Are You Willing to Take a Stand?

Dated: date 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?

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Three Fingers Pointing Back at You

Dated: date August 4, 2009 – 9:57 am

istock_000001615240smallIt’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.

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Paralyzed with Doubt and Fear

Dated: date July 31, 2009 – 9:06 am

Nervous WreckOne of my clients is paralyzed with doubt and fear.  He says  “I wish I knew what I wanted.  I wish I didn’t feel so paralyzed.  Every decision is hard for me.  Why can’t my life be easy like other people?”

The Drunk Monkey strikes again.  Fear and doubt are important mechanisms of The Drunk Monkey (your mind).  Fear and doubt are guiding forces away from potential danger.  The problem for most people, including my client, is that life is not dangerous at all.  Not knowing what to do with your life is not dangerous.  Therefore when you are in fear and doubt just notice how you are hallucinating that something bad is going to happen and you are avoiding that illusion.

The second part of my client’s statement is “Why can’t my life be easy like other people?”.  Again, this is a misperception.  After coaching more than 8300 people to achieve happiness and success I can tell you with certainty that lives look easy on the outside but everyone’s monkey makes it difficult on the inside.

Life isn’t hard.  Your resistance to what life is makes it hard.  If you will pause and see The Drunk Monkey madness in your head for what it is, then you will be able to let it go and move forward again.

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How to Neutralize Negativity

Dated: date July 13, 2009 – 9:21 am

kill_your_computer_hg_whtYesterday I posted a thought about how positive people rarely deal with their negativity because they feel it will make them negative.  I proposed that the problem with not dealing with the negativity that lurks below the surface is that it seeps out of you in ways that others can sense.  You end up becoming a rose garden with a sewer underneath.  I had some great comments on various social sites that I wanted to address.

Negativity is neutralized by becoming aware of its source.  I define negativity as the resistance you have to what is so.  Life is just lifing along and then you are resisting what ever it is doing.  The past is simply a figment of your imagination that you are now resisting.  The future is a hallucination you are having that you are resisting.  People are just doing whatever they are doing and you are reacting to your opinion of what they are doing.  It’s not what they are doing that bothers you, it is your opinion about what they are doing that is bothering you.

In a nutshell, your opinion is the source of your negativity.  And where does this opinion come from?  Your infinite wisdom?  NO!  The Drunk Monkey in your head!!!!  All hail the great and wise Drunk Monkey.  You have been conditioned like a dog to think that “this is the right way to pee!  That is the right way to dress!  Those are the right behaviors!”  But all of that is just your parents or whoever raised you doing their best to get you ready for life.  What you believe about the world is not the truth.  What you believe is just conditioning.  Today, just roll with life and watch negativity dissipate before your eyes.

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Faust on Inspiration and The Drunk Monkey

Dated: date May 10, 2009 – 11:00 am

istock_000005539091mediumThis is a quote I saw on the back of a wine bottle the other night and thought it was worth commenting on.

“If feelings fail you vain will be your course. And idle what you plan unless your art springs from the soul with elemental force.”

This is my interpretation. “If feelings fail you vain will be your course.”  When you are not connected to your feelings, your heart, you are connected to your mind, The Drunk Monkey.  The Drunk Monkey is all about getting ahead, manipulating and strategizing to stay alive.  This is self-centered, vain behavior.

“And idle what you plan unless your art springs from your soul with elemental force.”  Stop taking action until you are inspired.  If you take actions based on The Drunk Monkey’s goals to dominate, get ahead, stay alive, be important etc, then you will win the battle but lose the war.  You can achieve your goals but you will be left feeling empty.  Wait to be pulled forward by your inspiration and your goals and dreams will happen in magical ways and leave you feeling satisfied and complete.

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9 Conditions of Fear

Dated: date May 4, 2009 – 9:21 am

SadnessTwo months ago I published 10 ways you let fear get a hold of you.  I continue this exploration with 9 Conditions of Fear.

As a Life Coach, my intention is to demonstrate the conditions that make fear more favorable.  In phase III of the Inspired Action Coaching process my coaches and I work with people to shift the conditions of life to support happiness and success.

Consider this idea, “Your environment dictates who you are!”  Most people have allowed the conditions of their life to set themselves up.  Rather than being deliberate, they are accidental.  This list helps you to see 9 more negative conditions that can be turned into positive conditions with the proper discipline and structure.

Bottom Line:  When fear gets a hold of you, life stops working effectively.  Fear makes everything worse.  Here are 9 more ways that fear grabs a hold of you and why you should do the opposite.

1.  Lack of exercise. When you exercise, you fill your body full of happy chemicals.  When you don’t, you run low on endorphins (one of the three happy chemicals).  People who don’t exercise are more susceptible to fear.

2.  Not connected to your vision. If you aren’t clear about your vision, you will be pulled into other people’s visions.  This means you will be haunted with an “I’m not there yet” feeling which is really a fear that you aren’t living your true purpose or that your life is being wasted.

3.  Being in an uninspired state. When you are not inspired, you are most likely present to the mundane in your life or worse, what isn’t working.  Stay in either one of these states long enough and The Drunk Monkey will start to chant “You aren’t good enough!  Your life is meaningless!”  This, of course, is just fear.

4.  Resisting being blocked. There will be times when you are blocked and not moving forward.  These are natural times of rest and reconsideration.  If you panic and resist this state you will be gripped by fear.

5.  Not being conscious. If you are not aware of The Drunk Monkey (your mind) and all of it’s crazy imaginings, then you will naturally get pulled into your thoughts.  All thoughts have some fear at its source.  Not being conscious of your thoughts leads to being gripped by fear.

6.  Being on autopilot. Closely related to not being conscious but with a twist.  When you go on autopilot it is often a form of resignation, “Why bother?” You get it, right?  That’s just fear of taking new action.

7.  Enter into the realm of mind. When you listen to your mind, The Drunk Monkey, you are listening to a machine that uses fear as a tool for action.  Your minds job is to recognize potential danger and avoid it.  Listening to The Drunk Monkey is like watching the news.  The news focuses your attention on what’s wrong to keep you a breast of what might be wrong in the world.  Only problem is, most of it does not have any thing to do with you.  Pay close attention to the mind and you will find the same thing.

8.  Being the victim of my circumstances versus the creator of my experience. Not everything is under your control.  You are not the ruler of the universe.  But you are in charge of your reactions.  If you allow The Drunk Monkey to control your reactions, then you will be afraid.  When something unwanted happens, and it will, step back from the mind and see yourself as the creator of your experience, the controller of your response.  This will bring peace.

9.  Not listening to or reading my mentors. It’s amazing how positive your feelings can get by just reading a few words or listening to a mentor’s voice.

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