I was on Facebook the other day and saw an event advertisement that caught my eye. It was for a woman’s retreat in Oregon and I was immediately interested. As I read about the retreat and looked at pictures of the facility, I knew I had to go. I love Oregon and the tree-lined path leading off into the forest sucked me right in. I sent an email to the event producer and asked a few questions about the retreat.
Soon after the email, my ego mind began to recite reasons why my attending this retreat was a bad idea. Before I realized what was going on, I had almost decided not to go.
Here is a list of the ways my ego mind tried to change my mind about going to a woman’s retreat in Oregon:
It’s an eleven-hour drive.
You’ll have to spend one to two nights in a hotel.
All the money for this trip will come from your road trip stash for later this year.
You’re not in shape for such a busy weekend.
You’ll be too tired from driving to have a good time.
Spending time with your brother at his home in Oregon after the retreat is a bad idea.
Your car has so many miles on it you might have trouble on the road by yourself.
I was almost convinced not to go to the retreat by this barrage of negative comments from my ego mind. I almost got sucked in by this controlling mind talk. It was a shocking realization of what I was doing to myself.
I decided to look at the retreat in a more positive manner. I tried to remember what attracted me to it in the first place. Here are the positive aspects of going to the retreat.
You haven’t been anywhere in a year and a half because of covid restrictions.
You deserve a break.
You love road trips and you love the Oregon woods.
It will be fun to meet other women and find common ground.
I need to put myself out there and not be such a hermit.
I have all the money I need to take this trip.
I will have plenty money for my fall road trip later this year.
I will write about my trip and what I learned from it.
It’s a good photo opportunity.
I can do this. I will not worry about the future.
This list made me feel so much better about going to the retreat. I decided to not retreat from the retreat.
How many times do we self-sabotage ourselves on a daily basis? We talk ourselves out of doing things we need and want to do. We procrastinate and offer more ways to make a lack of action all right. This can become a habit and the restrictions of covid make it so easy to fall into.
Make a commitment to taking action. It doesn’t matter what it is, just do it when you need to do something. Don’t let distractions block you and keep you from doing the things you really need to do to improve your life. We often are our worst enemy when it comes to doing what we need to do, whether it is going to the grocery store or taking a course to improve our mind.
Inaction is too easy. It requires nothing of us yet by choosing not to act, we remain stuck right where we are. When you know that you will benefit from a wanted action, inaction brings on feelings of guilt, remorse and unhappiness. The antidote to these feelings is to get off your butt and do what needs to be done. The sense of accomplishment from breaking a negative life pattern and as well as the joy of freedom, it brings greater self-confidence for the next action to take place.
The desire to do anything that contributes of the quality of our life arises from the soul’s need to grow spiritually, which is why we are here on planet earth. It is in our experiences alone and with others that we learn our lessons here on earth school. You can read all the books you want about certain subjects but until you actually experience what you read, you will never possess the knowledge in the books. That which you do personally experience becomes part of the wisdom you carry.
Each time your ego mind tells you something that makes you feel bad or hesitate to do an activity you know will provide some new skill or knowledge, tell it to be quiet. You are in charge of what you think and when your mind goes off on a tangent, it is in your power to dismiss those thoughts as unworthy of listening to. Take action, try something new, involve yourself in activities that include other people and enjoy the feeling of stepping out of your self-imposed boundaries.