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These articles are reproduced from my e-zine, "What WORKS!"
The purpose of my e-zine is to deliver the good stuff that cuts through the crap in your
relationships and brings you straight to a place of clarity and
freedom.
While most e-zines are full of tips and advice, I've noticed most people already know what they ought to do and it makes no difference. Telling you what to do doesn't work unless you actually know how. My intention is to help you realize for yourself exactly HOW to lift any troubled relationship to a higher plane. I provide practical tools for experiencing relief, peace, and joy under any circumstance.
Here's something I think you'll love:
The Key to Ending Frustration
I
recently taught a class on communication at a massage therapy school.
While on a short break, one of my students got into an argument with a
staff
member right outside our classroom door. I stood in the doorway and
watched as they talked over each other, pointing out
what the other person was doing wrong. The
student returned to class, fuming with anger. It was the perfect
opportunity to share something with her that I think you'll find
equally useful - especially if you've ever felt misunderstood,
frustrated, or unsupported by another.
One of the most important keys to freedom and healing in any
relationship is understanding what Byron Katie calls the Three Kinds of Business. Here's how I summarize this concept:
There are only three kinds of business in the whole
Universe:
- My
business: that's how I do life - how I think, feel, and act;
- Others'
business: that's how the other 6.6 billion people on this planet think, feel, and
act in their lives;
- God's
business: that's the stuff that happens that's neither yours nor mine. For
example, whether or not it rains tomorrow - I'd call that God's business.
(And by the way, I use the term "God" loosely - it's
whatever God means to you. You can call it the Universe, your Higher Power,
whatever; and if you don't believe in God or a Higher Power, then there are
only two kinds of business.)
The wisdom in understanding the difference between the three
kinds of business is this:
Whenever you leave
your own business, you suffer. Period.
Trying to mind somebody else's business is confusing and painful. You get frustrated,
irritated, angry, and so on. I invite
you to look in your life for examples, and see the truth of this simple gem of
wisdom.
You see, you can spend your life energy hopelessly trying to
change others - change the way they think, see, behave, and feel. Notice that they either change or they don't,
but in the meantime, it's frustrating for you, isn't it?
Once awake to the reality of this principle,
the act of simply noticing that you are mentally in someone else's will bring
you back to your own. Becoming aware of the pain brings you home to attend to
that which is in your control - your
business.
Whose business are you in?
For more clarity, try these simple exercises I just posted on my blog.
Was this useful for
you? I'd like to know!
If you have questions, an insight to share, or need further clarity on
this principle, I'd love to hear from you. I welcome any suggestions for future
topics as well.
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Why Trying to Change Your Thoughts Doesn't Work    
"As
a man thinketh, so is he" - have you heard that before? We all seem to
be acutely aware of the power of our thoughts. Your thoughts determine
your feelings, and your feelings determine your actions, and your
actions ultimately determine your destiny, right? I'm sure you are
already aware of the degree to which your thoughts have an impact on
the quality of your life.
As such, we think that the game is
to have more good thoughts than bad ones, more happy ones than sad
ones. Many of us are working awfully hard to escape or eradicate
chronically negative thoughts and feelings. (How's that going, by the
way?) We hope that by doing so we will get more of the good stuff in
life and less of the bad.
However, there's one problem with all
of this. The advice we've heard forever that we need to change our
thinking to change our lives assumes that we have control over our
thinking at all.
Do you? Let's see:
Do not think of a pink elephant.
What
happened? Didn't you think of a pink elephant? Hm. So much for having
control over your thoughts. Now, pink elephants are relatively benign,
but what happens when you have a really scary, nasty, damaging, or at
least stressful thought
running through your head and you try not to think about it or try to
get rid of it? Most of us tend to try to distract ourselves or replace
the thought with something else. That would be called avoidance. And
avoidance, my friends, was never deliverance. Take any chronically
negative thought in your life (such as "I'm not good enough") and
honestly look at how effective your efforts have been to escape it -
long term. Thoughts like that tend to stick around forever. Why is that?
The answer to that question also explains why you can't change your thoughts as easily as you think you can:
Because thoughts like that have you. There is a big difference between thoughts that you have and thoughts that have you. Thoughts that you have are like "what's for dinner?". Thoughts that have you -
those are the ones that show up out of nowhere and determine how how
you feel and act. You have very little choice when they show up because
they - not you - are running the show.
Do you catch my drift?
So if a thought has you, can you drop it? No! You are not in control in that moment. IT
is. And sadly, the more you struggle to get rid of it, the more power
it has over you. That's just how it goes. Look in your own life and see
if that's not the case!
The quickest way I've found to break the chokehold of stressful thoughts is self-inquiry via The Work of Byron Katie - my expertise as a Clarity Coach. I've found that when you simply begin to investigate those thoughts - without the motive of getting rid of or changing them -
you simply see things in a new way. You enlighten yourself and discover
what is really true, or truer than what you have been thinking. And
it's the truth that sets you free, right? When I earnestly take those
thoughts to inquiry, I find that they let go of me - sometimes just a
little (which is great when you are in a chokehold!), and sometimes
entirely.
So that's why you can't change those thoughts just
because you really want to. (**And I didn't say thoughts can't
change!**) Instead of trying changing them, try what works: put them on
paper and question them - for clarity's sake.
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Also, visit the Resources page on my website for more tools and resources for doing The Work.
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Was this useful for
you? I'd like to know!
If you have questions, an insight to share, or need further clarity on
this principle, I'd love to hear from you. I welcome any suggestions for future
topics as well.
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