The problem is not the thing that’s out of your control. The problem is that you are trying to hold on to it and control it, when you really can’t.

Suffering arises from trying to control the uncontrollable.

Imagine trying to control a wild horse. Trying to ride it, you are in a very dangerous position. But letting go of the horse, you can be safe and secure 10 feet away.

You can’t control the horse. You can only control your position in relation to the horse. Peace in this scenario comes when you stop trying to think you can or should be able to control that horse, and let it go.

The number of things we can’t control is astronomical.

Well, literally, we cannot control the movement of the stars. We also cannot control other people, what they think of us, whether they like us or not (for real, or on Facebook). We can’t control what they choose to do or feel or want. We can’t control whether they stay or leave.

We can’t control whether they do their work or hurt themselves. We can’t control whether they are happy.

We can’t control our clients. We can’t control whether they like what we do for them, whether they use it or find it useful, whether they recommend us to others or not.

We can control our own thoughts, judgments, perceptions, assumptions, and actions.

We can’t control whether people buy from us. We can control whether we offer them something to buy, and we can make it good. But their buying choice is out of our control.

We cannot control our feelings. These arise as signals of whether our needs are met or not. We can’t control that they arise, but we can control what we do next. We can accept, allow, and listen to them. Or we can suppress them, fight them, or judge them.

Making peace with the world requires that we accept that we are powerful in a very narrow domain.

The good news is that spiritually, this feels better. We are all wanting to feel like a tiny cog in the big wheel of life. We all want to feel part of something bigger. We’re built that way. The ego wants to be in control of everything, but the soul does not.

The key is to accept it. You really are part of something bigger. And you have no control over it. You only have control over yourself. And then, only partly.

The more we focus on what we can control, and let go of the rest, the more power we have.

The other good news is that by giving up the habit of trying to control the uncontrollable, we can focus all our considerable energy on those areas we can control.

In life, we can become peaceful in our own selves. We can stop fighting a war with ourselves. That, we can control.

We can ask for help. We can accept others. This, we can also control.

In business, we can open to our creativity and our potential. We can find the thing we love, and give ourselves to it.

We can transform ourselves.

This is no small feat, and it’s something we actually can do. We can start focusing on what we want, and on what we are grateful for. We can change our perceptions to notice the truth and the reality of things, instead of our judgments and assumptions. We can shift our energetic pattern to allowing instead of aversion or grasping. These are all things we can do.

As you focus on what you can control, you feel more grounded.

When you are trying to hold on to that wild horse, your feet can’t touch the ground. It feels viscerally unstable.

We all have a wild horse. We all have something in our lives that we are trying to control and we really can’t.

For me it’s my own emotional volatility, and whether people like me or not.

When I try to control my emotions, I make them much worse because I don’t meet my needs for allowing and acceptance.

When I try to control whether people like me or not, I’m paralyzed and I completely shut down creatively. When I let go of that, I can focus on being a channel for creativity to come through me. Who cares if people like it? I want to be helpful, and the best way I know how is to turn my creativity over to the Divine and let the words come through. When I focus on just that part of the transaction, and on sharing it without expectation, it all works. I write, and people do like it. But the minute I start getting invested in that, I get into trouble. Equally, I can’t control inspiration (although I can encourage it by practicing letting go, and engaging with life).

As you learn to recognize what grounded feels like, it is easier to return to it.

Now that I’m practicing this more, I am starting to viscerally know the place of groundedness  and peace. This helps me identify when I am off, notice what I am trying to control, and consciously let go.

It feels a little more vulnerable to be in the world without pretending to myself that I have control over things that I don’t. But it’s the good, real, honest kind of vulnerability, not that anxious, confused, out-of-control kind of feeling.

And when I falter in my discernment and fall back into old patterns, I try to remind myself: I can’t control how fast I grow. I can only do the best I can each day to let go and refocus.

photo by Emre Telci

Comment Magic

I find it helpful to repeat to myself, “I can’t control ______” and “I can transform myself” to re-orient to what I can control.

What helps you focus on what is in your domain?

What does it feel like to be ungrounded vs grounded?

Or, feel free to just say hello!

Related Community Links

Not Buying the Right Car Led to Buying the Right Car A great (and practical!) story of letting go. “It is only when we accept that we are not in control that we can lean into our intuition. When we come to realize that steering ourselves means constantly checking in with something much greater than ourselves – that is when we get the clearest guidance.”

Do you feel guilty because you don’t eat organic veggies? Or have a regular exercise routine? Or write every day? Or some other ideal that you carry around that you have never quite gotten yourself to do?

On the outside, these would be positive changes. They would make you feel better, look better…be better? Well, that’s the rub.

You cannot be a better person.

When a “positive change in your life” is motivated by inspiration and being in touch with yourself, and you do it, then the end result is that you feel happier.

But you never become a better person. Because you are already good, and there is no measure to that.

And if that same “positive change in your life” is motivated by guilt or “shoulds”, then in a subtle way you are betraying yourself.

It’s pretty hard to make yourself do something you aren’t intrinsically motivated to do. So you heap on more self-criticism and forcing, trying to become what you think you should be. You end up in struggle and striving. In pain.

I have a whole list of things in my head of things I could be / should be / would be doing better, if I were a better person. But that list? It’s fading more and more as I learn to find the things that genuinely make me happy and feel good.

There is never a shortage of opportunities to compare yourself to others.

Sometimes when we see someone doing something awesome, we feel inspired. We want to do something awesome too. And that inspiration can indeed carry us forward.

The tricky part is when we start to compare and measure our own awesomeness against theirs.

Or think that we could somehow become a better, more likable, more lovable person by doing what they did.

Or just collapse in a fit of “I could never do something so awesome, what’s wrong with me anyway”.

The same goes for ideals. Even 5000-year old ideals, like the Eightfold-path in Buddhism. It represents a lot of wisdom. But you still need to field test it for you. You cannot take anyone else’s list (even a 5000 year old list) and substitute it for self-knowledge.

The difference between feeling inspired and feeling bad about ourselves? Boundaries.

With healthy boundaries, we can see others accomplishments and still maintain our connection with our own goodness, our own desires, our own aliveness.

There is no one size fits all set of rules to live by that work for everyone. There is no awesome thing that would be awesome for everyone. Boundaries keep you in touch with this truth, and give you space to feel what’s right for you.

Boundaries solidify when we have a sense of ourselves as separate people who are good in our own right. A boundary is an awareness of your separateness from others, and your right to have that separateness and uniqueness.

Internally, you can develop this awareness with questions:

• Wow, he is so happy doing that. What would make me happy?
• Wow, that looks so awesome for her. What would be awesome for me?
• Wow, a lot of people are joining _____. Is it right for me?

And reminders:

• I’m going to sit with myself before taking on new commitments or practices, to see if they feel right for me.
• I’ll know something is a good direction for me because it will feel fulfilling and clear, and not forced.
• I affirm that I’m already OK, whether I “improve” myself or not.

The truth is you’ll know something is right for you based on how you feel, because your feelings give you feedback on whether your needs are met.

Happiness comes from meeting ourselves moment-to-moment, not from matching an ideal.

In NVC there is a concept of “standards and  ideals”. These are never life-serving, because trying to meet an ideal takes you out of the present moment-to-moment awareness of your own personal feelings and needs (and the feelings and needs of those around you). As you disconnect from the flow of needs, you disconnect from aliveness and enter the realm of ideas about happiness and goodness, rather than happiness and goodness itself.

In reality, goodness is inherent.

You cannot get more of it, and you cannot destroy what you have. There is a fundamental goodness to you, to me, to the Universe, to all of everything.

Happiness comes and goes, but ultimately it arises from being in touch with yourself and meeting yourself day to day. And when you are in touch with yourself, you will be naturally motivated to seek life-affirming choices. No forcing is required.

And that’s the big myth. Forcing will not get you somewhere good. The ends do not justify the means. And there is an alternative that does work: love yourself first.

When we start with acceptance, positive change flows naturally from the healing and growth process.

Sometimes it’s hard to trust this process. Self-improvement seems like a shortcut. “If I do this thing I will be a better person, and then I won’t feel bad about myself”. What we are trying to escape is the very thing we have to face: the internalized pain and shame and decisions we made about who we are. These don’t change by getting on a rat wheel of trying to be better. They just get reinforced, because we are acting as if they are true. The only reason we would think we need to improve ourselves is if we think we are not good enough to begin with.

Instead, we have to face them and feel the pain of them. And let them be replaced by something new and truly life-serving. You are good. You are already good enough. There was never any doubt. You have nothing to prove. You already belong, and you are already OK.

As you connect to your essential goodness, you will naturally be inspired to do those actions that support your aliveness and help you thrive. You’ll want to do what makes you feel happy and good and healthy. And that kind of positive action does not feel like striving. It feels expansive, powerful, and clear.

It’s not the action. It’s where it comes from that matters. When it comes from striving, it won’t last and it will reinforce a feeling of unworthiness. When it starts with a process of self-love, and comes from true alignment with yourself, it will be just another part of being happy and alive.

Comment Magic

I like to remind myself that you don’t have to force a flower to grow, you just give it the right nutrients and sunshine and it becomes beautiful. Do you have an image or metaphor that helps you remember that you are OK the way you are?

What comes up reading about comparisons and ideals? Do you have an internal list of things you “should” be doing?

Inspiration can be a powerful thing. What is your favorite source of true inspiration?

There are many reasons why less stuff is better.

But there are also lots of reasons why we have our stuff. And those reasons don’t make us bad people.

I’ve always wanted to have less stuff, but I’ve always struggled to achieve this ideal. After having the “you should have less stuff” argument with myself once again, I finally just said, “Fuck it. I have these books. I have these things. I have these attachments. I am going to accept that I still want these things around me.”

And then, gradually…something shifted.

It’s like something inside me could now trust that I wasn’t going to take a shovel to my stuff (something my father used to threaten when my room was especially messy).

Without the edge of fear, the natural inspiration to have a clear, clean house emerged. I felt a relaxed ease about letting go of the items I was truly ready to release. And there was no more internal battle if I felt like I wanted to keep something: I was allowed to.

What changed? I accepted that I have attachments to stuff.

Before: Look at a shelf of books. Feel guilty that I haven’t read them all. Feel bad that I don’t want to give them away. Fight with myself: “You haven’t read it! But I want to keep it! You’re just attached to this item that you will never use, what’s wrong with you! What if I need it in the future?!”.  Stress and fret until I get so frustrated that I go do something else. All the books still on the shelf.

Or: get rid of books in a fit of determination. Buy some of them back a few years later, and feel EXTRA-guilty when I still haven’t read them.

Now: Look at a shelf of books. Pick out the ones I’m actually ready to let go of. Put them in a box to leave the house (Goodwill, Powells, etc). While I’m taking the box to the car, see a few I still want to keep and take them back out. And then the box goes. And I remind myself: It’s OK to still be attached to the books I kept. It’s OK to do this a little at a time. It’s OK to let go of what I’m really ready to let go of, and not try to force myself past any resistance.

Forget the rules.

The rules say, “Don’t take anything back out of the get-rid-of box after it’s in it.”

“Don’t keep anything you don’t love or aren’t using”.

“Toss any book you haven’t read in the last year.”

DUDE. I can’t follow those rules. I just shut down.

Our stuff is DEAR to us. We are ATTACHED to it. Being strict with yourself is not necessary.

Start with acceptance.

Look around at your stuff and appreciate how much vitality and creativity you have, and how your stuff is part of that.

I have a lot of books, and art supplies, and stuff leftover from projects. These are evidence of my path through life, and all the things I’ve been interested in and experimented with. They aren’t bad. They are good. I don’t need to be ruthless and rid myself of them. I need to be appreciative, and just prune what I no longer need.

Before, I would read about decluttering, set some resolution-like goals (i.e. unrealistic and motivated by comparison rather than inspiration), go crazy with it for awhile, and then abandon the project altogether as guilt and frustration took over.

Now I am slowly going through my stuff, organizing and letting go of things, and I’m not stressed or unrealistic about it. It feels good.

And I can now finally read blogs like mnmlist and feel inspired instead of feeling bad about my not-entirely-streamlined existence.

Decluttering is a practice of relaxing attachments; forcing is counter-productive.

Letting go of stuff = letting go of attachments. This is something best done slowly, gently, and with a lot of permission to hang on until you are truly ready to let go.

When we force ourselves, it creates resistance and an atmosphere of fear. This just makes it harder to let go.

Over time, as you let go of the easy stuff, you’ll create a positive feedback loop around letting go. You will naturally relax more and feel OK about letting go of more things. And you’ll develop a habit of understanding your internal sense of when it’s right to let something go. This will create an internal clarity and trust which makes the whole process go smoother.

So forget the ideals and the rules. Accept your attachments. Focus on letting go of what you are ready to, and organize the rest so it is easier to access.

Comment Magic

What has your experience been with decluttering?

Have you tried too hard to be a Zen Master or some other ideal of clean/clear/minimalist/perfect?

What helps you move from guilt and feeling bad to inspiration and forward motion?

I met with my MasterMind group yesterday and we worked on this voice in regards to self-promotion. It says: “What’s the point? Nobody cares what I do anyway. There’s all kinds of other stuff out there and a lot of it is better than mine. Blah.”

I could identify that there is some kind of fear there—fear of disappointing people, fear of being judged or disliked. But I wasn’t getting very far focusing on the fear.

The Suggestion: Work with the voice. Ask, What IS the point?

When I tried that, I got something completely different:

The point of me talking about What I Do (or Doing it in the first place) is to remind people that they are not alone. That there are many people out there working on their “stuff” and trying to live a more conscious life, and trying to build a successful business too. That there is help and support available if we let ourselves ask for it (and give it to ourselves). Especially I want to reach people who might feel like they are weird or don’t belong or are too ______. I want people to feel OK about wherever they are in their life and empowered to make choices that work for them. It’s OK. We’re all just muddling along figuring things out. I’m not a guru and I don’t want to be. I’m just another person saying “Hey, this is do-able. You’re OK. Let’s play with it. Try this.”

Instant alignment!

Writing this changed my whole perspective on self-promotion. Suddenly it’s not about ME and whether people like ME and follow ME and think I’M the best thing since sliced bread and ohmygosh what if one day they DON’T like me—ugh.

Instead, it’s about what I want to give people: a sense of confidence in themselves and their own abilities and choices. Tools and resources that might help. Permission to experiment and find their own way. A reminder that underneath the fear and confusion is a pure, clean stream of wisdom and clarity that we can access and is always there waiting for us when we are ready to turn inwards and find it.

Re-orienting to what I want to give feels so much better. More grounded, more clear, and more free to create and give and share.

Lesson #1: Critical voices are wise owls disguised as rats.

That voice asking, “What’s the point?” was really trying to get me to see that I was missing the point.

By thinking of self-promotion as …well, as self-promotion, I was missing that it’s about something much deeper. The heart wants to give. Self-promotion is about tapping into that desire to give and sharing from that place. It’s not about getting people to like me—it’s about getting people to like themselves. That’s what I want to give.

Thank you voice…(and thank you friends for reminding me to hang out with it).

Lesson #2: Promotion, and marketing, is best done from a connected place.

When I start feeling like I’m just tweeting to get retweets, or blogging for comments, or that I’m creating in a void and shouting into the wind—I need to reconnect with what I want to give. Not what I want to get from my promotion efforts, but what I want to see others get. Then I’m out of my head and back into the stream of living, of giving, of loving.

Comment Magic:

This is a new section I’m adding, inspired by my brilliant friend Larisa.

I want to encourage more comments. It gets lonely in cyberspace, and I’d love to hear from you.

Do you have a “what’s the point” voice? Or maybe it says, “I don’t care anyway”, or “It doesn’t matter”, or “Why bother”. Maybe it’s just a sense of apathy or anxiety that creeps up.

What helps you remember that there is a point, that you do care, and that it does matter…what helps you reconnect?

In all the buzz and hoopla and the jungle of strategies for marketing and promotion, how do you stay connected to your desire to give?

This is Herman.

I drew him at my last Mastermind group meeting where I was asking for help yet again with my Eternal Quandary which one of the gals put succinctly as: I want to be famous but I don’t want to be famous. (And by famous, I mean internet famous — known amongst biz geeks for making cool things that help people).

I was lamenting finding myself in front of the same brick wall.

I wrote the problem down on my notepaper and randomly drew a circle around it.

Stupid problem.

I drew arrows and spears to represent all the angles of attack that had not worked to fix it. Therapy. Workshops. Morning pages. Etc.

Then, on a whim, I drew eyes on the top of the circle. And then arms and legs. And named the problem “Herman”.

With this simple drawing, something shifted inside me. I felt warmth for the little creature I had just given a name and a face.

Through this drawing, I had started to form a relationship with my “brick wall”. The problem was no longer a problem, it was a little being that wanted something.

The wall was its way of communicating. I was just unable to hear it.

As my perspective changed, I got curious about what this little guy wanted. What was his objection to fame? Why the big wall?

As the conversation continued, it turned out the “wall” was really a set of needs, wrapped up in a confusing jumble of beliefs about how those needs would not get met if I were famous.

For instance, if I were famous, I would have to be Eternally Productive, never play games, always be available, do interviews, enjoy schmoozing, etc. And I don’t want that, no sirree.

It turns out the resistance wasn’t about the idea of getting my work out to more people at all. It was about what happens next, and if I could maintain my boundaries.

It turns out that Herman is this amazing advocate for my self-care.

Herman wants to go to bed earlier. Herman wants time for me to think and process my feelings. Herman wants the freedom to attend to what I really need. Herman wants to stop working before I’m burned out and exhausted.

Herman may feel a little conservative and cautious. But he’s totally on my side.

Our demons are parts of ourselves we have miscast in the inner drama of our mind.

Herman was never a demon. But because I had never formed a relationship with him, I did not know his true face.

In fact, as I worked more with Herman, I found another demon — the part of myself who has a bundle of needs around contribution and purpose and thinks that if I don’t work constantly I won’t be proving that I’m enough.  Another set of real needs mixed up in a tangle of unhelpful beliefs.

These two play tug-of-war in my subconscious, pushing and pulling on me. One yanks hard and I stay up all night working on a project. The other gives a good pull and I spend hours vegetating in front of the TV. Neither are happy and both are afraid of losing their grip on the only way they know of to meet their needs: by pulling me into their habitual strategies.

The wall turned out to be just a weapon in a larger inner battle that I’m working to resolve. (Other symptoms of an inner battle include: endless discontentment, fantasizing instead of doing, and never moving in any one direction for very long.)

Once I get these two parts of myself talking, I can get somewhere with what my whole system needs to move forward.

Maturing psychologically means learning to play the referee with our subconscious parts.

The drawing was an avenue to start humanizing this tangled knot of needs and beliefs, and get curious about them. This is the first step.

To do this work, you need some consistent way to get underneath the symptoms that appear to your conscious awareness. Writing, drawing, and talking with supportive people who ask good questions are what work for me. Experiment to collect your own toolset.

Keep a completely open and curious attitude about what you will find. It’s a wacky world inside our minds. Demons? Walls? Those are my metaphors; you’ll find your own. Whatever you discover, don’t judge it, or it won’t reveal its secrets to you.

Have patience and self-forgiveness too. There is no magic wand that will make issues instantly explicable. The mind is a labyrinth full of characters with different motivations and horribly inexplicable ways of communicating. It’s up to you to make a map and translate the hieroglyphics on the wall.

I’ve been watching Stargate SG-1. Every episode they jump into a swirling pool of light to find out what new world is on the other side. Inner work is kind of like that. It takes cojones.

The last element is to continually experiment with new, healthy, adult ways to meet your needs consciously and consistently. By “healthy”, I mean that you don’t meet one need at the expense of another. For example, eating two chocolate bars for dinner meets my need for comfort, but at the cost of my need for nourishment. Eating one square of chocolate, making myself a decent meal, and curling up with my cat meets many needs without cost.

Generally our demon strategies are costly and habitual. It’s up to us to investigate what they need, help them feel heard enough so they stop taking over, and develop the discipline of consistently choosing healthy strategies.

This takes a lot of practice. Again with the patience. Be good to yourself.

Worksheet!

I wrote up the drawing exercise and some of the questions I asked myself. Enjoy (and let me know in the comments how it works for you).

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Biznik, blogs, comments, status updates, “friend”ing, fan pages…aaah! Where does it end?

Do you find yourself avoiding social media, or find it overwhelming? You’re so not alone. I’ve talked to many people, of all ages, highly technical and not, and it’s a common issue.

What if you are not a natural social butterfly? How do you get any work done if you Facebook all day? How can you have meaningful interactions when you can’t keep up with all the conversations? What is reasonable? What is normal? What “should” I be doing?

First, empathy.

I have some perspectives I’ll share in a bit. But first I want to state vehemently that there are very good reasons for why it’s overwhelming and confusing.

The online business landscape is changing at a very rapid rate. Nobody can keep up. If you make it about keeping up, you’ll feel like you are drowning.

Social media requires a much different approach to media that we are used to. You approach an encyclopedia very differently than a magazine. You approach a raging river very differently than you approach a still lake. And you need to approach Twitter and Facebook very differently than email. For example, Twitter is a stream – you dip in and see what goes by, but you don’t try to drink the whole river. Email is more like a bucket – you process each thing that goes in and out.

Rules and social expectations are different too. If someone sends you an email, they usually expect a response. But if someone comments or “likes” your Facebook status, a return comment is not expected. It’s a more optional medium. These are rules and norms that take time to figure out and get comfortable with.

And there’s the issue of privacy. The lines between personal, private, public, and professional are getting all blurry. That’s fascinating…and scary. Privacy is a primal need. In human society, rules and norms about privacy usually change very slowly. Right now they are all over the map. Understanding how to navigate in a world where the very nature of privacy and the personal is being questioned and rewritten daily is confusing and unsettling.

Social media tools are changing fundamental patterns of interaction, and I think we can’t even see where that will take us yet. It’s going to be disorienting for awhile. The best way to cope is to expect change and give yourself a liberal amount of self-acceptance for not knowing what exactly is going on or how you feel about it.

Next, some perspectives.

I’m not a social media expert. In fact, I’m pretty skeptical, and sometimes a bit peeved, at most people who call themselves that.

But I’ve had my share of resistance to social media. These ideas represent my  experience making sense of it.

Resistance #1: It is all too much! I have a dozen invites to different services in my Inbox!

It’s an 80/20 thing. 80% of the activity is on 20% of the sites. Only it’s probably more like 95/5. Facebook’s popularity is huge compared with most others. Twitter is up there too.

You only need to have one network that you really participate in to build an online community. So choose one that makes sense to you and you feel at home with.

I like Facebook because I like the way it has threaded comments and it’s personal. Some of my friends live in Twitter. Another friend is crazy about GoodReads. Community is happening on all these sites. It’s more about picking and sticking than about being on all of them.

Don’t join the smaller ones unless you really want to. Or you have a compelling reason to, like you already know a group on that service you want to be part of, or you know that it’s where folks in your niche actually do hang out.

If your people aren’t there, you can’t socialize with them. So join a network where people you like and want to share space with are hanging out.

Resistance #2: I’m an introvert. I have nothing to say to these people.

A lot of us creative types are not exactly the life of the party. We prefer small groups of friends or one-on-one conversations to big gatherings. We’d rather know a few people well than keep up with hundreds of acquaintances. We can’t imagine why anybody cares about all the trivial crap that gets posted on Facebook.

Here’s the thing: Even if you are not that social, a lot of other people are. They will get value out of connecting to you and reading your updates, even if you think they are not worth posting. They will want to “friend” you even if you would never think to “friend” them. Sometimes you don’t have to do much more than let them. Let people (and customers) know you. Start there.

Next, notice what events or activities in your daily life you talk to your friends about. What do you send in emails to people you know well? What do you share with them on the phone? Become mindful of the news you are already sharing with the contacts that you already know. Start posting some of these news items to your Facebook status feed or Twitter. Develop it as a habit slowly over time.

The stars of social media post constantly and consistently. And they’ll say it’s necessary. But it’s not, in my opinion. Once a day, or even once a week, is enough for people to have a presence to connect to. Do what is natural to you. More becomes noise. You don’t have to become Ms. Chit-Chat if that’s not who you are. Start with just showing up, in your authenticity, and letting people get a glimpse of you from time to time.

Resistance #3: People won’t like me. Nobody will care about what I write.

Do your friends like you in real life?

Of course they do. Bring whatever it is that they like and love about you into social media.

What value do you already bring to the network you already have? Ground yourself solidly in who you are and what value you bring before approaching social media.

Use your strengths. Are you an idea person? Post some of your ideas. Are you a researcher? Post interesting sites or discoveries. Do you inspire people? Post inspirational thoughts. Do you like to make people think? Post questions or links to controversial articles. Are you an artist? Do you love your family? Whatever it is that makes you a well-rounded human being is stuff you can share.

Bring your full self.

Then let go.

You can’t control what anybody else thinks about you. Whether they like you, friend you, ignore you, or even criticize you in some way, it’s not about you. You met their needs, or you didn’t, or they had a bad day, or they had a good day, or you remind them of their favorite niece, or who knows. Take it as information, weighted evenly with what you know of them and how close they are to you. Consider its value to you as feedback, but don’t take it personally.

Any kind of recognition brings up our fear of rejection. Notice it, affirm your own worth, be true to who you are and show up in the fullness of you, and then let go of the need to control what other people are thinking. You can’t control anybody else’s opinions, actions, or preferences. You’ll go nutty trying.

Hand it over, or do whatever works for you to surrender things you can’t control.

Resistance #4: It will take over my life. I sit down and suddenly it’s 4 hours later.

Reading updates and following blogs can be addictive, it’s true. And it can be draining. You sit down to check your feed and make a status update and suddenly you have followed a thread to a blog to another blog to a new site you spent 1/2 hour on to a book you had to buy on Amazon. And now you are down $12.95 and you didn’t get anything done today.

This is an opportunity to get mindful and notice what really serves you. How much time per week reading blogs and Twitter fits into your life in a balanced, healthy way? Is it 1/2 hour? 5 hours? Nobody knows but you. But that’s the amount you should do it.

Personally my limit is about 15 minutes per sitting, and I like to do it once a day or so. I’ve developed the habit of checking in with myself: “Is this getting draining? Is it time to stop now and do something else?”.

Mindfulness is simply noticing what is true for you. As you become more aware of your needs and validate them, you will find it easier to approach things that are overwhelming and be confident that you can be responsible to yourself.

Resistance #5: I am a private person. I don’t want to be “transparent”.

There is a difference between “authentic” and “transparent”. Authentic means what you say is true and it’s about you. It’s not spin, hype, promotional, invented, or, um, plagiarized. It’s said in a genuine spirit of sharing.

Transparent, on the other hand, means you share everything. That works for some people. But it doesn’t work for most people. And that’s not what social media is really about. It’s about connection. It’s about inviting people into your living room occasionally. Or maybe onto your front porch to sit and have a chat. Not into your bedroom, or any other rooms you don’t want them visiting. You get to choose.

You can be authentic and share only 5% of what is going on for you in your life. That’s OK. You don’t have to be naked. You can wear a snowsuit. As long as people can see your face, they can connect to you. And that’s the point.

Resistance #6: Social media is full of shallow self-promotion and friend-collecting. I’d rather spend my time cultivating real connections.

Yes, there is a lot of self-promotion going on in social media.

Of course, there is a lot going on everywhere.

When I go to an in-person networking meeting, there are the people who shove their business cards at me, and the people who engage in real conversations with me. I get to choose which one I’m going to be, and which people I’m going to engage with. The choices I make determine whether the event meets my needs or not. You have those same choices online.

Social media is like one giant party that you can drop in and out of at any time, and you can pick exactly who you want to talk to. Get comfortable with tools like “hide this person’s updates from my stream” and “ignore” and “unfollow”. There is no reason you have to engage with people who aren’t being real. Make choices, just like in real life. Go for connections with people that are genuine and that you care about.

Set the tone you want. It’s as much about how you show up as how others show up. If you’re being real, other people who like that will want to be part of the conversation you’re having. Ask yourself: am I demonstrating the quality of connection I am seeking? Am I open to genuine interactions with people?

It’s up to you.

There are no rules here. It’s really up to you.

The key to working with any resistance is mindfully noticing what it is about over time and seeing what is true for you. Eventually the resistance unwinds and you come back to a place of choice. Curiosity arises about the possibilities.

What do you want to create? What works for you? How might social media be an asset to your life or your business? In what ways do you want to open to the larger world around you? In what ways do you want to reserve space and time for aloneness, introspection, time away from the computer, and rest? All needs are valid, and there are many strategies to meet these needs.

A final note: Believe in yourself

A lot of resistance to social media boils down to one thing: shyness. Not the natural introversion and need to be alone that a lot of us can relate to, but a more insidious lack of faith in oneself. It’s a feeling that your work isn’t so great that it would be all that interesting to anyone anyhow. So you hold back, in big and small ways. And people don’t get to see you, or benefit from what you have to offer.

If this rings true for you, consider this: it’s highly likely that people already love you more than you let them. If you have a habit of hiding or putting up fences for fear of being exposed and rejected, you are probably keeping love out more than you are keeping criticism out. Criticism will happen, but love will happen more. People like to love each other. Social media is just a conduit for it.

Our unconscious is probably involved when:

• Everything looks fine on the surface but something is still bothering you.
• You just can’t make a decision.
• You freeze and stop moving forward for no apparent reason.
• You’ve tried and tried to make something happen and it just doesn’t.
• Things aren’t so bad, but you feel bored and restless.
• You’ve forgotten why you do the work that you do.

It can also play a role in specific business processes:

• You are struggling to figure out your niche or unique purpose.
• Your “elevator pitch” feels scattered and unclear.
• Your creative process is stuck.

In these situations there is a disconnect between your conscious self and all the unconscious parts of yourself. There are things going on beneath the surface that are powerful, in charge, and not getting communicated to the conscious mind.

In our rational, left-brain world, we like to think we are in charge. We make goals, we get things done. Our lives are explicable.

And much of the time they are. Not a whole lot of thought needs to go into buying groceries or taking out the trash.

But when you are running a business, only a portion of what you do is that level of routine. There is a lot to your business that ties into deep issues of motivation, purpose, self-worth, boundaries, and your deepest dreams of contribution and connection.

The process I’m going to describe isn’t just a way to solve problems. It’s a way to align yourself with your deepest truth. It’s a way to stay in touch with the vital, creative part of yourself that is at the core of your being.

Your unconscious has a lot to say. And you need a way to listen.

Our unconscious thinks in pictures, not words. If you want to access the deeper motivations and concerns of your unconscious mind, you have to venture in to territory of metaphor and imagery.

The second ingredient is permission to follow your intuition. Our unconscious is not linear and focused. It’s more like water–you turn on the spigot and let it flow. You don’t know where the river will take you till you get there. The process is the point. You have to be willing to jump in the water, not knowing what it will be like and where you will end up. You have to operate on faith that you will discover something if you start, and then let go of the outcome.

The last necessity is time. There are always more urgent, ‘purposeful’, and easier thing to do than write or make art. Not that it’s hard exactly, to listen. But it takes a clear space in your mind and life to happen. It’s not going to happen on its own–you have to consciously choose to create a regular practice of setting aside time to communicate with yourself. And because it can be a non-linear, unpredictable process, it needs to be time you do not begrudge if “nothing happens”. It’s time you give yourself, not time you expect to get something.

Now that we have the ground rules, let’s talk about techniques.

• intuitive painting
• intuitive writing
• intuitive collage
• intuitive <insert your favorite medium here>

The distinction between “painting” and “intuitive painting” is important. If you sit down to paint a picture of a flower, you’ll end up with a flower. If you sit down to paint, and let your color choices and paintbrush be guided by your unconscious, you won’t know what you’ll end up with. That’s the point.

The same is true of writing. If you sit down to write a story, or an article, you may produce those. But sitting down to just give yourself an opportunity to speak through words being put on the page is different. Many people have never written that way. I encourage you to try it. Just start writing, and give yourself the ingredients above: time you don’t begrudge yourself, permission to open the gate and see what comes through without being goal-oriented. Don’t edit and don’t critique. You aren’t writing for anyone else; just for yourself.

Collage may be the most accessible medium for many people. All you need are some magazines, paper, scissors, and a gluestick.

An integrated exercise: collage + writing

I’ve developed a printable exercise that will lead you through an intuitive collage process, with a writing portion afterwords.

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

You may get messages about your life rather than your business. That’s OK. They are probably connected. If you work with the information you get from your first collages, you may find that it leads to insights on the business issue you are struggling with. Or, maybe your unconscious is digging in its heels in your business because of something you are neglecting in your life. If you have a habit of ignoring self-care in favor of productivity, or subject yourself to a great deal of stress worrying about the future, your unconscious may want you to lighten up and have some fun before it has an opinion on what you should do about your next year’s goals.

Your attitude toward the process is as important or more important than any materials or techniques you use. If you come in with frustration about not knowing the answer, you’ll end up with frustration about not knowing the answer. You need to start with acceptance of right where you are, and curiosity about what is underneath. Think of your unconscious as a child who wants to play. If you’re angry at it or expect performance from it, it’s not going to feel freedom to play. But if you sit down and have fun with it, that sense of creative excitement and energy will come out through this process.

With that, here is the exercise:

Examples

Here are some example of finished collages and the writing they inspired.

Note: the exercise calls to write from the perspective of the card, as each collage represents an aspect of yourself.

	A community of individuals I feel alone but I’m like a lot of others. I’m looking for commonalities. I like my space but to be connected to others and see what they are up to. I like to see that I’m not alone, even though I don’t have to be glommed into one group–I still get to be me. I connect with people who don’t think of business as just about money–it’s about bringing goodness into the world. I connect with people who also need solitude–who understand it. I get overwhelmed in groups and feel disconnected. I like community that is authentic, low-key, and real–where everyone has space to be themselves.
	Awe & Wonder I am why you came here, to Earth. Life is full of surprises. It’s intense, amazing. I study and discover the endless realms–the true nature of things. It’s fascinating. And what’s more–by discovering them, they change. AND–I love watching other people have these moments too-of discovery and change.
	Inner Space I am vast and silent. My light stretches throughout the galaxy. I shine above and through all creation. I hold every creative endeavor and infuse it with light. You need a vessel and quiet time to collect the light. I’m timeless and endless; that’s why you need open time and spaces to resonate with me.

The above exercise is based in part on the SoulCollage method developed by Seena Frost. For more information and tips on intuitive collage, check out the extensive KaleidoSoul website.

Is your true work something that hasn’t exactly been done before? Do you want to learn skills in helping people, but don’t know which model to use – teaching, coaching, therapist, etc? Maybe none of them feel quite right? Do traditional trainings feel boring, too structured, or not adequate to prepare you for what you truly want to do?

I was in this place a year ago. I was simultaneously attracted to and repelled by many different training options. I knew I wanted to learn more about helping people, but nothing was exactly what I wanted.

I really wanted an apprenticeship of some kind. But even that didn’t seem right, because nobody was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. Heck, I didn’t even know what that was.

The answer I came up with (after working through considerable fear) was to just jump in to trying different things.

My self-made apprenticeship has included:

• Half of a life-coach training, which made me feel more confident starting…
• Several trades of one-on-one business coaching over several months, which led to…
• Teaching a class with one of my trade partners, which turned into…
• A lot of curriculum building and a group-coaching atmosphere (this was the most fun so far!)

Here is what I’ve learned:

It’s a process, jump in.

It’s really scary to start something brand new and be a beginner. It’s tempting to want to find the exact right type of training that will perfectly prepare you for your work and give you a structure to fall back on. But if that’s not happening, you have to just pick one direction and go in it. Trying one thing leads to the next thing which leads to the next thing. So just start.

Move forward when it’s time.

When you’ve gotten enough out of one phase of your training, let go of it. For example, I quit my coaching training half-way through. I can always go back if I later decide I want the certification aspect, but in my body I felt done and I wanted to move on to the next phase of my learning. I realized in the training that I didn’t really need as much formal training as I thought, and I just needed to start doing it. The training helped me realize this; that was it’s job. Each stage’s purpose is to move you to the next stage, until you find something that is so fun you want to keep at it. If you don’t keep moving, you get bogged down. Stay in tune with yourself. You’ll know when it’s time to move on to the next step.

It’s more fun with friends.

In a formal training, one of the aspects that makes it safe for learning is that everyone practices on each other. You can set this up for yourself by doing trades with people who you know and who know where you are at. If you don’t have a strong business community around you, start building one, but also just put it out there on places like Facebook and Biznik. Be honest: I’m learning this thing, and I want to offer sessions for trade, low-cost, free. Make sure you feel OK with whatever you are asking in return, whether it’s low-cost sessions, free sessions, or trade sessions. Often there is a progression where at first you just want to do it for free, and then as you learn your skill you want to at least do a trade, and then you want to primarily be paid. Honor each stage and let yourself ask for what you need to feel good about doing it.

Honor your panic zone.

The learning zone is in between the comfort zone and the panic zone. Don’t push yourself so far, so fast, that you shut down. Let yourself learn gradually, at the pace that is right for you. One of the top benefits of creating your own learning program is that you get to honor your self-hood at every single stage of the journey.

Right relationship is about balance, health, and sustainability. It’s also about service–how we help the world with the power we have.

I’m talking about our personal relationship to money–not how the world economies should treat money, but how we personally can come into alignment with the spiritual nature of money.

Money has a spiritual nature?

The truth is everything has a spiritual nature. What makes money magical is that it’s a unique form of condensed energy. As such, it can serve as a mirror, a teacher for us on our spiritual journey.

Beyond “Think and Grow Rich”

Getting in alignment or right-relationship is NOT a way to get rich overnight. “Think and grow rich” and the “Law of Attraction” are often ways to avoid looking at our deep fear of scarcity.

It’s true that as you grow in your understanding of money, creating it becomes much easier. As you learn to charge appropriately, market to the right people, and own the value of what you do, your business becomes much easier to run.

But that part’s not magical. That’s just about learning a system and getting better at it.

Right-relationship is about something deeper. It’s about that subtle inner tension we carry about money, which relates to our sense of power and security in the world.

Right-relationship means accepting that we don’t control everything about life.

Right-relationship means living in gratitude for what we have, being willing to use the power we have to do good, and the cheerful acceptance that we are not ultimately in charge of the Universe. Including our money.

Now this might sound funny coming from someone who advocates a weekly accounting practice, designing passive income schemes, and generally is known to fully enjoy the game of business.

All these things are true. I like the game, I love the game. But I know, in my heart, that I am only a player. Right-relationship to the game means knowing that you didn’t create it and you can’t control it. You can only play it, and play it well.

Is this getting too esoteric? Here are some practical ways right-relationship shows up:

How to get in right-relationship with money.

Stop avoiding. Face the reality, the truth of your present relationship with money. Stop looking for salvation. Stop spending money on overpriced programs that are going to solve all your money problems. Start accepting that the only way anything changes is by facing it on the internal plane.

Forgive yourself. Some people’s issues show up in relationships. Some show up in reckless behavior or addiction. Some show up in money. There is nothing wrong with having issues. We all have them. You’re just where you’re at.

Relax the grasping. Grasping is an instinctual response to fear. Think of a baby, latching on to its mother. Take a deep breathe. Notice when you get in sticky situations with clients and money, or overspend. Somewhere in there are attachments, deep unmet needs for safety and security that you are unconsciously trying to meet through your use (or avoidance) of money.  Get mindful. Breathe into the places that are afraid and dialog with them.

Start owning your own power. Money is a powerful thing in our culture. Knowing how to use it, knowing how it works, having practice and experience–these lead to real power. Let that be OK. Step out of the fear that you can’t, or that you’ll be corrupted by it. You won’t if you take responsibility and own your own choices.

Start using your money, your power, your will…for good. Right-relationship ultimately describes the relationship of the small and personal to the grand and majestic. To be in right-relationship with Source/God/etc means owning your power, and then letting that power be used as a tool for the larger good. Do what is right, regardless of the money. Play the game, but don’t be the game. Be a player in service of good.

These steps are roughly in order. The important thing to notice is you have to own your power before you can truly serve the world. Otherwise, you have nothing to offer. Without a solid vessel, you are useless as a tool. So work on yourself. Then let go of yourself.

Before I talk about “selling out”, I want to talk about the two sides of creativity, process and product.

Process: the internal work of uncovering something personally meaningful through creative output.

Product: a finished, cohesive work that other people can access and find value in.

Process and product are two sides of the same coin, and yet if you focus just on one or the other you lose something.

If you focus exclusively on process, you won’t produce something that others can access – your creation will hold personal meaning, but not universal meaning. The packaging is the bridge that lets others access it.

If you focus just on product, you will lose the heart of why you were creating in the first place. You will be selling just for the purpose of selling. You will be creative in order to be liked or rewarded, but your creations will be empty.

The fear of “selling out” is a fear that success will create a pull for product over process–and you won’t be able to stay true to your work.

Imagine if your internal greed or other people’s needs and desires pulled you from your authentic desire to serve or create. Imagine if you lost touch with the “process” side of creativity–the heart of what you have to offer.

That’s a scary thought.

For some people, it’s so scary that they never learn how to package their work and market it. They view all packaging as “selling out”, and have no discernment about which is serving the work by making it more widely accessible and which is hollow.

They solve the problem of having to be responsible with power by not having any power at all. In doing so, they fail to reach the audience they could have. The world doesn’t see what they had to offer.

That’s a real loss, for both the creator and the world.

The fear of selling out is a fear of owning your power in an ethical way.

Fear of selling out is one form of “fear of success” – the fear of losing touch with oneself. For people who have big hearts and big visions, this fear can be especially poignant.

It can also be unconsciously limiting you without you realizing it.

How to not be afraid of selling out:

Admit that there is part of you that is greedy, and afraid. There is part of you that wants to be liked and needed and rewarded, and is afraid of not having enough. It’s there. Be aware of it. Don’t make it wrong. But don’t pretend it’s not there either. Denial leads to unconscious behavior.

Make a conscious decision that you are going to work with your inner greediness, need for approval, and grasping when it comes up. Decide that you are opting for conscious awareness, not avoidance. Take time with your dark side–get to know it. Have fun with it. Laugh about it. Be OK with being human (and grounded in the knowledge that you have values). Having an ongoing and healthy relationship with this part of you means you’ll be in no danger of it taking over.

Discern greed from the desire to grow. Humans want to grow and create and serve in ever-expanding ways. It’s natural. That’s not greed–it’s your heart reaching for the stars. Learn to discern the difference between expansive desire and constricting fear-based greed. Cultivate that expansive desire–that comes from an abundant place of pure love for creating. It’s magnetic.

Package your work in ethical ways. Examine your marketing decisions both in the light of who they might reach, and if they are truthful. Base your business on openness and respect rather than fear, hoarding, and competition. Opt for developing quality and eschewing hype. Forget what other people do with their marketing. Decide that you package your work so people will be able to access it, not so they’ll like you and make you rich. Don’t market some way just because other people do it, if it doesn’t feel right to you. Create ways of speaking about what you do that feel right to you.

Don’t undersell yourself. Show up fully, honestly, and authentically in what you do. Cultivate a solid center in yourself that you market from–a center that knows your worth and doesn’t need to either undersell or oversell.

Relax. You are a good person. Trust yourself.