Category: Thoughts on Change

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Awareness & Perception Thoughts on Change

When you assume, you make…

When you assume, you make…

We all know how that statement usually ends, but do you know why assumptions are so important to our daily lives? The assumptions we hold about ourselves, others, and the world can make or break our efforts to live an authentic life and be the best version of ourselves that we can be. These assumptions also serve as the support structure for our beliefs and values. Starting with our assumptions, we can effectively shift our beliefs and values to more successfully support our goals.

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Have you ever asked yourself why you keep doing things that don’t move you in the direction of your goals? Sometimes I find myself stuck in a cycle of thinking about what I should or shouldn’t be thinking or doing. Or worse, thinking about what others should or shouldn’t be doing. This may seem like a productive thing to do, but it actually drains all of the energy that I could be using to create the outcomes I want.

There are ways to keep moving in a positive direction, starting with understanding our faulty assumptions. Once we understand ourselves a little more, we can more easily choose to see things differently and respond in a more helpful, productive way.

“Should”s and “Shouldn’t”s: Faulty Assumptions 

Our past experiences help us develop assumptions about ourselves, others, and the world in general. Some of these assumptions are adaptive and helpful. For instance, many people have learned that they should get up and go to work each day. That is helpful because (in the best situations) work makes you feel good about your contribution to the world, encourages personal growth, and allows you to pay your bills. Other assumptions are not as helpful and actually keep us stuck in dysfunctional thought processes.

Media Messages

For example, let’s think about the media messages regarding what it means to be a woman in today’s world. We are taught that women should be beautiful (but make it look effortless), submissive (but be able to stand on our own), smart (but not smarter than others), compassionate (but hold ourselves to a standard of perfection), and employed (but also take care of the family and home). It is almost impossible to balance all of these shoulds and maintain any sense of being centered and calm, much less live from a place that feels authentic.

I am sure there are plenty of other shoulds that our young women today have internalized from the popular culture. You can probably think of a much longer list than this one. For example, my daughter “should” be a straight “A” student and a superstar athlete.

If like my daughter, you have tried to master several domains, you are aware of how difficult it can be to give 100% in every area of life. Learning who we are, living from our authentic self, and practicing self-compassion can help keep things in balance.

I don’t mean to leave out the men. I know they receive cultural messages and have internalized faulty assumptions too. If you are male or have important men in your life, you can probably recognize some of the shoulds that they are expected to uphold…men should be strong (but also sensitive), hardworking (but also available for the family), independent (but just needy enough to build relationships), and powerful (but also protective of others). Again, this balance is almost impossible without a stable base of self-knowledge from which to live an authentic life.

Family and Friends

These media messages aren’t the only place (or even the first place) where we learn cultural standards that can lead to faulty assumptions. We can also internalize them from our family and friends.

Some of these assumptions come from things we learned during our childhood. During the first few years of life, we are dependent on our parents for everything. Our parents are responsible for keeping us alive and teaching us how to interact with the world.

If we have parents who are responsive and caring, we tend to learn that the world is a safe place where our needs can be met. If on the other hand, we have parents who are abusive or neglectful, then we tend to learn that the world is not a safe place. We may even come to believe that we have to always keep our guard up or that everyone is out to get us.

I know that some psychologists have been criticized for blaming everything on parents, but there is no way around the fact that our parents are the primary influence during our early development. In fact, childhood trauma is highly correlated with mental health and physical health, even into adulthood.

I am not saying that we can blame all of our bad habits on our parents. What I am saying is that when we can recognize these influences, then we can take responsibility for our current thoughts and behaviors.

Moving beyond the early influence of parents, we also learn some of our assumptions from interacting with our friends and acquaintances.

Think about a time when you received praise for doing something well or achieving a major goal. Maybe you spent a lot of time and effort working on your physical beauty through eating healthy and exercising. If you were repeatedly praised for these improvements, you may have internalized the message that you should be beautiful or thin in order to be worthy of love (or praise, or admiration, or acceptance, etc.).

Testing Our Assumptions

Basing our worth on fulfilling faulty assumptions is a dangerous way to live. It’s also a very tentative way of understanding our place in the world. Without self-knowledge, we are floating in the wind, going whichever way the winds of life blow us. We are left without a stable base from which to interact with the world.

Exploring our assumptions is a good way to gain self-knowledge. If you want to explore your faulty assumptions, try watching your thought patterns and habitual behaviors in a specific area of your life. Pick one area that is not working well and explore your assumptions in that area. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What messages have I received from the media about this area of life?
  • What are my “should”s and “shouldn’t”s about myself, others, and the world?
  • Complete this statement: In order to be worthy, I should…
  • Complete this statement: In order to be worthy, I shouldn’t…
  • What childhood experiences might be related to these faulty assumptions?
  • Were there times in my life where these assumptions were helpful or protective?
  • Are there any patterns in my language that could reveal my assumptions? What do I repeatedly say to myself? What do I repeatedly say to others?
  • Are these assumptions always true?
  • Have there been times when I didn’t follow these assumptions? How did it work out?

Hopefully, these self-reflection questions will provide you with some insight about how your faulty assumptions are contributing to your current thoughts and behaviors.

If you need individual guidance, contact me.

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Awareness & Perception Thoughts on Change

Dynamic Values: Figuring Out What You Want

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It’s pretty easy to set a goal. There are strategies for how to set the best kind of SMART goals. There are even techniques for monitoring your progress. The hard part seems to be staying on track after the initial excitement and motivation wear off.

Linking Values and Goals

Figuring out what you really want can help you keep moving in the right direction. In my opinion, the best way to set a goal is to ask yourself why you want that outcome in the first place. For example, I could say that my goal is to meditate daily for 10 minutes for the next 30 days. Here’s how the internal dialogue would go…

Well, why do I want that? I want to relieve stress.

And, what would that do for me? I would be happier and more peaceful.

Why do I want to be happier and more peaceful? I want to show up as the best version of myself.

And, what is important about being the best version of me? I want to offer my best to those around me.

So, there we have it. The true value behind my goal is a combination of authenticity and contribution. Thinking about these values, I can agree that these are two of my core values. It is very important to me to live in accordance with who I truly am and to give something positive to those around me.

Living Your Values

Knowing why I really want to meditate can encourage me to do it, even when I might not feel like I have time. Linking your core values to your goals is one of the keys to maintaining motivation toward achieving your goals. You could even try writing your goals in a way that includes your values. For instance, I could say, “I will meditate 10 minutes a day because I value authenticity and contribution.”

Acknowledging my core values could also give me some other ideas about small changes that I could make to more fully live in accordance with these values. In fact, these values are part of the reason that I decided to write a blog. There are plenty of other ways to live out these core values.

So far, I have found that the more I live in accordance with my values, the happier and more fulfilled I feel. This is one of the strategies I used when trying to work through my weight loss journey.

Finding Your Values

There are tons of values inventories available online. Most of them encourage you to identify your core values for life in general. In working with people, it seems that their values are different in each area of life. If you are interested in exploring your values, I suggest starting with one area of your life. To ease into this, you could start with the area that is working well.

If you are the happiest and most fulfilled in your home life, think about what is important to you about your home life. What do you value the most in that setting or those relationships? Ask the “why” questions a couple of times until you get down to something that feels like a core value, which usually lies deep below the surface of your first stated value.

You could also do this same process for an area that is not working well. For instance, maybe your personal growth has stalled or your health is suffering. Thinking about what is important to you in these areas could reveal that you are not living in alignment with your core values. It could also provide you with small changes you could make to improve these areas of your life.

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Thoughts on Change

Do your routines have you stuck in a rut?

What is the difference between a routine and a rut? From my perspective, a routine is a productive way to accomplish a common task. The word rut brings up feelings of being stuck in an unproductive habit. The good news is that we can use our knowledge of routines to figure out how to get out of a rut.

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Productive Routines

A routine can be thought of as a standard procedure or practice that is done on a regular basis. Think of your morning routine. What sounds or sights do you wake up to in the morning? What is the first thing you do after you open your eyes? You could go through the entire sequence of your morning step-by-step because it is most likely an unconscious set of programmed, sequenced actions.

There can be great value in having productive routines. For many of us, the morning routine has been refined to the point that it serves as a seamless way to get the family out the door without much hassle. Without our morning routine, my family might not make it to school on time. Even if we did make it on time, we would most likely not be in the most resourceful mental state.

Sometimes the routine doesn’t work. Maybe there was an extra early morning meeting that shifted our schedule back a few minutes. Or maybe one of the children forgot to do their homework the night before. In any case, when the routine is off, the day can start off a little rough. Recognizing this disruption in our routine and working together to get back on track can stop the cycle before things get worse.

If you can, take a minute to think through your morning routine. Are there things that might need to be shifted to make your morning a little more pleasant? Would getting up a few minutes earlier help you get your day started off on the right track? With a little attention and awareness, you can figure out how your routines may need to be shifted.

You can apply this same idea to any other routines you engage in throughout the day. Maybe you have a routine around entering your workplace, eating or not eating lunch, accomplishing your work tasks, going grocery shopping, or going to bed at night. Anything that you do on a fairly regular basis is accomplished by unconsciously activating the routine you have taught yourself for that task.

Unproductive Ruts

Habits can also be thought of as routines, but typically they feel more like ruts. What’s the difference between a routine and a rut? According to dictionary.com, a rut is a habit or pattern of behavior that has become dull and unproductive but is hard to change. That sounds about right to me.

When you repeatedly respond to situations in the same way, then you have taught yourself a routine. You can break this routine down in the same way that you broke down the steps in your morning routine. Just start with the habit and work backward. Ask yourself, what happened before I did that? Keep going until you can figure out your routine or unconscious procedure for getting to engaging in the habit.

For example, if you have a habit of getting angry when someone cuts you off in traffic, you can work backward to figure out how you actually manage to get angry. Something happens before you yell or blow the horn. What is that process for you? Visualize that person cutting you off. What do you see, hear, and feel? What comes first, the thought that you are going to yell at this person or the act of yelling? Do you feel anything in your body? Do you feel any tension in your shoulders, chest, or stomach? Can you notice a place in the routine where you could make a different choice? Knowing your own routine for getting upset in traffic gives you the choice of whether or not you want to continue that routine or change it.

Getting Out of the Rut

This process works with road rage, but it also works with other habits too. Think about a simple habit that you want to change. Imagine yourself engaging in that habit. See, hear, and feel what is happening when you engage in that habit that you think you want to change. Also, notice the consequences of that habit.

Mentally take yourself back in time a few minutes and play the scene leading up to engaging in that habit. See, hear, and feel what is happening around you and in your mind and body in the minutes before. Notice if there are any places in your routine where you can make a slight shift or insert a pause.

Mentally rehearse the modified routine a couple of times to see if maybe you can come up with a different outcome to your unproductive routine. The next time you are in that situation, see if you come up with a different response. Just noticing the unproductive routine and taking a brief pause is a good start.

Changing a long-standing pattern of behavior takes time. Be patient with yourself. Accept that some days will be better than others. It’s important to know that what you do does not define who you are. Recognizing what you need and accepting yourself where you are might be all you need to do right now.

 

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Awareness & Perception Thoughts on Change

How Did You Lose All That Weight? Pt. 1 – Dynamic Beliefs

At least once a week, someone asks me how I lost so much weight. Just to be clear, I lost about 40 pounds over the course of a couple of months. Once I explain that I lost the weight over two years ago, they naturally want to know how I kept it off. These are usually quick conversations. I try to share the most relevant piece of the story for that person at that moment.

Losing 40 pounds may not seem like a lot to some people, but for me, the journey changed the way I see myself and the world around me. The next couple of posts will summarize my weight loss journey; however, I have to warn you, it was not an easy process until I found the right keys for me.

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My Beliefs About Weight

When you want to make any change, it is a good idea to decide what you believe about that thing. In general, we do things because they line up with our beliefs, whether we know it or not. Our beliefs and resulting behaviors typically function to protect us from something we don’t want or to help us get something we do want.

If you are trying to make a change, you will want to explore your beliefs and figure out how you benefit from that behavior. In my case, I believed that being overweight would protect me from unwanted male attention. If I wanted to justify my behavior, I could find many good reasons that this belief was protective. It took me a long time to realize that this was the major underlying belief that was sabotaging my efforts to lose weight.

Of course, there are other beliefs about weight, eating behavior, and health. For instance, some families value eating big meals together. If you show up for family dinner and only eat a few things, some family members may get offended. In an effort to be polite, we may eat for social reasons rather than health reasons.

I also believed that I could exercise enough to “work off” the consequences of bad food choices. Through education and experimentation, I learned that this is not true. Another dysfunctional belief was that low-fat foods were good for me. Wow, was I wrong!

The saddest belief was that I could motivate myself to “do right” by berating myself when I fell short of my desired goals or behaviors. That ended up putting me in a state of mind where I didn’t even want to try anymore. This self-criticism further eroded my self-image, specifically my body-image, making it easier to make excuses than to look for solutions. If this happens to you, check out the post about self-compassion.

There are also emotional reasons that people make unhealthy food choices. That was not necessarily one of my beliefs around food, but it is for many people. My closest example of this is that I find myself wanting high-carb foods when I am tired. I still believe that a quick hit of sugar will give me a brief burst of energy; however, I also know that there are consequences. In the moment, I might not have the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons of the inevitable consequences of the sugar crash.

Changing My Beliefs

After “yo-yo dieting” for my entire life, I finally found the work of Robert Kegan. I have written about his work before in the context of balancing challenge and support. In addition to that aspect of adult development, he also studies why we fail to make the changes we say we want to make. He has a name for this natural tendency: Immunity to Change.

The basic idea behind it is that we have hidden, competing beliefs or commitments that work against our expressed goal. These hidden beliefs, once brought to the light, perfectly explain the behaviors we engage in that sabotage our effort to change. I will write more about working through the Immunity to Change later, but for now, you can check out his website: Minds At Work.

In doing this work, I found that I no longer needed to hold on to extra weight to protect myself. I was able to reframe that belief in the context of my current life circumstances, skills, and abilities.

I also found that I didn’t really want to “lose weight.” What I really wanted was to “gain health.” That’s a powerful difference. It helped me because my previous weight loss efforts were focused on pushing away things I didn’t want. This new focus allowed me to explore and pursue what I really did want.

Assessing Your Own Beliefs

Once you do the work, you may find that you have different beliefs behind your behaviors around eating, exercise, and health. Whatever those beliefs are, it is important that you acknowledge and accept that they are your beliefs. You might even need to practice some self-compassion regarding the fact that you even have those beliefs in the first place.

A more simple version of the Immunity to Change process involves simply exploring the pros and cons of your current and desired behaviors. I am attaching a simple worksheet that will guide you through assessing your own inner conflict about making a change. You are welcome to print it out and ask yourself these questions. Balancing Pros and Cons

Knowing your beliefs is a great first step. Once you can find awareness, acknowledgment, and acceptance of these beliefs, you are in a good position to explore whether or not they are still true. They might be true. It is more likely that they are outdated and more extreme than what is necessary for your current life.

If you want to test your beliefs, just try doing the opposite. For me, I tested the belief that I need high-carb foods when I’m tired. I tried just avoiding that temptation by distracting myself. I tried replacing the high-carb food with a high-fat or high-protein snack. I also tried a brief meditation or short walk instead of the high-carb food. In my case, all of those turned out to be better options than letting my outdated belief guide my behavior.

There is much more to this story, but I’ve been told that my blogs tend to get a little long. In an effort to honor your time and attention, I will save the rest for later. Those who know me personally, know that I love to talk about nutrition, exercise, and sleep. In fact, I could talk about those things all day if someone would listen.

In the meantime, check out your own beliefs around food, exercise, and health. Try to work with one specific problematic behavior at a time. Ask yourself the questions on the Balancing Pros and Cons worksheet. Don’t rush to an answer. Ask the question, take a couple of deep breaths, and see what comes up.

Let me know how it goes.

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Mindfulness & Peacefulness Thoughts on Change

We all Miss the Mark

Do you know anyone who constantly criticizes themselves for not being perfect? You know, that person who always has to do everything right. If they make one mistake, they spend the next few days beating themselves up. I used to be one of those people. I began to realize that perfect was unattainable when I started teaching yoga. In fact, I still can’t do a headstand. But, practicing the headstand taught me that it was ok to fall and get back up again.

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I’ve been reading some research articles by Dr. Kristin Neff. She has spent her career studying self-compassion. You can find a free self-compassion test on her website. This post is my attempt to summarize her ideas and provide some practical tips.

Self-compassion is understood to have three components: an awareness of personal suffering, the recognition that we are all human, and the ability to offer comfort to ourselves. If you are self-critical, tend to get stuck in fear of failure, relive bad decisions that you made, or have thoughts about never being enough, the practice of self-compassion might be just what you need.

We all Experience Suffering

In my opinion, the first step is the hardest. For some reason, we tend to think that beating ourselves up will motivate us to do better next time. This is simply not true. In fact, it actually creates an extra barrier to our progress.

In order to experience self-compassion, we have to recognize that we are suffering and in need of compassion. Many times we fall short of our ideals, fail to reach our goals, or somehow miss the mark. Instead of recognizing that we are suffering, we begin to criticize ourselves.

You may not even recognize this self-criticism because it seems like such a natural thing to do. It might include things like, “I can’t believe I…,” “I shouldn’t have…, “I can’t ever…,” or “I always….” You might even find yourself repeatedly reliving the event or situation in your mind.

If you’ve been meditating and developed a basic level of mindfulness, you might catch this negative self-talk before it gets any worse. If not, you might end up saying things to yourself that you would never say to your worst enemy.

We are all Human

Once you can identify that you are suffering, then you have a choice of how to respond. You can choose to focus on your own suffering, believing that you are the only person in the world who has experienced this problem or you can choose a different perspective.

You can remind yourself that other people have experienced this before. In fact, other people are probably going through a similar problem right now. We are all flawed humans. No one is perfect. No matter what the outside image portrays, everyone faces challenges.

We all Deserve Compassion

Being compassionate toward others seems so easy. We see a person suffering, we recognize their pain, and we have some desire to relieve it. The sad truth is that many people who offer compassion to others fail to offer that same compassion to themselves.

Being compassionate towards ourselves is a very different story. For some reason, we seem to hold ourselves to a higher standard than we hold other people. If a friend makes a mistake, we offer understanding, comfort, and encouragement. Wouldn’t it be great if we could offer those same things to ourselves?

It’s really very simple. Just think of yourself as you would think of someone you love. Shift your self-talk from criticizing to comforting. Admit that you are suffering. Acknowledge the hurt, stress, discomfort, fear, pain, anger, etc. Whatever the emotion is, acknowledge it. Name it and feel it. Sit with the emotion instead of running from it or blaming someone else.

Once you can acknowledge and accept the emotion, then you are ready to offer yourself some love. Tell yourself that you are human. Remind yourself that we all make mistakes. Check in with yourself and ask what you need right now. Encourage yourself to try again. You could even put your hands over your heart or give yourself a hug.

The emotional freedom technique (EFT), created by Gary Craig, also helps to encourage self-compassion. It always begins with some version of this statement: “Even though I have this (pain, emotion, memory), I deeply and completely accept myself.”

Benefits of Self-Compassion

Having compassion for yourself will not erase the past or remove the natural consequences of your actions. What it will do is relieve you of the extra burden of continuing to punish yourself.

Self-compassion is related to increased life satisfaction, motivation, and happiness. It is also related to decreased stress, depression, and perfectionism. Those sound like worthy outcomes to me. It seems like it would make sense to practice self-compassion the next time we miss the mark.

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Thoughts on Change

What is Dynamic Balance?

Dynamic balance is a term that is commonly used in physiology and mechanics. In the physical sense, it can be understood to mean that something is able to maintain balance while in motion or switching positions.

This can apply to the dynamic balance of a spinning top. It can also be seen in the dynamic balance of a yoga student standing on one leg in tree pose.

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When we break this term apart, we get two separate words with meanings of their own.

Dynamic (an adjective) – describes a process or system that is characterized by constant change, activity, or progress.

Balance (as a noun) – a condition in which different elements are in the correct proportions.

Balance (as a verb) – to keep or put something in a steady position so that it does not fall.

How does this relate to staying calm in the midst of chaos and change?

Applying the term dynamic balance to daily life, we come up with a system by which we keep ourselves in a steady state regardless of the chaos or change that is happening around us.

Sometimes staying steady is a good thing. Sometimes it’s not. With awareness and insight, you can determine when change is needed.

This site is dedicated to helping people understand the internal and external forces that can shift our balance.

There are simple tips, exercises, and questions that will allow you to see what keeps you balanced … and what might shift that balance in a more positive direction. You might decide that you like the state of balance that you are in. On the other hand, you might decide that you would like to shift the balance.

Maybe you want to find more peace and more freedom in your life. Maybe you will see the things you have been doing to hold yourself back from making the changes you truly want to make in your life.

Please Share and Comment

Are you interested in having more balance in your life? Can you see how it would benefit you to be able to stay calm and centered, even when things are shifting and spinning around you? What have you done to create more balance in your life?

 

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Thoughts on Change

Standing in Our Own Way

Sometimes things seem to spin out of control. But then, sometimes things seem to spin in perfect harmony. How do I (my perspective and my response) play a part in the outcome? It seems that we have much more control over how we interact with the world than most of us would like to admit. In fact, many times we are standing in the way of our own progress and happiness.

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Knowing What We Control

At work, many people come to me with concerns about situations that they (nor I) have much control over. What do I do? Well, as a good school psychologist and adult educator, I listen. I ask good questions to help them think through various aspects of the situation. Then, I wait for them to realize which part of the situation they can do something about.

Typically, the people I work with come up with brilliant ideas about how they can improve their part of the situation. The place they often get stuck is trying to get other people to change or do things their way. I’m guilty of this too. It’s just easier to see it in other people.

Changing What We Can

This means that we know which parts of a situation are within our control. It also means being able to clearly see how we are keeping ourselves from making positive changes. Sometimes we get stuck thinking about “what if…” or “yes, but…” and talk ourselves out of making changes.

There are psychologically based reasons that we do this. We could talk about cognitive dissonance, where our brains create weird equations to help us balance our beliefs and actions (including words). Or we could talk about the immunity to change where we unconsciously sabotage our change efforts in an attempt to protect ourselves from something.

Either way, we have to recognize and acknowledge what is standing between our current behavior and the change we know we need to make.

Letting Go Of The Rest

Once we recognize what we can control and figure out how we are standing in our own way, then we are free to come up with some logical next steps for our own personal change goal. We are still committed to correcting the situation by doing what we can do.

When we fully own our part we can let go of the desire to change others or get them to do things our way. We can free ourselves from the pressure to “save” the world.

The Dynamic Balance

Maybe it’s just me, but I would like to see everyone live a life that is happy, free, and balanced. But, that’s not the case for everyone, for many, many reasons. At this point in my life, I am honored to share what I know with those who want to make positive changes in their lives.

For those who want to keep spinning in circles, that’s their choice. The fact that there is a better way to live life is what gets me out of bed in the morning. It’s the reason I go to work every day. And, it’s the reason I continually remind myself that those who do not want to grow and change are not the people I am here to serve.

Please Share and Comment

Do you ever find yourself standing in your own way? Do you ever feel like you keep going in circles around the same problems? What benefit are you getting from repeating these same patterns? How do you get out of your own way?