February 8, 2014

Every one of you has a breaking point.  And a place you ‘go to’ when you’ve hit the limit and believe you can’t handle one more thing.

Personally, when I hit that point I seamlessly ‘go to’ blaming.  Charming, huh?  I blame you, the system, the weather—if you/it would just cooperate and behave appropriately—everything would be just fine.

Your ‘go to’ place may be raging, becoming immobilized, spinning in overwhelm, being a victim, trying to control, convince, cajole or shame (them or you), or any number of self-defeating, unworkable mind games that have probably gotten you in some form of trouble at one time or another.

Learning that it’s no one else’s job to make me happy has been a lifelong challenge.  Way deep down inside I have this insidious belief that it really is your job to make me happy.  You can imagine how well that works for me when I put it into play in my relationships.

There is an alternative.  And it’s nowhere near as hard as the other.  It’s simply to set an intention to notice when my body tenses up in resistance to whatever is happening in the moment.  In other words, I notice what I do when I’m not getting my way.

And I literally stop, breathe, soften my jaw and my belly, and look at the situation again from a place of sanity, from the present moment.

With practice I’ve learned that I can catch myself when my mind has begun to once again take me to the land of ‘but you..’  This noticing has saved me over and over from turning momentary, uncomfortable feelings into EXTENDED AND PAINFUL SUFFERING.  Not to mention spared many of my most cherished relationships.

Whatever your ‘go to’ behavior is (and I really encourage you to sit with that question because I’ll bet it’s just as unworkable as mine) the goal is to notice it and do something different.  I recommend the following:  1) notice that you went there, 2) remember that whatever you come up with from that place won’t work, and 3) come back to the present moment so that you can deal with whatever’s going on from your wisdom mind, not your programmed and defensive (8 year old?) mind.

I’d love to hear about your ‘go to’ place and how being more aware of it has changed an outcome from ‘Oh no, not again’ to ‘Wow, I don’t have to wait for anyone or anything to change before I can be happy!’ .

Much love,