Internal Validation & The Importance of The Compliment Sandwich

 

During the three months of our Dive Master program, Tim and I have had several instructors.  I find that the relationship with each one has been different.  They are in a teacher role, but something more.  We are learning more than just bookwork and physics from these good people, we are learning how they make decisions, what their judgments are based on, and how they handle stressful situations.  In this way, our instructors are more than just teachers, they are role models, and with that comes a bond, a relationship.  My current instructor’s name is Mr. Osborne.  He has trained over 300 Dive Master Candidates like myself, and has a huge experience base.  He is also a very intelligent person (Oxford trained), very thorough in his explanations, extremely detail orientated with his curriculum and strict with his grading system.  Overall, he is a very nice guy who somehow manages to casually demand respect, focus and perfection from his candidates.  As one Dive Master Candidate who worked under Mr. Osborne told me before I came to this island, “Be careful. The last thing you want to do is disappoint Mr. Osborne.”  And sure enough, after meeting him and working with him for a few weeks, I find that I do try exceptionally hard to do exactly what he wants, in the detailed order and quality that he expects.  It’s not that I idolize the man, I don’t want to be just like him, I just really really don’t want to disappoint him.

Now the interesting part of this comes with Mr. Osborne’s teaching style.  As I have been training to become an instructor, I have learned about how to give feedback to students so that they feel good about what they can do and understand where they need to improve.  This is the classic ‘Compliment Sandwich’: You tell them what they did right, followed by what they need to work on, followed by another compliment on how well they did a particular aspect of the skill.  Compliment cookies with criticism in the center. It sounded a bit silly at first.  But now, as the student, I have learned just how important the Compliment Sandwich is because I have not been getting any sandwiches lately.  Mr. Osborne’s style is this: First, you perform a skillset while he observes and grades your performance - This may be guiding divers underwater at a dive site, or rescuing an unresponsive diver and towing them to the boat while giving rescue breaths.  When you come up from the surface, he debriefs you on how you did by telling you what you’ve done wrong, what you missed and what you need to improve on.  Sometimes he just says that your performance was unacceptable and you will be doing that skill again after extensive practice. 

After weeks of hearing what I have done wrong, I find it starts to get into my head a little bit.  I have always thought of myself as a person with steady positive self-esteem, but I have second guessed myself so much with this man.  It is the classic reward/punishment behavior where a child thinks of the punishment, fear arises and they are uncertain if what they are doing is right and they grow timid. After confidently making a choice that led to punishment when you were expecting reward, doubt starts to sink in. The thing is, I am no longer a child.

It is common to give someone in a position of power (i.e. a boss, an instructor, a father) the last word and the most credited opinion based on the idea that they must be right because we look up to them and respect them.  But truly, when it comes to the inner voice, it is your opinion of yourself that matters most, and it should be your own inner voice that guides you and gives affirmation.  How do we change this? Practice trusting yourself, respecting yourself, being gentle with instead of hard on yourself. It is a very important human process that takes years or even a lifetime.  When you finally get to the point where your knowledge of your value matters most over anyone else’s, that’s wonderful, and soon someone may come along in a position of power and respect and criticize you and make you remember the lesson all over again.

From a larger view,  I also realized that what I am feeling around Mr. Osborne is vaguely familiar from my past.  It has the same energy as an unhealthy relationship.  I don’t want to be with someone who is cutting me down or pointing out what I have done wrong all the time.   Especially when I respect the person, for that makes it difficult to not take to heart.  I show up not knowing if he is going to bite or kiss – will the debriefing be that I have failed or done right? When you go into it thinking you did well and then hear otherwise, time and time again, it starts to take an effect.   In relationships, I think it is a transfer of power.  When you tell someone you are in a relationship with what they have done wrong, or that they have disappointed you, their energy immediately drops and yours becomes the stronger energy in the room.  If you tell someone you are with what you appreciate about them, and where you see they tried hard to please you or complete a task properly, the energy is uplifted instead.  Then if you make suggestions on how they could do things differently next time, or little details they should remember later, their energy is already up, so it doesn’t drop as dramatically.  Hence, the compliment sandwich, and how it turns an unhealthy power play into a healthy relationship.

I was taking his negative feedback to heart, and clearly I was taking it personally. (His feedback seemed directed at me and my performance, but even so it was not necessary to take it personally.)  When I get some distance from the situation, with a stronger inner voice of my own, I can see that Mr. Osborne holds himself to high standards of perfection.  When one of his students makes mistakes, perhaps he takes it as a personal failing because he taught them the right way and when they do it wrong, it reflects on him as a teacher.

Last night was our final exam.  Tim and I both did very well, and passed with As.  Before the test, I felt like I needed hours and hours to study to be sure I did things right.  I was stressed.  Mr. Osborne told me I could have thirty minutes to study instead.  I literally set down my fork (I was in the middle of lunch) and ran to pick up my Dive master manual and begin studying.

As I look back now, I realize that Mr. Osborne knew all along how smart I was and that I didn’t need hours to study to pass the exam.  He didn’t say that in any way other than his actions.  And deep down, I know that even though I was feeling very pressured, I knew the information to master things all along.  After the test, Mr. Osborne said he needed to debrief us privately about our actions and behavior in the program, and that we should return the following morning to have a discussion.  It was to the point that I was so on edge – I wasn’t sure I would be able to sleep thinking of what he had left to say – absolutely uncertain if it was going to be punishment or reward. And, being caught up in the energy of the unhealthy relationship, I was full of doubt and anxiety because I was waiting for his voice to have the last word, not listening to my own voice telling me I knew I had done well.    I know that if I stay in a close relationship like that for too long, the stress can deteriorate my self- esteem and the internal ground I have to stand on becomes shaky and doubtful.   It was a beautiful reminder to me that I do not want unhealthy relationships like this in my life in any form, and now that the energy of one is so fresh I can clearly recognize it and walk away from it.  So, during dinner, Tim and I decided to not drag out the suspense any longer.  We walked to Mr. Osborne’s hotel, found him in the bar and asked to be debriefed then and there.  Of course, the first part of what he had to tell us was negative. And after learning this is his teaching style, I almost expected that it would be.  He told us we had screwed up, but then went on to say, “You know I have taught over 300 people to do this, I have seen a huge range of people come through this same program.  And, since I left Thailand, I have not had two candidates come through that have the same amount of dedication, seriousness and skill that you two have.  You have the potential to be very successful in the diving field.  I think you have long and fruitful careers ahead of you.  It has been a true pleasure.”

I nearly cried.  It was more positive feedback than I had ever received from the man.  His entire expression had changed and I realized he was seeing us as friends and no longer as students.  On the walk home in the rain and the dark, I thought about how perhaps Osborne was afraid that if he handed out compliments, that his students would think they were doing well and stop trying, stop learning, start slacking.  Or that perhaps he was so professional with such strict boundaries that he couldn’t be friendly and kind with you until you were completely finished with the teacher/student role.  How strange to find that someone who was so quick to point out every place where you were lacking, every little thing you did incorrectly or not up to standard, actually thought you were great after all.  The part you really wanted to hear, that you were always striving for, the part that would make all the hard work and sincere effort worth it was for whatever reason the exact part he didn’t say.   

I am so grateful to Mr. Osborne for what he has taught me directly about diving, and indirectly about being an instructor.  I am certainly an improved guide and Dive Master because of him.  He taught me the importance of giving feedback to my students as a Compliment Sandwich and reminded me about relationships in life and what I need personally to stay emotionally healthy.  I find it funny how when you set out to learn something, you often get all these extra unexpected life lessons along the way which end up being the more important things to understand.

Non-Attachment - The Ultimate Garage Sale

"I always thought that I would love to live by the sea. To travel the world... and live more simply." -Dido

So, big news - Tim and I are moving to Indonesia! We are going to go teach people how to scuba dive and lead trips in the oceans of the world.

As we prepare for this transition, we are selling or giving away nearly everything we own. And I do mean everything. I won't be taking my silverware and cooking pots to Indonesia. I won't be shipping my Ford Explorer to Indonesia. I won't need my boots or running shoes or mary-janes on our sandy island. It is a very interesting place to be - downsizing to three boxes of sentimental items (which will remain here) and a single backpack (that will come with). Sometimes it is a struggle and sometimes it is very freeing. And one of the major things that comes up in this process is non-attachment.

The first time the concept of non-attachment was presented to me, I misunderstood it. I was 22 and I thought that in order to not be attached to things, you had to not care about them, and I thought there was no way I could ever master being non-attached because quite simply, I cared too much. But lately I have learned that those who are non attached still care, it is that they understand that things in their core essence are just energy and that can be transferred to another type of energy. You have heard that famous Einstein idea that 'energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can change form'? It is a lot like that. For example, I am selling my car. The energy/money tied up in the car will then turn into enough money to fund all expenses for three months in Indonesia. I didn't loose the car, I exchanged it, and gained three months of exploration.

Looking at non-attachment this way reminds me a lot of the old barter system, before there was a confirmed currency, people would trade things they had for things they need.

This week I have been asked, "Why not keep the car for the future when you come back?" I explain that for me it is about living in the present. When I am present, living on a 3 mile wide island in Indonesia, I will have no use for a car parked in Oregon. I can walk everywhere or simply take a camel. (Joking) But seriously, why keep energy tied up in a car 8,000 miles and possibly years away from me? Why not exchange it for energy that applies better to my present and less to "one day"? I find that a lot of the stuff I acquire and keep is for "one day." You know, the things we keep for situations that have not happened yet, but that we like to think we would like to be prepared for in order to better control the outcome of. I may not have used the item for years, but am saving it - just in case. But in the mean time, over years of waiting for just in case, the item is holding unused energy. I guess I am saying that I feel that by selling the things that don't fit in the backpack, I am harnessing more energy to put in the backpack.

I think that a big part of our attachment is identity. We collect and keep things that symbolize who we are. In this way, we externalize ourselves - forgetting that what is inside of us is just as strong, valuable and eternal. If my friend says that his possessions are part of who he is, he is placing their energy into items he owns. If suddenly, all those items were wiped out and lost in some natural disaster, would my friend be lost too? If all of your identity is tied up in material things, and those things are gone suddenly, are you less of a person? Nothing outside of ourselves ever makes us whole. I suppose this is why I am grateful that I have always been one to collect experiences over things.

Its not bad to have nice things. It is not bad to collect material items. Hey, its not even bad to massively hoard stuff. It is just a choice, and I suppose I write this to explain why I have made a different choice and what I learned from it.

Non-attachment is about letting go of the old to embrace the new. And it is funny how, as I do that with things in my garage, I am reminded that the same is true of beliefs and ideas. I have emotional things I hold on to because I feel that they make me who I am - or at one point I believed that. Sure, you will always be a culmination of everything that has ever happened to you, but it is okay to let some things go. You get to decide what you keep replaying and what you don't. There are some hurtful things family members said to me in the past, but I choose to let those go and move forward and not continue to tell others the story of how I was hurt. Because all I am doing with that is bringing up the sadness of the past into the present. My present isn't sad so I let go of those stories, of those comments and free up space within for a different kind of story that matches better with my present. Like that time when my father called just to say he was proud of me, or when my mother wrote to me that she felt the best part of her was alive in me. Or when my sister and I were cleaning house and laughed until we cried over something silly. I forget exactly what that silly thing was now, but I remember the joy and I choose to retain that. The love I feel inside my skin when I bring up these memories is something that will always be with me and cannot be wiped out or diminished. The more I replay it, the more it is a part of me and my present.

Last week, I sold my whitewater kayak to a kindred spirit of travel. I stopped by to visit family on the way home and shared my excitement about selling my boat. My nephew Caleb, who is 8 asked, "You sold your kayak? Does that mean you are no longer a whitewater kayaker?"

I tried to explain to Caleb - "No, I am still a kayaker. It is not the kayak that makes me a kayaker. I could rent a boat tomorrow and I would still know how to read the water and navigate through rapids. My body remembers how to roll back up if I flip over. So being a kayaker is something that is inside of me. Just like riding a bike - even if you have not rode a bike for a long time, you remember how, right? That knowledge doesn't leave when you give your bike away to someone else."

I think he understood. But then again, he's 8, and non-attachment isn't something I understood at 8, or even at 18. And only now, in the place in my life where I am letting go of more than I ever have before, am I truly starting to grasp what it is. You are more than your shoes, your gear, your car, your phone. What makes you beautiful is not your shoes or the beautiful fabrics you adorn yourself with. What makes you unique isn't in your house, its housed inside of you. When we pull our energy out of material things and into ourselves, we reclaim our energy and the stronger we become. The more we are at home within ourselves, the less we need couches and beds and specific kitchen utensils - the more comfortable we can be anywhere, even 8,000 miles from the familiar.

"The Spiritual Life is always about letting go. It is never about holding on. Let go and be free." - Jesse Lee Peterson



___________________________________________________________
For those who love lists like I do, and are curious, below are my lists of things I am keeping and things I am letting go.


The Give Away / Part With or Sell List:

Car

Appliances

Furniture

Kitchen Utensils

Shoes

Clothing

Old Injuries

Limiting Beliefs

Boat, Paddle board, Climbing Shoes and Harness

Plants

My phone

I acknowledge that I can re-buy 99% of my physical possessions at any point in the future if I choose to. I never loose them for good, they were never truly mine in the first place. They do not make me who I am.



The Keep List:

Memories that uplift me.

Stories that support joy and love.

Friendships.

Things people made for me with their own two hands. Cards that people I love hand-wrote me messages in. (These things cannot be replaced.)

Three books - favorite stories in a format that is difficult to re-buy. Also, the books my grandmother Peg Mayo wrote.
As for the rest of the bookshelf - I catalogued all the titles so I can re-buy them if I get to a place in the world where I feel I want to have a bookshelf of favorites again. In the mean time, I let go of all my hundreds of books so that others may enjoy them.

My trunk of childhood things, journals, photos, family heirlooms and sentimental items.

One pair of chaco sandals, six dresses, two long sleeve tops, five tank tops, two skirts and a pair of yoga pants. One fuzzy hooded sweatshirt.

My camera. My Laptop.

Knowledge, experience and love.

What I Learned This Year of Being Alive

This is a little ditty about what I have learned this year of being alive: Lessons, skills, and spiritual growth. Look at it as a list - a random collection - rather than an article with a coherent storyline. And, of course, take it with a sprinkle of salt - because this is true for me may not necessarily mean it is true for you. My goal here is only to share: maybe you'll get something out of it, maybe you won't.

 

This has been a year of adventure. Most of the lessons I learned in the last 12 months took place in a foreign country thousands of miles from home...and yet at home within myself.


This was a year of new languages. I learned some Islandic, Hungarian, French, German, Italian, Greek and Cambodian but mostly Nepali. I found that my favorite phrases across all these have to do with making a connection - I learned to say things like "I agree with you" or "I understand" or "I am part of this." And so, I was shown that learning languages for me is about making a connection.


I learned that some of the best adventures come after other plans fall through. The less attached I am, the more free I am to enjoy something different, something better. For example, if my tour through Tibet hadn't been cancelled, I never would have discovered Parahawking!

I learned that things happen best when they are ready. Pushing for something to happen doesn't always create the best possible outcome. This is a lesson in Flow: In Kauai, we had a Mango tree behind the house and every morning I would go out to see what had dropped overnight. Sometimes it was one mango on the ground, sometimes it was seven. Although the mangoes were reachable on the tree, I preferred to pick them up after the tree had released them, finding those were more ripe, more ready to be eaten than those I could pull down from the tree. We can push for things in our lives, but it often works out smoother when we are really ready. I am becoming more and more familiar of what it feels like to be in the flow in life.


I have learned how to sail, and have reveled in the freedom of waking up somewhere off a coast and randomly selecting the next island to journey towards that day. Without a pre-set itinerary, no controlled, laid-out plan, just an intention for fun - absolutely free to explore. (Efcharisto, Dave.)

I learned that I do not like Islandic Goats' Head Jelly but I love Hungarian Pogatcha biscuits and Turo Rudi cheese candy bars. How do you know you don't like it until you try it, right? (Köszönöm, Tunde.)


In yoga, as I hold a pose for several minutes, there gets to be a point where I shake or fidget or get so overwhelmed with the stretch or sensation that I want to get up, get out, bolt, run. It is usually just after that point that the pose really begins and I can bend deeper or the stretch gets yummy. The same is true in life: When it gets uncomfortable, that's the awesome point - because its about to get really good in terms of internal growth. If it is a very uncomfortable situation, I am about to learn something.
(Thanks, Dolly!)
　

I have learned there is a difference between obligation and love. In my family culture, I was taught that these two are inseparable. For example, in my family there is the unspoken idea of, "If you loved me - you would..." and this creates an obligation. When I do not do what I have been obligated to, I find myself filled with doubt and guilt. Guilt in this form is an attempt to meet others' needs. What a beautiful reminder to meet my own needs first. This year, I have honored myself in not putting myself in unhealthy situations with people, no matter how much I love them. And by meeting my own needs first in this way, I have been more mentally stable and healthy. To let go of the guilt, I remind myself that my needs are just as important as others' needs and I have to choose myself/my needs/ my health first. Believe me, this was not an easy lesson to learn, and it is a big one.
An interesting thing about family culture is that it is a learned pattern of behaviour. Once we are aware that it exists, we can choose to participate. Or, instead we can say, "This ends with me" and create a new pattern. None of it is right or wrong, it is simply what we choose for ourselves.


I have made a new habit: when something I set up goes wrong, instead of getting down on myself, I remember all the things I have done right and then let it go.


I learned that visualisation is the key to changing impossible to possible. If I can see it, I can do it.


In Nepal, Jessica Love taught me how to land a paraglider. This is counter-intuitive - you land into the wind. (Thanks, Jessica!)

I have been a caregiver in my past. And still, when I am close to a friend who is going through a tough situation, my first instinct is to try to fix it for them - I offer advice and work with them to design a plan to remedy things. But this year I have learned that a mature heart can care about someone and step back to see what they have to learn here and watch how they set up a situation to do so. If you fix something for someone, you take away their free will to choose, and if you do the work for them you take away their opportunity to learn. (Thanks, H for helping me learn this one. :)


The things you cherish most should go in your carry on bag and not be checked. Especially when traveling into Cambodia. (Laughing out loud!) And, even these are replaceable. When it comes to physical - It all is.


I have learned how to pitch an article to a paying publication in a format that gets accepted.


This year, I had a series of lessons about letting go of control. I spent a lot of my RTW trip looking for an address, a train station, friends I was supposed to meet, or a hostel. I learned how to have fun even when I am lost - to be joyful even when I am not totally sure/set/in control. A journey doesn't always have a map.

One of the hardest things I have run up against this year is when I do my best and others do not see that. I have learned how to take a deep breath and trust that I have done the best I could and to let it go. It is most important that I know I have done my best because I am the one who has to live with that, not others.


I learned how to make Phillipino Curry. A spicy seafood dish with coconut milk that sometimes turns purple with squid ink. :)  (Salamat, Melanie!)


I learned how to talk so a dolphin will respond.


Quickbooks.


That Lake Balaton, Hungary has the greatest fish soup in the world! (Köszönöm, Zoli!)

How to be an efficient purchasing agent.


How, as a wholesale manager, when a client makes a request, they really don't want to hear the details of what you have to do, where you have to go or what you have to rearrange to make that thing happen for them They just want you to say yes. So, say yes, and worry about the details later. (Gracias, Stewart!)


That sturgeon can grow to five feet long! That's a big fish!


That you really can get anything through TSA if you have enough intention. 10 ounces of frosting? No problem.


That the holiday Easter was originally Ishtar, a celebration of the returning of the light (Spring Equinox). And that long before Jesus was even born or heard of, a woman named Ishtar (Lady of the Light) had a pet bunny, and that is where the Easter Bunny figure comes from.


I have been reminded that everyone has a story to tell. And something to teach me.

I learned that children don't need you to give them huge presents, or to teach them something complex, or to build them something. Sometimes the greatest gift of all is to show up and be constant enough for them to trust. (Dhanyabad didi, Poonam.)

I learned what a whale song sounds like underwater: As though someone is whistling in the distance.


That you really can design a life, a day, to be exactly what you want if you ask. This birthday was exactly that.


That friends don't have to speak your language. Language is just one thing you may have in common. Sometimes the deepest connections transcend language.

That although we think that others get how we feel about them - we should actually tell them. I love you, I want you in my life more, you inspire me, I appreciate all you do --None of these are guaranteed to be evident unless you voice it. There is no better time than now to let them know.
(Thanks, Dad.)


How to eat rice and curry and dal with my fingers: Nepali style. The Nepaleese believe that you have a better connection with your food and live healthier this way.


I learned that even train accidents do not have to be dramatic. Even if you were on the train, you can choose to take on the drama, or to let it belong to the others who were actually physically involved.  And on that same day - I was reminded that the Universe is looking out for me.
(Thanks, Universe!)


One of the most important things in life is to trust yourself. To trust nature, trust others. Whatever happens, you are going to be okay, you are safe. Coming to a situation with trust can determine the course of its outcome. And I learned just how valuable this concept is when crawling on your belly through a tight cave in the pitch blackness, oh, say, 200 feet underground.

I learned that raptors can see you blink when they are far enough away that you can't see them.
(Thanks, Bob.)

That eating more salt can help raise low blood sugar.


The neatest creature I met this year was a cross between a hummingbird and a butterfly - a hummingbee. I didn't know they even existed until we met face to face. This encounter reminded me of how in 2007, off the ocast of the Galapagos, I saw a manta ray jump several feet into the air and then fall back into the sea like a giant, black heavy kite. Up until that point in my life, I had not clue Manta Rays even existed and yet there it was before me. My point here is that the world can always astound you. If you allow it space, there is always something new to learn. Even when you have studied and traveled and experienced so much, there is always the possibility that something spectacularly new will surprise you.

I have been reminded that those we love, we take with us. No matter the distance between you, when you have known someone in your heart, part of them is always there. It seems daily now that I think of my friends Tunde and Zoli in Hungary, of my guides through the caves of Budapest or over the Islandic moonscape of lava and moss, of sweet Caroline and her lovely family in St. Gallen, of Kristin in the yoga ashram in the mountains of Nepal, and of my much adored 8 year old Poonam in the orphanage of Kathmandu. They are here with me, their story intertwines with my story and my love for them expands me.
(For this I am grateful to so many, especially O.)

I have learned that if I feel moved to do something, I should do it. Do not wait until tomorrow to show someone kindness, they may not be there tomorrow. For example, Billie, the orphanage kitten I sought out food for, and took time to share kindness and peace with may not have lived to see another day. But in that moment, when he was safe in my lap and his belly was not knawing with hunger and he could relax enough to sleep, that moment made a difference. Its like throwing starfish back into the sea - sure, you may not be able to save them all, and perhpas it is not about being able to save them. Its about being moved to do something for others and actually following through. They may die tomorrow. We all die sometime. But if you were able to improve even just one moment for the better for them then yes, it was worth it.


I have learned the coorelation between thermals and living in the flow. Thermals are not something you can map out. Just like going with the flow doesn't always involve having a plan. It is more about feel. When flying a paraglider, you have to wait until you can feel the wind of the thermal on your fingers before you turn in that direction to rise higher. In paragliding, the goal is to fly, not to go somewhere. (Danka, Bernie.)

In Paris, I learned that a place is not what you have heard, what you have been told or even what you remember. If you are open enough, a place can surprise you for the better.


If at first you do not understand, ask, ask again. For example: If the bus driver says something, mumbled in a thick accent, and you don't catch what he said, walk up right then and ask him to repeat it. Ask several times if needed. To understand or to not understand can change the entire course of your journey... And the driver may be less pissed at you if hours later you have missed your stop...

　

When your address changes every two days, home becomes something inside that travels with you. The rooms change, the beds change, the cities change, but who I am is solid and familiar. In this way, I can feel at home wherever I am. The better you know yourself, the more you can be your own familiar when nothing else is.

 

And last but not by any means the least important...



Your time  is your life. Be aware of how you are spending it.

Making the Leap From Impossible to Possible

In several yoga classes of throughout the years, I have developed a pattern that I have become aware of this month. It goes like this: I watch the yoga instructor show us a pose, and then show us the advanced variation of the pose. They say something like: "You can balance on one foot and hold your body parallel over the floor or...you can do that AND grab your other foot, pull it over your head and tickle your ear with your toes while wrapping your other arm behind you in a prayer position." At some point, my mind would disengage from what the instructor was saying. I was still watching, but was distanced a little, amazed at what shape was possible with a human body and then I would say something like "Maybe next year" or "Yeah, right!" making light of my belief that there was no way in hell that my body would do that. Ever.

 

Something like this?

Now I have written before about how careful I am to know my body's limits and not push them to go somewhere that might cause injury. I am speaking about something else entirely when I say that I have limited myself by not even trying new poses (or new things in life) by just declaring that it was impossible.

Impossible. An interesting word. If you give it some belief and a little space, the word can be made into "I'm possible." When we see something as a possibility, we create space to have it happen. And rather you have viewed it as such before or not, space is growth.

I recently fell in love with a very challenging (for me) form of yoga called Vinyasa. It is a fast paced class, with several balance and strength building poses. Basically, you sweat a lot. Or I do. My first Vinyasa class was with a treasured teacher of mine, Dolly Stavros. She was showing us how we could move faster through a sun salutation flow by jumping from a forward bend into a push up and vice versa. And immediately, I zoned out a little saying, "Sure. Maybe next year."

"Why not now?" she asked me.

I had to pause. Gulp. "I don't know, I just have never tried and I don't think I have the strength." A mat length is a long way to lift the rest of your body while balanced on your hands.

"Sure you do!" she coaxed.

Dolly walked me through step by step what to do with my feet to get them from between my hands to extended out in a push up. And yes, it did occur to me a couple of times that I might fall on my stomach.

"Okay now you try it." She said.

I was willing to try.

"Wait," Dolly said, "Before you try, close your eyes and visualize yourself doing it. If you can see it, you can do it."

That's some huge life advice right there. I closed out my doubt by closing my eyes and saw myself leaping backwards, pressing my legs back into space and catching myself on my toes. The first time you attempt something new like that, there is a lot of unknown. And you have got to be comfortable enough with the unknown to try. I could see it, so I mustered up all of my strength and pushed into my hands and it happened! I didn't land on my stomach, I caught myself on my toes in a plank (push up) position and wooped and giggled.

The rest of that class, through many leaps back and forth on my mat, I began to be aware of how many times I had just passed opportunities by writing them off as impossible. If I did it this often in yoga class, how often did it happen in the rest of my life? My practice on the mat was just a tiny refection of the rest of my world. The tiny shift in my perception to consider something as an option for me was actually huge. It was a beautiful reminder of how we limit ourselves by our own thinking. Because I wasn't even willing to go there in my mind at first, there was no way my body could do the pose. It wasn't my body that was limiting me, it was my mind. This relates off the mat as well: it is not the world keeping you from doing something, it is yourself. For whatever reason, we hold ourselves back, we draw the box of how big we can live, how much we can have, how far we can go, how much we can earn, even how much love we can accept. Self imposed limits, all of them. The wonderful thing about self imposed limits is that they can change. With internal work, we can re-set our patterns and our beliefs. Each of us is creating our own reality. And when we accept and embrace this, absolutely anything is possible. We can redirect our thinking, change our conditioning, and turn impossible into I'm possible.


 

 

 

 

My invitation to you is to examine your self-imposed limits. What is something you want but distance yourself from with the word impossible? If you haven't allowed yourself to visualize it, create space for that. Take time to see what you want happening and imaginaing what that would feel like. At some point when visualizing living bigger, we run up against ourselves putting up obstacles in one form or another. And that's where the work begins. When we find that we aren't comfortable with having our dreams as a reality for some reason and identify that reason. It is our own glass-ceiling. Rather we feel we are not worthy, or someone had told us something about ourselves that we believed that contradicts having what we want now, or perhaps we are not open to change, or we run up against fear, whatever it is - its an opportunity to grow. Be gentle with yourself when you find that thing that holds you back, it's not wrong, it is just one way of thinking that has served you up until now. Self awareness allows us to create another reality by changing our thinking.

 

 

"Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." - Ghandi

Life Lessons on Letting Go: Staying Within Your Own Boat

This month, my boyfriend and I are beginning the downsizing of our entire home and moving it over 2,000 miles away. Several life lessons have been brought up for me recently about letting go, about the things we collect vs. the things we really need and of course about how home is more inside me than in any house or furnishings that decorate a house. This week, there are so many details to consider, and so many unknowns. I would like to take just one of those life lessons to extrapolate upon and share: Letting go.

One of my favorite stories of the Olympics comes from sportscaster Charlie Jones who interviewed the athletes of professional rowing teams before and after the competition. The questions he asked them ranged from: what do you do when the other team is pulling ahead of you, what do you do when you break an oar, or when the winds are howling gale force against you? To Charlie’s surprise, several of the athletes had the same response to different questions. They told him simply, “That’s outside of my boat.”

After receiving identical answers, Charlie asked a rower to explain what they meant by “that‘s outside of my boat.” The rowing team had been trained to diligently stay focused on the task at hand, to their immediate surroundings and to put their energy only on the things they could control - within their boats. They had realized that thinking about what was outside of their boat only distracted them from their goal, and “that which is beyond our control is not worth our time or energy.”

The professional rowers of the Olympics are not in the competition thinking about the choppiness of the water, or rather the crowd is watching or how fast the other team is or the varying rates on their home loan or if the cost of gas will go up in the middle of summer. Every ounce of their energy is honed into the present moment and each row stroke they are making. And does it work for them? As successful athletes, they won enough races and became fast enough to compete in the Olympics. You tell me.

This story made me think about my own life and how much I often worry about things that are outside of my boat. And I understand more and more that in order to feel effective in my life, I have to choose to spend my energy on things that I can control. Because I want things to go well for others, I often am giving advice or wondering the best way they should approach a problem. And yet, no matter how caring I am, I simply cannot row their boat when I am sitting in mine. I have no affect whatsoever on which direction their boat goes.

To me, following news stories is very much the same concept. If I get caught up in a horrible violent event that happened, and spend most of my spare time dwelling on how awful it was for the individuals and families involved, I am not watching where my own boat is headed, and the energy I may have had to plan where my journey might go next has already been spent. If we spend our lives in other’s stories, we end up half living their lives while not truly living our own. Worrying, dwelling and staying in the stories of others doesn’t really help them, and doesn’t solve anything for them. That’s an area where I am always going to feel helpless. So why go there?

I don’t watch the news because I choose to stay out of the drama of strangers, and because I don’t want that helpless feeling. (I also find it overwhelmingly negative and disturbing.) Instead, I save my time for my friends and family and the people in my community - the people I can really know, work well with and make a difference for. I can’t help captives, I can’t find missing people, but I can take the grocery cart back for the little old lady next to me in the parking lot. I can slow down on the road to let the person who has been waiting to turn have space in front of me. I can make the baby in the grocery line laugh, I can treat my friend to lunch and I can hug the regular customer in the café whose loneliness might border bitterness without touch. I can volunteer to help a friend move, or share my lunch with a hungry co-worker. There are so many ways for me to interact with my fellow rowers - the people in my little circle where I have the power to make a difference.

This story also made me reflect on how I am getting better at letting past events stay in the past where they belong. When I have a hard week at work, or when I have had a disagreement with others, my mind tends to return to that and go over the situation several times. Even when I have closure over it. When really, that uncomfortable situation is in the past, so why would I choose to make the present uncomfortable by rehashing it? And I am not aware of any kayaker, sailor or Olympic rowing team that could paddle forward while looking behind them. As a white water paddler, out on the river, the minute I look behind me in a rapid, its over. I stop going where I want to, stop moving forward altogether and usually loose control of my boat and end up wet. Using this analogy helps me see that thinking about the past really doesn’t help me move forward and that by doing so, I loose my control over the present moment.

 

I invite you to reflect on the “Its outside of my boat” concept as well. Are there areas in your life that you spend your time an energy outside of your boat - focusing on things that you cannot control? Are you familiar with the limits of your own boat, and how could you get more involved with the others in your community?

Charlie’s story of the Olympic Rowing Team is an inspiration to me to let go of trying to control things outside of my boat, to stay present, keep calm, keep moving forward and enjoy the experience.