Thinking Positive
Leave Your Troubles At The Door
At the end of a long, stressful day of duties and responsibilities and hard work it can be really hard to disconnect from the office and the stress so that we don’t take it into our homes with us at night. The last thing our families want to deal with is our stress from the day – they are excited to spend time with us having fun and enjoying one another.
So how do we suddenly switch modes and leave it all behind when work is over? Our families deserve a happy “us” and that means we have to train ourselves to leave a hard day behind us and allow ourselves to focus on our families when we get home. I recently heard a story called “The Trouble Tree” that shared a great example of how we can make that happen:
The Trouble Tree Story
The carpenter who was hired to help a man restore an old farmhouse had just finished his first day on the job and everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. First of all, on his way to work he had a flat tire that cost him an hour’s worth of pay, then his electric saw broke, and after work his old pickup truck refused to start. His new boss volunteered to give him a lift home and the whole way to his house the carpenter sat in stone silence as he stared out his window. Yet on arriving, he invited his boss in for a few minutes to meet his family.
As they walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands. When he opened the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was one big smile as he hugged his two small children and kissed his wife. Afterwards, the man walked his boss to his car to say thank you.
Now on their way out of the house, the boss’ curiosity got the best of him so he had to ask the man about the tree on the front porch. He said, “I noticed when you came up on the porch before going into your house you stopped and touched the tree, why?”
“Oh, that’s my trouble tree,” he replied. “I know I can’t stop from having troubles out on the job, but one thing’s for sure – my troubles don’t belong in the house with my wife and children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again.”
“Funny thing is,” he smiled, “when I come out in the morning to pick ‘em up, they aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.”
Trouble Tree Ideas
What a great idea! We should all come up with our own symbolic “Trouble Tree” to drop our problems off at night before we enter our homes. I especially like the option to pick them all up again when you leave home the next day. So I did some thinking, and I came up with several ideas that I think might work for me, and a few more that might be useful to someone else.
A Basket or a Bag:
Hang a basket next to the door, and then just drop your troubles in. This is a super cool idea to combine lights and a wire basket for a nifty entry light that could double as a place to leave your troubles at the door!
Doorknob baskets are also a fun idea, you wouldn’t have to hang it on the actual doorknob, you could hang it next to the door. Or maybe take a trip to the thrift store to find a basket or bag that would look super cool at your front door. Maybe even find a cool antique decorative doorknob that you could attach to the wall at your front door.
Here are a few more ideas:
It might be fun to put shells, or stones in the bottom of a wire basket, make it decorative as well as useful. So many different ways to do this one! How fun!
A dream catcher
Maybe a dream catcher could double as a bad energy filter!
Hang a dream catcher on or next to your door. Let it catch your troubles as you pass. The one in the picture was made from a bicycle wheel, a doily and some ribbon. Dream catchers made from doilies are amazingly easy to put together!
Here’s a short visual tutorial:
Basically, you use the inside hoop of an embroidery hoop for the frame, and then you tie the doily on in four places to keep it stabilized. Then, using embroidery thread, you attach the doily to the frame. When that’s complete, add the ribbon and voila! Read the complete tutorial at: Bumble Bee Linens
This is the finished product:
A Bottle of Water
Here’s an idea. Keep a bottle of water next to the front door and wash your hands before you go in. As you wash your hands, imagine that you are rinsing away the bad juju of the day…. super easy!
These are etched, but I don’t see why we couldn’t use our new found DIY skills and use sharpies to decorate them. Nail polish will also work really well.
Story from: Amy Rees Anderson’s Blog
Thinking vs Focusing
While it does seem to be true that what you focus on grows, I have noticed that what you think about doesn’t necessarily happen. What’s the difference between focusing on something and thinking about something? If it’s on my mind, it might or might not come to be. If it’s not on my mind, it might or might not come to be.
For example:
It never occurred to me that my lawnmower would break down and even if it had occurred to me as a remote possibility, I never once thought that nobody would be able to figure out what was wrong with it and just fix it. And yet, here it is. My new reality, something I never once focused on.
I have a constant recurring fantasy that I win big in the lottery, and proceed to buy a huge family compound at the end of a dead end road, way out in the country, further south where winters are warmer, off the grid, self sufficient, with a nice big lake, separate houses for each of us, we are all debt free, and get to do whatever makes us happy. I think about this a lot. It hasn’t happened yet.
Suddenly I have an infestation of ants. Really? Ants? I keep killing them and killing them and killing them. Did I focus on ants and now the population has grown by leaps and bounds? No. Do I sit around and obsess about ants taking over my home? No. I just go buy more poison. Do I visualize them gone? Yes. It always surprises me when they show up again someplace else.
What’s up with that?
Despite the above situations, I do find that what I focus on grows. And I think this must be because when I focus on something, I focus more than just my thoughts. It occupies not just my mind, but also my time, my energy, and also any resources I have at my disposal.
I could think about my website all day long, but if I didn’t sit down at the computer and do some actual work on it, if I didn’t research and write posts, if I didn’t pay for web hosting, and spend hour upon hour trying to improve it, I don’t think it would be growing at all. It would just be a pipe dream.
It also occurs to me that if I put my money with my mouth is, did some research, put in a fair amount of elbow grease, consulted some professionals, and did a bunch of leg work, my ant problem would be resolved. And here’s the thing – I just don’t care about it that much.
And yes, winning the lottery would be really awesome and fun, but I have yet to buy even one lottery ticket. Not even one!
So, maybe what you focus on grows if you put your money where your mouth is, and put the pedal to the metal. Energy flows to where attention goes, but only if you’re willing and able to harness that energy and put it to work.
Positive thinking, creative visualization… these things are great. And they do seem to work really well some times. And I’m thinking that those times when they are effective tools are also the times when we actually use them to get ourselves moving and doing.
A True Story:
All day yesterday, I thought about this next post on the project. I thought and I thought, but when I got home, and it was time to sit down and actually do it… well… I didn’t. And again today, all day at work, I was thinking about it… focusing on it… it didn’t suddenly appear just because I had it in my mind. I had to actually sit down at the computer and do the work.
So, these are my thoughts and experiences. What do you think? Have any thoughts, insights, experiences, or ideas to share?
Finding Beauty in Every Freakin’ Moment
I found this article in Zen Habits, and thought it might be worth sharing. Particularly since I’ve had a pretty tough week, and was finding it really hard to focus on anything other than the shit hitting the fan. So, here it is, in its entirety. Enjoy!
Finding Beauty in Every Freakin’ Moment, No Matter What
~By Leo Babauta
How often are we anxious, frustrated, looking forward to something coming up, unhappy with ourselves, unhappy with others?
How often are we not happy with what’s going on in this present moment?
What if we could, instead, be completely in love with this moment?
What if, no matter what happened, we could find the beauty, joy, and gratitude in the moment as it happens?
Let’s make it so.
Rejecting the Experience
There are lots of very good reasons to reject our current experience:
- We have too much to do, and it is overwhelming.
- We have been hurt by someone else.
- We have deep doubts about ourselves, and wish we could be different.
- The situation is filled with uncertainty and fear.
- Someone is being inconsiderate and rude.
- There is injustice in the world.
- We are faced with discrimination, racism, sexism, prejudice, ignorance.
- We are poor, deeply in debt, struggling.
- We are lonely, alone, with no prospects of finding a partner.
- We are in pain.
- We have chronic pain or a terminal illness.
- Those are hard things. In fact, if we contemplate some of these horrible situations, it doesn’t take much to see that the smaller problems of our daily lives don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
Given these kinds of difficulties (and more), how can I talk about finding beauty in the present moment?
The problem isn’t the situation. We’ll always face difficult situations in life, some dire and drastic, others small and irritating, but we can’t rid our lives of difficulty, pain and struggle.
The problem is that we reject whatever we face. It’s not good enough, it’s not wanted, it’s not welcome. I don’t want it that way … I want it that way.
That’s the problem: we reject the parts of our experience we don’t like, and wish for ideals instead.
Again … we can’t rid our lives of pain and difficulty. The problem isn’t the external situation, which will always be less than ideal. If we wish for an ideal life, free of our problems, we’ll be wishing until we die.
Given that we’ll never have the ideal situation … can we make the most of what we’ve been given?
Can we stop rejecting the gift of the life we’ve been given, and find beauty in it instead?
Let’s see how.
Finding Beauty in Pain
What good is there in someone angry with us, and us angry with them? How can we find joy in something as sucky as that?
Try this:
- Pause, and notice how your body is feeling.
- Stay with the feeling in your body with curiosity.
- Welcome the feeling. Invite it to tea.
- See that you are both suffering through pain, difficulty, fear, and tenderness in this moment. See that you’re connected through your pain and tenderness.
Make a wish for relief of difficulty:
“May I find peace. May they also find peace.” In this way, you are finding compassion for yourself, which is beautiful … and compassion for the other human being, which is also beautiful. It shifts you from worried about your self-concern, to wanting to ease the pain of the both of you.
Find gratitude for what you do have:
You are alive, you are connected with other human beings, you can love and appreciate flowers, music, the clouds and the gentle breeze and sunlight.
Every moment, even the most painful, have some kind of beauty, even if it is the simple fact that you are connected to all others who are in pain. You can feel the tenderness of your heart under your fear frustration and pain, and this tenderness is connected to all other human hearts. Everyone, around the world, has this good, tender heart too. This connection to human lives is beautiful.
Every moment is filled with learning, with strength, with love underneath the fear.
Yes, if you are unsafe, get yourself to safety as an act of love for yourself. But you don’t have to have hatred in your heart for the sonofabitch who has hurt you. They are suffering too, and though you don’t have to put up with their abuse, you can wish them peace, for the sake of the peace of your own heart. Take care of yourself, and that includes moving from fear and hatred to love and compassion.
Yes, if you are in constant pain, this is not easy. No one is claiming pain is easy. Who signed up for an easy life? By taking on your pain with patience, forbearance and strength, you are a shining example of love for all others. By taking on this pain, you are developing a capacity to help others with their pain. By taking in pain, you can find a place of joy in the midst of pain, a place of joy you can share with others.
Take the pain and turn it into art, into caring for others, into a heartrending song of life.
The Commitment to Live Fully
When we reject pain, sorrow, anger and loss … we are saying we don’t want all of our lives. We only want the good parts.
What I’m suggesting is that we fully engage with each and every moment. We don’t run, reject or avoid.
We embrace life fully.
We live fully in the groundlessness of our uncertainty and loss, the groundlessness of our anger and sorrow, the groundlessness of our pain. Instead of wishing for a stable, perfect moment … we learn to love the groundlessness and uncertainty of the moment we actually have.
We allow ourselves to fully feel whatever we’re feeling, without rejecting it, seeing this groundless tenderness as the enlightened energy of our lives.
We see this tenderness in our heart, in the midst of groundlessness, as goodness that is in us and everything around us.
We become fully present with an open heart, in full surrender to everything we experience. We reject nothing, and embrace everything.
We see everything as the path to joy and beauty. Everything is filled with goodness, if only we learn to see it as such. If we don’t see it, we only need to look closer.
We see every difficulty as our teacher. Every struggle has a lesson, every loss is a master class in becoming open and letting go of attachment, every pain is a way to touch our tender hearts. Any struggle and any difficult person is a teacher, if we embrace them as such.
Whenever we find ourselves wishing something were different … we use this as a touchstone to coming back to the moment and being fully with it, not rejecting it. Coming back and finding the beauty and goodness. Coming back and seeing this as our teacher.
When we begin to live each moment fully, we start to open up to a vast spacious awareness and beauty. It’s as if we wake up out of a dream to see the incredible mountains that have been in front of us the entire time.
It’s love, this thing in front of us. We just need to step fully into it, and feel the heart-breaking beauty of this love that we call life.
Focus!
Remember, what you focus on grows!
Losing Focus?
Maybe these inspirational and motivational quotes will give you a boost when you need it most.
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
~Bruce Lee
When life gets blurry, adjust your focus.
~ unknown
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
~ Winston Churchill
You can never achieve what you want if you do not focus entirely on your strength.
~ unknown
Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.
~ Tony Robbins
When you are hitting a brick wall, focus on one brick.
~ Tyler May
Don’t dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.
~ Denis Waitley
By celebrating the small stuff and feeling gratitude for it, things you never noticed before will come into focus.
~ Jane Trumbull
A Mental Rental
I found this idea in an article about Techniques For Recovering Your Happiness When Life Knocks You Sideways. I think it’s worth a try. It’s tip #5, called “Get a mental rental”
Here’s how it works:
Sit in a quiet place and consciously think about optimistic future goals or happy memories. Make a list of five great moments from your past and five future events you’re psyched about. Envision as much detail as you can. Try to engage all of the senses. What are you wearing? How are you standing? What scent is in the air? By tapping into positive thoughts, you can actually change your body chemistry.
Notes:
I love this idea, and I think I’m going to try using it at night when I can’t sleep because I’m either hating the idea that I have to go to work in the morning, or worrying over stuff that I don’t know how to deal with yet. I’ll let you know how it works for me. And if anyone else has success (or failure) with this technique, I’d love to hear about it!
Feeling Good
Today I thought we could explore all the things that if feels good to think about. Of course this will be different for everyone. Possibly it will be helpful to make a list and post it somewhere as a reminder. To help us get started, I’ve put together a collection of feel good happy stuff that I enjoy thinking about. Enjoy!
Playing in the rain… so much fun!
Simple creative projects… I love to think about them!
Oooh! Yummy food!
Fun times with family and friends.
If I was an alien… one of my favorite mind games.
Interesting factoids… very mentally entertaining
A road trip… always something fun to think about.
I love to think about books I’m reading, have read, or plan to read.
Funny memes… a great mental distraction.
Fur babies are a great source for happy thoughts.
Home sweet home is always a nice thought.
Finding A Better Focus
I have been reading a lot of articles on how to change your focus, and so far they all seem to have missed the most important point. And that is, if you are going to redirect your thoughts – it’s very important to direct them towards something that you enjoy thinking about, something that you find pleasure in contemplating.
So many of these “self help gurus” get really invested in telling us that we should be focusing on the “good.” Well, OK, I can agree with that, but I also think that the “good” has to be interesting, it has to be true, it has to be pleasurable, it has to be seductive to the mind. Because if it isn’t any one of those things, you’ll meet an inner resistance and it will all be for nothing.
So, for example, if you are constantly finding yourself focusing on “I don’t have enough money.” It’s not going to be very helpful to say to yourself “The Universe provides for my every need.” or “I have enough money for today.” or other so called positive statements. It’s not going to be helpful unless you really believe it’s true. And if you really believe those statements to be true, probably you aren’t spending most of your day telling yourself that you don’t have enough money.
Here are some ideas for how to refocus that thought:
- My daughter has been switching her “I need more money” mantra to “I want more money.” This makes her feel more “in control” and less needy. So far, it’s working for her.
- “I love my money.” I’ve been using this one a lot. I think about how fun it is to have dollar bills in my hand, and I imagine myself petting them, and kissing them. It sounds really silly, and so it makes me smile because I know it is silly. And now I’m smiling instead of whining.
- Changing the subject altogether. This is a good one. Just bring something completely different into your mind. For me, this usually consists of ideas about my website. But it could be anything, something funny that happened, something interesting that you read or heard.
- Distract yourself with a mind game. For example “If I was an animal / plant / vegetable / etc what kind would I be?” And then extend the game to your family, friends, co workers, people on the street… etc..
- Imagine wild scenarios. Here is another thing I do to distract myself from too much negative mind chatter. I start imagining “Boom! and then the crazy mean dog I’m bathing exploded into a shower of butterflies and diamonds.” or “Holy Moly! Everything suddenly just turned yellow! WTF?”
Just because it works for me, doesn’t mean it will work for you. Spend some time today coming up with your own ideas for alternative thoughts when your mind chatter goes south. Just remember, whatever you use to refocus your thoughts and redirect your attention, it must be something that feels good to think about. If it doesn’t feel good to think about it – find something that does.
Positivity
Here is a little “photo essay” to get us motivated:
POSITIVITY
Sure it’s important that you “think you can,”
but until you get off your fat ass, it’s all just speculation isn’t it?
A ship in harbor is safe…
but that is not what ships are built for.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
~Lao Tzu
Success is a staircase,
not a doorway.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing…
Do we want to be in debt?
One of the ways we tend to hide what we really want from ourselves, is in connection with our debts. Many of us have one or more debts that seem to remain unpaid or that we pay late each month. This is no accident.
If we have difficulty paying a particular debt, we must assume that we want the debt to be unpaid or to be paid late. Invariably, if we look at the person or company to whom we owe the money, we will notice less than positive feelings toward them. In order to change the result, we must change what we want.
Remember you always receive what you want. When you want to withhold from someone, that is what you do. When you want to give freely to someone, that is what you do. Look at the result and you know what you want.
When you avoid dealing with a situation that is uncomfortable, it does not go away. When you have a need to withhold payment from someone, the need will intensify if you disregard it. You are continuing to focus energy into withholding, so the need to withhold becomes more intense. Remember you are putting energy into thoughts all the time, whether you are consciously aware of the thoughts or not.
Once you notice a negative thought pattern, such as withholding payment from someone, you have the option of releasing the negative thought about the person, or by avoiding the issue, putting more energy into the existing pattern.
Debts are not a general condition. They are a specific condition. No matter how much difficulty we are having with cash flow, we do pay some of our bills. We do manage handling money to some extent, and whatever that extent is, it is not an accident. We benefit those people we want to benefit and we withhold from others. We have the capacity at any time to attract sufficient money into our lives to pay any debt that we really want to pay.
What then is the procedure to master debts?
- Establish a clear intention to have more income than expenses.
- Notice all of the assets you have and all of the abundance in your life.
- Make it a habit to acknowledge and give thanks for everything you already have.
- Remember, what you focus your thought on expands.
- Eliminate the concept of debt from your thoughts.
- When you receive something that requires repayment, such as a loan, think of it as a gift to you.
- When you repay it, see it as a gift to the original giver.
If you notice difficulty in repaying a particular creditor, realize that you want to withhold from him. You must maintain total honesty with yourself at all times. Having accepted responsibility for withholding from that creditor, you then change your thoughts about him. Bring that person or company into mind from time to time and see yourself having positive feelings about him. Practice this until you notice that your feelings about the creditor improve. Then, the cash flow to pay the obligation will also improve.
From You Can Have It All
by Arnold M. Patent
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me: Make Your Own Violet Fire
Abdulrahman: Money Chant – Very Fast
Shirley Twofeathers: It’s A Wrap
Daniel Knirs: It’s A Wrap
Our current project began on July 4. We are exploring the concept and practice of Radical Self Care . Feel free to join in at any time!
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I think it's time to go shopping... maybe even buy some really cool stuff at my online shops!!
