an empty mind with and open one
Every day as I take my dogs out on our daily morning walk we always walk past this small and beautiful pond. On this particular day that I am going to talk about in this blog, we ran into some women that were feeding the fish in the pond. I stopped and talked to the ladies for a few minutes as we were all watching the fish eat.
After a while we all mentioned how brown and cloudy the water was in the pond. You couldn't see anything below the surface. So I said "well..... no wonder the water is cloudy and brown, there is no new fresh water coming into the pond (except for when it rains)..... and there is also no water leaving the pond."
I guess you are wondering where I am going with this story about the pond?
Think of your mind as the pond in the story I just told you. A lot of times we will allow or own mind to get cloudy and brown. We don't allow any new ideas to enter our mind. We do the same thing every day. We eat the same food. Hang out with the same people and we have worked with the same people for years. We have become rigid in our thinking and the sad thing is that we won't even entertain any new ways of thinking. The people that we spend most of our time with the majority of them think like we do, and that is why with spend time with them in the first place.
Nothing new is happening in your life and in their life and therefore.....no new thoughts.
In our spare time we create small groups of friends that we spend time with and maybe do a few activities with. But the majority of the time they are always the same people that we have spent time with for last 5-10 years maybe even longer than that. They have the same ideas, the same way of thinking and most often there isn't anything new happening in their lives. We don't allow any new people to come into our groups.
No..... we want to do the things that we have always done, telling ourselves that this is the way we have always done it and this is the way it is going to be. We are afraid to let any new people join our group that might have some different ideas, a different way to of thinking and maybe has been brought up in a different part of the world. We often stay away from those people and we call them weird and what they are doing and the way they are thinking is wrong.
Where and when did we come up with the idea that whatever we are doing or thinking is always right?
Most often the way they are makes us feel uncomfortable for some reason. The sad thing is that we will never learn anything new by staying with the same routines and doing and thinking the same thing over and over again. Eventually it will make us very bored and not satisfied with our own lives. And eventually complaining becomes a new bonding ritual that we engage in with our small group.
I remember back in 2012 when I was back in Sweden for one year. One time I went to a small party where I only knew one woman. I found the conversation very interesting because one of the women at that particular party talked about how no one would invite her into any groups. She had moved to this city several years ago but had a hard time making any new friends or meeting new people.
Maybe this sounds familiar to you?
It doesn't matter where you live but a lot of people have a tendency to not welcome change and also new people into their lives. They want things to be the way they have always been.
I have news for you.....the only thing that is constant in life is change. And only when we learn to sometimes let go of old things and "old thinking" and welcome change, embrace learning new things, new people, new experience and growth.... only then will we feel truly happy and fulfilled.
For me personally..... I feel that it would be terrible if things stayed the same way that they are right now. If no new change was ever possible.....I believe life would be very gray and boring. There are so many more things that I want to learn, places I want to go to and people that I want to meet. I want to continue to develop my coaching business, help more people, learn more about myself, write more blogs, newsletters and books. I also am looking forward to creating new friendships and relationships where I can grow as a person. So many things to do and so many places to go in life.
My suggesting to you is to not become like the pond or maybe like the Dead Sea. Open yourself up to new possibilities. Open your tight closed group up to some new faces. You never know what you may learn and experience. Maybe something new and even better?
Always have an open mind when it come to everything. Learn new things. We are never to old to learn. And when you learn something new, share it with friends and tell them about it. It might be information that they didn't have and it can be a game changer for them. This is exactly why I am writing this blog today and hopefully it will make you think about your own life a little and maybe do some changes?
When you open yourself up to new things and people in your life make sure that you share with the world. If you don't you will also become stuck and cloudy .....just like the pond I was talking about. If you never let anything go you will eventually feel constipated. You have to empty out your new ideas so that you can make room for some new ones. Any new idea will stay on your mind until you release it.
"When you learn, teach. When you get, give." Maya Angelou
When you learn.....you must teach someone else. And then they will teach another person and yet another person and another person.
Our bodies couldn't survive if we didn't take in any food. We could survive for a while but eventually we would die. The body also has to eliminate what we have eaten or we will get constipated.
Same thing with our minds. We have to always feed our minds with good nutritious thoughts, ideas and experiences.
You only live once so make sure that you actually lived.
Don't sleep-walked through life.
Karin Glannstam - Personal Success Coach
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