Archive for Personal Growth
Is Your Reality Real?
Posted by: | CommentsI was on a call last week discussing an event. We all went to the same event. But, the feelings, experiences and recollections of the event were totally different from one another. A big reminder that what we all see is clouded by our feelings, our past, even the last time we ate.
This is important to remember when dealing with other people. What we see as truth, may in fact not be reality. Just because you feel slighted by someone, doesn’t mean they were actually trying to slight you. A rainy day doesn’t necessarily mean bad news. The driver that cut you off? Maybe they didn’t see you. Or were rushing their son to the doctor.
Did you get emotional with your boss because of the actual criticism or because that’s exactly what your Mom used to say? Kid’s arguments can set you off one day, but blow right past you another day.
You rarely get to see the big picture. Will this event turn out to be terrible or the best thing that ever happened to you? You can’t know everyone’s motives or their pasts.
Assumptions are beliefs or ideas that we hold to be true — often with little or no evidence required." – Daniel Kies
How many times have you assumed you can’t do something? Even if you’ve never tried.
And when we are miserable about something, it’s almost always because we think something, some situation or someone should be different than they actually are.
Fighting reality is a hard way to live.
Byron Katie teaches what she calls The Work to question your thoughts and assumptions. The inquiry process is right on her web site: The Work
What thought is making you angry, frustrated or sad? Try The Work on that thought.
Are We Becoming Shallow?
Posted by: | CommentsThe other day my son said there isn’t going to be any cool inventions pretty soon because no one has the time to think or experiment.
Are we becoming a people that no longer has time to think? Just do, do, do?
I worry that without time for deep thinking, we will become shallow, only thinking about the basic things.
What do you think?
Tired and Weary
Posted by: | CommentsSo many people are tired and weary, mind never stopping, body not taken care of.
We are pushing and rushing. We see things and we want more and more. Forgetting what we have.
Our minds get caught up so much in what we think we need, in what we think we have to do, in maintaining all we have.
What if you came to your day with the idea that you have all you need. And that you have all the time you need for what you really need to do.
What if you don’t hold on to the trappings of your life so tightly.
Can you bring some lightness into your life today?
Photo by A Jawin
Assess Truthfully
Posted by: | Comments
What stands in a lot of people’s way of gaining a simpler life is they are lying to themselves.
"I have to put my child in all these activities or they won’t be able to get ahead and go to a good college." When it’s more likely fear that other people’s children will get further ahead than yours. Even though lots of activities never guarantees success and often undermines it.
"I can put this on my credit card and then pay it when I get the bill." When in reality you always only pay the minimum.
"I love my kids so I want to give them the best birthday party ever." When often comparing with the kids’ friends birthday parties often has a big part to play in it.
"I have to…" No, you choose to because you don’t want to deal with any consequences of not doing it.
"I really want to volunteer" is really "I wanted them to like me."
"I need it" is more often "I want it."
Telling yourself the truth gives you the opportunity to make real choices. You can have a conversation with yourself pushing back against the part of you that doesn’t want to see the truth.
What conversation do you need to have with yourself?
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Photo by Suzanna Reynolds
Resolutions are Bonuses
Posted by: | CommentsAs we think about what we want for this coming year, let’s also remember that most of what we want are bonuses to an already good life.
For many of us we already have families, homes, work, the sights of nature, the movement of our bodies, the sounds of music, the taste of chocolate.
We don’t need to do more, get better, or improve anything to be happy. We can be thankful and content right now.
(Our cat Thomas sure knows how to be content)
The End of the Year Regret Time
Posted by: | CommentsI have to watch out for the New Year. I always want to make elaborate plans for everything I am going to do on top of my regular life.
But, it seems those New Year’s plans don’t always happen. The funny thing is I look over my goals lists from a few years ago and those goals happened. They just took longer than a year. I think many goals that are important do take more than a year.
If we keep making progress towards our dreams and goals, we will eventually hit them. Just like the little engine that could.
A year is not some mystical number that all goals must be reached by. The year mark is just a train stop on your life journey.
We have full lives. Most of us can’t work on our goals 24-7.
So what goals have you made progress on last year? What do you think your life would look like if you continued working on them this year?
Your other choices are beating yourself up about not completing the goal yet, giving up, or making a myriad of excuses why it’s not possible. Yuck!
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Photo by Aussie Gal
If you are looking for a way to break down your goals and plan a simpler year you can check out my Simple Annual Plan
Where Are You?
Posted by: | CommentsSelf consciousness takes a lot of energy and isn’t very simple. We do our best to try to impress those around us and slink under masks.
Most people want to connect with authentic people. People they can be themselves with. Not people they feel they need to compete with.
We run ourselves down trying to keep up with our image. When the image is just a mirage anyway. And our bodies become weary, our souls dry until there is even less of our real selves.
Soon only the image remains.
Christmas Disaster
Posted by: | CommentsI read an article in Guideposts the other day of TV’s Katie Brown’s first Thanksgiving in her new home with her family and new mother-in-law. It was going to be perfect and organized.
Then she gets the turkey out of the oven for dinner and finds it still raw inside. The new oven’s settings were off.
She told her husband to come into the kitchen saying, “I can’t believe this. Everything’s ruined.”
She writes, "William took my hand and said, “Sweetheart…” I looked into his eyes. It hit me. Thanksgiving wasn’t ruined. It wasn’t about the turkey or the sides or singing “Over the river…” in a sleigh.
It was about the feeling I’d had all day. Nothing could take away that sense of being extraordinarily blessed and extraordinarily grateful."
Fallen Tree by Joe Shlabotnik
The Christmas disasters you fear about something going wrong or not being finished are just minor blips or maybe humorous stories for future telling.
Around this time of year I see people’s anxieties rise as the self-imposed pressure of the holidays makes them more frantic than what is warranted. The world will not fall apart if a present is late, Christmas cards turn into New Year’s cards, or the whole meal is burned and you are stuck eating the hors d’oeuvres.
After an anxiety filled year, it seems even worse than usual.
What if from now until Christmas or whatever holiday you are celebrating, we kept our eyes open for precious moments. And things going right. And all of the blessings we have.
Truly have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Bright Winter Solstice and/or Blessed Kwanzaa.
Choice Clutter
Posted by: | CommentsA lot of our time is now spent trying to decide between dozens of choices. We no longer have the one store in town that has one type of sugar, one type of flour, and whatever fruit is in season. Instead there is a whole aisle for breakfast cereal.
The main problem with all this choice is you don’t have the security of thinking you made the right choice. You worry that another choice was better.
To make decision making simpler, it’s helpful to know yourself. What values do you have? Do you want something least expensive? Do you need organic? Does design speak to you? Do you want to know where something was made?
What size and shape body do you have? What clothes and brands work best for your body? What colors work best for you? I don’t ever look for pastels or white because they don’t look good on me and I have to buy petite. I’ve limited my clothing choices a lot just by that.
When you are looking for a phone service, what is most important for you? For me it’s how good the signal is as many phones don’t even work inside my house. Other people go by phone choice, expense, or needing family plans.
Limiting the time you search will help you deal with choice paralysis. And the time works best based on the importance of the decision to you. Deciding on a job should take longer than choosing a pair of shoes. Give yourself a couple days to sign up for the phone plan. And it might take you less than 10 seconds to pick out the pasta sauce.
Spending time in the toothpaste aisle looking for the "best" toothpaste can feel like a waste of time. Decide what you want – price, whitening, tarter control and then grab one. If you don’t like it, next time you can choose something different. Many of these choices we get stuck on don’t matter that much. So fretting over whether you made the right choice is nothing but an energy drain.
Even with big decisions you won’t know whether another way would have been better or not.
You do have the power and the insight to choose. You know yourself and your family better than any advertising agency, magazine editor or social media test.
What decision have you been putting off? What’s the most important aspect of that decision to evaluate?
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Photo Credit: The Consumerist
100 Days Till the End of the Year
Posted by: | CommentsWell, Wednesday is 100 days until the end of the year. Remember those resolutions and goals from the beginning of the year? Where are you at with them?
For the past two years I have done the Goal’s Guy 100 Day Challenge which supports you in your finishing up some of those goals. You can check out the video below if you are interested. And even if you aren’t, I want you to think of at least one goal you’d like to focus on for the rest of the year. You can make changes to your life.
