What You Do Shapes Your World

Whatever you do during the day defines and further cements your reality. 

Therefore, proceed consciously! 

If your life is the way you want, then keep doing, saying, and thinking the same way.  If not, then it’s time for you to make some changes, because you are the creator of your life.  Many go through their day on auto-pilot, and live it and treat it pretty much the same as yesterday.  This ongoing cycle of thoughtlessness and disconnected action leads to a life of disillusion and frustration.

Take some time to consciously decide how you want your life to be, what you want to be doing, how you want your relationships to be, etc.  Define these in as much detail as possible.  Once you’ve got this information spelled out, adjust your day by taking new actions, thinking new thoughts, and saying things differently - all to support what you want to create.  It’s really not difficult.  It does however, require you to behave differently. 

A lot of us don’t realize how powerful, creative, and vibrant we are.  When you’re ready to make a change –

·         Clearly define the change you want

·         Start telling a different story

·         Reinforce this new story with new actions, thoughts, and routines. 

In the don Juan book series, this is referred to as “not-doing”.  Basically, not-doing is breaking your patterns and habits to break your habitual thoughts and create new experiences. 

Don Juan used to have his students walk backward to alter their perception of the world.  Instead of the world you perceive coming at you, when you walk backward it’s now receding from you.  This creates a subtle, yet powerful change in your visual perception.  When doing this, the most recent objects in your field of vision are no longer coming toward you.  They’re now receding away from you.  Instead of subconsciously seeing where your next step will be, you are now moving without visual clues of what lies ahead.  It’s a great exercise to expand and refine your other senses.

 This is only recommended in an open and safe area with someone to keep an eye on you to prevent harm.  This is an excellent way to create new neural pathways and perceptions. 

The importance of doing these drills isn’t to refine your technique to walk backward.  The benefit is in creating new neural pathways that allow you to process information differently.  Your awareness and mental flexibility increase.  The mental stories you tell yourself throughout the day will start to change.  These mental stories, as is now starting to be scientifically prove, have incredible power in determining how we live our lives, what we do, and ultimately accomplish.

After reading this book, I decided to expand my awareness.  I was enticed by the backward walking drill, so I modified it to backing into my garage when parking my vehicle at home.  At first, this was an exciting and challenging procedure.  With a little practice I got better and better at doing this.  I can now back into an extremely tight space with the best of them.  😊

In doing this I learned to process information in a different way.  I had to develop new neural pathways, new ways of processing the input, and new motor skills to control my vehicle wheels while looking in the mirror and backing up.  None of this sounds particularly beneficial, but in a holistic sense it is extremely useful.  I now know that I can back up my truck in tight quarters, I can easily change my habits, I can learn new things, I can process information in reverse, and I can quickly learn new skills.  This is the new story I told myself.  I have broadened my capabilities.  I have a more flexible approach to solving problems.  I am creative.