Category: psychology

About Advice to Feel All Your Feelings

I keep seeing content on social media encouraging people to ditch positivity and “feel whatever you feel.” “It’s a matter of being authentic,” they say. This is advice that can quickly leave someone at dead end on their path.

As with most incomplete advice, there’s a grain of truth in it. Of course, you should never bottle up your feelings and try to put a happy smile on them. That’s not what true positivity is about anyway. However, not all feelings are created equal.

There definitely are feelings that support a healthy you and collectively a saner civilization. There are other feelings that may seem productive, even empowering in the short term that are ultimately corrosive and destructive to people and to cultures.

This idea that ‘I’m just an angry or sad or depressed person and that’s authentically who I am,’ is not a place to validate someone and leave them. Yes. We all feel those things sometimes. That’s human. However, those feelings, over the long-term, are not a place we should encourage anyone to remain out of homage to “you have a right to feel what you feel.”

Personal development, professional counseling, or other tools that help steer someone in more productive- dare I say it positive – directions become necessary when someone gets stuck in emotions that may be how they feel, but are not sustainable over time.

In short bursts, negative emotions can propel us forward. Long-term they’re toxic. Positive emotions should never be used to mask real pain, but they are superior mode of being to persistent negative feelings.

Getting back to a place where positive emotions can become the dominant emotions in a person’s life is a worthy aspiration and achievable one. If you’re going to encourage someone to “own those negative emotions,” please be sure to share the warning signs of when that’s no longer healthy and ways to find your way back to balance and well-being.

If you find yourself caught in a swirl of constant negativity, please be sure to seek help or start a journey of self-discovery that can open doors to a beer life for you.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you are amazing!

Ray

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As We Thinketh, So Shall We Be

That statement holds a ton of power and also a lot of responsibility. Many people will argue against it, citing all the reasons we’re just powerless leaves floating down the rushing river of existence. I wonder.

We’ve been told that our minds make our world from time immemorial. It’s time for us to start understanding the power we possess to shift the inertia of history and of our lives.

“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.” -Bhagavad Gita

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought: we are formed and molded by our thoughts.” -Dhammapada

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so shall he be.” -Proverbs 23:7

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.” -James Allen

“We become what we think about most of the time.” -Earl Nightingale

“What you think about, you bring about.” -Bob Proctor

“If you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, you’re right.” -Mary Kay Ash

You can choose to believe all these sources are wrong or you can get used to the idea that what you need to succeed does and always has resided within you.

Stay inspired!

Ray

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Dig Deeper Wells

The average water well is 100 to 500 feet deep. As you walk around on the earth’s surface, you can’t see the well water. You could dig 100 thirty-foot holes and not reach one drop of water.

This might frustrate you because digging 100 such holes without return is a lot of work for nothing.

Are you digging shallow wells in your life? Are you spreading yourself so thin that you can’t give any one “well” the time and effort required to get your “well water?”

Whatever your goals, ample time and effort spent on one or a few goals is like digging the well until you hit water. Having too many goals or responsibilities leaves your life pock marked with half dug wells. You might be frustrated because you’re putting in a ton of effort and not getting results.

Power hack:

  1. Try to limit yourself to one to three big goals at a time. How many depends on the goals and how much time you have to devote to them.
  2. Always be reassessing your goals to make sure you’re working on what’s most important. It’s OK to abandon half-dug wells to make room for more important priorities.
  3. When you commit to a goal, dig it all the way until you hit the “well water.”

If the goal’s worth achieving, it’s worth going all the way.

Ray

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Phone in the River – Making Good Out of Bad

Affirmation

I am constantly making good things out of bad moments.

Hello, my friends. We’ve had an amazing nearly three weeks in Kauai. Yesterday we did something I’ve wanted to do since we started coming here 15 years ago. I was so excited!

We would be kayaking the Wailua River and the hiking through the Kauai jungle to Uluweli Falls – AKA Secret Falls.

The weather was glorious, as we started paddling down the river. I took some video of us leaving the marina and was so stoked to get video and photos of the adventure. I stuck my phone in my swim trunk pocket and began paddling.

About five minutes into it, I heard a disconcerting – OK an oh shit – sound. It was the sound of something heavy and plastic striking the fiberglass kayak. I had a sinking feeling I knew what it was. I reached for my pocket – no phone. I searched under and around me – no phone.

Yep! My phone had taken an unplanned dive to the bottom of the Wailua River!

I had about two minutes where my mind ran through all the ways the day would be ruined. No cool images to share with family and friends of our adventure. Dealing with phone insurance claim. Getting a new phone. What a disaster!

Then I made a conscious decision. I’d waited 15 years to do this adventure and do it on such a perfect day. There was no way in hell I was going to let this ruin it. I have the best cameras – eyes – and the best memory card – the human brain – on board. I would soak in every moment of this experience and I wouldn’t be doing it looking through my phone all day.

The kayaking was amazing. The hike through the jungle was just as I imagined it. Secret Falls was a magnificent reward. I wouldn’t have changed ANYTHING about the day.

Maybe the challenge you’re facing today is a lot bigger or a lot smaller than a drowned phone. I want you to hear this, though. You may not have a choice in the situation, but you most certainly have a choice in how you deal with it and what the outcome is.

Take the situation and apply the power of your mind to making it the best it can be for you. You have to choose which is going to dominate your thinking today – the challenging situation or your choice to think a better thought.

Trust me, you have it within you to make the proverbial lemonade out of life’s lemons.

Keep putting your mind on your side.

Ray

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Just One Moment

Many of us have one of those Tuesdays that’s Monday today. I hope you enjoyed the one thing in the universe proven faster than light – a three-day weekend.

There can be a tendency to feel like you’re a day behind after a Monday off. Instead, try seeing yourself as a day ahead all week this week.

One moment. They say some moments can seem like an eternity. They certainly can cast a long shadow across your consciousness. You and I have a “now prejudice” that unconsciously feeds us the belief that this moment is more real than the last or the next and that it could be permanent.

Yes! There’s a valid spiritual principle that says, “Be here now.” Often being here now and consciously touching this moment is an invaluable tool. That is until now becomes a tyrant. That is until now steals your hope and your joy or encourages you to rest on your laurels.

Never allow this moment to overshadow your big picture. However wonderful, mundane or disastrous this moment is it’s just one moment. It can be exceeded, defeated, or forgotten.

It’s likely it won’t matter five years or even five minutes from now unless you attach yourself to it and become stuck.

If you feel one moment, however glorious or tragic, becoming the complete basis for your reality, cut it loose.

Get to the next moment and the next until you find one that allows you to plant both feet and start walking forward again.

There are only two unfungible moments – birth and death. Every other moment in your life is completely negotiable and subject to as much change as your thinking allows.

This moment will pass into oblivion like every other moment. Let it go and move on.

Wherever you are on your journey today, remember you’re awesome!

Ray

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