Tag: broaden & build

Categories
hope mindset Positive Psychology

The Thing with The Feathers: HOPE

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.   

Barbara Kingsolver

the worst

I saw an interview from 2012 in which Michael J. Fox said that if you imagine the worst, and it actually happens, you lived it twice.

And—no small thing—this is coming from a guy who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at just 29 years old, at a time (1991) when he’d become both one of America’s favorite sweethearts and one of the most successful young actors in the world. Despite his diagnosis and many (many) setbacks in the 30+ years he’s been living with it, Michael has managed to grow four kids with his beloved wife, raise more than $1 billion for Parkinson’s research and advocacy, write three best-selling memoirs, and even continue acting. Is his disease degenerative, and getting progressively worse? Yes. Has he been spending a lot of time going back to a more difficult future by imagining (and reimagining) The Worst? Obviously not. You can’t do all this stuff if that’s what you’re focused on.

When you get stuck imagining The Worst, two Very Bad Things tend to happen:

1.

You have the unpleasant and unfair experience of tricking yourself into feeling The Worst Feelings in whatever actual moment you’re in. So rather than feeling, say, your dog snoring in your actual lap, or the warm cup of coffee actually in your hands, or the weird, fizzy near-actual euphoria of your sneeze, you’re making something (worse) up to feel, and experiencing that, instead.

2.

By rehearsing the feelings associated with The Worst, just like anything else you practice, you get better at feeling them. Anxiety? You get better at it. Despair? You get better at it. Anger, jealousy, sadness? Better, better, better at it. Instead of practicing being present with your feelings (or maybe even imagining your way into even better ones), you’re conditioning yourself to more easily feel The Worst.

If it seems crazy—that’s because it is!

the best

So why on earth do we kick ourselves OUT of the moments we’re IN so that we can time-and-space-travel into imaginary lousier ones? It’s not nice, it’s not rational, and it’s not helpful–but it’s totally natural. It’s called WORRYING, which essentially means using the remarkable power of your imagination for bad instead of good. Did you know that the origin of the word “worry” is Old English wyrgan, meaning “strangle” ?!

If we’re going to hop in the DeLorean and travel to a future that hasn’t happened yet, we need to choose one that helps our present-self breathe a little brighter and better instead of strangling it.

Our brains are wired to protect us, which means they mobilize all of our resources to save us from danger when it jumps out from behind a bush (a.k.a. the Stress Response). But when you’re focused on danger (including danger that isn’t even actually there), your higher brain functions—such as those governing impulse-control, creativity, empathy, and the ability to think both straight and broadly—effectively switch OFF.

By following the paths illuminated by hope instead of fear, we improve our ability to imagine what “better” might be like—and to feel, think, and problem-solve our way toward it.

We often assume The Worst when we’re afraid or unsure about how something will turn out, because we think it will help us avoid future pain or disappointment. But assuming The Worst doesn’t help us avoid those things. Worrying keeps us stuck. (If you’ve ever felt strangled by your worries, raise your hand.) Pain and disappointment are part of life, and instead of using our energy fretting and what-if-ing in a mostly futile attempt to avoid them, what we need is to keep our chins up and develop strategies to keep hope alive in our lives as they are, no matter what.

Our best bet is to put our energy (our vote!) into hoping for The Best, because imagining and preparing for that is what allows us to live it.

While we may not be able to control all that happens to us, we can control what happens inside of us. 

Benjamin Franklin

the little bird

The poet Emily Dickinson famously wrote:

‘Hope’ is the thing with the feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops – at all —
And sweetest in the gale is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little bird —
That kept so many warm —
I’ve heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest sea —
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Emily Dickinson

She’s right about the crumbs; it doesn’t cost us anything to hope.
Actually, it costs a lot not to.

We tend to think of our habits as repeated actions, which they are—whistling, humming, smoking, slumping—but most of our habits are much less tangible than that. What drive our habitual behaviors are our habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and reacting. And I’m going to go out on a limb here (surprise!) to suggest that just as worrying is a habit, hope can become a habit, too.

so what does it mean, then, to live inside our hope?

refocus

It means putting your hopes, instead of your fears, in the foreground. It means bending your energy and attention toward the light of your hopes whenever you feel yourself leaning into The Worst.

superhero

It means having the courage (and audacity!) to get in the habit of visualizing, planning for, and taking steps toward The Best. Using the power of your imagination to fight evil instead of inviting it.

reality check

Living inside our hope means getting real:

The Best is often just as possible an outcome as The Worst, but our fears keep us from hoping for it.

But when did disappointment kill you? It didn’t, it doesn’t.

In a recent talk, I heard Queer Eye‘s Karamo Brown say, “You’ve survived 100% of the challenges you’ve faced.” And I thought, whoa, STOP right there. . . he’s right! Take a moment to consider this. IT’S TRUE! It’s unequivocally true. Every hardship, heartbreak, loss, scary thing, setback, letdown, curveball, calamity. . . you’ve survived them all. You’re scared, I’m scared, everybody’s scared. We need to get over it. Being scared isn’t the problem–it’s part of living, we survive it–the problem is what happens when you let fear dictate your outlook, your attitude, your art, your actions: your field of vision gets narrower, your world gets smaller and smaller, until—blink! Where even are you?

Courage means feeling your fear and doing things anyway.

I think living inside your hope, right under its roof, means to stubbornly imagine The Best, no matter what, and to continue taking whatever baby bunny steps, whenever and however you can, toward it. And to remember to enjoy the process—because the process is your life.

“Can I just keep going in this adventure? Because if the worst I’ve had is as bad as it gets, it’s been amazing.”  

Michael J. Fox, New York Times, 2019

Breathe, love, be well, and stay tuned for more! xo, ali

Want to learn more? Let’s connect! I offer complimentary consultations and would love to explore working together.

LET’S CONNECT!
Categories
mindset Positive Psychology relationships

Talking toast, taking care, tiny wonderful things: RELATING

toast

One of my dad’s favorite stories to tell about me as a little kid is that I regularly talked to my toast. I’d be sitting at the kitchen table by myself and he’d overhear me and the jelly toast carrying on in whispers:

“You’re not going to eat me, are you? Don’t eat me!”

“But I have to eat you, Mister, I’m hungry!”

“Wait, hey! Owch! Come on.”

“I’m really sorry! But you’re my breakfast!”

Cute? Yes. Slightly wicked? Maybe. But it was sort of like we had a funny little friendship going on – and it was kind of a game. I knew that, ultimately, the toast understood that no matter how it tried to con me otherwise it was, in fact, breakfast, and would end up being nibbled.

Even as an adult, I have a habit of sort of making secret friends with stuff. I often genuinely feel bad for inanimate objects that seem to have been hurt or discarded. Seeing a branch being sawed off a tree makes me cringe as if I’m watching a person getting their finger lopped off. I reflexively whisper, “Sorry! Thank you!” when I pick flowers or prune my lilac bush. I rescue spiders from the sink. I don’t (usually) talk to my toast anymore, but I definitely talk to my houseplants. And (constantly!) my dog. And the birds. And the trees. I pretty much talk to anything with whom I have some kind of relationship, which is to say. . . everything.

take care

It might seem silly and overly sensitive (and to some degree, it’s both), but we could do worse than treat the things of our lives with a little extra empathy and charity. Because the real thing is: it’s not just about how the toast or the tree feels—it’s also about how we feel.

It’s about how interacting warmly and compassionately with things cultivates a loving quality of attention, and how that quality of attention doesn’t just support us in our daily interactions with things, but spills over into our relationships with ourselves, our creative work, and with other people.

One of my favorite Zen sayings, which I repeat to myself often, is How you do anything is how you do everything. So maybe it’s no small thing, then, being polite to your breakfast!  

Caring for each other isn’t just about how we care about people, or even the pets or plants in our lives – it’s about cultivating a respectful and affectionate way of being in the world as well as with it.

To improve and maintain our relationships with one another, we have to practice care and respect for all the things to which we are related (everything!) and maintain the awareness that it’s all connected.

savoring

One practice we can use to cultivate a higher-vibe quality of attention is called SAVORING, a process of slowing down enough to really taste not just a perfectly ripe strawberry or just-baked sugar cookie, but any pleasant experience, all of them. There are amazing things happening around and inside of us all the time, but we’re often monkeying around too much to notice them. Or if we do happen to notice (damn, that was a good berry!) we’re zooming by too quickly to really experience it. Our primitive brains are wired to pay attention to the rough stuff so we can rally the internal troops, if and when need be. (In psychology, this is known as ‘The Negativity Bias‘.) But the good stuff? We have to practice bringing it front-and-center, or we risk missing much of it entirely.

The ‘savoring’ practice is pretty simple.  Here’s how to do it:

notice

Notice when you like something – a sensation, a scent, a passage in the book you’re reading, a joke. To practice, just look around for things you like! A color here, a sound there. An emotion. A texture. The feeling of your feet tucked into your soft socks. It doesn’t matter much what it is—it doesn’t have to be grand or profound. Big things are great, but there are tiny, wonderful things happening all around us all the time. If you train yourself to snag on them, you begin to snag on them without even meaning to.

stop

Stop and notice how the ‘I like that’ feeling feels, and lean into it. Pay attention both to the feeling and to the thing you snagged on. A weird cloud. An interesting passerby. The way your dog is looking at you like he is writing a love song about you in his head. I know you think you don’t have time to stop, but you do! It doesn’t take long. Just a quick pause to allow the light of your full awareness to shine on something that sparks your curiosity or care, and that you’re going to miss if you don’t slow down.

linger

Linger on the object of your attention and the pleasant feeling it’s stirring up. Savor it! Allow yourself to feel suspended there for a moment, floating in the feeling for a breath or two. Get a little air. Give a quiet thanks that you get to experience this, whatever it is, that it’s part of your day and, as such, your life. When you’re ready, continue on your way with this pleasant feeling tucked under your arm like the little float that it is – if you remember to let it lift and carry you. Feel its lift and carry.

Practicing savoring things we like and love not only gives us a boost and helps us experience the world in a richer way, but it activates and trains our liking/loving muscles, which affects how we treat and feel about all the things and people in our lives–and how they, in turn, feel to and about us.

[IN THE NAME OF LOVE]

With practice, it gets easier to come more peaceably to the less pleasant things, too, with more compassion and patience, because our general way of being is both softened and strengthened. Being able to be more present with things is a skill that can be both profoundly subtle and sweepingly, dramatically transformative, and is an excellent strategy for starting to improve your life and relationships right away. Look up! Look around. You can start right now.

miracles

The famously colorful poet and playwright Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying,

Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.

And many of us were taught as children to

Treat others as you’d like to be treated.

In his book Your True Home, Thich Nhat Hanh, the beloved Zen master, scholar, peace activist, and teacher, sums up one of the basic principles of Zen practice by saying:

Around us, life bursts forth with miracles–a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. . . when we are tired and discouraged by life’s daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.

The lesson here in all of it, I think, is something like this:

Treat things like they’re extraordinary, because they are. There is magic all around you. If you want to experience it differently, pay a different kind of attention. If you want the world to feel friendly, make friends with it.

Breathe, love, be well, and stay tuned for more! xo, ali

Want to learn more? Let’s connect! I offer complimentary consultations and would love to explore working together.

LET’S CONNECT!
Categories
creativity mindset relationships

The Bummers, the Muppets, And Changing the Tape: Self-Talk

Everyone has an inner critic. Some of us have a whole garage band full of them! Self kindness and care is fundamental to happiness and success in all areas of life, and we can’t take good care of ourselves without addressing and managing the way we talk to ourselves. We can tune our inner radios to stations that can either cheer us on or cut us down – and we get to choose.

But how?

According to meditation teacher Jeff Warren, using “humor and irreverence to good-naturedly undermine the authority of our inner critics” is one of the best ways to shush our internal negative self-talk—and give ourselves the space and courage to get on with it already, whatever ‘it’ is, without the running negative commentary that bums us out and hedges us in.

Here’s how to do it.

HOW TO UNDERMINE THE INNER CRITIC


1. NOTICE when the negative tape starts playing and your inner critic chimes in (my hair is too big and I’m going to fail at life today? Ohhhh-kay, wait a sec.)

2. NAME it / give it a funny persona (the possibliities are endless—some examples below!)

3. UNDERMINE it by good-naturedly imitating it in the voice of the funny persona, which softens its authority, allows you to stop taking it so seriously, and maybe even cracks you up, instead.

why this is useful:

– We train ourselves to NOTICE the inner critic instead of mindlessly listening to it all the time, and by noticing it we can choose to react differently to it.

– By using lightheartedness and humor, the critic’s AUTHORITY starts to collapse and we can see it for what it really is: a bossy and unhelpful voice in our head that makes us feel smaller and less capable than we actually are and can be or become.

– It can brighten the moment and our mood, and even make us laugh, giving us a little HAPPINESS BOOST instead of bumming us out – and we know from Positive Psychology that happiness actually opens us up and allows us to think more clearly, calmly, and creatively.

PERSONAS

Jeff calls this process ‘The Swedish Chef Trick’ because when he notices his own inner critic chime in, he imitates it in the voice of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets (“Merndi shmerndi berndi…!”). I’ve tried this one and can attest to both its hilarity and its power. Another celebrated meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, think of her inner critical voice as well-meaning but self-important Lucy from the Peanuts cartoon and, rather than imitating it per se, uses the refrain “Chill out, Lucy” whenever she notices the voice start fussing up.

I’ve always had a particular affection for the cheerful spirit and good-natured humor of the Muppets, so I’ve been thinking of my own inner critics as those two guys in the balcony—remember them? The tall one (Statler) and the short one (Waldorf) who are always wise-cracking each other and razzing everybody from their little perch up above the action?

That’s pretty much what our inner critics are doing if left unchecked. They hang out in the background with their popcorn and do this running critique of our show.

By putting my inner criticisms into the voices of Statler and Waldorf, shouting back and forth and heartily “ho-ho-ho!”ing at their own cheeky wit every time, I can see the nonsense of it all for what it is, and I can even laugh about it. These two ridiculous old fellows are hanging out in my head, uninvited, acting like they’re experts while trying to out-zinger each other and sometimes falling out of their seats? I think they’re in charge?! Give me a break. These guys are hilarious—and they aren’t even the real issue.

“Our inner voices are not the problem,” as Jeff says. “The problem is the authority we invest in them.”

try this:

Give your inner critic(s) a name and persona.

Spend some time today trying to notice when your inner critics are piping up and then imitate their critique in this persona. Notice how you feel when their authority is undermined. You can also try Sharon’s brilliantly simple refrain, “Chill out, Lucy” (or Waldorf, or whomever).

Next, see if you can add someone else into the mix: an inner cheerleader.

Make a list of 3-5 characters, real or imagined, who you love and admire, and who you’re 100% certain do or would have your back. (Some of my inner cheerleaders are: my very favorite teacher from my 21 years of school, writer Toni Mirosevich; Gandalf, from The Lord of The Rings; the inimitable Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye; and my cherished-from-afar Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh).

Once you’ve subverted the authority of your inner critic, invite your inner cheerleader to have a go.

What would this character say in this circumstance to cheer you on? Picture their face and hear their voice. Trust them and listen to them. As you move into your next moment and the ones that follow it, bring that voice along instead of your inner Debbie Downer’s. Notice the often big difference this little shift can make.

…AND THIS (FOR CREATIVES):

Next time you’re working (painting, writing, music-making, photographing, imagining, designing, etc., etc.) have a quick check-in with one of your inner cheerleaders, then get to work and turn all the voices down but that one. Two of my favorite personal sayings for my own work are START WILD and FOLLOW THE WEIRD. Work without censoring yourself whatsoever. Some weird path unfurling? Great! Let’s follow it to see where it goes.

Want to mix those two weird colors? Do it, use it. Do it again.

Want to take your protagonist into a closet that turns out to be a portal to a parallel dimension? In you both go. Close the door behind you. Keep going.

Sing nonsense. Resuscitate a bug. Play all the wrong notes on purpose, or everything at once. Take eleven pictures with your eyes closed. Put a square thing on top of a round thing. Levitate it. Knock the whole thing over.

Start small and experiment and don’t think about what you’re doing – if you keep your inner cheerleader cheering in the background and just keep doing instead of thinking, your inner critic won’t have any space to shut things down by trying to clean things up.

Make a mess and enjoy it. Creativity is fun, that’s why you do it! You can pick through it later to see what treasures you got. For now, just do and keep the right tape rolling in the background. It’s probably impossible to turn the inner critic off completely, but with practice, we can at least turn the volume down some and find our groove in peace.

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.  

Dizzy Gillespie

Breathe, love, be well, and stay tuned for more! xo, ali

Want to learn more? Let’s connect! I offer complimentary consultations and would love to explore working together.

LET’S CONNECT!

Categories
habits

New Habits: How to get started

I love New Year’s Resolutions! I love the feeling of a fresh start, an opportunity to set a 365-day goal to help me shine more brightly into the person I want to be and live into the life I want to have. We set all kinds of different goals, at this time of year and others, often revolving or relying on changing our behavior, ie: OUR HABITS.

Goals and habits can be best friends—or sometimes, depending, mortal enemies. Friends is better.

The more we can align our behaviors with our goals, the higher the likelihood is that we’ll reach them.

When setting any kind of goal, it’s important to “set ourselves up for success”. It sounds uninspired because it’s such a familiar instruction (clichés are usually just overripe truths–they’ve gotten mushy because we’ve heard them too often), but it’s actually really true and important—especially when the goal involves changing ingrained behavior.

here’s why:

When we decide we want to make a real, positive change, it’s easy to start strong. We’ve decided to do something we think will make us happier; it’s exciting! This is why so many resolutions seem to be going great in January (we’re jogging every morning! We’re flossing every night! We’re writing 1,500 words a day!), but as we get to the day-in-day-out work that any real change necessitates, the novelty starts to wear off and our energy dwindles and even vanishes. By March, all these ditched resolutions are wandering the streets in orphaned hordes, and we’re waking up late with food in our teeth, no idea where our sneakers even are, and we haven’t written more than six words in 2 weeks and four of them were swears. Everybody knows this feeling of having inadvertently abandoned our Own Great Plans: disappointment, confusion, frustration, shame.

ICK.

It’s the worst! What happened? Why can’t we get with the program—and stick to it?

here’s why:

All too often, we don’t set ourselves up for success, which dooms us to fail from the start. We see this sparkly future-version of ourselves with toned legs and healthy gums, halfway to having written The Next Great Novel, and we’re able to ride those bright feelings easily in the beginning. But when the newness of it all starts to wear off (Ugh, I have to write again? What else can I say that I didn’t just say yesterday?) and some clouds blow in (do I have to still have to jog when it’s snowing?) we don’t have anything to fall back on–so we fall off.

So what does “setting up for success” actually involve? How can we construct goals that are self-reinforcing? How do we adjust the design itself so we’re sure to maintain our enthusiasm, enjoy the process (up, down, and sideways), make continual, discernable progress, and feel confident and optimistic not just as we begin, but as we go?

Start small.

The trick to reaching any goal is to set smaller, micro-goals in the form of actionable steps that we we can actually accomplish.

why?

habits_start small_nesting dolls

It makes us feel good.
– We get a little burst of happiness each time we complete a step and can check it off (Hey, I did it! Go, me!)

It’s good for morale.
– Even micro-successes increase our sense of self-efficacy and confidence (I can plan something—and do it!)

It creates momentum.
– It helps us stay positive, hopeful, and energized as we see ourselves moving toward our larger goal(s) (Look! I’m getting closer!)

It’s great practice.
– Micro-goals build our planning, perseverance, and self-regulation muscles, preparing us to tackle bigger ones later  (If I can get here…I can probably get there, too!)

How do we structure these mini-goals?

  1. Make it manageable.
  2. Keep it clear.
  3. Know it’s meaningful.

one example

Last year, I decided to keep my resolutions simple and few, in a genuine attempt to set myself up for success. Each was habit/behavior-based. I had larger, more finite goals, too (finishing a program, completing my novel), and I knew these good habits would serve me well as I went along.

What did I do to keep each one simple?

I made it manageable. I limited myself to THREE goals that I could reasonably accomplish over the course of the year. (This concept and number ended up working beautifully for me in another area, too—more about that later!). To set ourselves up well, we have to be honest about both our superpowers and our limitations, so I made sure to bear both in mind.

I kept it clear. I made each goal VERY CLEAR. No list of specific rules for each, no complicated systems. I kept my goals simple enough that I could fit the jist in the little space on my habit tracker (just a word or two) and I could remember them easily.

I knew it was meaningful. I made sure my goals really felt IMPORTANT to me. They had to be goals I was both excited about and was fairly certain would support me and improve the quality of my life. I got real with my hopes and true priorities, and was honest with myself about what would be meaningful, contribute to my happiness, and add value to my experience of the year.

Here’s what I came up with:

1.  Write

2.  Meditate

3.  Only Love

Write:

I’d been working on a novel, and writing 500 words a day most days for most of the previous year. For the new year, I considered where I was really at with my work and this project, and what would support me in a meaningful way as I continued my creative work. I recognized that it wasn’t so much a daily word count I needed now, but to just work on my writing and stay in the creative headspace every day. What should I do to support this? I kept my goal simple and clear: Write, work on writing. Edit, revise, work on a different, shorter-form project, whatever; as long as I worked on creative writing and kept my head in it, I got to check the “Write” box on my chart for the day. Totally manageable.

Meditate:

I’d been working on a meditation practice already, too, but was having a hard time being as consistent as I wanted. I decided, as I had done with writing, that what I really wanted and felt I needed was to make it a daily practice, an every-single-day kind of thing. I knew that regular meditation made me feel more happier and more settled because I was more in control of my actions, reactions, and emotions (meaningful). Again, I kept it clear: Sit and meditate. Even as little as one minute of dedicated meditating, at first, would count (manageable), and I got to check it off. I wasn’t trying to win a meditation marathon! I just wanted it to become a reliable, positive part of my routine and life.

Only Love:

Training my puppy (Pearl) had been going great overall, but as she matured into a more independent and sometimes defiant teenage phase, we’d run into some snags. I’d lost my cool with her a few times, which always felt crummy and counterproductive. Frustration is natural, but reacting in frustration not only goes against my principles (training and otherwise) but doesn’t nurture the trusting and supportive kinship I wanted to have with my friend (meaningful). I decided to instate an “Only Love” goal (clear and manageable), as a daily reminder to myself that even when I get frustrated, it’s my intention to maintain my composure, and continue communicating mindfully and lovingly.

No matter what your goals are, these little guidelines will help you as you go about the sometimes-tricky business of setting them up. We feel good when we see ourselves persisting, improving, and making positive change. Those good feelings blossom into more good feelings, and set in motion what Positive Psychologists call the “upward spiral”. (Check out this great resource about it – the site itself is themed for parents and teachers, but it’s a fantastic, straightforward explanation that absolutely applies to everyone.) 

And for more about how the number THREE worked for me last year, check this out. (Book-lovers, especially!)

Breathe, love, be well, and stay tuned for more! xo, ali

Want to learn more? Let’s connect! I offer complimentary consultations and would love to explore working together.

LET’S CONNECT!