Tag: kindness

books, Non-Fiction, Power of Attraction, self-improvement, Uncategorized

Thoughts can change your situation

Aunt Barbara's Powerful Little Book of Comfort

Yesterday, I wrote about Attitude changes.  Today, I am sharing a chapter in a book I published in 2011.  I hope it will support you in a positive direction that enables a happier level of life. If you are serious about the complaints you make about your situations, there is a way to improve every situation.

Excerpt from Aunt Barbara’s Powerful Little Book of Comfort, ByBarbara Dean Aliaga SMASHWORDS EDITION * ****PUBLISHED BY:Barbara Dean Aliaga on Smashwords, Aunt Barbara’s Powerful Little Book of Comfort Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Dean Aliaga ISBN: 978-1-4660-0545-7
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Chapter 3:  Thoughts can change your situation

There is no denying that your loss has changed everything.

It is to be hoped that you took a little break and are ready to begin this recovery process again. You will probably agree that what you are going through is a crash course in spirituality, general semantics, universality, science, philosophy, psychology, and who knows what else. You didn’t ask for this change.

You may be resisting this sudden devastation. You don’t remember anyone asking if you wanted to change. And, that feeling hurts! Whether your God is a picture of a loving father, a mighty deity, a universe, a flower, tree or river, the stars above or an unknown energy, I hope love is the center of your understanding.

Depending on your understanding of how things should be, you could experience an equivalent surprise. You may feel confusion. You may even feel that your belief system has let you down. And that hurts worst of all. You may feel that whatever your understanding is, it has allowed this loss to occur. How could this happen, you repeat to yourself throughout the day. I didn’t think this could ever happen to me. You are lost in your surprise and you are drowning in your sorrow.

Probably you feel like crying right now. When you read the words above, your whole reality changes to sadness. Thoughts created these emotions. You can control your thoughts that lead to unhappy feelings.

Consider this. Your attitude, your thoughts, can create 100 percent of your happiness or unhappiness. Thoughts have power. A very clever person came up with this interesting piece of information: when you count the letters in “attitude” as they fall in the alphabet they add up to 100%.

A=1 T=20 T=20 I=9 T=20 U=21 D=4 E= 5 Word = 100 percent

This is a brilliant way to remember that your attitude will produce one hundred percent of your reality. If the majority of your day is spent with an attitude of sorrow, there is nothing to be expected but a sorrowful day. It does not mean that you have to sustain positive attitudes 100% of the day. However, the more positive attitudes or thoughts you can entertain during the day, the happier your situation seems to become. You draw more, and more happy thoughts to your mind and your reality manifests more, and more happy situations for you and those around you.

When a loved one dies or leaves you in marriage, your attitude can be nothing less than sorrowful. You and your loved one may have been so very close, and now you are overflowing with thoughts of separation and loss.

When you suddenly end up in the hospital with a devastating disease, your attitude can be nothing less than dreadful. You are filled with thoughts of loss.

When you lose your job or your home, your attitude can be nothing short of fear. You are filled with thoughts of loss.

In all of these scenarios, your initial attitude will be unhappy. The rush of unhappy thoughts cause a blanket of unhappy situations.

Drugs that can suppress these sad thoughts are available and may be useful to you. There can be another way to let the negative thoughts drift off into oblivion by replacing them with warm, happy thoughts. I am here to help you get through.

The key is to begin soon to redirect all of this unhappiness toward attitudes of well-being. Because if you allow yourself to continue down the road of misery, you begin to construct a more permanent tape recording that will be played over and over and over. Each time it is played you will feel bad and you will hopelessly create a sad reality and wonder why.

There are moments after a loss that you wish you could have done or said something differently and you become entangled in those self-defeating thoughts. It will do no good to continue to try to relive these moments. You can only learn from any feeling that you have and remember how you want to act when future opportunities present themselves. You can replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts in a split second.

This is an opportunity, a way to change things before they become your way of life. You cannot ask people to rescue you from the pain and continually host thoughts of sorrow.

Little by little, you need to build roads, make inner tape recordings that make you feel happier. This is a gradual process and you are beginning and succeeding as you read and as you create your positive thoughts.

You may have always thought that you had little to do with your reality. You may have heard from earliest years, “What will be, will be”. I have experienced that it is a good thing to accept

what is, what has taken place. I have also experienced that I can cause a brighter future by living with positive thoughts in the present moment. I have experienced the fact that I can change things with my attitude. I am convinced that your thoughts can cause a happier reality.

What are positive thoughts? They are easy to identify. Positive thoughts cause good feelings, like wellness, peacefulness, ease, cooperation and laughter, to name a few. Negative thoughts cause bad feelings, like disease, irritation, arguments, anger, and bullying. It is simple. It is straightforward. I often wonder why so often the differentiation eludes most of us. I often observe the internal struggle to govern our thoughts.

Thoughts seem to magically appear and we are unconscious of their origin. This unconsciousness is counterproductive to our desire for happiness. We can choose our thoughts. More clearly, we can choose to replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Now I’ve challenged you! Now you can leave your miserable feelings and come to a state of happiness for the rest of your life! It is your choice to become conscious of what is going on in your mind.

Sometimes the easiest way to leave negative thoughts is to do something physical. If you’re feeling overwhelmed now, it might help to go to the closest sink and wash your hands. Take your time, use soap and suds up. Feel the water flow through your fingers. Smell the fragrance. Wash your hands until you begin to feel better. Listen to your breathing. See if you can smile at your amazing hands. See if you can find yourself. Now.

If you are in a state of confusion because of a sudden loss, you have a unique opportunity to open your limited view of heaven and earth. You have an excellent opportunity to grow in wisdom and grace.

I can hear you saying, I don’t want this opportunity. I want the things the way they were. I want things back to the way they were. That is indeed an attitude, but one that does not render happiness. It is a negative attitude that you are a victim and with that attitude you will produce a life for yourself that reflects a victim’s lifestyle. Is that really what you want? Didn’t you begin this book so that you would no longer be a victim? Didn’t you want to be happy? Didn’t you ask whether you would ever be happy again? How can you move pass this loss, you ask?

You move pass it by consistently creating an attitude that is positive. Remember positive attitudes produce happy outcomes. Negative attitudes produce unhappy outcomes. It is simple. …and that is the big surprise. It is simple.

Choose Attitudes That Create Better Situations: Consider the difference in Positive Thinking versus Negative Thinking.

I am thankful for what I have versus I am afraid I won’t have enough.

I know things will turn out all right versus I’m afraid I’m in for a rough time.

I love all people versus People always let me down.

I am the luckiest one in the world versus never win anything.

I wonder what I can do for someone today? Versus I wonder if someone will help me today.

I’m going to find something to eat today that makes me happy versus There’s never anything good to eat in this house.

I will have what I need versus I never get what I want.

I’m going to call a friend today versus Why don’t my friends call me.

I’m grateful for my general health versus I hope I don’t catch the flu that;s going around.

Self-Imrovement, Uncategorized

Choosing Cooperation Over Conflict

Cooperation over conflictThe response within any given situation, affects the direction a situation will take.

Every day we are challenged by the ebb and flow of events on so many levels.  We may or may not be aware of the numerous situations that are occurring within the doors of our existence.

The car in front of you stalls at a traffic light,  a room mate leaves dirty dishes on the table, one friend is grumpy and a bit obnoxious, one neighbor has recently loss a loved one and you don’t know exactly how to support her, one sister is celebrating a birthday and you don’t know what to give her, one co-worker just found out he has cancer, one child is whining over the breakfast that was given them, and this is just the story of people you know.   All of us come to the day with situational stories each and every day.

When you are not aware of the situations that are forming all round you and your friends and family, things can get pretty overwhelming.  The more you focus on the irritating situation, the worse it gets.  Has it ever occurred to you that you participate in the development of situations?  Are you willing to pause and be present to what is happening in the moment before things get too irritating?    There are ways to build better outcomes, more pleasing situations from what is currently happening.

Be present. Avoid conflict. Rethink what you may have heard.

Once you recognize a challenging situation, you can also realize that it has already occurred, a done deal. It may have taken you by surprise and surprise usually comes with a bit of apprehension. But no matter. The event has taken place and now is in the past, so simply reacting to it probably will create a defensive situation.  And, what are you defending?  Something that happened in the past, not now.  You are fighting the past and not present to what is going on now.  That is, if you aren’t giving it continued focus and attention.  You can prolong situations by magnifying its impact — either positively or negatively.

What happens when a child is upset?  You usually experience an irritated feeling rising within you. You may look for support from those around you.  You may feel like shutting out your child, cutting them out of your world.  You may begin to daydream about times when you were free of all these responsibilities.  You may begin down a slippery slope of wishing you could be anyone else but who you are now.  You unknowingly separate yourself from your world, your family,  and your child.  You have unknowingly created a new conflicted situation where you are on different sides.  At this point, you may not even be able to love your child.  You probably cannot come up with any solution for the whining and begin to yell at the child to stop their whining!  And you feel even worse. Situations have a way of spiraling away from a solution and it can become exhausting for you, your family and your child.

The same situations can occur in the workplace.  A co-worker is late for work and creates stress while welcoming customers and answering phones in your little shop.  You unknowingly separate yourself from your co-worker. All sorts of thoughts begin to arise.  You have no idea where they came from.  You place your co-worker outside of your world to protect yourself and unknowingly create a situation of greater unhappiness..   Your situation spirals away from meeting the early morning challenge with humor to a day of bad feelings between you and your co-worker who was fifteen minutes late.  You may consider yourself powerless over the morning situation that was clearly the fault of the co-worker.  You may feel even righteous that you were on time.  But these defensive feelings will never bring about happiness, peace and cooperation.

These negative feelings can only be helpful to you when you are present (conscious of them). They can alert us: we are no longer dealing with the present challenge. They can alert us that we have power to move a situation into a more positive light.

I’m sure you will agree, it is difficult when you are surprised by an unforeseen situation.  We are challenged when asked to accept a situation that we did not choose.  While control makes us feel secure, losing control makes us feel fearful, frustrated, and even angry.  The more these emotions rise, the worse our situations seem to become.

As stated before, a situation will develop in accord with your initial and continual response or reaction to it.

When we cling to unconscious control, we get attached to how things should play out and we get stuck in the problem. When we are present we are able to rethink the situation and move toward a better situation. By supporting our family, friends or co-workers in positive ways, we create future situations of cooperation. We build a better, more satisfying world for ourselves.

Cooperation: working together without conflict.