Find The Dysfunction

Hi, my name is Donnie and you are listening to the podcast One Life Reflections. One of the things I've been doing a lot of since this whole COVID 19 thing started was taking the time to walk outside. One of the things that I've been noticing more than I ever have in the past is that there's so many beautiful trees. No bullshit. I've been going on these walks and, and one of the things I've been noticing the most are the trees. I've been looking at them, it's almost like they've become three dimensional, quote unquote. And like the details are almost like jumping out at me, things that I had never known. And I lived in this neighborhood my entire life, so, you know, almost 40 years. And when I was looking at these trees, I started to relate, look at nature and how it would related to life. I thought about the trees and how when they're growing, they keep going up, up, up, up to reach the highest and they open up and they have their leaves out to receive the light. It also reminded me of when I grow my wheatgrass. I don't know if any of you have ever grown wheatgrass before, but when you're sprouting the wheatgrass, you put it in trays, you know, you lay it on a shallow bed of dirt, you put it in the trays and you have to cover it. And the wheatgrass, when it's growing will start to shoot up the blades of grass in an effort to receive the light and have an effort to, you know, start to reach the light. Once it grows to a certain level, then you take off the top and you allow it to just, you allow it to continue to grow. But isn't that so true of us that it requires that growth, that personal growth, for us to reach that true light? Not to say that we're not perfect the way we are now, but life is about growing. So on this walk, my mind started slowing down. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine, my friend Sadiq. So Sadiq works with the body, body mechanics and this whole thing is that alignment. So if you want to have a, you know, like a pleasant, like a great life, all these things must be in alignment. And in order to aid in that process of bringing things into alignment, you have to look at the dysfunction. So if there's a pain in any area of your life, there's a dysfunction, there's something that's feeding this dysfunction. So one of the, during this walk I started relating this dysfunction of finding dysfunction in the body by the pain points to dysfunction in the mental side, mainly the beliefs, the thoughts we have. So as I was continuing on this walk, I came past an old friend of mine. My friend Matthew, I can't remember his last name, but my friend Matthew's house. And I was remembering how I felt, like, bad, because I remember he moved. So many of my friends when I was younger in elementary school moved away. And I made this meaning that everyone struggled. And because he moved away, I thought to myself, I'm like, oh, one of the negative belief that I've had in my mind a lot is that I haven't grown. And when I thought about, well, what does that mean I haven't grown? What does it mean to grow? And one of the things I've gotten in the habit of doing now is when I remember. But a lot of time I'll just put in my phone, if I don't have a piece of paper near me, I will write down the belief, as it said in my head. I'll put it on paper and then I'll start to question it and break it down to see if it actually even makes sense. So I put it down like, all right, I haven't grown. And I was like, well, why do I believe that? When I came to the reason I realized the reason I thought that was because I was still living in my hometown. Does that make sense? I mean, I. I am saying that in order for me to grow that I have to move out. I looked at my, like, the things that I've done that I would consider growth. I looked at the personal development that I've done. I've looked at my coffee business. I looked at the results I've gotten in my body. I looked at the new endeavors I'm doing with the coaching platform. That's all growth. But I was unjustly judging myself, basing it that, you know, because also take the travels. I've been to 49 countries thus far. But because I still lived in my hometown, I wasn't being fair to myself. So I continued to walk. And as I was walking, more beliefs were started coming into my mind. And again I started writing them down, taking out my phone's notepad and just scribing it in there. The second belief I found was that I was saying, I'm too young, I'm too young. And when I say I'm too young, I say I was saying it in a negative way. I was saying it in the sense that, oh, I'm not ready for this because I'm not mature enough or I'm not ready, you know, that I consider myself inexperienced in some way. I was like, well, what makes me think that? When I was contemplating writing this down, I was like, because of my mentality. Because the way I act, the energy I carry when I'm around other people, when I'm with myself, I have this. If you know me, you know, there's this vibrancy to who I am. Like, I'm. I don't take things that seriously. I have a vibrancy for me, I'm active. And I was looking at this and saying, well, I don't feel the age. I am, therefore I am not ready. Do you see the fault in that thinking? And so seeing this, it's like this giant aha. And the reason why we write them down is because as long as these thoughts, as long as these beliefs are stirring in our heads, they're going to continue to wreak havoc. But when you put them on a piece of paper and make that a habit, you start to see them for really what they are. Instead of this abstract thought that's in your head, you're putting it. You're making it tangible. Putting on and say, well, is this real? Does this make sense? And then when you can look at it and break it down, you realize that a lot of the time they don't. On this walk, I was. It was all these thoughts were flooding in because as I was making my way around this walk, it was a giant loop. I was seeing places that I used to play as a child, and I was seeing friends houses that I used to go over again when I was in elementary school. And that is like the most impactful time, that is when we create these beliefs. Up to the age of like seven or eight, I don't remember the exact age. So taking this walk was just bringing me, flooding me with all these different memories. So one of the last things I'll mention is I always look at business as a struggle too. What is that? I mean, then I was, well, what is that about? How does that make sense? Business is a struggle. I looked at one of the pizzerias that not many people go into anymore. And because I saw that, I'm like, oh, I feel sorrow for this person. Like, things don't work out. But anybody who knows anything, who's ever attempted their own business know. Knows that. I mean, when you go into business, you know that business is like war. Not in the sense that you know you're going to battle, but it takes a lot of energy A lot of time, a lot of effort in order to make a business work. It's not something you half heartedly go into and say, hey, I'm going to try this out and you know, I'm not going to put that much effort into it and I know it's going to be a success. Well, maybe some people have that, but for the most part I think that's not the case. It requires effort. It's like having a child. For those of you who are parents out there, a business is like having a baby. People joking like, oh, are you married yet? Do you have any kids? I was like, yeah, I do, I have one. My business. But just what I'm trying to get at is that there's the way we relate, the way we see the outside world is all starts with our internal world. So in order for us to start to enjoy life and we have to start working on our, on our mental states, how we're thinking. I saw this parable about. It's an Indian parable. The king sends two of his couriers to different cities. He wants to report their findings. One of the couriers is generous, kind, and the other one was a little bit more self absorbed, angry. And when they come back and they report their findings, it was a mirror of who they were in a way. Well, that's, I just kind of spoiled the story. Spoiler alert. But the generous man said, you know, I went to these lands and the people weren't that much different than the people of our home city. The self absorbed man went out and said, you know, he encountered, he was a little bit jealous. He said, I encountered people who were angry, people who were greedy. And the king laughed because he had sent them both to the same place. So the moral behind the story is that we see how we are or we are how we see mixing that one up now. But you know what I mean, it is what we bring into that experience that is what defines how we experience a place. If you're traveling, how you experience a place, it's what our mental state is, how we experience life. Going back to the talk with my friend Sadiq, it was this mindset that we all have this, this, this misconception that once we get to a certain place, once we, you know, achieve a certain status, make a certain amount of money, that everything is going to be okay. Well, it's bullshit, you know, you know people who are rich but extremely poor emotionally and you know people who are extremely poor but rich emotionally. So that goes to show you that happiness has nothing to do with material wealth. Nothing to do with material wealth. And that is, you know, I want people to wake up to realize that now is the time you could experience. You could enjoy life as it is now. Because if you don't enjoy the state you're in, what makes you think you're going to enjoy it? Years, you know, once you've acquired this wealth and all, you know, everything that you want, what makes you think you're going to. You're going to enjoy it? Then it's a similar. I've heard that, like, a generous person is always generous. It's not, you know, some people say, oh, I will give when I have more. A person who's generous is always generous. I was doing a journaling exercise, and I noticed the journaling exercise. Well, what is gonna. Once you meet these goals, once you acquire all these things you want, what's gonna change in your life? And I was looking at this, I was like, oh, well, once I, you know, once I make this much money and my business is this, then I can take coffee with friends in the afternoon. I can go out, I can go surfing. You know, I want that. The only thing I would need is a body of water where I could surf. But. And I was putting down all these things and how I would act, how I would use time. And at the end of this exercise, I was looking at it, I was like, what? What the hell? It doesn't make sense. What the heck's. I was realizing that everything I wanted didn't require money. It didn't require me achieving anything. These were all things that I could act in my life now. So we put. The moral of the story is to stop putting off living and start living now, because we have everything we need in order to appreciate. We have to stop believing this false narrative that, you know, that we need something external in order to make us complete. It's all just a way of focusing the mind. It's all what we are looking at. So if we start to establish a positive attitude in our minds, that in itself will translate into the rest of the world. That is it for this podcast. I hope you guys have a beautiful and wonderful start to your week. And if you have any comments, I highly. I highly suggest first just kind of taking a look at your own life and thinking about the beliefs you have. Write them on paper. I highly encourage you just for maybe a couple days, because what we experience in a day usually is kind of like what we experience in a week, like the emotions we experience, because our habitual patterns, the emotions we feel are kind of cyclical. We usually cycle through, like, five or six emotions daily in a given week. So write them down, break them apart, and start to question them and just say, you know, is this true? And if you enjoyed this podcast, I ask you to, you know, take a screenshot with your phone, share it in your social media. If you know a friend who might benefit from this episode or any of the past episodes, I ask you to share it with them, and that is it. And just live life you dream. Live the life you dream. Life is happening now. Guys, thank you so, so much for tuning in. Have a beautiful week, and God bless.