Choose Happiness Instead

"You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead.

Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life.

Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life."

 ~Anaïs Nin~

These are such wise words and it sounds like it should be so easy to heed this advise...

In the real world, you wake up each morning and must walk out of the comfort of the positive zone that you have created within your heart. What if you must walk 'back into the lion's den' day in and day out? How do you win back that sense of peace that you fight to grasp onto when you are walking against the current in your work world?

What if you don't have a peaceful oasis to return home to at the end of a long, hard work day? What if you have demands and stressors within (what should be) your oasis at home? What chance do you have of trying to maintain the status quo of negative verses positive factors in your life?

Life is full of conflicting forces. Positive verses negative. Good verses evil. Health verses illness. Prosperity verses poverty. Happiness verses sadness. The list goes on ...

When you are in the thick of living your life and pushing through the hard stuff, it is hard to know if you are overcoming challenges that you will eventually triumph or if you are walking against the current and you should simply turn around and go with the natural flow.

It isn't until we are looking at our life backwards, that we see things more clearly. The answers unveil themselves and we see that certain challenges were necessary for us to learn what we needed to know, to grow.

What I've learned from where I've been, is that I need to fill myself up first. It is like grabbing the oxygen mask so that you can help others. You are no good to anyone else if you are not breathing yourself.

Secondly, you must 'maintain your oxygen supply'. Read, watch and surround yourself with that-which-is-positive. You can only take in so much fresh air at a time. Keep the flow coming in like a trickle charger for a car battery. A small, continuous amount of positive is necessary to maintain the negative energy drain that is all around us.

Do what is in your power, to change that which is bringing you down. Not many of us can afford to walk away from a job that is draining us. But can we seek the positive within that job and draw our focus to that? Can we seek alternate employment? Seek out any and all resources to find coping mechanisms and strategies. Above all - seek out positive people to walk at your side. Don't feed the negative ...

Look at your relationships with those who are an influential part of your life. Are they energy drains or do they fuel and support you? Examine those that are draining your energy. Are they expendable? Can you 'let them go'? Or are they an integral part of your life? Let go of that which is not good for you. If you can't let go of the relationship, find positive coping mechanisms. Don't take on the negative. Find strategies to help you maintain a healthy perspective within an unhealthy relationship (Alanon taught me many mantras and coping strategies that remain a part of my being, 25+ years after the fact. It is possible to separate the person from the disease).

We sometimes feel powerless, but we always have the ability to choose how we react. Sometimes that is all that we have. Maybe we can make small changes within something we cannot change. Other times we do have the power to change what feels unchangeable. If we cannot change something right now ... maybe we can strategize and make future plans. Anything we do to help us see beyond the moment empowers us.

Don't become one of those who becomes 'a destroyer of life'. Instead, "...take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life..."