First, Find Your Pain

The quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention.
- Cheri Huber

To regain control in our lives we must begin somewhere! Often, we feel out of control, unhappy, unfulfilled without really knowing why. If asked we could point to a few areas in our lives, details mainly, that illustrate that things aren’t going the way we want them to. But we’re still stuck.

To regain control in our lives we must first find our pain. Many of the affordable courses offered online at JourneyWay.Com can help us discover a starting place. There are even a few free tools that can be downloaded and worked on that will help act as a great starting place.

The most important thing to remember though… Is that we must be willing to really look at our pain. Often we are scared to look beneath the protective layer we all have to discover the true source of our discomfort. To regain control in your life you must begin somewhere.

Even if you have to begin, and begin, and begin it’s okay. Today, right now, is the time to stop procrastinating and feel safe enough to look under the covers to find just one thing that is keeping you from living the life you most want to live.

An easy way to begin is to think about the Four Rooms of Your Life: Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit. What is the state or condition of those highly important facets of you?

Is your mind free and clear, easily churning away on the thinking and learning tasks of your life? Or, do you find it hard to concentrate, difficult to remember things, or just tiring doing mental work? Do you give your mind things to do? (i.e. card games, word puzzles, sudoku, etc.) What hobbies do you have that rely on the mind? Music, sewing or crafts, or even spending time working out the course of your life’s journey?

How about your body, heart, spirit? Many of the same questions apply. Are these areas of your life open and moving or closed and sluggish? How do you feel about your body? How are your relationships with others? How about your relationship with God?

By walking through the process of first finding our pain we can quickly begin to map out where to go next. There is an idea that if we take care of even a small road block in our life that very action allows us the space and energy to then begin work on another area. It is freeing move through this process.

For your to-do list, try this. Take four sheets of paper and label them Mind, Body, Heart, and Spirit respectively. Now fold those sheets in half lengthwise. In the left hand column of each page begin writing down what’s not working in that room of your life. In the right hand column of each page begin listing what is working okay in that room of your life. Be honest but be fair. You can work on all four at once or on one at a time. It’s simply important to begin!

Now, you have two really important chunks of information. 1) You have some pretty accurate lists of what’s holding you from the life your really desire. And, 2) you have a great collection of items you can begin to actively be grateful for. With the first list, pick one at a time and slowly start to create the change needed to either erase it from the left column or to be able to move it over to the right. With the second list, begin a gratitude journal or notebook. Each day, before you go to sleep, jot down a few things you’re grateful for that day. It can be one thing, or it can be five. Keep the number low–it’s not a contest. It is however an act of thankfulness that creates a different way of seeing yourself.

The Roadblocks Course will be available within the next month. It will take this concept and expand on it allowing you to truly look at every area of your life and begin to make postive, lasting change. To regain control in our lives we must begin with ourselves.

Let me know how this exercise works for you and feel free to post a comment here. Also, remember to sign up on the home page in the top right corner with your email address in the ENews and Updates box. I’ll keep you posted on changes here and on what’s coming around the corner.

All the best!

Zane Darner
www.journeyway.com
zane@journeyway.com

Helping adults regain control of their lives through affordable online courses, education, and coaching.