Choosing to stretch past your comfort zone

He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all.  Richard Back

You are only limited by your unwillingness to stretch past your comfort zone.  Lyssa M. Danehy deHart

Are you a StoryJacker?

What the heck is StoryJacking?  This is a question that I have been fielding a lot recently.  Part of the reason is that I invented the StoryJack mashup, so this is a new concept.  If you don’t know what it is, you are not alone.

We all live in stories: the ones we tell ourselves, the ones others tell us, the ones we believe, the stories that scare us, and the ones that we use to drive ourselves forward.  Stories are our narrative, describing life as we see and feel it.  Every bit of information that we take into our mind comes to us in the form of a story, the news, movies, reality tv, books, gossip, education.  And, if you think about the things that capture your attention, it’s probably a juicy story.

Narrative psychology is a viewpoint or a stance within psychology concerned with the “storied nature of human conduct” or in other words, how human beings deal with experience by constructing stories and listening to the stories of others. (Wikipedia)

As you’re looking, you will see stories everywhere.  Our lives are so intertwined with stories that we are often unconscious to the mystery and magic that are embodied in the stories that we connect with, and how those stories impact us.

As children we play in the fields of make believe, enjoying the stories we create from the mist of our imaginations.

Today, science is showing us that our memories, the very things that generate our life stories, are mostly made up.  Yet, we are constantly creating narratives to explain ourselves, or situations, and these stories are filled with tragedy as well as triumph.  Stories can capture us within powerful emotions.  There is always a story that we are telling ourselves in every situation.  Whether we feel empowered or disempowered, there is a story we are telling.  These powerful stories engage us and form a glue that binds us to people, places, ideas, and ultimately to our sense of self.

Stories help us to describe and align with our tribe; the people we will love, the people who will challenge us, the work we are passionate about, the lives that we will create, what we could never do, what we must absolutely do, and each intention is a story.

It can feel overwhelming, but we have the unlimited ability to change stories that don’t work for us, and as they change, they have the power to transform how we interact with the world around us.

StoryJack / stohree jak / verb

Definition:
Story a narrative, either true or fictitious, designed to instruct the hearer or reader; a narration of the events in the life of a person or the existence of a thing, or such events as a subject for narration: example the story of his life or the story we tell ourselves about what we are capable of, in Business it might be the story of our organization or how our team is functioning.

Jack to increase, develop, raise, or accelerate. (Typically followed by something: in this case, awareness, understanding, or insights) To boost the morale of; encourage.

Related terms: StoryJacking, StoryJacked, StoryJacks

Noun: StoryJacker ex. I am a StoryJacker, helping people recognize the stories that will transform their lives, careers, teams, and businesses.

So, what’s your story?  Are you a StoryJacker too?

I am developing a podcast series, StoryJacker, if you think you have an interesting and transformational story, I would be very interested in connecting and having a conversation about having you on the show.  Thank you for reading. 

photo: from bigstockphoto.com

Turning Conflict on its Head

Conflict may be inevitable – how we successfully deal with conflict is not.

Someone once said, “Anytime you have two people in a relationship, it’s dysfunctional” and this seems to play out daily in our lives.  

Daily our realities bump into other people’s realities and when these realities meet and agree, things are golden.  Unfortunately, as soon as my beliefs, values, wants, or expectations bump into someone else’s beliefs, values, wants, or expectations and they are different, hold on, it’s about to get bumpy.  So, how do we learn to cope and manage conflict?  This all depends on your desired outcome or goal for the situation.

What’s your outcome goal? Whatever you’re about to say, think, or do will either take you one step closer to your goal or one step farther away.

We’ve all met people we don’t like. They are too different from us; they want something we can’t or won’t give, or they just rub us wrong from the get go.  Yet, we sometimes need to work with these people and figure out a way to either ‘get along’ and ‘move forward.’  So, the ability to manage conflict is key to a good life and healthy relationships.

Five simple strategies:

• Personalize nothing. Miguel Ruiz talks about this at length in his book the Four Agreements. Personalization is all about the ego. We get into trouble in a couple of ways with this one. Either we personalize something that is said or done to us and react poorly or we misinterpret something that is said or done to us, believing it’s about us and react poorly.  It’s hard, but important to remember that nothing is personal.  Everything that anyone says or does to you tells you about them.  It doesn’t mean you need to just sit and take it, but you may need to plan the best way to effectively handle the situation or behavior.  It might be time for healthier boundaries or it might be time for an important conversation about your perspective. Try to take time to breathe and let yourself cool down.  When you react without working through a planned response, it often hurts more than it helps.
• Listen to understand, not for ammo.  I first thought about this concept when I became a 7 Habits Facilitator.  When we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t like someone or are feeling angry or defensive, it’s easy to hear the other person’s words and not “listen” to understand. Hearing someone’s words and listening are different activities.  People sometimes assume that listening to someone equals agreement.  But listening and understanding where people are coming from doesn’t mean we agree with them, it means we are trying to understand their perspective.  Working to understand another person will often pave the way to reducing conflict, plus it models the behavior you want to see.
• Be willing to find the middle path.  In the past 20 years, I have worked with individuals, couples, organizations and teams, and a one-sided push for a one-sided outcome is often expensive.  If we want a way through conflict, we need to be willing to find the middle way. We often assume we are fighting a war and must win, but in fact when we respond with a win/lose mentality, we’re creating future problems.  In most relationships, if one of us loses, we are both ultimately losing.  A willingness to brainstorm solutions and create a plan that works for both people will lead to far longer lasting solutions.
• Take responsibility.  When we are defensive or angry, the hardest thing to do is take personal responsibility for any part of the conflict.  I’m not saying you need to take 100% responsibility for the whole situation. You do need to take 100% responsibility for your part. If you’re in a conflict, you’ve participated in the conflict on some level. Sometimes, even by accident, someone might personalize something you said or misinterpret your meaning.  If you can “own” your side of the street, you can reduce the drama of conflict.
• Turn conflict on its head. Most of us are taught that conflict is angry, maybe ugly. It is a fight and it has a winner and a loser. But, what if we change how we think about conflict? Conflict, or as I like to call it Passionate Disagreement, can also be a force of good. Conflict gives us opportunity to work through differences, build insights, see a situation from multiple perspectives, and this kind of constructive conflict is capable of bringing us together. Some would say we cannot deeply trust people until we know how they handle conflict. Until we experience how people will behave in disagreements, we don’t fully know them. Few important problems are solved because everyone was trying to be nice and just get along. I’ve experienced the connection that comes from having a passionate disagreement, working through that disagreement and building a more powerful relationship or solution. This level of connection is called intimacy.

If you change how you respond or react to conflict, you can shift the majority of conflicts that roll your way. 

You will meet people who do not want to compromise; they aren’t interested in your perspective and they may even be looking for a fight. Inevitably, I have found I get much better results with these five strategies.

images from Bigstockphoto.com

 

A Balanced Perspective

There is a movie called, The Lady in the Water, by M. Night Shamalon. It didn’t get rave reviews, but I enjoyed it. That’s not really the point though.  In the movie, there was a character, who had worked out only one side of his body; half his body looked like a body builder and the other half was a normal guy size. He was physically out of balance.  And, while most of us don’t wear our imbalance so obviously, we play out our imbalance in how we interact with the people around us and the world in general.

In the past few weeks I have been talking with people about their negative versus positive focus.

We humans are hardwired for survival. Noticing what is odd, dangerous, out of place, etc, is a survival strategy. As we scan the world with our senses, it’s nice when we notice the pretty flowers, but when we can notice the tiger in the tall grass, it helps us survive. Even though the skill is a crucial survival skill, the wiring can create its own set of issues. All the focus gets turned on what isn’t working, what we don’t like, how bad we feel, where the problems are, what’s wrong. Then the imbalance pitches toward the negative. This lopsided perspective isn’t realistic, any more than only seeing only the positive is realistic.

This week when I was walking out to my car, I tripped. Not a big splatter type of trip, but a drop all my stuff and end up on my knees type of trip. “I am so clumsy!” “I am the clumsiest person!” In that moment I wasn’t thinking, “I take about 5000-10,000 steps a day, over the average month I take 150,000+ steps, and I tripped once.” People rarely focus on the 150,000 good steps, but will instead create a laser focus on the one bad step. Does that really make sense? I am not saying go to some perfect Pollyanna extreme the other direction, what I am saying is that we need to work on using the muscles on both sides of the situation.

How much of our self-esteem and our internal conversations are colored with this same negative laser focus?

It is really hard to shift our focus to something neutral when we’re in the middle of something that’s maybe pissing us off painful. As we’re in the middle of whatever the situation is, we chew it around and around, gnawing at all the bad parts. If I’ve gotten into an argument with my husband, and he did something that bugged me or hurt my feelings, in that moment it’s very easy to focus on solely what is upsetting.  The negative laser focus doesn’t help me think of all the times he’s been supportive, thoughtful, or caring.  It doesn’t remind me of the times he’s rubbed my feet or listened to my feelings.  In fact it doesn’t remind me of anything good at all. At that point, my negative focus isn’t the whole truth. At the point my focus is lasered on something negative, I’m missing out on the whole other side of the truth. So, in order to challenge the negative focus I have a couple of ideas to share with you.

Ideas:

First – Take time before responding; wait to see how you feel in about 2-24 hours. Take a walk, take a bath, read a book, talk to a friend.  Not every situation is a crisis just because we feel the pressure to try and resolve it instantly. This first step is really about doing no harm until you can have clarity and work towards having a good conversation.  It is the shift from being Reactive to being Proactive.

Second – While you’re waiting, giving yourself some breathing room from the issue, start remembering all the positive things about this person you’re upset with.  Is this a person who has been good to you?  Have they helped you in other areas?  Have they supported you in the past?  Do you care about them?  Do you love them? Create a thorough list of all the things you like about that person. Maybe you don’t like them, but you need them because they’re your boss, or in-law, or a co-worker.  You don’t need to make up anything; just really notice an honest reflection of who they are and try to find something that you can appreciate about them.  It’s an interesting thing, but we treat people differently based on how we think of them, the label of friend or foe makes all the difference.

Third – 

Pay attention to your feelings.  Feelings offer you a place to discover the deeper issues that may be affecting the relationship or situation. If you regularly find yourself feeling a negative feeling with your partner or friend or anyone, you may need to pay attention to what that feeling is trying to tell you.  There are often deeper issues at work.  Do you feel like you are being rejected or that you are not good enough the way you are? (Acceptance) Are you feeling controlled or manipulated to do something or be different? (Power and Control) Maybe you are feeling taken for granted or feeling like your hard work isn’t appreciated? (Recognition) Is there a sense of being criticized or treated with contempt? (Respect) The deeper emotion may have to do with trust, not feeling like someone will follow through with agreements.  Or, are you being challenged in your views of yourself? (Integrity)  In intimate relationships we may struggle with “Do you love me?” (Love) and “Do you want to be here?” (Commitment) These deeper issues will never be resolved arguing about whose fault it is that the dishes didn’t get done, or any other superficial problem.  It’s only when we understand what’s getting triggered that the important conversations can happen.  The more important the relationship is, the more carefully we need to handle the conversation.  Through years of relationship work, I have found that if you are feeling some of these deeper issues, so is your partner, be it an intimate relationship or a work relationship.

Fourth – Make sure to listen to hear and understand.  Often times we listen for ammo. This is not real listening; this is a form of war.  Unfortunately, winning a war of words with someone, means you lose something else, like their respect or help or love. There is always our side of the story, but there is also their side of the story.  Listening is a two way street. If you have something to say, make sure you are also doing what you ask of them; listen. Listening and agreement are two very different things.  You don’t have to agree with their side of the story, but try and put yourself in their shoes, if only for a moment. Look for what their intention was; if their intention was not to hurt your feelings, remember that.

Fifth – When you’re ready to actually talk to the person, try to come from a place of only talking about your feelings. Feelings are very difficult to argue with because they’re yours. I have seen “I” statements that are actually convoluted “You” statements.  “I feel like your are a jerk.”  These don’t work.  If you focus on what you don’t like about someone else’s behavior, you run the risk of either shutting the other person down, or you will turn up the volume on their defensiveness. We are masters at triggering other peoples’ defenses, especially in long relationships and in hard conversations. Recognize that in every conversation there is intent and impact. The closer these are aligned, the better the conversation will go.  Start important conversations softly to keep the dialog useful.

One of the super secrets in life is that emotions are not good or bad, but rather they are like road signs; they tell you something.  When we learn to read our own emotions, it helps us know ourselves better and hopefully get to know other people better too.  The goal is to shift the story from imbalanced to I’m Balanced!

images from BigStockPhoto: balancing balls Sashkin and Imbalance Bigandt_Photography

 

Share this:

Apparently it is not as simple as “yes or no.”  Kelly McGonigal talks about a Harvard study that shows that, how you think about stress matters.  If you see stress as bad, causing illness, and hurting you, it will.  Almost magically, the crucial difference between the stress that makes you sick and the stress that doesn’t hurt you at all, is how you think about it.  The mind is truly a powerful tool.  When you change the stress story, and you see stress as your body’s way of rising to a challenge, you fundamentally change your body’s reaction to the stress.  Your body believes your thoughts and your stress response becomes healthier.  It’s brilliant!  This is a great scientific example of changing the your world with your thinking.

Challenge the Limits

We all have expectations. We have them of ourselves and of others.  I am not going to give a judgment on the rightness or wrongness of expectations, because clearly communicated expectations are useful.  Yet, it is important to develop awareness around the limiting power that they can hold, depending on how we apply them.  And, we have thousands of thoughts and ideas about how the world is supposed to work, how people are supposed to be, how they are supposed to act, what they are supposed to do, and even what they are capable of.  It’s endless.  Which is why it’s so important that we start to become aware of how we may be using expectations in limiting ways.

How to Become Batman – Invisibilia Podcast

I was recently listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Invisibilia, where hosts Alix and Lulu explore the limiting qualities of expectations.  The discuss a study about rats where a person’s belief in the rats ability affects how well the rat does in a test. In the study, labels of “smart” rat and “stupid” rat were put on the rats.  The rats were actually all very equal in intelligence and breeding.  Interestingly enough, the “smart” rats did far better on the tests than the “stupid” rats, again, not because of any real difference between the rats, but because of how the person doing the testing felt about the rat as a result of believing in the label.  Our belief in our labels affect how we interact, not just with animals but, with other people and with ourselves.  Our belief in the label creates a tangible outcome.  In an interesting film called, A Class Divided, we can see how labels effect kids.

The film explores how the kids see themselves, as better or worse, depending on the messages they get from others.  In this case the teacher.  Yet, you could insert, parent, friends, or society, into the situation and get something similar.  The film also explores how when the larger culture is telling us something we like, we buy into it without much thought.  Unfortunately, we also unconsciously buy into the cultural messages that limit us.  To figure out what messages help or hurt, requires awareness.

Back to Invisibilia, in the show, How to Become Batman, we are introduced to Daniel Kish, a man who lost both of his eyes to cancer when he was a child.  But, through his own form of echolocation, can now navigate the world and “see.” What is exceptional about his story is that Daniel was allowed to explore the world, like any sighted kid.  His mother didn’t place limits on him, but instead held her breath and allowed him to explore, run into things & try things that most “blind children” wouldn’t be encouraged to do.  And, as a result, he is a lovely example of someone who doesn’t fit into the traditional idea of what being blind means.  He just assumed he could do anything and then he went out and did it.

And, the point of my sharing these examples?

1. That we begin to “see” that negative labels create limiting expectations of others.  We are not experts on what other people are capable of, in fact, all we can have is an opinion.  Our limiting expectations aren’t passive, they have impact, they effect how we have relationships with people, how we define them, interact with them, what we expect from and for them, and even how they end up being in relationship with us.

and,

2.  That we recognize how we place similar negative labels on ourselves and these labels limit us just as equally.  Limiting labels are like little confining boxes, boxes that don’t allow us to grow, fail, try again and develop trust in our abilities.  When we limit ourselves, the danger is that we miss opportunities to be fully engaged in our life and learning to move through fear.  Experiencing life, facing challenges and forging ahead, changes how our brain makes connections.  Challenging experiences teach us what does and doesn’t work, it stretches our boundaries, helping us become smarter, braver and more connected to what we want for our life.  And, that’s a good thing, right?

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.

In the Words of Buckaroo Bonzai…

no matter where you go… there you are.

It seems to be a theme this week; I’ve been talking with clients about the idea of them wanting their lives to be different by either running away or having things magically change.  The underlying idea being, maybe if the situation changes, it will be easier for them.  Let me start off by saying, there is nothing wrong with leaving a situation or changing it, if you recognize that you take your baggage with you.  Leaving the situation can give you a break from whatever rut you find yourself, but if you have a pattern or habit of behavior or thinking, most likely you will find yourself running around the same tree very soon.  In order to break a habit or change a situation, you need to start with yourself.  What do you need to be aware of in order to really change whatever situation you find yourself in that you don’t like?  That’s the big question.

One question to think about is: Is there a pattern here?

Awareness can make a huge difference in outcomes.  In fact, Awareness makes ALL the difference. With awareness, we can begin to understand our patterns and what motivates us to behave, speak, fight, and make choices, etc in certain ways.  With this insight, we can begin to choose with clarity.

Another question to think about is: Where do I want to be in 6 months or a year?

Awareness let’s us know what’s going on, but in order to know what to choose, we have to have an idea of where we want to go. In his book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Steven Covey says to begin with the end in mind, and that’s the truth, we definitely need to have a direction.

I was talking to a client the other day, she gets into patterns in relationships where she is in financial crisis and wants someone to ‘save’ her.   But, people don’t tend to want to financially rescue other people for free, so she ends up with the cost of what she has to do to keep the savior engaged in saving her.  She then begins to feel bad about what she has to do, or put up with, and ends up hating her savior.  She had to take a good hard look at the pattern, now that she knows it’s there, she has to start to develop the idea of what she want to move towards.  “I want to feel safe and like I don’t have to worry that creditors are knocking at my door.”  My thought to her was, “If you want to truly be ‘safe’ you’re going to have to deal with the financial drama you create.  Creating a different dynamic in that regard will allow you then to choose the people you actually want to spend time with, based on liking and respecting them, not because you have to put on a show to get them to do what you need… like save you.”

We do this in jobs too.  “I hate my job, but I can’t quit.”  Well, why not?  I realize that people have expenses, kids, homes, cars, insurance, etc.  But, if you really hate a job, why can’t you start to think about what you want to move toward?  Feeling stuck and choosing to stay that way is most likely a pattern too.  There are times, that with good reason, we need to stay in a job, even if we don’t love it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be planning a change down the road.  It may mean we need to take a look at what skills we need to develop, education, etc.  The pattern is just the easy place we can get stuck; it doesn’t mean we have to stay stuck forever.  Someone once said, the only difference between a rut and the grave is the depth… ruts are easier to jump out of, death is terminal.

If we have the courage to pay attention and stop running away from our stuff, life gets a lot less complicated. It’s sort of like that quintessential picture of the newlyweds driving away in the car looking over waving at the crowd with little cans hanging off the back, those little cans are actually baggage, the cans say things like: problem managing anger, commitment issues, fear, wants to be saved, and I’m not feeling so confident. The problem with the little cans is you’re dragging them along with you and until you can see them, you can’t toss them in the recycle bin.

One of the problems of life is that we can’t really hide from ourselves, no matter where we go… there we are.