How You Can Really Experience Freedom and Joy

Ready to open the door and step into your next moment fresh?

“You don’t understand. I can’t trust Will. He left me there stranded,” Cheryl said, tears in her eyes.

Her boyfriend forgot to pick her up at the airport. This immediately triggered her to not only remember but also, in a way, re-experience the day when her parents resolved to get a divorce. They forgot her at an elementary school.

When we replay personal pain, we step out of the present moment. When we get blinded by past pain or future-worry, we separate from anyone next to us in the present moment.

I’ve developed methods I call Emotion-Motion Life Hacks.

The Most Important Emotion-Motion Life Hack helps you Enter the Moment Fresh. We’re talking about the essence of freedom: to live your life your way.

Authors/researchers have described a “life hack” as any shortcut or tactic that improves one’s productivity or efficiency.

The process is about “moving your emotion.”

When something triggers you to re-experience a past trauma, you are literally not free. You’re actually someplace other than the present.

I’ve actually asked a client: “Where did you go?” When she acknowledged that she was stuck in reliving a past, painful moment, she was then able to move forward.

How You Can Enter the Moment Fresh

First, you need to identify when you have LEFT the present moment.

The hard part for many of us is to stay aware to how we may be buffeted around on currents of thought patterns that keep us in fear of having more pain.

How to Switch Out of a Past-Pattern

I’ll share two methods:

1. Condition Yourself with a “Switch Phrase”
2. Combine an Energy-Move with an Empowered Second Thought.

1. Condition Yourself with a “Switch Phrase”

Some of my clients use a phrase to switch the direction of their thoughts; they’re using a “Switch Phrase.” My personal favorite phrase is “Replace worry with action.”

Because I’m leading teams in the United Kingdom, India and USA, I’m involved with lots of challenges. I do not stay in a worry-thought for much time. How? Immediately, my mind turns to “Replace worry with action.” Sometimes, the good action is to “get more information” or “develop a plan.” Former CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Michael Eisner said that once he and his doctors had a plan in place for his by-pass surgery and steps of recovery, he felt better! It was simply a matter of implementing the plan.

2. Combine an Energy-Move with an Empowered Second Thought.

If I feel tired but still I need to grade graduate students’ papers, I tap my closed fist on my right thigh as I say, “I can do this!” Tapping my fist is an “Energy-Move.” My phrase “I can do this!” directs my thinking and feeling into an empowered state of being.

I rise from a low mood thought of “I’m tired” to the energized level of “I can do this!”

“I’m tired is the first thought, and “I can do this!” is the Empowered Second Thought.

*  *  *

When you want to experience more moments of real freedom, use the Emotion-Motion Life Hacks that I’ve shared:

1. Condition Yourself with a “Switch Phrase”
2. Combine an Energy-Move with an Empowered Second Thought.

For more about Emotion-Motion Life Hacks, see my new 1.7 min. video:

Warmly,

Tom

Tom Marcoux
CEO (leading teams in United Kingdom, India and USA)