As I record this I am in a more relaxed location (check out my YouTube video). I want to explore the idea that often times there's a part of you that will keep you from enjoying life. No matter where you are, sometimes a part of your mind might arise and have you focus upon your work, upon your job.
Even on vacation I hear people saying that it’s hard to just enjoy the moment.
Sometimes people take their work with them, which can be understandable, but the problem arises that they have difficulty of switching off that part of them that is task oriented, that wants to keep focusing upon work. It’s as if they don't know how to enjoy life or go on vacation.
I'm sure you’ve seen the romantic comedies about couples on vacation where one of them just can’t find the time to enjoy the moment. No doubt by now you have heard me talk about your subconscious mind, which has a mind of its own that often is in conflict with what you want to do. The main job of your Guardian, the voice of your ego, is to keep you safe and secure and on task to do what it thinks you need to do to remain that way. It wants you to focus upon making money and will do whatever it can to keep your focus upon that one goal.
Now, depending upon your own subconscious programming and the health of your ego, this could be either overpowering or just a minor disturbance. If it’s a strong, inner belief and need they it doesn’t even want you to go on vacation, it doesn't want you to come to a beautiful place and take time away from what it feels you need to be doing.
Obviously, this isn’t a healthy way to live.
It demonstrates how your subconscious can often be irrational and stuck blindly on a belief to the detriment of our mental health and sanity. We all need to be able to take a break, to get away, to reconnect with life, with fun, with doing nothing. Just being.
Fortunately, you also have a healthier part of your subconscious that knows this, that wants you to regain your balance. So that when you go on a vacation, you might find these two very different parts of your subconscious mind are in direct conflict. This conflict creates stress and anxiety in you, sometimes to the point that you might have trouble relaxing and enjoying life, whether on vacation or home at night trying to relax after work.
How many times do you work at home? Many of us who are self employed or overworked find that working at home is essential for staying successful. This is natural and normal, but so is taking time away on vacation, or a staycation, but it’s best to get away if possible. Taking time to turn off the worry and anxiety and focus on having fun, on being happy, helps to reconnect you with your own inner child, inner teen, and other parts of your subconscious that do need to be heard and experienced.
Its a vicious cycle if you are at work thinking about being on vacation and when you're on vacation thinking about work.
That old saying is so true, that when you work, you work, when you play, you play. Be in the moment doing and being in a healthy way. As long as you have some plan for taking time off, in whatever time frame or location you decide is appropriate for you, then you can work knowing that at some time in the future you will also be taking time for you to enjoy life once again.
Depression occurs when you are stuck and emotionally feel like there is no way out. In order to avoid this mild form of depression it is essential to have a plan, an exit strategy, to help you cope and then taking time and enjoying being free. So that when you play, you can be in the moment and soak up all the benefits of rejuvenation, regeneration, of allowing for new insights and possibilities to once again enter into your mind, into our life.
Taking time to take stock of your life and situation, to see it from this more relaxed perspective, often helps you to make important and healthy adjustments to your everyday life and working situation.
Perhaps you realize that its time to pursue a new job, a new career, or how to improve upon the one you have. To review your relationships, your habits, your thoughts and feelings.
The last thing your Guardian wants you to do while engaged in work is to think upon change. It will resist change and you will find that as it controls you it also controls your very thoughts and feelings, as much as it can. Thus you aren’t at your best, you aren’t as inspired, you aren’t willing or able to have the time and energy to address other issues, to do what needs to be done but somehow never gets completed.
This is the result of being under your Guardian’s control. I suggest that it isn’t the life you were meant to live nor the way you once wanted to be.
You experience the struggle between those two parts of your mind, the healthy you that wants you to not only enjoy life but also come alive with a more intelligent perspective, and the other part of your subconscious, your inner parent, the Guardian, that just wants you to work harder and focus on the no nonsense job of being safe and secure.
While all around you change is always occurring and that change is what causes your subconscious Guardian to become worried. It forces you into greater anxiety about losing control of the changes it sees and tries to avoid. You are the recipient of this anxiety and your Guardian’s fear of change. Yet the healthy you knows that change isn’t always bad and in many ways is a great thing. The fact is that everything changes, your body changes, the earth changes, people change, everything changes. To avoid that fact is irrational, yet this is precisely what it seeks to accomplish in your daily life.
I first visited this beautiful place south of Playa del Carmen in Mexico over 40 years ago and at that time there really wasn’t anything here. We came to Cozumel, took a ferry across to the mainland here at Playa del Carmen, found a taxi on the little dirt road that would take us to the wonderful ruins at Tulum to the south. The city was just a few restaurants and motels set along the ocean.
Now it’s a city of over three hundred thousand people. In the face of all this change you Guardian doesn’t want you to be thinking about relaxing or going on vacation. It wants you to keep working because it doesn't know how to enjoy life. Fortunately another part of you does.
When you are able to come to a beautiful place like this or even at home please be aware that there will be a part of you that will create needless anxiety for you. Just be aware that it is going to try to fill your mind with thoughts and feelings that aren’t always in your best interest. Who wants to have panic attacks? Who wants to lose control while driving a car or flying in a plane, while giving a speech or taking a test, while going to heights or just being out of your house in public. These are all examples of a Guardian working overtime to force it’s worries and fears upon you, the conscious individual who knows that you can function perfectly well in this world if only you could be left alone with your ego’s interference in this way.
Self-awareness is the first step of you taking charge of your life.
This is how you begin to take control over how you think, feel, do and say. Of course you need to work (probably, depending upon your life position). Of course you need safety and security, but it's a balance that works best when the healthy you is in charge and can intelligently and responsibly weight threats and actions. With this healthy balance life begins to feel better. When you take charge and you are in control you decide when it's time to work and when it's time to play. If you really need to focus upon something to get it resolved so that you can enjoy your life even more.
Please don't continue to allow your Guardian to control your life. Because self-awareness of your situation is the first step it is essential to take it. The next step is to assess your life and the changes you wish to make, to use, “until now” statements to readjust your thinking and help you make better choices that really are in your best interest. You will find that you will make better choices so that if you do come to a beautiful place like this or take the time in your own home, at the end of the day you can relax, be the healthiest you, and enjoy your life even more.
Until now, you might have been unaware of how that subconscious ego was holding you back. Until now, you may not even have known that it existed. But now you are awakening with self-awareness that will help you to now create the life that you deserve and desire.
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