Jul 16, 2019
Dr. Phil said, “when you chose the behavior, you choose the consequences.” At first this seems like an easy concept to grasp and agree with. But, let’s look deeper.
Every choice you make generates hundreds maybe thousands maybe millions of outcomes. Many of those outcomes or results or situations are negative, painful, hurtful, and can even ruin your entire life. And, what is more annoying is most of our choices are made like this, It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Let’s look at some choices and then think about all the possible outcomes, from the positive to the worst case scenarios.
- Dating
- Marriage
- Having children
- Driving a car
- Being hired for a job
- Using drugs/alcohol
- Eating
- Traveling
- Going to school
- Launching a business
- Staying home
- Participating in a sport
- Choosing a hair stylist
- Spending money
And, of course, we make hundreds of choices all day long from small to big. When something turns out negatively; we get in a car crash, our children are disrespectful, our partner cheats on us, our washing machine floods our floor, etc. When these things happen we do not see our choice point in all of this. We quickly go into victim. “Why me?”. “Why is this happening to me?” “What am I going to do now?” “This is not fair!”, etc. But, here is the thing, when you chose the behavior, when you make a choice, which you do all the time, whether it feels like a choice or not, every outcome YOU HAD TO DO WITH. You get in a car crash (which was not your fault) you chose to drive and be on the road. Your partner cheats on you-you chose that partner and to be in a relationship. Your kids are driving you nuts? You chose to have kids (“No I didn’t, my pregnancy was unplanned”) Hmm, I wonder what choice you made (planned or unplanned) that could result in pregnancy?
There are some circumstances in life we did not choose-cancer diagnosis or disease, being raped or a victim of a crime, a natural disaster for example. Our choice point there is how we are going to cope and heal from this tragedy?
Owning all your life circumstances, searching for the silver lining, reframing the circumstance into something meaningful to you, means that you are on the path to an empowered life. That you are in charge of your life. That, yes, there are waves but you are learning to surf. This is not easy, nor is it the norm. (The norm is to be a victim, whine, complain, be disappointed, angry and resentful when life doesn’t go our way).
Step out of the victim mentality and instead chose to have the courage to own, embrace and learn from every choice you make.
Jul 5, 2019
The key to living life from an empowered position, instead of a victim position Is finding and taking ownership of your choice points. In each moment we have hundreds of choices but we so often are unconscious about realizing this is the truth. For instance, the choice you are making at this moment is to read these words. What other choices could you be making? You could, choose to read something else, or take a walk, prepare something to eat, talk or text on the phone, jump up and down on the couch, find scissors and cut your hair off, sing, do 20 jumping jacks… you get my point. While this can sound a bit ridiculous it is true that the choice to read this blog at this moment seemed like the only choice at the time you could make, as it was the choice you made. We so conveniently forget that every moment of life with every choice we make is OUR choice, the one we chose. So, if it is true we are making choices every second isn’t it also true we should take accountability for the outcome?
The little test you can try is to say to yourself. “Did someone have a gun pointed at my head?” Because if they did your choices got very narrow. And, of course, the choices we make every given second are most likely not with a gun to our heads. We freely and willingly make our choices. When we feel like we are victims in our situations we can say, instead of, “poor me”, “How did I do this to me?” You might say, “I hate this stupid Seattle traffic!!” Blame puts you immediately in the victim position (something or someone is persecuting you, you feel disempowered). Moving out of victim you say “How did I do this to me? I chose to live in Seattle, drive a car and the reality is, there is almost always traffic.” I mean you could choose to move to Wyoming and live on the prairie. The point is when we look at life through the lens of ownership of all our choices and all the possible outcomes, we live an empowered non-victim lifestyle and more rewarding lifestyle. More on this….
Jul 2, 2019
What is this no victims only volunteers business? Living an empowered life, whereby you move out of a victim position into one of influence and meaning, involves volunteering to see your situation with a different lens. This is not easy, searching for another viewpoint or perspective in which to find the silver lining in situations when you feel grief, anger, disappointment or frustration. Especially when there is so much circumstantial evidence that someone or something is to blame outside of yourself. That you, in fact, didn’t ask for this, that you were simply an innocent bystander who was wronged.
Of course, you can feel this way, of course, you can not live a life without hundreds, maybe thousands of challenging experiences or, perhaps, just one devastating experience that almost destroys you. To live is to experience many suffering situations. However, what if your power came from the creation of a more meaningful (to you) viewpoint? What if you could say, “I am grateful that the biggest problem I am waking up to today is my coffee pot that didn’t work right, especially when there are so many other people who are waking up wondering how they are going to eat to sustain their life?” What if those five loads of laundry sitting on your bed waiting to be folded were reminders that the people you love the most were alive and well? And, what if when tragedy strikes, you search for something positive, something that challenges you to see that there was good in that situation, that there was love and support and an inner strength you did not know you could draw from?
What if your suffering was a wake-up call, that others you know have faced similar or worse situations and you did not reach out to them, you did not fully empathize or sympathize and so now you have become a more caring and loving person? And, when the tough times come, and you are too scared to leave your home or are frozen with anxiety or fear, what if you chose to rise above the situation, and look for resources to heal, to actively pursue support, care and help? What if you were committed to finding joy again, to see the beauty in life, even with your broken heart and spirit? That determination is moving from victim to volunteer, it is the willingness to have personal power in all your life situations so you come from ownership and accountability and a sense of being at the steering wheel of your life and not losing yourSelf in blame, anger and resentment.
More on this with the next Waking Wise…
Jun 28, 2019
There are so many times in our daily life we can feel victimized, from the smallest incident to the biggest. For example, if you set the timer on your coffee maker to go off at 6:00 am and instead of brewing that morning cup of pleasure to get your day started, it does nothing. You might feel upset, curious, and most likely frustrated and disappointed. You search for what went wrong with that damn timer or you search for someone to blame. You are smack dab in the victim position. In order to feel powerless, or bullied or victimized there has to be a persecutor, something or someone you can blame for why you suddenly feel trapped, hurt, disappointed or wronged. There are those devastating circumstances of feeling victimized; the loss of a loved one, or job, car accident, or you were the victim of a crime, or get a scary diagnosis. Again, you feel a loss of power or influence over your safety and wellbeing, you feel angry, or that life is not fair and why is this happening to me?
From the smallest incident to the most devastating circumstances, you can feel like a victim.
But, what if there are no victims; only volunteers? More on this with my next Waking Wise…
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Jun 24, 2019
About 9 months ago I decided to try “Sober October” as I knew I had made alcohol too big of a habit in my life. I am health conscious with the food I eat, but somehow, alcohol always got a free pass. I often didn’t want to consider the harmful effects nor did I want to count the calories when I was on a weight loss streak (which is a daily challenge). I committed to Sober October and signed up for The Sober School’s 6-week class called “Getting Unstuck” on Facebook. I liked Kate Bee’s attitude about drinking and I did not consider myself anywhere near a candidate for AA. I just wanted to take a break. Much to my surprise,,. 9 months later I have been alcohol-free. This is a personal spiritual journey: being conscious in every moment of my life, of handling stress head-on, of celebrating the fun in life socially and emotionally without raising a glass of champagne or sharing a bottle of wine with friends. It is sitting on the patio on a sunny evening with a sparkling glass of Pellegrino, being awake and aware and feeling optimally healthy. The belief system around being alcohol-free is that life will be less fun, that we will always long for a drink, but I found this to be the opposite for me. Life is better without alcohol, in more ways than I will write about now. If you are curious about trying the path of giving alcohol a break, you can message me on FB at https://www.facebook.com/gailmanahanauthor or email at [email protected]. I am happy to support you if you are “sober curious.” Cheers!
