(video) We tend to do a mixture of two things when we’re faced with something that we don’t like: we deny it and we relive it in our heads over and over. Neither of these are terribly helpful for letting go of the pain.
What’s your experience with these things?
Enjoy,
Elena
theJoyLab.net
(video) The body is an amazing tool for awareness. Eckhart Tolle calls the body a portal to presence and many, many, many traditions use body based practices, because the body, unlike the mind, is always operating in the present moment.
Ground into the body, ground into the present.
Why?
Because a body movement only happens right now. A moment ago was a different movement and the next will change again. Yes, sometimes these changes are quite small and with sufficient attention even they can be noticed. Physical sensations change every moment, too. (Check it out for yourself!)
And, so it becomes a game, getting curious about the body… What is my body doing and feeling right now? How is this moment different? And this one? And this? And as the mind gets intrigued about the dance, the dance of walking, of typing, of running, of driving… the dance of living.
It’s so much fun!
What body awareness practices do you do?
Enjoy,
Elena
theJoyLab.net
Guaranteed to put a smile on your face, or your money back!
Enjoy!,
Elena
(video) The journey from feeling broken to feeling joy can be an arduous one… one major roadblock for me was the pernicious idea, “But I don’t know how to change!”
This video offers a simple way to challenge that belief… Open the door to the idea that, “I can!”
(article)
So, here’s me, in pain, with a dear friend guiding me gently and skillfully through my desire to change a destructive habit of thinking “I’m not good enough” (I’m not smart enough, skilled enough, experienced enough,beautiful enough, strong enough, etc, etc, etc), and after we get through a big chunk of what was happening for me (I wanted to stay small and unnoticed, so that I would be safe!) I get scared. I hit a big pocket of fear, and out comes my tried and true, “but I don’t know how to do this!”
And I believe it. I convince myself instantly with those eight little words that I can’t do it.
In that moment, everything stops. I can’t actually go any further because, I suddenly believe that I am not capable of change. I believe that I don’t know how and so I shut the door to any next step that could occur.
Slam!
Bummer.
If you believe that you cannot do something, you make it pretty hard to do it.
Practically impossible.
Because, whether you actually can or not, you probably won’t even try.
And if you don’t try then you don’t teach yourself how to do it.
You don’t give yourself the chance to try and figure it out.
You don’t allow yourself the process of learning how.
You don’t learn that actually, you can.
What a bummer.
This is especially problematic when you feel broken in some way, and that there is no way out – that you don’t know how to change it. That you can’t. And of course, the belief that you don’t know how to grow, how to evolve, leads to stagnation. You stay broken.
Double bummer.
And the real kicker is that this is a belief that you can change if you decide to!
Super!
Beliefs are funny things. Often we believe something so deeply or for so long that we believe that it is a fact, something that we can’t change. And once you believe that something is fact, you act as if it is and you create your reality around that. If you believe deeply enough or long enough that you can’t do things then you will begin to live like that. You get your own nice pile of stagnant muck to carry around.
Major bummer.
What to do?
First realize that beliefs are thoughts and thoughts can change.
You think that you cannot do something. You can decide to change that thought and think that you can. You can decide that it is at least worth trying to figure out how… you can decide to play with the idea that you can do it, that you are capable of change, evolution and growth.
Mega Super!
And if you can get that far, and maybe even if you can’t, feel what it feels like to believe that you can. Feel into what that new belief gives you. And if you can begin to believe it, then open up to that belief, entertain it, cultivate it and see what comes to you as a result. So many times in my personal experience and that of my clients, once this shift is made about something, like magic we start noticing all kinds of things that help us accomplish the task at hand.
I decided to try on the belief that I could change my habit of “not good enough” and suddenly quotes started popping up in emails, friends started telling me stories of how they’d changed, my friend lead an EFT session on it, etc, etc, etc.
Miraculous.
Wonderful.
Life changing.
Super nova.
Exercise for Appreciating and Shifting Beliefs
You can do the following life coaching exercise by asking yourself a few questions and feeling into the answers. For stubborn beliefs, it can really help to capture all of your answers on paper.
First, ask yourself, what do I get out of believing that ‘I don’t know how”? What does that give me? How has that helped me in the past and how does it serve me right now?
Capture what comes. Note down, draw or record the words, images, colors, smells, sounds, scenes, memories, etc that flow past.
Once the flow has stopped, rest for a bit and then put all that you have captured in front of you and let any thoughts, emotions and reflections arise. Somethings may become clear now, or maybe not. The point here is to feel into what your past beliefs were. Beliefs aren’t necessarily rational, so you don’t need to understand them, just feel them.
One common feeling here is protection, that you are protecting yourself. Protecting yourself from the pain of failure, derision, abuse, etc may have been really useful in your past.
I was terrified of being abandoned as a child, for instance, and so I thought that I had to be perfect in everything I did. Otherwise I might get abandoned for doing something wrong. Thinking that I didn’t know how to do some things was a way to not do it, and avoid doing it wrong!
Massive bummer.
Recognize that usually we have these beliefs because of things that we experienced in our past and that they made a lot of sense for those situations. We’re very skilled beings at enduring hardship, at navigating traumatic situations and crisis and surviving intact and relatively sane. If you dig deep, you will usually find amazing wisdom in what you did to survive.
Let gratitude surface.
Appreciate the wisdom that allowed to you navigate situations and live to be doing this exercise today.
You’re a smart cookie.
What a relief.
Second, ask yourself, what would happen if the belief that “I don’t know how”, isn’t true? What would it be like to believe that I can do this? How does it feel to believe that I can? How does it feel to believe that I am able to change, grow and evolve around this? What do I get out of the belief that I can?
Again capture what comes, rest and reflect.
Third, usually one of three things will happen now. Either you will see wisdom in changing your belief and you will change it quickly and easily, or you will see the wisdom in changing and yet it will be difficult for you to change, or you will not see wisdom in changing and will keep your old belief (now more assured in your way of thinking).
For the second situation, I offer this advice:
The simplest thing to do in this case is to look at why you believe that you cannot change your belief easily and quickly, and to go through the same process above with this belief.
In fact you can do this process with any belief that you want to challenge and understand better.
If this process isn’t effective for you, play with other methods of belief exploration (EFT, Body Code, etc) and go from there.
In any case, enjoy feeling that you have choices!
Enjoy!,
Elena
I used to believe that things come into my life as a result of where I was at as a person, my stage of development. So, I would ask myself thinks like, why is rejection coming to me right now? What am I trying to teach myself? And even more important, what can I change so that it doesn’t come again? What can I learn and do so that I don’t ever have to face this again?
The underlying assumption or hope was that the more I evolved the fewer of these difficult things would come into my life. Ah, the life of angles, of saints, of awakened beings…
Which is a great idea, a lovely dream to have. And it is entirely possible that really believing that makes it so.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked for me that way. So far, with all of the stages of evolution that I’ve moved through, these things still appear which has led me to a new idea.
What if rejection comes into my life, not as a commentary on where I am as a person, but because rejection is as normal as acceptance? That life is cyclic, like the seasons, that there is a natural flow of expansion and contraction, of action and rest, of growth and recovery, of complex and simple, of painful and nice, of rejection and acceptance. And that things like rejection will always arrive in their time.
My challenge then becomes to grow and evolve as a person and to deal with these cycles in healthier and better ways over time. And that on that mythical day when I finally sprout wings, that though I will still experience rejection as a part of the natural cycle of life, I will smile through the pain as it flows through, polish my halo and keep on going without wondering what I’ve done wrong. I will know that everything is just perfect, that these times are a part of the natural flow of life, as natural as the tides.
I like this dream even more.
I was assisting at a tennis camp this summer and I noticed that I have some unconscious that are quite confidence killing…
I started thinking about this because we were playing a spontaneous game, tossing balls around while running, and one of the players kept apologizing when he would throw the ball and the catcher didn’t catch it.
It occurred to me that, what if, instead of deciding that his ball throwing was “wrong”, he challenged that assessment and decided to view it as a natural part of learning to throw (while running!) or part of the variety of life? He could appreciate that his crazy throws gives him and the catcher a chance to move in new and interesting ways and adds the fun of surprise into the game. What is there to say sorry about? He might choose, instead, to say, “Thanks!” or “That was fun!” or “Whoa! That was a good one!”
It was such a profound realization that I decided to not apologize for any of my crazy throws. You can imagine how much more confident I felt in this situation by finding fun in the unexpected versus feeling sorry about it.
The point here wasn’t that I threw any better, it was that I thought and felt differently about it. I was immediately more confident, because I was doing the same actions with an attitude that allowed me to believe in the value of my actions. That was a game changer.
And it was a lot more fun to play! And maybe my throws did get better just because I felt encouraged to play and practice longer.
Changing Thoughts and Feelings Can Build Confidence
How you think and feel about things determines your relationship to them. Change your thoughts and feelings, change your relationship. A “bad” throw becomes a “fun” throw.
This makes sense especially if you view “bad” as a set of decisions (thoughts). Your bad and my bad might even be different. And though you can probably discover some situations in which a throw would be “unacceptably bad”, like someone getting hurt, unacceptable is probably way beyond the “bad” that you are apologizing for, and that could be reassessed as fun.
Changing Your Game: A Confidence Practice to Play With
In any case, if you would like to play with improving your self-confidence, find an area in your life where you would like to improve your self-confidence and do a review of your thoughts on the activities in that area. Identify actions or patterns that you habitually view as “bad” or “poor” and see which ones can be reassessed as “normal”, “interesting”, “spontaneous”, “surprising”, “fun”, etc. Be creative and generous with yourself. And be honest as this will work best if you actually believe what you are telling yourself!
Then you can start changing your habits, from confidence-killing thoughts to confidence-building ones. Changing habits takes some time, so be patient and compassionate with yourself.
The Flow of the Practice
Usually you will start with just being conscious of the old patterns after they happen, then as your consciousness of them increases you will become conscious of them while they are happening and eventually you will be conscious of them in time to make new choices.
So, for example you might try this: the next time you are doing those actions just notice your old confidence-killing thought patterns and, after you do them, remind yourself of the possibility of the new ways to view the actions. Keep noticing the old patterns and reminding yourself of other possibilities, just as possibilities (no pressure to change, just a suggestion that change is possible). Eventually, with patience and repetition of the new possibilities you will notice the patterns in time to think the new thoughts before the old ones have a chance to come. New patterns will be established.
A Final Thought on Keeping it Fun
One thing to think about is that the less frustration you put into the mix (about how long it is taking to change this habit, that you have the habit in the first place, etc, etc, etc), the faster it will change. This is because frustration adds another layer that you have to work through to be what you want to be.
Start small and practice easy things first to get the hang of it, to build your confidence with the practice and the best way for you to do it. Then work your way into changing bigger, more difficult patterns.
And remember that ultimately, you are perfect as you are right now, and not to take anything too seriously, especially yourself!
Enjoy!
A beloved friend mentioned the value of thinking about something that I’m grateful for when I first wake up… and I’ve discovered a lot of value in taking her quite literally.
I’ve noticed a lot of mind activity in the morning, a strong habit of starting to think about things immediately upon waking up. I haven’t even opened my eyes sometimes and my mind is off planning my day, making decisions, accessing the day before, etc, etc, etc. That’s a pretty tricky habit to break, since I’m not even awake yet!
A Distraction Practice
So, what to do to help the mind relax its early morning vigilance?
I stop the train in it’s tracks by focusing it on coming up with something that I’m grateful about. My eyes are about to open, my mind gets going and I say, “Hey mind, what am I grateful for right now?” This usually does the trick; the cycle has been broken and peace reigns. If not, if my mind is really persistent that morning, I can ask it to think of 10 things to be grateful for and that can keep it busy for long enough to disrupt the habit.
Morning Meditation Starts the Day with Clarity
Really, this whole focus started with the observation by some teachers on The Grand Adventure that a group of us were waking up with a lot of chaotic mental activity and bringing that into our mornings together. It was suggested that we all do a morning meditation. That we get up, go to the bathroom and immediately go back and sit on our beds and meditate for 15 to 20 minutes. No drinking water, no brushing our teeth, no shower, just wake up and meditate as soon as possible to clear the mind and start the day from that place. I’ve been doing this for months now, and wow is it helpful! It seems to make an enormous difference to my whole day whether I start with a clear mind or a mind set on automatic as you can imagine.
The few minutes between waking up and meditating were still getting to me though… those I wasn’t able to do much about. I noticed that if I started meditating right when I woke up, before I even opened my eyes, which is typically when my mind started working, I would just go back to sleep! So, the gratitude exercise has turned out to be a very useful one!
I imagine that there are lots of others, and ways to improve this one… want to share your’s?
Enjoy,
Elena
I was watching an intense professional tennis match yesterday and I realized something… that if I give up then I lose.
Simple, right?
The two athletes were really well matched, both extraordinary players. Number 1 and number 5 in the world. And one of them started winning. Really started winning. It became pretty clear, score wise that he would win the match.
And the other player kept playing. He kept playing hard, going all out our for every shot, full tilt, putting everything he had into it.
And losing.
And going full bore.
And losing.
And dedicating his entire being.
And losing.
Putting all of his focus and intensity into it.
And losing.
Point after point after point, he went for it.
And point after point after point, he lost.
And still he was there 100%.
It was amazing. If he had given up at any point, I would not have faulted him. He was clearly losing. And yet he kept playing his best, point after lost point after lost point.
He was fully motivated internally regardless of what the score was, regardless of whether he was winning or losing. Even when he was sure to lose, he kept his determination to play his best.
And he did.
And I realized that, that was a lesson to take home. Just the day before I had given up in the middle of losing every point. And I realized that that was a pattern that I could break now.
I had learned the secret.
Don’t give up.
Even when I’m losing every point, keep giving everything I’ve got.
When I’m losing is not the time to change strategies, it is time to stay determined, to stick with what I know to be right for me, even when it isn’t working in the moment. Even when I am clearly losing the match.
He won the match in the end.
And I can win in the end.
In fact I will win in that moment, long before any end, because I will be my own safe harbor, my own rock, my own measure of success… my own judge of whether I gave up too soon or persevered.
Patience, determination and belief in myself.
Especially when things seem bad.
What a beautiful lesson.
Thanks, Nadal and Djokovic, you are amazing inspirations!,
Elena
