What makes the darkness dark is that we feel powerless to change the situation.
When we deliberately choose the direction of our focus, we gain ground in our self-empowerment; and THAT makes us feel better.
Empowerment is a primary component of happiness.
Happiness is diminished to the degree we feel powerless to change a condition. Maria Nemeth in her book, (Mastering Life’s Energies, Nemeth, 2007) explains that the physical world in which we live has three characteristics: it is dense, it is unpredictable, and it is impermanent. We can’t control these things. We are powerless to control or change the results of these physical characteristics. We can learn this, know this and not expect it to be different.
We desire to control and change conditions so we can feel good, better, and happy. So, imagine the sense of empowerment we can achieve when we shift focus and feel good, better, happy, no matter what.
THAT would be a huge success!
It’s about Choice
This tip is not about thinking positively. Thinking positive, in fact, can cause more stress because your mind knows “the facts” and simply thinking positively is a waste of time. It is about exercising our power of focus and choose, moment by moment, to feel better, or to feel worse.
A few years ago, I learned that my body is extremely sensitive to a whole host of foods that I LOVE. Upon receiving the initial diagnosis, I felt so powerless and defeated, I spent an entire weekend in bed sleeping and playing Scrabble® on my laptop. It was my only way to keep from spiraling into complete despair. While navigating through this drastic change in lifestyle, I often caught myself choosing to feel worse by thinking about what I could no longer eat versus thinking about what I could eat and the benefits of eating foods my body could easily assimilate. I have no choice about what my body can and cannot tolerate, but I do have a choice how I’m going to feel about it. This is a choice I often have to make several times a day, every day.
Try choosing to feel better. Try focusing on a good feeling thought, even if that thought is off the topic. Doing so moves you in the direction of your bottom line: feeling good, better, happy.
Pit to Peach Tips
- Set your cell phone alarm to go off every so often during the day so you can be caught off guard and consciously take note of where you are focusing. It can be quite revealing and gives you the power to choose to focus differently
Some questions you can ask yourself when trying to make a choice of which train of thought to follow:
- Do these thoughts look at what’s right or what’s wrong?
- Do these thoughts empower me or disempower me?
- Will these thoughts propel me into the future or keep me stuck in the past?
- Do these thoughts bring me a physical sensation of relief or do I experience even more tension?
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