When making decisions about the thoughts I will choose to entertain daily I have become very deliberate, and I mean….. insanely deliberate about how I manage what I put into my brain. We all have 24 hours in a day, if one sleeps a good night’s sleep, then one has maybe 16 hours. If one works full time that brings down our daily free-time average to about 8 hours. If you commute, then maybe 6 hours. Then, if you are a mom, like me, you have 5 hours for I personally make dinner most nights for my family and that takes time as well. Then, if one works out at all that five becomes 4 hours…..so in total one might have at the very best four hours to work on oneself. On any given day I, Miriam Cutelis, has about 4 hours of free time to do something other than maintain my income and support my family in all sorts of ways. In those 4 hours, what can one do to make one’s lives richer and deeper, our existence count….what can we do to help the world become a better place?
Making time for good things is not all about JUST what will we adopt. It’s also about what will you let go. In my case, I let go of many, many more things than adopting new things, and in doing that alone I have freed up so much positive thinking time, time that has allowed me to flourish, grow, imagine and be more human. Below is a short list, off the top of my head of that I have let go in order to become better overall. I am listing here 6 things I have let go of to allow more time to work on myself. Here they are:
I do not watch any sad movies. NOPE! The way I think of it is that I spent 8 years of my childhood and adolescence barely managing, trying to emotionally survive, why would I WILLINGLY subject myself to an experience devoid of joy? why? no thank you. I know, I know….there are terrible things happening in the world and I need to know about them, perhaps. I do know about them. BUT, what I do not need to do is immerse myself in sadness. I could be helpful to any cause without needing to be submerged in a vat of hopelessness. Sad movies make me feel helpless and I honor my discomforts, as any survivor of abuse might do. If anyone tries to convince you to sit with discomfort know that for those who have had trauma, that is not an option. NO SIR, NO…..sitting in discomfort is not healthy for any human. Do not trust anyone who tries to convince you that wallowing in something your body says “no” to is good for you. HONOR your discomforts, listen to them, but certainly do not wallow in the, certainly do not marinate in them. NEVER.
I avoid people who primarily complain as their primary form of socializing: Now, we all complain, that is totally normal. But there are people whose primary form of socialization is one complaint after another, nothing else. These people, I’ve learned, never move past this stage. I am very open and receptive to complaining to happen in all my relationships, but if complaining is the only energy being emitted over long periods of time and has become as the primary way this person socializes then it can be incredibly draining to be around them.
I let go of late nights. This was a tough one. In trading late nights I get early mornings. Something about waking up early and existing in a quiet space that opens up so many possibilities for me. Also, not much productivity really takes place at night, yet, in the mornings I am charged and ready and feel I tackle much more than I ever could on a half drop evening.
I do not gossip. Not even to my husband. The energy of gossip is one that drains me and fills me with yucky negativity. Without it all you gave is good will towards all and that is a very powerful energy to live in.
I let go of Judgement: I purposely trust that everyone in my world knows what they are doing and are informed and even if I do not agree with their ideas, their politics, their worldviews I would absolutely fight for their right to live freely. The only time you will see me get sticky about someone’s choices is when they try to tell me how to live my own life. When they do this, they are existing under the assumption that I do not know as much, that I may not have the correct world view, or perhaps I just need to be educated….all those approaches to me feel fundamentally disrespectful and totalitarian in feel. Whatever initial intent or reason for such an approach it still distill down to one of utter disrespect and an inability to give me the choice to have my own worldview based on my own life experiences. We all should let go of judgement of one another and the way we show lack of judgement to one another is by trusting them with their own choices, regardless of how we might personally feel about these choices. It might be tough letting this one go, but when you do, the lessened weight from letting judgement go allows space for so much acceptance, love and openness.
Get rid of the need to feel good at all times: The gift we have that angels do not is a body. Our bodies are tools to help us assess all kinds of things. When we feel something we need to tune in and listen. Listen to the nervousness, notice our bodies shut down as we sit and cross our arms, notice how we might clam up around certain people and not others. Allowing for our bodies, our hearts, our hunches, our heartbeats to speak TO us is a very powerful way to maintain sanity. Imagine if someone made us feel creepy and devalued. No doubt our bodies would demonstrate this discomfort, we’d sit more rigid in our chair, we’d smile less, we’d maybe miss our steps or out words. Allowing these feelings to rise to the surface and identifying them makes us rich with information. How blessed we are to get these clues from our very own bodies.
I am sure there are many more…..but those are the most salient things I let go of in order to flourish as a human being. Next, I will list things I add to my life in order to maximize these 4 hours.