Unlocking Your Highest Potential: Feed Your Environment to the Fishes

Happy Monday, March 11^th! I hope that you’ve been well and feel ready to conquer whatever comes your way. I know I feel that way, although times have been difficult and tiring. The most important thing is not to lose faith, stay strong, and know that better times are coming if you believe. Sometimes, I wish I could transport myself to a relaxing island where I can have some time alone to sort out my feelings, heal my mind, and soul, but of course the thing about wishes is that they’re disappointing and sometimes leave you feeling worse because you’re powerless to make them come true. The only thing you truly have power over is your mind, your attitude, and your reaction to your environment. Now, if you’re like me and have a less than ideal external conditions or are bound to them by forces beyond your control, you have to learn to feed your environment to the fishes. My circumstances have taught me that when I’m in a rough place, the most important thing I can do is live comfortably in my mind instead of trying to force my environment to bring comfort to my mind. Today, I want to share a few things I do to overcome my environment.

Go forth and conquer the obstacles to your dreams!

Draw and Invest Strength and Hope from and into Your Ideal Future

This is not just going to your happy place, nor am I suggesting that you live in the future, but rather that you give and receive power in the future you know you want to achieve someday. I’ve learned to nurture my dreams and trust them without question. Whenever a horrible situation comes up or I feel discouragement tugging at my chest, I draw strength from thinking about how my present situation does not reflect entirely who I am and who I will be. I know where I’ve been and I know where I’m going, so I don’t need to be afraid, lose hope and give up. On the contrary, I face the now with fierce determination to work hard on my current projects and not doubt about whether they’ll pan out or not. I see victory and its inevitability. Doing so helps me a ton!

Brush Aside the Excuses and Limiters

Excuses, excuses, excuses! If people adhered and believed their excuses, nothing great in this world would have ever been done. Or will be done. The same is true in our lives. I have a mountain of excuses and statistics and odds that chirp louder than birds in the morning:

It’s too difficult.

You don’t have time.

The competition is too high.

Failure is unavoidable.

The economy is too rough right now.

There are no more opportunities.

All the doors are closed.

You need a better occupation.

You should settle down.

You’re crazy. Stop before you regret it.

You need stability.

And blah blah blah blah

It’s actually quite easy for me tune this out; especially when it comes from loved ones. All I hear is Charlie Brown’s teacher when all these excuses, put downs, or negative points pour like acid on my dreams and ambitions. They’re the small fry distractions that you have to learn to brush aside and rise above from with no looking back. Excuses do not have your best interest in mind. They exist to stop you from reaching greatness, but don’t let them. You were meant to be great. Believe it, work it, and watch it happen. 

Make a Nice Home in Your Mind

I’ve said this often to myself: you can go far and wide in the world, but you cannot leave yourself behind. Since you’re stuck with yourself, it makes sense to make a nice home in your mind. Are your thoughts encouraging or aggressive? Are the conversation partners up there pleasant or vindictive? Are you served cookies with a warm blanket or given clamps for your feet and hands? Is your mind a paradise or a dungeon? Several years ago, my mind was the latter of the two. I hated living in my mind along with my environment so that made for a very unhappy life. However, now that I’ve managed to see the illusions of my negativity, open my eyes to my unlimited potential to make my dreams come true, along with trust my God-given abilities to make a good life for myself, I can say without too much doubt that I’ve made a nice place for myself in my mind. There’s still much cleaning and rearranging to do, but I must stay it’s a whole lot bearable than what it was last time, and it’s one of the main reasons why I can overcome my environment. I live in two places: the physical and mental. As long as my mental space is pleasant and I can laugh and make fun of my physical place, I can gather strength to weather my tough external situations.

So, how about you? How do you feed your environment to the fishes? Or do you? I’d love to hear your thoughts about how you overcome the outside world.

Thanks for reading,

Sammy :)

P.S. Be Brave. 

     

Suffering

Happy Monday, Folks! Hope you had a great weekend.

Another week begins and already I’m tired. Unfortunately, my weekend failed in the resting department because of work. I hope to get a passing mark a la restoration tonight as I turn in early.

Where's the human version of this basket?

The last time I managed to squeeze in a post, I started the story of my trip to an island in Korea. My parting words for that last post were: expect the unexpected, which has now become my motto because you can plan, schedule, create lists here and there until kingdom come but life has its special way of moving the universe around to make things either more difficult or more pleasant—whichever it pleases. Lately, I’ve been on the more difficult end, but I’m pressing through. I basically tell God I don’t want to suffer. And who am I to be pretentious or bold enough to demand such a thing? We all suffer along a particular scale; it’s part of the human experience.

However, I want to capture each moment that induces suffering and nullify it completely. Do I have the strength? I do if I unleash my spirit. The body and mind suffer, but can the spirit suffer? The spirit is separate from body and mind; it cannot suffer. Therefore, I want to be more in rhythm with my spirit because the body's cravings for physical desires make it weak and the mind experiences constant anguish as it conjures negative illusions of past, present, and future and the material desires of this world. The spirit moves past the suffering, transcends time, and rests in total peace and security from all negative forces.

Although my body succumbs to physical fatigue and my mind carries so much weight of an unpredictable, hazy future, my spirit unfurls its wings and glides above in faith under God’s perfect protection. That’s why I take good care of my spirit because I can either nurture its already great power or put it under harm's way by burying it beneath the weaknesses and instabilities of my body and mind. I want my spirit to shine more and more each day until it outshines my body and mind because they are the source of my suffering.

Captured while on a train ride from a ski resort in Korea

So, I feel better already. I’m afraid the conclusion of my Nami trip will have to come for the next post. I did not expect to write about suffering, but here's to that one mark of life, the unexpected.

What are some ways that you eliminate suffering? Do you believe it can be eliminated in this world of ours? I’d love to hear your responses. Until next time, be at peace.

Thanks for reading,

Sammy  :)