When you’re feeling angry, do you think about what you are sharing in your anger? Do you consciously choose how you share it?

So much of what we do as humans is unconscious. Studies by former professor of medicine at Stanford University, Dr Bruce Lipton and his team, suggest that the unconscious mind is running us on its automatic pilot mode, 95% of the time!*

Their studies also show that most of humanity runs on 1% of conscious thought…

So, sleep-walking through life on automatic is a real thing. I think.

Which brings me back to My Daily Intention.

When I consciously choose what I want to create in my day, I have a better chance of staying aware and connected to my desire to create better in my world.

And then…

Life happens…

And I forget all about being conscious and intentional and fall into rote responses to my environment and what’s happening around me.  In that place, the unconscious decisions I hold about me, and me in the world around me, take precedence over what I know to be true in my life today — I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m loveable and deserving of joy.

To be conscious, I must choose consciousness.

To be kind, I must choose kindness.

Today, my choice is all about being kind and loving so I share only the joy I experience in being alive!

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*Source:  Your unconscious mind is running your life.  (When I read the title I thought it read — Your unconscious mind is ruining your life — Freudian slip or true?  🙂 )

Snow falls, settles to the ground. Time passes, settles into the past.

No matter the weather, or how many things I try to cram into any given moment, time keeps passing at its own pace.

I wonder some days where time has gone. Then I wake up to realize time hasn’t gone anywhere. I was just too busy getting done whatever needed getting done, running a race I hadn’t even noticed I was running, to see that time was always flowing at the same pace.

Time. Like the limit on my credit card, the closer I get to the deadline, the faster it appears to go.

Some days, it feels like lack of time is the prison-suit I wear to keep myself from being aware of what I’m really doing with my time.

I tell myself I’m too busy to work out. To go to the chiropractor or even the doctor.

Too busy.

And in my busyness, I quit being present to the moment right now as though my busyness will bring me to some unseen finish line where I will win the race I didn’t even realize I was running.

When I perceive that time is my enemy, my perception of time is out of whack! Big time.

In those moments, I have a choice. To breathe. To slow down. To cut back, pare back, realign my priorities so that my time is less chocker-block full of ‘must do’s‘ and more filled with ‘good to do’s’.

My choice how I spend my time.

Yesterday, I was feeling stressed. So much to do. So little time to do it in.

Is that true? Or am I lying to myself by telling myself my busyness is a measurement of my worth?

Today, I choose to sit back, breathe and relax. Today I take the pressure off and move into that time where the possibilities are limitless and I am inhibited only by my belief there is not enough time — I let it go. My point of view determines my outcome. If I take a negative perspective of time, I will never quit running that endless race of trying to beat time.

In breathing into this moment right now, I find a whole new point of view where I get to choose grace as my companion with time as my friend.

My time. My choice. My point of view.

The question is: What are you doing with your time? Are you rushing about running a race you didn’t know you were running? Or, are you choosing to flow with grace and its invitation to be present in this moment now?

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, you just can’t help but feel irritated by the actions of the people around you? How, no matter how hard you try, ‘they’ just can’t seem to get it right.

In those moments where I’m feeling like there’s something wrong with the rest of the world, I breathe. Deeply. Say quietly, “Forgive them. Bless them.  Forgive me. Bless me.”

Yesterday, our contractor who I thought was arriving in the morning to paint and do some minor repairs told me when I called to check on when they were coming that he thought they were supposed to come today.

Of course, I know I’m right. I know that we committed to yesterday.

Being right doesn’t make me feel happy, especially when he thinks he’s right in his dates too.

Nor does being right give me peace of mind. It only leaves me feeling frustrated. And while we are on a tight timeline — the house gets photographed and listed on Friday — there isn’t much sense in letting my frustration froth over to create an air of discord between myself and the people I am relying on to help us get the house in shape.

It is possible — he was confused about timing. That’s what he told me happened.

I have a choice.

To accept his ‘truth’ as fact. Or not.

Either way, he won’t be here to start the work until today.

When I hold onto ‘he’s wrong’ thinking, I hold myself in that space between where my side of the conversation is the only one that counts. Accepting we both have our positions, without judging who’s right or wrong, frees me of anger, frustration, angst.

In accepting what is, I create room for both of us to be present with what is real right now — he and his partner will be here today to do the work.

I am manifesting what I want to create in the world — a smooth transition from one home to the next. A successful sale of this home that is effortless and filled with ease, and a grace-filled move into our new home.

The universe is with me.

There is no wrong nor right way to do this part. There is only the way that is happening now.

Yup.

It’s working.

I’m feelin’ like the sun will come up and the day will be bright and all will be well in my world!

Now, if I could just wiggle my nose, click the heels of my ruby red shoes together and say Abracadabra! the move will be over, the house will be sold and we’ll be living on easy street!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Yup. definitely feelin’ it! 🙂

How’s your world looking today?

I am getting close.

Close to done.

Close to being able to stop clearing, decluttering, cleaning.

It’s about time!

Our house is listed. The photographer comes Thursday to capture it for the MLS listing that goes up Friday.

And then…. it’s all about keeping it looking like no one lives in it!

I am searching for the joy in that! 🙂

There is something joyful about cleaning out closets and countertops. About gifting to a homeless shelter dishes and towels and other assorted items that are in good repair, but superfluous to us.

Today, the contractor arrives to do some finishing touches — including a bit of painting.

And through it all, I have consciously chosen to not think about ‘the work’, but to focus on choosing to do this work for the benefits.

“I choose to for the benefit of…”

It is one of the simple tools I learned at Choices Seminars 11 and a half years when I first went through the program.

Rather than think about how hard it is, how tiring, how everything… I focus on the benefits.

And the benefits of cleaning out the house are many!

There are moments though when I wonder, why on earth do we have so much stuff?

In those moments, I make a commitment to myself to live my Be. Do. Have.

It’s an old Dale Carnegie teaching and one that is also taught at Choices.

BE committed to DO what it takes to HAVE what you want.

I am committed to getting this house ready to be photographed Friday.

I will do whatever I have to so that it is ready and so that prospective buyers can’t resist owning this lovely place.

And that includes doing the things I”m not all that fond of doing — like throwing out old magazines (do you know how many possibilities I can think of to use old magazine photos in collage and art pieces? Yup — countless!). Giving away once treasured items I no longer use. Packing up the things I want to keep but don’t use every day so that as my girlfriend Tamz said yesterday when she dropped over for a visit, “people can imagine themselves and their things in your house without being distracted by your stuff.”

Minimize. Minimize. Minimize.

Part of my Be. DO. HAVE. is to not Criticize. Condemn. or Complain. (Another Choices tool)

Complaining about having to do the work does not get the work done faster, nor slower — but it does increase my pain threshold while doing it.

Criticizing C.C. for being on a boy’s weekend to watch football in Atlanta also doesn’t help — it is an annual trek he takes with a buddy. They pick a city in the U.S and go for four days college and pro games. They began planning it in July, long before we decided to sell the house. 🙂

Which is why consciously choosing to find the joy in the now, in whatever I’m doing, is vital to getting through this part of the journey calm, centered and collected — and still married to my beloved! 🙂

One thing that has surprised and pleased me through doing all this work — is discovering my body is a whole lot stronger than I think. And that’s another Choices tool:

Find the value in all things.

There is so much value to be found in doing this work and one of the most treasured — the anticipation and excitement of moving into our new home!

Minus a bunch of stuff!

Have a wonderful, joyful day.

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Choices Seminars begins this Wednesday and while I won’t be there, the value I’ve found in using the tools everyday is indescribable.  It’s changed my life. There’s still time to sign up if you’re interested in taking, ‘An Adventure of Your Lifetime!”