Zap Tolerations The first three months of the wellness challenge focused on simple ways to detoxify by reducing household chemicals, switching to more natural personal products, and limiting obesogens and artificial sweeteners. Although these challenges focused on the physical level, keep in mind that improving your physical health positively affects your mental and spiritual health. You are one being, and all you do affects all of you, subtly and not so subtly, physically and energetically. Stress is a major cause of energetic disharmony. It is a major contributor to dis-ease of mind and body. One way to reduce an ever-present undercurrent of stress is to zap tolerations. This may just be my favorite wellness challenge of all. Unlike the last three challenges, this one does require effort on your part, but the payback is huge, as you will see. What are you tolerating? If you are feeling a low level of chronic stress, you may want to look at what the late Coach Thomas Leonard dubbed ‘tolerations’. The idea is that anything you don’t like, anything that annoys you, or drains your energy is a toleration worth zapping. It could be something as small as a burned out light bulb nobody has bothered to replace, or as major as an abusive spouse. If your environment is too full of energy draining tolerations, you will find that you almost feel paralyzed. You may feel unable to move forward with your dreams and goals, and sometimes even just tasks of everyday living. You may find yourself just living, but not feeling alive. Tolerations are personal. What you find draining may be energizing and positive for someone else. If you choose not to eliminate a toleration, but instead come to a state of acceptance about it, it is no longer considered a toleration. For example, you may have a long commute to work and decide it isn’t feasible to change jobs or move. So instead, you decide to make your commute a time to enjoy audio books or quiet time instead of crabbing. What I’ve noticed though, is that even when I finally decide to eliminate tolerations I thought I accepted, I feel a great sense of relief and surprise at how good it feels – like the release of an energetic block. When that happens, I realize I was tolerating, and not in a state of acceptance like I thought. Thomas Leonard created a master list of 1001 things to stop tolerating. I copied 10 of those tolerations to share with you here so you get an idea of what a toleration is. Keep in mind though, that tolerations can be anything – whether it’s on the list or not.
- My desk is full of stacks of papers
- My wallpaper is peeling in the bathroom
- I am 15 pounds overweight.
- I am tolerating my lack of creative outlet.
- I am tolerating the inanity of television newscasts.
- Mildew on the plastic shower curtain.
- Having chin hairs like an old lady when I’m in my late 30′s.
- Having gotten very good at acting patient and hating every minute of it.
- Feeling like I don’t really have time to do pointless things that are just fun.
- I have no reserve of income.
- And…Bonus #11…Incompletions – this includes broken promises and unfinished tasks.
