Thursday, September 11, 2014

My Day In A Nutshell - 30 Day Challenge Day 3 and Remembering 9/11

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Day 2 of my 30 Day Challenge was a success!  What an accomplishment!  If you also successfully made it through your second day of the challenge then take a moment to congratulate yourself.  Breathe it in.  Pat yourself on the back.  Allow yourself this time to feel a sense of pride and happiness that you have completed another day doing something that will have an important impact on your life even if your current actionable step seems to be a very small and insignificant one.  

As you know, my current actionable step is to simply drink only one can of pop per day instead of drinking two.  It is a very simple goal which might seem ridiculous to spend 30 days of energy and focus on, but I know that it is just the beginning of what will over time become layer upon layer of increasing success.  Know for yourself that this is the foundation upon which you will build a bigger and better life for yourself filled with more happiness and more of a sense of satisfaction within each present moment.  

If you happen to have not been so successful then today is a new day and you can begin your 30 Day Challenge over again right now.  I would first ask you to re-evaluate the actionable step you have chosen.  I am inclined to believe that if you have stumbled then there is a possibility that you need to break the step down into smaller steps.  Many people will find that there is an addiction involved with whatever it is that they are trying to accomplish and addictions are much more complicated than just powering through not drinking that can of soda.  You may need to break your actionable step down into much smaller steps that include steps related to awareness, withdrawal, enabling, access, etc.  


For example, if I am finding that I  just cannot stop myself from drinking that can of pop then I need to step back for a moment and admit that there is much more at work here than the simple impulse of wanting to drink a soda because it tastes good and I am thirsty.  My actionable step may really need to be something to do with allowing myself to drink the pop, but spending 30 days becoming aware of the thoughts and feelings that occur leading up to my grabbing that can of soda.  I might need to tackle boredom or stress or avoidance instead of tackling the can of soda.  Maybe withdrawal is interfering with my success and I need to turn my focus towards checking that I’m not diabetic or need some sort of medical guidance through a sugar or other type of withdrawal process.  Maybe I need to work on my relationships and possibly someone who is enabling my bad habit by bringing me a pop when they go to get one thinking they are merely completing an act of kindness.  Maybe I just need to tell them I’m not drinking pop anymore and they will start bringing a water instead or maybe I could start getting up five minutes sooner and getting the drinks myself and delivering one to them so that I can grab a water for myself and a soda for them and by doing so taking control over the situation.  Maybe access is the problem and I need to first work on cleaning up my shopping list or working to remove myself from or eliminate an easy access situation.  Just remember that you can only really change yourself so target your newly revised actionable steps so that you are not relying on someone else to make you a success.  For example, if my spouse does all of the grocery shopping and my actionable goal is to diminish the access I have to pop I cannot approach it with the idea that I am going to stop my spouse from buying soda.  Of course I could ask them not to buy it anymore explaining that I am trying to cut it from my diet, but I cannot expect it to become their responsibility to keep me from drinking pop.  I might even be in a situation where they enjoy drinking the pop too and are not in an emotional space to want to stop drinking it with me and so it will always be around because they want it.  Maybe my actionable step should be that I take on more of the responsibility of doing the shopping so as to enable myself to not bring the pop in the home in the first place, but even then I cannot expect my spouse to not have soda if that is what they want.  Children are a different story.  If I don’t want my child to have soda that is something I can enforce much easier than trying to control another adult.  Whatever your revised actionable goal looks like just be sure to remember that it can never have to do with controlling someone other than yourself in any way and there needs to be no other steps required in order to be able to accomplish that goal successfully.  If multiple steps are required then you will have to break the process down even further into even smaller actionable steps.

Before we go any further tell me how things are going with your 30 Day Challenge in the comments below.

So today started with some Eckhart Tolle.  I went to sleep listening to him and I woke up wanting to listen to him even more and so I did.  I really cannot get enough of him and his teachings.  Oprah believes him to be a profit of our time and I have to agree with her.  I wish everyone could listen to his words and understand because the world would change drastically to one of peace, but not everyone is ready for his message just like not everyone was or is now ready to understand the teachings of Jesus.  You have to have reached a point in your life where enough suffering has occurred and you have the combined intellect and spirituality to need the message, to thirst for it, in order to understand it.  Sometimes you have to reach a certain level of enlightenment to understand that enlightenment exists and that is the case with understanding the message that Eckhart Tolle was put on this earth to bring us.  There are some people that at this time in existence will just never be ready.  There are some that will be ready another day just not today.


Then I had to get on with the daily grind so of course I did laundry (darks in cold water).  I know how much you organizers like to know exactly how other people manage the daily grind.  

While doing my laundry I prepared my outfit for the day which includes this t-shirt memorializing 9/11.  


It is a day I will never forget.  It is part of my “Pain Body” as Eckhart Tolle would say.  I no longer feel the emotional distress that I and so many others felt on that day and for many days after, but I can remember exactly how it felt and I’m aware that it isn’t gone completely.  I can let go of it, but I don’t have to ever forget.  I don’t believe in forgiveness in the way that most people say “you can forgive, but you don’t have to forget” or when they say “you have to forgive in order to move on”.  I don’t believe that to be true.  I don’t think you ever have to forgive someone that doesn’t deserve it or hasn’t earned it.  The whole point is to not allow them to have any more control over you right?  I personally think that to forgive someone when they haven’t done anything to deserve it actually hands them your control on a silver platter.  I don’t believe you have to do that to move on.  I feel very strongly that FORGIVENESS is the wrong word.  What I believe you CAN and SHOULD do though is to just let go.  You can choose to not carry them around every second of every day in your thoughts.  Allow them to lose significance.  You can choose to let the pain or anger become a part of the past so that it no longer has to be a part of your present or your future.  You can choose to turn your mind to things that matter right now and not bring this person or event along mentally and emotionally with you into your future.  That is what I have done with the awful day that was 9/11.  I have allowed it to be in the past and because my focus is on being present in the moment and working towards my future it has slipped away from my every waking moment meaning I have let go.  I will never forget it though and I will never forgive those who made that day happen, nor will I live as if there aren’t people now who have the intentions of trying to do other equally as horrible things in the future.  Today I will wear the shirt as a reminder to not forget and to be alert to those types of people who might lurk around me, but I do not have to be trapped in a state of panic, anxiety, fear, anger, hatred, astonishment, violation, sadness, grief, chaos, disbelief, or agony that I experienced at that time.  It is in letting go that I ultimately take back full control from the cowardly, murderous, contaminated individuals that caused the day that we now refer to as 9/11.  I am at peace and THAT is their ultimate failure.  I won’t forget or forgive but I will let go and live in peace and in all of that I have won.  I wear my shirt today in respectful memoriam for those who died and in celebration of the time following when the United States once again became united along with people all over the world into one positive spirit that was joined together completely in support of one another.  What an amazing and beautiful time that was! 










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