What can you remove from your to do list?

What benefit could come from one task not being agonized over, or “guilted into doing”  today?

Will the world end if you don’t get 15 things done?

What is Enough today?

What are you avoiding by constantly doing?

What’s with all the relentlessness?

How about sitting still for, say, two minutes (no phone, iPad, remote, snacks, chatter…)?

Seriously.  What can you subtract from your life?

What is ENOUGH today?  Just asking.

Creating a gratitude practice, in which you deliberately seek out things for which to be grateful, can help create the positive shift you may be seeking.  To get started, take Whole Living’s Gratitude Quiz and measure your gratitude quotient.

Then, check out the tips to boost your gratitude practice on my Facebook page.  I’ll be posting them all week and I hope you’ll try them.  Let us know about their impact on your life by commenting here on the blog.

Less and less do you need to force things

until finally you arrive at non-action.

When nothing is done,

nothing is left undone.

Lao Tzu, its author, created quite a paradox here.  One noted Tao translator helps clarify:

“The misperception may arise from (Lao Tzu’s) insistence on wei wu wei, literally ‘doing not-doing,’ which has been seen as passivity.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will.  This is a paradigm for non-action:  the purest and most effective form of action.  The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance.”

The way I see it, most of us are quite practiced at a lot of things.  At first, we forced them a bit by repeating them over and over until we achieved a kind of mastery.  Now, we do them without really doing them; we don’t devote a lot of thought to what’s involved, sort of like what the translator described above.  Having deeply practiced over the course of time, certain things become second nature to us.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes…not so much.

What would happen if we “un-did” the things we’ve mastered and unconsciously do, but don’t serve us?  For instance:

• Undoing the disproportionate influence we allow our fears of others’ judgment to have on our lives
• Undoing the thoughts that create suffering
• Undoing the over-accumulation of stuff
• Undoing the influence of our “buy more/do more” culture
• Undoing the over-complication of simple matters
• Undoing the need to have lots of information
• Undoing the negative self-talk and self-deprecation
• Undoing the need to have a plan with a sure-fire outcome
• Undoing the doubt that keeps us from starting things
• Undoing the ignoring of our intuition and deep inner wisdom
• Undoing the forcing and pushing…instead letting what wants to happen, happen.

The less we force things, the better life gets.  Letting go of attachment to the “how of it” often makes a desired outcome even more wonderful than originally imagined.  If you’re feeling stuck, I’d highly recommend some undoing, followed by a bit of nothing-doing.

Martha’s closing comments at the conference were “Now, go home and rest.  And remember: there’s no doing, only undoing.”  I couldn’t agree more.

Not knowing where you’re headed?

That you’ll make a mistake?

That someone will judge you?

That you only get one chance in life so you’d better get it right?

That no one will understand your choice and you’ll be all alone?

That you’re not smart enough?

That there’s no way you can make money doing what you love?

That you can’t possibly learn all you need to know to be successful?

That you’ll never, ever accomplish everything on the to-do list?

That this is all there is?

How will you use this fear today, right now, to help you?

Will you admit you’re scared?

Will you ask for help?

Will you try to figure out what this fear is here to teach you?

Will you do one thing, just one thing, differently than you’ve done it before?

Will you take one ridiculously small step to see what happens next, despite the fear?

Will you take a breath and then another, and then another to be still and listen?

Or will you spend today doing the same things that got you here?

It’s up to you.

Well, maybe not all of us.  Have you ever heard a four year old use this phrase?  Didn’t think so.  For them, life’s a lot more straightforward.

What is it about aging that adds a lot more gray to our lives (and not only on the top of our heads)?  Is life really that much more complicated?  Sure, I get that we have mortgages, tuition, taxes, aging parents, etc. to worry about, but we often make things harder than they have to be.

If you’re feeling the complications of your life, ask yourself these questions: 

• What’s the simplest solution here?
• What stories am I telling myself about why this situation can’t change?  Are they true?
• If I wasn’t worried about what others thought, what action would I take?
• How would I handle this looking through the eyes of a four year old, but with the resources of an adult?
• What’s one step I could take to simplify this situation?

Then, make one change to “uncomplicate.” 

No excuses.  Just do it. 

Stuck?  Call me.

When I’m afraid, I do three things:

1. focus on my breathing, noticing each long inhale and each longer exhale,
2. question the thoughts that have got me frightened – can I be absolutely sure the plane’s going to go down, there will never be enough money, people will think I’m an idiot for making this choice, etc.?, and
3. focus on someone or something I love, eliciting the sensations by remembering the sounds, taste, touch, smell and sight of the person, place or thing so that I’m truly in a state of appreciation.

When I breathe deeply, I become calmer.  From that calmer place, I can examine the thinking that created the fear.  And, when I remember love, fear doesn’t stand a chance.

When you’re in a state of F.E.A.R. (i.e., False Evidence Appearing Real), breathe deeply, ask questions, focus on love, and see if things don’t get better for you, too.

• sleep on the sofa, or
• lie on the floor, or
• put my head where my feet usually go.

I tried the head/foot switch, and after a few minutes of “this is weird,” it worked beautifully.   I suspect it worked well because I wanted to believe it would, and in a way because I was telling my body I meant business.

Speaking of business, I found myself in a creative slump these last two weeks.  Unable to dream up an original idea, reluctant to sit down and write for fear of staring at a blank page, and generally ho-hum about anything to do with creativity.

I decided it was time to employ “the head/foot thing,” as I’ve come to call it, and I took myself to the library.  Comfortably ensconced in the quiet reading room, with tea and a cookie, I got more reading and writing done in the two and a half hours spent there than I had in the past two weeks.  I’m writing this post from there, too.

Is it time for you to employ the head/foot thing?  Where in your life are you feeling a bit stuck?  Sometimes, a small change – scenery, position, going from grumpy to grateful – will do the trick very nicely.

The Exclamation Points  These are the “my way or the highway” folks who fight you for the sake of being right, who know best and are unwilling to believe there’s room for anyone else’s views or insights.  For the SNL fans, it’s Dana Carvey’s Church Lady and her condescending tone when saying “Well, isn’t that special!”

I’ll take Dr. Hale’s description one step further – I believe Exclamation Points are living out loud, not always in a good way.  They’re so busy being adamant that they’ve forgotten to notice the mitigating factors, the gray areas, and the fact that things change.

The Periods  The Periods have come to a halt.  They’ve checked off a box on their list, believing they’ve gone as far as they can go, nothing more needs to be done, and they’ve grown as much as they care to, thank-you-very-much.  Their behavior isn’t that of  “acceptance,” but rather a “stop sign.”  Kind of a “been there, done that” dismissal.

The Question Marks  As the name would imply, these are the seekers.  They’re curious, open to receive new insights, and are willing to ask the tough questions that are sometimes required for growth.  They’re my kind of people, and probably yours.  While we’d all like to believe we’re always open and willing to receive the lessons our experiences bring us, it’s not usually the case (at least not for me).

How to Be A Question Mark  When you’re inclined to shut down (Period) or insist/yell (Exclamation Point), just ask a question instead:

• What it this here to teach me?
• Why am I unwilling to go there?
• What’s got me so afraid?
• Where else in my life is this happening?
• What don’t I want to know right now?

Sure, it’d be great to feel as though we’re “finished,” secure in the fact that we’ve mastered life and have got it all down pat.  But since that’s not going to happen for us any time soon, why not “lean into the mystery,” as Caroline Myss says, and see what happens.

I’m often reminded of those words because most of us are holding onto something that’s keeping us from our next adventures:  closets stuffed with stuff we don’t need or want, icky relationships, ideas that something in our past should have been other than it was, beliefs that we couldn’t possibly realize our dream, etc.
I often write about the themes of letting go and clearing because it’s essential to the process of creating the lives we desire. Who among us hasn’t stayed too long at a party, not known when to quit, held on too long, or overstayed our welcome at least once?  I suspect very few, because recognizing when it’s time to say goodbye is a skill that most of us aren’t taught.

In his book, Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud says “Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time.  Refraining, giving up, throwing away, tearing down, hating what we once cherished – all are necessary.  Endings are the reason you are not married to your prom date nor still working in your first job.  But without the ability to do endings well, we flounder, stay stuck, and fail to reach our goals and dreams.  Or worse, we remain in painful and sometimes destructive situations.  Endings are crucial, but we rarely like them.”

So, how does one “do an ending” well?  Start by answering these questions:

• What does “ending” mean to you?  Can you get to a point where you recognize that “life is a series of hellos and goodbyes,” as the song lyrics tell us, making them a normal and even expected part of your life?
• Can you recognize that in some parts of your life, there’s just “too much” and that letting go could bring peace?
• Where in your life are you hanging on with hope, despite the fact that deep inside, you know there are no objective reasons to support your (in)action?
• Do you want the same reality/frustration in your life a year or two from now?  Really imagine what it will be like to wake up two years from now in the same situation.  How does that feel?
• Get clear about what it’s costing you (time-wise, energy-wise, or financially) to stay in the status quo.
• How could your life be different if you ended this?  Your brain is designed to help you create the future – it seeks out information/people/situations in your environment that support your vision.  So, imagine the future as you’d like it to be, and let your brain help you create it.
• Assuming you’re ready to make a change, who/what will support you in ending this situation?  How can you elicit the support you need?
• How can you create a sense of urgency to drive you forward?  Accountability partners, with whom you set deadline dates and consequences for missing them, can be a big help in getting (and keeping) you moving.
• Grieve.  Yup, grieve.    Cry, burn letters, create a ceremony…honor the fact that you are finishing something in order to begin something new.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, chances are good that it’s time for something to end.  Getting clear and honest about what needs ending is a critical factor in creating a life and career you love.

I’m sure all of us have experienced those moments when life is flying by us so quickly and the emails, errands, meetings and other stimuli transport us way too quickly through our days.  After returning from our recent retreat, I’m finding “re-entry” into the routine of my “normal” life a bit difficult, waiting for my soul to catch up to the usual pace of my days.

One of the many lessons I learned out on the Camino was to slow down and just notice the four elements:  Fire, Air, Earth and Water.  To notice the sounds, smell the smells, etc.  It did me a world of good.

To be honest, I’m not that excited about catching up to the old pace I set for myself.   I think it’s time to set up new ground rules for my day, creating some sacred time for just being in nature.  Our friend Michael Trotta teaches the practice of “sit spot,” marking each day by sitting outdoors for a few silent moments, just being present.  Sounds like a fine way to ensure that our souls never have to play catchup again.  I’m in…how ’bout you?

He's got the right idea