Irene Watson - Rewriting Life Scripts

Relax and Trust

Recently, I had a very hectic week. I had a lot to do. I did, or at least attempted to do in one week, what I usually would do in two weeks. The result? I was tired and I also ended up with insomnia because I was so anxious to get everything else done I needed to do. Then, I got sick. I wore myself down. And while I was sick, I at first tried to keep working to stay caught up. After I found I could not physically do so, I submitted to going to bed and sleeping.

 

The next day, I felt like my old self. I also found that what I did not get done the day I was sick I easily got done the day after as well as everything I had planned to get done that day, and I still took a little time to rest.

 

When we feel overwhelmed, it is easy to overreact, to worry about not getting everything done. Why do we overdo it? Is it because we need to get the work done, or because we’re trying to impress someone with how efficient we are? Is it because we are addicted to stress and high energy levels and can’t simply turn them off to relax? Are we merely trying to impress ourselves, or worse, justify ourselves by everything we accomplish?

 

The day I gave in to sleeping was a wonderful day. Once I quit worrying about what needed to be done, I was able to lie in bed and enjoy the comforting warmth of my quilt, of lying in bed, of the sunlight pouring across the room, of the deliciousness of doing nothing. I was tired more than really sick. I was not fully conscious much of the day, but at some point, I felt my body shift and heal itself. I simply needed my battery to be recharged.

 

I also needed to remember to trust. To trust that what needed to be done would be done. To trust that anyone who had to wait on me would understand. In fact, once I was refueled, I worked as quickly as before and my work was better than it would have been otherwise; I didn’t even need to give any explanations for a delay.

 

There is always time to accomplish everything that needs to be done. We worry about lack of time, but I have found that in the end, we always have the right amount of time. We may think certain things must be done within certain timeframes, but ultimately, everything gets done when the time is right, and it is better for it as a result. Trust. Do your work, but know that time will finish things in its own time, and whenever that time is, that time will be the right one.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

If It Doesn’t Feel Good, Don’t Do It

I have come to find that rather than do things I don’t want to do, it is better if I just don’t do them. I know—easier said than done.

 

Sometimes it’s simple to know we want to do something or we don’t want to do something. The difficulty comes when we don’t want to do something that we feel somehow we should—maybe out of family, social, or other obligations. These times we need to analyze the situation a bit.

 

First, before deciding whether you will do what you don’t want to do, ask yourself what, if any, potential benefits exist from your doing it? Will you feel better after you do it? For example, if it’s visiting your great-aunt in the nursing home, even if you find it boring, will you feel good because you know it will make your great-aunt happy? Then go ahead and do it. Is it going to a party with a friend to a place where you know you won’t have a good time and you don’t like the other people? If there’s nothing to be gained from that visit, then don’t do it.

 

Think about what happens when you do something you don’t want to do. If you went to that party, you would have to make small talk with people you don’t know or don’t like in a crowded house full of people sloshing their beer on you and blowing cigarette smoke in your face, and all the while you’ll be wishing you never came, and you’ll be miserable all the time you’re there. Then I don’t see any point in going.

 

That said, if you’ve never been to this place, you don’t know that you won’t have a good time, and you can go with an intention such as to meet one interesting person who might become a future friend. That reason for going probably does feel good, so then you have reason to go, and if it turns out you don’t find a friend, then you won’t be any worse off than you were before.

 

“Feel good” is a broad idea, so lately, another way I’ve come to think of it is, “Don’t do anything that doesn’t empower you.” Feeling good empowers me. Finding a new friend empowers me. What about helping someone with a project for which you don’t get paid? If it’s someone you don’t know who can’t in anyway benefit you, then perhaps it disempowers you by taking you away from doing what you really need or want to do, so don’t do it. But if it benefits you by making you feel good, such as doing something simply out of charity or kindness, it might be worth doing.

 

The bottom line is that when we do things we don’t want to do, we often make ourselves miserable as well as those around us. Had we gone to that party we didn’t want to attend, we wouldn’t have been in a good mood and maybe have even put our friend in a bad mood, so doing what we didn’t want to do did not empower us, but rather disempowered us and our friend.

 

If you don’t want to do something, ask yourself why and ask yourself whether there’s a way you can feel better about doing it. If you still don’t feel good about it, and especially if you feel it disempowers you, don’t do it. Always do what feels good and good opportunities and activities will come your way.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Assigning Blame to Overcome Shame

Things in life go wrong. Sometimes they go really wrong. Worst of all is when they go wrong and we take all the blame for ourselves. Yes, there are times when things are all our fault, but we also know that sometimes things happen that we contributed to, but when we try to make amends, we find ourselves unable to fix the situation. Those are times when our codependent crazies really kick in—when we try too hard to control the situation’s outcome because of shame we feel over what happened.

 

Whatever happened, whether it was primarily our fault or not, overcoming shame can be extremely difficult. Shame can control us, making us feel worthless, frightened, afraid of what others may think, and ashamed to show our face. Even when the world has moved on, we hold shame inside of ourselves, not knowing how to release it so we can go on with our lives.

 

I went through a period in life where I battled a great deal with shame. I tried to understand it, to understand where it came from in my life, why I had accepted it, and why I found it so difficult to shake off. It wasn’t until I found the following exercise about assigning blame that I really started to feel better and release my shame. Rather than take all the blame and shame for ourselves, the exercise asks us to assign percentages of blame to everyone or everything that could be responsible for a situation.

 

For example, let’s say you and your best friend had an argument and now your best friend will no longer speak to you. We’ll say you argued because you refused to attend her daughter’s wedding because her daughter had abandoned her first husband to commit adultery with the man she was now marrying. You not only disapprove but feel what the daughter did was morally wrong, and you told your friend so, which only made her defend her daughter.

 

Since then, you have learned about codependency and that you can’t control others. You’ve tried to make amends with your friend, but she refuses to meet you halfway. You realize you may have to accept the friendship is over, but what you can’t accept is the shame you feel for being so judgmental and stubborn and for hurting your friend and by extension her daughter.

 

Is the situation 100% your fault? Try assigning the blame to every person and aspect involved according to each one’s due to see how much responsibility you should take for this situation.

 

First, why did you react the way you did? You know the new bride and groom and you genuinely like both of them. You even think they are basically good people except for in this situation. You even think the ex-husband is a loser. Secretly, you don’t blame the bride for leaving her first husband. Doesn’t she deserve the right to be happy with someone she loves? And the couple didn’t have any children, so what reason did she have to stay with him really? But your religion and family taught you that divorce is not acceptable. Maybe society and religion deserve some of the blame here—you should be stronger than to follow and act upon what you don’t really believe in, and you know that now, but at least half of your guilt can be laid to the faulty belief system you acquired from other people.

 

What about your friend? Why did she have to fly off the handle? Could it be she was upset about the wedding too? You could have been a better friend by consoling her, but instead you were judgmental, which made her own worries turn into anger. She could have reacted better. After all, relationships rely on two people. As a true friend, she could have taken what you said with a grain of salt, and even if she got angry, you are not at fault for trying to make amends and her not forgiving you. She obviously has her own issues to work out. Some of the blame for the friendship’s end needs to be assigned to her.

 

The marriage itself. Is any blame due here? Did the new husband, the wife, and the ex-husband cause any of the problem? Certainly, cheating on your spouse isn’t right. Nor is a husband not supporting his family, which led to the wife seeking a better husband. While we can’t control other people, had the people involved in the relationship not had their problems, your friend would not have been so upset, and consequently not have gotten so angry with you.

 

Now decide to assign a percentage of the shame to each person or system involved. For example:

 

You for starting the argument by being judgmental – 20%

Your religious upbringing, which taught you to be judgmental – 15%

Your best friend – 15%

Her daughter – 25%

Her daughter’s ex – 25%

Her daughter’s new husband – 10%

 

You may not completely agree with the percentages I’ve assigned, but the point is, I came up with 20% as the blame due to you. If you’re only 20% at fault, is it worth bearing shame for the rest of your life over the situation?

 

Try this exercise with different conflicts and crises in your life. It quickly helps you put matters in perspective, to decide what degree of blame to assign to yourself, and ultimately, how responsible you should feel over a bad situation. I’ve found that the new perspective this process offers provides healing and a sense of forgiveness toward others involved rather than pointing fingers. We should all be responsible for our actions, but we should never take shame upon ourselves, especially when it is not fully warranted.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Having a Good Day

In one of her many books about codependency, Melody Beattie states, “It’s okay to have a bad day. I used to have bad years.”

 

I often think of that quote because I know exactly what she means. There were years when it seemed like nothing went right, and I don’t doubt that believing I was in a bad year just made more things go wrong because I took no steps to make them better.

 

When I began to practice positive thinking, one of the first things I learned to do, as suggested by Norman Vincent Peale in “The Power of Positive Thinking,” was to make a list of everything for which I have to be grateful. I talked about gratitude lists here a few weeks back. Maybe I borrowed the idea from Peale, or maybe I’m just by nature a list-maker, always trying to analyze and compare things, but soon I used the idea to help me determine what makes up a good day versus a bad day. I prefer to focus on days rather than years because they are smaller and more manageable to analyze, and you don’t get stuck in a long-term mode of thinking negatively over a long time period.

 

So what defines a good day versus a bad day? Your attitude primarily, but since this practice is about having a positive attitude, we will have to start with the events of the day. I’m not even going to tell you to change how you react to events during the day. Just simply look at the day’s events.

 

When I started this exercise, I would make two lists, one of all the bad things that happened that day and one of all the good things that happened. The things can be big or small. Bad things might include: I was late for work, I ran out of toothpaste, the battery in my watch stopped, or my boyfriend didn’t call me. Good might include: I really enjoyed the cup of coffee I had, I drove through downtown and didn’t hit any stoplights, I got paid, and I was invited to a birthday party. Whether the event is big or small, include it. If it is really big like “I got fired,” or “My boyfriend proposed to me,” let it count as two or three things, like giving it points.

 

When you’ve finished, look at your lists. I’ve found that on my worst days, the lists were pretty close to even. I might have 13 bad and 12 good things, but rarely did I have more than 1 or 2 bad things outweighing the good, so is that really a bad day? I’d say it’s just a mediocre day.

 

After doing this exercise for a while, I found that I almost never had a bad day! In fact, my good usually outnumbered the bad by several if not double the items. I was a bit surprised at first, but after having the same results day after day, I grew bored with listing the bad things; it seemed pointless since I knew the good almost always would come out ahead (and all those good days of course, add up into a good year). So eventually, I decided I would only list the good things that happened each day since obviously the bad things ended up being rather trivial in terms of the larger picture of what kind of day I had. You know what? Soon my good list kept growing. I guess by not even thinking about the bad things, I somehow attracted more good.

 

Recently, a friend of mine asked me out of the blue, “What is the best thing that happened to you today?” Now that is a fun game to play—it’s like a bonus round to my earlier game—not only do I make my good things list, but then I have to focus on the thing that was the absolutely superbest, grandest, bestest part of the day. It’s not an easy choice, but boy does it feel good!

 

You know what? I can’t remember the last time I had a bad day. It’s been a long time. You know what else? I’m not even remotely worried about having a bad day. If I do, it’s okay. I used to have bad years. The bad day will pass and there will be many, many good days to follow.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Finding Your Passion

When we were children, we had dreams. When asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” we might have said, “A princess, a ballerina, a fireman, a race-car driver.” Some of our dreams may not have been completely realistic, but I doubt any of them were completely impossible—even finding a prince to marry is not completely out of reach. Then we grew up and were socialized into following the crowd, going to school, making what were smart and secure decisions, and often, our dreams were stifled, put away, all but forgotten. We grew up to manage a call center, be an accountant, or operate the city snowplow. Perhaps we have a job we like, but too often, we fall into our jobs and our current occupations are far from being what we wanted to be when we grew up.

 

Whether we can do what we dream of doing to make a living or just as a hobby, we all have dreams, and we can rekindle those dreams into a fire of passion. A lot of people don’t know what they are passionate about because they’ve denied themselves pleasure, denied themselves the pleasure of getting to know themselves better.

 

It’s important that we be passionate about life and about what makes life worth living. For a moment, just dare to think you might have your dreams come true. Most of us dream about having more money. That we don’t have more money is too often the reality that squelches our dreams. But most of us don’t want money because we long to swim in a sea of dollar bills. We believe money will give us freedom and a chance to do what we really want with life.

 

So, how we do find our passion? For starters, let’s imagine your dream came true that you had enough money—whatever that amount is—a million or a billion dollars—so you no longer had to work. For the next week or month when you wake up in the morning, take a minute to believe and to feel the freedom that you don’t have to do anything except what you want to do today. Then ask yourself the question, “Since I don’t have to work and can do anything I want, what do I want to do today, and everyday, for the rest of my life?”

 

I recommend you ask yourself this question every morning for many, many days, and I recommend you get a notebook so as soon as you get out of bed, you can spend a couple of minutes writing down the answer to this question.

 

Not only do I expect you will find yourself repeating a few of the same answers, but your answers will probably build upon each other over successive mornings and also become more focused. “I will travel the world” the first day, may become, “I will visit Africa” on day two, and “I will go to Egypt” on day three, and “I will explore King Tut’s tomb” on day four, and “I will unlock the mysteries of ancient Egypt” on day five. Could it be that you always secretly wanted to be an archeologist?

 

Yes, I know that becoming an archeologist may not be the most practical thing to do, and it may be difficult to do, but at least you identified your passion. If you keep working on this process, I’m sure you will attract more things into your experience to be passionate about, and you’ll always find ways to fulfill your passion as a career or a hobby so you will get more joy out of life.

 

I challenge you to use this process to find your passion. I hope some of you will let me know the results you find.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Being Invisible: Overcoming Praise and Criticism

As codependents, we have done for others—we have tirelessly yet often frustratingly gone out of our way to help others, and perhaps too often, we’ve discovered those people we help don’t show up to help us when we need it. That frustrates us—we told ourselves we were helping others because it was the right thing to do, but deep down, we expected something in return. That’s codependency.

 

We do want something in return—if not return help, more likely praise for what we do. We want gratitude. We want to be told we are good people, or smart, or pretty, or talented. Praise makes us feel good. Praise before others may somewhat embarrass us, but secretly we appreciate it. Sometimes we dismiss it—“Oh, I didn’t do that much”—because we do not know how to take compliments. But we still like it. We should learn to take a compliment—to appreciate ourselves and know our value.

 

But the problem comes when we seek praise, when we do things to help others but with an ulterior motive, whether it is to look good, or to get someone else to love us, or any other reason. We do not need praise to make us feel good about ourselves. We give our power over to others when we rely on their praise for our well-being and when we do things with the intent to receive praise.

 

Criticism is a more obvious way of how we give away our power. We let other people’s critical voices decide whether we are worthy, whether our actions are good, whether we are deserving of praise. We may dismiss praise, but we have a hard time dismissing criticism—even more so than with praise, we let criticism have power over us.

 

In between praise and criticism is a happy medium, a place called Invisibility. To be invisible means we can do things for others without expecting anything in return. And we can live without fearing or reacting to other people’s criticism. Most importantly, to be invisible is to be invisible to ourselves and to our egos. We do not need to get worked up by a need for praise or a fear of criticism. We can go about our day doing what is necessary, what feels good, without having to go to extremes of needing praise or fearing criticism. We can simply be. We can let our actions speak for themselves without having “fine print” attached to them where we require a reaction from others in relation to them.

 

When we shed the paradigm of praise and criticism, we become invisible so others cannot control us and so we cannot control our own moods in a negative manner. We can live in the present, not dreading future reactions. We can appreciate ourselves and what feels good to us without judgment, fear, or neediness. Invisibility is a form of freedom—it sets us free to soar—it allows us to feel good without help from anyone else.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

The Gifts I Have to Give

Last week I wrote about focusing on the gifts we have. This week, let us focus on the gifts we have that are ours to give.

 

It is easy for us to focus on the gifts we don’t have, so let’s get those out of the way first. Okay, maybe God did not make us as beautiful, handsome, strong, smart, rich, sexy, tall, thin, etc. as someone else. We don’t know why that’s the case but it is. We can’t do anything about it so there’s no point in concentrating on it. Instead, let’s focus on what we were given.

 

Okay. You know you’re smart, you’re good at organizing things, you’re a good Mom, or a good soccer coach. But let’s go even deeper. It’s easy to focus on gifts we know we have. But what are gifts we have that we don’t realize? What are gifts we have not even considered that we might have?

 

Think about what you enjoy about life, what makes you happy, what you might be good at that is not generally acknowledged by others. What gifts do you have that others don’t realize? What gifts might you have that even you don’t realize?

 

This week, I challenge you to find one gift you have that you have not thought of as a gift before. It might be that you are punctual. It might be that you are good at gardening. It might be that you are good at teaching, even if it is in small ways. Sometimes it might be something we don’t even like to do. For example, a friend of mine worked in a call center making sales calls. He hated making sales calls. He did not think he was good at it, but he had to make a living. He did okay. But what he really wanted was to be an author. When he published his book he realized he was a salesperson. If he had been able to sell widgets—something he didn’t care about—how much more would he be able to sell his books.

 

What are examples of adversities you overcame that provided you with special gifts? What is something you enjoyed doing in childhood that you forgot about? Maybe you were the fastest at putting together jigsaw puzzles, or you could walk across the balance beam farther than anyone else?

 

Once you find that special gift you have, how can you use it to make your life happier? How can you use it to make someone else’s life happier?

 

Don’t give up on this one. Keep thinking about it as long as it takes—it’s a new year, so think about it all year if need be until you find it. Large or small, we all have gifts and those gifts make a difference, to us and to others. Find your gifts. Then celebrate your gifts.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Stopping Mind Chatter

Prayer and meditation are not as easy as they may seem. In our modern, fast-paced, gadget-centered world, it is hard to find a quiet moment. Even if we sit quietly trying to pray, to meditate, to clear our minds, our minds rebel. We just have too many things to think about to be quiet. What am I going to make for dinner tonight? Sitting here is a waste of time when I have work to do. What if I don’t have money to pay the mortgage this month? What if I lose my job? I wonder whether I should wear the red dress to the party?

 

Big or small, our minds will find distractions to fill them. Distracting thoughts are not unlike our learned codependent and dysfunctional behaviors—our mind is the master-controller of those behaviors. It does not know how to release the drama. It thinks it knows better than us—better than God or our Higher Power.

 

Is your mind trying to compete with your Higher Power? Even when you intuitively know something—you know what you should or should not do—does your mind get in the way? Do you take the better paying job even though you know you’d be happier at your current job because it “makes sense” to do so? Do you date someone because your mother likes him even though you know he’s not the right one? Do you find yourself stressed over everything you have to do all the time, trying to keep it all straight in your head?

 

At the bottom of bad decisions, stress, and mind chatter is the fear you will lose control. Ironically, we’ll only lose control when we allow our minds completely to take over—allow them to use their tools of stress, fear, and dysfunctional behaviors. When we allow the mind to take over, it can go into overdrive, to overheat, to become overtired. Sometimes, our minds simply need a break, a shut down, a cooling off period.

 

When we give in to a few minutes of quiet, to releasing our thoughts, to focusing on our breathing, we regain our center. Suddenly, we find our perspectives changing, our day transforms from one of lack and not enough time to one of abundance, to an overflowing of time when we have space to get everything done and to enjoy ourselves as well. We realize we will get done what we need to, and what we don’t get done didn’t really need to be done anyway.

 

Don’t let your mind, your fear, your stress take over and extinguish your sense of feeling good. Let your mind and your body rest. Relax. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Center yourself. Allow yourself the right to feel good. Give yourself just five minutes to do nothing and you’ll find your mind functions better. When we stop the mind chatter, we can get done what needs to be done more quickly, and maybe we will hear inside the voice that really matters.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Controlling God

As codependents, we try to control—we usually think of control in terms of controlling people and events, but what about God?

 

Religion for a long time has tried to control God, to control how we understand God and how God operates. While most religions start out having the best intentions and concerns about our soul, in the end, they often end up trying to control people and God in the process. Religion has told us if we do certain things, God will love us, and if we don’t do certain things, God will reject us—we will burn in Hell. Religion has also been used to make us believe God is for Us and against Them.

 

Can we so easily put God in a box? Can we control God?

 

On a more personal level, do we try to control how God operates in our lives? Do we pray only for what we want to happen, to try to convince God to do what we want? In these cases, are we listening to God, or are we too busy doing all the talking, telling Him what we want?

 

Are we afraid to listen? Do we avoid praying because we are afraid of what God might tell us? Do we fear how God might change our lives? Do we have irrational fears that we will be left impoverished, destitute, asked to do something seemingly impossible if we let God in?

 

So maybe we don’t pray. Maybe we don’t even talk or think about God. Does it matter? Do we really think we keep God or our Higher Power out if He or It wants in?

 

We rationalize God. We assume He operates by the same codes of human reason and justice that we do. But when did God die and make us God, giving us power to tell Him what to do? I don’t fully understand God, but I’m pretty sure God is not codependent—He knows better than to give His power over to us.

 

Are we really faithful, or are we just superstitious? Do we bargain with God? Do we seriously believe if we say x number of rosaries, or we pray perfectly, or if we get baptized with our full bodies rather than just our heads, that somehow we will gain some magic ability to make God do what we want?

 

We can’t control God. We can’t stop God or our Higher Power from being in our lives. It’s foolish to think we can. If we fight it, we will only make it worse. If God or Source wants in, It or He or She will find a way.

 

Think today about how you have tried to control God. How have you withheld yourself from trusting your Higher Power? When was the last time you actually took the time to ask God what He might want?

 

All we have to do is Trust. We don’t have to bargain. We don’t have to say rosaries or jump through hoops for God. We don’t have to fear God will ask us to do the impossible. We simply have to stop and listen to our Higher Power, our Intuition, our Source. We may not get the answers we want, but they will be the right ones. We may find we did not even have to ask the questions because everything was already well and perfect. We have no need to try to control God. He is already in control. We need only Trust.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Not Enough Time

Our hectic modern world makes time a priority, a commodity. When I ask people what they most wish for, one of the biggest responses I get is “More time.” Even if people say “More money” when I probe a bit further, I find out they want more money so they don’t have to work so hard, so they have more time to spend with family and friends or doing what they want to do.

 

We all have the same amount of time—twenty-four hours in a day. Depending on our age, some of us may feel we have more or less time than others, but thankfully, none of us knows the hour of his or her death, so we do not have to stress over it.

 

Still, we stress over time. We often feel we have more things to do than we can possibly manage within a day. We feel stressed, overwhelmed, afraid of failure because we can’t accomplish everything.

 

Or we may be waiting. Waiting for time to pass. Waiting for graduation day, for the mortgage to be paid off, for the kids to move out of the house. We are just trying to get by, putting our lives on hold until we reach the “When that happens, then I will be happy” time.

 

Time is really our friend. If we had all the time in the world, we’d probably never get anything done. If we didn’t have to wait for time to pass so something could happen, we would not appreciate it when it did happen. Most of all, time heals, it washes away the past, it provides perspective on things.

 

When I find myself getting stressed about everything I have to do and not having enough time to do it, I find the best thing to do is just to stop what I’m doing. To take a nap, go for a walk, watch a little TV, talk to a friend. After a couple of hours, I realize things are not as bad as I thought they were. I start to realize I have enough time. I come back to the tasks at hand refreshed, with a less narrow-minded view, and I can usually accomplish what needs to be done in less time than I thought. What happens then? I find myself with extra time!

 

Time is a fact of life. We all have to live with it, but we don’t have to let it control or destroy us. We can do practical things like manage our time, make a schedule, set aside time for ourselves. We can also remember to relax, to breathe, to take time to focus on what really matters to us. Not to waste time doing things we don’t want to do.

 

The time will come, time will pass, time will run out. We can do little about it. In the end it does not matter. If the timing is right, something will happen or not. What is meant to be will be. Relax. Enjoy life. Do what you can reasonably do and let Time take care of the rest. Give it a little time. Once some time passes, you’ll find that whatever you worried that you didn’t have time for didn’t really matter, or whatever time you were waiting to have pass ended up containing in it a wonderful journey.

 

Today, make Time your friend. Time works with you. Isn’t it time you realized that?

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Gifts We Have Received

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. It’s the day the wise men brought baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

 

I don’t imagine those are gifts too many of us see too often. But the gift giving itself is the important thing. Gifts we are given are acknowledgments of our value, of the appreciation others have for us.

 

We have many gifts in our lives. Today, let us take a moment to think about all of them. I’ve written a short list of gifts in my own life as a sample.

 

1. I live in the United States – whatever its faults, it’s still the best country in the world to live in. I have far more than the vast majority of the world. I do not want for any basic needs.
2. I live in Austin, Texas. – it’s warm here—no snow storms like I knew growing up in Canada. There are plenty of things to do here.
3. I have a wonderful husband who has stuck by me for many years, supporting my dreams, and overlooking my faults.
4. I have wonderful adult children who have become my friends.
5. I have grandchildren I delight in.
6. I own my own business. I am self-employed and can make my own decisions and no one else is my boss.
7. I have a job I love. I get to support other authors and share their gifts and messages with the world, helping to change lives through books.
8. I have a wonderful staff. They are reliable, talented, responsible, and give me no unnecessary drama in my life.
9. I have wonderful friends. Many of my friends I’ve had for decades. Whether it’s getting together in person, or talking to them online, I have many friends I can go to for support, advice, and comfort on different issues, personal, business, and spiritual. Each individual friend is a gift in him or herself.
10. I am financially secure. I do not need to worry where my next meal is coming from, how I will pay the bills, will I be able to stay warm this winter. I may not be so rich I can have anything I want, but I lack for nothing. 

I could easily make a list several times as long as this, but you get the idea. What gifts are in your life? Whenever you feel down or worried, remember to count your blessings. It quickly helps you to change your perspective, appreciate all you have, and help you feel that whatever trouble comes your way, it is small and manageable when you consider all the good stacked up against it.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.

Creating Intentional Chaos

None of us like to have chaos in our lives. Or do we?

 

Codependents and addicts feed on drama. We are so used to it we don’t know how to handle life when it isn’t hectic, crazy, and emotional. And sometimes, that’s a good thing. Okay, not usually, but sometimes.

 

We may not always know how to say, “No” to something. We may have difficulty making a decision and enforcing something we know is the best choice or behavior for our well-being.

 

But on some level, our intuition or subconscious knows what is best for us and will bring that about whatever our codependent tendencies choose to do in opposition.

 

Think for a minute about relationships you’ve been in that have ended. When you look back, you probably are glad they ended. You probably sensed things about them that you did not like—but love is blind, so you ignored them or you compromised by accepting them. In the end, the relationship blew up in your face anyway.

 

I once met a woman who was grieving the loss of a relationship. She explained that she madly loved her boyfriend. She would have done anything for him. Even though he did drugs, mistreated her, and did not want children, she stayed with him—you know the story; she was convinced he was a good person (and in all fairness, he like most people, did have some good qualities) and she would eventually change him. She was utterly crazy about him and convinced she could not live without him.

 

“Then one day,” she told me, “without even planning it, I heard myself telling him the one thing I knew would make him so angry he would leave me. I loved him. I didn’t want him to leave. But I said it not knowing why exactly.” When I met her, she was mourning his loss, even begging him to come back, but he never did. A year later, she told me, “I think I knew all along that being with him was a mistake. I just couldn’t get over the desire to be with him—it was an unhealthy addiction. I probably could have stuck up for myself sooner and simply left him, but I wasn’t strong enough, so I had to create a painful separation. If I hadn’t made him so angry that he wouldn’t have taken me back, I wouldn’t have been strong enough even if I had tried to break up with him to say ‘No’ when he asked me to take him back.”

 

Despite the pain, chaos may be the best thing we can do for ourselves. I’m not advising anyone to go out and create chaos in his or her life. I’m just suggesting that sometimes even when we act irrationally, our inner guidance system is watching out for us. If we follow our intuitions and act when we know something is troubling us, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble. The chaos erupts when we repress our intuition so long that our Inner Being comes out fighting to fix matters.

 

A New Year, a New Decade

Can you believe it’s 2010? Wasn’t it just 1999? Has so much time already passed?

 

Yes, New Year’s Day is a day to make resolutions. This year we’re going to change something we don’t like. We’ll find a new job, lose weight, find the man of our dreams, go back to school, finally retire, divorce the husband holding us back, or take that trip to Hawaii. Whatever it is.

 

But many of us, I hope not most of us, will fail to keep our resolutions. After all, we make the resolutions with the best intentions, but they can be difficult, and we can find that dreading how hard they are will make us soon give them up.

 

I brought up 1999 for a reason. Before we talk further about resolutions, think back to who you were that year. Compare who you were then to who you are today. Is your life better or worse than then? It may not be perfect today, but I bet you will think you are better off today than you were then. Maybe now you are married, or through college, or have a better job, or the kids are raised. Yes, I know it’s possible you are unemployed, your spouse passed away—you were happier back then, but maybe you are wiser today. In some way, I am sure your life is better than it was a decade ago.

 

Look at how much has happened in those ten years. Life changes gradually, but just as how Wall Street analysts tell us that with all the stock market’s ups and downs, eventually the trend is upward, so life works that way too. We have bad days. Even tragedies happen. But so do good things. We keep growing, learning, achieving, rising up from failures to achieve some more.

 

Be easy on yourself as you strive for change. Do what you can to grow, to move toward those resolutions, but be patient also. Don’t give them up—even if you have to put them on the back burner. Even if you can only devote a minute or two a day to achieving the goal, you are making progress. Pat yourself on the back for how far you have already come. Steady wins the race.

 

Look forward to the future in joyous anticipation when what you have resolved to change in your life has already been accomplished. Think how good you are going to feel in 2020. It’ll be here before you know it.

Irene Watson, MA,  is author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of The Story that Must Be Told: True Tales of Transformation, and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers. She is a workshop leader, managing editor of Reader Views, and president of a non-profit Higher Power Foundation. Irene lives next to Barton Creek in Austin, TX, with her husband Robert.