Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Choose Your Attitude

A young girl walks on the lonely street unhappy with herself. She is not beautiful like others. “My friends have boyfriends and I do not. They are happy because they have boyfriends and since I am not beautiful, nobody is coming to me;” with this complex, she is lost in her self-talk.
There is a strong breeze, which blows and her silky hair starts dancing with the breeze and silently it says to her: “Be like me my child, go with the flow and you will glow.” The breeze teaches her to have an attitude, which will lift her beyond the physical beauty.
The breeze is constantly moving; so to move with the vastness of life and not get stuck to your body, be like it, constantly moving. The breeze says to her: “I do not move for happiness but out of happiness. I do not dance for happiness but out of happiness. A youth should learn this art to operate from happiness and not for happiness. Happiness is an attitude. To be a winner in life is also an attitude.”
As William James said, “It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult undertaking which, more than anything else, will determine its successful outcome.”
Attitude is more important than facts for attitude makes us to be in an empowered state of being. When you are empowered, you are bigger than a problem rather than a victim to a problem, and living in such a space makes you a winner.
An easy task becomes difficult when you have a poor attitude. A difficult task becomes challenging when you have a good attitude.
What does it involve, having a healthy attitude?
Change your body posture.
A trainer while talking to students on the subject of Public Speaking told them: “When you talk of heaven your face must be glowing and radiating joy. Your eyes must shine and lips should reflect heaven.”
“What about talking of hell?” asked the student.
“Your ordinary face is enough,” replied the trainer.
Change your mind.
Always entertain healthy thoughts. Positive thoughts are a great asset. A pessimist sees difficulty in an opportunity and an optimist sees opportunity in a difficulty.
Understand that when one door closes another opens. Trust life. Insecurity invites you to be alert and not worried. It tells you to be creative and not complain. One has to know how to take it easy and float in life and not fight with life. You can’t fight with the waves but you can learn to float.
Change your emotions.
The quality of your life is the quality of your consistent emotion. When your emotion is low, just change it; think of a happy incident.
Change your values.
Have values that connect to goodness and connect to people.
What should be my psychological exercise?
  • Always stand and sit erect. “If you want to be a colonel, walk like a colonel,” is an expression in the army.
  • Keep the body posture like that of a winner.
  • Keep your mind filled with positive thoughts.
  • Keep your emotions on the top of the world.
Exercise yourself and keep the above alive in you; see and picture yourself doing this.
Fear is a hard way of making your life miserable. Fear is a fantasised experience appearing real.
There are many types of fear. Lots of people have a fear of failure, fear of death, fear of insecurity and fear of rejection.
Come from a commitment that failure is only a postponed success. Come from the understanding that failure is a fertilizer to success.
If you bring this energy into your life, it will give you methods of handling fear of failure.
Also understand that fear is a movement of thought. Thought is nothing but a movement of the mental word. If you get identified with a fear which is actually just a thought, which again is just a word, then this identification makes you a prisoner of fear.
Also, this thought-fear unconsciously pulls in the previous memories of fear and with the past fears, a snowballing effect happens.
So when fear happens, just become totally aware and don’t get identified with that thought. With wordless awareness, just watch. This watching will not allow the previous fears to have a snowballing effect. This is called as objective watching.
How does one handle the fear of insecurity?
You feel insecure because you have a concept of what is security and from that concept you are seeing life. Anything that does not fit that concept makes you insecure.
If you have an adventurous energy in you then insecurity is a great adventure for you to explore. You will have fun with that insecurity. It is like a hunter hunting in the forest, even though it is dangerous he enjoys it.
Learn to trust that insecurity is inviting you to be creative.

Swami Sukhabodhananda 

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