We all complain there is never enough time and because of that, we skip a lot of important things in our lives and this, all too often, leads to regret and pain. Let’s find out how we can avoid falling into this trap of our rush-rush, busy-busy life.
We all have full schedules, busy days, and we are always running behind, catching up and always feeling as if we could use more time. Well, newsflash, there are only 24 hours a day and that’s a fact, we cannot create more hours in a day. But what we can do is: dividing our time, those 24 hours, between all the important aspects in life so that we do not have the feeling we missed out on something valuable, something important in our life.
When we cover all aspects of a whole life, we will never regret things we never got to do as we planned them in our time schedule, and because of tha,t we did got to do them.
When we create a life that covers all important areas of a person’s life, we will be a happy, content, powerful person.
When we live a whole life, we are strong enough to handle anything life throws at us.
When we live a very limited life, we risk losing our ‘meaning of life’. Let me explain. For example: when you spend all of your time working, when you identify yourself with your job, the moment you retire or when you lose your job, your world is completely shattered. You feel as if there is nothing left worth living for. Another example: when your kids are your only reason for living, the moment they grow up, the moment they leave the house, your world collapses. The same goes for focusing all of your attention to your partner and neglecting all of your friends. Another trap is, giving all the time, living every single moment doing good for others and neglecting your own needs….to a point where you are depleted, you burn out, you get sick.
I think most of us will recognize one or more of the above situations.
When choosing to spend all of our time on one particular aspect in life:
you are paving the road to regret as you may never get do the things you wanted to do in life because you never made the time to do them,
you are setting yourself up for pain, for not being able to handle life when that one particular aspect of your life is gone.
By now, we all get the picture of what we want to avoid.
How do we build that fulfilling, diverse, whole life? That life that will make us strong people who feel energized, who feel worthy, who feel they matter, … and therefor are able to handle all things that cross their path?
Susan Jeffers* has written absolute wonderful books in which she describes ways to learn to feel more whole, to feel more content, to see the wonders in life, to trust, to accept, to go from pain to power. I would like to share one of the tools she taught*, to create that whole life.
You take a piece of paper and you draw a grid: 3 across, 3 down. Every box represents an aspect of your life, an aspect that needs your attention if you want to feel whole, if you want to feel strong, worthy and happy in life.
The 9 boxes are: contribution, hobby, leisure, family, alone time (Higher Self), personal growth, work, relationship and friends.
A very important aspect for this exercise is: 100% commitment and acting as if this is really important, believing you(it) really matter(s). Whenever you spend time ‘covering’ one of the boxes of the grid, do it with 100% commitment and as if it really counts!!!
When you are at work, commit fully and know you really count.
When you spend time with your friends, commit fully and know it really counts.
When you spend time alone, discovering your Higher Self, learning how to let your Higher Self be more present, … commit 100%, know this is important to be ‘your best you’.
While you are spending time ‘in one of the boxes’, you can not be thinking about not spending time doing things from the other boxes right now. No, commit fully to what you have chosen to do right now and know this is important to be able to be present, to be your best you in the other boxes too. No one, who does not take care of him-/herself, who does not educate him-/herself, who does not spend time with friends, who does not feel useful, who does not believe they are a meaningful force in the world (contribution), who does not take time to relax, …. will be his/her best self in any other part of life.
The more you create a full life, a life with all of the above aspects present, the more you will have a fulfilling life, the more you will feel powerful, the more you will be able to handle pain in your life as pain in one area, is cushioned by your activities in all the other areas. The more you feel meaningful, the less helpless you will feel. When you focus all of your attention on one or 2 of the boxes, you will feel lost, alone and helpless when that box is compromised.
To live a happy, content, nourishing, whole life where you feel strong, not a victim but a creator in life, where you are be able to become better instead of bitter:
map out your life grid now, draw it on paper and write down what you are going to do to make every box of the grid a meaningful part of your life.
You may not be able to schedule activities for all of your boxes every single day but plan it! Write in your agenda when you will do the things you wrote down for that particular box. Remember the more diverse, the more wholesome your life is, the better you will feel, the lesser chance one day you will regret not having made time for this activity or for that person, the stronger you will be to handle setbacks in life as they are never setbacks in all 9 boxes at a time.
Do not wait for any bad diagnosis, or accident to happen before you make changes to your life as it may be too late by then. Do it now and enjoy life!!!!
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Katrien
*’Feel The Fear…and DO IT ANYWAY’ by Susan Jeffers PhD.