18 Jul REWIRE, REFOCUS AND BE HAPPY
REWIRE, REFOCUS AND BE HAPPY
Every day we are faced with decisions. Choices ranging from which kind of coffee we want, which perfume to use, to which health insurance or what top to wear. If you want to work towards a new path, you just need to accept that you can rewire, refocus and be happy.
Our decisions have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming amount of choice that we are presented with on a daily basis.
CHOICES
Choice comes into our lives from an early age. We choose our toys, and our TV shows. And there is growing evidence to support that as our level of choice has increased over time. Not difficult to believe is it. Look what our kids have as options these days compared to what we thought were options when we were kids.
ROCKS AND LEAVES
However let me point this out. Rocks and leaves were part of our choices when we were youngsters. These days our young have different options blocking the view of the simple rocks and leaves. Let me shock you…don’t block their views and they may notice the rocks and leaves. You need to rewire, refocus and be happy.
MY PERFECT VS YOUR PERFECT
Our level of satisfaction in connection with our choices and decisions has decreased. You see, more choice encourages the search for more, and further more, …the perfect choice. Isn’t that interesting, it almost sounds selfish. But what my perfect choice may be different to your perfect choice. And that’s why you need to rewire, refocus and be happy. Do what you need for wellness.
DE-CLUTTER: rewire, refocus and be happy
This contributes to the feeling that too much will never be enough. And this is why we often hear people talk about how things seemed better when they had less choice. Or people were happier when life seemed so much simpler. Think of how much nicer it feels when you clean your car out. Or clean your fridge. Or clean out your bag. You know what I mean. It’s putting in order, getting rid of clutter. What a nice feeling. Same holds for when we get things out of our minds too. So relax the power of choice. Build true feelings of empowerment into your life. Your’e in control.
BELIEFS
We choose to believe that we always have choice. We believe this even if it is just to choose how we will respond to an unexpected or unwanted event when we feel stuck in life. Nice isn’t it. Though it’s not always that easy. So we should rewire, refocus and be happy and a way that suits us.
When life throws us challenges and unforeseen situations, it can feel like things are happening to us. It’s like someone or something is preventing us from doing or having what we want.
Whether this relates to money or time or circumstances it is easy for us to buy into the feeling that we have no choice. But we in fact do have a choice. We always have a choice. For instance we can have the choice to rewire, refocus and be happy.
And that feeling of lack of choice can be so dis-empowering. This can lead us to feelings of hopelessness. Even worse it can feel depressing.
So now I present to you a number of options within choice to lead to some potential steps for living a positive life.
There are practical ideas that we can apply in our own lives every day, which allows us to continue to experience the life of our choosing and get back on track quickly when we need to so we can choose what we need to focus on. The message is clear now “rewire, refocus and be happy”.
OUR AMAZING MIND
Our mind is amazing. It can process information faster than you can consciously keep up with, so don’t even try. We have more than 65000 thoughts a day and many of them are just repetitive thoughts. Amazing isn’t it.
CHOOSE YOUR FOCUS: rewire, refocus and be happy
Rewire, refocus and be happy. You can focus on what’s working in your life right now or what’s not or what’s working in the world. You can focus on your strengths or your perceived weaknesses. And I say ‘perceived’ because mostly they are weaknesses according to ‘you’.
TIME
Consider, time is just one concept within the thousands of concepts you could focus on. Within a time frame. You can choose to focus on a short part of your day like morning tea.
Or you can focus on last night, yesterday, last month, last year, or 20 years ago. Some things we don’t quite want to let go of and we just focus on them.
THIS MOMENT
Well you can focus on what you will do tomorrow or in three days time or in three months time or in ten years time. Or you can focus on now right here and right now so consider this ‘moment’ for a moment.
ASSIGNING MEANING
Events on their own do not have meaning. This is a real important concept. We assign meaning to events. We choose, we filter events that happen in our lives through individual beliefs and values. Our past experiences, our culture, and our background create our own meaning. Our understanding of time and space and where we choose to place our focus, creates our meaning.
MEANINGS CHANGE
Events around illness, work, health, death, birth, finance, marriage, divorce, communication, family, school, and relationships, will all mean different things to different people at different times of their life depending on their critical filter.
The question is, which meaning is most empowering or supporting for you, at any given time. As you think about this answer think about…rewire, refocus and be happy.
ASSIGNING MEANING
So we choose to accept that we assign our own meaning to all events. So it then stands that we can choose to take on beliefs that help us assign meanings that will support us to leave us socially and emotionally positive. What makes us not choose this path, especially when it does not run away from us? For if we strive toward this path, then we strive toward achieving fulfilment in our lives. I’m going to suggest you can move toward this path any moment you choose. Believe it. Reach for it.
RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN: rewire, refocus and be happy
But why do some find this difficult to reach for. You know our brains are wired to remember the negatives much easier than the positives. So retrain your brain. Rewire, refocus and be happy. Teach it that you wish to focus on what is best for you. What serves you. What supports you. Even what challenges you can be useful.
YOUR FOCUS GROWS
And we all have learned, whatever we choose to focus on can persistently grow. Just like that which we resist will grow. If you think about it, resistance is like a type of focus isn’t it. You know that chocolate that you try resist…see how quite often it persists and then you ‘eat’ the chocolate. But let’s get back on track now and forget about that chocolate.
Sometimes the hardest part of reaching for what you want is actually working out what you want, and how you would like a situation to be. We get so good at talking about or recognising what isn’t working. For instance we may say I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be bored. So many times I ask people what they want and they tell me a list of what they don’t want. I guess the brain is wired this way and does it deliberately. We must break this pattern. Rewire, refocus and be happy. After all, we mostly run patterns.
CAREFUL THE LANGUAGE YOU USE
We say for instance, ‘I don’t want to be overweight’ and then we have trouble imagining or articulating how we wanted to be. So having said that, you can learn to choose or change focus. It’s not just the language you use, but also the language your body uses.
JUST DO IT: rewire, refocus and be happy
Consider times when you know you are thinking, feeling or behaving in ways that are not in your favour. Find strategies that you could use to apply when you want to choose or change your focus. Don’t be afraid. Be creative. Don’t be afraid to use hypnosis to be relaxed.
Have fun rewiring, refocusing and being happy.
Amanda Dounis
Positive Thinking Clinic
1/7 Magdalene Terrace
Wolli Creek, 2205
0458 850 850
amanda@positivethinkingclinic.com.au
www.positivethinkingclinic.com.au
Positive Living Skills has a great blog on building your assertiveness