It's Love. Not Loss.

Here's a video which explains that sharing the devastating results of our actions has not gotten us very far. It is not the loss of life that inspires us, but the awe and freedom we feel from those very systems we are destroying. Focusing on the positive gives us a genuine sense of hope, something that negative messaging will never be able to do.

I get the feeling that this video focuses on the messaging that non-profits, media, and figure heads are coming out with, but the same message is true on a much deeper and more personal level as well. Projecting love, not negativity, will serve you far greater than judgement and despair ever will.

You catch more flies with honey.

Observing Your Mind - The Power of Thoughts

I recently took my first course with Brahma Kumaris, an international spiritual organization, and learned many an important lesson.

Focused on Raja Yoga (a form of meditation), we first learned about the nature of our thoughts. To practice observing your thoughts, even just for an hour, is a powerful thing. You'll find that they range from great ones, to not so great ones, and we were given guidelines of what types we would be finding. They are:

• Positive (ex. She's so kind!)
• Negative (ex. He looks bad in that picture)
• Wasteful (The chitter chatter)
• Necessary (ex. I need to pick my son up at 8)

Thoughts, like everything else, are energy, and powerful energy at that. Negative and Wasteful thoughts will deplete your energy, Necessary ones will have a fairly neutral effect and Positive ones will magnify the 'good vibes' that you are both receiving, and giving out. The first step to transforming your thought energy into positive, powerful, and well balanced energy is awareness. Bringing your awareness to what is happening in your mind is a significant first step in harnessing your personal power. Personal power goes by different names: confidence, joy, commanding attention, kundalini, etc, but it's all the same thing - it is our life blood as humans, and the more we understand and work with it, the happier and more successful we will be.

Simply put - Be an observer in your life, and watch your life change. Period.

Via Flickr - Martin Sojka