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. ❤️

When Your Personality Conflicts With Who You Are

Is your kindness authentic, or is it driven by fear?

People-pleasing. It’s so common, and it’s inauthentic.

I’ve heard it said that people-pleasing = lying.

It’s one thing to be committed to kindness. It’s another thing to be kind at the expense of our own well-being.

When someone is people-pleasing us and we’re paying attention, it can have a gross sort of feeling to it. It’s gross because it’s inauthentic.

People-pleasing isn’t the type of kindness that’s driven by an authentic commitment to being kind. People-pleasing is driven by fear.

Is your humor authentic, or is it driven by insecurity?

Most of us know someone who can’t stop cracking jokes. We just know they’re going to crack a joke no matter what the conversation is.

Back in college, my heart dropped and I felt so sad for a peer when he said to a few of us, “I’d do anything for a laugh.”

Humor is one of the ways we connect with the divine. It’s also a way to avoid discomfort and to get people to like us. 

My kids taught me a phrase for the type of personalities that are authentically nice or insecurely funny: “try hards.” 

We try hard when we think we’re not enough as we are.

We try hard when we lack faith that we have everything we need.

We try hard when our very survival is wrapped up in what someone else thinks of us.

When our personality conflicts with who we really are, the solution isn’t to try harder, and it isn’t to get people to like us. 

When our personality conflicts with who we really are, the solution we’re actually craving is the healing and integration of our deeper parts. It’s the healing and integration of our charged emotions, our fears, and our insecurities. 

The source of our discomfort with others is some insecure way of seeing ourselves. 

This past week, a former student of mine reached out and we spent a couple hours together. When we broke apart the insecurity beneath what he was dealing with, he experienced a new freedom in showing up authentically, lovingly, and powerfully for those things that matter to him. 

Not driven by fear. Not driven by insecurity. Driven by authentic inspiration.

Learn to not let your discomfort, fear, and insecurity drive you deeper into your personality to be liked - instead, allow your discomfort, fear, and insecurity to point you back to your deeper, true, and authentic self.

Your personality is about survival. Your authentic Self is about being fully alive.

If that’s something you’d like to master, message me and let’s connect.

Much Love. ❤️