Cheri Huber (CheriHuber.com) wrote the best book I ever read about self-hatred, entitled There is Nothing Wrong with You. She walks the reader through the recesses of the mind and how it endlessly tries to control outside circumstances by blaming and criticizing the self.
What if there was nothing wrong with you? Nothing that needed to be changed: no weight to be lost or gained, no pathology that had to be eradicated (or covered up), no character defect or personality flaw that needed to be overcome? How would that change your life? What would you do with your free time?
Katie Hendricks (Hendricks.com) talks about moving away from the idea that your life is an ongoing self-improvement project. She recommends that, instead of putting our attention on what is wrong with us, we focus on what we are becoming. Our attention can then be placed on the much more fun question of "what wants to happen?" and how to be a full participant in life.
There is no evidence that judging, criticizing, ridiculing, humiliating, badgering or tormenting ourselves (or anyone else) leads to anything like actual change. What these actions are very effective at is creating a sense of collapse, resignation, and helplessness--which can give us a reason to engage in those very behaviors that we judged to begin with.
The antidote to self-hatred? Taking a good, deep breath and conjuring up the feeling of someone or something you love. Instantly, you create the space of true potential and possibility, the field where anything can happen.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
If you loved me...
Have you thought this?
If you loved me, you would
I LOVE YOU is an action. At a particular moment I create the vibration of love, and then decide to send it your way. That action has nothing to do with what you are currently doing, or did or didn't do. It's my choice, and I can do it anytime, anywhere. Expecting this particular action to be in any way connected to whatever else is happening is like trying to twist together smelling the spring fragrance of lilacs with standing on one's head or dancing a jig. There is no connection, and trying to link them can look foolish.
Want to know if I'm loving you?
Ask.
If you loved me, you would
- bring me flowers
- appreciate me more
- call/text/email me
- consider my feelings
- be more thoughtful
- not use that tone
- use the other tone, the nice, kind one
- look into my eyes
- stop staring at me
- want to be sexual
- let me decide when to be sexual
- let me sleep
- wake me up
- give me space
- get close to me
- tune into what I'm really saying
- let me be a jerk sometimes
- not be so nice to me when I'm I'm being a jerk
- tell me the truth
- ...except about THAT
- fill in your list:
I LOVE YOU is an action. At a particular moment I create the vibration of love, and then decide to send it your way. That action has nothing to do with what you are currently doing, or did or didn't do. It's my choice, and I can do it anytime, anywhere. Expecting this particular action to be in any way connected to whatever else is happening is like trying to twist together smelling the spring fragrance of lilacs with standing on one's head or dancing a jig. There is no connection, and trying to link them can look foolish.
Want to know if I'm loving you?
Ask.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Transparency evolves us
The theme of transparency has been up all week. Couples, colleagues, clients have wondered, why tell the truth? Isn't it easier not to "hurt someone's feelings" by not telling them how you really feel? Doesn't saving the connection matter more than whatever the truth is? Others have spoken about what it is like to be on the other end of the truth-telling: the shock of hearing what is really going on, and then having the reaction that the other person was trying to avoid having to see by not being transparent.
I'm in the rather unusual and privileged position of watching the consequences of this dilemma over time. I see how people choose the short-term gain of making everything sound "just fine" when it's not, not expecting the long-term consequences of loss of aliveness and being in the flow of what is real. Family members who prefer to expend great energy talking to everyone but the person they have an issue with; partners who would rather stifle their true selves--until they can't stand it anymore; business associates who feel awkward speaking or showing their real feelings, so want to quit the business instead. Each making the choice to give up what is real for them so that they don't have to feel the scary unpredictability of speaking what is true.
I've been in each of these positions. This week I just witnessed them. And watched the ongoing anguish from the outcome of the lack of transparency: projection, distortion, blame, defensiveness, confusion. And the ultimate consequence, the one that all of this withholding was supposed to keep from happening: disconnection.
Speaking the absolute truth at any given moment grounds us in what is. It allows those around us to choose the next step for themselves. Being willing to hear the truth without attacking, shaming, or blaming supports those around us to be fully transparent. This step into the unknown that transparency provides is the channel into evolving our consciousness, as we show our real selves to those around us. In the vulnerability of our transparency, we experience true power, the power of being with what is. Because once we can land squarely in what is, everything can change.
I'm in the rather unusual and privileged position of watching the consequences of this dilemma over time. I see how people choose the short-term gain of making everything sound "just fine" when it's not, not expecting the long-term consequences of loss of aliveness and being in the flow of what is real. Family members who prefer to expend great energy talking to everyone but the person they have an issue with; partners who would rather stifle their true selves--until they can't stand it anymore; business associates who feel awkward speaking or showing their real feelings, so want to quit the business instead. Each making the choice to give up what is real for them so that they don't have to feel the scary unpredictability of speaking what is true.
I've been in each of these positions. This week I just witnessed them. And watched the ongoing anguish from the outcome of the lack of transparency: projection, distortion, blame, defensiveness, confusion. And the ultimate consequence, the one that all of this withholding was supposed to keep from happening: disconnection.
Speaking the absolute truth at any given moment grounds us in what is. It allows those around us to choose the next step for themselves. Being willing to hear the truth without attacking, shaming, or blaming supports those around us to be fully transparent. This step into the unknown that transparency provides is the channel into evolving our consciousness, as we show our real selves to those around us. In the vulnerability of our transparency, we experience true power, the power of being with what is. Because once we can land squarely in what is, everything can change.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Learning generosity through the Internet
Seth Grodin sent out this blog yesterday on "Santa Math": Seth Grodin blog
He talked about all the ways people are stepping in to the world of the Internet and sharing their resources by blogging, showing videotapes, sharing their views through comments, giving tips to others. And not for any direct remuneration.
In committing to write a book, I've felt myself pulled up into what seems to be a higher vibration of empowerment that is the current world of information sharing. I thought I'd write a proposal, send it off to a publisher, then wait to be told what to do. Drop this chapter, write more on that, give us a completed manuscript by x date. The publisher would be the parent, I the obedient child (well, I was prepared to stand up for myself, so maybe the teenager).
But instead I heard these words: "She has no platform."
It's taken me six months to figure out what that means and then to begin to build this thing called a platform. Along the way, I kept wondering, but what's the point? When do I actually sell my book, sell my ideas?
Now I feel the effects of this new way of doing things. In the workshops and groups I lead, I talk a lot about how we are the source of our lives, the creators of the energies of love, time, money, creativity, enjoyment. This process of writing my book and creating a platform has taken me squarely into my own authority, as I've decided on each step--what the book will contain, how it will look, its graphics and illustrations, and now this website. And along the way I've had such a rich experience of co-creating with those people that are essential to this process: my editor and graphics person and webmaster, as well as the community around me.
Soon I'll be sending the manuscript off again, with a platform supporting it. Who knows what will happen next. I feel excited about having this baby out in the world. And I feel enriched having become part of this next generation of Santa generosity, where there is room for every one of us to share the riches of who we really are, to live in our genius, and to live in the vast abundance of information, energy, and ideas that we're all creating together.
He talked about all the ways people are stepping in to the world of the Internet and sharing their resources by blogging, showing videotapes, sharing their views through comments, giving tips to others. And not for any direct remuneration.
In committing to write a book, I've felt myself pulled up into what seems to be a higher vibration of empowerment that is the current world of information sharing. I thought I'd write a proposal, send it off to a publisher, then wait to be told what to do. Drop this chapter, write more on that, give us a completed manuscript by x date. The publisher would be the parent, I the obedient child (well, I was prepared to stand up for myself, so maybe the teenager).
But instead I heard these words: "She has no platform."
It's taken me six months to figure out what that means and then to begin to build this thing called a platform. Along the way, I kept wondering, but what's the point? When do I actually sell my book, sell my ideas?
Now I feel the effects of this new way of doing things. In the workshops and groups I lead, I talk a lot about how we are the source of our lives, the creators of the energies of love, time, money, creativity, enjoyment. This process of writing my book and creating a platform has taken me squarely into my own authority, as I've decided on each step--what the book will contain, how it will look, its graphics and illustrations, and now this website. And along the way I've had such a rich experience of co-creating with those people that are essential to this process: my editor and graphics person and webmaster, as well as the community around me.
Soon I'll be sending the manuscript off again, with a platform supporting it. Who knows what will happen next. I feel excited about having this baby out in the world. And I feel enriched having become part of this next generation of Santa generosity, where there is room for every one of us to share the riches of who we really are, to live in our genius, and to live in the vast abundance of information, energy, and ideas that we're all creating together.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Manifestation
I am fascinated by the process of manifestation. How does something that begins as an idea turn into something that we can see, taste, feel, read?
As I look around me, I see the evidence of the process of manifestation everywhere. The keyboard I'm typing on is the result of countless creative impulses of huge numbers of people over many years. The couch I'm sitting on required people to imagine what a couch looks like, try out a range of materials that are attractive, comfortable, durable. Everything I see around me is the result of a very long chain of people following the process of moving from potential to ideas to words to actions to actual physical products.
Maria Nemeth, author of The Energy of Money, believes that seeing our essence manifested out in the world is what true fulfillment is about. That there is nothing better than seeing our dreams come true, in living color and actual physical form.
I feel thrilled, happy, and indeed, fulfilled to watch my website take form. My book, A Guide to the Wild Ride: Navigating the Open Sea of Relationship, isn't quite out of the womb yet, but it sure is kicking! And another creative impulse takes shape.
As I look around me, I see the evidence of the process of manifestation everywhere. The keyboard I'm typing on is the result of countless creative impulses of huge numbers of people over many years. The couch I'm sitting on required people to imagine what a couch looks like, try out a range of materials that are attractive, comfortable, durable. Everything I see around me is the result of a very long chain of people following the process of moving from potential to ideas to words to actions to actual physical products.
Maria Nemeth, author of The Energy of Money, believes that seeing our essence manifested out in the world is what true fulfillment is about. That there is nothing better than seeing our dreams come true, in living color and actual physical form.
I feel thrilled, happy, and indeed, fulfilled to watch my website take form. My book, A Guide to the Wild Ride: Navigating the Open Sea of Relationship, isn't quite out of the womb yet, but it sure is kicking! And another creative impulse takes shape.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Shifting Into Appreciation
I’m sitting on an airplane. Since it’s not time yet to play our electronic devices (and I’m sitting between two nice, quiet men), what I can hear are the voices of two people behind me bitching about work.
I can feel my body tightening with their complaining. I can also hear my old self in the middle of their conversation—all the times I’ve enjoyed the art of figuring out what is wrong.
As I wended my way through the security line earlier, I caught my Reactive Brain watching people defensively, warily. I noticed I wasn’t enjoying myself, so I decided to shift into appreciation. Suddenly I was in the middle of a fun game, observing the endless flow of details to appreciate about people. Where before the man in front of me was someone I was aware of only as a form, a shapeless lump to follow, I suddenly noticed the attractive curl of his graying hair and the smile lines around his eyes. Across the web barrier, I saw the flash of deep blue eyes in the face of a man wearing a cobalt blue shirt. I saw colors, where only moments before I was critically aware of all the January black, brown, and gray around me, and I could see the care that a young woman took in contrasting her purple scarf with her dark green shirt.
For whatever reason from my past, my default position tends to be to see people as potential foes, those who could hurt me. I delight in being able to shift my brain to see all who surround me as my friends and allies, all of us players in this world together—especially the handsome men who are sitting on either side of me. I love feeling the protection of being in the middle seat.
I can feel my body tightening with their complaining. I can also hear my old self in the middle of their conversation—all the times I’ve enjoyed the art of figuring out what is wrong.
As I wended my way through the security line earlier, I caught my Reactive Brain watching people defensively, warily. I noticed I wasn’t enjoying myself, so I decided to shift into appreciation. Suddenly I was in the middle of a fun game, observing the endless flow of details to appreciate about people. Where before the man in front of me was someone I was aware of only as a form, a shapeless lump to follow, I suddenly noticed the attractive curl of his graying hair and the smile lines around his eyes. Across the web barrier, I saw the flash of deep blue eyes in the face of a man wearing a cobalt blue shirt. I saw colors, where only moments before I was critically aware of all the January black, brown, and gray around me, and I could see the care that a young woman took in contrasting her purple scarf with her dark green shirt.
For whatever reason from my past, my default position tends to be to see people as potential foes, those who could hurt me. I delight in being able to shift my brain to see all who surround me as my friends and allies, all of us players in this world together—especially the handsome men who are sitting on either side of me. I love feeling the protection of being in the middle seat.
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Julie Colwell, Ph.D.
