My name is Chris and I am a “fixer.”

I am attracted to people who have problems and think that if I only make them happy, do something different, change myself or sacrifice my time or resources they will change and be happy.  Somewhere in my life I felt as if it was my responsibility to make others happy and worse yet, if they were not happy, it was my fault.

Can anyone out there relate to that?

I think many of you can…especially the women out there.  Not that men cannot be fixers, but women have a natural tendency to nurture and make people feel better therefore this role of “fixer” tends to stick more with the female gender.

Here is what I have learned (and trust me, I have a lot more learning to do in this area):

• Wanting to fix others is a symptom that there is something within us that needs to be fixed.  It may not necessarily be the same problem, but we tend to seek to fix someone else when we are avoiding fixing ourselves.  Projection at its best!
• No one needs fixing.  I know some of you may be thinking that statement is crazy.  There are people in our world who are doing some crazy things!  As humans, we have a tendency to want things to run smooth, feel good all of the time and not change.  It is the “crazy” that makes us pay attention to what needs to be balanced and changed…not only with us personally, but with the world.
• It is never your responsibility to make someone else happy, it is theirs.  Yes, things we do for others may temporarily make them feel better but happiness comes from within.  It is a state of being that manifests from a sense of peace within.  No one can give you that but you.
• Problems are a blessing in disguise, whether they are ours or someone else’s.  They are the very thing that helps us grow and become the people we are meant to be.  Problems push us to our limits, ever so painfully, to help us see what we can become and what is possible.
• We are only responsible to live our own life.  I don’t know about you, but my life has enough challenges of its own.  When we try to make other people’s problems ours by trying to fix the problem for them, we are meddling in something that is not our business.  We are living their life and ours.  How do we know that the very problem they are now having isn’t one they may need to experience to learn the biggest lesson of their lives…when they solve it themselves.  We cannot take away other peoples lessons.  That is exactly what we do when we fix a problem for them.

So, what to do?  How do you overcome the urge to fix?  Be aware of the fact that the urge to fix is an urge to control something that is out of your control.  You cannot control other people’s behaviors or decisions.  The only things under your control are the decisions you make for yourself, your behaviors and your attitudes.  Your behaviors and who you choose to be is always the greatest teacher for those around you.  People listen more with their eyes than their ears.  They watch you.  It is our nature.  Monkey see, monkey do…remember?

A recovering fixer,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“Every day, think as you wake up,

Today I am fortunate to have woken up,

I am alive, I have a precious human life,

I am not going to waste it,

I am going to use

All my energies to develop myself

To expand my heart out to others,

To achieve enlightenment for

The benefit of all beings,

I am going to have kind thoughts towards others,

I am not going to get angry,

Or think badly about others

I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

~His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama

“Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa published by Balboa Press.

Click here to purchase your copy!

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“The Trial By Existence”
By Robert Frost

And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth…

And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise…

And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt…

Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in its nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth…

But always God speaks at the end:
“One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you gave the assenting voice.”

And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.

And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to find and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.

“Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“Life is a test.  It is only a test…had this been a real life you would have been instructed on where to go and what to do.” ~www.visiblebynumbers.com

August has arrived and traditionally August is a month of abundance in the farming community.  It is when the crops sprout and the fruits are in harvest and ready for picking.  Not only is August of 2012 a powerfully abundant month but it is a blue moon month.  No, that does not mean the moon turns blue!  A blue moon, according to the language in my circle, is when you have two full moons in one month.  This month we have one on August 1^st and one on August 31^st.  This aspect makes August a super duper abundant and powerful month!

My roommate Elaina and I decided to ring in the new moon by going to a Labyrinth Full Moon Walk at the Peaceful Spirit Enrichment Center in New River, AZ ran by Tom and Melanie Dunlap.  Talk about a power center!  Having walked a labyrinth before, we were very aware of what to expect physically but one is never prepared for what comes up mentally and emotionally…especially under a full moon!  When you walk a labyrinth, it is a moving meditation.  Although it is repetitive, each walk is unique in and of itself.  Each labyrinth is constructed differently but they are all a one path design and you cannot make a wrong turn or decision when walking it.  As Melanie states, “Your only decision is to take the first step, much like walking the path of life.”

At the beginning of our labyrinth walk we were asked to write down on a piece of paper (I called it “Harry Potter” paper because it is the kind that literally disappears instantly when it hits a fire) something we would like to call into our lives.  As I contemplated what to write on my paper, I realized how much I really didn’t know about my own life.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my life!  I feel as if I am one of the blessed ones and am so grateful sometimes it brings me to tears.  But life doesn’t come with instructions on what to do or where to go.  Why?  Because we get to create this thing called life as we go along.  If it came with instructions on what to do when, where to turn, or where to go it would not be our life to create.  We would just be living a life someone else created for us.

Take a moment and look at your life.  I mean really look at it.  See into it.  See past the surface stuff – not having money, kids acting up, a job you may or may not like, a relationship you are not sure of – and look deeper.  You may be actively living your life day to day but are you showing up for it?  Are you really engaged in life?  You don’t have to see the whole staircase in order to climb the stairs; you just need to take the first step.  Each step you take gives you a different view of the staircase.  Once you get to the top, the next set up steps appear and you are now stronger, wiser and more courageous to go on.

Labyrinth at the Peaceful Spirit Center

At the center of our labyrinth – once we have “arrived” – we give thanks.  Thank the moon, thank the stars, thank our Creator, thank those around us, and thank ourselves for showing up.  We offer our “wish” to the fire, much like the Despacho ceremony when my groups are hiking the Inca Trail in Peru, in order for it to be heard by the heavens and manifested.  The heavens always respond in one way; “Your wish is my command!”  The question is, will you be present enough to see it when it arrives?  Will you show up?

Life is not about making the “right” turns or doing the right things – life is about showing up.  When you show up you are in your center; listening to your higher self and where it is guiding you.  Your map is your heart.  Following your heart is your test.  Will you honor yourself this time around? is the question.  No one person is here to show you what to do.  We are only here to help and support each other.  The rest is up to you …

Turning the corner,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.