Examining Your Life

Socrates stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Not taking the time to examine our lives is a hindrance to our spirituality, faith, religion, relationships and professional development. There are undiscovered treasures and resources in each of our lives that can help us reach for new & exciting goals. On the same token, there are also time bombs that, if not deactivated, have the potential to blow up any dreams we may have of living our most fulfilling life. Many of us never take the time to examine our lives. We simply say “what’s in the past is in the past and it has no impact on me.” So how do you examine your life?

Oftentimes I have heard this phrase repeated in the church especially as people discuss painful situations in their past. I agree that these situations are in the past but I know for a fact that our past still impacts how we are living our lives today, in the NOW. Our conscious and unconscious mind stores every positive and negative experience in our memory. The positive experiences are stored in our conscious mind, whereas the negative experiences or the stuff we want to forget about is stored in our unconscious mind. Even though you may go throughout your life without (consciously) thinking about your negative life experiences, the problem is that the brain does not forget them, it simply stores them away only to have them show up again in the future. The functioning of your brain has been shaped by all of your positive and negative experiences and your brain uses them to make sense of your present and future realities. Your current beliefs, your past, your family background and your culture have conditioned the content of your mind. In order to be healthy and mentally free to live a fulfilling life in the NOW, you must place yourself in a structured environment and commit to a long-term effort of transformation. Attending church can help, but it is not enough.

Living a life without limits requires a multidisciplinary approach to address the totality of your being which encompasses your soul, body, and spirit. However you choose to feed your soul & spirit, make sure you’re in the company of individuals who are challenging you to do the work and dig deeper in order to break free of the negative patterns that are sabotaging your efforts to live a high functioning life. Take ownership of your own destiny and start taking responsibility for your life and your actions—it’s the most rewarding work there is.

Transforming Your Life classes will provide you insights, understanding, and tools to support you as you do the work to live the most fulfilling life you can imagine for yourself, so join me in January 2012 and start your new year off right! Leave a comment below along with your email for more information.

3 Choices

In our day-to-day efforts to control our lives, we have three choices:

1. We can pursue our preferred paths in that which we hope will be a merry experience, enjoying what we can and fending off, in whatever ways we know how, the threats as they occur.

2. We can take our behavior and that of others for granted, saying to ourselves in a state of naive optimism that denies the possibility anything about it, "That's the way people are" or "It takes all kinds" or, as one factory worker told me, "That's the way I am.  I ain't gonna change for nobody."

3. We can try to understand what goes on in people's heads, including our own, and learn how we might use that understanding to ease the strains, ours as well as theirs.

-excerpt from "Consulting Psychology", edited by Arthur M. Freedman & Kenneth H. Bradt

Socrates said, "Know thyself."  The key to surviving in relationships is not so much about focusing  on the other person as much as it is about understanding what's going on emotionally, inside of you.  By understanding your own process, it's easier to recognize the emotional functioning as it happens in other people--this means you're less likely to become reactive to someone else's behavior.  It seems far fetched, but it is true that one person can change a system, country, or organization by simply changing him or herself. 

I believe that self awareness is the key to understanding those that you're in relationship with, and this is precisely what the 3rd choice is challenging us to do--take the courageous journey in an effort improve the quality of life for ourselves, and those whom we love.