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What's your bullseye!?!?!

Writer's picture: brookshaislipbrookshaislip

Updated: Jan 2, 2019



What’s your ‘bullseye’? You know that feeling when you reach your goal, you succeed, you nail it, totally rock it out? You feel how you want to feel? Is it way out in front of you or are you it yourself, right now? Is it made up of material objects or does it contain particular feelings, values and people that deeply matter to you?


What makes up the surrounding rings of your bullseye, in the yellow, blue and red areas? Where is your focus? Is it on the eye, in the rings or totally off the target, constantly fizzled out, scattered, exhausted, and lonely? Are you desperate to slow down and connect to what it is that you truly care about? Have you forgotten to ask yourself this question in quite awhile or have never even considered it? Is your focus on the screens in your life (phone, computer, iPad, tv) more than with the people in it?


Are you aware that you are the ultimate only one that can hit your target and have it feel like a bullseye for yourself? Are you sitting on the sideline watching and waiting for someone else to show you how to hit the eye and/or do it for you, thinking that when they do you will somehow feel complete and set for life?


Perhaps you think you know what is in the target, and it is not stuff but rather desired feelings, values and things/people you love but you just can’t figure out how to reach them now, and have a story that at some point, other than right now, you will eventually get there, but that you just need to sacrifice some things for the time being, and then you will get there?


I think a lot of us are walking around not even knowing we are the master archer of our own life. I know I for sure have felt totally out of touch during huge chapters of my life. So, important to note, no judgement where you are, I get it. I really do. We can all get off track, become isolated and numbed out to what it is that we love. Again, I've been there.


I'm concerned that we have forgotten the joy of our hobbies, playing board games, hide and seek with a gaggle of kids on our street at a time, unexpected visits from a neighbor just wanting to sip tea together, a stroll without our phones with us, sitting on a blanket in a park all day long eating a yummy picnic and having casual and/or deep soul talk, a sporadic cookout with friends you bump into at the market and many more little things that are incredible, simple, big pathways to connection.


Brene Brown has stated that since 911, her research shows that we are becoming more and more sorted, lonely and afraid, and that we are in the midst of a “spiritual crisis of disconnection.” She defines ’spirituality’ as “a belief in inextricable, unbreakable connection.” She reminds us to get out in the world and play together and to also grieve together. Go dance it out wild at a live concert, listen to the symphony, go to a sports event, and also take a walk with a friend who just had to put their dog down, show up at funerals, and pick up the damn phone, especially when it is hard, to call a friend you know is having a hard time.

We have go to stop doing what is comfortable and wake up to what really matters, most importantly to loving ourselves and each other, especially those that feel far away from our own world.


One of my favorite stories that Brene Brown shared with the audience this past fall in Charlotte, NC was the one about how her mother made them go to every funeral of someone that had passed in their community. At the funeral she told her children that it was a must to do 2 things: 1) You will sing every song no matter what the faith. 2) When you see someone in pain, you will not look away.

BOOM!!!! Grandmothers/fathers, parents, mentors, people- it is time to rise and sit in it TOGETHER.


Invite a “neighbor stranger” (my name for a person who literally lives next door to you but you don’t even know their name) over to a meal, call a friend who you know is in the dark and see if they want to go on a walk or have a cup of tea, play Uno, make Christmas cookies with your family all day long, dance to your favorite song in the kitchen, smell the fall air, hug each other, got out to dinner with your family to a restaurant where there are no cvs and leave your phones in the car, be quiet and listen, sing out loud, breathe together, go to a fundraiser together, create together, and be together- no phones, no screens, no distractions. Present.


Remember quality verses quantity. I get it, we have things to do and responsibilities, and aren’t we blessed to say so, but this is important preventative medicine. We are a social species, which means we are dependent on connection for survival. So, give your life some medicine today and slow down, do something small, yet HUGE that will help to reconnect you to what really matters in your heart. And, then, wake up each morning, place your values as your focus for your bullseye for the day, and aim your actions towards them. At each step along your path, when there is a choice, ask yourself “Does that take me towards or away from what I care about the most?”


The more and more we do these simple, HUGE, often uncomfortable things that keep our arrow on the target the more and more we will feel the essence of our values on the inside. With practice, we become our own living bullseye, so that we are simultaneously the master archer of our life with our eye on the target and we are the target itself. So, pick up your bow, and let your ‘why’ lead the way.


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