I don’t know what happened, my writing left me. My writing comes at me, sometimes forcefully. I must write and I must write often. Somehow, it was gone last month, only shortly, but there it was, not there.
I didn’t want to write. Sometimes concepts would come, yet there they would go. In the background of my brain, I feel a coalescence of concepts growing. It goes forward on it’s own. It is as if I already know what I will write, yet it does not come to me.
February has always been a powerful month for me. Life changing. Maybe those thoughts are what was crowding my brain. I don’t know. But…
It’s the New Year and we are all ready to change our lives! I’m making 2020 the easiest year to change your life by giving you 20 Ways to make it happen.
To change your life, say yes to Love.
Love centers every interaction with calmness. When you love everyone, it changes how you think of them. It changes how you think of yourself.
To change your life, say yes to Abundance.
The world is full of abundance and anything you can wish for is available. Believing in abundance gives you abundance. Commit to challenging and changing beliefs that limit you by being about scarcity.
To change your life, say yes to Honesty.
Lies are obvious, you must be in denial to believe them. It is hectic and stressful to sustain lies, even if you are the receiving party. Honesty is easier and healthier. I dive deeper into honesty in this article, or refer to this book on the justification of lies.
To change your life, say yes to Responsibility.
Responsibility will bring you security. When you decide on responsibility, you give yourself a home and something to build upon. Do your part for those you love. If that means doing dishes, or picking up your dirty socks, do it!
Mermaid Walking
To change your life, say yes to Action.
Procrastination stops you from accomplishment, why indulge in procrastination? Step out of your own traps and complete your chores. Adopt the mantra “20 ways to change your life in 2020” to combat procrastination.
To change your life, say yes to Boundaries.
When you work, work.
When you play, play.
Circumscribe your activities with purpose.
Consciously choose what you absorb.
Focus on the moment, in the moment.
To change your life, say yes to Relaxation with a purpose.
Find your relaxation response, explore meditation, or yoga, or massage and acupuncture. Whatever your relaxation response is, use it.
To change your life, say yes to Yourself.
If you need to rest and recuperate, “No” is a complete sentence, say it.
Darkness is for Resting
Say yes to getting rid of your mad.
One event deserves only one mad: spend it wisely.
Don’t regurgitate your mad over and over and over again.
Once you have completed your mad, move on and don’t dwell. What you pay attention to absorbs your energy. You don’t want anger to be your calling card.
Where your attention goes, energy flows.
To change your life, say yes to Forgiveness
It has been said that unforgiveness is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Science tells us that unforgiveness leads to bitterness and that bitterness kills. Emmett Fox is the spiritual thought leader with extensive writing on forgiveness. If you want to explore the idea of forgiveness more, check out his book on Amazon.
To change your life, say yes to Self Love.
Be loving to yourself in thoughts, words and deeds.
Do whatever it takes to remind yourself that you matter and deserve love just for being you.
Don’t deny your true worth.
Do what you know is best for you.
To change your life, say yes to Self Care.
Stay on top of your stress, be aware of consequences of stress and take measures to ameliorate your stress! The 20 ways to change your life in 2020 is all about self care, you can incorporate any one of the ways into your self care routing.
Self Care
To change your life, say yes to Respect for yourself and others.
All interactions become positive with the addition of respect.
To change your life, say yes to Oneness.
Allow yourself to see that your spirit is a part of the whole; when you see this, your place in the universe becomes infinite and purposeful.
To change your life, say yes to Non-Violence.
Violence can be verbal, physical, mental or emotional. Leave violence behind to live longer and to keep your loved ones close. Violence separates humans from each other.
To change your life, say yes to Integrity.
The definition of integrity is the state of being whole and undivided. How wonderful it is to be clear and purposeful about your decisions in life?
To change your life, say yes to Imperfection.
Perfection will cost you your peace of mind. Allowing yourself to embrace the ups and downs of life will give you freedom.
Accept that you are perfectly imperfect.
To change your life, say yes to Communication.
Don’t leave relationship pain hanging. Pain leads to bitterness and we already know what bitterness does to us.
Unknown source
To change your life, say yes to Present.
Say good-by to the past. Science tells us that our memories are unreliable; it just doesn’t pay to look back and second-guess yesterday.
To change your life, say yes to Sleep.
Put your phone in the kitchen every night. The only exceptions are family member hospitalization, stock market in Japan or teenager out at a party. These exceptions are singular in nature, you can still place your phone in the kitchen at all other times.
For personal
goal setting it pays to have a bit of practicality. For example, if you are not
an athlete, you don’t want to try to run a marathon in 4 weeks or less, it just
won’t work. Most athletes will plan for a marathon for 3 to 5 months.
It should be
a “stretch”. It should be something special, something you have wanted to do
and have just not been able to do, for whatever reason.
Because it is a special goal, something that you want, you should be able to apply AbC: All by Commitment, you really want it, so you make a promise to yourself to get it done (broken promises eat away at your self-worth). If you can’t bring yourself to commitment, then give it up. Your internal voice will let you know if your goal is viable or not. Caveat: don’t overthink this!
The reason for commitment is simple; it’s to get you through
the times when you “don’t want to”. You don’t need commitment when life is
joyful and easy, you need commitment when you are tired, or lazy.
One other
thing you will need for effective goal setting is a feedback loop. You must
have a way to measure your progress. That’s easy if what you want to do is lose
weight, not so much if your goal is to “get in shape”. To be effective,
you need goals, and objectives that you can measure.
What’s the difference between a goal and an objective? A goal
is your overall want and your objective is a piece of that want. Back to
dieting: the goal is to lose 5 pounds; the objective might be to cut sugar out
of your diet. Cutting sugar out of your diet is a step towards the goal of
losing 5 pounds. See how that works?
Be aware of
your challenges and make sure that you don’t “bite off more than you can chew”.
Use the feedback loop to let you know if the goal is too difficult to
accomplish. Don’t give up! Moderate your goal and don’t let it become too
difficult to accomplish.
Tips to
Accomplish Your Goals in the Next 365 Days
Make your goal workable and reachable.
Make your goal special and make it a s-t-r-e-t-c-h, it should be a little difficult. Understand that goals should challenge you. Pushing through challenge is when growth happens.
Make a clear commitment and listen to your inner guide.
Make sure you can measure progress towards your goal i.e.:
Words written per day
Number of jobs applied for
Miles run
Classes attended
Envision yourself attaining your goals. Feel the feeling of successful goal accomplishment. Get after it!
I was
walking through a grand reopening at Aldi’s. The store was completely packed,
the grocery baskets were bumper to bumper. A couple of times, strangers reached
out to talk with me about little things like the aisle width or the temperature
of the store. Each time it happened, I panicked. I could feel my stomach
dropping and my fear escalating to the top of my scalp. The panic was for no
reason, no reason at all. Friendly people were just making comments in Aldi.
Something that happens in grocery stores every day all across America.
Ironically, back
at home (before the Aldi trip) I had just joined a chat room to assuage my loneliness.
It didn’t occur to me until later in the day how unreasonable my thinking is.
I am
completely reluctant, and even scared, to start a conversation with a stranger.
Even if that stranger is a little old lady in a grocery store, asking for help.
Online, I am fearless in my quest to find new friends. What gives? And why the
difference, panic versus fearlessness?
Part of what
is at issue with really reaching out to humans instead of computer screens is
that humans are messy. They need you at the most inconvenient of times. They
always call when you are busy and sometimes humans disagree with you.
You can work
through issues, but still not be level in real life. And this is one of those
instances.
“Trauma
compromises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of
connection with patterns of protection” – Stephen Porges
Why make the
effort to have real human relationships when, in the past, you’ve been hurt so
much? Real relationships require effort, compromise and even sacrifice. There
is an investment and there are times when that investment is a mistake; or it sets
you up for pain.
With quasi-relationships that are only real on my computer screen, I don’t have to make those sacrifices. I pick up my computer – when I feel like it. I respond to emails – when I feel like it. I provide comfort and support with words when I have the energy to do so, not when someone needs me to provide that support. That’s because I can put my computer away.
Obviously,
you cannot put your friend away anymore than you can put yourself away. Humans
don’t operate like that. We feel when we feel, we need when we need. Real
friendship develops after you have waded through the anxiety and pain of the
first few meetings. It is unwieldy and inconvenient.
Humans are
messy, demanding, blubbering and even bloody. When you love them, you might end
up spending time in their world and that world may not be as pleasant as your
own. *Gasp*, other humans can disagree with you and even disapprove of; or be
disappointed by a decision that you have made. That, my friends, can be
challenging.
And again,
there is that feeling of panic that accompanied the mild overture that the
little old lady in Aldi made towards me. Will I be hurt again, will she try to
put me down because she is unhappy, will she treat me like Betty, Sheila or
Jack? Ultimately hurting my feelings and treating me badly?
I have to weigh it all out, but in the end, I know that the only friendship worth having is a real friendship with a real human. One that can cause inconvenience, because she calls too late at night, one that can be annoying because she doesn’t approve of my OCD habits. I’ll choose a friend that can ask me for a favor at inconvenient times. The reason I do this is simple. My computer – no matter how much reading and chatting I do – doesn’t keep me company. The computer won’t hold my hand when I am sick, hug me when I am sad or sit with me when I need a companion. A computer can’t do those things for me. So, yes, I will. I will sacrifice the convenience of my life to have my companions. I will drive 100 miles, buy gifts when I have no money, listen when I have no time. For love. And I will keep on trying. Because, that hug is worth it.
Please stop saying “karma is
real”. It isn’t. When you say it, it implies that those people who have
suffered terribly with pain and loss, somehow deserved it, by just not being
good enough. If they had lived a good enough life, karma would not have zapped
them and made them suffer.
My mother worked all of her
life. She worked from the time she was sixteen until she had a stroke (between
shifts), as a bartender at age 67. She gave her love and her heart endlessly to
everyone. The funeral director who oversaw her service, told me that he had
never had anyone pass away, that brought so many visitors to his establishment.
The funeral home was crowded for hours and hours, with people who wanted to see
her one more time. She was so loved, and incredibly popular because of her
loving nature.
Make no mistake, my mother
never caught a break. She worked and worked and then she worked some more. She
was always tired and often discouraged. When her long time employer sold out;
he broke every promise that he had ever made to her. It was easy for him to do,
because as the owner, he had absolute right to disappoint her. Instead of a
retirement fund, he gave her a small bonus and sold her to the next bar owner.
Yes, much like slavery, my mother never had a say in her own life. Karma never
kicked in for her. She never received economic gain from her solid and
thoughtful hard.work.of.fifty.years.
She raised seven kids in a
harsh rural environment. And yet, she was the mother who took everyone
trick-or-treating. She was the mother who welcomed all of the disenfranchised
into her home. She was the mother who gave to all and anyone. She was lovely,
she was joyful, and she was tired.
Where was her karma? Why didn’t
she ever receive the good that she gave? It wasn’t for lack of love; she gave
that unconditionally and generously to anyone who crossed her path.
I say that about the sick, the hurt and those who have
suffered great injustices.
Where is their karma, why
haven’t they received good for their good? It is not the fault or even the
karma — of anyone who gets sick. Sickness travels the bodies
of anyone and everyone, without regard to human judgment or rules. Sickness is
a physical phenomena that will attack: rich, poor, ugly, beautiful, good, bad,
child or adult. Sickness does not care who it attacks. Sickness lays waste to
good lives, particularly here in America, where illness is expensive, very,
very expensive.
Hear this: there is no tit-for-tat of the universe.
Justice is a human construct.
Karma is not a reality that
westerners can adopt to make sense of their own world.
Why do so many people believe
in Karma? It’s our culture currently: the wealthy use it to justify their
riches and the bad use it to justify their crimes. Everyone in between is just
trying to get by.
What is real and what works?
Love works, plain and simple, love works. Loving and giving are always
rewarded. Yet, it is a reward of not rewarding. The rewards are deep and
profoundly felt by those who love and are loved.
Love works, and is a gift unto itself, has no reason.
You may want to receive because
of your love, but that is not real love. Love gives, and yet is not a reward.
Real love simply is. Full Stop.
Just get
over it. I’ve been agonizing this issue
for a decade…and it’s crazy how fast time flies.
I’m not even sure when it happened. How did I go from being sexy to being matronly? A body figure that is staying no matter what dieting and exercise I do. My body shape just is. I have a European body style inherited from my Irish/Italian mother: protruding stomach and no hips at all.
10 Years ago?
I fought the
matronly type tooth and nail, but guess what?
It has nothing to do with dress, it’s all about the body shape. The real problem is me: I just don’t want to
accept that my body doesn’t fit the sexy script of popular America.
Why and when
did this happen? My metabolism slowed
down to a zero. Even though I have
changed my entire diet dramatically and completely, I weigh the same as I did
when I was eating cake. It appears that
my metabolism is evolutions way of telling me that I am no longer useful as a
life producing and energy producing entity.
Dang.
It is my
resistance that is the restriction on my happiness. I spend hours shopping for the exact right
garment and nothing fits. It doesn’t fit
because, in so many ways, I am still shopping for the old me. No, I cannot wear spandex, no I cannot wear a
pencil skirt, no I cannot wear short shirts or short shorts, not if I want to
have self-respect. I keep returning
clothes, or even selling them on Thredup.
The older I get, the more of my old wardrobe is useless.
Now, I am
struggling with the wardrobe of retirement.
All of those sharp and stylish career looks are useless now. What just happened? First my body goes south on me (literally),
then my lifestyle is upended by a dramatic change: from the workforce to
my home + the grocery store.
Aww, darn
it, can I just add one more complaint?
It is hot here in Florida, and no winter for the past five years has
required a coat – none. We used to need
coats, if only for a week, here and there, not anymore. So, there goes another piece of my wardrobe
mishaps and disasters.
What do I
buy on my limited budget, without increasing the matronly perception? I don’t want to be defined by my look. However, in order to be real to myself, I
have to attend to my look. I am aware of
perceptions about me, particularly perceptions that are based on my look.
I care about
how I am perceived. How I look feels
important to me. I have read lots of
blogs about aging fashion. I do not feel
that they have assisted in any way. One
website suggested a uniform for my lifestyle.
Clothing manufacturers rarely assist older and larger women. There are few style choices: look trashy in
spandex or like a tent in polyester. Choices are limited and in order to create
a great look, I had to go to different places, and break into new ways of
thinking to come up with a plan. Many
style experts rely on scarves and sweaters to camouflage the older woman body
type. You just cannot do that in
Florida, unless you really want to look like a fool.
My old
stand-by is LLBean. I have purchased from them for decades. They are definitely stepping up their game in
blue jeans. However, I have difficulty
with getting a variety of tunic length shirts that fit just right. As with any clothing manufacturer, sometimes
a large fits and sometimes I need an extra large.
In part, I have had to change my beliefs around clothing. I used to have a dress-up section in my closet, it was a section strictly for working at the office. Since I have long been concerned with comfort, much of what is there is appropriate for errands and social gatherings. But, I have to change my beliefs about that clothing; it used to be off limits for weekends, or anything casual. I can dress this clothing down, just as I can dress it up. So now, the goal is to find more purpose and use out of clothing that previously had only one function. I also can redefine how I feel about clothing in general. I used to always be looking for sales on blouses and slacks and I always had a black skirt. Now, I don’t need that kind of pressure in my life, yet it’s hard to turn off after thirty years. Note to self: Don’t buy any more blouses, and, what do you need skirts for?
In the
meantime, I can wear that pretty blouse to a friend’s house, and slacks are
comfy when it’s chilly outside.
The biggest
belief change comes around and with my body. I don’t want to look like a
16 year old model – I really don’t. I also willingly relinquish that sexy look,
because it is so much pressure. If matronly is what it is, then I’m going to
love what it is. The truth is that it is important to redefine beauty in this
culture. Feminine beauty should not be a thing that magazines and men decide it
to be. Female beauty must be a thing that women decide, based on reality and not
another’s perception.
If you come across me and you make an attempt to dismiss me because I am matronly, don’t be surprised when I come back at you as valuable and attractive.
D’you see? There it is, even in that two-thousand year old book of mechanical law; it is a self-evident truth that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. We begin with equality. That’s the origin, isn’t it? That’s balance, that’s fairness, that’s justice.
You live your life based on
your beliefs and although you create your beliefs you may not know them. It is for this reason that you end up making
the same relationship mistakes over and over again. It is for this reason that you must recognize
your beliefs so that you can work with them, or get rid of them.
How do you recognize your beliefs?
How do you know that you even have beliefs that you are not aware of?
Do you keep on making the same old mistakes over and over again?
Do you repeat relationship mistakes?
Do you keep having the same relationship but with a different person?
Beliefs are reflected in actions (failed relationships) and in thinking (“it’s hard to find love”). It is in the thinking and in the actions that you can recognize your beliefs. Another way to recognize your belief systems is to review your spending. What are you spending money on? If a good amount of money is being spent on your home, you have a belief that your home is a priority in your life.
It is in the thinking that you can make real changes. It is in the action that you can make things different.
Do you feel that you are
worthy? Does your life reflect your
worthiness? Look around you, are you
feeling valued and validated? If you are
not, it could be your thinking, or it could be your actions, but for sure it is
your own beliefs. You may have a job
that pays well, yet you don’t feel valued there.
You may not believe that you
are valuable. That belief has led you to
thinking in a way that invalidates you.
When you receive a compliment you say “that was luck” or perhaps you say
to yourself “that Bill is always trying to butter me up”. So, you take a simple compliment that can
validate you and you turn it into something negative so that you can prove
your belief that you are not valuable.
Just like that, you have kept yourself down with your thoughts.
Truly, if you do not want to
hear something, you will not hear it. It
is as if you are deaf. This is your
subconscious refusing to change. Words
that you cannot “believe” will not be heard.
Again, this is you desperately hanging onto a belief that is no longer
real, no longer true. You may not even
be aware that you are doing this.
As a young person, did you
suffer betrayal? Did others abuse your
trust? Perhaps you formulated a belief
that people cannot be trusted. You will
always seek ways to reinforce this belief until you recognize your belief and
commit to experiencing your life in the new instead of in the past. All beliefs are made of the past. This does not mean that beliefs are bad, it
simply means that your life is better if you recognize them and make peace with
them.
Beliefs and thinking …. (I am worthless) Neutral event occurs(neighbor gets a promotion)….emotions occur (discouragement)….thinking that reinforces beliefs (I am worthless) and thinking closes the loop.
JB Drawing
New events get routed through
the same old belief systems that were in place before the new event occurred.
An example of this might be a
young person who loses some money.
Because of their own beliefs about their own self worth, the internal
dialogue might be “I’m worthless, I can’t hang onto anything, I’ll never have
spending money.” Instead, as a neutral
event, the response might be “I’ll have to retrace my steps and find that
money, I think I’ll call the restaurant where I ate.”
The first person started out with a negative belief about self and used the neutral event of losing money as a means of reinforcing the negative beliefs the person already had about him/herself. The second person took a neutral event and went straight to taking action about it.
JB Drawing
In order to stay out of the same old treadmill, being open to what is actually occurring in the present moment is a must. This requires a neutral position rather than a judgmental position. This is a difficult task. Putting the past in the past is a major accomplishment.
I’ve heard it and read it a million times. This generation of kids doesn’t want to or
isn’t growing up. Millennials are
hanging out and living in their parents basements way past the time of the
previous generation. Of course, there
are economic reasons for this, yet there is also a hesitation by this
generation, to get out there and do life.
It crossed my mind, based on reruns, and particularly “Friends”
reruns that maybe Millennials received a very strange message about growing up
from TV. These six gorgeous people grew
up, got apartments close to each other, limited incomes made them roommates –
and they proceeded to have a wonderful life.
Friends kept this charade going for ten years. They led millions of young people to believe that life was about having fun. There was very little emphasis on the real world or any real problems. This isn’t an indictment of the show, it simply is a comment on what we were all viewing for all of those years: white people, always happy, never used drugs, no children, job free, but wealthy, in fashion and always, always perfect friends. In other words, no reality. These six people never really got married, they barely had children, never did laundry, cleaned toilets, or had harsh illnesses. Their lives were a dream of perfection where insurance was completely unnecessary.
Public Domain
So, if millennials have wrong ideas about life, who can blame
them? We parents perpetrated those
beliefs by participating in the popularity of our televised culture.
This is the point of view of those who would want to maintain life
as it always has been. Another point of
view is that millennials are here to teach us something. We (parents) moved forward lockstep the same
as our parents did. Perhaps our millennials
are telling us that our culture should change.
Baby Boomers followed instructions too much. We moved forward as expected instead of forward
to our dreams and potentials.
Millennials are also making a very important point. We Baby Boomers languished in our capitalism for a little too long. We have been passive believers in a culture that has gone way wrong. We allowed our children to become victims of predatory capitalism and now they struggle just to get by. They aren’t in a hurry to live their parents life.
“Friends” really was nothing but a white culture’s entertainment. It should not be any indication for reality and in no way should we allow our young people to believe it is anything other than a fun non-reality show. Life does not mirror the show in any way.
