Synergy, serendipity, kismet.....

I love examples of the universe conspiring to make things happen...I thought I would share with you a few that I use as examples in my class when I am talking about following your heart.... At age 35, Harrison Ford was fitting a door for Francis Ford Coppola when a studio executive asked him to take a break and read lines with actresses who were testing for a new film. The film was Star Wars.

Richard Sears was employed as a freight processor.  He bought a shipment of watches that were unclaimed and began selling them up and down the railroad line.  He then began collaborating with Alvah Roebuck, watch repairer…

Eleanor Wilder started writing in 1979 when she was housebound with her two sons as a result of a blizzard.  She never went to college. Her books sell at a rate of 12 an hour, 24/7.  You know her as Nora Roberts

Cyrus McCormick family invented a horse drawn reaper.  Spent 9 years trying to convince farmers to try it .  He went bankrupt in 1837. Sold 1 reaper 2 years later.  Sold 50 4 years later, then advertised it with guarantees and testimonials.  He sold 1000 6 years later. At a World Expo he demonstrated it and harvested 74 yards of wheat in 70 sec. 33 years after starting he made 10 million dollars and started International Harvester .

Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley grew up in Vermont. He was fascinated by snow and studied flakes on a black cloth, others thought he was very strange. His parents were poor farmers. Got his parents to get him a microscope and then a camera he could attach to it.  He invented photomicrography and came up with the theory that no two snowflakes are alike. In his life he documented over 5000 flakes – no two alike.

Brenda Dayne was a life long knitter.  She loved her hobby so much she started the podcast “Cast On”. The podcast was a hobby as well.  Her podcasts are now funded by the government of Great Britain!

Feelings, my friends, are not Facts...

When I first realized this many years ago, I was quite shocked by the truth of the statement.  As human beings, it is our job to assign emotion to everything and everyone in life.  The connection of emotion is what makes us human.  Our emotions filter our interpretation of truth and fact.  If I was to say:  the sun was a bright pinky-yellow this morning as it rose, many of you would conjure some type of emotion associated with a past sunrise that you encountered, thus your interpretation of past sunrises is painted with your version of the truth of those sunrises. It’s pretty harmless to have your own filtered version of a sunrise, however, where we can get in to trouble is when we take life affecting moments, immersed in emotion, and consider our emotions around those moments’ facts.  It is easy to get in a cycle of over-thinking about a person, event, or issue when there are a lot of conflicting or overpowering emotions involved.  We get sucked in to thinking our reality-filtered by our emotions-is fact.  Our reality is not necessarily the reality we should be taking in to account.  Our emotions tug us in the direction of a heart’s desire or a financial need or a family burden.  The need or want attached to those things give us a distorted version of what is.  Our minds trick us in to thinking the feeling-filtered perception is fact because that is easiest to believe.  Face it, as humans we are very attached to our feelings and we are all, to a degree, egocentric.  “My ideas, ways of doing things, beliefs are the best…”  If we didn’t buy in to our own beliefs and patterns we would be wrecks.

What do you do then, when you may be in a cycle of over-thinking or uncertainty over some emotionally charged issue?  You aren't sure what is fact and what is your emotion-induced fiction, swaying you in the direction of your heart?  You journal.  Get out your Traveler Notebook and start writing down the emotions you are feeling, the raw facts you know for sure, your perceptions of the facts, and any feedback you might garner from close associates.  Add it all up, sum up the information, write from a third person perspective, dispassionately with  neutral observations, then take a step back.  Leave it, walk away, let the thoughts settle.  Ponder them on a long walk, over a hot cup of tea, remember to believe in your own best self and return to your written words.  You will, I promise, have gained a perspective.  Write it down, the unfiltered perceptions and why your emotions tugged at you so much.  Remember however, even though feelings are not facts, they are what make us gloriously human, so beautiful and fragile, and each emotion is worth feeling and savoring.

Re-writing Your History

In my workshops I am often asked what the difference is between my emotional wellness philosophy and the twenty zillion other self-help philosophies out there. The cornerstone principle is that all the extra baggage you carry with you i.e. past relationships, failed marriages, addictions, hurts and 'failures' are not experiences and feelings to let go of but to use as building blocks to create the life you want. Face it, all the things I just mentioned - and many more only you know about - are PART of who you are as a human being. If I were to tell you to get rid of these things, I would be telling you to get rid of part of yourself, instantly setting up an adversarial relationship with yourself right at the beginning of your 'self-help' journey - not a very effective way to help someone. Just because a relationship didn't work out doesn't mean it was a failure. Failure is based on a perception of how something should have gone. The negative connotation associated with relationships that fail is based on a very archaic concept that we should meet, mate and stay with that person our whole lives....as kids these days would say - whatever!

Every experience, every memory, every little quirk that is a part of you, makes you who YOU are. So many self-help philosophies want you to 'let go' of those. Can you just let go of a arm or leg that is hurting? What I am asking you to do is take these past experiences, beliefs and memories and make them work for you. Take a different look at them - at what they gave you, at how they changed you and use that information to create what you want in life. A paradigm shift may be called for here if you are always looking at your past very negatively. Negative thoughts and actions breed negativity, positive thoughts and actions breed positive results.

As a little exercise take one experience that you have always looked at in a negative light. This would be an experience that maybe you privately berate yourself for. Write down everything you honestly remember about the experience. If you can't remember some details - don't fill them in with guesses - only write what you know. Next, write what your negative connotations are about the event. Then, I want you to look at what you just wrote and write what you have gained as a result of the experience. Maybe you gained an emotional strength or you had learned to do something you otherwise would not have. Be honest. After writing this all out, keep it somewhere where you can refer back to it. When you are troubled by the memory, pull out what you wrote and read it, add to it if you want, contemplate the event in a positive tone - it may be the first time you have ever done that.

This is a building block to a new life. Every time you take something negative from your past and change your perspective on it, you are in a way re-writing YOUR history truthfully instead of shrouding it in negative perceptions. It is a very powerful exercise that you can do with any negative things in your life. As you go through your past and look at events and memories that you feel have held you back you are laying the foundation of a positive future. You aren't letting go of these things - you are simply incorporating them into who you are now in a positive way. Negative energy sucks the life out of you, positive energy will embolden you and make you see your life in a new light - it will give you gratitude that is unlimited and help you choose joy everyday. What are you waiting for?

The Mechanics of Change

When we talk about creating the life you dream of we always have to talk about change because any growth or creation involves changing. Unless you understand how change happens, you are destined to stay where you are. Change is very difficult and takes a long time. It isn't something that happens overnight. Human beings are creatures of habit, structure, and things staying the same all the time. We like life to be predictable and to know what is coming down the pike. When we want something different it throws everything in chaos because now things are unpredictable. What motivates change? Well, fear of dying is not enough motivation. Dr. Dean Ornish, a renown heart Doctor studied what would cause his patients to make fundamental and permanent changes to prolong their lives and fear of dying was not enough motivation! (In fact, 90% of heart patients who have had health crises do not make life saving changes)....Dr. Ornish found that joy rather than fear motivated his patients. Finding joy in life was more likely to cause those life saving changes. He also found that radical changes were more likely to succeed rather than small incremental changes! In fact when he used the above principles a whopping 77% of his patients made changes that positively affected their health.

We know that joy can bring about change. In order to make the changes in your life that are positive you need to be motivated by the joy that will come with the change. You also need to realize that habits take up to eight weeks to form to where the action becomes expected and automatic by your mind and body. If you want to replace an old habit with a new one expect to consciously work on it for about eight weeks. You may need to put reminder notes around your house or work area. Just remember, putting joy first in your life and using that as a motivation is the most successful way you can succeed. Joy feeds your soul and makes life worth living.