The Art of Being in a Doing World

In this blog, I am going to share what is the essence of all the work I do.  How to live authentically by being in touch with your feelings and trusting them to bring you a balanced, abundant life.  But first a story.

Learning the Art of Being

In 2003, I met Dr. Fred Downing. Fred was a master at his craft of helping people and a master of living an authentic life. He had a rich, deep, soothing, voice – the kind that could pull you into his orbit with just a few words.  He had kind and knowing eyes and one of my daughters once said, “I don’t like it when he looks at me – it is like he can see right into me and know everything about me.  And he could.  Maybe not everything but enough that there was literally no place to hide once you started talking to him.

He loved his work, and he lived it every day.  Not in a frantic “A” type personality way, but in a calm, deliberate and even somewhat slow kind of way.  A way that made you relax, feel comfortable and that made you want to be in his presence.  I never saw him hurry or not have time for someone.

He had lived a fascinating life.  He had been in the US navy, received his doctorate and had become a minister.  He had marched with the Black Panthers protesting the treatment of blacks in America, while still in his ministry. He was arrested for doing that and once had a gang put out a contract on him that a rival gang bought out to ensure his safety.

He quit his ministry after being invited to help start up the family program at The Meadows in Wickenburg, Arizona – one of the leading treatment facilities in the world.  His contemporaries included famous authors in the therapy world such as Pia Melody and John Bradshaw.  But Fred shunned the spotlight and worked humbly helping people through groups and one on one work.

My association with him began back when I was a mess.  I was an alcoholic, with a failing business and a failing marriage.  I heard Fred speak and signed up for one of his workshops in 2003 and that started a relationship and friendship that would last until his death in 2010.  I took several of his workshops and some even accused me of becoming addicted to them.  The format for each one was exactly the same.  Only the stories of the 12 people who were in them varied, and each time, I learned more and more about myself, my life, what was driving my behaviours, and how to change them by being in touch with my feelings and getting away from living in my head so much.

In addition to the workshops, I worked one on one with Fred, and I remember one day, he told me to go home and just “be”.  He may as well have been speaking a foreign language that I did not understand.  My expression and mind went blank as I searched for anything I knew about being, and I came up dry.  I asked him how to do that and he said, just go home, sit in your favorite chair and just be – do nothing and don’t think about anything. I thought he had lost his mind.  But he had never been wrong before and never led me astray.

I went home to just be. Here is what happened.  My mind started racing with thoughts like:  This is crazy, I’ve got too much to do to just sit here, I need to take something out for supper, maybe I can just turn the TV on for a few minutes and start again, I need to answer those emails, I forgot to pay my phone bill, I need to mow the lawn, I should paint this room, why is Fred making me do this, I better not forget my daughter’s birthday next week, what should I get her for a present, what’s that noise – I should go check it out, oh my gosh, I didn’t phone Pete back, I need to get the car in for a tune-up, I think I will barbeque a steak for dinner, damn it I didn’t buy barbeque sauce, I have company coming for dinner on Saturday – maybe I should barbeque for them, or maybe I should cook my famous lasagna, why is Fred making me do this, this is crazy, I’ve got too much to do just to sit here.

Then it hit me. The harder it is to sit and just be, indicates how important it is to do it.  It is just like the saying about meditation I have mentioned before. If you don’t have 20 minutes to sit in meditation, then you should sit for an hour.

But I was to learn that Fred’s teaching about being, instead of doing, was different than meditation.  It was about creating space for my feelings.  My feelings that would give me the answer to every question I had, and healing from every difficulty I had experienced, and was yet to experience.

Living Abundantly

Two years after meeting Fred, he told me that he thought I had some gifts to share with people and asked me to help him with his workshops and helping people one on one after the workshops.  I felt unworthy and incapable.  I was listening to my negative self-talk and the Basic Personal Assumptions I had at the time.  Fred helped me with that as well, and I finally accepted the offer and we worked together until 2009.

I learned about feelings and more importantly about the gifts our feelings have for us if we just stop avoiding them, running from them, or numbing them out.

You see, we spend most of our lives running from, and otherwise avoiding the one thing that can help us, save us, and teach us how to live our lives in abundance, including abundance of peace, and harmony.

It is about the journey I mentioned in episode one – the eighteen inches from your head to your heart. If you want your life to change, to live more abundantly making the right decisions based on your feelings not your thoughts, and you have the courage to make those changes, take the journey. While short, it will be the most difficult journey you will ever take but also the most rewarding and life changing.

I understand why people use every trick available to them to avoid feeling.  Just think about the some of the feelings:  fear, shame, sadness, pain, loneliness, hopelessness. They really sound awful so why would anyone even want to experience them let alone sit in them.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that and talking with Fred about it.  We talked about things like what purpose would they serve and why do we have them – there must be a reason.  And there is.

Just like with physical pain which tells us to stop doing something, our emotions are trying to get a message to us as well.  Each of our feelings have a gift for us, yes, that’s right a gift, if we will stop running from them and feel them.

Unfortunately, we live in a world of persistent stimulation such as television, social media, billboards, advertising on our Facebook pages and YouTube channels.  All of them trying to get you to do something, like buy something, or workout, or text someone or go on social media.  We must make a conscious effort to slow down, unplug and be.

I hear so many times from my clients: “I’m so busy I can’t find any time for me.” You don’t find time, you make time – by eliminating things that aren’t getting you closer every day, to your ideal life.  The clutter on your desk, in your home or garage isn’t what is getting in the way of you living the life you want to live – the clutter in your brain is.

If you are struggling to make a single important decision, or make some life altering changes, you need to sit down and be – and feel what is going on for you inside. Your feelings will be your guide.

You already know how

And, you know how to do this. You did it when you decided to read this blog – you listened to your feelings. 

You may have felt the need for some inspiration, motivation, or ideas. You may have been feeling down, hopeless, you may have been fearful about being stuck where you are. Maybe you have been sad about where your relationship is at – or going – or not going.

Maybe something bad has happened to you recently and you needed perspective. Maybe it was loneliness or sadness because of struggles in your relationship.  Maybe you were feeling overwhelmed by your list of things to do and needed a break, so the title appealed to where you are at in the moment.

These are all feelings and whether you know it or not, it was a feeling or a combination of feelings that got you listen to this episode.

When you paid attention to and listened to your feelings, you did something good for yourself.  Had you not heeded those feelings, you would have remained stuck and in your head trying to figure out the answers and trying to think your way out of your circumstances. Your thoughts would have kept spinning and you may or may not have made any changes or reached a decision.  Had you taken the time to be, even for a few minutes, and asked yourself, “what am I feeling”, you would have been coming to the place of authenticity where thoughts, words, feelings, and actions are aligned.

Yes, you may have made a decision in your busyness, but it may have been the wrong decision because it may not have been aligned with your feelings.

Think about some of the wrong decisions you have made in your life. Bought the wrong car, the wrong house, the wrong investment. Picked the wrong company to go to work for or picked the wrong romantic partner. How many times with the benefit of hindsight have you gone arghhh, I knew I shouldn’t have done that. Well, if you knew, why did you do it? Simply put, your head or thoughts talked you into doing something  your heart knew all along was the wrong decision, had you only take time to be.

As mentioned in previous blogs, through series of things that happen to us, we become disconnected from our feelings and start spending all our time in our heads. Relying on your head is just surviving, and being in your feelings is living.  And our heads can lead to some poor choices. We most often end up in our heads because of things that are said to us.  Lots of times, often when growing up, our feelings aren’t validated and often even negated.  Sayings like, suck it up, big boys (or girls) don’t cry, stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about, toughen up, don’t be so sensitive, or even awkward times when our parents don’t know what to say to us when we are hurting or sad, because they may not even be in touch with their feelings, make us believe that feelings aren’t safe or there is something wrong with having them.

Being in our head is typically a learned technique to make things appear more bearable and as a coping mechanism to escape the pain or discomfort of our reality at the time.  It can help us over some short-term difficulties but if we get stuck there and rely completely on our thinking, we miss out on the best parts of life.  It is time to start living or to live more fully.

Coming soon

In my next blog, I am going to be talking more about feelings. What they are, and the gifts they have for us if we can learn the art of living in our doing world. For today, let me share a couple of key points about feelings.  The first one as it relates to intimate relationships. Most people think intimacy is holding hands, cuddling or having sex. It is not. Some think it is about common interests, liking the same things or thinking the same way as your partner. It is not.  Intimacy is being able to share your feelings openly and honestly and have them validated.  Plain and simple.  Everything else is a gift that comes from that.  Learn to identify your feelings, be in them and share them, and your life and all your relationships will change beyond your wildest dreams. We make relationships, and for that matter life, so complicated because we won’t slow down enough to be and to live in our feelings.

The other key point I want to share is about anger.  Anger is a valid human emotion and should not be suppressed or ignored.  There is nothing wrong with anger – it is how we express it that can make it dangerous or unhealthy.

But here is the thing about anger.  Most often we use anger to prevent us from getting to the feelings that are underneath it.  We use it as either a shield or a club to keep people away from us, so we don’t have to be vulnerable, and say that we are hurt or sad, or ashamed, or lonely or any one of the other feelings.

When we do that, we are blocking intimacy and not living authentically. 

I want you to close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to be able to know how you are feeling, articulate your feelings in a healthy way and have them validated.  Imagine living your life that way, and how amazing being in touch with your essence, your inner self, your feelings would be.

It is a gift that is available to all of us.

How to start

How do you get started? By finding time each day just for the Art of Being. You can do it almost anywhere – your favorite chair, a park bench, or sitting on the grass.  It is not the same as meditating, it is about scanning your body and finding out what you are feeling. Or if you are thinking about some problem, situation or worrying, being able to find the feelings associated with whatever is going on, so you will be able to come to the right decision.  Because our feelings are never wrong.  Never.

I will give you an example.  I used to be a world class worrier.  I would lie awake at night tossing and turning, trying to figure something out or thinking about how to fix a situation.  I would lose lots of sleep, and guess what?  The problems would still be there the next morning when I woke up.  And then I would have unproductive days the next day because of loss of sleep.  Nothing solved, and a lousy next day as a result – I would be tired grumpy, not present, and still have the worry.

Then I realized, worry is about fear.  Sometimes the fear would lead to a sense of futility or hopelessness.  When I got in touch with the feelings, I would receive their gifts.  The gift of fear is wisdom, and the gift of hopelessness is acceptance.  As long as I stayed in my head worrying and worrying, nothing changed.  When I got in touch with the feelings, and the gifts, I knew what to do.  You can too if you commit to the eighteen-inch journey.

I want to be clear about something and this is such a critical point.  We hear a lot and I even teach about Mindset – what goes on in our headspace.

Feelings are what goes on in your heartspace.

Your headspace or mindset is critical for your success – no matter how you define success.  But, understand this, your headspace will never be in order if you are at war with, or disconnected from your heartspace – your feelings. The dis-ease or discomfort you feel, when you know you need to make a change or changes comes from your feelings.   

Mindset matters – tremendously because the wrong headspace will knock you right back into the rut you have been in. But your heartspace – your feelings are the single key to unlock your power and create the life you want to be living. 

Befriend your feelings. Trust, they have powerful gifts for you.  Know in your heartspace that you have all the answers to all your questions and that by tapping into the power of your feelings and the gifts they have to give you – you will find that you are wiser than you think.  Stop avoiding them, stop running from them, stop numbing them and your heart and mind will open to the amazing opportunities and possibilities the world has to offer.

Five things to remember on your journey.

1. You have the power to change your circumstances.
2.  Your mindset plays a role – crush your negative self-talk before it crushes your dreams.
3. Practice gratitude.
4. Practice regular meditation to reduces stress, anxiety, improve self-esteem, empathy trust, contentment, and memory.
5. Your feelings will never let you down – never – and they are always right.  Always.

Learn to “Be”. We are human beings not human doings. This may seem contrary to all your goal setting and planning but it isn’t. You must learn to Be so you know who you are Meant to Be – and be in touch with your feelings – the source of all your answers. To know your Why. In today’s world of frenetic competition for our mental bandwidth we are robbed of the ability to be contemplative, introspective and to find soul nurturing peace. Create the time and space to just Be. Every. Day.

Let your feelings guide you. They are never wrong. Never. Your mind tells you lies and plays tricks on you but you can trust your feelings.

Your soul knows how to heal your wounds. The challenge is to silence your mind. Create time and space.

It’s only Eighteen Inches. The shortest trip you will ever take but without a doubt, the most important journey of your life.

I love this quote by Diane Ackerman, she wrote: “I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it.  I want to have lived the width of it as well.”

You can live not only the length but also the width of your life by taking the eighteen-inch journey from you head to your heart. 

Make time to be.