Is Help Really Helpful?

I’m listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast episode with Anne Lamott. The episode is Entitled Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer.

She’s sharing about the time that her son hit rock bottom with addiction. She wanted to help and tried to help. Then she realized:

“I have a disease of good ideas usually for other people. And I believe that my ideas would help them have better lives and at least make me less uncomfortable when I’m around them. And I learned that my help wasn’t helpful and that help is the sunny side of control.”

I love that. Far too often, we believe that we know what’s best for someone else. And we offer our help from that place. This can be terribly disempowering to people. I find it so much more helpful to believe that people have their own answers and that my job is to shine a light on their own answers (IF they want me to) and not give them my answers. My answers won’t work for them. In fact, when I start working with a new client, I always tell them that their wisdom trumps my good ideas.

Of course, when I get terribly uncomfortable or afraid, I forget this. I want to insist on giving MY help and MY answers. I suppose that’s easier than being with my own discomfort and fear.

“Help is the sunny side of control.”

What people really need, and I believe want, is our presence. I know that’s what I want when I’m hurting. Please don’t try to fix me. Be present with me. And I will do my best to not fix you and instead be present with you.

That’s empowering.

Divisiveness, Anger, Grief | What's on the Other Side?

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Divisiveness. It’s crippling. It’s depressing. It’s scary. There is so much divisiveness in the USA right now, as well as many other countries. Where does this divisiveness come from?

It’s tempting to believe that all the divisiveness comes from the external world, but when I pay close attention, I can see that it comes from within me. I can feel how I disown parts of myself that I consider undesirable. The more judgmental of myself I am, the more judgmental of others I become. I see the correlation clearly at times, and at other times, it’s more difficult to see.

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, describes this disconnect with ourselves as the shadow. He describes the shadow as “the unknown dark side of the personality.” According to Jung, the shadow, “in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.”

In other words, what we judge in others can be found within ourselves. Now, I don’t know about you, but that feels a tad confrontative to me. And, yet, in recognizing that I am projecting my divisiveness outwards, I have the opportunity to examine what I reject within me. It’s an opportunity for healing and for inviting all parts of myself to reunite. Only in reuniting, can I be whole. The same is true for this country.

If we truly do want to come together and reunite again, we must heal the divide within ourselves first. Of course, this does not mean that we let just anything go. Of course not. But it does mean that we recognize our own humanness and our own tendency to reject parts of ourselves. We could lovingly invite those parts back into the whole again where they can heal.

I believe that as we heal the divisiveness within ourselves, we’ll be much more capable of helping to heal the divisiveness in our communities, nation, and world.

For more, please listen to this week’s podcast episode.

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Staying Out of Drama

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It’s a crazy time here in the USA. Drama is swirling all around us. I certainly do feel it. I not only feel the collective drama, I also feel the drama within me. I seem to be bouncing from revved up, angry, irritable, and even a tad frightened to calm, grounded, and hopeful. I admit I’ve been more revved up this week than calm. I feel the storm moving through me and I’m reminded of the great Dr. Maya Angelou’s wise words,

“Every storm runs out of rain.”

Every single storm runs out of rain. Every single one. Right now, I am watching news of a tropical storm that is swirling around in the gulf threatening to strengthen to hurricane force. The spaghetti models are all over the place and are changing daily.

The same is true for the political spaghetti models. Things seem to be all over the place and people all over our nation, and perhaps the world, are in terrible pain.

What can we do? It’s easy to get caught up in trying to predict the future. The problem is that the human brain, according to brain science, is terrible at predicting the future. We’re simply no good at it.

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Over 20 years ago, I went through bankruptcy. I was terrified. I thought my life was over. I felt terrible shame and fear. I imagined all manner of terrible outcomes. The truth ended up being quite different. The bankruptcy propelled me into many new and life-changing adventures. The bankruptcy storm ran out of rain. I learned many valuable lessons and there was no long term harm done.

So, here we are. The political spaghetti models are all over the place. We can get caught up in the fear of an imagined future or we can ground ourselves in the present moment and do what we can in our little spheres of influence. We can collapse or we can root deeply and grow tall.

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There are 300-year-old live oaks in my yard. They have weathered countless hurricanes over the centuries yet they stand strong. Sure, they’ve lost limbs and branches over the centuries but they stand strong, deeply rooted with flexible trunks that bend with the raging winds.

We, too, can root deeply, grow tall, and bend with flexibility, compassion, wisdom, and resilience. We get to choose hate or strong compassion and kindness. I don’t mean a compassion that allows anything. I don’t mean a compassion that doesn’t hold accountable. I mean a compassion that is rooted in the good, the true, and the beautiful. A compassion that sees the humanity in everyone regardless of political affiliation, color, creed, etc. A compassion that owns our own complicity and messiness. A compassion that accepts and seeks to bring to the light our own shadows. A compassion that loves wholly and calls to accountability. A compassion that strengthens and energizes us.

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As Brene Brown says,

“Don’t shrink. Don’t puff up. Stand your ground.”

These words I’m sharing with you today are words I desperately need to hear and heed. I invite us all, in Brene Brown’s words, to have a…

“Strong back. Soft front. Wild heart.”

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How To Stop Overthinking

Overthinking is not good for you! I imagine you already know this. When your mind is cluttered and ramped up, you suffer. Overthinking leads to stress. Do a quick google search and you can find study after study showing the damage that overthinking can cause.

Harvard psychologists believe that humans spend about 47% of waking hours lost in thought and this tendency leads to reduced happiness. They conclude this:

"A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind." Killingsworth and Gilbert

Today, I want to share with how ramped up thinking works and what you can do instead that will help you settle your mind so that you can experience more ease, flow, and clarity.

Let’s look at the Thought Cycle starting with this thought: “Business is down this month. I’m failing!”

1. Here is the thought: “Business is down this month. We are failing.”

2. Can you see how the stressful thought that “we are failing” leads to the stressful feelings, then to the stressful behaviors, then to the stressful results, and then it REINFORCES the original stressful thought that “We are failing”?

3. Many people attempt to change the undesired outcome by intervening at the level of result, behavior, or feeling, but the most effective intervention happens at the LEVEL OF THOUGHT.

Let’s change that stressful thought just a bit. Instead of the story “We are failing” let’s see what could happen if we get CURIOUS about business being down.

1. Getting curious instead of buying into the story that you are failing can change everything. Now you are in the flow! Now you are flexible, able to pivot when needed, able to tweak, able to work well with your team, and much more. 

2. The original thought of curiosity leads to feelings that open you and give you more flexibility, which leads to behaviors that are helpful and lead to better results. These better results lead to NEW, FRESH THOUGHT. Now you have much more clarity, ease, and flow.

You see, negative thought ultimately reinforces negative thought leaving you too narrowly focused, too weighed down. It’s like you’ve put blinders on yourself.

Positive, or even neutral, thought, on the other hand, reinforces positive emotions, behaviors, results, and NEW fresh thought! You are able to tap into your creativity, flow, resilience, resourcefulness, and much more. You can pivot if need be. You can ride the wave if need be. You are able to find your way no matter how difficult the situation looks.

In the original Thought Cycle diagram, the fact is that business is down. Anyone in business knows that the world of business is a roller coaster ride. The problem in this situation is not that business is down. The problem is the story you attach to business being down. Deciding in that moment that you are failing actually impairs your ability to get creative and curious about what may be going on.

If the thought occurs to you that you are failing, you don’t have to take it so seriously. You don’t have to take it so personally. You could let it move through you.

You could get curious instead and see where that curiosity takes you. This will serve you. This will bring you back to clarity more easily and you’ll find your way to more flow, flexibility, and ease as you deal with a down month.

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Activate Your Imagination for More Ease & Peace

In this week’s blog post, I offer you two videos where I encourage you to live more often from your imagination, how this actually works with brain science, and how it will make a difference in your life. As always, don’t take my word for the ideas I present here, play with them for yourself.

Live From Imagination Rather than Indoctrination

Are you living from indoctrination or imagination? If you want more flow, ease, and enjoyment, learn to activate and live from your imagination. We’ve all been indoctrinated by families, cultures, and religions but we can become aware of that and live from a freer place that gives us more creativity, more juice, more enjoyment, and more authenticity. Take a listen!

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How to Find More Compassion Through Imagination

In today's video, I continue our discussion about the dangers and value of living from our imaginations. Imagination can lead to compassion as we put ourselves in others' shoes. Dogma separates us. Imagination can connect us. Life is a beautiful, rich, and nuanced gray. Imagination can open our hearts and our creativity.

How to Find More Ease & Flow

In this week’s blog post, I offer you two videos where I dive into helping you find more ease and flow and less suffering. Yes, it’s possible no matter what is going on in your life right now. Don’t take my word for it, experiment for yourself with the ideas I offer here.

How to Reduce Suffering

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In this video, I talk about how you can reduce your suffering and live with more ease and flow. It's important that we interrupt our habits of thought that are stressful. I talk about one way to do that here.

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How to Experience More Flow & Ease

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In this video, I talk about how can experience less suffering and more ease. We tend to suffer so much because we are caught up in habits of thoughts or stories and narratives that we've created in order to help us manage day to day circumstances. Neuroscience shows us that we don't experience reality directly, rather, we experience what we think about reality. So it's vital to be aware of our stories and make certain that we don't over identify with our stories, thoughts, and feelings.