Category Archives: 22

22

What You STAND For

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What do you stand for? That is a simple question I read last week that has been on my mind, along with another issue that I will address later. As for what I stand for, I want specific, stable things that I am striving to represent every day of my life. So I made a shortlist explaining the sort of person I want to be identified as today. This list is with the apparent exception that I may have failed to live up to these things in the past, but in that process, I have realized the extreme value each possesses and why it is so important to know what you want to stand for. It defines who you are and the experience you have in life. More importantly, how my choices and behavior will positively affect others.

Choose to be Kind

Kindness- In all things, I would like service to be the first thing I practice. All people live their own lives and have their own experiences, and their actions and behavior are theirs. I can only control myself, and I would like kindness to be the first word someone thinks of when they think of me. In my experience, a lack of compassion arises when you put your needs ahead of everyone else, leading to fear and worry. Letting this go is easier than you might think. Through a practice of kindness, you will meet all of your needs, and you will make the world a little better place. Do you stand for kindness? I hope I do.

Honesty is the Best Policy

Honesty- A friend once told me that it is human to be dishonest. That may be so because we all seem to lie an awful lot. Small lies, big lies, manipulative lies are all a part of the package. I know that I have lived in my past, mostly out of fear that I might look wrong or, more often, to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. But it has been a while since I have consciously told a lie because I don’t care what others think of me and what I do, and I care enough about everyone I know to say the cold hard truth. I want all people I deal with to know that what I tell them will be the truth to the best of my knowledge. I don’t think I can do better than that. All things seem to flow perfectly when the truth is told. Do you stand for honesty?

What You Do When Nobody is Watching

Integrity- Along with honesty is integrity. I will do what right all the time is. Not just when it is convenient or when others are around. I will do what is right because I am there, and even if nobody else knew of my transgression, I would know, and the energy from that failure would permeate the rest of my life and cause problems. I would instead behave with integrity and do what right and decent all of the time is. I want my conscious energy to be focused on being and doing the right thing. I will know it is the right thing because it will be in my heart. I am continually seeking guidance for proper guidance. Do you stand for integrity?

Smart is Best

Intelligence– I want to be represented by the idea that all things I do will at least have a general knowledge behind them. I can’t promise to be the most intelligent person in the world, but I can be as bright as I am capable of being. This idea means I am never satisfied that I know it all. There are new things to learn and new ways to grow until the ultimate end waiting for us all occurs. I endeavor to continually learn new things, expand my horizons, and become better today than I was yesterday, just a little bit. Do you stand for intelligence?

Be Positive or Go Home

Positive Attitude-In all things, you have a choice, to be positive or negative. To complain and give away all of your power or address all situations by feeling great about them. We all feel bad sometimes, but that doesn’t mean we need to accept that part of our attitude. It is a simple choice that determines the difference in your path. You look at the flaws of the things you perceive to be missing, or you are grateful for what you do have. We always have the choice to embrace the joy in a moment. I wish all days were perfect and full of easy things to be happy about, but they will not. Life will bring challenges for you to grow. It is up to you to accept the challenge and become better or shrink from it and become its negative, scared, fearful victim. I am hoping I always seek the lesson, am grateful for it, and approach things from the mindset of joy and opportunity. Do you stand for a positive attitude?

Let’s Work Together

Cooperation– People look at the world in two primary ways: cooperation or competition. When I was a young man, I loved playing sports, and I always thought the match was the thing to prove you were better than someone else. That missed the value entirely. The real lesson was that you could rise and become better as a collective through cooperation with your teammates than you were as an individual. Great things can be done cooperatively and far surpass the selfish things that competition brings. Looking back, I value all the people that I ever was a part of a team with at whatever level. There are many situations that, in some small way, work together to allow the group’s strengths to overcome the weakness we all have as individuals, and that plan is fantastic. I want to take that into every relationship I have, personally and in business ventures, always. Do you stand for cooperation?

Better Today than Yesterday

Improvement– In my life, I have noticed that either you are getting better or you are getting worse. It is sporadic to stay the same, even for a day. So it is my goal to improve 0.01% each day somehow, but on the best days, physically, mentally, and spiritually. If I can manage to do that, then I will be a better person today than yesterday and hopefully have a more positive effect on the world than before. You are going to change in some way. I am probably choosing to be better rather than getting worse. This is often a choice to seek the other things I stand for; this should happen naturally, but it is vital to set an example for others that is positive in a world full of bad examples. Do you stand for improvement?

So there is a shortlist that I could expand upon for many pages. Maybe this is the next book idea in some way. But for today, I wanted to state what I want to stand for to guide myself in life. To help me when I have questions about what I should do. I want to say yes or no based on the things that I stand for. What is it that you stand for, not just in words, but in thoughts and actions as well?

“Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble.:- John Madden

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”- Peter Marshall

“You must stand for something! It does not have to be grand, but it must be a positive that brings light to someone else’s darkness.”- Anthony Carmona

 

22

Character Development

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Character- the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

CharacterIn our development as people, we result from the experience we endure in life. This fact is particularly actual when it comes to a person’s character. Either we have a good or bad feeling. The type we are provides a quality that is displayed clearly through a person’s thoughts, words, and actions. If you have traits you wish to improve yourself, we all have the free will to do this. Think about your character today, not just the areas you are doing well, but all of the ones you want to improve in. Character is what you do when you think nobody is looking. Remember, you are always looking. You can’t fool yourself. Consciously develop the character you want to represent you and share it with the world. It will be your legacy, one way or the other. The great news is you get to decide what impact you will have.

Character is in Constant Development

A person’s character is not chiseled in stone the day they are born, and it is developed through conscious choice over a lifetime. It has many aspects to Characterit. The way you treat others, level of honesty valued in life, consistency of behavior, the story of courage, ability to think, confidence in yourself, integrity, and many other factors all combine to create your character. We are taught many of these things, but we are continually adding to them through experience, even if we are not conscious of this process. People enter your life and change you, and a new understanding of loss or gain shifts your perspective.

Once you know that you can develop your character, there is no excuse not to find ways to improve. It involves two simple things:  1. honesty about yourself and  2. a willingness to grow and develop. Nothing is stopping you from enhancing but your self-imposed limitations. Find your strong points and celebrate them. Find areas in need of improvement, set goals to get better, take action to do just that. At the end of life, you will be the one responsible for all that you did or did not do. There is no deceiving yourself then. Don’t lie to yourself now. Develop your character exactly as you want it to be. Your choices in every moment of every day decide if your character traits or positive or negative.

Your Character Is Important

Not only will your positive or negative character influence your own life, but it will have sway over everyone you come in contact with as well. There is an energy connected to each thought we have, and positive or negative will be evident to those we have a connection with on our daily journey. Think of Characterthe people you enjoy having contact with, and think of those you don’t. With every interaction you have each day, the person you interact with has one of those two reactions. Your character determines which one.

Your choices in character will stem from your preferences of thought. It is a constant struggle to maintain the positive qualities of honesty over deceit, kindness over meanness, giving over selfishness, confidence over doubt, or love over fear. The decisions we make in character are vitally important because they determine your real value to the world and its collective consciousness. Developing a better attitude improves the world.

Tough Times Build Character

Stressful moments are, unfortunately, a part of living life. Tough times come to us, whether we feel we want them or need them. But there is an element of need we all have of roadblocks in life to grow into the best versions of ourselves. It is impossible to see what good can come from a situation when you are in a storm of pain and suffering. You are just in survival mode. But as that mode kicks in, you have to start to grow and change, or you will be overwhelmed and unhappy for the rest of your life.

Finding hidden strength and talent waiting hidden in your being is the reward for tough times. The character still maintains the things you think are correct even though the pain and sadness of life are real characters. In these extreme moments of choice, our true person is developed and revealed to the world. If you don’t like who you are becoming, then choose differently. The development of a positive life or a negative existence is all up to you and the choices you make.

Be Conscious of Your Character

CharacterThat makes the challenge today to look at your character honestly and critically. It isn’t easy to look at the fiber of our being and see where we fall short. But it is in this realistic vision your path of improvement will become evident. Do you need to be more honest? Braver? Follow through better? Be kinder? Be more accepting? Love yourself more? Whatever the points in need of improvement are, you can change and improve them. Nothing can stop you except for you. Be conscious of your character and what makes up your vital essence of today’s thoughts, words, and actions. By developing this element of your personality, you will be defined to the world: one way or another. There is no covering up or hiding from the results.

“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” –Helen Keller

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” –Albert Einstein

“The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.” –Abigail Van Buren

 

22

See Detachment

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Detachment is a word most don’t think of as leading to success, but we can practice a few things that will allow our goals, hopes, and dreams to turn into a reality for us. 

Detachment is the state of being objective or aloof, and it is challenging to maintain because we develop specific ideas about how we think things should go. We build a narrow-minded attachment to that outcome. Even when things work out, we can still feel the pangs of disappointment when things break our attachments if they are better than we hoped. Building detached feelings when we create goals that we care about allows all possibilities to become available to us. Letting go of past conditioning and allowing for things to develop in our lives to work best for all involved takes patience, understanding, and wisdom. Try to start looking at things in a detached, unemotional way. What does detachment look like?

Limits of Past Experience

Setting an intention for what you desire is the action that gets the process of creation in motion. The tricky part is not to form a specific attachment to how that thing comes into your life and a part of your reality.

These ideas create limitations on our experience and expectations of what we believe to be possible, and they eliminate all possibilities outside of our current knowledge base. Our attachment to the past is an attachment to our egoic mind, continually operating from a base of fear. Detachment shows faith in the process and allows influences you have never experienced before to enter your life.

Our past experiences are what they are. From the time we were born, we have been trying to piece together the actions we can take to bring desired, positive results. Fitting in, finding acceptance, and receiving kindness for just who we are. Bad habits and untruths can become a part of our belief system, limiting us. One negative experience can create a limiting belief that we may not question the rest of our lives. If you let the past dictate how you accept things in the present, new ideas and unexpected outcomes will have a hard time finding you. Be detached and allow all possibilities to come to you.

Detachment not Attachment

When you have thought of creating an attachment to a particular outcome, you limit the results you can experience. Growth is difficult. Create your intention, picture the result you desire, and then take the difficult step to let it go. By letting go of expectations, you show confidence in the true self inside of you. Learning to view goals, intentions, and desires with detached interest allows them to take the turns they need to come to you. Just like a flower needs no other help than you to plant it in the ground in a hospitable location, so do our intentions grow. Let them do their work.

Too often, we build an attachment to the outcome, there may be a more efficient way to accomplish what you want, but you feel that if you don’t personally control every step, something might go wrong. That is an attachment, making things more challenging to accomplish and taking longer than necessary. Detachment from the details of how a situation will arrive allows efficiency in the process, growth, power, and possibility.

Action Still Needed

Nothing in the world will happen without effort. You can act appropriately and still carry a conscious detachment to the process. Taking action and dictating the results are two different things. You can write a letter and send it and let it work its power, whatever that may be. You don’t have to deliver it to the Post Office. Your action sent it on its way, and the system takes care of the rest. Faith makes practicing detachment a skill that needs to grow in a successful person. Like all things with practice, it will become easier.

The most important thing is setting the intention that you genuinely want. Then take action to achieve the goal, which is wholehearted and complete. This type of energy will make finding the results you seek is much easier. It is a delicate balance to learn when to take action and let things play out as they should. But the only way to become a master of detachment is to take time and consciously practice being detached from specific outcomes and methods for bringing those things into your life.

Awareness of Detachment

To become detached means a person has to develop trust in the laws of life. Is there a greater force in life than us? Of course, the answer to that is up to each person. The fact is that the process exists and learning to desire and still step back and trust is challenging. Becoming aware of being detached from your intentions will allow you to grow as a person and in faith. It will give you one more weapon to bring what you desire into the world. Rather than trying to control everybody and everything (impossible), you can learn to take care of your part and let the rest fall as it must.

1. Choose what you want.

2. create it as a thought in your mind.

3. Imagine what that thing will feel like and look like in your life. 

4. Then release it. Let it happen. 

This option is always available to you in creating anything. There is a wise presence in understanding our limits and weakness, and all things are then open to you. The certainty of outcomes is a limiting box, limiting the creativity of the Universe to help you.

What would your life look like if you practiced detachment to pursue your goals?

“Detachment doesn’t mean I’m trying less hard. It just means that fears and emotions that used to torment and paralyze me longer have the same power over me.” Kelly Cultrone

“He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.” Meister Eckhart

 “Detachment is not that you should own nothing. But that nothing should own you.” Ali ibn abi Talib

“The root of suffering is attachment.” Buddha

“Only in the stillness of detachment can the soul yield up her secrets.” Elsa Barker

“Detachment is an art of enjoying something while always being open to the possibility of losing it someday.” John B. Bejo

 

22

A Moment

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 Moment-A brief period of time it is now gone.

A moment is just a moment. What exactly makes something more? When you look at something and suddenly see it from a new perspective and understand its natural beauty. Life transposed through the telescope’s view provided by the presence of someone who has changed you and the way you currently look at the world. It is through the experience of these special people we all find growth. Life is growth, and to experience it makes a moment, not just a moment but something more.

Don’t Be Empty

It seems many people are in constant competition with life to see how well they measure up to others. How much money is good to have? How big is your house? How well known are you? I have no problem with having any of these things due to being who you are, and it is when the pursuit of these material gains is precisely who you are. It represents the shallow side of life.

It is an empty journey to focus on the collection of things. The experience is the experience itself. Each moment provides a stepping stone to understanding yourself and the world around you. I have learned more by spending an hour or so walking around an arboretum than I learned in most years of my formal education, and it was the company and the experience teaching me. Moments like that, exploring the unique design and trees and walking the wooded paths, my memory tells me, are a good thing. I love those memories now and cherish them like they were bricks of gold because they are all that is left—a time of wonder, taken almost for granted, and now gone. The moment is a moment until you realize it is something more.

Holding a Hand

There are few things in life as simple and connecting as holding hands. I once thought it was foolish to show this affection for someone in this manner. Yet now, as I have gotten older, I have realized the great moment and feeling that holding hands can be. It is more than a simple connection, it is a transfer of energy from one being to another. It is a public statement that we are together, which is OK with us. In a word, it is magic, or at least it can be in the moment you realize it.

Once this is taken away, you realize how much you enjoyed it and would spend just about anything you have for one moment only to hold hands again and be together in any natural way. It is that feeling, at that moment that sits in my mind and makes me remember how good things were and makes me want to believe they can be again if only…………. But only time will tell if dreams can be natural or just foolish. Holding a hand can take you high in the sky and out of touch. The moment is just a moment until it is something more.

A Night

Every night the sky goes dark, and if you are fortunate to have a cloudless sky, the world of the stars opens up to you. N w you can see these stars on many occasions, and if you contemplate them and where they place you in the Universe, it can profoundly affect you. B t no matter how much contemplation you exude, how small you feel, or the wonder of your enchantment with the sky, they will be but a little thing compared to the sky I saw with you.

The world opened up to me that night, and the sky never looked that way before, and never has since and probably won’t again. I was not just looking at the stars in a dark sky, but I was swallowed up by them, entirely engulfed by them. There are no words to describe the depth or the beauty of that moment except to say, and I understand more about life having experienced it. I feel grateful for seeing it, and the only thing that made it possible was you and the fact we were together seeing this incredible wonder and experiencing this show of shock and awe. You can see the sky most nights. B t not like that. A moment is just a moment until you realize it is something more. Sometimes we realize this too late.

You Can’t go Back

Even though you can’t go back to the past, it doesn’t mean you can’t move forward. W  should be striving to make each moment in our existing one that we can stretch toward and find a connection to the infinite. There are special people we meet who allow this connection. Perhaps you never realized you were missing it before, but now you know that you were. The moments of love, the moments of kindness, the moments of shared laughter, and fun all combine to create an experience of moments. I never believed they could exist, and when they were there right in front of my eyes, I never thought they would ever end. Now that they have, I feel cheated somehow. That the reality of all the moments combined to rob me of the truth of what might be, those moments were always more.

How could you be ready for someone to change in an instant? How can you ever protect yourself? Unfortunately, the lesson is you can’t. People will behave in their own best interest a lot of the time. Regardless of what they show you over time, a dark side is still there. G eat people have conquered it. O hers are too young, too distracted, or too selfish to see the damage they cause. Y  can never go back and pick up the pieces and put them together again. The view you have developed in seeing the world no longer makes any sense. A  moment is a moment until you are shattered all over the floor.

Time Machine?

No time machine can carry me back to the happy moments or to the times I fell in love or the moments I enjoyed so much. I  m destined to live into new moments and be foolish or wise enough to think there will be good days ahead. I  know this moment is just a moment, as all moments are just waiting for the opportunity to come alive with the right company and emotions. Lo e is that passion, and how you allow it to be applied to your life is vital to your happiness and the ability to see your moments as their most significant potential.

A moment is a moment until you realize it is something more, a game, a talk, a thought, a whisper, an adventure, a relaxing time, a trip, a field, a sky, a mountain, a bench by the water, all provide moments that can swallow you and never let you go. Em race these moments and revel in them, knowing they are something more.

But only for the briefest of moments.

“I’ve always believed in savoring the moments. In the end, they are the only things we’ll have.” Anna Godbersen

“Nothing is permanently perfect. But  there are perfect moments and the will to choose what will bring about more perfect moments.” Mary Balogh

“At the end, one didn’t remember life as a whole but as just a string of moments.”- David Levien

“We make patterns; we share moments.”-Jenny Downham

“Every moment is the paradox of now or never.”- Simon Van Booy

 

22

Let Go Of Everything

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 Let YOUR Attachments GO!

Buddhism contends that all suffering comes from clinging to a specific outcome or experience that leads to problems. We use our minds to create scenarios and methods, which is fine unless you have one particular scene in mind and something different happens. No matter how positive the outcome, it causes us to suffer because it isn’t how we imagined it. Today avoid clinging tightly to situations we are going to experience, possessions we have accumulated, or any outcomes we encounter.

Enjoy the Day

The present moment always has the potential for enjoyment and peace. But too often, we look at a moment and lament the missing things. It is too human to look at something great and complain about missing things. Big days, weddings, graduations, or other milestone moments have this potential. If you build them up so big in your mind, you become attached to this perfect image. One slight variance will cause pain because our attachment is being destroyed.

Let the situation be; the present moment is what it is. There may be rain on your wedding day. Your choice is to embrace it or reject it. To deny reality is delusional, and experiencing pain when happiness is correct is also unsound. Each day has the same challenge rolled up in it. Be angry and upset about what is not happening, or be happy and grateful for what is happening. Let go of the attachment you have built up in your mind.

Things are Things

People make a lot of money to create brainwashing advertisements that make you feel bad about yourself, so you will seek solace in purchasing a product you don’t need. Our attachment builds that we need things to be popular, happy, and essential. Things are just things, and they do not lead to long-lasting happiness. Our attachment to accumulating possessions to build up our feelings of self-worth is one of the main culprits of suffering because buying something to make you feel good about yourself is an unsound equation.

Buying things is not bad; it is the attachment to them and what they mean to your self-esteem that is unhealthy. Your worth is based on what is inside you, never what is outside. Look for your honesty, integrity, kindness, generosity, and love carried around on the inside, and that is where your worth comes from. Stop being manipulated into thinking a new car, house, or bike will solve all your problems. Building attachments to things outside of yourself cause pain and suffering because they are never enough in the end. Let go of the idea that things are what life is all about. Life is about experiences.

Be Open to How Things Work Out

All things in life are going to move down a path. We set intentions for what we want to accomplish, experience, and do. Then we become attached to the method to achieve these things. Even though we may need to learn something to become what we want or have other experiences to make us successful at what we want to be. We often get in our way because we can’t imagine making something we want to come into reality. That causes suffering. But the world has been working just fine for thousands and thousands of years. Life will put you where you need to go.

Then, the choice is to let go of your attachments to the method and achieve the goal. Take action in front of you today and enjoy doing it. Each yard you move down the field will lead to a touchdown, but enjoy the trip and do the work you need to do along the journey of life. It makes no sense to set a goal for something you would like to accomplish and then eliminate the experiences that will get you there. The good stuff makes life enjoyable—learning to experience joy in the daily moments we all have available to us. Let go of the attachment to how you think things should go and allow them to happen as they do. To fight against reality is a definition of crazy.

Take a moment today and look at the things you are doing. Are they for a bigger purpose? A new job? A race you will run? A wedding? Accumulation of wealth? Regardless, look at how you feel about it and honestly look at the attachments you have built up about the outcome. Are they rigid? What if you got what you wanted, but it came differently? Would you be OK with that? Or would you be angry? Look at what you are attached to today and practice letting them go. All we are guaranteed in life is this very moment. Learn to find joy in it.

 “Attachment is the source of all suffering.” Buddha

 “Attachment is another name of disappointment and pain. Vishal”

“Things are as they are; we suffer because we imagined different.” Anonymous

 “Accept what comes and allow it to leave when it’s time.” Anonymous

 

22

Words of Power

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Words are weapons more potent than the most destructive of bombs, and they destroy people and lives as quickly as the most violent of storms. We are all capable of inflicting great harm on others and having significant injury heaped into our own lives. Talking is a substantial mode of communication all people use every day, and it is also something most don’t give a second thought to, but they should. How can what you say affect your life and the lives of those around you?

Words have incredible power to express our emotional sentiment and thought to the world. All things are energetic, and comments are exponentially so. You must choose carefully. The words you use in all of your conversations with others and with yourself will determine much about your karma. The energy you create with the language you use will affect your life and those you speak with long after the sentence is uttered and the thought expressed. The effect can be either positive or negative, and the choice belongs to you and the way you deploy your weapon of words.

The Dark Side of Language

The dark side of language can suck you in very quickly, and it is the most powerful weapon you have. Simple little sentences between friends can harm all people involved in the conversation and lead to more negativity in the world. It is difficult to turn back once you start down a negative path. Here are a few of the negative word paths you should avoid.

  • Negative talk- Negativity is speaking poorly about someone or something, looking for the worst, being mean, critical, or using any other negative words toward something. Also, always expecting the worst out of any situation is negative thinking.
  • Lying – Not being honest is the creator of negative energy. People lie because they are afraid of the truth, and it justifies what they are or actions they have taken, others, or even themselves. Lying always brings negative energy.
  • Gossip- Speaking in casual or unconstrained conversation about others using details that are rumors or outright lies. At the very least, you are painting someone else in a negative light for no constructive reason.
  • Judgment- When you judge someone else in your language, you remove their humanity, and you separate them from yourself and usually make yourself feel better.
  • Complaining- When you complain about something, you create a victim’s mentality. It does no good, and keep this in mind. 80% of the people don’t care, and the other 20% are glad you have a problem to complain about.
  • Make Excuses- I have often stated that excuses give your Power away to the most plausible reason you will accept.
  • An exaggeration is a form of lying that can hurt you when you make something more substantial than it is to make yourself look better or feel better; it will harm your life.

Positive Power of talk

Fortunately, weapons work for good as well. You can choose to talk about things positively and leave the negative words and conversations behind them. Bringing positivity and hope to your life and adding to the joy in others. Focus your discussions and terms on the positive forces of words and see the difference it makes in your life. You are shining a positive light on your life and the lives of others. Here are a few points to focus on.

  • Honesty– This is the first test of all words we choose to use. Is it true? If it is and doesn’t hurt anyone, let it out. Honesty is always positive. Being straight and transparent with your words and what you mean will allow others to be honest with you.
  • Authenticity– Being genuine in what you say allows everyone to know what you stand for. If you feel a certain way about something, as long as you are not harming anyone else, then speak genuinely about your thoughts and feelings about topics in your life.
  • Integrity- Sticking to your principles is essential so that your words stand clearly for what you believe in. If your words represent your beliefs and what you think is moral and upright, how can you go wrong?
  • Love- In all things, let your words come from a place of love. All branches of love, acceptance, kindness, understanding, caring, etc., will spread positivity throughout your world. Speak with respect whenever possible.

Time Release Detonation

One of the aspects of our words that most don’t consider is that a thought spoken meanly can sit idly inside your head for years and then resurface and do its damage later. When you use insults or negative-minded comments, they may pop out later when you least expect it. A word is spoken, and at first, it doesn’t bother you, but as you think about it more and more, it can infest your mind and cause anger, fear, or even worse.

This time-released detonation can be devastating to relationships of all kinds. Words spoken in anger in the heat of the moment resurface later to harm you and whoever is around you. Be wary of every word you say and conversation you have. Be positive that the terms are what you want to be represented by for the rest of your life. One sarcastic comment can cut a person to the core, totally meant in jest. Be careful of the way you use your words and make sure they are not a weapon harming anyone.

“Be mindful when it comes to your words. A string of some that don’t mean much to you may stick with someone else for a lifetime.” -Rachel Wolchin

“Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten.” -Unknown

“Words are free. It’s how you use them that may cost you.” -Kush and Wizdom

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” -Rumi

 “…But the human tongue is a beast that few can master. It strains constantly to break out of its cage, and if it is not tamed, it will run wild and cause you grief.” -Unknown

 “The secret of being boring is to say everything.” -Voltaire

 “One kind word can change someone’s entire day.” -Unknown

 

22

My False Self

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MASTERING YOUR Ego

As you move through this day, please take a moment and become conscious of your thoughts and how they affect your emotions, the words you speak, and the actions you make each day.

Your ego is the false self we have created over time to protect ourselves in this world. It is not who we are but who we need to become to avoid pain. Ok, at your thoughts today. Notice the ones that are from a positive space or those that are from your ego. The ego’s voice cares very little about your happiness and certainly doesn’t care about the happiness of others. It cares about eliminating pain from your life. There are three messages to ignore. If you want to find absolute joy in life, you have to learn to move beyond your ego.

Control

The ego loves to send messages which seem to control everything. If you can try to control the people, circumstances, and activities of your life, you can make sure that nothing unexpected that will cause you pain will arise. This, of course, is impossible, and those in your life are not going to be free or happy trying to deal with your constant need for control. Control of this kind is only an illusion and will eventually end badly.

Try to plan for the future as best you can, but live in the present and do not form an attachment with a particular manner in which events unfold. Make positive choices pursue your goals and dreams. Take action toward them, and then allow the journey to guide you. Control is an illusion of the ego, created to make you think you are in charge of things. You are only human and will be disappointed if this is your goal. Let o try to control every aspect of life and enjoy living that will defeat the voice of ego.

Approval

At some point in life, most of us seek the approval of others to justify our value. Parents, peers, or society, in general, are our judges, and we measure our accomplishments according to the positive approval we receive. The need for support and worrying about what others think of us can be lifelong debilitation. If you live to be what others approve of, you never live life yourself. You feel you need or want to do will be pushed to the back. Creativity is put on the back burner because it doesn’t make any money.

Look to follow your heart and not care what others think, and you will defeat your egoic thoughts. The ego wants you to fit in, be one of the crowd, and never stand out or be original because it may lead to minimal ridicule. Better to be ridiculed for being yourself than to live a life never being truly who you are. Be what you are and let the world love it or hate it. That will defeat the egoic voice in your head.

Judgment

The need to judge others and point out their flaws is simple to understand. If you point out the flaws in others, you are automatically drawing attention away from the flaws that exist inside of yourself. If one else is wrong, you have to be right because you are the one providing the judgment. There are a few problems with this. Just because you don’t notice your flaws doesn’t mean they don’t exist. To knock others down to build yourself up is never healthy or helpful.

All people are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. Despite their differences and different choices, understanding and accepting others allows you to get yourself. Often t  flaws we see most clearly in others exist inside of us. All people are a lot more the same than they are different. Look at anyone and understand, there is a modified version of you. If you lived in their experience, you might live precisely like them. Look at o hers and yourself with softer eyes and understand rather than judge, and you will defeat the voice of ego.

Take some time today and consciously look at your thoughts in these areas. Let go of your need to control, seek approval, and judge others. Look for the ways you can allow others to be who they are, be who you are, and accept things as they are.

 “Ego judges and punishes. Love forgives and heals.” Anonymous

 “If someone corrects you and you feel offended, then you have an ego problem.” Nouman Ali Khan

“Is that you or your ego?” Anonymous

“Big egos are big shields for lots of space.” Diana Black

 

22

Finding Your Limits

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Limit- a point or level beyond which something does not or may not extend or pass.

LimitWhat can you do in life? What can you achieve? What is the absolute limit of your potential? These questions we are asking ourselves at least subconsciously from our earliest moments of life. We perceive the answers that build this tapestry of our belief.

Woven into the fabric of this belief are our perceptions of how smart we are, how creative or how talented in a particular area we think we are. Mixed in there are all our perceived limits in every area of our lives. It is essential to realize that these images are just an illusion. We are only limited by our thinking and the beliefs we choose to give power to. Most people happily accept their limits and live their lives, never stretching beyond them. I urge you to look at what is limiting you in your life and make a conscious choice to see what lies beyond them. It begins with an awareness of your thoughts, words, and actions regarding your perception of your limits.

The Box

From the moment we are born, other people work to put us into a box. People who care about you can be just as limiting as those who dislike you. Crutches are given to us all the time, and we willingly accept them. They come in the form of excuses, “They are just not creative.” or “Nobody in this family is good at math.” or “That is a nice talent, but can you make a living at it?”  They built the box around us slowly, and most can’t see the world outside of it.

Other people have created this box of limits for us. We accepted their trusted opinion because they were our relatives, friends, teachers, community leaders, etc. The drive to be taken allows for this box of limits to grow all around you, and soon you believe there is no possibility outside of this prison that has been constructed all around you. But you are not limited.

To escape the box takes a change of thought. Become aware of the talents you possess and fabulous things you can achieve in all areas of your life. The limit of those accomplishments is in your mind and the actions you dare to take. Don’t let the thoughts of others and society limit you and what you try to do. There is more to life than working a job for hours to earn money. Thinking, talking, laughing, sharing, growing, improving, creating, and many other things are the actual value that life provides you. Get out of the box; don’t let people limit you. Find your actual boundaries and be the person you were born to be.

Challenges and Opportunities

Every challenge we face brings with it an opportunity. Many will look at a situation and see the limits that it gets, and the rare few will look at the circumstances life throws their way and see the potential for growth, success, and happiness that exists. The mindset of looking past the limits of your events is what separates those who are aware and those asleep at the wheel. It is always up to us to explore situations to see what is possible.

Of course, you can let circumstances defeat you and do nothing. But I urge you not to sit idly and complain about what is happening. Complaining builds a victim mentality, which will limit you in all areas of your life. See the opportunity, take action, and see what develops for you. Life is not an easy road because the easy way never produced anything worthwhile. Only through exercise can a body be designed. The same is true in all areas of life. Don’t let the perceived limitations of your circumstances stop you. You are the only person who can decide where your limits lie.

You Limit You

That leads us to the natural choice involved in our limits—your mind and what you choose to accept. Look at the box around your life. Is it stopping you from earning the money you want, having the relationship you want, or just enjoying life the way you want? Most people live their entire life and never contemplate in any natural way the limits they face, where they came from, and what they can do about them.

Bad childhoods, being miserable, being unintelligent, not having an opportunity, not knowing the right people, any physical restriction, or any other excuse you can think of are just that, excuses. We are only as healthy and prosperous as the weakest excuse we will accept. This limits people in all areas of life. Don’t limit yourself! Find the things you like to do and do them with passion and joy.

Focus your conscious thought on your limits today and why you see them the way you do. Where did they come from? What is beyond them? What actions can get you past them? Do this in thoughts, words, and efforts to reach beyond the limits you accept about yourself.

“Don’t limit a child to your learning, for he was born in another time.”~Rabindranath Tagore

“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.”~ Michael Phelps

You are in the driver’s seat of your life. Nobody else has the power to erase your dreams unless you let them. Our limits are never created outside of ourselves but on the inside in the world of our thoughts.

 

 

22

A Belief

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Belief- an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.

It is essential to understand what a belief is and how it affects our lives. A belief is a thought that we supply an attachment to and accept as true and accurate in our lives. What you choose to believe will determine the foundation of your life, and that is a significant thing because it will lead to your reality. If you have an attachment to a belief limiting your potential, you may never be able to create all you are capable of. Be aware today of all of the expectations we have chosen to accept and how they influence your life. Analyze where they come from and what evidence is there to back them up. This vision begins with a focus on your thoughts, words, and actions around your beliefs and how they influence your behavior and control what accomplishments you will experience. (see video)

Don’t Limit You

All people should value themselves and the gifts they bring to the world. You have a gift to get into the world, and the pursuit of life is to find that gift and allow it to come into the world. It will let you light up and, in turn, brighten the world as well. Too often, we have made beliefs that dim our lights limit our efforts and expectations of what we can accomplish and achieve. These beliefs have as much power to restrict us as we allow them to have. It is always up to you which ideas you actively accept and let slide beliefpast. How we feel about our values and abilities is probably the most crucial factor in developing our self-esteem and confidence. Too often, our lights are turned off before we even get a chance to see what we can do because we have decided to accept a limiting belief as accurate, and it isn’t.

People who have chosen to be limited feel the need to limit others and are not fulfilled. Misery loves company, and they consciously or subconsciously deter all others from pursuing theirs. First, because misery loves company, but more importantly, I think if someone else succeeds around them, develops their talents, and finds success,  it makes the folly of their limiting belief apparent. That is a scary thing for them. YOU build your self-worth based on how you feel about your abilities, skills, and choices in life. Choose to look at yourself in the best light. It is not arrogant to love yourself, and it is common sense. We should all understand this is the only life you have. Don’t waste your opportunity living the limiting beliefs of others. Change them, forget them, and see how great a person you can be and what great things you can accomplish.

You Can Do It

It is credited to Henry Ford, but I think anyone who has ever endeavored to achieve anything could also say it. “If you believe you can, your right. If you believe you can’t, you are also right.” No more accurate evaluation of our beliefs beliefhas ever been made. It doesn’t mean that you will never fail; it means that the “failure” is merely a lesson or a necessary step along the path to ultimate success and fulfillment. If you let a setback destroy your belief in yourself, then you will indeed be limited your whole life. You can choose the path of limit or keep going and see what happens next. Learn and grow.

Make a goal, create a dream, and keep on talking nonstop action toward it. This is the path to success in all areas of history. Very few things will come “easy.” They take effort and work. But isn’t that a pretty simple formula? Cut out the harmful noise of others and keep to your task. If you know that you can become whatever you want, why do we let our beliefs stop us?

Creating Positive Beliefs

You only have a relatively short amount of time in this life. You can choose if you spend it being small because someone else thinks you are unrealistic…….. or you can make an effort and take your chances. People are afraid of those beliefwho achieve because they see what they could have achieved if they had believed in their faith and abilities a little more.

Be true to yourself and recognize your beliefs, limiting you and causing you to be modified in your pursuits of fame, money, charity, kindness, or whatever you are looking to create. Recognizing a limiting belief is the first step to changing it and replacing it with one that serves you and your life. You are a great soul seeking expression, and anything or anyone who tells you something that takes away from that limits you.

It is a scary proposition to be responsible for your life, but you are, and if you are not where you wish you were, then take steps to start moving in that direction. It is totally up to you. Create awareness around your thoughts, words, and actions today and see what beliefs dictate your reality and if you are limiting others with your own limiting beliefs.

Quotes on Belief

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.” ― George Carlin

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember, all things are possible for those who believe.”– Gail Devers

“Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” Margaret Atwood

 

 

22

Your Choices

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Don't Regret the Past
A Ship Carrying A Choice You Made

I was discussing with a friend the other day about all of the things we had done that, in retrospect, seemed like bad ideas.

Failed relationships, poor decisions, wrong turns on the path of life all came up, and my friend said the magic phrase, “If I knew then what I know now, things would be different. If I could only do it all over again.”   That thought is probably one that everyone has had at some point in their lives. I, myself, have thought this before, but not any longer.

If allowed to go back in time and make different choices, I would have to pass, and here is why.

First of all, it is common to look back with a sense of nostalgia and not with realism. Choices were made for a reason. You have no way of knowing how a change in your life would affect you today.

Things could have turned out much worse for you. A Teacher best explained it to me this way. If you picture all of those choices you didn’t make as ships sailing in the distance, you can see the sails full of wind pushing them off into the horizon.

You are wasting your time chasing them with regret because you will never catch them, and you don’t know what is beyond the horizon. Those ships may have carried you to some very unsavory and unwanted results.

Things could have been much worse for you if you had made a different choice. We only focus on a lofty, positive result when we think of doing things differently. When the outcome could have been disastrous.   Since you could be far better off with the choice you did make, thoughts like this appear to be a waste of effort.

Secondly, constantly questioning your past decisions will make it much more difficult to enjoy what you do have today.

You may have a good job or a relationship you value, and you won’t be giving them your full attention and enjoying them as much as you could if you waste your energy pining away about the past and what might have been.

Every one of life’s choices is a potential learning experience, and usually, the decision of whether it was a good or a wrong choice is made solely by you. You can choose to get something good out of almost every situation you encounter, or you can choose to get something wrong. It is all up to you.

So why not enjoy what you have today and appreciate the experiences that have gotten you here, rather than spend your days rehashing old mistakes and carrying around the regret of what might have been.

Third, one of the great things about getting older is that we do, even if we don’t try, gain experience and a form of wisdom with it.

From the day we are born, we are continually learning new things to navigate the sometimes tricky channels of life. Some people take much more advantage of these learning experiences than others. Without all of the “mistakes” we have made along the path of life, we would lose much of the hard-earned wisdom and knowledge we have gathered over the years.

Everybody has the ability for good and to live a life that satisfies them and makes the world a better place. Regretting your past decisions is a form of self-loathing that decreases your self-esteem and makes living an authentic life more difficult.

If you dislike your choices so much, you must dislike who you have become, and it is hard to be happy when you are forced to face a person in the mirror every day that you are not very fond of sometimes.

 

Don't Regret the Past
You Choose to be Whatever you want.

Finally, we all have the ultimate choice for what type of person we are to be. Regardless of all of the options we have made. What you did yesterday, ten years ago or twenty years ago, has very little to do with who we choose to be today.

Nothing can stop you from being positive except yourself. Nothing can stop you from being productive except yourself. Nothing can stop you from being great except yourself.

The past is stored in the high attic of your mind. It is OK to remember and visit and pour over past experiences to glean wisdom, but to carry around a profound sense of regret about things will get you nowhere.

Today is the next great day of your life, and you can choose to make it so or decide to turn it into another moment you will regret in the future as you watch it sail into the horizon.

Quotes About Regrets:

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”  – John Barrymore

“Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you, and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.”-Henry A. Kissinger.

“Apologies are pointless, and regrets come too late. What matters is you can move, on you can grow.”
Kelsey Grammer

“Chris Cooper once told me never to have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walked into every scene thinking, ‘exhaust every possibility.’ Once you get to a certain place, it’s like you just deliver everything you’ve got. I don’t have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again.”
Jake Gyllenhaal

“For my own part, I abandon the ethics of duty to the Hegelian critique with no regrets; it would appear to me, indeed, to have been correctly characterized by Hegel as an abstract thought, as a thought of understanding.”
Paul Ricoeur

“Had we not pursued the hydrogen bomb, there is a very real threat that we would now all be speaking Russian. I have no regrets.”
Edward Teller

“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.”
Louisa May Alcott

“Having regrets and things, it just takes your time away.”
Leif Garrett

“He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled memories of an inarticulate lifetime.”
Edith Wharton

“I already gave my best. I have no regrets at all.”
William Hung

“I do not allow myself vain regrets or foreboding.”
Mary Chesnut

“I don’t have a lot of regrets in my life.”
Cathy Freeman

“I don’t have any regrets. When I quit college and moved to Los Angeles to become an actress, it was so that I would not look back and have any regrets.”
Amy Weber

“I don’t really believe in regrets.”
Wayne Newton

“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about regrets because there’s nothing I can do.”
Sheryl Crow

“I felt that I ostracized myself by my behavior, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes, that I sort of wore a hair shirt and beat myself up most of the day thinking and regretting why did I make such a mistake? Why have I made so many mistakes?”
Sarah Ferguson

“I gave everything in my career, so I have no regrets at all.”
Michel Patini

“I have a lot of regrets, but I’m not going to think of them as regrets.”
Debbie Harry

“I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.”
Katharine Hepburn

“I have no regrets about launching Salon. For the life of me, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
David Talbot

“I have no regrets about my life.”
Jane Badler

“I have no regrets because I did everything by the book.”
Alexis Arguello

“I have no regrets in my life. I think that everything happens to you for a reason. The hard times that you go through build character, making you a much stronger person.”
Rita Mero

“I have no regrets. I don’t believe in looking back. What I am proudest of? Working really hard… and achieving as much as I could.”
Elena Kagan

“I have no regrets. I wouldn’t have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.”
Ingrid Bergman

“I have no regrets. I’ve got my health.”
Naomi Campbell

“I have to say that I have no regrets about my decision to become a priest or about the major directions my ministry has taken me… I have been and am happy as a priest, and I have never been lonely… I could have used a bit more solitude.”
Andrew Greeley

“I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion for because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you’re following your passion.”
Darren Aronofsky

I usually say I did the best I could with what I had. I have no major regrets.
Stokely Carmichael

“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”
David Herbert Lawrence

 

“I’m not gonna try to defend, or undo what’s been done. All I could say about whatever’s been done, it’s been done, and it’s water under the bridge. I have no regrets of my life.”==Ike Turner

“I’m very lucky, I’m happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don’t have any regrets whatsoever.”
Van Morrison