Transformation

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February 15, 2011

Let it Go

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Relationships, Transformation
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When I observe two people agitated, annoyed, angry, in conflict, I often wonder to myself why can’t they just “let it go.”  How did their need to be right or to be in control override a very basic instinct to just be at ease?   When I observe my niece (age five) and nephew (age eight) at play, they do get into small disagreements like children do.  But typically just as quickly as the frustration occurs, they move past it.  I have found that they very naturally own their stuff.  It seems to me that it is instinctual to let go, as children quickly decide that their need to be right isn’t serving them and is blocking them from their ultimate aim which is to play, laugh and love.  It takes them only a few split seconds to move from being upset to letting go, forgetting, coming back to present and happily moving back to play.

The only time I find these little spats escalate is when they can involve an adult to try to justify their position.  The adult tries to analyze and rationalize with the children to try to get clear on who was right and who was wrong.  But more often then not, this typically doesn’t resolve anything and has everyone spending way too much time on something that really didn’t matter in the first place.

I remember at a certain point in my life after college, I made the decision to let go more and control less. I quite distinctly remember getting it that I was the one suffering by not letting go. I was the one getting hot and bothered and stressed.  And none of those reactions were healthy for me.  To be honest, it has taken this type-A woman (who always had to be right) a good ten years to finally really feel like she has mastered “the art of letting go.”  And how did I master it? I practiced it all the time.  Life gives us plenty of opportunities to practice this one.

This decision to “practice letting go” has served me well. It has offered me freedom instead of pain. It has provided me access to solutions instead of more problems.  It even gave me back time, for when you “let go” you actually gain back the time that you would have spent doing all the things to prove that you were right.  I even believe it has brought me more health over the years, because I didn’t have to stress out over proving that I am right.

Often people can’t move toward letting go because they believe that their power is in question, that if they let go they will be seen as weak, unworthy, wrong, powerless. Quite the opposite.  “Letting go” brings the power back to your court. It gives you power back because you can choose to react from balance and present moment, rather then from reactivity.   To be clear, letting go is not doing nothing when you are wronged.  It is finding your way to peace so you can fully choose the correct action to take that serves you and others best.

The most magnificent thing when you start letting go is that you find it is actually far easier to do then holding on to the need to control.  Needing to control or to be right requires a significant outpouring of energy and prana-life force.  Energy that quite frankly is better suited for other things like having fun, moving forward and play!

 

January 19, 2011

Don’t Believe all your Beliefs

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Relationships, Spirituality, Transformation
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Traveling beyond the comfy borders of your home is always an adventure.  But when you go on a journey to a far off destination you are almost guaranteed new perspective.  These past few weeks I was certain were going to be a mind blow. I was going to India.  I was ready to be changed.  But as life had it, in my stopover city of London, I broke my foot and ended up staying there my whole vacation.   London is familiar to me as my sister has lived here for over 7 years, and it was always a popular spot for me on connections to other parts of Europe during summer vacations. Thus I wasn’t expecting much of anything new.

And let’s face it.  London is not a far off-shoot from the US.  People speak the same language, although sometimes it is hard to understand them with their proper Queen’s English, and most things just aren’t that different.

However, one day on this trip I realized why people need to go away and experience new places. Why traveling has been, forever, a topic of excitement, of stories, of awe, of a way to rock your world.   For as you stay longer in am unfamiliar place, you begin to question long held beliefs, from the mundane, to the more complex.

One day shopping for groceries with my sister she asked me to grab a bag of chips.  Perusing the aisle of chips, oops I mean “crisps”, I noticed two flavors that really 100% disgusted me.  Chicken Tarragon and Honey Ham& Cranberry. What the…what the?  Meat flavored potato chips. Even if I was not vegetarian the thought of poultry powder on a potato chip did not sound appetizing to me at all   As I thought about the chips, I thought what a wide variety of taste buds there are out there.  But I still could not make the chips fit into my belief of what chips should be.

This idea that when things don’t fit in our mental model our most inner beliefs are questioned became clearer as I rode “the Tube” (London’s subway). In the US, we are so bombarded with images of people who look, sound, smell, and appear a certain way.  Everyone is constantly trying to fit into that image we are being sold.

But in London, especially riding on the underground, you see people being more themselves, not trying to fit into the US cookie-cutter ideal. Of course you have those that are buying into local marketing too, but Londoners seem to retain an element of originality.  One morning, as I mixed, mingled and observed, I was fascinated by two young men I saw on the Tube.  One boy had extremely bloodshot eyes and shoes that were too big, and he looked sullen. And the other sat pensively next to him.  They didn’t speak to each other and seemed disconnected from the world around them.  The image of them stayed with me for the day.

As I thought about them throughout the day, I wondered who they where and where they were from.   I couldn’t place their ethnicity and all of a sudden I had no way to make them fit in my mind of what was known and familiar to me.

I realized this is how we humans get stuck.  Our beliefs keep us tied to what we know – even if what we know should be questioned.  We want things to fit in our mind. Neat. Tidy.  And when they don’t we either draw lines in the sand, start wars or change.  And since change is so hard for humans it seems often we opt for war.

The thing about beliefs is that we formulate them when we don’t have the education or information needed to develop rational beliefs grounded in truth.  Beliefs are created in early childhood and for the most part we do not question them even if they no longer serve us in adulthood.  This is because other, new beliefs feel like they don’t fit.  And it can be uncomfortable.  For example, if you carry a belief of unworthiness with you from childhood and all of a sudden you have insight that “hmmm maybe just like every other human on this planet I am worthy just because I am alive,”  it can seem almost impossible to hold onto the insight.  It doesn’t easily fit in your mind’s mental model.  So when life’s situations (like rejection, or an upset of some kind) happen, giving you reason to believe in your old belief, for the most part you cuddle back up to it like a good old blanky on a cold night:  “there now, you see you are unworthy.”

In Brene Brown’s TED speech, “The Power of Vulnerability,” she explains that one of the most important findings of her work was identifying the variable between people who had a sense of worthiness and those who didn’t.   What she found is this:  “People who have a strong sense of love and belonging BELIEVE they are worthy of love and belonging.  That’s it.  They BELIEVE they are worthy.”

So how do we attack, combat and slay those dragons of beliefs that no longer suit us?  First, you need to understand that you have beliefs and that they shape your action. Then you need to face and acknowledge them every time they arise,“oh hello-there you are my good ol’ belief of not being good enough”.  Then you need to take steps to replace the old belief with present reality and truth. You must do this every time to reshape your mental terrain to allow the new belief to take up the territory the old belief used to hold.  On our own this can be a challenge. It is why working with a coach can be so effective at letting go of old beliefs while cultivating new budding beliefs into a bouquet of beautiful blossoms.

 

November 18, 2010

Death of a Seed

Posted by vydabielkus under faith, Relationships, Spirituality, Transformation, Uncategorized
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There is nothing like a funeral to remind you that life is short, and that breath, prana, life force, indeed at a certain point simply stop.  The surviving family and friends are never ready for the passing of those they care for, and the unknown of this time period, because it is so much bigger than the certainty of the moment that existed right before the last breath.  As the priest spoke about my best friend’s mother, he so eloquently described that her death was just a new beginning in her spiritual journey.  He brought comfort to our grief as he explained that death, this part of our human experience, is a normal part of everything around us, just as a seed first breaks and dies before it blooms into a beautiful flower; our spirit too dies and transforms into a new, yet unknown experience. In this metaphor, we all could find peace in faith that the seed would indeed once again transform into a beautiful flower.

Thinking about our human fate, and my own life, I thought about how many “deaths” my spirit had already experienced and continues to experience as I push the limits of her growth.  The imprints from childhood that etched grooves on my psyche, which as I aged I had to confront in order to thrive.  I had to see how these limiting beliefs and behavior patterns that were formulated so long ago wreaked havoc in my adult life.   I made bad choices and stayed in bad situations for too long. Looking back now I see these were all the Universe’s way of helping me understand, befriend, and dissolve those parts of myself that didn’t believe in herself or didn’t believe in her own worth and power.

By confronting the untruths I formulated and lived by, I was able to let go of the limiting beliefs and behavior patterns that were keeping me in a permanent state of dis-ease.   Each time I confront these patterns, it is like a death. I cry with grief at the pain I had lived with and the loss of my old ways. But by filling the space that is left with faith and trust, I walk a little closer to a new life finding myself that that much closer to blooming.

Our willingness to transform from the carcass of our past is connected to whether we have faith and trust – or we don’t.  Faith is tricky, and we lose it at times, because it can take some time for a seed to germinate into a flower. As we shed old ways that no longer serve us, we need to experiment with new ways that more closely match who we truly are.  It can feel a little lonely, scary, and definitely uncertain.  Yet as you step forward into the new with faith by your side, you can trust that life will provide you the sun and water, through experience, necessary to blossom.

 

August 31, 2010

Taking to the Waters: Nirvana is only a soak away!

Posted by vydabielkus under Diet, Health, Retreat, Transformation, Yoga
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Ahhhhhhh hydrotherapy one of life’s most rewarding experiences.  Seriously some of the most deeply relaxing and enlivening moments of my life have been spent in water.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that our bodies are about 60% water that we are very comfortable in water or maybe it has to do with the peace and quiet that comes when we soak in a bath.  In the silence, we can hear our breath – our connection to life. There is a sense of peace all around.  That is why I am so excited to be leading a retreat in Miami with the Healthworks Fitness Centers for Women.  Participants will have the chance to practice yoga, eat healthy meals and replenish in the waters at The Standard Miami.  Check out the extensive spa and bathing area set up for soaking and lounging.

Some of my favorite travel experiences have involved H2O.  The times in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, where in the middle of nowhere, like an oasis in the desert, bubbled a steamy spring.  The air was crisp and the hot water churned my sore muscles into soft butter.  The Japanese tourists (who long have known the restorative power of water) would find their way by the bus loads.  After a few soaks, work, stress and problems were non-existent.  Life was good.

On another journey after a week-long yoga retreat in Hawaii, there was a waterfall plunge on Kauai.  Approaching the edge, I teetered for a moment before…jumping! All my fears leapt with me that day as I heard the rush of the water long before I saw it.  The water surrounded me, and each cell I had, pumped in the hydration and out all the toxicity of negative thinking and fears that plagued me. Floating in the waterfall’s pool I could no longer feel the difference between me and my surrounding. Time stood still.  I was renewed.

Even a simple swim at the beaches of Cape Cod where I spent my childhood remind me that I am  not my fears, I am not my problems, I am not my stress.  I am just a woman taking a swim in the ocean of life.

Hydrotherapy, for me feels like Nirvana; a perfect complement to any retreat or vacation.  It is the ultimate health restoration.  So join us on this Great Escape, the first weekend of November, and experience in a historical and healing tradition. Don’t miss your opportunity to combine a yoga retreat with the power and relaxation of this magical water playground at the Standard Miami  where you will be able to “Explore the curative effects of water, steam or mud in our Hamam, Aroma Steam Room, Cedar Sauna, Sound Pool, Roman Waterfall Hot Tub and Mud Lounge.  If you are in the mood for a more private experience, unwind in the spa or choose from an array of in-room treatments including therapeutic massage, acupuncture, Chinese herbal baths and restorative mind-body therapies.  Here you can indulge in a steamy mix of health and hedonism and learn the ageless art of bathing indoors and out.”

Nirvana is only a soak away!

For registration information email vyda@b1community.com.

 

August 18, 2010

The Taliban and Eminem Make me Burn!

Posted by vydabielkus under Transformation, Uncategorized
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Today at the doctor’s office, I picked up the August 9, 2010, issue of Time Magazine.  On the cover is a startling image of a young, pretty woman from Afghanistan with no nose. It had been cut off along with her ears after she ran away from her abusive husband’s family.  As I read the article, I was so saddened to read that the Taliban’s rules and laws will be part of the fabric of Afghani daily life as the country rebuilds.  Women as second class citizens will remain the norm and horrific violence against women will continue to be lawful.

Whenever I read stories like these I often think about the men. What could they possibly have been thinking when they took the young woman to a mountainside in the middle of the night and brutally disfigured her and left her to die?  What justification did they use in their minds? What threatens them so?  I thought to myself, how asleep this group of people.

Driving home from my appointment, recalling the disturbing image, I started to think what if anything can be done.  Should the US increase its force against the Taliban in Afghanistan? Can it? Why are we not more outraged? Have we as citizens of this great nation just become numbed into complacency that nothing can be done? As long as we are not suffering, do we care so little about others suffering?

As my mind contemplated these questions, Eminem and Rihanna’s Number 1 hit “Love the Way you Lie” came on the radio.  And I realized, we are just as asleep.  Our world accepts violence, hatred, and mistreatment toward women everywhere; and in turn, our world is not at peace.  We are at war.  The few more violent, more powerful have us all afraid of demanding change.

If you haven’t heard the song, in this popular catchy hip hop tune, Eminem outlines the course a violent and abusive man takes in a relationship, culminating in the lyrics: “I just want her back/I know I’m a liar/If she ever tries to fu***ng leave again/I’ma tie her to the bed And set the house on fire”.  Through out the song Rihanna sings the part of the dutiful abused girlfriend: “Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/But that’s alright/ I like the way it hurts/Just gonna stand there and hear me cry/But that’s alright/Because I love the way you lie.” Is Rihanna trying to justify her personal experience of abuse as the “new normal” by singing along?  Rihanna being quoted as saying this is a “beautiful song” just exemplifies how unwilling we are to take a stand and to say enough is enough.

Now, I am all for free speech but to be playing on the radio a song that so glorifies a toxic relationship has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with normalizing violence against women.  And yet where is the outrage?  Instead we have people downloading the song at warp speed.  It has so struck a cord with people that it has leaped to number one, what does that say about the status of our most intimate relationships?  Is the violence, the volatility, sexy, even desired?  I am afraid that we are so utterly confused that we actually accept that love and hurt go together.  I also believe this is why at some level we are okay with women being brutally tortured in Afghanistan.

This song being played on the radio, with a survivor of abuse singing the chorus, clearly punctuates our collective hatred toward women.  Along the way to this song being made and produced did not one person stop and say “What are we putting out here?  What are we really saying?  And what do we want to teach the children who are the ones buying the music?”

Taking no action to stop the production of such a song or worse yet to justify it as something good and acceptable, is exactly how the Taliban gets away with abusing half the population. And to those who say don’t buy it if you don’t like it, I say wake up!  Just because we might not see a women stoned to death in the street doesn’t mean it is not happening. Do we not have a human responsibility to stop turning our heads or demand that misogynistic songs be removed from the airwaves?  Isn’t it time to get outraged?  To call out and step out against those who keep violence against women as part of our collective cultural experience.

Many of us grow up without a healthy picture of what love is.  We all come to relationships with different parts of ourselves to be healed.  When you first fall in love with someone it is so all consuming that you feel it has to be love.  We all know that feeling of having your heart super-charged.  This is one of the best feelings in the world. No one instantly falls in love with an abuser.   When a partner becomes abusive (verbally/physically) it is so unbelievable and out of context that you rationalize it away.  Unless you have been or know someone who has been in a relationship like this there is almost no way to grasp this cycle.  But once you are free from the cycle and healed from the pain, it is hard to imagine saying the words “I love the way you lie.”  There is no loving it when a partner is yelling at and lying to you.  There is no loving it when you are verbally put down.  There is only pain.  In all those moments there is only deep, deep pain.

Our world will not heal and be at peace until we fully expose and heal the rage that is taken out against women.  As a women said in the Time article, “If you sacrifice women to make peace, you are also sacrificing the men who support them and abandoning the country to the fundamentalists that caused all the problems in the first place.”  By doing nothing, by continuing to lower women’s position and power, through culturally accepted media outlets like this song, we do not get any closer to bringing peace to our individual hearts, our country and our world.

 

July 5, 2010

Live AWAKE!

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Health, Law of Attraction, Relationships, Spirituality, Transformation, Yoga | Tags: , , , , , |
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Learn the three things to do to live and be AWAKE!

 

March 17, 2010

Life is Yours to Live

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Health, Meditation, Transformation, Uncategorized, Yoga | Tags: , , , , |
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We humans are collectors.  From the time we are little we pick up countless items along the way and give them meaning.   Some of these inanimate objects stay with us a while, like my clown flannel blanky that was so loved that only a few threads remained when it was finally given up.  Other items  get picked up and put down quickly but still our inquisitive minds examines them to see how they fit or don’t fit what and who we want ourselves to be and be represented by.

Our experiences are much like this too.  As we grow up all of us have impacting moments along the continuum of life.  Some are big like when a parent leaves, other times the moments are small like when you are told to stop asking so many questions by a teacher.  Different from the items we collect, our experiences don’t ever leave us they simply build up our beliefs and the patterns of responses that we learn to operate under.   From the beliefs that no longer serve us, we react in fear, anger, confusion, etc.  As we go through life, these become the fallback emotions we operate from all the time.  Yet most of us don’t even know we are doing this.  We get good functioning out of our child-like responses that we spend very little time consciously creating authentic grown up reactions and behaviors.  This allows us to not take responsibility for ourselves and when we live without self-responsibility we basically never reach the potential of our spirit.  We operate constantly from two extremes never coming into middle long enough to make a different healthier choice for our actions.

For example, a ranting boss can so remind us of a yelling parent that we might immediately fall into a place of fear. As the fear comes up we then compensate to try to get out of feeling fearful, because our spirit does not feel good in a state of fear.  So we start reacting in ways we never would dream we would behave as a mature whole adult.  We try to over please the tyrant or we yell back, or a whole slew of possible reactions based on how we learned to behave in those early childhood pattern forming days.   These decisions are split second decisions.  We don’t formally think it through it just happens.

As you look around most of us are continuously acting out of some child formulated behavior.  We can’t seem to lift ourselves out of seeing that actually those behaviors those reactions are not really of this moment in time.  But how do we begin to stop acting out of these child-like ways and start claiming our own destiny, clear of illusion.  To pause and realize, “I am not naturally a person that yells back”, and therefore I can choose an alternate course of action.

For one you need to decide that what you are doing now isn’t working and that maybe why you are doing it is not based entirely on the reality of the situation at hand.  You also need to begin to observe yourself and get to know yourself beyond the constrictions of your past.  With meditation you can begin to develop a special relationship to your mind and see that it is a vast place with much opportunity for being in the now and creating a different future.  With yoga you can begin to sink deeply into locked feelings in the body that are connected to those impacting moments of your past.   As you stay with sensations in the body you can observe yourself in those moments of the past with clearer keener observation. Through coaching you are able to see yourself as whole, authentic and reclaim responsibility for your self.  It is through meditation, yoga and coaching conversations you learn to voice and manifest a life of wholeness, action and expanded consciousness.

When you live your life as a self-responsible adult, life is not done unto you.  You have the ability to shape your choices and your reactions, free from the limitations of your past.  When you are self-responsible, you see others differently too and can be there for them in a new way, not expecting from or controlling them.    Life becomes yours to live.

 

January 26, 2010

UNcompromise Your Life-Take a Retreat!

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Health, Retreat, Transformation, Uncategorized, Yoga | Tags: , , , |
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Sometimes the best use of your money, time, energy is investing in yourself, and one of the best ways to do that is by taking a retreat, a journey to get to know yourself on a deeper level.  Yoga and health retreats can be powerful healing experiences because they provide an opportunity to put the demands of life on hold. When I went to my first retreat as a participant about 9 years ago, I was having what John Mayer so aptly coined “a quarter life crisis.”  I was workaholic, a complete coffee addict, and on a path that if I continued would lead to a very unhealthy life.  The stress of my life was sucking all of my inner energy and had severed the connection to my own true desires and wants.

Knowing I needed to do something to break the cycle I was in, I signed-up for a retreat in Costa Rica.  As I journeyed, alone (and I do recommend going alone on a healing retreat), my biggest concern was how I would handle being cut-off from my morning coffee ritual.  Terrified of not being able to have my fix, I packed some green tea for an emergency.  Landing in a location that is designed for a yoga retreat is like landing on a magical part of the planet, where there are no obstacles to peace, healing, vitality and inner growth.  For the first few days of my week of twice daily yoga, walks, and healthy eating minus coffee, I slept.  Literally if I wasn’t in a session or eating, I was sleeping.  Getting in touch with how deeply tired you are from the actions and behaviors of your daily life is very eye-opening (pun intended).

On about day 2 of the retreat came the headaches of serious caffeine withdrawal.  I was forced to face my addiction to coffee. Feeling that I would not make it through the day, I drank one of the contraband green tea bags I had brought with me and went to practice the second session of yoga for the day.  On my mat, I was able to observe my fingers shaking from the caffeine.  I noticed my heartbeat racing and my mind jumping around like it was on a pogo-stick.  There was no connection to calm, no sense of peace.  I was all over the place.  In that moment of awareness, I gave up coffee.  I could see just how negatively my body and mind responded to caffeine and decided withdrawal symptoms were easy compared to a life of dependency. The magic of a retreat is that letting go and shedding of negative behaviors is easy.  The environment supports positive change.  All I had to do when the headache came was go lie in hammock, watch the hummingbirds and breathe.  By day 4 I had no more headaches.

Practicing yoga twice a day, meditating, eating clean healthy foods, walking in nature all invoke a sense of stillness.  Stillness that we don’t have in our regular lives, ever.  Deep stillness brings you insights you cannot have when the mind is cluttered when the body is bogged down by toxins, and the spirit is heavy.  Going on a healing and yoga retreat allows for the truth to unfold in your life.  It lets you see your life with your internal vision, from a what is truly right for me perspective.

Leaving the retreat with a new body, a new mind, a happier spirit, I made two very small choices-that I wanted more yoga in my life and that I wanted more control over my time.  With these two choices and a sense of staying true to myself, my life unfolded in a way I could not imagine in the years that followed that first retreat.  Some changes were immediate.  Coffee never came back into my life and upon returning home, I was able to finally make a decision to quit my job which no longer suited me.  Other changes developed over time.  Yoga not only became my lifestyle it became my profession.  My body continued to change as I shed physical and emotional weight.  Going on a retreat is an investment, it costs money but the return on investment is high. You regain yourself and your health.  By choosing to go on a retreat you choose to put yourself first.  This is not selfish or self-indulgent in fact it has quite the opposite effect.  When you invest in yourself first you are able to more fully show up for others in your life.

This April 10-17th, join the wonderful teachers of B1 Community in Costa Rica, for the Living Healthy Retreat at the Blue Spirit Center.  In a time of uncertainty, strain, stress it is the best vacation you can take that will keep giving back to you even after you go back home.  During our retreat we employ the B1 Community Self-Care Solutions™ to begin to dramatically shift your relationship to your body, mind, spirit and health.  During our week together, we will engage in transformative yoga classes, inspiring walks, awakening meditation, coaching conversations, nutrition strategy classes and more! Also joining us is Wade Morissette, a world-renowned kirtan singer and author of Transformative Yoga: Five Keys to Unlocking Inner Bliss.   Don’t miss this opportunity to UNleash your spirit, UNlock your blocks, and UNcompromise your life.

Visit www.b1community.com to learn more or email retreats@b1community.com to register today!

 

January 10, 2010

Building your Boundary

Posted by vydabielkus under Coaching, Relationships, Transformation, Uncategorized, Yoga | Tags: , , , , , , |
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When I graduated Wellesley in 1997, we were very fortunate to have Oprah Winfrey as our commencement speaker!  Yes, having Oprah as your graduation speaker is something you never forget.  Women from the class of ’97 still quote various parts of her speech that was so full of helpful life’s nuggets that there was no way to forget its impact.   One of those nuggets I often recall (especially in talking with my sisters) is, “the first time he is a jerk believe him.”  It is a simple lesson, but not one that is so easily practiced.

Yesterday I was watching the Oprah show, and once again in trying to help others avoid loss, hurt and betrayal, Oprah evoked the life lesson Maya Angelou taught her and I had heard at graduation (in slightly different words): “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them. If a person lies, he/she is liar.  If a person cheats, he/she is a cheater.”

Hearing her talk about this idea again I questioned why is it so difficult for many of us to live by this principle?  Why when someone shows us their true colors do we either ignore our intuition or lower our standards of what is tolerable for us in the way we are treated?  Of course the person who is doing the misleading has their own demons to work out, but really in order to “believe others the first time” we must turn the mirror on ourselves.

When we choose not to believe someone when they show us who they are, we are living with a depleted spirit.  With little belief in ourselves, in our own power, we lower the standards of how others treat us.  Our need to feel loved and our need for approval keep us tied to people who might be saying one thing but doing another.  When we are living from a part of ourselves that feels less than, unworthy of love, in fear of the unknown, we are targets for those who manipulate and keep us in a cycle of lies.

When we are seeking approval from another, our awareness is externally focused. Everything we do is linked to the other’s acceptance of us which keeps us living from our ego. We live in fear of losing what we have built up in our minds to have.  In this situation, fear has severed our connection to our own inner knowing.  When you live in fear and without a strong definition of self, a gigantic red flag may be flying right in front of your face and you won’t see it (or you will choose to ignore it).

Another clever game we play with ourselves is when we see that someone is acting like a jerk toward someone else we rationalize that they wouldn’t ever treat us that way.  This rationalization is absolutely illogical.  A person is who they are, period.  But when we feel powerless within our own being, our ego is seduced into this rationalization.  We avoid having to look at the painful part of ourselves, which feels powerless and keeps supporting the illusion.

Luckily, our lives are healing spiritual journeys. Many of our closest relationships come in to heal those parts of ourselves that don’t serve us, that take us away from the essence of who we are, away from God.   This is why more often than not it is after the experience of disappointment, hurt, and betrayal that we recognize we have ignored all the signs, that we indeed had not “believed them the first time.” When this pain stops us we have an opportunity to dig deep and heal the soul.

There are many ways to begin to heal the spirit from imposed limitation and fear.  Going to yoga classes and starting to awaken the body is key. Yoga helps us open up to sensations in our body which are great indicators of what is actually going on in any given moment.  Even more supportive would be working with a coach who helps us examine how feelings of unworthiness, powerlessness or of not being loveable stem from childhood beliefs that no longer have to determine our present actions.  With the coach we can begin to set out forward action to diminish the fear.  So if you find yourself struggling in a present relationship (with anyone, these emotions are not limited to intimate partners) or in one that has completed, take action meditatively in yoga or in coaching conversations to heal yourself so the next time (not the 5th time!), you are ready, able, and willing to “believe them the first time.”

 

January 4, 2010

New Year, New Decade “Think Different”

Posted by vydabielkus under Health, Transformation, Uncategorized | Tags: , |
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It is that time of year when we look back and assess the last year, and recommit to changing the usual list of things we are unhappy with within ourselves.  I resolve to “lose weight”, “stress less” “find a better job” etc.  The list of resolutions typically is full of goals that will never be met and are easily broken and forgotten.  We make a resolution to eat healthy, and as the words come out of our mouths we reach for that second cookie.  It seems that we love to set up ourselves up for failure.  We set out these unrealistic resolutions because we intrinsically know we won’t reach them, because the same thinking that stopped us last time will stop us again this time.

I was never much for resolutions because of this insane cycle.  It did not appeal to me to psyche myself up for failure, because I knew whatever went on my list would not be on it by March.  It is just the way life works. The distractions are too great.  So this year I have decided to replace the tradition of resolutions with defining a motto to live by for the year.  A phrase so potent that whenever I call upon it, I will be reminded of what really matters to me and therefore, make better choices and take better action.

The other day at the gym I picked up Fortune Magazine who declared Steve Jobs, the genius behind Apple, the CEO of the decade.  The magazine declared the fact that Jobs revolutionized not only the computer industry but also the music industry (itunes) and the movie industry (Pixar) while surviving two life altering diseases, nothing short of awesome.   It went on to examine how Apple is Jobs and Jobs is Apple.  Apple is what it is because Jobs is who he is.  Now this inspired me.   It made me think of all the individuals who, because of who they ARE change the world.   As they define themselves they define the world around them. We actually all do this. The world around us is what it is because of what we create it to be through our thoughts, beliefs and actions.  It just seems to me most of us don’t think outside of the limits of our own environments to really be able to impact the world.

Many, many years ago, before the iphone, before the Apple comeback, there used to be a huge vertical billboard on Sunset Blvd. in LA. It was a photo of John Lennon and at the bottom a small picture of a rainbow colored, half eaten apple with two words to the right of the apple “Think Different”.  It was part of Apple’s ad campaign that featured change agents of our planet, like Lennon, Gandhi, Graham, Picasso, etc.  These ads had nothing to do with technology or Apple’s products.  At the time, Apple was off the radar.  But as the article explained Jobs was responsible for the campaign. It was a charge.  Apple had the courage.  It was going to think different and therefore change the world.

So this year in 2010, I am resolving to “Think Different”~to use the power of my mind to radically change my every day and therefore my world.   It seems everything that I would want to make resolutions about can be changed with this simple phrase.  If I want to create a life that I don’t have now, I need to fill my mind not with the same thoughts I have now, I need to “Think Different”.   Looking back over the past year, I have to admit my mind was often caught in sticky thoughts.  I had too many thoughts of my past, the hurts, the cants, the justifications of why things are a certain way, guilty thoughts, shame thoughts, thoughts that were definitely not different and definitely not taking me into a different tomorrow.   So instead of figuring out how exactly my life is going to change, I resolve to think different to let a different life find me.

If I want to lose weight, I need to think differently about why I might be holding on to the weight or what keeps me from exercising. For example in the past perhaps I used to think I have no choice, “I have to work so I can’t exercise.” I can change my statement to “I have to work and I want to exercise”.  All of a sudden I have a choice, and now I can rearrange my day to allow both to happen successfully.  When you start noticing your thoughts, it is almost amazing how much of them are related to past events, things that cannot be changed, or have absolutely nothing to do with you.  By noticing how little time you are actually thinking about the things that bring you personal enjoyment, you can begin to actively change the landscape of your mind.  As you do this you begin to practice pulling out weeds that are literally sucking the life out of you and replace them with seeds of sunflowers.

If I want to have a different world around me and I want to be different, I first need to start with my mind and “Think Different”.   I am now so seriously committed to this that every time an unproductive, unsupportive, negative or old stupid thought enters my mind I resolve to “Think Different.”  As I do this, I can actually sense an inner smile that makes the things that seemed impossible somehow plausible.

So find your power phrase. Create a personal slogan.  Make sure it resonates with you and holds the power of a high school cheer at homecoming.  Let who you truly are be what the world gets to see and experience.  If we all committed to this, the world would be a totally different place by the end of 2010.

 

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