Don't Let Anger Lead You

What Gets Your Goat?

What is it for you?

• What drives you to the breaking point--leaving you feeling crazy, angry and frustrated?
• What tips you over the top leaving you feeling mad at the whole world without knowing why?
• What turns you from being a fully functioning adult into a seemingly helpless and frustrated child inside?

E-motion--Don't Leave Home without it

I hate to feel stuck or controlled--it makes me angry and frustrated. I am driven by the desire to move freely in my daily life, so seeking a way to quickly break free from encumbrances became important to me at a young age. Years ago I embraced a definition of emotion that allows me to view all emotion in a positive light and to use it in a more fluid, productive manner.

Instead of viewing emotion as good or bad, happy or sad--I've come to understand E-motion as energy in motion. Our e-motions give us the energy to act, the drive to 'right wrongs', and the desire to pursue our dreams.

Personal Values Define Our Internal 'Lines in the Sand'

The goal of anger management isn't to become a placid, 'Stepford Wife' devoid of emotion--especially anger. It's to learn how to use the energy created by e-motion to create positive outcomes.

Chances are the situations or people making you exceptionally angry violate one or more of your personal values. Our personal values define our invisible boundaries--our lines in the sand. When someone crosses one of those lines we feel violated, resulting in a wall of anger and frustration. And anger left unattended can quickly turn inward and lead to depression.

I get angry or frustrated at least once a day. But I've learned to use my anger--or energy-in-motion-- to help me identify what personal values have been violated. Being able to name the invisible boundaries crossed puts me back in control and provides the momentum for taking positive action.

By using my anger to help me identify what I value, I now have choices for taking action based on what I value rather than on what makes me angry.

Use Your Anger to Identify what You Value

Don't just sit in your anger, use the energy to identify what your personal values are and take positive action based on them.

Situational depression occurs when you feel hopeless or helpless in response to a situation that knocks the wind out of you. To avoid getting depressed in response to tough situations, get in the habit of always following up by taking action that has the potential of producing positive outcomes.

What to Do

Think of a situation or person that upset you in the last week.

• What happened?
• List what made you angry or frustrated in the situation.
• List things you value that may have been violated in the situation.
• When you're ready: Chose a positive response based on your personal values.
• Take positive action--even if you don't feel like it.

Here are some of the things I've learned about myself by going through this process of converting anger into better understanding my personal values and choosing to take action based on those values.

What makes me Angry?

• Injustice
• Bullies
• Narcissists
• Untested Assumptions
• Overly Critical Judgments
• Controlling People
• Uncaring People
• Self-righteous People
• Lack of Opportunity for People
• Being Held Back

What Do I Value?

• Opportunity to Achieve
• Creativity
• 'Flow' Experiences
• Humane Treatment of People
• Humane Treatment of Animals
• Productive Work
• Harmony
• Freedom
• Caring
• Teamwork
• Enthusiasm
• Joyful Experiences
• Fun
• Achieving Personal Dreams
• Helping Others Achieve their Dreams
• Openness
• Truth
• Trust and Connection

How I want to act based on Anger

• Lash out at offender.
• Give them a dose of their own medicine.
• Cut offender off.
• Talk poorly about offender.
• Turn others against offender.
• Wish bad things on the offender.

How I choose to act based on my Values to Create a Better Outcome

• Do nothing. Let my anger cool.
• When I'm ready, Look for ways to open up communication and develop trust.
• When I'm ready: Talk to, not about the person, to clarify facts and understanding.
• Seek to create opportunities to work with others joyfully and enthusiastically.
• Seek more positive environments.
• Reach out to others to build trust and connection.

Don't let yourself be led by your anger. Choosing your actions based on your values puts you in the driver seat. Put your e-motions to work for you--giving you the energy to act, the drive to 'right wrongs', and the desire to pursue your dreams. You're worth it.

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.

If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.

'With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.' Wayne W Dyer

Man's Search for Meaning

Sometimes in the overwhelming challenge of trying to find work after being laid off in a devastating economy, or attempting to recover from a devastating break up of a relationship or loss of a loved one, you can be left feeling discouraged, hopeless and isolated. Looking through the lens of defeat and loss, life can begin to feel flat and meaningless.

The key to pulling out of the darkness is to change the filter you look through to gain a fresh perspective. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams."

When you're dispirited and feeling low it may feel like an impossible task to change your perspective. You don't exactly feel perky and positive. Yet, changing your focus from your problems and the seemingly insurmountable obstacles you face to putting the focus back on creating a life based on your dreams and aspirations is the only way out.

I Know it Hurts--Just Push into the Pain

When I was in labor with my first child I failed to dilate fully so my doctor manually stretched me during the contractions that occurred one minute apart. This was the most painful and seemingly never ending process I've ever experienced. I could barely remain conscious the pain was so excruciating.

With contractions coming every minute, I would fall into a deep sleep for 45 seconds before the contractions would wake me up and the unbearable pain would start all over.  As the doctor stretched me (60 times an hour) he kept saying 'I know it hurts, just push into the pain'. It took all my resolve not to kick him in the groin and tell him 'YOU push into the pain!'

But even in my darkest moment somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I knew when I eventually got out of what turned out to be 24 hours of hard labor, that comment, 'I know it hurts, just push into the pain', would become a metaphor for my life.

If Pain is the Teacher, What's the Lesson?

Birthing a new life--literally or figuratively has it's painful moments--but when you push into the pain and stay focused on your dreams you move through it to gain a new life. It isn't always pleasant or easy but when you achieve a dream it's worth it in the end.

There is no way to avoid or go around the painful part of life on our way to achieving our dreams. No one 'has it easy'. But if we keep our eyes on the goal, instead of the obstacles, we allow ourselves to be led by our dreams instead of pushed by our problems, making it easier to endure the difficulties along the way.

Are You Ready to Turn it Around?

• Where have you felt pushed by your problems?
• If you were led by your dreams what would you do differently?
• If you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do with your life?

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.

If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

True Leaders Inspire You to Become Your Best Self

Judith L Smith-Foote with Former President Bill Clinton 2012

'If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.' John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States

Transitioning from 'You're NOT the Boss of me' to allowing others to bring out your best

I don't know about you, but I've been in the presence of greatness and it profoundly influenced my life. My entire adult life has been deeply influenced by one woman--Judith L Smith-Foote--the one shaking hands with former President Bill Clinton.

Now I know when you see her shaking hands with Clinton you already know she's someone special--but that's not what she was doing the day I met her so many years ago.

When we first met, Dr. Smith was a new Professor at UCLA and I was a new student intent on making my own way without people telling me what to do.

There I was--stumbling along in college--doing my best to avoid being tracked down by administrators who wanted to dictate the order I should take classes--in full-out 'you're not the boss of me' mode'--when I slipped into my first Human Anatomy class with Dr. Smith.

I was mesmerized  by her from the start--and didn't even notice the moment I effortlessly opened the 'you're-not-the-boss-of-me' door to allow her influence to take hold. Her greatness snuck up on me, and at first I didn't recognize her to be the person who was to become my greatest teacher, mentor and influencer. I just knew she was an exceptional teacher.

Finally, here was a teacher who commanded my attention, not because she told me to pay attention to her, but because she inspired me. Unlike so many other Professors who were clearly enamored with themselves, she was straightforward and unassuming. She was an extraordinary role model who had a way of presenting things in an upbeat, positive manner that captured my heart and imagination.

Through her own inquisitive, unselfconscious nature, she opened me up to my own excitement. As she lead the class, artfully keeping our focus on systems and structures, my own self-consciousness about other people's expectations fell away and was replaced with an internally-driven and expectant excitement about learning.  I would leave her class loving anatomy and marveling at the beauty of the human body.

The Moment I Chose to Follow

I still remember the moment in time when I decided this anatomy teacher was going to be my ultimate teacher and chosen leader. She flexed her elbow and said, "Your elbow joint enjoys a full range of motion."

It sounds so silly to admit this was the turning point, but her simple statement had the most profound effect on me. I was fascinated by the idea my body enjoys moving and it gave me an incredible sense of freedom. It was in this moment I connected with this outwardly serious woman whose focus on the enjoyment of learning and living came through in everything she did.

The Key to Being a Leader who Motivates

We are always listening for answers to our unspoken questions and quest for direction in life.  When I met Judith Smith-Foote it was one of those life-changing moments that helped to open me up to be the person I am.

In that critical time of self-consciousness, when I was questioning who I was and how to live up to my potential I met this woman who was a serious scientist on the outside yet a fun-loving, whimsical person on the inside. While I wasn't consciously aware of it at the time this was an inside out mirror of me--soft and silly on the outside, serious and thoughtful on the inside.  She was the right person to become my teacher, mentor, influencer--and friend.

Under her tutelage I learned to communicate in a positive way, and to facilitate other's learning to allow them to think for themselves. 

By working with Judith, I discovered the key to being a leader who motivates: Get the focus off you--it isn't about what a brilliant teacher you are--it is about inspiring others to tap into their own abilities and excitement.

I watched as she artfully demonstrated over and over again how to open people up to learn for themselves; be their best selves; and bring their best. She set up the lessons, showed people where to look, and then got out of the way. She made room for students to excel and enjoy learning.

Bill Clinton being interviewed by Judith L Smith-Foote

A Leader's Rise to the Top

At the beginning of 2013, I had the honor of attending the celebration of Dr. Smith-Foote's 43 years at UCLA, serving as Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education in her final position.

Judith is an amazing woman who has dedicated her life to education and opening up opportunities for others. In her parting words and actions at her retirement dinner at the Chancellor's residence I saw exactly what I saw 40 years ago when I first encountered her in the anatomy class--perfect pitch for understanding human nature, leadership and communication. 

She was gracious and graceful as she took the spotlight off herself and put it back on the people in the room. The extraordinary person she is shone through her humble, understated manner.

When I asked her what's next on the horizon I knew her answer would contain the same element of joy and excitement I saw 40 years ago. She said:

'Retirement is the time you pay yourself to do things you absolutely love.'

Like all great leaders,  she didn't start out trying to be great. She simply lived her life with focus and passion--and along the way her actions inspired the rest of us to dream more, learn more, do more and become more.

And for those of us who have been touched by her we are grateful for the privilege of being able to sit alongside her and learn from her example.

A 'Foote' Note

This post was first published in 2013. I felt compelled to revisit it to publicly honor one of the finest women I have ever known.  Whenever I think about how fortunate I was to have Judith influence my life I stand taller and am motivated to do for others what she did for me: inspire them to be their best selves. The world is a better place because of my dear friend and mentor, Judi.

Break Free! Getting Out of Your Own Way

'Don't allow your own beliefs to hold you back--step past them by taking action.' Lightarted Sue 

Its Simple: Get Out of Your Own Way by Taking Action

What's the secret to dealing with what ails you? You've got to get up, get out, and keep going doing things that will both calm and energize you!

Breaking Free of Belief Barriers

We all hold beliefs that serve as barriers to our taking action on things we want to do.

Because we fail to question our limiting beliefs we fail to take steps to seek work, establish new relationships, go on adventures, or follow through on healthy choices.

Every now and then I stop to observe my own self-talk to discover why I fail to take action on something that will make my life better--then I run simple experiments that free me to change my thoughts and my 'natural' actions.  

Last year I wanted to get myself to exercise daily. But when I attempted to follow through on my good intentions I discovered an age-old work-related belief barrier preventing me from getting out at the end of the day: If I failed to exercise in the morning before work I didn't exercise that day. 

My belief barriers:

• I'm too tired to walk the dog at the end of the day. So if I fail to go out before work--that's it--the dog doesn't get a walk.
•  I'm too tired to workout at the gym after work. If I fail to go at the beginning of the day, I won't do it.

As I observed my actions over a period of time I discovered that each day I failed to walk the dog, or get to the gym before work, I headed home to sit down for the rest of the evening—and I proved my self-imposed belief barriers right every time! 

A year later I've broken free of those belief barriers and I regularly go out after work--despite being tired--to walk the trail with the dog and to workout at the gym. How did I do it? I stopped focusing on being tired, and  I took action that increased the probability I would just do it.

The first step is always the hardest--overcoming inertia--so the first step has to be so easy its difficult to say no to it.

For me, at the end of the day, I chose to load the dog up in the car and drive to the trail head. If I don't want to walk the trail after getting there I can go home. But who wants to disappoint a dog? Not me! So evening walks became a new option for me that soon proved to refresh me from the work day. 

Likewise, getting in the car and driving to the gym in the evening became the first step to opening up the possibility I will workout in the evening. If after checking in I don't want to workout, I can go home. 

I have to admit there are evenings I check in and don't do much of a workout. But by maintaining the practice of driving to the gym and checking in before deciding if I want to workout I have greatly increased the amount of exercise I do.

"If we are to break free and move forward in some aspect of our lives we must step past our belief barriers and take steps to invalidate the beliefs holding us back."

Break Free: Act without Thinking

To step past belief barriers preventing you from moving forward simply take action without thinking one step and one day at a time.

Start by making a short list of beliefs preventing you from taking actions that would improve your life. Then choose one belief barrier to step past by taking one small action.

Belief Barriers

• The job market has changed. I'd just embarrass myself by walking into an organization to drop off a resume or to talk to someone directly about a job.
• I'm too tired to go out after work. 
• I'm too busy to meet anyone.
• I should have started saving for retirement earlier. Now it's too late.

Possible 1st Step Actions to Move Past Your Belief Barriers

• Get a job by walking in and asking for one.
• Drop off 3 resumes to places you'd like to work.
• Ask 1 person for a job referral. 
• Ask one person to go out for a friendly night on the town.
• Spend one hour setting up a LinkedIn account.
• Drive to the gym after work instead of driving home.
• Take the dog for a walk when you get home from work.
• Make a contribution to an IRA.

Prove you can do things differently. The more you prove your belief barriers wrong through taking daily actions, the sooner you'll set yourself free to pursue the life you want. Go on--get out of your own way and enjoy engaging in life.

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.


If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Transitioning From Grief to Relief: Letting Go

• What are you grieving or angry about?
• Who or what has hurt you or let you down?
• What have you lost you're having a hard time letting go?
• What ugliness or pain do you keep re-living?
• Where do you need closure so you can get on with living and building new relationships?

Honor Your Experiences and Relationships Lost

Life is messy and at times painful. We hit many junctures that stop us in our tracks and make us want to jump off the fast moving train of life--not knowing if we ever want to step on that train again. 

To get past our grief and pain we need closure before we can let it go. 

If you look for ways to honor your past experiences--and honor the people or relationships you've lost--you'll ease the transition from grief to relief, and soothe your mind more rapidly.

Sit in Your Pain and Grieve until you're ready to let it go

Honor your past--including the relationships lost--by allowing yourself to sit in your pain until you're ready for closure and healing. Don't try to avoid the pain--let it wash over you until you're done.

When you are ready--know you have the strength to understand and the eyes to see all your past experiences and relationships--whether good or bad--have strengthened, not hardened you--and you will find a way to honor your experience so you emerge from your pain healthier and more connected to life and and more compassionate towards others.

Hold a Space for Good and True Thoughts to Appear

When we're struck by grief we fear:

• We'll be forever broken by our grief or pain--leaving us permanently damaged and unable to recover.
• We'll be hardened or weakened by what has happened.
• Our heart will be broken forever.

When you're ready to heal, let go of your guilt and shame, and recognize you are NOT your fears.  

We all deal with grief, pain and suffering and while your heart may be broken now, know you hold a space within you for good and true thoughts to appear to help you come out of this stronger, healthier and richer through your life experience. Honor the strong person you are.

Embrace Forgiveness and Let Feelings of Failure Go 

In the initial stages of grieving a loss not only can you feel betrayed by life, you often feel somehow you failed. 

In the aftermath, you second-guess yourself, your actions, and your choices. Was I stupid for getting involved with him? Did I do enough? Why didn't I die instead of him?

Accept you did your best in the situation. Honor your experience, relationships and decisions. 

Know:

• Sometimes you can love somebody who isn't good for you. 
• Sometimes you can love and care for someone and they still die. 
• Sometimes you can pour your heart into a job and still you are underpaid, under-appreciated or  laid off. 
• Sometimes you do everything you can to be healthy and still your body breaks down. 

Forgive yourself and let go of all guilt or shame about the past. Create closure through affirming you've  done your best and look for ways you've grown in wisdom through your experience.

Create Closure: Write a Letter You'll Never Send

• Write a farewell letter to the person you lost.
• Write a 'no holds barred' letter to the person, organization, or God that angered you or let you down.

Seeking Closure Opens You to Living


Don't be afraid to start seeking closure even while you're grieving. You don't need to let go of your pain and grief until you are truly ready. 

By seeking closure through honoring your past experiences, actions and relationships you will begin to access your strength and and open yourself to living your life joyfully once again. 

Living your life joyfully is the best way to honor the past and yourself.

'Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them; let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.' Rabindranath Tagore

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.


If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Happy Thoughts and Happy Memories

Happy Thought

"The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we'll all be happy as kings."

Robert Louis Stevenson

 Sweet Longings

What happy memories do you have that put you in a place of sweet longing to reconnect with a time, place or person? When was your time when 'your world was so full of a number of things you were happy as a king'?

It is so important to periodically stop and savor good memories to let them color your experience of life the further you travel down the road. Life can weigh you down as you move into the age of responsibility--leaving you a little worse for wear. But your care-free, happy memories can buoy you back up and ease the way forward.

Happy Thoughts Create More Happy Thoughts

The mind is a wondrous thing--if you focus on unhappy or negative thoughts you'll create more negative thoughts; if you focus on happy thoughts you'll create more happy thoughts. Choose to train your brain to rediscover your happy place where the world is so full of wondrous things you can't help but stay engaged in exciting endeavors.

Fond Memories

One of my fond memories I pull up to savor is of my mother reading Robert Louis Stevenson's 'A Child's Garden of Verses' to me and my siblings in the evening before bedtime. I can still feel the softness of that experience in which I spent time with my mother enveloped in unnamed feelings of warmth, love and safety. All is well with the world in that memory.

'The Swing' is one of Stevenson's poems that left a visual memory for me that regularly comes forth when I am out for a walk or spending time in the garden.  I offer it to you here in hopes you can share a moment of light, care-free feeling of a time of innocence and remember the world is YOUR oyster!

The Swing
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
 

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
 

Robert Louis Stevenson

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.

If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

Getting through Grief: Weathering the Storm

Frozen Hearts: Grieving the Loss of a Loved One

If you've been grieving the loss of a dear one, sometimes it can be difficult to get out of bed and put one foot in front of the other. 

In the aftermath of the loss your heart can feel heavy and frozen in time, and it can feel like you'll never be happy again. During the initial stages of grieving its hard to get the motivation to care for yourself, but to get on with living it is essential.

Even while you are sitting in your sadness, find a way to care for yourself. You are important to others and you deserve to be softly cared for--by yourself and others--as you're dealing with your grief.

Getting through Grief--Weathering the Storm

Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, traveled on her life adventure, with change and uncertainty her constant companions. Her grandmother--a major influence in Margaret's life--sent her on her journey with the sage advice to 'Always build a nest in the eye of the storm'.

This grandmotherly wisdom, applied to the emotional storm brought on by the loss of a loved one can help us begin the journey of getting through our grief and sadness.

The toughest thing to do when you're in the middle of grieving a loss is to take care of yourself. You lose the desire to eat, push your body to the limits with lack of sleep and isolate yourself in your grief—leaving you in a constant state of emotional overload.

You can't rush the grieving process, but if you allow yourself to 'build a nest in the eye of the storm', you can begin to create a cushion to rest and a space where healing can begin.

Sit in your grief as long as you need to--and when you're ready--begin to build a nest where you can gain moments of comfort despite the grief.

Start with the basics to nourish your body and rest your nerves. Your body likes a regular rhythm that includes regular heart beats, breaths, sleep patterns, eating times, moving times, and rest time.

When You're Ready--Begin to Rebalance Your Life

• Start by getting your natural rhythms back in place.
• Eat regular, well-balanced meals that nourish you.
• Pace yourself--put a time limit on dealing with your grief.
• Choose to have daily contact with uplifting, supportive people who can listen and encourage you in your strength and support you through your grief.
• If you're caring for others, take care of yourself first, so you have the strength and endurance to continue to help others who depend on you.

Within your Heart keep one still secret spot where dreams may go....

Create a Place of Safety and Security

We all do our best healing when we do it from a place of safety and security. The key is to find a way to create your nest---despite the grief. It may not be easy, but it is essential.

 'The holiest of all holidays are those

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart,

When the full river of feeling overflows;—

The happy days unclouded to their close;

The sudden joys that out of darkness start

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are; —a fairy tale

Of some enchanted land we know not where,

But lovely as a landscape in a dream.'

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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For more than 30 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.


If you're interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the Lightarted Living mailing list. Sign up for free e-mail updates from this blog in the top right-hand corner of the page.

10 Things I Learned By Taking the Advice I Give to Others

'A wise man once said nothing'... Spirit Science

Put on Your Hard Hat--Emotions Boiling Over!

I don't often get spitting mad, but when I do I find its nearly impossible to make healthy decisions for myself the moment I'm catapulted into that deep emotional fog of anger, frustration and disappointment. 

In an explosive wave of emotional turmoil brought on by people or life letting me down I want to lash out, walk out, and spit out a few !*@#* expletives. (If I had a towel I'd throw that out too!)

In a flash of anger, my reptilian brain puts on it's hard hat and goes into combat mode-- playing out emphatic scenes of fight or flight reactions--while my conscious brain goes on high alert to reluctantly enforce impulse control over the reptilian brain's alluring reactive desires. 

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain I understand I must give myself time for the inner battle to subside so I can remove the hard hat causing me to dig in my heels and develop hardening of the attitudes.

I now let go all bitterness and disappointment with the world

It Takes 3 Days to Release the Bitterness and Get Back to FLOW

You'd think after we've been through this roller coaster of emotions  a few times we could figure out how to calm ourselves quickly, but the nature of the emotional fog is it clouds our judgement every time. 

I've learned it takes at least three days to release the cloud of anger, frustration and disappointment to the point where the battling factions of our mind can walk away from the fight and we can begin to see and think clearly. 

I've also learned my own best course of action to get back to a fully satisfying state of mind and a life that flows is to take the advice I so willingly give to others.

Our saving grace against acting as our own worst enemy in times of anger is we really do want to have good outcomes for our lives. 

I now let go all rage and resentment towards others

The Wisdom of Taking Our Own Advice 

While we may be amazingly profound advising others in emotional pain, we're amazingly clueless dealing with our own. If we can tap into that wisdom we spread to others we can put ourselves back on a healthy course of action and good decision making.

We hold the keys to unlocking the wisdom within us but sometimes we need help finding the key when it is temporarily misplaced in the fog. 

Below are 10 things I've learned to do better in my own life by taking the advice I give to others. 

All things seemingly good or bad work in my favor

What Would I Advise Others to Do?

The ultimate question to ask yourself is 'what would I tell others to do?' 


1. Do Nothing for 3 Days

'The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it was unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.'  Paulo Coelho

2. Acknowledge and Sit in Your Feelings

By giving yourself time to wind up and fully acknowledge your anger, frustration and disappointment you can more quickly calm down and get to a place you can consider the advice you'd give to others you love and care about. 

Check in with someone you trust to help you look from outside. It's always easier to know what someone else should do than to see what we should do ourselves.

Write a letter you won't send. Write as many of these soul-bearing, 'no holds bar' letters until the anger, frustration and disappointment has run it's course. When you're ready--let it all go and get ready to move on. 

3.  Do 1st Things 1st 

Get all your ducks in a row. Do your research. Get another job or figure out retirement before you quit. Consider the consequences of your actions. Most of all, sit in your anger until you're ready to put it down so you can think clearly.

4. Choose to be Strengthened, not Hardened by Your Life Experiences 

'Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.'  Virginia Satir

5. Act Calmly, Not Out of Anger

'To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.' William H Walton

Don't be in a hurry to respond publicly. Wait a day before you hit the send button or post that Facebook rant. Share selectively instead with people you trust who understand and support you.

   
6. Quit the Job, Activity, or Relationship when the Time is Right for You

Don't leave money, love or opportunity on the table--but don't linger in a situation that is soul-killing or one that thrusts you into not caring so you die on the job or in the relationship. At the point you can't be effective or you hate coming to work, consider what other direction you want to go.

'I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.' E.B. White

7. Act in Ways that Provide the Best Outcomes for You Long-term

'You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision and a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.' Woodrow Wilson

Take time to consider your actions, options and choices. 

Consider the pro's and con's of staying the course or going in a different direction. Ask others what they would do in your situation; ask yourself what you would advise someone else to do.

8. If Push, then Pull; If Pull, then Push

Move in the direction you are being pushed or pulled--i.e. if the person you're in a relationship says he needs more space 'give him enough rope to hang himself'.

9. Use the negative energy to energize you to take positive action

'When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It's very simple.' Paulo Coelho

10. Remember all things seemingly good or bad always work in your favor 

Always look for the next great opportunity a seemingly bad experience opens up for you. 

'We must develop a complete receptiveness to all experience - rejecting nothing, judging nothing, and resisting nothing.' From Resist Nothing by Eckhart Tolle and Kim Eng

Life continues to unfold in miraculous ways....believe it!

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes changing easier than ever before.

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