What are you thinking?

When you wake up in the morning are you thankful that you woke up? When you get dressed to leave the house for work, are you thankful that you have a job?  If not, how miserable it must be to wake up on any given day and not look forward to your day. I'm not saying that every day of our lives will be pure bliss, but I'm realizing that truly, we are Assistant directors of our destiny (God is the director) and the choices we make has a huge impact on our day. One of the great balancers of life is knowing that you have the choice to fix everyday trial and tribulations and turn them into something useful rather than allowing them to determine your mood.

I used to hate waking up at the crack of dawn and making the hour long commute to a 9-5 job. If mass transit was not working, it made the process even more mentally, emotionally and physically challenging.  Moreover, I hated having someone control my day, determining when I can go to lunch and when I can take a day off. However, at the time, to get me through, I had to reach down deep within my mind and find the temporary purpose of my job and that purpose was paying my bills and taking care of other financial obligations in my life. When I found that my need to be away from the job superceeded my mental ability to override the unhappiness, it was time to leave.

I find that our mental processing is vital in our daily survival. It is more harmful to your body and soul to be miserable and angry. It is a known fact that stress is one of the first degree murderers in our society. Stress will find a space within your body and attack, suddenly out of nowhere you may have a massive heart attack, cancer or some deadly disease. The good news is you have control over stress, anxiety, frustration and anger. A positive mindset among other healthy practices (ie, working out, eating healthy, taking vitamins) can be a great stabilizer in your overall well being.

Our minds are trainable to be positive just like it's trainable to be negative. Like anything else, they say it takes 20 days for something to become a habit...if that's the case, then how about training your mind to think positive. Decide that you WILL NOT sabotage yourself with negative comments (i'm fat, I'm not attractive, my thighs are too big) and replace it with something like "i'm beautiful and I love every inch of my body." Even if you don't believe initially, eventually, If you keep repeating this several times a day for 2 weeks, you will see an immediate change in the way you feel about your body.  Oddly enough, your body may thank you in ways that may surprise you! When we are happy, there are certain endorphins that our body releases that's not only healthy for our body, but it helps to keep us in a good mood.

In whatever you do, start each day with some positive affirmation about yourself or life. Take that affirmation with you throughout each day, week and year. When the negative messages invade your mind (and they will), push it aside and replace it with your affirmation, say it 10 times. This practice alone will start to make some really positive changes in your life and how you think and feel about yourself.

Peace, Love and Blessings.