Riding a Dead Horse

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One of the basic requirements of all living organisms is our innate need to grow plants, animals, vegetables, humans and minerals, if you follow quantum physics research.

Moving at 90 miles an hour
These days, most of us are moving at 90 miles and hour encountering numerous people, places, circumstances and events, guided by to-do lists, held accountable to, and addicted to, electronic leashes, and burdened by overwhelm, stress, fogginess, and confusion.

I recall reading an article recently in which the author talked about how we can maximize our time and I was struck by the last “do and don’t” item on her list; simply, it stated: “And finally, when the horse dies, get off!”

What an interesting piece of advice! Blunt and to the point. So I thought I might tug on your sleeve as well and perhaps suggest taking a minute or two, right here, right now, to consider any dead horses you may be riding.

What’s a “Dead Horse?”
Dead horses are all of the shoulds and shouldn’ts that drive our lives. Often we’re completely unaware of them. These dead horses take the form of self-images that we think we need to live up to, beliefs, habits, “stories” and routines that run our lives; they show up as the relentless demands and expectations we make on ourselves. These dead horses are forever showing up in our jobs, in our lifestyles or in our relationships with friends, co-workers, spouses and partners. And yet, for no apparent reason, we continually find ourselves in states of regret, agitation, anger, irritation, frustration, resentment, defensiveness, sadness and depression as we continue to try and ride our dead horses.

What about you?
Perhaps right here and right now, you are spending precious time and energy trying to resuscitate your dead horses, painfully and frustratingly dragging them along into today, tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. We make ourselves believe that if we just try harder, keep on keeping on, these dead horses will come to life, better than ever. Or, well tell ourselves that if we are less demanding and more accepting, these dead horses will generate renewed energy and live to ride again.

Or perhaps, we wish, we hope, and we pray that a miracle will happen and our dead horses will suddenly become healthy so we can ride off into the sunset. Just like TV fantasies and fairy tales.

Maybe we’re rationalizing that our horse really isn’t dead; that all it needs is some good old R&R. So we reject our reality and distract ourselves from the truth of our situation. And after days, weeks, months and years of resisting, rejecting, and distracting ourselves, we’re still waiting for the dead horse to show some life, and so we wait, and wait, hope and pray…to no avail.

Then, too, there are those of us who try to convince ourselves that life will be grand if we just carry the horse like it will come out of its coma at some point. So, we just haul it around until life comes back into it. We think that if we nurture it, support it, and help it, it will resurrect. Denial.

Unfortunately, all the while, we do know, yet resist admitting, carrying a dead horse on our shoulders is very tiring, exhausting, debilitating, self-sabotaging and counter-productive.

So, as you contemplate your life right here and right now, this may be a wonderful opportunity to be curious about your dead horses. What are the issues you’re facing in your life at home, at work and at play? Are they the same as, or similar to, the dead horses you carried around in 2016, 2015, and/or 2014?

Consider your career, your work, your relationships, your health and appearance, your personal or spiritual development, fun, finances, or your personal space.

What denial looks like
Consider, perhaps, your lifestyle. Having set out with myriad good intentions, believing in what you thought was your vision or purpose, working hard and sacrificing along the way, becoming who you thought you should be, or perhaps even giving up what you wanted or who you wanted to be, telling yourself there’s no going back, no way to extricate yourself from your unhappiness, frustration, discomfort, or stuckness, are you telling yourself a story that if you just stick it out all will be well?

So, staying in denial, and with a false hope, we keep egging our horse(s) on.  We dig in our spurs, but move nowhere. Or, we’re stuck on a plastic horse on a merry-go-round, moving, always engaged in doing, going around in circles, but in reality, going nowhere. People who ride “dead horses” every day know what they have to do when they get up. But, they have no idea where they’re going.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is simply: when the horse dies, get off!

A year from today, your life will be different. Guaranteed, it will be different! Whether it is good different or bad different, is your choice. Much depends on whether the horses you’re riding are healthy, alive, juicy, energetic, purposeful, meaningful and positively supportive – or dead.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• In what areas of your life are you disengaged right now?
• What are you doing consistently at work or at home that does not support your performance, productivity or profitability, but keep doing it nevertheless?
• Are you achieving your goals in your life at work, at home or at play? Do you consistently engage in beliefs, thoughts and actions that run counter to effective goal achievement? You do have goals, don’t you?
• Many folks spend the first half of their life articulating what they’re going to do and the second half explaining why they couldn’t do it? Are you one of those folks?
• Are you dying a slow death, lacking a vision, direction, meaning in your life, dying a slow death for something you’re not willing to die for?
• What stories do you keep telling yourself, what “dead horses” do you keep trying to ride, that do not support a healthy life at work, or a healthy family life, or your health in general or your happiness or your friendships?
• Are you impaired on your job or in your relationships because of a medical, emotional or psychological issue, a “dead horse,” that you refuse to resolve?
• Will the “dead horses” you are currently riding end up taking you where you really, really, really want to go in your life?
• Do your “dead horses” reflect the truth of who you really are, or are they carrying an imposter?
• How much physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy do you spend supporting or trying to resuscitate your” dead horses”?

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(c) 2017, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.  Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com

 

You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering

The Truth About Change

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You cannot stay the way you are and change the way you are. Every living organism has to change if it is to grow. That’s true for individual human beings, couples, teams, organizations or even entire societies. But what is it about the growth process that differentiates it from other kinds of processes?

Essentially, change means the letting go of the old and encouraging something new to develop. Something will become something else. We do not end up where we started. The end result is very different or completely different from what we started with.

The implications of change
Each of us has hopes and aspirations. We want to be happier, have a better job or relationship, be free from fear, have nicer things. We all have an agenda.

However, consider that change can also mean that our aims can change. The aims and aspirations you have now belong to the “you” you are now. So, if you change into a new you, that new person might not have the same aspirations or goals.

Of course, this means that if you hold onto those same aspirations and goals, you’ll be the same person. And that means no change, no transformation, no expansion and no growth.

If you honestly want to grow, you must be willing to become somebody who has different thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and experiences. You cannot stay the way you are and change the way you are. To change the way you are you have to become a different kind of creature.

Giving up “me”
Change means being willing to allow the old ideas and beliefs to die. You cannot change and still be the same.

One of my spiritual teachers uses the process of change that results in a butterfly to illustrate the notion of true and real change. The following is his take. I think it makes sense.

Growth stages
There are several stages in the growth of a butterfly. One of them is a larva which eventually develops and becomes a butterfly. This larva (you) small, big, yellow, black, whatever, says, “I want to grow,” and in your mind, growing means becoming a bigger, happier, more colorful larva.

You don’t think, “I’m going to be something totally different.” You don’t want to be something totally different. You want to be a bigger, more beautiful, more loving larva. It never occurs to you to be something other than a larva. The concept of butterfly never enters your head.

Here’s the problem. If the larva continues to be a larva as it grows, it will feel constricted. It’s getting bigger, it’s growing, but there is something definitely wrong. It keeps complaining, it goes to a therapist. The therapist helps it change a little here, a little there: “No, don’t eat those maple leaves. They will make your indigestion worse.”

It tries one doctor after another. It goes to a chiropractor to get its spine straightened. It goes to a masseuse to help it relax. But it never occurs to the larva that it’s not going to feel better as long as it continues to be a larva.

That’s how everybody actually thinks. Nobody thinks: “I’m a larva who’s going to be something else, something that I have no idea about at all now, and I can’t even think or say what this might be.” A larva can only think of larvae. A larva doesn’t think of butterflies. It sees butterflies around and thinks, “What interesting creatures. Where could they have come from?”

You have your preconceptions, and set of beliefs about change. Maybe you believe that if you grow, if you change, you’ll be more intelligent and have fewer problems and make more money and your stomach won’t hurt as much. Or maybe you believe that growth and change means you’ll be married and have two children, and two cats. And it will be perfect if you and your husband each have a dog. That’s the optimal growth.

So, this person starts working on herself, and after a while, she starts to see that having all those things might not be what growth is really about. So she says, “Okay, one cat, not two. One cat, two dogs, a husband and two children.” And, of course, a house someplace in the country and two vacations a year and continuous love from a few specified people.

If she works on herself for a while, she might be willing to let go of the two dogs. If she is seriously engaged, change she might eventually come to feel the love and security within her own self (essence), viewing the external “goodies” as desirable but not necessary to her contentment.

For your particular larva, changing might mean accepting two cats and a dog but no house in the country. Or you might find out that two cats and one dog won’t do, and you believe that to change you need to have three birds instead. These are examples of how we approach the wish for change with fixed ideas in our heads about what change means.

Perhaps as a child you were interested in machines. Eventually, you graduate from college with a degree in mechanical engineering and find work as an engineer. Maybe after a number of years working as an engineer, you need to become something else in order to grow. Maybe the best thing for you is to be a gardener.

But you say, “No, I have to grow and change and be a mechanical engineer at the same time. I am not going to let go of any of my cats. I’m going to continue to be a mechanical engineer with my two cats and my dog, and with my house, and everything else. Otherwise, I’m not interested.”

So, we see that the most elementary, most external requirement for growth is the willingness to let go of what you believe should happen, what you believe things should be, what you believe will make you happy. Because when you do change, you are no longer the person who thought you knew what you would change into. You will be a different person.

What a butterfly eats is not the same as what a larva eats. The needs of a larva are not the same as the needs of the butterfly. Maybe a larva needs two cats and a dog, and a butterfly does not. So there is a need for an attitude of allowing – allowing things to emerge, to transform – without anticipating how it should happen.

You can direct things only according to the way you are now. You can conceive of the future only according to the blueprints you already know. But real change means that the blueprint will change. The only thing you can do is to be open and allow things just to happen, to allow the butterfly to emerge inside you out of the larva and be a different being.

You might be amazed, saying, “Oh, all this time I thought I had to crawl faster. I didn’t know it was possible to fly.” It is possible to fly, but if you just want to remain a larva, you can learn to crawl a little faster. You can even learn to crawl sideways. But it will never occur to you that you can fly. You see things flying around, but don’t think of flying, because you haven’t got wings.

Usually the particular things you want and the ways you want to experience yourself, are determined by your self-image. Regardless of what you think the image is that you want for yourself or the way of life that you want, what it really means ultimately, if you look at it closely, is that you want particular things because they will give you certain inner sensations, feelings, or perceptions.

The “inside” experience
From the perspective of the inner experience, you want certain stimuli and inner sensations. You may think that you want a house, a dog and a cat, a particular job, so that you can feel a certain way – probably secure or comfortable or fulfilled. You want the inner experiences of the larva – inner stimulation and assurances that you recognize and that you see as a kind of nourishment.

But to allow transformation, you need to be open to the possibility that even what you want in terms of inner stimuli and sensations will change. The kinds of pleasure you valued so much before will not necessarily be relevant to the butterfly.

You might not know about this it happens. You might say, “If I’m going to change, I will feel loving. I will feel love and happiness.”

But maybe the love and happiness you want are not the same love and happiness that a butterfly would feel. Maybe the love and happiness of a butterfly are totally different from what your ideas are about it now.

So in order to change, you need to be willing to change everything about yourself – from your self-image and dreams of what you want all the way through to the things you value and your inner stimuli. Otherwise you’ll stop growing.

And you will discover after a while, after a long process of growth, that some of the deepest and most cherished inner sensations that you can have are the experiences of being yourself, the experience of your true identity.

Eliminating the barriers
The most important step in allowing the process of growth is to acknowledge that anything can happen. You don’t know what it will be. There is no way for you to know the next step. If you try to direct it in any way, you’re just going to stop it. You can only be what you are now and allow the next thing. After all, the core of life is a mystery.

When you experience change, don’t try to hold on to the experience or determine what direction it will take. You just experience it fully and that’s it. Your mind is open for anything to happen.

Of course, this requires a certain trust – a trust that there is such a thing as transformation, that it will be good, that it will be the best thing. Any pre-conceived ideas of how things are going to be will only act as a boundary. The way things are and the way our true nature works cannot be bounded that way.

This trust is not about trusting in anybody; it is not trusting any theory; it is not trusting any authority; it is trusting reality – trusting trust itself. And it will take time for this trust to mature and deepen because when we have more fear we tend not to trust, we tend to stick within our walls. But the more free from fear you become, the more willing you are to let go of those walls.

Learning to trust, embracing the attitude of “allowing,” is central to the process of development and growth. You can allow any possibility. Allowing has no restriction. It is the greatest freedom. It is a freedom that does not say it wants to be free from anything. It is a freedom that is just freedom, whether there is a wall or no wall.

[Source, Allowing, Diamond Heart Book 1, Elements of the Real in Man, A. H. Almaas, Diamond Books, Berkeley, CA, 1988]

Questions for self-reflection

• So, what is change like for you these days? How so?
• What beliefs do you associate with your own change?
• What feelings/emotions do you associate with your own change?
• What feelings/emotions are you resisting or avoiding around your own change? How so?
• What is your experience with trust/trusting like for you?
• What was trust/trusting like for you when you were growing up? How so?

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(c) 2017, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.
Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com

You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering