03 May Peace Of Mind
Written By Lifebook Member Laurie Gentempo
My Intellectual Life was the category in which I broke through to understanding consciousness as it applies to EVERYTHING we do and as it is vital to creating everything in our lives. I wanted to master living consciously because my mind was filled with so much noise (or lack of clarity). A typical morning looked like chaos and reaction to a day of activities. My mode of operation was reacting to my commitments. Over committing was a common theme. There seemed to be many layers between what I truly wanted and what WAS. This was the result of not having put clear thinking and planning into my life, or my daily habits. There were a couple of practices that I chose to create in order to turn things around.
The first practice was meditation in an attempt to create space between observation and thought. I began attending a Buddhist center for an hour and fifty minutes of straight meditation once per week, as well as 20 minutes of daily practice at home. This trained my mind to be more still, more quiet, and ultimately more controlled in my thought process. Immediately I noticed the changes in my mental efficiency. I had achieved more clarity, focus, and experienced significantly less chaos! I had also gained control over my mind and my direction of thoughts, and chose to actively eliminate thoughts that were not serving my plan. Some of my abolished thoughts sounded like ‘I have too much to accomplish’ or ‘It is too difficult’. Thoughts like these stemmed from overwhelm and meant giving up before I even gave myself the chance to begin. I also chose to consistently think more deeply about the kind of life I wanted, a process that can easily fade if you aren’t persistent and committed. Awareness and living consciously became habit. Positive thinking and self-talk have been the key to attaining my goals, whether in the Intellectual area or any other.
As I gained clarity in thinking, my actions became more apparent and meaningful. I quickly realized that I wasn’t truly respecting the facts of reality in certain areas of my life. I couldn’t attain new goals in some categories of my Lifebook without an accurate understanding of where I currently stood with them. I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t seeing things for what they truly were. I couldn’t grow and create because I was in my own way. I was living on intellectual autopilot and experiencing my days in reaction to my environment. It was during my Lifebook Session that I realized how far away I was from the quality of life I had envisioned. I wrote down how important it was to live a life of daily peace and flow. I wanted to have less time with friends and more time with my husband. I wanted to have a home that reflected my values of serenity and organization. It was vital for me to learn to align my current reality with the reality I wanted to create. Living in acceptance of my reality and myself led to the understanding and application of consciousness as a tool. Living consciously is the motor to everything. Choosing my thoughts has ultimately led me to program the life I want.
As my focus and clarity continued to develop, I began to expand upon my methods for building consciousness and control into my life. One of the first things I implemented was a daily worksheet called ‘My Ideal Day’. I asked myself, ‘what does my ideal day look like?’ Each morning I would write the answer to that question for each of my 5 personal life categories (Health and Fitness, Intellectual, Emotional, Character and Spiritual). These categories were about ME. The worksheet highlighted the experiences I wanted to start having on a daily basis and kept me focused on my goal of achieving them. My ideal experiences became actions, and my actions became habits. Once my days became more structured with meaningful activities, my life started to have major flow. Now that I had my personal life nailed, all of the other categories started to gain momentum.
I noticed that as I organized and beautified my internal world, my external world began to follow. I had achieved FREEDOM, which I believe to be the result of reaching levels of success in each Lifebook category. Where I was once a slave to my daily tasks I now have total freedom of choice. I weeded out all of the things, experiences and people that I no longer had space for in my life. These patterns were all broken down once I began to allow feelings to come to the surface, which is the inevitable result of meditation and living consciously. My intellectual stability and control are the building blocks of my life. Each day has taken on a new energy and things have gradually gotten quieter and more peaceful. We are now living from the inside out. I am in control of my life rather than life having control of me. Chaos is no longer my experience. All is in flow but the journey is not over. It is never truly over. There is always room for more learning, more growing and more creating. It is a journey that I find to be simply beautiful.
