Hi %$firstname$% -
A continuation of possible solutions to Mary's
problem.
-
Mary could choose
that the coworker's notes would no longer disturb her peace of mind. By assuming
a so-what attitude, she will have taken away her coworker's power to influence
her feelings one-way or the other.
-
Mary, empowered
by a new level of self-confidence, could confront her coworker and make a new
agreement with her so that she no long felt free to criticize, or...
-
Mary could accept the
coworker as a mentor, thank her for the good advice, become best friends with
her. then her new friend would no long feel the need to criticize.
Any one of the three
solutions could eliminate the problem, and on the surface all of them seem to be
DOING solutions. What you must see here is that each f those solutions requires
a change in who Mary will BE relative to her perceived problem.
With the above solutions
in mind, I think you will also see that telling Mary what she should DO to deal
with the coworker would not have served either her or the coworker unless it
moved Mary to make the necessary BEING switch. Mary would have been happy with
"what-to-do" advice, and she might even have found the courage to act on it, but
the doing part would have been out of character for her without a change in who
se was BEING.
If you missed last
week's issue and would like to
read more about
Mary's problem, click on the
back issues link at
the bottom of the newsletter.
We have problems for a reason
The most interesting thing about having a serious problem
is that it has become grave only because we've made it significant. We've given
our problem the power to disturb our peace of mind. But if we take our focus off
the problem and choose to BE its solution, we take away the problem's power,
giving the power back to ourselves.
For Mary to get full value out of the problem with her
coworker, she needs to rise above it. Mary can solve her problem only with a
BEING change.
You and I tend to look for a change in the other person or
a
change in conditions as the only possible solution to our
problems.
That solution will never happen until we change who we are
being relative to our perceived problem! In any situation we face, we can
control only ourselves, and that's really the only control we need. If our
problems are to be solved, we are the ones who must change.
So, how does Mary solve her problem?
Mary's Visualization:
Mary needs to visualize her life as it will be when the
problem no longer exists. She will feel as she would if the problem were no
longer a problem. To do the visualization, she need not find a solution to the
problem; she needs only to choose to BE the one without the problem. Once she no
longer needs the problem, it will simply dissolve and disappear because of who
Mary has become. Mary's vision will depend on which BEING choice, best fits who
she chooses to BE, to have the problem solved.
For example: Mary might visualize herself
BEING and feeling powerful, amused and smiling when she finds the coworker's
note on her desk, laughing at her previous reaction to finding one of those
"nasty notes". She's now happy that she no longer feels the need to react. She
tosses the note in the round file---unread.
Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated. - Confucius
It's Not Magic...
It's real power--the power to choose who you will be. Once
you make your new BEING choice and become fully committed to that choice, the
Universe will provide the rest. The thing you must do to change the world you
live in, is to choose who you will be in that new reality. As Confucius has
said, life really is that simple, but we humans make it complicated by looking
for a "if-I-could-only-change-THEM"
solution to what's really OUR
self-image problem.
Although a change in the way Mary chooses to deal with the
problem would be a DOING solution, the real change needed will be in who she is
BEING. If she decided to be assertive and tell her coworker to stop with the
notes, she would need to muster the courage to that. Being courageous would
require a new BEING choice for Mary.
If she decided to ignore the notes, to not care, and to
just toss them, she would need to reach a point of not caring what her coworker
thought or wrote. This solution would also require a BEING change in Mary.
If Mary decided to thank that person for the good advice
and make her a good friend, that would probably require the biggest BEING change
of all three solutions.
No matter what our problem, the solution to it will boil
down to the same thing: a change in who we are BEING relative to whatever seems
to be our problem.
