M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 84

Pathwalking 272

How do you find the line between being informed, and being overwhelmed by information?

This is the question I find myself contending with fairly regularly of late.  Given all that is happening both in the USA and around the world, I find I need to remain informed, and keep in the know.

However, there are so, so many things happening that this quickly becomes overwhelming.

World news can be pretty crazy, but all the insane political actions happening in America right now are particularly frustrating.  Again, while I strive to not get political when Pathwalking, this is becoming increasingly unavoidable.  Between a President insistent on telling frequent, outright lies, a Congress interested only in their own power and their wealthy benefactors, increased blatant racism and sexism, not to mention the growing divisions in perception across the continent, this can be a total distraction from anything and everything else.

One key thing I am working on keeping in mind is that I can only do so much to effect these things.  Once I have done my part, I can continue to observe, I can write thought pieces on the given situation or open letters to Congress or requests to the disaffected for my blog.  I can participate in marches and protests as appropriate.

The danger of crossing the line between informed and overwhelmed is the effect this can have on the path I am walking.  When the politics and the anger over the negativity constantly inundates you, it is unsurprisingly easy to step off your path; or even to cease progress upon it; or leave it entirely.

I want to be in the know, I want to be aware of what is happening; but when this dominates my thoughts, it seeps into my feelings and can impact upon actions I might or might not take.  Suddenly a major outside influence is overtaking my paths, and before I know it I am somewhere I would really prefer not to be.

The challenge now is for me to walk my chosen paths, while keeping informed about what’s going on in the world, without letting these things I can do little-to-nothing about dominate my choices.

I’ve written about this before, but it has becoming increasingly difficult to simply observe and not get emotionally invested.  The utter lack of empathy on the part of our so-called leaders, the outright lies being spread, the greed and corruption of the system frequently being laid bare is difficult to ignore.  I want to remain aware of this, but even just staying in the know can be infuriating in the face of extremism.

Further, there is also to some degree lingering guilt about my personal desire to still walk my own chosen paths.  I am aware that if I do not care for myself and do what I need for me, I have nothing to share or give to help others.  And yet there is still a sense of selfishness in these actions; irrational emotions despite the logic of the thoughts I can’t ignore but need to keep control over.

So – how do I keep informed, but not overwhelmed?  How do I walk my chosen paths, and still help other people and worthy causes and not feel guilty?

First, I have chosen to take a unique break.  As you read this, I am on vacation, having a new experience in a new place, with very few of my usual companions around me.  This is going to put me very much in the now, as I will be in this place at this time, and largely focused on the here-and-now as I have this new experience.

See this week’s Positivity in regards to my thoughts on escaping, and the good that can come of that.

Second, the other component of this break is that, afterwards, I will take the opportunity to use this as a form of reset.  When I return to my regularly scheduled life and responsibilities and obligations, I am going to work on a new approach, striving to change some old habits and focus on the paths of my choosing.  I am going to work on actions to not just return to my usual patterns, habits and routines, but to use the week in the here-and-now to STAY in the now, and form some new habits.

Third, I am going to work on staying focused on the now.  A great deal of the frustration born of the news of the world is less in what is being done right now, and more in what is being presented.  Bills that Congress is deliberating over, the effects of Executive Orders on people and our society, terrible ideas being presented that are not yet here, but are unpleasant to think about as happening.  If I am focused on possible outcomes in an unwritten future, I am giving it energy, and since like attracts like, and consciousness creates reality, doing so is detrimental to my health and desires.

Take a break.  Reset.  Focus on the now.  This combination, I believe, will help me to stay the course on the paths of my choosing, and help me better to find what it is I want from life.  It is important as we walk our paths to not be overwhelmed by the things we cannot control, yet remain informed.  I think I have found my own line between informed and overwhelmed, and we’ll see how things turn out as I strive to change some long-held, well-ingrained habits and regular actions.

Do you know where your line between informed and overwhelmed is?

 

This is the two-hundred seventy-second entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me.  Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: Escape from Reality

Sometimes you just need to escape from it all.

There are times when you feel so overwhelmed, you just need to get away, escape from your life, escape from your routines, and try something different.

As you are reading this, I am on a vacation in a place I have never been to before, with the medieval reenactment society I have played with for over twenty-five years now.  Yet the majority of the people I will be with will not be my usual family and friends, and I will be only sporadically online and largely away from my usual life.

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For a time this escape had me distressed.  I was concerned with the length of the trip, the unfamiliarity of the place and many of the people I will be surrounded by, and stepping outside of and away from my life for a week.  Even when I attend Pennsic in August, I largely go offline, but I am with the same people, friends and family, and I know the site and the area around it like it’s a second home.

I have done this before.  I have escaped to somewhere new to me, and whenever I have done that, despite concerns and trepidation, it has ALWAYS proven to be worthwhile.  Yes, it is important to live life and be aware, but once in a while it is healthy to escape, because in doing so you are immersed in the moment, and hyper-aware of the here-and-now.

Escaping gives us the chance to reset ourselves, to find new purpose, new ways to think.  Escaping allows you to take a break from stressors and reclaim your heart and soul.

An escape allows you to clear you mind, so that you have a much better position to evaluate what you are spending time thinking about, where you are spending energy on your feelings, and to see how your actions, intentional or not, are effecting the outcome that is your life.

Escaping is a temporary act, ultimately putting yourself in the here-and-now.  In this context, eventually you return to the world you departed, but hopefully better for the time you have spent in the present, more ready to tackle whatever challenges life puts before you.

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We all need an occasional escape from reality, because anything that generates more positivity is a benefit to us.

Finding positivity is not hard, but it does require action.  Knowing that you can escape from it all, you have an opportunity to reset.  When we escape from the stress and concerns and negativity of our everyday lives, we can reclaim control over our thoughts, feelings and actions, and as such we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings in the collective consciousness.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred sixty-third entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

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Crossing the Bridges: Overcoming the art of Self Sabotage

Crossing the Bridges can be difficult if you insist on burning them down before you reach the other side.

I have always been a fan of the phrase, “I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.”  I know the word should be cross, but I think I’m a pretty funny guy, so I use burn instead.

The problem is, I DO have a tendency to burn the bridges, often while I am right in the middle of the span.

This is the subtle, and sometimes less-than-subtle, art of self-sabotage.  I am, unfortunately, something of a master of this art.

What IS self-sabotage?  This is the ability to destroy something without anyone else’s help at all.  I have managed in my life to apply this art to numerous relationships, jobs, opportunities and experiences.

Rather than let things progress as they are, or work to take them where I truly desire for them to be, I have an incredible talent for taking the train off the rails, and only getting part-way to my intended goals.

Why?  Fear, of course.  The single biggest fear I have faced in my life has been my fear of unacceptance, of rejection as a person of worth by those I care about, or worse, those I feel the need to know care about me.  From this fear comes a fear of failure, which might cause people to cease to care about me, and it’s equal and opposite, fear of success.

Yes, I am completely aware that these fears are irrational.  I have written about this numerous times.  Yet even with that knowledge, it is still sometimes a challenge to not let myself be overcome by fear, which is part of my work in being more in the present rather than the past or future.

Many times in my life, rather than fail or succeed, I self-sabotaged.  I have applied this to many, many relationships over the years, as well as several job opportunities.  It’s not that I put in no effort at all, I just put in enough effort to maintain things, or advance them at a completely neutral pace.

Once I learned to identify this behavior, and the habits associated with it, I have done a much better job of staying the course, and not self-sabotaging.  This is still very much a work in progress, but I can point to several times where I have reached the intended end goal.

For example, I finally saw a relationship past just going on dates and sex and overnight stays to living together, engagement, and even a successful marriage.  I decided, rather than wait for an agent to realize how excellent a writer I am, to self-publish my work, and continue writing and having edited more of it.  I started with blogging once a week on a regular schedule, to twice and now thrice weekly.

Even with these achievements, I still do a great job of getting in my own way.  For example, I wrote near the beginning of these posts I would start to get up in the morning and go to the gym before work.  More often than not, I find or create excuses not to go, and so I am still dealing with weight issues and get frustrated by my inability to get into better shape.  I expressed my desire to work more on writing and editing at night after work, yet I am constantly allowing the internet and TV to distract me.

These are, as mentioned last week, in part the result of bad habits.  These poor habits, I am beginning to recognize, harken back to my talent for self-sabotage.  Recognizing this, I have my work cut out for me.

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What am I getting at?  I can see now that I need to give more of my attention to my excuses and bad habits, and put some real effort into restructuring them into good habits.  I did not realize before that they were a part of my fears, but now that I can see them for that, I can see that I can change them as a part of overcoming my fears overall.

Fear is a terrible tool.  It gets used against us so frequently by people outside of ourselves, it should be no surprise for me to see that I turn around and allow myself to use it against myself.  I may be my own worst enemy sometimes, but conversely I am able to be my best friend.  I can work with that.

Next week will serve as a reset for me.  I am taking a trip, and it is to a large degree a trip into the unknown.  I am travelling somewhere new to me, with a friend whom I’ve never taken such a long trek with.  I am going to be stepping outside of my comfort zone in ways I have not done in many years, but while for a time I was feeling fearful and uncertain of this choice, I have become excited for the adventure forthcoming.

After I return from my trip, I have an opportunity, rather than falling into my regular habits, to really strive to begin new ones.  I have a chance to face my tendency to self-sabotage head-on, and to truly work to cross all these bridges between where I am now and the life I most desire to have.

Will I use this opportunity to my advantage, or continue to allow my bad habits to dominate?  That is the question before me.  I alone can answer it.

Thanks for continuing to read my ramblings.  You may not know it, but I thoroughly appreciate having you out there, reading along.   As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me!

 

GOAL LOG – Week 10:

Diet:  I am still being mindful about what and how much I am eating.

Exercise: One day of fencing, one day going up and down a LOT of stairs.

Writing:  The three blogs got written.

Meditation:  None.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 things two days last week.

 

This is the twenty-fourth entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series.  My collectively published writing can be found here.

Pathwalking 271

Empathy is not a weakness.

Empathy is not simply about understanding how someone else feels.  It is about understanding that, like you, other people have feelings, too.

We all have desires, we all have wants, we all have needs.  Some are similar, such as food, shelter, clothing, companionship.  Yet even with the similarities, they still will vary from person to person.   The foods and quantities of food vary, the desired shelter differs, we like different clothing based on our individual tastes, and we don’t all want the same companions.

Empathy is not just about feelings.  But it is very important to acknowledge that everybody feels.  Even the most robotic people we know still have feelings.  They may lock them away, or let logic be more dominant, but they are still there, still present.

The thing about empathy is that we are frequently approaching it from a place of lack, rather than abundance.

What does that mean?  Let’s look at empathy in regards to refugees.  Many people see them as parasites, people who will come in and take and take, and so they push to keep them away.   They believe there is not enough, whether that’s space, food, shelter or jobs, and so they want to keep them out and keep them away.

But if you see empathy as a part of abundance, then we can see in ourselves how awful it would be to lose our homes, lose our way of life, maybe even our loved ones, and be forced to flee.  We see these people not as parasites, but as people much like us, who just want to come and have a new place to call home, a safe place to live and work and just be.  We see that our place, our nation for example, has more than enough space, food, shelter and jobs, and we want to help them and bring them here, as we would want them to do for us were the roles reversed.

That is really what empathy is about.  How do I want to be treated?  If you see a world of lack, then there is an insufficiency of any number of things, tangible or otherwise.  But if you see a world of abundance, then there is more than enough to go around, and endless possibility.

I rarely get political when Pathwalking, but in regards to this topic I feel it is unavoidable.  In addition to the divide-and-conquer attitude of those in power in the United States currently, there is a major lack of empathy.  Repealing the Affordable Care Act will take away the ability for many people to maintain their health, and the reason given for this action is lack of some sort or other.  Where is the empathy for those who are sick, broke, struggling to be well?  Everybody wants to find love and companionship, so how do legal actions that work against LGBTQ people allow for that?  Immigrants?  Refugees?  The poor?  Anybody struggling to make ends meet?  What happened to caring about people?

Even worse, it has become increasingly acceptable to be rude and impolite.  Does anyone like it when people are rude to them, or treat them inhospitably?  Since I am pretty certain the answer is no, then how come people are either tolerating or themselves becoming increasingly rude, disrespectful, and argumentative?

It is not a weakness to be empathetic to other people, because that is simply acknowledging that we do not want to be treated that way, either.  Empathy is sensing how we want to be made to feel, how we want to be addressed, and giving just what we want to get.

Walking your own path is no reason to lack in empathy for others.  My path is not your path, your path is not his path or her path, and our paths are not their paths.  If, however, we are approaching the paths we are on from a place of lack, then we are in danger of lacking empathy for the paths of others, because we could see that there is not enough for all of us.

But if we approach the paths we are on from a place of abundance, we will have empathy for the paths of others, because we can see that there is enough for us all.  What we seek upon our paths differs, and in an abundant universe there is more than enough for each and every one of us.

We all need to see that empathy is a strength.  By being able to put ourselves into other people’s shoes, we can see what makes each and every one of us great.  We can see endless possibilities, and we can work together to remove limitations, lack and hopelessness.

With a bit more empathy, we can work together to build a much better world, and we can overcome the fear, the hate, and the intense negativity of those who prefer us divided so they can conquer.  The golden rule is not wrong, it is the truth of empathy – Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Empathy is a strength.  Being empathetic towards our fellow human beings makes us better people, better citizens, and most of all better to ourselves.  Empathy empowers.

How do you want people to think of and treat you?

 

This is the two-hundred seventy-first entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me.  Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: The Future is Not Yet Written

The future is not yet written.

This is one of the most amazing, positive truths we can face.  Why?  Because it means that everything is still negotiable, and that even if we find ourselves on a less-than-desirable course, we can change it.

It is easy to get caught up in believing that the future is set in stone.  Lots of people work very hard to sell you on the notion that there are limited possibilities for the future, and that we have to accept the limitations associated with that.  Yet it’s totally not the truth, because the future is still ahead of us.

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“Always in motion is the future,” Yoda told us.  Because there are nearly endless possibilities for that which is coming up in our lives, this is totally the truth.

Because most of us are not so good at living in the now, we are constantly looking to the future.  We see where things are heading based on society, politics, world situations, and sometimes even vague and utterly untenable omens, signs and prophecies.  We keep looking ahead, thinking forward, and building expectations for the future based on frankly limited notions or ideas that are by no means set in stone.

Today we may find ourselves in situations we’d rather not be in, some within our control, some not.  We can only do so much to change the politics of the nation, and there is nothing we can do that will change how other people think, feel and act.  We can, however, choose for ourselves if we want to face a future of negativity or positivity, so why do we get so focused on futures we do not want?

Consciousness creates reality.  The Law of Attraction is clear: Think and get emotional about terrible things, horrible futures and that which you do not want and guess what you will get from that?  Prepare to be disappointed, because that is what you are expecting.  We all have the ability to choose what we focus on, and to work on seeing positive possibilities for ourselves in the now, and from there to develop a desirable future.

Today the world is full of division, fear-mongers, hatred, selfish leaders, greed and corruption dominating the conversation.  The future is not yet written, tomorrow we might be visited by aliens from across the galaxy who rid us of these awful things and cure all of our diseases and end poverty and take us to see worlds beyond our imagination.  It’s possible, because the future is not yet written.

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The future is not yet written.  This is an excellent thing!

Finding positivity is not hard, but it does require action.  Knowing that the future is not yet written, you can work in the here and now to create something amazing.  When we recognize that the future is not yet written, we can take control of our here and now to build the best future possible, and in doing that we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings in the collective consciousness.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred sixty-second entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

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Crossing the Bridges: Getting to the Other Side

I can see across the bridge.  So how come it feels like I will never get to the other side?

Look familiar?  I don’t know anyone who has not dealt with this sort of thing.  You know where you want to go, you’ve a pretty good idea how to get there, you are on your way…yet it seems like you will never manage to arrive.

The metaphor of Crossing the Bridges can feel very literal at times.  I am where I am now, I was there yesterday, and I see where I want and need to be tomorrow.  Equally as real is the frustration over the perception of the inability to arrive where you intend to.

Knowing all of this, what can I do to help myself reach the other side of the bridge?  The short answer is to start feeling how it will feel to arrive.

This is, of course, frequently easier said than done.  I find that as much as I know how this works, and I am clear on the mechanics of it, I nevertheless struggle to see the world I consider ahead of me in the now.

It is for this reason that I get stuck, and from there get frustrated about my life.  I have a plan, I have a vision and bridges to cross and goals, and yet I never manage to reach them.  Why?  Because I always see them ahead of me, forthcoming, eventual…and not in the here and now, already accomplished and won.

I keep returning to this point because I still do not fully grasp it.  I know from experience how this works, I know that this can be used to manifest much awesomeness, and yet I still find myself struggling to shift my mindset and to think about and feel what I want to achieve as though it is done.

A lot of this is focus related.  I am aware that I suffer from an acute case of what I call ADOS – Attention Deficit Ooooooooooooo, Shiny! Syndrome.  I see something, I give it some attention…and then almost without knowing it my focus scatters, and I am looking at something else.

Some of this is the result of poor habits.  I allow myself to get overwhelmed, rather than chunk down activities so that they get done in smaller blocks and spurts, and instead get distracted.  I watch TV, I goof off online, I just let my mind wander to…whatever.  Instead of using the time I have more effectively, I fritter much of it away on pointless endeavors.

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That’s not to say there is entirely no value in distractions.  Life is too ridiculous to be constantly taken seriously.  We need breaks, we need distractions, we need to allow ourselves to relax and get chill.  Of course, what’s more complex is when one distraction leads to another, and the distraction gets all my attention and focus.

Right now, Politics is a pretty massive distraction for me.  I am deeply distressed by a great deal of what is happening here in the USA, not to mention other issues around the world.  I strive to do my part to effect change, but it is far too easy to let the situation get control of my time, attention and energy.  This, in turn, does nothing positive to my mindset, making me angry, frustrated, and otherwise discontent that I can only do so much to alter things.

Major distraction.  This, along the way, keeps my focus and attention away from what I want to work on.  It’s hard to manifest the life I desire when I am frequently giving my attention to things I really DON’T want.

What this tells me is that I need to make some fundamental changes to my habits.  I have been attempting to do this for a while now, but not with enough intention and actions.

This brings up probably the worst habit I have.  Often, rather than really put in the work I know I need to do, I will half-ass it.  My ambition only goes so far, before it peters out, and I continue to give it effort, but not all that I should.  I got through most of my education this way, to be perfectly honest.  Just a small amount more energy and effort and I could have had a far more impressive GPA.  I do not fully apply myself, and while my work may be good, it could still be much better.

This is, in part, a matter of self-sabotage.  Due to my twin fears of both success and failure, I subconsciously step back when I should step-up, because I am afraid that if I give it my all and succeed or fail I will somehow suffer.  If I do merely a sufficient effort, there is less pressure to succeed or fail, which is another factor in what holds me back from manifesting my goals.

I have to give this my all.  I need to strive to put more energy into my goals, and not to let myself get distracted or self-sabotage.  I have habits in need of changing, and I know what they are and where to begin.  I will strive to better chunk-down my time, so that I give the work I want to do more focus, and I will take a closer look at my bad habits, and work on replacing them with better ones.

This will be another interesting challenge.  Thanks for reading along.  I will keep you abreast of my progress.  As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me!

 

GOAL LOG – Week 9:

Diet:  I am being more mindful about what and how much I am eating.

Exercise: Two days of fencing, one at the gym.

Writing:  The three blogs got written, but I got started on editing Harbinger over 2 days.

Meditation:  I meditated 1 days last week for about 8 minutes.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 things four days last week.

 

This is the twenty-third entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series.  My collectively published writing can be found here.

Pathwalking 270

We live in an abundant universe.

Society, however, strives to contradict this fact.  We endlessly are bombarded with messages of insufficiency, wanting and lack.  It seems like everywhere we turn we are told there is not enough money to go around, dwindling resources, too little security, and overall an insufficient amount of this or that to accommodate everyone.

Worse, even where lack doesn’t exist, there are plenty of people who use the fear of lack to maintain control.  If we don’t keep them out they’ll take all your jobs; they are taking all the resources from us; there is not enough for everyone, so because this group is different we will deny them benefits; and so forth.

Whether this is an actual deficiency of things or just the fear of lack, the effect is the same.  We believe that life is hard, that we have to frequently struggle for the jobs/money/lovers/power/status because there is not enough to go around.  Many of those in power use precisely this to remain in power, because fear is an amazing tool.

Lack and fear are closely tied together.  Fear of lack in particular gets used frequently to “justify” denial of rights, denial of funding and outright rudeness.  And because like attracts like, the more of this we see and experience and give thought and feelings to, the more we are creating, despite the fact that nobody actually WANTS to be lacking or afraid of lacking.

The truth of this matter is that we live in an abundant Universe.  All of the things we find lacking are artifice; more of that which is lacking can be found, or an equal or better alternative will become available.

I know that in the current political and social climate, at least in the USA, that seems like a lie.  But this is the truth of the nature of the universe, whether we believe it or not.

We live in a world of abundance.  There is plenty of food, water, and air to go around.  All lack is artificial, created by governments and nationalisms and borders and money and other divisions of our own creation.  Yes, we should protect it from pollutions and poisons, but that is another artifice of our own creation that disturbs the true abundance.  Without these divisions, working together, there would be plenty for everyone.

How do we combat the dominant lack mentality?  Like all things related to ourselves, this has to be an inside job.  It’s easy to look outside of ourselves to find solutions to problems, to make changes.  But while looking outside of ourselves can provide us with ideas and concepts to work from, we have to make any necessary changes from within.

A lot of us have gotten caught up in trying to do things to help change the world.  Writing about truthful things, making calls to leaders, writing letters, attending protests, rallies and townhalls and so forth.  But if we neglect our own need for abundance and positivity, we will soon deplete our own energy, and begin to feel that lack mentality overtake us.

I have been contending with this for a long, long time.  I strive to see the world as abundant, I work hard to envision, to think about and feel prosperity and abundance for myself, my friends and my family.  But then I get caught up in the rhetoric, my bills come due, and my bank account never seems to be sufficiently full, save for very short spans.

Knowing that to create abundance I have to think about abundance, as an exercise in Pathwalking in Practice, it is time to add another daily question.  Joining How am I? What am I thinking? What am I feeling and Am I thinking about things ahead of me, or in the now? I am adding Do I feel abundant?

This is a starting point.  But I need to do more, in order to reset my mind to abundance.  In especial if the answer is “No”, I need to take action to start thinking about abundance, so that I can begin feeling abundance and take inspired actions to manifest abundance.

Like my daily gratitude, I need to make positive statements of abundance, and not just think them out, but FEEL them out.  These statements should be written out, and will include I have more than enough wealth; I have more than enough love; I have more than enough time; I have more than enough space; and anything else I feel should be abundant in my life.

I will write out three to five of these, at least twice if not three times a day.  As I write them, I will pause, and strive to FEEL them.  This, like gratitude, can’t just be a rote thing.  I need to think about this, to feel it, and from there I will find the inspiration to take intentional actions.

Of course this is easier said than done, but walking my own path in this life is worth every effort.  I need to remind myself that I live in an abundant universe, and this action of Pathwalking in Practice can do no harm, and will further my work in manifesting the destiny I want for myself.

Can you see your life with lack, or abundance?

 

This is the two-hundred seventieth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me.  Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: New Day, New Way

New day, new way.

No matter how I am feeling about what lies ahead of me, I know that this is a new day, and no matter what I have coming to me, there is always a new way.

It is so very easy to get caught up in routine.  There is often comfort in our routine, which I think is part of why we as a species are so fond of maintaining status quo and continuing through certain patterns and habits day in and day out.

When something threatens our routine, or anything occurs internally or externally that interferes with it, we get to make a choice.  Let the unknown turn into doubt, uncertainty, and the fear of negativity, or instead face the unknown with confidence, certainty, and trust in positivity to create something new.  New day, new way.

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This may feel like it’s asking the impossible.  This may come across as hippy-dippy BS.  Yet that does not change the fact that we ARE capable of taking control of our emotions, and as such we get to choose how to approach what lies ahead.

I know it almost never feels like we have this much control.  Something happens, or more often than not we are anticipating something will happen, and we get bombarded by negative thoughts and feelings.  Just watch the news these days and you’ll experience this.

Yet immediately after those negative thoughts and feelings hit, we get a choice.  Hold onto them, explore them, imbed them even deeper into our psyche…or turn them around, find their opposites, and seek out positivity to combat those unpleasant things.

The key to this is to not just let those negatives swim around unchecked in your thoughts and emotions.  Grab ahold of them, feel them out – they are not invalid, but letting them fester will multiply them.  Let them go, using some sort of an attitude shifter or seek something that puts a smile on your face or some other form of release.  Then, once that is clear, take a proactive approach, and look at the new day as a new way.

That’s the crux of this idea.  We live in an incredibly reactive society.  We are always reacting to things, and seldom being proactive.  We prefer to wait for things to break to be repaired rather than to prevent the break from happening at all.  Knowing this, facing the new day and seeing the possibility of a new way and being proactive about matters can build a far better, more positive world for us all.

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This is a new day.  Will you see it as negative and full of the impossible, or as positive and an opportunity to find a new way?

Finding positivity is not hard, but it does require action.  Knowing that this is a new day, we can choose to see it for all its endless possibility, and create new way.  When we take a proactive approach to life over the usual reactive, we choose for ourselves, we act to take control, and in that way we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings in the collective consciousness.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred sixty-first entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

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Crossing the Bridges: Lessons Learned

Virtually everything in life can be a learning opportunity.

Frequently we do not realize it at the time…but once in a while you get a rare glimpse at the process, and get to be fully and completely aware as it occurs.

I have been coping with a situation for a bit more than a week now, which I am going to share with you.  I am deeply grateful for the job I have currently, but while I appreciate having it, it is not always the best fit for me.  So, as such, I look through various job boards from time to time to see if I can find something better.

During one search last week, I came across a surprising job.  MY job.  Like, actually, factually MY job.  This is not something you want to see, in especial when you are pretty certain that, overall, you’ve been doing a good job.

I immediately fretted about this.  I mean, c’mon, it’s hard NOT to jump to conclusions.  But then I reanalyzed it, and thought, ok, maybe this means they are going to promote me or shift my duties, or they are going to take this other hire or myself to the satellite office we’re supposedly opening shortly.

Still, I became paranoid at work.  Every whisper, every subtle and strange occurrence set me on edge.  I alternated much of the past few days between upset, scared, angry, uncertain, confused, and outright discombobulated.

Then it hit me.  This is just a test.  I applied the idea Jen Sincero shares in You Are a Badass of taking a “this is good because” view.  Upon shifting my attitude to that ideal, I started to feel far, far better.  More confident, in fact, than I have in quite some time.

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My immediate supervisor made noises about getting calls about that job listing, claiming to me that it was a mistake, and to redirect further calls to her.  Even heard her take one such call and explain it was a mistake, and no job was available.

Yet my wife pointed out that the job listing is STILL there.  Mistake…or is someone playing a truly weird game of telephone at my office?  Either is entirely possible…but the important thing is that I DO NOT CARE.

It does not matter to me if I walk in Monday and they take me aside and fire me…or if my job goes on, same as today, same as every day.  This is good because either I am supposed to move on and find something better or do something I WANT to do…or this is good because I continue to collect my paycheck and rebuild my confidence.

That’s the thing about all of this.  For a long time I lost a good deal of my confidence in myself, in my goals, in crossing those bridges and doing what I want with this life.  This job, though imperfect, is a good job.  I am grateful to have it, grateful for the pay and benefits, grateful that it has allowed me the opportunity to see that I can have a more abundant life.

I am finally coming to grips with what it is I really, truly want from my life.  I am finally beginning to truly visualize that life, to gain clarity about what I want it to be.  I am finally seeing that life not as something coming up or something down the line, but now.  This is the life I can have here and now – I just have to give it the right focused thought, the positive feeling, and take any intentional actions I can along the way.

The lesson I have learned from all of this is to not let past matters even enter into my present, and not to get so focused on possible but unknown outcomes for the future.  Here and now I have endless possibility and opportunity.  Here and I now I can accept that that which is out of my control I can find the good in, even when on the surface it looks bad.

I do not know what Monday will bring.  I am no longer concerned about it, though.  What will be, will be.  Either way, I am well and truly on my way, developing the life I most desire, creating now the world I want to live in.

Sure there are things out there I am discontent with.  There is some unbelievable stuff happening to the nation I call home.  All of these things cannot be ignored, and I will donate to worthy causes and participate in protests and boycotts and marches as appropriate for me.  But I have to continue to live the best life for myself that I can, because all I have is MY life.  Further, the happier I am in my life, the happier I can help those I care about be with theirs.

This is a new perspective, and I have never felt more prepared to tackle the challenges I might face.  I see what I want, and I can see it as mine…now I am getting ready to accept it all.

Thanks for taking this journey with me.  As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worldswith me!

 

GOAL LOG – Week 8:

Diet:  Continuing with being mindful about what and how much I am eating.

Exercise: Three days of fencing, one at the gym.

Writing:  The three blogs got written.

Meditation:  I meditated 2 days last week for about 5-6 minutes.

Gratitude: I only wrote out 5 things one day last week.

 

This is the twenty-second entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series.  My collectively published writing can be found here.

Pathwalking 269

Presumption can be majorly detrimental to your health.

What am I talking about?  I think it’s pretty safe to say that everyone, at one time or another, has stumbled across something that caused them to make a presumption about the future.   For example, you find an unwrapped present your loved one acquired, or a letter that’s not addressed with either good news or bad news, or you find a job listing from your own company that looks suspiciously like your job.

All of these will lead to presumptions.  Some are good – like excitement for receipt of the gift, anticipation of that good news, presuming you are going to be getting a promotion.  On the other side of the same coin, however, is the bad – like thinking that that gift is for someone else, anticipation of the bad news, or wondering if you are going to be fired from the job.

Meanwhile, you are thinking about the future, rather than focusing on the now.  Sure, if might be a good future you are looking at, but it’s still looking ahead.  If, however, you are looking to a negative future, in the here-and-now you may find yourself experiencing disquiet, anxiety, nervousness, short-temper and all kinds of less-than-productive emotions.

Lao Tzu is credited with saying, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present. “  I recognize that this is a massive over-simplification, but it is none-the-less significant, in especial the notion of being at peace, living in the present.

I frequently write about consciousness creating reality.  I also frequently explore that in order to make anything manifest, you have to not only give it a great deal of pure focus and thought, feeling and inspired action, but you need to see it as being in the present.  So long as you see it in the future, it will stay in the future, always out-of-reach, always ahead at an unknown time and place.

This is where presumption can be detrimental to your health.  If you are presuming something good is coming, if for some reason it does not go as you expected, you will find yourself having to deal with the let-down.  If you are presuming something bad is coming, your anxiety and uncertainty related to that may make it worse than it will be.  Further, by giving it focus and attention, odds are you will help to manifest it coming into being.

Yes, it’s important to acknowledge that you cannot effect the actions of others.  You cannot influence your loved one to give that gift to you if its intended for another, you can’t stop the letter from being sent, and you can’t control if your boss has decided to fire you.  All you can do is what is right by and for you, and strive to be at peace in the now.

Living in the here-and-now is not always easy.  I find myself constantly striving to keep ahold of my focus, and to keep my mindset on the present as much as possible.  This is why I began the awareness questions with Pathwalking in Practice.  Every time I ask myself How Am I? What am I thinking? and How am I feeling? I immediately pull myself into the present.  Instant awareness in question and answer form.  As I am striving to manifest what I want in the here-and-now, and to stop seeing it ahead of myself, I am also asking, Am I thinking about things ahead of me, or in the now?  I am working on writing out the answers to these questions two to four times a day, as I strive to shift my mindset for my own self-improvement.

Society is particularly fond of looking backwards and forwards, and when they do look at the now it’s often with an eye to a quick-fix for something or various troubles rather than positives.  Often we make our presumptions about the future based on the past, which can also be detrimental to our health.  If every time you submit a query letter to an agent and get nothing but form-letter rejections, what do you presume will happen with the next query you submit?  Again, not healthy.

How do we combat the effects of presumption?  I honestly don’t know, but I have some ideas I am working with to do precisely this.  Primarily, I am working on trying to accept that what will be will be, and that I can only work and live in the now.  So, rather than fret about what may lie ahead, I am working in the here-and-now to do my best, be my best, and to live each day with purpose and positivity.  Easier said than done, but it is a work in progress.

When it comes to anticipation of something bad, I am striving not to focus on the possibility, and instead try to find a positive.  To borrow from Jen Sincero, author of You Are A Badass, I am striving to look at a negative presumption with the idea of exploring “this is good because”.  If the thing I do not want comes to pass, rather than focus on all its possible negativity, I am looking to find the positive.  “I do not want that thing to happen, but if it does, it is good because it will change my path for the better.”  Again, yes this can be a struggle, but wouldn’t you rather see silver linings than the clouds?

My goal is to better live in the here-and-now, and not allow presumptions of possible futures based on limited information have me feeling bad.  Rather than make presumptions, in particular negative presumptions, and in the process make myself anxious, sick-to-my-stomach and unhappy, I want to be at peace in the here-and-now.

How do you handle the effects of presumption?

 

This is the two-hundred sixty-ninth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

Thank you for joining me.  Feel free to re-blog and share.

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.