Memory Foam Happiness

A memory foam mattress has a way of molding to the body that lies on it and forms a memory through the heat and pressure applied by that body. It is said that the comfort derived from sleeping on this mattress is bar none. This got me thinking about happy moments in my life and how the pressure from those moments on my emotions and memory cause such incredible feelings of happiness that when I am enveloped in that moment nothing else matters. The longer I stay in that memory the more I remember the beauty and the extravagance of that encounter and the more it creates a mold of comfort and joy around me.

As human beings, there is a strong pull to focus on the negative things in life and those areas of life that's not working for us. Science is showing that our brains and the way we think are structured and molded by what we focus on, give attention to, and rehearse. These patterns in our brains are called neural substrates. We create highways in our brain by how we think, and how we think becomes the vehicles that carry the cargo of our emotions, which is expressed by the way we respond to life. Have you ever noticed that people who focus on the negative things in life are grumpy, hard to be around and do not like themselves very much? It does not take much for them to revert to their negative and grumpy states -where even a harmless look from a passerby can be interpreted poorly and they find themselves immediately in a state of discouragement. The brain of this person is like that memory foam mattress, which is responsive to that familiar negative thinking and feeling pressure.

The great news is that our brains are responsive and malleable and can be trained to respond to different ways of thinking. By training your brain and changing your mind you are able to defy your genetic predisposition. You don’t have to be like your angry mother and depressed father. Choose to focus on what is working, as well as the good things that are happening in your life today. Scientific evidence is showing that the longer you stay with a happy memory, the longer you allow your senses to absorb the effects of that happiness, then the easier and quicker it is for you to get to that happy place again. This is true for when people say, "That just took me to my happy place". What is your happy place? For me it is often the birth of my children and my marriage but today I am thinking of my girlfriends who tease me about the way I pronounce things. I am smiling and thinking about ways I can be with them again and recreate those memories. I am molded and enveloped by the warmth of their love, acceptance, sisterhood and joy. I am choosing to stay with this memory 10 seconds longer as I write so that my brain cells respond to this stimulation of happiness and forms a stronger and more active memory so that I am able to access what is great and what is noble and joyous in my life quicker than what is negative and not working.

Find your happy place today and stay there just a few seconds longer, let your family, friends, colleagues and the stranger in the coffee shop become curious about that smile on your face :)

Cooperate be Thankful Embrace and Change

I was struck by this quote that I came across this week. I tried finding out who the author is/was so I could give credit to this person but was unsuccessful. Author unknown - allows each of us to have creative latitude with this quote as we own it in our own unique way through our own unique journeys.

         "I'm thankful for my struggle, because without it 
          I wouldn't have stumbled across my strength" (Author Unknown)

It does not cease to amaze me how as human beings we will do whatever we can to avoid "our struggles". The contradiction here is that we were born through struggle. Every contraction was precipitated by pain, a commitment to focus and a will to push through the pain while cooperating with the contraction. Any woman who has given birth knows that resisting the contraction can result in compromising the life and health of both the baby and the mother. When we cooperate with the contraction it makes for safer and healthier outcomes for mom and baby. To cooperate with the contraction means to embrace the pain in a way that allows your body to do what it was created to do - to bring forth new life. Thankfulness is much like cooperation in that they both require that we embrace what we need to embrace when we need to embrace it, so that we can shift from where we are to where we need to be.

Often times we get trapped in the pain of our struggle so much so that we lose sight of the new life which is before us. During delivery a woman will often lose focus during the "transition phase" of delivery where she will want to give up, where she will say to her partner how much she needs him one minute and chase him out the room the next. The pain in the process seems unbearable and just when she thinks she has no more strength she is told to breathe and push one last time. In an instance the atmosphere shifts from tension, hopelessness and fear, to hope, joy and celebration the second the baby's cry is heard.

You will never know what you are capable of if you constantly resist your struggle. Struggle is a life contraction that is designed to bring you into a new place. The more you resist it the harder life will be. You will not only compromise your strength but the new life you incubate. Embrace the struggle in a way that will allow your body, mind and spirit to enter this new place that is designed to reveal your strength, bring you joy and fulfillment, and allow you to experience new life - a new way of living.  Go on then - that thing that you have been resisting give it a big embrace, welcome its challenge, cooperate with the pressure of formation that accompanies it and see the new you emerge in a new place...so many opportunities await you there :)

Keys to Identifying and Cultivating Meaningful Relationships

I am finding that more and more people have a longing for meaningful connection. This innate desire for a depth and quality of relationship has no discrimination. Those who are single and those who have partners desire for genuine relationships that offer safety, validation and confirmation of self-worth and value - a space where individuals are free to be themselves.

It is no surprise that scientific evidence is showing that our earliest relationships build brain structure and influences how we relate throughout life. Neural circuitry encodes our relational experiences between 12 through 18 months and determines unspoken rules, templates and patterns for relating. It explains why we do not remember specific details about why we respond to certain relationships the way we do as our responses flows from the imprint of neglect, abandonment, fear, security or safety we encountered in our earliest development.

Once you understand this about yourself, you are better able to change and regulate your behaviour. Choose to challenge what you "feel" with what is "true" about those in your world right now. Don't avoid people who care about you because you fear rejection particularly when they have consistently shown you that they care. Risk being authentic - defy feelings and anxiety about not being liked because," if people really knew what you are like they won't like you." People are attracted and gravitate towards authenticity rather than fear and anxiety. Lastly, the people who confirm your worth, those who you don't have to perform for or act a certain way with, to gain their acceptance- are those who are meant to be in your life.

I taught my daughters this value principle as they became young women that, "those who confirm your value are those who you allow to remain in your life, because those who come into your life and give you value are those who can take value with them when they leave your life." In such circumstances, individuals often feel lost, worthless and confused when people who supposedly cared, walk away from their lives.

Once you are secure in yourself and understand your value you will be able to make better choices about the types of relationships you want and need in your life, as opposed to the ones you tolerate or endure. This will assist you in never settling or allowing others to be regulators of your self-worth and value. Take responsibility about how responsive and vulnerable you would like to be to cultivate meaningful relationships with those who see/confirm your value. Shut off the valve for "value depleters" in your life and observe how the quality of relationships that surround your life improves, flourishes and empowers you.

Living or Sleepwalking

Too many people walk through life oblivious to the many opportunities that exist in their day to impact their world in positive way.

Too many people wake in the morning with no sense of direction for their lives.
Too many people walk around purposeless and unfulfilled.
Too many people die with their dreams and potential locked away in them. 
Too many people believe that their social, physical and mental lack is their lot in life.
Too many people live without hope trapped in their inabilities and suffocating without a way out of their circumstances. 
Too many people are so busy surviving their lives that they have stopped living them.

Too few people hear, " you matter, there is a better way, how can I help you ?" 

 You can make a difference if you choose not to sleep walk through life.

We have been lulled to sleep by the busyness of life. Our self-absorption hinges on the fulcrum of us enduring our days as we go from one event to the other, overstimulated by the various demands on us to live the lives we created. This over-stimulation often puts us into a catatonic state that is marked by an unresponsive stupor where we are indifferent to external stimuli. We sleepwalk through our world oblivious to the needs, suffering and opportunities which exist for us to make a difference every day. 

A smile, an act of kindness, making a phone call to connect someone to a job opportunity, offering a helping hand to a single parent, choosing to sit with someone five minutes longer and making a phone call to encourage someone you know is struggling, are all little ways by which we can break out of our self imposed stupor and add value to the way we live our lives.  By living responsively we truly begin to live this life in a meaningful way. 

Will you continue to sleepwalk through the life of your making or will you choose to live?  Commit to making a difference today. Start small, make that phone call to a friend you have not spoken to in a long while. You will find that you will slowly start to come alive. Slow things down; live consciously and with purpose and take a hold of the many opportunities to make your life count today. A life without meaningful interaction is after all ....sleepwalking.

Red Lipstick

Why did it not feel like I worked yesterday? I was up at the crack of dawn thanks to my industrious and conscientious husband. I followed my morning rituals with great haste, stumbled out the door in my typical drunken morning haze with my briefcase, lunches, and photo shoot kit. I was already mentally navigating my day. Strategic insight, foresight, side sight and all the in-between sightings of any potential road blocks or unexpected curved balls. I had to drop my daughter off at school, drop my husband and two dogs off at the office without drawing too much attention from any passerby or the bylaw officer while lugging a massive dog bed the size of a small planet for our visiting boxer up a long flight of stairs. I hurried back to our temporarily illegally parked car but could not find the keys. I take a huge risk and leave the now unlocked and illegally parked car unattended and run up the never ending flight of stairs to our office. My dapper husband in his purple overcoat meets me at the landing and is totally oblivious that somehow he had removed the car keys and hidden them in his super fine coat. How could I be irritated with such a picture of man and boy as he excitedly discusses how he plans to keep "the boys" (the boston and his pal the boxer) busy today. I stick out my hand and instinctively he reaches in his magnificent coat and hands me the keys sheepishly.

I am off to the races ... I mean my photo shoot seriously perturbed about having to interrupt my day to get pictures taken for advertising and promotion. I am about 5 minutes out of town when I realized that I did not have my change of clothes. Biting down on my bottom lip I did a legal u turn ... I think and head back home. I stumble up the stairs grab the clothes hung on fancy slip proof hangers and stumble down the stairs into my car, still staggering on my inability to catch up with my morning. I have an hour to regroup before I meet the photographer. I arrive safely apart from being a bit rain soaked. Immediately I am aware of the location, struck by the charm and historic value of the building. I meet my enthusiastic photographer who had many creative ideas that we incorporated into our session including one moment when she risked drowning and water logging her camera to go outside and take a shot of me through the window pane. The last plan was for me to change and step outside for a fun pic with a shawl and umbrella. Before we left Danielle offered me red lipstick and a brush.

As I started applying the red lipstick I realized that it has been years since I had used red lipstick. So much of my life has been a blur these past years and I have felt like a hamster on a wheel. I typically apply lip gloss on the go and sometimes even forget to these days. Putting on the red lip stick  reminded me of the importance of adding a pop of colour into my fast becoming "neutral" world of mundaneness (this word was created today to describe my feelings ). Even though nothing had changed, in essence EVERYTHING had changed my energy and attitude changed. I was able take a moment and be present with myself and enjoy a cup of coffee with a new friend at this magical spot in Trail, British Columbia without feeling the need to rush to that next thing. It was exhilarating to disconnect from the To Dos in my head and actually taste what I was drinking as I smiled at the bright red stain left behind on the stark white coffee mug.

Give yourself that gift of being present with yourself today. Go and get yourself a stick of bright red lipstick  or whatever else will remind you of slower and more meaningful days, and connect with yourself first. To the degree we connect with ourselves to that degree we are able to connect with others .... all that from a stick of red lipstick - go colour your world :)  

What You Don't Own About Yourself - Will Own You

No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born - —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is not uncommon for me to hear from the people that I work with statements such as, "he makes me so angry, she frustrates me so much, if he came home on time I would not be so jealous and insecure, and if my boss was kinder to me I would work a lot harder".

As long as behaviour is justified, it cannot be corrected. The greatest value in gaining freedom from certain behaviours is acknowledging its existence in your life. Situations and circumstances do not "cause" you to be angry, jealous, lazy, rude, impatient or aggressive. They typically reveal who you are in those circumstances.  Failure to acknowledge these traits and their existence in your life will allow them to continue to have influence and control over you. Many people are owned by anger, fear, pride, insecurity, jealousy and inferiority because they refuse to own or acknowledge that these existed in them long before they were triggered and exposed by external circumstances.What triggers you is in you,  and is a wonderful clue to what needs to be owned by you so that you can live responsively instead of re-actively.

The quickest and easiest way to manage what currently manages you is to be courageous and brave enough to recognize that what is triggered in you exists in you already. Become curious about your reactions don't disown them. When I owned that anger existed in my life I stopped being owned by it. I was empowered to manage and redirect its expression in useful ways rather than being governed by it. Placing blame on others and circumstances is typically how anger expressed itself through me. I stopped holding up my visa to  being angry and began to confront its presence in my life. I was no longer clueless. At the end of the day, "It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up." 

What you own about yourself you can change. In the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry to live this way, "Is to be slowly born". Owning the things about ourselves that we dislike or are ashamed of inadvertently causes us to give birth to our new selves. New patterns replace old ones and living a totally new and different life is possible.

 

The Value of Making Failure Your Friend

In a world where perfection is an ideal that most aspire to, failure is seen as an enemy and as something that opposes success and happiness with a whole bunch of shame attached to it. The culture of the day is that failure is to be avoided at all costs. Somehow over the years failure has come to be seen as a happening or event that limits, depletes and devalues a person's worth.

Milton Erickson wrote that, "Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy". This got me thinking about how failure brings with it a responsibility. The privilege of failing allows for the greatest growth, if we choose to learn and grow. Every negative experience in your life such as financial stress and relationship failure all become the vehicle by which learning can occur. If you see failure as a teacher and embrace the lesson within each experience you will shift to a new place, a different place and bigger place - you will be enlarged and your potential will be unlocked. When failure is seen as an enemy, holding patterns of frustration, anger and fear emerges that shrinks and diminishes the world of those who will not embrace it.

Embracing the things and events in your life that has caused you the deepest pain and the highest stress as noble teachers and fine friends is the first step to "creating joy". I have grown stronger and become wiser from my deepest failures. In those moments of my life I have learned most about myself. I have become more authentic, more at peace and more creative. By embracing failure I have allowed it to process me in a way success never will. In this way failure has come to work for me and while I dislike the discomfort that accompanies its presence in my life I know by embracing it as a friend I am setup to ascend, to shift and be become my true self. So failure becomes a clue of what we must get through in order to become who we were meant to be - our best and original selves :)