Life Inside Out

When life gets you down, there are ways to pick yourself back up, dust off the seat of your pants, and become, if not blissful, at least more positive than not.

Be More Positive Via Your Senses

When we’re mired down in negativity, worry, and stress, the best thing we can do is use the senses God gave us.  Some call is living in the present, and the idea has merit.  It’s hard to feel negative about the past or worried for the future when we’re paying attention to right here, right now.

Look About You To Be More Positive

The problem with looking only inward and finding nothing but negativity is that it’s too easy to get stuck there.  When we come out of our shell, so to speak, and look around, something positive will catch our attention … if we allow it.

Did you ever play “I spy with my little eye,” as a child?  It was fun then, and it still is.  So kick your sight sense into high gear and look about until your eye lands on something positive:  a cherished photo, the stripes the sun lays along the wall when streaming through the blinds, the red bird on the branches outside your window. 

Speaking of outside, venture there.  Nothing brings us back to the present quite like nature.  Find a shape in the clouds, or enjoy a beautiful sunset.  Notice where the moon is tonight and define the shape of it…egg, sugar cookie, cradle?

Listen To This Moment To Be More Positive

Can you hear the laughter of a baby?  The sounds of children playing?  Perhaps someone dear to you wishes to whisper something in your ear.  That bird outside the window could be singing just for us.

Is that your favorite song on the radio?  Let the sound of the rain soothe you to sleep, or that gentle splashes your hands can make in a nice hot bath.

The clock is ticking out a light beat, and the traffic makes a rhythmic whoosh.  What can we hear in the present that might delight us?

Think Your Way To A More Postive Mindset

Are you a thinker like me?  Perhaps to much of a thinker?  Than let’s put that skill to good use.  What can you think or imagine that will invite you to be more positive?  I love to picture myself at the beach, or on top of a mountain I once visited.  Or perhaps your thing would be to lie on a blanket in the sun beside a stream.  Or be in someones arms where mutual adoration exists. 

Call it positive imagery, or meditation, but put a positive spin on it, and we’ll call it a vacation of the mind.

We All Have To Feel Our Way Through From Negative To Positive

When you keep your senses focused on the here and now, notice what you “feel.”  Try to put a word to what that sunset causes to rise within you or the touch of a child’s hand in yours, or the kiss or whisper on your skin of your partner.

Putting an exact name to a feeling solidifies it within you, makes it easier to recapture at will.

Once you know what positive “feels” like, dare to feel it without fear that it’s too good to be true.  Then we can encourage ourselves to radiate those feelings outward to others. 

Have you found ways of your own to be more positive?  Feel free to share them.

Karen Chaffee

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Who can say
where the wind goes to die,
Or why each living thing
one day ceases to sigh?

Who holds the soul
that grieves a loss,
Or paints gray stones
with rains shine of gloss?

Ashes to ashes,
and dust to dust—
Who can with certainty
what lies beneath the crust
Of lost faith and broken trust?

If you believe not in God,
or in evolution,
At what do you nod,
to explain your existence?

I see Him in nature,
I see Him in children,
He’s there at the center
of all I comprehend,
When deciding where it started
and where it will end.

Karen Chaffee 2009