you kept getting the same results, over and over and over and over again.
So we get to cocreate our reality with the potentiality of all things through our decisions and our actions. And we get to see the deep truth in the axiom, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
With a one-degree shift in your internal navigation, suddenly you can do things like:
• complete the projects that are dear to your heart
• change your relationship with your body and improve your physical health
• double your income (this is not a far-fetched marketing claim: I have actually done this several times, and so have several of my clients)
• transform your relationships with people who are important to you
• get your work out in the world
• transcend your visibility issues
• overcome a bad past or old stories
Change doesn’t have to take hours of arduous work, and you don’t have to wait to start. Think of it this way: you cannot lose thirty pounds all at once right now. But you can start behaving like someone who is thirty pounds thinner right now. You can eat what that thinner person eats and you can treat yourself the way you would if you had already met that goal. Similarly, you cannot build a successful business right now, but you can start behaving like a successful businessperson and start taking the daily steps to get there. Step by step you can go leaps and bounds.
Those little shifts will feel radical. Even those one-degree shifts will feel like the world is tilting off its axis, because for you, it is. But if you can keep your sea legs — if you can hang on through the temporary discomfort of change — you will see results.
Step by step you can go leaps and bounds.
Maybe you will develop the ability to look in the mirror and notice what looks beautiful about you instead of automatically reciting the litany of things you think are wrong with you. Maybe you’ll find you can enjoy a conversation with somebody that you haven’t talked to in a long time. Maybe you will find it easier to be more intimate, to be more open, to be more present. I don’t know how this is going to unfold for you. But I guarantee you that if you do the work, if you’re willing to endure the super-uncomfortable feeling that your world is changing, you’ll see some wonderful changes in your life.
LITTLE CHANGES ACTION STEP: If you were going to allow yourself to make a one-degree shift today, what would that be? Would you choose to be 1 percent more courageous? More joyful? More outspoken? More kind? Pick a word that you would like to be able to say describes you, and now — right now — find a way to be 1 percent more that way.
2.
YOU USUALLY HEAR THE TERM self-centered meant as a criticism. But, thanks to the hub-and-spokes image, whenever I hear it, I think, “Yes. I am in the center of myself. My self is my center.”
When you are centered in yourself, you are the still center around which the wheel of your life spins. The circumstances of your life are the outer rim of the wheel. You want to stay in the middle, but it’s all too easy to let yourself get pulled out on the edge of the wheel so that as events happen, you end up spinning along with them. You get tumbled.
Learning how to stay in the center of yourself means developing some discipline so that you aren’t pulled off-center by other people’s opinions, bad news, or success. When you really get practiced at staying right in the center of you, things may spin around you, but you do not spin, you stay grounded and true to yourself.
You don’t have to let your circumstances determine your happiness anymore. You can stay in the center of your self and be able to feel the joy of your life no matter what is happening on the outside.
So let’s put you in the center of your life.
I recommend that you access the free audio version of this short meditation at www.StartRightWhereYouAre.com, because I think you’ll find it easier to visualize the concepts if you listen to me say it rather than reading it silently. You could also make a recording of yourself reading it and play it back with your eyes closed.
And if you’re the kind of person who avoids meditation, no worries — I invite you to try only the simple, effective breathing pattern. I have been doing this breathing pattern for over twenty years, and it has helped me through panic attacks, boring sermons, bumpy airplane rides, Los Angeles traffic, audition jitters, and insomnia. It’s a miracle worker.
Here’s the pattern:
Inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of seven, exhale for a count of eight.
That’s it. 4:7:8.
You can just do it once and get a nice effect, although I usually like to do it three times. You can also keep going and repeat the cycle as many times as you like. Once, at a party, I stayed up until 5 AM, sitting on the couch, counting out this breathing pattern with a friend who was having a bad experience on some psychotropic drugs. She said later that the breathing kept her from “completely freaking the freak out.” So, while I’m not making any medical claims here, it’s good for defreaking.
I like this breathing cycle because it is so simple, and because the counting pattern is just unusual enough to distract me from my thinking. It returns me to my center.
Here’s the text of the meditation to read, read aloud, or download as audio:
If you’re somewhere where you can close your eyes, go ahead and close your eyes. If you can’t or don’t want to close your eyes, just soften your gaze a little bit. Let things go just a little blurry. Soften your gaze, soften your heart. And now feel the very center of you. Feel the energy in the center of yourself like it’s the core of something, like the heart of a tree — the heartwood. Focus on that energy in the center of you. And let that center beam be really clear and strong. And let everything else relax around it. So your hands can relax. Your feet can relax. Your belly can relax. The back of your neck, your jaw, your tongue, your heart, your joints, your mind, your judgment. Feel that beaming energy drop down into the earth so you are connected to the living planet. And feel it extend upward out the top of your head so you are connected to the sky above.
Now imagine that the beam is illuminated. Imagine that it glows. See if you can turn an imaginary rheostat to make it glow more brightly. Experiment with the color, intensity, and size of your illuminated center beam.
And just staying in the center of yourself, we’re going to inhale, two, three, four; hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven; exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Inhale, two, three, four; hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven; exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Inhale, two, three, four; hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven; exhale, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Thank you. Thank you for doing that with me.
There are several versions of this meditation, designed to support you as you move through the material in this book. Feel
