Experiment With Your Life!

 Seventeen years ago I was given the best advice of my life.  I received this radical wisdom on the very first day I attended the Unity Church of Boulder (Colorado) and listened to Minister Jack Groverland.  Over the next twelve years of Sundays Jack repeated his sage advice often: “Experiment with your life.”

I was intrigued by his message that first day, and scared at the same time.  At age 41 I was pretty much run by routine.  I had a good life and I didn’t think messing with it was such a wise idea.  Thankfully Jack is relentless and brilliantly insightful about human beings.  My life changed dramatically over the 12 years I listened to Jack and practiced what he preached – changed from the inside out.  And the biggest change?  I came ALIVE!!!

Do you ever feel bored?  Uninspired?  Chronically Tired?  Disinterested?  Short tempered? Distracted?  Lethargic?  Complacent? Unable to sleep?

It turns out that human beings NEED change.  Yes, I know we all fear it, but that is a discussion for another day.  Human beings require mental, emotional, physical and spiritual stimulation.  Without change we stagnate.  Our hearts, minds, bodies and soul must be refreshed by connection, ideas, movement and inspiration that is not ‘same old, same old.’

One of the reasons that kids are so joyful and energetic is that they are continuously involved in experimentation.  It is what they do all day, every day.  For them it is all new, new, new – and intriguing and fascinating.  When was the last time you felt that way about your life?  Well guess what, if you want things to be different (interesting, dynamic, engaging, exciting) – you need to think and act differently.  If you are not changing, you are stagnating. 

Everything about life is based on change and renewal.  Think of the seasons.  Thing of the life cycle.  Think about your body!  It is actually a new body every year because all its cells are replaced with new cells!

As we move into adulthood we relegate more and more of our living to routines.  This obviously saves time and energy.  But the downside is that life becomes more and more lifeless.  And all those symptoms listed a few paragraphs earlier are a direct result of the deadening of our lives.

YOU are meant to be a dynamic organism: growing, changing, expanding, creating, refreshing yourself continuously throughout your life!  PLEASE: Experiment with your life!  Take a fresh look at everything you think, do, say, and feel.  Experiment with small changes and move on to more meaningful ones.  For the biggest rewards of all consider rethinking WHO you think you are – on all levels.  You just might surprise yourself!

The Best Day of the Year

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year because it is so simple.  All you have to do is share the day with people you love, eat good food, and be thankful.  It is a day for giving thanks, a day for gratitude.

Gratitude is the most essential tool in creating a joyful life.  And it is one of the few things of which you can never have too much.  There are three powerful tools for creating more gratitude in your life: willingness, focus and perspective.

Willingness is the key to all change.  Most people want at least something in their life to be different.  But wanting and willingness are two different things.  Willingness is the oomph that moves you from desire to action.  It requires that you do something different or differently than you have been doing.  It often requires that you tolerate discomfort (mental, spiritual, or physical).  It always requires allocation of time and energy.

Focus is where you shine the light.  Imagine all is darkness.  Focus is the place you aim your flashlight.  In every person's life there is an infinite number of possibilities on which to shine the light.  We are always choosing our focus.  The quality of our lives is often determined by the direction of our focus.

Perspective is about interpreting the subject of our focus.  Human beings are incessant interpreters.  We assign meaning to everything.  We tend to believe that the things (people, places, events, circumstances, etc) have their own inherent meanings, but this is an illusion.  WE assign meaning.  And at any time, we are free to change that meaning.  THAT is perspective.

Let me illustrate with a short story from my childhood.  I was ten, my brothers were 9 and 12, and my stepsister was 4.  We were playing a football game along with my Stepmother.  Boys against the girls.  We girls had the ball and we drew up a play to give 4 year old Cathy the football and Renee (my stepmother) and I would block the boys to give Cathy a straight shot to the end zone.  It worked perfectly except that Cathy got turned around somehow and ran to the wrong endzone, resulting in a touchdown for the boys.  I lost it.  I was screaming, "Not fair, not fair, do over, do over." I was over the edge upset.  Meanwhile everyone else was rolling on the ground laughing.  My focus was on the scoreboard in my head that had just rung up 6 points for the boys; and my perspective was that this was a calamity!  The rest of my family was focused on the fun of the game and their perspective was that it had just gotten hysterically funny.  They were all having a much better time than I was.  The facts were the same for all.  The focus and perspectives determined the level of enjoyment.

In these days leading up to Thanksgiving Day, I invite you to investigate what YOU focus on in your life.  In any given day you can focus on what drives you nuts or you can focus on the things for which you are grateful.  Your experience of your day will be determined by your focus and perspective.  Are you willing to shift your focus in order to experience more joy in your life???  And here's something else to consider: whatever you focus on you create more of (yes I know that is a dangling preposition - feel free to laugh about it!)  Happy Thanksgiving to you all.