Letting Go and Moving On

Holding onto perceived hurts, grudges, and resentment is bad for us. It can ruin your sleep; make you anxious or depressed. It can cause physical health problems-- elevate your blood pressure and heart rate, cause you digestive problems, or give you headaches. It can keep you from being present for the loving relationships in your life, and the beauty of things around you. Holding onto the bad stuff keeps us from experiencing the goodness available to each of us.

Sometimes you don't have a choice in an emotional cut-off of a relationship, where a family member or friend abruptly stops all communication with you. Emotional cut-offs actually take a great deal of emotional energy to maintain. You may have to stay angry to feel justified in your position. Both loving and hating someone else take far more psychic energy than being in a neutral position towards another person.When someone does an emotional cut-off with you, it may be important to release them with love. Send them off with evisioning white, healing light around them. Try to forgive yourself, and forgive them as well.

Not all the relationships in your life can go the distance with you across the rest of your life. If a relationship has become toxic, where the other person is critical, judgmental of you and others, destructive to themselves and others, abusing alcohol and/or drugs, blaming, and attacking, you may NEED to let go. There is no way you can safely stand by. You may want to be emotioanlly brave and explain briefly and honestly why you are letting go.

One of my favorite writers/speakers is Gerald Jampolsky, MD, who wrote the classics Love Is Letting Go of Fear and Goodbye to Guilt: Releasing Fear Through Forgiveness. Jampolsky is a psychiatrist, and also a deeply spiritual man. He writes in a beautifully simple style. He teaches us that people come from one of only two places: love and fear. If you are not coming from love in your relationships with other people, then you are coming from a place of fear.

People who are coming from a loving place don't need to compete with others. They don't need to feel bad when something good happens for someone else they know. They don't need to sit in judgement of others, or criticize and speak poorly of others behind their backs. In contrast, when you are coming from love as your emotional point of reference, you can be supportive of others and not feel threatened or diminished by it. You can forgive others and yourself for NOT being perfect. You can see the best in others. You build others up through authentic encouragement of other people's strengths, progress, and good efforts. You see yourself as you are, imperfect, and in this journey of life to learn things, and to change and grow.

Letting go of things? It's not only good for our closets and homes, it's also good for our personal growth to let some things go and move along our path.

Becoming Your Own Best Friend

Everybody could use a supportive best friend who has your back,challenges you,and encourages the best in you.Maybe you already know them,and your new best friend is you.How can you become a wonderful friend to yourself?

Pay attention to your need for inspiration and positive input.If you are acting like a good friend to yourself,you will always be on the lookout for contact with people who lift you up and make you want to be a better person.Be on the lookout for interesting workshops,speakers,books,places,and experiences which will get your personal energy level up.Make plans that you look forward to,and which keep you having a growing edge.People aren't happy when they are bored,and some fresh ideas and input are refreshing.

Don't let anyone mistreat you.Stand up and be a champion for yourself.Move away from anyone who is toxic,negative,critical,or needy enough to swallow your spirit whole.Notice how you feel after spending time with people you know.Do you feel energized,relaxed,and refreshed? Or do you feel drained and worn out? Reschedule accordingly! Set limits and boundaries,with work and with family and friends.Surround yourself with only quality people who are courageous,honest,and kind.

Remember your rights as a human being.You have a right to be yourself.You are allowed to have your own thoughts,feelings,and ideas.God made you unique,and if you can't give yourself permission to be yourself,noone else can.Speak up.Don't allow anyone to belittle or demean you.It's your job.as your own best friend,to be protective of you.

What serendipity to find a wonderful best friend who has been there beside you all this time.Imagine that!

Treat yourself kindly.Do extreme self-care.Exercise,eat,and sleep intentionally,like you are here to last.Get rid of the Russian Olympic judge in your head who runs a negative commentary.Forgive yourself,and forgive others for not being perfect.Realize we can hit our own restart button anytime,and become a better parent,partner,or person anytime.While we can't redo the past,we can live well today.Allow yourself to apologize,and begin again.Eliminate your internal critic.

Try not to judge yourself or other people.It's not our job.Generally,most people do the best that they can at the time,and when they know more they can do better,in relationships,and in life.

Emotional Vampires---Know Any?

Who are your emotional vampires? The way to spot an emotional vampire is to notice how you feel after you spend time with them.If you feel refreshed and happy,they are not one.If,on the otherhand, you feel depleted,exhausted,and like all the blood has been sucked out of you, you may have been hanging out with one.

Emotional vampires are downers.They whine and complain.They love to blame others and take no personal responsibility for their part in any difficulty in any situation or relationship.They find conflict enjoyable.They pick fights,and issue ultimatums.They need to direct MOST of the conversation.There is very little of you in the interaction.Negativity and other toxic emotions swirl around the vampire like the Peanuts character,Pigpen, who is surrounded by a cloud of dirt.

You cannot do a makeover on an emotional vampire type of personality.Your only recourse is to save yourself.Limit the exposure you have to this toxic individual.Rebalance yourself by spending time alone restoring and calming yourself.
Actively schedule time with other people who you can be encouraged by.Get their toxic influence neutralized by exercising regularly and doing other forms of extreme self-care.

Basically,as soon as you identify the emotional vampires in your life,it is very important to begin managing their impact on you through all means available.Drive your own car.Limit the amount of time you can see them.Develop broken record statements to respond rotely to their avalanche of negative thoughts,feelings,and experiences.Don't be naive and think you can help solve their world view.Their mindset is causing the problem,and they are the only person who can change that channel.Mindsets are an inside job.

Energy vampires and emotional vampires in your life? Identify their draining dance as soon as possible,move as far away as you can,and keep a close watch on how your emotional and physical health are impacted by these individuals.Halloween season or not,nobodys' life is improved by letting vampire clients,coworkers,friends,or family feast on you.Healthy relationships provide support and encourage both people. Emotional vampires leave you needing intervenous feeding,and deplete you for hours or days afterwards.Carry on,and watch out for these vampires.Carry BIG limits.

Weeding Your Thoughts and Your Life

I love to plant flowers and grow a garden. As every gardener will tell you,having a beautiful and healthy garden takes tending. You need to water it, feed it, and once a week or so, you must come through and pull out the weeds.

Your life also need tending. Everything goes better if you add positive input, inspiring experiences and people to your life. It is also important to minimize your contact as much as possible with people who are negative,critical,chronically whiny and otherwise emotionally toxic for you to be around.Pursue people and experiences which make you feel upbeat,hopeful,and positive.Seek out people who you resonate with in this way.

Your thoughts also need weeding regularly.Self-defeating thoughts lead to self-defeating behavior, which cycle into a lethargic state and feelings of defeat.For example,we could think "there is no point. I don't have the energy to workout/write that paper/clean house. I'm not in the mood.Things are too difficult. I will probably fail." There is very little chance of a successful outcome with those powerful negative thoughts.

We need to learn to endorse and cheer yourself on instead.Replace self-downing thoughts with more objective and self-endorsing ones.For example, "I'm going to see what I can accomplish if I work on this paper for an hour".Breaking down tasks into chunks can make it easier to start, and you can feel less overwhelmed.Take little steps toward a goal you feel blocked on, and use modest time limits for your efforts.(How do we eat an elephant? One bite at a time.)

Watch your internal dialogue.Try to think in wants, rather than musts or shoulds. Reformulating your self-talk to own your choices will lift your mood.Reward yourself with play or a healthy treat for taking steps towards your desired goal.Watch out for labeling yourself in negative ways, or using ALWAYS or NEVER.Very few things in life are that absolute.

Instead of conjuring up self-defeating emotions, like tiredness, boredom, and discouragement, focus on visualizing success at the task you have been avoiding. Try that on and see how it feels.

David Burns,M.D., in his classic book "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy", tells us that there are mind-sets that keep one stuck and prevent us from moving forward towards our goals. They are:
*hopelessness
*helplessness
*overwhelming yourself
*jumping to conclusions
*self-labeling
*undervaluing the rewards
*perfectionism
*fear of failure
*fear of success
*fear of criticism
*resentment
*low-frustration tolerance
*guilt/self-blame

This week, try to eliminate negative statements to yourself and to others.Use positive words to affirm your goals.Use positive, energized I-statements to get yourself going(I am becoming a more patient/active/positive person.)Put up positive post-it notes to give you a quick affirmation throughout the day.

Sprinkle in some self-care this week. Brew a cup of your favorite tea. Watch a favorite movie.Go for a walk with your dog.Take a bubble bath. Be around someone who encourages you and makes you feel good. Listen to something upbeat or inspiring---for those of you in the greater LA area, I recently found a new radio program on weekdays on KFWB 980am from 2 to 4pm with motivational speaker Les Brown if you find yourself driving at that time.

Don't forget to pull a few weeds from your life and your thoughts this week so that there is room for the good stuff to grow.