Babs Daily Inspirations:

 

Happy new month to you Friends. 

I pray for you as an individual that you will be free in deed.

“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I don’t know about anyone else, but sometimes I can be a prisoner to my own thoughts and forget that I have the freedom to choose. Choose a different thought. Choose a different experience. Choose a different interpretation.

I remember having a coach that used to listen to me rant. I would be sure I was the victim of something that was happening to me, and I would tell her all about it expecting sympathy.

She would listen patiently and then say, “Yeah? And what’s another way you could look at it?” I would pause to come up with some different interpretation. And then she would say, “Good. And what’s another way you could look at it?”

I would really have to stretch, because I was sure that the first way I told her was the only way it happened.

Her point, of course, was that there are a number of ways you can interpret things. And we have to watch our stores—the stories we tell ourselves.

How many of us are prisoners of our own thoughts, our own stories?

This week I found myself going into a tail spin about something. And even though the situation justified my being upset or at the very least feeling taken advantage of, I could have still looked at it in another way.

If I did—if I was able to catch myself sooner—my experience about it would have changed.

But I didn’t.

I was pissed off for a week. And it clouded my judgment about everything else and made me feel wronged, upset, and irritable. I finally decided by Thursday, as I took myself on a road trip (my form of meditation), to change my perspective.Because it always comes down to this, when I have to make the choice for myself:

Who is controlling my life, anyway: me or my thoughts?Sometimes my thoughts are just well practiced habitual ways of thinking. But that doesn’t always mean they are right.

I have been, at times, a prisoner to my thoughts. But I’ve garnered enough awareness to know if what I am thinking is serving me or not. And when I get to this place, I have a decision to make:Which thought feels better? What interpretation serves me the best?Because honestly, “things always work out for me” and “I just got screwed” can be equally true.

But which thought serves us better? Which one puts out the kind of energy we want to embrace in the world? Everything can be a jumping off point for something new, if we are willing to choose the best interpretation and move forward.

If “I just got screwed,” it means someone else takes dominion over my life, and that is a stance that is not empowering. But if, “things always work out for me,” then I dictate my life because I know my future holds a different experience.

To come to this juncture where we can choose—where we have enough awareness to recognize that our thoughts do not run our life, that we can choose differently—this is freedom

Your Daily Friend

#MrImpact

@babsmicheal

BabsMicheal Global Consultancy