“You create your thoughts, your thoughts create your intentions, and your intentions create your reality.”
Dr. Wayne Dyer

For years I’ve been fascination by the human brain and its vast potential. First from a psychological v.p. & now from a spiritual view point, not in the religious sense, but in the more mystical/creative realm. I’m convinced that our ability to create begins in our brain; God created us to create. Creation begins with one tiny thought. It may come from within you, or someone else, and once you accept it as yours and begin to think about it, you’ve started the process of creation. The more emotion you have with that thought the more powerful is your ability to attract what you want. Once your brain gets the go-ahead from you, it springs into action and clicks in to perform your command perfectly. That is why it’s extremely important to be aware of your own thoughts and the words you say. Your brain doesn’t sort out positive from the negative; it waits for your command. It simply acts on your thought.
I’ve spent half of my life learning about and teaching how powerful the brain is and how important our thoughts are. When I was a kid I used to hear my father speak of the dreaded “evil eye” in his native Sicily. I snickered and thought it was a bunch of nonsense even though the stories made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I’ve since learned about the power of the mind and believe that if I told you that something terrible was going to happen to you, and you believed me, YOU could make it happen simply by the power/energy/focus you give it;  your own mind would work to carry out whatever you feared. 
        I believe that the power of the mind can also make us ill, or worse. One of my favorite examples of the power of suggestion is this one: During the winter months we are ambushed with news that the flu is epidemic. We’re sure we can’t escape it so we begin to worry. If we get the sniffles we’re certain we’ve got something that’s going around. We reinforce our fear by thinking that we have a cold, and we tell everyone who will listen. (It may have only been hay fever.) Next, we think we will be really sick, probably run a fever and by the end of the week we are certain we will be in bed vomiting or worse. Well, guess what? I believe that since we’ve programmed ourselves for a week full of illness— that is exactly what we will get. We’ve created it with our powerful minds. The brain has taken instructions and followed them exactly as we’ve prescribed it.
Arthritis is one of my pet peeves. If we break or sprain something doctors are quick to say arthritis will set in. My doc knows “I don’t do arthritis.” She snickers. I refer to it as the nasty “A” word. People take possession of arthritis as soon as they think they have it. I.E.: A younger friend’s fingers began aching; her mother had arthritis so she was certain she’d inherited it. (How many of us do that?) She took possession of it and referred to it as “my arthritis.”  We had a little discussion and it “amazingly” disappeared! I believe strongly that it isn’t necessary to talk about any symptom or medical sentence your doctor has decreed for you. To acknowledge it is to reinforce it. Taking possession of it and making it yours only gives it permission to proceed. Once we start talking about it to others, it grabs that energy/power to accelerate. That energy can better be used to create positive thoughts of healing for yourself. Get the needed treatment. Then if you must tell someone, say, “I’m catching healing,” and let it go. You can tell those symptoms that they are not welcome in your body and to flee. You must believe it, however, and you must be persistent, for the habit of illness is like a child who pushes the envelope to see if you mean business.. It’s up to you to stick in there and show the old habit who is boss. It takes a while to break old habits and patterns, so don’t expect the symptoms to disappear quickly. Like a spoiled child who is suddenly being disciplined, there will be rebellion within. Remember to put lots of emotion behind your thoughts of healing and be persistent.
We are never too old or too sick or too busy, to have creative minds. We “create” every second of every day and it is either negative or positive —depleting energy or increasing energy.
We deplete our energy if we focus on a negative situation, be it our own or someone else’s. Our energy level plummets and a cloud of doom and gloom cloaks us. When we change our thought pattern to those that are sunny, energy levels are elevated to a healthier state; we are less vulnerable to illness & to attracting negative thinking people into our lives.. Thoughts are contagious. Choose wisely.
 
“As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and goodwill and serenity.”  — James Allen 1864-1912  (note the dates—this is not “new age” enlightenment, but time-proven.)

“You create your thoughts, your thoughts create your intentions, and your intentions create your reality.”
Dr. Wayne Dyer

By Ruby MacDonald

For years I’ve been fascination by the human brain and its vast potential. First from a psychological v.p. & now from a spiritual view point, not in the religious sense, but in the more mystical/creative realm. I’m convinced that our ability to create begins in our brain; God created us to create. Creation begins with one tiny thought. It may come from within you, or someone else, and once you accept it as yours and begin to think about it, you’ve started the process of creation. The more emotion you have with that thought the more powerful is your ability to attract what you want. Once your brain gets the go-ahead from you, it springs into action and clicks in to perform your command perfectly. That is why it’s extremely important to be aware of your own thoughts and the words you say. Your brain doesn’t sort out positive from the negative; it waits for your command. It simply acts on your thought.
I’ve spent half of my life learning about and teaching how powerful the brain is and how important our thoughts are. When I was a kid I used to hear my father speak of the dreaded “evil eye” in his native Sicily. I snickered and thought it was a bunch of nonsense even though the stories made the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention. I’ve since learned about the power of the mind and believe that if I told you that something terrible was going to happen to you, and you believed me, YOU could make it happen simply by the power/energy/focus you give it; your own mind would work to carry out whatever you feared.
I believe that the power of the mind can also make us ill, or worse. One of my favorite examples of the power of suggestion is this one: During the winter months we are ambushed with news that the flu is epidemic. We’re sure we can’t escape it so we begin to worry. If we get the sniffles we’re certain we’ve got something that’s going around. We reinforce our fear by thinking that we have a cold, and we tell everyone who will listen. (It may have only been hay fever.) Next, we think we will be really sick, probably run a fever and by the end of the week we are certain we will be in bed vomiting or worse. Well, guess what? I believe that since we’ve programmed ourselves for a week full of illness— that is exactly what we will get. We’ve created it with our powerful minds. The brain has taken instructions and followed them exactly as we’ve prescribed it.
Arthritis is one of my pet peeves. If we break or sprain something doctors are quick to say arthritis will set in. My doc knows “I don’t do arthritis.” She snickers. I refer to it as the nasty “A” word. People take possession of arthritis as soon as they think they have it. I.E.: A younger friend’s fingers began aching; her mother had arthritis so she was certain she’d inherited it. (How many of us do that?) She took possession of it and referred to it as “my arthritis.” We had a little discussion and it “amazingly” disappeared! I believe strongly that it isn’t necessary to talk about any symptom or medical sentence your doctor has decreed for you. To acknowledge it is to reinforce it. Taking possession of it and making it yours only gives it permission to proceed. Once we start talking about it to others, it grabs that energy/power to accelerate. That energy can better be used to create positive thoughts of healing for yourself. Get the needed treatment. Then if you must tell someone, say, “I’m catching healing,” and let it go. You can tell those symptoms that they are not welcome in your body and to flee. You must believe it, however, and you must be persistent, for the habit of illness is like a child who pushes the envelope to see if you mean business.. It’s up to you to stick in there and show the old habit who is boss. It takes a while to break old habits and patterns, so don’t expect the symptoms to disappear quickly. Like a spoiled child who is suddenly being disciplined, there will be rebellion within. Remember to put lots of emotion behind your thoughts of healing and be persistent.
We are never too old or too sick or too busy, to have creative minds. We “create” every second of every day and it is either negative or positive —depleting energy or increasing energy.
We deplete our energy if we focus on a negative situation, be it our own or someone else’s. Our energy level plummets and a cloud of doom and gloom cloaks us. When we change our thought pattern to those that are sunny, energy levels are elevated to a healthier state; we are less vulnerable to illness & to attracting negative thinking people into our lives.. Thoughts are contagious. Choose wisely.

“As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and goodwill and serenity.” — James Allen 1864-1912 (note the dates—this is not “new age” enlightenment, but time-proven.)

Emotional rules inherited without protest

By Ruby MacDonald – Senior Living Insights

Sometimes adult children look forward to the time when they will receive an inheritance, if they are fortunate enough to have wealthy parents or relatives. However, each of us has already received an inheritance such as all of the good traits we’ve been taught unhealthy habits, emotional traits, and unhealthy ways of handling unpleasant events in our lives. Many of us have embraced some or all of the emotional rules that we inherited without even a whimper of a protest even though they do not serve us well.

Most of us have lived with hand-me-down rules all of our lives. Some of them were passed on ever so innocently, from our parents. Some are so deeply ingrained that we haven’t bothered to question their validity. I like to use the old story of the ham that you may have heard a dozen times but I’ll personalize it to make it more interesting. Years ago when one of my young daughters saw me cutting off the ends of the ham before I baked it, she wanted to know why I did that. My reply was because my mother had. But my young inquisitive child wanted to know “why” Grandma did it. When we asked her grandmother, she roared with laughter and then replied, “Well, I haven’t a clue as to why you do; I never had a pan large enough for the whole ham so I had to cut off the ends.” While this story has nothing to do with fear, it points out that we fail to seek out the “why’s” of what we do and then decide if those reasons have validity in our world and if they are enriching our lives.

How many of us still operate by obsolete rules that were learned from parents, teachers, and/or society?

Yes, I’m writing about the “F” word.

This “F” word is – F-E-A-R, one of the most crippling of the four letter words. We all have some. FEAR directs our lives with enough strength and power to keep us confined within the steel cell of our minds. A prisoner of “fear.”  If you doubt it, take time to honestly examine your own fears to see how they have kept you in bondage. How have they denied you some of the joys of life? What have you always wanted to do but didn’t because of fear?

Some of us have worked hard to remove one steel bar at a time. Others tend to be content within their prisons. Few if any of us live within the freedoms that are ours simply for the taking.   The unfortunate thing about fear is that not only does it deny us the freedom to live; it is consciously or unconsciously passed on from one generation to the next.

My own mother had far too many fears that she passed on to her four daughters. She was fearful of the water and didn’t want us to drown. She was fearful of bikes and skates, so we were “saved” from falling down and bruising ourselves. The dark. What people would say if….And the list could go on and on.

As many of you know, Tom and I spend as much time on the water as possible. Vacation destinations are mostly to the ocean. And boating is a top priority. But I don’t know how to swim so I play it safe and cautiously while others are in the warm tropical water snorkeling or swimming to cool off. The turning point for me was a recent incident where we were in a water taxi going from one small island to the main one. I usually wear a lifejacket, but our luggage had already been stacked forward and the lifejackets were all beyond reach in the nose of the bow. After our group of six boarded, several islanders came aboard making far too many people for such a narrow wooden boat. The half hour ride was riddled with fear as each of us knew that it would not take much to tip the boat. I realized then how unfair it was that I could not swim and others would have the responsibility of saving me, in addition to themselves, if we’d capsized. The only way to conquer fear is to face it, and so I’m taking swim lessons. And so, “You can teach an old dog new tricks!”  So don’t you dare use “age” as an excuse.

My fellow-writer, Marion Duckworth said, “Isn’t it interesting that you are doing so well so quickly and fear kept you from learning to swim. A message for all of us.”

            The point is, that for many of us, life is quickly fleeting by and we are missing out on living life to the fullest because of our fears. Now, while the clock still clicks, it is a good time to do something that your fears have stolen from you..  The four letter word can be turned into a five letter word: FAITH in yourself and your ability to CHANGE. One of the best ways to initiate a change is to state what your intention is for that fear. Intention is just another way of saying that we can create what we think about. Our first thought becomes an “intention” about a specific fear, emotion or attitude.

In a new movie, “What the Bleep! Do We Know!?,  which is sweeping the country,  Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “I wake up in the morning, and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now, sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down, and get to the point of where I’m actually intentionally creating my day. But here’s the thing. When I create my day, … out of nowhere, little things happen that are so unexplainable; I know they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain, (and I can) accept that that’s possible. It gives me the power and the incentive to do it…”   (This amazing movie will be shown in Walnut Creek on August 13, 04.)

I’ve written about the power of intention before but it is so powerful and I’m so excited about the possibilities that you’ll just have to bear with me because I really want you to get the concept. It’s so simple that it would be easy to think it doesn’t matter. But it does. Here is how to make it work for you:

·         Break your day into segment. A segment begins the moment you wake up and have a first thought.

·         Now direct that thought into an intention. Send out the thought of what kind of day you’d like to have. Perhaps you felt grumpy, or not as well as you’d like to feel. The thought you’d send out is for health and joy and you would concentrate on those.

·         The next thing you do becomes a segment, and so on all through the day. Before you begin each segment, direct your thoughts towards a positive, joyful outcome.

·         Now you are in control of your thoughts, your day, and your life. You will feel more in control instead of out of control.

·         Believe!  (FAITH REPLACES FEAR)

Had Tom and I and our group taken control of the segment before we stepped into that island boat in Tonga, directing it to safety, we would have spoken to the captain about the vessel being overloaded and asked the islanders to wait for the next boat taxi since we had a plane to catch that morning and needed to get to shore. And we would have made sure that we had easy access to the life jackets and I would have been wearing one. In other words, having a clear intention as we go through the day, assures us less stress and gives us more of what we really want.  It gives us control over our fears and allows us to create a positive outcome.  So—NEVER AGAIN AVOID THE FOUR LETTER WORD, “FEAR.”

By Ruby MacDonald

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. – unknown

For the last few decades I’ve been teaching people how to think in a way that keeps them feeling ageless. And now, suddenly my friends and I have all become seniors. And that’s a good thing! Being a senior demands that we learn to flow with the tide or we shall drown in the sea of life. Some of my friends who are not yet seniors are also struggling in the waters of change as an only child, or children, swim away from the warm sands of home to find their new adventures. Then the parents must learn to walk the beach alone. My older friends experience the death of a loved one, divorce, illness, moving to a new community to be near adult children, and the list of changes we must face are endless. We’ve always gone through changes at every age but somehow in these golden years, the waters we wade in seem deeper.

Most of the major changes create high stress levels. However, change is the name of the game of life. Whether we can adjust to the many changes is what determines whether or not we will become “aged” or “ageless.” Given the choice, becoming and staying AGELESS is the ideal goal. Too many of us seem to reach a certain age and then never again venture into the oceans of life. Yet the ocean still beacons to us to jump in and swim.

Of course, circumstances change over the years and our health may in reality slow us down or even stop us from being as active as we once were. However, what we do with our attitude about any circumstance is totally up to each of us. Fortunately there are many who never see any limitations to living a full life. One of my favorite people who exhibited strength and courage was Christopher Reeves who not only fought to live life as fully as he could, but also helped others while doing so. He could have given up, felt sorry for himself and created misery for all those who loved him, but he displayed courage and determination instead.

Helen Keller, being both blind and deaf had more to overcome than most of us, but she said that, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” She didn’t include an age limit in her statement, and we should not set age limits to our quest for adventure. She knew that her character would be formed and strengthened by surmounting the difficulties she faced.

WE ARE THE MASTER, EVEN IN OUR WEAKEST AND MOST ABANDONED STATE – James Allen

There are so many advantages to being a senior. Yet we seldom hear the positive side. Let me name a few. By this time we don’t care anymore what people say or think about us. We’ve earned the right to be us and we don’t have to meet the expectations of others. We can simply relax and be. We don’t have to “do” unless we want to. As someone wisely said, we are not human do-ings, we are “human be-ings.” But we often forget to take the time to simply BE. Seniors have more time to BE.

Another advantage of being an AGELESS Senior is that we can “BE” an inspiration to others. We can help drown the old myth that being a senior is the end of life and that we can’t keep doing many of the enjoyable things we’ve always done. The only thing that stops us is fear and an attitude that shouts that we can’t or shouldn’t at “our age.” To become or stay AGELESS, you’ve got to want it – you’ve got to have the passion – if you are to change. 

Lasting changes need a strong foundation on which to thrive. Just as the oceans rest on firm bed- rock, our strength comes from being firmly centered in a Higher Power. To become or remain  AGELESS in today’s world requires a vigilant guard against the myths of aging that surround and nag at us.  In the end, it’s up to each one of us to decide whether we will be “aged” and let the last precious years of life slip by, or be AGELESS, ignore the number of years of we’ve lived, and find new adventures to pursue so that life is exciting and stimulating. The choice is ours. January first is an excellent time to commit to an AGELESS ATTITUDE, renewing that commitment every single morning. What would you like to be doing right now that you’ve allowed your age and attitude to stop you?

“HOLD FAST TO an ageless attitude FOR IF the spirit dies, LIFE is nothing more than a boat at sea that cannot navigate the oceans of life; it is at the mercy of the wind and waves.” – Ruby MacDonald

Senior Living Insights

Senior Living Insights

By: Ruby MacDonald

While Tom and I, Tim and Suz and friends were moored off the New Zealand coast one evening, listening to my all time favorite, Frank Sinatra singing many of his popular hits, we made a point of listening carefully to the lyrics. We found that they contained some pretty wonderful messages for our lives that triggered a lively discussion. Ole Blue Eyes may be gone but his spirit certainly is alive in our daily lives through his music.  As you read these words, think about them and what they either do or can mean to you personally.

IF YOU’RE YOUNG AT HEART

Fairy tales can come true

It can happen to you

If you’re young at heart

For its hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind

If you’re young at heart

You can go to extremes with impossible schemes

You can laugh when your dreams fall apart at the seams

And life gets more exciting with each passing day

And love is either in your heart or on its way

Don’t you know that it’s worth every treasure on earth

To be young at heart

For as rich as you are its much better by far

To be young at heart

And if you should survive to 105

Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive

Then here is the best part

You have a head start

If you are among the very young at heart. – (Music:Joseph Myrow, Lyrics: Mack Gordon 1946)

We asked everyone aboard what they thought it meant to be “young at heart” and thus this month’s column was born.

First of all, let’s begin by discussing what it means when we don’t stay young at heart:  All too often we focus on the number of years we’ve lived and give the number permission to dominate our lives, either by mimicking aging role models, or living by preconceived ideas about aging that society has handed to us.  It’s easy to forget that times change and today we are far younger than our parents were in their aging years.  If we do focus on the number of years we’ve lived, too often we use our age as an excuse to get stuck in one time zone and live in the past. Or we think we’re much too old to do certain things such as dressing more youthfully, trying a new hair style and since we’re simply afraid to try new things, we limit/deprive ourselves of being young at heart. We stop dreaming. We get stuck. Fairy tales fade away.

“For its hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind, If you’re young at heart”

On the other hand, those who remain young at heart seldom use their age as an excuse. If anything, they use their age as a springboard because they know it’s now or never and they’d better get with the program if they’re going to have fairy tales come true. They live each day to the fullest—as though it’s the last, as ole Blue Eyes said.

Those who are young at heart are not afraid to risk doing something new and different, whether it is a new card game, traveling to an unfamiliar place, or ordering something new on the menu. Or perhaps it’s a new trendy hairstyle, or daring to have our hair colored (men and women), or wearing a bright new color that makes us look alive and ready to explore life.

To be young at heart is to be limitless – that is, there are no limits set, no boundaries to which you will not cross because of fear, or risk, or age.

The young at heart feel ageless. They don’t look in the mirror and concentrate on the road map that has planted itself on their faces. They are proud of their wrinkles, knowing they’ve worked darned hard to earn them. Instead they look in the mirror and see a face that has sparkling eyes, smile lines, and a mind filled with positive attitudes that nourish a sense of enduring adventure. They still buy green bananas.

The young at heart are timeless. They don’t make plans according to the number of years they’ve lived. Their time-line is open. They can bend. They are open-ended to new ideas as the times change, and know that change is what life on this planet is all about.

The young at heart aren’t afraid to dream. They set realistic goals and watch them come true, one at a time. They know that they must have something to look forward to each day, something that is filled with hope for tomorrow. It may be as small as knitting a scarf for someone, or as large as taking a trip to a place they’ve always wanted to see on the other side of the world, or in the next town, or in the garden. There are no size restrictions to dreams and we can have any kind and as many as we want. So what are you waiting for?

Fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you – if you’re young at heart.

Senior Living Insight by Ruby MacDonald 

By Ruby MacDonald

Several times I have related that a thought is the first step in creating both the healthy and unhealthy emotions we live with. It takes but a simple persistent negative thought to lead to despair. Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, says, “Despair is an attitude, experienced in the mind. It is a way of looking at a life situation and feeling hopeless.” He adds that there actually is no despair in the world. You cannot bring home a bucket full of despair; there are only people thinking despairing thoughts. “Despair itself is a mental process that sizes up and views a situation as awful,” says Dr. Dyer. Once we see despair as a mental attitude, we can remedy it by beginning the process of bringing the hope that will dissolve the attitude of suffering. Hope is also a thought. Hope is a vision. Despair is darkness. Hope is light. Hope is on the higher end of the energy scale that brings health and happiness; despair and gloom is on the lower end of the energy scale that makes us vulnerable to illness and depression. It clouds our thinking. We cannot see in the darkness.

In order to cope with despair, we must learn to stand back and in affect, detach ourselves from what is happening, or take on the attitude of the observer so that you can “look in and see the despair” as though you are another person seeing you. This detachment gives us the power to change our thought pattern to create hope and a higher level of energy. The higher the level of energy we can create, the easier it is to find the spiritual solution to our problems since God is peace, hope and love.

As we grow older, often the optimism we held about life turns to despair for many reasons. Loneliness, illness, grief, and more, can overwhelm us.   Gloom and despair may come from our attachment to the feelings that life is unfair, or we blame others for our sorrows, or we feel we are not understood. These equate to self-pity and self-loathing. “Despair allows the sufferer to suffer in comfort”, says Dr. Dyer. Often we despair over what or who is missing in our lives. We have been conditioned to think, “I am what I have, what I do, and what others think of me.” Yet if we listen, God’s voice will whisper that none of these things bring happiness. If we listen we may even hear Him say, “I am your only source of peace. I am the spiritual solution to all your problems related to attachments.”

     To bring light to darkness, practice doing the following every day: 1) Refuse to dwell on thoughts about the problems in your life but rather on all there is to be grateful for even if it is one tiny thing. In time your list of blessings will become more evident. 2) Practice being an appreciator of beauty; strive to see the beauty in everyone and everything. 3) Read about those who have overcome darkness in their lives such as Helen Keller & Christopher Reeves.  4) Send out thoughts of love to those around you and immediately replace thoughts of resentment/disturbance/criticalness, with love. 5) Keep your thoughts centered on light and what you want, rather than on dark and what you don’t want; visualize your body as well and whole, do not reinforce any illness by thinking about it or discussing it habitually.  6) Go outside into the day light when thoughts of darkness overtake you since light dissolves darkness. 7) Practice purification by drinking pure water, eating pure foods, and keeping your thoughts pure. 8) Repeat to yourself daily the following:

AS I THINK SO SHALL I BE

 Senior Living Insights by Ruby MacDonald

By Ruby MacDonald

Several times I have related that a thought is the first step in creating both the healthy and unhealthy emotions we live with. It takes but a simple persistent negative thought to lead to despair. Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, says, “Despair is an attitude, experienced in the mind. It is a way of looking at a life situation and feeling hopeless.” He adds that there actually is no despair in the world. You cannot bring home a bucket full of despair; there are only people thinking despairing thoughts. “Despair itself is a mental process that sizes up and views a situation as awful,” says Dr. Dyer. Once we see despair as a mental attitude, we can remedy it by beginning the process of bringing the hope that will dissolve the attitude of suffering. Hope is also a thought. Hope is a vision. Despair is darkness. Hope is light. Hope is on the higher end of the energy scale that brings health and happiness; despair and gloom is on the lower end of the energy scale that makes us vulnerable to illness and depression. It clouds our thinking. We cannot see in the darkness.

In order to cope with despair, we must learn to stand back and in affect, detach ourselves from what is happening, or take on the attitude of the observer so that you can “look in and see the despair” as though you are another person seeing you. This detachment gives us the power to change our thought pattern to create hope and a higher level of energy. The higher the level of energy we can create, the easier it is to find the spiritual solution to our problems since God is peace, hope and love.

As we grow older, often the optimism we held about life turns to despair for many reasons. Loneliness, illness, grief, and more, can overwhelm us.   Gloom and despair may come from our attachment to the feelings that life is unfair, or we blame others for our sorrows, or we feel we are not understood. These equate to self-pity and self-loathing. “Despair allows the sufferer to suffer in comfort”, says Dr. Dyer. Often we despair over what or who is missing in our lives. We have been conditioned to think, “I am what I have, what I do, and what others think of me.” Yet if we listen, God’s voice will whisper that none of these things bring happiness. If we listen we may even hear Him say, “I am your only source of peace. I am the spiritual solution to all your problems related to attachments.”
To bring light to darkness, practice doing the following every day: 1) Refuse to dwell on thoughts about the problems in your life but rather on all there is to be grateful for even if it is one tiny thing. In time your list of blessings will become more evident. 2) Practice being an appreciator of beauty; strive to see the beauty in everyone and everything. 3) Read about those who have overcome darkness in their lives such as Helen Keller & Christopher Reeves.  4) Send out thoughts of love to those around you and immediately replace thoughts of resentment/disturbance/criticalness, with love. 5) Keep your thoughts centered on light and what you want, rather than on dark and what you don’t want; visualize your body as well and whole, do not reinforce any illness by thinking about it or discussing it habitually.  6) Go outside into the day light when thoughts of darkness overtake you since light dissolves darkness. 7) Practice purification by drinking pure water, eating pure foods, and keeping your thoughts pure. Repeat to yourself daily the following:
AS I THINK
SO SHALL I BE

Senior Living Insights by Ruby MacDonald

HAPPINESS

“The door to a balanced success opens widest on the hinges of hope and encouragement.” – Zig Ziglar

In December, our family was involved in the Manos de Amor shelter in Bucerias, Nayarit.  We helped to collect money to buy much needed clothing plus toys for a few of what, in Mexico, are sometimes referred to as “children of the dump.”  There are many reasons why children are left, such as one or both parents being in prison, abandonment or mother has died, domestic violence and abuse, alcohol-drug abuse, neglect, poverty, divorce/separation, emigration to the USA, and more. You name it and it will probably apply to these children.

There are twelve children in this particular temporary shelter, which is run mostly by volunteer help. In the near future, the construction of the Manos de Amor (Hands of Love) Orphanage will begin, thanks to the efforts of a few American expatriates and Mexican women. These tireless women have and still hold a myriad of benefits to raise the money for this building. They donate much time, effort and hard work, plus keep an enduring attitude of enthusiasm and determination.  The ages of the twelve children range from 3 years up to ten. An invalid wheelchair bound boy, 10, should be in an institution where he can be properly cared for; he is a drug child who cries out for attention.  Three blond siblings, have an American mother and a Mexican father.  A beautiful curly haired girl, three, has dark eyes that shine with happiness even though she is one of those who has been recently dumped. It is indeed sad and tears your heart out. Yet if you saw most of these children on the street, playing like other children, you’d see smiles and happiness on their faces.  And we have to ask, How is this so? Are they born with an attitude of gratitude towards life that keeps them smiling?”

We have visited Mexico many times throughout the years as we do now, and my observation is that, generally, not only the children but also the adults , seem like happy people. Their eyes shine, their smiles are wide, their laughter robust and from the heart, as they toil in the hot sun to earn a meager living. Perhaps they sometimes gripe and complain but I have not gotten that impression while I am here. They seem to live in an attitude of gratitude rather than feel sorry for themselves or resent the cards they have been dealt.

By contrast, we in America, for the most part, have so much more for which we could live in an attitude of gratitude yet many of us grumble and complain about minuscule things daily. Or we focus on the not so great part of our lives instead of elevating the greatest part. Our focus and  attitude tilt out of balance. We lack an attitude of gratitude for all that is right in our lives. And even when all is not so great, if we take time to sort it out, we will still find much that is right. How we think is habit and effects our health and shapes our lives, so again, as in the past, I suggest the following to make the year 2007 bright and joyful in the midst of our unique circumstances.

Keep a gratitude journal; write at least 5 things every day for which you are grateful.
Do an attitude check on yourself every morning, noon and night.
Never go to sleep with negativity on your mind. If you can’t shake it, pray or meditate and give thanks to your Higher Power for something that is right in your life.
Remember to forgive people. Resentments equal negative attitudes and ill health.
Help someone everyday, especially new residents who need to feel welcome.

“A healthy tree does not bear bad fruit; nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree is known by the fruit it bears.”  Or in my words, “we become what we think about all day long.”