empowering

Living From the Inside Out

As you go through each day, begin to notice whether you are reacting to something you have just seen or heard or are staying with the strong intention you set for yourself each morning.  It makes all the difference in the world whether you, first of all, set an intention, and second of all, follow through with it no matter what.  You see, if you are a reactor, then anyone who comes into your space could trigger an emotion that you end up having the rest of the day.  I’m sure that has happened to you, you started out thinking that it was going to be a glorious day, then someone (either a person you know or a stranger at a store, the post office, the cleaners, etc) said something that upset you or ignored what you were asking of them or gave you feedback you didn’t ask for….  Living from the inside means that you are committed to staying with your choice, not their response, about how the day was going to go for you.  You always have a decision to make, whenever you are around another being.  You can listen to them but stay centered on what you set as your intention or you can become susceptible to what they say and react to what you don’t like or don’t expect or….. It is quite empowering to become a responder to life and not a reactor.  You get to have the day, your mood, your emotional well-being stay in your own hands, so to speak, not in anyone else’s way of talking to you or their actions toward you.

The other day I was listening to a patient tell me about a situation where they were really confronted with a dilemma.  They cared about this person but had decided that this person was not going to be in their life anymore.  When the person came around, the patient had a huge challenge, should they stay with their decision or be swayed by their feeling “sorry” for the situation this person was in.  The real issue was – this person had been in the same situation for many months and the patient had been “talked into” (in their view) going with what the other person asked instead of their own stand on the event at the moment.  So, the patient was confronted with a conflict – would they fold under the pressure of the other (living from the outside in) or from their own commitment to themselves (living from the inside out).  The patient ended up, that night, giving in to the other person.  The important outcome, though, was that the patient saw that their folding under the pleas of the person did not end up having the patient feel good at all about themselves.  This point is critical to take note of – you, as you transform – will be confronted with many situations where it is hard to decide for yourself what to do – unless you stay firm in your internal knowing that what you have chosen as your stance is where you will live – no matter what.  No matter what means no matter the circumstances, the story that someone is telling you, no matter how many times in the past you have given in to this person, no matter anything.  You respect yourself so much more when you decide that you are only going to live from the inside out, not ever from the outside appearance of something that of course continuously changes.  

This stance may sound selfish to you, self-indulgent even, but it really isn’t.  It is the only way to be in charge of your own life and the path you have chosen to take.  You have been whipped around by the many different situations in your life and especially by those who know what and where your soft spots are.  Even without consciously setting out to do so, the people that have taken advantage of your kindness, your generosity in the past are going to challenge your stance, now that you have taken one.  The way to honor you is to remember all the time what your intention is, your commitment is and your desire to become one who can withstand the pressures that others place on you.

What do you want to accomplish in this life of yours?  Where do you want to go?  Do you want to be in charge of you or allow others to be in charge?  You get to decide and your decision will definitely affect how you end up feeling about you at the end of the day.  Notice your energy when you get home from your job or work out or set of errands.  Are you feeling the way you want to feel?  Did you follow what you set as your intention before you left?  If you did, you most likely will be feeling even more alive, filled with vitality, excited about your life than when you left home.

All of life consists of choices, of course you know that.  The more aware you are of those choices, the more power you have over your day.  I urge you to experiment with living only from the inside out for at least a week, taking notes about what you observed about yourself all along the way.  Then analyze the results and see on which days you felt the most freedom and which days you felt rather down, defeated, had low energy.  The correlation to what you chose will be closely correlated with how you feel at the end of each day.

Become the Center of your own life, that has nothing to do with being selfish, but rather everything to do with who you put in charge of your life.  Let it be You, You, that Spiritual/Human Spectacular Being that you create every moment.  Possibilities unimagined until now will show up as you begin to live a life that is your own, all day and all evening.