Day 260 - Chasing Life Instead of Living Life – the WHY

I was asked recently to picture my perfect life, to explore the projection I have been holding onto and chasing instead of living fully present here where I am, getting to know exactly who I am right here and now, exploring and embracing all of me here. And so I pictured it in heavenly tones of whites and pearls and light greys and pinks, where I am fit, in my yoga clothes and practicing regularly, I am happy and content with myself and my body, at ease within myself. I have a well-behaved baby and dog, a perfect life partner that I communicate easily and openly with, where we support each other without any obstacles or difficulty. We have a nice house and no money worries. I am on top of organizing my life and meeting all of my needs and the needs of those around me without stress or challenge. And my house is spotless… unlike my current living situation!

And that is the rub – my current situation is not so perfect and nice, in fact, most days are filled with more difficulty, with parts of myself feeling almost like a living inner-hell when I try to confront them. I have body pains and self-image issues, I find it hard to open up and express myself and be absolutely vulnerable with my partner, I have trouble with consistency and organization, even keeping my room clean is sometimes challenging! I get stressed out, lost in my own emotions, migraines, money stress, addictions, bad habits, bad days and so much more! Yet I can so easily distract myself with my perfect projection of my perfect life that I hope will happen some day if I keep chasing it, or when things sometimes work out or are easy. I can suppress the difficult and challenging things and focus only on these fleeting moments of ease as a distraction from my actual reality.

And this is why we project and chase our perfect, ideal lives and version of ourselves in fantasies and future projections: because it is easier to do that than to actually confront and CHANGE the negative, hard, difficult and challenging moments that happen every day, right here and right now in moment-to-moment life and living. We would rather spend our time and generate positive feelings within ourselves by thinking about what an imagined future will be like, one we can visit in tough times and rough moments, but the thing is, we will never take one step towards creating it if we don’t accept and embrace the reality of ourselves right here and now.

My perfect life may not be attainable or realistic, but it serves as a guide post for what to aim for as I face my own living hell in the here and now. I can create elements of it, with the understanding that life is always going to present me with challenges and difficulties. I know I have the potential to create a much better version of myself, which is why the projection feels so real, but I can only create it in the present moment, and I can only do it by changing the parts of me that are less than my best, and that is not going to feel good or easy, and that is what I have been avoiding. I’ve been chasing my projected life instead of facing all parts of me here, the good and the bad.

In those moments where I judge my body and then eat to feel better; it’s not going to be easy to instead face the judgment and maintain my self-discipline to achieve my goal of a healthy, balanced body and body image. The moments I keep quiet when I want to speak up will be filled with fears and anxieties to walk through as I voice myself. When I push myself to be vulnerable, that panicked feeling of exposure will be there for a while at first, and it is not a pleasant experience! Learning structure, organization and putting in the effort to keep my room clean and organized will require walking a learning process and moving through physical resistances, which in my experience feels like walking through quicksand that keeps sucking me in to overwhelm or apathy.

So, in order to live life instead of chasing life, I am going to have to explore my difficulties – those things that have held me back from being and becoming my utmost potential. Avoiding and suppressing them will only lead to a disappointing and regretful life, with only the illusion of some fabulous life out there for me to fantasize about when I am feeling down. 

Exploring my difficulties will mean actually really feeling them within me, getting to know them, learning all about them so that when they come up I will be aware of them, I will walk through them and go through the pain and the momentary turmoil, with my understanding of how I can be better and what kind of a life that will lead to standing as my path or blueprint throughout the process.

I may not be able to create the perfect life, but I know I can be better. I want to see what I am actually capable of being and becoming, but this will involve facing myself as I am now, accepting and embracing the worst of me, really sinking into it, feeling it, and seeing who and what I really am and am living right now.

This blog is a continuation of ‘Day 257 - ChasingLife Instead of Living Life’

The EQAFE recordings that supported me as I walk this experience are:

Connecting to the Best of You 

"We all know what the ideal life for us would be like, but seldom does that ideal life match the life we are actually living. Could the perfect life be an illusion that will forever be beyond our reach, or is there something about the way we have been approaching our living that is keeping us from manifesting the life of our dreams?"

and

The Best of You Through the Worst of You

"On the road to creating the best version of ourselves, the last thing we want to do is having to face the worst version of ourselves first. But what do we end up losing out on when we settle for instant gratification and comfort zones instead of long term fulfillment and facing our resistances?"

Day 87- Going Down the Rabbit's Hole or Still Staring at the Mirror?

These are the self-forgiveness and self-corrective statements based on my last blog “Day 86- Moving Forward,Missing the NOW.” The main realizations I had within and through writing these statements is that I have the tendency to project and imagine ‘big things’ and ‘big plans’ for myself, in the mind where the entire play out can be played out in seconds, wherein there is an instant gratification and feelings of accomplishment experienced within me. However, the ‘downfall’ and consequential outflow of this are that I become discouraged and defeated when I go to bring those plans into action in the real world, the physical world outside of my mind, the reality we all share, otherwise known as Here. These feelings lead to ‘stagnation’ and ‘stuckness’ within which I am not as effective within what I do, because in a way, I feel as though I have already failed. This then leads to the experience of being overwhelmed with the amount of actual steps it will take to accomplish that which I want to accomplish, and then I experience anxiety as a ‘falling behind’ because in my mind, I am already way ahead of myself.

It takes time, dedication, commitment and patience to get things done in the physical reality, and these are the things I am mapping myself out to become. I see, realize and understand that I can only work from Here, and that there is a difference between making a plan or long term goals, and fantasizing about what it will be like ‘then’, when everything is done and where, in my mind, everything was easy and successful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to constantly and continuously require signs that I am ‘moving forward.’

I commit myself to be and become the forward motion I want to be instead of looking for ways to merely experience it by looking for signs to tell me that I am doing it. I see realize and understand that if I were in fact ‘doing it’, I would not require signs and I would not want/need/desire signs in the first place.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to charge the thought/perception of ‘forward motion’ with a positive charge.

I commit myself to untangle the relationships I have created with external people, things and events in my life, including expectations, fears, wants, desires, etc…

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive ‘forward motion’ is good/right/positive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define ‘forward motion’ as events taking place, instead of seeing/realizing/understanding that I can only develop myself as who I Am Here.

I commit myself to live the definition of ‘forward motion’ as me developing myself Here, in the moment, within and as presence and awareness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and manifest a feeling of anxiety within and as me because I feel like I can never do ‘enough’.

I commit myself to do only what I can do in a single breath, breath by breath, within and as self-direction always.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to bring everything I have to do Here in one moment, within the belief that I need to do it all now and charging it with a sense of urgency, thus overwhelming myself in this moment, instead of taking into consideration the many steps each project or task requires, and the consistent daily application required in order to get it all done, bit by bit.

I commit myself to map out the necessary steps required to complete a plan, and then to take those steps one by one, until it’s done, no matter how long it takes.

I commit myself to remain patient with myself as I move at the pace of the physical, and not within the instant gratification of the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the internal energetic experience of impatience, anxiousness and stagnation when I am waiting for an event, instead of realizing and understanding that Who I Am in the moment is what determines me, not what I do nor how many events come and go.

I commit myself to continue to push and apply myself in every moment, especially in the time between events, because that is the time where I have nothing to motivate me, and where I must really apply myself to move myself.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to consider that each time I get overwhelmed and fall within my daily responsibility to myself, I create more work for later, which will build up and thus I am manifesting the overwhelming and anxious experience which I am creating within and as me in the first place, only now it’s for real.

I commit myself to push through and maintain my stability through periods of ‘overwhelmingness’, and to not get lost within them, because I know they are of energy, and energy is only ever temporary. I realize and understand that, if I push through, I will come out of it a little stronger and a little more stable, and that is how I build/manifest and create myself.

I commit myself to build/manifest/create for/as myself a self that I can trust and depend on, by constantly and consistently making the decision to bring myself back Here, out of the mind and into the physical,

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to manifest the actual real-life and real-time experience of overwhlmingness and anxiety for myself by constantly creating the experience for myself in my mind.

I commit myself to STOP creating myself unconsciously, at the whim of/as my mind, and to create myself instead within and as self-direction, where I decide who/how I will be.

I commit myself to stop all anxiety and overwhelmingness as it comes up in/as me, and to instead direct myself to move me to self-directed actions that I choose in accordance with doing what’s best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create resistances for myself in relation to responsibilities in my life and world, because I know deep down that I can never do enough to get me ‘there’, thus I know deep down that no matter how much I do and how hard I try, I will always end up burnt out and overwhelmed because there’s no other way to do it than one day at a time, one action at a time, and one breath at a time, Here.

I commit myself to stop sabotaging myself by looking for the easy way out and looking for an escape from Here.  I see, realize and understand that no matter how hard I try to get tHere, I will always only be Here with me, so I commit myself to make the choice to be Here, wholly.

Self-forgiveness and Self-commitments continued in the next blog...