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Creator Power

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

If emotions are energy, does this mean emotions are also power?   What is the relationship between emotions and energy?  Are they same?  And if so, so what?

There’s a lot of talk these days about energy in terms of sustainability:  energy needs, energy sources, green energy, renewable energy, alternative energy.  Our world is in an energy crisis.  Since the onset of the industrial revolution the need for energy has expanded continuously with little consideration of the down side.  The ability to produce more goods in greater and greater quantities has apparently outweighed every other consideration.  Mining and burning coal clearly cause illness and death, but the economic benefits have prevailed over such costs.  Only now, when the degradation of our environment has reached extreme levels, are we looking for “clean” energy.

Consider an energy spectrum of bad to good:

Toxic→Polluting→Neutral→Renewable→Pure

Now correlate this spectrum with the Modes of Personal Power:

  • ·Toxic energy  = Victim emotions
  • ·Polluting energy = Interpreter emotions
  • ·Neutral energy = Observer emotions
  • ·Renewable energy = Partner emotions
  • ·Pure energy = Creator emotions

Energy and Power

The neutral energy produced by and resulting from Observer Mode emotions causes no damage to the environment – or to you.  In this mode, you stop struggling.  You no longer feel a need to hold on, manipulate, fight, resist, withhold, prevent, monitor, dominate, or exert control in any other way.  You relax, surrender, drift, let go, let be, acknowledge, float, etc.  You just be. What is is.  You recognize how is not up to you.  You arrive in this mode by turning off the energy switch, by conserving.

In Partner Mode, you switch from off to on – but you have moved to an entirely different kind of energy than the polluting forms of Interpreter Mode.  Consider the emotions of Partner Mode in the context of renewable energy sources.  For instance, imagine appreciation as having the same delightful energy as a quick mountain stream.  Imagine confidence as having the same rising heat as a geothermal steam vent.  Imagine friendliness as having the healing warmth of sunlight.  Imagine willingness as having the same tenacious rhythm as the tides.  Imagine gratitude as having the same soothing energy as a summer breeze.  (Your imagination will likely come up with different correlations than mine, but you get the drift.)

When you experience emotions from Partner Mode, the energy of your confidence, appreciation, friendliness, willingness, gratitude, etc. empowers your efforts.  The energy you generate also empowers others.  The renewable resource of your Partner emotions can help those who are operating from Interpreter Mode to switch off the polluting energies of those emotions and become more sustainable.

As you’ll recall from the Modes of Power Diamond, personal power increases by orders of magnitude from one mode to the next.  (For visualization purposes, and without any way to actually measure it, I suggested a rate of expansion of 100 times.)  However, the energy cost is inverse to the energy gain.  When operating in Victim Mode, the energy balance is all cost and no gain.  Interpreter Mode is still high cost with little gain.  Observer Mode is neutral, it costs nothing and you get to keep all the energy you generate.  Partner emotions require some effort on your part (you have to erect the wind turbine) and then the energy is free; you get to use all you want with excess to share.

The Power of Creation

And now we come to Creator Mode.  The energy of these emotions is all gain at no cost.  Love is free.  Happiness is free.  Delight is free.  Kindness is free.  Peace is free.  Imagine if you had a direct power connection to the sun.  You could absorb energy from the sun without putting up a solar panel, without even going out and standing in the sun.  You wouldn’t need a battery to hold the energy because your direct connection would flow continuously regardless of weather or time of day.  The emotions of Creator Mode are like that.

Now imagine your connection is not with the sun, but with the universe, with the ultimate, infinite partner of all creation.  Imagine this connection is immediate and intimate.  It’s the air you breathe, your sensory awareness, the beat of your heart.  Creator emotions are that strong, that constant, that powerful.

When you operate in Creator Mode, your love will heal yourself and others.  Your happiness will create anything you want.  Your peace will infuse peace into every situation. Your enthusiasm will strengthen you and empower others.  You become the source of positive energy in any group, in any situation.  Creator emotions even empower you to reach across time and space.  You don’t have to be in the same location with those you serve.

So what would your life be like if you always operated from Creator Mode?  Would it be all peace and light?  A heaven on earth?  Unrelenting, boring bliss?

I don’t know.  That state of being is beyond my experience.  But the emotion/energy perspective gives me a way to look at it.

Infinite means no-limit, and in some ways no-limit energy looks more dangerous than inviting.  At their extremes, most natural and abundant sources of energy become “catastrophic.”  Consider tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, etc.  From our finite human perspective, the effects seem destructive and disruptive.

And yet, such excesses of energy are the creative mechanisms of the universe.  According to the Big Bang theory, the universe itself began as an explosion.  Without the Iron Catastrophe, the earth would not be habitable.  Mountains are the result of tectonic shifts and volcanic activity. The richest soil on earth comes from such excesses as volcanoes, floods and glaciers.

I assume that as such energy extremes are rare in nature, so the upper extremes of Creator Mode emotions would be rare rather than constant.  Generally, mountain streams burble along, breezes clear the air, the tides ebb and flow, geothermal vents emit steam.  The energy’s there, and while the potential is far greater than we know, it’s also manageable and master-able.

The emotions of Creator Mode are amazingly powerful.  Powerful beyond our ability to imagine.  Creatively powerful.

This power can be engaged either actively or re-actively, although most of us experience it only re-actively – we love because others are loveable; we’re happy when there’s something to be happy about; we rejoice when there’s something to celebrate, etc.

Regardless of how we’ve come at these emotions, we have at least experienced them.  Such experiences are blessings.  They teach us what creator energy feels like, how our bodies respond to these emotions, and to recognize the power when we feel it.  They provide us with an experience base from which we can learn to actively engage the power.

Become an Active Creator

Knowing what love feels like, you can generate it from your heart and use it to heal.  You can heal your own illnesses and the illnesses of others.  You can heal ill-will, scarcity, loneliness, past error, or any other wound inflicted or experienced from victim or interpreter mode.

Knowing what happiness feels like, you can generate it from within and use it to create any outcome you desire.

Knowing what delight feels like, you can let it expand within you to reframe any erroneous belief.

If the difference between passively experiencing Creator Mode emotions and actively generating them seems a long way off, take a good look at what comes easily to you.  Identify what you have in abundance.  Consider such things as your talents, your skills, your intelligence, your family, your friends, your well-being, your home, your job.  Make an inventory of your blessings.

Perhaps you’re more in the habit of focusing on what’s not going well, on the things you want to fix, or improve, or heal, or transcend.  For this exercise, set those things aside and concentrate on what’s good.

Now review the emotions you feel when you think about what’s good.  What do you feel when you interact with people you love?  What do you feel when you participate in something you enjoy?  These are the emotions of Creator Mode, and you can transfer the energy of these emotions to any other area of your life.

If you would like personal guidance in mastering any of the Modes of Power, please contract me through my website:  kathyjacobson.com.  My website describes my approach to coaching, and also provides a way to buy my books:  Choosing Happiness and The Miracle Factor.

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The Power of Emotions

Sunday, September 25th, 2011

I ended last week’s blog with the statement:  “How is not about action, but about emotion, and therefore the how is as much up to us as the what.  First we have to choose what we want, then we must choose the emotions that will facilitate it.”  This week, I’m going to share my thinking about the relationship between emotion and personal power.

The more I work with clients, the more I see the best results come when I can help them focus on accessing their personal power.  Situations come and go; skills, tools and understanding go on forever.  Knowledge is transferable.  Wisdom and power are the keys of creation.  So I keep thinking about the relationship between wisdom and personal power, and I find emotion central to both.

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of being in the presence of someone whose emotions are running high.  The person might be excited, angry, happy, depressed or in love, and radiating the energy of that emotion until it fills the room.  Such strong emotions are often described in energy terms:  light or dark, hot or cold, fast or slow.

Perhaps you’ve been observant about your own emotions, and recognize the energy associated with them.  When you’re happy or loving, you might feel that as light, or warm or fast.  When you’re angry or sad, you might feel that as dark, or cold or slow.

Clearly emotions are energy.  Does this mean emotions are also power?

Emotions of Power

A couple of years ago, a model for different modes of personal power began to take shape in my mind. I’ve been using this model with clients ever since, and I’m finding it an incredibly useful tool.  I call it the Modes of Mastery Diamond, with five levels of personal mastery identified as Victim, Interpreter, Observer, Partner, and Creator.

The lowest mode is Victim, and the emotions of this mode include (but are not limited to) hate, envy, anger, grief and despair.  Someone beset by such strong emotions feels and reacts like a victim.

The strong, intense emotions of this mode tend to overpower the person experiencing them.  The defining characteristic of this range of emotions is powerlessness.  It’s important to note that an individual operating in this mode becomes victim to the emotions as much as to any physical threat.  In effect, the emotions own all the power.  Choice is limited to self-protection:  to fight, to run, or to freeze.

This extremely narrow range of possibilities is what puts Victim at the bottom point of the diamond.  If we were to quantify personal power (which we can’t), we might assign a 1 to Victim power, meaning not much.

Breaking Free of Victim

I see the next mode as the Interpreter Mode because the emotions of this level compel us to make up our stories.  The emotions of this mode include frustration, impatience, apprehension, embarrassment, desire and insecurity.  In this mode we want to know who, what, when, where, why and how.  We assign blame and we take credit.  We rationalize, accuse, explain, judge, and defend.  In Interpreter Mode we want to fix or destroy, reward or punish.  We assign winners and losers.

The defining characteristic of this mode is judgment, and struggle and resistance always accompany judgment.

Whether you are judging yourself, someone else, your situation, or your past choices, when you look at something as bad or good, you are operating in Interpreter Mode.  When whatever you’re dealing with seems hard, takes a great deal of energy, or seems like a battle, you’re operating in Interpreter Mode.

On the up-side, Interpreter Mode is perhaps 100 times more powerful than Victim Mode.  When beset by an Interpreter emotion, the emotion may still have a stronger grip on you than you have on it, but you start looking for options.  You may not like any of the options you see, you may feel it’s a choice between two evils, but you look for alternatives, solutions, and answers.  In this mode you will see more difficulty that possibility, but you can envision, aspire, set a goal.  If a Victim has the power of 1, an Interpreter has the power of 100.

On the down-side, it’s from the Interpreter Mode that we wage wars, seek revenge, hold grudges, demand restitution, want respect, get defensive, etc. etc. etc.

Stepping into Power

When we’re able to stop judging, we take a giant step up in personal power and become the Observer.

In Observer Mode we experience a significant power shift.  We stop letting the emotions drive us.  Emotions in this mode include awareness, flexibility, amusement, curiosity, gentleness, and hope.  In this mode, we leave the judge’s bench and take a seat in the witness chair.  In this mode we’re more likely to say, “That’s interesting,” than “That’s terrible.  We’re more likely to say, “It is what it is,” than “If only _____ would change.”  We let go of our stories.

The primary characteristic of the Observer is neutrality.  There is no good or bad, no winning or losing, no assigning blame, no taking credit, no struggle and no resistance.

The Diamond is wider in Observer Mode than any other because in this mode we see winning as well as losing, success as well as failure, plenty as well as lack, love as well as loneliness.  This huge expansion in possibilities and taking ownership of our emotions is what gives the Observer 100 times more power than the Interpreter.  On our totally arbitrary and unscientific scale, Observer has a power rating of 10,000.

The strongest technique I know for moving from Interpreter to Observer is to become mindful of your emotions.  Notice them.  Name them.  Acknowledge them.  Practice saying, “Ah, I’m choosing to feel frustrated (or angry, or impatient, or sorry for myself, or smug).”  By the very act of observing what you are experiencing – and not judging yourself for feeling it – you step into Observer Mode.

Choosing

I call the next mode Partner because in this mode we move from witness to participant.  We don’t just step into the game, we help write the rules.

The primary characteristic of this mode is cooperation, and includes such emotions as authenticity, cheerfulness, gratitude, affection and fun.  We left re-activity behind in Interpreter Mode, now we become pro-active.  We willingly take the first step, go the second mile, find the point of agreement, negotiate the win-win.  We welcome the cooperation of our tools and equipment, our associates, our adversaries, strangers, other drivers, our bodies, talents, and the universe.

The Diamond narrows in Partner Mode because we have sufficient inner strength to jettison the possibilities we don’t want.  We can discard failure and keep success, we can throw out lack and choose plenty, we can open the door to companionship and shut out loneliness.  We thrust aside what we don’t want in favor of what we do want.  By our choices, we narrow the vast range of possibilities we could see in observer mode into probabilities.  We begin to see that anything we want wants us.  We know choosing is both our opportunity and our responsibility.  We choose willingness over willfulness.

And as we continue our exponential assent into our own personal power, the Partner Mode is 100 times more powerful than the Observer Mode, which equals 1,000,000.  (Remember, these numbers are symbolic, intended to help us get a feel for the rate of expansion in power.)

Creating

I see the final and highest mode of personal power as the Creator, and the key characteristic of being a Creator is harmony.  Emotions of this mode include love, joy, peace, delight and awe.  When fully operating through the emotions of this mode, anything you choose must happen.  You are in a state of oneness with yourself, with other people, with the energies of the universe.  You are attuned to best good and you manifest best good.  By your choices, and through your emotions, you narrow probabilities into inevitabilities.

Again, accessing personal power at multiples of 100, the power mode of Creator is 100,000,000.  A bit mind-boggling, isn’t it?

Most of us move from one mode to another depending on the situation, our confidence in that situation, our wellness at the time, what else is going on it our lives, the strength of our beliefs associated with the situation, any other beliefs that may be in play, and a host of other criteria.  Things happen.  We react, or judge, or respond, or stay neutral, or choose something else.  Sometimes we actually create the outcome we want.  The power of the Creator is within each of us.  As sentient human beings, living in a place and at a time in history when choice has become our mantle, we have the opportunity to access all the power within us.

We process.  We struggle.  We try.  We practice.  We falter.  We feel.  We learn.  We grow.  And, of course, that’s what life is all about.

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Communications From Your Soul

Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Your soul knows.
I don’t especially concern myself with what happened before this life or what happens after, yet I feel that I, myself, am somehow more than I know, that my soul knows more than I know.  I believe my soul has knowledge of my strengths, my weaknesses, my desires, the results of my choices, and my purpose.  I may have to learn these things by experience, by trial and error, by guess and by golly – but my soul already knows.

For the next four issues I’ll be exploring four different ways the soul communicates – through the body, through the mind, through the heart, and through the intuition.

Through the Body

Your body is one of the foremost ways your soul communicates with you.  You’ve probably experienced such things as butterflies in your stomach, tightness in your throat, a dry mouth, sweaty palms, weakness in your knees, and tears in your eyes.  When you experience stress, or some strong emotion, your body responds.

To put this in terms of personal power, when you experience emotions of helplessness or struggle (from victim or interpreter modes), your body will tighten and pull inward; when you experience emotions of cooperation and oneness (from partner or creator modes), you body will loosen up and expand outward.  By paying attention to your body’s responses, you can become more attuned to your emotions.

A less-obvious way the soul uses the body to communicate is through aches and illnesses.  The message usually starts small – and stays small if it’s heard.  If the first quiet message is ignored, the next one will be louder, and the power of the message escalates from there.  (I do not claim soul communication is the only reason for physical ailments; I do suggest it as a possibility.)

So, if you suspect an ailments is a communication from your soul, here are some ways to learn this particular language.

Be Present With Your Body

The primary way the soul communicates through the body is through sensations such as discomforts, irritations, aches, stiffnesses, etc.  Such digressions from being totally healthy can, of course, always be attributed to an external or environmental source.  When you start looking at them as messages from your deep inner self, you can create a dialog between your conscious self and your inner being.

The conversation always begins with a nudge.  Since it will seem trivial, it will be easy to dismiss.  After all, everyone stiffens up on occasion, bumps into things, experiences stress, over-exertw, etc.  If you ignore the nudge, the soul will become more insistent:  first the minor discomfort, then the persistent irritation, then the constant pain, until, perhaps, the need for surgery.

The embedded messages usually say one of two things:  1)  You are trying to force fit yourself into something that isn’t true for you, and your soul is in resistance.  2) You are resisting something your soul longs for, and your soul is applying pressure.  (Both may be going on at the same time.)

Hear the Message

Even before the ailment, the soul may speak to you through your own language.  If you don’t heart yourself, the body then becomes the medium.  Some statements I’ve heard and the associated ailments include:  “I’m a mess.” – multiple sclerosos.  “I’m working my guts out here.” – colon cancer.   “I need a good right hand.” – arthritis.  “I’ve got a monkey on my back.” – hives.

Consider the following:

  • “I’m a mess” might mean:  I’m not meeting expectations, either the expectations others have of me or the expectations I have of myself.  The soul may be saying:  “Let got of expectations and learn how to be present with what is.”
  • “I’m working my guts out” might mean:  I can’t expect or accept anything from any source that I haven’t earned through hard work.  The soul might be saying:  “Enjoin with the universe in partnership and everything is easy.”
  • “I need a good right hand” might mean:  Too much is expected of me; I know I’m not up to it.  The soul might be saying:  “You have more power than you know.  Trust yourself.”
  • “I’ve got a monkey on my back” might mean:  I have problems I don’t know how to solve; I’m low on both options and possibilities.  The soul might be saying:  “Open yourself to possibilities and unseen opportunities will appear.”

The above examples also show how the soul communicates through metaphor, using the ailment as a symbol for the message.
Take a moment and identify some place in your body that may be currently troubling you.  Then ask, “What does this part of my body symbolize for me?”  For example, as I was getting dressed, one of my fingernails snagged on my sock.  Okay, a rough nail; no big deal.  Of course, compared to other challenges I’ve faced, or those experienced by people with real illnesses or afflictions, it’s very minor.  Except I’ve broken several fingernails this week, two way below the quick.  So I asked myself:  What could all these broken fingernails represent for me?  Maybe something to do with my hands.  Then what do my hands represent to me?  Holding.

Once you find a metaphor that resonates with you, think about all the ways this might relate to what’s going on in your life.  Perhaps in the ache between your shoulders you can see your need to carry the weight of the world.  Perhaps you see the canker sores in your mouth as repressed passion.  Perhaps, big changes are going on in your life, and the stiffness in your knees indicates an unwillingness to bend.  Perhaps the lack of circulation in your feet reflects a sense of instability in your life.

When you can see the possible relationship, probe for what it might mean in practical terms.  For example:

  • If you feel the weight of the world, you might ask:  Am I assuming responsibilities that aren’t mine?  Is it past time for me to take on some responsibility?  Am I trying to save others from themselves?
  • If you are repressing passion, you might ask:  Am I unwilling to love?  Am I emotionally unavailable to people I care about?  Am I angry at someone and afraid to show it?
  • If you are resisting change, you might ask:  Are the changes being forced on me totally untrue for me?  Am I so afraid of change I’m holding back from something that is true for me?

In exploring how my soul might be sending me a message through fingernails broken deeply enough to get my attention, I asked:  Am I holding onto something I need to let go off?  Am I letting something slip through my fingers?

Respond to the Communication

In some situations, as soon has you hear the message, the affliction goes away.  I worked with a friend once who had injured her hand during a fall in her garden.  After three treatments with antibiotics, her hand was still swollen, her fingers numb, and an infection seemed to be creeping up her arm.  Together, we explored what message there might be in this experience, and she worked with the metaphor of a “good right hand.”  Because she’d stopped midway through writing her mother’s life story, she also looked at the homonyms “right” and “write.”  She followed the techniques below, and within an  hour the swelling was down, her fingers were flexible and the redness had diminished by half.

First, Listen

The healing process begins as soon as you listen to your body and look for the message.  Next, listen to your emotions – both those that show up in association with your ailment and those you may be ignoring or brushing aside.

If you experience any emotions of judgment, such as alarm, anxiety, bitterness, worry, frustration, etc., name them and acknowledge them.  My friend heard the message from her soul as:  Stop doubting yourself, be true to yourself and write your book.

Buried emotions may be more difficult to identify, yet they often lie at the heart of physical affliction.  Remember, you’re looking for whatever your soul has to tell you, and the message may be that some emotion you’ve ignored needs to be addressed.  A couple of terrific books that explore this concept are:  Feelings Buried Alive Never Die, by Karol Truman, and You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay.

Second, Find the Gift

The events and experiences of our lives provide us with two powerful gifts – the opportunity to grow and the opportunity to serve.  This includes the experience of physical limitation.  While both gifts may be present, one is often stronger than the other.

The Gift of Growth

The opportunity to grow begins with the question, “What can I learn from this experience?”  The personal message I received from my broken fingernails pertains to an intention I’ve been working on lately.  On a pretty deep level, I have had a conflicted relationship with my work for many years.  About a decade ago, one of my dear friends said, “Money’s easy.  You work, and you get money.”  Except I did not share that confidence.  I didn’t even share that belief.  Through most of my lifetime, I had no experience that work resulted in money.

So I’ve been concentrating on work – my beliefs about the worth of my work, my confidence about my work, the value I perceive others receive from my work.  For a couple of weeks, I’ve been using the affirmation, “Every day in every way the value of my work increases in the minds of others.”
I considered these two questions, “Am I holding onto something I need to let go off?  Am I letting something slip through my fingers?”  The answer was, “You need to let go.”  I probed for what I was holding on to and I got a keen sense I needed to let go of a need for validation from others.  I need to value my work emotionally as well as intellectually.  I need to see my work as the result of my partnership with myself, my partnership with my gifts, and my partnership with the infinite.
I’ll work with that.  I’ll step away from such judging emotions of self-doubt, longing for validation, and disappointment when things don’t work out exactly as I want them to in the time frame I expect.

The Gift of Service

The opportunity to serve comes when you ask, “In spite of the limitations of this situation, what can I still give?”

I’ve mentioned my bicycle accident in previous newsletters.  From a concussion and a broken face, I gained a new compassion for others.  I gained new levels of humility, patience and tolerance.  These gifts have helped me be more effective as coach than I could have been before.

Third, Heal

The possibility of healing exists within every affliction.  Possibilities do not necessarily become inevitabilities.  There are usually too many variables for that.  However, in between lies probabilities, and it’s within everyone’s power to narrow possibilities into probabilities.  Here are some very easy steps, focusing specifically on the communications the soul sends via the body.

  1. Own your emotions.  Recognize them, name them, acknowledge your power to choose them.
  2. Love your body.  Love it fully and love it exactly as it is – warts and all.
  3. Learn the lesson.  At least let your soul know you’re listening and will take the message seriously.
  4. Make a choice.  Choose different emotions.  Choose what you want instead.
  5. Live your choice.  If you choose to be truer to yourself, live your own truth.  If you choose wellness, live wellness; stop indulging in the story or the symptoms or the limitations of your affliction.

I want to reiterate that all illness and afflictions are not necessarily messages from the soul.  They are one way our souls communicate with us, but they are not the only way.  Next time I’ll take a look at the messages the soul sends via the mind.

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Incremental Steps

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

Last week I referred to the process I call “revolution to revelation,” going round and round – the same issue, the same kinds of experiences, the same challenges – until something you’ve seen or heard or experienced suddenly makes sense and transports you into new understanding.  Today, I’ll explore ways to make this process purposeful instead of accidental.

I think this kind of progress is important in accessing personal power and in manifesting what you want.  The art of manifestation corresponds directly to your relationship with your power. The ability to access the infinite power you already possess seems essential to your ability to manifest.

Accessing Power

When I first started coaching, I’d encourage clients to simply replace a disempowering emotion with an empowering one.  For instance, if someone was mired in resentment, I’d ask, “What do you want to feel instead?”  This seemed easy enough to me, except we weren’t achieving the desired results.

As I continued to study emotions, I began to see they fell into natural groups according to the results they produced.  These groups became the Modes of Mastery  diamond, and when I used that model, we started to see lasting change.  I realized real progress comes by moving systematically from one mode to the next.  Of course, you can experience a big leap and enjoy the resulting burst of exalted emotion, but permanent access to Partner or Creator power requires consciously mastering each mode along the way.  Since using a more incremental approach, I’ve been more effective as a coach, and my clients have experienced longer-lasting results.

Following is a quickie review of each mode:

Victim mode includes those strong, imperative emotions that result in a sense of helplessness.  You may be in a situation that initiates or contributes to a reality of helplessness, or you may be immobilized only from within.  Either way, such emotions as fear, hate, anger and resentment close off possibilities until it looks as if there is no way out.

Interpreter mode is recognized by judgment and results in struggle.  This includes any emotion that results in such judgments as comparison, blame, measurement, fault-finding, complaint and envy.  In this mode you have sufficient personal power to see possible solutions, but since the emotions produce struggle, the alternatives may seem to have more cost than benefit.

Observer mode is neutral.  The more judgment you can release, the calmer you feel.  As the observer you can see a vast spectrum of possibilities, and you are able to make more reasoned choices.

Partner mode emotions include any that connect and form cooperative relationships.  The range of possibilities begins to narrow again because you have the personal power to eliminate the options you don’t want.  The possible becomes probable.

Creator mode emotions bring you into a oneness with yourself, other people, the world, and the infinite.  When you live such emotions as love, peace, and happiness, the probable becomes inevitable.

When I assembled the list of emotions (included again this week), I put them in alphabetical order.  The emotions of each mode share characteristics, but they do not all have equal power.  I made no effort to prioritize them by strength because the words that describe emotion tend to mean different things to different people.  For instance, I might consider disappointment a deeply weakening emotion; for you it might be a temporary state.  I also included synonyms to assist in finding the word that best describes how you feel.  Trepidation and consternation may mean essentially the same thing, but you know if you’re feeling one or the other.

I’ve encouraged you often to identify the emotion you’re feeling, look to the next mode for an emotion that would be a logical step into a higher level of power.  Sometimes, however, your next “revolution” might take you to an emotion within the same mode, but one with less (or more) energy.

For example, this week, a friend of mine said she was feeling angry.  She’d asked a roommate to move out of her house, and feelings were running a high.  My friend already knew that by feeling angry she was giving away her anger to the other person.  She also knew she’d prefer to feel compassion, but that seemed pretty remote.  So I suggested an incremental approach, and this is how it went:

From Anger to Irritation to Disappointment to Sadness to Calm to Compassion

I suggested some of the steps; she suggested others.  At each transition, she felt her heart easing and her body relaxing.  The entire process took less than five minutes.

It often doesn’t work that fast.  If your anger, like my friend’s, is recent and not especially deep, you can probably shift out of it quickly – as she did.  If you’ve been holding it most of your life, you may have to take many tiny, incremental steps, then practice each step for days or weeks before you’re able to move onto the next one.

Wherever you are, identify an emotion you can move to fairly easily.

The diagram below illustrates the journey from fear to joy.  Because fear allows the least amount of personal power, it’s in the middle; joy, with the most expansive personal power, is outermost.  The progress each revolution makes is very incremental – and the time it takes to make one revolution will be very individual.

In actual practice, your starting place might be anywhere along the way.  Your path may not require as many steps as I’ve included.  You might identify your progressive steps with an entirely different set of emotions.  You may transition through some emotions so quickly you hardly notice; others might take a few revolutions.

Recognize the progression as a journey.  Also recognize each transition from one mode to another will impact every area of your life.  For instance, you may be anxious over something that’s going on at work yet staying in observer mode everywhere else.  Emotions, however, are as contagious within an individual as they are from one person to another.  If you don’t deal with the anxiety at work, it can contaminate the more satisfying areas of your life. When you address the anxiety and work your way out of it, the improved energy will also increase your power everywhere else.

Movement Strategies

The strategies for moving from one mode to another follow a basic do-have-be pattern.   Even though I’ve maintained this do-have-be cycle can begin anywhere, it actually correlates pretty will with the modes of power.

From Victim to Interpreter:

Because the primary characteristic of Victim mode is helplessness, the first step is to grasp the strands of non-helplessness that are within your reach.  Regardless of your circumstances, your emotions are nearest at hand.

Start by recognizing and acknowledging what you feel.  The more precisely you identify your emotions, the better.  Do you feel anger or fury?  Loneliness or contempt?  Hate or resentment?  Outrage or revulsion?

Once you’ve named the emotion, own it.  Your circumstances or the actions of others may reinforce a belief in your own helplessness, but no one besides yourself has any power whatsoever over your feelings.  Be willing to say, right out loud, I’m choosing to feel _____.”

These two things – naming the emotion then owning it – are powerful things you can do. The more you do them, the more you’ll empower yourself to choose something else.

If, however, the emotion feels too good to let go, be okay with that.  Maybe it feels right to be angry, or resentful, or guilty, or jealous.  If so, give yourself permission to indulge in it.  In fact, set aside a time to rant and wallow.  Mark 30 minutes (or 10, or 60, or a week) off on your calendar and make an appointment with yourself to really dig in and explore and expand and put your heart into it.  Then go for it.  For the full 30 minutes (or 10, or 60, or the whole week) focus on making the most of the emotion.  See if you can actually hold the emotion, on purpose and with intention, for the entire time you’ve set aside.

When you’re ready to move out of the disempowering emotion, choose your next step.  Keep it small and easy.  Big steps are intimidating and can set you up for failure before you even begin.  If moving from wrath to tolerance feels impossible, identify some interim steps, for instance

From wrath to anger to bitterness to indignation to irrication to exasperation to disappointment to sadness.

Once you reach Observer mode, you may be able to identify a pathway that could take you clear to Creator mode:

From sadness to tolerance to indifference to curiosity to amusement to acceptance  to sympathy to gratitude to respect to delight to love.

From Interpreter to Observer:

In Interpreter mode, doing is natural and necessary.  You want to fix, change, repair, improve, mend, control, construct, systematize, etc.  Unfortunately, the emotions of Interpreter mode are those that judge, blame, complicate, interfere, confuse, deconstruct, challenge, deplete, etc., and that makes everything more difficult.

To leave Interpreter mode, you must leave the impeding emotions behind so you can adopt the ones that will support, encourage, cooperate, and empower.  The intermediate resting place between judgment and cooperation is the calm of Observer mode.  The calming exercises I’ve presented before are very effective.  Here’s a quick recap:

To calm your body:

  • Breathe deeply.
  • Open your senses.
  • Be in nature
  • Expand your body from within.

To calm your mind:

  • Count your blessings.
  • Laugh out loud.
  • See truth.
  • Be present.

To calm your emotions:

  • Smile.
  • See beauty.
  • Be silly.
  • Evoke a neutral emotion.

(For more explanation, see “Calm and Curious.”)

Another strategy is to focus on the qualities of Observer mode emotions and implement them into your life – again in small ways.  Such emotions as amazement, curiosity, excitement, humility, awareness, resilience, etc. are also qualities you can practice.  When you let these qualities guide your actions, their energy becomes more accessible to you.

Consider such incremental doing steps as:

  • To gain amazement, try to be amazed at something every day.
  • To gain resilience, identify one thing you find threatening and find little ways to become more familiar with it.
  • To gain simplicity, analyze one of your normal routines and find one little step you can eliminate.  Or take one rarely used item off a crowded shelf and get rid of it.
  • To gain flexibility, observe your body and notice when it stiffens up.  Then review the situation and look for one little way you can bend.

From Observer to Partner:

Taking actions steps is a very strong way to move from Interpreter into Observer.  To transition from the neutrality of Observer to the synergy of Partner, it’s necessary to transition from doing to having.  Look at the list again and insert a have in front of each attribute.  For example:

have acceptance
have affection
have appreciation
have cheerfulness
have kindness
have modesty
have openness
have gratitude
have concern
have willingness

These qualities are yours for the having if you’re willing to accept them, receive them, access them, open up to them, let them come forth.  Of course, you can ask, “What can I do to show more appreciation?”  If you give that question your full attention, you’ll soon notice that when you have appreciation, doing it comes easily and automatically.

From Partner to Creator:

Creator mode is a state of being. You don’t have to act, try, work at, practice or perform.  You just are.

To reach this mode, follow the same process as moving from observer to partner.  Recognize the emotion you want to access and be the qualities of that emotion.

be cheerfulness
be enthusiasm
be serenity
be authenticity
be love
be joy
be peace
be delight

Remember, when it comes to personal power, nothing’s consistent or immobile.  We each have a personal range that generally spans three modes.  Someone habitually in Victim mode can swing into Observer mode, just as someone habitually in Creator mode will also swing into Observer mode.  Have confidence in the incremental steps of your own journey, and you will continue to move your personal range inch by inch up the scale.

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Posted in Calmness, Creator Mode, Curiosity, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, Victim Mode, personal power | Comments Off

Growing Out of Victim Mode

Sunday, March 27th, 2011

As you may have noticed from previous articles, I don’t invest much energy trying to figure out why past events somehow ended up as present circumstances, why someone persists in self-destructive behavior, why a belief or fear took such a strong hold on someone, why someone is so resistant to change, etc.

Trying to answer such elusive why questions is much like a dog chasing its tail. You circle round and round and round and may never quite find the answers. On the other hand, when you forego circular thinking and focus on where you want to go instead, insights into why often appear.

Sidestepping such self-scrutiny, there can be considerable value in understanding some of the general aspects of human nature that may be keeping you stuck in less-than-desirable behaviors.

Generally speaking, most people operate from Victim and/or Interpreter modes most of the time. The energetic results of these emotions tend to be negative and destructive, leading to most human ills. Yet these energies are an undeniable aspect of human nature. We come by them naturally. To choose something else takes mindfulness and conscious effort. Today I’m going to focus specifically on Victim mode emotions, to see what it takes to evolve from them, to move through them, and to transcend them.

To see a list of emotions I’ve identified so far as Victim mode click here.

(I don’t claim this list is inclusive, and I recognize your definitions of these emotions may differ from mine. Also, I’ve arranged this list alphabetically, not in terms of relative strength.)

In 1915, Walter Cannon, a physiologist, described an animal’s response to threats as the fight-or-flight reflex. Since then neurologists have isolated the areas of the brain involved in this reflex. It seems to be very a helpful defense mechanism. Through most of human evolution, survival probably depended on it.

Many Victim mode emotions can be traced to this reflex, but if you examine the list, you will discover far more complexity than simple fight-flight reactions. Also included are the emotions that deal with the after-effects. If you fight and don’t win, you might experience agony, hate, loneliness, or woe. If you run away yet don’t escape, you might experience terror, revulsion, distress, or fury. If you do win but see your position as tenuous, you might experience malice, fanaticism, hate, or contempt.

Whatever the actual outcome, if you remain in any Victim emotion, you personally have little or no power. The emotion has it all. Your relationship to your “enemy” becomes irrelevant. The energy of these emotions is so strong, so encompassing, you must feel them. You can’t help it; they overtake you. The best you can do is submit.

Except for one thing. The emotions are yours. They belong to you. And because they are yours, you can still grab the reins. Bringing such strong emotions into submission may seem as difficult as riding a tiger. However, the only way to avoid being eaten by them is to tame them.

Before we move into some taming strategies, it’s important to note that no one is ever 100% a victim. When you look at your life as a whole, you will find instances of Creator mode, areas of Partner mode, occasions of Observer mode, and probably a lot of Interpreter mode. Sometimes you may Partner with someone or something most of the time, and only drop into Victim with a single aspect of that relationship. (I have often been both Creator and Victim where money’s concerned.)  Emotions fluctuate, and with them so does your energy and your power.

For those times when Victim mode emotions assail you, tame them.

Say “No.”

Imagine you’re caught in a violent storm. The gale’s so ferocious you can hardly stand up. You’re blinded by wind and rain. You’re totally disoriented. Loose objects come flying by. There might be a safety rail within reach, but how would you know?

Being caught up in the emotions of Victim mode is like that; their energy is as strong, as severe and as destructive as any hurricane.

But they don’t have all the power. You always have the power to say, “No more of this!”

You may not be able to calm the storm, but you can reach for that handrail. When you say, “No more,” you find the power to grasp it. You can then move into relative shelter.

Choosing to leave the storm requires conscious thought–and there will be tradeoffs. Are you ready to not be a victim?  Are you ready to assume responsibility for your results?  Are you willing to give up any payoffs you gain from your helplessness?  Are you ready to master your emotions?

Once logic says, “Yes,” invite your heart to join in. Can you acknowledge the part you play in your results?  Can you feel a willingness to be out of the storm?  Can you imagine stepping into calm?

When your head and your heart are aligned, it’s time to act. If you are besieged by anger, stop fighting. If you are beset by loneliness, reach out to someone in need. If you have been cringing in fear, stand up straight. If you are burdened with resentment, jettison the cargo. By your actions, declare you are finished with any emotions that have imprisoned you.

Recognize Your Part

Your contribution to any situation is primarily energetic. Do you let your emotions run amok, or do you master them?  Your emotions are the keys to your personal power. If you cede your power to a Victim emotion, you become helpless; you have little ability to withstand the trials and tribulations of life. Conversely, when you master a destructive emotion, you gain access to the energy of more creative emotions, and you can direct that energy any way you wish.

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand describes a condition she calls “the sanction of the victim.”  She claims no one can victimize someone else without their permission. I believe this to be true. Your personal power is yours alone. Only you can hold it and wield it. Only you can throw it away.

The first step in owning your contribution to the results of your life is to acknowledge your emotions. You are not unaware there’s a problem–no matter how deeply you may have buried the emotions, the results are impossible to miss.

Can you name what you feel?  Can you identify the various components?  Anger, for instance, can morph into resentment, contempt, jealousy or hate–or some combination. Hatred may be comprised of despair, outrage, woe and mortification. Submission might be driven by distress and terror. When you know the components of the emotions that oppress you, you come to greater awareness of how and where you are leaking power.

Once you recognize what you are feeling, acknowledge your choice in the matter. Be willing to say, “I am choosing to feel _____.”

This may be absolutely the most difficult challenge in seeking shelter from the storm of your emotions. You wouldn’t want to be held responsible for a hurricane or tornado that flattens a town. Why would you want to take responsibility for an emotional storm laying waste to your life?  Nevertheless, the emotions are raging within you. To calm them, you must acknowledge them as yours. As soon as you concede you have chosen what you currently feel, you gain the ability to choose something else instead.

Negotiate

As you recognize and name your emotions, gather them into your hand. Imagine yourself in some kind of high-stakes game – poker, perhaps, or the stock market. Imagine your emotions are the cards. Since we’re discussing victim mode, let’s assume you’ve got a handful of stuff you don’t want – anger, resentment, woe, distress, outrage, for instance – and you’re ready to start negotiating (with yourself) for greater power.

Often, mindfulness produces insight. As you recognize and acknowledge your emotions, you will probably gain understanding of any value you’ve derived. It’s likely your feelings have been serving you well.

For example, do you perceive:

  • Your anger protects you from intimacy?
  • Your avarice saves you from poverty?
  • Your jealousy protects you from hurt?
  • Your resentment saves you from responsibility?

Every emotion provides a payoff. While it’s fairly easy to see the payoffs for emotions from Partner or Creator mode, the benefits of Victim mode are more difficult to spot. Yet there’s always a perceived advantage. You may not be able to identify yours, but you can guess, and a guess can get you close enough. Once you catch a glimpse of the benefits to you, you have an enhanced idea about how to play the cards in your hand.

  • Consider whether the “advantage” actually provides benefit. What, exactly, do you gain from non-intimacy?   Solitude?  Only if you like being alone. No demands?  Only if you hate helping others. No arguments?  Okay, but you may miss a lot of good conversation.
  • Imagine if you could achieve the benefit in some other way. Of course, you don’t want poverty; could you have abundance without being stingy and greedy?
  • Recognize the cost to you. Perhaps jealousy is  also costing you the one you love. Perhaps the fires of fanaticism are burning you up inside. Perhaps your anger has become malignant.
  • Believe it’s not too late. At any time (such as right now), you can choose to stop leaking personal power. You will immediately start to get a different result.

So, now you know the worth of the cards you hold. Since this is a one-person game, any deals you make will be with yourself.

Generally speaking, movement up the Modes Of Mastery Diamond is a growth process. A seed becomes a sprout, then a stem, then grows leaves, then blooms. The journey to calculus starts with arithmetic. High wire acrobats begin on a beam a few inches from the ground. Emotional development moves from wherever you are to the next step up the scale. If you are starting at Victim mode, the next step up is Interpreter mode.

I’ve been using the Victim cards of anger, resentment, woe, distress, and outrage as an example. What cards are you holding?  Are you ready to negotiate for something better?

Refer to the Emotions List and look at the options available to you in Interpreter mode.

Say you’re holding malice and you’ve acknowledged it. Now trade up. How about exchanging it for some annoyance, or bitterness, or even some animosity?

If you’re holding despair, moving to grief or dejection will be a step up.

If you’re holding outrage, when you let it go you might pick up indignation instead.

These are little steps, not big leaps. Moving from Victim mode to Interpreter mode is do-able. And by moving to Interpreter mode you access 100 times more personal power. You have 100 times the capacity to choose, to maneuver, to negotiate, to decide.

Keep the terms of the deal

Okay, you’ve tossed out what you didn’t want any more. You’ve replaced those old Victim emotions with annoyance, scorn and dejection. Now what?

Revel in your new choices. See how good they feel by comparison. Feel the difference in your relationship with your own power.

All Victim mode emotions produce helplessness. They make anything else seem impossible. They rob you of yourself. They own you.

Taking that tiny little step from Victim to Interpreter gives you options. You can take action. You can do more than hide or fight. You have a little more room to both plan and execute.

Of course, things will still look difficult. Interpreter mode emotions do result in struggle. So what!  You’re not the Victim anymore.

And once in Interpreter mode, you may find it easy and automatic to move on up to Observer mode

So stay the course. Grow into a new mode of being.

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Mindfulness

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Consider the ways in which thoughts, actions and emotions are the three powerful and creative energies of your life.

You know all about actions, those physical things you do with your body.  You know thoughts motivate and move you in certain directions.  And you experience every day the power your emotions have on your moods, your relationships and the state of your health.  When you bring these three forces – actions, thoughts, and emotions – into one congruent whole, when you live intentionally, you open the way for miracles.

These three forces always interact to create a result.  They must.  There is no alternative.

When you are aware and focused, these aspects of yourself create what you want and bring it into existence.

However, even when you are unaware, incongruent, and living by accident, these three energies interact to create a result.  They are your life forces, and they strive to satisfy your desires.  The trouble is, if you think you want one thing, yearn emotionally for something else, and act in favor of something else again, these forces become conflicted and bring turmoil to your life.  For instance, if you are in a difficult, combative relationship with someone (or something), at some level you have injected combative energy into that relationship.

On the other hand, in the smooth, easy, cooperative relationships of your life, your thoughts, actions and emotions are unified with love, generosity, confidence, and oneness – and that’s what you receive.

Putting in; Getting out

What you put in creates what comes out. If you want to know what you’re putting in, look at what’s coming out.

Assume there is an area or two of your life in which you’d like to get a different result.  You know you need to put something else in, but you’re not sure what you need to change.

Sometimes it helps to come at this challenge from a different angle, so consider using different words:

Action   =   Doing

Thoughts   =   Having

Emotions   =   Being

In your experience, which comes first?  Do you do, in order to have, in order to be?

That’s the typical order for most people.  For instance:

  • You want a loving, intimate relationship.  Obviously, you’ve got to do – meet people, go on dates, get to know someone, make peace with the person you’re with.  Then you can have – a boy friend/girl friend/significant other.  And then you can be in a satisfying relationship.
  • You want wealth.  You can easily come up with a list of things to do – get the right degree, start investing, initiate a savings plan, market more effectively, etc.  These actions enable you to have – credentials, the right job, something to start investing with, a larger base.  Then you can be rich.
  • You want to be at the top of your game.  You review the actions of those who have gone before – study, practice, learn, network, perform, create a business plan.  Through hard work you can have – skills, finesse, contacts, a product.  And then you will be among the best.

This is the obvious, common sense, Western-culture way to approach anything you want to achieve.

For Better Results

The miracle way works in the opposite, counter-intuitive direction.

To make miracles, be first, then have, and leave doing for last.  For this radical approach to make sense, we have to redefine the terms just a bit.

Doing is about taking action; it’s also about partnering – especially with the universe.  Of course you must focus, learn, practice, implement, etc.  That’s your part.  To accept the universe as your partner, you must also welcome, attract, be willing, agree, appreciate, honor, etc.

Because we’re associating having with thoughts, let’s look at it as having the mental resources you want to possess:  knowledge, abilities, skills, qualities of character, attitudes, beliefs, insights, wisdom, etc. (Basically, what you might be able to take with you when you die.)

Being refers to being in your personal power, and that’s determined by your emotional state.  How you feel is how you are.  Whatever your emotional state, that emotion resonates throughout your entire being, and then it vibrates outward.  These outward vibrations affect everyone and everything they touch.  They are the power you generate, just as the sun generates the power of heat and light.

Now let’s put this in the context of real life, using the above examples.

If you want a loving, intimate relationship.

  • Identify what kind of person do you want to be in this relationship – loving, generous, kind, happy, considerate, neat,  adventurous.  (It might help to look at what kind of person you were in past relationships and review how that worked for you.)
  • What you want to have may include:  attitudes, such as patience, good sense of humor, confidence, compassion; skills and abilities, such as communication, tenderness, better organization, scuba-diving; beliefs, such as that you are loving and lovable?
  • Lastly, what can you do to further the above?  Practice, put yourself out there, stop arguing, release fear, go dancing, buy gear. laugh more, believe it’s possible?  Receive?  Welcome?

If you want wealth/abundance.  Ask yourself the same questions:

  • Determine the kind of person you want to be: confident, generous, willing, open, aggressive, optimistic?
  • What you want to have may include:  attitudes, such as an expansive outlook, honesty, generosity, attentiveness; skills, such as financial knowledge, market acumen, better proficiency in your field; and what you need to believe, such as money is your friend, or money is easy, or you are aligned with prosperity.
  • Finally, what can you do to further the above?  Study, practice, bless your work, network?  Receive?  Appreciate?  Attract?

If you want to be at the top of your game.

  • What kind of person will you have to be? Confident, respectful, determined, productive, willing, optimistic, humble?
  • What attitudes will it serve you to have? Serenity, tenacity, respect, excellence?  Wisdom?  What skills will you have to acquire?  Subject knowledge, proficiency, insight?  What belief will serve you?  That your abilities are a divine gift?
  • What can you do to further the above?  Study, practice, perform, write, invite challenges, give it away?  Welcome?  Nurture?

Put it on Paper

Take a piece of paper, and write your intention statement across the top. (See Living With Intention) Take a minute to feel that intention.  Imagine it as real, as a done deal, as manifested in your life.

Draw a grid with three columns and three rows below your intention statement.  Label the columns Be, Have, Do.  Label the Rows Today, This Week, This Month.  Because you’re probably in the habit of thinking of what to do first, I suggest you start with the far right column – Do – and work your way left.

The first row of the worksheet is labeled Today.  In the Do square at the far right, identify what you can to today to further your intention.

An intention I’m working on currently is:  With enthusiasm and gratitude I welcome and receive money in a steady, abundant flow.  I love money and it loves me.

I filled in the Do-Today square of my grid with:

  • Blog
  • Welcome 3 new clients.
  • Personally invite people into my manifestation workshop
  • Refuse my habitual distractions

In the Have-Today square, I wrote:

  • Peace
  • Wisdom
  • Love
  • Enthusiasm
  • Money
  • Clients
  • Greater sense of purpose

In the Be-Today square, I’ve identified:

  • Serene
  • Confident
  • Attentive
  • Spiritually magnetic
  • Willing
  • Enthusiastic
  • Happy

Clearly, blogging is a physical function – a do.  My part is to sit at my computer, think, compose, post.  I partner with the universe by inviting wisdom and insight. (Also by inviting clients and students.)

In order to welcome, invite, attract, and serve, I must have peace. Having peace about money right now is a bit challenging because my bank account is pretty slim, but just performing this exercise brought a surprising level of serenity.  Much of having, as I wrote last week, is just getting out of your own way.

Which brings me to being.  Being serene helps me have peace.  Being willing and receptive opens the door so abundance can come into my life.  Being attentive helps me have focus, so I can do the next thing that comes up for me to do – receive.

In coming up with your program, I advise starting at the right and working left.  When you want to implement your program, I encourage you to start at the left and work right.  Remember, the only time frame for implementation is today.

Now consider the coming week.  When you expand your time horizon just that much, what changes?  Again, think from right to left; implement from left to right.

Here’s my program for the week:

Be:

  • Confident
  • Serene
  • Attentive
  • Generous
  • Conscientious
  • Happy

Have:

  • Commitment
  • Consistency
  • Focus
  • Love
  • Enthusiasm
  • Wisdom
  • Confidence
  • Money

Do:

  • Post blog
  • Welcome 6 new clients
  • Receive students in the new manifestation workshops.
  • Attract enough money to pay my rent.

When I’m looking at seven days rather than one, I can come up with more things to do. To get it all done, I’m going to consciously have more going on within me.  Which means I have to be at a higher level of my personal power.

Now, project forward for one month.  What can you do during the next thirty days to further your intention?  In order to accomplish all that, what qualities will you choose to have (adopt, improve, be open to, focus on)?  And what emotions (mode of power) will you generate, operate from, be?

Here is my plan for the coming month:

Be:

  • Serene
  • Happy
  • Enthusiastic
  • Generous
  • Sure
  • Open
  • One
  • Productive

Have:

  • Wisdom
  • Receptiveness
  • Willingness
  • Creativity
  • Empathy
  • Focus
  • Abundance

Do:

  • Organize thinking for next book.
  • Work with 15 clients per week.
  • Post weekly blogs.
  • Open the floodgates of abundance.

Once you’ve aligned your actions, thoughts, and emotions on paper, begin by letting the emotions expand within you, then focus your thoughts, and finally, act accordingly.

In past blogs I’ve made the point that what is up to you, while how is up to the universe.  Unifying your life forces, however, is as aspect of how that belongs to you.  Only you can choose how you will feel, how you will think, and how you will act.  Only you can decide who you will be, what you will have, and what you will do.

(Note: I wrote and published this article in 2009.  I am happy to report my prosperity intention is smoothly and delightfully coming to fruition.)

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Becoming Congruent

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

As sentient beings, we approach everything from three directions at once.  We view them through our emotions, we think about them, and we act – not necessarily in that order.

Our best results come when these three tactics work in harmony with each other, when we’re congruent.  In fact, you can recognize the areas of your life where you are congruent by looking at your results.  If you’re getting what you want, you’re in alignment.  If you’re not getting what you want, one of these forces doesn’t mesh with the other two.

Alignment begins by making sure what you want is true for you and that you can be true to it.  Your congruence with what you want is the first step of alignment, but sometimes being true to what you want can be challenging.  Even when it feels true and you know it comes from your heart, you’re beset by doubts or objections or experiences that deny the possibility of attainment.  Then it’s time to search out your impediments and remove them from your path.

Identify the Impurities

For a good way to I way to identify your obstacles and objections here’s something I call The “But” Exercise.

Write your intention at the top of a piece of paper.  For instance,

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Then turn your statement into a compound sentence with the word but, and finish with whatever fear, belief, or doubt comes up.  Since you probably have more than one fear or doubt, repeat this exercise at least 10 different ways.

If you’ve been working with an intention statement on a daily basis, it’s very likely some objections have been intruding.  This is your chance to commit them to paper:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance,

  • But I’m stuck in a job that barely pays the bills.
  • But every time I try to feel abundance my stomach tightens up.
  • But the economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from.
  • But I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before.
  • But money is the root of all evil.
  • But the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.
  • But I have to make sure everyone else is okay first.

If you discover more than ten obstacles, keep going.  Perhaps you know your strongest doubt already, so it comes up first.  Continue anyway just to probe for anything else.  If you’re not sure what’s stopping you, this is a good way to release your subconscious.  Maybe you’ve got such an array of doubts you could find twenty without batting an eye.  However it is for you, this is the first step toward dissolving your objections and becoming completely congruent with your intention.

This exercise may take some time.  You may need to come back to it a couple of times.  Stay open and receptive.  You may discover some old beliefs embedded in your subconscious.  You may be able to articulate a persistent fear.  You may be confronted by an attitude or opinion that surprises you.  Write them all down.  If you resist your resistance, you give your obstacles permission to block you.

Now, with your list in hand, read through the buts and select the one you perceive to be the strongest.  Which one do you believe hinders you the most?

Dissolve the Obstacles

And now, dissolve the obstruction.  For clarity’s sake, I’m going to number the “steps,” although in practice they often overlap.

1.  Write your complete, compound statement on a fresh piece of paper (your original intention and the but you’ve decided to dissolve).

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, but the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.

2.  Examine your statement for implications and connotations and take note of what you find.  There’s quite a lot embedded in this example, including disdain for the rich (and a reluctance to become one of them), fear of becoming manipulative and exploitive, and identification with the poor.  Your own statement may be equally loaded.

3.      Consider what you would like to believe instead.  Perhaps you already consciously accept something else, even while your subconscious holds onto an attitude or belief that clearly doesn’t serve you.  You might find it helpful to think of neutralizing the old belief.

  • I can be rich and loving at the same time.
  • Some of the richest people in the world are also the most generous.
  • Money is merely a form of energy, and all energy can be used for either good or bad.
  • Creative endeavors produce as much wealth (perhaps more) than exploitive endeavors.
  • While exploitation exaggerates the difference between rich and poor, cooperation benefits everyone.

4.      Work with your list to come up with a statement of belief that strongly replaces the old one:

I cooperate with and empower others in every way, and we all prosper.

5.      Envision this as true.  Feel it as true.  Let it expand within you until you can observe your supportive and prosperous relationships with everyone.  What emotions come up for you?  What emotions do you think would most actively create this?  Love?  Delight?  Enjoyment?  Gratitude?  Serenity?  Generosity?

Remember, all emotions are creative.  You create according to the emotions you experience and generate.  Whereas Victim emotions create pain and suffering and Interpreter emotions create struggle, Observer emotions create calm, Partner emotions create opportunity and Creator emotions connect with your best good.

If some latent Victim emotion continues to reside within you, no matter how illogical or convoluted, that emotion retains the power to block what you want.  However, it’s impossible for any Victim emotion to reside in the same space as any Creator emotion.  You can neutralize fear, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. with love, kindness, peace, joy, etc.  Always.

To eradicate Victim or Interpreter obstacles, identify an emotion one step up the chart and choose to feel it instead.  Then identify an emotions one step up from that and adopt that one.  Keep going until you can access one of the Partner or Creator emotions.  Then incorporate one or more of those emotions into this new statement.

I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.


6.    Now replace your original but with and to form a new compound statement.

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, and I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.

Align

Your new compound sentence may sound a bit cumbersome.  When you recognize the parts of your statement and their importance, you can abridge the statement while retaining the power of it.  Your statement encompasses the following:

1.    What you want. In the example I’m using, this is abundance.  Yours might be an improved relationship, greater health, a successful business, wholeness, making a living with your talent.

2.    Why you want it or the service you’ll provide. The example circumvents the belief that when some win others lose and focuses on win-win.  Your motives can be personal or broad.  If your own peace of mind is more important to you than world peace, focus on your own peace of mind.

3.    The emotion(s) you’ll use to create what you want.  In the example, the emotions are delight, gratitude and love.  Yours might be peace, enthusiasm, vigor, or anything from Partner or Creator mode.

By understanding these parts, you can sit with your intention without using any words at all:  imagine what you want, evoke the creative emotions, feel it as a done deal.   It’s impossible to know when or in what manner your intention will manifest, so relax and observe.

I provide one-on-one coaching in Personal Power and Manifestation.  Please write to me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Congruence, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, The Law of Attraction, Victim Mode, intentions, manifestation | 7 Comments »

About Time

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

Imagine time as where you live, specifically, where your soul resides.

Multitudes of people reside emotionally in the past.  Some live in dim cottages of negative experiences, foraging scraps of hurt, anger, regret, resentment, grief, isolation, etc.  Some live in brittle castles of former glory, feasting on pride (or humility), devotion, satisfaction, gloating, etc.

Hoards of people reside emotionally in the future.  Some live in bleak hovels of fear, existing on an unpleasant diet of alarm, scarcity, worry, misgiving, dread, doubt, etc.  Some live in vague edifices of fantasy, reaching for the empty fruit of desire, expectancy, greed, lust, impatience, etc.

Minorities of people reside emotionally in the present, dining regularly on acceptance, wonder, curiosity, humor, patience, tolerance, compassion, and courage.

Where do you live?

If you can think of time as place, you have the power to relocate.

Wherever in time you’ve been living, take a good look at the emotions you’ve collected, stored or treasured and evaluate their worth.  Do they help you create the life you want?  Manifest a specific intention?  Access more of your personal power?  Do your memories strengthen you or disable you?  Do your expectations empower you or immobilize you?

Every place in time has both costs and benefits.  It’s easy to criticize the past for its tendency to calcify the heart, or disparage the future for its capacity to shrivel the body.  It’s also easy to extol the present for the solid foundation it provides.  It’s harder to bless the past for lessons learned and memories accumulated, or embrace the future for the possibilities it holds.  It’s harder still to recognize the potential of the present to stagnate the mind.

The Past

While every event of your life holds a potential memory, you probably remember most clearly the events that carried an emotional impact.  The degree to which you live in a past event depends on its emotional hold.

Some events remain in your memory with a soft and gentle presence:  good memories, fun times, pleasant connections with the people involved.  Memories of this sort encourage you to move on.  Many even empower you.

Some events inspire you to learn and grow, to see yourself and the world more clearly, to stretch out into new directions.  Their influence may be that of helping you discern what works and what doesn’t.

Some events maintain such a strong emotional hold they anchor you to the past.  For their own survival, they require you to stay put, to feed and nurture them, to give them life.  If you were to move on, they would die.  When you agree to their terms, you take up residence in that emotional space.  You feel trapped in that time, by that energy.

The Future

Since we’re looking at time as space, consider how often and under what conditions you visit the future.

Are you so detached and indifferent to the future you rarely drop in for a visit?  Perhaps you trust the future to take care of itself, with little or no effort on your part.  Or perhaps you can’t be bothered, and you’d rather pick up the pieces resulting from your indifference than plan ahead.

The future might feel like the home of a good friend: fun, supportive, generous.  You like to hang out there because you learn, you get ideas, you see opportunities, and you return to the present enthused and empowered.

Or perhaps you’ve spent so much time in the future and invested so much energy in it, you live there.  The energy might be so anxious and fearful you feel you have to stay there to keep watch, to stay on guard, to prepare for the looming danger.  Or it might be so full of anticipation and expectation, you become ensnared by daydreams.  The beauty generated by your desire or your greed casts the present in such shadow you can’t abide even looking in the direction of now.

The Present

When you reside in the present, you can look back into the past, learning the lessons and enjoying the memories.  When you look forward to the future, you can plan, explore and create.  Since, you actually exist in the present, the tools and techniques of the present are easily at hand.   When compared to the worst of The Past or The Future, The Present may seem the ideal.

As with the other two wheres of time, however, the present has its challenges, mostly in relationship to the other two time frames.  For the present to have power, you must aggressively learn from the past, and you must confidently create the future.  Otherwise, the past becomes a fog (as with Alzheimer’s patients), and the future holds no opportunity.  It’s entirely possible to be so lost in the now, you sacrifice your personal power to it.

The Power of Time

No doubt you’ve heard the adage, “Time is money.”  This statement places a monetary value on time, sometimes down to the second.  How much time is worth becomes a question of how much money can be produced in a given amount of time.  Actually, time itself is not money, it merely provides money with urgency.

The same goes for power.  Time by itself is not power, but it provides a way to think about power.  Unlike money, there is no tangible way to measure power, especially personal power.  With the Modes of Power diamond, I conceived one way to define power in terms of emotions.  I assigned Victim mode a power level of 1, Interpreter mode a power level of 100, Observer mode a power level of 10,000, Partner mode a power level of 1,000,000, and Creator mode a power level of 100,000,000.  This is an arbitrary scale.  The numbers are for illustration purposes only, and even the emotions I’ve assigned to the different modes will a) have different amounts of power within the mode, and b) sometimes move from mode to mode, depending on your definition or experience with them.

Very clearly, however, the Modes of Power diamond shows the power transitions from misery to struggle, to calm, to cooperation, to oneness.

So what does time have to do with this?  In terms of how we measure time, not much.  In terms of how we experience time, everything.

A period of time in which we experience no emotion has no power whatsoever.  If you can reach a place totally free of emotion, say in meditation, you can stop time.  By contrast, when your emotions are generating high levels of energy, time speeds up.  The rate at which time elapses is relative to the energy levels of your emotions.

The same is true for how much you reside in a where of time.  The stronger your emotional connection to some event, the stronger your ties to that event will be.  If the emotion is very strong and exerts a strong pull on you, you will return so frequently to the when of the event it might become your where. On the hand, when an event generates only fleeting emotions, the event itself flows easily through your life .

If you have strong emotional ties to a past event, you must heal the emotions in order to relocate your soul to a different where of time.  Strong emotional ties to something you anticipate in the future can likewise fix you in time.  Your emotions can bind you to your expectations and close off all other possibilities.

Time as a Function of Power

Time provides you with two extremely important aspects of personal power, the power to heal and the power to create.  See Pacify Your Objections for exercises to heal the past and create the future.

In Your Path to Power, I suggested three ways people access their personal power – through the mind, through the body, or through the heart.

Each way of accessing power connects with time in a different way.  People who access power through the heart have a direct connection to the past.  They have strong healing energy, and in order to create in the present, they need to heal any injuries incurred in the past.  Once healing is achieved, creation comes easily.

People who access power through the body have a direct connection to the future.  They have strong creative energy, and when that energy is projected into the future, miracles result.  In order to create in the present, they need to visualize the future in the widest possible view of possibilities.  Once creation has begun, healing follows easily.

People who access their power through the mind have a direct connection to the present, because all choices originate in the mind, and choices can only be made in the present.  They need to choose in the present before they can either heal the past and or create the future.

Where to Begin

Clearly, everyone is better off if they live in the present, since choice is only possible in the now. However, coming to now is the starting point only if you access your power through the mind.  If you are a mind-power person, you may find settling into the now is merely a matter of choice.  You decide to move from Interpreter mode and relocate in Observer or Partner mode, and there you are.

Coming to now if you are a heart-power person may require some dedicated effort to heal the past (often called recapitulation).  You can revisit past experiences and revise them by rewriting and reenacting.  Or you can identify the emotions you’ve been carrying around since the event occurred, release those emotions and fill the vacuum with different energy.  Either way, healing occurs when you let go of the Victim or Interpreter emotions and replace them with Observer or Partner emotions.  From Observer perspective, your possibilities expand and you can begin to create.

Reclaiming now if you are a body-power person requires recalling every vestige of Interpreter energy you’ve projected into the future.  Be very clear that what you’ve sent into the future will deliver back to you in kind.  If you project any form of fear (dread, anxiety, apprehension, worry) into the future, the future will deliver back some manifestation of what you fear.  If you project any form of avarice (greed, hunger, ambition, pride, lust) into the future, the future may return some form of what you desire, but it won’t fill the emptiness that motivated the desire in the first place.  When you step out of Interpreter mode into Observer or Partner mode, you free yourself of the energy needs of fear or conquest.  You become calm, and calm illuminates a vast array of possibilities.  Healing becomes one of the possibilities you see; a possibility that can easily become reality.

Live in the present.  Use the past to heal and the future to create.  All three aspects of time are key to accessing your power and manifesting your best good.


If you would like personal help mastering these aspects of time, please contact me directly through email:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Living With Intention

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Every moment of every day you make choices.

Very likely only a small percentage of these choices give you pause, since most of them are subconscious, requiring no deliberation.  Sometimes the choice is reflexive, such as jumping at loud noises or laughing at a good joke.  Sometimes the choice was made long ago and has become a habit, such as whether to fasten your seat belt or brush your teeth.  Sometimes the choice is cultural, such as wearing shoes in restaurants or saying grace before a meal.  Sometimes the choice is personal, such as what you prefer to eat for breakfast or the route you take to work.  Such choices, once made, function like pre-sets on your radio, freeing you from constant evaluation and decision-making.  They help you save the energy of fine tuning for more important stuff.

Pre-set, however, may also keep you locked into patterns that no longer serve you.  Most people draw conclusions about life from incomplete evidence or faulty premises.  Such conclusions become beliefs and habit patterns, and are often accepted as “truths,” and they can extend across the full spectrum of your life.  For example, at some point you chose what you believe about . . .

  • Yourself:  I’m funny/serious, I’m an introvert/an extrovert, I’m dumb/intelligent, I’m athletic/clumsy.
  • The way the world works:  Life is struggle, life is good, life’s a bitch and then you die.
  • Humanity:  people are basically evil, people are basically good.
  • Specific people:  He’s trustworthy, she’s caring, he’s harsh, she’s sly, she’s creative, he’s solid.

Early Choices Influence Later Decisions

Even though in many cases, such beliefs feel true, sure and incontrovertible, they are all choices, which means other possibilities exist.  Still, as long as you hold a certain view, it forms the basis for myriad other decisions:

  • If you have decided you’re clumsy, how does that influence other choices such as the work you do, the activities you participate in, the people you associate with, the parties you attend, etc?
  • If you have decided life is good, how does that influence the way you handle money, the work you’ve chosen, the things you do for fun?
  • If you have decided people are basically evil, how does this affect where you live, the way you do business, the defenses you erect around yourself, even the way you walk down the street?
  • If you have decided your child is irresponsible, how does that influence other choices such as the permissions you grant, the gifts you bestow, the allowance you set, the rules you impose?

Yet how many of these beliefs did you acquire intentionally?  How many did you adopt from someone else?  How many are based on tested premises and how many are based on assumptions?  How many are true for you?

Of course, many of the factors of your life seem accidental:  you had little choice regarding your parents, your gender, the country of your birth, or your genetic structure.  Others were determined by someone else:  You had little choice regarding the work your parents did, the neighborhood you grew up in, your family’s religion, or your primary education.

Given you had no control over the above factors, how much do you now live by accident, and how much do you live on purpose?

Choose to Live on Purpose

Most people live by accident, even when they would prefer to live on purpose.  For instance, did you choose the work you do, or did you sort of fall into it?  You probably chose the neighborhood you live in, did you choose the city, the state, the country?  Whether or not you were born into it, did you choose your current religion?

Any un-examined aspects of your life tip the scale in favor of by accident. Any aspects you have examined and chosen consciously tip the scale in favor of on purpose. Whenever you’re on auto-pilot, the scale tips toward by accident. When you live mindfully, you live on purpose.

Mindfulness is key.  Through mindfulness, you discern what’s true for you and what’s not.  When you persist in something that is not true for you, there are always consequences.  Your soul rebels, your body suffers, the endeavor takes more effort, success is difficult if not impossible.  By paying attention to the signals, you gain self-knowledge and you can make wiser choices.

I have a basic rule regarding manifestation:  An intention must be true for you, and you must be willing to be true to it.  In this post, I’m going to probe the second half of this rule – being willing to be true to what you want.

Listen to Your Resistance

If something is not true for you, your entire being will resist.  Your intuition will provide uneasiness, your emotions will register unhappiness and frustration, your body will send signals of unwellness, etc.  As soon as you acknowledge the messages and make a different choice, the struggles will abate.

When you resist something that is true for you, you will experience the same kinds of messages.  Your soul will ache to go in the direction of your best good, you will experience unhappiness and feelings of loss, your body will send signals of unwellness, etc.

An acquaintance of mine was born with a phenomenal artistic ability.  When he was young he believed in himself and saw himself as an artist, but somewhere along the line he began to doubt.  He knew art was true for him, and he yearned for it all his life, but he was never willing to be true to it.  Someone once said, “Don’t die with the music still inside.”  My acquaintance died with his art still inside.

If you’ve been resisting something that’s true for you, you can make a different choice any time you want.  You do not have to explore your psyche or your past to discover why you’re resisting.  You do have to leave Interpreter Mode.  You do have to stop indulging in all fears, reasons, blame, resignation, doubts, frustrations, rationalizations, etc. that support your resistance.  You do have to open both your heart and your mind to your “music.”  Your talents and abilities and your core values reveal your truth.  The universe supports your truth.  When you trust your truth, every aspect of that truth becomes available to you.

Willingness is Key

Such willingness begins with choice.  You may be fully aware of what’s true for you, yet still resist receiving it.  Here’s a basic program for unleashing the innate power of something that’s already true for you.

1.  Identify something you want in a general (even vague) way.  It could be something you want to have – a house, job, family, health, peace, etc.  It could be something you want to be – kind, rich, happy, successful, etc.  It could be something you want to do – travel, build a business, paint, get married, etc.  Identify it.  Name it.  Put it into words

2.  Imagine what you want as finished, complete, yours.  What emotions come up for you?  What draws you toward this thing you want?  Imagine how will you feel when this is what you have, who you are, what you do.  Will you feel happy, confident, at peace, giddy, ecstatic, grateful, proud

3.  Identify who besides yourself this will serve and how it will serve them.  You are not the only one who will benefit from what you want.  All true intentions include others in some way.  Perhaps what you want will serve others directly; for instance, if you want to be a doctor you will help people to better health.  Perhaps your service will be less direct; for instance, artists serve by creating their work and giving it to the world.  Perhaps your service is intimate and personal, i.e. loving someone.  Perhaps you serve the world generally simply by generating positive energy.

4.  Describe what you want.  Using words, dive into it.  Feel it, taste it, revel in it.  Immerse yourself in it.  Let it expand, solidify, evolve, mutate.  Jot down any particulars that comes to mind:  what components it includes, where it could take place, additional aspects of how it feels, where it might lead.

Before step 5, I’d like to make a couple of observations about intention statements.

  • The words themselves are not magic.  Regardless of your beliefs about the power of words, the words themselves have no power – the power is in the emotions that support the words.  Words have only the power you give them.
  • The more you empower your words with high-level emotions, the more powerful your statement will be as a tool and the more benefit you will receive from it.
  • If something else works better for you than words, (such as meditation or visualization) let the words help you identify your intention and connect with the creative emotions in a way that is true for you.

5.  Identify the following components that will comprise your intention statement.

  • Choose an emotion or two from Partner Mode or Creator Mode to use in bringing what you want into reality.   Select those with power for you, that resonate with you, and that will help connect you with what you want.  You may want to use the emotions you chose in step 2, or you may want something with more creative power.
  • Claim ownership of what you want, by phrasing your intention in first person.  When you put yourself in the picture, you become the creator, you assume the power of your intention.
  • Choose a strong verb.  Use present tense, as if it were a done deal.  Consider the following variations and see which seems strongest and/or most appropriate to you:  I am welcoming.  I welcome.  I have welcomed.  I am.
  • Get specific.  Name what you want:  a successful business, optimal health, a new car, a happy relationship.  Throw in as many adjectives as you like:  you might prefer thriving, profitable and customer-focused to successful.  If you like, add the outcome you envision:  and we’re blissfully happy together.

6.  Put these four components – creative emotion, noun, verb, intention – together in a statement.  Here are some examples.

  • With joy and authenticity I enjoy exuberant prosperity.
  • With delight and gratitude, I live and love happily with my new significant other.
  • With confidence and enthusiasm, my business doubles in size and service.
  • With generosity and serenity, I send my manuscript out into the world to be enjoyed by millions of readers.

Spent 15-20 minutes every day processing this statement (this intention) into your mind, your heart, and even your body.  Imagine it as a done deal, as real, as a miracle.  Let the energy of it fill your body and resonate within you.  Create it from within as possible, then as probable, then as inevitable.

As you work with this statement, you may find yourself using different words and revising the order of those words.  Let it evolve; it’s likely to become more and more true for you as you allow your subconscious to contribute.  As you empower with this statement with time and energy, you will bring what you want to life.

And have fun.  Don’t take it too seriously or fill it with expectation.  Let what you want come to you.

For the past fifteen years or so I have been helping people manifest what they want.  If you would like help creating what you want,  please contact me and let’s chat.  If, after the initial call, you decide to experience a coaching session, the first one is always on me.  Write me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com.

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Posted in Attraction, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Partner Mode, Willingness, intentions, manifestation, personal power | 8 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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