When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get GLOWING
Where does our happiness come from? Does it come from outside circumstances or does it come from a source deep within us?
Many times the catalyst to our unhappiness comes from outside circumstances causing inner unrest. I didn’t get that promotion I wanted, the boy I like didn’t call me, those jeans that fit me last season now won’t button, I don’t have enough money to go on that vacation, my lab-test results came back positive, I got cut off in traffic – one person’s mountain is another person’s molehill, but whatever our mountains are, they are based in fear. And it’s so easy to get stuck in that fear-based, repetitive, obsessive way of thinking that causes us unhappiness.
The Hamster Wheel. That’s what I picture in my head when I start to have those thoughts. That furry little dude is running and running and running but going nowhere and there is no end in sight. Starving. He’s out of breath, searching for something that doesn’t exist. We’re thinking and thinking and thinking the same thoughts, reliving the past, fretting about the future, hungry for an answer, what ifs, why me, how come, searching for an answer that might not even exist, there is no end in sight, it’s going nowhere, we’re starving and exhausted.
So, how do we get off that hamster wheel? If that little hamster dude could step back and see himself exhausted, running towards nothing, he would easily step off and hamster walk/crawl away. If we can step back and observe our thoughts, we can redirect them towards positive thoughts, and we can stop the pattern of worry. We can go from spending two hours on the wheel, to 20 minutes and eventually getting rid of the wheel altogether.
Being mindful of our thoughts and redirecting them takes practice. We might not even be aware of the thoughts and limitations we have on ourselves that are preventing us from living the lives we want to live. Deep, ingrained, habitual thoughts we believe to be true about ourselves: I’m not good enough, nobody likes me, I’m not worthy of happiness, I don’t deserve wealth. These thoughts block us from the greatness within us and from experiencing who we really are. The good news is that these thoughts/habits are learned which means we can unlearn them and learn new positive thoughts/habits! When we start to have these negative thoughts, we must immediately counter act them with positive thoughts, forming a new habit and new way of thinking. I am good enough, people like me, I am wealthy, I am worthy of greatness.
Our inner dialog not only affects our state of mind, but it affects every cell in our body.
Dr. Masaru Emoto studied the effect music, words and pictures have on water crystals. His results were astonishing. After speaking positive words like love, peace and gratitude to tap water and then looking at it under a microscope, he observed beautiful, symmetrical, unique snowflake shaped crystals. When speaking negative words to water, under a microscope he observed incongruous, misshapen blobs. Using rice, and YouTube, I recreated this experiment. Since rice absorbs water, I cooked rice and put equal parts in three separate tupperware containers. One with a post it note saying love, peace and thank you, the second container with a blank post it note, and the third with a post it note saying hate, fear and anger. I let the containers sit on top of my refrigerator for a week. After a few weeks, amazingly, the positive words rice had no mold, while the other two containers were full of mold. Our bodies are made of 90% water, so when we ignore our thoughts or think hateful and fearful thoughts our cells react to those thoughts, just like the moldy rice, our bodies react negatively to our negative thoughts, causing us illness and disease. We must be intentional about our thoughts and what information we allow to be consumed by us, our lives depend on it.
What comes first the thought or the feeling?
We’re going along with our day, thinking positive thoughts, rainbows, butterflys, love, gratitude, puppies etc, and all of a sudden BAM! up pops fear. Unless we’re afraid of dogs or butterflys, where did this fear feeling come from? Maybe it was a smell that triggered a fear response in our brain, or a sound that created the emotion, but without even thinking suddenly we feel scared. Feelings always override thoughts. If we have a fear of butterflys, rationally we can think, that butterfly can not hurt me, I shouldn’t be afraid, but we still may FEEL afraid. Feelings rule. Ya feel me?
We should be mindful and chose our thoughts BUT its even more important to be aware of and choose our feelings. How do we choose our feelings when a smell or sound or sight can trigger a feeling we don’t want? We feel it, we observe it, we move on and choose to feel peace. We don’t stay in that feeling, hopping on that hamster wheel, obsessing over the butterfly landing on us, giving us some infectious, contagious butterfly disease, passing that disease along to our children, until we have all died a horrible butterfly diseased death. No. We see a butterfly, we may feel fear, we recognize it, we move on, we fill ourselves with peace. The end. Our thoughts do not need to jump on the fear bandwagon. But by not feeling the fear, we push it away for it to come up again. We begin to fear the feeling of fear. Picture fear as a beach ball, by not feeling it, we’re pushing it under the water only for it to keep popping back up again. We feel it, briefly, and do not dwell in it. We redirect our feelings to positive feelings of peace, love and gratitude.
Going from down and out, to up and in.
It’s easy to forget how connected to the universe we really are. Both our human tears and the ocean consist of salt water. We are literally made of the same material the stars are, atoms in our bodies are from stars which exploded billions of years ago. And like stars, we glow. We may not always feel like it or think it, but we are glowing. If this is a hard concept to feel, we can use our imaginations to get closer to that feeling of glowing. IN our imaginations, we can transform our feelings of fear and negativity into love and positivity. Our imaginations can be our best friend or our worst enemy, we can be attacked by a deadly, contagious butterfly or we can travel on its wings, stopping to smell a blossoming flower and bathing on its petals in the sun. We can see ourselves and the world as unworthy and unimportant or we can choose to see ourselves, others and the world as the truly miraculous, glowing creatures that we really are.
True happiness comes from an upwards and inner source and is not dependent on outside circumstances. Do we still want that promotion, relationship, vacation, clean bill of health? Yes, of course! But when we recognize that we are already glowing, that we have a divine spark glowing inside of us, our happiness no longer depends on those outside factors. When we can detach ourselves from the outcome of our wants, our wants no longer dictate our happiness. In other words, let go and let God. Everyday the sun rises and sets, the organs in our bodies miraculously work together to keep us breathing, moving, growing, changing, a flower grows and blooms without worry or fear. The universe works, taking care of all its creatures, and we must trust the universe will fulfill our needs.
Meditation is the magical key to unlock the door that houses our feelings of love, peace and gratitude. Ideally, there is no hamster wheel in meditation, thoughts come and go, we don’t dwell, we don’t judge, we breathe and we feel. With no opposing thoughts, we are open to love, we are who we were born to be, we feel that spark within us glow. We feel love, peace and gratitude from a source upwards and inwards.
When our thoughts and our feelings are aligned with love and positivity, we can’t help but glow.
When we glow, when we’re feeling love and thinking love, anything is possible. Our imaginations create our dreams and the universe will then magically manifest what was once only imagined. And when we glow, our light shines on others, and it’s contagious, the good kind.
Love, Katey
“Your imagination is your own fertile field for growing any seedlings that you choose to plant for a future harvest.” -Wayne Dyer
“I had looked for happiness in fast living, but it was not there. I tried to find it in money, but it was not there either. But when I placed myself in tune with what I believe to be the fundamental truths of life, when I began to develop my limited ability, to rid my mind of all kinds of tangled thoughts, and fill it with zeal and courage and love, when I gave myself a chance by treating myself decently and sensibly, I began to feel the stimulating, warm glow of happiness.” -Edward Young
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
Beautiful artwork done by George J. Bleich, borrowed from his site: www.bleich4art.com
Dr. Emoto’s rice experiment!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxF-0PNhuLM