The Freedom of Commitment

One of my kids has been vegan for 5 or 6 years. Not once have I heard him try to talk anyone else into it.

I told him a few years ago that I was proud of him for being committed and honoring his love and compassion for animals. In reply, he said to me: “You care about animals and the environment too, don’t you? Why don’t you eat vegan too and not just be proud of me?”

It was a powerful statement. So I committed to being a vegan the next calendar year. 

That commitment not only made eating choices simpler (there are few options on restaurant menus for vegans), it also forced me to get creative about my meals - I was more exploratory in the kitchen that year.

Don't get me wrong, it was also challenging. That's why most of us don't make commitments that would actually honor ourselves and our values - it's challenging.

Yet, commitments can be empowering.

For at least a few years over the last handful, I went sugar-free (except during vacations). The best part of this commitment, for me, was that I didn’t have to drain my willpower in resisting sweets at gatherings. I had already made my choice before I even saw the sweets laid out on the table before me.

I just had one job: find satisfaction without them. 

Now that I’m allowing myself to eat sweets again, each tray of cookies and box of donuts releases an inner conversation between the part of me that wants to indulge, the part of me that knows the negative impacts, and the part of me that wants to calculate it out and reason as rationally as possible. 

It can be exhausting! It highlights a common principle of productivity to “minimize unnecessary decisions.”

(Hm. I’m committing, right now, to give up sweets for the rest of this year (except one at holiday and birthday meals). Why not simplify my life and honor my commitment to health and well-being?)

Here's another example: I’m committed to being unconditionally loving in my life. This morning, when I woke up stressed and anxious, I didn’t have to go very far to determine what to do about my stress and anxiousness - I turned toward it with love and gratitude, and then there was really nothing else to do. (Gratitude is an expression of love, by the way.)

Another commitment of mine is that I act from inspiration as soon as possible.

What inspiration has been calling to you lately, or perhaps even for years? Without knowing what the path might actually entail, are you willing to act from that inspiration and make a commitment?

I sometimes think about commitment that it’s a masculine, yang, or warrior-type action. Mostly, though, for me, commitment is an honoring of truth within myself. It’s an aligning of my actions with my values, cares, and who I know myself to be. 

Where in your life would it make a difference to make a commitment? How might that commitment simplify your life and elevate your integrity?

Much Love. ❤️

Our Words Create Worlds

Here’s the summary of this entire post: Our words matter. Choose them intentionally.

The words we speak, the words we think, the words we feel - they matter. In each moment of our lives we have the opportunity to choose: speak and think our words intentionally, or repeat the words we’ve inherited.

We tend to think of our words as describing. But our words aren't simply describing - they're creating.

When we speak, we’re creating a world for the person listening to us. And the world we create is contagious.

We complain about a colleague, and the person listening will likely inherit at least some part of our contagious complaint (the ideas of it and/or the energy of it).

A rainy day. Is it dreary? Is it gross? Is it ugly? Is it cozy? Is it refreshing? Is it beautiful? Is it life-giving?

We think our words are describing! They’re not merely describing, they’re creating. 

Do you want more proof of this? Go talk to someone about something that really frustrates you. Feel the energy of your frustration flare up like a fire in a draft! Notice how the other person has their own emotional and energetic response to what you're sharing.

Our language carries with it an energy that we can feel. Speak these two sentences out loud and see if you can feel the difference:

I want to be healthy, but I don’t want to exercise.

vs 

I want to be healthy, and I don’t want to exercise.

Can you feel that difference? If you can’t, say them again - out loud. Even if it’s subtle, It feels more powerful to say AND. 

BUT uses the second part of the sentence to negate the first part - BUT diminishes what comes before the BUT and emphasizes what comes after it. AND makes room for both, validates both, and leaves room for possibility. BUT shuts down possibility in a case like this, where AND leaves room for it.

Here’s another one:

I want to be healthy.

vs

I commit to being healthy.

Try saying those two sentences out loud. Which one feels more powerful?

I’m more interested in impactful. Practical. Powerful. Freeing. Accurate. Insightful. 

This is not theory! I know much of this blog reads as philosophy. I do love philosophy. Please, though, hear this: I only write about what I've tested, felt, witnessed, or used in transformational experiences for myself and others. 

We, as conscious beings, literally are the space of infinite possibility inside of which all experience and all perceptions and all feelings arise. Yes, we build up gunk in our minds, bodies, hearts, souls, and relationships over the years, but we also have self-cleaning features built into us to clean those messes up and to create gold and gems from them.

We aren’t victims to the language of our minds, mouths, families, and cultures. We are agents of our words. Our words do in fact create worlds, and I am committed to being intentional with the words I place into the sacred space of my mind, body, heart, soul, and relationships.

Our words matter. Choose them intentionally.

Much Love. ❤️

Losing the Video Game, Winning Myself

This is my 300th post on this blog! 4 years and 10 months. More than 600 hours of writing.

Thank you for reading it. ❤️

Tonight, I could write post upon post about the depth of truth and wisdom heard in each conversation with a client, each intentional conversation with a friend or student, and each moment of conscious living in my life. I could write about the beauty and the grace and the miracle it is to be alive at all, let alone in an age of such luxury for more of humanity than has ever been true before.

And yet inspiration for tonight’s post actually comes from a video game about Harry Potter’s Wizarding World. Yes, I am in fact writing about a video game based on a fictional world, and I invite you to find the thing in your life that you can relate to this experience. Each of the 300 posts of this blog, after all, are written for you and your life. ❤️

I bought a video game about Hogwarts (Harry Potter’s school for magic) a couple months ago. I play the game for a half hour or so every few days, and for the last week and a half I’ve been stuck on one particular magical battle in the game.

Last week as I lost again and again for a half hour straight, I got very frustrated. It can’t be healthy to get that frustrated, and it’s over a video game at that! I didn't sleep well that night, and I totally blamed the game for it.

Afterward, I considered a couple options to avoid that frustration. I could stop playing the game, or I could cheat and skip that part. But I didn’t make any decisions about it. I just allowed my frustration and my thinking about it to dissipate.

Tonight I sat down again to play, and when I lost the first battle, that familiar frustration began to rise up within me…and it was as if I was struck by a lightning bolt of insight: the game wasn’t the source of my frustration. The frustration was arising from within me. 

At that moment the game became free - it was unlinked from my frustration. There was the game over there, and my frustration over here with me.

(Imagine the gift it is to the people in our lives when we unlink them from our frustration...)

I could so easily see right then many different moments just like it when I was a kid and stuck at a frustrating moment in other games. 

The age of that frustration is young - like 9 years old at the oldest. 

I kept playing the game after that insight, allowing myself to grow in mastery of the techniques of the game while relaxing and calming my inner feelings about it. There was the outer game of mastering Hogwarts, and then there was the inner game of mastering my emotional reactions to that outer game. 

And that’s how Hogwarts Legacy became a powerful life teacher for me tonight.

For 300 posts, isn’t this exactly how this blog has read? Something happens, we react to it, and then freedom is accessed in part by separating "what happened" from our inner reaction to it. 

The birthplace of frustration is still there within me, and it flares up and barks with my voice sometimes. And it’s the same frustration of that 9 year old playing video games, and the 10 year old who didn’t want to walk the dog when I was told to, and the 12 year old whose friends weren’t listening on the playground, and the 26 year old whose classroom of students wasn’t behaving as they should. 

And in each of those examples, true freedom wasn’t found in firing my frustration at others or my circumstances. It has only ever been found by owning what’s mine and letting others be as they are. 

There are many ways to do that, and it’s a miracle every single time.

Much Love. ❤️