“Anger is that powerful internal force that blows out the light of reason.“ (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
 

We live in an angry time. People are angry with politicians, greedy bankers, unfeeling bosses, colleagues who ‘don’t get it’, careless drivers, and especially anyone ‘different’. Some are just angry with one another. What we rarely grasp is that our anger is really aimed within.

While what provokes anger may be outside us, the actual source is always within. Anger is a powerful emotion. When we cannot contain the energy of anger, we act it out on other people or things. Most of the time we are so afraid of it we try to deny or hide it. Sometimes we direct in inwards.

Although, like all emotions, anger is normal, when you suppress it and allow it to build up inside, it saps your strength, causes yet more stress, destroys relationships and stops you feeling happy.

Anger is also part of an emotional force we need to spur us on to achieve what we want and carry us along through life’s challenges. Dissipating our ‘fire energy’ in anger is a waste.

The ‘fire energy’ of anger

Anger is an emotional energy. It’s not a thought, idea or belief—not mental or intellectual. It’s an energy you experience as much in the cells of your body as in your head.

Next time you feel angry, notice what happens—how you tense your muscles, how the blood flows to make your face red, how your heart pounds and you feel hot. For millennia, people have associated anger with fire. In Eastern traditions and Chinese medicine, it is often seen as an aspect of ‘fire energy’—a primal energy associated with power and strength.

Most people have never learned how to cope with, or contain, their anger without doing themselves harm. Instead, they try to suppress it. Yet if anger is misdirected or blocked like this—turned inwards, held down hard and allowed to smolder away—it builds up until it eventually bursts out in ways that are even more destructive and harmful.

Maybe the greatest, and most misunderstood, stimulus for anger is a set of false expectations about life, usually associated with emotional immaturity. Many people expect to stay on the ‘happy’ end of the happiness-unhappiness continuum permanently and become angry because life is tough. They don’t get what they believe they are entitled to from life. As a result, they get mad at the universe. Then, since the universe is impervious to their feelings, they take their anger out on whoever is nearest and easiest to

Dealing with this ‘fire energy’ positively

You usually feel anger in the abdomen or belly. That’s also where you feel strength. In the West too, we have expressions that refer to the location of ‘fire energy’ here. Cowards have “no guts.” They lack “intestinal fortitude” and “have no stomach for” whatever it is. The powerful person has “fire in their belly.” Positive ‘fire energy’ is manifested as strength, courage, steadfastness, drive, and commitment. It supports us to be fearless. It gives us ‘spirit’. Lacking it, we find it hard to persevere and forward the action of our lives. We become exhausted and lack-luster.

Whenever we give in to anger, we misuse our ‘fire energy’ to ignite anger in place of courageous action. In place of strength and power, we are caught up in fear and bitterness. All that energy goes within, until we burn out. Misusing our ‘fire energy’ and turning it inside, we burn away our liveliness, our happiness and our self-confidence.

Turning your ‘fire energy’ into positive channels will generate strength, courage and confidence. Instead of wasting it in anger, use it to feel empowered and open to facing life’s challenges and pressures with a sense of curiosity and freedom.

When you do feel angry, rather than ‘acting out’, playing the victim or becoming abusive, try breathing deeply and sensing the heat build-up in your body. Welcome that ‘fire energy’ as natural, ready to be used for positive as well as negative ends. The more you contain and re-direct your ‘fire energy’, the more centered you will feel—less subject to the pull to waste your energy in becoming angry.

Expectations and emotional maturity

Much of your happiness depends on setting yourself realistic expectations about life. When things go wrong—as they surely will from time to time—it’s not all about life being unfair or bad luck and bad karma.

Happiness is linked to growth and that does not does not take place smoothly, or only on the happiness end of the spectrum. Growth demands facing challenges and struggles. Without them, you cannot build up your capacity to be strong, courageous and confident. You need things to push against to develop those ‘muscles’.

That’s why you need to use your ‘fire energy’ positively and stop wasting it on anger. Happiness and satisfaction arise when you consciously contain your ‘fire energy’ and keep it for better purposes.

This week’s food-for-thought questions are:

• How do you react to setbacks? Do you tend to be whiny, passive-aggressive or explosive? Do you manipulate, bully, or seek to ‘take it out’ on others, physically or verbally? Does your anger ever lead to hostility, abuse, anxiety or depression? How does this show you are using your ‘fire energy’?
• Have you noticed the physiological symptoms you experience when you’re angry? Do you get head, neck, back, or jaw pain? Irregular heartbeat? Sweating? Upset stomach? What is this telling you about where your anger is being directed?
• What emotional beliefs lead you to react with anger? Think about a person, place, or issue that really pushes your anger button. What is it about that person or situation makes you angry? What is your belief or story that you use to rationalize or justify your anger? Is it even true?
• Have you noticed how the aftermath of anger leaves you feeling weakened? How that ‘fire energy’ has been consumed by your anger? Where else could you use that energy to feel strengthened and empowered instead?
• What do you expect from life? Is it realistic? Are false expectations and feelings of entitlement setting you up? Are they stoking your ‘fire energy’ into anger and wasting it?

Technorati Tags: anger, emotions, energy, coping with setbacks, expectations, realism

How you handle the bad stuff will determine how you (and your career) come out of this recession
 

If you allow your hurt and anger to take away your personal power—if you become so fixated on what is wrong ‘out there’ in the corporate world that you ignore what you can do ‘in here’ in your own life, the chances are that you will emerge from the recession badly wounded, even crippled. There’s a better way, but it takes courage and a willingness to let go of even the most righteous anger.

All too many people are having a bad time in organizations today. It’s not just the endless cost cutting and lay-offs, it’s the deep sense of hurt and loss as hopes and expectations are destroyed. It’s the pain of losing your trust in the future and any confidence that you can, some day, reach your career goals.

The cruelest hurt of all is our collective loss of belief that things will get better any day soon. As even more stories emerge of wild risks, corporate malfeasance, narcissistic leadership and staggering greed, it’s hard to know what normal is, let alone when—or if—we will ever get back to it.

So many hurts and losses at one time are hard to bear. Some people become depressed. More get mad, for anger has a quality of energy that makes you feel that you’re doing something. To sustain your anger, you also need a specific target. You have to be mad at someone or something. That’s why people are looking around for scapegoats to carry the blame for all this disappointment and unhappiness. Surely there are plenty ‘out there’ in the business world? The greedy executives, the conniving politicians, the sly and dishonest financiers, the bankers using tax-payer dollars to pay themselves big bonuses. Take your pick.

Never mind whose fault it is

I want you to consider how powerless you make yourself whenever you focus on the causes of your hurt ‘out there’ and ignore the sources of healing and progress inside yourself.

It’s so tempting to excuse yourself from any part in what has caused your hurt and pain. It’s even true, for the most part. My point is that it isn’t helpful. Justified or not, the time you spend inside your head, imagining what you would love to do to the guilty parties—if only you had the chance—takes you even further way from what you might be able to do to help yourself emerge from the chaos more or less intact.

Can you change Wall Street’s greed and obsession with short-term profits? Can you change corporate attitudes and destroy macho management for good? Can you kick-start the economy or stop people being thrown out of their homes and jobs? Can you even change the executives in your own organization into people who care more for their employees than their own bonuses and stock options?

It’s hopeless, isn’t it? What about people closer at hand?

If you spend your energy acting out your feelings and venting your anger on someone you can get to—maybe your colleagues, your friends, or your family—all you’ll do is alienate people whose help and support you’ll likely need. Nothing else will have changed. You still have the hurt you had before— but now you have given the people close to you a reason to feel mad at you as well.

A friend of mine has a compelling way of putting this: “Whatever you resist tends to persist.” If you direct your anger at someone, they fight back, turning a one-time hurt into an on-going conflict. If you blame impersonal forces, they catch your attention again and again, until it’s easy to believe they’re behind every pain, loss and insult. The more you fret and fume about ‘them’, the more power you give them over your life. Do this long enough and you’ll be helpless.

You can always do something. Just be sure it’s what will help most.

Whatever happens, you still have the power to choose your response. If you can’t change ‘them’ and their actions, you can still change your own.

To survive the bad times, the trick is to modify the responses and attitudes in your mind and heart, regardless of what the world does. Since what happens in your life is a blend of chance, outside events and your reactions to both, changing how you react will always affect the outcome—maybe not completely or instantly, but certainly.

The next time something or someone seems to be hell bent on messing up your life, try stopping and asking yourself these questions before you go any further:

• “What have I done (or not done) that has contributed to this problem?”
• “What have I been avoiding that I should have faced up to long ago?”
• “What am I postponing that I know I should have done by now?”
• “What am I blaming on others that I know is down to me?”
• “What am I going along with that I know I should refuse?”
• “What am I agreeing to that I know to be false?”
• “What am I accepting that I know is selling me short?”
• “What can I do about the things I’ve just discovered?”

No guilt. No regrets. Just clarity.

The purpose of this exercise is to break through your automatic habit of pushing blame ‘out there’, so you need to approach it in a spirit of curiosity, with a genuine interest in the answers. Don’t add to your guilt or try to beat yourself up over what you find. Guilt is a worthless emotion; beating yourself up changes nothing.

When can you see clearly what changes to your actions or attitudes can help resolve the problem, or find a way through it, you can take appropriate action. As long as you stay helpless, fixated on what ‘the other guy’ did to you, you’re held fast in pain and loss. Let go of your anger, your resentment and all your other baggage and move on.

One thing has grown exponentially during this recession—the amount of synchronized whining. It’s everywhere; in the media, on the web, around every water cooler. Don’t join in. Focus your energy on the positive task of confronting and acknowledging the setbacks and exploring fresh ways to move forward. Don’t let anger and scapegoating make you helpless. Change what you can and work with what you cannot. If you do this honestly and objectively, you will be surprised just how much falls into the first category and how little into the second.

Technorati Tags: change, moving on, surviving the recession, getting back on track, positive action, facing the future

“But there is no one but us. There never has been.”
 

How do you move on when you feel you have lost who you are and your survival is at stake? When your belief that if you worked hard and obeyed the rules you would be safe, proves false?

In my local paper recently, I saw the story of a sixty year-old woman weeping on the steps of the courthouse where she was going to ask for food stamps. She was laid off after a new, younger manager bullied her by taking away her existing assignments and denying her the tools and information she needed to do new ones. Now, too young for retirement or social security, she needs to go to the government to ask for help. Still sobbing, the woman said she was glad she had no family left to see her reduced to begging.

The article was written by an unemployed minister, who tried to comfort the weeping woman by telling her that she was skilled and talented and there would be another good job for her in the future. That she would be able to put this painful, humiliating time behind her. Then the author ended her article by praying that these well-meant lies would be somehow turned into truth.

Where do I start?

I believe we must all start where we are—in pain and beset with grief, anger, and fear. From there, we must confront the voices in our head that tell us some deficit in us alone, some lack or hidden misdemeanor, is the true cause of our suffering.

As Annie Dillard writes:

There is no one but us.
There is no one to send,
Nor a clean hand,
Nor a pure heart
On the face of the earth,
Nor in the earth
But only us,
A generation comforting ourselves
With the notion
That we have come at an awkward time . . .

And we ourselves unfit, not yet ready,
Having each of us chosen wrongly,
Made a false start, failed,
Yielded to impulse
And the tangled comfort of pleasures,
And grown exhausted,
Unable to seek the thread,
Weak, and involved.
But there is no one but us.
There never has been.

Once we understand our own grief and vulnerability without blaming ourselves, we can understand that everyone is weak, confused and exhausted. There is no one to rescue us and give us back what we have lost. Once we know that there is no one but us, we can begin to move on together to build something new and unexpected out of our lives.

Regaining our curiosity

One way we know we are moving on is when we begin to be curious again. Grieving gives way to an interest in what life has left to offer; and that interest triggers creativity and internal resources that up to now we have stored in our subconscious because they didn’t fit into the ‘real life’ we’ve lost.

As adults, our curiosity and creativity are like the serontinous cones that grow on jack pines. It takes the heat and destruction of a raging forest fire to melt the resin and release the seeds. By burning away other plant life, the fire creates the perfect conditions for the next generation of pines to grow.

In 1988 a massive fire destroyed over a third of Yellowstone National Park. The loss was devastating. It was said that the park would not recover from the fire for generations. But what has been observed in the aftermath is that, after a few years, the grasslands have not only returned to their pre-fire appearance, but the post-fire grass provides better nutrition to the herds grazing it. New forest growth and vegetation have provided naturalists and tourists an opportunity to see the beauty and resilience of the forest as it heals and rebuilds itself.

Curiosity and creativity hold within them the conditions needed for engaging once again in rebuilding our lives in the aftermath of destruction.

This I believe.

Technorati Tags: moving on, starting again, overcoming loss, dealing with pain, finding a way forward

What do you do if your organization goes nuts?
 

The question of exactly who is mad and who is sane has been debated throughout history. The answers have varied a lot from age to age. Seeing optimistic visions of the future in some societies makes you a holy figure: in others, you’re probably just a free-market economist.

Back in the 1960s, the British psychiatrist R.D. Laing popularized the idea that what we call madness is actually a logical response to a society which is itself insane. From Laing to New Age writers like Eckhart Tolle, there’s a consistent argument that you can’t have sane people in an unhealthy system. It’s the system that you have to change first. If you work in a large organization, this may sound uncomfortably familiar. Whether in the private sector, or in government, education or even charities, the behavior of many organizations today is probably clinically insane.

Is self-mutilation mad?

I once worked for an organization, which, if it had been an individual, would have been locked away for its own protection. I watched over the course of years as it mutilated itself with endless reorganizations; sliced away at itself until it no longer had the staff to function properly; moved most of its remaining staff from productive to unproductive tasks; and became so obsessed with its inner workings that it gave up interacting very much with the outside world. At best its behavior could be described as autistic, at worst as bent on self-destruction.

Maybe you have worked in a similar structure. In any event, I can’t begin to count how many people I’ve met, from businesses and governmental bodies all over the world, who have told me similar stories. Many organizations today are not only self-destructive, they also seem actively to hate their staff, enforcing mindless rules and creating a surreal working environment of Kafkaesque sadism. Several of us who write on this blog have speculated about why this is so. I want to deal with a different question. What, as individuals, can we do about it?

Dealing with work in an organization that’s insane

Here are some steps that may help:

1. For a start, you should realize that there’s nothing wrong with you. This is a bigger step than it sounds, because we tend to internalize the norms of our organization and our bosses, even without realizing it. Of course, there will always be cases where you have doubts about a decision or policy in the organization where you work. That’s normal. Sometimes they are right and you are wrong. What’s important is to have the confidence needed to recognize when your organization actually starts to go nuts. It takes a significant degree of self-confidence to remind yourself that two and two make four and not five— especially when promotion goes to the deliberately innumerate.
2. Another helpful action is to look for kindred spirits. It’s unlikely that you’re the only sane person in the organization. Most people can recognize irrationality and stupidity when they see it. What they lack is the confidence to articulate what they think.
3. You can become a subversive. I don’t mean a rebel, because rebels are not only easily squashed, but also find it hard to achieve anything. Subversives, on the other hand, conform outwardly, but inwardly take every chance to sabotage the system. Maybe you can help a particularly stupid idea or project die without leaving your fingerprints on the murder weapon. More positively, you can guide a project in a more sensible direction without anyone noticing. Ultimately, you can also try to undermine one of the chief cretins without seeming responsible. You owe it not only to yourself to do this, but also to the organization itself, if you really think it’s worth saving.
4. You can cultivate the maximum safe personal space. This is easiest if you’re a specialist of some kind. As the Head of the Legal Department, or the Chief Accountant, you may be able to build a power-base of your own, protect those who work for you, and watch the insanities from a distance. If you are the Head of International Relations, and you’re continually being asked why you have to travel at all when you could use video-conferencing, or why you took a taxi when you could have walked three miles from the train station, it’s time to think of going.

Is it time to bale out?

Many organizations now are damaged beyond repair. They will not survive much longer. It’s most obvious in the private sector, where huge swathes of organizations—banks, investment houses, mortgage brokers, accountants, management consultants—will simply disappear. But many public and governmental organizations are just as broken, and will require complete re-manufacture. Indeed, if things go on as they are, the future may lie with smaller and more local organizations anyway.

If you think your organization is in that bad a state, don’t be quixotic, don’t be unreasonably loyal, just go. The people at the top will sacrifice you without a thought.

Think about it. There’s nothing worse than trying to function rationally in an organization that’s gone mad: it can drive you insane.

Technorati Tags: corporate culture, corporate insanity, broken systems, organizational collapse, change, beating the system

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal
 

Photo: robertcrow (via stock.xchang)

All eyes these days are focused on the turmoil of our global economy. While we can’t, individually, calm the chaos, it’s important for all of us to be able to stay on as even a keel as possible as we navigate a way through.

Successfully meeting workplace challenges can be likened to the way white-water rafters approach their sport. Beginners obsess about all the craggy rocks to avoid and the currents, whirlpools and undertows to circumvent, usually ending their runs feeling emotionally exhausted and physically drained. Experts focus on the ‘flow line’ where the currents guide them safely through the roughest areas with a minimum of mental and emotional stress. They end their runs on a high, with energy to spare.

In tough, uncertain times, clarity, focus and inner peace are paramount, especially when you’re forced to make decisions that could affect your life well into the future. One of the most effective ways to maintain a quiet mind, a peaceful heart and a relaxed body during these rough times is through the practice of ‘centering’.

What is ‘centering’?

Being centered is a state where you engage life from a place of tranquility and self-awareness. When you are centered, you can move through your day with a sense of purpose, unencumbered by frustration and free from reactivity; open to whatever appears in your experience, regardless of the events, circumstances and people with whom you must engaged. Many know this place of centeredness as being ‘in the zone’, experiencing ‘flow’ or operating at peak performance with a heightened sense of well being.

From a centered state, you can approach every event and individual as an opportunity to be your true self in this moment. You aren’t caught up in mental gymnastics or judgments. You aren’t trying to conceal yourself by being fake or phony. You’re mentally alert, free from tension, able to move with a grace and ease that is flowing, not rigid; acutely conscious of your current environment and intentional about what needs to be done. To be centered is to be in a place of creativity, discovery and insight, where you can take care of whatever you need to do without effort or struggle, interacting with others from an inner place of understanding, authenticity and integrity.

How can you center yourself?

1. Recall a time when you were engaged in an activity and you felt on top of the world; when time stood still and you felt a deep sense of excitement and adventure; when you experienced a heightened sense of well being. Visualize that state as clearly as you can.
2. Notice your present state of being—your head, your heart, your body. Sense as much of yourself as you can in this moment, but do it with curiosity and acceptance, not with judgment. Focus on the feeling. Allow the feeling to immerse your total being. Bathe in it.
3. Breathe calmly and deeply into your belly, holding your breath for a few seconds and exhaling with a long breath, deeply and quietly. Inhale and exhale naturally—no pursing your lips, no noise with the exhalation, no trying. Just let it happen and focus on your breathing.
4. Sense your feet on the floor and allow the floor to support you; relax your shoulders, upper body and legs so you don’t have to shore yourself up. If you are seated, sense your butt in your chair and allow your chair to support you. Breathe deeply and focus on your body. Soon, your mind will quiet and clear. Your Inner Judge and Critic will diminish in its chatter and intensity. Your body will relax. Your heart will open. This is a place of centeredness.
5. Now permit yourself to let go totally. Don’t be attached to outcomes or goals. Allow your experience to flow and trust the process of centering to support you in whatever you are engaged in right now. Trust is essential. In time, you’ll find yourself experiencing degrees of inner peace, even in the midst of fire-fights, tense negotiations and conflict-resolution sessions.
6. Allow centeredness to become a major part of the fabric of who you are at work. If you do, your ability to see the world around you with clarity and insight will grow stronger and your ability to listen will be heightened.

How to make Centeredness a habit

• Live every day with attention. Be clear about your life purpose, your goals at work, and why you are doing what you’re doing. Don’t be tense about it. Don’t try. Just let it happen.
• In times of stress, breathe deeply, remind yourself of your intentions and goals and chose to show up being authentic. Aim to base every interaction you engage in on your understanding of the greatest good for all involved.
• Cut out the usual excuses for why you can’t take time to center: there’s no time; it doesn’t work; I’ll never be able to do it now. The antidote to the excuses is to stop thinking about centering and just do it.
• Don’t judge centering as a chore; choose to make it a fun thing, a bit of an adventure. You’ll find yourself easing more gently into the practice.
• As often as you can throughout your day, re-create your sense of centeredness, even for a few seconds or minutes. It helps to find times when you can be alone with yourself for a few minutes to breathe deeply, and just be.
• Persistence and consistency are important aspects of creating a centering practice. Purposefully center yourself many times throughout the day, even when you are not feeling particularly upset or in need of centering. This will help to deepen your practice so it becomes routine. Placing subtle reminders around your workspace can help you remember to center on a consistent basis.

Centering allows your True Self to emerge

Centering allows you to connect with your authenticity. The more you’re centered, the more you’ll be attuned to inner sources of wisdom, leading to right knowing, right understanding and right action; the more you’ll be able to move away from your ego-driven, judgmental mind. When you’re caught in the prison of your ego, your thoughts and emotions will usually be reactive, judgmental and, more often than not, negative. They’ll block out the positive feelings, insights, connections and creativity that lie deeper within.

Centered living is a way of re-energizing and refreshing yourself; a means to de-stress, focus and slow yourself down so you can be truly present to your experience.

“All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside of the veil; within the veil is silence and calm and rest.” —Bayazid al-Bistami

“Wisdom means listening to the still, small voice, the whisper that can be easily lost in the whirlwind of busyness, expectations, and conventions of the world . . .” —Jean M. Blomquist

Technorati Tags: authenticity, being centered, flow state, being in the flow, being in the zone, how to become centered, a practice for centering yourself

Empty space is too valuable to be filled up without good reason
 

Many people are uncomfortable with silence. If speaking stops in a conversation, a meeting, or an interview, they rush to fill the space. Interrogators use this trick to persuade people to say more than they should. Angry spouses use it to ferret out the truth. It’s the same with actions. So many people feel uneasy if they’re not busy all the time. Rather than take a break or simply do nothing, they fill their time with ‘make work’ and things they would be far better off not doing.

Why does this happen? I suspect the main reason is the same as for people’s fear of silence. It gives them more time to reflect and be aware than they can handle. So long as there’s noise and activity, people can be swept along without much thought. When the music stops, there’s just them; alone with whatever thoughts or concerns come to them; alone with who they are and what they’re doing.

Emptiness has enormous value

The emptiness and silence such people find so uncomfortable is actually its main worth. In the quiet, freed from the necessity to do or be anything, you can find space to recall who you are and simply experience the present moment. Emptiness is filled with infinite possibilities. Once you interpose activity, all those options are reduced to one: whatever you are doing to fill the empty time.

In our frantic, hectic, activity-obsessed world, the lack of time and space to reflect and understand accounts for many of the mistakes people make. As they rush from one action to the next, never pausing long enough truly to consider the results beyond the most superficial level, they fill their time at the expense of emptying their minds. There’s thought going on, but it’s confined to conventional anxiety about what to do next. In the hustle and bustle, there’s neither the time nor the inclination to think beyond the next action.

Our need for mindless activity

Much of this hyperactivity stems from anxiety: better to be doing something all the time than allowing yourself to think about your fears and worries. When times are bad, as they are today, people try to find comfort in having many things to do. It sounds harmless, but it can prevent you from ever dealing with those same troubles. Until you slow down, take a careful look at reality and allow yourself time to think clearly, the chances are that you’ll exhaust yourself in continual busyness, all without moving any further towards resolving what is worrying you.

There’s also the fear of looking underemployed. That’s a major concern for many people. If you don’t look as if you have enough—better still, far too much—to do, you may be a candidate for the next round of lay-offs. Poor priorities play a part as well. It’s easy to be busy when you’re constantly behind or catching up with something you’ve only just realized is important. Disorganized people always have lots to do, most of it trivial.

Why it’s important NOT to do things

Speaking just to fill the silence is likely to lead you to say things better left unsaid. Actions taken to seem busy and essential will often lead you into doing things better left undone. Bosses fill vacant time with unnecessary meetings, or by interfering with their subordinates’ work. People make useless calls or collect pointless data. And, just as silence can tempt people to blurt out what they know they shouldn’t say, a gap in the flow of job demands can cause people to do the very things they know they shouldn’t.

Silence and empty space are wonderful gifts, essential to happiness and fulfillment. There’s no need to fill them with anything. That’s why many people find a practice of meditation so helpful. Setting time aside regularly to enter into silence and awareness of the present can be like drinking a glass of deeply healthful and refreshing water: clear, pure, cool and cleansing. You don’t do anything in meditation; that’s the point of it. You just are, whether you follow a tradition that uses specific means to quieten the mind, or simply sit and let your attention focus on the act of sitting or breathing.

Along with many other people, I find my best, most creative thoughts come when I’m doing and thinking nothing definite whatsoever. Like a garden plot, the human mind needs sufficient free space to allow the seeds of creativity to germinate, without them being strangled by all those daily weeds of habit and routine concerns. Your body also needs enough quiet time to rest if you want it to operate at peak levels. Stress doesn’t just come from external events and other people. Much of it is generated internally through constant activity, mental as well as physical.

Most of all, you—the essential, authentic ‘you’ at the core of your being—needs enough unencumbered time and space to be fully yourself and enjoy the world and the one life you have to live. Not doing can be the very best way to spend a significant part of every day. You should never surrender it without at least a spirited fight.

Technorati Tags: emptiness, not doing, being, being authentic, being yourself, making time for yourself, reflecting, inner quiet

Loneliness, friendship and the human need for connection
 

“When friendship disappears then there is a space left open to that awful loneliness of the outside world which is like the cold space between the planets. It is an air in which men perish utterly.” —Hillair Belloc

How many close friends do you have? Let’s define a close friend as someone you would invite to a family dinner without first having to make any excuse for them (or some aspect of them); someone you can accept without compromise or condition; someone you can share your most intimate thoughts and feelings with.

Research indicates the average American has two close friends. Yet, twenty-five percent of people say they have no one with whom they can be authentic; no one with whom they can discuss deep personal or emotional issues.

Without true friendship, what remains is loneliness. In its most serious form, loneliness is considered a serious, even life-threatening condition, heightening the risks of heart disease and depression. Tough, stressful times usually make it worse.

Connection isn’t the same as closeness

In many ways, our times are more ‘connected’ than ever before. People engage within huge networks, online and off. We have more means to stay in touch over remote distances. We live in a time when people feel a kinship with TV stars like Oprah; when they engage in non-stop communicating with folks on My Space and Facebook; when people vent and emote on the talk shows and cozy up to watch re-runs of Friends—even if they don’t actually have many friends themselves, or any at all.

From a mental-health standpoint, what’s striking in all of this is the rise of depression in our society. Depression is rising in geometric proportions in every demographic sector. In spite of the quantum growth of connecting through online and off-line networks, people are isolating themselves emotionally and psychologically at ever increasing numbers. We have a pandemic of loneliness.

Who loves ya, baby?

Who supports you—really, really supports you—when you feel lonely, stressed or sad? What’s the difference between connecting online, or with local business or social networks, and the true, deeper connection of genuinely close friendship? The sad truth is that the frequency of contact and the number of contacts in our network does not necessarily translate into the quality of contact.

For a start, we’ve come to expect things instantly, and aren’t willing to spend the time it takes to develop real intimacy with another person.

Take the phenomenon of Facebook.com, the social-networking Web site where members proudly announce their huge numbers of friends. Some members say they have 1,000 friends. The pity is that they probably don’t even know half of them in any measurable way. They are simply contacts—and not very significant contacts either.

Some people thought going to their local Starbucks was a solution—a Marshall Plan for creating connections and finding new friendships. Have you sat in a Starbucks, or any other coffee shop, lately? People come in, get their lattes to go, or sit around ‘connecting’ with their laptops. You can bet that those who are talking to one another arrived as friends.

What’s going on?

We are becoming ever more insular. People spend thousand of dollars on home entertainment centers to fill their time, instead of devoting themselves to connecting with anyone else. They watch TV and don’t speak to one another. Everyone has a meal at a different time. They may live in the same house, but they aren’t a group or a community in any other sense of the word. Family time for many has become an event focusing on doing things rather than a deeper process of sharing and truly being with one another.

If there’s a Church of True Friendship, very few of us show up at the services. We say friendship is important to us, then choose lifestyles that make us too busy and distracted to cultivate or preserve it. It’s no different from the people who agree with their doctors that they need, say, a hip replacement, but never find the time to have the procedure.

So many of the major disconnects we feel in today’s culture—disconnects driven by fear, anger, hate, isolation, insecurity, and the like—are a function of loneliness and the lack of true and meaningful friendships. As Carl Jung wrote:

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.”

Our $10 food-for-thought questions this week are:

• How do you define friendship?
• Would your friends describe you as a true and real friend, or more as an acquaintance? Would you feel comfortable asking them?
• Do you feel safe disclosing your innermost thoughts and feelings to your friends? To your partner or spouse? If not, why not?
• Do you ever feel alone or lonely when you’re in a group—or even at home? How do you deal with that?
• Does your lifestyle exclude time and room for developing meaningful friendships? When was the last time someone referred to you as a “real friend”?
• Do you pride yourself on amassing a huge number of social-network friends? How many of these “friends” do you really know and trust enough to share your true feelings and secrets with?

Technorati Tags: friendship, connections, social networking, support, closeness, trusting others

Why strong attachments produce equally strong fears
 

Fear is a natural part of everyone’s life. It only becomes a problem when it blocks you from being who you are and achieving what matters most to you. Many people fail to find their path in life because of fears of what might happen if they change, try something new, don’t agree to what others want or fail to follow the conventional path.

Most fears are groundless. Our minds are exceptionally good at imagining all the things that could go wrong. They call up images of embarrassment, criticism and even ruin. They assume whatever could go wrong will. Everyone will laugh. Maybe you’ll be demoted or fired—who knows? Understanding how what you value most produces your strongest fears can go a long way towards showing you which concerns are over-blown, even imaginary, and which you should take seriously.

Everything you are attached to produces a corresponding fear

The more strongly you value anything, the stronger the fear associated with it will be. That’s why high achievers, for example, are terrified of failure in any activity, however trivial.

When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap. Achievement is a good example. It’s a powerful area of attachment for many successful people. They’ve built their lives on it. They have always achieved success in everything: school, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of their attachment and the central place of achievement in their lives.

Because of this, failure becomes unthinkable. They’ve probably never failed in anything they’ve done, so they have no experience of coping with it. The mere prospect of coming second frightens them. Failure becomes the supreme nightmare: a frightful horror they must avoid at any cost. Nothing—not ethics, not honesty, not other people, not even their nearest and dearest—can be allowed to come between them and the next achievement.

The collapse of ethical standards in major US corporations over recent years probably has more to do with fear of failure among long-term high-achievers than criminal intent. Many of the people at Enron and Arthur Andersen were supreme high-fliers, basking in their success and the flattery of others. Failure was an impossible prospect. They had to win every time. And if brutal working schedules and harrying subordinates wouldn’t ward off the prospect of ‘failure’, they were ready to lie, cheat, falsify numbers and hide anything negative to make themselves ‘winners’ in the eyes of the corporation and their rivals.

Beware of the very things you value most in your life

When your attachment to anything you value, however benign in itself, becomes too powerful, it will increase the chance that the corresponding fear will corrode your life and destroy your relationships from within. Over-achievers destroy their lives and the lives of those who work for them. People too attached to ‘goodness’ and morality become self-righteous bigots. Those whose desire to build close relationships become unbalanced slide into smothering their friends and family with constant expressions of affection and demands for ever greater love in return.

Balance counts for more than you think. Some tartness must season the sweetest dish. A little selfishness is valuable even in the most caring person. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success. Are you a positive person? Maybe you need to cherish the negative parts too.

Technorati Tags: attachment, fear, life balance, staying in tune with yourself, over-achievers, unbalanced lives

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Why worrying is not a requirement
 

The job loss count is rising. Just about every day we hear of another new batch of people now out of work, a new batch who are facing cuts in working hours or forced furloughs, a new batch who have given up. Not surprisingly, 81 percent of Americans say they are worried about something related to their jobs, according to the 2008 Workplace Insights survey by Adecco USA. Among the top job-related worries were:

1. High gas prices (25 percent)
2. Stagnant pay checks (13 percent)
3. Work-life balance (12 percent)
4. Rising cost of health care (9 percent)
5. Job market (7 percent)
6. Opportunities for advancement (6 percent)
7. Outsourcing of jobs (4 percent)
8. Other worries (5 percent)

“It’s clear that our current economic uncertainty presents real worries to…workers,” said Bernadette Kenny, chief career officer for Adecco USA.

Will worrying help to solve the problem?

A growing number of people are now also worried about their job security. Such worry is understandable, but it doesn’t help. In fact, it can exacerbate any negative experience. Worry and anxiety take a huge toll on mental, physical and emotional energy. Anxiety leads to psycho-somatic symptoms and potentially serious health issues: stress in the form of headaches, high blood pressure, insomnia, exhaustion, fogginess and confusion, body aches and muscle tension—all major causes of time off work and disengagement from life.

In this debilitated, fear-based state, people have a serious challenge in showing up. In their day-to-day life at work, they are often seen as distracted, disengaged or distant. They put in less effort, perform less efficiently and lose focus. Then they feel even more fear and start to notice causes for greater worry.

If not worry, then what?

In these tough times (all the time, really) it’s important to ask yourself: “What am I thinking about?” Awareness is where change and transformation can begin to take place.

When your mind is filled with worry and fear-provoking thoughts, that’s an opportunity to notice that you’re choosing to think about the opposite of what you really want to experience—unless, of course, you’re one of those who live life from a position of ‘eternal victim’. They choose to spend most of their time blaming others.

Worrying is also a self-perpetuating process. Whatever you obsess about, you will gradually take on as the truth. Choose fear and more fear will surely appear.

By choosing to focus on the fear of losing your job, for example, you’re making that thought into a kind of daily ‘programming’. The result will be a life that contains less happiness, success, well being and freedom than it needs to.

How to stop worrying

To those who feel the need to worry, let me make this clear: Worry solves nothing. I repeat, worry solves nothing.

Many people believe that if they don’t worry, nothing positive will ever happen. Many think it wards off greater problems. Many think the process of worrying is doing something. It won’t and it’s not. Worrying only produces more worry. Action absorbs anxiety, worry feeds it.

The way to eliminate worry and move past fear is not to resist it. You can’t simply think your way out. To move away from worry and fear you must accept the fear, then engage brain, body and heart simultaneously to find a place often referred to as ‘the zone’ or ‘flow’. It’s a place where you can act with efficiency and confidence, focusing on each task or challenge with a sense of clarity, ease and well being.

Reaching ‘the zone’

To reach ‘the zone’, you should begin by sensing the contrast between resistance and acceptance (this alone can be an experience of awakening). All you have to do is pay attention. Notice when you’re feeling armored for battle, angry at the world, afraid of something. Notice when you’re feeling open, comfortable and at ease.

‘Positive thinking’ or willpower alone is never a solution. If you ‘think positive’ but still feel fear and anxiety, the fear and anxiety will always win. Always. The mind on its own is not enough. It requires something more: the wisdom of your body and the power of your heart.

Anxiety and fear form patterns which can be replaced with patterns of being and acting in ways that are self-supporting: patterns which exude confidence, courage and positive expectations—even in the face of overwhelming odds and challenges.

During these difficult times, make a conscious effort to engage in centering and coherence practice. Take time to breathe deeply, slowly and quietly into your heart. Focus on your feet on the floor, or on the support under you if you are sitting or lying. Focus on your belly center. With practice, you’ll begin to move into a state of coherence between your brain, your body and your heart: a state that results in harmony and balance.

Worrying and being fearful is a choice. Releasing fear and worry is also a choice. You can choose to hang on to your fear or you can choose to release it.

Here are some thoughts for self-reflection:

• Do worry and fear control much of your thinking and activity? What threatens you? What do your worry about?
• Are the stories you tell yourself about your future true? How do you know?
• What place did worry and fear have in your family as you were growing up?
• Do you often find yourself telling others you are happy when you are not?
• Do you exhibit ‘presenteeism’ at work: a state of preoccupation where you are there physically but not honestly and sincerely engaged?
• Where in your life do you feel you are losing control? What are you doing to deal with this feeling?
• What one or two approaches can you take over the next week or two to reduce perceived threats and worries?

“Instead of frittering away your vibrancy with worry or distraction, realize your mind and body are inextricably united. What calms and tones up one, soothes and improves the other.” —Marsha Sinetar

Technorati Tags: worry, coping with fear, dealing with difficult times, lowering anxiety, finding balance, dealing with anxiety, building confidence

Tough times call for letting go of everything save the essentials
 

Two people are climbing up a rough slope. The weather is hot; the ground is treacherous and getting worse; the path is hard to find; there are thorns and rough scrub on all sides; and the way ahead seems to be steeper with every yard they move forward. Neither person is sure how far it will continue like this, but there’s no end in sight for the moment. They have to reach their destination or risk dying of heat and exhaustion in the wilderness.

That’s what life feels like to many people today: a constant, uphill struggle without relief—and no end in sight.

Now let’s say that one of the climbers is carrying only a little food and water in a bag, She’s wearing good boots and has a hat to keep off the sun and a strong stick to help her get along. The rest of her clothing is light to suit the heat. She abandoned nearly all her other equipment and luggage some time ago.

The other has a 40-pound rucksack on his back, a hat, gloves, an anorak, two cameras and a tripod, binoculars, several rocks and interesting bits of wood collected along the way in his pockets, and sticks in both hands.

Which one is most likely to make it to the top without collapsing?

Time to get rid of what is weighing you down

In bad times, people tend to cling to the past for comfort: to their old dreams, their former ambitions (now looking increasingly unlikely to be fulfilled), and similar items that act as ‘comfort blankets’. Worse still, they hold on to past grudges and a whole lot of anger against the tough conditions that have messed up their expectations.

This is like stuffing a rucksack with rocks and heaving it around with you wherever you go. It takes up your energy, slows you down and makes you more likely to trip and fall—all to no purpose.

Wouldn’t you be better off dumping that junk and carrying just the one or two things that you simply have to take? It may be a wrench to let your baggage go, but, if you want to survive in fairly good shape, that’s what you’ll have to do. Better to do it now, before exhaustion sets in, than lug it with you until you’re too weak to carry it any further.

Focus on the essentials

One of the constant cries in the boom times was that you could have it all. No need to pick and choose. Just go for everything.

How wrong that has proved to be. Millions of people demanding to have it all has turned out to be a large part of our current problems. The only way to get anywhere near that aim was through piling up large debts—and not just monetary ones. People mortgaged their health, their time and their relationships to ‘buy’ more and more of whatever was fashionable at the time: huge homes, flashy SUVs, designer clothes, and all the lifestyle of the ‘beautiful people’.

Those expectations are going to weigh you down and make you miserable, if you continue to hanker after them. Their loss will build up your anger and frustration, just when there’s no possibility of getting to the dream world they represented. It never truly was.

It’s still possible to have a good life and to achieve your most important dreams. It may take time and patience, but those were always more important than jumping on bandwagons.

It will also require focus and clarity. If you want everything, your efforts to achieve that are bound to be scattered. If you follow the herd, and change your mind about what you want with the winds of fashion, you’ll be forced to keep dropping what you have already done in favor of a new path. The clearer and more specific you are about what truly matters to you—and the more you focus only on that and let go of all distractions—the more likely you are to get what you have set your heart on, in good times or bad.

It’s not all bad

The trick to living through tough times is to focus on the essentials. If you want to make progress, you must be very clear and specific about what that means. I know the media are full of the most dire prophesies and reports. They always exaggerate, whether by hyping the good times or wallowing in misery in the bad ones. The truth is that there are still millions of people with jobs, homes, cars and reasonable lives. Tens of thousands of businesses are making goods and providing services without interruption; many are still turning in good profits. Life will be bad for a while, but it will go on.

In easy times, you can afford to be vague. Not now. To protect what matters most means abandoning the rest. If you don’t, all that useless baggage will drag you down. You may even come to see that you made big gains in clarity and simplicity during the bad times. We’ve probably all piled up silly things around us that we don’t need, but can’t quite bring ourselves to let go. Now we have all the excuse we need to strip back to what is essential.

Less is very often more; but that’s never been clearer than it is today.

Technorati Tags: essentials, less is more, clarity of focus, causes for hope, coping with bad times