Eyes Full of Light

Recently I listened to a Rob Bell podcast titled “an eye full of light.”  In the podcast, Rob discussed that there are two different ways we look at the world.  We either see the world through an eye full of light…or, an eye full of darkness. 

If you have an eye full of light, you see the world as caring, generous and abundant.  The see the world as having infinite amounts of joy, success, meaning, happiness, etc. to give.  You rarely feel jealous of what “he has” because you trust that you will also be well taken care of.  

If you have an eye full of darkness, you see the world as having limited amounts of success, happiness, joy, etc.  You view the world as a pie with only a certain number of slices to go around.  If you see someone with the car, the career, the spouse, etc., that you wanted you feel screwed and jealous because the piece of pie that you wanted has already been given.  You see scarcity all around and don’t trust that you will be taken care of in the future; you plan for the worst and cope by taking Xanax and drinking wine.   

As I listened, I could think of times when I had an eye full of light… and times when I had an eye full of darkness.  I had an eye full of light when I lost my biggest client because every time I started to feel anxious, I repeated over and over that something better would come along and everything would be okay.  Although that situation popped into my mind, many more situations where I had eyes of darkness, came up.  I repeatedly feel jealous when I watch an interview with a successful author and when I see women in fantastic physical shape at the pool, I not only feel jealous but wonder if I will ever lose weight down the road.  I noticed that although I could identify situations in both camps, sadly, I realized that my natural “default” setting is to see the world through darkness.  However, I am soooo not alone.

When I think about the people around me, I couldn’t think of one person who consistently possessed eyes of light.  My mom was always waiting for the other shoe to drop (even when she was on a 14-day cruise to Africa) and most of my friends (including myself) had a prescription for Xanax. 

We are bombarded with the eye of darkness messages since society perpetrates the scarcity, one piece of pie, philosophy.  The news is filled with stories of “not enough” and sports, where there is ONE winner, is our national pastime.  We celebrate people who climb, claw and elbow their way to be the ONE at the top.  There is only one slice of pie and most of us were raised to go out and TAKE it.    

So, if we are surrounded by the dark viewpoint, how to do we keep the eye of light?  Rob suggests changing our viewpoint about another’s good fortune.  Say Dennis got the promotion that you worked extra hours for, gave up your weekends for and REALLY REALLY wanted.  Rob suggests instead of viewing Dennis’s promotion as a threat (he got the ONE thing you wanted), intentionally (forcibly and through clenched teeth if necessary), congratulate Dennis.  After, tell yourself that Dennis’s good fortune is a sign; a sign that if THAT can happen to Dennis, then something even BETTER is coming MY WAY!!!  Rob suggests that if Dennis is a major bonehead and only got the promotion because he is the bosses nephew (i.e. soooooo NOT FAIR!), then this is just a sign that EVEN GREATER THINGS are coming your way. 

The next time you feel that pit of jealousy or unfairness in how the baseball championship game turned out, instead of complaining or wallowing, deliberately congratulate them…… and see what happens.   

Acceptance (i.e. Don't Fight the Rooster)

***"It is in the state of acceptance, there is the feeling that nothing needs to be changed. Everything is perfect and beautiful the way it is. The world is to be enjoyed.” Hawkins, David R. (2013-08-01). Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (p. 165). 

     This morning I watched my son have a total meltdown. He had added instead of multiplied math problems on his homework and hadn’t caught his error until he had done half the problems. As I watched him throw a major fit, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just erase his errors and get back at it. He knew he had to turn the homework in and that it needed to be finished. He wanted to be done ASAP so he could go outside. So why was he wasting soooooo much time throwing this REALLY intensive fit? After a few minutes, I calmly said, “Lets just get back at,” he turned to me angrily and asked, “Well, wouldn’t YOU be upset?” Being in mother-adult-brain-“im perfect”-mode, I wanted to say, “Of course not.” But, as he stared at me, I couldn’t help putting myself in his shoes……and knew I would be just as upset. So, I said both. I started with, “Of course I would be upset,” but then had to add, But you need to get it done so lets just erase the wrong answers and get back at it.” 

     As I watched him angrily erase his wrong answers (almost ripping the paper as he went), I thought about my response. How many times a day did I get frustrated with things that just “are?” How many times had I bitched and complained to a friend about an opposing baseball coach when he acted like an ass? How many times had I become frustrated when I did Quickbooks wrong (and needed to redo it) or whined to my husband when I had a work project I didn’t want to do? Maybe the meltdown wasn’t as physically intense as my sons but I realized that I acted just like my son regularly railing against what needed to be done, what I had to do or simply what WAS. 

***"Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.” Eckhert Tolle in A New Earth. 

     When I first read this Eckhert Tolle quote about a year ago, I didn’t fully understand it. Watching my son have his meltdown and listening to all the things he said to himself, the meaning of the quote became clear. During his meltdown my son called himself, “stupid,” “idiot” and “dumb.” He told himself he was “never going to finish his homework,” that he as “going to get an F” and that he was going to “flunk 4th grade.” (none of those things remotely true).

     Sitting outside of the experience and watching/hearing it from a fairly disconnected place, I could see how it wasn’t the mistakes that were causing the meltdown. It was the things my son was saying, the STORY (Eckhert language) that was creating the highly emotional reaction and driving the breakdown. 

     I thought about the “stories” I tell myself. When I am behind a slow driver, I have a whole laundry list. I start with, “Shit, I am going to be late.” I add in a “Who the hell goes UNDER the speed limit?” and “Why am I always behind them?” And then my story (and most of my stories if I am being honest) end with, “Why does this ALWAYS happen to me????” As I ran through the things I said to myself, it became clear that it was not the slow driver, i.e. what is, causing my emotional reactions. It was the story I told myself ABOUT the slow driver causing my frustration, anger and anxiety.     

     Accepting “what is” is a challenge. We have been taught from an early age that events can be easily categorized as black or white; either “good” or “bad.” But what if we started to look at all events as neutral. Several years ago, after a 10 year long happy relationship, I suddenly lost my largest client. Everyone, including myself, viewed it as BAD. However, looking back, it turned out to be a good thing. I stopped working for a person with questionable morals and started writing. I had more time for my family and had more time for clients who valued and appreciated my work. 

    Also, many years ago I was in a serious accident which still causes chronic pain today. BAD. But, to me, it was one of the best things that has happened in my life. The accident forced me to shed the “wrong” fiancé, the “wrong” relationship and the “wrong future.” It forced me to wipe the slate clean and take a promotion, move to a new home and allowed me the time to find the “right” fiancé and/or husband. 

    What if we could take off the “good and bad glasses” and start to see every event as neutral, i.e. “just is.” Seeing every event as holding gifts and not railing against the “bad” events or the “don’t want” events. Relaxing into ALL of life….. wouldn’t we all be happier?......and need less anxiety meds?……. I know I sure would!

***"In summary, then, the consciousness level of acceptance is one that we all long to achieve, for it enables us to find freedom from most of life’s problems and to experience fulfillment and happiness."Hawkins, David R. (2013-08-01). Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender (pp. 170-171).

FN: “Don’t Fight the Rooster” became a mantra for a group of my friends when we heard one of our kids (4 yrs old at the time) say it. We have no idea what he meant by it or even if that is exactly what he said but it became our personal mantra for when one of us was fighting against what simply “IS.” Imagine fighting against a rooster…you get scratched, pecked at, hurt….and its REALLY hard….just like fighting against what just IS.

Are You Triggered?

"The willingness to look within, which doesn’t require introspection into the cause of your mood, just the simple awareness that it comes from within your own self and not from the other person’s action, will enable you to shift out of reactivity and craft a response that’s more grounded.” Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent.

In my last post I shared one expert’s way to start feeling and letting go of the crap we have buried inside. Michael Singer author of the Untethered Soul and Dr. Shefali Tsabary author of the Conscious Parent recommend a different way; using triggering events to dig into our emotions. We become triggered when we don’t want whatever is happening in our life to be happening.  We resist what is essentially saying, “I don’t want this situation to be happening.”  When this type of situation occurs and you are feeling triggered, Singer and Tsabary recommend finding a quiet space and asking, “Why am I being triggered right now?”  Then remain silent and still and listen. “Truly feeling an emotion means being able to sit with the incoherence we experience at such a time, neither venting it nor denying it, but simply containing it and being present with it.”  Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent.  Feeling the emotion requires you to stay in your body, feel your body, while physically doing nothing; if you are struggling with not doing anything and quieting the mind (which oh MY I did), focus on your breath.  Focus on where the feeling sits in your body and what it feels like?  Is it in your gut causing nausea; is it in your chest making you feel like someone is sitting on you?  Stay with it until the emotion (remember its just energy in motion) leaves your body. 

***Feeling our emotions without reacting to them can be terrifying.  To sit with our emotions means we have to be in solitude, which is unbearable for many of us.  We are too used to having a thought and being triggered by it, experiencing an emotion and reacting to it.  For instance, if we feel anxious, we eat or self-medicate in some way.  If we feel angry, we experience an urge to vent or even explode at someone.  Sitting and watching our thoughts and feelings in stillness may seem pointless to us, but it’s by doing precisely this that the core lessons of consciousness are learned.  By silently witnessing our thoughts and feelings, we learn to accept them as they are, allowing them to rise and fall within us without resisting them or reacting to them.

Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent.

 

This process terrified me.  I wasn’t sure I had ever TRULY felt a feeling.  I was an expert on how to react, blame, distract and stuff, but DOING NOTHING…doing nothing was NOT in my DNA.  At first, every time I felt triggered, my head immediately screamed “IT’S THEIR FAULT!!!!”  and soon after sitting down in silence, I stood up and reacted.  I felt like I was coming out of my skin and simply couldn’t handle it.  I tried a few times with the same result.  Since I was struggling miserably, I decided to find, and start with, one person and one type of situation.  I scanned my life and decided to NOT respond immediately (i.e. react) to my Mom’s emails.  With my Mom’s barrage of daily emails, and how often they triggered a firestorm of anger, frustration and hurt, this would allow me to practice while not being face to face.  The first few times were rough forcing me to turn off my computer and just sit there while my mind drafted a hurtful and totally appropriate response J. But, eventually my thoughts would start to tire allowing my feelings to pop through.  They felt like pockets of pain as they popped through and if I sat silently, I could feel them eventually leave my body.    

 

As more “pockets of pain” were released, the less reactive I became.  My relationship with my mother became better and I began to see her in a different light.  I can honestly say (on most days) it’s the best it’s ever been.  “Your wisdom will increase in line with your capacity for embracing all of your feelings, whatever their nature.  Along with an increased wisdom comes a greater capacity for compassion.”  Shefali Tsabary from the Conscious Parent.

DEATH to "Spiritualese!"

“I let negativity and darkness dissolve in my light.’  Deepok Chopra

 

I have been doing a 21 day Oprah/Deepok meditation challenge and this was todays topic.  I read it and was immediately irked, “What the crap does that mean?”  This was exactly the spiritual mumbo jumbo language that I read often and confused me always.  I listened to the meditation’s 5-minute introduction/explanation hoping for some clarification.  Sifting through the 5 minutes of talking, I pulled together enough clarity to understand the topic was about getting rid of negative feelings (the topic I am knee deep in).  I was disappointed that Deepok’s introduction provided not one concrete step, procedure or strategy for “let[ting] [my] negativity and darkness dissolve in my light.”  I had no clue how to “let” my negativity go anywhere, let alone into my light; in fact, where the heck was my “light” and how could I find it? 

 

I’m a lawyer and have read a ton of “legalese”(writing only other lawyers can understand).  I couldn’t help but wonder if there is a legalese type of writing for “spiritual/self-help-ee” experts that only other experts can understand?  I admire Deepok Chopra greatly but couldn’t he drill down his statement to provide something more concrete and usable when we are knee deep in busy life.  I once heard an interview with Deepok where he said he meditates for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.  Some days I forget to brush my teeth and I haven’t shaved my legs in a month.  No wonder I couldn’t understand; we live VERY different lives.  My hope is that my blogs use my lawyer/legalese skills to make “spiritualese” easier to understand and incorporate into life !

Feeling your Feelings

     As silly as this sounds, I don’t think I ever learned how to feel my feelings in a healthy manner.  I am really REALLY good at numbing out with food or avoiding my feelings by overscheduling my days, but I don’t know if I ever understood why feeling all your feelings is so crucial and powerful.  Recently I read the book the Conscious Parent and I was overwhelmed by what I learned.  I not only learned a more mindful way to parent but I gained a lot of insight into how my childhood created my patterns of numbing and stuffing my emotions.  

     In the Conscious Parent, Dr. Shefali Tsabary‎ discusses that as children, we find strong negative emotions overwhelming; so we try not to feel them.  Since no one ever teaches us a different way, as we grow up we refine our pattern of avoidance by watching our parents:  

When we are raised by parents who value emotional control over emotional expression, we learn early how to painstakingly monitor our emotional responses, weeding out those that evoke disapproval.  Because we believe an outburst of emotional expression is a weakness, suppressing our emotions becomes an automatic tactic….…. We [adults] find it difficult to tolerate feelings such as rejection, fear, anxiety, ambivalence, doubt and sadness.  So we run from our feelings either by burying them through avoidance, fighting them, or displacing them onto people and situations outside ourselves through emotional reactivity.  

     In my home, I regularly heard, “stop overreacting.”  I grew up believing I was overemotional and that something was wrong with me because I couldn’t control all of my feelings.  Reading the book validated my feelings and let me know I wasn’t broken.  I wanted to teach my son how to feel in a healthy way….. but first I had to learn it for myself. 

     Although there are many techniques to help us better align with our feelings, I re-visited a Soul Sunday interview with Penache Desai.  Penache identified that at our most basic form, humans are energy; and emotions are simply “energy in motion.”  It made sense that feelings are supposed to move through you.  I am not still devastated about my break up with my college boyfriend or mad at my brother for ripping the heads off my Barbie dolls.  Those emotions have left.  Penache explained that emotions are designed to come up, show/teach us something about ourselves/our lives and then leave.  But, since so many of us were raised to be scared of our feelings, we stuff, avoid, numb, ignore, etc. instead of allowing them to come up.

     How do we change this stuffing, suppressing, ignoring pattern?  How do we start to feel?  Although I will be discussing some additional strategies in my future blogs, Penache believes fully feeling simply requires awareness of breath and slowing our lives down.  

     My mom recently had open heart surgery to replace 3 faulty valves.  Her recovery has been slow and bumpy.  One day I was taking care of her, doing anything and everything she needed, and seemingly out of the blue she criticized both my weight and my parenting.  These are my 2 most vulnerable soft spots.  I felt like I had been punched in the gut and my first impulse was to sling anger right back at her.  But instead, I consciously walked into the bedroom, shut the door and sat on the edge of the bed.  I took a deep breath and focused on how the anger felt in my body.  I allowed the hurt and deep sadness to come up.  I continued to sit with it without fighting the feeling (I don’t want to be feeling this), judging the feeling (dammit why do I let her get to me) or blaming my mother (how can she be so mean and hurtful.)  I allowed the ball of heaviness in my throat to just “be” focusing on my breath.  I fought the strong STRONG urge to get up and DO something….ANYTHING, but I forced myself to sit with all of it.  After a few minutes my body relaxed and the feelings subsided.  A calmness came over me and I knew I needed to work on my insecurities about my weight and my parenting skills.  I knew I needed to work on being okay being ME.  I calmly walked back into the living room without any resonating, “I want to slap you” feelings. 

     Our emotions hold so many of the answers that we are looking for.  They are breadcrumbs leading us to our true selves and our purpose.  All we have to do is feel…….

            **** our next blog will discuss how to use the times we are triggered to uncover our feelings.

The BS of "Happy"

I hate the word happy.  I was recently listening to a podcast on how to be happier.  The podcast informed me that if I did these certain things, I would be happier.  If I put dishes in the dishwasher instead of the sink and did a little bit of laundry every day instead of waiting for the weekend, I would be happier.  Every single tip given was about “doing something.”  I’m calling bs.  

When you ask people what they want out of life, most people say, “To be happy.”  Most of us hold happiness as the ultimate goal for life.  We want it, strive for it and get up every morning hoping to feel it.  We look for it in every decision we make from choosing a job to getting divorced; from losing weight to buying a new car.  Yet, most of us fail to ever feel consistently happy.  We get the “thing” or achieve the goal and we are happy….but then the happiness fades and we move on to wanting something else.  We are all “happy high” junkies looking for just the right “something” that we believe will bring us a consistent state of happy…yet, it never happens (and it never will.)    

The feeling most of us think of as “happy” is a feeling directly linked to external events.  You get a promotion or a raise and you feel “happy.”  You go on vacation or the Broncos win the super bowl (YEA!) and you feel EXTREMELY happy.  However, “happy” feelings spike and then wear off.  You aren’t “happy” about your promotion 6 months later or when your vacation tan wears off.  Contrary to what most people believe, happy isn’t a feeling that is designed to stick around.  

Sadly, we are raised to believe that “if we have…. we will be happy.”  “If we get…. we will be happy.”  For 40 years I thought “happy” could be found in the “next;” a thinner body, a new relationship, a new career, a higher paying job, etc.  Each time my “happy high” would fade, I would again focus on the “next” whatever that may be. My entire life I believed that there was a formula for obtaining a constant state of happy.  If I was married to the right person, had the family, job, friends and possessions I wanted, I would obtain a constant state of happiness.    

Then, at 40 there wasn’t anything more I wanted.  When I looked at everything in my life separately, my marriage, my son, my job, my home, etc., I loved everything.  Yet, when I put it together, it didn’t generate consistent feelings of happy.  At first I thought something was physically wrong with me so I started taking an antidepressant.  When that didn’t bring me the feeling of happy I thought was normal.  I started questioning everything in my life.  Even though I loved my husband was I in the wrong marriage?  Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my job, did I need to get more clients so I was busier and make more money?  Did I need thinner thighs or a different house or car. It took a while for me to realize that I was seeking the impossible in all the wrong places.    

Instead of external based “happy,” I think what most of us crave are deeper and richer feelings that we “own.”  We want to feel a level of peace that is resistant to the swirling changes of life. We want to feel joy in the little things.  We want feelings based on who we are and not what we have or do.  We want feelings we own instead of searching for the next external, “big” event to bring us a “happy high.”  

We all are born with that deep level of joy, peace, contentment and love.  But, all of those feelings are buried beneath layers and layers of all the years of uncomfortable, unwanted and hurtful feelings we didn’t want to feel.  We bury the bad feelings deep inside of us.  Sadly, then these feelings bury all feelings we own….and crave.  “The remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted and then let go of join together to form an energy field that lives in the very cells of your body.”  Eckhert Tollee in a New Earth.  

If we continue to do this year after year, burying layer after layer of unwanted feelings, we forget about the peace, joy and contentment that lives inside of us and how to reach it.  We spend so much emotional energy keeping down all the buried emotions that only the really BIG emotion of “happy” can cut through our numbness; and we think this is normal.  So, we look for “happy” instead of unpacking the feelings we own and truly crave.  

To find what I believe we all really are looking for, we need to stop looking externally.  Everything we could ever want is all already inside of us.  We need to crack open the shell of protective layers and strip away each past hurt, each past disappointment and hurt.  …and as we start to shed them, we will find ourselves getting more and more glimmers of what we have wanted all along.  

“Peace should be our goal in every situation.”  Marianne Williamson in a Return to Love.  

***the next few blogs will discuss this topic further giving actionable things you can start to do to unpack all the buried crap inside of us.

Livin in Our Own Lane

Recently, I listened to a podcast which asked the question, “How do you define success?”  As I thought about what I would put on my “success list,” I was surprised by how many items I hadn’t consciously and/or intentionally added.  A successful woman is skinny; a successful wife “puts out” at least once a week; a successful mom never wants to strangle their child.  Wait?  What?  Where the hell did those things come from? 

How we define success holds so much power over our lives yet so many of us have never consciously made our own, personal “success list.”  By failing to make our own list we allow outside influences to create our list and name our life goals; we then are surprised when we obtain one of the named goals but don’t feel successful.  It is only when we make our own list, consciously from our core, that we start to live deliberately from the inside out and living OUR lives.  It is at this point that we then possess the ability to check off a goal and experience deep and real feelings of success and fulfillment. 
    
Making your own “success list” can be challenging since it requires drowning out a lifetime of conditioning.  Families, society, friends, experts…. We are bombarded with messages of what success is.   Parents who show their kids that success is achieved through exceptional sports achievements or tell their kids that all “A’s” is the only way to achieve academic success.  There are “Experts” on everything telling us the proper way to do just about everything from raising kids to having a great sex life.  We are assaulted with messages linking physical attractiveness with success and our culture raises us to believe the more money, the more stuff, the more success.   

If you can drown out the noise, and find some silence within yourself, the answers will come.  However, it requires you to not only get in touch with your deeper self but also to trust what you find.  When I shut my mind down and asked, “how do I define success?” I did not like the answer; my deepest self wanted to write about my experiences and share them in the hopes of helping others.  I despised the idea of being so vulnerable and exposed so I pushed the desire aside.  However, day after day, the desire grew… until the day I woke up was overwhelmed with the NEED to write.  I changed my life lane, faced my fear and created a blog.  I feel a pull every day to write and experience a deep sense of fulfillment every time I post a page.

We have been trained to let others define success.  Our parents, experts, society.  So, defining our own success can be scary.  It may require you to go off the well-worn trail and take a leap of faith.  It may require that you do things you never thought you’d do and handle people thinking you are a bit “off.”  But, if you truly think about it, the only other option is to live your life by other people’s standards.  To spend year after year in the lane someone else built for you and never feeling true fulfillment. 

You have the ability to have a BIG and AMAZING and FULFILLING life.  All you have to do is drown out all the noise and listen…to YOU.