The Pleasure of Life

There is nothing more pleasurable in this life than living it fully yourself, fully authentic.

It is truly remarkable how life unfolds with all the ups and downs.  How it feels like waves moving us along, guiding, pushing and pulling us toward some things and away from others.  In the moment we don’t know exactly what is going on or where we are going, but that isn’t the important part we need to know.

What is important then?  It is recognizing what feels true for you in each moment.  Allowing that truth to guide you into the next moment without denying or judging it.  Truth is truth and it is unique to every person.

No two of us are exactly the same.  We each have tendencies toward something in each moment. We are not all attracted to the same outcomes, people or experiences.  We are each here to experience something in our own way and in turn, to help others experience their truth in ways we will never know.  To deny or to judge this is to put our life, the lives of others and this world into chaos.

Yet we do that every day.  We question, we fear, we deny, we run away and for what? All because we don’t want to be judged and are afraid we will not be accepted by the people we have chosen to surround ourselves with?

Well, choose to surround yourself with people who can accept you and build you up to fully experience this life and your truth.  If that means spending a little time alone so be it.  It is better than living a life of fear and trying to please people who will never be pleased.

Choose to show up for yourself.  Commit to living a fully authentic life.  There is nothing more pleasurable.

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Stop and Ask

You would like to change your life, but you have no clue where to even start. All you know for sure is that this is not the life you had in mind for yourself and something has to change.

You are not clueless about what you want or even who you are and who you want to be in this world. You already know things about yourself. You know the roles you play in life: a child, an employee, parent, and spouse. You know what excites you and what weighs you down. Where most of us struggle is trying to identify our passions and purpose. The clues are there, you know somewhere deep inside what is calling out to you. Over time, you just let your truth slip into the back seat as the worldly “shoulds” took up the space in the front seat. You know the “shoulds” that play in your head: you should do this not that, you should want that over there not this, you should feel this way… You let the “should” take the wheel. No wonder we look around one day and wonder where we are and how we got here.

If this is where you find yourself, it’s time to stop and ask yourself some questions.  Ask questions that will reconnect you to your truth so you can get yourself back into the front seat of your life.

1.What do I like?

This sounds so basic and simple, but when was the last time you took inventory of what really excites you?  Keep a piece of paper close by and write down everything you like and everything you don’t like. Yes, everything: people, situations, food, weather, anything and everything.   After 1 week look over your list and ask yourself how you can reduce the dislikes and bring more of your likes into your life.

1. What do I value?

Your values guide how you think and ultimately how you behave.   Values define what is most important to you and provide you with a framework on how to make decisions in life. Uncovering your values will show you who you are at your core before the world told you who you should be. Once you identify your core 3-5 values you can start living into them on purpose by choosing to do things that align with your values.

Sometimes all we need to do is to stop and ask the right questions.  You already have the answers somewhere inside of you.  Now, it’s just a matter of tapping in to hear your truth.

 

 

Happy New Year

It’s a new year. The calendar’s way of reminding us of new beginnings and an invitation to reset.  Another reminder that every day is new and filled with infinite possibility if we choose to see it.  There is nothing in this world that stays the same.

We choose to grow just as we choose to stay stagnant. Every single moment we choose our experiences.  We choose who we are and how we show up in this world.  We choose our experience of this life: the joys, the pains, the connections, the lack, the shame, the love.  Every moment, everyday we get the opportunity to react and to create our experience.

Have you ever walked through life with everything bother you?  We all have at some point.  It feels like the entire world is against you.  All you knew to do was to either fight with it, complain about it or just be angry.  You took all of that in and it got stuck somewhere.  You even started to feel the discomfort of holding onto all those negative energies.  You started looking around, angry at the world and the people in it. You blamed the outside world for all of your inner pain.

The more this life unfolds, the more I see that nothing can stick to me unless I allow it to.  It is my choice to be mad about something.  I alone choose to hold on to that anger when the moment is gone.  It is my choice to also see that the moment is gone, done and complete.  The only thing keeping the anger alive is me.  This may seem a bit crazy to some, but if you give it a look you will see the truth.  The truth that you and I alone create our reactions, our emotions and ultimately how we experience this life.  No one can make your inner emotions, make you react as you do or make you hold on to the thing you hold on to.

This truth is liberating and opens a whole new world to us every day.  Imagine, you, choosing how you experience your life. You can either hold on to the things that appeared unpleasant or you can decide to let that unpleasant thing be fully experienced so it can flow through you then out of you as complete. Now you are open to new experiences.  The very act of holding on keeps us stuck and unable to experience anything else fully and completely.  There are always new experiences knocking at your door, but we are too busy and too distracted with our holding on to see them.  You can’t hold on tightly to something with all you have and expect to have a free hand to catch something new.

Choose to let go.  Choose to be open.  It’s like dipping your open hands into water and allowing yourself to feel its coolness or warmth or the cleansing qualities of its flow.  All of these experiences of water would be lost if you tried to grasp on to it and hold on.  Just like water, life is also in a continuous flow.  Experience the flow, stay open and allow it to flow through you.

The new year is an invitation for us to see each day as new.  We can reset, choose a new experience and flow with life’s infinite possibilities on any calendar day. Go into this new year with an open heart and mind.  Allow yourself to see each and every day as a new opportunity.  Remain open to the flow of life.

 

The Distractions of the Past

Psychology has it place in the world.  I love psychology, even have a graduate degree in the subject.  I completely geek out on the study of human behavior, motivation, theories, techniques, cognitive and behavioral modification therapies, well I think you get it.  While psychology can give us a glimpse and help us understand the underlying reasons we behave or think the way we do, it does not necessarily do a great job in helping those of us in our everyday life.  We can spend a whole lot of time breaking down why we did something, or why we think the thoughts we think that led us to the behavior, but if all we are doing is continually looking at the past then we never be able to enjoy our life in the present.

To make truly profound shifts and transformations in any area of life, whether it is business, relationships, financial, and even in your spiritually, you must acknowledge the past for what it is and incorporate what you gained or learned from the experience.  Acknowledge the past as something that it is done, complete and can do nothing to you right now in this moment nor any other moment in the future.  We cannot go back; we cannot make changes to the past. Trust me, I tried to go back a few times and it did not work, it only left me sitting there exhausted, scared, frustrated and embarrassed.

Even though the past is already a done deal, I see it taking over and destroying so many lives, relationships and businesses.  The past is weighing so heavily on people because they keep trying to change it, control it, run it over repeatedly in their mind. They keep it as a focal point and filter for which they live their lives.  Herein lies the danger, because what you focus on will surely grow.  It cannot help but grow because while you are focused on the past there is no room for anything else.

Maybe you don’t focus on the past; perhaps you do everything in your power to resist the past.  You create ways to never repeat the past and avoid it at all cost.  Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but what you resist will continue to persist.  Yes, the past is still a strong focal point even when you are resisting.  It takes a great deal of effort and energy to resist something.   It would be like me telling you not to think about zebras for the rest of the day.  You are not allowed to picture a zebra in your mind today.  What just happened? Are you thinking about a zebra right now?  Well stop thinking about zebras already! Oh wait that is just the resistance thing I was just mentioning.  Resistance and avoidance do not work very well.  This is why just trying to think positive thoughts all the time to avoid negative thinking often backfires.

Here is what I believe.  We must start with where we are right now.  Look around you. Is your life what you want it to be?  If not, what do you want your life to be like or feel like?  Oh, that sounds wonderful!  Get yourself dreaming again, light yourself up, get enthusiastic about life.

Uh oh! Let me guess, you have a voice in your head telling you: you can’t have that, you can’t do that, oh that is selfish, how will you get that done, you don’t have that kind of money, you definitely don’t have the personality, your family would never go for that….

Every single one of those little voices in your mind are nothing more than a distraction. They hold no truth in them whatsoever.  The mind loves to hear itself talk and it loves to tell you that you cant.  But I am telling you that you absolutely can.  If you are still reading this I know you can and have probably gotten over more distractions in your life than others to get you to where you are in life today.

Start where you are right now.  Determine where you are today and if it is not where you would like to be, started taking steps today.  There are infinite possibilities out there waiting for you. You know which ones light your fire and inspire you.  Your past cannot hold you down when you see it as it is, in the past. You are free to live and experience this life in this moment with a clear and curious mind and an open heart.

Stepping Out of the Trap

As I looked back though my personal journal this week, I found an entry from a time I was trying hard to overcome some fears in my life.  As I read the words, they spoke to my heart and reminded me how to keep fear and control in proper perspective so they don’t completely consume, overtake and leave me feeling trapped.

In life, I notice things going off course or not going my way whenever we judge our circumstances, outcomes or people harshly.  When those things don’t go the way we think they should, we then enter into a state of fear and in turn we attempt to force control over the given situation.  I see fear and control as the trappings of our mind that create to feel of quicksand.  The more we struggle and fight with the quicksand the faster and deeper into the trap we go.  Notice the cycle.  The more we judge the situation, person or outcome harshly the more we feel we must control. The more it doesn’t bow down to our control or turn out the way we want, the greater the fear.  When fear enters the picture, we feel trapped and try even harder to control the situation.  We think forceful control will somehow get us out of the state we find ourselves. But more often than not, we only discover that fear turning into panic and then becomes all-consuming.  HMMMM, something seems really off about the logic here.

If I continue doing the very thing sinking me farther into the trap, what can I expect?

Here is where a personal coaching strategy comes in.  If you can catch yourself in the judgement phase great.  This is one of the earliest places we can step out of the quicksand with little damage done.  For some of us, yes, I am included; we still need to go into the fear trap a little deeper before we catch ourselves.  Wherever you catch yourself in the cycle is perfectly fine.  Noticing you are in a cycle to begin with is a giant leap and gets you more than half way out.  This is the point where you finally stop fighting and struggling and become still enough to see what is truly happening.

Standing still in the midst of our judgement or panic and fear may seem counter intuitive, but it is the best step to getting out of the fear cycle.  Just like when you find yourself in quicksand. The minute you get still and stop struggling to get out of it, is the same minute you stop yourself from sinking farther in.  When we slow down, we wisely and strategically make moves necessary to free ourselves from our perceived troubles and fears.  The act of slowing down allows you to see the truth of what is happening around and inside of you.  Once you identify the truth of the situation or expose the trappings in your mind, you can begin save yourself from the trap.

Once you have slowed down, exposed the lies and identified the truth, the rest is easy.  All the other stuff was just a distraction, like a blindfold over your eyes keeping you from seeing where to go next.  With fresh eyes and a clear perspective you are able to see and accept where you are right now.  You have slowed down enough to do a true assessment of the situation and begin to make the most important moves that will give you the greatest progress.

Here is a bullet point version for your personal coaching moments:

1. Notice you are in a cycle of judgement, control and/or fear
2. Slow down – Stop fighting and struggling
3. Stand still for a moment – Know that you are alright, see that fear cannot overtake you
4. Expose the lies in the trap (perceived troubles and fears)
5. Accept where you are
6. See the truth
7. Make the next most important move

My wish for you is to take this out for a test drive this week and let me know how it plays out in your life, work and even in your relationships.

Have a wonderful week.