Hello, friends, welcome to my website and blog. It is my intention to use this blog space for the purpose of providing inspiring nuggets to stimulate your thinking, to question your programming and perceptions of life, and to broaden and expand your understanding of yourself and your relationships.
It’s time for each of us to wake up and examine who we have thought ourselves to be and what our relationships with life have been and why. It’s time to expand upon any absolute, myopic thinking we may have been holding. It’s time to ask ourselves, what limitations do we see stopping us from reaching our goals or at least stepping into our ‘next’. Time to examine what we have been allowing and accepting into our lives that doesn’t serve us, or perhaps what we have not been willing to accept and align ourselves with that might. What beliefs are we in allegiance to and why, and which ones still serve us and which ones no longer do. And how healthy and in balance are all of our different relationships- work, family, friends, significant other, or even with ourselves.…. and what can we do to bring more understanding and balance to each of these.
In these very intense times, a variety of issues are coming up for all of us. Many of us are finding ourselves in overwhelm and reaction, facing issues and decisions that we are not sure we are equipped to handle and may not even want to handle. It’s good to remember in these times that we are not alone. None of us need feel alone, ever. Be willing to open yourself to more. We are here for each other. There is always someone in our life that we can turn to- a friend, a loved one, a spiritual leader, someone who will listen and understand and offer useful suggestions or another perspective on a situation. I am one of those persons. And I am here for you. Call on me and we will explore the possibilities together.
For now, I’m reposting a short article I wrote a while back for a local magazine. Hope you enjoy it.
A LIFE IN LIVING COLOR
By Boni Light
How do you live your life . . . in Black & White or in Living Color? Let’s take a look, for a moment, at living your life in Black & White. Living your life in Black & White is safe. You never willingly venture out beyond the edge of your Safety-comfort Zone. No, that would be too scary, too uncomfortable, too unfamiliar, too risky, too illogical. You know that place, just out past where you know what you’re doing, where things are familiar and hopefully controllable. That place where things get scarier the closer you get to actually participating with something new or different. Better to stay with what’s known, what’s predictable, what’s consistent, what’s perceived as the right way. Have I mentioned ‘Safe’? What’s safe and known has a way of becoming boring, losing all passion, becoming humdrum and without value. These are all aspects of a Black & White life, safe, with no investment or risk involved, no new creations, and very little value. A Black & White life, without depth, skims across the surface of your life possibilities, never daring to drink deeply, delving down into unknown, uncharted territory full of exciting, life-expanding potential ‘what might be’s’ to experience.
When living your life, it’s the passionate depth of your life that adds color, not the safe, consistent length of your life. Many have a long, lengthy life with no depth. Depth requires a passion for life, and a willingness to participate, explore, discover, and interact. Depth requires an understanding that life isn’t something that’s done to you or for you, but rather is a delving into co-creation that demands your willing participation, active discernment, constant flexibility, and passioned excitement if it’s going to be the most colorful.
Living your life in Living Color is living life beyond the edge of your Safety-comfort Zone. At the edge of your Safety-comfort Zone is a wall of energy, your energy, that I call the ‘Screaming Wall’. When you approach this wall at the edge of your safe known world of experience, the apprehension, fear, and objections flare up and scream out, all to protect you and send you back away from the scary edge to where it’s familiar and safe. But on the other hand, if you approach the ‘Screaming Wall’ and walk through it (either by changing your thoughts about what you’re doing and, therefore, the emotions that follow these thoughts or by ‘FISO-ing’-Functioning In Spite Of- these thoughts and their resulting emotions), the very act of walking through this wall of your energy empowers you and you become stronger, more self confident, and also, now possess an expanded understanding through experiencing the thing.
You already know enough to take at least one step out beyond the edge. And from taking that first step out, you add to yourself and you gain enough to discern the appropriate next step. You are always enough and have enough to take at least one step and one step is all you ever need to or can take at a time. So know you are always enough and adequate. Understanding and accepting this truth allows discovery and exploration to be accomplished with excitement rather than fear. Something new or different is only unknown, not unknowable. Taking an experience from unknown and un-encountered to known and experienced, is where the color of that experience comes from. As you move through the new co-creation, it’s your perception, attitude, and resulting emotions that give that experience the meaning it has to you and determines what you will take from that interaction. How you participate and what you take determines the brightness and aliveness of the color you add to your life experience. This is where the Living Color of life is found. Think of it this way. Think of your Safety-comfort Zone as a smaller Black & White sphere, which is within a much larger vibrant, richly multi-colored sphere of life’s potential possibilities. The Black & White sphere contains you and everything you know and trust and feel safe with. This is where your ‘life’ exits. If you could feel excitement, instead of fear, in stepping out of this safe, known sphere into the brilliance of aliveness of ‘new and different’ and ‘unknown to be explored’, you would realize you can only add to yourself and become more each time you step out.
The old classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz” comes to mind. In the beginning of the story we find Dorothy living a life in Black & White, all known, predictable and safe, wishing for more ‘somewhere over the rainbow’. Then things get out of her control. The mean Miss Gulch takes Toto away, Toto escapes, Dorothy’s reality says she and Toto must run away to be safe, and then there’s that approaching tornado. Suddenly she is propelled out of her safe Black & White world into a vibrant new world of color full of unknowns and new experiences just awaiting her discovery and exploration. It was an unknown world, not an unknowable one. Dorothy had her fears, but what we find out is, the more she goes through, the stronger she becomes. Each step she takes in this new world adds to her and she becomes more, which in turn, expands her ‘what she’s comfortable with’ Black & White sphere. We find she now understands more, holds less fear, and has more courage to confront the next unknown. In her adventures she finally ends up melting the Wicked Witch of the West, exposing the awesome authority figure, the Great Oz, and finding she is enough and has enough to get back home after all. Dorothy is equal to whatever comes her way, without her ever realizing it, because she chooses to participate wholly with each new step she takes and is supported automatically by her universe. Her expanded experience of living her life in Living Color gives her a new understanding and appreciation for the life she already has and knows.
Notice everything that’s happening in our world right now, look around, ‘we’re not in Kansas anymore’. The safety of consistency, predictability, and the known way being the ‘right’ way can no longer be counted upon. In fact, the only consistency you can count on now is change. The predictability you can count on now is that life will continually place you outside of your Safety-comfort Zone. And the familiar known way is fast becoming the old way that doesn’t work anymore. It all adds up to more and more opportunities to step out, experience life anew and live your life in Living Color. Remember, each time you step out, you are adding to the fullness and depth of your life, experiencing more of the full spectrum of your possibilities, adding vibrancy to yourself, your interactions, and all aspects of your life. You continue to expand and increase the size of your Safety-comfort Zone sphere while becoming a shining example. You truly are and have enough, so step out and live a life in Living Color.
