RElease: Renew Your Contact with Life
You’ve been leasing your life. We’re essentially just tenants on planet earth who just use stuff and make an imprint for a while during the term of our occupation.
It’s confusing, because a lot of us call ourselves “homeowners” when really we’re just borrowers from the bank. We claim rights to our spouses and children when sadly both can be taken away. Our stuff, from our toaster oven to our retirement account is only worth what the market declares, and both can go up in flames.
Even as we walk around and build upon this gorgeous globe, we’re just travelers whose footprints and structures will be blown away with the sand of time.
As much as we want to assert that we’re owners, the inescapable glory of the world around us declares otherwise: we are simply residents in a realm to which we can’t claim legal rights.
So, what does leasing have to do with ordering your life?
In order to take back our lives, we must first begin by understanding that we are in fact not owners.
If we try to reclaim our out-of-control lives as owners, we will try to wrest the reigns from the galloping horse of chaos. And we may just be bucked off!
Beginning to “restore order” with an owner’s sense of rights will lead to irritation (“How did this place get so messy?” “Whose fault is this anyway? Someone owes an explanation!”) An owner’s exasperation starts with him or herself and quickly spreads to others. We want to fix the problems, and fast. And it would be better if someone else just “handled it.” So, owners delegate the clean-up or muddle through the fog in frustration. So owners start with pain.
If we rightly understand, however, that we are simply lessees who have been given a management contract to life, we will approach the process of “restoring order” to our lives much differently.
First, we’ll act as caretakers instead of owners.
Caretakers are given a stewardship. Some can be good and some can be poor stewards.
A good caretaker assumes responsibility; they look around and say “How can I make improvements around here?” Whether it’s clutter or relationships or dreams, lessee caretakers are managing potential.
They begin with a belief that improvement is not only achievable, it’s necessary. So lessees start with possibility.
So what happens if we haven’t been managing much of anything, when life seems overwhelming? We’re ready for change, we’re willing to try stewardship (since perceived ownership has been a drag), but we just don’t know where to begin? It’s time to re-lease!
We re-lease (or lease again) our life when we make a new commitment (or return to an old one). It’s a choice to saddle up to the table of commitment and sign our name on the dotted line. We are choosing to reengage. We are choosing to make ourselves responsible for the possibility of our lives instead of riding the unruly, unbroken horse of driven ownership.
You see, sometimes we get so burdened by life that we slip into obligatory living. Phrases like “getting by” or “hanging in there” tell the story of our imprisonment to stuff, commitments, and a life we feel we have little control over. (Beautifully, another definition of release actually means to free from confinement, bondage, obligation, and pain!)
It’s time to throw off the restraints of irritation with your less-than-expected life. It’s time to put the proverbial pen to paper. Go ahead, sign back up for life. Check back in. Reclaim the full, glorious life you were meant to live.
Renew your lease on life! After all, you’re the caretaker that’s been chosen to steward the limitless possibility of your life!
There’s power in declaring your renewed contract! Comment on this blog post and share how you’re going to become a caretaker of your life of possibility!
With you in this journey,
Vicki Norris
Related:
- Sign up to receive our monthly inspirational [Restore] enewsletter
- Join the movement of Life Reclaimists by signing up for my free Life Reclaimist Jumpstart
- Visit our Life Reclaimist page for more resources
