What type of fuel are you using? Love or Fear?

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?Many people come to me because they want to feel better about themselves, their lives, and they are not able to "get there" because they are "pushing themselves" to do stuff so they can be considered valuable and productive. I sometimes find myself in that same place, pushing myself to do things "because it is the right thing" or "I have to do it". When I get curious about the underlying motives I discover the feelings behind may be anger, guilt, shame, fear, or all of the above, which of course does not make me feel good at all.

Emotions are valuable, and they ask for action (E-MOTION = in motion). The key is we create space-time BEFORE acting to become aware of the meaning of that action.

You may say we need guilt, actually many religions and educational organisations think so and use it to "manipulate" those who are no behaving well so as to "straighten them". I have always felt rejection and anger about this because it makes me feel there is something wrong with me and that I am not valuable. One thing is to feel guilt and take responsibility by repairing the damage I did, no only out of love for me, as I have drifted away from my values and integrity, but also out of love for the other person I wronged.Yet, a very different thing is to repair a damage I caused just because if I want to feel loved and accepted.

Believing this comes from when we are young: "Mom and Dad love me only if I behave well."

Of course many of us parents do not want our kids to think this, but our actions and interactions with our children make them understand that. Some parents, ours for example, did think that it was a good way to "educate". If we go to the philosophical root this comes from believing that man is evil and society must "correct" him.

I think the opposite is true: people are good, our nature is love, kindness, joy, peace. And when we act with meanness, pettiness, hatred, we do it from a deep wound that denotes the lack of love we feel.

Now, Denise, what about those who do evil and do not believe they were wrong or ask forgiveness? First of all, too bad for them, they will be very unhappy, but second, let's set up boundaries. It is one thing not to judge the other as not worthy because he acted wrongly, and quite another is not to limit his harmful actions.

I was inspired with this by Brene Brown, who studied how the most compassionate people are the one who set up boundaries. I add that when we know how to create healthy boundaries we are honouring who we are, and loving ourselves in that act.

According to our emotion we can discover what our "fuel" is. We may be running out of "fear" to not be loved and appreciated, or we can be running out of "love" for who we are and want to be.

As parents, for instance, is very common to let us drive "on guilt", that comes with the company of fear of not being a good parent or fear that our kid will suffer. I learnt that guilt is a bad burning fuel, which makes me feel resentful with the situation and myself, and in the end my kids feel it, and don′t feel loved by my guilt-driven actions, making it everything ending up pretty bad for everyone. It is true that acting out of love may caus sadness or anger in others. This is not suffering, as we might sometimes confuse. If I am at the park with my daughter, it is 6pm, I am tired, and se wants to continue playing, telling her to go may make her feel sad or angry about not being able to play any longer. But if I stay, I will end up exhausted and everything from then on will be too much of a burden for me, usually ending up with me getting angry at her for any small thing and not being able to act with patience, care or love at all. Feeling drained is the result of a "bad burning" emotion (in this case guilt).

How many times we do things so that other people won′t get angry at us or to feel more lovable and it lefts us feeling drained and out horrible inside. We ARE lovable, we do not need to prove it and when we set up healthy boundaries we use love as energy and feel energised and happy, with a peaceful soul because we placed our dignity above all.

Now let′s go on to practising these concepts, because as my dad, Al, says "theory went for a swim and drowned from lack of practise".

Think about your day up to now and what still awaits for you:

• What is the source of your energy so far? If it is not love, respect, or any other positive emotion, how will you repair this with yourself? (a little pampering may help)
• If you have been burning love, great! How will you continue the rest of your day? What do you worry about or generate stress? How would setting up boundaries around that issue help you act with love and compassion for yourself and others.

I can share my own, real, example: before writing this post I almost "force myself" to meditate "because I had still not done my morning meditation" (what a powerful reason, right?!) I felt bad, resistant, angry with me because of this pushy attitude, especially because since I woke up the only thing I wanted to do was express myself, write and share with others. Applying what I know I explored my fears (what would happen if I did not meditate?) and of course the answers were so false, and lame, that I just laughed at myself, and decided to act out of love: sit down and write. Will I still meditate during the day? probably because it helps me get perspective and stay peaceful, or not, because I will be living out of constant connection and presence, which would make living a meditation. What is important is consciousness and realising why we do what we do.

I want love to be the "fuel" of my life, what about you?

I would love to hear your experience practising these concepts so we continue to grow together in consciousness.

You know where to reach me for help: [email protected]

With love and gratitude,

Denise Dziwak

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Denise Dziwak works as a transformational coach, business consultant and speaker.

Her strengths include high levels of intuition,empathy, creativity that enables organisations and teams to achieve exceptional results; discipline, with which nothing seems impossible; she is a visionary woman, helping others create their own vision and making it happen. She works independently and also for highly prestigious organisations such as Vistage, the largest CEOs organisation in the world, Axialent, the consulting firm funded byFred Kofman and pioneer in the use of Conscious Business, and BetterUp, the first mobile platform that provides evidence-based personalised coaching to boost your confidence and performance at work.

Expertise: Business coaching, Spiritual & Life Coaching, Applied Creativity to Problem Solving (Design Thinking), Building Community & Culture