Get Negativity Out Of Your Life!Written by Doug Harvey
They say that way to have a positive attitude and a positive life is to surround yourself only with positive things and positive people. What do you do then, when negative influence in your life comes from your friend, maybe your best friend, or even worse, your spouse? If you are to take positive advice literally, you are going to dump them! We both know that such advice simply is not acceptable. So what DO you do? Firstly, have you considered fact that subconsciously if not consciously, such people could be afraid? Afraid that you might be growing beyond them and leaving them behind? Afraid that your success may diminish their own achievements or their feelings of self-worth? All these fears and more are quite possible and mentioned here that you may consider a different viewpoint. In ideal world, you convert negative thinkers to your positive way of thinking. Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world and we would not want to force everyone to think in same way as you and I. What you do is simply this: Take positive step of accepting them for who they are - your friend, your spouse. We All Have The Right To Choose! We all have right to choose. No-one can take that away from us. It is no different for those who are close to us. We may not like their attitude or way of thinking. We may even consider them to be completely wrong or out of order, but that doesn't change a thing. Okay, so let's say we do that. Where does that leave us? We still have those negative vibes coming through. We have already come to conclusion that we can't change person, so only person left is ourselves. When negative shots are fired at us, what do we find ourselves focusing on? The negative projectiles fired at us. Right? If we accept that we cannot change person, then we are left with changing our thinking. That means how we think and what we focus on.The way we feel after receiving negative input, is no more than a reaction. Control your reaction and win. Expectations. When you have a new venture, an idea, a piece of personal excitement that you want to share, you expect a particular kind of reaction and are quite disappointed when it isn't forthcoming. Notice what happens when you reverse approach. I.e. When you have no expectations whatsoever! Suddenly, even tiniest positive return is a huge bonus! If you don't get any, then it ceases to matter because you weren't expecting any anyway! So, instead of focussing on negative, focus on good. Focus On The Good! To some extent you need to be single-minded, focussing on your goal rather than theirs at that moment in time. So, if you haven`t already done so, get your goal firmly fixed in your mind. Determine how much you really want it, and ask yourself whether or not you are prepared to pay price. Are You Prepared To Pay The Price? Does that frighten you? Paying price? It shouldn`t. Whatever we achieve in this life always requires a price to be paid. Sometimes it is a financial amount. Other times, it may simply be time, and so on. Every single day, you are already "paying price" on numerous achievements, big and small. In this particular circumstance, way in which you pay price is to focus entirely on your objective in such a way that negative comments or influences simply have no leverage. Believe in yourself sincerely and you will not fail. As I mentioned previously, many "positive thinking" speakers direct you to surround yourself with positive people and a positive environment in order for you to remain positive in all you do. I have no doubt that if you are able to achieve building of such an environment that it works! Picture scene: You get out of bed in morning and sun is shining, sky is blue. If you have a spouse, they greet you with a kiss. The smiling postman never brings any bills. Everyone on way to work drives so happily and considerately. Your boss holds door open for you as you enter air-conditioned building and you have just right amount of work to do to keep you positively charged. You need to do something -.snap your fingers! Wake up! It just cannot be done to this extreme. I jest here. I still believe that to keep yourself surrounded by positive people will work for you, but it is unlikely that such an environment could be sustained for very long at all. This would be ideal world we mentioned. The fact is however, that we invariably do not live in this kind of world and somewhere along way we associate with people who do not share our values, ideals, excitement. What then? It could be our friends, our family or worse, our spouse. Do we go away and quietly curl up in a corner somewhere and forget about any "wild idea" that we had? No. Of course not. What would be point in getting involved with any positive idea otherwise! No, key is to mentally consider those you associate with and determine those who are supportive, forward thinking and positive. Get An Injection Of Positivity! These will be kind of people who will not blindly say "well done, go for it", but those who genuinely encourage you to develop, to move forward, to make something of yourself. Take a minute û right now. Get out your address book. Go through it and maybe highlight all those who you know you can count on to be there for you. Those friends and relatives that care about you and know you and know about successes you have had and are able to offer encouragement you need. What you do not need is sympathy. What you do need is an injection of positivity from those you can count on when you are under attack. When times get tough, these are your reserve. Let me tell you how to prepare another reserve. One that you can have to hand at a moment`s notice. One that when you immerse yourself in it will give you that positive boost at almost a moments notice.
| | A Look at MeditationWritten by Rev. Melissa Leath
I've counseled many people from every background and led workshops and lectures about self-empowering topics for about 25 years. Over that time, I saw a need. Everyone was searching. What they were looking for was unclear, many times. But search was on. While I could meet many of their immediate needs, through counseling, they still needed a source, or connection with who they really were.This was not a religious pursuit, per se, but a spiritual one. We all need to know our inner self. And best way for us to get there is through meditation: a quiet time of some sort---contemplation. So out of that need, I saw an answer. Spreading information about basic meditation became my mission. Almost all of information I received about meditation over years was through personal experience—trial and error. I did not read any books on subject. They all seemed too deep and philosophical. And many times, books included a whole cultural exploration. This is good for someone looking into historical information, or perhaps a religious belief. But just to know basics of what meditation is and how to do it, there wasn't anything. I've been able to connect very well with groups I've spoken to because I've been in their shoes. I had first hand experience looking for my own inner self. And so, column you see here will explore for you, personal experiences of proverbial searcher. I had just graduated from high school, and was looking for some kind of personal project for summer. Since I lived in a very small town, and it was in 1960's, I was very surprised to find a yoga class being offered at nearby middle school. I was always open for new and different, and this fit bill. I joined class as soon as I could and found myself in some very strange positions. But there was one position that I kept going back to. It was sitting cross-legged with my hands resting on my knees, palms up. It immediately made me sit straight, and my spine was relaxed. While practicing this position at home, a strange thing happened. I began to feel unusual. There wasn't any way I could describe it. But it was a kind of light-headed feeling---almost like dropping off to sleep—--but I was awake. I asked instructor about it on very next session. She assured me it was fine. But I had my reservations. So I stopped. I didn't go back to class. And I didn't continue with yoga practice.
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