Cracks in Consciousness: September 2015

Monday, September 28, 2015

Words To Live By

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “‘Someday’ is a disease that takes your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually,’ just do it and correct your course along the way. Tom Ferriss, The Four-Hour Workweek

I admire people who live their lives by the “Just Do It” Nike credo. And, apparently, Mr. Ferriss counts himself among that elite few, happily exhorting the rest of us to embrace this motto. We all know people like this: the ones who successfully, and seemingly with little effort, make a major change in their lives, like quitting smoking, losing weight, or even walking away from their “Sure Thing” job in order to seek their passion in life. These people are the high-wire acts in the circus of life, the ones who courageously go out on a limb and then willingly saw themselves off.

I have a different philosophy, which I think of as the anti-Nike approach to life: “Just Don’t Do It.” Born out of fear, a mean lazy streak, and the immortal words of Louisa May Alcott who said, “Let us be elegant or die,” I have no problem with not doing something—especially if there is a chance that I do it wrong or, heaven forbid, risk looking stupid.

Or, maybe it’s just that I’m more of a Canon “Image Is Everything” kinda gal.

One of Canon’s most successful ad campaigns, the “Image Is Everything” commercial featuring Andre Agassi, was all about style over substance. “Overnight,” Agassi wrote in his autobiography, Open, “the slogan became synonymous with me. Sportswriters likened this slogan to my inner nature, my essential being. They said it’s my philosophy, my religion, and they predicted it would be my epitaph.”

And could you blame them?

In the early years of his male-pattern baldness, a rabidly narcissistic Agassi took to wearing a flamboyantly high-maintenance weave. As if it wasn't enough that the hair that made him famous was fake, Agassi admits that it was a crappy fake, too: At the 1990 French Open, Agassi's conditioner caused his weave to fall apart, forcing his brother to bobby pin it to his head and the horrified tennis diva to go all sweaty-palmed over whether his scalp pelt would go flying mid-match.

Yeah, I get that.

Let us not forget that I’m the one who, once I escaped from the barn I had accidentally locked myself in by climbing out of a window and falling precipitously to the ground, proceeded to casually brush myself off and stroll nonchalantly back to the house on the sheer chance that one of my neighbors just happened to be looking out towards my barn in the wee hours of New Years Day.

For most of my life, I was one of those people who didn’t start something until I felt I was totally and completely knowledgeable about the thing I wanted to try. And while it made my resume look good, it didn’t do much for my self-esteem. Because I did this out of fear. Fear of the consequences of not doing something “right” or “perfectly.” Fear of financial insecurity or insolvency. Fear of having to ask for help or even having to admit that I needed help. Fear of being vulnerable.

But now I’m trying to learn how to put my toe in the water just a bit, how to at least climb the tree even if I don’t go out on the limb. I’m trying to learn how to turn off the critical “image is everything” mindset and allow myself to have a few bad hair days. To be willing to correct my course if I find that I’m off the path.

John Kenneth Galbraith said, “If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.”

I don’t know about you, but knowing that I can assure my immortal image just by making one spectacular error takes the sting out of giving new something a try.

Maybe the next time I say to myself, “Someday I’d like to do that,” I might be a bit more willing to Just Do It.

Have you been saying, “Someday” to your dreams?

Think about it!

Want to know more about how I managed to lock myself in the barn in the first place? Check out that my blog about that spectacularly stupid wake-up call.

Want to know more about transforming limited thoughts and beliefs into limitless possibilities? Check out my Examine–Envision–Emerge Personal Transformation Book Series. Each book explores a particular aspect of thought healing. Find yours online at your favorite retailer today!

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Hard Knocks

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” Coco Chanel

Are there times when you feel a little overwhelmed, but you can’t figure out how to separate the important stuff from the ordinary noise of your everyday life? Are you at a place in your life today where you can’t figure out how to get from where you are to where you want to be? Have you ever found yourself at a place where you honestly believed you had no way out of?

Well, let me tell you—I know exactly how you feel. I have to admit that I’ve found myself in a place with no obvious way out more than a few times in my life.

Like, for example, take the time I accidentally locked myself in a dark, empty barn 3 acres away from my nearest neighbor in the wee hours of the morning on New Years Day in 2005. No electricity, no water – and no cell phone because I wasn’t planning on staying down at the barn so it didn’t occur to me to bring it along.

Obviously, the fact that I’m writing this blog today means that I did find a way out. But I spent some time beating on the walls of that barn before I figured out that no amount of beating was going to transform the walls into my escape route.

Sounds like Coco Chanel might have locked herself in a barn once or twice herself, and she’s letting us know that, while we might have many options, not all of them are in our best interest.

Milton Berle said, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."

From my 20 years as a business process engineer in the private and public sectors as well as what I learned from just this one spectacularly stupid, personal wake-up call on New Years Day, I now know that there is ALWAYS a way out if you are prepared to create it.

Are you wasting your time beating on walls? Or are you building the door to the life that is in your best and highest interest?

Think about it!

Be Willing To Be Willing

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.” Richard Bach

For most of us, giving ourselves permission is challenging. For many reasons, we can’t or won’t allow ourselves to put ourselves first. Instead, we simply put one foot in front of the other and gut it out.

Part generational, part genetic, part upbringing, there are many reasons why we never consider what we might really want or what might be in our best and highest interest. We simply do what we think, or believe, we have to do. We jump into the hole, we see the steep walls, and then we don’t even acknowledge that there might be a way out, let alone cry out for help.

But giving ourselves permission to willingly consider alternatives is the key to reinvention.

Willingness is a necessary precursor to taking action: you have to be willing to do something – or, at the very least, willing to try to do something – in order to keep moving forward.

I believe that when we give ourselves permission to rethink, to consider other possibilities, we crack open a door to our Higher Self – and our Higher Self, recognizing that the door has been cracked open, wedges a crowbar in to make sure that we consider a different way ahead.

In order to crack open that door to your Higher Self, you need to spend some time figuring out what it means to give yourself permission in terms of your own personal transformation and reinvention.

Once you can delve deeply into the concept of permission, you will be able to recognize the impact it can have, not only on your reinvention journey but on your entire life.

Think About It!

Which Way Did He Go?

Thought Healing Quote For The Week: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra

The definition of a crossroads is “the place where roads intersect or a place at which a vital decision must be made.”

Clearly, Yogi Berra knew a thing or two about being at a crossroads. There are two significant elements of this definition that Yogi has managed to capture (and in a much funnier way than I ever could).

First, a crossroads involves options: this road or that road, this way or that, this direction or that.

Second, a crossroads implies that we are intended to select one of the options available to us: we turn left instead of right, we take the shady path rather than the sunny one, the uphill climb rather than the downhill stroll.

When we come to the fork in the road, we are supposed to take it.

Otherwise, we come to a standstill.

Have you ever found yourself standing at some imaginary starting line but you just couldn’t cross over it? Are you waiting for everything to fall into place? Are you afraid of change? What do you fear? Have you already decided that the worst will happen so you’re living your life accordingly?

Have you come to the fork in the road and don’t know which way to go?

It doesn’t matter which way you go. Just take the fork. What matters is that you’re starting down a new path. You can always correct your course along the way. Not only is taking that first step less difficult than you may imagine, but it may change your life in wonderful ways.

Think about it!

Everything Changes

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.” Shunryu Suzuki

Whether it’s a change in your job, health, family, relationships, or life in general, transitions are an inevitable part of life.

Most people don’t like change. For many of us, change can be difficult or uncomfortable. This is true regardless of whether the change is forced upon us, planned, unexpected, or self-created. Why? Because we are giving up familiarity in exchange for the unfamiliar and unknown.

Some people certainly seem to handle change better than others. Most of us know at least one person who has successfully made a major change in their lives, like quitting smoking, losing weight, or walking away from their “Sure Thing” job.

Then there are the others – and maybe you count yourself among these people —who give up the minute it gets tough.

How would you rate your “change readiness.” Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

· How does the thought of change make me feel?

· How do I feel, act, or respond when something changes in my life?

· How would my friends and family describe my ability to handle change?

· How do I feel, act, or respond when faced with the possibility of change or even thinking about initiating a change?

In The Second Neurotic's Notebook, published in 1966, Mignon McLaughlin said this about change: “It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.”

Is your fear of change holding you back from happiness?

Think about it!

Interested in learning more about evaluating your change readiness and how it plays a role in your life? Check out my book, “Doing the Thing You Think You Cannot Do,” available on Amazon.

Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “So you may have gotten into the habit of doubting the voice that was telling you quite clearly what was really going on. It is essential that you get it back.” Anne Lamott

I love the Internet. I love being able to find information on any topic from countless points of view and too-numerous-to-count perspectives. I can learn about anything that interests, provokes, amuses, or annoys me.

But as much as I love it, I can quickly become overwhelmed with the staggering volume of information – books, webinars, classes, seminars, newsletters, workshops, blogs – that is available to me, all of which is fascinating and compelling but also – well – overwhelming.

Plus, I can easily fall into another information trap: the assumption that the way to enlightenment requires not only exploring all of the tools but using them all as well in order to ensure I do something the “right” way.

But if we believe that enlightenment cannot be achieved without using all of the tools available, and, moreover, classes and workshops are the only means by which we learn to use these tools, then the tools become a trap. Which for most of us means that instead of trusting ourselves to know what is in our best and highest interest, we “passively wait and see.”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for asking for guidance when I need guidance. I sign up for classes, buy books, meet with my psychic mentor regularly. There are times when we need help from someone else who is further along the path, who has experience and wisdom and knowledge and tools that we need so that we may improve our own abilities in order to better assist, heal, and guide others. But, the starting point must be in our ability to recognize our OWN abilities, to trust our intuition, to carve out for ourselves the path through the wilderness that is our time here on Earth.

In his now-classic book, “What Color is Your Parachute,” Richard Nelson Bolles makes this observation: “Your heart knows the places that it loves. Your mind knows the subjects that it loves. Your body knows the workout that it loves. Your soul knows the values that it loves. Therefore, my friend, what a “dream job” is all about (beyond skills) is identifying these favorite geographies, defining for yourself the places that your skills, your soul, and your body, heart, and mind, most often yearn to be.”

Are you listening to the truest part of yourself? Do you know what your “favorite geographies” are? What speaks to the deepest part of your nature ?

Surely, the most credible vital facts are what we know at the soul level about ourselves. And I think we all know our truths, our own credible vital facts. We only need to listen to our own clear voice.

Think about it!

Interested more in discovering your own credible vital facts? Check out my blog: http://cracksinconsciousness.blogspot.com/2014/12/kiss-and-tell.html

Vitameatavegamin

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” Lucille Ball

Do you know what makes you happy? Or are you more familiar with what makes you unhappy rather than happy? Do you even know what “happy” means? What it feels like, or sounds like, or looks like?

There was a time that I didn’t. A therapist asked me whether I was happy, and I didn’t know how to answer the question. In fact, I had no frame of reference for what “happiness” even felt like. And, at the time, I actually didn’t even realize that we are supposed to feel happy, that it’s okay to feel happy, but that’s a thought healing topic for another day!

Most of us don’t even recognize that our lives are often filled with small, day-to-day occurrences that make us happy. Instead, we focus on the negative.

But when the going gets tough, the tough – do what? What do you do that always brings a smile to your face no matter what?

There are countless sources of information on the internet that can help you figure out what makes you happy. But the FIRST step is in recognizing that you DON’T recognize what makes you happy.

So get your helluva start right now!

And by the way, you might start by watching some of Lucille Ball’s now iconic comedy routines (think the chocolate conveyor belt or the “Vitameatavegamin” routine).

Think about it!

Skipping Stones

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “The pathway is smooth. Why do you throw rocks before you?” Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers

Are you a rock thrower? When you have a goal in mind, do you set off with purpose, moving ever forward, keeping up your momentum, and sticking resolutely to your goal? Or, do you focus on the reasons why you shouldn’t start? Do you find yourself creating obstacles to your success? Instead of just starting out, do you start to question whether you really need to achieve your goal?

I hate to admit it but I’ve tossed more than a few rocks into my smooth pathway.

Most of us have an Achilles heel of our own devising that keeps us from taking that first step towards achieving our goals. For us, then, the journey must be one of discovery and self-realization.

And the first step on this smooth pathway is paradoxically simple: You must start by exploring what it is that keeps you from getting started. Is it the fear of failure or, perhaps, the fear of success?

Visualize yourself getting started and then get in touch with what you’re feeling and thinking concerning this picture in your mind. Keep asking yourself, “What is underlying this?” Keep peeling the onion to reveal what lies beneath. Then try to discover what resources, emotions, or experiences you can draw upon to help you overcome the rocks you’ve thrown before you in your path. Most importantly, find out what it is that will keep you going – and make that happen!

Think about it!

Want to know more about setting and achieving goals? Read my blog, Ready–Aim–Aim–Aim: http://cracksinconsciousness.blogspot.com/2014/03/ready-aim-aim-aim.html

You Say Tomato, I Say Tomahto

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.” Charles Swindoll, Founder, Insight for Living

We all know that the three most important words in real estate are location, location, location. In learning to deal with change more effectively and without fear, the three most important words are attitude, attitude, attitude. You can change your perspective regarding any of the unforeseen, the expected, and the inevitable events that make up your life as well as how you feel about having to respond to the event. It’s your choice.

Take, for example, writing your own obituary rather than leaving that task for someone else to struggle with after you’re gone. You can approach your end-of-life preparations with dread. Or, you can see it as an opportunity to sing your own praises, to get your house in order, or to just know that you can do something as painful as thinking about your own or someone else’s mortality without being crushed by the knowledge.

You do have a choice regarding the attitude you will embrace for today. You cannot change the inevitable, the unexpected, or the unthinkable. But you CAN change how you deal with anything that might throw you off course or keep you from living the life that is in your best and highest interest.

Think about it!

Want to know more about the three simple steps you can take to prepare for, and then successfully cope with, the events that make up your life? Check out my book, “Doing the Thing You Think You Cannot Do: How to Prepare for all of the Unforeseen, Unexpected, and Inevitable Events That Life Can Throw at Us,” available online at your favorite retailer today!

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your World

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “The way we habitually think of our surroundings and ourselves create the worlds that each of us inhabit.” Charles Duhigg

Habits are powerful—and largely invisible. They can shape our lives far more than we realize. We might not remember the experiences that created our habits, but once they become fixed in our minds, they influence how we act – often without our even being aware of them. We may find ourselves clinging to them no matter what, even if they defy basic common sense.

Some of our habits can be “good” and drive us to success. Consider Stephen Covey’s runaway, and perennial, 1989 bestseller, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It has sold more than 15 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies. In August 2011 Time listed 7 Habits as one of “The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books.”

Plus, this book has spawned a plethora of offshoots, follow-ons, and copy cats; I’m thinking about writing one called, “The 7 Habits of Highly Annoying German Shepherds.” (Screeching at the top of their lungs over nothing would be #1 on my list.)

Some habits can also be “bad,” which is defined as “leading to adverse consequences.” A 2004 JAMA article reported that the leading causes of death in 2000, according to CDC mortality data, were tobacco use; poor diet and physical inactivity; and alcohol consumption. In other words, over 35 percent of all deaths could have been avoided if people had “just” changed their habitual behaviors.

And then there are the habits that create the worlds we inhabit.

When thinking about our lives, most of us do what I call “snapshotting.” We see our lives in a certain way, like a photo, and we freeze it at that moment. We look through the lens, we frame the image in the way that is most pleasing to us, and we capture that perception. We like the results, and so we leave it as is. And, we inhabit these worlds, comfortably and unconsciously, often for years.

Then something happens that either allows us or forces us to change how we habitually think of our surroundings and our snapshotted lives, and we are faced with a decision: either keep the image as is or look at the image in a different way, to frame the external surroundings or to match our new, internal perceptions.

Thinking about your life, what worlds have you created and now inhabit as a result of your habitual thoughts? More importantly, which worlds would you LIKE to inhabit?

Think about it!

Want to know more about transforming limited thoughts and beliefs into limitless possibilities? Check out my Examine – Envision – Emerge© Personal Transformation Book Series. Each book explores a particular aspect of thought healing. Find yours at your favorite retailer today!

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “When you live your story, you don’t have to pretend you’re someone you’re not. You can just be yourself.” Blake Mycoskie

Personally, I love pretending to be someone I’m not. My two favorite things are Halloween and historical reenactment. I have a basement full of costumes, and I like nothing more than dressing up like someone else.

Donning a costume allows me to unleash my inner wannabes. Wannabe a knight in shining armor? Wrap yourself in aluminum foil and strap on a kitchen knife (I’m all about improvising when I need to). Wannabe a rock star? Try some fake tattoos (or the real thing, if you’re so inclined; I happen to be covered with body art), grab a plastic guitar, and use a garden spade as your microphone (like I said, I’m good at improvising). Or, make it really easy, and just head to the nearest karaoke bar.

At one time or another, all of us have had to pretend to be someone else. “Fake it ‘til you make it” is a well-known phrase in recovery forums, and has become a mainstream sentiment as well. Nervous about an upcoming interview? Pretend to be the smartest person on the planet. Afraid of public speaking? Pretend you’re just talking to a friend (that whole, “picture everyone naked” approach never worked for me anyway).

However, being yourself is just a whole lot easier than trying to be someone you’re not. It takes an incredible amount of psychic and spiritual energy to be constantly making yourself up as you go.

For example, as long as you have to work in order to have what you need or want your life to include, you’ll be happier—or at least more willing to show up and do the work—if the work you do aligns with your Authentic Self and what is most important to you. If you describe yourself as Introverted, you might be happier teleworking than working in an office environment where everyone is chummy, and there is an expectation of doing things together socially. As another example, if you define yourself as Spontaneous, you might find that working at a 9-to-5 job where you have to sign in and out is too restrictive.

Oscar Wilde said this, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”

Are you living your own glorious, inspiring, significant life story? Or, are you a wolf in sheep’s clothing, longing to howl at the moon, but only able to bleat weakly with the other sheep?

Think about it!

Want to know more about living your own story and embracing your Authentic Self? Read my guest blog on WorkAwesome. And check out my book, “Will Work to Feed Dogs,” for a simple exercise you can follow to uncover what is most important to you—after all, everyone IS already taken! Available on Amazon and your favorite retailer now!

The Knowledge of Alternatives

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “You always have a choice.” Nicolas Lore

I have a friend who lives by this philosophy. Whenever I talk (okay, whine) about decisions I’ve made in the past, her response to me always is, “It was your choice, remember.”

I HATE it when she says that.

But I also know that she’s right. It was my choice. I always have a choice.

Knowing that I have options is essential to my peace of mind and spiritual wellbeing. Having options means the difference between seeing a way ahead—or a way out—or staying in those deep holes that I have, on occasion, fallen into.

Have you ever asked yourself, “If I didn’t have to worry about the outcome, what would I let myself think about? What options might I have? What choices would I make?”

Giving yourself permission to consider all of your choices is the key to getting from where you are to where you want to be. When you give yourself permission to think about what you want, why you want it, and what you’re willing to do or even try to do, you free yourself to at least consider alternatives. Ideas that might not have occurred to you in a million years now might occur.

Maya Angelou wrote, “In order to avoid this bitter end, we have to be reborn again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives.”

Have you been avoiding looking at alternatives? Have you been trying to not look in the mirror and see what is true? Or are you ready to let yourself be reborn again with the knowledge of alternatives?

It’s your choice.

Think about it!

Want to learn more about the power of alternatives? Read my blog, "Singing Lesson," for a simple exercise that can show you how to open the door to your options whether you’re at a crossroads now or find yourself at one in the future.

The Fruits of Our Labor

#ThoughtHealing Quote For The Week: “Genius begins great works; labor alone finishes them.” Joseph Joubert

When it comes to transforming your life, knowing where you want to be (the genius component) and what you must do to get there (the labor component) are essential critical success factors.

Once you know where you’re going, do you set off with purpose, moving ever forward, keeping up your momentum, and sticking resolutely to finishing each task? Or, are you easily distracted, wandering here and there, not paying much attention to where you are and whether you’re doing the work that needs to be done?

I don’t know about you, but I have a mean lazy streak. Which is hard to imagine, given I am also incredibly disciplined and self-motivated.

Most of us have an Achilles heel of our own devising that keeps us from doing what it takes to finish the tasks that are essential to achieving our goals.

For us, then, we must rely on our genius to help us figure out what might be keeping us from “the doing.” Is it the fear of failure or, perhaps, the fear of success?

You also need to discover what resources, emotions, or experiences you can draw upon to help you overcome the inertia. Then, get back to work and finish what you started!

Michelangelo Buonarroti said, “If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn’t call it genius.”

In honor of this Labor Day, take a moment to reflect on what you’ve begun and on what needs to be done. Are you still waiting to enjoy the fruits of your labor?

Think about it!

Maybe We Do Not Speak Of It

Thought Healing Quote for the Week: “The landscapes of all our lives become as full of craters as the surface of the moon. And I write my obituaries carefully and think about how little the facts suffice, not only to describe the dead but to tell what they mean to the living all the rest of our lives. We are defined by who we have lost.” Excerpted from “Maybe We Do Not Speak Of It,” “Help Yourself” Staff Writers, Rocky Mountain News, 2001

I borrow my quote this week from the Rocky Mountain News staff writers, who wrote about loss, grief, and the “awful leisure [that] the living have after death” following the 9/11 tragedy in 2001.

This past Friday, 9/11, marked the 14th anniversary of a dark and sad day in the lives of countless people, not just in America, but around the world.

And now, 9/11 will forever be another anniversary for me: the passing of my beloved sister, Colleen Graham, who crossed over to the Other Side in the wee hours of the morning.

And if it is true that we are defined by who we have lost, then I will also forever be a better person because of who she was in my life.

Who has defined you?

Think about it!