“I’ve had some amazing, transformational experiences meditating,” an acquaintance recounted during an informal gathering. “Do you meditate?” she asked. All eyes turned to me. Loaded question.

Being steeped and trained in psychology, personal growth and non-conventional healing methods, I felt compelled to nod yes. The problem is there are probably as many types and definitions of meditations as there are types of ‘milk’ in the current food market (almond milk, anyone?) …not to mention there are individual variations of each form of meditation.

Wait – do I meditate?

What is Meditation?
Per my own definition, I have and do meditate. I previously thought there was only one valid form, and I wasn’t sure which kind this woman had referenced during our get-together. The only kind that seemed to matter was where you merge with the divine, experience crazy visions, and achieve vivid epiphanies.

I was convinced I’d had such a vision during a meditation once. After I described my experience to the course mentor to confirm I’d actually had a life-changing vision, she simply told me that I likely had not.  I was just entertaining myself, she had informed me. Boo.

Miracles are Real
Isn’t this what meditation, other new age practices, and/or religious customs are supposed to eventually offer? Isn’t this what we hope and wait for? Some important dream that shakes us awake; an opportune, life-changing meeting with some stranger; a voice booming through during a morning yoga routine. Some answer that offers that break.

I once paid a lot of money to hear a famous author speak. I held her in such high regard and couldn’t believe I was going to meet her face-to- face. Following her presentation while waiting in a long line of other hopefuls, I eagerly awaited my turn to receive her message to me, her bit of wisdom written on the title page of her autographed book. I inched up. She greeted me warmly, opened the book to the title page, quickly scribbled something, and sent me on my way. Clutching the book to my chest, I ran to an empty seat in the corner of the room and flipped to the inscription.

“Seek the answers. They lie within.” Double boo.

We want someone to show us. To tell us. To do it for us. To get the results, often without doing the work. We say we want insights, but if we are really honest with ourselves, we really want success, money, notoriety, advantage, reward.

One of my most highly-acclaimed mentors, Caroline Myss, says, “Miracles are real. However, don't expect a miracle to do something you can or should do for yourself.  Miracles are not for cowards but for brave and courageous people.”

When We Want Something More
Of course, there are other inner desires that prove to be more meaningful than a life of ease, fame and fortune, and we also can seek them through meditation practices.  What are my hidden talents and gifts?  How do I harness these skills and fully express them?

But the answers don’t come a-screaming.

They are quiet intuitions, whispers, hunches, callings. And more importantly, we can’t hear this good stuff until we clear the static. The static, the ‘mind chatter,’ conquers the quiet answers to protect ourselves from our own true identity. Ignoring those soft noises puts us at risk for relying on our ego’s input rather than determining what’s genuinely true.

Reflective Meditation
If we want to know and hear, to create and bear our gifts to the world, we must address the static. We must quiet ourselves each evening and ask:

• Where did I get stuck today?
• What did I do or say that felt, even for a fleeting moment, wrong, out of sync, self-centered, based in fear or pride? Be honest!
• Why did I do that?
• What about that situation triggered me?
• Where does my reaction (fear, pride, anger, etc.) originate?
• What experience am I holding on to that still has power over me?

Then listen. The goal of this reflective meditation is not to judge ourselves, but to manage our shadows so we can see our true light.

Add Discipline
If a mansion is built on rocky foundation without leveling the ground, eventually the floors will sag and the walls will buckle. People are no different. We can’t build an inner spiritual empire while denying our rockiness, our shadows.

If we try to build atop our own rocky ground, we tumble into patterns of protecting, fearing, reacting. We build armor. We look outward; not to give, but to cautiously self-protect. Arms folded defensively against chests prevents true creation or expression—actions directed outward from within.

Knowing, accepting, and managing our shadows takes vigilance and discipline. As Caroline Myss once said, “You have to watch yourself like a hawk.” We must be willing to be rigorously honest with ourselves. To change our behaviors. To see what we do and what we need to do.

There are no short cuts.

What Now?
These discoveries aren't always easy to find.  That's where therapy and coaching boast their worth.  A second, non-judgmental perspective is sometimes all it takes to lead you to your true self.

Call us today at 724-387-1650 to set up your appointment with one of our trusted, compassionate coaches.

Do you often feel burned and blindsided by others’ actions?  Are you confused by why you sometimes feel too trustful, while at other times you feel too doubtful or guarded? Are your relationships superficial or short-lived – and is your business or personal life suffering as a result?

Not a lone week passes without a client uttering the “T” word in my office. Trust is crucial for building relationships and living a fulfilling, connected life. Being too trusting without discernment leads to chaotic relationships and disappointment, while not trusting others enough robs you of the joie de vivre and success. Read how to know if you have trust issues, and what to do about it.

1. You trust too easily.  Have you ever met someone and thought, “Wow, that person is totally awesome! I can’t wait to jump on board with their plan/path/opportunity! I want to hang out with them now, tonight, tomorrow... forever!”  Indeed, people that share our values and exude energy, compassion and motivation enthuse us.  Be cautious, though: if you find yourself doling out too much trust, you may suffer from the rose-colored glasses syndrome.  While positivity is good, optimism will blind you if you don’t peek over the tops of them specs once in a while.  Many see the human race as ‘basically good’ (myself included). But don’t confuse potential with reality. Don’t rush acquaintances into your inner circle. Step into relationships with some degree of healthy skepticism.   If it’s a good thing, it’s sustainable.

​2. You feel walked on by others. As a result of viewing others with that pink tint of optimism, we place those people on a pedestal, establishing distance and creating a power disequilibrium.  Disappointment is inevitable when we develop unrealistic expectations of that person on that perch.  Our rosy goggles may hide warning signals about the reality of the person’s behaviors.  In psychology, we call this the ‘confirmation bias.’ Your expectations can encourage you to interpret cues in a way that would confirm your beliefs about that person, disregarding cues that contradict your expectations.  The end result?  You feel duped.

3. You are suspicious of others’ motives. Feeling conned and misled may push you into a phase of total mistrust. Here, you are in protective mode and connect only superficially with others. While this is safe, it is not rewarding. This habit is commonplace for those who have suffered some significant personal violations such as abuse, trauma, or neglect.  These incidents can spur a pattern of unbiased, overall mistrust.  Those subjected to such problems often have lived in invalidating or dysfunctional environments, especially during vital periods of development. Extreme wrongdoings against the person who was victimized can lead the person to generalize this mistrust to all relationships and situations in their lives.   

4. You don’t trust your intuition and judgment. After a while, vacillation between these two extremes—trust and mistrust—may make you dizzy.  Perhaps you have never trusted your intuition with people. Your life experiences (especially in the early years) and how you coped with them (i.e. denial, minimizing, withdrawing) determine how well you trust yourself and how you learn to see the world.  You may have grown up with your perceptions being discounted or dismissed in some way, diminishing your ability to trust those insights. 

5. You think or act in extremes. When you lose your ability to trust your judgment and perceptions, you probably think in all-or-none terms. If you find yourself saying or thinking these words often, you are black-and-white thinker:

• Should/should not
• Right/wrong
• Good/bad
• Can’t
• Have to

Without believing you can properly judge a situation, you will feel forced to categorize people as a way of predicting how they will behave. It’s a way of protecting yourself, and it’s a normal reaction.  Thinking this way, however, weakens the wealth of individual differences in values and character traits, and you may end up judging others unnecessarily.

The Good News:
Be assured that trust issues can be broken, once and for all.  Here are just a few tips:

• Differentiate between the WHO and WHAT - Understand the difference between who someone is as an individual, versus how they are being right now and what they are doing.  We are a whole lot more than our behaviors.  And we all venture outside of integrity at times. People ARE basically good, yet there may be instances where their actions do not always align with their values.
• Explore beliefs – We develop beliefs from our experiences during fundamental years and during traumatic episodes.  Explore beliefs like, “This world is an unsafe place,” or “If I don’t engage fully with everyone, I am a bad person,” and so on.  Then begin to challenge them and take small risks that counter them.  Gather evidence contrary to your beliefs.
• Explore coping defense mechanisms – We develop ways of emotionally dealing with the hardships of childhood by doing things that work temporarily (i.e., minimizing, denying, protecting, distracting, escaping).  The problem is, they don’t generalize across the spectrum of relationships or situations as we move into different environments in adulthood.  Our coping styles made total sense as a child—they worked.  They just don’t now. Identifying your coping patterns is the first step towards breaking them. 
• Take small risks – The key to building trust is taking small risks and evaluating the outcome.  If it went well, forge ahead.  If not, step back again and observe.  Reflect.  Decide if you want to take another. The same goes for your self-trust.  In risking taking action based on what you perceive or think, you can grow your ability to trust yourself as well.
• Don’t expect perfection – People are human so don’t put them on a pedestal (it’s a long fall) and don’t patronize them.  We all betray others at various times in our lives by not speaking up, hiding things, not being honest, or even with outright disloyalties.  Because someone betrays you doesn’t necessarily mean that you can no longer trust them.  They made a mistake.  As long as it’s not a deal breaker, give them the opportunity to make amends.  Begin taking small risks again with them.  Don’t get caught in all-or-none thinking about their behavior.
• Don’t beat yourself up when you keep the rose-colored glasses on too long.  Same goes for never wearing them – Old habits do die hard.  Each time you find yourself again with trust issues, instead of expecting perfection, see them as opportunities to learn more about your beliefs and patterns around trust.  Change takes time.  Be patient with yourself.

Developmental theorist Erik Erikson penned ‘trust’ as the initial and fundamental task upon which all developmental tasks are built. Difficulties with trust can bring hardship to personal and work relationships, and even how you relate to yourself.  Crucial learning curve. But know that if it IS broken, with some diligence, it CAN be fixed. For good.

- Diane Dean, MA, RN, CUG

Just before I wrote this, I took a nap.  A two-hour nap.  Mid-afternoon on a weekday. While completing this blog was at the top of my to-do list, I first showered despite plans to exercise later, I called my semi-retired mom who’s free to chat anytime, I checked Facebook for “new stories” six times. And although I vetoed it, I even considered swabbing out the inside of my ancient Keurig with cotton and soapy water. Seriously.
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The million and a half views of Tim Urban’s most recent video on procrastination illustrates how many people are trying to overcome this productivity buster.  In so many words, Tim says if you procrastinate, you're lazy.  Maybe that's true. But I think there’s a bit more to it than that. Why else do we procrastinate finishing (or even starting) tasks?

1. We are overwhelmed.
​At least once a year, I peek through my fingers at the stray tools, yard sale ‘gems’ and empty, crumpled boxes littering my garage, all of which leaves no room for my car.  Every time, I ritually refuse to start organizing the collection of junk and ‘necessities’, and instead I retreat to the comfort of my couch.
“Not today,” I convince myself.
Feeling overwhelmed can arise for a number of reasons, including:
Unrealistic expectations
For many years I closed the garage door vowing to do the job the following week, only to repeat that promise for weeks on end.  The mishap? I thought I had to do it all in one swoop. Sometimes we may also have grandiose expectations for the outcome of the project as well – like organizing and labeling each tool or container – that are too lofty for our natural strengths and tendencies.
Lack of resources or skills
​We all have limitations. Organizing is really not my forte.  I can’t identify half the tools, gadgets or cords in my garage, nor any of their uses. I don’t know how to erect a utility shelf, nor hang shelving on the wall to better organize.  If I allow it, I can feel defeated before I even start.
Emotional avoidance
We really don’t fear or dislike activities themselves, we dislike the emotions they bring (boredom, desire to do something easier or more exciting, sadness over sentimental items or stress about decisions to pitch or keep things). Dodging the task allows us to escape the emotions the task will bring.

2. We don’t really want what we say we do, or we don’t want it badly enough.
This is a very common reason for untouched task lists.
Shoulds
I’ve discussed ‘shoulds’ before (check out my blogs Can-Do Versus Want-To and 5 Steps to Victory!).  Sometimes our task lists are filled with perceived obligations, such as paying bills and completing school papers.  These closely do mimic ‘shoulds’, at least if we want to retain good credit and graduate college. Other ‘shoulds’, however, are disguised as necessary tasks, crafted from erroneous beliefs left floating in our subconscious.

For many years, I’d spent a good part of Saturday avoiding cleaning my house, only for dinnertime to arrive with the house chores still untouched.  Although I like clean space, I personally abhor cleaning. Somehow I’d woven the societal belief that “moms should be domestic” into my mind.  That false statement conflicted with my desire to do anything else but clean, keeping me miserable and immobile.
Lack of pain
We like an idea, but we don’t want the outcome badly enough to put in the amount of effort it takes to get the job done.  Perhaps not completing the task or reaching a goal doesn't negatively affect us enough to boost motivation.  Many people say they want to lose weight, yet they are not willing to invest the time to plan meals and exercise regularly nor the energy to forgo temptations.  The desire is more of a wish or a hope than a commitment.
Lack of a vision
Sometimes we can’t see beyond the task. We forget to tie our efforts with our vision for what our efforts will bring. Having a vision – the ‘why’ of completion of your task – pulls you through the tough stuff while you work toward your desired outcome.
 
3. We are just plain pooped out.
At times, procrastination may have nothing to do with the task at hand.  Instead, it comes as a result of being burned out from other things happening in life, such as poor health, overworking, a trying relationship, financial strain, or a combination of such.  Thoughts, emotions, and physical vulnerabilities can consume enormous amounts of energy.  Considering we only have some much energy to dedicate to each day, it's no wonder we put off some tasks to another day.

4. We are waiting for the motivation.
“When I have more energy, I’ll take a walk.”
Sound familiar? Many times we try to wait out our procrastination. Problem is that we could turn grey waiting for that motivation to round the corner.  A research-supported concept called ‘behavioral activation‘ suggests that waiting to feel motivated in order to begin our task rarely works. 

5. We are actually being productive...and we just don’t know it.
Some people are mental planners (yours truly), putting a lot of thoughtful preparation into a task well before physically tackling the task itself. For instance, while I typically buy gifts last minute, I often research and ponder the perfect gift for weeks. Same can go with project planning. Don’t discount this mental planning; you're still progressing towards your goal.  You just need to decide when mental planning no longer offers progression.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
Rest assured, while recognizing why you're procrastinating, you can overcome your procrastination by taking a few extra precautions.
1. Break down large tasks.
I eventually separated my garage into four areas and completed the entire task in four weeks, one area at a time.  Your best bet?  Attack and complete the smallest steps first, and actually quit (your reward) when you’ve reached your goal...don’t keep going. 

2. Pair undesired with desired activities.
Reward yourself for finishing undesirable tasks.  Just be certain it isn’t something that will sabotage your efforts (ie. rewarding with food for a weight loss goal). 

3. Delegate.
If you just don’t like the task, tap into your problem-solving mode and find another way to get it done.  Swap chores with other family members or roommates, or do what I did --- write a check.  Once I unearthed my belief about needing to be domestic and chucked it, I eventually paid someone to clean my house, which freed up my Saturdays. 

4. Identify and eliminate energy zappers.
Ask yourself what’s draining you.  A relationship? A habit?  A situation?  Something from your past that needs reconciled?  Limiting beliefs? Toxic emotions?  Make a list.  Eliminate your top three, one at a time, over three months. 

5. Ask yourself why you want it.
Create a vision for the end result and keep the payoff in mind while you are completing what you committed to. If you find you really don’t want it (i.e., It’s a 'should'), let it go.

6. Get into action.
Instead of waiting for motivation, get active and watch the motivation follow.  For instance, if you don’t feel like going to the gym, instead of planting your butt on your couch, make an agreement with yourself to put on your work-out clothes, get in your car, and drive half way there.  Chances are good you’ll keep going. 
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7. Befriend your emotions.
Again, it is not the situations that we dislike, it’s the emotions that the situations bring.  Emotions never kill anyone.  Be willing to experience these emotions and approach.

I was floating on a ‘self-gratification’ binge following a difficult divorce when my trusted self-help guru burst my bubble:

“No one owes you anything. Not your mother.  Not your spouse.  Not your best friend.  Not your employer.  No one. Nothing,” she scolded.

My Mona Lisa smile melted into American Gothic-farmer serious. What?! Tell me it’s not so… Deserve is a dirty word.  I learned this the hard way.

​
'Deserve' through Entitlement
Entitlement implies that we should get or have something.  Why? According to whom?  In our Western world we’re prone to thinking by cause and effect.  For instance:

• Because I went to college, I should be rewarded with a good job. 
• Because I make six figures, I should be treated like royalty. 
• Because I help others so much, they should help me.

Don’t ‘should’ on others. It's just not fair, to you or that other person.  Deserve as entitlement is pride in shadow form, and often comes from a place of underlying shame and inferiority.  It’s also a set up for failure.  Not getting what you believe you deserve spurs anger. Entitlement separates and objectifies, leading us to see others as a means to our end rather than as people.  It also fails to take into account the possibility that having things happen another way may hold more long-term value than our tunnel vision affords us to see.
Entitlement creates distance and fosters suffering.

'Deserve' through Victimization
Deserve is victim language.  It implies that someone is withholding something from you.  In this case, ‘deserve’ is used on a more personal level:

• I deserve to be treated better.
• I deserve more attention.
• I deserve to stay home and not work (while you do).

In this case, it’s not exactly things we’re after, it’s ways of being treated.  We mold our desires into expectations and when we don’t get what we want; we get indignant, righteous, angry.  What if the responsibility for filling the gap was not the other person’s to fill?
'Deserve' as a victim implies there’s a problem, a deficit.

My hand sprung into the air before she had finished the question.  “You want to take the lead on this, Diane?” my supervisor asked.  My head jounced like a bobble head on the dash of a car navigating cobblestone. “Yes,” I affirmed.  My voice was emphatic.  But my stomach said otherwise. My ‘automatic yes-ness’ had prevailed. Yet. Again. Ugh.

A new year brings opportunity to determine the direction that the next few weeks or months will take. What remains crucial, however, is deciding what question is captaining the course.

The question “Can I do that?” often elicits an unequivocal “Yes!” if we are relatively capable, intelligent individuals.  Yet, “Do I want to do that?” remains the far more vital question when it comes to building a fulfilling life.

So we must ask ourselves: What drives the direction of our course?  When we make decisions from a place of ‘can do’, we are making decisions from a place of fear.  Many of us have an (often subconscious) need to be seen as good, and a great desire to be liked.  We may have developed the (also subconscious) belief that “I am not good enough,” or “I am incapable,” that keeps us trying to prove to ourselves and others that we indeed are adept. Building a life on a list of ‘cans’, however, keeps us distracted from our true purpose, not to mention encourages exhaustion and being unfocused.

Yes, there IS a time to challenge your limitations—push your limits, if you will, by consciously experimenting with pressing your perceived limitations.  But not on a fear-based, need-driven whim.

Acting from a place of passion, or ‘want to’ keeps us piloting a path of creativity--developing what we really want, all while harboring faith that we are living our life with integrity, aligning our actions with our true callings and values.
As you resolve to live a more fulfilling life at the start of this year, ask yourself

• “What do I want?”
• “Will I enjoy it?”
• “Does it align with my values and my goals?”

 
NOT questions with victim language:

• “What can I do?”
• “What should I do?”
• “What do I need to do?”

Allow your vision – your heart’s desire – to lead.
Ask the question, “What do I want?” then listen.
Ask the question, “Do I want to do this?” when tempted to say yes because you can.

In the interim? I personally have been considering investing in one of those trendy, cozy knitted body socks to keep my arms at my side during meetings that tempt me to extend my ‘goodwill’ by raising my hand to volunteer. Or perhaps I could try just holding my breath and counting to ten.


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Have you set your New Year's resolutions yet?  Are they goals you want to achieve, or tasks you "should" complete?  Let yourself be heard in the comments below!