Articles by thepracticeofyourlife

In their Law of Attraction books, Esther and Jerry Hicks talk about segmenting. The idea is you break your day into discrete portions of time or “segments” as a means to focus your attention during that time on something that you want done.

This is a brilliant concept.  Why?  Because my biggest challenge is managing my Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) - see post on 17 April 2008.  I can get distracted at a frightening pace.  In going to write this post, I think of three other ideas and start writing them first. I happen to glance at my left and see an article that catches my eye and I read it, and while reading it I remember to respond to someone regarding some semi-urgent matter, and so I go to my email and read four or five mails before it occurs to me that I was supposed to be doing something else, except I can’t remember what.  Wish I could blame this on age, but I don’t have that excuse plus I do remember always being like this.

If I’m not careful I can be the prima donna in the chaos ballet, plie (ing), pirouette (ing) and fouette (ing) my way across the cluttered stage of my life.  Not graceful and a tad painful, but at least it’s not as bad as I portray …, at least not anymore.

The idea of segmenting is a great and simple practice to incorporate in your life practice.  All you do is stop and ask yourself what will I focus on now. Choose something and do that to the extent that you intend or until its done, and then stop, and ask yourself the question again.  Give yourself a time period - no more than 2 hours - and then stop. It can also be a very useful form of meditation.  You could say for example, that in the next 30 minutes I’m going to wash the dishes.  Giving the dishes your full and undivided attention can be very calming and can be a very powerful form of meditation.

This is a great way to give yourself some direction and focus.  Be careful though.  This is no substitute for planning.  If you don’t cultivate a practice of planning then you’ll find that this practice will have limited value.   A practice of planning will give some purpose to the things that you choose in your segments.  Without an overall context of planning you will find yourself still very stressed even though you’ve been VEEEERY busy.

If productivity is your challenge make sure to read David Allen’s books especially the classic “Getting things done.”

So I’m writing a book, and after explaining what the book is about to a good friend, he asks me why am I writing it?  I gave the obvious answer of course, “Because I’ve always wanted to write a book.”  And then comes the predictable question, “Why?”

And then my mind produces a deluge of possible answers:

Because I have something to say, that is important?  Because I want to be famous/rich/acknowledged?  Because I want people to get how smart I am?

Note the question marks.  It’s just amazing to me that I had not thought of why I wanted to do this.  I then began really thinking and writing about the purpose of the book.  What would it mean to me, my readers, to people that I would mention in the book, to the world?  What value would it provide?   This it turns out has become quite a revealing and productive exercise.  Because in thinking about the why I wanted to write the book, it is affecting what I want to say in the book and how I’m going to say it.   The thinking about the why, to what purpose should I undertake this effort has created an entirely new space for the “doing” of the book.

I was reminded of this at a business workshop I attended this last weekend where an organization got it’s employees and customers together to share their thinking about the why and what of their enterprise.  What an exercise.  Instead of mindlessly going about the doing of their existing business until a crisis hit, they were asking themselves very tough questions about why they exist, and in answering that question coming up with new possibilities for the business.

And this got me thinking.  Every day people do a whole slew of activities that they don’t think about.  No idea as to the purpose or the history of the activity.  They watch certain TV shows, read certain magazines, go to work, argue with their kids or tuck them into beds, all with no purpose in mind. They just do them.   I wonder how many of the activities you would stop doing or modify if you were to stop and ask why you were doing them?  How many of your current activities would you continue if you became present to the consequence of continuing those activities?

Kind of heavy eh?  Some people may find that asking questions like these will lead to the really big question: What is my life for?

Happy trails. 

The other day I was having a drink with a good friend of mine and he began to relate his impression of one of the political candidates in the upcoming election.  To say that his view was completely at odds with my own is to put it mildly.   What was really interesting though was that I noticed the initial feeling that got triggered by his words.  The feeling that came up was anger, or more like an extreme irritation and it was completely reactive.  The thoughts that immediately popped up were your garden variety of “How could you be so stupid?, “Can’t you see how you’re being manipulated?”, “My God, you’re talking about a candidate for the top office …”

And then a miracle happened!

I let it go.

I don’t like to blow my own horn … at least when I can find willing participants to do that for me, but since no-one was there to observe this as the breakthrough that it was, permit me to congratulate myself.

This was one helluva breakthrough.  I was able to grant another person’s completely different point-of-view as valid.   Every fiber of my reactive human self wanted to reach over and shake this other person to get them to see what I saw, because my point-of-view is - doncha know - the right one.   Sigh, if only the world recognized this; that I have the right take on the situation, and if you could only see from my point of view you would get how silly yours is.  Wouldn’t the world just work, wouldn’t the world be a nice place if everyone got that I have it right, that I have the exclusive front and center seat to the truth?

And I let it go.

In fact, I was so amazed at this that I could hear the voice in my head switch from “This guy’s an idiot,” to “Did you just let that go?” “Wow!  You might really be able to leave the temple soon, Grasshopper!”

Thoughts that show that I still have a ways to go - God, please don’t let transformation mean no sense of humor - but thoughts that acknowledged a breakthrough albeit in a non-transformed way.

This is not the first time I’ve been able to grant another’s being even though it opposed some view that I had, but sadly enough it is not yet my default setting.  I’m getting there though.  After all, it’s a practice.

I posted before about our ability to create a space between stimulus and response. This is of course not Nobel Prize submission material, yet it’s one of those truisms that is so often taken for granted.

What I want to say here is that a practice of creating that Space will be a difficult one to implement, or maybe even impossible without a context for your life.  By context I mean a story about you, who you are, what your values are, and what you’re creating with your life.  If you’re not clear on what your goals are in life and therefore how your colleagues at work, your family at home, your neighbors and members in your communities all fit into your life, you’ll have difficulty making the proper choices about the many possible reactions you could make to any stimulus from a person or situation.

Consider this example:

Mary is a deeply religious person and has created her main goal in life to save as many souls as possible. This is the context within which she lives her daily life.   In any interaction with people Mary gets to choose responses that further her goal.  So when an angry man pushes her on the bus, Mary suppresses her knee jerk reaction to say something angrily in response, and considers the man.

Space.

Since she is very clear on what her life purpose is, she can immediately place this man in that context and assess that he is a candidate to be saved.  She can make the man’s push mean that it was a signal from God to have her intervene in his life and take action.  Her response is then based on the meaning that she chose to give to what happened, and the meaning she gave it came from her context, her story about what she’s up to in life.

Sam, who has no such clarity around his life’s purpose and has no goals for his life, might have taken the push personally, said something nasty and an argument or fight might have ensued.

No Space.

So this comes full circle back to the examined life.  What are you up to in life?  Who are you?  What are your personal ethics?  What are you creating with your life?  Great questions for the life practitioner.  It might take you years to evolve the answers that work for you, and it is essential to have at least some work-in-progress answers now if you’re going to make good use of the Space.

The other day a friend of mine called me to share that he had a huge breakthrough while sitting on the can.  He thought that last bit of detail essential to the share.

The breakthrough that he had during his biological “functioning” was that he was automatically and unconsciously coming from “Something’s wrong.”   From his personal, family and business life he realized he automatically looked at what was wrong with everything.  He wasn’t doing this all of the time, but enough to affect his mood and close him down to new possibilites.

His real breakthrough came from realizing that he could just as easily look at what was right about all these areas in his life … and presto!  He did, and immediately his mood shifted; he was in a space to act powerfully for his future.

I reminded him about a book that I told him about and that I have on my site store called “Change The Way You See Everything.”   This book does an excellent job of highlighting how we can shift our perspective, and the very profound effect such a perspective-shift practice can have on your outlook on life, your happiness.

The authors call it Asset Based Thinking (ABT) vs. the Deficit Based Thinking (DBT) that most people have as their default settings.   Personally I think that ABT is our “Factory” setting - just look at kids - and somehow through the people we’ve associated with and the media we consume this factory setting got changed to DBT.  Everybody knows this at some level, yet it takes some event - like finding this book for me, or having an epiphany on the can for my friend - for us to remember.

There is another great practice similar to ABT that is called the Thought Exchange which I’ll share about at another time.   In the meantime, I highly recommend “Change The Way You See Everything” for yourself, your kids (before DBT takes hold), and anyone in your life that needs a friendly reminder that there are other more valuable ways to look at everything in life.  Be well.

A while back, I was standing in the elevator of my building and this woman came in with her kids, and somehow we started talking.  Nothing unusual, and then she said, “I’ve seen you around the building, and you seem like such a nice man.”  She seemed to be a native Spanish speaker and this made her words even more special for me.

“Wowww!”  I said, truly blown away by the sincerity, warmth, and generosity of her words.

She went on.  “I mean it.  There is something special about the way you smile and look at people.”

There was no agenda in her speaking to me except to acknowledge me for what she saw, and the effect on me was immense.  I thanked her for sharing what she said, and I remember leaving the elevator and walking to my destination feeling Tony-the-Tiger Grrreaaaaat!  And it lasted the rest of the day.

It’s amazing how powerful words are to heal, to love … to destroy.  Sadly, we usually use them unconsciously and many of us carry around the scars for the rest of our lives.   I did a program once called Team Management and Leadership and one of the things we were trained in is how to acknowledge people.  I had forgotten the beauty and power of this little practiced art and I’m happy to have this in my life again.

I’m making acknowledgments (like the gift that happened to me in the elevator) part of the practice of my life, and I’m happy to say I delivered one to a complete stranger on a subway yesterday and it felt great.  I’ll write about that another time.

Why not take the time to acknowledge someone in your life for the difference they make?  Your waiter, your co-worker, son, daughter, boss etc.  It’s different than saying thanks for something, and there is no agenda on your part apart from sharing something authentically.

It’s a way of saying,  I see you; you make a difference; the world is a better more beautiful place because you are in it.

Try it.   You may find it truly is better to give than to receive.

It is quite amazing what music does to me; how it makes me move, sing; how it brings up emotions … no, how my emotions respond like they are in a dance with the music. The music calls and my emotions answer - in an instant. And then the dance begins, often literally. I am compelled to move once the music speaks to me. Sometimes with poignant emotion, sometimes with just an infectious rhythm that I feel compelled to express myself to. I want to answer it’s call. And so if I don’t move my body, I drum … on something - much to the chagrin of some people around me. Too bad for them I think. On the other hand, I often meet people who are amused and intrigued by my spontaneity.

No question, music is our easiest access to transformation. Without music most of the movies you’ve seen would not have had the emotional impact they’ve had. Take a look at the video clips that I posted on July 11th and 17th of this year. Do you think either of them would have been noteworthy without the music?

Music literally transforms how you feel in an instant, and for The Practice of Your Life I would like to bring this to your attention, because how we feel - our mood, our attitude towards things - directly influences what’s possible for us. Music transforms our mood, how we feel in a particular moment. Music can literally transform who you are being while you are listening. Want to feel aggressive, happy, sad, angry, determined, passionate, anxious, fearful, terrified, proud etc., etc. There’s a song out there that will do the job.

The power of music comes from it’s ability to bring up the entire range of possible emotions in us. So why not bring attention to the music that you listen to? Consciously categorize the music you listen to by the mood it brings up for you, and use it to transform negative emotions to positive ones, to transform down moods into up moods.

(Disclaimer: I’m not saying that there is anything bad or wrong about down moods or negative emotions. Human beings are meant to experience the full range of emotions, and you’d never know which way was up if you’ve never been down. I am saying that your mood does influence how you think, what you say and what you do. Up moods tend to open up more possibilities in your thoughts, words and deeds, and down moods tend to shut down possibilities. I am saying that you can consciously choose to change your mood and when you do music can help.)

Happy music for me comes from the Caribbean and South/Latin America e.g. Soca, Zouk, Merengue, Salsa, Samba etc. Most of the songs of these types lift me up and I want to grab a woman in dance.

When I want to feel powerful I listen to Sinatra and sing.

When I want to feel or express sorrow, there’s no one artist for me but there are several songs that bring up a sweet beautiful sorrow like, This Old Man (Kenny Rankin), This Woman’s Work (original by Kate Bush and a really great interpretation by Maxwell), A Day in the Life of a Fool (done by Kenny Rankin and really emotional rendition by Patrick de Santos).

Some songs like And So It Goes (Billy Joel) and Yesterday When I was Young (Charles Aznavour) make me reflect on my life.

Songs like Drown in My Own Tears (Ray Charles) bring up a cheerful, sad, wise optimism about life. Ray Charles by the way covers the whole gamut for me. In fact if I were to have only one Artist’s work with me on a deserted island it would be his.

Lounge music creates a great atmosphere for sensuality, and when I want to work out I look to Rockitwave 8.

So why not take an inventory of your music and start using it for effect. In the same way that you might use music to artfully engineer a seduction, or produce a max calorie burn, you can also use music to set the stage for thinking, reading, reflecting and simply managing how you feel. I highly recommend using music in the practice of your life. And you get to create what that looks like.

Tip: Use whatever feels.

A very special friend was recently confiding in me that she had not been intentional around creating her company; she had let several several months go by and was now staring into the dragons mouth of her financial obligations without a knight in shining armor; not that she was looking for one. She knew that she could easily take care of her financial concerns. It was the though of having to put her dreams on hold to deal with the dragon that was upsetting.

So what to do?

As if I should know. I really wish I was the oracle of Gales, and this time - as you’ll see - I clearly was not.

In my manly, and practical “wisdom” I advised her that she had to deal with the reality of her circumstance in order to move forward. Therefore, she might have to face the “karma” of her prior inaction and get a temporary job. She was not very happy, yet she acknowledged that this might be the only way.

Lucky for her, I’m not the only oracle she consults.

She called me the other day, all pumped up and bursting with enthusiasm, to tell me that she was focusing 100% on her business. She had abandoned any search for a traditional, albeit temporary job, as a solution to her current financial dilemma.

This revelation, from her “other” oracle - I know I’m not the only one - got her to see that giving anything less than 100% to her dreams was a sell-out, and would not only delay or derail her dreams but would make her miserable.

It’s funny when you know something is right for you how you feel inside, and it was clear that my friend was bursting with joy. Deep inside she already knew following her bliss was the only course for her, and was only looking to have it validated by someone she trusts. Not hearing it from me, she turned to someone else to get that validation. This was all she needed to really cast off from all that she knows and sail into the uncharted waters of her future.

I was and am very happy for her, and especially that someone else was there to focus her on what her own soul was telling her. She also shared a particularly fitting quote which I’ll share with you here:

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

Adre Gide

Through this experience with my friend I learned a valuable lesson for myself:

It is a gift to have a dream, and there is no greater expression of love for yourself and life than to follow that dream.

Hmmmm! That may be quotable.
And a lesson for you: Always have your back up oracle. Always get a second opinion when it comes to medicine and matters for the soul.

I want an iPhone so bad it hurts. I recently spent some time alone with one and maaan, …. it was hot. The way it responds to my every touch. A gentle caress and I’m invited into worlds I never knew were available for me to explore. And they’re oh so exciting.

I can geographically explore anyplace in the word, I can listen to my iPod, I can look at YouTube video clips and I can surf the net. I mean really do those things. And it’s good in any position. If I turn it on it’s side it orients itself to me.

Ooooooooooohhhh.

I have to curb my enthusiasm though. You see I’m currently in a relationship with a Curve. And it’s sitting right next to me as I write this.

It’s a Blackberry Curve. You know the type. I’m sure you’ve seen them around. Attractive and functional, it takes care of my needs - email, contacts, calendar, handles all of my calls very well. But something has gone out of the relationship.

I’ve been through this so many times before you’d think I’d be past this by now, but I can’t seem to get over that initial heat. When they first come out they’re so sexy; everything you want, especially all of the stuff you already have with your current phone, but somehow this new model does it better. And then there’s the new things that my current model can’t do, and it’s slimmer smaller than the Jenny Craig posterchild I currently use for a phone. Oh God! I just have to have the new model.

And then you get the new one, and the first initial synch is scary, but then it fully replaces your old model and it’s great. Everybody’s staring at the two of you and life is wonderful.

A few months go by and you notice that you don’t much care for the new things that it can do. Doesn’t work as well as the hype and so you go back to only using the old reliables that you used on your old model, except in a slimmer version. After a few months, you start taking it for granted, and you start looking at other phones. You’re just looking, you’re not searching for a replacement or anything shallow like that, you’re just … well… looking.

What lesson does this have for my life I wonder? Well I’m still single so ….. hmmmm. Wonder what’s the lesson?
No. I won’t go there.

Sticking to technology I do notice that this is a good exercise in practicing restraint. I really do not need the iPhone and it’s certainly not a practical time for me to make such a switch, especially given that I’ll have to change carriers, and pay a penalty to get out of my contract. A hassle(hof).

For me this crazy lust is here to teach me that feeding it isn’t the answer. Responding every time a craving shows up doesn’t make me happy. (See my post on 30 July 2008.) All it does is distract me from my path. It doesn’t mean I stop feeding my desires or that there’s something wrong with them. It just means that I should control them and not the other way around.

I’ll get an iPhone - just not now. With conscious practice the anticipation becomes part of the enjoyment.

“This is a gel Sir. And you’re not allowed to take more than 3.4 ozs of gel on board,” said the security officer as I avoided his gaze. I could feel the irritation rising up within me. After all, I had gone through several airport security checkpoints with said gel and had never been questioned. Now this bozo was “doing his job” and taking away my expensive hair gel.

“Then why was ….” I stopped myself. “Never mind,” I said and focused on his continuing rummage through my toiletries. He finished and told me I could go. As I repacked my things I was aware of the familiar tenseness in my body. That rigidity that comes from being angry or really irritated at some perceived injustice. Then I remembered a discussion I had with my friend Natalie only the night before.

We were discussing our reactions to things that go wrong when we’re in nature vs. when we’re among people (in man-made settings). We both acknowledged how angry we tend to get when another human being does something “stupid” or “irresponsible” like cut us off in traffic. Contrast that reaction to the reaction we have when something goes wrong in nature, particularly when it’s nature who is the perpetrator.

For example, you’re hiking up a trail and discover a landslide blocking your path. How do you react? Natalie and I both agreed that in that situation we just deal with it. Turn around, find another path etc. We do not get angry at the landslide.

I do not have a lot of experience camping but I know lots of campers, and I expect that their reaction to things that thwart their intentions in nature are markedly different from their reactions to things that thwart their intentions when they’re back in the city.

I prefer the nature reaction myself. Getting irritated, angry or otherwise upset solves nothing except ruin relationships and damage my health. In extreme situations people do physical harm to each other. And for what? A tube of hair gel? A raised eyebrow or middle finger?

In any given situation, or moment in time, people will do what they do. Their actions and responses are beyond your control. Just like a landslide occurring or the rain falling. When I think of it that way I realize it’s just as inappropriate to get upset with the guy that cuts me off in traffic as it is to get upset at the landslide. I just take the appropriate action to honor my original intent – get to work, or the top of a hill – and deal with the changing circumstance that is not directed at me personally.

And this last has really been interesting to observe in myself. When something interrupts my plans, my first reaction is to take it personally. I can no longer do what I want, go where I want, have what I want. After all it’s all about me isn’t it?

I remembered this conversation as I walked away from the security checkpoint and took a deep breath. I could let my hair gel go, and acknowledge that this poor guy is doing his best to keep us all safe and his biggest challenge is less with terrorists and more with selfish assholes like me.

A little further I almost walked into a woman who had suddenly stopped to check for something in her bag. In a millisecond I felt the surge of irritation begin, and then I remembered the landslide. I smiled and let it go.