Tag Archives: positive life

22

The Positive Turn

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If you are wondering what your thoughts and emotions have led you to in life, take a moment and look at your life and honestly evaluate your circumstances. Nothing will provide a clearer picture. The events of your life are a living, breathing display of how you think and what you believe about yourself.  We make choices every day about what exactly we “deserve” to experience every day, and the accumulative effect of these choices is our reality.  So if you are working a job you are not wild about, that is a result of your preferences. Nobody else forced you into it. You chose it for some reason. The status of your relationships in all areas of your life results from the decisions you have made based on your beliefs about life and reality. That is a fact, and if you want to change things, you need to look at the ideas that led to your thoughts and discard the ones that are leading you in a negative direction. Here are a few thoughts to move in a positive direction. There is success in everyone. The potential for joy in every day and all of it is really up to us.

Take Responsibility

The first and only place to look in answer to: “Why am I in this situation?” or “How did this happen?” is to look in the mirror and accept your responsibility for all of your life situations.  You can cry and complain about this happening or wallow over the sadness that somebody else hurt you. That is a fact; people will hurt others, be callous, uncaring, and take advantage of others.  It happens to everyone in life, but you are responsible for your reaction to everything. You are responsible.

It is easy to slip into the role of a victim and feel sorry for yourself and think about how you couldn’t help what happened because someone else made the choices. That is a very slippery slope, and it slips in more areas once you allow responsibility to fall to something or someone else. The best choice we can make is to take complete responsibility for our lives and situations, and that gives us all the power to create whatever future we want.  You are responsible for your past and your future.

Grow and Take Action

You have the opportunity in every moment of every day to seize that experience and make it something powerful and productive. Too often, I have seen myself and others sit comfortably in the virtual recliner of routine behavior. If you dream of doing something, set your intention to create it, and then take at least a small action toward developing it. In action, there is a truth. It will tell you what will work and what you need to do differently, but it will always lead you toward your reality and the accomplishment of your goals and dreams.

Action will help you gain more wisdom regarding what you want, what will make you happy, and what might not. Learning is gaining knowledge and can come to you from books, videos, classes, other people, time spent in nature, or many different sources.  Nothing will lead you to wisdom if you don’t seek it, and nothing can stop you from finding it if you look for it. So make an effort to find the knowledge available to you every day, and then look for ways you can share what you have learned with the rest of the world. To receive is essential, but to give is the legacy of your life. Make it a positive one.

Choose a Happy Destiny

It doesn’t matter to me if you believe in destiny or not; you have an opportunity in your short life to create something magnificently fabulous or something tragically awful, or something anywhere in between. It is up to you to look at your heart and see what gifts you have to fine-tune and share with the world. Your destiny will be assured once you have listened to that voice within. We are all born with something to give, and then life covers it up through programming and expectations.  The journey to find it is up to you.

Often, the simple thought and feeling of genuine gratitude will guide you back to your true self. Be grateful for what you have in life, and more will come your way. That is what seems always to happen. Have a thankful spirit, and that choice will bring happiness into your life. Grateful people are still happy, and that choice can be yours now. No matter what your situation is right now, there is something to be thankful for, and through gratitude, a small glimmer of joy will enter your life whether you want it to or not. Look for it, create it, and move more positive feelings into your life.

Forgive

Another absolute power we all have is brought to us through forgiveness. It doesn’t mean you condone any poor behavior, and it doesn’t mean you are OK with bad things happening to you, but it means you are no longer letting something that happened in the past define you today.  Refer back to responsibility. You are the only one that can choose to forgive someone and all they do or don’t do. Holding on to anger, hate, fear, or whatever negative emotion you perceive from an event will harm you. These are released through forgiveness. Decide to give heartfelt and honest forgiveness to all those in your life.

The most important person you can forgive is yourself. Deep down, we hold anger toward ourselves for all things that occur in our lives.  Some see taking responsibility for their life this way.  Looking at the past is an impossible game because you can’t change anything that happened, and if you could have done better or behaved differently, you certainly would have.  So to use your past as a punishment for your experiences today is our choice.  And it can be released by only looking into our hearts and forgiving the people who hurt us and, most importantly ourselves. A forgiving spirit will guide you to greatness and a life without fear.

Persist Always

Finally, it is vital to develop and maintain a practice of persistence in your life. Some will start many things and have a high energy level initially but will lose their momentum at the first challenge they face and move on to something else. Persist without exception.  Nothing ever takes the place of persistence. It is a trait that will lead to success in all areas of life. Keep on trying. Get knocked down eight times, get up nine, and trim will be able to stop you.  It is a great faith in yourself that will allow you to be persistent in your pursuit of a career, health, a relationship, or anything else you are shooting for. Keep on trying, and don’t give up because it gets difficult or you have an initial setback. Those challenges are sometimes needed to teach you the information you need. Persistence is power and will always lead you in a positive direction.

“The truth I know for sure is that if something feels good and makes you happy on the inside, you’re probably moving in the right direction.”- Jacqui Holland

“Surround yourself with people who talk about ideas and visions of positivity and do not waste time talking about other people.” 

 

21

How to Think Positive

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Positive thinkingWhat is Positive Thinking?

Staying balanced in life can be difficult.  Sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason why things happen, and dealing with sudden, quick changes entering our reality makes it hard to understand if there is something we should or could be doing better.  In the end, shouldn’t we be happy? Shouldn’t our daily routines and struggles bring us personal satisfaction and make us feel valued as individuals?  I think that it should, and one way to do this is to practice positive thinking. But what exactly does that mean?

In a nutshell, the thoughts you entertain will dictate your reality and the enjoyment or discomfort you experience in each moment. The feeling you give credence will bring a corresponding emotional response, words, and actions into your life. Format your thoughts in a way that the results will be what you want. If you can’t control your mind and thoughts, someone or something else will.

What Positive Thinking Means To Me

We all have programming in our subconscious mind determined by our experiences. It takes our reality and interprets it in a way that makes sense to us and fits into what we know. The thoughts produced from this are automatic and consistent and will dictate everything in our lives. From the amount of success we have, the money we earn, and the love we have in life. Our ability to change these often negative thoughts into more positive ones is our number one weapon in creating the life we dream about every day.

Remember, your experience conditions your subconscious when you look at your past and draw conclusions about your abilities and worthiness. What you believe determines your ceiling of creative ability in your life. Until you choose to change, that choice is positive thinking.  In each moment, you can think in a more constructive and caring way about yourself. The decision to do this will allow you to grow.  From what I have read, most of these conditioning experiences happen early on in life, but all of life’s adventures can add to it.  Learning to recognize and ignore the negative comments from your past is the key to positive thinking to me and the catalyst for growth. 

It’s Not a Cover-Up

We all make choices that we know weren’t good.  I know I have, and in hindsight, I can’t believe how foolish and thoughtless some decisions were.  What was I thinking?  I used to beat myself up all the time about these choices, and they were a part of my daily existence.  A choice is a choice and to learn from the result is the desired experience. If your choice was wrong, forgive yourself. The decision may have hurt someone else, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.

Positive thinking does not mean to forget or overlook these negative/poor choices. It is a way to put them into proper perspective.  Accept that these things happened, then leave them in the past where they belong because no amount of second-guessing, longing, or fantasy replay in your head will change what happened in the past. But if you choose not to learn from it and seek a better future, then you are a fool. Positive thinking is knowing that you have the ability for growth and development.  Pursue it and find questions leading to your growth.  You can control the thoughts you think about any situation and experience. This choice doesn’t mean to sugarcoat things or ignore the negative, but deal with it and see the positives that can come from it.

Find A Positive Thought

positive thinkingI think that there are two schools of thought and emotion. They come from a place of love or a residence of fear. Fear brings hate, doubt, anger, jealousy, resentment, lies, inferiority, and ego. You can imagine that love brings with it peace, understanding, empathy, sympathy,  kindness, hope, truth, and, of course, love.

Positive thinking embraces the thoughts of love and limits the attention you give to the ideas of fear.  This consciousness doesn’t mean that you don’t have them because we all do.  Someone makes you mad or treats you poorly, and the thoughts of fear will arise.  You will always have a choice at this point, let them rule your actions, or recognize them, experience them, and don’t let them rule your actions. You are always in control of your thoughts if you choose to be. It starts with your conscious awareness of what you are thinking and where the view is coming from.  Anger is the open face of fear. It is a natural warning system to let everyone know you are experiencing anxiety on some level. Passion means your needs aren’t being met, or you are afraid they won’t be.

You can manage these thoughts by focusing on theories of understanding, empathy, and love. That is your choice always.

Seek Another Positive Thought

positive thinkingWhen I started to realize that I could entertain whatever thought I wanted, it changed the way I looked at the world and the people in it.  The power of knowing I was in charge of how I felt was a little overwhelming.  It made me want to learn more because experiencing life through this lens was much more fulfilling and enjoyable. Even if a little unnerving.

This learning led to more social experiments, and finding the reaction of others is almost always a mirror of the emotions you show to them.  Strangers smile and are friendly when you extend friendship.  People appreciate you when you show them appreciation.  It is not hard to look at what someone else does and enjoy the thought, time, and talent it took to create whatever it is.  Being positive about life on a surface level is more natural than negative, and it makes the world a better place. Being positive below the surface takes a lot more work, but the results will be a life you truly enjoy and create.

Be Positive About Outcomes

It never ceases to amaze me that when something happens to you, good, bad, or neutral, almost always there is a path, the growth or development in front of you; all you have to do is take it.  I have beat myself up and ridiculed myself for years about decisions in my past, only to realize I was wasting my time because of those things set in motion circumstances that greatly benefited me in the end.  I also realized that those benefits would have never been able to occur in any other way.

When we relax and let events play out, and accept what is happening, we can achieve greatness.  This letting go doesn’t mean we are off the hook on taking action because we always have a choice, and we can act.  Don’t be afraid to respond, but understand that your activity may end up in failure, but that failure may be the step you need to take to reach the highest potential that you have inside you. It can be in creativity, your career, or your relationships.

You Are Great. There is Really Nothing You Can Do About it!

Now it is time to stop blaming yourself for the past.  You made choices, you took your throws, and it didn’t turn out how you hoped.  Accept it, learn from it, and move on to the rest of your life.  You were not put on the Earth to let past programming dictate your ceiling of achievement.  You are here to be great!  Because you know what?  You are fantastic, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it! It is a matter of adjusting your thoughts to reflect that reality to the world.

Everyone is born with greatness inside of them, and some easily find it.  Some have to work harder because life is full of should haves, would haves, and could haves that will consume your mind.  Regrets shouldn’t happen because I can’t even conceive of the level of greatness inside you.  Only you can let it out.  That is about all anyone can hope for in their life.

Be conscious of your thoughts, pursue the positive about yourself, and counteract the negative, limiting ones. The thoughts you think and react to are all up to you.

 

“You are the only one who can control the way you think. Make sure you nourish the positive thoughts and weed out the negative ones!” Catherine Pulsifer

“In essence, the bulk of our negative self-talk comes from adopting a worldly standard and worldly values as the primary standard through which we filter our thinking.” – John Stange.

“I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.” James A. Baldwin

“Over the ensuing years, it was my positive attitude that allowed me to tackle and complete and compete in many diverse assignments.” Catherine Pulsifer

“A major factor in determining how our lives turn out is the way we choose to think. Everything that goes on inside the human mind in the form of thoughts, ideas, and information forms our personal philosophy.” – Jim Rohn.

This song by Stevie Wonder is an excellent guide for positive thinking. Enjoy!

 

How to change thoughts- when one comes up, switch to the other.
I could never do that= I CAN DO THAT
I’m not smart enough= I AM INFINITELY INTELLIGENT, HAVE THE RESOURCES, AND WILL LEARN.
I’ll never be wealthy=I MUST BE WEALTHY!
I’m always sick= I FEEL GREAT
I’m too fat = I WANT TO BE FIT AND HAPPY
I’m unattractive =I AM BEAUTIFUL
I will fail= I’LL DO WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED
I am a loser= I WILL WIN
I can’t be bothered=I AM UNLIMITED ENERGY
I’m too tired= I MUST DEMAND AN ENERGETIC STATE NOW
That’s Really bad= WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT THAT
That’s impossible= ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
That’s really bad= WHAT IS GREAT ABOUT THIS?
I feel drained= I AM A POWERHOUSE
I can’t = I CAN
Maybe one day= I WILL MAKE THIS DAY
Hopefully= I’M CERTAIN
This is too hard= I LOVE A CHALLENGE
That’s a mistake= THANK YOU FOR THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
What if …. = IT’S NOT HAPPENING NOW, DON’T WORRY IN ADVANCE
I should have= I DIDN’T, BUT I AM IN CONTROL OF MYSELF NOW, WHICH MEANS I CAN!!
I hate my life=. I LOVE LIFE.
21

Believe It

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Creating a shortlist of beliefs on which I think my life is hopefully based is a difficult task but one I am continually polishing and evaluating as life teaches me the lessons I need to learn.  People come into your life, situations change, we learn, we lose, we grow, and the lessons are what we are left with and the beliefs are the constants that strain out of the mess that is left of our lives after all experiences happen. So this product is ever-evolving, and I am editing it as I see fit, but I stick with what I say at this moment.  At least for today, until they have been proven false tomorrow, and then I will adjust.

All People are Connected

Call it God, the Universe, or whatever your religion dictates, but we are all connected through a divine order to me.  All people are fundamentally the same and contain the same abilities for great good and equal power to commit great evil.  That is just a part of this crazy game called life. Just as everyone is the same, each person is a unique creation as well. There has never been another person exactly like you, and there will never be another one again. There is something extraordinary about that.  We are all bound together in the experience of life and the story evolving out of it.

All of us have a connection on the soul level.  The human ego has been developed to make us feel like we are all alone and isolated. But the truth is that it is just an illusion and breaking that can change your life.  When people look to their similarities, and away from what separates them, anything is possible.  We are all connected, and that should be the hope of your life. When you look at someone else, don’t judge anyone too harshly.  You are only a few circumstances away from being the same.

Your Actions Define Who YOU Are

Talk is cheap. What you do is the definition of your character.  I have heard the soft and sympathetic words that were worth absolutely nothing but have been blessed by the actions of many great people.  Saying you are something means nothing. Being that thing means everything.  Each day all people are faced with a large number of choices, be positive or negative. Loving or fearful. Kind or judgmental. Etc. It is these choices that lead to action and define us to the world. Make your choices carefully.

How do you want to be seen in the world?  Think about that when you make a thousand decisions making up your day.  I have heard people speak about the virtues of kindness globally and then treat people in their day-to-day life in a very mean and judgmental fashion.  What type of person are they? Kind or mean? Words say kind things, but actions are callous and cold to human understanding. Your actions are mean, selfish, and insensitive, then that is what you are.  The good news is anyone can change at any moment and become a better version of themselves. Let your actions be a ringing endorsement of your character, not a condemnation.

Thinking Positively Leads to Positive Results

Bad stuff happens to everyone at some point in life. How you deal with it is essential to the quality of your life and those around you.  Life is full of things that you define subjectively as good or bad. Our attitude about these events is what will determine our lives.  Look at the good in all situations.  You may not be able to see it at first but ask yourself, “How can this make me better?” or “What is this situation trying to teach me?”  The truth is no situation is positive or negative. There is a little of both in everything.  It is up to you to find it.  How well you make these choices defined how happy you are in life.

Defining things as positives allows you to enjoy life more, be healthier, and support those you love. At the same time, negative thinking is defeatist and will supply you with the exact opposite. As I mentioned above, you choose every day to be positive or negative in this world.  Positive thinking will lead to positive results in your life. How much positivism do you prefer?

All People Have Value

This is difficult to remember sometimes when I am angry or someone has hurt me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I believe this is true.  People live differently, make poor decisions, and look differently, but inside they all have value.   All that separates any of us from the circumstances of another is mere chance.  At our core, we are all beings of love. Therefore, understand and giving love is the most important thing.

Every person is a teacher and a learner. You can learn something from everyone. A valuable lesson can come from a simple conversation or just in observation of someone living their life. I don’t look in judgment but in understanding and appreciation of what their experience brings. For example, Victor Frankel was a Holocaust survivor who didn’t let the worst experience of his life dim his hope for humanity. I take that lesson and apply it to my life all the time. If he could remain positive, what excuse do I have to feel bad?  We can learn those lessons from all sorts of people every day.

Action Is Mandatory for Success

Every person that has ever been born has had a dream of some kind. There are no exceptions.  When a person takes action, they can make their dream come true.  Even if that action doesn’t work out, then you have gained valuable information that you can use to try again. Many people carry a lot of fear around inside them, of many different things.  Action kills fear because it removes all doubt. Either something is going to work, or it isn’t. There is no need to worry or fret because you have all the information right in front of you. Taking action is the reality check and a powerful ally to all people. Take action and see what you can accomplish in your life today.

Start your business, ask for the date, apply for the job, say what you mean. All of your actions will lead to repercussions for which you will be responsible, but that is a great way to live life. Embrace all of the ripples of your existence and never apologize for them. If you are honest and trustworthy and explain why you did what you did to those who matter, you have nothing to be ashamed of or worried about.  Let your action do the talking, and it will create a life of consequence.

Forgiveness is Necessary

To forgive someone for something they did that harmed you is very difficult. It can’t just be lip service of saying that they are forgiven. It has to be inside your heart.  The only one who can give forgiveness is you, and the sooner you give it, the sooner you can move on.  Letting go of pain, sadness, anger, or any other negative emotion is key to enjoying life.   I read somewhere that you know that someone is forgiven when you think of them, and there is no subtle searing inside your heart.

It can take a conscious effort, but with forgiveness comes freedom, strength, and love. Choices that are made from love are generally good choices. To hold on to anger or pain is to give power to someone else over your life, and clearly, they don’t deserve to be a part of your life if they hurt you or treated you with disregard. Forgive them and learn never to treat anyone inadequately again.  Let your ripples be of kindness and joy.  Forgive everyone, including yourself, and move forward with the best intentions to be the best version of yourself possible.

Embrace Love, Avoid Fear

All people carry this inside of them, and the one you pay attention to will determine how much you enjoy this ride we call life.  Focus on the love-based emotions like kindness, understanding, generosity, acceptance, patience, and love while avoiding the fear-based feelings and thoughts of anger, hate, separation, jealousy, stereotyping, and judgment. It can be harder to do than it sounds, but the effort is well worth it. Love is a powerful way to think that will allow you to become the best version of yourself spiritually, physically, and mentally. Love leads to kindness and personal growth. Fear is the opposite of love, and it will lead to isolation and a negative life experience. Not many people are happy with their fear-based thoughts, and living through love makes it impossible not to be satisfied.

There it is, some simple things to help you think about ways to move better through your day and your life.  The song below is one of my all-time favorites; it reminds me of how life changes and moves. We do move like water, and you never know when life will end, and all we have is this moment.  Love much and believe in yourself ultimately!! Be the most extraordinary person you can be, and make sure your beliefs allow you to shine fully.