Tag Archives: conscious thought

22

Finding the Flow

Leave a comment

Find Your Flow and Follow

Life is full of little words like flow. It is something that when you have it, life goes along smoothly, and when you lack it, everything feels like a struggle. It is a factor that most people don’t spend time consciously thinking about. But shouldn’t we? It makes sense we should focus our attention on a force making our lives a better experience. Our energy is totally up to us.

The great thing is that whether we are in the flow is all a matter of choice in what we decide to focus our energy on. Getting into the flow is as simple as paying attention to the moment at hand and experiencing that part of life, singularly by itself—conscious awareness of what is happening for you today.

In the Flow

One of the greatest gifts of playing sports is that you can experience what flow feels like and what it’s like when you lose it. In each athletic Flowcontest I have ever played in or coached, there is a flow to it. Not every game is the same, and what worked yesterday and provided success may not work today and might lead to disaster. I remember being in the flow a few times; they were few and far between because I didn’t know what was happening. I remember knowing what to do before it happened, a calmness of movement, confidence of action, that led to a connection with my team, the opposing team, and the game itself. My focus was solely on what I had to do at that moment. Not on winning or losing, but on doing what I needed to do. It is referred to as momentum in a game, and it changes teams as the focus and confidence change sides.

Life is full of chances to do the same thing. Be in the moment and react to what you need to do right now. Please don’t spend time worrying about the result that will take care of itself. Focus on the tasks you are doing and how you can perform them. A joy rises from within when you operate from flow, which is unavailable without a conscious focus.

Getting into the Flow

I think that our conscious focus on life is the doorway to getting into the energy flow. The first thing you need to do is thoroughly learn to be in the moment. You have to make decisions in each moment, which move naturally into the next. There is nothing terrible about the flow, and it feels good and allows you to be the best version of yourself, even if only for a moment. Once you change your focus and start worrying about the score, it will leave you.

The score in life is when you entertain thoughts about what others think about doing. Other people’s Thoughts are irrelevant to flow and don’t matter anyway. What you think about what you are doing is what counts. Another flow killer is to compare what you are doing to the performance. Your game is your game. Their game is their game. Focus on your tasks and movements that you can control, let the criticisms of others and their accomplishments stay in their game. Life is going to ebb and flow. It would help if you were willing to move with that same energy.

Accept and Embrace The flow.

Finally, to remain in the flow as long as possible, it is vital to understand the constant and inevitable influence change will have on you. Everything will change eventually. It may be small and almost invisible, or it may be significant and unmistakable. But it will change. Know that like a river, the flow of life will change course, but you can follow it with attention.

Some stretches of the river will be delightful, you move at your leisure, and everything passes quickly. Then there will be rapids, full of potential for growth and excitement. Looking back at the comfortable stretch will not allow you to master the rapids any better. Focus on the task at hand. That is where your life is. It is the choice of every person to fight against the current and try to return to calmer times. Or to go with the flow and ride it out, learning what you can about river navigation and preparing you for what is around the next bend in the river.

Today in all that you do, be conscious of and look for the flow that exists in life right now. Where is the river taking you? Focus on your thoughts, words, and actions to determine if they are going with the flow of your life or against it. Getting into the flow will allow you to be the best version of yourself that you can be today. What more could you want?

Life will move with the ease your focus dictates.

“Let reality be a reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. ” ~ Lao Tzu

 

21

Defining Fear

Leave a comment

In all lives, there are two forces always fighting for control, fear and love. What is fear really but the thoughts about things that will cause us to suffer? We all deal with these thoughts to some degree. Some people who are consciously aware of the moment are not affected very much because they avoid the two traps of fear. At the same time, those who do not contemplate their thoughts and see the moment are ruled by fear and all of its cynical cousins, judgment, anger, selfishness, and a lack of empathy. Look at yourself today and see where fear is sitting in your consciousness. Is it front and center, or have you conquered it and placed it safely in a cage in the back of your mind. Remember, we all feel fear at some point; the key to life is how we deal with it.

Fearful History

There are two ways that fear enters into your thoughts and pervades your feelings and actions. One is when we think of bad things that have happened in the past—remembering painful experiences from earlier days in our life experience. When you feel fear and have a conscious awareness of it, many try to push it away, bury it deep in ourselves and not deal with it. For a while, that can work, but eventually, it will pop out when you least expect it, outside of your control. The original episode of fear could have happened when you were five years old, or 30 years old, when the concern arises rather than pushing it down, invite it to stay.

Look at your fear and face it back to its origin. Something occurred, which caused you to suffer. It could have been a lack of care, a break in trust, a physical or psychological pain that you have pushed down and never dealt with before. Let the fear enter your mind, get to know it, and face it head-on. Investigate them. Where did they come from to visit you? Accept them and forgive those who might have caused the suffering, including yourself. The past is over and dead, and nothing can change what has happened. Letting it control your experience right now is a waste of time and effort. Face the fears of the past, allow them to exist, and leave you alone.

Future Fear

Fears’ other big weapon is the future. Unlike the past, the end has not happened yet and is wide open to possibilities. Fear and worry rob you of your freedom as you live your life hiding from problems created inside the fertile walls of your imagination. Your imagination is a powerful tool, it can guide you to great things, or it can paralyze you and rob you of your potential. Worry and fear of the future is a misuse of your most powerful tool of imagination. Creating scenarios that will lead to suffering but never really existed. These worries will stop people from following their dreams and doing what they want because fear says they might look foolish, or not someone else might think poorly of them.

Fighting your imagination is a tricky thing, but it works similarly to facing your past. Embrace the fears and follow them to their source. Fear of abandonment, loss, being alone, or the biggest one of all, dying. All people fear something. Learning to deal with it actively, embrace it, and face your fear will take you to its source. Conscious awareness of your concerns and their origins will free you to use your valuable imagination for good in your life. In your imagination, great things reside, which once thought we could bring into reality. They are creating the best future for yourself and the world you can. Only when we conquer our fear and move forward.

Society of Fear

We are inundated with messages of fear continually in our community. If you watch the “news” from a significant network, their job is to create fear in your mind. It is not to keep you informed because they choose what you hear and how the message is presented. People who are afraid are easy to control and manipulate. Don’t allow others to control you with fear. Live in the moment. Are you in danger at this moment? If not, then don’t let fear move you to stereotype or label anyone else as an immigrant, Russian, Korean, or anything else. People are people just like you with worries and desires all on their own. To see anything else is a manipulation of the facts.

We are inundated with images of the perfect physical body, or the perfect home, perfect marriage, perfect relationship, perfect this or perfect that. Perfection is impossible, and feeling fear about not measuring up is delusional. Looking inside yourself and being the person you were meant to be is most important. Put the fear of what others think of you or how you measure up to the fake standard of our society. Be the best you that you can that is good enough for everyone.

Finally

To lessen the impact fear has on your life, invite it to the surface of your life. Look at it and analyze it rather than push it way down inside of yourself. Shine the light of reason on it, and it will cease to be fearful to you. We all have fear in many areas of life because we want to avoid pain. Pain is going to come when it comes; often, its anticipation is worse than the actual situation itself. Face your fear with courage and thought, seeing its origins, and you will rise above it.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”― Plato.

“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson.

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”
― Marie Curie

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”― Franklin D. Roosevelt.

21

The Right Things

Leave a comment

How often do people take action without really thinking about the consequences? I am sure that I am called on to take action, speak, or make some other behavioral choice thousands of times in my daily life.  It would be challenging to be fully conscious of all choices. From what to wear to how you get to work, our subconscious handles many decisions.  But too often, we allow interactions with others to occur without our conscious participation.  These actions can come off without any caring or concern for the feelings of others.  For us to be present in these interactions, we can follow a few points of focus to make sure we are entirely present in the moment and with people that matter.

Honoring Actions

Each action we take involving others is going to affect them. It doesn’t matter the scope and scale of your activity. It will have a positive or negative effect on those that you interact with. More importantly, each step you choose to take will affect you as well.  If you treat somebody poorly, for any reason, it resonates with you and will determine your energy and experience.

The focus of your conscious thought should be on honoring yourself.  In all that you do and think during the day, make the first choice to accept yourself.  Even if you believe someone else deserves your scorn or ridicule, it doesn’t do you any good to participate in this. Let it go and focus on the positive things in your life.  Putting others down puts you down.  Make choices honoring you, and the world will acknowledge you.  That is the benefit of focusing on creating honoring actions.

Release Judgment

It is a simple choice. The judgment of other’s personal lives, heritage, clothing, physical appearance, or any other thing is never going to end well for you.  Our instincts have developed over thousands of years, and we identify with people similar to ourselves because it is safe to do so. In our ancestral past, our survival depended on it.  But that is not the case today. We find others’ judgment is addictive to us and allow us to prop ourselves up in self-esteem in some way, on the backs of others.

Release judgment from your mind and learn to accept all of those who are different from you. Letting others live how they feel comfortable will allow you to live as you feel comfortable with yourself.  Make the conscious choice to respect others and live with a sense of compassion toward them.  Your actions will come back to you in the end. To live in judgment is to bring judgment upon you. Respect and kindness will also come back to you.  It is your choice which energy you release into the world and receives back from it.

Acceptance

The more you choose love for and the approval of others and their situations, the better energy your life will experience. By accepting this path, you are deciding against fear and all of its negative energies.  Whoever you hold negative feelings about, let them go.  Those from another region of the world practice a different religion, are economically challenged, addicted to drugs, or just making poor decisions. Let go of your judgment.

Choose to be more conscious of your thoughts and the right actions you can take daily to make the world a better place.  Let go of the vision that you are in competition with everyone else and choose to see the positive benefits of cooperation between all people. You can make all interactions a blessing to yourself with your attitude.  Acceptance of yourself and others as they are on the path to doing this.

Work for Today

So focus on your thoughts and actions today and see where they are going to lead you.  Are they taking you down a negative path or a positive one?  Are your choices making the world better or worse for someone else?  Are your options honoring yourself? This action is the beginning of being more conscious about your effect on the planet and taking responsibility for that experience.