A coaching session I recently led caused me to do some thinking about how we are addicted as a culture to gossip and drama. Because we are a culture that seems to love celebrity, we may spend more of our day gossiping about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Anna Nicole than we do being deliberate about having the life we really want.
I’m certainly not here to judge those who are addicted to drama; I do understand the appeal of diverting ourselves from our often mundane, or even troubled, personal lives. But I do think it might be helpful for all of us to become conscious of how much time we are giving over to gossiping and participating in cheap drama, as opposed to the rich dramatic tapestry of life that is available to all of us.
Dramas in our personal lives that are based on unkindness and exaggerated negativity can also be highly addictive. While these dramas may drain us on some level, they can charge us, and we end up operating on borrowed or false energies. (Much like drinking a big cup of coffee.) In Alan H. Cohen’s book Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It, he writes, “We have been so conditioned to believe that life is based on drama [cheap drama], that the notion of a drama-free life is radical, even heretical. You might even feel insulted by the suggestion that you have a role in the dramas you experience. But it is so. You are powerful enough to create any life you choose. If you enjoy your dramas, then admit it and carry on in high style. If your dramas are making your life suck, then it’s time to look at alternatives.”
While participating in gossip about those we know personally, the potential to do damage may be greater than what we realize. In his book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz writes of the importance being impeccable with one’s word. One idea to implement about gossip in one’s personal life is to make a pact with (former!) gossip partners not to gossip anymore. One could even put some money or a free lunch on the table to motivate the commitment to be impeccable! Even gossiping about those we don’t know might be painful to them somehow; certainly it is painful to us. In our quest to be kinder and gentler in our lives, giving up gossip could be an amazing gift to the world.
Let’s all try to get conscious and be deliberate in giving up the cheap drama in life, not living our lives through celebrities and using them as reference points for our reality, and giving up life-draining gossip!
(c) 2012 Jeanine Marie Austin, Ph.D., C.Ht.
Doctor of Life Coaching, Certified Hypnotherapist
Simply Divine Solutions
Life Coaching and Hypnosis Worldwide
The other day I watched the movie Bandidas with Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz. Knowing that Hayek and Cruz are good friends and seem to have a great time together, I was curious to hear them narrate the director’s cut. When listening to it, I immediately noticed what a generous spirit Penelope Cruz had toward others, especially her friend Salma. Penelope told a story about how kind Salma was to her when she first arrived in the United States from Spain. When Salma had a different recollection of the days certain shots were filmed, Penelope deferred her argument. Several times Penelope allowed Salma to take center stage and exclaimed things such as, “Salma, look how small your waist is!” This seemed to me to be a wonderful, yet simple, example of generosity of spirit.
For some of us being generous with our money and time is much less difficult than being generous of spirit. Maybe we don’t want someone else to get more credit or attention than we think they deserve. Maybe we think someone doesn’t deserve forgiveness, compassion, or kindness. We become stingy.
This stinginess of spirit comes from fear. We might fear that if they are the pretty one we won’t also be acknowledged, appreciated, and loved. We fear that if they are recognized for their work, then we won’t be recognized for ours. We believe there isn’t enough to go around. We may also believe that if we don’t police the universe with our disapproval then our choices in our world will become less valued.
The truth is, and we probably know this intuitively, that when we celebrate others’ successes, we win along with them. When we acknowledge their abundance, we also acknowledge riches for ourselves.
Many of my female coaching clients say that they would like to have girlfriends but their friendships with women often are competitive or unsupportive. When we are generous of spirit with our friends, as Salma and Penelope seem to be, (I also remember Salma being sincerely excited for Penelope to be nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Volver), we base our friendships on love rather than fear. Love is a solid foundation for any relationship.
When we base our friendships on fear we end up with “frienemies”. Frienemies are friends who also seem to be enemies. We sense they might enjoy seeing us fail. A frienemy has mixed feelings toward us and sees us as a threat to their success and happiness.
It is also important to be generous of spirit with those we don’t know well or at all. This might take the form of being slower to judge or not to judge at all. We may give the crabby cashier the benefit of the doubt. We might choose to think that just maybe they are having a bad day, maybe they are suffering from a loss, or maybe they are having the same struggles as we are. It is amazing how much being extra kind to someone who is not being terrific to us can remedy a situation. When kindness alchemizes a situation from unpleasant to sweet, then we experience what can feel like a miracle.
Without question, the world can be an unfriendly and cold place to live. Encouraging others around us so that they can shine is a gift that we all can offer each other. In fact, is there really a better gift to extend? When we remember that it is more important to extend love than to be number one or front and center, we express our belief in the importance of being generous of spirit.
(c) 2012 Jeanine Marie Austin, Ph.D., C.Ht.
Doctor of Life Coaching, Certified Hypnotherapist
Simply Divine Solutions
Life Coaching and Hypnosis Worldwide
Many times in life we find ourselves forgetting to really celebrate. Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras, is the celebration the day before Ash Wednesday. It is a time of decadence, a last hurrah perhaps, before the season of Lent begins.
Maybe we are busy, preoccupied or even just plain stressed out and we forget to stop and smell the roses along the way of life. Fat Tuesday reminds us of the juiciness and celebratory aspects of life that we can tend to forget.
Some of us who run a bit perfectionistic might forget that once in awhile (if not more often) it is healing and aligning to let go, enjoy, act silly, party like a rockstar or at least an elaborately head dressed Mardi Gras dancer.
Let’s all extend our hands to catch the beads of love and life coming our way!
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves “Do I want to be right or do I want peace?” Many times I asked myself this question and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I just want to be right. I see how this kind of divisive thinking really has unpleasant long term effects. Now, even when I feel I am the one in the right, more than ever, I want peace.
Back in the 80s, when I began training to be a social worker and psychotherapist, the prevailing wisdom was to tell people what you think. Let them know your “TRUTH”. Now I can see that this “truth” is often the ego’s truth, fueled by fear, anger or vindictiveness. “Speak your truth, even while your knees shake” may be most useful with our life coach rather than with someone who has been unkind or abusive to us. It is highly unlikely that the person who has wounded us deeply would be the one to restore our tranquility.
When we have a break-up we may be tempted to tell our former beloved what a jerk he is, that he is a terrible lover and furthermore, that he meets ALL the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Bloop! But, why make an enemy where we might have peace someday? Probably not a friend, but an experience of serenity, goodwill and acceptance.
How often has someone given us even the most benign feedback about our hair, our dress or some little thing and we were undone by it? Most people can’t handle feedback. So in most cases, I wonder, “Why bother?” This person probably has some inkling of what their personal dynamics are based on outcomes. If their shadow is so deeply repressed that they have not a single clue, why would we think that our offered insight would be helpful? Are we teaching her a lesson by dumping her off of Facebook, or are we just hurting someone’s feelings or angering and rejecting them unnecessarily?
One of my friends told me about a workshop he participated in in the early 80s. Participants would each be focused on in small groups and the other group members would offer constructive criticism. While this might be helpful in some ways, the premise seems to clash with what we know now. Focusing on the negative expands it. Perhaps more importantly, don Miguel Ruiz wrote in the Four Agreements “Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally… Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” Further, anything that people are focused on with their physical eyes is not ultimately the true person. So what if your group doesn’t like your hair, your dress or your manner? Leo Buscaglia was famous for saying if you hate your big thighs you become a victim of that thinking. Embrace your big thighs and you will find a world of big thigh lovers!
Wayne Dyer once told a story about a tribe that supported and continued to embrace members who had broken the rules of the community. The offender would be made to stand in the community center while members of the tribe would come by and say positive things to the person until peace was restored. We can dump all the people who bug us, who have offended us, and who have betrayed us. At the end of the day, really, who would be left? We might recognize our Facebook community as a mirror for ourselves. So hum! (I AM that). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1uQstbRlBQ
When we delete people off Facebook we often want to just leave them behind. If we have to do this, how might we do this on a compassionate note? Also, if we want to leave someone or something behind, how can we do it in a way that is considerate to all? Moreover, if you have been wronged, what high road might you take? Even if you are “right”? This does not mean you have to stay married, date, or look at someone’s Facebook posts that hurt you. My mother told me recently about her friend’s daughter whose estranged husband posted pictures of he and his new lover in Mexico with rose petals leading to the boudoir. ¡Aye caramba! In that case, I might delete him, block his posts, stay off of Facebook or maybe start a new page where I was free to post pictures of my lover and I frolicking in abandon in our Tantric love den (I like this last idea best!). While taking into consideration your physical and emotional safety, how might you leave the door open to peace and acceptance?
The real deleting happens between our ears and isn’t done with the keyboard. And really, can we ever truly separate from another? Choose supportive thoughts. Know that the Universe (God, Creator, the Divine, the organic patterning of the life force) really does have your back. Capitalize on the good stuff. Emphasize the light. Take what you learned and maximize its gifts. Bite your tongue until you calm down. Don’t be too quick to burn bridges.
I’ve always liked the work of family systems therapist Murray Bowen and his concept called emotional cutoff. “The concept of emotional cutoff describes people managing their unresolved emotional issues with parents, siblings, and other family members by reducing or totally cutting off emotional contact with them.” [The Bowen Center]. The problem is that cutting people off usually doesn’t work as far as getting them out of your head (but sometimes it does). As a life coach I’ve frequently heard people complaining about a spouse they divorced 20 years ago or feeling actively upset by the behavior of someone long dead. Sometimes healing takes place in allowing energy to come into our space, or onto our page, knowing that we are anchored in love and peace.
While I don’t believe the following Audrey Hepburn quote to be true in the absolute, certainly we could inject our contemplated partings with more sensitivity “People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.”
(c) 2012 Jeanine Marie Austin, Ph.D., C.Ht.
Doctor of Life Coaching, Certified Hypnotherapist
Simply Divine Solutions
Life Coaching and Hypnosis Worldwide
I recently was a parent chaperon at The Renaissance Fair for my son’s school. My small group sat down to watch a theatrical show. Most of the people watching the act were school children. One of the short performances was a woman dancing with ribbons on a long stick. At one point she became completely entangled in the ribbons and was no longer moving in sync with the music. Even though at one point her head was completely wrapped in ribbon she just kept smiling and dancing. I don’t think a single child noticed or even cared, they thoroughly enjoyed the show.
Similarly, I was at Zumba class dancing with the Deuces Wild team. The instructors called forward other Zumba instructors to move to the front of the room, of which I am one. As it turned out, I didn’t know a step of the choreography and with a packed room I couldn’t see the two Deuces Wild instructors well. In the past I might have just snuck away or at least moved back, but I kept going. I knew if I could overcome my self consciousness about not doing the steps perfectly, I would get the choreography mid-song if not sooner. As it turned out, that’s what happened.
Oprah’s life coach, Martha Beck, worked with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, on the Finding Sarah series. Martha created a large rope maze and Sarah had to be blindfolded. The exercise was to help Sarah reclaim intuition, instinct and flow. The Duchess who had not always exhibited those traits in her real life, cruised through the exercise almost as if she had not been blindfolded. It was interesting to me that Martha said that many people, when they sense they have gone off-course, will just freeze. They just stand there, blindfolded, stuck, deflated and defeated.
Sometimes we have a life challenge and we need to grieve. We need to go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and back and forth again and again until we are ready for the next phase. Most of the time though we can find a small bit of light in the darkness and accentuate that light. If we are so deeply derailed by a break up or a bankruptcy for example, we might miss opportunities to connect, to give, to share or to love. In fact, that thing that has tempted you to drop permanent anchor is probably, if you keep growing and going, the reference point for your greatest contribution in the world.
J.J. Hurtak has referred to “naked suffering” as the kind of suffering that often comes with death or the chronicity of illness or disability. This is not existential suffering, but the suffering caused from a great loss. We have seen people who have suffered great loss or pain and give and love as if their life was a cake walk. Jackie Kennedy comes time mind having suffered the murder of her husband and brother in law as well as thriving after other emotional assaults.
A dear friend of mine who is a natural curandero told me as I struggled with a challenge of a serious nature to bless my challenge, knowing it is my greatest gift in disguise. He told me to keep going, keep smiling, keep giving. The book A Course in Miracles takes this so far as to say that it is our responsibility to keep going because it signifies to others that there is no hope when an external force permanently defeats you: “Your sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to you for their release.”
When we embrace the truth, that we are so much more than anything that can happen to us, we can recommit to experiencing joy. We can be inspired by the stories of those who came before us and persevered despite great loss and abiding suffering. We can always ask ourselves “In what way can I move forward, move on, take what has happened to me and make a contribution to humankind?”
(c) 2012 Jeanine Marie Austin, Ph.D., C.Ht.
Doctor of Life Coaching, Certified Hypnotherapist
Simply Divine Solutions
Life Coaching and Hypnosis Worldwide
