Chandra Unplugged - No nonsense, Straight-up blogging from a Life Coach

The Art Of Creating - Learning How to Change!

Everyone knows that "changing" is a good thing, but what does it really mean and how do we go about doing it.  Welcome to the art of creating!

1. Take full responsibility for creating your life. Stop blaming others.

• This is the big one and unless you totally get this concept you cannot create a good life for yourself.
• When you do not take full responsibility for your life, you end up in a state of victim consciousness where you have no power.
• Taking responsibility for it all – regardless of why it happened – gives you back your power so that you can create a good life going forward.

2. Change your behavior, don’t just think about it.

• There are many ways you can “understand” something, but understanding something intellectually will never go the distance.
• What you understand in your mind must be integrated on a feeling level and the only way to do that is to put into ACTION what you have realized intellectually.
• If you do not actually change your behavior on the physical plane, to reflect your new understanding, nothing will change.

3. Put discipline in your life and learn to postpone immediate gratification of your needs.

• Talking about changing behavior is easy; actually changing behavior is very difficult.
• We become very anxious when we change behavior even though the old way of doing things has made us miserable.
• You have to be very brave to do it a new way and to bear the anxiety of making a change. If you cannot do this, you will never change.

4. Stop complaining – it’s unattractive.

• The old way is the familiar way, and although it is dysfunctional, we are comfortable doing it because we know how to.
• There is nothing worse than complaining.  Just change and be quiet!
• Zip it and step up. No one can do it for you except for you.

 5. When you make good choices, you create a good life.

• We create our life moment by moment by the choices we make.
• Every choice builds on the choice before and all these choices strung together create a life.
• If you do not like what you have created, you can make new choices at any time. Over a period of time, by making new choices, you will have a new life.

What Does "loving your Self" mean?

We often hear the phrase “You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself” but what does “Loving yourself “really mean? Only when you know and love yourself are you ready for real loving.

1. Loving yourself means taking care of your SELF.
   • A client once asked me. “I know this probably seems obvious, but what does “loving yourself” mean in real life?” I loved the question because it is not as obvious as it sounds.
   • Loving your “Self” means that you know how to take care of your Self. It means that you take responsibility for your well-being and happiness and figure out what you need to feel good.
   • Taking care of your Self applies to both your physical and emotional self – You become your own caring, loving parent.

2. No one can fill that emptiness inside you - except for you. Do not look to someone else to fill that “hole”.
   • If you are born a human, you will have a human struggle, and that struggle is about filling that emptiness inside.
   • Every one of us deals with that emptiness and we are all faced with making peace with the process.
   • When you expect someone else to make you happy, you are projecting your feelings of incompleteness on another and this will never work. Only you and you alone, can heal your Self.

3. You attract to you who you really are – this is always accurate.
   • We always get a good match for where we are at the moment.
   • Look at whom you are attracting and take responsibility for that “pull”.
   • Take responsibility for whatever relationship you are in. Perhaps there’s a lesson that needs to be learned.

4. Ask yourself “What makes me feel good? What do I like?” You need to like yourself before you can love yourself.
   • Figuring out what makes us feel good is a lifetime process. In order to do this, we cannot care what anyone else thinks and need to quiet all those other voices in our head other than our own.
   • The mind needs to be quiet.  If your mind is always going, always frantic, you will never be able to figure out who YOU are.
   • Eliminate the words “should” and “ought” from your vocabulary. (When we say we “should” do something, it is usually the opposite of what we really feel like doing.)

Are You Grieving?

Are you grieving over the loss of a loved one?  If you are grieving and are having trouble being with others, here are a few ways to better deal with your loss.

1. Grieving is a natural part of life – we grieve when we lose something we love.

• For some reason, in the West, we deal with grieving, death and dying, as unspeakable subjects.
• It is as though we think if we don’t talk about them, they will go away.
• But they don’t go away because they are inherent in life; the cycle of birth and death rages on.

2. There is no “normal” timeframe to stop grieving – the grieving stops when you are done mourning.

• If you surrender to the natural process of grieving, you will move through grieving and be done when you are done.
• Everything is moving and changing all the time.
• When you feel the passing of something, you need to allow yourself to grieve and give yourself permission to feel your sadness.

3. Do not pretend to be “happy” if you are not.

• Pretending is the opposite of authenticity.  To feel is to be authentic.
• Every death – the death of a loved one, the losing of a job, the ending of a relationship, even though it might have been dysfunctional, - summons up every other death. Judith Rossner says in her book August, “After the first death, there is no other.”
• Whether you are around friends, family, acquaintances, or strangers, understand that grieving is a natural and normal part of life. and you will feel sad when you lose someone you love.

4. Talk about the person you loved and lost … even if it makes others feel uncomfortable.

• You have a right to talk about things you want to talk about as much as the next person.
• It is not your job to make someone else feel comfortable.
• If you need professional help, get it.

5. You cannot think your way through grief – you must feel.

• I often say the only way to HEAL is to FEEL.
• Thinking keeps the “feelings” in the head, in a very intellectual way, never allowing them to come down and rest in the heart
• Until you are willing to feel your feelings of sadness, you can never move through the natural process of grieving.

Can You Be Alone?

Are you afraid to spend time alone and will you do anything to avoid it? If you are constantly avoiding alone time, here are some things to think about that just might help in setting you free.

1. Is doing “anything” better than being alone?

• If doing anything, anything at all, feels better than being alone, you need to deal with this.
• Doing “anything” is not better than being alone.
• When we run from something (being alone), the focus remains on the running, and not what we are doing.

2. Do you feel anxious when faced with the prospect of being alone?

• The feeling of anxiety lets us know that the feelings we are running from are beginning to rise to the surface; that’s what happens when we spend time alone.
• You will always feel anxious when you enter unknown territory. You are used to being distracted.
• When you are alone, many of those familiar distractions are removed; as a result, you will initially feel anxious.  This is normal and natural and there is nothing wrong with you!

3. You must face your fears or you will always be running.

• Running becomes very tedious, very tiring.
• The only way you will ever be able to stop running, is to turn around and invite the demons in.
• When you face your fears and refuse to run, the chase stops!

4. Spending time alone is the ONLY way to really know your SELF.

• It is only in the quiet moments that we are able to KNOW the depths of who we really are.
• Can you not answer your cell, turn the TV off, and sit quietly?
• Can you bear the anxiety that comes from not being distracted? If you can, you will be rewarded with an expanded sense of Self.

5. Enjoying your own company is the reward.

• There is nothing better than KNOWING you are not dependent on anyone else to be entertained.
• Try spending a whole weekend with no plans.  Just try one weekend.
• Congratulations! 

Sad or Depressed? Do You Know The Difference?

Are you really depressed or are you just sad? If you’ve been told you’re depressed, don't be so quick to believe it.   Learn the difference between clinical depression and normal sadness.

1. Life is a mixture of both happy and sad. This is normal and natural.

• To accept life in its fullness is to understand that life is a mixture of both happy and sad.
• Many professionals do not understand this and immediately diagnose sadness as depression.
• When you immediately medicate yourself against sadness, you miss the opportunity to work through issues in an alive and healthy way.

2. It is okay to be sad because sometimes things are sad.

• We are okay with happy, but we have trouble with sad.
• There are as many opportunities in a day to be sad as there are to be happy.
• Happiness and sadness are equal sides of yin and yang.  You cannot have one without having the other.

3. Depression results when you do not deal with your sadness.

• We often think our sadness is depression, but it is not. We get depressed when we don’t deal with our sadness.
• Sadness is part of every human life.  There is NOTHING wrong with you if you get sad.
• When we lose something we get sad and when someone dies we get sad.

4. Anti-depressants take away the pain (really the anxiety), but keep us numb.

• You will always feel anxious BEFORE you feel your feeling.
• Anxiety is the feeling that signals a feeling is coming up. (A feeling you are not used to feeling)
• When you feel nothing (flat-lined from taking medication), that means the feeling has been stuffed back inside.

5. You must “feel” to get healthy.

• The only way to heal is to feel.
• Embrace your sadness as part of life; a way you get to learn more about yourself.
• Everything is attitude.  Our depth is created by our ability to deal with both happiness and sadness.

Exploring - Knowing Your Self For The First Time

Are you recently divorced, widowed or on your own for the first time and trying to figure who you are and what makes you feel good?

1. Being scared is a natural part of the process.

• Don’t let being afraid scare you. Anytime you do something for the first time it is daunting.
• The process of getting to know your Self – possibly for the first time – can be overwhelming.
• In the past, you have most likely defined yourself by being with someone else.  Now it is just you that needs to be pleased.

    2.  Acknowledging and accepting the fear allows you to be brave.

• What’s the big deal? So what if this is the beginning of the process – at least you are beginning and it can only get better from here.
• Real bravery is only possible when you are scared, otherwise, what we call bravery is really machismo.
• Feeling scared but doing it anyway will give you self-esteem and self-respect.  We feel this way every time we do something that initially scared us.

    3.  This is a perfect opportunity to try new things.

• Experiment. Put everything into the practice category.
• A woman stopped a man on the street in Manhattan and asked him, “How can I get to Carnegie Hall?’ “Practice, practice, practice”, said the man.
• How can we figure out what we like, what works for us, unless we try different things?

   4.  Give yourself permission to not know for a while. No one’s keeping score.

• Cut yourself some slack. Getting to know your Self takes some time.
• It is a process that happens in the moment and incrementally.  Sometimes we immediately know what works and other times the more we do something, the better it feels.
• Allow the process to unfold naturally and don't be impatient. 

   5.  You know what you want by knowing what you don’t want.

• Do you know the difference between a road map and a boat map? A road map tells you where to go but a boat map tells you where not to go.
• Sometimes we learn who we are through a process of elimination - not this, not this.
• The only real mistake is sitting this one out, not participating.  Surrender to the process and have fun exploring. 

Living in the Present Moment, not the Past or the Future

Do you constantly think about the past or fantasize about the future? If you do, you are missing the ONLY way to have a great life – living in the present moment.   When you live in the past or the future:

1. You are always in your head thinking, never just experiencing the moment.

• Thinking your way through life, you have kept the energy above the neck, and it needs to be below the neck, in the heart.
• When the mind is quiet, the heart opens. (In other words, when you stop thinking, you automatically end up in the present moment.)
• Only then, can you experience joy.

   2.  Thinking keeps you one step away from the action.

• The action is the moment, the present moment.  There is nothing else.
• Anything else is either the past or the future.
• Remember, even when you go to the past or the future in your head, you are still thinking in the present moment.

   3.  Fantasizing is different than actually doing something about your dreams.

• There is nothing wrong with planning for the future; that is very different than feeling your life cannot begin until some future date.
• We fantasize instead of do.  Step up, be present, and start doing things that will build your future. 
• If you are WAITING for something to happen before you will feel good, even if that something comes, it will never make you feel good for very long. 

    4.  Always talking about the past keeps you stuck and fearful.

• We keep going to the past because we are immobilized.
• We may rationalize that the future is scary but that is only because we refuse to accept the present moment and make the required changes.
• Memories are wonderful but they do not substitute for a life today, right now.

     5.  Know that the future is nothing more than the present projected forward.

• I often have clients that wonder what the future will be like. I tell them that if they do nothing different than what they are doing today, that what they have at this moment will be their future.
• Look at today.  It's your present moment but a month ago it was your future in the making. 
• At every moment you are living out your destiny (what you have created in the past) and at the very same moment you are creating your future by how you deal with what has come to you.

What Does Taking Responsibility For Your Life Mean?

What does taking responsibility for your life mean and are you doing that?

1. If you feel victimized or are blaming others for your misfortune and cannot seem to move on, you are NOT   taking responsibility for your life.

• If it happened to you – it BELONGS to you!
• Reality is what is, not what you want it to be.
• What are YOU going to do about it?

   2.  You need to step up and be accountable for all of it.

• It makes no difference if you can or cannot figure out the “why” of something.
• Understanding the why is important in order not to make the same mistakes going forward, but it has nothing to do with whether or not you accept and embrace your life this very moment.
• Accepting "what is", is the beginning of making the change.

  3.  As a victim, you are powerless to  change your life.

• Sometimes we simply can’t figure out why something happened to us. Regardless, at some point, we have to accept that it did.
• That does not mean we did something wrong or caused it to happen, but simply that it happened to us and we are left with it.
• We can either keep resisting “what is” or we can accept it, work through it, and move on. Only then, do you begin to take your power back.

4. You are accountable for ALL of your life - not just the parts you like or are good at.

• It’s too bad that we cannot pick and choose "what is", but we can’t.
• The dark side shines as brightly as the light even though sometimes it eludes our natural consciousness.
• At every moment, what is in darkness is coming to light.

5.  If you consciously choose to avoid certain parts of your life, it is like saying “Don’t think of a monkey”. A monkey is all you think about.

The Absolute Art Of Forgiveness

Holding anger and rage inside immobilizes us and destroys our life and relationships. If you are holding on to a hurt that is preventing you from moving on in life, learn about the power of forgiveness and how it can set you free.

1. Forgiveness is always about you – not the other person.

• You must look in your own heart in order to forgive and intimately connect to what it is to be human. Do you have compassion for the human condition, i.e., for making mistakes, for wishing if you had to do it all over again your would do it differently?
• If you cannot personally connect to this feeling, you can never forgive another.
• In order to do this, you must first be able to forgive yourself.

2. Forgiveness is not about what you “should” do.

• Forgiveness may be a concept you have intellectually incorporated into your life, but if it becomes a “should” for you, you have not truly forgiven.
• “Should” and “Ought” come from the mind.
• Forgiveness comes from the heart.

3. To forgive, you must feel…and remember.

• Remember when you needed forgiveness.
• Only by feeling, can you forgive and in the process remember your own humanness.
• We all need forgiveness.

4. Forgiving releases anger and resentment.

• Not forgiving is very toxic to the mind, heart and body.
• When you hold on to anger and resentment, all systems begin to break down.
• The minute you forgive, an openness takes place that was not there previously.

5. Forgiveness frees you and opens your heart to loving.

• There is nothing that will free you faster than letting go and moving on.
• The “letting go” and “moving on” take place simultaneously in the moment and instantly there is an incredible lightness of being.
• As the toxic thoughts dissipate, the heart opens to loving.

Closing One Door – Opening Another

Most of us believe the saying, “When you close one door, open another” and that’s what most of us do. But what if you were to learn that opening another door too quickly may not be in your best interest and may actually work against you. What do you do when one door closes and another one is not yet open?

 

1. Don’t panic. We all feel out of control when we don’t know what’s in store for us.

• We all feel afraid when we enter unknown territory; this is natural and happens to all of us. 

• You need to bear the anxiety and stay the course no matter what. 

• Once you know it is essential to head in a new direction, move forward acknowledging your fear as well as your desire to be something more.

2. Do not say, “Anything is better than nothing” and make a decision out of fear.

• Anything is NOT better than nothing. 

• We are so afraid of the unknown, so devoid of trust, that we become immobilized.  Is it okay to not have all the answers before we make a move? 

• Can we not want something we have without knowing exactly what it is we do want?

3. Put in the right ingredients. If the ingredients are good, the outcome will be good.

• Putting in the right ingredients is the key to having a good life. 

• The universe delivers in a way we cannot imagine and we do not want to mess with the outcome. 

• Being too concerned with the result limits the possibilities and we end up sabotaging ourselves.  Get out of the way and let the magic begin.

4. Sit quietly. Good choices come out of a quiet mind; when you can hear your own voice.

• Our inner voice only speaks when the mind is quiet. 

• That voice comes from the heart and ALWAYS is in your best interest. 

• Be open to possibilities you have not even considered.