Three Skills to Get the Life You Yearn For

Part 1

The top reason that people don’t experience elation from their lives is… they are unwittingly not intimate with what a perfect for them life looks like. As a certified life coach I see this condition often in people who are struggling to make their lives feel better. It’s problematic because over the course of our lives we tend to lose track of what most gives us joy. And, because modern times keep us in a constant flux state, what we value is continually pushed to change. This situation makes us susceptible to the marketing efforts of companies that pay big money to find our vulnerabilities so we will open our wallets to them in an attempt to relieve anxiety caused by our unfulfilled lives. The truth is that the relief these purchases give is short lived, at best, as they can never address the root cause of our dismay.

What are you to do if you long to experience elation from your life? Those of you that have read self-help books and articles, hoping they will lead you to a better feeling life, already know that many emphasize you can only find happiness on the inside of you, not on the outside of you. I hear some of you out there saying you would rather swim across a croc infested river than go into the deep unknown areas of yourself. This is the “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” fear phenomenon that your subconscious mind uses to maintain its top priority which is to keep you alive. As good of a purpose as this is, it’s also a top reason why people stay stuck in lives that don’t feel good. Fear is a double-edged sword that indeed does keep us alive, and it’s the source of everything negative in our lives — whether the negativity comes from inside or outside of us.

So, what is the process for luring the perfect for you components out of their deep subconscious lair and into your conscious mind where you can use them to get the satisfying life you yearn for? First, a little conscious preparation:

It’s pretty easy to acknowledge there are people that are fulfilled by their lives, so if that’s what you long for, be willing to believe that the same thing is possible for you… whether you feel you are worthy of it yet or not.

Feeling worthy of your best feeling life depends on your self-perception and self-attitude… thoughts that don’t enhance these need to be consciously replaced by those that do.

Even really good changes, like having a better feeling life, take some time getting used to, so practice feeling better now by appreciating more of the healthy things you already enjoy.

This conscious preparation not only helps to set your internal compass, it eases you into self-focus mode. I hear some of you out there saying, “If only!” or “I can’t be that selfish!” I know this is an alien concept to some reading this article. Becoming self-focused doesn’t require you to be selfish or take anything away from anything else, although the more you redirect your energies toward this ultimate worthwhile process the better. It’s simply a change of perspective that gives clarity to your view of you, or at least the you that you want to feel like in the future.

By feeling better and doing better you free up a lot of yourself to help those you care about to do the same. There are no limits to where this benefit can go… you can even change the world for the better. And the rewards are far more desirable than those offered by any other pursuit because they are enduring. Besides, do you really want to feel the same way about your life a year from now as you do today?

Time to know what has been keeping you from already having this wonderfulness in your life. It’s your subconscious mind which operates about 95% of your mind’s capacity — and you thought you were the captain of your own ship! It has a lot of influence on your conscious mind and runs everything that keeps your body functioning. When you get used to thinking, feeling, and reacting a certain way to any given situation it’s your subconscious mind maintaining those particular neural connections to save your brain energy. And it’s main motivator to get your cooperation is fear.

That’s why your conscious mind can’t get its good intentions to take hold and actuate your best feeling life, despite the dedication you have given to the self-help books of your choice. Don’t give up hope because the conscious mind can work with the subconscious mind to not only learn what essential personal needs will bring you fulfillment, but also what is necessary to overcome subconscious programming that is keeping you from your good feeling life. And it’s not as difficult as you might think.

Our conscious minds contain the logical, reasoning, objective aspects that make us shine as human beings. Our subconscious minds are repositories of information collected from the womb to our last breath, and the discernment of logic, reason, and being objective is really not its thing. However, you can retrieve vital self -knowledge from it, and learn what things are keeping you from enjoying your life by using one of the best healing skills I know. Ask yourself specific questions.

I know this sounds simplistic, but that’s basically why psychologists and psychiatrists earn so much. They ask questions and listen until their patient’s subconscious mind reveals to their conscious mind for the first time what it is they need in their life to be happy, what issues are keeping them from it, and what will fix the dilemma. The good thing about our species is we are cause and effect creatures, if we do the right things, we get the right results. Best of all, you can get your better feeling life by using these self-insights to eliminate what is weighing you down and keeping you stuck. In other words, if aspects of your life are not improving how you feel — replace them with perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, activities, habits, foods, and people that will. You just have to ask yourself and be receptive to learning what your feel better life looks like.

The most potent, life enriching discovery I have ever embraced is that our bodies, minds, and emotions are dynamic self-healing miracles. Belief in this one truth is enough to turn your life around so you can have the life you long for.

When it was in ruins I had to recreate my life from scratch in my sixties. One of my first self-realizations was that I am more motivated to heal myself first if I believed it would enable me to better help others later. I felt that learning to be a life coach would help others heal and do the same for my own best benefit. I found that I not only had negative mental and emotional issues, but that my body’s health issues were most likely the source of both. This is due in large part to the mood improving neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and GABA which are produced in the gut. Whether you are in an overt or covert state of anxiety your gut can’t produce these well and you can’t be a happy camper. Not having a good feeling life will keep you anxious and being anxious will keep you not feeling good. Time to embrace some life upgrade skills.[Editor’s note: Part Two will be in the January issue.]