Keep it simple, a strategy to live lighter

Living a simple life

In this article I will show you a basic strategy to transform from feeling stuck and heavy to feel in trust with clarity and light.

What sort of person are you? Do you simplify your life or do you find it complex and difficult?

I have listened the word “complicated” one trillion times in my life, and usually the people that most use it are the ones that are more frustrated with their life, job or relationship. They will usually feel stuck and slow with hundreds of problems at the same time, no one more important than the other, everything just messy and unclear.

In the other hand people that have a lighter way of life, tend to be optimistic and solving problem oriented, they fix their attention in solutions and when there is nothing to do about something or feel uncertain on which road to take, they know how to wait and stay in silence until things get clearer.

So you may become a person that flows through life, allowing your inner creativity to show you the way through whatever obstacle and with the capacity to stay in silence to wait and listen what your inner truth is about.

Step 1: Clean up your room and mind

Before any further action we need to clean up, trash everything that is not making sense anymore in our life and make space for the new. Creativity can’t grow in a place that is full. You will not have new positive thoughts and ideas if you are full of the old ones that has kept you where you are now.

There are so many ways to do this, but the more space we leave the better. Get rid of any thought, belief, material possession, relationship, etc. that is not letting you walk the way you know you could. Or perhaps you don’t know but you wish it.

I know is hard, we have attachment to our old stuff. But take a serious decision and leave it. Perhaps in the future you will get a better one, or you may find the time to “fix it”. But the first step is to let it go.

Make a list of the things in your life that are just there using space and energy and prioritize those that need to be trashed right now.

Step 2: Embrace silence

Silence can be our best friend, although it can be difficult to remain in it. Our mind is always making noise and life is always busy, together with so many distractions such as social media, tv shows, etc. The more space and silence we can create, the more clarity and capacity to listen we will develop.

I recommend to have a daily meditation practice. Sometimes 10 minutes can make a big difference, but we need to create this habit, which may be a bit difficult. In that case I suggest to follow guided meditations or yoga classes to learn and build up the habit in us.

Another thing I recommend is to do a technology fast. Just stay one complete day without looking at your phone and TV. Shut off all electronic equipment in your home and just do some other activities like art, music or bonding with your partner, family or pets. Take care of your garden, go out to nature, sleep. Any of this activities will help you connect with your inner silence. Avoid talking to people if you are too social and extroverted. Just take a time for yourself without any distraction.

Step 3: Go into Zen Mode

Less is better. Avoid the tendency to fill up all the empty spaces and learn to see the beauty of emptiness. You will discover that as solitude, it is very enriching because the little things you have already, will become more meaningful. Also you will always have “free space” to create something new, to change and move things up. To adapt to a new lifestyle, add better habits and so on.

The more things and thoughts you have, the more energy you need to spend on them. Life can be very exhausting when you have so many activities and responsibilities to take care of. Learn to focus on the most important ones and do your best. You will discover that your capacity to be present will be improved, you will become mindful and better at anything you do. It is all about redirecting our energy to the most important activities only.

From time to time, repeat this steps to maintain your life light. Imagine you can put all your life in one bag, what would you chose? Now bring this example to your thoughts and emotions. What thoughts would you chose to keep and which other would you prefer to let go?

Cultivating a Zen mode habit is the best way to keep yourself in peace and able to enjoy life better.

How can I choose what to keep and what let go?

Make yourself this questions

  • Is this vital for me? Will I or somebody die without it?
  • Will my life change drastically if I let it? For good or bad. If good you keep it, if bad you let it.
  • Could it be replaced for something better? Can I replace it right away?
  • Do I REALLY need it? Or it is just for fun and pleasure.
  • Could I use that space for something else or even letting it empty?
  • Is this helping me get the results that I want in my life? Have the lifestyle that I wish? The performance that I want? The health that me and my family deserve?
  • How could be my life without it? How could be my life with more of this?

Send me a message if you wish to go deeper into how to get into ZEN MODE!

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Purpose

Once upon a time, there was a child, who would look into the stars and ask, why am I here? For what reason I came to live in the place I do? And this questions became an important thing to find out, so at the age of 11, I started to be interested in philosophy and different ways of understanding what was going on, why should I go to school, or why was important to do what adults where stating to be “important”. And what happened is that, I never found any answers, not until I was already an adult in my mid twenties. Even going to University, to study and deepen my knowledge in phylosophy, could not help me find any clue about life itself and my own purpose. So my decision at that moment was to drop it, and just start having all kind of experiences for which, someday, they would help me comprehend and not only understand, all that “phylosophycal knowledge”.

After some years, had a relationship break up, and also a life changing experience. One day, just as normal as any other, I took a profound and deep decision with myself. To love who I was, no matter what. To accept everything I was at that very moment, and open up to feel that life loved me as part of everything else. That day, I decided to start making decisions with my heart and with love as my number one pillar. Nothing that others could do or say about me, would matter to me anymore, and the only one that I would listen, would be myself. So that day, I learned the best truth of life, one can never love others more than how we love ourselves. So the first priority, is to understand, accept, be honest with, respect, trust, and take full responsability for oneself.

Of course, many experiences came in the form of tests, to grow into this decision, and still feel that there is a long way to go, regarding self love, but I am thankfull to all what happened in my past, because is thanks to those experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, that I am here today, writting this, and looking forward for a life full of purpose, love and freedom.

In my late twenties I was again in a critical point, this time regarding work. I felt so emty at the current job I had, and also the current lifestyle I was carrying. The only thing I knew, is that I wanted that my job, would be on the benefit of others, and not just a matter of making money, paying bills and grow old. How difficult can be, to have the life that you really want? When you are in that messy point, in which you need that job to live, but you feel empty as a dead shell, and all you do to stop that emptyness, in becoming bigger and bigger, are temporary “fun stuff”. Until one day, I realized, that even those things, are as empty as everything else I was doing.

So I started to use all the knowledge on Human Development, Leadership, Coaching, Buddhism and Shamanism, that I had been learning those years, Coached myself and received mentoring, to find the right answer.  Finding your own life purpose, can be difficult, but finding a job that you really like, has to be easier. And of course, finding both, a purpose to live and a job that you love, have almost the same answer. So I took my chances and decided to reinvent my self as a professional, and from that point forward, everything became clearer, my footsteps became stronger and the vision of a life of purpose, started to seem posible.

Then I reached another moment, in which I took another life changing decision, that would be, making physical activity (training), a priority and a fundamental pillar for my life. On that day I had a confrontation with myself, because at the same time I was thinking, that I should train more often and make it part of my lifestyle, my mind would give me all kind of crappy excuses, such as, “I have no time, I have no money, etc”. And looking at a bonfire I shut off that mind, and replied, “hey, you don’t need money to go to a park and do some squats and pushups, or run a mile. And regarding time, you just need to priorize it, organize your agenda, and do it.” I mean, you only need motivation, and there is, when i started to understand my lack of motivation towards life and my current job, and that strong desire to find a purpose. I could see with certainity, all what I needed was to make the decision and start doing it, right now, so two days later, i started and kept doing it until today (6 years later).

Thanks to training and determination, I developed skills like, self motivation, resilence, perseverance, consistency. I became more tenacious, my self-steem improved, all together with some physical changes, becoming stronger and braver. Training taught me that “fear”, is not my enemy, unless I let it, it is a teacher and a friend that shows me all those things that I could be good at, but that I just need to invest more time and more effort, because if you follow a good training program and eat healthy, you will get the results you want, the only thing you need to do, is to keep doing it, no matter what.  So the way to make fear into your ally, is by trusting who you are, what are you doing, and what you want to become, and stop making excuses.

The second good thing about all this training, is that I discovered a new passion, which is coaching and training people. For some years I always wanted to develop professionally as a Life Coach and was doing it for some time. Training and the passion for it, gave me a way to make a new carreer, this two skills, together with my tireless search for a deep meaning of life, gave me the vision I was looking for as a purpose. What if I could be able to support and help others to find themselves, find their purpose and meaning of life, be there to motivate and inspire with my own life as an example, that everything is posible, that everything we dream can be done, if we just do it. The same way, my mentors and coaches where there for me, I dreamed of becoming a human being like them, someone whom to look up and receive inspiration, human wisdom, love and caring. Be completly congruent with my own ideals, emotions and actions. I knew this was no easy task, almost like a never ending one. But one of many thoughts I had, that pushed me to do it, was that, “If i am alive, I have the chance to do it, and I just need to believe in my self and my dream, and devote to it, breath it every day, and never surrender, even if things get hard”.

If I train my self physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I can be that human being, I thrive to be, I can be my own light and show to others, that there is always a way to make things happen, that life can be fullfilling, that the job we have, can become one of purpose and hope, that like the sun shines every morning, we all can do it too. I know, that there are others like me, with the same motivation, I know that there are millions of people wandering if they can become aware, and fullfill their hopes and dreams. And for sure I know that is possible to do it, every day until our time of death, we can live our dreams.

Coach Félix Fuenzalida