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Jennie Marlow

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

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The Surprising Truth About Stress

March 1, 2014 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

Wants-vs-Needs“I know it’s a big, DUH!” a good friend once said. “There is almost no stress when I am perceiving my own needs clearly and in balance with the needs of others.” It was so well-put, I feel compelled to share it, along with a little commentary on why this is vital to living well during big challenges.

It always amazes me how hard it can be to anchor our attention in the now-moment, even when things are going well. When things go awry, it can seem nothing short of monumental to perceive what is real, without the distortions of past interfering and causing us to go into our stuff. When we’re stressed out, it is such a powerful temptation to feel that others’ problems, wants and desires are more important than meeting our own needs, or conversely, that our own wants and desires matter most. It’s also very confusing sometimes to distinguish between needing to take good care of ourselves and just wanting what we want when we want it.

The truth is, the only basis we have to perceive things in an authentic way is to bring our attention back to the now-moment. When the now-moment contains things we wish weren’t there, our resistance tends to rob us of the clarity and presence to face whatever challenge is before us, and to understand what it means to simply “put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others” without self-absorption or undue sacrifice.

Our issues and conditioning certainly rise up when we resist the present moment. And we can surely choose to be stressed and freaked out. However, if we are to take dominion over our lives, a confrontation with our distortions is inevitable.

Seeing our pattern of distortion is fundamental because without owning our patterns, we will be unable to free ourselves to perceive things in an undistorted way, to behave in a manner consistent with basic self-care and consideration for others, and to choose what we would choose if our thinking were not distorted by fear that we can’t be happy unless life is exactly the way we think we want it.

It’s a tall order, but then again, being a human is not spiritual kindergarten. It’s more like a PhD program in how to live your authentic life, in spite of the material plane’s uncertainties and discrepancies with the mind’s expectations.

Filed Under: Life, Service to Others Tagged With: Authenticity, Present moment, Self-sacrifice

Can You Be Authentic Without Hurting Others?

January 19, 2014 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

Hurt_FeelingsIf I had a penny for all the times I’ve been asked this question, I’d be sitting on a mountain of coins.

I was rather vigorously conditioned by my mother to please anyone and everyone, never hurt a feeling, never be a problem or disappoint anyone’s expectations of me. Most of all, never ever tell the truth if the other person might take offense. This worked about as well for me as it did (and still does) for her. In other words, it didn’t work for me at all, but that didn’t stop me from trying.

As I matured, I started to ask a deeper question. “What is intrinsically wrong with allowing others to simply have their uncomfortable feelings?” This more relevant inquiry began the day I realized my world had become like  a prison cell, one I entered voluntarily when I appointed myself controller of everyone else’s feelings. From the relative safety of my cell, I imposed the following rules:

  • No one could feel anything unpleasant because it made me uncomfortable.
  • No one should experience life’s ups and downs because I couldn’t handle it.
  • No one ought to be mad, sad, disappointed or down in any way because my emotional security felt threatened when they did.

If you think sparing others pain by sacrificing your authenticity is preferable, I’d like you to reconsider. The truth is — it’s not really about sparing them. It’s actually about you and your own unwillingness to be present with emotional discomfort.

On rare occasions, usually at major turning points in your life, you may find the survival of a relationship is honestly threatened by your authenticity. Here you will arrive at a crucial juncture. Do you cave in to keep the peace, or do you risk loss by being authentic?

There will certainly be circumstances wherein something you authentically do or say sets off a chain reaction of bad feelings in others. You might even be rebuked or ejected from the “tribe.” Or you might have to leave them to be true to yourself, to shed their drama and to spare yourself the toxic effects of their requirement that you be something you are not in order to remain included.

No matter what happens, I hope you hold fast to your truth. It’s your only real potential for a fulfilling life. Whether or not the reactions of others are extreme (or you are making them so in your own imagination), you have a choice. Grow into a person who can live your authentic life, or shrink your world into an untenably restricted space where you must become a creature of artifice in order to cope.

So, can you be authentic without hurting others? Well, the short answer is you can’t be authentic and please everyone. The more meaningful answer is this: you can’t make life pain-free, but you can make life fulfilling if you empower your authenticity and live from your truth.

Filed Under: Healing, Life, Love Tagged With: Authenticity, Conditioning, Freedom, Relationships, Self-sacrifice

A Trio of Sanity Checks for the Holidays

December 14, 2013 By Jennie Marlow Leave a Comment

Sanity_CheckThe emotional pressures that come with the holidays can really set us up for big disappointments and trying interactions. Here are some mindset shifts that can help keep you grounded under pressure.

Everything Will Not Necessarily Be Fine

If you tend to fantasize that “everything will be fine this time” when the reality rarely meets expectations, you are probably setting yourself up. The trouble is, emotional patterns are very stubborn, and the feeling states of childhood are usually right below the surface, waiting to recreate themselves when you’re triggered. These out-of-power feeling states are often created by the neurochemistry of your memories, so unless you make an effort to build new experiences with different feeling states associated with them, all you wind up doing is reinforcing your old emotional structures.

To counteract your pattern, try to have no expectations of how it will be, and just see what actually happens. This is really about presence, being in the now moment, non-resistant to what you actually find there. Presence is, in part, a function of your attention and what you focus it on. So, resist the temptation to talk yourself into anything you have to sugar-coat in order to make palatable.

Hold That Thought!

If you are triggered, wait until your emotions settle down before saying or doing anything. If you’re being pressured to speak when you’re upset, reply with something like, “I need time to consider this, so let me get back to you.”

If you’re in a full-blown reaction, sleep on it before deciding what to do. If you’re still feeling triggered in the morning, wait as long as it takes until your emotional neutrality returns. Don’t think for a minute that making any decision while you’re emotional is better than waiting for the clarity that naturally comes when you wait. Keep in mind that big emotional waves usually take about 3 days to conclude.

Do You Really Need to “Talk About It”?

The worst time to express yourself is when you’re reacting. When you’re triggered, there is only one thing to do: keep your lip zipped and wait until you calm down before talking about whatever it is. If you don’t wait until you’re settled down, what you will be expressing is your emotional reaction which is rarely, if ever, constructive.

Keep in mind that describing your initial reaction has nothing to do with expressing your true feelings. If you believe it’s healthy to “get it out” by verbally purging your distress and tension, you might want to reconsider. The irony is you cannot be in touch with your feelings until you are no longer reacting. In fact, restraining your communication until you are calm is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure that your words won’t do more harm than good. Waiting until you are calm helps to ensure that your interactions with others are in power and that the impact of your communication will be constructive. And that might take a couple of days!

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Awareness, Painful emotions, Self-sacrifice

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