Lightarted Living: When Life Gets Disrupted

Lightarted Living: When Life Gets Disrupted:  

When Life Gets Disrupted

 

Life Disrupted?

What to Do.....

💓Just keep going 💓

💙Put one foot in front of the other💙
Walk a positive path

💙Engage in Ordinary Activities💙
Reestablish a regular rhythm

💚Get More Sleep and Rest💚

💛Calm and Center Yourself💛
Minimize your contact with negativity

💓Stay open to the love and support 💓
always surrounding you

💚Hope for the Future💚

💛Surround Yourself with 💛

Compassionate, Optimistic People

When Life Gets Disrupted

 

Life Disrupted?

What to Do.....

💓Just keep going 💓

💙Put one foot in front of the other💙
Walk a positive path

💙Engage in Ordinary Activities💙
Reestablish a regular rhythm

💚Get More Sleep and Rest💚

💛Calm and Center Yourself💛
Minimize your contact with negativity

💓Stay open to the love and support 💓
always surrounding you

💚Hope for the Future💚

💛Surround Yourself with 💛

Compassionate, Optimistic People

Lightarted Living: How to Repair Your Relationship after Heart-Breaki...

Lightarted Living: How to Repair Your Relationship after Heart-Breaki...:  

How to Repair Your Relationship after Heart-Breaking Miscommunication

 

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

"I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." S.I. Hiyakawa

How does Communication Turn Ugly so Fast When Your Intentions are so Good?

Do you have days when despite your best intentions to communicate clearly and respectfully with someone you find difficult, your words set the other person off and everything 'goes to Hell in a hand-basket'? I do. 

And while I may start with the best of intentions (see my halo and wings?), the seemingly intentional twisting of my words  by the other person quickly leads me to wicked thoughts and the worst of intentions (a sharp-tongued, fire-breathing angel-turned-evil spirit inside--muhaha). 

If you examine yourself closely, like me, you'll discover your evolved, mature self and your immature, reactive self fighting it out inside. 

Your mature self has learned to act calmly, set positive intentions--and hold its tongue; your immature self reacts and has the potential to come out swinging when threatened--calling people poo-poo heads and plotting childish revenge. Why is that?

People we perceive as difficult have the capacity to make us feel threatened and out of control which shifts us into our reptilian (fight or flight) brain. 

When we're caught off-guard in a communication-gone-bad with another person, we revert to a more primitive, reactive way of dealing with the world as a means of protecting ourselves against the perceived threat.

Regaining Our Composure After a Mess Erupts

The question, is how do we engage our evolved self to more quickly find our way through a quickly disintegrating muddled mess with that other person--and prevent our reactive self from turning a bad situation worse? 

Sure, you could choose to sit in your self-righteous anger--nursing your negative thoughts and feeling smug about your rightness and the other person's wrongness--but that doesn't serve you or the situation in the long-run, especially if it's someone you're in a long-term relationship, like a spouse or family member. 

If you don't care about maintaining your relationship just walk away. But if you want to maintain the relationship, find a way to repair it.

It's not easy to recover from hurt and indignant feelings to get back on a more positive course of action--but you are the only one who experiences your inner world. Why would you want to let negative experiences and people guide your thoughts and your actions?

Check Your Perceptions

To call on your mature self to help you through difficult interactions you need to manage how you view the person and the situation.  

When we think of someone as a 'difficult person' rather than 'a person we had difficulty with' we set ourselves up to expect them to be difficult every time--and brace ourselves for negative interactions.

Understand you are the creator of your own perceptions, thoughts and feelings making up your inner world. You choose whether it is positive or negative--heavenly or hellish as the Samurai learns in the following story.

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

How We Create Our Personal Hell--Or Heaven

Pema Chodron in her book--Awakening Loving-Kindness--tells the story of a Samurai visiting a wise man to ask about the nature of Heaven and Hell. 

The wise man proceeds to berate and belittle the Samurai--calling him names and saying he is not worthy of this knowledge. The Samurai gets angrier and angrier and in a fit of rage, raises his sword and is about to cut off the man's head, when the wise man says, "That is HELL".

In an instant, the Samurai understands and sees he has created his own Hell in which his anger, resentment, and rage took him to the brink of killing this man. In a flash of understanding he drops his sword and begins to sob. The wise man says, " And that is HEAVEN".

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

What Are You Primed To Hear?

Every moment we make decisions about which path to take in response to life's challenges--including the negative reactions of others.  

We are all primed to listen and pay attention in a positive or negative way based on how we've trained ourselves. 

Sometimes people are primed to misunderstand one another and feel threatened causing them to listen for slights, criticism or blame. This can intensify when cliques have formed at work or in the family, creating us against them factions.

Once someone's feelings get hurt--and avoidance sets in--you can end up in a never-ending cycle of misunderstanding and hurt feelings, criticism and blame, and talking about rather than talking to the other person which ultimately leads to more factions, taking sides, and bad mouthing. 

Although you may strive to communicate in a positive manner to a person 'dug in' it may not be received that way because the person is already primed to hear what you say as negative--and vice versa. 

The Bottom-line: Choose How You Want to Behave Regardless

So what can you do when the other person is primed to hear anything you say as negative and threatening? 

Choose how you want to behave regardless of how the other person behaves. 

Invite the other person to engage in a dialogue to repair the relationship, and then open the conversation with a 'soft opening'--'do you have a moment to talk?'

Check your intentions, stay the course, keep your eyes on your life goals, and commit to working from your mature self. Accept you may fall into acting out of your childish, immature self sometimes along the way. Be ready to forgive yourself and the other person too.

Decide how YOU want to be--and how you want to live your life--and let that be your guide for moving forward. 

Not everyone is going to like you--and you will have people in your life who are difficult to deal with. The question always comes back to how do you want to live your life and how do you wish to behave?

So after you get over feeling indignant and hurt about the twisting of your words and intentions--redirect your attention by asking yourself: 

• What do you want to build or create in your life?
• What actions do you want to commit to despite obstacles and misunderstandings?
• What attitudes do you want to live with? When you look inside, do you carry more negative, than positive thoughts or more positive than negative thoughts?
• How are you training yourself to listen?

'Always do right; this will gratify some and astonish the rest.'  Mark Twain

Road-map to Repair Relationship after Miscommunication

Susan J Meyerott

How to Repair Your Relationship after Heart-Breaking Miscommunication

 

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

"I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." S.I. Hiyakawa

How does Communication Turn Ugly so Fast When Your Intentions are so Good?

Do you have days when despite your best intentions to communicate clearly and respectfully with someone you find difficult, your words set the other person off and everything 'goes to Hell in a hand-basket'? I do. 

And while I may start with the best of intentions (see my halo and wings?), the seemingly intentional twisting of my words  by the other person quickly leads me to wicked thoughts and the worst of intentions (a sharp-tongued, fire-breathing angel-turned-evil spirit inside--muhaha). 

If you examine yourself closely, like me, you'll discover your evolved, mature self and your immature, reactive self fighting it out inside. 

Your mature self has learned to act calmly, set positive intentions--and hold its tongue; your immature self reacts and has the potential to come out swinging when threatened--calling people poo-poo heads and plotting childish revenge. Why is that?

People we perceive as difficult have the capacity to make us feel threatened and out of control which shifts us into our reptilian (fight or flight) brain. 

When we're caught off-guard in a communication-gone-bad with another person, we revert to a more primitive, reactive way of dealing with the world as a means of protecting ourselves against the perceived threat.

Regaining Our Composure After a Mess Erupts

The question, is how do we engage our evolved self to more quickly find our way through a quickly disintegrating muddled mess with that other person--and prevent our reactive self from turning a bad situation worse? 

Sure, you could choose to sit in your self-righteous anger--nursing your negative thoughts and feeling smug about your rightness and the other person's wrongness--but that doesn't serve you or the situation in the long-run, especially if it's someone you're in a long-term relationship, like a spouse or family member. 

If you don't care about maintaining your relationship just walk away. But if you want to maintain the relationship, find a way to repair it.

It's not easy to recover from hurt and indignant feelings to get back on a more positive course of action--but you are the only one who experiences your inner world. Why would you want to let negative experiences and people guide your thoughts and your actions?

Check Your Perceptions

To call on your mature self to help you through difficult interactions you need to manage how you view the person and the situation.  

When we think of someone as a 'difficult person' rather than 'a person we had difficulty with' we set ourselves up to expect them to be difficult every time--and brace ourselves for negative interactions.

Understand you are the creator of your own perceptions, thoughts and feelings making up your inner world. You choose whether it is positive or negative--heavenly or hellish as the Samurai learns in the following story.

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

How We Create Our Personal Hell--Or Heaven

Pema Chodron in her book--Awakening Loving-Kindness--tells the story of a Samurai visiting a wise man to ask about the nature of Heaven and Hell. 

The wise man proceeds to berate and belittle the Samurai--calling him names and saying he is not worthy of this knowledge. The Samurai gets angrier and angrier and in a fit of rage, raises his sword and is about to cut off the man's head, when the wise man says, "That is HELL".

In an instant, the Samurai understands and sees he has created his own Hell in which his anger, resentment, and rage took him to the brink of killing this man. In a flash of understanding he drops his sword and begins to sob. The wise man says, " And that is HEAVEN".

Susan J Meyerott, Artist

What Are You Primed To Hear?

Every moment we make decisions about which path to take in response to life's challenges--including the negative reactions of others.  

We are all primed to listen and pay attention in a positive or negative way based on how we've trained ourselves. 

Sometimes people are primed to misunderstand one another and feel threatened causing them to listen for slights, criticism or blame. This can intensify when cliques have formed at work or in the family, creating us against them factions.

Once someone's feelings get hurt--and avoidance sets in--you can end up in a never-ending cycle of misunderstanding and hurt feelings, criticism and blame, and talking about rather than talking to the other person which ultimately leads to more factions, taking sides, and bad mouthing. 

Although you may strive to communicate in a positive manner to a person 'dug in' it may not be received that way because the person is already primed to hear what you say as negative--and vice versa. 

The Bottom-line: Choose How You Want to Behave Regardless

So what can you do when the other person is primed to hear anything you say as negative and threatening? 

Choose how you want to behave regardless of how the other person behaves. 

Invite the other person to engage in a dialogue to repair the relationship, and then open the conversation with a 'soft opening'--'do you have a moment to talk?'

Check your intentions, stay the course, keep your eyes on your life goals, and commit to working from your mature self. Accept you may fall into acting out of your childish, immature self sometimes along the way. Be ready to forgive yourself and the other person too.

Decide how YOU want to be--and how you want to live your life--and let that be your guide for moving forward. 

Not everyone is going to like you--and you will have people in your life who are difficult to deal with. The question always comes back to how do you want to live your life and how do you wish to behave?

So after you get over feeling indignant and hurt about the twisting of your words and intentions--redirect your attention by asking yourself: 

• What do you want to build or create in your life?
• What actions do you want to commit to despite obstacles and misunderstandings?
• What attitudes do you want to live with? When you look inside, do you carry more negative, than positive thoughts or more positive than negative thoughts?
• How are you training yourself to listen?

'Always do right; this will gratify some and astonish the rest.'  Mark Twain

Road-map to Repair Relationship after Miscommunication

Susan J Meyerott

Lightarted Living: Staying Upbeat in the Face of Negativity

Lightarted Living: Staying Upbeat in the Face of Negativity:   

Staying Upbeat in the Face of Negativity

 

All Things Seemingly Good or Bad Works for Your Highest Good

In the last three days:

* How many times did something happen to make you worry something in your life wouldn't work out?

* How many times did you respond to the fear by relaxing into it--knowing life has a way of working out in your favor?

When Life Gets Hard, Lighten Up

I admit throughout life I've succumbed to worrying about work, money and the future. But I've learned that when life gets messy, that's the very time I need access to my most nimble and flexible problem-solving abilities. And that's why I lighten up when life is hard.

Lightening up when times are tough changes how you think about your troubles and helps you gain more options for achieving better outcomes.

 I know 'just lighten up' is easier said than done, but it can be done, and you can get better at it by choosing to practice making the switch in your thinking.

Learning how to stay upbeat in the face of difficulties ultimately results in a more overall optimistic attitude in you as you learn to work out of your higher brain instead of your lower brain.

When you're stressed-- learning to switch from your 'Lower Self' to your 'Higher Self' is the key to staying upbeat and nimble during tough times. Let me show you what I mean.

A Lower Ott and A Higher Ott

Years ago at the end of conducting a workshop on the paradox of change, a workshop participant--Hall of Fame Songwriter, Mack David--presented me with a little ditty he composed. With his cherub cheeks and a lighthearted grin he sang:

'The Lord begets and the Lord begot,
A Lower Ott and a Higher Ott;
But of all the Otts the Lord begot,
The best of all is a Meyerott.
Who? Sue!
And Nancy Too!'

It made me laugh--and it still does. There it was: The Lower Ott and the Higher Ott--what I had been calling My Lower Self and My Higher Self. This lighthearted ditty became just the ticket to keep me from taking myself too seriously for too long when I succumbed (as we all do) to taking the path of the Lower Ott during stressful experiences.

While you may lack a name that rhymes so well with begot, you too have a higher and lower self housed in your brain. And how you talk to yourself about difficult situations will determine which of your selves--your higher or lower self will do the problem-solving for you.

Do You Feel Pressured or Challenged Under Stress?

What's in a word? Lots! Whether you feel pressured or challenged under stress will determine if your choices for responding to your world are limited to your lower brain, or if more expansive options are available to you from engaging your higher brain.

The good news is if you change your thoughts-- from feeling pressured to feeling challenged under stress-- you'll unlock the key to opening options and to staying upbeat in the face of negativity.

Feel Pressured? It's a Real Downer!

Here's the thing--when you sink into feeling pressured, fearful or worried about a situation, you downshift into your lower--or reptilian brain. Your lower brain offers you very limited instinctual responses--much like those available to snakes whose instinct is to protect their territory and their young.

For you, this translates into your basic fight or flight reactions (the stress response) and results in the extremes of fighting and withdrawing such as outbursts, yelling, arguing, quitting, ignoring, denying, running away and pulling the covers over your head and never (ever) going back.

When it's not helping you respond to a crisis, your lower brain is not a very empowering or engaging place to come from, and it leaves you feeling weak, threatened, out-of-control and unsuccessful.

To Stay Upbeat, Upshift into Your Higher Brain

By switching your thinking from feeling pressured to feeling challenged, you move up to your higher brain--or cerebral cortex--where conscious, critical thinking is possible. Now you're in control. It is from this higher place you are capable of considering calm, clear, focused choices and listening to your inner wisdom.

Chose the Self-Satisfied Calm of Knowing You Can Handle Life

Why not give up the adrenaline rush of feeling pressured for the self-satisfied calm of knowing you can handle whatever life throws your way. The next time you feel the angst of your situation coming on, consciously choose to say 'I feel challenged' in place of 'I feel pressured or stressed'.

No, things don't always go as you planned. But you do have what it takes to successfully move through life's challenges. Look for the challenge and give up the pressure and stress.

'Relax and begin saying, Everything in its perfect time. Everything is unfolding. And I'm enjoying where I am now, in relationship to where I'm going. I'm content where I am, and eager for more.'
Abraham