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Posts tagged ‘Positive attitude’

Flowers and Weeds

“My appointed work is to awaken the divine nature that is within.” – Peace Pilgrim

“To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.” – Eckhart Tolle

To get flowers, you need to plant seeds, to bury bulbs in the dirt. Weeds need no help. They sprout on their own and can easily take over our landscape if we allow. Flowers require intention, attention and nurturing to flourish and bloom. Plant good seeds to take root and sprout to overshadow the weeds. Flowers and weeds will always co-exist. Nurture the flowers, stop feeding the weeds.

To arrive at a higher elevation, a steady state of joy and contentment, we need to focus on the flowers as we coexist with the weeds. It’s not enough to pull the weeds of negativity. Weeds keep coming back (our thoughts, other people, circumstances). We need to plant the seeds of optimism to absorb the energy and beauty of flowers.

Infuse positive thoughts, allow optimism to do its work. Get out of weed-only existence and dance in the field of flowers, open your lungs and breathe it in. Dance here awhile, every single day.

“Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert

Allow for Healing

“The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind.” – Paracelsus

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.” – Emily Dickinson

Last week, I stepped on a rock at an angle that stretched my foot, ankle and knee in a direction that they are not meant to go. I could feel that it was different, not just a tweak, but a jolt, something that would linger.

In the past week, I stopped running, iced and elevated my ankle regularly, wore an ankle brace to steady it to allow for healing. My normal response would have been to tough it out and work through the pain. While a slow learner, I have learned that with an injury like this, resting now will allow for running later.

We try to rush through the healing process, to tough it out, to “be strong.” Healing has its own timeline which requires patience and pause. Patience develops with experience, practice and rigor. If we are patient and rest there for a bit, we come out stronger, allowing healing to do its work in due time.

This morning, I didn’t feel pain in my ankle for the first time. It has more flexibility and range of motion. While I feel better, I’m not going to run 5 miles today, but will add activity gradually to build back up to get into the groove again.

The past year has had a tremendous impact on our collective and individual psyche. It’s important to acknowledge the “injury,” to grieve and most importantly allow for healing. We are coming closer to the end of “pandemic living” and there’s a new fear of going back out there again. Fear and grieving can wear you down and burn you out. Healing and meaning pull us through to the other side of grief, to our near future self that will be stronger, changed and renewed.

In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote the classic book On Death and Dying describing the five stages of grief in loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that the stages are cyclical rather than linear and they show up in various ways at different times.

David Kessler, co-author of two books with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, has written a new book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief building on as well as adapting her well-respected stages of dying for those in grief.

He states, “The stages have evolved since their introduction and have been very misunderstood over the past four decades. They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or in a prescribed order. Our hope is that with these stages comes the knowledge of grief ‘s terrain, making us better equipped to cope with life and loss. At times, people in grief will often report more stages. Just remember your grief is as unique as you are.”

Allow your grief, but also allow healing and meaning to greet you with a warm embrace on the other side and in glimpses daily throughout. One day, you’ll wake up and the injury won’t hurt as much anymore. It will still be present but in a different form. Give yourself permission to find joy and light daily as you work your way through and we work our way through together.

“An exchange of empathy provides an entry point for a lot of people to see what healing feels like.” – Tarana Burke

Check Your Sources

“To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.” – Mary Oliver

Check your sources is a fundamental tenet of journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists has defined four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism:

  1. Seek truth and report it;
  2. Minimize harm;
  3. Act independently;
  4. Be accountable and transparent.

No worries – this will not be a dissertation on politics, the “free” press or the first amendment – although those certainly all weigh on my mind as a citizen.

However, the media does have an impact on your outlook so before you believe Facebook or your way left or way right friends or family members, check your sources to verify the facts and understand the complexity of issues on your own.

These are also good principles to follow as you write the narrative of your own life.

  1. Seeking truth takes inquiry and investigation. Let go of assumptions and ask one more question to get the complete picture, all sides. Seek understanding, offer compassion.
  2. Minimize harm to others and yourself by being mindful and in control of your attitude, words and actions. Go beyond not harming to offering radical joy, love and acceptance. Be a light.
  3. Be your own person and stop following the crowd. Independence is freedom. Write your own story and stop surrendering the pen to other people, circumstances, offense from the past or fear of the future. This is your life, own it.
  4. Accountable and transparent – you are accountable for yourself so stop trying to fix others. Self-awareness is a one-person job so work on yourself and let others come unto their own if and when they are ready, if ever. Transparency is honesty. Be open and let go of the drama, conspiracy theories and plot twists. Fear is an old story, choose fierce.

Life is short so savor, seek and find joy daily. Perhaps Mary Oliver asks the most important question that you can ask yourself daily, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Spring Thaw

“Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” – Doug Larson

“Welcome, wild harbinger of spring! To this small nook of earth; Feeling and fancy fondly cling, Round thoughts which owe their birth, To thee, and to the humble spot, Where chance has fixed thy lowly lot.” – Bernard Barton

Three weeks ago, 30 below, today, 60 degrees, a 90-degree swing. We are entering spring thaw and the grass will soon overtake the snow covered ground. Snow will probably revisit a few more times at least, but it won’t remain as long with the strength of the sun and full onset of spring. In 2018, we were hit with 16 inches of snow on April 13, reminding us that winter will be done when it decides it is done, not when we want it to be.

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.” – George Santayana

Nothing ever stays long but our perspective of it. What we remember, what we forget, what we pick up, what we set down determines the ease of our journey. When we only put the weight and magnitude on the minus 30 degree days, we forgo the depth, expanse and joy in the 60 degree days. Seasons of life never skip their turn so if we can find the gifts in what is present now, each day can be holy and sacred.

“I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.” – Georg Trakl

Thoughts and Words

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” – Yehuda Berg

What you say to yourself and others matters. It carries an energy. Positive or negative. Full or empty. Be mindful so you bring positive energy to create enthusiasm, optimism and light.

In a meeting yesterday, one participant was clearly having a bad day and showed it in words, facial expression and heavy sighs. You never know what’s going on in someone’s life at any particular moment so you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. But this person is this way a lot and it sucks the energy out of the room, even on a zoom call.

It was a good reminder to me to be aware of the energy that I am exuding in my own exchanges with myself and others. We all have a bad day but string too many of them together we arrive at a bad life. Be in tune with your energy level and make sure daily self-care is on the list to balance out stress so you have positive energy which creates positive outlook and outcomes. Awareness, mindfulness, intention can change the trajectory of the day and infuse it with optimism.

Gratitude is fuel to power through the day. Pursue optimism vigorously so negativity and cynicism don’t take permanent hold. It’s hard to shake it off. Check on your own energy which is the only thing that you control and it can influence others in a good way.

Read, write, laugh, walk in nature, look at photos, count your blessings and seek joy. Choose your thoughts and words carefully and make something good of this day. Cast light!

“Optimistic people play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are inventors, entrepreneurs, political and military leaders – not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks.” – Daniel Kahneman

Beyond Your Comfort Zone

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch

We have been out of our comfort zone for a year now.
The pandemic has put us into this place.
Or has it?
We are stuck.
Or are we?
Question your assumptions, dare to entertain a different answer, flip the narrative.
Go deeper.

The pandemic is certainly not nothing and it is also not everything.
We long for certainty, take comfort in familiarity and sameness to ground us.
Were we comfortable and content before the pandemic?
When the pandemic is over, you’ll need another excuse.

Difficulty makes us grateful for what is gone.
Gratitude can be a way of life rather than a momentary feeling.
What we think serves us, often binds us.

Scarcity, fear, negativity, assumptions, stories, a pandemic justify our “stuckness,” frame our view, limit possibility.
In protecting ourselves from uncertainty, chaos of circumstances, unreasonableness of others, not us of course, we create blind spots and live small.
We long to figure out the ending before we take a step, find comfort in blame and try to organize life into boxes we can label and understand.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

We are meant for joy, light and fruition.
Born with a purpose and purposes, with talents and gifts to give away not to bury.
To move forward pre, middle and post pandemic and any other life transition and transformation, we must lay down what we think has served us well.
Moving forward does not negate the past, it honors it by living in the present and writing a deeper narrative by taking hold of the pen and finishing our own story.

Move into the day from a place of abundance, a thirst for mystery and a capacity for joy.
Open up to ambiguity, uncertainty and possibility found in a blank page, in the confidence and trust that we are built for metamorphosis, going from cocoon to butterfly hundreds of times though life.

Finding the holes, problems and gaps in our life, in others and in the world traps us in rearview mirror living, scarcity and cynicism. Identify and integrate the lessons and move to the next grade by applying them. Open up to new learning and expansion. Release offenses both received and given to transform the holes into wholehearted joyful daily living.

There is no real comfort in comfort zones. Ground in abundance and optimism, fueled by light and energized by possibility.

Brave, bold and brilliantly break the patterns and narratives that bind and restrict. Dare to be enthusiastic and optimistic found in wholeness rather than holes. Abundance, possibility and joy right now, today, not delayed for tomorrow, not post-pandemic or “someday” when things are perfect (not happening). From the comfort zone of the cocoon to the flight of the butterfly.

This is what my Dad would call a “kick in the ass” post. We need those now and again to wake up. I need it daily and miss him daily so this one is for you Dad.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

 

And So It Returns

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” – John Ruskin

“We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts.” ― John Ruskin

Over the past week, we’ve been enjoying 40-degree temperature days after two weeks of continuous -20 degree days. The paths at Como Lake were packed yesterday, people wearing shorts, lots of runners and walkers. We get out several times a week year-round and the paths during winter are wide-open, plenty of room to roam. As soon as a nice day hits, there are “traffic jams,” smiling crowds as attitudes shift from “winter angst” to “spring delight.” The weather has that much control over our outlook.

The only way to not only survive winter but to thrive in it is to get out right into the middle of it, finding and making joy in all seasons of life. Forgoing four months for winter or a year for a pandemic? I don’t get it and I don’t want to.

Life is happening regardless of weather, our circumstances and even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. It is certainly not our choice and it has been an unpredictable, uncertain, unprecedented year without a doubt. But we don’t get time back, so we need to treat it with the respect it deserves, honor it, make the best of each day.

Blessings and burdens coexist, always have and always will. Each day offers gifts even in and perhaps especially during difficult seasons if we choose to look, be open and accept them. For me, deep gratitude, joy and awareness of how, why, what, where and who I spend my time with has been the blessing this year.

We are placed where we need to be whether we understand it or not. In difficult times, in our winters, it is hard to understand. We are called deeper to meaning and purpose. Go beyond dismissing, mourning and lamenting to enter praise, gratitude and joy.

It’s February about to fall into March. It would be foolish to think that this swath of spring would remain, but winter is on its way out. Seasons come and go. Time has not stopped so follow suit and keep going.

Now, time to get out for some snowshoeing.

“It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.” – John Ruskin

Laugh, Every Day

“From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere.” – Dr. Seuss

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” – Clive James

Find humor and knit laughter into each day to lighten up. A simple shape of snow on a tree, a walk in nature, soaking in the sun as winter turns to spring. Pay attention to little things, to what’s right in front of you in this moment. Notice, dance, dare to delight.

If you can find humor daily, even in winter, joy finds you, transforming ordinary days into extraordinary ones filled with light.

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.” – Charlie Chaplin

Two Ways

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” – Richard Wagner

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Einstein

There is an innate joy in children, a natural smile bursting from within, rooted firmly in the soul and spirit. It never goes away but time and experience bury it as we succumb to the ways of the world. When we return to this place of optimism, joy and light, suddenly everything becomes a miracle, blessings abound.

“Thin places assure us that what we can see is not all there is, that within the struggle, joy, pain, and delight that attend our life, there is an invisible circle of grace that enfolds and encompasses us in every moment. Blessings help us to perceive this circle of grace, to find our place of belonging within it, and to receive the strength the circle holds for us.”— Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, Jan Richardson

Blessings and miracles are woven into our ordinary days, amidst a pandemic, politics, struggling relationships, hidden in plain sight. Our most important and only job is to notice them. In quiet meditation and reflection, gratitude, grace and awareness ensue, a full accounting of our life, an awakening.

“The best blessings awaken our imaginations. In places of difficulty, struggle, or pain, blessings beckon us to look closely rather than turn away. In such places, they challenge us not to accept how things are but to dream of how they could be transformed. They invite us to discern how God might be calling us to participate in bringing this transformation to pass.”— Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons, Jan Richardson

 

Mind Your Mindset

“Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.” – Karl Barth

“Gratitude is one of the strongest and most transformative states of being. It shifts your perspective from lack to abundance and allows you to focus on the good in your life, which in turn pulls more goodness into your reality.” – Jen Sincero

Begin each day in reflection and gratitude to foster a start line of abundance that is the throughline for the entire day, start to finish;
Plant it, say it, try it, stick to it to see how your reality shifts;
No need to compete in the “I’m having a tough day competition anymore;”
The path is old and worn, the traffic is jammed and the road leads to more of the same;
Your thoughts lead to words, to actions, to perspective;
Release all that is not in your control and create a space for abundance, light and optimism;
Carefully choose where your mind goes and guard your joy to anchor when the winds rise up;
Pause three seconds to respond rather than react – 1…2…3…

Optimists International has a variety of resources to place optimism front and center so you can break the daily negativity habit. An action calendar, desktop images and their Facebook page offer daily reminders and prompts.

The Optimist Creed, Optimists International

Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Give optimism a fighting chance by centering your thoughts and being intentional with your words and actions.

Mind your mindset and show others through your consistent actions that there is a better, different path, one of joy, abundance and light.

“The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.” – Marianne Williamson