I read something last month that I haven’t been able to get out of my head (especially this week.) It was a phrase from uberblogger, Danielle Laporte. She’s one the strongest gals I know so whenever she hands out piece of wisdom (wrapped with chutzpah), i listen.

She wrote: Your strengths are not necessarily the things that you do well, but rather the things that make you feel strong.”

I loved this as soon as I read it. It immediately focused my attention on something I like to think about a lot – self-care. Because a huge part of feeling strong is knowing how to care for yourself and give yourself what you need when you’re weak or strong. I liked this because it reminded me of what enriched me or nurtured me, in essence, what made me feel strong. To be fed is what makes me feel strong.

It took the focus off the things that I seemingly continue to reach for in “developing my strengths” or thinking about my “superpower” or giving someone my “elevator pitch” (all useful things, of course.)

I was pleasantly surprised when I found that some (not all) of what makes me feel strong- i.e. my ability to connect with others and see the best in them, generosity toward others, and a strong propensity to reflect and learn from life lessons – just also happened to be my strengths, the very things I did well and didn’t really give myself credit for.

What strengthens you that you may overlook in your daily life? How would your posture and the way you walk through the world change if you knew that your strengths actually depended on what made you feel strong – not what you think you did well for others? A wonderful writer and Buddhist Monk,Pema Chodron, asks, “Why do we look for strength in all the wrong places?”

I don’t know, Pema. Maybe because it’s easy. Maybe because we’re trained to from a young age. Maybe because everyone else does. I really don’t really know, but i think i’m starting to find the answer.

I try to acknowledge my emotions, but sometimes even after I “recognize” what I’m feeling, I just can’t shake the mood. At this point (which feels fatal), I’ve discovered that humor is a powerful tool in making my thoughts more “life-giving” as Parker J. Palmer puts so beautifully. Because life feels “unsurvivable” at times (another great Parker term) being light with our emotions drops some of the weight and makes the heaviness seem handle-able. 

It’s hard to access this state of mind in the moment, but when i do, it has a profound effect on my system. Instead of freaking out and letting my hormones go into full-tilt hard-wired mode and flood my system, I immediately interrupt them by being ruthless with my thoughts. Sometimes I even shake my head to jolt my brain. If you’re thinking: “But the point is that thoughts are hard to stop!” I totally understand this. But if I catch myself when I start to freak-out and PRACTICE bringing in humor, it’s much easier to pull myself back from the spiral of negativity I was so close to entering. As silly as it sounds, I laugh. Or tell a joke. Or don’t take myself so seriously. It’s even better if you’re with someone else in a similar mood and you do something funny or stupid or say something completely out of character that surprises them and makes them laugh. This stops the habitual pattern of remaining in, sitting in, the negativity that underlies a lot of my moods. It might sound desperate, but I love it. To be clear though, this isn’t the same thing as watching The Office or Scrubs or listening to something funny on the radio. It has to be active and it has to come from you.  

Ironically, bringing humor in and letting go adds to the feeling of power and control over my actions. I’m much more able to handle what’s on my plate and the project or blog post or article or pile of laundry feels less life or death.

I didn’t realize the impact of how humor affected me until I forgot to do it one day (vicious habits) and fell into my old mental traps. The results were disastrous and i chided myself for not remembering this cool tool that usually has a way of making me feel better. So when Parker asks, “Are your thoughts and actions “life-giving?” it touches me very deeply. Life-giving. Do they give you life? Do they give you back your life? Because sometimes it life feels like my life isn’t my own, it’s been hijacked by my thoughts and habits.

Humor gives me the ability to carry on living life. It allows me to make life-affirming and “life-giving” decisions, even in the midst of my thousand pound mood.

What if for one day you lived as honestly and as raw as you could – and told yourself you were right about every single thing you did and said and thought. What if you operated from the space that not one single opinion mattered except yours and that you had every ounce of knowledge, every piece of wisdom, every significant experience that you needed to live the fullest life you imagined. What if you welcomed whatever consequences arose from that day?

Bad or good, what if you accepted them because they were yours? 

Does that change the space from which you operate? Does it change how much you say and to whom you say it? Does it allow you to be more fully alive, alert, at attention with everything you are? Or does it make you feel silly, awkward, maybe scared?  

Perhaps it does both. Like it does for me every time I open myself up to, well…me. And while i can’t do it everyday, this exercise, this experiment in truth (Gandhi did a lot of these), is not one of delusion but one of extreme honesty and integrity in learning about myself. 

On that day, seeking nothing more, wanting nothing less, I am simply a vessel for myself.

Did you do a double take on that headline? 

Did you think I was careless and made a typo? 

If you didn’t, congrats on being “detail-oriented” (I am on my resume.) 

If you did then you’re just like me. I read those words three times just to make sense of them in Susan Jeffers book Embracing Uncertainty (because yep, even in the middle of a great project, meaningful work,and great opportunity, lies weird transition-mode and full-blown uncertainty.) Not only is this a pretty big typo, I thought, but in the self-help genre it’s pretty careless to make a mistake like that knowing that your audience lives for the right words to inspire them. Warrior/worrier could make or break someone’s day, no?

Might sound melodramatic, but I believe Hazrat Inayat Khan when he says, “Words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.”

Words matter. They matter to your grey matter. Words make a difference. I read books – whether business and marketing or spiritual – with full consciousness of what I’m consuming, and I’m serious about which words I give my attention to. Here’s why:

Words have a power and energy that goes beyond our subconscious mind. They sink in in ways we can’t quite make sense of. So when I realized it wasn’t a typo, I let the words really sink in and thought about the distinction between Warrior and worrier. It was this time – when I wasn’t judging, just contemplating, that I saw what a profound effect this seemingly little moment had on me. Like when i finally understood how to calculate tip at the end of a meal.

Here’s where I think Ms. Jeffers was going with this metaphor (illustrated by an embarrassing, but honest story.)

Tuesday I woke up with a mountain of anxiety. Too much to do, “branding” decisions which questioned my core, little control over resources. What’d I do? I freaked. I sat overwhelmed by it all and didn’t write the blog I wanted to, didn’t exercise and didn’t even order-in dinner let alone cook it. And on and on and on. I was a puddle lying on the floor in fetal position. You know how it is. 

Totally gave in to my worrier. Not only did I not do my “work” but I felt defeated that I succumbed to the spiral of negative thinking that has a life of it’s own. 

Cut to Wednesday, where I introspected a bit, regained (some) control over my mind, and made some progress.  Thursday rolls in and what happens? I wake up and house things. I rock out, do my work, make decisions, execute, delegate. All the stuff that the warrior part of myself naturally does. I felt powerful and efficient.

So what really changed? Same bed, same breakfast, same Lipton tea. Nothing at all, really.

Except EVERYTHING. I made the one defining choice that structured how my day went. I identified with the Warrior. I remembered what Tuesday felt like and chose to override every lame thought, idea, or habit pattern (because habits are a whole different category of crazy) that entered my mind that day. Did I wake up with anxiety, for sure. I don’t think entrepreneurs go for days (or moments) without it. Did I have too much to do? Yes. Did I have more control over resources than I did earlier? Not really, just had more control over my perception.

The only difference was my choice. I just chose to be the Warrior-me. I chose to give power to the parts of myself which moved me forward, not kept me in stagnant thinking. I realize how much of our daily state of mind, our thoughts, and in turn our actions, are influenced by the words we choose to identify with. The visuals and images and words that uplift us and make us remember our true inner potential, or the words that bring us down, are critical of ourselves and others, words that leave us in a cycle of self-hatred. 

The similarity in the words is THE point. The only point. 

Intellectually, i’ve known the power behind our choice of words, but this typo moment spun my head around it on a molecular level.

I was going to put a “worrier” pic next to the Warrior up there too – just to be fair to the side that’s within all of us and needs love and likes attention, but NO. Like words, visuals have power. And I’m choosing to focus on what makes me strong. The WARRIOR. The powerful, divine, honest, and strong part of myself that allows me to move forward.

Sometimes he kicks it with his worrier counterpart, othertimes he just kicks his ass.

In Martial Arts there are two ways to meet an attack.

One method is to lean on your heels, waiting for the attack to come in. In this posture, all the weight is on heels. Ill-prepared to meet an attack, you usually lose because of your lax posture.

Or…

You get on your toes. You lean forward, knees bent, flexible and ready to meet what comes in. In this posture, you’re proactive and probably win.

These same postures apply to our lives. When things get out of control and we’re overwhelmed with things to do, people to see, or deadlines to meet, we can adopt one of these postures. We either meet the attack head on, ready for whatever may come in, or we relax and let it hit us straight on.

The Ironman Triathalon doesn’t take just anyone. You not only have to know how to swim, bike, and run, but you have to be really good at all three to win.

The mindset of the successful Ironman competitor is simple. If you’re naturally talented at all three skills, you’ve got it made. You’re lucky and rare.

If you’re great at running and biking, but need to improve swimming, you have a hard road ahead. You don’t wince about the extra effort spent swimming because you realize it’s part of the race. If you don’t swim well, you don’t win, no matter how great you bike or run.

These competitors tell themselves “I’m going to get good at it” in order to accomplish their goal. Putting in the extra effort and concentrating on swimming, they often decrease their overall time in the race. They know the power of focused attention in the direction of a challenge; the extra time spent swimming is time well spent at the end of the race.

If you’re not good at all 3,why not win at something else?