Ask Dr. Rosie
September 23rd, 2010
While in the Midst of a Leap of Faith – There are no Pit Stops!
From: Maureen M. Boston, MA
Dear Dr. Rosie,
I so appreciate your articles. They are very grounding and make me feel more normal, even when I’m panicking and unsure that I’m doing the right thing. My life is topsy-turvy right now. I’m leaving a two year relationship, I’m moving away from family and friends on a quest to find myself and the work I want to do. People say I’m crazy but I really feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I know I won’t be homeless or destitute, but I don’t know much else. Is there a right way to do what I’m doing or do I just have to jump?
Thanks,
Maureen
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Dear Maureen,
Thanks for your courage and the willingness to follow your calling. You are not alone! What I mean is that, anyone, or everyone pursuing their dreams, their calling and their inspirations are on the edge of their comfort zone. The willingness to practice even just expanding your comfort zone or pushing the edge just a fraction of an inch can feel death-defying; it can feel as though you are jumping, leaping or maybe even falling off a cliff. And, the fact of the matter is you’ve done this hundreds of times in your life already – that’s how you’ve gotten this far out – to this edge of your comfort zone.
Think about all of the times you’ve taken risks, not knowing if you were going to come out okay on the other side. Perhaps learning to drive a car; learning to snow ski down a hillside; asking someone out on a date, applying for a job or to a school. Maybe you’ve faced illness or loss. There are so many ways you’ve been pushing the edge of your comfort zone. Tell me, what muscles have you been building through all of these practices that has brought you to this new adventure?
Faith-Leaping Muscles
Obviously, the muscles you’ve been building, Maureen aren’t the physical muscles that have you run your fastest and jump your highest. Rarely do we witness people in the act of their leap-of-faith; though, it would be wonderful to see people leaping all over the world, wouldn’t it? It would certainly make it less frightening and more normal see all of the ways people are launching themselves into their dreams and their callings. For now we just have to accept that everyone around us is on their own trajectory, on their own path to who knows where!
Let’s look at what you are attempting – this Faith leaping. What does that mean? It means that you are stepping out beyond your reason and logic and stepping into a knowing – even though you don’t know how you know what you know, you still know. If you look at all of the incredible, even miraculous inventions on this planet you’d have to surmise that the inventors had to step out beyond logic and reason to come up with their ideas. Somehow they had a knowing that what they imagined could be realized. They took the leap and. . . .TA-DA!!!!
A couple of year ago I felt a calling to end the Transformational Coaching Training program I created and have been facilitating for almost ten years. It was a really important source of my income, but I kept sensing that I’m supposed to work with people and organizations who have more at stake – whatever that means. It’s taken me another two years to wrap things up. The program has ended in its current form and I have no idea what’s next. So, here I am – launched! I am in the midst of my own leap of faith. At times I feel crazy and stupid, panicked and terrified. I may lose everything! And, the question arises – what have I got to lose?
While sitting in a bathroom cubicle – one of my more favorite places to contemplate, I was considering the option of perhaps taking a teaching position at a University until I knew what it was that I was supposed to be doing with the rest of my life. Then, I saw this image of me, leaping through the air. I have no idea how long I will be in mid-air and I have no idea where I will land, so the thought of taking a detour became an option. I imagined a pit stop along the way of my leap of faith, and it made me laugh. There are no pit stops on a leap of faith! I’ve got to follow my calling; I’ve got to see this through to this end. I love the humor of the Universe, don’t you?
Though following your calling, Maureen can look and feel as if you are insane, what I know is that so many of our religious and spiritual traditions are filled with texts and scriptures that encourage following our hearts, our courage and our faith. One of the more famous scriptures is this one:
And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of a mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be planted in the sea; and it should obey you. Luke 17:5-6
Rarely do I site scripture, but the idea that we only need faith the size of a mustard seed to fulfill our calling provides an image that makes it that much easier to nudge the edge of my comfort zone just that much further.
Enjoy the adventure, Maureen. And fully explore all the ways you are using those faith-leaping muscles, because, rest-assured, there are many more wonderful adventures to come.
Dr. Rosie
Author of Self-Empowerment 101
http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=68
Dr. Rosie
August 19th, 2010
Living Without a Doubt
From Patricia P. Dublin, Ireland.
Dear Dr. Rosie,
I’ve been reading your column for the past couple of months and so appreciate the depth you bring through your words. Thank you!!!!
I’m losing my job at the end of September. My husband is still working but I’m so afraid there won’t be enough money to keeps things going while I find other work. I sometimes collapse under the anxiety and worry. How will this all turn out? How can I live with so much duress? It’s funny too, that I’ve lost my self-confidence. I just don’t believe that it’s all going to be okay. What do I do?
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Dear Patricia,
First of all let me say that it can feel scary going through what you are going through; the uncertainty, the not knowing, the doubt that it will turn out just fine. Whenever we come up against beginnings or endings it makes sense that fear will be close by; however, it doesn’t mean that there is a need to be troubled or worried. It just means that it feels scary.
So, how do you be with this uncertainty, this doubt without allowing it to drain you of every shred of capability and confidence you have?
The current paradigm we live in has us swimming in a pool of fear and dread. Few places on this planet are free from the anxiety of not knowing how it’s all going to turn out. There are pockets of people who do live in faith. They are the lucky ones. Well, let’s use more empowering terms. They’ve strengthened the muscles of faith and living without a doubt. They gladly give their problems over to a higher power. How did they do this? Good Questions. They decided that living in fear didn’t work for them, so they chose to take a leap out of a belief system that wasn’t working for them to one that supported them. How did they do that? It’s easy and at the same time not so easy.
Believe it or not, we’ve each created the reality we live in out of thin air. Most of us created a reality that was in synch with everyone around us. So if everyone around me believes that we should all be afraid, that we are all powerless, my own personal reality will most likely take on that belief too. At the same time, we have options, which can bring us to being empowered and to creating greater possibility, peace and potential.
What Good is Faith if it is Never Practiced?
My husband, Todd Zimmerman, asked this question of our trainees in one of our transformational coach training sessions. He got people’s attention. What good is faith if it is never practiced? We are talking about our personal faith, the allowing of ourselves to surrender powerlessness to some greater power; some people call this greater power God, Yahweh, Universal Consciousness, or it could be many deities that one turns their worries to. It doesn’t matter to me, it is what you choose to be your higher power.
Cultivating faith has been the most significant practices of my life. Allowing myself to turn my situation over to the Universe, which is my higher power, requires me to trust that it will be taken care of in the best possible way. It means I have to practice letting to and living without a doubt. This is a big practice. It brings up all the times when life didn’t go the way I wanted it to; it means struggling with relinquishing my will. I bet you are asking why would I want to surrender and relinquish my will.
Quite often my willfulness was attached to having things go my way, whether it was harmful for me or others – it didn’t matter. There were, and still are times when I’m not able to make a difference in my situation. Like you, Patricia, I found myself feeling hopeless and powerless. Todd’s question made me curious about faith, what it is and how to use it. As I write to you now I get the enormity of just being with the whole concept of faith, especially personal faith. Even though I’ve had years of practice in turning my will over to a higher power, it isn’t always easy and it isn’t always fun. So, suggesting this practice to you has me question – how does one even begin.
I grew up in the Catholic Church. The requirement of “believing in God or you’ll go to hell,” was not the same as choosing to practice believing. As children, how do we make believe? We imagine! We envision ourselves in different scenarios and play them out to the hilt. We do this all the time, and too often it is unconscious. I want my clients to choose to choose the beliefs that work for them and live into them without a doubt.
All of us, Patricia make believe and we make beliefs. We choose to see the world around us in a way that can make us afraid, angry, anxious, worried, or happy, relaxed, content, courageous – do you see what I mean? Each of us gets to choose, without a doubt, what is true for us. I can choose to believe that my life is going to be amazingly fun and prosperous, and practice living without a doubt. That means that when doubts arise, which they will, I choose in that moment what to do with them. I assess whether there is evidence of truth to that doubt. I then am at choice as to how to be with that doubt. Can I allow that doubt to lead me to further faith, as opposed to fear? That’s a big practice.
So many of us are in this question right now – what makes sense to believe in, where do I put my trust and faith? You get to choose. If what you’ve tried isn’t working for you, try practicing something you haven’t tried yet, such as living in faith. From this faith, what do you want to do? What do you want to make happen? Who do you want to be? In this moment, you get to choose how you want to create the rest of your life. Enjoy your exploration and the practice of living without a doubt!
It’s really important to have support around you. There are spiritual guides and coaches who are prepared to support you through your journey.
Author of Self-Empowerment 101
http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=68
Dr. Rosie
June 25th, 2010
What if I Fail?
Maria asks:
Dear Dr. Rosie,
I’ve been following your column for the past few weeks. I’m inspired to consider taking steps towards my dream career as a graphic artist – I’m so passionate about creating! I’m also so scared that I might fail in this endeavor. Who will be there to pick me up or to catch me if I fall? I’m so afraid of being alone. I’d love some words of wisdom to help me take the first step.
Thanks Dr. Rosie,
Maria
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From Dr. Rosie
Dear Maria,
I totally empathize with you as you stand at the crossroads of a big decision. This decision seems huge – thinking about all of the things you’ll have to do to become a graphic artist. It’s really not that at all. It’s the decision to trust in your self, enough to risk the possibility of failure. I’ll talk about failure in a moment, but first let’s talk about trusting yourself enough:
In my book Self-Empowerment 101, I talk about that place inside where you can sit in your dream and passion knowing that it’s possible. It’s palpable; you can feel what it’s like to be doing what you love with no fear of failure – just pure joy. What’s it like to access that place in this moment? What qualities are present in this experience? For me, when I step into this place I feel relaxed, liberated from constraints, unlimited, light and ease. From here, it feels like everything and anything is possible! From here, I won’t fail and if I did, I’ll be okay. Your job, Maria, is to commit to accessing this place a few times a day and creating practices that move you toward graphic artistry. I say it this way so that you can embody the reality that you are already a graphic artist, and that you will be just leaning into and through the next veil of limitation that you come up against.
Each and every one of my clients has to be committed to themselves and their dreams enough to just lean into what’s limiting them. Whether its fear of failure, fear of rejections, fear of humiliation; it doesn’t matter. All of us have to face that part of us that doesn’t believe and trust that we, I, can do this.
How we normally be with our fears is to distract ourselves from them, to avoid feeling the discomfort and anxiety, to then perhaps deny that we even care enough to take the steps towards what we say we want. We can teach ourselves to be different with our fears and discomforts. We can practice controlling them instead of allowing them to control us. If I’m allowing my fears to control me than I’m choosing to allow them to control me: What the heck is that about? How is that serving me?
Being with Failure
Maria, I want you to ask yourself – what does it mean to fail? Write down what comes up for you, for example; it means isolation, humiliation, rejection, poverty, worthlessness. Then ask yourself: What do you have it mean to be, for example, isolated, humiliated, rejected, poor and worthless. Notice your thoughts as well as emotions and body sensations. Again, what meaning are you making for yourself about being isolated, etc? This is a very empowering exercise, because you can begin to see how you choose to make meaning, how you choose to think about things a certain way, and that you can choose differently in what meaning you make! How empowering is that?
Each of us make meaning of our world, and quite often these meanings paralyze us. Sometime we allow ourselves to sabotage our dreams by triggering disempowering thoughts and feelings. Many times I’ve had to notice when and how I allow a thought to make me feel scared and anxious.
No matter who we are or what our career or life aspirations are, each of us are using particular strategies to either move us toward our desires or sabotage us and paralyze us, creating a sense of “I just can’t do this!”
Do you see how powerful you are at choosing what you choose? The practice is to cultivate more awareness, through noticing of what you are doing, what you are thinking and feeling, and just observe your brilliance at creating the reality you are currently living in. Then, if you want, you can choose to choose differently!
To a large degree fear is a constant – especially for those who are wanting to live on the edge of their lives. We face the unknown, unsure of what the next leap of faith will bring about. However, as you move into your life more openly aware of who you are and how you operate you will notice how you choose to be with fear and empower yourself to choose differently, only if you want.
Who will be there to pick me up or to catch me if I fall?
The leaps of faith you will be making, Maria, as you move toward graphic artistry, only have to be big enough to move you in the direction of the results you are after. This can be just a shift in attitude, one item checked off your to-do list, one email or phone call that feels scary. Rarely, if we really pay attention and notice our choice-making process will you fail or fall very far. One step forward, two steps back is really an effective practice in creating attention to what you are choosing and seeing that perhaps you are choosing to not succeed – that’s not failure! Are you curious enough to pay close attention to how you might intentionally choose not to succeed and see this, again, as a very empowering process?
This can be challenging work to do on your own. I encourage you to consider finding a thinking partner, a coach, or a support group to keep you present to your commitments.
The bottom line, Maria, is you will not fail. And, you will come to trust yourself to catch you if you fall!
Have Fun!
Dr. Rosie