By Christine Kane

You’ve heard it.

I’ve heard it.

We can even laugh about it because it’s so common.

I’m talking about the snarky voice in your head that mouths off whenever you think about being a little bolder, or a little decadent, or more self-nurturing.

It’s the voice that says, “Who do you think you are?”

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but mine shows up as a group of high school girls.

Their eyes are lined with thick black pencil. They wear concert t-shirts. Their hair is burnt from too many home perms. One of them steps forward and says, with her hands on her hips, “Who do you think you are?” And then she turns to the others and says, “Who does she think she is?” Then they all take an aggressive step forward. (Welcome to an average day at my old high school!)

My friend Joy told me that “Who do you think you are?” jumps in whenever she imagines hanging out on the sofa reading magazines.

A few years ago, I saw Oprah speak. She said that every time she wanted to achieve more, the first voice she heard was “Who do you think you are?”

Every woman I know has her own version of this voice waiting in the wings.

In other words: Stay down, play small, shut up, and don’t embarrass yourself. Don’t even bother because you won’t make it, you don’t deserve it, and everyone knows it, and they’ll all laugh at you when you fail.

So, next time that voice jumps up in your head, here’s what you do:

Answer it.

Really. Who do you think you are?

————-

One time, I was telling a mentor about some fears coming up around a choice I was making.

I said, “…and all the voices in my head are saying, ‘Who do you think you are?’”

And he looked at me and said, “Well? Who do you think you are?”

I smiled and continued with my story.

He cut in.

“No. Stop. I really want to know. Who do you think you are? Tell me right now.”

In a very tiny voice, I told him.

Then he made me say it again in a bigger, stronger voice. And again after that.

He said, “There. Now you have an answer for your voices.”

Now I do this exercise every time those voices arise.

Here’s a tip:

When you answer that question, use language that speaks the truth of your strengths and values

In other words, make it authentic.

It’s tempting to recite something that sounds “lofty” or “holy.” I know you know what I mean. “I am a divine being, living in divine perfection with power and grace..and blah blah blah…abundance and light.”

Okay, fine.

True as that may be, if that language doesn’t resonate with you, you’ll never feel any bolder, and those high school girls with the black eye pencil will put their cigarettes out on your shoe.

The Co-op of Lack

My theory is that “Who do you think you are?” is actually a Co-op.

It’s a collective body of voices saying, “Agree with us in the lack that we see! Agree with us that there are no other options! Agree with us that no one has any power over life conditions!”

It’s actually pretty convenient.

It’s convenient to have this world-view because it gives you permission to stay stuck. It never requires that you do anything about it because after all, you’re dealing with a whole world-view!

Think about it.

When you say, “I no longer want to work with this abusive client,” you’re also saying, “AND, I believe there are multitudes of others out there for me.”

When you say, “I’m gonna nap right now, and I will be more productive and happier because of it,” you’re also saying, “AND, I believe that there’s more than enough time for me to get my to-do’s done.”

Get it?

Essentially, you’re telling the Co-op that you’ve decided to create a whole new world-view!

Extra Credit Bonus Tip

Let’s be honest.

Most likely there are occasions when you’ve been the one saying, “Who does she think she is?” (Even if it’s only in your head.)

Don’t be ashamed. It simply means that you have more opportunities to shift those old lack mindsets. Usually those mindsets are saying: “I’m feeling small and poor, so she should be small and poor too.” We’ve all caught ourselves doing this.

Even if it’s uncomfortable, you can choose to bless or praise anyone who seems to be taking bigger strides in her life. Then remind yourself again who you think you are, and join her!

About guest writer, Christine Kane:  Performer, songwriter, and creativity consultant Christine Kane publishes her ‘LiveCreative’ weekly ezine with more than 4,000 subscribers. If you want to be the artist of your life and create authentic and lasting success, you can sign up for a FRE*E subscription to LiveCreative at www.christinekane.com.

by Pam Hauser, RN, LMBT

I had a day today full of blunders and yucky emotions and junk. I even forgot to pick up my daughter from school!  On my behalf, it WAS a noon dismissal day. She called me, but I was not happy that I had forgotten and then when I got there, they charged me $12 because I was 15 minutes late in picking her up.  It started as I sat down to eat an early lunch and decided to watch a little bit of Animal Planet on TV.  (I am NOT a big TV person but it just seemed like the thing to do at the time.)  The show that was on was Animal Miracles, (good so far) but soon changed to a show where they showed animals being euthanized because their medical care was too expensive.  Having lost a few animals in my life and even more human friends, I was soon sobbing.  I quickly turned off the TV and went to do my laundry with a box of tissues!  Lesson learned!  So after I was more composed, I drove around town, taking care of my errands, (I was using my spare keys, because I couldn’t find my key ring!) to experience people pulling out in front of me, and because I didn’t have my keys, I didn’t have a key that I needed at one stop, then I discovered that I wrote a check on the wrong bank account.  I was so frustrated that I missed a massage appointment…an appointment for ME to receive a massage, that is!  I called the therapist who is a wonderful person, but I was totally not able to hear her words of peace and love and all is well.  I was, at that moment, having a potty mouth moment of anger and frustration.  <So Mercury is in retrograde, ‘eh?!>  And I couldn’t seem to bring myself out of it.  I had been listening to Abraham-Hicks CD’s all day while driving and talking to myself and working pretty hard to shift what was going on in my world all day. I even sang my gratitudes.  Nothing.  Then, at the end of the day, I went to the farmer’s market to pick up an order from a vendor. When the order was complete, he tucked in “something extra for your dinner tonight” and gave me a big smile. That shifted everything for me.  I was actually too shocked at first to even smile back!  I was smiled at and everything shifted for me. Thank you vendor.

Sometimes it is the little things.

And then tonight I sat down to read a couple of blogs that are written by friends of mine.  The first one that I read was by Christine Kane.   She is a singer/songwriter who also does workshops on creativity and such.  She talked about marketing and spreading good will.  There is a link there about something that the shoe company, Zappos, did that was sweet and kind and right, and will ultimately sell a lot of shoes for them, although I don’t think that was their motivation in the moment.   Basically, someone at their company went beyond the call of duty to do the right thing and then sent flowers.  They provided a service and did so against company policy, a service that was something that I haven’t heard of happening since the 1950’s.

And then the second blog that I read was another friend, Cliff Rubin.  He is also a singer/songwriter and he was talking about disappointment in his blog.  (I am blessed to know many wonderful and creative people!)  Click here to read his blog:  Cliff Rubin  I do some cratfy kinds of things, but I am not an artist per se. I am a massage therapist. I consider myself to be a kind of sleuth, seeking out the imbalances in the muscles and talking to the muscles to restore balance. Cliff talks about having a rocking performance and the difficulty he finds with maintaining detachment concerning CD sales afterwards.  He says that it is easy to be detached when the audience is blah during a performance, but harder when they are in the isles dancing while he sings.  And as a sensitive person, I totally understand this. Sometimes clients come in, get on my table, I work, they get dressed and they leave and I never get any feedback. At all.  I don’t know what was going on for them while I worked. I don’t really know if they feel better.  Most clients do leave me in an altered state and I can see the difference in that they are calmer or their posture is straighter.  But I don’t know how they feel about it all.  I just have to go on faith that what I did was good. And then I’ll have a client who takes a minute to tell me about something that happened to them in the session….sometimes it is really cool stuff like astral travel or a flashback with a major healing on an emotional level, but mostly it is simply a shift in their balance or flexibility or just no more pain…and I know to keep doing what I’m doing and to just trust that the right people will come in to see me…the people who need what it is I have to offer. And all is well.

And in the meantime, I’ll keep doing what I do, to do the right thing and to remember to do the little things.   Like smile at someone for no reason at all.

Pam

Inertia and the Law of Attraction: One Person’s Journey

By Pam Hauser, RN, LMBT

In America right now, we are hearing a lot about the movie, The Secret, and the Law of Attraction (LOA). Simply stated, the LOA is this: What you think about, you bring about. Practically speaking, we are magnets bringing to us all of our experiences. I read Christine Kane’s blog almost daily and her February 3rd post was titled: Starting Small with the Law of Attraction. Someone else sent me an email about inertia, and then in a class at the Center for Creative Living, Barbara Waterhouse spoke about inertia….and it got me to thinking about the two concepts. So I ask you…. What is inertia, anyway? Here is the definition from Dictionary.com:

Inertia

American Heritage Dictionary -

To me, inertia means being stuck in a rut. Until acted on by an outside force, anyway. I have found it possible in the past to stay in a rut for a very long time! Is there a category for that in the Guinness Book of World Records? If so, you might see an old picture of me there! And right beside that you’ll see a picture of the universe kicking me in the pants and moving me quickly out of that rut!

Law of Attraction

In this universe of ours, everything is energy, and thus has a vibrational frequency. The Law of Attraction says that what you feel/think/believe is what you bring into your life. If you have a “poor vibration”, then you bring “poor” into your reality. Likewise, if you have a “rich vibration”, you will bring wealth into your reality. Logically, while in a rut, you are bringing more “rut-ness” into your being. But if you think a thought, feel a feeling, or change a belief, a shift happens and you are no longer in a state of inertia. You may return to a state of inertia quickly, but it will be a slightly different state from where you started. AAhhhhhhh….feel the hope sirring!

My journey with LOA

When I first heard of the concept of the Law of Attraction in 1992, I was shifted out of my state of inertia. My first response was to feel enraged! I looked at what my life had been like…. What do you mean, I did this to myself?! NO WAY! I chose my parents? I brought all of the other crap that has happened to me into my life? I don’t think so! Heck, I didn’t even choose my husband…he chose me! (I know! Choose… allow… the same result. It’s where I was at the time! You will notice that I did not fuss about the things that had happened in my life that I had enjoyed!) After stomping through the anger for a while, I went through a depression. (Yes, this sounds like the stages of grief and that might be because I was going through that as well…or is it just that a major shift in life is actually a transition with the same steps as grief???)

But even the best wallowing must end some time! Eventually, a light bulb went off in my brain and I got it!!! You see, in 1992 when I heard of the LOA, I did not have the advantage of watching The Secret , nor going to a Science of Mind center such as Center for Creative Living.

In 1990, I had everything that I had always asked for…a husband, two children, a “good” job, a cat, financial security, and I owned a home with an organic garden. And I looked around and knew that my life was empty. Although it should be working, I was neither happy nor fulfilled. There were lots of good things going on in my life, things that I still have in my life and cherish, but I was neither happy nor content. With the vantage view of hindsight, I now know that I was in a state of inertia. I went through my life without really thinking about my decisions and was just doing what I had always done….doing what my parents did….doing what was expected of me.

Then my 5 month old daughter passed away from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and the Army was deploying to fight in Operation Desert Storm. My husband and I were both active duty army at the time, so this was devastating news to me. These are things/events that acted on my inertia. (AKA kick in the pants from the universe.) Although I did not see this then, I had received a gift from my daughter by her death that she could never have given me with her life….and that gift was clarity. I now knew clearly that this moment right now is the only one that I have and that I really don’t want to waste it. It resulted in a shift in my thinking….a .movement out of inertia…but only in my thinking at this point.

I did nothing for over a year. My husband returned from the war (I did not deploy) and we transferred from Kansas to Ft Bragg, NC. I ended my tour of duty with the army when we moved and went to work part time at a local hospital, and then in 1992, I started selling Mary Kay Cosmetics. I was blessed to be in a location where the sales training was absolutely wonderful. You see, the sales profession in general has been using Science of Mind principles and the Law of Attraction for almost a century. (One of the first books that I read during my Mary Kay time was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.) And it is at this point that I first heard of the concept of creating my own life and circumstances. All I could see at the time was that I had brought these terrible things into my life. It took a few more years for me to understand the “up” side of this concept.

The “Up” side of the Law of Attraction

So here is the light bulb that went off in my head: If I’ve chosen my life so far (albeit unconsciously) then I can change my mind and consciously change my life! You see, I had always wanted a career in alternative medicine, but my husband was not supportive of that. I let him be the reason to stay in my rut and not take a chance on changing careers. I stayed in my “good job” in nursing. But I had been feeling very trapped in my life, in my rut, in my state of inertia. What this one principle gave me was hope. (Terry McBride sent me a newsletter recently about hope. He says, ”If hope is all you have, then you start with hope”. Click here to go to his website if you’d like to read more about his work.

Now, I’d like to tell you that my life changed instantly, but it didn’t. It took another kick in the pants from the universe (of my own making…something that I attracted to my since my focus had changed) to get me jump started. You see, I really wanted to be healthier and I wanted that career in alternative medicine. So in 1995, (yes, three years later) I fell down the stairs with my 6 month old daughter, Rinnie. Although we were both OK, my neighbor advised me to go see his wonderful chiropractor to help reduce the stiffness and soreness I was feeling as a result of bumping head first down a flight of carpeted stairs and landing on the hardwood floor at the bottom. As a result of seeing a chiropractor for the first time in my life, my whole life started to change. (Read my blog series coming soon on Fibromyalgia, if you’d like hear the full story.) I took baby steps and moved toward no longer having daily aches and pains in my body. I started eating differently (I stopped drinking diet sodas!). I felt healthier, stronger, and lost a little weight. I found the energy to begin to take little actions towards that career in alternative medicine. First I bought a book, Choosing a Career in Alternative Medicine. (Yes, that was the actual title!) Then I looked at schools for learning two of those careers. I decided to go to massage school and discovered that the GI Bill would pay for most of it, so I started looking at local schools. I finally attended ASHA, the Academy of Somatic Healing Arts in Atlanta.

During my time at ASHA, I also realized that I could make it on my own without my husband. I realized that I actually had been doing just that for many years, but couldn’t see it before! He had not worked the last 5 years that we were married. I worked, took care of my kids and the house. I wound up divorced by the time I graduated from massage school.

I completed school and started my career in massage therapy in 1998. Now I enjoy that career in alternative medicine that I always wanted. And I love it. I say that every day… “I love my job!”

Like many people, I moved to Asheville for the mountains. I had been clear for 5 years that I was going to live in the mountains. So every time that I had some time off, I went to different mountains. Many people told me to come to Asheville, but I resisted. (I was told repeatedly that there were “weird” people just like me here! I’m not sure now why I resisted, except that I do love to shop!) When I finally did visit, I knew that this was where I was supposed to be. This is home. So I sold my house and here I am.

I strive daily to live the Law of Attraction in a way where I am consciously choosing what happens in my life, instead of letting the old programs run my experiences. I am blessed to be living my dream, thriving in these here mountains!

I’d love to hear your experiences with inertia, the law of attraction or the mountains.