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The Living Fully Challenge
12 Months to a Fully-Lived Life
Month #5
Welcome to month #5 of the Living Fully Challenge. After last month’s assignments, you should be feeling totally energized from your new approach to exercise and health. I hope you took that assignment to heart and found a way to approach your exercise regimen that felt fun and enlivening and that really got your blood flowing. In addition, I hope the enjoyment level was high enough to keep you wanting to participate in the activity on a regular basis. You’ll feel — and actually be — healthier, happier and more alive if you accomplished this.
Taking care of any nagging health issues should have freed up your energy as well and made you feel more relaxed and able to move forward with this month’s assignments. Even if you discovered some health issues you are still dealing with, it’s always better to face things head on rather than letting them stay in the background as vibrations of worry. For doubt and anxiety and stress always drain us of life force energy.
Additionally, I hope you found ways to choose positive change in your life and that you are now enjoying the benefits of that change. Change can be scary at first, but once it’s upon you, it usually turns into an exhilarating experience and opens us up to so many new and exciting possibilities. It makes us feel alive and ready for more change. It makes us adventurous and eager to try different experiences, which, in turn, make us feel more alive.
This month we move forward in a similar vein, so your work last month should have prepared you well for the exercises you’ll be taking on next, which are, of course, sure to make you feel even more alive. So, let’s get started.
The Two Basic Monthly Assignments
Just as in past months, continue by, first, completing daily the two basic assignments. They form the foundation of your living-fully practice.
Basic Assignment #1:
Take some deep breaths several times every day. The breath is the source of life. God breathed life into us. As we breathe in, we continue breathing in God’s exhale, and as we exhale God inhales. It’s a continuous circular breath from Creator to the created. Plus, without the breath, we die. Each breath gives our body what it needs to continue living. And the fact that we breathe without even thinking about it represents a miracle. So, breathe deeply and consciously as often as possibly, because the breath enlivens you! If you have a watch that beeps on the hour, I suggest you set it to do so, and each hour take a minimum of 10 deep, slow, conscious breaths.
Basic Assignment #2:
Each night before you fall asleep try to acknowledge at least one thing about your life and the way you lived it that day that you really appreciated or enjoyed. If you can't find at least one thing you appreciated or enjoyed, than commit to doing something different the next day - to doing one thing you can acknowledge the next night - something that puts a smile on your face - before you fall asleep. The reason for this exercise seems self-explanatory: If you aren’t doing anything that you can acknowledge as being enjoyable or that you sincerely appreciate, you aren’t living fully.
Assignment for Month #5
As you know, each month’s assignment is comprised of two exercises you will use for 30 days to help you live more fully. The first one will involve one area of your life. The second one will be applied to 12 general areas of your daily life – finance, romantic relationship, free time/fun, health/exercise, work/career, spiritual practice/relationship with God, friendship, relationship with self, relationship with family, continuing education, charity and care of the Earth, and commitments/responsibilities.
Exercise A
Moving on to the area of work and career, find one way this month to approach your job, career or profession from a new perspective. Instead of seeing it as just a job or just a way to make a living, try assigning it a greater purpose. Discern how doing what you do serves others or helps your family or helps you fulfill your soul’s purpose. If what you currently do doesn’t fit into this sort of “higher” framework in any way, shape or form, ask yourself if there is a way for you to change what you do so you would feel you that your work was “karma yoga,” work done for God or for a Higher Power. Ask yourself if there is a way for you to somehow alter what you do so that you do, indeed, serve others in some way.
If you aren’t in touch with your soul’s purpose, ask yourself what special talent you have or what ability you posses that you can give to others or use in a way that benefits others. Then spend time envisioning how you could design a livelihood around this. For those of you who don’t work but would like to find a way to put Exercise A to use in your life, try this part of the exercise. You don’t have to envision something that even earns money if you don’t care about earning money. However, it’s good to see an exchange of energy occurring on some level; by this I mean that you receive something in return for what you give.
If you are stuck in a job that doesn’t allow for you to follow through with this exercise – or you feel you can’t or your thought is that you can’t – then simply find a way to serve your boss more completely or to do a better job for your company. Find a way to feel better in general about your job, your performance or what you do. Look for ways to be innovative, to be creative, to think outside the box. Find some way to make your job feel new, exciting, different. Or simply operate on a new level.
If none of this works for you, maybe this month you should begin looking for a new job opportunity. Maybe it’s time to have a discussion with your boss about other positions in the company or to contact a head hunter or recruiter or to look in the newspaper for totally different types of jobs. In fact, you can apply for jobs that are totally removed from what you do now but that feel as if they would help you feel more “on purpose.” Ask yourself, “What is my purpose in life? What type of job would make me happy?” Then go out and create that job for yourself.
If you don’t work and don’t care to work, you can apply this exercise to charity work or service work.
Exercise B
Just like last month, apply this part of the month’s assignment to the following 12 general areas of your daily life – finance, romantic relationship, free time/fun, health/exercise, work/career, spiritual practice/relationship with God, friendship, relationship with self, relationship with family, continuing education, charity and care of the Earth, and commitments/responsibilities.
This month’s assignment is easy: Do something you have always wanted to do – but haven’t done – in each of the categories above. Save or spend some money. Enter or get out of a relationship. Go sky diving or take a vacation. Lose weight or take up running. Change your job or take that class that advances you at work. Begin meditating or try praying once a day. Go out to lunch with that nice person at work that you like. Take yourself to the spa. Go visit your family. Sign up for that language class. Tithe 10 percent of your salary and stop using plastic grocery bags. Stop over-committing and take responsibility for your actions. Got the idea?
I realize that in some cases you might not be able to carry through on this assignment immediately. For instance, if what you want to do is have a romantic relationship and you don’t have anyone to have one with, you won’t be able to simply “do something you’ve always wanted to do” in the category of romantic relationships. That said, you can possibly join a dating service or go on a singles cruise or in some way further your ability to meet someone and have that relationship. You might not be able to go on a trip to Australia if you don’t have the money right now, which means you might not be able to “do something you’ve always wanted to do” in the area of free time/fun, but you can plan the trip and begin saving in a serious way for the trip. But in each case, you can do something. Take a short trip. Save some money. Take a free course. Make a commitment to something. Do something fun.
A great way to begin this exercise involves writing down five or 10 things you have always wanted to do in each category. Then, pick the most “doable” ones and do at least one this month. In the categories where none are immediately doable, make an action plan that gets you moving towards your goal of being able to actually “do you dream.”
You can also give yourself some visual representations of the things you can’t yet do. Treasure maps or vision maps are great for this. Get a piece of poster board and cover it with pictures of what it is you want to do. Then put this up in a place in your home where you will see it all the time. Look at it as often as possible and imagine what it would be like to be doing what you see in those pictures. Feel what it would be like as if you were doing what you want to be doing right now in this moment.
And, if possible, do small versions of what you want to do until you can take action on the larger goal. If you want to take a big trip, take a small trip. If you want to save 1 million dollars, save 1 thousand dollars. If you want to go on a shopping spree, allow yourself a small shopping spree (whatever that means to you). If you want to run a marathon, run a short race.
Now, go do something you’ve always wanted to do.
Start this minute. Don’t wait. Start living this instant. You never know what might happen tomorrow or the next moment. You might regret that you didn’t do those things you’ve dreamed of doing when one day you realize your chance to do them has passed.
Don’t die with your dance still in you. Live dancing every moment.
Please drop me an email and tell me how you are doing with the challenge and its exercises and assignments. I'd love to have you share your experiences with me.
