Upping Your Gratitude Game

I spent this past week with my long time partner Steve.  Both SuperGeeks for Nonviolent Communication we tend to talk about and philosophize about how to be, do and teach NVC a great deal of the time when we are together.  A cool thing happened this visit.

We usually put together a list of things we might do upon my arrival.  After our trip to see the eclipse [a truly ecstatic experience], we chose to participate in more projects than we originally anticipated while I was in North Carolina.  It made for tight scheduling, lots of thinking, and lots of opportunity to be in distress. 

We began to notice our capacity to ‘forget to enjoy life’ and even drop into complaint (albeit only in tone of voice at times), with some regularity and we decided to support ourselves in finding joy!  Steve’s request was to support his return to joy by inviting him to share what he is grateful for if and when I noticed his grumpy attitude.  He was far grumpier than I, and more often than I, in my opinion (hehe).

What Happened?

What ended up happening was pretty amazing and fun!

Working on some hard, complicated projects late into the night, we had a few [read more than you might imagine] opportunities to implement our plan.  What ended up happening, is the both of us spontaneously just broke into gratitudes if the other had complaint energy. This happened instead of me reminding him…or him reminding me.  It seemed more efficient somehow – not that either of us thought about it – to just begin announcing our gratitudes.  Because of our competitive nature the other would then start calling out their gratitudes too! 

It was so much fun!  All of a sudden I would hear Steve scream out, “I love my knees!, I appreciate the sun!,  I am so grateful for my life!”  In an instant I knew I must have had complaint energy and broke out into my own shouts of appreciation, “I love my hair!, My body supports me!, I love my fingernails!”  And then we would laugh and laugh.   Instant energy shift.

More than joy.

While this new way of being was just delightful, we noticed something more.  Pretty much all the week something new happened consistently.

Here are a few examples. 

This same project we were working on late into the night.  We were putting something together that we bought online.  We were pretty certain that critical parts were missing.  As we got bummed out and found our joy again, we decided to just keep going until we could not continue without the missing part.  Our friend walked in to check up on our progress.  He was one of the people we were hoping to contribute to by doing this.   We told him of our dilemma of the missing pieces.  Instantly he noticed that two pieces were connected and in fact, not missing!  Not only were we able to celebrate his saving the day, we were able to complete the job that night!

It turned out that I needed to buy new tires while in Asheville.  This was very much NOT part of our plan and since I was driving home 600 miles the next day, my safety became the priority need.  We were also hosting an event that evening – just hours away that we wanted to create materials for.  We decided to work while waiting.  The tire place was in strip mall. 

Not wanting to sit inside and breathe the fresh scent of rubber tires in the store, we were looking to a teeny strip of green to sit on and get to work.  We had a few opportunities to shout our gratitudes – needless to say.  The most astounding part was how easy this was to do.

We walked toward the far end of the lot.  What did we find?  A park!  At a river’s edge.  With tables and benches.  Lots of green space and quiet.  Right there.  [Steve has lived in Asheville for close to 20 years, and been to that strip mall many, many times, never knowing it was that this park was tucked away in the back corner of the parking lot, just for context of the miraculousness of this].

We Upped Our Gratitude Game

Steve and I were crystal clear that staying in the gratitude consciousness ~ upping our gratitude game ~ allowed some kind of opening for us to create and/or to see what we were hoping for.  Consistently.  It was remarkable.

Say This Not That

I would like you to take my word for it, and just do this too.  And, it really doesn’t matter.  Don’t take my word for it and just do this.

Find a buddy, or do it on your own.  Commit to changing your point of view the instant you notice you want to complain.  Try it for a day.  Or better yet a week.  I will be curious to read your comments to hear what happens for you!

Feeling Rejected?

If you are on Facebook, you probably see many of the same quotes I do.  They are meant to inspire us or make us laugh or cause us to see something in a different light. I’ve read this one a few times as it’s made the rounds, and each time I’ve felt a thud in my stomach.

My intuition tells me that this quote is more likely to keep people stuck than set them free.  So I’d like to tease out what troubles me about it.

What does it mean to feel rejected?

What happened that you interpreted as rejection?  Did someone turn down your invitation to lunch? Did someone you were interested in fail to reciprocate your interest? For the author of the quote, rejection equals sadness. But must you feel sad (or hurt or upset or depressed) when someone turns you down?

If we dig a little deeper into your mind, the reason that you feel sad (or bad or hurt) when someone rejects what you have offered is because you already believe you are not good enough.  Your brain has a way of interpreting the facts to support your beliefs about yourself. This person didn’t want to go out with me; therefore, he must not think I’m good enough.

You can’t always believe what you think.

Bill Harris [www.centerpointe.com] attributes this process of interpretation to what he calls the Internal Map of Reality.  It works like this:  You receive some kind of input from the environment.  As it comes in, this sensory input is filtered. Filters include your beliefs, values, memories, past decisions, the language you speak, information you have retained, and on and on.  Filters delete, distort, and generalize the input as it comes in, based on the way your Internal Map of Reality has been set up to filter, all of which happens in a split second.  And though you’re aware of some of this, almost all of it is going on outside your conscious awareness.

Your Internal Map of Reality organizes information that you receive from the environment. Helpful, right? Most of the time, yes. Except when somebody turns you down for an invitation to the movies, and this “rejection” is instantly filed with the other evidence that proves you are not good enough. When you feel bad about a supposed rejection, keep your attention on what actually happened. Did my friend tell me I wasn’t good enough? No! She just declined an invitation to go to the movies.

If nothing is wrong with me, then something must be wrong with you.

In the second part of this message, there is an implied obligation.  They should have accepted what you offered. If they aren’t interested, then there must be something wrong with them. But isn’t this really a demand?  They must like you, or else. 

Why should we expect everyone to like us? Do you like everyone you meet? Do you say yes to every invitation?  Do you get in a relationship with everyone you meet?  Of course not! It doesn’t make sense.

If you truly believe that what who you are is good enough, then you will be confident that someone will be attracted to you, and you won’t be hurt every time someone is not interested. I like to think of a golden retriever I once knew.  That golden retriever ran around to each person she met - pet me! pet me!  Even when pushed away, she just tried again.

Compassion is the key.

When you offer something that is precious to you and someone says no, you may think

 the person doesn’t value you. Rather than address what you already believe about yourself - “I must not be good enough” - you tell yourself there is something wrong with the other person.  But as I say and write over and over, there is nothing wrong with anyone. Maybe you didn’t clearly express what you wanted, or the other person just didn’t understand. Or maybe the other person truly didn’t want what you were offering. That’s okay.  

Remember that compassion - for yourself and others - is the key to keeping a rejection from turning into “feeling rejected”.  Keep in mind that the person you are making a request of also operates under the influence of an Internal Map of Reality. Perhaps they would have liked to say yes but simply lack the confidence, courage or understanding to do so.  Listen for what meaning they long for, and stay present to that, rather than your own stories.  You may be surprised at what happens when you respond to rejection in this way.

Ask for what you want.

Access your inner golden retriever and ask, ask, ask for what you want.  And don’t let getting a no become more than it is.  

Self Care - What's That?

There’s an old joke that goes like this:

A woman prays every day to win the lottery.  Day after day, she prays, “God please let me win the lottery”.  Finally, one day, god calls down to the woman and says, “Lady, can you help me out and buy a ticket?”

As someone people come to for care, I ask, can you help me out?

Many of my clients come to me because they are in physical or emotional pain.  Very often I can help, but help is the key word.  I really can’t do it all.  Your life is your responsibility, and caring for yourself is vital if you want to be well. A wonderful team that you trust to give advice and care can help to keep you healthy.  But ultimately you must be in charge of your own health, which may require making changes in your life. If you need rest, you have to be the one who sleeps more.  If you need more enjoyment, you are the one who must take the time to have more fun.  

If you are not taking good care of yourself, there will be a limit to how much anyone else can do for you - whether your surgeon, your therapist, or your chiropractor.

Recently a woman who had been in pain for quite some time contacted me seeking care. I asked her, “What have you done in response to your pain?”  She began rattling off a list of practitioners she had seen - chiropractor, acupuncturist, shiatsu masseuse, medical intuitive, and several others.  I asked her what she herself had done, what changes she had made to her daily life, and she looked at me with confusion, not understanding what I meant. I went on: what kind of self-care did she do?  Did she rest? Did she meditate? Did she apply heat to the pain? Did she take a bath? Did she finally have a difficult conversation she had been putting off for years? Had she taken the time to consider the possible root cause of the pain? She didn’t have an answer.

Pain is your body’s way of letting you know that something is amiss.  Experiencing pain means that - whether on the physical, emotional, mental or spiritual level - something in your life needs to be addressed. When you feel pain, your body is saying, “Hey! Wake up!! I need something!” To figure out what that something is, you must learn to look inward. One of the best ways I have found to do that is through self-care.

Here are a few easy ways to start practicing self-care.

SLOWING DOWN

·   Try taking daily bath, in hot, sudsy water.  

·   A nap can be a great way to recharge. Rather than reaching for another cup of coffee, give yourself permission to take a short nap during the day.

·   Meditation is a great way to slow down and reconnect with yourself. Here are a few simple meditations to get you started:

1.        Conduct a three-minute body scan upon waking.  

2.        Practice early morning gratitude meditation.  Upon waking, notice 5 things you are grateful for right in this moment.  You can even write them down.

3.        Try a five-minute seated meditation in which you quietly notice your thoughts and practice letting them go. Over time, increase the length of the meditation.

4.        Yoga is a moving meditation, whether you do it at home or in a class.

SPEEDING UP

You may be in need of some physical activity to get you back in to your body. If you feel heavy or lethargic, or if your thoughts seem cloudy, consider trying the following:

·   Head outside and take a brisk walk.

·   Go for a bike ride around your neighborhood.

·   Take a dance class, or turn on music that makes you feel like moving, and just dance around the house by yourself.

THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Nature is very healing.  Even if you live in an urban place without much greenery, spending time in nature can be as simple as going to a park, or even leaning against a tree while waiting for the bus. If you live in the suburbs, find opportunities to get out of the car or the house. Walk on the grass in your bare feet. Plant a garden, large or small.

BE CREATIVE

·   Pick up a craft project you have been meaning to finish or wanting to start.

·   Learning a new skill, especially one that allows you to express your creative side, can be transformative. Try knitting or sewing, taking a pottery class, or learning a new language.

·   Or buy a can of paint and take a brush to that beige wall you’ve always thought would look great in canary yellow.

·   Cleaning, organizing, re-arranging furniture - all of these transformations of the space around you are creative acts that can bring freshness and ease into your life.  

COOKING AND EATING INTENTIONALLY

Take the time to eat healthily. If that feels too daunting, start with a few healthy changes in your diet. The act of cooking, whether for yourself or someone else, is an opportunity to slow down and savor the delight of creating great food.

You get the idea.  When you are in distress, take good care of yourself.   As a health care provider I am on your team, and you are the team leader.

Pain, Pain Go Away!

This article is about pain.  And bullying.  And how I think they are related.

I am writing this because of the ways I have heard people talk about their pain over the years.  Overall, I hear a sense that the pain being the problem at hand, the thing you need to get rid of so you may get back to the things you were doing in life.  I understand the role of pain differently.  Pain is your body’s mechanism of letting you know how your life is going.  Your signal to do more or less of something.  It’s an information relay system.  It’s brilliant when we use it properly.

Somehow people relating to their own pain reminded of a novel I read entitled Nineteen Minutes.  Author Jodi Piccoult takes us through the life of her son, who is the perpetrator of a high school mass shooting.  As it happened, I was moved by how much understanding I had for this 17 year old when he made this choice in life.  Given how many times he asked for help and how many times he was thrown back into the fire – by loving and ‘sensitive’ parents. In his mind, this was the best way he could take his ‘power’ back.  It was so compelling.

It has been quite a while since I read it, and what I remember is being taken through a story of a young boy’s [Peter Houghton] life, beginning with innocence and play, and then when school starts, he begins to get bullied, first on the bus, then more and more in school, loses his best friend, and each time he tells his mother, she can’t really hear what is happening for him.  She is doing the best she can, intends the best for him, and yet, repeatedly sends him back for more without offering new skills or ideas on how to do things differently.   She was so invested in her own story about how this all should be handled that she wasn’t able to hear his pleas!   The impact of that was devastating.

Are you bullying yourself?  Your pain, your symptoms, your emotions are your body’s only way to bring to your consciousness – to your attention that something is amiss.  Most likely, your body had been giving you signals all along, only in ways that you could not interpret, or that you ignored.  Something less than pain.  Think of it like this...your body is like little Peter Houghton saying over and over, please help me.  Yet we just tell ourselves that everything is or should be ok.  Or we take something to make those pesky symptoms go away, so we don’t feel anything at all, and then go right back to doing what has been making us sick or sad.  In this culture, feeling nothing is considered much better than feeling sad.  In other words, ignoring our own pleas.  Until our body gives us no choice but to listen...for example:  cancer, heart attacks, strokes, autoimmune diseases of all sorts, debilitating back pain.  Pain or diseases that immediately threaten our lives. 

Instead, I’m suggesting that you become more sensitive to your feelings, discover your needs, trust your body and respond accordingly.  Listen with a curiosity.  Treat your pain as an indicator that your body’s warning system is working perfectly, rather than an idea of failure.  For example:  If you eat something bad, and you get diarrhea or throw up, you may feel bad, but it would be much worse if your system didn’t have a mechanism to get the poison out.  Forcing our bodies to ‘hold it in’ would be significantly painful, and ultimately impossible.  It is with this same understanding and respect that all (or at least most of our ‘symptoms) could be treated.

In general, we are united against bullying, and would stand up for anyone who is asking for help.  This is a now famous video from Jonah Mowry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdkNn3Ei-Lg  which has brought many of us to tears. 

Please think about considering yourself, your pain, your feelings, and emotions with the same tenderness and care that you would a little child asking for help.  Please stop bullying yourself.