In my previous blog on simplicity, I said there are only two things you need to know –
- You are responsible for your life, for what you think about it, how you feel about it, and what you do with it. You and no one else.
- And that what you put out is what you get back. Somewhere, somehow, somewhen.
This time I will talk about six simple things you can think or do that makes what you get back more of what you want. All these things are easy to say, and I accept that some of them are not always so easy to do.
- Love and accept yourself as you are
You exist; therefore, you are worthy. If you don’t believe that, then make yourself worthy by saying that you are. Now I totally understand that you may not have been loved by others in the past, or even now, the way that you should be. But that doesn’t mean that you are not worthy of it. Self-confidence is called self-confidence for a reason. It comes from within. If you feel that you need affirmation from others, then that’s others-confidence. If you think that way, then you’ve just given away your own personal power, and your sense of self-belief is now at the whim of other people. For sure you can get valuable feedback from others, and you can adjust your behaviour. But, even if you do, always retain your sense of self-worth.
- If you don’t like something about yourself, then change it
Many, probably most people don’t like something about their body or how they look. But the only relevant question to ask yourself is, can you change it? If you can, then change it, if you can’t then live with it, because that is who you are. And you are allowed to be and to express who you are, without doing harm to others or yourself. Be the person that you want to be, you don’t need anyone else’s permission to do so. In a free society, in which most of the western world lives, this is what personal freedom means. The freedom to be who you want to be, and the ultimate freedom in life is your ability to choose how you feel. No one can ever take that away from you. If you don’t like something about yourself or where you are in life, then change it. If you can’t change it, then change how you feel about it.
- Now is all there is
It may not be immediately obvious, but all your life happens now. You are always in the now. Your life isn’t happening yesterday, last week, ten years ago, tomorrow, or in three weeks’ time. It is happening now, and it always will. If we spend our nows thinking about past nows or future nows, then our current nows pass us by. If we have had challenging experiences in the past, then it’s not unusual to feel negative emotions about them now. But the thing that happened in the past isn’t happening to us now. So, our problem isn’t what actually happened, it is our relationship to the memory of what happened, that’s the problem. It is possible to change your perspective on the memory and learn something new, something that can release the emotion from the past. The same sort of thing applies to the future. We feel anxious in life when we imagine a future that we do not prefer. Treat any feelings of anxiety as a messenger, what is it telling you? Is there some action that you can take which will make you feel better about some imagined future event? Could you imagine a different outcome, and is there anything in your power that could help that happen? Remember, if there’s something you can do about what you imagine happening in the future, then there is no point worrying about it. And if there isn’t anything you can do, then what are you worrying about it for?
- Change is the only constant in life
We measure change and call it time. But it’s not actually time that’s constant, it’s change. If nothing ever changed you wouldn’t know if time had passed or not. Other than our own existence, change is the only constant in our lives. What that then means is that good times and bad times are transient. In bad times we know that things will get better. And rather than thinking during good times that things will get worse, dedicate your life to creating more good times. Joseph Campbell brought the idea of the Hero’s Journey into modern consciousness. Think about this as an archetype in the human mind, an in-built pattern. Campbell observed this pattern being repeated when he studied old stories. In summary a hero or heroine is called to adventure, they may resist the call, but eventually they embark on the journey. During the journey they are faced with tests or trials, but always there is help, often supernatural. There is atonement, transformation, death of the old self and rebirth of the new. Then the transformed hero or heroine returns to serve humanity. As I said this pattern is embedded within human consciousness, you are the hero or heroine of your own story. Change is the only constant.
- Act on your passions in life
What Campbell also said was that “When you follow your passion in life, doors open where you did not know there were doors before”. Follow your passion in life, because why not. If you are interested, excited, and/or passionate about something treat that feeling as a thread to follow that will lead you further into the richness of your story. Even if it didn’t, which it will, you will still be doing things that are interesting, exciting and that you are passionate about. What’s not to love about that.
- Have a good self-care regime
I have written about having a self-care regime before, but I will repeat some of it here, because it is part of the simple things you can do that help maintain you at peak performance. I believe, as a minimum your self-care should include –
- Enough, good quality sleep. When you sleep your body and mind heal. When you sleep your unconscious mind can work on challenges you may be facing in life, which makes dealing with them the next day that much easier. A tired mind doesn’t think as well as a rested one, and let’s face it, being tired is just not fun.
- Eat well. Now I’m not a nutritionist, so I can’t tell you what to eat. But as a principle eat and drink what gives you more energy and have less of what gives you less energy.
- Find something you enjoy and that you can fit into your life’s routine. Even if it is just walking. Again, I find exercising gives me more energy. If you don’t know what to do for your age and level of fitness, then get advice from someone who does.
- The final piece of self-care I recommend is meditation. This might not suit everyone but there are many ways to do it. There are apps you can download, you can just sit and observe your breathing, you can hold the idea of loving kindness for yourself and for others, to name just a few. Meditation helps people to live more fully in the present moment, and maybe because of this people report that they are more emotionally resilient, more able to cope with the stresses and strains of life.
If you do these things, even if you don’t believe that what you put out is what you get back, you will still get back a more positive life experience.
Keep life simple and you will enjoy the rich complexity inherent in existence.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius
