Stuck in the muck

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Shelia

My Dearest Friend ~

I’m sorry to hear of your strife. From the situation you’ve described, I would venture to say, you’re likely needing to decide between two mutually exclusive desires. The frustration, confusion, and lack of effortless flow that you wrote of, are indications of what I call the “muck.”

Often times we find ourselves having conflicting desires. For example, we want to go and we want to stay. By mutually exclusive, I mean we can’t have both… we have to decide. If we linger in the indecision, it can mess with the effortless flow we might otherwise experience.

Deciding is our power. We decide what to give our attention to, and if you remember from my previous letters, attention is our creative energy. Deciding what we will give our attention to, is how we create our life.

The bigger the decision, the deeper the muck. The good news is, as soon as you decide with conviction, one way or the other, the muck clears immediately.

The muck shows up as little nagging inconveniences, like lost keys and flat tires, and irritating circumstances, like being splashed by mud on the way to an important presentation, and worse. It shows up as a feeling of blah, when life has lost its sparkle. It shows up as headaches, and back aches, and low energy. Left unattended, the indecision leads to dis-ease.

When you know what to look for, the muck is easy to spot. If your life is not flowing easily and if you’re not feeling content and confident, there’s a good chance you have some indecision mucking up your life.

This may seem like a broad statement to say that indecision effects you all these ways, but it’s simple enough to test it out for yourself. Whenever things aren’t flowing as you’d like, look inside for decisions you’ve been riding the fence about. It could be one big life changing decision, but it could also be numerous little decisions.

Perhaps you’re considering changing careers or life partners. Get clarity and decide. Decisions like that can eat away at you, consuming your attention and messing with your flow.

Perhaps you’re considering a major purchase. Not as big of a deal as changing careers or divorce, but still it consumes your attention. You’ve narrowed it down to two or three favorites, but then you leave it hanging, you ride the fence… maybe this… maybe that. Can you feel what the lack of clarity and decision does to your energy?

When you have clarity about the essence of what you truly want, as I spoke of in a previous letter, decisions are much easier to make. You simply check the desires against the essence of what you want to experience and see which gives you more of that.

It is my hope these words will help you find peace and return to a joyful life.

Love, Shelia

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Your attention supply

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Shelia

My Dearest Friend ~

Thank you for your kind letter. It’s good to hear you’re well.

In answer to your questions, yes, this will get easier.

You look at your life and see the things you wish were different and you wonder how to stop giving them your attention. You see what’s not working. You see what needs improvement. You see relationships in cycles seemingly impossible to break. You see things in the world beyond your control. And you ask, “How do I give more attention to what I want, than I give to all of this?”

That’s an excellent question.  In general, we’re not taught to manage our attention. We’re not taught to focus more on what we want than what we don’t want. In fact, much of what we are taught is the opposite of this.

We’re taught to focus on solving problems rather than imagining innovations. We’re taught to look for what’s not working and fix it, rather than notice what’s working and expand it. The media tells us we need more, better, quicker, which says what we are and what we have is not good enough. We’re told we need to “lose weight” rather than “be healthy.”

To change your way of being in the world takes determination. Start where you are and do what you can easily.

Attention is our creative energy; the currency we use to create our lives. Whatever you “pay attention” to, depletes your attention supply (except when it doesn’t, but that’s for another letter). When your attention is scattered, you have less to work with and everything becomes more challenging.

Think of attention like light. When light is focused, it has the power to cut through steel as a laser. When it is dissipated, like the far reaches of a flashlight beam, it becomes very weak.

The good news is, as you practice being deliberate with your attention, you will recover attention from where you’ve spent it and replenish your attention supply. When you do, everything will get easier.

Compare the difference between attempting a task when you’re rested and provided with all the resources you need, as compared to when you’re exhausted and working with less than optimal resources. Running on a low supply of attention is similar to this.

To begin, you can harvest the “low hanging” attention “fruit” by doing a few simple things to recover attention immediately available to you.

Decisions needing to be made consume a great deal of attention. Decide, one way or the other, but decide.

Stuff consumes our attention. Stuff needing to be repaired, discarded, returned, filed, shared, replaced, etc. Remember a time when you finally cleaned out the garage or closet,  or cleared off your desk, and felt a sense of relief, a sense of lightness? That’s attention being recovered.

Undone tasks of every kind consume attention. That phone call you’ve been meaning to make. That thank-you or apology you’ve been meaning to say. That information you’ve been meaning to find.

Whatever you try to keep track of in your mind, consumes your attention. Set up a system you trust, like a calendar and/or personal management system.

Complaining about yours and other people’s drama consumes attention. Give your attention to something more worthy.

Repeating stories in your mind consumes attention. “I can’t believe she said that. I will never tell her anything private again… repeat.” “I can’t believe he returned that in such a condition! I will never loan him my tools again… repeat.” Let go of it… it’s not giving you what you want.

Well, dear one, this is getting long. I will close for now. I promise you, if you will harvest the attention easily available in your life, everything you do will get easier. From there, it will only get easier and easier to create a life you absolutely love.

Love, Shelia

P.S. Download this simple flowchart to help you organize your stuff. Use it to help you recover attention so you can re-invest it in what you want. The flowchart is based on David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and his system for getting out of your mind and managing your stuff more effortlessly…I highly recommend his book!

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Decide what you want

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Shelia

My Dearest Friend ~

The suffering you’ve spoke of makes me wish I could ease your pain. Unfortunately, that is something only you can do. Guidance can be offered, but one’s only true counsel comes from within. Never let anyone tell you your truth.

I can, however, share what has worked for me and invite you to take it into your heart and try it on. It is my hope you will find a nugget of wisdom among my words to lessen your suffering and turn your thoughts toward greater possibilities.

In my yearning to be free, I have embraced simple realizations that have changed the way I experience reality. I’ll share those with you here and gladly answer any questions I can.

First and foremost, realize that what you give your attention to becomes your life. A simple premise, but too often overlooked.

That which holds your attention, consumes your time, for they are one and the same. You cannot give something your attention without giving it your time, and you cannot give something your time without giving it your attention.

If you seek true freedom, you must be decisive with your attention.

To have everything you want in life, decide with clarity what you truly want and give that your attention, forsaking all else.

To which do you give more attention, what you want to experience or reasons you think you can’t and things you’d rather not?

I cannot emphasize strongly enough the importance of getting very clear about what you want. How can you give your attention to what you want, if you don’t know what it is?

As reality pulls your attention in every direction, knowing what you want will help you direct your attention more easily. Without clarity, the task is much more challenging.

What you truly want goes beyond things and circumstances. Discover the essence of what you want and give that more attention than you give anything else.

For example, many say they want money, but money only represents that which can be purchased. Ask yourself, “What would having that give me?” and “What would having that give others?” In other words, what would you buy with the money, and what would having what you bought, give you and others? Repeat the questions about the answers until you get to the essence of what you want… then give that your attention in everything you do.

If you answered, “I would buy a house,” for example, what would having the house give you and others? Security? Comfort? Prestige? Say, for example, you answered “comfort.” What would having comfort give you and others? Perhaps comfort is the essence of what you want, but perhaps there’s something even more elementary, such as peace.

Whatever it is, when you discover the essence of what you want, focus on that in everything you do.  “Be comfortable” in your dealings with the world and others. Create comfort in your surroundings. Remove that which prevents your comfort whenever possible.

Focusing on the essence of what you truly want, will create more of it in your life. Remember, what you give your attention to becomes your life.

A key point to consider: resisting that which you don’t want, only creates more of it. You cannot resist something without giving it your attention.

I will close for now, but I will write again soon and share how I let go of that which I don’t prefer to experience. For now, take the time and make the effort to get clarity on what you truly want to experience. Giving your attention to what you want will relieve your suffering quicker and more completely than anything else I know of.

Love, Shelia

P.S. You may want to take the What You Want Challenge shown in the menu to the right… It’s free and very helpful.

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