Category: Happiness

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King Action and the Big To-Do

Back to Basics Folks. If your bias for action isn’t getting you to your goals, stop acting like you’re on a ridgeline with no bailout.

Look. I love to hike. I love to scramble and I love to get myself above tree-line and stay up there for as long as possible. I especially love to do that in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. When I’m looking at the ridged buttresses of those gray peaks and imagining that I’ll be at the top of all that in less than a day, I feel insignificant and awestruck. When I’m at the top and looking back to where I started, I feel a great validation. Yes, I can. Yes, I did. And yes, in the face of nature, I’m tiny and amazing.

For a person like me, not athletic, not always in great shape, working a couple of sedentary jobs, there’s a certain bravery, or crazy, in getting out there and trying this stuff. I’m super aware of all the ways my body and I can fail each other. I’m aware of all the ways that nature is blind and uncaring. Storms walk across the ridges, temperatures plummet. So much of it is out of my control. All of it is out of my control. To get to the top and keep going, requires a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach, a strict focus on the here and now, attention to the next action, and faith in your map. What you don’t need is a bunch of emotions making you screw up.

In back-packing, as at work, the mental game can turn a series of actions you need to take into a endurance ridden, instestine twisting obstacle course. What’s the answer? Simple. Shove down those emotions and keep going. Afraid of heights? Keep your eyes firmly on the next rock and do not look out over the expanse of nothing to your left. Afraid of being fired? Keep your nose to the grindstone, watch your mouth, double check your work.

Basically, think of the next action you can take and get to it, no matter what.

Makes sense when you’re on a ridge, with no good bailout. When fifty-mile-per-hour winds drive rain into your face, force you to lurch forward, bent over, using your boots and hands, with your pack-cover reverberating like an oncoming train, being able to push down your emotions and get one more yard closer to safety, is a great skill.

When there’s a crisis at work, staying focused, clear-headed, and calm pays huge rewards. Just get the map, the plan of action, and take the next step. You can vent about it later. For now, action is king.

This all breaks down when there’s no action to take. Like the guy in his tent, wondering what the sounds outside are, or the desk-jockey wondering if his employer will be in business next quarter, sometimes there’s no clear action to take. In those cases, managing your thoughts and the emotions they create is a clear next step. It’s the action you can take to feel better. The action of rethinking. You consider your perspective and manage your thinking. You remind yourself that your food is in a bear canister. You acknowledge that you have done all you can to help your company.

Look, most of the time, backpacking is just a slog up a hill with a big weight on your back. You’re not in trouble and you’re not out of actions. But if you’re going to spend the next four hours going up an endless staircase, you’ll do better if your emotions aren’t working against you.

In the same way, most of the time, work is just work. More stuff to do. Death by a thousand documents.

That’s when your bias for action can kill you. Shoving our emotions aside, thinking our way out of our frustrations, doesn’t take us where we need to go. To thrive during the majority of our business lives, the skill of sitting with feelings reigns supreme.

Emotions are what drive us to act. Different emotions cause different actions. Before you can switch emotional states to get better action, you have acknowledge what you’re feeling. Bummer, huh? At work, I just resent this fact. I prefer to act, to shove down emotions. I don’t want to muck around with feelings that are less than flattering. I certainly don’t want to talk about them.

That’s different from my experience hiking. On the trail, it’s become natural. My favorite trails start at zero and head straight up, right from the trailhead. So I’ve learned that during the first half-hour of the hike, my mind will be doing everything in its power to get me to head back to the car. I’ll notice every little wrinkle in my socks, I’ll be hyper-aware of my heart rate and breathing. In short, I’ll be miserable. I’ve learned to hang around with that discomfort. The first half-hour of a tough hike is spent basically noticing my mind, acknowledging that yes, it’s uncomfortable out here. Yes, I’m breathing hard. Yes, the pack is heavy. It’s fine. It’s OK. This is a thankless activity. It’s not supposed to be fun. This is the way I’m going. I’ll turn around if I need to but for now, the trail sucks.

I don’t try to push away worries. That would be nuts. If something is wrong, I want to find out while I can still get back to the car. That’s just being responsible. I don’t want to talk myself out of things or cover up real issues. I want to know that my boots fit, I can carry my pack, my heart is working but not too hard. I want to respond to issues while I can.

I don’t want to underreact or overreact.

The only way to hit that sweet spot is to accept that I have feelings and allow them to be there.

Usually, when I acknowledge that the situation is difficult and uncomfortable, I start to settle in. Oh, we’re doing this uncomfortable thing that we’ve done before. Oh, that’s all it is.

At work, frustration over interruptions, feeling victimized by my schedule, feeling anxiety over distractions from the political or personal environment, shame over missed opportunities, or anger over mistakes is part of the deal. When I shove those feelings down, I invite problems. On a personal level, I make the job harder, I look for distractions to help me endure the effort of not feeling. Worse yet, I might be missing opportunities to mitigate issues. Just as refusing to recognize an uncomfortable boot makes you miss the chance to put on a blister block, refusing to acknowledge that you don’t, actually, want to work all night, can make you miss the chance to just reschedule that less important meeting. Before you can actually take the action of rescheduling, you have to know that you’re unhappy.

To know that, you have to notice your feelings. You might have to – gasp – stop working for a minute. Literally, a minute. Hang out there, with just your emotions for a minute. You won’t be able to swap war stories about it with your buddies, so there’s that. But you might just find that those feeling start to soften, to unwrap their own knots.

You might think: “I have a lot to do.” You might just push on working, not acknowledging the feeling of pressure against your solar-plexus. You might complain, or eat or drink or check your email. Now your work is more difficult and takes longer.

Or you could think: “I have a lot to do.” You notice that heavy weight. What is it? Resentment. I feel resentment. I feel resentment. It feels like a stone. I want to take action. I can hardly stand to sit with this resentment. It’s OK. I can spend a minute just here, recognizing the resentment. I can feel it. I feel resentment. It’s in my chest and my shoulders. My jaw is tight. It’s OK to feel it. I can bear it. This is what happens sometimes. Resentment. Nothing has gone wrong. I want to be with my child tonight. I don’t want to work late. Resentment.

Why bother with this exercise? Because over time, the resentment becomes subtler, you notice it quicker. You take responsibility for your feelings. You are literally – able to respond. You don’t have to overreact, throwing yourself to your office floor and pitching a fit. But you don’t have to underreact either, pretending you’re A-OK with giving up game night with your child so you can finish a report.

You can stop on the trail. Fix your boot.

You can look at your calendar and say no.

It’s so much easier to reschedule, to mitigate the issue, to accept the most recent draft of the report when you acknowledge the emotional cost.

The actions you take in response to all your feelings become more intentional. You start to understand – oh, that’s resentment. I need to stop and feel it. In that space, options open up for you. You begin to respond with skill. You adjust your pack, your shift your load. You prepare better next time, you care for yourself with more skill.

Here’s another thing. When a hiker acknowledges issues and responds, not by quitting and not by barreling on without thought, then she has what she needs. She remembers a map, turns back for forgotten water and then continues, prevents blisters, prevents injury. Then, nobody has to rescue her later, nobody has to traverse the mountains in the dark to save her. She is a responsible hiker.

When we take care of our own emotional needs at work, we’re like that competent backpacker. We don’t complain and make life harder for others, because we’ve acknowledged our feelings and take responsibility for them. We demonstrate solutions as we work to correct situations, empowering those around us to say no, and yes. Showing others that the work is tough, and sometimes it’s uncomfortable, but nothing has gone wrong. It can be done and done well without overreacting or underreacting.

All of that is amazingly productive and that’s not even the best part.

When you teach yourself to notice and sit with unwanted emotions, you also notice wanted feelings faster and more often.

On the trail, you look up, appreciate the warm breeze, of the brief section of good footing. At work you notice that you are focused and comfortable, that you like some of this stuff you slog through each day.

As you teach yourself to work with tough feelings, you also are training yourself to notice all your feelings. You notice impatience and validation. You notice frustration and fascination. Life starts to feel bigger, more vibrant. Better. You decide you’ll hike this trail again. You decide you are alright with the work on your schedule.

And that? Is a fine way get through the day.

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Get Strong

Think this is the soft stuff? Think again.

If there’s one thing I wish for you at Christmas, it’s compassion. Yeah, I know you wanted to master Ruby on Rails or get that full-stack gaming developer position outside Portland, but hey, anybody can have that. This compassion thing is way, way cooler.

Not buying it? I get it. Concrete skills are marketable, way fun, and useful. Compassion is the soft stuff, the fluff. It doesn’t pay the bills and it doesn’t get you true creds.

Still, if there’s one thing I wish for you at Hanukkah, Kwanza, or Winter Solstice, it’s compassion. If there’s room for one more gift, I wish you generosity – generosity of spirit, of wallet, of time.

With those two skills, compassion and generosity, your life will never lack meaning or joy. I’m pretty sure you can’t say that about any coding language or new technology.

And yes, I do mean skills, because as any monk will tell you, both of these grow with practice.

I would love to help you experience the power of creating these in your life. You can sign up for free 25-minute session here… Free Session. No strings, no hard sell. At the end, I’ll ask you if you’re interested in signing up with me. You say yes or no. That’s it. No sweat.

Compassion is our innate ability to recognize suffering in others and the desire to help. Generosity is freely and frequently giving to others. To learn more about how compassion increases physical well being, check out this article. Basically, generosity gives us greater pleasure in life, compassion gives us less inflammation and longevity. Cool beans.

That urge to quell suffering isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not the soft stuff. No way. Compassion requires nerves of steel. That strength can yield big results at work.

In Fearless at Work, Micheal Carroll talks about viewing other people’s aggression as something separate from the individual. Rather than reacting to insults and threats, we can look through those behaviors and see the intent behind the behavior. Carroll isn’t advising this so that we can stay on the good side of a bully. He recommends taking the compassionate view so you can skillfully decide whether to “lend a hand, get out of the way, or end the confusion altogether.”

At work, this looks like keeping our cool when others are upset. It’s understanding and having sympathy for, the underlying situations and motivations that cause other people to lash out, to reply quickly and thoughtlessly, or to miscommunicate. Compassion is also holding people accountable, fairly, and thoughtfully, not allowing them to continue down a fruitless path. Compassion is the motivator for stepping back and shutting up when you have nothing to add. It’s the reason we step forward and speak up for the right things even when we’re scared. We do these difficult and sometimes frightening things because we see the suffering not doing so causes and we want to help.

That takes some serious mojo. Compassion is the only house big enough for that.

Compassion doesn’t just make us better work partners. It reduces our stress. Every minute we spend thinking about those around us, trying to lend a hand, is one less minute we focus on our own trials and tribulations. There is a world of suffering, an endless opportunity to help others and forget our own worries. Generosity of time shows us that we aren’t overwhelmed after all. Generosity of wallet proves that what we have is enough. Generosity of spirit gives others credit, support, and encouragement and in turn, we feel uplifted.

It’s almost impossible to help someone at your own expense. Every attempt just winds up back at your own feet, paying dividends that outstrip what you gave—everything you give boomerangs back.

In the biggest payback of all time, the more you practice compassion for others, the easier it is to have compassion for yourself. If you want more on that subject, click through and check out my blog – Mastering the Art of Self Compassion.

I hope you look back at this year and find achievements. I hope if you lost loved ones, your memories bring you more sweet nostalgia than tears. If you lost your job, or your business, I wish you a long list of strengths and skills, and the resilience to keep trying, to never give up. I wish you support and a hand up. I wish you friends, family, wildlife, and pets.

More than any of that, I wish you compassion.

And that? Is just the best I have to offer.

Namaste.

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Resilience and Emotions

Does a day at work leave you with the lyrics of The Animals biggest hit running through your mind? There’s a way outta that place.
Would you rather listen? Click the play button and I’ll read it to you. Enjoy!

Hello, world! Did you miss me? I took a two-week vacation from this blog because I needed a reset. I’m guessing that you probably do too.

There’s a certain rhythm to the work year, and right about now, we’ve had it. You’ve got projects you’re trying to shove through the door, reviews, holidays, and it’s all a hella-lot.

When clients in burn-out come to me, one of the first things we work on is remembering to stop. Last month, I stopped blogging on the weekends. The two-week delay is the result of me figuring out how to do this thing during the week.

What’s that? Bully for me? I hear ya. Stopping is great but our jobs often demand that we push on, do the long shifts, keep working through to deliver. That’s fine. That’s the nature of a lot of professional positions. Sometimes, we can’t “just stop”.

At some point, the weight of that relentless grind starts to take a toll on us.

That’s when we need a Big Reset.

A Big Reset is a way to get us back on the upside of our working life even when we can’t change our situation.

To accomplish a Big Reset, you’ll need two things – emotional awareness and a time affluent mindset.

Time affluence is the idea that you have all the time you need to do the things that bring meaning to your life, sufficient time to reflect, and time for leisure activities. When you have a time affluent mindset, you have a sense of time as valuable, and you’re less likely to spend time on unsatisfying activities. You’re also more willing to trade money for time, as in hiring someone else to shovel that driveway, mow that lawn, pick out your groceries, etc.

When you putting in serious hours at work, it’s pretty hard to feel time affluent. If your November was like mine, getting an eight hour night was a treat. It was get up and back on Zoom after that.

If you nodded your head, then I have a big NCIS slap to the head for you. That right there, is part of the problem. Turns out, when you tell yourself that you have no time, you’re already on the no-fun side of life.

To reset your perception of the time available to you try this – tell yourself that you have all the time you need for what matters most. For me, the mantra can trigger a calming response.

Another tactic is to do a true calculation. That’s what I did last week. A 24-hour day minus 8 hours to sleep leaves me with 16 hours. Even if I’m working twelve-hour days, I still have four hours. I sure as heck didn’t feel like I had four free hours a day. That sent me off looking at how I was spending those four hours. Turns out I was shredding them.

In Ashley Whillans’ new book ‘Time Smart’, she talks about the way our technology and distractions – emails, a quick google search, something on TV that catches our attention, a text from a friend, a quick phone call – fragment our leisure time into “confetti”.

To have a sense of more time, find ways to stop shredding your free time. A full hour spent doing a specific activity, without allowing yourself to be diverted is a sure fire way to act and feel more time affluent.

Another tactic to bring time affluence back into your world is to savor. Yes, savor. This morning, I had only one hour before I needed to start work. Normally, I get up three or four hours before my day job starts, but this week I’ve been working late. So, in that one hour, I changed my mindset. I still pulled on sweats and took the dog out for a much-shortened constitutional but while I was out there, I savored the feeling of the air on my face. I really looked at the bird feeders, noticed the birds waiting in the trees while I refilled their seeds. I smelled the air. I called my dog and when she came bounding over to me, I spent time with her. Not much, but I still threw her a party for coming when she was called. I doled out a couple of treats from my pocket, I praised her until she put her ears flat and ran in tight circles of canine joy, then we played a two minute game of tug. I made the most out of my ten minutes outside.

During a Big Reset – pay attention – decide to have a full hour break. Pay attention… enjoy what you do have – the soft rug under your feet, the brief minutes outside, the perfect English muffin you had for breakfast, and the achievements you and those around you deliver.

You’ll also need to expand your emotional vocabulary. I noticed an amazing I feeling that I really enjoy. It happens when I have a few things in a row to do, I know how to do them, I know what is needed to be done, and I’m so fully engaged that I’m firing on all cylinders. I gave this feeling a name – All Cylinders Firing. I love when I feel All Cylinders Firing. When I’m cooking, All Cylinders are Firing when I’m washing up pots and pans as the food is cooking, I’m putting away dishes while the microwave is going, I have my plate ready before the timer rings… I’m using every motion, fully engaged, and creating exactly what I want… a perfect egg sandwich and a clean kitchen. At work, this looks like firing off that email, keeping up the the important stuff, fitting work into the time allowed, with a slight smile and flying fingers.

Now I’m not saying you need to race around like a nut. The point isn’t for you to feel All Cylinders Firing. The point is … notice when you feel happy. Even on your busy days, even during the long grinds. What is it you actually are enjoying? The comradery of puzzle-solving? Do you just feel so grateful for the co-workers who are busting their butts with you? Do you love the feeling of putting up your feet on the couch while you clear out that in box? Notice these situations. Then find a more specific way to describe them than – good, happy, fun. Really notice, really define those moments. Without changing anything about your job, or the amount of time you have, you can figure out how to have more of the “I’m working but I love it anyway” moments, more of the “this is what I’m like when it’s good” feelings.

If you would like help doing a Big Reset – you can sign up for a free session with me – here.

We can’t change the situations we find ourselves in today. We can jumpstart a Big Reset by being time affluent – being upfront with how much time we do have, refusing to shred our time, and savoring the experiences available now. That Big Restart also includes noticing the moments that we enjoy even during the bustle of December and being hyper-precise with the naming of our experience so that we can find ways to add more of it into our days.

December can be a jam packed month. You might be working long hours.

You can still have a Big Reset.

And that? Is just good to know.

Do you subscribe to Eric Barker’s newsletter? You really should. He’s got a great one. My plan for this year tells me that the first Monday in December is “The Big Reset – How to notice and copy a feeling.” Ironically, Eric’s latest blog is a perfect dovetail. You can catch his blog here.

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Stick a pin in it.

Think the future is too wide open to plan? Think again.

Everything I needed to know about suggestibility, I learned from the Breck Girl.

Ok before we get to the story… this entire blog is just a plea for you to get out an index card and write down five things you want to get done in the next five years. Then tape that on your computer monitor. Also, if you prefer to listen or watch, check out the links below. Ok, back to the Breck Girl.

The whole blog, with intro & outro, read to you….by me.
Want the white board and a trimmed down version? Here’s the Vlog.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Breck shampoo was a thing. They ran a campaign that featured pastel portraits of women with awesome hair.

My very-much-younger self took a liking to a Breck Girl ad. I tore the pastel portrait out of a magazine and tacked it inside of the door to my closet. Over the next five years, I’d see it every time I opened my closet. If you’ve met a teenage girl, you know I saw that ad – a lot. The Breck Girl had gleaming honey-blonde hair, no bangs, and loose curls.

I didn’t believe I could actually have hair like that – I just liked the picture.

Then one day I took it down. I looked at it. Really looked at it. Holy smokes. I’d turned into the Breck Girl. Yep, that there picture below is me. Best hair day ever.

I was astounded.

Forget the hair, I thought. This is how you get stuff done. You have a very clear image, you look at it a whole lot. You have positive thoughts about it and the next thing you know, you’re asking for hot rollers at Christmas and letting your bangs grow out. The impossible becomes something you move toward, little by little, year after year.

Over the years, I learned some more things… keeping a vision in mind, even if it seems far out of reach, leads to taking action when the opportunity arises.

A decade or so later, I was carrying an entire year’s earning in credit card debt. I was very literally, the working poor. We often had to charge our income tax bill to our credit cards. I worked seventy hours a week for a decade and just got more in debt.

I started to seriously consider the idea of becoming debt-free. It was ludicrous. But it was a pretty darn clear vision. I thought about it often. That’s where opportunity comes in.

For instance, when I was in the library, wondering what I might want to read, the idea of books on getting out of debt sprung to mind. Why? Because I was thinking about being debt-free, on the regular. I read a lot of books on personal finance. A lot.

Another example is when I was bringing in my mail and an offer for a 0% interest balance transfer arrived, I thought – how can I use this to get rid of some debt? I signed up for, and paid off, and canceled, a ton of 0% credit cards.

See what I mean? Having a clear, concise idea about something you want makes you primed for taking opportunities when they arrive.

Writing down goals and paying attention to them, even without a full-blown plan, can have significant positive results in your life. Of course, it’s way more effective with both a plan and an accountability partner. ( See the abstract from Dr. Gail Matthews’ research here.) The point I’m making is that just because you’re not ready for the plan and the weekly action, don’t put off setting up goals.

Look, 2020 won’t last forever. The world is always in a state of change. But the things we want most are pretty darn stable. So look dream a bit. Think about something that you really would like to achieve even if it’s impossible or ridiculous. I mean something that really matters. Let yourself dream a bit.

-How old will you be five years from now?

-What would you like to have accomplished by then?

-Write down four or five things on an index card.

-Put the start and end dates: 10/1/2020 – 10/1/2025

-Tape that card to your computer monitor.

Imagine what it would be like to be in 2025, and have all that. Enjoy the dream.

And just know, some of that is really going to happen. Why? Not because it’s magic.

Because now, you’re going to notice opportunities to move towards those goals.

Just like you notice blue Hondas when you’re thinking about buying a blue Honda, now you’ll notice ways to actually make the impossible, possible.

And that? Is just good to think about.

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Mind-Body

If your Work Life / Biological Life balance has been hit by a truck, read on.

I’ve got a deep-dark secret I’ve never shared on this blog. Basically, because I feel ridiculous to say it out loud… but hey, public embarrassment is what blogging is all about. Here goes. This blog is about the problem of not having time to eat lunch, and, er, other things.

Here it is, the whole blog, read to you…. with a brand new intro. Oh, yeah, and riffs.

I’m talking about the issue of mind-body disassociation. I initially noticed the problem when I was working with my very first private coach. I would talk to her every week and pretty-much try to impress us both with how difficult my work life had become. To show her the profoundly pressured existence I found myself in, I would get right to the most basic of bodily functions – using the restroom.

I didn’t have time for it.

I would find myself not drinking liquids for hours. My fingers would fly over the keyboard in a mad rush to finish one more thing, while my bladder tightened and my whole body was thrown into a tense and hurried race. God forbid someone came into my office to interrupt me. My head would jerk up, eyes wide and frantic. Suddenly aware I couldn’t wait one more moment, I’d start heading out the door as I talked to them, finally saying…

“I’ll be right back.”

This, I thought was a profound example of the extreme demands of my job and my need to keep producing every second. I also thought it was a bit wackadoodle and I didn’t want to confess it to anyone. Now, years later, I understand that I am not the only person to experience this. Just last year, I watched a woman who’d built a million-dollar business in a few years confess to the same thing. And she’s a doctor.

So let me ask you, are you disconnecting from your own biology? Do you –

  1. Find yourself not willing to get up and get lunch, and when you do, you gobble it down at your desk?
  2. Find yourself doing one more thing, one more thing long after you’ve realized you’re profoundly uncomfortable?
  3. Start work early and find that it’s almost lunchtime and you haven’t had your first cup of tea?
  4. Head into bed in the evening knowing you haven’t exercised or even been outside?
  5. Work later than you want, feeling more and more pressured to work even later?
  6. Miss dinner with your family, even as you rush to get finished?
  7. Find yourself working late into the night, while lights go out, your family crawls into bed, and yet, when you finally walk into the bedroom, exhausted physically, your mind races on?

Dude. You are so not alone.

And Dude – understand this – you’re a carbon-based life form with some biological imperatives you will really enjoy following. And yeah, stick with me here. I know I just lost you on that biological imperative thing.

Long before I sat in the convention room in Texas and watched a woman with a two-comma business confess to my deep dark secret, I’d already resolved the issue for myself. It still felt great to realize that she’d been just as misguided as I had been.

Here’s how I broke free.

First, my coach and I really dug into some of the underlying beliefs I carried around.

This is something it’s much easier to do with a coach, so please, if you want help with this issue, definitely sign up for a free 25-minute session. You, basically, are the entire reason I’m a coach and I want to help.

As soon as she asked me what I would tell a teammate about this issue, the answer was way clearer than my annual objectives. I would say… “Go take care of yourself. Be late to the next meeting, leave this meeting early. Stop typing for Pete’s sake. “

Ask yourself, is there anyone in the world you care about that you would encourage to keep working when they were exhausted, hungry, ready to bust a gut or missing their children’s bedtime?

Please tell me the answer is no.

So step one is to find out why the heck you think it’s OK to do that to yourself. I’m not even going to make you turn this blog upside down to read the answer.

It’s not. You’re not different. You are a biological creature. If you dry up to a husk and pass out in your chair, you’re doing anyone any good. At some level you understand this because you’d shut your buddy’s laptop lid if he was doing this to himself.

Once I got through that thought process, I realized there was another problem. I’d decided it was OK to stop and use the restroom, to eat my lunch, to dance a jig at 6 pm if I wanted to… but I wasn’t doing it. Why?

I was so used to stuffing down signals, my body couldn’t reach me.

My body was literally phoning in and getting a busy signal.

Time to send in the construction crew to re-run the cable between my body and brain.

I literally had to train for this.

I made a plan and gave myself a mantra – Biology Rules.

Biology Rules – because it does. I’m not a brain on stick with some fingers and a thumb. I’m a human being. I’m a creature. I’m a mammal. If I don’t follow the biological rules that being a mammal encompasses, I’ll die.

I can’t swim underwater for hours and I can’t survive without physical exercise.

I can’t jump off a cliff and fly and I can’t go without water.

I can’t crawl across the ceiling and I can’t go without hitting the john.

PERIOD.

And neither can you.

We can’t do without sleep, without connection to other humans and we can’t think well for hours and hours. We just can’t.

To restring the connection between body and mind, I made a deep pledge to myself. Biology Rules. No excuses. The minute I noticed that I needed something BECAUSE of my biology – I just got up and did it.

Turns out, the world didn’t end when I would check into a meeting and say – I’ll be right back.

Nothing fell apart when I started eating my lunch outside.

My boss did not call me into his office because he’d noticed I’d been getting eight hours. I mean what was he going to say, I think you need to be on line until eleven pm? Of course not. He had no clue how late I was working; he was having his own problems disconnecting.

OK let’s get back to you.

You are a biological creature. You have some rules to follow. If you ignore them, your experience right now is miserable and you cut your life short.

To remedy this, admit that you’re human.

Agree you deserve the same basic advantages as any assembly line worker – the right to regular breaks and a right to stop working at the end of the day.

Plan on a mantra and a rule. – Biology Rules: My body’s needs that trumps all other demands. Or try this: Use it or Lose it: I’m not willing to bust a gut, shrivel and dry up or have a lack of sleep induced psychosis for my employer, who doesn’t even want any of that either.

Notice your body’s demands. Are you angry? Is it because you feel rushed? Do you feel rushed because your body needs something? What is it?

Then give your body what it wants.

I promise you, when you do this, you will see a productivity increase. I’ve seen this for myself and client after client. It’s the cruelest joke ever. We think we have to double down on work to get through everything. It’s not true. We have to double down on bringing our A-game. To bring our A-game, we have to honor our biological mandate.

And that? Is just a healthy way to work.

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Action

Action is the antidote to despair – Joan Baez.
It’s also been touted as the fix for fear, anxiety, and doubt.
With an intro like that, who wouldn’t want more action?

Nothing dogs us like action, or rather – inaction. Facing fears, making a difference, and just plain getting through the workday, all require action. So why is that so many of us struggle to act? Let’s dig into action, decisions, and getting stuff done.

Today’s blog, read for you. Enjoy.

First off, let’s divide the world into two kinds of action. Tony Robbins called it massive action and passive action. Educators call it learning from resources and learning by doing. Either way, we’re talking about consuming information versus actively attempting something. Often, we postpone taking action by learning, reading, watching, talking. All of which are fine in doses, but don’t hold a candle to engaging with the world and trying something. In a sneaky, sneaky twist, our brains LOVE passive action. After all, what’s safer than reading a book or watching a movie? Our brains love safe; they love passive action.

So when I’m talking about action, I’m talking about massive action. Massive action, that has mass, movement, impact and engagement, is the action that we want to call on when we’re trying to achieve a goal. Whether that goal is getting your new cool idea noticed at work, or saving democracy – I think we can all agree that massive action is what’s required.

Do dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment.  Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be.  Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom.  Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.  -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Ok, so our brains are totally against going out into a tempest. Things HAPPEN in a tempest, things CHANGE when we take action. As soon as you attempt to take action, your lazy brain, all chillin’ on the sofa with its tank top and stretchy shorts on, looks over and pauses whatever it’s binge watching. Why? Because its job is to stop you from getting hurt. What’s the easiest way to do that?

Depends. Could be it might frighten you. It might tell you that your idea will get you laughed at. Could be it might tempt you... chips and salsa anyone? But you are too smart to let that stop you. Be ready. And if your mid-brain wins this round, notice how it did it. I noticed that my brain could get me to skip my morning walk if it was raining. Can you spell treadmill? Boom. Then my brain told me that using the treadmill was selfish. After all, the dog needs to walk too. So for a while, I let that be my excuse. If the dog can’t go, I don’t go. Wait? What? Tricky. Turns out, the dog’s chill if I use the treadmill as long as I don’t make her use it with me.

He was a sociopath, I think, in love with himself and no one else, craving action for its own sake, and indifferent to any long-term consequences, a classic Man of Destiny.  – Hocus Pocus  Kurt Vonnegut.

Truly, that’s not the best quote for this article but I just love me some Vonnegut.

So action for action’s sake isn’t what we’re talking about. Running around with no clear goal or without thinking things through can be trouble. However, most of us take way too long to come to a decision. We want to make the perfect decision. In reality, making the best decision we can, in a reasonable amount of time, is all we need to do.

Check out my article on decision making – Beauty & the Beast

Once the decision is made, action is where it’s at. Taking real action sends a message to ourselves that we can effect an impact on our own lives. In fact, any meaningful results you’ll ever get come from taking action. We live in a world that feels out of control. We have invisible viruses, we have bosses that make decisions based on information that we aren’t told about. We use technology we barely understand to do our jobs. We have our retirement invested in a stock market that, from the looks of it, is disconnected from reality. Our brains don’t like any of this. We like certainty.

Action takes us out of rumination and engages us with the world. Want another bonus for taking action?

Dude, the day feels longer when you fill it with diverse actions towards meaningful goals.

Try it. Compare a day with no plans, when you engage in passive action to a day when you take five or six different actions towards a goal. Which day felt longer? Which one felt like a life well-lived.

Lady, I’ve just told you the secret to having a long life. No matter how many years you actually live, you experience more life when you’re taking action.

And that? Is just a good way to feel.

If you want to take more action and figure out how to get past the mental roadblocks to action, sign up for a free 25 minute mini session. We’ll discuss how coaching helps.

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Don’t Chain Your Joy to Your Desk

Think breaking free from your desk has to happen before you find joy? Bass Ackward, man.

Look, work is hard, right?   Being out of work, looking for work and having work – we’re talking difficult situations, regardless of which boat you’re in now.

Whether you’re overworking, underworking or struggling to find or keep a job, in every case, you’re going to hit up against a belief.  The belief that you have to know the solution before you get to the results.  Not so, Sparky.

I know exactly what it feels like to hamstring myself by tying together things that can be independent.

I was a woman who wanted to be “She who never wonders what to wear.”  The experience of walking to my closet each day and trying outfit after uncomfortable outfit, was balled up so tightly in my head with being overweight that I actually believed that I couldn’t have any other experience until I lost weight. It simply didn’t occur to me that you don’t have to be thin to have seven outfits that look good and fit.

I used to have twenty-five percent of my salary tied to credit card debt. Along with my mortgage and a car payment, that pretty much meant we were always one paycheck away from financial failure. I didn’t think I could change that. I thought you had to born with the miserly Scrooge gene in order to be debt-free.

I had my experience of being utterly miserable in my job.  I believed that my boss had no idea what I did all day, had no time to understand it and basically, disregarded me.   I felt the amount of work on my plate was more than anyone could ever do and I believed that I didn’t have the political clout to help our team. I was miserable because of my work.

It’s easier to see when we’re talking about frumpy clothes and harder to see when we’re talking about work but in each case, a belief that was connecting two unrelated things was holding me back.

I believed I had to be skinny to have clothes I liked.

I believed I had to be born with a talent for money to get out of debt.

I believed that my boss, my company and my workload had to change for me to be happy.

None of those was true.

I have stayed inside a dressing room long enough to hear the canned music tape play completely through three, count ’em, three times. No lie. Turns out, if you’re willing to spend several hours inside a clothing store, trying on every style, in every size, you can emerge as “She Who Never Wonders What To Wear”, even if you’re a size 16 – or 2XL – or a size 2.

I have also been thunderstruck with the thought – What If Money Is A Skill? Whaaa?? I have read dozens of books on personal finance. Turns out, with patience and time, you can get out of debt without living in a tent or starting a farm. Who knew?

 It’s also true that you can be happy, at work, at the job you have now. I learned to love that exact same job I described. I did it because I wondered if I could be happy doing anything and I set out to find out if that was true.          

Just like getting out of debt, or finding nice clothes that fit, getting happy where you are is a matter of trial and error. To get happy I did all sorts of things. I made a playlist of in-your-face music to listen to on the way to work. I played it every day… Drive by Incubus, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Taking Care of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive and 51 other songs that made me feel in control and ready to take on my day. I left on time for a week straight just to see what would happen. I figured out what I loved and was good at and did those tasks first, forcing myself to find ways to offload work or make the dull stuff more efficient. I spent a week saying no to three things every day. I listened to management and leadership books. Basically, I kept trying stuff until I found what worked for me.

One day, as I was walking out of the office, on time, I passed the desk of a dear friend. I knew she was deeply unhappy and I also knew she didn’t have to be that way.

I coach, I bother with all this because I’m profoundly certain that you can be happy.  I want you to know that you can be deeply satisfied, right where you are.

Don’t, please, please don’t chain your joy to your desk.

The two things don’t depend on each other.   Don’t wait for things to change.  Try things -things I suggest and things you think of for yourself. 

There is nobody on the planet who can tell you where your path goes, or how you make magic in your life.  Nobody.   You are so incredibly unique and perfect, and so amazingly yourself, how can anyone know what fantastic direction you’ll go?

If you chain your joy to your desk, if you wait for your job to make you happy, you are missing the race.  You are missing the path.  You are sitting down on the path.  And that’s OK but please, if you’re not happy there, don’t stay there.  

And I don’t mean leave your job. By all means, stay there, until you figure out how to be happy at that job.  Even has you fail at things, you can be happy. Even out of work, keep trying new ways. Find ways to feel joy, even as you struggle, fail, and triumph. Once you do that, nothing is chained to your desk, not you,  not your happiness, nothing. 

And that, is just my wish for you.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

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Agency

Is this a random spill or symbolic artwork? How you make sense of your world is entirely in your mind.

I’ve struggled this week with how to make a blog on personal power at work relevant in the light of current events.

Although I can listen, see, imagine, and sympathize, I will never experience what it is to be a black person in America. Although I’m the mother of a police officer, I will never know what it’s like to be one. I can’t walk in any of these shoes.

Here are the shoes I can walk in – a pair of pop-art pumps with chunky heels – because these shoes belong to me.

These are literally, my shoes.

Standing in those shoes, here’s what my experience as an American woman has taught me – systemic, conscious, and unconscious bias is 100% real.

Here’s what I can tell you – I have been told and shown, based solely on gender that I am ridiculous, inconvenient, a threat or worse yet – a disposable object.

Here’s what I believe – People do abuse power and when anyone in power acts as if the rules and laws don’t apply to them, they should be held accountable.

So let me be clear – on the macro level, I for sure don’t think we should pretend inequality, injustice or violence doesn’t exist. That would be crazy. I believe in social agency. I believe in protest, in free speech, and the ability to leverage our influence to change our laws. We have a truckload of problems with bias in this country and we should get to work on them.

For the purposes of maximizing our impact at work, I don’t think it serves us to relinquish our sense of agency, even if the deck is stacked against us. Which brings us to today’s topic – agency.

Agency: the ability to act independently, to impact the course of your life, and to set goals for yourself. A sense of agency is linked to subjective well being on both a personal level and for us as a society. As my grandmother used to say, as long as you have choices, you’re OK.

So many of us give our agency away on the day-to-day. When we give away our agency, we’re giving away our sense of control and, along with it, our own power.

You get to look at the world around you and decide what’s working and what’s not. You can change your mind about all sorts of things.

You change how you view yourself.

You can change what you think about your job, your boss, your capabilities, and your value.

If you’re going to embark on a journey of this sort, let me encourage you to change the way you view your own agency. I’d like to encourage you to see yourself as the CEO of You, Inc. No matter what deck is stacked against you at this moment, you have the choice to validate that reality by giving up or spend some of your time on the planet trying to reshuffle the cards. My advice is always choose to reshuffle.

For this at-work example, let’s say that I want to move up one level in my organization and to do that, I’ve decided I’ll need to demonstrate leadership on a large project.

One way to approach this is to ask my manager to give me a large project to lead. Then, I can go back to my desk and wait for the project that never comes. When review time comes, I can be frustrated by the fact that nobody gave me a chance to shine and, I can settle for whatever wages I get, remaining in my current position, probably doing less tomorrow than I did yesterday, because, well, nothing works.

Let me tell you, this happens all the time. Why? Because the person in that example believes that they must be given a project by someone else. Can she control her boss? Hell no. Can she make someone give her a project? Not before the next review cycle comes up and not without legal action and money. Maybe not ever. So this is a completely dead-end way of dealing with the here and now – even if it’s true! This is why, in the moment, I always act in favor of personal agency.

So let’s say, despite the fact that I’m an old woman of average intelligence, I think I have the ability to maximize my personal benefit, and demonstrate my effectiveness, regardless of what project my boss gives me.

Now let’s say because of this belief, I tackle even small projects with a professional process. I document what I do, I create templates to use to build efficiency, I keep track of how long I expect it to take, how long it actually takes, and what caused any variance. Let’s say I sat down at the start of the project and wrote out my expectations of how I would perform and in the end, I evaluated my performance.

Basically, I treat this little project that I’m doing by myself, as if it was the big opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I’ve assumed all the authority over how it will be handled. I’ll be evaluating my own performance, so my manager’s feedback is now secondary. I’ll be learning from the project and improving my skills. Because I’ll understand why any problems in delivery or performance occurred, I’ll be able to build in processes to prevent future delays or disappointing behavior of my own making.

Here’s what I’ve just done – I’ve taken all the power over my performance and my opportunities, out of the hands of my manager, and put it all right on my desk. I’ve basically just made my manager irrelevant in the context of this project. I don’t need to know when he wants it done, because I already know when it will be done. I can just check to see if that will suit him. If not, I can offer up options. I’m not forced into a timeline, I’m negotiating one. I don’t need him to tell me what he expects because I know what results I’m delivering. Now I can just confirm I’m delivering what he’s looking for. I basically treat my manager like he’s my customer. I have lots of power. I have the goods and services he wants to buy. I just have to keep myself relevant.

Do you see what I did there? It’s still work. I still need to deliver stuff and make it good but it is a completely different ballgame if I see myself as the owner of Myself, Inc., and my manager as my best customer. My work experience is no longer at the whim of my boss, my work life is at the whim of ME. If my boss doesn’t agree with my evaluation, well, that just means we need to communicate better. Or I might decide to make it mean nothing at all.

What I find actually happens is I get really curious about what my boss thinks. I’m not devastated when my boss has something critical to say. I’m fascinated. I take this bit of information and analyze it. Did I miss something in my own eval of me? Great! I’ll add it to the working template for next time. I already do this for myself, so getting this information upfront is like getting a free trip around the monopoly board.

Ok, sound good? So to build out your own little Yourself, Inc. empire where you rule with confidence and independence, take back your own agency.

  1. Commit to working for yourself and refuse to let your boss control your opportunities. Strike a blow for the republic of you!
  2. Study your own work by stating beforehand what you will be doing ( time estimates, results expected, and expectations of your own behavior) and then by evaluating what actually happened.
  3. Take it one step further and ask yourself how you can be better, faster, or more professional next time and add that information to your documents.
  4. When the next project comes, repeat the process but shoot for improvement using the information you learned.

In a short time, you’ll have great confidence in your ability to deliver, your ability to estimate when you’ll deliver and how you’ll approach the work. When you have that kind of bedrock under you, it’s easy to ask good questions about projects, you can estimate quickly and with confidence.

It doesn’t work if you don’t put in the effort to do it fairly. You must lay out your expectations for yourself upfront. Don’t just do work and take stock at the end, looking back at the project and feeling good or bad about it. You won’t build confidence and communicate to yourself that you take your work seriously.

Because you value your own work and treat it with respect, you no longer have your ego tied to the size of the project you’re handed, the team that comes with it, or really anything external. All your satisfaction is internally driven. When your own evaluation of your performance is the most important one you get, there’s a lot of freedom in that. When you hold yourself accountable to you, and you treat yourself like a professional, you have just shown yourself who you are at work. Better yet, you’ve just shown everyone else, too.

And that? Is just a great way to work.

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Get Out of There

What do other people think of you? Better ask yourself what the question costs you before you ask it.

I love to wonder what other people think about me. I mean, kinda. Right? In STEM we don’t all walk around emoting and asking if people like us. We’re the problem-solvers, the endurance kings, the queens of creating something out of nothing. We don’t care what other people think about us. Right?

Have me read you the blog and give you the riffs. My pleasure.

I had one of those eye-opening experiences the other day. I wanted to make sure our team understood my expectations for how we work with our summer intern. I look forward all year to our summer college student joining our team. It’s a chance to make a positive difference for sure, but more than that, it’s our chance to show up as the leaders and teammates that we want to be. A time to bring our very best to the table. A chance to cheer on another human being reaching far, far out over thin air, trying to grab at the branch we’ve carefully placed there. A chance to witness a real triumph and real accomplishment.

I believe every word of that. I take enormous pride in our ability to find challenging, meaningful projects that get these college students a chance to achieve more than they thought they could. It’s my pure joy if they blow their minds while working for us and leave there feeling ten feet tall.

This year, I’m turning all that over to someone else on our team to lead. As I wrote out the instructions for how to achieve this, imagine my surprise as I realized that I have that same opportunity every day for every member of my team and I’m not bringing it. I mean, yeah, I do OK but I don’t bring it like that. Not with every fiber of my imagination, not with those big expectations, not tossing them out into the river without telling them I’ve got their lifelines looped around my fist and I’m ready to haul them out with everything I’ve got.

I almost couldn’t hit send on the email. What would this person think of me when he saw what I expected of myself and him, and realized that I was dropping the ball daily?

We don’t care what other people think of us.

Oh, big fat hell-yes we do.

Our brains are designed to make sure we hang in tight with the tribe. Tribe is survival. As children, our entire job in life is to watch other people’s body language and try to figure out how to get more cheerios and a clean diaper. That’s before we even know how to say pass the pampers.

Once we’ve got language on our side, it’s worse yet. There’s standing in the family. We grow up applying all the labels that come with social dynamics – the good one, the wild child, the troublemaker, the silly one, the funny one, the smart one, the bad one. Lovely labels stuck all over us like little price tags that rub off as we carry an armful of cans to the pantry.

All of this is 100% normal. Here’s where our education system and culture leave us in the lurch – nobody ever tells us – Here you go kid, how you feel is on you now.

Next thing you know, you’re thirty-five, walking out of a meeting, unable to stop the flood of worry over what the person across from you thought about your progress on your project.

Again, 100% normal and 100% useless.

Here’s the rule – you don’t belong in anyone’s head but your own.

What she thinks about you, your project and the way you waxed your car is on her. It tells you absolutely zero about your ride, your performance, or you as a person. It tells you everything about her.

Get it? I could have held back on my proclamation for interns, toned it down, set less dramatic expectations, aligned it better with what I’m actually doing on the regular, made it less obvious that I’m not all that. If I did, that would tell you something about me wouldn’t it?

You might think that I was being realistic in my expectations. You might think that I was a hypocrite or untruthful. You might think I was a coward. You might think I’m an irrational dreamer.

I sent the email. How do you like me now?

Here’s the deal. I can never know what you or anyone else actually thinks – even if you tell me. There are so many layers, filters and variations. In the end, the only thing that I can act on is what I think.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate people sharing their thoughts with me. Thoughts, critical ones especially, are worth their weight in gold.

Secret One: It’s darn uncomfortable to deliver critical feedback. If you get feedback you can bet the person felt you were worth thinking about for a couple of hours so they could figure out how to tell you something true and useful. Even if they do a poor job of handing it to you, it’s still the most valuable thing you can get at work other than your paycheck.

Secret Two: If you agree with the person who gives you feedback, even just a bit, and then thank them for it, you’ll get more of this magic serum. If you disagree and make them feel small or uncomfortable for sharing it? Right. It’s like killing the goose. You won’t get another omelet out of that bird.

Do you see that? Honest feedback about how we can improve is uranium. It’s the kind of information that can power a career. We should care about it. We should ask for it. We should embroider it on throw pillows and leave them on our recliners.

What we shouldn’t do is predicate how we feel about ourselves based on it.

Critical feedback is one thing. Speculative musing about what someone else thinks is where we tend to go next.

Our boss says “You need to be more organized.”

We think “He thinks I’m a chaotic mess and he’s going to fire me.” Which makes us feel anxious, and then we check our email and facebook, and maybe text a friend, all of which is – a bit chaotic and not what we’re being paid for. Ironic, yes?

Or we think “He’s the most disorganized person on the planet, who’s he to tell me that?” The answer to which is “He’s got no right to tell me.” And then we feel angry, and we discard the advice and keep doing what we’re doing and … that results in us not allowing him to tell us anything. Get it?

Better to remind ourselves that we have no business in his head, we don’t know what he thinks other than we might be better at our job if we were more organized. Truth be told, everyone is always better at their job as their organization skills increase. He doesn’t have to be good at being organized to be able to observe disorganization in us.

Ok, let’s tie this back to my story. Even if I’m not knocking it out of the park on the regular for every member of my team, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to do just that. So sending the email and braving disapproval is worth it. I meant what I said. We should make our summer intern’s ten weeks of work with us an opportunity for him or her to blow their mind.

What my team thinks of me for that, is up to them. What I decide to do with my insight is up to me.

And that? Is just good for me to remember.

If you would like to have me walk you through your thoughts about other people’s opinions, set up a free 25-minute call here.

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Drop Into Direct Experience

Think you need a whiskey, a pizza or – shudder – a hot bath to relax?
Not at work you don’t. Drop into direct experience right at your keyboard.

OK, short & sweet today.

Here it is… read for you – by me. With yawns. Enjoy.

So many of my clients have their days derailed by simple stressors, I thought I’d do a short blog about how to decouple the current moment from all that ails you at work.

What I mean by basic stressors are things that occur on the regular. Something more subtle than COVID-19, or financial hardship or major depression.

Here are some examples:

  • A project you’re supposed to work on right at this time that is difficult, time-sensitive, or has you holding back from it.
  • Repeating thoughts about one of your not-so-great moments
  • Repeating thoughts about worries or concerns
  • A sense of pessimism, mild anxiety, general distraction, discomfort or dislike

Your day goes sideways and you find yourself clicking on web links, wading through emails or hopping up to get water, coffee, a snack. In the old days (about 6 weeks ago) you might have wandered down the aisle to chat but now, you let the dog out, check your phone or the news.

Dropping into direct experience takes you out of your head and back into the immediate present moment. Doing this is unexpectedly soothing. The more you practice dropping into the moment, the easier it gets.

What is direct experience?

Direct experience is when you are engaging with the world around you with as few labels as possible. In a Zen story, the leader of a monastery placed a jar of water on the ground. He asked his monks to tell him what it was without naming it. Whoever passed this test, would get to be the head of a new monastery.

One monk said it was not a sandal. Other monks tried and failed to answer to the leader’s satisfaction. The cook came out of the kitchen, walked over to the jar, and kicked it over. The cook was made the head of the new monastery.

That’s direct experience. It’s the difference between reading a book about a boy and his puppy and actually living with a dog. It’ s the difference between watching a movie about the ocean and standing in the water. When you have your feet in the cold water, and it’s moving, splashing and withdrawing, you understand what the beach is. When you fall off a sailboat two miles from shore, you understand what the ocean is. Whether you call it the sea, the Atlantic or the ocean is irrelevant. What’s meaningful is cold, salt, waves, motion, air, buoyancy and if you know how to swim. The label is absolutely superfluous.

That’s direct experience and you can use it at your desk to help you focus and reduce stress. Because when you directly experience where you’re at, all the rest drops away just for a moment and you get a mini reset.

If you want to experience life coaching for yourself, sign up for a free 25-minute session here.

Here’s four ways to do to a direct experience reset:

Where am I?

They say a monk used to wake up in the morning and call his own name. No, he wasn’t senile. He wanted to center himself in the moment. He was asking himself to pay attention to where he really was. I use this technique all the time. It’s my favorite fall back to sleep method. Check out my blog, “Your Boss Should Buy You a Mattress”. Basically, all you do is ask yourself, “Where am I?” Answer with concrete details. I’m in my office, typing on a black and white keyboard, sitting in a small chair, in my home, at 6:18 pm on Sunday. That’s where I am right now. It’s a great way to remind myself that I want to get this done in a short time, and that I’m here for a purpose. Asking yourself “Where am I?” reminds you that what is really happening, is what is really happening, right now, in the room, where you’re standing. Right now, in this place, you’re OK. Right now, you are exactly where you should be, where all the actions and events have led to. Right now, where are you?

Where am I? I’m in the hospital where I work, standing outside a patient’s room.

Where am I? I’m in my home, in front of my PC, sitting in a chair..

Where am I? I’m in my bedroom with my blanket over me.

Find the Future and the Past

I’ve done several meditation sessions where I simply look for the future. Sitting on my cushion, I ask myself to point to the future. Can I see it? Can I smell it? Is it here, with me? Where is it? if I needed to send someone there, could I? Where is this future?

Try it. Right now, look around you for the future.

When you literally look for it, it can’t be found. You have to actually do this exercise, not just read about it. Do this a few times, set a timer for ten minutes or so, sit on the floor, back straight, and quietly, with your eyes open, without speaking, keep asking yourself where the future is and see that quite literally you can’t find it. Do the same thing looking for the past. For me, I have a sensation that is very specific when I do this exercise and having spent a couple ten-minute sessions at this, I can recall that sensation quickly.

Asking yourself where the future is helps out when you’re anxious or worried. It gives you the direct information that whatever you’re worried about has not happened, is not set in stone. Quite clearly, you are made aware that you are just hypothesising about something that may, or may not, happen.

Asking yourself where the past is, helps out when you’re replaying a painful event. The people who were there, are gone. The things you said and did, are over. Right now, all that is gone and right now, you are fine.

String of Pearls

The string of pearls exercise takes the concept of Where am I? and ties it to finding the future and the past. The idea is that each moment is a direct experience and each moment follows the next like pearls on a string. One is moment rolling toward you, while the current moment passes away. In each moment, you are still OK. Sit quietly for just sixty seconds, asking yourself “Where am I?” each time you breathe in. Notice your hands, the weight of your body, the placement of your feet, the area before your eyes and the sounds you are hearing. Notice that right now, you are fine. Notice that right now, the future moment hasn’t yet arrived and the past moment has rolled away, dropping off the string. In each moment, you are fine.

5 Senses Exercise

I adore this exercise. For the full version, please check out Dr. Susan Albers – 50 ways to soothe yourself without food. Right now, where you are at, stop and listen. Name five sounds you are hearing. – Dog bark, TV in another room, the hard drive, the sound of the keyboard, the dishwasher. Now name five things you see. Name five things you feel with your body, five things you smell, and five colors you see.

For me, sometimes I only smell one or two things. When you are done, you and your worries will have had a break from each other.

Why Bother?

By the time you finish one or more of these exercises, the thoughts that were causing you anxiety, or were circling in your head or making you want to escape will have had a time out. You will have reconnected with the fact that right now, you are OK. Tomorrow, you might catch a virus. Tomorrow you might have an unexpected bill that you can’t afford. Yesterday, you might have said something foolish and chances are, you are the only one still thinking about it. Yesterday you made a mistake but you’re not making one now. In an hour, or a half-hour, or a week, a problem might arise, but it’s not here now.

And that? Is just good to experience.