Sunday, October 21, 2007

The Success Principles ~ Principle #30


I've had to take a bit of a break from these posts but hopefully as of today I'll be back on track!
Number 30 in Jack Canfield's Success Principles is face what isn't working. The message is very straightforward and made abundantly clear in the first sentence: "If you are going to become more successful, you have to get out of denial and face what isn't working in your life."

Canfield tells us to pay attention to "yellow alerts," warning signals in our life that something's not quite right. This always reminds me of something I read by Carl Jung. I'll be paraphrasing here. The universe taps you on the shoulder to send you a message. And taps you again. And again. And if you continue to ignore it, eventually it will kick you in the butt! It's definitely to your advantage to listen to the universe's nudges.

In this chapter Canfield talks about how we create reasons, excuses, platitudes and myths to support our denial and that we do this out of fear, fear that things will get even worse. As a coach, I listen for when people say, "That's just the way it is" because that always points to a stuck place, a place that's solidified to support a toleration, a place where there's currently not hope for change, a place where my client isn't believing in themself. When you can make a shift in this belief, big changes can start happening. Canfield says successful people recognize bad situations and then decide to do something about them.
Personally when I read this chapter today I think about the message that's showing up in my temporomandibular joint. Yep, messages can show up anywhere. I've been having quite bad pain in there. I'm on medication for it now that is helping but it was bad enough to keep me up in the night. In fact, I think that clenching may be responsible for my recent tooth issue. My body is definitely trying to tell me something.
I've always associated the clenched jaw and TMJ with stress and maybe anger. I would think that it might means words that are going unsaid. But the funny thing is I'm really feeling happy. I'm doing so many wonderful things and enjoying them thoroughly. Herein I notice a bit of a flaw in my thinking. I seem to think that if I'm having fun, enjoying myself, than that means I never need to take a break and that leads to my favourite addiction - adrenalin living.
So my jaw is reminding me to loosen up, to take drooling time, hang-out time and stare at the stars. Powering forward at 100 mph, even if its fun, can wear you out when you're not looking. So I am recommitting to turning my computer of at 10 and to journalling. This week I will take some chair and stare time and also some studio time. I've also booked a Thai Yoga massage and am exploring the world of craniosacral work.
What's not working for you and how are you going to shift it?

No comments:

Post a Comment