BBB # 35
Must do - When your spirit is unsettled, have a proven technique to calm down.
Why - Life never goes smoothly, even when you are doing your best. It is necessary to have exercises or techniques that help calm your spirit and bring you back down to zero. Having an unsettled spirit will prevent progress toward forever happiness.
Perspective:
Boy, oh boy! Knowing your purpose and being courageous enough to stick with it are two vastly different concepts. Some know their purpose, and others don’t. It is up to you to decide to prove what you have always known about yourself. Pessimism or negative thinking can genuinely prevent goal seeking. Some people go through life just muddling through day-to-day to survive—not living up to their potential. Walking corpses, doing nothing to truly lift society because they refuse to learn, implement or use their purpose. You can decide that your life has meaning or be like those without fulfillment. Already you have begun the process to make the change from corpse to boundless, but the journey may be long and hard - so perseverance is necessary. At no point can you panic when things don’t manifest as quickly as you would like.
What I Realized
The realization I have had about my purpose isn’t exactly what I had thought it was supposed to be. Maybe purpose changes and flows as you grow and learn. Maybe not. I know that reflection will help bring clarity no matter what. Just knowing about what it is, and is not, can uplift a spirit in a way that nothing else in life can compare. I am still beginning the process of patiently, calmly trying to obtain my goal of purpose. There are times that I find myself overthinking things, which can cause me to panic. Many days I just believe I should be doing more. I am just not sure what. So I sit spinning my wheels further and making even less progress. I have to stop myself, revisit my prayers and calm my spirit to stay the course. Allowing pessimism or negative thinking to consume the mind will indeed halt progress. You may be familiar with the words I write.
How can you stay the course when you are used to being a pessimist? Slowing down helps me, not fighting the urge to stop for a minute and maybe do nothing. Guilt is what keeps me moving frantically around, achieving even less success in the panic. When I slow down, I can recognize when I am frantic. If I am honest, I am more frantic than calm most days. The more things don’t move in the direction that I desire, the more I get concerned that maybe I am making the wrong choice(s). I have to revisit triggers often. I often find that triggers manifest in different ways. I have been working on the more transparent way they usually present themselves. Lately, I find myself more and more unsettled in spirit because of how I need things to go, and the way they work themselves out is so vastly different in time, place, and space.
Changing the outcome of your triggers and changing how we react is only the tip of the melting iceberg. Think about it. An iceberg looks small on the surface, but submerged under the water is ice ten times greater in size. Underneath is where the real work is. You can chisel away at the top, but this will create an almost impossible situation to tackle. How do you break something underneath the surface of freezing water? Unlike the iceberg, we can get to the core of the issues (BBB #26) when your thoughts return to the status quo. Recognize the difference in a situation that triggers you in the same way. It is not the reason for the trigger; it is the emotion that it evokes that is the concern. It is now essential to detach the feeling from the trigger.
What I Did Next How? I revisit scriptures to focus on my prayers. I tailor my prayers to the obstacles I am working through at that time. Prayer opens me up for resolution. Not to get set on specifics that often prevent success in problem-solving. I try hard not to continue to do what I have been doing. For me, writing is my purpose and my therapy. I use my words to release the negative energy that finds its way back. Then I may repeat my motivation for uplifting myself, surround myself with people and places that make me happy and engage myself in my blessings again. I keep moving, with a smile back into a positive mindset. Often I return to the basics. There are days I need to backtrack through some of the BBB readings. Plan a day with more time for hobbies, people, activities, and places that bring joy. Stop to see what the original goal is. Have you been practicing, or did you get off track? You’re still at the beginning of your reflective journey. Spend time practicing, stopping, analyzing again and again and again. Don’t get frustrated with yourself. It took years to learn and cultivate the destructive patterns you have been stuck in for so long. It will take just as long, if not longer (without consistency and persistence), to ensure the change you are trying to create becomes a part of the new you.
What you can’t do is panic? Don’t panic when you find yourself repeating decade long patterns and situations all over again. It will not help to be frantic or get down on yourself for not breaking lifelong habits in a matter of minutes or seconds. Give yourself permission not to be perfect, to follow old patterns but recognize that is not the path you want to walk down again. Quiet yourself, give yourself time without any voices in your head, is all you can do for yourself sometimes to stay the course. Treat yourself like a baby who keeps getting into things, and you have to redirect with gentleness and understanding. Take a breath and realize that this moment of weakness doesn’t define you. You will then find that this too shall pass with a little more time.
What you can’t do is panic? Don’t panic when you find yourself repeating decade long patterns and situations all over again. It will not help to be frantic, or get down on yourself for not breaking lifelong patterns in the matter of minutes or seconds. Give yourself permission not to be perfect, to follow old patterns but recognize that is not the path you want to walk down again. Quiet yourself, give yourself time without any voices in your head, is all that you can do for yourself sometimes to stay the course. Treat yourself like the little baby who keeps getting into things and you have to redirect with gentleness and understanding. Take a breath and realize that this moment of weakness doesn’t define you. Then you will find that with a little more time, this too shall pass.