Focus: How Am I True to My Self?
Please do this practice for 30 to 45 days.
Please stop twice per day and ask yourself the following questions. Please write down your answers in brief form so that you can build on what you’re learning, notice patterns.
During this last period of time:
- In what ways, to what extent were my actions, conversations, planning based on saying, “yes”—i.e. moving in a positive direction to have something happen?
- How were my actions, conversations, planning arising from my saying “no”—i.e. from fear, anger, defensiveness, pushing away what’s happening?
- What effect did these different orientations have on my sense of being alive, my relationships, my mood, my effectiveness? From what I learned in this exercise, what will I alter in the next period of observation?
A poem about saying yes
Just a Ride
Life, it’s ever so strange
It’s so full of change
Think that you’ve worked it out
Then BANG
Right out of the blue
Something happens to you
To throw you off course
And then you
Breakdown
Yeah you breakdown
Well don’t you breakdown
Listen to me
Because
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It’ll take you round and round
Sometimes you’re up
Sometimes you’re down
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
Don’t be scared
Don’t hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don’t forget it’s just a ride
Truth, we don’t wanna hear
It’s too much to take
Don’t like to feel out of control
So we make our plans
Ten times a day
And when they don’t go
Our way we
Breakdown
Yeah we breakdown
Well don’t you breakdown
Listen to me
Because
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It’ll take you round and round
Sometimes you’re up
Sometimes you’re down
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
Don’t be scared
Don’t hide your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don’t forget it’s just a ride
Slowly, oh so very slowly
Accept that
There’s no getting off
So live it, just gotta go with it
Coz this ride’s, never gonna stop
Breakdown
Don’t you breakdown
No need to breakdown
No need at all
Because
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
No need to run, no need to hide
It’ll take you all around
Sometimes you’re up
Sometimes you’re down
It’s just a ride, it’s just a ride
Don’t be scared now
Dry your eyes
It may feel so real inside
But don’t forget enjoy the ride
Saying Yes.
Again and Again.
I loved you
long before I ever met you.
Long before I ever knew
the contours
of your face,
before I ever wrapped my arms
around your waist;
before I ever knew
what made you
laugh or cry,
scared or feel alone.
I loved you long before I said
YES.
Yes
to your kisses
and comforting embrace
Yes
to snuggling with you
and making love with you
Yes
to spending the rest of my life
with you.
But what I am discovering lately
is this:
The funny thing about love
is that you have to
keep saying
YES.
Yes
to trash night and
cleaning the bathroom
Yes
to sharing a bank account
and a mortgage
Yes
to long labors
and sleepless nights
Yes
to unexpected losses
and missed opportunities
Yes
to being vulnerable
and choosing to join each other
when we’d rather jump ship.
We have to say yes –
to all of it –
the happy and ecstatic moments
as well as the sad and mournful moments.
We have to keep saying yes
year after year –
and sometimes
minute
by
minute!
We have to choose to say yes,
this moment,
this breath.
So on the day I stand
in front of our family and friends,
I’ll say yes to you –
in that moment,
with that breath,
and all the breaths
I am to have.