Sacred Question

Think of something in your life that you could turn from a problem to a triumph. It could be something that you are now dealing with or an old situation that still haunts you - if it's something old think of how you learned from it and how it opened other doors.

Turning Life's Troubles into Triumphs

In living life as art one must look at everything that happens as part of that art. Think about it, when you go see a great movie or read a terrific book the plot of the story always has some conflict in it, some problem that the main character has to solve, has to deal with, has to come to terms with. It's not all sunshine and flowers or moonshine and romance - something has to happen, and that something has to be a challenge to the hero of the story or the story is, well, dull and boring.

So this week I'd like to ask each of you to think about whatever negative thing that is going on in your life right now as a potential triumph. It might not feel that way at the moment but if you just do as Wayne Dyer says and change the way you look at things so the things you look at can change you’ll be surprised at the outcome, I guarantee it. So let's start with the current financial crisis on Wall Street. Some of you may be worried about this.

I have a friend whose daughter and her husband and their three children recently sold their house and put an offer on another one - then because the children needed to start school in their new neighborhood they made the decision to move out prior to the closing on the house they owned. They moved in with her father, who happened to live in the same neighborhood as the new house while they waited for the paperwork on this new house to be processed. But then the unthinkable happened - the people who had "bought" their house failed to meet the standards of the mortgage company even though my friend's daughter and her husband had been assured they had met all the requirements and were fully pre-qualified.

Of course what this meant was that they had to put their house back on the market, forfeit the house they were going to buy and live with Granddad for a few more weeks - months as it turned out - that was in July and it is now the first part of October - no buyer in sight and the country in a credit and mortgage crisis. It now looks as if they will have to move back into their old house and stay there at least through the winter months - even in a good market the dead of winter is not a good time to sell a house.

This could put a sour taste in one’s mouth. But in this case it did not, at least not after a few weeks of making an effort to change the way they were looking at this so the thing could change for them. They began to ask themselves how can we turn this into a triumph?

The first thing this young woman began thinking about was how much money they would be saving if they moved back to the old house - the payment was about half of what the new one would have been. The second thing is her youngest child went off to kindergarten and she began to notice how bored she was on her own and how much free time she had without the kids there all day. She had been a stay at home mom up to this point and had devoted herself to her kids, her husband and her home. But now she could see the light at the end of the tunnel and something began to beckon her from the other end. A new thought began to emerge.

Maybe with the savings on the house payment and the free time she now had, maybe it was time for her to go back to school and get a teaching certificate. The old school even had all day kindergarten and so she could go to school and be home with the kids when they got home. By the time she got her master's the economy would probably have rebounded and plus she could get a job – a job in a school and be on the same schedule as her kids. Maybe things happen for a reason she started thinking. So they moved back into the old house and she will begin her master’s program in January. The kids are happy, they loved the old neighborhood anyway, the husband is happy, he wasn’t thrilled about the higher monthly payments and Mom is really happy too. As Dr. Phil always says, “if Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” So this spot of trouble, which at first looked like nothing but frustration and disappointment, has turned out to be the best thing possible for all concerned. Not only that, but they all got to live in the new neighborhood and found that in reality it wasn't any better in any substantial way than the old one.

What about you? Can you think of something in your life that you could turn from a problem to a possibility, from a pain to a pleasure, from a worry to a wonderful new idea, from a loss to a lesson in love or growth? Think about it and I bet you can, if you just take a different approach, look at it from a different angle and turn that old bugaboo of a problem into a beauty of a triumph.
Blessings, Lorraine

Sacred Question

Think of a negative event that has happened to you in the last year and re-frame it to a positive.

Change the Way You Explain Your Life and Your Life Changes

One of my favorite psychology writers is Dr. Martin Seligman of the Positive Psychology movement. This movement is about looking at what's right with people rather than what's wrong with them. One of Seligman's early books was on Learned Optimism. His theis is that even if you are a born pessimist and unfornutantly some people are, you can learn to be more optimistic just by changing how you think about things and especially how you "explain" what happens to you and the world around you. He calls it explanatory style.

Explanatory Style - Explained

‘Explanatory style’ or ‘attributional style’ refers to how people explain the events of their lives. There are three facets of how people can explain a situation. This can influence whether they lean toward being optimists or pessimists:

Stable vs. Unstable: Can time change things, or do things stay the same regardless of time?

Global vs. Local: Is a situation a reflection of just one part of your life, or your life as a whole?

Internal vs. External: Do you feel events are caused by you or by an outside force?

Realists see things relatively clearly, but most of us aren’t realists. Most of us, to a degree, attribute the events in our lives optimistically or pessimistically. The pattern looks like this:

Optimists

Optimists explain positive events as having happened because of them (internal). They also see them as evidence that more positive things will happen in the future (stable), and in other areas of their lives (global). Conversely, they see negative events as not being their fault (external). They also see them as being flukes (isolated) that have nothing to do with other areas of their lives or future events (local).

For example, if an optimist gets a promotion, she will likely believe it’s because she’s good at her job and will receive more benefits and promotion in the future. If she’s passed over for the promotion, it’s likely because she was having an off-month because of extenuating circumstances, but will do better in the future.

Pessimists

Pessimists think in the opposite way. They believe that negative events are caused by them (internal). They believe that one mistake means more will come (stable), and mistakes in other areas of life are inevitable (global), because they are the cause. They see positive events as flukes (local) that are caused by things outside their control (external) and probably won’t happen again (unstable).

A pessimist would see a promotion as a lucky event that probably won’t happen again, and may even worry that she’ll now be under more scrutiny. Being passed over for promotion would probably be explained as not being skilled enough. She'd therefore expect to be passed over again.

What This Means

Understandably, if you’re an optimist, this bodes well for your future. Negative events are more likely to roll off of your back, but positive events affirm your belief in yourself, your ability to make good things happen now and in the future, and in the goodness of life.

Fortunately for pessimists and realists, these patterns of thinking can be learned to a degree (though we tend to be mostly predisposed to our patterns of thinking.) Using a practice called ‘cognitive restructuring,' you can help yourself and others become more optimistic by consciously challenging negative, self-limiting thinking and replacing it with more optimistic thought patterns.

So the next time something happens to you that could be "explained" in a negative or pessimistic way, think about how you might explain it in a positive way. Use the old, Fake it till you make it concept even if at first you don't think this will work - by the way, that lasts is a typical pesssimistic outlook.

In the psychology business we call this re-framing - so take some negative event and explain it to yourself in a positive way. For example, the government is about to do a 700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street - Well, that could certainly be looked at in a negative way - but how about seeing it as a positive in that we are in an election year and all eyes are on this problem and the candidates are going to work overtime to make sure this kind of thing does not happen again, so change will happen, new regulations will be put in place and the craziness that has been going on will stop or at least slow down - sometimes you have to have a negative before a positive can be instituted but for those who think in positive ways, the crisis is seen as an opportunity and not the beginning of a long depression. In fact, as you listen to the debates and ads for the candidates see if you can pick out the optimistic ones from the doom and gloom ones and remember optimists have better presents and futures.

Remember to vote! Blessings, Lorraine

Saccred Question

Who in your past are you most grateful to and why? Have you really thanked them for thier contribution to your life?

Gratitude Visit

Today's post comes from Professor Martin Seligman, PH.D of the University of Pennsylvania, he is the author of Authentic Happiness a book that changed the way I looked at my life and gave me a sense of how I could change things for the better, for myself and for my coaching and psychotherapy clients. I took Dr. Seligman's Authentic Happiness Coaching class - a six-month long twice-weekly class done via telephone with 300 other students. It was a wonderful class and I loved everything I learned in it and use it everyday in my life and my work.

One of the main concepts of this class is the idea of learned optimism, which is also the title of one of Seligman’s other books. A tenant of optimism is gratitude. If we are not grateful for what we have, who we are and what comes our way, then it will be hard for us to be happy. I see this every day in my practice - people come to me complaining about what isn't right in their lives.

At our first meeting I ask them to make a list of what is right in their life and to begin a program of focusing on the good and not the bad. This is not to say there are not difficulties, problems, pain and sorrow in the lives of those who seek out counseling, of course there is or they would have no reason to seek out my services. But what I often find with people is that this non-grateful, down in the mouth way of living and thinking is habitual. In many cases, even when things are going well they either take it for granted or they say yeah, but it won't be long until something bad happens. They focus on the negative and in the process bring more towards them.

Today I am sharing an idea that will bring gratitude into your consciousness and start a process of thinking in a grateful way about your life. This exercise is called a Gratitude Visit.

Select one important person from your past who has made a major positive difference in your life and to whom you have never fully expressed your thanks.

Choose someone who is still alive and accessible to you, preferably someone who lives in the same city as you.

Write your testimonial just long enough to cover one laminated page. Take your time composing this – several weeks if required.

Invite that person to your home or travel to that person’s home. It is important that you do this face to face, not just in writing or on the phone. Do not tell the person the purpose of the visit in advance.

Bring a laminated version of your testimonial with you as a gift. Read your testimonial aloud slowly, with expression and eye contact. Then let the other person react unhurriedly. Reminisce together about the concrete events that make this person so important to you.

I did this exercise with my ex husband several years after we were divorced. I had dealt with the pain of the divorce and felt that he had too - we were at a point where I knew this would not open a can of worms and cause any negative fall out. I realized that I was grateful to him for many, many things including being a great father, provider and all round good guy so I wrote him my gratitude letter and went over to his house and read it to him. Of course it made me cry but it was a freeing experience.

It opened up our relationship as parents and members of a family. We created a family when we had children and now that they are grown we are still in that family. We have three grandchildren and see each other at family events all the time. Now instead of feeling uncomfortable and sometimes tense at these gatherings I feel relaxed and like I am with family and I am - the vibe between us is like an uncle or even a brother - we're family and we appreciate each other - we even count on each other for things without there being any hidden agendas about getting back together or being upset with each other.

Now you don't have to pick an ex husband to do your gratitude letter with - make it someone that you simply want to thank for their kindness, generosity, friendship or help. We all have people like this so give it some thought and let me know how it goes.

Blessings, Lorraine

Sacred Question

When darkness descends what do you do to pull yourself out and bring lightness back to your world?