Prefer to listen? Here you go!

Here I am sitting in my government office, semi-minding my own business, when the dude in front of me says “It was so hard to stop drinking Pepsi, I’m so glad I wasn’t a drug addict or something like that because it took me 15 years to quit Pepsi”.

Ha! As a former ‘drug addict’ I definitively conclude – sugar is harder.

Before you reach for the unsubscribe button, let me explain.

Everyone who struggles with a drug addiction knows how awful their situation is – some admit it to themselves sooner and others pretend longer. But the bottom line is, they know it.

Sugar, on the other hand, is innocuous.

As a generalization, everyone knows sugar is bad for you, but we are unclear of the extent of what that practically means in our day-to-day life. The fact that we have no real context for what sugar is bad for you means is the main problem with it, because that’s what makes it both more prevalent and sneakier!

You know what else is prevalent and sneaky? Our daily habits.

Think about this – you and I have 65,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. How many of those thoughts are new, for you?

Take a moment and check – how many new thoughts have entered your awareness today?

The more time you spend on “autopilot”, the less time you spend engaged mindfully and intentionally. Which means … the more of your life you spend habitually over intentionally.

The outcome of that? More of the same, decade in, decade out… yikes.

Exhausting.

Because that’s not how I choose to live my life, I stand here as an invitation for you to consider an alternative for yourself. You’re the only one who either hears the calling, or doesn’t.

Scary? Yup.

Terrifying, even? Yup.

Uncertain? Yup.

All those things, and more. The hardest thing we can do is awaken to our potential. And then … engage it!

That’s why most people don’t do it. They look at the grass on the other side – look how bad THEY have it. “At least my struggle is only sugar!”, they tell themselves, dismissing their pain.

The consequences of settling are high.

So, they settle. They repeat the same thing day after day hoping at some point at the end of their lives that they had lived life differently.

Now, you and I are given an average of 30,000 days in our lifetime. I’m in my second third of my life, and I know that every day in my life is an adventure. I never know what the day will bring, but I know wholeheartedly that I created it for my evolution. And that is how I want to spend the currency of my life.

How do you want to spend yours?

The trick is to choose that which you want, even if it feels untenable. The oak tree didn’t become that overnight – it started as a vulnerable, uncertain seed.

The trick to choose that which you want is to start small, and start today. What is the one thing you feel pulled to engage today to bring you closer to the life you want?

Everyone who is looking for transformation and waiting for some big ‘aha’ moment that will shift everything in their lives. Most people do not grasp that evolution is a perpetual process that must be engaged daily, breath in…breath out.

It takes mindful intentionality to live this way.

And it can be as simple as an intentional breath to break the habituated pattern.

There is such immense beauty and power in the subtle…

Escape from Social Media Activism: Dying to be right! Untangling Childhood Trauma: Ages 0 - 7 Conscious

The Hijacked Mind: Understanding the power of the familiar