February 14, 2011
The Power of SO WHAT? and Self-Love
“Turn your melodrama into mellow drama.” Ram Dass
There’s a popular song out now that I really like. It’s a dance number (okay, I’m really dating myself here)... it's a hip hop song and the chorus goes:
“I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying AYO
Gotta let go.
I wanna celebrate and live my life
Saying AYO
Baby, let’s go.”
You can’t help but dance to this song, whether that’s car dancing (which I like to do just to drive my teenage daughter crazy) or dancing in the bathroom while getting ready in the morning or while fixing dinner....whenever I hear that song I just have to move. The beat is great but I love what the words of the chorus tell us to do – throw our hands up and just let go. There is so much drama that comes at us in our daily lives and how we deal with it can make such a difference in our happiness. So I’ve adopted a very powerful tool - the SO WHAT? question. When stuff comes up, as it always does, I test it. Can I just say SO WHAT? here and move on? Yes? Ah, breathe. All is well. This is very powerful, not to mention a healthy thing to do, and I’ll give you a real life example.
I have a good friend who is an excellent customer service representative. Being of my age group, she finds herself surrounded by considerably younger workers who don’t seem to have the same work ethic she does. When 4:30 rolls around they get up and go regardless of the work left to be done. My friend just can’t do that and stays to finish out her work and make return calls to customers as promised. This upsets the other workers, who claim she is pushing up “the numbers” and that her finished call volume is too high. (Yes, I know you’re smiling at this.) My friend, who wants to keep peace with everyone, called to ask me what she should do. We agreed that she had to stay in integrity and do the job her way, and I recommended that she just not let them get to her, which I know is always easier said than done.
So I looked around the store for some type of touch stone that I could send to her and found a carved rock with the words “SO WHAT?” I sent this to her and now she leaves it on her desk during the day and whenever one of those workers starts complaining that she is moving the bar too high, she looks at the rock, smiles and just says silently to herself, “So what?” She also finds herself carrying the rock in her purse wherever she goes, just in case she needs it in traffic or in line at the grocery store or.....She says this little rock has changed her life.
How often do we let the drama take over our feelings? We can stew about the smallest things, eating up our energy and maybe beating ourselves up. Or we complain to others about stuff that happens. What if we could all just let some of these things go? Especially those things that we don’t control, like someone cutting us off in traffic? We take ourselves and the things that happen to us so seriously, when really we have the divine choice of deciding what deserves our energy.
I have two favorite prayers: The Serenity Prayer and a simple Thank You. I think I am adding SO WHAT? as my third favorite prayer. These two words have a different feel to them and give me the power to be free, to use my energy wisely and to move on. And isn’t that what self-love is all about? So as a Valentine’s and lovingkindness gift (it’s national kindness month), if you’d like to add SO WHAT? to your self-love toolkit, I have 100 small stones in the store with those words stamped on them. They are free while they last to anyone who would like to come in and ask for one. By accepting one of these stones, you are making an intention that you want to be in your power, and that sometimes you just gotta throw your hands up in the air and say to the world, “SO WHAT?”
October 12, 2010
“We can always choose to perceive things differently. We can focus on what’s wrong in our life, or we can focus on what’s right.” Marianne Williamson
Many people have suggested that I start a blog. My response has always been, “What would I blog about?” I don’t consider myself to be a philosopher or expert on anything. Sure, I have opinions, but doesn’t everyone? Nope, a blog isn’t for me. But this morning, during my meditation time, I was overcome with a knowing that I have to go on the record about something.
It seems lately that I’ve been pulled into more conversations than usual with people who applaud me for keeping the store open in these “difficult economic times” and then they go on to talk about how “bad” the economy is and how people are “struggling”. I hear people accepting what the media or others are saying as the truth and I witness the emotional toll it is taking on them. Believe me, I acknowledge that the place we are in today is different than it was a few years ago (I am, after all, a retailer), and I know that many of us have been faced with challenges as we work through these changes.
But I also know that what we choose to put our attention, energy and thoughts on is what we will create. And, in particular, the words we choose to say can be so powerful and affect us to our core. Notice those words I’ve put in quote marks above – how many times do you catch yourself talking that way? Is this what you believe and, more importantly, is this how you want your world to be? I don’t. I know I can’t influence what the media chooses to tell us about their version of what is going on, but I personally have been working very hard to keep myself planted firmly in the belief that everything is working out for our highest good. I want to be part of the positive collective consciousness that can shape our world.
Alan Cohen, one of my favorite authors, asks, “How would you be feeling and acting differently if you knew that everything would turn out all right?” I ask you, for your own well-being, to give this some thought, meditate on it, and turn towards the possibilities of what is to come. Right now, in this present moment, all is well, and we can look forward to the future with joy.
