Right out of the gate I want to just quickly clarify that I am speaking about owning possessions when I talk about not having. I am not talking about poverty or being homeless.

What I am talking about is the stuff people spend their lifetime pursuing – the house, car, social status, career, second car, home theatre system, furniture, linen, crockery, cutlery, branded clothing, jewelry, holiday home etc. Everything you have an image of that will give you the freedom you have been told you must have in order to have a successful life.

There are so many insightful life lessons we get taught by the world around us and in the context of this topic, two of the lessons I am so grateful to have been made aware of are:

• Understanding how little you really do need in your life and
• How unfulfilled the people, who have all the possessions, truly are.

When I first come across personal development material in my early twenties, and like most people who have ever heard a motivational speaker talk about their life experiences, I was inspired by the ‘rag-to-riches’ stories. In fact over the years I heard so many that at one point I thought I would have to first lose everything before I could become a success.

The truth of that thinking at the time only became clear to me a decade later.

I have been fortunate to spend quality time with people from all walks of life. By quality I mean I have been lucky enough to have had these people share their true selves with me.

There is only a tiny fraction of people who are unmoved in the present moment and who are living awake.

For everyone else, no matter what stage they are at in their life, being unfulfilled seems to be the norm. We are either carrying around our embellished past baggage or we are dreaming of a magazine created imagined future.

So what does having all the possessions have to do with being worse off than those who don’t? Ever heard the expression ‘your possessions own you’ or something similar? Having all the stuff just keeps you on the treadmill and in the race.

If you have just started acquiring the material things you believe are going to give you the life you want, perhaps you are starting already to realize how unfulfilling the pursuit of that life actually is. If you don’t have the possessions yet you can get out of the game right now and rather spend your time on discovering a life that is free from the captivity and isolation this alternative offers.

I am certainly not suggesting you sell everything or never have nice things. What I am asking you to think about is whether what you believe you have to get your hands on in order to make you happy is actually really making the people who have those things happy?

Have you ever had a moment where you realized beyond a shadow of a doubt, if only for a split second, that there is more to life?

Did that moment occur to you while you were buying something new to entertain yourself with or was it in a moment when you felt there was nothing on this earth you needed.

I am going to attempt to explore something in this post that is possibly the most difficult thing for any one of us to come to terms with and be aware of about ourselves.

It is likely that even as I start this, it may be too much to try and investigate in only a few paragraphs but I hope that it will spark a way of becoming aware of your nature.

So here goes – Ask yourself:

What happens if I don’t answer my mobile/cell phone today?

Now I know this might sound a little silly to you but the reason I chose this as an example will become clear in a moment. It’s also not too far a stretch for most people to consider this analogy since we all rely so heavily on this device to communicate with one another (I use the word loosely of course;-))

Remember the whole point is that you DON’T answer the phone. Let’s look at a few scenarios:

1. You screen the call
2. You genuinely miss a call
3. You don’t answer a phone call
4. You turn your phone off for the day

Now in each case a call (or calls) could come through and either be from an unknown number, a number you don’t recognize or from someone you know.

What happens inside our heads in any and all of the above scenarios?

These are some of the thoughts that might go through your mind :-

• Yay! someone wants to talk to me
• Oh no, not him or oh no! not her again
• If they are phoning because….
• Those telemarketers, I wish they would just …..
• Did I miss anything important
• Will they leave a msg?
• Why didn’t they leave a msg
• I hate it when people don’t leave msgs
• It always…
• She could be….
• He is going to….
• If it’s about….I’m going to….
• Is it an emergency? They could really need me!
• Did I miss out on something fun….
• What will he or she think of me
• I better phone them back
• What if I never find out who called

Now this is by no means an exhaustive list. Not all these thoughts may go through your mind in any given moment, or perhaps all of them and more. It’s not really important but hopefully you will begin to see why I decided to write about this.

Can you see a human being going insane? And all because of what you imagine is going on on the other side of that phone call.

Now what if all that phone call was, was a wrong number? or what if someone accidentally pocket or handbag dialed you?

Each of the thoughts you go through in this fairly typical, but in the scheme of things ultimately pointless, situation had the propensity to drag you down an emotional path that is only imagined or constructed. You’re thoughts are merely trying to make choices for you and if you let them they can lead you to emotional places that are entirely unnecessary to go to.

Do you know that you are a slave to your thinking and as such to your emotions? Good and bad? We are all on these roller coaster rides and we mistakenly believe that this is just how life is. We are out of control and don’t even realize it.

We behave poorly towards ourselves and others and then ‘let ourselves off-the-hook’ (we don’t really, of course do we?) because we just think this is how we are wired.

We are all just hanging on to life – for dear life!

Our excuse is that we are the way we are because of the world outside of us and in order to fix how we feel we have to fix and control the world – save the world as it were.

But this is NOT how we are supposed to live. We are not in this world to be dragged around all over the place by whatever our thoughts and emotions can concoct for us.

So how then do you go about stopping yourself from being dragged around by your thoughts and hence your feelings?

Give yourself a Virtual Slap

I was watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother and one of the characters slaps another as part of some bet (you know what guys are like!). As soon as that slap was delivered the entire cast was focused on that moment.

Now obviously this is all scripted and they are supposed to act this way but think on this for a moment:

The next time you catch yourself in a day dream, when you are so lost in your thoughts you aren’t even aware of what is going on around you.
An example of this might be: being stuck in peak-hour traffic or just driving a fair distance and you arrive at your destination only to wonder how you got there and what exactly happened on the way. You know what this is like.

This will take some practice but when you are in moments like this you can catch yourself and when you do, give yourself a virtual slap.

Picture yourself slapping yourself awake and focusing your attention on the “virtual stinging” on your cheek. Now don’t do it so well that you cause yourself distress but notice how you can snap out of that dream-like state – even if only for a second – and be aware of what that feels like.

Once you start doing this 10 or 20 times a day (cause that’s at least how often most of us end up in these states) you won’t have to slap yourself to stop those thoughts anymore. It will happen automatically and stay there for longer.

This is the start of being present to yourself in the moment and the beginning of finding the You in your own life.