Archive for the ‘Possibilities’ Category

The Power of “What if . . .”

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Since I started to see emotion as the key to personal power and to identify the characteristics of different kinds of emotions, I’ve been paying more attention to my own judgment patterns.  In some areas of my life, based on the results I enjoy, I seem to have attained a place of pretty secure neutrality.  Based on the results in other areas of my life, however, I’m clearly still in the struggle.

When I look at the difference in my results, I can see that if I try to use Partner or Creator emotions without first becoming neutral, my efforts are handicapped by my interpretations, by the stories I’ve come up with to explain, to rationalize, to accommodate, or to place blame.  And the strongest way to eliminate judgment is to become the Observer, to employ neutral emotions.

From my own experience it seems the path to personal power is one step at a time.  You can’t simply leap from Victim mode to Partner mode.  If you’re stuck in the mud you have no traction.  You have to achieve the leverage of solid ground, and that’s what Observer mode provides.

An area of challenge for me has been my purpose.  About fifteen years ago, I got a sense of purpose far bigger than I could identify with.  I didn’t deny it exactly, but for at least ten years I wrestled with it, struggled with how, side-stepped it, and tried to make it small enough to reconcile.  Choosing to become a life coach was my first straight-forward, head-on move in the direction of that purpose, but I still couldn’t quite put it into words.  Eventually I came to peace with it as, “I teach wisdom and personal power.”  I stopped fighting it, stopped struggling with it, acknowledged it, and stopped judging myself as insufficient to the task.  After that things got easier.  My coaching practice blossomed, and the quality of my coaching improved.

But something was still missing.  Since coming up with the Diamond Of Mastery and using it as a coaching tool, I’ve realized how much I’ve been in Interpreter mode.  I still doubted my abilities, doubted I was the right person for the job, doubted I knew enough.  Yet I kept trying to leap straight from the mire to the mountain top.  So I started practicing acceptance, willingness, wonder, and courage.  As a result, when I sit down to write, the ideas come much more easily and the words flow.

And this personal understanding of the importance of starting from where I am has given me new understanding of where my clients are and how to help them start from where they are.

How do you measure?

Recently I was working with a long-time client from where she is, which is locked into a belief of good and bad.  She has a long list of criteria for being a good person, and if she can’t live up to that list (no one could) she’s a bad person.

I asked her what it would feel like if there was no such thing as bad or good.  She said it would feel good, easier, but she kept arguing in favor of the measuring stick.

Of course, we’re all in the habit of measuring, evaluating, weighing pros and cons, and trying to make the best choice.  However, we don’t make decisions based on logic; we make decisions using emotion.  (Individuals who have lost the emotion centers of the brain through accident or surgery can’t make decisions.  All options have the same weight to them.)  No matter how much data we collect or how we assess the data we collect, in the end we finally decide based on how we feel.  Therefore, the measuring stick we use to evaluate bad or good will always be subjective – subject to our beliefs, values, stories, interpretations and judgments.  And this is true whether we’re trying to buy a new car, considering whom to marry, deciding what we want to be when we grow up, or evaluating our own self-worth.

Unfortunately, if you’re in victim mode, the emotions you’re subject to are marked by helplessness and produce pain and suffering.  If you’re in interpreter mode you’re subject to emotions that produce struggle.  To create a different result for yourself, choose different emotions as your subjective base for making decisions – about yourself, about your life, about other people, about your relationships with all things.

Imagine what it would be like if there was no such thing as bad or good?  What if you could accept the world simply as it is and other people simply as they are?  What if you could not only accept yourself as you are, but also accept that you have power greater than you know?  What if you could look at yourself and what you want and say, “I am a writer.”  “Í am a smashing success.”  “I am the country’s top cartoonist.”  “I am a healer.”  “I am a perfect human being.”  “I am in partnership with the infinite.”  “I am a creator.”

What if you could acknowledge the truth residing somewhere inside you that recognizes your personal power, even if that required you to acknowledge you’re afraid of it, intimidated by it, don’t know what it means, and maybe don’t have a clue where to start.

Because my client likes to know what’s ahead, because she likes to plan and be sure, she kept asking, “But what would not knowing look like?”  I can’t answer that question.  I don’t know what’s ahead for myself, much less for anyone else.  But all the emotions of Observer mode have that aspect of not-knowing.

Transcend Measurement

Curiosity and wonder are among the most potent emotions when asking What if. . .

  • What if you valued curiosity over certainty?
  • What if you liked surprises?
  • What if wondering what else might be possible was fun?
  • What if being comfortable with the unknown took the pressure off?
  • What if some troublesome reality wasn’t a given?

More possibilities exist than you could ever know, or even imagine.  When you’re in Observer mode, you trust that expanse of possibilities.  You’re willing to say, “No, I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out.

Some of the aspects of life people commonly approach with strong Interpreter tendencies include:

Self-Perception

What if you could look at yourself with curiosity and wonder:

  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I believed I deserved to be successful (or rich, or happy, or whole).”
  • “What if I could love myself unconditionally?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I believed I could sing (dance, build, heal, laugh, fly).”

Habits and Beliefs

What if you could look at your long-time habits and beliefs with curiosity and wonder:

  • “What if I believed I didn’t have to work my guts out?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if my emotional connection to this unwanted habit or that detrimental belief just evaporated.”
  • “If I could replace this habit with anything in the universe, I wonder what I’d choose?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I let go of my frustration about ____.”
  • “What if life was easy instead of hard?”

Life Choices

What if you could look at your life choices with curiosity and wonder:

  • “What if I actually have the ability, skills and personal power to follow my dream?”
  • “What if I wasn’t afraid?”
  • “What if I truly knew I’ll be just fine?”
  • “What if I was okay with not being able to see around the next corner?”

The fact is, we can never know for sure the impact of our choices on others or on the future.  We can never know what’s ahead.  We can’t even know if we’ll be here tomorrow, let alone what tomorrow will bring.  Becoming comfortable with not-knowing can be challenging but it doesn’t have to be distressing or scary.

A few months ago, one of my students wanted a visualization she could use to become calmer about the future.  Perhaps you’re familiar with the one I suggested:  While driving at night, you can only see as far ahead as your headlights illuminate.  They only go so far, but they always illuminate the same distance ahead.  My student immediately took the metaphor ever further.  She said, “And if I stop moving, I’ll never discover what’s beyond that limited light beam.  Moving into what’s possible requires that I give the car some gas.”

Accelerate

You may find that with curiosity and wonder you also experience anticipation and hope.

It’s very easy with either anticipation or hope to start getting specific.  If you anticipate a specific outcome or hope for a certain result, you begin to narrow the possibilities.  When you restrict the possibilities, you slide back into Interpreter mode.  Almost automatically, you will begin to spot the difficulties and find the obstacles.

If, however, you stay open and continue to be curious, the scope of possibilities will expand beyond your ability to imagine.  The range of your vision will expand, almost as if you switched your headlights from dim to bright.

Hope from the Observer perspective produces the calm that all will be well.  Anticipation creates momentum toward the unknown future.

Whatever particular area of your life is currently proving the most challenging, consider taking the following steps to move from Interpreter to Observer:

  • Identify the scale by which you’re measuring.  (good/bad; for/against; me/them; easy/hard)
  • Ask yourself, What if this scale didn’t exist?
  • Be open to the possibilities.
  • Anticipate (don’t force) an answer that will amuse, astonish, excite or gratify you.

If you’re struggling with a health issue, maybe you’ll discover wellness.  If you’re struggling with financial problems, maybe you’ll discover abundance.  If you’re struggling with an unhealthy relationship, maybe you’ll discover harmony.  If you’re struggling with your purpose, maybe you’ll discover confidence.

I want to re-emphasize that when you resist, when you lock yourself into your stories, when you refuse to go forward, you create your own struggle.  Deep inside, you know who you are and you know what you are for.  As a first step, be willing to ask, “What if I opened up to that inner knowing?”  “What if I were willing to be all that I can be?”  “What if I let all the possibilities open up for me?”

What if . . .

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)


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Posted in Beliefs, Neutrality, Observer Mode, Personal Growth, Possibilities, personal power | Comments Off

Expand Your Possibilities

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

As you will recall from the Diamond of Mastery diagram, Observer mode spans the waistline of the diamond, where it’s widest, where the possibilities are broadest.  This wealth of possibilities is the most important aspect of Observer mode.  Observer mode emotions produce calm, and only in calmness do possibilities become visible.

In this infinite universe, an infinite array of possibilities always exists.  (Imagine the wide part of the diamond as greater than your arm span rather than narrower than the paper.)  When you look around objectively you can observe myriad results:  people in all states of physical well-being, from deathly ill to vibrantly healthy; people in all states of abundance, from abject poverty to wealth in the mega-billions; people in all states of mental well-being, from despair to bliss; people in all states of service, from saving lives to rejecting others.  Whatever you want, you’ll find examples of people at both ends of the spectrum and everything in between.

Of course, someone caught in Victim mode – at the bottom tip of the diamond – sees no options, no alternatives, only more of the same.  Someone who has advanced to Interpreter mode can see a much wider range of options, but those options will all be cloaked in difficulty because Interpreter mode emotions produce struggle.

The move from Interpreter mode into Observer mode is like stepping from darkness into light.  Suddenly you have greater depth perception, details are clearer, peripheral vision expands, colors are sharper.  Suddenly you see a greatly expanded range of possibilities.

The key to this change is calm. Calmness of thought, calmness of emotion, calmness of action.  I like to think of this as the triumvirate of mind, heart and body.  These three aspects of self work together to produce results.  When they are unified, they generate whatever they are aligned with; when they are in conflict, they generate chaos.

Because thoughts, emotions and actions are so connected and interdependent, it’s possible to begin with any one of them to achieve calm.  In other posts, I’ve focused almost entirely on emotions, so let’s start there.

Calm Your Emotions

You can use any of the techniques I’ve suggested before to calm your emotions.  Here are four more:

  • Smile.  Using MRI, researchers have discovered that turning up the corners of the mouth changes the way the synapses in the brain fire.  Just by smiling, you move your brain activity to a happier location of the brain.
  • See beauty.  Notice something you believe to be beautiful and savor it.  Seeing beauty is like seeing truth, except on the emotional level.  Enjoying the beautiful will ease your heart away from any agitation and cool heated emotions.
  • Be silly.  Stick out your tongue, wiggle your butt, dance a jig, cross your eyes – let down your defenses.  To be silly for even a few moments will helps you transcend any tension-causing rules that bind you to beliefs and behaviors that may not be true for you.
  • Evoke a neutral emotion.  Basically, this is letting go of judgment and becoming the observer.  That transition moves you from stress to serenity

When you calm your heart, you also calm your body and your mind.

Calm Your Body

Releasing stress and tension from your body is often the preferred starting place, probably because physical tension is so easy to identify.  Chances are, if you took a quick inventory of your body right now you’d find tension somewhere; and chances are equally high your mind immediately comes up with a relaxation technique:  get a massage, exercise, practice yoga, have an acupuncture treatment, take an aspirin, stretch, go for a walk, meditate.  These are all effective methods for tension relief.  Here are additional ways to quiet your body.

  • Breathe deeply.  Inhale slowly into your diaphragm, paying attention to the air all the way in and all the way out.  Be with your body.  Repeat 4-6 times.  The body relaxes with such regulated and increased oxygenation.
  • Open your senses.  Pay attention to what you can hear, what you can see, what you can smell, what you can taste, and/or what you can feel.  Your senses are your access to the world, and compared to your own stress, the world is very stable.
  • Be in nature.  Go outside and be open to temperature, weather, plants, animals, and your body’s responses.  Nature is generous, inspiring, settling and calming.
  • Expand your body from within.  Become tall, lengthen your neck, broaden your shoulders, expand your rib cage, lengthen your arms and legs, stretch your skin.  When your body is tight, it hoards tense emotions; when your body is expanded, it welcomes generous emotions.

When you calm your body, you also calm your heart and your mind.

Calm Your Mind

Buddhism refers to mental anxiety as “monkey mind.”  Sometimes when the mind is particularly agitated, you may reach calm fastest through the body or the emotions.  However, the following suggestions can help you calm your mind first.

  • Count your blessings.  Think of five things you’re thankful for and savor them.  Especially be mindful to the blessings and advantages you enjoy that you didn’t earn.  Appreciation of what’s good switches the mind off something you might be judging negatively.
  • Laugh out loud.  Chuckle, giggle, tee-hee.  Generate it from your belly, your chest, your throat, your nose, your toes.  Just find some form of laughter inside of you and let it come out your mouth.  Laughter is a very effective medicine.
  • See truth.  Think of something you know to be true.  Even small truths work well here:  The sun is shining (or it’s raining); I love my dog (or my child, or my spouse), I am well-fed (or hungry), I like ice cream (or swimming, or a good book, or martinis).  Truth will help you stop any story your mind might be spinning.
  • Be present.  Take note of whatever you are doing.  If you are eating, savor every bite; if you are working, focus on the task; if you are walking, observe the roll of your feet, the resilience of the ground, the sounds and textures of the environment.  Focus your mind on what is, and you will find ease from whatever story your brain is making up.

When you calm your mind, you also calm your heart and your body.

Calm = Possibilities

Okay, now that you’re calm, let’s explore what’s possible.

At the center top of a piece of paper, briefly identify something you want to create.  I’ve used the following example in previous blogs:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Immediately below your intention, write the first result that comes to mind.  Perhaps the first result of financial abundance would be, I’m totally out of debt. Below that, imagine two new possibilities that would derive from the first, moving in two different directions:  One way:  I have money to spare. The other way:  I have money to share. Now let each of those options move in two more directions, so you have branched into four further possibilities:  1) My business is prospering beyond by wildest dreams. 2) Money comes when I need it. 3) My prosperity prospers others. 4) I help those I love to my heart’s content.

From here, let the ideas come from wherever they will, even if they don’t logically progress from earlier ideas.  Let your intuition guide you.  Give you imagination free rein.  Expand your possibilities in one direction today, and expand them in another direction tomorrow.  No buts.  No boundaries.  No rules.  No limitations.

Keep ‘em Coming

Just as there is an infinite expanse of possibilities out there waiting to be noticed, you have an infinite creative potential for conceiving, receiving, exploring, and discovering.  Your subconscious mind loves to come up with ideas.  Unfortunately, most people find it easier to shut down their creativity than encourage it.  Perhaps you’ve developed the habit of saying, “Whoa!”  “Not now!”  “Not yet!”  No way!”  “Can’t do it.”  Here’s a good way to reverse that practice.

Keep a notebook called “My Idea Log.”  Write your Intention Statement at the top of one of the pages.  (Perhaps you are working with many intentions, so each one will have a page – or a section – in your notebook.)  Whenever you have an idea related to your intention, write it in the log.  This will be a running brainstorming session, and the same rules apply:  Everything gets written down.  No judging.  No discussion.  No cross talk.  No sorting or organizing.  Allow repetition.  Encourage the far-out.  Write down everything that comes to mind.

Perhaps most of the things you write down will be about how, at least at first.  Writing them in the Idea Log serves the following purposes:

1.    You signal your subconscious that you’re listening, and this encourages more and more ideas.

2.    By noting your how ideas on paper, yet staying intentionally focused on the what, you strengthen your partnership with the universe.  In essences you affirm your understanding that what is up to you, and you trust the universe to handle how.

3.    When it comes time for you to take action, you’ll have an amazing source of ideas already at hand.

Remember, the possibilities are without end.  The calmer you are, the more vividly you will see an ever-expanding range of options – most of which are already sitting right under your nose.

For personal one-on-one coaching, please contact me email me: kathy@kathyjacobson.com


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Posted in Calmness, Interpreter Mode, Neutrality, Observer Mode, Possibilities, Victim Mode, manifestation | 2 Comments »

Be Your Magnetic Self

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

Almost anywhere you turn, you can run into a concept called “The Law of Attraction.”  It’s the latest iteration of ancient wisdom.  Two and a half millennia ago, the Buddha said, “As we think, so we become.”

Yes, what we think is critical to our results.  This does not mean it’s possible to think something into existence.  Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich and a major modern source on the subject said, “First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality.”  Somehow thoughts need to be transformed into reality, and transformation always takes energy.

Energy requires a power source.  In the physical sense, that’s the sun; one way or another all available  energy comes from the sun.  In the metaphysical sense, where does personal power some from?  Actually, I don’t know; maybe we also get it from the sun.  What I do know is that every human being has an unlimited amount of personal power stored inside, sort of like the sun.  Most of us tap into a very miniscule amount of inner power, so maybe a more apt analogy would be a volcano.  Consider the vast energy of a latent volcano, and imagine a tiny wisp of steam escaping through a geyser pool.  We possess that vast energy, but we use only that wisp of steam.

As you live your life, this infinite power source matters in two ways – the amount you access at any given time, and the pressure that builds inside when you keep that energy closed off.

Your power to “attract” comes from within.  Attraction is magnetism.  (Okay, so you’re a volcano and a magnet.)  Magnetism pulls.  You energize your connection with what you’ve chosen, and that creates the pull.  When you entice what you’ve chosen to come to you, it’s more likely to come.  Nothing pushes.

Except no two people engage their magnetic energy in exactly the same way.  In this article I’m presenting four approaches.  One may immediately resonate with you, or you may want to experiment until you discover the way that will work most powerfully for you.

Think

An amazing number of sources advise getting out of your head.  Or to avoid the “paralysis of analysis.”  Or to stop over-thinking.  Some experts even claim the mind’s the enemy.

What they really mean is, “Don’t think yourself into a pit.”  When you get caught up in some story, that story is probably wrong, and faulty premises always produce faulty conclusions.  But that’s not the fault of the mind.  The mind is an excellent, highly-evolved, most wonderful aspect of the human state.  Use your mind well, and it will assist you in marvelous ways.  Be confident of your mind and yourself, and confidence will turn on your magnetic field.

Confidence is freedom from doubt.  To increase your confidence, try the following:

  • Honor your past accomplishments.

Do you find yourself downplaying your role in something that went well?  Perhaps you’ve been taught not to toot your own horn, or not to get a swelled head, or not to get too big for your britches.  Break free of those restrictions and recognize your strengths, your abilities, your contributions.  Make this self-assessment of your accomplishments as a neutral observer.  Send both the harsh judge and the meek supplicant out of the room.  For this exercise, you need neither humility nor ego; you do need detachment and curiosity.

  • Acknowledge your talents and abilities.

Every human being is gifted.  Your gifts may have shown up early in your life, you may have grown up honoring and cultivating them.  Maybe you didn’t start to discover what you’re good at until you had a chance to explore and experiment.  Perhaps your faults and flaws and weaknesses were more readily reinforced than your strengths.  Turn off every one else’s voice besides your own and recognize your strengths.  Honor who you are.  Also honor who you are not.

  • Recognize the ways in which your choices are true for you.

If you try to force fit yourself into something that is not true for you, you will experience struggle and disappointment.  If you resist something that is true for you, you will experience struggle and unhappiness.  Untrue choices never respond well to the Law of Attraction.  True choices come with ease and joy.

  • Invest your awareness in whatever you’ve chosen.

Be mindful.  Stay attentive.  Visualize.  Affirm.  Reinforce.  Love.  Enjoy.  Imagine the result of what you want.

Act

Action is probably the point of most disagreement when it comes to the Law of Attraction.  On the most ethereal end of the scale, where the emphasis is on thinking something into existence, action is often scorned.  On the most practical end of the scale, action is The Way – if you don’t do, you don’t get.

For some people, action is the most important component, and therefore the essence of their personal power.  However, power responds better to some implementations than others.  Action likes to be invited, not forced.  In fact, enjoyment is the most important ingredient in all actions intended to attract.  Invite what you’ve chosen to attract to come out and play.

To increase enjoyment, try the following:

  • Delight in your self, in your choices, in your partners, and in The Infinite.

To increase your delight in yourself, imagine yourself as a loving parent entranced by a toddler.  Imagine you are the toddler and a loving parent applauds and encourages everything you do.  Even if you’re stumbling around and making mistakes, let yourself experience surprise and delight at you just being you.

To increase your delight in your choices, imagine each choice as a Christmas present, unwrap it and rediscover every wonderful thing that makes it attractive to you.

To increase your delight in your partners (including those of non-human nature), identify them, reach out to them with acceptance and appreciation, and celebrate their contributions to your efforts.

To increase your delight in The Infinite, think of the best friend you ever had, the one you’ve always had the most fun with.  Then imagine The Infinite in that role, with a sense of humor and a sense of adventure, a friend who hates to be left behind.

  • Realize your talents and abilities are both opportunity and responsibility.

Here you sit, a bundle of creative talent and energetic ability.  It’s as if you are both artist and studio.  You are all the paints and canvases and palettes and brushes.  You are also the artist who can turn you into a masterpiece.  You can.  And you have everything you need.  And if you don’t, who will?

  • Reinforce your choices by your actions.

Look at what you want to attract.  Choose it.  Then assess what you need to learn, what skills you need to acquire, what effort might be required to reach the level you aspire to.  Then go to work.  You can’t be a best-selling novelist without putting words on a page.  You can’t run a marathon without putting in the miles.

  • Engage all your partners in the how.

I often advise my clients to concentrate on what and surrender how to The Infinite.  Expand that idea.  Reach out to every person or thing or energy involved in your endeavor and invite their help.  Let your friends, your tools, your resources, and your beliefs be a part of the action.

Feel

Emotion is energy.  Every emotion you experience emits an energy that goes somewhere.  When you’ve chosen something you want to attract, your feelings matter.  They help or they hinder.  They rarely do nothing.

This is true for everyone, but for some people emotional energy impacts their ability to attract more than either thoughts or actions.  For these people, Emotions can be obstacles that block attraction in ways Thoughts and Actions can’t break through.  If your attractive power comes from your heart, your best approach is to remove those emotional barriers and open the flow.  The key is tranquility, which is essentially freedom from stress.

To increase tranquility, try the following:

  • Release all attachments and expectations.

To release attachments, let words like should, must, necessary, and can’t become signal lights.  When they enter your thoughts, recognize them as indicators of an emotional attachment to something that causes stress – such as a belief.  No, it’s not all up to you.  No, you don’t have to work twice as hard.  No, what you’ve chosen doesn’t have to be difficult.  Yes, you have within you all the abilities and strengths needed for this choice.

To release expectations, expand your vision of the possible.  Make a list of all the possibilities you can think of – good and bad.  Recognize it’s all possible, then cross off the ones you don’t want.  This lets all those you consider acceptable to move from possible to probable.  You make way for your Best Good.

  • Believe your talents and abilities are aligned with your best good.  Believe a miracle is possible

Take the previous suggestion one step further.  Imagine the most miraculous way your choice could manifest.  Let your emotional response to that probability expand until your entire body tingles with it.  Relax into that energy without letting it congeal into an absolute, and then carry that tranquility around with you.

  • Give and take in equal portions.

Most people who access their power through the heart find it easy to give.  They tend to be caregivers, teachers, ministers, healers, and giving is what they do.  Many of them find it difficult to be on the receiving end.  Welcome the efforts of your partners, your patients, your congregation, your students, and The Infinite to help you on your way.

  • Energize your choices with your emotions.

Removing resistance and stress must come first.  Once you’ve achieved tranquility, add those creative emotions that will energize your magnetism:  respect, compassion, gratitude, peace and authenticity.

Leap

Do you often get ideas that seem to come out of nowhere?  Maybe a creative solution to a problem, or a sudden urge to walk down an unknown street and turn into the first restaurant you come to, or a decision to go back to school.  Perhaps you can find the seeds of thought or latent emotions that inspired it, but you couldn’t track back through the progression that took you from Point A to Point B.

Sometimes you look at such intuitive leaps and think, “Yeah!  Of course!  Exactly what I was looking for.”  Sometimes you think, “Really?  That’s got to be the craziest thing ever.”  Intuition can be both disconcerting and energizing.  If you’re operating from some level of struggle or judgment, it’s generally wiser not to leap.  If you’re operating from some level of calm or creativity, the energy can pull you in the direction of something you’ve chosen to attract.  To improve the magnetism of your intuition, let yourself reside in a state of willingness.

To increase willingness try the following:

  • Believe what you choose is possible.

You know the old saying, “Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you’re right.”  Well, it’s true.  From a place of calm neutrality, probe for what you believe about yourself and what you’ve chosen to attract.  If your current belief doesn’t allow for it to be possible – even probable – decide what you want to believe instead, and adopt the new belief.

  • Synchronize your choices with your talents and abilities.

You have the talent and the ability to do (or have, or be) whatever you choose.  If those talents and abilities are not fully developed, or if you are not employing them fully, bring them up to speed.  Become the person who does (or has, or is) whatever it is you’ve chosen.

  • Simplify your thoughts, action and emotions.

Perhaps when you’ve made some intuitive leap, you’re one of those people who has to make it make sense.  Relax.  Let go of all those loose ends you’re grasping at.  Let whatever you’re wrestling with assume its simplest, easiest form.  Let it tell you what to do with it.

  • Facilitate what you’ve chosen to attract by getting out of your own way.

Any leap can become encumbered.  Add a touch of fear, a dab of protection, a bit of defensiveness, a sprinkle of meekness, and before you know it you’re facing a major obstacle of your own making.  How can you possibly expect whatever your trying to attract to get through?  Dismantle such roadblocks.  Clear the way.  If you believe your choice is possible, you can also believe it’s easy.

If what you’ve been trying to attract remains elusive, I invite you to contact me for empowerment coaching.  Email me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com.

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Posted in Acceptance, Attention, Attraction, Body Power, Calmness, Choice, Cooperation, Curiosity, Gut Power, Heart Power, Mind Power, Miracles, Neutrality, Possibilities, Surrender, The Law of Attraction, Trust, Willingness, personal power | 43 Comments »

Look Differently, See Differently

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

It’s been said in Utah that everyone’s a Mormon – a Mormon, a non-Mormon, or an ex-Mormon.  Recently I heard a terrific reply – “Yeah, and everyone’s a chicken, a Chicken, or a non-Chicken, or an ex-Chicken.”

Clearly, it’s a matter of perspective.  If you happen to be a chicken, you probably see everything from the perspective of chicken or not-chicken.  (Do you suppose they have any concept of ex-chicken?)  As a person, you have probably never considered yourself to be a non-chicken.

No, you’re not a chicken, you’re a human being.  And human beings have a strong tendency to think in dichotomous terms – even when we can see the shades of gray.  Everywhere you turn there’s some way of looking at yourself that’s either/or:  Conservative/Liberal, Artistic/Scientific, City/Rural, Rich/Poor, Introvert/Extrovert, Nerd/Jock.  More sophisticated systems, such as Meyers-Briggs or the Ennead, bring other facets into the mix, expanding the number of possible factors.  Up to a point, such systems can expand our awareness; they can also become just another set of labels.  And labels, by nature, are always constraining.

Today, I want to explore some different ways of looking at yourself and your choices.

Character Traits

As a self-aware person you probably try to be mindful of both what you’ve got going for you and your challenges.  From a dichotomous perspective, you could sort the various aspects of your character into two columns – strengths and weaknesses.  But just naming them doesn’t tell you much about either.

Instead, consider the ways your “weaknesses” contribute to your “strengths.”  What if you’ve acquired your strengths because of something you consider a weakness?  What if a perceived weakness actually intensifies your strengths?  For instance:

  • Perhaps you’re always late.  Others (and maybe yourself) consider this a flaw – an insensitivity to other people’s time, a lack of self-discipline, carelessness, an insult, etc.  Perhaps you’re also highly creative, unrestricted, more in-the-clouds than on-solid-ground.  What if you’re creative because you’re unrestricted?  Or what if you can’t keep track of time because you give your creativity full rein?
  • Perhaps you have a poor memory.  You’re fully aware of this lack, and it’s always been a challenge.  Perhaps you’re also an expert in your field (maybe several different fields).  What if you delve more deeply into subjects because achieving understanding is your way to work around not being able to remember?  Or what if because you prefer to explore, you never committed any energy to cultivating your memory?
  • Perhaps you are extremely introverted, shy, unwilling to call attention to yourself. You often feel left out, even invisible.  Perhaps you’re a natural, instinctive observer and you’ve gained great wisdom through paying close attention to what goes on around you.  What if you pay attention to details others miss because you are quiet and reserved?  Or what if you think you’re shy only because you can’t observe as well when you’re caught up in the noise and drama of the crowd?

In one sense, the greatest strength and the greatest weakness are often opposite extremes of the same trait.  Even when you can’t see a continuum between something you consider a strength and something you consider a weakness, it’s entirely possible they expand each other.  In many instances, a strength contributes to a weakness, and a weakness contributes to a strength.

Features

When you’re shopping for a car, you decide the features you’re looking for – sun roof, heated seats, all-wheel drive, trunk space, etc.  When you’re looking for a job, you have a list of features you want – local, good hours, challenging but not stressful, benefits, etc.  When you’re looking for a romantic relationship, you have a list of desirable qualities – honest, good humor, age range, education level, shared values, etc.

If you find a car you like (or a job or a potential partner), but it doesn’t have everything on your list, you have to decide whether what is there matters more than what’s not there.

What if you fall in love with a car for a reason not on your list?  Say it’s a beautifully elegant hybrid, and when you sit at the wheel it feels as if it was crafted just for you, but it doesn’t have a sun roof or all-wheel drive.  You decide you can live without those features and you buy it.  So now it’s yours.  When you’re driving it around, do you care about what it doesn’t have?  Or do you appreciate what it does have?  To achieve the highest level of enjoyment with your car, find value in both what it has and what it doesn’t have.

Jobs and relationships are, of course, more complicated than cars simply because people are more complicated than machinery.  However, the same general rules apply.  When you’re giving your attention to what is not, you’re not giving your attention to what is.

Also, what is not might be contributing to what is. The remote, over-committed boss you complain about because you don’t get enough supervision might be the very reason you have a huge amount of autonomy and responsibility.  Your achievements at work might be possible because you have to self-manage and make up your job as you go.

It’s almost impossible to sort through the elements of a situation or a relationship and come out with an accurate picture of the ways the various factors influence each other.  It’s easier to appreciate what is and what is not, to honor what is and what is not, to celebrate what is and what is not.

Perceptions

Artists talk about negative space – the spaces between.  The trick is to look at the empty spaces and see what’s there.  This is a counter-intuitive approach.  We tend to look for what is there, to recognize the shape and color of what we can see.  When you look at a tree, you are more likely to look at the limbs and the leaves than at the shape of the sky between branches.

This tendency to look at what is applies to all aspects of our lives.  We tend to consider what we see as true and what we don’t see as not true.  Unfortunately, what we see is heavily influenced by such factors as upbringing, beliefs, experience, education, even personality.  When we believe something, we tend to look for supporting evidence – and what we look for we tend to see.  We’re also likely to reinterpret what we see to support a belief we already hold.

For example, do you believe other drivers are rude or considerate?  Either way, you can probably cite myriad instances to support your opinion.  As an experiment, I challenge you to start looking for evidence supporting the opposite of what you believe.  If you believe all drivers are rude, start noticing acts of consideration.  If you believe all drivers are considerate, start looking for rudeness.  Either way, you will find what you start looking for.

In Practice

Here are some examples of areas where a shift in perception can help you produce different results:

  • If you think your child is a brat, start looking for evidence of gentleness, consideration, good humor, or resilience.
  • If you think money is hard, start looking for evidence of ease, good fortune, plenty, or comfort.
  • If you think you have a terrible job, start looking for evidence of kindness, cooperation, appreciation, efficiency, or good results.
  • If you think your body is falling apart, start looking for what works well, where you don’t hurt, and notice when you feel good.

To take it one step further, act as if . . .

  • Your child is a delightful, enjoyable person.
  • Money comes easily and shows up unexpectedly.
  • The people you work with are kind, cooperative, appreciative and produce good results.
  • Your body is strong and healthy and wants to help you enjoy life.

When you look for something, you will probably find it.  When you bring your own positive, willing, eager energy to something, it will begin to respond in kind.

If you want to create different results in any area of your life, I invite you to contact me and investigate personal life coaching.

For a free exploratory session, write me at:   kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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(N)Ever Surrender

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

I first encountered the concept of surrender in a manifestation class many years ago, and it made no sense to me.  Even though I understood the idea, (intellectually, at least) of surrendering one’s struggles to God, this was a manifestation class.  We were talking about choosing and creating and attracting, and I didn’t see what I was supposed to surrender.  I could see quite clearly various aspects and behaviors I could adopt – but surrender?

Well, during the years since then, I’ve come to realize surrendering is relative.  There are things to ever surrender, and there are things to never surrender.  Today I’m going to put some of them into context with each other.

Personal Power and Guarantee

In life, there can be no guarantees, and yet our culture seems to demand them.  Wherever we see danger, we look for protection.  Everywhere we look we see rules, regulations, safety features, alarm systems, guard rails, insurance policies, fences and armies, all devised to save us from harm.  But if you demand security from others – from the government, from parents, from the legal system, from social custom, from an employer – you are basically saying, “My well-being is your responsibility, not mine.”

Of course, it can be very comforting to place that responsibility in someone else’s lap.  Then, if anything goes wrong, you have someone else to blame, maybe someone to turn to for compensation.  However, when you cede responsibility, you also cede personal power.

To avoid surrendering your personal power, surrender your need for a guarantee.  Or, conversely, when you retain and strengthen your personal power, you release your need for a guarantee.

Every human being has within them the potential for unlimited personal power, the potential to become the creators of their own lives.  (Although, we’re not all born into equally conducive environments.  You, for instance, have more freedom to access your power than a starving mother in the Sudan.)   You have within you the powers of peace, love, joy, awe, delight, optimism and authenticity.  When you cultivate these aspects of your personal power, when you trust them and use them to create your life, you create your own well-being and your own security.  Never surrender your personal power; always surrender the need for a guarantee.

Discernment and Judgment

In our lexicon, judgment has two meanings.  In one sense, it has an objective meaning with clear distinctions – something is right or wrong, legal or illegal, pure or sinful.  In another sense, it’s subjective and relies on perception, encompassing the full range of from bad to good.  Perception, of course, is relative to present circumstances, past experiences, embedded beliefs, future expectations, etc.  For instance, snowy weather might be “terrible” to a commuter and “terrific” to a skier.  A beautiful chocolate torte might be “fabulous” to a connoisseur and “obscene” to an ascetic.

In both the objective and the subjective sense, judgment generates struggle.  Once you judge something “good” or “bad”, you impose limitations, and limitations induce conflict.  Let’s look at some every-day situations to see how this unfolds.

  • You have a co-worker who dominates meetings with rambling monologs.  You judge this associate to be annoying, or stupid, or a pain-in-the-neck.  As soon as she starts talking, your resentment kicks in and you tune out.  When you stop caring about what she has to say, you also stop seeing than anything good can come out of the meeting.
  • You and your brother are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  You’re “right” and he’s wr—oops, “left.”   You wish he’d open his eyes to the facts, and he acts like you’re the one who’s stupid.  You can’t even talk to each other any more without calling each other names.
  • You’ve been a procrastinator all your life.  At various times you’ve judged this as “lazy,” “free-spirited,” “rebellious,” or “insecure.”  By now, you’ve given up trying to understand it, you just know it’s an insufficiency.  You hate it in yourself, it causes you stress, but you’ve pretty much concluded there’s nothing you can do about it.

Judgment increases stress and decreases possibilities.  So, what if you surrendered judgment?  What if you simply let go of any need to see things as right/wrong, good/bad/ full/empty, in/out?  What would you have left?  Discernment.

When you surrender judgment, you surrender limitation and conflict.  When you lay claim to discernment, you open yourself to possibilities and cooperation.  Let’s look at the above situations and see the difference.

  • Where judgment translates into annoyance at the rambling co-worker, discernment stays focused on the purpose of the meeting.  Discernment can separate contribution from distraction and look for the win-win.  Discernment can tease out what’s going on beneath the surface and bring benefit into the open.
  • Where judgment erects fences, discernment finds common ground.  Discernment asks questions instead of labeling and dividing.
  • A personal strength is often the other end of a continuum of a trait that’s been labeled a flaw or weakness.  “Procrastinators” may be at their most creative while they’re delaying.  A “bad memory” may be the gateway to greater depths of understanding.  Being “too cautious” may be an assessment process, the weighing of options to find a wiser approach.

Never surrender your discernment; always surrender the need to impose judgment.

Choice and Victim-ness

Victims don’t have options.  Or at least they believe they don’t.  If you believe you have no choice in some area of your life, in that area you have surrendered your free will.  The moment you surrender free will, you become a victim.

Choice exists in every situation, in every realm, under every circumstance.  Sometimes the circumstances may seem impossible, such as a genetic condition, or the situation of your birth, or the state of the economy, or an earlier choice than now feels binding and irredeemable.  Every day, either consciously or subconsciously, you say “yes” or “no” to that situation.  If you say “yes,” you agree to be a victim and surrender the pursuit of other possibilities.  If you say, “no,” you start looking for further options, hidden opportunities, unrecognized solutions.

Never surrender your freedom of choice; always relinquish the ties that bind you to victim-ness.

Enjoyment and Attachment

Attachment is a binding.  You become bound up with something, glued to it, and now you carry it around with you wherever you go.  You might be attached to another person, a principle, a belief, a goal, your houses, an animals, a cause, your friends, your enemies, a car, a habit, a perception, an outcome, etc.  Any separation from the object (or effort to separate) causes you anxiety and/or pain.

Enjoyment, by comparison, has no strings.  With enjoyment, you’re free to stay or leave – and so is whatever you’ve become attached to.

Emotions are key components of both attachment and enjoyment.  The difference is in the kind of emotion you’re applying, and what you expect as a result.  The emotions of attachment always include an element of desperation – as if without the object of your attachment you will be less in some way.  Such emotions include fear, desire, hatred, anxiety, concern, insecurity, rigidity, guilt, grief, certainty, etc.  The emotions of enjoyment are always expansive:  affection, openness, contentment, delight, trust, fun, confidence, etc.

Never surrender your enjoyment (of life, of others, of today, or the hidden treasures in challenging situations); always surrender your attachment to the things and circumstances of your life that are not yours to control.

Self and Ego

By definition, ego is simply another name for self.  By connotation, however, it carries all kinds of burden.  It’s used as a stand-in for pride, self-importance, conceit, vanity, arrogance, etc.  In that guise, it becomes the enemy of the self, almost the anti-self.

The best description of ego in this sense came from a little book on Hindu philosophy I read a decade or so ago.  Ego is when you believe something about yourself and it becomes important to you that others see you the same way.  Any trait or feature of yourself applies here – beauty, intelligence, extroversion, spirituality, productivity; irresponsibility, brashness, rebellion, superiority.

To surrender ego without surrendering yourself, recognize all the true and precious aspects of you.  Let go of any need for others to see you in any certain way.

Strength and Guilt

Guilt drains away strength.  Guilt appears when you perceive you acted wrongly.  Perhaps you said the wrong thing, or lost an opportunity, or hurt someone, or make a bad choice, or over-reacted, or committed a sin, or didn’t exercise, or broke your diet, or spent too much money, etc., etc., etc.  You believe yourself in error (or worse).  In a case against yourself, you decide the verdict first and then you act as the prosecutor, the judge and the jury.  You refuse to call any witnesses in your own behalf.  And then you sentence yourself, and you surrender to some self-imposed punishment.  You abandon any good feelings toward yourself, such as kindness, or compassion, or trust, or gentleness, or joy, or any other indicator of inner strength – because you don’t deserve them.

And when you surrender your strength, you also relinquish any power you have to make amends, to change, to learn, to improve, to recoup, to compensate, to rebuild.

Never surrender your strength.  See it as the way to identify your contribution to the events and circumstances of your life.  See it as a form of divine guidance, steering you through the shoals of challenge.  Instead, surrender  all pangs of guilt that eat at you from the inside, gnawing at both your mind and your heart.

Neutrality and Defensiveness

I’m not sure whether the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense,” was first applied to football or to war.  Not being a fan of either, I’m also not sure how well it works in either case.  I do know it’s often applied in interpersonal relationships, and in those situations it’s never effective.

In relationships, defensiveness is deadly.  It will eventually destroy all companionship, respect, love, trust, ease, enjoyment, and peace.  All the attitudes I’ve suggested in this article for surrender (and many others) usually result in defensiveness.  You will become defensive if you expect a guarantee, if you judge yourself or the other person, if you’re prone to victim-ness, if you’re attached to something that matters more than the relationship, if you have an ego need, if you feel guilty.

The best cure for defensiveness is to surrender it.  To become neutral.

When you are neutral, you can see the other person’s point of view, you can look for more options, more possibilities become visible, you plug up the holes from which you leak personal power, and you can discover your strengths.

One thing that is true:  when you stop being defensive, you also stop being offensive.

The What and The How

A true statement of surrender is, “Let go, and let God.”  Stop trying to control all the little details, and trust The Infinite.

But what is God’s job, and what is your job?  Choice is always your job.  God cannot choose for you.  Free will is more than a right, it’s an obligation.  A responsibility.  When you surrender choice, you surrender will, and without will all that remains is chaos.

What you want is up to you.  Never surrender your intention, your ability to choose.  Never surrender your ability to see options, to imagine the possible.  Never surrender your confidence that you can create the life you want.

Always surrender the how. You don’t have to be able to see every step of the way between where you are now and where you want to go.  How is not up to you.  Trying to control how, constricts possible solutions and limits potential miracles.

Good personal life coaching helps you explore possibilities and gain more effective tools.  For a free introductory coaching session, write me at:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Beliefs, Calmness, Free will, Making Miracles, Possibilities, The Law of Attraction, manifestation | 1 Comment »

Calm and Curious

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

I am visiting my grandson (and his parents).  Not that I’m prejudiced or anything, but little Asher has to be one of the cutest babies of all time.  He’s also the calmest child I’ve ever spent much time with – and the most curious.

These qualities of calmness and curiosity were evident when he was only a few weeks old; now at fifteen months they seem to shine out of his eyes.  He fusses only when he reaches the extremes of discomfort.  The rest of the time, he observes.  He’s friendly with everyone, and he grins with delight at just about anything that catches his attention. I’m captivated by his emerging personality. I’m also intrigued by the apparent relationship between calmness and curiosity.

A couple of years ago, when I first started thinking about observer emotions, I realized curiosity was a mental state that promotes calmness.  Watching Asher, I’ve been wondering which comes first.  Is calmness a prerequisite for curiosity?  Does curiosity promote calmness?  Or is this one of those cyclical relationships where you can’t have one without the other?  Together they are an extraordinary combination.

The Interrelationship

Calmness is free of judgment.  All emotions that contain judgment (irritation, frustration, greed, boredom, guilt, pity, doubt, etc) produce tension and/or stress.

To see this at work in your own life, identify a stress-laden emotion you have experienced recently, such as disappointment or impatience or embarrassment.  Revisit the situation in which you experienced it, and notice what happens within your body.  Do your shoulders tighten up?  Does your stomach clench?  Does your throat close?  Do your hands tremble?

Now pay attention to your thoughts.  See if you can identify the judgments underlying the emotion.  They may focus on blaming yourself:  It’s all my fault.  What’s wrong with me?   Why can’t I get my act together?  If only I had said something else (or known better, or planned ahead, or read between the lines).  What if I were different  (thinner, or more coordinated, or smarter, or richer, or had more time)?

Or perhaps your thoughts focus on blaming others:  It’s all their fault.  How can other people be so stupid (or cruel, or thoughtless, or impossible)?   If they would only listen. Why does s/he always have to act so smug (or indifferent, or have the last word)?

Or you may lay the blame on circumstances:  It’s the lousy economy.  My family was dirt poor.  Society doesn’t accept people like me.  This is because I was horribly injured by an accident (or a birth defect, or starvation, or a sadistic teacher).

Less Judgment = More calm

Now see if you can remove the judgment.  Perhaps one of the following techniques will help you stop playing the blame game:

  • Recognize everyone always does the best they can, given what they know and the skills they have.  You certainly do.  You never get up in the morning and think, “I wonder how many people I can obstruct today, or insult, or embarrass, or ignore.”  Nor do you read minds.  You get absorbed, you have goals and deadlines, and things come up.  Given your strengths and weaknesses, you do your best.  And so does everyone else.
  • Don’t take things personally.  Grow a couple of layers of thicker skin.  (Or become a duck and shed other people’s stuff the way a duck sheds water.)
  • Choose a neutral emotion – such as curiosity.

Curiosity calms both the mind and the emotions.  If the questions churning in your mind are any variation of the themes Why me? or How come? you will experience stress and tension.  When you change the question to What if . . .? your tension level immediately starts dropping.

Less Certainly = More Possibilities

Curiosity brushes aside certainly and opens the door to other possibilities:  What if the coworker who just snubbed you is preoccupied or overwhelmed?  What if everyone you encounter on the street isn’t looking at you with scorn?  What if your frustrating personal weaknesses are actually assets?  What if the most stress-producing person in your life is actually your greatest teacher?  What if it’s not your anxiety that keeps the plane in the air?  What if just because everyone else is passing around an infection, you don’t have to catch it?  What if money was easy?  What if you aren’t too old?

However, if tension has been your norm, your mind is probably more adept at putting up roadblocks than taking them down.  Most likely, an objection immediately follow your initial what if question.  For instance, you might ask, What if I could have a pleasant relationship with my child? and the buts come flowing in.  But she’s such a brat, but she’s always on the go, but she’s got that nose ring, but she misinterprets everything I say, but I get so sarcastic.

Push past the obstacles with more what if questions.  Stay curious.  What if I could I could truly ignore the nose ring?  What if I could adopt a different tone of voice?  What if I concentrated on what I love about her?  What if I could induce her to bring her friends here to hang out?  What if I weren’t quite so reactive?  What if I let her have the consequences of her actions?  What if she loves me as much as I love her?  What if I could always stay calm with her?

Calmness allows thoughts to flow without distortion.  The emotions that cause tension (because they include judgment) almost always impede clear thinking.  For example, frustration often sends the mind into stories of what’s wrong; ambition reduces the worth of both other people and current circumstances; remorse tends to grab and expand blame; envy gives significance to what others have while discounting what you have.  Such stories make assumptions, twist facts, draw false conclusions, and reinforce the underlying emotions.

More Calm = More Flexibility

Calmness, on the other hand, frees the mind of such congestion.  When you can step away from a stress-generating emotion and into calmness, your mind will become clearer.  You are able to challenge your assumptions, cull out the actualities, look for additional possibilities, and gain the flexibility of curiosity.

Consider for a moment the difference between flexibility and rigidity.  Few things in nature are rigid, and those that are “suffer” most when assailed by strong forces.  Trees sway in the wind, ground shifts, ice flexes; that which is most supple and flexible seems to survive best.  On the other hand, as the red rock canyon country of Utah illustrates, even solid rock doesn’t withstand the assaults of water and wind.

The human body has greater strength and longevity when it’s kept flexible through exercise and use.  The human mind has greater creativity and accumulates more knowledge when it’s kept flexible through curiosity.  Curiosity is a lot like water, always looking for a way out or through or over or under, preferring flow to stagnation, able to wash away impurities, essential to life.  Curiosity allows thoughts to stay elastic and helps emotions to become calm.

More Curiosity = More Elasticity

Curiosity also dismisses expectations.  There’s an old saying that expectations are pre-formed disappointments.  Actually the life-cycle of a disappointment begins with some kind of judgment.  Imagine, for example, you just had your annual review at work, and on a scale of 1 – 10, you were given a rating of 5.  Average.  You know you’re excellent at your job.  You work hard, you solve problems, you have the esteem of your co-workers, your boss includes you in high-level planning.  What’s with the 5?  You’ve never gotten less than an 8!

Pride depends on measuring, comparing and rating; it thrives on reassurance, outside validation, and recognition.  So your pride has been wounded, and you spin a story:  They don’t value me.  Their priorities are all mixed up.  Their policies are stupid.  They don’t deserve me. The more the story churns around, the more wounded and disappointed you feel.  What if you could set your pride aside and let your curiosity explore other possibilities, see the situation from other angles?

Perhaps the company just changed the rating system.  Perhaps your manager has been told he must use a bell curve.  Perhaps you’re already slightly over paid and someone else doing the same job way underpaid.  Perhaps the company’s expectations of you are already so high, you’d have to pull rabbits out of hats to exceed how highly they think of you.  Perhaps you can emotionally detach from any external rating scale.  You can certainly explore your options:  you can challenge your review, you can set new goals for yourself, you can find a mentor, you can quit.

Being calm and being curious play off each other.  When you are calm, you can be curious; when you are curious, calm follows.  Together, they infuse your thinking with creativity and they ease your emotions out of stress and into serenity.  Because they are so closely tied together, you can start with either one and find the other.

Mastering Curiosity

To become curious, ask such questions as:

  • What if what I think isn’t true?
  • What other factors than I can see might be in play?
  • What if my premises are wrong?
  • What if my emotions are getting in the way?
  • What other possibilities exist?
  • What can I do differently?
  • What expectations have I been holding?

Mastering Calm

To become calm, you can focus on calming your mind, calming your body or calming your emotions.  As soon as one you soothe one aspect of your being, the other aspects will follow.  Try one or more of the following techniques.  (Their effectiveness for you may vary by situation.)

To calm your body:

  • Breathe deeply.  Inhale slowly into your diaphragm, paying attention to the air all the way in and all the way out.  Be with your body.  Repeat 4-6 times.  The body relaxes with such regulated and increased oxygenation.
  • Open your senses.  Pay attention to what you can hear, what you can see, what you can smell, what you can taste, and/or what you can feel.  Your senses are your access to the world, and compared to your own stress, the world is very stable.
  • Be in nature.  Go outside and be open to temperature, weather, plants, animals, and your body’s responses.  Nature is generous, inspiring, settling and calming.
  • Expand your body from within.  Become tall, lengthen your neck, broaden your shoulders, expand your rib cage, lengthen your arms and legs, stretch your skin.  When your body is tight, it hoards tense emotions; when your body is expanded, it welcomes generous emotions.

To calm your mind:

  • Count your blessings.  Think of five things you’re thankful for and savor them.  Especially be mindful to the blessings and advantages you enjoy that you didn’t earn.  Appreciation of what’s good switches the mind off something you might be judging negatively.
  • Laugh out loud.  Chuckle, giggle, tee-hee.  Generate it from your belly, your chest, your throat, your nose, your toes.  Just find some form of laughter inside of you and let it come out your mouth.  Laughter is a very effective medicine.
  • See truth.  Think of something you know to be true.  Even small truths work well here:  The sun is shining (or it’s raining); I love my dog (or my child, or my spouse), I am well-fed (or hungry), I like ice cream (or swimming, or a good book, or martinis).  Truth will help you stop any story your mind might be spinning.
  • Be present.  Take note of whatever you are doing.  If you are eating, savor every bite; if you are working, focus on the task; if you are walking, observe the roll of your feet, the resilience of the ground, the sounds and textures of the environment.  Focus your mind on what is, and you will find ease from whatever story your brain is making up.

To calm your emotions:

  • Smile.  Researchers have discovered, using MRI, that turning up the corners of the mouth changes the way the synapses in the brain fire.  Just by smiling, you move your brain activity to a happier location of the brain.
  • See beauty.  Notice something you believe to be beautiful and savor it.  Seeing beauty is like seeing truth, except on the emotional level.  Enjoying the beautiful will ease your heart away from any agitation and cool heated emotions.
  • Be silly.  Stick out your tongue, wiggle your butt, dance a jig, cross your eyes – let down your defenses.  To be silly for even a few moments will helps you transcend any tension-causing rules that bind you to beliefs and behaviors that may not be true for you.
  • Evoke a neutral emotion.  Basically, this is letting go of judgment and becoming the observer.  That transition moves you from stress to serenity.

When you become calm, you can be curious.  When you allow yourself to be curious, you become calm.  Either way you come at it, when you are calm and curious, life is more interesting and more fun.


One of the services I provide for my clients is to help them develop strategies for mastering such aspects of their lives as calmness and curiosity.  If you could benefit from such help, please write to me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Beliefs, Calmness, Cause and Effect, Curiosity, Neutrality, Possibilities | 6 Comments »

Surety

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Last week I emphasized the importance of conceptualizing what you want (instead of what you have) and then believing the result you imagine is possible.

When you believe something is possible, that belief establishes a surety around that possibility, increases its likelihood.  When you believe something is impossible, that belief establishes a surely which decreases the possibility.

The possibility, in and of itself, is neutral, neither likely nor unlikely, poised in the middle of a scale, yet having no power to tip the scale either way.  The force that tips the scale one direction or the other is belief.  Imagine the scale looks like this:

Impossible < Improbable < Possible > Probable > Inevitable

If you are neutral about a possibility, you sit in the middle of the scale.  More likely, you have a belief and the scale is already tipped in the direction of your belief.

Sometimes when you want something, you start at that middle point where everything is possible.  Perhaps what you want exceeds your knowledge of how to achieve it, but you know other people have reached a similar objective, which means it must be within reach.  Other people stay out of debt, other people weigh the right amount for their height, other people have jobs they love, other people have happy relationships.  Therefore, perhaps you can, too.  In this neutral state, you are calm, steady, interested, mindful.  Your sense of your own abilities allows for the likelihood of success as much as the likelihood of failure.

Sometimes, failure looms larger than success.  Maybe you doubt your abilities, your opportunities, or your luck; maybe you see obstacles or limitations in the way; maybe your experiences have taught you to keep your expectations in check.  Other people may have achieved what you want, but the path ahead seems overgrown with struggle and difficulty and attainment seems improbable.  Just thinking about it makes you tired.

Sometimes the desired result seems impossible, more fantasy than reality.  You’ve never actually seen anyone else achieve that “pie-in-the-sky” outcome, so you doubt the success stories.  Yeah, sure, John and Mary fell in love and lived happily-every-after, just like Prince Charming really saved Cinderella from a life of drudgery.  The sheer impossibility of the dream immobilizes you.

Other times, the scale tips toward attainment.  When you envision what you want, the way ahead looks clear.  You know what to do, you are willing to do it, and you feel confident.  With a good plan, a little luck, perhaps some help along the way, the possible becomes probable.  You proceed willingly and full of hope.

And sometime what you want shines ahead of you like a beacon, strong and bright.  You know you’re aligned with yourself and the universe.  Without conscious effort, your stride forward eagerly; all you have to do is head for it and it’s yours.  Inevitably.

So which comes first?  Your level of belief?  The energy you project?  Your degree of confidence?  The outcome you envision?

Actually, each of these elements contributes to the others.  You can shift your energy, you can reinforce your confidence, you can more clearly envision, or you can relax your doubt and expand your belief.

Belief Produces Results

Some things happen with such regularity and consistency, you know they’re true:  breathing, gravity, magnetism, the phases of the moon, trees lose their leaves in the fall, etc.  No belief is necessary.

Some things you have come to believe over the course of your lifetime and they also feel true.  Of course these things vary from person to person, but consider what you know vs. what you believe about such things as whether your parents love you, how smart (or athletic, or artistic) you are, whether the world is hostile or friendly, etc.

Then there are the things you hope to be true, such as that you will advance in your company, that you will find your soul mate, that your back will stop hurting, that you will get out of debt, etc.  Generally speaking, hope is the factor that sustains desires you’re not quite sure of.

And finally are the things you believe are not true.  This might include practices that make no sense to you, such as astrology, or alternate medicine, or prayer, or self-flagellation.  It might include things about yourself, including what you believe you are not talented in, or capable of, or have the resources for.

There’s an old adage that says, “Whether you believe you can or your believe you can’t, you’re right.”  If you’re willing to review your beliefs, you will find a strong positive correlation between what you believe and your results.

Clearly, if you change what you believe you will change your results.

Belief = Surety

The certainly of your belief about a given possibility, however, is only one of the sureties influencing your results.  There is also the surety of your own personal power.  Just as no two people access their own power in exactly the same way, not everyone comes to trust their personal power in the same way.  I’ve identified four important starting points for believing in your own inner strength.

A starting point means exactly that.  The point at which it’s easiest for you to become calm, recognize the possibilities, and proceed more confidently toward what you want.

As I describe these four starting points, consider your own approach and see which one resonates most with you.

Trust Yourself

You believe in your strengths.  You sense (or know) you have talents, abilities, knowledge, experience, and you know your strengths can (or have the potential to) serve you well.

The more you trust yourself, the more you grow in confidence.  As your confidence grows, you recognize you are competent, smart, inventive, brave.  You realize you can easily transfer a competence (or aspects of that competence) from one situation to another.  As a problem solver, you trust your ability to see the scope, identify the steps, and learn the details as you go.  So there’s no limit to the types of problems you can take on.

You know your strengths – and you maximize them.  You minimize your weaknesses.  You don’t claim to be something you’re not, but neither do you let insufficiencies get in your way.  If there’s something you can’t do, you know someone who can and you’re not afraid to ask.

Trust Your Choices

You believe in growth.  You sense (or know) there are no mistakes.  You rely on the laws of cause-and-effect, knowing every choice simply produces an outcome.  The outcome then produces knowledge, and knowledge produces growth.

As you learn from experience, you gain confidence in your ability to make informed decisions, to take the known variables into consideration, and to do the necessary research.  This empowers you to choose again, proceed into the unknown, and continue to accumulate new knowledge.

Because you look for growth, you take difficulties, obstacles, or mishaps in stride.  Sometimes you may feel as excited about what you’re learning as you are about reaching your objective.  For you, every choice opens the door to adventure, and learning what not to do is as satisfying as learning what to do.

Trust The Infinite

You believe in a higher power (call it God, Cosmic Consciousness, The Field, The Universe, The Source, The Higher Self), and you are willing to (or already do) cultivate a personal relationship with it.

You sense (or know) you are not alone.  The more you trust the influence of The Infinite in your life, the more you look for and practice communicating with it.  You recognize guidance is always available, you stay receptive, and you trust that guidance to ease your way.

In addition to guidance, your connection with The Infinite provides both serenity and protection.  It accompanies you when you take risks, it encourages curiosity and amusement, it provides comfort in times of trial and courage in times of difficulty.  The more you rely on The Infinite, the more you understand your life.

Trust Your Intuition

You believe in your “sixth sense.”  You sense (or know) you gather information not limited to your five physical senses, and you incorporate it (or would like to) into the way you go through life.

You may see this information as coming from somewhere outside yourself, or it feel like a “gut” instinct.  It helps you make connections between disparate things, find unique solutions to problems, understand yourself at a deeper level, and recognize unusual possibilities.

As you gain experience with your intuition, you recognize the importance of neutrality, since prejudices of any kind will skew your insight.  The more you clear away intrusive thoughts, unruly emotions or impetuous behaviors, the more trustworthy your intuition becomes.  Ultimately, your intuition will guide you to the truest intentions, the most rewarding partnerships, and sustainable achievements.

Acquire Surety Through Mindfulness

So, you’ve found your starting place.  You’ve identified the one that resonates with you, and you want to expand your trust level.  Begin by mastering neutrality and stay mindful.  Just as each of these styles of surety can help you access and master your own personal power, they all present challenges along the way.

Beware of pride, ambition, fanaticism, arrogance, or a need for validation.  Be wary of any inner narratives that compare, measure or dispense judgment in any way.  Cultivate neutrality, awareness, generosity and compassion.  Pay attention to your thoughts, acknowledge your emotions, recognize the connection between the energies you generate and your results.  And be willing to take baby steps.  Progress of a slow but sure nature will bring you to the greatest levels of sureness and mastery.

If you would like person help creating the life you want, or mastering your personal power, please contact me.  As I life coach, I help people “move to the next level,” whatever that means to you.  Write me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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