I have a major case of the no-one-likes-me blues.

It’s been there since I can remember. I know it’s not unique to me.

I turn it into:

No one likes me, so let me filter all experiences to tease out things to prove they don’t like me.

I create a folder in my head for each person with all the things they did and said that prove they can’t stand me and I file it away. When I encounter said person again, I pull that folder out of my mental file cabinet and wait. I wait for them to say just the thing to add to this file.

Like a salivating tiger, I lurk in the bushes to pounce on words, facial expressions or tones.

—————

It’s said that in the animal kingdom, most creatures roaming the land are herbivores, and for good reason: hunting is inefficient.

Hunting for negativity serves one purpose: it proves I’m right.

It sounds insane that someone would put so much effort into proving themselves right by looking for all the wrong in the world. Unfortunately, I’m not an exception.

Those who go for being right are really going for certainty. Certainty is one of several human needs. It’s just that when it ranks highest among your needs, you’re more likely to be the person who seeks answers, who seeks to be right, who seeks to fix what you see is wrong. If things don’t go your way, you get angry.

Going for being right is a Survival Mechanism, which I wrote about here.

It works so well for me, it makes sense to keep doing it if I want the same results.

I just don’t want those results anymore. I can choose to not go for that, but how? And who will keep me accountable?

—————

In a book titled, “The Last Word on Power”, an ontologically trained executive coach named Tracy Goss goes into detail about Winning Strategies from the perspective of leaders and organizations.

To paraphrase what she coaches leaders on: the behaviors you exhibit to get what you want come from a thought pattern that ultimately limits you.

If, for example, you always go for being right, the question you seek to answer may be: “What is the whole story?” or “What’s under the surface?” or “Who is responsible?”

Every experience, every conversation, every sentence in a book, gets filtered through your question.

The question you ask doesn’t allow for any possibilities to come into being other than the ones you’ve filtered for.

THE WATER YOU SWIM IN

Helping people see their “water” is the basis of the work I do as a life coach. (Watch this video on David Foster Wallace’s talk, “This Is Water”.)

It just so happens that the human species swims in one big fish bowl with a context that goes something like this:

There is a way things should be. If it goes that way, things are right. If it doesn’t go that way, things are wrong. They must then be fixed or avoided.

Our Winning Strategies (or Survival Mechanisms) compensate for or react to that universal human context, Goss says in her book.

But imagine the possibilities if you saw how the water limits you and you chose to step out of it.

If choosing sounds too hard to stick to, that’s why executives and other people hire ontologically trained coaches to support them in that. Don’t know what ontological means? Click here.

I’M GOING INTO FARMING

It’s said farmers have the hardest job.

There’s a reason people love them, too.

They put in the work and feed us, year after year, regardless of the weather. They give you only the good stuff. They don’t dart from their land when things aren’t going as expected. They’ll be honest when this year’s harvest reaps very little. They’ll ask you for your support.

They enroll you in creating the future.

As someone who doesn’t literally farm, I can cultivate based, not on interpretations, but on facts.

That means I will inevitably duke it out and roll around in the dirt of this farm I have chosen to be with.

By farming, I’m exposing myself to conditions beyond my control. I am being vulnerable. In that, possibilities show up.

—————

Curious? You can watch my teammates and me in action on Saturday, May 18, between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., at the W Hotel, 123 Washington Street, New York, New York. For more information on the program that trains me in leadership and life coaching, click here. If you’re interested in being my guest that day, email me at hello at julievarughese dot com.

Photo credit: fanboy.com

I’ve been in a funk since Friday morning. That funk has me feeling cantankerous. Grrr.

It hasn’t been expressed.

No. Life goes on as usual. I have a coffee meeting, I volunteer at the acupuncture clinic, I do the grocery shopping, I Skype with my teammates.

Grrr.

My growly, spitfire chatter bounces around in my head in the form of treacherous statements I’d love to say aloud.

But I have responsibilities: To make money. To keep things flowing with my teammates in my life-coaching program. To be civilized.

I’ve been committed to not have a freak-out session when I’m triggered.

I keep it together.

CANTANKEROUS CHURCHMOUSE

In my program, we give ridiculous names to our teammates’ Survival Mechanisms, which are the behaviors we use to protect ourselves from experiencing our fears.

One of my SMs is called Cantankerous Churchmouse.

Yup. It’s funny. It’s meant to shed light on the absurdity of all the things we do to stay invulnerable.

It’s our armor. It’s clunky. It gets in the way.

Mine is a churchmouse who has important things to say. But when it does, it squeaks. Inaudible. “What did you say?”

When it’s pissed or scared, it creates drama. It’s cantankerous.

Well, as you can imagine, I end up being a boulder in the middle of the river of life. Water flows my way and water flows away. (Thanks, coach, for the analogy.) But I stand my ground and agitate because of a lack of trust in the universe.

Does it serve me to not keep things open, to not flow with the river? No.

How can I find that place between being heard and not going cray-cray? That’s my game to play.

—————

Your Survival Mechanism is neither good nor bad. It may have served you well. But it limits your experience of life.

Possibility can’t show up when you are consistently in your stuff.

Are you willing to give it up? I am.

—————

And yet it pops up. I have a self-imposed deadline of August 1 to capture footage on the film I’m making on my cantankerous grandmother (see, it’s inherited).

Although I wasn’t planning to quit, I wasn’t doing much of anything after the Kickstarter campaign went unfunded earlier this year. I was doing the amateur thing, the victimy thing, and waiting for the money to show up to pay for an HD camcorder after my coaching practice became profitable.

How do you think that would go?

DRAMA HAS MANY FACES

If you say you don’t know how to do something and you just need to find that perfect person to help you figure it out, that’s drama.

If you keep saying you’re unwilling to deal with mediocrity in potential mates, that’s drama.

If you keep saying you can’t find a job because of the economy, that’s drama.

—————

Drama is for amateurs. That’s right. Don’t quote me. This guy said it.

A pro doesn’t quit when there’s a setback. Setbacks are part of the deal when you’re doing something that requires you to grow in order to make an impact.

Setbacks are painful and embarrassing. But at the other end of the experience is gold. Keep your eye on it.

FOOLISH IS A GOOD LOOK

My coach suggested I could find another way to get the camcorder. Yeah, I can figure that out easily enough. But I’m still scared of what will happen after I get the device in my hands.

Because then I have to perform. I may end up in confrontations. I may look foolish. Shoot. Pun intended.

Could I post something on Facebook, he asked. Oh, the shame I imagined. And then I did it. (Actually, he didn’t suggest the Facebook option, because no life coach gives advice. He asked how else I could get a camcorder and Facebook slipped out of my mouth. Damn you, Cantankerous Churchmouse.)

—————

So never mind that scaredy-cat feeling. Cantankerous Churchmouse and I are plodding on because the upside of dramatic people is their unfettered passion. They’ve got on rose-colored glasses and they move forward despite all that other stuff.

Passionate people (and mice) are willing to look foolish. Are you?

Short answer? No. Watch and learn.