Sunday, January 27, 2013

You are the change you seek

Ten Thousand years ago or more, values held clans together, common rules and understandings which gave meaning and direction as a collective community.  The cultural difference with mostly Western society today is our more insular, self dependent, self centred approach, yet at what cost?
As mental health figures continue to rise, the demand on helping professions is too great as individuals seek to find meaning in life, answers to an ache in bones not broken.
As the humanity which struggles seeks meaning in food, objects, material possessions, alcohol, drugs and anything external, they slide further and further off the track as technology and science speed towards the next quick fix. At what cost is this top down approach on our innate being as a species? Trying to fix something which isn't broken at all rather than build up the foundations of what has been there all along, by teaching us how to use our skills, bodies and power to be all we are destined to be.
Life is a journey, full of pot holes, hills and sharp curves.  Are you a passenger in the backseat looking out the window watching the world go by just waiting to get there? Are you a backseat driver and telling everyone else where to go and yet can't be bothered to drive yourself? Are you a co pilot or a driver? This is your journey, you choose the tranport, the stops along the way and whether you embrace it or resist it.
What is innate in human beings is our need as a species to connect with each other, to have a sense of purpose, self worth and relevance; to feel like we matter.  So much time is wasted on temper tantrums and a refusal to accept that this is your life, this is what you have created and this is where you are right now, right here, right now.  Everything that has brought you to this point, good, bad, ugly, has created the person you are right now. 
Until a time machine is invented, you cannot go back and change the past, you cannot go forward to map out your future and even if you could there is no way of controlling every single variable, every person who could alter your 'big plan'; ask yourself what is it you really want here? Why do you want it?
If only I had a better home, better car, more money, more time; if only the kids would behave better, work harder; if only my partner was nicer, easier, more attentive more loving.  All of these "if only..." suggest you as a victim in your life with no power to be the change you want to see.
Are you listening to yourself or silencing your inner voice?
Do you spend more time pretending to be something you are not, try to seek answers by observing what others do, think, wear, say and then wonder why your life has lost direction?
You are a gift, an amazing example of a living organism. You've had everything you need to be the best you can be all along.
Doubting yourself will not serve you well. Switching off to the voice which tries to scream under water "wake up, wake up you are walking asleep" will not bring you closer to your authentic self.
Blaming others, life, not having enough, will not satisfy the voice inside you that cries unhappiness.
There comes a time in life, whether a catalyst shoves you in the right direction, you have lost all that mattered or your own mortality forces self evaluation on you.
Let me reassure you it is not only normal, it is part of growing as a human being to reach a point in life when you look back on the lessons learned, the life before you, the legacy you will leave behind. If you have gone past 40 and haven't reached this point then get your head out of the sand! If you were a child some self righteous adult would label you as 'developmentally delayed'.  Yet as adults people walk around all the time with the heads up their backsides blaming the world for a great deal of the situations they were active contributors and wonder why this ache they try to heal does not repair!
Development does not stop at 18! Mastery of your body, your thoughts, of your power is not a licence issued on your 18th birthday or on which ever ritual passage you reach.  It is through reflecting on yourself, not as some broken object that needs fixing or mending, on your gifts, strengths and contribution; the legacy you will leave long after you cease to exist.
We are all connected by living things, we cannot exist on our own.  We rely on the nature, other species to provide for our shelter, safety and fuel to power our bodies.  Yet a great proportion of humanity ignores this symbiotic relationship, taking for granted the planet will just keep providing as long as we keep taking.
What we do know for certain is nothing last forever.  Living organisms have a beginning and an end.  As we continue to take, take and take from each other, from all living things, eventually the bucket will run dry.
This goes for you, for your relationships, your friendships. Everything has a limit. You have the power to choose everything; yes you have the right to speak and act as you so see fit! Eat what you like, say what you like, you also end up with your own consequences! You cannot continue to punish yourself without your body wearing the brunt of it and your mind; you cannot take from your relationship and punish those who love you without it having a consquence; you cannot keep spending, wanting and needing, without a risk of running out! You are not infinite!
If you want something different, do something different. 
As you condition yourself, you condition others.  The scary part is watching parents conditioning their children, despite all our skill and survival over millions of years, we still have generations of human beings following the same patterns of their parents and those before them, without at least adjusting a few improvements! If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.
In the first five years of development our moral coding begins imprinting on our brains; respect, honesty, our sense of self and reasoning or alternatively disorder, poor self esteem, anti social behaviour (dominant, controlling, difficulty making new friends etc), dishonesty! These are the years of shaping our personality, the innate beliefs about ourselves, our dependence on others (or not). Throughout childhood how we speak to our children is the voice they hear in their heads, whether you believe it or not. 
So where is the balance? What is the point?
The point is for the world to have balance you have an opportunity to be the best you can be.  I'm not suggesting 'the best' that would be to compare you with others and once you go down that path you begin the same spiral.  This is about you.  Are you your best? Do you use your talents? Do you embrace the day? Could you improve your health? Could you love more, be more, do more?
If you don't want your child to be something or someone, ask yourself why? Is this about them or you? Why does it matter? What matters to them? How we value each other is by showing respect for the things that matter to us, through our own eyes. When you criticise, humiliate and belittle, you are telling a story of irrelevance, it doesn't matter, it isn't important, they are not worthy. Your chink in the chain of balance sets in motion an alternative ripple which works against what you unconsciously seek; meaning, to be loved.
I was having a chat with a friend this morning, which spark these thoughts.  They had always needed someone to tell them how to live, what to do and when, their unhappiness with themselves was projected onto others which created this continuous cycle of unhappiness, it justified their actions.  Then the penny dropped. 
There are many different approaches to becoming self actualised, to developing as an adult.  You could go to a therapist who might squeeze the pus out of your unconscious childhood issues, may ask you to lay down on a couch or might empower you to come up with your own solutions.  There is no one way, only the way that works for you.
I'm a strengths based approach person.  I find when people are going through hell it's best not to top up their load with more crap, by digging open wounds which were partially healed, to tell someone when they are worn and tired you need them to run a marathon! I've seen many positive results by people who focus on what they are doing right, enhance their strengths and get themselves into psychologically and physically awesome shape before tackling an olympic style emotional surgery.  No one likes to be kicked when they are down. I'm not suggesting you enable anyone's behaviour, you only allow someone to treat you the way you think you deserve, there is never an excuse for someone wiping their feet on you! That is their issue, handball it back!!!!
We make up rules and justifications to hold on to that which only hurts ourselves; such phrases as "they can't be trusted...." "they made me do it.......", yet trust really is what you extend, someone doesn't give it to you at all. It has been a constant lesson for me in recent years, most importantly trusting myself to make good decisions.  I've had the complete extremes of lessons, friends who said they wouldn't know a more trustworthy or honest person on the planet and others who when life doesn't go right for them, disregard every connection you've ever made and reach for you as the first person to blame; life has this way of presenting the lessons, whether we choose to listen is another thing; trust is never about someone else, it is about you, about trusting yourself, your feelings, your friendship.  You could pour yourself into a relationship and at the end of the day if the other person has trust issues, you will always seem untrustworthy, whether you are an angel sent from heaven or not. This will always be about their vulnerability.  Trust is allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and for some that doesn't sit so well.
I do believe whole heartedly that when you change yourself, when you reflect on yourself as a contributor, you empower yourself with courage and strength, you see your potential, you see you have the capacity to change the circumstances of your life.  You wake up and realise you have been sitting in the back seat and it's about time you drive this life.  You start with being honest with yourself, your motivations and intention.  You look at yourself in the mirror and you absorb the reality of where you are, you are a beautiful, amazing human being and you have so much to offer the world!!!!
Up til now life has been a challenge, all that is going to change, it starts with your attitude.  You are going to be grateful for every single blessing. You are grateful people love you, want you and enjoy your being around.  You will start with respecting yourself and respecting others. You role model your children beauty, radiance, fairness, human compassion and understanding; you create the foundation  of your legacy, respect of self, respect of others, responsibility for your actions.
You contribute to a global shift, that it is time we stop taking, step up and start taking responsibility for ourselves, each other and the planet. It is time to give back. 
You are here, you exist, you have survived not on your own, with the help and support of many, some of whom you will never know. You are grateful beyond measure, for the roof over your head, the food on your table, for the people who matter to you, for life!
You are going be the change you want in your life.  You know where you came from, we all made some bad choices, they were hard lessons, now its time to put those lessons into action. You are going to start and start right now.  xoxoxo

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Free love....where? really...???

Relationships are one of the greatest investments of our time (energy, patience, finances and physical capacity) that we will ever make in our lifetime. Relationships require everything and more from us.
If relationships were a bank account and you kept depositing your life savings, everything you had, everytime you went to the bank the teller was rude and abnoxious, then only to find out that on the occasions you went spend a little of those savings, it was empty and in the red, you would close the account, write to the Financial Ombudsman and start hiding your funds under the bed! Why invest so much into something that only takes and allows you to become emotionally bankrupt?
Free love, the term coined in the 60's of the ability to be liberal and generous with our emotional bank account, many children (generations!) appeared from 'free love' yet is it ever really free. What happened to authentic, true, honest, unconditional love. The media plays on the divorce rate and sensationalises the figures, yet who talks about the relationships where people are literally sucking the love out of each other? This affects us all! It's like a chink in the chain.
Attachment has never been more complicated than it is today, with its rules, regulations, contracts and obligations and that is just marriage! Billions, even trillions of unhealthy imprinted children now adults, imprinting on their own children and attempting to condition their spouses to fit a mould which needs re shaping! If only they had read Erickson's theories on psychosocial development and realise they are way off course, love is so much more. A healthy strong relationship says as much about you as it does about you as part of a couple.
If you were to sit down with a timer, a pen, a notepad and as you press go I want you to write every single thing you would like in a relationship, in a committed, intimate, amazing, fulfilling relationship with another human being.  Do you really want to be with a man? or a woman? Who would they be, what do they do, what is it you really want from a relationship?
Go ahead give it a go, I dare you.  If you were authentic (remembering true change, growth and sense of self comes from change) you would turn the key on that mind you lock into constraints, into rules and routines, into shoulds and coulds, let it go, imagine for just a minute, imagine your ultimate relationship.

Now.....are you done with that? I want you to give up another 60 seconds, just a minute of your time.  Grab a timer, use your phone! Sit down, piece of paper and when you press start write everything you have to offer in a relationship, what do you give, will do, to create this amazing fullfilling, hot, passionate and til death do you part relationship! What do you bring to a relationship.  So you do the dishes and fold the washing, no come on.....what do you give to the person you love?

There is no stopping when you do this, let the mind wander, be creative, stop trying to over think, over analyse, control everything, just write!!! Tap into those unconscious thoughts and let them out.

I'm not sure if you are in the relationship you long for, uconsciously or consciously, yet wherever you are right now, you brought yourself to it and you are where you are as an active contributor.  Now that is a hard call I know, there are complex relationships and nothing is ever that simple.  Yet if we know we cannot change someone else, we can only change ourselves, what choices are you making to bring you to your hearts longing? Are you a passenger in your life or in the driving seat!

People stay in unhealthy relationships, unloving; relationships which lack all the things they desire from a connection with another human being like some scene from this is as good as it gets!

What you tolerate, you accept; what you accept, you believe you deserve (whether consciously or unconsciously).

You deserve love, unconditional love. Love which lifts you up, celebrates all the amazing qualities you bring to a relationship.  Love that doesn't tie a rope to your ankle and weigh you down.  Love that is actions not words, you are the best you can be in this relationship and then some! You are radiating, gorgeous, a power to be reckoned with, this relationship is like an energy source and every morning you spring into life stronger, more capable and more alive.

You are the best you can be.......

You are content, happy, joyful, satisfied, you love your body, you enjoy your life, you feel joy and confidence in each step.

You look around your home, it is alive with your presence, this is where you want to be right here right now!

This is not to say relationships don't come with their ups and downs; anyone who has had children, financial pressure, health and disease inflicted on their relationship will know each of these issues on their own can weaken a relationship to the point of it breaking, let along altogether. 

You will hear alot of fake and over sensationalised information telling you what type of relationship you need, should have, yet not until you open your own heart, until you jump in with both feet, will you fail to find the answers.  You are not the person next door, the woman at work or the old friend.  Your relationship is about you and the person you love.  It is much better for you and everyone around you to be a first rate version of yourself than a second rate version of someone else. Be yourself, be authentic!

Honesty, the key ingredient to a healthy relationship, honesty and trust! Have you got the key?

Be honest with yourself, honest with your partner, trust yourself, trust your partner.

What is holding you back, what are you holding back from the person you love.  What choices do you make which prevent them from having the love they so rightfully deserve? Are they the best they can be?

I was chatting with a friend the other day about this very topic, about women who stay in relationships where they live half a life (not just those in violent situations that is a whole different conversation and complex situation this general chat does not include to some point), it is reflected in their body, their skin, their fulfillment, in their conversations, the choices they make in whether they radiate happiness or as good as it gets. Women who have lost the passion for their partners, women who no longer want to be touched by them, let alone any intimacy, women who have given up on themselves as if life stops the moment you enter a relationship! By doing this, you also withhold from the other half of that relationship. You starve yourself, your partner and your relationship.

Ask yourself do you dress they way you like, listen to the music you like, is your routine reflected by your authentic self, do you look forward to your partner, miss them, crave for them. Can you look around your home and is it reflective of the both of you, what does it say? Parenting....oh wow that is a whole other blog! What does your parenting say about you both? Do you parent together, co construct and lead your family as equal guardians or are you at bitter ends over a power struggle? How is this affecting your children! We reap what we sow, children are conditioned into relationships by watching, observing and role modelling.  What will be your legacy?

Yep Black Eyed Peas "where is the love, the love, the love....."

You are a human being, you are a gift of amazing treasures, your learning never ceases, life does not cease until the last breathe you take.

Life may have taken you on a detour, you were tired and needed to pull to the side of the road for a while.  Time to start that engine and get going. You can choose to grow or stagnate. You deserve a relationship alive with love, your partner deserves it and so do your children.

Last year the world was taken by storm by the Fifty Shades Of Grey series; it was one of those conversations like to smack or not to smack which brought out the radicals and the self righteous!
What it demonstrated is the unspoken desire people are craving in relationships.  All these unspoken words, untapped feelings, conversations not being had with their emotional and psychological bank! 

Bettina Ardnt (Psychologist) in her 'Sex Diaries' book highlighted this with real couples of different ages and stages of a relationship all demomtrating again how much is not said in a relationship, how much is withheld, used as currency, human beings suffering through lack of love, affection, intimacy with the most important perosn in their life.  I was absolutely horrified to read of men who stayed in loveless relationships and felt powerless to do anything! Let alone the women who didn't know how to talk with their partners. What would the evolutionary theorists say about that one!

You can choose unconditional love, celebrate everything about yourself, be the best you can be because you deserve it and so does the person who loves you. You can choose confidence, you can choosse to be the best version of yourself or a second rate. Ask yourself are you confident to stand naked in front of the mirror and embrace who you are, each inch, each scar, each lesson along the way.  Are you then prepared to walk naked in front of your partner, are you honest with yourself, do you trust the person you love?

A relationship, your love, is the greatest most amazing investment you will ever make in your lifetime.  It deserves your full conscious attention to yourself and your partner. You deserve to be the best you can be, to experience the full range of emotions human beings come with, to experience the full package.

Get up passionate, incredible women and get going, be the person you so want to be, need to be, long to be. Stop waiting! Put a spring in your step, laughter in your voice, food in the soul, be all that you can be and share it freely, the true meaning of free love.

Go on...get going xo

Friday, January 4, 2013

Same & Different - be the difference you want to see

I am not the person down the street, the story you heard yesterday or a statistic on a piece of paper. We are people, each with our individual differences. Why are people so compelled to focus more on similarities than difference?
When my son was on treatment for a brain tumour, we would often receive well meaning phone calls from people who had "just caught this show on t.v. about breast cancer". Some days I was reduced to simple syllables and was unable to be drawn into the ignorance; a small sympathetic part of me (hanging on by a thread) knew they "just wanted to help". Did they stop before picking up the phone and consider an anaplastic astroyctoma in the brain stem may share the same superordinate level of categorisation yet is a 46 year old woman, a 52 year old man the same as a 16 month old child who has neither touched a drop of alcohol, a cigarette, had a sexual relationship or roasted his tender skin in the sun or voluntarily put his body through any of the contributing risk categories which will see him loose the chance to go to school, marry, have children, live a life. No they didn't stop and they don't think.
I've been reduced to every box, category and similarity you can think of and not just by the professionals.  In my younger more feisty days I had the strength and stupidity to try and highlight the ignorance, now I smile, grab a cup of tea and pick my battles more wisely. It helps me identify who really gives a crap about who I am, where I am going and how I feel and really who doesn't, who needs to reduce me to the person down the street or the chick in a magazine due to the fact that so many complex issues are outside their comprehension in one person, so let's just keep it simple shall we!
It isn't a relatively new soap box topic of mine and many who know me are aware it has this way of pushing a tucked away button everytime when someone over generalises about human beings, particulary mmmwwwaa!.  If we could so easily help each other or judge based on the colour of our skin (OM...Gosh...imagine assuming all white people were the same, now that's a hornets nest waiting for a poke!). 
Everyday in every corner of the globe our lives are being reduced, minimised to tiny categories of generalisation.  It encourages individuals to ignore the differences and focus on the similarities, to judge, to make assumptions, to foster ignorance, it breeds apathy and strips away from humanity the fundamental evolutionary strengths gifted to us which bring us and hold us together.
If you were to focus for one day on how many groups you contribute to, promote and use everyday, then how this impacts on your thinking, how you relate to your family, your friends, loved ones, strangers and ask yourself to do you struggle against it or are you one of the easily led who has so little reality, implicit learning in which to draw from so they are reduced to magazines, newspaper articles and the person down the street to compare people to; you would discover a window of opportunity to change yourself and change the way you impact on others.
We are not numbers or things and there are times when similarities aid us in providing support, treatment and getting jobs done! The DSMV is not an instruction booklet, nor the New Idea, they are different forms of helping us better understand human needs.  If you picked up a new piece of IKEA with or without instructions how would you approach it? Did you know it tells a lot about how you approach anything!. Human beings have no instructions. Our behaviours do not define us, they are guidelines to understanding who we are, don't confuse the two! We can learn to understand triggers and motivations for behaviour, how we process information, a lot of what we do and say is predictable. How you live in your home, where you place your items, what items, what you eat, how you speak, what career you've chosen, partner, how you raise your children, how you communicate with others, with yourself; yes all this information gives hints as to who we are and what drives and motivates us! It's one of the most interesting aspects of being human, why we are who we are and why we do what we do. Yet like a doctor learning about the impact of choices on his health, you start learning more about human behaviour and realise the type of relationships you have enabled!
Human beings are driven by two forms of processing information, the big words are experiential and rational yet basically it comes down to the heart (experiential) and the head (rational) thinking/processing, resulting in how we behave and act. Most people assume the head rules, in fact most our decisions are made through implicit learning, through the experiential system; experiences, interpretation of events, personally meaningful, a system so powerful it has a great deal to do with how the head makes its choices! Hence why despite people being made aware of their irrational thinking and choices, they will still go ahead and do it anyway!
Hence reducing someone you care about, even in a professional capacity, reducing people to pre-planning your help completely negates their experiences, everything before that very moment that has brought them to this point! Now let's not over generalise about generalising! I'm talking about HELP people, when you want to connect with other human beings, sometimes you just need to LISTEN!
It is not statistically or humanly possible to have two people the same, it can't be done.  The environment, our childhoods, our life, living, every single event, our genes make up who we are. 
Two women in their 40's (yep this would be an easy example) one has recently experienced the loss of someone and breakdown of her marriage, the other as well, if this is the only two things which you identify as similarities how could you possibly group these two people in the same category? Do they have children? the same number, same gender, did their marriage breakdown for the same reasons, what was their husbands like, families, extended family, support, where do they live, are they both financially secure, do they eat, live, work the same, have the same professions, the same schooling, have they experienced the same traumas in life, has one had fortune and the other hasn't, do they even have similar personalities, is there really anything similar about these women other than a couple of simple categories?  Forty years people! Forty years of living has brought these two women to this point, don't ignore all that because it makes it easier for you rather than actually listening, actually hear their differences, if you truly understand the meaning of help, it has nothing to do with preconceived ignorant notions and everything to do with listening, hearing and being present in the moment.
I've seen it time and time again with children, with people with mental health illness, with trauma; when we treat people as if they are just like the last and the next you will miss the very difference which can help. Each child is different, not just due to gender, age and appearance; they have their own interests, likes, dislikes, for goodness sake something as basic as the order in which they were born will impact on who they become, you will treat them differently so why assume they are the same?
Advice is well meaning, I get that, people try from the heart (well....most), you cannot stand there and criticise another person for their choices in life, for their motivations, tell them when it's time to move on, let go, get their crap together or stop feeling sorry for themselves, if you really haven't bothered to hear them out, talked the talk and walked their walk! Be the bird! "If you are a bird, I am a bird"..(The Notebook).
The most common mistake people make in over generalising is in relationships.  Individuals compare partners, friends compare friends, their partners; families compare each other.  We neither love the same or act the same with each person, so why would you expect someone to treat everyone they come into contact the same, aside from common values, morals and basic manners! You need to weigh the individual differences, ask yourself what does this person need?
Categories, statistics help; they help professionals, statiticians, management and politicians so let's leave that to them. We need categories, they have their purpose, life is full of groups, sub groups and institutional size sameness.  Categories help to minimise risk, identify it and provide treatment and care. However, even for the professionals they too are separated by the bad, the good and the ones who actually contribute to making a difference, simply by those who identify through attention to detail the individual differences which separates each person with depression, each person grieving, each person who experiences loss, has a diagnosis, needs help.
I would bet you each have a story of misdiagnosis somewhere in there. I can tell you more than a few. Even the professionals get it wrong and they do so spectacularly! I would hedge another bet that each time it is through their failure to look at individual differences, to shoosh their opinions, beliefs and stories in their mind and listen to the tiny details which make this person, what separates their needs, what makes them different to all others with the a similar diagnosis, similar experience, similar lifestyle.
One of the challenges I have on blogging and even Crackbook is generalising has become such a widespread disease you make a simple statement and I guarantee, like firing a round of heat seeking missles, the information seems to be absorbed by those who assume the purpose of your day is to get up and shoot them down! Oh please! 9 out of 10 times I'm discussing an action, a behaviour, an assumption, not a person.
Stereotyping people is such a damaging form of abuse on each other; it infects our core beliefs and values, it can only be irradicated by your refusal to treat all people the same, to challenge the pattern of behaviour which compares your children, partner, friend, family member, colleague, random person in the street "the same" because they look, dress, talk or have the same marital status or illness! These generalisations about children, women, men, married women, divorced men, violence, crime, mental illness, cultures at the opportune times when we can make a difference are neither helpful or use our gifts well. When you stop assuming, you stop making an ass out of u and me!
Nowhere in life are assumptions so devestating, is stereotyping more harmful than in the crime of sexual assault.  With conviction rates in NSW less than 1.6% some years, estimations of over 60,000 (including hospital admissions, crisis services and Police reports) victims and yet so few convictions due to the myths, lies and stereotypes people believe about victims of sexual assault! Just because you carry money in your wallet should you expect to be robbed? When then should a woman who wears a certain clothing, career, stays out late, smiles at someone or even rides a damn bus should expect to be the victim of such an horrific crime! Come on people stop and think before you speak, before you spread the infection of sterotyping.
Now if you are one of those reading this and you can already hear that voice inside your head forming it's assumptions, you haven't heard a thing. You are one of those who need to hear this.
When we talk to people and compare them to someone else who had a similar, yes people, similar not the same experience, we minimise their individual stories to becoming irrelevant, to lack meaning, it tells them you already have a plan to fix them (by the way they are not broken), you may have thought about this before even having a chat, already decided where to file their issues, you have a plan and the most important person in this plan was never consulted!
Believe me it is ingrained in us!
I've worked in catergory driven environments; when you conduct risk assessment, observe behaviour you are looking for similarities, yet never in on my worst days would I ignore the differences, something as simple as a person's pattern and history tells us their story, tells us what brought them to this point, gives us sign posts, what went wrong, what needs to go right and how we can help.  Listen people, listen! Look for the signs, for the differences, hear their unspoken words, treat others as you would like to be treated.
Look at the stranger in the street, regardless of their clothing with an open heart and mind, try giving unconditionally to a friend, without judgement, even when they can't give back (yep that would be an expectation, that is your problem not theirs). Take the time to share our gifts, to reach out to each other in our times of need, to listen, to feel and to connect with each other; to make a difference, to be the difference you want to see.