ENERGY IN WORDS

ENERGY IN WORDS

A small and simple thing that is very powerful in each of our lives is our choice of words. The words we use create our world and make us who we are. Words possess power, they create focus and release energy. As we hear the words we ourselves speak, we ensure their fulfillment through our emotions and behavior. Our words define our thoughts, our thoughts generate our emotions, these in turn determine our behavior. We can change who we are by changing what we say. As we enjoy these changes, we can make them permanent through repetition. As we change, our world changes. The simple truth is, as we change our words, we change our world and the way we experience life. 

STEER CLEAR OF DRAMA

STEER CLEAR OF DRAMA

As we journey through life, we meet people who seek to involve us in their storms, their conflicts, negative emotions and drama. They stink and stir up our lives.

Bring to mind a time when you were walking on the sidewalk and saw dog poop in your way. What did you do? You stepped around or over it. Now imagine another person who sees it but steps right into it. Don't let other people’s drama stir up and stink up your life. Watch for the storm clouds and the poop! Don't step in it. Do what you can to help, but stay clear of their drama and negativity.

BE STILL AND MOVE

      BE STILL AND MOVE

Meditation is considered by most to be a small and simple thing.  It is also something that can result in great things. A simple but powerful form of meditation can be done at the beginning or end of your day. Set aside 5 to 10 minutes for your meditation practice. In a quiet place where you are unlikely to be interrupted, sit very still and close your eyes. Then bring into your mind something you want to have happen in your life. Vividly imagine this event or goal. Take special care to experience the desired goal paying attention to what you would see, hear and feel. Make it as real as you can. When you do this, your subconscious mind can't tell the difference between a real or imagined experience. It will cause you to react and respond as if it's really happening. It will also embrace the experience as a goal and will initiate the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to make it happen, to make it reality. After your 5 or 10 minutes of 'mental rehearsal' or 'visualization', you will notice that you feel different. You feel better. Get up and go about your day or evening. You have now put into action a mighty force in your behalf. 

CHUNKING DOWN

CHUNKING DOWN

We have been addressing change and making simple changes in our lives. We are generally resistant to change, and are too intelligent to put in any work without a good reason. It's important to have a reason for making a change  because change usually means work. But without change...nothing changes! As we have recently been discovering, a small or simple step can generate a big result. When the decision was made to put a man on the moon, it wasn't done in one giant leap. It was a succession of small simple steps, that together, resulted in a great accomplishment. In their thinking, they started from the moon, the goal, and worked backwards. This is also effective when applied to our goals. What is your goal? What will it look, sound and feel like when you reach the goal? Now, working backwards, what steps need to be taken to get from your goal to where you are right now? This is breaking the process down into smaller, doable, steps. Breaking the journey down into smaller, simple steps is known as chunking down. Perhaps a different way to state it would be, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

MANAGING OUR THOUGHTS

MANAGING OUR THOUGHTS

Thought management is critical to making effective changes in our lives. Our thoughts are so powerful! If we don't manage our thoughts, our thoughts will manage us. Here are 7 ways to manage or control your thoughts. 

STOP

You are the boss, so as simple as this sounds, the first thing you can do is to send a command to yourself, say Stop (STOP!). A direct command, given with a firm order tone, will interrupt the behaviour, like stopping you in your track.

SWAP

You can replace a negative thought by a positive one; I like to do a double swap, so, not only swap one for another one, but swap one for 2 other ones. Keep a list of positive, happy, healthy, constructive thoughts, and swap away.

STORE / SHARE

You can store it AND this is only half of the strategy; remember, you do not want to store it, as in ignore it, you want to store it, and re-access later, by sharing it with a supportive person: a friend, a colleague, a coach, a mentor. Someone with an outside perspective, an objective one, who will help you move forward.

SWITCH

You can do something else: call a friend, watch a movie, go for a walk, a run… there are so many things you can do; here you want to select an activity that you can do straight away, once the negative thought comes in.

SHHH

You can go to sleep or meditate, to free your mind; you can either meditate on your own, in silence, or have your favourite music on, or thanks to a relaxation cd /track or, a visualisation, guiding you to think of something else and relax.

SPECULATE 

This comes from Dale Carnegie, who said in his How To Stop Worrying And Start Living book, “First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.” So, ask, accept and proceed.

SCRIBE

You can start writing; from head to paper, write about what you are thinking to free your thinking place. Whatever is it that you are thinking as long as it stays in your head, it is a jumbo-mumbo mess (!), so write it down; and write it exactly as you are thinking it.

JOURNEY vs DESTINATION

JOURNEY vs DESTINATION

In the process of change we are sometimes so focused on the goal or outcome that we totally miss the joys in the journey. How often have you been so focused on a destination for holiday / vacation that you didn't enjoy or even notice the sights along the way? Victor Frankl gives counsel I think relates to to this as well. He says, "Don't aim at success: the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run - in the long run, I say! success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

Perhaps he is reminding us that happiness isn't a time or place, it's a state if being, a state of mind. 

WHAT DID YOU CHOOSE?

WHAT DID YOU CHOOSE?

A simple thing that always brings great things to pass is that of making a choice. We always have a choice. Although it seems instantaneous, we still choose how to respond. We choose how to feel. We choose to feel angry. We choose to feel happy. We choose to feel sad. It was Victor Frankl who taught us the reality of our ability to choose. After years in a concentration camp, he learned and taught about our ability to choose. He taught us that, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." He then clarified,"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." It's simple yet so powerful!