Welcome to the October Edition of 'Your Monthly Wake Up Call'. Welcome to Issue 23 of Your Monthly Wake Up Call. That's 23 months of Waking Up the World, one sleeper at a time. In this issue: Reclaiming Your Non-Negotiables With no messing around, let's go! *** Reclaiming Your Non-negotiables How telling is it that we are a society of people who don't even know how to breathe? Hello? At what more basic level could we possibly fail? ~ Jed McKenna Breathing is a must. It is essential, necessary, imperative, fundamental. Breathing is non-negotiable. You need it or you die. You also need a certain amount to function optimally. Too much or too little and you suffer, plain and simple. There are only a few other 'can't-do-without' non-negotiables in life, including water, food, and sleep. These non-negotiables are similar to breathing in that, if we don't get enough, we will quickly deteriorate and perish. Everything Is For Sale For The Right Price Knowing how important these non-negotiables are matters little. Even though we know that we functional optimally when these non-negotiables are met, we still live in ways that are detrimental and self-abusive. We negotiate adequate breathing because of habits of closure and our fear of feeling. We negotiate proper water intake because we forget or we are too busy doing nothing. We negotiate optimal food intake because we are compulsive and empty. We negotiate our sleep patterns because of our overbusy lives and overbusy minds. In short, we negotiate our non-negotiables daily and even hourly. Oxygen starved, dehydrated, over fed, and sleep deprived, we wonder "why do I feel so _____ ?" What to do? A Line In The Sand Starting today, why not make an effort to reclaim your non-negotiables? Try a daily half hour nap, a breathing practice, a water intake reminder, and a one day a week fast. There are few actions that you can take immediately, that will greatly enhance your overall wellbeing like the four listed above. Or conversely, if you want to see how bad you can feel, simply become more lax with your list of non-negotiables in an experiment to see how important they really are to your overall sense of well-being. Try staying awake for several days, holding your breath, denying yourself water, and gorging yourself with cookies. (I'm kidding..., please don't do that. But if you do, please let me know how it goes for you.) It Gets Worse If you are reading this newsletter, you probably have a set of ideals, values, or virtues that you hold dear. I do. For me there are three primary ones: 1. Fostering an ongoing connection to the Life that is (and I am). 2. Non-reactivity and detachment, fostering kindness, non-harming and compassion (not 'idiot-compassion') 3. Creating and maintaining a moment to moment connection to my deepest truths and greatest gifts to the world. I would like to imagine that I live closely to these three values. I would even like to imagine they are also non-negotiable. But let me put this as simply and as harshly as I can, just so we can get to the main thrust of this months issue of Your Monthly Wake Up Call. I know in my bones and blood that: Life, all of Life, is ALWAYS happening right now, and NEVER otherwise. Kindness and compassion are signs of wisdom and deep maturity. We are either living from our deepest truths and gifts, or we are serving up a lesser, shallow version of ourselves. But, there are times when I negotiate my deepest vision and live in a way that robs humanity of what I know to be true. So let's ask some questions together, to bring this to a head. When is it appropriate to turn away from our real and true Life, which is always happening now, in favor of thought, memory, and imagination? When is it O.K. to sacrifice our one chance to live THIS moment? When is kindness negotiable? Can we say, "I'll be kind, just as long as things go my way..."? Is it O.K. to forget gratitude, and instead, live under the sway of a knee-jerk compulsion to satisfy our petty desires? When is it ok to betray ourselves and the world by living from our lesser understandings and with-hold the gifts we long to share? Does love become a bad idea, just because we are afraid, angry, hurt or confused? What in your Life have you negotiated by making a secret and silent deal with yourself, trading your heart and soul for comfort, consolation, and complacency? What happened? What are you going to do about it? SWACK! Please email me with your three non-negotiables that you plan to reclaim, starting today. Contact me with comments and criticisms. Gratefully, Aaron McNaught A.K.A. The Wake Up Guy