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November
6, 2007 |
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Welcome
to November, the next-to-last month of this year!
While the days
up here in the Northern Hemisphere are growing shorter and
colder, far down
south they're getting longer and warmer with each passing
day. Whichever
situation you find yourself in, we hope that you're able to
make the most of
every single day of this month! |
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Everyone
takes the limits of their own vision
for the limits of the
world.
Arthur
Schopenhauer
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It requires
moral courage to grieve;
it requires religious courage to
rejoice.
Sören
Kierkegaard
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What
a lovely surprise to finally discover
how unlonely being alone
can be.
Ellen
Burstyn
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The
Magic of Appreciation
Lynn Grabhorn
There are only three states of being we run around in all
day long. If we could be even a little more aware of
which one we're wearing during each moment of the day,
we'd have a big leg up to changing our vibrations.
Victim Mode
This is the oh-dear-they're-doing-it-to-me-again-
and-there's-nothing-I-can-do-about-it frame of mind where
we go nowhere but around in negative circles, forever
magnetizing the same old same old.
Flat-Lining Mode
In the Flat-Lining Mode, we're neither down nor up, just
bumping along on second-rate gas. We're not flowing
our energy to anything, and surely not attracting
anything. In Flat-Lining we're not only living the
results of our own erratic flowing of energy, but that of
everybody else's. (Like attracts likes, remember?)
Very unpleasant! And what most of us do most of the
time.
Turned On Mode
Now you're up! You're on! Your high
frequencies are no longer attracting the negative vibes of
others. You're fueled with the pure positive energy
of well-being, vibrating in harmony with your Expanded
Self, flowing positive energy out and pulling positive
events in while being wrapped in unsurpassed safety and
security.
Victim Mode, Flat-Lining, or Turned On, we will always
find ourselves in one of the three. Our goal, of
course, is to make it the Turned On Mode as often and as
long as we can, which is why we look to the high, high
energy of appreciation.
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The
vibration of appreciation is the most profoundly important
frequency we can hold, for it is the closest thing to
cosmic love that exists. When we're appreciating,
we're in perfect vibrational harmony with our Source
energy, or God energy--call it what you will.
You can jump-start it, or you can jam straight to the
feeling, it makes no difference. What's important to
know is that one minute of flowing the intense energy of
appreciation overrides thousands of hours spent in Victim
or Flat-Lining Modes.
But take care! No fair just thinking
appreciation. That won't wash. Thinking is
out, feeling is in. You can't just make a decision
that you're going to appreciate something and let it go at
that. There has to be that surge of significant
emotion flowing up from the depths of your being for this
to work.
But neither does that mean you have to have just been
saved from a life-threatening incident by 911 rescue
workers to feel deep appreciation. In fact, flowing
appreciation is really no big deal. You can flow it
intensely to a street sign if you want. Don't laugh,
I do that all the time stay in shape. Like any
skill, flowing energy requires constant practice, and
there's something so absurdly satisfying about flowing
buckets of love, adoration, and appreciation to
"SLOW: MEN AT WORK." I flow it to
stoplights, billboards, birds overhead, a tree stump, a
dead animal, a winter storm, and of course, to people.
Sometimes in the supermarket I'll pick the meanest looking
low-life I can find and just open up and douse the
unsuspecting soul with the highest vibration I can
muster. Maybe it's appreciation, maybe it's
honest-to-God love. One time I did that to a
scroungy old biddy who looked like she'd rather eat me
than let me pass. I blasted her, and in that very
moment she wheeled around, searching angrily for whatever
she felt hit her, while I smiled back in pure innocence.
That's my "Hug-A-Bum" game where I envision me
and a perfect stranger on the street (or wherever) rushing
into each other's arms like we were old best friends who
hadn't seen each other for ages. You start with
acceptable "targets," like someone you wouldn't
mind sitting next to at a lunch counter if you had
to. Then you move up, bit by bit, to targets that
are increasingly difficult for you socially, until finally
it doesn't make any difference what kind of slobs they
are.
You just see -- and deeply feel -- the two of you joyfully
recognizing each other and flying together in this
gigantic bear hug as profound love surges between
you. I don't know how many people I've done that
with while walking down a street, and watched them turn
around to look for whatever it was they felt.
The vibration of appreciation is also the highest, fastest
vibration we can use for attraction. If we would
shoot appreciation at anything and everything, all day
long, we'd be guaranteed to have heaven on earth in no
time, living happily ever after with more friends, more
money, more beautiful relationships, in total safety, and
closer to the God of our Being than it's possible to
fathom.
Lynn
Grabhorn was a long-time
student of the way in which thought and feelings format
our lives. Raised in Short Hills, New Jersey, she
began her working life in the advertising field in New
York City, founded and ran an audio-visual educational
publishing company in Los Angeles, and owned and ran a
mortgage brokerage firm in Washington State. Lynn's
books, which also include The Excuse Me, Your Life is
Waiting Playbook and Beyond the Twelve Steps,
have received high acclaim from all corners of the
world. Her last book was Dear God! What's
Happening to Us?
Lynn passed away in 2004 at her home in Olympia,
Washington.
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week. |
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
Talking
Ourselves Down
There's
one thing in life that I don't let people get away with, and
that's talking down about themselves. No, I don't punish
them or chastise them, but I always correct them--I won't let a
self-deprecating comment go by without countering it with some
sort of positive reinforcement. This annoys my step-children
to no end--they always say "But I was just joking," or
"I didn't really mean it." And that's probably
true--they didn't really mean it. But I don't let the
comment slide for several reasons.
First of
all, I know the power of negative self-talk. Saying bad
things about ourselves can lead us to believe them, even if we
start out "just joking." What happens if we make a
negative comment about ourselves and no one disagrees?
There's a part of our minds that will tell us "Hey--no one's
arguing! Maybe they agree with the comment!" This
seems to be the case especially with young people who are in their
"developmental years" (though aren't we all always in
those years?). Especially in our culture, though, we're
taught to learn things through indirect methods ("Ask Rob if
he likes Sally"), and we come to expect to learn things about
ourselves more through what other people say--or don't say--than
through other more direct means.
Secondly,
I see such comments as an opportunity for encouragement. As
an adult, I am a role model. Period. I can choose to
accept that role, or I can choose to reject it. As a role
model, it's important to me to provide young people in my life
with a healthy, encouraging, helpful way of being, and most of
what people learn from me or of me has to do with what I say and
what I do.
But there's also the more subtle side: what
do I let slide? What do I let go by without comment or
action? Even among people my own age, I know that it's important to encourage whenever I can,
and not to let an opportunity to encourage go by. I don't
know if that particular person needs encouragement at the
moment--yes, they may be fishing for a compliment, but they also
may be in a very needy time of their lives. I'm not
concerned with judging why a person is needy, but I do want to
recognize it when a person is needy.
(By the
way, this can only go so far--after the third or fourth repetition
of the same negative comment, I'm much more likely to tell a
person to knock it off than to encourage. There's a certain
point when the concept of hard love kicks in.)
Third, I
want anyone else who might have heard the comment to know that at
least one person finds such comments to be completely
inappropriate. I don't want to let someone talk themselves
down and have someone else think that it's normal or acceptable to
do so. Someone has to say something, and this is another
role that I'm willing to assume. If our 13-year-old hears
her 15-year-old sister make a comment insulting her own physique,
for example, and no one says anything about it, she just may find
the same or similar flaws in herself and start to worry about
them. If she hears someone tell her sister that she
shouldn't make the comment because she's fine just the way she is,
she still may find the same "flaws," but she also may be
much more accepting of them just the way she is.
Life is
about other people--loving and helping and encouraging them.
Doing that will give us meaning and fulfillment in life, and
neglecting it will harm us. We have to be aware, though,
that the only people who can counter another's self-sabotage
through deprecating self-talk are those who hear the talk.
We have to counter it--I know that I would have been spared years
of negative self-image if anyone had bothered to counter my
negative ideas about myself when I was younger. Now that I'm
old enough to do so for others, I counter it every chance I get.
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Free
Wallpaper! Just click below
on
the size your desktop is
formatted to,
right-click on the
picture that appears
in the new
window, and choose
"Set as background."
(This
photo's from last December
in
Grand Canyon National Park.)
800
x 600 - 1024
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We've
been looking for a way to recommend many of the books
and movies that inspire us to live our lives more fully, and
Amazon
finally has provided it. Check out our new bookstore,
which is full
of inspirational and motivational material. We'd also
appreciate any
suggestions you might have of what to stock it with--please
visit
our feedback page
to make recommendations! |
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In
the end it will not matter to us whether we fought with flails or
reeds. It will matter to us greatly on what side we fought.
G.K.
Chesterton
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Your
mission statement becomes your
constitution, the solid expression of your vision
and values. It becomes the criterion by which
you measure everything else in your life. . . . Writing or
reviewing a mission statement changes you because it
forces you to think through your priorities deeply,
carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.
Stephen
Covey |
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Let
That Dog Alone!
Emmet Fox
"Mind
your own business" is a good rule. It
would probably be safe to say that more than half of
the evil in the world is due to well meaning
busybodies who just cannot refrain from
interfering. Needless to say, such people
never have harmony or success in their own lives,
for it is an invariable rule that those who mind
their neighbors' business, neglect their own.
All
this is true, and we cannot recollect it too often,
but in a deeper sense it is equally true that what
we mind--what we give our attention to--always does
become our business, and sometimes our
destruction. When you interfere mentally
in any condition, you involve your life in it to the
extent of that interference. When you take
sides mentally, or become emotional
concerning the matter, and still more when you talk
about it, and still more again when you do anything
about it, you are making yourself a party to it and
will have to take the consequences.
In
other words, you cannot involve your thoughts in any
subject without bringing the natural consequences
upon yourself. You can call this involving
yourself in the karma of the situation, if you like,
but whatever you choose to call it, the fact will
remain. To interfere mentally in any
situation involves you in the consequences just as
much as would a physical interference. Of
course, where it is your duty to concern yourself in
any matter, you must do so constructively and
spiritually--and then the consequences to you can
only be good.
The
Bible says, "he that passeth by, and meddleth
with strife belonging not to him, is like one that
taketh a dog by the ears" (Proverbs
26:17). If, when those around you are talking
negatively about something or someone, you chip in
with your contribution to the witches' brew, you are
taking a strange dog by the ears--so look out!
If you get emotionally tangled in what is not your
affair, through indignation, self-righteousness,
hatred, or otherwise, you have seized the dog again,
and you will have to pay for it. If you rush
about interviewing, telephoning, busying yourself in
the same spirit, you have tackled the dog once
more--and he will bite! And even to think
negatively concerning such matters in the secret
chamber of your own heart, will bring you
proportionate and natural punishment.
It
is always right to think rightly about any
person or situation, and if you do this many
opportunities will come to you to help people
practically too, without any breach of the law we
have been considering, and without coming near the
dangerous dog.
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I
Dream a World
Langston Hughes
I dream a world
where man
No other will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn.
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you bed,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head,
And joy, like a pearl,
Attend the needs of all mankind.
Of such I dream--
Our world! |
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They
serve best who give most of themselves. Self is
forgotten by
the one who serves, for such a one rejoices
to see success coming to
others through his or her efforts.
James
Cash Penney
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