Fear is Easy

Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. 

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. Steven Pressfield
 
I believed, for most of my adult life, that my life partner was something that would come to me.  All I had to do was “be good”, faithful and obedient.  I just had to work hard and somebody would notice me.  At one point, a close friend, “Why are you not working at getting a partner?  If you put half the energy into finding a partner, that you have been putting in your career, you’d be married by now!”  I remember feeling slightly insulted by his words.  Old stories die hard.

Eventually, I took this to heart, and I began putting myself out in the dating world.  I put up a dating profile on several online dating sites and set aside time to “work” on meeting a partner.  I went on loads of dates.  I took everything personally. I painted every “no” as a failure and a sign of my unworthiness. It was difficult – Sometimes fun but mostly scary. It eventually got easier, and after every encounter, I learned a little bit more about myself and how to date but it never stopped being challenging. It took me a very long time to break my old belief.            

One of the things that I learned along the way was that sitting in my pit of pitifulness had some real advantages. Believing that I am unworthy or a failure gave me a good excuse not to face rejection.  

Believing that I had to be obedient and good in order to receive a relationship meant that I did not have to do the work to put myself out in the world.  I didn’t have to expose my vulnerable parts.  I could stay safe in the cocoon of ‘I am not worthy’ thus never exposing my terrifying fears to those around me.            

I am in the middle of the process of publishing my first book (working title: Hearts Guide to Crisis). There were a few times in the writing process where I became paralyzed with self doubt and overwhelmed with the rewrites and my mediocre writing.  I was listening to a number of podcasts and reading blogs on writing but I could not write. 

I woke up one morning and it was like a fog lifted and everything got crystal clear.  Writing a good book is not supposed to be easy.  The discipline of crafting and redrafting the work is all a part of the creative process. Rewrites and discipline are part of the process. 

I feel like I have spent my lifetime proving to myself that I deserve to be in "the arena" while at the same time, constantly avoiding the limelight and minimizing my skill set.  My whine that I am not good enough, that my writing is mediocre, was just an excuse to not do the hard work of doing the work.  

I know that sounds obvious, but for me, this was a lightbulb moment.  Once I understood this, I was able to focus my time on my writing and I stopped listening to the whiney voice of "I am not enough".  This was a game changer for me.

Fear is easy.  It lets you protect your vulnerability and your ugly. It lets you nurse your story that says you are are not enough.  Fear will freeze you in your victim thinking - It can paralyze you into believing that your only choice is to do nothing but feel miserable.         

The antidote is to this paralysis is available to you. Move. Do something.  Take steps towards your dream. Focus on what you can do and table everything else.  When you hear yourself complain how the other guy has it so good, and you have it so bad, remember that's just the fear talking. Keep moving, right through your fear.  

It won't work.
I can't do this. 
I'm too old, too young, too dumb, too smart. 
I can't do this by myself. 

The list is long.  I know, because I could write another book on all the things fear tells you.

Fear is easy and very very chatty. Don't listen.

Use your energy instead, to do the work.  Everyday. Repeat.

Fear Can't Win

I am sitting across from a client. We have worked together over the last few years so I have been able to witness some significant and courageous transformations. He has been sober for over two years. Employed,  engaged in healthy habits and routines. As with all transformations, many deaths occur. He is divorced. He is working on establishing new, honest and authentic relationships with his adult children.  He is trying to do the same with his aging parents. He doesn't even look like the same person who entered my office three years ago.  He is engaging with the world in an entirely different way.

I have been a witness to his tremendous acts of courage.  How was he able to make those changes and transformations?

Healing is never a straight line.   It is an evolution, a series of small imperceptible steps repeated so often, it becomes an unconscious habit. Big steps. in moral development terms happen in progressive baby tiny steps.   Like Lao Tse's famous quote, "A one thousand mile journey begins with one step," big achievements happen in small repeated choices.

How did this client transform his life? What brought him the courage to take the one step and how does he continue to chose healing even when it feels lonely, painful and impossible?

"I was tired of living in my small box. I figured there had to be something better than my small world of addiction and pain. I was tired of letting fear win."

That is the challenge.  Everyday.  Fear can't win. You have to get out of your small box of what you know. Whatever that might be - debt, dis ease, disrespectful relationships, safe but unfulfilling jobs - there is a place in your life that you are tolerating, that is probably slowly eating away at the quality of your life.

If you are lucky, it is the small uncomfortable nagging space that feels like the pebble stuck in your shoe. If you are resourced, courageous, and well rehearsed, you deal with the discomfort.  Most of us, though, pretend like we are fine with the pebble, ignoring it, telling ourselves  life is full of compromises and this is one of them.  Most of us will ignore it until the pain is unbearable, the pebble has gouged a hole in our heal, infected and almost ready to take out our entire foot.

Fear can't win.

The transformed client in front of  me is the global metaphor.

Success comes in small steps, repeated thousands of times. It is the behaviours, the doing that bring about our hear's desires. It is not the occasional game changing leaps or awareness nor is it the occasional significant setback that bring about transformation.  It is the boring small little daily behaviours that move us forward.

What is your fear? What is the preoccupation that keeps you up at night? What are the small steps that you are willing to take to challenge that fear?

Think about the steps you can take. Small behaviours repeated over time. That is what transformation looks like.

And from here, it looks magnificent.

My Addiction to Certainty

Food and Connection

Two years ago, I saw an interview with Tony Robbins, a popular motivational speaker who talked about six core values that drive behaviour. The values were significance, love, growth, contribution, certainty, and adventure.  According to Robbins, everyone values a particular cocktail of the combination. When I thought carefully about the list and put them in order of what I believed I valued most, I put them in the following order:

1. Love/connection
2. Significance
3. Certainty
4. Adventure/Uncertainty
5. Growth 
6. Contribution

Over the past few months, while in the process of making significant life changes, (changing my work position, moving homes, focusing on simplifying my life) I have been reflecting on my choices and past decisions.  Although certainty is number 3 on my list, when I look at how I make life choices, what keeps me up at night and what increases level of anxiety, I actually behave and make choices based on certainty.  

What I think I value and what I actually practice are not the same thing.  I think I value love and connection, but in practice, I value the idea of the sure thing more than love, more than significance and more than the desire to grow.

I want to know. I want to feel secure. I want to know that my health is good and that I am loved. I want to know that all my family is loved, healthy and cared for. I want to know that I will have a steady pay check, a roof over my head and a secured retirement. 

I realize that most of my decisions are based on my need to feel safe and secure and that all is well in my world.  

Funny thing is, the more I have come to appreciate my overwhelming desire for certainty, the more I have appreciated that I really don't have it.  No matter how well I take care of myself, I can still get sick, no matter how secure I think my job is, there is no promise that I will have it until I retire. No matter how much money I accrue or invest, it can all be lost. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the idea of Certainty is an illusion. It's an illusion, because whatever pain we try to avoid, or plan to overcome, in the end, the whole protective tower of security can come tumbling down.

Certainty is an illusion.  

I am no stranger to addictive behaviour and as I work to keep my coffee consumption down, I know that I am not even grazing the real mother load of my addictions.  The truth is, I am an addict and my drug of choice is certainty.

My need to control the outcome, to plan, organize and schedule safety is remarkably futile, yet I continue to try!  I know I am not alone in this is a recurring theme in both my energy work and counselling practice.

So what can I do to overcome this? What can WE do to overcome our collective desire to keep our worlds known, controlled, safe and small? Keeping in mind that I am working on this with you, here are a few practical suggestions:

Photo by Jill Philipchuk

1. Stay in This Present Moment.  Easier said than done, I know. "Anxiety is fear of the future and the future is not real", my fellow energy practitioner, Ann Liden, reminds me. Certainty is about controlling an outcome and that is always about the future.  When we focus on the here and now, we focus on the only real certainty we have - the present moment. For me this is about anchoring myself in what already exists. For the vast majority of us, this present moment is not too shabby.  Say it out loud.  What's really happening right now?  I am breathing, I am fed, I have a roof over my head, I am loved, I can walk, I am alive. Acknowledge your present moment experience and focus on everything that is working for you right at this moment.

2. Cross Crawls - This is a simple task that does big things in your brain. It essentially helps you to integrate both sides of your brain and helps you stay connected into your body.  Donna Eden Energy Medicine has a quick youtube demo of this activity. This is a great activity to do when you feel yourself spin down into your "pit of pitifulness". We experience worry, fear and overwhelm in our bodies and it is important that we use our bodies as one of our strategies to work with these feelings.

3.  Get Connected. Invest in relationships!  Don't wait for a crisis or setback to develop relationships.  Spend focused time every day building connections and staying connected.  Put a timer on for fifteen minutes if you have to, and use that focused time to call, email, text or plan focused time where you are building connections.  This is time that should be used to listen or focus on the lives of those around you. Schedule curiosity. Every Tuesday go hang with your daughter in her bedroom and find out what brings her joy. Email a sibling you don't see often and take them out for a coffee (Oops, there I go talking about my secondary addiction!) or a tea, perhaps. Find out how your friend's salsa lessons are going and get them to demo a move or two.  Take the opportunity to practice your own curiosity and listen.  These small investments in time and curiosity will always pay you dividends.

In the end, appreciating and showing up for what we have right now, will take us much farther than the illusive glitter of certainty.  The one sure thing we have is this moment, and the more we are able to show up and respect the now, the easier it will be to untangle ourselves from the false promises that certainty provides.

The Paradox of Stillness - 5 Things to do in Crisis

After struggling with symptoms of severe adrenal failure, my sister was finally feeling the benefits of a strengthening recovery.  She was doing so well, that she was back to playing badminton - her long time passion.  In fact, she was doing so well, that she entered and won local tournaments, and had just signed up for a Master's tournament with her eventual goal to participate in the Master's Olympics. 

During one of her training sessions, she blew her MCL, a ligament which stabilizes the knee.  She was suddenly immobilized, in severe pain and looking at a period of complete immobilization, and a long, slow recovery which also meant temporarily leaving behind all those activities which brought her so much life!

And so, after years of gradual recovery and a taste of "her old self" she found herself once again back into a recovery phase.

Crisis.

Crisis arrives looking like we have taken a sudden blow back with all of our hard work and effort crushed in a single event or circumstance.

"When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair," writes Henri Nouwen, "Your healing is not a straight line.  You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself, All is lost.  I have to start all over again. This is not true.  What you have gained, you have gained."

Crisis creates space.  By its nature, it develops a 'hole', a rip in time and a kind of deafening silence that for most of us, feels horribly unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Yet, it is in this black pit of pitifulness as my sister calls it, where our real nuggets of transformation reside. If we take time to stop, be still, sit with our discomfort, breathe, pay attention to the restlessness and be still some more, we inevitably find that we come through on the other side transformed.

The reality is, stillness is active. Taking in the present experience and not distracting and moving your energy or focus away, is in fact the fastest way of moving through your crisis. For many of us, myself included, the practice of stillness is challenging. When crisis hits me, I go into my back brain fight or flight response and I either feel the need to flee via distraction or fight by creating more chaos in my life.  Neither of these responses move my crisis towards transformation although they do provide temporary relief.

In these moments,  the best gift you give yourself is permission to pause.  Keep yourself focused on your present moment experience, focusing on the care and your body. 

Here are some suggestions:

1. If you can, go for a walk.  Being outside and in motion are tremendously helpful for both your body and your brain.  Breathe in the air, notice what you smell, what you feel and what you hear.

2. Practice conscious gratitude.  What are you really grateful for right now? Make a list or endeavour to say it out loud to yourself or someone you trust.

3. Take an epsom salt bath.  Again, this is tremendous for both your physical and emotional self.

4. Make self care a priority.  It is important to bring your experience into your physical body so do what you can to pamper yourself. 

5.  Eat well and eat consciously.  Make the food that you ingest part of your spiritual practice. Eat as "clean" as you can. Prepare your food and make the practice of preparing your food part of your spiritual practice. 

My sister, like most of us, struggles to trust the sitting still.  It may be the simplest and most difficult task which crisis commands of us. Yet, I can promise you, that if we continue in our doing, we will simply be spinning our wheels feeling only more depleted and stuck in the muck of our grief. There is the paradox.  Stillness is the only way we will move forward in our crisis.  Treat the process as if it is your spiritual practice and we ultimately find our way towards a field of clarity and somehow, despite ourselves, the crisis brings us closer to our 'real selves'.

It is all temporary.  Both crisis and bliss are temporary states.  We don't have to wait for bliss - we can choose to have our crisis lead us to our transformations. 

For more information or if you would like to contact me, visit http://www.creativeedgeconsulting.com

Happiness is a Muscle

Recently I watched and rewatched a PBS special on happiness. The documentary examined the growing study of happiness.  In attempting to create markers and quantifiable measurements and turn it into a science, some interesting observations were made:

• Money does not determine happiness: once a person is making a minimum that provides for food, clothing and shelter, more money does not equate with more happiness.
• The more meaningful connections you have and the more you work at these personal connections, the more happy you are.  In other words, strong links to friends and families directly and positively link with the likelihood that you will be happy.
• Serving others, volunteering and helping others is positively linked to happiness.
• Countries that support infrastructures that build these connections such as Norway, report happier communities.

Meaningful connections - Happiness! Photo by J. Philipchuk

There are no surprises here.  Being loved and giving love trumps a fancy car and the latest fashion and gadgets. Spending time and serving others brings more happiness than spending money and collecting things. Yet, somehow,  we still behave as though the opposite is true, "If only I lose 10 pounds and fit into this outfit, I'll get a man, and then I will be happy" "Once I get my own car and my own place, I won't need to depend on anyone and then I will be happier," "You get paid the big bucks, must be nice to have an easy life".

Historically,  economic growth and the amount of cash circulating our global economies, is unprecedented, yet we are in the midst of a global "unhappy and anxious" epidemic in First World countries.  We are firmly attached to the idea that things bring us happiness, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary.

"It is easier to change ideas and doctrines in other's minds than it is to change their myths and symbols," writes Madonna Kohlbenschlag. All of this "Happiness Research" clearly points to a doable action plan that all of us in some way, can begin to implement.

The most compelling part of the documentary for me, is the claim that we can teach happiness, practice happiness and train ourselves to be happy.  It is a muscle, that through practice, repetition, and support, can grow and develop and become strong.

The ball is in our court.  We can choose to work on developing our happiness muscle.  No special equipment is required.  All that is needed is a willingness to put down the burden of belief that says things and this illusion of independence matter more than people, service, love and belonging.

Goodbye to 2013 and Hello to 2014

So I know we are already into our first week of February 2014, but I did want to make a short blog post about entering into a new calendar year and reflecting about the year that seemed to rush madly by.

For me, 2013 was a year of huge changes and shifts in my life both personally and professionally.

When I began CreativeEdge, two years ago, it was out of a deep desire and equally deep frustration.  I was constantly compelled to begin putting my energy work out into the public eye while at the same time feeling a horrible terror of being out in the public eye.

Just like when I defended my PhD in 2003, I was terrified that someone would really see me and in the process of being seen, I would be called a charlatan, a dummy or a fake.  I wanted to stay hidden, protected in anonymity.  At the same time, I felt the growing frustration of being anonymous, hidden and unseen. I was in the in between space where you recognize what you really really want is what  you are equally really really terrified to receive.

In 2012, what propelled me into my public practice of energy work could be summed up in two points:

1. I did not want to die and leave this on the table so to speak.  I realized that I had to start this business and put all of my best efforts into this for as long as my body was on this planet.
2. I no longer wanted to make decisions in my life based on fear.

In 2013, the evolution continued, as I worked on completing more certifications and moving my business into a greater public arena.  I went to marketing workshops and challenged myself to work on things that terrified me, all for the purpose of growing my practice.

At the same time, I took the step of rescinding my contract as a high school vice principal and moved back into school counselling.

Photo by Jill Philipchuk

At the end of 2013, I worked, and I am continuing to work at extracting myself from unhealthy partnerships and to move towards debt elimination. At the same time, I have been working on developing deeper connections with my family, my husband and loved ones.

In all of these changes, I am aware, that I am having to take the same advice and do the same work I ask my clients to do when they bring the courage to lie on the massage table and come to grips with whatever keeps them from being their whole self.

I am doing the work with you.  I am working at removing those very obstacles I claim the energy work helps bring into your consciousness.  I regularly receive energy work on myself.  I am as much a client as I am a practitioner and I can honestly say that 2013 has been one of the most terrifying and freeing years of my life.

My hope is that my own process will only strengthen and improve my role as an energy worker.  My hope is that 2014 will continue the journey of my freedom and fearlessness.

And that would be my wish and prayer to all of you too.  Happy 2014.  Love, Light, Peace and Freedom to you all. 

Working Through What is Broken

Whenever I presented a workshop on Anger or Conflict, I would always begin by reminding the participants that I am teaching this stuff to myself. It was always important for me to acknowledge that I am working through the material and finding myself challenged to do the very practices I worked to show others. Conflict, anger and all of the experiences that mirror our dark sides forever remind us of what needs evolving and as such, merely reminds us we are alive.  It is a work in progress that repeats itself till the day we die. If we are not evolving, we are dying.

So, here I am, reminding you, that I am working on this myself.

What happens when we find ourselves once again, at the place where we told ourselves we would never be?  You would never again find yourself dependent on a man and there you are.  You promised yourself you would never get into debt and you once again find your credit card maxed out.  You promised yourself you would never get drunk and you find yourself passed out on your bed not even remembering how you got there.  You said you would never belittle your children like your parents did to you, and you recognize the face of pain, contempt and grief on your teenaged son’s face to be the one you yourself experienced at his age.

Courtesy of Jill Philipchuk

Whenever we are confronted with our repeated patterns or the place we get stuck, we find the seeds of our crisis.  It may take 10 or 20 or 200 or 10,000 times to repeat the pattern before we decide to enter into the crisis.  It may take one or 50 lifetimes before we gather enough wisdom, courage and brokenness to enter into crisis.  Regardless, the places we consistently find ourselves coming back to, despite all efforts, our broken records, eventually lead us to our necessary crisis.

Crisis happens when a story you hold very dearly needs to die. The most horrific part of this crisis is that entering into one not only brings fear, anxiousness, worry, pain and death.  The most horrific part of entering into crisis is that all of the fear, anxiousness, worry, pain and death, are precisely what bring you to your new life.  It is your crucifixion before the resurrection.  And you have nothing to go on that guarantees you will be brought back to a new life.  You only have another story.

In 2003, in my PhD thesis I wrote:

Crisis arrives because we are alive. Crisis is the Mother of all Undos. Crisis comes because death comes because life comes. We cannot have one without the other and the more we resist our deaths, the greater our surprise and terror at the arrival our crisis. No matter our relationship with death, no matter our religion, or what kind of lives we lead or how many times we go to church or volunteer at the AIDS hospice, we will meet our crisis. Crisis arrives, usually unannounced, unwelcomed, and completely unexpected. It is there in the announcement of your cancer, your AIDS, your chronic illness. It is there in the death of your youngest child in a car accident, the realization that your wife is having an affair with your friend, the termination of your job or in the celebration of your fortieth birthday. Maybe you have hit and/or hurt someone more powerless than you, or maybe you have received a beating yourself. Or maybe it announces itself in your unpaid electric bills, your low exam scores or maybe your high exam scores, in your profound aloneness, in the gang beating/murder of a girl or in the crumbling of the Twin Towers. Or maybe you just wake up one day and think that your life has been a complete waste of time.

Inside every journey of saint and sinner, expect to meet your “bottomless abyss” for inevitably it will arrive, and often, it will arrive when you are feeling some skill in balancing your body on the surfboard, gliding through in-between space. Maybe, you might have even learned the skill of falling/diving in the water gracefully/grace filled. 

In the seemingly big and the impossibly small, crisis will come. If you are alive, even while drowning in your mediocrity, barely breathing, you will eventually experience crisis. It is your birthright. And even if you follow “the formula” or “the recipe” whatever formula or recipe you reside in, crisis will meet you, remind you of your impermanence, your non-deity status.

Energy Medicine does not fix crisis.  It does not take the sting away from the decimation of a story that you have held and nurtured for lifetimes.  It can help make you conscious of what some of the old stories or patterns you held that need your attention, or, it can help clear energy fields of disruptive cell memories that lodge themselves in our physical bodies or energy fields. It can help provide you with a map or a “to do” list that will ease the transition.  It may even help you with the inevitable practice of walking towards your crisis with grace and confidence.  But at the end of the day, working through what is broken, requires you to get off your knees and stop picking the pieces in the hopes of repairing what is familiar and to trust that the dying will bring you a new life that you thought was unimaginable.

Courtesy of Jill Philipchuk

My big prayer, is that we work together on our collective and personal crisis and that we practice walking towards our crucifixions with a fierceness knowing that what lies in the midst of the broken pieces is our New Stories and New Lives that fit us far better than what we painfully cling to.

My Big 2012 Thank You

New Beginnings

Happy new year. It has taken me awhile to begin my more consistent blog posts so I want to start by summarizing my 2012 year. First and foremost a big thank you to all for supporting creative edge over the past year. It was a year of big changes and big leaps into the energy bodywork practice. I am now happily in a studio room, I have created the blog, the business cards, the twitter and Facebook accounts.  I have taken core courses in touch for health levels 1 - 4 in order to increase my certifications and I now have the beginning of a client base.

It has been a year of big learnings and continued growth. With the consistent client sessions, I have watched my practice evolve and my hope is to bring all of my learnings back to you through this blog.  My goal for the 2013 year is to continue to evolve and grow my practice with consistency and integrity.  My goal is to be able to demonstrate a tangible result to my clients within a 6-10 series of sessions. 

I am so grateful to all of you for the enthusiasm and encouragement you have provided to me over 2012. My prayer is that the generosity and love that you have provided to me will come back to you in 2013 one hundred fold!

Me and my niece learning to enjoy the ride!

In the meantime, I welcome your feedback for both my blog and the bodywork. Let me know if there is a topic you would like to have more information about or any questions you would like me to explore.  I am looking forward to a healthy and loving 2013. Be well.