How Much Do You Notice?

Often we go through our day not seeing what is around us.  It is there, but we just don't see and notice it.  We're too busy in our minds to stop and observe.

I see it every day with people.  The birds chirping outside.  The trees swaying from the breeze.  The sun shining down and giving us warmth.  The clouds forming different shapes in the sky.  All of these things are around us, but we're too busy to notice.

We get on our phones and we're walking down the street texting away, but oblivious to anything else going on.  Our thumbs and neck muscles work harder than our minds.

We get on social media and we comment, share, and like everything about the latest "news storm" of the day, yet we don't fully engage.  We don't notice the bigger picture of what is around us.  We are so microscopically focused on only the rants and raves of the day.

So darn disconnected from it all...

We get in our cars and we turn on the radio, but we never stop to truly notice things around us.  There may be someone that needs some help, or a homeless person that has lost their way.  There may be other things going on around us, but we're just so darn disconnected from it all.  We don't notice.

There is so much going on and if we don't take time to stop and observe it, we are really robbing ourselves of the human experience.  We're not meant to stare at our phones constantly or go from one busy task to another.

Meant to find balance...

We are meant to find balance in our lives as humans.  One of the ways to do this is by stopping and observing what is going on in the world around us.

Most of the latest news rants and political firestorms are nothing but ego, fear, and greed competing for dominance.  They are not as critical to life's sustenance as we think they are.

An experiment...

Try and experiment if you will.  Time yourself if it helps for you to do this little experiment.  Take one minute when you step out the door of your house to notice one thing.  Maybe what you will notice is a bird, a flower or a tree.  Maybe it is the blue sky or the clouds.  Maybe it is a sound.  Whatever it is, just take one minute to notice it.

 

Then on the way home from work, stop and take one minute to notice one thing before getting into your car.  See how it makes you feel.  See if you can breathe into it.

Just stop and ask, listen, and connect.

I've got a feeling one minute will go by very quickly.  More than likely it will change your view and perspective for the day.  More than likely, you'll let go of some of the stress of the day and refocus and center yourself.

You'll most likely find the balance that human body so badly needs, especially in these days of nonstop destruction of our time and attention.

So, go ahead.. try the experiment.  Comment below with what you found.  I'm anxious to hear it.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2017 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Days When It Is Hard To Stay Centered

There are days and boy, is today one of those.  I can normally stay centered most of the time, but from the moment I got startled out of bed by a telemarketer until now, its been anything but calm.

The first thing that greeted me was financial software nightmares.  Then a major online app that I use to help manage my online stuff was being anything but helpful.

It seemed like one thing after another.  I'm already tired and fed up with the nonstop political ranting, raving, and overall meanness by everyone in social media and the news.  There isn't anything in that entire discussion that seems human to me and I'm trying my hardest to avoid it.  Yet, it seems like everyone wants to force me to read and hear the stuff.  When politics starts being human again, than I'll start listening.  Until then, its a bunch of noise-filled stress.

Getting myself to stop isn't easy...

Getting myself to stop and just take a time-out moment isn't easy.  I feel like the little brat of a child causing problems that needs to be put in the corner for a time-out.  I'm the adult here and it seems like it should be easy to convince myself that I need to stop and chill for a second.  Yet, my mind convinces me that I've got a zillion things to get done and in no way can I stop.

In fact, that's what I told myself all the years until I was paralyzed from the Conversion Disorder.  I thought I could do it all.  I never stopped.  I never rested.  I just kept pushing and pushing.  I kept hiding things and hiding them until they could no longer be seen.  It didn't end well either.  You would think I would have learned by now but some days I'm pretty hard headed.

Just writing this at this moment, helps me stop and think about it.  It brings it up - front and center - so that I can not hide from it or push it away.  It says - look you hard headed clunk head - you're not helping yourself if you just keep stressing and pushing and hiding everything.  "I know," I say in return, but sometimes I just don't listen to the better part of myself.

It is easy to go on autopilot in life...

Its easy to go on autopilot in life.  In fact, sometimes that helps us hide from the swirling pile of doo doo in our life we don't want to look at.  It helps us numb from it and avoid it.  I get it.  I understand because I feel like I could teach a masterclass in how all of this works.

The difficult part is getting myself to stop and say - enough!  I don't need to do the harm to my body and mind I'm doing.  I can write the words, but putting it in practice is something I'd rather just not talk about.... yet, I need to talk about it.

So, for now - I'm prioritizing what I need to get done.  What's the most important things and then the rest of it will have to wait.  I'm going to take a few minutes and just chill and rest.  I'm going to go focus on my breath and come back into my body.  Spending all my time up in my head isn't going to get me as far as if I can connect my mind with my body.

I know what I need to do in order to connect my mind and body together.  I write about it.  Its just not always easy to stay centered.  I'm sure I am  not alone and others struggle with the exact same thing.  After-all, I can't be the only one that is this hard headed, can I?   That's a rhetorical question of course.

So, please feel free to leave a comment below and tell me what you do when the stuff is piling up and your mind and body so need a chill moment.  How do you get yourself to stop in that moment and come back home inside, rather than shoving and stuffing down all of this deep inside?

It felt better to just write about this and share it.  Maybe that's what I need to do because it makes me more aware of it and by becoming aware of something, we can do a better job of dealing with it.  It doesn't mean we will solve the issue in under ten seconds, but I do know that the more aware we are, the more human we are.

That's my story for now and I'm sticking to it!

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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We Choose To Create Our Day

Book Quote: Hope And Possibility Through Trauma
Author: Don Shetterly
Page 181

Every day we wake up into a world that has not been created at that moment. It is each waking moment, each step we take, and each thought we derive, that creates our day. What we choose to do with it and how we choose to live it, is our choice and our choice alone.