1. Life Updates You Didn’t Ask For: Rhode Island

2. Life - Feel Out Your Environment

3. Word of the Day

4. Relationships - The Sixth Love Language

5. Health - The Mental House

6. Word of the Day Meaning

We made it to the season we envisioned during the winter; Summer

We’re making our first turn on the track known as August. We know what to expect now that we’re settled into the season.

Today is August 8th 2024. 8+8+8. August (8th Month), 8th (Eighth day), 2024 (2+2+4=8) and you should be getting this at 8pm! (8888!)

How’s your summer been? How did Spring end? Mine has been going well. I left the country, came back, headed north and now I’m south again. In between traveling I made it a point to nestle in Rhode Island for a few days.

I really like Rhode Island. Rhode Island just does its thing. It’s a great place to relax and I’m going to go on a very narrow limb and confess that Rhode Island has better beaches than Florida. No palm trees though so I’m docking them 8 points.

I like Rhode Island because there are places where I can really chill. You can find great views and the people are usually nice. Those things go a long way on the ability to self-reflect. We need environments like that. I’m able to get that where I reside as well. This is confirmed by being away for a little and coming back. Having a place where you can just chill. Rhode Island is a great place to do it. I think I have a few photos in my back pocket. It’s probably covered in tissue lint and reciept papers:

The old adage helps keep me grounded when traveling:

Go Where Your Name Rings Bells

There’s a chemical reaction that occurs within us all when we are somewhere we want to be. It goes even further when the people are nice and so is the general scenery.

Where does it feel like your name rings bells of announcement and appreciation of your presence? Where do you feel appreciated? Where can you let your proverbial hair down? Have you experienced it? When was the last time you have been to a place where the bells rang at the sound of your name?

Going to this place is self-care in and of itself. Spend a few hours in a space that feels as though it rings bells at your arrival and entirety of your stay. Is it an island? A beach town? The local library? A particular coffee shop in East Providence that has the letter ‘Z’ in it? Is it your bedroom?

What location do the bells ring and what location do you know where your walls naturally come down? Where can you take a deep breath and feel a light happiness?

I think we’ll start there. That’s going to be the general theme of this summer newsletter. It was monthly but then I was like

‘Meh. I can cut it back a bit.’

So for the Seasonal Newsletter let’s start off with

What are the three things that we can do to help us recalibrate, eventually leading us to getting back on track? Write this down with permanent maker or make this a tattoo:

1. Review your where you’re going

2. Create a routine from elements of what worked in the past

3. Clean your space

The first two are important but we’ll save it for another time. Let’s focus on cleaning.

Our environment can be felt out. How do you feel about your current environment and the many other environments you experience in a day? In a week? Find spaces where your name rings bells and sit there for a little bit.

Three environments are important: The home, the room and the house of the mind.

1. The Home

   Wherever that key unlocks that door is home. Where do you close society out and how do you feel about that space once that door is closed?

2. The Room

   Where do you close the door that keeps company out when you need a moment? What are your thoughts of this space?

3. The House of The Mind

   Closing our eyes that represents the closing doors of the first two environments invites us into the home where our minds reside. What thoughts and images permeate in this space? Is there comfort or guilt? Shame or acceptance? The House of The Mind is the first environment that needs to be tidy in order for change to take place and stick.

Why?

Everything starts out as a thought. How do keep this house nice? We keep our physical environment nice. It’s like reverse engineering it:

As we make our physical environment nice to our liking and enough for us to be able to relax in it, this in turn sprinkles good thoughts into our mind with minimal effort. The opposite stands true regarding spaces that are less than desirable.

This comes full circle on the importance of cleaning. Cleaning our spaces from the inside out, back inside.

A clean bedroom can help clean our thoughts when we lay down and close our eyes. It builds momentum. These cleaner thoughts in the mind gently introduces new possibilites and methods to consider.

We meet a better version of ourselves when our space is clean and they work better with us. A clean space to go to bed to and wake up with gives us a chance to think clearly. Feel out your environment to see if there’s anything that can be done to make it even 1% more comfortable.

Something I know that you’ve been wanting to go on for a good while. Go ahead. If you don’t know what this word means, you’ll see it again but take a guess what it means based on how it’s used.

‘Mirror Reflections Speak a Language.’

So by now you’ve been hammered with the five love languages via trying to figure out how to create, fix, or sustain a relationship. Maybe you programmed metadata into your algorithm and now it pops up from time to time. If not, here they are again (because I always forget what they are during a session):

1. Physical Touch

2. Words of Affirmation

3. Quality Time

4. Acts of Service

5. Receiving Gifts

The sixth love language is mirroring. First of all, if your partner speaks to you in an abusive tone, this won’t work.

Sometimes our partners want a reflection of what they do, speak, and how they interact.

How does your partner communicate with you? Sarcastically? Quietly? Matter of fact’ly’? Consider how they communicate with you and take a moment to mirror what you know about how they confabulate with you. Pay attention to their responses that come from your mirroring. Is it invited? Is it immediately noticed? Does your partner take offense to how you’re mirroring them?

Mentally document it. Carry on. Before mentioning anything to them, process this information and write down your findings.

What

did

ya

learn???

Take that information and do what you must. I can help if you have any questions on what to do next but I say, “Feel out your environment”. Especially the one that houses your mind.

Mirroring plays a role with the five love languages. If you want to jumpstart your relationship, mirror your partner’s love language(s). So if they are big on quality time, plan some time exclusively for them. If words of affirmation is theirs, speak life into them and whatever they’re pursuing. Surprise them with a gift if they’re big on gifting etc.

Take some time out to mirror your partner and see what nuggets reveal themselves to you. Again, if your partner is one who easily gets into a diatribe about menial things then I’d skip this whole process. We need to talk if it’s like that.

Our environments play a role in how we see the world and how we see ourselves within the world. If my car has some levels of dishevelment to it, my mood and thoughts are going to be impacted.

If we decide to get some work done in a coffee shop in a city that we don’t like, the quality of our work may be affected.

It’s important to like where we are for a period of time. If we can even find time in our week to go somewhere we can relax, that goes a long way. One place that should be considered is the space that houses our thoughts. What is the inner dialogue like in your mind? When you get to a point in your day when you have nothing to do and are absent external stimulants, what are the first few thoughts that you think will come to mind? Each thought represents the cleanliness and condition of the space that houses your thoughts.

Is the self-talk rough around the edges? Does wrapping your mind around a problem become a thing? If this does happen, one of the best things we can do is clean something. Clean the nearest meaningful space to you. It goes a long way to clean the space where you sleep whether it be cleaning your sheets or organizing a visible space. Once we get to a point of agreement in our space and can relax, take a browse of the quality of thoughts you have again.

Cleaning externally helps with thoughts internally. We’ve knocked something off on our checklist. We aren’t that terrible at being human after all.

Cleaning our space near areas that we lay our head allows us to take deeper sighs of relief and mainly good thoughts come after sighs of relief. What are you going to do with the good thoughts that were established by cleaning your space? What’s there to ponder on? What is the solution to that other thing? What is something or someone that can be appreciated in my life now? What do I have now that I did not once have but always wanted?

These thoughts are the broom, cloth and mop of the space that houses our minds and keep things tidy.

So keep an eye on your Mental House. Poke your head in and see if everything is to your liking.

That’s all I have for you. Oh the meaning of the word diatribe!

Let me know if you have any other questions. I am officially making this newsletter quarterly and according to the seasons. So in that case, enjoy your Summer and see you in the Fall!

O’Neil Smile
Honest Friend Life & Relationship Consulting