The Surprising Benefits of Thinking Like A Sunflower

It was the strangest thing.

A sunflower growing in the gutter.

My gutter.

I’m not exactly sure how it got there but there it was. Growing tall, fully in bloom, oblivious to the fact that flowers simply don’t grow in the gutter.

This flower just didn’t know any better. It never questioned why it was in the gutter. It never once questioned if it would ever be able to grow there.

It just grew.

Where it was.

I don’t know much about flowers, but I do know about us humans. And for many of us we simply find ways not to grow.

We think. We analyze. We overthink. We overanalyze. So much thinking and we can actually think ourselves out of growing. We use our ability to rationalize to find ways for us to stay in a state of waiting for a better environment, a better time, a better system of support. Guilty, I’ve been, an experienced “justifier” of staying stuck and waiting for things to be “right” before moving ahead.

Meanwhile, in my gutter grows a beautiful sunflower…

Often our stagnation is simply a reflection of our belief system, of what we honestly feel is – or isn’t – possible for us. And rather than confront any limitations in our internal belief system it’s much easier to focus on external conditions and factors as reasons why we’re still where we tell ourselves we no longer wish to be.

What if we were to think like that flower in my gutter and just grew, grew into all we were created to be? Never questioning our ability, our environment, the timing, nor our inherent worthiness to simply allow ourselves to grow into who we were created to become? Right here. Right now.

If we can think of ways to hold ourselves stagnant, why can’t we change that thinking to support our divine evolution?

Could it be that simple?

Just something to not overthink about.

You’re Stronger Than You Think You Are

We did it.

We got through the year we never could have expected to have happened.

So much loss on so many different levels.

But we made it through. We are still here.

If this past year has taught us anything it’s that we are far more resilient than we probably expected we were. If we were told last January what we’d be facing in the coming year I’d suggest many of us would have questioned our ability to get through it.

But we did.

Resiliency is a painful life lesson only life gets to teach us. When going through the wall isn’t ideal but it’s the only option you have. This past year has been quite a wall.

There are still walls in front of us, some pandemic related and others not. A new year doesn’t simply reset the challenges of life. Perhaps, though, we’d serve ourselves well in reflecting upon exactly what we’ve been through and see that yes, we are far more resilient than we may have given ourselves credit for.

Perhaps a small victory, but a rather important one.

My Mom Has A Message For You

With all the discomfort and uncertainty we’ve suddenly been thrust into, I wanted to share some words from the person who’s words have always been of great comfort to me.

My Mom.

Mom just turned 90 a few weeks ago. In 90 years she’s seen more than her share of challenges and painful obstacles that she’s been able to overcome. She was the second youngest of eight children born smack dab in the middle of the Great Depression. She’s been widowed now longer than she was married. She has experienced the unbearable loss of a son, has witnessed the loss of almost all of her siblings, as well as many close friends. She has survived countless numbers of economic downturns wondering how the bills will get paid and the family will be fed. But no matter the pain life has ever thrown at her, her refrain has always remained the same…

“This, too, shall pass.”

The older I get the more I understand and appreciate her wisdom, faith, and resolve. Underneath it all is a rock solid spiritual belief system with gives her both the resolve to endure and the wisdom to trust that this, too, shall pass, that we will, in fact, get through whatever we may find ourselves stuck in. Her prayers aren’t prayers asking for strength; rather, they are prayers reminding God that while she may not understand why she is being tested, she understands that testing is all part of the process of being human.

If you were able to call my Mom today and share your fears, worries, troubles, and concerns with her, she would at some point embrace you and remind you of perhaps the greatest lesson she has ever learned in her 90 years…

“This, too, shall pass.”

photo credit: Chelsea Shapouri via Unsplash

The Most Important Resolution Of Them All

His fingers were so numb from the bitter cold that he could barely even hold the match to light the fire which would soon keep him warm. Eventually the match ignited and the fire was born.

One thing about fires, though. They need to be fed. They simply don’t last simply because you’ve started one. Kinda like the fires we start in life. Fires of desire. Unless we feed them continuously they eventually go out.

New Year’s Day is perhaps the most prolific day to start fires. Fires of desire, that is. All these resolutions and hopes and dreams we decide to bring to life. Yes, we may start such fires but how often do those fires of what we desire simply burn themselves out? Intentions create the initial spark, but without the real commitment the flames will soon be extinguished, starved of the fuel needed to maintain them. Good intentions alone are never good enough.

I’ve certainly started my fair share of fires. A great many of them have met an early demise. Simply because I never fed them. And I never really fed them because I rationalized I must have never wanted them bad enough. But the more accurate reason why many of the fires never got fed was because somewhere inside I never felt I was supposed to have the things I wanted for myself. Continue reading “The Most Important Resolution Of Them All” →

The Surprising Benefits of Thinking Like Water

I was exhausted. I really wasn’t fully prepared for this 5K trail run. Unlike road running, trails offer potential danger in every stride. The extensive network of exposed tree roots and randomly placed stones, all covered with leaves still wet from the heavy rains from the night before, made a challenging course that much more challenging.

Running, for me, is equal parts physical and mental. Sometimes the body is willing but the mind works to convince it that it’s not. On this particular day my mind, too, was racing. The wet, uneven terrain gave it lots to talk to me about. Lots of inner resistance to work through.

The week prior I had hiked this particular preserve just to get more familiar with the trail. On that hike I unexpectedly came upon a small waterfall, fed from the gentle stream behind it. As I stood on the small wooden bridge the water continued to pass under me and then on down stream, gravity taking the water to wherever it was going to go, it’s flow and path greatly influenced by the obstacles it found on the way.

You can learn a lot from water.

The water and the runner shared something in common. We both met resistance on our paths. But the type of resistance we each faced was dramatically different.

Unlike me, the water wasn’t working against itself.

Water never works against itself. Any resistance water faces is always external, always outside of itself. It’s the stones and branches and boundaries and gravity which determine where the water will go. Water never fearfully looks down stream and worries about where it is going and if it will ever get there. It just goes where it goes, never working against itself.

A stark contrast to my running style, where the mind can greatly influence if I even continue to move forward. Much of my resistance is internal. It’s often me working against me, fearfully looking up a hill and doubting if I’ll be able to run up it without stopping.

How often do we allow our thoughts to work against us? Not just in running up hills but in running our lives? How often does our mind create an inner resistance to our own efforts to keep moving forward, to climb up the hills life can often place before us?

Our greatest resistance is almost always self-inflicted.

When we are not working against ourselves we are better able to work through and around those external obstacles standing between who we are and who we really want to be.

Maybe its time to think like water?

Photo by Taylor Leopold on Unsplash

The Inheritance of Limitation

“So much for going for a small role, huh Dad?”

Her face was fully aglow from the brightness of the iPhone as she read the email. And in an instant the size of her eyes doubled.

She got the part.

My daughter auditioned for a rather important part in her school’s drama club performance of “Willy Wonka”. This being her first year in this new school, she would be competing with seasoned students, more well-known to those who make the ultimate decision as to who gets selected for the roles. And since she has never been in a school play before, I had actually tried to convince her to try out for a smaller, less visible role.

Something safer.

She didn’t quite see it that way.

One of the countless joys of being around my daughter is her blissful enthusiasm. Continue reading “The Inheritance of Limitation” →

Go Unstuck Yourself

Steve grimaced after completing the four-mile hike. He had been favoring his left foot for most of the walk. He sat on the bench, took off his boot, and removed the annoying pebble from his boot. He mentioned the stone found its way into the boot early on in the hike. “So, why didn’t you stop and remove it once you first noticed it?” I asked. “Well”, said Steve, “I guess I just kind of got used to it after a while.”

Ouch!

Life can often feel the same way, can’t it? Disappointments and discomforts become something we just decide to live with, even if on some level we know it doesn’t have to be that way. But sometimes we get stuck in an emotional place for so long we simply accept our temporary situation as our permanent reality.

Perhaps in some areas of your life you’ve gotten used to struggling because you’ve just struggled for so long? Have you settled for being disappointed in a less-than-ideal relationship because that’s just how it’s always been? Or perhaps there’s a career move you’d love to make but you’ve decided your lot in life is for you to stay who you already are instead of becoming all you’ve been created to be? Simply because that’s what you’re used to?
Continue reading “Go Unstuck Yourself” →

The Top 5 Good Excuses For Not Living Up To Your Potential

Boy, did I set myself up for quite the challenge.

My task this week was to filter through a lifetime of learning and living and come up with the definitive list of the top five good excuses for people not living up to their potential.

Not to brag, but at one point in my life I would have been considered an expert in this field. In fact, I probably would have won the lifetime “lack-of-achievement” award for my consistent and innovative excuse making if, of course, the world actually awarded those who’ve never done anything other than make excuses as to why they’ve never done anything.

Based upon my extensive research and unquestionable qualifications, I present to you Continue reading “The Top 5 Good Excuses For Not Living Up To Your Potential” →

It’s Amazing What You Can See While Running In The Dark

It’s dark. And it’s cold. My mind logically presents compelling arguments as to why I should go back under the covers and get just a little more much-needed sleep.

But I made a promise to myself. And fitting this promise into my schedule requires me to start my day much earlier than my body and mind both feel I should.

It’s just before 5:00 AM. I’m standing in my driveway with a halogen lamp wrapped around my head, wearing a reflective vest and holding my iPhone.

Time to run.

I will win no awards with my running, either for speed, endurance, or technique. But that’s not why I do it. In addition to the health benefits, accomplishing a goal before the Continue reading “It’s Amazing What You Can See While Running In The Dark” →

Candles, Cake, and The Life Of Your Dreams

55 candles.

That’s a lot of candles to blow out.

But that is my task this birthday weekend.

And before the candles are blown out, the all-important birthday wish must be made.

How cool would it be if we could simply wish our desires into reality? Imagine…just the thoughts in our head, a puff of air, an extinguished candle and a cloud of smoke.

The problem is for many the wish is where the dream ends.

I look back on my just-completed year and see I have accomplished a quite a bit. I’ve enjoyed a great deal of success and growth in many areas of my life. I find my best years are not the Continue reading “Candles, Cake, and The Life Of Your Dreams” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Category: attitude