Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

I’ve been hanging out in the metaphysical world lately. What the hell does that mean? I’ve been looking at how I think, what works in my life, what doesn’t, who I am as a human being. Whoa I know, big weighty stuff. But an un-examined life isn’t worth living right?

Say it with me class... "I LOVE my life!"

A lot of the stuff we drive ourselves crazy with just simply isn’t real. I mean, how many times have you looked at a fashion magazine and a little tiny part of yourself dies because you don’t look like that model on the cover? The crazy part of that is, THAT model doesn’t look like that either! She’s been ‘shopped into fantasy to uphold some lunatics idea of what sells stuff. Jumping off that soap box for a moment…

I’ve been taking a look at the conversations I have with people, the endless loop of monolgue that runs through my head, the actual words I use when talking about myself and my life. And it breaks my heart to say this, on the whole, it’s some pretty negative stuff. Sure, I have my moments where I think I’m awesome and can take on the world. And then there are moments that if I caught myself  saying these exact same things to a 5-year-old, I’d want to call Family Services and get that abusive nut arrested.

So, what if I could change the way I talked about my life, could that change the way I experience my life? I’m saying yes, and there’s tons of really interesting and juicy brain science to back that up not to mention 3,000 years of Buddhist teachings that show you exactly how to do that.

So these are the thoughts that have been rumbling around my little red head when a friend told me about this self-esteem class she took. One of the assignments was to say “I love my body” three time while looking in a mirror, three times a day (“even if it feels like a lie”). She said it completely shifted her relationship with her body. So that got me thinking…

If how you think, and how you speak actually create how you experience the world, what if I just started talking about the things I love about my life instead of the crappy parts that are going on. Yeah, the crappy parts are still there, and need to be dealt with, but what if I just stopped talking about them? Hmmmm…

So what do you love about your life? Even if things are really bleak, there’s something you love, the smell of your shampoo, the way the dog looks at you, the sound of your purse snapping shut. There are tons of little things I can draw on even when things are not looking good. I’ve had a rocky start to my day and yet, just now in the kitchen I cut open a vacuum-sealed package of coffee and I LOVE that moment when air rushes in and it goes from a solid block to a mushy mass in a heartbeat. I LOVE that!

So what do YOU LOVE about your life!?