When there is positive forward movement for the benefit of all, fear of one another is not a factor. On the contrary, distrust that there is a flow to life creates fear and results in disharmony among people.

Living with the belief that you are a target of harm generates defensive living, and at its base is fear. This is the fruit of a competitive mindset. Striving is not in harmony with life’s flow.

It is more advantageous to choose to live in harmony with life’s flow; this way your base is compassion, your mindset is cooperative and your fruit is life’s richness.

LIVING THE TAO: Today, consider a situation where you are trying to prove you are better than someone else. Remember, there is only one you. You are unique, so you are already the best—the best at being you. Just be that.

If it’s anything less than this, then it’s time to step your inner game up.

Repeat this all day until you’re on automatic: I AM awesome!

A friend reminded me of a poem I wrote a while back. I laughed because she sent it to me in a text and as I read it I thought, “This sounds familiar.” And by the end I said, “This sounds like something I wrote!” HA! I did! (Yes, laugh because that was certainly funny.)

Reading my own words like a stranger, my poem spoke to me, so now I share it with you. It’s called Eventually.

Eventually

Close your eyes. Do you hear that sound?
It’s the sound of life whooshing by,
splashing against the rocks–the obstacles–
but still moving forward.

The water doesn’t stop.
The current carries it downstream.
The water just keeps hitting the rocks.
The rocks hurt.

Can I be like the bird
that just flew by?
Fly above the rocks and the water?
Or is the bird like an angel?

Eventually we get past the rocks.
Eventually.

Eventually the calmness of the river
carries us.

Eventually.

But how does the water know when?
These rocks hurt.

But eventually.

After reading the poem, there followed a declaration that came to me that I will share with you now for your own claiming: “I AM embracing my journey.”

For years I’ve been wanting to test out going raw–raw foods that is–but I was never able to find the guidance I needed to do it with confidence. Then I found FullyRaw by Kristina, and she was an answered prayer. Because of her, I’m going raw…at least for 21 days.

But that’s not the point of today’s post. While checking out her videos, I found this one. It was pure. It was real. It was emotional. And it reminds us all to proclaim, I AM worthy.

Take a moment to check out Kristina’s video and be inspired!

Please share if you have been inspired, and leave a comment below to inspire others.

———–

P.S. The words to her poem can be found here.

You get out what you put in.

Think about it. Think about a situation where you know for an absolute fact that you did not bring your “A” game. How did things work out? Not so hot, I bet.

Now, think about a time when you did bring your “A” game, a time when you gave the situation your best. What was the outcome? Chances are it was good.

When you bring your best, essentially what you are doing is bringing good vibes, or said another way, positive energy. And the best known form of positive energy is love.

According to researchers at HeartMath,

Positive emotions send a very different signal throughout our body. When we experience uplifting emotions such as appreciation, joy, care, and love; our heart rhythm pattern becomes highly ordered, looking like a smooth, harmonious wave. This is called a coherent heart rhythm pattern. When we are generating a coherent heart rhythm, the activity in the two branches of the ANS (the automatic nervous system–the part of the nervous system that regulates most of the body’s internal functions) is synchronized and the body’s systems operate with increased efficiency and harmony. It’s no wonder that positive emotions feel so good – they actually help our body’s systems synchronize and work better.

Putting in positive energy–or love–in whatever you do produces at least 3 outcomes:

1. You make those in the situation feel validated by your sincerity
2. You ensure that you’ll get positive energy back
3. You help your body work better!

My question then is why wouldn’t you bring love to everything you do? Why wouldn’t you want to put out positive energy? At the very least, if you didn’t think of anyone else in the room and only thought of yourself, you’d be doing yourself a HUGE favor. (But when you bring love–positive energy–you can’t help but to do well for others too!)

So with all of that being said, make the decision right now and declare, I AM bringing love to everything that I do.

Before your next conversation, task or act decide to bring love to that thing that you will do.

I’m not creative.

I’m not as good as she is.

I’m not as pretty as she is.

I’m not as brave as she is.

I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.

Beautiful, intelligent, smart, sassy women utter these words.

Why?

I wonder if these women are as harmful to others as they are to themselves. I wonder if they create this dis-ease in others as they do for themselves.

If you harm your emotional, spiritual or intellectual self with any of these or related “I’m nots,” then STOP IT!

Do yourself no harm. Cure yourself. Be kind to yourself. Please.

You can begin by affirming, I AM kind to myself.

This is what I share with you today. Her story of changing her mindset to empower herself!

I use to wonder why people seemed happy. Most of them have what I have: 3 degrees, a wonderful family life, an opportunity to travel the country and world and a job that allowed me to spend the most memorable time with my mom before she went to spend eternity with the Lord. Still, I was just not happy. I was bitter and lonely. My friends would remind me of how blessed I was and I would just say, “yeah you’re right,” but I did not feel it nor did I believe it.

When my mom passed unexpectedly, I was even more unhappy or almost distraught. I had done what I was supposed to in life. I had been the faithful daughter doing everything I could to please my mom since my early days of attending college, but I was not pleasing to her.

I am a tenured Associate Professor of a Research Institution. Of that, my mom was proud. That was the only thing that made me happy since she had done so much for me. When she left me my unhappiness of 20 years or more surfaced and I was subject to visiting a counselor for a year. There is more to this story, but what I want to share is that I AM HAPPY NOW AND WILL REMAIN HAPPY BECAUSE I HAD TO GET A NEW WAY OF THINKING AND BELIEVEING IN MY SELF.

How did I do this? Fall semester I spent the entire time in Maryland. I stayed with a long time friend. I always looked at her as a person of strength and courage. She always, seemingly in my perspective, got what she wanted. She believed in herself. She was always positive and she knew what she wanted. I felt like that only worked for her and not me. At Christmas time she gave me a most needed gift. It was an audio book about the subconscious. I started listening and believing that most people were successful because they understood the importance of speaking it. I never really spoke it. I just felt that God gave me success because I was a believer and I did what was expected of me.

Well I now know you must speak it; speak positivity over, and over. Get up speaking it, drive in your car believing it, sit down believing it and above all believe it. What did I believe? I believed that I could get pass the pain and hurt. I was calm. I deserved all that was meant for me. I believed that I was attractive now. In the past it was that I was too heavy and no one would want me. And not long after I started believing I was attractive, I met a doctor at my supermarket and he asked me out!)

I believed that I could change my mindset. Before I knew it I was changing. I was just conscious of that little voice in my head now and it was speaking to me, “I believe.”

There is more to this story and I could probably write a book on my life of unhappiness, but now I am Happy.  I went to visit my counselor and I no longer have to go because I know that I am Happy. I am Happy!!!

After reading Sheron Brown ‘s—the friend I stayed with in the Fall—blog about waking up being Happy, that was affirmation for me. I am Happy for the pitfalls, happy for knowing that I can be Happy. I have changed my mindset and I believe that I am changed. I speak Happiness into who ever reads this response.

It can happen to you. You just have to take one step at a time and believe. Trust me, you will see your life changing right in your face and you will feel Happiness.

Thanks Sheron Brown.

She also informed me that she wakes up with a new affirmation everyday. She writes them on note paper, and posts them on her mirror. This is the picture she sent.

Wow! I am humbled.

If you have been inspired, then please share your inspiration. You just might inspire someone else. And if you haven’t already, please join me in the journey by signing up with your name and email. I’d love to be connected to you!

Inspired to inspire,

Sheron 

This affirmation was inspired by someone I coached moments before this writing.

She was sharing her family history and life challenges with me when she revealed that a few years back she entered a recovery program where the doctor who led her group provided them with daily affirmations. She said it was that experience that helped her to understand the importance of speaking positively to herself.

Not wanting her children to go down a similar path, she now guides them according to her learning. She told me a brief story about an interaction between herself and her son. She said,

I have to show them a different way…I tell my son all the time, don’t let other people get to you and make you have a bad day. You have to tell yourself that you are going to have a great day, and that’s what I say to myself everyday. I am going to have a great day.

As she spoke, I got chills. My day wasn’t so hot and she inspired me by helping me to remember myself. Because of her, I am sharing with you.

Despite what you are going through or how you are feeling, proclaim the success of your day before it happens by saying, I AM going to have a great day!

Why?

The principal of the school where I worked at the time got on my nerves! I can’t remember what she did—it was probably my crazy belief that she was trying to control me—but I was steaming!

I drove from my job to my son’s school to pick him up and fussed the entire way.

Like it was yesterday, I can clearly recall the conversation I had with myself as I pulled into the parking lot of my son’s school.

Me: See, you can’t mess with people because you’ll never know who they’ll turn out to be. She doesn’t know who I’ll become. 10 years from now, she’ll see me somewhere and…(I paused because I heard the words coming out of my mouth.)

Myself: Sheron, 10 years from now? Really? Do you plan to be holding on to this 10 years from now?

Me: No.

Myself: Do you plan to be holding on to this 5 years from now?

Me: No.

Myself: Do you plan to be holding on to this 1 year from now?

Me: No.

Myself: Sheron, do you plan to be even holding on to this 1 month from now? I paused, then replied.

Me: Ummm, no.

Myself: Then if you don’t plan on holding on to this one month from now, why hold on to it now?

Wow. Myself shut me up!

I can laugh at myself now—and hopefully you got a good chuckle—because I was being immature. I was younger and my ego was the culprit.

We hope that as we grow older we mature, but unfortunately we can still fall prey to the ego and hold on to negative emotions only to do ourselves harm.

But here’s the thing: if we don’t care at all about the other person, we should at least care enough about ourselves to not bring harm to our heart and health by holding on to negative emotions. We should love ourselves enough to say, “Ego, you won’t win today!” And in doing so—in changing our disposition for our benefit—we ultimately, and without even trying, change our disposition toward the other person. In the end, we make the situation better for all involved, all because we made the choice to love ourselves in the present moment.

So, the next time you feel yourself holding on to that negative emotion toward someone who worked your nerves, take a deep breath, love yourself and say, “I AM love in this present moment.”

Image by marcolm at Freedigitalphotos.net

I remember thinking that once during prayer after hearing my son say, “Thank you for everything in my life—the good things and the bad things.”

When he was finished I asked him about what he said. “Why did you give thanks for the bad things?”

He replied, “Because all things help me to learn, and the bad things help me to learn about myself and life so that I can grow.”

“Wow! He has a point!” That’s what I thought.

Dealing with a few frustrating issues recently brought me back to that memory. In a moment of wanting to go off on someone, I remembered, “Thank you for everything in my life.” I remembered that if I would just look at the situation differently, I could see how that frustrating moment would one day benefit me.

I am absolutely sure that at some point in the next few days, something or someone will frustrate you. A co-worker may get on your nerves, you may receive some news you didn’t expect, or someone’s actions may disappointment you. But if you can look beyond the frustration in that moment and see that everything contributes to a bigger picture, then perhaps you’ll be able to give thanks.

Getting there takes practice because it’s not natural to show gratitude when something or someone rubs you the wrong way. Expressing gratefulness in all things is a practice—one that is good to do daily; one that you can begin now by simply saying, I AM grateful for everything in my life.