Wakeup Breathing

In the previous post I talked about how to change anything in your life. So then what?? What comes next? Is there a miraculous awakening and then you are changed…probably not. Most people find it hard to hold the attention on something longer than 5 minutes unless it’s the latest story about what Britney did today.

So it is not unusal that your thoughts can runaway with you. Have you ever driven through the mountains and you see a long off ramp with a giant pile of gravel at the end. That is a runaway truck ramp. They are there to stop bigs trucks that have a brake failure . The driver just drives off and the gravel hopfully slows the truck safely.

Well your mind can runaway also. But instead of running off the road we take off on thoughts of the past and project them into the future. We take bad past events and project them into the future and put our quest for the ideal off track. We think because of that bad event I will continue to have bad happen. But as long as we think like that wil attract what we think.

So how do you not do this? The best way I know is to take a moment and ask yourself..What am I thinking right now?
When you ask yourself a question like that you become aware and can then bring you thoughts back toward your ideal.

So when you are aware of your thoughts you can then bring them back on the road instead of heading down the runaway thought ramp. Do this consistently and you will make your ideal real.

The easiest way to keep consistent is by remembering something I have seen before…you have to “remember to remember”
Remember to ask “what am I thinking” ,” How am I feeling” and before long you will not have to remember because your ideal will be the real you.

Go create yourself an ideal day!

We all say we want to change something in our lives but most of us never do. Why? It’s generally not because we don’t want to.
We may want to be a better ______________ (fill in the blank) but we just don’t get there.

One reason is we don’t really know what it is we want. We haven’t defined what our “ideal” life would be. Without a picture of the ideal we cannot make it real in our life. This is just like if you wanted to build a house. Do you just go to Home Depot, buy some wood and nails then go home and start nailing boards together…noway. You build it to a plan and a vision.

So why do we think making and change in our life can be done without a plan or at least an idea of what our ideal life would be?

What is it you want to change? Can you see it in your mind? I have read alot about visualization and it seems some “experts” say you should write them down and reafirm them daily. I’m not a big believer in daily afirmations. Because if we get a vision of the ideal in our minds we should be able to carry through. Our minds are the most powerful computers in the universe, why do we need to write it down to remember. But if you write it down and don’t act on it they afirmations are useless.

It you can define your ideal life and visiualize it you can live it. I don’t mean that just sitting around visiualizing being rich is going to attract riches to you either. I believe that visualization attracts you to riches not the other way round. I believe it is because you are visiualizing your ideal life that opens your mind to opportunities and lets you be more receptive to them. And by riches I don’t mean only money. There are many things in life that will enrich it besides money….although money is nice too.

So you got the visiualization part down….you have the picture of the ideal and you want to make it real. How do you do that??

You start is how you do it. You think about being the person you have in your mind. You then be that person.
You will become that person by always moving forward toward the ideal in your mind. Anytime you stop moving toward the ideal you will actually lose a great amount of ground and will go backward. By constantly moving toward your ideal you will make it real.

So if you want to change something….JUST START!

When I was growing up my sisters and I were given very little from our father. I don’t mean material things I mean the fatherly type of giving. Giving of himself to his kids.

He did give alot but it was all to himself. It was always for him and about him.

So as kids we didn’t understand that he was so self-centered. We just thought it was something we were doing that made him ignore us emotionally. So we grew up always trying to please him to get his attention. This made us become “pleasers” as adults.

A pleaser is usually a very nice person because they are always trying to please everyone. Unfortunately they end up doing everything for everyone else and neglecting their own needs. In my case this behavior can make for a very unhappy person.

It wasn’t until later in my 30’s that I began to understand that it wasn’t me… it was him that had the problem. He was the one that had no or little capacity to love. I learned one important lesson from this and it was that I would never treat my kids the way he treated his. Some might say now that I was too nice to my son….and that may be the case. But I can judge my role as a father by the fact that even at 20 my son is not afraid to publically display affection for his Dad.

So the point of all this? Lose the baggage! You don’t need to continue to drag those bad memories around like baggage in the airport. Don’t let it hold you back from being everything you can be. Recognize and acknowledge the fact that you do not have to let it affect your life from today on.

It’s never to late to change!

We all have things happen in our lives that don’t go the way we want. We don’t get the job, lose the game, you name it.

I can give you a bunch of examples in my life when I got “life experience”….You know what “life experience” is?

Life experience is when you are expecting one thing and get something totally different and it is usually not good.
Everyone of us has bad stuff happen. The one thing that separates many of us is what we tell ourselves when it happens.
What pictures we put in our minds will affect how we deal with the bad stuff.

I believe the way to address the bad is to ask yourself…How can I learn from this and make bad into good?

I have done this most of my life. But this way of thinking is not automatic. You have to make yourself look for the good in every bad. Our minds are just like the laptop I’m using right now. It is only as good as the information we program into it.

The problem is most people are walking around with progams for failure in their mind. They take everything bad that happens and wrap themselves in it which reinforces the program in our mind. The only wat to fix this is to fix the programming we give our mind.

If you get a dose of “life experience” don’t take it like some bad tasting medicine. Take that bad taste and turn it into the knowledge of knowing you can make some good out of it. Each time you do this the process will become easier. Over time you will be reprogramming your mind to start “making bad into good” automatically.

You will then begin to understand the power of your mind how it affects your life.

What does our cat have to do with changing your life?

Well let me explain…Our cat was 12-14 years old. Don’t know exactly because we got her from a cat rescue. Over the years she turned into a big fat happy cat. The last couple weeks she started having trouble breathing. So I knew her life was coming to an end. She also knew this morning when she went under the bed to die.

During this time it made me think of our own lives. Most people live day to day going about their life. Most will get up go to work come home watch the idiot tube go to bed and start all over again.

Then something happens, they get sick, have an accident or something that makes them decide that they need to start living. Sometimes 30 or 40 years go by then they think it’s time.

This is where I say they wasted all that time. Everyday I am thankful I woke-up breathing and have another day. Now I’m not saying I live the jetset life or anything but I do try to get as much out of each day as I can. I write here and other places, play with the dog, talk to my 20 year old son, spent time with my wife and work at my regular job and on the small business ideas I’m developing. We go on a cruise each year with friends and try to take small vacations when we can.

The point of all this is….don’t let your life slip away. We can have all the money in the world but we still only get each minute of each day. The same as everyone else. Also the same is if we are fortunate to wake-up the next morning we only are guaranteed that day. Go do the things you want to do now no matter how little they are.

You never know when you won’t wakeup breathing….so enjoy every minute!!