 Photo by Manuel Barroso Parejo Whether it’s at home, work or play, we all have times when we find ourselves affected by others’ moods or things that have happened. We all know the power of feeling good, we all know that it’s not what happens but how we respond to what happens that creates our experience. Easier said than done.
Yesterday I woke up feeling good and ventured forth into the day. It quickly became apparent that my youngest daughter was not in a good space, and was fast pulling her older sister into her negative vortex. At first I tried to simply be present for my daughter to figure out what was upsetting her. To calm the sibling arguments we read books, which helped for all too brief a time, the outbursts were relentless. I tried to lead by example, to make requests fun and keep myself in a positive space but confess I was worn down after only an hour and found myself stressed and short in patience. Even with a nice break in the middle of the afternoon at a kid’s party on the beach, the energy seemed to just pick up where it left off once we were back home. Summed up, it was a horrible day; lots of yelling, screaming, sniping, even hitting, from the kids, and their dad and I allowed ourselves to be well and truly sucked in. Although in theory you know you are the creator of your own reality, in practice all too often we blame others for upsetting us. Really this is because we have been taught to respond to things from the wrong vantage point. For many, your upbringing has taught you habits that contradict your knowing that you are the creator of your own reality. Think of it like this, you came into this world with certain intentions about your life. The first thing you encounter is resistance, with everyone trying to tell you what is best for you. Rather than teaching you to tune into your intuitive guidance, well meaning parenting styles, cultural and social expectations may even have broken your confidence in yourself in the attempt to control your behaviour. Recognise this, as you become conscious of it, you’ll start to ask questions about who you really are and eventually this will help you gain more of a sense of your true self. Gaining a fresh perspective is important when it comes to dealing with conflict particularly. Over time we stop seeing those closest to us, unable to see the wood for the trees. Those we think we know best, we actually know the least. Sure, you will constantly see ‘evidence’ to support what you know about them, because we get what we expect. We stop seeing them through fresh eyes though and the stories you attach to the behaviour of those closest to you are just that, stories. The motivations of others are known only to them, and while your version of their story often features you as the victim in some way, it’s more probable that they are not even thinking about you, they are simply trying to create the best reality for themselves. First and foremost, be true to yourself. In the same way you’ve stopped paying attention to the others around you who are closest; it’s even truer of you. There will be a whole bunch of labels that you put on yourself – organized, messy, easy going, serious etc – that might not even be the right fit for who you are now. To see yourself or others through new lenses, in order to resolve or avoid further conflict, it is vitally important to first get yourself into a good space. Never does a good decision come from a place of feeling bad, it just leads to more of the same. Only from a good place can you get the clarity needed to seek a good outcome. While ultimately you want to be in a place where you can be unaffected by the mood of others, the goal is not to suddenly become Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa. You are breaking lifetime habits and creating new ones, go easy on yourself, just start in reflection, looking at some of your least and most proud moments. Contemplate what might work better for you as you move forward. If you have a particularly troublesome relationship that causes frequent anguish, you are not going to change its momentum in the midst of another sticky moment. The time to focus energy on it is when you are in a good space. The trick is to build an alternative picture about what is going on. At the moment you are stuck in a spiral of negative thoughts, behaviors and experiences triggered by stories and similar feelings in new situations. Your inner being screams “I just want to feel good and this is making me feel bad” we turn to others to change their behaviour in order that we feel good. Their inner being screams “you are not the boss of me” and so on. Try to attribute the best perspective that you can, give people the benefit of the doubt as, ultimately, all anyone is seeking is happiness. Relooking at someone through different eyes in calmer times can help you create more helpful stories, thoughts and thus behaviors, experiences and feelings when you run into another disagreement. Life is simple, let your feelings guide you. Good feelings mean you are in tune, on track - it’s like a river of light illuminating what you intended for your life before it even began. You are unique and so are those around you, if you see the best in them it will create the space in which the best of both of you can show itself. Remember even small steps make a big difference. If we keep trying to be just to be that bit better, in time the momentum will change and the trying will be a thing of the past. If you are teaching through your example, that first and foremost you must feel good, better and better decisions will get made in the moment and better and better outcomes will be achieved. It can certainly be done as a matter of course by future generations if we lead the way and show by our example the way back to inner peace. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.
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How to Turn Those Awkward Social Occasions into Opportunities for Upliftment this Holiday Season12/14/2015  At this time of year we are often in situations where we are catching up with people we don’t choose to spend time with day to day. For many this is uncomfortable, if not downright undesirable, leading to more stress at a time when all we want to do is unwind. We often find ourselves next to colleagues, our partner’s colleagues, or their partners, or members of our family wondering what on earth to say next.
What if you could turn this into an enriching, uplifting experience? I’m not talking about the usual intoxications that grease the wheels of most social occasions, I’m talking about something really simple that won’t result in a hangover or find you reaching for another substance (which for many who choose to remain sober, or have been elected the sober driver, isn’t an option anyway). Most of us get anxious just thinking about those initial moments of walking in saying hello. We are often too busy worrying about what we are going to say next and what these others might think of us, that we are not truly present at all. You might find yourself just wishing for the waiter or waitress to come over and distract the attention onto the safer topic of drink or meal choices. However, if you choose not to focus on yourself at all, and simply be interested in listening to others, it will burst the bubble of anxiety and make your time, life even, much more rewarding. Of course, what is simple is not always easy, but in this case, it’s actually not that hard either. You have all the skills, they might be a bit rusty but they’re there. This weekend I found myself at my partner’s work’s annual dinner. He has only worked there for a few months and so I hadn’t met anyone. He’s also a tradesman, so in terms of what they do for a living and what I do, on the face of it, it’s completely different. When we arrived the restaurant was already really busy and there were a few people from our party gathered in the waiting area. Unfortunately the only space to coalesce was seats that were in a long straight line, so it wasn’t really conducive to a conversation of any kind and I could see people were feeling really awkward. Checking whether our table was ready, we decided just to head through and wait there instead, that got the ball rolling. As it ended up, I had one of my partner’s colleagues on my left and another colleague’s girlfriend on my right. The guy on my left was really interesting, I discovered that (although he’s being doing his trade since leaving school) he was retraining as a counselor in his 50’s. Given my passion for people following their heart, the topic he was retraining in and relative proximity in age, that made our conversation really easy. The girl on my right was only 18 and fairly shy, but once she knew I was actually interested in what she did and thought, she started to open up. I discovered she had a 7 year old sister that she seemed to really enjoy being around, and I could see her eyes light up when I talked about our two young kids, she had found something to relate to. If you're not a confident conversationalist, think of some questions to ask in advance as openers to the conversation. If it’s someone you know, you can ask things like “Hey, I’ve never really asked, what do you do in your spare time?” or “I know you have kids, but I’ve never really asked their names, ages, what they do?”. If you don’t know someone the field is wide open: “What do you do?”, “Tell me more”, “What’s the story behind how you two met?” and so on. If you’ve thought about it, even only briefly, once you arrive you’ll be on the front foot. So just smile, dive in, then listen. To truly listen you have to be able to interpret what is going on within the many levels of a person. For example, there are the verbal cues (what they are saying, what they are not saying), visual cues (their body language) and sensory cues (the feelings they are projecting). To do that you have to be completely present, absorbing all that is being conveyed, rather than thinking ahead. So while listening is a skill we all know we need, and one that we are all capable of, it’s one that few have truly cultivated. To listen you have to be aware of the voice in your own head. That voice will immediately start to judge what’s being said, start to defend, start to look for weaknesses in order to attack or to make us seem knowledgeable or superior. Being able to observe your own judgments, recognizing them as opinions rather than definitive rights or wrongs, and to allow others to be as they are is what it takes. What you will find is, as you start to listen, people open up. Once they see that you are actually interested in what they are saying and not scanning the room for a more safe haven, the conversation takes on a momentum. Instead of feeling relieved my partner’s dinner was over for another year, I found I had really enjoyed it, and was both relaxed and uplifted. The evening had actually given me a bit of a buzz. Listening is truly a meditative practice because you are giving your presence to another. For anyone who has tried being mindful in this way, you will know it’s called practice for good reason, because our minds are constantly wandering. The trick is to notice your mind has wandered and just pull it back into focus, again and again. That is natural, but if you continue to focus upon someone you will find, fairly quickly, that you will have something in common with them, and it makes the whole experience a whole lot better than the awkward, stressful type. If you are lucky you may suddenly happen upon a topic in which you realise you (and the person you are talking to) must be soul mates in some way because what they are saying is something that really resonates with you, then you’ve struck gold. As tired as you are, as stressed as you are, look upon some of the events in the coming weeks in a different light. If you can see those once awkward social situations as an opportunity for upliftment you will reap the benefits on every level. This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/10845359@N02/9073652476">Union & Pine 319</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">(license)</a>  Photo by Dysa Eldin More and more people now acknowledge our ability to create our reality through our thoughts. We see the truth of this every day, the way we think about something affects the way we feel about it, which affects our behaviour towards it and the experience of it.
Thoughts create energy, feelings create eves greater energy, our behaviour creates energy. Good vibes, bad vibes, we call them; we sense them because our energy is connected. In my last article on why feeling good is the key to your success, I referred to Dr Joe Dispenza’s explanations on the science behind this. So we are starting to get the point, we create our own reality. Then we think, if I create my own reality, why is this my life experience? This is not the life I dream of. How did I get here? And how do I get out of it? Usually around age 3 or 4, we become conscious of ourselves as separate from others, this is a reality only in the physical sense, but most of us were born into cultures that believed it to be true in almost every sense. Yes, your physical body is different to every other physical body that exists right now, and has ever existed in history of humankind; I’m as unique as a snowflake. Yet as all snowflakes are snow, as Michael Beckwith puts it, we too are all connected. While you come into this world with a purpose, characteristics, talents even, at first you don’t realise the role of the mind. As newborns we are so oblivious, the nature of our reality starts to evolve all around us with only survival instincts leading the way. Starting at a young age, parts of your true nature get shielded and hidden, others get exploited disproportionately, as you feel accepted or rejected. Before you know it ‘you’ are the sum of your true self and a complex entanglement of your life’s experiences. Often you can’t even discern one from the other. So from this vantage point, you are creating a reality that will be just as entangled. You’ve taken on energy that is not helping you attract the dreams you desire. Though still as unique as a snowflake, you are now weighed down by the layers that served you once and have gathered around you like a snowball. "become more of who you really are" As you become conscious of this, you start to observe ‘you’ differently, you start to pay more attention to the things you like and the things you don’t. Slowly, your view of yourself changes and you become more of who you really are, your authentic self. I wrote much about this process in earlier articles. Then, as you think about what you really want out of this life from your new vantage point, you can start to attract more that really fulfills you. Here is where the power of the mind plays a part. You can have whatever you want in life but there is a caveat, as I was reminded listening to Mike Dooley this week. What you want is often not what you think you want. Let me explain. "it cannot depend on any specific person" With the right energy you can achieve pretty much anything, from the mundane to the miraculous, but it cannot depend on any specific person. You can have happiness, love, wealth, health, meaning, anything you want, but if you are hanging that on anyone else – or the actions of anyone else – you will keep waiting and waiting and waiting. Note the premise I am discussing here, your thoughts, feelings and actions create your reality. If you what you want depends on someone else, you are contending with their thoughts, feelings and actions, you’re contending with their perception of who they really are, you are contending with a whole lot of complex, mixed up energy that may never match yours in your entire lifetime, far less at the point you desire it. Instead, if you set your own cocktail of energy free and forget about the 'how' or 'who', you are much more likely to attract what you’re really looking for. Getting what you want out of life is actually pretty simple (note I'm not saying it's easy), just work it through to the point of it not being attached to specific people or the actions of specific people. I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve wished I could change a person, if only that boss didn’t micromanage, if only that colleague could understand where I was coming from, if only that partner would appreciate my efforts, the list is endless. Instead, if you can step away from how you’d like others to change, and focus on what it is you would really like – freedom to act autonomously in your work, acceptance, appreciation, and so on, you will start to prescribe something that can really be delivered. “focus on the feeling of already having it” Then of course, because you are prescribing something you haven’t currently got, you have to focus on the feeling of already having it. If you focus on the lack of it, and constantly reinforce that feeling, you will only attract like energy and continue to not have it. If what you want is, say, a fulfilling career, then seek out stories of how others transformed their life – there are literally thousands of examples out there now in whatever form you prefer. Once you have heard even just a few of these stories, your confidence, your energy will start to change. Results are unlikely to be instantaneous. We all need a bit of growing room, you need time for your cocktail of desires and energies to attract just the right opportunities for you. But they will happen. They come to us in all sorts of ways, that seem like chance and circumstance, and only in hinsdsight will you usually be able to put it all together. "live in the present, not in the future" Meanwhile, while you are working on the feeling of already having what you desire, remember that life is indeed a journey. Not having everything that you want can be frustrating, but there will always be something you desire that is not within your current reality; this is our nature - growth, expansion. You, however, are living in the present, not in the future. This may seem like a juxtaposition, but your future is made up by a series of present days. Take a relook at your present situation and focus on the good things that are happening for you now, make good use of the positive energy you already have at your disposal and you will soon start to get more of what you really want out of life. This article was originally published on LinkedIn.  If you think "I deserve more respect" when you are constantly harboring disdain towards your colleague, or you think “I want more harmony in my relationship” and all the while you’re bickering and fighting, how can you attract appreciation and love in return? It’s simple, you can’t, so what's the answer?
As you seek to become more ‘in tune’ with the person you were born to be, the subject of my previous posts, how do you in turn allow others to be who they are? With those we don’t live or work closely with, it's easier to be more objective about the traits they display, including the layers they’ve developed through their lifetime that might not be so pretty (a ‘layer’ being a belief we’ve developed about ourselves that began with someone else’s opinion, often we develop them in defense or out of fear of what others think of us). However, with those who are closer we tend to be less forgiving. Typically as adults we are so surrounded by layers we are almost unrecognizable from our true selves, the set of traits talents and beliefs we were born with. For example, despite knowing our worthiness as humans when we are first born, most of us manage to develop layers that lead to a sense of insecurity under many circumstances. So two people living or working closely together, with all their layers, certainly has its ups and downs. Understanding this helps, but not in the moments where you’re feeling powerless and lash out. For those of you who never experience discord with your partner or spouse, close family members or friends, or even colleagues, I suspect you are in the minority. Just last week my partner and I had a blazing row, at 4 in the morning, about night time parenting. Put our ‘soup’ of stubborn, bossy, argumentative and determined traits together and we can argue with the best. Add the exhaustion of parenting two little ones to the mix and, voila, boom! As I was ranting about my partner in my head after the argument, I hate to think what his internal dialogue sounded like. As much as I was berating him and wondering “doesn’t he understand and appreciate me?” and “where’s the support?”, questioning his love for me in essence, I realised he’d be doing the same. So what is the answer? It’s a choice. Instead of getting into the inner dialogue every time something lights your fire, you can generalize the thought, make it less personal - put yourself in their shoes. Think about the reasons someone might be acting this way. I know on the day we argued my partner had come home from work feeling sick. I know we’d had to be out of the house at dinnertime (we’re in the middle of selling and someone was viewing it) when all we really wanted to do was relax at home. I know my daughter had a melt down before bedtime that led to me being snippy with him as an outlet of frustration. I know he had a lot of pressure on him to return to work the next day, ill or not. So when our daughter awoke at 4am, I’m sure all of these factors played into his tone. Instead of one-upmanship (“if he thinks he’s got it bad, what about poor me…” type scenario), how about cutting our colleagues and our nearest and dearest some slack? The trick is to catch that inner dialogue – fast! Too much momentum and your frontal lobe shuts down, you go into flight or fight mode and the only thing you’re motivated to do is ‘win’. I heard someone say recently, “even if you only last an hour”, yes, even if we can manage biting our tongues, taking a deep breath and seeing things from another perspective only in short bursts at the outset, it will improve our relationships immeasurably. I’m not talking here about staying in relationships ‘no matter what’, certainly you can move on from relationships, especially when they are harmful, but it’s about doing so in a way that isn’t going to cause you further harm. Too many times our hurts live on in our inner dialogue, getting played, replayed, soon they take on a momentum and energy that shows up in the way we are feeling. Our own wellbeing suffers unnecessarily, and sometimes dramatically, well beyond the issue itself. I once read a book called Crucial Conversations, it taught me the power of the stories we create in our head. We attribute motives to people's actions (usually with us as the victim) and take great offence, when most often people's motives have absolutely nothing to do with us personally; they are usually driven by their own insecurities, doubts and fears. So how do you allow others to be who they are? First you need to forgive, yourself and others, let go of past hurts; generalise them and they will dwindle. Love yourself enough to not carry around all the negative feelings. Allow yourself to be who you truly are, unconditionally, only then you can be free to love others in the same way. I’ll let you know how it goes… This article was originally published on LinkedIn. photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/9763931@N04/7715063834">Delaware State Fair - 2012</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">(license)</a> |
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