“Your life – in fact, the future of the world – is within your own power to change. We just have to think differently – together.”
—LYNNE McTAGGART from “HOW YOUR THOUGHTS CAN CREATE PEACE IN 2024“
Evidently, I’m the character “Joy” from the Pixar movie Inside Out, or so some say… Others say that I’m “too cheerful”, “not for real”, “on drugs”, “delusional” and “unwilling to look at the dark side” of any coin, or cloud, or moon.
While there is some truth to the above, I am very aware of the darkness, which lives as a small seed in everyone, me included. This small seed of darkness can be watered with the anguished soul’s blood of sadness, fear, anger or despair and can, with sustained focus, grow into an unnatural thicket of thorns and stinging nettles entrapping the human, creating a barrier to the light.
Nothing would make the negative forces of this planet happier than having the brightest amongst us retreat into our painful and dark briar patches.
Conversely, there is also an acorn of potential in our souls that, when watered with wonder, connection, possibilities and love, can sprout into a mighty oak. While I do my best to water that part of my psyche, sometimes I’m not so successful, and find that I’ve been unconsciously watering that damned, dreary plant again.
At any moment, even the die-hard optimists like me, can shift focus from love to fear and find ourselves back in that briar patch. Those moments require mindfulness. When I slip into that darkness, falling backwards into the void, do I remember that every moment contains a choice? Not hardly… but eventually I see someone smile, or I hear a song, and my heart feels a flicker of joy, and I forget my funk for just a moment. That can be all it takes to allow the clouds to lift, and the sun to peek out, so that I can emerge from the thorns. Most people will not ever know that I was gone.
How do I generally stay focused on optimistic possibilities? I refuse to give my attention to those things over which I have no direct control. I don’t watch the news, I don’t read the papers, and I cringe when people in conversation start going down the dark alleyways of our current culture and political “reality”. I am often ridiculed for not “paying attention to what’s going on” and I’m fairly certain that my friends and family consider me naive.
“Maybe I'm living
With my head in the sand
I just want to see people giving
I want to believe in my fellow man
Yes, I want to believe… in humanity.”
—Carole King, Believe in Humanity
When speaking with a friend about how we get what we’ve been most focused upon this person believed I was saying “you get what you deserve” but nothing could be farther from my intended communication. “Getting what you deserve” implies “wrong doing”. Having thoughts that do not serve our highest selves is not “bad” or “wrong”, they are merely counter-productive to creating a life of choice.
If you’ve read my blog at all, you know by now that I am a firm believer that we create the world around us with our thoughts, intentions, and habits of thinking.
Imagine for a moment you’re an Olympic Skier standing at the top of the giant slalom, in a perfect launch position, about to ski down a slope that would paralyze with fear 98% of us. What are you thinking? Do you envision yourself falling and tumbling to your death? Of course not. If you’ve gotten to that stage of the game, you’ve been trained how to focus your mind on the outcome you choose. In your mind’s eye, you “see” yourself, making every turn, jump and twist, landing with ease and flying past the finish, arms held high “hooting” while the people cheer your perfect score!
“Hate heals nothing. Only love can heal.”
Our culture has indoctrinated us into believing that we are victims and at the mercy of just about everything. Nothing is more of a threat to the “dark” powers that be than an educated, personally empowered society that is capable of critical thought. When we shift our consciousness from being victims in our lives to being our own champions, we can recognize, and tap into the power of our minds, just like that skier.
What’s “going on” in the world has a great deal to do with where we place our focus. Consider this: if we have unwittingly created our current culture by unconsciously placing our focus on what we do not want, what could we create with conscious choice? This means that we can change our focus, and change our planet! Every one of us has more control over our worlds than most of us believe.
“I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.”
— Mother Theresa
So what is the difference between hiding my head in the sand, empowering the negative spiral with my focus, and giving my energy to a vision that I do want to create? Consider Mother Theresa’s words: “I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.” What is she really saying here? The skier would say that wherever you put your focus (whether you are “wanting it” or not) is what you get. With this in mind, the “anti-war rally” is ultimately about “war”, and everyone assembling around the concept of war funnels it tremendous energy. The peace rally has as its focus, peace. Where do you put your focus?
Please understand me; our world right now, today, with this political climate has the potential to be terrifying. What happened on January 6th, 2021 was a devastating blow to what turned out to be the Left’s tenous grasp of “reality”. Many of us didn’t have a freaking clue that there was that much darkness just below the surface of this country, myself included. During Trump’s first presidency, I experienced daily emotional and mental whiplash. In the past four years since that nightmarish reign, I believed I had somewhat healed only to have my whiplash recently re-compounded by his re-election on 11/07/24. WTF?!
AND if we agonize and perseverate and focus, and talk about, and otherwise feed that dark fear in our souls, what plant are we expecting to grow from that? What fruit do we want to harvest from those thoughts?
Do we want to attend an anti-war rally, or a peace rally?
Do we want to give our energy to what we actively want to create, or to what we are afraid might happen?
Have you heard the acronym for FEAR?
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real
We don’t actually know what might, or could happen. The future is not yet written. Collectively we have the ability to create powerful change.
Certainly bemoaning our current political situation and foreseeing catastrophe is just like the skier envisioning his own death; it helps us not at all and actually makes things worse. Nothing would make the negative forces of this planet happier than having the brightest amongst us retreat into our painful and dark briar patches.
If it is true that we have more power over our collective experience than we know, that we are not hapless victims, that our thoughts and where we place them matters, what might we create by focusing our thoughts on a vision of the best possible future for the world? Might we choose to water that beautiful seed of love in our collective spirits… everyday, in every possible moment that we can manage?
As a good friend of mine said recently, “Hate heals nothing. Only love can heal.”
In the coming days, to the best of my ability, I will be focusing my energy on Love… where will you focus yours?
Always infinite possibilities… always your choice.
