THURSDAY THOUGHTS

Self-sabotage happens when you booby-trap your own brain with the negative trigger points of fear, regret, bitterness and un-forgiveness...you allow your perceptions of your own shortcomings to cause you to overreact to criticism...whenever you struggle, you automatically get down on yourself for all your past challenges...troubles in your relationships remind you of troubles in former ones, and that pulls you right back to them....when you encounter difficult circumstances (which is really just life), you read more into what's going on than with what is really going on...when you have a tough day, it overwhelms you unnecessarily because you inevitably start thinking about the life you could be living now if you just had a different past...the self-inflicted wounds of "shoulda woulda coulda" stay infected, and sustain within your soul an emotional low-grade fever that prevents you from relaxing into your life and just enjoying the journey...

Refuse to let your past hold you back any longer...NOW is what matters...it's really all that matters...you can decide to stop dwelling on things that happened in your past and re-create/re-write your own life story...you can change the script, and become the hero of your own tale...you can opt for an authentic, happy ending to it, and become so focused on that reality that nothing can pull you out of the present moment, and no ghost from your history can haunt your current thoughts and cause you to feel anxious...when you are walking in your "I AM" consciousness, you are limitless in your ability...when you live IN THE NOW, you continually give yourself permission to be in every moment and enjoy the present...

You can turn off the internal video loop that keeps replaying past events in your head..."faith comes by HEARING"...what you hear over and over again you will eventually believe, so you need to understand the story that you’re telling yourself every minute of every day, both verbally and non-verbally...once you understand why you keep telling your story to yourself and to others the way that you tell it, it will be easier to edit it, and allow it to change your life for the better...

Stop complaining about the bad hand that you’ve been dealt, put on the poker face of faith, and play the game of life to win...it doesn't matter that you didn’t have money growing up, the Universe is still filled with abundance, and that abundance is so vast, so limitless, that your sense of lack, or your inherited ancestral poverty mentality is simply irrelevant to your current reality...the abundance will come to you IN THE NOW, and as soon as you catch up with the present and tune your thinking into the frequency of the I AM, you will see the growth begin...it doesn't matter that you didn’t get a job that you should have gotten, or lost the good one that you had, you were just making room in your life for something so much better, and that better reality will manifest IN THE NOW...cut yourself free from regrets...they're just weighing you down...NOW IS ALL THAT MATTERS!

Love yourself.

Forgive yourself.

Love your life.

Re-write your story.

Make it work for you...

WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY WORDS

You are responsible for your own life, your own happiness, your own joy...you are responsible for taking the stewardship over your own spirit...it's up to you to protect your mind, your emotions, your very self from being infected by the negativity oozing from the unhealed emotional wounds of someone else's unresolved issues which have nothing to do with you...it's up to you to stop taking the deformed things that they create personally, and realize once and for all that it really is their problem and not yours...it's up to you to guard your own heart from verbal and emotional toxicity...it's up to you to say no to the possibility of connecting to someone else's negative energy...it's up to you to refuse to let someone else's cold, dark shadow of insecurity, jealousy, or hatred block out your beautiful, warm and life-producing sunlight of faith, hope and optimism...

You have the power to choose what you get out of life, because, very simply, you only get what you put out...the way that you think, speak and act determines every outcome...if you act in a way that is positive, you will draw positive things from the Universe into your orbit...if you deliberately minimize the drama, you will attract positive situations, positive people, and create a continual positive flow/movement from good to great to excellent...

You are the thermostat of your life, not the thermometer...drama usually comes from your reaction to other people’s actions...it's the tail trying to wag the dog...but you have the power to be proactive rather than reactive...that's why forgiveness is so powerful...it's why perspective is so important... it's why you have to stop and think if someone else's contrary words or actions really matter in the long run...you have to decide if it's worth it to you and the quality of your life to let it go or to hold on to it, or if you just so need to be "right" that nothing else really matters to you...

It all starts on the inside...when you minimize and shut down the drama within yourself and choose to stay focused and calm, the world around you inevitably begins to reflect the world within you...or as Jesus put it, "on earth as it is in heaven"...

If there is drama in multiple areas of your life...if you are constantly attracting chaos...you have to be honest with yourself...you are the constant in every life-situation, so you have to lay your defenses down and admit to yourself that you may be creating the drama...

This is not an accusation or an indictment..."there is therefore now no condemnation"...no blame/no shame, whatsoever...you can be a very good and worthy person, and still exist within the vortex of chaos and drama, so it's your prerogative to live out your life however you want to live it...but it IS an invitation to the possibility of living your actual and destined ABUNDANT LIFE,  a life that is really established on righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit...it IS an invitation to be fearless and free of all regrets...it IS an invitation to enjoy being comfortable in your own skin, with the ability to relax and have fun in every step of the journey, without the need to defend yourself or prove yourself right or to spend the energy to prove some point to someone who probably isn't even thinking about you...it IS an invitation to drive in your own lane, with no temptation to keep looking in the rear-view mirror, and no fear of what may or may not be down the road...

 It has to begin with you...it has to begin with your willingness to trust in God, but to never forget that He has empowered you to make the creative choices that will move your life in the right direction...you have to forgo the luxury of blaming a "devil" or your very human parents or your ex or your religion or your society or whomever or whatever else that takes the focus off of you...

It's your life...

It's your destiny...

It's your happiness...

And it has to begin today...right now...embrace this moment and make it yours...the journey of a million miles begins with one step...

Choose what you want to think and say today, and how you want to feel, and don't let anyone hijack even a moment of it...

It really is that simple...

THE OBSERVER EFFECT, CHILDHOOD DREAMS AND THE POWER OF RE-IMAGINATION, Part II

As I said in the previous post, Jesus taught that one could only enter the Kingdom of God with the eyes/perspective/paradigm of a child...the Kingdom of God does not exist in the future, because there is no future or past in the eternal "now", and that seems to be a concept that children are able to grasp more easily than time-obsessed, time-conscious adults...God reveals Himself as "I AM"...His presence is always "the NOW"...

It takes some effort to keep your thoughts, your focus, and your attention on what is happening in the immediate, but the more you live in the moment and are "present" in your attitude, the easier it becomes...

It's important to be aware of your surroundings if you want to live in the childlike present and communicate with the 'I AM'...one of the best ways to do that is through gratitude...not only does gratitude attract more things into your life for which to be grateful, it makes you more aware of what you already have, and that awareness makes it easier for you to enjoy all that has already manifested in your personal world... living in the moment is a HUGE aspect of Abundant Life...

Refuse to allow yourself to be distracted by any obsession with the past...every day is a day to clean house and to erase any of the tapes that play in your head which are counterproductive to living your best life...you may have to constantly delete mental files, and if so, so be it!

You must break ties with that which is negative and contrary to a now mentality...remember what needs to be remembered, and forget what needs to be forgotten...remember how good God has been to you, and hold the vibration of pleasant memories close to your heart...it's important, also, to remember the lessons that you've learned from past mistakes, but don't let your memory bind or hold you in a negative space...children have a wonderful way of forgetting what needs to be forgotten with little effort, so tap into that inner-child power that you already have, and make it work for you...

It's equally important to not allow yourself to be preoccupied with the future...send out your intentions to the Universe...make necessary plans...speak energetic, prophetic words over your life...call those things which are not as though they were...study....prepare...get stronger by looking forward to good things that are coming up...but never let worry and anxiety about the future distract you, not even for a second...the NOW is too wonderful to miss, even for the future!

Never let your own mind become your enemy..thinking "now" will open new doors in your thought-life, and enable you to discover new possibilities, new potential, and new wisdom...make that Quantum Jump into the reality of the "you" that never gave up on your childhood dreams...he/she is out there somewhere, and you can find him/her if you really want to!

When you begin to think differently, you begin to speak differently...everything you say does something...everything you do says something...let the changes come and don't fight your own evolution...you will soon notice that you are surprising the people in your life, and will even begin to surprise yourself by your new way of reacting to the world around you...

Listen to God's voice...that voice that speaks inside you...and discern what He is saying...pay attention to the Universe...

Childhood dreams can still come true...

Be everything you started out to be before your thinking got hijacked...

It's never too late!