It’s an Inside Job!

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed.
Happiness is the spiritual experience of living
every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Denis Waitley

The reality of change. Change is an internal job. Why would I say that? Aren’t I always going on about moving into action suggesting that change comes from taking actions? Well yes, external change always comes from action, and sometimes internal change comes from changing our externals, BUT here is the catch not always. The highest level of change comes when you master changing your own inner reality. What does that mean?

Try this brief exercise. First remember an extremely happy moment in your life. Close your eyes and put yourself into that moment as if it were happening right now. Use all your senses. Notice how you are feeling in your body and in your emotions. Write down a few words that described how you feel as you are in this vision.

Now consider a time when you were sad or angry. Close your eyes and put yourself into that moment as if it were happening right now. Use all your senses. Notice how you are feeling in your body and in your emotions. Write down a few words that described how you feel as you are in this vision.

Look at your descriptor words for the two events. Were they different? Why were they different? They were different because YOU changed your internal state. What? Yes, YOU changed your internal state of being. You create thoughts, images and feelings that made you both, happy, and sad/angry.

So what does this mean? It means you get to decide how you feel. You get to decide at any given moment what your inner landscape is going to look like. Wow! Who knew…Now that you can change your internal landscape when you want (it takes a bit of practice), you can position yourself to make greater, and more creative changes in your external life. Whether you make these changes or not won’t be because you feel forced to do so by internal or external circumstances, but because you chose to do so. The differences between wanting to and having to…is the difference between empowering yourself, or taking the default victim role in life.

The good news is you get to choose which role you play in your life story!

Not sure how? Let’s talk.

Who is Shaping You?

Life shapes us until we shape our life.

On May 18th, Desiree a precious Andalusian filly was born. She was so sweet those first few days we decided we would call her Dulce (sweet) Desiree. As she grows you can see the influence that her human caretakers, Mom and other pasture partners have on her. She gained confidence quickly, she was curious about everything, and began to mimic the behavior of others. If Q the mini donkey thought crawling through the fence to get to the other side was a good idea so did Desiree. If Mom pawed for hay, then so did Desiree. Thus life and those in it began to shape her behavior.

This is true for humans as well. We are born with a certain set of genetics into an environment that then begins to shape us. Our parents, families, friends, neighborhood, community, city, county, state, country, schools, work, and events in our lives mold us, and transform us for better or worse. This might seem rather hopeless if you do not like your current life circumstances, until you recognize that life can only continue to shape you if you opt out of shaping it.

If your life is all you want it to be then life is good, perhaps you do not wish to shape your life at all, but perhaps there are some things in your life that you would like to change. Several years ago I worked with a client that had a thriving practice. However, at home there is tension between my client and his also very busy professional spouse. Their four children were wonderful, intelligent, and experiencing the trials of growing up, but balancing work, and family became unwieldy when a family crisis occurred. Eventually this professional realized that an outside perspective would be useful, and hired me. In a short time this client started to take full responsibility for his life. He worked on communicating clearly with his spouse, setting limits at work, and home. He prioritized his wants and needs. He and his wife started to work together, planning effectively, and have more fun in their relationship. They were able to support their children, and extended family. My client was able to slow down, and create the life he wanted for himself, his family, and his business.

How about you? Are you shaping your life, or is it shaping you? If your life is not what you want it to be send me an email, and tell me, What you would like to be different about it?

Is it a Pony or Poop?

One day a farmer hired two boys to clean stalls in his barn. After showing them what needed to be done he left to complete some other chores. Upon his return one boy burst into tears. ‘What’s the matter?’ the farmer asked, baffled. ‘There is so much manure I will never get finished,’ the boy replied. After reassuring this boy the farmer went to check on the other boy. The other boy was delightedly pitching manure out of the stall and into the wheelbarrow. The farmer asked him why he was having so much fun. The boy replied, ‘With all this manure there must be a pony in here somewhere!’
adapted from How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life by Peter Robinson
Why did these two boys have such different experiences of cleaning stalls for this farmer? They both were faced with same stalls with the same amount of manure to shovel. Yet each boy created a very different story of their experience.
One created a story of failure. The other created not only a story of success but hope, “there must be a pony in here somewhere”. We might scoff at what might be referred to as this boy’s blind optimism but considered what he created for himself. He had a job to do. The same job the other boy was hired to do. They were getting paid the same amount. The blind optimist created a story that carried him through his day with fun, excitement, and something to look forward to at the end of his hard work.

 

We could argue that he would be hurt and disappointed when he didn’t find a pony but my guess is he would just shake his head, and say ‘”well, no pony but I sure did get those stalls cleaned in a hurry, now I can collect my pay, and bike to town, and buy a soda pop!”
 
I can create a story of how horrible my day, month, year, or life is to live, or I can create a story of blind optimism about how wonderful my world is today. It really is all perspective, and personally, I am going to just keep shoveling manure, and keeping my eyes open for that pony. How about you? How do you define optimism? What story will you create today? Will it focus on the poop or the pony?