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26
August 2008 |
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| At
times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a
spark from another person. Each of us has
cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have
lighted the flame within us.
Albert
Schweitzer
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As
we express our gratitude, we must never forget that
the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but
to live by them.
John
F. Kennedy |
Besides
the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble
art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life
consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin
Yutang |
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Tricks
to Switching Focus
(an excerpt)
Lynn Grabhorn
As a kid,
did you ever jump off a high dive? Do you remember that
very first time you climbed up. . . and up. . . and up?
Each step seemed to take you farther away from safety, but even
though you were scared, you kept on going.
Finally
came the top of the ladder. You walked tentatively out to
the end of the board. Your heart pounded so hard you could
barely hear the kids below shouting you on. The water
seemed five miles away. You didn't really want to do this
thing, while at the same time you did. Something in you
knew this was epic, the greatest moment you would ever know,
that if you did this, you would never be the same. You
jumped. What a rush! You made it. And indeed,
your life had changed forever.
The
toughest part of ungluing ourselves from the high dive habit of
an on-going problem (for that's all problems are . . . are
habits) is forcing ourselves to release our preoccupation with
it. Like so:
You
don't have to change it;
You just have to stop focusing on it!
Is it
tough? Yes! Can it be done? You bet! But
you have to start someplace, and that someplace is a decision
that, somehow, you're going to change your focus.
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Then comes
actually doing it, changing your focus to something more pleasant
so you can change your energy. It is impossible to solve a
problem in the same frequency in which it was created, so you make
a decision that for as long as it's with you, that problem will
no longer be the focal point of your life. Like having a
cut on your finger; you know it's there and yes it hurts when you
think about it, but you don't allow it to govern your everyday
living. You believe it will heal and go away, and so it
does.
Just
remember, the most important part to changing an unwanted
condition is simply: you don't have to change it; you
just have to stop thinking about it! All it takes is
that willingness to jump.
Trick
#1. Switch focus. Now!
The moment
you recognize you're focusing on the condition with your
worry-motor running (or ticked-off motor, or blame motor, etc.),
find something else, anything else to think about that will
get you to feeling even a tiny bit better than you do at
present. And find it right now!
Switch your
thoughts to your mate (if you've got a great relationship), your
home, a song, your doggie, your new sweatshirt, a chocolate
sundae, making love, your upcoming vacation, your last vacation, a
special restaurant, your youngster asleep. ANYthing!
Make yourself do this, staying there until you can feel your mood
begin to change--which means your energy has changed--no matter
how slight.
Once you
make the feeling switch, then start talking--out loud--about what
it is you want (that's "want," not "don't
want") in place of your unwanted condition. By doing
that, your focus is now off of the condition, your Intent motor is
running in its place, and you've gotten your valve open enough to
begin the turnaround. And for heaven's sake, never mind that
your Replacement Want may seem impossible. Just get into it
and forget the "how to's."
If you
can't get into your Want/Intent feeling mode, never mind.
Just stay in the feeling of some pleasant new focus for as long as
you can. The longer (and more often) you can stay in that
higher frequency, the quicker your unwanted condition will begin
to dissipate. Conversely, the more you retain your focus on
whatever has been bothering you, the longer it will stay around.
Trick
#2. Tender-talk it out. Now!
When you
just can't seem to get your focus off the condition, start some
soothing talk to yourself, out loud, much like a loving mom or dad
might comfort a little one. Tell yourself all the comforting
things a youngster would want to hear: that it's going to be
okay, that things are in the process of changing, that you've
always been safe and always will be, that you have nothing to
fear.
Keep
talking warmly for as long as it takes for you to feel that subtle
little switch happen, and you can feel your resistance to the
higher energies backing down. You are relaxing into
well-being, your resistance to that Life-giving Source energy is
lessening, and you're quieting down. Stay there as long as
you can, with your focus off the disturbing condition.
Trick
#3. Tough-talk it out. Now!
This is
tough-love kind of talk . . . out loud . . . to yourself, one on
one. But here's the trick: you need to get tough,
not down on yourself. Don't you ever, ever, ever get
down on yourself when you find you're focusing on an unwanted
condition.
What you're
after here is stern, horse-sense reasoning where you firmly point
out to yourself what will transpire if you continue to focus
on--and stew over--the condition. Then you tell yourself
quite matter-of-factly what will happen when you remove your focus
and change your vibration.
"Now
look, Charlie, you got yourself into this mess, and you are going
to find a way to get yourself out. But if you're going to
stay in this mood and stew about it all day long, you know the
situation is going to get worse. So get off your pity pot
and find some dumb thing to feel good about. Hell yes, I
know you don't feel like feeling good right now, but . . ."
Who cares
if you believe it or not? Fake it until you feel the switch
in feeling take place, that subtle shift in your energy.
This is an
approach of hard logic. While I use it regularly and it
always makes me feel better, I find I usually have to jump from
this back into one of the other tricks to get more of that
quieted-down Feel Good motor running full steam. But that's
just me. Whatever it takes for you, go for it!
Trick
#4. Do something fun. Now!
Get
physical! Go for a walk, polish your car, brush your cat,
buy a new suit, bake a cake, play poker, trim your flowers, go to
a movie, whatever turns you on that will take your stuck focus off
the condition and soften your resistance to flowing that higher
energy. Once you feel the shift happen, start talking out
loud, gently at first, about what you want in place of the
unwanted condition.
With any of
these tricks, keep in mind that old expression, "Fake it 'til
you make it." You switch focus, you talk warmly, you
talk tough, you go for fun, you pretend, but the point is, you do
it the moment you realize your attention is on the unwanted
condition, and you stay there until you feel your feelings flip
over. They will!
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The
distinction between
negative wants (I don't
want to be poor) and
positive wants (I want
enough money to do
what I want in life) is
difficult for most people,
but the author makes it
abundantly clear with
great personal examples
and a lot of enthusiasm.
We can choose how we
frame things and thus
control the vibrations
we send out to the world. |
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Creative
Light
Wilferd A. Peterson
In
February, 1987, astronomers made a sensational
discovery, when a supernova--an exploding
star--burst into view over the southern sky.
Not a single supernova had been seen in our galaxy
since 1604.
Creative
thinking, an explosion of ideas, is powerfully akin
to this celestial event. Creativity brings
light into every corner of the world. There
are big ideas and little ideas, working together to
create the magic by which inner darkness
disappears. And we can all be a part of this
process.
I
like the old proverb: "It is better to
light a candle than curse the darkness."
We need to create a moral and spiritual equivalent
to the supernova here on our earth, a
super-creativity which will abolish war, which will
conquer hunger, poverty, disease, and crime.
Light
illuminates, penetrates the darkness, shows the way
ahead. Light is synonymous with
creativity. It is explosive mental
power. It is the mind aflame, the heart aglow,
the spirit aware. It is God at work through
you.
Charles
and Anne Morrow Lindbergh were America's golden
couple. Then in March, 1932, their young son,
Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped and brutally
murdered.
In
her published letters and diary entries, Anne Morrow
Lindbergh recounts the tragic months that
followed. For her, the light that guided her
through the grief was learning how others had come
through their trials.
Just
as she was indebted to the people who had left
behind their testimonies, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
believed that in her books she, too, must leave her
own "little grain of truth." After
all, grain must be resown in order to grow.
Goethe's
cry, "More light," as he was dying
brought a dynamic message to all of us. For
this is what we need in every area of life; more
inspiration, more love, more tolerance, more
understanding, more thinking. More light is
the goal of all creative thinkers. It is
absolutely limitless in the scope of its
possibilities. |
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| The
circumstances amid which you live determine your
reputation; the truth you believe determines your
character.
Reputation
is what you are supposed to be; character is what
you are.
Reputation
is the photograph; character is the face.
Reputation
comes over one from without; character grows up from
within.
Reputation
is what you have when you come to a new community;
character is what you have when you go away.
Your
reputation is learned in an hour; your character
does not come to light for a year.
Reputation
is made in a moment; character is built in a
lifetime.
Reputation
grows like a mushroom; character grows like the oak.
A
single newspaper report gives you your reputation; a
life of toil gives you your character.
Reputation
makes you rich or makes you poor; character makes
you happy or makes you miserable.
Reputation
is what people say about you on your tombstone;
character is what angels say about you before the
throne of God.
William
Hersey Davis |
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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
Preparing for Change
There are quite a few significant changes looming
in my life. We're about to buy a house, I'm
about to take over as coach of a high school girls'
varsity basketball team, two of our kids are going
to be coming back to live with us for a while, I'm
teaching completely different courses this year. . .
and on and on. Sometimes when I sit down and
think of all the current changes in my life, it gets
kind of funny--the only consistency seems to lie in
inconsistency.
For all of these changes, though, I know that
it's important that I prepare for them. For
buying the house, I'm examining our income,
preparing income statements and researching mortgage
applications, and looking for just the right home
for us. For the basketball team, I'm
researching offensive and defensive strategies,
preparing a playbook and deciding which drills will
be most beneficial to us when the season
begins. When the kids come, they'll find their
rooms ready and their mother and me completely ready
for them to be here, mentally and emotionally.
I'm also not fooling myself into thinking that
the changes I'm currently facing are the only ones
that will be in my life. I know that tomorrow
may bring some brand-new and unexpected changes to
me, and that it will be important for me to be ready
for the possibility of having to deal with
unforeseen circumstances and situations.
When I watch people deal with change, I find that
the people who tend to have problems have them first
of all because they haven't considered the
possibility of change in their lives. They get
comfortable with the status quo, and somehow expect
that everything in their lives will stay the
same. Marriages will last, they'll be at the
same job forever, no financial problems will plague
them, and on and on and on.
Secondly, I see people have problems dealing with
change when they resist it. If their job has
become unpleasant for whatever reason, they stick
with it because they don't want to face the
possibility of change. Even if all the signs
are there that it would be healthier for them to
find other work, they tend to rationalize and create
reasons for which it's better to stay where they
are. Even when it becomes evident that a
spouse simply isn't the person they thought he or
she was at the time of marriage, they resist the
idea of ending their relationship and putting their
lives on a different track.
I also see people who won't consider change
simply because they fear it. Somehow, they
can't imagine a future after change that's
pleasant--change represents the unknown, and that
has to be unpleasant. I know someone who
inherited a house when her father died several years
ago, and she needed to sell it because she couldn't
afford the taxes and other payments.
Unfortunately, she was so afraid of change that she
refused to sell in spite of repeated warnings that
she would lose a lot of money if she didn't.
When she finally did sell, she received just over
half of what she would have earned had she sold two
years earlier, and now she faces financial hardship
instead of being in good financial shape.
There's
a good chance there that her fear was of positive
change--she couldn't imagine herself being in good
financial shape, so she was neither able nor willing
to make a change that would bring that into her
life.
It's
important that we stop seeing change as a
threat. When we do, we can prepare ourselves
mentally and emotionally for changes that will
happen in our lives. We need to keep in mind
that change is the essence of life--we see that in
the progression of the seasons each year. When
the flowers die in the first frosts of early autumn,
we don't mourn their passing, for we know that there
will be more next year. Likewise, when a part
of our lives passes into our past and a new chapter
begins, it's not something that we should mourn or
fear, but something that we should embrace, hold
onto, and learn from.
Personally,
I take change very seriously, and I love it.
Change is what keeps our lives vital and
amazing. Change helps us to grow, and change
helps us to expand as human beings and as
spirits. Change is a great gift to us, yet so
often we treat it as a curse, which seems a very
unfair thing to do.
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The
Bundle of Sticks
A father had three sons who were always quarreling with each
other.
No matter what he did or said, the father was unable to stop
their disputes. So, he decided to give his sons an
illustration
of the impracticality of disunion.
One day, he told them to bring him a bundle of sticks.
When they
had done so, he placed the bundle into the hands of each
of them in succession. Then he told them to break it in
pieces.
They tried with all their strength. However, they could not
break the
bundle. Then, he opened the bundle, took the sticks one by
one, and
again put them into his sons' hands.
This time, they broke the sticks easily. The father
then told them,
"My sons, if you are of one mind, and unite to assist
each other, you
will be unharmed by the attempts of your enemies. But
if you are divided
among yourselves, you will be broken as easily as these
sticks."
The breach of unity turns every man's hand against his
brother;
but so long as the band holds, it is the strength of all the
several parts of it gathered into one.
Based on a fable by Aesop |
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