Putting it Together. How to Live a Fulfilling Life.
By Pablo Das (HHC, SEP)
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Over the course of the last month I’ve written a series of articles on a number of variables involved in establishing and maintaining higher level wellbeing. I’ve talked about intention, renunciation, healing, mindfulness, sleep, water, movement, food, relationships, financial consciousness and the three things rule. What I’ve done is outlined the mental model that I’m holding when I work with people in my coaching practice. These are the variables that we contend with as human beings when we’re trying to establish balance and wellbeing. They are the variables we engage when we’re trying to establish a wellness program. They are the variables we wrestle with when we’re trying to put our lives back together after some disruption. What I want to do here before I leave this model and move on to other kinds of content, is simply talk about how to work with this stuff on a daily basis.
Tto live intentionally means that we have reflected about our lives we have made some decisions about where we are putting the bulk of our attention and energy. We are choosing pursuits. We are aware of the finite nature of our lives. We’ve chosen to focus on what is most important and what we project will support a fulfilling life. As a practice I suggest taking a few moments every day to remind yourself what you’re doing on the planet. Whether it is raising a family, creating a body of artistic work or spiritual development, be intentional about what it is you’re doing with your time on the planet.
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Then, reflect on what behaviors you engage in that stand in the way of the life that you’ve imagined. What are the things you do that are not generative? For some of us drugs and alcohol stand in the way. Some of us need to minimize our exposure to media. Some of us have stuff around food or sex that gets in the way. The idea is to make conscious and set aside behaviors that get in the way of a fulfilling life. Know about them be honest with yourself about them.
Sometimes what’s in the way of fulfilling life are physical, emotional psychological challenges or wounding. Healing is simply an engagement with the issues that are barriers to living a life we love. We engage them to the point where they are no longer a meaningful barrier to a fulfilling life. There are many ways to heal. But we must do our work. It's so important to take full responsibility for your life, even when things outside of your control have happened. we must heal, we must do our work, so that we can live.
All of this requires a certain kind of awareness. This is where mindfulness is so powerful. I summarize mindfulness as a practice of presence and responsiveness. Mindfulness is an objective awareness that allows for choice in how we respond to whatever is going on. Practicing mindfulness means that we can consider the results of our actions. Those results become the filter through which we choose our actions. Choose wisely. Actions bring results.
On a daily basis every human being must engage four variables to optimize energy health, wellness, focus etc. I called these the foundational elements of wellness. They are daily practices around sleep, exercise, water consumption and food in balance for the individual .It’s amazing how hard it is to keep just these 4 variables in balance. I would argue that most people do not have them in balance and that you would go a long way if you only focused on these four variables and get them right.
Relationships are the strongest predictors of mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. Be conscious about connection. Have strong boundaries. Avoid too much isolation. Too much loneliness kills.
There is a lot of suffering that goes on around money. We must deal with it. Financial consciousness means having a model for a healthy relationship to money and working through your issues around it. Money is something we trade our most valuable possession to obtain. We trade our TIME for money. What if we treated money as if it was an expression of the most valuable resource we have, our time and life energy. Get out of debt. Have an emergency fund. Invest in your future and retirement. Stop spending your life energy on stupid shit. Liberate yourself from empty consumerism.
Everything that I’ve just described is in place to support a daily cultivation of your deepest intentions for life. I suggest you have three conscious pursuits or less. Most of the people I know who are successful really have only one pursuit. To make your pursuits manageable, to be effective, to go deep, to keep from burning out. You must make decisions, let some things go and show up consistently to do your work day in and day out over a long period of time probably. It’s a beautiful feeling to know what you’re doing to heal and sleep and eat and practice mindfulness all in the service of getting to the end of your life and looking back and feeling like you’ve lived your life right. That you lived with minimal regrets. Everything I’ve written about in the last month is in the service of getting to the end of your life and feeling like you did it right.
Now, do it!