Calm...ahhhh!

Hi everyone (the picture is of my daughter and her family - well really, she's my stepdaughter, but I've known her for 80% of her life!),

A few days ago, I enjoyed participating in a workshop to review a workbook written by Dr. Stephen Schacher to accompany his book, Calm.

The human mind, as you've probably figured out, is one of my favorite topics to ponder - as in, what makes us do - or not do - what we do (or don't do!!)? What makes one person react so differently to the same situation someone else is also experiencing? Why can some people tune in to others' feelings, and other people just sort of trample all over everyone - without even being aware of it?

Anyway, back to the topic. The workshop was very interesting and I found myself thinking about how to incorporate more calm into my own life. I also found myself thinking how many areas of my life are vulnerable to being "uncalm" (cool new word, eh??).

My husband Guy got a great report from his doctor this morning about the progress he has made in his swallowing issues. I got a decent report from my orthopedic surgeon last week about my progress in "thawing" my frozen shoulder. Are we both in perfect shape in those areas? Uh, NO. But it did give us both a sense of calm knowing we were "growing" in taking care of ourselves.

Finances can easily cause me to lose my "calm" - how about you? Maybe some of you are financially stable and very secure - I am truly happy for you. With Guy and I both being self-employed (and having dealt with some "chronic" health issues the past few years), finances seem to be an area where calm comes to rest awhile before it takes flight again! :-) So I've taken steps to do what I can to encourage calmness in that area. I haven't won the lottery yet (probably because I don't play, ha ha), but I have become very aware of what is important to me and what I don't need to buy to have calm in my life.

Relationships are another area that, when strained, can cause us to lose our "calm" in almost all other areas, too, just from the constant tension. That's why it's so important to try to understand what might be going on in a strained relationship, rather than just putting a label to who's right and who's wrong (since we know we're always right anyway, right? HA!).

What we do for a living can calm us or cause us to live in a state of "not calm." I believe that much of that, though is not due to WHAT we do for a living, but HOW we choose to journey through our vocation. I get decidedly "uncalm" when I get directions to a new client's location, only to find that the directions are not clear and I end up somewhere I shouldn't be. In order to eliminate some of that, I often make a dry run the day before so I know where I'm going. Ahhhhh, the calm I feel the morning of my workshop because I know where I'm headed - that's priceless to me.

And maybe that's the point...maybe we need to know where we're headed in all of these areas so we can try to keep our calm. No, let's change that statement. Maybe we need to recognize what we CAN and can't control in each of these areas to help us hold onto one of my favorite feelings - calm. But here's the deal: be gut-wrenching honest with yourself about what you can and can't control. Example - I've had people in my workshops tell me they are always tired. When we start to dig a little deeper, I find it's because they are up till all hours spending time on the computer, watching TV, or just reading. Even though those activities seem to "calm" them at the time, they also rob a person of what tends to keep us calmer all the way around - sleep!

What area of your life could use a little more calm? And what will you do to achieve that?

Let me know!
Blessings,
Linda
Linda@LindasWorkshops.com