(ThyBlackMan.com) Recently I celebrated my fifty-third birthday and, as is my custom, took a little time alone to reflect on my goals for the coming year. This year I decided to make a list of spiritual nuggets that I have attempted to apply to my life and to my coaching philosophy. The following four takeaways stem from my desire to become a better person and to see others grow and prosper as well.
It requires much to hone an introspective life, a life that attempts to see the beauty amidst the not so beautiful. Here are four takeaways to how one may acquire such a perspective.
Accept Regrets. Don’t Run from them.
Pop psychology tells us to live life with no regrets. While there is some degree of truth to this popular saying, it misses a very salient point: our regrets are nothing more than ownership of missed opportunities, of wishing things had turned out differently. The bigger lesson, though, is the opportunity to extract meaning or positive lessons from those instances.
The tendency is to move from one experience to another without gleaning or meaning lessons. We learn so much from our mistakes.
I like how Henry David Thoreau summed it up: Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
Appreciate Quiet
When was the last time you sat in a room alone without the blaring of a television, the constant alerts from your cell phone or the interruptions of your children or loved ones? That’s too long! There is so much power and peacefulness in repose; so much expulsion of the harried feelings and emotions we’ve built up throughout the day when you sit in solitude.
Quiet time is the final frontier of self-awareness.
Anne Frank writes, The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only the does one feel that all is as it should be.
Give People Room to be Their Imperfect Selves
In our world of control and conquer, too often we find ourselves perplexed when we discover that the people or circumstances we wanted so badly to predict outcomes for end up leaving us in dire frustration. That’s usually due to our incessant need for perfection in others that we so often see missing in ourselves. Imperfect people inhabit an imperfect world. Or, in the words of Joyce Meyer, We live in an imperfect world, and imperfect people surround us every day.
Every Stranger is On a Journey
We live in an unfriendly society. Each day our senses are bombarded with news of murder and mayhem, a lot of it committed by people who didn’t even know the persons they harmed. It’s tempting to refrain from putting ourselves on the limb by speaking or listening to a complete stranger.
From childhood, we were warned about the elements of ‘stranger danger’. We need a new paradigm. We need a return to the words of William Butler Yeats, There are no strangers here, only friends you haven’t yet met.
Take a few moments and begin a conversation with a stranger. Even they have a story to tell and a nugget to share.
It is ours to create an introspective life.
Staff Writer; W. Eric Croomes
This talented brother is a holistic lifestyle exercise expert and founder and executive coach of Infinite Strategies LLC, a multi-level coaching firm that develops and executes strategies for fitness training, youth achievement and lifestyle management. Eric is an author, fitness professional, holistic life coach and motivational speaker.
In October 2015, Eric released Life’s A Gym: Seven Fitness Principles to Get the Best of Both, which shows readers how to use exercise to attract a feeling of wellness, success and freedom (Infinite Strategies Coaching LLC, 2015) – http://www.infinitestrategiescoaching.com.
