(This is a guest post by Anita Fiander of AnitaFiander.com)

Inside this very short article I am going to explain to you how I have created massive change through addiction recovery in my life and how you can do it too.

How do I know this stuff works and will continue to work?

Because I have invested almost 25 years researching and then taking action to change my life, from a huge career change, tackling alcohol and nicotine addiction and learning to use my dysfunctional past to help other women.

In order to live a full and complete life, we must learn how to let go of past failures and disappointments and not carry them with us into our future.

Hanging on to pain, bitterness and disappointment from our past is a heavy burden. It affects your moods, attitudes, relationships, job and all aspects of your life. Negativity eats away at your self-esteem and destroys any possibility of a life free from pain.

Fortunately, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel! Your future doesn’t have to be a repetition of your past. You don’t need to be destined to a life of pain, regardless of what you’ve already been through. You can lay down your burdens. It’s okay for you to be free. In fact, you deserve it!

These four steps will help you move forward and find the freedom you need to begin living a fuller, more enjoyable life, through addiction recovery.

1. Talk about it. Discuss your past pain, fear, disappointment or trauma with a trusted friend or family member. Fully express the feelings associated with the situation: cry, scream, or do whatever you need to do to release the bottled up emotions in a safe way.
   

• Until you really talk about the feelings connected to your past, you may not be able to move past them.Once you’ve spoken the words, release them from your mind forever. As hard as it may be, it’s the only way to free yourself from your past.
  

2. Use a journal. Writing in a journal is an excellent way to pour out your pain. A journal offers the safety of knowing your words are just for you and won’t be read by anyone else. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or even if the words follow a logical progression, simply write from the heart.

• Physically writing your thoughts and feelings can release your emotions so you can move past them.

3. Seek forgiveness.Many people misunderstand the meaning of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened to you is unimportant or you’re saying it’s “okay.” In fact, forgiveness isn’t about the other person at all.Forgiveness simply means that you’ve made the choice to let go of the desire to exact revenge and punishment, and you’ve found closure within your heart and soul.

•  Forgiveness releases you from the burden of carrying the pain any longer. By choosing to forgive, you can stop thinking about the past so it won’t control your future.
  

4. Seek professional guidance. You can choose to get help from a life coach or therapist.The people closest to us aren’t always the best choice to help us work through our pain.

   It may be difficult for us to fully open up about our deepest pain or it may be hard for them to step back far enough to help us through it.
   

• Seeking guidance from a professional gives us the safety of relative anonymity, which can make it easier to share our problems, through addiction recovery. Often a coach or counselor can help us see a new point of view, which can help us move forward.

About Anita

Anita Fiander is an Addiction Specialist, Speaker, Author & Recovery Coach, Lifelong Psychology Student, and a Thought Leader in Addiction.

…And her passion is to empower women through addiction recovery.

We invite you to find out more about Anita Fiander and her programs. Let us see if what she has can help you.

Find her here: http://www.anitafiander.com/contact

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It’s the beginning of the new year and everyone that I know is either in planning mode, or was more organized than I and has already started to execute their plans for the year. Not me. I have the plan, but somewhere along the way I got sidetracked during the implementation process. But I’m okay with that because for me this year, it’s all about getting healthy and re-learning how to live outside of my office.

Before you start thinking I’ve lost my mind, let me just say that doesn’t mean I don’t have goals and plans for the year. I have a list as long as my right arm of places I’d like to go and things I’d like to do this year and some of them even involve work! More importantly though, it means that instead of focusing one hundred percent on business this year, I’m leaving time to live in the moment and explore all the opportunities that come my way through unexpected doors and windows.

Here are five reasons why I’m doing this, and why you should too.

1. Life is too darn short to live anywhere else.

It’s probably not politically correct to say, but I’m not getting any younger, and neither are you. Each day only comes once, and what you make of it is up to you. If you spend it all focused on the future it’s just too easy to let the opportunities that lie right in front of you go past without even recognizing them for what they are.

How many doors have you passed by that might have led to awesome experiences because you were too focused on either the past or the future to notice the now?

2. You get to be spontaneous and open some of those doorways.

You know that saying, “you’re only young once”? Well, it’s true. As I alluded to in the point above, life really is too short to have every minute planned and scheduled. I can honestly say that I think that’s why I’m having such a hard time getting focused on work this year — I forgot to build play time into my schedule.

If you’ve been around here for any length of time at all, you’ll know that my inner child lives pretty close to the surface. I like to play and when I can’t I get very grumpy. Living in the moment allows me to work when the work needs to be done, but also leaves room to set it aside and go out to play when the opportunity presents itself. Whether it’s coffee with a friend, or just a walk in the park and a swing on the swings I much prefer allowing myself the freedom to do that than worrying about whether or not I should be doing it. I guess when it comes right down to it, I’d much rather make memories than money.

Which brings me to my third reason for living in the moment…

3. You learn a lot about the person in the mirror.

The best thing you can do for yourself is really get to know yourself … what you want, what you need, what’s important to you … not what other people tell you that you should want, need and care about.

Living in the moment allows you the freedom to pay attention to what you really want your life to be like. It may surprise you to see that what you really want is not always what you have planned for.

4. You can let go of your worries just for the moment.

Have you ever noticed that when you spend most of your time planning for the future, you are worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet?

Worrying about the future can lead to stress, which leads to all kinds of nasty things – heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes included. When you live for the moment instead, you can choose to let go of your worries and your stress, just for that moment! Even if you only stop worrying for a minute and then go right back to it, at least you will have had one minute’s contentment and peace.

Try it now. Stop and take a deep breath and feel the stillness when you do. Breathe in all the calm, peaceful energy you can conjure up and don’t let any worries spoil your minute.

When you live in the moment, you can choose peace or stress every sixty seconds. Which will you choose?

5. There’s actually room for family and friends here.

When you’re stressed and stuck worrying about what has happened in the past, or what will happen in the future, there’s really no room for the people in your life now. You might have a life but you sure don’t get to live it.

Making the choice to live more fully in the moment allows room for your partner, your children, your family and your friends to be a part of your life. Not only do you get to have a life, you get to live that life, to spend time with the people that are important to you. Whether that means going on vacation, or just going for a walk in the park together is your choice.

Learning to live in the moment is one of the nicest things we can do for ourselves. Regardless of your reason, you won’t be sorry that you made the choice. Your friends, family, and most importantly your inner self will thank you.

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When bad habits threaten your success, it’s time to change them. In an earlier article on perseverance and success, I mentioned that one of ways that the two meet is through knowing what your bad habits are, and choosing to change them.

What we might call “bad habits” are behaviors that we do as a result of choices we have made in the past, but no longer have a place in our present or future. They might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but over time have come to be more of a negative influence than a positive one. I don’t know about you, but I have a few bad habits that I know affect the level of success I have achieved. I also know that the only person who can do anything about them is me.

Fortunately, if you really want to make changes and let go of your bad habits, there are a few things you can do to make that process a little easier.

1. Make the commitment to change.

Change is hard. I don’t say that to discourage you, only to let you know that making changes is not the “walk in the park” that some people make it out to be. You deserve acknowledgement just for having the courage to change.

When you are making the commitment to change, you need to be sure that this is a change you really want to make. If you are doing this for any reason other than that you know deep in your heart the time for change is now, then chances are that ditching your bad habit will be harder than it has to be.

I know from when I tried to quit smoking, it took at least five tries before I was successful. When I tried to quit because other people wanted me to, or because it was a New Year’s resolution, it didn’t work. It wasn’t until I became committed to getting healthy and taking better care of myself just because I could, that I was successful at kicking that nasty habit.

2. Decide what the change will be.

When you are eliminating a habit, it’s often easier to swap a negative for a positive than it is to just stop. Quitting something without replacing it often leaves a hole where that habit used to reside, and you don’t always know what to do with yourself. That makes it much easier to slide back into the habit you are trying to eliminate.

Going back to my battle with smoking, the biggest thing for me in stopping was what to do with my hands. I was a chain smoker and had a cigarette in my hand from morning to night, even when it wasn’t lit. I tried everything from getting up to get a glass of water as a replacement to snapping an elastic band on my wrist as punishment when I wanted a smoke.

Neither of those worked for me, by the way. What finally worked was a plastic nicotine inhaler. I could hold it like a cigarette, and not even have to fill it. By the end of about three weeks of doing this I got so annoyed at having the thing in my hand I just put it away, and haven’t had a cigarette since.

The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to decide on an alternative action that works for you.

3. Start immediately.

Once you decide that you are going to eliminate a bad habit, don’t wait to get started. Waiting only gives you a chance to talk yourself out of making a change.

You can always work in small steps instead of going cold turkey if you think that will give you better results. The important thing is to get started, even if you’re only taking alternative action once a week in the beginning.

4. Tell people what you’re doing.

It’s important to have some sort of support system in place when you’re making any type of big changes. And lets’ be honest here — deciding to change your behaviour is one of the biggest changes you can make. You really shouldn’t try to do it alone.

If your family and friends will be supportive of your efforts, then by all means tell them what you’re doing. If they’re not, then find a coach or an outside support group that you with positive feedback and support. Sometimes just having someone to vent to when the going gets a little rocky is all you need to get you back on track again.

5. Keep a journal of the process.

Keeping a journal is a great help when you’re changing habits. It doesn’t matter what kind of habit you’re trying to change, writing down your thoughts about the process as well as your successful days and your not-so-successful attempts will teach you a lot about yourself.

For example, if you are trying to change an eating habit then you could keep a food journal where you write down everything you eat, how you feel when you’re eating it, what changes you made successfully, and what happened to make you want to slip back into your old habit.

Habits are essentially patterns of behaviour. Writing down as much information as you can about your habits allows you to see the patterns, and make the necessary changes. By the time you’re done, you will have a clear picture of where you started, where you are now, and how you got from one place to the other. This will make it a lot easier for you to change the next habit because you’ve already done it once!

Throughout your whole habit-changing process, keep one thing in mind: This will not happen overnight. Behavioural experts say that it takes a minimum of twenty-one continuous days to change a habit, so you will need to practice your powers of perseverance as well as your new behaviours.

Don’t give up. Making the decision to ditch your bad habits is step toward a more fulfilling, successful life. You deserve all the good that comes your way.

I wish you much success!

Photo Credit: Morgue File

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When you embark on a path of growth you have to be willing to ask the tough questions. I don’t just mean of yourself, although that’s certainly a large part of it. It also means that you have to be willing to ask tough questions of your friends, family, followers and people you would serve. It also means that you have to be open to accepting the answers you get, even when they’re not the answers you necessarily want to hear.

When you ask questions and accept the answers, you allow yourself to be open to new experiences and ideas that you might not have otherwise considered. You may find that by looking at things from a different point of view, you see things that you would never have seen if you didn’t ask the question in the first place.

Sure, it can be unnerving in the beginning. But as you get used to asking questions and receiving feedback, you will begin to feel more comfortable with the process. Just as with any other step that moves you beyond your comfort zone, you will experience those growing pains. To get past them the best thing you can do is keep on practicing — asking questions, accepting answers, and then using those answers to take the best steps on your chosen path.

Just to make it a little easier on you, here are a few ways you can help yourself when it comes to dealing with new experiences and ideas that are outside your comfort zone. (I should tell you that every single one of these leaves me shaking in my boots when I do them, so know that you’re not alone if it makes you nervous.)

1. Make an effort to push your boundaries beyond what you’re comfortable with. (If you’re not sure how to do this, see last week’s article for some tips and suggestions.) Take those little baby steps, try new things and check out new places that force you to consider new points of view.

2. Stay calm and positive even when you don’t like what you’re hearing. That doesn’t mean that you have to accept everything you hear and every answer you receive at face value. After all, there is that old saying about trusting only half of what you hear.

Instead, when I say stay calm I mean don’t get ticked off and close down just because you don’t agree with the feedback you’re getting. In other words, don’t take it personal.

I know it’s hard not to take things personally sometimes, especially if you’ve asked for feedback, but you can’t or you will drive yourself nuts. You also will grow at a lot slower pace if you’re not willing to hear other people’s points of view.

3. Be open to meeting people and making new friends. When you’re out socializing and talking to new people, it’s much easier to find different points of view to consider than if you just kept to yourself all the time.

4. Be willing to try something before you reject the suggestion out of hand. Unless something is so totally offensive to you that you have to reject it immediately, then you should be willing to at least consider suggestions and input before ignoring it and going on your way.

Whatever you do, never stop asking questions or gathering feedback. It’s natural and a part of growing as a person to want to have explore new ideas and go in new directions. Don’t let fear hold you back from being the best person you can be. After all, if a big ol’ chicken like me can do it, I know you can do it even better!

P.S. Don’t forget to answer my tough questions. I appreciate your honest feedback. :)

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It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with the pace of life as we know it these days. There always seems to be more to do in a day than is humanly possible. And yet, we try our best to fit it all in and do our best anyways.

Something’s got to give. Where you make your changes depends on where your priorities lie. Do you sacrifice your health for your career? Do you sacrifice your career for your family? Or vice versa? Or is it really possible to create a balance between all the various parts of your life? What do you have to do to avoid becoming burned out and stressed out, on the receiving end of a heart attack or worse?

In times of stress, the ability to think positively is a godsend. You will be able to navigate your way through stressful situations as long as you can keep an optimistic outlook. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to see the positive side of things when everything is clouded in stress.

Fortunately there are things you can do to keep your sanity when your world is in chaos, and having been there, I have a few suggestions that you can put to work for you…

1. Don’t worry. I know it’s easier said than done, but one of the best things you can do for yourself is slow your mind down and not let it get overwhelmed. If you’re anything like me, when you get stressed, it’s hard to turn the brain off because you’re continually thinking and re-thinking to come up with solutions to the problems you are dealing with. When you overthink things too much, all you do is create more stress for yourself.

2. Accept that some change is inevitable. Change is going to happen, whether you want it to or not. Of course, you may be facing a lot of changes all at once and that is really stressful and overwhelming. The best way to deal with any type of change is to find as much positive in it as you can. If you can deal with the positive aspects of change first and accept those, you put yourself in a position of strength when it comes to dealing with the more overwhelming parts.

3. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. As my mother used to tell me, it only wastes time and energy, and doesn’t accomplish anything at all. Your energy can be much better spent looking at all the angles and trying to come up with a solution.

4. Take baby steps to start with. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s best to start small and take baby steps until you’re feeling more in control of your thoughts and emotions. Another thing my mother always told me was that you will feel better if you do something, no matter how small it is. Doing something puts you in control, rather than sitting and doing nothing which leaves you at the mercy of your stress.

A good way to do that is to start with a gratitude list. Write out what you are grateful for, even if it has nothing to do with the situation at hand and you will put yourself in a positive frame of mind before you even start trying to deal with the issues that are causing your stress.

5. Be open to accepting help. We’re conditioned from a young age to never show weakness, so it’s a natural reaction when bad things happen, to withdraw and want to deal with it on your own. Something I’m really good at is shutting people out when I need them the most, and it’s a hard habit to break.

If you have a good support system in the form of family, friends and even counsellors or advisors, use them. Don’t drown in stress and overwhelm alone if you have someone that can help you with the situation. Even if all they can do is give you a hug, it’s good to know that you’re not alone.

6. Look for the lessons. One of the best ways to deal with stressful situations is to find the lessons in them. It may not seem like there’s a lesson in there when you’re feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, but there’s usually always something positive you can take away. The sooner you find that, and focus on it, the sooner you can say thank you for the lesson, and move on.

Dealing with stress and overwhelm doesn’t have to end in disaster. If you stay as positive as possible, and let others help you as you deal with the changes in your life you can get through it relatively unscathed, and come out the other side ready for the next exciting adventure in your life.

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It’s a fact of life that change is inevitable. We can’t grow if we don’t change, and on a basic level we know that. But that doesn’t mean that dealing with change is always easy.

Being stuck and having a hard time making changes they know need to be made is a real problem for some people. Whether they are afraid of change or just don’t know where to start, the process of getting unstuck is one that stops a lot of people from taking the next step in achieving their goals and living the life of their dreams.

So just what can be done if you are one of those people who has trouble dealing with change? Here are a few suggestions for making change a little more user-friendly.

1. Take a “big picture” view of the situation.

When you are trying to making changes, it helps to see the overall situation and how the changes you want to make fit in to your life. It’s easy to be so focused on the little details (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) that you forget that this change is going to impact the whole rest of your life too.

When that happens, it’s best to take a step back, catch your breath and think about your overall goals. How does this change fit in with your life master plan?

2. Keep your attitude positive.

Most people tend to view change as a negative event. If you can keep positive and see it as a chance to learn new things, have new experiences and grow as a person it’s likely that you will deal with change more easily and peacefully than someone who gets stressed and fights it.

3. Consider all your options.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re trying to make changes you get your mind set on one particular outcome? It happens, and when that outcome doesn’t materialize, you get really down because things didn’t work out according to your plans.

It’s easier to deal with change if you consider all your options and accept that everything might not go exactly as you plan it. Details are good, but being fixated on them can cause you to miss opportunities that might provide you with something better if you’re not open to other scenarios than the one you’ve constructed.

4. Stay present in the present.

When you consciously decide to make changes, it usually means that there was something in your past that you didn’t like. The trick to successfully changing is to not dwell on that past, but to stay focused on the present moment so that you implement the change and create the new behaviours and outcomes that you desire.

If you think about it, the future is created by the actions you take in the present. Dwelling on past actions that you can’t change really doesn’t provide anything positive to the experience.

5. Ask for, and accept, help when you need it.

Man was not made to live in isolation. And yet, when we need help the most we are often reluctant to ask for it, or to accept it when it’s offered.

If you need help in making changes in your life, don’t be afraid to ask for it. It’s likely that your family and friends and standing by waiting and watching, ready to lend a hand if needed. If you really don’t want to involve your friends and family, then seek out professional help. There is really no need to go it alone when help is available.

No one ever said that making changes would be easy. If it was, we wouldn’t have so much trouble dealing with it. Finding a strategy that works for you is a good start at making lasting changes more user-friendly and less stressful.

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It’s good to have a comfort zone. Really, it is. Even though I’m going to tell you how to break out of yours, it’s always good to know that you have that safe, familiar place to go back to when things get a little scary. It’s when your comfort zone turns into a cage that leaves you feeling trapped even when you know there’s a better life outside it waiting for you, that it becomes a not-so-good thing.

I know, because I was stuck in my own comfort zone for about eight years. Even today I have to consciously work at moving beyond the walls of my own safe zone every single day.

Comfort zones are filled with those nasty things that self-help teachers and life coaches call “limiting beliefs.” Jack Canfield calls it a “collection of can’ts, musts, must nots, and other unfounded beliefs formed from all the negative thoughts and decisions you have accumulated and reinforced during your lifetime.” (The Success Principles, p. 70) Not much good there, is there?

Sometimes it’s about more than just being held in check by your limiting beliefs and being stuck in a rut. Sometimes comfort zones become physical cages as well. This is what happened in my case. After several years of being emotionally abused, by the time my abuser was no longer in the picture, I was afraid to set foot outside my front door and afraid to let anyone in either. I stopped seeing friends, stopped answering the phone, and just about drove myself to an early grave with a heart attack at the age of 40. All because I was afraid to move beyond, to take just one step to start moving myself out of uncomfortable, but safe, place I had created for my body and my mind.

Fast forward to today, and it’s almost ten years later. I’m getting better at dipping my toe in the waters of change, and if not moving completely beyond what’s 100% comfortable for me, at least I’m pushing at the boundaries a little more often by doing the things I’m going to share with you in the next part of this article.

Three Ways To Move Beyond Your Comfort Zone

These are what I call my baby steps. Just one at a time, nothing too drastic and you will find yourself pushing back the boundaries of your comfort zone.

Use Positive Thoughts and Affirmations

Yes, positive thinking is your friend. It’s natural to feel scared when you’re moving away from what is familiar. If you can take those feelings of fear and turn them into positive thoughts of all the good stuff waiting on the other side for you, it will make taking that first step a little easier. You might even find yourself looking forward to it!

Affirmations can help get you in the right mindset for making changes too. Even something as simple as “I can do this” will put you in the positive frame of mind you need to be successful.

Try something new every day

My big breakthrough came when my son bought me golf lessons for Mother’s Day one year. I had no choice but to go out and look like a fool in a group setting. It was terrifying the first few times, but by about the end of the second week I was glad he had forced the issue.

You don’t need to try anything that drastic to start with though.If you can do something small, but new to you, every day you will soon find your boundaries expanding to encompass all your new adventures.

So what can you do? Go for a walk in a different direction each day, take a new way to or from work, try a new food, check out a shop you’ve never been in before, or even just smile at someone on the street. All these examples are baby steps in your journey outside your comfort zone, and they all add up over time.

Meet New People

This goes along with trying new things, because as you do you will be meeting new people. For me this was a big issue, even without considering my background of abuse. I’ve always been a very shy person and had trouble talking to others. Trust didn’t (and still doesn’t) come easily so having to be around people I don’t know is still a stretch for me. That’s one reason that for me, the golf lessons were a great idea. I was forced to meet new people, and have actual conversations that didn’t include a keyboard.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it. If you have family and friends that will support you in your efforts to make changes, ask for help. No one should have to walk through life alone, and having a friendly shoulder to lean on or hand to hold when the going gets a little rough is sometimes all we need to take that next step.

Moving outside your comfort zone shouldn’t be a traumatic experience. It should be fun, exciting, filled with passion and joy at being alive and able to make changes for a more fulfilling life. All it takes is just one step to start the process.

(Photo Credit © Lakeemotion | Dreamstime.com)

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George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” That statement means a lot to me because I believe that we can and do create our lives the way we want. Even when we’re not getting the results we want, we have still created them from our thoughts and action because we’re not paying attention to those thoughts and actions. This is because we have not yet mastered the art of self-awareness.

A big part of personal growth is becoming self-aware. Before you can find your self or create your self, you have to know, as Jack Canfield says in “The Success Principles“, where you are now and where you want to get to. It doesn’t matter what kind of changes you want to make — mental, physical, financial, in your relationships — they all have to have a starting point and an end point.

While you can choose the end point that you want to get to, the only way to determine your starting point is to learn how to become more self-aware.

Sounds easy, right?

What most people don’t realize until they start on the path of growth and change is that so much of what we think and feel is driven by outside forces. Self-awareness means learning to pay attention to your inner self first and act on what you are seeing, hearing, and feeling instead of reacting to those outside forces that you have no control over.

So how does a person learn the art of self-awareness?

Books and courses have been written on this topic. If you stop and think about it, learning to become self-aware is at the heart of personal development. So I won’t insult your intelligence by trying to answer that question in a short article. What I will do is give you a few tips to try on for size that will help you to at least begin the journey.

Make friends with the practice of self-reflection. As well as knowing where you are and where you want to be, it’s important to understand who you are right now and to have a vision of the person you want to become.

This doesn’t mean creating a catalogue of only the things you want to change. It means knowing yourself well enough to be able to list and celebrate your strong points as well.

It also means you need to examine your likes and dislikes, and determine if these are really your preferences or if they are the result of choices you have made in order to please others around you.

Above all, mastering self-awareness means being honest with yourself. If you don’t really allow your true self to shine through, or don’t accept yourself warts and all, then you can’t begin the process of creating lasting change in your life because your starting point is an illusion instead of a true picture of yourself.

Don’t be afraid to ask others’ opinions. That sounds almost wrong when we’re talking about self-awareness, but the truth is we’re not always the best judge of our own character. It doesn’t hurt to ask family and friends for their opinions on what they see as your strengths and weaknesses. They may see something in you that you’ve never even considered before, and this will only add to your inventory and give you another avenue to reflect on.

The key when it comes to soliciting other peoples’ opinions is to remember that they are only opinions. The final determination of what and who you are has to come from wtihin yourself. The whole point of learning self-awareness is to really see yourself as you are now.

The art of self-awareness is really the art of listening to yourself. We all have that inner voice that tells us when we’re being true to ourselves and when we’re not. Whether you call it your conscience or intuition, it’s there and so often we don’t pay it enough attention. Yet it’s a big part of us and we can’t really begin to create the self we want to be or the life we want to live without it.

Yes, life is, as Shaw says, about creating yourself. But in order to create yourself you do have to find yourself first. Mastering the art of self-awareness allows us to find ourselves, make peace with ourselves, and move on to creating the life we were born to live.

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If you missed part one, you can read it here: Lessons on Living For the Moment, Part 1

Lesson Three: Be Mindful of Your Choices

A lot of the fun of living in the moment comes from being able to make the choice of what to do each minute of the day. There is responsibility too, in making sure that you accept that the choice you make for this moment will have an impact on all the moments that follow it.

Being mindful of what you are doing and why you choose to spend time doing it can be a hard lesson to learn. It can be a frustrating one too if you have trouble staying focused. Take this article, for instance…

I knew that when I chose to sit down and write this article, that I would also be committing to spending the next 45 or 50 minutes with pen and paper, engaged in the task of creating something. So the choice to write an article in one moment has a definite impact on the next several minutes. It means my butt can’t leave the chair until it’s done, that my mind has to stay focused on one topice until it’s done, and any other thoughts that don’t relate to the current topic have to be set aside for the time it takes to get everything I want to say down on paper.

It also means that I have to be mindful of each and every word that goes in to the creation of this article, because it’s very easy for me to just start spewing out whatever comes to mind. And as you’ve no doubt noticed, I can ramble with the best of ‘em!

If I’m not paying attention to where my thoughts are heading, it’s easy to get dragged so far off topic that the only way back is to just stop and start over.

It’s also possible to hit a roadblock where the thoughts just stop. If you’re not mindful of the moment when that happens, you can find yourself crashing head first into the barrier. The moment has passed, and you’ve missed the train of thought you were supposed to be on.

Lesson Four: Let Go of the Past

Which brings me to the fourth lesson I’ve learned about living for the moment. Life is too darned short to live in the past.

And I’ll be perfectly honest with you here — this is the one lesson I still struggle with on a daily basis. I’m not good at letting go, and I still spend way more time than I should thinking about the past. Even though I know I can’t change it (and if I’m really honest I probably wouldn’t if I could since it’s brought me to where I am today), it’s still there rumbling around in my mind doing its level best to interrupt my present.

Learning to accept the past for what it is, is one of the biggest obstacles I’ve faced in my quest to live each day in the moment. I’ve found that sometimes the best way to handle it is to spend a few minutes wallowing in the memories, and then just say “thank you” and send them on their way.

Sometimes, too, thoughts of the past can serve as a good reminder of why it’s so important to stay focused on the present. Like those rare moments that I catch myself thinking “Gee, I wish I had a cigarette right now,” and then I remember all those cigarettes of my past and just how good they were for me. That’s when the past shoves me firmly back into the present, and in a hurry too. I have no desire to repeat those hospital visits, thank you very much.

These days I try to live for the moment and be conscious of my thoughts as often as possible. I’m still working on it, and some days are definitely better than others. One thing I’ve noticed is that the more I pay attention to each moment, the less stressed I am about what tomorrow may bring. Who knows… I might not make it to tomorrow, and that makes me determined to enjoy today’s moments to their fullest.

Thanks for spending a few of your moments reading this. Please leave a comment and let me know if you liked it, or just say hello so I know you were here.

Thanks for being here!

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One of the lessons I have learned from being a diabetic and a heart attack survivor is the importance of living for the moment. It’s so easy to become distracted by all the “stuff” of daily life that the dreams and pleasures of each moment get forgotten, or worse, set aside. We no longer live for the present moment because our thoughts get caught up in the next big problem or in rehashing something that happened years ago that we haven’t let go of. Until something comes along, like a heart attack, to remind us that this moment is really all we have, it could be our last, and if we don’t pay attention to it, it will be wasted instead of enjoyed.

As far as heart attacks go, mine was a pretty mild one. But it was enough of a wake-up call to make me want to change. Add diabetes into the mix and I got downright mad at the situation. Because even though I wanted, and still want, to be healthy and make changes and live each moment just for itself, I know I’ve not been very successful at it up to this point.

Why?

Mostly because I was afraid. For the first two years I sat in my house, afraid to do anything in case it triggered another heart attack.

Lesson One: Letting Go of the Future

The first lesson I had to learn was to let go of the future. By that I mean I had to quit worrying about what might happen before it happens. Instead of saying “I’d like to go for a walk, but what happens if I get chest pain out there and can’t make it back home,” I had to retrain myself to say “I will go for a walk today, and now is the perfect time.”

I found that if I was worried about the chest pain, I would sit back down on the couch and not move for the rest of the day. The moment to take action was wasted because I worried about what might happen before it even had a chance to happen.

But, if I accepted that I felt good in that one moment when I decided to go walking, put my shoes on and headed out the door, then I was usually fine. Sure there were, and still are, times that I have to stop and catch my breath, but now I see those moments for the gifts they are as well — a chance to really notice my surroundings.

Lesson Two: Pay Attention to Nature

Do you know what a gift it is to be able to take pleasure in the smell of wild flowers, freshly cut grass, or the river? The sight of ducks playing in the water, or a squirrel jumping from branch to branch? Or the feel of a spring breeze gently caressing your skin? There are days when I could happily spend the whole day just sitting on a rock letting the smells, sights, and feelings of being outside wash over me. My favorite moments are the ones where I am sitting on that rock, and I can take a deep breath and know that for just this one moment in time everything is absolutely perfect in my world. There is no future to worry about, no past to agonize over how I could have done things differently. There is only now, and in this moment everything is exactly as it should be.

Being in nature is a wonderful way to live for the moment. When you take the time to reconnect with nature, whether it’s to take a walk, ride a bike, or just sit on a rock, you realize that all of nature lives for the moment. We humans have got so messed up stressing over the things we can’t control. The best stress-reliever I know is to get outside and really be a part of nature, because at that point you can’t help but be in the moment.

Going back to my example of the walk, I found that no matter how crappy I was feeling at the time, the moment I opened the door and stepped on to the sidewalk, I started feeling better. Even though for the time being I have to trudge through the urban landscape of downtown to get to the green stuff, as long as I could breathe in reasonably clean air and feel the sun on my face, even those moments where I have to deal with people in my space become tolerable. Seeing them rushing about just makes me more grateful that I can choose my moments and what I do with them.

To be continued…

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