Category: Wisdom

The Million Dollar Question

Million Dollar Question

Expectancy theory states, that which we focus on expands. If we continue to allow ourselves to focus on problems, we will actually have more problems. Conversely, asking and answering the question—what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?—within sixty seconds of a problem arising, literally causes our level of optimism and success to grow.

Any time you catch yourself thinking about what is going wrong in your life, be relentless about asking this question (what is one thing I can do differently that could make this better?). Keep asking until you identify a potential solution to your problem.

The mere identification of a potential plan for a solution is helpful, as it breaks the negative cycle of thought. You will obviously need to put energy into the execution of the solution, but the essential first step in getting started is realizing that something can be done to improve any situation.

Source: The Million Dollar Question [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like the rest of author Jason Selk’s perspective. I’m trying to apply this to a situation that happened yesterday; I received a horrible, hurtful, hateful email full of shame and blame from a friend. The worst part is that I actually have to consider whether or not some of it is true, and if so, what should I do about it. I’ll have to think about what Jason says…

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A Declaration Of Deserving

Danielle LaPorte shares this today…

A Declaration of Deserving:

You are worthy of your desires. Really wanting what you want gives you the power to get it. You were born free. (The more you try to earn your freedom, the more trapped you become.) You are worthy of love and respect. Lovable.

You deserve

: eye contact

: smiles in the morning

: food made with pure intention

: clean drinking water, fresh air

: Hello, Please, Thank you.

: time to think about it

: a chance to show them what you’re made of

: a second chance

: an education

: health care, including dental

: multiple orgasms

: weekends and the summer off

: eight hours of sleep

: play before work

: to change your mind

: to say no

: to say yes

: to have your deepest needs met

: to be seen

: to be loved for what is seen.

You deserve all this just because you showed up.

Yep, you’re that monumental.

Source: A Declaration Of Deserving…Just Because You’re Here [BLOG] « Positively Positive

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of her thoughts on the topic…

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Healthy Relationships

Icon from Nuvola icon theme for KDE 3.x.

I stumbled upon this this morning…

Communication is a key part to building a healthy relationship. The first step is making sure you both want and expect the same things — being on the same page is very important. The following tips can help you create and maintain a healthy relationship:

  • Speak Up. In a healthy relationship, if something is bothering you, it’s best to talk about it instead of holding it in.
  • Respect Your Partner. Your partner’s wishes and feelings have value. Let your significant other know you are making an effort to keep their ideas in mind. Mutual respect is essential in maintaining healthy relationships.
  • Compromise. Disagreements are a natural part of healthy relationships, but it’s important that you find a way to compromise if you disagree on something. Try to solve conflicts in a fair and rational way.
  • Be Supportive. Offer reassurance and encouragement to your partner. Also, let your partner know when you need their support. Healthy relationships are about building each other up, not putting each other down.
  • Respect Each Other’s Privacy. Just because you’re in a relationship, doesn’t mean you have to share everything and constantly be together. Healthy relationships require space.

Source: Healthy Relationships | www.loveisrespect.org

Go to the source if you’d like to know more…

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Using Others to Stop Our Pain

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Melody Beattie has some thoughts I wanted to share with you this morning…

Our happiness is not a present someone else holds in his or her hands. Our well-being is not held by another to be given or withheld at whim. If we reach out and try to force someone to give us what we believe he or she holds, we will be disappointed. We will discover that it is an illusion. The person didn’t hold it. He or she never shall. That beautifully wrapped box with the ribbon on it that we believed contained our happiness that someone was holding — it’s an illusion!

In those moments when we are trying to reach out and force someone to stop our pain and create our joy, if we can find the courage to stop flailing about and instead stand still and deal with our issues, we will find our happiness.

Yes, it is true that if someone steps on our foot, he or she is hurting us and therefore holds the power to stop our pain by removing his or her foot. But the pain is still ours. And so is the responsibility to tell someone to stop stepping on our feet.

Healing will come when were aware of how we attempt to use others to stop our pain and create our happiness. We will heal from the past. We will receive insights that can change the course of our relationships.

We will see that, all along, our happiness and our well­being have been in our hands. We have held that box. The contents are ours for the opening.

God, help me remember that I hold the key to my own happiness. Give me the courage to stand still and deal with my own feelings. Give me the insights I need to improve my relationships. Help me stop doing the codependent dance and start doing the dance of recovery.

Source: March 1: Using Others to Stop Out Pain | Language of Letting Go

Here’s the dirty little secret. This blog is only a public scrapbook of the things I need to remember for myself. If it happens to resonate with anyone else that’s a blessing as well. Did anyone else need to hear this today?

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You Are Not A Victim

Todd LohenryHere’s a kick in the pants from Kute Blackson…

You are not a victim.

Regardless of what might have happened in your past.

You have a choice in this moment to choose what your experience of yourself and life will be today.

Now.

If you want to be happy, being a victim doesn’t serve you in any way.

It takes real courage to forgive and let go. It takes courage to take responsibility for your inner experience, especially when someone has wronged or hurt you.

The degree to which you take responsibility for your inner experience determines the degree of freedom that you will experience in your life.

So how much freedom do you want to experience?

You choose

There are many things you will never be in control of in life. This is a fact.

The weather.
The Traffic.
Other people’s opinions of you.
The government.
The media.
Your spouse or lover.
The stock market.

But you have the choice to choose your interpretation of what happens. And to choose again until the choice you choose serves your true happiness.

Source: You Are Not A Victim. Own Your Power!

Go to the source if and read the rest of Kute’s post if this resonates with you. Own your own power!

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Say good-bye to past trauma and hurt…

 

The time evolution of the probability density ...

Mastin Kipp shared something that I know someone needs to hear…

Let us review the definition of trauma from the good ole Merriam Webster’s:

Trauma (N):  A disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

A lot of people get so identified with what happened, that they stay there, always identified by what happened and, in many cases using that identification as an excuse not to grow.

Now, I am by NO MEANS diminishing that fact that crazy shit happens in life. Bad things happen to good people. There is all kinds of suffering in the world. But that doesn’t have to be where we LIVE!

You see, there are some key words in Webster’s definition. The first word is “state”. The state you are in changes during the day. Sometimes you are in a sleep state, sometimes you are in a groggy state, sometimes you are in an excited state, and if you are lucky enough to be with a partner you Love and end up getting busy with them, you can be in a pretty excited state, too.

We humans can be in all kinds of different states. The state that we go into when we experience a trauma is totally normal and natural. But afterwards, because we are co-creators of our life, the state we stay in is up to us. This is why I love it when Tony Robbins said that there are no such thing as victims, because once the event happens it’s up to us to choose to stay in a victim identity or choose an empowered story and become stronger.

I can hear some of you right now screaming, “YES MASTIN BUT I WAS ________” and then fill in the blank. I’m not saying that these things didn’t happen and that in that moment you aren’t a victim. Of course you are. But after that moment happens, how you live your life, where you choose to live emotionally is up to you and the meaning you give the events of your life! Moments of victimhood happen, a life of being a victim is chosen and we become a victim of our choice to identify with that moment, instead of growing past it.

The goal is not to avoid pain or to deny what happened to us; the goal is to learn that we have the power within us to change and that starts by not letting an event define us. Instead, we know that painful events happen and when they do, we give them an empowering meaning and choose not to relive and make our identity the trauma that we felt.

Source: Bye Bye Past Trauma & Hurt! Here Comes The Sun Baby!

Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of his post. Choose life!

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The magic in your mind

Have you read this? I only recently came across it thanks to blogger David Kanigan @ Lead. Learn. Live.

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7 Signs you are in an emotionally abusive relationship

Cover of "The Emotionally Abusive Relatio...

If the title caught your eye, you may need to read this post from Shannon Cook…

Let’s face it – relationships are tough and always require work to succeed. If both parties are invested and make an effort, the reward can be a mutually satisfying, long lasting union. But what if one of the partners is abusive? It is possible that the problems you are having in your relationship and the dejection you feel over it is not your fault. You may be partnered with someone who is an emotional and psychological abuser.

This type of abuse can be trickier to detect than say, physical abuse. The effects of verbal and psychological abuse can be more subtle.   Fortunately, there are some clear signs to look for if you suspect that this type of abuse is happening in your relationship (or someone else’s you care about)…

Source: 7 Signs You Are in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship « Just say NO to Toxic Relationships

Go to the source if you’d like to know what the 7 signs are…

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How Safe We Are

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Charles Spurgeon

John Piper shares some good thoughts on the Desiring God blog…

Matthew 10:30:

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Charles Spurgeon:

You all take care of yourselves to some extent, but which of you ever took so much care of himself as to count the hairs of his head? But God will not only protect our limbs, but even the growth of hair is to be seen after. And how much this excels all the care of our tenderest friends!

Look at the mother, how careful she is. If her child has a little cough, she notices it: the slightest weakness is sure to be observed. She has watched all its motions anxiously, to see whether it walked right, whether all its limbs were bound, and whether it had the use of all its powers in perfection; but she has never thought of numbering the hairs of her child’s head, and the absence of one or two of them would give her no great concern. But our God is more careful of us, even than a mother with her child — so careful that he numbers the hairs of our head. How safe are we, then, beneath the hand of God!

Charles Spurgeon, sermon #187: “Providence.”

Source: How Safe We Are – Desiring God

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Getting love

The Rolling Stones' "Tongue and Lip Desig...

Some good thoughts from Melody Beattie that I wanted to share with you this morning…

I know. We didn’t get loved the way we wanted. Some of us have spent years picking through the messy issues of parents who had unusual ways of showing love or who didn’t show love at all.

We may have had spouses who were dreadful at showing love. Issues like alcoholism and other dysfunc­tions can genuinely interfere with a person’s ability to love. Some of us took that personally.We looked around and the only conclusion we could come up with is that we weren’t lovable.

Some of us need to grieve the absence of love in our family of origin. We may have missed an important emo­tional lesson while growing up, and we barely realize it. That lesson is understanding how lovable we are.

Some of us learned to protect ourselves by caring for others, while refusing to let love into our own lives. We found that it is easier to shut down and not be open to love, rather than be denied love.

After a while, we stop seeing the love that is there for us. We refuse the small gestures that may mean a tremen­dous amount to the person offering them. These gestures include words of concern, support, understanding, assis­tance, kindness, or a genuine expression of like or love. If we don’t believe we’re lovable, if we’re not open to seeing and receiving love, we’re going to miss more than just the love we missed in our childhood. We’re going to miss the love that is available for us now.

Challenge: The hardest part about letting people give us love can be softening that tough shell enough to let the gentle words and acts of love sink in.

Source: February 24 | Language of Letting Go

I have found, too, that expectations can be a problem for me. If I’m expecting more, sometimes I miss what is there. Remember the words of the great philosophers The Rolling Stones “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”

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Carl Jung’s five key elements to happiness

In 1960, journalist Gordon Young asked Jung, “What do you consider to be more or less basic factors making for happiness in the human mind?” Jung answered with five elements:

1. Good physical and mental health.
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.

Jung, always mindful of paradox, added, “All factors which are generally assumed to make for happiness can, under certain circumstances, produce the contrary. No matter how ideal your situation may be, it does not necessarily guarantee happiness.”

I did disagree strongly with Jung on one point. He said, “The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it.” I know, Carl Jung vs. Gretchen Rubin, who is the authority? But though many great minds, such as John Stuart Mill, make the same point as Jung, I don’t agree.

For me, at least, the more mindful I am about happiness, the happier I become. Take Jung’s five factors. By deliberately seeking to strengthen those elements of my life, I make myself happier.

Source: The Happiness Project: Carl Jung’s Five Key Elements to Happiness.

If Gretchen can disagree with Jung, so can I. My issue? The list appears random – I think there’s a sequence to these 5 steps that is important. I would reorder the list like this;

  1. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.
  2. Good physical and mental health.
  3. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
  4. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
  5. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.

Maybe I had too much of Maslow and his hierarchy of needs but it seems to me that there are certain items in the list that need to build upon the other, in other words, 1 affects your ability to do 2-5.  How about you? What’s your take on Jung, Rubin, Maslow and me?

Open-mouthed smile

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Do You REALLY Have What it Takes To BE LOVE?

Here are some more good thinks from Mastin Kipp of The Daily Love…

When we take time to actually understand people, our lives will change. There seems to be a theme in many of my clients lives lately, where they will complain about someone – and make them wrong for what they are thinking or how they are feeling.

Let me tell it to you straight – YOUR EMOTIONS ARE VALID AND REAL! Don’t let ANYONE tell you otherwise!

When we begin to have respect for the thoughts of others and we begin to cherish the feelings of others, as we do our own – we step into a larger world. Think about it. If you made a list of all your character defects – and saw that part of yourself loud and clear, would you say that even though you know you are that way, you let yourself off the hook? Well, then let us see others with Love and compassion and let them off the hook, too.

This doesn’t mean we have to tolerate abuse or anything like that, but it does mean that we can choose to see and encourage the best in others. And when we do that, a strange thing starts to happen – the best of who they are begins to emerge.

If we are constantly looking for what’s wrong, if we are constantly trying to see how someone messed up – we miss the miracle and we miss the blessing that is his or her presence in our life.

So when it comes to other people – I have a question, and answer honestly… What are you looking for in them? Are you looking for what’s right? Are you seeing them as doing the best that they can – are you giving compassion to them at the same level that you give to yourself or those that you Love?

AND – if you feel that other people are only looking for what’s wrong in you – can you send them Love and Compassion because you know that this is nothing but a projection of how they feel about themselves and has NOTHING to do with you? This is how we are being called to see the world – with the eyes of Love. We see the innocence; we see the pain of others and we do not take it personally because we know it is just a part of their projection. And, we know that we also project onto others, so we do our best to stop that and to send only Love. Sometimes, you have to send Love from a distance, but send Love anyway!

Do you have the courage to see life this way? Can you let go of the past hurts and step into the brandnew-ness of this now moment? Can you feel the Love within you that is dying to express and know that when it is expressed it will be returned to you 100-fold?

Source: Do You REALLY Have What it Takes To BE LOVE?

I don’t right now but maybe this will help. I’m thinking about how to apply this…

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How Much BLISS Can You Handle?

How Much BLISS Can You Handle?

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To Be Happier, Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments

Cover of "The Happiness Project: Or, Why ...

One of my favorite authors is Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project. Recently, she shared her thoughts on having your own set of personal commandments…

One of the most challenging—and most helpful and fun—tasks that I’ve done as part of my Happiness Project is to write my Twelve Personal Commandments. These aren’t specific resolutions, like make my bed, but the overarching principles by which I try to live my life.

It took me several months to come up with this list, and it has been very useful for me to have them identified clearly in my mind. It’s a creative way of distilling core values.

To get you started as you think about your own commandments, here are my Twelve Commandments:

1. Be Gretchen.
2. Let it go.
3. Act the way I want to feel.
4. Do it now.
5. Be polite and be fair.
6. Enjoy the process.
7. Spend out. (This is probably the most enigmatic of my commandments.)
8. Identify the problem.
9. Lighten up.
10. Do what ought to be done.
11. No calculation.
12. There is only love.

So how do you come up with your own list?

Consider phrases that have stuck with you. When I look at my Twelve Commandments, I realize that five of them are actually quotations from other people. My father repeatedly reminds me to “Enjoy the process.” A respected boss told me to “Be polite and be fair.” A good friend told me that she’d decided that “There is only love” in her heart for a difficult person. “No calculation” is a paraphrase of my spiritual master St. Therese (“When one loves, one does not calculate”), and “Act the way I want to feel” is a paraphrase of William James.

Aim high and fight the urge to be too comprehensive.I’ve found that my commandments help me most when I review them at least daily, to keep them fresh in my mind, and to do this, it helps to keep the list short and snappy. I suspect that Twelve Commandments is too much. Maybe I only need two, “Be Gretchen” and “There is only love.”

Think about what’s true for you.Each person’s list will differ. One person’s commandment is to “Say yes,” another person’s commandment is to “Say no.” You need to think about yourself, your values, your strengths and weaknesses, your interests.

Source: The Happiness Project: To Be Happier, Write Your Own Set of Personal Commandments.

Is happiness an issue for you? You might benefit from Gretchen’s work. I have!

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Being right

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In recovery, we are learning how to strive for love in our relationships, not superiority. Yes, we may need to make decisions about people’s behavior from time to time. If someone is hurting us, we need to stand up for ourselves. We have a responsibility to set boundaries and take care of ourselves. But we do not need to justify taking care of ourselves by condemning someone else. We can avoid the trap of focusing on others instead of ourselves. In recovery, we are learning that what we do needs to be right only for us. What others do is their business and needs to be right only for them. It’s tempting to rest in the superiority of being right and in analyzing other people’s motives and actions, but it’s more rewarding to look deeper. Today, I will remember that I don’t have to hide behind being right. I don’t have to justify what I want and need with saying something is “right” or “wrong.” I can let myself be who I am.

Beattie, Melody (2009-12-15). The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series) (p. 47). Hazelden. Kindle Edition.

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Character online

One of my favorite Christian writers has gone video. Good stuff from Jon Swanson!

Hey, Jon! MORE…

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9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn

Leo Babauta
Image via Wikipedia

Leo Babauta has a great post that got me thinking this morning…

As someone who went from the corporate world and then the government world to the ever-changing online world, I know how the world of yesterday is rapidly becoming irrelevant. I was trained in the newspaper industry, where we all believed we would be relevant forever — and I now believe will go the way of the horse and buggy.

Unfortunately, I was educated in a school system that believed the world in which it existed would remain essentially the same, with minor changes in fashion. We were trained with a skill set that was based on what jobs were most in demand in the 1980s, not what might happen in the 2000s.

And that kinda makes sense, given that no one could really know what life would be like 20 years from now. Imagine the 1980s, when personal computers were still fairly young, when faxes were the cutting-edge communication technology, when the Internet as we now know it was only the dream of sci-fi writers like William Gibson.

We had no idea what the world had in store for us.

And here’s the thing: we still don’t. We never do. We have never been good at predicting the future, and so raising and educating our kids as if we have any idea what the future will hold is not the smartest notion.

Source: » 9 Essential Skills Kids Should Learn :zenhabits

When I was younger, I was a German major. I got to the doctoral level at the University of Illinois before I bailed on my degree work. Why? In part I was finding it was irrelevant. After 10 years of studying German, I had read German literature from every period – I had even read every word of Das Nibelungenlied in ‘Mittelhochdeutsch’ – middle high German – an academic language that never actually existed. I could quote Goethe, Schiller, Heine – I knew more about German literature than most Germans. I could not, however, speak ‘street’ German – ‘umgangsprache’ – with an everyday German. My training, in many ways was worthless…

My wife and I used to home school. Now our boys are in a public school. Each night we see them come home with no homework. No challenges. No critical thinking. We wonder what kind of preparation they are receiving. Leo’s post is a wake up call for me. Go to the source and read it all!

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Valentine’s Day

Valentine postcard, circa 1900–1910
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For children, Valentine’s Day means candy hearts, silly cards, and excitement in the air. How different Valentine’s Day can be for us as adults. The Love Day can be a symbol that we have not yet gotten love to work for us as we would like. Or it can be a symbol of something different, something better. We are in recovery now. We have begun the healing process. Our most painful relationships, we have learned, have assisted us on the journey to healing, even if they did little more than point out our own issues or show us what we don’t want in our life. We have started the journey of learning to love ourselves. We have started the process of opening our heart to love, real love that flows from us, to others, and back again. Do something loving for yourself. Do something loving and fun for your friends, for your children, or for anyone you choose. It is the Love Day. Wherever we are in our healing process, we can have as much fun with it as we choose. Whatever our circumstances, we can be grateful that our heart is opening to love. I will open myself to the love available to me from people, the Universe, and my Higher Power today. I will allow myself to give and receive the love I want today. I am grateful that my heart is healing, that I am learning to love.

Beattie, Melody (2009-12-15). The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series) (pp. 43-44). Hazelden. Kindle Edition.

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Friendship reminder

Rear view for two children going on summer field

Friendship reminder… – notsalmon

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Prayer doesn’t work

Scan of a Valentine greeting card dated 1909.
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One of my favorite Christian writers, Jon Swanson, reposted some very pithy content a few days ago…

I’d like to return this Valentine’s Day card.”

I can help you with that. … Um, you know that this has writing on it, right?

“Yep. I wrote that.”

You can’t return cards that have been used.

“Two weeks ago, I was in here. I bought a sweater. The first time I wore it, the sleeve started to unravel. You took that back.”

Yep. The sweater was defective. How’s the new one?

“Great. Thanks. Now, about that card?”

But you can’t return cards that have been used.

“The other month, I was in here. I had a toaster. It didn’t heat up. You took that back.”

Yep. The toaster was defective. Were you able to find another one?

“I went to another store and they were able to give me what I wanted. Now, about that card.”

But you can’t return cards that have been used.

“I wore the sweater. You took it back. I used the toaster. You took it back. Why are you making a scene about the card?”

It’s different. You can’t return cards that have been used.

“But it didn’t work. I wrote in it. I gave it to my wife. And it didn’t work. So I would like a refund.”

What do you mean, exactly, that it didn’t work?

“Isn’t that a little personal? I mean, you have pictures of men handing women cards and the women smiling.  And pictures of men handing women chocolate and the women smiling. And I won’t even start to tell you what happened when other stores showed pictures of men handing women diamond bracelets. But it didn’t work.”

You mean your wife didn’t smile when you handed her the card?

“It was more of a snort.”

When was this?

“On the 16th. I got it when they were marked down.”

Source: Prayer doesn’t work (a repost) | 300 words a day

Ponder that for awhile…

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Unfinished business

Unfinished business doesn’t go away. It keeps repeating itself, until it gets our attention, until we feel it, deal with it, and heal.

Beattie, Melody (2009-12-15). The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series) (p. 39). Hazelden. Kindle Edition.

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