Experience Life!

Live. Laugh. Love!

I think while I sleep. My mind continues to work long after I am deep within slumber's grasp. This is why I sleep with two journals and my laptop in the bed next to me and a pen on the night stand. This quote woke me up out of my sleep on Sunday morning...

"Live to experience, not to avoid...but do so in such a way that the mirror is your friend and not your foe."

We spend a lot of time in life suspended in a state of avoidance. We live to avoid what is often inevitable instead of savoring moments, engaging in experiences, appreciating the arts, enjoying relationships and celebrating life.

In trying to avoid things, most of which are beyond our control, we expend the majority of our energy, which is a precious resource that is only borrowed and at some point must be given back.

We don't let people get close to us, especially the ones that we might really care about or potentially fall in love with, to avoid being hurt.

We don't take on or tackle the careers or the professional goals that we have in order to avoid failure.

We don't ask for what or who we want to avoid being rejected.

Essentially we torture ourselves by constantly operating in avoidance mode as opposed to being present and in the moment...Instead of fully experiencing life right now. Now when I say Experience Life, I don't mean going straight buck wild. We have to be able to live with our choices and decisions. A guest pastor that spoke at church said, "We go to bed with one of two things, results or regrets." Which one sounds like the better bed mate?

In experiencing life we have to be able to look ourselves in the mirror, hence the second part of my quote above.

This past weekend I made the conscious decision (and a pact with a friend) to begin to experience life to the fullest. There is so much out here to love, but we often don't even realize it because of our tendency to focus on the negative. The very thing that we are trying so hard to avoid may be the very thing that is the key to our breakthrough. I often tell the participants that come to the trainings that I facilitate to, "Trust the process." We get so wrapped up in the outcomes that we miss the best parts of life...the process...the experience. As we approach this new season I challenge you let go of your need to control everything in order to avoid what you don't want to happen. I challenge you to focus on the experience of life.