“Something will reveal itself to us only if we do not attempt to coerce it into one of our ready-made conceptual straitjackets.” Martin Heidegger

It’s much easier to respond to the world when we’re healthy. Emotional and behavioral health allow us to develop a new range of actions and to choose our responses in any situation and with any person. Healthier people realize that our world is often challenging and even unfair at times, but they are content regardless. Heidegger didn’t use the word ‘health,’ but he talked about focusing less on the way we believe things should or have to be and instead allowing ourselves to accept the world as it is.

Usually when people hire me their lives are out of balance, often because there is some distorted or negative thinking going on. This can be the result of people seeing themselves and their lives through old, unhealthy assumptions and beliefs. As a result their lives are often a struggle. I help people rediscover and redefine themselves so they might become who they are best suited to be. We may not even recognize how out of balance we are, because being out of balance has becomes familiar, even habitual. I help my clients wake up and to remember and reconnect with their true selves.

When we’re healthy, we don’t resist what’s going on in our lives. We don’t hold onto outdated ways of being and thinking. Bringing the past into the present keeps us connected to the past, makes it hard to experience the present and limits our sense of what might be possible.

When we choose healthier attitudes, we don’t limit ourselves based on early childhood criticisms from parents and other care-givers. Instead, we can go out in the world and get some present-based feedback to help us understand what is true about ourselves, including our capabilities and talents.

Deepak Chopra describes how each of us assigns meaning to everything that happens in our lives. We call what we experience ‘reality,’ but what we call reality isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of what’s really going on out in the world. It’s usually a reflection of what’s going on inside of us.

We can become builders and designers of our own lives. We can determine who we are and what’s really important to us. We have to stop acting, though, as if other people are doing things to us, which means we stop being reactive and childish. Instead, we can learn to create control and respond like adults.

If you’re not sure if you’re reactive versus responsive, consider these questions:

Do you talk as a self-empowered person or do you talk as a victim?
Do you talk about people and the world (including work) impacting you or about how you impact the world?
Do you talk about the past and future, or do you talk and live in the present?
Do you hold an optimistic perspective or a pessimistic perspective?

A large part of emotional (and physical) health is a lack of resistance. We tend to waste energy resisting things. Being present to whatever is happening in the moment and being awake to the opportunities and possibilities is much healthier than trying to fit all of your experiences (pleasant and unpleasant) into conceptual straitjackets.

October 11, 2011

Doug Silsbee, PCC, is a thought leader in the fields of presence-based leadership development and resilience. A master teacher, Doug has worked with leaders on five continents. He coaches, teaches, and writes from Asheville, NC.

Sacramento Coaches Association, a chapter of the International Coaching Federation.
Registration information will be posted closer to event date.

I struggle with faith; often more than I’d like to admit. Why can’t I trust that between my efforts, the laws of Nature and God watching over me all will work out for the best? I sometimes find myself struggling just to get motivated to go about my daily activities. Fortunately, I am usually able to catch myself before I slip too deeply into this place of doubt, impatience and frustration.

It confuses me that I can still lose faith in things. I mean after all these years, why don’t I trust that things will always work out. They always do. Sometimes I feel like I am so far off course, that I have drifted miles from my original goal. It’s hard for me to accept that an experience is good and helpful when I am late for an appointment or when I have to redo some project. But then I realize that no matter how many times my plans are interrupted or changed I somehow am still on the right course for me.

When I am able to remain open-minded and flexible I find that I can overcome most any obstacle that comes up. It’s been suggested that experience is what we get when we don’t get what we want. So, if I don’t get what I want I instead get something more valuable, I get experience. Experience, for me, is opportunity. It allows me to recognize what could be if I tried again with a different approach or a different attitude. Experience encourages growth, too.

Once we are able to trust ourselves and the world around us and practice faith we can find our way back to our goals and hopes.

We do, though, have to make a decision, to move forward. I know it’s not easy to do this because we’ll have leave the comfort of our past (yes, even the negative and yucky stuff) behind. Many of us will doubt our decision to move forward. We’ll second-guess and wonder “what if?” Moving towards your “real,” purposeful and mature goals (versus towards those easy, lazy, unhealthy ones) means work. It means giving up our childish and doubting ways. It means choosing growth which will bring you back to people whether that group is a family, a boy/girlfriend, an office setting or even a whole community. In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho describes the experience of one choosing to move back towards a healthier and more productive life. “He still had doubts about the decision he had made. But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision is only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? When we make the decision to move forward with our lives we are inadvertently deciding to have faith, too. The two go hand in hand. They say that “faith can move mountains.” Faith, in my life, has moved me well along my life’s path to places I never dreamed possible. Faith and a healthy outlook will restore a sense of possibility and potential to your life. When I am in this pattern of growth I am happier and healthier. I am not alone either. My connection to people is stronger as is my connection to God.

Think about who you are right now. Are your choices based on faith and growth or are they stuck in fear and unhappiness? We have lots of choices to make in our busy lives. We can choose to trust ourselves and our God, we can choose to move forward in our lives’ pursuits and we can choose to live honest and open-minded lives.

David Rude, MA, CPC
February 19, 2011

I’ve faced many things on my personal quest to know myself as well as to understand other people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lain awake at 2 am wondering how I got where I am and why I felt the way I did.

As a student at university I had the pleasure of taking two philosophy courses from an amazing professor. One thing I remember very clearly from those classes was the notion of transcending our current reality. As a confused and developing person the idea that I might be able to be something other than what I thought I was, made me both happy and hopeful.

I felt very vulnerable when I stacked myself, including my looks, athletic and academic abilities and financial background against my classmates. I had friends, good jobs and did very well at school, but I often struggled with my sense of worth.

I remember Kierkegaard and the idea that man must define himself. I struggled to figure myself out and would often blame my parents for who, where and what I was. And so, it was at university that I first discovered I was not the person I wanted to be.

But life has always been amazingly kind and good to me and at graduation I was given the opportunity to move to Central Mexico for two years of teaching. It was during that time, working initially as a stranger in a new land and not knowing the language or culture that I began to recognize myself.

For years prior to that trip I had tried desperately to diminish my feelings of isolation and unworthiness. But in doing so, I diminished everything else in me. Instead I created more isolation and deepened my sense of shame and fear.

Having to learn to communicate in a new language and to fit into a completely new world was the best thing that could have happened to me. The courage that I experienced and the compassion I felt from those people as they watched me struggle to connect with them in language and culture was just what I needed.

I was forced to let myself be seen with all of my imperfections. It took me a few months to master enough Spanish to really fit in. So there were laughs as I stuttered my intentions in this new language and it was okay. They appreciated me for trying and I appreciated them for supporting me as I learned.

I learned the value of connection with other people through the act of being very vulnerable. I am very grateful for this experience as it taught me so much about myself. I felt stronger and much more alive as a result.

Kierkegaard would say, I believe, that when a man chooses (to accept) himself he begins to exist. When we are vulnerable, that is, when we choose to accept ourselves with our imperfections and uncertainties, we begin the process of really connecting with the world and people around us.

Download Podcast of this Newsletter
(right-click to save)

Personalized Confidence Training Course

Isn’t t it unfortunate how fear, doubt and lack of confidence often stop us from doing the things that we want to do or achieve?

Isn’t it a wonderful feeling when we’re doing the things that we’re good at?

Would you like to conquer your fears and doubts?

Confidence can be learned and it is what we are when we are at our best!

A fresh start with confidence

This Personalized Confidence Training Course is structured to meet your own individual needs, it is over 4 sessions (approx 1 hour each) and every 2 weeks. You will learn the following:

• How your thoughts affect your mood
• How your mood affects your behavior
• How to change your perceptions & state of mind
• How to create moods and feelings that enable you to work at your best
• Exercises to install new ways of thinking
• The structure of how fear works

And more……

It’s what top sportspeople do, skilled public speakers, confident socializers, etc. It’s about HOW anyone who is good at doing anything has got good at it.

We will teach you HOW to transform how you live. These are skills that you’ll use for the rest of your life to help install your new confidence.

SPECIAL OFFER $335
Phone 530-903-2428 or email at davrude@yahoo.com to book your course now!

Watch Video

There are vast possibilities available to us at this time.  I really believe this.

I just returned from my workshop and coaching tour of Ireland and Northern Ireland where I met some amazingly courageous and hopeful people.  Times are tough, money is tight and it’s cold out, but these people are empowered and motivated to create change through conversation and community.

I have always been attracted to the idea of community.  I was taught very early on that my duty was to the community and that I was to be a “man (person) for others.”

It’s easy to feel isolated and to allow ourselves to get entrapped and to feel disempowered by negatively perceived experiences that have to deal with.  We do have a choice, though.  We can choose to respond or to react.

I’m often asked about the concept of journey.  Many want to know if they’re on the right path.  I think the embarking is more important, at times, than the path itself.  Just getting ourselves ready to move forward can be daunting and eventful.  Choosing to respond to life and to have an awareness of the vast possibilities ahead of us is very empowering and creates hope.  Sure, it takes courage to allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to take that proverbial first step, but “you can’t hit the ball from the bench.”

If you want to experience new ideas and possibilities you may have to look at things, including yourself, differently.  You may have to allow yourself to be really seen by others and to let this vulnerable act to move you towards real connection with the people around you, your community.  Vulnerability is required for any meaningful connection in life. Some degree of risk is required for any kind of growth, be it personal, financial or social.

In these days of political, economic and climatic change we may do well by ourselves in isolation and frustration, but I believe, especially after having met so many open-minded, courageously honest people in my travels, that we can do even better with the support of and connection to others.

Many times I have asked the question: “Are you ready for a fresh start in your life?”

Perhaps that is the wrong question. Maybe I should ask “are you ready to begin to consider the steps it will take to begin to create a fresh start with your life?”

After all, as John Gardner in Self Renewal surmised, “Life is tumultuous—an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous struggle, never an assured victory.”

Making a decision as consequential as “getting on with life” requires a great deal of personal commitment, a complete, or at least major, overhaul in your way of thinking and living as well as much risk.

The decision to live your life honestly and purposefully will enable you to (begin) to accept all of the good you deserve and need and really want in your life. Once you decide to believe that you are a worthwhile, wonderful, beautiful person prepare yourself for a journey. This journey will change your way of thinking, your attitude towards daily life and it will make you much happier. As I like to say “get ready for the ride of your life.”

Creating a fresh start for yourself includes freeing your mind of all of the societal, parental and past messages and it’s a huge task. Imagine the feeling of empowerment you will experience if you can see things today and tomorrow with eyes that have no or lessened limits and restrictions. Instead of seeing this amazing opportunity with vision and criteria created years ago, try to see it with a new sense of yourself. Give things a chance and take time to get to know those people and experiences that once hurt or frightened you.

Make the choice to accept goodness and opportunities in your life. Convince yourself that you can go back to your old, safe ways if things don’t work out in this new way of thinking, but give yourself permission to live differently and openly.

In John 1 we read that “love casts out fear.” Loving ourselves and allowing love from others to flow freely into our lives will have an obvious and important effect on us. It will help us to improve our personal relations, our success in the workplace and our physical bodies by allowing us to sleep and to experience a reduction in stress and stress-related issues.

You know all of this is true, you need to make the decision to accept love and peace in your life. Make the choice to have a fresh start in your life, now.

My wish for you is personal peace, successful and lasting relationships and good health.

Peace and best wishes,

There’s a lot of people experiencing frustration, anxiety, fear and doubt.

In fact I just received an email with the following: “I am so frustrated with everything in my life and need to make some changes.” It could have been written by any number of people in any number of countries. This is, I believe, one of the mantras of our current time.

Why is there so much frustration and what causes it? Frustration is usually caused whenever the results you’re experiencing don’t seem to fit the effort and action you’re applying. So frustration occurs whenever your actions are producing less and fewer results than you think they should.

This may seem like a very simple fact, but it’s an important step to solving frustrating problems.
Often frustration is completely unrelated to the problems we are experiencing. Also, frustration doesn’t have to be a natural part of day to day problems; it’s usually just your perception of these problems. As long as you associate frustration with your problems, that is, as long as you allow yourself to become frustrated with things and people, it’ll be impossible to deal with them differently and successfully.

I also think some people want to be frustrated. It gives them reason to complain, whine and be miserable. Without it they believe they’ll have nothing to share and so they actually allow frustration to be a part their lives.

Frustrating problems are incredibly energy consuming. Because these problems consume your energy in such great quantities, you need to be extremely careful that you don’t try to keep running with an empty energy reserve. When this happens you burnout and require a long time to recover. The initial reaction of most people is to work harder when they encounter frustration. Although the intention to work harder makes sense, it often results in trying to spend more energy than you have available.

Why are frustrating problems more energy consuming than normal tasks? Because your action is not producing the results you expect, your brain naturally goes into full gear, rapidly consuming mental energy to solve the problem you’re facing. In this time it’s very easy to run out of energy. When your energy stores are depleted you tend to become irritable, tired, stressed and sometimes angry.

Let’s consider the following four levels of living and see if you can’t find some way or ways to reconsider and reduce the frustration in your life:

The surface level is the “drama”—the “he said, she said, then this happened and then she said and then he said” level.  It’s so easy to caught up in this level and start reacting to the drama around you.  Think about when you have gotten caught in the drama level recently.  It happens to all of us—you aren’t alone!

The next level down is the “situation” level—what’s really going on, what really happened or is happening, who’s responsible for it?  For example, perhaps at work there was a breakdown on a project that caused a huge blow-up in the team and everyone has taken sides and is pointing fingers.  Who is to blame and what do we do about it?  You could also call this the “just fix it” level.

The third level down is the “choice” level.  At this level you ask “Who am I within this situation?” What’s your role in how the situation came to be, what’s happening now, and where it will go from here?  Who do you choose to be in relationship to this situation?  There is very little in our culture that supports dropping down to this level.  As a culture we unfortunately default to the “drama” or “fix it” level.  We are well trained to be problem solvers, look for who or what to blame, and stay at the second level. Here at the choice level, you realize that, although you may not be able to change the circumstances or situation right away, you can at least choose who you will be within the situation.  And that’s a huge step beyond where most people go.  Now you are claiming your responsibility and choice in the matter and starting to create something new.

Finally, there is the fourth level, the deepest level, the one that we rarely get to in our culture.  This is the “opportunity” level.  When we drop down to this level, our first question is “what’s the opportunity here?” or “what wants to happen?” Here’s where the true power lies.  Here’s where the gold is.  This situation has happened for some reason.  It wants to tell you something—to help you clearly recognize something that is not working or wants to change or to heal.  It wants you to pay attention—to recognize or learn something so that a similar situation doesn’t have to happen again, and even more importantly, so that everyone involved grows and moves forward.  Approaching life from the opportunity level cuts to the chase.  It gets right to what is out of alignment very quickly and brings things into alignment so that synergy and synchronicity can occur.  Asking  “What wants to happen?” opens you to much greater awareness and gives you access to much greater insight and information than just fixing it as fast as you can, and certainly brings much greater awareness than you find while reacting a the drama level!

Learning to live at the opportunity level starts with being focused and disciplined enough to step beyond the drama, and then being courageous enough to say there’s more to life and leadership than solving problems.  It starts with being bold enough to choose who you will be within situations, what relationship you will have to circumstances, and to make a habit of asking that question, “What’s the opportunity here?” for everyone involved.

Living at the opportunity level engages your soul.  It gives you the space to get in touch with your soul mission, your life purpose, and then listen to that mission for how it wants to be lived through this situation or circumstance.  At this fourth level, you are able to recognize all the parts of your life—work, relationships, family, friends—as vehicles for living your life as it you really want. If you try to figure out how to fit your soul into your life, it will never happen.  Yet when you commit to living a life that is grounded in your soul and its mission—to all of life offering opportunities for living deeper and truer to who you really are—things start to change. Your life takes on much greater meaning and you greet each morning with excitement for what you get to create that day.
In summary, there are two truly essential keys to getting on the fast track for transformation and growth, leading a rewarding and fulfilling life freer of frustration, doubt and fear, and making a significant contribution to the world:

1.Engaging your soul and soul mission in ongoing conversation, following its lead, and creating the life it calls you to live.

2.Making your first questions in any situation or moment, “What wants to happen?  What’s the opportunity here?” and then responding accordingly.

I learned long ago that while these concepts are simple and straightforward, living the concepts can be challenging.  It’s through meeting your challenges as opportunities, however, that you discover who you really are, recognize the difference you are here to make in the world, and actually do it.

Michelangelo said that the greatest danger for most of us is not that we’ll aim too high and not make it, but that we will aim too low and we will make it.  The soul doesn’t engage when the bar for life is too low.  The soul yearns for growth, adventure, new learning, and giving back to the world.  It thrives when you align your life with the greater universal evolutionary flow and respond to what wants to happen as a way of life.  Start living on the fourth level of opportunity and watch your life transform.  End the drama, lose the frustration and find the opportunities that lie within.

No matter how hard we try to deal with them, problems just seem to keep popping up in our lives, in our families and with our groups of friends. Even when it appears that we may have solved a certain problem, it often just as quickly returns.

One problem I often hear about is a lack of respect. It’s not uncommon for family members, including in-laws, friends and co-workers, to attempt, at least, to take advantage of or intrude upon another’s personal space and needs. When this behavior happens there is a lack of respect for the other person’s boundaries and a failure to take into account the needs and capabilities of that person. Boundaries help us establish behavior that encourage respectful interaction with others and promote self-respect. This negative or disrespectful type of interaction often leads to conflict because the communication can be dishonest, misleading and even intimidating.

We shouldn’t be surprised that problems return again and again. The reason that the same or similar problem reappears is that we haven’t addressed the basic conflict of values that play a major part in the problem. So, when the underlying values come into conflict again, the same or similar problem emerges yet another time.

For us to reduce the conflicts and problems we face with family, friends and others we have to acknowledge our underlying truths and values. What is important and of value to you? What do you stand for? Do the others in your life know these things? If others are clear on these things and you are consistent in your values you will promote the building of a set of shared values. Certainly, there will be many who won’t find your values congruent with their own, but you’ll know where each other stands. If others don’t know what you want, need and value you’re causing them confusion and allowing them to push their values and needs onto you.

The impact of reframing these problems of miscommunication and disrespect into a possibility of something more positive is that, with time and persistence others can learn to interact with you in ways that continue to create a shared set of values, which will allow both of you to solve problems with less stress and conflict.

It’s important when you make this shift from self-protection and, even defensiveness, to a more open style of interaction to understand your values and intentions and act with the goal of making these known and congruent with others.

Reframing problems into possibilities will allow you to build powerful and positive relationships characterized by shared values, respect and increased and more successful communication. Rather than becoming frustrated by relationships that are characterized by impersonal treatment, an invasion of your values and beliefs you and the others in your life will experience less conflict because you are authentic people who stand for something—an honest respect for similar and differing values.