Leaving Parts of Self in the Car

My clients this week reminded me of an egregious reality happening in our society. We depart for work and by the time we arrive at the office, we've made the unconscious choice to leave parts of ourselves in the car. We crack the window slightly for air and keep the parts we've deemed unacceptable or inappropriate for the workplace waiting to be reunited at the close of business.

I used the word part very intentionally because it's as if we're fragmented into disparate pieces of self. A young boy gets the message early in life that it's not okay to show emotions, so he creates an overly brawny part of himself. The role of this new part is to manufacture a repertoire of coping mechanisms that will ensure he stays clear of any emotionally uncomfortable circumstances. By the time this young boy is an adult and gainfully employed, it's the strong and overly masculine new part that gets to ride in the front seat and join him at the office with all the behavioral diversions meant to keep him safe. The more compassionate and authentic part gets to wait at the park-n-ride.

I was on an airplane yesterday when I wondered about the part of me that finds writing difficult. Are my behavioral diversions really just coping mechanisms? Because hell, I'd rather strap on a car and walk through the desert than put my fingers to the keyboard these days. And for some reason, this new blog adventure has exacerbated the problem. Writing used to be incredibly easy, so what's changed?

As we started the bumpy decent into Vegas - trays in locked position - I decided a parts integration was necessary. My goal was to determine what the resistant writer really wants, because there is always a positive intention behind all misaligned behavior. And I'm happy to report that in the short window of time it took to connect this the tarmac, I was absolutely clear about my inability to write.

Here's the headline: my unconscious mind feels it is dangerous to write about my work. With that awareness, I am reminded of a time in my childhood where I had written on a seemingly unorthodox topic. While most of the people in my conservative east coast public school were still writing about U.S. presidents or the Industrial Revolution, I picked the seemingly controversial topic of persecuted lesbians in concentration camps. At the time, I was chastised by my peers and certainly felt a little alienated. So, you see, this new part was trying to protect me from being judged again. As a result, the part of me that wanted to write about non-mainstream topics was told to stay small and out of sight.

Once I connected with the part that wanted to protect me, however misguided in its strategy, I moved to reintegrate the part by identifying its highest positive intention and purpose. It's a lovely process, but always a negotiation of sorts.

By the time I heard the flight attendant's words "Welcome to Vegas. The local time is 4:10 pm. Please remain seated with your seat belt fastened." the part that writes with ease and grace made her way from the back of the plane to join me in seat 8A. It appears we had been separated for some time, which might explain the already deployed oxygen mask. Of course... there aren't windows to crack on an Airbus 320.

And now that the resistant part is reunited with the whole, I am happy to share that my writing is flowing this morning. Who would guess change can be this easy.

Unlearning to Wholeness

We were all born whole, perfect, and full of divine perfection. Then life happens…and little by little…experience by experience…we unlearn how to plug into this natural state of being.

I can still remember the first time I heard someone declare we are already whole and perfect. I was in the early stages of my own awakening. My internal response was something like this, “Not me sista. You must be thinking about someone else who didn’t live my life.” Oh, don’t get me wrong – I wanted to feel the wholeness, but it felt like there was an ocean between me and those words.

Part of the problem for me was that no one could tell me HOW to reconnect with that sense of being. Instead, I was being asked to regurgitate someone else's words, philosophy, affirmations, beliefs and wait for them to become my own. After years of searching for how to reconnect, I was incredibly self-aware and grateful to finally understand the philosophical benefits of loving myself the way I am. However, it was still similar to hearing someone describe the details of their favorite meal over and over again: it was intimately familiar, but I’d never tasted it myself.

Until, that is, I found the answer to what was blocking my ability to plug into THAT feeling. It was my mind. For me, self-awareness, forgiveness work, meditation - even prayer - wasn’t enough. Meditation just stopped the water in my head from swirling long enough to allow the sediment to fall to the bottom, but the moment my butt left the pillow the debris was flying again. For me personally, it became obvious I needed to remove the sediment and create a clearing.

It was my own training in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy that allowed me to discover what creates the sediment – unresolved negative emotions and limiting beliefs. Our beliefs send direct neurological commands to the body and, over time, give birth to programs and strategies that aren't serving us. So most of us will need to unlearn strategies to reconnect to the sense of self-love, and the easiest way to do that is by letting go of old beliefs.

Through my training I learned how to remove the sediment one limiting belief at a time…I’m not good enough…I don’t deserve happiness or success…I’m not smart enough…and I could feel myself getting more congruent. It wasn’t a feeling of wholeness, but more a sense of comfort with who I am. And then one Saturday morning things changed radically. The feeling of congruency transformed into a sense self-love I didn’t know existed.

I was on my unmade bed on a Saturday morning letting go of a seemingly benign limiting belief - I have to do things on my own because I can’t count on other people. As I released the belief and extracted the lesson using the techniques I use today with my clients, a new belief came into my awareness. It rocked me to my core.

You are never alone; God is always with you.

This notion of God seemed profound because God wasn't part of my language. In fact, I'd spent my whole life avoiding the g-word. And yet, this new belief viscerally vibrated throughout my entire body. So much so, it brought me to tears with the trueness of the statement. And, in that moment, I could feel the wholeness and connectedness of divine perfection that is also a part of me. That belief was the last mental obstacle standing in the way of knowing what wholeness feels like.

And so, the unlearning continues...

Inviting Knowing Into the Conversation

Western philosophy tells us that what differentiates humans from other species is our cognitive ability. As I look around at the advancements and technologies we enjoy, I am deeply grateful for our thinking mind and everything the gray matter makes possible: self-awareness, rationalization, measure of progress, the ability to analyze, dreaming of the future, etc. And yet, I sometimes feel we’ve come to pay too much homage to thinking. It's 9:30 in the morning and I already have two examples.

I had just taken my exhausted body to bed when I started to feel a little panicked about my impending morning meeting with my writing coach. I haven't been the dutiful student over the last week. In other words, I didn't have a lot of product to show for my time. Since I'm required to send her something to read beforehand, I knew I would be waking up in the middle of my REM sleep cycle to do some writing. UGH. And yet, something told me we would not be meeting this morning. The meeting was clearly on my calendar and we talk every Thursday, but somehow the truth felt different. My knowing mind said don't panic. And yet, I ignored my intuition and set the alarm for 4:01 am anyway.

Short story, we didn't have a meeting today. Apparently, it was a communication mix-up. I wasn't surprised when I received her email apologizing for the confusion. In fact, I thought..."of course." If I would have trusted my intuition, hitting the snooze button half a dozen times, writing begrudgingly without coffee, and listening to my internal voice could have all been avoided with a quick phone call.

Once I realized I'd discounted this internal wisdom, I immediately thought about the on-going saga of the lost house key. It has been a week since the key went missing from its secret outside hiding place. My gut had been telling me to look at the bottom of my purse, but that made no sense at all. My earlier epiphany pushed my cognitive mind aside and I rummaged my way to the bottom of my purse. Yup, there it was.

This is a great reminder that by the time most of us become adults we have learned to discount our gut instincts. Socrates said we were born knowing everything, but we unlearn as we grow and mature. Today, this makes perfect sense to me. By the time we reach early adulthood we have learned to ignore the internal whispers of insight, because we are bombarded with messages about the importance of intellect and being a rational human being. So we move through life having a conversation with our thinking mind, which is often just telling us stories, making excuses, and creating reasons for why the knowing mind should not be included in the dialog.

I've decided to bring my gut into more conversations. It seems today's lesson is the importance of listening, even when we can't understand or prove the existence of what feels true.

Instant Emotional Healing. Really?

We want fast food, speedy customer service, instant messaging and expedited payments. And yet, there is something about the familiar that wants us to stay connected to Freud’s old paradigm that healing, forgiveness, and letting go of old beliefs is an arduous task that will take years. So, when I declare I offer a new type of coaching that allows people to achieve more of what they want...faster...some folks get skeptical. And, that is exactly what happened at the TEDx event last night.

I was at the top of the Space Needle with seventy-five leaders who share my passion for innovation. The ideas and business cards were moving so quickly around the high-top cocktail tables we could have been at a speed dating event. Early in the evening I found myself in an engaging conversation with a consultant about his work. By the time the topic of my vocation surfaced, there was already a lovely rapport established. But when I shared what I do for a living, you would have thought I grew a third eye in those brief moments.

After some silence he said, “I believe in what you do”, but his dodging eyes and tapping hand told me something entirely different. He eventually shared he was a trained counselor by trade, which explained a lot.

The traditional therapeutic community doesn't believe in the notion of instant healing and making change easier. The field of psychology is slow to adopt the notion that we can heal, grow, and evolve more quickly with new therapies. Again, it’s interesting to me, because we love the whole premise of FAST in our culture. I wonder why it doesn't apply to the healing community. Instead, we want painstaking self-awareness to carry all the water for change. I'm here to tell you that self-awareness is the invitation to show up differently, but it's not always enough to create sustainable change.

I have to admit I was a reluctant advocate myself until a few years ago. At the time, I was acutely aware of my own themes in life. I had already come to terms with my lifetime of quick, ungraceful exits. I knew every job I left in the past was an attempt to avoid some inevitable disappointment that was outside my conscious awareness. I understood that abandoning my children was an inexcusable attempt to save them from myself. I had come to grips with the cruelness of leaving great loves while the houselights were down during intermission. But the awareness wasn't enough to change the feeling I still held in my body that I didn't deserve happiness.

I can still remember when I released undeserving from my body. I wish I could declare it unfolded in the solitude of an Ashram, but the recollection of the hotel carpet with its grotesquely over-sized flowers of fuchsia, yellow and orange still reminds me otherwise. I was in a crowded hotel conference room attending a training session for one of the healing modalities I use today in my practice. I know - lacking cinematic quality, huh? But alas, the irony of the location confirms you don't have to be in India to change the course of your life.

In a period of 15 minutes, I untethered from that old belief, captured my lessons, and experienced a sense of self-forgiveness that is still incredibly humbling. I felt lighter, at peace, and knew immediately I wanted to offer this gift to others. More important, I want to release all the other beliefs that weren't serving me. With each belief I released, I was invited to show up differently in the world.

And yet, I know it can be easy to scoff at the notion that we can resolve negative emotions, release old beliefs, and take a quick ride to instant healing if you haven't experienced it first-hand. But I have my own experiences that allow me to be unapologetic for not conforming to the framework of the larger healing community. For every person who does not believe or understand what I do, there are others who are deeply curious and courageously ready. My job is not to convince anyone, but to meet people where they are.

The Elephant is in Charge

I was shocked when I realized how easy it is to get more of what we want in life if we'd just better understand how to harness the power of the mind. And yet, I am disappointed that more people aren’t talking about how the unconscious mind can make or break progress, because it's really in charge. I love the analogy used by the Buddhists which, I think, best describes the division of duties between the conscious and unconscious mind. They liken the conscious mind to the rider and the unconscious mind to the elephant. Go ahead - put them together in your mind and ask yourself, who’s really in charge?

Today, ancient wisdom meets science and confirms what we already know to be true. The conscious mind is estimated to carry less than ten percent of our operating capacity. Some scientists actually say that percentage could be as low as two percent. Of course, we all understand the rider is responsible for our thinking capacity, but this aspect of our operating model is also where we dream about what’s possible, establish goals, and measure progress. So, when the rider establishes a goal to travel through the jungle it will be, of course, the elephant who determines how or if the journey happens at all. Just the magnitude of this alone makes me wonder why more people aren’t more curious about how the unconscious mind operates.

It is important to understand the unconscious mind and the elephant are similar, in that, they both have dominating forces that are significantly more powerful than their physical size. Just for starters, the unconscious mind has the ability to run and preserve all the complex systems of the body. This means we don’t have to consciously think about things like operating the heart, hydrating eyes, growing hair, or ensuring a new layer of stomach lining gets replaced every few days. Can I get a hallelujah for this alone?!

Also, they say an elephant never forgets and the unconscious mind is no different. We have a lifetime of experiences and memories which are collected, categorized, date stamped, and archived for easy retrieval by the unconscious mind. This massive database of information is based on the past, but determines what we see and experience, and how we navigate the future.

In other words, our unconscious mind is like an elephant who assumes it already knows the terrain and the most expeditious route through the jungle. As you can imagine, looking through the lens of the past can create misperceptions, miscalculations and missed opportunities. So, in the absence of examining what resides in the unconscious mind, it’s easy to find ourselves traveling through the same jungle and around the same palm tree repeatedly...because that’s what elephants do.

The Unfortunate Phenomenon

The greatest obstacle to success is actually hard-wired into the brain.  In the same way we can breathe, drive a car, or sing the words to our favorite song without any conscious thought, we have automatic programs that tell us what to see and how to think, feel, and behave.  In other words, we are on automatic pilot.  But, most people don’t understand are the enormous risks associated with this automatic pilot we’ve come to take for granted.

The risks are tied directly to a design flaw of the brain.  In the simplest terms, the brain is wired first and foremost for safety.  This stems back to the time of primal survival, which is why we sometimes refer to the internal mechanism that stores our automatic programs, runs the body and manages the self-preservation system as the old brain.  Where the old brain comes fully functional at birth, the rational and cognitive part of our brain will not mature until early adulthood.  In the absence of the logical counterbalance in our childhood, we misinterpret life’s experiences and messages through the lens of self-preservation and fear.  So without consciously realizing it, many of us move into adulthood with old programs born from disempowering beliefs.  At Awakening Works, we call this a protective mindset, which is a compilation of self-limiting beliefs created early in life.  

I want to be clear that we are not just talking about unproductive thoughts.  These are beliefs—deeply held definitions of right or wrong that send direct neurological commands to the body.    If you believe you’re not good enough, you might unconsciously give up on the notion of applying for the big promotion at the moment of contemplation.  A striving for perfection and control could be born from the belief I am not perfect or capable. If you believe I don’t deserve prosperity, you will not see or realize our opportunities to prosper.  Every belief unconsciously tells you what you shouldn’t or can’t do and comes with a promise to protect you.  
     
What we’ve come to understand at Awakening Works is that we can uninstall the patterns of fear and avoidance that create a protective mindset and plague our lives with disappointment.  Yes, we can alter the internal programming that keeps us small and blocks our ability to step into the divine magnificence that is our birthright.  We know it is possible to reverse this unfortunate phenomenon and empower people to step back into their full potential. Our clients have proved it to us, again and again.  And, this is what I'll be writing about. 

Waiting for Another Bathtub Moment

For years I've been writing a book in my mind. And yet, regardless of the clarity I feel about becoming an author one day, I find myself at an uncomfortable stalemate. Frustrated. Occasionally, the ideas swirling in my head translate themselves onto the written page. However, I seem to live in the paradox of being wholly inspired, but stalled in my inability to make any meaningful progress. The annoyance is exacerbated by the clarity I feel.

This clarity arrived in the bathtub. I had just settled into the warm bubble-filled water with yet another book when the familiar question popped into my mind, “will this be the one?” This question was like an old friend who moved into my psyche right after the clairvoyant declared a book would change my life. It had been twenty-five years since that early declaration at one of my mom’s physic parties. (Yes, where most moms were having Tupperware parties - my mother was gathering a group of women around wine and cheese and a clairvoyant who smelled of my grandmother.) Since then, it proved nearly impossible to approach a book without anticipating a 'eureka' moment. Two decades of disappointments kept me reading, and reading.

But this particular bathtub moment changed everything. This time, the habitual question popped into my mind...and an unexpected retort followed with lightning speed.

No, silly. You’re not going to read a book. You. Are. Going. To. Write. One!

The optimistic response was delivered in my voice, but the thought was foreign. The tears in my eyes told me it was true. I was so incredibly touched by the shift in perspective, but was perplexed about what topic would one day feel worthy of ink. And yet, the revelation was accompanied by an unfamiliar, but welcomed, sense of hope.

Over the last seven years I have wondered relentlessly why that moment has seemed so poignant. Today it became clear. When I submerged myself in my new bathtub that evening, I was already in the throes of making some positive changes in my life. I'd reacquainted myself with my children and family, ended a long-term relationship that wasn't working, and was getting brutally honest about what else needed to change. I already knew I had spent most of my life chasing happiness in all the wrong places, but fixing what isn't working is very different than dreaming about what's possible. When I gave myself permission to entertain the notion of writing a book, it started a quest to learn the real secrets to happiness. I now understand that it was that little inkling of hope that fueled my journey over the years to reclaim my life as my own.

Today I am incredibly grateful to declare that a happiness resides in me that I couldn't have anticipated. My contentment isn't dependent on other people or circumstances. At my core, I feel I AM ENOUGH. My pathway to this state of being has been a circuitous adventure, and I've accumulated lessons and knowledge that ultimately changed my life. I am now ready to share what I've learned with others who might feel stuck, stymied, uninspired, or afraid of change...I will write for them.

So, it might seem a little strange that I choose to start a blog as I myself feel a little stuck in my writing. I'm in the midst of a circumstance that appears to be without the speed, ease and grace I seem to enjoy so readily these days in all other areas of my life. So, this is a public declaration to meet myself where I am. Gather the lessons I may have missed. Swim in my own paradox of inspiration and inaction to find that creative tension. Surrender to uncertainty. Write a few paragraphs here, a couple of musings there....let it unfold as it should…and wait for another bathtub moment.