A client made this for me after a recent session. She was describing how work and life were going well but, you know, everything could be better. So I replied to her good is good.
All due respect to Elton John, but I’ve found acceptance—not ‘sorry’—seems to be the hardest word.
We crave it on an almost cellular level—in fact, our very existence was once tied to acceptance from our tribe. Today, we seek it all the wrong places from the size of our paycheck to our number of “likes” on Facebook. We search for it from strangers and spouses alike. We try to fill our acceptance vacuum with everything from boxed wine and Netflix to spin class and Xanax.
It’s become a predictable but all too common phenomenon: A beloved celebrity dies, and the social media blame games begin. As news of a celebrity death spreads across our screens, most people act, well, as decent human beings.
We experience the shared grief and sadness at a life lost too soon or celebrate a long life lived well. As the comments, tweets and remembrances roll in, most people express sadness, kindness, and loss with respect.
One of the biggest tricks to plugging in and thinking possible is finding your flavor.
Why do I use the word “flavor”? Because I want to help you to get you out of your head and into your heart and soul. So much of our programming has to do with thinking. And thinking is great! For some things. We need our thinking brain for math and science and maps and all kinds of other logic-based reasoning, but what we know about happiness is that it is NOT one size fits all principle. There is no one correct solution for everyone, the way there might be to a math or science problem. Therefore thinking only is not the sole key toward achieving happiness. We must also include the heart.
Many sessions with my clients are sprinkled with thoughts about regret.
What if I had done this instead of that?
Why didn’t I know this sooner?
What if I had gone, not gone, chosen a different doctor?
When I came up with the term to think possible, it was in response to years of thinking that to be successful you had to be close to perfect. As I dismantled my own belief that one had to be excellent in every way to be excellent in some ways I realized that many of the people that came in to see me felt the same way. If I am not almost perfect in all ways I can’t be amazing in any one way?
So this is what we did. It is what we do. We spent all day making the massa sovada, the bread of my ancestors. We baked it the way my dad’s mom had, which she had learned from her mom, and her mom had likely learned from hers. The recipe has changed a little, but with so few ingredients, it remains pretty similar. We do this to connect to my grandma. By connecting to her we connect with each other (which was her biggest passion anyway).
You will be okay again – the art of getting back up
The last couple years I have been suckered punched. I have also learned to get up after being sucker punched. In between those knock outs I have experienced a full and wonderful life.
How do you feel when someone comes to you with pain…emotional or otherwise? What happens in your body? What do you want to do? What do you want to say?
Now picture when you are in pain…emotional or otherwise, what is that you want? What is it that you most want people to say or do?
Awhile ago my husband and I went to go see the unique and iconic singer Sia. She was amazing and we thoroughly enjoyed the show.
She never took center stage, instead choosing to stand off to the side. Her face was never visible. She stayed hidden behind her iconic wig. On center stage were her amazing dancers and actors and her full, beautiful voice filled the space around us. It was a full production. Yet she never placed herself at the center of it all.