A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

It’s Time To Crack The Code

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Fotolia_70982363_Subscription_Monthly_M“I’ve got to find the gift in this situation. What is it?”

“How do I manage my stress in this situation? “How!” “What am I missing?”

That was my brain for about a month. I was thinking over and over again about what I could do to reduce my stress levels when it came to the computer and telephone system at work. I am the one who would contact the techs who maintained the system, but during that month, it seemed like every day something was malfunctioning. And folks’ tempers and patience were being tested with every glitch, and I found my stress level rising and rising. One particular issue was ongoing and I became stressed beyond belief.

“What is the gift?” “What is it?” “What am I missing that will help me deal with this better?”

For decades I have lived under the premise that all of the non-preferred situations in my life serve me somehow, I just have to figure out how they serve me, exactly as-is. This way of living helped me crack the code on the abuse I experienced. It also helped me enjoy permanent weight loss, shift clinical depression and enjoy healthier relationships.

 As I found myself in a serious arm-wrestling match with a temperamental computer network, I knew that there was a way for me to crack the code on this particular recurring stressful experience. There was a life-enhancing gift in it that I hadn’t yet discovered. I knew that once I discovered the gift in it, my stress would go away because I got what I needed to understand from it.

And, my breakthrough happened during a conversation with a friend, who had high expectations of people and constantly found herself in a state of disappointment. I could relate because I remember when I used to place my well-being in the hands of others. I remember expecting things from other people and feeling disappointment when things didn’t turn out the way I wanted.

I came to the conclusion that, in order to curb my disappointment, I needed to change my expectations of others. That way, when folks would keep their word and follow through without my expecting anything, I’d be delighted. I came to understand that we are all doing the best we can at any given time and we are not perfect. We can’t be all things to all people, and the best we can do is to be a wonderful friend to ourselves.

When I shared that philosophy with my friend, that’s when my own light bulb went on. I realized that I was expecting the computer network to run flawlessly, and when it didn’t, I was disappointed. Therefore, it was my own expectation that created my stress!

I thought about it. Computers are not perfect, and function beyond my control. They break down, they get hacked, underlying circuits have interruptions; there’s a lot that can go wrong. So, all that time when I was expecting the system to run perfectly, I was expecting it to do something it was not designed to do.

I cracked the code, and shifted my perspective. I now expect the network to mess up. That way, when I get a call that something is malfunctioning, I smile rather than stress, because I expected to get that call. With that, my stress is G-O-N-E, and the only thing that changed in that scenario was me. I’m back in my own driver’s seat again, happily balanced and peaceful. Thank you for the gift, wonderful and imperfect computer system. Now you can break down and I will take it in stride!

Here we are at the New Year, and it is wonderful to contemplate how we can make simple steps for real change. It is time to transform disappointment into freedom and joy, and this is how I invite you to explore doing it:

Understand that when you are disappointed, it simply means that you have unfulfilled expectations. You are expecting someone or something to do what it is not designed to do. When you release your expectations – when you accept things (and people) to be naturally imperfect rather than trying to control the uncontrollable (remember the popular definition of insanity?), your disappointment levels will go way, way down.

The next time you are disappointed, ask yourself how the situation serves you exactly as it is. Check to see what your expectations are, and what you expected to get out of it. If you find that your expectations are unrealistic, it is an opportunity for you to reaffirm your own ability to be at peace without that thing or person acting as you expected. And when you do that, you will find yourself becoming lighter, and more in control of your own happiness.

When you find yourself disappointed when people don’t do what you expect or want them to do, understand that they are doing the best they can at any given time. It is not their job to make sure that you are happy, that is your job. And all that takes, on your part, is a shift in perspective, and your non-preferred situations can be the bearers of tremendous gifts and clarity.

May this be the year that you become skilled at cracking the code in your life. Be willing to get the gifts waiting for you all year round!

New Year’s Expectations

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Fotolia_71694129_Subscription_Monthly_MWe all hear about resolutions, but let’s face it, most people’s resolve doesn’t have too much foundational support. The path to disappointment is virtually guaranteed. Focusing on expectations gives far more weight to a successful outcome. Charles Dickens was onto something when he created a whole world around some Great Expectations.

Expectations usually get a completely bum rap. Among my own inner circles, I’ve discovered that ‘expectations’ often carry connotations of entitlement and greed and, usually, immediate gratification.

In the broader world, expectations are heavily weighted towards our historical, long-term experience. Most of us carry everyone ELSE’s expectations around with us. Family, friends, peer groups, work colleagues, social groups all exert expectations upon us. From some, like family, these are often vocalized, activated expectations. From most others, these are quieter, sub-conscious or subliminal expectations. I call these passive expectations. Both passive and activated expectations revolve mostly around success, abstinence, relationship dictates, career and job promotion, stability, and all the greater ‘shoulds’ of the world that most people buy into blindly year after year.

Breaking that spell is the principle engagement I undertake with all of my clients. We engage with this through a question-based process that allows all of these tacit agreements to scurry out of hiding into the harsh, glaring light of reality. Often, not only is it not pretty, it’s shocking, alarming and often ends in tears and choked sobs. Some common things I hear daily: ‘I had no idea they impacted me so much!’ or ‘It’s like I’ve not been in control of my own life’ or even ‘I can’t believe I accepted this for so long. I’ve wasted so much time!’

The weight and burden of other people’s expectations has a lingering and profoundly fundamental impact on the regular decisions we make day by day, moment by moment and, yes, year by year.

Let’s start here: What expectations have you been operating under that are not your own? What expectations did your family put upon you for your adult life? What passive expectations do your peer groups quietly encourage for you? What about your daily life doesn’t feel fulfilling, and what expectations might be leading you to continue making those daily choices?

Now that we have considered where our current expectations come from, how do we break the cycle and the evil spell of living under someone else’s expectations? Of course, we must dissolve other people’s expectations by supplanting them at the root with our own glorious, instinctive expectations for ourselves.

And therein lies the magic of wielding expectations. You immediately gain massive personal power by examining and creating keen awareness for your own expectations for yourself. Now, if we’re going to supplant decades-old expectations and agreements, that means we have to ask pretty grand questions to get back to the roots of our beliefs and behavior.

Some key questions to ask yourself as you enter a new year are made better by distinctions:

Not ‘What do I want to accomplish this year?’ but instead ‘What have I always wanted to accomplish?’

Not ‘What does this mean for me?’ but instead ‘What meaning have I always searched for or been giving to this?’ and then ‘How can I choose a meaning that serves me better?’

Not ‘How can I be of better service to others this year?’ but instead ‘What is the purpose of my life, and how have I not been carrying that into everything I do? How can I start activating this moment by moment in my daily routine?’

These powerful distinctions require thought, consideration, and time to get back in touch with the inner child who had vivid dreams and huge expectations for what this life has to offer us.

Most of us enter adulthood with the activated and passive expectations of behaving ‘responsibly,’ and fulfilling basic roles. Most of these are to buoy the fabric of society, and there is certainly a respect that must be paid here.

The price of this agreement, however, is like locking away and throwing away the key on our deepest dreams, drives and creative expression. Depression, after all, is nothing more than the absence of expression.

What is the final piece to make sure that your greatest expectations are met? Complete lack of attachment. We can never know HOW anything will materialize in our lives. The universe/God has a plan that will always be a mystery to our basic five senses. The beauty of engaging with your deepest expectations is that you activate your sixth sense and allow yourself to appreciate how your expectations might be met in daily miraculous ways. Isn’t that reason enough to give thanks for the magic of life?

My wish for you as we go through this holiday season into a new year is this: Don’t live the same year over again this year. Make sure that this year is a completely fresh, dynamic, divinely inspired year that you create for yourself with some damn fine expectations of the best life has to offer. Make it your best year yet!

Weeds, Wildflowers & Roses

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RobSteve1

The house where I live was built in 1894. It’s a three-story, wood frame, “shotgun house”. The lot is only 30 feet wide and 100 feet deep and luckily the house takes up most of this.   My partner and I enjoy a long beautiful deck off the side of the house and I have planted small, manageable gardens out in front of the house and around the perimeter of the backyard. I love spending time in my gardens, putzing here and there, adding new plants or moving existing plants to a new spot in the garden. I have found that getting dirt under my fingernails is certainly a meditation for me.

A few weeks ago we were entertaining a few friends at the house and I had the opportunity to show off my garden. One of our guests, Tom, knows a lot about flowers and gardening and at first I was a little shy in showing it off to him but it turned out that he relished in the variety of the garden. Stopping at one flower bed I pointed to a bunch of plants and I told him that I wasn’t sure what they were – in fact I was convinced that they were weeds – but I liked the flower it produced. The plants grew about a foot tall, with wide long leaves that followed the stem and finished with a tiny bell-shaped blue flower. Tom told me the Latin name of the plant and then said, “Yea, it’s a weed,” and then added, “but if you like the flower, who cares?”

I had to stop and think about this for a moment. How true – that’s really what it all comes down to, right? What do you like? We spend our days going back and forth between, I like this and I don’t like that. If the flower of any plant is appealing to me, why call it a weed? So, I decided to look up the definition of weed and according to Webster, a ‘weed’ is: a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially:  one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants. I find it interesting that ‘valued’ and ‘desirable’ are both used in this definition – especially because these two words are subjective and can a have completely different meaning to any two people. It made me think about what I value and what I find desirable. That led me to one of the many traps of the mind – “attraction and aversion” – “good and bad” – “right and wrong.”

All of Life is an expression of Shakti or Prakriti – the energy of creation and nature. The Dandelion is no different than the Rose – the Thistle is no different than the Iris – each is one form; or one expression of the creator – Shakti! Just like you and I! No one thing is better or worse than another. Everything has been created equal. But we want to put labels on things and put them into nice neat categories. We may think that this makes getting through our day a little easier – but really all these judgments slow us down. Why do we need to have an opinion on everything? Why must we have a favorite color, or a favorite place to vacation? Why must we think the driver that just cut in front of us is a bad driver – when in fact, maybe they are rushing to the hospital because their spouse is giving birth!

Shakespeare says through Hamlet; “There is no good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Sometimes it comes down to our intention – a few beers with old friends is a great way to catch up, but drinking a six-pack or more to drown your sorrows because you missed a deadline at work, may not be the best choice. It’s not that you drink beer but why you are drinking the beer. If our intentions are in line with our own nature, then good and bad are mute points and we can begin to stop judging each and every thing that passes in front of us.

One way to stop the madness is to begin by noting to yourself that you are passing judgment as you are in the middle (or maybe even the beginning) of the judgment. Try it. Next time you are in the grocery store for example and you peer into the cart of the person in line behind you – STOP, before you think, ‘Well. No wonder they are…’. Having a judgment about what you see in someone else’s cart is of no use to you. What your judgments do – good or bad – is they begin to tear YOU down because the judgment reflects on how different you are from them. ‘Oh, look at all those vegetables – I should eat more vegetables, no wonder I’m fat.’ Or, ‘look at all those frozen dinners, they are full of sodium, no wonder they are so out of shape.’ Try it! A judgment arises; stop it by saying to yourself, judgment. You may find yourself, during your tour around the grocery store, or your next commute to work, saying judgment, judgment, judgment, judgment…..I was so busy saying judgment to myself the first time I tried this I began to laugh out loud.

Our judgments coincide with our expectations and our expectations are fed by our fears and hopes. We say we hope ‘xzy’ will happen, when in fact, what we are saying is we fear that ‘acb’ will happen instead. We long for pleasure and we shy away from pain. If we can get to a point of non-judgment or non-attachment we can start to move away from the trap of pleasure and pain, good and bad. Now, there are some good reasons to have expectations or to be judgmental – ‘the fire is hot, if I touch it I will get burned’.   Judgments on the level of survival are important – but judgments that compare or separate are of little or no use.

There’s a Buddhist story of a man who has an arrow in his eye – this arrow represents a judgment he holds about himself or a situation. In the story he tries to move the arrow slightly to the right in an effort to alleviate the pain – but this does not work, so he moves it to the left, again no relief. The pain caused by the arrow is a reflection of the pain we cause ourselves by holding onto judgments. Really all we need to do is drop the judgment (or pull the arrow from our eye) and the pain will be gone. But, we have a bad habit of growing attached to our judgments – they become so much a part of who we are that we almost forget that they cause us such pain. Lodro Rinzler, in his book “The Buddha Walks Into A Bar…” says is best…. “If you are constantly solidifying strong opinions and expectations, it is just as if you are sticking an arrow in your eye. It is foolish to think that we will find lasting happiness by trying to change things to make them more in line with our desires.”

Drop your opinions and find freedom. Move to the middle road and find spaciousness. See the weeds, wildflowers and roses for what they are – an expression of the creator.

Peace,

Steve Bolia

What Price are You Paying for Your Unrealistic Expectations

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ShannMany of the new entrepreneurs drawn to my transformational coaching and consulting business have super high (and often unrealistic) expectations of themselves and others. Add a heaping spoonful of impatience and a dash of ‘got to have it my way’ and they often end up with a recipe for disaster. The result? Disappointment in themselves and others when they don’t experience their unrealistic, perfect outcome.

I get it. Mentally requiring myself and others to aim for the heavens is something I can relate with. Thankfully, after a lifetime of “this is not good enough” thinking, I’ve learned to replace my expectations with invitations, intentions and strive for excellence.

The definition of an expectation is: ‘A strong belief that something will happen in the future.’

The definition of an invitation is: ‘The action of inviting someone to go somewhere or do something’;(this someone can be yourself).

The combination of the two: “The action of inviting someone to go somewhere or do something that will take place in the future.”

The combination of these two definitions allow us to set our intention and invite someone else to support us in the pursuit of whatever it is we may be creating.

When the invitation is accepted. It’s important that we trust the person we are in partnership with (no control freaks allowed) to create and complete the project, with room for flexibility to solve problems and take care of unforeseen issues or obstacles.

When we set our expectation bar as high as the moon, our ego will bash, belittle or destroy anything it considers to be less than perfect. Unrealistic expectations can breed insecurity in ourselves and can lead to blaming others for not stepping up as we expected they should. Harsh judgement is a clear trajectory to an abyss of disappointment. Perfectionist’s and over-achievers often find themselves in this situation. It doesn’t have to be this way!

When we choose to replace our expectations with invitations, we can support our peers (and ourselves) to show up to the best of their ability. We agree to do our part to the best of our ability, enjoy the creative process and let the rest unfold as it will.

I often recommend using language that is less demanding and more open and kind. Here are a few examples:

Your Friends:

I invite you to be mindful, honest and respectful.

Your Employees:

I invite you to be present, focused and get the job done to the best of your ability.

Your Clients:

I invite you to show up and communicate clearly and honestly about your needs/wishes.

To Yourself:

I will practice being patient and celebrate small successes while I make incremental strides toward my intentions.

Snapping our fingers and demanding our every wish to manifest in perfection is silly. This makes me think of Veruca Salt’s character in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory. There is a scene where Veruca climbs up on the golden egg scale and quality control labels her a bad egg and drops her into an incinerator. I can almost hear petulant Veruca saying: “Daddy, if I don’t get EXACTLY what I want, I’ll make your life a living hell.”

Admittedly, I love getting my own way. I like to win. I enjoy making things happen. NOW. I also love to work and play with brilliant people. Who doesn’t? My point here is we can all raise the bar higher when we invite ourselves and others to come along for the ride with clarity, creativity, flexibility and a positive attitude.

Replace your expectations with invitations and enjoy the creation process!

  • What would happen if you replaced your expectations with invitations?
  • How have you been burned by expecting yourself to be perfect?
  • Have you ever expected too much of yourself, your family, employees or co-workers? How did that work out for you?

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