December 2011
WHERE DO YOU PLACE YOUR FOCUS?
What You Focus on Expands…
A student once shared with me, “My life just keeps getting worse and worse. Each day brings me a new problem to deal with. When will my life ever be normal again?”
It is difficult to live from one unfortunate situation to another. And it’s a hard way to be with God. When you look for what is wrong, you never see what is right.
What is normal? Do you really want “normal”? The truth is, there is no normal! When we say “normal” aren’t we really saying “the way it used to be”? The dictionary defines normal as “habitual”. If we always do, what we always did, we always get what we always got! By knowing this, ask yourself: “Do you really wish to get what you always got? Or do you wish to get something even better?” We have a greater chance of a better experience, if we allow ourselves to be present to the gifts in our lives.
The answers are all in the way we think. Our minds are used to seeing what is wrong in a given situation – being conditioned to look for things threatening us or putting us into danger. The mind obsesses on this, over-generalizing danger to mean the ego’s danger as well. We go through our lives, guarding and watching for things that could hurt our egos, never once looking at what is blessed in the situation – the gifts!
Watch your thinking. Are you looking for something wrong all the time? Do you focus on good things? Or do you quickly bounce your thoughts to something that requires work or needs to be better? What we focus on, expands. If you focus on the gifts, you will see gifts. If you focus on what is negative, you will always be in a state of needing or wanting – a state of negativity!
Negativity creates its own story. Negativity spreads easily to others. If you’re negative, and share negative energy, others around you become negative and focus on their negativity. This is very unfortunate when it happens in the workplace. As negativity spreads, productivity decreases and so does your experience of God. Is this the gift you wish to give the world? If not, open to focusing differently – become aware and change the way you think!
Look at your life. What are its gifts? Do you have love between you and friend? Do you feel the love of your spouse? Your family? Is there food on your table? A roof over your head? These are gifts, not givens! Begin this season to see these as things to be thankful for. When you see gifts, your heart expands and opens to gratitude – when you feel lack, your heart contracts focusing on need!
Richard Bach writes, “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.” A problem is not a problem until the mind gives it power naming it one. When we focus on gifts, we give life circumstances less power. Problems become teaching tools helping us find gifts. Some of the Sufi teachers saw welcoming problems as an opportunity to find hidden gifts! Can you?
How do you wish to live your life? Do you wish to live it with joy, gratitude and God? Uncover God by focusing on the hidden gifts in your life.
It’s simple, what you focus on, expands. The more gifts you see, the more gifts there will be!
-Frannie Rose
