“As life develops, satisfaction is more satisfying than life full of things, as life develops.” ~Kate Summers
Recently, an older friend was no longer able to participate in life without help and was placed in a senior care facility. From my observations, she seemed contented, her relatives confirmed that when they visited, they found her awake and alert, lying in bed or sitting in a chair, staring peacefully at her window.
One of my immediate thoughts when I reflect on my visit is that we should all be lucky enough to be able to enter the space of inner peace and satisfaction.
Hopes to be satisfied in the last few years of life are not a new concept, but a “bucket list” and the idea of achieving goals. The list of the word list was launched in 1999 and subsequently released films consolidated into popular culture.
For those who are not familiar with this expression, a bucket list includes a catalog of experiences and adventures that someone wants to have before kicking the bucket, which means death. The idea is that if someone checks all the items on their bucket list, then the final stages of their life will be tolerant because of how satisfied they are with their time.
Visiting my friends put the time I left behind in perspective. When I approached sixty, I would be the fact that it would be inevitable in twenty-five years. In the relative blink of an eye, the fact between twenty-five and sixty years has caused me to pause and think.
What do I want to do before I climbed onto me in my final stages?
My mind immediately grasped my hobbies and interests, and while I could think of many goals to work on, nothing seemed important or compelling to be my bucket list.
As an example, I love traveling and longing to see all the grand natural wonders of the world and walk in the footsteps of ancient culture, but I didn’t see myself in the last few years because I never headed to Victoria Falls or kneel down in Moai, East Island. I’m thriving in my studies, but getting a master’s degree or PhD will not satisfy me.
What about my friends? I don’t remember what she was talking about was the list of experiences she wanted to have or the tangible goal she worked to hit before the end of her life. However, as I have seen, she entered the final stages of her life with an atmosphere of inner peace and satisfaction.
Throughout our friendship, I observed my friend actively focused on seeing the glass as half and consciously focused her energy on the highlights of the event. She didn’t cultivate drama inside herself, so she knocked it back when others brought it. She cultivated love for herself and others.
When the individual agenda and the reality of creating situations triggered the need to respond in a violent way, she promptly condemned the condemnation and made as much condemnation as possible without the emotions of hatred and the thought of judgment.
And, few of her thoughts and emotions penetrated into the mud of darkness, and when she completely fell into her standard of behavior, I observed her climbing out, finding the light and moving on. She never took responsibility for what she called “little dipping sauce”.
Many times, I ask her how she can go beyond the competition in office politics or shift the focus to something hopeful and good in otherwise dull situations. Her response was always “Why waste time in unpleasant situations?”
Her words came back to me as I pondered what I wanted to experience and accomplish in the next 25 years. How can I spend time in a way that makes me satisfied in the last stage of my life?
Having achieved the goal on my goal and making sure they were not the answer to my question, so I turned around the query and asked, “In what ways did my time was wasted?”
The next day my answer was passed to me. I just hung up after finishing a conversation with my big social network members. I found our interactions to be boring, with little in common, unable to see her as a friend, and we rarely see the eyes.
In all cases, she sees herself as a victim and thrives on stress and drama. During this conversation, she said she felt forgotten because she had arranged a small dinner and she was not available.
It took me twenty minutes to try to assure her that the date I chose was not to exclude her, as she was a key member of the group and was a similar declaration. They all landed on the intimate soil of her negative self-image. Changing the date can convince her that this decision is not personal.
When I stopped the call, I heard myself say, “Okay, that’s a waste of time.”
A few days later, I found myself involved in interactions with colleagues, often shocking and frustrating. The rhythm and tone of the conversation that afternoon were particularly aroused. Once at home, even if my colleagues are far from interacting with me over the past few hours, just thinking about what happened that led to the beginning of my body’s fight or flight response system.
As my limbs prepare to move quickly and breathe quickly and shallowly, I hang on my body, waiting for the battle to perceive and conceive in my mind. It took me an hour to calm me down and then the sense of time wasted was obvious.
In that moment, I promise not to waste time feeding the unpleasantness caused by others and to take responsibility for the way I am excited inside myself.
After some reflection, I realized that I had ruined my inner and satisfied feeling in the following ways.
- Accept things in person
- Need to be correct
- Overreact by amplifying small problems to main problems
- I kept having invalid conversations in my mind for a long time after the real-time ended
While commitment is the initial action required to incite change, practice is the many small steps taken to consolidate habits.
Over time, I developed an exercise involving morning meditation, diary, and body consciousness.
- Meditation cultivates a calm mind, which enhances self-awareness and control over my thoughts and emotions.
- The diary made my unpleasant thoughts tangible. By making them visible, I was able to challenge their effectiveness and transfer them to the effects that helped me improve.
- Body consciousness gives way to enhanced intuition. By paying attention to the feelings in my intuition and the speed of my heart and breathing, I can quickly feel it when I move from a responsive, cooperative pattern to a reactive, combat/flying method to a person or situation.
If you are interested in developing a mindset that brings you inner peace and satisfaction, here are some tips to get started.
1. Find the right way to meditate for you.
My practice leverages mindfulness, concentration and loving ways of meditation. Mindfulness meditation can make my mind bigger and focus my mind to promote my brain’s ability to not wander, while loving meditation cultivates compassion and patience for my self-fight and the patience of others.
Here is a list of nine most common forms of meditation. Each definition can be found here.
- Mindfulness meditation
- Spiritual Meditation
- Concentrated meditation
- Exercise meditation
- Spell meditation
- Transcendental Meditation
- Progressive relaxation
- Love Meditation
- Visual Meditation
2. Write down your struggles and feelings.
My diary is a loose compilation of thoughts and the emotional reactions they trigger. By writing them down, I was able to distance myself from my thoughts and view them objectively. I was then able to explore alternative ideas and evaluate their ability to develop pleasure.
According to this article, the benefits of diary include:
- Reduce pressure
- Enhance your sense of happiness
- Distance from negative thoughts
- Ways to deal with emotions
- Find the next space
- Opportunities for self-discovery
3. Stay in touch with your body.
Whenever I feel my shoulders crawling towards my ears, breathing becomes shallow or digested, I see it as a signal to check with my brain. A quick scan reveals the thoughts and conversations that occur in the context that otherwise might not draw attention to people until they transition into action.
I achieve and maintain a mind/body connection through the combination of meditation running and intentional stretching. Both of these allow me to focus on my body and realize the areas where I am constantly nervous.
There are many other ways when I choose to run and stretch, such as:
- Yoga
- Taiji
- Qi Gong
- Solo dance
- Deliberate cleaning
Above is my choice to strengthen my commitment to ways in which I do not waste time wrapping in other people’s plays or causing unnecessary turmoil in myself.
In this way, I’m not perfect. I still grasp myself against my agenda of what I think is someone or reaction to my opinion of an offense, but I am able to quickly identify thoughts, feelings and behaviors in real time and mitigate the damage to my happiness.
When it comes to this, my only goal in my life is to cultivate inner peace and satisfaction. Along the way, connect with people like me and encourage those who are actively seeking healing, growing and living in spaces of positive and loving.
About Lynn Crocker
Lynn is a writer and coach who is passionate about empowering others with information that drives the brain and creates a more purposeful, happy and fulfilling life, one idea at a time. Lynn is an avid reader who, in addition to writing, has spent her creativity in gardening, sewing and doing Macramé. Learn more about lynn lynncrockercoaching.com.
