Tell Yourself a Better Story

Every day, we tell stories from and about our life. Much of what we believe about our stories is based on perceptions. If we are honest with ourselves, we realize that our perceptions are not always based in fact; and we’d benefit from a shift.

How we relate to stories people tell us and we tell ourselves and others affects how emotionally involved we become. When we become emotionally involved, we tend to lose objectivity. Objectivity is where solutions and resolutions reside and is where the power of passionate detachment comes in handy. But what does that mean?

We associate “passionate” as being fully engaged with something or someone, and “detachment” as disengagement, perhaps even apathy. Not necessarily. Passionate detachment allows us to care deeply, yet release our attachment to emotional involvement that influences us in ways not always in our best interest or the best interest of others.

Life coach training teaches future coaches to practice passionate detachment, though it isn’t called that. This practice is vital if coaches are to assist clients to move forward and attain the outcome they desire. We listen to their stories, but only for so long, in order to gather information. We honor their emotions as genuine responses to their stories, as well as true for them; but if we buy into the stories, we falter in our ability to ask questions that help them explore options and make conscious decisions.

That is passionate detachment at work, and so is this: Coaches care deeply and are compassionate, but our role is to not accept that “nothing can be done” or “it’s too difficult” as is sometimes the complaint of clients—and our own complaint at times as individuals having our own personal challenges (and is why coaches have coaches). A coach’s role is to assist clients to go beyond challenges and to learn and grow from them. This approach is not limited to coaching. Any one of us can apply this to our own perceptions about our own experiences and about others’ experiences. But the fact is that it’s often easier to practice passionate detachment regarding others’ stories than with our own.

If your story is negative and you “feed” it or feed on it, if you allow it to be your reality in total, it's like nailing your shoe to the floor and turning in circles. You move around a great deal, but you go nowhere. Imagine that instead of saying, "I had a horrible childhood," you say, "My childhood was one of experiences that encouraged me to look within and clarify who I choose to be in life. Because of my experiences, I am who I am today and am proud of how I address challenges and grow from them. I may falter at times, but I’m a survivor, as well as someone who intends to thrive." The latter story can be just as true as the former. It's called Reframing. Or as American Actress, Shelley Winters, humorously said, "I'm not overweight; I'm just nine inches too short."

Why would anyone need or want to reframe their stories? Reality is what it is, isn't it? Is that always the case? We know that how we perceive things is how we then experience them. Sometimes, this means we ignore the obvious, perhaps make excuses. Other times, it means the story we tell ourselves causes us to feel bad rather than better, roiled rather than serene, or alone rather than supported by others—and always by Source.

During the course of a day, or a lifetime, we tell ourselves a lot of things. Maybe we say we can't be happy, confident, peaceful, or whatever we want to feel until we lose 20 pounds, have a certain bank balance, someone behaves a certain way, or we reach whatever destination we place out ahead of us. Will we attain our goals and dreams faster if we delay feeling the way we want to, until we accomplish what we aim to or others do what we want them to do?

Not according to Law of Attraction and many other ancient teachings. We waste time and energy, and delay results, waiting for circumstances and ourselves to be perfect or ideal so that we can feel good, instead of feeling that way, or at least a bit better, now. Yes, I know…this is not always as easy as it sounds here, for any of us, including me. But it works. We just have to find head-and-heart alignment about this. We have to take each incident and address it as it comes up. We may have to remind ourselves about this more than a few times.

A good time to reframe is when an outcome or experience is less than we expected or hoped for. Times such as these may be disappointing or frustrating but are not "failures." They are valuable information-gathering experiences. You can choose to make every outcome or process work for you rather than against you. This may not feel natural or simple, but if you do it, you'll move forward rather than stand still. That is the real power of reframing.

Reframing takes us out of the mono-vision we can get locked into. If we look around, we see lots of people enjoying themselves in ways we're putting off “until” or “when” or “if.” Do you know anyone who is not a millionaire but is happy? Do you know any men or women without “perfect” bodies or appearances who are in happy romantic relationships? Do you know people with health issues or physical disabilities who not only get around but enjoy a fulfilling life? One thing can be assumed about such people: they are reframing experts. They tell themselves different stories than what someone else with similar challenges may tell themselves.

Pick something you're putting off feeling better about until you reach a specific outcome. You can choose to feel good about you, just as you are, and good about life just as life is in this very moment. This doesn't mean you don't honor what you feel or don’t still aim at your target or desired outcome or experience; it means you give yourself permission to enjoy yourself and your life starting now, which can be facilitated with reframing your stories so you tell yourself something better or more meaningful.

If you can change your stories, you can change how you experience your life. You shouldn't deny that you have the emotions you do about your experiences, but you can use them to your benefit if you create a new story and find a way to relate to its truth, as in the examples above. Passionate detachment gets you there because it allows you to make conscious choices instead of emotional ones, and to decide to release whatever holds you back. It lifts the nail out of your shoe so you can move forward instead of stay stuck.

Is your story an Aesop, Grimm, Fairy, or Reframed tale? It's your choice. Reframing is not playing Pollyanna; it’s about not taking life solely on the terms of your ego-based perceptions but on the terms based in your spiritual awareness and personal power. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Do You Rub Your Thoughts the Wrong Way?

There is a phrase, “That person rubs me the wrong way,” that basically means the person (though it also could be a situation) doesn’t make you feel good. You, at times, do this with your thoughts (most of us do); so what works to shift this?

Esther Hicks of Abraham fame has a video on YouTube, “Now Is Where All Your Power Is, Part 2,” where she likens feeding negative thoughts—any thoughts that take you out of feeling good—with rubbing your hand on sandpaper. You wouldn’t rub your hand on sandpaper for an extended period of time because it would hurt, remove skin, require healing, maybe lead to infection, and so on.

But, you will rub your thoughts in this way . . . because it’s a habit that seems logical. And, likely, nearly everyone you know does this from time to time. You may have worked yourself, or watched someone do this, into a frothy state of anger or upset—about something that isn’t even happening at that moment, or is long or long-enough over.

A good example of this is replaying in your mind and verbally repeating events you’ve labeled “negative” that happened in the past. How many times will you need to replay and repeat “negative” past events before you’ll feel better about them or change them to “positives” in the present moment? You may even do this when you anticipate negative events that “might” happen.

What does this habit allow you to do?

It doesn’t empower you. It doesn’t allow you to feel appreciation. It doesn’t allow you to feel aligned with what’s good in your life. It doesn’t open you to inspired ideas and creative solutions. It doesn’t allow more good in this specific category to come to you; and if more good does pierce that energy, you may not appreciate it fully.

It does present you with an opportunity (maybe even Opportunity No. 5,798) to ask different questions about it such as: What can I learn about myself from this? If I don’t like what I learn, how can I shift that? In what way does this make me feel disempowered? How can and will I empower myself about this? What does this opportunity allow me to do, and will I do it?

The tendency to use your thoughts like sandpaper comes from knowing that whatever causes you to feel out of alignment, negative, angered, hurt, fearful . . . wasn’t or hasn’t been resolved or addressed—within you—in a way that allows you to feel the way you want to feel. Maybe it is something you can address in the present, and maybe what you need to address is what you’re doing to yourself (and perhaps others) in the present.

You may feel it’s logical to place responsibility for how you feel, or shifting that, onto someone directly involved. How’s that worked for you so far? Maybe it worked in some way (like from manipulation), but do you feel self-empowered? If you give any person responsibility for how you choose to feel, then that person has the power, not you. And, even if you practice this denial of your power, you know it’s not true—because of the resistance you experience.

Here is a way to shift any thought about anything you use repeatedly like sandpaper on your psyche, whether from the past or now:

1. Notice that you’re doing it. Notice what you’re allowing yourself to feel and be by doing it. Notice it without judgment, because self-criticism is another form of sandpaper—a very coarse form.
2. Ask, “What part of this reflects something in me?” You may not like this fact, but anything you harbor resentment about is something you do in a similar way, even though it may appear as different—so “different,” you may not even recognize you’re repeating a pattern you detest in another. This level of self-assessment may not (initially) feel good, but it is extraordinarily powerful on many levels.
3. Ask, “What can I do about this that I will do?” One thing you can do is find something to appreciate about this. You can appreciate that you notice it, that you ask the right questions from a sincere desire to shift and self-empower. You can appreciate how this process leads to deeper understanding and compassion of and for yourself and others. You can appreciate the feeling of relief you get when you empower yourself to stop rubbing your thoughts the wrong way and rub them the right way.

You may also experience challenges about allowing what you say you want into your life. Any thought about what you desire that rubs the wrong way, will slow or prevent what you want coming to you. It’s like saying No or Not Yet.

When this habit surfaces, you can diffuse it with this question: Does allowing this thought pattern support me to move forward, self-empower, and feel the way I want to feel now? If it needs addressing, address it. Otherwise, find and use a thought pattern that lifts your mind and emotions from the sandpaper. The most immediate relief is to stop doing it when you notice you’re doing it.

You are what you practice.
© 2010, Joyce Shafer

Do You Possess Your Life or Do You Endure It?

Here is a partial line from a P.D. James novel: “. . . preserving always the same look of puzzled acceptance of a life which had to be endured rather than possessed.” Do you possess or endure your life (or any part of it) at this moment?

Every day, each of us endures something, even if inconveniences of greater or lesser magnitude—considering some endure much more than most of us will ever have to think about or ever want to.

If you find you face a challenge or situation you believe you can do nothing about, take possession of it, meaning take possession of how you relate to it.

When you take possession of something, you take care of it and care for it; or, at least, that is the idea and responsibility of possession. Yet, self-possession is not the message most people are given about their lives, their self-worth, or their personal happiness and fulfillment.

Do you feel you possess all aspects of your life?

In order to do and be that, you’d have to possess your beliefs, feelings, thoughts, words, and actions—and your ability to shift into this owner mode when something rattles you out of harmony (please release the belief that you are “supposed” to stay in one emotional state of being at all times).

You’d have to possess or own the choices you’ve made and the outcomes they’ve created up to this moment (preferably as life lessons rather than reasons to self-judge), and as you continue forward. You’d have to decide if what you experience causes you to endure life or to live what you desire, “desire” meaning you deliberately choose how you wish to experience yourself and your moments, and from what chosen level of awareness.

Henry Ford said, "Don't find fault, find a remedy."

You can decide to take possession of what you choose to feel and do about whatever you feel you endure. When you do this, you are on your way to finding a remedy, first at the inner level, which may resolve an outer level matter. I say “may resolve” because though the inner level experience is always a priority (because it’s where YOU live), there are occasions when an outcome is a undesirable given and you have a responsibility to yourself to engage it in a way that supports you to have the highest level experience you can. This applies to those times when you find yourself in a scenario you believe you never would have chosen. But, what are you going to do with it? How and who will you choose to BE at such times?

There are aspects of your life you wholly possess at this time and, possibly, others you endure. Look at each part you endure and ask yourself how you might possess it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “Not At All” and 10 being “Completely,” how much do you feel in possession of your life? What about how you choose to feel about your experiences? If, say, you’re at 6 for either of these, what would you be willing to do to make them an 8?

What might it feel and look like if you endure your life?
What might it feel and look like if you possess it?

Here’s a thought to play with:

Let’s say you believe your outer life reflects your inner life (emotionally-charged thoughts and beliefs); or stated another way, your outer life (experiences and outcomes) are created by your inner beliefs and thoughts. Now think of the holodeck in the Star Trek programs. If you were using the holodeck and wanted to alter something (scenery, character, story/plot, etc.), which would be more genuinely effective: trying to change something in the hologram or altering the program/pattern in the computer to affect the hologram? A change attempted at the outer level must start at the inner. You know this, but do you always give it proper attention or realize its point-of-origin importance?

There’s a fast-food philosophy about “change”: It’s supposed to happen overnight or nearly that. If you gain an extra twenty pounds, you don’t do it overnight. Neither do you lose it overnight. And a crash weight loss program may create a desired outcome, but it won’t last and it isn’t healthy. You haven’t taken possession of a healthier lifestyle. There’s no philosophical difference between how you effectively approach weight loss for the body from “weight loss” for your behaviors.

If you’re ready to wholly possess your life, start with understanding you have a right and responsibility to yourself to do it. Let go of the crash-diet approach and allow yourself to make choices about what supports you as you move forward—one “pound” (aspect) at a time. Whatever you can and cannot alter, seek head and heart alignment about any choice, and you will keep yourself on course and enjoy and appreciate the journey more.

You are what you practice.

You’re welcome to reprint this article as long as you use my complete bio.

You Are More! Empowerment Coach Joyce Shafer, author of I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, but I Have Something to Say (jls1422@yahoo.com). Details, her books and e-books, and current free weekly newsletter at http://stateofappreciation.webs.com

Where Did THAT Belief Come From?!

You’re aware many of your beliefs were imposed on you—and you’re working on this (yes?). See if you’ve ever had a subconscious belief similar to one I was surprised to recently discover.

A cold wind interrupted our early, warmer spring weather. I woke and felt chilled air from my partially opened window and smiled at the warm comfort of my bed. I felt deep appreciation for the comfort and the moment—and that delicious feeling was immediately followed by guilt on behalf of those who may not have a warm bed in their own space. Where did that come from, I asked myself?

I flashed back to when I was six or seven years old, dawdling over a lunch I didn’t particularly like. I heard my grandmother say what was likely said to her, “Eat! There are starving people in (whatever country) who would be grateful to have that food.”

I considered several substrata layers of that surface thought:
You have to “eat” (accept) even what you don’t feel is appropriate for you or desirable. (This can tilt into settling for less in any area of your life or permitting forms of abuse.)
Whatever you feel is inappropriate or undesirable for you, you have no right to your feelings (dissatisfaction is inappropriate) or to want something better for yourself (who do you think you are), because others have less and would be grateful to have what you have or have been given.
You should feel grateful for whatever you have AND guilty because if you have anything, remember there are others who don’t have even that much. Somehow, what you have (been given, earned, acquired) directly connects to what others don’t (or don’t go after). And somewhere inside that thought is a responsibility for their situation that you should absorb—and feel bad about.

This reminds me of something Wayne Dyer said, and I’m paraphrasing: You can never be hungry enough to feed all the people who have no food. I assure you I was stunned to realize any guilt about having a modest comfort was roiling around in my psyche.

A statement intended to make sure a child received nourishment locked in way more than it was meant to. It locked in guilt as a stronger emotion than appreciation, which wears many “masks.” It locked in a holistic, circular relationship with beliefs about lack. What kind of vibrational matching or order fulfillment will that create? Not the desired one, that’s for sure. What opportunities for self-sabotage exist through that belief?

Reread the paraphrased Dyer statement. How many of your desired outcomes have subconscious guilt statements attached to them? Have you ever experienced a similar fleeting thought (or another) and ignored it? I’m almost willing to bet you’ve had them and brushed them away like an annoying insect. Next time this happens, pay attention. If not then, as soon as you have or can create a quiet moment to look at it and assess its implications in your life.

We learn beliefs, and we can unlearn them. We can decide to keep or not any belief imposed on and absorbed by us, no matter the source. If any belief withholds a fulfilling life from us, we have a responsibility to give it real thought and reassessment.

It doesn’t matter how “evolved” you are after applying yourself to self-improvement and new thought, such beliefs long-buried deeply in your psyche will surface—if they aren’t already obvious. Let go of any embarrassment about this, it’s not useful. A natural part of the self-evolving process is to open to such moments so you can engage them and let go of them—see them for what they are and aren’t.

Do a quick check-in on some of your beliefs. Pay attention to the first answer that pops into your mind. Then look at particular experiences and see if they match what came up.

Men/Women are . . .
My relationship with money is “destined” to be . . .
Love is . . .
My self-worth is based on . . .
That race/culture is . . .
Aging is . . .
If I make a mistake . . .
If I do what is appropriate for me . . .
My right to success is . . .
I can feel lovable or worthy of love only when . . .

We take a limiting belief and act as if it’s real, as though it’s the truth. Every belief is acted on automatically through our thoughts, feelings, words, choices, and actions. Then, we are not surprised—or are—by our experiences and results. Even when we attempt to change at the conscious level, we don’t realize our subconscious still accepts the ingrained belief—until we see it, let it go, and grab onto one that supports us.

We’ve been conditioned to measure everything by results instead of what motivates us. We are motivated and directed—aware of this or not—by our conscious and subconscious beliefs. A good question about anything is what do you believe and who do you believe it for? If it’s not for you, what would you like to do about it?

Doing more of the same—thoughts, feelings, words, beliefs, actions—will not bring you different results.

Here’s a mental exercise from the training manual created by Bruce Schneider, Founder of iPEC (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching). It works best if you allow private time to align with the feeling of it as a “real” experience.

“Imagine that you have just awakened from a night’s rest and whatever challenge you have come here with was miraculously overcome while you were sleeping. The challenge was completely solved overnight; but you were sleeping, and so you didn’t know it was solved. You wake up and something is different. You inherently know that something is different, that something must have happened during the night. What is the first thing you notice that confirms that something actually did happen?”

Out-of-balance beliefs create tension. Tension reminds you to return to the truth: You are an infinite creative consciousness deliberately having a human experience.

You are what you practice.

Feel free to reprint this article. Just include my bio as a complete statement.

(Test-drive Reinvent Yourself. Visit the Empowerment Extras page on my State of Appreciation Website to see how you can get Implement 3—Design Your Magnetic Life and Business Vision free!) Self-Doubters & Second-Guessers: learn to trust and follow what is natural, fulfilling, and even fun for you in life or business. Let Reinvent Yourself: Refuse to Settle for Less in Life and Business e-book or coaching program show you how. You Are More! Empowerment Coach Joyce Shafer, author of I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, but I Have Something to Say (jls1422@yahoo.com). Details, her books and e-books, and current free weekly newsletter at http://stateofappreciation.webs.com

Thought for today . . .

Perceptions affect everything. Do your perceptions belong to you--or to someone else?