Tag: Wisdom

When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of ME and YOU!

Kute Blackson writes:

Just because you perceive something a certain way, doesn’t mean it is true.

We often think that reality is what we see and experience. We then make judgments about other people, situations or even ourselves based on our perceptions.

But in reality, the reality that you experience is based on your conditioning and past programming. The reality that you think is reality isn’t necessarily reality. As you become aware of this, it frees you up to see more clearly and question how you perceive a situation or person.

When you look at a situation or person, what you really see is what you bring to it. As a result, we make up assumptions and judgments about people which are often not true. Then we react based on our interpretation, which is not always accurate.

Have you ever reacted a certain way to a situation or person, only to realize afterwards that what you thought wasn’t necessarily so? It was simply how you were perceiving it in that moment based on your limited viewpoint.

Perhaps someone did or said something to you which left you feeling hurt. When you react to the situation based on your hurt, it only creates a negative spiral.

To the degree you live inside of your assumptions about what is going on, is to the degree you are not free and limit yourself.

The more you can step back, question your first reaction to a given situation and embrace what you feel, the more space you can have to actually choose a response that is empowering rather than reactive. Living from reactivity only creates more reactivity in a situation.

When you are in a relationship with a loved one and they do or say something that triggers something within you, we often think that our upset is about the other person. As a result we might react negatively, or even attack the other person out of hurt. We might make up a story about what they said or did, and what that means. In truth you may have no idea what was really going on with the other person or situation as a whole.

So we are all seeing through our individual lens/viewpoint and experiencing reality in unique ways. The challenge is when these realities do not agree, it often results in arguments we both think we are right.

Have you ever experienced this?

On some level you are both right. Everybody is right, based on the viewpoint your are looking through. It doesn’t mean it is reality though. When you realize this, you do not need to take the other person’s reaction to you personally; you realize that, based on their particular viewpoint which they think to be reality, they cannot help but react to you the way they are. It just frees you up to not keep fighting them, and be able to take a step back so that you can really choose your response.

The meaning you give to things controls your entire life. What’s the meaning you are giving to the experiences that happen to you?

Beware of:

Mind reading: When you project onto another other person what you think they are thinking and why they did what they did.

Living in fantasy: When you have an entire relationship with a person not based on reality, but what you have made up in your mind.

Preconceived ideas: This is where you have already made up in your mind who and what someone is and how that person will respond ahead of time. You then already feel reactive, even though nothing has happened yet.

The more you free yourself of your conditioning, the more clearly you are able to see reality clearly and really choose.

Before you judge someone or the situation.

Breathe. And take a step back.

Take a look at the situation from a more expanded viewpoint. Be willing to not know.

Question: Is this reality?

Choose authentically.

So, how much Freedom do you want to experience in your life?

You choose.

Source: When you ASSUME you make an ASS out of ME and YOU! (Give it UP!)

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Where is God?

“God is near me (or rather in me), and yet I may be far from God because I may be far from my own true self.” C. E. Roll.

Our relationship with God and our relationship with ourselves are always interwoven. Sometimes we feel disconnected from ourselves or emotionally flat. We may block the flow of communication with our deeper selves by trying to evade a difficult or painful truth. At those times we grope for some kind of contact and may even ask, “Where is God?”

God is always with us, but sometimes we are the missing party. In the past, most of us were deeply alienated from ourselves and from our Higher Power. Our first moments of spiritual awakening may have been when we saw how far we were from our true selves. This honest message from ourselves to ourselves was painful but was also a re-contact with the truth that made it possible to find God.

I need not ask where God is because God is loving and always near. I only need to ask, “Where am I?” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – June 26, 2012.

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Surviving Slumps

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Melody Beattie writes:

A slump can go on for days. We feel sluggish, unfocused, and sometimes overwhelmed with feelings we can’t sort out. We may not understand what is going on with us. Even our attempts to practice recovery behaviors may not appear to work. We still don’t feel emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as good as we would like.

In a slump, we may find ourselves reverting instinctively to old patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, even when we know better. We may find ourselves obsessing, even when we know that what we’re doing is obsessing and that it doesn’t work.

We may find ourselves looking frantically for other people to make us feel better, the whole time knowing our happiness and well being does not lay with others.

We may begin taking things personally that are not our issues, and reacting in ways we’ve learned all to well do not work.

We’re in a slump. It won’t last forever. These periods are normal, even necessary. These are the days to get through. These are the days to focus on recovery behaviors, whether or not the rewards occur immediately. These are sometimes the days to let ourselves be and love ourselves as much as we can.

We don’t have to be ashamed, no matter how long we’ve been recovering. We don’t have to unreasonably expect “more” from ourselves. We don’t ever have to expect ourselves to live life perfectly.

Get through the slump. It will end. Sometimes, a slump can go on for days and then, in the course of an hour, we see ourselves pull out of it and feel better. Sometimes it can last a little longer.

Practice one recovery behavior in one small area, and begin to climb uphill. Soon, the slump will disappear. We can never judge where we will be tomorrow by where we are today.

Today, I will focus on practicing one recovery behavior on one of my issues, trusting that this practice will move me forward. I will remember that acceptance, gratitude, and detachment are a good place to begin.” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – June 26, 2012.

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The Health Benefits Of Pets

We’ve known it for millennia: animals make us feel good.

But they also do us good (when they aren’t gnawing on our shoes, that is). Over the last 20 years, research on human-animal interactions has emerged, proving that people who have pets are happier and healthier. They visit the doctor less often, have more fun, and feel more secure than people who don’t have pets.

Why? Despite how many gadgets we own, humans are animals—and the need to be around other animals is a fundamental part of being human, according to Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Animal-Human Bond at Purdue University. Here are the many healthy roles pets play in our lives.” via The Health Benefits Of Pets | LIVESTRONG.COM.

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Confusion

English: Dry Garden in Ryoanji (Kyoto, Japan) ...

“Imagine a sculpture

You work on every day.

If you stop, the beauty

Will slowly go away.”

What if you were at work on a beautiful sculpture but your material reverted or decayed if you ever ceased to progress? This is the unfortunate nature of spiritual efforts.

You can never stop trying to purify yourself, improve yourself, strengthen yourself, and cultivate the sacred that is inside you. If you do well one day, that is good. But if you cease your efforts, you will slide backward. That is why you must strive on every level, from the physical to the mental to the spiritual. Your vigilance must never flag. Your determination must never waver.

Paradoxically, there is nothing to achieve. It is only our minds that convince ourselves that we must do something. We are already pure, already sacred. But we live in a polluted world, we have egotistical thoughts that constantly divide us from the true Tao, and we cannot remain forever in a pure state and still function in the world. If you attained the higher levels of Tao, you would appear to an outsider as if in a trance, and it would be impossible to interact with others. So if you are trying to be spiritual in today’s world, you must never cease striving to keep yourself pure. Once you are not with Tao, you must constantly struggle with the impurity of the world.” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – June 25, 2012.

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Figuring out God’s will

Melody Beattie writes:

It was a stressful time in my life. I didn’t know what to do. I had pressing business decisions to make, and painful relationship issues to face. Everything felt like a mess.

I gathered up a few favorite books, the Bible, a journal, and some clothes. Then I headed for the mountains, a resort that was a favorite place of mine to hide out in and gather my thoughts.

I told myself, “I’m going to stay in there. Write in my journal. Pray. And meditate. I’m not coming out until I know what to do.”

After forty-eight hours of writing about my problems, praying about my problems, and meditating about my problems, I remembered something a friend had said to me.

“What are you doing?” he had asked.

“I’m trying to surrender to God’s will.”

“No you’re not, you’re trying to figure it out.”

Within six months, each of the problems I was wrestling with worked themselves out. I was either guided into an action that naturally felt right at the time, or a solution came to me. The immediate solution to each problem was the same: let go. Just surrender to the situation taking place. Sometimes, what we need to do next is surrender.

If you don’t like the word surrender, try calling it making peace.

God, help me surrender to your will, especially when I don’t know what to do next.” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – June 25, 2012.

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Autobiography in 5 chapters

I

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost … I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes me forever to find a way out. Continue reading “Autobiography in 5 chapters” →

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This is your life

Are you who you want to be?

Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you’ve broken
Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you’ve got now
Yeah, and today is all you’ll ever have
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, are you who you want to be
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes
Don’t close your eyes

This is your life are you who you want to be
This is your life are you who you want to be, yeah

This is your life, are you who you want to be, who you want to be yeah
This is your life, are you who you want to be (who you want to be)
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose
And you had everything to lose

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Your attitude is more important than the facts

Kristin Barton Cuthriell writes:

Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact.  How you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you start to deal with it actually. On the other hand, a confident and optimistic thought pattern can modify or overcome the fact altogether. -Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking

A bitter why me attitude will have you going in the wrong direction. It is much healthier to focus your energy on what you can do.

You may have been unfortunate. You may have even been victimized. You may need to grieve your losses, allowing yourself some time to feel sad, angry, and out of sorts. But there comes a time, when it is in your best interest to accept what is and move toward solutions.

The solution does not mean that you will erase the past. You can’t. But the solution does lie in accepting what is, putting away the bitter why me mindset, and opting for a Given my situation, what can I do now attitude.

Focusing on how things use to be or what you use to be able to do can sometimes create a downward spiral both emotionally and physically.  Replacing this paradigm with a solution focused goal oriented mindset can have the opposite effect, creating healthy momentum.

The solution lies within the attitude. It is what it is. What can I do moving forward?

What can you do to improve your attitude? What can you do to improve your life?” via Your attitude is more important than the facts.

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Owning Our Power

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More goodness for my spirit from Melody Beattie:

We don’t have to give others so much power and ourselves so little. We don’t have to give others so much credit and ourselves so little. In recovery from codependency, we learn there’s a big difference between humility and discounting ourselves.

When others act irresponsibly and attempt to blame their problems on us, we no longer feel guilty. We let them face their own consequences.

When others talk nonsense, we don’t question our own thinking.

When others try to manipulate or exploit us, we know it’s okay to feel anger and distrust and to say no to the plan.

When others tell us that we want something that we really don’t want, or someone tells us that we don’t want some­thing that we really do want, we trust ourselves. When others tell us things we don’t believe, we know it’s okay to trust our instincts.

We can even change our mind later.

We don’t have to give up our personal power to anyone: strangers, friends, spouses, children, authority figures, or those over whom we’re in authority. People may have things to teach us. They may have more information than we have, and may appear more confident or forceful than we feel. But we are equals. Our magic is not in them. Our magic, our light, is in us. And it is as bright a light as theirs.

We are not second-class citizens. By owning our power, we don’t have to become aggressive or controlling. We don’t have to discount others. But we don’t discount our­selves either.

Today, I will own my power with people. I will let myself know what I know, feel what I feel, believe what 1 believe, and see what I see. I will be open to changing and learning from others and experience, but I will trust and validate myself too. I will stand in my own truth.” via June 24: Owning Our Power.

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Detachment

English: Black Cat Yawning
My cat has taught me a great deal about ‘healthy detachment’…

Melody Beattie writes:

Detachment doesn’t come naturally for many of us. But once we realize
the value of this recovery principle, we understand how vital detachment
is. The following story illustrates how a woman came to understand
detachment.

“The first time I practiced detachment was when I let go of my alcoholic
husband. He had been drinking for seven years, since I had married him.
For that long, I had been denying his alcoholism and trying to make him
stop drinking.

“I did outrageous things to make him stop drinking, to make him see the
light, to make him realize how much he was hurting me. I really thought
I was doing things right by trying to control him.

“One night, I saw things clearly. I realized that my attempts to control
him would never solve the problem. I also saw that my life was
unmanageable. I couldn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to do. His
alcoholism was controlling me, even though I wasn’t drinking.

“I set him free, to do as he chose. The truth is, he did as he pleased
anyway. Things changed the night I detached. He could feel it, and so
could I. When I set him free, I set myself free to live my own life.
“I’ve had to practice the principle of detachment many times since then.
I’ve had to detach from unhealthy people and healthy people. It’s never
failed. Detachment works.”

Detachment is a gift. It will be given to us when we’re ready for it.
When we set the other person free, we are set free….

Source: Detachment…Melody Beattie [Archive] – Cyber Recovery Social Network Forums – Alcohol and Drug Addiction Help/Support

Learning healthy detachment has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I knew how to be attached in an unhealthy way; it’s called codependency. I knew how to be detached in an unhealthy way; it’s called “Eff you — I’m leaving!”. Healthy detachment for me looks a lot like interdependence without giving over control or response-ability to my partner but I can’t say that I’ve mastered it yet or that I will in this lifetime. It may come naturally to some people but it does not come naturally to me — I have to work hard at it every day. I don’t claim perfection — only progress — but I know that learning healthy detachment is one of the best investments I can make in myself…

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Work and recovery

Melody Beattie writes this about work:

Just as we have relationship histories, most of us have work histories.

Just as we have a present circumstance to accept and deal with in our relationship life, we have a present circumstance to accept and deal with in our work life.

Just as we develop a healthy attitude toward our relationship history – one that will help us learn and move forward – we can develop a healthy attitude toward our work history.

I have worked many jobs in my life, since I was eleven years old. Just as I have learned many things about myself through my relationships, I have learned many lessons through my work. Often, these lessons run parallel to the lessons I’m learning in other areas of my life.

I have worked at jobs I hated but was temporarily dependent on. I have gotten stuck in jobs because I was afraid to strike out on my own and find my next set of circumstances.

I have been in some jobs to develop skills. Sometimes, I didn’t realize I was developing those skills until later on when they become an important part of the career of my choice.

I have worked at jobs where I felt victimized, where I gave and gave and received nothing in return. I have been in relationships where I manufactured similar feelings.

I have worked at some jobs that have taught me what I absolutely didn’t want; others sparked in me an idea of what I really did want and deserve in my career.

Some of my jobs have helped me develop character; others have helped me fine tune skills. They have all been a place to practice recovery behaviors.

Just as I have had to deal with my feelings and messages about myself in relationships, I have had to deal with my feelings and messages about myself, and what I believed I deserved at work.

I have been through two major career changes in my life. I learned that neither career was a mistake and no job was wasted time. I have learned something from each job, and my work history has helped create who I am.

I learned something else: there was a Plan, and I was being led. The more I trusted my instincts, what I wanted, and what felt right, the more I felt that I was being led.

The more I refused to lose my soul to a job and worked at it because I wanted to and not for the paycheck, the less victimized I felt by any career, even those jobs that paid a meager salary. The more I set goals and took responsibility for achieving the career I wanted, the more I could decide whether a particular job fit into that scheme of things. I could understand why I was working at a particular job and how that was going to benefit me.

There are times I have even panicked at work and about where I was in my employment history. Panic never helped. Trust and working my program did.

There were times I looked around and wondered why I was where I was. There were times people thought I should be someplace different. But when I looked into myself and at God, I knew I was in the right place, for the moment.

There were times I have had to quit a job and walk away in order to be true to myself. Sometimes, that was frightening. Sometimes, I felt like a failure. But I learned this: If I was working my program and true to myself, I never had to fear where I was being led.

There have been times I couldn’t survive on the small amount of money I was receiving. Instead of bringing that issue to a particular employer and making it his or her fault, I have had to learn to bring the issue to my Higher Power and myself. I’ve learned I’m responsible for setting my boundaries and establishing what I believe I deserve. I’ve also learned God, not a particular employer, is my source of guidance.

I’ve learned that I’m not stuck or trapped in a job no more than I am in a relationship. I have choices. I may not be able to see them clearly right now, but I do have choices. I’ve learned that if I really want to take care of myself in a particular way on a job, I will do that. And if I really want to be victimized by a job, I will allow that to happen too.

I am responsible for my choices, and I have choices.

Above all else, I’ve learned to accept and trust my present circumstances at work. That does not mean to submit; it does not mean to forego boundaries. It means to trust, accept, then take care of myself the best I’m able to on any given day.

God, help me bring my recovery behaviors to my career affairs.” via Thought for the Day — Hazelden.

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Powerlessness & Unmanageability

Melody Beattie writes:

Willpower is not the key to the way of life we are seeking. Surrender is.

“I have spent much of my life trying to make people be, do, or feel something they aren’t, don’t want to do, and choose not to feel. I have made them, and myself, crazy in that process,” said one recovering woman.

I spent my childhood trying to make an alcoholic father who didn’t love himself be a normal person who loved me. I then married an alcoholic and spent a decade trying to make him stop drinking.

I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavailable people be emotionally present for me. I have spent even more years trying to make family members, who are content feeling miserable, happy.

What I’m saying is this: I’ve spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn’t. It’s been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas. Won’t work!

By surrendering to powerlessness, I gain the presence of mind to stop wasting my time and energy trying to change and control that which I cannot change and control. It gives me permission to stop trying to do the impossible and focus on what is possible: being who I am, loving myself, feeling what I feel, and doing what I want to do with my life.

In recovery, we learn to stop fighting lions, simply because we cannot win. We also learn that the more we are focused on controlling and changing others, the more unmanageable our life becomes. The more we focus on living our own life, the more we have a life to live, and the more manageable our life will become.

Today, I will accept powerlessness where I have no power to change things, and I’ll allow my life to become manageable.” via Daily Meditation ~ Powerlessness & Unmanageability – Miracles In Progress Codependents Anonymous Group.

Today, I am thinking about how to apply this to my in-laws…

My mother in law will never love me like a son and my sibling in laws will never treat me like a brother. Three years ago during the ‘summer of forgiveness’, I made amends and was forgiven and yet I remain in their ‘penalty box‘. I refuse to let myself in an close the lid on top of me. I refuse to play a role in their drama. If I’m not going to get what I need it’s not worth the work…

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Boundaries

Fence
Good fences make good neighbors…

Melody Beattie writes:

“Having boundaries doesn’t complicate life; boundaries simplify life.” Beyond Codependency.

There is a positive aspect to boundary setting. We learn to listen to ourselves and identify what hurt us and what we don’t like. But we also learn to identify what feels good.

When we are willing to take some risks and begin actively doing so, we will enhance the quality of our life.

What do we like? What feels good? What brings us pleasure? Whose company do we enjoy? What helps us to feel good in the morning? What’s a real treat in our life? What are the small, daily activities that make us feel nurtured and cared for?

What appeals to our emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical self? What actually feels good to us?

We have deprived ourselves too long. There is no need to do that anymore, no need. If it feels good, and the consequences are self-loving and not self-defeating, do it!

Today, I will do for myself those little things that make life more pleasurable. I will not deny myself healthy treats.” via Thought for the Day.

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What If?

Melody Beattie writes:

I was talking to a friend one day about something I planned to do. Actually, I was worrying about how one par­ticular person might react to what I intended to do.

“What if he doesn’t handle it very well?” I asked.

“Then,” my friend replied, “you’re going to have to handle it well.”

“What if ‘s” can make us crazy. They put control over our life in someone else’s hands. “What if’s” are a sign that we have reverted to thinking that people have to react in a par­ticular way for us to continue on our course.

“What if’s” are also a clue that we may be wondering whether we can trust ourselves and our Higher Power to do what’s best for us. These are shreds of codependent ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and they signal fear.

The reactions, feelings, likes or dislikes of others don’t have to control our behaviors, feelings, and direction. We don’t need to control how others react to our choices. We can trust ourselves, with help from a Higher Power, to handle any out­come — even the most uncomfortable. And, my friend, we can trust ourselves to handle it well.

Today, I will not worry about other people’s reactions, or events outside of my control. Instead, I will focus on my reactions. I will handle my life well today and trust that, tomorrow, I can do the same.” via June 22: What If?.

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Rebuilding Trust After Being Hurt

Letting Go

“When mistrust comes in, love goes out.” ~Irish saying.

An old friend of mine felt betrayed by her boyfriend, but chose not to leave him. Instead, she made him pay for it over and over again.

Through subtle digs and less subtle slights, she repeatedly expressed that she felt contempt for him. But instead of forgiving or walking away, she stayed behind a wall of resentment.

Soon he started responding in kind, until their relationship became a container for mutual silent bitterness. It was two people sharing a suffocating space, overwhelmed by the weight of everything they didn’t say.

I suspect many of us can relate to that feeling of clinging to a grievance. In at least one of our relationships, we’ve felt angry and indignant, and despite wanting to forgive, we just couldn’t.

I know I’ve been there before.

It’s not easy to forget when someone breaks your trust, especially if you fear it might be broken again, but holding onto doubt is a surefire way to suffer.

Little hurts worse than the suspicion that someone else might hurt you.

This isn’t the kind of thing you can just brush off through positive thinking. You can’t make yourself feel trusting by telling yourself you should be, or rationalizing away your feelings.

The reality is it takes time and effort to trust again. It takes the courage to acknowledge how you feel and willingness from the other person to hear and honor it. It takes a mutual commitment to move beyond what happened instead of reliving and rehashing.

But most importantly, it requires you to believe in the goodness of the person who hurt you.

You have to believe someone can treat you with respect and consideration—even if it takes you a while to get there—or else you’ll never let your guard down. That’s a painful place to be.

The thing about being defensive is that everything becomes a battle, and no one ever wins.

Of course this doesn’t mean we can ever know for certain that someone won’t hurt us again. The only way we can know if we’re able to trust someone is by first giving them trust.

That means we need to ask ourselves: Is this relationship worth that risk?

Is it worth feeling vulnerable?

Is it worth letting go of the story?

And if it’s worth it, what would it look like to give trust, starting right now?

via Tiny Wisdom: Rebuilding Trust After Being Hurt | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.

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Here’s What You Can Do!

Terri Cole has an amazing post over at The Daily Love today. She writes:

Are you wasting your energy, youth and beauty focusing on things you cannot change? Thinking too much about situations where you have no control or experiences that have already happened? Oftentimes we get so wrapped up in what’s happening in the world and political systems, in what the neighbors are doing and in the mistakes we’ve made, that we lose focus on what we CAN DO right here, right now to help make our lives and those around us better.

Focusing on that over which you have no control (the past, the state of the world and the drama of other people’s lives… to name a few) is a common cause of stress. This type of thinking makes us feel powerless, leading to feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, and depression, which are all key players in the game of stress. I could go on and on about the myriad of the side effects from stress, but you can check them out for yourself while we focus on what you CAN DO to switch your thinking from what you should have done to what you will do now.

This week, I want to challenge you to pay attention to what thoughts are taking up real estate in your mind. When you are ruminating about people and situations over which you have no control, jot down a quick line about the issue at hand. Over the course of the week, what patterns are you discovering? What is the content of your predominant thoughts? How do they make you feel?

Now make a plan to Do Something. If it’s politics that sets you into a tailspin, volunteer for a political campaign, get to know the issues, VOTE. If it’s an ethical or world issue (e.g. animal welfare, bullying, the environment, researching/living with/preventing/curing a particular disease), volunteer for an organization focusing on that particular agenda.

Now, to the biggie…. How often are you ruminating about the past? When you find yourself living anywhere but in the present moment, ask yourself why you are still holding onto the past incident or regret. Try to break down what really happened. Once you have established the facts around the scenario, dial into what you are meant to learn from the experience and use that information to inform your decisions now.

Remaining in a state of frustrated helplessness takes a toll – physically and emotionally. You can relieve stress and feel more empowered by getting into action. Being part of the solution, instead of stressing about the problem, will contribute to your ability to build a more peaceful and productive life. You have the power to change your life and your perspective. Do not give that power to politicians, lawmakers, your neighbors or anyone else. Most of these people you do not even know, so why be dominated by their choices? And the ones you do know most likely do not want to have power over your thoughts and feelings. Keep your side of the street clean and use your special talents to make life better. Interestingly enough, you will make others’ better in the process.

Share your thoughts and comments with us. Let’s start a rich dialogue with the focus on what is possible rather than what is wrong. I am curious to see what changes you notice physically and mentally when you become aware of your thoughts and flip the script.

I hope you have a meaningful week, filled with positive action, and, as always, take care of you.

Source: Here’s What You Can Do!

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The Good Feelings

Sunrise 3

Melody Beattie writes:

Let yourself feel the good feelings too.
Yes, sometimes, good feelings can be as distracting as the painful, more difficult ones. Yes, good feelings can be anxiety producing to those of us unaccustomed to them. But go ahead and feel the good feelings anyway.
Feel and accept the joy. The love. The warmth. The excitement. The pleasure. The satisfaction. The elation. The tenderness. The comfort.
Let yourself feel the victory, the delight.
Let yourself feel cared for.
Let yourself feel respected, important, and special.
These are only feelings, but they feel good. They are full of positive, upbeat energy – and we deserve to feel that when it comes our way.
We don’t have to repress. We don’t have to talk ourselves out of feeling good – not for a moment.
If we feel it, it’s ours for the moment. Own it. If it’s good, enjoy it.

Today, God, help me be open to the joy and good feelings available to me.

Source: Daily Meditation ~ The Good Feelings – Miracles In Progress Codependents Anonymous Group

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Leadership Is a Conversation

The command-and-control approach to management has in recent years become less and less viable. Globalization, new technologies, and changes in how companies create value and interact with customers have sharply reduced the efficacy of a purely directive, top-down model of leadership. What will take the place of that model? Part of the answer lies in how leaders manage communication within their organizations—that is, how they handle the flow of information to, from, and among their employees. Traditional corporate communication must give way to a process that is more dynamic and more sophisticated. Most important, that process must be conversational.

We arrived at that conclusion while conducting a recent research project that focused on the state of organizational communication in the 21st century. Over more than two years we interviewed professional communicators as well as top leaders at a variety of organizations—large and small, blue chip and start-up, for-profit and nonprofit, U.S. and international. To date we have spoken with nearly 150 people at more than 100 companies. Both implicitly and explicitly, participants in our research mentioned their efforts to “have a conversation” with their people or their ambition to “advance the conversation” within their companies. Building upon the insights and examples gleaned from this research, we have developed a model of leadership that we call “organizational conversation.”

Smart leaders today, we have found, engage with employees in a way that resembles an ordinary person-to-person conversation more than it does a series of commands from on high. Furthermore, they initiate practices and foster cultural norms that instill a conversational sensibility throughout their organizations. Chief among the benefits of this approach is that it allows a large or growing company to function like a small one. By talking with employees, rather than simply issuing orders, leaders can retain or recapture some of the qualities—operational flexibility, high levels of employee engagement, tight strategic alignment—that enable start-ups to outperform better-established rivals.” Get more here: Leadership Is a Conversation – Harvard Business Review.

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How Your Limiting Beliefs Are Preventing You From The Life You Want

A limiting belief is an established thought pattern that prevents us from achieving what we want or need, no matter how much we strive towards a goal. As long as a limiting belief in place, it acts like a 3-headed dog whose job it is to prevent from achieving your goal.

Simply put, limiting beliefs are things we tell ourselves, mostly with great conviction, as to why something is not possible for us. Why we can’t get rich, why we can’t have a fairytale relationship and so on. When you are operating through the lens of a limiting belief, your perception of reality is narrower and more grim than what it would have been otherwise.

Limiting beliefs are acquired when we are highly impressionable, especially when we were kids. But even as grown ups, there are times when we are vulnerable to form them particularly when faced with adversity. At such times, this sense of helplessness can be high and the mind wants to rationalize why we got into this state.

When we feel cornered, an easy way out is by forming a conclusion, mostly irrational, just so that we don’t get into this state ever again. We try to reach conclusions that we later label as “life lessons”. More often than not, these life lessons are exactly what keep us in the trenches.” Get more here: How Your Limiting Beliefs Are Preventing You From The Life You Want | FinerMinds.

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Powerlessness

Melody Beattie writes:

Willpower is not the key to the way of life we are seeking. Surrender is.

“I have spent much of my life trying to make people be, do, or feel something they aren’t, don’t want to do, and choose not to feel. I have made them, and myself, crazy in that process,” said one recovering woman.

“I spent my childhood trying to make an alcoholic father who didn’t love himself be a normal person who loved me. I then married an alcoholic and spent a decade trying to make him stop drinking.

“I have spent years trying to make emotionally unavail­able people be emotionally present for me.

“I have spent even more years trying to make family mem­bers, who are content feeling miserable, happy. What I’m saying is this: I’ve spent much of my life desperately and vainly trying to do the impossible and feeling like a failure when I couldn’t. It’s been like planting corn and trying to make the seeds grow peas. It won’t work!

“By surrendering to powerlessness, I gain the presence of mind to stop wasting my time and energy trying to change and control that which I cannot change and control. It gives me permission to stop trying to do the impossible and focus on what is possible: being who I am, loving myself, feeling what I feel, and doing what I want to do with my life.”

In recovery, we learn to stop fighting lions, simply because we cannot win. We also learn that the more we are focused on controlling and changing others, the more unmanage­able our life becomes. The more we focus on living our own life, the more we have a life to live, and the more manage­able our life will become.

Today, I will accept powerlessness where I have no power to change things, and allow my life to become manageable.” via June 20: Powerlessness.

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