What is your environment saying?

“A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly.” – Kevin Bacon 

It’s late as I write—12:49 a.m., to be exact. It was a stir-the-pot kind of day, so with a lot on my mind I got out of bed to do some writing. It’s quiet now and chilly, so I find the blanket a dear friend made me after my sister died and wrap myself up in it. She told me it could hold all my tears, and the moment it enfolds me I think of this and feel the warmth of her loving compassion. Now my body is relaxed, my churning pot transformed into a still lake ready for reflection. This reflective internal environment and warm, cozy, and quiet external environment are my favorite environments for writing.  

I’ve inhabited so many environments in my lifetime. When I reflect on them, I can see how some supported, some inhibited, and some harmed my well-being. I am reminded of what a powerful influence environment has on determining what I think, how I feel, and what I do or don’t do. When we take time to become aware of how our environment influences us, we create an opportunity to make structural changes within those environments. Then we can transform them into environments that support us in making behavioral choices that align us to where we want to go and to be who we want to be.   

Moment by moment, our senses are collecting the environmental data that our minds turn into a thought, which evokes a feeling, which leads us to a want, which leads to a response, which creates our experience—the mind then uses the experience to learn. It is important to note: It is the environment that sparks the experience and the mind that sparks our response to it.   

So today, I invite you to look around the environments you inhabit in your daily life—at home, in your car, at work and notice the thoughts and feelings they evoke. Ask yourself “how is the environment supporting, inhibiting, or harming my well-being.” Start where you spend the most time or feel challenged in. If you find places, like I did, that could use your attention, find a list of ways here you can transform your environment to help you get started.  

It’s late and now I’m thinking about the environment I’ve created for sleeping and realizing it’s the same as what I like when I write—warm, cozy, and quiet. ♥️   

Be well. 

Xo -s