Monkey mind chatter

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right. Igor Stravinsky

Yesterday, while in a meeting, I settled into silence to avoid speaking up. Challenge is, when I am silent to avoid speaking up, my mind is anything but silent. The chatter of my 'monkey mind' is incessant. It chirps and cheeps, squeaks and squawks, constantly talking about what I am not talking about.

When the monkey mind is at play, I am ill at ease.

In those instances, truth is silenced, tyranny prevails and I fall into the trap of believing everything I think. In my belief that I am right to be silent, I inhibit the possibility of turning up and creating value. In undermine my value by internallizing the conversation, keeping myself stuck in justification of why it's best not to say what I believe needs to be said.

In my silence I create an endless circle of self-defeating games.

When I was married to my daughters' father, our relationship was filled with silence of the dulling, numbing kind. My fear of speaking up, kept me from being truthful and honest in our embrace. My fear of his response to what was true for me, kept me from opening up into intimacy. In my silence, my agile mind had plenty of time to weave and warp its way through every conversation, twisting and turning every comment, every glance to drain it of its last ounce of meaning all of which left the truth silent somewhere within me, far from the playing field of our relationship. The scripts I wrote in my head were convoluted tales of woe where I was the victim of his misunderstanding. In my silence, the distance between us widened as I moved myself further and further away with every word unsaid.

In my silence, the golden moment is lost. In my silence, anger builds as I stuff back the words I leave unspoken. In my silence, I devalue myself and those around me.

I am learning to speak up. Learning to lovingly share my truth without fear that I will be hurt, or that in my words blame, shame, and condemnation will drive someone else into silence too.

In my morning ritual, silence is the well-spring of my inspiration. As I meditate, I let myself sink into the beauty of that silent space within me where all is aligned, all is at peace.

In my awakening, to retain that balance within, to silence the monkey chatter, I must speak up, speak out. I must give voice to the words within me that are aching to be released.

Silence can be my friend or foe. It is up to me to drive through my fear by drawing my words out with courage.

The question is: Is silence your friend or foe? Are you stilling your mouth while giving reign to the monkey mind chatter within? Where is your truth?

In the rapture of now

I think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We all try different things, and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change. Jamie Lee Curtis

Happiness is not that elusive a butterfly when I sit still and breathe into the rapture of the moment. When I stop the constant chatter in my mind long enough to hear my heart beating in time with the moment.

Happiness is not elusive at all when I let go of my need to fill time with constant doing and fall into the grace of my being aligned with who I am in all that I am doing.

Happiness is a peaceful heart, a morning filled with birdsong and the smell of the lilac bush outside my kitchen window. Happiness is Ellie sleeping on her mat at the end of our bed, the house a peaceful hum in the early light.

Happiness is, my acceptance in the moment of my arising that this is a brand new day. A day to create anew all that I want, all that I dreamed of, all that I can achieve.

Happiness grows as I grow into the change I create in the world. The change that reflects my higher good spreading out across the circle of my influence, gently affecting the world around me with undulating ripples of love and joy, kindness and caring, smiles and laughter.

I don't need a reason to 'be' happy. I simply need the desire to choose happiness.

I believe how I experience life is based on my choices. I didn't choose to be Louise Gallagher, 5'2.5". Dark brown hair turning white. Big brown eyes with laughter lines etched deeply into the corners. I didn't choose to have the parents I have, the childhood I had, the places we lived in, the journeys we took as a family. I didn't choose any of it when I was a child -- and how I experience it today is all my choice.

The experiences I had as an adult, many of them are based on my past experiences as a child. The choices I made were predicated upon the wiring of my youth, some of it functional, some of it pretty faulty. And still, how I experience my memories of my past is all my choice.

Like the relationship with the man who lied and cheated. I have a choice in how I hold onto the pain and sorrow, the tears and fears. I can let them keep me stuck solid in a fearful place where I hold myself under the silent waters of grief. Reflections of a woman's heart held fast to the chilling memories of time past. Or, I can let them flow freely in the river of forgiveness and set myself free to fall, as my daughter Alexis describes it, into the pool of love that awaits me at the end of the waterfall.

Water doesn't flow backwards.

Neither does time.

Yet, I can choose to hold myself under the thrall of time past by not letting go of what I had to make room for more of what I want in my life today.

It is always my choice.

This morning, I awaken to my choices. My choice how I greet the morning. I choose a loving heart filled with gratitude and a rising spirit of joy.

With my attitude of happiness settled softly in my heart, I move forward in my day anticipating all of this and everything better.

It is my choice.

The question is: What is your choice? To fill your mind with stories of how the world has robbed you of happiness, of your birthright of magnificence? Or, to fill your spirit with the joy and gratitude of being rapturously alive in this moment unfolding in all its limitless possibilities. Your choice. What will it be?

Toiling in the soil of love

Gardens are not made by singing "Oh, how beautiful," and sitting in the shade. Rudyard Kipling

And a beautiful life is not made by sitting back and thinking about all that you could do. A beautiful life is created by actively becoming involved in the creative process.

I know.

I have sat back many a time and bemoaned the lack of, excess of, scant reference to what I want or don't want in my life. I have sat on the teeter totter of my happiness and lowered myself to the ground with my thoughts of 'why am I so unhappy?', 'what's wrong with me, or him, or her or them?', 'where's the beef?'

Sitting back in the shade is good for a hot day after toiling in the garden dirt, weeding out errant stalks of discontent and planting seeds of beauty. Sitting back in the shade doesn't create more of what I want when it's performed with nary a muscle strained or back bent over the garden hoe.

I want, love, passion, joy, beauty, commitment, openness and intimacy. I want a relationship where I feel cherished. I want a relationship where I am actively engaged in the creation of a beautiful life.

To be actively engaged I must strain a muscle, stretch an arm, bend a little. I must engage to be engaged.

Which is why it always comes as such a rude awakening when I come up front and centre with my own 'schtick'. You know, that game of, 'if only [insert name of other person here] would....'. That place where we'd be happy if [insert name of other person here] would quit, do, become, say, think, be....' different than who they are.

See, that's the thing about a loving relationship. For all my thinking about what the other person should quit, do, become, say, think, be... I am the only person I can affect. And when my thinking is all about what the other person is doing, saying, being, then I am sitting in the shade not shovelling anything but angst and self-denial.

Yesterday, C.C. and I got into the swing of the the push/pull, shove/bend of our relationship. We skirted issues, fenced around our feelings, dug into the topsoil of our discontent. We weren't getting much of anything other than a whole pot full of 'you said, I said,' until we decided to dig in and unearth what was at the root of our discomfort.

It's then I saw my best lying fallow in the soils of 'why can't you just open up and be more like me'. Over the years I have ploughed up my angst, and pulled out lots of weeds of discontent. I've churned up the soils of history, laid seeds of happiness in many areas of my life. But, in relationship, I was still mucking about in the pastures of 'it's not my fault I'm emotional. If you would be more open I wouldn't get so... [fill in the blank].'

I create what I fear.

In my fear of being hurt, I was creating acres of rich soils for hurt to take root.

It was a rich and productive conversation. I have been guilty of sitting in the shade waiting for someone else to toil in the garden of love, wishing for beauty to spring up with just a look or glance or touch.

I cannot create beauty in my life without my becoming actively engaged in its creation.

It's the law of nature.

The question is: Are you sitting back in the shade expecting someone else to do the dirty work? Are you willing to get mired in the muck of your own creation and dig deep into whatever it takes to create the life of your dreams?

The web

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. Bertrand Russell

I am late writing this morning. Computer/Internet angst interrupted my morning flow. It was a surprisingly good change. Gave me a chance to focus on other things, to look for other ways, opportunities, ideas.

On Tuesday, we had a seminar at the shelter where I work on the Relational Rennaisance. Dr. Jean LaFrance presented his format for discovering new ways to solve problems. It reminded me of 'web writing' -- no, not online missives, but creating a web for story ideas to evolve from.

IN web writing, you write a word or phrase in the centre of the page and circle it. Branching out from the centre circle you draw a line to a circle and in it write a word or phrase that is spawned by the centre idea. You keep drawing circles around words you write until your page is full or you have run out of words. There's no judging the words. No, 'that one doesn't relate', or censoring of your ideas. The object is to get all the words down on paper first -- and then categorize, organize, shape the web into coherent thoughts. From the page you might come out with five or six even ten distinct thoughts. From there, you begin the process of linking those ideas to thoughts on the page.

In relational based practice, you link ideas through first of all, writing down a problem in the centre of the page and then webbing from that centre point what you know about the 'current reality'. The sub-text to the problem statement that elaborates on the issue. From there, you create a map leading you to the question, "What do I want to achieve."

It was a powerful process for me. I realized as we discussed issues around staff/client utilization that often my perception is based on what I hear -- and when I don't investigate through free-thinking, I am limited in my ability to create solutions that are innovative, practical and effective.

Try it.

Pick a problem in your life. Something that is a recurring theme -- like, I don't have enough time. Write it in the middle of the page, and begin to web. Free associate to the thought of 'time', what does it mean, what is the sub-text to the thought?

And then, start letting the ideas flow. Be creative. Be eccentric.

You get to choose -- is this an idea worth keeping, or not. Does believing' I don't have enough time' create more of what I want in life or less? What are some creative ways I can change how I look at the problem -- what's the subtext.

The question is: Can you let eccentricity create new and exciting opportunities in your life. Are you willing to get outside the box and web away?

The power of love

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: the potential for greatness lives within each of us. Wilma Rudolph

I have always believed the greatest lessons I have ever learned are from my daughters. Through being their mother I have learned the true meaning of 'giving is receiving'. I have learned what it means to love unconditionally, myself and others. To be responsible. To be a role model. To be true and honest and steadfast.

This morning, I read my daughters blog and felt the power of love wash over me in all its infinite facets. I felt its power to heal and to nurture and to create life. And I felt the gift of its forgiveness.

I want to share what she wrote with you. It is a powerful lesson in love and gratitude and beauty and most importantly, forgiveness.

http://alexismcd.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/love-lessons/

Nameste

All mankind's inner feelings eventually manifest themselves as an outer reality. Stuart Wilde

We are who we think we are.

I think today that I am very different than I was five or six years ago. And very different than who I was before the relationship that catapulted me into the self-destruction that led to my re-birth.

In the process of becoming who I am today, I have acquired knowledge of my divine essence and divested myself of limiting beliefs that were not working for me. In the process, I have embraced all that I am, the good, the bad and the not so pretty. In my wholeness I have transcended my belief that I am limited to my thinking about who I am. I am so much more than I think. I am powerful beyond my wildest imaginings -- and, at the same time, am limited in my imaginings by my thinking I am only who I think I am.

It's quite a conundrum.

I am who I think I am -- and who I think I am is limited by my beliefs and feelings about me, myself and I. And those thoughts are founded on my experiences with the world around me and how I process them. See what I mean? Quite a conundrum. Accessing my higher goodness is only possible when I let go of my need to know who I am within the box my conscious mind creates to understand the technicalities of my being. Who am I outside that box? Ahh, now that's a question worth pondering.

There was a time when my inner feelings were filled with the angst of wondering, am I good enough? Do I measure up? Do I even matter?

In coming through the hell of self-destruction, I have unleashed my thinking so that I no longer believe everything I think. I no longer limit myself within the box of my judgements. "A good girl would do A. I did 'B', therefore I am not a good girl." In my re-birth, I allow my conscious mind access to my preconscious mind, that reservoir of memory that connects me to not only my human condition on this plane, but the pre-conditions of my foremothers and theirs before them that I carry on a deep cellular level into this world with me.

Somewhere in my preconscious mind there are thoughts swimming in a sea of possibility that I have not yet tapped into. My conscious mind wants to regulate my access to the preconcious. My conscious mind wants to measure, tape, allocate the limits of my thinking to the technical data it likes to process. I am woman. I am female. I am five foot two and one half inches tall. I weigh -- okay even my conscious mind's belief I must tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, is going to make me fess up to that one!

My conscious mind likes 'the data'. It likes to know how things fit together. How they are ordered. How they work. It likes to understand why I am the way I am based on the knowledge it contains within the box of its limited measurement of my journey through time.

My preconscious mind likes to meditate on the archetypes of my being. On the prototypes of the stories my conscious mind creates to make sense of why I am the way I am, why I do what I do.

When I take the time to allow myself access to the preconscious, I gift myself with the bigger story of my being human. In that bigger story, I connect to the archetypal antecedents of my being who I am. No longer is the Sun just the largest planet at the centre of the solar system, the Sun also holds a significance as representative of the Ego. It is the archetype for masculine energy. Fire, heat, a lifeforce. In its archetypal representation, I connect to that masculine force within me. That force that is the Yin to my Yang. Light to my darkness. And in that archetypal story, I find the antecedents of my make-up. The story behind the story of who I am.

Life is the stories we tell. The stories I tell myself are founded in my conscious mind's ability to make sense of what I am doing, what's happening around me, and how I feel about the circumstances of my life today.

Creating new stories to tell is founded on my willingness to tap into my preconscious minds' ability to think outside the box of my limiting beliefs.

Thousands of years ago, Socrates wrote, "the unexamined life is not worth living." A couple of thousand years later, Mark Twain countered with, "The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all."

In the dissonance between examination and contemplation and getting stuck in the stars of naval gazing, I find myself living my best life yet. It's all in my thinking.

The question is: Are you living inside the box of your thinking or are you exploring your options beyond the limits of what you know in your conscious mind? Are you willing to let yourself go?

Winning is not everything.

Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday. Wilma Rudolph

Remember when you were little and parents and teachers told you, "Be a good loser." And then, in the next breath, they said, "Don't cry." Why not? Losing hurts.

It's important to let the pain out. To clear the senses to find the truth of where you're at.

I felt like I had lost a battle last Thursday with a woman who believes she is absolutely, completely, totally in the right. When I spoke to her Thursday, there was her truth, and only her truth. I know there's both her truth and my truth in this situation, and that somewhere in the middle there is a common ground where the truths overlap into something resembling a win/win. She didn't want a win/win. Winning isn't important to her. Not losing is.

Finding a solution is important to me. I had to find a common ground. To reach it, I accepted 100% accountability for my role in creating the mix-up and asked, "How can we make this right."

"You can do what you said you would do in the first place," she replied.

Ahhhh. Now there's the problem. I didn't commit to doing what she believes I did. I took a breath. There was absolutely no benefit in trying to convince her she was 'wrong' in what she believed to be right.

"I hear you say this is important, and the reasons you gave as to why it is make sense. We are a charity. We can't afford to do what you ask, however, if I can find someone to donate what you need, I will make sure it happens. All I can promise is that I will do my best. I can't guarantee I'll be successful, but if I can do it without it costing the agency additional monies I will."

The outcome that she controls is significant for the homeless shelter where I work. Being right is a luxury I don't need. What I need is to have a successful outcome with what we need from this woman.

I got to work and found someone to donate what we needed. In organizing its receipt, however, I found her lie. It is a big one. Significant. In fact, in that lie lays the truth of why she is so upset about this situation and why she is so adamant that I am 'wrong'.

I hadn't gone looking for a lie. I was looking for a solution and had phoned an organization to see if they could help. And there it was. The lie. Big. Fat. Juicy. And oh so beautiful to see.

I hung up the phone and almost did a dance of glee. I hadn't committed to what she said. I couldn't have, given what she had already done.

And that's when I had to be a good 'loser'.

See, I wanted to phone her and call her on her lie. I wanted to slam the truth against her forehead and nail it to her brow and then stomp on her toe for good measure. But that would not have gotten me more of what I want. That would not have gotten the shelter what it needs. And because I knew the enormity of her lie, I also recognized her for what she is: The lie. There is not sense in trying to make sense of what a liar does -- they're not interested in truth. They are only interested in protecting their ego.

I looked at my options. Exposing her as a liar at this moment in time is not one of them. I put the question out into the universe. "What can I do to create a win/win?"

The next morning I had my answer. I crafted an email to this woman asking for a resolution to the situation her lie had created. I didn't call her a liar. Didn't accuse her of anything. Just laid the facts out in one concise paragraph and let it go, explained how I could not proceed with what I needed to do to get what she had asked for until she cleared up what she had done.

I sent the email and awaited her response. Gleefully. I mean, I am only human. I love being 'right'.

Yesterday, I got her response. I didn't have to unmask her. Her 'character' is revealed in every word she wrote. And in her email, she made it possible for me to not do what she had insisted needed to be done to make the situation right. She cannot change what she has already done to make it possible.

In her response, however, she wrote paragraphs about what had gone wrong, giving timelines and details. It is distorted. The details manipulated to paint the picture she needs to be 'right'.

I wanted to refute everything she wrote. It is not necessary, nor effective. She is the lie. I am not powerful enough to change a liar. I am powerful enough to stand for my truth and to stop her lies from undermining my worth.

I took a deep breath and wrote back my response. One sentence. I dealt only with what I needed to do to ensure the agency got what it needed.

I can't change her. I can, however, cushion the impact her lies have on another human being. Her lie has serious consequences for another individual. I don't know this person but I do believe they would not want to be represented by the lies she has formulated in this situation.

What to do? What to do?

Yesterday afternoon I got my answer in the form of a phone call from an old friend. Because he was involved in the same business as this woman for years, I had called him for advice. He confirmed my suspicions. The person in the middle would not want what this woman is doing or saying to be connected to them. He gave me some ideas on how to approach both the individual and the situation.

I have my win/win.

See, at first blush I felt like I had lost. In accepting 100% responsibility for my role in this situation, she had projected it to mean I was 100% in the wrong. I didn't like having to be silent but knew I was dealing with a situation where right versus wrong battles would always end up with nobody winning. As she is the only person who can provide us what we need to meet our commitment in this situation, I had to keep in the dance with her.

I didn't like looking like I was 'giving in' to her manipulations. My ego wasn't happy. I could limit the impact of her untruths on me and the agency by limiting my contact to only discussing the business at hand, not the personalities, not the past, not the 'truth' as she perceives it to be.

And that was okay. I wasn't losing my integrity, my self-respect nor my truth.

She was. There is no better way to lose integrity, self-respect, dignity and your self-worth than to lie.

It is my experience with Conrad, the man who loved me to almost death, that taught me that.

And through that experience, I was able to see this woman for who she is, without getting caught in the trap of wondering about 'who am I?' and without getting caught in the dance of her drama. Her drama is, her drama. I can't change who she is. I can affect how who she is impacts me.

I don't have to accept her truth of who I am as being my truth. I can leave it sitting between us, let her dance around it, because in her view of who I am, she believes I am stupid. I don't want her to know the truth.

Because she needs to believe she cannot lose, there is nothing I can say or do that will appease her need to be right. Losing to her lies means nothing to my life. I learned that with Conrad. His lies only had a hold on me when I believed they were about me. When I accepted his lies as my truth I was lost.

Today, I stand tall. I stand proud. I don't have to lose everything to win in this situation. All I have to lose is my need to 'be right'. Dealing with a liar has nothing to do with right and wrong. It has everything to do with holding my integrity sacred.

It was a good lesson yesterday. A great opportunity to take all that I had lost in the past and turn it into winning today.

The question is: Are you willing to learn from those places where all appeared to be lost so that you can win today with your integrity, self-respect and self-worth intact?