YOU Are The One You’ve Been Waiting For

What are you waiting for?  Are you waiting for your spouse to stop being so critical or help out more?  Are you waiting for your kids to start being more respectful? Are you waiting for someone to invite you over and reach out to you?  Are you waiting for a job offer to come back?  Are you waiting to lose weight?  Are you waiting for someone to change the curriculum at school or someone to who shares your value system to run for political office?  Most of us are waiting for something.  Whatever you’re waiting for, I have great news.

YOU are the one you’ve been waiting for!

It’s easy to feel that we are at the mercy of others for things to change.  I want to remind you that YOU have tremendous power to change your relationships just by changing YOU and the way you think about them and by being brave to take action.   Here are examples of two women I admire, who chose to BE the change they were waiting for:

Change Yourself Instead of Trying to Change Others

First, several years ago a woman shared with me once that she was very embarrassed by the way her husband acted in social situations.  He was awkward and seemed to say things that only he found funny.  For many years she bit her lip but inwardly felt humiliated.  Sometimes she even tried to ‘clean things up’ for him socially.  Ultimately she realized her embarrassment about social situations was eroding her own relationship with him.

She decided that she wanted to be proud to be with him, no matter how he acted.  So, when he was awkward and made his jokes SHE decided to be the one who laughed.  She began to wonder what HE found so funny about his jokes.  Over time she began to seem more humor in them and she even found enjoyment in watching him enjoy himself.  She sincerely began to enjoy being with him more in social situations, and she found herself falling back in love with her husband.  Interestingly others relaxed and seemed to enjoy her husband’s jokes more as well. That was a nice bonus, but by then it didn’t matter as much because she sincerely enjoyed him regardless.  SHE was the one she’d been waiting for.

Change Your Environment Instead of Complaining About It

The second example is even more recent.  In 2016 around the time of the US Presidential election, Sharleen Mullins Glenn was feeling frustrated and concerned about the corruption and self-interest she saw on the political stage.  She kept wishing something would change, and that someone would do something about it.  Finally, she prayed to know what SHE could do.  The answer that came was to start, “Mormon Women for Ethical Government;” an on-line community of women who are concerned about ethical values in US governance and policy.  They are non-partisan advocates for honor, decency and accountability in politics. In just a short time it has grown to over 6,000 members and has representation all of the US and even the world.  They have been able to write press releases, hold rallies, talk to legislators and advocate for policy changes.    She chose to BE the one who she was waiting for.

Change Your Perspective

The first time we lived in China I was shocked at how people behaved in public places.  Trying to get on an elevator felt like a Herculean event, especially with young children.  The minute the doors opened, people began pushing and shoving and elbowing their way to the front.  There was no respect for lines or who was waiting first. It was survival of the fittest and whoever was the biggest bully won!  It felt rude and disrespectful to me.  One time I will never forget was trying to get off the plan after 24 hours of traveling alone with 3 young children; an anxious 5 year old, a busy toddler and a new baby.  I had survived the flight and was trying to get my luggage from the overhead compartment while helping a crying newborn in my front pack and trying to keep my toddler from running off.  Before the plane had even stopped.  People were up in the isles shoving each other to get off the plane.  When I tried to stand up people knocked me over and my daughter got shoved up against the seat.  Not one person stopped to let me get out.  We had to wait until every person got off the plane.  This might be fine if it is simply a short trip.  But his was my every day.  I could not understand it and it began to affect my experience living in China.

While we were living there I read the book, Wild Swans, which details the true story of 3 generations of women from a woman who was a concubine, to her daughter who was part of the cultural revolution, to her daughter who became a modern, educated woman and immigrated to the US.  Through it I learned much of the recent history of China over the last century.  Not just the facts and dates–but the emotional toll it took on people.  For example, I read about when the government asked many of the big thinkers for criticisms telling them they would be rewarded for improving the country.  Then, he punished them by imprisoning them, relegating them to rural labor or forcing them to leave the country.  Others were forced to give names of family members that the government would punish in return for sparing their own jobs.  These are just a few examples, but I began to see how a culture of self preservation had prospered here.  I understood how people could push each other down getting to the elevator or off the plane. They knew that to survive they must depend on themselves.  They knew that trusting others might be dangerous.  While I don’t espouse this type of social pattern, understanding it from a different perspective helped me feel less frustrated when I was in those types of situations.  Increasing my information on the subject helped change my perspective about it, and I felt less frustrated.  I was the change I’d been waiting for.  They weren’t going to change any time soon.  See All Things Brave and Beautiful for more perspectives on changing the way you see things.

Be the One You’re Waiting For

What are you waiting for?

Whatever change you’ve been waiting for, YOU can make it happen.  Change yourself instead of waiting for others to change.  Change your environment instead of waiting for others to do it.  If you don’t know how, ask God and get moving.  The world needs you.   Your friends and family need you.  YOU need you.  Stop waiting, and be the one who makes it happen.  You’ll be so glad you did.

Make Friends With Stress: How Our Beliefs About Stress Affect Us

Most people belief stress is a villain.  After all, it can increase your risk of a heart attack, it can decrease your effectiveness in a meeting or difficult conversation, and it can reduce our enjoyment of things.  However, new research suggests that it is not stress it’s self that is the villain, but how we think about stress that causes the problem.  In fact, in many cases stress could actually be beneficial.

Our Biological Stress Response

A few weeks ago, I had to teach a group of about 50 women.  Normally I really enjoy teaching, but it had been a busy week, and I had struggled with how to present the material.   As the time got closer, my heart began to pound, sweat collected on my palms and forehead, and my mind started racing. If felt stressed!

Biologically a lot happens to the body when we feel stress.  The brain (the hypothalamus) sounds the alarm system! It says, “Help, there’s emotional danger—gather the troops!” The body releases the hormones of cortisol, adrenaline and oxytocin.  When cortisol increases the blood glucose levels it stops non-essential emergency processes like digestion, growth, and the immune response. Adrenaline is also released; it increases the heart rate, blood pressure and energy.  Our bodies are incredible the way they are able to instantly gear up to meet a threat.

These responses won’t hurt us if they only occur occasionally, but if they are felt ongoing they create a host of problems.  This is why for years health professionals have told us that stress is bad for us. However, recent research has put that theory into question.

Is Stress Really Bad For Us?

Kelly McGonigal, a Stanford Professor and Health Psychologist, reveals some fascinating new research about stress in recent study that tracked over 30,000 Americans for 8 years.  The study tracked the amount of stress they had, their belief about stress and how many of them died. For people who had a lot of stress, the study showed that there was a 43% increased risk of dying. Think about it…if you’re stressed, your risk goes up by almost half!  BUT that was only true for people who believed that stress was bad for their health. Those who didn’t believe stress was harmful for their health had no higher risk of dying!

What You Believe About Stress Matters

So, put simply you decrease your risk of death from stress by 43% just by changing your thought about stress.  Did you catch that? That is powerful. You can reduce your body’s risk of dying from stress by changing a sentence in your brain! Wow.

In her book “The Upside of Stress,” Kelly McGonigal explains why this change in our perception about stress can be so powerful.  One of the hormones released during stress is called Oxytocin. This hormone has several stress reducing properties. First it reduces cortisol–which we mentioned earlier stops digestion, immune response and growth.  Oxytocin also relaxes your blood vessels which lowers your blood pressure and it can decrease physical pain due to it’s anti-inflammatory properties.

Isn’t it incredible how the body compensates for its own self-causing damage?  When people believe that stress is NOT harmful, more oxytocin is released. 

Benefits of Stress

In a study done at Harvard, study participants were taught several benefits of stress.  Then, the patients were purposely stressed while under observation. When patients thought about their stress positively, their heart still beat fast, but their blood vessels stayed open.   Kelly McGonigal explains that this biological profile looks like what our bodies do when they feel joy or courage. She says, “When you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create the biology of courage.”

When we stress out about stress, it IS bad for our health.  However, when we choose to make friends with stress, it actually doesn’t harm us.  The best way to make friends with stress, is just by changing our thoughts about it.   

Stress Hard Wires Us For Connection

If you need more convincing, here’s one way McGonigal says stress can actually HELP us.   Again we can thank the hormone oxytocin. In addition to the other physical responses it creates, it also has emotional benefits.  Oxytocin increases your trust, empathy and your desire to connect with others. McGonigal states, “When you choose to connect with others under stress, you can create resilience.”   Connection is one of the most significant determinants of happiness. Stress actually gives us a biological nudge to connect.

Another study that tracked 1000 adults in the US, showed an increased 30% risk of death for each stressful event that occurred.  BUT it also showed that those who spent time serving friends, neighbors and people in their community had 0% increased chance of death from their stressful events.   Our biology is literally changed when we reach out under pressure.

Connecting During Stress

This week as I stood in front the group of women, I confessed that I was feeling really nervous.  Immediately I received kind looks of affirmation and smiles. Their smiles gave me the courage to calm my nerves enough to present the way I had hoped.

Stress is only harmful if we believe it is.  I love Kelly Gonigal’s summation of stress, “Stress gives us access to our hearts.  The compassionate heart finds joy and meaning in connecting with others.”

Make Friends With Stress

What are you stressed about right now?

  1. Remind yourself that stress is good.  It is your body’s way of gearing up to deal with something challenging.  Just by believing this, you will create biological courage to handle the situation with more grace and wisdom.  
  2. Use that courage to reach out and make a connection. Ask your neighbor how they’re doing. Give your husband a hug.  Smile at someone. You’ll do yourself and them a favor by creating more oxytocin.

Here’s a TED talk by Kelly McGonigal discussing this idea more in depth.  How to Make Stress Your Friend.

 

How To Not Fear Fear: Metabolizing Emotions

We spend a lot of our time as human beings trying to escape or ignore or change these types of feelings. Why?  Because they feel awful!  No one likes feeling fear, or feeling stressed, overwhelmed, afraid, embarrassed, or depressed.  The problem is that when we avoid negative emotions they stay around longer, get more intense and rarely address the takes up lots of brain space!  There is a better way to handle difficult emotions.

Negative Emotions Are Essential

Our brains and bodies are programmed with these feelings to move us to action.  If a truck is headed straight for us, we feel fear.  And, our fear drives us to move out of the way. If we have too many things required of us, we feel overwhelm.  This feeling drives us to eliminate the unessential.

However, in our modern world, it’s easy to feel that we SHOULD feel happy or peaceful all the time. We think if we feel something negative, we should fix it.  We have so many easy options for escape!

Avoiding Negative Emotions

When our to-do list feels too long, we can turn on Netflix and get lost in a show instead.  When dinner our is crazy, we eat a cookie on the counter to dull the overwhelm and get a hit of joy—even temporarily.  After a difficult conversation that didn’t go well, we can drown our guilt and disappointment by pushing a few buttons on Amazon and a box shows up on our door with a new pair of shoes.

Everyone has different emotions they try to avoid, and there are myriad methods of avoiding them; eating, shopping, TV, staying busy, anger, withdrawing, sleeping, alcohol, drugs, porn, gambling, working etc.  When we avoid emotions, we never process them.  They continue to cause us problems.  And, the things we do to avoid negative emotions cause us trouble sometimes too.

The Problem with Avoiding Negative Emotions

There are 3 problems with trying to escape emotions:

  1. The things we do to escape difficult emotions sometimes have negative consequences.

    Here is an example:  There was a time in my life when I felt so overwhelmed and discouraged I listened to audiobooks all the time—especially at dinner time and crazy times in the car.  It seemed like a benign enough escape.  I knew it wasn’t ideal for my family but I wasn’t sure how else to deal with the chaos without becoming a person I didn’t like. I checked out.  While it saved my kids a lot of yelling, my escape also robbed me of precious time and interactions with my kids.

  2. When we don’t deal with an emotion, it sticks around and continues to resurface

    Emotions are simply chemicals in our body. Their job is to alert us of something important and move us to action if  necessary.  If they are not allowed to complete their job, they continue to resurface. Sometimes the emotion itself rises up again and again and other times it shows up in different ways.
    It’s sort of like those windup music boxes where you turn the crank and the ballerina dances to music.  If you keep the box open, eventually she will stop.  But, if you shut the box, she stops.  However, every time the box is opened she dances and the music plays. It may take many times of opening and closing to finish the cycle.  That is how our emotions work too.
    I had a baby just a few weeks after my mother passed away.  I wanted to grieve my mother’s loss—she was a tremendous presence in my life.  However, I was busy around the clock taking care of a newborn, an emotional toddler, and a needy pre-schooler.  We were in the middle of an international move and I didn’t know how to grieve in the midst of the insanity!  So I just closed the metaphorical music box (unconsciously of course) and kept trying to survive.

    Over the next few years however, when strong emotions surfaced, my grief was often right there.  Our move to a foreign country was overwhelming and difficult and I found myself sobbing nightly.  (I had moved to other countries before and been fine.  But this time I was totally lost.)  I thought it was the move itself—but looking back I see it was that grief resurfacing.  My grief resurfaced again and again as difficult things emerged in my life.  The ballerina had to play her part.

  3. It takes so much work to keep the negative emotions away we don’t have as much space in our minds for the things we really want to do!

    Recently I was trying to concentrate on something and my daughter was whistling.  It was really grating on me.  I tried to ignore it, but the harder I tried to not be bothered by it, the more intense the irritation began to be. In fact, it was requiring so much effort to “ignore” it, I hardly had any brain space left for the work I was doing.   This happens with emotions too—when we are angry at someone or irritated and we keep trying to push it down, it often consumes us even when we don’t realize it.

There is a better way to deal with emotions.

Allow Your Emotion

Most people think that if they allow their emotion they will end up doing something they don’t want to do—like yell at their kids, or eat too many cookies, or sleep until 10 in the morning. However, allowing a feeling is different than acting on it.  Allowing a feeling just means that we feel it, we notice it, we don’t avoid it.  It doesn’t mean we act on it.  In fact, allowing an emotion actually allows the emotion to dissipate, so we are less likely to re-act to it.

Emotions are just chemicals in our body.  When we feel them, they are simply moving around inside of us.  The emotion itself won’t hurt us.  This is a powerful piece of knowledge.  When you know that you can handle any emotion, you stop feeling afraid of certain emotions and you don’t have to spend as much time avoiding negative emotions.

Our bodies need food to survive.  When we eat food, the body metabolizes it–breaks it down, absorbs it and sends it out to the body for fuel.  Similarly, emotions are essential to our survival. They provide the necessary impetus to eat, live, reproduce, find purpose and even get out of bed in the morning. When our body encounters an emotion, it’s crucial to metabolize it just as it would food.  It’s important for the emotion to be allowed to run it’s course, be identified and serve as fuel for the appropriate action.

How to Metabolize an Emotion

Become an observer of yourself.  When you notice yourself feeling a negative emotion like fear, stress, anger, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration, shame etc. don’t shove it down or numb it away by distracting yourself.  Instead, close your eyes and “watch” the emotion in your body for a minute.

It seems like just when I start to chat with another adult one of my girls decides they need something.  They are often pulling on my arm or nagging, “mom, mom, mom, mom….can we go?”. My two-year old often just lays down and howls.  Even after I’ve let them know we will be leaving in 5 min. they continue to pester me.  I often feel irritated!  Here’s how I process this emotion.

  1. Name the emotion

    I say to myself “This is irritation.”

  2. Describe what it feels like.

    Imagine that you were going to describe to someone what it feels like to feel a particular emotion.  You’d describe where you felt it in the body, what the sensation was like, what color it was, if it was hot or cold etc.I say, “I’m feeling really irritated right now. I feel tension in my eyebrows, my lower jaw feels tingly, and my lungs feel a little short of air.  To me irritation is a warm emotion—I picture it as orange goop sort of slowly building up in my lungs.

  3. Allow it to hang out.

    Remember it is just a chemical in your body, it can’t hurt you!  Many people worry that if you allow emotion to hang out, it will cause you to act on it. Don’t act on it (acting is an escape too.)  Just feel it.

    I say to myself.  “This is fine.  This is just irritation.  I can just be a person who is irritated.  I’m going to calmly continue my conversation, and it’s okay if my kids fall apart for a few minutes.  I don’t have to get angry at them.  Each time I just observe my irritation and don’t act on it, it becomes less intense.”

  4. Continue to allow it until it dissipates

    Of course my brain wants to sell me all sorts of ideas. “My kids are so disrespectful.” “They know better.” “Uh, this always happens.”  The more these ideas creep in, the more irritated I feel.  I just try to go back to noticing the emotion.  At first it seems to become the most important thing in that moment!  I can hardly think of anything else.  However, the more I allow it (and refuse to act on the emotion) it gets less and less intense.  It slowly starts to go away.    Soon I’ve forgotten all about it.

  5. Allow the emotion each time it re-surfaces.

    And it will!  But each time it comes back, it will be less and less intense.

    By this time, I’m likely walking to the car since I had told my kids it would only be five minutes.  However once everyone is back in the car, my brain loves to remind me of the irritating moment we just had.  When the thoughts start again, the emotion starts again.  Back to step 1.  But each time I allow the feeling until it dissipates.

Our emotions are just chemicals in our body.  They won’t hurt us and there’s nothing to fear.  If we try to ignore them or escape them we end up with a lot more trouble than the original emotion created in the first place.  Simply acknowledging and being willing to feel the emotion, allows it to pass.  What would your life be like if you weren’t afraid of feeling any emotion?

How do you handle negative emotion in your life?

What negative feelings do you fear most?
What do you do to avoid them?

Next time you notice a negative emotion try these steps:
1.  Name the emotion
2.  Describe it
3.  Allow it to hang out
4.  Continue till it dissipates
5.  Allow the emotion to hang out each time it re-surfaces

Define It: Find More Peace in Your Role as a Mom

Undefined expectations for ourselves and the roles we operate in always lead to disappointment. There is a simple solution for increasing success and satisfaction; defining exactly what it means to be a “good mom,” or a “good person,” or a good wife” etc. allows us to know what we’re shooting for.

When Dorthy set off along the yellow brick road in her sparkling red shoes and eyes wide with hope, she didn’t know much about Oz.  She just knew it was where she wanted to go because she had heard the Wizard of Oz could help.  When she arrived, it was disappointing to find he was just a man behind a curtain.  It’s easy to put up false Oz’s for ourselves without  even realizing it.

My False Oz

About 2 months after we moved into our new neighborhood in Taiwan, rumblings and mumblings started about Halloween.  We live in an old military neighborhood on a mountain overlooking the city of Taipei.  Because Halloween isn’t a “thing” in Asia—those who do know about it are curious.  Over the years our neighborhood has drawn crowds from all over the city.  Many are local Taiwanese who want an American cultural experience.

My neighbors told me, “Halloween is a BIG deal here.”  “No matter how much candy you have, “you’ll run out.”  “Everyone in the neighborhood decorates.  You should have seen what the people who lived in your house before you did!  Everyone really goes over the top.”

I was new and trying to fit in, so I started scheming and ordering on Amazon.  Our family decided to do a Wizard of Oz theme.  We all dressed up as different characters and we built a set with the Emerald City and Dorthy’s house with the legs of the wicked witch underneath.  My husband figured out how to broadcast the Wizard of Oz movies on the outside wall of the house.  It was pretty awesome.  I thought I had rocked the “Go Big!”

The day of Halloween arrived and I thought it was strange that none of the neighbors had many decorations up.  But, I figured they must be last minute people like I was.  Around 5 I started setting things up.  Still no neighbors setting up…eventually I saw a neighbor set out a table with a cloth and a pumpkin and I saw another neighbor hang an orange pennant banner that said happy Halloween.  One neighbor had a few skeletons sitting around, and another had hung out some lights, but nothing too big yet.

By the time the masses started coming around we were the only spectacle around.  The kids loved it and we had a ball, but I had to laugh at myself.  Apparently my idea of “a BIG deal” was slightly different than theirs!

Definitions Prevent Needless Discouragement

Definitions are so crucial.  I could have saved myself a lot of headache (and money) if I would have simply asked a few more questions to define exactly what “BIG deal” meant to most people.  Apparently to them it meant dressing up as an adult and sitting outside with several bags of candy and a cute Halloween tablecloth.

I find that defining things—even if it’s just for myself can reduce tons of headache and extra work.  Steven Covey says, “Disappointment is the gap between expectation and reality.”  If our expectation isn’t even realistic, we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.

How to Define Your Roles

One area that seems to have a big expectation-reality gap is our roles as mothers.   I know it is for me at, at times.  I think most of us have amorphous sort of ideas about these pieced together from what we saw our mothers do, what we think others are doing or things we’ve read in parenting books.  My old definition of a good mom was a conglomerate of the compassion of Mother Theresa, the influence of Oprah, a home like Martha Stewart and hair like Jennifer Anniston.  I often measured my success by how my children acted and performed.  It’s no wonder I often felt like I was falling short.  My expectations were completely  unrealistic!

Be Realistic

If we take time to actually DEFINE what a reasonable mother would do—it gives us a more attainable goal and cuts out the disappointment gap between expectation and reality. There are many ways to do this.  One is to look around and find someone who has accomplished what you want to do or be as a mother.  Ask them how they define success and how they got there.  Another way to be more realistic about role definitions is to take your big vision goal and break it into smaller step-ladder goals.  Make sure the first step is something you know you can do!  Define success as the first goal, then move to the second one when you are consistent at being or doing the first.  Success helps build momentum a lot faster than failure.

Make Sure Your Definition of Success Doesn’t Depend on Others’ Behavior

In addition to unrealistic ideals, sometimes we set ourselves up for disappointment by including things in our definitions that we can’t control.  For example, we might include the choices our children make, or we might include the way our children treat us as part of our measurement tool for being a good mother.   What our children do cannot be an accurate measure of success, because it is something we cannot control.   (Clearly we may want to change what we’re doing if our children aren’t responding the way we hoped, but it’s important to consider children may not respond no matter what we do.)  Our definitions of success must include only things that WE can control.

Be Specific

One of the great creators of discouragement is generalities.  Words like “always,” “never,” and “everybody.”  While we know intellectually that no one is perfect, we often expect it of ourselves.  We assume that others are able to someone achieve perfection.  Our subconscious definitions of success often include things like “never yell,” and “always take time to listen,”  “everybody else takes their kids on amazing vacations during the summer,”  “always make a healthy dinner.”  While these are excellent ideas to strive for they make it hard to live up to success.  Getting specific and thinking through what we actually can and should do can help. “I will try to make a healthy home cooked dinner 2 times a week.”  Or “When I want to yell, I’m going to snap the rubber band on my wrist.”

Define success in a very specific way.  Here’s my new definition of a “good mom:

Love my children.  Teach them things I feel are important.  Model being a happy and healthy woman most of the time.

The Emerald City wasn’t all that Dorthy had dreamed it up to be; it was something she had built up in her mind as THE ultimate destination and the solution to all problems.  When she actually saw the man behind the curtain it was a bit disappointing, but it turned out it was even better!    Define what you expect of yourself.  Make sure it’s realistic, specific and only YOU control it.

Define it

What is your current definition of a good mom?

Get a piece of paper and define what it means to be a “good mom”  Is your definition realistic, specific?  Are you completely in control of the outcome or are others involved?

This works well for other roles too–define what it means to be  a “good wife” a “good employee” a “good person” a “good daughter-in-law.” etc.

Happy Hour: How To Feel Happier in the Midst of Overwhelm

One of the emotions I find myself avoiding most is overwhelm.  When the demand for our time or energy or money is greater than our capacity we feel overwhelmed.  I used to think this was how every mom felt most of the day–and especially at dinner time. Then I learned some amazing tools that helped me feel calmer and happier in the midst of overwhelm.

Happy Hour

It was “happy hour” at our house, 5:00 pm.  It was a far cry from the happy hour you might be imagining of colleagues gathering for a relaxing time after work.  My baby had a death grip on my leg and was whining “hold you!” while I tried to sauté garlic.  “Ugh, I should have cooked dinner this morning so it wouldn’t be so crazy tonight” I thought as I tripped over some magnetic letters strewn in front of the fridge.  “The house is trashed, my kids never clean-up” I mumbled as I took a deep breath, picked up my baby.  My older daughter looked over from the table and asked if I could help her with her math homework.  I left my cutting board full of veggies and turned off my half-sautéed garlic in the pan.  I sat down thinking, “I’ve got to try to be patient or she’ll have a melt down.”
We had only made it through a couple of problems when the baby pulled the table cloth and spilled the cup of water.  “I hate this time of day.  I don’t know if I can handle one more thing!” I thought as I stood up to get a paper towel.  Comic relief arrived just in time—a pillow case monster just the size of my middle daughter came barreling down the hallway bumping walls and people to be as scary as possible!  I hardly had time to smile before she knocked right into the chair and cut her toe.  Of course, tears and wails followed—and not from the monster.  I set the baby down to get a band aid.  I felt guilty as I thought.  “I know I should be more compassionate but hello, what did you think would happen when you walk around with a pillow case on your head!”

The baby started whining again, my older daughter reminded me she still needed help with math, and there was still the fountain of band aid tears…my overwhelm exploded.  “Everybody just calm down!  I’m just one person, I can’t help everyone at the same time.”  I yelled.    Everyone stopped.  Their eyes were big and then my shame attack hit.

The Reason We Feel Negative Emotion

For many years, this was a familiar scenario for our family—and not just at dinner time.  Overwhelm and irritation were my constant companions.  And of course, discouragement was a close cousin.  I didn’t know there was any other option; I thought everyone felt overwhelmed in demanding situations.  My feelings just seemed like the natural result of the things going on around me.  I felt exhausted and guilty a lot of the time and so frustrated I couldn’t seem to be the mom and person I wanted to be!

In the last few years, I’ve learned something very powerful.  It has changed everything.

Our thoughts create our emotions.  I can choose my thoughts.

This may seem like a simple concept, but it’s been around a long time.  Two thousand years ago Epictedus the Greek philosopher taught, “Humans are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them.”  The Buddha taught a similar truth.  “Suffering comes from thoughts not what actually happens.”  The bible teaches us, “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

Three of the greatest teachers on earth taught this same principle.  This truth means that we have the remote control to our own feelings. We can choose what we want to feel and create it by how we choose to think.  We aren’t dependent on anything outside of us.

How to Feel Better

Let’s circle back to vignette of “happy hour” at my house as a case study about how this can help us:

  1. Notice your thoughts
    Figure out what you are thinking in a given situation.  Here’s my thought reel during this episode:
  • “Ugh, I should have cooked dinner this morning so it wouldn’t be so crazy tonight”  (Guilt)
  • “The house is trashed, my kids never clean up” (Irritation)
  • “I’ve got to try to be calm and patient during homework or my daughter will melt down.” (Overwhelm)
  • “I hate this time of day.  I don’t know if I can handle one more thing!” (Overwhelm)
  • “I know I should be more patient, but hello, what did you think would happen when you walk around with a pillow case on!”  (Guilt, Irritation)
  1. Notice your feelings  (See parenthesis above)
    Each thought we think creates a feeling.  It is this feeling that drives our actions.  So, it’s crucial to be aware of our thoughts and the feelings they create.
  2. Decide how you WANT to feel.
    We are in charge of how we feel.  So if we want to feel differently, the first step is to deliberately decide what I did want to feel at dinner time.  Clearly these thoughts weren’t serving me!  I decided what I wanted to feel was peaceful and loving and confident at this time of day.
  1. Determine a healthier thought that will create that feeling
    Knowing that events and demands would stay similar most nights (though specifics would change of course), I brainstormed thoughts that were true, but would help me feel better in the same situation.  Here are some thoughts I’ve tried and afterward you’ll see the result of the emotions they created.
  • “Whew!  There’s a lot going on, I got this.”  (Empowered)
  • I’ll do what I can, and that will be enough.” (Peaceful)
  • One of my favorites is, “This would make a hilarious email!”  (Humor)
  • A good default one for me is, “I’m so lucky to have 4 beautiful daughters”  (Grateful)
  • “I love that they are not vegging out in front of a video game or Netflix right now!  They are confidant enough to express themselves.  (Gratitude and Admiration)
  • Sometimes I compare it to a thought of a much more difficult situation.  What if I had to grow all my own food, and harvest it from scratch and sew all my kids clothes?  I’ve got it good.
  1. Write down the new thought somewhere you will see it and redirect your brain to those thoughts where the situation arises.
    Be Patient.  It can take up to 100 times of consciously re-directing your mind to a thought in order to re-create the default pathway to that thought.

Truly Happy Hour

This is powerful stuff.   If you would have told me a few years ago that 5 pm-6 pm could actually be one of the happiest hours of the day, I would not have believed it.  The practice of changing my thoughts about this time of day has changed “happy hour” into an actual “happy hour!”  It’s not rainbows and unicorns every night of course, but it’s certainly a lot more smooth.   When I supervise my brain and deliberately substitute these types of thoughts for the other ones, I feel peaceful, empowered and loving!  And, I don’t have to yell to get things done…which means I don’t feel guilty either.

We have the ability to choose our own feelings by deliberately choosing our thoughts.   In other words, happiness is a skill!  We don’t have to wait for anything around us to change in order to feel different.

Feel Happier

What’s a time you feel overwhelmed?

Stop and notice what thoughts you are having during this time. What feelings do they create?  Replace those thoughts with thoughts that create a more helpful feeling.

Why Can’t I Pull It Together?: Looking at the Questions We Ask Ourselves

Most of us ask ourselves unhelpful questions frequently and we don’t realize the negative impact it has on us.  Changing the type of questions we ask ourselves can improve the way we feel and help us be more successful in our lives. 

The Power of Questions

Voltaire said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”   Questions are a powerful tool you can use to change your life and the lives of others.  They affect how we feel and how we act.  When we ask good questions, the brain goes to work generating answers.  It’s like giving the brain a puzzle and it begins looking for pieces to fit together. Even when we are not consciously focused on a question, our brain continues to work on it.  When your brain has something to figure out, it begins to notice new information or connect old information to solve it.

Daily Questions

What questions do you ask yourself on a regular basis?  Do any of these sound familiar?

What’s wrong with me?

Why can’t I lose weight?

What is my problem?

Why can’t I keep better track of my money?

Why can’t I pull it together?

Why am I so stupid?

What if it doesn’t work out?

Most of us ask questions like these without even realizing we are doing it.  When we ask negative questions like these—we answer ourselves with a list of negative answers.

Negative Questions Yield Negative Answers

One question I’ve been asking myself a lot recently is, “Why can’t I pull it together?”  I often think this when I’m running late.

It feels like a helpful question—like it’s somehow going to help me actually “pull it together” and be on time.   The problem is I rarely do pull it together to be on time—even though I’ve been asking that question for many years.  Not only has it not helped me pull it together, I realized recently it is sabotaging my efforts to be on time.

Here’s how I know. I’ve been watching myself.  When I ask myself that question, I know the underlying answers are something like, “I’m not a very good mom.” “I’m always late” “I should have been more prepared.”  My negative thoughts cause me to feel discouraged, inadequate and unsure how to be better.

If we want to find a solution, we must ask the right kind of questions.

The Quality of the Question Determines the Quality of the Answer

Negative questions and their answers won’t get us anywhere.  In fact, they will take us farther from changing our behavior because we’ll be stuck in negative emotion.

Positive questions yield more useful answers. Instead of asking, “Why can’t I pull it together,” I’ve been trying to ask, “How can I use this moment to teach or love my kids?” or “How can I be the mom I want to be in this situation?” or “I wonder what type of preparation people who arrive on time do?”

These questions have generated much more useful answers such as:  “It’s okay if the kids are a little rushed, it’s important for them to learn to be on-time.”  Or “I’m going to choose to be a little late so that I can be the mom I want to be in this moment.”  Or “Next time I think I’ll have the kids set out their backpack and socks the night before.” These answers leave me feeling much more optimistic and empowered to actually “pull it together.”

The quality of the question will determine the quality of the answer.  We do our best work when we are creative, confidant and open minded. Asking ourselves the right questions can be a powerful tool for putting our minds in this frame.    

Questions to Ask Yourself

What questions do you ask yourself regularly?  In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins suggests some questions that may be useful to ask ourselves daily—or at least regularly. 

Here are a few to consider:

*What am I happy about in my life now?

*What am I grateful for in my life now?

*What am I committed to in my life now?

*Who do I love?

Who loves me?

Here are a few more that are not in his book, but that I like:

*What kind of mom do I want to be today?

*What feels like love in this situation?

*How can I be an example of what’s possible?

*What choice would benefit me and everyone around me?

*How can I have fun and clean at the same time?

*What can I do to feel my emotions instead of eating them today?

*What can I do to laugh a lot today?

*What can I do to make someone’s day a little better today?

Ask yourself one question every day.  Consider writing the question on a sticky note in a place you’ll see it often and remind yourself to work on the answer.

When Your Mind Says “I Don’t Know”

If an answer requires a lot of effort or if it requires sacrificing something to make a decision, sometimes the brain will often answer, “I don’t know.”  The brain likes to be efficient and it doesn’t like to work hard if it can help it.  It doesn’t like to be uncomfortable or do anything painful.  It will avoid it if possible.  It will procrastinate doing hard things.

The problem with “I don’t know,” is that it blocks your brain from finding answers.  It seems innocent and reasonable, but really it means we don’t want to do the work to find the answer, or we don’t believe we’re capable.  Both of those beliefs will keep us stuck.

When your brain tries to say “I don’t know…” open your mind again by saying “I’m learning.”  Or “I’m figuring it out.”  Take a guess, try something out and see.  Sometimes the wrong way helps us realize what the right way is.

Use the Power of Questions in Your Life

What is one question you ask yourself regularly?  Are the answers useful?

If not, consider substituting the questions you ask yourself for a more useful question.  Observe the results in your life.

The Best Truth Can Make Us Happy

Most of us assume that the way we see things, is the way they are.   But have you ever disagreed with someone about what happened in a particular situation?  You both KNOW you are right?  There’s a scientific explanation for why different people can have a totally different idea of what the truth is!  The explanation can also improve your happiness.

Magic Words

I remember when I was young, my mother would burst into singing during dinner when we forgot to use the words, “please,” and “thank you.”  You might remember the song, “There are two little magic keys that will open any door with ease.  One little word is ‘thanks’ and the other little word is ‘please.”  I learned it as gospel truth that it is nice manners to say “thank you” when someone helps you.

 When we moved to China, we employed a woman to help us with some cooking, cleaning and child care.  She worked so hard, and amazed me with her efficiency.  As the mom of 3 little ones I was SO thankful for her help.  When she was at my home, I would often thank her for all she did.  I noticed that she looked very awkward when I said “thank you.”  Our communication was fairly limited since she spoke Mandarin and I spoke English so it was difficult to flesh out what was going on.  At first I thought maybe my pronunciation was off and I was saying something rude unintentionally!

However, I learned later, that culturally it is rude to say thank you to someone who is close to your family.  Family members and people in the inner circle of friends consider it essential to be loyal to each other.  Serving each other is something that is expected.  Saying thank you carries the connotation that the person is not part of your inner circle.  I was floored.  I had never considered that saying “thank you” could be rude!  In my culture saying thank you was  kind, but in China, in this context, it was not.

Is There Another Truth?

This is a fascinating principle to apply to the mind.  At any one time there are multiple truths that exist at the same time.   Our brain is used to seeing things in one particular way and it’s most efficient and comfortable for the brain to keep thinking about things in the same way.  However, keeping an open mind to the possibility of multiple true perspectives can be powerful in feeling happier.

In his book “The Happiness Advantage,” Shawn Achor, a positive psychologist suggests that at any one moment there are multiple realities that are true and available to us about any given situation.  He asserts that people who are happy often have the ability to discern multiple parallel realities, and select the most beneficial one.

There is so much information coming at us at any one time, it is impossible to synthesize all of it.  The brain uses shortcuts in order to select relevant information and process it in a meaningful way.  While this is essential to our survival, it also means that the “truth” we see is filtered.

These filters can be anything from our belief system, to our culture, to our anxiety to preference, to fatigue and many more things.  We don’t mean to skew our reality but it is a product of being a human.  The good news is, that if your reality isn’t working, there are several true realities for the same situation.

The Truth About Winter

Here is an example of how this concept increased my happiness.  Although I grew up in  Colorado, which is a four season climate, I don’t love winter.  As winter starts approaching, it’s easy for me to start feeling sort of anxious and trapped—even edgy.  The default reality that I think of related to winter is the one where my fingers feel stiff and cold, I have to bundle my kids to go out and find lost mittens, I have to scrape windshields and shovel sidewalks, and the cars slip on the roads.  The landscape is monochromatic, and people hurry between their cars and their inside destinations.

However, there is an alternative reality—equally believable to me—that exists as well.  There are things I do love about winter.  I love a white Christmas.  I enjoy skiing, sledding with my kids and playing Fox and Geese.  I love their rosy cheeks from the cold as they come in after being outside.  I love the excuse to put on sweaters and boots.  I love drinking hot herbal teas and hot chocolate and I love winter baking.   It’s nice to have an excuse to cuddle up and read or watch a show.

Both realities are true, but one will create more happiness and less feelings of resentment and isolation.  Turning into a Polyanna who can’t see the truth will not be helpful.  We absolutely need to recognize all the factors, but we don’t have to allow exclusively negative information we take in to form our view of reality.  At any given moment in the winter I will take in lots of information–everything from cold fingers and scraping the windshield to feeling cozy and noticing my children’s rosy cheeks.  As my brain chooses data to process, I can purposely choose to notice things I love and things I enjoy and spend more time thinking about those.  There will still be the negative, but I don’t have to allow those details to inform the chatter in my brain or my view of life.  I choose my reality by what I choose to focus on.  Choosing to live in the most beneficial true reality will increase our happiness.

Live in the Best Truth

What drags you down?

If you had to write a newspaper article about that situation or person or event, what would be the title of it?  Explore more than one reality about it.  Could you write a different newspaper article about the same situation that was equally true and but highlighted different facts?  Choose to highlight to your mind the facts and stories that bring the most happiness.

Are You Lucky or Unlucky: Making the Everyday Better

When most of us think of luck, we think of shamrocks and superstition–like luck is something that happens to us.  But lucky can be a feeling we have about our lives, and whether or not we feel it is not dependent on finding our Leprechaun or pot of gold.  Feely lucky is something we can feel at any time, and we can feel it simply by choosing carefully what thought we compare to our current situation.

Laundry

When my husband was attending law school in Boston, we lived in row houses.  There was a community laundry that was a few doors down.  Boston winters are no joke…the temperatures get so low they freeze the little particles of moisture on your lips.  One winter morning, I found myself trying to tromp through knee deep snow with my 4-month-old, a hamper and soap in order to do my laundry.  I had to prop open a heavy wood door open with my bottom to try to load everything piece-meal inside (including my baby) and get it all down the stairs to the wash room.  When I got down there I discovered I was short enough quarters!  “This is so hard” I thought.  I dreamed of having my own washing machine and carrying a basket of clothing through a heated home to drop in the washer.  That would be so much easier, I complained to myself.  Meanwhile my baby was crying and I had to trek out to get more quarters.  Every week was the same.  Multiple trips in and out of the snow and stairs.  Each time I became a bit more disgruntled and frustrated.

Lucky or Unlucky?

One afternoon I attended a lecture up at the university given by a positive psychologist named, Shawn Achor. He was doing research on law students, who are known to be some of the least happy in their careers compared to others and and have some of the highest suicide rates of any profession.  In his early research on happiness, one of the biggest determinants of happiness was the thoughts that individuals compared to their situation.

He shared a scenario of a man who walked into a bank and was shot in the arm.  He asked people if the man was lucky, or unlucky.  About half of the people responded that he was unlucky, because most of the time when people go into the bank they are not shot. However, half of the respondents said that he was lucky, because he could have been shot in the heart and died.  Interestingly, the thought they compared to the situation determined how they thought and felt about it.  I was fascinated by the idea of determining my perspective by choosing the thoughts I compared my situation to.

Lucky Laundry

The next week when I did the laundry and caught myself grumbling about how hard my task was, I stopped.  Instead I thought about when I had lived in Africa.  We had to haul water up from the well in buckets.  Then, we heated it and washed our clothes by hand with powdered soap in buckets. The red dirt made clothes impossibly stained and it seemed like no amount of scrubbing remedied the mess. When we had washed and rinsed the clothes, which often took a couple of hours, we hung them them to dry on clothes lines.  We took them down when they were hard and crispy from the African sun a couple of days later.

When I compared doing laundry in my public laundry in Boston to my experience in Africa, suddenly tromping through snow with a baby and carrying multiple loads through doors and down stairs didn’t feel so hard.  The convenience of a washing machine and access to warm water through a hose felt luxurious.  Being able to simply push a button felt almost magical.  Having liquid soap that dissolved easily and having stain removers I could spray on my clothes seemed like such a blessing.  Being able to put a load in the dryer and pull out warm, dry clean clothes seemed incredible.

Changing the thought I compared my laundry experience to, changed my whole experience from resentful to grateful–unlucky to lucky.

Be Lucky

What part of life feels unlucky to you?

Feeling lucky is available any time you would like simply by comparing your situation to another situation that helps you see it as lucky.  If you just can’t get there, try getting out and working in a less fortunate situation like a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.  Even watching a movie about war torn countries or challenging times in history can give insight into the abundance that exists in your situation.

Hiding or Surfing: Changing Our Response to Stress

In stressful situations, our brains often go into survival mode.  We try to get through the situation with the least amount of damage possible.  Unfortunately this isn’t always the best way to approach a stressful situation. Programming how we want to handle stress ahead of time can make it much more enjoyable and much less taxing.

Nuclear Bomb Threat

Widespread panic overwhelmed the island of Oahu, HI early on a Saturday morning when this text message appeared on cell phones.  “Ballistic missle threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter.  This is not a drill.”

Immediately people made desperate attempts to find their loved ones and to seek shelter.   One woman hid in a bathroom with her children and prayed.  Some tourists were taken to concrete bunkers.  Parents stuck on the freeway worried they might never see their children again.  Given the high tensions with North Korea, and the closer proximity of Hawaii compared to the mainland US, Hawaiian residents were already on edge.  People had been told they would have about 12 minutes after a text alert before a bomb would hit.

I was particularly interested in the opposite responses of two of our friends.  One friend called her loved ones to say good-bye, and then hid under a table.  Another friend called her loved ones to say good-bye, and then went surfing.  At first it seemed a bit cavalier to head out surfing in the face of a bomb threat.  However, as I thought more about it, the idea intrigued me.  I love the image of her riding the waves instead of running around in panic.

Thankfully the text was a mistake.  There was no bomb and no obliteration, just 38 minutes of terror.  We had just moved off the island when this incident occurred, but having lived there for the last 3 years the threat felt very real to us.   If I knew I might be obliterated, what would I do with my last minutes?  I’m not suggesting anyone should actually go surfing during a bomb threat–especially if there were children to protect or concern over the nuclear blast affecting surrounding areas but I think the idea of thinking beyond the instinctual defense is an interesting one.

Choosing How to Respond

This is an intriguing metaphor for how we respond to events that happen around us.  While I have never experienced a nuclear bomb threat, I have plenty moments in which I have to make the same kind of choice about how to respond to an overwhelming circumstance.  Sometimes my reaction feels so instinctual I have to remind myself that I do have a choice about how to think and how to respond in a given situation.

Choosing to Hide

One of these moments happened the other day when my two-year-old melted down in shrieks and tears when she saw that we were having salmon for dinner instead of pizza.  By the time she was on the floor wailing and flailing, my brain was wailing and flailing too.  It was almost like a bomb of emotions went off in my brain and it was hard to think clearly.  My immediate thought was, “This is ridiculous.”  I sighed, rolled my eyes and felt irritated. When I’m irritated I rarely show up my best.  I’m more likely to yell or respond impatiently, or try to escape the drama by eating or checking my phone.  When I yell, my child feels guilt in addition to her initial emotion of disappointment. At the end of the night I feel discouraged about my mothering.  I feel stuck– essentially trapped under a theoretical table.

Choosing to Surf

Using our metaphor of surfing instead of hiding under a table—I tried to think about what type of response would help me go “surfing” instead.  I knew that my response started with the thought I chose.  I decided to flip my thought on my head.  Instead of thinking, “This is ridiculous,” I decided to think, “This is normal.  I’m so glad she’s developing as a healthy two-year-old.  If she never had opinions or expressed them, I’d be concerned!” This thought helped me feel thankful instead of irritated.  Gratitude is an open emotion that allowed me to respond with love and kindness.  I let the tantrum run it’s course, and when it was over I was able to scoop up my girl, hug her and carry on with dinner.  No drama.  No emotional “bomb shells” all over.  I was able to “surf” even amid the threat.

Go Surfing

The next time a “bomb” of emotion goes off in your head, notice what your default thought is.  If it’s one that might trap you in more negative emotions—try thinking the opposite thought.  Notice if it helps change your feeling and your result.  Surfing is a lot more fun!