Head and Heart

If we follow our heart without using our head, we make mistakes.

If we use logic and ignore our heart, we’ll lose that way too.

My friend Dr. Mardy Groethe put it this way – 

“The brain and heart are like the oars of a rowboat.  When you only use one to the exclusion of the other, you end up going in circles.”

In following your path so far, would you say you are using a fairly equal measure of both?

How much you give…

What would make you WANT to perform more and better?

What are the 10 coolest things about you?

Write down the ten coolest things about you or pivotal moments in your life.

Go ahead.  Try it.

What did you learn?

Get your power back

I don’t know about you but there are certain situations where I feel completely disempowered.  Me?  Yes, even me.

When I think of those times, it is usually because I am holding back for some reason.  Often due to fear of rocking someone’s boat I THINK doesn’t want to be rocked or of looking foolish or being inappropriate with my conversation or timing.

Most often it’s a mirage in my own mind and I am just causing the situation by thinking it’s there, and then yielding to it once I’ve created it.

Take your power back by being you.  Get in your strength zone.

Some days are more important

Results don’t appear on a continuous basis.  Certain days/moments/decisions are far more important than others.

You don’t have to be great all the time – just when it counts.

When is that for you?

Children – a uniform product?

Schools are a bit like factories.  They take in the raw material called children and 12 years later they are stamped out as a uniform product.

We teach them the same, grade them the same, and have the same expectations for each.  But children are really not the same any more than a great mechanic or an astronomist or roofer are.  

We are all different, and it is up to us to find our strength; what we were made to be – and be the best version of it we can.

Being appreciated

“The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” – William James

Is this true in your life?  It is true in others as well.  How do you leave people feeling?  Do they feel you appreciate them?  The fastest way to be appreciated is to appreciate others.

Try it.

Say the words “I appreciate you” with sincerity and a smile.  Go around all day today telling people “I appreciate you”.  Give hugs, or a touch on the shoulder, and tell people you are glad they are in your life.  

See what happens….

Playing the part you assigned yourself

Each one of us wakes up and plays the role of “me” each day.  We keep acting our part, one day a continuation of the last.  But it’s all an identity we made up and then accepted.  Each day, we accept it yet again.

That is a choice.  We may not think so, which is part of the “trap”.  When we realize it is a choice, then we can make a new one if we wish.

What role are you playing in the world right now?

Your lens of the world

Our assessment of good or bad, successful or failure, fair or unfair; it all depends on our beliefs and expectations.  If something doesn’t go well, ask yourself about why it bothers you, and why that is, and what part of the identity you made up for yourself it is at odds with.  Then question that.  Why?  Is it true?    

“Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.” – Adrienne Rich

Freedom

Victor Frankl, who wrote “Man’s Search for Meaning”, was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp and experienced the horrors that came with it.  While they took everything from him, he decided that he would not let him take the one thing they couldn’t – his attitude.

There are lots of things out there we can not control – in fact, most things fall into this category.  Other people, events, how things are… 

This is by no means a call to accept everything and not try to mold it for the better.  But when we let what we can not control harden our attitude and suppress our happiness, it is unhealthy for us.

“Freedom is the only worthy goal in life.  It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.” -Epictetus

Don’t give up your freedom.  Seize it.