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Choose Love and Hope

Posted on May 9, 2013 · 3 Comments

Today I woke up tired. Allergy-ridden and recovering from a late evening run, my body just couldn’t catch up the way it needed last night. I woke and started thinking about my day…all the tasks at hand and all the challenges they represent.

I felt my body tense in response. What if things don’t go my way? What will happen if I don’t get what I want, what I need?

I recently wrote about getting overly emotional. This happens to all of us from time to time. When we wear down (either from circumstances beyond our control or overextending ourselves,) fears and doubts creep up into our minds from those dark corners in which they like to hide.

In this state of mind, I very easily push myself and those around me in the wrong direction. I ask questions for reassurance of myself. If I don’t feel worthy, can you make me feel that way?

This affects the way we talk with everyone for the rest of the day. We approach conversations at work and at home from a position of defensiveness which can push others away. Working from a place of love and hope, we interact with others in a way that pulls them closer and creates a supporting environment for everyone.

On the drive to work, I stopped thinking and started breathing. Slowly, in and out. I felt the doubts and anxiety lessen and realized those emotions drove my actions more than my actions drove those emotions.

In that moment, I chose love and hope over fear and doubt. I will love everyone today regardless of circumstance and will hope that everything will unfold as it should.

The Dalai Lama said, “There is no significant division between us and other people, because our basic natures are the same. If we wish to ensure everyone’s peace and happiness we need to cultivate a healthy respect for the diversity of our peoples and cultures, founded on an understanding of this fundamental sameness of all human beings.”

Because we are all the same, my struggles impact those around me. I need the help of others to overcome my struggles, but I should not lean on them so much that my struggles become theirs. They may choose to share my burden, but that should be a conscious choice…not one that I force upon them. Likewise, I should cultivate an awareness of their burdens. We all struggle every day, but together we can collectively lighten the load.

I will choose to interact with others from a place of love and hope the rest of the day.

When you feel tired or run down, don’t give power to the dark places in your mind. Choose love and hope instead.

We each have the power to create our own reality.

Choose to live in the world you most want to see.

 

Filed Under: Reflections, The Zen Mind, Thoughts · Tagged: , , ,
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Getting Things Done – My On-Again-Off-Again Relationship with GTD

Posted on May 7, 2013 · 3 Comments

I struggle with staying organized. My email inbox receives between 50-100 emails a day, and meetings typically occupy over 6 hours of a typical work day. Each email and meeting generates new tasks that join my ever long list.GTD, Getting Things Done, ActionAgenda, organization, tasks

ActionAgenda running on my iPad

When that list becomes too long, I retreat into a mentality of doing the item most on fire, that thing that maybe lingered forgotten on the bottom of the page. On-fire task management is no way to stay ahead of those things I need most to do.

I have tried a number of different  systems, apps and tricks to tame the tasklist monster over the years. Several years ago I used David Allen‘s Getting Things Done (GTD) system with some success, and I’ve recently come back around to it with the help of a couple of great apps.

GTD helps you organize without due dates. With this system, I organize tasks into a number of contexts (Home, Office, Errand, Phone Call, Email, Blog, etc.) and priorities (Low, Middle, High, Top). At the beginning of each day, I’m supposed to review the entire list and identify the top handful of things that need to happen that day. This review process keeps items from languishing at the bottom of a list; they naturally rise to the top at the appropriate time.

I use Toodledo.com to update my list in any web browser.  Built around the GTD system, the site makes it easy to organize tasks into the necessary contexts and priorities. I easily move an item from one context bucket to another and see what requires my attention most today.

ActionAgenda (available in a free and paid version on the iTunes app store) ties nicely into ToodleDo. I use it to quickly enter new tasks on the fly and keep myself on-track mid-day when I’m away from my laptop.

It feels a little weird to write about staying organized when I’ve gotten so far behind on things the last few days. GTD and these apps will not magically make every task disappear, but when I use them on a regular basis I find myself focusing more on individual items and stressing less about the overall list.

Filed Under: WorkLife · Tagged: , , , ,
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Guys Get Emotional, Too #ThisIsMe

Posted on May 6, 2013 · 29 Comments

This weekend I found out a friend called me a girl. Specifically, he said I was acting “like the girl” in my relationship with Courtney.

All relationships face challenges. Courtney and I work together in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, and we both have kids from previous relationships. Most days we do a pretty good job navigating our relationship’s complexities.

BradLawless, CourtneyRix, SoFabCon, SocialFabric, CollectiveBIas, #thisisme Brad and Courtney Rocking the SoFabCon Collective Bias Birthday Party

 And some days we don’t. Friday night I got angry about something, and we weren’t in an environment to talk through it right away. We were, in fact, at a birthday party thrown by Collective Bias for it’s first ever conference, SoFabCon.

The late hour and a few drinks literally poured fuel on my heated attitude and in my struggle to express some emotional insecurities we fought. In the eyes of a mutual friend, this exchange painted me as the emotional, reactionary girl and Courtney as the cool, reserved guy in our relationship.

The argument’s heat faded with Saturday morning’s light. Listening to timely advice from SoFabCon speakers Tiffany Romero and Jasmine Banks, I looked inward throughout the day and realized a few things about myself. Later we talked about the issues I faced, and I apologized for transferring some anger I felt about those issues into our relationship.

I think this friend of ours meant to insult me by saying I’d acted like a girl, but I choose to take it as a challenge. We diss women when we characterize emotional or flighty behavior as inherently female. I’ve known plenty of emotional men in my life and even more incredibly strong women.

Our emotions can always get the better of us, but we shouldn’t avoid our feelings. Men and women often avoid their emotions so they can avoid looking emotional to those around them. When we repress our emotions, we stuff them down somewhere deep and hope they stay put.

Emotions never stay put. Like water, they seek the path of least resistance. Repressed emotions build up pressure until they come bursting out of us at a time not of our choosing. That’s what happened to me on Friday.

The source of my angst turned out to be a problem with some people at work. I’ve avoided having a much needed discussion with them for so long that I started carrying a little ball of disappointment and resentment with me all the time. A little miscommunication between Courtney and me pushed all that emotion right into the front of my brain and overloaded all my other senses.

Avoiding my emotions has always caused more problems in my life than it solved.

Opening ourselves to the possibility of love and life also creates opportunity for pain and loss. I choose to live my life authentically and to love those around me.

That doesn’t make me a girl. It just makes me a person.

Filed Under: Reflections, Relationships · Tagged: , , ,
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