5 WAYS TO BECOMING A BETTER HUMAN
Give
Listen
Honesty
Play
Explore
Ask anyone what their top 5 is for enhancing sensibilities and positive interaction with others on a daily basis and you will undoubtedly find different variations. It's a matter of personal virtue, a code that only you hold sacred. But how you desire to be treated and preserved is how you should reciprocate in kind. This is what I call the balance of interaction.
Friendships may come and go, relationships start and finish, careers begin and end but in all of life's ups and downs we must always try to learn from our experiences. They say everything happens for a reason and I believe this to be true. We are here to learn from one another; the good bad and ugly. It all really just comes down to how we act, interact & react to life's ongoing mentor-ship.
If you are experiencing a great deal of negative energy within your life or are in constant flux, the universe is most likely sending you a message. It's time to shed the dead weight, streamline your abundance and take ownership of your own self worth. By doing so you will be able to move forward with clarity, in a loving way. With this at hand, how you perceive your own personal value and how you engage others will shift so that it flows from a loving place, organically. Everything you do should come from a place of least resistance.
These are my top 5 ways to a better you:
GIVE-Giving to others without expectations sounds simple enough but you would be surprised. We are inherently kind but along the way we have come to the realization that if we perform acts of kindness we just may be rewarded for it. To truly give unconditionally we must wholehearted want to affect positive change. And when we effect positive change actively, that in itself is the reward. Our biggest contribution to those around us is to invoke a sense of belonging, support and love. So give what you can, when you can. And do so without regret or ties. Life is always better when we support each other. Share your love!
LISTEN-Most people are gifted the capability to speak, for voices are meant to be heard. Most people are also given the ability to hear those voices. They go hand in hand or better yet, mouth to ear. Now, as much as we are well versed in the art of talk, some more than others, more importantly, we need to become experts at the art of listening and listening well. To listen well we must first stop speaking, because we can't do both at the same time. Then we need to empty our minds of distracting thoughts...which is not that easy to do. It's difficult be in the moment unconditionally when there are a million things running laps in our minds. Yoga & meditation are a beneficial practice that can help open and clear the mind as well as relax the body allowing us to receive.
"Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand." --Karl A. Menniger
"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply." --Stephen R. Covey
HONESTY-No one rewards dishonesty. For the most part, even the compassionate side of us reacts to our own miss-deeds. This reaction, we call guilt and it appeals to our strong sense of empathy. When we are dishonest, especially to those we care about, we feel the pain of our deceit. This guilted pain we experience tells us that we are indeed human and still capable of correcting, changing and maintaining a life filled with love, support and pleasure. With every lie we tell we lose a small part of the best things about us. We know it's not always easy being honest 100% of the time; sometimes it damn near impossible especially when to comes to matters of the heart, love, close relationships and family but we owe it to others as well as ourselves to at least try.
PLAY-When we were children we relished in days of sublime freedom, far removed from adult realities. Most of our younger years constituted an unstructured regiment of playtime. It was glorious. But, as we started to become adults with elevating responsibilities, play naturally became a fading photo, a memory; a collage of sorted ideals. Childhood play was beneficial to gaining knowledge, developing skill sets, social construction and a load of other practical readinesses. As adults we often do not get to engage ourselves in play in the same way we did as children. Adult play is much more deliberate and structured....and adult. And that all makes sense, for obvious reasons, but I believe that adults should engage in more childish play. And by that I simply mean it's ok to still like cartoons, play video games, play with toys, have a slumber party, and do some of the things we loved to do as kids, but now with our adult friends. It's ok to laugh out loud, play dress up or just be a little weird. Take a break from the trials of adulthood, reconnect with your inner child and let him/her come out to play every once in a while. It does the mind, body & soul great good.
EXPLORE-Exploration reaches out into the unknown, and with most explorative adventures in life, it can be scary as well as exhilarating. There is constant hope that what will be discovered may connect us to who we were, who we are and our future. Our thrust for knowledge is ever expanding and is not at all contained to exploration professionals. If it's out there we want to know about it. So we explore and it's a good thing, even though it may produce nothing of consequence. That doesn't quell the hunger nor quench our incessant thirst. Like play, personal exploration is a necessary part of our existence so lets embrace the drive that feeds us to step outside our comfort zone and into what could be something fantastical. We feel valuable, accomplished, rejuvenated and excited when exploration turns into a worthy discovery. Even though each exploration holds unknown results and differentiating experiences, we can all agree that we are hard wired to explore our surroundings and the world around us.
So now it's your move.....go fish.
