Do You Feel Loved? The Treasure Lies Within
Hello Everyone:
I was taking a walk the other day and got lost within my own thoughts. I started thinking about love. All of us want to be loved. Feeling loved is great. But as I contemplated my own experiences of feeling love, several things became clear. Most of us believe that in order to feel loved, someone must love us. We believe that the source of feeling loved is dependent upon another. Therefore, if our “other” is not present, not loving, or not available, we react as if our source for love has been lost. I began to realize that as much as we would like to think that our experience of being loved is when we receive love from another, this may simply be untrue. Think about it. Do you experience feeling loved when someone loves you who you do not love in return? Where does this feeling of love come from – another or yourself? I reflected on moments when I have felt completely filled with love. Here is what I discovered.
My greatest moments of feeling loved have occurred when I felt love towards another, not the other way around. When I am present to the love I feel for my children, my friends, my romantic partner, my family, our humanity, my self, or life itself, is when I am replenished and full. It is through the expression of the love which already and always exists within us that feeling loved is found. This is not only available to us 24/7, it is fairly easy to access. Open up your heart completely, be fully present to what is, be compassion, kindness, and love. By doing so, the treasure is yours. You hold the universe in your hand and heart.
Now I know that this may sound too touchy feeling for some of you. For others, it’s not as simple as opening up your heart completely; all of us have built up some kind of internal security system in order to defend against injury or harm. It takes courage to let our defenses down long enough to be open and vulnerable. It takes practice to stop the “chatter” in our minds so that we can see the treasures that are ours for the taking. I believe the challenge is worth it. Once we understand that feeling loved has been available to us all along, we can click our heels and return home.
So next time you feel unloved, feel love for another. Be compassion, kindness and love for yourself. Connect to the humanity that binds us all. Discover the treasures that exist within us, not without.
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
For More Information on Julie Orlov Consulting, visit www.julieorlov.com
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Do You Feel Loved? The Treasure Lies Within
What is Your Natural Rhythm?
Hello Everyone:
I woke up yesterday feeling tired. I knew that I needed to get some rest. I also knew that I needed to retreat more into myself and be less out there in the world.
Everyone has their own rhythm, their own natural cycle so to speak. For me, I compare mine to that of a sprinter. I have strong bursts of energy and productivity. During this phase of my natural cycle, I generate results and live visibly and actively in the world. At some point, my energies will shift. It will be time for me to be more still and silent. Instead of expressing myself in a very extroverted way, I take the time to be more introverted. In this space, I re-energize and integrate all that has occurred. The time spent is either of those phases varies. Sometimes my burst will last a long time and my need to retreat is short-lived. At other times I may need more time to re-energize. This probably depends on a lot of factors, including stress level, workload, family needs, health, attitude, etc.
Most of you will be able to identify your natural rhythm with ease. You may be a sprinter, a long distance runner, or a leisurely walker. You know how your energies shift. We get into trouble when we ignore our bodies’ signals that tell us when we need to shift into a different gear. We can get stuck in one phase of our cycle. By becoming aware of when we need to shift, we can do so with more ease. We can honor our natural rhythm without frustration or judgment. We can become better caregivers to ourselves.
So here are my questions for you. What is your natural rhythm? Are you aware of when you need to take in energy, generate energy, or give out energy? Do you check in with yourself regularly to determine if you need to shift gears? How do you react when you naturally shift into another phase? See if you can become more conscious of your natural rhythm. By doing so, what becomes possible? How are you able to take better care of yourself and others?
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
For More Information on Julie Orlov Consulting, visit www.julieorlov.com
To add your contact information to our database, go to www.julieorlov.com/contactus
Turn Your Expectations Right Side Up…The Other Side!
Hello Everyone:
I was talking to a friend of mine who shared with me another perspective on expectations. She also has her expectations upside down. My friend however, has a default set of expectations that things will always go wrong. For her the challenge is to look for what is right, rather than what is wrong. It reminded me that each of us has our own set of filters or expectations that have been defined and refined over the years since our childhoods. While we all need to turn our expectations right side up, how and in what ways will be unique to each one of us.
Maybe I jumped ahead last week. Maybe it would have been more helpful to ask each one of you to first define your set of expectations. Are you someone who expects that people and life will let you down no matter what? Are you someone who believes that you can control your destiny? Do you unconsciously expect things to go right or things to go wrong?
For those of you that struggle with believing things can go right, I offer the same opportunity and challenge as last time. See if you can turn your expectations right side up as well. Expect success, satisfaction, and happiness as if you scheduled them for yourself. How does this impact your life? How does this change the way in which you react to life events? What new meaning or reframing is now available?
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
For More Information on Julie Orlov Consulting, visit www.julieorlov.com
To add your contact information to our database, go to www.julieorlov.com/contactus
Turn Your Expectations Right Side Up
Hello Everyone:
We humans have varying levels of understanding operating at the same time. We can know something intellectually, but react quite differently emotionally. For example, I know that my children will have struggles of their own throughout their lives. On an emotional level, it still pains me to see them suffer or make choices that result in struggles. We know that long term relationships have their peaks and valleys, but when we hit the valleys, we act as if somehow we’ve been caught off guard. We found ourselves living again in the fantasy of final destinations; believing for a moment that we’ve finally figured things out and that the peaks are here to stay.
What is it that makes our memories so fallible and our expectations upside down? Why is it that we forget the life will never, I repeat never, stop providing challenges and struggles? Maybe this is just what it means to be human. Maybe this is just part of the journey. Maybe we are designed to forget the very nature of life itself so as to keep us moving forward. Maybe we need our optimism for final destinations to keep us hopeful and motivated. Really, who am I to even attempt to take this away from us?
Regardless…….here is what I propose. What would happen if we turned our expectations right side up? What would happen if you approached life fully accepting and expecting things to go “wrong”? (I put this in quotes because remember “everything is perfect!”). Now I know some of you are saying “of course I expect things to go wrong; do you think I’m crazy?” But remember, we can know something intellectually and react in a way that is quite different from that knowing. I know that you know there will always be bumps in the road. I also know that you have your own way of reacting to those bumps that reflect a different understanding, a different expectation, a different disappointment.
So here’s my challenge to you. See if you can turn your expectations right side up. Expect challenges, disappointments, and suffering as if you scheduled them for yourself. How does this impact your life? How does this change the way in which you react to life events? What new meaning or reframing is now available?
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
For More Information on Julie Orlov Consulting, visit www.julieorlov.com
To add your contact information to our database, go to www.julieorlov.com/contactus
Reframing is the Name of the Game
Hello Everyone:
So I’ve been thinking about how do we get from “nothing is going right” to “everything is perfect”. Not an easy task, but definitely doable. I call is the Reframing Game. I personally work this “game” all the time in my life, albeit sometimes more successfully than others. Basically this is how it works with me.
Simple example: I have my heart set on going to this great big social event with my significant other (for some reason at the age of 46 I find it odd to refer to someone as my boyfriend, so significant other it is). I come down with a bad cold the day before. I am frustrated and disappointed as I know I will not feel well enough by tomorrow to dance the night away. I first land in “nothing is going right”. My task is to find a positive way to reframe the reality. I really don’t need to see it as a disappointment. There is something perfect in how my life is showing up in this moment. Here’s what I decide. There is something to be gained in spending a night taking care of myself and being taken care of. It will encourage me to get in contact with the friends I will not see that night and arrange a more intimate gathering for us at a later date. This way, we will have more time to interact and my friends will be able to get to know the new man in my life in a more relaxed and informal atmosphere. Lastly, there will be many other opportunities for big social events to come; this one is certainly not the last. Additionally, I will have had the opportunity to practice yet once again, the art of letting go and allowing myself to get present to what is. There you have it – I have officially arrived to “everything is perfect”.
Complex example: I was looking to buy a house some years ago during a definite seller’s market. I finally found a house I liked in the neighborhood I wanted. I submitted an offer. Everything that could go wrong or get complicated did. For whatever reason, I was running into one obstacle after another while trying to find the right house before the school year started. I knew better than to get discouraged. I reminded myself that everything was perfect; that if I was meant to get that house, I would. And most likely, this was not the house for me as each obstacle quickly confirmed. The end of the story is that two weeks later I found the house of my dreams, the one I was truly meant to have; I submitted an offer which was accepted 24 hours later and was in the house by August 1st. The moral of the story? Sometimes we don’t know how perfect everything is until we’re further down the road and looking back.
So try on the Reframing Game yourself. See how creative you can be in taking what you perceive as a negative and turning it into a positive. What happens when you do? Keep practicing this skill. It takes a lifetime to get it down.
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
Everything Is Perfect!
Hello Everyone:
I was talking with some friends the other day and one person in the group was sharing how horrible things were at work. She told us that her boss was basically getting ready to fire her or at the very least was bent on making life so miserable for her at work that she would quit. On top of that her boyfriend had told her that he needed some “space” which in her mind was code for “I’m heading out the door and I’m not coming back”. Needless to say, she was going through a rough time and feeling quite beaten up in the process.
After hearing her story, the group went immediately into offering sympathies and validation on how horrible the world was treating her and that she didn’t deserve any of this. The group did a great job of rallying around our friend. This is a fairly typical scenario that happens when someone you care about is going through a hard time. Our reflex is to validate the hard time and feed into the sense of helplessness and victimization. And to some extent this can be helpful. Surely we all like others to support our viewpoints and agree with how unfair life is treating us. It makes us feel validated and supported. There is nothing wrong with spending some time in this world. It is human nature. Note I said “some time”, not “a life time”. But I offer you another perspective….
What would happen if you believed that things were perfect just as they are? That whatever events and circumstances you face are exactly what you need. That because everything is perfect just as it is, you are able to ride above the circumstances, you become bigger than your circumstances, you even embrace life’s challenges and mysteries. Now I know for the really difficult events like illness and death, this is hard to swallow. But see what happens when you try it on. How does it change your reaction to people, events, and situations? How will it impact your ability to respond effectively? How will it change your sense of being powerful rather than powerless? How will you now relate to life?
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
One Size Does Not Fit All
Hello Everyone:
Here’s my grip about all those people out there that want you to think they have the answer for you. They seem to believe, or at least want you to believe that there is one way and only one way, and that their way will be the right way for everyone. Logically, we all know this is not true. What one person defines as success for themselves will be different from another. For example, John may believe that he is successful when he earns $100,000.00 per year. David may believe that he is successful when he has a family and owns his own home. Claire may feel loved when her husband takes her out on the town and showers her with gifts. Darlene may feel loved when her boyfriend leaves little notes on her car. We are all unique and the way we navigate our journeys is unique as well.
When it comes to self-help, the same applies. David may seek out traditional psychotherapy for guidance on how to feel better about himself and navigate his life. Darlene may take on adventures such as rock climbing or running marathons. Two very different paths. Each approach will most likely lead to new insights and wonderful life lessons. There really is no one way to get somewhere (and of course, there really is no where to get anyways). And certainly not one method, ideology, or tool will provide all the answers for all your problems. Your job is to find the right paths, methods, and avenues that work best for you. And these will fluctuate and change throughout your lifetime. Each theory, method or tool that you will find in the marketplace has much to offer in regards to one slice of life. But only one slice of life. I personally believe that variety truly is the best spice of all.
So go out and explore the options. See what ideas resonate with you; honor who you are. Try something different once and awhile; get outside your comfort zone. Regardless, remember one size does not fit all!
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
Seven Steps to Nowhere?
Hello Everyone:
Seven Steps to Nowhere? What kind of message is this? We want Seven Steps to Somewhere… and preferably somewhere quickly, painlessly and effortlessly. We want the quick fix, the final solution, the magic pill!!!! Sound familiar? All you need to do is go to your local book store, check out the self-help section and start reading the titles. You will be bombarded with an array of titles that promise a final solution in “X” number of steps or less. Spend an evening watching television and I assure you that final solutions will be found in every commercial. Let’s face it. We have become a culture obsessed with quick-fix solutions and final destinations.
The trend towards quick-fixes and empty promises has risen out of control. We demand more than ever immediate solutions to often times, complex problems. We have little patience. Maybe this is due to the technological advancements that make immediate gratification more accessible. Maybe this is due to the savvy ability of marketers to sell us what we want to hear. Regardless, we have lost sight on the value of the journey. We want to get there and get there now. And while there are tremendous advantages that come from this pursuit, there are equal amounts of negative consequences. It is time to restore the balance of a pendulum that has swung too far astray.
So here’s the bad news. There is no magic pill. You will never be fixed. There is no final destination to which you will arrive. All you have is the journey.
So here’s the good news. There is no magic pill. You will never be fixed. There is no final destination to which you will arrive. All you have is the journey.
Let’s explore the journey together. Instead of focusing on how to avoid suffering, counteract what we don’t like, and fix what is so-called wrong, let’s embrace our human condition. I’d like us to see who we are without fear or judgment, to understand the universalities that connect us. Let’s live our lives as a journey and a journey only. No right or wrongs. No simple answers. No final destinations.
Stay with me and engage in this conversation. Your voice has an impact. What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
Don’t forget to listen to Seven Steps to Nowhere? and learn more!
Living with Uncertainty
Hello Everyone:
It is well known that the most difficult phase to go through when dealing with transitions and change is that in between space – when you’ve let go of the past, but have not fully assimilated into the new. It is the time when you do not have your bearings; when you are in the space of uncertainty, of not knowing. This is a challenging place to be.
Most people do not do well in this space. You may find yourself regressing, clinging on to the old. You may find yourself anxious and irritable, grabbing on to your most valued coping strategies. You may even find yourself seeking reassurance from all kinds of sources. Ironically, this no-where land is where you will find the greatest opportunity for yourself. In this space, anything is possible. The trick is to get comfortable with the uncertainty. In doing so, you get to just be with what is, even if what is, is nothing.
Next time you find yourself experiencing uncertainty, try to settle your nerves. Settle into the uncertainty, the not knowing. See if you can find that source inside yourself that knows everything will be as it should. Find the place inside yourself that knows you can get through anything life has to offer. Reach down into the space where not only do you know you are okay in this moment, but that anything is possible. Be open to what you can create and what can be created for you. Uncertainty may be the greatest gift in disguise that life has to offer. Try it on for size and see how it fits.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie
Who Owns the Relationship Problems?
Hello Everyone:
The hardest thing to sort out when dealing with relationship issues is figuring out who is responsible for what part of the problems. Remember, there are always three components occurring within each relationship – person A, person B, and the dynamics that are formed from the interaction of those two individuals. What challenges most people is trying to sort out what part of the problem do they own versus what part of the problem does the other own. A lot of energy is spent over this allocation of responsibility. People will rally their friends and family to support their view of things. People spend enormous amounts of energy analyzing why they and the people in their lives do the things they do.
Although this may seem a bit strange coming from a therapist, as my job is to help people answer just those types of inquiries, after 20 years of on the job training, I’m not so sure how helpful it is to focus on that question. After all, it is impossible to precisely break down just what percentage each person contributes to a specific dynamic. Insights into yourself and others are valuable. It helps separate out what is truly occurring from what is being projecting onto a situation. However, that is only a first step. I’d like to suggest another moving on to another approach.
What would happen if you took full responsibility for what is occurring within your relationships? I’m not suggesting that you take responsibility over another’s actions, only that you approach your relationships from this vantage point. Because in reality, you really only have control over what you bring to them. Let me offer an example. Christine works for a man whom she claims speaks to her in an abusive manner. She has spent many hours complaining to her friends who validate her role as victim in the situation. Some encourage her to quit her job, others strategize on how to change, punish, or avoid her boss. In either case, most of the energy is focused on what her boss is doing wrong, not on how Christine can take full responsibility for her own relationships. Here’s how that might look. Christine needs to take a look at how she creates and reinforces these types of interactions. How does she react when her boss talks to her in an unacceptable way; how, or if, does she set limits; how does she carry herself in the workplace; what unconscious expectations does her boss fill – in other words, does she go through life believing that people will treat her in a disrespectful manner?
Once Christine shifts the focus onto herself, she reclaims her power. She is no longer a passive participant in her relationships and in her life. She can create what she needs in her relationship with her boss. She can set new limits, communicate strongly and effectively, or ultimately, choose to leave a situation that does not meet her needs. Whatever her choosing, it will be done from a position of power, not victim.
So here’s my challenge for you. Next time you find yourself trying to figure out who really is the crazy one in the relationship, stop. Instead, assume that you are ultimately fully responsible for how you experience your relationships with others. Then take a look at what you need to do in order to create the relationships you want. This may include communicating your needs and wants, setting limits and boundaries, giving more of yourself, listening, accepting, or even letting go. Try it on and let us know how it goes.
What are your thoughts on this subject?
We want to know because….Your life matters!
Take care and till next time,
Julie