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The Ongoing Adventures of GrayBall-The-Brain ~ This episode: “The Worried Psychic.”
Monday, November 4th, 2019
“I no longer question whether or not the future can be changed. Instead, I question whether or not the future exists as future. I think not.” (jc)
I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want happiness and peace of mind. All living creatures want to be okay.
I think it’s built into the Big-Bang Blueprint.
Even people obsessed with acquiring objects are trying to get something they believe is vital to their well-being. They just go about it poorly thinking that owning things is the secret to having peace.
It isn’t.
GrayBall-The-Brain, the principal in our story, (henceforth known as GrayBall for short, or Brain for shorter) has some peculiar behaviors. I want to discuss its tendency to compare, looking for negative, scary things. It’s a survival mechanism. Had it been unable to distinguish between what’s helpful or harmful, none of us would be here.
But when basic survival skills for GrayBall become obsessions of the mind, unhappiness becomes a lifestyle; a way of being.
That’s what happens when Brain compares what it desires to what it actually has. Thinking that it needs the object of its desire to be happy, GrayBall feels unhappy NOW, begins to worry, and becomes anxious about its future. It might never get what it wants.
You know anyone like that?
I do. I have a friend who says she worries about everything.
“Everything is a lot to be worried about,” I said.
I asked her to make a list.
She did. It really was everything.
Yikes!
The last item was ‘worried about being worried.’ Kind of a tough spot she’s in, wouldn’t you say?
Strictly speaking, no one can be worried about everything because no one knows what everything is. So, we got to work and narrowed it down to specifics.
If you’re worried about future events that may or may not happen,
you’re worried about something that isn’t real.
All the items on her revised list were of possible-scary-future events. And fear and worry are future dependent.
Nobody worries about what might happen in their past, because the past is over.
No one worries about an event that occurred in their past, either–unless they’re thinking about how it might effect their future. See?
My friend was focusing on the scary things that might or could, happen.
But what might happen, also might not happen. Almost anything could happen, but it also could not happen. And most things that could’ve happened–never did happen. (Think about that one.)
Anyway, I’m very worried about her. (Ahem)
My young friend was anticipating disaster instead of planning for the best and watching for the unexpected,. That’s what scared her.
But nothing on her list was real as a concrete fact. GrayBall-the-Brain was playing the worried psychic.
I said, “If you can predict the future, why not become a professional psychic. You’d get rich, and your money worries will disappear.”
She asked me what she should do.
“About what? None of your problems are real.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not helping, Jim!”
“There’s no answer to your question, because it’s not a real problem. You’re making it up,” I said.
She shot back. “I’m not making it up! You’re not making any sense!”
“Then show me the facts as you know them for certain. Show me the evidence. Can you take a picture of your scary future and hold it in your hands? If not, it isn’t real. It’s in your mind.”
“I’m going on the evidence of my past. A bad past means I’m going to have a bad future. That’s how I know.” (Read that bit again and see if you can spot the error in her thinking.)
The future doesn’t exist as a fact. It’s all imagined.
“But the past is gone.” I said. “It’s only a memory. And an unreliable memory, at best. Show me concrete evidence of how your past means your future. You can’t because the meaning isn’t there! What you’re worried about isn’t real. Your brain is making up scary stories, and you believe them. Brain thinks that imagining a scary future will protect you by keeping you hyper-vigilant. That’s your real problem.”
“So what do I do?”
“Make up a better story with a happier future.” I said. “Imagine a possible future you can be in love with. Create a plan and work toward that.”
“How do I do that?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you how in Part II. In the meanwhile, I want you to consider something.”
“What, more PICTURES-OF-EVIDENCE?” She had taken a tone.
I went all zen-ish on her. “Anything that hasn’t happened yet can change,” I said. “But nothing can be changed before it has happened.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? It’s like I’m talking to Yoda!”
“Yeah, well, think about it. It’ll mess with your mind. That could be a good thing.”
“Thanks, dweeb!”
Stay tuned for “The Practical Approach to a Worry-Free Brain” coming next installment.
Hi. Welcome to my Universe.
If you enjoyed this, please Like, Share, Tweet, Comment, or everything to the left of this dot.
And thanks for being you. You’re the only you there will ever be. That makes you awesome.
Yesterday’s News
Tuesday, March 26th, 2019
The story of our Now is eventually Yesterday’s News.
If we enacted even half of our mental patterns—the stuff we do in our heads—out in the real world, we would immediately see a kind of insanity taking place. Here’s one example of what I mean.
Imagine you’ve decided to get a ticket for a highly rated show. You go to considerable lengths to ensure your future experience. You camp out in line for hours, endure freezing weather, and then pay a small fortune for your ticket.
You’ve waited weeks for the big day to arrive, and finally it’s here!
Now, you drive through a snow storm, wait in another long line to get into the event, and endure the occasional rude person before finding your seat. You sit eagerly anticipating a wonderful show, only to discover it’s the worst experience you’ve ever had. Baahhh!
Okay, so you’re hugely disappointed—maybe even a little sad, betrayed, or angry—that THIS PRESENT MOMENT EXPERIENCE is not all that you want it to be. But eventually, not soon enough for you, the show ends. You leave the venue a little older, a little disappointed, but none the worse for wear.
I have a question. Would you—after all of this—eagerly buy a ticket to attend the same event again the next day? I’m imagining your answer is, “Of course not! Why would I go back? That would be almost masochistic!”
That’s because no one in their right mind would willingly purchase a ticket to re-experience an unhappy event. And your old ticket will soon wind up in the trash—and out it will go—along with yesterday’s news.
But here’s where it get’s interesting.
Why then, upon leaving the event, do some of us feel immediately compelled to call or text our friends to tell them what a terrible experience we just had? Metaphorically speaking, buying a mental ticket to an unhappy event we only moments ago said we wouldn’t re-purchase a physical ticket to experience again? Clearly, we’re psychically reliving our misery, aren’t we?
And for some of us, for the next few days—maybe even months—we’ll repeatedly re-purchase a ticket by narrating the story of our unhappy experience.
It was the worst night ever! I can’t believe I wasted my time and money! I’ll never go to another show by that group again!
Blame it on GrayBall, The Brain. Our ongoing complaint is GrayBall’s desperate—and totally ineffective—attempt to make right our past (this should never have happened to me) or defend our future (I’ll never let it happen again).
It fools us into believing that the solution to our unhappiness can be achieved in regurgitating our past—that somehow we can right the wrongs and avoid future failure. So, it takes yesterday’s news and writes today’s, and sometimes next week’s, headline with it.
You see, Brain likes to make up rules that the world should live by. That way it can know what’s going to happen next; it’s a survival thing. Unfortunately, Brain’s version of “how things should be” often conflict with the reality of “how things really are.”
Here’s GrayBall’s logic: “I had a rule for how this was supposed to be. It wasn’t fair that this should have happened to me. Therefore, I need to complain and get people to agree with my point of view. This way I can feel triumphant—as in, I win”—when someone agrees with my self-generated unhappiness. And, I need to reinforce my unhappiness so that I can avoid future unhappiness. After all, if it happened once, it can happen again; and I wouldn’t like that one bit! Making myself unhappy is my way of reminding myself that I don’t want to be unhappy again.
Poor GrayBall! It can get so confused at times. It believes the only way it can feel “okay,” is to try to correct the past and/or make safe the future.
This is why, when we’ve had a bad experience, GrayBall encourages us to replay it over and over again in our mind. So, we repeat unhappy stories to ourselves and to anyone willing to listen. GrayBall’s reading yesterday’s news as though it were today.
GrayBall’s tricked us into believing that we can make ourselves feel better now and in the future with this crazy strategy. We keep on repurchasing tickets to bad memory shows we would never physically choose to attend again. Because we don’t question this mental habit, we never uncover the truth about how crazy it actually is.
Is this beginning to sound familar? It should. We all do it. We don’t realize we’re buying a mental ticket to unhappiness. By remembering and reciting an unhappy history, we’re reliving it. And GrayBall makes it all too easy to get caught up in our own stories. But nothing changes when you’re reliving it. It’s just the same old, same old—yesterday’s news.
But, take heart. Time doesn’t exist in the way GrayBall would have us believe. It’s simply a strategy that helps us measure the Great Unfolding of Life—in other words, change. There’s no Big Ben in the Universe’s Living Room ticking off the hours. The reality is that we’re carving up the Infinite Is-ness to accommodate our sense of personal history within it.
And—then again—even within our personal history, the past is gone and the future hasn’t happened yet. All we have is Now. And paradoxically, The Now is an eternal constant that is constantly changing. We are in fact on the edge of Creation. This moment—right now—has never in the history of Creation existed before. That is, of course, unless you get caught up in GrayBall’s version of Now, and imagine it’s still yesterday!
So here’s an interesting perspective shift to consider.
Your What Is will soon become your What Was—a history you can’t change. And once it’s gone, you can only report from it, like yesterday’s news.
Try instead to learn from it. Your past experiences can become an opportunity to make new choices, develop new skills, assume new perspectives, and create new responses. Essentially, you get to rewrite the news of yesterday with a new story line. And that can give you a different kind of history that actually might be worth repeating.
So the next time you find yourself complaining about your past experiences, stop for a moment. Put down that paper and check the date. This moment is the only moment in time there actually is. Otherwise it’s yesterday’s news!
One Simple Way to Immediately Improve Your Communication
Tuesday, September 30th, 2014
The meaning of communication is the response it gets.
Have you ever wondered why others sometimes misunderstand you, unexpectedly take offense, become argumentative or appear resistant to your ideas? You might be curious to learn there’s a surprising answer to that question.
Here’s one simple way to change the impact of your communication with anyone—starting today.
Yes, you read that right. One—simple—way. With–anyone. Starting–today.
It all has to do with two, very simple, three-letter words you use everyday. When you learn to substitute one for the other, you’ll create an entirely different result in your ability to communicate in a way that will make others stop and listen.
And here it is.
Stop using the word but, and start using the word and. These two words impart two very different meanings and the impact of making this change will astonish you.
Notice the difference between the two sentences below. As a listener, which would you rather hear from a loved one?
I love you, but please listen to me.
—or—
I love you and please listen to me.
The second sentence does a much better job of imparting the idea that the speaker, in all sincerity, loves the person to whom they are speaking, doesn’t it. This occurs because in the first sentence, the word but creates a contrast between two thoughts; but in the second, the word and creates a connection.
The power of changing this one little word makes all the difference.
Here’s why. The conjunction but is used to introduce a contrasting thought. Here are a few of the synonymous words and phrases for the word but: notwithstanding, despite that, nevertheless, then again, yet, even so, however, in spite of that.
In the first sentence—I love you, but I want you to listen to me—the first phrase, I love you, is contrasted against the second part. The word but disconnects the two thoughts and creates an impression that the second phrase, I want you to listen to me, trumps the first.
On the other hand (that would be a but), in the second sentence, the conjunction and is used to introduce a connecting, successive or additional thought.
And is used to impart that things are to be taken together or jointly. Here are a few words that are synonymous with the word and: together with, along with, including, with, as well as, in addition to, also, plus.
The beginning phase, “I love you” is connected to the second phrase. They are meant to be taken together, rather than apart. In this case, the word and includes the first phrase and ties it to the second.
Simply substituting the word and for but can be extremely effectively when you want your listener to feel that you want them to consider two ideas at once, as in the above example.
It can also be equally effectively when you want your listener to feel that you are including their idea as well as your own.
Notice the difference between the two sentences below. As a listener, which of them creates a sense of inclusion of your ideas?
I hear what you’re saying, but I still feel we need to get more information going forward.
—or—
I hear what you’re saying and I still feel we need to get more information going forward.
The word but in the first sentence in effect ‘blocks’ the other person’s idea; whereas the word and in the second includes it.
This not only helps to create a sense of inclusion for the listener, it serves as a reminder to you—as the speaker— to more fully consider them when considering your own. Who knew one little word could make such a big difference, right?
And you might be surprised, as you start to listen to how you and others are speaking, just how often people use the word but when an and would be far more effective.
So here’s today’s challenge. It might take a little deliberate noticing on your part, but start substituting the word and for but. It’s well worth the practice to stop yourself from using the word but when an and would be more appropriate. Try it for one day and see what happens.
Make a decision to get your but out of the way and starting today you’ll find that people will be far more open and agreeable to what you have to say.
5 Easy Steps for Making Life’s Lemons into Lemonade
Wednesday, September 24th, 2014
We all know the axiom, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” For sure, that’s sound advice but few of us actually know how to put the sweetness back into a situation once it’s gone sour.
One minute, life is going along just fine and then—calamity strikes. The kids aren’t paying attention, someone cuts you off in traffic, a co-worker undercuts you in front of the boss. You end up with a sour taste in your mouth, wishing you could get back to the sweet life.
It’s easier than you think. Here’s how to turn life’s lemons into lemonade in just five steps.
Step 1: Look beyond the situation by asking, “What do I think this means?”
You see it’s not the situation itself that’s the problem. It’s the meaning you’re giving it.
Ponder this for a moment: could a problem be a problem, if you didn’t think it was? One man’s problem is another man’s opportunity. How are you making this situation a problem for yourself?
Find out what meaning you’re giving to the situation, because it’s the real source of the sour taste in your mouth.
Step 2: Once you’ve identified the meaning you’ve assigned to the situation, challenge the meaning.
You can do this by asking, “Is this the only possible meaning this could have?”
Now, if you’re really being honest—and not just trying to be right—you’ll be quickly forced to acknowledge that, in a world of infinite possible meanings, your current meaning is vastly outnumbered.
Your current perspective is not the only one available to you, no matter how justified you feel in keeping your meaning. I know, it’s hard to let it go, so here’s a way to quell the arguments—realize that when you choose the meaning, you choose the feeling and behavior it generates.
Step 3: Pay attention to the feelings and behaviors that are generated when you give your “truth” to your original meaning.
Not very pleasant, right?
Notice that you’re giving your truth to this meaning, you’re not taking your truth from it. This truth is a relative truth, not an absolute one. I say relative, because in the whole of humanity, someone’s likely to see this situation differently than you do.
For instance: getting angry at your child because you’ve given your truth to the idea, “he/she doesn’t respect me,” might feel relatively true in the moment. However, asking yourself what else it might mean gives you an opportunity to look beyond the sour situation being created by your meaning.
You’ll have a better sense for whether or not your relative truth is helping or hindering the situation. Is your original meaning—and the anger and yelling it creates—helping or hindering your ability to communicate effectively with your child? Which bring us to step 4.
Step 4: Ask what you want to experience instead.
In other words, what result are you looking to bring about. Generally, this is the exact opposite of whatever emotion was being generated by the old meaning. This is where you transform anger into patience, frustration into understanding.
Step 5: Find a meaning that’s congruently aligned with a feeling and behavior you want to achieve.
You can do this by asking yourself, “What meaning could I give my truth to—one that would enable me to feel and behave differently?”
Your old meaning is no more true than this meaning. Remember that you’re the giver of truth.
What happens when you sincerely consider this as another possible meaning? However much you might want to reaffirm your old meaning, keep in mind—if you continue to choose it—you’ll be choosing the result it creates. Decide on a meaning that brings about the result you want.
For instance: Deciding that your child is over-tired, over-stimulated, or under-engaged is bound to bring about an entirely different approach to the ‘problem’ at hand. By redefining your meaning, you’ve redefined your resulting feelings and response.
So open up your lemonade stand, the people around you will suddenly like what you’re serving. You’ll find your situation is not so sour after all. In fact, it may get a whole lot sweeter right away.
Hiding in Plain Sight – The One Thing You’ve Been Looking For
Friday, August 15th, 2014
Have you ever lost something, only to later discover that it was hiding in plain sight? Perhaps, the note you just wrote—the one to remind yourself to remember—right along with your reading glasses?
What if I told you that there’s something you’ve been looking for—for the whole of your life—and that’s been under your nose the entire time you’ve been looking for it?
If you don’t already know what it is, let me give you a moment to ponder that before I tell you what it is. Let’s just say that it’s the single most important thing that any of us wants and will ever need, but we blindly look around it everyday. And, just like your elusive reading glasses, it’s been hiding in plain sight.
Here’s an illustration of what I mean. Imagine a woman—let’s call her Hope— is doggedly driving through an intense thunderstorm to meet a man she doesn’t even know yet. You see, Hope’s been looking for The One Thing in life that would make her happy—a relationship with the man of her dreams; and now, someone has kindly fixed her up on a blind date with a guy that seems to have everything she’s been looking for.
Earlier in the evening, as Hope is excitedly getting ready for her date, she makes sure that every hair is in place, rehearses her most charming smile, thinks of ten interesting things to bring up in conversation and frets that the outfit she’s wearing is maybe a little too tight in all the wrong places. After checking her imagine in the mirror a dozen times, she finally feels okay enough to venture out into the night to meet with Mr Right.
Then, just as she’s about to leave, the heavens open up in a crack of lightening, very quickly followed by what appears to be the Niagara River pouring out of the sky.
But our heroine is not to be deterred. With the reckless determination of a warrior going into battle, brandishing her umbrella, she sets out into the storm. Neither the flooded roads, nor the torrent of rain, lightening and—Oh, my god, that sounded like a bomb just went off—is going to keep her from her appointed hour. She’s on a quest to find the One Thing she knows is missing in her life. This one might be The One.
Soon Hope arrives at the coffee shop, just early enough to stop into the rest room for a last minute smooth down and fluff up. None the worse for wear, sitting down now, she waits for her date to arrive.
And then . . . she waits, and she waits, and then—she waits a little more. As the minutes tick off, her anxiety ratchets up. Forty-five minutes later, her thoughts begin to eddy and then whirlpool around a dreaded thought—Oh my god, the bas#@!d has stood me up!”
Poor Hope. She expected to be Cinderella meeting Prince Charming at the Ball only to end up with a ‘fine how do you do’ at Pity Party Central.
Utterly deflated, Hope feels like she’s somehow lost what she’s been looking for; which not so ironically, she never had in the first place. And in that, she wouldn’t be alone. In fact, she’d have tons of company.
How many times have you set your sights on the One Thing you thought would make you happy, only to find disappointment at the end, either because it didn’t arrive or, when it did, wasn’t all that you hoped it would be?
It might have been a new career or job, a new home, a new car, or—like Hope—a shiny new relationship. And how soon was it before the new car became the old car with balding tires, or the new lover became the idiot who never remembers to refill the gas tank in the aforesaid car? Hmm, makes you think, right?
For many of us, The One Thing we’re looking for quickly turns into a case of frustration in disguise. And if you’re counting yourself as one of the many, chances are you’ve found a ton of disappointment along the way. The fact is, in looking for what you think The One Thing is, you end up missing what you’re really looking for. But here’s the good news: it’s hiding in plain sight and there’s a way to take the blinders off.
Research shows that what we’re really looking for is mistakenly attached to the things we strive to get or achieve in life. Because what we truly want is an essential state of being we think we’ll experience when we finally get them.
So whether you’re looking for your dream job, the perfect lover, or enough money to buy that new car, what you’re really looking for is The One Thing we all want. Although we may use different words to describe what it is to us—whether it’s contentment, joy, happiness or peace—we’re all looking to find a way to feel completely okay in ourselves and our world.
But as long as you’re looking for conditions and things to satisfy your deepest longing for your One Thing, you’ll continue to look around it. On the other hand, the moment you let go of the conditions and things that you’ve attached to The One Thing—things that are completely outside your control—you’ll immediately discover being okay with yourself and your world has been hiding in plain sight.
We all want to find our The One Thing but, in looking for people, circumstances and things to be okay first, we put it outside our ability to find it. But that’s backward thinking—because if we discover and claim our essential okay-ness first, we’re suddenly able to be okay in a ‘not okay’ world. In other words, what’s happening in the world may not be entirely okay with you, but you can choose to be okay within it. Being okay doesn’t mean that you have to suffer the world as it is. You can work toward making changes and finding satisfaction in achieving your ambitions and desires and do it with an ‘essential okayness.’
You don’t need to wait around for it. Because a core state of okay-ness is not being sold at your local car dealership, something a new job will provide, a loved one can give you, or underneath the scratch off on a lottery ticket. If you look in the mirror, you only need look straight at it to see that it’s been there all along—hiding in plain sight.
The Three Thieves of Happiness
Monday, July 14th, 2014
Do you want to be happy? It’s a simple question. Or is it?
One of my favorite reads over the last few years has been The Untethered Soul, by Michael A. Singer.
Singer proposes that there is only one fundamental choice to make in life.
“The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have to approach life properly, or it can be very confusing. To begin with, you have to realize that you really only have one choice in this life, and it’s not about your career, whom you want to marry, or whether you want to seek God. People tend to burden themselves with so many choices. But, in the end, you can throw it all away and just make one basic, underlying decision: Do you want to be happy, or do you not want to be happy? It’s really that simple. Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear.”
So what’s your answer to this essential question: Do you want to be happy? Yes or no?
Okay, I’m a great psychic. You answered, yes. Didn’t you?
But did you really? Or did you actually answer the question, “Do you want to be happy, when and if?” Because—for most of us—our answer to the first question is really a qualified yes—as in, yes, as long as certain conditions are met first.
And it’s these qualifications that I’ve come to think of as The Three Thieves of Happiness.
So I’ve put out a BOLO—police lingo for be on the lookout—for these three thieves, along with a way to keep them from breaking into your House of Happiness.
Thief #1 — Wait For It, It Won’t Happen Until
This thief has convinced you that you must wait for your happiness. You can’t be happy until you get that job, meet the partner of your dreams, get in shape, or win the lottery. The idea that your happiness has to wait for some future condition has crept in and stolen the happiness right out from underneath your nose.
Here’s how to keep this thief out of your House of Happiness:
Being content or grateful for what you have now is the best defense against this thief. Even if you want something in your life to change, you can be happy while waiting for it.
Start by seeing the opportunity in your present condition. What you’re presently experiencing is a necessary part of the journey toward realizing your future dream. You can’t get there unless you travel the only road currently available to you.
It might be a little bumpy but it’s going to get you there, nevertheless. Even if you’re at the 50 mile marker on a 100 mile road, you’re on it. And once you arrive, your future dream will be there at the end of it. Just keep moving, and be grateful for the journey. If you haven’t arrived, yet, that doesn’t mean that you have to be unhappy the entire way there. You can choose to be happy. Say only, yes!
Thief # 2 — Only If and When
You’re holding out for a better world—The World According to Me. I’ll be happy only if and when my husband remembers flowers on our anniversary, the kids listen, drivers are courteous, and the current world politics are to my liking. You’re holding out for the world to conform with your rules—your personal preferences, opinions, and judgments.
This thief is the incessant and ludicrous idea that the world and all the people in it must meet all of your expectations of how things should be. You set yourself up with conditions which must be met before you’ll allow yourself to choose happiness. You’re using your misery to prove a point.
Here’s how to keep this thief out of your House of Happiness:
It’s simple: Stop expecting life to unfold according to your set of shoulds. Anytime you’re unhappy, it’s because you have an expectation of life that it doesn’t have of itself. Saying something shouldn’t be the way it is, won’t change that it IS. Whether you like it or not, it is what it is. You’re being unhappy in an unhappy world doesn’t make it any less unhappy. To quote Dr. Switzer (a.k.a, my favorite comedian, Bob Newhart) , “STOP IT!” You can choose to be happy instead. Say only, yes!
Thief # 3 — The World’s Deadliest Belief (TWDB)
You unconsciously believe: “Other people, events and circumstances are the cause of how I think, feel and behave.”
If ever there was a Master Thief, this one has got to be it!
It doesn’t just steal from your House of Happiness, it pulls it up and takes it away—foundation and all. You can never go home again!
In giving your truth to TWDB, you give it permission to single-handedly steal your sense of control over the responses you have in life. Instead of consciously responding to life, you find yourself in a constant state of knee jerk reactions. This thief doesn’t need to steal your house, because you’re giving it away.
Here’s how to keep this thief from taking your House of Happiness:
Decide for yourself that no one and nothing has the power to make you think, feel or do anything, without your express permission. I finally got this one when a question rebounded in my brain, “who’s the jerk in knee-jerk?” And it was me.
I get that you might not like what’s happening or what other people say and do, but that’s not the cause of your unhappiness. It’s your interpretation—the meaning you’re making up about what it means about you or for you— that’s got your knickers in a twist. Find out what’s missing in your perspective or beliefs that—if you had it—would eliminate your upset.
Work on creating a solution out of the answer to that question and live from it and through it.
Be a chooser, not a loser. There’s no gain in giving away “your house.” Choose to make it burglar proof.
In short, make enduring happiness more important than any circumstance, event or anyone’s opinion and your life suddenly becomes unflaggingly happy.
The Three Thieves might not be happy, but you sure will!
The Best Balancing Act – Rest!
Wednesday, April 16th, 2014
Balance. For most of us it’s the illusive butterfly of life. We chase after it daily, never quite managing to catch up with it.
It’s a sign of the times we live in. With the ever increasing demands of work, home, and play—not to mention our goals to keep up with everything while staying fit, eating healthy, keeping up with our social media contacts, and remembering to recycle—we hardly have time to catch our breath, let alone balance.
We keep mental check lists and to dos, tally up our daily accomplishments, debit our credits for missed tasks and opportunities, and often fault ourselves for not taking more time for the important things that really matter. All the while, feeling that no matter how hard we’re running through life, we should be doing more. So it’s easy to understand why so many of us work so hard to finally find some balance—myself included.
But maybe balance isn’t something we can find. Perhaps, it’s not something we can capture or find. It’s not a constant state but a fleeting one.
Much like riding a bike requires us to make constant small adjustments while moving forward—creating a fluctuating state of balance that assists us in moving steadily along—the journey through our busy schedule is also a balancing act. It demands small constant adjustments as well. So rather than finding balance, like some far off, seemingly unreachable destination, we’re constantly creating it. It’s not about balance; it’s about balancing. It’s how we navigate the journey through all the busyness. We just don’t notice it. It’s there all along, a silent passenger that accompanies us as we go about our day.
So here’s a radical suggestion. Rather than seeking balance, we should be seeking Rest. After all, even the 2014 top seated cyclist, Alberto Contador Velasco, needs to come to a stop once in a while—if only to pick up his newest trophy.
I know that it’s counter-intuitive to think that taking a time-out from the balancing act, that we call our schedule, makes us more effective and productive, but the research proves it.
“A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.” Schwartz, Tony, Relax! You’ll Be More Productive, New York Times, February 9, 2013.
So here’s something worth adding to your to do list for the day: Rest. And don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling like your life comes suddenly into balance. Because, it seems that adding Rest to all the things that we’re already managing to balance throughout the day, might just be the best balancing act yet.
‘Perhaps’ ~ Life is By Adventure
Tuesday, April 1st, 2014
How often does life go exactly according to your plans for it? If you’re like most of us, not so often, right?
I’m not here to discourage the perspective that we’re in many ways the author of our lives. It’s healthy to plan for the positive. It’s just that I think it’s time to grow up to the idea that we have absolutely no control over what IS.
Believe me, I sympathize if this is a little uncomfortable to embrace; mostly because, I like being in control too. Here’s the thing. I just don’t try to control the wrong stuff anymore. Because what is always trumps our plans for what we think it should be. And there’s no use fighting the facts.
There are two stories to everyone’s life: the one that is and the one we think it should be. When life’s going as we think it should be, those two stories — The Story of Is and the Story of Should Be — don’t stray too far from the same plot line. But whatever harmony that exists between those stories is usually short lived, as Life continues to unfold into the Story of Is.
And The Story of Is and the Story of Should Be are usually contradictions to one another. I should have gotten that raise. Kids should be more respectful. Drivers should be more courteous. But whatever we think, our shoulds never change the is. They do, however, create an undefeatable unhappiness.
In my own Story of Should Be, right now I’m at the gym shedding some winter weight that’s been holding on as stubbornly as the snowbank still outside my window. That’s what should be. However, in The Story of Is, I’m sitting not so comfortably—okay, in massive pain—almost flat on my back staring out the window at that aforementioned snow. Apparently, my back didn’t get the memo marked “should” and simply is what it IS. Not only can I not go to the gym, I can’t stand up without assistance.
Okay, that’s the bad news. Here’s the good.
The moment I surrender to what obviously is, I can change my should be to a perhaps.
Perhaps, if I wasn’t flat on my back I wouldn’t be writing this. And perhaps, my perhaps story will help someone else create their own. Perhaps, this isn’t happening to me. Perhaps, it’s happening for me. Perhaps, it’s happening so that I can help others. Perhaps, by the time I finally get to the gym, I’ll be twice as motivated.
I’m intrigued with the idea of creating and keeping a perspective that allows for the possibility that what IS might just be an opportunity to create a perhaps. I looked up the etimology of the word, by the way. It means: “by, through” + happening, chance or adventure.
It’s natural for us to create a Story of Should Be (as in: I believe, I prefer, I desire), but it needn’t make us miserable. Because there’s a Third Story we can create, if we choose to.
The current Story of Is can become a far more exciting Story of Perhaps.
Perhaps, Life is By Adventure!
Do you have a Story of Perhaps you’d like to share? I’d love to hear it. Post it below!
Making Friends With The Enemy
Thursday, August 15th, 2013
A few days ago, GrayBall, The Brain and I started the day out as enemies. No worries. It all turned out in the end. Here’s how it happened.
I was determined that I should buckle down and use my regularly scheduled block of time to finish editing my new book. Brain thought a day in the sunshine was a Much Better Idea.
Although I could hardly dispute that a sunny, comfortable 75 degree August day in Rochester was cause for celebration, my resolution to keep my self on track was too important to dismiss. I was conflicted. I had a part that wanted to do one thing and another part of me with an entirely different opinion. I see-sawed between the joy of being outdoors and the satisfaction of following through with a personal commitment to myself.
In the past, this would have started an argument between competing purposes. I would have labeled Brain’s attempts as a sabotage. I’ve since learned better. I’ve realized that GrayBall is sometimes a misguided friend.
Here’s how it all worked out in the end …
I assumed a positive intention and negotiated a truce. Here’s how I did that.
I began by asking Brain, “What’s the positive intention behind wanting to be outdoors?” Brain quickly responded by pointing out how lovely it would be to be in the sunshine and breathing in the fresh air.
So I asked, “And if I did spend time outdoors today, what would that get me?” To which Brain responded, “relaxation and enjoyment.” Well, I had to admit that that sounded pretty good to me. I wrote the answer down.
Then I thanked Brain for it’s positive intention and asked if it would be willing to help me understand it’s intention even better. It agreed; so I asked, “and if I had relaxation and enjoyment (it’s intention) what would that get me?” When Brain gave me the next answer, I wrote that one down too. Then I kept asking the same question of Brain, substituting each additional intention it gave me into the question, until Grey Ball ran out of answers.
When we finally arrived at “peace,” I asked GrayBall if there was anything more important than experiencing peace. To which it responded, “No.”
I next asked Brain, “Are you congruently creating peace by pulling my attention away from my project?” GrayBall had to admit that creating conflict, when what it wanted most of all was peace, was not congruent.
Having reached the end of that line of inquiry, I then asked Brain, “What’s the positive intention behind wanting to follow through with my personal commitment to finish the edit on my new book?” Brain—now eager to play along— answered that it would give me “a sense of accomplishment.” I couldn’t argue with that one either; so I quickly thanked Brain for wanting that for me. And I wrote it down and followed the same process of inquiry that I used the first time.
So I continued to ask, “and what would that get me?,” until GrayBall ran out of answers. Lo and behold, it’s highest intention for “us” was—one again—peace.
Now I asked GrayBall to notice that both choices were moving “us” toward the same intention. It said, “Yes.” So I asked it, “If we get to peace, then it really doesn’t matter how we get there, right?” Gray Ball was beginning to get the point.
So I next asked GrayBall to notice that peace was a state of being. In other words, it wasn’t a doing. It didn’t have to do anything to acquire it.
I directed it’s attention toward the fact that it could simply decide to “step into a state of being at peace and experience what that would be like to be there already.”
Once I could connect to the feeling of peace in my body, I asked it, “What happens when you begin in a state of peace as a way of approaching this project?” and “How would that affect your ability to complete this project more efficiently and effectively?”
By now, GrayBall was getting the point. Since it already had what it most wanted, it no longer felt the need to distract me away from my work. Finally I asked GrayBall whether it would be willing to maintain a sense of peace for me while I continued to craft a new intro to my book. Because—after all—that was it’s highest intention, right?
Gray Ball happily agreed. And it turned out to be a Very Sunny Day indeed.
So the next time you feel conflicted—when part of you wants this and another part of you wants that—ask your GrayBall what positive intention it has for you. You’re bound to be surprised how easy it is to make friends with the enemy.
GrayBall, The Brain – a/k/a “The World’s Worst Terrorist”
Wednesday, November 28th, 2012
I’m convinced – at least on some days – that without a whole cadre of anti-terrorism tactics in place, GrayBall would be burning and pillaging it’s way across the entire landscape of my future life right now. After all, it was an experience all too familiar from my younger years.
And I know that I’m not the only one. Admit it. You know who you are.
Do you have a potential or a possibility for the future, but . . .
Are you anxiously asking yourself “what if questions” about your future hopes and dreams?
If so, you’re being terrorized by the ‘world’s worst terrorist.”
What is it with GrayBall anyway?
Why is it – just when we should be feeling excited and passionate about all the possibilities in front of us – does it begin to terrorize us with thoughts of failures past, broken dreams and disappointments?
Well, chalk it up to GrayBall’s wonderful self-preservationist attitudes. It often thinks it’s under attack, and feels the need to defend itself against future failure.
GrayBall loves to lob bombs from the past and create all manner of chaos and mayhem into our soon-to-be future.
Have an upcoming presentation? You’ll suddenly remember the time in the 3rd grade when, in a panic, you forgot the only two lines you were required to remember for the school play.
Have a prospective first date? You’ll start to reflect on how badly your last relationship turned out.
Trying to land that new job? Rejections, rejections, rejections are all you can think about.
It’s hard to believe the future will turn out anything but badly.
How could it? As you’re inching ever closer to the inevitable doom of stepping on that landmine out in the future that GrayBall has so loving placed there.
Yep, I said lovingly.
Because Gray Ball really means well. That’s why it’s a bad terrorist. In fact, it’s the world’s worst. Because it’s trying to help us … not harm us.
It’s trying to protect us by helping us to pay attention to what might happen that we don’t want to have happen. But this is like trying to help you navigate a mine field by laying down more mines so you’ll remember they’re there. Kinda crazy, huh?
Here’s another reason GrayBall is the world’s worst terrorist: all the bombs are really duds. They don’t really exist. They’re memories from the past…. things we’ve already endured and lived through.
That alone should convince us that our ‘not yet successes’ in the future will turn out okay in the end … because they always do. We can learn, grow and evolve. You aren’t the 3rd grader who didn’t remember your lines, you’re an adult fully capable of stringing two sentences together, your past relationship taught you to stop trying to change people and look for someone who already possesses the qualities you’re looking for, and you’ve endured enough rejection to realize you’ll live to fight another day.
So while GrayBall is rooting around in the past for those duds to toss out into your future ask yourself, “What have I learned that will help me achieve my not-yet future success?”
And more importantly, GrayBall is simply a misguided friend. Not a foe. But, more on that later.
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