Fri 6 Jun 2008
Battle of the Mind
Posted by Catherine under Life Management
It is often said that half the battle is within the mind. With liberty, I would up that percentage to at least eighty. I am well aware that circumstance plays a role in our success. Being in the right place at the right time never hurts. However, if we are of the right mindset the energy we create can make all the difference.
I was recently given some important information about the way I see life. In the past, I’ve viewed life through glasses tinted with fear. Fear is a dark cloud that makes it quite difficult to see clearly. It envelopes and disables. Very clearly, I was told that my inability to succeed was in direct relation to the way I think. My fear of failure has created an atmosphere of failure.
The Universe is listening. Speak it. Think it. Have some regard to what it is you are thinking and speaking, however. Does this mean you have to turn into Little Miss Sunshine? Certainly not. We all have bad days. We all have life happenings that drag us down a bit when they occur. The key is to make sure your mindset isn’t stuck on negative.
In my case, I’ve had to learn to feel the fear without letting it immobilize me. Have I completely conquered this? No. I still handle this on a daily and sometimes hourly basis, but the important thing is that I am taking control of those thoughts and making a conscious decision to turn them around into something more positive.
Stumble It!
June 6th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and for being so open. I’d like to share with you something that I found, recently. It is a book called called Harmonic Wealth and it’s all about finding harmony in your life in all areas - financial, relational, mental, physical, and spiritual. It has some really good tips about how to engage all five pillars (or areas) of your life, and to learn more about how they complement each other. Rather than dealing with each issue individually, maybe take a look at the bigger picture.
Here’s the link to that book I recommend: harmonicwealth.com/read
Have a Great Weekend!
- a James Ray Fan
June 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
So refreshing to read a realistic look at the mind’s role. Yes to both - our outlook really counts, and our circumstances really count.
As someone nearing my sixteenth year of a rare progressive illness brought on through no fault of mine (never smoked, extremely light social drinking, lifelong moderate jogger, never overweight, no history of psychological problems), I find a lot of today’s mind/body commentary simplistic and naive.
The idea often held by these inevitably healthy and, by world standards, wealthy holistic thinkers, is that any misfortune anyone suffers is a sign that they’re not personally integrated and “whole.” If you’re physically ill or unable to realize your life’s purpose, the idea is that it somehow has to be your faulty psychology or spirituality. Good things happen to good people, bad to bad - it’s basically a version of that ancient and demonstrably false theodicy.
Unrealistic and unhealthy. When I run into this attitude, I often think of how terribly difficult coping with serious adversity must be for those folks with that point of view who happen to run into it.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Paul,
I understand completely what you are saying. When I read what you said about the “wealthy holistic thinkers” pretty much looking down their nose at anyone suffering from an illness (or some kind of financial set back) as if it’s the individual’s own fault, it reminded me of another kind of spiritual snobbery that I once ran into that’s equally based in the same kind of unhealthy unrealistic thinking.
I am referring to the spiritual zealots that go around spouting the scripture “If you raise a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it.” That one scripture crucified many parents in a congregation of believers that I once attended years ago. You can teach a child right from wrong. You can give a child every possible example of the right way to go, but…that child is still a living,breathing, thinking individual, who will make his/her own mistakes on this path called life. It may have little or nothing at all to do with the parenting skills of those who raised him/her.
I said all that to say that spiritual snobbery is nothing new. It’s been going on for centuries. Just a different version of the same stuff. Though, I do cringe when I see it in action.
I still believe it’s best to remain as positive as possible in any given situation, while understanding that it rains on the just and the unjust.
I send you hugs, my friend.
Rita aka “HomeSpun Granny”
June 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
“I still believe it’s best to remain as positive as possible in any given situation, while understanding that it rains on the just and the unjust.”
Exactly.
Also: I worked with children for 23 years, most of that time as an elementary school counselor, and the idea that if a child has troubles it must be because of parental behavior is simply false. While it’s true that kids with severe behavior problems often did come from troubled homes, turning this into a “rule” is a huge mistake. From time to time we’d run into a child where we all had a great impression of the parents but who was still having big problems.