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Radical Selfishness

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on August 10, 2010
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I love the word radical.  It feels cutting edge, freeing, and innovative.  I’ve always felt sheltered by radicals. Since they are a little farther out than I am, they give me room to explore, to widen my bounds, and still be safe.

Sometimes it’s my turn to break ground.

That’s a little scary.  Whenever I – or most anyone – pushes beyond what I think is safe, normal, tested, I feel fear.  It’s a human reflex to fear the unknown.  It’s also a human reflex to desire the unknown.  I am a paradox that way.  I think a lot of people are.

Here’s the unexplored territory I am confronting today.  I just realized that I feel better when I read science fiction.

Does that sound radical to you?

The next step in the territory is even stranger.  Thoreau – a radical of his time – said he only felt quite right when he walked four hours a day.  For him, walking was an active restorative.  It balanced his wheel of life. It returned his creativity.  It gave him pleasure.  Four hours of walking a day?  It’s not for me.  I know people who are restored by attending parties, by camping in the wilderness, by drinking coffee.  These activities feel fatiguing to me.  I might enjoy them, suitably prepped.  In this case, suitably prepped probably means having plenty of time to read before and after.

What restores me may not restore you.  What restores you may not restore your neighbor.  The best clue I’ve found so far to help each person find their own best restorative comes from Martha Beck, as usual.  She says we each have an essential self – an internal guide containing our own unique passions and distastes. Martha’s clue suggests this to me:  it’s what our essential self loves that will restore us.  And that will be different for everyone.

I’ve put extra attention and intention into restoring myself recently.  The result is that I have been feeling more creative, and more energetic.  I’ve been happier.  Work that seemed hard and overwhelming has become light and easy.  I’ve discovered new ways to accomplish what I wish – discovered that some things I felt I had to do were irrelevant, and that other activities – that I enjoyed! – brought more success.

All of this came from taking the radical action of discovering what I really wanted, what really restored me, and selfishly doing it.  Radical selfishness is exactly what I needed to rest, to work, and to contribute to the world.

May you have what truly restores you every day.

Anna

PS.  It’s hard to be radically selfish when you’re unsure what you truly want. I offer a Self-Knowledge Package which is a powerful way to connect with your essential self.  It starts with a 27 page questionnaire to uncover direct and indirect clues about your true desires.  I personally study it and send you a written report.  Then, we have six phone sessions where I deploy my radical listening skills, acting as a guide to your inner landscape, and suggesting actions to bring more of what uniquely suits you into your life.  This is a transformative, action-oriented journey that has helped clients find better work, feel better, and live from their own integrity.  Call 575-640-0979 for a no obligation 15 minute discussion of whether this is right for you.  If it feels right, we can schedule, and if it doesn’t, I’ll be glad to have spoken to you.

At $495, the package already offers a savings over my usual rate for six calls.  I’m sweetening the deal for the first three who schedule this month.  I’ll throw in a free copy of Changes of the Heart.  With thirteen different coaches offering their best strategies, you’re bound to find something priceless in it.

Rest

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on August 3, 2010
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“What would you do if you knew that every good thing in your life depended on your getting enough rest? Because it does.” - Unknown, recorded by Martha Beck in her blog at http://marthabeck.com/blog/?p=283
There we go.  As usual, Martha has seized the core of the issue.
Without rest, nothing feels good.  Without rest, creativity shuts down.  Without rest, we don’t store memories, or heal wounds, or restore our energy.  Without rest, hunger increases, bloodstream markers for stress go up, metabolic changes leading to diabetes and heart disease increase, and muscles weaken.  Without rest, we do not perform well, mentally, physically, or emotionally.
What good is left without health, enjoyment, productivity, or learning?  Even love declines without rest - who can give their best when feeling fatigued, ill, dull, irritable, or depressed?
In short, rest is more critical than money.
I am fortunate in that my body protests quickly when I don’t get enough rest.  First, I feel tired and irritable.  Then I begin to drop things.  I get clumsy after shorting myself on sleep for a while.  If I continue to push myself without enough rest, I begin to ache.  First my arms, where I so often hold up my wrists to type.  Then, everywhere.  When I hear about people who work sixteen hour days for weeks on end and then collapse, I wonder - did they not have intermediate symptoms?  Or did they not listen to them?
What would the world be like if everyone took enough rest?  Would we come up with better solutions?  Would we fight less?  Would we be happier?  It’s almost guaranteed that there would be fewer accidents and less expense for health care.
So why don’t we rest?  My guess is that we have somehow been convinced that other things are more important.  We’ve been seduced away from listening to our bodies, and giving ourselves what we need.  Maybe we just don’t know how.
Since every good thing does depend on rest, it’s worth finding ways to rest, and to rest enough.  It’s not selfish or wasteful.  It’s a simple, core-level survival need - that makes everything else possible.
May you rest amply and luxuriously.
Anna

Who Do You Compare To?

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on July 20, 2010
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It’s summer.  It’s hot here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Slowing down is just good sense when the scale passes 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  I’ve been on a small break since completing my Self and Others series.  Managed to do a little extra reading - didn’t find anything great to recommend.  Developed beading into a more serious hobby.  Played some games, hung out with my husband, caught up with some friends.
It’s good.  I’ve been feeling rested and happy, creative and productive.  I’ve given myself enough space to let some alternative ideas emerge.  It feels like a break was just the right choice.
So, into my happy, slower days falls Michele Woodward’s latest book.  It’s good.  Michele writes well, and she has useful insights, especially for her new specialty of career coaching.  And in the introduction, she reveals that she has written an essay every week for almost four years.
Well, here’s a real opportunity for me to beat myself up!  I could easily compare myself to Michele in a way to make myself feel bad.  I could invent all sorts of stories about how I’m not making the grade, and I should do what she does, and how I don’t work hard enough to deserve to succeed.  I could easily get real worked up about this!
I think I’ll skip it.  I’m on vacation - not just for the summer, but for as long as I can manage it - from making myself feel bad.
It’s possible that comparing yourself to someone has been useful to you.  Has it inspired you to do better?  Has it made you happier?  It’s far more likely that comparing yourself to others has made you miserable.  We humans have a reflex to look for the worst news we can find.  Since only one in six billion can be the best or worst at anything, we can always find someone who is better or worse than we are - if not in one area, in another.  Apply our drive to discover bad news to comparing ourselves to others, and there we go!  Instant misery.
I’m opting out.  Michele’s Michele (and a very fine Michele she is!) and I am me.  That’s good enough, for everyone.

Self and Others — Some Final Thoughts

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on June 15, 2010
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Hello, everyone!

Over the past eight weeks, I’ve introduced and discussed seven principles for balancing Self and Others. Here they are again:

1. Red - The Principle of Survival - Put on your own oxygen mask first.
2. Orange - The Principle of Self - Know your priorities.
3. Yellow - The Principle of Freedom - Ultimately, we choose.
4. Green - The Principle of Love - To give from strength feels good.
5. Blue - The Principle of Communication - True exchanges make us stronger.
6. Indigo - The Principle of Insight - Listening well is priceless.
7. Purple - The Principle of Connection - We are all connected.

(Why the colors? They serve as an organizing principle and memory aid. In addition, colors are rich with meaning. Such additional associations are too complex to go into here.)

I separated out the principles to let us look at them more easily. In practice, they work together. Our connection to one another helps us survive, and choosing to survive in a way that honors connection makes survival easier. Compare the life of someone who survives by stealing to the life of someone who cuts hair. Serving others to earn your living brings peace. Taking from others brings fear.

Listening is how we learn how to survive, how to love by giving gifts valued by the receivers, and how to make true exchanges. True exchanges honor connection, promote survival, and give us the strength to love. Knowing our freedom and our priorities gives us the power to choose to love, to survive, to listen, and to exchange for the benefit of ourselves and others.

Some of these principles come easier to each person than others. If you are having problems balancing self and others, try running through the list and see if you are violating any of the principles. Often, it is the ones that come harder to you that need the most attention.

As for me and my newsletter schedule – I am going to take a few weeks off and take my own advice. I want to attend to my survival and check my priorities. I’ll exercise my freedom, give some gifts, arrange some exchanges, listen to the world, and appreciate our connection. I’d like to do some reading and have good books to recommend when I come back.

I expect to send my next newsletter in July. You are always welcome to contact me by email or phone.

May you find harmony with these principles and with your connections.

Until I write again,

Anna

PS. New? Missed an issue? The archive for this newsletter is at creatingspace.annaparadox.com. The Self and Others series is here: http://creatingspace.annaparadox.com/?cat=7 Since the archive is a blog, the oldest entries are at the bottom. Read from bottom to top to see them in order.

Self and Others — The Principle of Connection

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on June 8, 2010
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Hello, everyone!  Today we reach the seventh and final principle in my series on balancing self and others.  Next week, I’ll wrap this up.  Then I’ll evaluate whether to continue the weekly schedule or return to writing twice a month.
(Your feedback on that, and all else in this newsletter, is welcome.  Did you like the weekly schedule?)
The seventh principle is the Principle of Connection:  We are all connected.  Our connection has important consequences, and here are the first four:
When you harm yourself, you harm others, eventually.
When you harm others, you harm yourself, eventually.
When you help yourself, you help others, eventually.
When you help others, you help yourself, eventually.
The link between ourselves and others is not always instant, close, and visible.  There may be transit time between the action and its consequences.  Sometimes the response is immediate.  Sometimes, an action that appeared to have no consequences for years suddenly develops a backlash with a vengeance - as we are seeing with cutting safety corners on well-drilling in the Gulf now, or when someone you snubbed at a party turns out to work where you are trying to get a job.
We are connected in many ways.  The atmosphere is a giant connection machine.  We’ve traced the precise compounds released by burning coal in China to air in North America.  The oceans are a connection machine, too, as we’ve seen from the scatter patterns of tennis shoes that fell from a ship.  The internet connects us, too.
I’ve spoken about mirror neurons before - our nervous systems try to copy the state of the people around us.  We only speak language - any language - because we’ve learned it from other humans or their artifacts.  We eat, breathe, and drink in a great dance of sharing atoms and molecules with others.
The economy is a living connection machine.  We pass items and services and money from hand to hand - and measure the health of the economy by how many of those transactions take place.
Perhaps the most subtle and powerful connection of all is word of mouth.  Our reputations float from person to person.  We talk to each other and about each other, and a story may gain a life of its own in the network of human connection.
How are we to live, knowing that we are all connected?  As much as you can, be kind and do no harm.  Give the little gifts you can to the people around you - a smile, a word of encouragement, an errand for a neighbor, useful and true information for the internet.  Do not pollute or steal or murder or damage or speak cruelly.  Do good work and give fair value.  Seek ways to live that benefit both yourself and others.
This is ethics: to live in the consciousness that we are all connected.  The Principle of Connection is the capstone of all the principles for balancing self and others.  It ties our own survival, the value of love, and all the other principles together.
Next week, I’ll conclude this series on balancing self and others.  Until then, may you experience the nourishment that comes from connection.
Anna

Self and Others: The Principle of Insight

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on June 1, 2010
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Hello, everyone!  We are making steady progress through my series on balancing self and others.  Today we reach principle number six of seven.  For the duration of this series, my newsletter is coming out weekly rather than twice a month.
The sixth principle is the Principle of Insight:  Listening well is priceless.
Listening well lets you do all of this:
  • Discover the needs of your customers so you can fill them
  • Understand what your loved ones want so you can give outstanding gifts
  • Learn your own heart’s desire to create the life of your dreams
  • Detect hidden agendas and protect yourself
  • Learn subtle truths
  • Become a connoisseur of human nature - both its diversity and universality
Listening rocks.  We never learn anything new by talking - all the information goes to the listener.
More than that, I’ve found that many people harbor a hunger to really be heard.  And when they do find a deep, true listener, transformations happen.  This is one of the joys of my work as a life coach.
So how do you listen well?  Here are some useful guidelines:
1.  Become quieter.  You can only hear what makes more noise than you do.  Make fewer sounds.  Make fewer movements.  Make fewer thoughts.
2.  Be open to discovery.  If you already believe you know whatever someone may say, you cannot hear what they do say.  Be curious.  If nothing else, others know more about their own thoughts and feelings than you do.  Be humble.  It’s quite possible you are wrong or uninformed - at least once in a while!
3.  Be patient.  Let the other finish before beginning to speak.
4.  Ask clarifying and deepening questions.  Do they mean exactly what you think when they use those words?  Does what they said imply more to them than they spoke?  What, specifically, do they intend?
5.  Listen with all your senses.  Listen with your ears, of course.  Listen with your eyes.  Gestures and expressions can carry 90% of in-person communication.  Listen with your body.  Humans come with mirror neurons - specialized brain cells that try to mimic the states of people around them.  The messages from your mirror neurons often come as feelings rather than words.  If you feel suddenly anxious or elated, it may be because your mirror neurons are picking up those feelings from the other person.  So be aware of your own state as you listen.
Listening well is not easy.  It takes practice and commitment.  And in many cases, it is the most powerful action you can take to improve any relationship.
Until next time, may you truly hear and be truly heard.
Anna

Self and Others — The Principle of Communication

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on May 25, 2010
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Welcome to the fifth principle in my series on balancing self and others!  For the duration of this series, my newsletter is going out weekly.
This is the Principle of Communication:  True exchanges make us stronger.
So what exactly is a true exchange?  And why do I call this the Principle of Communication?
There are two aspects that make an exchange true.  First, the trade is truthful - both parties know what they are giving and receiving.  Second,  both parties receive value in the exchange.
That’s a little abstract.  Here’s a specific case:  let’s say you go into a store and see a shirt that looks good.  There’s a price on the tag, and you try it on, and you like it, so you pay the price and take it home.  When you wear the shirt, you enjoy it and are happy with it.  That’s a true exchange.  You knew what you were getting.  You knew what you would pay.  You exchanged your money for the shirt, in a way that benefited both you and the store.
Another way of saying this is that the shirt sale was win/win - both you and the store came out ahead in the exchange.
On the other hand, let’s say your financial planner recommended a financial instrument - a mortgage derivative.  You’re not quite sure what it is - in fact, maybe no one is sure - but the company offering it promises a great return and a safe investment.  So you put some money in it, and then six months later, the company dissolves and you lose all your money.  It turns out the company deliberately deceived customers about the quality of this investment and the stability of the company.  You gave value - your money - and did not receive value in return.  That was not a true exchange.  It violated both the value and the truthfulness requirements for a true exchange.
The world is full of opportunities for true exchanges, and it takes communication to make them happen.  If you offer friendship in return for friendship, that can be value for value - or, if you and your proposed friend don’t mean the same things by friendship, and you don’t clear up the misunderstanding, one or both of you can end up feeling unhappy and misused.  The same is true of offering love for love - and even more intensely felt.
Business transactions work best as true exchanges.  Sales are a simple and clear example.  Another exchange is hiring someone:  you exchange their time for your money.  You might make more complicated exchanges, such as having a massage therapist sell your skin cream for a portion of the profits.
When exchanges are true, both parties are better off after making the exchange.  To make sure exchanges are true, we tell the truth and offer true value.
This newsletter is an exchange.  I write articles and tips that I hope will be useful to you and send them to you.  In exchange, you give me a little of your time and attention.  That lets me tell you about other exchanges I have to offer, from time to time.  Those exchanges include my coaching for money, my editing for money, your feedback for my efforts to make this better, my book recommendations for small commissions on books bought at Amazon, and books and e-courses I have for sale.
None of those secondary exchanges are obligations.   If those offers would be true exchanges for you, I hope you will make the trade with me!
With all my best wishes,
Anna

Self and Others: The Principle of Love

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on May 18, 2010
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Welcome to number four of my series on balancing self and others!  For the duration of this series, my newsletter is going out weekly.
Let’s say you’ve achieved the first three principles.  You’ve assured your survival, you know your priorities, and you’ve realized your essential freedom.  With that foundation in place, imagine that you love someone and give them something.
It feels good.  There’s warmth and satisfaction when we can share from our abundance.
To put it another way, the Principle of Love is this:  To give from strength feels good.
If giving doesn’t feel good, it’s a sign that one of the earlier principles is not complete.  You may feel that the gift endangers your survival.  You may have consciously or unconsciously violated your priorities in giving it.  You may have felt you had to give the gift, rather than chosen to given it freely.
Sometimes we start giving from abundance - as a longterm commitment to care for an aging parent - then neglect ourselves in the process.  The giving begins to feel bad.  Then it’s time to rebuild our self-care and re-evaluate our commitments.  Sometimes the first sign we have that our priorities have changed is when we begin to resent something we earlier took joy in giving - as when a job or volunteer position changes from feeling energizing to feeling burdensome.  In that case, it’s a sign it’s time to recheck your priorities.
Remember the third principle when giving begins to feel bad!  Ultimately, you choose.  People may try to convince you that what you have given before, especially if you have done it for a long time or on a regular basis, is now required.  This is simply not true.  Yes, there may be consequences for ending your giving - and you still choose.
To let go of the giving that no longer serves us opens up the possibility to make the gifts that give us joy.  To love - to offer your heart to someone else and give to them from strength - is the best experience mortal life has to offer.
Don’t cheat yourself and your loved ones out of that experience.  Build your strength, recognize your priorities, then freely give.  And it doesn’t matter if what you give is a billion dollar foundation or a quick hug - giving from strength feels good, and it strengthens the people you love, too.
Until next week, try giving some gifts and see how it feels.
Love,
Anna
P.S.  You may be thinking, “Anna, all of this sounds great in theory, but how do I put it into practice?” That’s what life coaching is for.  There’s only so much I can put in a newsletter.  If you work with me as your coach, we will deeply explore what you need to survive and thrive, what your priorities are and how to put them in practice, and discover and create freedom where you feel bound.  In a longterm coaching relationship, you will have dedicated time to put all of this into action, and my ongoing support and insight as you discover and create your strength.  It’s the most exciting journey I know.  Want to know more?  Let’s talk.  Call me at 575-640-0979 to start.

Self and Others: Freedom

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on May 11, 2010
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Hello, everyone.
This is the third principle in my series about how to balance self and others.  I’m continuing the weekly schedule during this series.
When it comes to balancing self and others, the third principle is critical.  This is the Principle of Freedom:  Ultimately, we choose.  Without the power to choose, there is no way to balance our priorities and the calls from others.
Sometimes, we forget that we are free.  We say we have to do this or that.  Where does that “have to” come from?  Is someone physically compelling you to do these things?
Usually not, and if you look more closely, you can find the truth of it.  When you catch yourself saying “I have to,” ask why.  For example:
I have to buy groceries.  Why?  So I can make dinner.  Why?  So I can feed my family.  Why?  Because my family is important to me.
In that case, I choose to buy groceries, because my family is important to me.
Realizing that it is a choice opens a degree of freedom.  Imagine the questioning had gone like this instead:
I have to buy groceries.  Why?  So I can make dinner.  Why?  So Mrs. Reynolds will think I’m a good mother.  Why?  You know, that isn’t a good reason.  I think I’ll choose to bring home a prepared chicken and some salad instead.
Ultimately, we are choosing to be in our relationships.  We can leave.  We can connect fully, or offer only a little of our time and attention.  We can choose to try to make others happy - and when we see that choice clearly, we can see what our reasons are for doing it.
Somedays, I find that freedom frightening.  I think many people do.  Maybe that’s why we are more likely to say, “I have to…” than “I choose to.”  It can feel heavy and burdensome to claim responsibility for our actions.  Yet…
Yet those choices are our only real power.  And if we have to be in our relationships - if we do not choose what we give to them - doesn’t that drain them of their meaning?
Look at it from the other side - do you want the people who connect with you to do it only because they have to?
I don’t.  So I give up the false security of thinking I can make other people love me, to live in the messy, rich relationships that come by choice.
Until next week, may you face your power to choose with courage.
Anna

Self and Others: Self

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on May 4, 2010
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Hello, everyone.  Today’s newsletter covers the second principle in my series on balancing self and others.
What is this “you” that engages in relationships?  When you follow the first principle of survival, who is it that survives?
These are deep questions.  They’ve fueled many a late night discussion, and many a college philosophy course.  Sages have proposed spiritual replies or suggested decades of exploration to discover these answers.  We even go on modern quests to find ourselves.
I considered writing this principle as “Know yourself.”  It is a classic prescription, dating back at least to the ancient Greeks.  It’s excellent advice - and it’s a little unclear how you follow it!
This, I think, is more precise and more to the point when you try to balance yourself and others:  ”Know your priorities.”
You can know your priorities with a relatively simply exercise.  Start by making a list of the things that are most important to you.  It might include things like “My family,” “Writing a book that will endure,” “Contributing to the creation of a space-faring society,” “Work,” “Eating great food,” “Enjoying the outdoors,” “Leisure,” “Ending world homelessness,” “Owning a better car than my neighbors.” Whatever they are, if they are important to you, they go on the list.
Next, look at the first two, and ask, “If I could only have one of these, which one would I pick?”  Move the one you’d pick up on the list and the other one down.  Then compare the next two.  Continue sorting them two at a time until the top item is more important than all the items below it, and the second item is more important than all the items below it, and so on.
Now you know your priorities.  That’s a pretty fair working definition of who this you is, that you bring to relationships.  These drives and desires are the package you offer.
It could be that your priorities involve serving other people.   Excellent!  Now you know.  On the other hand, maybe all your priorities are easiest to accomplish in solitude.  That’s good to know, too.
Many times, when we feel conflicted in relationships, it is because we are unclear on our priorities.  It’s especially easy to confuse what is right in front of us or seems urgent with what is important.  When choosing what to do seems difficult, take a look at your list of what’s important.  Have you been distracted from what really matters to you?
I’ll be back in one week with the next principle in our series.
Until then,
Anna
P.S.  Welcome to our new subscribers!  If you’d like to see earlier newsletters, you can find them here:www.creatingspace.annaparadox.com
Choose the Self and Others tag to read this series.  Scroll down for older posts.