It is at some point in our lives that we have to make an "obligated stop" and spread the lessons, show all of our cards and be able to handle the truth about some of the moments that we experienced in our lives.
Allowing that connection in yourself, is what needs to happen and be able to see the lessons, to process at least the meaningful episodes of your life, but if you're constantly living in the hamster wheel, nonstop, grinding, doing, busy, certainly the only consequence you're generating is overwhelm, rumination, stress and of course burn out!
That's why many people end up crashing during the second part of the year and a lot more by December, literally throwing the towel, in bad mood, probably exhausted, easily triggered, building up all that toxic energy through holidays, no wonder many people during those dates have more family discussions, arguments or simply feel completely melancholic and sad.
In addition to the excessive burden of emotions, stress and of course the fact that it is also the time that you remember your goals, you start then to become frustrated, because probably only 1 or 2 goals from the long list of 10 were accomplished, all of these environmental factors are playing against your odds to remain at peace, motivated and ready to enter a new year.
In my humble opinion I see this phenomena with many of my clients and people around me. And many times I joke with them that we are in a long term race, pretty much like a marathon and you can't expect to do a good race if moments or days before the event you have a very apathetic mood or you train excessively hard and you burn all of your energy, or you simply just want the race to get started and finish with it!
There's a preparation, a priming time so you can have one of your most amazing races, and that includes of course the fact that you need time to relax, to reflect, to visualize the strategy. You need to be able to leave the stress and fear out of the picture, which the best time to do it is halfway in the year, start gathering moments, experiences, energy to perform extremely well and feel confident that you're up to the challenge.
Why is so easy to fall into playing toxic emotions or events when facing a new challenge?
This is one of the most popular questions everywhere when starting something new and the answer, is the most simple and congruent (as often times is), our brain is designed to protect us, its primitive component turns on activating a defensive cascade of neurochemicals that start the preparation of your body to react usually against any kind of new endeavor, unless of course is something that beforehand you know it will only produce joy and emotion in you, and even when that happens you feel those butterflies in your stomach that is a signal of emotion but that can be sometimes driven to fearful thoughts depending on your past experiences.
Talking about experiences, that is the other great threat that we allow ourselves to get really ingrained in our mind, often times we have the learned habit to compare, to look as if we were in a raffle the winner memory of having a bad experience and of course conveniently we use it to avoid doing that new thing that scares us or that has a face of challenge.
Ironically, all of these thoughts, emotions and behaviors are cooking "secretly" in your mind because even if you want to seem confident, eager and excited for the new year. Deep down you know that many of those goals won't be achievable but you write them anyway because you feel a "social responsibility" to do it!
You feel that weird tendency to please everyone and to get in the wave of the new year resolutions and you write down things that you don't even have an emotion associated with them.
Emotion, that is the third component that should be associated with every part of your journey in order to face a different end result and produce of course a different year.
As we started our reflection process on our lessons learned, now emotion comes again in the picture, however this time its appearance is to allow us to create a special bond, a strong connection with the goal or intention that we have for a new year, for a different result. I'm making a pause here to ask this important question "Do you really want a different result?" because maybe that is the first question everyone should be asking, don't you think so?.
Often times people chose, because is in their own choice, to repeat over and over the same thoughts, emotions and behaviors simply because they're too "set in their ways" as they often justify with that overused phrase.
If your answer was that you're just comfortable with what you have and do, that is awesome or might be sad, because you either have arrived to a point were you're completely comfortable with everything in your life, congratulations, or you're just activating a defense mechanism of denial to avoid recognizing that you need to change something.
Our emotions play a key role in this whole process of learning from our own mistakes and lessons in life and nobody is responsible for them but us, so whether we want to recognize that fact today or in ten more years, time will still be moving, years will keep passing and eventually the most painful master will show up for you ..regret!
Therefore, we're still on time to produce a different effect during these two next weeks, and there's plenty of time to reflect on what happened this year or other years that you were probably not paying enough attention to many of the lessons that were presented to you.
Why learning from your lessons should be relevant to you?
It is a big deal, the decade we're about to face is going to be a life changing experience for many of us, due to the speed of science, technological advances and probably environmental challenges that we will be facing.
So, in my humble opinion, is a decade were we can make a huge difference in the destiny of the planet, if we engage more carefully with the things that we can control and are in our power, which are of course within us.
If we start raising the level of awareness inside of us, creating more powerful consciousness to what we're doing, allowing ourselves to care more for our internal states and energy that we're vibrating, then we certainly will be able to turn around destiny, to course correct many of the unconscious behaviors that of course affected so many platforms and areas of our lives and of our communities and planet.
We have a huge participation in the way things will unfold in each of the societies that we live in, although we have chosen to be blind of the effects for a good while, now it is clear that we must come together without boundaries of any style and be aggressive towards doing that what it is required for us to do, and that is just simply doing our job as part of a community, being helpful in the things we can, contributing with our gifts that we all have, spreading a different type of energy that allow us to change the lenses that we're using to see the world, detaching from toxic sources, being more careful of what we allow ourselves to think, the emotions that we're producing and of course the behaviors that should be maintained and the ones that have to be replaced.
Otherwise, if we fail to see our participation, if we stay in the victim or apathetic mode for another decade then unfortunately we will be creating more chaos, destruction and painful situations, first in our lives but then we will keep spreading negative energy that is already building up and just like your epigenetic marks build up and turn a "bad gene", that is exactly what is going to happen with us a global community we're turning on "environmental genes" that sooner rather than later will be turned on and almost nothing will be able to stop them.
Many of those consequences are already present in our everyday life, so there's no doubt we have already caused a strong damage, however I am an optimistic, though realistic, that we can still turn the damage and save plenty of what we still have, hence the purpose of this article.
What is the best way to extract the meaning of our lessons and stop the cycle of repeating the same mistakes?
I think we all have faced situations in our lives that keep repeating, and many times we "replay version" comes with extra features, sort of saying, which often are stronger and more painful so we can be more receptive to them.
Nevertheless, many people seem to inherited a stubborn primitive component of not realizing that there's something that needs to be changed in our lives, or as many people would argue, they're still not ready for the change, they still more time and consequences in order to act and really be able to open their mind to clearly see that they need to modify something in their lives.
I believe this phenomena happens due to the fact that we are too attached to our egos, we feel weak, vulnerable, sometimes ashamed or attacked that we need to change.
We simply are too selfish and immersed in our way of thinking that we don't allow other kind of thoughts or behaviors to be accepted, unless they come from some "authority" or "expert" then we are softer and more open to receive the advice but if it comes from someone of our family or couple we are usually resistant to take it just as it is.
Moreover, as years pass by and we mature, we pay more attention to the important things, we suddenly realize that if we had paid more attention and let our ego completely out of the picture, we would have saved some years of painful lessons.
Thus, your first thing to be very aware of, is your ego, whenever you feel that annoying voice saying you don't need to change, you're completely fine, you have the reason ...embrace it but tell it these simple words "I understand you, however I will decide by myself" that will take away all the power from the voice and almost immediately will awaken your consciousness on what would be the best choice to decide.
Consequently, your decisions will start being more powerful, more congruent and of course they will just produce amazing results in you and in the people around you, Why? Well, simply because they will show that you're open to criticism, open to see life from other point of views and really evaluate what is the best choice.
That is something that not a lot of people is able to do, because many times they are too attached to their egos and they don't let advices, reasons, or sometimes even clear evidence to make them change their "strong opinions", which in regards to what we're speaking will only have one hard consequence ..pain, stronger experiences and probably if there's still resistance even suffering.
Another strong component of being able to extract the full meaning of your lessons is making time in your life to have clarity, to simply let your mind sink in the experience, carefully lay out the picture, and being able to witness how your life has been unfolding for you, without being overwhelm or making this process too draining, is more about having joy, being able to laugh at yourself, to let the experience talk to you that will only have one strong result inside of you, coherence, congruence which will be reflected in an amazing feeling inside of you that many people described as feeling ecstatic because they finally realize the importance and they discovered with their own lives and of course their own experience that the key was right there in front of their eyes and that is the opening act to finally produce a change from within, a change that you chose, that you decided, that no one imposed you but that you were willing to appear in your life.
If we let ourselves return to our amazing childhood traits, this experience, is pretty much like feeling as a magician with your life, and the great news for everyone is that we are all able to do this!
As a result, we will be able to move on!, to move forward!, to start the engines of our inner life and to begin to experience more humility, compassion, love and meaning to all the experiences that we will have in the moment that they happen, that will certainly have an effect in your future ..I guess that by now you know what is that result, right?
Your life will start to finally change! in Amazing ways, with the appearance of new actors, new enlightened experiences, new paths that magically will be opening the doors even before you find the key..How? Well, just because now you possess the face recognition feature with your inner source, with the universe, with the most powerful energy within you!
In summary, life doesn't have to be a replay, life doesn't have to be composed of harder lessons, harder experiences, more pain and more sadness..Life was created for you and so that you experience it with the strongest positive emotions that literally take your breathe away at least once in a day, so stop resisting the obvious, stop rowing in the opposite direction and start flowing with your own wisdom and energy that is there for you..you just have to let it be present more often!