Tag Archives: Getting Out of My Own Way

August 30, 2016 · 5:35 pm

Creating Ugly Art

[CYL] 08.29.16 Ughly 300px

Today the assignment in Creating Your Life was to create “bad art.” Here’s how instructor, Robert Fritz, describes the assignment:

“[today], make the most ridiculous, silly, goofy, inane little creation.

The assignment is to make bad art. As bad as you can make it. Have fun doing this. Do it as an experiment. Let yourself be open to this.”

The assignment to create something bad brought up a lot of resistance for me. Perfectionism is something I’ve struggled with most of my life. I couldn’t even think of how I would create something bad!

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December 15, 2014 · 6:36 pm

Day 12: Radical Forgiveness – First Completed Process

Young Girl Wearing Fairy Costume in Mid Air

Today I completed the forgiveness process for a situation that was troubling me…bringing up the “Big Three” negative emotions: sadness, fear, and anger.

There are a number of ways to go through the radical forgiveness process. The method I used was to complete a radical forgiveness worksheet.

Initially when I began my 30 days of radical forgiveness I thought I would complete one worksheet a day. But in this case It’s taken me 12 days to complete one worksheet. One reason is the situation that triggers the need to complete a worksheet is rarely in isolation. Usually there’s a a whole string of previous situations that are very similar which occurred in the past and I found myself not just writing and processing the immediate issue but seeing patterns and having insights related to those past events.

The whole point of radical forgiveness is to heal those hurts and transform the beliefs which are interpretations of facts into the truth: that I am here to experience these situations and heal the resulting hurts. Not to carry the wounds around and feel the pain every time a similar situation arises. In fact, the idea behind radical forgiveness is that my higher self will continue creating these situations until I have fully healed and can move on.

I have no illusions that healing one trigger will make my life perfect. I’m sure there are other situations that will trigger this belief or perhaps a different belief I didn’t realize I was holding but at least this particular situation will no longer carry a charge for me.

As I write this I feel the process has worked! The situation for which I was seeking relief is no longer creating emotional distress. I don’t feel any resentment or disappointment.

A couple other issues have come up and this time i’m going to try doing worksheets on each with the intention of completing the process faster. However, I want to give the process the time needed and if it takes me another 12 days, that’s what it will take.

There’s a Radical Living community created by the author of Radical Forgiveness, Colin Tipping, for people who are interested in being part of a larger group of people committed to living the radical forgiveness principles. I feel intrigued about this community and I’m thinking about checking it out perhaps after I’ve gone through the process a few more times and don’t feel quite so overwhelmed with learning and integrating the ideas.

Being a perfectionist and someone who has high expectations of what I should be accomplishing, I’m aware of how I’m already thinkig about all the things I want to accomplish in the future so I want to end this by writing what Colin Tipping wrote about the final step in the Radical Forgiveness worksheet:

“Remember all forgiveness starts as a lie. You begin the process without forgiveness in your heart, and you fake it until you make it. So honor yourself for doing it, yet by gentle with yourself and let the forgiveness process take as long as you need it to. Be patient with yourself. Acknowledge yourself for the courage it takes simply to attempt to complete the Radical Forgiveness worksheet, for you truly face your demons in the process. Doing this work takes enormous courage, willingness, and faith.”

Radical Forgiveness, © 2009 Colin Tipping

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December 14, 2014 · 8:55 pm

Day 11: Radical Forgiveness – Why am I Doing This?

Forgiveness_logo

I remember attending a coaching conference and one of the topics was how to coach people who want to be less sensitive to things that that trigger negative emotions. After I shared a comment, the presenter looked at me and said, “Wow, you’re just one big button!”

He wasn’t trying to be mean. He was just making an observation but he was right, an awful lot of people and situations were making me angry and defensive.

It made sense because I had only recently made the decision to start a coaching practice and I was feeling really vulnerable.  I couldn’t rely on any of the coping mechanisms that worked in the corporate world. Instead of limiting my resentment to my boss, co-workers, and “management,” the world became my minefield. So many opportunities to be hurt, made angry, offended, etc!

Up until fairly recently, I had a certain comfort level with being a victim of unfairness and other people’s bad behavior. I usually just found other people to complain to or complained in my journal.

But I’ve gotten tired of feeling like every other step trips an old resentful or frustration. It’s like just waiting to be attacked so I can go into defensive mode. It is emotionally exhausting and it isn’t surprising that I wasn’t waking up in the morning rarin to go.

The appeal of the radical forgiveness process it that it is designed to transform the hurt energy that lies in my old stories (keeping in mind these stories are ones made up by 3-year old me) into love and gratitude. As absurd (or wishful) as this may sound, I’ve had some experience in spiritual awakening and I know from experience that this can happen. It just requires some commitment and willingness to be open to the possibility. Oh, and a deep desire to stop dwelling in the beliefs and actions that are causing so much pain.

I noticed yesterday how impatient I was feeling. It’s only the eleventh day I’ve been studying radical forgiveness and working the process and I’m already thinking, “So why do I still have so many resentments and hangups?” I haven’t even completed the all the steps to address one situation because so much stuff comes up and I want to give myself time rather than rush the process.

Yesterday was a particularly tough day because multiple incidents occurred and i was feeling like as soon as I felt resolved about one thing, two additional issues popped up. Like some kind multi-headed monster.

Part of me was thinking, “Jeez, do I have to sit all day completing forgiveness worksheets? Will I ever get some relief here?”

Fortunately, the Radical Forgiveness book is very clear about doing your best and that more effort doesn’t mean you speed up the process. The point is to simply spend time on the process and the process will work on you.

This makes a lot of sense in light of my personal experience. Spend an hour on the process and get on with my day. Allow my unconscious mind to work on it and integrate it while I’m doing other things.

I HAVE already noticed a sense of lightness in my daily presence and if nothing else, I have the awareness that when I get triggered, I remember “You don’t have to remain stuck in the victim story. Maybe there’s a higher purpose working here that will help me heal in a more complete way.”

 

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· 1:30 am

Day 10: Radical Forgiveness

holdinglotus

I was discussing radical forgiveness with someone and they said, “Maybe you’ll help other people who feel misfits find a way to be successful?” That sounded really appealing to me.

But one of the gotchas that always comes up for me around this is the idea of helping others be successful because I’ve discovered a process that has helped me become successful rather than helping others have success that I myself cannot yet claim to have.

For example, a few years ago my interest was in helping small business owners create and sell information products when I myself couldn’t claim to have created an information product that made much money.

And there’s the issue of just because a process works for me … it doesn’t mean it will work for other people.

Again, I’m not looking for a specific answer so much as I’m asking the question to be open to something I’m not seeing.

One thought I’ve been having to the second part of the question, the process piece, is to keep the process as simple as possible so that it’s based on greater truths (which tend to be true for everyone otherwise they wouldn’t be considered ‘great Truths.’ And encourage people to find the way that will work for them.

Or perhaps tell stories and share a variety of examples as a way to help people find a way that they could apply.

And another requirement, I think, is to be practicing a process that allows for finding your truth and inner guidance so you don’t get caught up in the “shoulds” and can say with confidence “this approach doesn’t fit who I am.”

The process should be a part of a larger environment that supports the persons journey.

This raises an interesting question for me: if I were to create an environment that would support my own growth and expansion, what would that environment look like?

Interesting question to consider. Perhaps do some journaling about. I’m thinking by writing about what I know I might learn at least what my next steps are in terms of things I don’t know but would feel I need to know to move forward. Hmm.

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December 12, 2014 · 12:09 am

Day 9: Radical Forgiveness – Big Ones

Captain           Tritura            Leopardo

Those Big Bad Negative Beliefs that Kick My Ass

When I initially decided to practice radical forgiveness for 30 days I assumed I’d be doing one worksheet a day … or nearly so.

Instead I’ve found myself working on the same worksheet and on the same situation over the last 9 days.

The good news is that because most issues boiled down to a limited number of negative beliefs, by addressing one situation, I’m addressing a lot of others and I imagine it will be easier to go through some of the steps in the future as I get more familiar with the structure.

As I’ve been processing this stuff, I realized I have a few beliefs that kick my ass on a regular basis. Kind of like my “Book of Doom” because none of the situations in which these beliefs hold true have happy endings.

The biggies are:

  • I will never be compensated for my gifts and talents because there are so few people in this world that can remotely get the value, I’ll probably die before anything I do is appreciated on a wider scale.
  • There is only one way to succeed in this world .. at least in the small business/entrepreneur world and that is to “hustle your ass off nonstop”
  • A teeny tiny number of people have been successful without hustling their asses off. They just happened to do something that although not obviously marketable attracted a cult following. And btw I’m not one of those people because if I were I wouldn’t have struggled with the first two.

I know I’m not the only person who struggles with these particular issues but I’ve yet to meet anyone who has struggled and found a way to stop struggling.

The other day my husband asked me “Do you have any kind of plan?” It’s a fair question and all I could think was “I WISH!”

Because I really don’t have a plan. I used to make shit tons of plans and have SMART goals and I hit a lot of those goals. But looking back, very few of my achievements merited the energy it took to get there because I don’t think the logical, systematic way I went after my goals fit my personality or style.

As I contemplated my lack of plans and seeming inability to sell I rephrased the issues so I might consider them in a more expansive way. I wrote:

  • What’s wrong with being unable to make a decision?
  • What’s wrong with drifting?
  • What’s wrong with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
  • What’s wrong with not wanting to pick up the phone?
  • What’s wrong with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral way?

Of course there are voice inside of me that are very good at answering these questions and telling me exactly what’s wrong.

My friend Lynn asked me, “what if you reworded your questions to ‘what’s right'”?

So reworded the questions are:

  • What’s right with being unable to make a decision?
  • What’s right with drifting?
  • What’s right with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
  • What’s right with not wanting to pick up the phone?
  • What’s right with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral
  • What’s right with wanting to do what I love, make a difference, and get paid?

Whoa! This just blows my little mind!

This is a situation where I’m just going to allow myself to “live in the question” and see what floats up for me. And have some fun with the questions and maybe just come up with the silliest answers possible.

I’m learning the best way to handle big, badass beliefs is instead of challenging them to a wrestling match which I’m bound to lose, I’ll invite them out for a cup of coffee and some conversation.

Who knows what Captain Gladiator might have to share?

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