Day 19
What are some of your favourite emotions?
One of the best ways to liberate yourself is to start to pay attention to your emotions.
Remember that fabulous model I talk about? When we get the circumstances separated from our thoughts, we can choose the thought that generates a specific emotion which fuels our actions that give our results.
I have given an example in my stories of the model in action. This is so helpful. In fact, it is a game changer!
One of my favourite emotions, especially in the past year is CURIOSITY.
When I am curious I am really engaging creativity. I believe that we are all creative beings. I love this quote by Dieter F Uchtdorf: The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the soul.
To create is in each of us. Whether it is a quilt, a story, an experience, or a new relationship (or deepen an existing one).
So lets get back to curiosity.
When is the last time you had the privilege of hanging out with a 2 or 3 year old? What was the majority of your conversation? What was their favourite word? “Why”. It seems like every second or third word is ‘Why’. How fun is it to look at this earth with curiosity. It’s looking at this world not thinking we are supposed to know everything. Or not looking at this world afraid, or worried, or unsure.
There is a lot of freedom when we can step back and just start asking questions without any judgement.
Let’s say you had a flood and your house had to be rebuilt. Would you rebuild your house the exact same way? Would you change the layout a little bit? Would you change the colours and the floors?
If you would like different results in your life you will need to take different actions. For example, if you would like to loose weight you will not be able to eat the same food as you are presently. There needs to be a change in eating habits. So this is the fun part, you can start getting really curious about all of the different food options you have that will help you to get the result that you want.
When I was first introduced to life coaching and learning how to create my own food protocol I started out by not eating sugar and flour for 6 weeks. It was the second week of July- which meant summer vacation, anniversary and many trips to the beach. Traditionally that translates to sandwiches at picnics, chips and snacks at beach days, special ice cream and fast food on vacation and special dessert on the anniversary dinner.
This seemed very overwhelming and discouraging, actually it was feeling heavy and nearly impossible. I wondered if I could be a person who could make sure a dramatic shift. But then I remembered what my coach asked me, she asked if I could just get curious about what it would be like to go 6 weeks without sugar and flour. So when we went camping I got curious if I could manage so I packed special food for me that I would look forward too (bubbly water with essential oils for flavours).
With this new beginning of curiosity I felt a lightness about the change of eating that turned into excitement as I shifted from doom and despair to curiosity and creativity in getting my body off of its dependency of sugar and flour.
Curiosity has really helped me change my relationship with money.
Curiosity has changed my approach to relationships with family and friends.
Curiosity has changed the way I am running my business and provided me with more opportunities to serve more people than I thought possible.
Are you convinced of the importance of curiosity in your life?
https://zoom.us/rec/share/vu1MILD63VJOHJXnz0_9WJV7EqLqX6a8gHQeq_dZnR5_tROMGs6JsLrE53V_hhxi
Here are so exercises to work through to see how curiosity can help you to become liberated from some of the thoughts or behaviours that may be holding you back from achieving what you would like.
- Write down the last time you felt a negative emotion. What was the emotion? What would have been a different result if you substituted curiosity instead of the negative emotion? Map out how that would look different.
- When is the last time you got really curious about something? How did it feel? How do you think you could experience more curiosity more often?
- What did you think of my example that I used in the video about using curiosity as my emotion? Could you imagine yourself doing this? Why or why not?
- Pick a day this week where you are going to use creativity to help you solve a problem. After you have done this, write down your thoughts. What different results do you think would have happened if you used another emotion.
- It is really difficult for a lot of us to recognize our feelings. I commend you for taking this challenge on. Pick a day on the calendar. In that specific day I would like you to put your timer on for 5 different times of the day. When the timer goes off, stop what you are doing, take a deep breath, get into your body and write down what you are feeling.
