This weeks chapter is Where Did I Put It? Trust me when I say I have asked myself this a hundred times over the last two months. I like a place for everything and everything in it's place but when exhaustion and grief move in, the brain process seems to move out the back door. Along with the brain goes the desire to please everyone so it isn't such a bad thing to go through something so life altering. However we can reset that GPS, I say go for it.
As I get to know who I am every day, I reset the coordinates and look to where the adventure will be.
I hope you enjoy this chapter and get excited about getting to know you.
Where Did I Put It?
Where did I put it is not only in reference to your car keys, your wallet, or that list you wrote out because you were going to take it with you this time. It refers to that part of you that gets left behind, not intentionally, but often through the process of life and the events that can pull our focus away from an intentional journey. There isn’t a conscious thought where we say, gee, I would like to venture away from myself and focus on things outside of me but it happens. It usually happens with one small thing that we commit ourselves to and then another gets added on and then we find ourselves with so many items on the to do list we move to the bottom of that list and have to work with intention to reach the top of it again.
Have you ever found yourself in the habit of saying yes? This can be when someone asks you for your input or when they are requesting your presence on a board or a committee of some type. It can be in the volunteering world where you feel guilty if you don’t at least offer up some type of contribution even if at the time you are agreeing, you are also asking yourself where am I going to get the time or the energy for this?
It would be in that moment of awareness that this is too much that you would, if you hadn’t wandered away from you, pause and let the person or persons asking that you will need time to think and feel about the request before committing yourself. It would also be where you could flat out say no thank you, but that can be challenging for a lot of people who have become pleasers to others forgetting that they must fill themselves up in order to give to whatever the request is, fully and authentically.
How can you get there, the place where you are able to honor yourself without a feeling of leaving the team behind? In small steps, much like the ones that helped you arrive in a place where you are no longer feeling like yourself. Whoever that person is or wants to be will be accomplished in incremental movements, at your pace with an awareness that you can do as much or as little as feels good to you.
This was never more apparent to me then when I met with my client Herb. Herb has a successful business where he is not only the owner but works in a service capacity as well. He came to me with frustrations about his life but also a deep hurt that he couldn’t explain and wanted cleared up so he could engage in his life and love what he was doing again and be a positive member of his family. As we moved through the session, I helped him to identify what it was that was really bothering him. Most of his life he had been trying to reach an invisible bar first set by his parents, then his mentors and then by himself.
This bar had become such a part of who he was he didn’t even realize he was using it to measure others in his life as well. This measuring process often left him with a feeling that others didn’t care as much or weren’t hard workers as well as a myriad of other excuses. Sensing this wasn’t about others, as it rarely is, I guided him in the direction of how HE felt. He then started crying and as was practiced in him, he was trying to stuff it. I encouraged him to let it out and we would see what happened after that. He did and while I waited for him to feel comfortable in the expression of this emotion I realized it wasn’t about the others or about how he even felt about himself. It was that he had left himself somewhere along the process and didn’t know how to meet up again with himself and that joy that he felt was inherent in life if he could just find the gps coordinates. When I pointed this out to him and asked if he felt that was an accurate description, we didn’t get very far when the tears started again. It is always a good indication of hitting the nail on the head or in this case finding the starting point.
So, from here I encouraged him to tell me about himself. What did he like, what was fun for him and where did he feel the most lit up inside. He started talking about his business and how he loved to help people not only on the outside but from the inside to help them feel great about themselves. He absolutely glowed when he talked about that. I then asked him to feel how he was feeling now after having described his passion and he again was moved to tears, this time out of joy rather than frustration. He had found where he left himself and was beginning to connect again. How exciting! (This is why I love my job, this is what helping is about and if you can help someone who wants to help others is a real hoot!)
Have you lost yourself somewhere along the line? If you have, do not worry, there is an eternal tether that holds your soul and self together so it is really a matter of following that tether line to the other end where you left your knowing of what you want in this lifetime. The processes in this chapter can help you do that.
First find where your own gps system is right now. Is it even functioning? If not, smack it a little bit like you do the remote when it won’t work. Then get a sense of who you are today. Don’t worry about yesterday or tomorrow, who are you today? It is ok, even brilliant to say you don’t know, that is what we are going to find out but it starts with acknowledging that you exist and that you matter.
Next, what is it that feels or seems out of whack for you? Is your life balance a little off kilter? Are you spending more time on others than on yourself, on work than in play, on drama rather than delight? If so, find five minutes in your day to reprogram this. I find the appointment scheduler on my cell phone to be perfect for this. I set it to go off daily to remind me to breathe, to take five minutes and that the world is not going to collapse in on itself if I am not at attention. Once you have done this, applaud yourself. Go ahead, I will wait.
It is important to give ourselves this recognition and encouragement to continue with self care. How does it feel to have created an intention to find you again? Is there any guilt associated? I ask this because this is often the next argument I hear from people. While I truly believe guilt is a wasted emotion, it is part of the wonderful vibration that is the human species. A part, that when rewired becomes acceptance, becomes joy and becomes a feeling of freedom rarely felt in any other circumstance for it is then that one truly realizes they are an individual with so much to offer.
If there is guilt associated with this, how can you reprogram that response? Can you realize where it is coming from? It is a way to avoid feeling good, to put off satisfaction with your life? Could it be an old tape that is playing in your brain from past teachers who meant well but may have been a bit misguided? If the last is the case, we have moved on to the digital age and cd’s; skip that track. We also have access to Belief Re-patterning through yours truly that can help you reprogram that response and create a new way of being.
These questions are meant to help you redirect your attention back to you so that there is an experience of fulfillment in your life. You are what is important for no matter where you go, you are bound to tag along so wouldn’t it be great if you actually liked and appreciated your traveling partner. So, as a final challenge in this chapter, what are you going to do that will help you feel present in your own journey? Pick one thing, it can be a small step and incremental or you can put a large goal out there but recognize the smaller steps it will take to get there as part of the process.
Herb’s challenge? Well, his challenge was to learn to say no to that drill sergeant that was yelling in his ear to be more, do more, acquire more and simply enjoy the daily process wherever it took him. He is taking this one day at a time and loving his business more but most importantly, himself. It doesn’t get any better than that.
While locating myself lately has been a challenge, I am very excited about connecting with the now me. What about you? Can you get excited about you?
Putting it wherever I am,
Vicki
