Here is a question I liked in The Daily Stoic Journal and my answer to it:
What would happen if I took a second to cool down?
If a phone ring makes your spine crawl, something has to change.
Are you worried you will receive another request from a client, manager, colleague, or partner?
This visceral reaction could be one of the following:
The underlying feeling of resentment is surprise, surprise, envy, not anger, as Brene Brown revealed in her book Atlas of the Heart. You feel resentful because you want to experience what others are experiencing.
For example, if you resent someone for resting, it’s not about being angry they are not doing their share of the workload; it’s because you want to rest.
If you resent someone for dressing nicely, it’s because you want to dress nicely too, not because you are angry they are wasting their money.
David Allen said he felt the phone call spine crawl at some point, which means his business burdened him because he felt the transaction with the calling client was unfair; his company was doing more than they were getting paid for. So, how did they solve it? They raised their prices, and the phone call dread went away.
Where do you feel resentment in your life?
What do you feel is missing?
What do you want more of? And less of?
Sitting for a few minutes and writing answers will help you define where you need to ask for help.
Is it the kids’ homework, the house chores, or the monthly report?
Do you feel resentful because other people are having alone time, seeing their friends, or traveling?
These feelings can turn into goals with action plans. They could be conversation starters with significant people about support and what it looks like for you. These feelings could be your signal to learn to say no and to ask for more.
How can you make an easy wish happen soon?
Do you need connection time? Plan that coffee date with your friend.
Is your body aching and needs movement? Look at the week ahead week and allocate time for walking, or better yet, with a friend; health and relationship goals in one.
Resentment is a masked wish for change. Listen to it with curiosity; it is here for guidance.
Use your feelings:
Use joy and regret:
Use the calendar:
If you listed several answers, let these questions help you prioritize :
Tip: Replace (the end of the year) with the end of the week/month/quarter, your Birthday, Christmas, Ramadan, or trip. You get the picture.
I loved this story from Tara Brach in her book Radical Compassion:
I like to tell students the story of a man who went to a mindfulness retreat because his therapist said he’d feel better if he learned to meditate. The retreat turned out to be a real roller coaster. Yes, there were moments of calm, but he also plunged deeply into fear, anger, and grief. The next time he saw his therapist, he told him he’d suffered horribly. “How could you have promised I’d feel better?” Nodding sagely, the therapist replied, “You are feeling better . . . you’re feeling your fear better, feeling your anger better, feeling your grief better!
Let’s keep practicing, shall we?
When you notice your neurotic thinking and behavior, can you take back a few steps and watch it as something peculiar happening inside you? Can you disidentify with it as you the person and realize it is an experience you are simply having at this moment? Can you remember that this too shall pass? Can your observing self watch it with curiosity and wonder? Can you notice how these feelings are making your heart beat faster and your mind unfocused and your breath shallower? Can you look at this experience as yet another lesson in patience and self-acceptance in all your states? Can you take it lightly and not be so serious about it? Can you laugh at this particular human experience you’re having that is making you this uncomfortable? Can you let go of the thoughts that are keeping you hooked to this state and taking you away from being present? Can you breathe very slowly, watching your belly filling up with air with every inhale and deflating with exhale? Can you remember you are strong enough and went through harder times before, so you will be okay this time too? Can you repeat this sentence to yourself “May you be well my friend, may you be safe, may you live in joy and peace”* until you feel calmer?
Sure you can.
*Tibetan “lovingkindness” meditation mantra.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
The door to your heart is not meant to be there.
You built it up when you got hurt.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
The door to your heart is not letting love in or out.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
Doors are not for hearts.
You think your door is protecting you but it’s only blocking the flow of love that is your birthright.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut
It lies. This door.
It tells you stuff like: “show them how it feels to withhold love from them“.
You think you’re the punisher. You are the punished.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
Whenever you feel your heart closing down, remember that.
Shutting down is not the way you handle life.
Keep it open and stay watching.
That’s the courageous choice.
Shutting down is turning your back to your life and to those you share it with.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
The doorway should be clear. The door must be wrecked off its hinges.
Open up. Don’t keep it shut.
When your heart is open, they can tell.
They will feel your unconditional approval of them.
And guess what? They, too, will crack theirs open.
Open up darling. Don’t keep it shut.
We communicate, and we clear the air, and we ask for forgiveness for our own sake. Holding it all in could make us sick, could delay us, could leave us sleepless and hopeless.
Forgive for you. Forgiving does not mean condoning the act that caused you pain. You do it for you. You see the light in the other even though it was overshadowed with their dark behavior. You distance yourself if you are in harm’s way. Or you try to fix the bridge that you thought you forever burned.
You get to decide if it’s worth it or not.
No matter what, though, you forgive, for you.
You wanted to start today perfectly, but you didn’t? You were not at your best behavior perhaps? You snapped at someone or criticized others? You were mean, even?
I listened to something beautiful recently from Waking Up App about the power of beginning again. It went something like this, and I am paraphrasing here: “When we notice how we are acting, we need to make amends if we can then forgive ourselves immediately and completely. After that, we decide to free fall into the next moment without any residue of the past. “
We don’t need to take on the weight of guilt to the next moment.
I loved it so much. Today I needed it again. Maybe you do too?
Last week I watched Seth Godin in a LIVE Q&A session where someone asked him what to do about fear of failing in their new small business. Seth answered beautifully (and I am paraphrasing) to write down the worst case scenario if they go for it and how they can be prepared if it does, and to also write the best case scenario. Then, Seth said that both scenarios probably wouldn’t happen, but now we are better prepared if they do. Back to work.
This is the same advice that Tim Ferriss gave in his TED talk encouraging us to set fears instead of goals.
You can do Tim Ferris’s fear-setting exercise here and read more about it in this amazing article he wrote
One last thing, I would like you to notice with me how yesterday’s post and today’s are basically telling us the same thing: WRITE down your fears. Unless you face them and see what they are trying to say; you would remain paralyzed.
Are you really? I still need to practice some self-constraint when hearing adults complaining to me of being bored.
With all the resources of learning, connection and entertainment we have, maybe you need to dig a little deeper, and I can safely assume you have access to those resources if you are reading this, unlike many other people in this world who still don’t.
So let’s dig deeper: Could you be jumping to labeling your emotion way too fast? Could it be loneliness? Could the feeling be missing face-to- face in-person non-screen connection in the pandemic? Could it be nostalgia? Could it be doing something you don’t love at work or home? Could it be tiredness, sleepiness or low energy?
What you need to hear about this word is the hint of victimhood it conveys. Please save me! is the subtitle. Let me ask you this: Do you need to be saved? Who is the hero you are waiting for? Why are you giving up responsibility of your feelings and mood like that?
Continue reading “Bored?”