Archive for January, 2012

Walking the Beam of Balance

 Ups and downs.  Highs and lows.  Walking the beam of balance.

Ah, yes–the middle ground, the gray area (although not colorless) of         serenity.  I haven’t been there too often lately but today may be a welcome exception.

What a relief!  It is so good to crawl back onto the beam of balance.  While it only takes a split second to fall off, the effort to climb back on is often quite challenging.

I read this morning that our circumstances reflect our attitude.  Interestingly, the reverse can also be true.  Our attitudes can reflect our circumstances.

I know all too well how both sets of reflections suck when my attitudes and my circumstances are bad.

But I can suffer bad circumstances and still have a decent attitude.

I can also sit in the best of circumstances and watch them wither with a bad attitude.

My point?  An optimistic attitude of sunshine is more likely to keep me balanced during rotten circumstances than if the two reverse.

It is all about me and my B-Attitude.

Gosh, it’s hard to remain vigilant when it comes to my sneaking, creeping attitudes.  Without a tight leash-hold, any moment is one when a single attitude shift could catapult me into chaos.

I know a guy who says recovery comes in seconds and inches.  He’s right when it comes to balancing my attitudes and my circumstances.  Fortunately, seconds and inches are all it takes to focus on where I am on the beam.

How is your balancing act today?  Wherever you are on the beam, please enjoy these five quotes about balance and make it a great attitude week!

B Well & Balanced!!

Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. ~
Robert Fulgham

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. ~Thomas Merton

Balance, peace, and joy are the fruit of a successful life. It starts with recognizing your talents and finding ways to serve others by using them. ~Thomas Kinkade

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. ~Euripides

The calm and balanced mind is the strong and great mind; the hurried and agitated mind is the weak one. ~Wallace D. Wattles

How is Your Level of Self-Respect?

I know that the subject of self-respect isn’t one that is top-of-mind every day but when it comes to awareness of the moment, I think it is a valuable tool.

At the end of this Mindful Monday segment, as has been my tradition for quite some time, you’ll find five quotes related to self-respect.  Chew on them this week and see if they change your awareness of self-respect.

Here’s what came to me recently.  See if it resonates with you and ask yourself how you would rate your level of self-respect.

I was on the road all last week traveling for my day job.  My work is a wholly worthwhile endeavor but the older I get, the larger the toll that travel takes on my body.  Consequently, while I’m away, I often have to trade my old habit of arising early to ruminate and write my morning pages for sleep.

During this last trip of logging air and road miles, I also felt the beginnings of a chest cold.  Not good.

I recognized the old signs of trying to do it all, to fill all my roles perfectly.

Right then and there I decided to give myself a break and to be more respectful of my needs.  I let go of guilty feelings about not always writing when I’m on the road.

It is more important to take care of my immediate needs than to adhere to a rigid schedule.

We are our own worst critics, aren’t we?  Our thoughts often begin with phrases like, “I think I should . . . ” or “I could have been more . . . ” or “If I had only . . . ”

That’s just bull.  And disrespectful.  Of me.

I deserve my own respect and so do you.  Let’s begin today, right in this very moment, okay?  What messages are you believing about yourself that are disrespectful?  It’s okay if your level of self-respect is medium to low.  Life is full of do-overs, remember?

Let’s open our arms wide to the self-respect do-over and tackle it with gusto, just for now, just for today.

B Well & Self-Respectful,

Beth

The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.  ~Joan Didion

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.  ~Theodore Parker

Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough.  Good enough.  Successful enough.  Thin enough.  Rich enough.  Socially responsible enough.  When you have self-respect, you have enough.  ~Gail Sheehy

It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them.  To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.  ~Dale E. Turner

He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.  ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

STOP in the Name of Love

Sometimes I forget that the psalmist said we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck there, or as is the case right now, that one of my loved ones is stuck there.

Please don’t misunderstand; my Mindful Monday post of a few days ago still stands in terms of the gratitude I’m feeling.  I’m a long way from feeling down and out.  But gratitude aside, do you ever contemplate how challenging it is to stand still in faith when so much uncertainty exists?

I know I’m not the only one.  There’s the friend who’s father, a widower, calls her from out-of-state when he’s been “thinking and drinking.”  There’s the friend who’s son just told her that his girlfriend is pregnant.  And there’s another friend who sits on pins and needles waiting for word about her company being sold and what that means not only for her but for the people she supervises and their families.

So much uncertainty.

I am reminded that my thread of control is alarmingly thin.  What do I do when I don’t know what to do?

What do you do?

Here’s a tool that I’m trying.  I simply S.T.O.P.  Surrender.  Transform.  Open.  Patience.

I surrender as much control as I can.

I do my best to transform my thinking.

I try to remain open to new possibilities, ideas and miracles.

I grit my teeth and try to be patient.  If not this, then something better, Lord.

I also know what not to do.

I deny, or turn away from, Suffering, Tragedy, Oppression and Panic.

Instead, I focus on the things I can do in this moment.  I can say a prayer, write in my gratitude log, call someone, take a nap, write a note, read an inspirational piece, focus on peace.

I can let go of worry and thoughts of doubt.  I can let go of useless thinking that can slip into self-pity.

I can remind myself that I am a creature created for good and that my good extends to myself.  Living and breathing in goodness creates space for more of the same.  More good floats on wisps of gratitude and when I least expect it, in a sigh of transformation, gratitude becomes love.

And the pain in my heart subsides a bit as I realize I have stopped in the name of love.

How do I get from here to there?  By whispering a prayer of willingness which must be bigger than my tendency to sit in my own poop because it feels warm (lovely image, isn’t it?).

In willingness, I throw open my toes and fingers and mind to receive.  I must drain to gain.

At first the surrender seems so hopelessly small but the S in STOP also stands for Stick, as in stick around for something bigger and better.

If not this, then something better, Lord.

While I wait, I think I’ll keep on walking through that valley.

How to Make a Decision Today That Will Alter the Future

So far, I’m pretty satisfied with 2012.

I know we’re only halfway through the first month, but I’m keeping up with my Gratitude Calendar System (to find out how you can participate, check out http://positivechristianity.org/tapes.htm), I’m writing Morning Pages most mornings (made famous by Julia Cameron with the 1992 book The Artist’s Way http://juliacameronlive.com/) and I’m on track to meet my goal of refreshing B Here Today with a new look and design (thanks to the immensely talented and inspirational Stephenie Wetzel at http://tradingpounds.com/).

Heck, I’m even writing my first e-book!

Still, with all this good stuff working, it feels as if something is missing.  There’s a piece, a dimension of my self-development, that I haven’t quite put my finger on, until this last weekend.

My good friend LaDonna has talked to me for months about something called QiGong, a 5,000-year-old Chinese practice of combining fluid body movements, focus and breathing for stress relief and the overall restoration of health and wellness.

I’ve spent a good amount of time this weekend doing online research and it sounds perfect for my lifestyle, my physical condition and my beliefs about body energy.

Yet, I still can’t quite pull the trigger on committing.

Why, you might ask?  That’s a very good question and one I’ll turn  back to you.  Why do any of us put off the ideas and dreams we have for the future, even when we know there will probably be great benefit and reward?

Feels sort of daunting and intimidating to contemplate the answer, doesn’t it?  For me, the answer involves a fear of failure, fear of the unknown, and frankly, a big dose of wishing I could just twitch my nose and my ideas and dreams would sprout right in front of me without any effort.

I chose these five quotes for Mindful Monday selfishly because I need to make my fears public.

I also wanted to see how much the future will be altered by my actions today because, as anyone who has read Stephen King’s 11/22/63 knows, the past can be obdurate.

And obdurate gets me nowhere.

I’ll embrace my fears and make my decision about QiGong anyway, and invite you to do the same about whatever you’ve been putting off.  Truly, what the hell are we waiting for?  The past is stubborn and the future doesn’t care so let’s do it TODAY.

Let me know how it goes for you.

B Well & Present,

Beth

A year from now you will wish you had started today.~Karen Lamb

It doesn’t matter where you are, you are nowhere compared to where you can go. ~Bob Proctor

The best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.~Theodore Roosevelt

We need to be discerning about what we choose to believe, and clear about why we care.~Lori Deschene, aka, Tiny Buddha

Resistance to change is proportional to how much the future might be altered by any given act.~Stephen King in 11/22/63

When It’s Okay to NOT Let Go

Lately, all kinds of old-me, former-life stuff has been breaching my thoughts.

Those who know me know how radically different my “now” life is from my “then” life a little less than three years ago.  I chose to make major changes that certainly impacted me and a whole bunch of other people in the process.

I’ve been thinking a lot about all that stuff lately and my internal critic is telling me I shouldn’t be having the thoughts.  It’s all over and done, after all.  I keep telling myself that I need to let it all go and then judging myself because I’m not.

Maybe letting go isn’t the issue.

Maybe I need to let things be instead.

My friend Tom Catton says, “If I can’t let it go, maybe I should let it be.”

Such wise words and ones that I’ve taken to heart in the last couple of days.

I don’t know about you but I am a processor.  I love to process, in fact.  I thrive on extricating the details–the whys and wherefores–from situations.  I like to question.  It’s almost as if I have an urgent need to understand a situation or conversation or even a person before I can accept them.

Can you relate?

All this digging and scraping for underlying messages and meaning is part of what makes me good at my job.  However, I am discovering there are also heavy burdens that accompany the seemingly good character qualities.

First, my mind is always “on.”  I find myself constantly nibbling at the edges of whatever I’m hyper-focused on, not satisfied until I’ve thoroughly chewed through all the possibilities and ramifications.

I’m also an angler, continually re-positioning to eye-ball the scene in my mind from a different vantage point.

Plus, I am an ace practitioner of the “yeah buts,” as in “yeah, but what if . . . (fill in the blank).”

When I am in the throes of one of my obsessive mental processes, it is extremely difficult to just stop and let it go.

For reasons I do not understand, however, it does seem easier to let “it” be.

I’ve been practicing.  When I find myself starting the familiar patterns, I stop, take a deep breath and as I exhale, breathe the two-syllable word, “o-kay.”

That one word does a couple of things.  One, I become focused on right here, right now, and two, I realize that everything, absolutely everything, IS okay in the instant I utter the word.

That is the gentle, simple process of mindfulness that is working for me today.  Today is as far as I choose to see with any degree of intensity.  I can make plans for tomorrow but today is the only capsule of time that requires a laser-focus.

I have noticed a third benefit to my new mindful practice.

Breathing the word o-kay feels very loving and generally brings at least a slight smile–always good for this overly intense mind of mine.

What are some simple mindful practices that you use to keep you grounded in the here and now?

Please share!