I recently experienced an insidious  form of self-doubt .

It seeped in through cracks of my sense of myself, my own inner truth, and eroded my self-trust and self confidence. And it starts with the question “What if…?”

I was trying to tell someone about how I felt about an event in our relationship and his response was "Well, if that is the story you want to tell yourself, then I can’t help it!" Then, slowly a part me, the part that knows all about cognitive behaviour therapy surfaced.  It tells me that my thoughts can generate feelings and all I have to do is change my thoughts ….. well you know the rest. Well, maybe you do and maybe you don’t.  The rest for me is that self-doubt starts to seep in. It erodes my sense of what is right or wrong for me. It starts to ask:

• What if you are being unreasonable?
• What if you are being overly emotional?
• What if you have a distorted sense of the events?

The list could go on…everyone will have their own self-eroding “What if” questions. Having hooked into the “that’s the story you want so you are responsible for creating your own misery” message I start to doubt myself. I start to doubt my feelings. But this is where I get waylaid. I should trust my feelings. They are pointing me to something very important. They are pointing me to what I value for myself (and others) in my life.

I can change the questions I ask myself:

• What really matters about this for me?
• What is it that I want to stand up for – for myself?
• How am I honouring what is important to me?

I need to stay with the hurt, fear and sadness and sense into what they are telling me. They are telling me what kind of relationship I want…one in which even feelings which are hard to fathom are still respected, one in which ‘care’ for the other person is not perceived as being at the expense of oneself. One in which my feelings are given space in the relationship even when the other person “doesn’t think they are reasonable or understandable”.

So, no I don’t need to own the story about what happened or didn’t happen. I do not need to get lost in debating the content. I need to own my feelings.  I need to look to my feelings because they are telling me what matters for me in this situation. I need to connect to my values. Am I respecting my values and holding myself to account? Or am I giving them away for momentary comfort; to avoid a fight or uncomfortable discussion, to help the other person feel alright, to not be seen as selfish, mean, judgmental, unloving or needy? I am giving away my values to avoid the emotional pain which surfaces when I hear those kinds of labels which dismiss me as a human being?

Then…later…when I have explored, honoured and respected my feelings and values… if I want to… I play around with the story I had about what happened. I can have the feelings which came first (and are therefore telling me what is most important for me) and  I can walk 360 degrees around the issue looking at it from all angles. I can then see how that changes how I feel now and what values come up by taking a broader view.

But not before I have established some stability from understanding and respecting my first set of feelings and needs.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Dream Work)

In the past few weeks I have experienced some pretty challenging times emotionally and relationally. Two major rows with my husband sent me back to my journal to try and write my through the ins and outs of my experience. What is going on for me in all of this? So after quite a number of venting pages I became clearly aware of how a deep yearning of mine was impacting on my experience.

“I want to live in a congruent world where I can trust people will speak and act honestly. I want people to be congruent.”

I know – it sounds naive. I know it sounds childlike and inside me the yearning does have a childlike quality. This part of me doesn’t want to be cynical or jaded.

So, then I took my statement and started some “Work” on it.

Is it true that people and the world are not congruent?And what follows is my journal entry…it is stream of consciousness so bear with the chaos…

YES! all the evidence points to people not being congruent.  What do I mean by being congruent? That people are real in that they are genuine, authentic; that their inner experience and outer expression match – and there is some honesty in this too.

AND NO! Hmmm…so actually, at some level, a more realistic level, the world and people are congruent in as much as they do do what they do. I may not like what they do, I may not be able to predict what they will do, I may not be able to mitigate the impact of their words/actions…

How do I react when I think this thought?  I cannot be sure that what someone says is what they think and I feel both sad and frustrated and helpless that the world isn’t congruent. As I write this I can feel my need for safety coming up. Clarity and predictability too that is more about being able to “read” the situation than knowing what will happen ahead of time. The child in me is letting me know that being able to “read” the situation makes the world feel more safe for me. I can make sense of it. It makes the difference between safety and unsafety, fear and terror, control and helplessness. I need congruence to be able to protect myself. I also need it to prevent embarrassment, humiliation or being shamed (from getting my reading wrong, saying or doing the wrong thing, making a mistake, being insensitive etc).

So…hmm…I can’t (couldn’t in the past) walk into a room or situation and just be myself because first I have to work out how it is in there…how are people feeling, what are they needing, what is going on, what’s the general atmosphere. Then, I needed not show this anxiety, nervousness or fear because that is not acceptable and will be met with negative responses. So on goes (went) a mask of confidence, competence – my persona.  I have become somewhat hyper vigilant, other-focused and incongruent. My outer expression is not the same as my inner experience.

Well, no wonder I don’t like it in other people. I have pushed my real, vulnerable self into the shadowland. I, without self-awareness, was not being congruent myself. This is my turnaround. I want to be more congruent with myself. I want to be more congruent in the world.

Ohh…I can feel a welling of compassion for all the confusion, the mixed messages, the loss of a sense of safety in the world. I can feel it for the childlike part of me and for me now, in the here and now. A big breath comes into my body and some kind of holding on is released. My body relaxes just a little. And sadness comes too…for being in the world in this way and all the lost opportunities for connection and realness. Niceness, not being selfish, being other-focused has it’s price. I disconnected with my real self which is sensitive, vulnerable, often unsure and a bit confused, needing support or understanding. And in doing so I became uncomfortable and judgemental about those qualities in others.

I can feel my heart.

It seems we hardwire ourselves. We lay down neural pathways by the lifestyle, thinking and feeling patterns of our life. We literally embody our habits.

The Buddha pointed to this 1500 years ago with an infamous quote”

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

And its not just what we do, it seems, that is embodied – but also what we don’t do. Our broken promises create neural pathways too (and wreck havoc on relationships).

Even when we make a promise silently to ourselves and fail to keep it our subconscious remembers. It notices we fail to show up for ourselves and we feel this in our body; that heavy feeling in the belly, the twinge of our conscience, a tightening of our breathing. No amount of justifications and excuses remove this embodiment.

So are we condemned to feeling guilty, dragging around lots of old broken promises like a burden inside? I don’t believe so. In a short series of blogs I will explore what we can do to refresh our lives, honour our commitments while acknowledging human frailty and the struggle to live in the way we would like to live.

This series has been prompted by the article from the Sydney Morning Herald below:

Broken promises by Sam de Brito

April 23, 2010

Not to get too stuck on Norman Mailer, but in my Googling research for this post a few weeks back, I came across a quote from him about writing that I thought had resonance beyond just us weirdos who stick words together for a living.

In his book The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing, Mailer says that, if writers tell themselves they’re going to sit down and write but fail to do it, their unconscious stops trusting them and will no longer turn up.

“The rule in capsule: If you fail to show up in the morning after you vowed that you would be at your desk as you went to sleep last night, then you will walk around with ants in your brain.

“Rule of thumb: Restlessness of mind can be measured by the number of promises that remain unkept,” writes Mailer.

I reckon our brains work in a similar way with many of the promises we make to ourselves whether it’s about our fitness, our love life, career or family …

In my book Building a Better Bloke, I write that “if you want a magic bullet to being taken seriously as a man … it is to be true to your word”.

You’ve probably heard the saying “He’s a man of his word” and I would go as far as to invoke the hoary cliche that “a man is his word”.

If you say you’re going to do something and you do not, and you do this enough times, you cease to be someone whom people can depend on; you become a “maybe”, an “if”, and this is the opposite of what it means to be a man.

We are a verbal species; our entire world is created by and powered by words, yet so many people fail to see that a disconnect between what you say you are and how you act is the battleground of reality.

The promises we make to ourselves can be just as powerful.

If you walk around telling yourself you’re giving up drinking, smoking and the punt, yet the next day you’re drunk and puffing bungers at the TAB – it sends a message to others that your word means less to you than does that beer, ciggie and betting ticket.

It also sends a message to your unconscious that you can’t be trusted and it builds a dirty momentum whereby we expect to fail before we even attempt something.

You say: “Why bother? I’ve broken promises so many times before, why even kid myself I can get fit, or maintain a decent relationship or get this job done on time?”

Sound familiar?

I had that conversation with myself about 432,567 times when it came to smoking cigarettes as well as a couple of other habits I’m not going to discuss in a public forum.

I also know I’m happiest when I keep my promises to myself – when I look back at my day and I’ve run, written and been good to the people I love by doing the things I said I would (vacuuming).

When I don’t keep my promises to myself – especially with habits that are self-destructive – the guilt grinds around inside me like broken dinner plates.

So, if you’re feeling antsy some days, it might be worth remembering that quote from old legspread Mailer and check if you’ve kept your promises to yourself.

What promises do you break?

************************************************************

STOP! Now our culture would normally have us make a list and feel bad, really bad. This inventory is not about creating a weapon to beat yourself up with. It is about honestly looking at how our habits can actually become the next step towards a better life. So before you start…

Think of someone or something (music, art, nature, the sound of the ocean, surfing, running, yoga, your pet) that supports you, gives you strength and love. Take that feeling into your body. Stay with it for at least a minute – maybe two or three – allow it to settle there.

Invite a quality of care, or kindness, or love, or patience or gentleness to be present for this process – to hold and support you as you take your inventory. This quality of self-empathy is both the arms around you and the ground under your feet.

Now ask: what is in the way of me taking this inventory? Wait…now as each thought or feeling, image or body sense arise acknowledge it and then gently put it aside…it may need to go outside, it may need to sit on the other chair in the room, or it may need to go to the beach. Keep clearing a space until you feel nothing more is in the way of taking your inventory.

From this cleared space and with your self empathy nearby ask your question with a gentle curiosity. “Ahhh, so what promises do I break?” Remember to breathe. As you note each broken promise wait there a minute with it. Keep it company and become aware of how your body knows it. You might get a sensation, an image, a metaphor, a sound, a body posture or gesture, a phrase or an emotional quality that really “gets” it. Write down the promise and the felt sense of it that your body holds.

Ask what’s the worst of this? Wait – let your body respond not your habitual mind. You will know when your body responds by a sense of release (a breath, a sigh, a laugh or smile, tears or just a shift of awareness within). Ask what “it” needs – “it” being your felt sense. Write this down.

Notice how you feel inside after asking these questions. Take your time with this…sensing the complexity and richness of how your body is now compared to when you started. Now ask what is the best of this? Enjoy this moment – allow it to expand – give it time to be taken in and embodied.

You do not need to act on any of this in a hurry. Give yourself some time for your unconscious to point you towards a new way of living. Journal about what you are noticing now in your life. Pay attention to your dreams. Notice what other things you see around you that you weren’t seeing before. Each day invite a new step – of this whole list – what is the next right forward movement for me…thoughts, plans and ideas will immediately pop into our mind because it is trained to answer questions. Wait…drop into that whole space inside your body and listen for your body’s answer. Again, it may be a metaphor, a phrase, a movement or gesture, an image etc. Hold that a moment and sense “is this it?” and you will know because it is just right for you. It will feel right and whole and good and life serving. It won’t contain shoulds, musts or have-to’s.

Good luck.

I’d like to share this  response that Ann Weiser Cornell wrote recently in her Weekly Tips and Support Newsletter.

“Focusing is a simple matter of holding a kind of open, non-judging attention to something which is directly experienced but not yet in words.” –from the introduction to The Focusing Student’s and Companion’s Manual by Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin.

Something which is directly experienced but not yet in words? What is that?
Well, that’s what we call a “felt sense,” and it’s really the heart of the matter.

A “felt sense” is what a problem or a situation “feels like” when you pause and get a sense of the whole thing. It’s not your usual emotions or thoughts–which can get stuck and keep you going around in circles–but rather it’s fresh, immediate, and often contains new information or a new perspective.

People are not used to pausing and getting felt senses. If more people would do this, I believe the world would be quite different!
Focusing starts with that pause…

18 Self-Healing Exercises

We all have the capacity to generate healing in our own lives and to help others to do the same. Are you ready to experience the benefits of energy healing? We invite you to select whichever category on the right is most interesting to you, and jump right in to explore this fascinating field.

The first section, Working with the Life Force, begins with two foundational relaxation exercises where you will be introduced to the flow of energy in your body and how to work with it to stimulate healing and combat stress and fatigue.

Breath, Prana, and Qi

•   1. The Relaxing Breath– Andrew Weil
•   2. Yoga Relaxation– Shiva Rea

The next section on Energy Medicine Exercises awakens your subtle energy body through powerful practices involving the chakras, including a daily energy routine you can do each day to infuse your life with clarity and vitality.

Chakras, Meridians, and Aura

•   3. A Tour of the Chakras– Anodea Judith
•   4. Chakra Healing– Cyndi Dale
•   5. A Morning Chakra Exercise– Caroline Myss
•   6. Purification and Balancing– Layne Redmond
•   7. Five Minute Daily Energy Routine– Donna Eden
•   8. Matrix Energetics– Richard Bartlett

Our Sound Healing section introduces three practices which give you a first-hand experience of the unique power of sound to connect you with deep levels of healing and transformation.

Sound Healing

•   9. Chanting the Chakras– Layne Redmond
• 10. Self-Healing with Sound and Music– Andrew Weil and Kimba Arem
• 11. Vocal Toning the Chakras– Jonathan Goldman

The next section on Using the Hands for Healing provides an effective exercise for tuning into the innate healing powers which exist right in your very own hands. By learning how to activate our hands for healing, we prepare ourselves to bring forth powerful energies of transformation.

Using the Hands for Healing

• 12. Your Healing Hands– Jack Angelo

Guided Imagery and Visualization includes five simple, yet transformative exercises, each of which opens a doorway into a more awake and alive experience of life. 

Guided Imagery and Visualization

• 13. Imagery for Self-Healing– Martin Rossman
• 14. Healing Lake Meditation– Jon Kabat-Zinn
• 15. Combating Energy Vampires– Judith Orloff
• 16. Meditation for Pain Relief– Shinzen Young
• 17. Color and healing– Laura Alden Kamm

We conclude with Soul-Level Healing where you will learn to enter the "non-ordinary reality" of the shaman. As a part of this journey, you will discover useful information and ways of healing that are not ordinarily available in the normal waking state.

Soul-Level Healing

• 18. Intro to Shamanic Journeying– Sandra Ingerman

I love this post by The Urban Monk. In particular I enjoyed his move towards self-compassion both in the present moment and with the part of us from our past that feels triggered by the present moment.

In Focusing we might turn towards ourselves, as a first step, and say hello to what is there holding the space with a quality of empathic curiosity.

In NVC we might sense for the unmet needs which are our values that are not being met in this situation.

I also relish that he has drawn my attention to how much of my present moment emotional experience is part of an ongoing stream from my past.

Mindful observation of the present experience can help me “not add more to my story” and saying hello and empathically connecting with the nature of my energy stream from the past can help me heal and move forward from a needs met energy.

Please enjoy and then go check out his blog. It’s worth subscribing to.

So, it may seem a little strange to talk about getting into a relationship with what comes up emotionally in our lives. The English language implies we are our feelings.

I am happy.

I am sad.

I am disappointed.

This youtube clip helps explain how Focusing supports us finding “the  more” in whatever is coming up in our lives.

These are qualities of practice that I alluded to in my last blog. Most spiritual or personal development practices imply “improvement” or at least some kind of movement towards something.

I know that I have swung from trying to “repress” or “avoid” particular negative emotions or actions I have labelled as harmful to myself and others, or problematic at the very least, to indulging in the emotions or actions.

When I repress I tell myself a particular kind of story – how “bad” or “weak” I am, how lost I am or how I just can’t get my act together. I wallow in a critic-fest.

When I indulge I tell myself a different kind of story. I make enemy images of the people I am affecting – how they deserve it, how they brought it upon themselves, how I am acting righteously or justly to bring them to some new awareness. I criticise them.

Both ways are just stories I make up to justify my responses.

Now, however,  I am trying a middle way, one that has 3 processes.

Acknowledging

Now, I try and notice when I am moving towards repression or indulgence. I say hello to this movement, holding myself with a kind of friendliness that one feels with an old, dear friend.

“Oh, hello my dear friend anger. I can sense you arising in my body – I can feel the tension and tightening across the front of my chest and the shortening of my breath. I acknowledge you there just as you are.”

Accompanying

When I say hello to whatever is arising – what comes is a relationship between me and it. For example a relationship between me and anger. I am not anger and it is not me but we are here, in this moment, together. I can sense how it moves through me. I can accompany its arising, its response to my acknowledgement and I, now, can accompany it as it tells me what is up for it. I can listen to it and listen for its deeper needs or the values it thinks it will protect by doing what it is doing. I can accompany it a little way down the road.

Accepting

I can accept that this is how I feel just now and as I journey with it I can notice moment by moment shifts and changes. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing – it just means –yep, this is how it seems for me just now in this moment. I can accept that I might be experiencing suffering or discomfort. I can accept that it feels strong or overwhelming.

It may seem like accepting will be buying into the story (whichever one is being told) – yet that has not been my experience. I have found that once I accept whatever I am experiencing – no matter how subjective – a new possibility opens up for me. There comes a softening, a letting go, a relaxing of sorts.

And there, in that space I can invite something more.  I might invite some questions:

“Is this true, really true? Can I be absolutely sure that what I am telling myself  is true?”

“What needs or values are needing care in all of this?”

“Is there any other part of me that needs attention too? Is there something more that also needs to tell its story?”

“Is there something happening here that brings up old, unresolved material from my childhood? How can I best take care of myself if this is happening?”

“Can I get a felt sense of this – an image, a metaphor, a word that best captures all of it? Can I stay with this and explore my inner landscape and what it knows, in my body, about the best way forward?”

This process of acknowledging, accompanying and accepting is so helping me to connect more compassionately with myself. I am better able to stay with my present moment experiences and find such richness in them.  I sense they are the first step on a journey to a delightful self-acceptance.

If you are into NVC you may enjoy subscribing to Rick Goodfriend’s World Empathy day tips.

I love this video about accepting just how we are. I love the space it gives to what is coming up inside without trying to change it too quickly.

It gives us a chance to sense for what more is there under the first feeling that comes. For example, when I feel angry, a vulnerable scared part is usually there too, but at first it might not feel safe for that part to come out into my awareness.

In Focusing we first say hello and acknowledge what is present.

My tip  is– if accepting feels too hard – to start by:

• saying hello to what is present then
• bear witness to it – for example you might say- “I am bearing witness to feeling angry”.  Or “I am keeping my anger company”. After saying this a few times you may notice that you can sense a subtle distinction between you and the anger. You are not just your feelings and yet your feelings exist within you. You can get a little space there.
• Then, when a release comes you might go on to “accepting what is”.

This process transforms intense feelings and also gives our heart a little space to be with our suffering – neither denying nor suppressing the suffering nor “becoming the suffering”. If we can hold our own suffering compassionately it becomes more possible and even delightful to offer the same quality of holding, bearing witness and accepting the suffering of others.

Greetings World Empathy Day Celebrants:

Celebrate World Empathy Day on Wednesdays, a day of increased consciousness for  compassion, communication, understanding and forgiveness. Welcome to new participants.  Please forward
this tip to interested friends, family, and peers to help WEday expand.

WEday Tip # 101 - Transforming Intense Feelings Before Communicating Them !! !

One of the most difficult communication skills is expressing ourselves
honestly  and with compassion, especially if upset . Here is a tip to make that skill easier.

Yes, accept the moment for what it is. Before expressing to another
person, accept the situation or the emotions that are present .  This will help calm any nervousness, fear, anger … before communicating with another.

Example:
Someone has not emailed me back the information I requested. It has
been a week. My thinking is full of judgments. I want to call them and
express what is going on with me, the disappointment, the
consideration for my time, the ease of having this information …

Using this tip, I accept what is
I accept what is, the information isn’t here, yes, I accept that I am upset, I
acknowledge this feeling and say I accept  it , (4 times)

Already I am calming and become more present.  I am now ready to take action (compassionately). 

Try this tip in this way? Transform your emotions
Take some of your emotions and focus on  them, and say  to yourself   ” I accept this emotion  __________  as being present now. “  

Process one feeling at a time and say it 3 – 5 times slowly.      
Does the intensity diminish?

If you have time, let me know how this works for you.

May all your needs be met.

Rick Goodfriend
Founder – World Empathy day
805 898-9336
www.empathyday.com