I love reading inspirational books and watching videos about strategies other people have for living well, accomplishing goals, being happy etc. It can be quite motivating. But, no matter how they may inspire me, or let me know change is possible, they won't change my life at all unless I find my own reasons for wanting to change something.
I HAVE TO WANT SOMETHING MORE THAN I WANT WHAT IS KEEPING ME FROM HAVING THAT SOMETHING
For instance, I can watch all the videos there are about people in their seventies who have found fitness (or rediscovered fitness) through this or that practice but until I realize they have something I want (more than the behaviors that steer me away from that outcome), I really won't do anything to make that change for myself. Just like I can lose weight (again) on a fabulous healthy diet and you can ask me how I did it and I can tell you and you can decide the price is too high for you to pay (no flour, no sugar, no processed foods) and so my strategy will have little or no affect on your life.
I OFTEN WON'T MAKE THE CHANGE UNTIL THE PAIN OF NOT DOING SO BECOMES GREATER THAN THE PAIN OF CONTINUING TO DO SO.
This is a biggie for me. Whether it's lifestyle changes, relationship changes, health practice changes or whatever, I just sometimes have to hurt enough doing thIngs the way I've always done them, for the same (often lessening) rewards over and over, before I'm willing to make a change in order not to hurt so much.
Example: I can't remember a time when I didn't equate summer fun and accomplishment with moving large amounts of gravel and soil and plants around for my garden or someone else's garden. I knew last summer I was paying too high a price to do it again but I did it anyway. And I've been hurting ever since. Well, the hurting is getting old now and I'm doing what I need to do with physical therapy and exercises and perhaps surgery to lessen it. But the real change is in my mindset. I was fighting getting too old to do what I've always done by shoveling the damn gravel even if my arm fell off. But now I want something more than I want to make elaborate gardens. I want to live as pain free as I can and I don't want to live life as an old woman who can't even walk in her gardens without pain. So I'm willing now to make some changes regarding what I do and what's important to me.
REMEMBER, THERE'S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING. EXPLORE ALTERNATIVES.
Make paintings, sell paintings, hire someone to gravel for you if you must gravel.
OR JUST GIVE UP SHOVELING (PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE ACTION)
Life, if you're lucky, is long and full of wonderful things to do and explore. But if you try carrying everything and every memory you've already made or every person you've already loved, or every painting you've painted or every part of who you think you are in your lifetime, around with you, you'll just repeat life over and over like Facebook reminders of what you did every year before. And you won't have any room or energy for exploring something new.
PAY ATTENTION IN THE MOMENT
I woke up the other day feeling like I'd just found the missing puzzle piece to my own happiness. You know how sometimes you have to quit looking for something before you can see where it's at? It was kind of like that. And kind of like suddenly seeing what I didn't even know I was looking for all along.
I'm not going to try and explain it all here right now. It's too fresh and deliciously light of a feeling to risk weighing it down with a bunch of words that might kill it before it can take off in flight. Suffice to say it appeared as a blueprint for what I want to do with the rest of my life. And all the reasons I might want to do this were clearly laid out for me, like markers along a river showing me the way.
More will be revealed.