Moving on Up.

It occurred to me just last week that I never put a 'fin' on this blog.

Just like some of the chapters in my life, I have not stopped writing Modern Phrenology. It just takes place in a new format.

To follow the new posts, please visit:

http://www.simplewisdom.ca/blog

Much love!

Chance for Change

In the calm of morning, spring sunlight flows through my windows and somehow snow is also falling. This contrast of sorts feels questionable, unnerving, and characteristic of the winds of change.

Sitting in the midst of great transition in my life, I wonder; does change feel like snow on a sunny day for everyone? I am someone who carefully calculates life, making left brain decisions with strong strategic consideration of current circumstances. So the curveball of life throwing me a different set of circumstances can sometimes feel like a punch in the gut. Yesterday was that day. Keeled over with freeflowing tears, feeling like I don’t know which way is up and desperately trying to ‘figure out’ some solution. But little perspective comes when you are processing the pain and shock that comes with such a turnover of things to consider.

Knowing what I know in my personal development makes it almost harder to digest. Up comes the battle of right and left brain once again. Left brain knowing that this drastic change will push me to take action in my life and come out a stronger survivor with faster results than I could have gained from any carefully collected plan. But that right brain. Oh, the right brain. It scratches at any chance to blame or fill with anger and sadness. Thoughts of self doubt are what operate it, and there is no form of logic that can alter the emotion in such a time of shock. All you have to repair the right brain in crisis mode is a little time and good friends.

So here we are the morning after, a prescription of time and friends applied to the wounds of change. And it does feel different. My left brain buzzing and excited with the chance to come up with a new plan that will solve the crisis and leave me better off. My right brain vulnerable but willing to try out a new path, and confidence starting to build.

A good book once taught me that you will never know what your most successful path in life will look like. Sometimes being cut off by a brick wall is actually part of the process in the journey of success. And most of all, you will only ever be given what life knows you’re capable of dealing with.

It just takes a little hope and belief in yourself.

Choose.

I am generally a fan of any experience that invites me to take a hard look at myself, put my priorities in check, and learn about how I operate as a person. I never expected that buying a home would be this much of a self-development process- or teach me about how I tend to make decisions in life.

As I met with my real estate agent today, I had an experience all new to me. I heard myself as if I were hovering above. Like a dream or a ghost sequence in a movie, I saw my words in the context of my life. And it went a little something like this;

Step One: To avoid making a decision or looking picky, give a list of every single idea of what you want that you have ever had in your life. Everyone TOTALLY knows that people hate people who know what they want (right?).

Step Two: Ask for opinions from everyone you know so you don’t have to commit to the big commitments of life, and there is always someone else to blame if things go awry.

Step Three: NEVER trust your own opinion.

Step Four: Try on every option from your now very long list of possible realities. Realize you have no idea what you’re talking about. Avoid the whole subject altogether for a month, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Step Five: Take on a new hobby to distract yourself from the pending commitment you know you will have to make.

Step Six: Complain to friends about how you feel like a failure. Seek compliments and search email inbox for motivating acknowledgement emails you have received in the past to ‘perk’ you up.

Step Seven: Drink too much coffee one day and get effin serious with yourself about what’s important in life. Let an inspiring book/ted talk/article kick you in the ass and make you realize clearly what you DO want.

Step Eight: Sit down at desk or local coffee shop. Get ‘er done. (Note: Do not answer phone calls or emails or go on facebook, or you will be back at Step Five all over again)

Step Nine: Tell everyone and their moms what you discovered.

Step Ten: Let the world (or the magic of networking) bring you what you want.

So knowing this, wouldn’t it just be easier to skip to Step Eight first thing? Seeing this set out, I realize where I have alienated those around me in my ‘process’ (usually around Steps 2-6). But this is a huge brain pattern to shorten, especially when the breakthrough of Step Seven feels so damn good after months of shit.

The thing is, you all know (just as I do) what you need to do in order to get what you want. How do you lose weight? Eat well and exercise. How do you make more money? Work hard and ask for higher pay. But knowing what you need to do isn’t inspiring. It certainly doesn’t propel you into action.

I realized over the last few days that I have a talent I didn’t even know I had. The ability to visualize the future in a way that inspires me to act. And the ability to help others create their own visions. It’s picturing the end result that can skip you to step eight. I intend to keep researching brain patterns until I have Step Eight become Step One, and then teach others how to do it. 

So I leave you with the words of a great Canadian band, as I map out how to build Step Eights into next week’s schedule. And knowing now that my best ideas and accomplishments have come to fruition in coffee shops the country over, you will likely find me there every day next week.

Thank you ma’am for what you’ve done,

I know now where I’m going cause I’ve found just where I’m from

Getting easier with every task.

It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last.

love.

What a perfect day to talk about love.

Having spent the last 5 years living single, Valentine’s had generally become a holiday of dread to me. What I have come to realize this year is that such a feeling is completely unnecessary- and in fact not useful.

If I could sum up the difference between last year and now, it would be this: I learned to love myself.

We spend hours in the day as a society longing for the wrong kind of love. Love for family. Love for wealth. Love with a lifelong partner. Music and film have presented us since childhood with love. But as a romantic child always looking for the philosophy in things, I was always looking outside of myself for the answers. I never considered they existed in my own mind.

My childhood was spent absorbing. Learning about the relationships around me. Learning how I fit into them. After my first decade, I learned how I didn’t fit into all the relationships around me. Groups, cliques, friendships that lasted for or ended in a day. The flight of belonging and the desperation to grasp back on.

It wasn’t until my twenties that I was ready to date myself. I got to know who I was, tested the waters. I asked questions and tried on different hats (or careers or boyfriends). Heartbreak with men and women and family. I questioned my way through a neverending philosophy degree, then turned to personal development for the second half of this decade to learn the deeper side of what makes me ME.

But as I near the end of this era, I see that love is my next step. I have reached a point of acceptance for everything I am and all that I am not. It’s not second nature yet, but I am confident my thirties will help me get there.

This is what makes me see love and Valentine’s in a whole new light. Consumerism has convinced us that the holiday is about romance and sex. I see it now as a celebration of love. And love can come in any form, for any one. How we choose to experience our love on the one day devoted to it is exactly that- our choice.

I watched this video today, and I got it. These people were asked to focus on love- any kind, for any one- while in an MRI machine that evaluated their dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin levels. What caught my attention is how all of the contestants experienced an overwhelming sense of abundance after spending the time in that machine focussing only on love for a few minutes. 

I can't help but question; when was the last time you spent 5 minutes focussed on love in your life? Have you ever devoted time to thinking about loving you? If these people after 5 minutes of focussed thoughts on love could experience that high for other people and things, how would it affect your life to have those feelings of belief and acceptance for yourself?

However your Valentine’s turned out, ask yourself; what love did I neglect this year? What can I focus on differently? What do I take for granted? What am I grateful for? Take 5 minutes in your day to invest in love. Surely, it will repay you tenfold. 

Cleaning Out and Moving In

As I sit here and look at my life, I am amazed at how happy I am. My conception of ‘normal’ now is what most people would consider ‘overjoyed’. But it’s interesting what happens when you take the risky choices in life that have you doing what you want to do every day.

The level of development I have had over the last month is one completely new to me. All my life I let my perception of myself decide what I was capable of doing. Occasionally I would set a goal that was like throwing a hat over a wall and not knowing how to go get it- but the basic things in life always stayed the same to keep me feeling a sense of security.

So this year I did something different. I sat down with 3 friends I admire for their business savvy and personal strength, and hashed out my business with them. The business I hesitantly started because other people told me I was capable, even though I never believed it myself. Somehow having a support network of such amazing people became my sense of security- and all of the circumstances in my life were now free to play with and change. 

As if by magic, my life started to fall into place. In a way I never thought possible. And I realize every day that the only thing standing in my way this whole time was myself.

For 4 years I was in love. Like head-over-heels, couldn’t stop thinking about it kind of love. The lifestyle of this love was written all over my typed goals, and I accommodated all of my life’s plans around it. But what I came to realize this year is you can’t love something 30% and think it’s enough. When it comes to love, it’s all or nothing.

And so it’s no wonder I stayed single all these years- dabbling in the thought of a long-term relationship with some of the men I met, but never truly committing. I was in love with something else that left no room for life or men or personal goals. I was in love with my job.

I hear people talk about ending relationships for no real reason except that it’s not perfect, and I had experienced that to some extent with men, but never with a love like this one. Admitting that I didn’t want to be in the career I had worked toward for 4 years felt more like a breakup than anything I have ever felt before. And like so many downtown couples, I now am still living in the same space until I can find something more suited for me and move out.

But a funny thing happened as I started to let go of this big love in my life. An amazing man walked in. Like I always say, if you are still using old brain patterns, you can’t make new ones. Same goes for love, I guess. Our life is a space too small to fill up with the wrong things. Make a little room for the right ones, and they just show up. 

=sum(experience+context)

It might be true that sometimes the right thing floats into your life at the right moment. Just when you least expect it, as they say.

Today watching this Ted video was the perfect prescription for my day. Lately I have struggled with my compulsive behaviours. The binge that was December 2011 seemed to have set my frontal lobe on high-drive in January. And just like with every new year, lots of change is occurring. Change that I didn’t want to face. All change for the better, but occurring for me like it is for the worst. I needed something to kick me into appreciating transition fast so I could get back to roping in my emotional impulses.

We are the sum of our experiences. It’s an interesting distinction to look at ourselves not as someone who has experiences, but who is their experiences. So often we complain about our circumstances affecting us, but what if who we were was just a collaboration of our experiences? If I truly believed this every day, I would welcome each experience with acceptance and grace because that experience creates who I am.

Our brain is a powerful thing. So often we don’t give it the chance to reshape our lives in a moment. To catch the destructive thought pattern we are travelling down, and switch it. I see the power of this organ on days where I am so tired I could pass out on the subway- and then something happens that perks me right up again. The only difference there is experience. And the ability to create new contexts for life on the turn of a dime.

Stop-Change-Start is what I always say it’s like to alter brain patterns. Change your perspective, change your environment, change your context. Whatever you need to do to get started again; do it. Actions truly do speak louder than words. 

better late than never.

What I love about brain science is how it shows that it is possible to change ourselves (or our tendencies) at any age. What I love about New Years is that it helps us shape who we want to change into.

A year ago today I had recently experienced heartbreak, misdirection, and an uprooting of sorts. I knew it was time to change into who I want to be, and take different actions. Today I sit here having just written out my accomplishments and disasters this year, and I now hold a whole new perspective on life in general.

What I noticed in writing my year in review for 2011 was that the accomplishment list far outweighed my list of emotional car crashes. But what’s more is that things that occurred as disasters 6 months ago were now sitting on my trophy stand of learnings.

All of this made me think of an amazing little book I read a few years ago that taught me I can never see what path I’m on until the end of it, but I can sure choose the high road along the way.

So at the end of the road of 2011, I can see one thing very clearly. It hits me as I sit here cross-legged in my own apartment, dog to my left loving me unconditionally, two purring kittens happy in their new home, experiencing such love and happiness I have never felt before, and feeling a sense of satisfaction that only comes from accomplishing great challenges. To create a shift in life and make a big change, the most important thing is to imagine deeply and clearly what it is you truly want to create with life.

When I wrote the title for my last blog, I had no idea how true it would ring as I sat here today. It really all does start with a vision.

So my advice to you all is this. 2012 is the perfect chance to change your life into something you are proud of. Just as a friend asked me this week, I ask you; if the world really were to end in 2012, how would you choose to live your life now? Take pen to paper, finger to keyboard and write the answers to the questions below. Shape what you would want today to be if there were no limits. Visualizing the brain pattern through the mush is the most important step- and the one most easily forgotten.

Vision Exercise:

1)      What are your biggest accomplishments this year?

2)      What were your biggest failures this year?

3)      What can you learn in 2012 that will shift your failures to accomplishments?

4)      Write down 3-5 core values (ex: Love, honesty, fun, family, integrity, etc)

5)      Sit and create a true vision for each value. Ask yourself: What would life look like if this value were completely fulfilled? How would it feel? What would be different? What would be the same? How would others be around you? Write it all down.

6)      Write down 1-2 actions you can take this week toward making this vision a reality. Can’t come up with an action? Share your vision with a loved one and ask for help.

Thank you, world of 2011. For letting me find and express who I am and what I’m truly passionate about; and turning it into inspiration in the world around me. I feel truly blessed.

Namaste.