Sorry I missed a post last week guys… life got busy and writing a post wasn’t in the cards. But, I have some REALLY cool things for you that I’m working on that have been taking up all my time and I can’t wait to share them… soon!

Until then, I’m going to wrap up my “In the Pursuit of Happiness” series. Like most things in my life, I dove into this series not knowing the outcome – just passionate about doing it and sharing it. Writing from my heart and my personal experience. Today, as I was riding along winding highway 70 as Marcus drove us out of the mountains, this final post hit me. I’ve talked about Joy and Passion, Community and Laughter, Love Yourself and Pick Your Boxes. And today I talk about personal reality. This post comes from my thoughts on two resources I’ve recently encountered which I will reference and explain below.

In the truck today, we listened to Sean Croxton podcast “The Quote of the Day Show” episode 240 with Dr. Joe Dispenza. In this short podcast he said something that hit home… “Your personality creates your personal reality.” BOOM! Read that again and this time really read it. “Your personality creates your personal reality.”

Now, I would not call myself a “Pollyanna” personality where everything is puppies and rainbows, but I do try to find the positive in things. With that said, I understand sometimes it’s really frickin’ hard and almost impossible. In my work, I have had the pleasure of interacting with 100’s of people in intimate settings (small group or one-on-one). As a personal trainer, I get to help people get stronger and more physically fit, but more often than not, my job is about 90% psychological and 10% physical. I get to help people work through some of the crap they have going on in their life. It ranges from emotions involved with food to overcoming a fight with a loved one to actually feeling suicidal.

As Dr. Dispenza talks about, I see a pattern in some of the people I work with that no matter what it is, their first response is negative. They have created a reality of hate and pity and sadness and negativity. Often times we work through it and they see the upside, but that initial negativity manifests in their personality and is portrayed throughout their thoughts, feelings and actions. Whether through my influence, another outside source or some combination, I’ve also seen a lot of these people transform their initial thoughts into positive ones. Almost without fail, their mood improves, their relationships improve, their actions improve, their life improves.

I’m not trying to point my clients out. I see it in my friends, my family and often times in myself too. I use my clients, because that is my work. In fact, most people love to talk about bad things… we’re never happy with the weather, the news is full of destruction and our neighbors lawn looks better than ours.  It’s an ugly pattern and really hard to get out of.

However, I love Dr. Dispenza take on this. He talks about rather than living in the moment and being present, to instead see your desired future reality…really see it and feel it and believe it. When our brain starts to make these connections, it actually starts to change the way our mind works. He also says, “To truly change is to think greater than your environment.” Again, chew on that… “To truly change is to think greater than your environment.” If you’re trying to change your reality but staying with your current personality that has created your current personal reality, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Neuroscience says “it IS possible to believe in a future that you can’t see with your senses but you’ve thought about enough times in your mind that your brain is literally changed to look like the event has already happened.” If you want to create a new personality, on a fundamental level you will have to change your thoughts, behaviors/habits and emotions.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect you to read that, agree and whole-heartedly dive into a new and changed you. It’s really scary to change. It’s scary to want to change but it’s even scarier to actually do it. Brene Brown’s book “Braving the Wilderness” is my other resource I pulled from for my final thoughts on happiness and ties it all back together where I stared this series…with joy.

This particular piece I took from her talks about courage. To be courageous, you have to be vulnerable. And she thinks that the most vulnerable emotion we experience is joy. We are afraid that if we experience it, we will get let down by disaster or disappointment. So, we protect ourselves from experiencing pure joy by seeing what could wrong. For example, rather than being fully excited about your trip to Europe, you fear the plane going down on the way. Or rather than experience the joy of watching your child play on the varsity football team, you’re afraid he/she is going to get hurt. What does this sound like? The same pattern as I was talking about above. We get in a pattern of negativity to protect ourselves from the possibility of pure joy… of pure happiness.

Brene talks about to truly combat this problem, we have to have gratitude. She sees the people that fully embrace joy practice gratitude. To express gratitude and to experience joy, you have to be brave. Be brave to face that you may get let down or get hurt, and it’s okay. To be brave you must be vulnerable. To be vulnerable, many of us must change our personalities. We have to let others in. We have to have a strong back and soft front. Stand strong with a sturdy spine and know who we are (or who we want to be) and let others in along the way.

Oh man… did I lose you? I sure hope not. I just came back from a great weekend in the mountains, my happy place. And every time I do, I come back a better person. And so, this is what you get from me today!

So how in the world does this long-winded blog post relate to my pursuit of happiness? In every way! I am making a pact with myself today to start changing the part of my personality that wants to focus on the fear of failure, the component that I know holds me back from living my desired personal reality. To be more vulnerable. To know who I am and who I want to be. To believe that I am already there. Rather than saying “I hope” or “I wish”, I am going to start saying “I am” or “It is”.  Make your dreams, your joy, your happiness a reality by changing the personality that prevents you from reaching your true potential.

Favorite Quote:

Gonna say it again… “Your personality creates your personal reality” ~Dr. Joe Dispenza

Favorite Exercise:

More mobility work for you guys.  Moving to anterior thigh.

Favorite Recipe:

Slow Cooker Beef Stew (I didn’t take a picture because apparently I ate it too fast! Ha!)

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs beef stew meat
• 2 large Japanese yams
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 3 large carrots sliced (½ inch thick)
• 2 zucchini’s sliced (½ inch thick)
• 4 cups beef broth (see below for directions to make homemade!)
• Sea salt, black pepper, oregano, garlic powder to taste

Directions:

1. Put meat in slow cooker and add all veggies on top
2. Pour in broth
3. Add spices
4. Cook on low for 8 hours

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