Five Keys To Becoming Happier, Healthier and More Authentic

Back in 2003 I read a book by Martin Seligman called Authentic Happiness, in it he talks about all the various ways to live an authentically happy life.  I was so impressed with this book that I signed up to take a six month course from him on authentic happiness coaching.  It was an eye opening adventure.  I highly recommend this book, if you have not read it.  One of the most significant concepts in the book is that people who experience a lot of positive emotion and who think in positive ways, live longer, are happier and more satisfied with life than those who have a more negative or pessimistic view on life.  This seems obvious, but is it true?  This is one of those concepts that is difficult to study in a scientific way since there are so many variables, but Seligman found a study that was able to predict who would live a long, happy life and who would either die at a younger age or develop debilitating illnesses and therefore live a less than happy life.  It's called the Nun Study and it was originally was done to study Alzheimer's.  Nuns, by the very nature of their work, their environment, the food they eat and their level of income and the fact that they all begin at the same age and are all female, made this group the perfect group to study.  One of the major clues to how these nuns viewed life was taken from their application to become a non.  In other words, what they wrote about themselves, their families and why they chose to become nouns, gave the researchers clues to what would happen to them down the road.  What they found was that fifty to sixty years later the nuns who had written positive, upbeat and descriptive essays about themselves and what they expected from their lives as nuns, were the very ones who were happier and more satisfied with life and had less health problems than those whose essays were pragmatic and devoid of emotional language.

Positive Emotion - The First Key

Like the Nun Study suggests, if you want to live a long, happy life then you need to think, talk and act in positive and upbeat ways.  What this means is that instead of going around looking for what's wrong in your life, you look for what's right and focus on that.  It means that you pay attention to your self-talk and listen to what you are saying to yourself about your life and your circumstances.  Is your self talk generally positive or is it generally negative or neutral?  Neutral, by the way, is essentially the same as negative since it is not adding to your positive emotion.  One of the things I see about some people is a tendency to put forth a positive self image - on first meeting them or in encounters with them, they begin with a smile but then within a few minutes they are talking about negative subjects or will give you a yes, but, if you talk about something positive.  Ironically, however, if there is something negative going on in your life, it is actually better to begin with that and get it off your chest and then go with a positive smile and say I'm really okay, just had to vent that. First, this doesn't deny what's going on and second it allows you to vent and then to begin problem solving,  So go ahead and bitch, moan and complain about it but then say, yes, but this isn't really all that bad and put a positive spin on it. This can be done even if it's something really negative like an accident or some kind of illness.  Telling yourself and others that this sucks, you're worried about it or scared, but then to look for and think about how this can be a positive thing for you is what positive people do.  You could say to yourself or others, ma ybe there is a message here for me and I'm going to think about it.  If nothing comes to your right away then take some time and let it peculate.  The reason this is better is that it's good to vent our frustrations rather than denying them which is a form of repression and is a poor way to negotiate life.  If, instead you put a positive Polly Anna smile on your face while you are boiling inside or are very fearful, that will come back to bite you.  Or if you pretend to be in a good mood and smile all the time when in reality, you are an unhappy soul, that too will be seen and heard anyway.  Remember, body language tells the real story, not that fake smile on your face.  One of the things about being authentically happy, is that you have to be authentic and if you're angry, scared, depressed or disillusioned but you pretend instead, not to be, this is not authentic, so admit that and then go on to looking for the positive.  If this does not work and you are generally unhappy and frustrated with life, then I suggest some counseling to get at the  dep cause of your unhappiness..  Of course, if something truly tragic happens to you then allow yourself to grieve until you feel you can move on.  You will know when you are ready to do this.    

100% Responsibility  - The Second Key

Whether we like it or not, we are 100% responsible for our lives.  Now, I don't mean that if something tragic happens we caused it or that we are responsible for negative circumstances, things happen, good, bad and ugly.  But we do have 100% responsibility for how we react and deal with these events.  We are responsible for what we do in life and how we manage the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  In fact, I would say this is the key element in one's character - do we play the blame game or do we get on with doing something that will change our circumstances.  I grew up in a dysfunctional family with no money and lots of chaos but when I was eighteen years old I looked around and told myself that if I didn't get out of there, I'd have the same kind of life. That action put me on a path that I am still on.  So today, look around at your life and if there is something you don't like about it, then get busy doing something to change it.

 Failure is an Opportunity - The Third Key

No matter who you are, you have probably had some failures in your life.  Some people take failures and shove them under the rug and never mention them again to themselves or anyone.  Others think and ruminate on the failure in a never ending cycle of regret and reproach.  Others see the failure as an opportunity.  They look at it and say, what could I do differently this time and they try again. They look back on the failure and  ask themsleves to identify what made it a failure, but also, what was right with it but maybe just needed some tweaking.  They then decide which things they can keep and which ones to eliminate.  In this way, they begin again, but this time with insight and expeirce.  As Henry Ford once said, "failure is just a resting place;  It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently."  So today look at your failures, or those things that did not turn out the way you wanted them to and see what you learned from the experience and what you could do now to make it work or what you could do now to go in a different direction.  .  .  

Purpose - Serving a Greater Good - The Fourth Key

If you want to live a happy, healthy and authentic life then you need to be doing something that serves the greater good.  We are not animals who spend their time eating, sleeping, procreating and playing - they have no other purpose than that.  They don't think, contemplate or create things - they simply live and die doing the same things over and over again.  Now some of you animal lovers may say that they serve us humans by giving us pleasure and that is true, but they themselves don't decide to do this, humans make the decision to enjoy animals whether they are domesticated or wild.  But we humans have the big brain and this allows us to do more with our lives than animals can.  We can use our brains for the greater good or we can live like the animals do and simply further our own petty little wants and needs.  I believe, and so do most of our great thinkers, that humans need to serve a higher purpose than just taking care of ourselves.

When you have purpose in your life and that purpose serves a greater good, then like those nuns, the happy, long lived ones, you will live, in most cases, a long and satisfying life.  But what does serving the greater good really mean?  It means that what you do, particularly your work, career or a passionate cause, needs to be a positive contribution to the planet and the people on this planet.  If what you do detracts or is a negative influence or a drain on society then it's not a contribution to the greater good.  It can be anything in the world of work or the world of our society, from business to education to government and politics.  It can feed people's bodies, minds and souls or it can provide creature comforts or entertainment.  As long as it fits into the great puzzle of life in a positive way, then it will serve the greater good.  It also has to serve the individual who is doing it, that too is part of the greater good. If what you are working at is something you hate, or that brings stress and pain into your life,  then no matter if the end product contributes to the greater good, if it's not contributing to your own greater good, then you need to find something that will.

According to Erik Erikson, the human development theorist, and my own research and experience with my clients, especially those in midlife, the challenge is to become a person who gives back what you have been given and if you don't do this, then you will become a person who is stagnant.  As Erikson, said  "Adults (45 and beyond) need to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often by having children or creating positive change that benefits other people.  Success leads to feelings of usefulness and accomplishment, while failure results in shallow involvement in the world."  So begin today to see if you can come up with something you can do that will contribute to the greater good and will also leave some legacy of your life here on earth.

Gratitude - The Fifth Key

To truly live out your life feeling positive, happy, satisfied and gratified that you have lived a life of honor and value, you need to have this last key as part and parcel of that life.  To be thankful, grateful and humble about a well lived life and not thinking you did it all yourself and you deserve all the credit, is to live a life feeling entitled and arrogant.  Believe me, that is not a positive and gratifying  place to be.  But with gratitude you will live a more soulful life and as all of you know, I'm all about living the soulful life.  So why be grateful?  Here are some things that gratitude will bring into your life.  Gratitude allows you to celebrate the present and it magnifies positive emotion - which is the first key to happiness and success in life as I said.  Gratitude blocks toxic, negative emotions such as envy, resentment, regret, emotions that can destroy our happiness.  Grateful people have a higher but humble sense of self-worth because they know they did not do it all themselves.  They know and will give credit to either God or the Universe for their gifts and talents. They know that although they may have honed their gifts and talents, they did not earned them outright.  They believe that either God or some other unknowable force blessed them with these gifts and talents.  They also know that some circumstances were afforded them that they also did not earn and therefore they feel blessed in this way as well.  Barack Obama was blessed with high intelligence, charisma, and he was born at the perfect time in history for a black man to run for president.  If he had been born even ten years earlier, the opportunity would simply not have been there for him to do this.  And last but not least, grateful people are simply nicer and easier to be around and so they have more friends, better relationships and more positive work.  This makes them happier, more successful and a lot more satisfied and gratified than those who are not grateful.

Blessing, Lorraine







 

Are You Following Your Own Star?

Who are you?  Why are you here?  What is the purpose of your life?  Some deep questions for a Monday morning, but one's I too, am asking myself this very day.  But the truth is we all need to ask ourselves these questions as we go along.  Not every day of course, that would indeed be too much navel gazing and we would not get anything done if we did that.  But every so often we need to take some time and reflect on our lives and make sure we are following our own star and not simply going along to get along.  Because if we don't we can get caught up in the swift current of mainstream culture.  You know what I mean - we live in a world of technology which will tell us what to do, what to think about, where to go, who to go there with and what to think about when we get there.  You name the question and the media will give you an answer.  But only you can answer the question, are you following your own star?

Do the Love it, Loath it, Live With it Exercise

Here's an idea for you.  For the next week use a notebook to record everything you do.  From getting up in the morning to going to bed at night, what did you do?  Break it down into one hour periods - if you are an average person in terms of your schedule then that would break down into about 16 hours - I'm using a 7 am to 10 pm time slot.  You will need a spiral notebook to record your days.  Use one page for each day and put the date at the top.  Then put the sixteen timeslots, for the entire week from Monday - Sunday.  Each night before you go to sleep jot down what you did in each of these time slots.  Just write it down - don't make any judgments about what you did.  Just write it down.

Then on the next Monday night instead of continuing to write down what you did - look through your week and put a notation by each thing.  Put an L1 for everything that you did that you loved doing.  Then go through you list and put an L2 next to those things you loathed doing.  Then go through your list again and put an L3 for those things you can live with, in other words you don't love doing them but they are necessary tasks that simply have to be done and you're okay with doing them, in other words you can live with them.

Now count up all the L1's, L2's and L3's.  Make a heading for each and put the actual number of hours under each heading.  By the way, your total hours for the week should be 112 hours.  If you are following your own star then the L1's should add up to about 80% and the L2's another 10-15% and the L3's should be no more than 5%.or less.

But what if your numbers are not even close to this ideal?   The first question to ask yourself is how typical was this week? We all have weeks, no matter how much we might be following our own star, when life is just a messy, messy, mess.  If this the case for you for the week you recorded, then start over. Use a week that is typical. for you that you remember well.  Go back through your memory and pick one or you can simply do the exercise again the next week.

What If My Numbers Are Only 50 - 50? - Time to Do a Trade Off 

If your numbers are off - that is, it's more of a 50-50 deal - you love 50% and hate 50% of what you are now doing with your time and energy.  Or even worse, it's 20% you love and 80% you loath?  If it's the first - a 50-50 deal then you might begin to think about how you could change this.  Maybe someone else could do a trade off with you to do the things you loath.  Remember, we are all different and have different skills, talents and gifts and what I hate to do you may love to do.  Maybe you could do a trade off with someone in your family or work group.

If You Loath 80% - Then it's Time to Reflect and Come Up With a Plan

But maybe it's more like 80% of what you do in your waking hours you loath and only 10-20% you love or can live with.  If this is the case then you have some questions to ask yourself.  One of the questions you can ask yourself is can I, at this time, live a life following my own star?  Be honest with yourself - maybe you have obligations at this time that simply prevent you from making a big change in your life.  If you have children still in the nest and have to work at a job that provides for the family but is not ideal for you, then what could you do now to put a channel in place to change this down the road?  How can you begin to plan for a different kind of life in the future?  Is there someone in your life now who could help you with this?

We All Need to Be Able to Imagine a Rainbow

What I know about human nature is that without the promise of a rainbow, if we live in a dark and wet place all the time, or a dry and desolate place and believe me if you loath 80% of what you do each day, then that is not going to be a place of rainbows and sunshine.  What you need is the promise of a rainbow and the only way to get that, if you are in the place of not being able to change your life right now, is to begin to plan for a better deal down the road.  In the movie, An Officer and a Gentleman, the main character is telling a woman he just met that he's not sure he'll make it through the basic training to become a pilot and she tells him, "You have to see it to believe it". .The same is true here - you have to come up with a vision and then a plan hat allows you to see this vision, in order to make yourself believe you can change your life so you can follow your own star.

Do Something Everyday to Put Your Plan in Motion

Regardless of what it is that you want to do to follow your own star, begin today to do something to get that going in your life.  Here are some ideas:

1. Do some research into your star's focus
2. Join an organization that supports your star
3. Find like minded people and create a Mastermind group
4. Begin taking magazines related to your star
5. Go online and find a supportive communitiy and join the discussion
6. Find someone doing what your star wants you to do and interview them
7. Create a treasure map - this is a visual image of what your star wants you to do
8. Begin to talk about yourself as already doing your star's bidding 
9. Post affirmations around your home and office about your star
10. Act as if you are already doing your star's bidding by putting down the foundation

Meanwhile keep the faith - we must have faith that we can follow our own star and in the process of believing, it will happen.

Blessings, Lorraine 

How Will You Live Your Possibility Years?

In my book, Second Act Soul Calls - Your Guide for the Re-invention of Your Life at Midlife and Beyond with Passion, Purpose and Possibilities I make the case against conventional retirement and instead suggest that since we are all living an extra twenty or thirty years longer than our parents generation that we need to think of these years as our Possibility Years.  I call them this because of the gifts our generation has been given.  Most of us will this have extra time, a secure income - income from several sources including Social Security and investments - and we will have energy due to all the medical and other breakthroughs that have become the norm in recent times.  In addition, most of us by the time we reach our possibility years will no longer have children in the nest or continuing responsibilities for them, at least not in terms of significant time, energy or money.

Time - Money - Energy - What Will You Do with These Gifts?

To continue to use a paradigm that was put in place when people retired and lived only a few more years and in fact, in most cases, could no longer work due to poor health, is to disregard the vitality and value of those who are now reaching retirement age or who are already there and particularly those who are now in midlife and beginning to think and plan for this time of life.  The social program that spawned retirement was created as a stop-gap measure between frail old age and death.  According to The New York Times the idea of retirement as an official governmental program didn't come along until the mid 1930's.  Before that everyone worked until they dropped or moved in with family.  But in 1935 President Roosevelt initiated official retirement. But in modern times, should able bodied people live out the last twenty or thirty years of their lives on a perpetual vacation or is there a better way?  I wrote my book to get people at midlife and beyond to look at this time of life in a new way.  I see this extra time and the money and energy that usually comes along with it as a gift, one that could actually be lived with passion and  purpose. I see this as a gift since we are then given this second chance to do something soulful with our lives, something meaningful and with purpose and to do it for the greater good and that something is some kind of work.. 

The Seven Possible Paths to Follow in the Possibility Years 

When it comes to planning for the Possibility Years its best to start on this at midlife, whether this means you actually figure out your soul's call then and get to it or you begin at that point to move in that direction. What I have found working with people is that the kind of work one does in these years comes in seven basic categories:  

1. Artistic - Music, Dance, Painting, Sculpture, Writing, Singing and other Creative Endeavors
2. Hands on - Fixing, Maintaining and Building Things
3. Passionate Causes - Environmental, Social, Community, World and Health
4. Politics - Running for Office, Being on Boards and Working on Campaigns
5. Entrepreneurial - Starting Your Own Business or Aligning with Others to Create One
6. Education - Teaching and Mentoring - Children and Adults
7. Consultants - Business and Other Organizations

What I also know is that each of us has a style of interacting.  According to one personality instrament, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator these styles are:  

1. Chart the Course
2. Get Things Going
3. In Charge
4. Behind the Scenes

Depending on which one you are, you may take the bull by the horns and chart the course - these are the big picture folks, or you  find something that inspires you and get it going for yourself and others - these are the inspiring and encouraging folks, or you might be in charge once it is going - these are the get things done through others or on their own folks, or you work quietly behind the scenes - these are the worker bees and keep the planes running on time folks.  Either way, there is a place for each of us in the six areas I have mentioned.

In addition to these areas you may continue to work in your chosen profession - as I have mentioned before some people continue to work at their profession until the end, but most of these are people who either own the company themselves such as doctors, lawyers and other professionals, or are  independent agents such as actors, politicians and those in sports.

Today is the Day to Start Planning For The Possibility Years 

With this extra time, money and energy we need to listen for the call of our soul's and take some action.  But what action is that?  Look at the seven areas of work I have mentioned and the four interaction syles and see if something jumps out at your.  Remember, the soul speaks in a soft voice and leads you in a direction more than it will give you a concrete answer right away.  If you are still in your first act and I define that as being at the beginning or at the height of it but not in a place to actually start living out your possibility years, then it's time to start planning for it.  In stead of focusing on retirement planning where it's all about fun and play, how about thinking about how you could set up your life to do some kind of meaningful work - that is, your soul's call and one with a certain amount of pleasure and fun, as well. I want to be clear here too, a soul call is about some kind of work - work that contributes, work that challenges you, work that makes a difference in some way to the greater good.  Calling for me is about vocation and not simply the little calls that come our way everyday.  This work of course, does  not have to be paid work or work that is some kind of job designed by someone else - but it could be - just because you are called to it does not mean you do it for free - you might and you might not, the key is that your soul calls you to it and that it makes a difference.  If you are already retired or about to be and wondering what's next I suggest spending some time listening for your soul's call and figuring out some ways to act on it.

Work and Play in Balance Equal the Possibility Years 

There is an old saying, that says, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy/"  A new one I have come up with is, "All play and no work makes Jack a dumb boy"  The brain needs challenges or it will recede into the background - the old "use it or lose it" idea is more true here than in any other aspect of life.  Using your brain will activate your working memory so that when you are doing something that challenges you and you are not simply on autopilot, this will keep your mind sharp.  What this means is it needs to be some kind of work.  Work is what keeps you sharp and on top of things, playing and being on vacation does not do that. But we also need play as well, for me the best idea is a 50-50 split - work fifty percent of the time and do pleasurable activities the other fifty.  

Change Your Mindset to the Possibility years

In many, many ways it's all about mindset and how you think of yourself and what you say.  The minute you say out loud to yourself or someone else, that you are retired, your mind and the people who hear you say this will automatically put you in a category and that category is you no longer count. Saying you are retired means to you and everyone else that you are done and are now sitting on the sidelines of life. I'm sorry to say it this way, but it is simply the truth. BB King was on a talk show recently and the interviewer asked him about retirement and he said, "What ?  I don't know what that word means."   They both laughed and that was the message - if want to count and still be doing your thing at close to 90,like BB King, well, then you better get that word out of your conscious mind and put a new one in.  I call it the possibility years and I am in the midst of my own right now and having a ball.  What about you?  Are you planning for your possibility years or planning to be put yourself out to pasture?  Something to think about.

Blessings,  Lorraine 











  

Do What You Love Even If Some Don't Approve

Recently I experienced a review of my book which was framed in what appeared to be a positive tone and the reviewer gave me four stars out of five, but which felt none the less, a bit nasty in parts.  I thought this person was my friend, but what she said didn't feel friendly.  It felt snarky - like she wanted to dismiss me and my writing but didn't have the nerve to do it directly.  And in fact in a private email to me she said I was an amazing counselor and psychotherapist but not a writer.

Of course, being the introspective person that I am I spent a good amount of time thinking about this and wondering what it meant.  I asked myself, am I fooling myself, am I better suited to sitting one-one-one with people and I should give up the idea of being a writer?  But as I went about my business the next day, I happened to come across this poem, So You Want to Be a Writer, by Charles Bukowski.  Read it at:  http://www.writerscircle.com/page/3/   I love this poem.  The very first line says, "If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it."  Well this book came bursting out of me once I got the idea to do it and my determination to write it never wavered.  Reading this line validated me as a writer and I realized that my so called friend probably had her own agenda for what she wrote. In writing my book, I did not rewrite it over and over again and maybe that made it less than perfect for the reviewers out there like her,  but it was a labor of love and done to inspire and encourage those who need the kind of encouragement I write about in the book.  It was not written to impress the critics or those who call themselves book reviewers and editors.  And if I did not choose all the most perfect words and rambled a bit here there - so be it - I loved writing my book and I love how it turned out.  I am a writer and no one, not some reviewer or some wanna be writer, or anyone with an opinion, gets to tell me I'm not. I have read my share of books that I didn't think were all that well written or which had banal and predictable points of view, but that is my opinion and obviously there were others who thought otherwise or I would never have even seen the book in print.  I also know that if you are called to do something, as I feel I am regarding writing. then you do the best you can and if it comes from your heart and soul, then in my opinion, that's good enough. Plus, I don't believe that writing a self help book, is about being the best writer, it's about encouraging, inspiring and helping others to see the world in a different way and if you can do that, then you're a writer in my opinion.     

There Will Always Be Critics

But this blog is for you so how can this incident have meaning for you? Since this blog is about what I am calling the Renaissance Way, a way of living that is about giving birth to your true self, it occurs to me that you too will experience critical reviews of your ideas, your way of living, your work, your interest, your neighborhood and your call, whatever it might be.  You name it and there will be someone who will tell you it's not right, it's not the thing for you to be doing and they will give you both verbal and non verbal indications of their displeasure.   They might even write it up and post it on the Internet - social media being what it's turning out to be these days.  But here is what you should know, believe and have faith in your thing, your call, your mission in life. If you love it, if you feel energized when you do it, if you can get into a sense of flow where you lose track of time, then this is your thing, or your soul call, as I call it in my book, and no critic has a right to tell you not to do it.

Find or Create Your Own Pack

Sometimes in doing our soul's call, we have to move away from those who don't support us.  In so doing we must find our own pack,  You must find the people who do like what you are doing, who do approve of it and then engage with them and let the nay sayers go find their own pack.  If you don't know anyone right away who connects with you on this love of yours, then start looking for them.  Create a group yourself, join one that is already in place,  take a class on your thing and engage with the other students - look for a meeting of the minds and avoid those who seem competitive and un-supportive, even if they are doing the same thing you are doing or who give lib service but who you know in your heart don't support you or don't care.  Find the folks that care - that's where the juice for your thing will be.  .

Go Where You Bare the Most Fruit

Market yourself and your work/love/passion/soul call to those who want it, need it and will appreciate it.  If you get a lukewarm response from people about your thing, then move away from them even if they look on the surface like the perfect customer.  In fact, I would say that a lukewarm response is the worst kind of response, it's worse than a negative response.

Let me give you an example.  Let's say you go out looking for a job - you get three calls and have three interviews.  One asks you a question about a particular thing and you say unfortunately you have no experience in that.  Up until this question all was going well in the interview but once the hiring manager hears you say you don't know anything about this thing - he ends the interview and tells you that they need someone with this particular experience.   This is an example of a no thank you response.

In the second interview, you answer all the questions right and you can tell the hiring manager likes you because she starts saying we or you would be doing this or that and smiles at you and you can feel it - the job is yours.  This is an example of a yes, response.

The third interview is the worst kind because from the moment you enter the interview room you have no idea whether the hiring manager likes you, hates you or is going to hire his cousin and is only going through the motions with you because some higher up said he had to interview a certain number of candidates.  This then is the lukewarm or neutral response.  You don't want to accept this job even if for some reason they decide to hire you.

People who give off lukewarm or neutral responses will continue to do this all along and you will eventually feel devalued and depressed.  The same is true of your calling - go with the yes, accept the no and run like hell from the lukewarm.  Only shriveled and sickly fruit will be had with these folks.  Find people who give you an upbeat, positive and excited response and who want to get to know you and your thing and love it. These people will help you produce/bare a whole lot of fruit.  Stick with them.

Have Faith and Stay on Your Path

We are all called to a certain path in life, of course we may have to stop and listen for our soul's call, but no matter who you are, you have a right and even a duty to hear that call and act on it.  You then need to have faith in it even if it's difficult.  It's very important that you don't allow anyone else to tell you your path is not the right one for you.  Now I am not saying that we don't sometimes get off on a path that isn't right..  All you have to do is watch American Idol to see this - some of the people who audition for that show  have zero singing talent, but somehow they get on the show and then make fools of themselves.  I think they just want to be rich and famous.

But I do not believe anyone reading my blog is in that category.  I believe my readers are mature and sensible people and are not going off on some fantasy "call" that is not real for them,  In fact, what I would say is that things like the review that happened to me are actually part and parcel of the process of hearing your call and going on a journey to act on that call.  It is simply one of the many tests of your faith and belief in your call.  It's the heroes journey and we will be tested, tempted and in some cases treated badly by what we encounter on the path - what we need to do is recognize these challenges and not allow ourselves to waver.

So that's what I'm doing - I am seeking out others who value my work, I am having faith in it and I am remaining true to my call.  I hope you will do the same.

Blessings, Lorraine  

What Banner Would You Carry?

One of the things I notice about life is that there are a lot of things out there to be passionate about, a lot of things to believe in or not to believe in and we are bombarded on a daily basis with information and passionate pleas to believe in this thing or that thing and to take action in support of these various ideas. The culture as a whole also leans on us to view things in a certain way.  There are more shoulds out there than one could possible believe in and do, and stay sane.

There is also great pressure to choose sides. Democrats want you to believe one thing and they have their supporters and their mouth pieces - so too the Republicans.  There are health and fitness experts telling us how to eat, what to eat and what kind of exercise is best for us.  Then there are all the medical interventions and pills and potions we are told to take to live our most healthy life.  We are told to get this test or get on that program and if we don't the message is that we will be sorry.  There are financial experts who tell us what to invest in, when to begin investing - immediately, of course - and what will befall us if we don't.  We are told which schools to enroll our kids in and what these kids need to study in order to be successful later on.  And speaking of kids, we are told how to raise them, that is, what to do and what not to do, in endless varieties of  theories and programs.  We are even told what church to go to and what beliefs to adhere to if we are to be a good person.  Everyone has an opinion and even my Facebook page is now rife with political, health and fitness and other passionate calls for action.  If you are living in the modern world, that is, if you are hooked up, plugged in and on top of technology, then you simply cannot escape being told what to think and do.  It's incessant and unrelenting.

But Don't Let the Media Should on You

Life, at this time is complex - no doubt about that - and if we don't make some considered choices along the way, we will indeed lose our way.  It's time to think about what we really believe in, what we know for sure and what banner we would be willing to carry.  I call it carrying a banner because what you believe in strongly enough to carry a banner for it, that is, march in a parade, defend your position in a debate or use some of your time and money to support it, is your banner to carry.  If you are not quite ready to carry a banner for it then in my considered opinion, it's time to let that thing go or to do some research until you are willing to let it go or carry that banner.  This is not easy.  Doing research and deciding for yourself is, well, let's face it, hard work and time consuming, but what it does do for you is build your foundation of beliefs so that you can negotiate the world in a more satisfying and gratifying way.

The Good Opinion of Others is Not Important

One of the things many of us fall victim to is wanting to please people, Oprah called this " The Disease to Please" and it is a rampant problem in our culture.  Everyone wants to be popular and have lots of friends and be a part of a group.  Belonging is part of human nature and so we join the Democratic or the Republican party, most of the time because our parents belonged.  We send our kids to a certain school because that's what people in our neighborhood do and we live in a neighborhood with people like us and buy similar cars and clothes in order to fit in.  We want people to like us but we will settle for their approval instead.  But in truth, the person who needs to approve of us and like us, is ourselves.  If I only do what I do to get approval and to be liked by my friends and neighbors at some point this begins to make me feel hollow and fake.  And low and behold, most people really don't like or respect fake, hollow people.  What most people like and respect is someone who is true to his or her own values, beliefs and standards.  They may not agree, but they will respect you, particularly if you are congruent with how you live your life.

Walking Your Talk and Carrying Your Banner

One of the hardest things to do in life is to be true to your beliefs if they do not fit with the mainstream.  This is why so many people go along to get along.  It's simply easier, at first, but is disheartening in the long run. So today, I want you think about all the things you now do and think you believe in and ask yourself, would I march for this, would I carry a banner for this down the street of my neighborhood or in the state capitol? Am I a card carrying member of this club and would I be proud to show my card to anyone?  . If you are not willing to do these things, then it is time to reflect on your true views on which ever of your current "beliefs" you're not sure of and then do some research. One great thing about the media and the Internet is is is filled with information.  We need to sort through it and find people we trust and read what they have to say.  Do they support their claims with real evidence or do they just make claims?   And if what they claim, like this blog, does not lend itself to scientific research, does what they say ring true for you?  Is the person making the claim walking their own talk, that is, do they have proof of the pudding?   If all they are doing is making claims and selling products and services, then I'd say find another expert.

So today I ask you to think about what banner you would be willing to carry and to research and sort through those that you are not sure about.  Once you have your list of those things you would be willing to carry a banner for, you will begin to live your beliefs and that in and of itself will be your banner.  In other words, you will walk your talk and your life will be your banner.  .

Blessings, Lorraine