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You
Know Your Life Is Off Purpose When…
By Jeff McFarland
… You
are unable to find something you had in your hand just
a short time ago. Very likely you experience feelings
of irritation or exasperation. And if you don’t
recognize the blessing right away, you might even engage
in some self-talk that goes something like this …
“What
did I do with it?! I just had it in my hand. I am so
absent-minded sometimes. I hate it when I do this!”
I don’t know about
you, but for me, such a reaction does not help the situation
at all. In fact, I’ve been known to experience
a second misplacement soon thereafter.
And all because I am
not living in the moment. Instead, I’m—
+ worrying about something that I want or do not want
to happen;
+ feeling angry or guilty about something that’s
already happened; or
+ obsessing about all the things I have to do that
hour, morning, or day.
Occasionally, in an amazing display
of Monkey Mind, I may have two or more of these simultaneously
spinning around in my head.
All irritation and exasperation
aside, these situations are blessings. They afford me
the opportunity to stop living in my thoughts about
the past or the future and to experience NOW. And isn’t
NOW the only time that I can express my life purpose?
Be creative? Happy? Peaceful? So, actually, my favorite
pen – or whatever I may have misplaced –
is actually the least of what I stand to “lose”
when I am not in the moment.
To be sure, my life will
continue to unfold. The question is whether I will consciously
experience it … or not.
So, here’s what
I do to get back on Purpose and in the NOW. When I absent-mindedly
misplace something, I—
-
PAUSE to take my mind off auto-pilot,
-
CENTER myself (i.e., finding my calm center by deep
breathing into my tension and being mindful of my
life purpose), and
- CREATE
a new, more enjoyable meaning and experience of the
circumstance.
And what’s likely to happen next?
“Oh, there it is!”
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