Awakening Our Power

April 15, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: , ,

Today’s world is far busier than at any time in the past. Everywhere we look, we’re faced with many choices to make and complicated details to track and organize. It’s no wonder that so many people lead lives of constant stress, always worrying that there’s too much going on and no good ways to keep up with it all. Making wrong choices, losing track of things, and not getting enough done seem inevitable.

Of course, anxiety only makes everything worse; but if we don’t feel in control of our daily lives, then how can we get those worries to go away? And until the worries go away, how can we feel more confident? Many of us struggle with this dilemma. It can be especially challenging for people with disabilities, whose needs are by definition (under the social model of disability) not adequately supported in present-day society.

Autism, in particular, often is associated with anxiety. Definitions of autism generally mention self-calming repetitive behaviors. Many people view such behaviors not as an intrinsic part of their autism, however, but as symptoms of anxiety caused by living in a world that can feel overwhelming and extremely difficult to navigate, with information often coming too fast to process.

I believe that it’s helpful for any of us, whether or not we have a disability, to keep in mind that we do have the power to change our personal environment. Even though we can’t control much of what happens in the world, we can create peaceful, nurturing homes and workspaces that lovingly support us as we go through our days. We can awaken our power by making small positive changes to our routines and surroundings, which reinforce and build on each other as time passes.

When I feel stressed about something I’m trying to do, I stop and ask myself: Does this need to be done now, or at all? Are there more comfortable ways to do it? Should I ask for help instead of trying to do it myself? Sometimes anxiety makes us forget that we have other options; but in reality, there are almost always better alternatives, if we take enough time to discover them. Rather than letting ourselves get overwhelmed, we can step back from the situation for a moment and consider ways to simplify it.
 

April is Autism Acceptance Month. Visit autismacceptancemonth.com for more information.

Dismissal in the Court of Conscience

March 25, 2015 · 8 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Everyone makes mistakes. Usually they are harmless and teach us useful lessons. We all know that—but even so, we still can’t quite manage to leave our old mistakes in the past. Random memories of things that we did wrong many years ago, and that everyone else in the world has totally forgotten, just pop into our heads for no reason and leave us feeling bad.

When we look at those old mistakes more closely, often it turns out they’re just silly. For instance, when I was a kid, a security guard at a supermarket told me to get out because I’d been standing around the comic book rack for an hour reading werewolf comics, without buying any of them. Well, okay, the security guard was right that it wasn’t a library; and buying a donut from the bakery counter, which gave me sticky fingers while reading the comics, didn’t put me on the best-customer list either. Still, there’s certainly no reason why stuff like that should bother me 40 years later—much better just to remember how yummy the donut was!
 

Donut with multicolored sprinkles.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Instead of feeling like we’re criminals because of unimportant past mistakes, we need to take them more lightly and forgive ourselves for them, just as we would forgive anyone else who had made a trivial blunder. Even with real crimes, after a certain number of years the limitations period expires and the crime can’t be prosecuted. There are good policy reasons for this—physical evidence decays or is lost, people’s memories get fuzzy, and it’s not at all clear what really happened.

So I suggest that when memories of old mistakes start bothering us, we should apply to the Court of Conscience for a statute-of-limitations dismissal of the charges—complete with a formal order, as below:

DISMISSAL ORDER
IN THE COURT OF CONSCIENCE

WHEREAS, the Defendant stands before this Court charged with Making Mistakes while Being Human; and whereas, this Court finds that all of the facts alleged in the Prosecutor’s Complaint are outside the statute of limitations; NOW, THEREFORE, this Court ORDERS that the charges be, and hereby are, DISMISSED, and that the Defendant shall go free.

Signed, Judge of the Court of Conscience
Today’s Date

A Year of Discovery

December 31, 2014 · 6 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: , , ,

Last December I set myself an ambitious task for 2014—to find and comment on a positive blog every day. I had been wanting to read more uplifting and inspirational material online, but hadn’t known where to find it. My site was less than two years old, and I hadn’t yet written many entries or commented much on other blogs. I wanted to do more, building connections and broadening my perspective. My goal was to improve myself while having a positive impact on the culture with my writing.

I had a conversation with a friend (as described in this post) about setting small changes in motion that radiate out to the world, simply by brightening one’s own life. That gave me the idea of going on a virtual quest to find positive blogs, while keeping a chronicle of my discoveries for the benefit of both myself and my readers. I named this project the Random Kindness Blog Tour because I didn’t know what I might find, which made it random, and also because bloggers enjoy unexpected kind comments. I chose Kindness and Positivity as my words of intention for 2014.

To give myself impetus to follow through, I publicly committed to it on my blog as a New Year’s resolution. That felt scary at first because of the unknown time requirements—I had no way of knowing how long it might take to find a positive blog on any given day! What if I got overwhelmed and couldn’t keep up the pace, or if it took so much time that I couldn’t do anything else all year? But I decided to look at it in a playful way (as discussed here) just like going on an adventure.

After the project got underway, I found that it wasn’t nearly as difficult or time-consuming as my worries had made it out to be. Positive bloggers naturally attract commenters who have an optimistic mindset, plus they often include positive sites in their blogroll. So I always had plenty of links to follow and new sites to investigate. Even if I got busy and missed a day’s entry, I always managed to find two positive blogs the next day to catch up. As the page of links got longer, it became a powerful visual reminder that the world is full of good people—all one has to do is look! That in itself helped to banish gloomy thoughts.

I found many inspiring sites and made new friends, including the Nurturing Thursday bloggers—I’ve started thinking of them like an online support group. Their encouraging words have helped me to deal better with disruptions, work on getting clutter under control, arrange my house more comfortably, and remember to appreciate the moment. As a result, I’ve had more mental energy to put toward my writing this year, along with reading and commenting on more blogs.

I’ve also been reminding myself that not everything needs to be done right away, on a schedule, or perhaps even at all. Today’s world is so full of possibilities, it can be hard to decide what to do. Having so many options leads to anxiety about making wrong choices, wasting time, and not getting things done. Usually it’s needless anxiety because nothing calamitous would happen anyway. Mistakes are more likely to be useful learning experiences than disasters, and neglected tasks may not matter much as circumstances change.

Although the fast pace of modern society can make it seem like a constant rush to keep up, there’s really no need to let life get so hectic. Incremental changes can have powerful, far-reaching effects without consuming huge amounts of time. Persistence is what’s needed, along with setting clear intentions and allowing enough quiet, unhurried moments to notice the beauty and abundance all around.

Making Space for the Self

October 29, 2014 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Setting aside time for reflection, with the aim of discovering one’s authentic self, is common advice in inspirational books and articles. The modern world’s distractions and responsibilities often lead to the feeling that somewhere along the way, we have gotten much too busy and lost a clear sense of who we really are. Meditation, long walks in the forest, and spiritual retreats are seen as ways of reconnecting.
 

Path in autumn forest with fallen leaves.

(photo credit: publicdomainpictures.net)
 

When I started clearing clutter out of my house earlier this year, I wasn’t thinking about it in terms of improving my sense of self; I just wanted to tidy things up and feel more comfortable at home. I’m starting to feel that it’s all part of the same process, though. Letting go of physical clutter brings up thoughts and emotions having to do with each item’s source and what function it once served in my life. This in turn causes me to reflect on where I am now and what has changed since then. So I’m not just taking old stuff to the thrift store, but also clearing out my old emotions and routine behaviors associated with the stuff. I am making space for creative energy, positive thought patterns, and feeling more present in the here and now!

The subconscious mind is full of associations relating to the stuff in our environment. Even when something gets to be so much a part of everyday life that it doesn’t get noticed consciously, it still triggers emotions and habitual responses just by being there. So I would say that discovering one’s authentic self is not just about remembering the past; it’s also about clearing away whatever doesn’t feel right in the present.

Forgiveness and Owning Stories

March 26, 2014 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Most people would agree that when we are wronged, it’s best to forgive and to let go of our anger, instead of brooding over a stale old grudge and allowing that stagnant resentment to suck the joy out of our lives. Of course, this familiar advice doesn’t in itself answer the question of how to go about it. Letting go of anger can be much easier said than done. A primitive emotion, anger has a basic survival function—when we’re attacked, it motivates us to fight and focuses our energy on defeating the attacker.

In the modern world, chances are high that we’re not going to have any life-threatening encounters with marauding attackers the next time we walk down the street or drive to the mall. We are far more likely to get angry at someone who is not really trying to do us any harm, such as a careless driver who gets too close. When such things happen, letting go of the anger generally doesn’t take long because a moment of reflection makes clear that there was no harm, either actual or intended.

Forgiveness becomes difficult not in these everyday situations, but when we feel that someone really was trying to harm us. Maybe we are just going about a routine day when we discover that we’ve been targeted by gossip. Even if no actual harm was done because it’s obvious nonsense and the bully who started it has no credibility, it still triggers the anger response in those primitive brain circuits: Danger! Attack! Enemy! Fight!

Though we’re probably sensible enough not to get into an actual brawl, the anger can last much longer than the incident itself. Months or even years later, we still feel that we have an enemy who means us harm and who chose to attack in such a nasty, unfair way—how is it possible to just let go of that and forgive?

One approach I’ve found helpful is to remind myself that I don’t have to own stories that belong to other people. If someone with an overactive imagination invents ridiculous conspiracy theories and puts me on their list of imagined evildoers, I don’t own those stories. They are no more relevant or meaningful to my real life than a tabloid paper at the bottom of the birdcage. I can choose to give them only the attention they deserve—which is to say, none.

And I don’t have to buy into the anger narrative by mindlessly slapping on the labels of “enemy” and “attack,” either. Most likely, even when someone is being nasty, it’s not because of a personal vendetta but just because of random stuff going on in their life. After a while, they may not even remember what they said. From their perspective, it wasn’t a malicious attack—just ordinary conversation, and not at all memorable. They’re not framing the situation in terms of having enemies, unless of course it suits their melodramatic worldview to have large numbers of enemies; and they couldn’t care less about whatever they might have said in the past.

So—if they don’t care, then why should anyone else? Forgiveness can simply be a matter of reframing an old incident as unimportant, rather than making heroic efforts to love one’s enemy. When the other person ceases to be seen as an enemy and becomes just another flawed human being who is trying to get through life, we’ve effectively let go of the narrative that fuels the anger. That gives us more room to increase our creative energy and to develop new, healthy, empowering personal narratives. As for other people’s silly old stories—time to put some fresh newspaper in the birdcage and take out the trash.

 

Kindness Multiplies

January 22, 2014 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Since embarking on my personal kindness challenge to visit and comment on a positive blog every day of 2014, I’ve noticed more people being kind to me. For example, when I went to do my grocery shopping Monday afternoon, another driver smiled and waved me into a good space in the parking lot, even though I didn’t get there first. I often park farther away and do more walking because it’s healthier; but Monday was dark and dreary, in a month that has been full of dreary days, and I hadn’t slept well the night before—so a parking space near the door was especially welcome.

Some would say that by being more focused on kindness over the past few weeks, I have been attracting kindness by way of good vibes. Or perhaps those around me were just as kind before, but I didn’t pay enough attention. It’s also possible that I have made small changes to my behavior, without noticing them, which leave other people feeling more cheerful and more inclined toward kindness in my presence. Maybe all three are true! Anyway, I’ve written this post as an expression of my gratitude for having so many kind people in my life, and as a reflection on how kindness multiplies.

Back in December, when I first thought about commenting on a different blog every day for an entire year, the idea seemed pretty intimidating. I worried that I might not find enough up-to-date positive blogs, or that it would feel like an enormous chore after a few weeks, or that it would take so much time I’d never be able to write my own blog posts or get anything else done. I finally went ahead and wrote a post publicly committing myself to do it as a New Year’s resolution, so as to give myself enough accountability that I wouldn’t back out.

Thankfully, none of my overly dramatic worries came to pass. Instead, having regular positive reading material has improved my mood and has left me feeling more confident, both generally and with regard to blogging. With more mental energy, I found myself writing posts more quickly, and I didn’t feel as if either writing or reading took up much of my time. As for finding new blogs to visit, when I mentioned that I was looking for positive sites, other bloggers were glad to help out by recommending some of their favorites. Although I know that most people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January, I’m feeling good about mine so far, and I’d like to thank the kind bloggers I have met so far. You all rock!

Tough No More

January 12, 2014 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

One of the ways we shape our lives is with self-talk. Because the subconscious mind is very suggestible, what we say to ourselves on a regular basis ends up becoming part of the world as we perceive it. By affirming that we are capable of dealing with life’s challenges, we gain more determination to slog on through the hard times.

But like anything else, affirmations can be taken to excess and can have unforeseen consequences. Several years ago, when I wanted to reassure myself that I could cope with difficult situations, I started saying to myself, “I am tough.” I liked how the word sounded—strong, determined, a fearless warrior kicking the world’s butt. I acted like things didn’t bother me, and I got compliments on my toughness. What I didn’t take into account was that by being “tough,” I was building a hard, weighty shell like an emotional suit of armor, which rarely came off but stayed with me wherever I went. Clank, clank.

The word “tough” has many connotations that can be less than ideal when describing oneself. Tough meat, tough as old shoe leather, tough as nails, a tough old bird. Even the way the word comes off the tongue sounds almost like spitting. The idea of toughness, in Western culture, sets up an adversarial relationship—one strong person fighting heroically against the big bad world. It creates a mindset that’s primed to see conflict and drama regardless of whether there is any reason for it.

Even in the natural world, toughness isn’t necessarily best for survival. Large trees such as oaks have tough, hard trunks and branches that don’t move much in the wind. Other trees with slim, flexible branches such as willows get whipped all around by a storm, while an oak might just drop a few acorns. But in extreme weather, a willow has a better chance of survival. A powerful windstorm a few years ago blew down oaks and other strong trees all over my neighborhood, leaving willows intact.

So I’ve decided that from now on, I am going to be resilient like a willow, instead of tough. Resilient is a soft word, sibilant, gentle, whispering like a breeze through tall grass at dawn. A resilient person is one who finds constructive ways to deal with a challenging situation, looking upon it as an opportunity for growth and discovery, rather than as a foe to be conquered. Back when I was determined to be tough, I wouldn’t have written a blog post like this because I’d have felt uncomfortable showing that I had vulnerability. In the depths of my mind, I’d have worried that an enemy might be lurking out there in cyberspace, waiting to pounce as soon as I let something about myself slip. Put another way, being tough made me fearful. So I’m through with it.

Sometimes I still catch myself saying, just by rote, that I am tough. When that happens, I take a moment to shift my train of thought and instead tell myself that I am resilient. After a while—maybe a few weeks, maybe a month or two—this affirmation will become a habit and will feel natural. To reinforce the idea of growth and resilience, I bought a green sweater in the after-Christmas sales. It’s soft and bright like new spring grass. I cleaned out my closet and gave some old sweaters, which had been washed so much that the cotton felt stiff, to a thrift store. No more hard armor for me.

Snow-Covered Perspective

January 6, 2014 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

When I woke up this morning, there was a howling arctic wind making the house rattle. The temperature, already bitterly cold, was forecast to drop all through the day. Every now and again there was a sudden CRASH! out on the deck as the wind shook some icicles loose.

I opened the shades to let in the morning light as I usually do, but there wasn’t much of it to be seen. In fact, it was so dark that it didn’t even look like morning. If there hadn’t been multiple clocks in the house to confirm the time, I might easily have thought that I got up a few hours before dawn by mistake. But nope, it really was morning, and time to get about my workday.

My husband, on his way to the office after a two-week vacation, told me he couldn’t believe I had opened the shades on a morning like this. Trying to sound cheerful, I said it looked like the sun might be coming out a little, and I pointed to a feeble little ray that had almost made its way through the thick clouds. He just shook his head, got his coffee, and headed out to work.

I have a suncatcher in the window of my study—an angel with a crystal teardrop hanging beneath it. On sunny days it fills the room with tiny rainbows. On a day like this, however, the poor little angel couldn’t do much but sit there reflecting the gray sky.

window angel

I took a picture with my phone and attached it to a text message to a friend on the West Coast, telling her that the angel looked like it needed some sunlight as much as I did. She sent me a cheerful reply with a smiley at the end, telling me how much she loved the photo and that she’s always happy to see snow because there is so little of it where her family lives.

“You can have as much of mine as you want,” I told her; but by then, I wasn’t really complaining. Her message brought back pleasant memories of visiting my grandparents in Connecticut as a child, and how exciting it was to see snowflakes falling. On this gray day, it was a welcome reminder that how much we enjoy our lives has a lot to do with perspective.

Radiating Positivity

December 21, 2013 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: , , ,

‘Tis the season when many of us start thinking about changes we want to make in the coming year. We talk over potential New Year’s resolutions with our friends and family. Perhaps we focus on improving our personal lives, such as by resolving to eat healthier, get more exercise, and clean up a cluttered house. Or we plan to get involved in volunteer work—serving meals at the homeless shelter, for example, or teaching adult literacy classes at the library. By talking about our plans with others, we give the details more clarity in our own minds and become more determined to follow through.

But the idea of making long-term changes can be discouraging to us, especially in today’s busy and complicated society. It’s hard enough to keep up with everything that’s changing around us—advances in technology, reorganizations at work, and so forth. When we consider how many things need improvement, both in our personal lives and the world in general, we’re likely to feel overwhelmed. It seems like there’s just too much going on that we can’t control. Why even try? It’s easier just to fall back on our familiar comforting habits, even though they may not be good for us in the long run.

I recently had an email conversation along these lines with a friend who described her perspective on changing one’s own life and the world:

Sometimes I feel like all I can do—in a world that can sometimes seem so filled with strife—is continue to be positive in my own life and with my own situation, and then hope that my positivity can radiate out to others and uplift them as well (even if it’s just a smile I might share with a stranger). Lately when I meditate, I’ve been sending bright energies out to envelop Mother Earth. I wish there was something I could do to make everything okay for everybody. And that thought always leads me back to the saying “If you want to save the world, all you need do is save yourself.”

After I’d had a few days to reflect on her words, I thought more about positivity in the context of the Internet—and blogging in particular. There are plenty of blogs whose authors write cheerful, kind, uplifting material, but they don’t get much traffic. Although we may browse their blogs on occasion, we may feel that we haven’t got the time to visit more regularly or to write meaningful comments. Meanwhile, political bloggers stir up anger and often have long comment threads full of arguments. This skews the Internet toward negativity, even though most blog owners just write about everyday life.

So—my New Year’s resolution for 2014 is to radiate positivity by making time, for an entire year, to visit a different blog each day that focuses on random acts of kindness or other positive themes. I’ll write a detailed comment on each of these blogs, describing why I enjoyed it and thanking the author for creating it. At the least, this will make 365 blog authors happier, as well as improving my own mood by giving me positive reading material daily. And I’m hoping other bloggers will join in, which would magnify the effects exponentially! If you’re interested in participating, please visit my new Random Kindness Blog Tour page.

Finding Joy in Small Changes

June 16, 2012 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

Modern life can be so hectic that people often get stuck in routines that have outgrown their usefulness, without even thinking about it. Routines have a calming effect because they reduce the number of decision-making points we encounter in an increasingly complex world. They’re essential to protect us from the paralyzing anxiety that would otherwise result from having too many choices to make. But if we’re not careful, we can miss out on a lot of things we would have enjoyed, just because we didn’t take the time to reflect on how our routines might be improved and updated.

Here’s a simple example of how that happens. I routinely buy the bagged salad mix at the supermarket because it saves the time and effort of assembling the individual items, while also ensuring that I won’t find myself short of any particular salad vegetable. For many years, I always topped the salads with shredded cheese and bacon bits, without any dressing, which is how my husband prefers them. That seemed fine, and I didn’t give it much thought. When we ate out, however, I enjoyed the house salad at a restaurant that prepares it with a vinegary dressing, dried cranberries, and walnuts.

It never occurred to me that I could do something similar at home until a recent grocery shopping trip. I was in the condiments aisle buying more bacon bits when I noticed a new salad topping on the shelf—a mix of dried cranberries and almonds. That was like a moment of revelation. I just wanted to shout “Yay!” and jump for joy right there in the supermarket aisle. Although I didn’t really do it because of our cultural expectations about proper behavior for middle-aged women (alas), I put the new topping in my cart and had a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Of course, I could have bought dried cranberries and nuts separately even before the supermarket began selling the new salad topping mix; but the thought never crossed my mind. I had gotten so much in the habit of making my salads the same way as my husband’s that I just did it by rote.

By definition, routines are things that we do as a matter of course, without need to ponder the details. Our conscious minds pay very little attention to such familiar actions. So it takes a deliberate effort to consider what’s involved with a particular routine and how it might work better if done a different way. Improvements that other people may find obvious are likely to elude us, just because our habitual acts always seem normal and reasonable in our own minds. We also tend to exaggerate how hard it might be. It’s the big things that come to mind when we think about change, such as buying a new car or house, rather than little variations in our daily routines. Change seems difficult, expensive, and far away.

I believe it helps to set aside a few minutes every day to consider the question: What can I do differently, in the here and now, to make myself happier? Often the answer is something that can be done easily and for little or no cost. We can, for instance, tidy up those cluttered areas that give us the subconscious feeling our lives have gotten out of control. Last week I cleaned out my desk drawer, which (I am embarrassed to admit) had been accumulating junk for over a decade. Now every time I open the drawer, it feels peaceful and orderly, instead of the horror-movie adventure of the Junk Drawer from the Black Lagoon invading my workspace.

Although small changes like this may not seem to make much difference in themselves, the cumulative effects can be very powerful.

Newer articles »