Category Archives: 21

21

Your Elephant Rope

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What is holding you back?

Let me tell you a story about the power of your beliefs. One of the most powerful creatures in the world is being hindered by a barrier that couldn’t control me. Elephants in captivity are restrained using a simple rope tied to a small stake in the ground. This belief happens because when they are young, the elephant is connected to the same rope around its leg, and no matter how hard it tries, it can’t escape.  Eventually, the elephant gives up and accepts the belief the cable can’t be broken.  This belief sticks with them as they grow, and they never try to escape as they could if they just tried.   It makes you wonder what types of ideas you might have accepted as accurate over the years. What is limiting you today, which you could break free from if you just tried today?  Have you received an elephant rope in your life? Let’s look at some of the elephant ropes out there.

Intelligence

All people can learn. Once you set your mind on becoming something or learning about a new idea, there is nothing that can stop us.  But, too often, people allow experiences from their youth to control their abilities as adults.  A bad elementary school math class experience leads to a lifelong idea that a person is “no good at math.” Or perhaps, you were laughed at for awkwardly drawing a picture.  This experience makes you adopt the idea that you are not artistic or, worse yet, not creative.  Whatever experience you had in your education, making you feel unintelligent or untalented, is time to reexamine it and find your fundamental truth.

Too often, we get painful scars as young people, which we carry through life. Like elephant ropes restraining us from being the best, we can be at something.  If you want to know what your beliefs are, think about doing what limits you. The answers your mind gives you are your beliefs, limiting, supportive, or otherwise.  You are smart enough to solve problems, learn new information, and become whatever you want to be. Just break your elephant rope and do it.

Age

If you think you are too young or too old to do something, then your elephant rope is age.  You get a lifetime to experience the world, learn, plan, try, experiment, grow, succeed, and sometimes fail.  The only person who can allow your age to limit you is you.  Age is just a number and will restrict you as much as you let it or believe it will.  Use all of your years to live, not to accept the limits of your mind.

There is a collective story about age the world seems to accept as gospel, that we should all aspire to get old and retire on our lives to recede into the waiting arms of death gently.  I am never retiring or losing my general purpose in life because through ambition, I am living and finding meaning in living.  The truth, as I see it is, you are never too young or too old to do anything. It is only the elephant rope of perception that limits you.  If you want to try something, give it a shot and see what happens.

Can’t Make Money Doing That

One of the elephant ropes holding us back is that we have found our passion, but people will quickly point out that you will never be able to make money at it.  The idea is putting a monetary value on something that determines how worthwhile it is. Look inside of yourself and see how you feel when you’re creating that.  Photography, drawing, painting, writing, running, gardening, playing corn hole, or whatever it is that makes you feel alive.

The wise person follows their intuition towards the activity that makes them feel alive and away from the thought of how much money you can make from doing this.  The money will take care of itself when things you are creating from authenticity.   You shouldn’t plan on making money and what intelligent financial decisions you should make. But instead, don’t let the fact that you lack the final vision of financial reward stop you. It will come to you as you follow the path.  How many people never start down the road? Leaving the wealth, joy, and success they dream of never materialized.  Doing what your heart guides you toward will never steer you wrong.

LET GO OF LIMITS

Whatever thoughts you have in your mind, which are holding you back.  Are they absolute limits, or are only your elephant ropes holding you back, keeping you from being great at what you want? Maybe the roadblock in front of you is something that limits you because of your beliefs about it. Change those beliefs and see what you can do.  Life has a way of conditioning you to accept limits, and the only way to change them is to decide to do things differently.

“You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater heights.” ―Brian Tracy.

“Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.” ―Mary Kay Ash.

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” —Mignon McLaughlin.

“Every person takes the limits of their field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer.

21

Mistakes

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How have your perceived mistakes allowed you to grow as a person?

Several themes become clear to me if I pay attention to the experiences my life presents to me. No matter how smart, prepared, or skillful I am, I will make mistakes from time to time. How I deal with these things will go a long way in defining the value my life provides me and those around me. There are two clear choices to make. To accept imperfections as a part of the growth process and use them to become better at whatever I am doing. Or to hide from my mistakes in fear of what they may reveal about me to the world.

Mistakes are inevitable in any life. Some people will lie, mislead, and ignore help to avoid looking like they know something and distance themselves from a potential mistake. That is, things don’t always go perfectly, we do not know everything, and sometimes in the learning process, you have to ask questions from those with more experience about what you are trying to accomplish. Why do we do this? Why should we not do this? Those are the critical questions that can lead to some personal development today.

It has been proven that the mistakes and missteps in the process allow people to experience the most significant advances seen in the history of man. We have all learned longer-lasting and more powerful lessons from the mistakes we share than from the successes. Or at least I know I have. The classes are much more painful, and we want to avoid them in the future. All mistakes are just learning experiences; we can use to benefit us in pursuing our ultimate goals.

It’s In Our DNA

As human beings, we are descended from primitive hunter-gatherers, scratching out a living as best they could against competing groups. That was a time where a mistake could get you killed.

Although you may develop a great new hunting technique or make a brand new weapon that gave you a survival advantage, if they made a mistake, that was your life. We are hard-wired to fear our mortality. The mistakes we make today are probably not in that category, but we treat them the same. That not being perfect is going to lead to or display some fatal flaw. And, of course, our ego will tell us we can’t share this with the world, or we will be found as wanting.

It may be our own mistake or the mistake of someone else, but our instincts tell us at the moment to judge the error harshly and get away from it. Being mistake-free used to keep you alive, but it didn’t help you evolve or move to a higher level of knowledge, existence, or caring.

Brainwashed

From the moment we are old enough to understand things in the world, we are institutionalized by a public education system that provides a model of behavior it wants to see. We are rewarded for following it as correctly as we can.

Those who can’t follow are given “poor” grades and encouraged to try to conform a little bit more to the desired program. The educational system has done a great job of ensuring that creativity is abandoned for conformity at an early age and that any mistake will be considered failing. You will get F’s if your work is not mimicking the desired standard.

There are no errors allowed to express yourself as an individual or try something you are not sure about doing. Only an approved curriculum is rewarded based on learning objectives that don’t seem to create a learning process to allow all people to flourish. Our society looks for reasons that a student might not be performing to expectation, and they have prescribed drugs to help calm them down and make them “better.” A more docile and agreeable student, you will be, but not one that is necessarily true to yourself. Yes, if you make mistakes in school, you will be “educated.” Mistakes are viewed as fatal flaws in the workings of a person. Rather than as opportunities for valuable growth.

Your Judgmental Eyes

As adults, mistakes continue to be frowned upon, whether they are part of your work, personal life, or both. Everyone in the history of people is an expert at making mistakes 77777and also a victim of them.

I believe we should all strive for perfection in everything we do, but you can’t give something your all if you are worried about failing or making a mistake. Whenever you are striving to reach new ground, there is going to be a learning curve.

You may hit the mark on your first attempt, but more often than not, it might take a few attempts to master the curve. If the intent is there to improve something or try something new, you should be given a bit of leeway to master the skill. Be encouraged to ask questions, set a goal, fall, get up, and make a new plan to try again.

Yet how many people tried, failed, were criticized, and ridiculed, which led to them quitting before reaching their ultimate goal. Perhaps it was the judgmental eyes of a loved one that saw the mistake as fatal rather than just a short setback. How many people quit because of this? We fear mistakes because of what people will think about us. Even though nothing great was ever accomplished without making a few errors on the way. Mistakes are never fatal; only the choices you make because of them are.

Get Rid of Fear

74630_136307529868004_680428262_nIn my mind, there is a choice each day to live in fear or to live with love. It is essential to look at mistakes through soft eyes that understand and encourage when you look at them. When we look with judgment on the mistakes of others, we forget the humanity we have experienced in our own mistakes.

Mistakes happen, we don’t want them to, but they are never fatal. When we learn to leave the fear of falling behind us, we will be able to soar to new heights.

“Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before.” Anonymous

“Remember that life’s greatest lessons are usually learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes.” Anonymous

“Don’t mention a person’s past mistakes when they are trying to change. That’s like throwing rocks at them while they are struggling to climb a mountain.” Anonymous

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” Oscar Wilde

“We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes; you are here now with the power to shape your day and your future.” Steve Maraboli

“You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.” Maxwell Maltz

“When someone does something wrong, don’t forget all the things they did right.” Anonymous

 

 

21

Monsters

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I have been running from a monster my whole life. Where does this creature come from to haunt me? What does it want from me? Sometimes it is on the far reaches of my consciousness, but inevitably it returns with a full force to the center of my existence. You know the monster I speak of because it is the same one haunting you for your entire life. It is the villain in all of our minds, the one that speaks to you, even when you don’t want to hear, saying things like, “You are not good enough.” or “You don’t deserve good things.” or “You don’t deserve to be loved like you need to be loved.” Or “You are worthless” Or any other negative message you think about yourself in your mind. For that is, the greatest demon we have to face in our lives has been created by ourselves, and the harder we run, the more power it has over us. There is a way to move past the monster and find a better version of yourself.

Know Your Monster

Our demons have been developing throughout our lives, and with each painful moment that caused us to suffer, the monster gained power because we looked at those moments and feared them. Allowing these experiences to push us away from liking who we are and the lives we can create. You see, the monster has

I think my monster looks like Shrek, but yours will look at how you envision it.

Such power because it has insight and access to every thought you have ever thought and known all of the secrets you would never tell anyone else about your past. There is no deceiving them, and they can use all of that against you.

For many of us, the messages have been pervasive and consistent for years, and we have not wanted to listen, but we can’t help it. We find things to fit the message and accept they are correct. We try to improve ourselves in many ways, but until we decide to face the monster once and for all, we are only placing small band-aids on the gunshot wounds of life. There is only one way to eliminate these thoughts and suffering from your life.

Hug The Monster

Instead of running away from these things, we think, embrace them. Look at the messages your mind is telling you and trace them to their origin. Most were born in your past, and you accept them to be a definition of your worth to the world. How much power you give them is totally up to you. Looking at things you experience and focusing on the negative stuff is food for the monster. It allows them to grow bigger and become scarier each day. Soon this creature in our head is so vast and pervasive you feel hopeless ever to defeat it and become a happy version of yourself, but this is where we miss the point.

We are never meant to defeat the monster. These thoughts are given to us as a gift to guide us, not as a punishment to define us. Rather than continue fighting the monster, stop running from it, and hug it. No matter how big it has become in your mind, learning to accept the things in your past as just a part of you will allow you to learn to love your value. Many have had to overcome great tragedy. Imagine how great they are to survive. Caring for your monster will enable you to see past the thoughts of negative self-image and view, just for a moment, the person who is so lovable behind it all. They have been there all along.

A Life Without Fear

Seeing the value in yourself will give you many things. One is the understanding that you are not defined today by the actions and situations of the past but by what you choose to do today. We are all responsible for what we do in every moment, accept that responsibility for the positive and negative, and then move on to become better. Life is a short game, and spending too much time beating yourself up for the things you experienced a year ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago, or ever is a waste of your valuable time. It is fear of being not enough that guides everything, but you are enough. Just look at your true self.

Take that first step into an experience without fear guiding you, and seek the best inside you to share with the world. Each moment provides you with the opportunity to grow, be positive, and make a positive impact somewhere. You can do it just by being kind and thoughtful. How difficult is that? The monster will tell you it is impossible to do, and you are not capable. But look inside of yourself, look past the beast, and know you are very capable of helping someone else feel a bit better about their relationship with their monster. What could be more valuable than that?

Finally……..

Realizing that your monster is just a side of you that needs to be soothed and acknowledged is necessary to move past the fear in your life. All people face this to some degree. All you can do is be responsible for the monster in you and take care of him as best you can.

In your head, in the dream, you are both the monster and the person the monster is chasing. You are the fear in you and also the love that takes it away. All things you feel are a representation of who you are in some aspect of your experience. What do you do with this knowledge? Either you embrace it, or you continue to run from it. One method will bring you peace, and one will push you further from your true self. Life is a series of continual choices and the consequences that come from them. What are you doing with your monster? For my part, I am sorry I ever looked away to try to please someone else. That is a formula to build a meaningless, empty life. Be yourself and if people don’t love you for that, stay far away from them because they probably don’t love themselves either. They have their monsters to deal with; you have yours.

“Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive… to live now… to have the courage to confront each day.” —Bernie Siegel

“You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.” —George Michael

“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” —Dalai Lama

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” —Wayne W. Dyer

“We stop looking for monsters underneath the bed when we realize they are living inside of us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKd4jNVy2Og

 

 

 

21

Love It or Fear It

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To fear or to love?

You May Disagree
You May Disagree

All situations in life can break down into simple choices. Will you think and act out of fear? Or will you believe and work out of love?

I believe EVERYTHING you think will make a difference in your life and come with emotions attached, which affect your decision-making. I believe this because of a lifetime of experience and entertaining the wrong types of thoughts. I lived much of my life under the influence of fear but have chosen to make a change and look at things with feelings of love. No small endeavor, but I encourage all others to attempt to do the same.

How You Think Leads to How You Live

This article is about the fundamental belief that I have developed in my game of life. If you are thinking judgmental, mean, sarcastic, or hateful thoughts about other people or groups of people, there is no doubt that you will experience those things in your own experience.

These are negative thoughts which lead to unhappy experiences
These are negative thoughts that lead to unhappy experiences

If you choose to focus on accepting, kind, and loving thoughts, then that will be the overall experience of your existence. How do I know? I used to think the former and now try to focus on the latter, and although I am the same person, the experience of life has been entirely different and much more positive and enjoyable in all ways.

Fear is the chief motivation of those who are critical. A person rejects any thought or action that will lead to change or be different from comfortable beliefs. Even if things are currently going poorly, people avoid change because they fear that changes might make things even worse.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing fear itself because fear gives you adrenaline and or motivation to act. Still, if you focus on and allow it to move your actions from day-to-day, your experience will suffer from negative energy. We all face fear every day, but it is how you deal with it that matters. Each moment comes down to this simple choice between fear and love, the one you choose will define your life and you as a person.

Change is Always Possible

change-thoughtsThe most daunting task for anyone to accomplish is to change the way that you think. We have spent a lifetime accumulating experiences that come along with mental programming, which has managed to keep us safe and alive. But it also can make us unhappy and not allow us to reach our capabilities.

Yet, at some point, even though we are safe and alive, the quality of our life needs value. Once you start to pursue happiness and caring, you notice what has been making you unhappy. What is it that makes you hang your head with worry? What makes you afraid to speak? What makes you hide your individuality? What makes you disappear who you are? Fear.

Fear that you won’t be accepted, or fear that someone will take something from you that you love. Fear that someone is going to harm you or those that you care about can hurt you. The mainstream media feed these fears to gain ratings and Madison Avenue to earn consumer dollars.

The reality is that fear is just a thought and an illusionary thought at that. What you are afraid of is not accurate, it is a thought, and that is it. What if? What should? What Might? Questions that provide these thoughts; are not real they don’t exist, yet they offer genuine suffering for people. Your thoughts about things are the cause of most of our issues. Change your thoughts, and many of our problems go away.

There are many dangers in the world, and those should be avoided because they can hurt you, but fear of them will only stop you from doing what you want and becoming the best you can be. Fear limits you and destroys dreams.

Getting Out of Fear

Beliefs are merely thoughts that you choose every day to add weight to.
Beliefs are merely thoughts that you choose every day to add weight to.

Getting rid of fear in your thoughts is simple, but it is not easy.

Stop thinking fearful things. Now that would be easy to control all of our thoughts, but you really can’t.

Thoughts pop into your mind at a rapid pace, representing your lifetime of experience. Bias, prejudice, hatred, fear are all a part of your knowledge, and they are all associated with others.

You can’t stop them from popping into your mind, but you can control how much you pay attention to them. Simply noticing the thoughts of fear as what they are fake surprisingly releases you from their power. All of their power over you comes from inside your head and the thoughts you choose to give power to. Let the negative go and replace them with something more positive. The human mind is only capable of entertaining one idea at a time. If your thought is positive, so will your mood, actions, and life.

Replace thoughts of fear with thoughts of love

enigmaOnce you recognize and admit your worries and let them go, it is incredible how easy the right ideas and feelings flow. It feels better to be happy, healthier to love, and more enjoyable to live without fear.

It takes time, and you have to be honest with yourself. Recognizing your weaknesses can be painful and challenging, but you have a simple choice here. Choose caring over callousness, kindness over being mean, understanding over judgment. Keep living your life in fear and be unhappy or admit to your negative thoughts and recognize that you can just let them go and think differently.

The choice is up to you! Nobody else can make it for you.

“Fear and love can never be experienced at the same time. It is always our choice as to which of these emotions we want.”-  Gerald Jampolsky

“Love and fear represent two different lenses through which to view the world. Which I choose to use will determine what I think I see.”-Marianne Williamson

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.”-  Marianne Williamson

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”-  John Lennon

21

How You Treat Others Defines You

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I am as hard on myself as I am on anyone I know when it comes to this statement.  How you treat others defines you. I know because this is an area I have fallen short of many times in my life. I know I haven’t always been the best person when it comes to my treatment of other people.  I have a long list of situations where I have not treated others as well as they deserve or been the kind of person I would have liked to be.  That is why it is always so hard to see people you care about fall into the same selfish traps in the way they treat others in their life.  It takes so little to be decent in the world, and I guess sometimes that price is just too much for some to pay.  I try to adopt the hope in each new day that I will be able, at this moment, at least, to treat others with kindness, caring, empathy, understanding, and consideration. That is my hope.

Only In Control Of Me

The only thing in the world we are indeed in charge of entirely is how we control ourselves. Life can and will throw all kinds of situations at you, and it is up to you how you respond. Do you quit? Become disillusioned?  Respond with anger toward those who care about you? Blame everything and everyone else? Accept responsibility for ourselves and our situations?  The only honorable way to go is to accept responsibility for where you are right now.  Because you are the person who decides what thoughts are essential to you, and those thoughts will create the world around you.

You are the only one who can control the tenor of the thoughts you focus on. Where focus goes, energy flows. If you spend your time thinking only of yourself, you will be stuck in a cycle of selfishness with no real opportunity for growth because growth comes from the things you do for and share with others. The positive or negative actions we take in our lives each day will determine how our lives grow.  This idea is particularly true in our spirituality.  It is our responsibility to look for ways to improve as people in our life.  Regardless of the circumstances we face, we choose the impact our lives have on the people around us and us. Positive or negative, this is our choice, every second of every day.  You are the only one who can control you.

Noone Left to Blame

Today, our lives are the sole responsibility because we are the creators of the thoughts behind them. You can try to blame circumstances, other people, or just bad or good luck, but whatever experiences you have resulted from your choices and actions you have taken. If you have mistreated people, you can’t be surprised when you are treated poorly by someone else.   Too often, I have blamed others for the outcomes in my life that didn’t live up to my expectations.

I would have better spent my time accepting my thoughts, words, and actions and realizing that I needed to change my ways to bring different outcomes into my life. If I was going to be selfish and self-centered and only worried about how things would affect me, then I can’t be surprised when opportunities in life that rely on others pass me by.  Our lives are a direct reflection of what we think and what we do. There is no more significant measure of what we are as people than the shape of our lives right now.

Your Qualities Define You

Finally, when looking at your definition. What are the words you would like to have associated with yourself? Honestly, look at the way you treat others, and you will find the meaning of yourself. I know many people who would shy away from some of their adjectives, although they belong to the things they say and do. You can’t be mean to someone in one breath and then claim kindness in a general sense. Service is an attribute that accompanies you all the time, or it doesn’t at all. Mean and insensitive behavior can’t be erased by wishful thinking.

But it can be undone by a change in thought and recognizing our responsibility for our actions. Each day we have a chance to represent ourselves with behaviors we stand behind and envision as beacons of our best selves.  Falling for a time doesn’t define your life; it only establishes that part of your life. No story is over until the last page turns, and the best stories are always about redemption and comebacks.  You have to ask yourself, can I change? From negative to positive? Lousy behavior to good behavior? Unhealthy to healthy? Or whatever challenge you are facing because the only person who can choose what defines you is you.

“Our past may shape us, but it doesn’t define us.” ― Alyson Noel

“We cannot let the haters of this world define us. Or frighten us into no longer being ourselves.” ― Mary E. DeMuth

“Strong people define themselves; weak people allow others to define them.” ― Ken Poirot

“Define yourself—not by how much you are loved, but by how much you love others.” ― Connor Chalfant

“Never defend yourself, but define yourself with your imagination and actions.”― Debasish Mridha M.D.

 

 

21

Your True Measure

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Your actions define you to the world

It is natural for an individual to look at the world from the inside out. The only perspective we have had our whole life is from our own mind’s eye. Often we develop a significant concern for how others treat us in the world. The fear seeps into every interaction we have and pulls us into a more selfish existence, worrying about how people manage us? What is in this for me? What about me? Worrying about how others treat you is a narrow perspective and will limit what you can give to the world. It is far better to build a concern with how you are treating others in your life and the world around you. Being a positive force in the world involves doing positive things for people and encouraging others to be the best versions of themselves possible. It all begins with a conscious awareness of the thoughts you entertain each day—the words these thoughts lead you to utter to the world. And, of course, the actions you take display what your base thoughts are to the world. You will define yourself in thought, word, and work.

Building Your Definition

The job of our mind is to interpret the world we live in. Let’s face it; our brain tells all stories from our perspective. If there is a conflict, of course, the other party is unreasonable and demanding. We are always in the right to us. But are we? How you choose to treat others is a clear picture of who you are, and there is no hiding from it. If you spend your time judging others, then you are judgmental. If you gossip and spread rumors about others, those whispers behind people’s backs show who you are.

Conversely, your choices to be kind, accepting, and caring about the lives of others also define you. Your focus is the key to identifying you in the world. Not what you think you are, but what you are to the world. It is easy to dehumanize someone when you think of them in abstract terms, like demographics, heritage, or ethnicity. All stereotypes dehumanize people and, by your thought, degrade you. How you choose to treat the people who bother you most tells the most about you. We all make a choice each day to do these things.

Being Empathetic to Others

Our ability to practice empathy is one of the tools we have to maintain our humanity in life. Using our minds to project ourselves into another person’s situation allows us to walk around in their shoes. Once you indeed do this, you are much less likely to be harsh in your treatment of them. Understanding how someone else lives and why they do what they do doesn’t excuse poor behavior, but it can allow you to follow somebody. If you were placed in a different set of circumstances, then you might be making the same choices. Bad as they might be.

One action you can take is to be aware of other people and how your work will affect them. At least in a way that shows an awareness of the needs of another person. All people are living a story, and each one is different. You would be a modified version of yourself if you experienced an unusual childhood, growth experience, and moral influences. That is what other people are, a modified version of you. Treat them as such. Understanding, kindness, and acceptance are universally helpful, and treating people this way brings more of these things into your life.

Three Skills to Develop for Treating People well

First, learn to be an active and present listener. When someone is speaking to you, be present. Don’t let your mind wander into what you are doing tomorrow or think about the past. Focus and be there for whoever is speaking. Listening shows caring, respect and allows a person to know that they have an outlet for their thoughts. Be curious, ask questions, and let another speak.

Secondly, when you do speak, be honest in all you say. That is a simple thing but shows people that they can trust you. All of our words should have the stamp of truth on them and allow for confidence with all of those who are listening. Speak honestly and expect the same in return.

Thirdly, in all of our actions, we focus on operating with integrity. Integrity is doing the right things, even if you are the only one who knows it. Treating others with integrity makes all interactions honest and opportunities for growth. You will also be setting an example for all others to follow in their way.

Be Kind

Finally, If there is one thing to focus on in all kinds of relationships, practice kindness in your interactions with everyone. Your heart belongs to you, regardless of how someone else acts; being kind is your choice. Suppose someone else needs compassion to give it. If you don’t think they need it, give it anyways. Consideration is a gift you give to the world that it needs. How you treat others defines you and will determine your impact on the planet.

It will all begin with the primary thoughts you have in your head. The ones you choose to entertain will get the focus in your life. If you are worried about yourself, it will show in all that you do. If you are thinking about others, and their well-being, then that will show too. Also, the words you speak to others and about others will define you. Speak as if your words had magic in them because they do. Finally, your actions will be a clear picture of the world of the way you think and how you feel about things that are happening all around in everyday life. Focus on defining your contribution to the world as a positive one. Your Actions define you.

“Stop worrying yourself with how others are treating you. Just be concerned with how you are treating others.”

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”- Wayne Dyer

“Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people – your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way.”- Barbara Bush

 

21

Trustworthy

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Trust- firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Walking in the middle of something gives a perspective that makes it challenging to see the possibilities that lie on the edges beyond your current scope of vision. You focus on the things you see, and it can be frustrating because we want certain things to happen, and we want them in the manner we imagine they should come. It is frustrating and a little scary when things don’t happen exactly how we pictured them. Life runs on a script that we can influence but can’t write. It takes having a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something, or trust in life and yourself. Let go and trust the Universe.

The True Meaning of Trust

You are a great human soul with unlimited potential. From the moment we are born, influences and circumstances are conspiring to tell us that we are less than we are. We forget what we can do when we set our minds to it. It is easy to let doubt and a lack of confidence affect you and make you accept lesser circumstances as OK or, worse yet, to think less of yourself.

As people, we can think and use our imaginations. In that creative thought, there is a power to bring the unseen into reality. It happens all the time in all areas of life. Each work of art, new business idea, or invention began in someone’s imagination and was brought into reality. It has been that way since the beginning of man. Sometimes when things aren’t going the way, we want to start to be more creative and trust ourselves to bring into reality the things that will make us happy. To have faith in life will bring your thoughts into reality.

Trusting Other People

When it comes to trusting others, that can be not easy. So many people seem to be out to build their plans and selfishly take care of their things. Trust comes on a collection of results from actions taken. The people you can trust will reveal themselves over time, as will the people you can’t trust. Be kind and understanding with others because they are just trying to travel their path as best they can.

Trust arrives with honesty and truth, so be honest and truthful, and those who are not will reveal themselves. Always value being honest with others and telling the truth in all situations, and you will be trusted and find people you can trust along the path of life. Then when you see them, don’t let go of them. This course can be a challenge, but it is worth it because honesty is something we all need, and to find someone you truly trust is like finding a hidden treasure.

How to Let Go and Trust

There are higher forces in the world than us. Life has been happening for thousands of years before we arrived and will continue long after we have gone. It is essential to understand that life is not meant to be easy but to bring us the experiences that will make us better people and find our purpose. What we want and what life wants to teach us can be the same. Often, the hardest thing to do is decide what we want and think about it and let life handle the details.

Trusting that we don’t know the best method to get where we want to go and accept the journey might not look exactly as we imagined it would. But that may be the most effective way to contact us where we want to go and do what we love to do. Sometimes it seems we are just a passenger on this ride of life, and in truth, that is what we are a lot of time. We can steer the car, but life seems to choose the roads. Don’t be frustrated with the experience. Trust that life is taking you exactly where you need to go and enjoy the ride. The journey is the real prize anyway.

Take a moment this day to look at your life and see how many miraculous things are in your life right now. Count them and state them clearly. You are healthy. You have plenty of possibilities; you are breathing. Some people love you and people you love. Use your imagination to create and trust that the forces around you will bring great things into your life. Be grateful and have a joy in your heart that today all is good, and the possibilities of tomorrow are infinite. The biggest problem with knowing what you want is knowing you know the best way to bring it all about. Life knows more than you will ever learn. Trust the process and be the best you can be today. Trust, you will get the great things that are coming.

Let go and trust the Universe.

Trusting in life Quotes

“Sometimes, when you lose your way, you find YOURSELF.” ― Mandy Hale

“Trust what feels true even if that truth requires you to ignore what you know.” – Gina Greenlee

“Trust starts with truth and ends with truth.”

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”-Stephen R. Covey

 

 

21

The Way You Think

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Attitude- a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically reflected in a person’s behavior.

How do you settle in the way you think about things? Our attitudes are the perspectives through which we view life. Our opinion about anything will define the emotions we feel about that thing. It will also determine the joy, success, anger, or failure we will experience. Everything around you and what you are doing in life will be affected. Your emotions are a result of your beliefs and how you define things in your life.  Our actions are going to be determined by our emotional state.  For example, if you set your job as something you hate or something to get through, the way you perform the job will reflect that. Your attitude determines everything. The same is true if you love what you do.  That joy will reflect in your duties around work.

Your actions will reflect this to the world in the way you act throughout your day. Each person should examine their attitudes today, the ones we have about all the things you can experience, and see how they affect your behavior and actions in all things. It begins with the thoughts you entertain about something, the emotions naturally attached to those thoughts, the words used to express your ideas to the world, and the actions you take that show your attitude.

Good Attitude Equals Success

When you set out to achieve anything, your attitude should be one of the first investments you make.  A positive attitude will allow you the motivation and persistence to overcome obstacles or to see around them to achieve the things in your dreams. A negative belief about doing something, yourself, or your abilities will make your goal challenging to accomplish. Assess your thoughts at the start of any project and make sure it is on the positive side. Then follow it through to the successful conclusion.

What makes a positive attitude? The belief is that whatever we are endeavoring to accomplish is worthwhile and will lead us to a better life.  If we believe it will bring more joy and satisfaction in our lives. Having confidence in what you are doing and a strong desire to experience that thing will allow you to create and maintain a positive attitude. With this attitude will come success and accomplishment. If you are not feeling optimistic about something you are doing, look at your approach and either make adjustments to the positive or abandon the project. There is no point in pursuing something, making you unhappy, angry, or sad. Just as the right attitude will bring success, the results of a poor posture are just as sure.

Where Attitudes Come From

An attitude is a part of us, but it develops over time.  Each experience we have shaped it, and our view of the world and ourselves is no accident.  Our practical knowledge builds our beliefs, and those beliefs reside in our subconscious mind, dictating behavior. These beliefs will influence, design, and control all of our attitudes about everything we do. If we believe we are “always bad at math,” our attitude toward doing the math will improve, and the results of any math-oriented things will be terrible because of it. So we become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and our attitude will lead the way in our failure. Changing that course is not easy, but it isn’t complicated either.

The first thing that has to happen is that you need to identify the places your beliefs are lacking. What do you believe about making money? Look at your attitudes. What do you think about your ability to succeed and accomplish things? What do you think about your talents, skills, intelligence, creativity, or other critical factors? Identify the beliefs that limit you and then endeavor to change them. Changing an idea requires a little reprogramming, but consistent effort can get it done. If you can change your mindset, you can change your attitude and, therefore, accomplish anything.

Good Attitudes

Building the right attitude involves an awareness of where you are at in life. More often than not, no activity or accomplishment in life will go smoothly without a hitch. A positive attitude will provide a person with the perspective in achievement to see the opportunities on the horizon and keep moving toward them despite the little potholes of life we have to get through. When your attitude is on the positivity of the accomplishment, nothing will deter you. Not the negative programming of your past or the negative moods of those around you today.

A positive attitude will allow you to keep your eye on the prize and get you moving toward that kind of accomplishment. Liking the goal and having faith in your ability to accomplish it is enough to pull you over, around, or through anything that might get in your way. A positive attitude will allow this to be the life case. Remember a time you accomplished something others thought you couldn’t. Attitude carried you or, conversely, stopped you.  How has your mood written your story?  How does it continue to write it?

Positive Attitude Builders

Look at the people you choose to surround yourself with in life. Either they are positive or negative factors in your achievement. The influence of a positive person will fuel you.  It will provide a good push toward success.  Like fuel in a car, the positive cohort makes everything run well. And often, encouragement is all you need to keep you moving forward and stop you from losing focus or heart in achieving your goals and becoming what you want to be.

The detrimental effect of negative people will be harmful to your attitude and limit what you can do. How many goals and dreams have died a horrible and premature death because of negative thoughts? It can be challenging to believe in an idea if the people around you tell you it can’t possibly happen. Limit or remove these influences from your life because you will never be your best, carrying the negative baggage negative people try to pile on you.  It is hard enough to find your path in the best situation. Don’t let the influence of negative people make it harder.

Your attitude needs to be a creation of you and not someone else. Learn to believe in yourself, and all you can do and all you dream of is reachable.

Honest Evaluation

Honestly, look at your attitudes about the things in your life. Look at what you believe about yourself and the way the world works. Your attitudes are a direct reflection of these beliefs. If they do not positively serve you, you need to change your beliefs and develop new ones that will allow you to live your best life. It all starts with looking at your thoughts today and recognizing those you are giving your attention to. Acknowledge the emotions that stem from these thoughts and the words you use to express them to the world. Finally, the actions you are taking because of your attitudes about life. They will define you and what you can accomplish in life.

“A ship is always safe at shore, but that’s not what it’s built for.” —Albert Einstein

“Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen.” —Michael Jordan

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” —Ayn Rand

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.” —Henry Rollins

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs

 

21

Karma,Karma

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Karma– the sum of a person’s actions in this existence, is viewed as deciding their future fate.

Karma
“Life is a boomerang. What you give, you get.” ~ Dale Carnegie

We are all in control of the energy we give to the world each day. It begins with the thoughts we decide to pay attention to in our minds. These become the words that we speak and the actions we perform. These things determine what we give to and get back from life. Like a boomerang the energy, you decide to send out will come back to you, always, inevitably, and usually with interest. That’s Karma. You control the power in your life by the thoughts you entertain, which lead to emotions, words, and actions. These things determine your karma. Are you conscious of them in your life today?

Give, and You will Receive

One of the fundamental paradoxes of life is that when you give, you receive in return. This fact can be a problem when you look at what you have and think that you need so many things for yourself. You don’t see a way that you can give, but it is there. Giving is the path to receiving and

karma
You are open to receiving

giving with an open heart when you provide, and giving spirit is critical. Try to develop the attitude of giving without worrying about what the return is. The performance will be high.

It is a positive energy to give and goes against the worry of lack that plagues most people. Fear that we will not have our needs met and will have to go without something. But what exactly are we going to go without? An extra coffee each day? It doesn’t even take a lot to get this energy working for you, give a little with no expectation of return and see what you get. Be conscious of your experience and what results from your choices. It will surprise you. Karma always will. Good or bad.

Kindness Also Comes Back

The same is valid for compassion. When you practice acts of kindness for others, then you will experience elephant kindnessgoodness in return. The act of practicing kindness will make you more aware of the good things around you. Service costs nothing and maybe the most valuable something you can produce. Giving it away is good karma.

The alternative is to act with selfishness, and to be self-centered is to attract negative things into your life. Again, when you contact people who are sending attitudes of lack, look at your thoughts and actions first before you condemn them. You may find the problem exists in your thoughts and consequent actions. It may just be your kindness that can help turn the lives of others around.

What You Give You Get

So this rule is valid for everything, and with everything, there is a choice for you to make. If you choose to

Try giving some of these
Try giving some of these

steal, you will be the victim of theft. So in effect, you are stealing from yourself, which makes no sense. If you lie, others will lie to you. If you take people for granted, then you will be, in turn, taken for granted. Whichever choices you make will be revisited in your life and usually with a more significant payback.

We are all energy at the core, and our actions determine the charge of power we produce, and the results come back into our life. Our energy controls what we attract. The truth of what you think and do is the living example your life will be. Look at your choices, look at the results, and see the relationship between your options and the experiences you are having. Look at your experiences and see that the thoughts you believe nobody else can know are being revisited on you.

You can experiment by practicing something specific in your life and then be aware of the results. I encourage you to start with a positive thought rather than a negative, but we all make our own choices and determine the overall tenor of our lives through them.

You consciously choose the energy you will experience in your life by the thoughts you entertain. Where focus goes, energy flows. The corresponding emotions those thoughts elicit, the words they bring from your mouth, and the actions you take because of them. You are driving your “karma train” today. What type of trip is it going to be?

“Life is a boomerang. What you give, you get.” ~ Dale Carnegie

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” – Wayne Dyer

“The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered until you experience it properly.” – Ben Okri

Karma: It’s Not About What We Do

Karma

The Theory of Karma

5 Ways Karma Affects Your Life

 

 

21

Defining Fear

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In all lives, there are two forces always fighting for control, fear and love. What is fear really but the thoughts about things that will cause us to suffer? We all deal with these thoughts to some degree. Some people who are consciously aware of the moment are not affected very much because they avoid the two traps of fear. At the same time, those who do not contemplate their thoughts and see the moment are ruled by fear and all of its cynical cousins, judgment, anger, selfishness, and a lack of empathy. Look at yourself today and see where fear is sitting in your consciousness. Is it front and center, or have you conquered it and placed it safely in a cage in the back of your mind. Remember, we all feel fear at some point; the key to life is how we deal with it.

Fearful History

There are two ways that fear enters into your thoughts and pervades your feelings and actions. One is when we think of bad things that have happened in the past—remembering painful experiences from earlier days in our life experience. When you feel fear and have a conscious awareness of it, many try to push it away, bury it deep in ourselves and not deal with it. For a while, that can work, but eventually, it will pop out when you least expect it, outside of your control. The original episode of fear could have happened when you were five years old, or 30 years old, when the concern arises rather than pushing it down, invite it to stay.

Look at your fear and face it back to its origin. Something occurred, which caused you to suffer. It could have been a lack of care, a break in trust, a physical or psychological pain that you have pushed down and never dealt with before. Let the fear enter your mind, get to know it, and face it head-on. Investigate them. Where did they come from to visit you? Accept them and forgive those who might have caused the suffering, including yourself. The past is over and dead, and nothing can change what has happened. Letting it control your experience right now is a waste of time and effort. Face the fears of the past, allow them to exist, and leave you alone.

Future Fear

Fears’ other big weapon is the future. Unlike the past, the end has not happened yet and is wide open to possibilities. Fear and worry rob you of your freedom as you live your life hiding from problems created inside the fertile walls of your imagination. Your imagination is a powerful tool, it can guide you to great things, or it can paralyze you and rob you of your potential. Worry and fear of the future is a misuse of your most powerful tool of imagination. Creating scenarios that will lead to suffering but never really existed. These worries will stop people from following their dreams and doing what they want because fear says they might look foolish, or not someone else might think poorly of them.

Fighting your imagination is a tricky thing, but it works similarly to facing your past. Embrace the fears and follow them to their source. Fear of abandonment, loss, being alone, or the biggest one of all, dying. All people fear something. Learning to deal with it actively, embrace it, and face your fear will take you to its source. Conscious awareness of your concerns and their origins will free you to use your valuable imagination for good in your life. In your imagination, great things reside, which once thought we could bring into reality. They are creating the best future for yourself and the world you can. Only when we conquer our fear and move forward.

Society of Fear

We are inundated with messages of fear continually in our community. If you watch the “news” from a significant network, their job is to create fear in your mind. It is not to keep you informed because they choose what you hear and how the message is presented. People who are afraid are easy to control and manipulate. Don’t allow others to control you with fear. Live in the moment. Are you in danger at this moment? If not, then don’t let fear move you to stereotype or label anyone else as an immigrant, Russian, Korean, or anything else. People are people just like you with worries and desires all on their own. To see anything else is a manipulation of the facts.

We are inundated with images of the perfect physical body, or the perfect home, perfect marriage, perfect relationship, perfect this or perfect that. Perfection is impossible, and feeling fear about not measuring up is delusional. Looking inside yourself and being the person you were meant to be is most important. Put the fear of what others think of you or how you measure up to the fake standard of our society. Be the best you that you can that is good enough for everyone.

Finally

To lessen the impact fear has on your life, invite it to the surface of your life. Look at it and analyze it rather than push it way down inside of yourself. Shine the light of reason on it, and it will cease to be fearful to you. We all have fear in many areas of life because we want to avoid pain. Pain is going to come when it comes; often, its anticipation is worse than the actual situation itself. Face your fear with courage and thought, seeing its origins, and you will rise above it.

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”― Plato.

“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson.

“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.”
― Marie Curie

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”― Franklin D. Roosevelt.