If you focus on the apple that was taken from you, it is easy to feel as if you lost something. Thoughts about your lost apple could go like this: That was the best apple (job, relationship, adventure, financial boon, whatever you feel you "lost") I ever had and no other apple will ever be as good. The apples left in my basket pale in comparison with my favorite. I must be a real loser to have let the perfect apple be snatched from me. The loss of that apple will color the rest of my days gray and I will never accept another apple in its place. I won't even allow myself to be happy since that one is gone from me!
These are fear-based thoughts.
But what did you receive when the apple vanished? Look at the basket. It has 4 apples and - space. That space can hold anything. That space is ripe with infinite possibility limited only by your imagination. Space has been created where something new can flow into your life! You get to choose what flows into that space by choosing the thoughts you think.
If you focus on the space created in your life, it is easy to see that you have gained something. Thoughts about your new space could go like this: Perhaps I shall try other apples and find them tastier. Maybe I was so focused on that apple that I failed to see my true calling: Now it has room to materialize in my life! I am so grateful for the apples I still have! There is a blessing in this transition from 5 apples to 4, even if I cannot name it yet. I will not waste time looking back for the lost apple. Instead I will envision wondrous possibilities flowing into my basket and remember that all dreams are possible!
These are faith-based thoughts.
Energy follows thought. If you focus on loss, more loss is what flows to you. If you focus on possibility and opportunities to create, then your life becomes full of possibility and opportunities to create!
This blog post was inspired by a comment from a woman that has been my friend since kindergarten. Hers was the third such comment I had heard from close friends over the last several months. She and another friend commented on their ended marriages that had each lasted for more than two decades and a third friend made the comment about losing a position she had held for over 15 years. Their comment? "What a waste those years were!"
That is a prime example of "cluttered-mind" thinking. Feng Shui that thought right out of your mind! Both marriages produced children these women love and already grandchildren in one case. My friend who lost her job built a valuable skill set that she can take anywhere. With one example it is easy to see that those years were not wasted!
Everything we live shapes the individual we become. You live and you learn and you become more "you" every day. So every day is valuable, not wasted. Never wasted.
When I was in first or second grade, I entered a talent show with my best friend at Fort Allen Elementary School in Puerto Rico. She and I chose a popular song to which we danced. During the rehearsal, in front of a small audience of other performers, the record player had issues. It played intermittently and then went silent between. Music, then no music, music, then none. I was horrified and embarrassed as only a seven-year old can be and each time the music stopped, so did I. I thrust my hip out and crossed my arms and do not doubt I even pouted my lip in my petulance, every time the music stopped. Afterwards my dance partner came up to me, furious and demanded to know what I intended to do if there were problems the night of the show. I just looked at her. I felt something bad had happened to me and she was angry at me?
"Just keep dancing!" she said.
Brilliant advice as I look back on it now. Even if the music isn't playing exactly as you expected, just keep dancing. (The show went off without a hitch and we both had fun!)
We are eternal beings, so we can never get it "done" and we can never get it wrong!
The choices are yours alone. Choose to be saddened by loss, or choose to look at your opportunity with eagerness and joy. Choose to feel sad about something that happened in your past, or put it out of your mind and try something new.
Fear asks: "Why has this happened to me?"
Faith asks: "Why has this happened for me?"
When challenges arise in my life, I try to remember that I want to be the kind of person who asks the latter. When I see space in my apple basket, I envision it bursting with an abundance of wonderful blessings that now have space to flow into my life. And then I just keep dancing!
~ Cyndi
Practicing Happiness Daily
You deserve to feel amazing and healthy and relaxed and happy and vibrant every day of your life.
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