You betta Wake up and Pay Attention

I had a group of guys over just for conversation recently. As it usually does, the topic of relationships came up. Specifically the idea that monogamy is impossible for men. Basically the understanding that I hear more and more people coming to is "Men are predisposed to cheating."

Now I wholeheartedly disagree with this sentiment. I disagree because I haven't cheated on someone I had decided to enter into a monogamous relationship with. Now I will say that is not to say that I wasn't tempted, I was tempted a lot. But I decided that I wanted to hold fast to my commitment to this person so I didn't go through with it.

But it did make me think about something. There is ALOT of visual stimulation out there. There are attractive men and women every where. No matter where you go or what you are doing - unless you are sequestered away - you are going to pass by someone you find attractive. You may even find them more attractive than the person you may be dating or married to. But does that mean that you have to sleep with every person you have a sexual attraction to (that is supposing of course that they are also attracted to you) ?? Of course the answer to that is no. But the constant barrage of attractiveness sure does make it hard [pun intended ;-) ] .

It lead me to realize something - how hard it has become for us to focus our attention. In our fast paced world, before we can get too far with one thing, something that looks or feels better comes our way. Opportunities abound and there is always something to take our attention from where we may decide for it to be.

Take me for example. I started this Philosopher's Challenge with www.philosophersnotes.com. All I have to do is read and contemplate one 6-page synopsis of the major points of a different personal, financial or spiritual development book each day for 100 days. Actually let's be clear that it's 100 weekdays, no new information comes out on the weekend. For added interaction and revelation I could also add my thoughts to a message board about the days reading or at least just read what others thought and learned about the readings.

At this moment I am 5 days behind. (HAAHAA)

Mind you, I did say that there were no readings assigned for the weekends. So here I am a full week behind schedule on something I committed to for my own personal growth. I could have knocked out these 30 pages over the weekend with no problem. Or, hell, I sit at my desk with nothing to really do for probably a good 40-50 percent of my day (might be more but just in case a coworker reads this...lol). But at the end of the day, what have I done....

Well in a day I have probably...

• Clicked on the Facebook icon about 200 times to refresh and see if any friends updated statuses.
• Clicked through friends of friends to see who knows who and if I know any of them (or if they are cute...lets be real...lol)
• refreshed my gmail page about 50 times to see if new emails came in (not like it doesn't refresh itself and shows how many new messages in the browser header)
• Played games on my iPhone
• Taken a 20 minute nap

I am sure I could have listed more things that I gave my attention to instead of the things I could be doing to improve my life, but it's depressing me...LOL And when we take the time to focus on how much time we waste, we waste time focusing on feeling bad because of the time we wasted.

So I think even with the idea of cheating, we are not using our God given ability to focus our attention on this person who brings joy into our lives. We aren't paying attention to that person or to what it takes to keep the romance of the relationship alive. We are paying attention to our fears of being hurt and abandoned, fears of being bored, fears of missing out on "better sex", or having a "better person." In our fear of missing out on something, we may be missing out on the greatest blessing to come into our lives.

As Lauren Hill sang in Sister Act 2, "If you wanna be somebody, if you wanna go somewhere, you betta wake up and pay attention!"

Focus on who and what you have right now. By allowing your attention to waver, you are missing all of the blessings that this person who is available to you right now has to bring into your life. Focusing your attention into this person and basking in the joy that you feel when you are with them are the best things you can do for one another.

We will build better relationships and all around better lives when we can harness the power of focusing our attention on what we want and ignoring distractions. As a matter of fact, I am going to grab some lunch and focus on the person I have been blessed with and see what new ways I can come up with to let them know I care. Hmmmmmmm....

Letting People Be

This has been a theme for me over the past few months and a theme for people I am close to as well.

It can be hard to let people be who they are. We sometimes do know a better way, a better option but others don't see it or just don't want to make the shift to incorporate it in their lives. They just won't do it. And it really is their choice. They have the same free will we have and the ability to pick and choose their actions and in-actions as they so please.

We get frustrated because we also have made a choice that we don't want to give in on. The way we want things to be done may seem like commonsense to us - it may seem like commonsense to many, but this one person just won't do it that way. In that moment, we want to take away their ability to choose for themselves. We why they just won't do what we say. We feel that everything would just be better if they would do things the way we have told them.

Our arrogance is the source of our frustration. You can only get stuck between a rock and a hard place when you ARE a rock and a hard place. It's our stubbornness that has us facing off with folks mentally and complaining about their choices - especially when there choices effect us.

So what do we do? How to we handle the situation? Peace comes in understanding that this person has the right and privilege (and free-will) to make a decision - even one I don't agree with. Peace comes in letting this person experience the consequences of their choice for themselves. Peace comes in being flexible, malleable. Peace comes from working within or around the choices of the person(s) you are dealing with. Peace comes in understanding that the only person any of use can control or change is ourselves.

Look at water in a river, it is constantly moving toward it's destination. It flows through, around and above anything in it's way - and even if you were to create a dam, it would rise above it or the pressure would build until the dam breaks (that's why some water has to be let through a dam so there is no overflow and so the dam won't break due to the build up of water pressure). Water opposes nothing, it literally goes with the flow.

Take a lesson from water and go with the flow. You don't want to be frustrated by other people, don't expect them to do or be anything but who they have shown you they are. If you don't like it, choose not to deal with that person. If you are in a situation where you have to deal with a person, rise above their negativity and instead of looking for ways to counter their opposition, look for opportunities to work with this person. When negative energy isn't returned, it diffuses and when it does you will find people so much easier to work with. But by this time you will also know ways to work with or around this person to accomplish the same goals.

Bottom line - you hate it when someone tells you what to do or tries to force their way on you. Generally that behavior makes you want to dig in your heels more. Just don't do to others what you DON'T want to be done to you. Respect their choices and their right to make those choices and find a way, with or without that person to reach whatever end you have in mind.

"When you express your beliefs openly and gently, others will sense your respect for their beliefs, even though they may differ from your own, and be more apt to listen to your thoughts and feelings." (DailyOM.com) And they may even do things your way if they don't feel you are trying to force them into it.

The Old Must Pass Away

For something new to be built, the old building must be removed and destroyed to make space for the new one. Even if the old building is just going through renovations, there is a time of demolition before the new space can be worked on. The new doesn't just magically appear in place of the old. It moves from demolition to construction. And this "work" time is usually uncomfortable and filled with unexpected challenges that are a part of the preparation of the new thing that is being constructed. It works the same in our lives.

We experience something. We don't like it and we formulate in our minds and hearts what we would prefer to experience. We revel in the beauty of the new thing we are experiencing in our minds. But the first step in the process of the creation of this new experience is the removal of the past, of the person we were, so that we can experience the person we want to be - the person who can accept and appreciate the newness and blessing coming into our lives. But this is where we can get stuck.

Misery can become comfortable. It's what we know and what we expect. It is easy to sit quietly in it. Why? Because we fear the work necessary and the unexpectedness of moving from misery to joy. So we make our misery everyone else's fault. We say, if the people in my life change, then my life will be better. We may think that if we change the people and circumstances in our lives, our lives will be better. And while there is some truth to that, if we don't change the person we are, we will continue to experience the same stuff with different faces in different places.

We must let the old us - the old thought patterns that created the life we are experiencing - pass away in order for a new thought pattern, a new attraction point, a new us to be created.

Yet this is where we get stuck. The process of demolishing the old thought pattern and embracing a new one is challenging. The idea of facing our fears is daunting. And the thought of walking through that valley of the shadow of death can be so overwhelming that we turn around and stay the same person who accepts the misery that we expect in our lives.

But the shadow of death isn't the reality of it. It has no substance. The fears you face, when you stand and look them in the eye are not real, they have no power and as you WALK THROUGH the valley and realize that there are only shadows and that the power of God is with you and in you. You see that this power is greater than your fear and you see that it is your choice to believe in the power of this fear or believe in the power of God to bring you through.

Facing these fears and knowing you don't have to believe them anymore tears down the old you. This process creates the space for you to install new beliefs about yourself and your possibilities and you will find new blessings and new mercies as you see the image of the life you want to experience being manifested for you.

As scary as it can seem, the people, places and things of your old life - manifestations of your old though processes - can and must be let go of to make room for the newness of life you desire to experience. Trying to make a new life with old materials will only leave in the same misery you have been experiencing. As Jesus said, you can't put new wine into old wine skins. The old skins will break and be worthless. Be the new person who experiences these new things.

Write a list, or a story, of the life you want to experience. Make it as detailed as you possibly can. Write it in present tense. Now think about who you are now and your beliefs about what you want to experience. Now write a another list, another story, of the person you have to be in order to experience this new thing, complete with all the new beliefs and even personality traits necessary. When you feel hesitation about the possibilities of what you have written, explore it. Ask yourself why can't you have the life you want. You will discover that you (or the beliefs you accepted from your parent, teachers, preachers, etc.) created the boundaries that keep you trapped in the cycles of life you are experiencing and you will know that YOU HAVE THE POWER to remove those boundaries and experience more and better than you have known to this point.

Embrace the process of removing the debris from your life. Removal of the people, places and even things that you hold on to that keep you from standing in your power and living the greatness you are. While it will create an empty space, this is the space that you can begin to fill with the newness of you - and the newness of you will attract new people, places and things that look like the list/story you have written for your life.

I am experiencing this right now.