I wanted my son to be smart and successful, but I also wanted him to be good. I wanted him to be the kind of person other parents would like to see their kids marry. I also wanted him to make sound, values-based decisions that would help him be safe and happy.
So, like most parents, I spend a lot of time trying to instill in him virtues like honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and kindness. But building character is more complicated than teaching math or manners. It involves the heart as well as the head. The goal is to make good thoughts and conduct a matter of habit. I want my children to know what’s good, want what’s good, and do what’s good. Effective character building is captured in the acronym T.E.A.M. – teach, enforce, advocate, and model. We teach character by promoting and developing the values and ethical virtues that make up a good person – trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. We need to be sure kids understand what each of these traits look like. We entrench these values by enforcing them, by backing up our rhetoric with appropriate consequences. What you allow, you encourage. Advocating values means passionately and relentlessly stating our commitment to good character so our children have no doubt what we want for them and expect from them. Finally, and most crucial, we must teach positive values by example, modeling the virtues we want to see in our children. We teach values by the way we deal with pressures, frustrations, fatigue, and other everyday actions, especially what we say and do when we think no one’s looking. This is Elizabeth Christianson reminding you that character counts.
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What would you do if I showed up at your door, walked straight into your living room, and dumped a big bag of garbage on your floor?
Would you gasp at the atrocity? Would you order me to clean it up? What if I did the same thing every day following? Given that we are friends, and you trust me, would you simply learn to live with it? Sounds like an absurd thing to entertain but I listened to an earlier message from Zig Ziglar who asked this exact question. (As a side note, it is true what they say that we think in pictures so did you get a really clear visual of me walking into your home and dumping garbage on your floor? Believe me, I got a really clear visual of your reaction!) Ziglar’s point was that we recognize household garbage and know that it has no place on our living room floor. It is trash that we took to the curb once and for good reason. We do not want it back! But do we recognize the garbage that cleverly finds a way into our bodies and our minds through preserved foods, rotten ideas embedded in our entertainment, stinky attitudes in our media, or toxic behaviors in our community, and simply accept? Okay maybe that sounds a bit extreme, but you know what we say about computers, “Garbage in, garbage out.” The question is, are we as quick to gasp at garbage imprinting, nutrition, environment and situations and be as mindful to keep them out? Aha! ~ “The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations.” ~ Zig Ziglar It is normal that we absorb bits of garbage – mentally, physically, emotionally, environmentally – on a regular basis without being mindful gatekeepers. If we were transparent we could immediately see the direct impact of everything we subject ourselves to. But as James Allen wrote, “…environment is but [your] looking glass” We needn’t go far. (I’ll let you look up the rest of Allen’s brilliant quote.) Notice how many people you know that are reflecting, re-evaluating, and revising – my new 3R’s – and changing course by making more self-honoring choices? Tragedy has a way of shocking us into doing things differently. When we are shocked, we go inward. What an empowering place to start. High five to infinite possibilities! Anyone can create the life they want—irrespective of their current or past circumstances or what other people want or expect of them.
I’m saying this not only because because I’ve read books on the topic like the book emotional intelligence. I’m saying it because I live it every day. My life is a demonstration of what’s possible when you stop letting your circumstances control or limit you. When I stopped focusing on what I lack , I completely turned my life around. And millions of other people have done it too. And if we can do it, you can do it too. However, you should know that right before my life started to shift, I asked myself to suspend my disbelief. So, before I continue, I’m asking you to do the same today. It’s not capricious There’s nothing special about me. The Universe wants each one of us to have an abundant life, and it is always supporting us in making this a reality. However, we must do our part. To create the life we desire, we must think from the inside out. All creation starts on the inside, including the things and experiences that show in our lives. We create our life circumstances in our mind, using our imagination before they become our reality. However, most people either don’t understand this or simply don’t use it to their advantage. Instead of shaping their future by thinking about what they want, many people focus on their current circumstances, and they get more of what they already are or have. Even though that’s a common mistake, here’s how you can correct it quickly. Create a new reality If you’re serious about creating the life you want, stop focusing on or fighting your existing reality. Instead, wipe the slate clean. Here’s how you can do that: 1. Sit down (or go for a walk) and let your imagination flow about how you really want to live in all areas of your life. 2. Make a list of all the things that will allow you to enjoy life fully. Think about the relationships, amount of money, health, career or business, house, car, philanthropic activities, etc., that you want. 3. Write a description of your life exactly as you want it to be. 4. Read your description or think about what you desire every morning, every night, and as many times during the day as you can. Feel it as if you already have your desires. 5. Instead of fighting existing reality and continuing along your current course, you will begin moving toward the life you want and bringing it toward you. Why this works I realize that what I just outlined may seem too simple to work. But don’t let its simplicity fool you; it’s also potent and effective. Our thoughts are a potent creative force. Concentrating your thinking is like taking a river that’s twisting and turning and meandering all over the countryside and putting it into a straight, smooth channel. You see, thought waves are cosmic waves that penetrate all time and space. They take formless energy and create a form—the image of what we are thinking about. But holding the image of what you want in your conscious mind does not affect your life; you must turn that image over to your subconscious mind. When an image is planted in the fertile soil of your subconscious mind, magical things start to happen because the image alters your vibration. That vibration expresses itself through your body in action. Every vibration sets up an attraction, and every action sets up an equal and opposite reaction. Here’s another way to look at how we become what we think about… The Secret explained I learned the power of thinking from one of the most magnificent books Think and Grow Rich. The problem with most people is that they’re not really thinking; they’re just creating mental activity. Remember earlier when I said creation starts on the inside. Well, real thinking is from the inside out. However, you can’t just think about getting rich once or twice and expect it to happen. You must get in harmony with your desires to attract them to you. Here’s a four-step process for attracting riches or anything else you want: 1. Build the idea and the image of what you want. Many people believe conscious thinking has no power over subconscious processes. However, you can change the automatic, habitual patterns of the subconscious mind with new, repetitive thoughts. Your subconscious mind has no “will” of its own. It works only on the data you feed it in ideas, beliefs, and interpretations. And it always seeks to give you appropriate feelings and to accomplish the goals that you repeatedly provide it. Your conscious (creator) although does have a will of its own and that works side by side with your subconscious. 2. Internalize or get emotionally involved with the idea/image you create. Thoughts that are mixed with feeling or emotion constitute a magnetic force. So, to attract what you want, deep feelings and desire must accompany your thoughts. I recommend that you do what Dr. Maxwell Maltz suggests in Psycho-Cybernetics: “Picture to yourself what you would like to be and have and assume for the moment that such things are possible. Arouse a deep desire for these things. Become enthusiastic about them. Dwell on them—and keep going over them in your mind. Your present negative beliefs were formed by thought plus feelings. Generate enough emotion or deep feeling, and your new thoughts will cancel them out.” 3. Change your vibration. When you internalize a thought, it feeds into your subconscious mind, which is your emotional mind, and it dictates the vibration that your body moves into. When we talk about our vibration, we’re talking about our emotional state or how we feel. That feeling or vibration is automatically expressed in action, including attracting new thoughts that will take you where you want to go—the new reality that you described above. 4. Attract what you are in harmony with. You can only attract the energy that is in harmonious vibration with you. Your action sets up a re-action that is aligned with your desire. So, you see, you don’t attract what you want. Wants are in your conscious mind. You attract what you are in harmony with, what you ARE. And you ARE the thoughts that become fixed in your subconscious mind. That’s how the Law of Attraction works. Anyone can attract what they want. If you focus on the first two steps, the rest will happen automatically in accordance with universal laws. I encourage you to reread this and play with these ideas for a while. I guarantee it will make a tremendous difference in your life. The Universe is ready to bless you I love this concept of the power of real thinking. All the great leaders all down through history have unanimously agreed that we become what we think about. When my life changed dramatically , it took me a few years to figure out what had happened. At the end of that time, I was clear on what I had done… I had built new ideas in my mind, and then I got emotionally involved with those ideas, I internalized them, and the rest took care of itself. |
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August 2022
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