The Living Fully Challenge

12 Months to a Fully-Lived Life

Month #7

Congratulations! You’ve made it through six months of the Living Fully Challenge! That’s half a year of learning to live your life more fully. You’re half way to a fully-lived life, and you should be feeling the difference in all areas of your life. I commend you for making it this far, and encourage you to continue on through the next six months of the challenge. You’re in the home stretch!

I trust that last month you managed to choose and stick with a spiritual practice. If you did, you should now feel much more peaceful and connected to Source. Plus, this practice hopefully also helped you develop or strengthen your faith, which should have helped you with your other assignment – to do something you feared in all 12 areas of your life. Faith in God, faith in our own Divinity, faith in the Still Small Voice Within, faith in our own Inner Wisdom, faith in our wisdom and intuition can all serve us well when we find ourselves in situations that cause us trepidation. Additionally, moving through fear often puts us in touch with the part of ourselves that knows it is always safe and connected to a Higher Power, the part of ourselves that knows it is immortal and can’t be harmed – our soul. Thus, last months two exercises were well paired.

If nothing else, last months Exercise B tested out your ability to actually do things you thought you were too afraid to do and, in the process, brought you a new sense of aliveness, courage and sense of adventure. These all represent qualities inherent in a person who lives life fully.

This month I’m going to ask you to do a few things that require internal as well as external work, and, thus, may feel difficult or intimidating in a different way. However, you’ll feel much freer when you’re done, I promise. So trust me . . . trust yourself . . . trust God. Keep moving forward through month seven and before you know it, you’ll have completed the whole year!

The Two Basic Monthly Assignments

Just as in past months, continue by, first, completing daily the two basic assignments. They continue to 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 #7

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 friendship, this month you must exercise your friendship muscles. For some of you, this will feel easy; for some of you, this will feel difficult. For every one of you, you must stretch beyond your normal comfort zone.

If you are one of those lucky souls who have many friends, this month you must not only manage to spend time with each and every one of these lucky people, but you must show them how much you appreciate them. If they live far away from you, you are allowed to simply call them on the phone to catch up with them and then send them a card or a gift to let them know how grateful you are for their friendship. You may also send them an email, but no short, pithy note; rather, send them a lengthy catch up letter that really tells them how things are with you. However, if you live within visiting distance, you must make the effort to actually see each friend face to face. And, be sure to either bring them a token of your appreciation or to send them something after your meeting. You might even write them a little poem or a letter or give them a friendship bracelet. If your many friendships are superficial in nature, try to deepen them. Got to the next level — be more honest, more open, more revealing about who you really are, and encourage them to do the same.

If you are someone who can count the number of your friends on one hand or on a few fingers — or who has difficulty coming up with the name of even one friend, this month you must exercise your ability to make friends. (See the paragraph below.) You must spend time with the few friends you have and let them know how much you appreciate them, and you must try to deepen those friendships or to encourage more interaction with those friends. (The information above applies to you as well. Plus, make some new friends!)

This month, whether you have many friends, one friend or no friends at all, make a new friend. Think of someone you know who shares a common interest with you and do something together. Ask a colleague at work to have lunch with you. Invite your neighbor to a movie. Think of someone you know who looks like they need a friend. Reach out. Do something that encourages a friendship to bloom.

Take time for friendship. Friendship takes time.

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.

In each area, this month communicate honestly. This means really telling the truth no matter what – to your creditors or financial planner, to your spouse or romantic partner, to yourself, to your doctor or personal trainer, to your boss or co-workers, to God or your spiritual counselor, to your friends, to your family, to your teachers, to those to whom you give charity or to whom you tithe, to Mother Earth, and to those to whom you bear some form of responsibility.

This means you might need to come clean about how you really feel. It means you might have to fess up about some situations in your life. It means you might have to tell it like it is rather than making it sound like something else, something better, something that won’t be judged, something that won’t make someone angry, something that won’t make someone dislike you or stop loving you.

Scary stuff, huh? But you now know how to move through fear. And now you have a spiritual practice that has given you faith that you will be okay…that everything will be okay.

And you will be okay, even if someone decides they don’t like or love you after you communicate with them honestly. After all, you want to be liked and loved for who you really are not for someone you pretend to be. As long as you are pretending to be someone else and covering up parts of yourself and your life, you can’t live fully. You’ll always be holding yourself back and hiding something and pretending to be someone you are not. That has nothing to do with living your life fully.

You have the tools and the ability to look deeply within and to examine every area of your life and to be honest and to communicate honestly about the state of those areas of your life. And once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to breathe easily. Why? Because you’ll no longer have anything to fear and to hide. Everything – all your little secrets about how you have been living and feeling and thinking – will be out in the open. Whoo hoo! You’ll be free. Free to live your life freely and fully!

Now, that’s a good a reason to begin communicating honestly right now.

Be free.

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.