Cultivating Gratitude Through Understanding Stressful Beliefs

Earlier today, an unpleasant memory came up for me around the Thanksgiving holiday. Years ago, I had taken my mother out to dinner at an upscale restaurant. She was elderly, disabled, very overweight, and, seeing as she was widowed and living on Social Security, not particularly well dressed. I remember the looks the fancy suburban clientele gave her, and their stage-whispered remarks among themselves, and the deep anger and resentment I felt towards them; what gave those people the right to look down on someone less fortunate?

As this memory came to mind today, I also remembered and even viscerally felt the reaction I'd experienced at the time. It was upsetting me, so I decided to take a closer look. I asked myself, "What would I have to be believing if I were to be as nasty and snobbish as I perceived these people to be?" And what I came up with was this: the only reason anyone would resent the presence of someone like my mother is fear. How terrified those women must have been to encounter, in their glitzy sanctuary, the kind of person they would never want to become. What a scary reminder that circumstances can change and they might have seen their future and frightened themselves with it.

For the first time in close to 15 years, I felt compassion for them. And gratitude for my own hard-won clarity. Yes, it was hard-won. The work of self-inquiry is simple, but it is not easy. However, living with the burden of resentment has always been worse, so I invite you to this practice in order that you may experience the joy and peace of the season.



©2011 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

Watch Your Cartoons

A man I’ll call Brad was my nemesis while we worked on a creative project together. He seemed to embody most of my old, stressful “men” stories; a physically imposing, self-important, bossy blowhard used to getting his way. I’d done some inquiry on Brad, but I hadn’t seen a meaningful shift in my feelings about him or in the way I acted around him. I’d slapped a label on him that, while it didn’t accurately list all of his ingredients, was very sticky and difficult to remove.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to let Brad off the hook! But in not doing so, I was keeping myself on the hook. This was especially painful because I really like Brad. He’s a talented, funny, and ultimately very caring person. Still, as I traveled to our meeting place, sometimes I would anticipate conflict and irritate myself in advance, in his name.

One day while doing my inquiry, I realized I was not interacting with Brad, but with a cartoon character of Brad; someone who was always infuriating, never open to others’ ideas. I also saw that if someone else were doing and saying the same things Brad did—someone whose portrait I painted with loving brushstrokes and delicate features instead of outsized characteristics—I might find it amusing, attractive or endearing. (You know how some people are allowed to talk to you through the bathroom door, but when others do, it’s gross? Or how, when your friends walk down the streets singing with their children, it’s funny and sweet, but when you were 10 years old and your parents did it, you wanted to run away and hide?)

I discovered that when I reduced Brad to a cartoon character, I became one as well. Mine looked rather like the little boy in the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip, who turns dark and smoldering when he doesn’t get his way, and acts out revenge fantasies on snowmen he builds that resemble his father.

So if Brad is not who I say he is, who is he? Perhaps, rather than a testosterone-soaked bully, he’s a strong person with strong opinions. That isn’t a problem unless I say it is. And I did say so because I saw myself as weak and ineffectual around him…which, as anyone who knows me even a little bit can tell you, is an insane assessment. When I understood this, I was free to see and treat Brad as masterful and proactive—qualities I admire—as opposed to “pushy and full of himself.” He ceased to be a thorn in my side and became a friend and collaborator.

When doing your inquiry—particularly question 3 of The Work, “How do you react when you believe this thought?”—notice how, as you attach to your stressful thoughts, you draw this person with bold strokes and outsized features to prove your point. Are your kids little hurricanes leaving your belongings broken and in disarray, seemingly taking over the entire house? Is your wife, as she’s hunkered over her laptop doing research, really an ice princess, cold and uncaring, who holds the reins of the relationship and never really loved you? What if, while dealing with your parents’ estate, you did not see your brother as the conniving monster who filched your allowance when you were children? Might you be able to communicate with him adult-to-adult today?

Conversely, watch how you, too become a cartoon character when you believe your thoughts about the cartoons. You are the woman whose kids will be the death of you; who does that woman appear to be in that moment? Powerless and harried, or enraged and shouting threats? You are the man whose wife isn’t interested in you. Do you sigh loudly in her presence, rustle the newspaper, slump your shoulders, soothe yourself with whatever’s in the fridge? You’re the trampled baby sister. Are you an ineffectual, broken-down victim, or a snarky little brat? Do you lash out like a wild beast at your cartoon compatriots, or run away like a 90-pound weakling?

When you’re doing The Work on the one you complain about the most…the one who can be counted on to disappoint you…the one who, no matter how prepared you think you are, never fails to trip you up…you can ask yourself, “What if this person isn’t who I say they are?” How would you treat them differently, show up differently with and for them, if you were dealing with a real person and not an exaggerated drawing of the sum total of your criticisms? Watch those crazy characters you’ve created; sit down with a worksheet and enjoy the show.


©2011 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.

Giving Thanks from a Truly Grateful Place

Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the U.S. I'm traveling this week and wanted to leave you with this message: Thanksgiving is a joyous holiday for many and not so great for others. I am grateful that I received an invitation to spend the holiday with my family and had good health and enough frequent flyer miles to get there. I'm excited to see my cousins, my aunt, and some friends. And I'm truly grateful, after searching the thrift shops here to no avail, that I found a sorely needed new winter coat at a Ross store for under $75!

During more prosperous years, there were holiday times when I felt depressed, lonely and conflicted. Sometimes I was among friends or family but longing for something else. At other times I was grateful to be by myself, or volunteering at the Vet's Hall. It's never about the money, or the company, or the good food or lack thereof; its always about what's happening in the mind.

In light of the current economy it may feel difficult to experience peace and gratitude if you have to make due with less. Add to that stress about spending too much for the holidays, being back in the old family dynamics, the fear of gaining weight...and suddenly "Happy Thanksgiving" feels like a lie.

If you are feeling sad, pressured or disappointed this holiday season, I invite you to question your thoughts. Is it true you must visit your mother-in-law? That you don't have enough money for a proper celebration? That holiday foods are fattening and unhealthy?

*Listen to this golden oldie on that very subject from a holiday teleclass I held a couple of years ago.

I Have to Eat That Food

*Write your most stressful holiday thoughts in the form of a belief statement or "one-liner"—for example, "I don't have enough money." Take yourself through written inquiry—the four questions and turnaround of The Work—using the One-Belief-at-a-Time Worksheet, available for free download at TheWork.com.

*Notice if your thoughts are going to a place of deprivation and lack, and make a list of things you can do for yourself that point to the bounty of the season and of your life. If you're not traveling, can you take time on Thanksgiving Day for nice bubble bath or workout? Do you have any non-perishable food that you can spare to a holiday food drive? If you're going to be alone, can you make new connections while volunteering at a soup kitchen? Can you find reasons why it's the best thing that you "have" to visit or host family?

*Gear up for the holidays with a few sessions with a Certified Facilitator of The Work. Or call the Hotline at no charge. We're here to help!


©2008 by Carol L. Skolnick; all rights reserved.30

The Gift of Inquiry for the Holidays

Got the "yikes my family's coming, everything's so expensive, it's all too commercial, I hate the lack of sunlight, the kids are fighting over the X-Box, there are pine needles all over the living room" holiday season blues?

The Work on the Web is an interactive and amazingly intuitive program that actually facilitates you in inquiry, online, at your convenience.

For a limited time, the price has been lowered from $39 for three months to just $27. When you register using code 119-1132, you'll receive an additional two weeks at no charge. (And, full disclosure, when you use this code I get a small commission from Coaching Interactive as well!)

I use this program myself and find it helpful during those times when I'm feeling like I need "someone" to do The Work with but it's too early or late to make a phone call!

Give the gift of The Work on the Web today, or buy it for yourself!

Celebrating the "Hellidays"

How do you celebrate the winter holidays? For many of us it's a time to get together with loved ones...eat, drink, and make merry...give and receive presents with joy...take a vacation to a special getaway...meditate on the spiritual significance of the season...entertain loved ones in our homes.

And, typically, it's a time to entertain other not-so-well-loved ones...thoughts like:

"I can't afford Christmas (Chanukah, Kwanzaa, a winter vacation) this year."

"The holidays are so depressing."

"My brother gives chintzy gifts to my kids."

"If s/he really loved me s/he'd know that what I wanted was a (insert ideal gift that you didn't receive here)."

"Thanksgiving is cultural propaganda."

"I should have more 'Christmas spirit.'"

"There's too much rich food (too much alcohol), I'm going to gain weight (fall off the wagon)."

"I have no one to kiss on New Year's Eve and it means that...."

"Oh, God, not another business luncheon."

"I'll never get all my shopping (cooking, housecleaning, holiday cards) done."

"I have to make and stick to my New Year's resolutions."

Sound familiar?

When we attach to thoughts like these, the holidays become the "hellidays." The end of the year is a great time for self-inquiry, as holiday thoughts rise to the surface like whipped cream in the eggnog.

Lost your job and your huge family expects to exchange gifts with you? Inquire: what's the worst that can happen if you cut back this year? Think your yearly bonus wasn't enough? Is it not enough in reality? You should not be depressed, is that true? How do you treat yourself when you attach to that belief...and how does this help to alleviate your depression? Don't want to take your mother to church this year? Judge your mother, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around. The holidays are too commercial? Try this turnaround: "My thinking is too commercial." Can you find three ways that this is equally true, or even truer?

The gift of self-inquiry costs nothing, knows no season, and you can give it to yourself, whenever you like and wherever you are. The result? Peace on earth.

©2006 by Carol L. Skolnick. All rights reserved.