Staying out of the cracks may even be tough on Sundays. My husband and I enjoy our Sunday ritual of eating breakfast and “reading” the Sunday paper. I “read” the ads and my husband reads the headline stories. I love looking at the ads and how they are displayed and what’s new for the week. We have a local glossy magazine that periodically is included in the paper and the pictures are quite stunning. Sometimes, when I look up I see the expression on my husband’s face as he is reading. I can tell what he’s reading isn’t good. I cutely say “What uplifting story are you reading, honey?” Then my husband shares what he has just read which 95% of the time is a deflator. It zaps any positive energy you might have had before breakfast right down to zero.
We finish breakfast. My husband leaves with his focus and thoughts on lack: the lack of integrity of people, the lack of money, the poor housing market or the horrible things happening in our schools. However, I’m cheerful after a bit of visual stimulus and actually some quite beautiful images. My mind is open to what comes next in the day and my mood is uplifted being with my husband and having enjoyed the rituals of Sunday morning breakfast. The amazing thing is the majority of the time I never do more than look at the ads. I don’t run out shopping. (My husband said he was really happy about that.) I get my tiny bit of “current events” but not by reading the newspaper. I have friends who don’t watch the news at all or read the newspaper, but for me I like to be just slightly aware of the outside reality although I don’t want to I live in it. I know I choose either consciously or unconsciously the awareness I live in.
After the weekend I just experienced, I think the question I want to pose to you is what are you filling up on? What is the reality you want to live in? Do you spend a lot of time focusing on the outward things? Something that didn’t go the way you expected because you thought it was out of your “control”? Or what’s not perfect at work and in the world? Or are you turned inward and focused on that small detail that didn’t fall into the perfect place and yes, somehow you are blaming yourself for it? If you’re like many of us, you can easily get caught in the cracks of what’s not working. I know it’s very easy to do when we are peering in the darkness of what’s going “wrong”. With my clients I have found this to be one of the hazards of a calendar that’s so full they are continually moving. They forget they have a hand in the businesses of life, instantly forget the good and lose their confidence when a shadow appears. If you don’t stop, you don’t have time to see the bigger picture – just the cracks and shadows. If you don’t stop, you don’t change your reality. You keep it going just like a hamster on one of those hamster wheels.
It makes me think of noise canceling, the white noise machines that cancel out other sounds. It cancels out other options. When you fall into the crack you automatically delete what’s positive. As my friend Margaret in Australia says, your brain is deleting all the time. You can’t possibly take in all the stimulus that we are bombarded with every second. Even as you read this you may be deleting the sounds around you or the sun coming in the window. Maybe as you read this ezine, you’re deleting another email or doing something else. You delete things all the time. But you don’t want to delete your successes! Unfortunately, when you stay in the cracks you automatically delete your successes.
We have “programs” installed from when we are children because our society focuses on disasters not successes. We focus on weakness not strengths. What’s important is you can choose what you delete by simply choosing to delete something different.
What are you filling yourself up with now? What are you going to delete so the light shines in? Stay out of the cracks! Celebrate your successes and delete the things that don’t uplift you. That includes the inner voice that tells you where you have failed and where you are succeeding.
Bonnie
P.S. I found a great shadow-buster to help you stay out of the cracks. For all of you who love Twitter, Facebook, and apps and would like a new app for your phone or iTouch look for a daily dose of positive energy “Kindness App” by Pam Grout, a colleague and the author of God Doesn’t Have Bad Hair Days. It’s fun, uplifting and inspiring and I know it’ll support you in a quick and simple way to focus on the success in your days.