Visualize Your Ideal Relationship

The Inner Critic is a cyclical beast–when one S.M.A.C.K. isn’t working, chances are an old S.M.A.C.K. from months ago will work just fine. So over the next week or so we’re going to run some of your favorite S.M.A.C.K. blog posts, the ones with the greatest hits and the most comments. Enjoy!

 

Visualization, meditation, imagination, brainstorming, whatever you decide to call this, I hope you’ll try it. If your Inner Critic tells you this kind of thing never works, kick it to the curb for the time being. Below you’ll find a guided meditation you can read to help you create the relationship you desire whether you are currently in a partnership or not. You can read it yourself, ask your spouse to read it to you, or tape yourself reading it out loud. I do have this recorded to music and will post the podcast soon. But in the meantime, basically what I’m asking you to do is close your eyes and imagine what you want. Then you’ll open our eyes and write down ways you can actually get to the vision you saw in your mind’s eye.

Visualization is a technique that’s been written about many times. Napoleon Hill wrote about it in his bookThink and Grow Rich, which was first published in the early 1900s. Shakti Gawain made it popular in her bookCreative Visualization in the 1970s, still a bestseller today. And the latest version of this technique is written about by Rhonda Byrne in her book, The Secret. Basically, it’s simple. You close your eyes and think about what you desire then you plan how you’re going to get what you want. (Note: If you’ve come to this blog via myBecoming a Stepmom blog, this meditation is different than the one I posted there this week.)

Now, turn off your phones, your blackberries your computers. Shut the door. Grab a notebook and pen and set them somewhere nearby. Find a comfortable place to sit where you will not be disturbed. Make sure your arms and legs are not crossed. Close your eyes. Now breathe deeply into your belly. Take five deep breaths. Relax. Be here now in your body. Feel the floor or chair supporting you. Breathe.

At the top and bottom of each breath, pause for a moment and listen to the stillness, the silence between the ocean swells of your breathing.

Now let’s tap into your imagination. Picture yourself with your life partner. Imagine the two of you in a setting that fills you with joy. It could be your home, a park, on the beach by the ocean, at an intimate table in a romantic restaurant. Right now, in this moment, you understand completely why you’re with this person. Why he or she makes you so happy. You feel the symbiotic relationship you have. The perfect give and take. You are both light with happiness. You are both connected to each other. Love emanates between you. Take a moment, look at your beloved and feel. How does that person make you feel right now? When you’re relationship is at its most supportive, its most loving, its most stimulating. How does your body feel? What is in your heart?

Imagine your partner with a smile on his or her face. How does it make you feel?

There is a reason you chose this person. There is a reason this person chose you. Remember that. Connect with it. Be open to your emotions. Be open to love.

Be open to love.

Be open to love.

This person sitting next to or across from you is another soul who is walking now or will walk beside you during their lifetime. Your partner has his or her own needs, her own desires, his own path, her own soul to answer to. How wonderful! How awe inspiring that this person has chosen to trust. And you have chosen to trust this person.

Breathe.

Be open to love.

In your imagination, thank your beloved for his or her presence in your life. Thank this person for showing up. Thank him for the things he has experienced that have made him perfect for you. Thank her for being.

Be open to love.

Breathe.

When you’re ready, open your eyes and write down what you saw in your visioning session. Write down the things you love about your current partner or that you imagined about your future partner. Write down how you felt.

Part two of this visioning exercise is action. If you are in a partnership right now, spend the week complimenting each other. Pay attention to your spouse and when she does something you like, tell her. Be honest and open with your feelings. If he casually takes your hand in the grocery store and you absolutely love that, tell him. If you come home from work and she’s cleaned up the kitchen, thank her profusely. If he snuggles you before you go to sleep and it makes you feel yummy, warm and safe, tell him.

If you are not currently in a partnership, compliment yourself and your future mate out loud. You might try: “Thank you for waiting to meet me until you’re finished unpacking your emotional baggage!” “Wow, did you see how beautiful I arranged the table this evening? I rock.” It’s easy to forget when you’re waiting for your significant other to show up that he or she may be busy doing something right now that would make your partnership impossible until he or she has completed it. If you’re waiting, refer to the Flatlands post, and keep the faith.

Fantasy vs. reality.

There’s a difference between fantasizing about something that will mostly likely not come true and visioning something that you want to create in your life that will likely come true. For instance when I fantasize about winning the lottery and having instance access to $100 million I know I’m off in fantasy land. When I had 100 pounds to lose, I fantasized about waking up the next morning with all the weight miraculously gone. Obviously it’s highly unlikely that either of these things are really going to happen.

But when I meditate around something I really want to have or do and can begin to see myself in a particular life, career, house, relationship, etc., then I begin to believe it could really happen and start doing things to make that vision come true. I work on projects that will bring in the money I need. I make healthier choices and lose weight slowly but surely. Eventually I create the life I visioned.

How about you? What are the differences between your fantasy land and your reality? And what things that you dream about do you really want to manifest in your life?

Create a work-free day.

Pick one day this week and every week in which you will do absolutely no work. That means, no checking email, no housework, no yard work, no catching up on work for your job. Instead, commit to an entirely free day. See your friends, have 4-hour meals. Read a book. Go for a walk. And most importantly, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT allow your Inner Critic to say a word against this day. It won’t help if you create a day to relax and then let your Inner Critic beat you about it the entire time. You’ll end up more stressed than you started. So take your day. Own it. And your kindness to yourself will have lasting effects on the rest of your life. Enjoy! (And thanks to Sarah and Nik for sharing their sacred day with us!)

When All You Can Do is Do

I recently returned from a yoga retreat in Mexico. Beach. Sand. Sun. Yoga twice a day. Meditation. It was fantastic and perfectly timed because I hadn’t been able to meditate in a long time. In the past year every time I’ve sat down to quiet my mind, instead of entering a place of peace, I have dropped into an exhausted sleep. (Blame the infant in my house.) But that is not my only problem with meditating. The other trouble I have with it is that my monkey mind chatters constantly. I’m a writer for God’s sake, and so my imagination fires up immediately when I try to not think. The Inner Critic in all its forms comes to visit and chit chat for a while.

It occurred to me yesterday that I have finally stumbled upon an upside to fear. It’s really a form of meditation because it can quiet the mind! My daughter’s health has been challenged recently and I’ve been so scared for her that my mind simply can’t handle it. It shuts down! The Inner Critic goes absolutely quiet! And then I rely on my body to just Do. I comfort her. I bathe her. I give her medicine. I rub her back.  

Like so many people I have lost nearly everything I saved for retirement, but hey! The mind can’t even comprehend the loss and so all I can do is go to work to build it back up. The Inner Critic is totally silent. For once. Perhaps because there’s nothing to say. All I can do now is Do.

See?! I have finally conquered the art of meditation. Instead of sitting on my mat struggling to let the thoughts go, I need to quietly, simply, Do.

What has you running scared right now? What can you Do as a form of moving meditation?

Action vs. Thought

“I have not so much thought my way through life as done things and found what it was and who I was after the doing.” – Ray Bradbury

The Inner Critic loves it when you think things to death instead of just launching yourself into the world to do the things you want to try. Today, don’t think about it. Just do it.

Take your Inner Critic for a walk.

Go for a walk. No matter what the weather is like outside, put one foot in front of the other and let the rhythm of your steps be a form of prayer or meditation. Tell your Inner Critic to walk beside you in silence. Notice what you’re walking by.

Be calm, cool, and collected.

My mother’s advice for everything from boys to college applications was and continues to be the same: “Just stay calm, cool, and collected.” When I was younger and the hormones raged through my adolescent body, I couldn’t understand how she could be so calm about anything!!! I mean come on, this is my life we’re talking about! It’s dramatic! This day is the worst day of my life! Can’t you see the size of the zit on my chin??!! Everyone will see it!!!

But then I grew up, the hormones subsided, and I found that phrase playing in my head like a mantra anytime I felt a flutter of nerves in my stomach. Date with a new guy? Be calm, cool, and collected. Interview for a new job? Be calm, cool, and collected. Meeting my future stepkids? Be calm, cool, and collected. I imagined how Grace Kelly or Audrey Hepburn would embody that notion and found I held my head higher, walked with a straighter back. I had no idea my mother is a Zen master in the body of a farm girl from Iowa. Whenever I practiced that phrase I was learning to control my thoughts in a form of meditation so that I was no longer a victim to my fickle emotions.

Is there a phrase you can use as a mantra that will help you better master your mind?

Welcome to the land of the Forgetful Fog.

This morning when I woke up back in my room, I realized that over the weekend I visited the Land of the Forgetful Fog. It is a place where my intentions to get on the treadmill are lost in the mist, my desire to work on my novel is replaced with other meaningless tasks, my list of to-dos to achieve my goals is left forgotten in a closed notebook.

This is a land where the true devastating genius of my Inner Critic shows up, or rather, doesn’t. Instead of beating me up, it remains quiet. Too quiet. I am lulled into a state of peace. Ahhhhh. I like it here.

If I were doing this quieting of my monkey mind on purpose, this post would be about something completely different because then my intentions to be at peace would be fulfilled in a meditative state. But the Land of the Forgetful Fog is dangerous. It is a place of apathy where I conveniently forget all my dreams because really, they’re too hard to achieve anyway. It is the poppy field in The Wizard of Oz.

I have lived in the poppy field in certain areas of my life for months and, yes, years at a time. Then one day I’ll way up and realize that I haven’t spent a single day writing fiction. Even though that’s what I really want to do. Or I haven’t been to a yoga class in months, even though yoga makes me feel amazing.

For the first half of 2009, here is what I’m going to do to make sure that I don’t lie down and fall asleep among the flowers: I’ll find a Sharpie and write the things I want to make sure I don’t forget to do on a piece of really beautiful, handmade paper. Then I will frame the paper and hang it on the wall in a place where I couldn’t possibly miss it. Next to the door of my bedroom. On the fridge. Near the mirror in the bathroom.

That way I’ll have a reminder that I am on a mission. And isn’t Oz usually a lot closer than it looks?

Smackdown Your Inner Critic Workshop Announcement

Dear friends:

I have an important announcement regarding the upcoming workshop I’ve created: Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams.

Due to the state of the economy I have decided to reduce the fee of the workshop by half. Instead of $495 for the two-day intensive workshop, the fee is now $250. If you have lost your job, I would like to offer the workshop to you for $100. 

For those of you who have already paid for the workshop, you will receive a refund for the amount you overpaid.

Why? Because I feel that I must do what I can to help during this rough transitional time.

The Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams Workshop is for you if:

• You have a dream but your Inner Critic keeps you from doing it.
• You desire a life that balances inspiring work, deep friendships, and a loving partnership.
• There’s something you’ve always wanted to do but have been too afraid to try in your personal or professional life.
• You want to create a fulfilling and inspiring career.
• You want to find ways to make money that allow you more time with your loved ones.
• You have graduated or lost a job and don’t know what to do next.
• You’re dissatisfied with your body, your job, or your relationships and you don’t know how to create change.
• You want to develop a greater sense of self-confidence and ease.

Upcoming workshop dates are: 

February 21 and 22

Or

March 21 and 22

OR

April 25 and 26

What do you get for $250?
In addition to the two-day in-depth workshop you will receive:

• A FREE one-on-one personal telephone conference with me to discuss the particulars of your situation. As a personal development coach I will help you apply the techniques you learn in the workshop to your life in specific, actionable ways. Valued at: $150.00
• A 10% discount on future one-on-one personal development coaching. Valued at: up to $1,080
• Two FREE follow-up email consultations to ensure you are well on your way to creating the life of your dreams. Valued at: $60
• The Smackdown Your Inner Critic and Live the Life of Your Dreams Workbook. Valued at: $29.95

Find out more at: http://101smackdowns.wordpress.com/the-workshop/ If you’d like to reserve a spot, email me or call 612-618-4330.
 
I would be grateful if you would pass this link along to anyone you think might be interested.

Best wishes,
Jacque

Who does fear turn you into?

When you are afraid, who do you become? How does your personality change? Do you become stingy or generous, closed or open, pessimistic or hopeful? 

Are you conscious of your behavior when you’re fearful? Do you have a panic attack and lash out at the people who love you? Do you turn into a black hole that sucks your personality inward until you are not interacting with the world at all? Do you ignore your fears and allow the negative emotions to come out in other ways? When other people talk about their fears to you, have you lost your sense of generosity? Do your eyes glaze over because you immediately think of your own life instead of being present for the person in front of you? Does fear make you intolerant of other people because you are so intent on solving a problem? Do you get so lost in an emotional reaction that you are overwhelmed? Can you talk about your fear out loud? Or is what you fear all you talk about? 

If you know how you react to fear then you can begin to be conscious about how you choose to behave instead of letting the panic dictate your life. After you consider who fear turns you into now, ask yourself who you want to be when you’re afraid.