Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Repeat to Learn

Years ago, a client recounted a story she’d heard about a marketing campaign for a well known shampoo. In an attempt to sell more shampoo, the marketing team came up with the slogan “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” to convince people, essentially, to wash their hair twice every time they washed it, thus, using twice as much shampoo as they really needed to.

While repetition might be unnecessary when it comes to washing hair, it’s an essential part of our learning process. Most of the lessons we learn from early childhood on are mastered because we repeat them until they become part of our thought process. For some things, like learning the alphabet, songs, or other mnemonic devices have been developed to trigger our memories to engage and retain.

There was even a scene in, if memory serves, “Akita and the Bee” where music was used to help remember how to spell words. Musicians might recall memorizing “every good boy deserves fudge” and “face” or some variation when learning to read music. Essentially, it’s about finding the patterns.

Learn Your Own Way

When learning a new line dance, beginners are given every step, while intermediate and advanced dancers might be given patterns like “sailor step”, “weave”, “Dorothy/Wizard”, “Coaster step” and many more. Learning becomes easier when, instead of needing to learn each step, you simply have to remember an 8-count pattern. Thus, a 32-count dance becomes 4 patterns, and a 64-count becomes 8. Consider how much easier it is to memorize 4 pieces rather than 32!

Hopefully, part of the learning process you were taught from early childhood wasn’t just memorizing someone else’s patterns, but learning to find your own. Let’s face it. We don’t all learn the same way, so why would one person’s pattern recognition work for everyone. The mere fact some people think in pictures or patterns, others in mathematical equations, and not just the words we’re initially taught should give you pause. Add in the ones who, like me, are non-linear thinkers and you might begin to realize how someone else’s pattern recognition causes us frustration.

We don’t want or need the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle which, in fact, clutters up our thinking process with what to us are extraneous steps. We know rinse follows lather without having to include it in our conscious process. In fact, in my experience, not only does what we learn evolve over time, but how we learn as well.

Finding Your Learning Fit

At first, we follow what we’re told, even when it’s a poor fit. That poor fit is what drives us to figure out what will work for our unique, non-cookie cutter brains. With limited experience, we might find something that works for now; a kind of coping mechanism for learning. As our knowledge and study skills become more sophisticated, we might find methods which take fuller advantage of our unique abilities, and derive methods which further simplify our own process.

We might also discover we need to employ different methods depending on what we’re trying to learn. But one thing rarely disappears, and that’s the need for repetition. It’s the repetition that puts it in our muscle memory so we no longer need to think through the steps in order to remember how something is done. Using the line dance example, after enough repetition, be it actually dancing the steps, or running through it in your head (one of my methods), as soon as the dance is called, or the music comes on, my body automatically responds. In fact, if I try to think through the steps once it’s committed to muscle memory, I’ll invariable mess myself up. Trusting the process and the results of that process are an integral part of solidifying what I’ve learned through repetition.

I’ve also learned (and this may only work for me) once I get to the point where I can walk through the dance in my head without hesitation, I’m more likely to be able to dance it…also without hesitation. As we all learn differently, this isn’t going to work for everyone. Some of us can read and follow a step sheet while others need to have someone teach us the steps while we get up and follow them. Having learned and forgotten hundreds of dances in my 30+ years of line dancing, I tend to pick things up more easily. As a result, I prefer things which are more challenging with less common patterns and unusual arrangements of the common ones. If I can learn a dance while sitting on a bar stool, I guarantee you I won’t be getting up to dance it very often…if at all.

Challenging or Simple: It’s Up to You

The point of my last sentence is to emphasize the fact that not only do we each learn things in our own way, but that some of us prefer simpler things, while others want to challenge our brains to remember, and successfully execute the ones we have to put extra effort into learning in the first place. It doesn’t mean you’re more or less intelligent. It simply means you learn in different sized chunks. Just because you prefer the smaller ones doesn’t mean we don’t reach the same point eventually.

So whether or not you need your instructions down to the level of “Lather, Rinse, Repeat”, jump right to the end, or somewhere in between, own your learning style, and allow it to evolve with the amount of information you’ve entered into that amazing database called your brain. The only thing I’d advise against is to think you’ve learned enough, and to stop learning.

Grateful for My Own Learning Style

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for new and different opportunities to learn.
2. I’m grateful for learning my brain hates getting bogged down in extraneous details.
3. I’m grateful for continuing to evolve and grow my learning style.
4. I’m grateful for attracting other non-linear thinkers, many of whom share my propensity towards and ADD brain.
5. I’m grateful for writing inspiration, even when, like this post, I had to sit on it overnight in order to complete it.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful. In her spare time, she’s also an accountant with extensive experience in Government Contracting.

Set Intentions, Not Resolutions

One Intention is Worth a Thousand Resolutions

Photo-Amanda Slater via Flikr

Let’s face it. Resolutions are meant to be broken. Intentions are not. Perhaps it’s because resolutions come from the brain without any real, emotional attachment, while intentions come from the heart, and perhaps even the soul, where your passion lies waiting for something to ignite it.

To be honest, I haven’t bothered with New Year’s resolutions in decades because I never took them seriously enough to alter my behavior. When I did make them, it was the usual stuff: lose x pounds (before I learned using the word “lose” implied I’d want to find them later, which I did, and then some), get a better job, find Mr. Right…the usual meaningless twaddle. I never put my heart and soul behind any of it, so none of it manifested.

Now that I’m older, and hopefully a little wiser, I manifest a lot, but it isn’t because I make resolutions. It’s because I set intentions, and super-charge them by imagining my world when they’ve already manifested. I’ve also learned when manifestation is delayed, it’s usually because I’m getting in my own way with a counter-intention.

Getting Out of Your Own Way

For example, I was having a tough time getting my career as a freelancer moving at more than a snail’s pace. The clients I did attract were anything but my ideal clients. In fact, we fit about as well as a shoe that’s 5 sizes too big, leaving lots of room to shift, and chafe.

I realized my biggest problem lay in denying the skill set I’d spent over 30 years studying, learning, building and growing. I was so focused on making it as a writer, I lost sight of what already worked.

Somehow, I’d gotten it into my head I had to toss the accounting skills out the window in order to attract writing clients I’d love working with. Once I accepted, and even embraced the special niche I have in managing accounting for Government contractors, and small businesses, the road blocks slipped away almost magically. In their place came clients who either utilized my skills in Government contract, or small business accounting, or needed a writer with accounting knowledge.

Manifesting Smoothly, and Easily

Photo-BLM via Flikr

That doesn’t mean I don’t still write for people who help others like coaches, therapists, authors, and more. It simply means I’ve stopped self-sabotaging by blocking out the ones who want and need the accounting side of my brain too. The beauty of it all is I can work on one or the other until I get stuck, frustrated, or finished with a task, then switch to the other side of my brain to work on something else. My ADD brain has never been happier, or more fulfilled.

The best part is, all the intentions I’ve been setting, and feeling frustrated over how slowly they were manifesting have now moved into a place where they flow easily and smoothly. All along, I knew that’s how it was supposed to work. I watched it happening for many of my fellow freelancers and entrepreneurs, but couldn’t engage the magic for myself until I identified the clog, and removed it.

Another aspect of manifesting your intentions is when and where you make them. Speaking them aloud, or silently is all well and fine, and it certainly works. But nothing gives an intention more power than writing it down long hand. Doing so engages the connection between your mind and heart, so they’re on the same page, so to speak. It may also show you where you’re getting in your own way, and blocking the flow.

Changing Your Intentions as You Learn and Grow

It’s important to understand your wants and desires can change as you go along. What you believe with all your heart you want today can, and will change as you learn more about what it is you think you want, what’s out there for the attracting, and what will still fulfill you as you learn and grow.

Some of it is as simple as maturity; your 15-year-old self couldn’t possibly know what would fulfill your 30-, 50- or 60-year-old self. Some of it has to do with an ever-changing world. The rest has to do with an ever-changing you. A career path that looked great in your 20s might lose its luster as the years go by. You might find something you love more than the path your originally chose, or discover aspects of your choice which smother rather than feed you.

What many don’t realize is you don’t have to choose a single path for your entire life. You’re allowed to change your mind. Just beware of shiny object syndrome. Do your homework before you leap, unless, like me, the original path is sucking your soul dry. I’ll be the first to admit there is a time and a place to take the leap, even if you don’t know how you’re going to stay aloft. Sometimes, you have to trust your own wings, which in many are driven by stubbornness, and tenacity.

Feel Free to Experiment

It’s no coincidence I was guided to write this post for New Year’s Eve Day. I want you to know you have choices. The biggest, and one of the most important as far as I’m concerned is whether to set intentions when your heart is full of joy and passion, or make resolutions based on a date on the calendar. Which do you think has a greater chance of success?

You have the choice of whether to stay the course no matter what, or allow yourself to test, evaluate, and tweak your intentions as new information becomes available (and it always does!).

Life is a science experiment. Sometimes, you get the results you want, and proceed accordingly. You can continue doing the same thing, even when you begin to lose enthusiasm or interest for the project like so many people do, or when you lose ground to others who are evolving with the industry. Or you can choose to look into other options, whether it’s expanding on your current knowledge, skills and talents, or taking them in an entirely new direction.

Choices and Risk Tolerance

Whether you realize it or not, staying stuck in something that no longer makes you feel excited is a choice. Granted, it may be the safe choice, which is why so many choose it. If you’re change-, or risk averse, it’s probably the right choice for you. In essence, you’ve chosen security over a life filled with joy and excitement.

As for me, I’m willing to take a few risks, and even fall flat on my face a hundred times if it means I get to live the life of my dreams, and best of all, keep the afore-mentioned ADD brain happy by giving it lots of variety, and a few puzzles to solve.

Grateful for Choices and Intentions

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for learning I could set intentions.
2. I’m grateful for the ability to test, revise, tweak, and even change direction entirely.
3. I’m grateful for choices.
4. I’m grateful for the ability to visualize what I want to manifest.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; choices, opportunities, amazing clients, happiness, joy, fulfillment, options, diversity, love, peace, harmony, balance, health, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.

Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming releases of ” Rebuilding After Suicide” and “Sasha’s Journey”.

Ease of Life is a Conscious Choice

You Have a Right to Ease

I learned fairly late in life I deserve a life of ease. It doesn’t mean I sit around eating bon bons all day and expect the world to drop everything I want or need on my doorstep. Instead, it means my life needn’t be an uphill battle all the time. But it took some serious soul-searching on my part to figure out what path would make me happy, fulfilled, and wanting to  out of bed every morning to make it happen.

By the time I was 58, I knew it didn’t involve working according to someone else’s time schedule, or even being around people every day. I realized I’m task driven rather than inclined to run my life according to numbers on a clock. Give me a task and a deadline, and I’ll meet or beat it every time. Tell me I have to sit at a desk from 8 to 5 with an hour off for lunch if I’m lucky, and every cell in my being rebels.

I’ve yet to give myself a regular bedtime, for crying out loud! I go to bed when I’m tired, which typically falls anywhere from 11:30 to 3. Admittedly, I’ve made great strides in getting up at about the same time every day, but the battle wasn’t easily won until I offered myself incentives for doing so.

Doing What You Love, and Loving What You Do

Slacking off all day long because I don’t feel like doing any work is all well and fine once in awhile, and as a reward for major accomplishments, but I found it was as damaging to my soul as trying to march to the beat of someone else’s drum—or time clock. As with everything, there’s a happy medium. It took a lot of trial and error to find mine, and frankly, it’s still a work in progress.

Slowly but surely, I’ve been adding tasks to my daily activities, but never with a specific time on it. For example, I try to get my daily gratitude posts done by 10, and my Facebook Lives before noon. As I add more to my early morning routine, those parameters continue to prove viable.

If the time comes when they don’t, I’ll reassess, and either change the parameters, or move something that’s hindering success. With no one standing behind me demanding I be somewhere, or do something according to their own, mostly arbitrary schedule, I’m free to adjust and expand in my own time and space.

Live by Your Own Rules

Being in control of my whats, whens, and wheres creates an ease no amount of cutting back on expectations could do. In fact, I’m inclined to increase my expectations given the flexibility of my schedule. Knowing I can work for hours on end if I want to, or take a day or two off because I’ve gotten ahead of my self-defined schedule are incredible motivators.

For a creative like me, it also means those pesky writer’s blocks are virtually non-existent. As long as I sit in front of the computer and put my fingers on the keys, I know words will flow. I might have to prime the pump a bit at times, but usually it’s because I’m stuck in my head, and need to throw my analytical, critical side a bone so it’ll get out of the way and let my creative side wander where it will without restraints.

Essentially, ease of life doesn’t mean acting like you’re retired, or on a perpetual vacation. It simply means finding what you love to do whether or not you’re getting paid for it, and when and where you do it best. Until everyone is a clone of the same “perfect” being, what works for you needn’t be what works for me, or anyone else. You spend far too much time forcing yourself into someone else’s schedule as it is.

Learn What Suits You Best

As a child, you go to bed and get up when your parents tell you to. You go to school during certain hours, do homework, eat dinner, bathe, and even play on someone else’s schedule. If you go to college, you might choose your classes and the times they meet, but invariably, you’ll need one that meets outside your prime time.

And don’t get me started about your first job, or even a lifetime of them. As long as you’re working for someone else, you’re at the mercy of their idea of a work day. Sure, there are certain employers and industries who offer a flexible work schedule, but they are the exception, not the rule.

I learned I work best when left to my own space and time, and left alone to do it. Let me work from home on my own computer where I can get a snack or cup of coffee whenever I like, and don’t have to share a bathroom. I guarantee you’ll get a lot more out of me than when you expect me to show up looking presentable at a certain time and perform like a trained seal between certain hours, whether there are tasks to be completed or not. I proved long ago I get more done in 4 hours of working from home than I’ll ever do in 8 or more hours of working in an office. The people-yness alone keeps me from doing my best work.

Love What You Do

With telephones, online meeting programs, email, and instant messaging, I get to set my own work space, both physically and temporally. If I need to focus, I can shut all external annoyances off for a little while, checking in only when I hit a stopping point. Even today, one of my favorite tools is DND. I administer it frequently, and liberally. Seldom is anything so urgent it can’t wait an hour or two for a response.

If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. Marc Anthony

Sadly, our society is stuck in an antiquated value system that says you have to work hard to succeed, and anyone who doesn’t can’t possibly be successful. Yet how many people follow their passion, and work becomes a labor of love, a game, or playtime instead of drudgery? It doesn’t mean you can’t create a schedule for work vs. recreation time. But if you have to put 40 or more hours a week into something, who says you can’t enjoy it?

Not Just for Creatives

Sure, it’s easy to see why writers and other artists love what they do, and want to do it. Why can’t the same be true for engineers, accountants, or even lawyers? I knew a woman once who found joy in being a file clerk. Getting paid to keep things neat and organized was her happy place.

Why shouldn’t everyone get to find their happy place, work-wise, and pursue it? If nothing else, they’re more likely to put their heart and soul into their work, thereby creating a better product, whatever that might be.

Yet many people are brainwashed into fitting a mold from infancy. Some accept it as truth, and plod through life in a job they hate, looking for ways to numb the anger and frustration killing their spirit and poisoning their soul. Others recognize there’s something wrong, but can’t quite put their finger on it. The lucky ones recognize they’ve been fed a pack of lies, and do their best, with mixed success, to break the mold and define their own parameters.

Find the Courage to Break the Rules

I’m inclined to envy those who figure it out early, but realize I got there in my own time. There were things I had to experience, and a frustration level I had to reach before I had the courage to question what I’d been taught, and ultimately, toss it all aside. In the process, I had to be willing to accept a certain level of risk because stepping off the beaten path often comes without a safety net.

Breaking society’s rules means you’re willing to fall and pick yourself up instead of having someone there to lend a hand. It means building your own support system and community who recognize and appreciate the courage it took to beat your own path knowing there would be lots of trial and error before you hacked away the weeds, and created an inhospitable environment for regrowth. Before you created an environment that supported the seedlings of your own crop, allowing them to grow and thrive.

Despite the hard work breaking new ground entails, the flow of life in your own trenches instead of someone else’s creates an ease no one except another trail blazer understands or appreciates. It’s not a path you take if you need or want understanding and validation from anyone but yourself. The payoffs are self-satisfaction and a life of ease. Are you comfortable with those rewards?

Gratitude Helps You Find Your Own Way

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for the choices I had the courage to make.
2. I’m grateful for the people I attracted who are supportive of my choices whether or not they agree with them.
3. I’m grateful for a life of ease that’s mine to direct.
4. I’m grateful for flexibility which feeds my creative soul better than anything else.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, flexibility, creativity, ease, joy, friendship, support, compassion, kindness, comfort, peace, harmony, health, balance, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook as Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author

Use Your Trauma to Evolve

Trauma is a Powerful Tool

Photo-Tim Green via Flikr

Many of you grew up believing your trauma was meant to be hidden way; locked up tight to keep out prying eyes, and those who would use what they considered a moment of weakness to use or abuse you. You built walls, and nourished your trauma responses, all the while creating a cesspool of unexpressed feelings you couldn’t release. In short, you bought into the lies and stigma that made feelings and vulnerability bad things.

The result was generations of broken people unable to find joy, or connect with others. Everyone lived the lie saying life was perfect and they were completely in control at all times. Finding joy was a pipe dream few ever found in real life. Being able to let down your guard and be your authentic self was something only found in fairy tales.

Though you’ve probably had a lot of experience dealing with past trauma, it still takes an incredible amount of courage to break away from outdated social mores and admit, even to a chosen few you’re not as immovable as you let most people believe. Finding those chosen few is especially challenging because it involves taking risks on people without necessarily knowing they can be trusted with your softer self. Because you expect to get hurt, the first few times will likely be self-fulfilling prophecies. Oddly enough, you will get stronger, and more discerning with each less-than-stellar attempt at authenticity.

Learning to be Discerning

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have a long list of major traumas in your past to make you cautious, and even gun-shy. How badly you’ve been hurt or broken isn’t as important as the tools you accessed to manage the pain, and continue living. Suicide rates are evidence not everyone can, or will continue creating coping mechanisms, much less reach out for help when they need it.

The one major lesson I’ve gained from my own traumas and coping mechanisms is you are not meant to stand alone. Neither are you meant to trust anyone and everyone. In fact, learning who to trust and who to keep at arm’s length (or perhaps even further) is part of the lesson plan you signed up for, whether you realize it or not. I, myself have erred in both directions, though trusting too easily will always have more painful negative results when you get it wrong. It’s also the route with the greatest potential for reward.

Now that I’ve shed a lot of the lessons I learned from my family, I would rather trust too easily than not enough. In the long run, at least for me, the pain from one is far less than the joy derived from the other. Nothing has brought me greater joy than being accepted into a community without reservation, expectation, or judgement.

Becoming Part of a Community

Photo-Jared Lynem via Flikr

Finding my community opened my eyes in a way nothing else in my life ever has. It showed me what was behind the curtain, and how easily I could have it, simply by letting go of old beliefs and stepping into the unknown. (OK, in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t exactly simple, but it wasn’t rocket science either).

Looking back, I wouldn’t call those first steps out from behind my walls simple. In fact, they were downright terrifying. I stumbled and fell a number of times. In the process, I learned there were people I’d come to call “friend” or “family” who would accept me at my best, worst, and all points in between. They wouldn’t be afraid to disagree with me or be honest, but they’d always have my back.

There are also people I’ve learned are more “friendly acquaintance” than “friend”. They put on a good face, and they’re pleasant company until you have a bad day and show them a side of you that doesn’t fit their expectations or set-in-stone social mores. Their friendliness only extends to the side of you they consider pleasant company. I’ve been deceived a few times by this type because often they were willing to show the side of themselves that was struggling and less pleasant, but weren’t interested in seeing mine.

Forging On Despite the Fears and Setbacks

Those experiences could have shoved me back behind my walls and masks. A couple even did

Photo-an iconoclast via Flikr

for a time. I learned once your Pandora’s Box of trauma and feelings is breached, there’s no going back. You have to wander around for awhile, feeling the feelings, hurting the hurts until you stumble on those who will accept the broken, questing person you need to be in order to rebuild stronger, more resilient, and willing to be unapologetically authentic, and vulnerable.

Once you start feeling supported, shedding your own protective mechanisms becomes easier. You learn no matter how far you fall, and how many gashes and bruises you might acquire in the process, there will be someone to help you back to your feet, dress your wounds, and support you while you regain your strength, and can once again stand unassisted.

The real revelation comes when you realize you’ll never truly stand unassisted again. There’s always someone there to support you, or who needs your support. Either way, you’re a three-dimensional being instead of a single stack of blocks waiting for the next earthquake to knock it back down.

What Doesn’t Destroy You Makes You Stronger

Strength-Spiral Tarot

The biggest lesson I learned is trauma isn’t meant to destroy you. It’s not meant to crush you into a pile of rubble that can never be rebuilt. It is meant to test you, both in how you put yourself back together, and in how you learn to build a team so every member is stronger for the association. Each member has highs and lows; times when they need to be supported, and times when they can support someone else through a tough time. And everyone deserves to have a team; a community to belong to.

Getting past the belief you’re unworthy, or don’t deserve to be included, much less helped is probably one of the hardest things I had to release. The lesson was burned into my psyche like a rancher’s brand on a cow. In a way, I had to physically cut out a piece of myself in order to get rid of it, and, like a cancer, there are still cells left that periodically try to regenerate, and need to be excised once again.

Perhaps that’s why I’m such a fan of mantras. Repeating them over and over reminds me I can and will release those old, false beliefs and replace them with the ones I’ve acquired over the last couple of decades that allow me to reach out, to accept help, and to believe I deserve it.

Building on a Foundation of Gratitude

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for my traumas and false beliefs which taught me I’m stronger, and more supported than I ever imagined.
2. I’m grateful for my community who, despite my occasional disbelief, loves my broken and cobbled back together self just the way I am, but also helps me heal and grow.
3. I’m grateful for the creativity and flow of ideas that seems to have burst into new life over the last couple of weeks.
4. I’m grateful for new opportunities and resources that show up just when I need them.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, joy, support, community, creativity, opportunity, friendship, vulnerability, courage, encouragement, acceptance, forgiveness, peace, health, harmony, balance, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook as Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author