How Do You Behave in Stores?

Running retail stores is an eye opening experience. Remember the days of long ago, before selfies and Instagram? Before Amazon and eBay? The days so ancient our memories are soaked in sepia, when stores had salespeople who knew their products, tended them and adeptly assisted in shopping- making the experience enjoyable?
There are still physical stores that offer good service. We focus on service in the shops I run. How to treat customers, how to do the things that need to be done. But wait! There's another important side to this coin. The patron.
I've noticed in the last few years and increase in apathy and destructive behavior in shoppers. Instead of using try me buttons, patrons trying to force animated toys to move manually, sometimes breaking them- then walking away. Ripping apart animated figures to pose with body parts for selfies- figures they haven't bought and don't intend to, and if you mention paying for the merchandise they damaged- they are affronted, how dare we expect them to be responsible for their actions!
Folks, when you shop, regardless of where you are:
Treat products with respect. Do not break things. Ask permission before picking things up. Do not fight with or use objects someone is selling unless you've bought them. Do not break things. Picking up a Halloween decorations and shoving it in your girlfriend's face- so she screams and breaks it or putting on a mask you haven't bought and jumping at a friend in a shop full of people, knocking over a display of new masks in the process, also unacceptable. Not funny. Not cool. Running out of a store with any object from the store without paying is not a game, it is shoplifting.
What happened to respect?
We choose how we behave. We are responsible for our actions and choices.
It's important to call people on inappropriate behavior. The guy who knocked over a display: another patron caught it. He gave the guy who did it a tongue lashing that calmed him down and got him remembering how he should be acting.
Twice I've had to talk to kids about not leaving stores with stuff from shops if they haven't bought it. Once, the kids were chagrined and apologized. The other time, Mom ran interference. She had them bring back what they took but buffered them from chastisement. She might not realize, when she's not around they'll do it again as she just made it okay.
We change behavior by modeling behavior and communicating expectations. I have an employee now who welcomes folks into the shop where people forget to behave. He smiles and stands. He's polite. He steps in if people get ridiculous and asks them to leave if they start throwing product around or making out with animated figures or dismembering them.
I never thought I'd see the day where I'd write a reminder of how we the shoppers should behave but here it is.
The Golden rule is important everywhere.

Weed Your Garden

The people we choose to be around have an impact on our well-being.
Surround yourself with selfish people and you will find yourself getting tired, feeling lonely and constantly giving without reciprocation. These folks only notice you when they want something from you or they want an audience. They've got nothing to give but superficial platitudes and often when they aren't focused on enough- they will create a situation just to get attention. They feel entitled. They use charisma and drama to make their life a stage you get stuck on if you get too close. They take. Leaving your garden full of a stubborn, thorny weed that consumes all the nutrients and pushes out the healthy plants.
There are false friends who seem vibrant but are actually there on an agenda to use you, to amuse themselves or manipulate you to their advantage. They listen to you for ammunition. You trust them and you bleed for it. They skip merrily along uncaring or even delighted by the drama and destruction. These folks are dangerous. I've learned you can recognize them when they boast of how they've screwed people over or how they "love their boyfriend because he's an asshole", and the love seeing the wreckage. These are the poison Ivy vines snaking through, looking healthy as they strangle other plants and smear their irritating oil all over others around them, contaminating relationships for their own advantage. Usually financial, but sometimes just because. These folks usually have sociopathic tendencies. They don't want the people around them healthy. They often talk about wanting to see the world burn or society fall, chaos lovers.
On the other hand:
In your garden seek out and nurture:
Authentic friends. People who reciprocate. People who demonstrate maturity.
Listen to what they say, how they say it, how they treat others. How they regard others. Do they regard others?
Do not excuse or dismiss toxic behaviors. They do not just affect that individual, if that person is close to you- it will impact you and those around you.
I've been quietly weeding my garden, ripping out the narcissists, self absorbed, enablers, toxic, false friends, and unhealthy. I'm not responsible for those folks and having them around detracts from the health that I and the people I care about and am connected to have.
I'm taking time to assess, to nurture that garden in my heart.
It is not my responsibility to help those folks, but it is mine to be the best me I can be and to nurture the healthiest relationships I can with those I feel are worth investing in- those who invest back.

I hope you tend your garden. Be careful what you let grow there.

What is Best for You

It sounds like an empowering phrase but often it is a hemp rope slipped softly, loosely around your neck that tightens and pulls you off course. What is Best for you according to someone else. Here, step out of the drivers seat in your life and let this person take the wheel. Their words seem logical, plausible, or considerate. Truly empowering people never try to slip behind your steering wheel. They ride along and offer questions, maybe even offer to help navigate the path you've chosen.

Insert a compliment first, twist in a sincere plea for help. Seems alright, seems harmless, seems reasonable. It is easy to get sucked in. Take a step back.

Look at the compliment. Notice the unintend slight. "You should do this because I need you to, because you'll be amazing at it." Somewhere in there is the unspoken or sideways hint, what you're choosing to work toward is not valid and you're better off doing this instead because really in an outside opinion I'm suggesting passively that you should step away from what you value. I'm making it sound reasonable with compliments and couldn't do it without yous. Mutual need is often suggested. You need this. I'm helping you. I want what's best for you. Really?

They mean well, they're looking from a different perspective and different values color their sight. There is good reason they say the road to help is paved with good intentions. 

 Their statements also quietly tell you they feel you should let them make your decisions. Somewhere in the small print they're actually saying your decision making is questionable at best. Be aware. It is very small print. It is heavy. It can be paralyzing.

There are falsehoods in our heads put there through our lives by others. For whatever reason: control of your choices, fear and self interest, punishment for wrongs that could be as simple and huge as being born. They could be put there out of love, desire to see us achieve things they value or to see us avoid the hazards of life. 

Let's get a few things straight. You are not stupid. You are not worthless. You will be able to survive. You are valuable as You are. You are not crazy. Its not a fad or a phase, your choices and feelings are valid. Never let people whirlwind you into their drama. You are not responsible for anyone else.

So many statements are made to you throughout your life without really ever respecting or considering you. Every single one serving some emotional or financial goal of someone who is putting themselves first. There's subjective communication, it's rushed and assumptive. We're in this together, you are included but in reality it's as the willing meal rather than as an equal. It can happen at work, school and even at home. People drop verbal emotional bombs on each other without consideration. Sometimes they detonate at different times, some slowly lurk like mines waiting for the right pressures to set them off.

Honesty is important to me. I strive to be consistent. I said the last couple of years that my goal was to heal the sacred clown. In attempting this improbable goal, I found I had to rise up and determine my value, my goals and what really is important to me. I ended up healing myself and learning that each of us can only truly choose to heal ourselves. No one can truly heal someone else unless that person chooses to heal.

I changed myself. I grew. I found my value, my goals, my passion. I found myself. No one could do that for me. 

When you get multiple well meaning people putting words in your head that sound like their being helpful and encouraging you by discouraging you from pursuing your real path it gets easy to lose your way. It sounds reasonable. Ambiguity hides the truth. Camaraderie insinuates loyalty in a situation that in the end is really just self serving for someone else. Someone motivated enough to press a positive argument of stepping away from your goals for them because it's the nice thing, the safe thing, the best thing for you- besides, they need you and somehow you are suddenly responsible to them?! Parents and friends and partners do this without meaning to at times. 

You have to listen to yourself and attend your needs and goals first. No one else's life or career is your responsibility.
Unless you are a parent. If you are a parent, do one crucial task: teach your child to value themselves. Teach them to look out for themselves and do not try to manipulate them because of your own fears and inadequacies. If you fail at this one thing, they face huge struggles emotionally that they may or may not survive.

In healthy relationships communication is clear, each person takes care of themselves and then reaches out to empower the other. Each person is accountable for their choices. There's no pressure to fit a mold or to pull out some nails and martyr up.

I've known this for years. Taught it. I'm living it now and fully comprehending it. It is wonderful and liberating. Flying not falling. Truly flying, not just riding a draft.

You can tell someone a thousand times they are beautiful or incredible and they cannot grasp it until the day they realize it for themselves. You cannot make them realize it. You can ask them the right questions so they take a good look into themselves. You can hope that when they take that look they notice the mirror they've been using for years is warped. You can hope they finally throw it out, with it all the baggage they've carried for too long. It can go in a moment and all the stick feelings with it- if you choose to be brave.

Me?

I am an actor. I am an entertainer. I am a storyteller I am a writer. I work with words. Some weeks I may be eight to ten different people. I might pull off the role of cooking at a Mexican restaurant, I might be a mascot, might teach you to throw axes or guide you through a meditation. I might be reviewing your performance. I might be on a stage or talking down someone overwhelmed by panic. I keep learning new skills, there will always be new roles. Underneath it all, I am myself. I value the person I am. I value what I do.  The best way I can honor the people I love is by putting myself first; at my strongest I can be a healthy part of their support. At my weakest burdened by prioritizing the agendas of others, I could barely find the time to work on my goals and restlessness distracted me. My health suffered. I value my friends for who they are. 

What words are in your head, pacing back and forth? Who put them there? Why might they have done that? Who do the words serve?

If the words are truly empowering, there is no weight to the words. If the words were offered and you choose to keep them because they free you, strengthen you, and put you first: treasure that person or people! Those are your real supports. Its only taken me 39 years to really figure this all out. If not, realize you do not have to choose to allow that person's words in your head anymore.

I am working toward my goals and dreams. I found them. Its amazing how they suddenly exist when you take care of yourself. It feels wonderful. Problems get solved. You'd think there would be a lot of emotional rubble to clean up, but it vanishes as the sun inside you rises.

I hope to see the sun in you rise as well. I hope you choose to respect the people you love. The choice is yours. Be kind to each other, consider your words and intentions before you pour them into someone else's head. And be kind to those who with good intentions might have questioned your path, help them find their way back to themselves and their value. Most likely someone shook them off their path and they've followed through by passing on the cultural what is best for you. 

Climbing Waterfalls

On a crisp sunny desert day I found myself on a desert ride with friends. We wandered windy roads in a truck that seemed mountain goats designed. It clung to treacherous mountain roads and carried us onto the truly beaten wild roads that tame cars shudder to think about and mufflers clench.

View of Apache Lake and Mountains from Apache Trail

We eventually settled on the more sedate Apache Trail past Canyon Lake and through Fish Creek Canyon. Those who've driven that road know the irony of using sedate in it's description. Generously it is a lane and a half of winding dirt mountain roads with railings that seem to be made from pizza boxes. Rusting wrecks on the side of the mountain inspire caution as you navigate the washboard and washout areas. There is the ever present wonder if you will come around a corner to find someone coming the other way too fast. Somehow you make it through. It is worth it. The views are of vast distances where geology shows off it's capacity for artistic beauty. Mountains molded by water and wind, shaded by the minerals within them. We parked at the bottom, at Fish Creek Canyon. I love hiking there when the water level is low. I love seeing the slender waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet on days like this one. Three waterfalls over hundreds of feet in height brought recent rainfall from the tops of the mountains down to the plants waiting here.

Within moments of parking, my friend Elan and I found a waterfall we could hike up. We could go in any direction. We both were drawn like magnets to the shining, gurgling water. We danced over rocks and water, weaving back and forth like human needles making our way from the pooling short falls at the bottom up around to where we could stand within feet of water coming straight down the mountain over a hundred feet before working its way down to the stream it would join below.

Standing in the remote wilderness, crouched under a thorn tree within inches of ice cold mountain water I realized something. I am the kind of person who climbs waterfalls. There are people who do all sorts of things. It takes all kinds. I love climbing waterfalls. Getting behind them, beneath them, standing in them. The sound, the feel, the beauty. It can be dangerous. It can be foolish. What kind of nitwit seeks out wet, potentially slippery rock and says "climbing that is a great idea!" I am one of those nitwits. Now, I am not going to go up a break neck two hundred feet free climb up a waterfall. But I am going to boulder hop my way to the top or to hidden areas of twisty ones with terrain that practically begs me to climb it.  It is always worth it. I could have walked to the creek. I could have looked at the view down the canyon. Others did. Many did. I went to the first thing that caught my mind. The waterfall I could reach. The waterfall I could climb, in climbing I would see more of the waterfall and more of the vista. Two of us were drawn that way. Danny watched from the road until we went out of view, his face showed that he wanted to feel less exhausted- he wanted to see what was up there too.

Days of paperwork, beaurocracy declaring in it's way the necessity of paperwork in generating meaningless jobs of communication and miscommunication. Of people being numbers and categorized, shelved and stamped. Through each page and meeting it was hard to hear, hard to focus because part of me is still there watching the water fall and listening to the song of it playing on the rocks.

Days of being different fictions, concentrating on each separate experience then discarding it to create and complete the next. Another journey next week, eight more people to be. Danny faces his next surgery, his heart is strong but they have to get the electric working right. It is frustrating to find out your house is beautiful but the electric needs work to work right. It's more complicated than just changing a circuit. It is flesh and blood, cells and genes that the electrophysiologist has to use to work on the electrical system within us. Hopefully after this surgery everything will heal right. Hopefully in a month we will go back and climb to that spot together.



We all face different challenges. The funny thing is that we externalize them. The barriers to our happiness we identify are outside of us. The reality is inside of us. The monsters in our own heads, assumptions and inaccuracies that our own personalities and beliefs arise from. The worst are ones that other people feed without knowing about. It is daunting to sit down and say to a friend that their words or feedback they've given to other ears that made it back around to you hit a sore spot. It is easier to slip away to the sound of birds and water, where the monsters have no footing and no one's actions or words to use against you. Eventually you can let it go or you face the tedious monsters in your head again, fighting each other with logic accepting it's painful assessments or disproving them. When life is going your way, it is easy to stay up. When challenges come up or you feel down it is easier for the monsters to take center stage. It is hard to smile past their non-stop unfiltered assessment of you; it can be hard to even hear or see what those around you are really saying or doing and they never see or hear the enemies they don't even know you're fighting.

I've learned to use meditation, to take time to myself to refocus. To reach out to friends who've made it past the walls and know the shape of the fiends. It is amazing how quickly one well placed quip or even the sound of a beloved friend's voice can turn the tide. These monsters, they aren't fought with violence. They are fought with patience, love and communication. I know as I tell you this that every day, in your head you face your own. I just want to you know, I understand. We are the most powerful weapons in the fight against these monsters. Giving each other time, respect, kindness, trust, a chance to communicate and destroy dangerous assumptions. Are you up for climbing waterfalls? Navigating past the tears and through the challenges of healing?

Brittlebrush Flowers Brighten the Winter Desert