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Lately, there’s been a lot of goings on in my life. Some would be considered “good” and some would be considered “bad”. One notable aspect has been that the amount of general stress in my life has gone up. While my meditative practice has helped with this, I was still losing ground, and didn’t know what to do.
For those of you who may remember, I’ve studied the Sedona Method. While this has been of great benefit to me, I made the (let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?) bonehead mistake of forgetting to apply it when it was needed. I was used to thinking of the technique as a “fix” for a “problem”, and not an ongoing process, much like I spoke about meditation the other day.
This has led to my stress levels getting higher and higher. This, in turn, has led to what I’m going to call “hardware glitches”: The beginning health problems I’ve been seeing recently. Today, throughout the course of the day, an event triggered me to use some of my techniques for handling tough emotions and situations. 90% of the stress, frustration, and all of that evaporated. Astonished at the result (and somewhat chagrined that I’d been doing things the hard way) I decided to have a look at the good and the bad.
The Good.
Being one to take the good news first, I focused on that first. What went right? Well, the technique I used worked the way it should (Sedona Method). The second thing that went right was that my mental trigger to use the technique fired when it was supposed to, and that saved me from mental/emotional overload. Much like Mr. Miyagi’s “Wax on, wax off”, I was primed to respond, and just needed the stimulus. Score one for the home team.
So, everything’s working. That’s good news. Yet, obviously there was a problem if I allowed myself to get pushed off balance as easily as that. So, let’s look at the bad news.
The Bad.
Ok, so everything is technically working. That is, it works when called upon. When it isn’t called upon, it doesn’t work. Makes me think of the first rules of electronics:
- Make sure it’s plugged in.
- Make sure it’s turned on.
So, obviously there’s something wrong in the “program” to not handle the situation. Upon closer inspection, I narrowed it down to the work environment (I was pretty sure, but had to check). Ultimately, it turned out to be that I was set to react to external events, whereas in my recently adjusted work environment, I needed to make sure to preemptively handle internal bumps and stresses. In other words, my internal monitoring was sub-par. This was partly due to the fact that with with more “hurry up and wait” going on, it was harder to steal a few seconds here and there to check my mental/emotional status.
The Game Plan.
Having figured this out, I decided to take immediate steps. First, I resolved to use the Sedona method or whatever appropriate technique at every open opportunity “whether I needed it or not”. This presented a huge relief, as I was much more able to handle what came my way. This weekend I’ll be going over what to look for to make sure I don’t get pushed this far off balance the same way again.
Practice is such an interesting word. It can mean an activity wherein you train yourself in a certain skill or ability. It can also mean a process of continual pursuit and improvement. My practice of these technologies to improve my life have given my perspective to see how to move forward, and some tools to help me do just that.
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