5 Steps To Personal Recreation (Become a Badass... )

My biggest threshold up until about a week ago- facing my bulimia.

My biggest threshold up until about a week ago- facing my bulimia.

At some point in our lives we will reach our threshold. The moment in time during which everything seems to be hitting the fan at once. Whether you just lost your job and your home is being revoked; you're tired of hiding in the closet, or simply not embracing who you really are; you lose all of your friends to the separation of their paths from yours; you realize that you have been in the wrong jobs/relationships for your whole life. Regardless of your personal limitations, this is the "I've Had it up to Here" Threshold that marks the destruction of a sub par existence and the beginning of your rebirth.

I'm going to be honest, I have not liked the person that I've come to be up until this point. I'd abandoned my positivity and replaced it with bitter remorse for anything that dared to give me the slightest bit of unpleasantness. Whether this was because of the circumstances that I was given or the decisions that I have made, I became a wretch and I was sick of it.

I hope that you are not also sick of the person that you are- my case is quite severe and requires some major reconstruction. Even if it is just that you are sick of the stipulations that others have placed on your life- or the power that you have allowed others to have over you- these tips can help you to empower and strengthen your truest you and awaken your truest potential.

1. Seek Out Your "Bible": For those of you that do not know me, I am not religious. I was raised Christian, but deviated from the practice shortly after beginning high school. If you live your life by the principles of the Bible, Quran, Shreemad Bhagavad Gita, or Tripitakas that is wonderful. So long as you deviate from the corruption of others and interpret the material in a loving, wholesome way, I support your practices. If you're like me and you are not religious but rather spiritual, or maybe simply philosophical, do some research and delve into your ideas. Some of my favorites:

The Secret ~ Rhonda Byrne

(Focus: The Law of Attraction & the practice of manifestation)

Awaken The Giant Within ~ Tony Robbins

(Focus: Reaching your threshold of pain & reassigning pain and pleasure principles to maximize your efficiency and hunger for growth.)

The Alchemist ~ Paulo Coelho

(Focus: A fictional story that portrays the meaning of life (in the authors' mind) described in a way that is artistically thought-provoking.

You Are a Badass ~ Jen Sincero

(Focus: An explicit and pithy play on the self improvement genre that encourages hilarious inspiration and thorough entertained.

2. Meditate Like Crazy: Wait. Stay with me. This doesn't mean that you have to shave your head and ship yourself off to a temple. Of course if you'd like to, I totally encourage you to do so.

There are so many misconceptions as to what meditation is and what it does. I will soon write a post thoroughly describing some different methods of meditation, but for now I'd like to briefly mention the benefits of partaking in such a practice:

- Intently focus on your standards so that you may be mindful and remain focused.

- Calm any anxieties and/or uncertainties in your mind and replace them with peace and positive affirmations such as "I am safe", "I am loved", "My fears and my doubts are nothing compared to my potential."

-Supercharge your body to stay alert, keeping you from illness, anxiety attacks, bouts of depression, and/or partaking in activities with negative consequences.

Again, this is a short snippet of meditation and that which it entails, but the number one message I want you to receive from this is to find your preferred method of practice and PRACTICE.

3. Build Your Body to Build Your Mind: Tony Robbins said in one of his seminars "if you make a radical change in your physiology: your breath, movement, facial expressions, your vocal quality (to change your voice, to have to change your mind)- it instantly changes your state."

Instead of sulking in the deepest, darkest depths of yourself, you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. The comfier you are, the less likely you are going to want to improve. To piggyback on this idea, by building your physical state you are building your mental state. If you go for a 20 minute run and make yourself think "I can do this, I'm awesome, I'm good, I'll make it to the end of this" you will notice a change in your psychological state in a matter of days.

Channel your pain, don't let it channel you.

4. Letting Go: Being human, we are given the opportunity to feel immense emotions. Anywhere from happiness and love to frustration and anger, we take it all on at some point. Of course, with wonderful feelings come those that are well, not so much. However; in the rat race of human life (heh) many people find it necessary to suppress or ignore these negative feelings. Did your significant other break up with you? Sorry, you'll just have to deal with it. Are you being let go from your job? Bite your tongue and find a new one. A love one just died? Sorry you've got to work, you'll just have to feel it later.

This is NOT acceptable behavior if you're going to get serious about the new you that we are creating. In order to promote the most rapid, healthy growth, you have to plant the seed in a good foundation and water it. By this I mean, if you want to feel free, you've got to start by letting your feelilngs feel free. If things just get to be too much and you need to step out of the room to cry for a bit, be okay with that. If you're so frustrated that you're starting to take it out on others, take a break and scream into a pillow for a minute.

In order to make the new you the most efficient and happy you, present you has to be okay with expressing and letting feelings go. If you like the meditation method, there are some methods that can be applied to this letting go process. After a few practices, it will not only get easier, but unload tremendous amounts of weight off of your shoulders.

Don't let something linger and go rotten inside of you- we don't want any diseases killing the plant.

(My very first self-annotated meditation. I didn't think I had enough time otherwise so- I did it while driving!)

5. Document The Journey: I'm sure that at least half of you are jumping for nerdy joy and half are sighing and sulking over this one. But listen- there's a reason for this! Documentation is an easy way for you to get your thoughts into fruition- to turning your thoughts into actions. If you think you're above this step, then you must also be above the thorough creation of a better life.

By writing/recording/speaking/drawing your thoughts you are briwnging them into the material world. The more you say/ write that you're beautiful (with real thought and feeling behind it) the more you will really feel beautiful. Tony Robbins said that every time he goes for a run he tells himself that "I'm fucking unstoppable, I'm fucking unstoppable!" Compare this to your cardio mindset- are you thinking "I hate this, how much time has passed? Oh my gosh, 5 minutes can I just be done now?" If this is you, I'd like to ask you- how effective is this approach?

Don't just think, "be the change you wish to see in the world" and in your life!

I hope you truly consider and apply these 5 tips that I have gifted to you. In thought, they sound all well and fine, but it is their application that makes all of the change and all of the difference in your quality of life. Treat every day like it is yours.

"Life isn't happening to you, life is happening for you." ~ Tony Robbins

"Life isn't happening to you, it's responding to you." ~ Rhonda Byrne (The Secret)