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It’s O.K. To Have

The truth is that most people are in their way a whole lot more than anyone else is. One of the best ways to be in your own way is to believe you don't deserve anything that's good. What we're talking about here is your "WIL", aka your "Worth It Level." Everybody's got one. Your Worth It Level (WIL from now on) has a tremendous amount to do with how your life goes and how you let it go. If your WIL is set low, then you probably have a life in which you feel things rarely go right. You may even sabotage things so your results prove your beliefs. I've found that way too often, people also can feel as if they need to be punished. Another issue some folks can have is the feeling that they must believe all the lies the people who mattered in their lives told them because of their own pain and problems. Keeping your WIL low will certainly help you accomplish all this. Here's my question: do you really want to keep feeling like all the truly good things in life are meant for someone else, but not for you? Everything good is meant for everyone. Everyone. NO exceptions. Everyone includes you. Believe it, accept it, act as if you believe it. Trust yourself, not someone whose only investment lies in contributing to helping you feel awful about yourself. Whatever you have to do to raise your WIL, make the commitment to doing it: Go to therapy. Go back to therapy. Read helpful books. Go to talks, workshops, retreats. Talk to people who have a high WIL. You must commit to doing whatever it takes. The goal is to get to a point where you know with every cell in your body that's it's o.k. for you to have. We're not talking material things, although that can easily be part of it. What I am aiming at here is getting to a place where feeling good is expected and relished; where being happy is the norm, not the exception; where you do what you love and love what you do (and I mean this more than just about work); where you have someone who loves you and you love that person right back; where peace and contentment occur regularly, not sporadically; where your life proceeds with ease instead of agony. I am speaking of a getting to a place where there are no more halves of things, only a wholeness of positive experiences. Can you imagine how wonderful your life could be if it looked like this? If you can't, that's a pretty strong sign your WIL is too low. It's never too late to raise it. Commit now.


Think about it: if things don't always have to be hard, then it follows that things going really well is o.k. The problem for many people is that they feel undeserving of things going well and ultimately feel it's not o.k. to have. So, in accordance with their belief, they don't have.


I'd like to share a personal note here.  Several years ago, I was going through a particularly difficult time. A very wise, warm, and wonderful woman entered my life and she and I met weekly to talk. Not therapy. Not solving problems. Just talk. I shared. She shared. We listened to each other and to ourselves. One hot Texas afternoon we sitting out on my deck drinking Coke out of real glass bottles and she looked over at me and said, "You know it's o.k. to have, right?"


And that's when it hit me: I had never believed it was o.k. for me to have anything. Not attention. Not love. Not people I could trust. Not the bike I really wanted. Not, Not, Not.


I'd like to tell you that an epiphany occurred and I "got it' that instant and immediately began to live my life as a person who believed having was o.k., but this is a non-fiction book. As the Buddhists like to say, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." Lynne's question to me was my "single step" on my journey toward it becoming o.k. with me for me to have. Notice I said "o.k. with me" for me to have. This is a very important, yet very subtle phrase. What it means is this: YOU are the one who decides whether to accept or decline what is already there for you. Now, here's my question for you: "You know it's o.k. to have, right?"

The Wisdom of the Single Step

New look for blog!

Hope you like this new look. As many of you know, I'm particularly fond of purple.

I'm working feverishly on the 2011 workshop schedule and will blast all who are on the email list as soon as the schedule is ready.

If you haven't signed up for the email list, I strongly encourage you to take a minute and do it. Trust me, there a  million good reasons to receive the information I send out!

Here's to a fantastic and fulfilling 2011!

Karen

Another FREE Chapter of A Simple Guide.....

ASG  # 11

The Person We Lie To The Most Is Ourselves.

I'm stupid.
I'm not good enough.
I'll never be good enough.
I can't do that.
I'll do that wrong.
Nobody likes me.
Nobody loves me.
I'll never amount to anything.
I'll always be left out.
I'll never have anyone.

We don't intentionally set out to lie to ourselves. We somehow have just embraced the idea that it's better to believe you can't than to believe you can.
Sometimes the idea came from what we heard growing up. Maybe someone whose opinion we valued told us these things. Maybe their intention was to protect us, to keep us from getting our hopes up too high and being disappointed; maybe their intention was to hurt us. Maybe somewhere in our lives we learned that if we believe really positive things about ourselves then we might start thinking we're better than others, or as I heard growing up, we might get the "big head". Wherever we learned to doubt our personal worth, this lie of all lies must go. What's at stake here is our very lives.

Since life tends to work much better when there's more truth running our lives than lies, let's take a moment and look at each of the lies I began with:

LIE: I'm stupid.
TRUTH: I do some stupid things sometimes.

LIE: I'm not good enough.
TRUTH: There are many things I do very well.

LIE: I'll never be good enough.
TRUTH: I am already good enough.

LIE: I can't do that.
TRUTH: I can't do that yet, but I will choose to learn to.

LIE: I'll do that wrong.
TRUTH: I might do it wrong, but I won't know until I try. If it turns out that I do it wrong, I will choose to try again.

LIE: Nobody likes me.
TRUTH: Somebody likes me, but I don't like them so they don't count.

LIE: Nobody loves me.
TRUTH: I want to be loved a certain way. No one loves me in the only way I am open to receiving love.

LIE: I'll never amount to anything.
TRUTH: I don't know this yet. The odds are astronomically in my favor that I will do something positive with my life.

LIE: I'll always be left out.
TRUTH: I may feel left out now and I will do whatever it takes for me to learn how I can be with others in a healthy and positive way.

LIE: I'll never have anyone.
TRUTH: I know there's a lid for every pot and that includes me. Just because I don't have my lid right now doesn't mean I never will.

Here's a last one to consider. Give up this lie, embrace the truth, and see your life change for the better:

LIE: I lie to myself.
TRUTH: I know this isn't in my best interest and I choose to work on telling myself my truth. I trust that I can do this and I trust me.


The Wisdom of Truth or Consequences


©Dr. Karen McCleskey

Word for the Week: ENTHUSIASM! (wk. 3=Jan. 18, 2010)

Well, once again, the word drawn is no accident. I've been so enthusiastic this week about working on finalizing the 2010 workshop schedule, learning how to better use the email program (there's truly a HUGE learning curve for me...), learning so much about technology,and, of course, looking forward to seeing "repeat attenders" and to meeting new folks at the workshops. In fact, I've been so darn Enthusiastic for the last several days that this word for the week is more like the word for the mid-week!

Here's a question for you (it's not a trick question): Who's more fun and pleasant to be around? Someone with zest, passion, excitement, and eagerness or someone you suspect may be Eeyore in disguise? Also, guess which person is "better" for you? (see next paragraph...)

Because feelings are contagious, it's in our best interest physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually to "pick up" positive feelings and to stay clear of negative feelings.
Think about it: how do you feel after spending time with someone who's upbeat, excited, and passionate about something? Probably better than you feel after you spend time with someone who dreads everything, looks forward to nothing, and hasn't been excited or eager about anything since God made dirt. Enthusiasm is contagious. It's definitely something we want to "catch." And, it's definitely something we want to spread. Just as other peoples' feelings can affect us, our feelings can impact others. People tend to move toward folks who are enthusiastic about life and people tend to move away from folks who lack enthusiasm. I don't know about you, but I vote for being a person others tend to move toward.

Here's a good question to contemplate this week: Is there at least 1 thing I feel excited, passionate, eager, and Enthusiastic about? If there's not, you've GOT to find it. Just 1 thing.
Only 1 thing. And that 1 thing has the power to change your life in so many positive ways. Becoming an Enthusiastic person can begin with finding that 1 thing.

Just as Enthusiasm is contagious, so is the lack of it. Will you make a committment this week to begin spreading just a bit of Enthusiasm? If you already do this, will you make a committment to spreading just a bit more? Why is this so important? It's very simple: your Enthusiasm has the power to change the world and you in more positive ways that you can imagine.

Time to close now. Here are two quotes that really speak to our Word for the Week:

If you're not getting as much from life as you want to, then examine the state of your enthusiasm.
Norman Vincent Peal

Age may wrinkle the face, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Danish Proverb

As always, I truly hope you find something helpful to you in this post.

And, as always, thanks for taking a moment of your time to read the posts.

Enthusiastically, :-)

Karen

Word for the Week: Balance (wk 2=Jan. 11, 2010)

It's quite humbling for me to draw Balance as the word for this week. Once again, I don't think it's a coincidence drawing this word. Probably like many of you, I've struggled through the years with Balance issues. Many, many times, though, I had no idea that what I was struggling with was about Balance. I called it many other things like anger, resentment, stressed, maxed out, overloaded, overworked....I think you get the picture. I think that what we call something influences what we do with the thing. For example, when I used the word "stressed" to describe the issue I was dealing with, I actually became more stressed. We all have a tendency to try to describe or explain issues with labels, not realizing that the incorrect label we use can have quite a negative influence on us. Think about this example: if you're out walking and up ahead you see a long, kind of slender thing on the road and it's not moving, you will decide pretty quickly if it's a snake or a stick. If you decide it's a snake, you will make one decision; if you decide it's a stick, you will make another decision. (btw, it's better to think a stick is a snake than to think a snake is a stick.) All of this brings us back to the word Balance. Once I "got it" that I actually wasn't angry or any of the other labels I used, then I could see that the real issue was around Balance.


If you will stop just for a minute and look at troubling issues in your life, you may discover that what you think is going on really isn't, but rather the issue is around Balance. Knowing what is really going on is very liberating because NOW you can deal with the truth. For example, there's a big difference between anger and being out of balance. If you are out of balance, the choices are very different than the ones you will have if you are angry. If I am constantly angry because my neighbor seems to always get me to do things I really don't have time for, then the issue is a Balance one, meaning that I am out of Balance around the issue of setting appropriate boundaries. Once I set appropriate boundaries with my neighbor, I will feel much more in Balance and probably less angry.


There are so many things for us to be out of Balance around: money, family of origin relationships, work, sex, the children, health, the book club, significant other, exercise... The truth is that we can become out of Balance around anything.


Here's something to think about: when you are struggling with something, first ask yourself this: Is this an area where the truth is that I am out of balance? If the answer is yes, you now have information that will, if you choose, help you restore the Balance.


One last thing about Balance: it's never about things being 50/50. The best example here is a personal one. As many of you know, I was really sick for quite a while and ultimately had surgery. During this time, the relationship between my partner and me was definitely not 50/50. It was more like 90/10; then as I improved a bit, it was closer to 80/20. As it moved more toward my being able to do more and more things, the ratio continued to change. Then my partner's grandfather died and it became 90/10 in the other direction for a while.


My point is that being in Balance will mean different things to different people. In my opinion, Balance is pretty much about being happy. If there's something you're just basically not very happy with, my hunch is that something is most likely out of Balance around that area. All I know is that the more in Balance my life is, the better I do and feel.


I hope a bit of this has been helpful. That's truly my goal.


I liked closing with a quote last week, so here's the one to go with Balance, our word for the week:


To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.
--Confucius

Thanks for taking a minute to read my posts.

I wish you the gift of being in Balance.

Karen





--- Confucius

Word for the Week: Purpose (wk 1=Jan. 4, 2010)

Welcome to the first Word for the Week post. Here's how this will work: every week of 2010 we'll have a Word for the Week along with some things to ponder and reflect on about the week's word. If you're wondering how the words will be selected, here's what I decided to do:
I have a pack of cards called Angel Cards. On each little card, there's a word; not just a regular word like dog or car or people, but "make you think" words, such as Purpose (this week's word), Kindness, Joy, Strength. Each week I will draw a card, see what the word is, and that will be our Word for the Week.
If you're interested in the Angel Cards, I have no idea where I got them, plus I've had them for a very long time, but I think you could Google Angel Cards and something would show up.

PURPOSE

I don't think it's just chance that the first card drawn was PURPOSE. This is a word that so many of us are focused on right now because a new year is beginning and we tend to make New Year's resolutions that reflect our purpose, whether we know it or not. There are so many books out that deal with purpose in some way, and...think about it: how many of Oprah's shows deal with purpose :-)!

Most people really do want to know many things about purpose, like What's my purpose in life? Does my life have a purpose? Does what I do have purpose? Am I living my life in line with my purpose? How can I discover my purpose? Am I living on purpose?

If you've ever asked yourself these questions or ones like them, you know these are not easy questions and you know that questions like these can apply to different parts of our lives. My "purpose" question related to the "work" part of my life turned out to be "Is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life?" Very scarily to me, the answer was consistently "NO". Trust me, I wasn't happy with this knowledge because it meant I would either have to do something about it or I would have to ignore it. Trust me again, I don't advocate ignoring your answers to questions about your purpose. So....... after much thoughtful reflection, talking with my partner, meditation, prayer, and therapy, I came to the decision that I would make the choice to do something about it. The decision I chose to make was resigning from my full time faculty position as a counselor educator so that I could focus on what I believe is more in line with what I believe I'm supposed to be doing with my life: continue teaching, but just doing it in a different way, like presenting workshops, seeing clients, supervising, consulting, writing, doing more of what I REALLY want to do and doing it full time instead of part time, as I'd done before.

Have you ever felt really happy and really scared at the same time? If you have, then you know exactly how I'm feeling right now. I am confident that the happiness will continue to grow and the fear will continue to shrink.

It's the beginning of a new year of your life and every day you wake up is the beginning of your life. I hope you will reflect on and contemplate the word PURPOSE and how it is and isn't in your life. I wish you courage in making any changes you believe you need to make. Don't let fear win.

I'm ready to wrap up the first word of the week blog. I don't know if I'll do this every week, but definitely for today I'd like to close with a quote. It's by the Dalai Lama:

"The purpose of our lives is to be happy."

Thanks for reading. I hope you'll return often, and if it feels right, share this with friends.

I truly wish you the knowledge of your purpose and great happiness and joy.

Karen

Enjoy a FREE CHAPTER of my upcoming book: A Simple Guide to a Happier Life

From A Simple Guide........

Not wanting to is reason enough.

A client asked me recently how to say NO. This led to a discussion about boundaries and various other things. One of her biggest concerns was how to explain her answer of NO. She shared she believed that to say NO meant she had to say why she was saying NO and she couldn't figure out exactly how to explain her desired answer of NO without making up some untruth which she strongly did not want to do. Here's where WOW # 4 comes in. I'm not advocating rudeness, but neither am I advocating the position that in order to say NO you must justify your answer. NO needs no justification. She seemed to get my point, but at the same time, was very reticent to say the actual word NO. She then asked a very good question: "If I don't say No, what DO I say instead so that I don’t end up saying Yes?" So, I made a few suggestions: 1." I choose not to do that." 2. "I wouldn't be able to do that." 3. "I believe I'll pass on that." 4. "That doesn't work for me right now, but maybe another time" (only if this is true). Then I encouraged her to come up with other responses on her own. She did a great job. Sometimes we just need to see how something can be done. Sometimes we just need to see that it can actually BE done, too.
Understanding that you are truly free to honor the fact that is true for you, (i.e., "I don't want to do that because I don't want to do that") and sharing that with another in a kind, yet firm manner, is absolutely one of the great markers of being an adult. It's also one of the Top Ten Things Most Guaranteed to Irritate Someone. Why? Because all the times we said Yes, even when we wanted to say No made life easier for others. And, others are usually not too happy about losing that. This is one of the main reasons that it's so important not to explain as you move toward saying No when you really want to say No in your life. When you explain why you're saying No, it opens the door for someone to very cleverly come up with reasons why your explanation really doesn't hold water. Take a look at this example: Your neighbor asks you to pick up her kids from soccer practice when you go to pick up your daughter. You don't want to do this for a variety of very good reasons, among them being that her kids are the spawns of Satan. Rather than say NO (using one of the ways discussed previously), you say something like "I can't do that because I promised my daughter I'd take her out to eat at her favorite place after practice to celebrate her decision to become the first woman president of the United States." Then what happens? Your completely clueless, I-have-never-read-Social-Intelligence-by-Daniel-Goleman neighbor says this: "Oh, that's perfect. I just knew it would all work out. Damian and Lucifer just love that restaurant! They can go with you and then you can drop them off at the house after dinner. I should be back from shopping by then." As she pushes the button to roll up the window in your dropped-jaw face and prepares to drive away, you hear her saying to herself, "Oh, isn't it wonderful how things always work out so perfectly!" What really cuts your gut is that you know she's not talking about things working out wonderfully for you. Now what happens? The next thing you know, you're doing what you didn't want to do. Next feeling? Most likely you will find yourself feeling resentment or anger or maybe even rage, not only at the other person, but also at yourself.
Remember that some people want you to explain decisions you have made because it gives them the power to evaluate the O.K.'ness of your decisions. For these people, hearing you say "Because I just don't want to" will absolutely drive them crazy. Be strong and do not give into explaining or justifying what you do not want to do (or what you do want to do, for that matter). Once you explain, you are playing their game by their rules. Doing this will not help you feel good about yourself. Actually, it doesn't make you feel too good about the other person, either.
The all-time best Chinese fortune cookie I ever got said this:
"Never explain. Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it."
Wise folks, those Chinese fortune cookie writers.

The Wisdom of the Chinese Fortune Cookie




©Dr. Karen McCleskey, Inc.