Thursday, July 20, 2006

Stay positive -- stay focused

It seems I’ve been having, or hearing, the same discussion over and over in the last week, whether with friends, or clients, or on a worldpuja.org webcast about peace, or by Michael Murphy, talking about what happens after your physical body dies. So I figure this must be up for a lot of us.

Yes, there’s a lot of awful stuff going on in the world right now, whether it’s war, or climate change (do go see “An Inconvenient Truth” about global warming), or losing our civil rights, or the theft of elections. But we can NOT give in to the thought of how awful this is. We must keep our hearts and minds on what we intend to create. How do we do this?

First, we take vows. There are lifetime vows, perhaps to do with life purpose, or spiritual purpose. There are periodic vows, perhaps about attaining a goal, or living in a different way. Then there are daily vows, sometimes called affirmations, which may include either of the above.

Second, and much less obviously, we have to avoid, or push away from us, disempowering thoughts. This is much trickier, because these thoughts show up in a myriad of ways, have come from many sources, and sneak in when we’re not paying attention. Any time you doubt your abilities, any time you think a task is too big, any time something inside says, “Who do you think you are to do this? So you think you’re all that... You aren’t. You’ll never make it,” you have to say, “thanks for sharing, but I CAN DO this, and I AM all that, and I WILL make it.”

Let me give you an example. My friend, Kit, is an awesome healer, a massage therapist who is a talented channel as well. Lately, she has been prompted by her guides to do some writing about how she heals, which is apparently something new. Every time she sits down to write, very energized by the prospect of the work, she hears an internal voice, which says, “You’ll never make it — you think you’re so great -- you’ll never be able to take care of yourself”. This, quite understandably, takes the wind out of her sails, she gets bummed out and doesn’t do the writing.

As she talked about it with me, she realized it was the voice of her father, when she was about 16. He wanted her to need him as she had when she was younger, to depend on him for money, and thereby to control her, so he was actively scaring her about her job prospects. He was also genuinely concerned for her well-being, since he thought of the world as a dangerous and deceitful place. For her to succeed would have meant that he was wrong about the world, and could not control her. It was not particularly helpful to her then, and as an adult, it’s unbelievably disempowering. She must remember that she can succeed on her own terms, and still be connected to him. Yes, it would mean that he was wrong about her and about the world, but that’s his problem, not hers. And she doesn’t have to bring it up with him, ever.

So when those thoughts pop up, spend a little time to discover from where they arise, and then let them go — or give them the boot! Those negative thoughts don’t serve you — and they don’t serve the world. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, so turn off the negative thoughts, and follow the positive ones.

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