Thirsty? Here's the Firehose.

OK, I know I'm passionate about learning and growing and teaching and sharing. But I'm learning that not everyone shares the same passions I do - and sometimes that's a difficult lesson to really get.

I used to work with a very wise guy (no, not a wiseguy, but a wise SPACE guy!) who once told me "if we both think the same way one of us is not needed." He really got that it was important for people to share various perspectives in order to help each other expand their collective point of view.

I KNOW that's true, but sometimes I still forget. I sometimes believe that everyone should see the world of higher awareness and new information and growth and advancement the way I see it and that's just not the way it is. Just because I am excited and passionate about something doesn't mean everyone needs to agree.

If we both think the same way one of us is not needed.

Others are needed in my life to help me see other points of view. But I'm needed in other people's lives to stand for my own way of seeing the world so that I can provide information and inspiration in my own way, too.

I think for me the challenge is to balance my dynamic energy (the "push" energy) and the magnetic energy (the "pull" energy). Or another way to say it is the DO (dynamic) and the BE (magnetic). I know there are times and places for both. As a speaker and a coach, I can definitely see times and places for both.

I'm thinking of Wayne Dyer's reminder: "How may I serve?" which asks what the other needs rather than forces on them what I think they need.

How may I serve today?

What Other People Think of Me ...

... really is none of my business. But as soon as our awareness shouts that out, we probably will be given tests to see if we really walk our own talk.

I've been given information from a well-meaning person about a group I'm leading. Some of the members of this group are having trouble buying into the new awareness we're learning, probably because of some subconscious conditioning we all need to work through. That's the beauty of group dynamics. Whatever happens in the group is information for each member of the group (including the facilitator!)

I've been told that people from this group are talking about the things they don't like outside of the group and my first reaction (yes, it was a REACTION, not a RESPONSE) was to throw in the towel. "Fine. If they don't want to learn or grow or move forward, we'll just stop." But the beauty of awareness is that REACTIONS don't stop me like they used to. When I can identify them as such, I have a chance to take a breath and RESPOND.

I'm reminded that what other people think of me is none of my business and also that "People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character." We are telling people every day how we want to be understood by the way we understand others. So wherever people are in their understandings (including me) is exactly where we need to be.

I don't need to react or even to respond to this situation. I just need to celebrate and be grateful that I'm learning something every day. Any story I can create in my mind about what is or isn't actually happening is not true. Everything we learn and notice is just information and there is no judgment in information. It just is.

So don't be dismayed when things start showing up to test your resolve. Sometimes the "brick walls" simply show up to let us see how much we believe what we say or how much we want what we say we want. There is always a way to get beyond an obstacle, but it may not be immediately apparent.

What do you really want? To be right or to be happy? I'll choose the happy route every day I'm aware that it's an option!

Being Stuck

I'm currently leading a master mind group in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota where we're studying Peter Block's newest book: Community: The Structure of Belonging and it's gotten me thinking - no surprise there!

I'm currently contemplating the chapter Peter titles "The Stuck Community" and I'm uncomfortable because I recognize myself in what I'm reading. I'm wondering why I'm uncomfortable ... because of being stuck or because of the realization of the possibility of being stuck?

The first line of Chapter 3 in Peter's book just jumped off the page at me today while I was reading: "To create a new story, we first need to come to terms with the current one. This begins by naming it."

What I read today was that to move beyond stuck, we first have to realize we are stuck. Denial doesn't work when we're stuck. And the underlying assumption in that statement is that at some point in all of our lives every one of us gets stuck.

I think about what I've been studying and learning since I saw The Secret in 2006. Shouldn't we just be able to THINK our way out of our stuckness? After all, don't we know better?

Sometimes knowing doesn't seem to be enough. That's why I'm so excited to get my hands on the followup to The Secret called "Beyond the Secret." According to my fellow LifeSuccess consultants who are featured in this movie, this will teach us things that The Secret didn't get to. We'll be able to take that great information and go even deeper.

Being stuck isn't a big deal - staying stuck can be. So let's call it like it is when we're stuck. According to Peter Block, that's when we can move beyond it.

The Knowing / Doing Gap

OK, so we've already established that we already know this stuff. There's no new information, just new ways of packaging what's already out there.

So why don't we do what we know?

If greater awareness = better choices, then shouldn't learning more make us more accountable and thus more happy?

We seem to stay in our state of cynicism and resignation so we can cling desperately to our need to be right, even at the expense of our own happiness and vitality. So many people - especially those who feel the need to call in to talk radio shows or write scathing letters to the editor - just don't realize that their opinion of the world is also telling the world who they really are.

It appears as though the cost of being cynical and resigned and upset and unhappy is not yet outweighing the perceived payoff for those who choose to continue the actions that keep proving them right - and unhappy.

But even as I write that I wonder whose view it is that calls that "unhappy." Perhaps it is me judging what I see and calling it "bad" or "wrong" ... if even in my own head.

As I start noticing those things/people/situations that I judge and change my own mind about judging them, then the world appears different to me and I don't have to be caught up in my own need to be right about what others are or are not doing.

So it's really true ... the only gap that occurs in the world between what ANYONE knows and does is the gap that occurs in MY world.

If ANYTHING really is to be, it truly IS up to me.

Somehow I think I already knew that.