Posts Tagged ‘positive thinking’
Not Without Effort
Why does it take effort to see the positive in our world while the negative shows up uninvited? Maybe if I practiced being still and in the moment long enough to see, I would discover that there is no imbalance of negative over positive. In my experience of navigating the world without practicing such meditation, the majority of information that paints my backdrop is less than happy. It takes conscious mental exercise to re-focus the landscape around me to reflect all the positive that is ever-present, regardless appearances otherwise.
I’m afraid there is a significant amount of learned behavior that is responsible for my tendency to find optimism an effort to accomplish. I have many years of practicing fatalistic pessimism to overcome.
But hope springs eternal! Local football teams have signed new coaches. The days are getting longer. The dates for my annual June bicycle trip have been announced. We still have our house. There is food on our shelves. Gas in the car. Heat in our home. Clothes on my back. Family is healthy and free of strife. Love is abundant. We know peace that passes understanding.
Yet it is still an exercise to choose to know all that, over the dismay which presents itself without effort. I bask in the grace that allows me the luxury of doing so. I choose to focus on the unending love that inspires the good we enjoy throughout the entire world. It is always well within our grasp.
We are empowered with the ability to make that conscious choice.
Fine Line
I woke up a couple of days ago and something seemed out of sorts. You know that sense you have before actually getting sick? There is nothing specific to point to that feels wrong yet, but you can still tell. “I’m getting sick.”
At that point, I imagine that if I had a microscopic view of myself, I would be able to see why I feel the sensation of getting sick. Before we even break out with that sore throat, or cough, or fever, there are things going on at the cellular level that we can detect, even though we can’t specifically identify.
On Sunday I became so tired in the afternoon, I fell into a totally involuntary nap, sleeping even though I had no intention to do so. My appetite has not been there at meal time, yet showed up with a vengeance at odd hours. However, Monday morning, I had no reason not to go to work. Since it was Monday, and I was going to work, I packed for the usual morning soccer games. Soccer felt like I’d aged a decade since the last time I played. Again, there was nothing specific to point to, but I felt slow, extremely tired, and enjoyed little success.
This is the time when I feel our self-talk can have greater impact. If I were to keep telling myself that I was getting sick, my body would easily oblige me. Conversely, I choose to focus my attention on the fact that days are passing and no specific symptoms of illness are materializing. Microscopically, my cells are doing what cells do to fight off any tiny invaders and everything is performing the way it is supposed to.
I believe there is a very fine line between getting sick and staying healthy when it comes to the regular onslaught of minor viral infections that we face on any given day.
For not feeling quite my normal peak healthy self lately, I must admit, I still feel pretty good. Nana nana nanna na.
Thinking Positive
Regardless my best intentions to help myself by making conscious choices to be positive about life, there has never been a day when I have successfully contemplated the multitude of different ways things could work out for the best. I don’t seem to have any problem imagining a myriad of bad outcomes. Would it be possible to get myself to actually believe in a high probability of many different positive results coming at me in any given day?
I would be trying to counteract all those formative years as a Minnesota sports fan.
For now, I will be satisfied with looking out for at least one possibility that everything’s gonna be alright.
It’s Friday! There are plenty of ways this could be a really great day. I intend to remain open to the idea.
Dragonflies symbolize renewal, positive force and power of life in general with a sense of self that comes with maturity
Truth and Fear
Have you ever tried to actually figure out what is true? Truth is not quite as cut and dried as it is made out to be. I feel differently about a lie. Lies aren’t likely to occur without intent, and as a result are much easier to define. Truth just happens. Truth just is. Ah, but truth is more often referenced against falsity. Falsehood can probably be argued just as much truthfulness. When a person is intending to cover up something, the action is rarely referred to as creating falsity and much more likely to be identified as an act of lying.
Which situation gives rise to the greater fear: telling the truth, or telling a lie? Why do either one produce fear? Look at some of the things we are afraid of… appearing uninformed, drawing undesired attention to ourselves, revealing a deficiency of character, being hypocritical. Lies might be employed in avoidance of such fears, but isn’t it possible that summoning truth could serve one equally well here?
I’d be lying if I said I knew.
I keep coming across another snippet from Gary Zukav’s meditations from Seat of the Soul (because the little flip book in the bathroom doesn’t get flipped very often) that refers to fear in a way that resonates with me…
From page 70:
All souls are tempted, but an individual with limitation of consciousness will find it more attractive to walk into the magnetic field of fear because it would not recognize fear for what it is. It would accept it as something else, as something that is normal to Life.
I often hear people discuss things that to my ears appear related to their fears, but their conversation isn’t framed with any recognition of it being a fear. It comes across as more of a frustration, or anger, or even indignation over details of a given subject (often fueled by news reports which so deftly propagate and then harvest the attention). They don’t even realize where it is they are dwelling, within their field of fear. It is, indeed, accepted as normal to life. It is a drama to which they are attracted. It becomes an addiction of sorts.
Turn off the news. Practice recognizing where it is that you allow your thoughts to dwell. Whether or not it ends up being a place of utter truth, it can certainly be a place other than one of fear.
Speak a Positive Message
I can’t think. My head hurts. It seems I have developed a cold. Where does thinking go when it disappears?
I find it particularly annoying to be sick with a cold during the spring or summer. It just doesn’t seem logical and it doesn’t feel fair. Is that one of the reasons our parents teach us that life isn’t fair?
Last night it struck me that something I have been trying to develop in myself related to my desire to strive for optimal health, is something that I didn’t have the benefit of witnessing within my family growing up. I want to send positive messages in my home with my words. There was a fair amount of sarcasm in my family that became a pattern I developed and executed all too well. Speaking positive messages did not come naturaly for me. It takes a fair amount of practice and a concerted dedication to enact changes in patterns that have been developed over the most impressionable years of a life.
I don’t recall ever specifically feeling any doubt that my family loved and supported me. That familial love was present in a way that I intuitively sensed and the nonverbal message of it provided plenty of comfort. But the verbal messages were coded. It was rarely as simple and clear as, “I love you” or “You are the best!”
Verbalizing positive messages to those with whom you live and work just may be the most dramatic positive influence you can create for the least amount of energy. Even when you are miserable and totally drained from having a cold, you can speak of love and appreciation. And the reward is doubled, because both the person speaking and the person hearing such a message are rewarded with positive, healthy energy.
I invite you to make an effort to listen to the words you speak and the messages you are sending to those closest to you this week. See if you become inspired to develop a more conscious pattern of verbalizing positive messages that will seed better feelings for both yourself and the people around you.
For Pam
I have often shared my belief that putting our focus on the positive aspects of situations eases our path toward achieving positive outcomes that we ultimately desire. This mindset is not something I held or practiced until the most recent decade of my life. I have far from mastered the art.
Twice in my life I have voluntarily left gainful employment due to my dissatisfaction with the circumstances, even though I had not established any alternative. Ultimately, both times I discovered better alternatives. But back then, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now, from the luxury of my hindsight, I have no doubt whatsoever, had I understood my mental capacity at that time to impact my life, the process would have brought me much less anxiety.
If thinking positive by an individual proves beneficial, then consider the possibility of numbers of people focusing positive impressions toward one person. Let’s give it a shot. Take a moment today to visualize positive outcomes for Pam this afternoon and beyond. Then, as long as you’re at it, give yourself a dose of the same medicine. Maybe we’ll tip the balance of things positive. I like the thought of that.
All Right
There is a phrase that is commonly used during emergency response, to calm a patient’s mind, that had me thinking the other day, if it applies during critical incidences, there is no less reason for it to apply other times in our lives.
Everything’s gonna be all right.
If we can tell someone who is in serious trauma, that everything is going to be all right, then how can it not apply for situations like not getting out of the house in the morning by the intended time, or when a car surges into our lane without bothering to signal, or when I discover I forgot to properly punctuate a question. How many times in a single day would it benefit us to contemplate the simple notion that everything is going to be all right?
And by now, I think we get the drill: If we say it often enough, we will tend to believe it, and if we believe it, it will come to be.
All right? All right.
When you are helping someone in crisis and they just can’t see any way out, intuition tells you that there will be a calm after their storm. Even if you can’t see any solution to their crisis, you sense that somehow, there will come a time when the crisis is over and everything is okay. They might ask how you can say such a thing, but you know that eventually everything is going to be all right. That’s just the way it is, looking in from the outside. It’s a view we deserve to take more often regarding our own daily dilemmas, both the important and the less so.
Significance of a Day
Imagine if you had been waiting for this day for a long, long time. It is finally here. At the same time, for many more people of the world, it is just another day, a Wednesday in October. We have the freedom to make any day become a day of incredible significance, simply by our ability to choose to make a conscious decision. Think about how many days we act as subjects of whatever circumstances arise. There are a lot more days like that in our lives, than days when we choose to make significant proactive decisions. This could be a day when you decide to quit smoking. This could be a day when you make a call that you have been avoiding. Today, we can choose to exchange an unhealthy habit for a healthy one. Just don’t forget, to experience the benefits, we need to follow up the decision with appropriate action.
To some people, today is all about a baseball game, yet many others will be unaware that baseball is even being played this late in October. Or maybe it is an issue of importance relating to a local school board. It amazes me to consider the number of things that occur every day in the world, of which I find myself entirely unaware. Of course, from where I perceive it, everything appears to revolve around me.
It is entirely possible that the person who so coolly rebuffed my attempts to collaborate, by denying my desire for interaction under the guise of more important activity, had genuine concerns of a personal nature completely unrelated to me or my business. Imagine how it would feel to learn they were dealing with a family member being ill or some other grave concern. I might actually feel honored to be the brunt of such offense, taking one for the team, if I am able to interpret that it’s not always about me.
I have the opportunity to choose my response. Maybe not right away, my powers aren’t that strong yet, but after my fight-or-flight response subsides, I do have the option to create a response that aligns with the optimal health I aspire to see and manifest. I have the ability, at any time, to decide it will be a day of significance.
On Holiday
The Monday holiday of Labor Day is upon us in the USA, and in honor of it, I will do no laboring. I will miss the morning soccer match since I am still out of town. I will be giving the hammock a workout, instead.
Still looks like summer up here by the flowers...
Twice this weekend, a situation occurred that involved someone being gone longer than expected, and the question of whether to be concerned, or not, arose. I tend to a default of ‘delays’ not being a reason to become concerned, even though I may be considering it a possibility. I have no idea how to determine when would be the appropriate time to become concerned. If, indeed, the delay was due to an accident or mishap that deserved assistance, I would look pretty bad for my lackadaisical attitude and lack of timely reaction. But maybe that’s just a chance I tend to take.
In both cases this weekend, there was no reason to be concerned. A little phone call to report a delay in schedule is a wonderful thing to do for those who may be waiting on you. In the mean time, until I finally get burned for my tendency not to over-react when someone is taking longer than expected, I will avoid worrying about these kinds of situations.
Don’t be concerned about us today. We will be home in time to make it to work again, by tomorrow.
Beautiful Day
Do you know what the perfect day is? It’s easy. They all are! Perfect for something.
Wouldn’t you say that today would be a beautiful day to kick off the State Fair? Mostly sunny, warm but not hot, light summer breeze. Perfect for a picnic, a nap in the hammock, or a walk in the park. But if it were really windy, it would be perfect for kite surfing or sailing. If it were rainy, it would be perfect for snuggling down with a good book. Every day is perfect for something. We just have to frame it properly.
Isn’t it a bit strange that we have it within ourselves to re-frame absolutely everything to change the way it is perceived, yet we usually don’t wield that power to our (and the world’s) advantage? Often times, we simply sell ourselves short. Sometimes, we actually choose not to. Part of us still wants to dwell in the angst, for a plethora of reasons. But there is a part of us that knows. Knows the possibility exists. I think that is related to why folks get into the navel gazing of introspection. We are trying to find it. Deep down, I believe we all know what is possible. That contributes to what frustrates us about times when things aren’t going so well. Somewhere inside us, we know there are simple answers. Too often the solutions being sold involve side effects of dry mouth and constipation and an invitation to see their ad in some magazine while we are watching their ad on television.
Today is a perfect day to see if we can discover our power to find the perfection in every day. It’s in there somewhere.
Relative Something 