Living the Good Life
maintaining your balance whatever life throws at you
If you are on the search for your best life — great! You want to live an abundant life that is focussed, integrated — firing on all cylinders. I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned so far, along this path — what is hype and what is science.
It’s fine to say, “I want a better life.” But, until you choose a specific goal, you have nothing for your brain to focus on. Until then, it’s not a plan; only a wish!
You may have gone beyond wishing for something better to praying for it. Prayers are often very vague when people say they want something. It is important to be specific! Even better, is to see it first and then co-create it with God. This way, you will be able to recognize it when it comes along. Only if we recognize an answer to prayer can we possibly give thanks for it. Gratitude is an important aspect to staying on the right track.
Your brain can do a lot, and is doing a lot. But, like your muscles, it only does what it’s told. So,what is your brain being told:
- All the reasons you can’t do something?
- Or, that you can and you need to achieve a specific goal in life?
Inspiration
Do you still have an uninspired life? What inspires you? What does it even mean to be inspired?
Physiologically, inspiration is the act of breathing in; expiration is breathing out. In the Bible, the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit is referred to by the Hebrew word for breath.
You have probably heard a songwriter being interviewed say, “I don’t know where the song came from. I just had the song downloaded into me from outside of myself.” That’s inspiration!
The Creator of the universe breathing into someone, to create something new. We may tell ourselves that this only happens to special people. In fact, anyone who is spiritually alive, awake, in the light, can hear it, or see it.
I just heard Lauren Daigle on stage say that she had visions of this World Tour years ago, given to her by God. This was before she ever started singing in public, going on American Idol in 2010, 2011, 2012 and winning Grammys in 2019. And she is now seeing in her real life the exact images she saw in her visions.
Power of Words
So, inspiration is God breathing into her soul and her being alert enough to notice it. Then she has to decide what she is going to do about it. Our language, focus and physiology all need to be aligned with that inspiration.
A word of wisdom tells us that the power of life and death are in the tongue. What I focus on grows, I empower. The words I tell myself can just as easily kill that dream.
Jesus said that the first priority in life is to ‘ love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’(Mark 12:30)
As I mentioned in my last blog, these facets of our being all affect each other — they are inseparable. Obviously, if you don’t put any effort into the inspiration from God, nothing will come of it. If you give in to unsupportive feelings, or believe lies about yourself, they will also undermine the whole project.
At this point, I feel the need to point out the dates mentioned above. Lauren didn’t wake up one morning and enter a contest, win a Grammy and then go on the world tour of her vision. It took 24 years, not 24 hours! This requires life-long effort. The attractiveness of having an uninspired life is that it requires no such dedication, perseverance and stamina from us.
What Our Brain Is Doing
We know that our brain tells our body what to do. We’re not really aware of all of the muscles required for us to walk. A whole series of muscles contract and relax in sequence, completely unconsciously. The body also feeds info back to the brain, so that it can direct other body parts, like moving your arms to maintain your balance. In emergencies, the message only goes as far as the spinal cord, before being relayed to the limbs — not even going to the hind brain or mid-brain. The cortex can become aware of some of these functions.
To see more clearly just how much feedback your brain is receiving, try this little experiment. Take out 2 min right now to force yourself to smile. Now, force yourself to frown for 2 min. See if you feel happier, or grumpier after each experiment.
Now, try panting, taking a few shallow quick breaths, (be sure not to pass out). For the next 2 min take slow deep breaths. After each time, see if you feel anxious or calm.
If you noticed a difference, this shows that your body does physically affect how you feel emotionally It will therefore change your thoughts which are based on those emotions. It also means that you can consciously over-ride those signals coming in from the body, once you are aware of how you are designed. Then, you have to decide what you want to be aligned with.
Your brain works to maintain your balance in your physical body. What if our life is out of balance: not physically, but emotionally, or spiritually? Can the cerebral cortex (conscious mind) read these signals that the body is sending? Yes, if we are paying attention (being mindful).
What pulls our emotions out of balance? On a daily basis, there are words or situations that pop up in my life that trigger the brain to recall a particular memory which caused me to question my identity, my life purpose, and fill me with shame.
When we don’t confront these accusations against us with grace and truth, it pulls our life out of balance spiritually. This happens when we base our thoughts on those emotions.
Emotions are not to be ignored! They are important markers of what is going on around us in the physical world. Emotions tell us where we are. However, where we are going must be based on spiritual truth, not the emotions. It is our will that sets our direction of how to get from here to there.
Running the Race
Consider long distance running. At some point along the way (usually around the 30km mark for those who train, maybe at the 300m mark for those who don’t), your brain will start telling you to stop running, ‘I can’t do this.’ It’s like the light on the dashboard of your car saying that you are out of gas. You are not actually out of gas, but have maybe another 10 litres left.
The brain does the same thing for you. It’s a safety feature, in case after running away from the wolf, you still have to go seek shelter, start a fire to warm up etc, and need some remaining energy to do those things. Your reptilian brain doesn’t know that at the end of the race, you can collapse across the finish line and people will come and give you Gatorade, massage your legs, give you a blanket, drive you home, etc.
The trick to marathon training is to convince that part of your brain to push past the dashboard warning light. This means that you have already convinced your brain that it can do more than it thought it could. Some breathing exercises can perform similar functions for the brain. So, in regular daily life, it becomes easier to tell your brain to start your own business, or something you find risky. The same safety features which can be helpful when running away in the woods are not needed for the modern stresses of work.
We can afford to stop listening to those lies saying that we can’t do it. And just like the people supporting you at the finish line, you may not be able on your own to do the math involved in keeping a company afloat, but you can hire an accountant. These are ideas you can come up with when you are dealing with the gut warnings at the conscious thought level, rather than the instinctive level of the reptilian brain.
You have been given only one body. Use it wisely. Let’s practice using it the way it was designed to work, rather than fighting against yourself… It was never meant to be a fight between your physical being and your spiritual being. It is a matter of training the will to submit our body to the better way. There are ancient rules to help us to do just that.
Next: how to change what our brain is being told, and scientifically why it works.
