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In the search for security, self-confidence is the first milestone

Hello and Welcome to my new readers!

The idea of security drives much of human action and directed behavior. The search for security can take many paths.  There are different forms of security attached to financial, physical, emotional, relational, and personal safety and various personalities are drawn to various hierarchies of security.  The path chosen will be focused on the core insecurity for the person.

So if you find that being alone is difficult or you have your strongest feelings of insecurity around relationships then it was in that portion of your life that you have a lack of security and a lack of strength.  If you live here then money may not be of much importance but human interaction is a focus of security.  Individuals who live here will say,  “the money will come” but if someone doesn’t respond to them quickly they begin to catastrophize about the meaning of the lack of communication, sometimes even after 15 minutes of waiting.

If you focus on making money and creating financial security then not having money creates an inner sense of insecurity.  If you live here then relationships have less of a pull on you but wealth creation and savings is of great importance.  Individuals who live here easily let go of other people’s needs or requests and in general can survive with few connections but they have difficulty spending the wealth they created.  They may be unable to spend their money even on fairly necessary things because the spending causes them to feel paralyzed by insecurity.  This is an example of someone who has the funds but never spends it – the money in the bank, or in some cases millions under the mattress, creates no sense of comfort except in the knowing it is there.

How a person develops a sense of insecurity is related to his early circumstances, his place in society, his parent’s perspective of security and his personal temperament and skill set.

So an individual who focuses on financial security will usually have a story or myth behind it that describes a powerful point in his life when he was without money and the lack of money felt dire, dangerous, and life-threatening.  The gathering and having of money becomes the object of security.

In a different circumstance an individual who focuses on connection or relationship for security will have a story of being abandoned and the abandonment will feel like a dire, life-threatening situation.  Physical neglect and abuse in early childhood can feel like an abandonment and individuals can develop an insecurity in relationship as a result of this.  The relationship, being connected to someone, is the object of security.

The issue of insecurity is an equation of the experience plus the attached story or belief system connected to a feeling of life-or-death.  So not all individuals that come from poverty or abuse, who have a challenging financial situation or individuals who have dealt with abandonment, will develop this sense of insecurity.

And this sense of insecurity is something that shows up along a continuum, from slight to overwhelming.  On the slight end of the continuum, supportive groups and talking oneself through the anxiety can be enough to decrease the internal reaction or imbalance.  On the more overwhelming end it can be debilitating, interfering with an individual’s capacity to function.

The word security can conjure up many different connotations: a sense of physical safety, inner balance, laws and rules; the meanings are diverse but the underlying concept seems to refer to a sense of balance and safety.

In order to create a sense of security, the work needs to begin at home.  The first step is to build an internal sense of security or self-confidence and inner strength.

Child development theorists talk about this as the first stage of development for children.  It develops out of trust or mistrust of your caregiver. From there, following Erik Erikson’s developmental model, each stage builds on the previous stage.  A feeling of trust and confidence will lead to self-confidence, competence, success in relationships and career.  Creating this pathway for your child is a function of being present and real with her.  Creating this for yourself is a function of returning to neutral, returning to balance, through meditation and paradigm shifting with compassion and lovingkindness toward others and yourself.

Mindful meditation is a useful habit to help create this.

A feeling of mistrust can skew the development of these capacities; it can decrease your chance to develop the positive aspects of the stages.  It can result in a lack of self-confidence, insecurity, timidity, a lack of internal strength, a sense of incompetence and ultimately if enough aspects are negatively affected then insecurity can create an individual who has difficulty with relationships, is unable to make basic decisions, and breaks down in nominally stressful situations.

This situation can be positively affected with meditation, prayer, breathing, and reality testing through compassionate paradigm shifting.

The first milestone to shifting your relationship with security into balance is through the development of self-confidence.

More about how to development self-confidence and stave off insecurity in upcoming blogs.  Also see February 3, 2011, blog instinctive health medicine, self-confidence vs insecurity, and other blogs through the search icon above under insecurity.

See you tomorrow.

Beth


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What if that funky mood is telling you something

Hello

I wrote a blog  funky to joyous, how to shift the energy, posted january 28, 2011, with great ideas about how to shift yourself out of a funky mood.

But what if that funky mood was itself the cue that there was an underlying problem but it’s too vague to figure out?

When things just don’t feel right it may be that you are out of sync or you have taken a wrong turn.  Sometimes feeling off, or in a funky mood is just the cue to get you back on track if you use your mindfulness, observation skills, and pay attention.

Instinctive knowing is more of a bothering rather than a loud shout that there’s a problem.

A funky mood can be like a bothering, a nagging, sense that something is out-of-place.  So you can view it as a cue that you need to go within, get centered and listen, or mindfully look at what is bothering you.

I find this is especially true when the funky mood seems out-of-place.  You can follow the thread back to when you began the funky mood and see what happened just before your mood shifted into being funky.  Often through this process you can use your observation and investigation skills to see the precursor to the funky mood, and that will give you information about the problem with which you are bothered.

The funky mood is your instinctive knowing informing you that something is awry.

This tends to be an insidious experience; in a subtle, pernicious fashion things begin to go awry and the funky mood develops in response to this shifting.

When you use you attention to look at the circumstances leading up to the shift in energy you can see the precise moment the shift occurred.  It is often a word or statement from another or a set of interactions that are linked in some way to an attachment or expectation or agreement you hold about yourself, others in relationship with you, or a group.

First you use you attention to discern whence the funky mood originated, and then you use your intention to bring into light that which is bothering you.  Once you can identify the problem then you can clarify and choose to respond to it with your whole self, in a mindful and centered way.

Our natural state is to be in balance, easily connecting and interacting with those in our environment who matter to us.

A funky mood could be a sign that you are out of balance.  Using it as a cue you can engage your mindfulness and paradigm shifting skills to center yourself into your life and respond from within that center and feel a return to balance.

When the issue is an attachment then the shift may be to unlink the should of how things should be.  This is to say you have to evaluate if you have an attachment about emotion and action or an unexpressed linking of your behavior to another’s behavior in response.  ie:  I make everything ok and you owe me.

When the issue is an expectation then the shift may be to clarify, re-evaluate, and re-negotiate the arrangement that corresponds to the expectation.  Sometimes expectations are unacknowledged and there isn’t agreement among parties.  In this situation the resolution may be to create a space so that the expectation is identified and shared with all parties involved.  Sometimes the expectation is inappropriate and the shift is to let it go.

Expectations are often unexpressed agreements that are part of one parties’ belief system (or habit reaction pattern), but not part of another parties’ belief system.  This leads to resentment, conflicts, and funky moods.

When the issue is an agreement it is important to bring to light whatever aspects of the agreement that has either 1/ not been fully identified and expressed or 2/when the aspects of the agreement have changed.  You see this a lot with partnerships or love relationships ie:  with monogamy or loyalties – if the parties have different belief systems or when feelings have changed, what one party thinks is an agreement may not be held by the other party.

Agreements, expectations, and attachments are a normal part of relationship however they are dynamic.  This ever-changing aspect is the source of much conflict, discomfort, and miscommunication.

I have found that both expectations and attachments tend to result in dissonance and an imbalance moving people out of their center.  This is especially true when they  are unexpressed or unidentified until they go unmet.

It is wise to make an effort to evaluate these in your relationships on an ongoing basis.

You funky mood can be seen as an early warning system.

Paying attention to it allows you to adjust your focus and use your mindfulness to increase your alignment of your agreements, expectations, and attachments with your centered, balanced true-self in your relationships and your interactions.  You may find a cleaner, less funky relationship ensues, resulting in a more balanced present (available), happy, secure (confident), mood.

See you tomorrow.

Beth


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Live like you were dying

Hello

So I recently heard this song by Tim McGraw called Live like you were dying. It’s about making the changes you always meant to do because you feel the end coming.  It’s very touching.  He identifies doing things and being different emotionally and in relationship too –

….I went sky-diving and rocky mountain climbing… and I loved deeper, I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying; I was finally the husband that most the time I wasn’t, I became a friend a friend would like to have..and I finally read the good book and  I took a good long hard look at what I would do if I could do it all again; ….I watched an eagle as it was flying…live like you were dying.

Several years ago my dear friend was diagnosed with colon cancer.  She was amazing.  Over the last few years of her life she made sure that what she could do, that she wanted to do, she did.

She focused on what was great about life and she focused on getting as much as possible out of life, from both a doing as well as experiencing (connecting and being) perspective.  It was inspiring to witness and amazing to be close to her during this time.

She allowed her compassion and love of life to guide her in her endeavors yet she was mindful of taking care of all the responsibilities involved in dying – providing for other and making sure she resolved unresolved issues.

She lived as if everything she did mattered.  But she was less uptight, and more relaxed about everything, too.  It was as if she was savoring each moment and didn’t want to allow anger to steal any of those moments away from her.

She tolerated the vulnerability of being what her heart desired because she didn’t have to worry about what end would come; she felt the urgency of being her true self because her days were numbered.

It fits that when we see we are nearing the end, one of the first things to release is anger.  Sure people are angry about dying but wasting precious living-time on feeling and being angry takes away the time available for en-joying what life actually offers.

I think it’s an important lesson on which to focus, getting as much out of life as possible; it seems like a good thing to focus on even when one doesn’t know their fate… to live like you were dying…. to really savor and be mindful of your actions, and your relationships.

Structure is important to teach but living is the most important thing that we take for granted.  We focus on structure early in our parenting because we want to help our children to have that throughout their lives but I wonder if we do so at the neglect of teaching them about trusting their instincts about what brings them joy and their talents and seeing the beauty available in relationships.

To create a life that is full regardless of your days, both delayed gratification and structure as well as living in the moment are needed in balance.

When I lost my friend I felt I had really experienced a lot of life with her.  That we had connected, and shared, and lived through things in a way that I could cherish and hold onto after she was gone.

Earlier in my life I had lost my beloved boyfriend in a car accident.  It was unexpected and shocking.  He too, had a way of getting the most out of life – for him experiencing life mattered more than the  accumulation of things.  He focused on connections and relationships, and experiences.

At the time, I was too figure focused and not enough ground – so when he died I really felt cheated and lost.  It was difficult.  But now I realize that our experiences together created a strong model for me to focus on connections and relationship and to let go of the unimportant injuries of everyday life; to see the whole of the person or experience and embrace what is good while releasing what doesn’t work.

His death profoundly changed my life.  I always made sure that I tell the ones I loved how much I love them, every time I see them, so I won’t regret not saying it if something were to happen.

Now I am watching as my father struggles to live out the rest of his life with a diagnosis of end stage cancer.  What strikes me is how it affects the people around him.

He, like the individuals identified above, seems to have let go of anger and is trying to both fight the cancer and focus on living experiences each day.  He has lived a very experience and accomplishment filled life.

The people around him seem to have so much anger.  They haven’t found their way to the importance of letting go of that anger, those left over resentments, and experiencing in the present moment what they have left.  To connect and laugh and resolve the unresolved issues; to make peace with the fullness and wholeness of their relationship with him.  To allow love, life, and peace to fill the time left.  It’s difficult to witness and get caught in the occasional crossfire of anger.

Perhaps it’s because they haven’t lost someone they really cared about before – they don’t realize the finiteness of this time.

In reality all our time is finite.  We each might find greater happiness if we could focus on our life as such, so that we could keep our focus more balanced.

Our lives are made up of our accomplishments, and they require an element of delayed gratification – waiting to do what you want while you are creating them.

But what also makes up our lives are experiences with people.  Connections and shared experiences are the most amazing memories when those we love are gone.  Sharing a sunset, a baseball game, a spiritual service, skiing, dinner, laughter, difficulties and joy.

These events build connections and are like threads through the tapestry of our lives. They provide color and content and a type of marker to keep us tethered while we move through our lives.

Balancing our focus on developing structure and doing and accomplishments with being and connecting and experiences is very important.  It requires being present, knowing what matters, being flexible and firm, having compassion, understanding rights and responsibilities, seeing figure and ground, and being mindful.

How we integrate cognitions and emotions, and the ways in which we reveal them to ourselves and others, is the fabric of our lives.

See you tomorrow.

Beth


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finding forgiveness

Hello and Welcome!

Finding forgiveness is one of the single most difficult aspects of human interaction and personal growth.

It’s a search that takes us inside and out, around, and through so many aspects of our lives, our experiences and relationships.

In the Jewish tradition the time between Rosh Hashonah the New Year and Yom Kippur the day of Atonement, is a transition time to go within and search your soul. It’s not just atoning for transgressions, it’s also and firstly atoning with each other, and I think this is the genius of the transition time.

It’s like a time-cocoon to discover if there are events for which you need to ask forgiveness or people of whom you need to ask forgiveness and the most difficult task I think, to find your own forgiveness.

Ten days to review your last year and in some cases the years before that.  To avail yourself of the acts of letting go and forgiveness and transformation.  Ten days while working, playing, and living to find your way into the underworld and back.  It’s a large task.

In my experience there is a perfunctory approach to this, by many participating in the high holy-days in the jewish tradition, not because they do not take it seriously but rather because they are unable or unwilling to delve into those deep areas.

This is the most spiritual and enlightened aspect of this tradition – to make peace.  To actually create the world anew every year through this process of forgiveness.  It is mindfulness at it’s best.

  • A common style of dealing with hurts is to cut yourself off from the profound feelings that are attached to the pain you have endured.  This has its price too, it keeps you stuck in the past.
  • Unforgiveness leads to a diminishing of your personal power, a rigid world view and a truncated personality in relationship.  It leads to the opposite of mindfulness.
  • In order to forgive, that pain must be felt and then a resolution, an understanding, a paradigm shift needs to take place.  This action of forgiveness and shifting releases or unlinks the pain of the event, from the event and the actor.  With this new understanding, the outcome of the event, actor and experience can be put into proper perspective and into your past, freeing you to move on into the present moment of your life -> as if it is a new world.  Forgiveness releases you from a historical habit reaction pattern, especially in how you relate to another or others.  It allows you to engage in mindful present moment behavior, action and understanding.

To forgive another a deeply painful act, betrayal, or action is difficult.

To see, and accept responsibility for, how you have hurt another is also difficult.

These two actions are the intention of the Day of Atonement in the Jewish high holy day tradition, sometimes due to the difficulty in the task some simply state the words and make an internal promise to do better in the future.

For a real shift to take place, the spirituality behind the inner search is paramount and can result in transforming events.

How do you forgive someone for that act which in your mind changed you forever? Or even for betrayal of your trust or your sense of innocence?

Finding forgiveness requires grace.

It requires a willingness to let go of the thing that may define your stance in the world. It is fraught with deep feeling and an inner journey to your center.

Certainly paradigm shifting, figure/ground perspective, and the attitude of gratitude are helpful activities.  Mindfulness allows you to see a way to unlink the act and the person, the act and the circumstances surrounding the act, and the intention and the act.

But even with these unlinkings and increased awareness and perspective there are difficult betrayals and experiences to transcend in order to get to forgiveness.

This is especially true when the betrayal continues.  When the action requiring forgiveness continues.  For this kind of betrayal or transgression it is best to forgive the past and make an effort to change how and in what ways you continue the relationship in the now or the future.

Forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance are partners in this atonement procedure.  Some people you must forgive and accept that they may betray you again, due to their internal character.  Therefore you simply change how you relate to him or her in the future.  This releases the power of the betrayal and builds your resilience and compassion muscles.

This is part of the intended process, you make peace at this time the best you can and then move into the new world with as much faith as possible that the new world will remain.

It is an interesting and deeply educational process about yourself, others, and your humanity.  It increases your capacity for love, understanding, compassion, patience, forgiveness, and grace.  It may be that this is the gift to be given, the opportunity to develop these qualities within yourself to practice seeing others as self so that you can extend your empathy muscles

I keep finding forgiveness. And this transition time allows for  an opportunity to create peace and create the world anew.

You may want to create a structure for developing a formalized transition time to incorporate elements of this tradition to view and re-view your past year and develop the qualities of compassion, mindfulness, and forgiveness.

Attach it to a structure that is already part of your life.  Consider doing this on each new moon, or each full moon.  You can also attach it to the solstice or equinox periods.  You may have such a tradition in a spiritual practice you already follow.  However you choose to create a structure, the practice of reviewing your own acts or how you are holding onto unforgiveness will increase you capacity for living mindfully in the moment and experiencing healing in your relationships.

It may seem tedious and difficult at first, but the rewards are great and for the most part this ritual increases intimacy, connection and a sense of strength in ourselves and our relationships.  It is mindfulness at it’s best with a sense of grace that all things pass and move into well – being. Namaste, L’Shana Tova, in love and light, bg