Mason has gone home. He was never a team player but rather a somewhat misguided youth who used his 300 + pounds of bulky llama-hood to muscle around his smaller cousins the fuzzy alpacas gracing our pasture and sometimes the barn when he let them inside, his towering line-backer presence a hulking guard at the barn door. Lately he was even preventing them from freely eating hay, their winter food. I could feel guilty but I saw how faithfully he kept his bond with his former owner over this last weekend, recognizing her immediately, accepting the touch he never tolerated from either me or my wife, agreeing to the move.
We liked him but he was never sure what to do with us, those strange, unpredictable bipeds with the awful appendages that might reach out to him in a futile attempt at alien contact. The original idea was for him to chase off predators; there were times he was a formidable bouncer but always at his own club. He knew the drill. The alpacas all knew the drill.
A subtle snort, his head bobbing on that unnaturally long neck, his modified Shrek ears plastered back in a combat feint, was plenty of incentive to send the little fur balls scurrying where he wanted, interrupting their plans for the day or evening as easily as he dismissed the occasional pheasant or rabbit. With him gone, there's peace once again in the pasture.
one just the same. You need to tame the beast, to befriend him or send him home.
We spend way too much time on what to do rather than how to really do it, falling into the trap on whose walls I've etched a lot of graffiti myself, the trap of thinking knowledge is sufficient. It's easy to believe that siren song: if we understand it, that's enough. This happens routinely when we read a book and think we've "got it" - until life tests us for how well we've integrated the material. If it's in our head, it's in our hands is a strategy that only works in our head, otherwise we wouldn't have to eat food any more, would we? We could just read cook books.
If you've gone through my free program you'll know that you need to sow more SEEDs, those Supportive Elements of Environment Design that make change easier, turning it into a dance and not a fight. You'll also know ways to deal with resistance, strategies to tame the bully we've been talking about, hitch him to a surrey, put him and his powerful bulk to work for you, and pull you down the road of your choice. Change your habits and restore your destiny to its rightful owner. The email program is free and you can ask me course-related questions. There's plenty of hay in the barn and we're all welcome, except for bullies of course.
We liked him but he was never sure what to do with us, those strange, unpredictable bipeds with the awful appendages that might reach out to him in a futile attempt at alien contact. The original idea was for him to chase off predators; there were times he was a formidable bouncer but always at his own club. He knew the drill. The alpacas all knew the drill.
A subtle snort, his head bobbing on that unnaturally long neck, his modified Shrek ears plastered back in a combat feint, was plenty of incentive to send the little fur balls scurrying where he wanted, interrupting their plans for the day or evening as easily as he dismissed the occasional pheasant or rabbit. With him gone, there's peace once again in the pasture.
I've been thinking about bullies. Do you feel bullied sometimes by a stronger presence inside yourself when you want to do something wise and warm and positive such as connecting better to your people, getting fit, eating less junk,and yet... your usual routines prey on you instead, shaking you down - again and again- for a quick 350 or 400 or 600 calorie payment or its moral equivalent, like a gangster loan shark you can never pay back?
New Year's resolutions have pretty much hit the shredder by now, haven't they?Don't give yourself a hard time - you know WHAT to do, you just don't know HOW to make changes. If you haven't signed up for The Recession-Proof Lifestyle Program you're in luck - it's still available and it's still free.
You need some new ways to dance with the bully, to finesse all that heavy momentum of habit pushing you in a familiar direction, often the "wrong" direction but a comfortableone just the same. You need to tame the beast, to befriend him or send him home.
We spend way too much time on what to do rather than how to really do it, falling into the trap on whose walls I've etched a lot of graffiti myself, the trap of thinking knowledge is sufficient. It's easy to believe that siren song: if we understand it, that's enough. This happens routinely when we read a book and think we've "got it" - until life tests us for how well we've integrated the material. If it's in our head, it's in our hands is a strategy that only works in our head, otherwise we wouldn't have to eat food any more, would we? We could just read cook books.
If you've gone through my free program you'll know that you need to sow more SEEDs, those Supportive Elements of Environment Design that make change easier, turning it into a dance and not a fight. You'll also know ways to deal with resistance, strategies to tame the bully we've been talking about, hitch him to a surrey, put him and his powerful bulk to work for you, and pull you down the road of your choice. Change your habits and restore your destiny to its rightful owner. The email program is free and you can ask me course-related questions. There's plenty of hay in the barn and we're all welcome, except for bullies of course.
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