03 Love Not Fear - Beyond The 'To-Do' List

It’s day three of the Living From Love experiment. Today, Liz is challenged to look beyond her “to-do” list and tap into a well of patience. The day brings unexpected frustrations, preventing her from completing everything she had planned.

Yet, she feels grateful for the experiment of 'Living From Love'—it’s a timely reminder to navigate the day with calm and steadiness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to day three of the Living from Love experiment.

My name's Liz Scott.

The idea is that for 30 days,

Every single day,

I am going to make an intentional choice of living from a place of love rather than fear.

And then what I do is I share with you daily what I've learnt from that day.

And the invitation is that you join me.

So please join me on this experiment.

At the end of each day,

I reflect on the day,

I write a journal,

And then I share with you what I've seen from that particular day.

Today I guess could be best summed up as beyond the to-do list.

And I say that because today I set out with a to-do list.

I don't know if you do that sometimes.

You write a whole list of things you want to get done that day.

There was a mixture of computer stuff,

Work stuff,

Chores that I needed to do.

And also at the very end of the day,

I was going to have a cup of tea with my friend.

And the idea was that I would have got through all my to-do list so that by the time I had a cup of tea with my friend,

That was going to be my treat.

The thing is,

It didn't work out like that.

Have you ever done that?

You've started your day with a to-do list.

You started with great intentions and things haven't quite worked out as you were hoping.

So what's this all got to do with living from love rather than fear?

Well actually I've learned a lot.

For starters,

I sat down to work on my computer.

I thought it was a simple task and I came up against technical glitches.

It became a very frustrating time.

I didn't complete what I thought I was going to complete and I got very frustrated with it.

I then wanted to complete a chore.

I wanted to drop off a parcel.

This was going to take 30 minutes.

Unfortunately,

I had been given the wrong address.

So I went to drop off a parcel.

The traffic was terrible.

I went to the wrong address and then I had to travel to another address.

So what should have been a 30-minute chore became two hours of frustration.

And then finally,

I was meant to see my friend for a cup of tea and it was going to be the treat at the end of the day.

And when my friend arrived,

I felt this wave of frustration because I had so many things I hadn't done and I needed yet to do.

So those were the three things,

The key things that happened during my day.

I wanted to work on my computer,

But I got computer glitches.

I wanted to drop off a parcel and I got stuck in traffic.

And then I wanted to hang out with my friend,

But I had this sense of frustration that I hadn't done the things I wanted to do.

I'm so glad that I was bringing my attention to the intention of living from love,

Not fear.

And I'll tell you why.

Because when I sat with my computer and I was feeling a rising frustration,

I was hearing those stories in my head of you're not good enough,

You don't know anything about technology,

You're not very competent at what you're doing.

All those stories kind of rolled up into my head.

But I realised and noticed the feelings of discomfort and remembered my intention of living from love rather than fear.

And then what opened up for me was that I noticed I started to breathe more,

Take intentional deep breaths.

I went out for a short walk to give myself a break from the computer.

I stopped to give myself tea breaks.

I just gave myself time and space with the computer.

When it came to dropping off the parcel,

Once again,

I was stuck in traffic.

I had this sense of hurry up,

Hurry up,

Hurry up.

But again,

I remembered I was living from love rather than fear.

So rather than feeling a victim,

Instead,

I noticed that feeling of frustration of wanting to hurry up and feeling like I was hard done by.

And I just sat in the traffic jam and didn't aggravate that frustration.

Any further.

And then finally,

When my friend arrived and I hadn't done half of the things I wanted to have done that day,

I sat with my friend and I was present with her.

I remembered once again to live from a place of love rather than fear.

So today it's been a real gift living from love rather than fear.

And what has turned up is patience.

What I've noticed is that one of the ways that love turns up for me is that it turns up as patience.

And I notice that when I get riled up into feelings of frustration or aggravation,

That if I notice it and I bring my awareness back to love,

Then I settle in that space and I just do the best with what's in front of me.

So today,

I have really seen beyond the to-do list and what I've really noticed is that when I am intentional about living from love rather than fear,

That love turns up as patience.

Let me know how you're getting on with your experiment and what's turning up for you.

I'll be back tomorrow and I'll tell you what happens on day four when I live from love rather than fear.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing your experience, it really resonated with me and I totally related to this 🙏🏽💕

We all get them days 😭its why I only have a vague idea of what I need to do each day

What came up for me yesterday was to remember to love myself when doubt arose about what I do, following another client cancellation.
I'm not sure I fully succeeded and the doubts are still there:" I should have done more, I'm not good enough, I keep loosing track" I deep down know I'm OK, but I don't feel OK...
I will keep going though, bringing myself back to Love. As the song says Love is all you need, Love castes out fear!