Tag Archives: Dr Phil

Seeking Balance

Maybe it’s just because I’m a Libra? You know, born in October, the scales thing. Maybe it’s deeper than that? It seems like for me it’s always about seeking balance. Notice I didn’t say finding balance, I said seeking it. That’s because it’s illusive and fleeting.

One of the things that fascinates me in working with clients is our very human predilection to have black/white, on/off, good/bad thinking. We are so driven in that direction that ALL this amazing computer stuff in our lives is based on zero and one. Seems simple, seems practical. In the context of actually living it makes for very narrow and restricted possibilities.

One of the ideas I latched on to long ago during my coach training is that you need more than two options. I like the image of black at one end of the possibilities, white at the other, and all the multitudes of color in between. Wow! Bringing in the color really helps us find new solutions, experiences, and balance.

The fuel for this blog comes from an Anais Nin quote: “We don’t see things as they are: we see them as we are.” It’s a stunning thought. While noting our own view, it really asks us to look beyond our own perspective and see what else is there.

There is a dichotomy at work in this. It is both always about us, and never about us, simultaneously.

One of my favorite coaches would ask me this very irritating question: “What two percent of this is yours?” It was irritating, because it was also on point. All of us always have ownership in it somewhere. As much as I’d want to be right about the other person, I had ownership in the exchange.

And to play with the Seeking Balance theme here, it is also often true that the ‘rant’ someone is turning on you isn’t really about you—it’s about some place where they are disappointed, frustrated, tied up. Your question to yourself in these instances might be something like: “What if this really isn’t about me? What if it’s about something else? How does that change my reaction to it?”

People seek coaching because they want something to be different. They want something to change. And above all else, change requires self observation. As Dr. Phil puts it: “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.” Acknowledge the extreme of both edges and the middle.

Getting clear is a crucial first step. It gives you a way to seek balance. If you try to skip it you just wander around bumping up against things. Clarity doesn’t actually mean you have to go over and over and over things. That’s actually counter productive because it keeps you literally stuck in the muck—you build up your neuropathways around the mess more and more. The trick here is that by acknowledging what you don’t want you become more conscious and make better choices.

Frankly, part of why this is on my mind is our current political climate. It’s all on/off, yes/no — oppositional. The idea of seeking—let alone finding balance—has been lost in the fray. To me the bigger goal is to create a country and culture that allows us to actually have differing views and seek balance and harmony. That’s up to us, each of us. And as we do that for ourselves it ripples out to others. All any of us can really do is be the change we want, right?

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, the Untangler

Want to chat about this idea of Seeking Balance? Give me a call at 503-258-1630 or leave a comment.

Boomers and Personal Growth

First, in case you didn’t know, I’m a baby boomer—a fairly early one since I was born in 1951. Lots of individual ‘boomers’ have been pioneers and changed the world. Paul McCartney is just one of many. In addition to contributions by many of us individually, there are some remarkable changes they we were the first generation to actually experience. Things like computers for individual use, space exploration, and the one I really want to talk about today—’personal growth‘.

Actually ‘personal growth’ is the catch-all phrase I’m using to describe a big cultural change. I’ve decided, based on my own experience, that my generation is the first one to embrace the radical idea that we can work on changing the baggage from our ancestors and our past without necessarily being considered out-and-out crazy.

Things have shifted. When I was in high school and having a very hard time with a bunch of things, I asked my dad if I could get some counseling. His response was: “Sure, we can send you to Camarillo!” Which meant ‘No!‘ Camarillo was that state mental hospital. It was a stigma for people of my dad’s generation to get help with their emotions. He even declined the psychiatric help offered to him after he was liberated from a German prison camp at the end of WWII.

As I grew older there was a shift happening in the mental health field. It was becoming more and more common for people to seek the support of a psychologist or psychiatrist. It no longer meant that you were ‘totally crazy’ if you tried to untangle your thoughts and behaviors. There was still a stigma, but it was much less severe.

It’s an important change for all of us. For literally centuries people kept doing the same dysfunctional things their families did over and over and over. There was no way to stop the patterns unless you were willing to accept the judgement involved in ‘getting therapy’.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Phil’s statement: “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.” And I would add the obvious idea that you can’t acknowledge what you are unwilling to look at, work on, or talk about.

I’m really writing this to answer a question I get from a lot of my clients, which goes something like: “Why didn’t my parents do better with this?“ The answer to that comes from another quote —this time it’s a paraphrase from Maya Angelou: “We do the best we can until we know better, when we know better we do better.“ Our parents didn’t know better. How could they? Their parents, grandparents, etc. didn’t either.

And then in late 1980’s and early 1990’s all sorts of things started to happen around new ways of not only becoming more aware of our thinking and behavior, but actually consciously doing—as Maya would have said—better! One of the best of these new ways is the one I work incalled “Life Coaching.“ Imagine, assisting and supporting people to have better lives,! Helping them to let go of the way it was always done before, be it around work, relationships, or even money!

And it’s all been in my lifetime. Wow!

You know I used to think my grandmother, Cupcake (* see below) had seen the most important and remarkable changes in human history in her lifetime. She was born in 1900 and died in 2001. In her hundred years there was electricity, automobiles, flight, computers — a myriad of amazing and miraculous inventions that changed our lives.

And now I think that it may just be possible that the most miraculous thing is happening in my lifetime — people are readily choosing to break the old patterns and embrace their lives and talents in new ways. They are doing it through workshops, coaching, counseling, retreats — there are all sorts of paths to personal growth.

Wow, just wow!

(*Okay, I recognize an explanation is in order here—as a little girl I nicknamed her that. She was short and round and had white hair, thus frosting on top. The name “Cup Cake” stuck!)

Ka-ching

Shell Tain, The Untangler

If you’d like to chat more about this idea of how you can break the pattern, just give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com.

Money in the First Position

Ever do that thing where you go into the store and head directly for the sale rack as if it’s the only thing available? Or maybe you stayed at a job you hated because they gave you a raise? These are just a couple of examples of the Money Trap I call Money in the First Position, and it’s a stinker!

First let me explain what a Money Trap is. A Money Trap is something that takes you off course. It’s like a hole you fall into, and a trap that snares you. When it comes to our money it is specifically something that takes you away from your goals, values and dreams. It’s, above all, a distraction from your purpose. There are bunches of these traps out there. Some are common to most of us and some are yours alone. This Money in the First Position one is pretty common.

The title comes from a nod to bank loans. The main mortgage on your home is in “the first position”. What that really means is if something happens to your home whoever has that “first” gets paid “first”. I call this Money Trap “Money in the First Position” because what happens is that money is the first thing you consider, and often the only thing.

But wait you say, isn’t money an important thing to consider? Yes, it certainly is. The trap is when it’s the ONLY thing or when money is given too much weight. There is nothing I like more than finding a great price for something I want. The problem is when I buy it based on the price even if it’s not really what I want

Money is an important part of most decisions but we get in trouble when it’s the only part. Dr. Phil has a great line about this: “If you marry for money, you earn every penny.” It’s a big price to pay!

People often use Money in the First Position to actually protect themselves from having to explore new territory. By asking the cost of something first you can dismiss it as “too expensive”. That’s one of the most common results of this trap. We dismiss something because of the price before we even really know what it is and what its value may be. It would most likely be more effective to buy a pair of slacks that fit perfectly and you wore every week for twice or even three times the money you paid for the “perfectly adequate” on sale pair…and if you have the Money in the First Position trap running you, then you won’t even give that a chance.

The real problem with all of this is misunderstanding money. Getting more money or a better deal isn’t the goal. Getting what you truly desire or want and having the money (cost) make sense is the goal. That’s the sweet spot.

So notice where you put money in your decision making. Is it top of the pile? It is the only thing you consider? Or is it an important factor mixed in with other things that are also relevant?

I can help you untangle this and other Money Traps, give me a call at 503-258-1630 or check out my website at www.sensiblecoaching.com

Ka’ching,

Shell Tain, The Untangler

Married For Money?

I’ve always kinda liked Dr Phil. Maybe it’s that he’s feisty? Anyway, one of my favorite ‘Dr-Phil-isms’ is “If you marry for money, you will earn every penny.” I think the money knot around that is worth exploring.

The biggest problem about marrying for money, or doing anything just for the money, is that money is never the actual issue. It’s bass-ackwards. Money is reflective of other things. Money is just a symbol for all the things we want that we think will make us happy.

If we make or “earn” our money doing something we love, we are honoring who we are. In that case, we are living based on the core stuff that is truly important to us. When we do anything “‘just for the money” we are falling into the “Money In the First Position” Money Trap. That’s the one where we make the choice solely for and about money. Frankly, doing almost anything just for money isn’t worth it, is it?

Okay, I hear you thinking: “But what if I need money to pay the rent and feed my kids, and do a yucky job to get that?” In that case you are doing the work you hate to make the money to support the kids you love. That’s not the same as doing something just for money. Would you actually keep that job if you didn’t have the kids and the rent to worry about?

The reason that doing something just for money rings so hollow is that it’s not really about money. Again the bass-ackwards thing. (Okay, I enjoy using that word) It’s about the life you imagine you will have once you have money. And there is the fallacy.

Remember that thing about money being reflective? If you are just about having money, you are waiting to be in your life until you have the money. What’s the money supposed to give you? Happiness, safety, peace? Maybe even love or fame?

None of those things start after you have money.

Money can reflect those things, but it never creates them in a satisfying way. There’s another rub. We don’t actually want just the money, we want the money to make us happy. Ah, not money’s job. Money’s job is to show us where we are putting our energy and efforts, to show us what we are choosing.

So are you choosing to spend your efforts and energy in making money, and hoping that it will make you feel good about yourself and life in general? Or are you choosing to live every day using your energy and efforts to enhance and reinforce what you really care about, and allowing the money to reflect that?

So I think what Dr Phil really means is that it will be brutal and hard to marry for money, because you won’t be honoring who you are, you’ll only be chasing money, and that is bass-ackwards!

Ka-ching

Shell