Good Day, God!
People asked us on our recent travels, “Why did you leave home?” The message was clear. Why leave Hawaii? Why indeed!
Actually, I am not the traveler in our family. I travel to see our daughters and grandsons. Kit is the one who prompts all our other trips. I go . . . and I enjoy. It is my nature to enjoy.
Alas, that gift — if not balanced by a certain awareness of imperfections — leads me to slip into complacency. And therein lies the benefit of Travel for me, God. I come home and actually see: my office, our home, my varied piles of decisions still undecided. Yikes!
In a way, returning home after time away is like beginning a New Year. There is an Open Space wanting to be filled with New Resolutions. Oh, the Joy of New Resolutions to those of us who are biological optimists! Past failures are merely prelude to upcoming successes. Ah, no matter that my rational mind demurs. Hope Billows Up!
So, in that vein, I am starting The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It, by Kelly McGonigal. I think this is the THIRD book on Willpower that I have bought, and by now I have a few facts in hand. For example, I know that we need to do more than just try to STOP a habit. We have to REPLACE it with something else . . . hopefully more beneficial. And I have also learned just how essential it is to ferret out the very beginning point or urge before the action.
Still, God, what I need are proven strategies! And this is what Kelly McGonigal promises — all tested by her hundreds of students in her classes. And guess what the first exercise she recommended, God? Meditating or (for me) Centering Prayer — as an exercise in Awareness. How good to merge the Spiritual and the Practical, God!
Oh Joy! New Opportunities to coordinate my Will Power, my Won’t Power and my Want Power!
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