My own lessons often provide the best fodder for sharing. In the past few days, I’ve said or been told repeatedly about the power of words. So… guess it’s share time?
The words we say out loud are one category… “I’m fine,” “Oh that’s okay, I don’t mind,” or the ever popular, “It doesn’t matter to me.” Sometimes what we say aloud is exactly what we’re thinking. Those are the truthful times. Congratulations on those.
However, I’ll bet you’re like me in that sometimes when you choose to say, “I’m fine,” when inside you’re yelling, “I’m not fine, I can’t take this, I can’t do this, I can’t tell you the truth, I’m so unhappy and I don’t know how to fix it.”
These are changing times and change requires energy. We don’t necessarily have to fight change but it takes energy to adapt to it. Our world is changing at a rapid pace. The energy of life is rising. With the rise in energy, there is more power pushing us all to rise to the challenge of meeting this changed world.
When I talk about changed world, let me just say that if we continued down the path we, as humanity on Earth, seemed committed to, we would destroy the world. So, many believe that Earth as a spiritual energy (meaning the spirit of the planet, all humans, the animals, the plants, the air, water and all that) made a decision that all must change or die off. In the old world, we kept control of others and ourselves thru fear. We valued money and had a great thirst for the perceived power it gives. But to survive, what we value must change. This new world honors love, joy, truth and compassion.
Many alive today are yearning for this shift. We crave the peace that love, joy, truth and compassion provide. And yes, some do not believe that people can or will change. But change is here. Whatever you believe is the source of all life- spiritual or physical, God/source/universe or Mother Earth… this source of all life will not allow adolescent humans to destroy everything.
I maintain that our mission is to help support this new change. As we shift our lives, our habits, our thinking and our world to embrace a more loving and compassionate approach to life, then we are empowering the new world. As we learn to live in a more loving energy, we affect those around us. Our friends, our children and eventually our children’s children will see this loving world as norm and the dark phase of fear mongering will be some weird chapter in a history book that will be difficult to even understand to our future generations.
Our.mission is to find our way to be more loving, more compassionate. I believe the place to begin is with your own little corner of the world- with your spoken words and actions but especially those words banging around in your skull. How do you talk to yourself?
Earlier I mentioned our verbal “I’m fine” when inside many of us aren’t feeling at all fine. How about the statement “I can!” If your external dialogue is about your goals and dreams but your inner dialogue is not supporting it, your challenges are great.
The words you allow to play in your head are what you are giving your energy to. Your body hears what your mind chatters on about and believes that is truth and makes it so. For example, I participate in a support group where we learn about habits and those we want to change. I signed on to go for a challenge to explore my relationship with alcohol. I said out loud, well… on the social media page the group shares, that “I can do this!” But what if my inner dialogue is saying, “ I can’t do this,” or “this is too hard” and the ever popular “ I am not strong enough”. Then those negative messages are what I’m putting my power into and my actions will be powered by the negative. The words in our thoughts are our truth and we can change them.
Your nervous system responds physically to your thoughts. It’s true. Science has shown thru decades of research that the dog will salivate when the bell rings even if no food is present.* When you imagine a stressful situation, “What if I fail?” or “What if the worst happens?” then your body responds physically as if the worst has happened. Your pulse, blood pressure, visual acuity, ability to think in the big picture and a flood of body hormones all shift into full Fight, Flight or Freeze mode as if the worst had actually happened. But all you did was imagine the worst. You body believes everything you think so learning to direct your thoughts (otherwise called meditation) is an important skill in navigating change.
I know this isn’t news but it bears spelling out because the opposite is also true. If I imagine “I can do this thing!” and “I will succeed at making this change,” then your body responds in kind. You actually empower yourself by directing your thinking. So… you can choose to put your energy into the positive and empower good results.
As we begin exploring using positive thoughts to support change, it can feel like we’re just pretending. Like these positive thoughts are just made up fluff. Remember that when you allow negative thinking to run rampant in your head, you’re making all that crap up too. Make up happy scenarios and in time you’ll begin feeling more comfortable with taking the higher, more positive path. Rather than just thinking a positive thought, allow yourself to really feel that new positive energy. “How might success feel” or “How I feel with I accomplish positive change.”
Changing habits is a process. You can’t wake up one morning and magically begin always seeking the positive perspective on humanity and our world. I still slip back into “oh shit” thinking. Every time we redirect our thinking from negativity to positive focus, we are building new neural pathways in our brain. These neural pathways allow us to develop new habits in our thoughts and actions.
So, next time you feel fear about our world or if you feel powerless to take action, remember the power of choosing the positive. Your thinking is measurable energy. It affects you and it also affects those around you. If you can picture humanity as an energy field, your efforts to bump the needle towards the positive helps. You are not alone in this effort. There are millions and more humans, plants, animals, ancestors and spirits that are channeling energy into this new world.
My mantra lately has been Love, Joy, Truth, Compassion. When your negative thoughts try to hijack your brain, pause and take a deep breath. Then on the exhale think about what love means or how it makes you feel. Savor the experience of love for a few breaths. Then shift your focus to joy- reliving a time of great personal joy. When you feel the joy then breath on to truth- your truth, your personal truth and purpose. Then breathe for compassion- the sweetness of giving and receiving it.
What you do and what you think matters. Your thoughts and your actions in daily life create a wave of energy. Choose to create energy that helps our world make the shift. Become a force for positive by building more love and compassion into your thoughts, your actions and your world. Or not… but the world will emerge fresh and light. Be a contributor to the world of love and compassion. It’s good for you.
have fun!!
💜
*If Pavlov’s dog isn’t familiar to you… Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning during his dog experiments in the late 1890s and early 1900s. He fed dogs but always rang a bell before food was presented. In time, the dogs would salivate at the sound of the bell in anticipation of food. “