love live holistically

Are you living or just surviving?

25th Janurary 2017 

Are you living or just surviving?

Can you describe your day? If you can review it using two sentences then you are surviving.

What does your review sound like?

I go to work, I come home

I look after the children

I cared for my .......

At the end of the day, review your day, was there anything beautiful in your rendition of your day?

Was your day filled with what you did for others?

What inspired you today? Was it something that you saw? Was it something you felt or experienced?

Was your day a game of caught up?

Did you have to catch up on work, paper work, phone calls? Did anything pleasing catch your eye?

If you are surviving, then you missed that beautiful bird, sitting on your fence. As you only survive, you would not have caught that inspiring quote that flashed across the screen in that advert.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today, because nothing out of the ordinary ever does. Why?

Because you went to work, came home, cared for the children or your household and that’s it. You survived another day.

Do you attend a place of worship every week? Or perhaps you go out on the weekend? A lot of people wait until their weekend to live. They begin to feel, experience and get inspired. They begin to notice the birds in the tress or how green the grass has become. So for one or two days if they are lucky they live.

Do you holiday once a year? It is at this time, a lot of people will report that they saw this beautiful .......whatever, they will say that they felt this or felt that. They may tell you that they tasted this or that, they may even tell you that they were inspired.

So what do you do? Wait for the weekend when you meet up for worship or to get together with friends or family? Do you wait for a holiday to see beauty in something or someone.?

Is it once a week or once a year that you live? blog@loveliveholistically.com

 I experience beautiful things at least once a day, at most it can be once each hour.

Following my passion has allowed me to be present and ‘in the moment’ each day, each hour of my life. There has never been a day in my adult life that hasn’t been reminisced, recounted or recorded that very night. I record my day either by remembering what I did that day or by actually writing it down. Case in point. Whilst I was pregnant for what seemed like two years. In fact it was 18 months with an eight week break. Having had two children in the same year 27 Jan and 27 Dec. (go figure, i’m weird)

I recorded in a diary, my feelings and activities for each day. (Coming soon in a book store near you) Ok that was a little extreme, but I have been use to recollecting my day before going to sleep. I think It was to ensure I had not wasted any of it. Strange again, but I do dislike wasting time. I think I need to see a psychologist!!.... My point is I have been use to being aware of my day, thus living in my day. I did not just go through the day with nothing to show for it or just surviving yet another day. blog@loveliveholistically.com

Humans are creatures of habit, so one can easily recall what they did on Thursday night , for example ‘Got in from work, made the kids dinner, watched Eastenders (does it still come on Thursday nights?) put kids to bed etc etc and went to bed at 11.30pm. Is that a couple of sentences? If that is your rendition for 4/5 days in your week, you are just surviving.

 A person who lives, has a very different rendition of their day. It may sound a little like this ‘Woke up Thursday morning feeling...... On the way to work I saw................. or on the way taking the children to school I felt this...................At work I experienced....................Back home the children and I did........

While I was cooking ............or my partner and I spoke about this.....................

This person would then go on to reminisce on how they felt after a day at work and the experiences encountered or maybe they will talk of the gratitude of being able to relax, now the day was over. All the time explaining their feelings.

Grant you, this is not what you really want to hear when you ask someone how their day was or ‘how are you?’ You don’t want to hear the ins and outs of their feelings and whether they saw a pretty little red burst preaching on a tree singing, as they walked their children to school. But to hear someone reply to your ‘how are you’? with ‘I’m great’ ‘I’m good’ ‘I’m lovely thanks’ makes you feel a little great, good or lovely. A person who answers like that has taken the time to remember their morning or afternoon. Again not everybody speaks like that, but when you are living, you notice or appear to be grateful for the mere fact that you woke up that morning. So for you It’s always going to be a good, great or lovely day.

Knock me on Facebook and ask me how I am!!!

 To live is to be present, to be aware of your surroundings, your environment, to be aware of your thoughts and feelings whilst at a task. In 1890 William James a  Psychologist, in his book Principles of Psychology – explains Streams of Consciousness as a persons thoughts and conscious reactions to events, perceived as a continuous flow. It has also been explained or described as interior monologues, a narrative which depicts the many thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind. I could go on to ask you to be aware of being aware (too deep?) We can come back to that on another blog. For now, you should be aware of your feelings throughout the day. Recalling them at the end of each day, in-order to check if you are actually living or just surviving. Think back on yesterday, what were your feelings? If the only feelings you can remember is that of road rage or the way somebody made you feel. You are surviving , because you are going though your day allowing others to dictate how you should feel or you are reacting to other peoples’ behaviour.

 The feelings or events mentioned above should tell you that your emotions are being led and you are not living your life, you are not in the driver’s seat of your life. If you was the driver, your feelings would be productive and not reactive.

‘So what do I do when someone cuts me up at the light’? You ask ‘Why shouldn’t I react?’. If you are a productive living person, you would say – ‘The other driver has got to get somewhere fast, or the other driver is in a rush. 

Not ‘that driver is a xxxxhead’ easier said than done...If you was more interested in your own feelings and how being cut up at the lights is going to make you feel, you would ensure that that driver does not upset your equilibrium.

 If you was living, instead of surviving you would not allow others to upset you, easier said than done? Consider your feelings as your work colleague puts you down again. Acknowledge the feeling, voice your thoughts (i.e do something about it) Be aware that that person has made you feel the way you do. (It will be something you can review tonight when thinking over your day.) As you think over your day, you may ask yourself if that type of interaction at work is something that occurs often, if so how often? Once a week, once a month or is it when a work dead line looms? As you are trying to live instead of just survive, the way your work colleague made you feel should be dealt with. How you deal with it, tells you whether you are living or surviving. Remember productive not reactive. blog@loveliveholistically.com

If you was living instead of surviving you would be aware that some of your personal relationships were not productive and are even toxic. The survivor will tell you that, well she is my family or we have known each other for x amount of years. In other words, for the survivor, it’s OK to just put up with this persons’ behaviour. A person who living and is productive will do something about that toxic family member or that person they have known for x amount of years. A productive person may try to distant themself from that friend or family member, or they would explain to them , how they were making them feel. blog@loveliveholistically.com I didn’t say it was going to be easy. But a living person has to protect their environment or space, and in doing so, they will have to ‘clean house’ which may mean  throwing out rubbish or clearing out the cupboards of old friends, then so be it.

Ok that’s adults pissing you off, what about your children. Remember my daughters in Patience and how they would get me in flight or fight mode? Surviving your childrens’ behaviour has you putting up with their upsetting ways. Living through your childrens behaviour gets you doing something about it.

I am not here to tell you how to bring up your children, I am here to make you aware of yourself, your feelings and how to be a productive rather than a reactive person.

If you are surviving, then you missed that beautiful bird, sitting on your fence, the fresh morning air as you leave for work in the morning. As a survivor your reply to people who ask you, how you are, tend to be  ‘i’m fine’. Your days, weeks and months are filled with ordinary things, mundane even. When recalling your days, if you recall them at all, they will be summed up in two sentences. Try it, how was your day yesterday? blog@loveliveholistically.com