This is a perfect time of year too recalibrate one's life

“Ten years ago, I turned my face for a moment and it became my life” ( David Whyte, 2002).

This is a startling reality for many of us. The above line is from David Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused, and it makes me smile because I’ve lived that experience.

I keenly remember the day I realized the busy, demanding life I was living wasn’t what I wanted. I had great success. It looked good from the outside. But inside, I felt drained and unhappy. I had a great career but it held little meaning for me. I’d lost touch with what really mattered, and life felt hard.

Life has a way of pulling us forward, living incidentally, in response to life. Our daily habits and routines have a way of lulling us into an unconscious repetition of action. It’s easy to lose touch with our values and intentions for living.

Expectations and demands can keep us moving forward, ever-busy in the “doingness” of life. For many years, I turned life into one big to-do list and I had a “get-er-done” mentality. For me, it felt like life was living me, instead of me living life.

I became more of a human-doing than a human-being as I lost sight of my why, the essence and meaning behind my actions. It was draining. Life felt like a command performance and it lacked quality.

I’d turned my head, lost sight of who I really was and I was pulled off course. I needed to recalibrate.

According to author Margaret Cullen, “intentions that drive your behaviour remain as the invisible but operative force that defines the quality of what you think, say and do.” She goes on to say, when we lose sight of our intentions “we can end up living our whole life on autopilot.”

I lived on auto-pilot, pulled forward by life’s demands for many years. Thankfully, I woke up.

As I stand poised to greet the upcoming holiday season, I find old habits die hard. My mind starts to fill with the many things that need attention. And then I pause.

I pause and remember the meaning behind the season for me. I come back to my values and intentions for living. I consciously choose the qualities I want my actions to reflect. Our intentions are the invisible essence that infuse what we do with meaning.

Each of us have different traditions for the holidays but when we lose touch with the meaning of the traditions, they are empty actions. When we do things out of habit or obligation, the essence is lost and we miss out on the reciprocal nature of giving, when we receive joy from our giving.

I now look at my to-do list and remember why each item is on the list, and who or what it represents. I think about the people in my life and have gratitude for my opportunity to engage with them this season. I also reflect on the meaning of our traditions.

My thinking changes from an “I-have-to” to an “I-get-to” mentality. A whole new living energy fills my being when I consider the opportunities inherent in the holiday season.

This is the perfect time to pause and consider the meaning this season holds for us. What’s on your to-do list, and why is it there? What does it represent?

Today is a perfect day to recalibrate, to consciously decide the intentions and quality of the life you are living. This creates the joy within us this time of year is intended to reflect.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.