Enabling "Buts" Kick Your Butt!

I found myself in a horrible, hurtful, humiliating situation this weekend that was entirely my fault.  It didn't feel good and much like Charlie Brown I found myself on the ground bruised inside where the wounds don't heal as quickly.  Look at the cartoon.  Most say it's Lucy who causes Charlie Brown's injury.  Wrong!  It's Charlie Brown who allows Charlie Brown to get injured.  When I was perusing the web for this well known cartoon I found numerous versions where this exact thing happens to him only at a different time, season, location...

He knows that Lucy will pull the ball away at the last minute because it has happened time and time again.  He knows this, but is "convinced" or does mental gymnastics to give her another chance.  Next thing you know, Wham! Flat on his back.  So where does the enabling "but" come in you ask?  In his/your/my actions. 

Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, you do better."  When you know better and don't do better, it is the "but" that has wiped away all your wisdom and has enabled you and the other to not be the best they can be.  It serves no one.  Lucy is never accountable for her actions and doesn't learn that her bad behavior has consequences.  She gets to maintain her victimizer status.  Charlie Brown never learns that only he can enforce his boundaries, i.e., DON'T KICK THE BALL, and thus allows himself to ever play the victim.

So when you are faced with your football again ...

 

Don't let your "but" kick your butt!

Yes, BUT... really means NO!

I am lucky.  In my work as a Spiritual Intuitive Life Coach, I have the opportunity to learn as I teach and guide.  One thing that I have observed over these many years, through more scenarios than I could possibly imagine, is that people often come for help or assistance in healing an aspect of their lives without the one thing they need...willingness!  It seems a contradiction, yet we all do it.  I want to lose weight, so I'm going to exercise five times a week.  The intention is set, or so it seems.  Yet, this is when the BUT comes into play.  Yes, I want to be healthy and lose, but I'm too tired to
exercise tonight.  I'll start tomorrow.  Yes, I want to find a way to stop the senseless arguments with my spouse, but I'm right and he's wrong!  Yes, I want to have a better relationship with my mother, but she doesn't listen to me and just starts screaming.  Yes, I want to earn more money, but the economy is depressed right now. Yes, I want to be more present to the now instead of always being stuck in the past, but damn it, he said, she did, they were...  The list is endless, endless excuses.

I started thinking more about this today when my daughter came home talking about her history class.  They are studying the period of American history that included successful businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison and later Henry Ford.  These men were successful because they understood the power of YES! They also had what Napoleon Hill later described in his famous, Think and Grow Rich, as a burning desire.  This is not a wish or a hope, but determination. You don't have to know the how, just the what.  Edwin C. Barnes didn't know how he was going to be a partner of and work with Thomas Edison, he just knew and never strayed from his desire. Five years after joining the company his opportunity arrived and he did indeed work with Edison!  Henry Ford didn't know how to make an eight cylinder engine he just knew that is what he wanted and never allowed anyone on his team to say, "Yes, but..."  We all know how that turned out.

A Course in Miracles says, "You cannot be totally committed sometimes."  This is one of the reasons I began this blog.  I realized that there are areas of my life that I say, "Yes, but..."  Think about it.  Where does the "Yes, but..." fall in your life.  What are you willing to do to simply say, YES!  The choice is yours.

Remember:

Yes + But = NO

It Is Time...To Fly!

I made a decision.  It's 2012 and this year will be different or so said the journal I diligently began on January 1st...

And so it begins, another new year.  Will it be any different than all the rest?  Well, I guess that's up to me! It is my desire and intention to take the leap, to live the wisdom I know instead of just talking about it, writing about it, teaching it.  Oh, I've mastered many things, but if I'm honest I still hide behind some of my own excuses or buts.  As I always tell my daughter, "You're not done until you are done!"  I'm not done.

Now is the time to GET OFF MY "BUT"!  Oh, I have great excuses for anything that doesn't show up the way I would prefer:

• Failed marriage
• Single mom for the last 8 years
• Controlling parent who didn't give me a voice
• Abusive 4th grade teacher
• Bad economy
• Far from family/community/friends

Waa, Waa, Waa.  God I'm sick of my own story, no really, "God, I am sick of my story."  I know it line by tedious line, so why keep repeating it to myself and others? Let me again be honest, it's just not that interesting.

In reality I've often lived in a waking dream, not asleep, but not awake.  Half in, half out, the mediocrity of lukewarm. 

No more BUTS!

Hello New Year! 

Good Morning Carmen!