Fear and Change — Choosing My Perception
I’ve been thinking about fear lately and how it can affect my perception of reality. The genesis for this has been some developments at work that have changed the order of things. These changes could very well be wonderful with excellent outcomes for many. But it’s change, and I liked the way it was! (Sound familiar?)
I know today that I must embrace change and trust that positive results will always happen as long as I am doing my part. So thankfully, I can move past my fear-based thinking very quickly now. But still it comes — the pattern I am so familiar with — anticipating a future reality created from fear based thinking, making that reality “true” through negative projection — and then actually making decisions and acting on them based on these negative realities that haven’t even happened! And guess what happens — negative outcomes.
My mind still naturally drifts towards fear when changes come. I can always stop the actions that can seem like real solutions when I am thinking this way, because I learned to recognize the pattern. With practice and faith, my thinking gets better too.
Perhaps some day I will truly welcome all change without first having a fear-based reaction. A worthy goal. But I’ll be satisfied with progress towards it.
Tiny Points of Light
Often I find myself on airplanes and in airports. I love to watch people and try to detach from what I am seeing, play the role of the neutral observer. Try to clear my mind of all judgment (notice I said TRY) and just watch, as if life is just a great big sociology experiment, or a scene perhaps in a play.
When I am really in touch with this, sometimes I can even observe myself — this is really a separate topic for another day — which is a very powerful tool for me to calm down, stop reacting and judging, and just be.
Cease Fighting and Get in the Flow
Over the years of my career, being a goal oriented sort of person, I set career goals for myself that were often aggressive, and specific. I’d compare myself to my peers (whom I often viewed as competitors) to determine where I thought I needed to go. Frequently, those decisions were based on fear (I compared unfavorably to others, or wasn’t where I should be). Often I wasn’t sure where the should notion came from, but it was usually the judgment of others, not my own passions or desires.
I had the benefit of long tenures at major corporations, but in work that often changed. I’d work on major customer accounts, and those assignments changed frequently. So I’d get the benefit of a new “job” with the same company, often learning entirely new industries, every year and a half or so. This was good, as I learn quickly and bore easily.
However, as I got promoted and more senior, I began making those should decisions. Or I’d develop a resentment against where I was for some reason, and decide I needed to move to a different position.
Gratitude and Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I believe one of the most powerful ways I can improve the quality of my life, work, relationships, and attitude is to be grateful, and Thanksgiving is a time when that energy of gratitude is shared openly by so many. It’s a lovely time for me, a time of reflection and a little extra giving.
There are times (often!) in my work in particular, when it is very easy to forget how grateful I am. In this new age of incredibly flexible work environments, I am blessed with a really wonderful job that allows me to work from home and travel with a reasonable frequency, just enough for freshness and not so much that I get fatigued.
But sometimes, as is my nature, and I think human nature in general, I forget. I’ll grumble and moan and my ego will get large and in charge as it likes to do, and my attitude (and therefore the quality of my work and my spiritual condition) will start to suffer.
Nothing works faster on this than gratitude. Sometimes I get very simple about it — I am grateful that I have eyes, feet, hands, all five senses. That I can breathe. That shakes me loose enough that I can expand it to my home, pets, son, friends, and begin to really connect again with the glorious abundance of life.
My ego gets quieter and smaller then ….. proportions and reactions come back to normal … or close! I see a way clear.
Gratitude is powerful. It keeps us humble, in the present, positive, connected. It is for so much more than material prosperity. In fact, that is really the least of it. It is for hope, sanity, love, peace of mind … the awareness that the most routine facts of life are small miracles, everyday blessings.
Thank you and namaste.
A matter of trust
Employment is a relationship. The employee and the employer are in a trusted relationship. The employer trusts the employee to do their jobs as required, and we trust the employer to compensate us and furnish a safe and legal work environment. To treat us fairly and humanely. There are always many elements to this relationship, many agreements, some clearly articulated and some assumed. But at its most fundamental level, employment is a relationship.
Depending on whether we work in a small business or a large one, and anything in between, we could have many employer/employee relationships. As an employee, we have a cultural relationship with the corporation. We have relationships with our direct managers, their managers, our co-workers, customers, stakeholders. It’s infinite really. Even families not directly employed are often involved.
Relationships cannot be healthy without trust. Many other factors play a part, but I firmly believe that any relationship that exists without trust is doomed to fail. It becomes toxic, dysfunctional, unhealthy. All good relationships are built on trust.
What’s my motive?
We all make decisions. Probably hundreds of them a day. Some of them happen at such a basic level, in the most primitive parts of our brains, that we don’t even recognize them as decisions. Others of them happen intuitively, guided by spirit in their highest form.
Most of them are intellectually or emotionally driven. Intellectual decisions are based on facts, analysis, logical reasoning, and probabilities, to name a few. They are choices we make conciously many times throughout the day. Necessary, practical decisions and choices.
Other decisions are emotional. We make decisions based on how we feel, or more accurately, how we think we feel.
The definition of assume and creating alternate realities
So much has been happening in my workday world lately that my blog has been getting little of my time. And candidly, since I’m a pretty new blogger, I’ve been frustrated by my slow progress on the finer points of creating a really well laid out, professional looking blog. I’ve been in the corporate world a long time and I am used to competency! (And help desks to just tell me the solution fast, please, thank you!)
I saw my good friend Dick Richards today, who is a wonderful blogger. Check out his blog at www.ongenius.com. I was complaining (whining actually, but let’s put some lipstick on the pig) about my frustration with not knowing how to do hot links and photos and having to actually read the online manual. After letting me run on a while, he said “why didn’t you call me?” I explained that I didn’t want to bother him, I should be able to figure this out on my own. He looked at me and said “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Call me, and if you are bothering me, I will tell you that.”
Anger - what lies beneath
My son is thirteen years old. He’s my only child. We are close, and I’m getting totally thrown for a loop by some of the behaviours that are coming with his entrance into teenagedoom. (How unique, you might chuckle!) So a friend of mine suggested a terrific book that I’m now reading — called “Parent Effectiveness Training” by Dr. Thomas Gordon.
As I read this book, the obvious comparisons to any relationship - particularly work relationships - just leap off the page. Dr. Gordon talks about “Active Listening” which is a process using “I-statements” not “You-statements.” Many of us have run across these concepts in marriage, family, and relationship counseling, and Dr. Gordon really articulates them clearly so they can immediately be taken home for a test drive.
Another gem Dr. Gordon brought up is anger — his view is that it’s a secondary emotion. He suggests that when we get angry, it happens (in a nanosecond usually) as a result of a primary emotion that is immediately masked by the anger. This is a problem because then we aren’t dealing with the underlying issue or emotion at all — just focusing on our angry feelings. This allows us to fail to look at our own part or our own behaviour - because anger is always directed outward.
