#56 Toot Your Own Horn

Over the last four years I’ve been a member of Toastmasters International. This is a worldwide organization designed to help people improve and master their speaking and presentation skills. The club I joined has meetings twice a month and each meeting generally has a theme as a suggested guideline for topics and speeches that are shared that evening. I usually find these themes a bit silly, but they’ve been doing it longer than I’ve been with them so as they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

At the end of each meeting either the Toastmaster or the President glances over the next upcoming meeting to get volunteers to fill various roles that are required and to prepare our mindset with the next theme. Well I just found out that our next meeting’s theme is International Toot Your Own Horn Day. I don’t even know if that is a real thing, but it caught my attention. I thought about it and before I volunteered to give a speech for that meeting, I figured it would make a good subject for my monthly blog post.

A powerful realization that can help increase our overall quality of life is understanding that it is not a requirement to move through life holding onto stress, burdens and a sense of overwhelm. We are not required to continuously recall unpleasant experiences in our lives day after day, cultivating feeling of shame, guilt or anger. In fact, being that we are that which assists in directing our daily lives, we can at any moment choose to release the unnecessary. Now, when I say unnecessary, please do not discount the wisdom found in those challenging and disturbing situations that have occurred in our life. We can grasp the wisdom contained within a given experience without being attached to the feelings associated with that experience.

As we make a conscious choice to release the unnecessary, we begin to make room for the extraordinary to unfold in our lives. After all, how can we expect to bring something wonderful into our experience if we do not have the internal space for something wonderful to develop?

This is a great day to venture into those caverns of our minds and hearts, looking at the thoughts, feelings and memories we hold near and dear. Let us be courageous enough to release what no longer serves us, knowing that as we do, we make space for something magnificent to happen through us right now.

That being said, how about a challenge? Take some time and sit with yourself and look back at your life. List all the accomplishments and the good things you’ve done up to this point. It’s okay. You’ve done some pretty extraordinary things and you need to acknowledge them at least to yourself and also to whomever you want. Toot that horn! It’s not being egocentric. It’s acknowledging your God given talents and abilities. It’s recognizing all of your good traits. It’s shining the spotlight on all the positive things about you. Say YES! You are awesome!

Now that I think about it, I think I’ll toot my own horn and do that speech at our next Toastmasters meeting.