Feeling What You Want
The last couple of weeks, I’ve found myself saying, “Does it say complain center on my forehead?” No, then why are you complaining to me?
To me it seems simple, if you don’t like what you see or have or want, than change it. And you can’t change it if you don’t know what you want. If you don’t know how it feels to be in that situation, relationship, or conversation.
What do you need in this situation?
How do you want to feel (happy, peaceful, stress-free)?
How do you want this conversation to feel (calm, respectable, fun)?
If you can’t answer questions like this then you don’t really know what you are looking for. I know this is true because I know that you probably complain about what you do have, or you know exactly what you don’t want, or you look like mopey (the 8th dwarf) most of the time. I know because I’ve been there.
Its so easy to complain about how the other person is NOT –not listening, not responding, not loving, not caring, not present, not understanding. You don’t get what you want by knowing what you don’t want. Why? Because nothing will ever good enough for you until you know what you DO want.
You have to be able to put your energy into your own productivity, making things happen for yourself.
Ask yourself what does a peaceful, happy situation (whether workplace, relationship, family) look like for you?
What are you missing in this situation?
What do you need to make you feel happy?
The answer to these questions is almost always, “I don’t know.”
How can you be upset about what you have, when you don’t know what you want?
I have been walking around for years saying I want “extraordinary love.”
Truth is I had no idea what extraordinary love was, what it meant, what it looked like, what it felt like. All I knew was that I was too good for anything less than that. What bologna!
Thank God I become more aware of my Negative Nisha attitude mixed in with self-righteous Sareena and I started to ask myself the very questions I didn’t know the answers to. And now I know what I want is simple love.
Its not easy love, its simple. Its dancing in the rain spontaneously after getting out of the car. Its leaving dishes in the sink and toys on the family room floor and going for a bike ride. Its making meals together as a family. Its hugging and smiling when you walk through the door because your home.
Its simple and its choosing to only focus on the task at hand and trusting that everything else will work out moment to moment. Its feeling extraordinary in what someone else would think was ordinary moments.
Its very easy to complain and bitch about the don’t wants, and other people’s issues or even be mean to yourself. And until you sit down and do the work and ask yourself what it feels like to have what you are looking for its just going to be your very own Groundhog’s day of “same shit different day.”
When you know what it feels like to have what you want –you get it! Want proof, lets talk a walk down memory lane. Think about a time when you were nervous, scared, anxious about a conversation and you could close your eyes and you could feel your hands shaking, your palms sweaty, knees weak, you could feel the heartbreak in your chest, the fear in your veins. Then you actually had the conversation, and you were right. It went exactly as you felt it would…bad.
Now imagine what would happen if you could feel the positive, happy, peaceful, love each moment in any situation in your life. What if you had felt that the conversation would go well, you could close your eyes and feel your body is relaxed, you are smiling, and you feel light, all the burdens are shrugged off.
This is where breathing for me has become my religion. The moment I want to complain or revert to being the Grinch is the same time my chest is erupting to just take a sigh or more technically a surrender breath. Your body’s natural way of bringing you to the present moment.
Surrender Breath:
Take a deep inhale through your nose.
Let your belly come out, your chest expand, your shoulders open up.
And release with a “ahhh” out of your mouth.
This breath (sometimes 3 of these in a row) allows me to release my mind, my body and surrender to just being in this moment and to ask myself, “what do I want to feel right now?”
The answer for me now is simple love.
What’s your answer?
It may be relaxation, laughter, peace, fun!
You can only find the answer in surrendering to the now. Allowing yourself to get to a place of knowing how it feels to have what you want.
August 21st, 2014 Clear Mind