Posts Categorized: Radical Kindness

Acceptance or Connection?

in Approval, Radical Kindness

What’s the difference between a desire for approval (a strategy for gaining acceptance) and a desire for connection? I’ve been sitting with this question during the past week.
Here are some of the what I’ve noticed, in the form of “Questions to Self.”
• Where’s my focus? A dead give away. If it’s on others, I’m usually thinking about what they expect of me. Is it on my own sense peace and well-being? It’s connection.

Personalities want something.

in Approval, Radical Kindness

I’m reminded this morning of one of Byron Katie’s oft-repeated phrases:

“Personalities don’t love. They want something.”

I’ve been looking at my need for approval and appreciation this month, and this is the refrain that keeps showing up in my mind. When mind is quiet, I’m just simple and present. There’s a space for love to show up, and I love sharing that.
When my “personality” (my social self) runs the show, I do want something. I want others to do what I want them to do so that I can have what I want.

The “Look Good” Religion

in Approval, Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

I was raised in a traditional religion, but my family had another religion that was more powerful. I call it the Look Goods. As a principal’s daughter in the rural midwest, how I looked and whether I fit in seemed like the bottom line. I can imagine now the beliefs forming in my six-year old head. “Please approve of me,” which carried another assumption: if you did you wouldn’t leave me.”

I would belong. A powerful motivator for a first grader. What did I stand to lose if “they” didn’t approve? Everything. Security. Comfort. So what I did was become inauthentic to gain that approval. I began to do, to dress, to say what I thought would win them over. I became a false version of me.

Self-Understanding Quick Course

in Radical Kindness

Yesterday I was a guest of Cath Duncan, as a part of her Bottom Line Book club. What fun! Cath is an astute and kind coach who is offering a wonderful service to folks who want to find a fast track to self understanding. She offers a “Cliff Notes” to self-help programs and interviews an expert every month. I was quite impressed by the program, and by the expert questions she asked this “not really an expert.”

The Cost of Dodging Disapproval

in Approval, Radical Kindness

I’m noticing another aspect of my approval-seeking habits. My inner Disapproval Dodger may even be more powerful than my Approval Junkie. Hard to admit.
I got started people pleasing early in life. About the same time I decided I needed their approval, I also figured out I REALLY wanted to avoid their disapproval. (What kid doesn’t?)

Bottom Line Book Club

in Radical Kindness

Imagine if there was a way that you could take the masses of personal development books out there and apply a filter that extracts not just the best books, but the 20% that’s the highest-leverage ideas and change-tools that the top coaches use…and get step-by-step coaching on how to actually use those tools…so you can focus on only the stuff that really makes a difference and start getting the results you want now…

That’s exactly what the Bottom-line Bookclub does for you…

Refreshing Your Screen

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

One important thing I learned about cyberland is that you have to refresh the screen when you return to a site you’ve visited before. This allows you to see changes that have occurred while you’ve been doing other stuff.
The same is true for the process of change. If I don’t refresh, I run the same old loops, have the illusion of being stuck. For me, refreshing the screen means pausing, checking in, noticing that things aren’t the same. How could they be? It’s simply not possible.

Always We Begin Again

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

These are the opening words from the Rule of St. Benedict. I’m not a Catholic, but I owe so much peace and clarity to my training in spiritual direction with the sisters of a nearby monastery. These words continue to remind me, each morning, of possibility.
Especially when I’ve fallen off the wagon filled with my best intentions the night before. It hardly matters what I did, but let’s just say I let myself down when I unconsciously ate half a bag of chips at midnight. In the past this kind of thing has given me enough proof of hopelessness to pull me off the wagon for good, a rebellious child running wildly amok, with no regard for the future.

Groundhog’s Day and the Same Old Loops

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

I awoke today thinking about how appropriate the movie Groundhog’s Day is to the patterns I experience this time of year. My new year’s resolutions have begun to wear off, just when I was noticing some success. My mind is a little more peaceful, my body is a little lighter, and then I get a “Change Back Attack” sending me back into the same old loops of thinking and eating and living that inspired the resolutions in the first place.
Today I’m deciding to REALLY wake myself up from the movie. So I’m going to the ancient wisdom of the Celtic religions. Today is also known as Bridget’s Day or Imbolc, because it’s exactly between the shortest day of the year (Solstice) and the Spring Equinox, when days and nights are equally balanced.

Thought Yoga

in Radical Kindness

I’ve practiced yoga for about twenty years, and I’ve taken one class or another about twice a week during this time. That’s a lot of hours. You’d think there would be nothing much new happening. That’s what mind would say. But (as I keep learning) mind is often wrong. My body loves it when I ask it to repeat movements it understands internally. Then body (and mind) settle into a peaceful and deep connection. Yoga has taught me that. Yesterday, as my body found its way from a Child Resting to Warriors One through Three to Triangle to Dogs and Dolphins and Pigeons, there was a felt sense of familiarity mixed with curiosity about what I would discover. Yoga has given me this.