My nextU

If you think an entrepreneur is someone else, you might want to re-evaluate. The many changes of the last decade have produced a new social paradigm: we are all entrepreneurs.

Our assumptions about income, job security, retirement, and healthcare may have been turned on their heads, which means that your future up to you. And this is great news!

Instead of trying to shoehorn yourself into that wrong-sized-and-shaped hole, you can start charting your own path. Instead of counting on someone else’s job description to give you happiness, you can use your unique gifts and postponed dreams to build a future that is truly satisfying.

What would change if you opened the doors of You, Inc?

Posy Gering Uncategorized

According to Mona Simpson, Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow! were the last words of Steve Jobs. She tells a completely moving story, which you should read in the New York Times, but I have a question:

While I aspire to have that be my last utterance, what if I lived OH WOW! OH WOW! OH WOW! everyday? What if  I brought OH WOW! into my most mundane practices?

Here’s my first try. I made a cup of tea. Instead of judging myself for wanting honey in it, I thought OH WOW! Honey! It made this humble cuppa exciting, special, daring and worth paying attention to all the way to the bottom.

What if you dedicate 5 minutes today to OH WOW! What thoughts or feelings come to mind?

Posy Gering aging, breathing, change your life, get unstuck, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, What's really important, women and change

How would candlelight affect the way you solve problems?

How do you “get better” at something?

I think, “I must fix that… NOW!” I turn the klieg lights of my attention on the challenge in order to exterminate it.  There is another option: candlelight.

As a metaphor, Klieg lighting is extreme, harsh, it makes me squint or wear sunglasses; I contract.

On the other hand, imagine a lit candle. Notice the physical and mental effects of imagining this candle.

Everyone and everything looks more beautiful by candlelight. Because the lighting is softer and warmer, I use different sensory apparatus and respond differently to the stimulus.

How does it affect your thoughts about getting better at something?

Posy Gering brain plasticity, change your life, get unstuck, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, women and change

Cotton courtesy of Agriterra.org

Pop culture may be all about conquest through hard bodies, minds, attitudes, but I find more victory in softening.

Softening helps me pay attention both to what’s going on inside me and  widens my perspective on what is going on in the rest of the world. Softening gives me many more options beyond my knee-jerk response. I can listen, consider, create a space for negotiation.  It is an extremely effective strategy to reduce stress and a critical piece in the sleep process.

Softening is doing nothing , rather, it’s a very active practice. Try it yourself. Notice how you feel right now. Take five breaths and each time you exhale imagine that you can soften, first, your muscles, then with each succeeding breath, your skin, breath, jaw, eyes. Notice the effects of this softening.

Even writing these words gives me an experience of more calm, a frisson of joy, and a sense of well being. How is it for you?

Posy Gering aging, brain plasticity, breathing, change your life, faith, get unstuck, personal growth, simplify your life, sleep, surviving tough times, transitions, What's really important, women and change

“As one’s trust in the hidden goodness of life becomes stronger,
it will be possible to bless more and more of life’s ambiguities.”

–Demetrius Dumm

Posy Gering aging, brain plasticity, breathing, change your life, faith, finding joy, get unstuck, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, What's really important, women and change

Do you focus on the container or the experience?

I had a lot of preconceived ideas about ‘real’ meditation practice. One had to sit in a special way on a special cushion for a long time. I never do that kind of meditation.

Once I gave up the notion that form was better, I actually got to an organic practice.

What works for me is not the time or accessories, rather to give myself the time to soften so I can notice what I am feeling and thinking then, I can detach any significance of those sensations and give my mind an opportunity to quiet.

This is a great reminder to let go of all the rules I have about how things are ‘supposed to be’ and focus on what delivers the experience.

Posy Gering aging, brain plasticity, breathing, change your life, faith, get unstuck, gross national happiness, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, What's really important, women and change

When you look at this, do you see the liquid or the space?

My mother used to always chide me to change my attitude and look at my life as a ‘glass half full.’ I used to get angry, because I only saw what I thought I lacked. Both of us missed an important opportunity.

Instead of judging what I had or comparing myself to the imagined full glasses of others, there is a powerful third option: look at the gift of the empty space.  There aren’t any rules there. There isn’t any good or bad, right or wrong. Anything could happen. Empty is a mystery that can only be solved by exploring and experiencing for myself.

What thoughts and meaning come to mind when you take a moment for the emptiness? What does having a little more space in your life give you?

Posy Gering aging, breathing, finding joy, get unstuck, gross national happiness, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, What's really important, women and change

What's the smallest unit of a dream called?

Since I graduated from kindergarten, people have been telling me to follow my dream. The problems for me have been which dream? or was this particular dream the right one? Most of the time, my dreams seemed too big and too unrealistic to spend time chasing.

Instead, I propose a new, more realistic goal: the dream-let.

The dream-let is a tiny unit of dream. It fits in your pocket or wallet or somewhere else convenient. It can be realized in the time it takes for something else you are waiting for to transpire. For example, the time it takes your shower water to get hot, computer to boot up, phone call to ring enough to put you in voice mail…

What would happen if you re-claimed this time for your self?

What would be your dream-let today?

How does it feel to fulfill it?

Posy Gering aging, faith, finding joy, get unstuck, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, women and change

I was going to write... really....

Do you ever congratulate yourself for procrastinating? Chances are that, like me, you are an expert.

Try it. Go ahead – make a list of all the great ways you have avoided or postponed starting something. Think of all the very sophisticated or basic strategies you’ve used and how extremely effective they have been.

Now, notice how you feel. I notice that once I have praised myself, I no longer feeling resistance. I feel positive and ready to do the next thing. Instead of  my usual endless mental cycle of resist, berate, regret, the big task seems easy to start on.

What do you notice?

Posy Gering aging, change your life, faith, finding joy, get unstuck, mortality, personal growth, simplify your life, transitions, What's really important, women and change

Cut stress, liberate energy, rekindle your sense of humor, and entertain yourself endlessly. Better yet, it’s free and 100% renewable.  In fact, you can use this  proven technique  in any situation to adjust your attitude.

• Consider the situation.

• Imagine you were a superhero. After all, you probably regularly leap over huge obstacles, cut through impenetrable confusion and/or hold up the weight of other people’s expectations. What powers do you need today?

• If you had your superhero costume on underneath your clothes, what would it look like?

• As you interact with people, you can consider, ‘what if they knew that beneath this Goretex jacket, I am really a superhero?’

And it’s all in the privacy of your own mind.

Posy Gering brain plasticity, change your life, finding joy, gross national happiness, personal growth, simplify your life, surviving tough times, transitions, What's really important, women and change