Sometimes you just can’t help it. Something happens and you react. It’s natural. You’re an actor being directed by some outside force. Too often, we get used to being the actor and resist stepping into the directors role. We begin to perceive being out of control (even though we resist that feeling, too) and life is happening to us, not with or for us.
A friend of mine introduced me to the expression “your energy flows where your focus goes.” When you focus on all that is wrong, you get more of that and typically have lower energy levels. When you focus on what’s working and right in your world, your energy levels are higher and you tend to attract more awesomeness.
While I am no master director of my own energy, I have played with it enough to know there is truth to this. In fact, I’ve dialed up my energy so much that it shifted the energy of people around me. One of my friends was grumbling about traffic at rush hour and how it would make us late to an event we were going to. I just kept dialing up my focus on how I wanted to feel and started being sillier and sillier about how I’d placed a magic spell on the car ad we’d slice through traffic like “a hot knife through butter.” Within minutes, the bumper to bumper traffic subsided (much to my friends shock) and we were again traveling at the 70 mph speed limit. We arrived early.
If you’re feeling heavy, frustrated, angry, sad, disappointed (or any other undesirable feeling), pay attention. What are you focusing on at that moment? Are you willing to pause for three slow, deep breaths while saying on the inhalation, “I am” and on the exhalation, “here now” before focusing for one minute on just one thing in your life that is working well and how it feels that it’s working well?
One minute. It could be as simple as “I’m grateful I have toes that make walking easier” or “I’m grateful I have a roof over my head or a bed to sleep in tonight” or “I’m grateful that when I leave my job today my time is mine and I can do what I want.” I suspect if you are reading this you have much in your life you could focus on.
When that minute is complete, decide how you want to feel moving forward. With curiosity and a touch of wonder, explore what would bring more of that feeling alive in you. Seek opportunities to create it. Try it as an experiment. If it works for you, keep doing it. You’ll be more than pleasantly surprised at the magic you create.