HI Everyone,
Here is a great article on Assessing Your Life that I think is really good, and should be read by everyone. Sometimes we all have to stop and assess our lives and see what direction it is going. Is it going in a direction that we want it to, and if not why isn't it? What can we do to make it better, or to achieve what we would like to? Sitting down and taking some time to really assess and evaluate things can be very enlightening and helpful to ourselves. Then we can begin to see what needs to be changed and how we can make those changes happen. I hope that you enjoy the article, and perhaps it can help someone that needs to make some changes in their life to figure out how to do so.
God Bless You,
Love Marilyn
It's easy to just go along with life - perhaps we have a vague feeling that this isn't the way we expected it to be, or we might even feel so overwhelmed by the demands on our time that anything else seems impossible. Mostly, we don't take the time step back and think about the life we are leading or the relationships we have created.
Often we're so busy juggling work, family, relationship and other commitments that even five minutes alone is a luxury. Yet taking a little time to assess our current life can be both revealing and helpful. It can show us how to make more of every day, help us to reduce our stress levels, or allow us to refocus on the things that are really important to us.
Learning to look at our surroundings with fresh eyes can help us to look at our life anew too.
Jot down your answers to each of the following questions:
What is Actually Happening to You Now?
Keep the answer to this question a specific description of what is happening now, not what you think might be happening. For instance: 'Life is really good' or 'I lose my temper and say things I regret later.'
What is Not Happening?
This question is useful because problems often revolve more around what is not happening than around what is actually taking place. For example: 'I'm not standing up for myself' or 'I'm not seeing my daughter as much as I would like.' This question can be used to highlight positive things too, for instance: 'I'm not smoking anymore.'
What are Other People Doing or Not Doing?
This question helps you to separate yourself from the other people involved. You need to take responsibility for what you are doing - not what others are doing. For example: 'She is being critical of everything I do' or 'He is supporting my return to college.'
What are You Thinking?
Distinguishing between thought, feeling and action is an important aspect of self-awareness. When our senses perceive something, we react by thinking; those thoughts create our physical and emotional response. This leads to whatever action we take. While we are experiencing this it all seems to happen at once, but the process can be separated. Changing your perceptions and how you think about a situation will inevitably change how you feel and then what you do in response.
What are You Feeling?
Your feelings are a product of the way you are thinking. Imagine three mothers faced with a huge telephone bill. The family will need to miss out on a trips and treats for a couple of months to pay. Mother 1 thinks, 'This always happens to me.' Mother 2 thinks 'It's all my daughter's fault, she spends hours on the phone. She never considers my feelings.' Mother 3 thinks 'If we budget carefully this will be fine. I need to talk to my daughter about how much she is using the phone.'
Each of these mothers is in the same situation and exposed to the same amount of stress, but each of them has a different experience. Mother 1 feels resignation and sadness; Mother 2 feels blaming and hurt; Mother 3 feels calm and composed.
Whatever they are thinking and feeling will not change the situation. This is why it is important that we take responsibility for our feelings and thoughts rather than assume that they are caused by someone or something outside of us. It may seem as though someone else is making you feel what you feel, but this is not really so. Although you can, and should, hold others accountable for their behavior towards you, you cannot blame them for how you are feeling.
What Are You Doing?
You will be reacting in some way to the thoughts and feelings you have described. When you answer this question, try to analyze your actual behavior, rather than say what you think you ought to be doing; for instance: 'I withdraw from people' or 'I avoid her'.
What would you prefer to be happening?
This question will help you to clarify any changes you want to make. It may be that you decide to concentrate on just one area at once, or you might choose to work on several areas.
Developing Awareness
We are able to block out much of the distractions around us. While this is a useful skill, allowing us to concentrate on work in a busy office, for example, it can mean we miss out on a lot too.
Try the following exercise:
Close your eyes and focus on listening. Notice how many sounds you can hear.
Briefly describe your experience. Were you surprised by how much you could hear?
Before you continue, reflect on this experience of listening. How many sounds came into your consciousness as time went on? For instance, you may have become aware of the sound of your heart beating, or of your own breathing; of distant bird song or traffic; or of a clock ticking. These sounds were going on all the time out of your awareness. The pace of modern living makes it hard to be conscious of everything around us and we can be very cut off from the richness of our environment.
Now try the following:
Look around the room, noticing the shapes, color, forms and textures that you can see. Relax your eyes and let things go out of focus. Try to see as a visitor from Mars might see things. The Martian wouldn't know the name or the purpose of anything. He wouldn't be able to make judgments like something being in the right place; dirty or clean; old or new. Try looking at just one object for at least five minutes and notice whether it (or your view of it) changes as time passes.
Written By: Linda Pollitt