Serenity – Believing in yourself

There are times in life when it is easy to believe in yourself everything seems to be going your way. Home life is good, finances are solid, job is good, children/spouse/extended family all sailing smoothly through life. Of course, one could question if all this really produces serenity. And then there is reality. Serenity is a state of mind. It is a choice. It is a goal. It is something we all crave as move away from pain and toward pleasure. So why do we find it so challenging? I believe that the primary reason we find serenity so challenging is precisely because serenity is a state of mind, choice, goal and something we crave as pleasurable.

All too often we want our “feel good” to last indefinitely. And while I do believe that it is possible to live in a state of nearly perpetual serenity, I don’t believe that most of us can achieve that in this lifetime. More importantly, I don’t think that we need to and if that is our goal we most likely will miss the mark. No I think that we drift in and drift out of serenity and it is in the moments in between that we come to know serenity for all that it is. A delicious feeling of acceptance, sometimes joyful, but not always. Sometimes serenity arrives in the midst of great turmoil, stress and anxiety. The trick is being open to the possibility of that arrival… and trust me that can be a challenge. But when serenity shows up, embrace it and let go of it. It will stay, it will go, it will come back, it will visit you often if you let it. It will visit you often if you let it. But the tighter you try to hold onto serenity, the more elusive it will be. It will visit you less frequently if you become possessive or clingy and could decide to stop coming around all together until you begin to give it the freedom to come and go as it pleases.

What does this have to do with believing in yourself? Everything. It takes a belief in yourself to develop sufficient openness for serenity to come calling. You must know in your heart that you can cultivate enough love for yourself to summon serenity. For some that comes easily, for others it requires work and perhaps a leap of faith. What have you got to lose? You may find that with that new-found belief in yourself that you to are OccasionallySerene.

If you could create anything, anytime, and have it be real?

What could you do…If you could create anything, anytime and have it be real?

Often times we spend a great deal of time and energy and wishing, imagining and fantasizing about what it would be like if we could have this or that. You know what I am talking about, new car, new house, new job, bigger TV, smaller camera, more jewelry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah! The truth is that you very nearly can. That may sound crazy but between the reality that everything in the world has never been closer to “in reach” to the average person coupled with the idea that the human brain has a difficult time differentiating between your fantasies and reality as measured by brain waves, chemical reactions, and some people’s reality, puts the ability to create anything you want, anytime you want it and it is almost real or it is.

Sounds like the Holodeck of the Starship Enterprise, but the fact is that as we continue to imagine the impossible and strive to overcome that construct we have created things that a century ago would have been considered preposterous. Airships that carry hundreds half way across the world in a matter of hours instead of weeks, contraptions that magnify the exceedingly and infinitesimally small to a size that can be seen and understood by the human eye, machines that transport sounds and images instantaneously to other machines. At one time or another in the not too distant past all of things did not exist and today they are real. They are, because someone like you dared to dream it and make it so.

What could you do…If you could create anything, anytime and have it be real?

A new year, a new start, a new career

Well it’s been months since I’ve been able to sit and write. Many reasons, two seasons and big changes. As 2010 winds down I find myself in that place that so many others have in the past two years. Unemployment is looming. While I cannot say that I am pleased to be searching for career opportunities, I can say that I am ready to embrace it.

This is referred to as Career Transition. It is one of those phrases that gingerly describes a tough time. But transition it is. This is something that you embrace or you spin your wheels until you can accept. I have moved to embrace. While I cannot say that I am enjoying this, the transition gives me an opportunity to evaluate, reflect and reinvent.

It is true that this door is closing, and that is ok, another will open. The challenge is to be ready for that door to open. To have done the work, and have the confidence to move through that door and be ready to capitalize on the opportunities that present themselves. The whole thing has little to do with luck and everything to do with effort, resolve, openness and most importantly my ability to not make all it about me even though at times I so desperately want it to be all about me and my career needs. My best efforts and my feelings of greatest serenity are attached to my efforts to help others.

So this Holiday season as I let go of my current career I seek to find the next and that will come with networking, helping others find their next career, keeping my eyes open for that next door and being greatful for all that I have.

Please let me know how I can help you.

Living Life in America or Why I choose not to complain

Living life in America, is one of the greatest blessings there is. Someone once said, “Being born in America is like winning the lottery.” Sorry that I cannot properly attribute this quote, but these words ring true.

There are few places in this world where you have the freedom to fail or succeed in quite the way that you can here. It is said that the streets are paved with gold and for many they are. While today’s headlines reflect the hard economic times this country currently faces, these will pass. Will we return to the type of unbridled economic expansion that we have seen over the past century? Who knows?

What you should be aware of, and what every legal and illegal immigrant already knows, is that this is the land of opportunity. It’s not a guarantee. Nothing in this life is. But if you work hard, if you work smart, if you are willing to take some risks along the way, America can provide you with the opportunity to realize your dreams.

What’s the catch? You have to be present. You have to show up for life. You have to decide what is important and pursue that. Some define success monetarily, some define success spiritually, some define success in terms of freedom, some define success in terms of acquisition, some define success in terms of accomplishment, others in giving.

Bloom where your planted.

<Unfortunately some people do not even bother to define success but instead bemoan what they do not have. They don't accept responsibility for their life or their decisions, they just say that life is unfair. You know what, life is unfair. My wife likes to say "bloom where you are planted." This is excellent advice. It means that you must work to achieve your best, even if you don’t get or have much to begin with. You can't control others, you can't control the weather, you can't control anything but your own actions and reactions. Remember this the next time you think you want to say that life is unfair. When you arrived in America whether by birth or migration, no one promised you fairness, no one promised you a job, or a nice house, or a fat retirement plan. This life comes with no gaurantee. The promise of America is that you have opportunity, freedom created by the rule of law, the capacity to practice your religion of choice or no religion at all. As well as the freedom to speak your mind, and reap the benefits and consequences of your thoughts, words and actions. We are ,however, also becoming a nation of narcissistic complainers. We will gripe about anything and everything. We choose to define ourselves in ways that segment and separate us from others and we fragment our energy through mindless diversions and the promise of achieving and attaining more through multi-tasking. Maybe we have just lost our path. Where does this path we are on lead us? I don't know the answer, but I am certain that over-consumption (which we are free to do) runs on a tangent to the path, but is not the path.

The freedoms bestowed upon us come with a cost, one that we have typically forgotten about – responsibility. I consider it my responsibility to define my success, and make my fortune, whatever I may decide that to be. I do not consider circumstance to be good luck or bad luck, it just happens to be. I make a conscience effort to not complain about my circumstances. It does me no good. It wastes energy and only serves to annoy those around me. I was not always this way. In fact I spent a significant part of my life blind and ignorant to the good fortune I was born to and found plenty to complain about. You see, I did win the lottery, life's lottery. I was born in America. I work hard, good things happen to me, not so good things happen to me. I try to stay present enough to make good choices, take responsibility for my actions and be kind to those I encounter. Because of this, I am a success by the yardstick I use to measure myself and this is why I choose not to complain.

What could you do if you could?

What could you do if… you could accept praise?

Why is it that accepting praise is so often difficult? What is it about our society and culture that makes it a challenge for us to simply say “thank you” when another offers us some positive feedback?

Watch a young child. Give that child some praise and watch that child beam with pleasure for being recognized. This is a healthy state. This is as life should be. Wait a few years, maybe a decade, and there is a strong possibility that the very same young person that beamed with pride at being recognized for a job well done may now seek to side step similar reinforcement.

Now conduct your own research. In the course of your day, choose 5 people and find something to praise them for. It does not have to be a monumental achievement to have effect, but it should be sincere. I have done this and typically 3 out of 5 people have a hard time accepting genuine praise.

It is understandable but regretable. We are a society obsessed with perfection. It is unobtainable, unrealistic, and not a healthy pursuit. And yet we still seek perfection. When I am gone, no one will remember the great perfection that I or you have achieved. What we will be remembered for is the way that we walked through our life, head held high, compassionate to those we interacted with, humble, generous, accepting of the feedback offered by others – both praise and that meant to help us in constructive ways. The humble acceptance of praise enriches not only you, it enriches the person who stopped to notice and comment on your praiseworthy accomplishment.

Give it a try. The next time someone acknowledges your success or effort. Look that person in the eye and say “thank you.” In short order not only will you be feeling better, you will have worked some magic. Your simple and humble acceptance of genuine praise creates a conduit for more positive energy in our world. this happens because your acceptance and acknowledgement creates positive reinforcement for the person who offers the praise. And just like that, the positive energy is doubled.

What could you do if… you could accept praise?

Work of art or art work?

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

As a culture we place so much emphasis on appearances. And in some way that is important. You only have once chance at first impressions. But it is also true that “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.” So in today’s world, how do we shift to seeing the inner beauty? The works of art shaped and painted over the course of a lifetime.

Do we value the qualities that make make someone truly beautiful? They say that “beauty is skin deep.” Sometimes this is true, sometimes not. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” another of those descriptive sayings that we use often, but often don’t think about the meaning.

I like what I think Eleanor is getting at. Masterpieces take time to create. They are timeless and they are priceless. While gray hair and grooves don’t make us masterpieces in and of themselves, they represent the passage of time and the opportunity to experience life, to have faced the many opportunities that allow us to grow and mature. It is the metamorphosis that only time and a full life can bestow upon us.

Beauty on the other hand, has traditionally been an accident of birth and more recently, for sale by the plastic surgeon. Now don’t get me wrong, I like beauty. I married a beautiful person, and here is the important part, while she is not old enough to qualify as a masterpiece, the brushwork is there. Everyday we have the opportunity to add a few strokes here, mix some pigment differently for over there. The question is, do you? Do you experience and live your life in ways that enrich others? Or just yourself?

Do you take the time to evaluate that canvas? Do you hand the brush to another and trust them to make their mark on your canvas? I think that having children, has a way of accelerating the masterpiece process. Not for all, and for some not ever, and it’s also not the only route. But you have to let life happen. Acceptance is key. When I say acceptance, I don’t mean roll over and take it. I mean that there are things that we can change and things that we cannot. Knowing the difference and accepting that, is what serenity is all about. You have too achieve some semblance of letting go, particularly on the little things. And so much of what we cling to are little things.

It’s the same in the day to day hustle and grind. We often place too much emphasis on instant gratification, and the latest fad or trends rather than the effort required to build the foundation for a life that transcends our far too short attention span. I always loved this quote form The Lion King, “Simba, you are more than you have become.” This is unfortunately true at an ever increasing rate. There are fewer and fewer people putting the effort into developing that “work of art”, we have become a society focused on beauty and beauty at all costs. But we really are more than we have become.

Will you choose to paint your future? or, find someone else who promises to do it for you?

What could you if you could? – You can!

What could you? If you could forgive yourself, your partner, your children, your parents, your friends, your siblings, your enemy?

Forgiveness feels good like rays of sunshine settling deep in your soul.

Forgiveness, so simple and yet so complex, so elusive. When we forgive, we heal. Forgiveness after all is about the pain and/or anger of being hurt and our desire to hold on to that or let go of it. Thinking about forgiveness and the emotions that arise around situations that require us to forgive others or ourselves is not the kind of reflection that most of us consider regularly.

How do we forgive others when we can find it so difficult to forgive ourselves? Stepping into the confessional of the blogosphere, makes it easier to acknowledge the self loathing attached with prior mistakes, bad decisions and willful misconduct. It does not erase them and it does not make them ok, but I can become ok with that which is in the past.

The ability to find forgiveness for one’s self is a critical ingredient to forgiving others. It is difficult, sometimes the pain attached to not forgiving ourselves is just such an integral part of our “story” that we just cannot give that identity up. Without forgiveness there can be no healing, no growth. You are on a treadmill and you are doing nothing. This is not where I want to be, how about you? I don’t know exactly why I did not learn to forgive myself, or perhaps, I unlearned forgiveness, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that at some point I woke to the fact that my biggest enemy, biggest critic, biggest bully, was within me. I was meaner to myself than anybody else could ever be. And I don’t really know why and you know what? I don’t really care why because I do not have to continue that behavior.

So really, I do still get mad at myself when I do something that I think was stupid. Yes, I call myself silly names, and think bad thoughts, and then I let them go. This is critical, because without doing that, you cannot really forgive anyone else. That empathy, that understanding has to be extended to you, before you can truly extend it to another. Without self forgiveness, grudges and resentment are nurtured. That is not to say that if you forgive yourself you won’t resent others or that you won’t hold a grudge, but you really can’t let go for another if you can’t experience that release for yourself. That resentment, is more hurtful to you than it is to the person you resent. Many years ago, I heard an expression that really sums it all up. “so and so is living rent free in your head.” When you resent someone, when you cannot forgive them, you allow that person to live rent free in your head. I try to not let that happen anymore, after all if I am going to have tenants, I should expect rent.

Now in today’s world who are you really going to extend the privilege of rent free accommodations? So when I say forgiveness, I am not talking about being a doormat. Forgiving someone does not excuse their behavior. It does not mean that you condone it. It does not mean that you will tolerate it in the future. It does however mean, letting go of the power that you have bestowed in another to effect your mood, your quality of life, your happiness. It does mean that you take responsibility for what you have the ability to control, which is only your own response to any situation. If you have the slightest feeling of vindictiveness or malice, you have not forgiven. You have not begun the healing process.

There are at least two types of forgiveness. The two that I have to work with are when my forgiveness is asked for, which is most commonly experienced in the form of an apology and the other is when I forgive someone who has not apologized. Make no mistake, in both circumstances, the forgiveness is all about my healing, not yours. And you know what, sometimes I am so mad, feel so abused, that I am not ready to forgive when forgiveness is sought. That person is not demonstrating a sufficient amount of regret or remorse for me to let them off the hook. What a mistake that is. The truth is when someone asks for forgiveness they do so because they do acknowledge the error in whatever it is they have done. They do wish to repair the relationship, my not being ready to accept a sincere apology is always about my anger, my hurt feelings, my grief and my need to continue to wallow in those emotions. And, oh, if I can force you to feel bad at the same time, even better. Not proud of it, but there it is, and you know what it is true for all of us. Now I am often able to catch myself. I do not hold on to resentment for years, months, weeks or usually even days anymore. Most times I am able to catch those thought patterns and turn them off. For any of you who have ever been on the receiving end, please accept my apology. But just so you know, I have already forgiven myself for all past transgressions.

Now I have been known to call someone on an insincere apology. Maybe it is a character flaw. But I don’t want to hear the words “I am sorry,” if you are not. I will tell you that. I try not to say “I am sorry” unless I mean it. The words become hollow if used without sincerity. Some people find saying “I am sorry” very difficult. For some acknowledging their regret is too difficult. Others too readily accept blame and say “I am sorry” at the drop of a hat. This is also problematic. These apologies frequently do not come across as sincere.

At the end of the day, if you are not forgiving yourself, how can you forgive others? How can you find and embrace the divinity in yourself if you cannot forgive yourself? If we relearn to forgive ourselves, it opens a whole world to us, an interior world, of peace. That will be the beginning of the journey that will allow you to forgive others and heal.

What could you? If you could forgive yourself, your partner, your children, your parents, your friends, your siblings, your enemy?