Because I don't know how to do things together I do them alone.
As a result I get exhausted and I don't do half the things that I want to do.

Why is it that most of us refuse to learn to play team and rather stick to our own.
It is not that it is not heralded by successful people.

Craig Harper says; "I have come to understand and appreciate the value of great 'team mates' as we move towards a common goal. In fact, I've come to trust and rely on them. In fact, if it wasn't for my team, I wouldn't be doing the majority of the fun stuff that now constitutes my day to day life.
I refer to 'team mates' as those people that I surround myself with, or use as a resource as I move towards achieving my goals, realising my potential. I actually need to be part of a team to fulfill my potential.
And I am not just aiming at achieving my results, I am aiming to grow the people who are making the results happen."

Margaret Mead said;“ Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Quote by Nick Hanauer;
“I totally believe what Margaret Mead says. You could do almost anything with just five people. With only one person, it’s hard – but when you put that one person with four or five more, you have a force to contend with. All of a sudden you have a momentum to make almost anything that’s immanent actually real.
That is what life is about – creating that compelling vision and force.”

So despite all the evidence that team play is good for us, most of us think otherwise.

Is that because we mostly are still living in a hierarchy where so called team play is hiding the ultimate "Thou shall do as I tell you or else"?

If you look at team play under hierarchy in the current 'I' paradigm it goes like this:

• Control at all cost
• Learn to do as you are told/obey, we feel disempowered and stuck
• Members compete
• Pay a price for leaving
• Based on the emotion of 'fear'

Team play in the 'WE' paradigm looks like this;

• Flexibility
• We want to do our best/ownership, we feel empowered to contribute and improve
• Members cooperate
• No consequence for leaving - stay friends
• Based on 'Love'

But mainly most of us are still playing busy people living together under the 'I' paradigm.

Let's look at a few.

• Control at all costs versus flexibility.
  Are you being judged as lazy when you want to take the Sunday afternoon off and not complete your weekend chores?
• Members compete versus members cooperate. 
  Do you have clear common goals or do you feel that the other thinks their project is more important than yours? Even secretly?
  Are you sharing your bank accounts?
• Pay a price for leaving versus no consequence for leaving?
  How often can people separate amicably and complete the relationship with good will and acceptance?
• Based on the emotion of 'fear' or based on 'love'.
  Even when you live together because you love each other are you able to talk openly about anything without fear for reprisal?

Even if our heart is in the right place we have to unlearn a whole lot of consequential behavior from our longterm imprisonment in hierarchies.

Most of us are dynamic individuals doing couples and living parallel lives in the 'I' paradigm.

In the 1980 I left Holland convinced Rotterdam was the most boring city in the world.

It had its center and culture destroyed in the war and new buildings eracted, while the rest of Europe and Holland preserved their beautiful exciting old buildings.  

As a result I felt that I was living in the ugliest and most inferior city of all and I was always slightly embarrassed to admit that I lived in Rotterdam and not Amsterdam.

Rotterdam, a city snubbed by tourists.

How annoying!

So there was no love lost when I emigrated to New Zealand. 

But you can guess what happened when I arrived in Auckland in the 80’s. The shock when I saw this city.

However the volcanoes, the beaches and the Waitakeres made up for its dreariness and I never felt inferior living in Auckland.

Then this year I went back to Holland.

And visiting Rotterdam was certainly not high on my agenda. Who wanted to visit that city?

However my sister ignored my protests and took me on a tour.

And what did I see?

"Wilma, can we talk about tonight’s marketing meeting?"

At the word marketing my coziness drops a few degrees, I hate that word. 
But being a good work mate I say: "Sure" and think: "Aaarghh, I hate marketing, I hate selling".

John continues to discuss the agenda items and how we can prepare the meeting.
With our number of websites understanding Google search words is part of marketing.
As I have taken on the research role as part of my writing I get the question;
"Could you do some research on such and such words."
Again as a good work mate I say; "Sure" and again think; "But I don't need this, why me? This is different research and I have enough to do".

Now watch the whole scene unfold.
Once our talk is over I immediately start searching like a madman!
One part of me desperately wants to show off with good and fast produced results.
The other part of me resents having to do once again another new task on top of all the others I am already doing.
I feel that there is so much to do, so little time and everything is so new and unfamiliar.

So while I randomly start searching, I actually haven't taken the time to think what I am doing, and as such the results I come up with are mediocre.
I kind of know that, which makes me slightly grumpy and resentful and underneath some killer nasties are beginning to sneak in.

Just as we leave the house John asks; "Could you please take the minutes, so I can concentrate on chairing the meeting?"

"Sure, I say, I get a note pad", but my little voice pops up and says; "Sure? Note pad, drinks, food, what else, the kitchen sink, do you like fries with that?" and before I know it the nasties are back at work.

The meeting happens and I have to work hard to keep up with the discussion.
Somehow marketing is not my strength and it frightens me. I find it complex and cannot see how it achieves sales. 
In the meeting John of course asks for my search results and I give information that is of little value. Everybody is nice about it, but my nasties are now fully at work and into blaming.
And they are not only blaming about my lack of training in search word campaigns, they are now blaming anybody and everything.

I blame the fact I need to do everything and that we have so many different things on the boil.
I do ALL the shopping, washing and cooking, and I forget that that has been agreed about in the roles allocation.  
I also conveniently forget that as John was making requests I could have said "no" if I felt I had too much to do or it was out of my league.
I also conveniently forget that I am pushing myself and that I don't have to set such tight deadlines for everything.
I also forget that I can ask for help.
I forget that I cause overwhelm and that there is a word 'no'.

So while the meeting goes on the nasties are hard at work and making me droop.
Then the next morning I have drooped even more and I start to grump openly after waking up.

The quick firing goes like this;

"John, have you finally fixed the drawer yet? And what are we going to do for fire wood now you have given all our WARM firewood away to your father? By the way Google search is different from writing research, you should know that. Have you sorted out the domain names yet? And by the way what is wrong with my blog?"

After that John is quiet for a moment and so am I.
We both go silently; "Oh oh, nasties at work, overwhelm alert."
Thank God, we are not taking these attacks personal.
We pick up on my concerns, deal with them, I stop drooping and away we go again while
I once more have a better understanding of my tasks and roles and deadlines.
I don't have to solve the marketing issue; it is not my role, phew.
I can say no to new tasks or ask for help if I find out I don't know what I am doing, phew.
I am doing okay, I am my own slave driver and I can stop that, phew.
I do love what I am doing even if it is all new and scary at times, phew.
But you can see how the nasties work, especially when you are doing a lot and there is overwhelm lurking around the corner.

Let's see if we can handle these nasties.
The trick is to recognize them when they are at work and as they will be different for everybody the more examples we get the better chance we can spot them.

So when do your nasties show up? - here are some examples: When you are tired, overwhelmed with no time for self, fearful, lacking in money or when his/her family is coming to stay?
How do your nasties show up? - By quick firing unrelated issues like me, picking a fight, asking mean questions about sensitive issues, silence, complaining randomly, sabotage?

I am finally reading Esther and Jerry Hick’s book ‘Ask and it is given, learning to manifest your desires’.

One significant point they make is about anticipation.

“If you want something,” they say “anticipate it with real feelings of joy and not come from a feeling of lack.”

As it seemed an important ingredient to manifesting, I took my time to get my head around that one as it sounded pretty contradictory to me.

Most of the time we desire something that is not in our lives right now, right?

Money, time, relationships, lots of holidays, sunny weather, winning lotto ticket., new car blah blah blah.

So lack is related to what we want, is it not?

But the book says, don’t worry, relax, accept that you don’t have what you desire right now. And from that relaxed place anticipate the manifestation of your desires with the wonderful feelings of joy, excitement and anticipation.

And that was the clue for me. Now I know why I don’t manifest that easily. It is about anticipation.

I have forgotten what hard out anticipation feels like. I hardly anticipate anymore.

I worry, I google, I plan, I organise, get frustrated and end up too tired to feel anything.

I had to dig deep to get access to those feelings of exciting anticipation again. But I got one. Holidays of course. When I was still confined in a job I anticipated all right; the last week at work before the holidays was bliss. Nothing mattered as long as the clock ticked on.

In the NOW, my job didn’t change; anticipation was the drug to make me feel wonderful.

Is this what they mean? Grabbing that holiday feeling and transferring that to all my desires?

It is not often that I had a chance to see so clearly how I missed to create my day.

It was during one of our kayak holidays into the wilderness.

John mentioned that at some point he would kayak to the shops to buy more beer and that I could make a shopping list.  Now there were two words in that sentence that make me see red on my holiday. The words were ‘shopping’ and ‘list’. On my holiday I refuse to think about shopping and making lists is hard even if my life depends on it. All year long I drag food from shops. Before we go I do one last big shop and that is it for 4 weeks.

So my mind closed and there was no way I was going to make John’s trip a creation of abundance.

I could have had fruit, fresh vegetables, yoghurt and food galore and instead John came home with a miserable harvest of 2 loaves of bread and one lettuce.

So, did I create my day? Yes I did, but not a wonderful and abundant one.

Hindsight showed closed down brain, missed opportunity and inflexibility.

What a phenomenon to once a year encourage the world to express gratitude en masse to mum.  

As I am not one to miss an opportunity I boldly order a champagne breakfast on Mother’s day. Although John and I don't have children together I do motherly things such as keeping the cat fed and flea free. Reason enough to expect and accept gratitude and to totally indulge in the feeling of being loved.
Although I don't think I can handle a champagne breakfast every Sunday, being treated as special on Mother's day is fantastic and I thoroughly intend to lap it up.

However there have been other times when I found it hard to be the center of the attention and I didn't know how to graciously deal with all that love so openly coming my way.
On the whole I wasn't a great receiver in my younger days.
I rather gave than received.
Over the years I started to notice though how annoying it was when somebody refused to accept.
It took a bit longer for me to realize that I was no fun myself when I made it hard for people to give me something. 

I don't know what it was that made it so hard for me to accept help, attention or just kind words. I usually brushed it off with a stupid remark and I had no idea what I did to the other person. However I am sure it didn't make them feel good.

As I said it took me a while to see how unkind not receiving actually is.
I am pleased I am over it.