Boing Boing Doing!

Boing Boing Doing!

Why don’t doing and boing rhyme? Somedays it seems like rhyming it with boing is exactly how it goes. Doing doing doing!

We occupy ourselves in a thousand ways for a million reasons. Most of it is habit.

Getting up, we follow our morning routine. That’s good, it lets us get things done efficiently.  Many of us then go to work, and have pretty much the same experience with that every day.  Then we have the same expectations we have for work that we have everyday. Do you look forward to it? Or do you dread it?

How much of what you do during a day is stuff that you like to do? Just a percentage, you know.

We like to be occupied. We like to do stuff. In the olden days, we spent that energy collecting food and fuel. And in our tiny bits of leisure, we came up with better and better ways to do it.

And we all benefitted by enjoying more and more leisure.

So how do you fill your leisure time? Do you fill it with chores and errands and tasks and jobs, effortful, unrewarding, depleting, or do you make time for fun, and self-care, loved ones, and joyful occupations?

Have you discovered that your attitude could be the only difference between a job that sucks the life out from you and one that is fulfilling?

Have you discovered that some of the things on your to-do list don’t actually need to be done?

I used to punish myself with my to-do list, using it to prove to myself how bad I was. I believed that I had no inherent value; what value I did have came from what work I did. And so I worked three or four jobs at a time, jobs that were not my cup of tea. Doing jobs I didn’t like overly much helped to fuel the martyr feeling that I liked. Well, I didn’t really like it, but it was comfortable and ickily satisfying.

Why am I peaceful? What makes me calm? How do I relax?

The brain scientists say that only 12% of our thoughts are conscious, but of that 12%, up to 90% is habitual. Yikes.

When I decided to learn how to be happy, I had to give up a lot of stuff. I had to give up being a martyr, a victim, and hopeless. I had to give up feeling powerless to change. I had to stop hating myself. I had to give up slogging mindlessly through my days and I had to step up to the plate.

By paying attention to my thoughts and actions, I was able to start changing stuff. Seeing the changes I wrought made me feel good and helped me make more changes. As I felt better, I had room to choose to calm myself. I had time to breathe deeply and slowly. I had time to savor my moments. I discovered that at my core, I am always peaceful.

By noticing my habits of thought, of speech, of behavior, I can start to change the ones that don’t do well by me. By returning to my peaceful core, I can be kind and compassionate with myself.

How have I changed from believing this is just the way it is to trusting my power and my peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2016 all rights reserved 06262016