“My reality is collapsing”!
These were the words I said to myself as I started running this morning. It felt like what I “knew to be reality” was no longer valid. The ground I was running on was not the same, the view of my neighborhood was different, my stride was different, my breathing, how I felt about running, everything was askew.
Head’s Up
I noticed my head was up instead of down. I consider myself a head down runner. Why eyes are usually looking at the ground as I run. I guess it was important to see any obstacles ahead of time so I had enough time to react and avoid an injury. It also explains why I can run the same route without getting bored. Not today! My head was up. So much so, that as I thought about how high my head was, it went even higher, almost to the point of looking up. It felt strange and liberating at the same time.
I have been student and practitioner of NLP and other change strategies for a long time. Last week I experimented with a technique on an old, painful memory. Up till then I worked on this memory from the perspective of learning from it, forgiving, reliving it to “see” different perspectives, placing myself in different viewpoints, etc., but this new approach sort of obliterated the memory. This technique changed it in my minds eye, thus changing its impact on me and my life. I felt as though the pages in my instruction manual were going blank. I just looked at these blank pages, waiting for the instructions to show up. They never did. The pages were just bank, page after page, so I started writing.
I realized that I get to fill in the blanks. Since we do this automatically, it was exhilarating to be able to do it intentionally. Who do I want to be? How do I want to handle stuff? What kind of leader do I want to be? Freedom, power, responsibility, adventure, and excitement were some of the feelings I experienced while looking at these blank pages.
Instructions
Have you ever heard someone say: “if only life came with an instruction manual”? It does… we write it as we go. Sometimes by default, and sometimes on purpose. But we write it. How are you writing yours; as a reaction to what you experience or are you proactive? Do you participate or are you a spectator? Who’s in charge here? Maybe you need to speak to the manager.
#tryiton
#gottaloveit
#whatwouldlovedo
#bringit
#shakethatass
#livelovelaugh
