Inner180

Do you ever say “yes” or “maybe” when you really want to say “no?”  Or do you muddle your “no” with explanations, excuses, or apologies?

Consider these alternatives:

–I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.  But you know, I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.  I’m sorry.  Please don’t be mad at me.

–No.  I’m not ready to have sex with you.

How about these:

–I really don’t want you to use my car tonight because the last time you went out in it you stayed out until 4 am and you didn’t call me and  I was so worried about you and I just don’t sleep when that happens.

–No, dear.  You can’t borrow my car tonight.

Or these:

–I don’t know.  I’m really tired, and I’m not sure how I’ll feel tonight.  So, I’ll have to call you later.

–No, I’m not available tonight.  Thank you for asking.

How about these options:

–You know, my credit card balances have really crept up and I have to get my washer fixed and go to the dentist and I don’t get paid for another two weeks.  So, I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it.

–No, I can’t lend you money.

When we are not clear in our no’s we open the door to debate and  argument.  We set ourselves up for difficult relationships.  We often agree to do things that conflict with our real desires and our core values.

And whether we reluctantly go along with something because our “no” was never clearly expressed, or we somehow wriggle out of it by offering up enough excuses, we never enjoy ourselves.  Either we wind up doing something we didn’t want to do, or we’re exhausted by our guilt and the effort to get out of it.

One of the most empowering things we can do is to say “no” honestly, clearly, and cleanly.  It gives us both inner strength and peace in our hearts.

Try it out and see how it feels.

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

I recently spoke with Carolyn Gable about Fear and Finances on her radio show.  Carolyn Gable is a Chicago dynamo who went from high school grad and waitress to CEO of her own $30+ MILLION company.  How’s that for fearlessness?  She now has a weekly radio show dedicated to empowering single moms.  You can learn more about Carolyn here.

As a former single mom (with a 12 month old nursing baby and a high-energy, high-needs toddler), I know how scary it can be.  I’m honored and thrilled to have participated in this effort dedicated to helping single moms!

You can listen to our conversation on the button below.

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.

Sarah was stuck.  She came to our coaching session this week hurt and confused, and was wholeheartedly committed to a painful interpretation of a situation with a co-worker.  Blinded by her thoughts, Sarah clung to her painful position.  I watched her face crinkle in confusion and doubt, as her pain grew worse and worse.

Towards the end of our session, her frustration grew so great that I began to contemplate how to conclude the session without her achieving much insight.  In the next instant, she broke through her pain and confusion.  “I get it,” she said, as tears of relief streamed down her face.  “I feel like Helen Keller.“ she told me.  As I recalled the powerful scene in the movie The Miracle Worker when Helen “got it,” tears welled up in my eyes, too.

For the remainder of our session, Sarah was able to discuss the relationship with her colleague with clarity and calm.  She had had what we call an “aha” moment. These moments of insight, arrived at by our own hard work, investigation, and effort are the most powerful learning experiences there are.  Sure, there is often a struggle and there may be plenty of discomfort, but when that “aha” arrives, it’s akin to what Helen Keller called “the most important moment” of her life.  She finally understood that Annie Sullivan’s incessant and incomprehensible hand gestures and sounds could unlock the doorway to connecting with and understanding the world around her.

This is why coaching and indeed any process that allows us to discover our own answers is so potent—we struggle through a problem ourselves and find our own answers.  When we do this, rather than being given advice or handed the “right answer,” we are actually forging new connections, new neural pathways in our brains.  In fact, our brains actually release a small spurt of energizing adrenaline, which we interpret as a pleasurable sensation.

We are all familiar with these “aha” moments and they feel very different from other types of learning, like, for instance, attending a lecture. So the next time you are frustrated, confused, and unable to solve a problem, hang in there.  Your “Helen Keller moment” may arrive in the next instant.

After playing hooky for a few days, intrepid joy dieter Jenny caught me goofing off.  So, we gotta have a BONANZA OF LAUGHS TODAY.

Try these:

From Martha Beck herself, an animal lover extraordinairre, the sneezing baby panda:

Here’s something for all you serious types, courtesy of Jenny:

Catherine has suggested Whose Line Is It Anyway?

Finally, I dare you not to laugh when you watch this:

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Have you seen the Puppy Cam, the “latest internet sensation”?  Millions around the globe have tuned into this live streaming video feed of these six Shiba Inu pups as they wrestle, chew, yip, snuggle, and frolic. They were six weeks old today.  Addiction warning:  this is extremely habit forming.

Click here to watch.  Sometimes the camera is off, so if you see a still photo, just drop in later.

Today, a coach I’d never spoken to before told me she’s planning a transformational coaching and yoga program in India next year.  I decided that my daily risk would be to offer to help her.  After all, one of my creative action steps is to tell as many people as possible about my desire to travel.

So I spoke up.  “If you need someone to help carry your bags, just let me know,” I nervously joked.  It fed all of my “I hope she likes me” fears.

And you know what happened?  She was open to having some help.  And not with her bags.  With planning the program.  And she likes me, it seems.  We’re going to get together to talk soon.  Pretty cool, eh?

How are your risks going?

Today, I examined Monday’s list looking for general themes.  After I saw this I began to feel excited.  These are some things I want, although I don’t know in what form:
Travel
Independence
Warm water
Creativity
More time
Wisdom
Inner peace
Inspiring others to inner peace

“You’re so fat.” Julie is scolding someone close to her. She does it regularly.

Paula has a different message: “You spineless jellyfish. It’s a shame you are wasting your life”

“How could you be so dumb? No wonder your life is such a mess.” Kathy is delivering her blows with the accuracy of a champion prizefighter.

All three of these women are bright and educated. Each of them has many close, loving relationships, and excellent social skills. Each of these women knows that these words are cruel and destructive.

So who do you suppose they’re talking to like that? Their kids? Their spouses? Their friends? Of course not! They would never be so heartless and cruel.If you guessed that these are their inner conversations, you are correct. These women, whose names have been changed, berate and scold themselves many times each day. [Read more →]