Tag: introspection

The Willingness To Ask

The Willingness To Ask

Spending $72.00 on M&M’s was much easier than I thought it would be.

I’m in New York City with the family, Times Square. And in Times Square is a huge retail store dedicated to just one thing. 

M&M’s.

On three floor with over 25,000 square feet of space, for me the highlight of visiting is always the Wall Of Chocolate, a 50 foot wide 2-stories tall collection of 74 tubes filled with every M&M imaginable. Grab a plastic bag, place it under the tube, open the chute, and the color of your choice drops into your bag. Then off to the next color. And then the next color.

The fun adds up.

And at $17.00 per pound, so does the cost.

Standing in the checkout line I had no idea how much I had spent, but from the weight of the bag I knew it would be steep. It was a fun experience, the kids were quite happy, and it’s hard to assign a dollar value to that.

The cashier was quite engaging, and we had a nice conversation while she weighed and scanned each of the bags we’d filled. “$71.85 is your total.” As I handed my card over for payment, I jokingly suggested I should have asked for a “friends and family” discount based upon the jovial nature of our conversation. Apparently she thought that was a good idea, and to my surprise, I was given 30% off my total.

I really wasn’t expecting a discount. But in asking, even jokingly, I did receive one.

If you don’t ask the answer is always no.

Asking can be rather uncomfortable at times. Especially when we are asking ourselves some uncomfortable questions. About our life. About what we want for our life. About where we are in life in relation to what we want in our life.

Often it’s just easier to take what’s in front of us and to take what life has given us and be on our way. Avoiding any introspective questions means we don’t need to deal with their potential discomfort. In time, though, such avoidance creates its own inevitable discomfort as you eventually acknowledge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Much of our willingness to accept less than we want for ourselves is an underlying mindset that we may believe we are somehow unworthy of receiving all that is ours to receive. And if we don’t feel we are worthy of it, we certainly won’t be asking for it. In accepting this premise, we will perpetuate our existing life experience creating additional evidence we will use to support this premise of unworthiness. Continue reading “The Willingness To Ask” →

Know Yourself To Grow Yourself

Know Yourself To Grow Yourself

All I heard was nothing.

Recently I discovered a rather interesting piece of music which contained absolutely zero music.

None.

It was composed by an American avant-garde composer John Cage, it’s initial performance in 1952. The title of this work is “4:33” as in 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Of silence. Of musicians seated and poised on stage simply silent and still for the next four and a half minutes.

The true music of this piece, according to Cage, is in the ambient noises found in the silence. Primarily noises from an uneasy audience not knowing what to do in the unconventional absence of sound.

An imaginative use of silence.

Silence can be uncomfortable, often labeled as awkward. And while silence has at times been both uncomfortable and awkward for me, silence has also been a transformative portal for my own inner growth and understanding.

Sitting in my own silence, I get to hear the not-so-ambient noises within me. I get to hear the Continue reading “Know Yourself To Grow Yourself” →

8,600 Days Of Sobriety

8,600 Days Of Sobriety

It was like losing an old friend. Consistent. Reliable. Predictable. I recognized the arrangement had grown quite toxic, a toxicity I simply accepted as a fundamental cornerstone of the relationship for far longer than I should have. 

Alcohol. A trusted companion which always took me exactly where I thought I wanted to go. 

Until I no longer wanted to go there.

This week an important milestone snuck up on me. I had gone 8,600 days without alcohol. A month-long beer binge in December 2000 had pushed me to the point where I knew I needed to stop, at least temporarily. Honestly, the real challenge was seeing if I actually could. Now, over 23 years later, I guess I was able to definitively answer that question.

I never intended to quit drinking. I was simply taking a break, a longer break than usual. For several years prior I had given up beer for Lent, not for any religious purposes, but as a test to see if I could go 40 days without it. My abstinence would start earlier in 2001, six weeks ahead of Lent.

It wasn’t easy. Once my body recovered from what I had done to it in December, it was ready for more. And it wasn’t happy when I told it no. This temporary abstinence was a personal challenge and honestly I was deeply afraid I would fail. Established habits are powerful forces in life, even if those habits don’t serve you.

As I gained some traction with sobriety, I started to wonder how long I could actually keep it up. I’d always taken comfort in knowing Lent would end after 40 days and I’d then be free to go back to my usual intoxicated ways. After all, I never said I was quitting, right?

But this extended Lenten season would be different. The clarity of sobriety created a space of Continue reading “8,600 Days Of Sobriety” →

Perhaps The Greatest Gift You’ll Ever Give Yourself

Perhaps The Greatest Gift You’ll Ever Give Yourself

“Dad, there’s something wrong with the lights.”

My daughter came to me in a panic. The bathroom lights suddenly shut off. Couldn’t turn them back on either. After some investigating, apparently the wind driven rain was getting into one of the plugs on the Christmas lights outside causing the GFCI to engage. 

GFCI is a Ground Fault Circuit Interruptor used primarily in wet areas in and around the home. You probably have these in your home, too. Should any moisture be detected within the electrical outlet the GFCI responds in 1/40th of a second and disables the outlet immediately preventing any damage from being done.

Once we fixed the problem outside I hit the reset on the GFCI and the bathroom lights went back on.

The whole key to the GFCI is awareness. Once it knows of the potential danger involved it’s able to prevent a potential catastrophe.

I wish I had one of those in my mind. An emotional circuit breaker which could sense any negative and disempowering thoughts I may have and disable them before doing any damage.

How life changing would that be?

Our thoughts and words are powerful. Often when we are triggered by outside forces we can habitually react in ways which harm us, either by what we may say to others, or equally as important, by what we may say to ourselves. Specifically, it’s the negative self talk and those habitual responses reinforcing limiting beliefs which damage us more than we realize. 

But how do we train ourselves to respond differently?

It all starts with self-awareness.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve never been very good at self-awareness.

With no emotional safety valve in place, challenging situations were always allowed to run their course. For better or worse. And it was usually for the worse. I didn’t know I had the choice to respond any differently than I always had. I just automatically harshly reacted to the difficult and uncomfortable events in my life which simply perpetuated more of what I’ve always done.

My lack of self-awareness meant nothing would change. I wasn’t even aware there was anything to change.

At some point on my life’s path I had heard about the concept of being an observer of your life. Sort of like stepping outside of your physical self and just noticing what life really looked and sounded like. Without judging what was noticed. Just observing.

Eventually, and with very low expectations, I gave it a try. Mostly out of curiosity. As I stepped outside of me I began to notice how I would habitually respond to what showed up in my life. Especially the difficulties. I remember what I saw. The anger and the frustration. The intense bitterness of disappointment. Even, at times, a tendency to blame. Maybe I actually was what people had told me I was. As I was able to develop some sense of self-awareness, the real challenge for me was doing so while not judging or punishing myself for the things I discovered I didn’t like about myself.

We all have the ability to be cruel and unforgiving towards our self, don’t we? I was quite good at that.

Noticing how I was judging and treating myself, though, was in itself an extension of my own self-awareness. I was now aware of my habitual responses and also aware of how I felt about myself for having such responses.

We can only hope to fix the things we know are broken. In my lack of self-awareness world, I was never the one who was broken. But at some point I realized that, in fact, I was, and a more self-aware version of me has done a great deal of work to address it. There is still more work to be done. But subtle changes have lead to anything but subtle positive results.

Simply put, self-awareness has made me better at being me…kinder, gentler, more compassionate, especially when dealing with myself.

Self-awareness has become a vitally important part of who I am these days. It’s become my emotional GFCI allowing me to observe what is going on within me, enabling me to disable and negate the reactions and responses which no longer serve me and replace them with ones which do. I may not respond in 1/40th of a second, but being able to monitor my own emotional state has allowed me to better deal with challenging situations I often find myself in.

What about you? When life squeezes you just a little too tight, how do you habitually respond? Have you ever taken the time to just step back and observe? To simply notice? 

It could be the greatest gift you’ll ever give to yourself.

It’s a great day to be you.

The Honesty of November

The Honesty of November

What can a month teach you?

There’s a small window of time each year that I quietly look forward to. It’s the time when gone are the spectacular fireworks of the fall foliage, when the last leaves on the oaks and maples have finally found their way to the ground below. The bitter cold of winter’s chill has yet to arrive, but we are reminded that it is on its way.

November.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for November. It was a great companion for me during the frustrating and challenging Continue reading “The Honesty of November” →