See the great conversation I had with Carole Meekins regarding my second book. We discussed some possible ways of handling the stress of the holiday season and teased a little bit about my upcoming third book. Carole is always such a joy to work with. The interview is roughly 13 minutes long, but there is a lot of good content. There is also a special guest appearance by Margie’s cat, Raven.
Carole hosts these ‘lunches’ every Wednesday and are certainly worth checking out. I would love to hear your feedback on the episode which can be found in the link at the end of this post. Feel free to share your plans for self-care coming into the new year.
Today’s world is filled with many acts of beauty and kindness. There are the numerous examples of nature we pass everyday. Birds flying by our windows, even squirrels stealing from the birdfeeders with their comical gestures. The trees in the park, sun dappled paths. There is the smile or a kind word from a stranger. A beautiful painting we can notice as we are sitting writing a blog in a coffee shop. All of these things can make our world so much more enjoyable to be in.
WARNING!!!! All of these things can be taken away from us if we are not careful. If you recall from a few posts ago, we spoke of seeds of knowledge taking root in our hearts and minds and blossoming at different times in our life. We also mentioned these seeds need to find fertile ground to land on. It is here where we can run into trouble. In addition to all of the things that I just mentioned, the world provides plenty of things that will harden our heart if we are not careful. We see news of conflicts near and far. We hear about how this group of people may not want our group of people to succeed. We can even hear less than inspiring lyrics on the radio. If you work in retail, or with the public, there are plenty of things that can leave you feeling less than inspired about people and the world in general.
Even those of us who do our best to live a positive and rewarding life, can be, on occasion, overwhelmed by negative influences. Have you ever found yourself a victim of someone else’s creative driving? On top of that, this person who must have used a bribe to obtain their drivers license, waves at you…with one finger! Sometimes you are having a great day, but are witness to others that are not having such a great day. I recall stopping to write at my local coffee shop and listening to the person ahead of me berate the barista because, and I would not have believed this if I didn’t witness it myself, they had 5 ice cubes in their coffee instead of the 6 they asked for. If you open your coffee and count the ice cubes to look for something to be upset about, it may be time to reconsider some priorities. Maybe it is just turning on the news to witness people being attacked and harmed or even killed just because of what they look like or believe?
One of these events may not be overwhelming in themselves, but you experience a few of them together and it can really sour your disposition. It may be that you experience a few of them day after day. Your heart can begin to grow hard. Our opinion of the world and the people in it may begin to take a negative turn. We may begin to feel discouraged and lose the sense of hope that keeps a smile on our face and in our heart. We may not be so eager to let others in emotionally for fear of being hurt. These would all be understandable reactions. After all, I will be the first to admit there is much in the world that could use improving. That is why I write these blogs and go around speaking at different events.
The question then becomes “What can we do about this?” How do we prevent our hearts from growing hard? If they have, how can we soften them up again? The answer, in short, is in what you are reading. We cannot help many of the things I mentioned. We can’t teach people to drive with courtesy. We can’t teach people how to have respect when one less ice cube shows up in their hot coffee. We certainly can’t help what a foreign power does to their people. That is why filling our lives with as many positive influences and self-care is so vitally important. These are not things we should wait to employ until our life is going south. They are a good form of preventative medicine. If you fill your life with positive influences and practice a healthy amount of self-care and nothing goes wrong, you will just end up happier and that will spill over onto the way you treat others. If, however, you run into some of the negative examples above, you will be better equipped to understand this is only a small portion of the world, no matter how it may seem, and that there are plenty of other positive people and beauty to be enjoyed.
To put it another way, our emotional well-being is much like our physical well-being. If you just wait to think of your health until you are sick and then take medicine, you will be sick more often. The negative emotional experiences we are exposed to can be compared to the many germs and viruses our bodies are exposed to. Occasionally, they may get the best of us and we get physically overwhelmed and need to take a break or some medicine. What do we do to limit that? We strengthen our immune system. Incorporated emotional self-care and positive influences can strengthen our mental immune system. Think of positive influences and bouts of self-care you can put into your life and prevent your heart from hardening.
How many of us find ourselves falling into the trap of the first column in the photo above? After over 20 years of both studying and teaching self-improvement, I am confident in saying…I do. Yes, even those of us who should ‘know better’ can still fall victim into letting our thoughts get the best of us. In my book, A Happy Life for Busy People, I equate this to a snowball rolling downhill, it gets bigger and bigger with each passing second. A most recent example for me is when it was near freezing as I left for work in the middle of the month of May. As I am not a fan of the cold at all my thoughts were on the fast track to nowhere good. Thinking about how much I didn’t like the cold, how much I wished I were on vacation or lived somewhere warmer. I began to think about how it didn’t seem fair I had to wake up and go to work when it was so unseasonably cold. If my thoughts were allowed to keep going like that, how do you think I would have shown up for work that day? With a positive attitude ready to face the day and any challenges that would go with it? Not hardly.
You may be thinking, “If this guy who has been in the field of self-improvement for over two decades still has his thoughts run away on him, what hope do I have?” The answer is plenty! Success in life is progress, not perfection. We are always going to slip up. If we continually beat ourselves up over that, we will most likely find ourselves living in the first column of the picture above. The secret to living an amazing life is not to never have any negative thoughts or tough days, but to be able to recognize them and take actions to correct and move on from them. The million dollar question is how do we do that?
Having some self-care ideas and actions at the ready can be the solution we all need. Personally, I love having my ‘happy playlist’ or list of songs I know put me in a good mood. I love having images that remind me of fun, warm tropical destinations. I keep them in my phone, at the calendar at work and on the occasional travel mug. Speaking of calendars, I have a inspirational day-by-day calendar that wakes me up with something positive to think of every morning. If you are low on ideas for self care ideas for your life, feel free to borrow some of mine, or even print out the list above. It can work even better when you combine a few. Using the list above, that can mean dancing to your favorite song while laughing out loud. You could make a journal entry celebrating your wins while relaxing in a hot bath. There are so many options. My only suggestion is to have a list or idea in place before the challenges come along. It can prove difficult, if not impossible, to be resourceful when you are in a bad emotional state.
Just remember when you find your thoughts running away on you that success is progress not perfection. Look at it as a great opportunity to practice some much needed self-care. A good time to pause and focus on what is really important and what really brings us joy. The more you practice this, the better you will become. The one thing that you can be sure of is that life will give you plenty of opportunities to practice.
Most of you know I am an advocate for physical fitness. Personally, I work out 6 days a week on a regular basis. It provides me a feeling of a win each morning. It also helps reduce stress and allow me to face the day with a feeling of confidence. When I begin talking about fitness to people who attend my self-improvement seminars they are a little surprised. They shouldn’t be. Physical fitness does as much for your mental well-being as it does for your body. There are numerous studies showing the benefit to regular exercise. You do not have to do it 6 days a week like me. You don’t even have to go to the gym. What is certain, is that we must make time to keep our bodies in the best shape we can. It strengthens our immune system, it allows us to heal from injury quicker and can go a long way to avoiding that injury in the first place.
This was brought home to me with my experience having the corona virus. My symptoms were not as bad as they could have been considering I have asthma and a heart condition. My doctor told me, off the record, that he believed that fact that I had kept my body in decent shape helped it deal with the virus better than had I not. This seems like an obvious conclusion. Same if you injure yourself. Your body’s muscles, tendons and the like will be better able to heal if they were in a good shape to begin with. We could go on for an entire post about what you choose to eat and how it affects you not only physically, but mentally as well.
As important as all of the things we talked about are, they are not what the main point of this post is. The physical sets a good example that is easy to understand. If you don’t take care of your body you will get sick and injured more often. However, taking care of your mind and your soul is even more important. Look, I am as guilty of this as anyone. I have had experiences where I meditated twice a day for 20 minutes. My mind was sharp, I had a lot less stress and just felt better all the way around. Guess how many times I have meditated in the last week? That would be none. I know the benefits I would receive. I have even experienced them! Why haven’t I taken the time to sit down and practice some form of meditation? The same reason lots of us do not do the things we know would improve our life – I didn’t have the time.
This is a bunch of B.S. Not only does it qualify for what that usually stands for, but it also means ‘belief system’. We believe that we do not have time to take care of ourselves. It is true many of us our very busy. I can excuse my lack of self-care by telling everyone in addition to my job at the Post Office, I DJ two nights a week, write blogs 5 days a week and work on writing books. Recently, you can add a television appearance, speaking engagement and other obligations. If I ask myself one question, “Are people who are busier than me still finding time to practice self-care?” Of course they are. It is making it a priority. I have managed to do this with good results with the gym. That hour a day, six days a week belongs to the gym. Why can’t I manage to do it for something like meditating?
The answer is in our priorities. What do we make important? If I told you that if you showed up at my house at 4 am tomorrow I would give you one million dollars, where would you be at 3:55? Another reason is we do not stop and think of what the trade off is by neglecting our self-care. Stress in our modern world is at an all-time high. If we are to remain in a stressed state over a prolonged period of time we will be forced to make time for the results. A nervous break down? Perhaps. Maybe even just feeling burned out and not being able to give our attention and energy to things we might enjoy.
There are other things that may occur that we might not think of. We could snap at some undeserving soul because we are in a state of being stressed out. Then we must not only make time to heal that relationship, there are feelings that may very well linger for quite some time. If we exist in a state of fear or nervousness for an extended period of time we may develop things such as ulcers or high blood pressure. We would certainly have to make time for those.
All of these symptoms could be avoided if we took time to practice some self-care steps. We would end up being more productive, happy and healthier individuals. This would certainly save time in the long term. I get it though, life is busy. In the picture above there are a few 5 minute steps that can serve you to remain full of inner peace. I would love to hear some of the things you do to help your inner health. The more steps we share with each other, the more we can all be healthier and happier people.
Some people may incorrectly assume that because I have been in the self-improvement field for over two decades and have written over 1300 blog posts and 2 books on the subject that I have it all together. Nothing could be further from the truth. I occasionally lose control of my emotions, I do not always remember to keep my focus on what I have to be grateful for. In short, I am a flawed and imperfect human just like everyone else. I am a perpetual student of the game. Always striving to learn something new from someone new. Quite often I find that hearing the same information presented in a slightly different way can make all the difference. That is why there is so much room for different people in this field.
All of the learning takes up a good deal of time. I listen to different meditations as I am falling asleep. I listen to motivational speakers at my day job and as I do chores around the house. I am always learning something new. Even if I listen to an hour talk and gain one line of information it is worth it. I do my best to record what I learn to share both on this blog and in the books I write. Even when I am watching a movie my brain is on the lookout for some insightful piece of information I can share with all of my followers. This can, on occasion, drive Margie a little crazy.
I spend mornings at the gym 6 days a week. Then I am off to my day job. After which I eat dinner and run off to a local coffee shop to write these posts and to work on my next book. Combine that with being a DJ every Saturday and Sunday and you can see that free time is at a premium. Throw in a couple of articles for different publications, appearances on podcasts and some social engagements and sleep becomes a luxury I seldom acquaint myself with. Every spare minute is consumed with my passion of gaining and sharing knowledge. You will find me in front of a coffee cup and behind a computer. This is the situation as I am typing this. As you can see in the picture below.
This Sunday, however, I was reminded of something I had completely forgotten. Sometimes you need a little bit of nothing. We had to DJ that evening and Margie was finishing up another marvelous cake creation. The weather was wonderful outside. The sun was warm and there was a gentle summer breeze. I wanted to be outside, but didn’t feel like working. The novel idea that some people just sit and relax came to mind. I grabbed a book I had been reading for about the third time. This may seem like working on gaining information, but reading is my guilty pleasure.
I informed the love of my life that I needed to just get away and relax. I was glad to find her not only understanding, but encouraging. My first attempt failed when the location I went to was closed. Lucky for me there was another coffee shop down the road with a west-facing balcony. I ordered my iced coffee inside, said hello to our friend Scott who happened to be there and took my leave to the patio. I sat for a few moments before opening the book. I listened to the birds singing and felt the nice breeze. As I opened my book and began to read I felt completely consumed. The outside world seemed to disappear and the author’s words came to life. At the end of each chapter I again returned to the world of the coffee shop patio. The birds were there to greet me. (As were the people in the drive-thru)
Here is what is worth noting. When I returned home from this hour-long moment of relaxation, I felt like I had slept for several hours. My body was refreshed. In addition, so was my mind. Ideas seemed to come to me faster than I could record them. Ideas for my next two books began to take shape. Then it occurred to me. While writing my first book, A Happy Life for Busy People, I had done this quite often. That is where a lot of the ideas for the book came. I knew and taught the importance of self-care, I just had forgot to take some for myself. I have decided there will be at the very least once a week where I will leave the computer at home and take a good book, or maybe just a journal with me. I will relax in a coffee shop or at a local park. Taking in the beauty of nature and allowing inspiration to come to me. It is a practice I recommend all of us do.
I laughed when I first saw this picture. Then I started thinking about it. Seldom do I drink enough water. That is important for your body in so many ways. If you don’t trust me, feel free to Google “Ways that water helps your body function”. Finish this blog first because that will be a lot of reading and today’s message is really short. I also do not get enough sun. My work has not a lot of windows and mother nature in West Allis Wisconsin where I live seems to be at least a month behind.
As I pondered this quote I realized we are far more than house plants with complicated emotions. Each one of us has within us world-changing potential. What also occurred to me is that we often take better care of our house plants than ourselves. We make it a point to make sure we water and give our plants a nice spot in the sun. With the exception of how it works in our house, this usually keeps them alive and happy. When it comes to making sure we are hydrated and have enough vitamin D from that great ball of fire in the sky we fall short.
This week let us make a point to spend a little more attention to our self-care. Set an alarm on your phone to make sure you drink enough water. I believe there is also an app for that. Step outside should the weather have some sun. Even if you have to do it on lunch. Maybe stop at the park and walk through the grass without your shoes on. This feels amazing. As adults we tend not to do these things. With the level of stress increasing it is even more vital. Not to mention the more we take care of ourselves the better we can take care of those we love….and our house plants.
SECRET 2 AN AMAZING LIFE 