What Would YOU Do?

Remember the WWJD (“What Would Jesus Do?”) bracelets from the 90s?

I remember being a little weirded out by them in my early teens. 

1. Part of me thought they were dorky and something to make fun of. 

2. A second part of me was struck by the visible commitment they were. 

3. A third part of me, well, I wasn’t able to articulate this then, but in retrospect the feeling was one of being a bit awed by the discipline of it. 

4. A fourth part of me felt guilty that, though I considered myself a Christian, I wasn’t willing to look dorky, show a visible commitment to faith, or be disciplined enough to wear one.

“What Would Jesus Do?” is a shorthand way of asking this question: 

What would YOU do if you lived life in alignment with the Christian message?

And here’s the question more broadly:

What would YOU do if you “walked the walk” in your life? If you lived with integrity in those things that really mattered to you?

What would you do THIS week, THIS day, THIS hour, THIS moment if you were to really live in alignment with your commitment to ____________?

In a coaching conversation yesterday, a newish client said, “There are so many layers and it’s complicated!”

It took us another 15 minutes or so to get to the heart of all those layers and access a powerful and profound simplicity.

We got to the heart of HIM not by dealing with the layers themselves. Instead, we dealt with the person experiencing those layers. We humans, though complex creatures, are rather simple:

We are ALWAYS living from a commitment.

Mostly, we’re living from a default commitment that we’re blind to. Looking good, being liked, seeking approval, getting it "right," proving we're “enough,” doing everything we “should,” etc.

Those commitments aren’t expressions of who we really are - they’re expressions of the culture and families we grew up in.

One of the beautiful aspects of even those inherited commitments, though, is that even they point to what really matters to us if we take a few moments to dig a little deeper.

What would greatness do in that situation you’re dealing with?

What would love do in that relationship you’re frustrated about?

How would curiosity engage with that stressful thought?

How would health and well-being respond to that craving?

And yes, what would Jesus, Gandhi, or Buddha do if they were in your shoes dealing with your life?

Want to get clear what matters most to you AND level up your ability to honor it? Get in touch with me and let’s talk.

Much Love. ❤️

We Aren’t the Only Ones

In a conversation with me a few months back, a client realized that for over 5 decades she'd had a view of men that they don't listen to her.

I'm sure she's right sometimes, but what she saw in our conversation was that her view that men don't listen impacts her physically and emotionally, and it's an experience stuck within her that comes from when she was younger than 5.

What most of us can fairly easily see is that the stories we have about ourselves, others, and the world often limit how we get to show up in our lives.

It can limit how we feel. It can limit what we do. It can limit who we are.

What we often don't see, though, is that we aren't alone in experiencing the effects of our views and thoughts!

If I live inside the perspective that men don't listen to me, then I'm not ever really going to listen to them either! I'm right about how they are. I'm right about how they treat me. I'm right about my own smallness in relationship with them.

And our righteousness - about others, ourselves, and the world - blinds us to the humanity in another, and it blinds us to our own capability to thrive in ALL relationships, regardless of whether they listen to us or not.

It doesn't just impact us and how we feel and who we get to be.

It limits others too.

Something else is possible, and it starts with each of us (especially those of us who think it needs to start with someone else).

No, we aren't alone in experiencing the effects of our views of ourselves, others, and the world. Perhaps remembering this will give us more energy to transform our views when they're not working for us or others.

Don't know how to do that powerfully? Reach out and let's talk.

Hot tip that I've been noticing lately: whenever we make another person wrong, we're seeing ourselves as a victim. Seeing ourselves as a victim isn't a very empowering self-concept.

Much Love. ❤️

How to Make a Change

Yesterday, at the end of our time together, one of my teen clients said something brilliant:

“My judgment doesn’t change much, except my view of things.”

In other words, being judgmental is not the way to make the changes we want.

Our judgments are labels we slap onto the circumstances of our lives. 

There’s an energy to being judgmental - it’s a hostile energy, an attack energy, especially since our judgments are sourced in fear and insecurity. But that hostility doesn’t change the situation to be any better!

Our judgments sit in our lives like a mucky puddle - a stale, putrid dampness that's not healthy to have in our mind, heart, or body.

Judgments are a poison that we drink while thinking it cures the circumstance we don’t want.

The poison of our judgments doesn’t cure our circumstances, unfortunately, it just poisons us and our lives.

So how do we move beyond our judgments that hold us (and others) back?

First: get that you are judgmental. It’s part of our nature and conditioning. We are meaning-making machines, and much of the meaning we make up is sourced in fear and insecurity. So, for most of us, our meaning often ends up being judgmental, pessimistic, and negative - towards others, ourselves, and the world.

Second: get that there’s nothing wrong with having judgments. Having judgments isn’t a problem. It’s being judgmental that causes separation, frustration, stuckness, and ineffectiveness.

We can’t help having judgments, at least not at first. But if who we are being about the judgments is forgiving, understanding, and compassionate, then our judgments lose their stickiness and we begin to abandon the habit of being judgmental. I call this step “falling in love with all of it" (the stoics called it amor fati).

Third: catch and replace. Out of the creative space of our mind, fueled by the energy of fear, and insecurity, our judgments “materialize” and fly into our consciousness. Catch yourself being judgmental, then recommit to what you really care about.

Your judgment probably doesn’t change much for the better. Your commitment, however, will.

Much Love. ❤️