Grace The Day. . .
One of the most talked-about topics today is the way for us to remain positive in life. We are aware it is our inherent nature, but we are seeking means to cultivate positive thoughts, feelings, attitude, and actions. Waking up each morning, we have the choice of feeling positive or negative, energetic or tired, happy or gloomy. When we meet someone, we have a choice of how to respond to them. When there is a situation in front of us, we again have a choice. Our positivity lies in these choices.
Positivity is not a feeling to force or trick ourselves into. It is a natural outcome once we take responsibility of realizing our identity as powerful souls when we put our soul qualities into action and reclaim control of life.
Unfortunately, positivity does not grow or spread as quickly as negativity. Negative triggers can arise at any time of the day either from within us or external influences. Internal triggers are the creation of we the souls, based on our personality traits. For example, some days we experience an unexplained fear. Or we feel a deep sense of ego making us believe we are superior. Some of us feel unsuccessful at times despite achieving our goals. At other times we worry about falling ill, old age, death and so on. These self-defeating emotions hamper positivity.
External negative triggers are situations from outside which activate our internal negative personality traits. For example, seeing a colleague being more successful can create thoughts of jealousy in us. Or seeing a sibling outperforming us in academics may make us insecure. Here the colleague or sibling may not have the slightest intention of harming us, but our thinking lets us down.
To begin the day, we can fill the mind with positive beliefs, read positive information like a passage of spiritual text or empowering messages, or recall positive experiences from the past. These serve as inputs for creating positive thoughts and hence actions. A positive mindset attracts positive circumstances (Law of Attraction). Even if we face a challenge, we will remain calm and our energy of positivity helps us face it rather than fear it.
On days when we wake up late, the morning hour turns chaotic not only around us but also within us. In this disturbed state few of us predict – even decide – that the entire day is going to be unpleasant. Similarly, if anything goes wrong during first few hours of a day, we believe the remaining hours will also pass on the same note. So instead of expecting anything good, we ‘wait’ for the worst. With this mental conditioning, we choose a destiny of negativity. Let us realize that scenes of life are not always tied to each other. A lot can happen in a single day so the next moment can actually be perfect and blissful. More importantly, our choice to have a positive mindset is not tied to any person or situation.
As we go through the day, let us remember that our attitude defines our world. We are surrounded by some negative virtue and also a lot of pure positive virtue, so we need to choose what to absorb. Meditation teaches us to have a positive self-talk after every hour or before we enter a situation. We can also repeat any positive affirmations or visualizations which create a positive recording on the soul and influence the brain, mind and the body. This creates a powerful energy field which radiates into our environment, thereby setting us up for more success and happiness. We start seeing the best in every person and situation. Even if there is a challenge, we will choose powerful and do positive karmas. This reduces our suffering and changes a difficult past karmic account into a smooth experience.
We have the power to end the day positively, just as how we begin it. We can ask ourselves if we can do anything else to do to make our day matter – give gratitude to God, to family, to life itself. It is important to read something empowering in the last 10 minutes before winding up. Meditation also helps to cleanse the mind. It forms the last layer of information in the mind so that our quality of sleep improves.
Peace and Love, Jim
#grace #thedailybuddha
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