My friend Kathy says she has great parking space luck.  Every time we go somewhere we park right by the front door of wherever we’re going.  She says this always happens.

I no longer think that this is random or coincidental or weird.  I think we create our luck.  We choose to allow it into our lives.  So how can we create more luck in our lives?  Try these suggestions:

Notice the luck you already have. Remember how you found that amazing jacket that fits perfectly, the last one in the store, the one that was on sale?  And how all of the traffic lights were lined up green as you drove downtown?  And how you sat next to someone at a luncheon who became your best client?  You are lucky already, aren’t you?   Now, just notice it more.

Believe that life happens for you, not to you. Even when circumstances are tough—you are laid off from work or your teenager is picked up by the police for violating your town’s curfew—know that this opens a doorway to something positive, something better for you.  Maybe it will be a more satisfying job or a chance to connect more deeply with your teen.  Whatever happens, allow it to be an opportunity to move forward, to allow something better, to grow.

Think like a lucky person. Our thoughts determine our feelings and from there we act in ways that bring us the results we get in life.  Lucky people think they are lucky, and act in ways that confirm it.

My friend Kathy has good-parking karma because she begins and ends her search with the best parking spaces in the lot.  She does this because she expects an opening there.  If she searched for a space in the back row, that’s where she’d find one, and that’s where she’d park.  And she would never think she was lucky.

Because they think they are lucky, lucky people feel lucky and act like they are lucky.  In other words, they make their luck.

So what would happen in your life if you thought you were lucky?  What if you expected life to be filled with wonder and magic and luck and great parking spots?  What thoughts would you think?  How would you feel if you believed that wonderful things would come your way, all day long?  Would you act differently?  Would you look for the best parking spaces in the lot?  Try it.  Then just notice what happens.

Thoughts let go almost effortlessly, perhaps for the first time ever.  As I left to return to our cabin, words from “the most poetic lyric” John Lennon said he ever wrote, popped into my head: “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup they slither while pass, they slip their way across the universe.”

I also love this line: thoughts “meander like a restless wind inside a letter box.” 

This year, for its fiftieth anniversary,  NASA beamed this song into deep space, towards the star Polaris, 431 light years from earth.  This was the very first time a song has ever been transmitted into deep space.  Was I hearing those words last night from way up there, across the universe?

My stomach began to burn.  At some point I emailed my clients, asking for help.  My teaching schedule and my airline ticket could be retrieved from saved emails.  Everything else must not be too important.

The crisis was over, but my stomach still ached. I observed myself looking for someone else to blame. (The tech support people at the Apple Store?)  Then, I remembered the guiding principle of my childhood: “I cannot make a mistake.”  Still around.

It took about 30 minutes today to recover. I was able to observe myself in the process of thinking of who I could blame.  About six months ago, I was mostly unconscious of this process within me.  Here’s how it went last spring:

When a colleague asked a question about something I’d done on a group coaching call,  it felt like criticism.  The question, or at least what I made of it in my mind, pushed a big, hot button in me.  I paced in little circles, muttering “I can’t believe her nerve.”

I couldn’t forget about it.  Psychologists call this attentional hijacking, and my attention for anything else was nowhere to be found.

Donning my imaginary power suit and stilettos, I called forth my inner trial lawyer.  I gathered supporting evidence, consulted potential allies, and crafted my arguments. In the process, my judgments about my colleague got very creative, for example: “I bet she was intentionally trying to make me look bad.”

At some point, I came to my senses enough to call a coaching buddy for a session. I began to understand that my old childhood belief, “I cannot ever make a mistake,” was alive and well. I began to breathe more easily, and my attention returned.

And guess what?  No less than an hour after the storm was over, someone else questioned something I said.  I’d love to report that this time, I saw through myself.  Nope, out came the power suit and stilettos.  It felt just as overwhelming as the first round had.  I defended myself with a swift montage of thoughts: “She didn’t understand.  She wasn’t listening,  She set me up for that.”

I called my coaching buddy again.  I wrote in my journal.  Soon, my internal gyroscope righted me, and my attention came back.

And guess what?  The next day, I posted a short note on a coaching forum. I thought it was particularly insightful and eagerly awaited the opinions of the other coaches.  The first comment that was posted noted that I used a comma where I should have used a semi-colon, and quoted the rule of semi-colon usage for my convenience.

And guess what?  Yep.  Again, I rushed to my defense, and compiled a short, funny, but firm response, explaining that as  journalism major, and a former lawyer who made a living for years through writing, ha ha, I certainly knew the rules of semi-colon usage, and ….

It clobbered me over the head, and I began laughing and crying at once. Old images swirled up–missing a question on a second-grade reading test, forgetting to return a library book, being scolded for talking in class. My childhood strategy–performance beyond criticism, straight A’s in every aspect of life–was looking pretty silly.  My biggest, most heartless critic was an eight-year-old-me.  I saw how messily human I am, and how that’s both hilarious and profound.

So maybe next time, I’ll smile wisely.  If not, if I reach for my legal pad and stilettos, compiling my defense of blame and evasion, and the process can unfold again.  Again and again until I get it.

Since they were tame, I nick-named them instead of naming the emotion.  I had the I’m-hungry thought, some to-do-tomorrow thoughts, the I-want-chocolate-instead-of-dinner thought, the whoops-I’m-in-someone-else’s-business thought, and the whoops-I’m-thinking-again-thought.

Then, I had the my-son-didn’t-call-me-like-he-was-supposed-to-so-I-could-fax-him-the-information-to-pay-his-traffic-ticket-and-I-forgot-about-it-until-now thought.  I laughed as I named it the I-forgot-to-worry-about-this-until-now thought.  And was hilarious to realize how worrying is so optional.

By bestowing each thought cluster with a name, I easily wiggled free from them, especially from the one about my son not calling, which had the potential to get me going.  But by naming it, it floated by, just another thought in a marching thought parade.

When my 15 minutes of doing nothing was up, I chose not to react to my son’s inaction. His ticket.  His business. The best way to handle it, of course.

The name-that-thought process was fun, like a game.  As I said in class, creativity is one of my signature strengths on the Values in Action Inventory, and here I had an opportunity to be creative, right in the middle of doing nothing.  How cool is that!

So what do you think?  Is it okay to be creative and have fun as we are on our way?

Last night, after watching the presidential debates, I caught an ad for Microsoft Windows.  The ad, a flashing series of testimonials by celebs and ordinary mortals, glamorizes Microsoft as modern and hip, like iPhones and Macs.  You can see it here.

The superstar of the commercial is Deepak Chopra, who sits in a handsome office lined with rich woods, books, objets d’art, and of course, his PC.   In a seriously sly voice, he deliciously intones, “I am a PC and I am a human being. Not a human doing. Not a human thinking. A human being.”

With that, I think I began to get it.  Right there, in the most ludicrously unlikely place, a silly, flashy TV commercial, I began to understand stillness.

I am not a human thinking.  Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle have taught me that I am not my thoughts.  I’m most certainly not those funny and frequently pesky things.  I’m way more than my thoughts.

I’m not a human doing, either.  I am not my roles or my activities—coach, mother, writer, yoga class attendee, former lawyer, procrastinator. I’m way more than those things too.

A human “BEing.”  Is that what the mystery of stillness is all about?  The me apart from my thinking or doing?  Not a human thinking, feeling, doing, buying, eating, suffering, talking on the phone, or playing sudoko.  I am a human being, a wondrous be-ing, who has that simple truth to come back to, over and over, especially when the going gets tough.

Thanks, Deepak. I’m getting it.  But I’m still sticking with my Mac.

When you’re disappointed, does your mood plunge downward like it’s on a roller coaster?  Yesterday, my new client, let’s call her Susan, had plummeted like she was on the Coney Island Cyclone. She’d sought coaching after a string of business failures.  She suspected she might be doing something to attract this pattern into her life.

In a voice awash with misery and despair, she told me how she’d been incredibly happy this morning at the prospect of landing a fat new contract for her business, but a half-hour before our appointment, she received an email that the deal had fallen through. She was crushed and depressed.

“So what changed the way you feel?” I asked.

“The company changed its mind,” she stated dully.

“How would you feel right this minute if the email had gotten lost in the internet’s parallel universe, and you didn’t know about it?” I asked her.

“I’d feel great,” she said glumly, “at least until I found out.”

“So what really changed?” I asked.

With some coaching, Susan realized that her thoughts about herself had changed. When she believed she had the contract, she thought she was smart and competent and valued and felt energetic and excited about life. When she got the email, she told herself the company had rejected her and she was incompetent and useless. She became listless and empty.

As Susan discovered first-hand this morning, if we attach our happiness and self-worth to external circumstances, like a big contract, a promotion, or our children’s grades, we climb aboard life’s roller coaster. When circumstances are favorable, we are high, excited, exhilarated; when things change, we nose-dive to the bottom.

We hop on a roller coaster to take this ride when we lose touch with our true nature, what Martha Beck calls our essential self. Our essential self knows that we are always sparkling jewels, treasures of infinite value and worth. This has nothing to do with success in any external form–contracts or promotions or our kids’ grades or any other person or circumstance outside of us.

When we lose touch with that part of us, that all-knowing, peaceful, secure place deep in our hearts, we are at the mercy of life’s roller coaster. Our essential self gets buried by an avalanche of neediness and insatiable hunger for positive attention and rewards from others.

People change their minds, contracts fall through, kids fail courses, and others get selected for promotions and awards. That is the nature of life—change and unexpected circumstances are the only constants we can count on.

When we are in deep touch with our value, our worth, and the joy that lives deep inside us, we survive setbacks and challenges with peace and security. A contract can fall through, and we can put it into perspective. We remain positive and hopeful, and don’t slide into abusive or self-defeating thought patterns.

Sure, it feels good to land a big contract. But when we are in deep contact with our essential self, we never lose touch with our worth and our value, and we remain energized and hopeful. We understand that the loss of the contract could, in some as yet unfathomable way, be in our best interests. We save the roller coaster ride for fun and games at an amusement park. And, we realize that the next gift from life may be just an email away.

Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re on the Roller Coaster

1. Are you having any negative thoughts about yourself?

2. Is this an honest, factual assessment of this situation?

3. What happens to you when you hold on to these negative thoughts?

4. Imagine being in the present situation without the negative thoughts and judgments. Does anything shift for you?

5. Is there a stress-free reason to keep the negative thoughts about yourself?

6. What is an honest assessment of the situation that doesn’t include any negative or abusive thoughts about yourself or others?

7. Does this change the way you feel?

She was elated on our coaching call. “This might be it!” she told me breathlessly. “I wasn’t ready for him before, but this time I am. I’m so excited.”

I asked her to describe her excitement. “It’s the feeling of being loved,” she told me.

“Where did that feeling come from?” I asked.

“From his call,” she said.

“Oh, did he tell you he loves you on the phone call?” I asked.

“No.”

“So, where did the feeling of being loved come from?” I asked.

“From the possibility of this working out,” she said. “I’ve always been so bad at relationships before. Now I’m ready. He sounds really interested in me. This could be it!”

“So, really let that feeling you got from the phone call, of being loved intensify,” I suggested.  “Where is it in your body?”

“It’s in my heart,” she said.

“So where is the feeling coming from?” I asked her.

“Oh my gosh, it’s coming from inside me!” she exclaimed.

“Yes it is. And what changed to create that feeling?”

Just then, she got it. “My thoughts. My thoughts about myself changed.”

Yep. That’s it. That’s the secret formula. When Karen thought the possibility of being in a loving relationship was on the horizon, she felt good inside. She became happy and excited. Before that, life was ho-hum. She hadn’t seen this guy in years, and all that had happened was one phone call. The old boyfriend didn’t do that.  Karen did–she transformed the way she felt about herself.

So, as Karen discovered, being excited and feeling loved can be generated inside of us. Once we “get” this we can create it for ourselves, over and over, every day of our lives. We can just skip the middleman (in this case, the old boyfriend) and create the feeling of being loved and the excitement of looking forward to life within ourselves.

So next time you are feeling fabulous, really explore it. Get to know this place. What do you feel? Where do you feel it in your body? Describe it. Write it down. What thoughts are you having about yourself? Write them down. Memorize everything you can about this experience.

We don’t have to wait to find the right relationship or the right anything else to feel fabulous. And, as a bonus, when we’re excited to be alive, we can attract exactly what we want–like a great relationship!

I actually used to say that. A lot. Well, part of it, at least: “someone pulled the rug out from under me!” I’d complain pitifully. It was colossally unfair, my bruises were humongous, my butt was in excruciating pain. I didn’t quite get the part about dancing.

Then, without my permission, without even being asked if I minded, I was transformed into a single parent with two kids, a dog, a hamster, three to eight cats, a bunch of perpetually imperiled parakeets, two mortgages, a seriously leaking roof, a disabled parent, and a law practice full of clients with problems ranging from incomprehensible to insoluble. All of which bred unpredictability faster than rabbits in the springtime. The rug flew out from under me more times than I could count. I stayed off balance, not infrequently on my ass, and, no surprise, I was really miserable a lot of the time.

I tried to be happier, I really did. My first tactic was to gain control of my life. Not that I had control issues or anything. I tried many creative approaches to achieve control, for example, sleeping fewer hours and threatening my kids more. This didn’t work.

Then I got proactive. I changed my career, my therapist, and my hairstyle, among other things. But life was still unpredictable. Sometimes it felt downright brutal. Like my four-year-old in a barber’s chair, life wouldn’t hold still. And the changes I made didn’t stop life from its own twist and turns.

Then I realized what I’m sure you already know: no matter how many to-do lists or threats you make, life won’t let itself be hammered, roped, cajoled, or glued down. Those whimsical twins, Surprise and Change, are always popping up.

Sometimes it’s fantastic: you find a $100 bill in a parking lot or you suddenly meet a really fantastic person (i.e., a guy.) And he’s really interested in you as a person. And he has a job and a car.

Sometimes the surprises are spectacular curveballs: like, say, your new boyfriend, the one with so much promise, takes your kids out to buy Easter egg dye on a lovely, warm spring evening. And somehow, he gets arrested. And he tells you that his ex-wife didn’t pay the registration fees on his car like she was supposed to, and you wonder how come he didn’t do it and why he got arrested for that, and your kids tell everyone you know about the cool ride they took in the police car, and your ex-husband asks you a lot of pointed questions, and you can’t stop thinking of Helen Hunt’s bewildered line in As Good As It Gets: “Why can’t I just have a normal boyfriend?”

When I accepted the constant companionship of Surprise and Change, something magical happened: I began to change from the inside out, to feel happy most of the time, no matter what happened. (At least I didn’t marry the guy, I’d whisper gratefully to no one in particular.) And, I’d tap, tango, and mashed potato across whatever carpet I was on.

And that’s how it goes. Sometimes you get to pirouette, in bare feet, on a jewel-toned, silken carpet. Sometimes there’s ice underfoot, so you pull on your thick, wool socks and your boots with the heavy tread, and your dance is more of a stomp. Sometimes life whirls at you so fast all you can do is improvise.

Life is movement and movement is change. When you get this, you can usually land on your feet. Then, more and more, you’re twirling and boogieing, arms outstretched in pure delight.

And that’s what my work is about now–exploring how to salsa, shimmy, and cha-cha-cha on the shifting carpet of life. And I invite you to join me in the dance.