Love is Your Secret Weapon

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
— Rumi

It should be the worst kept secret in the world that your brain is your most important piece of hardware - the most important tool is your mind.

For example, did you know that electro-magnetic fields can affect your brain to make you imagine all kinds of experiences? This is because the human brain is a conductor. Electrical currents can produce striking psychological experiences that only happen in the mind, so many scientists believe that places of hauntings for example are surrounded by such currents.

Indeed, parapsychologists see it as a part of who we are as humans to have what is known as physic experiences. Some paranormal experts also believe that poltergeist activity is not caused by ghosts, but rather by psychokinesis - a hidden psychic power in the mind of an individual that unconsciously moves objects through space. Thus the theory goes that either the mind is the cause of hauntings, or we are seeing things which are not there because our brain is making it real.

Negativity works in a similar way. Negative thoughts destroy your life. They create more struggle and more failure. They make your life miserable. They define your reality. Negative thoughts block your success.

When you have negative thoughts you feel down. You lose confidence. You don't believe you'll succeed. You give up. You make the wrong choices. You beat yourself up.

You try and try to succeed, but those negative thoughts stop you. They force you to give up on your goals and dreams, and everything you try doesn't work. With all those negative thoughts you'll end up in debt and in destructive or negative relationships.

If you want to succeed, enjoy more wealth, better health, be in better relationships then the experts emphasise that you have to get rid of the negative thoughts and negative beliefs. Replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts - with loving thoughts - that allow you to succeed and enjoy life.

Don't even hate the haters, and don't become one yourself. Liberate your ego. Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who YOU are - and what does that say about the person you are?

You'll always have some negative thoughts. As much as you try you won't be able to get rid of all your negative thinking. But you can eliminate the chronic negative thoughts. You can get rid of the negative thoughts that destroy your life. You can change the negative beliefs that prevent you from succeeding and achieving your goals.

Being positive in the face of adversity is hard, I know from bitter experience. But it's about the struggle, because that is what gives the good things in life their worth, and helps us to appreciate them.

For instance, it's so easy to kill and hurt others, and it feels unjust that something so precious should be so fragile, but this makes the concious choice NOT to hurt others all the more meaningful.

Negative thoughts and beliefs develop over time. They can come from your friends, your family, co-workers, advisers, teachers, even strangers - and they come from you. You create most of the negative thoughts you have. That's only because you let the negative thoughts stay stay in your head. And then they get stronger. Instead of having positive thoughts you end up with more and more negative thoughts. Those negative thoughts wipe out any positive thoughts and positive beliefs. And it gets worse.

Everyday you're bombarded with a series of negative thoughts and negative messages. And with each day your negative thoughts get stronger and stronger. Your negative beliefs get stronger and stronger.

After a while you don't believe you can achieve your goals, make more money or live the life you want to live. Your subconscious mind and inner powers respond to your negative thoughts and negative beliefs. They literally haunt your mind, and soon you'll become paranoid, seeing things that aren't there.

These "demons" create your life based on your thoughts and beliefs. Negative thoughts and beliefs lead to more struggle, more pain, more hardships and more of what you don't want. And when you don't get rid of the negative thoughts life just gets worse and worse.

It's like always having your eyes in the back of your head, where you're looking backwards, but it does no good. You need to look forwards with positivity. You have to let go of your past. Don't be defined by your past, or who you were. Be happy with who you are now, or who you have the potential to be - like yourself and don't alter yourself for others, change yourself to find the real YOU. Stuck in a hurtful past can stop you from being a good human being; it can stand between you and your future happiness.

That's because negative thoughts spread like weeds. If you don't take care of them and get rid of them they'll take over your entire mind and destroy any positive thoughts and beliefs.

Negative thoughts are thoughts like: "I'm not good enough, it will never work, I know everything, I won't succeed, I'll only fail again, it's my fault, I'm not worthy..." and so on (you get the idea).

These are all negative thoughts that don't allow you to succeed and only lead to more failure. I call them the weeds of the mind - they destroy everything in the area and spread very quickly when you don't remove them.

So how do you get rid of these weeds? You start by replacing them with positive thoughts, positive feelings, and begin spreading this positive message to other people. Balance is the key here; and moderation is what keeps excess negativity in check. For example, we all need the basics of survival, i.e., shelter, but staying inside too long is not good for you, either.

Moderate your negative thoughts. When you have a negative thought that says you can't do something; think of why you can do something. When you think of what might go wrong, change those negative thoughts and think about what can go right. When you feel that you can't accomplish something, think of why you can accomplish something.

By replacing the negative thoughts and negative beliefs you give your subconscious mind and inner powers new directions. They then create positive situations and bring you exactly what you want.

Stop the negative thinking. Remove the negative thoughts destroy your life. Create positive thoughts and positive beliefs. Direct your subconscious mind to bring you what you want. Tend to the garden of your mind. Remove the weeds that are negative thoughts and negative beliefs. Replace them with positive thinking, and empowering beliefs. Put an end to the struggle, fear and worry. Give your subconscious new directions, so that it brings you exactly what you want.

You can achieve your goals. You can live the life you want. You have tremendous power. Direct that power to bring you what you want. Get your subconscious mind working for you, not against you.

Tend to the garden of your mind

Do you feel like your life could be happier? A better tomorrow could start with something as simple as your attitude. Our perspectives have a huge effect on our overall level of happiness. They can affect our success as well. Over time, attitudes become habitual. Because of this, they can take a bit of effort to change, but such work is well worth your time. Try these techniques to bring greater happiness and success into your life:

1. Start each day by making a mental list of things you're thankful for. You can do this while you're lying in bed just before you get up, in the shower, or while driving to work. This simple mental exercise will adjust your focus to the good things that you already have.
2. Love life, not stuff. Do you feel that having more possessions will make you happy? What usually happens is that, after you acquire something, it never seems to mean as much to you as you thought it would. After the newness wears off, you're back to wanting some more new stuff! So the joy in most new possessions is temporary, at best, and leads to more "wanting". The trick is to enjoy the pleasure and convenience of having new things, but don't be needy of them. Remember:
   • The quality of your life itself is what will bring you the most happiness, not the quantity or quality of your stuff.
   • Spend some time each day doing what you love.
   • Build meaningful relationships that uplift you.
   • Take action to create a life filled with what truly means the most to you.
3. Be patient. Our society has trained us to be in a hurry and expect immediate gratification. However, some of the great things in life take time to bring to fruition. Enjoy the process of creating the life you desire. Each day will bring you one step closer. Being impatient tends to push your goals farther away.
4. Believe in yourself. Life is much more pleasant when you have faith in yourself. Remember: You've already done things that are much more difficult than just about anything you may still wish to accomplish. So you KNOW you can achieve your future plans.
   • Consider learning to walk. How many times does a baby fall before they finally can stand up unassisted, let alone walk? And we keep learning more over time. Even a 10-year old doesn't walk as well as a 30-year old. It takes many years of practice.
   • How many times are you willing to fall down and get back up now? When you believe in yourself and expect success, you're more likely to succeed. Your upbeat attitude will lead you to seek solutions to your challenges until you reach your goal.
5. Sometimes being smart is sufficient. We often believe that everything worthwhile requires a lot of work. I always believe that you will NEVER get anywhere without putting in the requisite time and effort. However, many times, approaching challenges by working smart instead of working hard can save a lot of time and grief. You just need to get tuned in with your intuition to know when those times will be. Sit down and reflect on your situation from the perspective that there's a simple solution to each challenge. You might be surprised how clever you can be if you make an effort to find an easy but satisfactory solution.
6. There's no such thing as failure. Each time your plans fall short, analyse where they went wrong, learn from the experience, and continue moving forward. When you "fail", all you've really done is discovered an ineffective way of trying to do something. That's all. The knowledge gained only makes you more capable in the future, because problems are there so you can discover potentials that you didn't even know you had. Only when you get your head underwater do you know how tall you can stand, and you do this by seeing failure as a detour, not a dead-end street. Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed on an equal or greater benefit. Remember that success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Everybody in your situation has the same choice: you can rue your situation or you can dedicate yourself to changing it. Accept responsibility for your future. Refuse to complain, criticise, or condemn. Have faith in yourself and see failures as lucky opportunities to grow.

Adjusting your attitude and making the changes permanent will take some work, but this effort pays off. But then it takes a concerted effort to weed, but the results are always worthwhile.

Your attitude affects your perspective, what you notice, and what you fail to notice. So by adjusting your attitude, you can shift your whole reality.

Examine the attitudes you already hold that may be limiting your life and happiness. What perspectives and beliefs would serve you better? Use the above ideas to start the process of adjusting those ineffective attitudes today for a happier tomorrow - because each day offers a new chance, a rebirth. But do we take it?

A total life transformation

“People wish to be settled, but only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Apathy kills. Passion rejuvenates. This shouldn't frighten you, it should excite you. And as human beings we have a choice to elevate ourselves from the animal kingdom we are a part of (because humans are animals) or be like crabs in a bucket to pull down any escaping ones back down to suffer the same fate.

How often does this happen to you in daily life? People can't help themselves. It doesn't matter if it's your dearest and closest friend, your beloved spouse, your parents, your co-workers (they're the worst), they will all act like crabs in a bucket because that is - we say - human nature.

BUT we have the potential, thanks to the higher faculties of the mind, to be different. The potential plasticity of the brain means that we can change our nature (the definition of humanity is always changing), our perspective and our life. The dark flip-side to this is that of course we are also very conductive to negativity, and the negative actions of others. We know to stay away from people when they're sick with the flu - but what about when our friends, family, and colleagues are stressed or angry? We need to shield ourselves with our secret weapon - love. So, let's look at the science and some practical tips we can utilise to activate our shield.

The moods of others may be just as contagious as their germs, suggests Monmouth University professor Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., in an article written for Scientific American. Psychologists dubbed this as "emotional contagion", a phenomenon that Lewandowski describes in three steps:

1. Our non-conscious mind mimics facial expressions through our Mirror Neuron System. This system records expressions and body movements of another person's smile or scowl. In response, it signals activity to your facial muscles, causing a mirrored expression on your face.
2. The expression generated by non-conscious mimicry spirals into a corresponding emotion. When you smile, you generate happiness within yourself. When you scowl, you trigger anger.
3. You and the other person will share these experiences until you reach a shared emotional state.

It's wonderful to catch another person's good mood, but should you run away when a friend is upset? How do we shield ourselves from others' negativity?

Let's say your day is humming right along, and you're in the flow, perhaps celebrating a personal victory or simply in a state of silent appreciation for the blessings in your life. When all of a sudden, you cross paths with someone who is down on their luck, in a foul mood, or is otherwise irritable. In the presence of this person you no longer feel quite so happy. You start to catch their emotions, feeling resentful, annoyed, and or perhaps downright depressed.

In these situations you're faced with a choice: You can either invite the other person to synchronise with your emotional state, or you'll unwittingly synchronise with theirs.

The next time you find yourself dealing with someone who's angry, depressed, or otherwise oozing negativity, try this expert technique:

1. Keep your emotional balance by tuning in to your body. Deepen your breathing, and notice any sensations that arise within you. This will keep you from a knee-jerk reaction.
2. Point out the positive - gently and without judgement. Most people who are feeling cranky and upset aren't deliberately trying to bring others down. Look beyond their behaviour and you'll see that they're just trying to find a way to feel some relief.
3. Offer a light-hearted comment - or better yet, a bit of praise or appreciation - and they may see the situation from a new perspective. When you can't think of anything positive to say, know that simply staying neutral in the face of their negativity is a gift in itself.

Perspective is the key here. Rapper 50 Cent said once, "People talk about my getting shot like it represented something special. They act like they're not facing the same thing. But some day everybody has to face a bullet with his or her name on it." Life is certainly fleeting, and there are some who believe we are headed into an economic tempest the likes of which hasn't been seen in human history.

Major sovereign states running out of money would have been an unthinkable and frightening topic of conversation only a few years ago, but in 2012 we discuss it as if it was something normal. It seems that nobody is safe. But should we all start acting like crabs in a bucket? Or should we question the existence we've been programmed to follow? And do you take action? That's the key.

As I said, apathy kills. Passion resurrects. And trust that out of chaos comes order. When you stay positive, you'll find the secret weapon to happiness in life is to understand that it has been in your hands all along, or rather in your mind.

How your mind perceives things is important, because even if you're a success at what you do in life, you can still feel hollow. No matter how much material success you create in your life, feelings of unhappiness and despair can continue to plague you and prevent you from feeling fulfilled. If you feel you can't shake a deep depression, but people around are surprised because you seem to have the "perfect life" then this means you are not aligned with your purpose.

But if you love life, and love what you do, then even if you're not a success by anyone else's standards, you're a success to your own. AND that is what matters. That is your secret weapon.

Yours in love,