/he may feel a wave of gratitude, and hope that more relief is just around the corner. I feel this myself all the time when I Tap! It’s so encouraging to know that there are simple tools that can change everything about how you feel, and that every time you use them you’ll make some sort of progress.
It’s true that tuning into how we really feel may cause some momentary discomfort, but when we do this while Tapping, we’re able to vent some of the pressure that has built up and usually feel much better in the space of a few minutes to an hour. In addition, we are often able to gain some clarity about what we were afraid to look at. The meaning of the emotions we were avoiding starts to bubble up, and we see that we are being called to make new choices, either internally in the ways we think and judge, or externally by bringing new actions to our life’s circumstances. Emotions aren’t random. They arise for specific reasons, and unwinding their tangles draws us naturally down a path of healing and progress toward maturity and wisdom.
What if, instead of denigrating and denying how you feel, you could admit, befriend, and even celebrate your emotions without getting overwhelmed by or lost in them? What if doing so tapped you into your inherent brilliance and problem-solving capabilities? Wouldn’t that be a more peace-filled, fulfilling existence? Well, I’m here to tell you that all this is waiting for you when you get to Tapping. And good news—you can start anytime!
There’s a lot of shame drilled into us when we’re young about crying and about wanting love and attention that it’s inconvenient or difficult for the adults around us to give. Parenting is a tough, relentless job, and shaming is often a very effective tactic in shutting down an unruly child; it’s also a tactic that has been passed down through countless generations and seems to have proven its salt. However, a lifetime of suppressing powerful emotions, needs, and desires builds up internal pressure that contributes to all kinds of problems that only worsen the longer we allow the pressure to build. Shaming ourselves as adults, continuing the learned pattern, is a recipe for disaster for our health and happiness. Instead, we can learn to listen to what’s going on for us internally, and through self-compassion, gain clarity and strength, working productively with our emotions.