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Remember Your Vision

Sometimes, I wake up and my emotional well-being is missing. I forget who I am and what I’m about. I lose site of my big “V” vision.

Sometimes, I transfer control of my day to my emotional non-well-being. [Guess what happens?]

Sometimes, I don’t. Lately I’ve been practicing:

  1. notice my emotional state
  2. remember my Vision, Purpose, Intention
  3. let my emotions flow if needed, clear my emotional space
  4. return to my Vision and discern what today’s “next step” is

Then I live into my Vision by taking today’s step. I ask you:

What “V”ision are you moving toward now?
What emotion will you take out of the driver’s seat?

 

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Another perspective on Autumn

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Recently a friend shared that Autumn in the Midwest where the trees are radiant with color saddens her. Why? She is a gardener and, for her, Autumn is a time of death to all her creativity.

I can see that.

Yet, today, as I look outside and see the trees once again barren and the foliage in my perennial garden limp and brown, I am choosing to really get the lesson that nature is giving us:

Rest and turn within
Release the outer expression and nurture the inner strength
Trust and know that we will *bloom* again

Today I invite you to pause and wonder:

What outer expression needs to stop for awhile?
What would nurture your inner being?

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When the emotional body speaks …

You know what I mean:

  • all is well and then a driver cuts you off in traffic and you are overcome with anger
  • you go to sleep peacefully and wake up “on the wrong side of the bed” and emotions are threatening to ruin your day
  • your best friend said something and you imagine the worst to the point of deep sadness or sorrow over the loss of the friendship

What you may not realize is that you always have choice in situations like these. The message from your emotional body is just that: a message. The actions you take could come from a very intentional place of choice.

Consider this simple practice the next time your emotions flare:

  • Stop. This might mean that you pull the car over or sit in a chair and invite your runaway thoughts and emotional energy to settle.
  • Breathe. Take five deep breaths. With each one imagine breathing in peace and breathing out the anger or sadness or fear or projecting the worst.
  • Rest. Let yourself simply be in the place of calm you have created.
  • Choose. From this less emotionally charged spaced, discern how you will proceed.

What is the impact of emotional reactivity?
What is the power in responding from calm?

What will you choose?

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Do you live in the extremes?

Extremes

You know them:

  • Perfection OR Useless (the handmade, beautiful, thoughtful gift or forget it!)
  • All OR Nothing (I am peaceful, prayed up, loving, patient, kind, compassionate all the time or I am a horrible person)
  • Live into your ideal vision OR Quit before you start (only exercise 1 hr/day, 6 days/wk counts)

Today, I’d like to speak to those of you who can see and taste and are filled with desire for the extremes on the left (the ideal, amazing, perfect, do it all and have it all experience) yet routinely berate yourself for not living them. If this is you, try this experiment. On a topic of your choosing, one of those areas filled with the self-judgement of not living your ideal:

  1. Write down the qualities and attributes that exist in the ideal. Who are you being? What do you experience? What is this ideal?
  2. Write down what you can imagine is present on the right side of the equation, when Useless or Nothing or Quitting is really present.
  3. Write down where you really are on the continuum between all and nothing.

I am willing to bet that you are on the continuum, not at either extreme, and that your actions to-date are having a positive impact on your life.

What if you celebrated where you are?
What if you saw yourself as living into the ideal?
What if you took one step closer to the ideal today?

What can you imagine now?

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Unlimited Vacation

Perhaps you’ve heard of the handful number of companies in the US offering unlimited vacation to their employees (read more here). The piece that caught my interest was the fact that Americans, on average, take only 60% of the vacation days given to them!

Does that concern YOU?

Here’s the thing. When I think of vacation, I think: time away to recharge, rest, restore play, see the world from another perspective.

Yet we don’t.
We WORK.

We stay busy. We try harder. We stay in the hamster wheel or on the rat race. And we complain about all the work we have to do!

Until we don’t.

That’s right. Until we (and “we” equals “me” and “you”) choose differently. Until we choose to stop and breathe. Until we choose to love ourselves enough to rest. Until we choose to let go of the fear that’s holding us stuck in the never ending cycle of work and dare to step away from the action. Our European friends know how to do this. Every other time I speak with one of them they are either planning for the next holiday, returning from the last holiday, or unable to talk to me because they are on a holiday! Okay, only a MINOR exaggeration there.

I leave you with a dare. Dare to respond to these questions for yourself and dare to take action on your answers:

What am I afraid of?
What if I don’t vacate my work place?
What might I experience if I do?

Make It Happen!