Outside-In

Okay, so this blog is clearly not going the way it was supposed to. I don’t mean that in a negative way, though I seem to be the only one who knows about it (I haven’t told anyone about it :/), but that’s not it. The thing is, I haven’t exactly followed the rubric set forth by the Live Your Legend team.

So, I’m going to start over, and this time I am going to do things a bit different.

HERE WE GO!

Just Start Something

The more I question myself, the more clear it becomes that the way I view myself seems to shape my reality. Can it really all be as simple as a state of mind? It’s hard to deny that we have the option, when under a certain pressure, to react in one way or another. Let’s call these positive and negative reactions. I find that the more I am down on myself for whatever reason (maybe I keep giving in to old habits), the more I feel down on myself (which makes perfect sense). But it’s really just as easy to say, “Oops, I forgot to not do that”, and move on with your day rather than fall into some sort of depression and beat yourself up.

So here I am with only a few cigarettes left in a pack I just got yesterday. That is WAY to many smokes gone in just 24 hours if you ask me. Truth be told, I have been telling myself to quit for years, but really, telling myself that is all that I’ve been doing. It’s like I continuously forget to quit (more often give into the urge), really though. I’ll just find myself smoking, suddenly feel disgusted by cigarettes, and say to myself, “Oh yeah, that’s right I was supposed to quit”. It’s actually kind of crazy.

Now, it would seem that when I find myself smoking, rather than beat myself up I could just as easily dust myself off and start again, but is that working? It seems that a little bit of a push with less pull might be necessary. Could it be that there’s healthy medium somewhere in between self-compassion, and self-defeat? I think so. In fact, I kind of think there’s a healthy medium to it all. But for the sake of the argument let’s just stick with a few basic emotions. Let’s say anger, sadness, and fear. A few that, in my opinion, are the most misunderstood (even most undesirable), but most valuable when examined mindfully.

If you’ve seen ‘Inside Out‘ (a fantastic film) by Disney’s Pixar, you surely remember the relationship between the characters that played the roles of anger, fear, sadness, and joy. Now, so not to spoil anything, which one had the hardest time expressing their self? I’ll give you a clue, it’s one we all a lot of the time probably feel, but wish we didn’t. It’s funny how our emotions seem to fight for attention. But isn’t it really just us trying to fight our emotions? The reason I bring this up is because, like finding a healthy balance between self-love, and beating yourself up, it’s equally as important to find a healthy balance in our emotions.

I guess it’s a little more like juggling rather than balancing here, but the same goes, we gotta just sort of let time run it’s course – observe the emotions and remain still in our state of being. We’ve all heard the saying, “If it were good all the time it wouldn’t be any fun”, right? Well, I kind of agree with that, but really it’s all in how you look at it. Emotions are like waves, as we are the shores that they brush upon. They come and go. Some hit harder than others, and some we barely notice at all. Some last longer and some seem to retreat before they even reach our feet. Now, aren’t they all equally beautiful?

It’s inevitable that we are all going to experience a constant shift in our emotions, and it’s important to realize that we don’t always have to control it. The idea of having to be in control all the time sets us up for disappointment, and perpetuates misfortune. We are only in control of the choices that we make, not what others choose to do. We are only in control of how we let others affect us. In my experience, I find it easiest for me to maintain my inner-peace in the presence of any outside influence by remembering that nothing is constant – everything is always changing. That goes for myself, my life, my emotions, and the world around me.