Showing posts with label future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label future. Show all posts

Monday, January 2, 2012

It's Not the Resolutions But the Questions We Ask to Become Better

 What is it About New Beginnings That the New Year Brings?

As a Now Moment Coach, I am often amazed at the hoopla given to a calendar date as is New Years Day. At the core of it all, I understand the significance of the celebration, but it is all fairly predictable, is it not?

Let me give you the cycle of discussion, such as it is, that we are exposed to during this time and the various stories that are written about that are inspired to feed your egoic nature..

The various "Best" and "Worse" lists in whatever you are interested in. (Either you are cool by being connected with the “Best” or you are made to feel better about yourself because something is worse that you in some way.)

Resolutions - the making and then, breaking, of them. (Again, we are losers for wanting to do something because we are lacking in some way to make them to begin with and then again for failing at our lack mentality when we break the resolutions.)

Weight loss/Health - We are evidently "guilty" of eating too much over the holiday period and are all a bunch of fatties and now we must "get in shape" or, at least, be shamed to think as much. (Here is simply a lack mentality of how you see yourself. Do you need to shape up? Maybe, but on your own terms, not someones dictates on how you should feel about yourself.)

Damn Ego needing to be fed!

But, I make no judgements. As a coach, it is my mission to bridge the gap between the feelings of anxiousness that does indeed accompany this time of the year according to the calendar and the truth of Now Moments that we all must exist in.

First, let me say that there are some things that I do appreciate about this time of the calendar year.

For one, people, by and large, are in better spirits, or, if nothing else, at least open to renewal. Also, great questions are asked to help you focus. It’s just too bad that we don’t engage this way at all times. Well, I mean to change that for you.

What do I mean?

  Well, people get reflective and tend to dwell on successes and failures of the year past (Usually, more on the failures as that is the proclivity of the human experience) and will ask thought-provoking and reflective questions that tend to refocus their efforts into the New Year.

This is good at its core, as it is great to be always evolving into a better you, but the drawbacks are that the thinking is most always future-based on an experience that is based firmly in the past, completely negating the present Now Moment, which is exactly what the ego desires. Keeping you tied up in the past (failures) and hopeful of a better future, keeps joy from being completely present in this Now Moment.

Yes, we are to learn from past experiences, but not to the point that they glorify some future that doesn't exist as of yet. This the very nature of Now Moments. The past is simply a guide and the future is but an experience of Now Moment Actions. So this is the Moment that matters. Your past does not dictate your future. You dictate your future right NOW.

To Direct Your Own Life means you ask the right questions in each Now Moment. This is the important part of the questioning process; It is not someone else who may have a desire for the path you think you must take, for the goal will always be moving and the future will never be anything more than murky. It must be your journey alone that incorporates those around you. Therein lies the happiness factor; the individual journey taken with joy that lifts those around them in that same wake of joy. It is a universal law.

  Remember, again, it is not so much the state we are in, but the questions we must ask to free us so as to move forward, and, yes, some of that may mean we have to ask tough questions about the reason we are here in this present Now Moment state not to dwell in the past but to see the framework of this moment and adapt and change as needed.

By looking at the process as if you were in a theatrical production, it is essentially the rehearsal process here. We have rehearsed certain scenes to this point and we understand that we are now ready to rehearse another part of the play. We look back at the last scene to understand the context for this next stage of rehearsal. The past, the last scene, was merely a set up for the current piece we are rehearsing. It has no baring to the future but to set it up and work together to make the play all make sense at the end.

That is the framework of the questioning process; to set up the framework for the next scene of your life. Just allow it to flow and appreciate the journey to this point and allow the questions to guide you into the next Now Moment.

In the end, it is a matter of perspective and allowing yourself to flow in that place of peace that you must find to allow yourself the freedom to move forward.

For some reason, beer commercials always seem to have great slogans, but it is not the drinking that propelled me to like this, but the message of finding yourself in that happy place where you are free to create.

The slogan is "Find Your Beach" and it is great for the disgrace that are resolutions in general as well is the comparing of the past "failures" to some future happiness.

Indeed, if you do find your beach and allow an organic way of living to become your new reality, you will have no choice but to embrace this Now Moment alone.

This will be your guiding emotion for the Now Moments that make up your future.

*******

directyourownlife@gmail.comDA Southern is a Now Moment coach, teaching the spirit of living in Now Moments with the principles he experienced during over 30 years as an actor and director in live theatre. DA coaches his clients to rid life of limiting beliefs that have kept them from achieving miracles in all areas of their life by embracing the beauty of this Now Moment with a renewed passion for life. Contact DA Southern for coaching directyourownlife@gmail.com

Monday, October 10, 2011

Plan Your Life - No Don’t...It Will Not Be What You Imagined Anyway


No, I am not a pessimist.

In fact, I am one of the most positive people ever. I mean, I rock it when it comes to positive thinking, really. But to plan your future to such a degree that you lose the very life in this moment is to set your self up for disappointment after disappointment.

It is just that the whole theme of this blog and my upcoming book to be released this coming year of the same name, “Don’t Plan For The Future, Just Eat Your Cinnamon Biscuits,"  is all about living your best life right now.

But it takes guts to live this way, it really does with the pressures of society, parents and friends to plan your life so that you are "happy."

So what do I mean?

I will begin an entire series of blog posts that talk about future planning but all from a perspective of living in this moment, or as I like to refer to it, the “Now Moment.”

This will be a subject that many will disagree with but I will tell you the reasoning behind every aspect of my thought process along the way. If you are totally a futurist, then, quite frankly, this will probably won’t be your style.

I must tell you that I have been and will always be a HUGE Science Fiction fan. I love the promise of what a bright future will look like and I am a gadget nut, but gadgets are not what defines a future, and certainly are nothing more than creative insights at any given moment of what a future might be.

Think about it. When you look at old Science Fiction movies, it is often what is trendy at the moment from a vision standpoint and when we see them many years later, we often can’t believe that we even thought it represented a future that we currently live in.

Why is the future you dreamed any different? Is it exactly as you imagined or fretted about? Probably, to a person, the answer is “NO.”

Planning your future is the way we are taught from the time we can learn to walk and talk. Our parents and the ones who assert authority over us tell us that we need to “think about our future,” “get good grades so we can get into a good college,” do this or that because “someone in the family has always done this,” blah, blah, blah and on it goes. (And Lord help anyone who has a passion that doesn’t fit into the “standard” of what parents or whoever thinks we should be doing to “get a good job” or to fit in or get by or whatever.)

All of the things we are told does nothing but make us miss the moment that is often so grand and glorious that to not live in it is the biggest injury we do to ourselves. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for following your passion, but to do so means living in the moment and truly discovering who you really are.

Stay with me on this journey. Get signed up for the list and lets take our future back one Now Moment at a time.

In future posts, we will talk about a range of topics centered around planning your future, or not, in this case, but always with the eye on allowing any given moment to be your future.

Confused? Well, there are moments ahead, but they are just that, one Now Moment at a time.

*****

DA Southern is a Now Moment coach, teaching the spirit of living in Now Moments with the principles he experienced during over 30 years as an actor and director in live theatre. DA coaches his clients to rid life of limiting beliefs that have kept them from achieving miracles in all areas of their life by embracing the beauty of this Now Moment with a renewed passion for life. If you desire one-on-one coaching contact DA Southern @ directyourownlife@gmail.com