“When failure becomes your teacher, success becomes your future.”
~ Ray Davis
Have you ever noticed the power that words have to transform people and situations? Years ago I was teasing someone at work by saying “absolutely” to every thing she said. For some reason, it put me in the habit of saying “absolutely” to things in life.
When someone would ask me a question, rather than saying yes or sure, I got in the habit of responding, “absolutely”! I became aware that my own sense of resoluteness and confidence was buoyed by saying the word. I also noticed that other people seemed to respond well to someone saying, “absolutely”.
People would comment that someone saying that word so enthusiatically was refreshing and inspiring. So, I kept doing it. Today I answer absolutely practically and metaphorically in life. I’ve found the word has a power and surety about it that people seem to want to experience.
So, here is my challenge to you. When someone asks you to do something tomorrow say enthusiastically, “absolutely”! Amid the gray, unenthusiastic responses they experience all day, your “absolutely” will stand out.
Check out our new affirmation apps for Apple devices or search i-mobilize on the iTunes store. The Affirmation Spot is developing these motivation apps in partnership with i-mobilize. Click an app to view it – Love Magnet, Sales Booster, Confidence Affirmation, or Full Body Scan.
Contact is a 1997 movie based on a book by Carl Sagan and starring Jodie Foster. It is one of my all-time favorite movies. Foster plays Ellie Arroway a highly-driven, highly rational astronomer searching for extraterrestrial life.
Her ridiculed search becomes an international sensation when her team detects a sentient message coming outer space. The message contains instructions for building a vehicle to rendezvous with the aliens. After a few twists and turns, Arroway winds up being Earth’s representative.
Her spiritual skepticism is tested when she has a profound experience that defies scientific explanation. The following scene includes her voyage to the rendezvous point and her meeting with an alien who represents himself as her father.
The key is the message delivered by the alien about how important we all are. The scene has unforgettable imagery. Enjoy and remember all we have is each other!
Upon return, Arroway has to explain her unprovable experience before a Congressional committee investigating the whole situation as a fraud. She makes an impassioned speech wishing that everyone could see what she has seen.
Stay inspired!
Ray
2009 Affirmation
“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”
Few things allow us to experience greater happiness than feeling gratitude for what we have. Many of us are pursuing big dreams and that is awesome. This video reminds to appreciate what we along the way.
Stay inspired!
Ray
2009 Affirmation
“This year I am absolutely committed to being the person I came here to be!”
Over the past couple of weeks, I asked you to pay special attention to the negativity and disempowerment you encounter every day of your life.
In Part I of the experiment, I asked you to observe the negativity in the people around you. In Part II, I asked you observe the disempowering, negative thoughts and comments you make on a daily basis.
The point of this experiment was not to judge you or the people around you. Rather it was to make you aware of just how much negativity the average person generates in a day. Unless you are hanging with a way above average crowd, you probably experienced a lot of negativity once you really started watching for it.
How about you? Did it surprise you how much negativity runs through your mind and crosses your lips on a daily basis? Don’t panic! You’re not sick or defective. You’re a normal human being!
For some reason, most human beings are set to the negativity channel by default. That’s why self-improvement, self-help, and motivation are ever popular and always needed. For most of us, staying positive is a daily, live-long endeavor like exercise or eating right. It’s not an event it’s a process.
The only way to change the equation is to get really conscious of your negativity and disempowerment and that of those around you – the point of this experiment – and take steps to counter that negativity.
Even when you make the decision to focus on increasing your positivity you stlll battle your own habits, the sea of unhappiness and negativity that comes from those around you, and round the clock crisis coming from the media and leaders. It can leave you feeling helpless, negative, and disempowered.
Why Does it Matter?
So why does all of this matter? I mean that’s the way it is, right? Well, it matters because when your thoughts are negative and powerless they create negative and powerless action. That kind of action causes your life to get out of control, your goals to go unattained, and, when multiplied across the planet, a very disempowered populace.
Freedom, democracy, and the pursuit of happiness cannot happen when our thoughts and beliefs convince us the deck is stacked against us. That is magnified when it is reinforced by the people around us and the information we get in the media. We wind up giving up our power, giving up our freedoms, and becoming reliant on institutions to protect us from the shadow of constant fear projected on the walls of our consciousness. Our negative thinking convinces us that we are powerless to change things.
Freedom persists only where there is an empowered citizenry that is aware, enlightened, informed, and able to act in its own interest. The possibility of growth and change in our personal lives is only possible when we have a positive, empowered vision of our future.
Our negativity and disempowerment threatens our personal goals and the viability of a free society.
What To Do
Motivation expert Dr. Wayne Dyer discusses the power of our thoughts.
There are a number of things that can help turn this situation around.
Awareness – the first thing is you have to be aware of the current situation within you and around you and be clear about it. In other words, you have to admit there is a problem. I’ve had people I work with on motivation tell me that negative thinking is not a problem for them. We have to get out of denial and recognize the need for change and that change is possible.
Empower Your Thinking – you need to start with you. You cannot hope to make a difference for others until you are on the road to empowered, positive thinking. What are your goals, your dreams, your bliss? Do you even remember? Get clear on what you want to achieve and affirm it with affirmations and other techniques every single day. Catch your negative thinking when it happens and question and counter them with a positive alternative. There is a greatness within you. All you need to do is set it free!
Help Those Around You – once you “wake up” and your perspective starts to shift positively, you’ll really become aware of how much negativity others have and you understand how destructive it is to them. I don’t think smoking, obesity, or alcohol are as damaging to someone as beliefs that make people believe less of themselves. Look for opportunities to help the people around you rethink their thinking. Help them shift from disempowered thinking about themselves and the world to empowered.
Celebrate the Positive – too many people in our society firmly believe that negative thinking is somehow more realistic than positive thinking. This is a horrible recipe for positive change in a person or a society. If you watch, you will see how often positive thinking is ridiculed in the media. Be one who celebrates positivity. Be the person who picks others up on their bad days. Live for and demand a positive outcome in your life and in the world. Everything is possible. We should think and speak and act like it.
Shut Out Negativity – lessen or eliminate your exposure to the negative. A careful examination quickly reveals that the media is hyper-focused on the negative – crisis after crisis. They are focused on what is wrong with you – you’re poor, you’re too fat, you’re powerless. They seem to want to keep you afraid which is very disempowering. Know your limits. Being informed is a good thing, but shut out the negativity when you start to feel it having an effect on you.
More, much more, is possible for you and for all of us living here on this planet in this time and place. We have created marvels and yet believe ourselves to be less than. My hope in sharing this experiment and this dialogue was to help you realize both that there is a lot of negativity in your environment and within you, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, that you can do something to change it.
“Speak of the Devil and he appears,” goes the old aphorism. Some people in the positive thought movement seem to think the same thing about negative thoughts. They are something to be avoided at all costs. You must stamp them out like burning embers of a campfire to prevent their spread.
Certainly the great Dr. Norman Vincent Peale was a popular pioneer in the positive thinking movement. His writing has within it these admonitions to treat negative thinking like the plague. Many who have come after him have picked up on this theme.
Obviously, the goal of positive thinking and affirmations is to diminish negative thoughts and counter them with positive thoughts. This is a worthy and highly beneficial goal that enhances your life. Negative thoughts, however, are a natural part of being human. We all have them and we will always have them.
The problem is when we try to become a superhuman robot who avoids negative thinking. This is not realistic or even beneficial. The fear of negative thinking becomes a focus rather than the true task – to increase levels of positivity in our lives.
To panic and spend a lot of time concerning yourself with negative thoughts, only causes them to blossom and grow. Recognizing them, accepting them, and letting them go steals their power and allows them to vanish back into the void from where they came. Having a negative thought is not the problem. Allowing them to become your habitual way of seeing things is what you want to avoid.
Actually, our negative thoughts provide a natural benefit. They shed light on the parts of us that need work and attention. If you always have negative thoughts about your job, maybe that part of your life needs some attention. If you have negative thoughts about certain people, those may be relationships that need work.
It’s rather entertaining sometimes to simply “thought watch”. Our minds are interesting things. When you relax, close your eyes, and watch your thoughts for a while. Quickly, you notice how impermanent thoughts are. They appear and create feelings. They disappear and the feelings disappear with them.
If your thoughts are very destructive and involve hurting yourself or others, get professonal help.
Here are four things you can do to handle and live more harmoniously with common negative thoughts. They form the word CALL.
Counter – counter your negative thoughts with tools like affirmations. Persistent negative thoughts can be countered and changed by offering positive alternatives. This process is called thought substitution. Negative thoughts help you identify where you need to target affirmations.
Accept – accept that you will have negative thoughts and it’s OK. You’re human after all. No beating yourself up.
Listen – listen to your negative thoughts. They may provide insight into where you need to focus your self-improvement efforts.
Laugh – some of your negative thoughts really are pretty funny when you get enough perspective. Lighten up and see the humor in the way your mind works.
I’m not saying don’t try to transform your negative thoughts into something positive. I’m just saying that when they want to come out and play, CALL allows you to say, “Bring it on!”
Over the past couple of weeks, I asked you to pay special attention to the negativity and disempowerment you encounter every day of your life.
