Tag Archives: improving life

‘ENTHUSIASM IS HALFWAY TO SUCCESS’

Ways of Remembering,

I read this in a quote for the day that I receive, and laughed because I was avoiding clearing out my mailbox – something I had no enthusiasm for! It went on to say: ‘Whatever you’re doing, do it with gusto.’

So I was prompted to do a reset, and challenge myself to tackle the task in hand with a bit more gusto, and less reluctance. And of course, it took far less time and energy than I had imagined, and I felt pleased with myself for getting it done.

This reminds me of something one of my mentors said many years ago: ‘Give 100% to whatever you’re doing in this moment, and then take 100% off it once you’re finished.’

These are both reminders to stop predicting in a negative way, and to stop having ‘hangovers’ from whatever happened previously, neither of which are useful for our state of mind.

I don’t know about you, but I can be a lousy predictor – I often overestimate the difficulty or complexity of things, and rehearse ways of dealing with it in my mind, using lots of energy on something that hasn’t actually happened.

More useful are the times when I set myself up to be ready to have a go at something: make sure my ‘fuel tank’ is full and have some useful thoughts about it.

And of course, sometimes things don’t go as well as we would like, but recognising that this is just part of the deal, and letting it go, rather than replaying it or beating ourselves up about it – again, a waste of energy, since it won’t change anything – is much more useful. One of my favourite phrases is: ‘Oh well..’ It prompts me to let go of the not so good stories.

And by saving our energy with less prediction and less hangovers, we are more likely to do whatever we’re doing with gusto, because gusto is energy.

I may not always manage to be enthusiastic about clearing my mails, but at least I can do it with a bit of gusto!!

IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

Ways of Remembering,

Our lives tend to be full of ‘storm’: the busyness of work, of everyday life, of the conflicting demands on our time and energy. It can be difficult to stop the constant buffeting and find a moment of peace.

When we do succeed in it, we usually do it by stepping away: going for a walk; going to bed; having a quiet bath. And those are great strategies, and important as ways of just giving ourselves a little break, a little space.

They also give us a chance to regain some perspective on what’s going on. By stepping away for a moment, we can see what’s really important, and what is merely a storm in a teacup!

And I am wondering about doing the opposite to stepping away and still finding some peace. After all, the story goes: in the eye of the storm, it is still, quiet. I think this is a tough one, so I am musing out loud.

I have had an opportunity to experiment with what the eye of the storm really means in our daily busyness, when it is not really possible to step away for more than a moment. What I have found is that it is a going in rather than a stepping away.

By this I mean that we need to find that peace inside ourselves. Now this is easy when we’re relaxed, peaceful already, in a place that’s comfortable, both physically and mentally, and no one is asking anything of us, including our own minds.

In the storm though?

So, we can begin by unpicking what actually happens

  1. I think it begins with our breath. Instead of that fast, shallow breath we tend to have when life is busy, we take a deep breath and let it out slowly – almost a sigh.
  2. Then we de-focus our eyes, allow our sight to be less clear, less sharp and focussed, so that everything is less defined and linear. And we may look at something in our environment that is pleasurable to see.
  3. As we do this, our faces begin to relax: our jaw softens, our mouth becomes less tense, our brows clear. We may even have a soft smile.
  4. With this, our minds begin to slow down, become quieter, and allow the possibility of peace.

With all of those, we can consciously choose to do them, even in the midst of chaos. We can use what our body does unconsciously when it happens naturally, and make them a set of conscious switches.

We could also help ourselves to make it easier by imbuing something we have with us regularly with that sense of peace. I almost always wear the same thing around my neck, so that’s easy. I just put my hand on it to remind myself. Or it could be your watch, or even one of your fingers! An alternative would be to just gently place one of your hands on your heart space.

And we can help to calm our minds by having a phrase we say to ourselves, such as: ‘From busy to quiet’, or ‘From chaos to calm’ – or whatever works for you. It is important to acknowledge the previous feeling or state and then gently suggest to your mind that it can move to that state of peace, just for a moment.

I am still at the experimental stage with this idea of finding peace in the eye of the storm, so these are only suggestions. You may find some even better ways – in which case, please let me know!

WHAT DOES FAMILIARITY BREED?

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We have an aphorism: familiarity breeds contempt. It has always felt somewhat cynical and pessimistic to me. It suggests that the more I get to know about something or somebody, the more faults I find, to the point where I lose respect for them or it.

I understand that one way we can interpret this is that it is easy to take for granted the thoughtfulness of those close to you, the comfort of being with people you know well, the everyday habits that you know how to work with.

And it is important to remind ourselves to appreciate and value these things, however familiar they may be. There is no guarantee that they will always be there, and our conscious appreciation is a way of affirming their importance in making our lives easier and more enjoyable.

To me, though, familiarity breeds three other underlying emotions that have tremendous value in our lives.

The first of these is trust. We get to know that there are aspects of our relationship that we can rely on and that stay no matter what. With a person, this may be knowing that they won’t betray a confidence, or that they’ll bounce us out of a bad mood.

The second of these emotions is comfort. We can settle back into the relationship, even after a space away, knowing how it will be, finding it easy, not having to make a great effort, accepting them as they accept us.

And the third one is affection. When we are familiar with someone, we are fond of them as a whole person, their mixture of characteristics, and even the thought of them makes us smile.

These are all important foundations which provide the basis from which we can move out to the unfamiliar, and thereby perhaps bring even more opportunities for appreciation, trust, comfort and affection – how lovely is that!!

Thank you my friends for being my familiars!!

ARRIVING RITUALS

Ways of Remembering

I’ve just been to Maui, and our first few hours made me think about arriving rituals. Arriving originally means getting to the river bank – it’s about making the transition from one place to the next. If it were the river bank, you would dry yourself off, put on your clothes and shoes, to be ready for the next stage.

When we landed in Maui, our friends picked us up from the airport, then took us to drop off our luggage at the rental. We then went for lunch, and afterwards to the beach for half an hour, to feel the sun on our backs, the sand under our feet, and to dip our toes in the lovely water. That ‘ritual’ makes all the difference to our arrival. It brings us to land properly in Maui – and I appreciate the reminder – I might have forgotten without the help of our friends, and in a state of mixed excitement and jetlag!

And we may not usually have such big transitions to make, but every day we all benefit from arrival rituals that help us to transition from one stage to the next: home to work, or waking up ready for the day; work to home, or busy day to peaceful evening; childcare to evening when they’re sleeping; and our own daytime to sleep-time.

If we have small ‘arrival rituals’ for each transition, it is easier to ‘land’ in the next stage, and not carry over the feelings and reactions from one stage to the next.

Unconsciously, most of us do some of these rituals: the shower to get ready for the day; the sit-down with a cuppa when we get home at the end of a busy day; the wind-downs we use to get ready for sleep.

And by making them conscious – and introducing them if they are missing – we allow ourselves to land properly. They don’t need to take long – it could be as simple as taking your shoes off at the end of a busy day, and as you do, saying to yourself: ‘Right, that’s done. Now it’s time to relax.’ That way, you won’t just rush on being busy for the evening and wear yourself out completely.

Even if you do have things to do in that next period of time, the five minutes of arrival ritual will enable you to keep perspective on what you have to do, recognise which are really necessary and which can be left, and approach things in a more relaxed way.

Arrival rituals allow us to change state easily, appreciate the different ‘flavours’ of our day, and enjoy our life more. Why not experiment with it for yourself?

YOU ARE NOT YOUR HISTORY

Ways of Remembering

During our lives, most of us collect a variety of experiences, good and bad, that we can use as reasons for how we think and react today. This collection will include how we were brought up and what our childhood was like, whether we passed or failed exams, the success or failure of our close relationships, the status we achieved at work, and the events that were major influences on our lives and attitudes.

Yet all this is not who we are, in essence. We know this, because if it were, everyone who had a similar experience would have a similar set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, and that is patently not the case.

We all have stories about how our experiences have affected us, and there is no doubt that they play a part in shaping how we are now. But they don’t define us. We are defined by how we choose to use those experiences.

I can use a bad experience as an excuse for being a victim of circumstance, or I can use it as a prompt to learn how to handle things differently. I can use a good experience as a reason to rest on my laurels, or I can use it to help me to create more good experiences in my life by identifying what made it work.

Every day I have the opportunity to create my own story of how my life works. I can choose to use my history as something I can learn from and improve on. I can even choose to ignore chunks of it and just have another go, start a fresh chapter.

Years ago I read a book abut being lucky. The author had done research on people who believed they were lucky, and guess what – he discovered that people who believed they were lucky seemed to have more luck in their lives. It’s about how you interpret the experiences you have, and which ones you pay attention to, not about the objective experience.

So let’s make our own definition of who we are now, and let’s make it a good one.

Do a list of: ‘I am someone who…’ statements, and make them all positive, useful and present tense.

Whatever your history is, you can be someone who enjoys life, has good friends, has a warm comfy home, has enough material stuff, loves laughing – the list can go on and on!

We create our own story – let’s make it a good one!

IF ONLY…

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There are some phrases we would be better off not knowing, and one of them is: ‘If only…’ It almost always expresses regret about something in our past: ‘ If only I hadn’t eaten that chocolate cake’, or ‘If only I’d held my tongue in that conversation’, or ‘ If only they had noticed that I was struggling’.

Most of them give us reasons to beat ourselves up, and some of them give us reasons to resent other people. None of them are useful!

They are usually referring to things that have already happened, and we can’t change that. It’s a terrible waste of our energy to wish something in the past were different, and positively sinful to beat ourselves up about it!

The alternative is to use those thoughts as a means of doing something different in the future. We can use those phrases to help us to create a different story for ourselves from now on.

If I hear myself doing an ‘if only..’, I ask myself a couple of questions:

  1. Can I do anything to rectify it?
  2. How can I approach similar situations differently next time, so that it turns out in a better way?

Can I rectify it?

If I ate chocolate cake, it’s done! But if I was mean to somebody, or unfair, I may be able to apologise to them and acknowledge that I know I got it wrong.

If someone upset me and I’m holding a grudge, there’s not much I can do about being upset, although sometimes when we re-examine the situation, we have a different perspective on it, and realise that it wasn’t really that serious – we just took it that way at the time.

How can I approach similar situations differently next time, so that it turns out in a better way?

Here’s the useful bit!

If we think about alternative approaches we could use, we are doing two useful things:

  1. We are learning from our experience, instead of repeating the same errors, or beating ourselves up about it – and by the way, beating ourselves up about it means that we replay the experience and practise to do it again next time!
  2. We automatically play our improved version in our minds, and this is like rehearsing to do it more effectively next time we experience something similar, so we have some practice at the new improved way of handling it, and are more likely to use this version.

So next time you find yourself saying: ‘If only..’, use these two questions and stop it in its tracks!

DON’T RELY ON YOUR MIND TO MAKE DECISIONS

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Early this morning, my mind was telling me to cancel my Pilates lesson, because I have a cold and I was feeling a bit groggy. Then I remembered a message I had received which said, ‘Don’t rely on your mind to make decisions. It’s not that reliable!’

What this means to me is that our minds are well-trained in logical argument, but most good decisions are not based purely on logic. To make a good decision we also need to take account of emotions and our intuition.

When I considered my emotions, I remembered that I always feel more energised and positive after a Pilates lesson, and that during the lesson, I don’t think about anything else. I then considered the alternative: I would sit here feeling a bit sorry for myself, and eventually push myself into doing something. At this point it was a ‘no-brainer’ – isn’t that an accurate description for what I am talking about!!

How is this different from thinking through the pro’s and con’s in your head? It is the move from thinking to feeling which will work best for you. By imagining myself in the two alternative scenarios, I had a better sense of the experience of each. My imagination gave me the physical, mental and emotional effects of the alternatives, so that I could choose the one which felt most useful in its effect.

My mind could only work from how I was feeling at that moment, and we all know that our minds will reflect a negative mood in the way they think about things. They can give us reasons to believe that everything’s awful if we’re feeling a bit shitty in the first place. So our mind colours our thoughts according to our mood at that moment. (By the way, that is also why we are often more creative and constructive in our thinking when we’re in a good buoyant mood).

By shifting to imagining the outcome of the alternatives, I gave a chance for my body, heart and guts to play their part, so the mind was no longer prevalent.

So next time you’re trying to decide something that isn’t obvious, imagine your alternative outcomes and ask yourself:

  • How do I feel if I get this outcome?
  • What effect does it have on me physically?
  • What effect does it have on me mentally?
  • What effect does it have on me emotionally?
  • Now, which one feels most useful/right?

By the way, I feel so much better now, post-pilates, than I did first thing this morning!

ACCEPTING WHO YOU ARE

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It is very easy for us to identify what’s wrong with us, what we don’t do well, what we fail at – we’re well trained in that! And we can try to counteract that by things like affirmations: I am beautiful; I am a good person, etc.

I don’t know about you, but I’m never quite convinced by that. So I tend to give up on affirmations quite quickly, and I needed an alternative approach.

I think there are three things that need adjusting for this to work.

  1. Don’t counteract, have both sides

By this I mean that we can have a list of our ‘failings’ and a list of things we do well. The first stage of acceptance is admitting to all of our strengths and weaknesses.

  1. Add in some qualifiers to make it easier.

The statements we make about ourselves tend to be all or nothing statements: I’m moody; I’m useless at being consistent etc. And we have the same problem with affirmations: I’m a good person will almost always bring to mind the examples when we’re not being a good person!

The qualifiers are words like: usually; sometimes; at the moment; often; mostly; occasionally; just for today. They allow us to acknowledge what we’re like without over-exaggerating it.

Examples would be: I’m usually kind; I sometimes have a bad mood; I mostly eat healthily; I occasionally have a bad day; at the moment I’m feeling miserable.

The qualifiers require us to look beyond the immediate feeling and assess ourselves on a longer-term basis, which gives us more perspective.

  1. Allow for progress

If we want to get better at being a certain way, we need to give ourselves a chance to develop it.

‘I’m beginning to..’ ‘I’m learning to…’ or ‘I’m starting to..’ will allow us to count those first steps towards improvement.

‘I’m getting better at..’ ‘ I now more often…’ allow us to recognise that we’re moving beyond first steps and towards habit.

These then become more realistic statements as well as being kinder to ourselves.

With these adjustments, we have a much better chance of accepting how we are, whilst helping ourselves to be more how we want to be.

I want to be more of who I can be, and this helps me to not get stuck on my failings, but instead build on what I have already. It also helps me to remember that it’s OK to not get it ‘right’ all the time – being human is different from being perfect!

So next time you decide to beat yourself up for being crap at something, have a go at this approach instead and see what happens.

 

SOLITUDE

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There is something lovely about being on your own. We often confuse being solitary or alone with being lonely, feeling deprived of company. The two do not necessarily follow: we feel lonely if we wish we did have company, but being alone is a choice to enjoy your own company.

And that choice allows the possibility of just doing and being whatever we feel like – it is a form of freedom. When no-one else is involved we have the opportunity to follow our own rhythms, to indulge our own fancies, to consider ourselves first.

We can eat and drink what we like, when we like. We can sing our hearts out, or have complete quiet. We can get up when we’re ready to, or lie in bed with a cup of tea and read a book. We can even have complete control of the TV remote!

In our busy world, it is good for us, once in a while, to have some solitary time. It allows us to replenish our energy, and that freedom to be completely ourselves,

So this year, see if you can find yourself a little solitary time. If you live with others, suggest they go out for the day, and bask in the freedom of solitude for a little while.

May 2019 be a great year for you!!

PEACE ON EARTH, GOODWILL TO ALL

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This blog is called Ways of Remembering. In our world today, I think it’s worth remembering what Christmas really stands for. The message that accompanies the birth of Christ is simple and profound: peace on earth, goodwill to all.

It isn’t Christmas trees or presents; it isn’t overindulgence in food and drink; it isn’t spending money, going into debt. Jesus set the example of a different mind-set, and whether we believe in him or not, it’s a great example that we can all attempt to follow.

He demonstrated by example that everyone has value and deserves kindness, no matter how different from you they may be. He used stories to remind people that it may be the outcast or stranger who actually lives the values we say we have, and those who claim the highest ground often use it to exclude or condemn others, rather than to help others to be in the same place. This is what goodwill to all looks like – inclusiveness and kindness.

Jesus also famously said, ‘Turn the other cheek’. This is often interpreted as weakness or submission, but I think it simply means: stand in your place, but don’t fight for it. If we truly believe we have got it right, we have no need to prove it to others, or try to force them to agree with us . We are more likely to influence another person by being our truth than by trying to convince them with words. This is peace on earth.

So this Christmas, let’s be kind and warm with others – (and ourselves!). Let’s be the best we can be, and let others be how they are without judgement. Let’s have some peace and goodwill, at least within our own sphere of influence!

May you have a peaceful, warm and joyous Christmas time..