Mindset Archives - Page 2 of 2

Still Waters Run Deep

January 13, 2016

This is a pic of my husband. He’s not as public as I am, thank God. Can you imagine if we were both wired to want to share everything? What a mess that would be? Oh boy… I mean really, where would this firecracker of a mouth and mind go to just rest for awhile? And where would his ‘still waters’ go to get all wavy and stuff? We’d be a walking party – the perfect silly string storm. It might be fun for a few weeks but a lifetime? Ummm no. How exhausting.

Why do I tell you this?

Because I want to add a perspective to your ‘I wonder if only I had…’ mindset, and let’s be honest, deep breath, we all do this, as in wonder sometimes.

I wonder if I married the right person?

I wonder if we have anything in common anymore?

I wonder if we’re soul-mates or if I’ll ever have one? Do I even believe in that? I don’t know…

I wonder…?

These are the best and the worst questions. These are the topics that can drive a room full of pajama party women (do men talk about this kinda stuff? As far as I know, most don’t but I suppose it’s possible) into a frenzy of self-doubt, or mild to major panic and even start up some boyfriend/husband envy. We’ve all seen it or experienced it at some point. The first time I got married (whole other story – see I can speak to this topic honestly), during my month of pre-wedding prep, my best friend at the time (this should’ve been my first and last hint to quietly close this friendship) said to me “So, who’s your ONE THAT GOT AWAY?”. Wait a minute, I was getting married – there should be no ‘one that got away’.

Yet there it was and with every question comes an answer whether we consciously do it or not.

Who was my ONE THAT GOT AWAY?

Should I have one?

Shouldn’t I have one?

Am I doing this right?

What if there is one and I don’t know?

What does that mean about my marriage? About my life? About my my my… Oh my now what?

So I answered this ‘best friend’ of mine with the names of two old boyfriends that I still had lingering flickers for. Even saying that ‘flicker thing’ out loud seems weird. Not wrong, just bizarre. They were flickers of unrealized dreams, of stolen moments, of non-replicable touches, gazes, thoughts because they were unique to us, they were pangs of rejection that still had fire in them, zingers of physical attraction, of wonder… that’s all, of just wonder.

Wonder is rapturous.

but Wonder can also be distracting.

You know how I talk about the double edge sword of every single truth? Well, this is what my sword of wonder looks like: rapture and distraction. Two sides. Both are true.

In the world that I live in and the rules that I play by, every layer of the story is welcome to be heard because no layer is more ‘honest’ than the other. Our Living Story is how they all weave together.

Did my first marriage end? Yup. Because of the flickers from the ‘ones that got away’? – Nope. Did I date one of those flickering dudes again? Yup – both of them actually. Did either of them end up being my second husband? Nope.

Why?

Because they were flickers. Fun, fabulous hot flickers but not the right fuel for my life.

Mr. Todd and I (the still water guy in the pic and yes, that’s what I call him) were blissfully married for two years before the veil of marriage lifted and we realized we ‘chose’ each other and that meant for ‘life’. Crap really? Now what do we do? Yes indeed, over the last fifteen years or so we have had our share of marital nastiness, brokenness, detachment, resignation, deep regret for choosing each other and lots and lots of ‘I wonder if…’ questions.

The truth for us didn’t come from simply answering the questions, but rather from hearing the stories that we found in our answers.

Many times I thought my marriage (yes, not our marriage in these moments) should be over. Many times I wondered if I chose the right man.

I used to say to myself “He’s a good man, but maybe not the right man for me. He’s quiet, he’s private, he’s so black and white and he doesn’t really like people all that much. We have nothing in common anymore. What are we doing here together?”.

And he would say to himself: “She’s crazy, I can’t build a life with her. She spends money like there’s always more coming. She’s a dreamer, everything is grey with her, she’s a moving target, she’s public, loud and likes people a lot, sometimes more than me. We have nothing in common. What are we even building?”.

And then, over time, a lot of time we would take on the massive task of answering the real questions with each other. Patiently painful at times, yet always stunningly beautiful at the end of each story. We decided to answer our real questions instead of hold on to our observations.

My question: What are we doing here together?

His question: What are we even building?

And it was in the answers, and yes, note the plural: in our many answers where we found our commonality and our lifetime marital, soul-mate/life-mate connection. The answers surprised us because they often had nothing to do with being married and everything to do with being together. Silly right? We just happen to be married too.

He’s my Mr. Todd and still waters run deep.

I’m probably his – Mrs. T – and crazy hair makes me smile. (okay, so I made that up, but if I had to guess… that’s what I think he would say).

What questions might you be holding on to instead of listening to the stories of truth that live in the answers?

xxT

Yearnings Ignite, Goals Fade

January 9, 2016

We’ve all done it: Set a goal. Some of us have even reached that goal, but most of us don’t, or we do but it takes longer than it should, or we kinda get there, or when we do get there we wonder: What was all that fuss was about?

I’m a recovering goal setter because I’ve been a firey one for years. Oh man how I love both January and September. Mmmmmm cracking open a fresh journal, plotting out my quiet time to map out what I’m doing next, buying a new pen or finding just the right one with the best tip… oh boy. Who needs sex when you have goals? Truly, it’s weirdly almost that good for me. Did you catch it though? It’s the SETTING of the goal that’s intoxicating, not the doing of it. That’s why it’s knocked out a morning romp or an evening of candlelight for me – oh my poor partner, if he only knew when he married me that he’d be upstaged by a journal and a pen.

Why do we like to set goals more than achieve them? Because they’re fired up by the heat of our yearnings.

Why do we attend conferences and trainings and retreats only to come home and stay the same just different? Because possibility is a re-chargeable battery pack.

Why do we achieve goals, feel happy and then start all over again? What’s with this empty-full-empty-full cycle we all seem to crave? Because we’re feeding our external story instead of being nourished by our internal one.

I say all of this because today (as in right now) I’m in a retreat for my network marketing business and it’s January. Guess what we’re doing tonight? Yup… setting goals except I don’t call them that anymore, they’re targets instead. They’re focal points. They’re intentions. Why? Because goal fatigue kills business, and rah rah rah-ing some people’s pinnacle achievements creates a divisive culture, fractures teams and sabotages the very essence of what makes a team work: a common drive, togetherness and not individual achievements or goals.

Could I be talking semantics here – sure, but words are insanely important to me and I do my best to choose them wisely. The living story of the word goal these days shows up like a ‘line in the sand’, a ‘set point’, a measurement of ‘accountability’ – think the super popular S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Everything here is externally motivated. A SMART goal of mine for this blog might be:

It is January 10th 2016 and I am happily celebrating having shared this blog with 100 people.

So let’s say that all of the above happens. I wake up on January 11th, I’ve done my due diligence and I’ve nailed my goal. What happens now? How do I feel now? What is my take away now? What is fueling my next ‘goal’ now?

Well, I’m back at the beginning again aren’t I? I am starting all over. My take away is that I probably feel pretty good about myself for having ‘achieved’ my goal, but now, if I slow down enough to actually feel anything at all, I’m a bit empty, daunted and let down. How come I just achieved that goal and now I’m back at the beginning again? Damn these goals, they’re so elusive. Will I ever get there? So then the fuel for my next goal becomes hope, possibility, and the drive that one day, maybe, just possibly, I will arrive. It will stop because I will reach a celebratory finish line. I will raise my arms in the air, someone will notice this incredible moment other than just me and I’ll be handed a lifetime gold medal of having done ‘my all’ and I never ‘have to’ achieve anything again. I will be done.

As if right? And frankly, how boring and how demeaning to this incredibly complex and beautiful human experience.

Here’s my suggestion. Switch your goals to your yearnings. Focus on the deeper wants, the heart beat that comes without you trying, the dreams that wake you up at night with desire, the fire that never goes out instead. Here’s my example and creation:

Y.E.S. Goal: What is it you YEARN for? Make it your most EXCELLENT of work, and always SITUATE it for SUCCESS (or do-able).

again…

Y.E.S. Goal:

What is it you YEARN for?

Make it your most EXCELLENT of work,

and always SITUATE it for SUCCESS.

Here’s my rewrite: Today I write a passionate and honest blog about goals vs. yearnings and I am personally committed to reaching 100 people by Tuesday January 12th because what I write, I care about, and what I share, I live.

Here’s the original: It is January 10th 2016 and I am happily celebrating having shared this blog with 100 people.

Which one would be worth your heart, effort and energy to achieve? Which one isn’t an achievement at all but rather a compelling decision to live fully?

Here’s to you and all that fires you up.

xxT

Give Your Mind a Shower

January 7, 2016

No doubt about it, my work this year is all around mindset. Okay, so I have more than just that to do: catch up on my taxes (oh gawd again?), sleep more (still), let my guard down (melt melt melt), keep listening, write my books, grow my network marketing business by 20% each month, make love a lot, oh yeah and train for a triathlon. How did taxes, business, sex and a triathlon all end up on the same to do list? Life. It’s awkward isn’t it?

Integration is my thannnnng and so as not to muddle you up, I don’t mean that I throw everything all in together and call it the same. I’m not saying that all roads are the same road and that every path leads to Rome. I’m not suggesting that integration is about being a big pot of stew with old carrots mixed with new potatoes tossed with reaching stalks of celery, rounded bumps of barley, organic garlic and crowned with a dumpling. No. That would suggest that I think our brain is a soft mushy floury globby topping to our perfect mess. Hardly a way to represent the control centre that it is. No, integration to me is identification, puzzle clicking, communication, implementation and then flow. Ultimately, it’s an exercise of living trust.

Why do I say mindset? Because in our four engines of alignment: Mindset, Soulset, Skillset and Body, I tend to lead with the soul which means I follow my instincts. I ask quesitons to the powers that be and then follow what is peaceful. My gut leads instead when my brain thinks it knows the answer (it never does by the way) and I tend to let decisions make me and not the other way around. I certainly haven’t lived most of my life this way, but over the last three to four years I’ve realized that the best steps I’ve ever taken I’ve done this way, and that living by my soul-story is what brought me home to myself again. All that said, when my mindset is locked into some old pattern of fear, let’s be honest, for me it’s wayyyyy bigger than that, it’s more like sheer panic most of the time, my soul story, or what I call my ‘living story’ stumbles. I get bruised. I have to pick myself up more times than is probably necessary and why lay face down in the mud more often that I need to right?

The mind is the control centre of the body. While I am not a brain doctor or specialist and I’m not a master of EMDR (eye movement desensitization and re-processing connecting the right hemisphere and left hemisphere of the brain for re-patterning thoughts and reactions) like my good friend Dr. Carolyn Nesbitt and by no means am I an expert on neuroplasticity like Shad Helmstetter, I have personally experienced the difference that adopting a possibility mindset can make.

I’m a leader in a network marketing business and as my husband says, I’m also become one of this life’s ‘social leaders’ which means that what I say and do matters greatly if only to me – because I bare some responsibility (frankly I think we all do) for how the way I live affects the world. Here’s the thing, while I’m not wired to think ‘negatively’ – truly, I’m probably as deeply, and authentically positive as they come, my life’s experiences have developed a ‘seek and prepare’ or ‘stay alert and rely on no one’ neuropathway that I habitually walk when my auto-pilot runs the show.

The mindset is all about your auto-pilot.

The mindset is the thinking you do when you’re not actually thinking.

The mindset is the tape that you hear to without knowing you’re listening.

When I was going for my final promotion in my network marketing business I had one simple rule in my house: No negative talk – period. No Debbie Downer moaning, I wouldn’t even let Todd tell me that it was raining, or that the toilet was plugged. Oh boy, I was a sunshine and lollipops drill sergeant back then. While putting a taught shiny bubble around my thinking may have been effective for reaching my goals, it drove a wedge between my soul and my expression of it, plus it alienated me from my family – the very people I claim to be myself with. This to the very circle I love and want only for them to be who they fully are.

Positive mindset = good.

Positive mindset at all costs = bad.

Positive mindset that doesn’t have to protect itself from itself = healthy.

I had a nasty reaction to all the sunshine and rainbow messages I lived by because it sliced away my underbelly, my vulnerability and my deep connection to people and to myself. Truly… how could my children feel ‘heard’ or ‘known’ by me if I wasn’t willing to listen to the darker shades of their stories. All the years of attachment parenting just got thrown out the window for a few months of working towards a goal.

I had a positive mindset hangover. I felt guilt and shame and even embarrassment for having shadowy thoughts. I didn’t connect with my circle of achievement based, goal centred happiness friends anymore. I was sick with positivitis.

My mindset needed a shower. And showers are neither positive or negative – just wet and wonderful.

I do my best realizing when I’m in the shower. Truly. There’s something about just hanging out in hot water gushing over my head that wakes me up somehow. It sets me to neutral. It opens up space for my next ‘aha moment’ and connects me back home too.

I’m giving my mindset a shower these days because I know that all the panic driven, alarm bell ringing neuropathways that I habitually walk are of my own making. I can create new ones that are honest, unthreatened by the truth, and serve me as real until that’s not so anymore.

Take a shower. It’s a delicious thing to have clean water and a safe place to reset the control room that runs our auto-pilot. We’re blessed no?

xxT