![Becoming You]()
Aug 12, 2019
“Sometimes, to our dismay, we find that we have been living someone else’s life, that their values have and are directing our choices. While this life we are leading never quite feels right, it seems to be the only alternative. Even when we win the applause of others, we secretly feel fraudulent.”
“Moreover, virtually all of us lack a deep sense of permission to lead our own lives. We learned very early that the world exacted conditions that, if not met, could result in punishment or abandonment. That message, overlearned and internalized, remains a formidable block to the ego’s capacity to elect its own path. (James Hollis, Finding Meaning the Second Half of Life).
The commitment to be awake in your life, to step back and be the observer of you being you in your daily life and to course-correct as needed, is a commitment that is born out of courage, being open-minded and being more committed to the journey than the destination.
Jul 31, 2019
“What is as important as knowledge?” asked the mind. “Caring and seeing with the Heart” answered the Soul. (Flavia).
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….
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…
Jun 17, 2019
You have probably heard the expression, “You need to fill your cup” which is a metaphor for taking care of yourself first, before everyone else. Unfortunately, a woman’s default button is first taking care of everyone and everything before putting herself first. And, when a woman does put herself first it may be squeezed in during the day or evening after everyone else is getting their needs met. I know some women who can’t even get to the gym or a yoga class till 8:00pm, long after they had gotten the family off to school or work, got themselves off to work, worked all day, hit the grocery store, made dinner, did the dishes, put the kids to bed then went to the gym: at the time they should be relaxing and pouring themselves into bed. That 45 minutes of working out, helped fill their cup. BUT THAT IS NOT ENOUGH!
Women are often irritable, cranky, angry and generally unhappy because they do not put themselves first for an extended amount of time. This could mean an entire day to themselves, or a weekend or a week or Heaven forbid two weeks! And yet, I can bet that the men in their lives regularly go golfing, hunting, hiking, fishing, or even travel to beautiful locations for a few days or a week for work, which is often combined with plenty of fun and no family to take care of since you know who is taking care of the family back home.
I guarantee when you commit to your own well being and mental health by filling your cup-making plans for you to exit stage left and enjoy something that is just yours, that you are not sharing with anyone who you also feel the need to take care of. Commit to at least twice a year, or once every month or SOMETHING and make a plan to go do what you love and leave all the rest to all those other adults in your life who can handle everything you do (well, they won’t do it as well as you do but that is ok, everyone will survive!) So, plan, commit and go! Everyone in your life will be better off because you took care of just you.
Jun 14, 2019
Do you think at times that your friends and other people are just running around living these amazing lives, all happy and energetic and enjoying life to the fullest? While you may be coping with your own mental health issues such as depression or anxiety, feeling sluggish and tired, unmotivated, a bit burned out and not exactly thrilled about anything on your horizon; it is easy to imagine that everyone else on your social media accounts, or your friends and family and neighbors are all just livin the dream. I know for sure that is not true. I know for sure because I am a counselor and have heard the stories of people’s lives behind the scenes, behind their front doors, and I am a witness that absolutely no one’s life is fabulous day after day. I was recently reminded of this on my walk yesterday through my neighborhood. Admiring all the different pretty homes and yards and wondering who lives there, and what their lives are like. When I would pass an especially expensive beautiful home, I would imagine that their lives were especially better than mine. While I know that is absolutely not true, that anyone who is human will struggle with life at some time, if not daily. Everyone is coping with something, whether it is finances, marriage problems, going through a divorce or losing someone they love, a scary diagnosis, loss of a job, problems and worries about their kids, estranged or challenging relationships with relatives, battling weight, aging, and appearance issues, and simply feeling stuck in a life that they simply do not want to live in anymore. The Buddha said, “To Live is To Suffer” and that we can only find peace, contentment and joy by realizing our own suffering and knowing that everyone else has their own suffering. When we accept that we are all in the same boat, sharing the same human experience this should move us towards compassion towards everyone we meet and come in contact with and of course those we love. Everyone could use more compassion. So when you are driving, walking or running by them remember that each one of those homes has some pain, and some joy and hundreds of stories
