Be Yourself

 

Quote for the Day!

Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.  Oscar Wilde

Truth Bombs

I often talk to people about being honest and truthful. I meet people who tell me what honest people they are and how they ‘tell it like it is.’ But, I don’t often meet honest people who also have good outcomes with their honesty. More often they explode a Truth Bomb.

There is often one of two things going on here. First, if we are ‘honest’ when we are upset about someone else’s actions, thoughts, or words,, we tend to tell them the “truth” from our perspective, even if it hurts them. We support ourselves with “Sometimes the truth hurts.” But, what we miss in this statement is that telling the truth doesn’t have to be done in a hurtful way. The second thing that may be going on is that we think we need to educate someone with what we think. So we drop our “Truth bomb” on them.

I think that both of these practices are a little self-serving. I know I have had moments when I felt the need to share my perspective and told a hard truth to someone. Here is what I have learned from my own Truth Bombs.

The problem with telling a “Truth Bomb” to someone else is not the truth part, but the bomb part of the delivery.  I can’t speak for you, but when people drop a truth bomb on me, I don’t hear them.

I taught Anger Management for the Air Force for 7 years and several of the responses I have gotten to this honesty issue have sounded like this:

“I am not going to sugar coat the truth!” or,

“I am a blunt person, just deal with it!” or

“Sorry if the truth hurts, but it’s the truth and that’s not my fault!” or

“I am not responsible if you don’t like the truth!”

Yet I have to ask, “Were you effective and did you get the outcome that you wanted with your method of truth telling?” Because where I have seen this go very badly is we told the real truth like it is man! with no fluff!, and we blew the other person out of the water, we sunk their battleship, and now they won’t or can’t hear us. We may have severed the relationship, or created ammo for them to use at us a later time in a future conversation. Basically, we did harm and our truth was not only useless, but may have been abusive. And, my guess is that probably wasn’t the intent behind the truth, but it might certainly be the impact.

When I was young someone told me, “If what you do with the truth is blow someone up, your point, your insight, your message, the value of the very truth your are attempting to share would be lost.”

The best way to help my truth be heard was to develop it around the ideas of True, Kind, and Necessary. These three values were the legs that stabilized the truth. These were the values that helped people hear the truth from me. This concept fits very neatly with “Socrates’ Triple Filter Test,” True, Good, Useful. It also is something you heard at least in part, in childhood, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I don’t subscribe to the last statement, because sometimes I have to say something difficult. But, my goal is to be heard by the other person. And, if I have something difficult to say and say it in a mean and hurtful way, I know I won’t be heard.

I see True, Kind, and Necessary as aspects or legs of a stool; without all three, you lose stability. I have heard people say to just use a 2/3 model, if it is two of the three, you can say it, but I believe you will get maximum impact with the power of all 3. This does mean we sometimes have to slow down our statements, think about our responses, gain insights into what we are really trying to say, so we can say it clearly and concisely. At the end of the day, if the conversation is so important you to have it, the statement and truth are so compelling your have to share it, then you actually owe it to your conversation to do it well. Like most bombs, this one is best left unexploded.

 

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Love is as infinite as the universe.  Our ability to love is only limited by our imagination.  Lyssa

Fearless Empathy

This is is a great TED talk, about the need to have both determination (spine) and empathy (heart).  Vanessa Inn talks about how fear divides these two aspects that make up each of us, and why finding balance between the two extremes helps us to manifest our gifts into the world.  She also tells a great story about her own process of moving through fear, and changing the story she had been telling herself.

 

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Have you ever played pool? Did you notice how you might be a ½ millimeter off when you tap the white ball, but by the end of the table the white ball is off course by inches?  Such a little thing as a ½ a millimeter can radically change through time and space. The same thing applies to any change we want to encourage in our lives. We are actively living in time and space. Any small changes you adopt to improve yourself, will grow through time, if you keep at it.

Things that might empower you:

• Power List!  Write a list of all the things that you have accomplished.  Make sure you add things like, I graduated from…, I taught my child…, I am a good friend to…  Find accomplishments from your education, your personal life, your work/career, and volunteer jobs.  Have you every gotten a compliment about being smart, or creative, or funny?  Write it down.  Keep the list somewhere that you can find it and add to it as you go.  This list will help on the days you feel less than.  It will help you challenge your thinking, when you may be more negative than is useful.
• Leave yourself Love Notes! These aren’t love notes in the traditional format, but rather you telling yourself the things you need to hear. I am capable! I manage stress well! I am likeable! I care about people and they care about me! I am smart and getting smarter!  Put these post it note messages up all around your bathroom mirror, you will have to see them at least twice a day and they will be good for you.
• Try Power Posing! Stand like Superman or Wonder Woman. Raise your hands in the Victory V and smile to the sky. Sit with your legs up on the desk and your hands behind your head like a big shot. Find a power pose and then practice it in private, but over time, you will change the testosterone and cortisol levels in your body and will develop a more powerful sense of yourself.
• Visualize! See yourself handling anything you need to do well. See yourself being successful in anything you might normally be scared of, such as talking in front of people, or in a job interview, going to a party where you don’t know people, walking into a classroom the first day, whatever might be scary. Then see yourself doing that thing with confidence.
• Let Go!  It can be hard to let go of regrets, resentments or worries, it seems you’re hardly human if you don’t have a few of these.  All these things are either past focused or future focused, and they take attention away from ‘now.’  And, unfortunately,  the more you focus on the negative aspects of the past or the future, the harder it is to feel good about yourself and/or your direction in the present.  When we focus on things we have no control over, the past especially, it’s really difficult to move forward.  Looking backwards is only helpful if you are learning from it or letting go of it.  The future is open and unknown,  we can work to influence it in positive ways, but worry and resentments rarely get you where you want to go.

Try these tools to help you keep your energy high as you move toward your goals.  We also need to support ourselves through the journey.  Just like in pool, these tiny tweaks will lead you to new outcomes.  As you make these small adjustment, see how they are working, if you are feeling more empowered, then make another, and then another, and another.

Let your life lightly dance

The Quote for the Week.

 

Tiger Tiger

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night.
William Blake

If we roll back time about 12,000 years, what we would find in 10,000 BC is small bands of humans who had mastered using tools, they could use fire, they had art, and they had a developing culture. But, they were still outnumbered by all sorts of scary things that thought, “Humans taste like chicken.” The reason I am even mentioning this, is that humans have had to developed a very quick defensive response or arousal response in their brain. They needed to be able to react quickly to the tiger sneaking up on them, they needed fast reflexes that got them running faster than others, or up a tree in a second. This arousal response is something I talked about in the blog about the Navy Seal training program. It’s very connected to the Fight, Flight or Freeze response. People needed ways to survive in a dangerous world and the people who had quick arousal responses typically made it to parenthood and passed on their genes.

Fast forward 12,000 years. You and I live in a very different world. There are not as many tigers stalking us, but the world is still filled with situations and other people who can, at worst, be dangerous, and at best be annoying to the point that we get stressed out. Who among us has had a serious illness, or the loss of a loved one, or had to swerve as they’re driving to avoid another car, or had to grab a child who is about to have a calamity, or tripped as we were walking and texting. Speedy reflexive actions are life savers. But, not all situations are truly life or death. The husband or wife who is annoying us, might be really annoying, but probably isn’t deadly. Yet, we may have a reaction to this person that is bigger and more explosive than necessary. Especially depending on how long we have held our stress in check.

There are many tools to manage our brains on stress and fear.

1/ Meditation. Meditation isn’t just for monks, it also doesn’t have to take hours. Meditation can be as simple as focusing on your breathing for 2 minutes, focusing on your breathing until you feel your automatic nervous system relax. There is no need to chant, though there isn’t anything wrong with that either. But, really it’s an intentional shift of focus from what is outside of you and stressful (external) to your breathing and body relaxation (internal). The more you practice this tool, the easier it is to do. Also the easier it is to access when you’re feeling stressed. I often recommend to those new to meditating, try focusing on your breathing every time you sit down, for a minute or 2. You might end up meditating 10 times a day, for 1 or 2 minutes, but this is still going to have a positive effect on your stress and build your toolbox.  The hardest thing for people to do is sit down and try and meditate for 30 minutes, you have to learn to work this muscle a minute at a time.

2/ Laugh. Readers Digest has said it for years, laughter is the best medicine… Both laughing and crying do a similar thing in your body, they pump the diaphragm and relax and tense muscles. On a physiological level this action moves chemicals around the body, like stress chemicals, which help to flush them from your system. But, laughter offers other benefits too. Laughter is linked to a healthy immune system. When we are stressed, we make more blood platelets, which cause obstructions in our arteries. Laughter increases our natural killer cells which combat illnesses, we increase our Gamma-interferon, T-cells, and B-cells all of which help us to stay healthy even under stress. Also, researchers estimate that laughing 100 times is equal to 10 minutes on a rowing machine… I know which I would choose. Check out Laughter Yoga, it’s an international movement that might just crack you up.

3/ Challenge it. Someone once said, “don’t believe everything you think.” Well, it’s true. When we are afraid, stressed or angry, our brains will tell us all sorts of amazing and false things… Be very careful what you latch on to, in these moments. Depending on our personalities, we may over react that we did something wrong, or conversely that everyone else is wrong. Either of these responses could be incorrect. The truth, whatever that grey area is, probably lies more in the middle, and either cursing yourself, or cursing someone else probably isn’t going to help much. Plus, you may just be reacting to misinformation. Dr. Amen talks about asking yourself 2 questions. 1. Do I know this belief to be 100% true? 2. What do I know that challenges the negative belief? These questions are great. You may find you are telling yourself the truth, but if your not, then you can head off making the situation worse.

4/ Just Wait. Steven Covey, in the 7 Habits, talks about being ProActive and giving yourself time to choose a different response. When our brains start freaking out, our cortisol and adrenaline increase, our reactivity goes up and our ability to think plummets. Have you ever had a reactive conversation with someone, said all sorts of crazy things that maybe didn’t even make sense, and an hour later thought to yourself… “I should have said…” or “I should never have said…”? That’s because your brain on stress is stupid. It’s not meant to think about deep philosophical insights, thoughtful arguments, it’s supposed to keep your happy ass from being eaten by the tiger! One of my best strategies, and mind you I am a Red headed, Irish, Leo… I know of what I speak, one of my personal best strategies is to… wait for it… keep my mouth closed, or conversely, don’t press the ‘send’ button. If at all possible, I wait to respond.  I have given myself several weeks, depending on how angry I was.  I know that my brain is not acting in my best interest in the heat of the moment, so I shut my mouth and wait for my brain to catch up. It’s saved relationships on several occasions.

5/Visualize.  Creating a picture in your head of how you would like something to happen, how you would like to handle some situation,  seeing yourself be better at some activity, or how you would like a job interview to go, or what you want your life to look like in a year.  Visualizing the outcome you want is like setting a visual goal.  The more clarity you have about what you want an experience or situation to look like, the more likely you will handle yourself in ways that take you where you want to go.  Visualize yourself being successful in navigating tigers, managing them, and maybe even making them purr.  Most of us have been successful at times in handling stressful situations.  Think back to times where you handled your stress in a way that felt empowering, then visualize yourself in new situations, handling yourself the way you would like to.  The mind doesn’t know the difference between visualizing doing something, and actually doing it.  Brain scans show visualizing doing something (practicing a golf swing), lights up the brain similarly as actually doing something like swinging that club.  Visualizing doing exercise actually improves muscle mass.  So use your mind to help you.

6/ Breathe.  When all else fails, or maybe before anything fails, breathe.  Most bodies tense up and stop breathing when they get stressed.  People either find themselves breathing in short shallow breathes, or big gulps.  How you breathe affects your nervous system, and if you wonder why I am making a big deal about breathing, think about how long you can go without food?  A month? Or water? A week?  And, then think about how long you can go without oxygen.  Most of us can maybe go without oxygen 5-7 minutes.  That’s a ridiculously short amount of time.  The most important connection here is that you can control your breathing, when you slow your breathing down, you affect your heart rate and you reduce the Cortisol and Adrenaline that fear of tigers produces.  Conversely, you can hype yourself up by breathing faster.

7/ Distract yourself.  Have you ever noticed when you’re in a hurry that all the people around you seem to S  L  O  W down?  You’re standing in the grocery line and the lady in front of you starts to pay in pennies, or everyone driving in front of you is on a Sunday drive?  If you decide to change lanes, you may get block again, only to see the lane you were in speed up?  This is one of the vortex’s of the universe, my made up name for the phenomenon is Hurry up and Wait Syndrome.  But, I digress, one way to manage this situation is to distract yourself.  Dream about what you would do if you won the lottery, most people can easily pass a few minutes to a few hours dreaming of being a big winner.  Or, read a magazine in line, as soon as I pick up a People magazine, the line freakishly speeds up.  I am flipping and searching for some article and before I know it, it’s time to pay and I have to decide if I care enough about the article to buy it.  Listen to music or a book in your car, if that’s where you lose your mind, so you can distract yourself from focusing on all those lost tourists and Sunday drivers.

8/ Music soothes the savage beast.  There is a recent study from the University of Missouri, by Yuna Ferguson, that showed that music can improve your mood.  Music can also energize you, which is probably why people do aerobics to upbeat high energy music and not Classical Opera.  In another study by Thomas Schäfer, Peter Sedlmeier, Christine Städtler, and  David Huron, The psychological functions of music listening, found that people listen to music to regulate arousal and mood, to achieve self-awareness, and as an expression of social relatedness.  With the regulating arousal and mood and achieving self awareness being more important than the social relatedness.

In another study, on the Effects of Music to the Human Stress Response, found that Relaxing music, reduced the physiological responses to stress.   And, there is new research showing that music positively affected brain waves, muscle tone, blood pressure & heart rate, for the elderly, when they were listening to the music of their youth.

These tools are not really meant to be used in any particular order.  Try them all and bolster your toolbox.

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Authenticity.  It’s about being real. It’s about knowing yourself. It’s about courageously confronting the parts of yourself that don’t fit with your vision of you.  Authenticity can be a moral compass that directs your actions toward your own true north.  It’s a feeling of being comfortable in our own skin.  Yet as much as we understand this in theory, being authentic is one of the hardest things to do in practice.  Think about how many people you know who are in your mind truly authentic.  If you’re lucky, there are a handful of people who you can name.  Now think about times when you have felt authentic.  You may be one of the special few, who always feel confident in your ability to interact with the world from a solely authentic place, but most of us have to work at it regularly.  There are areas where we shine our authentic selves like a bright light in a dark universe, and if we are being authentic, we also know that there are places that we still need work to grow the light.  Most of us still have the dark closet or corner where our fear gets triggered.

Like any other trait, authenticity is an aspect of ourselves that we can develop.  Part of that development comes from acknowledging who we are and that we want to become more authentic.  When I was 18, I looked at myself and saw a person that I didn’t like.  I saw a lot of negative qualities in myself and I focused on them. While I wasn’t a mean or bad person, I wasn’t very compassionate, or forgiving, I was often afraid, I was at times reactive and this didn’t fit with the type of person I really wanted to become.  I pretty consciously decided that I needed to determine what sort of person I did want to grow into.  I began to develop a picture of who I wanted to be.  This included an inventory of my values and these values became the map I actually wanted travel by.  These are not the values that we may say to other people because we think they are right or appropriate. These are the values that live in our truest hearts.  I decided that I wanted to be an authentic person, honest about who I am and courageous enough to share that.  The more I worked on authenticity, the more I needed to have compassion with myself, and the more I shifted my negative self talk. The more I could explore my strengths, the more clearly I saw myself honestly, and the easier it was to act or respond in ways that deepened my ability to be authentic.  It was a positive growth circle.

I taught anger management for years and one of the hardest things I saw people struggle with was the willingness to be honest and vulnerable.  We spend so much time worried about other people’s judgments of us, and fearing that we might be taken advantage of, that we stop ourselves from being fully present in relationships.  The truth is that we often judge our insides by other people’s outsides, yet it’s our own opinions of ourselves that matter.  Our view of ourselves is the guideline that every other person will use with us too.

There are steps that will put you on the path, as you journey, you grow.

Steps to developing your authentic self:

1. Knowing yourself

• Understanding your deep values
• Recognizing your triggers
• Developing compassion for yourself and others
• Focusing where you have influence

2. Willingness to be vulnerable

• Ability to acknowledge your feelings
• A willingness to not know everything
• Giving yourself permission to let go of yesterday and its mistakes
• Learn to clearly speak to your truth
• Being willing to let go of the idea of perfection
• Recognition that you are courageous

What developing your authentic self gives you:

• A feeling of empowerment in you life and your choices
• Breakthrough’s that allow you to push through resistances (fears)
• Ability to trust yourself and then to trust others
• Map to find your tribe of people

My favorite people to work with are the ones who want to forge themselves.  Are you a person who is willing to be brave and face your life with authenticity?