What NOT to Do!

Here are a few things to NOT do when you are trying to figure out how to thrive. First - suppressing stress does not work. I have a lovely friend who keeps telling me how she is awesome at powering through - and I agree with her. But the stress is building and she is starting to have symptoms, none of which she is able to see as stress related. That's ok. Her body will keep talking until she listens!

An example of another tried-and-failed attempt to manage my life is the ever-popular but still ineffective self-talk around being tough. It's when we keep fighting for what we believe is an important principle even though our attempts are failing miserably. This is fine when we are not stressed out. But when we are freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional this is not the time to go to war for our principles. This raises an important point. Standing up for our principles is a core value and often the only thing that stands between good people and evil. Someone stands up against evil, and others benefit. If we want to be a warrior, then it is even more important to handle our stress on all fronts. We do not win when we are surrounded on all sides and stripped of our weapons. On these days we need to ask for help SO THAT we can return to an advocacy role once we recover. I cannot stress this enough. Helpers need breaks. Helpers need to be human beings, even if they get called names in the process. There is no greater stress reliever in the world than to stop caring about what people who do not invest in your wellbeing say about you.

Who are you choosing to be your mirror? Who do you listen to for appropriate feedback?

Virtue Sets the Coordinates

I am not going to try to find the perfect scripture for what I am about to say because I believe it would require cutting and pasting the entire bible. So allow me to summarize. You carry within you the capacity for virtuosity. Now, I know, this word is rarely used to describe a person but hang with me. Technically, this word means "great skill in music oranother artistic pursuit" (Oxford Languages).

And that is exactly what I intend to convey about you and all humans. When we bear the image of God, it is not a replica, it's a tiny piece. You are not THE God or even A God, but you bear his image by holding within your spirit a virtue that is attributable to God. You arrived with it and I assume we take it back with us when we return to our heavenly home.

This virtue is what needs to be mirrored to us and rarely is. This virtue, once identified, sets the coordinates for the rest of our work as long as we live. This virtue, when combined with the virtues carried in the bodies of all the other humans on earth will change the world.

It will be virtue that will bring heaven to earth.

And we will have to release our habitual ways of being in the world to allow it to rise up and take hold of your choices.

If you do not know what your virtue is, do not give up the hunt. For you life will not longer be about what you lack, get wrong, or have been hurt by. Your life will be one big adventure of ridding yourself of any of the ties that bind you to your small way of seeing yourself, your false beliefs and limited thoughts, your mis-guided albeit sincere emotions and your unproductive way of doing things.

Keep looking. You are in there. You are worth the fight.

Mirror, Mirror

If our brain, limited as it is, jumps to conclusions and makes some assumptions early in life, it is pretty darn hard to get those pesky and wrong-headed beliefs and thoughts to vacate the premises. Honestly, I liken it to a Christmas miracle.

How does it happen? I do not know, but I can share a bit about what happened to me.

I had some really, really gentle and great mirroring. The mirror effect is a reflection of one's self through the gaze of others. Gentle mirroring can build rapport and trust, if done with discernment and wisdom. Here is the trick. We all have "mirror neurons" in the parietal lobe region of the brain. It is located at the upper back area in the skull. It processes sensory information and is really quite good at picking up cues like anxiety (which is why anxiety is catching) and whatnot.

Some people, due to the way their own brain is built with its own set of preconceived notions, are like fun house mirrors. They PROJECT their image of themselves on you. For example, if I am feeling anxious, I might project on Pete by saying, "Are you ok? How are you feeling? Is something bothering you?" I'm the one having all the feelings, but I am projecting my feelings on him, maybe even my thoughts and beliefs.

Another fun house mirror distortion is INTROJECTION. A person walks into a room and notices someone who is feeling uncomfortable, agitated, sad. And the person who walked into the room feeling happy and excited for the dinner party all of a sudden thinks, "Wow. Something is wrong with me. I'm feeling uncomfortable, agitated and sad." No, they are not. They just picked up someone else's vibes and confused them with their own.

So here's what I learned that is really important. Your mirrors matter. Once I did not have so much exposure to fun house mirrors, the voices in my life began to sing a song, in sync and perfect rhythm that kept reflecting back to me, "You can make mistakes. You do not have to be responsible for making everyone happy or solving their problems. Get some new problems. Your problems. What problems do you want to solve that are yours?"

So, if no one has ever said this to you before, let me channel my inner Mary Oliver and paraphrase her - each of us only has one wild and precious life - what do you want to do with yours? What problems do you have to solve to live it? Do you need to go back to school? Do you need therapy? Do you want to do some Enneagram work with me or someone else who guides you through the growth path most suited for you? Do you want to change jobs? Do you want to change houses? Do you want to play a bit better tennis or golf or tiddlywinks? Solve those problems.