Beyond Reason and Logic

Every major spiritual tradition articulates the transformational power available when human beings join together the best parts of their individual natures (honesty, goodness, compassion, love).

When we talk about causing breakthroughs, we're talking about using our access to transformational, exponential power that takes us beyond the limited perceptions of certainty that appear to us as comfortable (aka the COMFORT ZONE).

Tapping into clarity + compassionate support enables us to edge into discovery zones so different from our customary reality that moments in these zones often appear to us as miracles beyond reason or logic.

Integrity + Support = Harnessing infinite power

It can be so delicious to dive into the dizzying sea of philosophizing about the infinite power of the universe and the infinite potential of each and every human being.

Getting present to the inter-connectedness of all humanity feels deeply touching, moving and inspiring.

But then we come back to our finite existence with all the little upsets, disappointments and arguments that run rampant through our heads each moment.

And yet, our tedious, annoying finite worlds are often where we find useful qualities like practicality and responsibility. In other words, for most people, finite engagement can be arduous but without it, the trash would never go out, dirty dishes would pile up, and bills would never get paid.

These two worlds feel at odds to most of us. But, in my experience, engaging in the tedium of responsible though mundane tasks with the support and love of other humans is actually THE PASSPORT to harnessing the diving creative power in each one of us.

The attention, integrity and accountability required to keep finances, schedules, spaces and relationships receiving regular upkeep allows us to access the deep infinite power that flows through us at all times.

In fact, I invite you to consider that the only thing blocking this power source is either vagueness or fear. As soon as you reach out for clarity and support, you will experience the surge of power that many of us refer to as a breakthrough.

What would happen if you had structures for achieving clarity and receiving support in place for each and every day if your life? I invite you to consider that your infinite power would be available at a level of mastery that would go beyond the limits of your finite human perception.

Pretty cool, huh? Welcome to the land of miracles.

Imagining the fiction of the future

My brain is so funny.

I was blogging daily and loving it. Sometimes, I even posted twice a day. Then I went on a business trip and blogged once over two days.

When I got back from the business trip, I left three hours later for a weekend in the country and didn't blog for three days straight.

When I came back, I was exhausted, under the weather and under the gun of a VERY big deadline. A week went by...no blog.

Here's the best part: for the last 2 days, I've been ready to blog again. But every time I *think* about blogging, my brain tells me that I have nothing to say.

My brain is lying.

My brain thinks that I have to have my blog clear and planned in my head before I write it. But that's never how writing goes. For that matter, it's never how life goes. No matter what ideas I have in my head of how something will go, should go or shouldn't go, the way it actually happens has only a occasional resemblance to the events I imagine.

So how does my blog actually get written? It gets written when I type norasimpson.blogspot.com into my browser, click on "new post" and place my fingers on my keyboard. Once my fingers are in place, they begin to type words...words I like, words I don't like, words that engage me, words that annoy me. But either way, once those words begin to appear, my brain stops quibbling with imaginary blog demons and starts engaging with real thoughts, sentences and paragraphs.

The funny thing is, when my brain is still in its blog demon quibbler mode, it can take me awhile to remember that criticizing a non-existent blog is a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY.

This morning, when I finally remembered that blogs don't get written by sitting and thinking "No, that's not a good enough topic...and no, THAT'S not a good enough topic either," it suddenly occurred to me that if I wanted to actually have a post on the blog, I needed to stop worrying, thinking and criticizing so that I could start typing. And now here we are...a blog post.

But this blog post isn't just about remembering that writer's block comes from thinking too much about writing. It's about remembering that life blocks can often come from thinking too much about life. When I stop imagining how life will go and just start living it, amazing things happen...things I never could have predicted. But my brain thinks it's a fortune-teller. And it tells me all kinds of things about all kinds of situations before they happen.

"Watch out for this, Nora."

"Be careful of that, Nora."

"You don't want him to think that about you."

"You don't want to say that to her."

It's all pointless worry based on the notion that if I don't plan it all out, somehow I'll "do it badly." But it is precisely those voices of worry, fear and self-criticism that either keep me from engaging with life or acting like a jerk to other people. Whatever the "it" is that I'm concerned I will do badly is generally the least important detail of the situation.

The it will get done. If I do it badly, I'll go back and mess with it till it's better. If I can't make it better alone, I'll ask for help. If I do it well, I'll move onto the next thing. In any of these situations, the most important issues are

(1) that I show up for the "it"

(2) that I treat others with kindness and love as I do "it"

(3) that I treat myself with kindness and love as I do "it"

At the end of the day, being willing to do something "badly" is a great way to trick my brain into getting out of the way so that I can plug into life, show up for action and be loving to myself and others.

In fact, the original title of this blog (before I started messing with it) was "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."

Now go do some things badly! And let me know how they go!

Need something? Just ASK!

This weekend, I participated in a demanding, fast-paced 2-day activity with a bunch of friends that required all of us to perform at our best with little sleep and many unpredictable moments. I was excited and a little nervous--especially because (for those of you who don't know) I eat a special medical food plan that makes it possible for me to live symptom-free with a debilitating intestinal issue.

In new situations (especially ones like this weekend), I sometimes get anxious that I won't get the food that I need which could then seriously jeopardize my health. This brings out all my worst defenses...I can be negative, controlling, over-sensitive, over-dramatic, greedy, judgmental...and more.

In fact, there were several times that food came up in conversation and as soon as it did, I lost all my humor. Basically, where food was concerned, I was a stick in the mud. I felt trapped. I wanted to be playfully running around like everybody else--working hard, having fun. But each time this one thing got talked about, I said things that I know came off as either self-righteous or just plain rude.

But about two-thirds of the way through the weekend, something struck me. When I go to that self-righteous place, I'm acting as though I'm trapped in a cold, cruel world where nobody cares about me and the only way to get attention is to throw little tantrums. In other words, I'm acting like a scared, angry child.

I have compassion for that scared, angry child because there were very real times in my childhood when I was trapped in situations where I got hurt and my needs didn't get met.

But those days are over now. And, I've discovered that the world is not and never was looking to hurt me. Did I get hurt? Sure, but not because it was anyone's cruel intention. It's just that people (especially overworked parents) struggle to show up for each other (especially children) all the time.

I don't have to take my parents' or anyone else's actions personally. I can simply remind myself that sometimes, when people are doing the best they can, their best is not necessarily going to get me what I need. When I accept that simple fact, I get to take responsibility for the PROCESS of making sure my needs get met.

The process of getting my needs met may not always happen as quickly or easily as I would prefer. But, if I'm willing to continue asking for support and seeking clarity about myself and my needs, I will always be taken care of.

In fact, I think one of the reasons so many people struggle to show up for their children and loved ones is that they are still struggling with the fact that it is both their right and the world's privilege when they take responsibility for the process of getting their needs met.

I finally realized that all I had to say was:

"Listen guys, I've got some medical issues that are going to make it hard for me to run around and participate UNLESS I can make sure that I adhere to the strictest version of the medical food plan I use to control the symptoms. I'll be eating a little earlier than the rest of you so that I can participate with as much strength, vigor and fun as everybody else. I really appreciate your understanding and I'm so excited to be doing all this cool stuff!"

And once I did say that, the rest of the weekend just flowed. Nobody cared about the food I put on the table. They cared about the attitude I brought to the table. And once I owned my needs with simplicity and grace, it was easy-peezey to be loving, generous and joyful.

From now on, whenever I'm feeling angry, pouty, helpless or neglected, I have a new tool in my toolbelt--all I have to do is get clear on what I need to be ok and then ask for it directly with trust and simplicity. Pretty neat, right?

So, now I ask you--where are you feeling annoyed, angry, frustrated? What's the simple need underneath those feelings? How can you ask for help to get that need met with clarity and respect?

Asking for what we want and need is about trusting that either we will get it or we will be given something better than we expected. Are you ready to trust and receive? More importantly, are you ready to be overwhelmed with the abundance available to you once you really allow yourself to trust and receive?

Fasten your seatbelt! It's gonna be an abundant journey.

Leaving the Sock Puppets Behind

I have a large, loud committee of sock puppets in my head. Some of them look like my family members. Some of them look like teachers I had in school, old bosses, former colleagues, old friends, current acquaintances. But all of them tell me things that

a) reinforce some interpretation of life that I have and

b) have only a tangential relationship to how the actual person thinks, feels or behaves toward me.

I call them sock puppets because their little mouths only move thanks to various parts of the belief structure my brain created over time in response to my experience of life, especially childhood.

I have spent a lot of time in the last few years practicing saying to my friends, colleagues and loved ones: "My brain is telling me that you're upset. Is my brain right about that?" or "In this moment, my brain thinks you're angry and disappointed and I'm feeling bad about that. Can I check in with you about what you really think before I go down a dark tunnel?" This is one of the ways I build little cages around the sock puppets in my head--to check in with the real people before my head runs away with pointless worry and fear.

But checking in with people about what they think in relation to me only goes so far. After all, one of the reasons I have so many sock puppets in my head is that my brain loves to imagine what other people think of me INSTEAD of gathering information and support for creating beauty, love and service in the world.

Over the last few months, I've done a lot of work to become more aware of my sock puppets--what they do to me and what they do for me. We already see that they tend to disconnect me from reality and give me permission to say mean things to myself. But in terms of what they do for me? Well, the truth is, they keep me company.

Keep you company, Nora?

Well, yeah. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time feeling alone and ignored. I didn't like living in the present moment because the present moment felt really lonely. So I replayed experiences of interacting with people in my head. Or I made up little fantasies (both positive and negative) of what it MIGHT be like to interact with them in the future. These thought escapes helped me make it through some rough times as a kid and I'm glad I was resourceful enough to discover them. But now, I find, that they really get in the way of experiencing the life I've been so blessed to create for myself with the clarity, love and support of so many wonderful people.

A few weeks ago, I got to a point where I realized that my brain was plugging into little fantasies and memories EVEN WHEN I WANTED TO STAY PRESENT. No matter what I did or said, those little scenes of other people's faces and voices were like a little quicksand pit that kept sucking my thoughts in without my consent.

I talked to a whole bunch of friends about it who all shared their own experience with similar voices which really helped lessen the pressure of it all. Then, just the other day, something shifted. Getting into bed, the thought occurred to me: I'm all alone in here.

And it hit me--there's no one in my head but me. This sounds obvious, I'm sure. But the truth is it was both reassuring and dislocating. Reassuring because it gives me so many more choices about my beliefs and thoughts than I realized I had (even with all the self-examination I was already engaged in). Dislocating because it means that there's no person, place or thing that will ever be CAPABLE of joining me inside this container of self and identity to ease my load and lessen my pain.

The good news is that there are still plenty of real, flesh-and-blood people who can offer me support and compassion. But the fantasy from childhood was that somehow someone could actually get inside my heart to make it all better. And the truth is no one can do that.

The disappointment that my inner child felt in response to this realization was immense. But luckily, it was my inner adult who knew to reach out for support from loving people who celebrated this new awareness with me. Why? Because the opportunity now is to fall in love with the real live experience of being the only one inside my head (except for the constant company of my Higher Power of course).

So, here we go...wait, no...there's only me in here. So...here I go. I've got a lot of living to do!

Only three answers to every question

In 2006, when I was having a particularly difficult year, a friend of mine used to tell me frequently:

"For everything that we want, God only has three answers:

1) Yes.

2) Yes, but NOT NOW.

3) No, because I have something better."

I clung to this idea as I struggled through major health complications, business failure, money issues, home problems (i.e. couch-surfing/no place to live), my own personal grappling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (being a New Orleans native, it affected me deeply) and--shall we say--a whole lot of TURNOVER in my group of friends.

Everything did work out eventually, though never exactly how I had planned. And as I look back now, I see my friends' words have continued to serve me through the years.

By late 2006/early 2007, I had already begun to work on what I used to call my abundance book. And I desperately wanted to make my living as an author and a coach (and in fact had been quite successful at winning clients for my failed coaching business--profit, I discovered, was a different matter). I worked tirelessly on the first few chapters. But who wants coaching from a homeless, broke coach?

This was a very difficult time for me because I got to come face-to-face with my writing and coaching dreams as somewhat disconnected from reality. In fact, eventually, I came to understand that the way I showed up to other people in that moment was that I was living in a fantasy.

I was telling this story to a client last night and we free-styled:

What I had was a FANTASY.

What I needed was a J-O-B.

It wasn't that I didn't have a right to my dreams. It's that I needed to learn to work toward my dreams with patience, diligence and integrity. I had to take responsibility for my own physical, emotional, financial and spiritual well-being. Put another way, I had to grow up.

It turned out that taking responsibility did not mean pretending not to feel my feelings or stoically suffering through a life I hated. It was actually quite the opposite. It meant reaching out for support, getting the information I needed to move forward and then embracing the loving accountability of checking in with compassionate people multiple times per day to help me shift my attitudes and behaviors just one day at a time so that I could show up for the life of a healthy mature adult.

At the time, learning to be healthy and mature meant learning to function in the work environment, learning the humility and interpersonal skills required to be a good employee and learning to manage my resources wisely. So I got a J-O-B, fell into all kinds of crazy situations, and learned to use these situations as opportunities to heal my own insanity (since I can't attract crazy if I'm not insane myself).

My fantastical desire was to be a famous, wealthy coach with no pain and no need for support. I didn't understand back then that it was part of my insanity to be terrified of asking for help. The answer to my fantastical request was "No, because I have something better." The "something better" was to be put in situations that were SO CHALLENGING that I had to ask for help...or else. And in fact, getting the help I needed to grow through those tough times was so much better than living in a fantasy. I got to learn to be an honest, humble woman who asked for and received huge amounts of love and support as I faced my problems and healed my old wounds. To this day, honesty and humility are the prizes I pray for more than anything.

The more grounded version of that fantasy was a legitimate desire to help people achieve their deepest dreams. Looking back from where I stand now, I understand that the answer to that desire was "Yes, but not now." I had a lot more to learn before I had the integrity and wisdom to be trusted with serving people and running a successful business. But when I look back at the intervening years, I see how much every single one of my experiences in the interim was training me for what I do now. Many of those experiences were obvious training--interviewing and coaching thousands of executives, leading coaching groups for people living below the poverty line, etc. But often, my best training came from seeking the information and support I needed to overcome my own painful and difficult obstacles.

On my best days here in the present, I don't worry so much about which of the three answers God will offer me today. So many painful things have turned out to be blessings. Life often throws me things I don't expect but the overwhelming answer I get again and again is: "Yes, you are being taken care of." In the space of that invitation to trust, it becomes less about what God says to me about one detail or another and more about what I say to God.

For today, my answer is YES. Yes to growth, yes to adventure, yes to learning, yes to support and yes to all the miracles I don't even know are coming.

What's your answer to life today?

The best boss I ever had?

The best boss I ever had was a woman who told me that everyone in the company hated me, that I needed therapy, and that I was on the verge of being fired...4 weeks after I took the job. Loving, supportive and mature, right?

Obviously not. But as I sat in this woman's office, listening to her say these really inappropriate things to me on a Friday afternoon, a little thought twinkled at the edge of my very worried brain. Four weeks earlier, I had thought this woman was the cat's meow. I couldn't wait to work for her. As freaked out as I was by what she said, it dawned on me that there was something very very important for me to learn from this moment.

It just so happened that I took this job after a nine-month succession of failed attempts to stay employed. Each attempt had been a "God-send" when it first came along. But within a few weeks of starting each job, I felt frustrated and resentful toward each boss, each colleague and each task required of me. And sure enough, within a few months or even weeks, I was asked to leave.

Now, here I was, experiencing the same shift, but this time it was so dramatic and so sudden, that it showed me something I hadn't wanted to think about before. Whenever a job hadn't worked out in the past, I always blamed the external situation--the boss was a micro-manager, the boss was too laissez-faire, they didn't pay me enough, there was too much to do, not enough to do...the list goes on. But sitting in this woman's office, having her reveal her undeniably crazy and inappropriate management style made me realize that the common denominator at all these jobs was me.

That weekend, as I looked back along my immediate job history, I saw that every time I left one job for another, the situation seemed to get worse. Now, here I was, listening to my boss tell me I belonged in the looney bin. It was a blessing because there was no debate. Everyone I talked to agreed that she was nuts. It turned out to be a tremendous relief. Finally, I felt no guilt or blame...after all, she was the crazy one, right? But I also knew that something inside me had chosen this job situation--the craziest yet in my crazy job history. If I quit this job, I thought to myself, how much worse would the next one be?

I decided to do whatever I could to stay in the current frying pan (instead of jumping to the next fire) until I had grown into the ability to function in a healthy work environment. I suspected that if I grew enough, the conditions at the job that played into my low self-esteem and neediness would melt into something. I finally understood that no matter how many times I tried to run away, I always took my own crazy issues with me.

And so, I began my program of education. I met with friends to get spiritually centered every weekday morning at 7:30am before work. I called other friends before work, after work and during breaks. I analyzed the text of every piece of feedback my crazy boss lady screamed, purred or whined (her mood swings were notorious) to see where she might be telling me something about myself that I needed to know.

When she screamed that her teenage daughter was more organized than I was with files and papers, a friend I told about it recommended picking up Driven to Distraction, a book with clear, actionable strategies for managing Attention Deficit Disorder. (Regardless of whether or not I was an official candidate for diagnosis, the simple principles helped me organize my work A LOT.)

When she yelled at me that I was lazy and that I should be making 40 cold calls per day, I started tracking and reporting my calls to her. I played a fun game with myself to see how many more than 40 calls I could make in a day. One day, I got as high as 56.

And then, there were the countless hours of training she gave me on how to remain calm in the face of insanity. She didn't know she was doing this, of course. But a lot of my friends reminded me over and over that I had a right to my own inner peace whether she was acting like a crazy person or not.

It was VERY DIFFICULT to remain calm when she got upset in the immediate aftermath of her initial attack. I was terrified that she would fire me. But my friends kept inviting me to imagine remaining calm in response to her outbursts and then literally ACT AS IF that behavior was natural to me. Often this involved sitting on my shaking hands and pursing my trembling lips as I attempted to remain stoic in the face of her raging.

I began to say little prayers to remind myself that I was safe no matter what, that the office was NOT a war zone, that if I got uncomfortable I could always leave the room without fleeing the job. Sometimes the prayers were as simple as: "God is in this doorknob, God is in this stapler, God is in this carpet, God is in this wall sconce." Sometimes I would touch objects just to ground myself in my own body, in the present moment. When she became particularly insane in staff meetings, I would write affirmations to myself in tiny handwriting in the margin of my notebook: "Thank you God for the unlimited abundance you send me with grace and ease. God loves me. I love myself. Nora, I love you. You are wonderful."

Through all this, I came to understand that the intense anxiety I felt when this woman was around had nothing to do with her. The day that she told me that she loved me and blew me a kiss (after screaming at someone else that day), I felt sick to my stomach. Her unpredictable combination of love and rage was too familiar to me. I realized I had chosen her because she matched my past, my history, my trauma. And as difficult as it was to sit with the anxiety and nausea she kicked up from those past traumatic times, I didn't have to let those feelings be the source of my choices and responses in the present.

The only way I got access to new choices, however, was by staying very close to my loving, supportive friends. These were friends who listened compassionately to my feelings while reminding me that I had choices in the present. They were friends who told me stories of their own similar experiences rather than diagnosing or pathologizing what I was experiencing. With them, I felt accepted and loved even as they encouraged me to experiment with new behaviors and new beliefs in myself.

One friend often told me, "Nora, you are an adult. You're not a hostage the way you were in your home growing up. You can always renegotiate. You can always change your mind. You never have to accept unacceptable behavior." Thanks to this boss, I spent a lot of time discovering and defining what unacceptable behavior actually was.

Six months into the job, the second-level boss stormed into my office after an argument with our crazy boss lady. "She's so crazy! How do you stay so calm when she's around?!?!"

I looked behind me...was she talking to me? Who was this calm person she spoke of?

"I mean seriously," she went on, "if she upsets you, none of us can tell. It's like you're the only one who can deal with her!"

I went home that night and called a bunch of friends. "You've put in a lot of hard work," they told me, "you're learning to stay calm and take care of yourself no matter what's happening outside you. That's growth."

Within a month, I had begun interviewing for what would become my next job. Unlike this one, where I interviewed and accepted the job offer on the same day, that interview process took about two months. It was worth it to go slowly...to get to know the people I would be working with over time...to see that they could be trusted...to find that we enjoyed each others' company.

Leaving the crazy boss lady brought its own challenges. But, as I flexed my now well-trained re-framing muscles to see these challenges as more growth opportunities, my old friend fear melted into adventure, discovery, humility and gratitude.

I hope I never forget the lessons this woman taught me. I look back now and see how much she must have been suffering in order to behave the way she did. And I'm grateful that, in the extremity of her insanity, she gave me the opportunity to focus on taking responsibility for my own feelings and reactions ways that continue to propel me on a path of healing and growth.

What insane people and situations can you welcome as your teachers today?