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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

Why Be Open to Life?

11/20/2018

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In many personal growth programs we’re told we should be open to what life brings us. But what does that mean, exactly? And what does it say about us when we can’t or don’t know how?

As I talk with friends and clients (and what I notice in my own life) I’m more and more aware of an inner reaction that can arise when we say no to something. If we feel the slightest bit of threat to our ego (and by that I mean our elusive sense of self), we close down. It’s so rampant that I’ve started calling it the “auto-response”.

There’s a big difference between saying no and closing down. Saying no can be exactly the right thing to do if we don’t have sufficient time or the conditions aren’t favorable. For instance, I was asked to take on a project that was beyond me. I said no because I knew I couldn’t assemble the necessary information within the given time frame. I was conflicted because I would have liked to do it, but it was clearly beyond what I could handle by their deadline. It was a straightforward assessment, based on a practical evaluation of both timing and available resources. It wasn’t about me personally.

But closing down is different. That’s when we do take things personally. And there's a whole lot of insecure thinking that triggers not only our psychological but physical defenses as well. In the heat of the moment, we may not consciously know we’re interpreting something as a threat, but we’re keenly aware that our feelings and our physical sensations don’t feel good. My client, Anne, recently told me she was asked by a rather demanding boss to recreate a well-regarded program she had developed so that it could be used for upcoming events. It wasn’t an unreasonable request, but Anne’s first response was to say no, she couldn’t do it. She felt an all-too-familiar sense of resistance and then a shutting down, along with a vague sense of needing to protect or defend herself. Her palms started to sweat, she felt afraid for no apparent reason and her thoughts started jamming up about whether she was capable enough to do the job and what the consequences would be.

Anne eventually did recreate her program, and as we spent time unpacking what had happened to her, she began to see how she could get out of her own way and what that would allow her to do. These are a few of her “aha” realizations that might help you get out of your own way:

1. When insecure thoughts are triggered and we close down, it cuts us off from our innate wisdom and creativity. But as soon as we realize we don’t have to regard those thoughts as personal, we can move beyond them and instantly open back up to that infinite source of intelligence and inspiration that’s always available to us.

2. When we put up a wall to defend ourselves against an imagined or assumed threat, it keeps us locked into a belief that may or may not have been true in the past but now only limits our possibilities to learn or grow and see things in a different light. New possibilities and new outcomes are inevitable once we allow ourselves to be curious about and present to the uniqueness of each moment.  

3. When we close down because of what may appear to be threatening, we become a victim not only of our thoughts but to the external events that trigger our them. When we recognize that beneath all our thinking we are whole, perfect and untouched by any thought, we become the creators that we were meant to be, energized by a guiding force that's infinitely more powerful than any person, place or event.
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