Inner180

A wonderful client of mine, a smart, hip woman who lives in Manhattan, recently got a lesson in the high cost of being too nice in the NYC subway. A bedraggled man got on the car, took the seat beside her and, in a series of escalating advances, attempted to engage her in conversation and then began to touch her.

Frightened, she quietly waited until the train came to a station, told him it was her stop (yeah, she actually gave him an excuse for leaving), and re-entered the next car, which had more people on it.  He followed her, continued his advances, and luckily this time, several men on the car restrained him, and summoned the transit police, who took the very mentally ill man away in handcuffs. My client was grateful because it could have been worse, but she was tremendously upset and shaken.

What was she thinking? As we deconstructed the event, she realized that she saw him initially approaching her, felt uncomfortable, but she sat still because she didn’t want to seem impolite.

We do it all the time, us nice girls.

I recently visited a new hairdresser.  I walked into an elegant salon and was greeted by a man dressed in black and chains, like an old British rocker.  I did not like his look or his vibe, but nonetheless, I politely sat in his chair.  As I picked at my hair, trying to describe what I wanted, he abruptly told me that I was paying him to cut my hair, not drive him crazy, so I had to keep my hands out of my hair.  As he roughly raked through my hair, my eyes welled up with tears.  “I’m extremely tender-headed.” I told him. “Well I’m not known for being gentle,” he replied. I was aware of a sickly feeling growing stronger in the pit of my stomach.  But I did not leave.

You know the ending of this story, right?

Of course.  I left with three inches less hair than I wanted, a lousy, unflattering haircut, and the prospect of finding someone else to repair the damage.

What was I thinking? I was operating on the same frequency as my client in the subway, as the woman who doesn’t get off the elevator when the creepy guy gets in, the woman who doesn’t get up, walk out, scream, or do whatever it takes to live her life in peace, exactly as she pleases.  I ignored all the signals from my gut, because I felt too uncomfortable standing up and leaving.  I ignored my feelings because I was afraid to tell him the truth.

We’re such good girls aren’t we?  In the name of being nice, of not making a fuss, not offending, not drawing attention to ourselves, and a passel of other sometimes valid but not universally applicable motivations, we tolerate all kinds of inappropriate people and behavior. We ignore the clues in our bodies, sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming at us–get up, leave, walk, run, speak up, yell, don’t sit here, don’t stay here, don’t do business here, get the hell out of here and don’t turn back.

Enough!  I’m Declaring my Independence.

I’m ready, finally ready, to declare my independence from being nice at whatever it costs.  I’ll have a wonderful daily reminder as my hair grows back.

I declare that henceforth I will put my desire to be happy and safe over my desire to be polite at any price.  I will listen to my body.  I will listen to my gut feelings.  And I will never, ever again fail to speak up for myself, and just stay quiet, sit still, and not leave, speak up, scream, or whatever it takes to look out for my best interests, in the name of being a good girl.

Won’t you join me?

Dear One,

I really enjoyed getting to know you better during our session and I was thrilled to be able to coach you.  I have seen a lot of potential in you and I’m glad you want to look deeply inside yourself.  I do quite a lot of work around “How to Work with People in Crisis” with coaches, lawyers, and mental health professionals.  In a sense, this is what you are challenged to do with your partner.

The first principle of working with those who are in crisis is to remain calm yourself.  And I am not talking about the calm of the actress who is showing exterior calm while flipping out or at war inside.  Our energy fields will give us away.  (Remember the heart’s electrical charge is MEASURABLE, with today’s equipment, up to 10 feet away from us.)  Clamping down our feelings is exhausting, and compromises our intelligence and creativity and our authentic power.  This is confirmed by science, as well as by our spiritual leaders, and all of the great healers and leaders who have shared their secrets with us.

I am talking about honest, authentic calm, the deep calm that knows that we will be allright, no matter what happens.  It is a calm that comes from unconditional love, for absolute acceptance of reality, and from getting in touch with the sometimes painful but always liberating truth that we are responsible for our own experience. This is why the focus of our coaching session was directed at the real truth of what is going on inside of you, rather than around your partner’s behavior.

As coaches, as leaders, as parents, as those interacting with people in crisis, it is up to us to set the tone of our interactions, rather than being pulled into the other’s upset.  This is a big challenge, particularly with a partner because they know where our buttons are, and they often don’t hesitate to push them.  They will exhibit behavior with us that they will not do elsewhere, for example, at their workplace.  Which fuels further judgments, recriminations and inner war (“Why can’t s/he be civil with me if s/he can keep it together at work.  S/he is disrespectful, a jerk, too angry.”)  On and on goes the inner dance.

If you can stay in your core of peace with your partner, you can do it with anyone, I suspect.  But you must first see the value in getting really honest with yourself about all of this.  This is an exploration of the “why” you want to interact from your core of peace and to be an authentically calm presence.

For those of us who have lived most of our lives in a lot of noise and turmoil (inner and outer), this is a huge identity shift.  It is scary and our minds will rebel, often very creatively.   I remember thinking “without my drama, without my stories, without my nostrils flaring and coming back with a quick, sassy (i.e., nasty) remark” I will be flat, weak, boring, plain vanilla, no personality.  For me, that was just another lie I told myself to stay in a dance of war, of turmoil, of victimhood.  Although I was frequently miserable there, It was a very familiar place, and I was comfortable there.

I have, in large part, now ended my personal inner war.  When inner conflict arises, which it does, I do the very same inner work I ask of my clients.  I do not believe that I am now weak or boring or flat, and my experience is that no one else thinks so either.  In fact, my personal experience is that I am much stronger, more powerful, and even more interesting now. And, I have freed up enough energy to power a small city.

So, all of this is a lead up to an assignment for you.  Ask yourself why.  Why do you want to end this war, end this dance, end this strife with your partner?  Write down all the reasons that come to you.  Do this over the course of the next week or so.  Let the reasons come to you.  If you think of reasons not to end it, write those down separately.  If you resist this exercise, then list all the reasons why you are resisting.

Then look at those reasons with an open mind and a heart devoted to the largest truth of who you are and what you really want for yourself.  Ask which reasons are steeped in truth and which are not.  Ask which reasons feel like love and which do not.  And then ask yourself this question:  whose responsibility is it get this truth and this love into your life?

Let me know how it goes.

Much love,
Terry

Sometimes good fortune arrives in our lives so effortlessly that we can’t believe it.  We hesitate and hold back.  Surely it can’t be this easy, we tell ourselves.  Our smaller, more painful interpretation of life is so much more familiar so it seems safer and more real.  We shrink from the beauty and magic unfolding before us.

Rumi urges us to seize life fearlessly, to let go and merge with it, and to embrace with ease the joy and opportunity as it comes to us:

The Seed Market

Can you find another market like this?
Where,
with your one rose
you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?
Where
For one seed
you get a whole wilderness?
For one weak breath,
the divine wind?
You have been fearful
of being absorbed in the ground,
or drawn up by the air.
Now, your waterbead lets go
and drops into the ocean,
where it came from.
It no longer has the form it had,
but it’s still water.
The essence is the same.
This giving up is not a repenting.
It’s a deep honoring of yourself.
When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly,
for God’s sake!
Don’t postpone it!
Existence has no better gift.
No amount of searching
will find this.
A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder,
and become yours.

Has a perfect falcon landed on your shoulder?  What do you want to do with it?  Do you welcome it wholeheartedly?  Will you honor yourself, believe it, and allow it into your life?

Or are you thinking “this can’t be real if it comes so easily”?  Or “this can’t be valuable if it has come so easily”?  Are you believing that struggle is a necessary component of your life?

Where can you be more open to the rose gardens, the divine breezes, and the magnificent oceans which come to you?

There’s an ancient mango tree next to my cottage; it’s magnificent, with a thick, gnarled brown trunk and long glossy leaves.  How many hurricanes it’s withstood is anybody’s guess.  It’s been barren for at least 35 years, which is how long I’ve had this place.  This year, inexplicably, it flowered, and then, magically, massive clusters of fruit appeared.

A few weeks ago, its mangoes began falling.  I sampled one, but it was tasteless.  The fruit drops day and night, thudding on the roof and plopping to the ground, but I’ve ignored it, except to gather it up from time to time and bury it, to keep it from attracting insects.  I have two other trees providing fruit, so I gave it no further thought, except at midnight whenever a hard, green mango smacks onto the roof and rolls to the ground.

As I cleaned up the fruit this morning, I spotted a couple of really pretty, golden specimens.  Curious, I took them in to sample, and they were an extraordinary surprise–sweet, tender, and delicious.

I think the tree is telling me that we can always regenerate,  sweeten, and offer the best of ourselves to the world.  And that sometimes, our assumptions may not be true, even when we think we’ve investigated them.

Aren’t those messages we can always take to heart?  No matter how many times we’ve told ourselves we couldn’t do something, no matter how many times our creative mind seemed barren, no matter how many times we’ve failed to seize the opportunities that come to us, we can always regenerate and bloom and sweeten.  And even when we’ve told ourselves the same old story, over and over, we can look inside again, and find liberating new truth.

The mango tree is just outside my bedroom window, and late at night, as I’m drifting off to sleep, I hear it out there, releasing it’s sweet golden offerings.  I hear them rustling through the palm fronds as they descend, then landing in the thick jungle of vines below.  Each time I hear it, I remember all of the regeneration and opportunity and sweetness and truth in the world.  And that whether I pay attention or not, they’re there–delicious surprises,  just waiting for me to notice.

Is there a point at which we are so sublime and confident, that we can put ourselves into new challenges and not worry, not feel any fear, not have one thought that we might look foolish or screw up  or that our ideas might be rejected? Clients ask me this all the time.  I doubt it.

The diver pictured holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for jumping over 35 feet into a kiddie pool holding 12 inches of water. That’s right–12 inches of water.  His stage name is Professor Splash and I had an opportunity to talk with him a couple of years ago.  I asked him about whether he was afraid when he did a jump.  “I’m scared out of my mind,” he told me.  “I just jump anyway.”  You can watch him set a world record here.

I attended a workshop once with Debbie Ford, a multi-bestselling author who is physically stunning and super-poised.  She asked the audience, “Do you think I am never scared?  I am scared all the time.  I just don’t let it stop me.”

Doubt and fear seem to be widespread human responses to challenging situations.  After we’ve learned to see through our old beliefs, and we begin to develop new ones, those old thoughts lose their power to stop us.  I need approval, I screwed up, the world may think my ideas are wacky—these thoughts may still pop up again, particularly when we have placed ourselves at risk by doing something new, something that challenges our comfort zone.

We feel the old fears, and hear the old thoughts and worries when we take risks.  But we can recognize them for what they are—just thoughts.  And from this place, we can keep going. The fear and worry lose their power over us when we don’t let them stop us.  This is what it feels like to grow.

A few days ago, I listened to a recording of a class I taught.  I lost count of the number of times I said “um.” The next day, I had dinner with a friend who told me that she is a Toastmasters member and at a recent meeting, her job was to count the number of times a speaker said “um.”  This kind of coincidence happens so often that I’m not amazed by it any more.

I asked her if people could actually improve their “um” habit.  She assured me they could.  So, because I’m on the joy diet and taking risks, I’m joining her Toastmasters group.  I’ll have my “ums” formally counted.

They say that public speaking is one of the most stressful things you can do.  Public speaking without the crutch of “um” to regroup your thoughts seems more than stressful.  It seems impossible.

But, I’m not going to dwell on how nervous this thought gets me.  Nope.  I’m going to approach this playfully.  I intend to become completely absorbed in what I’m doing and to let go of the outcome.  I’ll, uh, keep you posted.

Time is a precious commodity, way more valuable than diamonds or rubies or emeralds.  Today, despite a jam-packed schedule, I risked some of my time.

A friend from out-of-town and staying with me, called to say she was at work, an hour away, and she’d forgotten something critical for her day.  She couldn’t leave, and asked if I had the time to drive it to her.

Of course I didn’t have the time.  No way.  My mental to-do list immediately popped into my consciousness.  I’m teaching a joy diet class in a few hours, I’m in the middle of writing a blog post, my email is piling up, and there are a bunch of phone calls to make…. The list is endless, limited only by my ability to dream up things to add to it.  Besides, it’s rush hour, and it might take two hours.  Or longer if there’s an accident on the expressway….

Being on the joy diet, though, I noticed the discomfort I was feeling.  A quick assessment of the Truth revealed that I will never complete that to-do list, and I had an opportunity to be a real friend in need.  I told her I would do it.

I took a few extra minutes to assemble some Treats for my journey–a cup of hot tea and some lyrical cds for the road.  I also reminded myself to expect the traffic to be heavy, and not to be surprised or get upset when it actually was slow-going or there was an accident.

The extra few minutes for Treats was well worth it.  I enjoyed the drive and used it to do my 15 minutes of Nothing, and the rest of the time just to goof-off.  The tea and music were delightful, too.  And the look of relief on my friend’s face was priceless.

I drove home, finished preparing this morning’s class, and let the rest of the list wait.   Sometimes that’s what joy is about.

Don’t you find that anticipating a risk often makes it seem much more daunting than it really is?  How many opportunities in life do we miss, because we assume something is impossible, so we don’t even try?

Today, my Risk is to offer you a re-run instead of writing a brand new post.  I invite you to read something I wrote about courage some time ago.  Just click here.

Although I don’t practice law any more, I’m still an attorney, so I joined a team of volunteer lawyers helping at the polls today.  I stood for hours and my feet hurt and my back ached, but at least I could walk and move around and find shade.  The voters stood in line in the blazing sun for at least five hours. Many people had small children in tow.

Witnessing this was one of the most moving experiences of my life.  Black and white, young and old, Republicans and Democrats, all patiently and politely waiting together. People stood side-by-side chatting, even though they wore buttons from opposing candidates.  I didn’t see one complaint, one rude remark, or one argument.  No matter how this election turns out, this aspect of it has been phenomenal.

There was a group of five lawyers advising the hundreds of waiting voters.  In the past, I would have sought direction from one of the ones who had been there all week, since I was the newbie.   Being on the joy diet though, I decided to find my own niche, with my heart, not my head.  Now this may not seem like a really big deal to you, but I was there as a lawyer, and trust me, lawyers don’t typically work this way.

As I scanned the lines, I noticed that there were elderly, disabled, and ill folks waiting in line.  Apparently a security guard, who, to be sure, was trying to do his job, was turning these folks back to wait in line with everyone else.

I escorted two blind voters to the entrance.  The guard stood to block the door.  I gently told him that they were disabled and that I was taking them inside to find a place to wait.  He glanced at my ball cap emblazoned with the words “Florida Voting Rights Attorney,” and stepped aside.  They would still have to wait, but it would be in chairs, in the air-conditioning.

So that’s how I spent my day.  Several hours after I’d helped a severely disabled woman with lupus who was dragging a heavy wooden folding chair with her, I saw her exiting the polls.  When she saw me, she lit up.  “I voted honey. I made it.  Thank you so much,” she cried out as she hugged me.  And that was pure joy.

In furtherance of going off mental autopilot, which I wrote about yesterday, I’m examining all kinds of automatic, judgmental behavior in myself.  It feels really risky to let go of it, even though it offers about as much protection as a garlic necklace.

Today, I retired from automatically judging a person who really pushes my buttons.  I listened to him without a wall of defense and rejection.

The first few minutes took some discipline. My reactions against his words and thoughts and concepts are strong and arise instantaneously.  And it felt risky to let go.  As if my inner voice of rejection protected me.  Which is silly. With a bit of commitment, it got easier, especially when I could see my own silliness.

I’m amazed at how much judgment I still engage in.  I’m even more amazed at the time and energy I have when I let go of it.

Ironic, isn’t it, how the button-pushers in our lives are among our greatest teachers.