Scan your thoughts…What have you replayed in your mind today? Allowing your mind to drift on auto-pilot can bring up a range from the mundane to a full blown emotional itch that rehashes history. Muted thoughts occupy space but do not enhance or enrich our human experience. Stuck song lyrics, TV story lines, musing about what you forgot are idle moments in our minds. It is in this same sluggish space that small hurts play on a loop. Unhealed aspects can cause the mind to replay a conversation over and over at different angles in an attempt to itch what needs to be emotionally scratched. These are not decisions. And this type of mental wanderings do not lead to healing. These are stories. We recreate the story around an event and invent different outcomes imagining what we could have said or done. This type of story keeps us from vibrant mental and emotional work. Stories are best dropped for an awakening of how we want to be showing up for ourselves.
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. – Harriet Beecher Stowe
Here are some tips on how to drop the story.
Soap Opera Re-Runs: 1.STOP 2.HOW 3.NOW
When you find that you are mentally playing a painful event or conversation that is history: 1.STOP. Where did you land in this mental space? What needs to be tended to? Name it. Get to the heart of it in one word: Forgiveness. Disappointment. Wishing things to be different. Name the essence of how you feel about this memory. 2.HOW. Return to the present moment and decide how you want to feel. I want to feel peace. I want to feel vibrant. I want to feel confident. 3.NOW. Make a new choice. Is there a decision you can make today to resolve or change the relationship that leaves you itchy?
Recognize Idle
A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. – Victor Hugo
Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dear Henry and Victor,
Yes. Our minds will always choose to gnaw and work on things between the details of our day. The faster you recognize mental idle, the better you can re-choose. Pick invisible labor or choose mental play.
Laura Roeven
Things Left Undone NEED A PLAN
If you are breathing in a human body, there are things left undone. Only Hollywood is completed after a 90 minute episode. HGTV hosts the fantasy of done in the world of incomplete. Things left hanging can be a weight in our minds. Worry, mental fatigue, and racing thoughts all come from being unable to put down what is not done. One way to meet this is MAKE A PLAN. There are many systems of support to crafting a personal plan. Reach out to book your personal coaching session if you get stuck at this point. After your plan is made, map it out in your calendar to achieve daily, weekly and monthly goals. Daily check ins are a must to keep focused and on task.
Your life will be no better than the plans you make and the action you take. You are the architect and builder of your own life, fortune, destiny. --Alfred A. Montapert
Namaste,
Laura