I recently attended a Tony Robbins event in the NY area. I had heard a lot of things (some positive and some negative) about Tony’s “motivational” and “inspirational” style and I was curious to check it out for myself. My goal for attending the event was to re-focus my energy and find greater balance in my life between a demanding professional career(s) and balancing time with family and friends. But I when I was in the audience with 14k other people, I realized that many people in attendance were seeking strength to overcome anxiety, depression, anger, fear, insecurities, and many other debilitating emotions. I suddenly felt a little out of place and almost embarrassed by my desire to simply re-focus my energy.
For 4 days I listened to the most interesting, and sometimes disturbing, stories from the audience members and I studied Tony’s response to each person and their stories of heartache, abuse, and hopelessness. There was a key underlying message that Tony would relay to each person and it is a message that I often overlooked in my prior life and have since been trying to incorporate into my daily routine ever since I left the event and it has completely changed my perspective on every day life.
Gratitude.
The emotional power of gratitude, as I learned at the event, is more powerful than anxiety, depression, anger, and fear. If you spend a few minutes every day focusing on what you are grateful for, it can be small things like the sunny blue sky or big things like the love from spouse, family and friends or your health, the emotional response to the feelings of gratitude will slowly diminish the feelings of anger, anxiety, depression or fear. If you wake up each day and focus on a handful of DIFFERENT things than the prior day, your brain will register the gratitude emotions as the most powerful and the other debilitating negative emotions will diminish or completely disappear!
Tony has an AM ritual that he teaches at his events, but I find that for me, I have modified his ritual to 3 simple steps that work for me:
1. Close my eyes or position myself in a place with minimal distractions or at the beach looking at the water or looking at a favorite photo of a place I love
2. Consciously think of 3 things I am grateful for that day, being aware not to overlap from the day before and trying to mix in small and big things
3. Consciously think about where I am spending energy and re-direct my energy if needed to make sure that I am focusing my energy on my long term goals and not getting distracted or concerned with small frustrations of everyday life. I re-focus on the big picture and let go of everything else.
This process has changed my perspective on life. I find myself happier, feeling less stress, having more clarity, and enjoying life even more than before. I don’t work for Tony Robbins or benefit in any way from sharing my experience with others. This was a simple daily process that I learned at the 4 day event that made the whole experience worthwhile and I wanted to share it with you! I hope it helps you too!
I don’t usually dedicate my blog articles, but I would like to dedicate this blog article to my dear friends, Chrystele Escure who recently survived apocalyptic category 5+ Hurricane Irma on the tiny island of St Barths, Katherine Wilkens who narrowly escaped raging fires engulfing her home town of Sonoma/Napa, and Amanda Novelli who ran for her life as machine gun bullets whizzed past her head at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival. I am forever grateful that my dear friends are safe and the universe was on their side during these recent horrific disasters. I am sooooo grateful! 🙂
Pictures below: Left is my hometown islands flying over Portland Maine and on the right is my favorite spot in Chicago- North of Lincoln Park on Lakeview Dr.
