Trust...

I have undoubtedly been an absent Blogger for the last few weeks.  It has been a very interesting month.  A month of experiences, challenges, tumultuous times, healing, learning more about trusting myself, others and ultimately taking back control for myself. It was a process, one I have been through a couple of times before, but this time I needed to process those experiences to have a meaningful, helpful and useful blog post for myself and those who read and follow.

Just when we least expect it, we all can find ourselves having moments in life where we are forced to deal with the unexpected,or even the expected, as in my case.  But making the decision to regain control, peace and even stand up for what is right and what you believe in can be all about how you view and value trust.  Not only trust in yourself, but trust in what is right, others and trust in believing that taking a leap of faith in order to move forward in a positive direction is the ultimate power of believing in one's own abilities and principles.
I have found myself in the position of having to confront and deal with "trust" many times over the past few years.  I have come to learn that believing in myself has been the key to what I view and my limitless power for myself.  I believe that having the ability to trust is far greater than having confidence in yourself, something I have already blogged about this year. 

While it is true that confidence and inner trust are one and the same in the emotional state. Confidence is your ability to cope and depend upon yourself to create a reality that is dependable. If you don't have confidence, you will create a reality that you cannot depend upon. Trust and acceptance - which go hand in hand, are the most powerful tools we have, the most potent energy available to us.

When you have trust, within you, it produces a positive energy that stills doubt, worry, fear and negative expectations. It has a profound effect on you and others.  When you trust yourself you are able to trust and forgive others.  I have learned that trust and acceptance of yourself  lead to oneness and success.  If you don't trust yourself, it will show up in others and believe me, it has proven true for me over the past couple of years. 
"Where there is a will, there is a way." We've all heard it and lived it at one time or another. It is a mindset that we need to succeed.  Trusting yourself is a necessary component to living and achieving success from inside out in all aspects of our life. We all have all the answers inside us, the more we trust ourselves and do not fear the unknown, the easier your life will flow and the more accepting we can be of taking that "leap of faith," in doing what we believe is the right thing to do. Another of my favorite quotes by Henry Thoreau is that "We are born to succeed, not to fail." I would venture to guess that trust has a unity component to it.  It unites the human and spirit, power and control, thought, emotion, action and energy. It affects the whole of our entire being, allowing miracles to happen. 
Sometimes our own motivation for trust in ourselves comes in the form of hard knocks; I said early one that we all face some tough experiences in our life. This causes some to fold up and give up but others to accept trouble as incentives and get motivated to do hard work, trust in themselves and their own power to succeed over the circumstances, no matter what those circumstances may be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson says that "Self-trust is the first secret of success." I agree that we must always have a point in mind that self trust is the first secret to our success. So trust yourself and your instincts in all things.  Whether those things are related to work, personal life, relationships or with family. Having self trust is a great deal of our every day life.  I believe in the need to continue to learn how to trust in me and in the power of my decisions. In order to do so, I have learned to embrace self confidence, practice creative anticipation, and our own power of positive expectation.

Personally, it's has been important for me lately to identify with this crisis of confidence or inner trust within myself. The reasons for having this crisis will be reserved for the right time and for another post. Regardless, instead of searching for the trust and acceptance from others I thought I needed, it did not take me long to realize that I already enjoyed possession within myself.  All that was left for me was to use it and enjoy the power of becoming one with it.

Trust: It is valuing your personal abilities and what they can give to you - not others. It is no doubt a double edged sword.  So, I offer to all of us that we trust ourselves enough to be, do and have the things we want in life, to create the reality we desire; and to trust ourselves not to do the things that create pain and suffering. Self sacrifice, self sabotage, self punishment. To say no, if it doesn't seem appropriate or right to you, regardless of who and what it is.
We don't have to try to do it all at once.  It is usually a process and depending upon the circumstances, will dictate time.  Regardless, we have to trust and accept, even a little at first and we will feel the difference that this makes in our lives. After all, it's ultimately the little things that bring us the big things!

Be Careful What You Wish For...The Postive Power of Negative Thought , Part II

Be careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours. - James Baldwin

Growing up, I was a dreamer.  Oh wait, I still am... Nevertheless, when I was a young dreamer, my mother use to tell me " be careful what you wish for."  She would explain to me that if you continue to wish for something to be real long and hard enough, that those thoughts may eventually become reality. At the time I wondered how is that possible?

While I never understood it, at a young age, I found that in some of the things I would wish for that I would not always think of them being very positive, or even focus on the negative aspect of them.  Of course now I realize that I needed to work through the power of my negative thoughts in order to get through some of the moments of my life or my dreams in a positive manner.  Regardless, there is no doubt about it, my mother was right; for many of the things I wished for did become my reality, whether they were good, bad or indifferent.  There were plenty of times, I would wish for or imagine many different things for myself.  Whether it be to close my eyes so Christmas Day would get here sooner (I remember many of these days), to get through a tough test at school, to become an adult overnight, so I could make and live by my own rules, or that the days and nights would pass quickly, so that that I would wake up and everything that was happening to me would have just been a bad dream.  No matter the wish, the thought, the hope, or the dream, it just seemed to be and that is how I made it through to the next day. 

Present day is no different.  Whether it be to find a way to make it through a tough day, away from a negative influence, situation, or to wish hard enough for the days to pass so that I would be able to be on my way to spend time with my daughter again,  the process just seemed to work in order to get me through each of those moments in a positive manner. 

For most of my life, I have felt that if we believe in ourselves long and hard enough, no matter the situation, that we can become what we want to be and be present where we want and need to be.  I am a firm believer that the power of the mind should never be underestimated, because there is significant relevance to mind over matter.  However, sometimes in order to get to the positive end result that we desire, we must face and deal with the negative along the way.  For some, giving an intentional ear to the positive power of negative thought can be enlightening, instructive and even motivating most of the time.

I will be the first to admit that some negative thinking patterns have the ability to dominate our thoughts and feelings and not end on a good note for us. These thoughts have the power to limit our ability to move forward in a positive and healthy manner to achieve success with the situation, or to successfully pave the way to our life goals.

The lessons I have learned over time and especially recently is that we have to watch and listen to our thoughts.  This will show us where we are emotionally and mentally at the moment compared to where we wish to be. We must first shine a light on our 'negative thought' before we can change it and use it in a positive manner and in our favor.  I will admit that I have made some missteps in my thought process over the years by spending too much time on the 'negative thought,' but I can honestly say, I learned a valuable lesson from that process, which will benefit me as I move into the next phase of my life.

Recently, I have had time to reflect on all that I have experienced and those things that continue to happen in my life, good, bad and indifferent.  I am very lucky to say that I feel as though I have been blessed over the years.  Regardless of the situation, I have learned valuable lessons from those things that blessed my life, as well as from all of the other things that happened along the way.  I am able to find an overwhelming sense of peace for myself in most, if not all of the what and why I have "wished" for, past, present and future.  For me it was being able to include both the negative and positive thought processes in each of those  things that I "wished for" that have enabled me to not only make it through the rain, but sometimes I was even able to dance.

The Positive Power of Negative Thinking

I certainly hope that this message finds everyone in the best of spirits.  If not, that it will provide you with the means for you to work out what is bothering you. It has been some time since my last blog, but work and home life needed my attention around the clock over the past few weeks.  It is good to be back here sharing with all of you.

Now, with this posting, some will think I am crazy, or crazier than usual.  However, while I refer to myself as the "eternal optimist," I believe with every fiber of my existence through my experiences that what I will share today in my blog is as equally powerful as being an optomist and extraordinarily helpful for living the "happy" lives we dream and hope for. 

So, we are all human and no matter how we slice and dice it, there will be times when we let negative thinking consume us.  When we do so, we usually find ourselves depressed and feeling like we have failed at something or we are meant for a life of unhappiness.  What I've learned in my life and that this is life and thoughts like these will be part of all of us on some level.  What I've learned in my lifetime, from one amazing woman, my mother, was to find a way learn from the negative. Don’t let unhappiness control you. You control must it. Make it work for you instead of against you. And you will see how powerful it can be.  It may sound crazy, but it does work.  There is no doubt about it, my mother was a woman before her time.

Let's face it, most of us experience being down in the dumps at times. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m an unrepentant optimist and positive person, but I can get down at times too. What I've learned from these expeiences is rather than run away from it or “wish it away”, I now choose to share them, talk about it more, and use those times to channel my creative energy to get myself out of what I refer to as a "funk," or to help me rid myself of the toxicity of what I have have confronted. Honestly, I think that is a healthy thing to do. I am a person who does not believe in artificial happiness becuase it is meaningless and very temporary.  In the past, I may have learned to be good at hiding my feelings and doing the human thing of embracing the "artificial happiness," but in the end, while it may have served to make things worse, I found a way to use it to either confront a siimilar situation in the future, or to learn how NOT to find myself in the situation again. 

There will be people in our lives, who when we share what is on our minds, or our negative thinking at the moment, that will say to us and share things with us in the moment that they believe are supposed to make us happy, or that they themselves feel that they are there to to give us a “happy” life. But when you think about it, some of them, as loving and as thoughtful as I know they can be, are basically telling us to “think positive and we will be happy." You know I am right.   But we can’t wish ourseves to be happy—no matter what some people may tell us. We can’t “affirm” our way out of our situation, or instantly change our way of thinking or even suddenly become happy again.  However, I do believe that if we can look at the situation and our thought process carefully, learn from the negative power it imposed on us at the time, and from that, apply an approach that works to postively resolve the problem the next time we may be confronted with a similar situation.  It may not help us at the exact moment in time, but I believe that it will be something that you embrace and use to your benefit the next time around.

Nevertheless, happiness, or rather contentment, that comes from using this type of creative energy has alway proved to be very promising for me. So, next time you feel down, or find yourself in what you beleive to be a "powerless" situation, think about how you can use that energy to apply a creative and positive way back to your own harmony.

I know that some will feel that preparing for negative and improbable events could seem like a waste of time, at first sight, but if we find a way cope with negative events should they ever happen, I strongly feel that we will have found a positve way to deal with our anxiety and think twice before allowing ourselves to go back there again.

I suppose the saying "we are what we think," has some relevance to it for all of us in various situations.  Regardless, I know that there is power in all of our thoughts, positive or negative.  It will be in the defensive application from what we learn from those thoughts that will provide us with a better path of existence.

I find it powerful for me to be speaking about this and I would like to continue with a series on this subject.  But today, I want to leave you with this quote from Michael Jordon.  I love it and try to live my life with this power.  “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.”
 
I want to acknowledge and thank Mark Hagen.  He is someone I have never had the pleasure to meet yet, but I do admire him for all that he does for our community and is for reaching out to me and suggesting that I blog about this topic.  Mark, it not only helped me today, but I am hopeful that it will reach others too.  Until we meet, continnue to enjoy life!

Words Have Power

We may have the right to free speech, but speech is not entirely free.

I have not always believed that what we think, or say, has any effect on our lives. I believed it was important to have integrity, confront the moment, and say what I meant at the time I was in the situation.  I felt it was important for many reasons, the biggest reason, was to act or share in that moment in time. But, life has taught me that we must think about what we are going to say, in all situations, before the words come out.

Growing up, my mom would always tell me to watch what you say! Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Written or spoken, words are what guide us through life. They have the power to lift us up, drag us down, wound us deeply or even heal our hearts. Words have the power to break confidences, build life long alliances and let's not forget, start wars. The bottom line is that words shared and not well thought out, have the extreme power to make or break us, both as individuals and as a society.

The words we speak can have a profound effect on the people they reach. Ask yourself if you are  encouraging or discouraging? Are you building up your spouse, your friend  When your words are not processed and put together properly they have the ultimate power of tearing down our own families . Our thoughts put into words have the power to cause the destruction of our self-esteem, health, happiness and prosperity.

I know there are times for all of us when we said something, and usually without thinking first, we say to the person or persons, "I was only joking."  The problem is, you cannot take back those words from that moment of time.  The impact of there perceived meaning has already stung and we cannot act innocent, or somehow not responsible for spewing forth from our mouths. The message today and a good reminder for all of us is that there are always consequences for what we say, whether or not we realize our impact.

As a father, I have done my best to be consciously aware of my words. because I knew that they would shape the life of my daughter growing up. If she heard me being critical and judgmental of someone, she would learn by example to criticize and judge and even hate. However, when I did or said something positive, she would be a very accepting and loving human being.  Sharing positive words or thoughts about people, or even and apology when I was wrong, I knew that she would be very caring, honest, and apologize when she was wrong and mean it with all sincerity. None of us are perfect and from time to time I have put my foot in my mouth because I went with the feeling of the moment and while the damage may have already been done, admitting to being wrong, always made me a better person, regardless.

I ask all of you to remember to think before you speak.  To remember that the words you are about to share have power and the meaning can be left to interpretation, cause pain and become a young persons learned behavior.  On the other hand, words can inspire us to greatness; they enable us to share our deepest feelings with one another. Words can change us as individuals. When used with care, they can change the world around us. Do you best to choose to use your words with wisdom and love, to encourage and uplift.

I share with this closing quote.  "If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought." - Peace Pilgrim

Changing the Way We Look at Things

Life over the past year, has placed me in a deep thought and process mode regarding how to put the final details to words in order to complete my book draft.  Some of those details and thoughts involve the opening chapter.  However, I believe that it has been harbouring "attack" thoughts in my mind for some of life's unexpected experiences and toxic people lately, which has brought me writer's block, kept me from exploring my creative and emotional side to drive my story home.

As indicated in my recent blog posts, it has been a wild ride for me since the turn of the new year.  Though I had no control over the surprise of the things that came out of no where, we seldom do,  I know that I am a blessed and, while not immediately, have always been grateful to God for all the things and blessings in my life, good bad and indifferent. While those experiences can either add joy, sorrow or pain to our lives, they have always been what have provided me with either miracles, or the tools to strive to make the next day of in my life even better than the one before.  Above all, they remind me daily that it pays to accept them as a humble man. 

Today, for whatever the reason, I am willing to remember that it may be my unforgiving thoughts that are at he root of my not feeling at ease with certain things and even some people that are part of my daily life and my world. Today, I am again able to see the value in maintaining a positive attitude, the way I view things, and the self power we can feel with forgiveness.  The power it has provided me today is a breakthrough in my writing.

It is very interesting, but with the end of a year and the turn of the new year, I have been provided with a "Wake-up Call" to understand and embrace all of the good, bad and the indifferent.  After all, I cannot control the actions of others, but I do not have to allow them to invade my world. I may have to deal with them, for now, but they are not able to control me or the beauty of my existence.

With this new found power and insight, while it may seem or even sound corny to some, I am able to shut down the toxicity that seems to have wiggled its way into my world, to take a new look at all of the values that I hold dear, and to have and maintain an open mind to all new thoughts, ideas and beliefs. I feel as though I found a new way to open my heart and mind to the fire of creative energy by letting go of my self-imposed limitations.

I want to end this entry today with another one of my favorite quotes by Wayne Dyer, "“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”  Amen to that...

Confidence

Once again, life, writers block and honestly, a lack of confidence and yes, motivation too, have kept me from updating my Blog for the past few weeks. I mean, I am human after all.

Admittedly, I have never been one to get on a soapbox to share my woes or disappointments. As I mentioned, I am human, have experienced what seems like my fair share of them lately too and I lost a bit of confidence. But, that is why they call it “LIFE.” Regardless, since I can remember, I have always been the shoulder and not the other way around and I will agree that it is not a very wise thing to do. It has never been in my nature to off load those things, only to process and find a way to get back on top. Of course, some of my very close friends and I have been able to share those from time to time, when they rattle my cage to see what is going on with me, or why I have not posted. It seems like they have a sixth sense and it does make me smile.

So, what brought me back you ask? Easily put it was finding my confidence again and being in a position to help a friend and colleague. It brought me back and of course i will be keeping it in place. I am certainly aware that self-belief is a positive tonic and key to our own self confidence, which has always helped me grow under the most difficult circumstances. I just needed a nudge, one I wasn’t looking for or even asked for, as most things are for me these days, it just came back.

This latest experience, or should I say experiences reminded me of something I read once and I cannot even remember who said it, but I know it was a passage in an inspirational book I recently read. Regardless, It went something like this:

“…fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, and there is no straight world. There's a world, you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence.” This is so powerful to me. As I come back charging today, I felt it was important to share with anyone who may need the “nudge” themselves.

Today, I am going to leave you with one of my all time favorite quotes, by a very intelligent and one of my all time favorites, David Henry Thoreau, “Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”

Celebrating a New Year

It's been since just before I left for our family Christmas in Ireland that I have posted to my blog.  Seems like only yesterday, but so much "stuff" has been filled in between the lines. Regardless, by popular demand, Mark is back to his Blog.

Our trip to Ireland was awesome.  I enjoyed everything about my time away with most of the family.  I sure did miss Chenin and Sean, and of course all of my other family from afar.

Our visit to Ireland was everything I imagined and more.  It wasn't so much the spectacular lights, the sampling of many Guinness beers over dynamic and wonderful family time and conversation, the countryside or even that I was sharing all of this with our very special family.  It was experiencing the history in Belfast that will stick in my mind. Growing up, I loved studying history.  For the very first time in my life, I was able to see where the "troubles" experienced  between the Catholics and Protestants all began.  As I was at the Peace Walls and the Memorial Wall enjoying a moment of silence for those lost, it seemed to validate my often struggle with organized religion.  I know I was not alone in the power experienced in that moment in time.  Regardless, for me, it was the single most poignant moment of my Ireland adventure.

While away, I focused on me. Probably for the first time in a very long time.  I took a great deal of time to reflect on life, where I was, where it might be headed, the amazing gifts and miracles that came my way in 2011, and what I desired for my life in 2012 and beyond.  I enjoyed some very healthy moments taking stock and investing time in myself. 

Celebrating the New Year, will be just that a celebration of life.  As I was driving feverishly around Ireland and Northern Ireland with the family, having the absolute pleasure to witness history, green hills, stunning and beautiful countryside, peaceful walks and a calm pace; simplicity became my friend. 

Nevertheless, celebrating 2012 will certainly include my family, both new and "known," and some of the same things I was so fortunate to discover and experience in 2011.  As I close out today's blog, I leave you with one of my favorite quotes by Hal Borland. Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.