The power of Focus and Choice (Part-1 of 3)

The last 20 months have been not only the most humbling months of my lifetime but also a very special time of experiencing a level of well-being beyond anything I had known before, specifically in terms of my physical health, my spirituality, my relationships, my businesses, my financials and my professional life, including here at VeruDesigns.com.  By no means is my life perfect (nor should it be), but what is true is that I’ve never felt this peaceful, satisfied and happy with my present, and this excited about the future at the same time.

 

One of the biggest pleasures I’ve experienced as a result (particularly over the last year), has been sharing some of the simple, yet life-changing ideas I’ve adopted almost 20 months ago with people I care about, and then witness their own lives pivot for the better, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in significant ways.    I’ve been thinking about sharing some of these simple yet impactful ideas with you, as I find them applicable to all aspects in life.  But every time I sat to write them down, I was overwhelmed by the thought of having to share the “source”, the event that awakened my awareness to these eternal truths, and in doing so, having to share the most private chapter of my life.   Yet here I am. I realized that omitting the source would invalidate anything I have to say, as without context, these ideas could come across as calculated, almost mathematical recipes that have nothing to do with the Soul that is really each one of us. I don’t believe that what I’m about to share is really new. The “Greats” knew it all along, and have been sharing this with us throughout the centuries, and still do. But this is my personal story on how I came to know and live these truths:

 

It was June 2010.   I got this unusual one-liner e-mail from one of the people I love most in life. Chris, my younger brother. Chris who grew up with me more as my own little baby than a younger brother, Chris who is thousands of miles away from me. “Veru, I have something to tell you. It’s important. It’s tough. Call me”. My heart was pounding like crazy and I knew instantly that something was wrong, very wrong. An hour later, I found myself curled on the floor of my office crying inconsolably, not knowing what to do, but cry like I hadn’t cried since I was a little girl. Eight hours later I was sitting on an airplane on my way to Chris. My sweet Chris.

 

In the course of a random morning, my loving and precious little brother went from having an annoying “cold” to being diagnosed with terminal lung and brain cancer. Everything changed forever that morning. I won’t go into the devastating details of what he went through for the next few months, what we went through, what it was like to be with someone you love so much 24-hours a day for 3 months, day and night, witnessing the agony, the pain taking over every single cell of his body, every second of each day, and being unable to do anything, ANYTHING to help. Nor my parent’s screams at the doctor’s office in the hospital when he said to us “He will die, there is nothing we can do”. And yet, seeing him fighting for his life with all he had, only to see him loose that battle, in my arms, in front of my very own eyes.

It’s been 1 year, 8 months and 21 days since Chris’s death. The memory of those events will never cease to be painful and bring tears to my eyes even as I write this just now.  But, what I do want to share with you is the GIFT, the priceless gift that came to my family, to my parents, to my marriage, to myself from what most would deem a terrible event, and the amazing impact it has had in everything I am, have, do, including here at VeruDesigns.com.

 

What Gift? The Gift of regaining my freedom, my connection with my inner power and with the unconditional love that I’m capable of giving and receiving… How? By understanding that I have the POWER of focus and choice, and therefore the power of making my life (any aspect of it) the exhilarating adventure that it is meant to be. Let me break this down into the more specifics believes I’ve come to embrace:

 

1. Every event/situation in life, has “two potentials”

“Every event has an “equal” potential of becoming a blessing or a curse, to have a positive or negative impact in our life; and the potential that will be actualized is determined by our FOCUS.”

 

We’ve come to believe that the “events” themselves determine what the impact will be in our life. If the event is deemed “good” then good things will happen. If the event is deemed “bad”, then bad things will happen. And yet, we have countless stories of people who defy this rule every day by coming out of terrible situations better than ever.  The event itself doesn’t make life better or worse, the event only determines “how big” the gift or the curse will be, but nothing else.

 

How is it that your focus drives what will happen? Well, your focus decides what you “think” about in regards to the event. These thoughts determine how you “feel” about it, and your feelings drive the ACTIONS that you will take as a result, and in doing so, it determines which potential becomes real. Again, NOT the event “itself” as we’ve come to believe.

 

Whether the event you are living now is being unemployed, or being stuck/unhappy with your job, o whatever it might be, the question is – which potential are YOU focusing on? Are you using an event in your life as an “excuse” to think, feel and act from a perspective of fear and acceptance? Or from a point of power and opportunity?

To clarify this point. Let’s move quickly to my second truth.

 

2. We focus (and live) either by ” default” or by choice:

“Whether you know it or not, once an uncontrollable event happens in life, we have the power of CHOICE. The power of CHOOSING what we focus on: The positive or negative potential that all events have. The question is, are you exercising this choice?”

 

Most of us focus “by default” on the event’s potential that we are “trained” to perceive, the potential that comes natural, automatically to us. And how not to? Being laid-off, or not being fairly compensated, or seeing/reading only bad news about the job market, the economy, are events that naturally don’t feel good. But what happens when we focus by default?

a)    Thought: It starts with one bad thought that invites more like-minded thoughts. Our brain cells are fabulous at reinforcing believes by re-connecting and strengthening data that further supports the “root” thought you are thinking. In a matter of a few minutes, you go from having a bad thought, to KNOWING that it will be bad for you.

b)    Emotion: With every new thought that your brain is easily inviting and growing in your mind, your emotions respond in perfect synchronicity. You can go from shocked or worried, to absolutely terrified and even helpless in a matter of minutes.  The longer these thoughts and emotions reside inside of you, the more they grow and build a solid structure of what is now a BELIEF that the event is bad and can only bring more badness to you.

c)    Action: Once the belief is pretty established, your brain cells begin filtering all the data it receives, and allows only those bits of data that match the root thought to come into your consciousness. In other words, the ACTIONS that you will take can only be ones that are a response to thoughts and feelings of fear, disappointment, helplessness, etc. You will have no access to solution-oriented ideas for actions, because no matter how many great ideas, opportunities, coincidences come your way, your body is not able to perceive those. This is when (through your actions); you ACTUALIZE the negative potential of the event in your life, and your nightmares become real.

 

The worst consequence of actualizing the ‘negative’ potential of an event, is that it strengthens the believe that our life is subject to external events that we have no control over, and that we are subject to the “lucky” factor. Ultimately, it reinforces fear of “change”.  What is interesting is that change is in our DNA. Ben Franklyn said wisely “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.”  Change precedes growth and expansion, and is the key ingredient to the survival of our species.

 

Of all events, only those we deem “negative” bring the priceless gift of freedom:  It’s easy to actualize the positive potential of an event that we already BELIEVE “with ease” to be good for us. The thoughts, feelings and actions that arise automatically don’t require making a choice, especially a choice that may contradict other people’s perceptions and believes. As much as we enjoy the effects of “good events”, this ‘ease’ has atrophied our muscle of CHOICE in life. I mean “choice” in the real sense of the word. Choosing who we want to become, what we really want to do, what we believe to be possible. The “ease” that comes with focusing “by default” is at the root of our limiting believes.

 

When we focus by ‘default’, what we’re really doing is assimilating the focus that “other people” (our friends, our society, the media) currently have about the event. The more we assimilate our their “focus”, we make these external people (who have nothing to do with the unique YOU that is you), your Compass in life, a compass you cannot control. This is when we “separate” ourselves from our own inner-power, our power of CHOICE.

 

Strangely, events deemed as “tragic” or “bad” are the only ones that can re-connect us with our inner-self. They require choosing to think something different from what others think about the same event. Because to overcome a tragic event we have NO option but CHOOSE to focus on the possibilities, the opportunities, the lessons, the growth, the inner strength, the new questions and answers and the actions to overcome it. Making a CHOICE implies choosing your own thoughts, which is where your inner power lies, and THAT my friends is when we become free people for the first time.  And isn’t this the greatest gift in life?

Illness and death are arguably some of the most difficult events any human being can face. Having experienced both, I pondered this question every day for the last 23 months, with a particular high intensity during the last 3 months of Chris’s physical life and the first year after his passing.  What am I going to focus on when I think of Chris, what I’m going to focus on when I think of death, its inevitability and my life? The pain was indisputably strong, raw and very much there, especially while he was sick and after his passing. And yet I had a choice: I could’ve “thought” and pondered for a long time the idea of never seeing him again in my lifetime, and let this thought invite another one even more hurtful with no end to this cycle.

 

I knew however that Chris would’ve HATED to see me use him as my excuse to die slowly every day. He wanted me to be happy. And while he was still alive, he needed my strength.  I made a decision of NEVER let the pain stay in my heart for long. It wasn’t easy at the beginning, but I focused my mind on the “good times”, the “love”, his “smile”, his awesome jokes and sense of humor, his brilliance and intellect, his love of soccer, sports in general, his infatuation with books and movies. I consciously focused on the priceless memories we build together, and I focused on who-he-is-right-now. I later focused on what would make him and ME happy about our lives. What was I not living, not doing yet that I desired? Today, 20 months after he left his physical body, my automatic thoughts of Chris come easily in a positive way. I can say today with 100% honesty, that I smile most every time I think of him . . . which is still many times, every single day.

 

Our life, careers and bodies are a perfect mirror of the choices of our focus:

How can we know how much we’ve exercised our power of choosing our what we focus on? Just look at your own life, your career, your financials, your relationships, and your health. You’ll confirm right away that those aspects of your life that are going well, count with your natural/exercised expectation, pre-disposition towards thinking, feeling and acting in a positive way. At the same time those aspects in life where you feel vulnerable, notice how much anxiety, fear, nervousness arises just thinking of them. If your SAP career falls within this category, ask yourself: What has been my predominant expectation, my focus anytime an event is about to unfold? Then ask yourself: As unlikely as I may believe this to be, what opportunities could come from this? What adjustments, what changes could I benefit from? …. All it takes is stop, think and decide.

 

I invite you to read Part 2 (of this 3-part blog entry) next week, where I’ll share some of the critical believes that have changed my approach in my relationships and business in general.