Here is a quote about holistic living:
“A person is like a house with four rooms; mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional. Unless one goes to each room everyday, even if only to keep it aired, one is not a whole person.” — Anonymous
My sister read this quote to me just the other day and it made a big impression on me. Perhaps that’s because, over the years, I have lived my life in both balanced and unbalanced ways. I know from experience the joy and bliss that can come from integrating the mental, spiritual, physical and emotional. I also know from experience the depth of the despair of living a life out of balance.
My wife recently came across a quote I gave her years ago from a now deceased friend of mine, Rocky Rodgers: “Education is what you get from reading the fine print. Experience is what you get when you don’t.” Ignoring an essential aspect of being is like ignoring the fine print. And that leads to experience – the experience of suffering.
The only reason people don’t read the fine print is that they don’t want to take the time for it. They want to jump right in. And the only reason people don’t live a balanced life is that they feel they don’t have time. So many people put everything on the back burner with the excuse of not enough time. But our life is our time. And if we don’t make time for all aspects of being, we are wasting our time driving down a dead-end street.
A great movie that exemplifies this is Groundhog’s Day. The Bill Murray character has to keep doing it over and over until he gets it right. And he gets it right by not ignoring anything and living life fully.
Lately I’ve been making time for things I thought I had no time for: playing sax, refining my website design skills, putting together a photo exhibit, getting organized, exercising, cooking, buying a Mac computer, getting daily massages, learning Photoshop, and studying composition in art. And the result is that life has become an adventure. So much more is happening. Life is unfolding in exciting new ways. It has become much easier to live in the present. Life is good now. Why would I want to live in the past?
The synergy I find from actively engaging the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental aspects of my being are bringing new possibilities. Boredom doesn’t exist anymore. There is just too much happening. Last night I couldn’t sleep but five hours because of all the possibilities.
What I am doing differently now is that I am making agreements with myself in writing each morning of things I want to do by the end of the day. It’s about keeping agreements with myself. And by keeping these agreements, I am developing more and more faith in myself.
In the past, sometimes I would say to myself something I intended to do. Maybe I would accomplish it and maybe I wouldn’t. But it didn’t engender trust in myself.
I have always been good at keeping agreements with other people. I’d show up on time. I’d prove myself to be dependable. But when it came to keeping agreements with myself, I was inconsistent. I guess I need to ask myself, “What am I, chopped liver?”
But with a commitment to keeping agreements with myself, that has all changed. I see deep within myself its crucial importance. With a faith in myself that I will follow through with my agreements to myself comes confidence. I now have excitement and energy with what I plan to do. I’m writing things down and results are happening. Life is happening. And that makes all the difference.
It’s an inner thing. And that makes the outer thing that much easier.
