Empowering Your Mind – Page 80 – Mindset, Motivation and Empowerment

Your Choice Creates Your Outcome

March 30, 2016 Linda-Ann Stewart

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Cookie assumed she’d always have good health. Most of her life, she’d bounced back quickly from any illnesses and hadn’t had to worry about her weight. Because of her history and that assumption, she didn’t follow any health guidelines. She smoked and didn’t exercise. Taking her health for granted caught up with her when she was in her late 60’s, when her health declined rapidly.

When she discovered she had emphysema, she quit smoking. But for several years, she didn’t do anything else to maximize the health she had. Eventually, she had to use oxygen all the time and things went downhill from there.

A smoker doesn’t choose to have COPD, emphysema or cancer, but the decision to smoke increases the possibility of their dying of a smoking related illness by 50%. The same is true of someone who has poor eating habits and doesn’t exercise. If they’re overweight and eat lots of meat, fat and carbs, they have a good chance of developing heart disease. They don’t consciously choose that outcome, but their behaviors lead them in that direction.

You don’t necessarily experience what you’d want for yourself, but the result of your everyday, habitual choices. If you want to be more productive and successful, studies show that optimism increases this outcome by 31%. But many people cling to pessimism, justifying that it’s more realistic and accurate. Their result is that in the work place they aren’t promoted as much as optimists and their productivity is lower.

Every choice you make has an intended or unintended consequence. Some are beneficial, some are neutral, and some are very destructive. Look at your life, and wherever you have a situation that you don’t like, track it back to a decision you made. If you’re in a bad relationship, you probably chose to “Go along to get along.” Though it seems it would lead to harmony, generally it creates the opposite effect.

You have a choice of what to think about and focus on. What you focus on and think about formulates your actions or inactions. If you act in the same way over and over again, you form habits. And those habits create an outcome, of success or failure, health or illness, good relationships or bad, beneficial self-concept or a destructive one. All of this comes from what you focus on.

The decision about what to pay attention to is under your control. What you focus on comes from your beliefs. Those beliefs were formed over time based on the decisions you made and the ideas you paid attention to earlier in your life. It’s a feedback cycle. You can break that cycle by making a new choice. If Cookie had made a new choice even a few years earlier, she might have avoided or reduced many of her health issues.

Begin to develop habits that serve you and increase your wellbeing. For instance, exercise, choose foods that optimize your health and avoid sugar, excessive carbohydrates and unhealthy fats. Deal with uncomfortable challenges when they arise, before they escalate out of control. Address conflicts and misunderstandings immediately, so they can be resolved quickly. If you have trouble living within your budget, reduce your expenses.

Decide on the result you want, and then aim all your choices towards that outcome. It won’t be an easy road to begin with, because you’re changing life-long habits. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted. That’s simply an outdated behavior that has sabotaged your goals.

You have control over what you experience in your life. It’s in the small and large choices that you make every day. Every one of them has some consequence. Be aware of what they might be, and choose wisely.

Affirmation:
The choices I’ve made have created the life I now have. I now become aware of my choices and decide if they’re giving me the results I want. I’m now guided by the Infinite to make conscious and wise choices that enhance my quality of life. I’m worthy of all the best that the Universe has to offer, and now choose to experience all the good that I deserve.

Why is it so hard to change a negative habit?

March 22, 2016 Linda-Ann Stewart

Question: Why is it so hard to change a negative habit?

Answer: A bad habit might have gotten its start in early or during a difficult time in your life. Some people may have learned in childhood to eat too much as a way of nurturing themselves. Or, I knew a woman going through a divorce who developed the habit of falling asleep on the couch while
watching television.

At the time the habit formed, the subconscious was just trying to help you: to fit in, to be accepted, to deal with discomfort. You programmed it with the habit. Then the negative habit took on a life of its own, because the subconscious then got the message that “This is what we do to cope.”

Since its automatic, it’s hard to stay aware all the time to begin to break the habit. It’s so easy to fall back into the old pattern. Also, if the subconscious thinks the habit is still necessary, it will fight any weak attempts to change it.

Your conscious mind must become determined and committed to a new habit, both mentally and physically, for the subconscious to cooperate with changing. Although the subconscious must follow the directions of the conscious mind, those directions must be clear and consistent.

Taking Action Can Inspire You

March 15, 2016 Linda-Ann Stewart

How long do you wait for inspiration before you take action? Too many people wait until their backs are against the wall before they do. Waiting to be inspired can waste energy and actually block inspiration. Learn how taking action can help release the inspiration that’s within you.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Book Review – “The Joy of Meditation”

March 9, 2016 Linda-Ann Stewart

Joy of Meditation
by Jack and Cornelia Addington

This is a wonderful little primer on meditation. In simple, easy to understand language, it covers all aspects of meditation, and clarifies some misunderstandings. This book also covers some of the benefits of meditation, including developing your intuition, healing, and becoming more in tune with the Infinite.

Many books on meditation scare off the beginner by asserting that there’s only one way to practice or stating that you have to keep your mind quiet. There are many different methods to practice meditation, and this book gives directions on how to do many of them. The authors also explain that keeping the mind one-pointed is the goal of a type of meditation, but that it takes much training to achieve.

Whether you’re a beginner to meditation, or someone who needs to rejuvenate your practice with something new, this book will give you guidance and inspiration.

~ Linda Ann Stewart

Are You Living In Want, Or Wanting More?

February 17, 2016 Linda-Ann Stewart

We all want more good in our lives. However, the word “want” has contradictory definitions. One definition means “lack,” while another means, “desire.” It’s two sides of the same coin. When we state that “I want more (whatever),” we’re actually telling the subconscious that we don’t have enough. By wanting more, we’re actually operating from a sense of lack.

Since we attract what we focus on, the subconscious will make sure we have more to want. Whether it’s more money, abundance, harmony, health, or ease, by our very wanting more, we’re actually focusing on the absence of it.

As we sink deeper into wanting more, we can sometimes have a feeling of longing for the goal, desperation, or trying to force the issue. Any attempt to use our will to control the outcome will simply bring more scarcity. Our emotion is what manifests, and feelings of lack, limitation, or scarcity, even when we think we’re focusing on abundance, creates the mold for less of it in the subconscious. That’s when we’re living in a state of want or lack.

However, a synonym of the concept “want” is “desire.” I’ve heard it said that “Desire brings pain.” That’s true if our peace and happiness depends on the fulfillment of our desire. If the only way we’ll allow ourselves to be content is if we’re driving a Rolls Royce, the CEO of a company, or perfectly healthy, then we’re restricting the joys of watching a sunset, finding satisfaction in the work we do, or gratitude for however much health we do have. Grasping at a desire, and expecting it to be the magic that will make us happy actually ensures that we’ll be frustrated.

One of my spiritual teachers claimed that a “desire” was an inspiration from the Universe that indicated that whatever we “desired” was available to us. When we have a desire, then we have the ability to fulfill it. The desire brings awareness to an area we want more good in and identifies what it is that needs to expand. As long as we stay in the enlightened state of realizing that all the good is already ours, we can allow the Universe, through our subconscious mind, to manifest what it is that we want.

I’ve also heard, “Just focus on God and all else will be added,” meaning that more good will manifest for us as we shift our attention to a Higher reality. By meditating on God and all Its blessings, the Universe shows up in our lives as more prosperity, health, harmony, etc. Contemplating the Infinite doesn’t just attract more good into our lives. The Universe is the very good that we experience.

However, when we have a challenge or discomfort, focusing on the aspect of God that we want helps us to raise our acceptance of it. I sometimes use the affirmation, “I’m experiencing more of God in my life in the form of (harmony, abundance, health, joy, ease, etc.)” Or “I’m choosing to create more ….” to address the specific form of the Universe that I want to draw to me. As we use affirmations, a light touch is necessary, as well as focusing on the current abundance in that area. This allows the Universe to expand in what’s already present.

Affirmation:
The Universe is all good. Since I am an individualized expression of the Infinite, all the good I desire is already mine. I am grateful for the good that already exists in my life. I desire for there to be more abundance of good in the area of (your goal). I’m choosing to now create more of it. I experience more of the Universe in my life in the form of (your goal). I am now drawing to me all that I need for a more fulfilled life.