DSTSS - is this it?

Chapter 81 - 90

So here goes, I'm heading into the final countdown and it's reflection time for my past 10 chapters and life in between.

I love a takeaway - and I don't mean the pop down to the local Chinese type, but a takeaway that comes from being involved in something that gives you a life learning. The ones where you find yourself having those light bulb moments that just open your world up a little bit more. I think one of my takeaways over the past while is that freedom, opportunity and possibility is everywhere and I sometimes wonder whether we make our own destiny, or whether the universe does take us to where we need to be and give us the things we need to have, or ironically takes away the things we have in order to shake it up a bit and continue to challenge us if we are open to it.

Maybe it's a bit of both?  I know for me it has definitely been a bit of both.

Since questioning my relationship with alcohol this year and going through that mindset change of what its purpose was in my life, I am still amazed that 9 months on, the steps and actions I took in just 30 days when I went on that journey have profoundly changed my life and opened my mind to understand our ability to reach and achieve our goals if we really really want to. My goal at the outset was to explore a life without alcohol, but I have been fundamentally changed at my core.

It's weird, because it went beyond just a process of thinking to a way of being and I often reflect on that journey and from that, wonder what more I can do to enhance the life I am living right now. The life I have been given and the one I want to live to the fullest. I really want to apply the takeaways from that journey to other areas of my life. If I can make that kind of mind shift in 30 days, then what else is possible to really help me reach my goals?  I always want tomorrow to be better than today, even if there are hurdles to jump over.

I was talking to someone the other day and they posed the question - what if this is as good as it gets? And it was in the context of someone's life being a constant battle and the change that has affected those around this person. I replied that it may or may not be as good as it gets, we don't know, but we need to be open to the possibility that something may come along that can trigger that person's belief system in such a way that anything is possible or, maybe this is as good as it gets. Either way, we have to continue on with our own journey as best as we can regardless of the other influences that are impacting on us.

  

I don't think we should ever assume that just because our life has taken us on a journey that seems to be going backward or nowhere or making us frustrated or fearful, that we have to keep on that path. Change is made in a moment. We don't ever have to settle for this being as good as it gets. But we need to run towards life, not away from it.

My lovely friend Elena and I would have many conversations about our ongoing personal development and growth as we moved into our new lives and I remember her sending me this saying.

If You Don’t Like Where You Are, Move.

You are Not a Tree.

How lucky are we to have options and second chances and opportunities and possibility and freedom to chose and to not be locked into one of anything - location, job, thought process, mindset, relationship, way of doing something or way of being. We can always make change if we want our life to be better than it is. Remember, run towards them.  When we run away from them, eventually we have nowhere to run!

 

Note to self: This was the week I was on the plane that had to turn back shortly after takeoff.  This was the week that I sat there for 15 long minutes wondering whether the noise in the engine was as bad as it sounded. The week that I sat in stillness and contemplated. This was the week I was reminded never to take anything or anyone for granted (not that I do) and that I get to keep running towards life cause as good as it is, it's not as good as it gets, cause I get to make it even better.  How lucky am I.