Take A Break From Negativity

I was just talking with my brother Eric, who lives in San Diego, about what's happening in our respective worlds. We were acknowledging how much polarised and polarising spin there is everywhere we look these days. Our TV screens are filled with constant hype judgements, and half-truths. Our newspapers, magazines, radio shows and internet social media's sites are awash with opinion and points of view and fear-filled rubbish masquerading as news.

It appears our media has become a breeding ground for strong judgmental opinion and fear-mongering asserted as truth; for made up and beat up stories that have a sliver of basis in fact and a whole raft of half-truths and heavily filtered points of view presented as the truth.

No wonder there is so much worry and stress and anxiety in our modern age. Everything is instantaneous and so whatever you think, feel or do can be made public and disseminated around the globe in mere seconds. Add to that the relentless flow of negative chatter that you ingest consciously and unconsciously every day and it's a recipe for high stress and dysfunction.

Eric's key message is pretty simple: "Take a break from negativity. Stop ingesting all the rubbish. Stop watching, reading and listening to all the crap. It does you no good and it's all made up anyway.
Turn off the TV and the PC and the mobile devices, play a game, talk to your family, sit and breathe, go for a walk, stare out the window ... just take a break."

Pretty simple. Flick the switch and take charge of your mind, your thoughts, your feelings and your knowing. Be loving, be open and choose what to feed your heart, your mind and your soul.

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"Garbage in, garbage out"

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Communicating Meaning Is Key

No matter what is going on, whether it be a disagreement with another person or tension in a group or war between nations ... the key to resolution is always, always, always communication - particularly communicating what you mean.

Everything starts and ends with some form of communication. Not just the words that are spoken or written but also the energy within that informs all your communication - the energy of you and the energy of the meaning you give everything, the energy of feeling called emotion generated by your thinking mind and felt in your physical body.

The whole you is always communicating something and when you communicate the whole of what you mean and intend, the other person (or people) have less room to make up stuff, less room to "mis-understand" you and less room to start a "war".

Always, always, always - the key to effective communication is whether or not you share openly, honestly, clearly, directly and completely in every interaction.

Once again, a simple formula that is often hard to enact consistently because your habit is to withhold something, usually how you really feel and what you really want!

So, say what you mean - give context - before you blah all the content. That way the other will get what you mean rather than just make up their own.

Say it all ... what you feel and what you think as well as what you want as an outcome of the communication and take ownership of the whole.

Go all the way, have the 100% conversation and take responsibility for whatever comes back ... respond from love and keep communicating until the energy shifts ... and it will when you take responsibility for the whole communication.

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"First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak."

Epictetus

How To Have Productive Meetings

In my communication culture work with business owners, leaders and teams one issue that arises again and again is “meeting madness”. You know what I am talking about...the seemingly endless meetings that litter your diary on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. There are meetings to talk about meetings, meetings to find out what’s going on, meetings to discuss this and that and meetings that seem to have no purpose or outcome, leaving everyone wondering what that was all about ...

This “meeting madness” of getting together without a clear purpose or outcome is a waste of everyone’s time and energy. The impact is “meeting reluctance” where people turn up but don’t show up, where people share some stuff but not themselves and where the experience is less than satisfying or complete. And often the end result is having to schedule another meeting to deal with what wasn’t addressed!

As always in the paradigm of cause, it is quite simple to create productive and effective meetings ... all the time, every time.

How To Have A Productive Meeting

1. Before you begin, make sure everyone present is actually in the room. Not just the skin-bag flopped in a chair, but really present, in their body, and ready to engage. Ask everyone to close their eyes and breathe for a few minutes.
2. Identify and communicate the purpose of the meeting.
3. Determine the outcome(s)/results required and/or desired.
4. If required, distribute an agenda prior to the meeting.
5. Decide on a timetable and stick to it.
6. Appoint someone to be responsible for keeping the meeting focused and on purpose.
7. Ensure everyone involved knows the purpose and outcomes before you begin.
8. Any items raised that are not on purpose/on the agenda get noted to be dealt with at a later date.
9. Before you begin, request everyone agree to keep the meeting on purpose, on time and to achieve the stated outcomes.
10. Review: agenda items completed/held over; action items and timelines allocated; meeting outcomes achieved.

When you are clear about your purpose and outcomes before you begin, meetings fulfill their purpose and everyone benefits.

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"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Creating Conflict

Avoiding conflict used to be my main go-to strategy when faced with the possibility of causing a reaction. I did not want to confront anyone with anything too emotionally loaded because I did not want to feel guilty, upset, or wrong.

A while ago, I realised that constantly withholding my deeper feelings and automatic reactions was not resolving anything. All that happened was more of the same, over and over again. And I still felt scared of what I was feeling and what you may feel if I ever revealed how I really felt. What a racket!

I decided it was time to stop avoiding conflict and instead, learn how to deal with it effectively. To begin with, my conflict resolution methods resulted in more conflict and lots of feelings. After many occasions of going almost all the way then pulling back ... again and again, I decided to stop avoiding the feelings (which only made them more intense all round) and go there anyway. Rather than shut down and withhold even more, I chose to keep breathing and keep communicating and keep feeling until the energy shifted and the conflict was truly resolved.

Until the next time ...

And there is always a "next time" as shown by my experiences over this past month. I would love to say that I have nailed it (whatever "it" is!) and conflict resolution is a breeze for me these days. Alas ... it is not. Sometimes resolution is fairly easy, yet lately, I have been deciding that what is occurring really is a very personal attack on me and I then feel wrong and upset and angry and all sorts of things I don't like to feel.

My avoidance and reactions to conflict simply show me where the "not-good-enough" context still informs my feelings and thus my behaviour. Much of my life I have feared being wrong so I have developed very sophisticated and elegant strategies for avoiding any conflict where I could be perceived as being wrong. And when I chose to stop avoiding conflict, I also chose (albeit without consciousness at the time) to stop avoiding this version of the "not-good-enough" stuff ...

And therein lies the loving intention in my choice to keep creating conflict: It provides many opportunities to fully acknowledge the "not-good-enough" stuff and return to love.

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"We often must become painfully aware of the unworkability of a pattern before we're willing to give it up."

Return To Love by Marianne Williamson

You Are Not Your Feelings

Who you are is perfect LOVE - pure, simple, boundless, limitless, joyous, expansive, creative, powerful ... LOVE.

Yet, what you often feel is anything but that ... AND yet, you are the one who chooses to feel the way you feel. Jill Bolte-Taylor made the observation that emotion (energy-in-motion) takes 90 seconds to complete it’s journey though you and be done. If any feelings lasts longer than 90 seconds ... you must be doing something to make them stay ... you start to feel something, then you agree with whatever meaning you make out of the feeling then you feel it even more and on it goes ... sometimes for a lifetime!

Now you may not like this or understand it ... in fact I can hear the silver-tongued fearful ego voice in your head saying ... ”this is nuts, I don’t choose all my feelings, sometimes other people just make me feel stuff”.

No they don’t. No one can make you choose anything you do not choose. You always have a choice even when you feel you do not. The truth about “I didn’t have a choice” is actually: “I did not like any of the other options so I chose the least painful/awful of what was available to me at the time”.

So, who taught you how to feel your feelings?
Where did you learn how to respond to what you are feeling rather than react?

My guess is ... no one did.
In fact, you have probably had little or no education or training in what feelings are, what they mean and how to use them as a resource for change rather than as a reason to stay wounded and suffering.

Consider this:  How much of your life have you spent feeling that you are not good enough - not worth enough, or deserving enough or pretty enough or smart enough or successful enough or strong enough or brave enough or lucky enough or quick enough or calm enough or ... just not enough?

Well enough of feeling not ok, enough of doubting your own loving heart, enough of choosing the illusion of fear when only love is real. Enough of pretending to be who you are not when the truth about who you really are is magnificent.

Step One:	ACCEPT and LET GO Choose to accept you are ok, lovable, valuable, powerful and unlimited EVEN WHEN you don’t feel it. Let go of needing to figure it all out rationally and just accept that you are LOVE and let yourself BE.
Step Two:	REMEMBER: FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS When you start to feel anything at all ... pause for a moment, take a breath, get present in your own body, breathe, and let the feeling (energy-in-motion) move through you - remember 90 seconds and the energy will shift. If you find yourself getting involved with your fearful thinking mind, tell yourself “this is just a feeling, it’s not a fact ... just because I feel X doesn’t mean X is true, it’s just true that I am feeling X and breathe ...
Step Three:	CHOOSE AGAIN Choose how you want to feel, what you want to do next and how you want to show up - then BE and DO what you have chosen. Revisit Step One often and Step Two as needed!

Whatever your story, wherever you are now, whatever has been before ... you are OK, you are perfect LOVE and you can experience this if you are willing to accept your magnificence and choose to live into WHO you are moment by moment, one loving breath at a time.

It’s really very simple ... but don’t mistake simple for easy. Sometimes simple is the hardest to do and yet, when you accept, surrender your resistance and simply choose to accept LOVE rather than fear ... well it starts to get pretty simple!

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"The highest feeling is the experience of unity with All That Is.
This is the great return to Truth for which the soul yearns.
This is the feeling of perfect love."

Conversations With God Book 1: Neale Donald Walsch

Whatever ...

Every year I choose a context for myself - the primary filter or framework I am consciously choosing to experience myself and my life from and within for the year. Whatever comes to mind first is what I choose ... and this year it was ... well ... "whatever ..."

I laughed!

How perfect for me for 2013 - year of whatever. Sitting with my choice I noticed I felt quite tickled by the possibilities of "whatever". If I am not attached to anything in particular, then whatever is perfect. So simple to see and say, so hard to do ...

"Whatever" is my shorthand for accepting that whatever is happening, is happening. It's about allowing, observing, noticing and being with whatever is already occurring. It doesn't mean I don't have a choice because I always have a choice. It does mean not attaching to my choice but rather letting myself BE with whatever is actually happening whether it looks/feels/is like my choice or not.

Mastering the moment-by-moment habit of accepting "whatever" is challenging to say the least. I am like a baby learning how to walk - I know I will become attached to particular outcomes and choices, expect things to happen in certain ways and feel a lot of things along the way. And whatever feelings arise, they too are just ... whatever!

What an exquisite paradox - letting things that are already happening, happen without needing to impose my conscious preference, expectation, desire or control on any moment while accepting that whatever is happening is my choice, my creation and it's perfect.

I know the value of support for me in my process on my journey so I invest in a range of things including daily exercise and fresh organic food, regular sessions with my healer/coach, daily meditation and time for me to "whatever".

Ultimately, simply BEING and accepting whatever produces inner and outer harmony and profound peace.

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"He who lives in harmony with himself,
lives in harmony with the world."

Marcus Aurelius

When Giving Isn't

Well here we are again ... the end of another year and the festive season is upon us - a time of peace and joy and giving ...

Or is it?

Giving is a choice ... a choice to freely give means to let go and expect nothing in return ... and that is the sticking point because so much giving really isn't. At this time of year giving has become synonymous with giving stuff and along with it goes the stress and frustration of shopping and spending money and battling crowds of people all hell bent on giving stuff too. And not just giving stuff but giving more stuff we really don't need or want to those who really don't need or want it either!

As Christmas looms, I have found myself confronting some old beliefs about giving including the polarising adage "it's better to give than to receive", which in the paradigm of cause, is utterly ridiculous because it is not possible to give without receiving ... two sides of the same coin! I have become acutely aware that sometimes I make choices to "give" when really I am not! As soon as I realise I expect something in return, I am confronted by the truth that my "giving" is really a trade-off, a tit-for-tat reaction that has nothing to do with giving. I usually end up feeling disappointed, resentful and/or angry because the choice I am actually making is not about giving ... it's about being attached to a particular outcome as a result of my "giving". And it never works.

So this Yuletide I am making a different choice: To give me, not just stuff or things, but me, the whole and the all in every interaction, in every situation. To give freely the love that I am without expectation of anything particular in return. I know that something will be returned and my choice is to detach from any expectation of form and instead to receive with ease and grace whatever shows up.

Nothing like a challenge to kick-start 2013!

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"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

Kahlil Gibran