Don't put your passion in a drawer... Use it every day!

Somewhere on my journey I lost my passion... Well, I wouldn't say I lost it so much as I put it in a drawer and keep forgetting to use it. A week ago Sunday morning I woke up in an anxiety ridden panic but through reading and self reflection, I found it!

I love my kid, I love my girlfriend, I love my family and friends and I love my job. I am grateful for the life I have lived, but there is something inside me that is not right, something inside that keeps pointing me to write, continue with my health/fitness dreams and achieve some other goals along the way while I am here having this human experience.

Well, when you wake up out of dead sleep in a panic wondering why aren't things working out... It's a sign its time to do something about it.

So in that panic I got up and started searching the Internet for some motivation. I googled stuff about depression, which then led me to stuff about suicide… Well I am not thinking about suicide, I lost a good friend to suicide... I just feel stuck, like why does life keep kicking my ass? What is wrong with me? Why am I where I am? 

So then I googled how to get yourself to follow through and unstuck because as I said, I had been feeling, for a long time, stuck and uncertain of the future. Depressed if you will. And honestly to the point of feeling like my life had no meaning… I’m 50, basically broke and uncertain of what was going to happen to me, how I am going to provide for son’s future and how the rest of my life was going to go.

I knew deep down inside something has been wrong… I come up with these great ideas but don’t follow through. Something comes up and I just get caught up in life. I looked back at all the blogs and journals I wrote over the past couple of years and saw this pattern of starting and stopping. You know… I have had a lot a great day 1’s and could even follow through for a couple of months but then life just gets in the way and I am back to where I started.

But the Good Lord, The Universe, whatever you want to call it lead me to that moment of waking up at 2am in a panic and searching. But what was it? What did I need? Why was I up?

First I found Mel Robbins… And yes, I was looking for Anthony Robbins stuff to motivate me… and she laid it all out there for me! The most profound thing she said was that there was a 1 in 400,000,000,000 chance of me even being here… so why not think I am special. And I extracted from that… Why not think I am part of a divine project and that I am just as special as the next person and that they are too… It is all so incredible to think that we are even here. It’s down right amazing when you think of the chances of being here.  Here is her Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp7E973zozc

So of course I bought Mel's book... Stop Saying your Fine and have read it over the past week. So today is Day 1 of her Stamina Challenge. Simply put, I got up 30 minutes before I normally would have and popped out of bed to start my day. No Snooze! No laying there moaning "It's too early!" I just got up and started doing what I love... Writing... Now on to exercising... then going out and doing what I do... Helping my clients achieve their health and fitness goals, then on to doing my "Dad" thing.

It's ok to get down on yourself. Its ok to think your stuck. It's even ok to start and stop, over and over again. Today is a brand new day to re-enlist your passion for what you want to do in this life. Today is Day 1... Make the most of it!

Health and Happiness!

Sincerely,

Bill Busch

The rest of those who have gone before us cannot steady the unrest of those to follow

"The rest of those who have gone before us cannot steady the unrest of those to follow." 

From the Movie Finding Forrester

We all grieve for those that go before us and we all must cope with their loss in our own way.  In the case of suicide, some grieve by calling those people cowards and some grieve by saying they had a disease. Some of us just walk around stunned for the rest of our lives just not understanding or tying to figure it all out and some take up the quest to help those in need and become suicide prevention advocates.

When it is all said and done we all will follow a path that helps us get through this thing we know as life the best way we know how.

I posted this on Face Book several times: BE KIND… For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about! Simple advice, yet so hard to follow through with as our ego’s get in the way and think we know what is best… especially for everyone else.

I cannot possibly understand what each and everyone of my friends or family go through when there is a loss or a tragedy that happens in their lives, even if I am standing right next to them as it happened.

Dr. Wayne Dyer, explains that “Quantum Moments” are moments that occur in your life that create a shift from an ego driven life to that of a spiritual awakening of one’s self. To me a “Quantum Moment” is one that you have that feels like it could have happened yesterday, whether it was painful or joyful it sticks with you and you find your life directed by it.

In the case of loss, one of my “Quantum Moments” in life was when my father died in our home with all of his family surrounding him. We all heard and saw his last breath. I heard his last heart beat, but I cannot presume to know what each and everyone in the room felt or how they have coped with that memory for the last 18 years… to me it was as if it happened yesterday and I grieve his loss every day, especially while I see my young son grow up without a grandfather who I am certain would have showered him with love.

The same can be said of the phone call I received the day I found out my friend Scott took his own life. I was numb with pain and have spent the last 6 years trying to understand. Again, I cannot presume to understand what his wife Teresa, his kids, Kara and Emily or any other family or close friend of Scott’s must feel. Nor can I tell them how they should feel or how they should have managed their lives since.

In the wake of the tragic death of Robin Williams... each and every one of us deals with life in the best way that we can. We may not agree on how the other person is dealing with it but for me, now more than ever, I feel as if compassion, understanding and forgiveness trump any other means of coping with loss, tragedy or just plain trying to get through the every day grind of life.

Health and Happiness!

Sincerely,

Bill

Sometimes you just need a Spark!

I look at "Social Media" just about every day... there I said it!

But as you will read in upcoming blogs, I am going to making some shifts in my life that I have been thinking about for a long time... I just needed a spark to actually do them. This video gave me that spark. Thanks Gary Turk!

Sometimes you come across a good video on Facebook or Twitter and it makes you stop and think about your life, the way it looks and makes you want to change it... maybe just a little bit.

Now, I know when to put down the cell phone, turn off the TV or turn away from the computer and "Be" with those I love... I am not casting stones here. I have been guilty of keeping the cell phone close to check if a client contacted me or perhaps a look at a sports score or two. Go Tigers! But I pride myself on also being in the moment with my friends, family and clients. Read Three Questions!

I set out to write this blog to give people who read it a spark, thinking that by sharing my own experience it would do that. It has and again I am proud of that, but I needed a spark today to keep that going... perhaps that is why I woke up at 3am and saw this video!

See you soon... just not too soon.

Health and Happiness!

Sincerely,
Bill

Your team lost or won the big game… What does it say about you?

Someone, somewhere is getting up today and has no idea about who won or lost the football game yesterday and they are unquestionably, no worse for wear because of the event.

What is it about sports and how we feel when our team wins or loses?

While I realize as a sports fan, the events should hold no bearing on my life personally, it is interesting to look back and watch how they effect my emotions.

I feel slighted and a little low even though I had nothing to do with the teams loss.

I hold my head a little higher and the sun seems to shine a little brighter even though I have nothing to do with the teams win.

Certainly they give me something to write about but the events do not make me a better Dad, Friend, Son, Brother, MAT Specialist or human being win or lose.

Health and Happiness!

Bill

God does not deliver you from the storm… He guides you through it!

I opened my life up yesterday to something very personal with the hope that someone, somewhere reads it and knows he or she is not alone out there in the storm.

When things are at their worst it may seem that the storm will never stop and there will always be something. Something stopping you from living the life you dream about, but you are not alone.

As one of my friends put it on Facebook yesterday… regarding my blog, "showing our vulnerability and eventual resilience is an important aspect of teaching others how to persevere"

I could look back at the last few months and ask why or I can get up today and just wonder and be amazed that I have a chance to do what I love to do and be with who I love to be with.

I love writing and I know that when I write, I feel better. But I also know that while I was not writing I was supposed to be where I was and for some reason, God only knows why, I needed to be doing what I was doing.

There will come a day when the light shines in your eyes and you will "Get back on the horse"!

Health and Happiness!

Bill

While I was away…

I sit here and ponder all that has happened since I stopped writing back in October of last year and I can tell you this, October 2013 through January 2014 kind of sucked. Just when you think you are on top of things the universe shows up with a challenge and changes the landscape of your life.

I was doing everything I had set out to do… writing every day, enjoying my work and building my business, studying to better my MAT skills, working out, and trying to be a good Dad and boyfriend everyday. But then I get hit with the bad news that my girlfriend has cancer and must first go through an operation to remove it and then treatment, radiation for almost 7 weeks. "Crap! You're kidding, right?"

Now she is fine, "Cancer Free" and except for some of the effects left from the radiation treatment (those suck!), we both have a renewed outlook about life. But I have to tell you, I was angry there for a while. 

I stopped writing, I stopped working out, I felt like I got hit by a truck… and I wasn't the one with cancer. But you sit and watch your best friend go through something like that and it changes you.

How could I write and enjoy my life when the person I love gets hit with such a thing? I tried my best but once she had her surgery and then while she went through her radiation treatments, the only energy I had was for her and to take care of my son. Writing, trying to inspire others and even working or taking care of myself seemed like the last things I wanted to do.

Ultimately, I did what I had to do… and as I ask myself those important 3 questions in past tense I can only come with:

• When I was doing it!

• Who I was with!

• Be in the moment!

So I am back on a streak of writing, albeit 2 days, what comes tomorrow I don't know, but today I write with life looking pretty good as I know I am where I am… If I was supposed to be somewhere else… I would be there. Thankfully with the most wonderful friend a guy could have.

I love you D!

Health and Happiness!

Bill

Question Answered!

The conversation goes something like this, while watching a sporting event on TV with a good friend.

My Friend: Dude you need to get back on the horse and start writing!

Me: But what is there to say?

My Friend: What is there to say?!?! What isn't there to say? Everyone has something to say out there!

Me: Exactly! What am I going to say that is any different? There are so many experts out there… You really think people are going to take the time to listen to one more?

Just then on the TV we hear the voice of Robin Williams and turn our heads to listen to him say…
"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. 

To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" 

Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

Question Answered!

It is good to be back.

Health and Happiness!

Sincerely,
Bill