| In the last week I’ve been involved in two conversations where we talked about our thoughts. I felt you may benefit from the learning involved. Allow me to share…
The first conversation took place in Hawaii. November of this year I was there at a retreat. I had asked a lady how she deals with situations when she is feeling uncomfortable. For example, how does she deal with feeling uncomfortable around certain people or situations she finds herself in? Her reply had to do with ‘not taking ownership’ of her thoughts. When thoughts come up, she lets them go through her without claiming them as her own or without identifying with them. If she is feeling drained she just allows the drained feeling to move through her without thinking the feeling has to do with this or that. She also added she asks her Divine for the grace to be open, receptive and grateful for whatever is taking place at the time. The second conversation was with one of my daughters. When we were talking, she innocently made the comment of how she doesn’t like to talk about what she thinks is happening to her. She feels talking about what she’s thinking brings her thoughts to life; she said ‘it gets too real’ so she doesn’t do it. Have you consciously thought about your thoughts lately? What do you do with the thoughts that run through your mind? Do you think of them as a truth? Do you take ownership making them your own and giving those thoughts power over you? I would be willing to go out on a limb and say if you do…you are like the rest of us in the world. What can you do to change that? From my experience, being aware of the thoughts you have, at the time you are having them is the most important step in resolving any uncomfortable feelings you experience along with those thoughts. The source of your thoughts is not something you have control over at all. What you do have control over is your awareness and what you do with that awareness. Recognizing your thoughts are just thoughts helps greatly. Thoughts will be there one minute and gone the next. You can’t hold onto a thought no matter how hard you try. You can’t say, ‘oh I like this thought I’m going to hold onto it.’ Thoughts do not work that way. Some thoughts come and go and some thoughts stick around for a while. The thoughts that stick around for a while tend to be the ones you don’t want to think about and can be bothersome in nature. When you are aware of the thoughts you don’t want to think about….I invite you to consider the following: 1. Notice how you feel an inner fight or struggle with yourself in relation to the thoughts; 2. Start to mentally challenge the thoughts, not taking ownership of or identifying with any of them; 3. Ask your Divine to help you to be open, receptive and grateful for whatever you may be experiencing in that moment. Thoughts you don’t want to think about can be both positive and negative in nature. I invite you to observe your thoughts over the next while and let me know what comes up for you. The learning and growing will offer you much grace in the process. I would love to hear from you. You are welcome to share…. As we head into the festive season….I wish you and your families a blessed and prosperous Christmas. May you experience joy and laughter as you continue to journey forward with each new day. Sheila Unique, Trainer & Speaker |
Learning Leads to Wisdom
I’m heading to the University in India at the end of July…and won’t be back until the beginning of September. It has been my experience whenever I make a commitment to do something like this…so much transformation takes place from the moment of making the decision….all the way to returning home. Talk about learning……a lot of learning comes through our experiences!
This past month I’ve had the chance to talk to a number of students about learning. I asked them how they knew they were learning anything. My intention was to bring to their conscious mind…how they not only learn in school…but how they learn through every experience in their life.
Here is what I shared with the students of a grade 5 and grade 7-8 classroom…“Every experience offers you learning of some kind! You not only learn in school…you learn at recess time, in your home, while you are shopping, while you are playing…you are always learning. You are learning about YOU in relation to everyone and everything around you. You learn what you like and don’t like; you learn how to get what you want…and what doesn’t get you what you want; you learn how to communicate with people; you learn different personalities of people around you…and more! Your learning is something you take with you wherever you go in life….and will never end! Be open to learning and you will always find the joy in any moment!”
I don’t know if you ever thought of that yourself. Well, here are a few more thoughts on learning…inviting you to become aware of what every moment may have to offer you…as you journey forward in life.
We learn about ourselves….in relation to everyone and everything around us! Our life is about us…our journey is about us. We take us everywhere we go 24/7/365…offering many opportunities to learn about ourselves. Sometimes the learning isn’t fun!
Learning comes through all of our senses! Our eyes….what we are seeing; our ears….what we are hearing or listening to; our nose…what we are smelling; our mouth…what we are tasting; our hands…what we are feeling to the touch.
Learning comes from whatever is around us. People, things and situations! What people say and do…with their words or their expressions. Different things like…color co-ordination, designs, procedures, divine timing or growth. Different situations we find ourselves in….being lost, being with someone we’re uncomfortable with, arguing with customer service, working overtime when we don’t want to.
We can learn…and not learn from the experiences of others. Allow me to express it this way…there are times when we learn from what someone does or doesn’t do, for example, a person makes the choice to drive on an icy highway and it doesn’t go so well…and then there are times when we don’t learn from what someone does or doesn’t do, for example, a person makes the choice to drink and drive resulting in losing their license and yet we may drink and drive.
When it comes to learning from other people…..I have to giggle. If we don’t find another person interesting…or we don’t like some of their characteristics…chances are we won’t listen to them for very long…..and yet we will learn from them. Just the interaction with a person can teach us so much about ourselves!
One of my favorite things to talk about is what we learn from our own bodies!!! Our bodies can teach us so much by communicating through our different aches…pains …illnesses…and dis-eases. For example, our eyes…we use our eyes to see. If our eyes are burning or hurting….our eyes may be showing us there is something we don’t like to see. I so love this whole concept of learning about ourselves from our bodies. The learning can be instant! We will be experiencing something…where there is unrest of some kind…. and our body may have an ache or a pain…instantly! When we are aware of the ache or pain type sensation we are feeling….we only have to notice what we are doing at the time the ache or pain show up! I help many people to heal their bodies through the communication that comes from the different aches and pains.
There is learning from our mistakes….mis-takes of situations. Those mis-takes can be an opportunity for us to gather information…to learn a new way of doing something.
Learning from the times where we try and try and try to do something, it doesn’t work…we finally just let it go…then all of a sudden it works!
We learn what we are held accountable for…and what we can get away with!
When it comes to procedures…we initially learn how to do something as outlined and once we understand the process of how something works…we may learn new ways to shorten the procedure. Many changes take place in the world because of our learning. Receipes…we learn how to make something following the receipe as it is…and once we taste it, we learn what we like and don’t like maybe tailoring the whole receipe. Often we create magical new flavors and combinations of different foods and spices. All part of the growing process.
What are you learning about your thoughts? I personally have learned my thoughts guide me to the places where I feel at unrest inside of myself. When I’m stuck on some thoughts….I know there is an opportunity to heal whatever I’m stuck on. Give that a thought…you may be surprised at what you learn about yourself through your thoughts.
Let me go in a different direction for a minute! There will be times where you will be ‘un-learning’ something. The best way I can explain this is through an experience I had. Whenever I balance cash in the mornings, I make sure all the dollar bills face the same way (with the heads all one way.) Now the banks don’t care if all the dollar bills are facing the same way…fun to un-learn at times.
When it comes to anything you don’t like…..I invite you to notice what you are observing in whatever it is you don’t like! This is not about focusing on the negative….no. This is about learning from what you are observing in the ‘don’t like.’ This will be a process in itself offering you much wonderful information about yourself.
Any unrest inside of ourselves is about us and how we feel….unrest is about our perception and how in any moment of time we may be perceiving something outside of ourselves. We didn’t get a ‘how to manual’ as to how to live our lives. We are learning through every experience we have! We are always being guided for our highest learning….for our highest good.
I also want to mention how there will be times where we don’t know what we are to be learning through a challenging experience…and times in our life where there won’t be any learning at all. It’s magically orchestrated by our Divine!
Anything we do…we do it…we learn from it…and then we are wiser! I encourage you to take that wisdom out into the world to express it…making the world a brighter place to live in.
Sheila Unique, Relationship Coach