perspective
How To Thrive In Challenging Times
The world can be a challenging place, especially nowadays. However, not only can we cope more easily with any personal, national, or global crisis, we can thrive at the same time. Yes, it can be done, and the following spiritual and conscious living suggestions may help you restore balance and personal bliss in these times.
Choose Your Company Carefully
It is essential that, while going through any type of life challenge, you wisely choose whom you interact with. If you were to allow it, certain people will only serve to increase your stress and anxiety, while others might be supportive in a positive way and make you feel uplifted and empowered. So be careful about who you spend your time with, and avoid the energy thieves on social media.
A great way of connecting with the right kind of folk would be to join a support group or like-minded ‘tribe’ consisting of people whose collective objective is to help one another remain positive and maintain a sense of sanity – no matter what might be going on in their personal lives, or in the rest of the world.
Make Time For Daily Meditation
Anyone can meditate, and that includes you! Therefore, if you would like to reduce the harmful effects that stress can bring to bear on your body and mind, particularly during a challenging time, a simple daily meditation practice can be immensely helpful.
On The Positive Side Of A Pandemic
These are painful, difficult times. There is a lot of uncertainty in our world and it is so hard to see so many people suffering. However, there are also many beautiful, magical, heroic moments happening everywhere on the planet.
These moments of unity and love, occurring at the same time as so much hardship and pain is occurring, is what will matter most in the end. It is important during times like this to balance the darkness with the light. In today’s post, I wish to therefore focus on some of these more uplifting, inspirational trends of recent weeks.
There is a man in Spain whose upstairs neighbor was in the hospital due to a Covid-19 infection. The man reached up high every night and fed the hospitalized man’s dog on the balcony of his apartment, thus keeping the dog alive throughout the owner’s hospitalization. Sometimes the smallest act of kindness can have the most lasting impact.
In some places, pet shelters have been emptying with more people recently adopting cats and dogs as companions. In the process more animals are being spared euthanasia and given good homes. Many people are now being comforted and loved by their new fur babies during a difficult time.
Nurses, doctors, truck drivers, janitors, grocery store workers and many other service workers are now being praised as heroes. There is a new appreciation for the important work they do. Some wealthy people have donating money, time and energy to feed people and support the unemployed.
A Golden Opportunity For Inner Work
We are all feeling the same kind of mixed emotions at the moment. I have been spending some time trying to process the events of the last few weeks, and what is going on in the world these days. Below are some of my thoughts on it. Note, it is possibly different from what you might think and believe, but it is nevertheless my truth.
I have been feeling for the past few years that we are heading towards something momentous. I didn’t really know what it would be, or what it would look like, but I just had this foreboding or premonition that something major was going to happen. I have sensed that our planet needed a shift to correct things. To maybe put things into perspective, to put things back on track, or in alignment.
I consulted spirit for insight on recent events, and I have been shown that this is a time for us to reconnect with our faith, our divine purpose and our inner being. And we must really connect with our ‘inner lion’ for hope and courage!
The Covid-19 pandemic has given us the golden opportunity to have more time to think and really connect with our inner being, and the higher self. We now have a unique opportunity to discover who we really are and connect with our true spiritual nature.
Gratitude – A Message From My Guides
Sometimes when you are fearful or worried, the last thing you would envision thinking about is gratitude. When you are deep in grief, after the passing of a loved one, being grateful is also not your first thought. When you have lost a job, or have a sick child, the remote idea of gratitude can be the furthest thing from your mind.
However, it is during these times of worry, grief, or fear, that gratitude can be very helpful. If you can focus on even a small success, or a tiny attribute for which you can be grateful, it can make a world of difference to your perspective. Although changing your perspective will not necessarily alter your present circumstance, it can help you cope with your current reality.
Gratitude comes in all shapes and sizes. It can manifest in many forms at any time of the day. It does not have to be something magnificent or worldly, although it certainly can be something momentous, if that is what comes to mind.
Take a few minutes each day to be mindful and appreciative. Your focus can be as simple as having a safe home, or even a nice smile. Or it can be as complex as gradually improving health, or increased financial stability. It might be thoughts of a solid friendship, a dependable baby-sitter, or a full refrigerator. It can involve only yourself, or members of your family. It can encompass your entire neighborhood, your faith, or your workplace.
How To Overcome Negative Thought Patterns
There are times when one may be feeling very serene, and completely at peace with ourselves and the world. One may even be feeling highly satisfied with the spiritual growth and personal healing you have accomplished thus far. Then, quite unexpectedly, you lose your sense of alignment. You suddenly feel ‘disconnected’ from the source of our being.
This feeling is especially triggered when one feels overwhelmed by life’s responsibilities, or the constant demands of others. And once we slip into this negative state of mind, many deeply buried, unpleasant memories tend to emerge in our consciousness in the form of haunting ‘flashbacks.’
I recently heard a friend referring to this experience as cognitive distortion. We can so easily begin to catastrophize, and expect the ‘other shoe to drop,’ once our anxiety level becomes this amplified. The mind is powerful and under these circumstances we tend to indulge in a lot of ‘what if’ thinking. The mind races, imagining all the worst case scenarios as potential outcomes.
This kind of catastrophic thinking typically takes our mind into two directions. Firstly, it puts a truly negative spin on the current situation. And secondly, it causes us to anticipate all the many, many things that could possibly go wrong in the future.
Polarized thinking is another problem for some of us. This thought pattern is when we only see things in terms of right or wrong, and this can lead to setting unachievable standards for ourselves and others, as well as send our stress levels through the roof! Polarized thinking crops up when we find ourselves basing our hopes and expectations on, for example, getting that dream job, impressing other people, finding our soulmate, becoming famous, and so on.
Things Will Always Fall Into Place
During a recent interview for a paranormal podcast, I was asked what the wisest advice or guidance was that my spirit guide or angel had ever given me. The answer was easy, “Fear not, things will always fall into place.”
I was rushing around one day, hurried, feeling like there was just too much I had to do. I was feeling stressed out and anxious. All I wished for was to arrive at a place of stillness and contentment. But I forget at times that we can find stillness and inner peace right now, in any given moment. It is all about perspective and knowing that things change constantly, and our circumstances may very soon be different.
Sometimes we can become trapped in a way of thinking that isn’t good for us. We get into a rut and we feel there is no way out, or that things won’t ever change. But they always do in the end. That is the thing: knowing that circumstances always change and energy is always shifting.
Instead of being sucked into this kind of negative thought pattern, try the following strategies instead.
Keep a positive attitude. Become the energy you wish to attract. Like attracts like.
Visualize to materialize. I like to do this literally right on the cusp of sleep. It really makes things manifest for me easily this way for the next day, or days ahead.
The Transformative Power Of Gratitude
The act of giving thanks is a transformative one. When we live in gratitude, our energy vibration becomes elevated, and this positivity spreads outward like the ripples in water. If you’ve ever heard of paying it forward, this is the same idea! Gratitude changes lives – both our own and that of others.
Being appreciative and giving thanks to others, to the Universe, to the Earth for its sustenance, raises positive energies which will in turn come back to us.
Sometimes being grateful can feel like a chore, or something we need to pretend feeling. Every one of us experiences hardship and adversity. Life’s challenges sometimes get even the most grateful people down. The best way to flip that into something positive is to make a list of gratitude statements, in your mind, aloud, or in your journal.
Are you grateful for your friends, family, your health, the beauty of nature? Maybe you’re simply thankful you were able to get up this morning, when many other people were not.
Make this process one from the heart. Feel the positive energy. After a while, it will become an uplifting habit, and your body and mind will start to enjoy the positive rush of feelings. Let this routine be the first thing you do in the morning, and the last one you do at night before sleep.