Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 344 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I hope you’re all doing really well and being the best version of you that’s possible. So the other day we had the outside of our house cleaned, sometimes when it gets really wet outside our railing lights don’t work, well right now our railing lights are not working at the moment. It’s happened before and it used to give me so much anxiety because that’s such a beautiful part of our lighting and I am pretty particular about lighting. But this morning when Eric told me they weren’t working I just sort of felt an acceptance. An instant flash of anxiety popped up but then it was shut down by an acceptance that you now what? I know it will work once it dries out and if it doesn’t, I can always get an electrician to look at it. No big deal. It’s part of my life today, and it’s not a part I can do anything about at the moment so why stress myself out, I don’t need for that to be different in order for me to enjoy my morning.
What if you just stopped expecting things to be different? What if you just began looking at what is and saying this is what is in my experience at the moment. I don’t need for it to be any different because it’s not. I know that sounds like settling or fatalism. But so often it’s the fighting against what we don’t want that causes us to agonize, it also causes more of what we don’t want.
If something is happening in your life and you don’t want that to happen…so you scream and fight and cry because you want it to be the way you want it to be or expected it to be but that’s not how it is. What is is what is. We can’t fight that and win, we can fight it and be in misery. We can fight it and dwell on it and scream at it but now we’re just bringing more of that into our life. Where focus goes energy flows, right? And like it or not, believe it or not, we live in a world of vibration and energy. We attract what we think about. We attract what we give most of our attention to.
All growing up in the religion I was raised in there was this underlying threat that if you really messed up you would lose your family. Because in that religion they practice shunning. Where everyone you love and know will turn their backs on you if you’re shunned. Quite literally I’m not exaggerating. It’s a pretty effective practice if you think about it because it is our greatest fear as a human to be rejected, isolated, alone and deemed unworthy. So every person that grows up in this religion has that fear that it could happen to them and it’s not irrational because they have watched as it happened to their friend or their like in my case their uncles and cousins. It’s real and it used to keep me up at night when I was a teenager struggling to follow the rules.
So I thought about this all the time, I feared it more than anything even death. Because it equaled death in our ancestors. If someone was shunned from the tribe they had no protection, no food, no shelter and often it meant they would die alone. Just how it was. So this was on my mind a lot growing up. Then when I couldn’t take it anymore and I left the religion , I still worried. All the time that my family would shut me out but I also knew in my heart I was meant for something different. And so on my journey went to find what that was. Still thought I worried. I couldn’t break free from that fear. People around me would say they wouldn’t do that. Don’t worry. But I did. And then my worst fear came true when my younger sister sat me down and said that her family would no longer be part of our life because we were not part of her religion and she didn’t want her kids to see another way of life that they might want. It’s been 5 years since she did that. It’s never easy to admit that you attracted something bad into your life but once I started really working on myself and listening to mentors like Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins that I had to ask that question..what role did I play in this?
I realized I put so much energy and focus into fearing what I didn’t want and pushing against what I didn’t want that I never had time to focus on what I DID want.
And was it possible because I spent so much time focusing energy on what I didn’t want that I attracted that into my life?
So over the last few years I have, through mediation and journaling and focusing my energy on good thoughts I started asking myself what I DID want. Journaling what I DID want. Noticing how my thoughts affected everything I do. I realized that I was responsible which is great because that meant I could fix it. I no longer allow myself to dwell on what could happen that’s terrible, that I don’t want. I focus on what I DO WANT. How do I want to show up? What is good in my life right now? What am I grateful for?
It’s so amazing to see what changes when you practice living this way. I no longer fight against the sister that’s not in my life. When I do think of her I send her love. I’ve seen her a couple times at my parents but when I see her I am just myself and let her be herself and I love on my niece and nephew and I don’t expect it to be anything different than what it is. I don’t need her to be different for me to feel good.
And I don’t talk bad about her to other people, years ago that was not the case. I don’t wish her ill, years ago that was also not the case…honestly, I don’t think about her much at all in fact because I’m busy thinking about the things in my life I do have, my relationship with her has changed quite a bit in my head and if there is a time where I feel a little resentment pop up for her I simply change my focus. Meditation has taught me I can do that in an instant and it works. I will change my focus to things like the beautiful relationship with all my other siblings and my parents and my amazing friends.
Where focus goes energy flows. When you’re focused on the things you don’t want, you get more of that. When you focus on the things you do want..you also get more of that.
So think about your thought habits and thought patterns. Where is your thought energy spent? Is it on what you have and love or on what you don’t have and despise?
Show me your life and I could answer that for you.
It’s not easy. Managing our mind is one of the greatest tools we will ever learn. You can be happy AND the relationships you have are not perfect. You can be happy AND the car you love is in the shop. You can be happy AND the life you’re living has obstacles. I can be happy and relaxed even though my railing lights are currently not working…and I am.
My challenge to you this week is to evaluate your thought patterns if there is an area in your life that is going south. Your thought patterns control your emotions which control your actions. If you’re having trouble controlling your thought patterns then your life will continue to be a product of those negative thoughts. Trust me on this. Meditation doesn’t feel like it does much when you’re doing it but the consistent action of knowing you control what you think about which is exactly what meditation teaches you is the difference between a default life and a life that you decide where it’s going. Powerful stuff.
Share this with 3 people you love. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days.
