Pair #32 Phone a Friend

"When you're down and troubled
and you need some lovin care
and nothin, oh, nothin is going right..."
James Taylor and Carol King, You've Got A Friend

I remember thinking back over some of the really hard times in my life, times when I was dumped, stalked or just plain broke... when I realized something really huge.  The first thing I realized was that everything I was so convinced that I wouldn't survive - I had. I am here.  But the really BIG thing that occurred to me was that the way I had got through most of those times was thanks to friends.

There were friends who gave me places to stay, friends who took me out to cheer me up, friends who listened and friends who told me the truth when I didn't want to hear it.

In short there were people, throughout my life, and at key moments, who simply wouldn't allow me to fall all the way.

To all those wonderful people: thank you.  I am eternally grateful.

If God exists, I am thinking that maybe he shows up in the form of your friends.

You know there is a difference between Hard Skills and Soft Skills when you tell your parents you are leaving medical school to study sociology.

Hard skills are things like math and hammering nails.  It's the stuff we consider employable and usable.  Soft skills are things like relating and intuition. Which we consider nice but optional.  In business, they are the first training expenditures to be dropped when budget restrictions hit; it's harder to understand the ROI (Return On Investment) on communication skills, than it is for a bookeeping.

How much we undervalue the softer skills of life came home to me as I attended a Supercoach Masterclass where Kevin Laye demonstrated (his particularly successful practice of) Thought Field Therapy. TFT is a quick and effective way of ending stress, phobias and a host of other modern plagues  It can even resolve physical pain in record time. Yes, we are talking minutes.  Kevin gave many examples of the absolute effectiveness of this work.

In the discussion with Kevin afterwards, he was asked about the hard evidence behind why this works. 

Kevin's response was genius:

Think of someone you love he said. Everyone has someone or an animal they love.  He asked the group to consider how they would measure that love - inches? centimeters? miles?  Where does that love live?  Your brain? Your physical heart? Your blood? How would you show it to me or take it from place to place - In a box? A wheelbarrow? In a thimble? 

Love is something we know exists.  Yet we can't 'prove' it exists with physical evidence.

I don’t think he was suggesting TFT works on love, but rather pointing out that many things that we accept exist and know are real live on the level of what we cannot see or measure.  If you look around don't you ever wonder what that certain something is that successful people have?  Don't we say "I wish I could bottle that?"  We are talking about something beyond technical competence.  Yet when we make our own choices, we'll choose to acquire more competencies.

It just got me to thinking how many of the ‘softer’ things that are essential to a good life are immeasurable and yet immeasurably valuable.  I thought how often I’d made learning decisions based on what seemed practical and ignored the fluffy stuff because I was unsure of the ROI.  That cost me in the long run.

Every time we hesitate to invest in growing and developing our entire selves, and not just the 'hard' skills, we forget this.  

Or maybe we just don’t believe that a good life is possible; only a technically competent one.

A special complaint place used to be allocated for moaning about other individuals - it was called the water cooler.  And although that’s now probably more likely to be the coffee room or the smoking area, figuratively speaking, we all have ‘gathered round the water cooler’ with friend or colleagues to do some collective kvetching about people who annoy us.

A while ago a friend was telling me her particular complaint about a long-time customer of the place where she works.  After a long story about what happened between them, the real complaint landed: “I would NEVER that.  He should not have said what he said.” (substitute: “they should know better,” “that’s outrageous,” etc.)

My response to her predicament was, “Oh, I understand.  You were expecting someone else to show up in this person’s body that day?”

The easiest way to be frustrated daily is simple:  Take someone and expect them to act or speak differently than they do.  This recipe for you feeling bad will work 100% of the time.  

Every time I have tried to control others I’ve failed.  That goes for wanting them to stop doing something as well as wanting them to feel better. People do exactly and precisely what they want to do and that doesn’t always please us.  And frankly. That really isn’t their job anyway.

If I don’t like how someone is behaving, I either get out of dodge or put a boundary down more strongly than before.  A boundary is not a behavioral dictate to another, it is a clear statement about what can and cannot be done in your presence.  You can tell a boundary becuase you can actually back up if you need to. 

But although we know that we cannot control people and we are still complaining that they act in ways that make us unhappy and implying if only they would just stop being themselves, we could feel fine.

That's a recipe for frustration.  Give it up.

The only question we ever really face is not “how do I make them act differently?” but “how do I want to feel right now?” 

When you know that, then you know what to do.

Talking to my Dad on the phone a while ago and I remember he said, "I understand now that every time we meet someone, no matter who, the purpose is always love." 

I pulled over to the side of the road to consider this for a moment.  He went on:

"I've realized the problem of my life is that I would meet someone and immediately think I knew or could quickly figure out 'what kind of love' exactly. Then I would try to force everything and them into that mold.  What A Disaster.  Now I know just to love and allow things to unfold to where they naturally settle and be whatever they are supposed to be."

Could I just open up to the idea that I might not know what any single encounter might be 'for'? 

Do I really need to know the purpose of every relationship from the moment we meet?  What sense does it make to size people up against a list or quickly make up my mind what role they'll play in my life? Does that really make my relationships easy, open, friendly and fun?  Or does it immediately turn them into scoreboards with rule sets and referees? And sometimes we haven't even agreed what game we are both playing!

Ah.

Don't you hate it when your Dad's right?

p.s. My dad's books are available on Amazon.com. He is Lee Coit, and his titles are 'Being', 'Listening' and 'Accepting'.  He writes about his experiences learning to listen and follow his inner voice. Go figure.

Oh, don't tell him I told you but he's almost ready with the new book on relationships.
No pressure or anything, Pops!
(He also wore those horn-rimmed glasses when I was a kid)

Today is just a quick reminder to check in on self care.  For me, that is!

Self Care is a practice I have come to take seriously for one reason: Whenever something in my life is going wrong, or I'm not handling something well, or things just appear to be going generally nutso, my self care has almost always slipped. 

In my case it will be either that I'm not doing what I know nourishes me, or I'm doing it, but only half-heartedly. 

When I say 'self care' I mean more than physical exercise.  I mean my own daily commitment to sit quietly, to read, to get in touch with what I'm grateful for and at the moment, to also do one of the daily lessons from A Course in MIracles.

I do physical exercise too, and yes, if that slips my mind gets a bit duller, and I feel tired and lackluster. Exercise is great, all forms, strenuous and gentle... I've come to appreciate the need for excellent care and feeding of the body! 

At the same time, if physical exercise is my only form of self care, I find it's not enough. I need a spiritual nourishment and a mental resting place each day.

So as James Taylor sings:
"If you're down
and troubled
and you need some love and care
and nothing,
nothing is going right
close your eyes..."

...and think of your self care.

More on this with some exercises you might try the Tips and Ideas section  and in particular this article on Mindfully Living

I spent a year as an apprentice with Michael Neill and I can tell you there is one thing Michael knows better than anyone and that's how to tip the balance of life toward inspiration.  When you consider that many of us struggle to get out of perspiration and into inspiration even for a short minute it’s a source of hope to watch Michael proving there's another way.

The quirky thing about Michael’s brand of inspired is that he works very hard at it. In an effortless kind of way. Now, I don’t propose that Michael’s or anyone’s life as the “THE formula” but it’s certainly worth thinking about this.

More often than not the idea of "Living an Inspired Life" sounds like a spiritual or artsy or deeply cool -but faraway thing.  But real inspiration, funnily enough, might just be mundane.  Rather than the big bang that will finally hit you and reveal your life purpose and the secrets of the universe... in practice it might be more like: "Yay! I woke up today! What Next?"

And here's the thing about people who are genuinely thrilled by waking up again  so they can do the things they enjoy... very often they are also successful.  Or maybe I should put it this way, successful people seem to also love what they do.

So which comes first?  How many of us are hoping the success is what will bring us the satisfaction?

I think living inspired is a minor art.  And ‘inspired’ is a terrible word for it really.   It’s just not the getting-psyched-up and be-a-go-getter thing, nor does it mean I put a flower behind my right ear and dedicate my life to verse - from what I can tell it is the simple art of genuinely falling in love with your life.  

Then, of course, it all goes slightly wonky.. because when you are in love with your life, hard work can be a big part of it.  Sometimes you toil hard and you sweat.  Other times you rest and float.  Maybe you don’t so much balance between % inspiration and %perspiration, as allowing inspiration to decide what’s worth sweating over while you've got that smile on your face.

Hear Michael on the radio show this Friday, May 7th, live at 10 am Pacific as we talk about waving goodbye to money fear.
(if you miss it, go here for the archive after the show)

1. Convert the word 'maybe' to a clear 'yes' or 'no'
2. Swap the words 'I think ...' to 'In my experience what I notice is...'
3. Change your next complaint into a clear request
4. Use the words "I will" only for real promises you intend to keep
5. Shut up (and listen instead of saying anything)
6. Say 'tell me more' instead of giving an opinion

Will you let me know what happens when you try these out? 

They really have changed my life.

One of the things that has most brought me crashing to the floor in my romantic relationships has been that I tended to see what I want to see about people, rather than actually letting them show me who they are. The very best way to deceive and fool oneself is to focus on the things about the other person that most meet our needs rather than taking in the whole person. 

If you’ve ever found yourself married to say, an obsessive compulsive, chances are that the signs were there in week #1, if not on the first date. 

An open attitude of discovering another requires withdrawing the agenda a bit and taking more notice of what’s right in front of us.  I suspect it’s also greatly helped by being open yourself, being open to them and then not taking the whole thing so damn personally.

In dating, think simple and obvious: if someone is saying that  they are interested in seeing you, what usually happens is they make time to see you.  

How many girlfriend conversations do we need to figure that out?  All you have to do is notice.  And carry on living your wonderful life.

Speaking as a woman, I think we girls will be much happier if we take notice of what’s there and don’t take things so personally.  Don’t make excuses for why what you want is not showing up.  Like why he’s not calling.  That’s just what you want to happen.  Wanting things to be different when they are not.  Give that up in favor of noticing that what is actually going on. It’s so much kinder on you. As Byron Katie says, reality is what it is.  How do I know I want to stand up?  I’m standing.

The way I know someone wants to talk to me is they get in touch. The way I  know that someone wants to see me is they arrange to do that.  in the end, if you let reality show you the way,  it's not nearly as complicated as what we tell ourselves and there is very little to figure out.  Just a process of seeing. 

And then you can use the energy you saved for something else.