Some days really start so differently

?I've learned a little bit about this. I've realized that yes, we are ultimately in charge of our emotions, and yes, life happens. But there are some hacks to dealing with all of the bad days. Memorize a couple of phrases for starters. My favorite is” Without the valley, how would I know where the mountain top is?” It reminds me that when I'm low, to focus on the beautiful peaks, and be grateful for the fact that I now know what the valley looks like. There are a million ways to get through ups and downs, and everyone has their own. Remember, we are all made of the same organic material, we all have the same emotions, and we have to reach out to each other.

That would really stop you from experiencing human life in its full glory. But who doesn’t want good days to be more?? I will tell you how I do it. I feel good most of the time, like almost 90% of the time or maybe more. I feel down just twice or thrice a month, and generally, I lift my spirits up on the same day! How am I like this? Mindfulness. First and foremost, you have to realize that there is nothing really good or bad. It’s just the meaning you give to things, is positive or negative.

I invite you to start looking at the things you deem negative as neutral, and continue to look at the positive things positively. Secondly, when you’re really feeling down, please don’t fight it. It is okay to be frustrated sometimes and get sad. We are all humans. Be your own best friend and stop beating up yourself and blaming yourself. Really be your best friend. If it is a bad day or bad situation you find yourself in, accept it. Make peace with it. Practice breathing into your stomach when you feel tense. What you resist, persists. So do not waste your energy fighting and controlling.

The only control you have is in the mind. Once you achieve that, the outer things have no power on you and they’re simply incapable of making you feel unwanted emotions, unless you allow them by giving them the power. So when you stop being in the problem or unwanted situation mentally, you find yourself in the solution or relaxed state! This is what I do to feel good most of the time, and you can too.

?And what if I were to tell you that it is possible to turn bad into good and good into bad? Pretty cool, right? Not! But, it really is true! You know why? We have all done this! We’ve taken a perfectly good situation and mess it up, through misunderstandings, jealousy, stubbornness, embarrassment, or a 1,000 other reasons why we acted the way we did, and it was our choice to make and we have believed wrong assumptions about the intentions of others.

We have all done this, usually with disastrous results! Sometimes it’s the way we look at the world and how we judged the people that we interacted with and other times we just flat-out collided. When this occurs, our basic survival instincts kick-in, either unknowingly or knowingly, to defend our prejudices, beliefs and our personal judgements and logic, which, truthfully, is usually faulty, especially when made hastily or under stress and in a reaction to the perceived behaviors and actions of others, which may not even apply to the current situation!!!

Maybe now, with this semi-hiatus (that’s the pandemic) that has been thrust upon each and every ‘citizen of the world’ (that is you and me) we can each take a step back, take a very deep and healing ‘breath of fresh air’ and begin to look first to ourselves and then for help to our God/s and to each other for both blame and healing! This will only work only if all of us accept our personal responsibility for being human! We are both perfect (rarely, if ever) and fallible (more often than not!).

Only after this level of soul-filled reflection, can we honestly become human enough again to admit our own part in the damaging of our relationships, in our negative and judgmental attitudes, in our self-righteous condemnation, or in all of our ‘holier than thou’ attitudes, assumptions, or, dare I say, beliefs that only I and my like-minded family, friends, neighbors, worshippers, co-workers, and colleagues believe to be the right and only way of thinking, feeling, understanding, believing, acting, and interacting, governing, stewarding, serving, and assisting, leading and helping in this world!

Unless we erroneously profess to personally be the ultimate force and light, that each of us determines to be the one and only God of all Gods and the God of all Nations on Earth, then none of us has all the answers for all the people and all of the nations of all of the world! None of us are the greatest nation Unless all of us can work together and be there for each other, only then can we create the greatest world to live in…together happily.

Ultimately, if we do not set aside our foolish allegiance to only ourselves and begin to include, not just our own people, but all people, then no people will survive, let alone thrive in this world…If we do not understand that what we do and how we act effects all, then believe this, the ones who refuse to see and change, determine the fate of us all! Please reconsider your personal and/or global tact of trying to “rule the world”! It has not worked out well in the past, which, by the way has historically been the main predictor of our future!!!

Civilizations have come and gone, even the great ones! We will continue to re-live these histories that have come and gone, if we do not learn the same lessons that they refused to learn. Some did make advances and some did finally learn, but learned too late! Must we re-live the past over and over again? If history is deleted from the homes, schools, communities, states, countries, nations, and the world then how will future generations have any way of avoiding similar outcomes! For without learning from our own world’s history, are we not then doomed to repeat it!!! Okay, I get it, people understand history from different perspectives, but isn’t that a good thing? teach them all of the history, not just one or two, teach them all of it, and be honest!!! That way they have the tools to understand the pros and cons! This isn’t about looking good! Cheers!

A very old but truthful saying is: ‘History forgotten is history repeated!’

Isn’t this our personal responsibility? If not mine, then who’s responsibility is it?