“Inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.” –Eric Burdon

     I have always known that there were different aspects of myself that I chose to allow others to see.  Growing up I was a ‘good girl’ in school.  I took on the role of the shy kid in class who didn’t dare to get into trouble.  When I came home though, it was a different story.  Throughout our lives different characters take center stage depending on what situation we are in.  I am a different person when I’m talking to my boss then I am when I am talking to my son.  Several theories of counseling talk about internal characters or parts of us that gain control.  I like to think about it as a cast of characters who perform and take center stage at different points throughout the day.  Some of the characters are shadowy aspects of ourselves, others are ones we like.  While we need all of the characters, if the character on stage is in alignment with our authentic self, we feel good but, when it is out of alignment, we feel disconnected and disappointed with ourselves.   The important thing about this analogy is that we are not any of the characters that are on the stage; we are the director behind the scenes.  Many of us were never taught that we get to control which character goes on stage at what time.  Most of us simply react to situations and the parts get to choose for themselves which ones go on stage.  Sometimes we are happy with the part that stepped up to center stage, other times we are embarrassed by it.  When we realize that we are able to pause in a situation and internally choose which character to place on the stage we uncover a hidden power.  When we realize that a dark part has been on center stage, then make a decision to pull that character off stage and replace it with a more authentic part, we begin to make different choices about life.  When we are the director we are able to yell, ‘cut’ when a part has gotten out of control.  Are you ready to sit in the director’s chair?

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”– Thomas A. Edison

     In life there are many times when the best laid plans go awry.  We take action on something and it fails or other people let us down or the weather ruins the day.  It is easy to get discouraged and give up when things don’t work out.  It is easy to go back into our comfort zone and refuse to try again.  It is easy to say it just wasn’t meant to be.  It is much harder in life to persevere.  Thomas Edison was considered one of the greatest inventors of our time, but he also had some epic fails.  His very first patented invention was an electrographic vote recorder.  It was designed to allow officials voting on a bill to automatically tally their votes.  He thought his fortune was made, but when he took it to Washington it was completely rejected.  It would have been easy for him to give up, to stick with working as a telegraph operator, but he continued to push forward.  Along with his famous working inventions he also created many not so great inventions that flopped.         Edison was a bold and brave thinker who didn’t get discouraged by what looked like failure.  He saw the opportunity in each invention that didn’t work and was too busy working on his next idea to focus on the one that didn’t work out as planned.
In the book, Your Invisible Power, Genevieve Behrend shares a story of how she was trying to get accepted to study under a man she greatly admired.  When she first approached him with her request he rejected her.  She then states, “I declined to be discouraged.”  She goes on to explain how she persevered and eventually got him to accept her.  I love her line, ‘I DECLINED to be discouraged.’  Even though she got the rejection letter, she chose to hold on to the belief that there was a way for her to study with him.  How many times do we simply accept discouragement when we have equal power to decline it?  Edison declined to be discouraged as did the Wright brothers, Henry Ford and many other brave thinkers.  Although it feels safer to crawl back into our box, that thinking robs the world of our gifts.  So, the next time you are discouraged, think about what it would it look like to decline the discouragement and instead move forward.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” ― Wayne W. Dyer

     There is no denying that some people are given extremely difficult circumstances in life.  Some of the challenges that people face are excruciatingly painful just to hear about and I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to live in their shoes.  So why is it that some people seem to get through difficult circumstances with strength and courage while others seem to crumble and get stuck?  I remember watching news footage after a tornado went through a western town.  The news reporter talked to a couple that was standing in front of where their house once stood and they were sobbing as they told the reporter that they lost everything.  It was heart wrenching to watch.  The reporter then went across the street where another couple stood looking at the debris that was once their house.  That couple told the reporter that they were so grateful to be alive.  They said they lost the material things, but their whole family was safe and they were just grateful that they had each other and could rebuild the house.  Here were two couples looking at exactly the same circumstance, yet they both had very different experiences.  The only thing that was different between these two couples was their perception of what happened.  One couple was stuck in the negative, while the other was able to look at the positive. 
     It seems so cliché to say that it is important to see life with the glass half full.  We have all heard that advice a thousand times, yet what makes it so difficult for us to do it?
There has been an abundance of brain research in the recent decades which has given us some clues to figuring out why it is easier to see the glass as half empty and harder to see it as half full.  Rick Hanson wrote a book called Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence.  In this book he explains how evolutionarily our brains have gotten upgrades, but the reptilian brain, which is on the lookout for danger is still functioning well.  He says that our brains are like Velcro for negative and Teflon for positive.  In studies they have found that it takes significantly less time for the brain to register a negative event then it does a positive event.  We have a built in negativity bias that we have to overcome.  What Dr. Hanson suggests is that we have to consciously soak in positive events for the brain to register them.  So, the next time you see a rainbow or a sunset or your child smile take a few seconds and allow the brain to soak it in.  The more we take the time to form the neural pathways for happiness the easier it becomes.
      So, why does bad stuff always happen to some people?  While I don’t want to deny the fact that some circumstances are extremely difficult, what separates the people who get stuck and those who rise strong has much more to do with their perception of the problem then with what actually happened.  So take some time to build the brain wiring for positive and see if it shifts how you see the proverbial glass of water.

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” ― Lao Tzu

      What does it mean to be content?  According to Goggle, the definition is “in a state of peaceful happiness.”  That sounds wonderful, but right now in America we are experiencing growing rates of addiction, debt and obesity.  The trends are clear- we as a society are not content with what we have.  We are looking for something to fill a void and we are finding that the drugs, material objects and food just aren’t enough to leave us feeling content.
      As I was working with a client the other week, he said to me that he needs to keep himself busy with things because he is afraid of what might happen when he doesn’t have anything to do and would have time to stop and think about his life.  He used all kinds of distracting activities to avoid having time to be relaxed and quiet with himself.  It became clear throughout our sessions that he had a real fear of facing some of the things that he did in his past.  In contrast I have other clients that seem to completely check out to almost all feelings.  They report sleeping all day and feeling like they are almost in a vegetative state to avoid having to face their past.  When we are feeling anxiety we have patterned ways of responding.  In Harriet Lerner’s book The Dance of Connection, she explains that we either go into over-functioning or under-functioning mode.  We either become the rescuer and take over or we become irresponsible and fragile.  Both are attempts to avoid looking within and dealing with the anxiety.  While we tend to say that the over-functioners are coping better, in reality they are not.  Neither are content with their lives and both are equally destructive if they continue those behaviors for the long term.  So what does it take to become content- to reach that state of peaceful happiness?  It takes the courage to go within.  It takes self-compassion. It takes facing the truth about who we are as a person and not who we think we should be.  We are human beings, yet very few of us take time to be.  We are more often human doings or human avoidings.  So take some time to just be.  The more time we allow ourselves to be with ourselves the closer we get to becoming content.  The key to contentment is that it doesn’t come from anything outside…we already have it within when we truly become a human BEing.

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”― Thomas Jefferson

      As I was working with a client this week we were talking about being authentic and getting in touch with that spark within that is who we truly are.  She looked at me intently and noted that she hasn’t been in touch with that part in so long that she doesn’t know what that means anymore.  We were able to have a good discussion on what it means to be authentic and although it sounds simple, it is not.  We are taught from early on in life that we need to conform and fit in with social norms.  Many of us have been taught that it is better to put other’s needs before our own.  We learn to live life from the outside in.  We look into other people’s eyes for approval and feel disappointed or upset when others fail to give us what we feel we are deserving of.  We live life trying to please others and feel happy when others return the favor and resentful when they don’t.  When we are living this way we are not in touch with our authentic part.  We are living from our ego, where we are judging, critical and comparing ourselves to everyone around us in order to know where we fit in.
      There is a different way to live and it is by being authentic.  When we are authentic we are at peace with ourselves.  We do things for other people because we have made a choice for ourselves that we are going to live by being kind, compassionate and caring to others.  When we decide that we are going to practice living from a place of love instead of a place of fear and comparison, we decide that we are living for ourselves.  Choosing to live life from a place of love is to choose to live authentically.  Taking action looks different when it is from a place of love.  We choose to do things for other people because it makes us feel good to do it, instead of thinking about what we will be able to get in return.  We choose to give and act graciously towards others, because we understand that we are all doing our best in life and sometimes we will fall short of where we would like to be.  Every action that we take is an opportunity to learn and grow.  When we recognize that we didn’t act from a place of love we give ourselves loving compassion to know that we will do better next time and then practice that when we have the opportunity.  Actually living and defining our lives by our actions is taking the steps needed for us to identify who we truly are.  Walking the walk is the action that defines and creates our authentic self.  So get up and take some action!

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”  ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

     One of my favorite things to do each year is to look back through my children’s annual photos.  It always amazes me to see how they have grown and changed from year to year.  It brings back memories to look at them when they were younger and to see how they continue to grow and develop.  It is easy to see the physical changes that occur, but the changes in who they are becoming is what is fascinating.  We are not static creatures.  Every day we grow and change.  We are continually evolving and we have opportunities each day to expand and challenge ourselves.  Mary Morrissey has said that some people truly live 99 years, while others live one year 99 times.  As I work with my clients I often ask them how long they have been repeating the same patterns.  Many of them are able to recognize that although the characters or the places may be different, they are in the same interactions over and over again, having the same arguments, having the same fights.  When I ask about them, at first they often blame the people around them.  It is all of their bosses who treat them unfairly or it is a string of significant others who just don’t do their share of the work in the relationship.  As we go through their list of the other people who are all to blame, many of them are able to begin to recognize that they are the one who has the issue.  I feel that we all have things we are meant to learn and experience during our short time on this planet.  For some, we have to master patience, so life will give us ample opportunities to practice patience until we are able to develop that skill.  For others it may be compassion, so we are given opportunities over and over again to work on our compassion skills.  Whatever it is we are meant to develop, whether it be forgiveness, hope, self-discipline or positivity, we will be given people and experiences in order to hone and develop those skills that we most need to work on.  When we are struggling to get along with someone, we can look at the other person as an angel in disguise.  Instead of being here just to annoy us, they are here to help us grow and practice what we are meant to experience.  Nelson Mandela has said that the person who was sent to prison would have never been able to be president of his country.  He had to grow and change through his experiences in order to develop the gifts he was meant to share with the world.  It is through our interactions with difficult people or going through challenging life events that we are able to stretch our comfort zone and grow into a new person.  Buckle up, it is time to evolve!

“I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.” ― Maya Angelou

      This week I sat with several clients as they had to make extremely difficult decisions.  There wasn’t an obvious answer for any of them and all of them felt like it was a no win situation.  Sometimes in life there isn’t an easy choice.  None of the options we see currently seem to be the right solution and it is easy to become frozen and just say, I’m not going to decide and I’ll just let it all play out.  I was told when I was a child that if I had a decision to make I should write up a pro and con list and go with whichever list is longer.  What I found when I actually took that advice was that it didn’t work.  I could easily come up with the list, but even though there may have been 10 things on the pro side, the one thing on the con side seemed to have just as much weight.  It wasn’t that easy.  Our brains are marvelous tools, but they don’t tend to help very much when we have a big decision to make.  We get lost in over-analyzing and critically thinking about tiny details of each possibility.  It becomes almost impossible to make a decision and so we put it off.  What I have found is that more often than not, I knew the decision that had to be made.  I just didn’t want to allow myself to know the decision, because I didn’t want to do what I would have to do if I decided.  My brain does a great job at trying to convince me that I don’t know what to do, when in my heart I know.  I have now began using a different method to make difficult decisions and it doesn’t make them any easier, but I regret far fewer of them.  Instead of going into my head for the answer I go into my heart.  I get quiet and ask myself how I would feel if I chose option A.  Then I focus my attention on my body.  The pit of my stomach is usually a good place for me to pay special attention to.  I try to tune in to see if I get a light and open feeling or if it is a dark and constricted feeling.  I then ask myself how I would feel with option B.  Sometimes I know right away.  If it is something I have been avoiding, my brain will kick into action and tell me all the reasons why it doesn’t make logical sense to go with that option.  Often times it is right- it doesn’t make any logical sense, but that doesn’t mean it is the wrong choice.  In life we have to take risks.  Sometimes it feels dangerous to take a leap of faith when we don’t know where we are going to land.  Those surprises are often times where we grow the most.  When I don’t get an answer right away I sit with it for a day or two.  If nothing comes to me by then I set a date and time within the week to make my decision.  At that time I decide to decide and go with it.  There are no wrong decisions in life.  Whatever decision we make we are going to learn and gain clarity on what we do want.  I find that often we get paralyzed because we feel like once we make a decision we are stuck for the rest of our lives with that decision.  That is not the case.  There are always other choices that can be made farther down the road.  Look at the decision as an experiment and know that at a later time a different decision can be made, but once the decision is made commit fully to it.  Allow the universe to know that you are stepping out and spreading your wings so that you will fly when you take that leap.

“There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.”― Maya Angelou

     How many lies do we tell ourselves?  Really think about it.  That voice that is constantly chattering away has a way of spinning things around.  It comes up with some incredible lies.  It tells us things like, we aren’t good enough, someone else is better than we are, that there isn’t enough of something, that we will fail at what we are working on, that we caused something bad to happen, and on and on.  Sometimes the thought train of lies carries us off and before we know it we are starting to believe that those thoughts are true.  So how do we get off the train?
     Over the past few weeks I discussed the image of our ego being a cage and the authentic self as being within the cage.  There is a big question that can open the door of the cage and help us stop the train of lies.  When we ask ourselves if those thoughts are actually true we begin to crack the door open.  This is not as easy as it sounds.  Sometimes we get thoughts stuck in our head and we have all the evidence to prove that the thought is correct, so we don’t even question it.  There are facts that tell us that we don’t have enough money, the time isn’t right, we don’t have the education or we just aren’t able to do it.  Our brains pull up all kinds of evidence to prove that it is right.  It will remind you of the time in second grade when you tried something new and then everyone laughed when you failed.  It will bring up every time that someone was better.  It will tell you to look at your bank account to prove that you will never be able to have or do what you dream of.  But here is the big question.  Just because those facts are there, does it mean that what you are envisioning can’t happen?  Just because you failed in the past does it mean that you are destined to always fail?  Instead of allowing the past experiences to become the cage that keeps us stuck, asking ‘what have I learned from these experiences?’ pushes us to the truth that we can have and do something different in the future.  When we feel as if we have failed and the thought that ‘I can’t do this’ comes up, continuing to ask the question, ‘is that true’ digs down deeper and deeper into the actual truth.  The actual truth is that we are limitless.  The actual truth is that we are more then we realize.  As Marianne Williamson says in her book, A Return to Love, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

“Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” -Martha Beck

      Last week’s post was about the self-inflicted cage of isolation that people sometimes find themselves in.  This is the isolation that is felt because although they may be physically surrounded by people, they do not feel emotionally connected to them.  What is blocking the emotional connection and how do people develop the courage to open the door to their cage and reconnect with life?  I believe we need to explore the role of the ego.  I envision us as people as having two distinct aspects. We have our authentic self and we have the ego.  The authentic self is the aspect of us that is genuine and true.  Religions call it our soul.  When we are acting from our authentic self we feel good about the decisions we make and our actions are in alignment with our core values and beliefs.   When we are in our ego we are usually justifying, defending and protecting ourselves from embarrassment or harm of any kind.  The ego is fear based thoughts, the authentic self is love based.  I envision it as two separate layers with the ego on the outer layer, just like a cage, and the authentic self on the inner.  To get beyond the ego layer, the cage door must open which allows us to reach into our authentic self.  True connection can only happen at the authentic level.  When we interact with someone who is in ego state with their cage door shut, they come across as phony.  They are either saying ‘look how great I am’ or the flip side of the ego, ‘look how terrible I am.’  They either boast about what they do, or they are the victim of everything that happens to them. It is difficult to connect with someone who is in an ego state and unfortunately for the person stuck in ego state, they have lost connection with their own authentic self which makes it difficult for them to connect with others.  It is almost as if the door to their cage is shut and they have forgotten that they have the key to open it up.  When we get stuck in ego, the voice of doubt broadcasts so loud that it drowns out the voice of our authentic self.  The ego has no awareness of the authentic self, so once we are completely in the ego state it is like we forgot that we can choose to open the door to connect authentically.  It takes a lot of courage for the ego to open that cage door when it is screaming for you to keep it locked tight, but once we open it up it gives us the freedom to authentically connect once again.   So, the secret to getting out of the self-inflicted cage of isolation?  Recognizing that we are in the cage in the first place and remembering that we can choose to open it up the moment we are ready to truly connect.

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.” -Marianne Williamson

     With everything going on in the world right now we have a lot to be fearful of.  Are we safe to gather in the streets to celebrate?  Are we safe to share our opinions? Are we safe to do our jobs? There are always going to be things to worry about, but for many people the recent events have increased their level of anxiety and worry and have had them questioning what the world is coming to.  One of the biggest things that I took away from the first Conversations with God book by Neale Donald Walsch is that there are only two emotions- Love and Fear.  He discusses how all of the actions and behaviors of people in the world are stemming from one of these two emotions.  Why do people become angry, hateful or vengeful?  At the heart of it, it is because they are fearful.  They are filled with fear that they are not good enough, strong enough, powerful enough or influential enough.  They don’t want anyone to see the fear so they use their power and control to put other people down or to scare them into doing what they want them to do.  Fear is defined in Alcoholics Anonymous as False Evidence Appearing Real.  Well, right now in the world we have a lot of real evidence.  There is no denying that there are some tragic events happening.  We have a choice in how we respond to them though.  If we allow the events to put us into a place of fear we react in a way to protect ourselves.  We see building a wall as a good thing.  We believe we are safer if we are carrying a weapon.  We stockpile food and build impenetrable shelters.  We separate ourselves from ‘those’ people.  Is this what we truly want?  Most people say they want to have peace and freedom, yet these fears stop us from living in a way that looks even remotely peaceful or free.  While these events are real, the truth is that how we view these events can change the way we respond to them.  If we choose fear, the events can separate and divide us even farther, but what would love do?  From a place of love we can begin to see that the people involved in these events are simply acting out of fear.  When we become curious about what they may be fearful of, we begin to see them differently.  We become willing to listen instead of isolating and separating from them.   I often share with my clients that change only happens when things get so bad we are pushed to do something different or when we become so clear on our vision we are pulled to do something different.  These events have the opportunity to do both.  Either we will realize that what is happening is so bad, what we are currently doing isn’t working, or we will become so clear that peace is what we want we will begin to open up to love.  This is an exciting time in the world- this is our time to be the change!