Are You Living a 3 Foot Life?

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There is a saying attributed to the U.S. Navy Seals (and possibly other branches of the military) when you are facing any kind of adversity, you should focus on a “three-foot world.”

In this context, your “three-foot world” is an area three-feet around you in every direction.  This three-foot space provides you with a small area of interest in which you can directly control, affect, influence or touch.

You may be feeling anxious, sad, depressed, fearful or other negative emotions generated by a person, situation or event in your life that is causing the adversity. 

Expressing such negative emotions have no effect on and do nothing to eliminate the adversity or change the person, situation or event in your life that triggered the negative emotions outside of your three-foot world.

To find an appropriate solution to any kind of adversity, you need to first find a solution within your three-foot world.  You empower yourself by focusing on what you can do from within your three-foot world and not on what you can’t or might not be able to do, outside your three-foot world.

Always focusing first on your three-foot world allows you to create empowered solutions to overcome any adversity you are facing your life.

Let me give you a visual illustration for a three-foot world that ties into this concept from the U.S. Navy Seals.  The word Seal stands for Sea, Air and Land. U.S. Navy Seals are elite scuba divers. (I have never been in the military myself and I have no association with the U.S. Navy Seals).

There are several times during this podcast I have talked about my adventures while scuba diving.

During one scuba diving trip to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean, my friends and I decided to experience scuba diving at night.  Suba diving at night can be scary and even dangerous because many ocean predators, such as sharks, feed at night.

During our night dives, each of us was provided with a scuba diving light similar to a flashlight by the dive master.

When you use a diving light on a night dive, in about a three-foot area around the light, the diver sees the ocean environment in full color just like can be seen during the day.

However, the large area outside the three-foot area is not clearly visible when a dive light is used. The dive light actually limits your field of vision and your point of view in the ocean at night.

The area outside the three-foot is actually a danger zone in the ocean, because predators such as sharks, etc. can easily lurk just outside the three-foot viewing area and you would never see them and they are free to attack at will from any direction, above you, below you or from either side.

In contrast, if we turned off the diving light, depending on the visibility of the water and the amount of ambient light from the environment, lights on the shore, other boats, the moon, stars, etc., the whole environment is clearly visible inside and outside the three-foot area, but in black-and-white instead of in color.  It has a similar feel to viewing an old black-and-white movie you may see on television.

Although living in a three-foot world is very empowering and can help you overcome any adversity you are facing in your life, it can also be very limiting.

How can you enhance the advantages of operating in your three-foot world to effectively address people, events and situations that exist outside your three-foot world?

1. Dynamically adjust your point-of-view to view your environment inside and outside your three-foot world.   When you are facing adversity, first address the environment within your three-foot world. Get a clear view of what can directly control affect, influence or touch and the associated emotions for doing so.   Then remember, they are potential dangers outside of your three-foot world, just the sharks lurking in the ocean right outside the three-foot world in the darkness outside the of area illuminated by the dive light.  Next address the environment outside your three-foot world and get a clear view of the people, events and situations you cannot directly control affect, influence or touch and their associated emotions that are creating adversity in your life.  Switch your point-of-view back forth several times to ensure you clearly see and feel both worlds, light and dark and you are not missing something.
2. Tune into your intuition within the safety of your three-foot world to collect intuitive insights.  Your intuition is your first sense. It is the sense you use before your other five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Your intuition operates outside the physical realm in the energetic realms. Intuition is defined as “an inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious recognition of energetic patterns and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.”  Your Intuition emanates from the energy of a Higher Power and provides you with Divine guidance and Divine intelligence.   Your Intuition is that gut-feeling, that warm feeling in your heart-space, that ah-hah moment or something that just pops into your head, without you having been thinking about it, but is something you just know, is true and correct. Your Intuition is your inner guidance system that operates both within and outside of your three-foot world, in the light and in the dark, and many different dimensions as the same time. Your Intuition provides you with clear, viable and peaceful solutions to any adversity you are currently facing in your life via intuitive insights. Tune into your intuition within the safety of your three-foot world via mediation, quiet reflection, etc. and collect these intuitive insights to create a variety of possible solutions for the adversities you are facing both inside and outside your three-foot world.
3. Apply Your Intuitive Insights inside and outside of you three-foot world.  Use the intuitive insights you collected to create and take inspired, specific and direct actions to overcome any adversity you’re a facing in your life both inside and outside of your three-foot world.  Apply such inspired, specific and direct actions inside your three-foot world first. As you apply your actions inside your three-foot world, shift yourself away from any negative emotions you may be feeling such as anxiety, sadness, depression, fear, guilt, etc. to positive emotions, such as courage, calm, peace, happiness, joy, love, empathy, etc. and apply these positive emotions to the situation, event or person including the adversity you are facing from within your three-foot world. Then repeat the process using inspired, specific and direct actions and applying positive emotions outside your three-foot world to the person, situation or event including the adversity you are facing in your outside world.

Operating both inside of and outside of your three-foot world based on intuitive insights you have collected for yourself helps you to create a positive impact in your own life.

Out There on the Edge of Everything® …

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

Copyright © 2021, 2023 by Stephen Lesavich, PhD.  All rights reserved.

Certified solution-focused life coach and experienced business coach.