Passionate Self Care VI – Be Careful What You Feed Your Mind
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am in recovery from 30 years of clinical depression. Much of what I learned about keeping depression at bay is what I bring to my teaching whether the topic is Passionate Self-Care or Dancing With Change.
A few years back I learned something new that has helped me immeasurably in my quest to stay balanced. It happened one day when I was in a foul mood. If you’ve ever been in this type of mood, you know it’s very different from a regular old bad mood—it’s like a bad mood on steroids—angry and ugly. I couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Nothing was going particularly wrong in my life. In fact, things were quite good. And then it dawned on me. For entertainment I had been listening to the latest James Patterson book on tape.
James Patterson is an incredible writer. He’s so good, in fact that all of the violent ugliness that took place in this book was all too real. It felt as if I were a part of it and my brain reacted by releasing all the appropriate stress hormones that hit your system when you’re involved in or witness to violence. I was in fight or flight mode and it was awful.
This was the day I realized that a good deal of my depression was self-inflicted. The Law of Attraction says that you get more of what you focus on. Choosing where to place your focus in essential to Passionate Self-Care. We all know that, don’t we? And yet most of us don’t practice it. Take the news, for example. We think that following it keeps us well informed when in fact the news is simply someone else’s opinion about what happened. It’s not “the truth” and it’s designed to whip us into an emotional frenzy. In fact, most of the news is none of our business.
We think violent movies, TV shows or games don’t hurt us but they do. If they’re any good, they make you feel as if you are right there. That’s great if you’re part of the dance sequence in Footloose but if you’re watching a movie where someone is being subjected to a horrific act it affects you mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. And once you get those images into your brain, they are there forever. Ask anyone who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as I have and we will tell you—forever as in those images never go away. If that’s true, why not implant images that make you smile instead of grimace?
If you are truly serious about taking better care of yourself then being careful about what you feed your mind is a key component. Watch movies and read books with happy endings or ones that are at least neutral. Look for the good in others instead of the bad (including yourself). Listen to happy music. If the paper’s lying around, read the comics or the Opinion Page but throw the front page into the garbage where it belongs.
When we do this are we denying the reality of how the world really is? I say no. What we are rejecting is the idea that life is mostly awful. We are saying to those who present it as such, “I’m no longer willing to listen to you.” When I was in the midst of my worst depression my world was awful and most of it was self-created. I watched maudlin movies, I read horrific books, I engaged in constant complaints disguised as intellectual discussions. My focus was on the travails of life and that’s precisely what I attracted.
Life is no different today but I am. Do I still have challenges? You bet I do. My life partner Bill has pancreatic cancer and it is terrifying. What’s different is that I’m not making it worse by feeding my mind a load of self-pity or engaging in conversations about how unfair life is. Do I talk about my fears to Bill and to dear friends? Yes, I do. But mostly I choose to focus on the incredible love we share and the fact that he’s here with me now.
The only real control any of us have has to do with what we feed our minds. Use this gift wisely and watch how wonderful life can be.
Passionate Self Care V – MYOB
I am with Bill on a business trip to Southern California, spending the day working in the hotel while he attends a Board meeting. I didn’t want to be in the room all day so I’m sitting in the coffee shop working away (bonus: tea on demand!)
Anyhow, I am in search of the ladies room when I encounter a small group of people standing at the hostess stand waiting to be seated. The hostess is nowhere in sight. I overhear one say, “We’ll just seat ourselves.” I hesitate for a second and very nearly turn around to go in search of the hostess. Then I have to stop myself from offering them my advice on what they should do.
What is that? Why do I think I have to fix any problem I encounter, even when it has nothing to do with me?
Do you suffer from this? Could it be one of the reasons we are desperate to find ways to take better care of ourselves? It’s one thing to give of yourself to people you love or you’re paid to care for but if you think the whole world is your responsibility, life becomes exhausting.
A key to Passionate Self Care is (said gently) mind your own business. I want this to be a gentle admonition because I KNOW that you don’t do it to be a busy body or what we used to, as kids, call a “buttinski.” You likely do it because you are so service-oriented that you want to serve the world. But, when I examine my own motives, I notice that there’s a good deal of ego in there. I have to admit that there’s a part of me that secretly believes I know best and that, if everyone just followed my good advice their lives would work much better.
Sometimes, when I indulge my buttinski people seem stunned, as well they should.
This happens when they don’t even know me and I suddenly insert myself into their lives by offering some unsolicited solution. The most useful pearl of wisdom I ever heard about this came from my friend Esther Hicks who says, “An answer to a question no one asked is a wasted answer.” It’s wasted because whomever you’re advising is not listening. Mostly they wish you’d just stop talking and let them get back to solving their own problem.
Imagine; just imagine how much extra time you’d have to take care of yourself if you simply minded your own business. And I don’t mean only with strangers. If you’re like me, you’re spending way too much time solving the problems of your mate, your children, and your second cousin’s stepson’s daughter. We have a tendency to think we should insert ourselves into our family’s problems but take it from me they don’t like it any more than strangers do. They only put up with it because it’s easier than fighting. They say, “OK,” or “Yes, dear,” hoping you’ll just stop.
You might protest, “But what if they do it wrong?” They will! So what? I’m guessing that the most powerful lessons you’ve ever learned came from painful mistakes. Why deprive them of this same learning?
If that’s not enough to inspire you to MYOB let me add one last insight. I try REALLY hard not to answer the question when my kids ask, “What should I do?” Because if they follow my advice and it doesn’t work, who do you think they’ll blame? Instead I try to remember to say, “You’ll figure it out, honey.” I’m there to help if they fall but preventing the fall? Once they’re past childhood, that’s not my job.
MYOB—try it. Your friends and family will send prayers of thanks to the heavens and you’ll have more time for you.
Dancing With Passionate Self Care III – Rituals
Rituals are keys to Passionate Self Care. Let me give you an example, I feel wonderful when I take the time to perform the ritual of developing my action plan. I call it a ritual because it has a set pattern of components: (1) reviewing my in box, my list of action items and my emails; (2) deciding which I need or want to tackle today; (3) writing my plan; and (4) deciding which to do first.
After years of trying to find the right “formula” for this ritual, I stumbled on a relatively inexpensive online test for the Kolbe “A” Index (www.Kolbe.com). The Kolbe analyzes your natural work style. After reviewing my results, I came to understand that if I develop my plan at the beginning of the work day, I get bogged down in details and it kills my enthusiasm. Instead, I develop my plan the night before so I can dive into action the moment I start work. It’s amazing what a difference one adjustment to a ritual can make.
How many grouchy or distracted people have you heard say, “I’ll be okay after my first cup of coffee”? Admittedly, the caffeine helps but the ritual of coffee is every bit as much of an energy boost. It’s usually the skipping of the ritual that has thrown them off, not the lack of caffeine.
There are rituals we depend on and rituals we’d like to develop. To exercise Passionate Self Care in your life look for rituals you want to start incorporating until they become routine. Some of the best places to look for opportunities for ritual development are in the areas around which you feel guilty. A few of mine are:
- Exercise
- Dental Care
- Keeping up with finances (bill paying, etc.)
- Car Care
- Filing
Can you see the opportunities for rituals?
There are also rituals we love. We don’t feel guilty if we don’t do them but we feel SO MUCH BETTER when we do:
- Planning ahead for the weekend
- Meditating
- Weekly manicures (one of my favorites)
- Leaving work at quitting time
- Taking time for a hobby we love
Rituals give life a certain continuity, which most of us crave. They make us feel more grounded. That’s why you see professional athletes who perform the same ritual every time they begin the game. Maybe it’s superstition, or maybe they know it works.
In a world where change is constant, rituals are a way for us to feel as if we are in control.
Rituals are very comforting and the more comfortable we are, the more we attract things that are a match to that feeling. I’ve noticed, for example, that when I take the time to perform the ritual of putting together my action plan, my work goes very smoothly. It can be no other way because I’m feeling good and in control. Events and circumstances that match those feelings are the only ones I will attract. That is how the Law of Attraction works: you get more of what you focus on.
So what rituals would you like to put into place in your life? What will make you more comfortable each day and give you more of a feeling of being in control? Start today, as soon as you finish reading this.
One of the biggest steps toward Passionate Self Care: Develop rituals that make you feel good, and practice them every day.
Dancing with Passionate Self Care – II
Because the Law of Attraction says, “You get more of what you focus on,” a critically important component of Passionate Self Care is focus. If you want to train yourself to recognize where your focus is, start by listening to conversations around you. What is the focus of each? Now look at the people holding those conversations. Are they a match to what they’re focused on?
Never is this so clear as when you listen to the elderly. Those who are having lengthy conversations about their aches and pains and pills and surgeries are the ones who are in the worst shape.
The ones who are talking about their gardens, pets, hobbies or grandchildren are vibrant and healthy. They may have aches and pains but they don’t dwell on them. Because of that, their aches and pains are manageable.
Sullen teens are obsessed with how unfair life is and how ridiculous adults and their rules are. Well-adjusted teens are focused on sports, music, school, or sharing cool new trends with each other.
What are you and your friends focused on? Start listening to your words – those that come out of your mouth or those you type into email messages and texts. Will the recipient of your words be happy to hear from you or inwardly groan?
We all agree that we don’t like to be around negative people but many of us who express that sentiment ARE the negative ones people don’t like to be around. And we don’t even know it. How can that be? How is it that we can be primarily focused on the negative and unaware of it? It’s because it’s become a socially accepted habit.
The news media consistently focuses on the worst events. When we broadcast our own personal news, we seem somehow embarrassed to share what’s going well in our lives. Doctors are trained to look for what’s wrong versus ways for us to stay healthy. Managers, until recently, have been trained to focus on employees’ weaknesses instead of their strengths.
There’s a new trend in management I would like you to steal for your Passionate Self Care. It’s called Appreciative Inquiry. An example of how it’s being applied will help clarify what it is:
The traditional style of conducting an employee’s performance review consists of 10-15 minutes focus on what an employee does well (employees refer to this as “buttering us up for the kill”), with the balance of the meeting focused on everything the employee needs to improve. In other words, the manager mainly focuses on what’s NOT working versus what IS.
A manager who practices Appreciative Inquiry would flip the time. She would spend 10-15 minutes focused on what an employee needs to improve and the rest of the meeting on everything the employee does well and how to leverage those skills. This manager focuses on what IS working instead of what’s NOT.
When I talk about this in my workshops, people get very excited, “Yes, that’s what my supervisor needs to do.” They stop in their tracks when I tell them it works both ways. “What do you mean?” they ask.
If you want your supervisor to focus on what you’re doing well, you must also focus on what you are doing well. You can’t expect to attract a supervisor (or a mate, friend, or child for that matter) who focuses on your good qualities if you are continually focused on your failings. Remember, you get what you focus on. That includes getting people in your life who agree with your self-assessment.
Appreciative Inquiry is the daily practice of looking for what you like about a person, place or thing (and that includes you). As you begin to focus on what you appreciate, you’ll begin to attract more of that into your life.
Appreciation is a feeling that can only attract good things to you. As you begin this practice of appreciating your friends, your community, your house, your children, your health, your family, and on and on and on, you will begin to feel more energetic and more vibrant. The Law of Attraction says it can be no other way.
I can’t think of anything more important to Passionate Self Care than using Appreciative Inquiry in all that you do. Try it. You’ll see.
Dancing With Passionate Self-Care
This month begins a series of blogs focused on Passionate Self-Care. This phrase often brings a smile of embarrassment to faces because most of us consider ourselves failures in this arena.
Sure, we devote time to self-care but it is generally based on negative rewards instead of the positive actions that make up passionate self-care. In other words, instead of taking an exhilarating walk after dinner, we settle down to watch Wheel of Fortune, usually with some sort of high calorie drink or snack in hand.
What brings this to mind are the myriad news reports on the high cost of health care and the ensuing crisis for aging Baby Boomers. As I listen to this conversation with interest, I’ve realized that what I haven’t been hearing is much of anything about patient responsibility. Where does self-care fit into all this?
If you bought a house and did nothing to keep it up over a 5-year period, would you expect your insurance company to pay for repairs? They would deny such a claim saying it was neglect, not damage from an outside force such as fire or wind. Yet, we bring our sad, neglected bodies to our doctors or our sad, neglected psyches to psychologists and psychiatrists and expect them to give us a magic pill.
We want pills or surgery to fix what we systematically destroy through complacency.
Passionate self-care starts with the premise that you are at least as worthy of daily care as your house, your car, your children, your boss, or your clients.
Just as you would look at a messy house and say, “It’s time to clean this up,” it’s equally important to pay attention to an ache in your body and say, “It’s time to start taking care of this.” This requires a change in behavior and change requires conscious effort.
I’ve earned the right to talk about this because I spent the first part of my life going to doctors and therapists trying to get them to “fix” me. They helped, that is a fact, but I took no responsibility for having gotten that way in the first place. I sat in the dentist’s chair for example acting bewildered when told I had a cavity. The fact that I only brushed my teeth once a day and poorly at that seemed beside the point. Isn’t fluoride in the water supposed to prevent cavities? I chose to be a victim.
One of the more important things I’ve learned in my conscious effort to move from victim to victor is that, no matter what happens to me, I had a part in it and it’s important to take responsibility for whatever it was. Now, if I were in an earthquake, do I have a part in that? The surprising answer is “Yes” – I’m responsible for how I respond. I can be a victim or a victor and that’s the choice we each have in every situation.
Where are you currently behaving as a victim and how can you transform into a victor? Taking ownership for your life is very freeing and it’s an important component of self-care.
I don’t know about you but I’d really rather NOT be one of those old folks who goes to the doctor with muscles atrophied from lack of use saying, “I can’t understand why I’m so TIRED all the time. Can you give me something?”
We all have a small, active child inside of us who JUST WANTS US TO MOVE!!!! As you get more physically active, you will almost hear the child inside of you yelling, “Whoopee! We’re finally moving!!!” I’ve come to realize that most of my aches and pains, physical and mental, were sent by that impatient child, trying to get my attention!
Take five minutes, right now, and make a list of all the “upkeep” sorts of things you’ve done over the past month for: your car, your home, your clothing, your pets, your children, or other people. Now think what life would be like if you put yourself at the top of the list.
“That’s so selfish!” you might cry. And I say, “Yes, it is, and that is a good thing.” I don’t know when the concept of putting ourselves first got to be so negative. I suspect it was from people who wanted us to put them first so they taught us that self-care is bad.
When we practice passionate self-care, we accomplish several things:
- We take back control of our own well-being
- We set an example for others
- We begin to enjoy our own lives instead of living vicariously through TV or other entertainment
The most important thing that happens when we practice passionate self-care is that we are happier and proud of ourselves. And the Law of Attraction says, “You attract what you are.” The happier you are and the more empowered you feel, the more situations that match those feelings come to you. And that is the ultimate in Passionate Self-Care.