.: Period-ically Shake Things Up
June 19, 2017 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
I have a print of the Story People hanging on my wall that says: “There are special angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss life”. Comfort is good to a certain degree, but too much comfort makes us lazy and complacent, and starts to feel like a rut which is not at all energizing.
If things don’t get shaken up for you, do it yourself just to make things more interesting. Put yourself on the edge again to regain the excitement of a new venture. Risk-taking pumps adrenaline into our systems to energize us. Change may create some anxiety; but when channeled into a positive light, it gives us vitality to create a new perception of our world. Only two things motivate us: moving towards pleasure, or moving away from pain. Where are you heading? Take a look at shaking some old habits and thought patterns. Re-evaluate what is working and what is not working for you right now. Is it time for old habits to go away and new habits to take their place?
Sometimes how we are in the world and the way we do things comes so natural to us that we begin to take them for granted. When we are faced with a different method of operating or a new way of seeing things or doing things, our beliefs are challenged and our thinking is jarred a bit. At that point we need to become clear as to the motives behind our behaviors and really take notice as to why we have the thought processes or the behaviors we have adapted.
Sometimes what we think is true or right may only be cultural. Traveling to developing countries or other foreign lands is a great way to shake up your thinking about how you live and what you consider ‘normal’ ways of being in the world. Learning the whys and hows of another culture helps put our own methodology in perspective.
Being a newlywed later in life, I had quickly learned how my usual ways of living had been shaken and my thoughts stirred as I gained new perspectives on daily routines through the eyes of my then husband. Gaining insight into another gender is another form of a different culture (some would say another planet) and it gives us cause to periodically shake things up with a different point of view. I saw how marriage would be a constant source of inquiry, risk taking, discovery, questioning, learning, and challenge to help both of us to periodically reconsider our old style of being.
