Are you your own worst enemy?

“I just don’t understand it,” she said pointing to the withering little lavender plant at the bottom of her garden, “When I bought it, I had visions of it growing into one of those big bushy plants that wafts delicious fragrances across the garden.  It doesn’t make sense.  I’ve planted it in the right soil, made sure it’s not too dark or too sunny and yet every day when I water it, it withers even more.”

“Well, what are you watering it with then?  Are you using some kind of fertiliser in the water?” her friend asked.

“Water?” she replied, “No, I give it this,” and she held out a container of vinegar.

Her friend laughed.  “Vinegar?  Are you crazy?  What on earth can you expect, if you’re watering it with vinegar!  For goodness sake June, I know you’re scatty but that is taking it too far.  No wonder the poor thing is dying!”

_________________

It does sound a little crazy doesn’t it?  Who in their right mind would do that?  A plant needs water to thrive, not vinegar.  And yet, so often we can do this to ourselves by thinking and feeling in ways that hamper or own ability to thrive.  The thoughts we think can sometimes be as toxic to us as vinegar is to a plant.

Negative thoughts about our self, our friends, our family, our partners, our life situation can be so damaging and lead towards creating more unhappiness.

This little girl in the video was about five years old at the time it was filmed.  She could teach us all a good lesson.  Appreciate your life and all the people and things in it and life will seem instantly brighter and happier.  Jessica’s daily affirmation.

Your Inner Landscape

One of the keys to life is having an awareness of and a degree of control over your own inner landscape – what you think, believe and perceive in your own mind-space.

If you take a dog as an example, well it’s just a dog.  But for some people, a dog represents a massive threat whilst to others, a dog is ‘someone’ to play with and have fun.

So it’s not really the dog that’s the ‘problem’ but our perception of the dog.  Many people own dogs and never get bitten by them.  And then there are some people that are so scared of dogs that they act in a way that makes them much much more likely to get bitten, because dogs sense fear like we smell after-shave.

So not only do our inner thoughts affect how we ‘interpret’ the outer world but they also change our behaviour – and that behaviour can lead to ‘problem’ situations.

So, in so many ways we can create problems just by the way we tend to perceive things.  Our inner landscape is very influential.

In many cases, a dog is a dog is a dog.  It’s our perceptions of ‘a dog’ that can lead to our either a negative or positive experience.

And this is the case for so many things.  When we think we have a problem with a circumstance, it is often not the outer circumstance that’s really the problem but how we are seeing the outer situation.

David Icke describes the world as a movie and that we are the projectors.  He suggests that if we don’t like the movie we’re seeing, then change what we are ‘projecting’.  Or change how we are seeing the world.  Change our own perceptions.  If we can change our inner landscape then our outer landscape can also shift accordingly.

Food for thought…

How do you frame your life?

How do you frame your life?  Do you look for the negative or the positive in it?

It can be so easy to see and look for all the sad things, all the bad things and all the negative things that have happened.  But what happens when we do this?  We fill our minds with negative thoughts and from negative thoughts grow negative feelings.

A pansy seed will grow a pansy.  And a negative thought will likewise grow a negative feeling.  Likewise, positive thoughts lead to positive feelings.

Here is a picture taken last year of London:

Apart from the houses, there are two dominant things in the picture; a cctv camera and a tree.

To take a ‘negative’ view of London, it would be possible to describe it by talking about all the cameras.  It is said that no matter where you are in London, a camera will be filming you. Many people are unhappy with their invasion of privacy and talk about the coming of a surveillance society where people are policed rather than protected.

And from this description, the picture would be framed thus:

However, the picture could be used to highlight the many trees in London.  Trees are a common sight and line many pavements.  In fact, there are also many many beautiful parks scattered across the capital too where you will often bump into squirrels and sometimes foxes.  And that even though London can be very urban, it also has its fair share of wildlife with birds still singing to bring in the day.

And so for this version, the focus of the picture would be like this:

Both versions are true.  But one version tends to be slightly depressing whilst the other version, paints a much happier picture.

What is the right version?  What is the correct choice? In a sense, neither.  They both exist but what you tend to focus on becomes bigger and the same applies to situations in your own life.  Do you notice and see the good in your life?  Or do you focus on the negative aspects?

Which view makes you happier?  Which view inspires you to make the best of your day?

Out of shit grows flowers

Having experienced a number of ‘challenging’ situations in my life, I can safely say that these periods in your life often spur you on to becoming even stronger, even wiser than you already are.

So if you are going through a difficult time, hold on in there.  Things will get better.  You’ve just got to have some faith.

They say that the darkest hour is just before the sun rises.

And I say, out of shit grows flowers.  So if your current situation is shit, just hang on in there and the flowers will grow.

Trust me.  I’ve been there.