MaXIMIze by Healing Thyself

So last week we worked on knowing thyself, and part of knowing thyself is knowing what keeps you from attaining the best life has in store for you. This week, we will work on healing thyself.

First, you have to commit to making self-care a priority. If you have ever flown, you have heard the flight attendant instruct you that in case of an emergency, put your own oxygen mask on before helping others put theirs on. You cannot truly care for others unless you are caring for and taking care of yourself! So give yourself the permission to practice self-care and to grow to live your best life - now!

Second, be patient with yourself. It took time to get where you are currently at, and it will take time to get to where you truly want to be in life. Progress not perfection, and follow the process. Celebrate the small triumphs that will lead to a lifetime of success!

So, let's go back to last week and knowing yourself. You should now know what it is you truly want from life. Visualize this - make a visionscape on posterboard with sayings and articles and pictures and whatever else represents what you truly want out of life. Post this in a prominent spot where you will see it daily.

Now, as you visualize, you may hear what we call Monkey Chatter - that negative voice that beats you down when you try to move up and on in the world. Don't just ignore that chatter - turn it to positive phrases. Counter each negative with a positive - action, proaction rather than action, reaction. Release the patterns of the past and create new patterns for the future.

Stop and say to yourself the following:

"I am enough, right here, right now."

Say this as often as you need to in order for this belief to become embedded in your subconscious - where the Monkey Chatter starts.

As you work through the healing process and move along the path to your best life, gather to yourself touchstones - items that bolster you and bring the positive energy you need into your life right here, right now. Some of my touchstones are books, stuffed animals, carved rocks, music, sayings, and people. Yes, people. Surround yourself with people who are supportive of you and the growth you are going through. Let go of those who bring you down or seek to keep you status quo.

You want to move towards the Light and add your own light to it, not become enveloped in Darkness.

Some other tools I use to move back toward the Light and leave the Darkness behind are yoga, meditation, and journaling. Journaling first thing in the morning clears out the flotsam and jetsom from my brain and sets the tone for the day. If negativity comes crashing in, I journal some more and leave the negativity on the page instead of in my heart and mind. By doing this, I can focus on putting positive energy out into the world, and thereby reap positive energy in return.

What you focus upon is what you bring to being. Focus on the positive and on your best life, and you will enjoy the fruit of that focus!

Here are a couple of resources to help you along your path:

Power to Change - Thrive Publishing

Science of Mind - Ernest Holmes

MaXIMIze - Know Thyself

MaxiMIze your life by knowing yourself. By being the best you that you can be, you will be able to bring your best to any situation and any relationship life offers you. It is when you don' t take the time to know yourself, especially after a life change - loss of or gain of job, relationship, security, health, wealth, etc., that you can bring needless suffering and sorrow to yourself and others.

Some of the things you should know about yourself are:

- how you react to various actions and situations

- why you react the way you do

- where you are willing and able to change the way you act and react in order to take the best that life has to offer you

- where your strengths lie

- where your weaknesses lie

- how you set and achieve goals

- what you truly expect out of life, both in abstract and in concrete terms

- what you truly are willing to give to life and to others, again both in abstract and concrete terms

- what truly matters to you, again both abstract and concrete

If you need help, guidance, thoughts on how to start to know yourself, there are plenty of tools available. The shelves at your local bookstore abound with self-help books. Ones that have helped me include:

Self Matters, Dr. Phil McGraw

Take Time for Your Life, Cheryl Richardson

The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron

So, go forth and learn about yourself this week!

MaXIMIze - History

MaXIMIze Blog Postings

I've decided to move these entries into their own blog so they don't get lost in the noise of all else I blog about.

So, here are the previous entries for the MaXIMIze theme:

2 Jan 12 – MaXIMIze for 2012

I enjoy those daily calendars very much, and this year I have one called the MENSA Puzzle Calendar. The entry for today, 2 January 2012, stated that 2012 equals MMXII in Roman numerals. It then asked the reader to think of a common eight-letter word containing those letters. The word is MaXIMIze - a good theme for this year!

So I hereby dub the year 2012 as the year to MaXIMIze your self and MaXIMIze your life!

Rather than making New Year's resolutions, I prefer to develop goals and objectives to work towards for. This year, I will be working towards goals that bring more of what I want to see in my life to me - love, laughter, happiness, joy. I will also be working towards goals which help myself others become and/or continue to be/grow as healthy, happy, responsible human beings.

So, let's start with some food for thought, shall we?

What DO you want to see more of in your life?

Set out at least three things you want to maximize this year - describe how these things will manifest in your life - look, feel, taste, smell, sound. And remember, feel is both physical and emotional.

Now, think about what you can do to bring these things - the maximizing of these things - to fruition.

Set smaller goals (sometimes called objectives in "work" speak) - monthly, weekly, daily. Write them down and keep them where you can see them and reflect on them constantly. I use a white board for this purpose.

Most important of all - follow through! Don't beat yourself up because you missed a goal for a specific time (day, week, etc.). Reset yourself instead - analyze why you missed the goal and figure out how to attain that goal (if the goal is truly something you want to maximize!).

Some of the things I want to see more of in my life in concrete form are:

Writing Daily Pages (from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way)

Going on an Artist Date - enjoying and nurturing my inner child, seeing the world through those eyes instead of these old "adult" eyes all the time (again from Julia Cameron)

Exercise - I enjoy riding my bike, hiking, bird walks, and so many other things.

Yoga and/or meditation - I know I feel better and more at peace when I practice yoga, so why don' t I have more of it in my life?

These are the things I will be working on (as well as some others) during the course of this MaXIMIzing year! What will you be working on?

8 Jan 12 – MaXIMIze by Minimizing

You can MaXIMIze your life by minimizing the baggage you carry through it - both physically and otherwise. Sometimes though, you need to work through the otherwise to be able to minimize the physical baggage.

Whether you have an issue with collecting things - perhaps not to the extent of ending up on that show about hoarders, but enough that your obsession with owning things shuts out other things in life - or collecting not-so physical things like credit card debt, most of these habits can be traced back to things you experienced early in life.

And yes, doing the work to recognize and deal with the issues that led to these habits is not easy - you will find I rarely say anything is truly easy - however, your life will be much enriched by relieving yourself of excess baggage, no matter the source.

I may or may not get back to this subject during the course of this MaXIMIzing year, so I will give you some resources that have helped me over the years:

Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced "decision") - three books gleaned from a newsletter she used to publish.

FlyLady.net - a friend at work turned me on to this site over ten years ago now - one little gleaning I remember is that you can spend 15 minutes doing anything. I've used that for housework, exercise, writing, anything I want to accomplish but sometimes feel is too big to tackle.

Patricia V. Davis - a more recent find and author of Harlot's Sauce and The Diva Doctrine.

Learning yoga - the holistic teaching of yoga, not just a gym class (although I did take this as the PE requirement in college - the teacher, however, taught it holistically).

Developing your support network - garnering mentors, joining groups that do things you enjoy or who help you grow (My Girlfriends' Garden in Auburn and Roseville do this for me!), etc.

These are just some of the things that have worked for me over the years to get from where I was ten years ago or so to now - and I'm still growing and shedding unneeded baggage as I go!

16 Jan 12 – MaXIMIze your Dream

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his "I Have a Dream" speech, today's blog is about MaXIMIzing your dream - whatever it may be.

If we can conceive it, we can achieve it. Or put another way, nothing is impossible, just improbable (one of my mother's favorite sayings). You cannot win if you do not play.

So, in order for you to achieve your dreams, whatever they may be, do not be afraid to seek advice - whether it is from friends and relations, a counselor or therapist, or in the form of self-help books and blogs and other information available through a variety of venues.

I may have noted in an earlier blog that one of my goals is to work through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way - well, my good intentions have come to naught as yet, beyond reading the first chapter in the book again. Now, do I beat myself up for not being "on track" and "with the program"? No - I just pick up and begin again. We are not perfect, we are human beings - and it is okay to fall from time to time. This is not failure. Failure is not getting back up and moving again.

I have worked through other books over the years, and I will share a few of them here with you:

Self Matters, Dr. Phil McGraw (yes, he has a last name)

Take Time for Your Life, Cheryl Richardson (the copy I have is from 1999, and when I was in the book store yesterday I saw the most recent iteration on the shelf)

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Steven Covey (another timeless classic)

Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill (originally published in, I believe, 1937 - again, timeless)

Now, I have found pearls of wisdom in all sorts of places - novels I have read, subject-specific (mainly writing) books and articles, etc. - that are applicable over a wide variety of scenarios and subjects - not just the specific one that article or book was written for.

Move ahead with your dreams, even as you are seeking advice and counsel - remember you cannot win if you do not play. Motion begets motion; stagnation begets stagnation. Therefore, by continuing to learn, grow, and stretch your wings, you will be fulfilling your dreams, whatever they may be!

22 Jan 12 – MaXIMIzing Life

MaXIMIze life by living by your values and virtues. For me, that means honesty, respect, dignity and honor. If you are not treating yourself and others with those four items to start with - and there are others, such as love, loyalty, fidelity...you get the drift - then you are not living life to its MaXIMum potential.

In fact you are shortchanging yourself and others and causing much more pain in the world than there truly needs to be. And believe you me, there is more than enough pain in the world to go around and definitely not enough love.

There is a saying that goes oh, what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive. And once you get tangled up in such a web of lies, disrespect, dishonor, faithlessness and such, it is very hard to untangle yourself from it and you get drawn deeper and deeper more often than not.

So, do yourself and everyone your life touches a favor and MaXIMIze the virtues mentioned above.

An honest life is not always a peaceful life, however it is truly a kinder life to give to those around you and to yourself.

29 Jan 12 – MaXIMIze Karma

With all that is going on in life right now, MaXIMIzing karma - the good kind - is much on my mind.

This concept whether it be described as karma or the rule of three or the Golden Rule, is prevalent in many of the belief systems around the world. What you put out in the world is what you get back - sometimes in spades. Personally, I prefer to get good things coming to me in my life, not bad, so over the past several months I have taken a hard look at myself and what I am doing in my life and what that is bringing into my life.

Now that is not to say that once you truly change your mindset and your ways that all of what you have put in out in the world previously will suddenly not continue on its path back to you. Just as the ripples caused by a stone dropped in a body of water continue to move towards shore long after the stone has settled on the bottom, the actions you put out in the world ripple through until they return to you. And if you continually put the same actions out into the world, those are the actions you will continually get back.

We change the world by changing ourselves. So what would you like to have come back to you today?

4 Mar 12 – MaXIMIzing – Getting Back Up

Yep, I fell off the blogging wagon there for a while - at least on the theme of MaXIMIzing for 2012 (and beyond).

Life happens, and my life struck in spades - January was a yin/yang month and February was all about recovery time. However, falling isn't failing; not getting back up is.

So, this is me getting back up!

Let's review my thoughts on MaXIMIzing your life thus far, shall we?

In my January 2nd post, I challenged you to set out at least three things you want to MaXIMIze this year. I then suggested you set smaller goals to help you achieve those things - monthly, weekly, and daily goals. Then I said you have to follow through in order to gain those things you want to MaXIMIze.

In my January 8th post, I challenged you to minimize the baggage you carry, both physical and otherwise. I showed you how you could do anything for fifteen minutes per day. I suggested using yoga and/or mediation to help lessen the otherwise baggage, as well as journaling and having a strong support group.

In my January 16th post, I encouraged you to follow your dreams. If we can conceive it, we can achieve it. I encouraged you to seek advice when need be along the path. This is also where I introduced the concept that falling isn't failing; not getting back up is. You cannot win if you do not play.

In my January 22nd post, I suggested you live your life by your values and your virtues. I shared that my strong ones are honesty, dignity, respect and honor.

In my January 29th post, I touched on the concept of Karma - something that is found in all major belief systems in the world, whether it be the Golden Rule, the Rule of Three, or some other description. I reminded us all that even though we work to change, the things we put out in the world in the past will continue to ripple through our future, until the ripples dissipate, as they will over time. Then, if we have truly done the work, the new things we are putting out in the world will replace those ripples with new ones.

My February and early March posts were focused on one of the things I do want to MaXIMIze this year - my writing! So, while I fell down on the posting to help you along your path to MaXIMIze your life this year, I was still traveling down my path towards that same goal!

For the last few weeks (perhaps even the last two months), I have seen the following saying on RUOFS (a fiberglass steer who hangs out on the sidewalk near Ruland's Used Office Furnishing on 16th Street in Sacramento):

A setback is a set-up for a comeback.

So, here is my hand held out to you, if you have fallen and need a lift to get up...now get back to MaXIMIzing your life!!!

11 Mar 12 – MaXIMIze – Choice

Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken has been on my mind a lot lately, due to a myriad of life changes that have come and are still coming my way this year.

Since it is in the public domain, here is the poem in its entirety:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Standing at the crossroads can be a terrifying feeling at times, however, we all stand there at one point in time or another, and sometimes many times depending on where our lives take us.

What some of us never get to though is described in the third stanza of this poem, which is being able to truly continue on our journey instead of ending up in a repeating cycle. And this boils down to making choices - sometimes difficult ones - in order to truly move forward in life instead of spending it in the roundabout.

Instead of rushing willy nilly into what life throws our way, we need to stop, breathe, and listen to that small, still voice each of us has inside of us. We need to fully process what has gone on before rather than locking it in a box, throwing away the key, and hoping it never finds its way back home.

Putting what has gone before in a box temporarily, to take the time to stop, breathe, and listen, is one thing. However, you need to remember to open the box, take out what has gone before, and really examine it in the cold light of day in order to process it and move forward instead of repeating the same patterns over and over and over again.

I know this can be a scary thing - moving from the known to the unknown can be terrifying at times, even if the unknown you are moving toward is a good thing. However, this is how we grow as human beings - by moving forward. Some of us never grow, but instead remain like trees stunted by lack of water or lack of sun. Unlike those trees, who are rooted in place and cannot move to better conditions by their own volition, we do have the freedom to move on to better things.

So what is your choice today? Will you be a stunted tree, never reaching the sun, or will you take the time to stop, breathe, listen to the small, still voice inside of you and release the patterns of the past so you can move on to a bright and wonderful future?