Drip A Little Joy Into Your Life

 

 

 

 

Right now, in the cupboard above my stove, there are 7 bags of coffee.  Who needs this much coffee?

Somewhere in our brains is a quiet voice telling us there isn’t enough…not enough coffee, not enough toilet paper, not enough time, money, rest, smarts, looks…..and on it goes.

The thoughts can be so subtle and stream like background music in a department store.  From the minute we wake up, thoughts about falling short begin.  They pop up throughout the day until we hit the pillow at night and realize we didn’t finish everything on the To-Do list.

Especially now, in the current COVID-19 situation, fears and anxiety are dialed up for everybody.  Every Zoom call I was on this week had at least one participant talk about how they felt edgy-anxious.  This was quickly followed by how they felt guilty for not doing ENOUGH for others who are REALLY suffering.  Ouch.

The drive for more and fear of lack pushes us into a mentality of scarcity.  It’s not conscious.  We just do it.  It happens automatically in the presence of desires and worries.

We can let this mindset of scarcity go and develop a mindset of enough.

Remember when John McCain chose Sarah Palin for a running mate in the 2012 election?  If so, you probably remember people criticized her level of intelligence.  My mind would wrestle with, “Well, I don’t know, how smart is she?”.  Until I heard a monologue by Dennis Miller who addressed the question by simply stating, “She’s smart enough.”

Yes!  I mentally changed the channel from Doom to Boom, from lack to sufficient.

It has nothing to do with Sarah Palin or politics.  It has everything to do with cultivating a life of fulfillment and joy.  She is enough.  I am enough.  You are enough AND everything in our lives is enough.

We are starving ourselves by living out of a “never enough” type of psychology.  We can feed our hearts and minds by consciously choosing to place our awareness on knowing that we have plenty.

Kick comparison to the curb.  This isn’t a relative experience, meaning relative to where you want things to be or measured against where someone else is.  So you might want more money in your life and, unless you are Jeff Bazeos, there are definitely people out there who have more money than you.  Let this comparison go.

Find and feel into being and having everything you need already.  

This is an active choice.  Let yourself shift your thoughts towards how things are alright, or maybe even, GOOD already.

Opening to this is like turning on the faucet just a little.  Allowing a trickle of greater fulfillment and joy to make its way into your life.  Drip, drip, drip.

This can take a bit of effort.  So to help me stay focused, I have put up post it notes around my house.  I see them and pause to consider how the message is true for my life.

May you find beauty and abundance everyday.

How to Find Stability in Chaos

Whoa!

If our world was a giant puzzle all laid out on the living room floor, someone just came in and scattered pieces everywhere.

Do you feel me?

The order and predictability we thought we had is gone.  Poof.  I never ever thought I wouldn’t be able to go out to eat, meet with my friends, or be told by my government to stay home.

The pile of losses are stacking up. People are losing their jobs, their recreation, their social connections.  Understandably, people are swimming in fear and it is contagious.

During times like this we need to find a foot hold for our minds.  Our brains want control.  Period.  That is what brains do.  They crave a sense of order and stability.

HowEVerrr, COVID-19 has taken over the world as we know it.  This current situation serves as a huge reality check.  The truth is, there really isn’t much control to be had. This  is wildly unsettling to mind.

So, don’t look to the mind.   Now more than ever, ground in awareness.  Use your innate ability to focus your attention on the present moment.  Experience the weight of your body in the chair.  Feel the breeze on your skin.  See the sky.  Hear the Spring time birds singing from the tree branches.

Return your mind again and again to the reality of now.  Yes, the mind will continue to kick and scream like a toddler who is pissed off.  But you don’t have to engage, just like you wouldn’t join your toddler in a tantrum.  Don’t engage.

Watch and accept.  The mind has a few things to be stirred up about.  This is true.  There might be waves of emotion that need to be felt.  It would be odd if there weren’t any, wouldn’t it?  The thoughts and emotions are all okay to let rise and fall as you watch and accept.

Let your awareness lead the way.  With your awareness, you can decide what helps you.  You can put your attention on thoughts that support you, activities that nourish you, and problem solve from a calm centered place.

Notice when you get lost in thought and come back to being a human, an observer.  The awareness is the one constant, steady, unchanging factor.  You always have it with you and it is always at peace.

Awareness accepts all things, allows all things, embraces all things, trusts all things.

Ground yourself in this reliable force of good.  It is a universal gift we all share.  A golden threat that unites our lives.   We truly are “in this together” but we can only experience this connectedness from a place of awareness.

We will get over this wall of doom.  We will.  We will learn and grow and persevere.  The fresh air of a new beginning will hit our faces as we crest the top.  Let us be patient and kind to ourselves in the process so life doesn’t scrape us raw as it tosses us about in the daily scuffle.

May you find peace today and everyday.

All the best-

Lori

 

Shake Free From Failure

Have you ever thought you were a failure?

I mean, not that those words would ever float out of your mouth and into the ears of another.  No way!  Not like that.  But sometimes, when things are quiet and you are alone the thoughts about yourself start to stir…

Why can’t I make this work?

I’m ruining it again.

Is this all there is?

Of course you get invested when a project is important to you; the book you want to write, the weight you want to loose, the promotion you long for.   This is true for anything you strongly desire.

But there is a difference between a project you work on and your value as a person.

Don’t let them be the same thing.  Tease apart your sense of self worth from your projects.  So if the book doesn’t get completed, it doesn’t becomes personal.  Stick to the facts -the book didn’t get finished- rather than the idea -something is wrong with me- because the book didn’t get finished.

You may not have reached your goal but that does not make YOU a failure.  It makes the project a failure.

Keeping your self separate empowers you to evaluate without fear what took place that worked or did not work.  What critical piece or pieces were missing for this activity to be a success?

I know this might feel like a leap for some of you.  Especially if you have bought into the  mindset that your business ventures are a reflection on YOU, or your children’s behavior is a reflection on YOU, or your bank account is a reflection on YOU.  The truth is these situations do not define you.

No.  These factors are neutral before you put your spin on them.  Your interpretation of the facts is where you can gain influence.

A shift in how you view the projects in your life can help to free you from self doubt and self criticism.  And who doesn’t want that?!

People don’t fail.  Projects do.

Oh! But you say, if I’m not responsible for the outcome, who is???  Won’t I become complacent?  A giant blob of low expectations and lack of motivation?

Only if you want to.  The idea here is to increase your effectiveness.  You become objective when you separate your identity from the project.  And when you are objective, fear goes down.  And when fear goes down, you attain a sense of control.

How do you think your decisions might look different from a solid foundation of calm confidence?  Decisions made from a place where projects are not about you personally?

This view helps you operate from an action mentality,  such as “What needs to happen here for this to work?”.   Rather than the slog of, “What will people think if this doesn’t work?”

For me, it makes all the difference.  I can evaluate and act more freely.  I have more clarity about the task at hand and I am less afraid.

I realize that things not working is part of my learning.  The “failures” help me figure it all out, but only if I let them.  Only if I experience them as neutral information to be considered in my choices instead of emotionally charged information to weigh me down.

Do you do this?  What are your thoughts?  I’d love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment below.

All the best to you-

Lori

 

The First Step to Boost Self Acceptance

You walk into the bathroom to finish getting ready for work and you can hear the whisper in your head, “Oh my, that tummy.  Ugh, muffin top.  Capital M, capital U, capital F, capital F…I’m getting so lumpy, geez.” and back you head into your closet to find something different to wear, something flowy perhaps, loose for sure.

This same voice reappears as you get out the blow dryer, “My hair is like straw”, and again, as you begin to put on mascara, “Maybe I should try falsies.  My lashes are so sparse”.  There it is, each step of the way, a critical commentator evaluating your appearance.

Have you ever tried to change your self-talk?  It’s not that easy.

You realize on some level the self criticism is NOT HELPFUL, but at the same time, how can you make this bully play nice?  HOW?  It happens so automatically!

I say, the first step is to decide.  Decide to stop participating in the same-old same-old narrative you tell yourself because it comes at a huge cost, like Jeff Bezos’ income huge!

If you’ve always lived with it, and you have, it is easy to minimize the negative effects that your belittling self judgments can have.

Do you want the automatic voice in your head to determine how you feel about yourself?   To sabotage your self confidence?  To make you want to hide?  Probably not.

Simply begin by deciding to notice without judgment the things being said by this slanderer.  Commit to noticing what is said and how it affects you.

Boom, step one.

This awareness will help you.  It will put the angel part of you in charge of the messages. This higher part of you, your awareness, will be what revamps your self talk.  You will make this change by being more conscious.

So decide my friends.  Commit to yourself.  When you clarify what you want in this way, determination begins to pool within you.  Your mind naturally prepares itself.  The fuel tanks fill up.

Write it down even.  Pull out a clean sheet of paper and write nothing but your intention to put that saboteur in chains.  Write it down because the people who do research on this stuff tell us that we are 65% more likely to achieve something when we write it down.

There are next steps for kicking the critical commentator to the curb, for sure, but for now just decide.  It’s time.  It is time for you to go even further, deepen your process and take your self approval to a new peak.

Where ever you are in the journey to full self acceptance, decide to set a higher standard.  Commit to the idea you would not even say one negative comment about yourself, not even one.

 

It’s so possible.