Would you like to feel a little less stress during stressful activities? Do you want to take away a bit of the tension?

Last weekend, I cleaned the house. It’s not my favorite thing to do. Merely thinking about it causes my body to grow tense, and it worsens once I start cleaning. I love a clean house, but I don’t love cleaning it.

This time, I decided to take away the tension. I chose to clean the house without the usual frustration.

A dirty toilet is still a dirty toilet, but cleaning it isn’t so bad when I don’t carry mental and physical stress.

What do you find stressful?

A meeting with your boss.
Carpooling a van full of kids to and from basketball practice.
Cleaning up after teenagers.

Whatever it is, when you do that thing you don’t like, decide to leave the tension behind.

You have a choice.

Relax your muscles. Take slow, deep breaths. Move slowly.

If you’re going to do the thing you don’t like to do, you might as well do it without adding extra pain.

Where can you remove a little tension in your life and add in a deep breath and some relaxation?
 

I learned a great new trick a few weeks ago: If I want to relax, I just ask my body to do it for me.

Try this: Ask your breath to deepen for you. Don’t you do it--ask your breath to do it for you.

Stop reading for a minute and notice what happens.

Seriously, try it. Ask your breath to deepen for you.

What happens is almost magical, isn’t it?

I’m now starting to practice it on my tight muscles and with falling asleep, with some success. When I get into bed and feel situated, I ask my mind to turn off and my body to sleep. Most nights it works quickly.

If you encounter a stressful moment in your day, pause and ask your breath to deepen for you--you don’t have to do anything else. Your body is infinitely wise and knows exactly what to do. You and your mind are the only thing stopping it. Pause and let your breath deepen and your body relax.

Isn’t that fantastic?
 

We’re having absolutely fabulous weather here in Corvallis, Oregon. As I type this, it’s sunny and mid-50s. It will likely hit 60 today. I had a delightful morning run. The sun is now streaming in my office window and I can feel the fresh air blowing in. I love it.
Except when I start future-thinking. I fret about the winter we didn’t have.

Will it come in March or April?
Will it kill all of the buds on the trees?
Will this create problems for the local farmers?
What about the summer?
Will it be crazy-hot?
Will there be a lot of fires?
We need more rain!!!

Once I start down this path, it quickly turns into a death spiral. I stop enjoying the sunshine, the crocuses, and my open office window. I start worrying about all of these things that are completely out of my control.

As I’ve been noticing this mental weather pattern of mine over the past few weeks, I’ve been catching myself in the act and stopping this future-thinking.

On my run today, as soon as I stopped fretting, I noticed so many more crocuses that I usually notice. It was because I was present. I was in the now. I was living today.

It got me thinking about how much I miss because my mind is focused up ahead.

This weather one is a simple example. Of course I can’t change the weather. Future focus on that is obviously a waste of time for me. I’m not a farmer. I have air conditioning. And forest fires don’t come to Corvallis.

But what about the other areas of my life? There are plenty of times I future-think and believe that future-thinking will somehow help me. Every time I think about the future and not the now, I am missing the now.

Future-thinking is not necessarily a bad thing, just when it becomes a repetitive pattern full of worry. We can future-think about our bodies and health, the weather, money, relationships, work, you name it! Most of the time it just fills us with worry and offers no benefit (unless you think stress is a good thing).

Do you future-think? Is there one area where you can commit to stopping your future-thinking pattern?

With all of my talk about change, I want to also remind you that even when it feels like life is a whirlwind of change, there are always some things that remain constant.

If you’ve embarked on a new career, notice that your relationships with friends remain the same. If you’ve had a shake-up in your home life, notice that your exercise routine can stay the same. Notice whatever is constant for you.

What do you enjoy or appreciate about this aspect of your life? How does it bring you comfort? Whatever it is, keep it. Notice it. Connect with it. Enjoy your time with it. Appreciate it. Express gratitude for it. Relax with it. Let its essence fill you up.

Use this aspect of your life as your grounding rod. Let it hold your feet to the earth and steady you despite the whirlwinds of change that surround you.

Photo courtesy of my dad, John Williams, from his visit to Oregon in June-08

When change happens, you lose one identity and make space for a new one to emerge. If the loss of your old identity was fully grieved, then you will have plenty of space for something wonderful to emerge.

You’ll feel it in your heart that it’s time for something new. You won’t have to look for that something new--it will find you. You will feel a sense of possibility, hope, and excitement. Ideas will arrive in floods and a smile will return to your face.

If you haven’t fully grieved your loss, you may still find a new identity, but it will feel forced and firm, as opposed to inspired and soft. We often look for a new identity to escape the pain of our loss--yet seeking and jumping to a new identity too soon results in dissatisfaction and repressed grief in the long run.

Your heart will tell you it’s time for a new direction. You will find delight in the sense of newness you feel in the world. Enjoy the excitement from the possibilities you see.

Finding a new way is a process of uncovering. Don’t jump on every idea you have. Roll them over in your mind, let them simmer, and let your imagination run wild.

When you have a firm knowing in your whole being, you will have found your new identity. This firm knowing does not come from your head, it comes from deep within your heart and soul.
 

One of the most challenging steps in navigating change is the first one: letting go of our identity. Change in our lives signal the loss of a part of who we are. For something new to come into our lives, something else has to die.

If you lose your job at The Corporation, you also lose your identity as an employee there. If you move to a new city, you lose your identity as a resident of your prior city.

This seems like an obvious and simple concept, yet I find many people brush aside the significance of their identity loss. Many say, “Yup, that part’s gone,” without truly acknowledging the hole it creates within them.

To successfully transition into a new identity, we need to grieve the loss of our old one. The logical part of the mind thinks that grief is foolish and a waste of time. We say things like “Why bother?” and “No use crying over spilt milk.” But grief is essential. Feel the hole inside your body. Cry, scream, shout, stomp, and grumble. Releasing the emotions associated with your loss allows something new to be born.

Our tendency is to quickly get past the pain or pretend it’s insignificant. Resisting the reality of your identity loss will eventually cause more pain and make your transition to a new identity take longer. You can make it through the painful patch and over to the other side--give it time.

Allow the old identity to die and leave a hole, even though it hurts. From that hole, a new identity will soon be born. From a clear, seemingly empty hole, something better will grow.

photo courtesy of Dizzy Girl via Flickr
 

Tonight I’m running a workshop entitled Taking Charge of Change. My main message is simple:

No matter what change is initiated in your life, you can be in charge.

Sometimes we choose change and sometimes change is chosen for us. Change can come on suddenly or gradually.

Martha Beck says that changes initiate in three ways: opportunities, shocks, and transitions.

Opportunities are changes we choose and are usually perceived as positive, such as a promotion or buying a new home.

Shocks are surprises. Winning the lottery would be perceived as a positive one, and suddenly losing a loved one would be perceived as negative.

Transitions are gradual, internal shifts that stem from an inner yearning.

The way in which change is initiated often dictates our response. We tend to feel victimized by changes we don’t choose and empowered by changes we do choose.

However, we can own our response to any change. We can take what life gives us and decide what to do with it. As the old adage goes, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” Yes, this is more easier said than done, but it’s possible.

Check back on Monday for more discussion on change and tips and tricks to feel empowered (rather than victimized).

Photo courtesy of Bogdan Suditu on Flickr under a creative commons license.
 

On Monday, I wrote about a slip-up on my resolution to LISTEN. Today, I’m writing about my second resolution: ALLOW.

One word resolutions.
Let me first detour to these one-word resolutions and where they came from. Maybe resolution isn’t the best word for it, but it feels right to me. Christine Kane, a singer, songwriter, and coach, suggests using a “Word of the Year” to guide the upcoming year. She asks her blog readers to share their experiences using a guiding word, and I finally caught on. In mid-December, LISTEN came to me. Shortly after that, I heard, ALLOW.

ALLOW.
I chose ALLOW for 2010 because it is a perfect complement to LISTEN. LISTEN is about me hearing the whispers of my wise, inner self and of my body. ALLOW is acceptance of reality, acceptance of what-is. Both of these words are physical and mental; though for me, the focus is actually more physical than mental.

I was left-brain trained (logical, mathematical, scientific, process-oriented), and I have lived my life “in my head,” so to speak. In the last year, I’ve learned to climb back into my body and learn that I can LISTEN to the physical feelings that are stored there. Behind the physical sensations are words. They say things like, “Slow down. There’s no need to rush.” Or, “Yes, do that. It will be fun!” Those are the voices I want to hear more clearly this year.

Allowing ALLOW.
ALLOW, for me, is two-thirds physical, one-third mental. Having lived “in my head” for so long, I almost forgot I had a body. (No, of course not literally, but it seems that way, now that I look back.) Every time I think a thought that doesn’t serve me, my body tenses up. Since I’ve spent my life pleasing others, I think a lot of things that don’t serve me... and my body tenses up a lot, too. ALLOW is helping me refocus on what-is in life, and letting it be.

I am tired of controlling, trying, forcing, and efforting. I want to take a break and just ALLOW.

A new way.
I have this thought, in the back of my mind, that if I can let go of trying so hard, more things will come to me. More fun, more business, more love, more whatever-is-good. ALLOW isn’t about making or desiring those things to come to me, but it is about permitting them to enter my world. Who knows if it will work. What I do know for sure is that I’m tired of trying and I’m tired of hurting and I’m ready for a new way. And that’s what ALLOW is all about for me. I look forward to learning what it has to teach me in 2010.

Do you have a word for 2010?

There is wisdom in your body. Can you hear what it’s trying to tell you?

When we find ourself in physical pain or dealing with a cold or illness, it is quite likely that our bodies have a message for us. It’s tired, it’s overworked, or it’s sick of the mental and emotional crap we’ve been dolling out for the past weeks...months...years.

I have come to believe in my body’s wisdom, even though it is so much easier to blame aches, pains, and sickness on more logical causes like the extra workout, a cheap desk chair, or the germs from the airplane.

Last week I got a cold. Sounds trivial, but I never get sick. Well, almost never. But last week I did. My body had been talking to me for weeks, and I wasn’t listening.

First I had low back pains, then my right leg tensed up like I had run a marathon. I started getting headaches. My sinuses got angry. Then I got a cold. I had five clues that my body had a message for me, and I ignored them all.

I find this funny because “I should know better.” How often does that happen to you? We know better, yet we ignore what we think we know.

As the aches and pains came on, I pulled up all of my so-called logical reasons for those problems, the ones we’ve been trained by doctors to believe are the real causes of our problems.

I was feeling worse and worse and then the denial came in. I knew it was my body talking, but I didn’t want to believe it.

“But I’m in a job I love.”
“But I have so much freedom in my day.”
“This has to be something else.”

The cold came, and then it cleared. The revelations then came through.

Yes, I am in a job I love. Yes, I do have freedom in my day.
And, I can still be a workaholic, maybe even more so since I’m now self-employed.

One of the amazing things I realized is that as we move towards our right life, our tolerance for living out of integrity with who we really are plummets. My essential self now expects to be cared for and catered to in ways she didn’t ask before I quit my job. I have given her wiggle room over the past 6 months, and now she wants more.

I need some help catering to my essential self. I need some ideas to entertain her and get her excited again. After all, my essential self is what fuels my passion and creativity for my business and for coaching.

I heard my body talking and I didn’t listen. I’m ready to listen now.

Here are some things I did on Friday last week to help me get started.

Played with my friend’s horse.
Went for an hour-long hike by myself.
Shopped for a Christmas tree and all of the trimmings.
Purchased a beautiful new scarf that makes me giddy when I wear it.

Your turn.

What would thrill your essential self (your inner child, the part of you that you deny when you work too many hours and please everyone else)? Please share!

Does a dirty kitchen drive you crazy?

One of my childhood chores was doing the dishes after dinner. I became rather efficient at the task. When I grew up and had my own home, I wanted the kitchen spotless after dinner. My husband didn’t have the same clean kitchen policy in his bachelor pad, so if I wanted a tidy kitchen, it was my job to do it.

Some days, if the kitchen wasn’t clean, I got a little crazy. The trouble was, cleaning it could make me crazy, too.

Not too long ago, I finally smartened up.

Who cared about the clean kitchen? Only me.

Did Paul? Not really.

Did my neighbors, who can see the dishes stack up through the window? Likely not.

Did my mom? No. Even if I fabricated a story that she did care, she can’t even see them. She’s 3000 miles away and only knows that my kitchen is occasionally messy because I posted it here for the the world to see.

Why did I like the kitchen clean? It was one less thing to make me crazy, because so much in my life was making me crazy.

Interesting. I really pondered that. A kitchen can make me crazy. From an outsider, objective view, that’s a little crazy.

While I can pretty much control how clean my kitchen is, the process of controlling that trivial thing made me crazy. Like I said, there was little room to feel good.

This is when I realized it was time to lighten up. (If my sister’s reading this, she’s probably laughing hysterically at this point.)

I thought a clean kitchen made my house more relaxing. Although maybe it did, keeping that kitchen clean was far from relaxing. Was a spic-n-span kitchen necessary for me to function in life? Certainly not. In fact, it was limiting my functionality because of all the mental space I was taking up just by thinking about it.

Once I sorted out that I didn’t need my kitchen to be perfectly clean all of the time, I began to pride myself on the ability to occasionally let dishes pile up for a few days... and not go crazy in the mean time.

What can you let go of just a little, for the sake of your sanity?