Solemate

by Lauren Mackler

  2. Check in with your intuition. Ask yourself: How does this sit with me? How does it feel? Your intuition is an instinctive knowing—or gut feeling—about whether or not something is right for you. It’s not a conclusion you reach based on reasoning or emotions. Emotions and intuition are very different. Your emotions can change from day to day, even moment to moment. Your intuitive feeling about something, on the other hand, tends to remain pretty consistent. If you’re making a big decision that takes you out of your comfort zone, you need to feel certain that it’s the right one. So you’ll want to check in with your intuition over a period of time—over days or weeks or even months—to see how that decision sits with you. Later in the book, we’ll be focusing more intently on developing your intuition, which is an important tool for living in alignment with your authentic self.

  3. Do a reality check. Ask yourself: Is this a decision that’s aligned with my capabilities, with my goals, with who I really am? Drill down as far as you need to go, hitting all of the relevant points. For example: Is this something I can afford? How will it affect other aspects of my life? What are the logistics? What am I hoping to gain? Is that goal within my reach?

  Taking Manageable Steps

  Not every step forward has to be a big one. Sometimes you have to take baby steps when moving beyond your comfort zone. For some of my clients who are alone, issues related to meeting new people, going to social events, trying new things, and doing things by themselves can produce fear. If you’re alone and your fears keep you isolated, then aloneness can turn into loneliness. Your fears are cutting you off from people and activities that can substantially enrich your life.

  For example, it’s not uncommon for women to be afraid of dining out alone, or going to the movies, the theater, or an art exhibit by themselves. It falls so far outside of their comfort zones that they just don’t do it. Let’s say you have a fear of going out to dinner by yourself. The idea of it scares you. When you imagine going to a restaurant by yourself, what do you see? Where is your fear coming from? If you’re a woman, it might be coming from a limiting belief that a woman who goes out by herself is a loser, a belief that’s tied to the spinster myth. It might be coming from a lack of self-esteem, a feeling of not being good enough, of being unworthy. It could spring from a limiting belief that a woman should only go out to dinner with a date. Maybe it’s a fear of meeting new people and not having a buffer in the form of another person—a fear that someone may talk to you and you won’t know what to say. It might be a fear that other people will be watching you; that you’ll be uncomfortable with everyone’s eyes on you. To manage the fear, I encourage my clients to become aware of their gloom-and-doom movie—to see what they’re imagining is going to happen. Then I tell them to dig deeper and figure out what limiting belief may be invoking their fear.

  Here, again, are the Five Steps to Managing Fear:

  • Name the fear.

  • Identify the movie.

  • Do a reality check.

  • Change the movie.

  • Identify the limiting belief.

  The next step is to take action to create a new reality. When I have clients with a fear of going somewhere by themselves, I ask them if they’re willing to make a commitment to going out to dinner alone. I suggest that they go to a restaurant that has a bar area and sit at the bar. That allows contact with other people. When you’re sitting at a table, you don’t have an opportunity to connect with other people. In Europe, people who dine alone often share a table with strangers. That’s not generally true in the United States. So I suggest a restaurant with a nice bar and assign my clients the action step of initiating a conversation with at least one new person. If that person isn’t receptive, then they have to wait and start up a conversation with someone else. I suggest that they bring a book or magazine to occupy themselves while they eat and to help relieve any discomfort or self-consciousness. I encourage them to order a lovely dinner and to focus on enjoying the experience.

  When you’re grappling with fears that relate to meeting new people or trying new experiences, the attitude you project to others becomes important. You’ll want to project confidence and self-assurance. When you feel fearful and uncomfortable, that’s what you’ll project. It sends a message to other people to steer clear. But once you replace your fearful fantasy with a new movie, it will be easier for you to project a positive image that’s more aligned with reality.

  I had a female client who wanted to expand her circle of friends and have a more active social life. She loved to dance, but she was uncomfortable going to a dance venue by herself. She lived in Boston, so I gave her an assignment: go to Dance Free, a big music hall in Boston where all kinds of people go to dance by themselves or with others. I also asked her to initiate contact with at least one new person. On her first attempt, she went to the dance hall but didn’t talk to anyone and was uncomfortable dancing by herself. Instead, she stood off to the side, exuding the energy of a classic wallflower, feeling alone in the crowd. So we did some more coaching around how she could project a more open attitude, identifying the specific new behaviors that would produce her desired outcome of meeting new people. For example, rather than waiting for people to approach her, she could initiate contact by starting a conversation. If her fear of rejection kicked in, I encouraged her to change her gloom-and-doom movie to one in which people were warmly receptive. I reminded her that at first she wouldn’t feel more confident on the inside, but by consciously changing her thoughts and old behaviors, she would generate the new outcomes that, over time, would boost her confidence in social situations. On her second trip to Dance Free, she introduced herself to and connected with a new group of people. At the close of the evening, they invited her to join them for a glass of wine at a local pub, and she ended up enjoying the whole experience.

  When you start to manage your fear and move out of your comfort zone, the results can be astounding. You gain heightened self-esteem and greater self-trust. You build on your track record of success, which makes it easier to step out again. Not only does your comfort zone get bigger, but you open up a world of new opportunities for yourself.

  When you’re focused on mastering aloneness, the movie to play in your mind is one full of love, abundance, joy, and health—a movie in which you’re living the life you were born to live. I’ll help you to create that movie in detail in Chapter 8, “Creating Your Life Vision.” But before you can make your new life movie a reality, it’s important to identify the fears that hold you back and the limiting beliefs that drive them. The following exercise is designed to help you do this.

  Exercise: Fears and Core Beliefs

  Step One: Identifying your Fears

  In your journal, write down all the fears that hold you back in your life, that keep you from moving forward and into the life to which you aspire. These can run the gamut from everyday fears to deeper ones. Try to be as specific as you can. Here are some examples:

  • I’m afraid to go to a party by myself.

  • I’m afraid to confront people when there’s a problem.

  • I’m afraid to speak in front of a group of people.

  • I’m afraid I can’t manage my money.

  • I’m afraid of sounding stupid.

  • I’m always afraid I’m going to make a mistake.

  • I’m afraid of spending the rest of my life alone.

  • I’m always afraid I’m going to embarrass myself.

  Step Two: Linking Your Fears and Core Beliefs

  Now, dig a little deeper. Think carefully about each fear on your list, and consider what you’re really afraid of—what the underlying fear is. For example, if you’re afraid of going to a party by yourself, what are you really afraid of? Being judged? Being rejected? Appearing foolish? In your journal, work through each fear until you find the underlying fear. For example, if you are afraid of being judged, the underlying fear might be: Others will think there’s something wrong with me. If you’re afraid of ma
king conversation, your underlying fear might be: I’ll say something stupid and embarrass myself.

  Now open your journal and write “My Fears and Core Beliefs” at the top of the page. Make a list of all your fears, and then write down the core limiting belief associated with each fear. You might find it helpful to refer to the Core Limiting Beliefs exercise you completed in Chapter 3, “Uncovering Your Conditioned Self” . Here are some examples:

  Step Three: Exploring One of Your Fears

  Now pick one of the fears you put on your list and go through the following five steps to gain greater awareness of the fear and the core limiting belief that drives it.

  1. Instead of resisting it, acknowledge the fear by identifying it. For example, “I’m afraid I will fail” or “I’m afraid I’ll be rejected” or “I’m afraid I won’t be good enough.”

  2. Notice the movie you’re running—the image you’re playing in your mind. Ask yourself: What am I imagining will happen?

  3. Do a reality check. Figure out if your fears have any real basis in fact. Be as methodical as you need to be.

  4. Change the movie that you’re running in your head. Replace it with a movie that supports your goals, rather than undermines them.

  5. Identify the core limiting belief you’re violating by pursuing your goal. Which old belief set the FEAR dynamic in motion? In my own example, it was: I’m not good enough.

  Step Four: Taking It to the Next Level

  As you go through your daily life over the next week, be observant and become aware of any old trance states, fears, and reactive behaviors that may emerge, as well as the inner movie you’re playing that produces those trance states or fears. Write down what you observe in your journal. This will help you gain insight into the role fear is playing in your life and begin to change the patterns at work.

  CHAPTER 5

  LIVING DELIBERATELY

  VERSUS BY DEFAULT

  As I was winding my way through my own personal-development work, I came to a point where I looked back and thought: If I had known then what I know now, my life would be very different. But no one ever sat me down and explained that everything I did or would do in my life would have consequences. I wish my parents had been able to do that. In truth, it’s not a lesson most people learn until late in life—if at all.

  The law of cause and effect is one of life’s great truisms. Newton’s third law of motion says it this way: To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In common usage, that idea most often translates into: For every action, there is a reaction. In philosophy, the concept can be traced back to the ancients. It was Cicero who said: “As you have sown, so shall you reap.” The same idea can be found in both Christianity and Judaism—in the New Testament and the Old. In Eastern religions, the idea of karma, found in the Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist faiths, embraces the concept of cause and effect. Karma encompasses all that an individual has done, is doing, and will do—the effects of which are believed to create all that a person experiences. What you sow is what you reap. Your chickens come home to roost. What goes around comes around.

  When applied to human behavior, the law of cause and effect translates into the idea that through our actions, we generate outcomes. And it applies to every one of us. Mastering the art of aloneness involves recognizing that your actions have consequences, and by those actions, you create your own life experiences. You are born with the willpower to make choices: to choose your words, your actions, and even your own thoughts. Those choices, in turn, affect every aspect of your life.

  Most people behave as if cause and effect didn’t exist. They go through their lives on autopilot, acting and reacting to events without thinking carefully about—or understanding—the possible results of those actions or the role they’ve played in creating the circumstances of their lives.

  All of us make major life decisions without consciously understanding that these decisions will affect our future in immeasurable ways. For example, by getting married at the age of 23 in the wake of a whirlwind romance and foregoing a career, I was making a choice that would have an enormous impact on my future life and security and that of my children. But I never saw it that way. I was on autopilot. I was in love. I was escaping from one reality into another. I was acting on the core beliefs I had internalized as the result of a difficult childhood. And I was looking for something to fill a void in myself—based on underlying motivations of which I was unaware.

  Just as importantly, many of us go through each day oblivious to the connection between the actions we take and the results they produce. Every minute of every day, you’re faced with choices. What should I eat? Yogurt? A Big Mac? Nothing at all? How should I spend my leisure time? Working in the garden? Taking a bike ride? Watching TV? How should I respond to this crisis? To someone’s rudeness? Or someone’s generosity? How should I treat my co-workers? My friends? My children? All of these day-to-day decisions ultimately add up to the life you have today and the life you’ll have in the future.

  This chapter is about living more deliberately. That means living consciously in every moment so that you can begin to make changes in your life and take full responsibility for your actions, your choices, and your decisions. Only by living more deliberately can you begin to generate the results you want and begin to live the life you desire. Only by living deliberately can you begin to master the art of aloneness.

  The Three Levels of Creation

  At the beginning of every Mastering the Art of Aloneness workshop, I tell people that aloneness is a choice. People come to my workshops and individual coaching programs feeling very lonely and believing that they don’t want to be alone. I challenge that idea by telling them: “If you truly didn’t want to be alone, there are plenty of people you could choose for a relationship. But on some level you’re choosing to be alone instead.” Of course, being alone is not usually a conscious choice. You may believe you want to be in a relationship, but on an unconscious level, there’s a part of you that’s holding you back. It may be that some part of you feels unworthy of a relationship or is afraid of being intimate for fear of being rejected, or you may simply be unwilling to settle for someone who isn’t right for you. Whatever your reason, at some level, it is a choice. That can be a pretty empowering thought. It moves you out of the role of victim and into the role of creator. It moves you out of the role of blaming and into the role of taking responsibility.

  Things don’t just happen to you. You are the creator of nearly all of your life experiences—although you may not be fully conscious of the role you are playing in their creation. The work in this chapter involves a number of steps. The first involves the process of understanding how the laws of cause and effect come into play in your life—of simply recognizing that by your actions you produce results. This means looking closely at your behavior and taking responsibility for the results that behavior generates. It means becoming conscious of everything you do.

  There are three levels at which we participate in generating our own experience: creating, promoting, and allowing. This is a powerful concept I first learned at the Insight Seminar I attended in 1982—although I failed to truly incorporate this understanding into my life until many years later. It is a valuable tool for helping you understand and recognize the role you play in creating your own life. By looking at events in your life through this lens, you can begin to take greater responsibility. It helps you see that, even in subtle ways, your behavior and actions influence the outcomes you experience.

  Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re going to a ball game with a friend, and you’re both standing in line to get your tickets at the box office. Someone steps in at the front of the line—a teenage boy—and it turns into a confrontation. Here are the various roles you might play:

  • Creating. You call out something hostile to the teenager. “Hey, kid, this is a line. Step to the back.” And his father, who was holding his place, turns around and screams at you: “Hey, buddy, shut up!” It esc
alates into a physical scuffle and you get hurt. You initiated that situation through your words—you created the situation.

  • Promoting. Your friend, who’s standing in line with you, is the one who gets upset and says, “Hey, kid, this is a line. Step to the back.” The father, who was holding his place, turns around and screams at your friend: “Shut up, you idiot!” Your friend threatens to punch him and you say to your friend, “Yeah, smack him! He deserves it!” It turns into a physical scuffle and your friend gets hurt. You promoted that situation by encouraging your friend to attack the other person, thereby helping to create it.

  • Allowing. Another bystander steps up to the teenager, pushes him out of line and says, “Hey, kid, you broke into this line.” A scuffle ensues and the teenager gets badly hurt. You stand by and take no action to stop it. By doing nothing, you’re allowing that situation to unfold.

  Take any situation in which you felt like a victim; let’s say something happened to you but you didn’t cause it or have any responsibility for it. If you look carefully and honestly at how the situation unfolded, most of the time you’ll find it relates to something you did or said—or failed to say or do. Your actions created the situation or promoted it or allowed it. These three levels of creation become valuable tools for taking responsibility—for understanding your past, moving forward, and recognizing how the laws of cause and effect play a major role in your life.