Has Covid become a justifiable excuse for us to put our lives on hold?

Here’s an absolutely hypothetical example, this is not about a real person and she does not sometimes have straight, and sometimes wavy, red hair. We’ll call her J.  When Covid hit in March and it sunk in that it was here to stay, J. decided it was the perfect time to try online dating.  That’s what I like about J., she’s such a deep thinker with lofty goals.  Her friends had been after her to get “back out there” and since the thought of dating made her want to throw up, she thought online dating with the wall of Covid around it would be safe and less scary.  A way to move forward while standing still. Poor deluded J., thankfully an actual person would not think this way. 😏

To say the beast that is online dating is cruel with the ability to disembowel its’ victims might be overstating it, but it’s not!  Sometimes, that is how it feels, or at least that’s how J. describes it.  And now, after more than a few bad outcomes, J. has met someone she would like to get to know but she finds herself halted with the fear of Covid. Just when she was finally willing to go outside of her deeply entrenched comfort zone there is a pandemic!  Can’t a girl catch a break?  Even hypothetically? Apparently not in 2020.

Even though logically J. knew she had weighed the risks of getting to know Bachelor #17 and they were minimal, still the fear of Covid put the kibosh on all plans to meet.  Or did it? Overthinker J. searched and searched her brain for the answer.  The more she searched for reasons not to meet up, the more her brain gave her because that’s what search engines do.  So, just like we do when we can’t remember a specific name or place, she let it go so the real answer could reveal itself. “Life doesn’t cause how we feel, it reveals how we feel.” Carol Howe   

Is Covid causing how J. feels, or revealing how she feels?  Is J. using Covid as an excuse to not meet Bachelor #17?  Is the fear something other than what she is convincing herself it is?  Through meditation, letting go and allowing the answer to come to her, J. realizes she is really using Covid as an excuse to not feel vulnerable by opening herself up for rejection and loss.  Her original intention of using Covid as a wall of safety has now become a barrier to living.  J. knows she does not want to put her life on hold until Covid is over. She also knows life is not going to knock on her door without her first extending an invitation.  Yes, during a pandemic the invitation to life looks a lot different but it can still be extended. Of course, J.’s story is just a hypothetical example of how one could allow fear to cripple them, but it could happen. 😏

The pandemic has forced us all to live differently but it’s still our job to always try and live our best life.  How might you be putting your life on hold?  Are you always saying, and thinking, “when the pandemic is over and things are back to normal I’ll…...”?  What feelings are coming up for you now?  Is Covid causing how you feel, or revealing how you feel?   

 

“Happiness is an inside job.”

Really?  Then I've been going about it the wrong way!  Think about what makes you happy.  I’m going to hazard a guess that for most of us the list would go something like this: partner, family, friends, pets, job, travel, sports, reading, spa days, gym days, eating in a restaurant…and the list could go on and on.  But not one of these things comes from inside us, yet all of these things can affect how we feel which affects our happiness.  But what if you had none of these things at this very moment? Could you be happy?  What if you had many, or all, of these things, is happiness guaranteed? 

At different points in my life I’ve had all of the things I listed.  Was I happy all the time? No.  Was I happy most of the time? No.  When the external things in my life were going well I was happy.  But when the external things in my life went away, or changed, I found my happiness went with them.  My happiness was dependent on what I could do, be, or have.  I thought I had been cultivating inner peace for years but turns out not nearly enough; when I was happy I stopped cultivating.  Covid has forced me to change.  Or rather, Covid has given me the opportunity to change; the decision to change, or not, is still in my hands.

Every morning I have a decision to make: I can think about the day ahead of me and find the joy in it or I can relegate it to just another day of not getting to do all the things that make me happy.  But most importantly, since most of my day will be spent inside my head, I need to distract my monkey-mind from the ever-present catastrophic “what-if” scenarios of the future without having my long list happy, happy, joy, joys to lean on.  I’m really starting to see how much I lived in the future, always lining up the next external source of happiness.

I’m sitting by the water in my car, it’s a dreary day, and I’m struggling.  Struggling to write, struggling to not eat out of boredom and depression, struggling to lift myself out of feelings of loneliness and emptiness and struggling with the thought of having to put my life on hold so soon after getting it going again….that’s the hardest one to accept…putting certain parts of my life on hold.  And for how long? How long will I have to stand still?  That scares me; I tend not to do well standing still.  

Eckhart Tolle “Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.  This will miraculously transform your whole life.”  The present moment.  Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “Only in the present moment do you have access to other possibilities.”  Doesn’t it always come back to how we think?  If we focus on the things we can no longer do, that puts us out of the present moment and in the state of living in the past.  If we feel sad about our future being put one hold, that puts us in the state of feeling the loss of something that has yet to happen, again taking us out of the present moment.  We need to be present to “have access to other possibilities.”  So, what personality traits will need to emerge for me to be present going through this time?  I continually work on acceptance, gratitude, and optimism but I need more right now.  What about curiosity?  What possibility might present itself if I get curious about what is still available to me right now?  Following my curiosity has always held the possibility of opening a new door, something that has always made me happy, but this I time I need to get curious about something that comes from within and is not dependent on the external: people, places or things. Maybe it’s time to write that screenplay that won’t leave my head?  Or actually sign up for that screen-writing course I keep googling?  Why not? I certainly have the time!

What personality trait would have to emerge in you right now for you to be happy during this time?  What possibility might be available to you if you were to stay present?  What are you curious about?  Take a moment to think about it, you certainly have the time.

“Your own expectations hurt you more than anything else.” Buddha

I’ve been in a real funk lately. Could it be I’m causing it because I’m expecting too much?

I’m going to whine for a moment….I don’t know about you, but I am SO over COVID-19!!  I’m over not being able to see, let alone hug, my Mom in person at the nursing home. I’m over not being able to hop on a plane and go see my sick 81 year old Aunt in Las Vegas. I’m over being afraid to watch the news. I’m over feeling that planning for the future is useless. And, I’m completely over Zoom and not being able to Coach my 3 workshops in a real building and really seeing my people! (so grateful we have them but still over them!).  I have a lot more “overs” but you get the picture and, yes, I know my reasons for being “over COVID-19” are very small compared to so many others and I’m grateful that my worries are small, but that’s how I’m feeling.  I’m over life not being the way I want it to be!  Whining moment over.

I also feel completely void of all motivation these days, even for the things I usually expect to enjoy.  I expect to want to write and I expect to derive joy from it, but not right now.  Why?  My expectations?  We all have expectations of how our lives are supposed to go based on past experience, especially in our day to day lives, but now some, or many, of our expectations are not being fulfilled.  I can still expect when I arrive home, my cat Stuart, will run down the hall to greet me. I can still expect when I get a massage later today I’m going to feel great. I can still expect when I return my hair to it’s natural colour I will feel like my old self again. But it seems I can no longer always expect my friends to lift my spirits because their spirits are often as low as mine. I can no longer expect to talk to my other-Mother and feel good about lifting her spirits because when you’re 86 and you’ve hardly left your house since March, the spirt is also low.  I can no longer expect my sure-fire pick-me-up of planning my next trip to actually pick me up. In short, I can no longer expect my usual external sources to make me feel good. 

Why do you think so many people are baking, cleaning and drinking more right now?  Because even during a pandemic comfort food, clean closets and alcohol have continued to fulfill our expectations of them.  Our pets continue to fulfill our expectations even when the people in our lives may not. We all have TV shows we watch when we desire to feel a certain way: I’ve watched The Good Wife twice through in the past 3 years because my expectation of feeling capable of moving forward is fulfilled by lead character “Alicia”.  Also, in the past 3 years, I’ve watched a lot of action-packed violent shows because they continue to fulfill my expectation of mindless entertainment that never reminds me of what I’ve lost.  My expectations have kept me attached to the outcome of what I could reasonably predict my life would be; remove my comfortable attachments and I feel untethered.  “The root of suffering is attachment.” Buddha   So what have I learned?  I’ve learned I need to accept what is, adjust my expectations and let go of the attachments I have to those expectations.  But what if I don’t want to let go of my attachments to everything that’s predictable and comfortable? Oh right, more suffering.  Sound familiar?

I hear over and over again my WW plan doesn’t work without the in-studio workshops, and believe me, I KNOW exactly what you mean by that but in reality, that’s not true. I know it’s not true because I also hear, over and over, again that WW members love the virtual workshops and are having great success.  The difference between those two statements?  Expectation.  Here’s a prime example of a Pre-COVID-19 expectation: you rejoin WW (like most of us have!) and you expect that same highly motivating first week weight loss of 3-5 pounds you lost the first time around; but that didn’t happen and you’re discouraged, immediately thinking, “Well, this doesn’t work!” Your expectation was not fulfilled. No matter that the first time you joined might have been anywhere from 5 to 25 years ago and any number of other variables were in play this time around, your expectations were not fulfilled. And you feel defeated because you are attached to the outcome.  We are all attached to outcomes.  “Expectations are resentment waiting to happen.” Anne Lamont

As always we have two choices.  We can refuse to adjust our expectations to those parts of our lives that are no longer being fulfilled in the way we’re used to, and cause ourselves more suffering. Or we can accept that many things in our lives have changed and adjust our expectations.  “Serenity comes when we trade expectations for acceptance.” Buddha   Since I’m tired of being in a funk over things I cannot control, I'm going to adjust my expectations.

Starting now, I’m going to remind myself not only am I the one causing the funk but I’m also the one causing any and all ripple effects from said funk.  Yup, when I expect a specific outcome from someone, or something, and it’s not fulfilled, it’s my reaction to it that outcome that creates how I feel.  “Don’t blame people for disappointing you. Blame yourself for expecting too much from them.” Buddha   This is a particularly difficult for me, especially in relationships.  I’m easily hurt and much of it comes from expecting more than a person is willing, and/or able, to give.  It doesn’t make them a bad person, it just means I’ve projected my desires and expectations, perhaps unfairly, onto them.  It makes me wonder how many times I’ve been the one to not fulfil someone’s expectations?  Probably a lot more than I realize.

What are your unfulfilled expectations?  Do you expect because you’re kind and respectful others should be the same? You return calls and texts asap so others should as well?  You bend over backwards to make others happy so they should do the same for you?  You remember birthdays and anniversaries so others should too?  Do you expect most things in life should be fair and equal?  Do you expect things should remain the same or go back to normal? 

Each one of the examples above contains the word “should”.  When we use the word “should” we are wishing something, or someone, was different, and we cause ourselves to suffer.  When we expect something, or someone, to be different, we cause ourselves to suffer.  I for one am going to question my expectations and lean into accepting reality, after all why would I choose to cause myself more suffering?  I’m still over COVID-19 but I accept it is not over and am so grateful for what is available to me right now.  So, see you on Zoom!

Knowing why I should eat good nutritious food is not always enough for me.

When I’m seeking comfort I often turn to food and not good healthy food but food that I developed an emotional attachment to years ago.  I have an emotional attachment to starchy-salty-sugary-fatty deliciousness. I have no emotional attachment to fruits and vegetables.  I’ve never drowned my sorrows in salmon or tofu.  I have attempted to comfort myself with quinoa but got nothing from it until I fried it in butter and cheese.

I believe in the power of healthy eating and have spent the better part of my life seeking to change my dysfunctional relationship with food; I developed an eating disorder at 12 years old.  Can you imagine trying to be vegetarian in Denbigh in the ‘70’s?  At that time my Mom’s idea of a salad was either chopped iceberg lettuce dripping in a mayonnaise and sugar dressing or cabbage suspended in Jello. I had a vegetarian cookbook with all of these “exotic” ingredients that no one in the Renfrew grocery store had ever heard of: Bulgur wheat? Never heard of it. My problem was not that I wanted to be a vegetarian, my problem was I wanted to lose weight and thought being a vegetarian would achieve that so all healthy foods were just a means to an end.  Starchy-salty-sugary-fatty deliciousness was still my love, my friend, my comforter. Until it wasn’t, of course, but I refused to let go because sometimes it was.

We all know what we’re suppose to eat to be healthy and lose the weight, the hard part is doing it, especially during stressful, boring, even happy times.  We are emotional beings; every thought and action we take has an emotional component that can directly affect the food choices we make at the time.  Most of us try to eat well. We know we feel better when we eat healthy food, we know healthy food is medicine. So why don’t we always choose healthy food? For many of us our connection to healthy food is intellectual, we need to make it emotional as well.  How do we do that?

Think back to when, and how, you developed your emotional attachment starchy-salty-sugary-fatty deliciousness.  What was going on in your life?  Did it start as a distraction tactic in the form of a cookie to numb the pain from a skinned knee? A bribe to keep you quiet during church?  A promise of a reward for good behaviour at the dinner table? Or bravery at the dentist?  As we got older we continued to self-medicate with food based on those earlier habits.  And here we are all these years later still trying to manage those attachments and it’s hard, and sometimes fruitless, work!  How can we make it easier? Can we create an emotional attachment to high-fiber/protein/good-fats food?  Of course we can!  Like other healthy habits we work to build, we have the most success when we can connect them to feelings of pride, joy, happiness and self-love. Taking time to notice how we feel after we walk, swim, stretch or practice yoga can the motivation to get us off of the couch and out the door again. It may take some time in the beginning to cement those connections, especially if  those activities might have simply been a means to our weight loss and not a healthy lifestyle. 

Maybe it’s time to start listening to our bodies. When you have acid reflux after a high fat meal that your wolfed down after a stressful day, listen to what your body is trying to tell you.  It’s telling you that your go-to comfort food no longer makes it happy.  When you mow through a can of Betty Crocker icing before bed and you wake up with a sugar hangover, your body is trying to tell you to find another way to deal with the boredom or loneliness because it’s no longer feeling the love from the sugar.  Time to start building a loving and comforting attachment to healthy food by focusing how good our body feels and hums along when we nourish it and maybe, just maybe, the next time we have a stressful moment and we automatically decide a bucket of fried chicken or a gallon of ice cream is the only thing that will make us feel better, the attachment we’ve built to healthy and delicious food will give us time to pause and make a better choice, a healthier choice. Not that fried chicken or ice cream are bad but when I use them to numb emotional pain I don't savour every bite; I eat so mindlessly that before I know it, I'm staring at an empty carton and wondering where it all went. And then there's the acid reflux.

“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”

Fight or flight: the instinctive physiological response to a threatening situation, which readies one either to resist forcibly or to run away. Psychologist Carl Jung contended that “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”  Does that then mean if we are not fighting and/or running away from a bear we must face our fear or it will just get bigger?

When I knew I had to sell my house and move to Cobourg I didn’t have any gut-wrenching fear because I had come to believe it was no longer in my best interest to live there.  That was another one of my tasks while in therapy: whenever I felt myself in a situation that made my gut clench I was to ask myself “is this in my best interest?”  I’ve come to accept that even if my head has another opinion, listening to my gut is what leads me to peace, which is my ultimate goal. Looking back, many of the wrong turns I took in my life came from not listening to my gut. That is not say wonderful and valuable life lessons and experiences did not come from making those decisions, it is to say however, those decisions lead me away from what was in the best interest of my goal.  My biggest fear these days is losing the me I’ve finally found because this me is not firmly rooted yet so I feel like she could disappear at any moment.  This is causing my gut and my brain to duke it out, which makes for stressful days and sleepless nights.  I sometimes feel like my brain makes the decisions and my gut pays the price.  A new, and kindred-spirit, friend assures me that I’m not in danger of losing myself this time because this time I’m not the person I was and to trust the solid foundation I’ve built because for the first time it is truly mine.  If that’s true, does that mean my gut is reacting to a future my brain has projected as a possible outcome based on the fear of repeating the past? Is this fear real or habitual? In this instance I guess it doesn’t matter, what matters, as we’ve been discussing this week, “our bodies have trouble differentiating these troubling thoughts from an actual threat (a bear coming at you in the woods!), our stress response kicks in.”  The next part will tick you off:

Fast Facts 1 & 2 from this week:

1. Stress hormones can increase our appetite, especially for foods higher in fat and sugar.

2. High levels of stress hormones, like cortisol, can lead our bodies to store more body fat, especially around our abdomens.

Well, isn’t that nice to know?  Once again what we think and what we believe have a huge impact not only on the quality of our life, but our efforts to lose weight.  And once again, what can we do?  Fast Fact 3. Studies show that practicing mindfulness regularly can help “quiet” the part of our brain that activates our stress response.  The 5-4-3-2-1 technique in the weekly is a great way mindful breathing practice. 

Most days I need to not only quiet my monkey mind but give it something different to focus on. I have an extensive mental library of questionable thoughts that require debunking so I often use Byron Katie’s 4 questions from her book, “Loving What Is”.  It’s a simple exercise but I find it very effective, even for the annoyingly relentless, and utterly childish “nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go to the garden and eat worms” thought. It’s childish because I was 5 or 6 years old and running away from home with just an arm full of socks and underwear….to my Aunt’s house, who lived next door.  But it is also how many people feel so a good example to demonstrate how the exercise might go.  To be clear, I truly don’t believe I’m unlovable but some days the 5 year old demands, and deserves, some attention.

Question 1: Is it true?  Answer: Yes, nobody loves me.

Question 2: Can you absolutely know it's true?  Answer: Well, I guess some people love me, like my family and friends.

Question 3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought?  Answer:  When I believe I’m unlovable it causes me to suffer unnecessarily. I don’t sleep well, I eat more, my gut hurts and potato chips find their way into my grocery cart. Ultimately it interferes with my goal of living a peaceful existence. 

Question 4: Who would you be without the thought?  Answer:  This one can be difficult because we’ve had so many negative thoughts over the course of our lives that it never occurs to us to question them. The harder this one is to answer, the more it needs answering.  If I did not believe the thought I am unlovable I would not be so easily hurt by the actions of others.  The need to please would not rule my existence.  Fear of failure would not keep me from trying new things.  Feelings of happiness, joy and peacefulness would have a chance to grow.

Most of us are lucky we don’t actually have to fight, or take flight, but that doesn’t mean we don’t give our bodies reason to believe we do. If you’re in a constant state of inner turmoil you are in a constant state of stress causing a constant stream of stress hormones to be released.  What is chasing you? What are you resisting? What stressful situations are you growing in yourself by believing old thoughts?  Find ways to quiet your mind, challenge your negative thoughts and question your fears.  Why not, unless they’ve saved you from a bear, how have they helped or hindered your life? Change never happens overnight but even the smallest movement forward can bring you peace.

Careful with your self-talk if you’re prone to diving down a rabbit hole.

It amazes me how quickly, and so easily, I head off to Wonderland.  My therapist Paula used to marvel at my ability to project multi-layered, and totally unsupported, scenarios onto even the simplest of events, like someone not calling or texting me back.  I immediately ask my brain to send me all of the things I could have possibly done wrong and, of course, my brain does what it’s told and sends me endless possibilities…..and down the rabbit hole I go. The problem isn’t that reality doesn’t exist there, the problem is I react as if it does. The sad thing is I cause myself so much suffering by reacting to my thoughts: projections of what I imagine could be, might happen and possible outcomes.

In WW we work on changing unhelpful thoughts and habits and this week we’re starting a new six-part series, “What happens in your body…” and week 1 is ….”when you build a new habit.”  Perfect timing. The second Fast Fact for this weeks’ topic is: “Each time we repeat an action, our brain cells associated with that activity or thought become more connected, making it more likely that we will do it again.”.  Okay, so years and years of living in my emotional reality instead of logical reality has firmly cemented my pathway to the nearest rabbit hole.  Nice. The goal then for me is to change my habit of projecting and jumping to conclusions by forming a new pathway in my thought process when dealing with the actions, or inactions, of other people.

1.Think big-picture: identify long term goal. My long-term goal is stop causing myself unnecessary suffering with my self-talk and to live in a peaceful, non-gut-wrenching state.

2. Pinpoint an old path:  immediately assuming responsibility for why someone does, or does not, do something is a direct path to a rabbit hole

3. Choose new path:  recognize that my thoughts are not always based on fact and understand people do the things they do for many different reasons.

4. Make a plan: when the negative self-talk starts I can choose a new thought pathway, one that does not contain rabbit holes. How?  By taking a moment to pause and remind myself that if I constantly make decisions that have nothing to do with other people, doesn’t it stand to reason, other people do the same? I am not responsible for the actions of others.

There are many reasons we might want to build a new habit but I think for most of us the desire to change comes from wanting to end some sort of suffering and that can be a very powerful motivator. For me the desire to build a new way to deal with what does, or does not happen, in my personal life, has become my primary focus because I know the positive ripple effect it will have on everything else in my life will be huge!  The thought of releasing myself from something I’ve never had control over (the actions of others) but took responsibility for, is exciting and freeing.  Imagine the space that will free up in my brain!

What habits of yours walk you away from your long-term goals?  What is one small, or not so small, path you could choose to take that would walk you towards that goal?  What kind of suffering motivates you to want to change?  How might your life be better with healthier habits? What are you waiting for…if not now, when?

“….and the wisdom to know the difference.”

This is the part of The Serenity Prayer I’ve been missing or, more accurately, not taking into consideration. But in order to take something seriously I have to make the connection of how it will affect me, and up until recently, last week actually, I didn’t get that “accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can” aren’t really going to effect positive change in my life until I know the difference between what I can control and what I can’t…. “and the wisdom to know the difference.”

When a blog entry takes longer than usual to write it generally means one of two things: I can’t relate to my topic or the topic hits too close to home.  The first one is much easier on my gut and the second one won’t leave my gut alone until I resolve it.  My gut is the barometer for everything in my life, it’s an inconvenient family trait.  For the past 2 months my gut has been on high alert and is trying to tell me something, unfortunately not with words so I’m left feeling sick to my stomach while trying to decode its’ messages.  The good news, to a WW member anyway, is that I can’t eat so I’m losing weight (that twisted bit of joy will have to be dealt with in another blog).  The bad news is it’s a painful process, which for me can only mean one thing: the topic is tied to self-worth.  Man, I cannot tell you how sick and bad-swear-word tired I am of writing about self-worth, enough all-freakin’-ready!  But, apparently not, and from talking and listening to many of you, self-worth rules your life too.  And so, once again, I must put my Super Power (never giving up) to work. Frank Sonnenberg: “Lessons in life will be repeated, until they are learned.”  Yeah, blah, blah, blah…sometimes life is like a never-ending quantum physics class for me.

Back to “….and the wisdom to know the difference.” Things I would tell a friend cannot be changed: the way life is right now, how other people think, what other people think of you, how other people act, the past.  Things I now realize I’ve tried my whole life to change:  the way life is right now, how other people think, what other people think of me, how other people act, the past.  Of course, logically I always known that’s impossible but on some level I must believe it, right? Otherwise why do I, sadly, continue to spend so much time trying to change/control them?  Do I believe if I work hard enough that anything is possible?  Yes, because that’s what I was told as a child by my Dad (and yes, I’m aware of the Dad thread through most of my writing) and I believed it. I decide the difference between what I accept I cannot change, and what I have the courage to try and change, by what I believe I can change. The problem with that is not all of my beliefs are based on fact, and most of them are not even mine, they were given to me as a child. Now that, in itself, is not bad, it’s just the way societies work, the elders hand down their beliefs based on their experiences.  It’s the way a child with no sense of self-worth will weave those beliefs into their personal story that is problematic.

In my family, public perception was everything.  We owned the grocery store in the village and from the moment we walked from our kitchen into the store what others thought of us was all that mattered.  It was important we were well thought of in the community. And, as I sit here struggling to write this piece, I’m ashamed, stunned and embarrassed to say how often that is still true for me.  I care too much about what other people think of me and that fact greatly affects my “wisdom to know the difference.” How does it affect me?  It affects me because I believe what other people think of me is more important than what I think of myself.  I was never taught to value my own opinion and even though, thanks to a lot of therapy, I’ve come a long way in self discovery and healing, in my core I’m still the little girl who was to be seen and not heard.  A child cannot develop self-worth if no one listens to them and then leads them to believe what they have to say matters. And once again, as I write the words that describe my experience, so many of your faces are coming to mind because I know I’m describing your experience too.

How long have you accepted the things you believe you cannot change because of your beliefs?  How long have you believed it was courageous to change who and what you are into what you were told was acceptable?  Are you a WW member because you believe your health is worth looking after or because you believe only by losing weight will you become lovable and worthy?  Is your self-worth based on what you believe others think of you?  Do you know the difference between what you can and cannot change?

“….and the wisdom to know the difference.”  From the time I was 10 I’ve been constantly trying to change myself into someone I believed was worth loving.  I often ask myself the question I’m so fond of asking you: so what have you learned? Here is what I’ve learned:  I’ve learned to question my beliefs; are they really mine and are they really true?  I’ve learned my opinion does matter, at least to me. I’ve learned I can be vulnerable and not die. I’ve learned, like everyone else, I am worthy of being loved.  I’ve learned I may think this is all rubbish tomorrow.  Could this be the beginning of wisdom at work?  Maybe.

Being human is hard.

I know we have species advancing traits like free will, opposable thumbs…etc, etc… but we also have the innate ability to make ourselves suffer.

Last week I wrote about embracing what is but I think that was perhaps putting the cart before the horse; how can we embrace what is, if we can’t let go of what was?  Are we also hanging on to the idea of what we thought our lives would look like?  At every stage in our lives we develop a picture of what we want our lives to look like; sometimes it doesn’t happen, sometimes it happens and sometimes it happens, then it changes. Either way, if we don’t let go, not only do we suffer right now, but it makes it hard, if not impossible, to embrace what comes next.  And once again, we can get stuck.

For perhaps the first time, I can see the gift in the losses I’ve suffered because I’ve been forced to finally let go in order to embrace what could be.  I was able to let go of what I thought my future was going to look like.  I was able to let go of what I wanted my relationship with my Dad to look like. And, I let go of what I thought my WW journey was going to look like.  I realize now it was only when I let go, that I was able to move forward and embrace what is.

 

Letting go of what we had is not easy, especially if it was what we’d always wanted.  Letting go of a dream is not easy because we have to accept it will never be part of our story.  Letting go of the carefully thought out plans for the next chapters in our story is not easy because those plans made us feel secure. Letting go is scary because we can feel rudderless.  I think a lot of us feel adrift right now because the ever changing events in our world don’t’ allow us to feel confident to create our next chapter.  We used to be able to be specific in the details of our story; now we’re afraid to be specific in case we lose that too.

So, how do we let go of what isn’t so we can embrace what is?  We accept, we focus, and we build, on what we do have right now, in this very moment.  Doing that gave me back the feeling of being safe again and I no longer feel rudderless.  I now know happiness can be found in a different future and I’m now better able to be to new embrace what is.

 I love The Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”  It was instrumental in my personal healing because for so long I did not accept what I couldn’t change and that caused me so much self-inflicted suffering and kept me stuck.  I thought my unwavering courage and persistence could change anything; that too caused me unnecessary suffering.  Letting go set me free.

What are you hanging on to that is causing you to suffer? Preventing you from moving forward? Keeping you from enjoying every beautiful possibility still available to you?  Your life is your story, and only you can re-write it. 

I love this Pema Chodron quote: “The future is completely open, and we are writing it moment to moment.”  Let go of the past, it’s had it’s moment. 

“Whatever the present moment contains, embrace it as if you had chosen it.” Eckhart Tolle

“Embrace: to accept or support (a belief, theory, or change) willingly and enthusiastically”. If ever we WW members needed to embrace what it takes to have success in our personal goals, it is now.  Believe me, I understand it’s not easy, but I also understand it’s necessary.  While it is true WW is a plan that involves portion control, tracking and mindset, for me, it has always been about connecting with my community, my people, my tribe; the people who get me.  And as long as I regularly connect with my people, I find it easier to keep my portion control, tracking and mindset in alignment with my goals.  When I lose connection with my people, I also tend to lose my focus and fall back into old habits. 

I know you want to get back into our studios.  I know many of you are not tech savvy or not into Zoom.  I know many of you spend a lot of your working day on Zoom so the last thing you want to do is another Zoom meeting. I know many of you find the initial curiosity you had for Zoom waning so you might feel like you’re not getting what you need.  I get it, at one point or another I’ve felt exactly the same.  We are all so very over the COVID-19 lifestyle!

I talk to a lot of people each week and I hear a lot of stories. Most of these stories fall into one of two categories: those who are willing to embrace what they need to do to be successful in their WW plan during the pandemic and those who are waiting until it’s over.  I don’t judge, I really don’t, I know everyone is just doing the best they can these days and embracing what is can be challenging. However, I do believe when we embrace what we need to do we are graced with the power acceptance brings! I believe it because I’m living it and receiving that grace.  I believe it because I see it, and hear it, every time I connect with workshop members; those who embrace the virtual workshops are getting the support they need and are finding success.  The support is there, it may arrive in a different package and it may feel different but the possibility is the same, you just have to “embrace it as if you had chosen it”.  Their willingness to embrace “whatever the present moment contains” energizes their resolve to continue to live their best life no matter the circumstances.

I really do get it.  Do you know how hard it is for me to stay in my chair while coaching?  Haha, it’s so hard and I miss being in the same room with everyone!  I want to be looking at you all from the front of our studio, soaking in the collective energy so I can reflect it back to your magnificent faces!  And someday that will happen again, but not today, not this week, not this month.  So, for now, and in whatever way that looks to for you, let’s accept what is and embrace it. We are in this together and we will move through it together.

“You can’t argue with what is, well you can, but if you do, you suffer” Eckhart Tolle

Optimism is a magnet…..

Optimism is a magnet…..but, alas, so is pessimism.  We get back what we put out there.

But being optimistic is more than stating everything will be okay, that’s just the beginning, genuine optimism is feeling and believing everything will be okay.  And that’s where we often get stuck.  How do we FEEL optimistic when what we are FEELING is sad, depressed, afraid and uncertain? The list of negative feelings swirling around in our bodies these days is endless so we have to intentionally choosing to FEEL optimistic.  Great, how do we do that?

Wayne Dyer said “What is hope but a feeling of optimism, a thought that says things will improve, it won’t always be bleak, there’s a way to rise above the present circumstances. Hope is an internal awareness that you do not have to suffer forever, and that somehow, somewhere there is a remedy for despair that you will come upon if you can only maintain this expectancy in your heart.” 

Right now many of us are grappling with the realization that things might never be the same.  Most of us have experienced events that may have altered our lives: loss of a loved one, a job or a marriage.  And while these losses are may forever change our lives, these losses fall within our scope of what is normal, so eventually we can be hopeful again.  The pandemic most certainly does not fall within our scope of what is normal so we have no reference point of hope, of optimism.  So that leaves us with connecting to one we know.

The dissolution of my marriage was the dissolution of my world and the idea of what I thought my future was going to look like.  During the past few years, I’ve felt sad, depressed, afraid and uncertain but I’ve also felt hope and possibility. I had hope that one day I would be okay, and life would be okay because I had a reference point of hope: people getting divorced fell within my scope of what is normal.  So I made choices and set my intention: I decided to look at my life differently and to feel differently.  I practiced gratitude like it was the only way to get air into my lungs.  I clung to possibility as if it was my only ticket out of misery.  I believed optimism was a magnet and witnessed my life get better and better.

So when I think about coping now, I think why not apply the same principals?  Wayne Dyer said, “Your intention creates your reality.”  Definition: Intention is an idea that you plan to carry out. Your goal (your idea) is your intention.  I think it’s safe to generalize and say that at this time all of us want to feel optimistic and hopeful and I’m the same.  I’ve set my intentions: I choose to look at this time in my life differently.  I choose to believe that even though things are, and may continue to be, different I will not only be okay but I will continue to thrive, grow and feel joy.  I choose to look at this time and see not it as the loss of how we are but the possibility of how we could be.  And most importantly, I choose to embrace life as it is right now with gratitude because no matter what has happened in my life, my reference points for gratitude remain the same.  And for me, gratitude ALWAYS leads me to optimism and that’s when the magnet kicks in.

Optimism or pessimism?  You still get to choose, that has not been taken away from you. Ask yourself how you want to feel?  Hopeful? Optimistic? Safe?  What were your reference points to feel that way in the past? 

Set your intentions, your reality will follow.