Stay Focused On Your Commitments

What's it like to live driven by commitments? What does this look like, what's the benefit and how it does help us live powerfully and keep us on the court of our own lives? Please, keep reading...

A few weeks ago I was taking my younger son to the snow for a tubing, sledding play day. As we were driving up, I got a message from my ex telling us to have fun, and also that she would have come. She didn't send this as complaint, but more of like, "Awe that sounds so fun I wish I could go to!" I told her she was always more than welcome to join us at anytime no matter what we were doing. She asked if I would mind if she joined us. I told her I did not and she should come. She responded that she would, and was getting in her car to drive up to the mountains. I wasn't expecting that...

And then it happened. I was immediately triggered. I started to think this was my time and now my ex was crashing my party. I started to feel resentful! I went from being excited and happy to feeling upset and quite honestly, angry.

I've developed my mind like muscle, though. And when I'm feeling triggered with my ex in any regard, I go straight to my commitments.

When my ex and I split up, I created the commitment that my son would never have to chose between his mom and dad, and a commitment that my own fears, insecurities and ego would never get in the way of his experience of "family."

This process of developing this muscle has not been easy and there have been many breakdowns, let downs and flat out fuck-ups, but I've never stopped getting up off the floor and getting back into the game. And it's paid off.

When I started to feel triggered, I immediately went to my commitments. It took a few minutes but the anger and frustration started to dissipate and within 5 minutes or so I found my gratitude for a woman who was willing to drive to the mountains to spend an hour with her son in the snow. I was able to quickly get that it wasn't about me. It was about my son. And as I've written about before, just because I feel something, doesn't mean I'm entitled to that feeling. In fact I almost never am. That's the beauty of living in a commitment; I don't get easily derailed by my thoughts and feelings.

A little intention goes a long way. When we show up in our lives without it, our lives become an endless loop of reacting to and then justifying our feelings. Without intention, our lives become an endless circle of upset.

When my ex showed up at the resort, my son was smoked and wanted to go home. My ex didn't care all that effort resulted in basically a big zero. In fact, she was totally thankful for the opportunity to see him and for being included. And my son got that there isn't a dad space and mom space. There's just his family space.

This is what we call a win-win.

Cheers to waking up every morning stoked AF,

Chris