Keeping your spirits up

Image source: Foundation for a Better Life's facebook page

What do you do when something unpleasant happens?  when something goes wrong? when the rug is pulled from under your feet and you feel that your world is falling apart?

Our first instinct is to go into the feelings of despair, anguish, sadness, anger, etc, I can go on with a lot of negative emotions that we feel at the time.  But what do these negative emotions actually do to us?  Our physical body starts absorbing these negative energies and holds on to them, which makes us go even lower into the negative feelings that we have.  And the further we go down, the more negative energy we absorb and hold and it can finally lead to a point where it will start showing up in the body as a physical illness or ailment.

I know this today because of my increased awareness and knowledge, but if someone had told me this some time back I would have scoffed at the very idea that my thoughts could actually make me feel the way I do and result in physical illness if I did not have positive thoughts.

The reality is that our thoughts control how we feel and how we react to any situation in life and the truth is that the one thing we are in control of is our thoughts.  Things will happen, unhappy and unpleasant things that jolt us out of our perfect world or our comfort zone where everything is right.  It can be very traumatic and while we need the time to feel the emotions that come up with the situation, the reality is that we do not need to stay with the negative emotions.

We control our thoughts and we can change the way we feel about anything.  Yesterday I was given some bad news and my first reaction was to think how unfair it was at this time when every penny counts and I did not need the additional expense and I was heading into tears.  I allowed myself to feel the emotions for a few minutes, I acknowledged what had happened and then I consciously changed my thoughts to positive ones.  After a few minutes of thinking how unfair the situation was, I immediately changed my thoughts to 'it could have been worse, I am thankful that it is not' and 'this is only a small setback and it will not affect me at all'.  By doing this, I was able to consciously change my thoughts to positive ones and lift my energies up.  And I felt at peace and calm with myself.

This does not mean that I suppress the negative thoughts, I acknowledged what I felt and I let go of it.  Holding on to these negative energies does not help, we have to let it go, tell ourselves that it is not something that we want to feel.

This is not a difficult thing to do, we just have to be aware of what our thoughts are and catch ourselves when we feel we are going into a negative spiral.  And soon it becomes something that we do automatically and we find that we can always be in a positive frame of mind irrespective of what happens around us.

Giving thanks and being grateful if also another way that is in our control to lift our spirit.  Today even though there are things that I feel are not going for me, I can look at my life and I have an even longer list of all the things that I have in my life that I am grateful for and that I love and cherish.

The choice is yours - how you want to feel and where you want to be is entirely up to you - it is in your control.  And by being in control of your thoughts and how you feel you will also be healthier.

In Love and Light