As a mama without a lot of extra time on her hands, my bookworm days have trickled to nothing. However, I have found an excellent solution with Audible.com and love listening to audiobooks on my drive to hot yoga. I always keep a good pair of noise reducing headphones in my purse, and whenever there is an opportunity, I get a chance to listen. Quick caveat – noise-reducing headphones mean I don’t hear the sound of my two-year-old screaming because she busted her toe, so make sure the little lovelies are being cared for when you completely tune out.
Back to the book: my most recent read was a powerful book by Carolyn Myss called “Advanced Energy Anatomy: The Science of Co-Creation and Your Power of Choice.” And in it, she said something that I had to stop and listen to over and over:
When we have scary things happen – like finding out you or someone you love has cancer – it can turn our world upside down. On top of that, we have the day-to-day drama that we spend all our energy on. We freak out at the “emergencies”, and we focus our energy on the outward presentation. We struggle through chaos and try to frame our approach by looking at the outside (what others are going to see) vs. truly looking inward.
It’s quick to live our lives backwards, moving forward only by reaction instead of being proactive. We answer the phone, we respond to emails, we have to read that text, FB post, twitter alert right away. We have to reply and give feedback right now. Gossip abounds as people focus energies not on what positive actions they are going to do in their own lives, but on who did what in their lives – their friends, leaders, celebrities. And for the record, those “no drama” people that are just sports fanatics….that is your own gossip column. Sports are the soap operas of macho men – you are not exempt.
What energy do you spend on reacting to life? How much does the “matter” – the reality that is all around you – how much does that dictate the energy of your day?
What energy are you creating into matter in your life?
I am all about to-do lists! They help me a lot of times as well. Sometimes I can feel so overwhelmed, write them down, and then realize it’s not so bad – the list isn’t that long, or the priority isn’t as urgent as I think. Lists can definitely help, not to mention just taking the time to sit down and take a breath.
Ashley – this is so fascinating. I have been listening to some teaching by David Hawkins and reading some books – the energy aspect of life is something I think most of us have overlooked! But it’s a very Biblical principal – everything begins in the spirit realm and that’s energy! This sounds like a great series – I have it on my order list!
I was finding that I was living reactively at home and at work until I made 1 small change to my day. I began to write a to-do list. Very simply, I list down all of the things that MUST be done, put them in order of priority and work through them from beginning to end. Obviously there are sometimes fires that must be put out in between but it has made me so much more productive in my day and has reduced my stress significantly.
Great post! We live in a very reactionary society. One that is often preoccupied with outward appearances, rather than growth and flow from within. I don’t think the majority of the western world understands (or believes) how much their actions, inactions, thoughts and beliefs affect the reality they live in, or the state of humanity. But with people like you around, I have hope that more will learn.
Great reminder to take a breathe. Thanks Namaste Mama for the reminder to take a few moments through the day to reset priorities.