are rolls and funks self-perpetuating?

I'm in a lucky spot right now:  I'm on a roll.  My job is great, my clients are amazing, and things in my social/dating life are going well.  I feel like I'm putting good vibes out there and the universe is responding with gusto by introducing me to interesting people and giving me good learning experiences.  It's pretty awesome.

This morning, though, I talked to a friend who is in the opposite spot.  She's in a funk.  (And it may just be a bad enough funk to be a phunk.  Or, perhaps the ever-dreaded pfunk.)  She's worried about where her life is going and how she's going to get there.  She's gone down a rabbit hole of doubt and fear, and is worried that not only will the pfunk remain, but maybe the judging voices in her head are right.

From the outside, I can see absolutely nothing wrong with my friend's life right now -- she's just facing some professional challenges and feeling some fear.  But it got me thinking:  what's the difference between where she is (pfunk) and where I am (roll)?  I think it's all about perspective.  I think my life is going well and it feels like the universe is rewarding me with this roll.  She thinks her life isn't going well, and the universe feels like it's rewarding her with a pfunk.

I'm not trying to say that we create our own realities (though I may be kindasortakinda implying that), but on the extreme edges (funks/rolls) I've personally experienced a strong mind-reality connection.  When I want to see crap, I can always find it.  And when all I'm seeing is good, life is sweet.

The challenge for me (and for many people, I think) is that it's hard to flip the switch from funk to roll.  It's kind of a chicken and egg scenario -- at this point, the outside world has to give me some indication that I'm doing well before I can feel like I'm on a roll.  What I'm hoping I might be able to get to is the opposite -- that by thinking I'm on a roll I can start to get out of a funk.

It's a matter of faith in myself and my abilities despite what I'm seeing in the outside world.  And at the moment, that feels like a big stretch.  But I'm willing to take my roll and see just how long I can get it to last.  And maybe that's the first step.

no regrets. (or, well, ok, at least not as many regrets)

Regret. It’s a big, heavy thing that I (like many, if not most people) try to avoid at all costs. I work hard to make sure I live a life I can be proud of and, barring that, that I learn from all my choices, good or bad. And to me, those are two key ingredients to the general lack of regret in my life.

Now, am I saying I have no regrets in my perfectly perfect life? Absolutely not. There are things I wish I hadn’t said, frogs I wish I hadn’t kissed, princes I wish I hadn’t let go, jars of peanut butter I wish I hadn’t eaten, and all sorts of things that, given the opportunity to go back and do it over again (knowing then, of course, what I know now) I’d absolutely do differently. But that doesn’t mean I regret having done them.

As an obvious example, I spent almost a decade of my life pursuing a job as a professional actor. It has had consequences – I’m still behind the eight ball as far as my career and compensation go. But what I learned in that decade, especially as it regards rejection, is invaluable. The benefits of that choice, for the most part, outweigh the costs.

So my guiding principles are: first, aim to live a mindful, well-considered life. Time and energy are precious, so I don’t want to fling them away on nothing. Then second, learn from my choices. What do they mean for me going forward? What will I do differently? How will I change and grow? If I can do this 80% of the time, I’m golden.

However, there are people who have thought about this far more than I have. Martha Beck, a popular and incredible life coach, is one of them. Her advice for “regret-proofing” your life is this:

1. Get past denial. Denial is thinking “this shouldn’t have happened” or “if only…” This only serves to make you more miserable.

2. Separate the feelings. Regret is usually a combo of anger and sadness and if you can articulate what’s making you sad and what’s making you angry, you can let go of them faster.

3. Grieve what’s lost. Take the time to let go of the sadness.

4. Identify and seek out what you were hoping to get. What has regret forced you to give up? And how can you get that back into your life?

5. Analyze your anger. Listen to it for instructions. Talk it out or write it out.

6. Learn to lean towards love. When we make choices based on love, they are harder to regret. At your next choice point, make the decision that is most loving.

You can read her whole article here. I’m betting you won’t regret it.

vulnerability

A dear friend of mine recently sent me a podcast about vulnerability that was part of an hour-long TED program created by NPR (a good remix if you're tired of listening to TED talks that rely heavily on visuals).  In this talk, Brene Brown -- a woman I had heretofore avoided because I saw she had been on Oprah and, well, that made me doubt how uncheesy she was going to be -- focuses on shame and vulnerability.  She defines shame as more ore less this fear:  "is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection?"

She tells the story about her struggle with vulnerability and the research she's done around people who are willing to be vulnerable.

It's a great listen:  http://www.npr.org/2013/03/11/174030515/making-mistakes

you're not a burden

Have you ever been so bored that you couldn't be bothered to do something to entertain yourself?  Well, the other day I had a similar situation -- I was so lonely that I couldn't stand to reach out to my friends, even though I knew they were just a phone call away.  I didn't want to be a burden.  I knew that I had nothing positive to offer them, just "blah" and "meh" and "waaaah."  And who would want that?

When I thought about it more, though, I realized that I would want that.  I would want my friends to reach out to me when they were sad or lonely or feeling empty.  And we could talk about it.  Or we could talk about nachos.  Or the crazy-assed hairdo I saw at the grocery store this weekend (seriously, it was epic).

Fittingly, not soon after I had that lonely spell, a great post came up on my friend's facebook page from a woman named Alyssa Royse.  I'm posting highlights below, but you can see the whole post here, and I recommend that you do.

She says:

When you allow someone to see you as fully human – good and bad, strong and weak, healthy and sick, brave and scared – you let them know that it’s okay for them to be fully human too. That lessens the burdens of fear and shame that hold us back. It shows us that we can be loved for our humanity rather than rejected and shunned for it.


Hoarding your humanity is a selfish act, when you realize the gift that it is for others.

She also says:

What’s worse, when you don’t let us in to the bad parts, you’re telling us that you didn’t think we could be trusted with them. And you make that knowledge the cause of your greater suffering. You let us increase your pain by not letting us share it. Is that really what you want to do? Tell us you don’t trust as and let us become something that increases your pain? I doubt it. I bet you hate that idea, so think of it that way. Because that’s what it is. We will second guess things that we could have, should have, would have done, if only you’d been honest.


You are not a burden. You are a human. You are a flawed and fabulous multi-faceted thing and when I say that I love you unconditionally, that means ALL OF IT.

So if you're feeling meh, or blah, or really want to talk about nachos, reach out and call someone.  Don't text, don't email, don't poke them on facebook.  Get old school.  Pick up the phone and have a voice-to-voice conversation.  See if it doesn't make things better.

I will.

making peace with peanut butter

I  confess: I love peanut butter with a fierce, burning love that should probably be reserved for a soul mate, or, you know, a person (or a pet – you know, something that can love me back). The sweet saltiness, the salty sweetness. Not even its being one of the few foods that can’t be dislodged by the Heimlich maneuver will dissuade me from my faith in its perfection.
I. Love. Peanut Butter.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking “Kate, that’s not burning love, that’s food obsession.” But you’re wrong! I mean, it’s not like I stay up every night, dreaming of peanut better. And I don’t bathe in it (much) or talk about it (daily) or carry pictures of it in my wallet (though that’s not a bad idea). I’m not nuts! (heh heh)

It’s just that, up until about six weeks ago, if there was peanut butter in my house, I would consume it. Rapidly. By the spoonful. While standing next to the pantry door. Drooling. (It was not pretty.)

So I never bought peanut butter. Safer to just not have it in the house than to risk the 47,000 calories I was likely to consume in a sitting, like I did whenever visiting my mother, who, surprisingly, doesn’t have the same obsession. (My sister, though, suffers the same compulsion so perhaps it comes from my father’s side...)

I started reading a book called “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch that talked about the dieting mentality and how food restriction doesn’t work. “When you rigidly limit the amount of food you are allowed to eat,” they wrote, “it usually sets you up to crave larger quantities of that very food.” So by not having peanut butter in the house, I was setting myself up for hours of drooling next to the pantry door.

Their advice? Slowly re-introduce any foods you have restricted and teach yourself that you are allowed to have them. Reset your inner calibration so that you can appreciate the food for what it is, and not for all the emotional baggage that saying no to it has meant. For me, the first choice was, of course, peanut butter.

I warily bought a jar of natural (because it’s the most deliciousest kind) and kept it in the cabinet. The first week? It was bad. I ate a lot of peanut butter. And the second week, too. The third week started to taper off a bit, because, let’s be honest, at least half the jar was gone, and the fourth week it dropped off even more. By the fifth and sixth weeks, there were maybe two or three spooonfuls just sitting in the jar, smiling at me.

I call that a success! A jar of peanut butter has never lasted six weeks in my house before!

So what did I learn? That yes, I go to peanut butter for comfort. And I go there because I’m not usually allowed to go there, so it makes me feel special. But once I could have it any time I wanted, some of the comfort left. I started to see it as a fuel. A delicious fuel, don’t get me wrong, but one that was in service of me, not the master of me.

Can I take this experiment to the next level and do it with ice cream? I’m not sure. In truth, it takes a lot of faith, and a willingness to put on a little weight in the service of making peace. And given that it’s hot AND bathing suit season, I may hold off on this experiment until December. But I’ve taken the message to heart – there’s nothing I can’t eat. And when I watch people around me dieting and worrying about what they eat, I wonder if they, too, will sometime soon, find themselves next to the pantry door, overeating in an effort to feel special.

how my iPhone makes me feel more disconnected

I now have the internet at my fingertips 24/7. My adorable little phone (aptly named "Spankie") has ushered me into the 21st century, and now I know how the other 99% live. I can text, tweet, post to facebook, upload photos, and otherwise reach out and touch someone at any hour of the day (except while I'm in the subway).

And I haven't felt this disconnected since I can't remember when.

Texting is a slippery slope for me. It's a great way to passively reach out and drop a funny line or thought on someone's radar without putting too much energy or thought into it. I can share a link, tell a joke, or otherwise flit in and out of a friend's life in a matter of seconds. I sometimes have full conversations with someone over text, and those conversations are well thought out, carefully constructed, and usually ridiculously funny.

I'm sure nobody would be surprised to hear that texting is on the rise. According to a 2010 Nielsen study, every age group is texting more than they were the previous year, even those of us in the 35-44 category:

And the trend is only going to go up, so I feel like a bit of a Luddite even having an issue with this. But I do.

I don't really feel like I'm getting to know the people on the other end of my text-line any better as I text with them. There's so much less revealed. People have time to think, react, and respond before sharing their impulses or insights. There is also much less clarity in texting. The tone of voice -- so crucial in spoken communication -- is completely gone, and the context -- which usually helps to set the tone of an email -- is also missing. So all I get in a text is the nugget, the core of the message. Which is fine if that message is "I'm running late," or "Just wanted to say hi."

But what if that message is something more complicated, like "I can't make it tonight" or "what's the deal with [insert any topic]?" The brevity and lack of intonation make it difficult for me to see where the other person is coming from, and makes it so much easier to throw my own interpretations onto the message. (Which is never a good thing.)

I know I need to get used to it, but for me, true connection comes voice to voice, if not face to face. I want to hear the hemming and hawing. I want to know when there's a sigh. Emotions, mistakes, and non-verbal noises help me feel more human and more connected to others. I've thought about instituting a no texting policy for a month, just to see how it goes, but I think I've gotten so used to texting that I'd miss it if it was gone. The secret is to blend both, and to set boundaries around how much I'm willing to text. But how much is too much? And how much is not enough?

When I figure out what that balance is, I'll let you know. Or if you want to find out, you can always call me.

holding the space

If I can say this without sounding too self-congratulatory, I will: people find it easy to talk to me. I guess I have one of those faces. They ask me for directions, guys admit things to me on dates that perhaps they shouldn't, and strays think I'm the cat's meow.

In the last few years I've gotten better at actually listening (instead of just waiting for my turn to talk), and I've developed a skill that has really surprised me -- my ability to hold the space for other people.

Now, "holding the space" is a really coachy phrase -- akin to "maximizing your potential" and, let's admit it "fully living" -- so what does it mean? It's the ability to be there with someone else who is experiencing emotions without feeling the need to shut them up, fix them, or get them to be anywhere but where they are right now. It's watching someone cry and waiting for her to ask for the box of tissues instead of passing it to her right away. It's opening your heart to the pain and suffering of someone else, trusting both yourself and the other person to make it through, to recover, to let this moment be what it is and also to let it pass.

I bring this up because I was at a workshop recently that really flexed this muscle, and it's one I don't think enough people are aware of, let alone "maximizing the potential" of.

What does it take to hold the space for someone else? Empathy. Support. Wanting to be there for someone else, to let him know that it hurts right now but it won't hurt forever. Trust. Faith. Acceptance. And it takes a real vulnerability. The emotional flexibility to dig deep, connect with your own strength and your own pain, and just breathe.

The next time you're with someone who's hurting, try this: just sit with him or her. Hug him so he knows you've got him, but not so that he feels he has to stop crying. Absorb just a little of the pain so it's not so intense for her. Rain blessings down on the both of you to make life just a little easier after this moment. And trust that, when the time comes, he or she will be there for you. And see what's different.

how secrecy can kill intimacy

A million years ago I worked with a very smart therapist on some problems I was having with my boyfriend. She caught on quickly to the fact that instead of telling him how I felt, I was just smothering my anger until it was way too late to deal with the problem at hand. I was hoarding small infractions and stockpiling insults. By the time I started working with her, I didn't want to look at my boyfriend, let alone make out with him. And on top of that, I felt guilty about not wanting to smooch him anymore!

She told me something that I've hung onto all these millennia: nothing kills intimacy faster than secrecy. And the things you're keeping secret don't have to be big, guilt-inducing, gut-wrenching secrets. They can simply be things like not telling someone your feelings were hurt by the way he assumed you would do the dishes, or that you were furious at how he left his shoes in the middle of the floor even though you asked him not to a billion times because you trip on them on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The more of these unvoiced issues I sat on, the further and further away my boyfriend drifted. But it was hard to feel like my concerns were valid in the moment. Did he mean to leave his shoes there? And did I really have a right to be angry about him being forgetful? It took a lot of courage for me to start to see that what I wanted mattered as much as what he wanted, and that if I mentioned my concerns at the moment they happened I was only annoyed, not angry. Luckily, he was receptive to my efforts to get things off my chest before they festered, and things improved.

In the long run, the relationship didn't last, but I was reminded of this lesson earlier this month when I went to visit a friend across the country. My friend is in her first trimester (read: barfy) and a mom to a toddler (read: exhausted) and trying to buy a home (read: overwhelmed). When I booked my ticket she wasn't pregnant yet, so we thought it would be a fun-filled, sunshiney visit. But as my departure date approached, she was sounding more and more worn out, and I was beginning to worry that instead of being a fun addition to her house for the weekend, I would be yet another thing she would have to take care of.

But I sat on that. She wanted to see me, right? She was the one who was exhausted and overwhelmed, why should I worry that she didn't want to see me when everything she said made it sound like she did? I wouldn't be more exhausting, would I? I vowed to myself that I would not be a hassle... and then worried silently that I would.

The day before my flight I had worked myself into such a tizzy of non-communication that I finally had to call her and get it off my chest. "I'm worried that I'll be a burden, that you won't have any fun with me, and that you'll barf on me!"

"Well, I'm worried that you won't have any fun with me, I won't feel well enough to play with you, and that I'll barf on you!"

As soon as the words were out of our mouths, we were laughing again, saying that we would be fine. Prior to connecting, though, there was tension. We were both fearful that we would be the cause of pain to the other. And the more we over-thought it without reaching out to one another, the more secrecy we had, and the less close we felt.

Did she barf on me? No. Did she feel well enough to play with me the whole time? No. But I was prepared for that, and connected to her, so it all worked out just fine. It's amazing what obstacles intimacy can overcome.

we build the wall to keep us free

I've been listening recently to this incredible musical based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Why We Build the Wall (the song above) has been stuck in my head a lot in the last week or so. The premise is great and seems totally backwards -- we're building a wall to keep ourselves free. The lyrics say:

What do we have that they should want?
We have a wall to work upon!
We have work and they have none
And our work is never done
My children, my children
And the war is never won
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That's why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free

And it makes me wonder -- where in our lives do we build these walls? Walls that seem to be keeping out an enemy and providing us with freedom but that are still closing in on us and keeping us small. Walls that give us something to focus on and something to keep ourselves busy, but walls that, in the end, don't get us what we really want.

I'm thinking of a friend of mine who works six bajillion hours a week. The "enemy" in this case is failure or disappointment, and working endless hours at his job (the "wall" in this case, too) is what keeps the enemy at bay. But even if he builds that wall, failure will be patiently waiting on the other side of it, looking for the smallest crack to climb inside.

I'm also thinking of myself -- in my case sometimes the enemy is "feeling too much" and shutting down those feelings so I don't have to be overwhelmed by them is my wall. It seems like the smart thing to do -- manage emotion so it can be tamed or mastered, but in truth, the more I try to sweep my feelings under the rug, the more they become protesters at Occupy Kate's Wall Street.*

If what we want is endless work with no payoff, we can have that. There will always be more fear. There will always be more walls to build. But what does it take to knock down the wall and start giving up the war in the first place? Acceptance. Recognizing that whatever's on the other side of the wall -- poverty, fear, disappointment, too many feelings -- it's always going to be there. And we can't pretend it away. So why not start to accept it so that we can let go of the concept of it being an enemy?

Easier said than done, I realize. But worth a shot -- unless you want to move to Hadestown, that is.

*I know, sorry, I couldn't resist.

Hurricane Irene (or, why a restricted media diet is a good thing)

It's one thing to be prepared. And so staying tuned to the news and making sure you have the latest information is important, especially in the event of an emergency (or a Pending Emergency, as this storm really turned out to be). It's another thing all together to continually bombard yourself with images and information that serve to do nothing but raise your blood pressure and anxiety levels. And I don't think it's actually the media's responsibility to monitor how much of the information you take in. That's your call. (Would I like it better if the news channels weren't fear-mongering for ratings? Yes, yes I would. But it's kind of their job to get ratings, right?)

I survived hurricane Irene easily, as did virtually all of my friends, so it's easy for me to be fairly blithe about this. But there was so much build up, so much tension before the actual storm that I started to get worried even though my apartment (and the apartment where I weathered the storm) were not in a threat zone. I made sure we took necessary precautions -- had water on hand, secured items on the roof, etc. -- and then that we turned off the TV. We checked in periodically, just to see if anything had changed, if there was any chance we'd be directly hit or otherwise affected, but as soon as the news looped back around to information we already knew, we turned it off.

Same thing with facebook. Some of my friends online were posting nothing but terrifying updates about the death toll or the misery of the flooding. And I'm not saying they shouldn't post those things, especially because they were true. Facebook can be a good way to get information shared. But I'm saying that I should be careful about how much of it I take in -- especially when the cause of the drama is something that I can't do anything about.

So should we all just sit around and be ignorant? No, of course not. But monitoring how useful the information is that we're processing and balancing that with how anxious it makes us feel is important. And we'll all have different levels of acceptability.

I think people like a little bit of drama in their lives. It helps to make us feel alive. And so a storm like this can provide us with that little bit of adrenaline. But adrenaline, not burnt on some task (like fighting or fleeing, which it was created for) can turn into stress and be quite harmful to our bodies. And the bodies of our friends and families. And we forget this.

So it's your choice as to whether or not you look at the Glenn Beck article that called Irene a blessing. (Yikes!) And it's your choice -- if you read it, how much do you read? (Two paragraphs.) And it's your choice -- you can close that window and focus instead on something where you really can make a difference. Like calling a friend. Helping a neighbor. That kind of thing.

Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Emotional Coat

A few weeks ago I returned to Yale for a reunion of my comedy group. I knew that going back to campus would be hard -- being in New Haven has always stressed me out, but when I got there, I met up with my best friend from the group (and one of my favorite people of all time) and we caught up.

"I'm just not where I thought I would be," he said, after outlining what's going on in his life. And I knew the feeling. When I graduated, I thought that by 33 I'd be running the world. I'd be some famous Broadway actor at night and running meetings in powersuits during the day. I'd have an apartment uptown and -- get this -- a car! As time has passed, though, I've gotten used to the simpler pleasures in life, and no longer seek stardom or parking. In truth, my friend is exactly where I'd like to be. He has a stable, challenging, great-paying job, a husband, a house, and two new cats. You know... everything!

"I'm not where I thought I'd be, either," I said, and all my doubts came flooding back in. Was I ever going to meet someone? Was I ever going to make enough money to afford a house or a baby? Was I ever going to amount to anything?!

At some point over the weekend, I realized that I was in the passing lane on the expressway to the land of self-doubt that I inhabited as a late teenager. And what better place to reinforce the message of "what have you done with your life?" than one of the most prestigious (and expensive) universities in the country? I felt tense, sick to my stomach, and unable to sleep.

I met a woman who made me feel really safe, and in talking with her I realized that I didn't have to feel so gross. I've accomplished a lot since college, not the least of which was growing into a sense of self that isn't defined by the need to amount to something. The difference between me now and me in college is that now I wear that self-doubt like a big, ugly coat. It gets hot, so I take it off any chance I get. Sometimes I even check it at the door! In college, though, I wore it like a skin, not even aware that it was something to be shed.

I bring this up now because soon, many of us will be headed home for the holidays. And what better place to revert to old habits and old messages of worthlessness than our childhood homes? (I know, sad, right?) I'm blessed. My family is so open that we've talked about these things, and about how much better it feels if we behave like children on purpose instead of by default. We ask for the attention we seek, and I find that I don't need to ask for nearly as much as I used to subliminally (and ineffectually) demand.

It's unpleasant, but I encourage you to put on your coat. Maybe it doesn't look like mine, laden with doubts about how good you are, (though if I had to guess, I'd say it probably does). Whatever material is used to construct it, pick that up. And then, before you go home, practice putting it down again. Hell, put down the coat you're wearing today. See that you have a choice about the thoughts that run through your head, and, in the spirit of the holidays, choose nicer thoughts.

Santa would want you to.

book review: What Happy People Know by Dan Baker

I read a lot of self-help books, but rarely do they offer me so much new information that I feel compelled to share them with you. (The last book I recommended was The Magic LAMP, which I read in February!) I recently came across a book, though, that I want you all to go out and buy/rent/borrow/steal. (Ok, maybe not with the stealing.) Today! Now! Go!

Oh wait. You need to know what book first.

In this book, What Happy People Know, Dan Baker, the head of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch (a spa/resort/retreat I may never make enough money to visit) offers up useful information in an approachable and easily digestible fashion.

According to Baker, there are six major happiness tools people can use:

1. Appreciation

2. Choice

3. Personal Power

4. Leading with your strengths

5. Language and stories

6. Multidimensional living

Because it's had such an impact on me, I thought I'd take you through some of the highlights of the tools.

1. Appreciation

I've talked about appreciation and gratitude before, but Baker takes these concepts much deeper, offering three or four practicable tools to make appreciation not just part of your regular routine, but also part of your disaster recovery mode.

For example, he shares one exercise called "Freeze Frame." When things are going All Kinds of Wrong, instead of thinking about how things are getting out of control, you think of something you appreciate. A loved one, a natural phenomenon, your dog, whatever. Doing this will calm your heart rate and give you space in which to see things differently. I've used it, and found it incredibly helpful.

He also talks about optimism, and how being an optimist is not simply walking around with a dopey smile on your face and approaching life with a glass-half-full attitude, but rather, it's an understanding that the more difficult or painful a situation is, the more profound the learning will be. This has helped me a lot recently while going through an incredibly emotionally break up -- I knew that when I came out the other side of the break up I would know more about myself and how I operate, which felt like a gift compared to the kick in the pants the break up was giving me. Does it make me want to run right out and break up again? No, absolutely not. But it does give me some silver lining and light at the end of an otherwise unpleasant-smelling tunnel.

(His mother also chimed in with the soothing idea that "no two people ever love each other the same -- and that whoever loves the most is the lucky one.")

2. Choice

Baker calls choice "the voice of the heart" and "honesty in action." I like that.

He talks about failure, helplessness, and powerlessness (and a bunch of shocked dogs... which made me sad) and offers some thoughts that can serve to remind us to stay strong:

1. Failure only occurs when you quit -- he talks about how Thomas Edison "failed" to design a lightbulb until his 2000th try

2. Be brave enough to resist when someone offers you the tempting scenario in which they strip from you the right to make your own decisions. While it is occasionally unpleasant to make (and live with) our own choices, imagine the other alternatives...

Finally in this section, he discusses the "Life Changing Quarter Second" in which we have a brief moment of control over our emotional reactions. There is a quarter second in which we can wrest our thinking away from a fear reaction and into a considered response, but we have to see and seize that moment regularly to stay in a place of choice.

3. Personal Power

This is that indefinable something that enables happy people to be happy, even when things are difficult. (In my leadership class, we call it the "Internal Locus of Control," meaning essentially the feeling that, no matter what comes your way, you can do something about it.)

Baker encourages his readers to watch out for VERBs -- Victimization, Entitlement, Rescue, and Blame. Highlights include:

V: He says that other people can hurt you, but only you can victimize yourself.

E: The mind and body thrive on struggle. Satisfaction without effort doesn't create happiness, it makes for boredom, alienation, weakness and feelings of worthlessness. And I can tell you that, after looking for a new job for six months, I was so elated to finally get one because I had struggled and put my time in.

R: There's a difference between assistance and rescue. There is nothing wrong with asking for help as long as you're willing to do your share of the work.

B: Blame solves nothing. If you were in a car driven by a friend that was going over a cliff, would blaming that friend keep you from crashing into the ravine below? Instead, what can you do to improve the situation for yourself (and/or your friend)?

We'll take a look at the other three tools in my next post.

what are you chasing?

I live in New York, where it seems like everybody is chasing something. And I worry that people don't really know what they're chasing, and how their thoughts and behavior are impacting their journey.

Take me, for example, back when I was acting. I was chasing The Big Dream -- except I wasn't specific about what that meant to me. I just wanted to "be an actor in New York." Well, that's actually absurdly easy. Get a headshot, go on an audition, and voila! You're an actor in New York.

So I sat down to get more specific, and I realized that my goal was "to make a living acting in New York." Then I was getting somewhere. I had a clearer destination, and could focus my energy more tightly. Except that I was missing a piece -- how I wanted to be or feel while I was pursuing that goal. Because, as it played out, while I was chasing Making a Living as an Actor in New York, I was unhappy. I was working a job that made me want to stab people in the face, I felt like I had no time for anything that wasn't theatre, I was comparing myself to other actors (and coming up short) and, in general, I just didn't like the way I felt about myself.

I was, as it turned out, chasing the wrong thing, like the dog chasing the mailman. (Unless, of course, the mailman is delivering Omaha Steaks, but in my case he wasn't.)

It wasn't until I got specific about what I saw as success that I realized I was on the wrong path.

The same thing has happened with dating. I have defined and redefined (and redefined) (oh, and redefined) what I consider desirable characteristics in a guy. The three core qualities -- funny, smart, and self-aware -- stay the same, but the fourth quality always changes. Sometimes it's kind or thoughtful, sometimes it's simply ready, but as I have more experience, I can get more specific about what I want, and again, how I want to feel while pursuing it.

This last piece is often overlooked because we're not taught about feelings. But I think it's of the utmost importance. If you're ok with, say, pursuing a career in acting to the exclusion of everything else, that's great -- but be clear with yourself how long you're willing to do that. A month? A year? Your whole life? There are trade offs to everything, and making sure that what you're giving up is worth what you're getting is incredibly important.

The final thing I encourage people to look at surrounding success is how you will know you've made it. Often times, people get so wrapped up in the struggle of "making it" that the small successes they've had along the way no longer matter -- that big achievement is just around the corner waiting to be reached. And that's when success becomes a trap. Because as I know from first hand experience, it's easy to be more attracted to the pursuit of it than the enjoyment of it.

So to avoid the perpetual pursuit, define what it will look like when you've reached your goal. When will you finally consider yourself successful? And does that necessarily mean there is nothing left to achieve? I find that goal-setting is super-useful in this kind of work because it gives you a number of small victories to celebrate as you reach out for things that satisfy and fulfill you.

And really, is using the word "success" even useful? For so many of us (myself included) there is a sticky quality to it, one that implies comparison, scarcity, lack, and an overall "not good enough to be successful" quality. If you fall into that category (welcome!), then perhaps simply "happiness" is a better choice of words for you than "success."

To wrap up, if you haven't thought about it yet, I urge you (whether you live in New York or not) to take a minute (or hell, a year) and get really clear not just about what you want, but how you'll know when you're there.

In a nutshell:

1. Define success

2. Be willing to be flexible about that definition and change it as your circumstances change

3. Be clear about who/how you want to be as your pursue success

4. Know how it will feel when you're successful, and be open to that feeling

5. Use a different word if "success" or "successful" brings up negative feelings for you.

just what I needed to see

This was shared with me at just the moment I needed it most. So in that spirit, I'm sharing it with you.

what's your positivity ratio?

Yesterday I was on a webinar called "Boost Your Happiness Through Evidence-Based Activities," and, while it was kind of a cheesetastic hour, there was one exercise I came out of it with that I found interesting and worth sharing.

It's about your positivity ratio.

Think about the last 24 hours. And in the last 24 hours, have you felt any of the following:
Amazement
Amusement
Gratitude
Hope
Interest
Inspiration
Joy
Love
Pride
Serenity

You can have felt them a little, moderately, or a lot. (If you only felt them a little, don't count them in this round.)

Total up the number you've felt and put that number aside.

Now think about the last 24 hours again. Have you felt any of these?
Anger
Contempt
Disgust
Embarrassment
Fear
Guilt
Hate
Sadness
Shame
Stress

Again, you can have felt these a little, moderately, or a lot. (With these, if you felt them a little, they count.)

Take your positive total, and divide it by your negative total. That's your positivity ratio.

The inventor of this test, Dr. Barabara Fredrickson, has research indicating that "a positivity ratio of 3 to 1 is a tipping point. This ratio divides those who merely get by in life from those who truly flourish."

But if you scored below 3-to-1, don't be surprised. More than 80% of U.S. adults fall short of the ideal 3-to-1 ratio. (I did, too, and I consider myself a highly positive person.) Instead of feeling guilt, shame, or stress over these results (because, watch out, you'll have to account for those tomorrow!) why not take interest in what you can do to up your ratio? Why not seek out a poem, a song, or a friend who inspires or amazes you?

You are in charge of where you put your attention. So when you catch yourself in a feeling of anger, frustration, or guilt, take some time to balance that out with some love, amusement, or gratitude. A simple way to approach this is through an exercise where you list five things you're grateful for -- like the comfort of your fluffiest pillow, the crispy, minty taste of your toothpaste, or the support of the people who love you -- and really sit in that gratitude as you move through your day. Similarly, sit down and list things that crack you up -- like the way your sister snorts when she laughs really hard, the way a muppet ends a joke by settling down into its neck, or that cute guy who is ninja funny -- and just sit with the enjoyment of that for a while.

Negative stuff will come and go, and I personally have a harder time keeping the negative feelings at bay than I do redirecting my attention onto the stuff that makes me happy. So this is a good exercise for me, too.

(And in just writing this post I've upped my hope, amusement, inspiration and gratitude quotients for today, so maybe tomorrow I'll have a 3-to-1!)

curiosity did not kill the cat, it made the cat's life a LOT easier!

Curiosity is a quality we all have. It shows up when we look at puzzles and try to solve them, or when we meet someone new and want to find out more about that person. And I'd argue that we all like to think we know ourselves – because if we don't know ourselves, what do we really know? But when we act in ways that don’t serve us (or straight up hurt us) how well can we really know ourselves? If we were self-experts, wouldn't we avoid behaviors like that?

Finding out what drives our self-defeating or self-limiting behavior takes self-curiosity. And self-curiosity takes some detachment, the recognition of what’s going on inside of you, and a willingness to let go of the thoughts and emotions you may be holding deeply. This curiosity combo is one of the key tools in the battle against negative self-chatter.

Recognizing “I feel angry” and then asking yourself without judgment, “hmm, that’s interesting. I wonder what it is that is making me feel angry,” can be really freeing. Identifying the feeling, labeling it, and then taking it apart can help you turn down the volume of the judgments in your head and choose to behave in different ways.

So what I know about emotions is that they’re less dependent on what happens to you than they are on the thoughts you have about what that means about who you are – thoughts that are completely made up.

For example, one night I pigged out, eating more ice cream than I care to admit in public. And I woke up the next day angry, stressed out, and fairly miserable. I asked myself with curiosity, “hmmm, I wonder what is making me feel angry.” And I sat down with my journal to figure it out. After about half an hour of writing, I realized that I felt angry because I felt guilty. I felt like having eaten everything I ate, I’d never lose weight, I’d never have a boyfriend, and nobody would ever love me again.

All because I ate too much ice cream!

So I asked myself a simple question: What if all of those repercussions weren’t true? What if I just ate more ice cream than I needed (because I wanted something else that I wasn't getting), and in the future I could still lose weight, I could still have a boyfriend and lots of people would love me?

And when I believed that was a possibility, I sat back down and got curious again – what was I getting from beating myself up about it? And when I was really honest, I realized that I felt like I had transgressed in some way, and that I needed to be punished, so I was beating myself up.

So I asked myself another simple question: What if that wasn’t true, either? What if what I had done wasn’t actually bad, and that there wasn’t anything to be punished for?

You can see how this process of taking things apart one thought at a time, getting really curious about why I was thinking them, and then being gentle with myself around the answers made it easier to see that I was making it all up.

Now, do I still want to gorge on ice cream? Yes, sometimes I do. But the more I practice forgiving myself and letting go of my attachment to judgments about myself – the more curious I get about my own behavior – the easier it is to do the stuff I want to do and eliminate the behavior I don’t want.

Resolutions to Results VII: Identifying Obstacles

Identify Your Obstacles

So now that you are armed with this fabulously detailed and due-dated plan, what’s going to cock it all up? What’s going to get in your way and keep you from achieving this goal? (If your answer is “nothing,” you’re not trying hard enough.)

So, really: what stands between you and achieving your goal? Questions to ask yourself to uncover your obstacles are these:

• Why haven’t you achieved this in the past?

What other goals have you attempted and quit? Do you want to approach this one the same way? If not, what will it take from you to do things differently this time?

• What are you afraid of?

There are lots of things to be afraid of, but change isn't necessarily one of them. Are you worried that you'll have to work more, sleep less, sweat more? Are you afraid you'll have to give up your security blanket -- whatever that means to you? Be honest with yourself about what scares you so you are better equipped to face that fear instead of waiting to be sideswiped by it. And nobody's judging you on what scares you. This is between you and you, so be real.

• What will change in your life if you succeed at this goal?

This question addresses both the WIIFM (which we talked about earlier) and the OGTSC (the Oh God, That's Scary Crap*) that is likely to come up as you make change. Really look into your future and see the stuff you WANT to change -- what else is likely to change as a side-effect?

• What can I do to prepare myself for this?

Only you really know the answer for this. I know that I am challenged by feeling lonely late at night, and one of the things I do to compensate is to eat. So if my goal is to lose weight, I know I'm going to have to make a plan to handle the feelings of loneliness so that I don't throw myself off target by eating late at night. To address this, I could challenge myself to read 50 pages every night (which would be hard to do while foraging for snacks in the kitchen) or make a plan to call a different friend each weeknight to catch up. Your preparation will be different, but you'll know what to do!

• Who doesn’t want you to change?

What are some of the “silent agreements” you have with people – those unspoken social contracts we make and get stuck to like library paste (the not-tasty kind). Are you the obedient daughter? The athletic son? The quiet roommate? The responsible husband? If you think you have no silent contracts, go back and look at your Roles and Responsibilities exercise. Which job do you have that interacts with another person? And would that person be happy if you were to change some of the responsibilities you had in that job? (I'm just sayin'...)

Tips for Handling Obstacles!
"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next year for better." – Edgar Watson Howe, publisher

Keep Anticipating Obstacles. Today you’re predicting what you think will get in the way, but as you make new progress, unforeseen obstacles can crop up. As you see them, write them down. Often just being aware of what’s in your way can help you to find creative ways around it. Look at both external and internal obstacles. Who are the people in your way? What are the circumstances blocking you? Do you have the tools you need to get the job done? What are the limiting beliefs you have that keep you from achieving your goal? Writing down obstacles takes them out of your head and puts them on paper, where it’s easier to be more objective about them.

What are the payoffs? What do you get by not reaching your goal? If you succeed, will you have to give up the fuzzy coziness your comfort zone? Will you have to work harder than you do now? Will you have to give up the image you have of yourself as a victim, and, as a result, give up the attention and sympathy that others give you? It’s human nature to want to stay “safe,” especially if it’s comfortable and secure. Forgive yourself for having been willing to hold onto the obstacles, and then let them go. Embrace change and be courageous!

Identify the moment it goes awry. If you have been diligently working towards your goal and then “slip,” identify the moment your thoughts turned from striving to settling. What specific thoughts did you think that allowed you to eat the sweets, spend the money, skip the audition? Have patience and gentleness with yourself on this one – this process takes time and energy, and often requires making more mistakes than you’d prefer. The benefit is that every “mistake” is a learning opportunity. There is no failure – only a chance to learn more and grow more.

Use traditionally “creative” techniques to open up your mind. Drawing, painting, sculpting, singing, writing… they can all contribute to deepening the vision you have of your goal. You can also use them to overcome obstacles – draw the things that are in your way, the things that you are afraid of, the people who aren’t helping, and then rip them up!

* not exactly a technical term, but close.

getting rid of old (icky) beliefs in three easy steps!

Step 1: Identify the old (icky) belief
Step 2: Pick a new (non-icky) one to take its place
Step 3: Give it a whirl

The end.

Ok, ok, I'm oversimplifying, but only sort of.

Step 1: Identifying the old (icky) belief

How do you know when something you believe isn't serving you anymore? Here are a couple of ideas:

-- Listen to what your body has to say about it. Do you get a sinking feeling when you think that thought? Do your shoulders climb up to your ears? Would you rather just crawl back into bed forever? Or maybe you want to punch someone? All of these are good indicators that a belief isn't serving you. Even just a deadness or a flatness in response to a belief or thought can highlight an outdated (e.g. icky) belief.

-- Ask trusted friends or family members. (But only the ones you're ok with being right.)

-- Explore and define your belief. If you're thinking "I'm not meeting men because I have high standards," define each word carefully. What do you mean by "meeting" and "men" and "high standards"? Write out full definitions of what these words mean to you -- without consulting the dictionary. (Unless you wrote it.)

-- Gather evidence about your belief and its opposite. If your belief is "Taking time for myself is bad," look in your life and see where that is true and where that is false. (Again, be sure to explore and define your belief first.)

Step 2: Picking a new (non-icky) belief to take its place

This one seems harder than it is. Since beliefs are about how you interpret a situation, you're in charge of them. Yes, of course, you learned something was "true" when you were a kid -- and it may, in fact, have been true -- and you think it's still true now, but the odds are that if you learned ick as a kid, you don't need ick as an adult.

Think of beliefs as sweaters. Would you wear the sweater you wore to kindergarten on a date today? It just wouldn't fit. (And, man, would it hurt the eyes.)

Ways to generate non-icky ideas:

-- The easiest way is to flip around the old (icky) one you've been schlepping around your whole life. If you're "no good," pick "I'm good!" If you're "lazy" pick "I'm active." (Note, however, while this may be the easiest one to generate, it may be the hardest one to try on.)

-- Ask yourself what other ways you could see this belief? What other words could you use, or other ways you could define those words?

-- What belief might your best friend/mentor/parent/lover encourage you to have?

-- What belief have you always wanted to have?

-- What do your role models believe? (Or, what do you think your role models believe?)

Step 3: Give it a whirl

What's beautiful about this step is that no matter what new (non-icky) belief you pick, it stands a really good chance of being better than the old (icky) one you've been using all along, so you CAN'T GO WRONG!

Just sayin'.

Try on your new belief (like a sweater). See how it feels in your body. When you feel the old belief creeping back in, take a deep breath, and switch your mind back over to the new one.

A good way to really give this a whirl is to assign yourself a task that brings up the old belief. For example, if your old belief is "no woman would want to date me" then sign up for an online dating service. Every time you look at that site, you have an opportunity to try on the new belief. And when the new belief falters, look to see if there are additional old (icky) beliefs underneath that one.

And then repeat the process.

I promise you, you're worth it!

Don't try to fix it!

I'm a chatterbox, always have been.

So when I started coaching, one of the hardest things for me to learn was how to be silent. To say nothing, and wait for my clients to come to their own revelations. (I say this like I've actually managed to do it.) But in both working with my own coach and coaching some fairly reticent clients, I've learned that it can be in the quiet moments when the wheels are really turning. It can also be when the inner saboteur is working overtime. Either way, there's movement, and I just itch to be a part of it.

What I have to learn is patience, and to not try to be a part of every experience my clients are having.

I read an article recently, written by a pastor at a church in Boston. And I'm not much of a churchy gal, but what Reverend Kim K. Crawford Harvie says really struck me:

Silence is so powerful! One of the hardest lessons for me in pastoral care training was not to try to make people feel better – at least not too quickly! – and to understand silence as a work of love. I was being “demoed” one day – my divinity school class was observing me conduct a mock counseling session – and I reached for a tissue to hand to my classmate, whose eyes had filled with tears as she spoke to me about a recent death. I reached for a tissue, and the professor cried, “Stop!”

“When you hand someone a tissue,” she said, “no matter how good your intentions, you are telling them not to cry. They can decide when to get their own tissue; leave the box in full view. Just sit there!”

I put my hands between my knees and just sat there. My classmate recovered from the interruption and, after a few more minutes, began to cry. Soon, she was really sobbing. I moved to get up to go sit beside her, to put my arm around her.

“Stop!” cried the professor. My classmate looked up. “Your job is not to make it better. You can’t make it better! All you can do is bear witness, and make room for the holy spirit. Just sit there!”

When my coach holds the space for my emotions (without chiming in, questioning me, or otherwise "meddling"), I feel supported, comforted, and most of all seen. (Which is odd, mostly, because I coach with him over the phone.) And by his not saying anything, but simply being with me, I find my own way out of the tunnel.

I had lunch the other day with a man who was having a very frustrating day. He told me when he showed up that he would "need a minute" to really arrive at our lunch. In my head, I reminded myself to give him all the room he needed -- that it was not my job to fix his frustration. And shortly after we exchanged pleasantries, sat down, and started to eat, he took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair, and told me he was "here."

I couldn't have done it any better myself.