Sheri’s Rants # 3

WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW, THAT YOU’D LIKE TO DO, THAT YOU AREN’T DOING?

DO IT.

This was presented to me a couple weeks ago and I have been thinking about it.  What would I like to do that I am not doing?  I’ve been walking around

Sheri Lynn

pondering my life and all the generosity I experience and wondering what gaps there could possibly be.  I challenge myself like this once in a while.  Keeps me from getting all wadded up in my head.

I came up with a lengthy list of things that I AM doing, that I really LIKE doing.   Sweet!  Still, I thought, is there more?

There’s always more.  That’s what I keep telling my clients who reach ‘maintenance’.  Fitness, as in life, has no end game, no final goal.  You just get to keep getting better.  As organic beings, our physiology and chemistry are always changing  and we get to keep playing with it.  A constant smorgasbord of opportunity.  And, I realize, what makes me happy changes day to day as well.  I like being happy.

After tossing around the myriad of opportunity life has to offer me, I kept asking myself – what could I do that I am not doing that I would like to do that would cover any territory – be it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual?  What can I do now, that I’d like to do now, that I’m not doing?  I began to pay attention to the moments where I did not feel happy and complete.  I realized – THAT is it.  I want to love myself so much that nothing gets in the way of that happy, complete, satisfied feeling.  I want to be able to reach for that feeling at any given moment and find it.  I want that happiness to be my base from which everything else springs from.  Everything.

I just really want to have access to feeling good, all the time.  What do I need to do to have that?  What can I do now, that I’m not doing?

So THEN I went inside myself and started paying attention to what needs clearing out.  What is getting in the way of my cultivating a foundation of happiness?  I am old enough to realize that nothing external is really affecting my internal life.  I know way better than that.  I completely get that much of the drama I choose to engage in is recreational.  I even know it while I’m doing it.  Sometimes it makes me break out in a giggle fest; and in the company of the right girlfriend it gets down to outright guffaws.  YOU are not going to ruin my day.  That’s ridiculous.

I did, however, find some critical thinking.  I found some internal judgment.  I found some stressful thinking around how much I gotta ‘do’ in unreasonably short periods of self-inflicted timing.  And I discovered that my face was frequently wadding up into a concentrated scowl that was inverse to how I was actually feeling.  Out of habit.

What I’m doing now, that I like to do, that I wasn’t doing before is I am cultivating a habit of having a relaxed and happy face.  I am increasingly aware, now, of when my face does that concentrated scowl, and I drop it.  I am letting go of criticism, both external and internal.  Actively.  I am remembering that when I find more cool stuff to do, I automatically have more time to do that cool stuff in – because I live in an abundant world that works for me, not against me.  This has been my experience, over and over.  And these new habits open new doors and I’m happier more consistently.  I dig that.

The most important thing I can do right now is stay in an open conduit of happiness and gratitude, because there is so much opportunity pouring through my life that the only way I’ll be cool with it is to be able to accept it and have a good time.  And I can’t do that with the old program running.  The old program makes all the opportunity took ‘hard’ and ‘scary’ and ‘stressful’ and, basically, a pain in the ass.  I’m pretty sure I’m okay with letting that go.

Life really is good.