346 I Still Get To Keep Choosing December 2017 Tuesday Week 3

Tag Me Tuesdays-#346  December 12 The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast I Still Get To Keep Choosing In our stress filled lives it can feel like we are continually spiraling out of control…except for those rare moments when we’re drunk…then we feel more in control than ever. Or maybe we just are delirious during those times, and the ability of forgetting can be a powerful thing. But in all seriousness, I hear more and more people talking about trying to survive their day to day lives in one piece. Maybe even working for the weekend and most times living pay check to paycheck. It almost feels natural to be living by the skin of our teeth…and maybe there’s some truth to that, as our cavepeople ancestors literally were finding ways to survive day to day. But I would hope that we’ve evolved just a little bit from those times. I talk about being mindful and living in the present moment a lot because it’s easier to wish for the past or hope for the future. It’s easier to live in a place within our minds that keeps us numb to all the stressful things happening in the moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We decide what to stress about, and we decide what to be at peace with. In my life most of my stresses came from being too quick to judgement. I was more willing to see how things were tense than what was going well through the problem. Because in life there are always two sides to every situation. For agony there is healing, for sadness there is joy, for indifference there is love, for hatred and chaos there is peace…and when we can see that life is two parts at the same time, then we can choose to see the other side of life. Life isn’t about being one way or the other, it’s really about finding balance in the situation…and I believe that happens by being aware of one of our greatest powers…the power of choice. The power to put our focus and attention on to the thing we most want to see. I might be called crazy for thinking this way, as I believe we shape and mold our lives not from the external environment that happens around us…but more by how we think, what we say repeatedly, and how we act. Now maybe this might be over simplifying the process, but I believe all great things really are simple underneath it all. So if you’re stressed, if you’re sad, if you’re hurt, if you’re sick, or if you’re in pain… change happens by deciding to change our mind. It’s about changing our mind to see another reality, to tell another story, to live a better life. And maybe I might be overstepping my bounds because your life is your life, but it’s my hope that I don’t ask you to stay the same only surviving life…but I ask you to become better. To become the person you’re meant to be. And that can only happen by understanding you have a choice…and you get to keep choosing how you want this moment to be for you. And maybe you have a simple life, and don’t want much but your comfy chair, your tv programs, a nice job to earn just enough, a loving family, and a little peace and quiet from the troubles of the world…well those things are not easy. They take work, and they take a willingness to be better every day. To be in a job that you desire means you have to be aware at your job and purposefully look for ways to find enjoyment in what you do, to have a loving family means you have to actively participate every day in creating that atmosphere, and to have that peace and quiet in your life means you have to choose to focus on peace and balance rather than just ignore the world around you. Any old fool can be purposefully ignorant… but people who thrive in life, people who aren’t consumed by the outside stresses, and people who live lives that they’re in love with…show up every day.  They choose to keep choosing a better picture, a better story, and a better pathway. It’s not that their lives are easy, but it’s that they know they will come across some difficult choices, and they decide to show up anyways…every day. So the question I want to ask you is: Are you willing to take the harder road, the one full of stresses, the one of pain, sadness, and agony…in order to purposeful look and begin creating balance on the other side? I think people who are happy deep within are creative…not because they’re artists or writers, or have what we would call a creative calling…but because they choose to keep finding ways around the problem to find the solution and outlook they want to see. The continually keep choosing a better story to tell and then live it. Today’s Personal Commitment:What choices are you avoiding in your life in order to place the blame elsewhere? I know it’s easier to blame someone or something for our places in life…but essentially the blame we assign are lies. We are the ones responsible for the direction of our lives. Even if someone lied to us, we have the choice to live forever in self-pity that we were taken advantage of…or we have the choice to pick ourselves up and learn from the situation and move into a better circumstance. Even if it doesn’t feel good right now from all the misfortunes that have happened…as time passes…if you chose to see a different path, a path of moving forward and taking responsibility for your life…I know you will be grateful for the pain you went through. You know what they say…that we can’t know light if we don’t know darkness, we can’t know happiness if we don’t know sadness, we can’t know love if we never knew hate, and we can’t move on if we continually keep blaming. So let’s be better today, not because we’re leaving blame behind or maybe even going down a scary road alone…but because it’s all we know…it’s who we are at our core…and there’s nothing else that would fulfill us more than to live our lives within our values…holding ourselves accountable to show people how great life can be when you decide to live in the moment and choose the side in life that you want to see. I Still Get To Keep Choosing     Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together, Personal Development Life Coach- Chris O'Hearn Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247     Music by: - Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. - I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide