Tag Archives: love or fear

Personal Growth

The Gift of Choice

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People are given a gift of choice. Some are keenly aware of this and make decisions to understand the power of their choice to move one closer or further away from the life they desire by the honesty, integrity, and character of each of their decisions. Other people move blindly through life with no awareness of the power of their choice. They muddle through situations blaming outside influences, other people, or even something like the weather for their problems. In my observations of life, I am sure that we are in the place we are at, experiencing our lives in the manner we are due, almost exclusively, to the things we allow in our minds and the choices we make because of them.

Responsible or Not?

There is nobody responsible for your situation but you. People who understand this and live this way seem to have much more in their lives than one would want to be accountable for. The choice of responsibility brings you power, and appointing blame somewhere else takes the power of your being away.

People give their power away through blame, judgment, and wishful thinking. Your choice to accept responsibility for your circumstances brings freedom and power. Many events will happen we have no control over, but we always have 100% control over our response to any situation, and it is in this choice all of our power of attitude exists. Placing the blame won’t change anything but give you a negative attitude, place you further from a solution, or understand the lesson the situation teaches you. Or you can let another person or a situation make choices about your emotions, attitude, and thoughts. This choice is exclusively up to you.

Positive or Negative?

The choice to be positive or negative in your thoughts, actions, and attitudes is a decision a person faces continually throughout life. It is my observation most people have slanted one mentality or the other. Not surprisingly, their life circumstances serve them precisely what they seek. Keeping a positive perspective doesn’t make bad things enjoyable, but it will allow you a tool to deal with them in a better way.

A negative attitude will take you to a location of disappointment, sadness, anger, frustration, or somewhere else on that spectrum. A positive attitude won’t change the present circumstances as if by magic, but choosing to look positively will help you find the best path in your life. The tragedy is a tragedy, and pain is pain. It will hurt and be discouraging no matter how you think, but it will not define your life if you focus on the good that is still around in your life. Or you can choose to be miserable and let every “bad” thing that comes along derail you and potentially destroy you. That choice is yours and yours alone.

 Love or Not?

You have a choice to practice love in all situations or to be mean and selfish. Being human provides us with a continuous option to either be open to love or to close ourselves off to the possibilities of love. When we were young, perhaps we found pain in caring or being disappointed with those we loved. So we close our hearts and choose not to let anyone else in. The belief that others will hurt us has led me to a lifetime of relationship failures. I think most people are similar. It is easier and less risky to be on your own in life.

Life is a situation built to be lived in conjunction and connection with other humans. I aim to open up and allow new things and people into my life. As people lean into the possibility of love, they learn to love themselves. We are all the people we were when we were born. Perfect, and here for a reason. It seems life is an experience to remember exactly who we were.

Indeed there are choices in life every day, and the joy we give and receive in life will ultimately result in our ability to choose well or not. My challenge to you is to take a moment this day and every day to be aware the choice exists for you, and you are responsible for them. Good, bad, happy, or sad is all up to you.

“You are free to make whatever choice you want, but you are not free from the consequences of the choice.” -Anonymous

Decisions are the hardest thing to make, especially when it is a choice between where you should be and where you want to be.” -Anonymous

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” Nelson Mandela

“The 3 C’s of life: Choices, Chances, Changes. You must choose to take a chance, or your life will never change.”

“Make good choices today, so you don’t have regrets tomorrow.” Anonymous

 

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Being Grateful

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gratitude-logoOne of the simple things in life that we all know we should practice gratitude for the things we have in our lives that bring happiness.

It is easy to look at the struggles and challenges of life and forget to see all of the things that make each day a positive experience. One of the best practices is setting aside a time of day to look at the past day and decide what you are grateful for.

Build Your Mindset

MindsetIt is a great time to build your mindset of appreciation for whatever makes your life a little better. It is my practice to write ten things a day that I appreciate, and I try to make 2 or 3 new or original. This practice gets your mind looking for ideas that you might add to the list throughout the day. Seeking gratitude improves your focus to include good thoughts and moves you away from negative thinking and worry.

Open the Door for More

Being grateful and appreciating the positive things in your life opens the door for more of those things to come into your life. A gratitude journal is a reflective moment that will only make you happier and make you feel better about life and the things you experience in it.

Open-the-door-to-moreThe other choice is to complain about everything you don’t like about your experience. That only puts your focus more on those negative things, and of course, more of those things will come into your life. Nobody cares about your complaints; they are your issues. At best, anyone you are complaining to is just looking for an opportunity to share their grievances about why they are unhappy.

Like most things, it comes down to a simple choice that anyone can make. You don’t have to be intellectually superior to be grateful, but you must be smart. It will make your life better and bring more of what you want into your consciousness.

The Power of Thank You

hqdefaultThere is a lot of power in using the words Thank You! It has been clinically proven that if you thank a new acquaintance for anything they do, it makes them more likely to seek to further your relationship. Gratitude makes you physically and mentally healthier, enhances empathy, reduces aggression, improves the quality of your sleep, improves self-esteem, and makes you think more efficiently.

Best of all, there is no downside to the practice at all. Have you ever heard of someone being harmed by being grateful and saying a simple thank you? Of course not. Those two little words make others feel appreciated and open the doorway for more positive creation in your life.

Appreciation Game

A high activity that I read about is the Appreciation Game. When you are feeling angry, upset, or just in a negative mindset, it is because of the thoughts you are choosing to entertain. Our minds are fantastic tools, but they are only tools to be used by us. They are capable of thinking one thought at a time, and you decide the content, tenor, and tone of that thought. So you choose to find things in your life that you appreciate and think about. I understand the weather. I enjoyed my coffee today. It makes life better. I appreciate my spouse. I know the kind thing my kids did. I appreciate my health. I appreciate having money. I appreciate my success. I appreciate my life, etc. It will flip your mindset to the positive side if you let it.

Of course, you can choose to stay mired in the negative for whatever reason you want. Anger, jealousy, and judgment are just different masks of fear. These have something to do with not meeting your needs and some pain coming your way.

The choice is yours, live in fear, or live in gratitude.

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” —Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” —Zig Ziglar

“Learn to be thankful for what you already have while you pursue all that you want.” —Jim Rohn

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” —Oprah Winfrey

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” —William Arthur Ward