Archive for Inner Critters
Don’t Bother Me, I’m Digging
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Yesterday, my Inner Critters laid off me for a while and I began to feel like I was through the worst of their negativity regarding this business plan writing. I read through what I’d written, and was pleased with the draft so far.
But, truth is, I have a deep dark history around requesting compensation for my skills and talents. I was persecuted as a child with the words, The women in our family don’t work for money, which was always delivered with a truckload of shame. Gee, thanks Mom!
And though for decades, I’ve dug myself out of the limiting beliefs that came with that message, those beliefs are coming up for one more attempt to take me out! That’s what we can expect when we go for a BoldMove––the bigger the move, the greater the probability of a deep dive into old patterns. So, I’m digging again, to rid myself of them once and for all.
Okay, even as I say that, I’m hearing just the tiniest Whisperer voice say, You can do it Shayla! Think I’ll finish Management and Organization.
The Bolder the Move, The Louder the Critters!
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I can take some solace in the fact that my Inner Critters have me up in the middle of the night again. It means that I’m really up to something big – a truly Bold Move. That’s how it works. I must say that several times a day talking with coaching clients who are up to big achievements. Just hang in there, I say. Do your perfect practice of activities to keep body, mind and emotions in good shape. And, hey, that really works, and still those sneaky Critters wake me up promoting their insidious doubts and fears.
In so many ways, I protect myself from our pervasive fear culture. Stay away from the constantly disastrous daily news. Touch into nature every day. Force field myself from negative people. Read inspiring poetry. Sing every day. And still they come to grab me in the night sometimes.
Well, I won’t let them stop me. I refuse to succumb to those Crittery messages. I remember that just a week ago I was feeling so supported by the world around me and I know that in just another day or two, when the business plan is done, I’ll be able to look back on these few scary times and see that I’ve come through to the other side.
Yup, The Bolder the Move, the Louder the Critters. Bottom line, this current move is boldness in the making over thirty years. Thirty years it has taken me to build my skills, self-confidence, and courage to dare to believe I could truly contribute to the world at the level I am now contemplating. What is it that they say in the marines? Hoo Rah? H-o-o R-a-ah!!
Critter Crunching
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The thing about my Inner Critters is that they are every bit as smart as I am, and because they live in my subconscious rather than my conscious mind, far more sneaky and seductive. They are also reactive in nature, so the slightest little emotional noise in my conscious awareness can awaken them and juice their creativity which is unbounded.
They got going last evening because of a mild feeling of sadness I had due to the fact that a dear friend and playmate of seven years will soon be moving away. Oh, my Critters got out their fertilizer and watering cans, delighting in the intention to grow that little, very respectful, very authentic, very understandable seed of a feeling into a great big gnarly jungle of . . see, everyone abandons you in the end, you’re not worthy of such a great friend, every good feeling you’ve had from that friendship was just a trick, etc., etc., yada, yada.
How is this whole friendship discussion germane to my making the BoldMove of writing a killer business plan? Simple, once I let my Inner Critters take me out in one area of my life, they get sticky traction for bringing me down around whatever is most important to me in the moment. That’s just how it works in BoldMoves Country. In fact, a BoldMove in process keeps Inner Critter on alert because if they can trash my efforts, they win big!
Ha, ha! I didn’t let them, by golly. I didn’t let them dismantle my good memories, or make me feel unlovable. I didn’t let them diminish the great times and projects that my friend and I experienced during our years of regular, in-person contact. I didn’t let them shove their nasty script into my face. I showed them! I used the GrooveTool, and within seconds, I was feeling excitement about the new creation our friendship will become as we learn to work and play at a distance. Yes! And whew!!
Uh Oh, Another Bold Move!
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People who have even a modest propensity for looking through the lenses of fear and doubt would have a nay-saying hay day with the BoldMoves process I find myself in at present. I know this, and it is why I’m not getting anywhere near anybody like that.
Okay, so I’m squirreled away writing what might seem like an outlandish business plan to launch our (Allan’s and my) currently modest business Pond Productions, into the world in a big way. I’m wrestling every day, with an amazingly creative variety of Inner Critters who would just love to take me out with their limiting jabber.
I’m thinking that I’m not the only person in the world right now who is fending off Inner Critter messages. Ha! In fact I believe that we have an entire society of people in the US in exactly that condition, so I’ve decided to go public with my personal process in this blog.
I can hear Allan’s gasping thoughts as he reads this, “What is she up to now?” The answer is, I’m not sure, but it seems to me that if I (we) are looking to invite millions of people into BoldMoves journeys of their own, it might help if they have a model, and right now the size of my own gasp at what I’m up to is enough to qualify me to be that model. Stay tuned.
Do You Experience Emotional Take Outs?
Posted by: | CommentsIt happens to all of us – often times very subtly and without notice. You wake up in a good mood and you’re moving
through your day and all of a sudden it is as if a dark cloud comes over your mind and you realize you’re in a funk. As you reflect on what happened from going from happy to a more negative mood – you notice that you have fear and doubt swimming around. Welcome to the nasty “take-outs.” A take out is when negative internal self-talk creates a limiting belief that often times is corded to heavy emotions of fear, doubt, anxiety or feeling scared.
And – as subtle as clouds moving in to cover the sun, so do limiting beliefs darken our mood and move us to pessimistic thinking. Obviously, for most leaders and contributors, it does not offer our best work when we have been taken out.
In the 15 years I’ve been working with top performers around the world, I have noticed that if we can proactively manage and take responsibility for “mood management” – we are better able to be in our optimal operating state and enjoy life more and have better relationships with others.
Seven Steps to Mood Management and Minimizing the Impact of a Take Out:
1. Schedule regular mood checks throughout the day where you pause and ask yourself “how’s my mood?” (some clients set an alarm!)
2. If you notice you are in a funk and your mood has shifted from your more optimistic and happy self, ask, “what am I am feeling right now?”
3. Normally, feelings of fear, doubt, anxiousness, or sadness come in when we are in a funk and feeling down. Ask yourself, what limiting belief has been created in my mind that is corded to the negative emotions (i.e., I will fail at the presentation I am to deliver next week and I am flooded with fear and doubt.)
4. Ask yourself, “Is there any physical truth to justify the liming belief that has caused the take-out? Most likely, there is absolutely NO physical evidence to the belief that was created – thus the belief is made-up.
5. Reverse the limiting belief by creating a Powerful Assumption (a positive belief that is corded to positive feelings when you think about it). For example, if the limiting belief is “I’m afraid to take my entitled vacation for fear of losing my job” – a Powerful Assumption may read “With my talents, drive and achievements I have made at my work, I can enthusiastically take the vacation knowing I am a valuable and highly regarded team player.”
6. Notice if your body has a funny reaction (in a good way) to the Powerful Assumption (i.e., if the Powerful Assumption feels a little over the top – you have created a great powerful assumption – if it falls a bit flat when you read it – you have most likely created a “positive” assumption and it is recommend you fuel the assumption to make it more powerful.
7. Yes, the Powerful Assumption is also made up – but, imagine when you get into funk or you are starting your day by reading a list of Powerful Assumptions that have replaced limiting beliefs the impact it would have on your mood. It is a guaranteed mood changer that will allow you to get back on to your optimal operating state.
Groove It!
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For the past twenty five years, I’ve been working with a mind management process that has literally saved my life more than once by shifting immobilizing fear into possibility thinking.
In one instance, I was forty feet underwater in the middle of the Pacific Ocean lobster hunting––which, of course, can only happen at night. Yes, I had a diving buddy, but there were two unfortunate things about that: 1. he had the only real underwater light (mine was a water-proof flashlight with a beam of about 3 feet) and 2. he was far more intent on chasing a lobster illuminated bright red on the white ocean floor–– than on paying attention to what was happening for me.
It was a rush at first, swimming after him in full pursuit, but coming through an undersea forest I was suddenly stopped short when tough, rubbery kelp grabbed my tanks. My buddy’s light faded into the distant water and I was left immobilized and alone in the pitch black sea.
At times like this your Inner Critters really take you out and mine were screaming at me, panic Shayla panic! And I did for a few seconds, but almost immediately, the mind management tool I had practiced many times in less dire circumstances came to me and I said to myself, Critter Reality says I’m going to die right here on the bottom of the ocean. My Whisperer Vision is I am calm and absolutely safe.
Immediately, I remembered to breath and with my first breath, came the confidence to start ripping that gnarly kelp off the tanks by reaching blindly over my shoulder with great force. In just seconds, I could feel it give up its hold on me. Then, perfectly free once more, I swam as fast as I could toward the hazy pin prick of brightness in the distance that was the fading vestige of my buddy’s dive light. It wasn’t until we bagged the lobster and returned to the boat that he even knew I had been gone.
In BoldMoves Country, we call the mind management process I used The GrooveTool because we have learned in recent years that it actually helps to fill in unwanted grooves of fear and doubt in the brain and create new grooves of possibility thinking. It is an amazing creating tool that can be used not only in dire moments of panic, but in everyday life when you feel just a bit off and you want to regain your center.
If we can agree that we create what we give attention to, then we can see how powerful it is to have a tool for shifting our attention immediately from fear and doubt to possibility thinking.
Learn more about The GrooveTool here.
Learn more about BoldMoves Country here.
Learn more about Inner Critters here.
Golf Ball Greed
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Early yesterday morning, my husband and I watched as about twenty golf carts passed our place for the start of a tournament. This made me grin with delight at the many golf balls there would be on my walk today. Truth is, I couldn’t wait for morning, so I went for a short stroll last evening and I found seven golf balls within ten yards of our doorstep which is in the slice zone. But, oh, I thought, how fun it will be in the morning when I hit the gully in the fifteenth fairway!
As it happened a nagging back ache won out at 6:00 am and I decided to roll over once more before rising, knowing full well that I would miss my chance at the plentiful treasure awaiting me on the links. Still, I am committed to following the truth of my own personal flow and sleeping in felt like a rare and welcomed treat.
When I hit the trail at 7:30, the serious golf ball hunters were out in numbers poking their long poles into difficult crevasses. There’s one couple I especially appreciate because along with balls, they pick up trash, as I do. There they were, searching the area I had cleaned out last evening and obviously finding a few balls I had missed. Seeing them awoke an Inner Critter in my mind. They’re going to get all of the balls, it greedily chided. You slept too late and you’re going to lose out.
I’ve practiced noticing when my Inner Critters take the microphone in my head, because the behaviors and attitudes they foster are never helpful. So I turned my attention to my Whisperer voice, my intuitive voice of possibility. It said, It doesn’t matter. Just enjoy your walk. You made a powerful choice to honor your health today. Immediately, I felt my usual sense of morning delight return and a wave of generosity washed over me. It will be such fun for them finding all those balls, I thought as I saw the couple head down the fairway that I would normally have passed an hour earlier.
I was rewarded almost instantly for taking charge of my self-talk. As I crossed the road to reach the desert preserve that starts my every day, there, by the curb right on my exact path, lay a lovely new Callaway. It was a most fortunate sign, my one-for-sure find of the day. Later, as I meandered off the trail a bit I found a Maxfli and a Top-Flite gleaming on the barren desert floor. And then, joy of joys, as I came back to the sixteenth tee where my desert trail meets the cart path, I had to step aside as not one but two sets of about fifteen carts filled with eager golfers whizzed by. You see, said my Whisperer, you’ll have another chance tomorrow. No question, this was a direct reward for having silenced those greedy Inner Critters and tuned in to my Whisperer who always puts me back in the flow of possibility thinking.
If you’re concerned about how much play your Inner Critters are getting in your thought patterns, there are two potent things you can do. First, stop feeding them the fear and doubt that come with mass media by turning it off. Second, check out the free BoldMoves Readiness coaching calls that Allan and I offer each Tuesday afternoon. Click here for more information.
Frappuccino Lift
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I don’t like to admit it, but for the past several days, I’ve been fending off a mild attack by my Inner Critters, those pesky voices of negative self-talk that sometimes grab the microphone in my head. I say mild attack, because at times my Inner Critters really take me out with internal messages of fear and doubt.
There is an up-side to a full-blown Inner Critter take-out, because when the lights fade completely on my mood, I can’t help but notice. Then, I am presented with a clear choice. I can either wallow for a while in gloom or consciously choose to lighten my mood.
The nasty thing about a mild Critter attack, is that it can have me in a subtle funk for several days before I become aware that I feel weary and bored. I think this most recent attack came from the fact that I didn’t take enough of a three-day holiday. Instead, I pushed on with work and didn’t get the renewal I needed.
Oh well, one Frappuccino and one pumpkin muffin later, my mood is begining to lift. So I’m hearing my Whisperer voice again. That’s the tiny little voice of possibility which––when I give it my attention––can wrest the mic away from you-know-who.
Here’s how this conversation looks through the eyes of The GrooveTool®:
Critter Reality says: Shayla, you should never have that much sugar. You’ll get the sugar blues. My Whisperer Vision is: a little sugar in my veins puts me in the pink––at least for a while.
So, was my Starbucks extravagance a Bold Move? Or was it a Brash Move?
