I’m currently working with a Life Coach and it has been an amazing experience so far. My homework- due tomorrow is to come up with potential contexts in which to live my life that are different from the context that I currently live my life in.
What is context you might ask? According to the Merriam-Webster: The circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. Another way of looking at this might be the lens through which you look at and live through life.
What is my context at the moment? One that I have lived in for many years. It is comfortable and cozy but is keeping me from achieving my goals. This is what mine looks like. Default: I blame myself for what goes wrong in my life. When that gets to be too much- I shift blame where appropriate to other individuals/circumstance in my life. If that cannot be done, I shift blame to the universe and blame my failure to achieve my goals on a lack of time. The problem with this context is that it is cyclical and makes it impossible for me to move forward. It also means that someone loses, because someone always has to lose in this context.
Having lived in this context for so long, I’m not sure what it might be like to live and look at the world in a different way. I’m struggling right now to come up with what that might look like. Right now it is so automatic to blame myself. So easy. But this leads to me feeling defeated, like a failure and ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It goes a bit like this: I should have done X, feel bad about not doing X, decide I’m a failure because I didn’t do X which ultimately leads to me not trying as hard due to fear of failure. What really ends up happening is do not achieve goals that I really want to achieve. I’d like to call this context me vs self/other/universe.
You might be thinking- well why don’t you just go out and do what you are supposed to do? Good question. It comes back to the cycle.
Whatever context I choose, I think the following need to be requirements:
1) I need to see myself as successful in whatever context I choose
– In my current context, I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. Maybe I’m not doing my best right now because I’m scared that I will fail and shifting the blame on lack of time allows me to lower my standards. This causes a ripple affect in my life where because my standards for myself are lower I end up having lower standard for my students and other people in my life. This is not good.
2) Context is one in which everyone succeeds.
Potential Contexts
1)Tried curiosity– but could not wrap my head around how everyone can win in this context
2) Action –What this would mean to me is living life through doing actions to complete goals… Which now that I write it down sounds really boring and chore like. I’m scared that this context is not different enough from what I am currently doing.
3) Presence/ Present “Being conscious or being aware is the only way to know the present.” – From Wikipedia entry on Present (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present)
– Part of the problem with my current context is that it relies mainly on past experience and future worry. This is crippling. Perhaps approaching each situation in my life as though I were living it for the first time would be more empowering. This one scares me a little, only because I actually have no idea what that looks like. But an increased consciousness or mindfulness of what I am doing at the time rather than looking back with regret would perhaps be more empowering.
4) Possibility
Perhaps 3 and 4 could be combined. I feel that possibility on its own could go either way- as in that it could indicate negative possibility. What I mean by possibility is living in a context in which anything is possible, combined with presence and conscious, mindful thoughts. Still not sure what this entirely looks like since I have been living in a fairly negative context, especially as of late.
However, I cannot wait to find out…
Adventures in Life 