It’s a place I’m free to be – My space.

It’s an indescribable feeling. No wonder young people are drawn to set up accounts for themselves and display their expressions of freedom on a place in cyberspace called MySpace.

But that’s not my My Space.

My space is really not a place at all. It’s a feeling. I can’t describe it to you because words fail. It’s like trying to explain being in love to someone who’s never been.

The best I can do is let you know there’s my space for you too.

I’m reminded of the lyrics from an old song called Five O’Clock World.

“But it’s a fve o’clock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time.”

There’s no pressure to perform in my space. There is no job waiting to be done, no bells to be rung.

You can’t meet your friends in my space – only yourself.

My space is a cauldron of creativity – an epicenter of expression.

But again, my space is not a place. You can’t reserve a table, no matter how important you are. All you need do is present yourself as ready to enter and you’ll be admitted.

Readying yourself is ridding yourself of all agendas. A cluttered mind cannot enter my space because creativity cannot enter a crowded room. It needs space – My space.

If you’ve ever witnessed an athlete or a musician in the zone, you’ve had a glimpse of my space. There is no conscious effort being expended. It’s a sight to behold.

You can enter your own zone. It’s called “My Space.”

It’s good for what ails you and an investment in becoming more alive.

After visiting my space, you become more awake to what’s already here
That which was cloudy becomes abundantly clear.
If you haven’t set up an account yet, know this – It’s free!
All you have to do is stop trying to be.

Let your “to do” list just slip away
If only for a moment, as you create a brand new day.
Calm your breathing and slow your pace
and prepare to enter your zone of expression – My Space.

All the best,

John

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The Grasshopper was up early this morning and had this to say, “Most people have the wrong ‘tude.”

Then I heard him say, “Gratitude is a bird you can’t overcook.”

Seems we all have an “attitude” about something. The thing we too often don’t realize is that it hurts us more than the person we give “attitude” to.

Our ‘tude makes us brood.

Brooding is on the other side of the continuum from gratitude.

Are you bringing “attitude” to Thanksgiving dinner?” It’s a question worth asking. Attitude is something best left off the menu because it’s difficult to digest and worse than food poisoning.

Here’s one suggestion: Check your attitude at the door and change into your gratitude apparel. There is always something to be grateful for, and you can always grab your ‘tude on your way out if you want.

Or, even better, use Jerry Stocking‘s exercise and bring the opposite forces together in your body – ‘Tude and Gratitude. The objective is to bring them in from the opposite poles and have them neutralize each other to see what shows up in their place. It’s a great way to calibrate yourself to a place of creativity, so you’re not bringing something contrived for consumption.

No one benefits by your “attitude,” especially you.

As we head into Thanksgiving, give some consideration to whom you’ll be bringing to dinner – you or your ‘tude.

Happy Thanksgiving!

John

The master plan is one I cannot see

Although I know there’s one for me

And even though I won’t figure it out

It permeates my life; I have no doubt

All the best,

John

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I’ve always been intrigued by homonyms – words that are pronounced in the same way as other words but have a different meaning.

I could write, “Mary is an old sow and sew” and unless you heard it you may not glean that I meant she was the main character in a fairy tale who just happened to be a grandmother pig who stitched things together for the family.

This morning on my way to the kitchen to brew a cup of tea, The Grasshopper popped in from out of the blue and said, “Reality is your ruler.” I immediately went back to my grade school homonym training and tried to decipher which “ruler” he meant – the overlord or the measuring device?

Turns out it’s both.

The most accurate measuring stick is reality. Anything else will give you a false measurement. When we estimate something different than it really is, we haven’t measured with the ruler of reality. Every time we do that, we re-enter the world of illusion – filled with magic tricks and diversion that divert our attention from what is – the only measurement that’s accurate. When we build with false measurements, we engineer predictable chaos.

When you finally recognize that reality rules your life, you know whom to recognize and pay homage to. When we deny that reality is our ruler, we organize uprisings that lead us back to the land of what isn’t – a fictional place that fosters foment. It’s a vicious circle that always has us railing against reality – our ruler.

“Reality Rules” is a bumper sticker I would put on my car. It’s never not the case. Reality always wins the day.

Had a crappy day at work? Reality wins. Had a fantastic day at work? Reality wins again. A moment can never be how it isn’t.

When you recognize reality as your ruler, you have a golden opportunity to respond to it rather than rise up against it.

Some people never get tired of fighting with God. They spend their whole life importuning that their life should be different than it is. I even get atheists’ attention when I say that reality is God.

If I said “God is our ruler,” my message would be cast aside as a pie in the sky pronouncement by many who have no time for man-made religion. I respect that.

When you think of your ruler as reality, the message gets through to many more people. God is a polarizing concept. Have you noticed that “Infinity” isn’t? We can all agree on that unknowable concept, but not an unseen deity.

Reality is the measurable chunk of infinity that’s happening now. If you recognize that chunk as the only way it can be now, you clear space in your mind for how you can create a different reality in the future. If you go into denial, you just get thrown into the battle of “I wish it wasn’t this way” which keeps your full attention on what isn’t and keeps you from creating what could be.

My suggestion is you throw away your old warped, wooden ruler and use the one that’s precise every time – Reality. Once you swear allegiance to it, you have an opportunity to create a whole new reality.

All the best,

John

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About 25 years ago I wrote a little booklet for clients called, “Who’s in Charge?”

It was a pedestrian attempt to make the point that we are in charge of our response. One of the questions I asked was, “What feels better, someone saying ‘You’re responsible’ or someone saying, ‘You’re in charge’?” Most folks picked, “You’re in charge.” By and large, we just don’t like to be responsible.

If you are able to read and comprehend, you’re responsible. What that really means is you are able to respond.

We are so conditioned to react that we forget that we’re responsible. Many have spelled it out this way: Response-able.

You have a choice in every situation in life. You can react or you can respond.

Now let me just say that you would be one busy little bee if you chose to respond to everything. Automatic reactive patterns run a good portion of our lives and they are to be cherished. Jumping out of the way of an oncoming bus comes to mind. I like that reaction. It’s productive.

So let me make a bold statement. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS TO YOU!

Notice your reaction to that statement. It was immediate. You may agree or disagree but your reaction came so quickly that you didn’t have a chance to respond.

A softer version of that bold statement is: You are able to respond to everything that happens to you.

Your reaction to something may be automatic but if you’re observant, you can notice the reaction, while it’s happening, and quickly turn it into a response. You’re responsible!

Here is the wisdom in being responsible. The more often you choose a response to a situation that continually repeats itself, the sooner you turn it into a new productive reaction. That means the new behavior happens automatically without you having to plan it out step-by-step.

You train yourself to outgrow a reaction that’s not working and automatically replace it with one that will. That process begins with being responsible.

This is not traditional behavior modification. That’s a conscious attempt to control every step of the process and has an astronomical failure rate.

Noticing your reactions, while they are happening, is the first step towards becoming responsible. The noticing is a clutch you engage in your automatic thinking preventing it from staying in gear. The magic comes about as you, all of a sudden, begin to see other gears appear. These are options that would have remained hidden had you stayed stuck in gear. The second and final step is to choose one of those new gears. Now you’re responsible – able to choose a response. The more often you do it, the more responsible you become.

You are able to respond; you just have to notice that you’re reacting. Think of reacting as doing a one person off Broadway show where everything is tightly scripted, and view responding as improv. With improv, you don’t plan what’s going to come out, you just choose to go in another direction and know the result won’t be the same old stale script.

Responsible isn’t a bad word once you appreciate how quickly it opens doors to new behavior.

By the way, you’re responsible for anything wonderful that comes your way as a result of shifting gears.

All the best,

John

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Judgement is a conditioned response. We all do it; it’s just a matter of degree.

The best use of judgement is to experience it and let it pass as quickly as you can. When you hold on to it for too long, it quickly turns to drama. It then takes on meaning that was never intended and then creates a life of its own. It becomes a noun instead of a verb.

Notice how “Judgement” is a solid entity and “Judging” contains movement. Getting stuck with your judgements is just a matter of keeping them alive by making them solid things rather than mere actions.

When someone says, “You’re always judging me”, that’s a major clue that you’ve come upon a person who is highly judgemental of themselves and others. They easily recognize judgement because it so familiar to them.

When we judge someone, we are revealing our training. There’s a high probability that those who brought you up modeled that behavior and it became second nature to you. Think prejudice. That means to pre-judge. It’s already been done before and, through your training, you’re doing it again.

Like I said, we all do it, so what’s the best remedy for getting unstuck?

1. Judge quickly. That means to allow your judgement to have its say and then let it go. If you dwell on it, it will take up permanent dwelling in your mind. The longer you hold it, the more right you become. Right is the mother of all judgements.

    

2. Stop passing it on. The Hatfield and McCoy
   feud is an enduring saga because it’s become a universal metaphor for ongoing judgement. Keep your judgements to yourself unless you’re on the panel of American Idol.

    

This doesn’t mean you can’t give wise counsel based on your experience. That’s judicial. A great judge is not concerned with appearing right, just doing what the current situation calls for without the interference of judgement.

Your success with curtailing your amount of judgements is dependent on doing vs. trying. Trying has built-in failure. Doing involves getting involved with your thought process. That means to notice when you are judging. The more you notice, the less you’ll judge. It takes practice.

Remember: You are going up against a family tree of experience. If you try and chop the whole tree down at once, it may fall on you. Noticing allows you to dismantle your judgements one branch at a time. Before too long you have a handsomely pruned tree – one that’s not as quick to judge you or me.

All the best,

John

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Yesterday I went on an impromptu, one person photo shoot. The weather was perfect and my favorite football team wouldn’t lose until late into the night. I took my trusty new camera out and was headed for the reservoir. It’s a picturesque place, but the sky was drab and the foliage was all but gone. It looked like gray had won the day – not great for a landscape seeking shutterbug.

On the way out to the reservoir, I spotted a farm with some cattle in the field. I filed that scene in my head in case the trip to the reservoir didn’t pan out.

I saw two men doing some work in the barn and asked permission to take pictures of their small herd. They agreed.

In the interest of complete disclosure, I know very little about cattle. I have been thrown by a brahma bull (a dumb stunt from my radio days) and I was in a cow chip throwing competition. Eeww! Outside of that, I’m clueless.

As I began to set up my tripod, I began to feel like Dr. Dolittle. A good portion of the herd came over to the fence where I was getting ready to shoot. It seemed like curiosity on their part. I began talking to them just like I talk to our dog and they began to inch closer.

They all had name tags in their ears and I addressed them by name. I felt like the photographer at Walmart entertaining the kids with my banter to get them animated for the shots. Then something interesting happened. Perhaps a little back story would be helpful.

I had been thinking about my mother recently. She died 8 years ago this month and she’s been on my mind. I was telling a friend the other day how she would greet her grandchildren and little children in general. She would say, “Hiya darlin’.” Her name was Lillian. Her friends called her “Lil.”

After I took photos of my new friends who were kind enough to gather for a group shot, I was ready to pack up and head home. Then one of the gang broke away from the herd and came right over to me. She was but a foot away and she was just looking right at me. I began to call her by her name and she just stood there as though she understood the stuff I was saying.

I could feel a connection with this creature. I uncapped the lens cover on my camera and took several individual photos of her and then bid her fond adieu. When I was looking at the pictures on my computer later in the day, the significance of her name dawned on me.

It made me smile and then laugh aloud when I noticed the serendipity. My new friend’s name was “Lil Darling.”

“Hiya Mom.”

All the best,

John

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I was involved in an interesting conversation about “care” the other day. Have you ever said that someone doesn’t care about you?

That may or may not be true but you have to dig a bit further past the surface to find out.

Fill in the blank. My ____________ doesn’t care about me.

What you may find is that it’s less true than you think because you have left part of the declaration unstated. The deleted piece is this:

___________ doesn’t care for me in the way I want to be cared for, therefore they don’t care. Reminds me of a story . . .

I was hospitalized as a teenager with pneumonia. My mother came to visit me and decided that my toenails needed to be trimmed. It should be noted here that my mother never did anything gently. She proceeded to cut my nails as I lay there in my weakened state. It didn’t take but a couple of clips for her to cut down to the quick of my nail, to the point that all over the hospital you could hear my wail. In hindsight I can easily see my mother certainly cared about me, just not in the way I wanted to be cared for.

There is a lot of miscommunication about care because people aren’t communicating effectively enough. We have a tendency not to listen when the other person is describing their recipe for feeling cared about. We continue to ply our version of care and are upset when it’s not appreciated.

What makes you feel cared about? What about your partner/family member/friend/boss/co-worker? If you don’t know the answer to both of those questions, you need a “care” package.

The package includes two simple instructions:

1. Find out what makes you feel cared about and communicate it.
2. Find out what another’s care needs are and deliver.

You may come to the conclusion that someone doesn’t care for you in the way you want to be cared for. There are options at this point. You can communicate it and see if it can be rectified and, if not, you may choose to seek care elsewhere.

Think of it this way: All doctors provide care; it just may not be the type you’re looking for.

It’s hard to hit the target in a fog, so make an effort to clear the air. It’s a surefire way to find out if you or they really care.

All the best,

John

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Perhaps I felt the need to justify the tears trickling down my face yesterday when I saw the memorial service for the fallen soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. Maybe it was because I have a son who was deployed during the Gulf War. Possibly it was the empathy I felt for the families left behind with a gaping hole in their hearts. Whatever the case, I was crying.

Unless you’re an actor, crying isn’t something you choose to do. It’s an involuntary response and it’s something everyone could use more of in their life.

We’ve been conditioned not to cry – especially men. That’s counter to what was intended. We have been conditioned to logically legislate our emotions. Now that’s something to cry about.

I find myself quicker to tears in the past few years and find it to be therapeutic. If you need a reason to let your emotions get wet, here’s a practical explanation:

Crying allows you to wash away the thoughts that are stuck in your mind. As long as they stay stuck, you will be stuck with the emotion. Crying allows the emotion to flow from your mind and express itself as salty droplets of release.

If you need another reason to cry, remember this: Withholding tears takes away years.

You don’t need someone’s permission to cry, only your own. Crying doesn’t show weakness; it shows how human you are.

Hiding your humanity is an exercise against nature and will cause you unnecessary and prolonged sadness.

Make a pledge today to allow yourself the freedom to cry. It’s one of nature’s best remedies.

I leave you with some lyrics from an old song called “Cry.”

If your heartaches seem to hang around too long
And your blues keep getting bluer with each song
Remember sunshine can be found behind the cloudy skies
So let your hair down and go on and cry.

All the best,

John

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We’ve all been teenagers. If your memory is anything like mine, you want to forget some of the goofy things you did during that period of your life. The list is too extensive to cite all the inane things, but suffice it to say it’s a long list.

My guess is you have outgrown a number of those behaviors. For example, that probably means you wouldn’t wear one of those crazy outfits today, even on Halloween.

Every time you truly outgrow something, you peel away a layer of conditioning. And with every peel, you reveal.

What gets revealed is you. There you are hiding under layers of conditioning.

Who you are is the light that’s attempting to shine through all the layers. The light never goes out; it just gets dimmed by each layer we adopt.

We had help covering our light through social, cultural and parental conditioning. It really wasn’t our fault. We got what we got, but the sadder news is we believe that’s who we are.

We confuse who we are with the conditioning we’ve received and it keeps our light from shining bright.

There comes a time in everyone’s life where something loses its meaning for you. Something that was so important, no longer is. That’s a layer of conditioning being peeled away. You are coming closer to the light.

This layer peeling, quite often, isn’t a happy event, just a necessary one. It can feel as though you accidentally found out that you’ve been adopted. That unsettling feeling of being deceived is quickly replaced as we bathe in the rejuvenating light of illumination.

Some peeling happens naturally and some is self induced. Either way, it’s beneficial.

Genuine peeling is never preceded by a “should” or an “ought to.” It’s more of an internal nudge to find our light.

You can defend your conditioning until the day you die but that’s just arguing for your limitations. A better plan is to discover your true brilliance.

Anybody got a paint scraper?

All the best,

John

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