Arterial bleeding

It is the perfect time of year to re-evaluate whether or not the things in your life still serve you. We are creatures of habit. Often we continue to do things out of obligation. Perhaps we agreed to do something back when we had other priorities in our lives. Or maybe we just continue to do things without thinking much about it. It is just what we do. And now it has become comfortable.

The only problem is doing these things may no longer be relevant. You have changed. What is important you has changed. But yet you are still doing what you decided to do when you had different priorities. It may be time for an update.

It is the natural time of year for introspection. The days are short. It is the perfect time to go inside. And while you’re in there, take a look at how you spend your time, energy, and resources. Are those things still serving you? Are they getting you closer to what is important to you?

Things that no longer serve you drain your time, energy, and resources. They are like arterial bleeding. They squander your precious life force. They sap your strength.

Giving up the things that no longer serve you stops the bleeding. It allows you to build energy and momentum for something new. New possibilities will begin to present themselves to you in the spring. If you stop the bleeding now, you will have the vitality to pursue the new stuff.

Seems like a small price to pay for new beginnings…

Identify the elements of your dream

Young people have lofty dreams. Being a pro basketball player, fighter jet pilot, rock ‘n roll star, surgeon, CEO for a Fortune 500 company, or parent of eight children. Dreams of any type should be encouraged. But such archetypal dreams are often more about what they represent than the specific dream itself.

Many people take their dreams literally. There was a time of Eight is Enough. But now it is 2012. Having 8 children is not as practical as it was 75 years ago when the family needed farm hands. The cost of living has skyrocketed. There are 7 billion people on the planet.

So should this person give up their dream of having a large family? Absolutely not. But it may serve them to investigate the elements of their dream of having a large family. What does it represent? Is it having a lot of people around? Does it represent a sense of family? Is it correlated to a time when they were happy?

The dreamer can identify the elements of the dream. Then those elements can be adapted to the world as it is today. It may be possible to fulfill the dream of having a large family without having 8 children. Having a family of 2 or 3 children and being the home that encourages the neighborhood kids to come over may fulfill the elements of having a large family.

Identifying the elements of your dream also allows the rekindling of a dream later in life. What if my dream was to play pro basketball and I am 5 foot 10 and 40 years old? Is my specific dream likely? No. Does that mean I need to scrap the dream? Absolutely not. I merely need to define what my dream of playing pro basketball represented. What were the elements of my dream? Was it feeling the magic of being part of an excellent team? If so, there are numerous ways I can experience that.

It may be time to dust off an old dream…

Stop pushing things away

Having the things you want in life, as well as, being close to people is a lot simpler then you might think. Possibilities of the things you want present themselves to you all the time. Opportunities to be close and connect with people come to you every day. All you really have to do is not push them away.

Having the things you truly want is natural. Being close to the people you care about is also natural. Bart Anderson referred to these states as the natural state of being. It is unnatural to not allow yourself to have the things you want. It is unnatural to not be close and to have love. Most of us believe 180° from this.

The way we disallow the life and love we seek is by pushing things away that are presenting themselves to us.  It is often a self-worth issue. We only allow as much love and beauty as we believe we deserve. Anything beyond that we push away.

Unless… we recognize that we are about to push something or someone away and stop ourselves. Then the possibility that presents itself to us can naturally unfold. So possibilities naturally come to us and unfold. People naturally love us.

All we have to do is let them.

Are you too available?

How do you invest your most precious resource- your time and energy? Do you determine how your time will be spent or is it determined by responding to the demands and needs of others?  Did you choose to be on the school, church, or neighborhood committee, or did it choose you?

Coworkers, husbands/wives, children, friends, and community members constantly have needs. And they seem to have a “Drop what you’re doing, I have something I need from you” mentality. Obviously, there are some people, things, and times that you need to be available to. But is it all the time?

In the process of being available all the time or too available, your dreams and passions do not receive enough focus enough to be developed. They gradually drift away.

Be dynamic instead of passive. Dynamic people prioritize the things they are passionate about. They make time to focus on the things they care about. They train their family, fellow employees, and friends to not interrupt them during these times. The family learns that this is Mommy’s time to paint, write, or work on her project. If you have something you need during this time ask Daddy. Employees accept that you are not to be disturbed during your creative, brainstorming time. Or you simply choose to not answer your cell phone (out of obligation) during these times. Some wake up before their family does to have time for their project. It is that important to them.

So do some soul-searching. reconnect with something you are passionate about. Then make time for it. Schedule it in first. Insist that people respect it. Besides, it is a great thing to model for your kids and the people around you.

Otherwise, you become the brunt of an old joke on codependency. “What happens when a passive person (codependent) dies? They see someone else’s life flash before their eyes.” Don’t be that person.

It is happening under the surface…

When you are desiring change or creating something new, the thing you want does not happen until the last stage of the process. Approximately ninety percent of the process happens underneath the surface- with no tangible evidence that anything is happening. Unfortunately, many people give up just before the thing they want actualizes.

In his awesome book The Slight Edge (essential read), Jeff Olson tells a metaphorical story of the water hyacinth. This highly productive, warm-climate plant grows by doubling itself each day. It may cover the entire pond in 30 days. On Day 15 (halfway) you will barely see a single square foot of the plant on the surface of the pond. On Day 20, it will be about the size of a mattress. And on day 29 it will only cover half the pond. Yet on Day 30 it will cover the entire surface.

The final actualization stage of change happens fast. But for the first two-thirds to 90 percent of the process, it seems like nothing is happening. Often the change is taking place inside of us (under the surface) for the majority of the process.

Same thing happens in psychotherapy. The first ninety percent of change involves working through our resistance to change. We are garnering strength and momentum, and building trust in our therapist- and ultimately ourselves. The actual breakthrough often happens right near the end. Then the therapist may say, “OK, you do not need to see me anymore.” When just 2 weeks earlier, we were saying nothing is happening.

So many people I have worked with (including myself) have walked away from projects just before breakthrough. We walk away saying, “Well that didn’t work.”

So don’t give up two feet from striking gold. Stay with your process. Allow it time to unfold. Keep moving forward- even if it seems that nothing is happening.

Because what if it is?