From Clutter to Clarity
Clarity is more than just knowing whether you should take path A or path B. Clarity happens when you turn your focus within and be still. It is there that you’ll know exactly what it is you need to do.
Did you ever wake up with a song in your head? Or somewhere during your day had a song that whether you liked it or not, played on constant repeat?
This morning I woke up buzzing with American’s Authors’ “Best Day of My Life.” It’s a song I’ve used for closing my intenSati classes this past month and I’ve heard on the radio here and there, but it’s not one of my go-to songs or something I deliberately play; so I thought it was rather odd I woke up with this particular song in my head. Even more, the only part I could remember and the part that was on repeat were the Oh-Oh-Oh’s and it’s gonna be the best day of my life. However, I woke up in stark contrast to feeling like it was the “best day of my life.” I woke up feeling tired, full of anxiety, and to snow falling outside that made me want to crawl under my covers and hide.
This month I’ve been talking a great deal about having the best year yet and in order to have your best year yet, you need to have the #bestdayever every single day. Having the best day ever starts by setting an intention for your day: how you want your day to unfold, how you want to feel, how you are going to show “up”. Having the best day ever begins with making a promise and following through with that commitment because you said you would. But what happens when you set an intention to have the best day ever and someone cuts you off in rush hour and flips you the bird? What happens to your best day ever when inclement weather strikes? How can you possibly have the best day ever on days where your dog gets sick, a loved one passes away or you fall back into the shadows of an old story or addiction? What happens when you spill the proverbial life carton of milk?
Life gets messy. Sometimes fenders happen. Friends disappoint us. A loved one dies. We break our promises. Hurtful words are said to us. Or it snows. A lot. Sometimes, life’s mess is easy to “clean” up and all it requires is our willingness to shift our perception. We can’t always control our outside circumstances or that our fender was hit. What we can do is choose to shift our perception around that situation think, “Well thank god it was just a fender and no one was hurt.” But, there are also times where it seems near impossible to shift our perception, because we feel whatever has happened to us on such a deep level. Chances are, on the day a loved one passes or someone verbally abuses you, you aren’t going to say, “Wow. THIS was the best day ever.” And I’m not telling you should either. There’s a time and a place to ‘fake it till you make it,’ to embody BE-ing the shift you want to see. But, there’s also value in feeling what you feel and knowing that what you feel is neither right nor wrong. Feelings just are. In reality, our feelings are nothing more than feedback about our thinking. Every emotion we feel or mood we experience follows directly from our thoughts. The key is being aware of our thoughts. The key is in identifying which thoughts are our Truth (capital “T”), who we really are at our core, and which thoughts are our truth (lower case “t”) things we’ve identified as true but are simply old stories we’ve told ourselves.
Clarity is more than just knowing if you should take path A or path B. At times, clarity will mean shifting your perception from the “clutter”; other times that clarity requires you to be still and go within. Within the past week, I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum. Click HERE to read about my experience moving from clutter to clarity in what I refer to as “The Tale of Two Mess’s”.
Life is messy. Sometimes that mess is an outside circumstance that we can choose let define our day or we can simply choose to shift our perception around what it is we think and say and do. Other times, the mess isn’t a simple shift in perception. In life’s messiest moments, we need to feel what we feel and rather than define the feeling as right or wrong, simply ask an empowering question. This doesn’t mean that we don’t intend to have the best day ever. It just means that that best day ever might only be something understood a day or two later. Sometimes clutter leads to greater clarity. We just have to be willing to ask empowering questions and open up to the answers because it’s in those moments of mess that we’re given the opportunity to shift our perception. It’s in those moments of mess that we’re offered a chance to grow, to really, truly grow and to go through the experience and feelings we need to move us into a level of greater compassion, self-acceptance and love.
Life is messy. But we always have a choice: We can sit in the mess or we can grab a mop.
How can YOU make today the best day of your life? What intention are you setting? What promise are you committing to? What empowering question are you asking? What can YOU do every day for 30 days?
PS: I went back and listened to the full song, “Best Day of My Life.” Partly because I didn’t want to hear the Oh-Oh-Oh’s and it’s gonna be the best day of my life for the rest of my day. Partly because I knew there was more to the song. What I discovered was, surrounding what I’d consider the “clutter” of the song, all the Oh-Oh-Oh’s, were lines like, “I stretched my hands out to the sky/ We dance with monsters through the night” and “But all the possibilities/ No limits just epiphanies.” Sometimes we find our clarity between the Oh’s. Sometimes we find our clarity by dancing with monsters of the night, with those dark and deep feelings. Sometimes we gain clarity by asking an empowering question that reminds us that there are no limits, just epiphanies. Go listen to it and go have your best day ever today!