An Exercise to Change Your Life
I want to share an exercise with you today, that might just change your life forever. I saw this over on the Facebook page of Kyle Cease. Kyle is described as a transformational comedian. I wouldn’t describe him as that, he was purely a comedian back in the day, but has pivoted into a transformational speaker. Which is where the description comes from I guess.
From what I can see, Kyle is now fully focused on sharing his thoughts and experiences, inspiring and uplifting people through his videos and events. He just happens to be very funny too.
I’d never seen or heard of Kyle when he was solely doing comedy, but then, I live in the UK, and I’m not sure he ever ventured over here. I first became aware of him when I came across a video of his quite recently, on Facebook. I think I’ve now exhausted his pretty extensive collection of videos on there.
Reach Your Full Potential
He blends his realisations about the thought processes which debilitate and hold people back from attaining and realising their full potential, with interspersed humour and joviality. His message is seriously noteworthy, but the way in which he weaves humour into that message makes for an uninhibitedly entertaining and moving transformative experience.
That being said, the video I’m going to share today doesn’t have the usual funny moments, it’s a more personal, one on one experience. It’s called An Exercise to Change Your Life, and the reason I chose it, is due to how powerful I found this exercise.
The video is a little over 18 minutes long but if you follow Kyles guidance throughout the video, it’s probably going to take between 45-60 minutes to complete. You must pause it a couple of times and do a little ‘inner work’, so if you haven’t got the time right now, come back when you can spare the time, rather than rush through it, you won’t be disappointed.
[Spoiler Alert]
Now, if you’re still reading, and haven’t watched the full video, be prepared for spoilers. Seriously though, if you haven’t watched it yet, please don’t continue reading until you have. It’ll be pretty fruitless.
I’ll let you into a little secret here, after watching this video I decided to start this personal development blog. I used to blog a few years ago, but gave it up due to circumstances at that time, which were beyond my control. It’s something I missed doing, and was one of the top items on my left page from the exercise.
In fact, quite a few items from my left page tie into the reason I decided to get back on the blogging horse and start writing again. Here’s a sample of my left page…and the “yeah buts”
I want to start writing again – yeah but, that boat has sailed now, I gave it a try and it didn’t work out.
I want to be a positive influence for other people – yeah but, I try my best but I’m always too busy and tired.
I want to work doing the things I love – yeah but, the things I love doing won’t pay the bills.
I want to help other people – yeah but, I’m too busy.
(I’m not going to share the whole of my list as some of it’s for my eyes only. I’m sure you don’t want to read about my mankini aspirations, or the fact I desperately want to stop waving back at people who weren’t even waving at me, do you.)
A Simple Choice
A lot of the yeah buts, to the 40+ wants I wrote down, were variations of “I’m too busy” “I don’t have the time” “I’m always too tired” but this exercise isn’t so much about the content of your left and right page, its essentially about the feelings associated with your list.
And that’s what was so powerful for me when doing this exercise. The heavy feeling in the head when reading the right page of my list, and the lighter aspirational feeling emanating from my heart area when reading the left page.
The significance that it’s simply a choice which side of the page you want to live your life from is incredible, and when backed up with this sort of physical feedback it’s difficult to dismiss. It’s so far removed from “I always try to look for the positive”, or “Is your glass half empty or half full” idiom.
An Emotional Spirit Level
A reminder that in virtually all decisions you make throughout your life, you’ll feel excited in your body and scared in your head clarified a lot for me. Being able to utilise this physical feedback as an indicator when making decisions, an emotional spirit level of sorts, or an extension of your emotional guidance system, makes moving towards a calling, and away from your “yeah buts” much easier.
Having the foresight to choose which body you’d rather live in, the yeah but body, or the calling body, from the emotional feedback you get, is a game changer.
I obviously chose to follow my calling and ignore the ‘yeah but’, and that feels right for me. It was an empowering decision and one which I probably wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t watched this video. So, if you hate my writing and think I talk a lot of shit, you’ve got Kyle to thank for that. Sorry Kyle!
This exercise is a little gemstone glistening in your sea of doubt and fear. I’d love to hear your experiences of it, and what you thought, so please use the comments below to share.
You can find Kyle over at his Facebook page. I urge you to check him out. If you’re living in the US he also holds live events, details of which are on his website www.kylecease.com
Kyle’s also just launched his book I Hope I Screw This Up [Affiliate Link]
Thanks to Kyle for allowing me to use his video in this post.