Earlier this month I mentioned that I choose two focus areas for the month: breathing and money. In the whirlwind of life and the never-ending desires to try new things, setting theses two areas of focus has brought me peace and clarity.

In my five-week class, Taming Your Lizard’s Money Fears, I’m following along with the participants and completing the homework assignments. There’s been a variety of tools and techniques for homework, ranging from using The Work on limiting beliefs to harnessing the power our the right brain.

We often look at something like money, or health, or our weight, or our career, or our love life and say, “Once I get enough of this or meet that goal, then everything will be okay.” What often fail to do is pull back the layers from these desires and see what’s underneath.

Why do we want a certain amount of money or to weigh a particular number or to have a set number of clients or have the perfect job? What do we think that will give us?

When we explore the reasons for these desires, we find clarity about our true desires. Security, acceptance, the knowledge that everything will be okay, a feeling of being loved. It can be anything. We believe that a certain amount of money in the bank will give us security or a number on the scale will make us feel accepted. Since the money and the weight are easy to identify, we reach for those things.

Think about what you want. It can be anything. Now think about why you want it. Pull back the layers from your desire. What is it you are deeply longing for?

Now, imagine that desire is met. Ignore the bank account. Ignore the scale. Ignore the career you abhore. You have safety. Connection. Love. Acceptance. Or whatever it is you are seeking. How do you show up in the world? Describe your day, the interactions you have with others, the feelings in your heart.

Create your future from this place. Drop the desire for a bank account with a particular balance. Step into the feeling of having your true needs met. This is how you can really get what it is you truly want.
 

We’re having absolutely fabulous weather here in Corvallis, Oregon. As I type this, it’s sunny and mid-50s. It will likely hit 60 today. I had a delightful morning run. The sun is now streaming in my office window and I can feel the fresh air blowing in. I love it.
Except when I start future-thinking. I fret about the winter we didn’t have.

Will it come in March or April?
Will it kill all of the buds on the trees?
Will this create problems for the local farmers?
What about the summer?
Will it be crazy-hot?
Will there be a lot of fires?
We need more rain!!!

Once I start down this path, it quickly turns into a death spiral. I stop enjoying the sunshine, the crocuses, and my open office window. I start worrying about all of these things that are completely out of my control.

As I’ve been noticing this mental weather pattern of mine over the past few weeks, I’ve been catching myself in the act and stopping this future-thinking.

On my run today, as soon as I stopped fretting, I noticed so many more crocuses that I usually notice. It was because I was present. I was in the now. I was living today.

It got me thinking about how much I miss because my mind is focused up ahead.

This weather one is a simple example. Of course I can’t change the weather. Future focus on that is obviously a waste of time for me. I’m not a farmer. I have air conditioning. And forest fires don’t come to Corvallis.

But what about the other areas of my life? There are plenty of times I future-think and believe that future-thinking will somehow help me. Every time I think about the future and not the now, I am missing the now.

Future-thinking is not necessarily a bad thing, just when it becomes a repetitive pattern full of worry. We can future-think about our bodies and health, the weather, money, relationships, work, you name it! Most of the time it just fills us with worry and offers no benefit (unless you think stress is a good thing).

Do you future-think? Is there one area where you can commit to stopping your future-thinking pattern?

The cliche that “change is inevitable” can make us groan. Yeah, we know, but we still don’t like change when it happens to us, when it’s beyond our control.

What’s a change that you are experiencing that is beyond your control? Layoffs at work? Your husband is going through a mid-life crisis? Your kids are turning into difficult teenagers?

Whatever change is beyond your control, you can find treasures to embrace.

Ask yourself, “What am I getting that I would likely not get otherwise?”

Layoffs at work.... A kick in the pants to start thinking about what you really want to do with your life.

Husband’s mid-life crisis... Extra time to hang with girlfriends at the spa. Heck, if he’s buying a motorcycle, you can at least get a pedicure!

Kids turning into difficult teenagers... With age comes responsibility, and it’s time they start doing some of the household chores.

Every year since I moved to Oregon, I have dreaded fall because it brings winter, which means a lot of clouds and rain for many months. It’s dark and wet and it feels heavy and sad.

This year, I am content with the arrival of fall. The first rain cleared the air, and it smelled fresh and clean outside. The farmers’ market is filled with tart apples, deep orange squash, and dark purple kale. I am embracing the treasures of the beautiful leaves, apple crisp, and roasted squash soup during a time I usually focus on resisting like hell... and always lose.

Remember, some changes are beyond your control. Fighting reality is a losing battle. Instead, opt to find what treasures await you.

What treasures are you finding in the changes in your life?

Part of the human experience, part of the completeness of life, is to accept the light and the dark sides. Our perfections and imperfections. Together, they open up the human experience.   --Mark Romero

Check Mark out on YouTube.

As Mark eloquently points out, the human experience is about accepting the light and the dark in life and in ourselves. Fully opening up in our lives means loving and accepting all parts of us, both the parts that are easy to love and the parts that are more challenging to love.

Fully blossoming in our lives means truly loving all of who we are.

The idea of self-love can send some of us running away. When I first heard about it years ago, I wanted nothing to do with it!

Do you love yourself? I mean, do you really love yourself?

Could you say, “I love you, [insert your full name here]” in the mirror without wincing, feeling shy or embarrassed, or making sure no one was listening?

If so, kudos to you. That’s truly awesome.

If not, why? Really think about why you can’t do it or don’t like it.

Could you be okay loving all of yourself, if I told you that your uncomfortable feelings are okay?

Mary Knebel, a coach and recent ebook author, posted this exercise on self-love in her blog earlier this year. I think she does a great job walking us through how to learn to feel more love and acceptance for ourselves.

Another, very awesome coach, Jeannette Maw, talks about self love in a blog post from 2007.

(Both Jeannette and Mary have great ebook offerings on self-love. You can find them on their websites.)

Self-love is not about loving only the parts of us we think are perfect. It is about accepting our dark sides and our light sides.

There can not be light without darkness. And there can not be darkness without light.

If you have been following my blog recently, you know that 1) I like to bike, and 2) my bike’s cyclocomputer recently went haywire. As my post will tell you, it was a great thing that this happened.

I will cut to the chase, for those of you wondering if I put the cyclocomputer back on: The answer is No.

I’ve been riding for a month without it. It’s not that I’m too lazy or too busy to put it on. There have been plenty of opportunities. I’m finding that I enjoy listening to my body instead of reading the numbers. My body does a great job of telling me if I’m working hard enough or working too hard. I don’t need a gadget to keep me informed about how I feel. Sounds a bit obvious, doesn’t it? Maybe not, if your a gadget kind of person.

How often do we use external signals to tell us something our body should be capable of telling us?

Here are some examples that come to mind:

- I see the clock say 6:00 a.m., and it must be time to get up.
- The clock says 12:00 p.m., so I must be hungry for lunch.
- I smell the sweet air from a bakery while walking down the street, so I must need a tasty treat.
- The thermometer says 100 degrees, so it must be too hot for a walk.

I teach clients to listen to what their bodies are telling them--instead of using their heads. Society teaches us to figure things out with our brains, but our bodies are wise, and they often need little interference from our minds.

Listening to our bodies is the key to living the happiest life possible.

If you’re skeptical of my suggestion, re-read my post on Ignoring the Numbers. Would I have been happier staring at my biking stats for 90 minutes? Definitely not.

Here’s some ways this has played out for me recently, besides the cyclocomputer example.
 
- Instead of getting up when the clock tells me, I listen to when my body tells me I’m done sleeping and get up when I feel well rested. It puts me in such a good mood!

- The other night I was hungry at 9:00 p.m. I rarely get hungry at that hour. If I had used my mind, which was telling me that I don’t get hungry after dinner, I would have ignored the signal and likely woke up grumpy the next morning. Instead, I had a small snack and felt better.

- I recently asked my body what kind of exercise it wanted, and it told me to swim. I haven’t swam for exercise since high school. The following day, I pulled out a swimsuit, a cap, and goggles and went swimming. I was giddy all day, it made me so happy.

Humans are blessed with a logic center in our brains. This serves us well in so many ways. Unfortunately, it hurts us when it comes to making decisions about our bodies. Wild animals don't use logic to decide when to eat or when to sleep. They just do what feels right at the moment. There is no internal debate about a chocolate chip cookie or an afternoon nap. If that's what they need, they do it

Next time you notice a feeling in your body that indicates tiredness, hunger, or something else uncomfortable, check in with your body. Are you really hungry, or is it something else? Are you staying up later than your body would like you to?

What is your body telling you about what it wants or needs?

I often hear clients say, “Well I guess I just have to put up with it.” This could be in reference to a situation at work or at home. The details do not really matter.

Putting up with anything doesn’t sound like fun to me. It’s definitely not on my road to happiness.

I would like to ask that you think about your difficult situations and decide if you want to tolerate them or accept them. Tolerance and acceptance are two distinctly different things. Let’s look at two definitions from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

Tolerate
1 : to endure or resist the action of (as a drug or food) without serious side effects or discomfort 

2 a : to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction b : to put up with

Accept
1 a : to receive willingly b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added)
2 : to give admittance or approval to
3 a : to endure without protest or reaction b : to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable c : to recognize as true : believe

Acceptance leads us to peace. Tolerance is holding back a fight.

Can you feel the difference in the energy between tolerating and accepting?

In my pursuit of happiness, I would rather seek peace through acceptance. Enduring and resisting sound difficult, and they eventually cave in under their own weight.

We can only tolerate something for so long before we can’t take it any more. We have a limit on our patience and willingness to endure.

When we accept something, we have no limit to our patience. I choose to recognize a situation as reality, and I allow it into my life, warts and all. Acceptance is easier than tolerance.

What are you tolerating in your life that you could consider accepting?

Here are some situations I struggled to tolerate and eventually found peace through acceptance.

1. a passive-aggressive boss
2. my limited ability to understand physics
3. differing expectations of household cleanliness
4. cellulite

Here are 5 steps to find peace through acceptance.

1. Recognize your struggle.

2. In your body, feel “tolerance” and your physical resistance to it.

3. In your body, feel “acceptance” and the freedom in it.

4. Ask yourself if you are ready to release the resistance and find acceptance.

5. Accept reality for what it is. End the struggle.

Sometimes releasing the struggle is more complicated than this. There are some situations where we deeply believe that there is something “not fair” or “wrong” with reality.

Releasing a difficult struggle like this can take time and patience. My preferred method to find acceptance in difficult situations is The Work by Byron Katie. The Work has helped me find so much peace in my life.

There are many other releasing techniques available, such as Self-Coaching 101 by Brooke Castillo, The Sedona Method, and Psych-K.

What are your thoughts on tolerance and acceptance?