There is a new program on television this year called GLEE. It is written by a couple of Prospect High school graduates and follows the life of a swing chorus. A lot of the storylines and characters come from actual events at Prospect.
When we only focus on ourselves, sometimes we have a hard time to see our blessings in our difficulties.
I believe the lesson is that our reality is what we perceive – and we can choose what we perceive. We choose what we focus on. We choose what we accept. We choose how we interpret different situations. Therefore we are actively choosing our lives every day.
Although this is a trying time, I feel blessed to go through it. No, really I do. You see, now I will have a chance to practice what I preach. As I tell clients every day, self improvement is about a set of habits and tools to use daily, not a program what one learns and then goes back into their daily life. These tools are there to call on when things get rough or when we are pulled off course – just like I was recently.
Every day I tell clients to take care of themselves first. I show them different tools to relax, recharge, and center themselves. I explain how we are no good to others if we have not first taken care of ourselves. But I haven’t seemed to have followed my own instructions.
All too often we move through life not being aware that we have a choice in what that life looks like. We go through our days doing what our parents did, what are friends are doing, what we perceive society expects from us, or just accepting what comes our way.
Learn how to keep anxiety and stress from piling up on you.
Our words are truly powerful. How we decide to describe our life is how we also decide how to live it. How are you the author of your life? Are you creating an joyfilled story or a horror film?
When we let our inner narrator prattle on, it often spins a negative, self-attacking story of victimization and pain. But we can retrain our inner narrator to write positive, uplifting life stories.
The unconscious, primitive reaction I had to the news was fear. This fear sent me back to my safe place; back to those habits that I had in my youth. Habits that served a purpose when I was younger, but which are nowdeterimental to my happiness. It was amazing how these habits jumped back into my life and burst out as knee-jerk reactions. I would catch myself doing or saying something out of character amazed at my own unconscious actions.
When I signed up to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, I had no idea what an amazing experience it would be. There were so many incredible people who taught me the true meaning of strength, determination, generosity, joy, and hope.