Happy National Random Acts of Kindness Day! This ought to be every day, right? Paying it forward is one of my favorite random acts of kindness? Please leave a comment below and share your favorite.
Here are some #rayquotes on kindness. I’ve coined these on Twitter over the years. Get our there and BE KIND!
In a greedy mind, kindness is weakness. In a wise mind, kindness is wealth.
Kindness is always in fashion.
Kindness pays in a hundred ways.
Kindness matters. Full stop.
When you spread kindness, kindness is what spreads.
Let us create a world where kindness is seen as strength and violence is seen as failure.
Political correctness is a poor, artificial substitute for simply treating each other with the kindness, respect, and compassion we know we should.
We humans…SMH! Ninety percent of us seem to be hard-wired to expect the worst. When hold these magical negative beliefs that because things are going “too good” something bad is about to happen.
The news reinforces this. They talk about nothing but the bad, the dangerous, and the fearful.
The truth is there no law of physics that says your winning streak has to end. The universe is not out to get you. Good things are just as likely to happen as bad things. If you have the right mindset, the right preparation, and take the right actions; good things are probably far more likely to happen.
You’ve heard people say things like this. “Things are going so good, I don’t want to jinx it.” Collectively, we’re always worrying about Y2K, 2012, Armageddon, climate catastrophe, or some other disaster that’s about the befall us. I call this the “Chicken Little Syndrome.”
Barbara Hand Clow wrote an interesting book about 15 years ago titled Catastrophobia. In it, she postulated that catastrophic events far back in human history – the flood, comet strikes, or earth changes – have embedded themselves in our collective consciousness. She proposed the almost subconscious memories of these create our prevalent mindset that things are about to come apart.
Now, I’m not claiming that bad things don’t happen. I’m not claiming you won’t have setbacks. I’m saying that, if you’re like most human beings, your expectation that something bad is about to happen far outweighs the reality that is.
According the a Psychology Today article, the placebo effect has a cure rate of 15 to 72 percent. The placebo effect is nothing more than the power of expectation at work. A patient is told they’re being treated by a real drug that is or could be a real cure. In many cases, that is enough to affect a real cure. Amazing!
Numerous experiments have shown that human expectation and intention can impact the reality of the outer world.
Dr. William Tiller, Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Materials Science at Stanford, has led the way in trying to understand the mechanism that allows our minds to affect reality.
We all consider a coin flip to an equitable way to decide something because we all know there’s a 50-50 chance of heads or tails. However, research has consistently shown that intention can significantly skew the supposed evenness of the odds.
Given this awareness, why not live your life as if something good about to happen rather than something bad? You’re just as likely to be right and far less likely to go through your days stressed.
Power hack: Here are some simple power hacks to help you see good on the way for you.
Turn off the news. It’s generally 30 minutes of bad things are coming. Find other ways to get your information.
Pray/meditate. Get quiet. Get focused. Visualize good things coming your way.
Use affirmations to attract and focus on the positive.
Have a positivity support system. Have other people committed to expecting the good and the positive too. Be a support system for each other both in manifesting the positive and in picking you up when the negative does strike.
Have a fantastic day!
Ray
Check out our growing Quotes Library on the TAS website.
Slowly or quickly we are all awakening. The author Graham Hancock wrote, “We are a species with amnesia.” You came here without context for your being here or an understanding of how you fit into the big picture of the universe. You are left your own devices or those of the people that have come before you to figure this out.
These affirmations encourage the idea that your enlightenment is proactive and available to you right here in your daily life.
My enlightenment IS right here and right now.
Today I AM awakening to possibilities I never considered before.
The pearls of my awakening are scattered along my path today.
I AM awakening from the sleep of my confusion.
I AM a vehicle for raising the vibration on this planet.
I AM an agent of positive change everywhere I go.
I AM filled with radiant light and energy.
The winds of awakening blow through me today and I allow them to do their work.
Today and every day, I experience awakening, break-through, and release.
I’m currently designing a series of what I anticipate will be twelve week courses focussing on specific topics to help improve the quality of your life through awareness development, psycho-education and focussed therapeutic work where appropriate. Courses will comprise weekly sessions, experiential learning, workbooks, therapeutic tasks and between-session support to help you achieve your aims.
I welcome enquiries, expressions of interest and suggestions for courses or materials that might interest you. Please indicate in the comments box or email me and it would be great to hear from anyone who has experienced group therapy work for themselves – what helped, what didn’t etc.
The following are some topics I’m currently working on (continually revised and updated on the Coursespage of my website):
Life Inventory: taking stock, assessing, clarifying and redesigning your life to better meet your needs
Today is the final of last Sunday’s 10 Empowering Ideas that we’re going to address for now. Today we are going to discuss the eighth bullet point from that post. It’s an affirmation – My best IS good enough!
My God, I battled this one for years. Many of the messages I received when I was young, even when I knew I’d done my best, were that wasn’t good enough. I recall I scored 21 points in a victorious eighth grade basketball game. It was the most points I ever scored in a single game. I was elated. My coach, who I’m sure only meant to improve me, skipped right past my performance and to a mistake I made in the third quarter.
I remember thinking, “What the heck? I just had the best game of my life and that’s what you want to talk about?”
I’m willing to bet you could replace this story with one or ten or a hundred of your own. Unless you are lucky enough to have had only parents, friends, coaches, and bosses who celebrate your successes and only provide feedback, when it’s necessary, within the context of that positive reinforcement.
Sadly, most parents, friends, coaches, and bosses haven’t been trained in effective ways of giving feedback. They may focus on the negative because that’s how people have always provided feedback to them. This stuff is unconsciously passed along from person-to-person.
This kind of feedback leaves scars and subconsciously instills the concept in the listener – my best IS NOT good enough. Once any of us believe that in a particular situation or generally in our lives, things devolve pretty quickly from there.
Power hack: Today’s power hack and it’s two-fold. If you have a role in life where you are providing feedback to other people:
Remember to start with the positive and really give them credit for that before you move to the delta.
Deliver deltas in a productive way and with actionable ways the person can do something to change the behavior.
Start by asking for their assessment of how they did.
What did you like about what you did?
What would you do differently next time?
Finish with another positive and express the belief that they can improve.
Use proven feedback models like the balanced feedback model or the GROW model. Get educated on this very important task of providing feedback.
If you are the person receiving feedback from someone who doesn’t know how to provide it effectively, please hear me now. I wish I could speak to every ten-year-old because it would save so much angst later.
Other peoples’ opinions, even those of a respected authority figure, don’t matter nearly as much as yours.
If no one else celebrates your achievements, celebrate them anyway.
Never take feedback as a commentary you as a person.
If you’re struggling with believing your best is good enough because of past negative feedback, says this affirmation ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times a day until it replaces its opposite deep in your consciousness. Write it down and post it where you can see it. Do the old mirror time affirmation if you need to.
I AM enough!
My best IS good enough!
I AM enough!
My best IS good enough!
I AM enough!
My best IS good enough!
That is the truth!
Have a fantastic day and I will talk to you again soon!
Ray
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There is nowhere – not in the deepest, darkest cave or the highest mountain – where we can go and escape our choices. Look around right now. You will see the choices you have made everywhere you look.
For better or worse and on some level, if we are adults, the life we are living is made up of the choices we have made and the choices we have not made.
I know there’s a temptation right now for some of you to feel the word “but” coming to your lips. I say with love and respect, stop. You have challenges. You’ve been cheated and mistreated. The world has not recognized your gifts. I hear you. Everyone reading this hears you. That’s the human condition. We all start from that place.
Our situations may be different, but who has lived more than a week on this planet and not experienced difficulty?
I’m not saying this to point a finger at you or make you feel bad. I’m not saying it to diminish the challenges you’ve faced. Actually, what I’m telling you is an amazing blessing in disguise. It’s the key to the chains of your thinking that have oppressed you.
Because guess what? The fact that your choices lie strewn everywhere in your life is proof positive that you have the power – the power of CHOICE.
You see, our choices every, every one of them, are our chances to change. By choosing differently, we can change anything.
This power can be scary, for with it comes responsibility for our lives and our progress. Trust me, it’s way better than feeling like someone else or something else is responsible for your joy, your peace of mind, or your success.
Here are some motivational quotes by people born on February 15.
Galileo Galilei (Astronomer, philosopher 1564-1642)
You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him find it within himself.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
I never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
Susan B. Anthony (American Women’s Rights Advocate 1820-1906)
Independence is happiness.
The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled the more I gain.
Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.
Jeremy Bentham (British Philosopher 1748-1832)
Every law is an infraction on liberty.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.
Louis XV (King of France 1638-1715)
There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.
Alfred North Whitehead (British philosopher 1861-1947)
No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude.
Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will suffice.
Jane Seymour (Actress 1951-)
You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life – so that if it were over tomorrow, you’d be content with yourself.
I know that the purpose of life is to understand and be in the present moment with the people you love. It’s just that simple.
