Random Cathy

Dear young women in my life...don't die

2019-12-05T05:19:00.002-06:00

Dear young women in my life....

I spent most of my 20’s and 30’s beating myself up because I didn’t have enough time or energy to meet the demands on me. I ALWAYS felt like I was failing.

Not being a good enough mom.
Not being able to hit all the marks the kids’ school wanted me to hit.
Not being “on top of it” enough at work.
Not serving enough at church.

I used to joke that I wished I had a wife.

I couldn’t imagine what life would be like if I had someone who handled things like car registrations, staying on top of permission slips, keeping the house stocked with groceries, cooking meals, or any of the other thousands of details I handled.

It never occurred to me (at that time) that there was a gender bias when it came to workload.

My husband and I were raised with clear roles about who was supposed to do what, and we followed them.

It’s not just that it left me exhausted—which it did. It’s that the expectations weren’t even possible to meet. But I didn’t know that. So, I felt that I was the problem. That there was something wrong with me.

And living in that condition meant there was no time or energy to explore the things that made my heart sing. There was no room for me in this world of demands. About 15 years into my marriage, I hit the wall. HARD.

So, the three pieces of life saving advice I give now are these:

Take back your time.Schedule blocks on your calendar for yourself and defend them with a knife. No one will applaud you for this. Do it anyway.
Drop every activity and person that sucks the energy out of you no matter what people might think of you or who you disappoint. This isn’t selfish. This is life saving. It will dramatically impact your quality of life.
Pay for help. Even when you are broke.Having someone clean your house, or babysit, or do your taxes will mean the difference in whether or not you get to recharge. You can’t play or rest if a to-do list is hanging over your head. Eat beans/rice every meal if you need to. Prioritize this financially.

One of the most devastating aspects of my context was that my religious upbringing was a huge part of the problem here. Instead of getting to be someone with needs and dreams of my own, I was supposed to give every last ounce of energy to everyone else. Proverbs 31 and all that.

The male leadership was mostly blind to how much of their capacity was created by caregiving and assistance by women. So, it meant that much of the teaching from the pulpit completely missed me.

Here’s the thing...

No one can do this for you. You have to do this yourself. And it is life or death.

Why?

You can only overdraw your internal reserves for so long without having to pay a heavy price. For sure, your body may not drop lifeless to the floor immediately, but you will numbly stumble through on autopilot in a self-critical haze living life every bit as animated as a zombie.

The people in your world will receive the benefit of the tasks you cover but they will 100% miss out on the beauty of you being authentically you.

So, please don’t die.

Your precious heart is worth fighting for.

And you can put up with a little side eye.

Why a minimalist lifestyle is a big win for creatives

2018-12-30T05:28:00.000-06:00

Let’s face it.

Creatives have a reputation for being messy.

It makes sense. After all, our heads are messy. There are so many ideas. So many possibilities.

And when creating, it’s more fun to work from a palette.

Besides, you never know when inspiration might hit and you can just start creating from things you have around the house.

The problem is that there often isn’t enough space to create in.

And, the visual clutter can spark more feelings of overwhelm than feelings of productivity.

Conventional wisdom says that more is better.

We often think that more is better. That it creates additional possibilities.

Yet when it comes to creativity, more isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Michelangelo—one of the most financially and classically successful artists of all time—said, “Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom.”

But we already know this.

Haven’t you ever created something amazing when faced with incredible limits?

And haven’t you ever gotten overwhelmed to the point of inaction when there were simply too many options?

It seems like more would create, well, more. But instead, when faced with more, we counter-intuitively create less. With more time, we get less done. With more supplies, they get dusty with a lack of use. With more space, we get too tired to clean it up so we can create in it.

There is something else at play here.

And that something is energy.

There is an energy cost to creativity.

We are used to the cost of supplies, the cost of training, and even a cost in time. But we rarely consider the cost in energy when it comes to creativity.

Have you ever been in a flow state, creating in a way that time disappeared? Then, once you finished whatever you were creating, you were ravenously hungry?

While you were creating, you had everything you needed, but once you stopped, you realized how much energy you’d burned because suddenly you felt extremely tired or extremely hungry.

Creativity burns an incredible amount of energy. It needs fuel.

And this factor of energy—the one we rarely look at—is the reason that a minimalist lifestyle is a strategy worth exploring for creatives.

Something in us knows this. We can feel it when our energy resource is drained. It’s the reason we so frequently dream of throwing a few possessions in a backpack and leaving the rest behind.

Creativity isn’t the only thing taxing your energy.

We all suffer from decision fatigue. The concept is that every decision we have to make in a day drains our reserves.

Yet in a modern lifestyle, most of us have made hundreds of decisions before we even get dressed in the morning. Micro decisions as we choose a coffee cup, something to eat for breakfast, where to look for our favorite shirt.

And that’s in the physical world, the digital world has its own set of decisions.

We decide what to click on, what to post, how to reply, and what to delete over and over again. One study showed that we check our smart phones over 85 times a day!

Is it any wonder that we just feel like sitting on the couch and binging Netflix when we finally get some time to ourselves?

The lie of “getting organized.”

Be honest. How many times have you said, “I just need to get organized”?

When we start trying to “get organized” we often focus on what we need ‘more” of. If only I had:

More hours in a day.
More money.
More space—a dedicated studio.
More organizational tools—better shelving.

Our answer to “getting organized” is usually the very thing that works against it. More.

Reality? The key to “getting organized” is about choosing less.

Of course, there is something about creatives in particular that is incredibly resistant to the idea of less. We hate constraints. And while it feels noble to support our inner rebel throwing off fetters, the real resistance is fear.

Why?

We way over-identify with our “stuff.”

Owning a paintbrush or a guitar isn’t what makes you a creative.

That thing inside you that makes you a creative? It has zero to do with the tools you own. It isn’t your supplies, the media you create with, or the brand of instrument you prefer.

The thing that makes you a creative is your ability to bring to life something that wasn’t there yesterday. It’s your gift for seeing the correlations in disconnected things. It’s your ability to tell the truth in a way that causes others to resonate with it too.

So often, those beautiful intangibles that make you a creative get weighed down and blocked out by tangibles.

There is an energy dividend when you release the stuff.

It frees you from the weight that causes stagnation.

Imagine minimizing your possessions so that you have less decision fatigue.

Imagine time gained by not having to dig through overstuffed drawers, cabinets, and closets looking for things.

Imagine having clear, empty surfaces, that invite you to come create on them.

There aren’t enough organizational systems in the world to get you there. That lifestyle is only possible if you give away the excess.

Most of our spaces are treated like one, big long inhale drawing in things. We have to exhale to be healthy.

How minimalism boosts your reserves

While minimalism is an art term that defines a specific style, minimalism as a lifestyle is the counter-cultural practice of choosing less instead of more.

It’s having only what you need in your physical space and schedule.

It’s letting go of the non-essential to focus on the essential.

Authors and bloggers, like Marie Kondo, Joshua Becker, Courtney Carver, Leo Babauta, Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus have developed huge followings training people to free up their physical space in order to reap the benefits of more time and less stress that comes from choosing a minimalist lifestyle.

But the big win for creatives isn’t just having more space to create in, it’s the creative energy that gets freed up when the visual and mental clutter is removed.

You can take your own fetters off and break free.

While you may have celebrated messiness in the past, the mental clarity and inspiration that comes when you have breathing room is life-giving.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can try it for yourself.

You can take minimalism for a test drive to see if it makes a difference for you. Start with the space where you usually create—whether it’s your bedroom, makeshift studio, dining room table, or the backpack you lug to Starbucks.

Box it all up. Everything. And get it out of that space.

Only unpack what you need and put it back when you need it. (If you are like most who have tried this, it will only be about 20% of what you started with.)

After three weeks, how does it feel?

If you find it unleashes something in you, then get a book to take it deeper.

I highly recommend a comic book: Marie Kondo’s Life Changing Manga of Tidying Up. Another great book that talks about the why is Everything that Remains—a memoir by minimalists, Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus. (The inspiration for the packing party which wound up changing Ryan’s life.)

Best of all, you won’t have to “get organized.” You’ll just be organized.

And your creative energy will have room to flow.

Why judgmental people are living in a world that isn't real

2018-02-18T09:25:00.002-06:00

Have you ever been judged by a group of people?

Maybe had someone evaluate you as "lower" based on something fundamental about you like race, religion, gender, lifestyle, your job, or maybe even just the way you dressed? (Middle school girls are particularly adept at that last one.)

We've all been judged. My question is, how did that make you feel?

If you are like most people, the answer is: terrible.

And so, we avoid judgmental people whenever we can, and when we can't avoid them, we simply hide in plain sight right there in the conversation.

For example, have you ever shaded the truth when confronted with someone you knew was judgmental? Maybe described a circumstance as just a little more impressive, or avoided a topic all together?

Have you ever heard something terribly judgmental come out of the mouth of the person in front of you, and said nothing?

Why do we do that?

We are all want to belong.

David McRaney, in his book, You Are Not So Smart, highlights that we are biologically wired to want to belong. He writes: “As a primate, you are keenly aware of group dynamics. You are hardwired to want to hang out with people and associate yourself with groups. Your survival has depended on it for millions of years."

Have you ever deliberately dressed in a way that you knew would gain you better acceptance in a group? (I suspect the whole designer handbag industry is based on this.) What about polishing a description of yourself to make it seem more impressive? Or maybe you just avoided talking about religion or politics in a group that disagreed because you knew you were outnumbered.

Belonging is such a core need, that we often shape the image of ourselves we put into the world to help us better connect with a group. It's why friend groups often dress alike and share the same jargon. Some of us learn this skill early as we adapt our behavior in our family to make things go more easily. Others hone it through adolescence. By adulthood, we are pros if we've had any social exposure at all.

The thing is, while people create belonging through love, others create it through judgment. They determine who belongs by stating who doesn't.

Judgmental people are handed an edited version of reality by their friends.

Because judgmental people are busy arbitrating who is in and out based on their judgment, they miss that people don’t confide in them. They get handed an edited version of their friends rather than an offering of true, authentic selves as people manage the merits needed to belong.

Because judgmental people aren't told the truth, they live in a world of false assumptions. Nothing is revealed to challenge them (either because someone doesn't want to lose the sense of belonging or because it is simply too big of a pain in the ass.). This leaves the judgmental person with the erroneous belief that the way they see the world is 100% correct. That their judgments are true.

What's odd is that in the face of judgment, judgmental people respond the same way we do, because: they also hate being judged.

Here's the scary part. Sometimes, this isn't about "judgmental people." Sometimes, this is about us, because we are the ones judging.

Though we may not label ourselves as "judgmental", we judge people all the time. Automated responses to the way a person looks, what a person says, or how they behave, based on our value systems.

The difference in "judgment" and "being judgmental" comes from our tendency to fundamental attribution error.

Are we judging behavior or character? And are we doing this fairly?

There is a term in social psychology called: fundamental attribution error (FAE) which describes the human tendency to overly attribute the behavior of others to character traits. For example, if you are cut off by someone in traffic, you are much more likely to attribute the other driver’s behavior to his character as being selfish or a jerk; rather than believing it is situational, such as that his wife is about to give birth, or he is late to catch a flight.

This fundamental attribution error causes us to make snap decisions about someone’s character rather than considering their circumstances. It’s the whole reason we have words that personify behavior. Terms like: liar, slut, drunkard, adulterer, thief.

The funny thing about fundamental attribution error is that we judge our own choices in terms of the situations we are in, but we judge other’s choice based on what it says about their character. In other words, I might tell a lie, but she is a liar.

Judgment considers the situation. Being judgmental is a determination about character.

We can't be critical of situational ethics if we practice them.

In religious circles, there is a lot of criticism of "situational ethics." Situational ethics are when we apply flexibility to moral laws based on circumstances.

But the reality is that even our courts do this.

There is a difference between murder and manslaughter, and it has to do with the situation.

We make these adjustments internally as well—especially when we watch movies. We have compassion for the accountant who embezzles so his dying wife can receive a life-saving cancer treatment, and vilify the accountant who embezzles from his hometown's teachers fund.

(We all say that stealing is wrong, but we still see Robin Hood as a protagonist. )

Something in us knows the circumstances matter.

And we bias our judgments based on them all the time—especially when we are judging ourselves.

We always get the benefit of knowing our full situation and adjust our evaluation accordingly.

Judgment is the wrong framework.

So, if we want to belong, are prone to fundamental attribution error, and rarely know enough about a situation to judge it fairly, then it would seem that we really suck at judging.

(For the record, yes. We are abysmal at judging.)

We miss just how flawed our judgments really are, but that isn't even the point. The problem is that judgment is the wrong framework when it comes to human relationships.

Judgment may satisfy our ego's need to be right, but love is the thing that satisfies at a heart level.

Love affirms the other person's belonging.

Judgment affirms our own.

Love makes it safe for others to be who they really are and share authentic experience.

Judgment puts people on guard.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Judgment seeks them out.

It is love—not judgment—that creates the type of environments we most want to live in. It produces deep friendship. It results in a belonging that goes far deeper than the superficial subsets formed through judgment.

Most importantly, love is the secret weapon when it comes to dealing with judgmental people. Why? Because even judgmental people need it.

Choosing love is a practice—and not an easy one. (Mostly because choosing love over judgment exposes our own fear. ) The thing is, when introduced into almost any situation, love disrupts the patterns. It dissolves the need to be right. It brings healing. And most importantly, love creates the connection that satisfies our fundamental need to belong.

So the next time you are faced with a judgmental person—or are tempted to judge yourself—experiment with introducing love to the equation. You will likely be beautifully surprised at the result.

Soulmates are a myth: a view from the 30th wedding anniversary.

2017-10-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

When I tell people that this month is John's and my 30th anniversary, I get mixed responses...

From young married people, there is a great deal of "Awww...." with a light shining in their eyes that one day they will be saying the same thing.

From single friends, I hear "you are so lucky to have found each other so young."

From my divorced friends, there is often an edge of pain in their responses. (No one walks down the aisle with an eye to the expiration date.)

We all have this desire to find our soulmate. To reach the life movies and novels promise, spending forever with someone we can love and count on for a lifetime.

But reality isn't the fairy tales that were told to us.

We have so many emotions about this. There is a volume of longing, and hope and sorrow. Is happily ever after really so far out of reach? Do only a lucky few pull it off? Is there some hidden formula that we have to approach super-hero level to uncover?

We are taught the myth of "the one."

I hate the word "soulmate."

We've been taught this idea culturally in movies, music and the stories married people tell.

But what if there is no such thing?

After all, the idea of a soulmate implies we are half people looking for the one person who is our missing puzzle piece. Life is complex. What happens to us if there is only one half to make us whole and that person dies, or marries someone else, or moves to a place we are never going to visit?

It's a needle-in-a-haystack idea which produces cynicism and despair.

Every date throws our "the one" meter into a constant state of confusion.

He/she said that, surely he/she is not the one.
I can't stop thinking about him/her. Surely he/she is the one.
He/she is a different religion, surely he/she is not the one.
I'm so happy when I'm with him/her. Surely he/she is the one.

If we really are people looking for that single other soul we match with, then what happens when we get married and have our first major fight? The one that isn't about socks on the floor or overspending on a purse. The one that is about some core difference that will likely never be resolved?

What happens when we find ourselves attracted to someone else out of the blue? Oh no! Is THAT the one? Did I make a terrible mistake?

Or what if we put off making a deep commitment and choose living together over marriage because we aren't 100% sure we've found the other half of ourselves.

Our cultural narrative about "the one" puts our focus on the person we are looking for and removes the focus from ourselves. We pour our energy into finding the one, evaluating if our potential partner is the one, or worrying that the person we've committed to couldn't possibly be the one when things are going way wrong.

The friction isn't about choosing the wrong person.

The biggest challenge to the myth of "the one" is what it tells us about the inevitable friction which occurs when we try to live with another human being. Instead of seeing the friction for what it is—an invitation to grow—instead we see it as an immovable problem, because...

CLEARLY WE HAVE CHOSEN THE WRONG PERSON.

I confess I had this thought often in our first 10 years.

Something would happen and my interpretation was that I had made a terrible mistake. (Note the perception bias. In the middle of my angst, I would completely forget all the reasons I loved the man because it was so eclipsed by whatever we were going through at the moment.)

So much of us has to grow and change to have deep openness with someone else.

We are all damaged in some way. We all have preferences about how things should be.

Friction reveals our damage with pinpoint precision. It is painful, uncomfortable and exposing.

It isn't friction's job to reveal our mistake by showing us why we've chosen so poorly. Its job is to reveal the wounds and blind spots inside ourselves that we've never dealt with.

If we buy into the idea of "the one" we miss out on what's really possible.

What if we didn't have this idea of a soulmate? What would love look like then?

Would we stop putting so much pressure on our romantic partners to make our lives everything we want them to be?

Would we have a deeper appreciation for everything our partners bring into our lives with all of their quirkiness, misgivings and essential beauty?

More importantly, if we stopped looking for "the one", would we pour more energy into becoming "the one"?

The hard reality is that the only person we can change is ourselves.

Whether married or single we don't have to give control away to the whims of some elusive soulmate or passively wait for a magical movie moment.

We have the power to become. To stop trying to change our partner to get the life we want and start changing ourselves.

And when the focus moves from looking to another human for fulfillment to creating it within ourselves, you know what happens?

Our romantic relationships become pretty amazing.

Stop looking for "the one" and start becoming "the one."

The problem with the soulmate-paradigm is that it isn't achievable. But you know what is achievable?

Becoming the kind of person who is open enough to deeply connect with and love another human being.

To be fair, this isn't easy.

It requires us to develop our black belt in forgiveness. (Not just with our partner, but for ourselves.) It requires us to deal with childhood hurts. To ditch our normal patterns of closing up, fighting or fleeing when the inevitable conflicts arise and to work through our crap no matter how painful or shocking.

I'm convinced when we partner and marry it is less about the search for "happy" and more about transformation, because, inevitably, the person we choose is the one with the uncanny ability to trip our baggage.

And that's where we have the opportunity to uncover what a soulmate could never deliver.

That place where our growth lies. Where we discover who we really are.

Not our defense mechanisms. Not our history. Not our aspirations. But that beautiful part of us that was wounded and can open to healing.

The people we love can be the brightest lights in uncovering what holds us back and inspiring us to go beyond it.

What happens when you engage this process over 30 years?

Well, for one thing, it doesn't mean that you never fight. John and I just had an epic one this week over gun control. (He's conservative. I'm a liberal snowflake.)

What you create is a sense of belonging that can't be manufactured in a heartbeat. You wind up with the one person who deeply "gets" you. You become family in the very best sense of the word.

Maybe I don't believe in soulmates because John and I "had" to get married. We knew we weren't living a fairy tale so we didn't look for one. What we wound up with is something deeper than what the movies are selling.

"Best friends" is too light of a phrase for it; and "lovers" isn't enough for the depth of intimacy. In fact, I don't have good words at all for this because it isn't a feeling. It's a way of being. As physical and spiritual as it is emotional.

So ditch the illusion of soulmates and engage deeply in being open and vulnerable to love. It's a process you have full power over. Become the one.

PODCAST INTERVIEW | Tired of Food Stress? Lose the label.

2017-10-03T04:30:00.000-05:00

Are you sick of having to wear a label about how you eat?

I am.

I don't want to be vegetarian, or paleo, or raw vegan. For sure, sometimes the labels are helpful. For example, I can walk into a restaurant and read "gluten free" and know my selection won't trigger my wheat allergy.

What I'm tired of is the label as identity. Because as I shared in Breaking Up With Veganism when you leave the camp, some people get twitchy and others rejoice.

I'm pretty sure eating was never meant to be a team sport with jerseys.

This week, I was interviewed on Wellness Force about making changes, the emotional component to weight loss and how much I wish it worked like a Disney movie. Curious? Listen to this week's episode of Wellness Force Friday: http://wellnessforce.com/radio/veganism/

Confessions of a Bad Christian: Why crossing the lines could be the best thing that happens to you.

2017-08-21T05:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been part of a group where you felt like you had to sacrifice who you really were to in order to belong?

Did you ever pretend you liked something, adapt your mode of dress or adjust your speech to fit in the club?

I'm embarrassed to say I did that for a really long time.

To be "in" I was supposed to like certain music. I was told which careers were more acceptable than others. There were rules about what to wear. I was told what not to drink. What to read. How to vote.

I learned it was exhausting trying to fit myself into a mold. (Maybe you've been there too? )

My big epiphany somewhere in my mid-30's was that the mold wasn't real. First of all, people couldn't even agree what the mold was supposed to look like, so I encountered multiple versions of it. And more importantly, there was something inside me that desperately wanted to break free and become who I was designed to be.

I didn't need to be a topiary. I could be a tree.

The problem was, I didn't want to be a tree by myself. I wanted to be part of a forest.

The reason it's painful to reject the mold

Rejection is painful. Psychology Today reports that fMRI studies show that the same areas of the brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain. This is why—neurologically speaking—rejection stings. It hurts to be treated like we don't fit in.

Yet groups have rules about belonging. And they are enforced through rejection—everything from the side eye to blatant shunning.

Those of us who survived adolescence have experience with this. We learn to adapt and conform or we find ourselves outside of the circle we want to be in.

But what happens when the circle we find ourselves outside of is a religious one?

It's one thing for mean teenagers to reject you as an adolescent. It's a different thing when the people who reject you are supposed to have God's endorsement.

The surprising thing I learned on my journey

As I wrestled with the gap between the mold I didn't fit into and the love and acceptance that I longed for, I learned something:

I wasn't the only person who had experienced this.

I kept encountering people with deep spiritual lives--—many who had grown up in the same ecosystem I did—who were tired of the subculture and went off-road to find the God who loved us.

One day at lunch, a friend shared that at church, he encountered the difference between love and appreciation. He said that as long as he was serving in the ways people needed him to, the church was full of appreciation. The problem was that there is a difference between appreciation and love. One is based on performance. The other is based on acceptance.

That conversation bounced around my head like a brain ninja for weeks.

Why? Because I had also experienced the difference between love and appreciation. I wanted the love. The kudos didn't mean that much.

So, I sat down at my keyboard and started writing to get the thoughts out of my head. And I wrote, and wrote and wrote.

I wound up with part memoir and part possibility map with a clear theme: In our Christianity, we've settled for so much less than what is possible.

Why it is scary to share this book.

Have you ever shared what you authentically felt in a moment of raw honesty, and then were shot down? Where the person you opened up to told you why you shouldn't feel or think that way rather than hearing what you had to say?

Me too.

As one friend who read a preview copy said, "This is raw and honest. You are being very vulnerable here. Are you ready for that? It can be dangerous."

I have a confession to make. I'm not ready. I'm not that tough.

But here's the thing.

I don't have the option to not share this book.

There are too many of us who've been labeled "bad Christians," who are weary of the gap between the Jesus we love and the subculture we are supposed to fit into.

There is so much more to be discovered.

If you've ever felt the gap between who you really are and who everyone else thought you should be; or if you've ever wrestled with not fitting in the religion you grew up with, this book will resonate.

Bad Christian is available in paperback and Kindle format via Amazon.

Breaking up with Veganism - The hidden factor that might make you ex-vegan

2017-07-09T12:28:00.002-05:00

For 20 - 30% of the vegans reading this, I have some shocking and sad news.

Your vegan lifestyle won't be sustainable.

As someone who has spent over 20 years as a vegetarian and five as a vegan, this caught me by surprise. (It's a weird place to be when you've authored a Vegan Teen Cookbook.)

The reason I had to become ex-vegan? Genetics.

How my weight clued me in there was a problem

For the record, I loved being vegan.

Compassionate choices connect you to the natural world around you. You know where your food comes from. You cross the gap between pork chop and Babe. (Six-year-old Cathy was pretty traumatized when she realized hamburgers were actually cows.)

But over time, my body started putting on more and more weight. I wasn't feeling great and I didn't know why. It didn't matter how much I worked out or that I ate "healthy." It didn't matter that I slept well, had a meditation practice or drank 96 oz of water a day.

Something wasn't working.

I went to see a functional medicine doctor who ran tests: genetics, food sensitivities, nutrient deficiencies and metals.

We discovered some things:

1) I have the Celiac gene (DQ2) which means I'm allergic to gluten. (We also discovered I have leaky gut from years of not knowing this.)

2) A compromised gut doesn't process nutrients. (I learned I'm really low on a lot of stuff.)

3) While I struggled with food allergies as a kid, I thought I had outgrown them. (I didn't.) The test showed allergic reactions to all tree nuts, most beans and peas, peanuts, yeast, ginger, mushrooms, onions, dairy, eggs, nutmeg and pineapple in addition to gluten. (Vegans reading this realize this wipes out my food base.)

4) My mercury levels are high taking the "pescatarian" option off the table for me. (Need to know which fish are the highest in mercury? Click this chart.)

But isn't veganism healthy?

Compared to the diet I grew up with of Wonder bread, bologna, potato chips and Hostess fried pies—yes.

For over 20 years, I would have told anyone who asked that vegetarianism was the best possible diet. After all, when I adopted it, the wins were big for me. My skin cleared up. I dropped weight effortlessly. My energy went through the roof.

However, the variable I never factored in is: my shift to vegetarianism was coupled with ditching processed foods. I traded brightly labeled boxes full of questionable ingredients for foods in their natural state. I stopped eating applesauce from a jar and started eating apples.

Which made me feel amazing.

So, why would it stop working?

In short, my genetics.

The role genetics play in our ability to successfully live vegan.

A Cornell University study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, revealed that people with different ancestral backgrounds require different ratios of nutritional substances in their diet.

The big idea is that if your people historically ate veg diets, then your body's nutritional needs are based in that diet. However, if your genetics are northern European (as I learned mine were from a 23andMe test), then a vegan diet may not be supplying everything your body needs. Over time, you can wind up with deficiencies—especially when it comes to amino and fatty acids.

Specifically, if different people need different ratios of nutrients in their diet depending on their genes, then what works for an Indian whose family has been vegetarian for generations may not work for a 99.9% white girl. (Seriously, that was the number for European on my 23andMe test. Plain vanilla. Sigh.)

Your ancestral need for certain nutrients isn't the only factor.

If you are Caucasian, you have over a 20 percent chance of having the gene for Celiac disease. (Translation: you have a digestive tract which negatively reacts to gluten.)

About 95% of people with Celiac disease have the HLA-DQ2 gene and the remaining 5% have the HLA-DQ8 gene. (source)

I always thought the gene for Celiac disease was pretty rare.

It's not.

The DQ2 frequency in Caucasian, Western European populations has been estimated at 20%-30%, and relatively high frequencies also occur in Northern and Western Africa, the Middle East and central Asia. There are low frequencies in populations in South-East Asia and the virtual absence of DQ2 in Japan. DQ8 frequency has a worldwide distribution, and approximately 90% of Amerindian populations carry DQ8. (source)

What happens to vegans who have undiagnosed Celiac?

Well, if you are like me, leaky gut syndrome, which is where the lining of the gut gets so inflamed, it becomes permeable, causing a host of allergic reactions and malabsorption issues.

Other symptoms for undiagnosed Celiac can be inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune issues, thyroid problems, inflammatory skin conditions, mood issues and even autism. (source)

The problem for vegans is gluten is a staple in much of the vegan diet—everything from pasta to seitan to soy sauce. And many "fake meat" products are gluten-based.

As Josh Trent once advised:

It doesn't matter what compassion you have in your heart. Or what ideology you hold in your head. If your biology isn't on board, you can't live vegan.

When I first heard those words, I really struggled with them. And, I was pretty sure they didn't apply to me.

I was wrong.

With such a high percentage of people carrying these genetic factors, we can't just write off the gluten-free and Paleo crazes as marketing hype.

My body was giving me clues. I just wasn't listening.

I was ignoring the signals in my bloodwork, weight and energy levels to uphold my ideals.

So, what do you do when your ideals don't match your reality?

Most vegans understand: cats are "obligate carnivores." They can't survive on a vegan diet. (For the record, dogs can do okay on one, but their owners have to be smart about it and there are no long-term studies on the real effects.)

When it comes to personal choices, the struggle is emotional, mental and physical.

After all, most of us didn't just wake up one day and decide to test-drive veganism. It is usually based in an aversion to current factory farming practices and a compassion for animal life.

Not only that, but if all of your food choices have been plant-based for a long time, your beliefs become ingrained. Your preferences are shaped.

I had the first bite of chicken in more than 20 years and it was a mental game of pretending it wasn't chicken. And even though I now know, I'm an "obligate carnivore" I'm finding it's a transition. One I'm still figuring out.

What will people say if you make the switch?

The peer pressure against veganism is surprisingly intense. Well-meaning meat-eaters campaign against it all the time.

"Don't you want a bite of this steak?" (Um. No.)

"Don't you miss bacon?" (Did you see Charlotte's Web?)

"Where do you get your protein?" (Where do cows get their protein?)

"But nothing dies if it is just eggs or milk." (No, but the conditions the animals live in can be worse than death.)

Of course vegans can be equally as committed to their cause:

"That bloody steak looks disgusting."
"Do you know how that died?"
"Where do you get your fiber?"
"I bet you didn't know this was vegan." (I confess. I've said this one.)

If you find yourself in the position of becoming ex-vegan and there is backlash from either side; maybe, you need to upgrade your friends. Compassion for animals and other people doesn't preclude compassion for ourselves.

If you are thriving on the veg lifestyle, I'm delighted. We need people making the most compassionate food choices possible.

This post is for the percentage of vegans who are battling and aren't sure why. If you find that over time the diet isn't bringing you more health, vitality and energy, then your ancestry may be working against you.

When I first learned I would need to add meat back into my diet, I told my doctor that my husband, John, would be thrilled. He wasn't. He just hugged me and told me we'd take it slowly. He also told me everything would be okay.

I believe him.

A 90-Day Detour > What if Your Weight Gain isn't Your Fault?

2017-06-07T07:41:00.000-05:00

I sat in my primary care doctor's office and told him my concerns about my weight gain.

"Well, Mrs. Hutchison," he said in a kind voice. "You simply have to eat less and exercise more."

"But I'm exercising every day."

"Then focus on eating less."

Sigh.

I went to my gynecologist to have my hormones tested. (I read in a Facebook article that could be a thing.) She reported that it wasn't my thing.

"You simply have to eat less and exercise more."

Sigh.

I hired a nutritionist who started me on a raw food vegan diet. (I was already vegan. She just added the raw part.)

When I gained weight, she thought I was cheating.

I knew I wasn't.

Sigh.

Unexpected help from a podcast

A few months later, I heard Jeff Sanders of the 5AM Miracle podcast interview Josh Trent of Wellness Force. I'd never heard anyone talk about fitness like this. Josh's ideas were completely counter to everything I'd ever been taught. He acknowledged that people were biologically different to each other and had different drivers. He talked about leveraging the data of testing and wearables like my Apple watch. He also talked about the role emotions play in holding on to old weight.

When I started listening to the Wellness Force podcast, I noticed a stunning difference in the dialog between Josh and his guests. Weight wasn't about being lazy or binging on cookies. It was about WHY your body was too tired to work out. It was about the drivers for craving foods that weren't nutritional. It was about the emotions that keep us stuck. It was about the decision fatigue that drains our ability to follow our plans.

After listening for a few weeks, I checked out the Wellness Force website and came across an "anti vegan" article. I'm not sure why I assumed Josh was vegan (maybe because Jeff Sanders is?) Anyway, I sent Josh an e-mail with questions about the article and he responded with, "Do you have time for a 10 minute Skype conversation?"

It wasn't what I was expecting.

On our call, Josh explained that it didn't matter what ideology I held in my head or what compassion I had in my heart, if my biology wasn't on board, I was in trouble. He challenged me to get some testing done at Wellness FX along with a DexaScan and 23andMe.

I gulped. Insurance wasn't going to pony up for this.

I learned Josh took a handful of coaching clients each year and asked if he had the bandwidth to add me as one of them. I sent him my test results and in our early sessions, we agreed I would add fish, eggs and vegan protein powder to my diet. He started by working with me on hydration, sleep, nutrition and activity. I thought I was pretty active. Josh—who could see what was happening on the Apple watch—upped my game.

After eight months of tweaking my lifestyle—not just the physical aspects, but also working with time, stress and emotion—I was gaining weight. Not losing, which is what I had hoped.

Josh said, "Cathy, based on what I'm seeing with your tracking, you shouldn't be carrying this extra weight. I want you to go see a functional medicine doctor. There is something else going on with you."

What's a functional medicine doctor?

Functional Medicine doctors are DC's and MD's who reject the 5-minute-office-visit-resulting-in-a-prescription model to address the underlying causes of disease. Josh sent me the link to this website to find one in my area. https://www.functionalmedicine.org I made an appointment with Dr. Christina O'Brien.

We spent almost an hour together to talk about what I was experiencing. I sent her the tests I'd done before working with Josh. Dr. O'Brien went through the tests and said, "Your body isn't absorbing carbohydrates, proteins or nutrients. I know this might surprise you, but your body thinks its starving. I want to look at genetics, hormones, adrenals and check for parasites."

At this point, this was the most time any doctor had ever spent with me talking about me. I went in for a blood draw to get the additional tests.

I learned I have HLA-DQ2. That's the Celiac Disease gene which makes your body treat wheat as an enemy. (The other gene for this is HLA-DQ8.) It also means your body reacts to casein—a protein found in dairy. I discovered I have the MTHFR mutation. It provides instructions for making methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase which apparently plays a role in just about everything your body does—including absorption of nutrients.

I also learned my cells aren't absorbing water. I'm third-spacing fluids which happens when too much fluid moves from the blood vessels into the nonfunctional area between cells. Practically, this means I'm dehydrated even though I'm drinking 98 oz of water a day. (It also means I have to pee all the time, a feature that John loves about me on road trips.)

There are other issues related to hormones and nutrients, but Dr. O'Brien explained that if we heal the gut, the other issues will heal too.

So, for the next 90 days, I'm on an elimination diet that includes fermented foods for the probiotics. There will be additional testing for specific nutrient deficiencies so we can supplement in a targeted way. (I have to be off of all supplements for the next week.)

The bigger implications

I've spent my life running away from my mom's weight. She has struggled her whole adult life being over 300lbs with the host of health issues that entails. I thought if I was just willing to work hard enough—willing to do whatever I needed to do—that I could outrun that.

And so I researched. I read diet books. I did so many crazy things. Everything from limiting myself to 1000 calories a day to drinking apple cider vinegar. Vegetarianism connected me to real food and a focus on vegetables—which was a big win and improved my health. But since I didn't know what was actually going on with me, I was blindly experimenting.

What if we've been looking at diet and exercise all wrong? What if big box gym trainers, popular diet books and Instagram celebrities aren't actually helping? What if lap bands are a fraud yet people don't report it because they feel like they are the ones who failed? (I have so many friends who have experienced this.) What if the shame that surrounds weight keeps people from engaging the process at all?

One thing is for sure, for the first time in my life, I actually know where to target my efforts. And thanks to an enlightened podcast host, an Apple Watch, and a doctor who is exploring a model outside of "5 minutes and a prescription," I may actually win the weight game.

I'll keep you posted.

The thing that blocks us from being heroes and athletes (and how to become what we most want to be)

2016-12-05T05:00:00.000-06:00

As a girl, I stood at home plate wearing the jersey of my softball team. (My friends had talked me into joining. I think they needed to get to a certain number to be able to play.)

I gripped the bat begging under my breath.

Please let me get a hit.
Please let me get a hit.
Please let me get a hit.

Then I swung with all my might.

STRIKE THREE. YOU ARE OUT!

I walked sadly back to the bench embarrassed that this had happened once again. In my mind, I thought I was just a bad athlete—maybe poor eye-hand coordination—but in reality, there was nothing in my daily life that was going to help me get better.

It's all about the choices we make with our time.

The daily routine of an athlete is different than the daily routine of a non-athlete. My friends who were good at softball were playing catch with their dads, getting up early to run and typically had very physical recreational activities.

And while some people are born with a natural inclination to spend their time this way, there are many, many others who do it through intention. And it isn't just athletics. People have become musicians, built businesses, grown as artists and accomplished amazing things through sheer sweat equity.

Becoming who we want to be is about doing the things that will get us there on a daily basis.

It starts awkward and then becomes automatic.

I listened to a podcast this week with Lisa Perkins who said the phrase, "Easy is earned."

The idea is that when we first learned to drive a car it was hard. We had to think about everything. Left foot taps brake. Hands at 10 and 2. Check the rear view mirror. Put on a seatbelt or that annoying bell never goes off.

All things are hard when we begin them, but the daily practice of doing them makes them easy.

No one has this down better than the "hero" professions. Every soldier, fireman and policeman has thousands of hours of practice to build the muscle memory needed to perform the job. Every athlete trains.

I have found that the key to becoming who we most want to be is in consistent, daily action. We decide what we need to do, then take the action on it every day until it stops becoming what we do and starts becoming who we are. Of course this is awkward before it becomes automated. But repetitive action eventually becomes part of our identity. We don't just drive. We become a driver.

There can be a gap between our label and our action

I heard an interview with the famous yogi, BKS Iyengar, where he mentioned that it was really easy even for advanced yogis to get busy then neglect the practice, but that if you stopped practicing, then you were no longer a yogi.

I think that happens to a lot of us. We start to wear the identity label and forget we need the daily action to back it up.

It is the pitfall of busy pastors who get so caught up in caring for others they cut short their daily time with God. Couples whose lives become so much about the "business of being married" that they stop romancing each other. Athletes who rest on past laurels and stop training.

While the identity factor can blind us to a lack of current action, it can also reveal what future action we need to take. For example, if we want to be a writer, then part of our daily action needs to be writing. If we want to be someone who lives in a clutter-free house, then we will spend some time each day decluttering. If we want to be successful in business, then we will put in the extra time to cultivate clients and build up our teams.

The identity we desire gives clues to our path forward.

Consistent daily action isn't glamorous. It is just consistent.

It is more exciting to be the hero leaping from the exploding building saving the child, than getting up early each morning to do the push ups, jumping jacks and climbing the salmon ladder in order to have the strength to do it.

We want to get to the end result.

The thing about small, daily actions is that they give us credibility with ourselves. When our actions are in keeping with our desires, they integrate. Notice that integrate is the same root as integrity. When our thoughts, speech and actions are aligned, we have integrity— which shapes us at a core level. At some point, the forward motion stops being externally driven. It becomes the engine inside.

Resources to help get started.

We can set up systems to support us in our desire to create consistent, daily action. The key is to try something, test drive to see it works, and if it doesn't, try the next thing. Here are some resources to test out:

1. Use the reminders on your smart phone. Alarms can be labeled and reminders set for tasks. If you have a phone with Siri, Cortana, or Google assistant they can set reminders for you by voice. (Which is handy if you think of something while you are busy doing something else.) They can also update your calendar.

2. Try an analog tracker. Podcaster, Jeff Sanders, has a Daily Rituals Tracker—a simple spreadsheet that helps you set up what you want to do each day, and track your progress It is free when you join the 5am Club which will put you on his mailing list that sends weekly encouragement in reaching your highest goals.

3. Get friends who are where you want to be. It is hard to make changes if you aren't exposed to the people who are already living them. Join a MeetUp group in your area of interest, volunteer in a place you are likely to meet people further ahead than you, or simply start following the podcasters who are doing what you care about and learn from them.

4. Get up earlier to create dedicated time. The early morning hours are some of the few that we can truly own. Author, Hal Elrod, has a book called The Miracle Morning that provides inspiration to leverage those hours to get in your consistent daily action. Jeff Sanders' book The 5am Miracle (with 5am being an arbitrary time) is a fantastic tutorial for how to make it happen even if it sounds impossible.

5. Start using a planner. Whether it is a digital system like MSOutlook, Todoist, Wunderlist, Workflowy or Smartsheet, or if you try out an analog planner like Bullet Journal, Action Day, Self Journal (only 13 weeks, focuses on steps to a big goal), or Freedom Journal (100 days to goal), it helps to give your mind a single place it can trust for all of the things you want and need to do each day.

You can get rid of the block that is keeping you from where you want to be.

I wish I'd known when I was a girl failing at softball, that it wasn't that I was a terminally terrible athlete. It was just that I didn't have an athlete's habits. I erroneously believed that because I wasn't naturally good at something that I couldn't become competent. That failure caused me to see myself in a way that kept me from doing other physical things. Things I might have really enjoyed.

I learned later in life through the consistent daily habit of practicing yoga that I could actually become good at something athletic, and when I started going with my husband to the batting cages, I got to where I could hit a ball.

We all love the movies where the fairy godmother (or Hagrid with a tale of our undiscovered powers) comes to make us into more than we are now. But the reality is that we are the ones we've been waiting for. And the steps to get there? Incremental, daily and consistent.

Go break through that block. Become who you most want to be.

What do you say when people ask how you are?

2016-11-21T03:53:00.001-06:00

What do you say, when people ask, 'how are you?'

For us to answer truthfully, we almost always need to pause.

There is something about breaking routine and geography--without our normal entertainment distractions--that makes us see ourselves more clearly.

So many parts of our normal lives are run on autopilot, but when our time and space changes, we notice things. And if we happen to do that in a natural setting, the pace slows which awakens a more subtle awareness.

'How are you doing?' ceases to be a greeting that we briskly respond to and starts to become the question of our souls.

We are as fragile as hummingbirds (and often moving just as fast) in a vast world that doesn’t always care about us. Heck, we hardly care about us. We keep the frenetic pace with a diet of coffee and sugar and tell our souls to “shut up” because we will get to them later.

Except that we rarely do.

There is intense value in the pause. In prayer, in meditation, in a long walk without destination.

If we feel exhausted, its because we are. We are the ones who feel so unworthy of love that we do not nourish, breathe or care for the very home our soul is housed in. The challenge is that when we don’t take tender care of our own souls, we are ill-equipped to care for others. Even the kindest moves become just one more draining task rather than an act that feeds both receiver and giver.

So, how are you?

If you find you cannot answer with a resounding “well,” then call in sick, go outside and take a very, very long walk so that you can be quiet enough to hear what is really going on inside of you.

Being able to answer the question is essential, because until we know there is no possibility of growth or healing.

So, how are you?

5 Types of Journaling that Can Transform Your Life

2016-11-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

Have you ever begun a journaling practice only to stop a few days later?

Or maybe you even kept it up for weeks and months, but then got busy and abandoned it.

What if the reason you stopped is that you just didn't have the right type of practice for where your life was at in that moment?

You could test drive another method.

Here are 5 different types of journaling practices that can help get back in the habit so you can reap the benefits:

Need fast and simple? Try Minimalist Journaling.

This is by far the leanest version of journaling. Simply purchase a small journal (5.5 x 3.5 or 4 x 2.4) and keep it by your bedside. At the end of each day, write down the most important thought of the day. One thought per page keeping it to a single sentence.

The rationale for only writing one thought per page is that all the white space keeps the journal feeling simple. And while initially boiling your whole day into a sentence may not feel simple, once you get in the rhythm, it becomes a powerful practice for capturing and recalling your most important thoughts.

Want to get better at getting things done? Try Bullet Journaling.

Bullet Journaling is a system for rapid logging developed by digital product designer, Ryder Carroll. The method brings your schedule, to do lists and aspirational goals into a single place that your mind can trust. Plus, in our mostly digital lives, there can be power in an analog system.

While it takes a bit to learn the concept, once you have the hang of it, the system is fast and effective. Want to learn more? Check out: http://bulletjournal.com/.

Need to unload a cluttered mind? Try Morning Pages.

Artist, Julia Cameron, has a practice of unloading the mind first thing every morning that has become wildly popular with creatives. In her book, The Artists Way, Cameron writes: "In order to retrieve your creativity, you need to find it. I ask you to do this by an apparently pointless process I call the morning pages…the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness."

The thing about morning pages is that they are neither intended to be writing nor art. Instead, it is a kinesthetic exercise that helps your brain clear itself so that you can be more focused for the rest of the day.

Want to become more positive? Try a Gratitude Journal.

Many people having impact in the world credit a gratitude journal as being key to their success. Oprah Winfrey—who kept a gratitude journal for a decade without fail—says, "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough."

Taking time each day to list a certain number of things we are grateful for changes our interior landscape and actually retrains what our brain focuses on. Some use a handwritten journal for the practice, but you can also go digital with an app like Gratitude 365.

Don't enjoy writing? Try a Photo Journal.

Photo journaling is the simple practice of taking daily photos and logging them somewhere that you can see them sequentially. The key to making photos a journaling practice is that you capture something specific so that you can see changes over time. Simple living blogger, Tammy Stroebel, has a practice of capturing her morning view each day. Noah Kalina takes a photo of himself each day. Others participate in a photo a day challenge.

No matter what you decide to capture each day, Instagram, Tumblr, and the Day One apps are great platforms to post a daily photo. Or, if you prefer analog, simply keep the images on your device and have a photobook printed at the end of the year.

Why journal at all?

In our distracted world, journaling is a consistent pause-button that prompts us to get off of autopilot. It provides a window of reflection each day to keep us connected to the deeper things.

Best of all, journaling creates a record, so that we can actually go back and see the forward motion in our lives.

Want to learn more? There are over 28 methods for journaling in this post on How to Journal at yourvisualjournal.com

Why Christian Meditation may give us more than we bargained for

2016-07-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, I spent all my time asking God for things.

Please just let me win this contest.
Please help me pass this test.
Please can I have a pony? It would totally fit in our backyard.

As a teenager, my prayers became more sophisticated.

Please help my friend whose parents just got divorced.
Please help my mom, because she's sick.
Please can I have a 1966 Ford Mustang? It would totally fit in the garage.

As a grown up, my prayers became a little more altruistic.

Yoga taught me to meditate and it transformed my prayer life. For the first time I could pray without words. It taught me how to just sit with God. Without agenda. To just be in His presence.

It has become transformational.

Meditation is actually fairly simple. You simply focus on one thing (like your breathing or a repeated word or phrase) or you focus on nothing. I began meditation just to see if I could do it, and the practice wound up uncovering some really interesting things for me…

It revealed an uncomfortable amount of responsibility issues.

When I first started meditating, I would sometimes be overcome with anxiety. Whenever I turned off my thoughts, I felt this horrible, sinking fear that planes were going to fall from the sky. Of course, I didn’t realize on an intellectual level that my thoughts were keeping them up there, but when I stopped thinking, the fear was real that something was about to go terribly wrong if I let go of control.

Which showed me just how messed up my normal, everyday thinking was about my level of responsibility. To be clear, I am not keeping planes in the sky. In fact, I have control over shockingly little but myself.

With practice, I began to realize that there was a difference between the endless taskmaster that lived in my head and the person who was just me. It was an epiphany that would shift everything. As I started to notice the gap between my mental chatter…what should I make for dinner…did I remember to send that proposal....when is Meredith’s birthday…argh I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning yesterday and my highest, grandest goals, I became aware that there was a glaring difference between the words that ran through my head and...well...me.

My soul. What is most real about me. I began to look forward to turning it all off for a few minutes each day.

Practice turning off the stream of thoughts is a powerful and useful skill.

You know when someone says something mean and you don’t think of a witty comeback until a few days later? Then you start running all kind of scenarios where you and your brilliant intellect win the day in the skirmish that the other person is completely unaware of?

Or when you start projecting all kinds of terrible things that can happen if you don’t make that deadline that is not humanly possible to make? You know, the one that once you miss it has you living on the street begging for handouts and desperately missing your Tempur-Pedic pillow and longing for a shower?

When you meditate every morning, you become adept at turning those things off. To see the stream for what it is—fear, anger, judgment, worry—and it becomes easier to just choose something better. You stop getting caught up in that which isn’t real. Once that distinction happens, you suddenly have so much more control. It is the most powerful tool I’ve found for renewing the mind. There is a reason, people who meditate seem calmer. They are. They have the ability to see the clanging symbols for what they are.

It is only a thought, and a thought can be changed.

When I was a kid in science class, I was taught the brain couldn't be changed. But now, there is a whole effort of research focused on neuroplasticity. Not only can we change our brains, but we can influence our DNA as well.

Which has huge implications for how we self-identify. Am I the fat one or the thin one? The smart girl or the comic? The business woman or the mom? We get so tweaky when things challenge the way we see ourselves, but meditating puts so much of that stuff in perspective as just more chatter.

Learning how to meditate

I meditate for 15 minutes a day now, but I started at two. I was encouraged to set a timer for two minutes, then extend it when I started being disappointed that it was too short. I also use the Equanimity app. It is a simple timer that also tracks the chain of how many days you’ve meditated in a row. It is strong incentive not to miss a day and get downgraded from “you sit every day” to “you sit most days.” (I know. More mental self-identity chatter, but it works.) <grin>

If you've noticed that there is a lot more information on meditation out there it is because people are finding it works. Newscaster Dan Harris says it makes him "about 10% happier" and I get it. I've experienced that too.

Why this should interest Christians in particular

When I first started practicing yoga, I got some pushback. There was fear about this foreign thing stepping into conversations normally reserved for the Church. (What? Sitting silently??? That's OUR thing.)

The challenge is that it is impossible to meditate when we are so stressed we can't turn off the thoughts. Yoga offers tools to be able to do that. To move through breathing from our normal fight-or-flight mode to a calmer state of rest-and-digest. If you want to go all ‘yoga geek’ about it, Patanjali writes in the first yoga sutra that the purpose of yoga is to ‘still the motions of the mind.’ (So apparently we weren't the first culture to have a worry and stress problem. I mean, how many of us really live out Matthew 6:25?)

There is always going to be a place in our prayer life for intercession and asking God for things, but it occurs to me that we take a major step into maturity when we have the capacity just to be with Him...without having our thoughts running like a squirrel in an attic. It takes training in focus. And meditation is the gift that can give us that practice.

Why we lose our ability to prioritize when we are really stressed

2016-07-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

You know when you are really stressed?

When there are so many things happening at once that you feel like you are simply spinning plates running from the next one to the next one to keep them all going? And you feel the weight of knowing that the whole thing could come crashing down the moment you pause.

Ever lose your ability to prioritize during times of extreme activity?

Yeah. Me too.

All of a sudden buying a bath mat becomes as important as finishing a major proposal for my company. Finding a lost earring as essential as landing an article before a deadline.

I was explaining this phenomena to Josh Trent who is currently coaching me. [Side note: paid accountability is highly valuable during strategic times in your life.] Josh responded, "You know why that happens? It's because our brains will grab on to any distraction to not do the one essential thing we are scared of doing."

Whoa.

It's because our brains will grab on to any distraction to not do the one essential thing we are scared of doing.

Suddenly it made so much sense.

Much of the work that really matters to us is about putting ourselves out there. And when our identity is on the line, we desperately do not want to fail. It is easier to defer those projects than to sit down and do them.

Author, Stephen Pressfield is famous for saying, "If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?' chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

That sentiment isn't just limited to writers and artists. It is true for architects, entrepreneurs, teachers and podcasters. Something in us is afraid we will fail at what we care about the most. It is more appealing to chase squirrels.

In business this often looks like spending all of our time responding rather than creating. It is less threatening to let others drive our day. To lose ourselves in e-mail and deadlines rather than carving out time to take a macro view and create.

When we find we are in a space where our whole life is about buying a bathmat, it's a clue. We have to pause and find the thing we are scared of.

Then, we just have to suck up the courage and do it. Even if we have to keep stepping on a cold tile floor.

Feeling stuck as an artist? Here are 11 Proven Methods for Getting Unstuck

2016-05-30T05:00:00.000-05:00

Ever just feel stuck?

Like someone slapped a wheel-lock on your motivation?

Sure, we are all productive when the muse is flowing and everything clicks, but sometimes it just doesn't.

All of us find ourselves from time to time in a place where nothing flows. Where what was once a joy becomes something tedious.

When art is your business, you don’t get the luxury of staying stuck. You can’t stop producing. It is professional suicide.

Here are 11 proven methods for getting "unstuck":

1. Beat down the fear with the belief that we need you.

People designed to create have to fight a daily war on fear. It is the reason so many artists love Steven Pressfield's book: The War of Art. Pressfield writes...

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.   Do it or don’t do it.   It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution.

Give us what you’ve got.

The battle against fear is worth it because our desire to create isn’t just a hobby, it is a calling. And there is purpose to that calling.

Will people reject your work? Of course. Because it is always easier to criticize than to look at a blank sheet of paper and pour yourself onto it. Critique without contribution should be measured as it is: a bid for power by those who refuse to create. Don’t fear the critique. Assess where it is coming from.

More importantly, you have a gift to offer that is uniquely you. If you don’t create, something important goes missing. And that is something we should all fear.

2. Free yourself with the permission to create "bad" art.

Sometimes part of our stuckness is a perfection-induced paralysis. I love what Christine Paintner writes in her book The Artist’s Rule

Our focus here is on the process rather than the product and on allowing the expression to come through as fully and authentically as possible. When judgments arise in the process, simply notice them with curiosity and compassion and contemplate where else in your life these voices arise. Allow the art-making process to become a container for your internal awareness, much like meditation practice.... Give yourself permission to make mistakes, to make “bad art” or to write something that doesn’t sound even close to perfect. This is the way we begin to cultivate inner freedom, by allowing ourselves a full range of expression as a journey of discovery.

This idea of a “journey of discovery” rather than a quest to create perfection is liberating. You are creative. You have a desire in your soul to create, or you wouldn’t be here on this site reading this post. Failure is integral to producing anything real. And if you don’t give yourself permission to fail, you will find you do not create anything at all.

Give yourself permission to create “bad art.”

3. Smash the cement block of the starving artist by writing down what you want.

It is hard to be creative when our basic needs aren't met. Artists have a tendency to romance poverty as if it is some trial by fire that makes us better. Samax Amen wrote a powerful post about 3 Steps to Killing the Starving Artist. The post's illustration is what took the post viral.

Many artists struggle because there is so much of "them" in their art. It can be a painful process to put work in the marketplace and have it treated it like a product rather than a piece of yourself.

Napoleon Hill writes in his book, Think and Grow Rich, "The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail." He also writes, "Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire."

Writing down what you ultimately want as a "concrete desire"—no matter how hard it seems to get there—rallies your imagination and influences the hundreds of decisions you make each day. Hill encourages us to create a definite plan for carrying out our desire and most importantly to begin at once, whether we are ready or not, to put this plan into action. By writing down the desire and figuring out our next step, we can often break through inertia.

4. Feed your creative soul by engaging with people and ideas which are different than you.

One of the challenges of being “production-centric” is that it is easy to become creatively dry. Sometimes we know when we are low on internal provisions, but other times it sneaks up. We’ve poured out all of our emotion and life experiences into our craft, then find ourselves recycling the same stuff over and over. (This isn’t only true of artists. It happens in business, academia, art…) Without fuel, the creative spark dims.

There is a great quote by Theodore Zeldin…“Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts; They transform them, reshape them, draw different conclusions from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn’t just reshuffle the cards, it creates new cards.”

We all need new cards from time to time, and they aren’t actually that difficult to generate. But it takes a willingness to break our comfortable routine. We have to read authors we’ve never read, engage people with different life experience, have different life experiences ourselves. That exposure creates richer, deeper, more interesting human beings and gives us a deeper well to draw from.

If you feel stuck, try something new. Let yourself become curious. Who knows where that could lead?

5. Soar above overwhelm. Focus on short assignments.

Anne Lamott has a great book on getting unstuck: Bird by Bird. The book is aimed at writers, but applies to any creative….painters, sculptors, musicians, playwrights, graphic designers. One of the pieces of advice she gives is to focus on short assignments.

This from Lamott…

The first useful concept is the idea of short assignments. Often when you sit down to write, what you have in mind is an autobiographical novel about your childhood, or a play about the immigrant experience, or a history of–oh, say–say women. But this is like trying to scale a glacier. It’s hard to get your footing, and your fingertips get all red and frozen and torn up. Then your mental illnesses arrive at the desk like your sickest, most secretive relatives. And they pull up chairs in a semicircle around the computer, and they try to be quiet but you know they are there with their weird coppery breath, leering at you behind your back.

What I do at this point, as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize that the well has run dry and that my future is behind me and I’m going to have to get a job only I’m completely unemployable, is to stop.

First I try to breathe, because I’m either sitting there panting like a lapdog or I’m unintentionally making slow asthmatic death rattles. So I just sit there for a minute, breathing slowly, quietly. I let my mind wander. After a moment I may notice that I’m trying to decide whether or not I am too old for orthodontia and whether right now would be a good time to make a few calls, and then I start to think about learning to use makeup and how maybe I could find some boyfriend who is not a total and complete fixer-upper and then my life would be totally great and I’d be happy all the time, and then I think about all the people I should have called back before I sat down to work, and how I should probably at least check in with my agent and tell him this great idea I have and see if he thinks it’s a good idea, and see if he thinks I need orthodontia–if that is what he is actually thinking whenever we have lunch together. Then I think about someone I’m really annoyed with, or some financial problem that is driving me crazy, and decide that I must resolve this before I get down to today’s work.

So I become a dog with a chew toy, worrying it for a while, wrestling it to the ground, flinging it over my shoulder, chasing it, licking it, chewing it, flinging it back over my shoulder. I stop just short of actually barking. But all of this only takes somewhere between one and two minutes, so I haven’t actually wasted that much time. Still, it leaves me winded. I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments.

It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being. All I am going to do right now, for example, is write that one paragraph that sets the story in my hometown, in the late fifties, when the trains were still running. I am going to paint a picture of it, in words, on my word processor. Or all I am going to do is to describe the main character the very first time we meet her, when she first walks out the front door and onto the porch. I am not even going to describe the expression on her face when she first notices the blind dog sitting behind the wheel of her car–just what I can see through the one-inch picture frame, just one paragraph describing this woman, in the town where I grew up, the first time we encounter her.

E. L. Doctorow once said that “writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice about writing, or life, I have ever heard.

What if part of your stuckness is that you've plotted the path too far ahead? Focus on short assignments.

6. Did you divorce your muse? If so, buy some flowers and win her back.

Ever wonder why some amazing singer-songwriters stop producing once they make it to the top?

I’m curious if sometimes it is because they divorced their muse. Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and as much individualism as there is to our art, none of us become great on our own.

What if in our quest for reinvention we sometimes distance ourselves from the very people, background, or circumstance that drives the creator in us? What if the loss of that connection costs us? This isn’t about embracing unhealthy things that tear us down; it is about being conscious that we are not a solo act. There are people around us who make us better. Those who focus us, inspire us….make us who we are.

So gut check: have you created distance between yourself and your muse?

Maybe it is time for a reconciliation.

7. Be provocative. Lust after what is good for you.

We become defenseless when we ignore the things our bodies need. Exercise, eating right and sleeping aren't just valuable to our physical health. They have dramatic impact on our artistic health, too.

Artists are especially vulnerable to the depletion that comes from ignoring the daily things that are good for us. We resent routine, and all that it implies. That streak of resisting the ordinary and ignoring the “should” is part of what makes artists great. It allows them to say things that others leave unsaid, and engage the soul at levels others can’t touch.

Yet, when it comes to the most important asset…our physical being…we need to get better at the “should.” Self-destructive patterns ultimately destroy the art. And we know the patterns that take us down. They are personal to us. It can be as simple as running on a diet of coffee and nicotine or as complex as engaging in harmful relationships.

Quite frankly, it is easier to ignore the patterns and pretend like we don’t have control. That it is happening to us rather than a situation we are creating.

The truth is: we control what we put in our mouths, if we carve out time to rest, if we find a physical activity we love. It is up to us to get help with our addictions, to choose healthy friendships and to embrace the small things that create joy.

There is a romance to Van Gogh cutting off his ear and there is no doubt that the Kurt Cobain’s of the world produced powerful music. But for every great artist with a tragic story, there are a thousand the world never hears of because they self-destruct before they have the opportunity to truly become great.

Engage the strength of will that creates your art as a positive force for your well-being. Find out where that takes you. You may unlock things you didn’t think possible.

8. Take a defiant step. Show up for yourself.

It’s embarrassing really. Sometimes our “stuckness” is our own fault. For as much as we talk about our dreams and aspirations, if we were really, truly honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that most of the time we don’t even show up. We get trapped in our heads with all of the the reasons we can’t do what we really want to do, so we fail to create.

A great book on this is Jon Acuff’s, Quitter, and a reviewer on Amazon captured it beautifully:

I feel like a jerk telling you to read this book. I loved reading it but hated the implications. Jon Acuff cuts right through all the crappy excuses that we put between us and our dreams. This book haunts me a month after I finished it. I can’t fritter away time on the internet anymore with a clear conscience. I wake up earlier so I can take time to write and focus my thoughts for the day. I find myself trying harder and doing more work at work. It sucks. I miss my life as a slacker...I might try to kick him in the shins for suggesting that a work ethic in your current job will help you prepare for your future dream job.

If you’re taking time to read this review, you obviously have time to read something more substantial like a book. Go ahead and buy Quitter. Read it yourself. Give it to your whiny friends who can’t figure out why they’re not living their dreams...You could also do what I did and give this book away with a break up note to your boyfriend, gently implying the relationship is doomed because he won’t put away the X Box and become a grownup.

If you find there is a gap between your day job and your dream job…or if you find you aren’t creating because you are failing to show up, this book is a healthy dose of laughing at ourselves and a great interjection of advice to move forward.

9. Unlock the deadbolt with a pencil. Write morning pages.

One of the most interesting ways to get unstuck is Julia Cameron’s idea of “The Morning Pages.” In her book, The Artists Way Cameron writes: In order to retrieve your creativity, you need to find it. I ask you to do this by an apparently pointless process I call the morning pages…the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness: “Oh, god, another morning. I have NOTHING to say. I need to wash the curtains. Did I get my laundry yesterday? Blah, blah, blah…” They might also, more ingloriously be called brain drain, since this is one of their main functions.

Cameron asserts that there is no wrong way to do the morning pages. They are not intended to be art. Or even writing. It's a simple process of writing–longhand–whatever comes to mind. Cameron says “although occasionally colorful, the morning pages are often negative, frequently fragmented, often self-pitying, repetitive, stilted or babyish, angry or gland–even silly sounding. Good!”

The idea is to bleed out the things that stand between you and your creativity. We all have what they term in yoga and meditation practices as “monkey mind.” The morning pages give all of that a place to flow to. They provide a mechanism to rid yourself of the chatter.

Cameron adds, The morning pages are the primary tool of creative recovery. As blocked artists, we tend to criticize ourselves mercilessly. Even if we look like functioning artists to the world, we feel we never do enough and what we do isn’t right…

If you find yourself right now in a place where you are creatively stuck, commit to a three week practice of morning pages. Every day. No matter what time you get up. Without exception. Many artists before you have found that it makes a startling difference.

10. Defy your own rules. Shake it up on a small scale. (Or, if you are feeling brave, a big one.)

We aren’t meant to be stuck. Sedentary is unhealthy. Movement creates life.

One way to break a block is to create change in a completely different area than the one you are stuck in. In fact, we can make a small series of unrelated changes as a strategy to create flow and break through what is stagnant.

Could you...clean out a closet and donate old stuff? Change where you sit? Paint a wall in your office? Let the small balls hit the ground that are someone else's responsibility that you resent covering? Take someone at work a latte?

Find what you can do different and change it just to change it. Experiment. You may be surprised at how movement in one area can spark motion in the area you most care about.

11. Tell the critics to [insert expletive] off.

Criticism is an odd thing. If we didn't have it, nothing would ever get better—even creative endeavors. However, it does have the power to shut down creative flow.

Another great piece of advice from Anne Lamot is to stop writing as if your mom were looking over your shoulder. The point of art is that it needs to be authentic—and you can't do that if you listen to voices that might be judging you.

One of the challenges with criticism is that most of the time, it comes in a form that there is nothing you can do with it. The statement "that isn't very good" isn't actionable. More sophisticated versions are "you over-designed it" or "that looks dated."

Many people who can't create, criticize. (My personal theory is that they've listened to their own internal critics for so long that their natural creative flow has stopped, so criticism is the only way they can participate.)

We have a saying in my office, "No critique without contribution." If you can't put a live, viable alternative on the table, don't whittle away what's there. Because at the end of the day, a Grade B idea with Grade A execution is worth far more than the other way around. (To quote Stephen Covey.)

If you suspect that criticism is what stopped the flow, identify it and throw it out. (This may require extracting yourself from certain relationships on a permanent basis.)

And, if you feel you are not creative whatsoever...ask yourself, do you have an internal critic that stops you? Because, my friend, deep down, we were all designed to be creative. Maybe not painters or writers, but something. Find the place where you feel the flow and stop being stuck.

Take a chance. Test drive a solution.

Any action is better than no action—and it doesn't have to be big. Scan back through the strategies above and test drive the one that sticks out to you. You don't have to do it perfectly. Just take that small step.

Your art is waiting for you to re-engage.

5 Small Habits that Might Be Secretly Sabotaging You

2016-04-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

Admit it. You've wondered.

Why does that person have more money, fitness, productivity, love, success...(fill in blank with whatever you most want here)...than I do?

While we often look at our major life choices when evaluating our trajectory, it is the smaller, incremental actions that have the most impact.

Here is a look at five seemingly insignificant habits that may be secretly sabotaging you from becoming the person you most want to be.

1. Hitting the snooze alarm.

Productivity guru, Jeff Sanders, writes, "Snooze buttons are the greatest metaphor for beginning your day backward...Snoozing inadvertently becomes a reactive choice, which leads to further reactivity. When you begin the day reacting to your environment instead of proactively shaping it, you find yourself on the defensive. Everything is a fire to be put out, a problem to be solved immediately, and in a very short timespan you can find yourself overwhelmed, stressed out and behind schedule."

When our first act of the day is saying "no" to it, we start a pattern of rejection which can subtly undermine our ability to welcome the things that come our way.

Not only that, but that extra nine minutes can actually ruin the sleep you get. Robert S. Rosenberg, the medical director of the Sleep Disorders Centers of Prescott Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona is quoted as saying that when we press the snooze button we start to put ourselves through a new sleep cycle which we don't give ourselves enough time to finish, resulting in persistent grogginess throughout the day.

We can break the pattern. Decide the night before what action you are going to do first thing in the morning. Then when the alarm goes off, think about that action, put two feet on the floor, and embrace that action with gratitude.

2. Saying you are broke.

"Thoughts become things," writes Bob Proctor in You Were Born Rich. "If you see it in your mind, you will hold it in your hand."

How we view ourselves shapes our experience. The reality is that most of us who have access to computers, smart phones and the internet are rich compared to most of the world. But that isn't even the most significant negative thing about using the term . Broke is an adjective which describes a noun...yourself...which ultimately influences the way we see ourselves and impacts the way we act.

There is a difference in saying "I can't prioritize that purchase right now" and in saying that we are broke. One is a temporary condition and the other a pejorative judgment.

Tony Robbins writes, "The words we attach to our experience become our experience. Words have a biochemical effect on the body. The minute you use a word like 'devastated' you’re going to produce a very different biochemical effect than if you say, 'I’m a bit disappointed.'”

Changing our language can have a major impact. (And this works with more words than just broke.)

3. Leaving your bed unmade.

After all, you are just going to be back here in 12 hours...right?

Admiral and former Navy SEAL William H McCraven, in a commencement speech at the University of Texas states: "Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that the little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you'll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made. And a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better."

Skipping an act that takes so little time and yet has such major visual impact creates a sense that our personal space isn't worth giving effort to. And in an odd twist, we might be missing out.

Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit, "Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking with a budget. It’s not that a family meal or a tidy bed causes better grades or less frivolous spending. But somehow those initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits take hold.”

Still not convinced that making the bed is a worthwhile task? Well, it is a habit found effective in addiction recovery.

JD of Step One Recovery, writes, "The significance of bed-making lies in its symbolism. Making your bed will not actually solve all your problems and keep you off of drugs and alcohol. But making your bed every morning demonstrates a person’s willingness to do whatever it takes to get clean and sober....People in recovery will tell you that making your bed is important because it symbolizes the creation of new habits to create a new person."

4. Watching reality television.

What's the harm with a little mindless reality TV?

Well, a recent study by Bryan Gibson, PhD of Central Michigan University shows it actually increases aggression like bullying, exclusion and manipulation, and a study by the Girl Scout Research Institute shows that young female viewers "accept and expect a higher level of drama, aggression, and bullying in their own lives as well." They also become more focused on the value of outward appearance.

While it can be fun to watch some of the ridiculous scenarios that reality TV offers, the entertainment value lies in the conflict. The gossiping, competition and full-on fist fights subtly shape the way we see interactions in our own lives.

Even though a part of us knows that reality TV is anything but real, our brains pick up the patterns of interaction which influence our behavior.

Another challenge with reality TV is the time factor. While it may be relaxing to burn an hour on a show, there are other relaxing activities that have positive benefits. A conversation with a friend, a walk outdoors, prepping a meal for the next day, soaking in the bathtub or other options are absolutely free and can help you unwind and feel at home.

5. Checking Facebook before bed.

Our sleep cycle is connected to light and scientists—in studies like this one—are exploring what the bright lights from our screens are doing to our melatonin levels.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, our biological clocks are controlled by a part of the brain called the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN), a group of cells in the hypothalamus that respond to light and dark signals. From the optic nerve of the eye, light travels to the SCN, signaling the internal clock that it is time to be awake. The SCN signals to other parts of the brain that control hormones, body temperature and other functions that play a role in making us feel sleepy or awake.

Having a routine where we dim the lights closer to bedtime makes us feel sleepy, but the bright lights from our computers can confuse our brains to send the signal to be awake. So enjoy your smart phone, but start to disconnect from it an hour before you want to be asleep.

Get fired up about small changes

While the big, bold move may get all the press in getting from where we are to where we want to be, it is the small, daily things that make us who we are.

The best part? It isn't a one for one equation. Changing even one habit can spark positive change not only in one place, but in other areas of our life as well giving you exponential results.

Besides, since it is small, you can experiment to see if it really works. So try it. Stop one of these small habits for two weeks and do something different. You might be surprised by the positive result.

Forget time management. Focus on energy.

2016-04-11T05:00:00.000-05:00

Feel like no matter how many extra hours you work that you will never catch up?

Or maybe you live with the overwhelming feeling that there are simply too many demands to get done in a day.

It's easy to find ourselves barely managing the anxiety that there is not enough time.

We've been taught that our success (or failure) in this area is based on time management. And yet, everyone has the same 24 hours each day.

Why do some days seem to be wildly productive—yet others leave us feeling like we never left the finish line.

What if time is actually irrelevant?

Remember when we were a kid playing and time would fly by? Contrast that with the way we felt when our mom told us, "Clean your room!"

Time crawled.

So. Slowly.

We've all experienced how time ceases to be a factor when we are doing something we love. Minutes, hours and days can fly by when we are absorbed in a task that energizes us. When we are doing something engaging, we never notice time. We will get up early, stay up late and perform amazing feats of productivity in pursuit of it.

While time is a limited resource, energy is not. It is exponential and can be renewed. Managing our personal energy is the difference between being a high performer enjoying our life or living depleted feeling like a hamster in a wheel.

Tony Schwartz of the Energy Project writes, "We feel better and perform better when four core energy needs are met: sufficient rest, including the opportunity for intermittent renewal during the work day; feeling valued and appreciated; having the freedom to focus in an absorbed way on the highest priorities; and feeling connected to a mission or a cause greater than ourselves."

Purpose impacts our energy.

In thinking about your responsibilities right now...if you had all the time in the world to complete your task list, would you actually complete that task list?

Or if you had no time at all—such as with a terminal diagnosis—would you still do the same things with your limited hours that you are doing now?

The tasks that suck the life out of us are the ones that have lost their purpose.

Benjamin Franklin is famous for asking himself at the end of every evening, "What good have I done today?" When we have a sense that the tasks we are committed to actually matter, we are energized by their completion. (Contrast that with the TPS Reports from the movie, Office Space.)

If you were to do an "energy audit" on your schedule right now—identifying things you do that energize you and things you do that drain you, there would likely be a correlation—both high and low—in the sense of purpose you experience in those commitments. While we might consider a task "important," it isn't the same as feeling like it contributes to a "mission or cause greater than ourselves."

Calibrating our tasks with purpose, can be a big boost to our energy reserves.

Motivation is a perishable commodity. Only commit to short timelines.

If we can execute quickly—before we start to question and second-guess ourselves—then big things can happen. The faster we can get from ideation to execution, the more likely it is that we will put something out there in the universe.

There is a trend in personal planning to move from plotting out an entire year to only looking at 12 weeks at a time. Books like The 12 Week Year and planners like the Self Journal or Freedom Journal focus on executing in short timelines in order to keep our motivation high.

Why 13 weeks? Because moving quickly and creating tangible results silences our doubts.

Perfectionism, fear and insecurity chip away at ideas. The caveat is that they need a timeline. Tight planning cycles short-circuit our propensity for circular decision making.

Not only that, but 13 weeks allows us to create tighter alignment between motivation, purpose and activity. Our context continually changes. We may have once loved serving on a board, but 3 years later find we aren't in the same place that we were back then in terms of purpose. Or maybe we committed to something only to learn a few weeks later how much it drains us. Planning our commitments in 13-week increments keeps us focused on what matters most to us and minimizes getting trapped by things that drain us.

What do we do when we find that we have committed to too many things that deplete us? We have to man up and have the hard conversation. Motivation matters.

Building energy at work

Most of us respond to increasing demands at work by putting in longer hours, which takes a toll on our energy reserves: physically, mentally, and emotionally.

"When we regiment our days too severely, when we stay completely focused on one task, our minds tend to stagnate after a time." writes Ori Brafman in The Chaos Imperative, "We need white space in order to avoid becoming so task focused that we lose our creativity."

Brian P. Moran, author of the 12-Week-Year, writes, “An effective breakout block is at least three-hours long and spent on things other than work. It is time scheduled away from your business during normal business hours that you will use to refresh and reinvigorate your mind, so that when you return to work, you can engage with more focus and energy.”

Few of us have the freedom to completely own our time at our day jobs; however, we can create pockets of time where we are engaged in something that recharges us. While three hours may be ideal, 15 minutes can also have impact.

We can also start to become aware when we've hit the point of diminishing returns. If what should be a short task begins to take way too long, we need to have the courage to either engage it the next day, find someone who has more skill in it than we do, or write it off as a task that lacks purpose.

Having exponential energy takes some investment.

We would never write a $10,000 check on an account with $150 in it, but we regularly write energy checks we can’t cash. Shifting our focus from managing time to managing energy can make a big difference in how we experience our schedules.

For example, with a time-management focus, we might skip working out because it takes too much time. But in an energy-focused system we will never skip the workout because it increases our energy. Or we might get up an hour earlier each day to focus on our 'passion project' so that the rest of our day is fueled by knowing we've already accomplished something that matters to us. We might take the extra time to shop for groceries or make our lunch so that we aren't trapped in a fast-food rut.

Daily rhythms are a significant part of building personal energy. Our spiritual practices, eating habits, physical activity and relationships play a big role. But one of the most significant factors in energy management is how well we sleep.

All of us are under the drive of circadian rhythms—which influence the complex relationship between our body chemistry, timing and light. (It's the reason jet lag hits us so hard.) One of the biggest things we can do to help our bodies sleep is to wake up and go to sleep at consistent times each day—even on the weekends. If sleep is a problem for us, solving our sleep schedule has to become a priority if we ever want to have the kind of energy that makes time irrelevant.

It's not about time. It's about energy.

Shifting our focus from managing time to building energy isn't just recommended, it's essential. The thing is, deep inside we know the things that energize us and the things that drain us.

It simply takes intention to look at them.

And the courage to work it like a balance sheet to make sure we are building our energy income and eliminating the embezzlers.

Is 'busy' the new luxury brand?

2016-03-28T05:00:00.000-05:00

Have you ever overheard this conversation?

The woman next to me in Target had two kids in her cart and answered her cell phone. (This is an actual transcript:)

Oh I completely meant to call you. I'm so sorry I didn't get back.
I've been SO busy.
If it makes you feel any better, I literally have 600 unread e-mails in my inbox.
I just haven't been able to get back before now.

We've heard this conversation before. Heck, we've HAD this conversation before. There is another version of it that you might frequently hear at business lunches:

"I flew 274 days last year. "
"I have lifetime platinum status."
"I'm never quite sure which time zone I'm in."

What if "busy" has become the new social credit? What if we use it to try to shape our image just like we might with a Mercedes or a Louis Vuitton?

Can we spot a fake?

To be fair, most of the time when we say we are busy, it is a statement of fact.

The thing is, as often as we tell these stories as a way to define ourselves, they are rarely relevant to the person we tell it to.

What if the phrases we use to celebrate our busy-ness play about as well as boasting about our car, title or street address? What if rather than making people see us as valuable or important, it doesn't make people like us?

Telling someone we are "too busy" just translates that they are not a priority. But it still doesn't change the fact that we are busy. That there are more things clamoring for our time and attention than could ever possibly get done.

So why? Why are we so [insert your favorite expletive] busy?

The real reason we are so busy

Fact: the world is moving faster than when people walked everywhere. Cars and computers have ensured that "business moves at the speed of light." But our human capacity remains the same and so do our needs. We still require rest, close relationships and meaningful work.

So why do we live our lives so filled past capacity? Why have we lost control of our schedules? Is it our modern world? Our priorities?

The real reason we are "crazy-busy" is that we are afraid not to be. We are scared of what people will think of us if we do what we really want to do with our time. We judge ourselves equating rest with weakness and fear others feel the same. We lie and give our time to things that aren't meaningful to us because we are terrified of what might happen if we said what we are really thinking:

"I don't want to go to this event."
"Time with you drains me."
"Delivering what you are asking takes more energy than I have to give."
"No. I don't want to do that."

We will be judged if we don't deliver on others expectations. There is no way around it, but even if we get comfortable with that, we don't seem to be able to overcome how we judge ourselves.

The secret to breaking free of crazy-busy

If being crazy-busy makes us feel bad, then we are certain that not being crazy-busy will make us feel worse.

After all, we judge ourselves based on how close we are to our ideal of what is possible. Our self-worth is tied to our perception of ourselves and others.

The key to breaking free of crazy-busy?

It has to do with whether we get our self-worth from the externals or cultivate it from the internals.

If we require a luxury watch to feel good about ourselves, then there is a good chance that we get our value from externals. If our concept of self is formed exclusively by the responses of others then we have outsourced our soul.

Getting our worth from the externals will ensure we stay crazy-busy.

We will do things to impress others.
Commit to things we don't want to do to avoid judgment.
Shop for things to make us feel worthy.
Give our time to another person's value systems rather than choosing what is meaningful to us so that they will deem us worthy.

How do we shift from externals to internals?

If it were easy to stop getting our significance from external sources, the whole world would be doing it. Instead it takes intention. We have to make a deliberate choice to step out of the clamor and spend time with our souls.

Ever wonder why so many people have embraced meditation in our current culture? Because it is an excellent practice for transitioning from externals to internals. Silence gives us no choice but to hear what is going on inside of us. It reveals the longings of our heart, the pain we haven't dealt with, the need inside of us to connect to something real.

Sadly, even much of our religious practice has fed into the crazy-busy cycle as if God were keeping tally in the same way we do. Instead of creating space to connect, it has resulted in a longer list of things to do (or things to feel bad about not doing.)

While our world moves fast, our souls take time. Discovering who we are, what we want, and the love and faith that gives us the ability to see what is essential doesn't happen without carving space for it.

Want to do something radical and crazy?

Say no to tomorrow.

Don't wait for your next day off.

Use your PTO, ask if the kids can stay with grandma, let all the things go left undone and take a walk in nature. If it is raining, then curl up in a secluded corner of your public library, or a chapel, or a Starbucks. (Get out of your office or house. Your body is accustomed to doing tasks in there.)

Commit to quiet. To prayer. To thinking. To space.

Spend a day by yourself of radical "not busy" and see what it does for your soul.

You might just discover your internal worth.

And the luxury brand of "busy" might be revealed for what it is. A cheap knockoff.

Why Finding our Passion is Overrated. (What to find Instead)

2016-03-14T05:00:00.000-05:00

Ever get tired of hearing people say that all you have to do is "find your passion?"

Are you secretly annoyed by Instagram posts of hopeful sunrises with this mandate in beautiful typography?

Or maybe you just feel like the only person who hasn't a clue of what your passion is. (And you are pretty sure that no one is going to pay you to read that obscure comic that you love that no one else seems to get. )

The encouragement to "find your passion" is doled out as career advice, in motivational speeches, at counseling sessions and as the title of magazine quizzes. Worse, it is venerated as a golden key that will open the door to the life we want.

What if finding our passion is overrated? What if there are better things to find instead?

The overlooked reason "find your passion" is misleading.

Passion—by definition—is a strong and barely controllable emotion. It's the word we use when we get caught up in romance and can have no other thought but when we will next see the object of our affection.

The challenge is that we have co-opted that word to mean the one thing we are meant to do in life that we truly love. Other words like calling or purpose or dharma lack the same emotional punch. They aren't all-consuming.

(We already have a term for people consumed with their jobs. It's workaholic.)

The assumption is that if we could just find that one perfect thing that we love the most, that it will become our career, our purpose and our joy of living.

But what if conventional wisdom is all wrong?

What if part of the reason we are frustrated by trying to "find our passion" is that it doesn't exist?

Here are three less elusive pursuits, that are way more effective in creating an engaged life:

Remember when as a kid, everything was interesting?

Were you startled the first time you saw a frog jump? Did you ever push a button just to see what it would do? We started out life being curious. And it was fun.

Eat, Pray, Love author, Elizabeth Gilbert shares this perspective. "Passion is rare; passion is a one-night-stand. Passion is hot, it burns. Every day, you can't access that." Gilbert continues, "Follow your curiosity. It might lead you to your passion or it might not. You might get nothing out of it at all except a beautiful, long life where all you did was follow your gorgeous curiosity."

Courtney Carver of Be More with Less also supports abandoning the search for passion to dance with curiosity. "Passions and interests change over time, so instead of trying to fulfill the goal of discovering that one thing you are meant to do, think about what you like to do or what sounds interesting...Give up the passion-seeking and give yourself permission to be curious. Maybe there is something that you’d like to learn more about, but because it doesn’t fit the 'find your passion' model, you passed it by. Chances are you’ve dismissed good ideas and interests because you didn’t think you were passionate enough. Don’t let the way other people define passion and a meaningful life dictate what means most to you."

At the very least, increasing your curiosity might make you more attractive. Curious people are fun to be with. They try things. They wind up places others don’t, simply because they want to see what is down that road. Life interests them. Not only that, but curious people are rarely arrogant, because they don’t pretend to know. They embrace the joy of finding out.

What if awakening our own inner curiosity is a much more accessible goal than finding some strong emotion about what what we want to do in life? Dorothy Parker once wrote, “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

Write off passion and respond to your point of pain.

We all have points of pain. For many of us, it is physical. Others emotional. For some, it can be a full-fledged crisis.

People take action around relieving pain. (It's the reason marketers focus on identifying our points of pain and tailor their advertising campaigns to them.) There is motivation to it.

The problem with the quest to 'find our passion' completely ignores the places where we hurt. And yet...

Often, the core purpose of our lives—the thing that connects us with others and winds up producing the most satisfaction—is connected to our point of pain. (tweet this)

What if instead of searching for elusive passion, we identified our biggest point of pain and used it to create forward motion?

Everyone from the person who is anguished over animal abuse and gives their time to a rescue organization, to the neglect survivor who breaks free to inspire others with a vibrant life, to the alcoholic serving as a sponsor in AA, has responded to their point of pain.

Whether we have overcome our pain or are smack in the middle of it, there is power in using it with purpose. Viktor Frankl, famously wrote, "If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering."

Skip the search for passion. Transform pain into purpose. (tweet this)

Have a hint of something you might like to try? Arrange a small experiment.

In a lab, we can try things. And if they blow up? Oh well, log that as one more thing NOT to do.

And the results of these experiments? They produce innovation. They create breakthroughs.

Every major thing that makes our lives better happened because someone was willing to try something that had never been tried before.

We've been told that we need a well-researched 20-year plan for our lives. But quite frankly, even the business world is becoming less enamored with long-term strategy documents. When we are in a static environment, plans can be great. But life continually changes. There are variables we can't see coming which means the plan we make today, might be highly irrelevant two years from now.

Eric Ries, author of the book, The Lean Startup, teaches small experiments as a way of life for entrepreneurs who want to figure out what works in the marketplace. Too many start-ups have failed because they invest all of their resources in a big idea that no one wants to buy. Ries writes, "This is one of the most important lessons of the scientific method: if you cannot fail, you cannot learn. The Lean Startup methodology re-conceives a startup's efforts as experiments that test its strategy to see which parts are brilliant and which are crazy."

This idea that we can use small experiments to help us shape strategy in real time works not only in business, but also in life.

The best part is that all you need to run a small experiment is a hint of something you might like to do. And you know what? You don't even have to be passionate about it.

We can freely neglect passion and take small ideas for test drives.

Don't waste time waiting for some emotion that may not come

I don't know about you, but I don't want to waste my time taking quizzes and reading blog posts hoping that somebody else will help me "find my passion."

I would much rather do things that make for a more interesting, more meaningful life—one I can enjoy living.

So, close this browser window and go awaken your curiosity, get to work on the pain, or start a small experiment.

Your life is waiting!

The Ultimate Guide to Visual Journaling for Non-Artists

2016-02-29T05:00:00.000-06:00

Ever see someone in a meeting with a notebook taking visual notes and think--I wish I could do that? Or maybe you've just seen visual journals on Pinterest and have found yourself a little bit jealous.

Think you have to be an artist to keep a visual journal? You are dead wrong.

This post covers the tips, tricks and techniques for keeping a visual journal in a way that doesn't care about artistic talent or sloppy handwriting. And it all starts with putting information on a page.

[UPDATE: There is now a whole site on this topic at yourvisualjournal.com]

Get started. Steal a layout technique.

If you've ever read a magazine, you've seen layout techniques. Magazines are a visual medium and they use devices like headlines, subheadings, callout boxes, columns and divider graphics to promote some pieces of information and demote other details on a page.

In visual journals (also called art journals, creative journals or graphic journals), you can leverage the same techniques. Here are some of the possibilities:

Headlines and Subheadings

In a magazine layout, a headline gives the overall topic that all of the rest of the information on the page is related to. That allows us to flip through multiple pages and either find the article we are looking for or browse topics to find where we want to stop and read.

The headline text is usually bigger and bolder than other elements on the page so that it is the first thing you see. In visual journaling, the headline serves the same purpose. You simply use a few words (or a single word) to describe what the page, spread or next few pages will be about, then use techniques to make it stand out. Ways to make a headline pop:

Make it big.
Write it with a thick pen or marker.
Write it in bubble letters.
Highlight it.
Write the letters first in black then outline it in a different color.
Embellish the letters with dots, serifs or other differentiators.

Like headings, subheadings are major points of information that usually have some smaller text beneath them. You can use the same techniques that you use for headers, but on a lesser scale. You might even choose to underline your subheads or add stars, arrows or bullet points to promote them over the general text on the page.

Block Quotes and Callout Boxes

Another magazine technique is to call attention to a small piece of information using block quotes and callout boxes. Both are short strings of text set in larger type than the rest of the page in order to attract attention and to add some visual interest to the page. Here are some approaches for creating block quotes and callout boxes:

Write the text outside of the flow of the rest of the text in larger letters.
Write the text in all caps.
Draw a thick line above and below the block quote text.
Draw large quote symbols around the block quote.
Use a different color to draw a box, circle, cloud or large brackets around the quote text.
Draw a vertical line to the left of the called out text.

Body text

While some graphic journals are made up only of headlines and some bullet points, others contain narrative or “body” text. This is the part that is going to be extremely personal. Don’t get hung up in the neatness of your handwriting or whether it is straight or not. Handwriting is as unique an identifier as a fingerprint. While you can work toward legibility if you like, the thing about a journal is that its text is for you—like writing a book for yourself.

Body text can flow across the full page like a letter or can be written in columns like in a magazine.

One technique that will make your body text consistently easy to follow is to use the same ink color for it throughout your visual journal. While headings, subheadings, block quotes and callout boxes may leverage different colors to make them pop, body text is the “steady Eddie” in the background. Make it constant so it is easy for your eye to track the flow.

Borders and Text Dividers

Borders and text dividers can give a page character. They can be as simple and unobtrusive as a couple of dashes on either side of a page number at the bottom of a page to as complex as a full graphic border running around the page.

The main function of borders and text dividers is to make a page more visually interesting. Here are some techniques for creating them:

Use a horizontal double line, bold line, dashed, hatched or dotted line to end an incomplete page before you start a new topic with a new headline.
Use a vertical line to separate columns of body text.
Purchase scrapbooking border tape and add to the edges of your pages.
Do an image search for “page borders” to get inspiration.

Make it more visual—no art skill required.

Using the layout techniques above is enough to make your journal visual. However, if you want to take it to the next level, you can begin to add graphics. (And you don’t even have to be able to draw to create them.)

Leave room

If you are going to include graphics in your visual journal, you will need to create some space for them. It is likely that you will add the graphic embellishments after you capture the information. There are a few methods for leaving room for graphics:

Leave the facing page of the spread completely blank. Even if you don’t plan to fill it with a large graphic, a small graphic with a lot of white space around it can be really nice.

Incorporate an empty “box” into your layout.

Wrap your text. The easiest way to create wrap text while journaling is to lay a piece of cardboard (whatever is handy…business card, bar coaster, mason jar lid, etc) over a part of the page to block it when you are writing so that you have space later to come back and add a graphic.

Where to get graphic content

Consider that magazines get their visual content from somewhere else—usually a photographer or illustrator. Since journals are for an audience of one, you don’t have to be super picky about where you get your content. Print or clip any image that inspires you and size it to fit the blank space. This can come from:

A magazine or newsletter.
Printout from an online image search.
Photo from your phone.
Your kids drawings.
Ephemera like ticket stubs, fortunes from cookies, tea bag tags, wine bottle labels, cut out from a cereal box or envelope, etc.
Bad doodles.
Scrapbooking stickers.

There are a wide variety of adhesives to fix your materials into the space. Double stick tape is particularly effective and easy to find. Glue sticks don't often last over the long haul, unless you purchase one specifically made for scrapbooking. Other adhesives that can be fun to play with are photo corners and sticky dots.

Practice bad doodles

Anyone can draw basic shapes—even if they do it poorly. Stick figures and other simple lines and shapes can be used to communicate ideas. Remember that your journal is for you.

There is a website called TheNounProject.com that is a catalog of thousands of nouns represented as simple icons. Search for the idea you want to communicate and see what’s there. Then doodle it. Terribly. This is about creating a memory device—not something that will be auctioned at Sotheby’s.

Build in a Navigation System

One of the great ideas to come out of the Bullet Journal system is the technique of numbering all the pages in your journal before you start capturing information. In the Bullet Journal system, you leave the first few pages of the journal blank so that you can create a table of contents as you go. The number of blank pages needed is dependent on the size of your writing and the number of pages in the journal. As you create new journal pages, list them in the table of contents and note the page number. It creates a fantastic reference when you are looking for “that page” later.

Pick a Notebook

Anything can become your visual journal notebook, a three ring binder, a spiral, a blank book… But there are companies that make blank books just for the purpose of journaling. They can run from $12 - over $100 depending on the features such as leather covers, pockets, the type and weight of the paper...

Here is a look at some of the most popular brands of notebooks for visual journalers.

Moleskine.

The Moleskine brand has been around since before Henry David Thoreau. There are five sizes from pocket to A4 and you can choose hardcover or soft, and lined, gridded or blank paper, writing or sketch paper. Some of the features that make the Moleskine particularly nice are the elastic band that holds the notebook shut, the ribbon page marker and that some versions come with a pocket to allow you to stash smaller pieces of paper. They are nice while being affordable (under $20) and depending on how prolific you are that can be a really good thing if you are purchasing multiple journals a year. They are also widely available at major bookstore chains.

Midori Traveler’s Notebook.

The Midori notebooks are designed to be carried with your passport or in a pocket. With the Midori notebook you choose a cover and then put customized inserts into them. The paper is luxurious and comes in blank, grid or lined. There are also preprinted planner inserts and sketch weight paper available along with bands or ties to hold the notebooks closed.

Field Notes.

The Field Notes brand journals are designed to be pocket sized: 3.5 x 5.5 inches. Though simple in design, the notebooks are quality construction and come in a variety of colors and specialty cover designs. They also come in three packs.

Calepino.

If you want some European flair, Calepino is like the French Field Notes. The simple notebooks have a heavy cover, distinctive branding and cleanly cut corners. Also made to be pocket sized, the Calepinos are easy to carry and often purchased in multi-packs.

Ciak.

Another European brand is the Italian-made, Ciak. The Ciak has different “models” like the Classic, Diary, Duo, Golf, Pitti, and Travel. They come in a variety of cover colors and feature quality handmade construction.

Palomino Blackwing Slate.

While Palomino makes journals in a wide variety of styles and sizes—some with deluxe leather covers—the Blackwing Slate is the companion to the Blackwing pencil and the paper is optimized for pencil writing or sketching. The 8.5 x 5 notebook features a loop to hold the pencil against the journal along the spine.

Oberon.

Oberon journals are deluxe embossed leather covers into which you insert thick, diary-style, hardcover journal inserts. Of all of the brands listed here, these have the most personality in terms of cover design and while the initial journal purchase with a cover is expensive (between $50 to $100), the inserts run only $10.

Miquelrius.

Miquelrius has leather-look journals in two sizes and the price is less than $10 each. The bendable covers make this notebook a workhorse and it has a small grid patter making it perfect for writing and drawing.

Strathmore's Visual Journal.

The Visual Journal is a simple spiral notebook of art paper with a thick cardboard cover. At less than $8, it is an incredibly affordable option for beginners.

Get some writing tools.

Black Pens and Markers.

Most permanent markers—like the Sharpie—will bleed through all but the thickest of journal paper. Here are some other pens you might consider:

Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pens come in different sizes including fine, medium and big brush.
Precise Rolling Ball Pen comes in fine and extra fine and is popular for its dark ink and even flow. (Note that as wonderful as they are to write with, they often leak after being on an airplane.)
Sakura’s Pigma Sensei Pens are sized by the millimeter of the nib. They feature dark, wet, black ink that makes text pop.
Yasumoto’s Liquid Stylist has a dense, smooth flowing ink that is easy to write with.
Pentel Sign Pens are popular for signatures because of their big, sweeping strokes.

Colored Pens and Pencils.

While many people keep monochromatic visual journals, adding color can really give it pop. Try some of these tools.

Prismacolor Colored Pencils. Once you’ve used them you know why they are worth the extra money. The pencils lay down a lot of color on the paper and unlike markers, won’t bleed through the page.
Paper Mate’s Ink Joy Pens. These colored ink pens write thin colored lines effortlessly and are simply fun to play with. The best part? They are really affordable!
Crayola Crayons. Remember the joy of a new box of crayons? You can experience it again. They are cheap and lay color on paper just as well as you remember.
Tombow Brush Markers. If you are working with sketch weight paper in your journal, you may want to try Tombow brush markers. There are tons of YouTube videos demonstrating techniques and people love them for the way the inks blend and that the brush marker allows you to paint on the color or vary your stroke.

So now that you have a journal, what do you use it for?

Journals get used for everything from:

writing down ideas.
keeping notes from meetings.
travel logs.
emotional processing
brain dumps.
praying in color.
managing tasks and to-do lists.
vision boarding & goal setting
day planning.

With visual journaling, the choice is up to you but one of the most effective ways to use it is to carry it with you everywhere and record anything that you want to remember later. With practice, creating layouts in real-time becomes easy. You learn the pages of your notebook and it becomes easy to record what you want you want to record.

Journaling is an adventure in imperfection and the more you contribute to your visual journal the more you will learn and improve your technique. Focus on quantity of entries rather than quality. And if you are truly nervous about it—start cheap. Get an inexpensive notebook and plan to throw it away once you are done. The process is fun no matter what the result.

Get inspired.

This blog post launched a whole new website for me. If you want to go deep with this practice, check out yourvisualjournal.com for specific tips to inspire your own visual journaling practice.

You might like the articles How to Sketchnote With No Artistic Ability at All and The Ultimate Guide for Learning to Art Journal,

When Positive Thinking isn't Enough

2016-02-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ever experience a devastating loss only to be told, “Smile. It will be okay?”

It feels like a slap to have someone pour a big jar of happy over you when suffering from a broken heart, diagnosed with cancer, experiencing a critical financial setback, or dealing with a death.

All of us want to “get back to happy” when a life event causes us to suffer, but in those deep, human, painful moments, we often can’t even remember what happy feels like.

Normal life makes us feel disconnected. And the more positive the messages thrown at us—whether by well-meaning friends, self-help books, or quippy Facebook memes—the message seems flat. Like some big conspiracy stamped with round grinning yellow balls.

This idea that we can simply think our way out of suffering is pervasive in our culture, and while there is demonstrable evidence that people who think more positively are healthier and happier, there are places where it simply breaks down.

After all, if we were able to bootstrap our own positive thinking, we would do it already. Are we really just not trying hard enough?

What if there isn’t actually anything wrong with you?

We often attempt to combat depression like we do with most problems. We try to fix it. Except the challenge is that the thing we want to fix is us—which usually leads to us simply feeling more trapped as our brains tell us to quit screwing up and get back to “normal.”

When we were kids, we didn’t have this problem. Sadness was an appropriate response whenever something bad happened to us. We cried freely whenever we were disappointed, felt pain or experienced loss and never judged ourselves in the process.

The authors of the book, The Mindful Way through Depression state, “For most of us, depression starts as a reaction to a tragedy or a reversal in life. The events that are particularly likely to produce depression are losses, humiliations, and defeats that leave us feeling trapped by our circumstances.”

Most of the things that cause us the deepest pain are those that touch our sense of safety or our identity. For example, a wife who finds out her husband has a pornography problem may initially respond with, “that jerk!” or “what a liar!” but as the deeper thoughts set in, they run more along the lines of, “I am not enough” or “I am not worthy of love.” It isn’t the external action that causes pain; it is our internal thoughts about the meaning of it. Those identity-chipping ideas produce sadness because what we believe about ourselves has a major impact on our emotions.

Our guidance counselors lied to us—self-esteem is a myth

Ever watch a reality TV talent competition where the winner of the prize says something like “I just believed in myself?” Did that person have a bigger belief than all of the other people on the competition who tried but did not get the same result?

Was their thinking demonstrably more positive than the second and third runner ups?

We form our thoughts about ourselves from the reactions of others. When a baby plays with her father and he points to her tiny nose and then his larger one and says “nose”, the baby isn’t learning that her father has a nose, she is learning that she has a nose.

This external data gathering to form our identity goes on not only through adolescence but into adulthood. We process the messages we receive and make judgments about our worth and value which can alternately make us feel terrible when the evidence is bad and amazing when it is good.

What if we could get off that treadmill?

You may have heard the terms convergent thinking and divergent thinking. Convergent thinking is pouring all of our resources into finding one, right answer. But divergent thinking is a thought process that generates creative ideas by exploring a variety of possible solutions. It is the mode we are in when we are brainstorming.

What if divergent thinking is a more useful tool than convergent thinking when it comes to our identity? While convergent thinking is very useful on standardized tests or solving an algebra problem, we are not a linear problem to be solved. Taking a factory approach to try to find the broken widget and get an appropriate substitute can’t work with our psyche. We are quantum in nature—full of love, light, dreams and possibility.

Kathryn Schulz, author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error, has a brilliant illustration in her TED Talk. She asks the audience how it feels to be wrong. They shout out a few answers…embarrassed, failure, just feels bad, etc. She pauses and says, "No. That's how it feels to find out you are wrong. Being wrong feels exactly like being right."

No matter how true our current identity feels, we don’t always see ourselves accurately. There is a world of possibility in who we can be. (tweet this)

We all have identity hang-ups based on culture, circumstance, and family of origin, but while we are this moment at a fixed point in time, we don’t have to stay here. There are multiple paths forward. We aren’t confined by who or what we’ve been before.

Why just “thinking happy” isn’t enough

There is a chemical and physiological component to our emotions. Neuroscientist, Candace Pert writes, “Most psychologists treat the mind as disembodied, a phenomenon with little or no connection to the physical body. Conversely, physicians treat the body with no regard to the mind or the emotions. But the body and mind are not separate, and we cannot treat one without the other.”

Many times we can ignore the positive thinking all together and just get to positive doing. After losing her husband Mitch in 2009, Michele Steinke-Baumgard turned to exercise as an outlet for grief and a way to handle stress. Michelle found it so powerful that she eventually quit her corporate job to become a fitness trainer. Her blog, One Fit Widow details life on the other side of loss and the role that working out played in the healing process. Steinke-Baumgard isn’t the only one to discover the value of “positive doing.” We don’t have to slap a positive spin on anything in our minds. We just have to take the next positive step.

How we see ourselves can be influenced by our daily practices. Small, daily habits influence the way we see ourselves because the actions create evidence about who we are that we believe. (tweet this)

Many self-help books emphasize the positive impact of everything from journaling, to yoga, to gratitude and the reality is that these things help because they aren’t about thinking—they are about doing. We have the power to positively influence the mind through the body. We don’t have to wait for other people to hand us their validation. We don’t have to sit around saying affirmations to ourselves in a mirror trying desperately to develop positive thoughts. We wind up creating them through our action.

Move from positive thinking to positive doing

While we can’t always control our thoughts, we do have major control over our hands and feet. What we do—how we spend our time—can influence our thoughts. How do we know if something qualifies as positive action? Well, usually by the way it makes us feel. Handing a pair of gloves to a homeless person who isn’t wearing any on a freezing day, usually feels pretty good. It impacts our mood. It changes who we see in the mirror. And while a major life crisis might make it harder to enjoy the activities we used to, taking time to do small things that bring comfort to ourselves or others has value. And all of those little positive actions can build cumulative effect.

Depression is characterized by its paralysis. We have the power to break the gridlock with small defiant acts of forward motion. (tweet this)

What happens when we move from trying to generate positive thinking to implementing positive doing? Well, as it turns out, our thinking changes to become more positive. We just cleverly use our body to make it so.

Dare to take a small, defiant step

When we experience pain, sometimes the hardest thing to own is that healing takes place on a timeline. We so desperately want our fairy godmother to come wave her wand and bail us out. But we aren’t powerless to impact the timeline. We can keep ourselves from getting stuck.

What does a small, defiant step look like?

Any positive thing that feels like motion. It could be as simple as stepping outside to feel the sun on your face or as complex as starting a training regime. The best part is that you choose and then you move. And when your brain says that you shouldn’t, you simply tell it to positively, “shut up!”

Simple beauty hack? Coconut oil and a Scentsy warmer

2016-02-18T05:00:00.000-06:00

Since I've been using my essential oil diffuser, my beautiful Scentsy warmer had been downgraded to night light status. That is, until a few months ago.

Like many people, I'm sensitive to beauty products with harsh chemicals and have found that natural oils often perform better than their commercial counterparts. Coconut oil used alone is a popular moisturizer, but I've recently discovered that heating the coconut oil in the Scentsy warmer makes it a fantastic makeup remover when paired with a cotton pad.

Simply melt the coconut oil in the warmer. (It takes a few minutes.) Then dip the cotton pad and swab off foundation, mascara, lipstick...the works. It is more effective than any makeup remover I've used to date. In the morning, using the same routine on clean skin leaves it really soft without stripping it like soap.

Not only that, but the warm coconut oil makes a great body moisturizer after a bath or shower and feels nice to apply since it is heated. (A quick caution, the temperature isn't regulated on the warmer, so make sure to test the oil to confirm it isn't too hot before applying. If it is too hot to use, simply turn off the lamp and give it a few minutes to cool down. It won't take long.)

To repurpose your warmer, you can clean out the old scented wax by heating it up and wiping with cotton balls. (If you have a big cotton puff from a vitamin jar that works even better.)

I always feel like I'm doing something really good for myself when I'm able to switch out a commercial product for a natural one. After all, our bodies absorb what we put on them. We even have a medical term for it—transdermal drug delivery. It's the principle by which birth control and nicotine patches work.

Deborah Burns, CEO of sumbody cites a study in her article for the Huffington Post that shows that while there may be some chemicals in our beauty and hygiene products that are too large to enter our bloodstream, many are small enough to penetrate. She also advises that we are most at risk for products that we leave on the body (like moisturizers and body lotions).

The best part? Organic coconut oil—while it may seem expensive for cooking—is an absolute steal as a high grade cleanser and moisturizer. So, repurpose your candle wax warmer. Your skin will thank you!

Living in possibility

2016-02-16T05:00:00.000-06:00

When we engage the Spirit, there is possibility.

But it is scary for us to walk into possibility. So much safer just to follow the rules.

So many times we stand behind some line we believe is etched in concrete. It makes our lives feel more like waiting at the DMV than one of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness...

There is more. But we have to step through our fear to embrace possibility. We have to be willing to let go of the ways we are used to seeing ourselves and release the old stories we keep replaying in our heads.

If we feel "stuck" maybe it is because we are.

Getting "unstuck" requires action on our part.

We may have to break some old rules. Or let go of some old stories.

It takes a mix of faith and discipline to step into possibility. But we only get one life. And no one wants to live it as if we are waiting at the DMV.

How purchasing a planner made me set an audacious goal...

2016-02-08T05:05:00.000-06:00

It started out when I was shopping planners online. I've been Bullet Journaling but wanted to testdrive something with more framework.

The inspirational quotes, focus on gratitude an feedback loops of the Self Journal appealed to me so I invested in the Kickstarter.

When it arrive late in December, I took myself out for vegan breakfast to begin setting it up and was disappointed to see that it only ran for 13-weeks. You see the point I missed in the scanning of the Kickstarter campaign was that the Self Journal is designed to have you focus on a single big goal every 13-weeks, the align everything around achieving that goal.

Um....what kind of goal could I possibly achieve in 13 weeks that would require a whole journal?

My friend Dara-the-Courageous had just talked with me about how she just started running this year and how much she loved it. Dara made it sound fun. And because Dara is a badass, I decided I wanted to be a badass too, and I knew that there was a Couch-to-5k app that I could use to help me reach my goal.

And so, I set my 13 week goal to run a 5k.

During the time I sat down with the journal, I had never run in my life.

What was I thinking?

There is something about making yourself do things where there is a high probability for failure. Dara and I signed up for the 5k and I still don't know if I'll be able to run the whole thing. I'm in Week 6 of C25k and I still don't know.

This endeavor has engaged every insecurity I've ever had about not being an athlete. Every day I train, I feel like I'm going to fail. That I won't be able to do it. And I know how ridiculous that sounds. 5k to a runner isn't even that far.

Many of the days are "ugly runs" where I feel like I'm going to die and never be able to pull this off. Other days I feel really good about the progress I've made and enjoy the sense of accomplishment at the end.

I've been logging everything in the Self Journal. I've posted pictures inside of women crossing finish lines for inspiration.

But mostly, I've just been doing the training. And if I can't get through the workout, I just do it again on the next training day until I complete it. (Like video games when it takes a few times to get past a level.)

I don't know if I'll ever be a "real runner." And it has been a huge learning experience to realize how often what someone says (like advice about how I "should" be progressing) can get in my head and discourage me. I've also learned the role that sleep, hydration, music and mental attitude play in my being able to complete a workout.

I'm finding there is value in trying things where there is a big chance I might not succeed. That it stretches me to do things where not only might I fail, but that I might fail in front of people. I don't know if I'll be able to run all the way to the finish line, but I do know this, I'm not going to fail to show up. Something in me has to.

For more on journaling, check out yourvisualjounal.com.

How to simplify your schedule - even if you don't have time to think about it

2016-02-01T04:30:00.000-06:00

Here’s a sobering thought:

Most people don't run their schedule. Their schedule runs them.

Why?

Because we often make decisions about our time based on our fear of criticism or a need for busyness, rather than choosing our most significant priorities.

This post focuses on four key steps to take back our schedules so that we can focus our time on what matters most.

Are silos making you miss important deadlines?

Most of us live compartmentalized lives. We have responsibilities at work, school, the organizations we serve, our families—not to mention our personal lives. Have you ever missed an important deadline because you were in "work mode" and forgot about something in "family mode?"

Step 1: Get rid of the silos.

Whatever system we choose for keeping track of our schedule becomes more effective if it is used to keep track of our entire life rather than maintaining multiple systems which focus on individual elements of it. After all, responsibilities often overflow the boundaries of their silos. Having one place that our mind trusts to keep track of all of it—whether digital or handwritten—can make a big difference in how effective we are at simplifying our lives.

Do you have a clear idea of what is most important to you?

If we don't have a clear idea of what we want in our lives, then it is hard to make decisions on where to invest our time. Want more time with family? To advance a career? To pursue an artistic dream? Time is a resource that—like money—can make things happen. But without a clear picture of what we most want, we lack guidelines for making decisions about what we give our time to when we are on the spot to make a decision about time. (Sort of like making an impulse buy when we don't have a budget, then realizing we don't have enough to pay the rent when it comes due.)

Step 2: Determine what you want.

Once we get clear on what we want, we can allocate time to it. For example, if we want to run a marathon, then we need blocks of time where we train. Or if we want a college degree, then we have to take the classes. While items with official schedules (like college classes) are often easy to defend, we have to become just as good at defending blocks of time when there isn't an official schedule. For example, an artist needs blocks of time to create that are defended in the same way an executive would protect a meeting with an important client.

Is there an "energy tax" to items in your schedule?

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given about simplifying my schedule was from my mentor, Phill Martin, who gave me homework to perform an "energy audit" on my time. He said that he and his wife, Gloria, realized that their day jobs were so demanding that they couldn't afford to give time to a single activity outside of work hours that took more energy than it gave.

Step 3: Perform an energy audit on your schedule.

Once you have gotten all of your time commitments recorded in a single place, look at each activity and determine if it energizes you or drains you. This is the part that requires a little ruthlessness if we are serious about simplifying our schedule. How many things do we spend time on that are done because we are afraid of what someone else might think or say? Fear of criticism is a terrible thing to determine how we spend our time. Take a hard look at any of your activities that have an "energy tax" and cut them—even if it requires you to have a difficult conversation. While some things can't be cut—like caring for a sick mother or leading a problematic project at work—we can manage the "energy tax" of those items by making sure we have sufficient time allocated for energy-giving activities to help our internal accounts balance.

Is culture impacting your experience of time?

Much of our feeling of a lack of time is based on a cultural perception. It leaks out in our language. When is the last time you told someone you couldn't do something you wanted to do because you were too busy? Journalist, Jan Bruce, says that if you ask someone how they are, they’re more likely to respond with “busy” than “fine.” This cultural obsession with "a lack of time" is driving all of us to treat time as if there is never enough and to judge our worth based on how packed our schedules are. Researcher, Brene Brown has famously said that, "Exhaustion shouldn't be a status symbol."

Step 4: Change your language around time.

The way we experience time can be largely a mental construct. It's the reason time moves quickly when we are doing something we enjoy and slowly when we are faced with a daunting task. We can "game the system" by changing the way we talk about time so that it feels more expansive. So, the next time someone asks how we are, we can refuse to answer with the common phrase "I'm busy," After all, everyone has the same amount of time, and everyone has to make decisions about how they spend it. By changing the way we think and talk about time, we can actually shift our perception and create some breathing room.

We can do this.

Taking responsibility for intentionally allocating our time can change our lives from one spent playing catch-up to one of achieving the things most important to us. Even just taking one of these steps can have a major impact on our experience.

The best part? Once we've taken steps to simplify our schedule, we become free to pursue the things that really matter to us. It's empowering to own our decisions about how we spend our time.

Do we need ownership or access?

2016-01-27T05:00:00.001-06:00

I own a car.

Why? Because I drive it. Every day.

But what if I didn't drive it every day? What if I lived in Manhattan or Seattle and only really used it on the weekends? Would it make more sense to rent a car when I needed one? Or to use Uber? Or Car2Go?

Sometimes, it makes sense to own things. And other times, we only need access.

For example, do we really need to own movies when we have Netflix? Well, if it is a workout video I use daily, sure. I should own it. But if it is a movie that I simply enjoyed and might watch once or twice again over the next few years, then no. I don't need to own it.

There are some things we own through habit. We are used to collecting or buying.

I was confronted with this when I was walking near the beach in Mexico last weekend. There were so many things sold by vendors that attracted me...colorful dresses, beach art, floppy hats....all of the things that we buy on vacation because they capture the feel of the moment that we never use in our real lives back home.

I wonder if we buy because we are afraid there won't be any more other wonderful moments...that this "deal" will never come again...that...well, there are probably a host of "thats."

Part of the fascination of House Hunters International is that we are fascinated with the possibility of ownership, but I wonder how much we really need to own at all. Ownership gives us access any time we want, but it comes with responsibilities. Taxes, maintenance, upkeep...

What if we could own less and access more? What if by minimizing our possession we would free up resources to be able to enjoy things and places in the now, without having to lock them up for the future?

I do know this. Before I buy things, I am starting to ask myself if I need ownership or access. It has made a difference in the things I acquire.