HOT OFF THE PRESSES:

When you sign up for the 5-week Living by Design you receive for Free my new Living by Design booklet that has just been released.

Click here for details.

CREATING, PROMOTING, OR ALLOWING

In recent articles I have been addressing the power of action to produce what we want. The reality is we are always successful in producing a result.

The problem is we don’t often claim our creativity around the results we produce. We haven’t developed the ability to see the connection between our actions and the results, thus justifying our claim to victimhood.

If you want to be conscious about your power as a creative being, developing discernment in this area is a powerful tool.

Years ago before I learned this, when I was young, vivacious and more than a bit unconscious, I may have greeted my very worn out husband with an enthusiastic “HELLO, WELCOME HOME!”, only to discover him withdrawing from me and turning grumpy.

My conclusion that I may have expressed aloud or to myself was, “What’s up with you??!”, in a not so gentle way. I would experience myself a victim to his grumpiness, totally unaware of the contribution I was making to the situation.

Trust me - this didn’t produce the result I told myself I was going for - a fun and happy reunion. Instead I found him retreating even more. Go figure.

Now I ask myself a different question. Instead of pointing my finger at him, I instead point it back at myself and ask myself a few wonder questions:

“How am I setting it up for my husband to show up in ways I don't like?”

“What action did I take in order to produce his reaction.”

This is another point of power, instead of giving my power away to his grumpiness I instead look to see how I am either a collaborator or a contributor.

Maybe I didn’t produce his grumpiness. Maybe I threw kerosene on an already smoldering fire?

And, perhaps I had another choice. Perhaps I could have been a soothing balm of gentle water that would have put his flames out and brought him to a quiet place. So maybe I didn’t create his grumpiness, but once he shows up grumpy, the actions I take make a difference.

There are different levels of creativity.

We can either 
    CREATE directly, 
          PROMOTE an outcome, 
               or ALLOW a result.

You can remember that by the letters CPA.

Examples:

Create = I dropped the milk.

Promote = I gave my 3 y/o a 16 ounce glass of milk that was bigger than her head and she dropped the milk.

Allow = my 3 y/0 asked if she could pour herself some milk and I said yes.

We pretend we are victims to circumstances. And when we do that, life stinks and we are enjoying life as much as I enjoy having a mammogram.

But the truth is that how we respond to the circumstances of our life directly impacts the experience we are having. As a matter of fact how we relate to our life, is our life.

Learn how to relate to your life from a place of true creative power. Begin to notice how you are setting things up to turn out the way they do. And if you don’t like the results you produce - well - try something else.

If you want to join a group of like-minded, friendly, fun-loving, intentional people, who together are learning how to live by design - and you want to get coaching from me - sign up for the upcoming Learning How to Live by Design Course which starts in 13 days.

Imagine having access to powerful tools, gentle facilitation, and amazing support, all at a mere fraction of what it would cost to hire me as your personal coach.

You will receive as a gift for signing up my recently completed Living by Design booklet, plus many other goodies too numerous to list here. Click here to find out more!

I would love to have you join me. Please sign up today.

QUOTES

"As long as you think that the cause of your problem is 'out there' -- as long as you think that anyone or anything else is responsible for your suffering -- the situation is hopeless. It means you are forever in the role of victim, that you're suffering in paradise." 
    ~ Byron Katie ~

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING

Think of a time when you went grumpy this week. A situation or event that triggered you into experiencing yourself as a victim. In one sentence describe the event and write it down.

Example: My financial software files were damaged and caused me a tremendous amount of time to repair and restore the lost data.

What did you tell yourself about what happened? How did you language the event?

Here is one more reason I hate doing the books. Why does this sh*t keep showing up?

What actions did you take?

I called the financial software support and tech support for my computer and discovered no one could help me as the data file was corrupted, and then reentered everything all over again.

Where are you now relative to the triggering event?

At peace. It’s over. And grateful for the back-up that wasn’t corrupted so I only had to redo a few months of entry.

Taking this a bit further: What did you do or not do to Create, Promote or Allow the situation that triggered your original upset?

Remember hindsight is 20/20. Do not use this as a reason to judge yourself. Use this as a learning opportunity.

The financial software program has been intermittently behaving weirdly. . . doing things like telling me statements I had reconciled from months earlier were not reconciled. I did not call the tech support folks then to get help sorting out the problem. These were yellow flags.

What can you learn from this going forward?

To pay attention and take action before the truck runs me over, I mean before things get to a point where I am dealing with a crash, a crisis, a mess.

WONDER QUESTION:

Are you willing to claim creativity for your life?

QUICK LINKS:

COPYRIGHT/CONTACT INFO/REPRINT PERMISSION

Copyright 2007 by Leslie Karen Sann, Living by Design
Visit this link for contact information:
leslie@living-bydesign.com

Reprint permission granted in part or whole when the following credit appears in full:

Copyright 2007 by Leslie Karen Sann,
Living by Design.All rights reserved. 
Web site. http://www.living-bydesign.com