First Step To Intentional Living

How intentional are you about your life? How much thought do you give to how you start your day? Everyone wants to start the day being productive. How you achieve that depends on the choices that you make from the time you open your eyes in the morning. Learn how you can pick the right attitude and choice each day to help you live an intentional life.

 

First Step To Intentional Living

 

32LBDbanner -500px

How intentional are you about your life? How much thought do you give to how you start your day? I’m not talking about when you got your coffee and then sitting down to start working. I’m talking about from the moment you open your eyes, what do you do next? Do you hit the snooze ten times? Do you force yourself out of bed to stretch and brush your teeth? Do you immediately reach for your phone? None of these choices is necessarily wrong, but it could be the difference between a super productive day and successful life and one that leaves you frustrated and feeling like you didn’t get much then. Here’s how to make sure you’re starting your day as strongly as you possibly can. Consider what happens next. We’re back at intentionality again and creating an intentional life. In an earlier episode, I thought about what I think is the absolute number one cornerstone habit that will create an intentional life for you and that is meditation.

I want to talk about where that fits in and what I see is the other cornerstone habit. When I say cornerstone, what I mean by that is this is the one habit or this is the second one, but these are the two habits that if you put into your life and they become part of your life, then you will make everything that you do more intentional. That’s what we’re talking about and I think the way you create the design for an amazing life and lead an amazing life is to be intentional about leading that intentional life. The second cornerstone habit is the way you start your day. I like to think of it as my morning routine or my morning ritual. I’ve been working on my morning ritual and this is my twelfth year now. I started twelve years ago doing this. All it means is that I’ve consciously programmed the way my day starts every single day. When I say every single day, that’s my intention. No one’s perfect. More than maybe 90% of my day starts like this.

My day starts with first brushing my teeth and drinking some water. Lately, I’m drinking some water with my supplements, and then immediately going into meditation. It’s that absolute cornerstone on that cornerstone. Meditation is the cornerstone of my morning ritual. After that, then I will do some exercise or yoga and this is what works for me. I’m just telling you my ritual. Your ritual will probably be different. I highly recommend you have some level of meditation in there, but your morning ritual is going to be different. I’m just walking through mine and my thought processes, but one of the key things is it’s not set in stone. What I’m doing now is different from what I did twelve years ago. You sit down to plan your morning ritual. What you want to do is you also want to plan in a debrief. You want to look at your calendar and say, “30 days from now, this is what I’m going to do for 30 days. After 30 days, I’m going to review it and see how it’s working.”

Do a little process. Sit down with your computer with a piece of paper, you journal, and look back and say, “How’s this working? How is it fitting in my life? Is it making my life better or is it making it worse? Am I able to fit this in or is it too much of a rush? Does having a morning ritual stressing me out, trying to pack all this in? Is it leaving me more tired than not? Can I add in more? Are certain pieces working or other pieces are not working?” By sitting down and designing the way your day starts because if you don’t do that, how do you start your day? I know a lot of people, they wake up, they reach over, they pick up their phone and they looked at their phone, and now you’re in the rabbit hole. Now you have lost control of your day. Now maybe you’re on email, you’re on social, you’re looking at your texts. You’re now letting someone else set the agenda for your day, setting the intentions for your day, setting what you’re not going to accomplish that day.

Once you start down that path, it’s hard to recover. What is this all about? This morning ritual is about putting you in the right frame of mind, in the right fit, the right emotional state so that you can create that intentional day. Then you string together a bunch of intentional days and you want to end up with an intentional life. Should that be exactly what my morning ritual looks like? That’s not what’s important. What’s important is you sit down and you plan how are you going to start your day. As I said, I got some hydration in there. I got meditation in there. Sometimes I’m journaling in there. Sometimes I’m doing some learning, some reading stuff and making my life better as opposed to reading Facebook or Instagram or something like that. Certainly, nutrition isn’t there. The last part of my morning ritual is usually food. Here’s another thing, if I missed, that’s okay. You get back on the habit the next day. If you missed it for a week, that’s okay. You just start again. You just come back in the practice.

LBD 32 | Intentional Living

 

That’s what this is about. It’s about starting, just like the meditation I spoke about earlier on. It’s about sitting down and being intentional. It’s about designing it and it’s about following that process. Then when you fall off the wagon, when you stop doing that, it’s coming back to the practice. That’s the key. One final thing is that sometimes, I’ll have different morning rituals for different days, like from a creative day, from my work out, from a day that I’m going to spend with the family. I have a different process. I have different morning rituals lined up for different types of days. That’s super advanced stuff. Just start with one morning ritual and just start super simple and be forgiving of yourself if you missed. It’s not perfect. If it ends up being a little wonky, that’s okay. It will get better over time.

One lucky audience that posts a review on iTunes will win a private confidential consultation and coaching with me in discovering your soul’s purpose. I will lead you on a personal journey to discover the unique mind-body psychosomatic map of your life. You will get a detailed report and a personal 45-minute consultation with me that is worth thousands. I’m going help you design a life that works so you are able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The more clear you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you step into your true potentials, stay on track, and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? Feel free to reach out to me to ask your questions at AskDrSun.com. Your life is a gift, design it. Do what matters and join me each week as we get closer to designing the life of your dreams. I’m Dr. Sun. Join me next time on Your Life by Design.

Subscribe to Podcast Button

How To Use A Vision Board

If there’s one thing that keeps people stuck, it’s a lack of clarity. You know you want to quit your soul-sucking day job in favor of the freedom of self-employment, but you aren’t clear on the steps to take. You want to take an exotic vacation, but you aren’t sure where to go or how to make it happen. Learn how to get clarity in this episode using a vision board.

 

How To Use A Vision Board

 

33LBDbanner -500px

Something I’ve noticed is that if there’s one thing that keeps people stuck, it’s lack of clarity. For example, you may want to quit your soul-sucking job in favor of the freedom of self-employment when you aren’t clear on the steps to take. In this episode, we will discuss how using a vision board can help you become more focused and gain clarity on your efforts. If there’s one thing that keeps people stuck is a lack of clarity. You know you want to quit your soul-sucking day job in favor of freedom of self-employment, but you’re unclear on the steps to take. You want to take an exotic vacation, but you aren’t sure where to go or how to make it happen. You want to grow your business but aren’t even sure what that means. The truth is with ambiguous goals like these, in five or ten years, you’ll still be stuck right where you are now. With a little clarity, you can achieve any goal you can imagine and even some you haven’t dreamed off yet.

The first step is to visualize what you want. How do vision boards work? Vision boards, ideas, and examples are incredibly useful and inspirational when making your own. I’ve designed this podcast to show you how to make your own vision boards and how to use them to maximize your visualization practice. Also known as dream board, these simple devices are one of the most valuable visualization tools available to you. The inspirational collages serve as your image of the future. A tangible example, idea or representation of where you are growing. It lets you represent your dream, your goals, and your ideal life. By representing your goals with pictures and images, you will strengthen and stimulate your emotions. Your mind responds strongly to visual stimulation and your emotions are the vibrational energy to activate the Law of Attraction. The saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” certainly holds true here. A vision board is a planning tool that allows you to unleash your creativity and daydream in a tangible format.

By collecting images that represent your biggest goals and keeping them within sight, you’ll be better able to focus on the next steps to reach them. Not only that, a vision board can keep you inspired when boredom strikes as it inevitably would and remind you why you’re working so hard when all you want to do is to take a nap. A vision board is a powerful tool that helps you narrow down your desires through the power of choice. The tool helps you invest the time and energy to visualize your future and consistently reminds you of your life goals. Another popular term for it is the dream board. Let’s look at the three purposes of your dream board in more details below. The first one is the power of choice. A vision board forces you to examine your desires and focus on those that truly matter to you. Whether creating one or several boards, the limited space forces you and empowers you to focus in on your most treasured desires.

The process of choosing where to put on your vision board is simple yet meaningful. First, identify your wishes and desires. Then select images that represent those desires. This simple selection process narrows down your focus and personalizes your board with specific messages that matter to you. For example, you might decide to put a picture of a house in your vision board because you want to purchase your dream home one day. When you’re not satisfied with pasting an image of just any house on the board, you can find the perfect representation of your dream home or pick aspects of homes to collage them together into your perfect home. There is power in focusing on the details of how to represent your desire. The process of making those choices sends a very specific and personalized message to the universe about your desires.

It’s the power of visualization. Without a doubt, it is the visual aspect of a dream board that really drives home your desires and sends a very loud and clear message to your unconscious. It’s easy to think that choosing and focusing on the desire helps achieve a specific desire. In fact, visualization isn’t as straight forward as we think it is. To understand why visualizing your desire so powerful, we need to look at your brain. Our brain is an incredible machine that is geared towards making us successful with every action we take. Our brain trains our bodies to prepare for action. When we imagine ourselves preparing for an activity, our brain ran through the process and send signals to the rest of our body to complete that activity or the action. Visualization is nearly as powerful as performing the action. When you visualize yourself living in your dream home, your body is trained by your brain for that reality.

The power of consistency. It’s no secret that consistency is important. Whether attempting to learn a new skill or create a new habit, consistency is the key. We are wired for repetition and every time you repeat an action, we become stronger with that action. By creating a vision board and placing it in a spot you see every day, you create the opportunity for consistent visualization and train your mind, body, and spirit to manifest the desire. The wonderful thing about a dream board is that it only requires time and energy for the initial creation. After that, consistency and visualization happen every time you look at it.

LBD 33 | Vision Board
Vision Board: We are wired for repetition, and every time we repeat an action, we become stronger with that.

How do you make a vision board? Creating a vision board is easy and fun. You can create yours with paper and other art materials or digitally using one of the many online apps like Pinterest or even Microsoft OneNote or Evernote. While digital boards are infinitely more portable, physical boards are often more inspiring. There’s just something about engaging all your senses which makes a tangible vision board more effective. To create your board, start by collecting images that represent your biggest goals and dreams. Photos from a favorite family vacation and the expensive dress you want, a playbill for a Broadway show you want to see or even a dollar figure, representing your desire for bank account balance are all good ways to visualize your goals. Add them to your new vision board. Next, be sure to include phrases and quotes that inspire and keep you going when things get tough. Sometimes a few words of wisdom from someone you admire is all it takes to get you back on track.

One lucky audience that posts a review on iTunes will win a private confidential consultation and coaching with me in discovering your soul’s purpose. I will lead you on a personal journey to discover the unique mind-body psychosomatic map of your life. You will get a detailed report and a personal 45-minute consultation with me that is worth thousands. I’m going to help you design a life that works so you are able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The more clear you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you step into your true potential, stay on track, and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? Feel free to reach out for me to ask questions at AskDrSun.com. Your life is a gift, design it. Do what matter and join me each week as we get closer to designing the life of your dreams. I’m Dr. Sun, join me next time on Your Life by Design.

Subscribe to Podcast Button

Creating Your Personal Vision Board

We all want to figure our life out, not only in a way where we have success but also having our desires and aspirations together with that. One great tool that can help us see the grand view of life is through a vision board. If you are feeling empowered to create your own vision board, then know how it’s easier than you may think. Simply follow the steps to prepare and execute what may be one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Listen to this episode and learn how.

 

Creating Your Personal Vision Board

35LBDbanner -500px

 

Are you feeling empowered to create your own vision board? It’s easier than you may think. Simply follow the steps to prepare and execute what may be one of the most important things you can do for yourself. Step one: Plan out your board. Start up with a plan for your vision board. Take some time to thoughtfully consider the message you want your personalized board to convey and how you want your vision board to look. Before you begin, ask yourself the following questions and commit to the suggested action, a shopping list to follow through with. A) What true wishes and desires do you want to reflect on your dream board? Think about your values, your career goals, family life, love life, health and wellness, how you spend your free time, what you want to learn or grow into. Make note of your answers before you begin selecting your images.

B) Do you want one board or multiple boards for different areas of your life? Some people prefer to make several small boards to visualize several categories of desire. While others prefer to make one large board that encompasses everything they desire. Keep in mind that you need to place this board in a visible place that you see every day. For a small space, don’t buy huge poster board. If you are picky about design and you want your board to match your decor, you can do that as well. Now that you figured out whether you want one board or multiple boards, follow the action list for the creation of your board. Action: Add to your shopping list board with the correct size and color.

C) What type of images will you use, printed or actual photographs and where will you source them from? You can source these images from newspaper cutouts, magazine cutouts, images and quotes printed from the internet, your Pinterest board, photographs, pages from a book, brochures, pamphlets and flyers. Images are a major component of vision boards. For photographs printed from the internet and cut out from the magazine, use stick glue, tape or hot glue. For precious items or photograph, buy acid-free removable adhesives that are safe for photos. Action: Add to your shopping list glues and adhesives needed.

D) Decide in your vision board style. Tidy board or messy board. Some people don’t mind haphazardly cutting out photos and gluing them to a board. Others prefer a neat and tidy board. If you’re fine with imperfect cutouts, stick to scissors. If you need perfectly cutout intricate images, pick up an X-ACTO blade and a cutting mat for a much more enjoyable experience. Action: Add to your shopping list scissors or any other cutting tools.

E) Adding embellishments to your board. To imagine the look and the unique potential experience of creating your board, ask yourself a few questions. Do you want your board to feature an affirmation? You might want stencils or letter stickers. Do you want to add decorative elements so that your board will fit in with the decor? Maybe decorative stickers. Is there a certain kind of incense or candles you like to burn while you create your board? Make sure that all the supplies are at hand to make that happen. Action: Add to your shopping list and write down additional supply needed to make the board and the creation experience that’s uniquely yours.

Step two: Buy your supplies. With your shopping list in hand, go out and buy all the supplies you need. If cash is short, thrift stores and local free sites like Craigslist often have plenty of crafting supplies on offer. Gather your vision board images. Many people choose to use cutout magazine images that support for their vision board. It is fun to go through the magazines and find images that speak to you. You need to either purchase magazines or find a way to get a stack of free ones. Feel free to get creative and gather your images from other sources. For example, newspaper cutouts, images and quotes from the internet. Check out articles and lots of quotes, motivational quotes, gratitude quotes, photographs, pages from a book, brochures, pamphlets, flyers. Printing images from the internet can use up a lot of printer ink. Keep that in mind when buying vision board supplies.

LBD 34 | Vision Board
Vision Board: Treat your vision board like it’s sacred. It’s a special gift you’ve given to yourself and a powerful tool to attract all your desires into your life.

 

Step three: Set up your space. Creating a vision board is a special ritual. It’s time to get in touch with that part of you deep inside. Something that will resonate deep inside. Identify your true desires and focus your energy in attracting them into your life. Treat this moment as something special, as something kind you’re doing for yourself. Here are some ideas to make creating your vision board a special experience for you. Find an uninterrupted quiet space. This is your own time and your own experience. A vision board is all about you and what you want for your life. Make sure you’ve got a few hours all by yourself to really focus on this special gift. Set out all your supplies to ensure uninterrupted creativity. Double check everything you need to create your vision board is on hand. Don’t forget the extra glue sticks. Light some candles or incense. Our sense of smell is very powerful and delightful. Remember to engage it.

Use your favorite oil burner, perfume, lotions, candles and incense to invite welcoming and soothing energy to the experience. Turn on some music. There are certain artists and style of music that really lights up your soul. Go ahead and play it. You may get distracted by lyrics. If you think the content of certain songs will influence you, then find some instrumental music to play. Tibetan chants, singing bowls, and even nature sounds can bring on a sense of comfort and peace, setting the mood for the experience. Meditate or say a prayer before you begin. If you often ask God, spirit guide, source, the universe, your higher-self or angels for help, go ahead and say a prayer and fall in those energies to empower your experience. It also helps to meditate. Take some time to sit quietly and check in how you’re feeling. Let go of all your worries about the day.

Step four: Create your vision board. For this step, let your creative power shine. It’s totally up to you whether your board is simple and neutral or complicated and metaphorical. Cut out your images and tell a story with your board or create a collage of images that speak to you. What matter is that your images mirror your desires. When you look at your board images, you should feel a strong connection to those desires. Take time to cut your images out. Sit with your images for a moment before you attach them to your board. Hold them in your hand and then feel the desire running through your body. Notice what emotions arise when you think of that image and the desire that conjures. See yourself getting what you want and feel the happiness radiating from it. After creating your vision board, once you have created your vision board, place in an area that you see every day. Many people like to notice their vision board near the nightstand or other places that they look at first thing in the morning.

After a time, there are times you’re not really seeing your vision board, make a positive habit of sitting with your board at least once a week. Simply take ten minutes to look at your board, reflecting why you specifically chose those images. Revisit the feelings of happiness and gratitude of eventually having those desires in your life. Not only is a vision board a wonderful reminder of what you truly want in life. It’s a powerful motivator to elect on achieving your goals. Treat your vision board like it’s sacred. It’s a special gift you’ve given to yourself and a powerful tool to attract all your desire into your life.

One lucky audience that posts a review in iTunes will win a private confidential consultation and coaching with me in discovering your soul’s purpose. I will lead you on a personal journey to discover the unique mind-body psychosomatic map of your life. You will get a detailed report and the personal 45-minute consultation with me that is worth thousands. I’m helping you design a life that works so you’re able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The clearer you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you step into your true potential, stay on track and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? Feel free to reach out to me to ask questions at AskDrSun.com. Your life is a gift, design it. Do what matters and join me each week as we get closer to designing the life of your dreams. I’m Dr. Sun, join me again on Your Life by Design.

Subscribe to Podcast Button

The Secret Sauce Of Productivity

In this complex world filled with noise and distractions, we may sometimes find it impossible to achieve calmness, wellness, and productivity at its fullest. Meditation will make you more productive. It might sound strange that sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time will make you more productive, but it’s true. Dr. Sundardas walks us through the process of meditation. He enumerates its benefits such as making you more productive, energized, calm, and all good things that will surely help you get the best out of yourself.

 

The Secret Sauce Of Productivity

 

31LBDbanner -500px

Meditation will make you more productive. It might sound strange that sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time will make you more productive, but it’s true. Before diving into what to do, it’s worth going over why you should meditate in the first place. I’ve combined benefits observed by research with my personal observations over the last 40 years I’ve been meditating, which is slightly less scientific. Some benefits of meditation include greatly calming effects. Research has shown that EEG activity decreases during meditation. Meditation also helps to recharge you so you have more energy throughout the day. The practice increases the blood flow in your brain and according to one neurophysiologist rewires the circuitry of your brain. It’s been proven that people who meditate need less sleep. Meditation makes your brain age slower and increases the amount of grey matter in your brain.

Grey matter is responsible for muscle control, hearing, memory, emotions, and speech. Meditation makes it much easier to focus and achieve flow and the feeling of being completely immersed and energized by something. It also allows you to procrastinate less and get more done in the same amount of time. The practice has even shown to boost student’s test scores by 11% in one study. Meditation helps your mind defragment your thoughts so that you can make sense of them and step away from them to gain perspective. Needless to say, there are tons of benefits adopting a regular meditation practice, and these are just a few of them. Meditation is a very simple practice that people overcomplicate. This podcast focuses on the breathing meditation where you focus on your breath. Just imagine that.

The basic idea of meditation is simple. Every time your mind begins to shift the spotlight away from your breath and you get lost in thought, simply bring your attention back to your breath. Repeat this again and again until your meditation time resounds. The point is, every time you bring your attention back to your breath, you work out your attention muscle. Over time, your focus, concentration, and attention span improve in addition to the plethora of other benefits mentioned above. That’s the basic idea of meditation. You will need two things to get started but ensure that both of them are ready. You don’t need much of anything, but you should have two things. You should have some things to sit on. There’s such a thing as standing meditation and walking meditation, but sitting meditation is the most common and the best place to start. Since meditation is all about working out your attention muscle, having to check a clock somewhat defeats the purpose of meditation since it would constantly distract your attention away from your breath.

When I first started to meditate, I remember being dumbfounded on what exactly I had to do after I sat down. Two things confused me. How do I sit and what do I think about? Those are essentially the only things you need to worry about when it comes to meditation. How to sit? The biggest thing is to remember to keep your back straight. Keep your back erect. If you’re in a chair, it’s best not to rest your back on the back of the chair and keep an upright posture. Your eyes can be either closed or open. The goal of this whole meditation thing is to work out your attention muscle. Don’t worry about your hands. Some people like to form a circle with the thumb and another finger, but that doesn’t matter in my opinion. Cross the legs however you want. I cross my legs in front of me and I think that was fine for most people. If you want to put your feet like a pretzel, you can. Use meditation to strengthen your attention muscle. It may be the easiest cheat to a simple cross-legged pose. Look slightly downward even if your eyes are closed. This opens up your chest. Find a place that’s comfortable and that keeps you upright and opens up your chest at the same time.

LBD 31 | Benefits Of Meditation
Benefits Of Meditation: Finding a quiet place with less distraction allows you to concentrate better during meditation.

 

The biggest part I can make about how to sit is to find the pose and posture that’s both comfortable and keeps you upright. The attention you give the different things around you is a spotlight. All day you’re moving around and pointed out different things. Without thinking too much about the fact that you’re doing this, as you move it around, you pointed at everything. You give attention too in your life, from your smartphone to a conversation you’re having to a report you’re writing. A lot of the time, you directed more than one thing at a time. Meditation takes that spotlight and it points directly at your breath so all of that is well and good, but what do you do exactly? First, get comfortable. Open the timer on your phone and get into an upright and comfortable posture. Dim the lights a bit or shut them off completely to help you focus better. Start your timer and bring your attention focused in your breath. This is what meditation is all about and this is what makes meditation both difficult and worthwhile.

In this third step, close your mouth and focusing on entirely on your breath as it enters and leaves your nose. Don’t think this is a hard part. Don’t analyze your breath. Just bring your attention and focus to your breath without thinking about it or analyzing it. Bring your attention back to your mind when it wanders and it works. I’ve been meditating for about 40 years and my mind still wanders sometimes. When your mind wanders, and it will, gently bring your attention back to your breath. Once you realize that your mind is wandering, just gently bring your attention back. Bring your mind back when it wanders. When your mind begins to think, gently bring your attention back to your breath. Meditate for ten minutes a day. It’s infinitely better than meditating for 70 minutes once a week. Try to meditate every day if possible, even if that just means sitting for a few minutes.

Start small. You may try to meditate for 30 minutes right from the start. I can almost guarantee that you will get frustrated and discouraged. I recommend starting with five minutes and only increasing that time when you’re comfortable. Meditate in a quiet place. Having fewer distractions around you will naturally allow you to concentrate better and will make your meditation much more productive. It’s easier to lose your attention during your out-breath. Your in-breath is very pronounced and easier to concentrate on. Most people’s minds wander on the out-breaths. Keep this in mind. Be easy on yourself when your mind wanders. It’s easy to become frustrated with yourself when your mind wanders, but don’t. Your meditation will be much more productive when you gently bring your attention back. If you can’t concentrate, try counting. Count your breaths until you reach five and then start again. I use this trick when I’m having a tough time concentrating.

One lucky listener that post a review in iTunes will win a private and confidential consultation and coaching with me on discovering your sole purpose. I will lead you on a personal journey to discover your unique mind and body psychosomatic map of your life. You’re going to get a detail report and a personal 45-minute consultation with me that’s worth thousands. I’m going to help you design a life that works so you are able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The clearer you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you step into to your true potential, stay on track, and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? Feel free to reach out to me to ask a question at AskDrSun.com. Your life is a gift, design it. Do what matters and join me each week as we get closer to design the life of your dreams. Join me on the next episode of Life by Design.

Subscribe to Podcast Button

Do You Self-Sabotage?

We all do stupid things and mess up and go unconscious. In Buddhism, it has a name: unskillful. It simply means you didn’t have the skills yet.

 

Do You Self-Sabotage?

podcast image28 -500px

Do you do self-sabotage? Imagine you’re late for your party and all your guests are there waiting for you. Your phone is dead and you’re in an unfamiliar place. You turned right onto a street hoping that it will take you to the restaurant. It’s getting dark. You start to breath quickly. Your heartbeat quickens. Your palms are sweating on the steering wheel. You can hear a ringing starting in your ears. What if you don’t make it there in time? Everyone will be disappointed and it’s embarrassing for you. Maybe they don’t even want to be your friends anymore. Your entire life will be ruined because you forgot to check a map before you left. Stop. Do you know a part of your brain is responsible for the anxiety and panic you’re feeling right now? It’s called your reptile brain. It’s responsible for your basic instincts. It wants food, sex, and safety. It doesn’t want you to take risks or do anything that’s uncomfortable and it has allies. Your right prefrontal cortex is a part of your brain responsible for visualization. When those two parts of your brain team up, they make negative visualizations.

The negative visualizations will often convince you not to take action because of bad things that could happen. You won’t even know what you’re missing out. You’re missing out on financial opportunity, new friendships, relationships, experiences, and ideas. You’re missing out on the beautiful, delicious and pleasant parts of life you don’t even know to exist. It’s all because the reptile brain is playing these little horror movies of what could happen if you take a risk. Your reptile brain is speaking. My friend Pam had a dog that had been beaten and burned with a lighter. That’s how Pam found her. That’s how they began together. In a lot of love and training, she made leaps and strides over the first few years. Until one day, she had a setback. Her worker was at the house across the street. His pickup truck backfired loud. Pam sprinted outside because the dog had been lounging on the front porch. She was nowhere to be found so Pam began running through our neighborhood. Pam didn’t catch up to her until she was about a mile from her house. She was in a frenzied trance running for her life with no regard for anything around her.

Pam shouted her dog’s name. Hearing Pam’s voice broke the trance, the dog stopped. She looked at Pam panting and terrified. As Pam ran to her, she could see her dog come back into herself. She was shaking. Pam didn’t say, “What the hell? You’ve come so far. You keep getting triggered. What’s up with that head of yours?” This is what Pam did. With her arms tight around the dog, Pam said, “You’re totally fine and you’re totally safe. Let’s go home and begin again.” I remember this incident when I got a message from someone asking about intention. She wrote that she has a pattern of getting to a certain point in creating a vision and when things are going well, she’ll find a way to mess it up. Her words, “I sabotage my success,” and it struck me.

LBD 28 | Self-Sabotage
Self-Sabotage: Nothing is ever done until you decide that it’s done.

 

Sabotage is one of those words that seem to come with its own military units and artillery. It is big and heavy. Sabotage says, “Don’t question me. I’m scary.” It can be a challenge to see clearly. On one level, I get the idea of messing things up right when they’re going well and yet how scared you can feel when things are looking like they might be working. I get that being scared can make you go unconscious to escape the uncomfortable feeling of fear. Unconscious can equal anything from eating five pieces of cheesecake to endlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed to watching Netflix until 3:00 AM. I get that fear might make you do something dumb or something mean for a few months until you have alienated everyone. Until you find yourself back where you’re comfortable in the land of things are awful and I’m to blame, a pattern is just a pattern. You’ve never done this before.

The minute you realize you’re not unconscious or when you catch yourself in the midst of a trance, what stops you from picking yourself up, looking around, dusting off, cleaning up, putting down the cheesecake, apologizing with the stupid things you said and starting again? Let’s be clear. That is the issue here and not the sabotage itself. Nothing is ever done until you decide it’s done. We all do stupid things and mess up and go unconscious. In Buddhism, it has a name, unskillful. It simply means don’t have the skillsets yet. As far as I know, someone once used a phrase, “You totally screwed that one up.” The question is this, “How do you know you’ve ruined everything?”

Sabotage requires you give in to the belief that all is lost. It’s like you have your own entertainment industry executive in your head that says you, “You’ll never work in this town again.” The problem is not that he’s there, the problem is your believing. Sabotage is a teacher. You can never do anything new without making mistakes. It’s called learning, not sabotage. Part of that was to take the first few steps and falls and that’s not saying, “I sabotage myself.” Instead, he keeps getting up and moving until he learns to walk. It’s the same when you’re learning to ride a bicycle. You keep falling off until you get it. If you really decide to learn trick riding, you start falling again. It’s about how much you want to improve your skillsets and grow.

If you think you have a knack for sabotage, then this pattern is the greatest teacher. It might be teaching you persistence or commitment. I’ll be telling you, you’re growing. One of my biggest secrets is when I’m learning something new, I create a safe space for myself to make all the mistakes I need to learn and grow. It could be in the confines of a new class where everyone is a beginner or it could mean the privacy of my home. I could go to someplace where no one knows who I am so that when I screw up, they would say, “Crazy stranger.” You either beat yourself up in the confines of your mind when you think you have screwed up or some well-meaning person says that to you and you beat yourself up.

The reality is, I’ve never had a qualified expert come and tell me I screwed up because all of them have painted views. You will have the well-meaning by a relatively clueless individual who will provide you with unsolicited advice about how you screwed up. At regular intervals in my life, I learned something new. It could be a new business approach, a new martial art, or a new dance form. I gave myself permission to make mistakes and learn. I have been enriching my brain by creating new neural pathways. The key here is you can either sit back or say, “Look how awful I am. I’ve done it again,” or you can say, “I’m learning to commit. Now is another day and with eyes wide open, I begin imperfectly.” It will be painful. It will be uncomfortable. It will piss you off and it’ll grow you in ways you can’t imagine. I know from my own experience, it’s challenging to have an emotional temperament and go for your dreams. It’s much easier to sit back and say, “It’s all too hard,” or “I’m not cut out for this.” When you start engaging, you only elongate the story and continue to trance. Instead, take steps and take them in openness and stop using the word sabotage.

Be unbelievably kind to yourself. The opposite of the voices that say, “All is lost.” It’s reminding yourself that, “All has never been lost,” and remembering how far you’ve come in your process. Monitor how you talk to yourself. Stop and correct any negativity. It only serves to keep the path in our life. In your story, you have the opportunity to be the person who is kind and the one who pushes in knowing that you’re never going to give up on yourself or your life. Whenever you shift into that unconscious mode, gently walk yourself back home and start from there. Do that for you constantly and then do it again. We’ve spoken about how to declutter your life and how to be aware. This is putting it together so that you will never believe that you sabotage yourself ever again.

One lucky audience that posts a review in iTunes will win a private confidential consultation and coaching with me on discovering your soul’s purpose. I will lead you in a personal journey to discover your unique mind-body psychosomatic map of your life. You will get a detailed report and a personal 45-minute consultation with me that’s worth thousands. I’m going to help you design a life that works so you’re able to say yes to the things that matter and eliminate everything else that slows you down. The clearer you can be about how to organize your daily life to support your bigger vision, the more you step into your true potential, stay on track, and accomplish all that you want and deserve. Are you ready to make that happen? Feel free to reach out to me to ask your questions at AskDrSun.com. Your life is a gift, design it. Do what matters and join me each episode as we get closer to designing the life of your dreams. Join me next time on Your Life By Design.

Subscribe to Podcast Button