Agreements?
We are in many agreements with everyone that we have relationship with. Every time we make a promise or an intention with another we have created and agreement. This applies to the agreements that we have made with our selves as well.
How many times have you promised to yourself that you would exercise or read a book or some other thing only to let it slip away?
If a friend of yours kept promising to meet you somewhere and never showed up you would stop trusting their agreement. Well this is the same thing that you do to yourself. Every time you make an agreement another part of you hears it and may doubt you according to your record.
What can you do?
1) Clean up incomplete agreements with people around you including yourself.
2) Re-evaluate the promises that you have been making and not following through on. It may be that it is time to release yourself from those, “good ideas.”
3) If upon reevaluation you still feel that the promise is important to you then get help from someone around you to support you in following through.
4) Get real about what you are going to do and then do it.
5) Reward yourself for your successes, have compassion for your failed attempts, and keep clear and clean about what is needed.
Patrick Ryan
www.AwakenedWisdom.com
Showing posts with label compassion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compassion. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Power of Words
The power of words
Words are powerful. It seems that we all know that and yet it seems that few of us have a word behavior that could really stand up to a well meaning scrutiny.
Our behavior with words becomes a standard operating procedure until something comes along or happens that causes us to reexamine how we are doing.
It is helpful to have some guidelines for the words we use.
1) What is the underlying intention beneath the words. It is important for us to be highly conscious of not just what we say but what we intended by what we said.
Sarcasm is a classic example of how intention and words are not always in alignment.
All to often someone says something like, "Excuse me," when something that they perceive as wrong happens and if these words are spoken with sarcasm what they are really saying is quite different then the literal meaning.
2) Beauty - Do all your words create beauty when they are spoken. I myself have a life long habit of complaining that I have been working on correcting over a long period of time. It doesn't matter how good the reason for complaining seems to be because complaining itself does not create beauty.
3) Courage - Do your words evoke courage. Courage is of the heart. It is contagious and it connects us to our inner resourcefulness. The opposite of courage is fear. Words that are filled with fear shut down our resourcefulness and creativity.
4) Compassion - Imagine always speaking about others and yourself from a compassionate place. The opposite of compassion is shame, blame, and guilt. Imagine that you extended a compassionate view to yourself and all those around you. What would have to shift in your words to your self and others to reflect compassion.
I could go on and I am curious about how you are doing in the choice of words that you are using on a daily basis.
Often we become blind to our word habit. It would be interesting to make a game with a friend to tap your arm every time you use words that are not consistent with the above guidelines. Try it for just one day and see where the opportunity is for you to grow your word habit in a good way.
Patrick Ryan
www.AwakenedWisdom.com
Words are powerful. It seems that we all know that and yet it seems that few of us have a word behavior that could really stand up to a well meaning scrutiny.
Our behavior with words becomes a standard operating procedure until something comes along or happens that causes us to reexamine how we are doing.
It is helpful to have some guidelines for the words we use.
1) What is the underlying intention beneath the words. It is important for us to be highly conscious of not just what we say but what we intended by what we said.
Sarcasm is a classic example of how intention and words are not always in alignment.
All to often someone says something like, "Excuse me," when something that they perceive as wrong happens and if these words are spoken with sarcasm what they are really saying is quite different then the literal meaning.
2) Beauty - Do all your words create beauty when they are spoken. I myself have a life long habit of complaining that I have been working on correcting over a long period of time. It doesn't matter how good the reason for complaining seems to be because complaining itself does not create beauty.
3) Courage - Do your words evoke courage. Courage is of the heart. It is contagious and it connects us to our inner resourcefulness. The opposite of courage is fear. Words that are filled with fear shut down our resourcefulness and creativity.
4) Compassion - Imagine always speaking about others and yourself from a compassionate place. The opposite of compassion is shame, blame, and guilt. Imagine that you extended a compassionate view to yourself and all those around you. What would have to shift in your words to your self and others to reflect compassion.
I could go on and I am curious about how you are doing in the choice of words that you are using on a daily basis.
Often we become blind to our word habit. It would be interesting to make a game with a friend to tap your arm every time you use words that are not consistent with the above guidelines. Try it for just one day and see where the opportunity is for you to grow your word habit in a good way.
Patrick Ryan
www.AwakenedWisdom.com
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