Think about the saying, “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” It means you woke up in a bad mood, which is basically a bad attitude. And that attitude can affected the whole day and the results  or the experiences you have during that 24-hour period.

I’ve known this concept for a long time and apply it in sessions with my clients. I’m a very positive person who always believes “there is a way” or that challenges can be turned into opportunities. However, I had a “lapse” and allowed my attitude to become negative briefly last week. While working on my current book project  I got frustrated and lost confidence. I felt depressed and unsure, and I found myself struggling for two days to revise one chapter. Interestingly, that chapter—the first one— included all the main concepts in the book and was actually missing one key concept: attitude! Once I figured that out, the pieces of the chapter feel into place, and my attitude changed. Then work started flowing more smoothly. And I got it! It took realizing I needed to include the importance of a positive attitude for achieving positive results in my book to remind me I needed to do the same in my life.

Attitude is a choice.  According to Dr. Alan Zimmerman, author of Pivot, only 85 percent of the U.S. population chooses to have a positive attitude—but it can make the difference between success and failure. To a huge degree, your attitude is based upon your beliefs. Beliefs affect your decisions. Decisions then affect your actions, which affect your results.

In a report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Michael F. Scheier, a psychologist at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, wrote that optimists tend to respond to disappointments, such as being rejected by a literary agent or losing a job, by formulating a plan of action and asking other people for help and advice. On the other hand, pessimists more often react to the same event by trying to ignoring it or assuming they can do nothing to change their results. In a similar study, Martin Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that pessimists tend to construe bad events, such as a failed marriage or not getting a raise, as the result of personal deficits that will plague them forever in every aspect of their personal and professional lives. Optimists see the same events as due to mistakes remedied by discovering and making the necessary changes.

If you look at these studies and the responses described you will see that optimists believe events, situations or personal faults or deficiencies can be changed; they make decisions, take actions and get results. Pessimists believe events, situations or personal faults or deficiencies can’t be changed, so they make no decisions, take no action and get no results.

Let’s take a look at what happened to me as I revised my chapter. Initially, I got more and more frustrated and dejected when I couldn’t get it to read the way I wanted. Not only that, when someone sent me a negative critique of the draft chapter, I began to believe the whole manuscript was a mess. I started to feel more and more stressed and worried. I started to believe maybe I could not write a good book. This made it harder for me to edit the chapter and I struggled for another day, procrastinating and not doing much when I did work on the chapter.

However, at my core I am an optimist. I was determined to get it right. Despite my negative emotions, when I sat down to edit that chapter the next time I did not say to myself, “I can’t do this.” I said, “I know I can do this.” That belief kept me editing–kept me making decisions, taking action, and getting results.When I managed to find the one missing piece in the chapter—attitude—everything fell together, and my attitude become more optimistic as well.

At that point, my results changed. I finished the chapter in a few hours, even though it had taken me several days to get to that point. And I edited the next chapter in only a day. Plus, I began feeling better about the whole manuscript; I once again began believing in my ability to complete the book project and in the strength and value of the draft manuscript–all because my attitude changed.

You can choose to change your attitude at any time. You can do so when you wake up in the morning, when you go to sleep at night or any time in between.

Have you ever changed your attitude and then achieved different results? Tell me about it by leaving a comment.

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For the last three months I worked with 12 aspiring authors who wanted to write and publish books that would inspire readers to create change in their lives, in organizations or in the world. All of them felt it was their soul purpose to “author change.” In the publishing industry, we definitely feel books can change lives and the world.

There are other ways to become a change agent if you feel inclined to become one. This post is not meant to discuss all those ways. Rather, it is meant to have you inquire of yourself if you feel the push to fix even a small bit of what is wrong in the world. Do you?

In Judaism, we have a strong belief that each and every person should get involved in tikkun olam, repair of the world. In Kabbalah, this term refers to Isaac Luria, the sixteenth century Kabbalist, and his description of the creation of the world. He used the phrase “tikkun olam,” to explain how God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. As God poured the Light into the vessels, they shattered, causing the light to scatter over the physical world. The light, however, is trapped, and our task is to free and raise the sparks back to Divinity, thus restoring the broken world.

How do we repair the world? We do this with good deeds…which could be supporting positive change.

Yet, change begins at with each and every one of us. As Ghandi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Actually, Ghandi didn’t say that. He said something like that. The closest verifiable quotation we have from Gandhi that comes close to this bumper-sticker version is actually: “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”

What Ghandi is telling us is that we must each change first. As we do that, the world around us changes–first in the way it responds to us. We will also change in our response to the world.

The world is our mirror. Just like in relationships, whatever we see in the world that we do not like or that frustrates us, angers us or saddens us must be a part of us–either we lack it or we have too much of that quality. When we criticize our significant other, children or boss, we can usually find that same quality we dislike or that we find annoying within ourselves. We either wish we had it or wish we didn’t–or we’ve been covering it up so no one would know it is part of who we are.

If you feel pushed to repair the world, begin with yourself–with a small bit of the world. Then work outward on a larger, and larger scale. This is how I worked with my writing students. Yes, they wanted to author books about change, but first we looked at what they needed to change, how comfortable they were with change and if they handled change well. We also looked at why they wanted to create change–what that change meant to them or reflected to them. Through this understanding, and the personal changes they made, they could become better authors of change, more effective change agents.

I know I have many things I need to change about myself and in my own life. This does not remove my responsibility for repairing the world at large. I hope I do that through my work, even if I don’t always have time for more. Day-to-day, I keep chipping away at my own personal changes and hope to embody that bumper sticker, which summarizes Ghandi’s sentiment well: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

In the process, I hope I release a few sparks up to God as well.

Image credit: roblan / 123RF Stock Photo

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At our table, the theme of our discussions revolved around the passage through the Red Sea. The Hebrew name for Egypt, Mitzrayim, means “narrow place,” and has been said to symbolize a womb. As the Israelites leave Mitzrayim as slaves through the water of the Red Sea some say they are reborn as a free people and a nation on the other shore. The six of us spoke of our own narrow places in which we found ourselves now, or had found ourselves during the past year, and also if we felt we were in the womb ready to be reborn or born as a fuller, more expansive versions of ourselves. We discussed if we were gestating anything new to bring into the world that would expand our lives and our ability to express ourselves as well.

Jewish or not, most of us have something in our lives that keeps us constrained, unable to become our true self. (If you don’t, lucky you!) For each one of us at the seder table, some type of force in our lives, like money, health or lack of confidence, seemed to hold us back or make it difficult for us to express ourselves or to fulfill our purpose.

Yet, most of us also want to live more fully—and possibly show up more fully. Or we have something we are nurturing, wanting to bring into the world when the opportunity presents itself—the right moment. Every one of us at the seder table felt ourselves in the womb, growing, preparing…just about ready to break free, push out—despite fear—and to become something new or to bring something new into the world. We felt the labor pains, and the trepidation and excitement of becoming someone new or starting something new.

Again, this experience is fairly universal, I think, but I found it fairly amazing: six people all in the same basic place… none of us youngsters, either…showing up anew, creating new offerings.

For me, I’m birthing a new book again. Of course, that means “coming out” another time as an author of books about writing and publishing. I feel constrained by that category. I feel a strong push to move toward the books and the work that made me want to become an author in the first place. This is the spiritual and human potential work I began here on this blog and on this website. And when I can include both in my life, my life and my self will expand. I will feel expansive and my work will become more expansive.

This is my Mitzrayim and my movement through the Red Sea as I hope to be brought out and delivered on the other shore.

How about you? Do you have a personal Mitzrayim, a narrow place? And do you see yourself moving out of it to a new, more expansive way of being in the world?

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I remember many years ago when I went to a week-long conference led by one of my favorite spiritual teachers. I had read every one of his books. I believed all of his teachings. I hung on every one of his words.

Then I watched him carefully. I noted he drank a fair amount of alcohol even though he preached about only taking healthy things into your body. He also couldn’t discuss one particular topic with the class without drinking. And despite the fact that he was married and had a small son, he flirted with the young girls and, for all I knew, had affairs with them as well.

I left the retreat feeling quite disappointed. This man was not who I thought he was. He wasn’t perfect. He didn’t walk his talk.

I told a friend about my experience, and she said, “Well, he’s been knocked off the pedestal you put him on. That’s for sure.”

Yet, he never knew he was on a pedestal. So, he never felt the fall. The only one who got hurt was me.

In fact, this man was just a man. He was human.

Gurus, artists, authors, movie stars, politicians…celebrities of all types…are just human. They are just doing what they love and what they are good at. They also struggle. They make mistakes. They live their lives—sometimes not so well.

We fuss over them. We make them more than they are. We make them extraordinary even though they are human. When they fail, we are surprised. We feel hurt and disappointed. They fall off the pedestal we put them on.

I’ve met a fair number of “celebrities.” They weren’t any different than me or you; they had just managed to achieve a higher level of success. As such, they are good role models, good mentors. On a pedestal, it’s hard to reach them. If you sit across from them—at the same level—it’s possible to learn from them and to get to know them.

As a new author, I thought fans—and “super fans,” as I called them—were great, but I quickly realized I didn’t want anyone to put me on a pedestal. I don’t belong there. I know these people will get hurt in the end. Falling off is inevitable. I’m human.

Do you want to be placed on a pedestal?

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There’s something so rewarding about watching your kids fly off. I’m not talking about them just leaving home. I’m talking about them finding their flight pattern…or their actual flight path. They might have trim tabbed a few times, or even fallen on their faces (or butts), but they picked themselves up and tried again. Maybe they perched in trees close to home at first or decided to choose trees far away from the nest. No matter their choices, when you can see them finding a current and riding it toward another tree–one they really want to land in–or a far off cliff, it’s a wonderful sight.

I have a daughter who is studying in New York to become a set designer. She is already working with Broadway set designers and creating sets for shows at her university. She knows how to draft and create models. Every day she gets a bit  more confident and more ready to set out into the world of theater and make a name for herself. I have a son who is a dancer. He left home for New York in his senior year and then went off to Germany to become an apprentice with a ballet company. Any day now he’ll find out if he has a full position in the corps de ballet. Their souls knew they had to fly…and where they had to fly. They flapped and flew. They still flap a bit but fly longer and farther and with more grace, confidence and ease all the time.

Some parents want to keep their chicks in the nest. They are afraid to let them take flight. Yet, as parents, we are supposed to raise our children to become independent. I think one of the biggest gifts we can give our children is the ability to follow their hearts and to spread their wings. By doing both these things they can discover who they are and explore what the world has to offer them–and what they can contribute to it.

In much the same way, as adults we need to give ourselves permission to follow our hearts and spread our wings. We may feel our wings were clipped as we were growing up–possibly by parents who were afraid to let us get too far away from the nest or to try flying to high or in different directions than they felt comfortable with. And that’s the wonderful thing about children leaving the nest. You can use them as an example, a model…for yourself. As they test their wings and begin flying higher and farther, spread yours again and test them out. Fly differently. Fly somewhere new.

This might feel scary. We get set in our ways as we get older–afraid to leave the nest (our old habits). Go out to the edge of the empty nest. There’s nothing holding you there now. Try hopping to the next branch. Fly to the next tree….then the next…Catch a thermal. See where it takes you.

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Maybe you haven’t notice…

I didn’t realize the colors in my life…indeed, my life…had become “muted” until last week while I was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a conference. There the colors are nothing less than vibrant.

In fact, my home has a living room filled with colorful furniture—blue, pink, yellow, and green surrounding a multi-colored Persian carpet that sits on Saltillo tiles. Yet, the colors are pastels. I tend to wear bright colors…maybe in an attempt to brighten my life.

In Mexico, everywhere I saw a colorful feast for the eyes. No muted colors anywhere. I saw dolls, yarn, clothes, foods–all more colorful than anything I see in the United States. This made me wonder what this color range does for the people who live there. Does it brighten their days? Does it make them happier? Or have they become immune to the colors? Was I so taken by the colors because I don’t see them every day? Is it just me who feels I have less color in my life–or don’t see it?

Colors have an energy and a meaning. Purple is seen as spiritual, for example. (No wonder the Pope wears it.)Blue is the color of trust and peace. Red is the color of passion and anger, but we also think “stop” (like the stop sign) when we see it.

You have to wonder if having bright, cheery colors around on a regular basis might make our days and our spirits brighter and cheerier, if it wouldn’t make our world and our lives less drab and muted. I surely would love to wake up to a multi-colored extravaganza every day.  I think it would start my day off differently. But would I eventually not notice? Or would the colors affect my psyche anyway?

It’s no wonder we are so attracted to the cities around the world that feature lovely painted houses in all the colors of the rainbow…I came home from Mexico thinking about painting my home bright yellow or blue rather than the green that helps it blend into the trees that surround it. I want to replace my white kitchen plates with colorful ones instead. And I wanted to throw away my black clothing.

Color gives our eyes a celebration, but it takes our hearts and souls to the party as well. How often do you use color to raise your energy and your spirit? I know I’ll be using it more often after my trip to Mexico.

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Groundhog Club Co-handler John Griffiths holds the weather predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, as he is surrounded by photographers after the club said Phil did not see his shadow and there will be an early spring on Groundhog Day, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 in Punxsutawney, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

Humans love predictions. Just look at how Americans wait for a groundhog, of all the crazy animals in the world, to predict when spring will arrive. It’s a national holiday. Groundhog Day. Really?

In fact, our obsession with predictions really just keeps us from living in the moment and doing what is necessary to create the future we desire.

Here are some typical scenarios. When we hope for something auspicious to happen, we turn to the horoscope pages of the newspaper–or to some online site that sends it to our email boxes daily. Some of us go there after the fact to corroborate that the stars aligning just so actually predicted that our boyfriend would break up with us, we would get the offer for the new job or we would find it difficult to get anything done on that day. Many of us read that horoscope before hand. We want to know if the stars are aligned in our favor or what we should  look out for tomorrow, next week or next month.

We simply want to know what’s around the next corner. Yes, indeed, “Inquiring minds want to know…”

I love going to a good psychic for a reading. I admit it. And I’ve had my horoscope done by a professional astrologer. However, as someone who has also been known to do a bit of predicting herself–I used to read Tarot cards for people–I can tell you something: We all have free will, and that means any prediction made at any given moment can change if you change your behavior, your actions, or your mind.

On a planetary level, the same holds true. Our energy and thoughts, create changes. Meditation communities have done experiments with this and found their meditations can change crime rates in areas, for example. So, predict a crime rate for next year, but if a third of the people in the city take up meditation, maybe the rate will fall.

I’m not sure that holds true for the weather, but we know that what and how we consume things on earth determines the state of the ozone layer. So…predict how much ozone will be around next year, but if we change our habits…that prediction won’t come true.

And then there is God. If you believe God has a hand in your life, as I do, then a prediction could change simply because of some Divine Plan or Divine intervention.

It’s so hard for us to live in the moment, to just be okay with where we are right now and to not worry about what will come tomorrow. I know this well. I want to know if what I’m doing now will reap benefits in the future. I want to know if my family will have enough money come next month to pay the bills. I want to know if my children will be okay…if my health will remain good…

In fact, the best we can do is focus on right now, take action right now to create the future we desire. And no amount of predictions will manifest that future for us. Whether we create it for ourselves, or we co-create it together, or  God has a hand in it, predictions really don’t matter in the end. What we do matters.

Groundhog Day 2013

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Sometimes the stretching doesn’t feel so good. Like a teenager with growth pains, I can feel myself aching from the effort. But I know it’s a necessary pain, and it will subside. I’ll be better, different, once the growth spurt ends. I will have reached the goals I set out before me. That alone will make me feel different about myself. It will, in fact change me, and possibly the perception others have of me. It could also change my life in some cases.

Stretching is good—as long as you don’t stretch yourself so thin that you snap, like a rubber band. You want to stretch and grow, like a plant rising toward the sun and blossoming. You can be a rubber band, learning just how far you can stretch…maybe even contorting a bit, twisting, getting wider, thinner. But it’s better to stretch like a plant, climbing up the fence, bending through the slats, and finding a way to reach the sun so you can create fruit, blooms, and continue to grow.  Or imagine a tiny, skinny seedling starting out in a cup, reaching upward to the unknown, to the light as its leaves spread.

The point is, after, all to grow, to transform, to reach your limit, and to go beyond it. To find a new one, and again stretch past it. Humans can do that. Even plants can do that. Rubber bands just break when they reach their limit. We are here to reach our full potential—whatever that may be.

If you never stretch, though, you’ll never find your current limit or discover a new one. You’ll never reach your full potential.

Consider if you are stretching right now. How could you stretch–tomorrow, next month, this year?

You don’t need to have five challenges at a time to stretch. But choose one. Stretch a little. Stretch a lot. But stretch.

And tell me about your stretches, and how they transformed you and your life by leaving me a comment.

Photo courtesy of Simon Howden | freedigitalphotos.net

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In the last week, however, I’ve been bombarded with information that seems to show me that people will put winning, or achieving their goal, above anything else—even their integrity. In fact, they achieve their goal but they don’t do it in a way that really accomplishes it at all. The choices they make about how they accomplish that goal actually negate the accomplishment in the end. In such cases, you have to ask, “What’s the point, really?”

Look at Lance Armstrong, who has finally admitted he took performance enhancing drugs to win the Tour de France. That’s possibly how he won it all seven times. The cyclist was stripped of his Tour titles, lost most of his endorsements and was forced to leave Livestrong last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a, report that accused him of masterminding a long-running doping scheme, according to the Toledo Blade. He was also stripped of his 2000 Olympic bronze medal back in January.

When I see Armstrong, who survived cancer, and who has thousands, maybe millions of people wearing his yellow Livestrong bracelets and looking up to him as a role model—or did, and I see a man that is now nothing more than a liar. Not only that, the goal he achieved—winning seven Tour de France races—was never really achieved at all.  Yes, he made it across the finish line, but I have to wonder if he would have done so had he not taken performance enhancing drugs. Is he the athlete we thought he was? Could he meet those goals without help of some sort? And I bet he wonders the same thing. The title is gone, as is the Olympic medal. He has achieved nothing after all.

Last night I watched the movie The Words. In it a struggling writer finds a manuscript and ends up saying it is his own, getting it published and becoming famous. His other works of lesser quality then get published because the first book was such a success. They don’t get published because they have merit on their own. The original author of the novel finds him, and he must live with the repercussions of not only living a lie but of knowing he really never achieved his goal of writing a great novel. Like Armstrong, he achieved his success with a form of “performance enhancing drug”; in this case his drug was someone else’s manuscript, which  helped him cross the finish line. Yet, the writer knows he never had the talent to cross the finish line–to get published–without that help. Thus, despite the achievement, he has really achieved nothing.

Immediately after watching The Words, I happened to see reference to a news story from a few weeks ago about Spanish athlete Iván Fernández Anaya who aided a fellow runner cross the finish line to win a race. Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai. He saw the Kenyan runner pull up about 10 meters before the finish, mistakenly thinking he had already crossed the line. Fernández Anaya caught up with Mutai, but instead of exploiting the other runner’s mistake to claim a victory that really wasn’t his, he stayed just behind him and guided the Kenyan to the finish line and let him cross first.

I think what Fernández Anaya had to say was interesting. In this particular race, he had little at stake. Thus, it was easy to let Mutai, a bronze medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics, win. He adds: “But I also think that I have earned more of a name having done what I did than if I had won. And that is very important, because today, with the way things are in all circles, in soccer, in society, in politics, where it seems anything goes, a gesture of honesty goes down well.”

Had he not helped the other runner across the finish line, he would have had to live with the fact that he had not honestly won the race. He was not the real winner. He didn’t take performance enhancing drugs or steal someone else’s work, but had he rushed on by Mutai he would have taken a race well-run by someone else and called it his own win because of a simple mistake made by the other. He wouldn’t have really achieved his goal.

It’s important to have goals. It’s important to achieve them. The means by which you do so, however, are just as important. They say something about who you are.

Whether the stakes are high or low, you have to live with yourself once you cross the finish line. You have to live with you and how you achieved those goals.  Be sure you really achieve what you set out to achieve and that you can live with the way in which you win the race–and that you remain a winner. Allow your own power to propel you over the finish line.

Photo courtesy of pichart99thai | freedigitalphotos.net

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I see this happening often when we let our emotions get the upper hand. Imagine that you were on a vacation and didn’t like your accommodations. The hotel is dingy and old and has no Internet. So you get really angry. And you take your anger out, first,  on the person at the reception desk and then on the person traveling with you who booked the hotel. And you then let your dismal mood govern your whole day and night, basically ruining 24-hours of your vacation.

How does that help anything? You actions were not spiteful. Your anger was a striking out at others and ended up hurting you.

We do this when we get angry at our loved ones. We yell at them or pull away and refuse to give them love as a punishment. In the end, we are the ones that feel lonely. Our attempt to hurt them punishes us as well.

Each moment of our life is precious. It must be savored. We have so many wonderful experiences–and can have more if we allow them in and don’t stay stuck in negativity. We shouldn’t waste them by “cutting of our noses to spite our faces.”

What are you doing this moment, today, this week? Is it typical, special, sacred, profane? Are you at home, at work, in another country, on a trip, with friends, with strangers? Will you allow your emotions to determine if you get to enjoy the experience?

That seems an odd question, right? Of course, your emotions determine if you enjoy the experience since joy is an emotion. But you can’t enjoy something–feel joy–if you are stuck in anger, depression, spite, or some other type of negative emotion–and stuck there for some reason that really makes no sense and no difference. What will continuing to express that emotion accomplish?

Nothing.

So why not express joy instead. Or at least peace and happiness and love–or one of these. Acceptance works, too.

Keep that nose on your face. It looks good there. You need it anyway to smell the roses.

Photo courtesy of Stuart Miles | freeditigalphotos.net

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