How to Stop Feeding Your Hungry Ghost

In Buddhism the Hungry Ghosts are depicted as teardrop shaped, with bloated stomachs and necks too thin to pass food – representing our futile attempts to feed ego patterns. We can never find satisfaction. It's like drinking salt water to quench our thirst.

Mark Epstein, in Thoughts Without a Thinker, describes our Hungry Ghosts as "searching for gratification of old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed." 

We all can feel confused and disappointed in ourselves when we haven't been able to make changes in our lives we desperately want to make. It helps immensely to recognize these hungry ghosts as unconscious patterns of beliefs and behaviors we developed as children.

Instead of trying to ignore or overcome old “bad” behavior, be mindful. Let the ghosts in with compassion and without judgment, see how they operate. This could be you: 

You: “I haven’t done as much writing this week as I’d like to. And I’ve been beating myself up about that.” 

Your compassionate self: “You wanted to do more. How did you beat yourself up? What did that look like?”

You: “Feeling uncomfortable, anxious, telling myself I’m lazy, disappointed in myself."

Your compassionate self: “So that’s been a pattern, not writing as much as you’d like, then beating yourself up. Anything else?”

You: “I feel lost in a way, like there’s no structure, no clear path for me to follow. I’ve always felt a little uneasy when I’ve only had myself to rely on.” 

Notice the lack of judgment in your compassionate self's responses. Exploring what your ghosts do and how they do it will encourage them to unveil more, bring the past into the present, and release attachments to outmoded, unnecessary patterns.  

Lovin' the Spin I'm In

A phenomenon known as frame dragging predicts that a rotating mass will drag space around it, like a bowling ball spinning in molasses.

This is an apt metaphor for how stuck our worldviews become when we operate in the same old way instead of broadening our perspective.

We continue spinning in the molasses of our patterns, no matter how much we want to do something different, because that particular spin has so much momentum.

Sometimes we wake up to a bigger game because our bowling scores are down. Sometimes it takes a complete "miss" to energize change.

Remember these lyrics to a Frank Sinatra song?

"In a spin, lovin' the spin I'm in..." 

Paradox is essential to change. When you see the spin you're in and love yourself anyway you will, paradoxically, unstick yourself from the molasses that's been dragging you around.  

Seeing with New Eyes

Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs define leadership agility as a process of reflective action or ongoing learning from your own actions — the ability to focus, step back, gain a broader and deeper perspective, and re-engage from that new perspective.

Though addressed to organizational leadership, the four key areas of agility are applicable with anyone or group of any size, from individuals to partners to families to organizations to communities to nations:

Self-leadership agility — stepping back to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and experimenting with new, more effective approaches.

Creative agility — stepping back from your habitual assumptions and developing optimal solutions to the issues you face.

Stakeholder agility — stepping back from your own views and objectives to consider the needs and perspectives of stakeholders.

Context-setting agility — stepping back to determine the best initiatives, given changes taking place in the larger environment within which you operate. 

As noted by these authors, we all need greater agility to adapt to our turbulent world economy's accelerating change, growing complexity, and interdependence.

We enrich our lives and the lives of those we impact when we step back from our habitual views to broaden and deepen our perspective.

Using Resistance as a Positive Force for Change

In his chapter on resistance in Flawless Consulting, Peter Block makes the point that people often use the phrase "overcoming resistance," which implies that convincing or persuading people will win them over. This doesn't usually work.

If your point of view wasn't persuasive to begin with, repeating it will probably only make others dig their heels in deeper. They may feel threatened in some way (which to them is legitimate), or trying to maintain what's important to them (which to them is legitimate). They may feel some concern about their credibility, their job security, their sense of autonomy, their competence. They may also see a lack of congruence between the proposed change and some core values.

Someone who defends the status quo can actually be valuable to you. In your zeal for change you may be missing something they represent that could help you avoid problems. And they may represent others who don't support the change but aren't so open about their reluctance -- whatever they're concerned about is an important issue for you to address. Most important, because defenders have the courage and strength to challenge you openly, you want them on your side, and it isn't necessary to fight for what you believe to make that happen.

Think of the futility of standing in a flooding river to stop the flow. When the "flow" of someone's energy is directed against your efforts, trying to convince them to head in a different direction can be equally futile. An effective way to deal with a flooding river is to divert the water using its own energy -- by digging a channel, for example.

In his classic article, "A Positive Approach to Resistance," H.B. Karp suggests surfacing, honoring, and exploring the resistance by making its expression as safe as possible and asking for all of it, at the same time listening, acknowledging, reinforcing the notion that resistance is permissible, even valuable, and probing for alternatives. 

Karp's article reminds us "the objective is not to eliminate all resistance," but instead to "work with and reduce needless resistance" and, once the conversation is workable, to "thank the resister and move on. It is important not to try to persuade the resister to like the demand. It is enough that the resister is willing to agree to it."

For more ideas, go to my blog post, Moving From Problems to Solutions.

Why Not "Why"?

If you'd been hypnotized in a nightclub act to do something silly afterward at the hypnotist's command, would you then ask, "Why am I clucking like a chicken?" No. You've volunteered to let someone make strong suggestions about your behavior.

As a child you were even more suggestible. Not only did you learn what was expected, you also learned how to maintain that trance. As an adult, your conscious mind and unconscious programming work together to keep the suggestions operating. Check it out for yourself. How many times a day do you say to yourself, "Don't be rude," or "Look out for yourself, nobody else is going to," or "__________" (fill in the blank for yourself). 

Does this mean you have to like the programming? No. You may consciously feel the urge to change, or you may have headaches, or tense shoulders, or acid indigestion, or depression. Something tells you this isn't who you want to be. These are wake-up calls--your attempt to snap your fingers and break the trance. 

You could spend the next few years exploring why you have the patterns you have. Or you could simply accept that you've been in a trance and ask how? How does my trance operate? When you observe this closely, you'll know how to break the pattern. It's not a surprise that we associate "being chicken" with powerlessness. But notice the implied meaning of "free-range chicken." You, too, can range free.

More in my Self-Coaching Workbook.

Moving From Problems to Solutions

Sometimes advice is appropriate, but when you're in a supervisory role, those you're coaching will accept more responsibility and learn more if you help them solve their own problems. These four communication skills move a conversation from focusing on problems to generating solutions:

Active Listening

— Paraphrase: Play back your understanding of what they said. If your restatement is not quite on target, they'll usually clarify.

— Reflect: Confirm what they seem to be feeling. This helps diffuse tension, acknowledges their right to express feelings, and lets them know you support them, even if you disagree.

Open Probing

— Open probes encourage the other to amplify: "Go on." "Tell me more about..." "Give me an example of... " "What did you do/say?" "How did the situation arise?" "You mentioned previously that..." "Remind me again of..."

— Notice also how the way you probe can begin to lead toward solutions: "How do you think it could have been handled better?" "What might happen if... ?" "How do you see ___ being able to improve?"

(NOTE: "Don't you think that...?" is advice in disguise, not a probe.)

Reframing

Instead of focusing on what you don't like, reframe negative statements into a positive. This is not about being "nice." The purpose is to keep your eye on solutions and model how to turn obstacles into opportunities. If someone complains about inconsistencies in top management's priorities, you might say, "You'd like to see things handled differently here."

Both/And Thinking

Most people who are stuck in problems are also using either/or thinking ("It will take too long to do it right"). Move the conversation into both/and thinking:

1. Mentally determine the two apparent opposites (in this case quality and time).
2. Ask a question that presumes both are possible ("How might you do both ___ and ___?"). For example, "What could be done in the current timeframe?" or What could we change to make it work in the time remaining?"

Responding to Criticism and Manipulation Without Defensiveness*

Often other people don't give effective feedback. Even when they're descriptive and helpful, we sometimes feel defensive anyway. In either case, most people think their only options in response are to (1) take it, (2) explain/defend themselves, or (3) fight back. 

There is another option. You can agree to a partial truth, agree to a probability, and/or agree in principle, followed in each case by probing for more information.

For example, if someone says you're not serious enough, you could: 

Agree to a Partial Truth -- "It's true I'm not as serious as some people we know," followed by, "In what way has that been a problem?" Or "Is there something in particular you suggest I change?"

Agree to a Probability -- "Maybe I haven't been serious enough," followed by, "Tell me more" or "What would you like to see me do differently?" 

Agree to a Principle -- "I agree it's important to be serious sometimes," followed by, "What have I done or said that's out of balance?" or "Let's talk about how my being more serious would be helpful here."

It may take a round or two or probing for details and/or moving to a solution before the other person stops making judgmental ("You're not..., you should... you shouldn't") or global statements (what does serious mean to that person in reference to you?). But if you remain non-defensive and show you're open enough to look at yourself honestly, eventually you'll have specific, behavioral feedback. You may or may not choose to act on it, but at least you'll know exactly what the other person is perceiving.

Then you can explain yourself, if necessary, and show your appreciation, if appropriate. Benefits of responding this way:

• Even when the other person is being manipulative and/or passive-aggressive, this will lead to a more direct interchange.
• Your questions will require the other person to be more specific, less judgmental.
• You'll buy some time and lower your defensiveness as you think through which way to respond: Is there some truth to it? Might there be some truth to it? Can I at least agree to an implied principle?
• You may learn something about yourself you need to know.
• The other person will gain respect for you instead of thinking, "Forget it! You can't tell that person anything!" 

*Dr. Manuel Smith calls this technique Fogging (see When I Say No I Feel Guilty and When I Say No I Feel Guilty, Vol. II, for Managers and Executives).

Focusing

Eugene Gendlin discovered that. . .  successful clients. . . allowed themselves to experience and tolerate feelings that were vague, blurry, and unclear; and they allowed these feelings to unfold in their own time and way. They attended to their inward, bodily-felt world, rather than spinning their mental wheels. Dr. John Amodeo

"Focusing," wrote Dr. Gendlin in his book of the same name, "is a process in which you make contact with a special kind of internal bodily awareness. I call this awareness a felt sense. . . when it comes, it is at first unclear, fuzzy. By certain steps it can come into focus and also change."

The six steps to focusing:

1. Clear a Space - Relax and pay attention in your body; ask yourself: What's going on with me right now?
2. Felt Sense - Select one problem, stand back from it, and let yourself feel a sense of it.
3. Handle - Let a word or phrase or image arise (e.g., heavy); hold it along with the felt sense.
4. Resonate between the felt sense and the word, phrase, or image; let either change, if it does, until it feels just right (e.g., As if I weigh 300 pounds).
5. Ask yourself, What is this sense of weighing 300 pounds (or whatever word, phrase, or image fits for your felt sense)?
6. Receive whatever comes up and notice what happens, even if it's only a slight release.

It doesn't matter whether the body shift comes or not at a given time. It will come on its own as you practice sensing where and how your body holds its concerns.

"If nothing happens, back up and slow down! The most likely difficulty is that you are pushing too hard, expecting too much. See if you can hold the attitude that you are primarily building a trusting relationship with the inner senses in your body. Any information that may come is extra. Be there and be interested." Ann Weiser Cornell, Ph.D., The Power of Focusing: A Practical Guide to Emotional Self-Healing, p. 38.

Whatever You Resist Persists

My client Jack used to have such acute panic attacks while planning for public speeches he'd go to the emergency clinic, convinced he was dying. He learned to stay with his feelings of panic instead of running from them. 

Even though the idea seemed a little crazy to him, every time he started to feel anxious, he'd focus on the specific physical sensations and exaggerate them. To Jack's surprise the symptoms quickly diminished, and he stopped having full-blown panic attacks. 

You may have heard the expression, whatever you resist persists. In contrast, every source of resistance responds positively when you welcome it without judgment. Think utilization. You can use whatever happens—blocks, tasks not done, so-called relapses—to see how your patterns play out and to reframe your thinking in ways that invite change.  

Gail, for example, wanted to lose ten pounds. She said she'd gained weight because she ate fast, often while standing up. She'd been trying to get herself to eat less by pushing to overcome her eating patterns, telling herself to SLOOOW down! That hadn't worked and she was disappointed in herself. 

Looking for a way to go with her stated problem of eating fast, Gail decided to clock her mileage, imagining a gauge where 20 mph is a healthy rate of eating speed, and to do so as a neutral observer, to get to know her eating pattern without self-criticism. After clocking her typical eating rate at 55 mph she agreed to following week to consciously eat at 60 mph, then decrease it by 7 mph, then increase by 3 mph, continuing to experiment with her eating gauge. 

Gail had fun reframing her old pattern of focusing on her failures. To her surprise and great delight, she lost three pounds in two weeks without any conscious effort to diet.

Practice  

1. Think of a change you've wanted but haven't accomplished. 
2. If you've tried to stifle or ignore your resistance, find a way to welcome it.
3. Reframe any self-criticism as an opportunity to learn something about yourself.

From Out of the Box: Self-Coaching Workbook

Lagging on Commitment to Change?

Five Tips to Help You Stay Focused

1. 

   Be an objective observer of yourself. Habits are only patterns of behavior. They're not good or bad. If you were an experienced birdwatcher you'd want to identify particular birds, know about their habitat, plumage, shapes. You would not be looking through binoculars and thinking, "Oh no! Those swallows aren't migrating in a perfect V!" A bird is a bird, a pattern is a pattern. Let go of judging yourself. You need to know a pattern before you can change it.
2. Instead of trying to stop being something you don't want to be (whew! think of all the wasted energy THAT takes), get to know your pattern: How often does it show up? What triggers it? What does it look like? How long does it last? Then what? You'll know you've got it when you can teach someone else exactly how you do it.
3. When the patterned behavior shows up, stay WITH it. Let's say you have a fiery temper and you promised yourself you'd keep it in check. The next time it gets triggered, notice where in your body you feel the anger and exaggerate that physical sensation ("It's like I'm about to fly apart"). Continue exaggerating the physical sensation until you know the label you've given it is an exact fit ("No, it's like my guts are being torn apart by rabid dogs!"). By the way, by this time, your anger's lessened and you don't have to act on it.
4. Once you've gotten a grip on your pattern, do it consciously but with one small change. Humor helps. Gail, for example, ate fast while standing and tried to lose 10 lbs. by telling herself to "SLOOOW down!" That didn't work. When challenged to eat fast consciously but with a small change, she "clocked her mileage," increasing her speed from 55 mph to 65 mph and then back down to 25 mph. To her surprise she lost 3 lbs. in two weeks without any conscious effort to diet.
5. It's quite natural to resist change. Unfortunately, we tend to beat ourselves up when we don't follow through. All that energy you've wasted criticizing yourself just feeds the old pattern. Instead, if you find yourself procrastinating, feeling anxious, losing hope, or being distracted from your goal, recognize these as signs you've challenged a deeply embedded pattern, which means you're on the right path. Go through the first four steps again, and remember: If something you've tried hasn't worked, do something different!

More ideas like these in Out of the Box Self-Coaching Workbook

Are You Trustworthy?

Effective partners in life and high-performance teams work cooperatively, are guided by shared goals, trust each other, give and receive feedback openly, and take risks/assert themselves with each other.

Below are behaviors that build or lessen trust. For each one, ask yourself Am I more likely to . . .

1.  seek new ideas/information  OR  act on my own opinions?
2.  help my partner/team-mates  OR  focus only on my own needs/goals?
3.  listen and play back what I hear  OR  focus on my own ideas/views?
4.  be above-board, direct  OR  be indirect, non-disclosing?
5.  tell the truth  OR  tell partial truths/what I think others want to hear?
6.  say what I'm thinking/feeling  OR  send mixed signals?
7.  accentuate the positive  OR  stress the negative?
8.  remain calm under stress  OR  explode/overreact?
9.  honor my agreements  OR  behave opportunistically?
10.  see people as individuals  OR  categorize/stereotype?
11.  show friendliness, compassion  OR  remain distant, aloof?
12.  give specific, accurate feedback  OR  give evaluative feedback?
13.  encourage/empower others  OR  insult, ridicule, diminish others?

Time to Change?

If you're in a business or personal situation where it's time to change whether you like it or not, you may feel stuck because it all feels so overwhelming. A structure that shows how to fit the pieces together can help.

Cynthia D. Scott and Dennis T. Jaffe's classics, Managing Personal Change and Managing Change at Work, provided practical and clear descriptions of ways to move through a transition. 

Their four-stage model shows our typical progression from denial ("Oh, my God, this can't be happening"), through resistance ("I'm sick," "I can't stand this," "How dare they?"), and exploration ("Hmmm, I'm beginning to see some options"), to commitment ("Let's get moving").

You may be stuck in one phase more than another, and you may go back and forth a bit, but it's especially important to not push toward commitment without recognizing the importance of the middle two stages. Anyone who's gone through a sudden downsizing, divorce, or loss of a loved one knows if you rush it, sooner or later the emotional reactions have to be recognized, allowed, and healed so we can be open to new possibilities. 

Denial: The natural first reaction is to focus on the past, to question why the change needs to take place, to wish "If only I'd done this or that," to avoid thinking about the future and keep plugging along without getting much done. People can get rigid, hunker down, or even freeze. To help yourself move through this phase, let the reality sink in, one step at a time. Gradually seek information about your options, what exactly will be happening, and specific steps you can take to maintain your stability throughout the transition. 

Resistance: It's vital to let your emotions in, recognize any signs of stress such as anger, blame, anxiety, depression, or even losing all interest in your life or work. Find someone who will be encouraging and supportive without hammering you with advice. Write in a journal. Whatever you feel is OK to talk or write about. The purpose here is not to judge or fix anything but rather to acknowledge whatever would otherwise bubble beneath the surface.

Exploration: Once some blocks have been released, new energy will begin to flow. You may still feel a bit overwhelmed, and perhaps you'll find yourself confused or — at the other end of the spectrum — over-preparing, but now you'll begin experimenting with new ways of thinking and operating. Try not to move too quickly to closure. Keep options open, do some brainstorming and visioning, and set short-term goals.

Commitment: You'll know when you're in the new groove, feeling fully engaged with your future, excited about what's unfolding. Fear, anxiety, self-doubt, grief have all been transmuted into energy and growth. Now's the time for longer-term goals, pulling together with your family, group, or work team, and appreciation for the courage and insight you've shown throughout the change.

The Real Deal

Just as actors with a good director can portray a role that's completely believable to the audience, all of us have developed self-images to fulfill the roles expected of us as children, resulting in habitual, patterned behavior.

Although you may not be conscious of exactly how that happened, you were programmed as surely as if someone said, "Act this way and you will be accepted/ loved/ admired/ protected/ supported/ (add your own word)."

Furthermore, we all want to win the Oscar, so we've learned to interact with others in ways that reinforce the patterns and maintain the image.

To find the real you, the first and most basic practice is neutral self-observation. If you were an experienced birdwatcher you would want to identify particular birds, to know about their habitat, habits, plumage, and shapes. You would not be looking through binoculars and thinking, "Oh no! Those swallows aren't migrating in a perfect V."

A bird is a bird; a pattern is a pattern. Engage your curiosity instead of self-criticism.

More in Out of the Box Self-Coaching Workbook.

Active Imagination

Carl Jung, in Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, described how therapeutic it could be to translate his own emotions into images (a process now referred to by Jungian therapists as active imagination). He described being visited by a "friend of Gandhi's... a highly cultivated elderly Indian whose guru was a 'commentator on the Vedas who died centuries ago.'"

Jung was a bit embarrassed to talk about this, remarking on the irony that a psychiatrist should discover within himself "the same psychic material which is the stuff of psychosis." He was relieved to realize he'd only experienced "the sort of thing that could happen to others who make similar efforts." 

We all talk to ourselves, but we sometimes do that as part of a negative cycle of worry, blame, or guilt. Active imagination personifies the "parts" of us that are talking – to create more clarity or even resolution that might not be possible with ordinary linear problem-solving.  

Anything could stimulate active imagination. You might be seeking clarity on a key decision, or puzzled by an emotional reaction you've had to someone, or curious about a dream you've had. Here's how one of my clients used active imagination to help resolve her performance anxiety.

Sue had always loved giving pep talks to her own team, so when she was promoted to Vice President, she was surprised to find herself "freezing" when required to give formal presentations in the corporate Board Room.

While agonizing over this, she had a dream in which her aging mother wanted to die and asked Sue to kill her. Sue imagined herself talking to the mother in her dream and wrote down the conversation below. This dialogue is fascinating because it shows the creativity of active imagination – it can move in any direction if you just let yourself go:

Sue to Dream Mother: "Why are you here? What role are you playing in this dream?"

Mother: "Think of the pampas grass in your yard and how you're attracted to it, the way it grows luxurious, seductive, how it feathers itself for attention, how it says, 'Look at me! Look at me!'"

Sue: "I know I want to be heard, I want to make a good impression. But why are you showing up in my dream?"

Mother: "I'm the mother in you who tells you your wishes and what you have to say are unimportant. Everyone loves me because I'm nice, because I hide my critical nature, because I'm not aggressive, because I have no voice."

Sue: "Why are you asking me to kill you?"

Mother: "It's time for you to 'kill' your fear of speaking out, your urge to be 'nice' at the expense of your own wishes and ideas. Meditate on loving what's within, discover your voice is already there, you speak from it every day of your life. Speak to the part of you who doesn't yet see that."

Sue: "It's hard to find that part, to give form to how hard it is to speak out. I picture a murky cloud."

Cloud: "I'm murky because the sun feels blinding. I'm not sure if I can stand the excitement. I've covered the sun so long I've lowered my tolerance for energy, for light, for seeing things clearly, and for saying things clearly.

Sue: "So, how can I move past that?"

Cloud: "Picture yourself in the space where you're anxious. Imagine the light is set low on a dimmer. Slowly turn the dimmer up until your eyes get used to the bright light."

This internal dialogue helped Sue better understand the nature of her anxiety. She also used the visualization as she prepared her next Board Room presentation. She was delighted (and a little surprised) that her anxiety dimmed as she allowed herself to shine.

The Slacker is Back

I had a Teddy Bear whose given name was "Slacker," purchased when I couldn't sleep after one of my dear cats died. I laughed every time I looked at Slacker.

Typically, we have negative connotations for anyone thought of as a slacker: bum, deadbeat, goldbrick, goof-off, idler, loafer, quitter, slouch, couch potato, lazybones, wastrel, drone, and wimp are some synonyms. Readers who know the Enneagram also know my so-called vice is a form of slackerdom: indolence or sloth.

I once bought a book by someone whose work I admired. In the introduction the author said she used male pronouns throughout the book because she found it a "nuisance" to write in language free of gender bias. I was appalled and requested a refund. By the way, it's quite easy to write in language free of gender bias without the he/she or s/he distraction or alternating his and her (see any of my writing for examples). So, I could deem her a "slacker" in the negative sense, perhaps a lazybones.  

But negative connotations of "slacker" are only connotations. The word can also refer to slowing down, making loose or less tense, easing off. If you've ever been on a sailboat, you know that giving the sails some slack can be vital under certain circumstances. 

And those of us who may be quiet or occasionally have trouble getting started can also be cooperative consensus builders who honor diversity and show compassion when it may be lacking in others.

The real "nuisance" to me about the book mentioned above is finding anyone who still denies the symbolic power of language. So today I encourage you to pay close attention to your language. What assumptions are you making when you apply global labels to anyone or anything?

Could you give some slack?

Watching Your Mud Settle and the Right Action Arise

There are some people who eat an orange but don't really eat it. They eat their sorrow, fear, anger, past, and future... When you are truly here, contemplating the orange, breathing and smiling, the orange becomes a miracle... smell it, take a section, and put it in your mouth mindfully, fully aware of the juice on your tongue. Thich Nhat Hanh, "Mindful Eating."

Years ago some of my friends went to a week-long retreat at Plum Village. In preparation, they were asked to read Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. Unable to go on the trip myself, I decided to read sections of the book each day and follow suggestions for mindfulness practices. When I reached the essays on mindful eating, a miracle did occur--a soaring insight that had eluded me for many years. Most of my life, actually. 

Mine is a family of fast eaters. Without really understanding the source of such speed, most meals seemed a necessary fuel stop before moving on to something else. Yes, there have always been foods I especially enjoy, but even much-craved chocolate would be savored for only a moment. More often than not I'd be reading a book or catching up on email while inhaling lunch. 

Not coincidentally, my most dependable life-long stress response has been some form of indigestion: stomach aches as a child, an ulcer while in the clutches of corporate America and, in more recent years, acid reflux. I rationalized I was not alone, knowing a third of Americans suffer from indigestion in various forms and many, if not most, of my friends also relied on Zantac or Prilosec. While I was taking qigong classes I no longer had acid reflux, but still had attacks of indigestion during periods of unusual stress. I'd lost hope that I could completely heal this pattern.

This is still an issue, heightened by medication for an autoimmune disease that tends to cause stomach problems. But when I remember to eat mindfully, quietly reviewing this Lao Tzu quotation, I breathe deeply before picking up a utensil, chew slowly and savor the texture and taste of my food.

 

When I do this, my senses and spirits soar, The first time, though, an old pattern revealed itself. As the food moved down my esophagus I felt my stomach clutch, which completely surprised me. I was able to relax again with a deep breath, but each time I swallowed, the pattern would repeat itself. It took several days over several meals for my stomach to start relaxing instead of tightening up in anticipation. As I relaxed, I remembered how stressful meals were for me when I was growing up. We were to sit upright, eat quietly (no talking or laughing) and to politely excuse ourselves when finished. I learned to eat fast while holding myself tense. 

If we were lucky as infants, we felt warm skin next to us and heard soothing sounds when we received our first taste of milk and experienced satisfaction for the first time. So it makes sense that our eating patterns would symbolize either peace or anxiety, love or rejection, and thus carry a significant piece of the motivations driving us.

The first step to changing any upsetting pattern is through mindful observation. Why not start with how you eat? You might find, as I have, that significant memories surface, anxieties associated with eating begin to ease, and you spontaneously slow down at other times, as well, all your senses alert, with joy around every corner.

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?

Transform "Traps" To Possibilities

Picture a Chinese Finger Trap where you put a finger in each end of the woven tube. If you try to pull your fingers out, they get caught tighter. The only way out of the finger trap is to push in.

When you think of the puzzle as a "trap" your worldview is already geared toward escape. Logic says you must move away from the stuck place. But if logic prevailed, none of us would have any more problems: "OK, now that I know my pattern, I'll just quit doing it." Not!

When you approach the puzzle as a weaving that has certain characteristics, you're more likely to notice, calmly and objectively, how it works, to see how it pulls tighter in one direction and looser in the other. Then all you're likely to say is, "Isn't it interesting, how that pattern works? If I move in this way, then I'm released." You have reframed your thinking. 

A presupposition "supposes" a way out of a habitual pattern. It embeds a positive expectation and assumes a desired change. If you want to change something in yourself, observe it closely: "How does it work? What seems to trap me? What seems to trigger it?" And, most important, "What are exceptions to the problem? When it doesn't occur, what did I do differently?" Then, do more of what works!  

You'll find the more you use presuppositions, the more you'll see surprising and even unexpected changes (this is a presupposition). :-)

(More in my Out of the Box Self-Coaching Workbook)

How to Walk in Someone Else's Shoes

John David Hoag describes an NLP technique called Perceptual Positions as a way to "create a very rich sense of another person's experience using only your own memory, imagination, physiology, and very slight shifts in your spatial location."

I've used Perceptual Positions myself and with my clients as a concrete way to increase presence, leave preconceptions behind, and gain in compassion and perspective.

First picture yourself sitting at a table with someone seated across from you. Anchor yourself by seeing through your eyes and hearing through your ears. Use all your senses to imagine every aspect of yourself in relation to this person, what you experience physically, what you think, feel, believe, say.

Second, mentally shift your position so you're in the chair sitting across the table. Anchor yourself there by imagining you see through the other person's eyes, hear through that person's ears. Notice what you experience physically, see, hear, feel, think, believe from this position about the person in the first position. Imagine addressing that person as "you".

Then, shift to a third position in space, slightly above the two people at the table, again anchoring yourself in this neutral observer position by seeing through these eyes, hearing through these ears. Hoag refers to this person as the "friendly visitor from outer space who has just arrived." Use the pronouns "he," "she," or "they" as you notice very descriptive details in the other two beings about whom you have no preconceptions or beliefs.

Hoag also suggests a fourth position is possible, "a synthesis of all the others, a sense of being the whole system. From this position you can see the genesis and effects of all the other positions and their interactions, and notice large patterns which transcend individual identifies, parts, and relationships."

Graphic from Vadim Kotelnikov: 

Is Love All There Is?

According to Dr. Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages, you can open new paths of communication with your significant other by discovering how each of you expresses love and wants to be shown love (some want words of affirmation, others look for quality time, gifts, acts of service, and/or physical touch).

The expression of love and the experience of being loved can also vary a great deal depending upon the personalities in the partnership. 

Consider (tongue-in-cheek) which of the metaphors below is most characteristic of your approach to relationships; then ask your significant other to do the same, and compare your answers (if you'd like to know more about about the Enneagram personality styles that might hold each view, click on that metaphor's link):

1. Love should be examined as if it's a gallery portrait, hunting for flaws in the brush strokes.
2. If grass can grow through cement, then love can find you at any time in life.
3. If love isn't blind, then at least it needs an eye test. 
4. When you're in love, you get a taste of what it feels like to be a bit deranged.
5. Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
6. Love is a fire, but you can never tell whether it's going to warm your heart or burn down your house.
7. Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason novels are more amusing than history.
8. Love is like war: easy to start and difficult to stop.
9. True love is like a good pair of socks; it takes two, and they have to match.

A Cool Re-Organization Nudges Your Memory

As a teacher or a learner, you know the power of acronyms for meaning and memory. Acronyms condense highly useful information in a way that's easy to remember.

I wondered if the word ACRONYM itself is an acronym, and found a site where readers had some fun, as in the borrowed title to this blog entry. But apparently the word acronym is not officially an acronym.

In modern times we've become accustomed to HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and LOL (Laughing Out Loud), as well as the maddening media trend (dare I call this MMT?) represented by BFF (Best Female Friend).

These examples don't intimate content, although we've endowed with meaning such acronyms as CEO (Chief Executive Officer), SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), and LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation).

Even more powerful are acronyms that represent a system of ideas and also carry a specific meaning. AWE is the acronym I've coined to represent clients' potentially awesome progress (follow the links for examples):

1. Awareness of your unique patterns.
2. Watching, without judgment, how those patterns operate.
3. Experimenting with pattern breaking until your unwanted beliefs and behaviors drop away.