Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Overcoming Self-Limiting Habits



Every Good Book Says Something About Doing Your Best.

Over the years, I’ve had a chance to read many “Good Books” of the Religious variety. Of the things they have in common: They all say something about always doing your best.
Sage advice put down in print as soon as writing was invented.

Nowadays most of us strive for this, yet complicate our success with self-limiting behaviors. Many of these self-limiting behaviors are obvious and many are subtle. But the effect is the same; We strive to achieve our goals, meet our responsibilities and represent human-kind at the highest level, only to frustrate our efforts with falling short time and again. 

Why?

One reason, I think, is that the admonition to “Do your best” was first uttered at a time when the sharpest arrow was still jagged. Nowadays we live in a world that we perceive as precise and the gold standard of doing your best is to seek perfection.

In the old days they understood the concept of “Good Enough”. They had to. They made wheels out of rocks. I think it began to get really hard for many of us to manifest unbridled enthusiasm and dogged perseverance around the time of the Industrial Revolution. Arrows started getting really sharp by then.
Today, the concept of “Good Enough” seems relegated to Baseball. If you were successful at achieving your goal three out of ten times, would you consider yourself successful? Probably not. Get three hits for every ten at bats consistently in Baseball and you will be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Football, on the other hand is as precise as surgery. A game of inches they like to say. Now I ask you, which sport is more relaxing to watch? 

So along with self-limiting behaviors that interfere with goal achievements and tarnish our self-confidence, add stress. The stress of seeking perfection, while all the time being an imperfect being.  

How do we cope?

We learn to soften the blow of falling short with cushions made of rationales, excuses and emotionally deadening behaviors (like compulsiveness and boozing). These coping skills come on slowly through our lives…But by the time we’re middle-aged, they are so deeply ensconced in our psyche, they are dark habits that seem impossible to break. 

How do we break them?

We learn to identify the dark habits first of all. The obvious ones are pretty easy to identify. The subtle ones are more sophisticated. They seem like an essential element of our character. But they’re not. Whether our dark habits are obvious or subtle, they share the same essential trait: They’re the cushioning beneath Failures and Rejections compensated for.

So how do we identify our dark habits and then, once recognized, how do we eradicate them? The answer is, through a process. Like sharpening an arrows blade, we can strive to sharpen our whole self to become a most excellent representative of human-kind capable of achieving success.

Many of the tools we need to sharpen ourselves can be found on Bookshelves. Since the original Good Books were written soon after writing was invented, other Good Books have been published on the very topic of rising above the bondage of our dark habits.

I’ve recently had the opportunity to read one such Good Book…and I think it’s terrific. It’s the reason I’m writing to you now. The book is called; Fire Your Excuses. You can find it at Barnes & Noble or on Amazon. Dark Habits like to wear invisibility shields. You can’t catch them if you can’t see them. Well the authors of Fire Your Excuses were smart enough to address that little subterfuge by creating a Self-Assessment Survey. That’s how I got hooked on their book. The Self-Assessment Survey is online and free. I encourage you to take it at FireYourExcuses.com. After I took the survey, I started reading the book. Nicely structured, intelligently written and most importantly, a well-designed strategy for becoming “Good Enough”, first of all…by Firing Your Excuses!

Now obviously, my sentiments regarding this book are relative. I see nicely structured, someone else sees imprecise. I consider it intelligently written, someone else thinks it’s stupid. I appraise it for its well designed strategy, someone else sees the game plan as deeply flawed. All I can say is; I like baseball.

What I’m looking for from you is this. Read this book and add your insights to our blog. Let’s start a conversation on self-limiting behaviors so we can help each other over-come them. Tell us what other books you’ve read that have helped you climb to the next level. We owe this to our kids, our world and to the Great Writer of those original Good Books that we continue to read today.

Calm Seas,
Rudy Gartner
Sagestones.net

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Calm

Why do stress and tension melt away when we are standing in a forest or on the beach watching the waves? One reason, I think, is that being in nature of that magnitude creates a sense of healthy humility in us. Standing alongside the ocean, or staring up at the towering Redwoods, I am struck by my smallness as well as recognition that, try as hard as I can, there is little I can do to topple a redwood with my hands, or push the waves back.

What freedom there is in accepting that I don't have to be as big as the things I face!

This healthy humility loans itself nicely to the things in my life that I am in conflict with and cause me stress and tension. In healthy humility, I get to say: "This is bigger than me", and, "I can't do this by myself".

What freedom there is in being able to say "I don't have to know how to solve this alone" and "I need your help".

The more mindful person can draw healthy humility as well from other sources of natural wonder not so grand and imposing as great redwoods and pounding waves. Beautiful flowers with wonderful scents, streams and fields, a great musician performing as if they and their instrument are one....these to, trigger healthy humility.

In addition, and as you already know, mindfulness in nature touches the senses. So much stress and tension is mixed up with concerns that are not of the present moment. But stay a moment in the flower's scent. Breathe like the soft wind that dances across the field. Let my spirit be swept up in the musicians tones.

Coming into the present moment rips the bags of past and future concerns off!

As Monty Python says: "How can you be in two places at once when you're really no-where at all?"

Calm Seas,
Rudy Gartner
Sagestones.net

Thursday, October 18, 2012

It's Like Second Hand Smoke To The Mind Of A Child

A guy was complaining to me recently.about the law that you cannot smoke in your car if there are kids in it. I explained to him that second hand smoke was harmful to them. "Nonsense!" he exclaimed, "I had the window open". I explained that, even with that, they could be affected. "Well not enough" he retorted, "To make a difference".

Thankfully, society has seen fit to legislate that  law! Unfortunately, cops can't as easily write a ticket when divorced or divorcing parents say or do things in the presence of their children that are like second hand smoke to the minds of those kids.

Most divorcing parents make the same claim at the outset of divorce mediation: We want to make sure that what we do is in the best interests of our kids. We don't want them to be harmed. 

And that's just as it should be. Children have a right to an uncomplicated love bond with both parents. They have the right to be protected from the negative energy between divorcing parents (for more on kid's rights, read our article: Respecting Children's Boundaries. Just go to www.Sagestones.net and click on the article link).

But humans are complicated, we're capable of claiming one thing, then doing the exact opposite. Through the important tools of rationalization, minimization and justification, we can walk in a straight line without tripping over the tangled feet of what we claim we want ... and what we do.

The divorce process is just the slippery slope for that jittery dance. It's tough to stay mindful of others (i.e. our kids), when we are swept up in emotions like fear and anger.

Like the guy who can't wait until the kids get out of the car to light up. It'll just be a few blocks, he rationalizes. I'll roll my window down, he minimizes. I'm so pissed right now!, he justifies...

So this blog begins a list of things parents say and do, that can, inadvertently, harm their kids. I've listed a few things to get us started. I invite you to add to the list. My hope is that we'll share this list with our friends divorcing or divorced with kids, who might then become cognizant of the toxic smoke of their words and actions that, when expressed within range of the kids, is harmful like second hand smoke.

Here we go:

1) When we talk on the phone about the other parent, thinking that the kids can't hear us. Safe Rule: It's better to assume that they always do.

Ex: A mom was downstairs and outside talking to a lawyer about her ex-husbands demand for a paternity test of their 12 year old son. The son was already hurting because his dad, who has a drinking problem, rarely sees him. Mom felt safe to have the conversation because her son was in his room, which, unfortunately, was upstairs with a window over the back yard. He heard every word. After mom got off the phone, her son came down and said; "So dad doesn't think I'm his?". Already feeling abandoned, he now wondered who has father might be. In keeping with our analogy, the smoke from mom's cigarette wafted right into her son's room.

2) A dad remarries and has a terribly low opinion of his ex-wife. Even though she is the mother of the child he dearly loves (Oh, the things we forget to honor). To compound this problem, he and his new wife are devoutly religious and as they settle into their new church, they hate the idea of others knowing he'd been divorced. After-all, they justify, God hates divorce. So he tells his 9 year old daughter to say that his new wife is her mother. Let's see if we can figure out how many ways this confused that little girl: a) She's supposed to go to church and lie. b) She's supposed to disown the mother she loves and replace, for dad's convenience, mom with a woman she barely knows. c) She's not supposed to mention this to her mom, so she gets to feel like a betrayer as well as a liar.

After telling her mom what happened (Dad forgot that confusion has a voice), dad significantly minimized his time with her so that she didn't go to church with him anymore. I wonder what that taught her about truth, love and living the religious life.

I'll be adding more to this list as I, and the other mediators for Sagestones, work clients through issues that reek of second hand smoke. We look forward to your contributions to the list, and hope that this list reaches parents who are capable of setting aside minimization, rationalization and justification, and smoke only when the kids are at the other parent's home.

Warm Regards,
Rudy Gartner
Sagestones.net