Seeking

Happy Tuesday Evening,

How is everyone doing this fine Tuesday evening? Good I hope. All is good here. Today was a good day. I got up this morning, went for a walk, came home and John and I watched a self help film after he finished at his appointment. The film/movie was by Sonia Riccotti, entitled, Unsinkable. If you ever have a chance to watch it, I would definitely say, it’s worth the watch. She does offer a webinar class and when John signed us up to watch the film, it took us to the class first. Not sure why, but I do plan on watching her class as well. Just an FYI, if you want to see her film, make sure it’s the film you are signing up for (it’s free), and not her webinar.

I’m going to make tonight’s blog a short one. I just have this burning need to write and I feel like it’s slipping away from me. I, in fact, want to escape for a few days and just sit in my room and do nothing but write. I need to get my book finished. It’s really nagging at me and I feel it’s important to get it finished. I know once it’s done I will need to make tons of edits, and that’s okay. My dear friend Kevin said he’d read it and make the grammar corrections that he sees. I so appreciate him doing that. He was a teacher for many years before retiring, so I totally trust his tweaking of my work.

Today I came across one of my old doodle journals. It’s just a journal where I wrote thoughts or feelings, even quotes. On the very first page I wrote, “no single group or system owns inner peace.” As I was scrolling through the pages of what I wrote, I discovered the reason for what I wrote was I was seeking something. Happiness maybe, a new adventure, peace, love, and a desire for life again. Have you ever seen the movie Eat Pray Love? If you haven’t, I for sure recommend it, especially if you are in search of something or if you feel you are missing something. Julia Roberts plays Liz in this movie. Liz isn’t happy with her life and the movie takes us on the journey to her finding herself. I will say, when I first saw this movie I immediately envied her. She took a risk and spent a year traveling. I believe she started out in Italy, then she went to India then onto Bali. The order of travel could be off, but the point is, she told her friend when she made this life altering change that she wanted to have a desire for life again. She wanted to enjoy food and really taste it. Liz recognized she needed to change the way she looked at life and she did what she felt was best for her, and, she did this by herself. She went to foreign places and experienced life. She met new people, learned a new language, learned to cook different kinds of foods, fell in love and put herself out there in this crazy world. She learned that she was a strong woman and she found true happiness within herself which in turn, allowed her to rid her fear of falling in love and she ended up with one amazing man who cherished her. She was seeking and she didn’t just sit back and think about what she wanted, she went after it. I envied her, because I wish I had the courage to go after what I want with a little less caution.

I’m not saying we need to pack our bags and head on a journey around the world. I think we can have our own journey right here at home. We can read, we can take on challenges we don’t think are within our grasp. In the Unsinkable movie, Sonia had hit rock bottom. She lost everything, including her mother in death and she rose above all the heartache and has become a very successful woman. Sonia says, “there are no accidents, things happen for a reason.” We just have to rise above the negative feelings in our lives and change our mindset. We need to think about the possibilities that come into our lives. We need to image our greatest life. What does your greatest life look like? I know what mine looks like and I’m going to do my damndest to get there. Sonia says, “think big, and focus on what you really want with clarity.” We can’t just be wishy washy. We have to envision our lives and what we want and go for it, see ourselves there.

I really appreciated how Sonia shared her own experience, openly and honestly. Her advice to those of us who suffer from depression, anxiety and uncertainty was to “give ourselves permission to feel it. Allow ourselves to experience it and allow ourselves to release it.” Honor our feelings. Sonia interviewed one lady who told her story about hitting rock bottom and what helped her heal. She said what she did and continues to do it, is when she has these feelings of anger, hatred and resentment stir up, she will write it out like this. Dear (person’s name that you are having an issue with) I am (fill in the feeling) with you for doing (act), and I forgive you. She says she’ll fill up an entire page or two at times writing her feelings out in this way and it helps her release the negative she is experiencing. She recognizes the issue, accepts it and then releases it by forgiving. I know I’m going to give this a definite try. The best part about allowing ourselves to forgive and release the negative feelings towards someone or something is, just because we’ve released those feelings, or forgiven, doesn’t mean we need to have that person or circumstance in our lives. We can forgive and move one.

When we are experiencing the negative in life, we need to tell ourselves this, “I’m not going through this for nothing. Something good is at the other end of this horrible situation.” What we seek is really within us. Success requires us to suffer, it requires effort, no pain, no gain. Will we surrender to what is weighing us down or will we grab onto the rope of effort and find those hidden strengths we have? I know leaving a high controlling religion, there is a reason behind it. When you are raised to be a little robot, you don’t just wake up one day with inner strength and have this wake up call and change your entire life course, your entire mindset. Leaving a high control religion/cult, you have to work at readjusting your thinking. We are naturally built to keep to what is familiar and change is hard, but like all the motivational speakers I listen to, they remind me that there is something bigger and better on the other side of the suffering I’ve experienced. I just need to daily remind myself that there is more positives in my life than negatives.

I’m here to tell you, it’s okay to grieve the past. It’s okay to fear the future, but we need to adjust our minds to living in the present. The things that have happened in the past don’t exist anymore. We are keeping those feelings alive. We need to find the strength to allow ourselves to release them so we can move forward. We need to release the negative and hurt we’ve experienced so we can move onto our greatest life. Sonia says when we start to feel those anxious feelings, depressed feelings, we need to retrain our minds to return to the present. I know for me that is going to be difficult, but I love the idea of keeping my best life and what that looks like in the focal point of my brain, rather then all the hurt and pain from my past. People who have suffered the greatest losses generally have the greatest successes. “How low you’ve gone is how high you’ll rise.”-Sonia Riccotti.

What are you seeking? Where do you see yourself in a month from now? Six months from now? Even a year from now? Prepare for the future while living in the present. “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”-Denis Waitley. I know we have all had bad experiences in this life. I know we are all under tremendous amounts of stress. I know that as family, friends and a community of seekers for wanting the greatest life possible, we can go over the rainbow to our own little pot of gold. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. I hope we can all find happiness in this life. I hope we can all learn to envision our best life and more then anything, I hope we all chase our dreams and live our lives to the fullest and do as Aunt Billie always say, “live with little to no regret.”

I hope you all enjoyed the blog tonight. I hope you are all getting through this life in the best way possible and I hope you know, you are valued, you are worthy and you are appreciated, loved and needed. Thank you for reading and don’t forget, until next time, Love Life++