Living Intentionally, Consciously, Deliberately

I’m about to repeat myself.

I say this stuff often.

The weekly Shiny Butter emails are full of this (and more).

It’s important.

It’s advice. It’s a reminder. It’s self-protective. It’s productive.

It’s healthy.

Taking care of mind, body, soul

When we take care of ourself, we give our best to those around us.

When we’re at our best with those around us, we’re at our best for the world…

Those around us benefit. Our community benefits. Society benefits. The world benefits. Life itself benefits.

By “at our best,” I don’t mean “putting our best face forward” or dressing up or making ourselves presentable.

I’m talking about living consciously. On purpose.

I’m talking about taking care of mind, body, and soul.

Be choosy, very choosy

Take the controls in your life.

Be choosy about what you ingest. Be choosy about what you digest.

Be choosy about what goes into and how you handle your body, mind, and soul.

We can’t control everything, but we can control a lot more than we’ve been led to believe. A whole lot more…

Enough to make a big—very, very big—difference in our life.

Be pro-active, not re-active.

Choose what you want to feed your body, mind, and soul.

Step to the other side of the fear machine of media—print, radio, TV, online, all of it.

You are under absolutely zero obligation to be afraid.

Reject fear as a tool for someone’s power over you

Reject fear as a necessity, as a way of life, as a force beyond your control.

Reject fear as a tool for power.

Recognize the pornographic nature of fear as a tool for someone’s power over you—and all humans:

Fear is addictive.

Fear keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Fear keeps you coming back for more.

Fear pumps you with dopamine, just like a drug.

Choose to be in control.

Choose what gets in front of your face.

Choose what goes into your mind.

Recognize your thoughts, choose your response

Whether something is within or outside of your control, respond deliberately: Recognize your thoughts, choose your response.

You don’t have to watch the news, nor do you have to read it or listen to it, or even be interested in it.

You don’t have to watch political commercials, pharmaceutical commercials, manufactured (non)food commercials, bucket-food corporate restaurant commercials, or anything at all that depends on a fear-reaction or emptiness-reaction from you.

Identify what matters to you, not what’s supposed to matter to you according to news or politics or society or tradition or convention or family.

Quiet the incoming, get a grip on the outgoing

Quiet the incoming: stimulation, information, entertainment, distraction, confusion, overwhelm, fear and hatred.

Get a grip on the outgoing: your responses, your reactions, your words, your behavior.

Recognize what’s influenced you, recognize what’s shaped you, recognize what drives your thoughts and behavior from the past and in the right-now.

Live intentionally, consciously, deliberately.

Choose your life.

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