GIVING AND RECEIVING

Musings On Giving And Receiving

As we each go through our day, every action we take is of giving or receiving, making these exchanges with others and ourselves. At times, we feel the tank is empty and we have nothing left to give. All this means is we need to fill that tank back up.

Musings On Giving And Receiving

We must first receive love from ourselves before can give love to others.

We must first receive and consume our own energy via water and nutritious food to energize ourselves before we can give our energy to others.

We must first receive and become who we desire to be before we can give that person to others.

We must first receive our own forgiveness before we can give forgiveness to others.

We must first receive and become a safe space before we can give a safe space to others.

We must first receive and become before we can give our teachings for others to be.

We must first receive all we have to offer ourselves before we can give our all to others.

We must first receive acceptance of our own imperfections before we can value them enough to give them to others.

We must first receive our own desire or need for help before we give a request for help to others.

We must first receive acceptance of our own responsibility before we can give responsibility to others.

We must first receive our own shining light before we can give a shining light to others by seeing it in them.

 

Learn from all of your experiences, opportunities are everywhere.

Take care,

life coach toronto

 

 

 

yolo

Does YOLO truly justify poor decisions?

I have to call bullshit on this one. In my experience, saying “you only live once” (a.k.a “YOLO”) has to be one of the most widely used beliefs for people to justify poor eating decisions.

I do want to clarify, I am referring to the poor decisions people make with only food and I am well aware that when it comes to eating there are many reasons why people make poor decisions. I am solely going to be talking about those who make poor food choices that use this belief to justify them.

I am also speaking on those who use this statement as their crutch to repeatedly justify their decisions, not the one-offs who do it once a month. For those people, it is much more empowering to say you made a decision to eat that shitty food because “you wanted to” since this would accept responsibility.

I call BS

I am eternally grateful that this is one BS belief I never bought into, it just never made sense to me. It is a belief that completely strips all your power away as you cry victim to only living once (even that is up for debate by some).

Because so many people fall into this belief and share the same commonality, I find it humorous to observe people’s responses when I neglect to agree with them on their statement that “you only live once” and in turn I ask “and do you prefer to live that one life shorter or longer? I mean…you only live once right?”.

The main point I am aiming to convey here is that justifying knowingly poor choices by saying “you only live once” is self-victimizing and does not serve you. To take it one step further,

I think it is a cop-out for not taking responsibility for poor decisions by trying to justify them.

Living Once…Shorter or Longer? The Choice is Yours

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to live longer based on the choices I make, not shorter. If you prefer the latter then I would be tempted to question how much you value your life? By repeatedly adhering to this disempowering belief you are actually making your life shorter.

Making choices that are known to potentially shorten one’s life may lead one to wonder why someone would do such a thing? I know for myself, I have always been curious as to why someone would take that risk.

In my opinion, it all comes down to how much one values their life and their need for instant gratification.

The Need For Instant Gratification

If someone eats those 2 cookies every night after dinner, eats out on weekends, or drinks that sugar-filled latte every day while knowing that the cumulative effects have a high probability of shortening their life must make them wonder why they would do such a thing. I find this is an area that many fear to explore due to discovering facing the truth behind the lie.

If one is lacking gratification in their life, then adding food as a source of instant gratification to their life at the cost of potentially shortening their life seems to make sense. Basically, what is being conveyed here is

“I would rather live a shorter life filled with some gratification then life a longer life that lacks the same gratification”

If you are one to seek instant gratification from food, it is potentially life-saving to explore how you can add more sustainable sources of gratification in your life that will actually serve you living longer and feeling better.

Life-Value

It is very clear to see how much one values their life by observing their decisions. Eating those 2 cookies every night (or every other night) because “you only live once” really speaks to the value they place on their life.

One who repeatedly makes decisions to eat food that has a high probability of shortening their life seems to neglect the value of making decisions that have a high probability of extending their life.

Our decisions are always in alignment with our thoughts. Therefore, if one thinks that their life has little value then they will treat it as such by making decisions that support a life that they deem has little value.

Wrapping Up

If you happen to be one of those people who use the statement “you only live once” to justify your poor food choices, it is completely understandable if you resist facing the truth behind the lie. It does not mean there is something wrong with you or that you’re any less of a person than anyone else.

All it means is that you innocently believed a lie that has not served you up to this point in your life and you now have the opportunity to empower yourself by consciously choosing a belief that will serve you living a longer life.

Know someone who says “you only live once” to justify poor food choices? Share this with them.

What is your opinion on YOLO? 

sunrise symbols

One Sunrise, Two Symbols

It came to me at the moment, during a fairly recent coaching conversation with a client, it’s just something that popped into my head as a way of getting this client to see things differently.

I originally used this analogy with a sunset, however, upon writing this post I decided a sunrise would be more fitting. It is meant to describe that how you see anything is only a product of your own thinking.

This client was talking about something I think all of us can relate to. When they woke up in the morning they saw their day as a “TO-DO” list. Like many of us, this list did not include ourselves. There was no time penciled in for this person to take care of their own needs and joys in life.

I asked how they would like to feel when they wake up in the morning to envision their day and the word “energized” came to their mind. Knowing that nothing outside of us can make us feel any which way towards our day I got on the topic of perspective. “TO-DO’ lists start in our heads as does our obligation to follow through on them. How we see our day when we first wake up in the morning is all in our heads too.

One Sunrise, Two Symbols

Person A (most common)

This person spends a good chunk of their time in their head. It is common for them to get distracted by their thoughts which leads to them forgetting things and getting lost in conversations. Getting things done is what is most important to them. Challenges are seen as problems and quite often as burdens. They are asleep at the wheel of life and don’t even realize it.

Making time for themselves is seen as selfish as that would take precious time from their “to-do” list in order to do so. As soon as they wake up in the morning they take no time for themself and immediately start thinking about their “to-do” list. Feeling overwhelmed first thing in the morning is quite common and they convince themself that this feeling will not go away until the list is complete. Once the list is complete, they start thinking about the next day’s list.

The Symbolism of a Sunrise

Most of the time, when this person wakes up to the morning sunrise they don’t even notice its’ existence.

On the odd day that they do notice the sunrise here’s what it represents to them:

  • Overwhelm
  • An imprisonment to their tasks
  • Another day that will be just like yesterday
  • It’s wasting time looking at the sunrise when they could be doing something

Person B

This person lives in the moment. They rarely get distracted by thoughts about the past or future. Appreciating what is in the present moment is what is most important to them. Each day is seen as a new opportunity that will come with new challenges. Each experience is seen as a learning opportunity. They feel alive to the deepest of their core and fully awake to the presence of life.

Making time for themselves is of the utmost importance as they recognize that the better they show up in the world the greater the impact they will have. They have a “to-do” list but their list does not define their day. They recognize that repeatedly thinking about their “to-do” list will lead to feeling overwhelmed. This allows them to be in the present moment, to not miss out on the beauty of life.

The Symbolism of a Sunrise

When this person wakes up to the morning sunrise here’s what it represents to them:

  • A miracle to be alive
  • A fresh start
  • The beauty of the present moment
  • New opportunities
  • A chance to do something different
All it takes is a little perspective to start your day off just the way you want.