People always say you shouldn’t give away your power.  But what does that really mean and why does it happen?  Let’s look at one of the reasons people “give away their power,” three areas where it happens most often, and how accessing intuition can bring about a very different result.

The origin of this particular kind of power abdication is in the cluster of feelings that includes:

1. I’m not good enough
2. I don’t know enough, or I’m not smart enough
3. I don’t have what I need within me to accomplish my goals
4. For some, the preceding feelings are compounded by the need to conform to others’ rules in order to survive

What gets really interesting is when one interacts with some kind of authority from this cluster of “I don’t know enough” feelings. Often, the response is to just accept whatever the authority says.  There are 3 big arenas in society where this interaction happens a lot:

1. Healthcare
2. Spirituality/religion
3. Economics/politics

Obviously, these arenas are complex, so one can’t possibly know every detail within them.  However, this feeling that “I don’t know enough” blocks one’s ability to listen to their intuition or feel that they can learn enough to make a good decision independently.  So, they just go with the authority, sometimes blindly.

The intensity of “I don’t know enough” can vary from area to area.  For instance, you might be really in touch with your body and how it works, feel like you know what’s right for you spiritually, but then be completely overwhelmed by economics, feeling like there is no way for you to understand them.

When clients bring this issue to me, we talk about their natural inner knowing, which includes intuition, and its ability to bring them to the best answer for themselves.  They work on unlearning the feeling of, “I don’t know enough,” which uncovers their connection with inner knowing.  This connection is possible for each of us—we only need to remove the negative feelings that block it.

A shift toward natural, inner knowing can take many different forms.  It could involve, say, being more in tune with your body’s natural needs, instead of feeling like you have to comply with every single nutrition news release.  Or, it might be that your well-being leads you to the perfect expert or information source.  For instance, someone mentions a book or doctor out of the blue, or you just happen to run across an article that is just the information you need.  You may find more confidence in understanding and even speaking up for solutions to complex societal issues.  I have seen all of these outcomes and many more in myself and among my clients.

You might even find that you already have resources within you.  Recently, a client faced a professional situation in which someone opposed everything my client said.  My client was very frustrated and felt somewhat powerless to do his work.  As he started to shift toward his inner knowing, he was able to bring forward considerable professional experience that brought new perspective to the situation.  And, as he felt more confident in what he knew, the other man responded by relaxing and feeling more comfortable in collaborating.

Are you aware of this “I don’t know enough” feeling within yourself?  Where does it crop up and in what way does it trouble you? Please share in the comments below!

I’m always amazed at the brain’s ability to craft dreams to accomplish its goals.  Your brain creates dreams to use the feelings you experienced in the previous day to recharge your sense of self, which is the generating force behind every moment in your life.  Your brain does this dream crafting without any effort on your part—this is just a natural part of its job.

In Quanta Change, we tap into your brain’s recharging time to permanently remove layers of the negative feelings your sense of self stores.  So, when you’re going through this process, your dreams give us a window into what your brain is unlearning for you.

Sometimes, a dream is just so clear in its meaning that I am excited about it for a long time.  In the dream below, my client’s brain ingeniously used the picture of his parents in a clandestine situation to unlearn the negative feelings they trigger for him.  As a bonus, his brain made a significant change from the theme of his frequently recurring dreams, which always indicates that big change is happening.

The Dream

“I am in a big closet, but it’s not mine.  In it, there are 5 feet of my dad’s shirts.  I am trying to get them cleared out and give them to my mom, so I can have room there for my stuff.  Over and over, I clear big handfuls of shirts out.

“The scene shifts, and I’m sitting in my car talking with a friend who is standing on the sidewalk.  She is encouraging me to do something, which seems like going to see my parents.  This can’t be right, as my dad has been dead for some years, so I revise the plan in my head to just go see my mom.

“I needed to turn my car around, and my friend tells me the route to drive in order to get back into this mall where my mom is.  At the last minute, I have to make a risky move to get into the mall lot, but I do so safely.  Then, I’m on a bike, and the fastest way to get to my mom is through a grocery store, although it’s in the mall.  I realize I should walk my bike, instead of ride it.  I do, and then I’m on the other side of the store and in my car, again.

“Instead of meeting my mom, I’m meeting a colleague for lunch.  She is late, so I turn on the radio, which turns out to be a ham radio.  On it, I hear my parents talking.  I realize that my dad isn’t dead—my mom has been hiding him all these years, because she was tired of sharing him and wanted him all to herself.”

Shift Theme

(Shifting is the daytime work of Quanta Change, where you tell your brain specifically what you want it to work on during sleep.)

My client was working on unlearning the feelings of, “I don’t matter,” “I’m not worth having what I really want,” and, “it’s not safe to express what I know.”  He had an event in the two days before this dream that triggered these feelings intensely.

Context

(You bring people, places, animals, things, situations, or time frames into dreams based on the feeling that they trigger within you.  It is these triggered feelings that you unlearn in the dream.)

Recurring Dream: My client has had recurring dreams for years of being in his parents’ house, protecting either his room or his closet, usually from his siblings taking over his space or taking his clothing.

Dad: His dad triggers feelings for him that it isn’t safe for him to matter or to “be the person who knows the most.”  Deep within, my client feels that it isn’t OK to really fully exist, openly express what he knows, or have what he really wants.

Mom: His mom triggers the feeling that if there is something wrong, it should be swept under the rug as quickly as possible to be hidden, so that “everything is OK.”

Friend: This friend is encouraging and supportive of him expressing his own voice.  She triggers the feeling for him that “I matter, and it’s safe and good for me to express and be myself.”

Ham Radio: As a ham radio operator, my client has volunteered in many disaster management situations, which has given him access to knowledge before the public knows about it.  It triggers for him a sense of “I have access to information that is hidden to most.”  Also, his parents weren’t licensed ham operators, so their radio conversation was illegal.

Points of Change

(In a Quanta Change dream, each time there is something wrong and you do something about it, you permanently remove a layer of Learned Distress from your sense of self.)

1. Usually, the points of change happen within the dream.  However, when someone has a frequently recurring dream, and the new dream is a significant departure, that in itself is a change.  In this dream, instead of the typical recurring dream where he’s protecting his clothes from his siblings, he’s trying to clear his dad’s shirts out to make room for his own clothes.  His brain has shifted to working on the feelings his parents trigger for him, which are often the most intense negative feelings we store.

2. This closet is filled with his dad’s shirts, so he’s clearing them out (multiple times) to make way for his own stuff.  He is “clearing out” the feelings his dad triggers for him, all centered around “I don’t matter” to make room for the feelings of “I do matter” and “It’s safe to express myself.”  This, in itself, would have made for a high-impact unlearning dream.

3. He’s supposed to see his parents, but realizes that his dad isn’t alive, so he changes the plan to just go see his mom.  The feelings that his parents trigger aren’t in charge anymore.  He is free to base his decisions on what he knows.

4. His encouraging friend helps him navigate the route to get back to his mom, and he is able to successfully make the risky move to get into the mall parking lot.  This friend (who triggers the feeling “I do matter”) sends him on a route back to his parents, who will trigger more of the negative feelings, so he can unlearn them.  It feels risky, but there is a shift to it being safe.

5. He navigates through the grocery store and changes from riding to walking his bike.  He says that he often irritated by people who ride (rather than walk) their bikes in inappropriate places, so here again, he is shifting to operating based on what he knows.

6. His colleague is late for lunch, so he passes the time by turning on the radio, which turns out to be a ham radio.  His brain’s use of the ham radio picture shows that he has access to hidden information, which in this dream turns out to be hidden negative feelings.

7. He realizes his dad isn’t dead, and his mom has been hiding him all this time.  His brain uses the picture of his mom (who triggers for him the need to hide negative feelings) revealing that she has been hiding his dad (who triggers “I don’t matter”) as a way to uncover the even more buried feelings of “I don’t matter” that he can unlearn next.

Result

Within a couple of days, my client was already feeling more that he is worth having what will allow him to thrive.  An opportunity came up for him to help teach a class on ham radio operation to a group of volunteer firefighters, which he immediately accepted.  Teaching hasn’t been something he was comfortable with, so it’s significant that he accepted an opportunity to speak and share his knowledge.  It’s very common for opportunities like this to come “out of the blue” in this phase of the Quanta Change Cycle.  This dream was so significant that I believe we will see even more changes in the coming days and weeks.

Do you have recurring dreams?  What people, places, or things appear in these dreams, and what feeling about yourself do they trigger?   This can give you a big clue to the feelings your sense of self is recharging over and over again.

For the first 30 years of my life, getting other people’s approval was the most important thing in the world to me.  It was the main motivator in my life. I got great grades. . .mostly because that earned the approval of my parents and teachers.  I practiced the violin a LOT, got two college degrees in performance, and made that my first career. . .mostly because playing well earned the approval of parents, teachers, conductors, and audiences.  I was really nice to everyone all the time because. . .well, you can guess.

Lucky for me, the things that got me approval were mostly beneficial to me.  But, I started to see the downside when I learned that getting approval was just a way to cope with the feeling “there’s something wrong with me.”  As long as OTHERS liked me, I could ignore that voice deep inside for a little while longer.  The cost of ignoring the “something wrong with me” voice was that I also buried many other internal voices, like the one that could tell me what really mattered to ME.

I’ll never forget the time that a close friend who often was in big crisis was having yet another major drama, and I was preparing to jump in and do whatever I could to make it better.  Another friend asked me, “Do you want to rescue her again?”  It was such a perplexing question to me, nearly incomprehensible, actually.  The words, “Do you want,” just didn’t make any sense.  I realized then that I was so dependent upon others’ approval, that I rarely (if ever) stopped to wonder if I was doing something because I wanted to.  It was hard to even connect with what I wanted.

I work with clients on this issue all the time, too.  When I suggest that this survival mechanism is something they can unlearn, they get scared. ” Am I going to turn into a competitive jerk?  I don’t want to be THAT guy!”  But that never happens, because the alternative to this coping mechanism is to express one’s uniqueness, and our uniqueness is the part of us that is connected to everyone and everything else in the world.  So, expressing uniqueness actually invites others to express their uniqueness and well-being. It’s a win-win.

One of my clients recently had a big breakthrough in this realm recently.  Someone in her work group suggested a strategy that seemed like the group would agree to, but my client thought it was a bad idea.  It’s a situation she’s been in with this group before and disagreeing hasn’t gone well for her, but she did it, anyway.  And to her great surprise, the strongest voices in the group immediately agreed and said they were thinking exactly the same thing.

This is a phenomenon I see a lot – when my client makes a fundamental change how she feels about herself (this time in the realm of expressing her opinion), the people around her seem to shift their feeling and behavior towards her.  We really underestimate how much of others’ behavior towards us is directly generated from the feeling with which we express ourselves.

As for myself, I can say that life is so much easier now, not having to constantly guess what might make someone happy at any given moment.  When someone asks me what I want to do, I can actually answer and feel comfortable saying it out loud.  And that friend who was always in crisis?  When I stopped jumping in to rescue her, she started to find more inner strength and resilience, and she seems happier these days.  Like I said, it’s a win-win.

Do you do things mostly for other people’s approval or so they’ll like you?  Or do you find yourself obsessing over what other people think of you?  I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below.

The feeling that “I don’t matter” is what troubles my clients more than anything else.  ”I matter” is at the core of being human.  We inherently want to be seen and heard, and engage in the activities that matter to us.  We all absorb the feeling that “I don’t matter” early in life, in one way or another, and it becomes stored as part of our sense of self – the part of us that generates each moment of our lives.

So, since you have to keep moving through life, you need a way to survive with this awful feeling; you find some way to cope with it or keep it under control.  When it comes to the feeling of “I don’t matter,” we take one of two roads in dealing with it.  We either find ourselves being powerLESS or OVERpowering others in some way.  You probably feel much more comfortable with one of these than the other.  Here are some ways you may experience your default survival mechanism:

What Being PowerLESS Looks Like
You feel that you are unable to speak up for yourself, like there is some invisible wall that keeps you from expressing yourself.  It might feel unsafe in some way to speak up for yourself.  Or, even when you do express your opinions or desires, you are ignored.  You may feel that it’s best to not want anything, because what matters to you isn’t going to happen, anyway.  You may even find yourself pretending that it’s OK that you don’t matter or rationalizing when someone slights you. . .”Oh, she’s going through a hard time, so I’m not surprised that she forgot about our lunch date.  It’s completely fine!”  (All the while, hearing that awful voice inside say, “See?  You really don’t matter.”)

What OVERpowering Looks Like
You may make sure to hold the power in any situation, to be the strongest voice in the room.  You might ignore others’ opinions or requests, consciously or not.  Maybe your knee-jerk reaction in any situation is that you have to get your way or that you have to automatically oppose what someone else has said.  Other people always tell you that “it’s all about you” and “you have all the power,” even if that’s not something you’re consciously trying to accomplish.

So, what’s the solution to dealing with “I don’t matter”?  To go in the opposite direction from what your default is?  If you’re in the powerless category, become “empowered” or “learn to stand up for yourself”?  If you’re in the overpowering category, just try to stay quiet or become a people-pleaser?  Neither of these tends to be very successful.

Here’s why it doesn’t work: While we think that we’re interacting with others on a conscious level – just reacting in a rational way to what they say or do – what’s really going on is that we’re always interacting on a level that we’re mostly unconscious of.  You may be aware of this sensing system in certain situations like:

1. You walk into a room where people have just been arguing.  There’s nothing physical you can point to as evidence, but you can just feel it.
2. A certain person always bugs you.  You can’t figure out why they irritate you, but you can’t stand being around them.
3. Someone walks into a room, and you know instantly that this is the person who will lead in this situation.

When someone consciously tries to act in the way that is opposite of their default survival mechanism, we usually feel it and reject it (often without realizing it or understanding our reaction).  For example, take the powerless person who “finds her power and stands up for herself.”  Often, the response is either that she is rebuked for being so presumptuous or ignored altogether.  That’s because the energy underlying her message is not only “I don’t matter,” but also, “It’s not SAFE for me to matter,” so she gets exactly that feedback.

The Alternative to Being Powerless or Overpowering
So, there has to be another option to just acting the opposite way.  I call that option “allowing power to come THROUGH.”  And specifically, that power comes from our soul.  Or, you might think of it as your higher self, or the part of you connected to God or Source.  It’s the part of you that is connected to everyone and everything else.  So, in contrast to powerlessness (being “under” everyone else) or overpowering (being “over” everyone else), this power is something that works with and for everyone, including you.

What does allowing power to come through look like?  For the formerly powerless, they feel seen and heard more, without making any special effort.  They may be asked for their opinion more, asked for what they want to do, or invited to lead something.  This is usually a bit shocking to them!  For the formerly overpowering, they feel more able to work with others easily, to listen to other points of view, and they are honored for their uniqueness, instead of being considered overbearing or intimidating.

What is your default?  Have you tried going the opposite direction, and if so, what was the reaction to it?  I’d love to hear about your thoughts and experience in the comments.

A client called me yesterday, very disturbed about a dream in which he tried to shoot his mom.  As I always do with this type of dream, I got really excited for him.  The only thing that can be “killed” in a dream is Learned Distress, the feeling that “there is something wrong with me being just as I am.”  And, the intensity of a dream indicates the intensity of Learned Distress that is removed permanently.

Removing layers of Learned Distress reveals more of someone’s natural well-being, the energy that allows them to feel good and fulfill their life’s purpose.  So, a dream like this is very productive, whether one is the attacker or the attacked.  Let’s take a look at the mechanics of this dream.

The Dream:  My client’s mom is just finishing a shower and he is going to kill her.  He grabs two pistols and storms through the house, opening and going through a whole series of doors, at least 4 or 5, before reaching her bedroom, where she is drying off and getting dressed.  He raises the pistols and pulls the trigger on them both, one in each hand, but both just click.  He forgot to check if they were loaded, and they were not.  He feels kind of stupid, because the element of surprise is ruined.  She doesn’t seem upset or surprised – as if this were a matter of course.  He is immediately thinking of a recovery plan, which is to hurry back into the other room, load the pistols and return, in hopes she’ll be in the same position.  He leaves the room to load the pistols and then wakes up.

Shift Theme: (Shifting is the daytime work of Quanta Change, where you tell your brain specifically what you want it to work on during sleep.)  His shift theme was about uncovering the way to achieve what matters to him, especially to discover how he can best serve humanity.

Context: (You bring people, places, animals, things, situations, or time frames into dreams based on the feeling that they trigger within you.  It is these triggered feelings that you remove layers of within the dream.)

The most prominent feeling his mom triggers for him is that he is frustrated that she has spent the last 25 years doing nothing but sitting on the couch drinking and smoking, and reading and watching TV.  And, he said that when he gets frustrated with her, it triggers the fear that he isn’t doing enough, himself.  He has felt addicted to various things over the years, and has felt that his addictions were getting in the way of him doing something really worthwhile.  So, the feeling he’s “shooting” in the dream is one of being blocked from accomplishing his bigger goals.

Points of Change:  (In a Quanta Change dream, each time there is something wrong and you do something about it, you permanently remove a layer of Learned Distress from your sense of self.)

1: The doorways he’s going through were significant to him – each doorway he made it through was a point of change.
2: He tries to shoot her, but realizes the pistols weren’t loaded.  He feels stupid for not checking on that.  Even having a realization and thoughts like these can be a point of change.
3. In response to the failure, he comes up with a recovery plan.
4: He actually moves into the other room to try and reload the pistols.

Result:  What we’ll be watching for over the next week or so is something different in his understanding of how he can best serve humanity and accomplish his goals.  This may come in the form of realizing the kind of service work that feels right to him, of having some kind of pathway open up, or realizing something he is addicted to that is standing in the way of finding his service work.  What I know is that it will come out of the blue, will not be something that he has to “figure out,” and will bring a new level of ease in the realm of achievement.

Do you have intense dreams and if so, what is happening in them?  What are the people, places, or things that tend to show up in these dreams?  Answering these questions can give you a clue to what your brain is working on during sleep for you.

Growing up and through my 20s, I was the kind of person who liked to give. . .a lot.  In fact, I often gave so much that my parents, teachers, and friends would really question me on it or even get mad at me.  And, I was often giving to people who didn’t reciprocate at the same level.  In the back of my head, I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t really know what it was yet.

Then I learned that for me, giving was a survival mechanism.  I didn’t feel capable of doing things all on my own, so I felt dependent on others for help.  I gave to them in hopes of getting back whatever I needed.  Traditionally, this is called co-dependence, and while that label absolutely fits, what really helped me was to understand that I felt giving was the only way to survive, even when it started to feel bad.

Others give from survival-based places, also.  For some, survival depends on doing what they “should” or on trying to make everything and everyone around them OK.  If you’re not one of these people, you probably know someone who is.  They might say things like:

“It’s not about ME. I just want whatever YOU want.”

“Oh, I don’t need anything. As long as my family (or significant other or friend) has what they need, I’m fine.”

“I don’t even have time to think about what I need.  I have to take care of all the people who will fall apart unless I help them.”

All of these survival mechanisms are based on burying one’s own wants and needs.  That seems OK – it’s better to give than receive, selflessness is a virtue, etc.. . . right?  These are nice ideas, but when giving is based on denying one’s own wants and needs, it ultimately falls apart.

A tree is a great example of what I’m talking about.  Trees give oxygen, shade, beauty.  But they can only do so when they sustain themselves first.  And, they have everything they need within them to do that.  They draw what they need from their own roots and leaves.  They’re not grabbing onto the leaf of another tree to get what they need or tending to all the other trees in the forest, instead of themselves.  That would be ridiculous, but it is exactly what so many of us have tried to do.

We, too, have our own roots and leaves, and they draw from our well-being and uniqueness, the energy that can sustain us and provide what we’re here to share with the world.  But, our access to well-being gets cut off.  Early in life, we absorb the feeling that “there is something wrong with me being just the way that I am.”  As this negative feeling, called Learned Distress, becomes embedded in our sense of “how it is to be human,” we feel that we need something outside of ourselves in order to survive.

So, we feel dependent on getting other people’s help, or on making everything the way it “should be,” or on everyone around us being OK.  We operate that way as long as we can, but at some point, our energy gets depleted and that survival mechanism stops working.  Our leaves shrivel up and turn brown, and we have no oxygen or shade left to give.

When I begin to talk with clients about removing layers of this Learned Distress, they’re sometimes afraid that they’ll lose their generous nature.  But that isn’t the case at all.  When your roots and leaves tap into your well-being, you have a much more abundant place from which to give.  Generosity feels completely different. . .freer, easier, more joyous, and completely sustainable.  Your natural well-being is a bottomless well, so your ability to give in a way that nourishes you and benefits others just keeps flowing.

Have you ever felt like giving was depleting you?  Have you ever felt that your survival depended on giving in some way, even if it felt like too much?  I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the comments.

12 years ago, my mentor and colleague Mimi Herrmann said to me, “You hate competition. But you’re very competitive.”  I quickly said something like, “Shhhhhhh!!!  No one knows, and I’d like to keep it that way!”  When you have my personality pattern, it doesn’t feel safe to be competitive.  In my first career as a professional violinist, I would go to symphony orchestra auditions, which are very competitive, and make friends with everyone, encourage them to do well, but be secretly thinking to myself, “But not too well, because I want to win!”

Since then, I’ve done a lot of work to unlearn my buried competitive tendencies, and I’ve thought a lot about this subject.  As a violin teacher, I’ve seen the benefit of competition for students.  Most kids won’t push themselves to master a something as hard as playing the violin without the incentive of “sitting at the front of the orchestra.”  I certainly didn’t, nor have any of my students.  And trust me, you don’t want to hear an orchestra full of players who haven’t pushed themselves towards perfection.

But then, I look at what I’ve gleaned from work on my own competition issues and those of my Quanta Change clients.  There, I see a very different and detrimental aspect to competition.  It is an issue that stands squarely in opposition to expressing your uniqueness.  You can have one or the other, but not both at the same time.  And expressing your uniqueness is what you’re on the planet to do, so maybe competition isn’t such a good thing.

Competition and uniqueness are built on different platforms.  Competition is based on scarcity.  There’s a winner and a loser for everything, and you either try to win it or bury that need to win it.  If you’re one of the people who is saying, “But wait, I’m just not competitive,” you’re like me – you’ve buried the need to win.  I chose a competitive field, so that buried feeling was revealed to me, but you may have it so under wraps that you’re not even aware of it.  In any case, whether you compete or avoid competing, the way you relate to other people will very often be driven by that feeling.

Uniqueness, on the other hand, is built on a platform that is limited only by the number of souls in the universe.  Each of us has a unique gift and voice that is ours alone.  You can’t compete for something that is already yours, and no one can win it away from you.  Nor can you take anyone else’s from them.

A bonus of the uniqueness platform is that it breeds cooperation and teamwork.  Each person brings something different to the party, and everyone’s gifts work together.  When I was a kid in orchestra, it was hard to see that.  Winning the seat closest to the front of the orchestra was the only thing that mattered.  But once I started playing in professional orchestras, it didn’t matter where I sat.  On a very practical level, nearly everyone was being paid the same, playing the same music, and dealing with the same work issues.  And I started to learn that smart orchestras actually put some of the strongest players in the back of the violin section, because that helps keep everything together.  So sitting in the dreaded “last chair” became an honor.

From some bad gigs, I also started to understand the importance of every single player doing their part.  When only a couple of violinists in a section of 20 are playing the music well, the result is awful.  It might not be as glamorous to play in a violin section as it is to play principal flute, but a Brahms symphony only sounds good when all 80 people on stage are playing their own parts well. And of course, this counts for every position and job in society, no matter how humble it seems.

So, in the contest between competition and uniqueness, the latter wins for me, hands down.  I know we’re not getting rid of competition in our society any time soon, but I think we’ll be better off when we do.  I’m curious about your thoughts on this subject.   Please share them in the comments below.

“Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.” ~ Plato

“Really, everyone?”  15 years ago, that would have been my response to Plato.  There are lots of people in the world who show their battles clearly, and I think I find compassion easily for anyone who is having a rough time.   But what about the people who don’t seem to need my empathy or compassion?

There are a couple kinds of people who have fallen into this category for me, not surprisingly people who move through life differently than I do.  One is the type who always seems to have it all together, who is continually saying, “Everything’s great!”  My knee-jerk response in the past was, “Must be nice!”

But my view has changed after working with many people like this as clients.  They are actually working incredibly hard to maintain their ideal-looking life.  They show up at my door when that effort has become overwhelming.  When I say to them, “You accomplish everything you set your mind to, but it’s very hard work, and it’s getting harder all the time,” they usually sigh heavily and agree.  Often, I’m the first person who has ever recognized their struggle to keep what doesn’t feel good under control and work like crazy to keep everything together.  And, they usually tell me that they didn’t even see how hard they were working until it started to feel impossible.  From that, I have found compassion for those who don’t yet realize that they are fighting some kind of battle, as well as those who feel the struggle but just don’t show it to the rest of us.

Another kind of person who hasn’t seemed to need my compassion is the know-it-all, win-at-all-costs type.  A friend who fits that bill gave me great insight into his internal battle one day.  I had seen him completely take over a situation in a way that wasn’t appropriate.  When I asked why he did it, his answer really surprised me.  He said he felt unsure of himself and he panicked, and that his response to panic is to take over.  When I panic, I get quiet and try to take care of everyone around me, so the idea that someone would do exactly the opposite was a revelation.  As a result, I view people who are dictatorial or super-competitive in a much more compassionate way now.

To understand other people’s battles, I have found it helpful to look through the lens of “Learned Distress,” which is the fear that “there is something wrong with me being just as I am.”  We all absorbed this feeling early in life and it becomes the source of moments that don’t feel good to us.  When I really got that everyone is walking around with the fear that there something wrong with them, it gave me an entirely new perspective on the people I meet.

When I see people behaving negatively these days, I stop and wonder to myself what fear is driving that moment for them.  Is it that someone might see they aren’t perfect?  That their current situation is straying beyond the boundaries of what feels safe to them (even if it seems completely innocuous to me)?  That if this particular situation doesn’t fit their ideal, that the world might fall apart?  Even if I can’t figure out the specifics, I find it incredibly helpful to say to myself, “Oh!  They’re just scared!”

What sorts of people is it hard for you to find compassion for?  What do you think their fears might be?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

You embrace some form saying, “I am this.”
By God, you are not this or that or the other.
You are “Unique One,” “Heart-ravishing.”
~Rumi

I have the privilege of helping people discover this about themselves every day.  It can be a challenge – so often, our uniqueness is hidden from us.  Your wants, your needs, what really matters to you – these things are the key to uncovering your uniqueness.  When I ask my clients what it would feel like to have what matters to them, here are the typical responses that I get:

1. That sounds VERY selfish, Sara!
2. I don’t even know what matters to me.
3. If I have what I want, it will take something away from someone else.
4. I usually get what I want, but others are always telling me it’s at their expense, so it rarely feels good.

Here’s my response to all of those objections:  You have a unique place and voice in the world.  You could think of it as an electrical outlet and you are a lamp.  When you are plugged in, there is more light for everyone.  How could you be taking something away from anyone else when this place and voice is yours alone?  And how could it be selfish to shed more light in the world?

If you don’t know what matters to you or feel unsafe in having it, there’s a good reason – it all comes back to survival.  Early in life, we all take on the feeling of “I don’t matter” in some form and store it in our sense of self, which is the generating force behind every moment of our lives.  Then, of course, as we get older, we keep having situations where we feel like “I don’t matter.”  To survive with this awful feeling, we either bury it as deeply as we can so we don’t feel it, or we “take over” in situations with others to get what we need, even if we feel that it is at the expense of others (and they tell us that it is!).  Either way, it feels less safe all the time to have what matters to us – and therefore, express our uniqueness.

Here’s how things typically unfold when I start to work on this very common issue with my clients.  First, I start helping them feel safe to first know what they want or what matters to them, and then feel safe in having it.  They work on feeling safe expressing their uniqueness.  Then, we branch that out to knowing that everyone benefits when they express their unique voice.  As this shift takes place, amazing things start to happen.  People around them start to inquire about my clients’ opinions, what they would like to do in some situation – or even sometimes, people around them just start doing something that shows clients that they really do matter.

I was just talking with someone today who has been working a lot on “I don’t matter.”  He just got a raise out of the blue and was told that he was the only person who got one, and that he was doing really good work.  Just two weeks ago, this client told me that he was thinking about leaving his job, because he felt so undervalued by this same boss who has now given him a raise.  (He had not said or done anything at work to elicit this change.)  That is the real magic that I get to witness a lot – namely, that it is how we feel that generates our situations, not what we do.

Do you know what really matters to you?  Do you feel safe having it and expressing it in the world?  Or does it feel safer to, as Rumi says, “Embrace some form and say, ‘I am this’”?  I’d love to hear about your experience – please comment below.  I always respond, so be sure to check back later for comments.

I heard the best dream yesterday and just had to tell you about it.  The most productive time of day is when we’re dreaming – it’s when we recharge the sense of self and in Quanta Change, it’s when we permanently remove layers of the negative feeling called Learned Distress.  Well, the client who had this dream got a LOT of work done in it.  She went all the way back to high school, when the feeling “I don’t matter” got intensified in a big way for her, and she unlearned a big chunk of it in this dream.

The Dream:  She’s in a large warehouse where there are many rows of folding chairs set up and a podium at the front. It seems like a church service to her, but everyone is wearing street clothes instead of “church clothes.”  She only recognizes one person.  It’s her boyfriend from high school and college, and he’s sitting in the middle of the front row.  She’s wearing a wedding dress and realizes that she’s here to marry him.  But, no one else is dressed for a wedding, there are no flowers, etc.  There is nowhere for her to sit, so she just wanders around waiting for the part of the service when they’ll get married.  She thinks to herself, “Why did I even bother with this dress?  Obviously, no one else made the effort.  I could have come in regular clothes and we could have done this without any fuss.”

Shift Theme: (Shifting is the daytime work of Quanta Change, where you tell your brain specifically what you want it to work on during sleep.  Unlike some kinds of dream work, you aren’t consciously directing your dreams, so this is the way you direct your change.)  Her shift theme was about speaking openly about what matters to her.

Context: (You bring people, places, animals, things, situations, or time frames into dreams based on the feeling that they trigger within you.  It is these triggered feelings that you unlearn in the dream.)

She described the former boyfriend as the love of her life in high school and college.  During high school, he didn’t openly break up with her, but started dating another girl.  My client was devastated, but stayed silent.  During college, he called her out of the blue, and they started dating again – without her ever mentioning the high school break-up.  Whenever he would call, they would date. He often disappeared for periods of time.  Whenever he showed up again, she completely rearranged her schedule around him and put a lot of effort into making it all work.  So, the feeling that she is unlearning in the dream is “I don’t matter (and the only way to survive is to cater to the whims of someone who doesn’t really care about me).”

Point of Change: (In a Quanta Change dream, each time there is something wrong and you do something about it, you permanently remove a layer of Learned Distress from your sense of self.)

In this dream, the point of change is when she realizes she’s the only one who went to any trouble for this and thinks to herself, “Why did I even bother?  I didn’t need to go to the trouble of wearing this dress.  No one else went to any trouble.”  At that moment, she unlearned a big layer of “I don’t matter.”

Result: This is one in a series of dreams she has had over the past couple of months in this theme of “I don’t matter.”  She is seeing an overall direction toward just doing what feels right to her, instead of denying her own needs in favor of those around her.  She’s seeing what often surprises people like her when it happens – that the people around her don’t feel negatively affected and that they love her as much as they ever have.  And more importantly, she feels better because she’s actually taking care of herself in a way that she never has felt able to do.

What is the last dream you can remember?  Who or what was in the dream and what feeling about yourself do they trigger?  This can give you a big clue to the feelings your sense of self is recharging every night.