Shannon Kaiser takes listeners on a exciting journey in this special seminar lecture designed to help people live their best life
The Awakened & Aligned Podcast with Shannon Kaiser
3 Rules For Living Your Best Life
Hello! It is so great to be here! It has been a while since I've seen you, and it's great to be back! I've actually been out most of the summer because I've been living life. I've been out and about exploring, doing amazing things, and just having a great summer. And in this experience of living life fully and playing with the world, I've gathered lots of inspiration to come and share with you guys, so it's great to be back. And I'm just thrilled to be here because today I want to do something a little different and talk to you guys about what I've learned and what I've really been experiencing. And in my experiences over the past couple months, a lot of changes have been happening. For example, my best friend in the whole entire world just had a baby! I know! It's so exciting! And it's been great! And then my other best friends are getting married. I was in a wedding a couple months ago, and I have another wedding coming up. So there's just been a lot of really great changes in my life, and all the people around me have been going through some really beautiful moments, some of the monumental life moments that we all all think about. And in this experience of really living fully in the present with my friends and being there for them, I've experienced a lot of aha moments. And these aha moments have really come about in the form of rules that I've been establishing for myself. Rules to really live life fully and embrace it to its absolute fullest, especially with little baby being born. His name is Lucas, little baby Lucas. It's just been an amazing journey to hold a newborn. And when I did that, it was the first time for me. It's just flooded with feelings I never really realized that I would have holding a baby of joy and peace and complete, overwhelming happiness, tears of joy. And you know, in the hospital, we're surrounded by so much love with this miracle that just happened, and our families and everyone was there celebrating. And then when I left the hospital, I was driving home and I passed a cemetery. In the cemetery, there was actually a funeral going on. There was probably about 50 people all that gathered around in black and mourning and crying. And really, this depression and sadness in this big dark cloud that was over them was very depressing as I drove by. And it was such a contrast from where I had just come from literally five minutes before that complete euphoric rush of happiness and joy and witnessing a miracle to the opposite, literally the opposite, the death and the opposite side of what happiness is. And it was at this moment I was reminded yet again, of course, how valuable life is, how incredibly short our life is. Because even though this little baby was just born, his time, the same as our time, is so short. No matter who you are, you don't know when your time is up, none of us do. And that is the part that I grab onto, especially with the play with the world mentality, that is the part that excites me because that is an opportunity, that is a challenge to rise and say, heck yeah, if we don't have time, then I'm going to make the best of the time that I do have. And that is exactly what I'm going to share with you today. I'm going to share the three rules to living your best life. Imagine never having any regrets, never having to worry about anything ever again, and to live each moment fully and completely in your authentic truth. How does that sound? It sounds pretty awesome, right? And all of these lessons came to me when I was really reflecting on this beautiful baby boy being welcome into the world. Because it was that contrast, that complete happiness to that sadness, that contrast of that is what life is, because one moment we may feel completely happy and the next moment something happens and we're sad. And that's what life is about. It is about the contrast and it is about the journey and it's exactly why we are here to experience it all. And these rules have really guided me in my own life, and I'm going to share them with you today, but they came about because of this little baby. So I'd like to dedicate today's presentation and this seminar to Little Baby Lucas. And over the past few weeks, I've been coaching people and a lot of them have been bringing to my attention. And you know, in my workshops and a lot of the people, what I've known and come to realize is that there is kind of a universal human trait and a characteristic. So many of us, people come to me and they say, Shannon, if only I knew then what I know now, how many of you guys have said that? Or yeah, you can raise your hand. Yes. And that's exactly it. So we have these feelings of, you know, we're always growing, we're always changing. And now that we're, you know, each year we learn more and you think back to how you would have reacted in the past or what you did to solve a problem and how if you knew what you know now, then you probably would have done it differently, right? So in that notion, in that human truth, I'm recognizing this little baby right now has his whole life in front of him. And so my wish and the way I have set up this presentation today in the seminar is to really allow him to use these three rules to living your best life. So he never ever has to say if only. And if you apply these three rules today or you apply them in your life at any moment, you will never have to say if only again, either. So the very first rule, let's get right into it. The very first rule for living your best life is to adjust to the unexpected and unplanned with grace and ease. This is my wish for this beautiful little child. And this is my wish for all of you to adjust to the unexpected and unplanned with grace and ease. Change is inevitable. It is the one constant we know it's going to happen. Society, culture changes, our homes, our environment changes, the people we're with, they change, we change our weight changes, our looks change. There is no one thing that stays the same, just look to nature to see this as a reality, change is inevitable, and it's going to happen. Then why do so many of us cling as humans, we are programs to be in a state of comfort. And so we gravitate towards what is comfortable, what we know. And then what happens is change comes in, we get fired, we get served divorce papers, we get diagnosed with a life-threatening disease. Any of these traumatic events represent change and they come in and they shake us to our core and we just don't know what to do with ourselves. Imagine if we could live through these changes because unplanned expectations and the things that happen in life, no matter how much you plan, the unplanned is going to happen. And if we can adapt a mentality of a focus of being able to be present in these times and knowing that it's going to be okay, we can rise above and we can sift our way through the change because this is exactly what I went through. Just a little personal experience. As I mentioned, a lot of my friends are married now and they have babies and I am still single and here I am early 30s and everyone around me seems to be really settling down. And I'm not really sure if that's my path but I know that I do want that and I'm feeling kind of left out and I noticed that I was really clinging. I was clinging to the old version of my friends. I wanted to be able to call them up and do girl time but now they have babies and they have significant others and their best friends are now their husbands. And so in this process of feeling left out I was clinging and I was kind of acting out and I was being kind of like a child in the sense that I was uncomfortable in the new territory because I didn't have someone to lean on. All of them had these great relationships and I still was clinging to my old version of them. And it was in this moment that I recognized a huge change has happened. One it's not that they've moved on it's just the next evolution of their chapters of life have happened and they've met these beautiful people and you know I felt like I could go one of two ways. I could keep kicking and screaming and saying I wish things were the way they used to be or I can embrace the new version of all of us. And in this experience of really welcoming in the new my relationship has deepened with every single one of my best friends. They are now the way we communicate with each other is more rewarding and it's more fulfilling. And that was because I was able to look at my own insecurities of feeling left out and address them and realize that the change in the unexpected things that happen happen because they actually help all of us grow. I'm going to end this rule by sharing one of my favorite quotes by Marianne Williamson. She says I've come to trust not that events will always unfold exactly as I want but that I will be fine either way. The challenges we face in life are always lessons that serve our soul's growth. So rule number one is to adjust to the unexpected and unplanned with grace and ease. Rule number two for living your best life and my wish for the baby is to appreciate the journey because there is no destination. Imagine right all of us were running around especially in America and we're focusing on getting there. I know this because when I was in corporate I was always trying to get there and then when I got that raise I still felt unsatisfied and even now this is still a lesson that I'm working on. I'm trying to appreciate the journey because there is no destination. My destination equals my big goal of getting my book find your happy out into the world. As many of you know I've been working on it for the past couple of years really and now it's in production and I'm working with the publisher and there seems to be so many little things that are happening. Little hiccups and we're in the fifth round of editing and it's such a chore for me because I'm not good with details at all. I'm not good at spelling either. I'll go on the record right now and I'll say yes I'm a writer and thank god for editors and you know even trying to prove my own stuff is kind of a headache because I like to think of the big picture and so when it comes to these tedious details I have a 220 page book. I'm going through line by line by line and this is the fifth time I've read through the book and we're in the fifth round of editing and it's all to make it the best it can possibly be but I'm so focused and I found myself this week complaining to anyone who would listen and I just said I want the book out I just want it out I want people to read it and enjoy it and I just I've been working so hard and I've been trying to get this out into the bookstores and this process is killing me and then it hit me boom as soon as I said this process I realized that's it this is the journey and I'm missing it because soon enough the book will be out and it will be on bookshelves and it will be in the hands of people who want to enjoy their life and live it to the fullest but until then I'm missing the journey by complaining I'm missing the journey by being frustrated and just being a butthead and so it was in this moment this week that I recognized that this is a beautiful process I'm getting a book out into the world you know how awesome that is and I started to appreciate again the process and say hey I'm in it fully if this is how you get a book out into the world then I will rise to the occasion and do it there is no destination so only only focus on the present and appreciate the journey and rule number three for living your best life my friends is to play play with the world yes this is one of my favorites in fact it is my favorite it is what I believe in and what I stand behind because when we play we are joyful we are excited people come to me and they say well how can you play if you you know don't like your job and you're stressed out and you're trying to make ends meet and I just you know you're trying to feed your family and I just don't understand well let's look at it this way let's break down this rule a little bit more imagine what if I told you that life is a one big classroom and we get to take the courses that we want we can take the course in compassion we can take it and forgiveness we can take it in self-love we can take it in any type of environment that we want every single thing we do is a lesson and when you look at it that way it actually makes life more rewarding and a little bit more entertaining and it and you know the student in you may rise to the occasion and say I want to get an a plus in this course that's certainly what I do and I'm just recently went through the lesson in patience and the lesson in details in organization think about the lessons in your own life think about what your biggest challenges are right now in your own life and those challenges are actually your biggest opportunity for growth and the same way same token with your relationships the people closest to you the people who possibly drive you crazy can indeed be your biggest opportunity and your biggest area of focus for a lesson and when you look at this in this manner you realize that life is a classroom and it's just a big test and we get to pass the course and when we pass it we go on to the next level we graduate that course and go to the next but in the same experience in the same notion of understanding that life is a classroom just like children when they go to school they learn a lot but they take time out to play they take recess and that is what play with the world is about if life is a big lesson and it's a giant classroom we have to take time out to play and in these experiences of momentarily pauses whether you decide to go to the beach for the day or you decide to treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee or you just go out on a special date with your loved one these are all different types of playing you can cook in your kitchen you can garden you can do whatever you love but when you do that your soul grows tremendously you feel alive you feel connected so my friends this is the rule that I want all of you to strive for this is the rule for you baby little Lucas I want you and my wish is that you play with the world because the world wants so much to play with you all of you don't let what you care about the most give way to what you care about the least now should always be a balance and in that balance you can find the sweet spot of life and by appreciating life fully and living in the moment and applying these three rules you will live your best life it is inevitable I promise you and you will never have to say if only I dot dot dot ever again thank you