Questioning the Rules We Live By

"You are a victim of the rules you live by."
--Jenny Holzer

This statement is Jenny Holzer's, a modern artist whose main medium is words, and it is from one of her first notable pieces--Truisms.

The thing about these truisms (there's a long list) is that they always get me churning and mulling--because they do ring true on some level--and because each "truth" is quite complex. Which brings me back here--to the place where I am a victim of the rules I live by.  And as I have started to think about it, I am--and have felt more so recently--which has also left me examining how to be less of a victim here.

The word victim might seem extreme, and I don't love it either, because I certainly don't see myself as a victim, I don't want to see myself that way, and I certainly don't want to be an actual victim--of anything.  If I think of this, though as meaning "hurt by" or "limited by"--so you are hurt or limited by the rules you live by--then the shoe fits, even with this harsh term.  Don't get me wrong--there is some good that comes from having certain rules and being limited by them.  Life has some stability and order and predictability that it wouldn't have if there were no rules.  All of this is to say that having rules isn't so much the problem.  Having unexamined rules, however, is what makes us into victims because we are no longer exercising conscious choice.

How do I know when my rules are unexamined and limiting me? I look to how often my brain tells me I should (or shouldn't) do something.  That sense of obligation points toward being a victim of a rule.  I should clean my house, I should turn off the TV, I should cook at home more often...why?  Because other people might judge me as disorganized or unintelligent or careless with money--because people who have it together, don't live messy lives, because smart people don't watch so much TV,  because healthy people don't eat whole foods take out this often.

When I speak in can'ts and cans as if they are a permanent state of affairs, I am also pretty clear that under them is some rule that is limiting me.  I was training for a 5K last winter and as I went into the last phase to gear up for my first race, a few body parts gave up on me.  I ended up in a good bit of pain, missing the race and with some expensive rehabilitation expenses.  When that all happened, I intended to get back to running as soon as I could.  This December, I found myself saying something about my body not being made to run as the reason I hadn't gone back to it yet.  Somewhere under that was a rule I was living by about my body that has limited me--both because I wasn't running and had been enjoying it until I injured myself and because I wasn't seeing that running or not running for exercise was actually a choice I was making.

As soon as we make something a rule we believe to be TRUE, then we've given up a little of our mental freedom to question the idea, and some mental limitations creep in.  What to do about this?  Pay attention to where you are frustrated or which paths seemed blocked off by a should or can't--and then look for whether there is an underlying assumption of truth--or a rule--that you are living by.  For me, once I can see what my rule is, I can choose whether to break it.

Responding and Reacting

The world is constantly providing us with stimuli--often more than we can manage.  As human beings, we are essentially giant receptors. Together, our five senses are designed to take in and process as much stimuli from our environment as possible.  And then our brain joins in, expressing likes or dislikes-that smells bad, or good--generating and assigning meaning to what we are seeing, smelling, hearing, touching and tasting--a situation is dangerous or safe, that route is shorter and I should go that way, this waiter is nice and deserves a big tip, and so on.  And all of what we take in helps to inform how we respond to what is happening around us--Drink sour milk?  Spit it out.  Smell smoke?  Look for fire--or run from the building.

And there is the interesting part--the difference between looking to see if there is fire and running from the building after smelling smoke.  I was in a yoga class recently where the teacher spoke to this exact thing--reacting or responding, explaining these as the two main ways we come back at what comes at us. The teacher encouraged us to keep practicing yoga as it would help us move from reacting to responding. As I thought more about the distinction between the two, however, I started to see the value in each.

Let's go back to the difference between looking to see if there is a fire after smelling smoke and smelling smoke and running from the building.  I would categorize the first as responding and the second as reacting.  Responding is deliberate--and thoughtful.  It is considered--meaning we have the mental space to think of options and pick one.  Responding takes in the fullest, biggest picture of a given situation.  Rarely is a genuine response something we regret because it comes from a place of awareness, a place of being conscious of options.  Reacting on the other hand is knee-jerk, organic, perhaps even a bit out of control--like angrily flipping someone off in traffic or slamming a door as we storm out of a room.
 A reaction just comes out, often seeming like the only way to handle the situation--at least in the moment.  It can also be something we regret, especially if it involves interactions with another person, often because it reveals our lack of consideration--as would running from a building at the mere smell of smoke.

Of course, as my yoga teacher suggested, we need a certain amount of mental space or peace of mind to respond.  When we don't have that, we just react. And, in reality, we all do both as different times. There are ways in which always being able to have the mental calmness to respond sounds appealing, and it also sounds unrealistic.  Living in this world, taking in all the stimuli around me, I am bound to get grabbed by something--and maybe I should get grabbed by something.  I have realized that maybe I shouldn't really be on a quest to eliminate all of my reactions.  My reactions are quite revealing.  Without them, I might not be all that clear about what I care about, what pushes my buttons and who I am when that happens.  I need my reactions to know myself in real terms.  The lesson for me in pondering the difference between reacting and responding has been the realization that both are valuable.  Each is helping me know myself better--from a different angle.  Maybe this distinction is interesting to you too--or maybe you want to eliminate some of your reactivity--or maybe you just never thought of it this way.  In any of those cases, I would ask, if you start to pay attention, what do you notice about when and how you react and when and how you respond?  What does that tell you about yourself?

Remembering What we Forgot

I was stopped at a light on this snowy morning, waiting for the signal to turn green when the driver in the SUV next to me opened his door and got out.  He reached up to his roof rack, pulled down a small cup of coffee and climbed back into his car.  Watching this made me smile.

We've all done that--or something like it--put something on the roof of the car, or in the back seat, or on the counter by the fridge, and then sometimes we forget about it, briefly or longer.  Life can be like that--we are carrying around multiple things and we set something down somewhere and forget about it for a bit--it ends up on the back burner, even though it was important to have in our hand just a moment ago.  Hopefully we remember it while we are sitting at a light, or before we leave for the airport, or before it goes bad on the counter--and hopefully it's a cup of coffee or today's lunch and not a laptop or our wallet.  Sometimes though we remember we are missing something when it flies off the roof or spills on the back seat--or when we arrive where we were going and realize we don't have something we know we had in our hand at some point.

The reflection that happens as one year ends and another begins is a natural time to take stock of what you have put down that you wish was still in hand.  Writing regular blog posts is something I know I put down at some point this year--and I have missed it, so I am recommitting to my writing.  For me there are other things that fit into that category too--a daily meditation practice, making my way through my reading list, keeping in better touch with friends, cooking more--and I can't pick them all up at once without dropping something again--so I am not making a series of resolutions.  I am, instead, making one: pay attention to where I put my time and make sure I am always choosing what matters.  Hopefully, this way, I won't find myself juggling as many things, and what I spend my time on will be more meaningful.  What's one resolution you can make that could shift how you look at all those little things in your life you wish were different?  Once you decide what it is, write it down and post it somewhere you will see it every day--which is the equivalent of never putting it down.  And if you want more tips on how to achieve your goals, click here.

Endings--Happy or Otherwise

I have been thinking a lot about endings lately--and contemplating what it looks like to end well.  It is actually really hard to work in a school without thinking about how to end things in the month of June.  I am also wrapping up my coaching certification program and so this idea of ending well is personal as well at the moment.

What does ending well mean and what gets in our way?  I'll start with what I find stops us from ending well:

Not surprisingly, we mentally move on before we physically move on--and not ending well often hinges on this, for our minds are powerful.  When we decide we are done, we are done.  One classic example of this is the phenomenon known in schools across America as senioritis--when all the students on track to graduate in the spring find it hard to stay motivated to do their work.  We all get that sort of feeling when we know we are about to be done with something--like a job or even a relationship.  It's hard to keep putting in effort when you have already decided to move on.  What this leads to, though, in addition to not fulfilling our responsibilities, is often some guilt over either not doing our best or of cutting corners on our way out the door.

It can also happen that we get caught up in the expectations and feelings of others as we ready ourselves to move on, weighed down by guilt or wanting approval.  Other people aren't necessarily great at accepting change they haven't chosen and so they might be resentful, or they might just want nothing to change and fight the reality of the situation in front of them tooth and nail.  Either of these responses can play out in unreasonable requests for us to work harder and more hours before we leave a job or to take on and finish a project on a short timeline.  They can play out in mean or petty comments.  They can play out in being given the cold shoulder.  In the face of these reactions, we might find ourselves trying to make it better or keep the peace by acting according to what will make others happy or placate them rather than doing what we need.  The reality of the situation is that you can't hold yourself responsible for other's feelings and create your own happiness.  That is a losing battle (in this context or pretty much any other--but that is another blog post)!

Sometimes we end poorly because we have mixed or negative feelings related to moving on.  Maybe we feel we have been forced out of an organization--either actively or passively--and this can lead us to want some revenge, often extracted by doing very little.  Perhaps we feel we have been wronged in a relationship and we want to make the other person or people feel that same pain so we do something petty or actively mean.  This approach to ending though usually ends in pain and bitterness--and it rarely actually makes us feel better for it doesn't undo what was done in the first place.

Having mixed feelings about an ending, even if they aren't necessarily negative, can mean that sometimes we end poorly because we would rather not cope with wrapping things up, or we don't know how to close out that experience or relationship.  Say for example I am moving out of state and this means I will leave a job I really love when I do.  I am excited for the move but I love these people and this work and it's hard for me to say good-bye.  I act like nothing is changing for as long as I can--still engaging in my daily work and on the last day, I rush through hurried good-byes, never really telling people how much I enjoyed working with them and what our work together has meant to me.  This can be just as dissatisfying of an end--because it doesn't truly reflect how I feel and because it is incomplete.

How do we manage the complexity of all the feelings we can have about moving on?  First, cultivate self-awareness.  Are you pissed off and feeling slighted?  Are you just tired and ready for something new? Are you sad or even apprehensive?  Knowing what you are feeling is the first order of business as it can indicate why you might lean in one direction or another in terms of your behavior as you wrap up.

To that self-awareness, add some reflection.  What matters to you about how you move on?  Why is that important? If you don't spend some time thinking about and planning how you want to end, chances are high you won't end as you had hoped.  This is just as important if you are ending on a positive note as if you aren't.  As I wrap up my coaching certification program, it's important to me to get everything I can out of my supervision and time with experienced coaches.  That gives me a goal--something to focus on when I feel tired and just ready to be done with the homework and calls and readings.

Using your own goal, decide what you can and can't do in terms of ending well--where you want to invest your energy.  For me, this might mean that I put less time into some of the written homework and more time into preparing thoughtfully for my last few calls with experienced coaches.  In the situation of leaving a job, perhaps you would like to have a conversation with your boss about what did and didn't work about the position you are leaving--but you know that you can't have it without getting incensed and feeling slighted by him and the way the organization functions.  Decide if you want to invest the time and energy here.  Maybe you would rather spend the energy you have on wrapping up important projects and handing them off well to colleagues.


The beauty of an ending you choose is that you do get to write it as you wish.  Make it satisfying by aligning the way you end to the way you feel and your own goals.  Choose what matters to you and then direct your time and attention to the right places so that you can end well in your own estimation.

Three Reasons Change is Hard

In my coaching work, I interact with many people who want to make changes in their lives.  This is probably not shocking news.  After all, it's human nature to want to evolve and grow--all of which requires change.  It is also true that changing something about our lives or our interactions with someone in our lives can be extremely difficult.  Here are some of the reasons why that is:

1. Making change takes conscious, consistent effort.  We are hardwired in a way that actually makes change more work for us.  As human beings, our brains crave patterns as a way of understanding.  Our brains understand scripts and establish actions and reactions as habits.  Once something is a habit, it takes more work for us to shift it.  Here's why: when an action or set of actions fall into the habit loop, our brain is essentially on autopilot as it completes the loop.  This saves our brain energy and reduces the number of choices it has to make in any given day to a manageable number--and it makes it harder to shift our actions and change our habits.

One way to overcome this challenge is to bring your conscious attention to the pattern--and to pay close attention.  This can often require patience with yourself as you observe and take notes on or journal about the loop you want to change before you actually change it.  What's the cue?  What's the reward?  Usually what we are trying to change is the routine--but without cracking into the other two, that can be especially challenging.  Then, you can get to work on using what you know about the cue and reward to tackle the routine.

2. I think it was FDR who said something like, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and he hit the nail on the head with that one.  Change can be scary--and without even realizing we are acting out of fear, we will talk ourselves out of the very change we most want, and the actions that will help to bring it about.

Let's say, for example, that Susan doesn't like her job.  It is stifling and every day that she drives to work, she finds herself less and less enthusiastic about going.  In fact, she even starts to get mild physical symptoms at the very thought of going to work--a slight headache, a queasy stomach.  On a few different occasions she has convinced herself that the only solution is to start looking for another job--and then something happens between there and actually applying.  As she looks through ads, or works to capture her experience on her resume, she sees the holes between the list of preferred experience and her own.  She puts the resume away with half-finished job descriptions.  She never writes a cover letter for this job she worries she couldn't possibly get. 

Fear can stop us from even trying to make changes that would be good for us, and that is why we should fear it--because it can keep us stuck.  Fear stops forward movement, often because it aims to protect--which has it's place--but can also prevent us from living fully.  Someone besides FDR observed:  "A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

The best strategy I know of here is letting yourself be afraid and doing something anyway.  This requires some self-awareness and some vigilance--and sometimes enlisting a close friend or family member to deliver tough love at just the right moment and call us out when we are unwittingly letting our fears stop us.  I think I'm going to write that quote about the ship on a card and post it where I will see it every day so I won't forget the sentiment.

3.  There is some tension between us as individuals and the communities of people we are part of.  We make the decision to change inside our heads and the world around us conspires to keep things the same, making it even harder to do differently.  This is really just another way of saying that reason #1 that it's hard to change applies to others as well as ourselves.

Let's say for example that you decide to interact differently with your mother.  You are sick of every conversation leading to you feeling defensive and ending in an argument.  You do some work to shift how you take in what your mother says.  You begin to shift the way you hear her and how you respond, but your mother is so used to the pattern that it seems like she is trying to start an argument at every turn. 

What to do with this challenge?  Remember that people respond to our actions much more than to what we say, so take it day by day.  The more committed we are to the new way of being or acting, the easier it will be to get other people on board with us--but accept at the outset that it will take a while--and that you will change before others change how they respond to or interact with you.  It can be helpful to know what you will say or do if the old pattern flares up.  This can give you an alternative route instead of falling into the old pattern.

What are some of the barriers you have experienced when making a change and how have you overcome them?

Looking for Pleasant Surprises

I never imagined I would become a hockey fan.  Of all the sports I have been exposed to, hockey was one of the few that just never captured my interest--mostly because I couldn't make sense of it.  Even when I had friends who played in college and I would attend their games to support them, I didn't get it--and I didn't care to put much energy into getting it.  These days, I find myself sacrificing sleep to watch the Bruins in the playoffs, talking with co-workers about last minute wins and griping about terrible calls.  It's surprising---even to me--so I was curious to examine how this happened.

The most obvious thing is that I found a reason to care about hockey.  My significant other really enjoys hockey.  It matters to him and seeing the Bruins play is important to him.  I started watching games with him, doing other things like paying bills or sorting mail or fixing the hem on a skirt, while he cheered and groaned.  Gradually, I understood a bit more of what was happening--he explained, I asked, it all started to come together.  It is also nice to enjoy (or be disappointed by) the game with him.  We get to share an experience when I actually watch and try to understand what's happening, otherwise, we are just two people in the same place--me sewing, him watching hockey.  Taking the former approach allows us to share our responses and to experience excitement or disappointment together--and the chance at having that connection certainly helped to motivate me to care more about hockey.

I have also realized that learning and appreciating something new has its own appeal--especially in this case where I had decided I would never like or understand hockey.  First, there is a sense of accomplishment and even a little pride in understanding something I never thought I would understand.  Second, there is a surprise in liking something I never thought I would enjoy.  It feels like I'm a different person is some ways, and knowing I can grow and change and surprise even myself is reassuring.  Life gets boring when it is too stagnant and even though that is comfortable, I would rather know that some facet of my life or some aspect of how I define myself (not a hockey lover in this case) can change.

Is there something you wish you had, or a connection with a person you wish was stronger, or an interest of your own that you wish was more present.  If so, do something that connects you to that--even if you tried it before and didn't like it.  Want some space in your life? Try meditation.  Have a good friend who loves sushi--go out to her favorite restaurant for dinner.  Have a friend who loves baseball? Watch a game together.  Pick up that novel you put down after 10 pages 2 years ago.  Try rock climbing--again.  Call your mother just to say hi.  Give yourself the permission to still hate whatever it was you just tried.  Give yourself the permission to change your mind and enjoy it.

It is a gift to be surprised by our own lives--and to get that gift, we have to be willing to try something--something new or something we turned away from before.  Not doing that is a sure way to stay who we were yesterday.  It's much more fun to be in the moment--that is where the surprises are--so try it.  Do something now that isn't informed by what used to be.  You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Spring Cleaning

Each spring of my childhood, my mother and grandmother would pick a Saturday in the early spring and do their spring cleaning.  They cleaned regularly but this Saturday was a time for the most extensive sort of clearing out and cleaning up.  They had my father and grandfather up on ladders, cleaning gutters, washing windows, taking shutters off to hose them down--and inside the house every curtain was coming down, every sheet and blanket was peeled off the beds and buckets of Lysol scented water made their way throughout the house for shelves and walls and floors to be scoured.  This cleaning was so extensive that it required some preparation and coordination--the date was chosen and we all knew to prepare for spring cleaning well in advance--and it took the full day--we started at 7 am and usually didn't finish until after dinner when the last curtains went back up and the beds were reassembled just in time to collapse into them. There was also something really refreshing and beautiful that spring cleaning gave us--everything looked and smelled newer, fresher--and the light in the house was different as the season changed outside.  There was something satisfying about the alignment between the world outside the house and inside of it.

Looking back, one thing I appreciate about those spring cleaning days was the fresh start, the reset.  Nothing really changed and still, it all felt different.  Sometimes we need just that--a reason to look at what we are used to seeing with a new set of eyes.  Spring cleaning always brought that shift in perspective.  Through the clean windows and freshly washed curtains, the light was brighter and the outside world was more vibrant.  The fresh scent of outside would come off the curtains for days after they had been dried on the clothesline.  It strikes me that sometimes life and our looking at it calls out for a reset.  It is possible to make that happen in our lives when we need it.  I know I was feeling sort of tired and as if my energy was dragging.  I decided to do a fruit cleanse--and put it on the calendar for after two big events I had been dreading, just to create a fresh start for myself.  If there is something you are feeling not quite happy about, maybe it's time for a spring cleaning of sorts.  Where are you stuck and what would cause a shift? Maybe you have found yourself being snappy with your loved ones.  Take a day off, an evening off, or if you can swing it, a weekend away.  Maybe you are feeling tired.  Cut out TV and be in bed by 9 with a good book for a week.  Perhaps you are wanting to restart your exercise routine.  Take a walk after work or first thing in the morning.  Maybe your schedule feels too busy.  Schedule 2 or 3 hours of open space for yourself once a week for a month.  What the reset looks like depends on what you want to shift, but take a lesson from my grandmother--put it on the calendar and then commit to it with all your energy. Get others involved in your project.  And then appreciate what's different, knowing you have the option to create that shift any time you choose.