I have begun to take a Dictaphone out with me when I’m walking to record my thoughts and observations down.

Below is an extract from them:

THE SAFE PLACE

When I worked in a shop the regular customers would always stand in the exact same place every week, and if there was already someone in that place when they entered the shop, the minute that person left they would move into their regular spot.

It’s a very common reaction in similar situations in every day life.

Why do we do this? 

We don’t like being out of our comfort zone, but our comfort zone is heaven and hell. You are mislead by your ego into thinking that to do the same thing the same way, to go the same route, to eat the same foods, to go to the same holiday destination etc, etc. is comforting. But are you experiencing your true potential? Staying in your safe place is limiting. Just observe yourself every day when you go about your normal life how many times you avoid, either avoid getting into the car space as maybe it will be too small and will damage the car, or I want to know where the sugar is in the supermarket but I don’t really want to ask the assistant, or I think I know a short cut to get to the next town but I will still go the way I always go to make sure I don’t get lost.

Do you recognise that these thoughts are all FEAR BASED ones and when you become aware of them you realise how many you have in a day, many more than you would have realised.

The extreme of this way of living your life is you can’t go out of your house for fear of….
You can’t go on holiday for fear of…..
You can’t walk down that particular road for fear of….

What do you do about it then?

Recognising the way you are thinking, and your reactions to those thoughts, is the beginnings of releasing yourself from your limited life.

Many times I have said to myself I feel like doing some ‘art’ then the next second I hear myself saying “Oh but I will have to get all the ‘stuff’ out, and I will have to clear the table as I haven’t anywhere else to do it”.
You could say these are realistic problems but you could also say I’m making excuses because I am afraid of starting a piece of work, and what if it doesn’t turn out that good when I have finished, it means I’m not a very good artist. There is that restrictive fearful thinking dominating your life.

What I should do is do it regardless of the end result, not to have expectations, because expectations means I want a result, so I’m setting myself up for disappointment.

How many times in life do we do this, constantly I would say.