Choose Your Life Mondays – #14

Jennifer — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:35:39 +0000

Choose Your Life Monday is an invitation to name what pattern you will lovingly notice this week and to do so in community. Of course, you can do it any day you want- you don’t have to start on Monday. Join in when and whenever suits you.

Last week I declared I would

lovingly be a student of my snarl.

Um, that wasn’t so fun.

As in I’m here again? Heart sinks. I’m making things harder than they need to be again?

I’m struggling with structure and support again?

And… it was truly enlightening. As in bringing light to my being.

My friend Molly Gordon calls the things we do that get in our way signature preoccupations.

Signature preoccupation = a pattern we do again and again

A blind spot

Something that trips us up and we say heart sinking, “Not you again!”

One of mine is making things more complicated than they need to be and thus not serving the people who come to me as fully as I could.

And tiring myself out in the not-serving-so-well process.

One of the gifts of being with the same group of people for years -

most recently that’s been my brain trust (Molly Gordon, Eric Klein, Mark Silver and Michael Bungay Stainer) and before that my women’s group in Santa Barbara -

is getting to see their signature preoccupations, up close and in furious action over time.

“Oh he’s doing that again! Wow. Can’t he see he’s doing that?”

The answer to that would be no.We can’t see. We need outside eyes and helpful, kind ways to see.

That’s why we need learning adventures and coaches and therapists and brain trusts and women’s groups and processes.

What’s also been a gift – although many days it feels more like a kick in the gut -

is having my signature preoccupations witnessed over time.

Now you could, and you would if you were me, might be tempted to get all victim-y right about now, to put your wrist to your forehead and swooningly moan, “But change is so hard!”

True.

It is not for the weak of heart, this inner-change paying-attention business. It is not for the rigid, the unable to laugh at themselves, or the unable to look in the mirror and smile ruefully at what they see.

And here is what I know – not believe – know:

When you are willing to pay attention to things over time, they do change.

Yes, over time may well mean your life time.

So? You’re going to live anyway. Do you want to live conscious and aware or do you want to live afraid and ignorant?

Do you want to hug yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep engaging with your patterns or do you want to swoon and be a victim?

No, don’t pick up a cudgel when you pick up your pattern.

Pick up your pattern, your “Oh my gosh, I’m doing that again?” with the same tenderness you would a baby who was wailing and needing some love.

As you would a friend who keeps doing the same thing that makes her miserable and you see what she does but she can’t, not yet.

You don’t love her any less.

Actually, you love her more.

I want to say that how you engage with your stuff is something I am very, very passionate about and is a reason I created the Comfort Cafe because how you engage can be productive and life changing or frustrating and then more frustrating. Whatever you do to see and change your patterns, do it with as much love for yourself as you can. Even a wink of self-love, a passing angel wing blessing of tenderness, a shrug instead of a face slap, helps enormously.

As you have probably already guessed, I’m sticking to my signature preoccupation:

This week I will lovingly be a student of my snarl.

My heaviness, my making things difficult-ness.

I may also be a student of my impatience, which is an intimate friend of my snarl. They may even be colluding. And even if they are, they are part of me and I will lovingly notice their antics this week.

I did notice last week how much my hormone surges and changes increase my snarled-ness.

I noticed I’m getting much better at stepping away from things and letting them settle instead of wringing my hands and making a big “this will always be this way and I am screwed” story.

And I’m super-extra-duper proud of myself for changing this month’s theme at the Comfort Cafe from Discerning What Matters to Discovering What Nurtures You and then when I explored that, chunking it down even further to Resourcing.

Resourcing is drawing on something larger than yourself. Often.

I made it more simple and understandable instead of more complex.

YES!

A good example of how lovingly paying attention to our patterns yields small miracles.

Comfort Queen » patterns