You Spot It, You Got It

By now, many of you may be familiar with the concept of projection or what some call "shadow work." These terms are used to describe the phenomenon that ALL humans experience, which is to push out or project what we reject in ourselves onto others. Said another way: If you are irritated or angered by another's behavior, it is because you have not accepted that aspect of yourself.

You may be saying to yourself, "Well, that's good! We need to keep ourselves others under control or we would all turn into robbers and murderers!" I look around and notice that those who are self-accepting (flaws especially) are very peaceful. And I notice this "tried and true" method of self-flaggelation hasn't kept our prisons clear and free of humans. So how about considering another way?

Now, this is for YOU. Don't start sharing the link to this blog entry with a "Boy, does my coworker need this..." or "My spouse has got to see this---she projects constantly!" That's just you projecting again...do you see?

We can only change one mind: our own. So here's a video that will help TREMENDOUSLY:



See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

I'll Do It, But I Don't Have to Like It

Motivation. Morale. Enthusiasm. Positive Attitude. These are the buzz words that my clients throw about when talking about their 'lazy employees' (or rather what they lack). But what these supervisors do not understand is that motivation to perform a task--more accurately called 'interest'--- is not something that can be manufactured.

Interest cannot be forced. Interest either comes naturally or must be faked. And faking requires a motivator. We often call this "the carrot or the stick." We can either bribe someone (carrot) or punish someone (stick) to perform a task they are not naturally interested in.

Does your interest in getting something done come from somewhere else? No. This is not about how someone was raised or whether they are a good person or not. This isn't any different than, say, gravity. If a good person walks off the top of a building, they will drop to the ground, just like a bad person. Interest shifts as the topic shifts. You are interested in your department doing their work. And if you aren't, or are secretly not enjoying your job, then you rely on bribery (a paycheck) or punishment (disciplinary action and even termination).

So, let's ease up on our "slackers", okay? They don't want to do it. But they do it anyway. Because you supplied praise or punishment. These are the only artificial motivators when interest is lacking.

And let's remember this truth when you tell your children they should WANT to clean the house because it's theirs too and therefore will not get an allowance for doing so.

Haha! That's a good one.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

101 Ways to Deal with a Pain in the Butt at Work

You can get this free e-book on my site by giving me your email so I can send ya lots of emails and get you back to my website...but I've decided you shouldn't have to go through all those extra steps. Here's a link to my free e-book "101 Ways to Deail with a Pain in the Butt at Work." Enjoy!

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Radical Self-Acceptance: Say Yes to It All

THE POWER OF YES

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Suffering arises when we resist the life of the moment. This Yes meditation is an inner practice of acceptance in which we willingly allow our thoughts, emotions and sensations to be just as they are.

Yes does not mean we are approving of something or believing our judgments. Rather, the practice honors what is actually happening. In the moments we say Yes without resistance, Yes with our whole heart, acceptance becomes surrender into truth. By surrendering, we discover the openness and freedom of our true nature.

It is important to remember that it is not always wise to say Yes to inner experience. If we have been traumatized in the past, old feelings of terror may be triggered. More generally, we might not have the balance or resiliency in a particular moment to a difficult experience with the openness of Yes.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Radical Forgiveness

The Radical Forgiveness Worksheet

(From the Radical Forgiveness website): You cannot be in a peaceful state if you are holding resentment and anger about things that have happened in the past or continue to rob you of your peace even now. It is incredibly disempowering to make others responsible for your lack of happiness.

The answer, of course, is forgiveness. But don’t worry. We have a way to do it that is not at all difficult. It’s not like conventional forgiveness which is hard to do and rarely works. Radical Forgiveness is a simple step-by-step process that is fast, easy and extremely effective. It provides tools that enable you to quickly release whatever energies you are holding onto.

~Colin Tipping

Read the first chapter of Colin Tipping's book to learn why this worksheet is so powerful. I found that this was all I needed to get excited about this work and to complete the worksheet.

Now complete (print) this free PDF and work on a situation you are struggling with.

Forgiveness Worksheet

More freebies and downloads from Radical Forgiveness. See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

How to "Let Go"

Letting Go

To let go doesn't mean to stop caring;
It means I can't do it for someone else.


To let go is not to cut myself off.
It's the realization that I can't control another.


To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.


To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.


To let go is not to try and change or blame another,
I can only change myself.


To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.


To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.


To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.


To let go is not to be protective;
it is to permit another to face reality.


To let go is not to deny, but to accept.


To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.


To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish the moment.


To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.


To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.


To let go is to fear less and love more.



(Author Unknown)

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Drop the Call

I hate the phone. If you know me, you know this. I would rather text you or Facebook you or email you or chat face-to-face then pick up the phone and call you. This is true at work and in my personal life. This is true if I’m your customer or you are mine. This is true all the time, even if the call is free. I don’t like talking on the phone, and here’s why:

Talking on the phone is the worst possible method. First, you must keep a device next to your head at all times. Now, some “phone pros” purchase the expensive earpiece that allows hands-free calling. I can almost see the appeal. But I have one question: have you ever had something in your ear for any length of time? How was that? Cotton ball? Earbuds? Ear plugs? Was that a pleasant experience? Right. It isn’t. You want whatever it is out as soon as possible.

Secondly, talking on the phone requires constant dialogue. In person or online, you can take breaks, you can pause, you can leave the area and return without a lot of issues. But dead silence on the phone? Wow! What’s wrong? Are you still there? So how ‘bout those Yankees? While you hold this now-hot (and possibly sweaty) device next to your face you must also be ready with a constant flow of conversation.

To add insult to injury, you must now determine when the other person has stopped their train of thought, so as not to interrupt them. While you have no body language advantage while texting or emailing, making for the occasional misunderstanding, you also have no body language on the phone. You, therefore, interrupt your caller without fail or they interrupt you---which inevitably results in a manners-contest of, “No! You go ahead.” And “Oh no---you first,” or “No, no what were YOU going to say?” and so on.

So, just to recap: no interrupting, but also no silence. Are you following me so far?

In the world of text, email, chat, or social media, one has the supreme advantage of being able to edit before sending a comment. While typing may not be your thing, being able to delete your insensitive comment or bad joke is undoubtedly invaluable to even the hunt-and-peck crowd.

Now consider things like going to the bathroom (can’t do that on the phone, though it’s acceptable when you are face-to-face to excuse yourself and take care of biological needs), talking to other people in your area, stretching, keeping your eye on the TV, dealing with chores, etc. All are possible WHILE you communicate online. No one wonders why your response isn’t immediate…or if the response never comes…we know something in your life took you away. Perfectly okay. For those with an extra strong need to be polite, you simply put “brb” (be right back) or “otp” (on the phone) or whatever has taken you away indicating you will resume the conversation when, and if, you are ready.

Unlike the phone (and face to face), communicating with others via text also has the advantage of a written record. Invaluable for business transactions, this is also a terrific tool for personal relationships. You can go back and re-read a misunderstanding and see it with different eyes or ask for clarification and send their very words back to them. You can miss someone and simply pull up your last email exchange or chat, and be there once again. No need to get a hand cramp writing a letter, finding a stamp and a post office to send your words to another. You can be in Australia and you can talk via text for free---in real time---with someone in the United States right this minute. That’s amazing. I don’t care how slow you type.

So, in conclusion, for the friends and family that know I dislike the phone, and for my customers who see that I have switched my phone coaching business to an email format (though still handling workshops face-to-face---but never via conference call), I am giving you my full reasoning for this choice. While I’m pretty sure this will not change many of your minds about picking up the phone and calling someone when other options are available, at the very least, I hope this allows you to see why I am not and never will be regularly calling you to catch up.

If you have a counter-argument to my position, and find my view anti-social or strange in any way, I am open to that and would love to hear your reasoning.

Just call me.



See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Know Thyself

In the interest of self-acceptance, it is amazingly useful to "Know Thyself" as well as possible. These tests offer quite a lot of "knowing." All are free too. Spend some time getting to know yourself here.

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The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the leading psychological instrument for measuring personality type. Emotional intelligence is also identified within the Thinker/Feeler spectrum.

What stresses us and why (and how we handle it) are all revealed and improved once you understand your type. Take this free test and learn more about your type: Take the Jung Personality Test

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Another MBTI-type test that many say is easier to answer (and is shorter to complete) comes from a site called 41 Questions (41Q). Take the 41 Questions Test.

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Once you know your type, spend some time reading about how you tick on The Personality Page. The Personality Page

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The Enneagram is one of the oldest tests in the world for finding out more about who you are, your challenges around emotional intelligence, and how you handle stress. The Ennegram Personality Inventory:

Perfectionism
Helpfulness
Image Focus
Hypersensitivity
Detachment
Anxiety
Adventurousness
Aggressiveness
Calmness


As always, here's a FREE link to take the test yourself. _________________________________________________

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the leading indicator of workplace success---far outweighing IQ. Self-awareness is the first step to EI. Take advantage of the emotional intelligence tests and tools listed below and IMPROVE your EI for better stress management.
Complete EI Assessment
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The Johari Window is a great way to get a handle on your EI and increase its number. The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.
Free Johari Assessment.
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Tests from Psychology Today...all free! Includes:

What is Your Emotional IQ?
Are You Mentally Tough?
Is Your Lifestyle Wearing You Down?
What Are Your Stress Triggers?
What's Your Personality Type?
Are You Burned Out? (Non-Service Fields)
Are You Burned Out? (Service Professions)


Go to my site for links to the tests listed above now.

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.

Truth from Osho

Question: “Somewhere there is that fear which makes me closed and hard and sad and desperate and angry and hopeless. It seems to be so subtle that I don’t even really get in touch with it. How can I see it more clearly?"


Osho: “The only problem with sadness, desperateness, anger, hopelessness, anxiety, anguish, misery, is that you want to get rid of them. That’s the only barrier.

You will have to live with them. You cannot just escape. They are the very situation in which life has to integrate and grow. They are the challenges of life. Accept them. They are blessings in disguise. If you want to escape from them, if you somehow want to get rid of them, then the problem arises – because if you want to get rid of something, you never look at it directly. And then the thing starts hiding from you because you are condemnatory; then the thing goes on moving deeper into the unconscious, hides in the darkest corner of your being where you cannot find it. It moves into the basement of your being and hides there. And of course the deeper it goes, the more trouble it creates – because then it starts functioning from unknown corners of your being and you are completely helpless.

So the first thing is: never repress. The first thing is: whatsoever is the case is the case. Accept it and let it come – let it come in front of you. In fact just to say “do not repress” is not enough. If you allow me, I would like to say, “Befriend it.”

You are feeling sad? Befriend it, have compassion for it. Sadness also has a being. Allow it, embrace it, sit with it, hold hands with it. Be friendly. Be in love with it. Sadness is beautiful! Nothing is wrong with it. Who told you that something is wrong in being sad? In fact only sadness gives you depth. Laughter is shallow; happiness is skin-deep. Sadness goes to the very bones, to the marrow. Nothing goes as deep as sadness.

So don’t be worried. Remain with it and sadness will take you to your innermost core. You can ride on it and you will be able to know a few new things about your being that you had never known before. Those things can be revealed only in a sad state, they can never be revealed in a happy state. Darkness is also good and darkness is also divine. The day is not only existence’s, the night is also. I call this attitude religious.

A person who can be patiently sad will suddenly find that one morning a happiness is arising in his heart from some unknown source. That unknown source is godliness. You have earned it if you have been truly sad; if you have been truly hopeless, desperate, unhappy, miserable, if you have lived in hell, you have earned heaven. You have paid the cost.”

Confront life. Encounter life. Difficult moments will be there, but one day you will see that those difficult moments gave you strength because you encountered them. They were meant to be. Those difficult moments are hard when you are passing through them, but later on you will see they have made you more integrated. Without them you would never have been centered, grounded.

The old religions all over the world have been repressive; the new religion of the future is going to be expressive. And I teach that new religion…let expression be one of the most fundamental rules of your life. Even if you have to suffer for it, suffer. You will never be a loser. That suffering will make you more and more capable of enjoying life, of rejoicing in life."

(Thanks to Anupam Barlow)

See Stephanie's site Work Stress Solutions for more information like this.