Humble Pie

As some of you know, I’m a pretty unassuming person. Which is kind of interesting, because at 5’10”, with mostly dark hair apart from 2 sections of white a la Bride of Frankenstein, you would think that I was born for the limelight. In truth, I would rather shy away from it than seek it out.

Not good at selfies!

Fortunately, (or unfortunately as the case may be) as I move into this next phase of my life, one of the things that I will need to develop is the ability to stand in the limelight, with a strong belief in myself and my abilities. Now, on the face of it, that doesn’t seem like too big a deal because I am confident in myself and my abilities. But it is a quiet, self-effacing kind of confidence. (Is that an oxymoron?) I don’t want to shout it from the rooftops. That would be self aggrandizing - making myself more important than others. 

What?? Where the heck did that come from?

Part of me knows that wanting to share my talents, abilities, and knowledge with the world is NOT self-aggrandizing, because how are you supposed to help people if they don’t know how you can help?

So, what’s REALLY the issue?

I know there is a difference between promoting your message and promoting yourself. But if you still have to get that message across, how do you work with the subtleties between where your hard work and abilities end, and where the message, that you are the caretaker of, begins?

You see it all the time. The gurus who get so caught up in their own hype they seriously lose the plot, losing themselves in the message they bring, or individuals more interested showing off their skills than putting those skills into action. I don’t want to be that person. I’ve worked too hard, and the last thing I want to do is get caught up in the cult of personality.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m worried about this happening to me. I’m not famous, nor do I have a mob of adoring people who think the sun shines out of my bottom. But I don’t think it’s really about being famous. I think it’s about being genuine. I think it’s about honestly acknowledging and appreciating your abilities, talents, intelligence, other people’s adoration, or whatever, but not letting it go to your head.

My dilemma continued. How do I acknowledge all the amazing things that I offer, and let people know about how I may be able to help them without sounding like an arrogant jerk? Up to now, my strategy involved self-effacing promotion, (that is DEFINITELY an oxymoron) and probably just confused people because they couldn’t figure out if I knew what I was doing or not. It’s hard to tell people, “I do know what I am doing, but I don’t want to seem like an ego maniac.” Um...

So, how do you do it? How do you confidently promote yourself and maintain a genuine but humble quality? While meditating on that question, a strange looking equation popped into my head. Humble is = (equal to), not < or > (less than or greater than). Hold that = (equal to) feeling when promoting yourself and your work.

Well, I can certainly give it a try.

What Do You Do?

I was sitting here having a really strange conversation with myself, when a series of thoughts struck me. (Yes, I have many and intricate conversations with myself, and I’m proud of it! And so am I!) Anyway, I have recently been trying to language what it is that I do. (Feeling a line from the movie Office Space coming on...

In this mythical conversation I was having with a potential person who would ask me what I do for a living, I responded “I help people live more authentic lives by helping them understand and feel the interconnections of mind and body.”

Then I thought, “Why does that sound weird?” I initially told myself that it was a bit wordy. 

Reality Check #1: Then I said it out loud for flow and timing, and it took way less time than a 30 second elevator speech. I could also shorten it to “I help people live more authentic lives,” which is short and sweet.

Hmmm. Maybe it’s because it isn’t true and that it isn’t what I actually do or how I help. 

Reality Check #2: Then I thought about the various clients I have worked with throughout the years of my practice. I also remembered a recent conversation with a client who has worked with me for most of that time. I have been actively helping people to communicate with and understand their body-mind connections in various ways from the start. And, if you boil it down to the essentials, it’s all about helping people to improve the communication between their mind and body so they can have a better understanding of themselves and their true needs which is what living authentically is all about.

Nope. Still weird.

Then I thought it’s probably because it sounds a bit pretentious, a bit like a megalomaniac trying to sound humble. Or like an annoying attention seeker who is saying something outrageous just to keep the conversation around themselves.

Reality Check #3: But, I want to spark conversation. I want people to ask and to question, not to keep the focus on me, but as a way to get them curious about the possibilities. I want people to be curious about their own selves and whether or not they are living authentically. I want people to be engaged with what is (how is what I’m saying resonating with you), not responding to what they think they know (what body and energy work do).

Still uncomfortable.

So, I went back to my reverie, and to a recent conversation I had with someone I just met. She asked me what I do. (The standard question that I hate answering because I never know what to say). I answered “Good question!” I then followed up with “I’m a body and energy worker,” which is my most recent fall back answer.

That’s when it hit me. I answered what I “do” with an “I am” statement.

Why am I confusing what I do with who I am? That’s probably why I have a terrible time telling people what I do. I, like most people, have been trained to say my occupation as a label, and then call that label who I am. “I am a/an [insert label here]”. I was so unconsciously attuned to this equating what you do with who you are, that when I tried to separate it, it felt weird but authentic at the same time. (Which was probably why I truly despised answering the “what do you do” question, because I believed I was supposed to answer one way and felt I needed to answer in another way.)

And even more, when I was trying to describe what I do rather than label it, I was effectively thumbing my nose at convention. I felt uncomfortable enough to worry about what convention would think about my new way of doing things. In effect trying to find excuses as to why I can’t authentically express myself. (Peeling the onion...)

This caused me to wonder what it would be like if we all answered the “what do you do?” question with a description rather than a label that starts with “I am.”  How would you answer that question? Would it be a short version of your job description, or would it reveal how what you do impacts those you work and how you make a difference?

So, what do you do?

The Miser

I’ve had a curious couple of weeks. I’ve been worrying more about money and feeling a greater and greater urge to conserve it. I have been noticing that more of my thoughts are centered around how much things cost, how much I can’t afford things, and feeling resentful about having to spend money on things I need. Now, if I was a spendthrift, then yeah, this concern could be considered an attack of conscience, and be a good thing. But I don’t spend a lot of money. I never have. In fact, I was listing off a couple of ways I could pare my spending down, after refinancing my car (which will reduce it a bit, but not as much as you think), and it was literally going to reduce my expenses by only $15 dollars a month. That’s it. There was nothing else to take out. This mindset has been slowly creeping in, so I didn’t even notice it until the last day or two. And it wasn’t until today, when I got The Miser card, that I decided to have a think about it.

A kind way of interpreting the 4 of Pentacles, also known as The Miser, is conservation or security.

Well, this is kind of interesting. I was thinking about security, or more specifically about the illusion of security, just yesterday. I’m in the process of buying out the lease on my car, and am taking out a loan to do so. One of the conditions of the loan is that I have to have a life insurance policy that will cover the loan if I die before I pay it off. While the agent was explaining this to me, she mentioned that it was generally a good idea to have life insurance. I think I may have shocked her when I said that I didn’t think my life was insurable and that I prefer to be worth more alive than dead. I had already experienced first hand that you can think you are secure and safe one minute and the next, have little or nothing left. For me, it was divorce. But the experiences also can come in the form of stock market crashes, natural disasters, accidents, terrorism, you name it. Since that particular illusion was shattered for me, I’m more aware that I am skating on the edge of a catastrophe curve, and that there are no guarantees. However, maybe it doesn’t stop my craving guarantees. 

But, why now, all of a sudden? I’ve had less money before and, while I was careful with it, I wasn’t worried or fearful about it. I wasn’t getting much more insight with this, so I pulled a card from a different deck to try and shed some light on it. Reversed Rabbit, which is about being paralyzed with fear. 

This is looking like a great day so far! 

The explanation in the book was about re-evaluating the process I am undergoing, and rearranging the way I see my present set of circumstances. Then a separate thought popped into my head about not doing anything rash. (As if!)

My present set of circumstances. I guess you could say that I’m at a crossroads. My business is limping along, I’m contemplating going to graduate school, I’m preparing to pitch a workshop to a group of therapists, and throughout all of this, I’m wondering if I should get a job because of the money situation. Ok, maybe not so much a crossroads as a train wreck, with different cars of the train trying to go in different directions at the same time.

Maybe this feeling of being pulled off my center is what is causing my craving for security. Because I don’t feel internally stable, I’m trying to grab onto something external that I think will keep me from feeling like a weathervane on a windy day.

Hmm. The number 4 in Tarot is about stability, and the miser is about gaining stability through material means. So, this new obsession about money and getting a job isn’t about actually needing a job, but about me trying to feel more centered and in control, despite the fact that job security and control are both illusions!

It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. So now what? Just because I can see what I am doing doesn’t mean the feeling of not being centered or focused has gone away.

Okay. Maybe I need to rearrange the way I see my circumstances. Maybe this is creative tension or I’m supposed to get comfortable with discomfort. Or, maybe the different directions that I feel that I am being pulled in aren’t really different directions at all. Maybe they are part of a bigger whole that I just can’t see yet, and all I need to do is peck away at them and try not to do anything rash.

I still can’t see how it all fits together or even what the next step is, and I can’t say I feel very calm, but I have a heading and that helps me feel a bit more centered.

Skeptics Are People Too

Even though I am an energy worker and teach intuition, I am a skeptic at heart. (Really, I am!) So, when a young man at the Lincoln Sudbury High School told me he was skeptical about energy work, I invited him to look at it from a more scientific viewpoint. 

I asked him if he had a mobile phone. He did. I asked him if it had WiFi on it. It didn’t, (he’s a bit Old School in a young body!) but he acknowledged the existence of WiFi and how data in the form of electromagnetic waves can be transmitted from one device to another. I said that’s all energy work is. The energy I use is light on that same spectrum, and I am effectively the antennae that picks it up and transmits it to another person. Then he asked me a question.

“But how does light heal?”

That stopped me cold. I didn’t have an answer for him. I did invite him to experience it (I was offering free mini treatments so it wasn’t going to cost him anything but his time), but he declined.

Obviously not an empiricist, but he did have an excellent question.

This made me very curious. My forays into the realm of energy and healing, starting with acupuncture, have all been experiential rather than intellectual. In fact, I had to suspend A LOT of disbelief to get me to go to the acupuncturist the first time. It was more of a case of desperation than anything else. I had tried everything that conventional medicine had to offer with no success, so I was willing to try anything. (Although that seemed like child’s play next to what it took me to go see a psychic for the first time!)

So I know that it works, but I’m not sure how or why it works.

In the spirit of truly trying to understand how the universe ticks, I am going to see if I can answer that young man’s question. I feel that it will take me down a massive rabbit hole, but what the heck! Isn’t that what true scientific enquiry is about? To push the boundaries of what we think we know? To explore things we don’t understand? To not ignore any information or observation because we don’t “believe” it could be possible based on our current knowledge? 

My methods in this exploration are going to mirror my “push the boundaries” attitude. The scientific method has been used (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) since the 1600’s. While I have great respect for it, and will be using it, I’m not going to be limited by it. Heresy, I know, but I feel that if you are doing anything, in this case using a method, simply because that is the way it is done and is the only “acceptable” way, then you aren’t truly practicing science, you are practicing dogma. If part of this method is about integrating and correcting previous knowledge, shouldn’t that also pertain to the method itself? A bit paradoxical, but I prefer to be guided by the spirit as well as the letter of this particular law.

So I invite all “skeptics”, “believers”, and the plain curious to consider and comment on my explorations and research. Please make any corrections or suggestions about any avenues of enquiry that I have touched on, or have not seen. There is SO much information out there, I’m bound to miss something.

But, above all, take the information I present in the manner in which I give it: a quest for expansion, enlightenment and connection. I’m not interested in who or what is “right” or “wrong”. Discussion and dialog is what I am after. 

So stay tuned....

PS. If there are any smarty pants out there who actually have an answer to this question, please let me know! It will save me a lot of time :)

On Leadership...

The subject of leadership has been coming up a lot for me recently, and not just because we are getting ready to vote in a Presidential election, but in a much more personal, and yet broader way.

As I have been trying to grow my business and share my vision, I am beginning to work more closely with other therapists and professionals in the Wellness industry. As collaborations and affiliations are slowly being formed, the subject of leadership, for me at any rate, looms large. I need to figure out how to lead if I want to pioneer a new way of working as a therapist as well as how I work with other therapists in a way that is more collaborative and inner directed.

That’s where I hit a snag.

There was a very large part of me that REALLY did not want to be a leader. Well, because I am trying to be more inner directed myself, I started asking myself what the heck was the problem?

Well, it boiled down to I didn’t want the responsibility. Okay, fair enough, but what do I think would be my responsibility as a leader? Considering how violently opposed I was to this whole concept, I wanted more than just “you’ll need to work ALOT of hours.” I already do that.

I eventually got it, and it wasn’t a small feeling. I believed that if it was my vision, I would be solely accountable if it failed, and I would be held responsible for the people who invested time and money in the venture and lost it. As the leader, I would bear all the responsibility for everyone and all the blame.

Whoa! That’s a lot of responsibility. Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Why would I feel that would be the case? Well, all I had to do was look around and see how we view leadership and how we act towards people who we believe are leaders, and I don’t just mean political. This isn’t about politics per se. It’s about power and ego, and it pervades every aspect of our lives.  

If you have ever been on FB, you probably see hundreds of quotes, usually with pictures, that your friends found inspiring. You probably even shared some yourself. I know I have, because when I hear someone speak, or if read about something that resonates with me, I want to share it. 

But who or what is responsible for that feeling? Was it the words or actions? The person who was quoted? The person who felt inspired?

What I noticed is that generally we give the credit to the person who was quoted, who is usually a leader in their field, not the person who was inspired by it, or, even both. And I’m not sure why, because I don’t believe that I can feel somebody else’s inspiration. When the words or actions of a leader resonate with me, I’m not feeling what the leader is feeling. I am feeling myself and my passion. I am feeling the effects in my being that the words and actions had on me. 

I also don’t think it stops there. It’s as if we start to believe that in order to maintain that feeling of being passionately inspired (also known as our personal power) we have to align ourselves with the person or group that may have helped initiate it. We may even think or believe that the only way to continue to feel it is by becoming a “follower”. We believe that the passion or power we feel did not come from us, but from something or someone outside of us.

Instead of saying, “that passion and power I am feeling is mine”, we say “that person has great passion” or “I can feel that other person’s passion” or “that person is a great leader because they are so passionate about what they believe in.” And, by externalizing that feeling, we are in effect handing that person our own passion and, effectively, our power.

So we end up following a person or group, rather than following their lead. Almost a cult of personality. And we often call that leadership.

I realized that the reason I was so violently against taking a leadership role was that I can’t be that kind of leader. I don’t want anyone to hand their power over to me and I don’t want to take it. I want people to keep it for themselves.

If I am to be a leader, I don’t want to do so by getting power through control of others’ hearts and minds. For me, it isn’t about “whoever dies with the most followers, wins.” That’s ego. A true leader helps you feel your own passion, true self or divine spark, and then steps out of the way so you can grow it. A true leader shows you how you can lead yourself. A leader may be the spark that ignites the passion, inspiration or power within us, but it is still in us. We can still choose to hang on to that.

So, how do I reconcile that? How can I be the leader I need to be in a way that is authentic for me?

Maybe we can create a new model of leadership by becoming our own leaders. Maybe it isn’t just about me. Maybe this new way of working with others is about true collaboration where everyone is equally inspired in their own way and shares that and doesn’t depend upon “followers” standing “behind” them, but instead stands next to or in front of them. This way we can all share the authority and responsibility that comes with using our power to make a better world. 

I guess an analogy would be, if I light my candle and show it to you and you like the light, you bring out your candle. I may light it with my fire, but your candle sustains it. I shouldn’t then take your candle and you shouldn’t hand it over to me. I don’t need to hold your candle for the light to be doubled or made stronger. It just needs to be there. Who knows. You may be able to light someone else’s candle.

I have been giving a fair number of Reiki attunements recently. What is striking about giving an attunement is that the Master Teacher ends up on their knees at the students feet with their head bowed. A beautiful reminder of where a true leader’s place is: in humble service and gratitude to all they may inspire.

Thanks!

Tantrums As A Way To Self-Discovery

I made a huge discovery last week. I discovered what aspect of my personality was lurking behind my Thinker. As is usually the way, it wasn’t someone telling me what it was, but an “ah ha” moment brought on by a series of events that brought me to my proverbial knees.

For the last 6 months I have been working with my colleague Heather to try and bring about my vision of truly integrating the mind and body. I have been following the trail of intuitive breadcrumbs; meeting and working with other therapists, teasing out a method, building affiliations, blogging, getting a booth at the Natural Living Expo and at the Lincoln-Sudbury High School Wellness Day. Most of these things were quite challenging to me.

However, while all this was going on, I have also been dealing with a very challenging home life. I live with my significant other, and as of this summer, both of his boys, aged 19 and 21. It’s not a big house and it only has 1 bathroom. Not an impossible situation, but everyone needs to do their part so that everyone can get to work on time and the house doesn’t turn into a hovel. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for most of the summer into the Fall, with Steve and I basically being the cook, the maid and the chauffeur.

So, what do you get when you add the frustration of growing a business, the anxiety of manifesting a vision, the fear of financial disaster, exhaustion from spreading yourself too thin, and anger and resentment from carrying more than what you feel is your share of the load at home? In my case, it was a full blown tantrum, complete with throwing things around.

It was not my proudest moment.

But what tipped it off? You could argue that all of that was enough to send anyone over the edge. And yes, I could certainly feel the tension building, but it didn’t have anything to do with what was going on outside of me. This was a seething cauldron that was kept out of sight and mind until the pressure to keep the lid on got to be too much, and exploded. And it was me keeping the lid on. What about myself did I not want to see?

What tipped it off was a conversation I had the morning of the Tantrum. I was talking with my nutrition counsellor, Paulina, after one of the group meetings about spirituality being one of the primary foods of life. This moved on into talking about faith and surrender and how I have a REALLY hard time with that because, “I don’t like to lose. I want to win.” Those exact words. They just popped out from the depths of some abyss that I had relegated them to. It wasn’t the Thinker saying those words. It was the badass of the profiles that I learned at the Energy Medicine School: the Enforcer/Charismatic Leader, and it wasn’t small!

I was so shocked and appalled (a beautiful bit of judgement there) from that spontaneous visit from my lower self, that I decided to pretend it never happened. I’m a Thinker. It’s not about winning for me, it’s about bringing ideas and inspiration into the world. (Visions of wide rivers with pyramids and bridges in New York seem to be pouring in from somewhere...) That may be true, but that isn’t all of it.

Well, apparently, once you let that particular cat out of the bag, it won’t go back in, hence the tantrum.

It wasn’t until the next day that I had the “ah ha” moment though. There I was, in the shower, and a little thought pops in. “Trust, faith and surrender are the same thing.” (Thank you Guides!) And in that moment, as they say, I had a thousand moments. I saw in a thousand ways, thoughts and actions, over the course of my life how I didn’t trust, or if I couldn’t win I wasn’t playing, the competitiveness, the stubborn will, the “my way or the highway” attitude.

But most importantly, I saw that I knew it all along, but either ignored it or rationalized it away. But I never owned it. That’s a lot of me not to own. That’s a lot of power not to own.

So there I was, not 3 days before the Natural Living Expo, the biggest event of my professional career to date, and I find a large part of me that’s hanging out in the open, raw and bleeding. Just what I needed.

The good news is, I have lots of Enforcer/Charismatic Leader friends to help me. I called one of them, (another Heather) and when she stopped laughing, she had a great insight. Basically that just before the Expo, a time that I need to be that Charismatic Leader pioneering a new vision into the world, I’m shown that I have one. I have what it takes. She also helped me see the gifts that are the other aspect of that characteristic. She helped me see the strength, determination, fearlessness, integrity and nobility that doesn’t demand followers, but inspires those to follow. My Thinker, as much as I love her, can’t do that. 

So I want to say a big “Thank You” to the universe for giving me the opportunity to see and appreciate a part of me that scared the crap out of me, in a timely way with all the support of my Guides and friends. It may have looked ugly at the time time, but that's what it took to get me wake up. Just what I needed. Maybe this will help me find the trust that I need to surrender. 

Maybe!

Diet Experiment Day 12: A Short Hiatus

I have made an executive decision. I’m going to take a couple of days break from the experiment before I dive into the next nutrition challenge.

Now, I’m not going to go off the rails. I’m still going to stay away from wheat and dairy and try to keep to the blended diet that I have been doing, I’m just not going to write about it. Mostly because I seem to be either at a plateau or just generally much improved and at a stable point, so not really much to report.

If something goes completely crazy between now and Monday, then I’ll definitely note it down!

So, a run down on how I did overall based on my original criteria.

I don’t feel crappy! To be honest, I haven’t felt crappy for over a week. I have to say that I was quite surprised at how quickly I went from feeling awful and having painful digestive issues to not having them. It was like I climbed out of this big hole and I have to say I’m really not looking to go back in again! (Hence why I will keep to most aspects of the blended diet.) It may not have been a miraculous turnaround, but it was pretty spectacular.

It’s amazing what not feeling crappy does for your energy and motivation. It allowed me to want to as well as be able to do some more exercise. That then improved my energy and motivation at the same time. Getting better quality sleep also helped, so I was even getting less sleep but feeling rested and ready to go.

Not much weight loss I have to say. The grand total was 3 pounds. However, because I am less bloated and have been working on strengthening my core as well as my legs, my posture is better and I think it looks like I lost more than that. It certainly feels like it. And, as it was low on my priority list, I’m not really upset about that.

As for immunity, I’m still not sick.

The most important improvement is my connection to my body. I have always been amazed by the human body on an intellectual level, and know about all the incredible things it can do. However, it pretty much stayed as mental concept. To pay such close attention to it and to be able to check in and feel the changes as I made adjustments was a bit of a revelation. To be sensitive to and aware of what was going on real time allowed me to fully appreciate it’s amazingness at the physical level rather than just as a mental concept.