Hey! I’m glad you’re here. This is Episode 4 and we’re diving in to talk about what it means to actively own your life. Are you ready? Let’s do this!

I want you, my listening friend, to know something:
you have the ability to be responsible for YOUR life. It’s important to say this because not everyone gets it. They live their life REacting instead of ACTING, they’re responding to other people and situations without even realizing it doesn’t have to be that way. They just truck along, never even giving it a second thought, this is just how life is. Your life is not a pinball game. You’ve seen them in the arcade. Lights flashing, bells dinging. You are not the ball getting slapped around without any say-so about where you go, pinging all around setting buzzers and sirens off. No. You can own your life.

Let’s be sure you don’t take these conversations to mean that you don’t measure up and you better improve your life or else. Or else what, I don’t know, I’ll just stop there. Don’t be shamed into thinking your life is less than ideal. We don’t have to be constant self-improvement projects. You can be grateful for where you are and where you’ve been, be grateful AND want to grow. Be reflective about where you want to go with your life, who you want to be and what you want to do.

That’s what I encourage you to do. Experience life on your terms and explore what that means for you and how you want to do that. To be CURIOUS [such a great word!] about growing In your personal life, in your work life, in how you contribute to the world.
What are your dreams?
What are the dreams you’re afraid to dream?

Your life belongs to you- every moment, every day, In every situation, in every circumstance you find yourself in- you can own your life.

Now, I can hear some of you saying, “Tracey, that’s all well and good but that’s not me.”

What if you don’t feel this way?
What if you feel like somebody else owns your life? What if you’ve decided that you want someone else to maybe not control, because that’s a really strong word, but heavily influence your life?

Maybe this is you…

**you’re married. You tied the knot and now the 2 of you are one and you know this because you said traditional wedding vows so it must be and now your life is not your own, right? No. A thoughtful partner will consider the impact of their decisions on their spouse but
you’re still responsible for your own thoughts, feelings and actions. You can own your life while sharing your life.

Maybe this is you…
**You’re trapped by all the ‘shoulds’ in your mind. You’re shoulding all over yourself. I should wear this and drive that and date her and work there. Maybe you’re right, maybe not. You can free yourself from shoulds and own your life.

Maybe this is you…
**you have kids. Somebody’s got to take care of the children cuz those little children don’t raise themselves. You get to choose HOW you raise them and care for them, no matter what the parenting books, your neighbor or your mother-in-law say. You decide how to be the parent.

** and if you have kids, maybe you’ve been the breastfeeding mama and I feel you sister because I have been there. You feel like your body is not your own. I mean some random baby on TV cries and your milk lets down so surely that means you don’t own your life. But you can. You can decide to feed your baby or pump the milk or throw a towel over your wet shirt and move on. Even the baby milk machine has choices.

Maybe this is you…
** you have a job that rules your life. And you can’t walk away from your job because the bank owns your house and the credit card bills own your mailbox. You’re stuck, aren’t you? Well, you could start a side hustle that earns you some extra money and some tax deductions and you look at your budget and make some decisions about where your money HAS to go and where it’s just flowing off unintentionally to some random stuff. You have choices when you take responsibility.

Maybe this is you…
**You’re a religious person
And you dedicate your life to living by your religious principles; You are GIVING the gift of your life to serve your higher power; you’re not being controlled by a puppet master. You still maintain the ability and the responsibility to choose your thoughts, feelings & actions in accordance with what you believe.

Are you getting the picture?
It doesn’t matter what circumstance you find yourself in, you can own your life.

Viktor Frankl said this, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

That is exactly where owning your life begins.

Choosing your attitude. Deciding the priorities for your life. What’s right for you and in line with your values at this point in your life.

There was a guy that a friend of mine knew. This guy was in the Secret Service. He loved his Secret Service job and he also loved the new church he’d joined. His job required him to work a lot of weekends. This was long, long before Covid shutdowns so church services were in person on the weekends, when he was mostly working. So anybody looking at his church attendance thought there was a problem- that he didn’t care, he just joined and never showed up. Some of his church leaders were concerned and met with him to talk things over because they cared. He shared an experience he’d had. He escorted high level foreign dignitaries, leaders from other countries, and one of the rules in the Secret Service is that you can’t initiate conversation with the people you’re accompanying. Well, one Sunday morning, when his friends were thinking he should be in church with us living out his beliefs, this guy had the opportunity to work with the highest ranking leader of another country, a predominantly Muslim country. The leader asked the guy about a pin he was wearing on his lapel which opened up a conversation about religion. He had the chance to speak in a respectful way about his own love for God. An opportunity he would have missed if he’d done what others thought he should do and find a job that allowed him to regularly attend church.

The Secret Service fella had decided to live his life according to his priorities and his values. It didn’t immediately look like it from the outside. On the surface level, it kinda looked like he was choosing money over his spiritual well being, and that was his right to choose if he wanted. But he knew the opportunities he had, subtle and not so subtle, to live out his beliefs in a way that served him best. He did his own thing in his own way. He owned his life.

The way you live your life doesn’t have to live up to anybody’s expectations but your own. When you own your life, you take full responsibility for evaluating your values and aligning your life accordingly.

Those who own their lives, we are not fearless. We are courageous. Courage is acting in the presence of our fears.
Those of us who own their lives have the courage to think and feel and do and be what others aren’t willing to think and feel and do and be. That’s powerful.

I want to leave you with a challenge- it’s a really simple one but it’s fun. Take 5 minutes every day to dream. Be curious [remember, it’s an excellent word!] about who you want to be, 5 minutes to let your mind wander in thoughts of what you’d like life to be like. Don’t dive into action. We so quickly want to move to ask “What can I do? What can I do?” So here’s what you can do. Do some creative thinking. I’d love to hear what you come up with.
–
In future episodes, I’ll be featuring questions from listeners, other life owners like you. If you have a question or a topic or situation you want us to explore, or if you want to tell me what you’ve been dreaming about, send me an email- doesn’t have to be fancy- just cover the basics and send it to tracey@tbrowning.com with ‘podcast question’ in the subject line and hit send.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Thank you so much for listening!
Go ahead and subscribe to the podcast so you get notified when new episodes drop each week.

Now go – live, love, make some money and change the world!