Dated:
January 9, 2010 – 1:01 pm
Complaints are normal. Everyone complains. If you listen to the random thoughts in your head, which I call The Drunk Monkey, you will hear thousands of complaints a day.
It’s natural. Complaints are aspects of your experience that The Drunk Monkey disagrees with. Life happens, people do things and your brain says, “That should not be that way!”
The truth is that complaining is a survival mechanism. Since complaints describe that which you believe is not good, complaints are a way of identifying potential threats and avoiding them. The Drunk Monkey believes that making them known gives you the possibility of avoiding, killing or changing the situation.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. In fact the exact opposite occurs. When you resist something, you attract it to you. What you resist persists. When someone does something you don’t like, your attention to it will have you notice even more cases where people do this thing you don’t like. The more you focus on it, the more you see it everywhere and the more annoyed you get. Next thing you know your life has all these people who aren’t doing what you like. Your experience of life is degraded. BY YOU!!!
Kill Your Complaints With Awareness
You are the creator of your experience and not the victim of your circumstances. You get to determine if something annoys you or not. To choose to be annoyed is, well, stupid. Because you are the one making your life suck. Your opinion is the source of your suffering. The Drunk Monkey has an opinion on everything including things it knows nothing about.
Notice today how little control you currently have over your opinion of the situation. Notice that you are The Drunk Monkey’s puppet: that your reality is autopilot. Just notice that your reality is not created by your desire to be happy, fulfilled and joyous. Your reality is an accumulation of unexamined reactions to stimulus in your environment.
With this awareness you become more flexible. New ways of reacting become apparent. With these new options you feel powerful. Try it and let me know what happens.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Dated:
December 5, 2009 – 9:52 am
One of my clients wrote, “I have a problem with this man that was going to pay me $200. Now he wants to buy product for me instead of giving me the money. I know this is not a person I should be doing business anymore because he does not keep his word. I know the amount is small. What I feel angry about is that he told me I would get this money and now he wants to do what he wants with it and not give me the cash. Part of me wants to put a complaint in the company to let them know how unethical he is and at the same time… I don’t want to regret this. Not just for this at this moment, I know I need to not drag crap and let it run my life like living rent free in my head.”
The anger you feel is like drinking your own poison. The man is just doing what he’s doing and then you are allowing your broken expectations to pull you into negativity. Negativity is the resistance you have to how life actually is.
Anger Degrades You, Not Them
Anger, hate, frustration and annoyance are signs that your body believes danger is present. You must learn to take a few deep breaths and remind The Drunk Monkey in your head that situations like the one mentioned above are not actually dangerous and therefore they do not warrant filling your body full of fight and flight chemicals. Negative feelings do not allow you to think or respond powerfully.
For my friend above, the action step is simple but not easy. With out any anger or attachment to the outcome you must clearly communicate what you want i.e. “Giving me product instead of the cash does not work for me and is a breach of our agreement. By when can I expect to be paid the cash that is owed me.”
Now it’s in God/Universe/Source hands. Let it go and allow new good things into your life. Or the focus on what you don’t have will stop the flow of the new stuff you want.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Dated:
August 16, 2009 – 12:13 pm
Most powerful people mistakenly believe that anger is a choice. With further examination and attention to the matter you will see that the body reacts to potential threats automatically. To control the answer and turn it into something positive you need to do the following:
a. Notice the body reacting negatively. Most positive people avoid negative feelings. A more powerful thing to do is to feel them completely to understand the feeling. Rather than resisting it or denying it, feel it fully from a detached observer point of view.
b. Step back and see the whole situation. See the upsetting situation from all points of view and notice that the anger, fear etc dissipates quickly.
In the anger is automatic. Happiness, peace, joy and all the other positive emotions are chosen.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Posted in Featured, Inner Peace
|
Tags:
anger, breakdown, Conflict Resolution, Drunk Monkey, Fear, frustration, Happiness, Inner Peace, Inspiration, Joy, Life Coach, Life Coaching, Peace of Mind
Dated:
August 12, 2009 – 10:58 am
Sometimes you have to take a stand for what you believe in. Sometimes the entire structure of your life is fighting against your deepest desire. These moments of extreme resistance, breakdown and depression are actually transition points from one type of living to the next.
New life come with a hefty price. It is destructive. Your old life will fight back, push you down and tell you that you can’t have what you want.
In those moments you must learn to tame The Drunk Monkey and take a stand for what you believe is possible. It’s not easy, it’s not effortless and it’s not enjoyable. It’s scary and hard. But the reward of your new life is worth the temporary pain and destruction. So go for it.
Are you willing to take a stand for the life you want?
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted in Featured, Goal Setting
|
Tags:
anger, Decision Making, Drunk Monkey, Fear, frustration, Goal Setting, Inspired Action, Life Coach, Life Coaching, Life Questions, motivation, Take a stand
Dated:
August 4, 2009 – 9:57 am
It’s a classic metaphor. When you are pointing the finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at you. Blame is destructive. If you are committed to living a happy and productive life, then you must give up blaming others for anything that happens. Are there instances where other people are at fault? Yes. Does that make a difference in your happiness and success? No. In order for you to experience happiness and success you must move in the direction being the creator of your experience.
Happiness and success occur when you are totally responsible for your life in every way. Meaning, no one and nothing out there in the world have dominion over you.
Do you have control over the world? Not always. But do you have control over your experience of the world? Yes. How you choose to view a situation determines your actions which influences the results. When you take the blame for everything that occurs in your life, when you declare yourself responsible for the experience you are having, you can turn lemons into lemonade.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Dated:
August 1, 2009 – 10:54 am
Happy people remember that anger is nothing more then a hallucination that danger is present. Happy people see The Drunk Monkey (the mind) doing its job and moving us away from what might hurt us. Happy people recognize that there is very little danger in the world. Happy people understand that…
- Being embarrassed is not dangerous
- Looking stupid is not going to kill you
- Having your opinion contradicted is not a threat
- Not getting what you want is no big deal
Happy people seek to live in the truth. The Drunk Monkey is in a constant state of assuming, assessing, and hallucinating. Thoughts are not the truth. Thoughts are just assumptions and hallucinations. Happy people don’t trust their thoughts.
Popularity: 8% [?]
