When to Tell Your Feelings to SDASU (Read Time: 3 min.)

I was languishing in self-pity yesterday.  That's right.  I threw a HUGE pity party... all in my honor.  I went through the gamut of emotions from anger to irritation to stress to sadness to the pouty 11 year old saying "This is SO UNFAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

And then I took a nap... And then I got up... And then I looked in the mirror and said to myself, "Now what?"

So I did what I'd tell any of my coaching clients to do.  I looked myself in the eye, stood up straight, and said to how I was feeling (silently, clearly and forcefully):

SDASU

In other words,

Sit Down And Shut Up!

Don't get me wrong.  Feelings are important but they aren't everything.  Everybody says (including me), "You have to feel your feelings to heal them."  But once you've felt them once, do you need several encore performances?  No you don't.  In fact, that can be more of a hindrance to you getting to where you want to go than anything else.

At the end of the day, there are moments where you're going to throw a pity party.  My rule of thumb about pity parties is this: If you're going to throw one, go all out.  Give yourself 24 hours to cry and then get up.  That's what I did yesterday and here's what I'm doing today:

I'm taking a 'whatever it takes' attitude.

Which boils down believing 3 things and doing 3 other things:

BELIEFS:
1) It CAN be done.
2) I CAN do it.
3) There are AT LEAST a thousand ways to get this done.  I only need the first one that works.

ACTIONS:
1) Put my WHOLE mind into the PRESENT action.
2) Give ALL that I have to ALL that I do.
3) Stay focused on the end as I work towards it (in other words, ignore the temporary, current circumstances; they will change and you'll still be standing).

How's that for giving my feelings a boost?  Now I feel energized, strong, and I'm no longer in pity party mode.  Try it.  It works...

It is what it is... (Read Time: 3 min.)

I say that alot.  I say it to myself.  I tell it to clients.  I use it with strangers.  But I find myself wondering today...

What the hell does that mean exactly?

Does it mean that shit happens and you have to roll with the punches?  Does it mean that life unfolds in beautiful and unexpected ways and you have to be willing to go with the flow?  Does it mean that control is a myth and pretending to have it is a form of insanity? 

Or does it simply mean that all the things in life I didn't want, all the experiences I had that I never expected, every last tear I cried and angry fist I threw down, all of it is connected and while I might not be able to comprehend the WHY, I still have the opportunity to create the NOW? 

Or is it simply a line that lots of people say when they don't know what the hell to say to the horrors of life?

I guess the answer is... ALL OF THE ABOVE.

It is what it is...