We all want to live authentic, self-aware, and successful lives. How do we go about it? Where do we begin? In a daily map full of wisdom, inspirational quotes, and transformational exercises, bestselling author and psychotherapist Gay Hendricks sets us on a fantastic journey to personal and relationship success.
In bite-size portions, Hendricks encourages understanding, self-awareness, and honesty-all vital elements in a conscious life. A Year of Living Consciously teaches us to relish the journey that results in greater self-esteem and emotional literacy, achievements that can only come from leading an examined life. Quotes from historical and literary figures reinforce the timeless importance of honesty and self-knowledge. By helping us see, comprehend, and ultimately embrace the secrets we often hide from ourselves. A Year of Living Consciously brings us into accord to create clearer understanding, genuine change, and self-realization.
The journey of living consciously begins with a single moment of commitment, saying yes to the impulse within you that wants to grow, to expand, to embrace your largest possible self, to make your largest possible contribution to the world.
Saying yes does not mean you know how to handle each moment of the journey -- and it certainly does not mean you (or anyone else) know how the journey will turn out. What you do when you say yes to the desire to live a more conscious life is to create a field of possibility around you and within you. As a child, my obesity was a problem my family tried to help me with -- from special diets to experimental growth-hormone injections. I found myself in my twenties still struggling with the same problem. One magic day I realized I had never made my own commitment to having a healthy body, so I took a vow to get the weight off -- no matter what it took. Within a month, I'd lost almost thirty pounds, with seventy more coming off over the next year. It was never easy, but it had never even been possible before. Now, twenty-five years later -- 61" and I90 rather than 6'1" and 320, where I started -- I'm more sure than ever that it was that first step that did it. This field of possibility, opened by thousands of people for thousands of years, often has the effect of making life seem richer and more exciting, but always know that the field was opened by your willingness to take that first step.
A conscious living practice for today
On New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, many of you make resolutions. You vow to lose that extra ten pounds, to start exercising, to save more money. I want to urge you to do those things that you know are necessary or worthwhile for you, but here, now, I am urging you to make a different kind of resolution. It is one that some might say is completely without merit, but I know better. Today, I urge you toward the following resolution: This year, I commit to living consciously, and I commit to having fun as I do. I commit to expanding my consciousness and my capacity for fun every minute of this year.
January 2
Learning something new is the bestest thing in the world. -- Andrew Harper, Age Seven
What can I learn today?
Think of your journey of conscious living as a learning project, not as a healing project. A learning paradigm offers certain advantages over a therapy or healing paradigm. In the healing and therapy paradigms, you have to think there's something wrong with you before you can get better. In counseling people over the past thirty years, I've watched people struggle with receiving feedback, both from others and from the experiences in their lives. The big problem is that you flip into thinking "What's wrong with me?" when you get some feedback, and then you get defensive or start feeling bad about yourself. In the end, you don't get the message. A learning paradigm does not presume anything is wrong with you; it says simply that there are things you can learn to make your life and work more easeful and productive. In addition, the therapy paradigm often focuses on past events, presumably so a more positive present can be attained, While this may occur, the therapy paradigm often keeps people in thrall to the past, perceiving themselves as victims. The learning paradigm invites you to take full responsibility for your life, to make commitments in the present, to practice those commitments, and to identify goals for the future. The act of doing these things may pull past events to the surface, but they will emerge in the context of a...
About the Author
Dr. Gay Hendricks has served for more than 30 years as one of the major contributors to the fields of relationship transformation and body-mind therapies. Along with his wife, Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, Gay is the author of many bestsellers, including Conscious Loving, At the Speed of Life, and Five Wishes.
Gay received his PhD in counseling psychology from Stanford University in 1974. After a 21-year career as a professor at the University of Colorado, he founded The Hendricks Institute, which offers seminars in North America, Asia, and Europe. He is also the founder of a new virtual learning center for transformation, Gaia Illumination University.
Throughout his career, Gay has done executive coaching with more than 800 executives, including the top management at such firms as Dell Computer, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, and KLM. His book, The Corporate Mystic, is used widely to train management in combining business skills and personal development tools.
In recent years he has also been active in creating new forms of conscious entertainment. In 2003, along with movie producer Stephen Simon, Gay founded the Spiritual Cinema Circle, which distributes inspirational movies to subscribers in more than 70 countries around the world. He was the executive producer of the feature film Conversations with God, and he has appeared on more than 500 radio and television shows, including Oprah, CNN, CNBC, 48 Hours, and others.
