Flourishing Today

Starting a businesses can be uphill battle. Not because of the strategies or the economy, but because of the brain’s relationship to survival.

To get simplify something pretty geeky, there are three major parts of the brain: the lizard (survival) brain, the emotional brain, and the thinking/rational brain. While it may sound like we have three brains, we don’t. These are just three major systems that have smaller sub-parts; like the amygdale, or hippocampus. Most of the time the lizard brain, and emotional brain talk behind the logical brain’s back for survival sake, “that guy seems sketchy, walk on the other side of the street!” We may not logically think about why we’re crossing the street, we’re simply responding based on millions of little data points we’re not even conscious of.*

While this is great sometimes, it can trip us up when we’re to learning new skills, trying new things, and developing new relationships, because our brain rapidly filters our sensations, and puts it in buckets related to survival… based on our emotional state and what it knows we’ve already been able to survive, “Hey, you’ve never survived implementing a marketing strategy! Wouldn’t you like to watch Dr. Who instead?? We know we can survive that!” So, even though I know reaching out to people who’ve already -asked- for my services won’t kill me… there is a whole fear/resistance process to get through before that phone call.

This is why people often don’t change, until what they’re doing starts to really hurt. We have to convince our own brains that we’re going to survive the new behavior. This is why practice and the collaborative process has made such a huge difference: I get to be surrounded by people successfully navigating the processes I’m afraid of. We develop strategies of dealing with the fear. It becomes easier to keep moving forward, when I see Dena, Heather, and Sheila surviving too.

Which is good, because even though I like Dr. Who, I don’t like it -that- much. Next time, tips for dealing with the lizard!

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” — Ambrose Redmoon

This post was inspired by my friend Lily, and there are many people in my life who I’ve seen display amazing courage. They didn’t go off to war, they didn’t settle uncharted territory, or sail to a distant planet. they’ve had the courage to relate with another human being, on a level that leaves them vulnerable.

Early in my relationship coaching career, I took a class with a Mark Micheal Lewis, who said something that has lived within me ever since that class. He said, “intimacy stops when we stop communicating.” The thing is, is that intimacy requires so much courage, that sometimes I’m amazed that any of us have relationships to thrive in. The kicker is that sometimes by the time we gather the courage to share ourselves, there is so much pressure behind it, that it is like trying to share water from a fire-hose – all the power to put out flaming houses, but hard to drink from.

Relating openly, takes an extra level of faith/trust/recognition/enter appropriate word for your understanding here:
Faith that you’ll be safe
Faith that you’ll be welcomed and accepted
Faith that there is a place to share yourself, and
Faith that there are people out there who won’t accept anything less — because they love you THAT much.

When I first started this as a note on Facebook, Lily also added that there is a huge place for faith in yourself. I’m just going to quote her directly because she says it so well:

I feel there’s so much to be said about faith in oneself too: faith that you know your self, faith that you know what you want, faith that you can articulate it to someone else, and… the most important for me, faith that when I cannot know myself, cannot know what I want, or cannot articulate it, my partner will be patient enough to help me know it to myself and to him (or her).

I don’t know how many workshops, classes, seminars, or books I’ve read that boil down to “take action, take action, take action.” But they don’t cover getting to that place where you can take action, or knowing what action to take. Instead, I remember numerous times I’ve read a book, or gone to a workshop where I came out pumped up, until I realized that on arriving home, I had no idea HOW to implement all the tips I’d gotten.

Where do you find the people interested in what you offer?

How do you put together a media package?

Where do you submit a press release?

Alone, the questions just piled up faster than I was able to answer them and I simply kept hitting that wall of frustrated and overwhelmed. Finishing up my training, I felt left holding a bag with no clue what to do with it.

Has it ever felt like your to-do list just turned into an avalanche?

So there I am, my to-do list suddenly triples in the space of an afternoon: A business to run, research conduct and organize, groups to schedule/facilitate, a consulting gig for LA-CAMFT, my PAX Mastery &
Leadership Program to keep up with, a wedding to shop for, a possible party to organize, camping plans, costuming and choreography for a fire-performance in front of some 45,000 people to learn by the end of August, and a boyfriend talking about some pear tree.

Ok, I’m kidding on the pear tree.. but not the rest of it.

Sitting there, freaking out about how overwhelmed I saw myself getting, had no idea what to do, or how I was going to get anything accomplished. In the midst of it all, I remembered this Sims game where you have these little people you build lives for. You feed them, sleep them, and interact them with other little “Sim” people. You find them work, and you organize their little lives.

But if these Sim lives start to get off-balance, you get upset Sims. Their happiness drops, they start to act out, and they start to have little Sim temper-tantrums. Kinda like the one I felt coming on. Here I was getting tense; not having eaten or taken a break since 11am and if I didn’t change my ways – soon I was not going to be NOT-fine. Just like my Sims.

If you have ever had a to-do list like mine, it seems to be endless. No matter how many things I cross off, it seems like another five more get added. A proverbial Greek Hydra. Sitting down in the morning and going over the list helps me focus, but some mornings it seems like an overwhelming mountain before me, and I can’t really see the progress I’ve made.

There are lots of tips and tricks to get things moving: tackle the easiest tasks first, break large overwhelming tasks into smaller, easier tasks, tackle the task that will feel most satisfying, put your to-do list on index cards and just focus on the top card, etc. But in a state of detail paralysis, I forget why I’m even checking off these detailed lists. That is when I’ve turned to my group, or my mind-map – to remind me of the future I want to see.

By re-focusing, not on the tasks, but on my objectives I can get moving forward again. Rather than beating my head against something that isn’t working for me, I can remember what the objective is: a successful practice, adventures with my wonderful partner, and learning new tools & skills.

Then, when I’m trapped and unable to see the forest for the trees, I can get support to remind me why I’m on the path through the woods.

Warmly,
Kaye

Have you ever started on a path, only to have some earth-changing information land in your lap? Not long ago, founder of EmpowermentQuest International, Kevin Cole, and myself started throwing around the idea of co-creating a workshop for women struggling with the increasing demands of a modern-day world and it’s impact on our happiness and relationships. We agreed to pool our resources and teach tools and strategies to make a difference.

Little did I know when I started this adventure, just how much more would come across my desk between then and now! Recently I was sent two articles about the shift in gender-related global power.. and what this means for the future of marriage, partnership, and woman’s role in the future of the world. It honestly rocked my world.

Because this stuff addresses a genocide-torn Rwanda becoming a post-genocide, woman-led government with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa and doing great things with public health and foreign policy, with the FULL support of the men.

Whether women know it or not, the collapse of an economy had thrown us a curve-ball. Please join Kevin and myself, July 11th in San Diego, to learn how and to learn what this means for our relationships, careers, and partnering with men. To register, please call 619-602-3633 or contact@empowermentquest.com Early Bird discount ends July 1st. Call for more information.

Looking forward to an amazing experience!

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. Does this look familiar?

“[The subject was] the most important and divisive issue in 19th-century American politics and society…

Inspired by the language of the Declaration of Independence… many Americans—hoped that [it] could gradually be abolished in the United States.

Some became active and organized opponents [and] worked for its abolition nationwide. The states of New England, which had had the smallest populations… were the first to abolish it. Because of their calls for immediate action and an end to prejudice, abolitionists were the object of a great deal of criticism, ridicule, and even violence…becoming an active abolitionist required courage. Many had to face physical danger at the hands of a mob, but many more had to endure the disapproval of family and friends or the ridicule of neighbors.”

Or..

[that they are portrayed] as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype… often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory.

…this and similar stereotypes [were used] to justify… In part, this was accomplished by arguing that [they] were subhumans: intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, morally underdeveloped, and animal-like sexually… racist and sexist ideologies [were used] to argue that they alone were civilized and rational, [these] others were barbaric and deserved to be subjugated.

How about:

…[they] are of this people then they are of the freemen, and a constituent part of this Commonwealth. . . . is a citizen of the United States and of the State in which [they] reside, in the constitutional and legal sense of the word citizen, is admitted by the learned judge. . .

..then, being a citizen, . . . “of this people and a constituent member of the sovereignty.” . . . therefore of the “freemen” contemplated by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1776. . . . The same synonymous and generic use of the words citizen, people, and freemen is continued throughout the Constitutions of 1776, 1790 and 1838. . . Any other construction would be in violation of established principles of law and of our National Constitution . . .