Archive for August, 2010

Many of us have been challenged professionally, especially in these stressful, harsh economic times. Some of us are forced to shift what we do for a living, while others have been able to take some time to consider what it is they really want to do professionally. No matter your situation, it might be a good time to align with the BIG WHY – why are you in your career in the first place?

Many automatically say it’s for the money or the benefits. And, while that certainly may be a part of the big career picture, there truly are other forces at work in our choices for our own lines of work. You can discover your career values (or any of your life’s values like health, personal development, fitness, home life, for that matter) by asking yourself what is truly important to you about your career. It’s a powerful question, and one that needs revisiting from time to time.

Try this: take a minute to sit down and write out at least 10 values that are important to you about your career. Once you’ve made that list, place them in the order of importance to you.

For example:
1. Helping people
2. Educating people
3. Beautiful surroundings
4. Freedom
5. Giving back

and so on…

Once you rank your values in the order of importance to you, start at the top of your list, and ask yourself what is important to you about that particular value. What are the activities or duties you have in your current work that are connected to that value?

For example, let’s work with helping people. What’s important to you about achieving this value in life? What do you get out of helping others? Do you currently help others in your job? In other areas of your life? How? When? Why is this rewarding to you? How does this feed who you really are?

Think about these answers carefully, but, remember, this is just a snapshot in time. It’s how you’re feeling about your life and activities like work and values today – it may shift some on another day, and that’s why it’s neat to create these lists multiple times. But, the answers are indeed revealing. Your core values should be consistent. And, if they aren’t present in your current work, maybe there’s some room for you to explore other options, other work or activities that align with what you say is most important to you in life.

Keep thinking and making lists of values. Review them to see where the patterns lie. Also, check for negative statements – while it’s important to know what you don’t want to do, what you don’t value, this type of list is helpful for moving forward. When you really see what you love to do, acknowledge what you most value, then you can make some steps to get more of such activities in your work (and personal!) life. Why compromise when you know what makes you happy? You’ll be able to chart out a path that is rich and meaningful to you that is rooted in your core values.

We grew up in a world where it isn’t acceptable – as adults – to express feelings like anger. Babies and children have their emotions and express them without judgment. It isn’t until we are adults that we begin to label feelings as good or bad. And, it isn’t until we are adults that we learn to hold back how we truly feel.

So many of us are scared by our emotions. We worry that if we feel what we feel, we will completely fall apart. We bottle up our emotions deep inside. We edit what we feel when expressing ourselves to others. But the true healing comes from doing tough emotional work – having, expressing, and looking at our feelings in order to make sense of ourselves in the world.

Emotional work is not something you get over. It’s something you do if you want to shift or evolve your life. And, it’s difficult to work through “our stuff”, to do the challenging emotional work that will propel us forward towards healthy relationships and a strong internal emotional life.

People always ask me if and when their work, their hard work, is ever going to end. Instead of looking for the end of this work, treat it like it’s a destination. Treat your inner work like a journey of discovery. In this journey, by connecting with your heart, you can find joy and that idea that you are eternal. Why would you want that process, that feeling to end?

Emotion is energy in motion. Feelings change the minute you acknowledge them and embrace them. Most folks attach a story to their negative feelings instead of just experiencing them and processing through the hurdles and bumps. We tend to move around our hearts, skipping over what we truly feel, instead of going through the heart to get another perspective about our emotions.

Winston Churchill said: “If you are going to go through hell, keep going.” For inspiration for our difficult inner work this sentiment can perhaps best be paraphrased as to get out you gotta go through.

Commit to doing the hard work. Commit to go through and coming out on the other side with a fresh, powerful perspective. Commit to yourself. It takes courage and strength to look at all that’s going on inside, experience and process raw emotions, and find core issues and patterns that could change. When you do begin this work, you’ll be on your way to developing your authentic self that can take you to the next level of joy.

It sounds sort of funny, but developing a relationship with your heart is strongly connected to how you develop relationships. This most intimate of relationships guides the sorts of people you attract, too.

Being present for yourself is the anchor you must develop in order to forge healthy emotions and relationships. Contrary to how may of us operate, another person is not the anchor.

When we show up for ourselves everyday by parenting our hearts our other intimate relationships are not so scary or daunting. When your own heart is nurtured, others can then be nurtured by us in a healthy way as well.

Think of your heart as a child. (The child is a metaphor for the heart.)
Whatever your childhood issues are that you still may be working through will probably pop up at some time through your relationships. What our issues or triggers were as children are what we tend to attract in life. For example, if your issue is abandonment, you might have a pattern of choosing relationships where you are abandoned or you might attract situations that provide an opportunity or need to be healed.

People in your life are your messengers to help you heal your wounded heart. Take cues from the patterns you’ve established in your relationships to learn what to heal within.

And, then ask, what do you do to love yourself?

Consider having a relationship with your heart – the kind of relationship you would want with a partner. Look through the eyes of your heart. Be a best friend to yourself. Treat your heart like you would treat your own child’s heart if he was hurt, angry, sad, or afraid. What would you do for your distressed child? Would you distract your child or sit with her and validate your her feelings over and over and over again until the feelings process through? When you offer unconditional love, and really show up for your heart (as you would for your child), you can move through hurt to heal.

What do you do when you feel hurt? Do you call someone? Walk, listen to music, or eat? Ask yourself: how can I be there for myself now? How can I show up for myself and trust that I am taking care of my feelings now?

Many of my clients come to me to deal with their anxiety and fear and transform it into positive energy that feeds them rather than takes energy away from their lives. The causes for such heavy emotions are varied, of course, and I hear throughout my daily/weekly sessions that people are afraid of these emotions – and are doing everything in their power to avoid feeling fearful.

In my experience, avoidance is probably not the best strategy as typically the emotion you are trying to avoid comes back with a vengeance. Negative emotions can fester, too, which then can transform into fatigue or other severe health problems. Not the kind of transformation most of us seek.

There are many steps I teach my clients to take to resolve negative emotions in order to help them regulate their energy and give them their power back.

If you avoid your feelings, or are plagued by fear and anxiety, you can do something for yourself immediately. This isn’t a quick fix but a first step at help until you can get the appropriate assistance to guide you in resolving the root of your true problem.

Take Time Out
Sit comfortably. Begin breathing in through your nose, and out through the mouth with your exhale lasting approximately twice as long as your inhale. Count to yourself to guide this practice. Raise your head every so slightly. Look up and find a spot on the wall or some area or object you can focus on. Soften your breathing as you focus on this spot. Keep your eyes fixed on the spot or object and start spreading your awareness to the periphery. Notice while keeping your eyes fixed that you can also see to the sides of yourself. Now, consider the space above your head, then the space below your body. Keep expanding your awareness all the way out, reaching, stretching this awareness to encompass the room, your space, your world, the universe.

Keeping your breathing soft, notice how you feel. Now soften your thoughts. You can even imagine space….in….between….each….of….your….thoughts. You can also imagine breathing through your heart. Notice how good this feels. (It sounds weird, perhaps, but give it a go!)

Spending just a few moments practicing this technique can really diffuse a stressful situation. If you are having a hectic day, use this visualization to help you to regain control while you’re still in the situation, right when it makes a difference.

And, practice, practice, practice. Your mind and body love repetition! When you make this exercise part of your regular practice it will work better, and become an automatic response geared to help you through stressful, fearful situations.

Many people feel that they don’t communicate well with others, that it’s a challenge to really get to know someone intimately. When you know yourself, truly, you are more apt to share that true self with others which can be enriching and rewarding, to say the least. But why is this preferred state so difficult to achieve?

Many of us mask our true feelings, desires, life goals behind what we “should” feel, think, or do. Many of us don’t have strong awareness of what we do or why we do it. And, many more of us don’t want to “go there” – to dig deeper into ourselves to understand our motivations because we might see something we don’t wish to. This is a real fear. Some of us feel quite broken. Some not worthy of self love. Others, still, imagine losing control if they stop to actually look at what’s going on inside.

It’s your life, of course, and you make it what you want it to be. But why not do that soul searching, the hard work to see what’s really going on – and figure out how to make strong changes if you don’t like what you see? When you engage in such introspection, you certainly might feel uncomfortable. But when you commit to learning who you really are – becoming aware of your inner being, how you wish to thrive and communicate – you commit to a deeper level of self understanding wich benefits all around you.

This is part of communicating with yourself. It might be something completely new, but when you learn how to communicate deeply and meaningfully with yourself, your communications with others can certainly be more enhanced, too.

Why not get to know who you really are? Why not dive into the hard work? Why not right now?