Familiarity

When we are around something long enough, we begin to take it for granted. That’s not so good.

If the thing we become familiar with is a bad thing, we tend to think we are stuck with it or accept it.

If the thing we become familiar with is good, we lose our gratitude and appreciation for it.

That’s why it’s good for us to get out and experience new things, places and people. Then we can see how our own life is and decide to make changes, or come to appreciate what we have already.

Learning to be a good human

We weren’t born with an instruction manual. We are emotional creatures and we have dark and light in us. We must learn how to minimize and tame the dark and bring out and expand the light.

Jealousy, envy, hate and fear were necessary 5,000 years ago when resources were scarce and daily survival was priority number one. But we have changed our world to one where those emotions are not nearly as useful as they were to our distant ancestors.

We will mess up; it’s part of learning. But we should get back on track and be a better human right away.

Strive for the light.

You're controllable

We can’t always control our feeling and emotions.  But we can control our behavior.

We can take action, despite our feelings.  And we find that when we take action, our feelings and emotions change.

By exerting control over our actions, we can build a life we are proud of.

How lucky are you?

What are you grateful for?  Who has helped you?  What circumstances were fought for and put in place before you ever came here so you can live this way?  What about your body and health?  

Sitting down and filling up a journal page about what we are grateful for, or just calling out a few things you don’t normally each day, are a great way to keep those things, and attract more of what you want.

What are you grateful for?

Take care of where you live.

You can only live inside your body.

Take care of it.

You know what to do. Right?

Be You

Don’t try to be someone else. Be the best version of you – a better version of you than you were yesterday.

That’s refreshing. That’s attractive. That’s authentic.  And that’s doable! 

See things that aren't there

Create. Be an artist. Call the invisible into being.

First, see that which isn’t there yet. Then fall in love with it.

Then take action.

Move to a new life (part 2)

How do we create a new life? Or at least change the parts we don’t like while keeping the parts we do like?

Substitution. Stop doing something in favor of doing something else. Stop reading something in favor of reading something else with a different voice or content. Change a habit (you are your habits).

Stop eating something in favor of eating something else. Stop listening to something, and do something different with that time instead. Stop hanging around with certain people, in favor of hanging around others instead. Take the stuff off the wall so you can hang up something else instead.

You can make a lot of changes starting now, or just one or a few at a time – it’s up to you. You can change your entire life this way, starting right now from where you are.

Do you want to make any changes? What will you substitute starting now?

Move to a new life (part 1)

You know the story about someone who just picks up and moves to a new town, and lives a whole new life? One that may be fresh and exciting (at first anyway). Why is their new life so new and interesting?

It’s because they have completely changed what their cameras see and what their microphones hear. It’s all new and interesting. They live in a new place, get new friends, a new job, and see new things. And the new people don’t treat you like your old friends and co-workers where you came from. The new people don’t know you yet or have experience with how you behave, and the places and job don’t have those old psychological anchors (memories) like your old places did.

But wherever you go, there you are. You are the common denominator. Eventually your beliefs, expectations and patterns of thought will craft a life pretty close to the one you left behind. You can’t run away from yourself.

The great news is you can have a new life without rolling the dice and doing something as drastic as picking up and moving away…  

(to be continued)

The cameras and the microphones (part 2)

If we control what we put in front of our eyes and what sounds our ears hear, we can control the quality of our thoughts, beliefs and expectations. And that makes all the difference in our world. It will literally change the direction of our lives – and direction + time equals destiny (destination).

You know how.  

Change what you put in front of your cameras – what you read, watch, and your environment.

Change what your microphones hear – what you listen to, the audio that comes with video, the sounds a given environment produces.

What will you change?