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Owning Openness: The Accidental Benefit of Seeing With Magical Eyes

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Hello Pinkies. Dana here, with something I wrote on the plane as I left California in early March.

I’ve had a magical time on the West Coast last week. Many things made it wonderful, but as I sit on the plane on the next leg of my journey, I am distilling down what gave it such energy for me. I’m a people person and so it’s no big surprise that it was the collection of amazing men and women I met in personal, professional and social contexts. Many, but not all, were swirling around Lissa and Owning Pink, but I’ve met a lot of people in my years and this bunch was unique in a very special way.  Every person I met, including Lissa herself, was completely without pretense. And let me tell you, there is nothing in the world more gorgeous than a human being who owns who they are today, while also owning the fact that they are still on a journey to learn and grow and become.

These people were from all walks of life and between the ages of four and fifty-five, they were living and playing and writing and creating world-changing businesses. When I say they were without pretense, I mean that they were self-confident and also open about what they still had to learn. They weren’t afraid to ask for help and they weren’t afraid to hear advice. I am tempted to give Lissa great credit for having fantastic friends (which is true!), but it was more than that and extended to people I’d known for years who somehow seemed different this time.  Why were all the people I met so open?

Reaching Out

Having so many conversations about where we were and what we need to grow got me thinking that in my business life, I work with many different kinds of clients and the most successful ones make good use of a Board of Advisors (sometimes, but not always, this is also a Board of Directors). The advisory board members are recruited by the president or executive director to provide him or her a special perspective they know they can’t get from people closest to them – such as customers, investors or employees.  These leaders reach outside their immediate circles and align themselves with outside advisors who have knowledge and experience that can bring them a much needed outside perspective on their business and themselves.

This isn’t just a business leadership skill, it’s also a personal leadership approach I see very effective people use in their daily lives as well, regularly reaching out to people they trust and being authentic with them so they can see themselves through their friends’ eyes. I’ve done this very intentionally for the last ten years or so, myself.

I didn’t used to do this, by the way. Many years ago I was seeing a therapist because I was a young working mom on the path to burnout and beginning to careen off balance. After beginning to get my emotional legs under me, I realized I was beginning to see her as a friend instead of a therapist, someome I could chat with about what had been going on in my life and get some perspective back.

About two sessions after I came to this realization, she asked me,“Do you have any friends?”

Surprised, I said , “Sure! I have tons of friends.”

She smiled and asked, “Do you ever talk to them?”

I blinked. “No. I really don’t have time.”

She smiled more broadly. “Why don’t you make time for them?”

Two weeks later I gave her a hug and released myself from therapy, promising myself and her I’d come back if I ever needed to. Though I’ve thought about it a few times over the years, I’ve never been back because, in part, I’ve created an interlocking circles of friends who I make a point to see regularly, both in personal and professional contexts. This doesn’t mean that my therapist wasn’t a good investment (she absolutely was, believe me!).  But that therapy had a limit. Once I became emotionally capable enough to reach out and make myself vulnerable to people I trusted in a new way, I no longer needed therapy. When I did this, I discovered a whole pleathora of personal development opportunity in the people that were already around me.

Opening Up

Today, my advisory teams are large and diverse. My advisors include friends I’ve met while kibuttzing on the soccer field as our kids chased butterflies instead of soccer balls (i.e., a while ago!), and they are former clients and people who I simply admire for their personal strength and journeys. I really value their perspectives on my life and I enjoy supporting them because in doing so I learn more about myself.

But this last trip, and the amazing people I met, were not just an accident. I’ve been on lots of trips and met lots of people before without having met so many who were all so open, in many cases, with someone they barely knew. When I look at the one common element in each interaction that delighted me this trip, I see only one consistent variable: me. And I realize that while I’ve been collecting my advisory teams around me for years, I’ve only recently opened myself to others in a way that encourages their deeper openness to emerge and feel safe.

The difference lately in my outlook is beyond nonjudgment and it’s beyond acceptance (both of which I’ve practiced intentionally). On this last trip West I practiced my magical eyes and seeing people with love – not just a few people or difficult to love people  – but on everyone I met. And it worked. It drew out the most beautiful part of each person for them to be, and me to see.

The Accidental Benefit of Seeing With Magical Eyes

And here’s my ah-ha! At Owning Pink we like to use Magical Eyes to make others feel seen and support their healing, but I don’t know if these people even needed “healing,” and I don’t know yet what affect my magical eyes had on them. Now I realize is that I don’t really need to know. What I’ve learned is that it had a strong and wonderful affect on me. I am lighter. I am happier. I am enriched by these wonderful people who allowed me to see them with love.  As I open myself up more and more with my new and old advisors, I expect to continue this happy spiral. I can’t wait!

What about you? Have you used your magical eyes? Have you used it on difficult people and “easy” people? Have you noticed the difference it makes on how you feel?

Stumbling into magic,
Dana

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Posted in Owning Love, Owning Success, Owning Your Emotions, Owning Your Intuition, Owning change, Personal Empowerment | 2 Comments »

A Pink God’s Pleap off the Corporate Cliff

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Dearest Pinkies, please welcome Pink God Ryan Rigoli, founder of (and blogger at) rigolicoaching.com. Ryan works with solo entrepreneurs and organizational leaders to build heart-centered businesses that inspire change in the people and communities they wish to serve.  He specializes in helping them to create a unique, personal brand that aligns their core essence with their life’s work. Ry’s here today to talk about his own, major, life-transforming Pleap, and the wisdom he’s gleaned along the way. Bravo, Ryan, and thank you for inspiring us all.

*****

The Matrix

It was about three years ago and I was exhausted.   I had recently come back from a trip to Australia.  My intention was to spend time with a good friend and rejuvenate.  The spending time with a good friend part was great.  The rejuvenation part didn’t last long.

My vacation buzz quickly wore off and before long I was back at work. I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had just been moved to a newly formed team at Yahoo!, where I worked, and what we were tasked to do was starting to feel like trying to move entire mountains with a pinky. I was getting burned out after years of trying to ‘move the needle’ and putting everything I had into high priority projects at the company.

I found myself dreaming about my next vacation.  Peru, Iceland, India…where to go next?  Only I wasn’t there.  I was here, smack dab in the middle of the matrix working harder than ever before, and simply pushing on through to the next vacation.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

The feeling in my gut was screaming:  “Are you nuts?”  But I wouldn’t listen. I was too scared to make a change, and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what to do next anyway.  It was just too fuzzy of a plan to make a move.

Claustrophobia

One night I woke up around 3am and felt the walls closing in on me.  I had to rush to my patio to catch my breath. Still feeling enclosed, I ran out of my building and onto the street.  I sat on the sidewalk and started to catch my breath.  I knew right then that this was the beginning of the end for me in this kind of life.

When you start feeling claustrophobic in a 1200-square-ft. loft with 30 foot ceilings, then you know something’s wrong.  My body was telling me it was time for a change or it would shut down.  I liked my body and I also enjoyed being on this planet, so I decided to listen for the first time in a very long time to see what it had to say.

After a few minutes some images came to me.  I envisioned what it would be like in five years at the age of 40 – working in the same company and with the same two-hour round-trip commute.  Only this time I imagined being an SVP of Marketing, the role I had always been striving for.  That claustrophobic feeling immediately started to come back.  And there it was.  The path I was headed down made me feel more and more compressed, less fully alive, and, frankly, physically ill.  And the funny part about all of it was this:  I’d created this world for myself.  Not because I had to, but because I thought I would be happy and fulfilled. I felt that if I just pushed a little bit more, I’d be totally secure and free of all financial worries.

Practically speaking, of course, staying on with my company was somewhat of a known quantity.  And, if not there, then another similar company.  Another couple of years and I would have had the chance to become a VP making even more money and in charge of an even larger team.  I imagined what that felt like and observed the sensations in my body at the very thought of it.  First, the nausea (spitting up what I knew would poison my soul), then the claustrophobia (feeling trapped on a path that wasn’t for me), and finally a feeling of sadness and helplessness (my anger at myself turned inwards that I wasn’t owning my freedom to choose).

Exploring the Unknown

Quitting and maybe even traveling abroad, on the other hand, was a complete unknown and scary, but again I observed my feelings and physical reactions — lightness (freedom to reinvent myself) and nervous yet energetic excitement (the prospects of new people, new passions and new adventures).

That was enough for me.  A week later I handed in my resignation and started planning an extended trip through Latin America, many of the experiences of which I captured in my travel blog.

And it was from that day onward that I started a three-year journey into the unknown. Travels through remote lands, ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ of new businesses and relationships, universal mysteries revealed, even more questions and mysteries surfaced, moments of complete confusion and fear, times of absolute clarity and peace.

Would I trade any of it?  Never.  The most challenging three years of my life were the ones during which I felt most fully alive.

The Free-Fall

Anyone who goes through a process of breaking free of their own version of the matrix may have a different set of circumstances but the emotional experience is often the same.  Right before it starts and the black hole of opportunity opens, there’s a sense that there’s something more.  There’s a feeling of longing for something that you just can’t put your finger on.  There’s a terrified feeling of the unknown and questions about how you’re going to manage without all of the answers laid out right in front of you.  There’s exhilaration at the thought of freedom — the freedom to be who you really are and to live that fully whatever that may be.

And then one day you take the leap off a cliff only to realize that you’re falling without an end point.  It just keeps going.  Ever changing.  Ever moving.  The exhilaration, the fear, the joy, the anger, the sadness, all rolled up into one big leap of faith into the giant unknown.

And it’s that jump for me that led to an extraordinary journey that continues to this day.  Yes, when I returned, I took adventurous leaps in my travels, new businesses and relationships, but the real jump was inward.  And with that came a process of remembering who I really am.  ‘Self-remembering’ was not just a set of words anymore but a deep feeling of who I am as a Spirit in this body.  Of what I’m here to do and be.  Of how I’m here for others.   And a new and completely unexpected version of that continues to unfold.

A Grand Mystery

This kind of path is a different one than before.  Although there’s a time for planning and goal-setting, there’s a different quality to the experience.  A recognition perhaps that no matter how many goals we set, or plans we make, there’s still a grand mystery to it all.  Maybe we’re not meant to completely understand everything or know how every intention we set out will turn out.  Maybe it’s more about how we respond and awaken to the mysteries that unfold right in front of us rather than to the actual content or outcome that we originally expected.

Perhaps it’s really about the type of person we become along the way.  It’s about the capacities we cultivate in ourselves to speak our truth with strength and dignity but also with compassion and discernment vs. blame and judgment towards others with a different view.  Maybe it’s a holding of our intentions with a powerful, energetic, focused presence but also with a kind of gentleness, or lightness, for how the outcome will really appear to us in the end.   Perhaps it’s about a sense of openness about what wants to emerge from deep within…something much bigger than ourselves.  It is life expressing itself through us.  And it’s the very art of surrendering and then allowing that brings forth this new creation into the world.

Maybe it’s really a journey about how we treat others under the most trying of circumstances.  And, of course, how we treat ourselves even with all of the mistakes we make, the shame or guilt we feel, the broken promises we’ve made along the way.   Perhaps it’s, ultimately, about how much love and kindness we can show ourselves in the midst of it all.

The Sacred Journey

There’s a painting in my house that says:  “Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”  As people on a spiritual path, we are all on a sacred journey that takes an extra-ordinary amount of faith and trust in ourselves.  We are on a personal journey of healing and through our presence we create a space for the healing of those all around us. For our clients, our friends, our families, our communities, our partners.

Whatever our path may be, creating social change through personal transformation is no easy calling.  It takes patience, diligence and immense kindness towards ourselves to explore the truth behind who we really are and work with others to do the same.  Our work does not come with a rule book or a set of predefined answers but simply with the presence of our hearts and the support of others to help us move forward.

ryanI want to thank you for doing what you do and for the very presence that you bring into the world.

I will do my best to support you in this journey.

Blessings,
Ryan

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Owning Joy, Owning Surrender, Owning Your Intuition, Owning change, Personal Empowerment | 9 Comments »

Owning Loss, Honoring Lessons, Remembering Life

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Dearest Pinkies, it is our honor to re-introduce to you Nancy Slonim Aronie, our teacher, hero, and friend. It was at Nancy’s workshop at Esalen that Joy and I met two years ago. This is a woman who was Owning Pink before either of us was even born. Ever-present in Nancy’s inspiring anecdotes at the soul of the workshop was her son, Dan. Dan passed away a few weeks ago, and Nancy wrote a eulogy that captures him so well, we couldn’t not share it with you.  Most of all, her writing demonstrates the incredible power of love, the capacity of the heart, and the eternal nature of the spirit- how Pink is that?  Thank you, Pinkies, for helping us hold space for and honor Nancy, Dan, and the Aronie family.

****

There were so many Dan Aronies. And on January 29th at 1:21 in the morning on the fullest brightest moon of the whole year, one month after his 38th birthday, with his brother and his father present , we lost them all.

You might have known the little guy with dark eyes and long hair (which his grandmother always begged me to cut  – “he looks like a street urchin!”) and ribs that stuck out (“people will think you don’t feed him!”), who followed his big brother Josh everywhere, who could be found juggling with his father on Lucy Vincent Beach or hitching rides with the likes of Harrison Ford.

Or you might have known the little fisherman always on the jetty at dawn or late at night  (while his mother … me … worried about whether he had eaten his snack and was in the middle of a diabetic reaction, had fallen over and was at the bottom of the ocean. Dan was diagnosed with diabetes at 9 months old and became a rebel about an hour later.

You might have known the inventive, creative survivor Dan who taught his fellow young diabetics how to cheat on their urine tests: “don’t put any drops of pee in the beeker. They wont know the difference and the results will set you free. Think chocolate.”

Maybe the guy you knew was the angry contrary funny Dan, the Dan who drove his boat too fast, rolled two cars, skied recklessly, loved girls wholeheartedly, played his violin passionately (not always accurately). That Dan lasted for most of his young adult life. You might have known him at Bard College when he was starring in View from the Bridge or driving his motorcycle down 9G when he was supposed to be studying for exams.

Or maybe you were there when he was diagnosed with MS at 22 and the anger turned white hot.

But for many of you here on the Vineyard, you most likely knew him in his early stages of losing his “abilities to do anything!!!!!” (his words, screamed often). When he couldn’t hold a cue stick anymore, couldn’t make the steps in the Ritz , when he could no longer drive, when his short-term memory started going, when his speech started slurring, a new Dan was emerging.

If you had been a visiting nurse you might have been met with a tirade of 4 letter words (so now let us thank you for every loving moment you spent with Dan). You may have seen him through two brain surgeries that didn’t work, one open-heart surgery that did. You may have noticed a softening, an accepting, a surrendering. For those of us close to that Dan, he became a Teacher. We got to see how a person changes, actually takes lemons, squeezes the life out of them, cuts away the rotten parts and turns out the sweetest tartest most delicious lemonade ever thought possible.

I once asked Dan, “can you say why you stopped being angry?” His answer was so simple but so profound. He said, “I noticed that being angry didn’t help anything.” Hello.

When Dan’s bedsores prevented him from getting up and out and he became bedridden, he never complained. He got even funnier if such a thing is possible. One night I stood at the end of his bed and I, said “Good night o king of kings,” and I did an exaggerated bow. And then I said, “Good night o lord of lords,” and I bowed again. And without skipping a beat he said, “Good night o fruit of loops.”

One day I arrived to the ubiquitous ambulances that knew 111 Leonard Circle by heart (and let me now thank every paramedic who ever crossed his threshold!). I raced in to find Dan already strapped on the gurney, I leaned in to see how bad it was. I said, “Danzer how are you, baby boy? And when he tried to say something, Alison, the caregiver of the century, raised the oxygen mask and Dan, barely conscious, sang “A three hour tour” from Gilligan’s Island – one of the mantras he repeated to describe his life.

Four months ago, Dan got his third bout of pneumonia and was air lifted to Mass General where he was in the intensive care unit for four weeks. He was intubated and communicated with only his eyebrows and his dancing eyes. He had a tracheotomy and a feeding tube. He was transferred to rehab in Salem where he spent another four weeks not really recuperating, but when he was stable they let him come home. And this community and the love and the energy and the support poured in, and it looked as if the Miracle Man was going to beat the odds again. He managed to fight two fevers on his own and he was looking stronger and stronger and healthier and healthier.

But then he got another fever. And this one brought him down. Five days before he died, a dear friend said, ”Dan on a scale from 1 to 10, where are you?” Mind you, he couldn’t talk, but with his signature grin and his twinkling eyes, he mouthed “ELEVEN!”

That’s the Dan he became. A solid 11. And to quote Dan himself… not too shabby.

Thank you, Nancy, for sharing the story of this incredible human and the journey you went on together. Remember, Pinkies, you don’t need to wait until someone dies to honor their life. Nancy did this with Dan every day by sharing him with her workshops, and later with the world through the documentary they made about him. Have you considered writing a eulogy for someone who is still around — or someone who left a long time ago to whom you didn’t say goodbye the way you would now? Let us know your thoughts, and again, thank you for helping us honor this special Pinkie in our lives.

Honoring all the angels – on earth and beyond …
Lissa and Joy

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Owning Joy After Loss, Owning Motherhood, Owning Surrender, Owning Your Family, Owning change | 1 Comment »

Everything is a Risk: Which Leap of Faith Will You Take?

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Beloved Pinkies, please welcome back Tama Kieves, author of This Time I Dance: Creating the Work You Love and a Pink Goddess through and through.  She speaks today about risk … or to put it in Pink terms, taking a Pleap (Pink leap of faith). Enjoy, and many thanks as always to Tama!

*****

There is no safe life. Where did we get the idea that life was supposed to be safe? What of joy and consequence has ever been safe? Giving birth to a child? Taking a road trip? Kissing that handsome, winsome stranger? Give yourself over to risk. Risk is the only friend you have. Risk is the one who will make your blood flow red. You don’t want a safe life. You want a life that is so full of juice, joy and meaning, that nothing threatens you– because you’ve already won the prize.

You Can’t Avoid It

Besides, there is no risk free life. You only get to decide which risk is worth it to you, because everything is a risk. Staying tight like a bud is a risk. Staying inside in your bed is a risk. Taking the subway is a risk. Staying in a marriage or job that crushes your soul, though cruises along– as always– is a risk. There is no opting out in this life. You only get to choose which risk you’ll take.  Here’s what I’d suggest. Bet on the sure thing. Bet on love. Spend your life on faith. Take the road that makes you stronger. Going after things you want, whether or not you get them, makes you stronger. Yeah, baby, take that in.

Darkness Looms & Danger Lurks

There will always be a choice between immediate safety and ultimate safety. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Years ago, I went hiking with a boyfriend, somewhere in Oregon. We had ourselves a slap-happy time by the ocean at the end of the trail. Too much of a time. The sun began evaporating from the sky. It was a time of year that still turned very cold.

We were dressed lightly with no provisions, as we hadn’t intended to hike this far. Knowing we needed to get back to the car, we walked back quickly on the dimming trail. But half way out of the forest, we heard an unusual knocking noise. A tribe of birds squawked and fluttered away. They left a hollowness in their wake. Something didn’t feel right.

The creepy noise continued. “Maybe it’s a moose,” said Nick eagerly, looking around. I walked up ahead and peered into the trees. I saw darkness behind them. Then that darkness took shape, the shape of a bear. Now, for the record, I am not the type of woman that looks at a bear in fascination, even at a zoo. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, for God’s sake. On my best day, I am still probably more comfortable pressed up against a thousand sweaty strangers in a disco than witnessing wildlife in a forest. And at this moment, honest to God, I’d really rather have been clubbed and mugged.  I instinctively walked backwards on the trail, and then ran further back until I could breathe. Nick followed me. “It’s a bear,” I said to him, terror and adrenaline lighting up my senses.

Then the negotiations began. We had to walk back past the bear to get out of the woods. We had to walk by the bear. If we walked the other way, nightfall would set in, bringing its wet ocean breath of cold and death by hypothermia. We were already beginning to shiver. I imagined being mauled. Hypothermia sounded nice, just going numb forever. I really wanted to avoid that bear. It was a dark black beast that I could not predict or control and it could confront me whether I was ready or not. But then if we avoided that possibility, we were facing the guarantee of a slow, insidious death.

Life Is Worth Saving, But It May Require Some Discomfort

Believe me the symbolic choice here was not lost on me. I had only recently left my prestigious legal career to dare my crazy dreams of becoming a writer. I had left the “safe position” because I knew it was numbing and annihilating my heart minute by minute. The comfort of that paycheck and validation was seducing me into a stupor in which I abandoned my will and lapsed into a menacing indifference about my own life. It was the hypothermia of having my heart go cold. But in that scenario, I had decided to fight to save my own life. I chose the terror of choosing my desires. I faced the immediate risk of not knowing how things would work out. I felt naked in the world. But I also knew I at least had a chance of something working out. My job had been “safe” in worldly terms, but I knew I had not one shred of hope of living my true life while there. It wasn’t savage death. But it was certain death.

Walk Towards Your Deepest Fear

It hit me then that I would have to walk in the direction of my fear. I would have to walk towards the bear. If I walked by the bear, I might make it to total freedom. It held the only possibility of what I really wanted. I’d at least have a chance at life. But I’d have to walk by the bear. I’d have to risk unbearable (no pun intended) uncertainty.

I’ll cut to the chase. I lived. We walked by the bear, slowly, praying silently to ourselves and to the God you pull out of your back pocket when you hope there is a God and you hope he has instant messaging. We surrendered to the vulnerability of our Big Chance and the purity of our instincts. Then we ran like hell and, if memory serves, I kissed that rental car’s thin tin sides. That night we ate at a local diner and I told the waitress about the bear and how happy I was to be alive. She gave us French fries on the house. I have never tasted better French fries. I know they were ordinary and probably too salty. But I was alive and everything tasted beautiful to me.

Walk By The Bear- Just Do It

I suggest you walk by the bear. What is your bear in life? What leaves you bare? What action or direction calls to you right now? Where do you at least have the best chance of getting something that you desire? The need for certainty costs too much. There is no certainty. But there is the strength of moving in the right direction.

I want to leave you with two great quotes by two different men that embraced inspired, creative lives. I also want to leave you with my love and my faith in you. You will make your right choice in your right time. There will always be a bear. And there will always be that within you that can bear anything, on its way to magnificence.

“Every moment of one’s existence, one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.” Norman Mailer

“Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” Alan Alda

Love and blessings,
Tama

©Copyright 2010 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved.
www.AwakeningArtistry.com

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Mama Earth stuff, Owning Surrender, Owning change, Personal Empowerment | 6 Comments »

Releasing Regrets and Accepting the Past

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

Dearest Pinkies, please welcome back the one and only Stacey Curnow of Midwife for your Life.  She wrote the below post inspired by this discussion on the Pink Effect Posse Page – how do we use Magical Eyes on those who may have hurt us deeply? As always, Stacey’s wisdom comes at just the right time. Thank you as always, Stacey!

*****

Relationships Gone “Bad”

One of my clients is haunted by the memory of a former lover. She wonders how she allowed such a “bad” relationship to go on for so long. Of course she did the best she could with the awareness she had at the time. But now she has 20/20 hindsight.

We’ve all been in her shoes. We wish we could’ve been more conscious, more able to act on the signs that things were not going well, and avoided the “bad” thing that happened. But when we focus on the past, we ignore the clarity that is available to us right now, and the insight that can help guide us to an even better place.

That shift in focus from the past to the present to the future takes some effort. Blaming the other person is much easier, of course. And we can also pretend that we were duped or unconscious the whole time. But we are much more likely to find peace—as well as some benefit from the experience—if we withhold this kind of judgment.

A Different Perspective

So if you’re looking back on a bad experience or relationship and blaming yourself or someone else, try this instead. Rather than looking at the person with whom you had the conflict as the enemy, try to look at him as an old war buddy. You shared a tough time, but you got through it. You did your best under hazardous conditions, and now you can recount your “war stories” without any remorse that things should have been different. Just accept that they happened and simply move on.

Do you feel some resistance to letting this person — a partner, friend, family member, or even a past you — off so easily? Then perhaps consider that when you choose to forgive someone whose behavior hurt you, you do yourself a huge favor. Someone once said that holding on to resentment is like eating rat poison and hoping the rat will die. You could release the hurt, anger and sense of betrayal not because the person “deserves” it, but because you will feel better when you do. If forgiveness is out of reach right now, then just don’t think about it. Refuse to think or talk about what happened until you can look at the topic with some equanimity. The less you return to the painful memories, the sooner that time will come.

I’m not saying you should condone the behavior that hurt you. And I’m certainly not saying you should jump back in the foxhole with your old war buddy. I’m just saying that when you can accept what happened—which means, more than anything else, that you understand that what happened truly did happen in a past you can’t change—then you’ll start to move on. And where are you going? You are moving forward on the path in front of you, right here, right now. Just start moving. And forget about figuring out what happened in the past “so as not to repeat it.” You don’t even have to feel like you “learned a lesson” or you got a “gift” from a relationship, or even any new skills or tools. You just have to start paying attention right now.

New Patterns of Thought

But how can you be sure that history won’t repeat itself? Again, the answer is simple, and lays the past to rest by keeping you in the present. Just learn to notice when things are out of balance in your life. And how will you know? There’s a built in signal that will always let you know when things are out of balance. It’s called stress. You want to take your awareness of the stressful feeling and try to find the stressful thought that is creating it. From there try to identify a thought that feels better. It may take some practice, but you will get better at it.

And when you consistently engage in the practice of identifying your stressful, negative thoughts and find alternative, better-feeling thoughts research shows that you are creating new neural pathways that will lead to long lasting benefits, like decreased anxiety and depression, and increased satisfaction and happiness. Bottom line: you will change, and as a consequence your world will change for the better, too.

Not everyone gets to make a new world. But people who want to put their past behind them have a golden opportunity to do so. And that is a gift. You can thank your old war buddy for it the next time you see him.

What do you think, Pinkies? Have you been able to let go of old wounds inflicted by others? What do you still carry with you? How is it affecting you? What is stopping you from releasing it, or shifting your focus?

At war no more,
Stacey

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Posted in Guest Pinkies, Owning Joy After Loss, Owning Surrender, Owning Your Emotions, Owning change, Personal Empowerment | 28 Comments »

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