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:
- Decreased passionate engagement and satisfaction in our work and life.
- Decreased energy, efficiency and productivity.
- Decreased positive personal and organizational results.
But when we do have the "real" conversations, the ones we MUST have, we can expect the following:
- Increased engagement for ourselves and others.
- Increased connection to our colleagues and ourselves.
- Increased sense of empowerment, for playing big and not small.
- Increased efficiency, energy and productivity.
- 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:
- In my moments of "Flow" in my work and my personal life, what is it that excites and compels me? What gives me energy?
- 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.
The Connection between Art and Vitality
Art isn’t pretty.Art isn’t painting.Art isn’t something you hang on a wall.Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.…But art is who we are and what we do and what we need. Seth GodinOkay, so I have been in a funk. By that I mean not really inspired to blog anything. Yet, somehow still inspired by life. This may sound trite but Michelle Obama's bangs and her and the girls attire on inauguration day are now my wallpaper on facebook, they inspire me. I don't know why but I smile every time I see them. Maybe because the colors are so beautiful and the lines of the clothes, elegant. But I may be making this up. My strategic mind HATES the idea that it can't explain everything. ;-) What I know for sure is the image of them makes me smile. Something else that inspires me: the comings and goings of the chickadees at my bird feeder. AND right now, I am really jazzed by my I brand new elegant red metal dining room table to launch valentine's day week. All of these makes me happy, grateful and young in spirit. Yet, not inspired to blog.When I started this blog I understood that the muse comes and goes. And accepted that, but I didn't expect the fickle girl to disappear for almost 6 weeks! AND I committed to not write because some voice in me said, I had better write something or... In other words I wasn't going to let my strategic mind take the my love of writing and connecting things and turn it into just another thing on my "to do" list. This blog that bears my name would be filled from a place of possibility and abundance. I would write because I get to, not because I have to.Trusting this path was part of my emergence as an artist. Yes, I did say artist. Not because I think my writing is actually worthy of the word art. But because I think how I am in the world is. My definition of art and making art is similar to Seth Godin's. It puts me on an edge. It asks me to begin and not know where I am going. Hmmm, that sounds like motherhood, marriage, most jobs, most projects doesn't it? I think so. Godin says we are all artists. We must make a world we want to inhabit. So ask yourself:What can I make in my world today, given all the things already scheduled and required of me, that would make me come alive in the making? That would give me energy?And of course ... go do that!