We must constantly build dykes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
via March 21, 2012 – Today’s Gift from Hazelden « cmmacneil.
It’s Not Your Thoughts That Matter, But How You Feel About Them!
Kute Blackson shares these thoughts today…
There is so much talk these last few years about how important your thoughts are.
It’s like the latest trend to believe…
That your thoughts literally create your reality.
That you must only think positive thoughts.
Sometimes we get so scared about the slightest negative thought, that it freaks us out. We become negative about our negative thoughts.
We have over 65,000 thoughts each day, most of which are happening too fast to even keep a track of.
I have a secret for you!
It’s the SECRET secret: It’s not just what you think about that matters, but how you FEEL about what you think about that makes the real difference. Continue reading “It’s Not Your Thoughts That Matter, But How You Feel About Them!”
Wanna Be Right Or Be Loved?
The Law of Attraction is a law, just like gravity is a law. It’s working all the time whether you choose to be aware of it or not. We are always drawing to us the people, places and experiences that match our state of being.
The Way of the Peaceful Parent
Leo Babauta shares this today…
There is no such thing as stress-free parenting.
A reader requested that I share my thoughts on stress-free parenting, as the father of six kids. And while I have learned a lot about being a dad, and finding joy in parenthood, I also know that stress-free parenting is a myth.
Parents will always have stress: we not only have to deal with tantrums and scraped knees and refusing to eat anything you cook, but we worry about potential accidents, whether we are ruining our kids, whether our children will find happiness as adults and be able to provide for themselves and find love.
That said, I’ve learned that we can find peace.
Peace isn’t a place with no stress, but a place where you take the stress as it comes, in stride, and don’t let it rule you. You let it flow through you, and then smile, and breathe, and give your child a hug.
There is a Way of the Peaceful Parent, but it isn’t one that I’ve learned completely. I’ll share what I’ve learned so far, with the caveat that I don’t always follow the Way, that I still make mistakes daily, that I still have a lot to learn, that I don’t claim to have all the answers as a parent.
Go to the source if you’d like to hear his way…
Related articles
- Peaceful Parenting ≠ Shooting A Laptop (peacegrooves.wordpress.com)
Here’s How To Defunkify Yourself!
Feeling kind of funky? Finding yourself immersed in the drama of your own life despite your desire not to be? I have a quick fix for you. Now, I don’t believe in many quick fixes because usually they are temporary and based in escapism. However there is one quick fix that I subscribe to for de-funking because it always works AND if done over time, creates lasting positive change.
Ready for the quick fix recipe? Here it is: Being of Service.
The best way to shift out of negative and ego based thinking is to stop thinking about yourself! The instant you shift your focus from me to we, your vibration changes. When you start thinking about how you can uplift others, you’ll soon find yourself in your heart and out of your head.
Balance
A balanced life has harmony between a professional life and a personal life. There may be times when we need to climb mountains at work. There may be times when we put extra energy into our relationships. But the overall picture needs to balance.
Just as a balanced nutritional diet takes into account the realm of our nutritional needs to stay healthy, a balanced life takes into account all our needs: our need for friends, work, love, family, play, private time, recovery time, and spiritual time — time with God. If we get out of balance, our inner voice will tell us. We need to listen.
Today, I will examine my life to see if the scales have swung too far in any area, or not far enough in some. I will work toward achieving balance.
Don’t Dwell on It, Revision It!
Rarely is dwelling on the past seen in a positive light. Nor should it be. Thinking too much about times gone by typically keeps your mind–and life–stuck in neutral (and maybe even shifts it into reverse). If you habitually ruminate over your earlier life, you may regularly be revisited by feelings of anger, guilt, resentment, sorrow, or shame. And such emotions are hardly productive. In many ways, they’re downright toxic. Fretfully obsessing about the people and events precipitating such negative feelings can lead to endless recycling. Becoming increasingly stagnant, or fixated, your thinking really can’t progress toward any adaptive resolution.
Moreover, returning to the past to rehearse old dissatisfactions and grievances–even to replay images of earlier triumphs–and idly preoccupying yourself with irreconcilable thoughts about them, can result in self-reproach, lamentation, remorse, and even bitterness. Using your mental energy for such a doubtful purpose can catapult you into the inextricable pit of woulda, coulda, shoulda. With the result that you can end up consumed with regret–what French existentialist, Albert Camus, has referred to as the most futile of emotions.
Yet, to be fair, dwelling on the past does have certain short-term advantages. For instance, you might become preoccupied with earlier events of success by way of rationalizing present-day frustrations and failures. If you haven’t been able to live up to the hopes of others–or to your own expectations–you might find temporary comfort in reliving past accomplishments. But while focusing on past positives may afford you some relief from current disappointments, by itself it does nothing to direct (or re-direct) your efforts to further your objectives in the here-and-now. And if you’re to realize your full potential in life, you need to squarely focus on what you can do right now to fulfill your promise–not on what you achieved in bygone times.
Source: The Past: Don’t Dwell on It, Revision It! Part 1 | Psychology Today
Go to the source if you’d like to read the rest of Leon Seltzer’s article…
Related articles
- It’s all in the mind. (thedailyedhz.wordpress.com)
A pause that refreshes…
When I leave the home needing a little detachment, I’m grateful that my commute to work is only 3.3 miles and that one of the midwest’s most beautiful lighthouses is blocks from my office…
Click image to enlarge…
Sometimes, I listen to my YouVersion bible while I walk the breakwater. Today, Proverbs 16 came up in my reading plan…
1 To humans belong the plans of the heart,
but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue.
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the LORD.
3 Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
via Proverbs 16 NIV – To humans belong the plans of the – Bible Gateway.
Running a business on my own is not always easy. Sometimes an open day on my calendar seems like an abyss. As one of those social media ‘gooroos’, there are never any shortage of distractions to satisfy the ‘ADD’ in me. That’s when I turn to my Higher Power and contemplate my 11th Step guidlines…
Preparing for the Day Ahead
- We ask God to direct our thinking, asking especially that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.
- We consider our plans for the day. We can now use our mental faculties with assurance.
- If we face indecision or we can’t determine what course to take, we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or a decision. We relax and take it easy.
- We pray to be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of problems.
- We ask especially for freedom from self-will. [We might also pray for help with specific defects or problem areas, and review our 10th step corrective measures for the day ahead.]
Prayers to be of Use
- We ask for guidance in the way of patience, kindness, tolerance and love especially within the family.
- We pray as to what we can do today for the person who is still sick. [We might also pray for specific people in need, or those with whom we’re angry.]
Spiritual/Religious Exercises
- If appropriate, we attend to our religious devotions, or say set prayers which emphasize 12 Step principles.
- We may read from a spiritual book.
Practicing the 11th Step Throughout the Day
- We pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action.
- We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” Source: 11th Step Guidelines
You don’t have to have abused a substance to benefit from a 12 Step program! Celebrate Recovery — the Christian version of the AA 12 Step program — has been helpful to me in dealing with ‘hurts, hangups and habits’ and it may benefit you, too. God bless YOU today as you move into your week…
The "Confessio" of St. Patrick and lessons for today
In my humble opinion, the story of St. Patrick is a story of a lost opportunity for the modern church. It begins like this…
1 I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our desserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.
Continue reading “The "Confessio" of St. Patrick and lessons for today”
Want Joy? Don’t Depend On What Happens!
Bryan Reeves, an infrequent contributor at The Daily Love has this to share…
Mind-blowing sex, sweet butterfly-stomach romance, big nights out, the beauty of that woman/man you covet and can’t seem to have, your own beauty, parenthood, careers, volcanoes, flowers, our bodies, broken hearts, caffeine highs, arguments with your partner, nations, species, beliefs, spiritual experiences, youth, marriage … absolutely everything has its moment of full wondrous expression before it inevitably fades back into the silence from which it arose. Every minute we spend in desperation trying to hold onto (or get rid of) that which just cannot last anyway, is a minute spent overlooking the peace and juicy wonderment available in this exact moment, regardless of what’s happening.
“Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens.” ~ David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine Monk into Buddhism.
I have spent so much of my life either running towards something or running away from it. I have a fascinating capacity for expecting experiences, circumstances, things, people, etc. to make me happy forever or to ruin my life (and everything in between), thus living painfully outside the awareness that absolutely everything has its moment of bloom and will inevitably, simply, fade away.
The evidence for this completely surrounds all of us. Our entire life experience is witness to this phenomenon of perpetual coming and going, expanding and contracting, inhaling and exhaling. It is a source of our greatest sorrows. It also holds the key to our greatest capacity for true joy.
Go to the source if you’d like the rest of his perspective…
Empowering
Here’s a lesson from Melody Beattie I found so good I had to share it right away…
You can think. You can feel. You can solve your problems. You can take care of yourself. Those words have often benefited me more than the most profound and elaborate advice. How easy it is to fall into the trap of doubting ourselves and others. When someone tells us about a problem, what is our reaction? Do we believe we need to solve it for the person? Do we believe that that person’s future rests on our ability to advise him or her? That’s standing on shaky ground—not the stuff of which recovery is made. When someone is struggling through a feeling, or a morass of feelings, what is our reaction? That the person will never survive that experience? That it’s not okay for someone to feel? That he or she will never get through this intact? When a person is faced with the task of assuming responsibility for their life and behaviors, what is our response? That the person can’t do that? I must do it myself to save him or her from dissipating into ashes? From crumbling? From failing? What is our reaction to ourselves when we encounter a problem, a feeling, or when we face the prospect of assuming responsibility for ourselves? Do we believe in ourselves and others? Do we give power to people—including ourselves—and their abilities? Or do we give the power to the problem, the feeling, or the irresponsibility? We can learn to check ourselves out. We can learn to think, and consider our response, before we respond. “I’m sorry you’re having that problem. I know you can figure out a solution. Sounds like you’ve got some feelings going on. I know you’ll work through them and come out on the other side.” Each of us is responsible for ourselves. That does not mean we don’t care. It does not mean a cold, calculated withdrawal of our support from others. It means we learn to love and support people in ways that work. It means we learn to love and support ourselves in ways that work. It means that we connect with friends who love and support us in ways that work. To believe in people, to believe in each person’s inherent ability to think, feel, solve problems, and take care of themselves is a great gift we can give and receive from others. Today, I will strive to give and receive support that is pure and empowering. I will work at believing in myself and others—and our mutual abilities to be competent at dealing with feelings, solving problems, and taking responsibility for ourselves.
Beattie, Melody (2009-12-15). The Language of Letting Go (Hazelden Meditation Series) (pp. 73-74). Hazelden. Kindle Edition.
Me? I still struggle with thinking I can change other people or that I’m entitled to ask them to change and expect that they will. When they don’t ‘comply’, frequently I give away too much of my power. I need to accept responsibility for my own condition and get off the Crazy Train…
Related articles
- Owning our Power (toddlohenry.com)
- God’s will (toddlohenry.com)
- What is ‘healthy giving’? (toddlohenry.com)
Finding Our Own Truth
Here is something I needed to hear from Melody Beattie today…
We must each discover our own truth.
It does not help us if those we love find their truth. They cannot give it to us. It does not help if someone we love knows a particular truth in our life. We must discover our truth for ourselves.
We must each discover and stand in our own light.
We often need to struggle, fail, and be confused and frustrated. That’s how we break through our struggle; that’s how we learn what is true and right for ourselves.
We can share information with others. Others can tell us what may predictably happen if we pursue a particular course. But it will not mean anything until we integrate the message and it becomes our truth, our discovery, our knowledge.
There is no easy way to break through and find our truth. But we can and will, if we want to.
We may want to make it easier. We may nervously run to friends, asking them to give us their truth or make our discovery easier. They cannot. Light will shed itself in its own time.
Each of us has our own share of truth, waiting to reveal itself to us. Each of us has our own share of the light, waiting for us to stand in it, to claim it as ours.
Encouragement helps. Support helps. A firm belief that each person has truth available — appropriate to each situation — is what will help.
Each experience, each frustration, each situation, has its own truth waiting to be revealed. Don’t give up until you find it — for yourself.
We shall be guided into truth, if we are seeking it. We are not alone.
Today, I will search for my own truth, and I will allow others to do the same. I will place value on my vision and the vision of others. We are each on the journey, making our own discoveries — the ones that are right for us today.
Source: March 16: Finding Our Own Ruth | Language of Letting Go
There are thousands to prophesy failure…
David Kanigan shares this this morning…
There are thousands to prophesy failure… – Lead.Learn.Live.
Are you following his blog yet?
De-clutter Your Cranium To Make Room For The Good Stuff
We sprung forward. And with these unseasonably warm temperatures, it’s hard to believe it’s not officially Spring yet! Time to clear out the winter dust bunnies in your brain and make some space for the good stuff!
Let’s start the spring clean with the question “What is your racket?” Meaning, what is the nonsense story you continually tell yourself about yourself that gets in your way?
Let me share one of mine. When I was in my twenties I used to declare, “I can’t cook.” Finally, my mother said, “Terri, that is so tired. If you can read, you can cook. Why don’t you just say what you really mean, that you don’t want to cook? Which is fine.” Um…well…yeah, I guess I never thought of that. I was afraid if I learned how to cook, someone would expect it of me. I would have to be some kind of magician in the kitchen, all meals, all the time.
Now that you have an idea of what I’m talking about, here are some steps to giving yourself that deep down spring clean.
Source: De-clutter Your Cranium To Make Room For The Good Stuff [BLOG] « Positively Positive
Go to the source if you’re interested in Terri Cole’s steps…
The Quotability of Samuel Johnson
A tip of the hat to Gretchen Rubin for pointing me in the direction of Samuel Johnson with her Happiness Project quote du jour…
On this basis, my top five people who have featured most often in Quote … Unquote questions (as opposed to having just been quoted on the programme, which would be too big a task to measure) turn out to be: (1) Winston Churchill (2) Oscar Wilde (3) Noel Coward (4) Bernard Shaw (5) Mark Twain. No sign of Dr Johnson there, I’m afraid.
Then one of the readers of the Quote … Unquote Newsletter came along with his list of people who had featured most often in that Newsletter (and I have to emphasize that this was usually because of some issue regarding their quotations), and this gave a slightly different result, namely: Churchill (first), Wilde (second), Shaw and G.K. Chesterton (joint 4th), Mark Twain and P.G. Wodehouse (joint 6th). Samuel Johnson came 8th in that list.
Then, I counted up the number of quotations attributed to this sort of quotee (again I emphasize written and spoken quotees) in the latest editions of the two major dictionaries of quotations, the Oxford and Bartlett’s Familiar (in the United States). And what do you think I found?
In the Oxford, giving you the results in Miss World order, we have: in fifth place, Thomas Jefferson with 50 quotations, fourth, Winston Churchill with 53, third, Oscar Wilde with 61, second, a stonking 105 from Bernard Shaw, and in first place, with no fewer than 254, from Lichfield, England, Dr Samuel Johnson.
Turning to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and again giving you the results in reverse order, we find: in fifth place with 48 quotations, Oscar Wilde, in fourth place, a new entry, Abraham Lincoln with 51, in third place, with 61, Winston Churchill, shooting up the charts to No. 2, with 83 quotations, Mark Twain, and – I hardly need tell you – this week’s, this year’s No. 1, the top of the quotation pops for all time, with 142 quotations, your own, your very own, Samuel Johnson. Gratifyingly, however you measure it, it’s game, set and match to Dr Johnson.
The next question that must be addressed is, Why is Johnson the most all-round quoted source apart from the Bible and Shakespeare? If you define a quotation, as I will, as: ‘Something written or spoken by another that we wish to use for our own ends because it expresses something memorably and well’, then I need hardly go any further. Apart from the truths and wisdom that they contain, Dr Johnson’s quotations are so memorably phrased that they cry out to be repeated until the end of time.
Does a gentleman who marries a second time show disregard of his first wife? ‘Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry again, it might be concluded that his first wife had given a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by shewing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.’
Johnson had a very positive view of marriage (though it is easily forgotten that he was himself a widower), hence his remark, ‘Even ill assorted marriages are preferable to cheerless celibacy’ – that’s in the Life – and ‘Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures’ – which is in Rasselas.
`If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman’ – and then he adds: ‘But she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation.’
Then there is the famous piece of advice he gave Boswell, who was having landlord trouble and considered it a ‘serious distress’. Johnson told him: ‘There is nothing in this mighty misfortune … Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence.’ Which, frankly, is the best piece of advice you can give anybody.
Go to the source if you’re curious to know more about this most quotable of all authors…
Focus On The Best Of You
Here are some good thoughts from Ishta Gupta that I wanted to share with you…
Many of us are raised to be anxious, fearful, insecure people. These emotional aspects have a lot of pull over us, and it feels like an uphill, losing battle when we try and improve. Eventually, we begin to believe that no matter how much we do, we just can’t change.
Hopelessness is created and sustained by self-bullying.
What if instead of exhausting ourselves with doubt, we listened to the parts of us that encourage? You know the ones. We forget them because it takes quiet and safety for them to come out, and bullying ourselves doesn’t make us feel safe.
But these benevolent parts do—very much—exist. And when they are heard, they’re powerful.
They give you energy, rather than make you spend it. You feel nourished, not judged. Sustained, not drained. They show you that you’re all right—maybe even good. You’re at ease, able to pause instead of quickly reacting. They show you that you may even be mostly kind and honest.
Source: Focus On The Best Of You [BLOG] « Positively Positive
Go to the source if you’d like to see her thoughts on discovering the best parts of you…
How To Escape? Understand, Really Understand The Rules of Life.
My blogging buddy David Kanigan turned me on to another great blog by Nicholas Bate. Here’s a sample…
Is there a simple idea we can use to help us re-focus, re-invent and ‘escape‘ from the distraction?
Yes: the Rules of Life. You know there are rules; you always have done, ever since you were a child. In science there are rules e.g. Newton’s Laws of Motion, thus: ‘to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction’ or step out of the rowing boat at the edge of the lake and the boat will ‘fly’ the other way. In relationships there are rules e.g. The Golden Rule, thus: ‘do unto others as you would prefer them to do unto you’ or keep being mean to your assistant and they will leave to work for someone else. In work there are rules, thus: mess up this quarter and you’ll not get a bonus. And in life there are rules. What is a rule? It’s a guideline: it tells you the consequences of your action. It helps you get to where you want to go as efficiently and effectively as you can. The trick is to know the rules and then you can use them because you can’t fight them: they are independent of you. When you are driving a car, for example, it’s best to work within the local laws. If you don’t, you have problems, and those problems might be a fine for speeding or even perhaps an accident. But within those rules there is still plenty of scope for a great journey: you might wish to slow down and enjoy the scenery. You might care to journey a little faster on one stretch of motorway and eat up some miles. It’s exactly the same with the Rules of Life: they don’t limit; they empower.Source: How To Escape? Understand, Really Understand The Rules of Life. Rule 1. – Nicholas Bate
Go to the source if you liked the excerpt and read the rest of Nicholas’ article…
How To Have A PERFECT Relationship With EVERYONE!
A little Kute Blackson to start your day…
There are over 6 billion people on the planet. Each with their own unique personalities and expression.
Every person is in your life for a reason whether you see it or not. Each person is here to teach you something and has a gift for your soul’s evolution. Each person reflects some aspect of yourself that needs to be loved, forgiven, embraced or simply accepted.
The more you can accept and love yourself as you are.
The more you can accept and love those around you as they are.
The freer you will be.
Trying to change someone into your ideal version of who you would like them to be only creates suffering for you.
This is not in your control.
Let me repeat: This is NOT in your control.
Go to the source if you’d like more of Kute’s post and/or watch the video below…
David Kanigan does it again. Click ‘reblogged’ to read his post…
I happen to agree with (and generally practice with varying degrees of effectiveness) every single one of the ten points of this great post by Dan Rockwell titled 10 Sure Fire Ways to Find Your Greatness. And, I do strongly agree with his opening that “greatness is serving and the more you serve the greater you are.”
Yet, I’m personally troubled that I so passionately agree with all of Dan’s ten points – – especially #1 and #5. One walks a very fine line here as a leader and a human – in retaining and nurturing followers for a sustained period of time and maintaining a healthy personal mental condition. I do find myself languishing in the space of too much dissatisfaction and discontent and not enough balance. Whispering my sutra …keep it real…keep it balanced…keep it real…keep it balanced…keep it real...keep it balanced
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Bright, shiny objects! 
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