Trusting the good ...

It's a new year!  How about a Bold and Courageous Aspiration for 2015?Your vow to Trust the Good!  AND magic it happens, right?  Probably not!  Unless you are a magician.  Because it turns out that trusting the good" is NOT easy.  AND it is because your brain is hardwired to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones.  So, what to do?Rick Hanson, and Kristin Neff have done pioneering work on self compassion and self care, tell us that negativity is like velcro and sticks to our brains.  Positive experiences, "the good" are like teflon, they don't stick.  Research offers ratios like 3 to 1 and 5 to 1.  It takes 3/5 good thoughts to have an equal weight to one bad thought for each of us.  Hanson's response to this is to "install"  the good thoughts.  My favorite exercise of his is called "taking in the good".  I was stunned the first time I did it, at how quickly my brain wanted to dash off and not take in the good.  I was recalling a particularly peaceful, halcyon day at Amrita Island on Cape Cod ... but part of my brain was not at all interested in "installing" or deepening this experience.  That part of me thinks the idea of "trusting the good" might be the dumbest or most dangerous thing it has ever heard of, so thus my struggle through the exercise and why I am writing this post.  I believe this is the most important work we can do right now and that we must teach our children this too.  AND it will take practice.  But thank goodness it is a 15 second exercise... once you get your mind to settle down and stay focused on exploring and absorbing the good.  I will be writing more about this during the year. So why should you add this to your already full schedules?  

1. It makes you hopeful and happy, therefore the learning and creativity centers in your brain turn on.  It is fun.  
2. Nothing new or alive will find you if you are worried or busy "being prepared for a future you don't know will ever happen!"  Worry and negativity block out happiness, creativity and learning.  Lots of brain research on this too.
3. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Notice the good and you will feel the good.  Notice the bad and you feel bad.  Remember you can't come up with good strategy or new idea from a place that is fear based. 

I could go on and on.  It is good for your health etc. but really the most persuasive argument is your own experience.  So, at the start of 2015, will you join me in  committing  to take in the good?   I am doing this exercise once a day, five days a week.  For specific instructions on how to do this.  Check out Rick Hanson's website.  Watch Take in the good, to learn from a master.         

Rejection is protection!

What?Rejection is protection! How can that be?  This is a saying in 12-step programs.  When someone rejects you, or your proposal, it is actually a sort of "whew...dodged that bullet!" because even though you wanted "it" or wanted a relationship with this person, your IDEA of what you would actually receive in the bargain was just that:  YOUR IDEA.  Not the reality of what would occur.This is one of the hardest passages of adulthood.  Recognizing that the voice inside our head, the strategic mind that tells us what it thinks is good and bad, is actually not what is wisest in us.  There is another voice, "that small still voice within" that knows more but often scares that strategic mind and so it shuts that voice down.  I have a long time friend, going on 3 decades.  She is a recovering alcoholic.  She told me once that first time she tried a 12 step program it didn't work.  The step (maybe first?) that asks you to surrender to your higher power?  Well, she really believed that "She was her higher power".  And I don't blame her.  First of all she might be the most competent person I know, and I know so many, that this is actually a huge complement.  Second, she grew up where there was no reason to trust any adult around her and every reason to assume she was the only person that was for her.  The only person she could trust and the only person who would protect her, was herself.But when she said it ("I always thought I was my higher power.")  my first thought was "She is just like me."  I too find it easier to trust my idea of what should happen instead of trusting "life" or "God" or even that small still voice deep within me that whispers, maybe it is better this way.  My strategic mind hates that voice.  It doubles down on its list of why things should be the way it thinks they should.For most of us our idea about a job, a marriage, really any endeavor we wish for ourselves never materializes that way.  It is always something different.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.  So silly me, why do I really think I know what is best?  So, picture me raising my right hand and swearing:  "When the "no" comes, on any front, I resolve to recall all the times a "yes" made me unhappy and say "I probably just dodged a bullet, and I don't know why yet."  Care to join me?  

Are you in the "real" conversation?

This is truly the 64,000 question.  Most of us engage the conversation we know how to have but often that is not the "real" conversation.  The conversation that you don't know how to have, is typically a "real" conversation, it's  the conversation you MUST have to move forward.   Other questions that are related to this one are:

• Are you doing your top priority work first or do you tackle the things that you know how to do easily first?
• Are you majoring in minors?
• Who inside you determines the focus and the direction of your energy expenditure during a day?  Is it your protective and scarcity/anxiety/stressed based self or is it your aspirational self?

Since our organizational and our personal lives are  a series of conversations day in and day out, if we aren't having the conversations that are most important (even if  hard), we can expect the following:

1. Decreased passionate engagement and satisfaction in our work and life.
2. Decreased energy, efficiency and productivity.
3. Decreased positive personal and organizational results.

But when we do have the "real" conversations, the ones we MUST have, we can expect the following:

1. Increased engagement for ourselves and others.
2. Increased connection  to our colleagues and ourselves.
3. Increased sense of empowerment, for playing big and not small.
4. Increased efficiency, energy and productivity.
5. Increased positive personal and organizational results.

If you agree you want to have the "real" conversation, the one you MUST have, the first step is COURAGE.   And where do you find that courage?  For many of us it is found in reconnecting with our personal mission and purpose for our work and our lives.  We find it through our hearts and what matters to us.  Did you know that the root of the word Courage is Coeur for heart.  Ask yourself:

1. In my moments of "Flow" in my work and my personal life, what is it that excites and compels me?  What gives me energy?
2. Why  does my work matter to me?  To others?

The second step is COMMITMENT and action.  After you have brought to the forefront of your heart and mind the meaning and purpose of your life and your work, then make a list of the conversations you are avoiding, including any with yourself.  Rank order the list from easiest to most difficult. Then, make a commitment to go after them one at a time, until you have made it through the list.  Starting with the easiest allows you build on your successes and achieve positive momentum to continue to engage the "real" conversations that arise in all of our lives.The third step is to APPRECIATE and acknowledge yourself for shifting avoidance to positive forward moving action.   

"Things Happen FOR us, not TO us."

As an event is unfolding we actually have no idea at all WHY it is happening.  Of course that won’t stop our minds from making up a story of one sort or another.  But as you may have already surmised, thinking “things are  happening for me” leads to a very different story and feelings, than than “things are happening to me.”  “For me” can lead to Christmas morning feelings,  like positive expectancy, curiosity and openness.  Things are happening “to me” can lead to self-protection and contraction,  feelings and thoughts like suspicion, concern and worry.  The emotional intelligence research tells us that what we say only counts for 7% of what people hear when we talk.  But how we are feeling and thinking, accounts for the other 93% and shows up in our tone of voice (38%) and our non-verbal behaviors (55%).  It follows then that “to me” stories create an energy of contraction and worry that diminishes us and our messages/communication to others.  And of course, “for me” stories create a sort of “brainstorm” atmosphere that is fun, joyful and creative allows for the flow of meaning as well as ideas.  This is exactly the kind of atmosphere that today’s individuals AND organizations most need to stay competitive and thrive.When we are caught in “to me”, a good exercise to move into “for me” is  The Wonders Consultancy “13 things” exercise.  Sit down and make a list of 13 reasons that this thing that is happening, is actually a benefit to you in some way.  For example, let’s say that you tend to be someone who gets anxious when people you care about distance from you.  Maybe you take that personally.  Or feel rejected. Or tend to blame or criticize yourself, and create a story you caused their behavior.  AND let’s say you have recently decided that you want to change this pattern.  Now, two of your friends are incommunicado.  One way that is a benefit to you is you get to practice new neurological patterns or calming yourself and not chasing after these two friends.  Of trusting that it is not at all about you and at some point you will understand and discover that they had other things pressing on them.  Therefore,  one reason that friends being incommunicado is a benefit to you,  is that you are learning not pursue others!  Another reason is you are learning to stay in the moment and not create stories about other people’s intentions.  A third reason this is “for you” is that you are getting to learn not to take others behaviors personally.  So, I gave you 3, now find another 10!   It may well take that much effort to get your strategic mind to let go and trust!

Psyche (aka your unconscious): Holds all the trump!

More and more neuroscience is demonstrating the limits of the logical and the rational.  Thus proving C.G. Jung, (Jungian Psychology) to have been a prophet.  The power of the unconscious, the mysterious and unfathomable, within each and everyone of us is truly breathtaking.  AND it is efficient!  How does it get better than that?!I write about this because there are tools that one can use (many of which I have practiced for almost 2 decades) that help us actually hear the voice of our own psyche.  AND why that matters is because it turns out ..that it is not "Father who knows best" but Psyche.  (Yes, I am that old!)Our own sweet souls are what will make the best and happiest decisions on any and all matter of preference for each of us.  Whether it be the next car we buy, the person we live with or career path we take...or which pair of shoes to buy and where to go for dinner.    Psyche (soul) always speaks to us in the language of feelings, energy, moods and dreams.  She is always letting us know what will make us happy in the long run.So why aren't we happier?  Because our Strategic Mind generally overrules her and so quickly we often don't hear her at all.    She says, "I want light and space."  Strategic mind jumps in with "We can't move, we don't have time and where will we find....blah, blah, blah."  Conversation over...except it isn't because Psyche will now start to disturb our peace with ennui or discontent or weird dreams.  AND she won't stop.Our distrust of her is part and parcel of our inherent distrust of joy and happiness.  (See my post:  Trusting Joy).  Most of us trust suffering and struggle more than we do joy and happiness.  That is why we mostly change through the school of hardknocks.   What would happen is when Psyche whispered "I want light and space." we would respond with curiosity with "Tell me more"?Maybe we allow Strategic Mind (SM) to register it's concerns immediately...but in the spirit of a brainstorm, instead of control.SM:  "Look, the easy way would be to change our exisiting space if that is possible, but why is it you want light and space and are there other ways we could achieve that, because moving is a a big chunk of time and money?"And then the ideas surface.  The brainstorm is on.  Strategic mind doesn't have to and should not just say "yes" to Psyche, it is meant to be a true conversation between the rational and irrational within us.  We can learn how to stay in the tension of the conflicting needs within our own minds, knowing that one day something greater than either "move or stay here and ignore the need for light and space" will emerge.  Einstein said, "you can't solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it."  I say, ask yourself where you are stuck.  AND put those two opposites together and ask "how can I have both X and Y?"  Then settle in and wait, trusting that an answer will come.  Stay open.  Wait for what is fresh, new and alive to arrive.