Let the Good Times Roll!

Super Bowl Sunday, the annual championship game

of the National Football League and the American Football League has just landed on our doorstep.  This event has become an American national holiday and has frequently been the most watched sporting event  in the world.

That kind of interest and exposure and excitement delivers a huge whomp.

Watching the Super Bowl, is, for many people, the source of great exhilaration and relaxation. Its theme song is something like "Let the Good Times Roll."


And, as always, what appears in our life, especially that which whips us into a frenzy and takes center stage, carries a message for us
and.........drum roll here......like the Super Bowl itself, it's a really BIG one.



And it's also simple...but tricky to do.


Shil Bagh says,
"Enlightenment is all about how a tiny shift in your perspective will create a major transformation in your life."


So here's the lesson of Super Bowl...

Just as you watch the game with heightened curiosity and passion and fascination...take those same qualities and point them to an object of even greater interest and power...YOU!

That's right...watch YOURSELF...and not just on Super Bowl Sunday...all day long, every day.


OK, I realize  this might take some doing because it isn't our usual way of operating.


Elaine St. James gives us some good advice about how to do this.  She says,  

"Try to get into the habit of stepping outside yourself and becoming the observer." 


And when you do what St. James suggests,  something very exciting happens.  In a quiet, impressive and powerful way.  Let me explain.  


As we go through life, we find ourselves caught in the thick of things. 

We are affected...upset sometimes...annoyed by what's transpiring with and around us.  

Another way of putting this is to say 
WE ARE SOMETIMES EMOTIONALLY REACTIVE.

Later, when we think things over, we may wish we hadn't said or done something and promise ourselves it will be different next time. 

But when that next time comes, we enter the fray and off we go again with our default reaction.  And these kinds of behavioral habits are mega-hard to change as we walk through the difficulties and obstacles of life.



But there is a way...

a simple, quiet, introspective  way to make the changes we so desire.  

It's as simple as WATCHING  OURSELVES...becoming the OBSERVER.


Something very exciting happens in this process.  

As the observer, we become an objective witness and recorder of events  and our involvement in them. 

And, somehow, that objectivity presents us with a picture that doesn't feel upsetting or distressful...just a "noticing" that we have been following a predictable pattern that contributes to our turmoil and suffering and a noticing that that picture could easily be changed by a shift in our perception and behavior. 

There's no drama to be found in doing it this way... just a quiet insight that takes hold...with the promise of a more, calm, centered life.  And that is why the very simple action of observing ourselves is so powerful.


Life is teeming with glorious lessons for us and a beautiful one has just presented itself to us.

So do LOVE the fun of Super Bowl Sunday and watching your favorite teams (the Seattle Sea Hawks and Denver Broncos) duke it out on the field (wild ride that it is)...

and LOVE even more the quiet, perceptive, life-enhancing adventure of watching YOU on the playing field of YOUR life.




image from article by Tony Hicks in Contra Costa Times
For Super Bowl 2012, please be quiet --I want to watch the game. 

originally published February 1, 2013