Week 4 - Conscious Living - When it Doesn’t Go The Way We Want…. Inevitably

C. and it's been quite a week. I was talking to a friend, 12 step friend, he's got a new son and I was just talking to him and he's like, man, you know, it can be tough. It can be tough to have a big life. I feel like sometimes I just want to blow it all up. And I was like, yeah, you know, when we're in our addiction, life is small and it can be really like scary and overwhelming to have a big life, but it's so much better and I'm grateful for my big life. The topic is, what do we do when it doesn't go our way?

And what, what is it like, what's not going our way? Right. So, sorry, I have a little itch on my nose and it was going to bug me if I didn't itch it. So there's several things that kind of apply for me just in this past week. As far as when it doesn't go your way, when life doesn't go your way, when your relationship doesn't go your way, when work doesn't go your way, when the outcomes don go the way you think they're supposed to go. I'll give you a perfect example. I was doing a, doing a conference yesterday in Palm Springs with a friend and I get all set up, get my PowerPoint, and I'm like 10 minutes, 15 minutes into the PowerPoint and I'm like, this isn't the right PowerPoint, but it was the right title.

So I do something I've never done. I stopped in the middle and I said, this isn't the PowerPoint. I'm not going to give you all what you brought me here for if I don't have the other PowerPoint. Now some people would say, well, don't be so reliant on PowerPoint. Well, and there's some truth to that, but there were specifics and stuff. I don't memorize my presentations. And so it was more just this idea of like, okay, so what do you do? Like in the middle of a talk, do you stop? Do you do well? So what we did in the quick thinking on the MC's part was to call up one of the sponsors and have them talk while I'm looking for my other presentation, which I can't find anywhere.

I found it later that day and it was buried in some weird drive or file. I don't even know how it got there. In many ways, that doesn't matter. However, I did find another. Another file, and it did have a title similar to the one to the talk that I was doing. I didn't have time to review it. It had already taken about two minutes. And the sponsors were done. I was done getting ready, and I just did the presentation. Now, to me, that's a pivot. That's a major pivot. And a lot of people came up to me and, like, applauded.

How well I handled that situation has never happened to me in all the years that I've been presenting. Never has it happened that I didn't have the right presentation. It definitely was not going my way, but it's kind of like. It reminds me of the time, gosh, Adele, of all people, right? Adele, of all people. I think it was at the Grammys. It was. I'm pretty sure it was the Grammys. She starts singing, and she knows she's off key. And if you know anything about singing, it's really hard. Like, if you start a song and you're off key, it's really hard to just get right back into the right key to drop down, because it's just difficult.

So she stops. On live tv, she stops and restarts. In her mind, she had options. I could sing off key and continue this song and try to get on key as best I can. And who knows how that's gonna work? Or I can do what I know is gonna work, even though it may not make me look as good as Adele should look. And I absolutely loved that she did that. She stopped. She restarted. The band knew she was off key. They did it again, and it was amazing. It was an amazing performance. Those are the things that we learned to do.

Life is never going to go our way, ever. It may feel like it is. It may seem like it is. We may be like, oh, yeah, I got this, I got this, I got this. But it will never continue. There will always be the time where we get a curve ball thrown at us, where there's a bun, where there's something that gets in the way of what I think, how I think things are supposed to go. And there are multiple examples just from this week that I can give where I had to. And this, again, this is, like, from the perspective of, like, what is conscious living?

Conscious living is, like. It's being able to let go. It's being willing to lose some face, right? In order possibly to do it even better. It's letting go of what other people think, right? It's. It's knowing that I can put My best foot forward, but I don't necessarily know where that's going to lead. And I used to stress out so much. I mean, in the past, something like yesterday happening, I would have. I would have. Even if I had saved it, however I did, whether it was the way I did yesterday or some other way, even if I had done that, I would have gone into this massive shame spiral about all that.

It just didn't happen. After my talk, I knew I was still, like, a little off. I just went outside, sat by myself, took some deep breaths, and got grounded, because that's what I've been taught to do when life throws the curves. Well, now, that's a minor curveball in the grand scheme of things. What happens when we get the call that our partner had a heart attack, or there's been a car accident, or we've lost our job, or the big contract has been canceled, or all of that? There's a great saying in recovery that I absolutely love.

God says, either yes, not now, or maybe those are always the answers. Yes, not now, sorry, or I've got something better for you. Yes, not now, or I've got something better for you. And that's. That's the perspective that we can take, you know, that it's not life saying, oh, things are not going the way I want. This is not happening the way I thought it was supposed to or the way I even thought it was. Like I've been out of touch with reality. It's like, that's a beautiful opportunity to step back, take a deep breath, and say, okay, where am I supposed to go?

What's next? What do I need? What's really important here? That's all from letting go. That's all from pausing. That's all from finding the grace to live life with a loose garment. That's my take. So wishing you all a very wonderful weekend and see you next week.