Measuring Up Got You Down? Here Is Your New Yardstick

Reclaim Your Journey

by Jennifer Rose & Better Existence | January 28, 2015

We are born into a cluster of identities that may or may not suit us. 

We are born into a family, a nation, a culture, a religion. We are immediately the son or daughter of this one and that one, and possibly also the brother or sister of these and those ones. In this tiny societal microcosm called the family people may tell us we are smart or stupid, attractive or not, interesting or not, relevant or not. And we believe them. 

As time goes by we identify with the local school, a group of friends, and maybe the popular culture. We learn the dos and don'ts of our city, state, and country. 

Who Is an Expert on What Is Right for Us?

Then it gets messy. My country tells me I can marry my same sex partner. My church tells me I will go to hell if I do. My state tells me I can smoke weed; my country tells me I had better not. My Muslim grandmother wears a burka. My Balinese grandmother does not wear a shirt. My television tells me I had better save for retirement. Then it tells me to spend my money on a car.  Or should I give it to charity? My doctor tells me coffee is good for my sluggish metabolism. I read an article by an expert that says that is wrong. 

There is no possibility of finding agreement among the diverse judgments that come with human identifications, affiliations, and the endless game of who is "in" and who is "out." 

Now what?

Follow My Bliss?

"Do what you love and the money will follow." --Marsha Sinetar

No wait. Here is an article in Forbes that tells you not to do what you love! Five Reasons to Ignore the Advice to Do What You Love.

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.” --Joseph Campbell

"I feel like being into the beat of your own drum has become too prominent in the culture." Mos Def

It would be funny if it were not so painful.

Get Ready for the Nay-Saying Choir. They Are Definitely Going to Sing to You.

When you do what you love, you will be surrounded by people who will tell you you are wrong. 

Forbes and Mos Def will most definitely be in line to tell you you are wrong. 

The happiest, the most transcendent people I know are constantly being criticized. They are called idiots. They are called narrow-minded. They are called snooty know-it-alls. They are called misguided, ignorant, and even heartless. They do not care much about that. They are people who have come to a certain point in their lives, and they have risen above the cacophony and the confusion. 

When you cannot take another minute of failing to measure up to conflicting, external expectations of how to be good enough, call me. That is when you will be ready to stand up to the nay sayers. 

You Can Trust Yourself

There is a path back to self-reliance that will foil even the earliest suggestions from others of who you are. There is a You in you that is untouched by judgments and labels waiting to live a life enriched by Your values and meanings. You may have a goal and purpose for your life that has been derailed by the judgmental noise all around you. Honestly, I have no idea what it is. But You know. And that is what strength-focused coaching is about. It is about handing you back your power, and being an ally in reaching Your goals. 

There is a Yoga story about an orphan lion who is adopted by a flock of sheep. Thank goodness the orphan baby was adopted! That is a good thing! The baby lion drank sheep's milk, then learned to eat grass, and learned to run away from danger. The orphan lion got along well in his sheep society. One day, danger came as a pride of hungry lions. "Baaaa. Noooo." The lion, who had grown quite large, said as he ran away with the other frightened sheep. One of the lions stopped to speak with the orphan lion. "Why are you afraid?" the lion asked, and he walked the orphan lion to the edge of a pool and showed him his reflection. "That is who you are," the lion said. 

You Are a Lion

Reclaim your journey. Reclaim your life, not by sifting through the conflicting chatter of the experts, but by testing, and then trusting your own experience. Learn to pay attention to how you feel. Set aside the conflicting thoughts that have promised and failed to deliver insight into what makes Your life worth living. 

Center yourself in the feelings You want to feel, and the experiences that make You proud. Notice what you are contributing when you are experiencing those feelings. Those are Your strengths. Those are Your best attributes. They will always be there for you. You can trust yourself. 

Okay. Go!

Jennifer Rose is a Meditation and Stress-Reduction Skills Instructor as well as a Strengths-focused Coach. She is available to teach classes and workshops to groups and individuals both in person and online. 646-831-2675

"Valor" by Jennifer Rose

Victim of Circumstances? There is a fix for that.

Every Moment Is an Opportunity to Choose Your Action

by Jennifer Rose & Better Existence | January 21, 2015

In a strengths-focused coaching meeting you will be asked to identify good experiences and positive moments. After you identify a good experience from the story of your life, or a positive moment that you noticed one day, you will be asked, What did you do that brought that about? (You can read the rationale for focusing on strengths in last week's blog post.) 

Identifying what you already do that brings about positive moments in your life and adds good experiences to your life story is a powerful tool that transforms the notion that we are victims of circumstances. 

Passivity is a Deeply Ingrained Idea

It takes repeated practice to transform the idea that our circumstances or environment dictate our experience of who we are. Oft repeated identities, such as "I am Chloe and Henry's daughter," "I am a Hudson (family identifications), "I am a Christian" (born into a religious or cultural identity) "I am an American," or "I am a survivor of a traumatic childhood," seem to tell us who we are in very real ways. However, for some people, these identifications become burdensome. 

When identifications become painful, when they do not serve us well, we can detach from our passive acceptance of mainstream ways of self-identification. We can forge our own path. It is a renegade move. It shatters the mold. But it really is not all that difficult. 

Two Ways to Feel Good

A lot of times we are on a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows. When we look for positive moments in our lives, we notice two kinds. If we ride the roller coaster, we identify with the highs and lows. Now I am happy. Now I am sad. Things went well for me. Nothing is going my way. One way to feel great is to be on that roller coaster and have things go your way, to get what you want, to experience the highs. There is nothing wrong with being happy when your team wins. Or when your spouse smiles and tells you you are great. Or when they like your post on Facebook. But over-investing in this type of feeling great does not empower us. Even when we are on the high, we are still victims of circumstances.

It is more useful to gain insight into the actions we take that result in good experiences and positive moments. This is empowering because we can repeat these actions. We step out of our habit patterns when we choose our actions. We are empowered to improve the quality of our lives when we choose actions that have our preferred outcomes. No one needs to tell us what outcomes are good for us. Whether we want to feel peaceful, purposeful, blissful, or some other feeling is our own business. We can observe our own lives, our own feelings, and come up with our own answers. 

Having a strengths-focused coach can help. A strengths-focused coach will always hand you your power. 

To Surrender or to Act? 

To put it simply: surrender after you act. 

When we look for the outcomes of our actions, we again hand our power over to the environment or circumstances outside ourselves. Instead, retain your power. Refocus on the new moment, the new opportunity to choose an action. This is not to suggest that you should avoid feeling the sense of peace, purpose, bliss, or whatever else may flow from skillful action. Just do not allow that to become victimhood to the highs and lows of roller coaster living.

Karma

If you do not recognize the principle of karma here, it is because the meaning of karma has been turned inside out. Popular notions of "good karma" and "bad karma" have everything to do with the payback one expects from the environment for "good" or "bad" deeds. That is just the opposite of what is useful. To take responsibility, to become the architect of our lives, as great Yoga teachers like Swami Rama suggest, we need to shift our focus from the external results to the internal causes. Choosing useful actions in each moment is masterful application of the principle of karma. 

Responsibility

Victor Frankl, the author of Man's Search for Meaning suggested that a Statue of Responsibility be built on the West Coast of the United States to balance the Statue of Liberty on the east coast. He did not suggest that the Statue of Liberty be removed, rather he recognized the connection between responsible, skillful action and thinking, and feeling unburdened from external conditions. Frankl achieved this insight when he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. I try to remember this when I am tempted to hand over control of my feeling state to "circumstances beyond my control." 

It Is a New Skill 

Be patient with yourself as you develop a new sense of yourself. Ask for help, if you need it. It all starts; it all ends with ATTENTION. Notice when you feel good or positive. Reflect on what you are proud of or satisfied with in your life. Notice what has worked. Learn from it. Build on it. 

Okay. Go. 

I am a meditation teacher and a strengths-focused coach.  Get an introduction to meditation from my beautiful 2-Minutes to Meditate cards. They are perfect for people with busy lives, and will help you establish a daily practice that you can then build on. Each card has my contact information in case you have questions.

Why Focus on Strengths?

A Subjective Appreciation of Our Best Attributes Creates a Stable Foundation for Our Evolution

by Jennifer Rose & Better Existence | January 14, 2015

Sometimes survival, whether it is physical survival or the survival of our sense of being an okay person, pits us against others. Often it pits us against those with whom we are the most intimate. This survival struggle can leave us feeling isolated and lonely. In many, if not all of us, there is a longing to overcome this isolation. 

Name and fame do not bring happiness

How can we overcome the isolation inherent in natural competition? The most obvious thing to try is to achieve recognition from others, power over others, wealth, or some other kind of so-called success. It looks like that is working for others, when looking from the outside. However, just like Siddhartha, we eventually must encounter old age, illness, and death.  

Survival is not always a great investment

It is a grim thought, but "survival" may not be a great investment. Competition that pits us against others as we shore up defenses against inescapable fears makes us more isolated and alone. After establishing a healthy identity that helps us function in the world, it is possible to continue to grow. The next stage of development that a fortunate few undertake is to become strong and adaptable in the face of changing circumstances. Everything that is born will die. We are afloat on a sea of change. 

We need to learn to trust ourselves

The stability that will help us establish this adaptability will never be found in the shifting, diverse, and often contradictory values and opinions of other people or institutions no matter how highly esteemed. We find that strength and versatility only when we value our own subjective experience. We need to learn to trust ourselves. We need to do experiments to learn about ourselves. 

Learning about our strengths changes how we perceive the world around us

Over the years we have internalized the opinions others hold of us. Especially in childhood we internalize the opinions of our family members. We need to make our way deep into the heart of our own knowing. It is essential. The opinions we hold of ourselves shape how we perceive the world around us. Being strengths-focused makes the world friendlier and more supportive because we perceive the world differently based on our opinion of who we are. 

Doing our best with the strengths we have helps us find satisfaction in life

Being strengths-focused helps people to be resilient in the face of all kinds of change. We find we can flow from one role to the next like a masterful actor enjoying the playing of each part. We can rise above the pain of conflicting desires within us. For example, a man who is both a father and an employee might have conflicting desires to spend more time with his children and spend more time on an important project at work. We find that each moment, each life experience, holds its own satisfaction when we do our best, focusing on our strengths. 

We are equipped to find our own truth

We all have the capacity to turn our attention to our own core. We can all notice times when we feel deeply gratified, when we feel aligned with our own sense of meaning and purpose. Taking the time to do this is indispensable on our journey to evolve into a resilient sense of self. A resilient sense of self is beyond an identity based on a career or lifestyle, or an identity that depends on relationships. 

We develop empathy and enjoy life's adventure

Stabilized in our own strengths, we are free to empathize with others instead of competing with them. We can embrace changing circumstances as opportunities to learn more of the myriad possibilities within human life. We become more adventurous when confronted with the unknown, secure in our enjoyment of relating to ourselves. 

"Wherever I go, there I am." Have you heard that one? When I first heard that I thought I was being scolded. My bad habits were following me everywhere. With a strengths focus I feel that wherever I go I am in good company. 

These are reflections related to a book I am currently writing with my stepfather, Jerald Forster, Phd. on the subject of having a strengths focus 

A mantra can be a wonderful way to build self-reliance. We will talk about mantra on February 4th as part of the Conversations With Walking Yogi Nishit Patel monthly series of teleconferences. You can subscribe for the Conversations here: Better Existence Events.