Jennie Marlow

Coaching for intelligent, aware people who want to live deeply fulfilling lives

5 Holiday Gifts of Self-Respect & Self-Restraint

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GiftThe holidays can pull us in all directions and pressure us to do things that aren’t self-valuing. Here are 5 gifts you can give yourself when you’re feeling torn,

1. Respect your material resources.  If you don’t have the resources, look for practical ways to make them available. If the universe does not back your plan, respect its answer.

2. Respect your energy.  Devote it to things that value and nurture YOU.  Keep a watchful eye on your time and energy when you are tempted to over-function. Bear in mind that fatigue can undermine your capacity to think clearly about what is in your best interest.

3. Restrain your reactivity. Know your pattern of expectations and pessimism, and develop a healthy degree of suspicion when your feeling state is replicating the old familiar, out-of-power pattern.

4. Restrain your thoughts. Don’t go down the “rabbit hole” of your fears, attachments, reactions, disappointments, etc. Stay here! Stay present! Pain is a part of life. However, suffering as you wander ceaselessly through the maze of the mind is a choice.

5. Restrain your urge to speculate about what the future will hold. Recognize that unintended consequences may result from your choices and that, more often than not, these unintended consequences are actually nothing to worry about.

The bottom line is, “Put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others.” Be your own best friend during the holidays, and take really good care of yourself. If you do, chances are you’ll avoid the pitfalls and have little to regret later on.

Can Family Dynamics Be Changed?

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Can_Family_Dynamics_be_ChangedWith Thanksgiving just past, Hanukkah in progress and Christmas right around the corner, chances are good that family issues may be disturbing your peace.

One question that gets put to me pretty frequently during holiday season is this: “I want more than anything to change our family dynamic, but no matter what I try it never works. What am I doing wrong?”

Let’s face it. Someone you’ve known most of your life, who also played a role in your early childhood conditioning, is bound to have a “special effect” on your psyche. The patterns you’ve established with your earliest relationships have the longest standing patterns, a high degree of emotional charge and are often the most resistant to your efforts to change them.

Does this mean that trying to shift the dynamic is an exercise in futility? No, but you need to be realistic about what can be achieved.

Family dynamics tap into powerful unconscious forces. This means your efforts to shift the energy of the dynamic may not be appreciated by others involved. When you alter your behavior, you might come under pressure by other parties in the dynamic to maintain your old role and thereby remain in everyone’s “comfort zone.”

Also, keep in mind that family dynamics have a peculiar ability to tap into our Stone Age brain’s fight-or-flight response. When this happens, avoiding the conflict or fighting about whatever it is may seem to be your only two choices. The truth is there are a multitude of other alternatives that are probably not obvious to you when you’re acting out your old role.

The point is you can’t change the dynamic unless and until you change your own role in it. That said, if you’re determined to change, you’d be wise to keep it simple. Set your intention to change just one thing you feel you could do consistently, even under pressure.

One vital shift you could make right now is to recognize that your objective is not to change the other person’s behavior. It’s to change your own behavior and to interact with greater consciousness. While the other person’s behavior may not change, shifting your role consistently and without judgment of the other person can have a profound impact on your self-esteem and sense of well-being. These alone make even small changes in your role a worthwhile endeavor.

Are Your Goals Serving You?

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"Attachment to your goals does not allow the flexibility that living in present time demands."                         − Spotted Eagle

I ran across this quote the other day, and it really gave me pause. I'm realistic enough to know that objectives are necessary and that, without targets to drive a process, our endeavors tend to stagnate or go off track.

That said, goals are a tricky business. While they serve to focus our energy, what are we to do when striving to achieve our goals leads us to suffer? How do we know whether or not to keep going?

Human beings tend to create from a place of avoiding what we fear. When we have only the goal and the fear of not achieving it as our reason for staying the course, we must be willing to abandon our investment in the goal. We must then move with courage toward a new objective, one that is guided by essence, the feeling experience we intended the original goal to deliver. 

When a goal delivers suffering, there is an alterative to dogged attachment, and that is to refocus on whatever essence qualities are missing from the material results. Essence words I tend to focus on are: peace, freedom and sustainability. I ask myself, "Is the effort to achieve this goal destroying my peace of mind? Do I feel free to express myself authentically and act from a will that is free of fear? Given the sacrifices required, can I sustain the effort? Do I have the time, energy and resources to do what I set out to do?"

These three essences―peace, freedom and sustainability―are sure to provide me with a litmus test for whether or not to proceed. Because essence defines a trajectory and not a goal, focus on essence is what affords me the needed flexibility that living in present time very often demands.