Have you ever been disappointed with yourself after doing something that you said you wouldn’t do, only to do it again and again? Perhaps beating yourself up because you went off your diet after eating a whole bag of cookies? Or drinking too much after you told yourself that you wanted to quit?
If you have, you are not alone. Many folks may not openly talk about this because they feel ashamed and weak. Instead they push it down and hide it deep within the bowels of who they are. This is often referred to as the shadow part of ourselves. It’s that part of us that we feel so powerless over or disgusted with, that we will protect it so that no one else will see it. As a result, many keep it tucked away because they are terrified of others finding out about it, and judging them or worse, leaving them.
It is amazing how cruel we can be to ourselves. If we treated our friends the same way we treated ourselves, we wouldn’t have any friends.
I used to teach positive discipline classes and I remember a quote that has stuck with me over the years. It is, “where did we ever get the crazy notion that in order to do better, first we need to make ourselves, our children or others feel worse?” That is a powerful statement, and unfortunately, so true!
What I have learned over the years is that much of the behavior we coin as a “bad” habit has actually been a very clever way for many of us to survive in a life that is sometimes less than kind.
Those of us who were born very sensitive, may have been born without a “fur coat” to protect us from the world. So, cleverly we picked up and adopted habits or behaviors that protected and served us well, until they grew bigger than us. These habits or behaviors are referred to as coping mechanisms, whose primary intention is to help us survive. That is a positive thing, except in overuse when they begin to control us and cause us harm. These habits can become so well ingrained into our unconscious, that without thinking we may indulge in them. It’s as if one were in a trance state and was asleep unaware of doing the habit.
For instance, an emotional reaction to things not going well in one’s life could kick the habit into overdrive. These “old friends” have most likely been in your life for a very time when you felt that you needed ways to protect yourself. Going unnoticed for many years or perhaps a lifetime, many forgot that the war is over and that there is no longer any reason to keep acting as if there was a battle going on.
So how does one put down a habit that has been controlling their life?
First, I invite you to bow deeply to that part of yourself that was resourceful enough to find clever ways of protecting you. Let that part of you know that the war is over, that you honor their protection, and that you are releasing it with love.
Begin visualizing what you want in your life rather than what you don’t want. Begin to act as if. Say an afformation, which is a question that we ask ourselves. ‘”Why is it, that my life is so full of love, prosperity and peace?” “Why is it, that my body is healthy, strong and resilient?” Don’t worry about answering the question; let your mind figure it out. Act as if this is true with conviction and confidence.
It is truly amazing how a gentle, compassionate act toward ourselves can release us from years of suffering.
As you incorporate these different suggestions into your life, be patient with yourself. A habit you have carried a lifetime may take a while to release. Know that every time you catch yourself indulging in the habit, that you have brought it closer to your conscious eye.
When we are acting from an unconscious place, a behavior can only be addressed when we make it conscious. So slowly, slowly and with patience watch those shadow parts of yourself surface and take in the light of your beautiful awareness. Seeking out a trusted counselor may also help to support and guide you as you release the habit and transition into a new way of being.
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For many women in our society, we have been trained from an early age that it is selfish for us to take time for ourselves. We were taught that others came first and that if we put ourselves first, someone else would lose out. During my years of being a wife and mother, I felt myself being pulled in so many directions that the end result was that I was too exhausted to take time to take care of myself. This resulted in being short tempered, not present, cranky and emotionally drained.
Due to external circumstances, I was forced to look closely at how I lived my life, which ultimately boiled down to re-examining my self-care and thus being creative with my selfless selfishness.
I realized that if I didn’t take the time to take care of myself first, that I was doing a disservice to others. When we don’t put ourselves first, it can drain us. It’s similar to the analogy of giving yourself oxygen first then giving it to your child. If we are so depleted, how can we care for others? What kind of example do we set for those who are looking to us for guidance, if we don’t do good self-care?
Years ago, on the Oprah show, she had a guest on that asked this simple question: “Where do you, the primary caregiver, put yourself on the “ladder” of your family? Are you the last one on the rung or the first one?” Many polled put their children first, their partner second and themselves last. The guest invited those who felt this way to look closely at how this was working in their lives. Many said that they felt resentful that they didn’t have more time to themselves and always felt that someone else came first. It’s interesting to note that by being “selfish” in taking care of yourself, you are actually energizing yourself to be more present with others because there is more of you that is able to show up.
Though this may be difficult to perhaps wrap your mind around, here are some tips that may help you transition into creative selfishness.
~ Begin to practice self-compassion by noticing those areas in your life where you are giving so much that you are actually giving less than what you thought. When we are drained it’s hard to give 100 percent. There are no reserves and we run on empty. To be compassionate, is to realize that we deserve to take the very best care of ourselves, and that by doing this, we are setting a wonderful example to others.
~ Notice how you feel when you let others know that you are going to take some time to refuel. If it is uncomfortable, notice that and breathe through it. With practice you will be able to say this easily and effortlessly and those around you will notice how much more relaxed and refreshed you are. Self-compassion is a subtle energy that comes from the heart and will help you stop pushing yourself.
~ Commit to, at least, one self-compassionate action a week. This helps nurture positive energy and begins to grow your emotional bank account.
A fun exercise to do is to think of all the things that you used to do before you got so busy. Make a cup of tea, sit down, let your imagination run away with you and make your list. Include things that are free and fun. For instance taking a walk along the river, watching a sunset, going to the movies with your children, partner or just yourself! Imagine that! Make it playful and rich. After you have listed 10 or so things, cut them up and put them into a special box. Then once a week pick out 2 or 3 things and do them! Notice how your creative juices begin to flow and that your “selfish” action becomes a sacred selfless act.
Who knows, after a while, you may even feel so inspired to do this everyday! Notice with a gentle heart, how your “selfishness” is perhaps the greatest gift that you can give to yourself and others.
Let me know how this work for you!
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It was brought to my attention the other night that you cannot be in faith and fear at the same time.
I have been thinking a lot about that and consciously noticing when I slip into fear to bring myself back into the space of faith. I am aware how vigilant one needs to be to stay in that space, especially with all of the negative news we get bombarded with daily if we choose to watch or listen to the media.
I am noticing how people I run into throughout the day describe how their lives are going. Listening to the words they are using, whether they empower the person or disempower them. Watching how their whole physical appearance can shift as they either talk about the joys in their live or the hardships. It’s this noticing that allows me to notice my own state of awareness.
During my meditations and through out the day I question, what is faith? What does that mean and if I am feeling doubtful, how can I muster up the strength and resiliency to go there?
What I have noticed is that as I move through the day it takes faith. Just crossing a street there is the deep knowingness that I will make it to the other side. When I speak in front of a group of people, there is the inner knowingness that I will get my message across. And yet if I am in a place of doubting my knowingness, I get stuck in my insecurities and feel vulnerable, thus slipping out of faith and into fear. Sometimes this shift is so subtle that it takes me a moment to notice it.
At times I think about what faith is too much and discover that is a way to get hung up in the details of faith rather than trusting the divine unfolding, which is done in the invisible realm, known as quantum physics. Something I can’t even wrap my mind around. When I think about it, my ego gets involved and I start to look for loopholes or question the whole process rather than just being with it.
In the morning I open the day with an intention, which is, “show me faith in ways that I can understand.” Within this intention are 4 steps that I follow.
• The first one is my deep belief in the perfection of my life, and how everything unfolds perfectly. There are no accidents only opportunities.
• The second one is the confidence that I will step into the day with. It is with this deep confidence that I will be able to look at any situation with an open heart and compassionate eyes. Knowing that there are no problems only situations.
• The third step is trust. Trusting that I will be shown the way and when I find myself forcing a situation that I will stop and re-evaluate my direction.
• The fourth step is the deep inner knowing of how interconnected we all are with each other and with the Universe. Being part of the wondrous web of life that supports my every move and action.
And so I enter into my day with wonderful expectations of how perfectly my day will unfold. The perfection in meeting the right people, receiving information that I have been waiting for or a wonderful opportunity to do my work and to be of service.
At the end of the day, I look back on all that transpired with gratitude. Especially those parts that were uncomfortable for me because that is where I receive the perfect lesson, if I am able to release the drama and story behind it. I can then begin to see how everything in my life has been perfect and that I have been divinely guided by blind faith.
Live in Faith, Catherine
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Are you feeling Overwhelmed and Overworked? If you are, you are not alone!
Isn’t it amazing that with all of the technological advances such as cell phones, faster running computers, the Internet, texting, I-phones, etc that all of this is actually causing us more stress rather than relieving it. Who would have thought? It is said that we are living in an attention deficient disorder society, and that all of these modern technologies are literally overloading our circuits. That is our brains are unable to take in the massive amounts of information that we are subjected to everyday. Not only are we dealing with between 60, 000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, we are also dealing with incoming information from a variety of sources.
Many folks are being diagnosed with ADD, Attention Deficient Disorder and put on medication to bring some balance back into their lives. While I realize that many times this is an accurate diagnosis, it would be interesting to have these same folks look at their current life and work style. What they may find is that through all of their multi-tasking and usage of various “time saving” gadgets that it is too much for their system to handle; and that instead of having ADD they may very well have ADDT, Attention Deficient Disorder Trait. And that the symptoms they are experiencing will subside once the stressor is taken away, and some proactive steps toward rebalancing occur as well.
A book written several years ago called, Driven to Distraction, by Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey verified just that. With all of their observations and collecting of data, they found that folks, not only children, but also adults have attention deficient disorder traits.
So now that you have a basic idea of what being overwhelmed and overworked does to our brains, what are some of the symptoms?
The symptoms can show up in a variety of ways. Having an overloaded mind can affect one’s sleep. Because some people may have a difficult time leaving their work at the office, their minds are not settled down when their head hits the pillow. Initially an individual may fall right to sleep only to wake up an hour or few hours later with thoughts rushing around their head. Unable to go to sleep they may wake up very groggy and not rested. So a large cup of coffee, or two, gets them up and running; at least for a few hours. When the caffeine wears off, they are reminded of the fatigue and to remedy that, may have another cup or two of coffee. So the cycle begins. If gone unnoticed, the repetition can become a habit.
Other symptoms can include being less productive, a bit edgy, feeling anxious, short tempered and unmotivated. If folks are unable to focus on one project at a time, this can lead to “too many pies in the sky, and one will surely land in your eye!”
What this means is an individual’s attention is scattered when too many demands are placed on them at once. It’s fascinating how we have created a culture of multi-taskers and are rewarded for that. It’s as if one person was expected to do the job of 5 folks. As a result, some tasks remain undone or done poorly creating more stress of having to re-do.
If someone gets too scattered it can lead to a sense of feeling “fragmented” and with fragmentation manipulation can occur. This means that if we aren’t thinking straight the decisions we make may not be our own, rather the decisions of others. An example of this is the amount of fear and anxiety many are feeling during this economic turn. The media has a tendency to send out “the sky is falling” scenarios and because some may feel out of control and “maxed” out in their lives, begin to feel emotionally flooded, or overloaded and one more bit of news breaks the camels back.
So what’s a person to do?
One beginning step is to increase your personal awareness. Again, an individual has to realize that they are experiencing stress before they can stop it. Rather than counting to 10, begin to consciously change your perception of what you think is happening. A change of thought changes everything. If done with consistency, results will be noticeable. Learn how to neutralize or take the emotion out of a reaction as they occur rather than having them build up and drain your health and well-being.
Doing these single steps will lead to greater clarity, higher productivity and a general sense of well-being. When we can slow down enough and breath into a situation rather than pushing it away, options become clearer. When this occurs we can become more resourceful and proactive, thus decreasing stress.
So one simple way to start is to begin to notice how you are in different situations. Do this without judgment with a curious and open heart. Practice this again and again. When you catch yourself being reactive and unresourceful, thank yourself for noticing. With practice and gentleness, over time you will begin to notice a shift in your attitude and how you view stress. Thus making life easier.
Last Thursday I had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at the WBN, Women’s Business Network, in Eugene. There were approximately 45 – 50 women present. It was wonderful to be there with so many women who made it a point to meet up with others to create a community and source of support for all that were there. We talked about what it is like to be overwhelmed and overworked in a manner that was comforting and proactive with the knowingness that we are not in this alone. Coming together as a collective group with a specific intention creates clarity and additional resource. I was deeply touched with the sense of hope, friendship, laughter and creativity. It is with gratitude and appreciation that I acknowledge all who were present and a deep thank you for being asked to present.
With a Grateful Heart, Catherine
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We live in what is considered a psuedo attention deficient disorder society. What does that mean?
It means that all of the things that we thought would help us out in life are overloading our circuits. It’s the continuous emails, Internet, cell phones, computer and texting that are literally driving us crazy. When our brains, specifically our frontal lobes, get over worked, the result is that we function from the old brain, or the flight or freeze center located in the back of the head. This center is also referred to the amphibian brain that we unconsciously rely on when our life is in danger.
Though mastodons are no longer chasing us, our flight/freeze center is still being activated by the continuous stimulation and inundation of everyday life. At times it can be difficult to shut off all the residual stimulus, and as a result many suffer from sleep issues, pervasive anxiety, irritability and stress.
When in continual overdrive our systems take a toll. The cortisol levels, produced by our adrenals and known as the “stress hormone”, becomes elevated and depresses the secretion of DHEA, which is the anti-aging hormone. When this happens over a period of time, folks can look older than their years and experience high levels of stress related conditions. Over a prolonged period of time this causes diseases such as heart attacks, stroke, and anxiety disorders. Not only are our hormones and immune system affected, it also affects our heart and all the other organs. Specifically, our heart is affected because it is in continuous communication with the old brain.
Years of research at the HeartMath Institute (www.heartmath.com) have found that the heart has a brain that communicates with the different parts of our brain in our head. This is referred to as the ANS or autonomic nervous system and it functions without us even being aware of it! Which has its benefits and setbacks. The benefits are that we don’t need to consciously think of taking in a breath or telling our adrenals to give us a shot of cortisol. The downside of it is that we can condition ourselves to have a very reactive system, which can keep us out of balance.
The key is to learn to retrain our autonomic nervous system so that we can slow ourselves down to rest, and get ourselves going again to do the tasks at hand. It’s a delicate dance of balance.
So how do we bring balance back into our bodies and our lives? We literally can retrain our bodies on how to deal with everyday stressors of life. The process is easy and if one is committed, will see results within a few weeks.
To begin this process, it is important to recognize that you are stressed out. When one begins to realize that they are experiencing stress then they can take steps to interrupt the cycle. When we slow down enough to notice that we are running on adrenaline that is when a shift can happen. We can then become proactive rather than reactive. And it is just a breath away. Literally right under our noses. Begin to notice your breath throughout the day. One way to increase this awareness is to set your watch or computer to give you a reminder to take time to notice your breathing. This can either be done as a gentle alarm or perhaps relaxing music. The point is to begin to notice when you are or are not breathing. Many folks go throughout their day with shallow breathing. When you get your subtle reminder - simply watch your breath and begin to deepen it into your belly. Notice how you feel when you fill yourself up with oxygen. Often there is a renewed sense of “waking up”. You literally fill your cells with oxygen. If possible, go outside and take in a few deep breaths of Mother Nature.
On another level, much of stress is about perception. How we view the events in our life. It’s interesting to note that every event is benign. That is it’s neutral. It’s neither here nor there. It just is. It’s the meaning that we put around the event that creates stress. For instance, how is it that one person may experience being stuck in traffic as a gift - a way to take some time out and relax? While someone else experiencing the same traffic jam, will get annoyed and anxious? How can 2 folks experience such different reactions? It’s how they interpret the situation. When someone is very stressed out, it’s as if they are emotionally flooded. One seemingly insignificant event can trigger a catastrophic response. So by becoming aware of the different stressors in your life, one can begin to take control of their reaction. It’s when we can slow ourselves down enough that we notice we have options. If there isn’t this slowing down, it’s easy to be reactive and impulsive. Interestingly, it is not the big events that cause us stress; it’s the million broken shoelaces.
So give yourself a break and BREATHE in deeply and exhale slowly. As you do this, focus your attention around the area of your heart. Breathe in gratitude, appreciation and love for someone, something or a memory. If you commit yourself to doing this consistently, you will find that over time, you will begin to notice that you are not sweating the small stuff as much…and noticing that it is all small stuff…when we take the time to breath.
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First, I invite you to bow deeply to that part of yourself that was resourceful enough to find clever ways of protecting you. Let that part of you know that the war is over, that you honor their protection, and that you are releasing it with love. 
A fun exercise to do is to think of all the things that you used to do before you got so busy. Make a cup of tea, sit down, let your imagination run away with you and make your list. Include things that are free and fun. For instance taking a walk along the river, watching a sunset, going to the movies with your children, partner or just yourself! Imagine that! Make it playful and rich. After you have listed 10 or so things, cut them up and put them into a special box. Then once a week pick out 2 or 3 things and do them! Notice how your creative juices begin to flow and that your “selfish” action becomes a sacred selfless act.
What I have noticed is that as I move through the day it takes faith. Just crossing a street there is the deep knowingness that I will make it to the other side. When I speak in front of a group of people, there is the inner knowingness that I will get my message across. And yet if I am in a place of doubting my knowingness, I get stuck in my insecurities and feel vulnerable, thus slipping out of faith and into fear. Sometimes this shift is so subtle that it takes me a moment to notice it.
Isn’t it amazing that with all of the technological advances such as cell phones, faster running computers, the Internet, texting, I-phones, etc that all of this is actually causing us more stress rather than relieving it. Who would have thought? It is said that we are living in an attention deficient disorder society, and that all of these modern technologies are literally overloading our circuits. That is our brains are unable to take in the massive amounts of information that we are subjected to everyday. Not only are we dealing with between 60, 000 to 80,000 thoughts per day, we are also dealing with incoming information from a variety of sources. 
On another level, much of stress is about perception. How we view the events in our life. It’s interesting to note that every event is benign. That is it’s neutral. It’s neither here nor there. It just is. It’s the meaning that we put around the event that creates stress. For instance, how is it that one person may experience being stuck in traffic as a gift - a way to take some time out and relax? While someone else experiencing the same traffic jam, will get annoyed and anxious? How can 2 folks experience such different reactions? It’s how they interpret the situation. When someone is very stressed out, it’s as if they are emotionally flooded. One seemingly insignificant event can trigger a catastrophic response. So by becoming aware of the different stressors in your life, one can begin to take control of their reaction. It’s when we can slow ourselves down enough that we notice we have options. If there isn’t this slowing down, it’s easy to be reactive and impulsive. Interestingly, it is not the big events that cause us stress; it’s the million broken shoelaces.