Your Needs.

Why is it so difficult for most people to express their needs?  Why do we not want to ask our boss, our coworkers, our spouse, our children, our friends, our family for what WE need?  In a conversation with a friend of mine the other day who works with a lot of very successful people, he said the one common thread is that they all have no problem asking for what they need. So what separates them from the majority and how can we all learn this skill?  In order to try and figure this out, I have asked myself many times why I often have difficulty asking for what I need.  I have come up with a variety of reasons ranging from, “afraid they won’t like me” to “I won’t get it anyway”.  In my mind there are a few things at play here.  First and foremost as I always go back to, you need to feel good enough about yourself to believe that you deserve to have what you need. In my own life I found after years of “living” that I had lost my ability to believe in my dreams.  Remember that childlike innocence that you used to have when you thought you could be anybody, do anything and have anything.  I wanted to get that back!! We need to have that enthusiasm and belief in ourselves to really feel like we deserve to have our needs met. Step two, communicating those needs. This one is challenging for me and for lots of other people I am sure (for many of the reasons I discussed in my Communication post).  I have found what works best for me is when I am able to say what I need without attachment to the response or the outcome.  While this hasn’t always been easy, when I
am able to do it, it has always been successful. If we can get to this place, then the last part is allowing the other person to meet that need in the best way they are capable of.  This requires patience, understanding and compassion for our differences.  If, for whatever reason, the other person is not able to meet that need, then it becomes our choice as to whether we can live with it or not.  Of course all of this is dependent upon us actually knowing what our needs are!!  And that is sometimes the most difficult part. Our degree of happiness and fulfilment in life requires us to not only know what our needs are, but also to ensure that we are meeting them in the best possible way. I think it is well worth it-YOU are worth it,  to spend some time considering what your needs are and then figuring out what you can do to get those needs met!!  It is a journey that will be well worth it, believe me I know!!   Good luck. . . . keep me posted.

Relationships

This was read at a friends wedding last summer and I loved it, it seemed appropriate for me to share today.

Excerpt from: A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg

When you love someone, you don’t love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.
It is an impossibility.
It is even a lie to pretend to.
And yet this is what most of us demand.
We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.
We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.
We are afraid it will never return.
We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even.
Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.

Acceptance.

I have often said that one of the biggest causes of suffering of our human condition is the struggle between being your authentic self and being the person you feel society, your family and friends expect you to be.  This past weekend I had the opportunity to share my personal experience around learning this tough lesson.  First of all let me say that the only possible way out of this struggle is to always be your authentic self.  However it has taken this people pleasing, insecure, wanting to be liked girl a lot of work to get there. For me I found the answers in two places. First of all in loving and accepting myself for who I am and what I bring to the table.  One of the hardest things for me to accept about myself was that I am not happy living a superficial life.  I used to admire people who could go to work and just do their job and not get involved in the politics or always have to voice their opinions.  I would look at women who were quite happy doing domestic chores and doting on their husbands and think “why can’t I be like that?” But as I have found out I am not those people, I am me. I am the one, who always has something to say about everything, who will stand up for the underdog when no one else will, who wants to push myself and others to grow,  and who has a new idea every week of where I want to take my passions and dreams. For a long time I felt like I wasn’t being grateful if I always wanted/needed more. Now I know that that is just who I am J.  I have figured out how to channel that energy into productive meaningful activities that “feed my soul” and I still remain grateful every day for all of the wonderful things in my life. The second part for me was in learning to accept others for who they are and allowing them to find their own answers without trying to give them mine. Most of this I learned through my own self development (and maybe a few reminders from my beautiful smart daughter).  I found that when I figured out the answers for myself instead of letting others give them to me, there was a profound difference in my reaction and action to those answers, and the resulting change in my self and my behaviours.  I was also fortunate enough to witness my friends have wonderful “epiphanies” when I just listened, questioned and supported and let them figure it out for themselves, and then saw the resulting difference it made in their lives. The reality is we are all on our own path and it doesn’t matter what is right for someone else or what society says is the norm, all that truly matters is how important it is to us, if it fulfils us and allows us to be our authentic selves.  At the end of the day if we all learn these two principles and put them into action in our lives then all paths will and should lead to the same place . . . LOVE.

Communication.

In the last few days I have been struck by the difficulty many of us have to communicate our thoughts, feelings, intentions and instructions.  Is it our inability to get our point across or is it another’s perception that is at fault here?  I’m going to say both! Hence why we need a great deal of patience, understanding and qualification to properly communicate.  Sometimes with some people it is quite easy and we would love to be around these people all the time.  However, we don’t always work with the same communication style people, we may not be married to them and we may have to deal with them in many other aspects of life. The challenge in communicating with others who don’t share our same “words” is not in the language we chose, I think it’s actually in the listening.  Listening without judgement or assumption. I have a lot of intuitive feelings about people and it is often difficult for me to not allow these assumptions to cloud my listening. I really need to listen objectively and not form my own opinions, I have learned that if I am not sure of the others intention to question and investigate.  This of course becomes much more difficult when it involves someone close to me. The more emotionally involved I am the more difficult it is.  But the truth is, what we don’t realize is if we want to deepen the connections with the people we love the most, we MUST work at understanding each others communication.  Taking things other people say personally comes from our own insecurities and fears and it is easy to project this onto them. Let’s play The Blame Game!  I believe the important piece here is “intention”.  What is our intention in this situation is it really to come to an understanding? Or is it about putting our opinions onto someone else?  Only you have the answer to this question, but I can promise you this, your life will become much more relaxed and peaceful if you can approach every misunderstanding with an open mind, don’t take things personally and always strive for the best possible outcome for both of you!  I’m not going to lie, it is still a work in progress for me, but I am up for the challenge.  Are you?

Poor Choices.

Have you ever made a poor choice? Chances are you have made at least one or two after all you are human.  The degree of the poor choice can vary considerably and the repercussions of these choices can be short term or last much longer. I am currently going through a crisis in my life based on a poor choice that I made. I am learning first hand the effects on my own life and those around me. It is always a difficult thing to find out that you are not perfect, especially in a world that values perfection above everything else.  For an over achiever like myself it is particularly disconcerting.  “I should be above this, I should know better, Why? Why? Why?”  All of this is moot as the mistake has been made and cannot be undone.  So where do I go from here.  I have always told my children that it’s okay to make mistakes and when you do you need to do three things:

1. Admit it. 2. Make Amends. 3. Move Forward.  Today it is time to take my own advice.

I have owned my poor choice, apologized for it and am making amends the best way I know how, now I need to move forward.  A wise person told me to “travel the road without judgement” and I think this is the key.  We can become so caught up in feeling bad about ourselves and trying to make amends at the expense of our own needs.  This will serve no one least of all ourselves. In order to move forward I will need to not judge myself, accept that I cannot change it and trust that I will learn what I need to learn and be a better person for it.  After all that is the purpose of all of the tough life lessons that are thrown our way. . . . to learn from them. While I have been humbled, I am committed to using this experience to improve myself and thereby the lives of those around me. Today I am sorry, tomorrow I will be grateful.

When life becomes difficult, open up to the experience and find joy and peace.

 

Many times a particularly trying time in our life is followed by an experience of joy and peace.  This is where the lessons settle in.  I am well aware of this and always want to have an open heart and mind at this time.  It isn't about analyzing or picking apart every detail of the trauma or drama, it is about allowing it to be.  Knowing it has changed you in some way (as all life experience does) and appreciating that.  After a particularly emotional week this past week, I was again reminded of that this weekend.  What I wasn't prepared for was the way it unfolded.

 

I always tell my friends to "find what feeds your soul" and this weekend the Universe gave me what feeds my soul with little to no effort on my part.  I love when this happens as it reinforces my trust that life does always give us what we need (we just need to be open to it).  It took some work and a few missed attempts(!!), to find what feeds my soul, but eventually I did - creating connections with people and deepening those connections.  The right people showed up this weekend to deepen our connection and say some of the most beautiful things to me, I felt so much love, my soul was totally "filled up" with joy and peace.

 

I am always struck by the number of people I talk to who have no idea what feeds their soul.  Everyone is busy just trying to deal with the day to day "stuff".  A good place to start is to ask yourself some of these questions:  What am I doing when I feel the happiest? When do I feel the most like myself? What is the one thing that I really love and admire about myself? What is the one thing that if someone told me I could no longer do it, I would shrivel up and die inside?  When you find the answers (and yes they are inside of you, you just need some quiet reflective time to find them) you will be well on your way to finding the ideal menu for your soul. Only when we are totally "filled up" ourselves can we be the love and light that we need to take out into the world to change it for the better; one person at a time always paying it forward!!  - With Love, T



"It does not interest me what planet is squaring your moon". . .

 

"It does not interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream your heart's longing."

 "It does not interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive."

 "It does not interest me what planet is squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals, or have become shriveled and closed from fear and further pain."

 "I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, fade it or fix it."

 "I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with the wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human."

 "It does not interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul."

 "I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.*

 "I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from God's presence."

 "I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the moon, "Yes!"

 "It does not interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children."

 "It does not interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back."

 "It does not interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away."

 "I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the quiet moments."

 

Thanks Vincie for sharing this with me 2 years ago. . . . it has remained on my bedside table ever since!! xo