You Are Not Lazy: 3 Better Explanations

I want to make a radical suggestion. 

I want to suggest that being lazy doesn't actually exist. 

That what we call...

LAZINESS

PROCRASTINATION

BEING STUCK

 ...always make sense on some level. 

So instead of beating ourselves up and saying that we're lazy - which really just keeps us in the cycle of stuckness - we could become really curious instead. 

And by bringing this curiosity and honesty to ourselves, we could have a more effective way of dealing with the situation and getting un-stuck. 

In this short video, I talk about three more helpful alternative explanations to 'I'm lazy'.

So perhaps next time your mind starts beating you up about being lazy, you can get curious about what's really going on!

Finding a Whole-ish Love

We have to be whole people to find whole love, even if we have to make it up for a while. - Cheryl Strayed

Following the end of my marriage, I was learning to dance on my own - learning the steps of dancing with myself after dancing as part of a couple most of my adult life.

And after an intense grieving process, I was ready to explore the world of dating again. 

I was convinced that being in a healthy relationship is very much about being able to dance on our own first, that we can only be fully ourselves in a relationship when we don't rely on the other person to dance. And that we become magnetic to others by learning to be OK - and even enjoy - dancing with ourselves first. 

Because if we are not OK dancing on our own, we'll accept the first person who is willing to dance with us -whether or not this leads to a great relationship - because we look to them to complete us. 

Because if we are not OK dancing on our own, we'll create a relationship where we never have to dance on our own, where we're glued to the other person in a co-dependant, fusional relationship. 

I had reached the point were I was starting to enjoy dancing with myself when I met someone. A man who is already changing my life. 

I certainly don't have all the answers about becoming magnetic or meeting someone. And of course, a lot of things in the dating world are out of our control, including timing. 

I simply want to share some of what I learned this past year - some of what IS in our control in how we can learn to dance on our own, becoming more whole or whole-ish as I call it - so that we can, if we want, more beautifully dance with someone else as well one day.

It isn’t about being completely whole. 

I know people who are obsessed with needing to have healed all their childhood wounds or worked through all their flaws before they think they can be in a healthy relationship. 

I thought I needed to totally have my shit together before meeting someone, and I can assure you I do not yet. I am still a work in progress. 

Thinking we need to be whole before meeting someone is a form of perfectionism, which at it’s root is often about I’m not good enough. 

We will never be totally whole anyway. There will always be more work to do, life will reveal to us more stuff we need to work through and healthy relationships are about growth for both partners anyway. We can grow both in a couple and on our own - growth is always a choice. 

But it isn’t about looking for someone to complete us either.

It isn’t about someone else filling in the voids in us. Or our accepting to fill the voids in someone else.

I went on a date with someone who felt bored of his life and was expecting a woman to ‘entertain’ him, to make his life more interesting or exciting. I left that date running and never looked back. 

Because we can never win when we are filling someone else’s voids. 

And if we expect them to complete us, it doesn’t work either. 

If we outsource our needs to someone else, expect them to know what we want, to make decisions for us or take care of us, this is not a recipe for a heathy relationship. 

Because nobody else can know our own needs better than we can, and it is nobody else’s job than my own to state my own needs and ask for them to be met. 

So while it isn’t about reaching a utopian state of wholeness, it isn’t about not having done any work on ourselves either and expecting other people to complete us either.

Perhaps a more realistic view is being whole-ish.

And being with someone we can grow more into wholeness with.

Here’s what I find can help reach a state of whole-ish. 

We need to sort of like or at least respect ourselves

I think that meeting someone actually starts with…our relationship to ourselves.

If we don’t like who we are, why would we expect someone else to?  

If we are not happy with our own company and cannot be on our own, someone else will always have the role of saving us from ourselves. 

If we don’t believe we are worthy of love and we meet someone amazing who falls in love with us, we will always be questioning this. We will think they are crazy or not being honest. On a less conscious level, we will probably sabotage the relationship because we don’t believe we deserve to be treated so well. 

As mindfulness teacher Sharon Salzberg writes:

If you’re trying to persuade someone to spend time with you and you don’t think you’re awfully interesting, that’s a hard sell, you know.

I believe we have to be someone we would want to date ourselves, even if this sounds weird. 

Again, we will never reach a state of being exactly the person we want to be. Simply being on the path towards this is what matters, consciously working through our stuff. 

We put up with unacceptable behaviour when we don’t believe we are worthy of better. 

Become magnetic regardless

When we feel OK being who we are - when we are not perfect, we don’t look or act exactly the way we would want - and we accept ourselves and where we are anyway, something happens.  

We dare to be more fully who we are. And that makes us magnetic to others. 

This is what being attractive truly is in my book. It is much more of an inside job than the outside job society would have us believe. 

It is about being aware of all the parts of ourselves, even the ones we don’t like. It is about being with who we are right now, and being OK with it, even if we are still changing. 

It is about taking responsibility for ourselves, for our choices, for our desires. 

That it’s OK to want what we want. 

Being honest with ourselves about our flaws and strengths and needs is powerful - much more than striving to be perfect, to project a certain image. 

No more hiding

When I signed up to online dating, I actually revealed something about myself that I thought might send some people off running thinking I was weird. 

But my thought process was: If I can’t fully be myself with someone, it isn’t worth getting to know them. 

We should never dampen down parts of ourselves or become less of something in order to fit someone's image of who they want to be with. Nor should we expect them to do this for us. 

As Sharon Salzberg writes,

If you get a boyfriend and you can never reveal yourself, it’s not actually fulfilling anyway.

Dancing with someone

So one of the secrets to being able to dance with someone is actually dancing on your own. 

Only then can you dance with someone who can also dance on their own, someone with whom you will dance together AND separately - two whole people coming together rather than completing each other.

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When Life Feels Messy: One Simple Thing You Can Always Do

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Sometimes life feels like we are in the middle of a mess: A messy relationship, a messy transition, a difficult work situation, not being able to find a job, a conflict with someone close. Or we might be grieving, were wronged by someone close to us or are facing a health challenge. 

Like so much in life, there is no clear way to deal with the messy times. There is so much that can feel out of our control: The circumstances, how others react, maybe even our health. 

And yet there is one aspect that is always in our control: Our actions.

The choices we make.

The kind of person we are not when the messiness is over but right now while we are in the middle of the mess. 

Because this is something we can always choose: Whether or not we act in a way that makes us proud while faced with the reality of the situation. Whether we act in a way that is aligned with our values, with what matters to us in this situation. 

We can't fully control our thoughts, or emotions or other people's actions but the one thing we can always control is our hands and our feet - the actions we take despite how we are feeling or how others are reacting. Despite what is going on around us. Despite how messy life feels. 

So here is a question you can ask yourself, regardless of what you are currently facing: 

Looking back at this situation in a few years, what would I like to have stood for? 

Perhaps looking back, you would like to say that you dealt with the situation with grace, with integrity, by standing up for yourself, by being authentic or by taking care of yourself.

Perhaps you would like to say that you did your best to be there for others while still taking care of your own needs. Perhaps you would like to say that you were able to walk away when things were no longer working for you or that you stayed with the difficulty and saw things through. 

Whatever you choose, make sure you choose something that is fully in your control. For example, you can choose to always take care of yourself even if you have an accident and can't exercise anymore - you can still choose other forms of self-care like meditation or healthy eating.

Choosing something like 'I want to be respected' does not work as we cannot control other people's behaviour or whether or not they respect us, regardless of what we do. Instead, we could choose to act in a way that is respectful of ourselves and others because this is something we can always choose and that is fully in our control. 

There is no right or wrong answer. It's about what YOU want to stand for in the middle of the mess. Once you choose this, you can then take small steps and make small choices that allow you to act as if you were being this person that you want to be. 

And if you don't always succeed? You won't, guaranteed! Because being human IS messy and even if we know what we want to stand for, we don't always manage to move in that direction. And that's OK too. Bring yourself kindness, and then readjust to find a different, perhaps more creative way back to what truly matters to you. 

Will You Simply Be With Me?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of simply being with people. I was touched by how much this concept resonated with people. And at the same time, again and again, I was asked:

What if the other person is not willing to simply be with me? What if they keep offering advice or trying to ‘fix’ me?

Good question. 

Most people will not simply be with someone because our default mode as humans is trying to do something, trying to solve and fix and give advice - both with ourselves and with others. 

This ability to solve problems and fix things is awesome. It serves us well in the external, physical world. If an object is broken, we can figure out how to fix it. We find solutions to problems and we gain a sense of efficacy in the world. 

We feel powerful. And useful.  

We then try to apply this way of being to our inside world of thoughts, emotions and sensations. We treat emotions as problems to be handled, as if we could think the pain away or find a way out of it.

Yet most emotional issues have no solution. There is nothing to be solved. There is no magical answer to many of life’s difficulties. 

And yet, we attempt to do this with ourselves and we do it with the people we love because we want to be helpful. 

It isn’t our fault - it is simply the way the human mind evolved. 

So most of the time, people are not able to simply be with us because they don't know how to do this or that this is even an option. 

We need to help others help us by giving them permission to do what feels like nothing - and yet is so much. 

Here is a simple way of helping people step out of their default ‘fix-it’ mode when you would like then to simply be with you. 

1. Start by recognising their intention…

Most of the time, when people give us advice or try to fix us, they are simply trying to be helpful. 

This is how the mind evolved after all. 

Recognise and thank them for their intention: 

I really appreciate your help / advice …

I know you are trying to be helpful…

2. …Then ask for what you need

Use AND instead of BUT to state your need in the moment: 

I appreciate your help / advice AND

…right now could you simply hold me ? 

…could you simply sit here with me without saying or doing anything? 

…would it be OK to simply listen without giving any advice or trying to fix this?

Basically we are asking people to connect with us from their heart, not their mind. 

We are asking for something that will feel very uncomfortable for most people, and that is OK. It is also OK if they are not able to do it straight away. 

Like any need, we will probably need to ask again and again, to remind those who care about us for what we need. 

And if we try a few times, and someone is still not capable of simply being with us in this way, this also provides information about the relationship.

Asking for what we need is one of the most difficult things we can do. What counts is simply that we asked, not how the person responds which is out of our control.

As one of the founders of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Kelly Wilson says, humans are more like sunsets than math problems.

Lets help people see us as sunsets. 

Being With

The other day, my yoga teacher said something that really struck me about a pose I don't particularly love (pigeon pose). 

He said: This pose is simply about presence. 

I was a little surprised. 

So I didn't need to do anything fancy or special? I didn't even need to do it particularly well?

As if he had read my doubts, he repeated this intriguing line:

This pose is simply about presence. 

OK, I thought. So I am going to try simply BEING WITH myself in the pose. 

This enabled me to relax into it, to allow it to happen. 

To notice the thoughts like:

Am I doing this right?

When will this end? 

What's for lunch?

And to simply smile at them, without getting all caught up in them. 

I stayed with the discomfort.

As we opened each side of the hip, I silently told my body:

Hello, Left Hip. I'm here with you. Hello Right Hip. I'm here with you, too. 

And it made me think that it's the same in human relationships. 

When we talk to someone, we try to find something witty or smart to say. We try doing relationships 'right'. We try to please people or give a certain image of ourselves. We want to make sure we aren't boring or that we're helpful or smart or whatever else feels important to us in the relationship. If they share a problem with us, we think we have to find a solution for them.

We are so caught up in doing relationships right, we forget the most important ingredient: Presence.

What if we could simply BE WITH the other person, really listen to what they are saying, pay attention in the moment, become really curious about their experience? 

If they share something difficult with us, what if we could simply be with their emotions without needing to make them feel better?

What if we could simply let them know - through our words and our presence - I am right here with you. I can be here with your pain without taking it on as my own. Without needing to fix it or fix you or fix the situation?

Without needing to help you find solution. 

Because a lot of human problems don't actually have solutions - or even need solutions. 

Sometimes all they need is someone's presence. 

Someone to hold a space for them. 

To be there with them. To hold their hand. To hug them. 

This pose is simply about presence. 

Relationships are simply about presence. 

BEING WITH. 

“The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed — to be seen, heard and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through. - Parker J. Palmer”

The Princess & the Tunnel of Fear

I wanted to share a piece I wrote for Elephant Journal - a sort of modern fairytale because I loved fairy tales as a child. Only this one is a little more realistic from a psychological perspective. And without a prince to save the princess. 

Read the story here!