This morning, I had cake for breakfast. I hadn’t planned it but, as I had bought too many cakes for our Coronation Street Party and they have a short shelf life (carrot cake especially), I have to eat them. Poor me, ha! I could have eaten these cakes at more traditional times but I am quite keen to free myself from the rigid rules we all unwittingly live by, the family habits, the societal conventions, our cultural traditions, etc.

Now, I wouldn’t have cake for breakfast every day but there’s nothing stopping me from doing it once in a while.

When you take the time to stop and think of how you do the things you do and why you do them that way, it often is because of these mostly unwritten rules. Here is the story of a young woman whose new husband asked why she always cut both ends of the meat she cooked in the oven. She replied that she just does what her mother had always done. She never questioned it. Curious, she asked her mother why she does it. She answered that her own mother had always done that. She never questioned it. Prompted by her daughter, she asked her mother who replied, “When you were growing up, we had a small kitchen with a small oven and the cooking dish was small so I had to cut the meat to fit it.”

It is a silly little story I heard somewhere, yet don’t we all do things just because it’s just the way we’ve always known them to be done?

There is a great sense of freedom that comes from debunking the rules we live by and establishing new ones for ourselves, ones that actually serve us better. This is a philosophy that I call: “It’s-not-because-the-phone-is-ringing-that-you-have-to-answer-it”.

This week, I invite you to pay close attention to the way you do almost everything and try new ways for one or two. This could also mean moving a piece of furniture or changing the organisation of your kitchen cabinets. Play detective in your own life and dare to choose different rules and ways. Next time you have a few minutes, instead of scrolling through social media, pick up a book and read two or three pages.

Shake things up and I guarantee that you will feel lighter for it.

Valerie 

http://valeriemarsh.com