Category Archives: spirit

NLPing, challenges and choices, my toolbox of resources — and a proposition for a new challenge

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I’ve got to be out of my house in an hour for a realtor to show it to a prospective client, so here goes!

I feel very gratified about a phone NLP session I had last night with someone I’ve never played in this way with before. I’m not going to betray any confidences, but the process worked! She made several shifts, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I believe that the thing she was stuck on has opened up in a beautiful and remarkable way. Excellent work — you know who you are! It was such a pleasure for me. I hope it was for you too.

I also got an email from a friend whom I did a session with about three weeks ago — the session that inspired me to offer free sessions for a week. She’s sailing on the project she was stuck on — fulfilling her creative vision and finding collaborators who rock deeply. She wrote:

Your NLP with me was such a help. I may need more soon.

I still need to schedule three more free sessions with people who claimed their spot before January 12. I’m looking forward to it — and I will be offering sessions on a sliding scale or donation basis very soon! Stay tuned!

I feel grateful for life’s challenges. I didn’t sleep well last night — issues with getting my car repaired, selling my house, my present and future work, and of course, my identity, all came to a head, leaving me restless, in my head, and full of what ifs.

Once I considered all the choices I have, I felt better. Got some good quality sleep for an hour or two and woke up ready to face the day. I did Dene Ballantine’s Tap Away Pain (TAP) version of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) just to really get it at a bodily level that I have many choices about how I face what life presents.

I also feel grateful for my considerable toolbox of resources. Yoga, TAP/EFT, pranayama, sitting, Reiki, NLP — all of them come in handy for getting me centered and helping me operate from my center even more deeply.

I add to that list of resources the trauma releasing exercises, which I haven’t done for awhile.

Last night I was inspired to get that book down off the shelf and find out how often you can do them, because I had a brainstorm.

What if after I/we finish our 21 days of gratitude (we’re one-third of the way through today), I offer an opportunity to join me in doing the revolutionary trauma releasing exercises every other day for a month and twice a week for the next month?

By that point, we will be so unstressed and relaxed that it will be easy to recognize when we need to do them, and it will feel so good to be unstressed and relaxed that we will be motivated to do them when we need to!

Sometimes stress can be such a part of your life that you don’t even know who you are any more. I’ve been there.

This is a way to recover your true relaxed self — without having to go on an expensive island vacation or get frequent massages! (More power to you if you can do that!)

We can share our experiences here. Think of it as a public service: a lot of people find this blog searching for information about the trauma releasing exercises because I’ve written about them before, and there’s not a lot of first-hand reports out there yet.

Look in the tag cloud on the blog and click “trauma releasing exercises” to read those posts if you’re curious.

I decided to mention it now so you’ll have time to order the book and/or video if you want to participate.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

“Activate the best version possible of yourself”

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Just a quick post to share something I encountered online today that made a strong impression. The magazine Yoga Journal is holding a conference right now, and someone commented online on a class given by Paul Muller-Ortega on  meditation.

Kelle Walsh included the following two paragraphs in her post:

Instead of turning the comment into meditation versus asana debate, he graciously acknowledged the value of all the paths people choose to come to this place of self-study. “All of the practices are complementary and mutually supportive,” he explained, each offering its own function in creating the conditions to gain access to the deep vibratory silence within all of us.

One of things I appreciated the most from this discussion was Muller-Ortega’s comments about the path of going within not having an end result, the enlightenment so many hope to find. Instead, the purpose and only tangible goal is to activate the best version possible of yourself, and then to live from that consciousness.

Paul Muller-Ortega’s website is called Blue Throat Yoga.

Gratitude for my daughter, women friends, and skilled intuitive healers

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About gratitude journals

From googling “gratitude journal,” the practice apparently began in 1996 when Sarah Ban Breathnach created The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude as a companion to her popular book Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy.

Here’s a blurb about the book:

“Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos,” promises author Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance) in her introduction.

I believe it, Sister Sarah!

Sarah asked journalers (journalists?) to write five things every day that they felt grateful for and said they would feel their lives shift within a couple of months.

In 1998, Oprah Winfrey had Sarah as a guest on her show, and as we all know, Oprah just knows goodness. The gratitude journal took off.

I missed out on this back then. It was in the early days of the world wide web (remember that?). I was working at a computer all day, and in my free time, the last thing I wanted to do was be on a computer. (My, how Facebook and blogging have changed that!)

I was raising an adolescent girl going through her most difficult period, in an often-strained relationship.

Actually, looking back, keeping gratitude journals would probably have been a fantastically wonderful practice for us to share back then, if she had deigned to share anything with me.

Hmmm. She’s changed, and so have I.

What I feel grateful for today

Today I feel grateful for my whole experience of motherhood. From pregnancy (easy), through childbirth (difficult), to the moment I held my new baby in my arms for the first time and she wrapped her tiny fingers around my little finger (instant love), I have been blessed to have had a child, a daughter, and specifically my daughter, Lela Rose, who is 29 years old now.

Lela at her Dec 2010 graduation from nursing school, with her women friends.

I watched and helped her grow up, even as I grew up more myself, and she has turned out to be a mensch, a true human being. I see her in her young adult years now, a mother herself, starting her nursing career just this week, moving through struggle to accomplishment. I see her self-esteem, her worthiness, her competency, her intelligence, her endearing goofiness, her wisdom, her discipline, her caring, her limits too.

What I am most grateful for about being a mother is the personal growth that raising her brought to my life — the growing up that I had to do, the inner work of exploring my values, learning when to be flexible and when to stand firm, the changes that being her mother brought to my life.

Today I feel grateful for my women friends, in particular Clarita and Linaka, whom I spent time with last night. We go way back to 1995 when we began ecstatically dancing together. That is 16 years of knowing each other, talking, coming together and moving away, seeing each other through difficulties and joys and sharing them, traveling together, cooking and eating together, always laughing together, and lately doing NLP with each other.

I feel blessed to have so many women friends, new and old, near and far. There is something about the friendship of women that is so nurturing. I think we let our hair down when it’s just us, in a way that we don’t or can’t with men, because we share the lifelong experience of being women in this culture. And when we have common interests and affection for each other, the connecting is abundant.

Today I feel grateful for those people I’ve encountered so far in my life who are skilled intuitive healers. I’ve mentioned Patrice, my acupuncturist, and Chandler Collins, my chiropractor, on this blog before.

Yesterday I had a heart-centering bodymind session with Bo Boatwright, who is a chiropractor but who has learned and developed a method that one could do with just a massage license.

Having experienced one session with Bo, I’d say his work with me on the table was a combination of massage, chiropractic, myofascial release, rebirthing, and visualization. He rolled me and moved me to find the stuck places, and he dug into the stuck places, having me breathe all the while, until my body spontaneously began to release stress/tension/stuckness in the manner of rebirthing and trauma releasing exercises.

After my body quieted down, I felt sadness arise in my heart chakra. I cried, and Bo asked me about my relationship with my parents, who died in 1984 and 1997 (but of course one’s relationship with parents doesn’t end with death). I opened my heart to them, forgave them, embraced them, kissed them…

A couple of hours later, in a moment of quiet stillness, I noticed a new space in my heart center, an openness that wasn’t there before.

Thanks, Bo. I’m grateful for you. And heads up, you are teaching me.

Finding your strengths = following your bliss

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Since January is usually a time when people think about the coming year and what they’d like to change in their lives (or what they’d like to be experiencing by the end of this year), it seems like the perfect month to write about finding your strengths.

First, an aside about strategies to enjoy life and be successful. Some of us have learned that we need to develop our weaknesses in order to be successful.

You should be more whatever.

How do you feel when someone says that to you? What is presupposed here?

Now try this on:

Wow, you are really great at whatever!

How do you feel? What’s the difference?  Which statement is more motivating? Inspiring?

On the whole, it is more joyful and productive to build on your strengths. People who do what they’re good at and like doing are more engaged in their work and have a higher quality of life.

Last year I learned about a book called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. This book is a Wall Street Journal bestseller, but it has wide applications, not just business.

By the way, only buy the book new, not used, for reasons given below. It’s currently $10.61 on Amazon.com. Click the link above to view and order. The full retail price is $24.95.

Background in brief: For 40 years, the Gallup Poll people have studied human strengths. A couple of guys narrowed them down to 34 different strengths and developed an assessment to help people find their strengths. That’s the basis of Strengths Finder 2.0.

A new copy of the book has an access code at the back to take the assessment online. I took it and received a summary that lists my top five strengths in order, applications for each strength, and quotes from real people who share my top five strengths.

These are my top five strengths in order:

  1. Maximizer (by the way, this book appeals to Maximizers )
  2. Adaptability
  3. Relator
  4. Activator
  5. Futuristic

One note: On some of the questions, I felt that I might answer one way today, a different way tomorrow. I pretty much sped through it, which is encouraged. It would be interesting to take the assessment once a year for several years to see how much my top five strengths change or remain the same.

Now a little about my strengths:

  • Maximizer means I measure myself by excellence. I polish the pearl until it shines. Others see me as discriminating. I’m attracted to people who have found and cultivated their strengths [and who want to find and cultivate them].
  • Adaptability means I live in the present. The future isn’t fixed but a place I create out of choices I make now. I don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours for long — I expect them and at some level look forward to them.
  • Relator means I’m attracted to people I already know and want to get to know them better. I don’t shy away from new people, but I do get a lot of pleasure from being around my friends. If you don’t know me, don’t let this scare you. Every friend was once a stranger who came into my life.
  • Activator is about doing. Only action makes things happen. Once a decision is made, I cannot not act. I believe that action is the best device for learning. I put myself out there and take the next step.
  • Futuristic is about seeing possibilities, which pulls me forward. I am fascinated by the direction of energy from the past through the present into the future. Futuristic initially seemed to conflict with Adaptability, but I think having these two in my top five strengths as well as Activator means I like manifesting, actualizing, realizing.

Based on these five strengths, my mission statement is:

I am passionate about manifesting excellence with my friends.

I like it!

    Let’s get this party started! Free NLP sessions to get you unstuck!

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    I’ve been having a lot of fun lately doing NLP sessions with people I know. Since a lot of people are confused or intimidated about what NLP is, I’m offering a special, time-limited offer for the next week, until January 12, 2011.

    If you are feeling stuck in some aspect of your life — moving ahead with a project, making a decision — and you are ready for some movement or maybe even a breakthrough, email me at the address on the Contact page.

    We’ll seek a time to meet for an hour for an NLP coaching session (which is really just help getting unstuck).

    The first session is on me, and sometimes that’s all it takes, just one session to get unstuck. You can take it from there.

    In exchange, I ask that you either write a testimonial (can be anonymous to preserve confidentiality, and kindly convey any negative feedback in private) or give my business card to three people you encounter who are stuck and tired of it.

    I don’t know the answer. You do. And by the way, the best definition of NLP is this:

    NLP is what works.

    Read these books!

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    I read a lot.

    Let me clarify that. I don’t read as much as a few other people read, or as much as I read in the past, but I am a reader. I’ve been an avid reader from a young age, at times indiscriminate but now much more discerning.

    It’s that Buddhist saying: “Don’t waste time.” If a book doesn’t hook me early on, I set it aside and try later. It doesn’t mean it’s not good. It just means it’s not relevant enough to what I need to learn in that moment to make the effort feel alive. Energy flows where attention goes. If there’s no energy there, why bother?

    The following is a list of books I read in 2010,  plan to read in 2011 (plan, not commit), read before 2010 (and mentioned on this blog) that have shaped my world, and reference books that I dip into but will probably not read cover to cover. Links are included to the books’ pages on Amazon.com; if you buy a book from clicking a link here, I’ll get a very small financial reward — which I appreciate, because blogging takes time.

    I’ve mentioned a few of the 2010 books prominently, namely, The Open-Focus Brain, A Symphony in the Brain, Buddha’s Brain, The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process, and What Really Matters. You can do a search for those posts and read what I wrote if you want.

    Books read in 2010

    Buddha, by Karen Armstrong

    Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom, by Rick Hanson

    The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, by T.K.V. Desikachar

    Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings, by A.G. Mohan with Ganesh Mohan

    The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body, by Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins

    Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, by Judith Lasater, Ph.D., P.T.

    The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times, by David Bercelli

    Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath

    A Symphony in the Brain, by Jim Robbins

    The Web That Has No Weaver, by Ted J. Kaptchuk

    What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America, by Tony Schwartz

    Yoga Sutras, translated by Kofi Busia (PDF file)

    2011 Reading List

    The 4-Hour Body, by Timothy Ferriss

    Access Your Brain’s Joy Center: The Free Soul Method, by Pete A. Sanders Jr.

    The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, by Leonard Shlain

    Beliefs: Pathways to Health & Well-Being, by Robert Dilts, Tim Hallbom, and Suzi Smith

    Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell

    Chants of a Lifetime: Searching for a Heart of Gold, by Krishna Das

    The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga: The Authoritative Presentation Based on 30 Years of Direct Study Under the Legendary Yoga Teacher Krishnamacharya, by Srivatsa Ramaswami

    Effortless Wellbeing: The Missing Ingredients for Authentic Wellness, by Evan Finer

    Emotional Intelligence 2.0, by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

    Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, by Parker J. Palmer

    Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

    Nourishing Destiny: The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine, by Lonny S. Jarrett

    Transforming #1, by Ron Smothermon, M.D.

    Waking Up to What You Do: A Zen Practice for Meeting Every Situation with Intelligence and Compassion, by Diane Eshin Rizzo

    Yoga Body: Origins of Modern Posture Yoga, by Mark Singleton

    Influential books from my past

    The complete works of Carlos Castaneda, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

    Dune, by Frank Herbert

    Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti

    The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul, by Sandra Maitri

    Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein

    My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, by Jill Bolte Taylor

    Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences, by Peter A. Levine

    The Healing Triad: Your Liver…Your Lifeline, by Jack Tips

    Reference books

    Light on Yoga, by B.K.S. Iyengar

    Poems New and Collected, by Wislawa Szymborska

    The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, by Cyndi Dale

    Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, by B.K.S. Iyengar

    Thank you! 2010 review, changes for 2011

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    I want to sincerely thank you for reading my blog. Some of you are regular readers, some occasional, and some stumble on blog posts through search engines.

    However you got here in 2010, thanks for reading.

    My year of sitting daily has drawn to a close. I won’t say it was 100 percent successful, because I didn’t sit every day, as I had intended. But in another way, it was very successful! Meditation has become part of my near-daily life. It’s not just the time I spend on the cushion, either. I find myself more and more having the courage to really be present as I go about my daily life — to myself and I hope more to others.

    I really knew my meditation endeavor had succeeded when I sat on my zafu one day recently and realized that sitting on the cushion and taking that first breath had become an anchor for bringing my awareness completely into the present moment.

    I couldn’t have imagined that happening at the beginning of the year.

    2010 Blog Stats

    Comparing minds want to know: What’s the data on your year of blogging?

    • I had 3,910 views of posts and pages on my blog in 2010. Back in the summer, I hoped aloud that I could reach 3,000 views by the end of the year. Well, you exceeded my expectations! I reached that goal on November 14. Thank you!
    • Back in January 2010, I averaged 6 views per day, with a total of 181 for the month.
    • In December 2010, 21 viewers per day on average visited my blog, adding up to 658 for the month.

    Top 10 Hits

    The top ten original blog posts by number of views for 2010 were (drum roll, please!):

    1. Trauma releasing exercises
    2. Cranio-sacral therapy, brain waves
    3. Book review: Buddha’s Brain
    4. Holotropic breathwork compared to trauma releasing exercises
    5. Buddha’s Brain: supplements for brain health
    6. Pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain — side effects of living
    7. 12 states of attention
    8. Cleansing the colon, liver, and gallbladder
    9. Trauma release heavy heart
    10. The three centers of intelligence: working with my gut, heart, and head

    New Blog Name

    Since my year of experimenting has ended and I want to keep blogging, I decided to rename this blog and change its purpose. The new name, The Well: bodymindheartspirit, reflects my interest in a variety of topics related to wellness, well-being, and wholeness (as you can see from the top 10 posts listed above), and my desire to connect to the Source as a well of nourishment both in living my life and writing for this blog.

    You can expect more blog posts written by guest writers (let me know if you’re interested in contributing) and fewer poems (intellectual property rights are important for poets — if you like a poet, please buy his or her books and CDs). A new look is also in the works.

    Thank you, and I hope you’ll stick around.

    When meditating triggers presence, like Pavlov’s dog #reverb10

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    Brene Brown, whose TED Talk I blogged about the other day after discovering Alan Steinborn’s recommendation on Facebook, does this thing on Twitter that she explains here on her blog. She calls it #Reverb10 and describes it as:

    an online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead.

    As I understand it, it’s a group initiative. Thirty-one writers post prompts for writing and reflection on Twitter using the hashtag #reverb10. Brene is one of the writers. Anyone can get on Twitter, search for #reverb10, and respond.

    Because not everyone is on Twitter, Brene has graciously made space on her blog where people can respond in the comments (with more than 140 characters!) to any or all prompts, and/or leave a link to their blog.

    This is social networking at its most awesome!

    Here is Brene Brown’s prompt for Dec. 27:

    Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year?

    Click the link above to check out Brene’s response to her own question, and those of many others.

    And here is my response.

    My most joyful ordinary moment is about something that I became aware of recently, and to understand it, I need to share a little background for new readers.

    I started this blog as a year-long project to help myself develop the habit of meditating for 30 minutes daily. I’d meditated for several years, but not consistently. I’d do okay for a couple of weeks, then get derailed (sometimes for another couple of weeks).

    I knew meditation had all kinds of beneficial side effects, and I wondered:

    If I could put a little (or a lot) more effort into meditating every day, how would my life change?

    Well, I failed. I did not meditate every day. I could not meditate with a stuffy nose (mouth breathing just doesn’t get it for me).

    I also went through a period of rebellion a few months into the year. I was laying this demand on myself, and it felt burdensome. I rebelled, took a break, plunged inward with questions, and came back wanting to do it, recommitted.

    I also had a sort of breakdown/spiritual awakening in November that resulted in me quitting my day job after six years. I was so distressed, I couldn’t sit. A lot of things in my life came to a head. I had planned to leave my job at the end of May in order to start acupuncture school in July, but circumstances actually made it the perfect time to leave (and my gut said I had to, besides).

    Other than that, oh, and la-di-dah, a few days of just pure laziness, I have meditated daily in 2010.

    End of background.

    My most joyful ordinary moment came a week or so ago when I realized that as soon as I sat down on my meditation cushion and took a breath, that I was there. In the present moment. It felt like all considerations of the past and future just dropped away, leaving just the moment and the breath and the quiet bliss.

    I am now like Pavlov’s dog, only instead of a bell triggering salivation, sitting on a meditation cushion triggers presence.

    I created that in 2010.

    This will go to Twitter, and I’ll comment on her blog as well. She’s giving away copies of both of her books and her DVD! I wouldn’t mind having those at all!

    I love this project!

    My heroes of 2010

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    I want to acknowledge some people who are heroes of mine in 2010.

    My daughter Lela Reynolds graduated from nursing school earlier this month. She is a single mom raising a child with some special needs. That child is now 10. Since Hannah was very young, Lela has been working and going to college. She went to school full-time the last two years. Nursing school is tough, people. She hit the books, did the work, learned the knowledge.

    Soon she will take her licensing exam to become an RN. This career suits her well. She likes being useful, is resourceful in a crisis, and is fascinated by humans and health. I think she will work well in settings like hospitals, and she has a couple of employers interested in hiring her. They’ll be lucky to have her.

    I am very proud of her, and she did it mostly by herself, with just a little help from me. Way to go, Lela!

    Anna Carroll is an amazingly resilient woman I know who discovered she had breast cancer this year. She combined Western and alternative medicine and is nearly done with treatment. I saw her last weekend, and she’s looking good. Anna has a well-developed and creative ability to tap into whatever resources she needs.

    Katherine Daniel is another friend undergoing cancer treatment. She kept quiet about it at first and then created a healing circle of friends to provide a supportive community. She’s nearly done with Phase 1, the radiation and chemo.

    Both of you, blessings on your journeys. Cancer is a tough one, and you’ve risen to the occasion. Kudos on creating what you need, and I send you my wishes for full and complete well-being.

    Abby Lentz is a nationally recognized yoga teacher who lives here in Austin. She created Heavyweight Yoga (aka Heartfelt Yoga) and has made two videos, Yoga for the Body You Have Today and Change the Image of Yoga.

    If you have ever considered that large-bodied people couldn’t possibly do yoga, I invite you to watch her videos.

    I appreciate Abby for getting the word out — yoga is not just for the young and already fit. It is beneficial for everyone.

    I also have great admiration for my cousin Heather and her husband Michael Mazza. They are the parents of six children. They provide an inexhaustible supply of love and direction and leadership for their brood. Watching them with their children in a restaurant is amazing. The kids are well-behaved and friendly, and Heather and Michael enjoy themselves as well. Well done.

    I’ve asked friends on Facebook about their heroes for 2010. Glenda says her sister Annie got off her cancer medicine, and that is really GREAT! Yay, Annie!

    Katie mentions Linaka Joy for all her explorations and triumphs with health this year. I second that! (My friend Linaka has been a quiet hero, not tooting her own horn but showing us her changed self.) She has changed the way she relates to food, lost weight, and along with the pounds, become lighter in spirit! This year she founded the San Antonio NLP meetup, taking more of a leadership role in the central Texas NLP community. You rock, Linaka! This work will go far.

    Katie also considers her cousin Madison a real hero “for the fantastic way she has handled her best friend (who’s also a teenager) having a baby. She stayed upbeat and supportive and used it as a way to strengthen their friendship, despite lots of criticism all around.”

    I also want to recognize Barbara Diane Beeler, a fellow blogger and friend, who lost over 60 pounds and is no longer considered obese. She wrote about it in her post Letting Go of Obesity and Regaining a Life. Diane, good going.

    Last but not least, I want to mention Gretchen Wegner’s mother, who taught her two-and-a-half-year-old grandson two yoga poses to make diaper changes go well: downward facing dog and bridge pose. Yogis, you get it. Gretchen posted this on Facebook; I haven’t met her mother. I must say, Gretchen, your mom is brilliant! I love that kind of resourcefulness!

    Now, who did I omit?

    Living with wholeheartedness takes courage, compassion, connection, and vulnerability

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    Often when someone asks me to use my NLP training to help them move through a problem state to one of resourcefulness, I have just read or seen or heard something that applies in their situation.

    I bring that new information in, and it helps them expand. (I dislike the term “solving problems,” because it seems so linear. Instead we dance with problems, move with them, do the tango, maybe even a little jitterbug, and always end up with new possibilities.)

    I do not know how this works, that I find information and inspiration just in time, but I am grateful for these synchronicities. I feel plugged in to the cosmos when this happens. Thank you for taking care of me, cosmos, since I’m meeting up with someone later to play with NLP.

    This morning I encountered a wonderful TED Talks video that Alan Steinborn posted on Facebook. (Alan walks with beauty and resourcefulness.)

    I can tell this video is going to be a huge resource for me and for those I work/play NLP with.

    It’s also incredibly apt for year’s end, when many of us search for the core issue to acknowledge and attend to and dance with during the coming year.

    Dear blog readers, read this post or watch the video. Which area of your life can benefit most from your loving attention in 2011?

    In the 20-minute video, the gifted and funny Ph.D. social worker Brene Brown discusses her research findings about shame and worthiness. Click the link and watch it if you have time; if not, read on for a synopsis.

    Brown says there is only one variable between the people who have a sense of love and belonging and those who struggle for it and are always wondering if they’re good enough:

    The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging.

    That’s it. That’s what separates the people who live their lives feeling worthy from those who don’t. A belief in their own worthiness.

    (NLP works with beliefs.)

    To break this sense of worthiness down even more, Brown reviewed her research and found that those who feel worthy share these characteristics:

    • Courage. It’s not the same as bravery. It means to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
    • Compassion. They are kind to themselves first, and then to others.
    • Connection. They are willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to be who they actually are.
    • Vulnerability. They are willing to do something first, to do something where there are no guarantees.

    Brown then went to a therapist to work on her own vulnerability issues. She noted that this single characteristic is at the root of shame and fear and the struggle with worthiness, and also of joy, creativity, belonging, and love.

    With a humorous display of her own worthiness, she relates how she told the therapist she didn’t want to deal with family or childhood issues, she just needed some strategies!

    She spent a year in therapy struggling with her vulnerability, knowing it’s a huge issue for so many others, and then spent two more years on this research.

    She states plainly:

    We are the most in debt, obese, addicted, and medicated adult cohort in U.S. history.

    We numb ourselves to avoid our vulnerability.

    You cannot selectively numb emotion.

    When we numb, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.

    To paraphrase, “and then we’re miserable and feel vulnerable, and we numb it, and the vicious cycle starts over.”

    Besides addiction, we use certainty to numb — certainty about religion, certainty about politics, certainty about our opinions.

    We also use perfection to numb. We perfect our bodies. We perfect our children. Brown notes that children are wired for struggle. If we can let them struggle and also believe they are worthy of love and belonging, wow, what a world that would be to live in!

    We also numb by pretending that what we do doesn’t have an effect on people. Oil spills, recalls, global warming, and so on. We avoid taking responsibility and making amends.

    To change this direction, she recommends that we…

    • Let ourselves be seen.
    • Love with our whole hearts, even though there are no guarantees.
    • Practice gratitude and joy.
    • Believe that you are enough.

    I hope this helps you strengthen your wholeheartedness and believe in your worthiness for love and belonging.