John wanted to see his grandson more. He had been stewing on this for months, trying to decide how to convince his daughter to allow him more time with this child that he loved and enjoyed so much.
I’d been working with John for a couple years, so I knew something about his background, and I also knew where he was headed in his leading edge of personal growth. He knew what kind of person he wanted to be, and he was succeeding in becoming that person.
Like many men of his generation, John was taught that his feelings didn’t matter much, and throughout his life he had been quick to anger. He was accustomed to using anger to get his way, although he had discovered that this was becoming less and less satisfying.
John had recently decided that he cared about how he felt. He wanted to feel good, and he was starting to assess himself on that criteria. He observed his own patterns of thought and feeling and behavior to see which ones were in alignment with his desire to feel good, and which ones were out of alignment with his desire to feel good. He put his discoveries to quick use, determinedly re-shaping every facet of himself to be in alignment with the clarity he had discovered: He cared about how he felt, and he wanted to feel good.
Everything was assessed on this basis… Does it feel good? Will it feel good?
He knew it did not feel good to be seeing his grandson this infrequently, and he was gearing up to give his daughter a piece of his mind.
“I’m pissed off” was his opening remark as we started our weekly session. As we continued, I guided John in his practice of assessing his self-alignment.
Was it feeling good to be angry with daughter? Nope.
Was calling her up and telling her off likely to feel good? Also no.
What would feel good?
“Seeing my grandson more.”
I invited John to focus on that, and I asked him to tell me about what he liked about spending time with his grandson. As John described the joy he felt with his grandson, I felt his anger quickly melt. I could feel joy and love become the dominant emotions in him as he was speaking.
“There, bring that to your conversation with your daughter,” I told him, “That right there, that feeling of joy and love… get connected to that, and THEN phone her. Get connected to what you want, activate those good feelings, get solidly embodied in those feelings, and then have the conversation that you really want to have.”
John got what I was saying. He phoned his daughter that week, told her how much he loved spending time with his grandson, and asked if he could have more time with his grandson. She responded with an enthusiastic and resounding “Yes!”
That was a couple years ago now, and I’ve enjoyed hearing stories nearly every week about the fun things those two get up to. Their relationship has blossomed, and so has the relationship with the daughter. In fact, all of John’s relationships have blossomed. Friendships, employees, business colleagues, community members… There’s always a new story about how some interaction or another went better than it ever would have or could have before.
I’ve enjoyed helping John take that same process and principle and apply it to all sorts of circumstances and situations. I’ve watched him pivot his focus from what he does not want, and how that is making him feel, to what he does want, and how that is making him feel, and then choosing his actions accordingly.
It’s useful to break this down once more so that you really get the simplicity and power of this process.
The first step is to decide how you want to feel. Get clarity on this. How you feel matters a lot because it determines your quality of life experience. Next, practice activating thoughts and perspectives, memories, imagination, and beliefs, that align with and support how you want to feel. Then, once you are embodying that state in a stable and enjoyable way, take the action that feels good. Do the thing. Make the phone call. Enter the meeting. Write the email. Ask for the raise. Ask for the date. Make the offer. Go to the party or event.
When you take action from a state of clarity, enjoyment, and well-being, you create more of the same. The inner preparation and fine-tuning that you do with your thoughts and feelings sets the course for your behavior and outer action, and when you act from a place of well-being your actions reflect this and tend to create more of the same. A wonderful kind of biofeedback loop is created, and it grows as you feed it with your appreciation.
[Note – The name in this story has been changed for privacy and the baby photo is a stock photo.]
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