The Process Way of Life
by Faust Ruggiero, M.S.
Everything you need to be happy and fulfilled is already inside you. You simply need to understand how to use it. Then you can find peace, and begin to love yourself.
Human beings are a product of nature. As such, we are governed by natural rules. These are called processes: deliberate and natural actions or steps that must be performed so that we can live in tune with our own natural flow. Understanding the processes, which are listed and defined below, and learning how to incorporate them into your life will help you understand yourself better, and help you live a more happy and productive life.
The Process Way of Life
The Process Way of Life is a step-by-step program that can transform your life into one that is happy, healthy, purposeful, and content. Who we are is the product of the interplay between our physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual attributes, which we all have. Understanding and learning to live according to the Process Way of Life will eventually lead to the ultimate goal of the program, internal balance. You will achieve internal balance when these four attributes operate together, providing you with a pure loving energy source that will change your life. Learning to love yourself and to apply your love to others is the enduring final gift of the Process Way of Life.
The processes are nothing more than tools, procedures we can all use to improve the conditions of our lives. When we incorporate them into our lives, they help our bodies to work more efficiently, they increase our intellectual clarity, they help reduce emotions and subsequently reduce stress and anxiety, and they lead to a deeper appreciation of our connection to our spiritual side. As this happens, we become more balanced people. We free ourselves from the physical pains and stressors of life, become more logical and goal-oriented, experience less anxiety and depression, and become connected to the deeper parts of ourselves.
The Processes Defined
I Over E (Intellect Over Emotion) – Putting your emotions aside long enough to allow your intellect to process information accurately.
Brutal Honesty––Personal truthfulness that is void of defensive thoughts and behaviors, and which tenaciously seeks the facts, regardless of the way they make you feel.
Slowing Down Life’s Pace – Reducing the pace of your life to help you efficiently take care of your body, enhance your powers of concentration, and to reduce your emotions in any given situation.
Fact Finding – Gathering the facts in any situation regardless of whether or not they support your feelings about the situation.
Incremental Forward Movement – A gradual, step-by-step progress toward a goal through a series of small, manageable actions or changes rather than through large, drastic shifts.
Patience – The ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed.
Intelligent Decision Making – Using factual information to arrive at intelligent decisions.
Listening – Listening to others with the intent of understanding their point of view.
Communication – The process of conveying information, ideas, or feelings aiming to create shared understanding by different parties.
Conflict Resolution – The process of peacefully settling disagreements and disputes between two or more parties.
Warm Confrontation – Being able to warmly exchange differing points of view with reduced emotion and increased fact finding.
Eliminating Toxic People – Keeping those whose behavior upsets you and add negativity to your life from affecting you.
Gatekeeping – Controlling who and what enters your life.
Boundary Setting – The process of defining limits or rules for yourself and others in various aspects of life, such as relationships, work, and personal space. It also involves defending your boundaries.
Life On Life Terms – Accepting the reality of life, including its challenges and uncertainties, rather than fighting against them or trying to control everything.
Keeping Life Simple – Living with intention and prioritizing what truly matters, rather than getting caught up in the complexities and pressures of modern life.
Living In The Moment – Paying attention to what’s happening right now, without getting lost in the past or worrying about the future.
Journey Living – Continuous growth and experience, rather than just a destination or a set of goals to achieve. Being able to enjoy every day of your life.
Creativity – The ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using one’s imagination.
Passion – To be completely engaged in your life and the enjoyable parts of it.
Humor – The ability to be funny or amused by people, places, and things that are funny, and to initiate fun and amuse yourself.
Settling Past Issues – The process of resolving and finding closure regarding unresolved conflicts, grievances, hurts, or wrongdoings from the past.
Forgiveness – The intentional decision to let go of resentment, anger, and vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness, so you don’t carry these feelings forward. It also includes learning how to forgive yourself.
Goal Setting – The process of defining specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives and creating a plan to achieve them. It is about deciding what you want to accomplish and outlining the steps needed to get there.
Time/Energy Management – The efficient management of one’s physical and intellectual resources and the understanding of how appropriate measures of time applied to any situation enhances potential for its success.
Risk Taking – The act of doing something that lies outside of one’s comfort zone to experience new life conditions, and achieve new life goals.
Commitment – The state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, and the willingness to remain actively dedicated to the activity.
Sustained Learning – The continuous development of knowledge and skills over time, ensuring that learning is not a one-time event but an ongoing process.
Trust – The belief that someone or something is reliable, truthful, and will act in a way that benefits you. It’s a foundational element of human connection and cooperation, built on a sense of safety and confidence in another’s actions and intentions. It is the willingness to be vulnerable and open oneself to potential risk in a relationship.
Humility – A modest view of one’s own importance; The willingness to consider others’ points of view and the absence of the need for the spotlight or public acclaim.
Honor – High respect, esteem, and reverence for someone or something. It involves recognizing and valuing their worth, merit, or position and acting accordingly through respectful behavior, fair treatment, and, at times, acts of service. It can also refer to upholding one’s own principles and integrity.
Dignity – The state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect. It is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, to be treated ethically, and to treat others with the same value and respect
(Proactive Global) Gratitude – In proactive global gratitude, there is no triggering event, or special deed performed by another person. It occurs because we are making a conscious effort to be grateful for all the moments of our life. It’s a process that is constantly operating, so what occurs in the external world is received, and absorbed internally, finding his way into an environment which is already steeped in gratitude.
Being In Service –Acting with the intention of helping or benefiting someone else, often prioritizing their needs and well-being above one’s own. It involves engaging in actions that are compassionate, selfless, and aim to make a positive impact on the lives of others.
Faith –The conscious surrender of the will, which leads to absolute and unconditional trust in an entity that may or may not be proven.
Pure Love –The peaceful and loving internal state that results when one has attained internal balance. It occurs when your physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual attributes operate in balance.
When you understand how to apply these three processes, you have come to that part of the Process Way of Life that will provide you with a deeper understanding of internal balance—that state when all of your internal attributes function in equilibrium. When this happens, pure love, the most important power source that the Process Way of Life provides can be realized.
It’s important to understand that internal balance is not a collective destination. By this, I mean that not everyone’s internal balance looks the same. Let’s say we’re using a scale from one to ten, with one being the lowest measure and ten being the highest. When you begin to use the Process Way of Life, you might be a one or two on the scale. Becoming internally balanced doesn’t mean you must ascend to the value of ten. It only means that your physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual attributes are in balance. I have been preaching journey living over destination living. If there were some advanced-balance arrival point in the program, it would be a destination. You don’t want your growth to rest on the premise that an arrival point exists and should be the goal of your program.
Aspiring to a higher lever can happen, but it’s not essential to the program. The only goal is to have your four attributes operating in balance. So, it doesn’t matter if your point on the scale is a three, a five, or a nine. Loving yourself and beginning to turn that love outward is possible at any personal level of balance. It’s your life journey, so it’s your own personal balance that is perfect for you. You’ll know it’s right for you because you will feel the balance, and the love for yourself and others will follow.
There is inner peace and a marvelous energy source that you will receive from a balanced internal way of doing things. If you are balanced internally, you will experience a greater capacity to understand and love yourself. When you do, you can turn that love outward in your world and experience the wonderful joy a life lived in internal balance can provide. Internal balance sets the stage for all the love you will need, and the exciting potential to extend your loving balance outward.
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Faust Ruggiero is the award-winning author of the award-winning The Fix Yourself Empowerment Series… www.faustruggiero.com
