Recently I experienced a big shock—the kind that most of us don’t encounter very often.

I was with a friend when I discovered evidence of a physical disaster near my home. I did not, at that time, know any of the details, nor did I know what kind of impact it might have on my own life.

Now, normally, I am a person who likes, even needs, to process my emotional impact verbally. In other words, I really like to talk things out. (What else would you expect from a professional therapist, right?)

But in this circumstance, I found myself unwilling to talk about my inner workings at all. My friend who was with me was even a little frustrated. She couldn’t understand why I shut down. I didn’t even know, myself.

So What Happened?

Later though, as I recovered from the feeling of shock, and that first big emotional whallop, I had some insight into my own process.

Usually, I am pretty grounded. I know how I feel pretty quickly, and I’m agile and adaptable, able to examine my shifting thoughts and feelings within a few minutes.

When something like that shock hits me, though, I don’t know how I feel. I hear lots of my inner parts giving all different kinds of feelings and ideas. I can feel my Core Self listening to them, kind of like a trained cop handling tens of panicky witnesses.

And I discovered that the reason I didn’t want to talk about these thoughts and feelings as they came up was because I didn’t want to commit to any of them. I could’ve explored any one of those thoughts and followed it down the rabbit hole, getting worked up about a particular story.

In that vulnerable state where I still wasn’t grounded enough to know what I believed, I sent up my boundaries so that I could calm the riotous crowd inside me until I knew what thoughts and emotion I decided to allow to fully exist.

How’d I Do That?

This may sound like some kind of zen mentalist magic, but the truth is that anyone can learn to do this.

In her book Emotional Alchemy, author Tara Bennett-Goleman talks about “the very latest research in neuroscience–including the neurological ‘magic quarter second,’ during which it is possible for a thought to be ‘caught’ before it turns into an emotional reaction.”

It’s so much easier to nip a feeling in the bud, before it really takes root and spreads throughout my system and I have to go digging up the entire weedy garden.

Dr. Carl Jung knew, more than fifty years ago, that such mindfulness was possible. I’m so grateful to live in an age where the tools to achieve it are so readily available.

Check out more in Emotional Alchemy.

Susan Cooper says what I most want to say here:

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now–This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

What challenged me in this amazing exercise was not how big horses are, that there were no ropes or leads on them, or even my own expectation that I’d be able to lead them through force of will (…so NOT happening, by the way).

No, what challenged me was that the horses told me there’s still a way that I was not fully connected to my own inner power.

They saw, and reacted to, the fact that my initial contact with them was not as real as it could’ve been. I came forward with sweetness that was attempting to cover my own fear of making them startle. And they could feel the “hidden” fear, and therefore stayed away from me, in the beginning.

Once I saw this, I stopped in the middle of the arena and took time to ground myself, to drop my coping behavior, and to just be.

And lo and behold, Forest came trotting over to me.

So what does my experience have to offer you, my lovely readers?

I think it’s a story about how “fake it till ya make it” only works sometimes. It’s about how we can’t force deep connection, and trying to pursue it when there’s still turmoil inside ourselves is just going to scare the horses.

The next time I’m with them (and there will be a next time…I may even create an event, so let me know if you want to come with us!), I won’t be asking the horses to let me know that I’m ok.

I will start with validating myself, holding myself safe and nourished in my own Being, and trusting that the horses will come.

A date stands you up.
She obviously doesn’t like you.

Your colleague gives you a dirty look across the room.
Your last email must’ve really pissed him off!

In so many places in our lives, we see a behavior and automatically make a meaning out of it. Everything from a glance to an email gets snappily run through our minds and attached to a reaction or feeling.

Part of this is biological. As animals, we’re built to rapidly process information so that we can react quickly, if need be. It’s how survival instincts work.

However, most things we’re reacting to aren’t life-or-death level situations.

Here’s how I work with my own brain to stop getting so upset by all these little situations. I call it “Alternate Stories.”

Every time something happens that starts to get me feeling negative, judgmental, sad or angry, I tell myself an alternate story about what might’ve been going on for the other person.

For example, say a person cuts me off in traffic.

My first response is to think, “Hey, look out, jerk!” And then I could proceed to get mad, feel my adrenaline rise, and start tailgating that car, just to show him he can’t treat me like that.

But before I take any action or speak, I think to myself, is there any other possible reason that guy could’ve made that lane change right in front of me?

…Maybe he’s on the phone hearing news that someone in his family just had to go to the hospital and is totally not paying attention.

…Maybe HE’s trying to get to the hospital because he’s having chest pains.

…Maybe he’s had a horrible day and his wife left him and he’s totally disconnected from anything besides his own pain.

…Maybe he’s just had a bug fly into his eye.

…Maybe he really looked in his mirror and thought he saw no one there.

…Maybe he’s really nervous on the freeway and just made a mistake.

…Or maybe he really is a jerk.
Maybe, but I just can’t know. As you can see from my list of maybes, there’s no way for me to know what’s going on with anybody else as they do whatever it is they’re doing.

(Sure, I may have really good guesses sometimes, but the point of this is this: none of us can EVER know for sure what’s going on with anyone else. Unless we ask them…and sometimes even then, we can’t be sure.)

Going through some alternate stories whenever I feel reactionary helps me to remember that I can’t know what’s up with that other person. And that sometimes my behavior could look just as annoying to someone else, even if I didn’t mean it that way at all.

The power of the Alternate Story technique is that it reconnects me to my compassion, my sense of “oh, yeah, sometimes I do that, too.”

If I don’t know for sure that he meant to run me off the road, it’s easier for me to allow space in my heart for him.

And at the same time, it helps me to un-attach from my belief that I KNOW anything. In this place of unattachment, rather than having to soothe my hurts or calm my anger, I am free.

Try it and see what you think. I’d love to hear your comments!

If you like the kinds of things you read about on my blog, you should watch his video and play the “I Like Who I Am” Game that he demonstrates!

If you want to see my results, comment below and I’ll post them.
Also, you’re invited to post your own results. Let’s announce how fabulous you are!

I’ve been “organizing” my stuff for pretty much my whole life. It’s a running joke among my friends. In a lot of ways, I have my internal stuff together, but I’m pretty sure the external struggle is mirroring something internal. Do you have any suggestions on how to start identifying what’s in my way?

And on another front: Although, I know what I need to do to lose weight (more exercise, better food in the right amounts), I struggle and continually fall into bad habits. I love many kinds of sports and exercise, and I love healthy food, so there is no hardship to living well in this way. Again, I’m wondering why I keep getting in my own way.

– GT

Well, GT, on the first one, I would like a little bit more info. What do you mean by “organizing” your stuff? You mean you clean house frequently? Or that you have a strong desire to sort through material things on a daily basis? Or something else?

In any case, I’d say that if you feel like this external behavior is really about something inside you, you’re likely right.

The first thing I’d suggest is to be aware next time you feel compelled to “organize.”

Just stop. Breathe in a few slow breaths. And ask yourself, “what do I REALLY want right now?” And then just be. Wait for an answer to come. Don’t *try* to figure it out. Just wait and listen to your heart.

And in truth, this is the same answer I’d give to your second scenario, especially when you’re thinking about eating something unhealthy (I do this a bit too often myself). Stop. Breathe. Ask and listen.

I think that many of us seek therapy because we’ve never learned how to do this, or because we keep forgetting. We need someone who is in the space with us, watching us have our reactions, to remind us to stop, breathe and listen.

Sure, we therapists do other stuff, too, but this is a big part of it. One of the most crucial things I learn again and again from my clients is that the answers about what you need come from within YOU.

Thanks for the questions, GT!

Anyone else out there have questions for the therapist?

I’ve been having some difficulty in a close friendship of mine. This person and I have been friends for about eight years and just in the last six months, things seem to have gotten pretty challenging.

In fact, the other night, I sat on the floor with my back to the wall just really confronting whether or not we could still be friends. I thought about how I’m no longer sure if this person even enjoys spending time with me. And I dealt with ALLLL the different issues that come up for me when a relationship feels troubled.

And I cried. A lot.

I’ll tell you, there’s something about just making time to really go into all those stories and wounds and hurt places inside that really helps me to get back to reality.

And here’s my reality: Why am I asking ANYONE else to validate me?

If I’m feeling unhappy because someone doesn’t seem to like me at the moment, I’ve given them permission to decide whether I’m good enough, funny enough, caring enough…just enough!

That’s not anyone else’s job but mine. So I took it back. This friend’s opinion will always matter to me, AND it’s not healthy for my heart to try to feed off of it. I have to feed myself.

And wouldn’t you know it? Ever since I took back that responsibility to validate me and gave it to myself, that friendship seems to have recovered. My parts and my heart are relieved. Life feels much simpler and friendlier to me this way.

(For those of you reading this, I must confess…this is not my first time having this realization. I have it again and again and again. And obviously there are times when I forget it. We’re all human and we all forget these deep things we know. I, for one, forgive myself for this.)

Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding

Click here to view the embedded video.

And watching him perform it, I realized that this is the tactic we so often forget to take with ourselves.

Working with ourselves, we get frustrated or saddened by the challenges of just being us. But there is nothing in our egos, our personalities, that is there by accident or design flaw.

Everything within us exists for a reason. So says Systems Theory. All the components of what makes us up function together in some kind of a dance. More like the relationship of stars and planets than that of gears in a watch, but everything is all working together.

As I work with myself, I can get down on myself for making mistakes. For my stubbornness or my tardiness. There’s a way I can criminalize myself for any misstep. For all the work I do on myself, to be the best person I can be, shouldn’t everything be working now? Are there seriously still things I have to look for in the shadows?!

Well, yeah.  And looking for them in a pissy mood isn’t gonna work so well.

I truly believe we’re not done learning from and about ourselves until we’re dead. And even then, who knows?!

So if I want to know me better, understand my challenges and emotional stuck points better, I have to come forward with openness and curiosity. My stuck parts need my kindness, sympathy, and wisdom. I don’t need to shut them up; I need to listen to them and lead for them, not from them.

Seeing Otis Redding today reminds me of this.
What if, in our self-exploration and healing, we kept that viewpoint in mind. Said, “how does this serve me?” rather than “how do I get rid of this?”.

What if we tried some tenderness?

Have you brought any tenderness to yourself lately? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

You may have heard this quote by Marianne Williamson a lot in the last few years. It hit me at a deep level when I heard it in the movie Akeelah and the Bee four or so years ago, and it’s stayed with me ever since.

I brought it up with a client today and our discussion got me wondering–is this really true?

Here’s what I think. I think we all have a part of us who IS afraid that we are inadequate. And we have a part that is afraid we are powerful. But now, why would it frighten us to be powerful?

I read “powerful” as “responsible.” I think when we are in a part that fears our inner power, we are worried about not being able to control that power, to wield it for good, to use it in Right Action. And this part of us worries about all that we could destroy…maybe even the world.

I say that our real goal is to attain full Beingness (you can call it Presence, Self, HIgher Self, Union with Spirit, or perhaps Enlightenment). When we are in our full Beingness, we have choice. We have options. And being able to sit among all our options and choose wisely IS power.

Our true power lies in our ability to clearly and calmly perceive our surroundings with deep compassion and wisdom. This compassion tells us we all spring from the same Source and this wisdom tells us that, no matter what our actions, Spirit has got us.

From this place, we can choose how to respond, whether it is to declare a deep “NO,” to place a loving hand upon a friend, or to simply sit in the moment.

And this place of full choice, full comprehension, and full heart…there is nothing scary about it.

* For those who do not know Marianne Williamson’s lovely passage, I’ve included the full quote below.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

-Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

Those of you who know me, follow my blog or have been clients know that I’m nuts about the enneagram, a personality type system based on ancient Sufi wisdom that tells us about our spiritual life paths.

But I rarely talk about the enneagram on this site. It always felt…too big and complex to truly honor.

Now I know what I was really waiting for–this concept that my close friend and biz partner Dina and I created. It’s a website, blog, set of service offering and events, all focused on the enneagram.

I hope you check out Enneagram Lovers and subscribe to it if you love it. I sure do!