Setting things down part three

 Setting  Things Down Part III

In the previous section (dedicated to John R.)  it was important (for me anyway)  to explore  what  questions for the day  his death and my interactions  with him would  have.

This post  in some ways extends  that one and in another way departs from it.  I did leave it up  as the front page of the blog for a couple  extra  days out of respect and due to the fact  I wasn’t  quite done processing  some of the lessons from my experiences with  John.  I want to thank everyone  who sent a comment  my way either  through the blog or  the Facebook link.  These comments were  both  thoughtful and food for thought.  

Okay  time to focus on “setting  things down”…The term ghosts  is what i use to label all the  residual emotions and thoughts  you carry  around  as you experience every day.  I am convinced  that it is hard and necessary  to set some of these ghosts down intentionally  when possible.   My technique  is to meditate/pray first thing in the morning and form three questions  that I will  concentrate  on the day no more no less… some other questions naturally flow in and out, however, I try to stick  to this  and  stick to another  rule of three that I am going to explain right  now.  I believe in planning—-however have  you noticed that universe doesn’t  always seem to have a copy of your master plan?  So I used to  plan about three  years  in advance when I “valued”  things… and by that  I mean evaluated things because  of course  to see if my plan was working I needed to judge my progress (and  how everyone else  in the universe was assisting  my effort or not).  

Well after experiencing  some fairly significant  events in life (we almost  all get one or two of these to  chew on) I moved my  three years of thinking ahead to about 18 months.   I found that  this aligned pretty well with  my workplace planning cycle too…and maybe that’s still okay for that environment.  However then life  convinced  me that 18 months wasn’t practical  either.  I had too many variables, misjudged the level of control I though  I had, and quite frankly increased my level of frustration  by thinking the universe  would even  align with areasonable 18 month plan?  

Well skipping to the conclusion…. my time frame now is  about three hours at a time.  Oh sure I have the daily questions  and  they help, however,  I am finding  worrying too much  that is more than a couple hours out  (at least emotionally) is just a prelude to  making useless assumptions and creating  expectations  that are distractions  to actually experiencing  what is going  on right now.  

So how does this  tie together?  Well I spend about  three minutes every three hours reframing  what experiences  or lessons (ghosts ) might be needed  for the next three  hours and  set the rest down.   I also  now visualizing  the world creating some answers  for me in the next  three hours so that I don’t  need to carry around every   ghost  forward if I’m not  95%  it will be helpful.  In other  words  I will get some gifts in the next three hours that will allow  me to  move forward or maybe more  important allow me to pay attention  got what is happening right  now.   

So here;s how I will wrap this up..

Start the day with  3 questions  and if tmorrow  or the next day  you have  them  again it’s okay..however three days is enough and if the questions are still there  consult  all your ghosts (memories of people and things that have happened  to  address these questions  one last time… at that point thank the ghosts for all the wisdom they  have provided… and if they aren’t providing  any more wisdom… I simply visualize  setting them  down or setting them free.   That removes  the burden of  carrying  every  mistake  you have ever  made forward  every day and it also  allows you to have some faith and expectation that the answer doesn’t lie behind …it lies ahead.  

Next I put my  time into  much smaller  windows because this limits the way  expectations  create assumptions that get in the way of actually experiencing  things for what they are.  I use  a three hour  window with  a three minute reflection and refocus  space  overtime in that three  minutes.  

For me this has helped  focus and  increased optimism… 

So that’s what I have to say about  setting things down.  

Now Saturday andSunday look for  posts that are far “lighter”  than this … because it is time for  my brain to go there.

again thanks for  all the  great comments… and for reading along…  Some day soon I’m going to take  “the best of this blog and put  them into a book form…(probably electronic and digital  so I can include  some music… etc.. So the blog might go to two  fresh  posts a week  for a bit starting  after Easter.  

Again  thanks for being part  of my journey and more soon… but  not in the next three hours…..LOL  

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