Month: December 2019

2020 New Year’s Affirmations – Day 318 of 365 Days to a Better You

Today’s Thought:

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”
~ Bill Vaughn

As you look at that quote, which one fits you? If you’re in the first group, please keep that momentum flowing in your life and the world as you impact it in 2020. If you’re in the latter group, a new year is a new start. It’s a chance to ask whether that way of seeing the world is getting you where you want to go in life.

2020 promises to be an intriguing year. The divisiveness in our culture is running high. Many believe, “I have no choice. I must be at war for my ideas and my ideas must prevail 100 percent all the time.”

Such thinking doesn’t think of the well-being of all. Such thinking is eager to divide us against ourselves; a position that defeats us all, defeats our present, and defeats our future.

This not a world that has been thrust upon us. It’s a world we have chosen, even if unconsciously. We’ve dehumanized people for as little as disagreeing with us. These mindsets must not prevail in 2020 and moving forward.

Many still don’t realize, is that our minds (individually and collectively) are not separate from the world “out there”. Our thoughts are, in fact, the root system of the “tree” we see manifested as the “real” world around us. If you dig up a tree, you will find it all stems from its root system. If you dig up our world of events and experiences, you soon see it is made up of our thoughts.

The cross-currents of disempowerment will be many and vocal in this historic year. The pace of change – real and perceived – is going to pick up during this year because of the built up psychological expectations for it. That makes it more important than ever to empower your mind and think the thoughts and envision the world you desire.

I am posting New Year’s Affirmations a little early so that you can begin using them now to get your new year off to a great start. Here are 24 affirmations to get your new year off to an empowering start.

I recommend you begin the year with using either “this year” or “In 2020,” and as you get beyond the change of the year change it to “Today” or “Right now”.

  1. This year I AM the person I came to the planet to be!
  2. In 2020, I AM the change I want to see in my world!
  3. This year, I AM a miracle in motion!
  4. In 2020, I AM bigger than my doubts, bolder than my fears, and stronger than my obstacles!
  5. This year I challenge my paradigms to prove their worth and I change those paradigms that fail the test.
  6. In 2020, I choose to live in the sunshine of my possibilities, rather than the shadows of my doubt.
  7. This year my life is built on choices, not chances!
  8. In 2020, I breathe in every experience life has to offer and exhale a life well-lived!
  9. This year I AM the engine of my dreams!
  10. In 2020, my life is what I make of it and I choose to make it a _____ place to be!
  11. This year I follow my bliss! This year I experience my bliss! This year I become my bliss!
  12. In 2020, I am an abundance multiplier! As I succeed, I help others succeed too!
  13. My life belongs to me! This year I begin anew!
  14. Forget Resolutions! In 2020, I’m having a thought revolution!
  15. This year I have a budget and I’m sticking to it!
  16. In 2020, I CHOOSE  a love centered world over a a fear centered world!
  17. 2020 is MY year! My possibilities multiply, my successes magnify, and my potential is realized!
  18. As I turn my face to 2020, a brilliant new Sun dawns in my life!
  19. An amazing light lives within me! My light grows brighter and brighter throughout 2020!
  20. 2020 brings the perfect people and the perfect opportunities into my life!
  21. My personal economy is robust in 2020! My career/business is zooming to new heights!
  22. My immune system is healthy, strong, and protecting me in 2020!
  23. This year I am flawlessly executing my business plan!
  24. I am rehumanizing my adversaries. I refuse to be a part of the division plaguing our culture.

Stay inspired!

Ray

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Who Determines Your Happiness and Success? – Day 317 of 365 Days to a Better You

Thought: “Whoever or whatever controls the criteria for your happiness and success, controls your happiness and success.”

Think about that statement for a moment. Now consider who or what is setting the criteria for your success and happiness in life? Is it you?

Giving up control of your happiness and success has become a common trap in our society. People allow institutions, other people, or their own rigid beliefs to limit or squelch their happiness and success. The barriers become so many and so high that hardly any happiness or success can be enjoyed. Sadly, many people do not even realize they have done so.

Advertisers, politicians, and religious institutions are often active players in asking people to cede their happiness or success to the criteria they set. They set a standard and rely on fear, base instincts, and subconcious/unconscious programming to embed their controlling messages. We can have tremendous reason to be happy or feel successful, but someone is telling us that we cannot be, until we…[fill in the blank].

Here are a few examples of the conscious or unconscious criteria that begin to impact our ability to achieve and enjoy happiness or success. Sometimes these criteria even have noble purposes or great goals behind them, but they are not reason to put your enjoyment of life on hold.

  • “I drink beer brand A because I can only be happy if I have the attention of attractive women.”
  • “I can only be happy as a size 4 because when I look in the magazines that’s who gets the attention.”
  • “I can only be happy when I have a bigger house or more clothes.”
  • “I can’t be happy because I’m an imperfect sinner and not worthy.”
  • “I can’t be happy until all poverty is wiped out.”
  • “Success means having a foreign sports car and a summer beach house. I’m not a success until I have those.”
  • “Success means having a championship ring. All my accomplishments are nothing without that.”

Sometimes we give other people the power to set the criteria for our happiness or success. Sometimes they will it away from us as a means of control.

  • “I’ll never be happy until I’m one of the popular kids.”
  • “I can’t be happy until my son is married.”
  • “I cannot be happy as long he is the president.”
  • “I can only be happy when my husband or wife approves of me.”
  • “I cannot be happy until I have my dad’s approval.”
  • “I’m not be a success until I prove to “them” that I am a success.”

Our words have power! And when we place preconditions on our happiness and success or allow others to, we lose. Our lives pass by unfulfilled.

All of these things are worthy goals when you choose and pursue them on your own accord. It’s fine to work to change who is president, to make your spouse as happy as possible, to purchase clothes that you like. What’s not OK is to allow these things to be criteria for your success or happiness.

There is no secret, objective happiness gained from being a size 4, a millionaire, or having your dad’s approval. Of course, the easy proof of this is that there are plenty of unhappy size 4s and happy size 18s, there are miserable millionaires and happy janitors, and there are just as many unhappy people who have dad’s approval as don’t.

Goals are fine. Aim for the size 4 or the million dollars. Just don’t make it prerequisite for enjoying a satisfying life. When you do you are placing your hope for happiness or success in an external, future condition that does not even guarantee the success or happiness when achieved.

You are allowing your experience of happiness or success to be held hostage to these criteria. You are placing your happiness and success at the mercy of subjective criteria and circumstances set and controlled by others. Why? Your happiness and your success are right here for you to access and enjoy right now.

Thought: “Happiness and success are not matters of fate, faith, or circumstance. They are states of mind that we choose or reject.”

The keys to owning your own happiness and success are fivefold.

  1. Identify – recognize the areas of your life where you have allowed someone or something outside of you to set the criteria for your happiness or success. Make a list if it helps you organize your thoughts.
  2. Reclaim Control – take responsibility. Your happiness and success are yours. That entails some responsibility and it is one reason many people give it away to begin with. Recognize that you gave control over your success and happiness away and you can take it back. When other people or institutions have had their control over your success or happiness for a long time they may fight to keep it through guilt or other means. The fact is your happiness and your success belong to you not to them. Claim it!
  3. Lower Barriers – some of us have a difficult time accepting and claiming our happiness and success. You may not feel worthy of these feelings. Even when you gain back control you may establish impossibly high barriers for yourself or continue to use the criteria established for you by others. This gains you nothing. Become friends with the idea of you having success and happiness in your life. If there are hidden emotions or thoughts that are preventing you from enjoying them, get some support or use techniques to identify and handle what is holding you back.
  4. Experience and Enjoy – when you are in control of your own happiness and success and you have an easy, comfortable relationship with them; life is good! Experience your happiness! Celebrate your successes! Share and spread your happiness and success with others.
  5. Help Others – when you experience the emancipation of owning your happiness and success you will want to help others do the same. You will become easily aware of the ways in which people let these influences rob them of their best moments and achievements. There is no reason for us to live in bondage to other peoples’ expecations or criteria. We are as able as they to determine what makes us happy or successful and far more entitled!

Follow your bliss! Experience your bliss! Become your bliss!

Ray

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The Raw Material of Your Enlightenment – Day 316 of 365 Days to a Better You

Everything in your life is there as a vehicle for your transformation. Use it!

~Ram Dass

Everything, literally everything, that comes into your experience is raw material for your enlightenment. Your suffering and your joy are the very stuff of your enlightenment. Your successes and your failures are too. Your loves and your heartbreaks and your epiphanies all are ready teachers eager to show you the way to a better version of you.

There’s never a shortage of building blocks for you to gain wisdom, be more compassionate, or expand your consciousness. You simply have to show up for class and complete the assignments, however challenging.

Here are five ways to convert your raw experience into greater awakening.

  1. Stop making value judgments – good or bad – about your experiences. Simply see every one as a teacher.
  2. Ask for the lesson in the experience to reveal itself.
  3. Be more committed to to your enlightenment than to the drama in the immediate experience.
  4. Be present for the lesson so you don’t have to repeat it over and over.
  5. Be courageous. Hardship and ecstasy are common. Given the chance, they can consume your consciousness and knock you off course for a whole lifetime. Face the challenge and keep moving toward enlightenment.

The alternative is to continue allowing your experiences to feed your ego rather than your awakening. If you’re ready to level up, here’s your opportunity.

In case no one else has reminded you today, YOU are awesome!

Ray

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10 Happiness Affirmations for Your Weekend

Happiness is something we all seek. It’s even cited in the American Declaration of Independence as something as one of the three things we all have a right to pursue.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Here are some affirmations to help you claim your happiness today.

  1. Today I am making the radical choice to be happy no matter what!
  2. My happiness is independent of other people’s opinions or circumstances.
  3. My happiness is right here, right now.
  4. Today everyone and everything is conspiring to bring me my ultimate happiness!
  5. I am the author of my experience and today I CHOOSE to write a happy chapter!
  6. Allowing myself to be happy is the beginning of all wisdom!
  7. I have the lone vote when it comes to my happiness and today I vote YES!
  8. Wave after wave of happiness flows to my shore today!
  9. My life is what I make of it and I CHOOSE to make it a happy place to be!
  10. I was born to be happy and today I AM!

Ray

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Offended Culture – Day 315 of 365 Days to a Better You

Hey, my friends. My apologies for missing a few days. We’ve been neck deep in our move to the new house and the holidays. I hope you’re enjoying this special time with family and friends,

Somehow we’ve created a society that is easily offended by…well…about everything. There are two simple steps you can take to increase your happiness and that of others.

  1. Speak more respectfully to others.
  2. Be less easily offended by others.

I’m not saying be politically correct to the point of absurdity nor am I saying don’t stand up for yourself when a situation calls for it.

I am saying consider the other person. I am saying pick your battles.

If you wish to walk around perpetually offended, you’ll always find some person or some situation, but why seek to bring those feelings into your consciousness unnecessarily?

The poet Rumi wrote, “When you go to a garden, do you look at thorns or flowers? Spend more time with the roses and jasmine.”

Yes! There’s plenty to offend you in the world, but why spend your energy there in anger? There are also plenty of people and situations that add positive energy to your experience. Spend more time with them.

You have a choice. You need not participate in the culture of perpetual offense.

Just in case no one has reminded you today, you’re awesome!

Ray

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