Journal, Learning, Positive Life, Self Discovery
Do you ever find yourself or feel the need blame others? How about constantly blaming and judging yourself? There was a time when I would verbally beat myself up for mistakes, saying things like, “I’m such a f-up,” and would often say very negative things, such as, “Things will never get any better,” or “I’m a loser,” or “I’m never going to amount to much” I would begin to feel angry and agitated as a result of this self-inflicted abuse, but I never connected the anger with my self-judgment.
It began to make sense that I would not be able to stop blaming others until i stopped blaming and judging self.
I began to realize that I was letting my thoughts run rampant, never stopping to discern whether or not what I was saying to myself was the truth or a lie. As a result, i was constantly allowing the wounded part of me, my ego self, to be in charge. And this part of me was filled with all the lies i had learned in the 30 years of life.
I wanted to stop doing this, but I’ve been doing it for a large part of my life. How do I stop?”
Stopping any negative behavior is always a challenge. Changing our thought process is especially challenging. However, there is a process available, but it will only work when you’ve decided that you really want to change. Changing from being self-abusive to self-loving has to become more important to you than continuing to try to control yourself through your self-judgments.
Here are a couple steps that may help if you’re in this space:
- Pay attention to your feelings. Learn to be aware of when you are feeling angry, anxious, hurt, scared, guilty, shamed, depressed, and so on.
- Make a conscious decision to learn about what you are telling yourself that is causing your pain, rather than ignoring it, turning to substances, or continuing to abuse yourself.
- Ask yourself, “What am I telling myself that is causing me to feel badly?” Once you are aware of what you are telling yourself, ask yourself, “Am I certain that what I’m telling myself is the truth, or is it just something I’ve made up?” Then ask yourself, “What am I trying to control by telling myself this?”
- Once you are aware that you are telling yourself a lie that is causing you to feel badly, and why you are telling it to yourself, ask the highest, wisest part of yourself, or ask an inner teacher or a spiritual source of guidance, “What is the truth?” When you sincerely want to know the truth, it will easily come to you.
- Change your thinking, by telling yourself the truth.
- Notice how you feel. Lies will always make you feel badly, while the truth brings inner peace.
Any time you are not in peace, go through this process to discover what lie you are telling yourself. Eventually, with enough practice, you will be in truth and peace more and more of the time.
Journal, Positive Life, Self Discovery
The world is in perpetual motion, our choices are like Chess moves on the board of life. If we opt to make more positive choices, we have the opportunity of tipping the game in our favor. Not every time, however more OFTEN than less.
We want to spread the energy of positivity, contributing our small part to strengthen the balance.
“I would like to see more people adopt an attitude and mindset of positivity. Why not!” Gary C
Journal, Learning, Positive Life
“When you breathe, you inspire. When you do not breathe, you expire.” – Quote from an 11-year-old’s science exam
John Grinder, co-creator of NLP talks about the link between respiration, physiology, internal state and high performance. He calls this ‘the chain of excellence’.
First; when you are experiencing a powerful, positive state, allow yourself to become aware of your breathing rate. Pay particular attention to the timing and rhythm of your in-breath and out-breath.
Second; Next time you are in a neutral or negative state, start breathing at the rate and rhythm from exercise one, and within a minute or so, the positive state should begin to return.
Many of the ancient text advise people to do breathing exercises regularly. Tony Robbins in his book “Unlimited Power”, advises that you start each day with a breathing exercise of inhaling slowly and deeply, then holding it for twice as long as the inhalation and exhaling in twice the pace. It really is invigorating and a great way to get motivated at the start of the day, especially if you are looking to do some things with your day that require motivation.
Breathing is powerful! It’s essential to our life force, and is a major influencer on our state of mind.
So, finally; Start breathing comfortably but deeply, in through your nose & out through your mouth. Imagine that you are breathing from that area of your abdomen just beneath your belly button. Make the in-breath last to a count of 5 and the out-breath to a count of 6. Continue for at least 2 minutes, and notice what happens.
These techniques can be very powerfully utilized when wanting to get in control of your state if you are going through a period of change such as reducing your weight, stopping smoking or developing more confidence.
Please remember that most people don’t breathe nearly enough. Start to breathe more deeply and notice how much better you feel. Have lots of fun with this. Notice how good you can make yourself feel when you breathe differently.
Journal, Positive Life, Self Discovery
It’s tempting when you’re struggling with money issues to think that this really is a cruel unfriendly world. There you are, working your ass off, and it’s all money out, out, out, leaving you constantly looking at your bank account while others around you “seem” to have anything and everything they want.
But just as the sun seems to move around the earth rather than the earth around the sun, that’s just an illusion. I’m going to show you that, despite your tight financial circumstances, you are infinitely richer than you think. And that, when you discover just how abundant your life is, your financial situation will dramatically change as well.
We tend to think that abundance, or wealth, or riches, or the flow of all good things, is confined to having money. Well, it isn’t. Here are six other kinds of abundance that are almost certainly available to you right now, without any investment or effort on your part. Once you focus on these areas of abundance, you will find that your AA, or “Abundance Attitude” will automatically trigger a corresponding reaction in the state of your finances and make you abundant financially as well.
- Creative Abundance. Even if you don’t have a nickel, penny or a yen to your name, you can still have a torrent of great ideas. The truth of the matter is, while “God” did not create money, (it’s purely a human concept), It did create a thought-based Universe. There are no limits to your thoughts. You can have as many as you want. You can make them as grand as you want. Your thoughts literally travel around the Universe and even, say some, through all time. Allow yourself to dream of what you can bring into this world and you’ll realize how abundant you really are. More to the point, all your money-spinning ideas come from your thoughts. It’s a huge, free and endlessly renewable resource so why not use it.
- Choice Abundance. Unless you are reading this from a jail cell, you are a free person, with free will, and free choices about how to live your life. So, if your present circumstances are not what you want, all you have to do is change your choices for something else and you’ll get a different result. Choose another habit, another action, another way of working, another style, another task, another location, another venture. You have an abundance of choices in every moment of your life. Choose wisely.
- Gifts Abundance. Many people who remain poor in their lives do so because they don’t realize how gifted they really are. They are locked in to a victim mentality where a number of excuses are used to explain why they don’t have what they want. There’s the excuse of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not wealthy enough” or “I’m not lucky enough” or any other similar phrase. The truth is that “God” has not singled out anyone to have more gifts than anyone else. We are all uniquely – and abundantly – gifted. Once you find out what your gifts are – through a process of experience, trial and error, feedback from others, and honest self-assessment – then you’ll find yourself in an Aladdin’s cave of treasure that will grant you endless wishes for the rest of your life. You are abundantly talented, so find them and use them.
- Health Abundance. Even if you find yourself down on your luck financially, there’s no reason why you cannot bask in the glow of abundant health. One of the ironies of modern life is that many people are caught in the trap of working long hours in order to have enough money to buy the antidotes to the stressful and unhealthy lifestyle they lead. They work to excess so that they can buy the holidays they need to recover from their excessive working. The fact is, you were meant to live a healthy and abundant life, full of energy and vitality. It is your birthright. If you seek out how to live the abundantly healthy lifestyle you were meant to live, it may well be the financially wealthy who envy you!
- Love Abundance. The idea that we are all abundant in love may sound sentimental, but there is no getting away from the fact that, while your capacity to earn has limits – even for the super-wealthy – your capacity to love and be loved is without limits. When you uncork the Love stoppers in your life, you release such a flow of good things for yourself and others that it’s like champagne all the way. Give and show love to those who are important to you. Love strangers rather than fearing or judging them. Love every creature you share this planet with. Love what you do each day. And most of all love yourself. Don’t be sentimental about it. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. And there are no limits to it if you’ll just let yourself do it.
- Material Abundance. Our modern age has brainwashed most people into believing that without money they are not materially rich. This is simply a trick of clever marketing aimed at making the perpetrators of the myth money-rich themselves. The truth is that you came to enjoy the fruits of the earth in abundance whether you have money or not. You simply don’t need a big house, a big yacht, a villa in Spain, a six-figure income, and four holidays a year to enjoy abundance. And the place to look? Well, it’s not in the man-made malls and supermarkets. It’s in nature. Wander through a wood in autumn and see the sheer abundance of food for free. Walk along a beach after a stormy sea to see what has been given you for free. Turn your small garden patch into a summertime larder. Look at the wonders of nature and you’ll never again believe that you must have lots of money to live happily and well.
And now for the key to your financial future. When you focus on these six areas of super-abundance – your endless gift for creativity, your infinite range of life choices, your unique talents, your inalienable right to health, your unlimited capacity to love, and the cornucopia of the natural world – you cannot help but live a wonderfully abundant life. If you really believe that abundance and wealth is already yours, you will create the seventh abundance with astonishing ease. And money will flow into your life as if by magic.
Journal
1. Think Like A Child. as adults we tend to think in a conditioned way aimed at showing how clever we are. Yet, as children, we were simply spontaneous and far more creative in our thinking. To re-capture your childhood curiosity, allow yourself to just wonder at things, to be completely present in the here and now, and to detach yourself from what you thought was real.
2. Make New Connections. to be innovative doesn’t require a university degree; it simply requires making a connection between existing ideas. It’s when you take two seemingly unrelated items and use the spark of creativity that genius happens.
3. Be A Little Illogical. it is a peculiarly Western trait to want to tie things up in neat bundles. We prefer solutions to problems, and answers to questions. To be creative, you need to be comfortable with things that don’t fit. The Eastern tradition is more in tune with incongruence. As in this Zen Koan, or problem: what is the sound of one hand clapping?
4. Laugh More. humor is one of the greatest creative devices. It jolts us out of our normal patterns and puts ideas together that shouldn’t go together.
5. Think Outside Your Limits. many of the products we take for granted today are the result of people thinking outside their limits. Netflix, the IPhone, Amazon Alexa, Tesla, etc. What about the things that are the topic of wishful thinking today???
6. Adopt and Adapt. to be creative doesn’t require blue-sky thinking. You can still be creative by adapting what works elsewhere. An American airline that wanted quicker turnarounds on their flights adopted the techniques of Formula One pit crews. Another source of ideas is nature. Nature is an excellent teacher.
7. Remember Your Dreams. dreaming and day-dreaming can create a rich seam of ideas, because that’s when we relax and let the subconscious mind work by itself.
Make an attempt to apply these 7 creative thinking techniques and make them part of your daily thinking and new solutions to your problems will open up to you with ease and speed.
