Has your life been commandeered by routine?

That’s really a loaded question. What specifically is meant by “routine”?

Here’s my limited definition: Stuff you do that you don’t want to do.

There are many things that most all people do that they don’t want to do. The real question is: Do those things make up most of your routine?

If that’s the case, it’s time for, as the comedians’ say, “a new act.”

I am a big fan of routine (for me). It sets a framework for getting things accomplished. I’m a list person; I keep electronic sticky notes on my computer and regular ones in other places as reminders of things I want or need to do.

The part where it seems as though someone else has taken over my life is when all those sticky notes contain things I don’t want to do. That’s when the uprising begins. It seems as though part of me goes on a sit-down strike. I don’t do anything.

I want to do things but become temporarily paralyzed by the daunting list of things to do. I don’t believe I’m alone.

The good news is I have found a remedy to keep this from happening.

If you’re anything like me, your list, written down or not, contains tasks. Where is it written that the only thing you can write down is a task?

How many people put “take a warm bath” or “take a nap” on their list? No, the list is filled with chores.

When you are listing the things that you want to accomplish, make sure to include things that are pleasurable and assign them a high priority.

I’m a tea drinker. One of the things on my list is take a break and enjoy a cup of tea. If it’s nice outdoors, I’ll brew a cup and take the time to sit out in the fresh air and enjoy it. When I worked for others, I would routinely go sit outdoors for about 15 minutes and breathe in the fresh air. It was a coffee break without coffee. It was pleasurable and cleared my head for other things I wanted to accomplish.

Too many keep these practices as rewards when they are all done their tasks. I’m suggesting that it take on the same importance as “clean the bathroom” or “get this proposal to so and so.” Make pleasure a planned part of your routine.

It’s a tiny shift in focus but can really pay dividends in helping you move through your list. It will make your day anything but routine.

All the best,

John

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Here is a disease everyone suffers from. I am normally hesitant to write “everyone,” but in this case it truly applies.

The disease is called I.Y.H. That’s an acronym for “In Your Head.”

How much time do we spend inside our head chatting up a storm that no one can hear and is of no consequence? This inside meeting of the mind diverts us from what’s really happening as we churn out our edited, biased, reinterpreted version of reality.

The only consolation we can take in having this malady is that everyone else does too.

But I want to warn you of a more insidious disease that I found out about some 20 years ago. It’s called R.C.V.

R.C.V. is an ill that the late Dr. Dave Dobson discovered. It stands for “Rectal Canal Vision.”

R.C.V. is very similar to I.Y.H. with this one major distinction: Your head is up your ass.

The difficulty here is that even if you open your eyes, you’re still in the dark.

The only known treatment for R.C.V. is a major intervention.

Occasionally, it’s divine intervention that brings the cure, but that’s a rare occurrence.

We normally need someone’s help in extracting our head from this dark hole.

You know you suffer from R.C.V. when you deem your way, the only way in most circumstances.

Generally speaking, R.C.V.– ers are located on one of the far fringes of an ideology. It really doesn’t matter which far fringe they are on, they suffer equally, and so does anyone in their sphere that has bought into their insufferable, narrow focus.

People infected with R.C.V. are immune to the facts, so logic is not an extraction tool.

Shunning them drives them deeper into their hole to churn out more insane rhetoric. (Think the “Unabomber.”)

The problem today is that you don’t have to crank out your manifesto on an old typewriter; you now have the internet. All you need is a computer or a smart phone to attract a following of the dumbest people – people incapable of separating the wheat from the bullshit.

So what do we do to help those with Rectal Canal Vision? I’m reminded of the biblical phrase, “You will always have the poor among you . . .” Chances are, most of these people will die with this disease, but some can be saved.

Now this is only a guess, but I believe the cure is attention. It’s my experience that people with R.C.V. just don’t get enough attention. I’m not talking about attention to their convoluted message, but plain old attention to them as a human being. Put them in your presence and pay attention to them past their ideology.

It’s this giving of attention that brings light to their narrow living space and shines a light outward to a broader view. This isn’t talking them down; that never works. It’s giving them the time of day that helps them come out and play.

It’s not easy, but it is helpful. People are starved for attention. We can all do our part by giving attention to those we normally shun. It accomplishes two things at once. It briefly gets us out of our head with our preconceived notion of who they are; and it just may get their head out of their ass.

All the best,

John

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Anytime you say something is something, you are tacitly implying the words “to me” on the end.

For example, if I say something is interesting, I am suggesting that it’s interesting to me. It’s not a universal fact, just an opinion.

Such is the case with “Important.”

Yesterday I witnessed something important (to me).

I watched the final round of The Masters Golf Tournament. Phil Mickelson won. Phil is one of the greatest golfers on the planet and I’ve never been a big fan – not of his game, but of him as a person. It was hard to put into words, but he rubbed me the wrong way, until yesterday.

His wife, Amy has been undergoing treatment for breast cancer since last summer. Her face was a staple out on tour as was their beautiful family, but we hadn’t seen them recently due to her illness. Yesterday, she came out for the final round. She had been in bed all week but mustered the strength to come out on Sunday to watch her husband compete.

After Phil put in the final putt and sealed the victory, he briefly exalted, hugged his caddy, shook hands with his playing partner and headed off the course to sign his score card. It’s there that he saw his wife and leaned down and hugged and kissed her. It was one of those embraces where neither one wanted to let go. It was a powerful, emotional moment caught on camera.

He had just won one of the most prestigious tournaments in golf but he spent his glory moment demonstrating what was important (to him).

This display also highlighted a major contrast between arch rivals Phil Mickelson & Tiger Woods off the course. Tiger, with his recent behavior, didn’t know what was important. He’s now in the process of finding out what Phil knows.

It is hoped that Tiger can find what’s important and get his personal life in perspective.

The bigger issue is: “What’s important to you?”

Is it a series of cultural conquests or a deeper sense of connection?

This is important: You can’t buy what was displayed yesterday by Phil Mickelson and his wife.

Do yourself a favor today. Take 5 minutes and explore what’s important to you. It just may be the revelation that helps you change course.

All the best,

John

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What if your assessment is dead on, yet uninvited? What to do?

Mind your own business comes to mind. Too bad that doesn’t come to mind quickly enough.

I can speak with authority about this topic because, in the past, I’ve been a major offender. I’m not in a 12 step program but I have seen the error of my ways.

I have been blessed and cursed with people insight. My best and worst quality is the same – I spot character flaws in others.

The sticky wicket is that I, quite often, fail to see them in myself.

Sometimes, I feel like Temperance Brennan, the lead character in the TV show “Bones.” She offers fact based assessments without any regard to how they will play emotionally to those listening. The thinking seems to be, “It’s a fact and it needs to be out there.”

No it doesn’t, especially when it’s uninvited. Reminds me of a story . . .

My mentor, Dr. Dave Dobson taught something called “Other Than Conscious Communication.” For lack of a better description, it was sophisticated, two-way body language where you could communicate with another outside of their awareness and get useful feedback.

When Dave was working with someone he would ask, “Would it be OK if I pointed something out to you?” 9 times out of 10 the person would say “Yes,” consciously. Yet if you paid careful attention you would often notice that they were saying “No,” other than consciously. Dave would always give deference to the “other than conscious” response because it was unfiltered and unedited and genuinely more reliable. He would then say something like, “Well maybe another time.”

He knew his observation was uninvited and would meet with a boatload of resistance.

We don’t need Dave’s high level of sensory acuity to benefit by his practice. We can just adopt this mindset: Keep our observations to ourselves, unless asked.

This doesn’t apply to an opinion exchange that greases the conversation wheel everywhere. This is more about personal observations. If it is uninvited, keep a lid on it.

The only purpose you serve at that point is being right, again. You’ve done no service to the person you’ve observed and “outed,” other than to have them be pissed at you and resist the benefit of your “sage” wisdom.

Here’s one way it comes across: “I know something that you don’t know and aren’t I special?” Another interpretation is: “I’m better than you and you should take care of this flaw to have any chance of measuring up.”

You may mean well but that’s not how it’s received. The person oftentimes does have the flaw you observe, but it will hang around much longer if you can’t help yourself and point it out, uninvited.

Parents when they are bringing up their children do this all the time. Uninvited opinion may be a necessary intervention while your child is still growing into an adult; after that, it’s counterproductive. If they didn’t get it while under your roof, they’re probably not going to get it in this lifetime, especially when it’s uninvited.

Bottom line: You’ll be welcome more often when you recognize the rationale that keeps you uninvited.

All the best,

John

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The voice that generally speaks inside your head is not that of intuition. That internal voice comes from the conditioned you – ego – for lack of a better name.

When it comes to telling ego and intuition apart, it’s especially helpful to pay attention to the choice of language.

The language of the conditioned you will be critical – intuition is unconditioned and lacks disparagement.

The conditioned you will never miss an opportunity to beat you up; intuition never throws a punch, although it may hit you like a ton of bricks.

Intuition doesn’t contain debate. You may debate a piece of intuition after you receive it, but that’s your ego doing what it does best, engaging you in endless to and fro.

If you are going back and forth with something inside your head, that’s a sure sign your ego is at work. That won’t produce a solution, just more debate. The solution arrives when the debate takes a break, in the language of intuition.

Intuition comes as a whole, not piecemeal.

Intuition contains knowing, not doubt. It never feels as though you are guessing. It leaves the guess work to the ego.

If you are searching for an answer, the answer to pay attention to doesn’t make less of you.

Intuition comes from a quiet place but speaks with tremendous volume. In movie terminology, it’s a scene stealer. For that moment, there is no room for anything else. Intuition owns your screen.

Whether intuition arrives in picture, word or sensing form, you will know it by what it lacks – the need to second guess and the need to make you less.

Catalogue your past incidents of intuition and you will find they arrived in ready to use form – no assembly required.

Your ego is always trying to sell you something; intuition doesn’t have a sales pitch. It sells itself.

So how will you know if it’s ego or intuition? Ego will trumpet its own arrival; intuition arrives as a surprise.

All the best,

John

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It seems like just about everyone wants their life to be a masterpiece. That’s too big of a challenge even for the most skilled.

The catch-all, beneath the surface pattern driving this desire can be summed up as, “I want it all.” Truth be told, you couldn’t handle it all even if it were possible.

Most often, when we go for it all, we wind up with none, or, at least, very little.

Look at professional athletes. They excel in a certain area of their sport and fall short in another. Take golf for example. Some professional golfers can drive the ball a mile, but can’t putt. Others have mastered the sand trap (please call them bunkers) but can’t make a chip shot around the green.

Even Tiger Woods & Phil Mickelson, unarguably two of the best players in the game today, can’t keep their drives on the fairway with consistency.

People who approach mastery have mastered a piece.

They have found their niche and they fill it. This doesn’t mean that they give up attempting to improve weaknesses; the great ones always do. They just don’t go for it all, at least not at once.

The Grasshopper was in a rhyming mood this morning and said this: “Going for it all leads to a fall.” Again, Tiger Woods is the Humpty Dumpty example.

The NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) people call mastering a piece “Chunking down.” You just can’t eat a whole cow at once.

When you break something down in to pieces, it’s a lot easier to master. People become experts on their piece. Doctors, lawyers and Indian Chiefs specialize and it makes them special.

Whether in your profession or your personal life, it pays to go micro. You can’t be all things to all people and if you keep trying, you’ll miss every time.

Like with all great adventures, start small. Find a manageable piece and polish it to perfection. You may not be the world’s best baker but no one will be able to beat your brownies.

Everyone is good at something. Master that piece. You won’t get it all, but you’ll get all that matters.

All the best,

John

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I don’t know how many times I’ve said, “The universe is for expansion,” but I know it’s a lot.

Yesterday, I was having a counter-thought. I wanted it to contract to the days of yore and the “Blue Laws.”

I grew up in Pennsylvania and most stores were closed on Sunday. I always heard it was due to the Blue Laws.

I felt for the people who had to work yesterday. A part of me just wanted them to be home with their families.

But, for the most part, families are scattered these days and you can only see Ed Sullivan on DVD now.

Part of me wanted to wear a new Easter outfit, but I was out shopping in old jeans. We used to call them dungarees.

Customs were easier to follow back then because most people did – now they don’t.

The reality is that the universe is for expansion but part of me wanted to rail against that reality yesterday.

I finally arrived at a solution that worked for me. I just took a few minutes to catalogue some of my favorite memories from Easter Sundays gone by and enjoyed the warm fuzzies attached to each memory.

It was a pleasant trip down memory lane with lots of smiles and tender feelings.

I really had a wonderful day in spite of it not being yesteryear, but the universe must have been listening because the day was topped off with a wonderful surprise.

My son was visiting with his mother and he brought home a few old pictures. Imagine my surprise when one of them was a picture of me and my father all dressed up at the Jersey shore posing for a picture on the beach on Easter Sunday.

All the best,

John

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I live in Rhode Island and if you’ve been following the news, we’ve been flooded by the recent, record rainfall.

It’s not fun, and for some it’s complete inundation.

The best news is the sun is on the horizon and better days are here.

Many people are forced into activity they’re not accustomed to in a challenging situation. When they take action, they are no longer flooded with the burdensome thoughts they had before getting it in gear.

Activity serves as a dam to the mental flood. It’s a temporary fix because when the activity stops, the flood of thought returns.

Many people use activity as a diversion to escape their thoughts. You know the type – always doing something.

When you request that they slow down, you always get a defense that goes something like this: “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.”

They really believe it’s about the task; it rarely is. They just need to be active. My experience is that they don’t like themselves all that much. They pay too much attention to the voice in their head that constantly tells them they are not enough. What better way to calm that voice than to be active?

Please don’t confuse activity with an active person. There is a difference. An active person can turn off the activity; the always active seemingly can’t.

The person who is eternally active generally looks on others who don’t match their activity level as lazy. They’ve bought into a belief that they are not enough, so they are always doing to prove the voice in their head wrong.

It seems odd but the couch potato is a kindred spirit to these folks because they are also looking to turn off the flood of thoughts by doing mind numbing activities like non-stop TV watching.

The exceedingly active person may find their way to drugs or alcohol as a sedative for their onslaught of thoughts.

Never in a million years would these folks figure out that the answer to their dilemma is to STOP and spend time with their thoughts.

This time with your thoughts is not a debate with yourself. It’s more of an exercise to unemotionally observe the thoughts that drive you to become active to escape them.

The more often you take time to observe your mind at work, you’ll find that your thought process calms down and then so do you – and for many, without any of what the Rolling Stones called “Mother’s Little Helpers.”

I admire energetic people who get things done. I feel sorry for those locked into activity for activity’s sake. It’s such a waste of energy piling up those sandbags on a daily basis when the calming solution is as close as observing your next thought.

If you are perpetually active, this message is for you. You are more than enough. To have that belief sink in, you just need to shift your activity to becoming more observant.

All the best,

John

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I was traveling last week and I’m always amazed at the new perspective you get when returning home.

Home base is a refuge. It really doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done, returning home is comforting, unless you live in a house.

A home is a living entity whereas a house is just a place to hang your hat.

How comfortable do you feel at home?

Do you constantly feel the need to get out of the house? If so, it’s not a home.

People who reside somewhere, but don’t have a place they call home, are searchers. They are seeking something outside themselves in order to get that homey feel.

They are empty inside looking to fill themselves with outward pursuits and treasures. They are renting space in their own body because they can’t find their way home.

Coming home is the mission for us all. After countless searches for the missing piece, we finally arrive at a crossroads. It’s the choice we make here that will keep us house hunting or putting down roots.

The choice we get to make is to keep wandering or to come home.

To keep wandering is easy – just keep doing what you’re doing.

Coming home requires a shift.

The shift is, first, one of perspective. The angle of approach is that you have to view yourself as enough. When you can grasp that there is nothing missing in you, you can go on to step two.

Step two is shifting your awareness inward. That means to find that peaceful, homey place that is always waiting for you. It’s easy to find when you climb out of your mind.

You have difficulty finding your way home if you allow your backseat driver (the voice in your head that tells you you’re not enough) to try and guide you there. You’ll be all over the map and won’t find home.

When you start to notice that the voice in your head is not you, but an attack machine that never wants peace, you start to create space between your thoughts. It’s in this space that you discover home.

Once you figure out that the voice in your head is not you, you discover that its mission has always been to make sure you don’t feel like enough. That belief will keep you wandering.

When you begin to notice and create space, you breathe in the rejuvenating spirit of being home where you’re always accepted and where you’re always enough.

All the best,

John

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While cutting up an apple this morning, my internal voice said, “Be smart about this.”

I was carelessly cutting in a direction where I could have done harm to myself when I got the directive. I switched directions with the knife and lessened the possibility of bloodletting.

Something like this happens quite often with all of us so it’s rather commonplace, unless you make the discovery I did this morning.

It was the way the message was communicated. It was a directive that told me what to do – not what not to do. There is a major difference.

I’m reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, “Working Girl” where Melanie Griffith is walking down the streets of New York on her way to an extremely important meeting saying aloud to herself, “Don’t F*** up.” I remember having the thought at that time that it would be a much better directive if she had gotten a thought about what she wanted to accomplish rather than what she didn’t want. Of course, that was only a movie.

What flavor are your real life directives? Do you hear what to do or what not to do? If you begin to notice and adjust, you’ll be able to provide your mind with more useful information with which to work.

I come under the broad category of “people helper.” The number of people who tell me what they don’t want is astonishing. Just one little shift in perspective would increase their odds exponentially in getting what they do want. It’s a matter of what you focus on.

When you interrupt enough “don’t want” thoughts in your head and restate them as what you “do want,” you train your mind to give you “do want” directives automatically.

“I don’t want to be sick” is not a clear enough directive. It only says what you don’t want. “I want to be well” is a much clearer target to shoot for. Yes, it would be helpful to define what you mean by “well” but this is more about getting your mind to deliver the initial “do want” directives.

It takes practice and the time spent is well worth the effort.

Just observe your mind at work and you’ll hear your flavor of directives. Chances are they are mostly the “don’t want” variety. I don’t claim that you’ll automatically get what you do want by automating this process, but you’ll be steps closer.

“Don’t think of the color blue” automatically has you consider the color blue. It’s the way our mind works. “I don’t want to be sick” has you consider sickness before you consider being well. It’s an extra step that scatters your focus and delays your desire.

There are many productive uses of “don’t” in therapy, communication and advertising that are topics for another discussion. This discussion is about getting into the habit of focusing your mind on what you do want.

It’s the difference between apples and band aids.

All the best,

John

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